From “Macbeth,” Act II. Sc. 1.
[MACBETH, before the murder of Duncan, meditating alone, sees the image of a dagger in the air, and thus soliloquizes:]
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...
From “Macbeth,” Act II. Sc. 2.
SCENE in the Castle. Enter LADY MACBETH.
LADY MACBETH.—That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold,
What hath quenched them hath given me fire. Hark!—Peace!
It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern’st good night. He is about it:
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms...
There was (not certaine when) a certaine preacher,
That never learned, and yet became a teacher,
Who having read in Latine thus a text
Of erat quidam homo, much perplext,
He seemed the same with studie great to scan,
In English thus, There was a certaine man.
But now (quoth he), good people, note you this,
He saith there was, he doth not...
From “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act I. Sc. 1.
FOR aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth:
But, either it was different in blood,
Or else misgraffèd in respect of years,
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends;
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War,...
From “Twelfth Night,” Act I. Sc. 4.
VIOLA.—Ay, but I know,—
DUKE.—What dost thou know?
VIOLA.—Too well what love women to men may owe:
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
DUKE.—And what ’s her history?
...
From “Astrophel and Stella”
WITH how sad steps, O Moon! thou climb’st the skies,
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What may it be, that even in heavenly place
That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case;
I read it in thy looks; thy languished...
Sonnet Cvi.
when in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights;
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you...
Sonnet Xviii.
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 dimmed:
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or...
Give place, ye lovers, here before
That spent your boasts and brags in vain;
My lady’s beauty passeth more
The best of yours, I dare well sayen,
Than doth the sun the candle light,
Or brightest day the darkest night.
And thereto hath a troth as just
As had Penelope the fair;
For what she saith, ye may it trust,
...
Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia
YOU meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light,—
You common people of the skies,
What are you when the moon shall rise?
You curious chanters of the wood,
That warble forth Dame Nature’s lays,
Thinking your passions understood
By your...
