Page images
PDF
EPUB

Macb. I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.—Act 5, Sc. 3.

Macb.

Wherefore was that cry?

Sey. The Queen, my lord, is dead.

Macb. She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.-Act 5, Sc. 5.

Macb.

Blow wind! come wrack!

At least we'll die with harness on our back.

Act 5, Sc. 5.

Macd. Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.

Macd.

Act 5, Sc. 6.

Turn, hell-hound, turn!

Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee:

But get thee back; my soul is too much charg'd
With blood of thine already.

Macd.

I have no words:
My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out!

Macb.

Thou losest labour :

As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air

With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed :

Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
To one of woman born.

Macd.

Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast serv'd
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.

Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cow'd my better part of man!
And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,

And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.

Macd. Then yield thee, coward,

Macb.

And live to be the show and gaze o' the time:

We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,

Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,

'Here may you see the tyrant.'

I will not yield,

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body

I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'
Act 5, Sc. 8.

Horatio.

HAMLET.

I have heard,

The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long :
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.-Act I, Sc. I.

King. But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son-
Hamlet (aside). A little more than kin, and less than kind.*
Act 1, Sc. 2.

Ham. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage,

Together with all forms, modes, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play :
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

Act 1, Sc. 2.

Ham. Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

* This passage is probably copied from T. Sackville Lord Buckhurst's "Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex" (1561) :

Videna.

:

A father? no:

In kinde a father, not in kindlinesse.

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead! nay, not so much; not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem* the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on.

And yet, within a month,—

Let me not think on't-Frailty, thy name is woman—
A little month or ere those shoes were old,

With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears;-why she, even she,—

O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer,-married with my uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month,

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing of her galled eyes,
She married:-O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to, good.—

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue!

Ham. My father!—methinks I see my father.
Hor. Where, my lord?

Ham.

Act 1, Sc. 2.

In my mind's eye, Horatio.

Ham. He was a man,

take him for all in all,

Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

I shall not look upon his like again.—Act 1, Sc. 2.

* Suffer.

Laertes. The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon :
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes :
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then; best safety lies in fear :
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

Act 1, Sc. 3.

Ophelia. Do not as some ungenerous pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
While, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.*-Act 1, Sc. 3.

Polonius.

My blessing with thee!

And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,

Beware

Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station

* Regards not his own counsel.

« PreviousContinue »