Marcus. Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd,
Doth burn the heart to cinders.-Act 2, Sc. 5.
Mar. To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal, But sorrow flouted at is double death.—Act 3, Sc. I.
Titus. What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?
Marc. At that that I have kill'd, my lord; a fly.
Tit. Out on thee, murderer! thou kill'st my heart;
Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny:
A deed of death done on the innocent
Becomes not Titus' brother: get thee gone;
I see thou art not for my company.
Marc. 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 buzz lamenting doings in the air!
That, with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry! and thou hast kill'd him. Marc. Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favour'd fly, Like to the empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him. Tit. 0, 0, 0,
Then pardon me for reprehending thee,
For thou hast done a charitable deed.
Give me thy knife, I will insult on him ;
Flattering myself, as if it were the Moor
Come hither purposely to poison me.—
There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.
Ah, sirrah!
Yet, I think, we are not brought so low,
But that between us we can kill a fly
That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Gregory. The weakest goes to the wall.-Act I, Sc. I.
One fire burns out another's burning:
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish ;
One desperate grief cures with another's languish.
Ben. Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And it will make thee think thy swan a crow.
Romeo. One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.
Mer. O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's wat'ry beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,—
Then dreams he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.
Act 1, Sc. 4.
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.
Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night,
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.-Act 1, Sc. 5.
Jul. My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Act 1, Sc. 5.
Rom. He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.-Act 2, Sc. 2.
Rom. See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,*
That I might touch that cheek!—Act 2, Sc. 2.
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee;
Had I it written, I would tear the word.
Rom. With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt.
Jul. If they do see thee, they will murder thee.
Rom. Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.
* Shirley, in "The Schoole of Complement," Act 3, Sc. 1, writes, "Oh that I were a flea upon thy lip." quary," Act 2, Sc. 1: "O that I were a veil
And Marmion, in "The Anti
upon that face!"
Jul. I would not for a world they saw thee here.
Rom. I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight,
And but thou love me, let them find me here:
My life were better ended by their hate,
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.
They say, Jove laughs.*—Act 2, Sc. 2.
Rom. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow,
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—
Jul. O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Jul. My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.—Act 2, Sc. 2.
Rom. Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books;
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.
Act 2, Sc. 2.
Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer's voice,
To lure this tassel-gentle back again !
Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,
With repetition of my Romeo's name.-Act 2, Sc. 2.
Jul. Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
* "And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury." Dryden's "Palamon and Arcite," line 759.
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