Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow And mak'st them kiss! that speak'st with every tongue, To every purpose; O, thou touch* of hearts! Think, thy slave man rebels; and by thy virtue Set them into confounding odds, that beasts May have the world in empire! TIMON TO THE THIEVES. Why should roots; you want? Behold, the earth hath Within this mile break forth a hundred springs: [water, Tim. Nor on the beasts themselves, the birds, and fishes; You must eat men. Yet thanks I must you con, More than you rob: take wealth and lives together; And her pale fire she snatches from the sun: away; Rob one another. There's more gold: Cut throats; ON HIS HONEST STEWARD. Forgive my general and exceptless rashness, One honest man,-mistake me not, but one: Methinks thou art more honest now, than wise; Thou mightst have sooner got another service: ACT V. PROMISING AND PERFORMANCE. Promising is the very air o'the time: it opens the eyes 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 * Compost, manure. The doing of that we said we would do. out of use. To promise 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; TITUS ANDRONICUS. ACT I. MERCY. WILT thou draw near the nature of the gods? Thanks, to men THANKS. Of noble minds, is honourable meed. ACT II. INVITATION TO LOVE. The birds chant 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 their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit, And whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds, Replying shrilly to the well tun'd horns, As if a double hunt were heard at once,- Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep. DESCRIPTION OF A MELANCHOLY VALLEY. A barren detested vale, you see, it is: And, when they show'd me this abhorred pit, Should straight fall mad, or else die suddenly. DESCRIPTION OF A RING. Upon his bloody finger he doth wear * Hedgehogs. LAVINIA AT HER LUTE. Fair Philomela, she but lost her tongue, And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind: But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee; A craftier Terius hast thou met withal, And he hath cut those pretty fingers off, That could have better sewed 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 dropp'd 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. * Orpheus. |