Imatges de pàgina
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Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;
Take honour from me, and my life is done.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man
Holds honour far more precious-dear than life.
For life, I prize it,

As I weigh grief, which I would spare: for honour, 'Tis a derivative from me to mine,

And only that I stand for.

Rightly to be great,

Is, not to stir without great argument;

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake.

By heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon;
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,

Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drown'd honour by the locks :
So he, that doth redeem her thence might wear,
Without co-rival all her dignities.

Honour, but of danger wins a scar,

As oft it loses all.

By Jove I am not covetous of gold,
Nor care I, who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in
But, if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.

my

For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all, all honourable men.

desires:

In his youth

He had the wit, which I can well observe
To-day in our young lords; but they may jest,
Till their own scorn returns to them unnoted,
Ere they can hide their levity in honour.

What is that you would impart to me?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honour in one eye, and death i' the other,
And I will look on both indifferently:
For, let the gods so speed me, as I love
The name of honour more than I fear death.

The king has cur'd me,

I humbly thank his grace and from these shoulders,
These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken

A load would sink a navy, too much honour:
O, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden,
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven.

HOPE.

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings, Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. The miserable hath no other medicine,

But only hope..

Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,
And manage it against despairing thoughts.

The ample proposition, that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below,
Fails in the promis'd largeness.

A cause on foot

Lives so in hope, as in an early spring

We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair,
That frosts will bite them.

There is a credence in my heart,

An esperance so obstinately strong

That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears;
As if those organs had deceptious functions,
Created only to calumniate.

HOPE.-HORSEMANSHIP.-HOSPITALITY. 113

Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it
No longer for my flatterer.

I will despair, and be at enmity
With cozening hope; he is a flatterer,
A parasite, a keeper-back of death,

Who gently would dissolve the bonds of life,
Which false hope lingers in extremity.

HORSEMANSHIP.

I saw young Harry with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an Angel dropp'd down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

HOSPITALITY.

My master is of churlish disposition,

And little recks to find the

way to heaven

By doing deeds of hospitality.

I charge thee, invite them all: let in the tide
Of knaves once more; my cook and I'll provide.

My royal lord,

You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold,

That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a making,

'Tis given with welcome: To feed, were best at home; From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony;

Meeting were bare without it.

Now, good digestion wait on appetite;
And health on both.

HUMILITY.

Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
So mighty, and so many, my defects,
That I would rather hide me from my greatness,➡
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea,-
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.

I will not do 't:

Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth,
And, by my body's action, teach my mind
A most inherent baseness.

You shall mark

Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,

That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,
For nought but provender, and, when he's old,
cashier'd;

Whip me such honest knaves.

Her voice was ever soft,

Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman.

Signor Anthonio, many a time, and oft
In the Rialto, you have rated me
About my monies, and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug:
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.

Often to our comfort, shall we find

The sharded beetle in a safer hold

Than is the full-wing'd eagle.

HUNTING.

Come, shall we go and kill us venison ?

And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,

Being native burghers of this desert city,

Should, in their own confines, with forked heads
Have their round haunches gor'd.

The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent_nose
In piteous chase.

But, up to the mountains;
This is not hunters' language: He, that strikes
The venison first, shall be the lord o' the feast;
To him the other two shall minister;

And we will fear no poison, which attends
In place of greater state.

O, this life

Is nobler, than attending for a check;
Richer, than doing nothing for a babe;
Prouder, than rustling in unpaid-for silk :
Such gain the cap of him, that makes them fine,
Yet keeps his book uncross'd: no life to ours.

Wilt thou hunt?

Thy hounds will make the welkin answer them,
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth,

We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

To-morrow, an it please your majesty,

To hunt the panther and the hart with me,
With horn and hound, we'll give your grace bon-jour.

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;

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