And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring
The eye of majesty.

CONSTANCY IN LOVE PROTESTED.

Tro. True swains in love shall, in the world to

come,

Approve their truths by Troilus:

[rhymes, when their

Full of protest, of oath, and big compare*,
Want similes, truth tir'd with iteration,-
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre,-
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,

As truth's authentic author to be cited,
As true as Troilus shall crown up the verse,
And sanctify the numbers.

Cres.

Prophet may you be! If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,

When time is old and hath forgot itself,

When water-drops have worn the stones of Troy, And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,

And mighty states characterless are grated

To dusty nothing; yet let memory,

From false to false, among false maids in love,
Upbraid my falsehood! when they have said as false
As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,

As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,
Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son;
Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
As false as Cressid.

PRIDE CURES PRIDE.

Pride hath no other glass

* Comparison.

+ Conclude it.

To show itself, but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.

GREATNESS CONTEMPTIBLE WHEN ON THE DECLINE.

'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,

Must fall out with men too: What the declin❜d is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,
As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings, but to the summer;
And not a man, for being simply man,

Hath any honour; but honour for those honours
That are without him, as place, riches, favour,
Prices of accident as oft as merit:

Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,
Do one pluck down another, and together
Die in the fall.

HONOUR MUST BE ACTIVE TO PRESERVE ITS LUSTRE.

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,

Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

A great-siz'à monster of ingratitudes:

Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devour'd

As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done: Perseverance, dear my lord,

Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery. Take the instant way, For honour travels in a strait so narrow,

Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,

That one by one pursue: If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,

Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost:-

Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,

O'er-run and trampled on: Then what they do in present,

Though less than yours in past, must o'er-top yours: For time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; And with his arms out-stretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,

And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue Remuneration for the thing it was;

For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all

To envious and calumniating time.

[seek

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds*, Though they are made and moulded of things past; And give to dust, that is a little gilt,

More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.

The present eye praises the present object.

LOVE SHOOK OFF BY A SOLDIER,

Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton
Cupid

Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
Be shook to air.

THERSITES MIMICKING AJAX.

Ther. A wonder!

Achill. What?

*New-fashioned toys.

Ther. Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.

Achill. How so?

Ther. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling, that he raves in saying nothing.

Achill. How can that be?

Ther. Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock, a stride and a stand: ruminates, like an hostess, that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say-there were wit in this head, an 'twould out; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i'the combat, he'll break it himself in vain-glory. He knows not me; I said, Good-morrow, Ajax; and he replies, Thanks, Agamemnon. What think you of this man, that takes me for the general? He is a very land-fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin.

grown

Achill. Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

Ther. Who, I? why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not answering; speaking is for beggars; he wears his tongue in his arms. I will put on his presence; let Patroclus make demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.

Achill. To him, Patroclus: Tell him,-I humbly desire the valiant Ajax, to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person, of the magnanimous, and most illustrious, six-or-seven-times-ho

noured captain general of the Grecian army, Aga

memnon. Do this.

Patr. Jove bless great Ajax.

Ther. Humph!

Patr. I come from the worthy Achilles,-
Ther. Ha!

Patr. Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent!

Ther. Humph!

Patr. And to procure safe conduct from Aga

memnon.

Ther. Agamemnon?

Patr. Ay, my lord.

Ther. Ha!

Patr. What say you to't?

Ther. God be wi' you, with all my heart.

Patr. Your answer, sir.

Ther. If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will go one way or other; howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.

Patr. Your answer, sir.

Ther. Fare you well, with all my heart.

Achil. Why, but he is not in this tune, is he? Ther. No, but he's out o'tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not: But I am sure, none; unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings* on.

Achil. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

Ther. Let me bear another to his horse; for that's the more capable creature.

Achil. My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd; and I myself see not the bottom of it. [Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROClus. + Intelligent.

*

Lute-strings made of catgut.