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Yet am I thankful. If my heart were great, ’Twould burst at this. Captain I’ll be no more, But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft As captain shall. Simply the thing I am Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart, Let him fear this; for it will come to pass That every braggart shall be found an ass. Rust sword, cool blushes, and, Parolles, live Safest in shame! Being fool’d, by fool’ry thrive! There’s place and means for every man alive. I’ll after them.
There’s not a soldier of us all, that in the thanksgiving before meat, do relish the petition well that prays for peace. 2. Gent. I never heard any soldier dislike it.
Sith ’twas my fault to give the people scope, ’Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them For what I bid them do; for we bid this be done, When evil deeds have their permissive pass, And not the punishment.
Lord Angelo is precise; Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses That his blood flows; or that his appetite Is more to bread than stone: hence shall we see If power change purpose: what our seemers be.
Our doubts are traitors, And makes us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt.
We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch and not their terror.
’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall. I not deny The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made to justice, That justice seizes. What knows the laws That thieves do pass on thieves?
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take’t, Because we see it; but what we do not see We tread upon, and never think of it.
For I have had such faults; but rather tell me, When I, that censure him, do so offend, Let mine own judgment pattern out my death, And nothing come in partial.
Well; heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall; Some run from brakes of ice and answer none, And some condemned for a fault alone.
This will last out a night in Russia When nights are longest there. I’ll take my leave, And leave you to the hearing of the cause, Hoping you’ll find good cause to whip them all.
Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so; Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.
There is a vice that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice; For which I would not plead, but that I must; For which I must not plead, but that I am At war ’twixt will and will not.
What dost thou? or what art thou, Angelo? Dost thou desire her foully for those things That make her good? O, let her brother live! Thieves for their robbery have authority When judges steal themselves.
Say what you can: my false o’erweighs your true.
truth is truth To th’ end of reck’ning.
The very mercy of the law cries out Most audible, even from his proper tongue, “An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!” Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.
I laugh to see your ladyship so fond To think that you have aught but Talbot’s shadow Whereon to practice your severity.
No, no, I am but shadow of myself. You are deceiv’d, my substance is not here; For what you see is but the smallest part And least proportion of humanity. I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here, It is of such a spacious lofty pitch, Your roof were not sufficient to contain’t.
War. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch, Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth, Between two blades, which bears the better temper, Between two horses, which doth bear him best, Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye— I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment; But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.
Shep. Ah, Joan, this kills thy father’s heart outright! Have I sought every country far and near, And now it is my chance to find thee out, Must I behold thy timeless cruel death? Ah, Joan, sweet daughter Joan, I’ll die with thee! Puc. Decrepit miser! base ignoble wretch! I am descended of a gentler blood. Thou art no father nor no friend of mine.
First let me tell you whom you have condemn’d: Not me begotten of a shepherd swain, But issued from the progeny of kings; Virtuous and holy, chosen from above, By inspiration of celestial grace, To work exceeding miracles on earth. I never had to do with wicked spirits.
Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage
Sort how it will, I shall have gold for all.
Patience, good lady, wizards know their times. Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night, The time of night when Troy was set on fire, The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl, And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves, That time best fits the work we have in hand.
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep,
The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb.
Henry my lord is cold in great affairs, Too full of foolish pity; and Gloucester’s show Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile With sorrow snares relenting passengers; Or as the snake roll’d in a flow’ring bank, With shining checker’d slough, doth sting a child That for the beauty thinks it excellent.
Show me one scar character’d on thy skin: Men’s flesh preserv’d so whole do seldom win.
Well, nobles, well; ’tis politicly done, To send me packing with an host of men: I fear me you but warm the starved snake, Who, cherish’d in your breasts, will sting your hearts. ’Twas men I lack’d, and you will give them me; I take it kindly. Yet be well assur’d You put sharp weapons in a madman’s hands.
Had I but said, I would have kept my word; But when I swear, it is irrevocable.
Rich. Let me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester, For Gloucester’s dukedom is too ominous. War. Tut, that’s a foolish observation. Richard, be Duke of Gloucester.
Look, as I blow this feather from my face, And as the air blows it to me again, Obeying with my wind when I do blow, And yielding to another when it blows, Commanded always by the greater gust, Such is the lightness of you common men.
Why then I do but dream on sovereignty, Like one that stands upon a promontory And spies a far-off shore where he would tread, Wishing his foot were equal with his eye, And chides the sea that sunders him from thence, Saying, he’ll lade it dry to have his way:
Why, love forswore me in my mother’s womb; And for I should not deal in her soft laws, She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe, To shrink mine arm up like a wither’d shrub, To make an envious mountain on my back, Where sits deformity to mock my body; To shape my legs of an unequal size, To disproportion me in every part, Like to a chaos, or an unlick’d bear-whelp That carries no impression like the dam. And am I then a man to be belov’d? O monstrous fault, to harbor such a thought!
Why, I can smile, and murther whiles I smile, And cry “Content” to that which grieves my heart, And wet my cheeks with artificial tears, And frame my face to all occasions.
But when the fox hath once got in his nose, He’ll soon find means to make the body follow.
Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? And live we how we can, yet die we must.
Methinks a woman of this valiant spirit Should, if a coward heard her speak these words, Infuse his breast with magnanimity, And make him, naked, foil a man at arms. I speak not this as doubting any here; For did I but suspect a fearful man, He should have leave to go away betimes, Lest in our need he might infect another, And make him of like spirit to himself. If any such be here—as God forbid!— Let him depart before we need his help.
The midwife wonder’d and the women cried, “O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!” And so I was, which plainly signified That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog. Then since the heavens have shap’d my body so, Let hell make crook’d my mind to answer it. I have no brother, I am like no brother; And this word ‘love,’ which greybeards call divine, Be resident in men like one another, And not in me: I am myself alone.
Now is the winter of our discontent
And now, in stead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, that am not shap’d for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them—
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And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
But yet I run before my horse to market: Clarence still breathes, Edward still lives and reigns; When they are gone, then must I count my gains.
If ever he have wife, let her be made More miserable by the [life] of him Than I am made by my young lord and thee!
Anne. Villain, thou know’st nor law of God nor man: No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. Glou. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
[1. Mur.] Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate; Talkers are no good doers. Be assur’d; We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.
Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wracks; A thousand men that fishes gnaw’d upon; Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scatt’red in the bottom of the sea: Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept (As ’twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems, That woo’d the slimy bottom of the deep, And mock’d the dead bones that lay scatt’red by.
A man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his neighbor’s wife, but it detects him. ’Tis a blushing shame-fac’d spirit that mutinies in a man’s bosom. It fills a man full of obstacles. It made me once restore a purse of gold that (by chance) I found. It beggars any man that keeps it. It is turn’d out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing, and every man that means to live well endeavors to trust to himself and live without it.
Clar. O, do not slander him, for he is kind. 1. Mur. Right, as snow in harvest. Come, you deceive yourself, ’Tis he that sends us to destroy you here. Clar. It cannot be, for he bewept my fortune, And hugg’d me in his arms, and swore with sobs That he would labor my delivery. 1. Mur. Why, so he doth, when he delivers you From this earth’s thralldom to the joys of heaven.
