ON HIS HONEST STEWARD.

Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,
Perpetual sober gods! I do proclaim
One honest man,-mistake me not, but one;
No more, I pray, and he is a steward.-
How fain would I have hated all mankind,
And thou redeem'st thyself: But all, save thee,
I fell with curses.

Methinks thou art more honest now, than wise;
For, by oppressing and betraying me,

Thou might'st have sooner got another service:
For many so arrive at second masters,
Upon their first lord's neck.

ACT V.

PROMISING AND PERFORMANCE.

Promising is the very air o' the time: it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable: performance is a kind of will or testament, which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.

WRONG AND INSOLENCE.

Now breathless wrong

Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease;
And pursy insolence shall break his wind,
With fear and horrid flight.

The doing of that we said we would do,

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

ACT I

MERCY.

Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful:
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

Thanks, to men

THANKS.

Of noble minds, is honourable meed,

ACT II.

INVITATION TO LOVE.

The birds chaunt melody on every bush; The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun; The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind, And make a checquer'd shadow on the ground: Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit, And whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds, Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns, As if a double hunt were heard at once,Let us sit down, and mark their yelling noise: And, after conflict, such as was suppos'd The wandering prince of Dido once enjoy'd, When with a happy storm they were surpris'd, And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave,— We may, each wreathed in the other's arms, Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber; Whiles hounds, and horns, and sweet melodious birds, Be unto us, as is a nurse's song

Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.

DESCRIPTION OF A MELANCHOLY VALLEY.

A barren detested vale, you see, it is: The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean, O'ercome with moss, and baleful misletoe. Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds, Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven.

And, when they show'd me this abhorred pit, They told me, here, at dead time of the night, A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes, Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins*, Would make such fearful and confused cries, As any mortal body, hearing it,

Should straight fall mad, or else die suddenly.

DESCRIPTION OF A RING.

Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
A precious ring, that lightens all the hole,
Which, like a taper in some monument,
Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,
And shows the ragged entrails of this pit.

LAVINIA AT HER LUTE.

Fair Philomela, she but lost her tongue, And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind; But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee; A craftier Tereus hast thou met withal, And he hath cut those pretty fingers off, That could have better sew'd than Philomel. O, bad the monster seen those lily hands Tremble, like aspen leaves, upon a lute, And make the silken strings delight to kiss them; He would not then have touch'd them for his life: Or, had he heard the heavenly harmony, Which that sweet tongue hath made,

He would have dropp'd his knife, and fell asleep, As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's + feet.

• Hedge-hogs.

+ Orpheus,

ACT III.

LAVINIA'S LOSS OF HER TONGUE DESCRIBED. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts, That blab'd them with such pleasing eloquence, Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage: Where, like a sweet melodious bird, it sung Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!

DESPAIR.

For now I stand as one upon a rock,' Environ'd with a wilderness of sea;

Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave, Expecting ever when some envious surge

Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.

TEARS.

When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey dew Upon a gather'd lily almost wither'd.

CRUELTY TO INSECTS.

Mar. Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly. Tit. But how, if that fly had a father and mother? How would he hang his slender gilded wings,

And buz lamenting doings in the air?

Poor harmless fly!

That with his pretty buzzing melody,

Came here to make us merry; and thou hast kill'd him.

ACT V

REVENGE.

Lo, by thy side where Rape, and Murder, stands Now give some 'surance that thou art Revenge, Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels; And then I'll come, and be thy waggoner,

And whirl along with thee about the globes.
Provide thee proper palfries, black as jet,
To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,
And find out murderers in their guilty caves:
And, when thy car is loaden with their heads,
I will dismount, and by the waggon wheel
Trot, like a servile footman, all day long;
Even from Hyperion's rising in the east,
Until his very downfal in the sea..

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

ACT I

LOVE IN A BRAVE YOUNG SOLDIER.

CALL here my varlet*, I'll unarm again :
Why should I war without the walls of Troy,
That find such cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan, that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.

The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength,
Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;
But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder+ than ignorance;
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy,

O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,—
When I do tell thee, There my hopes lie drown'd,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep

They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I ain mad
In Cressid's love: Thou answer'st, She is fair;