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Antony and Cleopatra  (2.2.230-244)
 
Domitius Enobarbus.
        The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, 
        Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold; 
        Purple the sails, and so perfumed that 
        The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, 
        Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made 
        The water which they beat to follow faster, 
        As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, 
        It beggar'd all description: she did lie 
        In her pavilion--cloth-of-gold of tissue-- 
        O'er-picturing that Venus where we see 
        The fancy outwork nature: on each side her 
        Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 
        With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem 
        To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, 
        And what they undid did. 
 
 
As You Like It  (2.7.142-169)
 
Jaques. All the world's a stage, 
        And all the men and women merely players: 
        They have their exits and their entrances; 
        And one man in his time plays many parts, 
        His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, 
        Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 
        And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel 
        And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
        Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, 
        Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 
        Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, 
        Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, 
        Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, 
        Seeking the bubble reputation 
        Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, 
        In fair round belly with good capon lined, 
        With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, 
        Full of wise saws and modern instances; 
        And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts 
        Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, 
        With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, 
        His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide 
        For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, 
        Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 
        And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, 
        That ends this strange eventful history, 
        Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 
        Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 
 
 
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark  (3.1.64-96)
 
Hamlet. 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 come 
        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 contumely, 
        The pangs of despised 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 fardels 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 
        Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 
        And enterprises of great pith and moment 
        With this regard their currents turn awry, 
        And lose the name of action.  
 
 
History of Henry V  (3.1.1-34)
 
King Henry V. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; 
        Or close the wall up with our English dead. 
        In peace there's nothing so becomes a man 
        As modest stillness and humility: 
        But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 
        Then imitate the action of the tiger; 
        Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 
        Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; 
        Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; 
        Let pry through the portage of the head 
        Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it 
        As fearfully as doth a galled rock 
        O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, 
        Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. 
        Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, 
        Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit 
        To his full height. On, on, you noblest English. 
        Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! 
        Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, 
        Have in these parts from morn till even fought 
        And sheathed their swords for lack of argument: 
        Dishonour not your mothers; now attest 
        That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you. 
        Be copy now to men of grosser blood, 
        And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman, 
        Whose limbs were made in England, show us here 
        The mettle of your pasture; let us swear 
        That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not; 
        For there is none of you so mean and base, 
        That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. 
        I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 
        Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: 
        Follow your spirit, and upon this charge 
        Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' 
 
 
Julius Caesar  (3.2.82-114)
 
Antony. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; 
        I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 
        The evil that men do lives after them; 
        The good is oft interred with their bones; 
        So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus 
        Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: 
        If it were so, it was a grievous fault, 
        And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it. 
        Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest-- 
        For Brutus is an honourable man; 
        So are they all, all honourable men-- 
        Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 
        He was my friend, faithful and just to me: 
        But Brutus says he was ambitious; 
        And Brutus is an honourable man. 
        He hath brought many captives home to Rome 
        Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: 
        Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? 
        When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: 
        Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: 
        Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; 
        And Brutus is an honourable man. 
        You all did see that on the Lupercal 
        I thrice presented him a kingly crown, 
        Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? 
        Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; 
        And, sure, he is an honourable man. 
        I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, 
        But here I am to speak what I do know. 
        You all did love him once, not without cause: 
        What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him? 
        O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, 
        And men have lost their reason.  
 
 
The Tragedy of Macbeth  (5.5.21-31)
 
Macbeth.  
        To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
        Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 
        To the last syllable of recorded time, 
        And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
        The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! 
        Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player 
        That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 
        And then is heard no more: it is a tale 
        Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
        Signifying nothing. 
 
 
The Tragedy of Macbeth  (2.1.41-72)
 
Macbeth.  
        Is this a dagger which I see before me, 
        The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. 
        I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. 
        Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible 
        To feeling as to sight? or art thou but 
        A dagger of the mind, a false creation, 
        Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? 
        I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
        As this which now I draw. 
        Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; 
        And such an instrument I was to use. 
        Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, 
        Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still, 
        And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, 
        Which was not so before. There's no such thing: 
        It is the bloody business which informs 
        Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld 
        Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse 
        The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates 
        Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder, 
        Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, 
        Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace. 
        With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design 
        Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth, 
        Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear 
        Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, 
        And take the present horror from the time, 
        Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives: 
        Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. 
        A bell rings
        I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. 
        Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell 
        That summons thee to heaven or to hell. 
 
 
The Merchant of Venice  (4.1.191-204)
 
Portia. The quality of mercy is not strain'd, 
        It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
        Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; 
        It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 
        'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes 
        The throned monarch better than his crown; 
        His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
        The attribute to awe and majesty, 
        Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; 
        But mercy is above this sceptred sway; 
        It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 
        It is an attribute to God himself; 
        And earthly power doth then show likest God's 
        When mercy seasons justice.  
 
 
A Midsummer Night's Dream  (2.1.254-263)
 
Oberon.  
        I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, 
        Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, 
        Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, 
        With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: 
        There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, 
        Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight; 
        And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin, 
        Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in: 
        And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, 
        And make her full of hateful fantasies. 
 
 
History of Richard II  (2.1.40-50)
 
John of Gaunt.  
        This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, 
        This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
        This other Eden, demi-paradise, 
        This fortress built by Nature for herself 
        Against infection and the hand of war, 
        This happy breed of men, this little world, 
        This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
        Which serves it in the office of a wall, 
        Or as a moat defensive to a house, 
        Against the envy of less happier lands, 
        This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, 
 
 
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet  (1.4.57-99)
 
Mercutio. O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. 
        She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes 
        In shape no bigger than an agate-stone 
        On the fore-finger of an alderman, 
        Drawn with a team of little atomies 
        Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep; 
        Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs, 
        The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, 
        The traces of the smallest spider's web, 
        The collars of the moonshine's watery beams, 
        Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film, 
        Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat, 
        Not so big as a round little worm 
        Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid; 
        Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut 
        Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, 
        Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers. 
        And in this state she gallops night by night 
        Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love; 
        O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight, 
        O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees, 
        O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream, 
        Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, 
        Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are: 
        Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, 
        And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; 
        And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail 
        Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep, 
        Then dreams, he of another benefice: 
        Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, 
        And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, 
        Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, 
        Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon 
        Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, 
        And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two 
        And sleeps again. This is that very Mab 
        That plats the manes of horses in the night, 
        And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, 
        Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes: 
        This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, 
        That presses them and learns them first to bear, 
        Making them women of good carriage: 
        This is she-- 
 
 
SONNETS
 
Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

 

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

 

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

 

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

 

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

 

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

 

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

 

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

 

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

 

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

 

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

 

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

 

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

 

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

 
 
 
Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

 

Admit impediments. Love is not love

 

Which alters when it alteration finds,

 

Or bends with the remover to remove:

 

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

 

It is the star to every wandering bark,

 

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

 

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

 

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

 

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

 

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

 

If this be error and upon me proved,

 

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 
 
 
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