THE SOLDIER'S AGONY.
BEHOLD! I have a weapon;
A better never did itself sustain
Upon a soldier's thigh: I have seen the day,
That with this little arm, and this good sword,
I have made my way through more impediments
Than twenty times your stop:-But, O vain
boast!
Who can control his fate? 'tis not so now.—
Be not afraid though you do see me weapon'd;
Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
Do you go back dismay'd? 'tis a lost fear;
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
And he retires;-Where should Othello go?-
How dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wench!
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt,
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my
girl?
Even like thy chastity.
O cursed, cursed slave!-Whip me, ye devils, From the possession of this heavenly sight! Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur! Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!— O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead?
THE SOLDIER'S HONOURABLE.
I TAKE all and your several visitations
So kind to heart, 'tis not enough to give :
Methinks, I could deal kingdoms to my friends,
And ne'er be weary.-Alcibiades,
Thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich.
It comes in charity to thee: for all thy living
Is 'mongst the dead; and all the lands thou
TIMON OF ATHENS, A. 1, s. 2.
THE SOLDIER HUSBAND'S DEATH.
SOFT you; a word or two, before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they
know it;
pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one, that lov'd not wisely, but too well;
Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one, whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe; of one, whose subdu'd
eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees,
Their medicínal gum: Set you down this:
And say, besides,-that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
Beat a Venetian, and traduc'd the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him-thus.
THE SONS BEARING THEIR
FATHER'S CHARACTER.
RICHARD. I cannot joy, until I be resolv'd Where our right valiant father is become. I saw him in the battle range about;
And watch'd him how he singled Clifford forth.
Methought, he bore him in the thickest troop,
As doth a lion in a herd of neat:
Or as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs;
Who having pinch'd a few, and made them cry,
The rest stand all aloof, and bark at him.
So far'd our father with his enemies;
So fled his enemies my warlike father;
Methinks, 'tis prize enough to be his son.
See how the morning opes her golden gates,
And takes her farewell of the glorious sun!
How well resembles it the prime of youth,
Trimm'd like a younker prancing to his love!
EDWARD. Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three
suns ?
RICH. Three glorious suns, each one a perfect
Not separated with the racking clouds,
But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.
See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,
As if they vow'd some league inviolable:
Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.
In this the heaven figures some event.
EDW. 'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet
never heard of.
I think, it cites us, brother, to the field;
That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,
Each one already blazing by our meeds,
Should, notwithstanding, join our lights to-
gether,
And over-shine the earth, as this the world.
Whate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear
Upon my target three fair shining suns.
RICH. Nay, bear three daughters;-by your
leave I speak it,
You love the breeder better than the male.
K. HENRY VI., PART III., A. 2, s. 1.
You speak of him when he was less furnished, than now he is, with that which makes him both without and within.
THE SOUL ALL IN ALL.
WHY, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee;
And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself ?
THE SOUL AT WAR WITH SLEEP.
SINCE Cassius first did whet me against Cæsar,
I have not slept.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius, and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
JULIUS CESAR, ▲. 2, s. 1.
THE SOUL IN DOUBT AND FEAR.
To be, or not to be, that is the question :
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them ?-To die,-to
sleep,-
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die ;-to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance to dream;-ay, there's the
rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would burdens bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
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