Imatges de pàgina
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You brother mine, that entertain❜d ambition,
Expell'd remorse* and nature; who with Sebastian
(Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong),
Would here have kill'd our king; I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art!-Their understanding
Begins to swell; and the approaching tide
Will shortly fill the reasonable shores,

That now lie foul and muddy. Not one of them,
That yet looks on me, or would know me.

ARIEL'S SONG.

Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie:

There I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat's back, I do fly,

After summer, merrily:

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

ACT I.

MUSIC.

If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.-
That strain again; it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour.

* Pity, or tenderness of heart.

NATURAL AFFECTION ALLIED TO LOVE.

O, she, that hath a heart of that fine frame, To pay this debt of love but to a brother, How will she love, when the rich golden shaft Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else That live in her! when liver, brain, and heart, These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill'd, — (Her sweet perfections) with one self king!

ESCAPE FROM DANGER.

I saw your brother,

Most provident in peril, bind himself
(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)
To a strong mast, that lived upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the wave,
So long as I could see.

A BEAUTIFUL BOY.

Dear lad, believe it;

For they shall yet belie thy happy years
That say, thou art a man: Diana's lip

Is not more smooth, and rubious; thy small pipe
Is as the maiden's organ, shrill, and sound,
And all is semblative a woman's part.

DETERMINED LOVE.

Oli. Why, what would you?

Vio. Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons* of contemned love,
And sing them loud even in the dead of night:
Holla your name to the reverberate† hills,

* Cantos, verses.

+ Echoing.

And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out, Oliva! O, you should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth,
you should pity me.

But

ACT II.

DISGUISE.

Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness,
Wherein the pregnant* enemy does much.
How easy is it, for the proper-falset
In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;
For such as we are made of, such we be.

TRUE LOVE.

Come hither, boy: If ever thou shalt love,
In the sweet pangs of it, remember me:
For, such as I am, all true lovers are;
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,
Save, in the constant image of the creature
That is belov'd.

THE WOMAN SHOULD BE YOUNGEST IN LOVE.

Too old, by heaven; Let still the woman take An elder than herself; so wears she to him,

So

sways she level in her husband's heart. For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, Than women's are.

CHARACTER OF AN OLD SONG.

Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain :

* Dextrous, ready fiend.

+ Fair deceiver.

The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,

And the free maids, that weave their thread with

bones*,

Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,

And dallies with the innocence of love,

Like the old aget.

SONG.

Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let ye be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath:
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O, prepare it;

My part of death no one so true
Did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet [thrown;
My poor corpse where my bones shall be
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where

Sad true lover ne'er find my grave,
To weep there.

CONCEALED LOVE.

She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pin'd in thought;
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief.

* Lace-makers. Simple truth. Times of simplicity.

I

ACT III.

JESTER.

This fellow's wise enough to play the fool;
And, to do that well, craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time;

And, like the haggard*, check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practice,
As full of labour as a wise man's art:
For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit;
But wise men, folly-fallen, quite taint their wit.

UNSOUGHT LOVE.

Cesario, by the roses of the spring, By maidhood, honour, truth, and every thing, I love thee so, that, maugret all thy pride, Nor wit, nor reason, can my passion hide. Do not extort thy reasons from this clause, For, that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause: But, rather, reason thus with reason fetter: Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

АСТ І.

LOVE COMMENDED AND CENSURED.

YET writers say, As in the sweetest bud,
The eating canker dwells, so eating love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all.

And writers say, As the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,

*A hawk not well trained.

+ In spite of.

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