The Stratford Shakspere, ed. by C. Knight, Volumes 17-22

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Page 60 - Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me ; you would seem to know my stops ; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery ; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass : and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe ? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
Page 47 - No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.
Page 44 - I'll observe his looks; I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be the devil : and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, — As he is very potent with such spirits, — Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds More relative than this: — the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Page 22 - I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul ; freeze thy young blood ; Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres ; Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porcupine : But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood.
Page 79 - And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks I should know you, and know this man ; Yet I am doubtful : for I am mainly ignorant What place this is ; and all the skill I have Remembers not these garments ; nor I know not Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me ; For, as I am a man, I think this lady To be my child Cordelia.
Page 47 - The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after...
Page 41 - If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts Against their father, fool me not so much To bear it tamely : touch me with noble anger ! And let not women's weapons, water-drops, Stain my man's cheeks ! — No, you unnatural hags, I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall — I will do such things — What they are yet I know not ; but they shall be The terrors of the earth.
Page 43 - Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba That he should weep for her? What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears, And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, Make mad the guilty and appal the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Page 19 - O, when degree is shak'd, Which is the ladder to all high designs, The enterprise is sick. How could communities, Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows...
Page 43 - O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! Is it not monstrous, that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit, That, from her working, all his visage wann'd...

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