Tragedies

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D. Appleton, 1876

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Page 196 - I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porcupine : But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood.
Page 236 - Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me ! You would play upon me ; you would seem to know my stops ; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery ; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass : and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe ? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
Page 219 - What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her/ What would he do, Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have/ He would drown the stage with tears And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, Make mad the guilty and appal the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Page 226 - Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue : but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.
Page 485 - Yet could I bear that too ; well, very well : — But there, where I have garner'd up my heart, Where either I must live or bear no life, The fountain from the which my current runs, Or else dries up ; to be discarded thence ! Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads To knot and gender in ! Turn thy complexion there, Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin, Ay, there, look grim as hell ! Des.
Page 383 - And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks I should know you, and know this man ; Yet I am doubtful : for I am mainly ignorant What place this is ; and all the skill I have Remembers not these garments ; nor I know not Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me ; For, as I am a man, I think this lady To be my child Cordelia.
Page 184 - Nor the dejected haviour of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief, That can denote me truly : these, indeed, seem, For they are actions that a man might play ; But I have that within, which passeth show, These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
Page 270 - Alas, poor Yorick ! I knew him, Horatio : a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy : he hath borne me on his back a thousand times ; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is ! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now ? your gambols ? your songs ? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar ? Not one now, to mock your own grinning ? quite chap-fallen ? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell...
Page 223 - 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...
Page 432 - tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens; to the which our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce; set hyssop, and weed up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many; either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with industry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.

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