That almost might'st have coined me into gold,
Would'st thou have practised on me for thy use?
May it be possible, that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil,
That might annoy my finger? 't is so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black from white, my eye will scarcely see it.
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou: Seem they grave and learned ?
Why, so didst thou: Come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou: Seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou: Or are they spare in diet;
Free from gross passion, or of mirth, or anger;
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood;
Garnished and decked in modest complement;
Not working with the eye, without the ear,
And, but in purgéd judgment, trusting neither?
Such, and so finely bolted, didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall nath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man, and best indued
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
ROMEO'S BANISHMENT FROM JULIET.
Romeo, just after being married to Juliet, is sentenced to banishment for killing Tybalt.
Friar. I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.
Rom. What less than doomsday is the prince's doom?
Fri. A gentler judgment vanished from his lips,
Not body's death, but body's banishment.
Rom. Ha! banishment? be merciful, say-death:
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death: do not say — banishment.
Fri. Hence from Verona art thou banished:
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
Rom. There is no world without Verona walls,
Hence-banishéd is banished from the world,
And world's exíle is death: then banishment
Is death mis-termed: calling death banishment,
Thou cut'st my head off with a golden axe,
And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.
Fri. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,
Taking thy part, hath rushed aside the law,
And turned that black word death to banishment:
This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.
Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives; and every cat, and dog,
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven, and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies, than Romeo; they may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand,
And steal immortal blessing from her lips;
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;
But Romeo may not: he is banished:
Flies may do this, when I from this must fly;
They are free men, but I am banished.
And sayest thou yet, that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,
But - banished-to kill me; banished?
How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend professed,
To mangle me with that word - banishment?
Fri. Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word.
Rom. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
Fri. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word; Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
Rom. Yet banished?— Hang up philosophy!
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom;
It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more.
Fri. O, then I see that madmen have no ears.
Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?
Fri. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
Rom. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel⚫
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murderéd,
Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then might'st thou speak, then might'st thou tear thy hair,
And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
SOLILOQUY-Macbeth meditating the murder of
If it were done, when 't is done, then 't were well
It were done quickly: If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, —
We'd jump the life to come.-But, in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.—I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps itself,
And falls on the other.
Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY.
Brak. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?
Clar. O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 't were to buy a v.orld of happy days;
So full of dismal terror was the time.
Brak. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me.
Clar. Methought, that I had broken from the tower,
And was embarked to cross to Burgundy;
And, in my company, my brother Gloster :
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches; thence we looked toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befallen us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought, that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, over-board,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
O Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
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