ELEGIES
1 His legs bestrid the ocean; his reared arm Crested the world; his voice was propertied As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty, There was no winter in't: an autumn it was That grew the more by reaping. His delights Were dolphin-like: they showed his back above The element they lived in. In his livery
Walked crowns and crownets; realms and islands were As plates dropped from his pocket.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.81-91, CLEOPATRA, of Antony 2 Now boast thee, Death, in thy possession lies
A lass unparalleled.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.313-14, CHARMIAN, of Cleopatra
3 Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
Hamlet 5.1.182-3, HAMLET TO HORATIO, looking at Yorick's skull 4 Lay her i'th' earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest, A minist'ring angel shall my sister be When thou liest howling.
Hamlet 5.1.236-40, LAERTES to the PRIEST burying Ophelia 5 Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Hamlet 5.2.368-9, HORATIO at the death of Hamlet 6 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.
Julius Caesar 3.2.74-8, MARK ANTONY'S oration on the death of Julius Caesar; despite his opening claim, this is the first of a sequence of speeches in which he does indeed set out to praise Caesar to the skies, and disparage Brutus
7 This was the noblest Roman of them all.
Julius Caesar 5.5.68, MARK ANTONY, of Brutus
74 I ELEGIES
1 Soft you, a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know't:
No more of that. I 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 loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe: of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinable gum. Set you down this, And say besides that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk Beat a Venetian, and traduced the state, I took by th' throat the circumcised dog And smote him - thus!
Othello 5.2.338-56; OTHELLO kills himself 2 Beauty, truth and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity, Here enclosed, in cinders lie.
Phoenix and Turtle 53-5
3 If you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it.
Sonnet 71.5-6
4 This ditty does remember my drowned father.
Tempest 1.2.408, FERDINAND, listening to Ariel's song {see SEA, the) 5 When he lived, his breath and beauty set
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet.
Venus and Adonis 935-6, VENUS ELIZABETH I
6 This royal infant (heaven still move about her) Though in her cradle, yet now promises Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings, Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be . . .
ENDS AND ENDINGS | 75 A pattern to all princes living with her,
And all that shall succeed.
Henry VIII 5.4.17-20, 22-3, CRANMER TO HENRY, of the infant Elizabeth 1 Truth shall nurse her,
Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her;
She shall be loved and feared.
Henry VIII 5.4.28-30, CRANMER TO HENRY, of the infant Elizabeth 2 The bird of wonder . . . the maiden phoenix.
Henry VIII 5.4.40, CRANMER TO HENRY, of the infant Elizabeth EMOTION
3 Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee.
Hamlet 3.2.72-5, HAMLET TO HORATIO
4 You are not wood, you are not stones, but men.
Julius Caesar 3.2.143, MARK ANTONY whipping up feeling in the plebeians 5 That deep torture may be called a hell,
When more is felt than one hath power to tell.
Lucrèce 1287-8
ENDS AND ENDINGS
6 All's well that ends well; still the fine's the crown.
Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.
All's Well That Ends Well 4.4.35-6, HELENA TO DIANA 7 Unarm, Eros. The long day's task is done
And we must sleep.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.14.35-6, ANTONY TO EROS 8 O sun,
Burn the great sphere thou mov'st in! Darkling stand The varying shore o'th' world!
Antony and Cleopatra 4.15.10-12, CLEOPATRA TO ANTONY 9 That it should come to this!
Hamlet 1.2.137, HAMLET 10 Let the end try the man.
2 Henry IV 2.2.45, PRINCE HAL TO POINS
76 I ENDS AND ENDINGS 1 Let time shape, and there an end.
2 Henry IV 3.2.326-7, FALSTAFF 2 Is this the promised end?
King Lear 5.3.261, KENT, with Edgar, Albany and Lear 3 So quick bright things come to confusion.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.1.149, LYSANDER TO HERMIA (of love) 4 Jack shall have Jill
Nought shall go ill;
The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.461-3, PUCK, applying the juice of the magic flower (and quoting two proverbs)
5 The true beginning of our end.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.111, PETER QUINCE in his prologue 6 Now I want
Spirits to enforce, Art to enchant;
And my ending is despair.
Tempest Epilogue 13-15, PROSPERO; more at PRAYER 7 The end crowns all.
Troilus and Cressida 5.1.223, HECTOR TO ULYSSES AND ACHILLES ENEMIES
8 I do believe
(Induced by potent circumstances) that You are mine enemy, and make my challenge You shall not be my judge.
Henry VIII 2.4.74-7, KATHERINE TO WOLSEY 9 I have been feasting with mine enemy.
Romeo and Juliet 2.3.45, ROMEO TO FRIAR LAURENCE ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH
10 HAMLET Why was he sent into England?
GRAVEDIGGER Why, because a was mad. A shall recover his wits there.
Or if a do not, 'tis no great matter there.
HAMLET Why?
GRAVEDIGGER 'Twill not be seen in him there. There the men are as mad as he.
Hamlet 5.1.148-54
ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH | 77 1 O England, model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart,
What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do, Were all thy children kind and natural!
Henry V 2.0.16-19, CHORUS
2 On, on, you noble 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 called fathers did beget you.
Henry V 3.1.18-24, HENRY TO HIS FORCES 3 Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull?
Henry V3.5.16, CONSTABLE OF FRANCE TO THE DUKE OF BRITAIN
4 That island of England breeds very valiant creatures: their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
Henry V 3.7.142-3, RAMBURES TO ORLEANS AND THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE
5 Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.
Henry V 3.7.150-2, CONSTABLE OF FRANCE TO RAMBURES AND ORLEANS
6 How are we parked and bounded in a pale - A little herd of England's timorous deer, - Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs!
1 Henry VI 4.2.45-7, TALBOT
7 Let us be backed with God and with the seas Which he hath given for fence impregnable.
3 Henry VI 4.1.42-3, HASTINGS TO MONTAGUE
8 That pale, that white-faced shore, Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides.
King John 2.1.23-4, DUKE OF AUSTRIA TO LEWIS, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE 9 This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.
King John 5.7.112-13, PHILIP THE BASTARD TO PRINCE HENRY
10 Nought shall make us rue If England to itself do rest but true!
King John 5.7.117-18, PHILIP THE BASTARD TO PRINCE HENRY
78 I ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH 1 Where'er I wander boast of this I can,
Though banished, yet a true-born Englishman.
Richard II 1.3.308-9, BOLINGBROKE TO JOHN OF GAUNT
2 This royal throne of kings, this sceptered 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.
Richard II 2.1.40-50, JOHN OF GAUNT, on his deathbed, to YORK
3 This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings.
Richard II 2.1.51, JOHN OF GAUNT, on his deathbed, to YORK
4 England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Richard II 2.1.65-6, JOHN OF GAUNT, on his deathbed, to YORK; more at DECLINE
AND FALL See also BRITAIN ENNUI
5 Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this pretty pace from day to day.
Macbeth 5.5.19-20, MACBETH, with Seyton
6 Thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke . . . and sigh away Sundays.
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.191-2, BENEDICK TO CLAUDIO, on the tedium of the married state
ENTHUSIASM
7 To business that we love we rise betime And go to't with delight.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.4.20-1, ANTONY TO A SOLDIER
ENVY
8 When envy breeds unkind division:
There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.
1 Henry IV 4.1.193-4, EXETER
EVENTS I 79