A Choice of Shakespeare's Verse Read online

  I cannot tell what you and other men

  Think of this life; but, for my single self,

  I had as lief not be as live to be

  In awe of such a thing as I myself.

  I was born free as Cæsar; so were you:

  We both have fed as well, and we can both

  Endure the winter’s cold as well as he:

  For once, upon a raw and gusty day,

  The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,

  Cæsar said to me, ‘Dar’st thou, Cassius, now

  Leap in with me into this angry flood,

  And swim to yonder point?’ Upon the word,

  Accoutred as I was, I plunged in

  And bade him follow; so, indeed he did.

  The torrent roar’d, and we did buffet it

  With lusty sinews, throwing it aside

  And stemming it with hearts of controversy;

  But ere we could arrive the point propos’d,

  Cæsar cried, ‘Help me, Cassius, or I sink!’

  I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,

  Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder

  The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber

  Did I the tired Cæsar. And this man

  Is now become a god, and Cassius is

  A wretched creature and must bend his body

  If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.

  He had a fever when he was in Spain,

  And when the fit was on him, I did mark

  How he did shake; ’tis true, this god did shake;

  His coward lips did from their colour fly,

  And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world

  Did lose his lustre; I did hear him groan;

  Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans

  Mark him and write his speeches in their books,

  Alas! it cried, ‘Give me some drink, Titinius,’

  As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,

  A man of such a feeble temper should

  So get the start of the majestic world,

  And bear the palm alone.

  24

  But be contented: when that fell arrest

  Without all bail shall carry me away,

  My life hath in this line some interest,

  Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.

  When thou reviewest this, thou dost review

  The very part was consecrate to thee:

  The earth can have but earth, which is his due;

  My spirit is thine, the better part of me:

  So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,

  The prey of worms, my body being dead;

  The coward conquest of a wretch’s knife,

  Too base of thee to be remembered.

  The worth of that is that which it contains,

  And that is this, and this with thee remains.

  25

  A fool, a fool! I met a fool i’ the forest,

  A motley fool; a miserable world!

  As I do live by food, I met a fool;

  Who laid him down and bask’d him in the sun,

  And rail’d on Lady Fortune in good terms,

  In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.

  ‘Good morrow, fool,’ quoth I. ‘No, sir,’ quoth he,

  ‘Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.’

  And then he drew a dial from his poke,

  And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,

  Says very wisely, ‘It is ten o’clock;

  Thus may we see,’ quoth he, ‘how the world wags:

  ’Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,

  And after one hour more ’twill be eleven;

  And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,

  And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,

  And thereby hangs a tale.’ When I did hear

  The motley fool thus moral on the time,

  My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,

  That fools should be so deep-contemplative,

  And I did laugh sans intermission

  An hour by his dial. O noble fool!

  A worthy fool! Motley’s the only wear.

  26

  No more be griev’d at that which thou hast done:

  Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;

  Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

  And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

  All men make faults, and even I in this,

  Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

  Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

  Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

  For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense, –

  Thy adverse party is thy advocate, –

  And ’gainst myself a lawful plea commence:

  Such civil war is in my love and hate,

  That I an accessary needs must be

  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

  27

  I have been studying how I may compare

  This prison where I live unto the world:

  And for because the world is populous,

  And here is not a creature but myself,

  I cannot do it; yet I’ll hammer it out.

  My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul;

  My soul the father: and these two beget

  A generation of still-breeding thoughts,

  And these same thoughts people this little world

  In humours like the people of this world.

  For no thought is contented. The better sort,

  As thoughts of things divine, are intermix’d

  With scruples, and do set the word itself

  Against the word:

  As thus, ‘Come, little ones;’ and then again,

  ‘It is as hard to come as for a camel

  To thread the postern of a needle’s eye.’

  Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot

  Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails

  May tear a passage through the flinty ribs

  Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;

  And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.

  Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves

  That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves,

  Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars

  Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,

  That many have and others must sit there:

  And in this thought they find a kind of ease,

  Bearing their own misfortune on the back

  Of such as have before endur’d the like.

  Thus play I in one person many people,

  And none contented: sometimes am I king;

  Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,

  And so I am: then crushing penury

  Persuades me I was better when a king;

  Then am I king’d again; and by and by

  Think that I am unking’d by Bolingbroke,

  And straight am nothing: but whate’er I be,

  Nor I nor any man that but man is

  With nothing shall be pleas’d, till he be eas’d

  With being nothing.

  28

  They that have power to hurt and will do none,

  That do not do the thing they most do show,

  Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,

  Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;

  They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,

  And husband nature’s riches from expense;

  They are the lords and owners of their faces,

  Others but stewards of their excellence.

  The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,

  Though to itself it only live and die,

  But if that flower with base infection meet,

  The basest weed outbraves his dignity:

  For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;

  Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. br />
  29

  Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh; but that’s no marvel, he drinks no wine. There’s never none of these demure boys come to any proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get wenches. They are generally fools and cowards, which some of us should be too but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and delectable shapes; which, deliver’d o’er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice: but the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme. It illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and tilled, with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.

  30

  If music be the food of love, play on;

  Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

  The appetite may sicken, and so die.

  That strain again! it had a dying fall:

  O! it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound

  That breathes upon a bank of violets,

  Stealing and giving odour. Enough! no more:

  ’Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

  O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,

  That, notwithstanding thy capacity

  Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,

  Of what validity and pitch soe’er,

  But falls into abatement and low price,

  Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy,

  That it alone is high fantastical.

  31

  Let those who are in favour with their stars

  Of public honour and proud titles boast,

  Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,

  Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most.

  Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread

  But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,

  And in themselves their pride lies buried,

  For at a frown they in their glory die.

  The painful warrior famoused for fight,

  After a thousand victories once foil’d,

  Is from the book of honour razed quite,

  And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d:

  Then happy I, that love and am belov’d,

  Where I may not remove nor be remov’d.

  32

  Come away, come away, death,

  And in sad cypress let me be laid;

  Fly away, fly away, breath;

  I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

  My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,

  O! prepare it.

  My part of death, no one so true

  Did share it.

  Not a flower, not a flower sweet,

  On my black coffin let there be strown;

  Not a friend, not a friend greet

  My poor corse, where my bones shall be thrown.

  A thousand thousand sighs to save,

  Lay me, O! where

  Sad true lover never find my grave,

  To weep there.

  33

  For do but note a wild and wanton herd,

  Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,

  Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,

  Which is the hot condition of their blood;

  If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,

  Or any air of music touch their ears,

  You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,

  Their savage eyes turn’d to a modest gaze

  By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet

  Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;

  Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,

  But music for the time doth change his nature.

  The man that hath no music in himself,

  Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds,

  Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;

  The motions of his spirit are dull as night,

  And his affections dark as Erebus:

  Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

  34

  Are not these woods

  More free from peril than the envious court?

  Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,

  The seasons’ difference; as, the icy fang

  And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,

  Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,

  Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say

  ‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors

  That feelingly persuade me what I am.’

  Sweet are the uses of adversity,

  Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,

  Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

  And this our life exempt from public haunt,

  Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

  Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

  I would not change it.

  35

  Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

  Bound for the prize of all too precious you,

  That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,

  Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

  Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write

  Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

  No, neither he, nor his compeers by night

  Giving him aid, my verse astonished.

  He, nor that affable familiar ghost,

  Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,

  As victors of my silence cannot boast;

  I was not sick of any fear from thence:

  But when your countenance fill’d up his line,

  Then lack’d I matter; that enfeebled mine.

  36

  Now is the winter of our discontent

  Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

  And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house

  In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

  Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;

  Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;

  Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings;

  Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

  Grim-visag’d war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front;

  And now, – instead of mounting barbed steeds,

  To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, –

  He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber

  To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

  But I, that am not shap’d for sportive tricks,

  Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

  I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty

  To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

  I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,

  Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

  Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time
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  Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

  And that so lamely and unfashionable

  That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them;

  Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

  Have no delight to pass away the time,

  Unless to see my shadow in the sun

  And descant on mine own deformity:

  And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

  To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

  I am determined to prove a villain,

  And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

  37

  Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;

  Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

  Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,

  And do not drop in for an after-loss:

  Ah! do not, when my heart hath ’scap’d this sorrow,

  Come in the rearward of a conquer’d woe;

  Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,

  To linger out a purpos’d overthrow.

  If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,

  When other petty griefs have done their spite,

  But in the onset come: so shall I taste

  At first the very worst of fortune’s might;

  And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,

  Compar’d with loss of thee will not seem so.

  38

  When a man’s servant shall play the cur with him, look you, it goes hard; one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it. I have taught him, even as one would say precisely, ‘Thus would I teach a dog.’ I was sent to deliver him as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master; and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber but he steps me to her trencher and steals her capon’s leg. O! ’tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself in all companies. I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hanged for’t: sure as I live, he had suffered for’t: you shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentleman-like dogs under the duke’s table: he had not been there – bless the mark – a pissing-while, but all the chamber smelt him. ‘Out with the dog!’ says one; ‘What cur is that?’ says another; ‘Whip him out,’ says the third; ‘Hang him up,’ says the duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs: ‘Friend,’ quoth I, ‘you mean to whip the dog?’ ‘Ay, marry, do I,’ quoth he. ‘You do him the more wrong,’ quoth I; ‘’twas I did the thing you wot of.’ He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters would do this for his servant? Nay, I’ll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed; I have stood on the pillory for geese he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for’t; thou thinkest not of this now. Nay, I remember the trick you served me when I took my leave of Madam Silvia: did not I bid thee still mark me and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman’s farthingale? Didst thou ever see me do such a trick?