DEATH,-continued.
That I must yield my body to the earth,
And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.
Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept:
Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree,
And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind.
These eyes that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,
Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun,
To search the secret treasons of the world:
The wrinkles in my brows now fill'd with blood,
Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres;
For who liv'd king but I could dig his grave.
Lo, now my glory, smear'd in dust and blood!
My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Even now forsake me; and, of all my lands,
Is nothing left me but my body's length!
Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
And, live we how we can, yet, die we must.
H. VI. PT. III. V.
At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester,
Lodg'd in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,
With all his convent, honourably receiv'd him;
To whom he gave these words,-O, father abbot,
An old man, broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
Give him a little earth for charity!
So went to bed: where eagerly his sickness
Pursued him still; and, three days after this,
About the hour of eight (which he himself
Foretold should be his last,) full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven,—and slept in peace.
OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS, BY VILE HANDS.
Great men oft die by vile bezonians :
A Roman sworder and banditti slave,
Murder'd sweet Tully; Brutus' bastard hand
Stabb'd Julius Cæsar; savage islanders
Pompey the great: and Suffolk dies by pirates.
There spake my brother; there my father's grave
Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die:
DEATH,-continued.
Thou art too noble to conserve a life
In base appliances.
LEVELS DISTINCTIONS.
Thersites' body is as good as Ajax'
When neither are alive.
ABIDES WITH THE LUXURIOUS.
'Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds,
Sweet words; or hath more ministers than we
That draw his knives i' the war.
RELIEVES AND PREVENTS MISERIES.
Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change. A.C. v.2.
Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had liv'd a blessed time, for, from this instant,
There's nothing serious in mortality.
Give me your hand, Bassanio; fare you well?
Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you;
For herein Fortune shows herself more kind
Than is her custom: it is still her use,
To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,
To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow,
An age of poverty; from which ling'ring penance
Of such a misery doth she cut me off.
Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life,
Cuts off as many years of fearing death.
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
DEATH BED INJUNCTION.
O, but they say, the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony:
Where words are scarce, they're seldom spent in vain :
For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain.
He, that no more may say, is listen'd more
Than they whom youth and ease have taught to gloze;
More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:
DEATH BED INJUNCTION,-continued.
The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last;
Writ in remembrance, more than things long past:
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
They have e'en put my breath from me, the slaves;
Creditors!-devils.
These debts may well be call'd desperate ones, for a madman owes 'em.
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf.
You are abus'd, and, by some putter on
That will be damn'd for't;-would I knew the villain.
Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks,
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast.
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both.
I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me.
Pray do not mock me:
Fourscore and upward; and to deal plainly,
I am a very foolish fond old man,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Thou, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou :
Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword,
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
DEFIANCE,-continued.
The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tyger,
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble: Or, be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
If trembling I inhibit thee, protest me
The baby of a girl.
And spur thee on, with full as many lies
As may be holla'd in thy treacherous ear
From sun to sun.
Stand back, lord Salisbury, stand back, I say;
By heaven, I think my sword as sharp as yours:
I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,
Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;
Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget
Your worth, your greatness, and nobility.
Who sets me else? by heaven, I'll throw at all:
I have a thousand spirits in one breast,
To answer twenty thousand such as you.
Health to you, valiant Sir,
During all the question of the gentle truce;
But when I meet you arm'd, as black defiance,
As heart can think, or courage execute.
Win me and wear me,-let him answer me,-
Come, follow me, boy; come, bʊy, follow me:
Sir boy, I'll whip you from your foining fence;
Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.
What I did, I did in honour,
Led by the impartial conduct of my soul;
And never shall you see that I will beg
A ragged and forestall'd remission.
There is my gage, the manual seal of death,
That marks thee out for hell: I say, thou liest,
And will maintain what thou hast said, is false,
In thy heart blood, though being all too base
To stain the temper of my knightly sword.
If that thy valour stand on sympathies,
There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:
By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,
I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,
That thou wert cause of noble Glo'ster's death.
If thou deny'st it, twenty times thou liest;
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.
Shall I be flouted thus with dunghill grooms!
DEFIANCE,-continued.
Scorn, and defiance; slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not misbecome
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Though I am not splenetive and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear.
I had rather chop this hand off at a blow,
And with the other fling it at thy face,
Than bear so low a sail to strike to thee.
I will fight with him upon this theme,
Until my eye-lids will no longer wag.
Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,
Vagabond exile, flaying; pent to linger
But with a grain a day, I would not buy
Their mercy at the price of one fair word.
You fools! I and my fellows
Are ministers of fate; the elements
Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
One dowle that's in my plume.
Thou injurious tribune!
Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,
In thy hands clutch'd as many millions, in
Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say,
Thou liest, unto thee, with voice as free
As I do pray the gods.
Let them come;
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war,
All hot and bleeding will we offer them;
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit
Up to the ears in blood.
I do defy him, and I spit at him;
Call him a slanderous coward, and a villain.
Cut off all intermission; front to front,
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland, and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!
My services, which I have done the signiory,
Shall out-tongue his complaints.
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