MERCY IN GOVERNORS COMMENDED. No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, THE DUTY OF MUTUAL FORGIVENESS. Yet show some pity. JUSTICE. Ang. I show it most of all, when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know, Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall; And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. THE ABUSE OF AUTHORITY. O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous Could great men thunder, As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting*, petty officer, Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder. Merciful heaven! Thou rather, with t thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, THE PRIVILEGE OF AUTHORITY. Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them; But, in the less, foul profanation. That in the captain's but a choleric word, HONEST BRIBERY. Hark, how I'll bribe you. Ang. How! bribe me? Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that heaven shall share with you. Lucio. You had marr'd all else. Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested* gold, Or stones, whose rates are either rich, or poor, A's fancy values them: but with true prayers, That shall be up at heaven, and enter there, Ere sun-rise; prayers from preserved+ souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal. THE POWER OF VIRTUOUS BEAUTY. Is this her fault, or mine? The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most? Ha! Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower, Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary, * Attested, stamped. + Preserved from the corruption of the world. Dost thou desire her foully, for those things When judges steal themselves. What? do I love her, And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on? To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet, LOVE IN A GRAVE SEVERE GOVERNOR. When I would pray and think, I think and pray To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words; Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue, Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth, As if I did but only chew his name; And in my heart, the strong and swelling evil Of my conception: The state, whereon I studied, Is like a good thing, being often read, Grown fear'd and tedions; yea, my gravity, Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride, Could I, with boot*, change for an idle plume, Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form! How often dost thou with thy caset, thy habit, Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser soul To thy false seeming? FORNICATION AND MURDER EQUALLED. It were as good To pardon him, that hath from nature stolen A man already made, as to remit Their sawcy sweetness, that do coin heaven's image, In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy Falsely to take away a life true made, As to put mettle in restrained means, LOWLINESS OF MIND. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright, When it doth tax itself. TEMPORAL FAR BETTER THAN ETERNAL DEATH. Better it were, a brother died at once, Than that a sister, by redeeming him, WOMEN'S FRAILTY. Nay, women are frail too. Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view them- Which are as easy broke as they make forms. ACT III. HOPE. The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope. REFLECTIONS ON THE VANITY OF LIFE. Reason thus with life, If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skiey influences,) That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, * Impressions. Are nurs'd by baseness: Thou art by no means valiant; Of a poor worm: Thy best of rest is sleep, Do curse the gout, serpigo +, and the rheum, But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Of palsied eld; and when thou art old, and rich, THE TERRORS OF DEATH MOST IN APPREHENSION. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain, And six or seven winters more respect Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die? The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. * Affects, affections. + Old age. Leprous eruptions. |