His antidotes are poison, and he slays

More than you rob: take wealth and lives together;
Do villany, do, since you profess to do't,

Like workmen. I'll example you with thievery:
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears: the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture* stolen
From general excrement: each thing's a thief,
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have uncheck'd theft. Love not yourselves: away;
Rob one another. There's more gold: cut throats;
All that you meet are thieves: to Athens go,
Break open shops; nothing can you steal
But thieves do lose it.

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 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 PERFOMANCE.

Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes * Compost, manure.

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 pro

mise 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.

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 chequer'd shadow on the ground;
Under the sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,
And whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds,
Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns,

* The doing of that we said we would do.

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 and Dido once enjoy'd,
When with a happy storm they were surpris'd,
And curtain'd with a council-keeping cave,—
We may, each wreathed in the other's arms,
Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber;
While 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 mistletoe.
Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,
Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven.
And, when they shew'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 shews the ragged entrails of his pit.

LAVINIA AT HER LUTE.

Fair Philomela; she but lost her tongue, And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind:

* Hedge-hogs.

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, had 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 dropped his knife, and fell asleep,
As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's* feet.

ACT III.

LAVINIA'S LOSS OF HER TONGUE DESCRIBED. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts, That blabb'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?

* Orpheus.

How would he hang his slender gilded wings,

And buzz 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 shaft 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 downfall 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.