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Hamlet

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a revenge tragedy by William Shakespeare, and is one of his most well-known and oft-quoted plays. It is uncertain exactly when it was written, but scholars tend to place its composition between 1600 and the summer of 1602. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother.

Scene i

 * You come most carefully upon your hour.
 * Francisco, line 6

 * And I am sick at heart.
 *  Francisco

 * Not a mouse stirring.
 * Francisco, line 10

 * And let us once again assail your ears, That are so fortified against our story, What we have two nights seen.
 *  Barnardo

 * When yond same star that’s westward from the pole Had made his course t’ illume that part of heaven Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, The bell then beating one—
 *  Barnardo

 * It harrows me with fear and wonder.
 *  Horatio

 * What art thou that usurp’st this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form In which the majesty of buried Denmark Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak!
 *  Horatio

 * But in the gross and scope of mine opinion This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
 *  Horatio

Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse. And even the like precurse of feared events As harbingers preceding still the fates And prologue to the omen coming on, Have heaven and earth together demonstrated Unto our climatures and countrymen.
 * A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye. In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood Disasters in the sun; and the moist star Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands
 *  Horatio

 * Stay, illusion! If thou hast any sound or use of voice, Speak to me. If there be any good thing to be done That may to thee do ease, and grace to me, Speak to me. If thou art privy to thy country’s fate, Which happily foreknowing may avoid, O speak! Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life Extorted treasure in the womb of earth, For which, they say, your spirits oft walk in death, Speak of it, stay and speak!
 *  Horatio

 * And our vain blows malicious mockery.
 *  Marcellus

 * And then it [the ghost] started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons. I have heard The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day, and at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, Th’ extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine.
 *  Horatio

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed, and so gracious, is that time.
 * Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long, And then they say no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
 *  Marcellus

 * But look, the morn in russet mantle clad Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
 *  Horatio

Scene ii

 * Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death, The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe.
 *  Claudius

Th' imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy, With an auspicious and a dropping eye, With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage, In equal scale weighing delight and dole, Taken to wife.
 * Therefore our sometime sister, now our Queen.
 *  Claudius

 * The head is not more native to the heart, The hand no more instrumental to the mouth, Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father. What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
 *  Claudius

 * He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave By laboursome petition, and at last Upon his will, I sealed my hard consent.
 *  Polonius

Hamlet: [Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind. Claudius: How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Hamlet: Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.
 * Claudius: But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,—
 * lines 64 through 67

 * Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not be forever with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust: Thou know'st tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.
 *  Gertrude

 * Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not 'seems.'
 * Hamlet, line 76

 * 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes 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.

Thaw and resolve itself into a dew;
 * O! that this too too solid flesh would melt,
 * Hamlet, lines 129 and 130
 * Note: "Solid" is the word found in the First Folio edition of the plays (1623). Earlier versions (the First and Second Quartos), had used the word "sallied." In some later editions, the word was "sullied."

Seem to me all the uses of this world.
 * How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
 * Hamlet, lines 133 and 134

 * Frailty, thy name is woman!
 * Hamlet, line 146

 * O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourned longermarried with my uncle, My father's brother.
 *  Hamlet

 * But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!
 * Hamlet, line 159

 * O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this! But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two: So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on: and yet, within a month Let me not think on't  Frailty, thy name is woman!  A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she follow'd my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears:why she, even she O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd longermarried with my uncle, My father's brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules: within a month: Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not nor it cannot come to good: But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
 *  Hamlet

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
 * Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak'd meats
 * Hamlet

 * In my mind's eye, Horatio.
 *  Hamlet

 * He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.
 *  Hamlet

 * A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
 * Horatio, line 231

And bid me hold my peace.
 * If it assume my noble father's person, I'll speak to it though Hell itself should gape
 *  Hamlet

 * Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
 *  Hamlet

 * My father's spirit in arms! all is not well; I doubt some foul play: would the night were come! Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.
 *  Hamlet

Scene iii
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.
 * For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
 * Laertes, lines 5 through 10

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede.
 * Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
 * Ophelia, lines 47 through 51

 * Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
 * Polonius, line 61

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
 * Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
 * Polonius, lines 68 and 69

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
 * Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
 * Polonius, lines 70 through 72

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
 * Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
 * Polonius, lines 75 and 76

And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
 * This above all: to thine own self be true,
 * Polonius, lines 78 through 80

Scene iv
And to the manner born, — it is a custom More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
 * But to my mind, — though I am native here
 * Hamlet, lines 14 through 16

I do not set my life at a pin's fee; And for my soul, what can it do to that, Being a thing immortal as itself?
 * Why, what should be the fear?
 * Hamlet, lines 64 through 67

 * Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
 * Marcellus, line 90

Scene v
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render up myself.
 * My hour is almost come,
 *  Ghost

Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
 * And each particular hair to stand on end,
 * Ghost, lines 19 and 20
 * Variant: Most modern publications modernize this phrase to "Like quills upon the fretful porcupine."

But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
 * Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
 * Ghost, lines 27 and 28

Now wears his crown.
 * The serpent that did sting thy father's life
 * Ghost, lines 38 and 39

 * Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin.
 * Ghost, line 76

 * O horrible, O horrible! most horrible!
 * Ghost, line 80

O, villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! My tables, — meet it is I set it down, That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
 * O most pernicious woman!
 * Hamlet

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
 * There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
 * Hamlet

As I perchance hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on.
 * How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself —
 * Hamlet

That ever I was born to set it right!
 * The time is out of joint; O cursed spite,
 * Hamlet

Scene ii
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.
 * Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
 * Polonius

 * More matter with less art.
 * Gertrude

And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure; But farewell it, for I will use no art.
 * That he is mad, 'tis true; 'tis true 'tis pity;
 * Polonius

Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.''
 * ''Doubt thou the stars are fire;
 * Hamlet, from a letter read by Polonius

Hamlet: Excellent well; you're a fishmonger. Polonius: Not I, my lord. Hamlet Then I would you were so honest a man. Polonius: Honest, my lord! Hamlet: Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. Polonius: That's very true, my lord. Hamlet: [Reads] For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion, — Have you a daughter? Polonius: I have, my lord. Hamlet: Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive; — friend, look to 't. Polonius: [Aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter: — yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this.
 * Polonius: Do you know me, my lord?

Hamlet: Words, words, words.
 * Polonius:  What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet: Into my grave.
 * Polonius: [Aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. — Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Hamlet: You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal — except my life — except my life — except my life.
 * Polonius: My honored lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

Rosencrantz: As indifferent as children of the earth. Guildenstern: Happy in that we are not overhappy; on Fortune's cap we are not the very button. Hamlet: Nor the soles of her shoe? Rosencrantz: Neither, my lord. Hamlet: Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours? Guildenstern: Faith, her privates we. Hamlet: In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true! She is a strumpet. What's the news? Rosencrantz: None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest. Hamlet: Then is doomsday near.
 * Hamlet: My excellent good friends! How dost thou Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do you both?

 * There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
 * Hamlet

 * I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
 * Hamlet

 * Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
 * Guildenstern

 * Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks.
 * Hamlet

 * I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me then a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.
 * Hamlet

 * Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?
 * Hamlet

 * O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
 * Hamlet

That he should weep for her?
 * What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
 * Hamlet

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must like a whore unpack my heart with words, and fall a-cursing like a very drab
 * That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
 * Hamlet

May be the devil: and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape'''; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds More relative than this: '''the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.'''
 * '''The spirit that I have seen
 * Hamlet

 * I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
 * Hamlet, lines 378 and 379

Scene i

'Tis too much prov'd, — that with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er The devil himself.
 * We are oft to blame in this, —
 * Polonius

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 despis'd 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 these 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 naught 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.
 * To be, or not to be, — that is the question: —
 * Hamlet

The fair Ophelia! — Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd.
 * Soft you now!
 * Hamlet

 * Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us.
 * Hamlet

 * Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
 * Ophelia

 * I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, — all but one, — shall live; the rest shall keep as they are.
 * Hamlet

 * O! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
 * Ophelia

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
 * O, woe is me
 * Ophelia

 * Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
 * Claudius

Scene ii
Hamlet: No, good mother, here's metal more attractive. [Hamlet takes a place near Ophelia.]
 * Gertrude: Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

Ophelia: No, my lord. Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap? Ophelia: Ay, my lord. Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters?
 * Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

 * So long? Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. Oh heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year.
 * Hamlet

 * The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
 * Gertrude

 *  Claudius:  What do you call the play?  Hamlet:  “The Mouse-trap.” Marry, how? Tropically: this play is the image of a murder done in Vienna; Gonzago is the duke’s name, his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. ’Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that? Your Majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the gall’d jade winch, our withers are unwrung.

 * ’A poisons him i’ th’ garden for his estate. His name’s Gonzago, the story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.
 *  Hamlet

 * Give me some light. Away!
 * ' Claudius

 * 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.
 * Hamlet

Polonius: By th' Mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or like a whale. Polonius: Very like a whale.
 * Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business, as the day Would quake to look on.
 * Tis now the very witching time of night,
 * Hamlet

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
 * Let me be cruel, not unnatural;
 * Hamlet

Scene iii

 * O! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven.
 * Claudius

Were thicker than itself with brother's blood, — Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow?
 * What if this cursed hand
 * Claudius

And now I'll do 't: and so he goes to heaven; And so am I reveng'd.
 * Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
 * Hamlet

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
 * My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
 * Claudius

Scene iv
Polonius: Oh, I am slain!
 * Hamlet: How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

I took thee for thy better.
 * Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
 * Hamlet

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty.
 * Nay, but to live
 * Hamlet

 * I must be cruel, only to be kind: Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
 * Hamlet

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me.
 * Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,
 * Gertrude

Scene i

Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank, Transports his poisoned shot — may miss our name And hit the woundless air. — O, come away! My soul is full of discord and dismay.
 * So, haply, slander —
 * Claudius

Scene ii
Hamlet: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear. Rosencrantz: My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king. Hamlet: The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing — Guildenstern: A thing, my lord? Hamlet: Of nothing.
 * Rosencrantz: I understand you not, my lord.

Scene iii
Claudius: What dost thou mean by this? Hamlet: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
 * Hamlet: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

Hamlet: In heaven; send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.
 * Claudius: Where is Polonius?

Scene iv
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason To fust in us unused. Now whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th' event - A thought which, quartered, hath but part wisdom And ever three parts coward - I do not know Why yet I live to say "This thing's to do," Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do't.
 * How all occasions do inform against me,
 * Hamlet

My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
 * O! from this time forth,
 * Hamlet

Scene v

 * We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
 * Ophelia

 * Good-night, ladies; good-night, sweet ladies; good-night, good-night.
 * Ophelia

But in battalions.
 * When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
 * Claudius

Scene vii
It warms the very sickness in my heart, That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, 'Thus diest thou.'
 * I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come;
 * Laertes

And therefore I forbid my tears.
 * Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
 * Laertes

Scene i

 * 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 her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.
 * Hamlet

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring!
 * Lay her i' the earth:
 * Laertes

Hamlet the Dane!
 * This is I,
 * Hamlet

Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum.
 * I lov'd Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
 * Hamlet

What is the reason that you use me thus? I lov'd you ever: but it is no matter. Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
 * Hear you sir;
 * Hamlet

Scene ii
Rough-hew them how we will.
 * There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
 * Hamlet

 * That's two of his weapons: but, well.
 * Hamlet

 * We defy augury; there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.  If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.
 * Hamlet

The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England; But I do prophesy the election lights On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice; So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
 * O, I die, Horatio;
 * Hamlet, scene ii; variant, from the First Folio: The rest is silence. O, o, o, o. [Dies]

Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story.
 * If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
 * Hamlet

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
 * Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
 * Horatio

And our affairs from England come too late: The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd, That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead: Where should we have our thanks?
 * The sight is dismal;
 * First Ambassador

 * Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage.
 * Fortinbras

 * Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
 * Fortinbras

title: Hamlet


text:
Macbeth

The Tragedie of Macbeth (c.1605) is a play by William Shakespeare in which a brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death. It is often seen as an archetypal tale of the desire for power and the betrayal of loyalty.

Act I

 * First Witch: When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain? Second Witch: When the hurly-burly's done, When the battle's lost and won. Third Witch: That will be ere the set of sun. First Witch: Where's the place? Second Witch: Upon the heath Third Witch:There to meet with Macbeth.  First Witch: I come, Graymalkin! Second Witch: Paddock calls. Third Witch: Anon.
 * Scene I

 * Fair is foul, and foul is fair; Hover through the fog and filthy air.
 * Witches, Scene I

 * The merciless Macdonwald (Worthy to be a rebel, — for, to that, The multiplying villainies of nature Do swarm upon him) from the Western Isles Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied; And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, Showed like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak: For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name) Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel, Which smoked with bloody execution, Like valour's minion, Carv'd out his passage.
 * Captain, Scene II

 * A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap, And munched, and munched, and munched: Give me, quoth I: Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries.
 * First Witch, Scene III

 * Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his pent-house lid.
 * First Witch, Scene III

 * So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
 * Macbeth, Scene III

 * First Witch: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! Second Witch: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! Third Witch: All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter.
 * Scene III

 * If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow, and which will not, Speak.
 * Banquo, Scene III

 * The earth hath bubbles, as water has, And these are of them.
 * Banquo, Scene III

 * Or have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner?
 * Banquo, Scene III

 * But 'tis strange: And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence.
 * Banquo, Scene III

 * If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me without my stir.
 * Macbeth, Scene III

 * Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
 * Macbeth, Scene III

 * The thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?
 * Macbeth, Scene III

 * Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it; he died As one that had been studied in his death, To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd, As 'twere a careless trifle.
 * Malcolm, Scene IV

 * There's no art To find the mind's construction in the face: He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust.
 * Duncan, Scene IV ''

 * Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires.
 * Macbeth, Scene IV

 * Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition; but without The illness should attend it.
 * Lady Macbeth, Scene V

 * The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell That my keen knife see not the wound it makes Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry, "Hold, hold!"
 * Lady Macbeth, Scene V

 * Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it.
 * Lady Macbeth, Scene V

 * If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly; if the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, With his surcease success; that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgement here; that we but teach Bloody instructions, which being taught, return To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice To our own lips. He's here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed: then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off: And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind.—I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, And falls on the other -
 * Macbeth, Scene VII

 * I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself And falls on the other.
 * Macbeth, Scene VII

 * I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more, is none.
 * Macbeth, Scene VII

 * I have given suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn As you have done to this.
 * Lady Macbeth, Scene VII

 * Macbeth: If we should fail — Lady Macbeth: We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we'll not fail.
 * Scene VII

 * Away, and mock the time with fairest show: False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
 * Macbeth, Scene VII
 * What a haste looks through his eyes!
 * Lennox

Act II

 * The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
 * Fleance, Scene I

 * There's [husbandry]] in heaven; Their candles are all out.
 * Macbeth Banquo, Scene I

 * Merciful powers! Restrain in me the cursèd thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose.
 * Banquo, Scene I

 * 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.
 * Macbeth, Scene I

 * Now o'er the one-half world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's offerings.
 * Macbeth, Scene I

 * Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear The very stones prate of my where-about.
 * Macbeth, Scene I

 * 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.
 * Macbeth, Scene I

 * Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, — the innocent sleep; Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast.
 * Macbeth, Scene II

 * Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures. 'Tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil.
 * Lady Macbeth, Scene II

 * Whence is that knocking? How is't with me, when every noise appals me? What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red.
 * Macbeth, Scene II

 * Porter: Drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things. Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke? Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; '''it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.
 * Scene III

 * Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence The life o' the building!
 * Macduff, Scene III

 * Ring the alarum-bell. Murder and treason! Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake! Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, And look on death itself! up, up, and see The great doom's image!
 * Macduff, Scene III

 * Had I but died an hour before this chance I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant, There's nothing serious in mortality: All is but toys; renown and grace is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of.
 * Macbeth, Scene III

 * Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man: The expedition of my violent love Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan, His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood, And his gash'd stabs looked like a breach in nature, for Ruin's wasteful entrance. There, the murderers; Steeped in the colors of their trade, their very daggers unmannerly breached with gore. Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart, Courage to make's love known?
 * Macbeth, Scene III

 * In the great hand of God I stand; and thence Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight Of treasonous malice!
 * Banquo, Scene III

 * To show an unfelt sorrow is an office Which the false man does easy.
 * Malcolm, Scene III

 * There’s daggers in men’s smiles.
 * Donalbain, Scene III

 * A falcon, touring in her pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.
 * Old Man, Scene IV

 * Here comes the good Macduff. — How goes the world, sir, now?
 * Ross, Scene IV

 * God's benison go with you; and with those That would make good of bad, and friends of foes!
 * Old Man, Scene IV

Act III

 * I must become a borrower of the night For a dark hour or twain.
 * Banquo, Scene I

 * To be thus is nothing, But to be safely thus.
 * Macbeth, Scene I

 * Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my grip, Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand, No son of mine proceeding.
 * Macbeth, Scene I

 * First Murderer: We are men, my liege. Macbeth: Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men.
 * Scene I

 * Second Murderer: I am one, my liege, Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world Have so incens'd, that I am reckless what I do To spite the world. First Murderer: And I another, So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune, That I would set my life on any chance, To mend it, or be rid on't.
 * Scene I

 * Naught's had, all's spent Where our desire is got without content. 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than, by destruction, dwell in doubtful joy.
 * Lady Macbeth, Scene II

 * Things without all remedy Should be without regard: what's done is done.
 * Lady Macbeth, Scene II

 * We have scotch'd the snake, not killed it.
 * Macbeth, Scene II
 * Variant: We have scorch'd the snake, not killed it.

 * Duncan is in his grave; After life's fitful fever he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, Can touch him further.
 * Macbeth, Scene II

 * Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown His cloister'd flight; ere, to black Hecate's summons The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums, Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done A deed of dreadful note.
 * Macbeth, Scene II

 * Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day; And with thy bloody and invisible hand, Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale! — Light thickens; and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood. Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, While night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
 * Macbeth, Scene II

 * Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
 * Macbeth, Scene II

 * Banquo: It will be rain to-night. First Murderer: Let it come down. Banquo: O, treachery! — Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge. — O, slave!
 * Scene III

 * Now spurs the lated traveller apace To gain the timely inn; and near approaches The subject of our watch.
 * First Murderer, Scene III

 * But now, I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears.
 * Macbeth, Scene IV

 * Now, good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both!
 * Macbeth, Scene IV

 * Thou canst not say I did it: never shake Thy gory locks at me.
 * Macbeth, Scene IV

 * Lady Macbeth: Are you a man? Macbeth: Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that Which might appall the devil.
 * Scene IV

 * I drink to the general joy o' the whole table, And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss; Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst, And all to all.
 * Macbeth, Scene IV

 * What man dare, I dare: Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble: or be alive again, And dare me to the desert with thy sword; If trembling I inhabit then, protest me The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mockery, hence!
 * Macbeth, Scene IV

 * Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once.
 * Lady Macbeth, Scene IV

 * It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood: Stones have been known to move and trees to speak.
 * Macbeth, Scene IV

 * I am in blood Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
 * Macbeth, Scene IV

Act IV

 * Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
 * Witches, Scene I
 * See also List of misquotations

 * By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes: — Open, locks, Whoever knocks!
 * Second Witch, Scene I

 * Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff; Beware the thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.
 * First Apparition, Scene I

 * Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth.
 * Second Apparition, Scene I

 * Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him. Macbeth: That will never be. Who can impress the forest, bid the tree, Unfix his earthbound root?
 * Third Apparition, Scene I

 * When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.
 * Lady Macduff, Scene II

 * Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward To what they were before.
 * Ross, Scene II

 * First Murderer: Where is your husband? Lady Macduff: I hope, in no place so unsanctified, Where such as thou mayst find him. First Murderer: He's a traitor. Son: Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd villain! First Murderer: What, you egg!
 * Scene II

 * Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell; Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet grace must still look so.
 * Malcolm, Scene III

 * Fare thee well, lord: I would not be the villain that thou think'st For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp, And the rich East to boot.
 * Macduff, Scene III

 * Nay, had I power, I should Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, Uproar the universal peace, confound All unity on earth.
 * Malcolm, Scene III

 * Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air, Are made, not markt; where violent sorrow seems A modern ecstasy: the dead man's knell Is there scarce askt for who; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or e'er they sicken.
 * Ross, Scene III

 * Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
 * Malcolm, Scene III

 * All my pretty ones? Did you say all? — O, hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop?
 * Macduff, Scene III

 * Malcolm: Dispute it like a man. Macduff: I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man: I cannot but remember such things were, That were most precious to me.
 * Scene III

Act V

 * Out, damned spot! out, I say!— One; two; why, then 'tis time to do't ;—Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
 * Lady Macbeth, Scene I

 * Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!
 * Lady Macbeth, Scene I

 * What's done cannot be undone.
 * Lady Macbeth, Scene I

 * Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in love: now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe Upon a dwarfish thief.
 * Angus, Scene II

 * The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! Where gott'st thou that goose look?
 * Macbeth, Scene III

 * Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver'd boy.
 * Macbeth, Scene III

 * I have liv'd long enough: my way of life Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf; And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
 * Macbeth, Scene III

 * Macbeth: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain; And with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? Doctor: Therein the patient Must minister to himself. Macbeth: Throw physic to the dogs; — I'll none of it.
 * Scene III

 * I would applaud thee to the very echo, That should applaud again.
 * Macbeth, Scene III

 * Hang out our banners on the outward walls; The cry is still, They come. Our castle's strength Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie Till famine and the ague eat them up. Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home.
 * Macbeth, Scene V

 * I have almost forgot the taste of fears; The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts Cannot once start me.
 * Macbeth, Scene V

 * She should have died hereafter; There would have been time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow 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.
 * Macbeth, Scene V

 * I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun, And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
 * Macbeth, Scene V

 * Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back.
 * Macbeth, Scene V

 * Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
 * Macduff, Scene VI

 * They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, But, bear-like, I must fight the course
 * MacBeth, Scene VII
 * Note: this metaphor refers to bear-baiting

 * Why should I play the Roman fool, and die On mine own sword?
 * Macbeth, Scene VIII

 * Macduff: Turn, hell-hound, turn! Macbeth:Of all men else I have avoided thee. But get thee back. My soul is too much charged With blood of thine already. Macduff: I have no words. My voice is in my sword. Thou bloodier villain Than terms can give thee out!
 * Macduff, Scene VIII

 * Macbeth: I bear a charmed life, which must not yield To one of woman born. Macduff: Despair thy charm; And let the angel whom thou still hast served Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb Untimely ripp'd. Macbeth: Accursed be the tongue that tells me so, For it hath cow'd my better part of man! And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope.
 * Scene VIII

 * Then yield thee, coward, And live to be the show and gaze o' the time.
 * Macduff, Scene VIII

 * Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be him that first cries, Hold, enough!
 * Macbeth, Scene VIII

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Macbeth


text:
The Tempest

The Tempest (ca. 1610-1612) is a play by William Shakespeare that explores many themes, including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. Though often listed as the first of Shakespeare's comedies, it deals with both tragic and comic themes, and modern criticism has created a category of romance for this and others of Shakespeare's late plays.
 * See also:
 * Tempest (1982); a very loose adaptation of the story.

Act I

Boatswain: Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your cabins; you do assist the storm. Gonzalo: Nay, good, be patient. Boatswain: When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin! silence! Trouble us not. Gonzalo: Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard. Boatswain: None that I more love than myself. You are counsellor; — if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more. Use your authority; if you cannot, give thanks you have liv'd so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.
 * Antonio: Where is the master, boatswain?
 * Scene i

 * I have great comfort from this fellow. Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows.
 * Gonzalo, scene i

incharitable dog!
 * A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,
 * Sebastian, scene i

 * All lost! to prayers, to prayers! All lost!
 * Mariners, scene i

 * Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground — long heath, brown furze, anything. The wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death.
 * Gonzalo, scene i

Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel, Who had, no doubt, some noble creatures in her, Dash'd all to pieces! O, the cry did knock Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perish'd! Had I been any god of power, I would Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and The fraughting souls within her. Prospero: Be collected; No more amazement; tell your piteous heart There's no harm done. Miranda: O, woe the day! Prospero: No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee — Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter.
 * Miranda: If by your art, my dearest father, you have
 * Scene ii

Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd, And left me to a bootless inquisition, Concluding, Stay; not yet. Prospero: The hour's now come; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.
 * Miranda: You have often
 * Scene ii

In the dark backward and abysm of time?
 * What see'st thou else
 * Prospero, scene ii

And to my state grew stranger, being transported And rapt in secret studies.
 * The government I cast upon my brother,
 * Prospero, scene ii

To closeness, and the bettering of my mind
 * I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
 * Prospero, scene ii

Who having unto truth, by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory, To credit his own lie.
 * Like one
 * Prospero, scene ii

Was dukedom large enough.
 * My library
 * Prospero, scene ii

From mine own library, with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.
 * Knowing I lov’d my books, he furnish’d me,
 * Prospero, scene ii

By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune — Now my dear lady — hath mine enemies Brought to this shore; and by my prescience I find my zenith doth depend upon A most auspicious star, whose influence If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes Will ever after droop.
 * Know thus far forth:
 * Prospero, scene ii

To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curl'd clouds. To thy strong bidding task Ariel, and all his quality.
 * All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
 * Ariel, scene ii

With hair up-staring, — then like reeds, not hair, — was the first man that leapt; cried ''Hell is empty, And all the devils are here.''
 * Ferdinand,
 * Ariel, scene ii

 * From the still-vex'd Bermoothes.
 * Ariel, scene ii

And do my spriting gently.
 * I will be correspondent to command,
 * Ariel, scene ii

With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye, And blister you all o'er! Prospero: For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps, Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins Shall, for that vast of night that they may work, All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging Than bees that made 'em.
 * Caliban: As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd
 * Scene ii

Which thou tak'st from me. When thou cam'st first, Thou strok'st me and made much of me, wouldst give me Water with berries in't, and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night; and then I lov'd thee, And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile. Curs'd be I that did so! All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, Which first was mine own king.
 * This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,
 * Caliban, scene ii

Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you, For learning me your language!
 * You taught me language, and my profit on't
 * Caliban, scene ii

What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps, Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar, That beasts shall tremble at thy din.
 * If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly
 * Prospero, scene ii

And then take hands; Curt'sied when you have and kiss'd, The wild waves whist, Foot it featly here and there, And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.'''
 * '''Come unto these yellow sands,
 * Ariel, scene ii

Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.''' Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong. Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell.''
 * '''Full fathom five thy father lies;
 * Ariel, scene ii

And say what thou seest yond.
 * The fringed curtains of thine eye advance,
 * Prospero, scene ii

Is the third man that e'er I saw; the first That e'er I sigh'd for.
 * This
 * Miranda, scene ii

If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with ’t.
 * There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
 * Miranda, scene ii

My father's loss, the weakness which I feel, The wreck of all my friends, nor this man's threats, To whom I am subdu'd, are but light to me, Might I but through my prison once a day Behold this maid. All corners else o' th' earth Let liberty make use of; space enough Have I in such a prison.
 * My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.
 * Ferdinand, scene ii

Act II
Antonio: True; save means to live.
 * Gonzalo: Here is everything advantageous to life.
 * Scene i

The stomach of my sense. Would I had never Married my daughter there! for, coming thence, My son is lost; and, in my rate, she too, Who is so far from Italy remov'd I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish Hath made his meal on thee? Francesco: Sir, he may live: I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trod the water, Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The surge most swol'n that met him; his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd, As stooping to relieve him; I not doubt He came alive to land.
 * Alonso: You cram these words into mine ears against
 * Scene i

Antonio: I'll teach you how to flow.
 * Sebastian: Well, I am standing water.
 * Scene i

And, by that destiny, to perform an act, Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come In yours and my discharge.
 * We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again:
 * Antonio, scene i, Wikiquote-logo.svg QOTD 2008·04·23 Sound file

 * Ay, sir; where lies that? If ’twere a kibe, ’Twould put me to my slipper; but I feel not This deity in my bosom. Twenty consciences, That stand ’twixt me and Milan, candied be they, And melt ere they molest! Here lies your brother, No better than the earth he lies upon, If he were that which now he’s like—that’s dead, Whom I with this obedient steel, three inches of it, Can lay to bed forever; whiles you, doing thus, To the perpetual wink for aye might put This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who Should not upbraid our course.
 *  Antonio,  (II.i, lines 302-313)

 * They will take suggestion as a cat laps milk.
 *  Antonio,  (II.i, line 315)

 * Thy case, dear friend, Shall be my precedent; as thou got'st Milan, I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword: one stroke Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest; And I the king shall love thee.
 *  Sebastian,  (II.i, lines 317-321)

Open-ey'd Conspiracy His time doth take. If of life you keep a care, Shake off slumber, and beware. Awake, awake!''
 * ''While you here do snoring lie,
 * Ariel, scene i

From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me, And yet I needs must curse; but they'll nor pinch, Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i' the mire, Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark Out of my way, unless he bid 'em; but For every trifle are they set upon me; Sometime like apes, that moe and chatter at me, And after, bite me; then like hedgehogs, which Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I All wound with adders, who, with cloven tongues, Do hiss me into madness.
 * All the infections that the sun sucks up
 * Caliban, scene ii

 * A very ancient and fish-like smell.
 * Trinculo, scene ii

 * Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
 * Trinculo, scene ii

The gunner, and his mate, Lov'd Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery, But none of us car'd for Kate; For she had a tongue with a tang, Would cry to a sailor'' Go hang! ''She lov'd not the savour of tar nor of pitch, Yet a tailor might scratch her where'er she did itch. Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!'' This is a scurvy tune too; but here's my comfort. [Drinks]
 * ''The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I,
 * Stephano, scene ii

Trinculo: Swam ashore man, like a duck; I can swim like a duck, I'll be sworn. Stephano: Here, kiss the book. Though thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a goose.
 * Stephano: Here; swear then how thou escapedst.
 * Scene ii

Stephano: Out o' th' moon, I do assure thee; I was the Man i' th' Moon, when time was. Caliban: I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee. My mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog and thy bush.
 * Caliban: Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven?
 * Scene ii

 * I prithee, be my god.
 * Caliban, scene ii

Act III

Delight in them sets off; some kinds of baseness Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters Point to rich ends. This my mean task Would be as heavy to me as odious, but The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead, And makes my labours pleasures.
 * There be some sports are painful, and their labour
 * Ferdinand, scene i

I have ey'd with best regard; and many a time The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage Brought my too diligent ear; for several virtues Have I lik'd several women, never any With so full soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd, And put it to the foil; but you, O you, So perfect and so peerless, are created Of every creature's best!
 * Full many a lady
 * Ferdinand, scene i

Ferdinand: O heaven! O earth! Bear witness to this sound, And crown what I confess with kind event, If I speak true! If hollowly, invert What best is boded me to mischief! I, Beyond all limit of what else i' the world Do love, prize, honour you.
 * Miranda: Do you love me?
 * Scene i

Miranda: At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer What I desire to give, and much less take What I shall die to want.
 * Ferdinand: Wherefore weep you?
 * Scene i

If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow You may deny me; but I'll be your servant, Whether you will or no.
 * I am your wife, if you will marry me;
 * Miranda, scene i

Miranda: And mine, with my heart in ’t.
 * Ferdinand: Here ’s my hand.
 * Scene i

 * Servant-monster! the folly of this island! They say there's but five upon this isle: we are three of them; if th' other two be brain'd like us, the state totters.
 * Trinculo, scene ii

I'll not serve him, he is not valiant.
 * How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe.
 * Caliban, scene ii

Caliban: Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou: I would my valiant monster would destroy thee: I do not lie. Stephano: Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in's tale, by this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth.
 * Ariel: Thou liest.
 * Scene ii

I' the afternoon to sleep; there thou mayst brain him, Having first seiz'd his books; or with a log Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake, Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember, First to possess his books; for without them He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not One spirit to command: they all do hate him, As rootedly as I — burn but his books.
 * Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him
 * Caliban, scene ii

Thought is free.''
 * ''Flout 'em and scout 'em, and scout 'em and flout 'em;
 * Stephano, scene ii

 * He that dies pays all debts: I defy thee. Mercy upon us!
 * Stephano, scene ii

Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices, That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep, Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd, I cried to dream again.
 * Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
 * Caliban, scene ii

Sebastian: A living drollery. Now I will believe That there are unicorns; that in Arabia There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix At this hour reigning there. Antonio: I'll believe both; And what does else want credit, come to me, And I'll be sworn 'tis true; travellers ne'er did lie, Though fools at home condemn 'em.
 * Alonso: Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?
 * Scene iii

Of excellent dumb discourse.
 * A kind
 * Alonso, scene iii

That hath to instrument this lower world And what is in't, —the never-surfeited sea Hath caus'd to belch up you; and on this island Where man doth not inhabit, you 'mongst men Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad; And even with such-like valour, men hang and drown Their proper selves. [Alonso, Sebastian, etc., draw their swords] You fools! I and my fellows Are ministers of Fate; the elements, Of whom your swords are temper'd may as well Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish One dowle that's in my plume.
 * You are three men of sin, whom Destiny, —
 * Ariel, scene iii

Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it; The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd The name of Prospero; it did bass my trespass. Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded; and, I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded, And with him there lie mudded.
 * O, it is monstrous, monstrous!
 * Alonso, scene iii

Act IV
To th' fire i' the blood. Be more abstemious, Or else good night your vow!
 * The strongest oaths are straw
 * Prospero, scene i

Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter; Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flow'rs Diffusest honey drops, refreshing show'rs; And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down, Rich scarf to my proud earth; — why hath thy Queen Summon'd me hither to this short-grass'd green? Iris: A contract of true love to celebrate, And some donation freely to estate On the blest lovers.
 * Ceres: Hail, many-coloured messenger, that ne'er
 * Scene i

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. '''We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.'''
 * Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
 * Prospero, scene i

Hear a foot fall; we now are near his cell.
 * Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not
 * Caliban, scene i

Stephano: There is not only disgrace and dishonor in that, monster, but an infinite loss.
 * Trinculo: Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool —
 * scene i

 * With foreheads villainous low.
 * Caliban, scene i

Act V

Yet, with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury Do I take part; the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance.
 * Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
 * Prospero, scene i

And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid — Weak masters though ye be — I have be-dimm'd The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds, And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault Set roaring war. To the dread rattling thunder Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up The pine and cedar. Graves at my command, Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth, By my so potent art. But this rough magic I here abjure; and, when I have requir'd Some heavenly music — which even now I do, — To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And, deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book.
 * Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;
 * Prospero, scene i

In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
 * Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
 * Ariel, scene i

How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!
 * O, wonder!
 * Miranda, scene i
 * It is this statement by Miranda which provided Aldous Huxley the title of his dystopian novel, Brave New World, in which "The Savage" quotes this passage.

Epilogue
And what strength I have's mine own, Which is most faint: now, 'tis true, I must be here confin'd by you, Or sent to Naples. Let me not, Since I have my dukedom got And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell In this bare island by your spell; But release me from my bands With the help of your good hands. Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails, Which was to please. Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant; And my ending is despair, Unless I be reliev'd by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon'd be, Let your indulgence set me free.
 * Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
 * Prospero

title: The Tempest


text:
Richard II (play)

The Tragedy of King Richard the Second is a play written by William Shakespeare around 1595 and based on the life of King Richard II of England. It is the first part of a tetralogy referred to by scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's successors: Henry IV, Part I; Henry IV, Part II; and Henry V.

Act I

 * Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster.
 * King Richard, Scene I

 * In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.
 * King Richard, Scene I

 * That which in mean men we entitle patience, Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
 * Duchess of Gloucester, Scene II

 * The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.
 * Bolingbroke, Scene III

 * Truth hath a quiet breast.
 * Norfolk, Scene III

 * King Richard: For thee remains a heavier doom, Which I with some unwillingness pronounce: The fly-slow hours shall not determinate The dateless limit of thy dear exile; — The hopeless word of — Never to return, Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life. Norfolk: A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege, And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth: A dearer merit, not so deep a maim As to be cast forth in the common air Have I deserved at your highness' hands. The language I have learn'd these forty years, My native English, now I must forego: And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol, or a harp; Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up, Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue, Doubly porcullis'd with my teeth and lips; And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance Is made my gaoler to attend on me. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be a pupil now; What is thy sentence then but speechless death Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
 * Scene III

 * John of Gaunt: What is six winters? they are quickly gone. Bolingbroke: To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.
 * Scene III

Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. Teach thy necessity to reason thus; There is no virtue like necessity.
 * All places that the eye of heaven visits,
 * John of Gaunt, Scene III

 * O, who can hold a fire in his hand, By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite, By bare imagination of a feast? Or wallow naked in December snow, By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat? O, no! the apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse: Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more, Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore.
 * Bolingbroke, Scene III

Act II

 * They say, the tongues of dying men, Enforce attention, like deep harmony: Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain.
 * John of Gaunt, Scene I

 * The setting sun, and music at the close, As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, Writ in remembrance, more than things long past.
 * John of Gaunt, Scene I

 * His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, For violent fires soon burn out themselves.
 * John of Gaunt, Scene I

 * This royal throne of kings, this sceptred 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, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth.
 * John of Gaunt, Scene I

 * The ripest fruit first falls.
 * King Richard, Scene I

 * Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor.
 * Bolingbroke, Scene III

Act III

 * Eating the bitter bread of banishment.
 * Bolingbroke, Scene I

 * He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines.
 * King Richard, Scene II

 * Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed king; The breath of worldly men cannot depose The deputy elected by the Lord.
 * King Richard, Scene II

 * O, call back yesterday, bid time return.
 * Salisbury, Scene II

 * No matter where. Of comfort no man speak: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth; Let's choose executors, and talk of wills: And yet not so — for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke's, And nothing can we call our own but death; And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings: How some have been depos'd, some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd; Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd; All murder'd — for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps Death his court: and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp; Allowing him a breath, a little scene To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit — As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable — and, humour'd thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and — farewell king!
 * King Richard, Scene II

 * He is come to ope The purple testament of bleeding war.
 * King Richard, Scene III

 * And my large kingdom, for a little grave, A little, little grave, an obscure grave.
 * King Richard, Scene III

Act IV

 * And there, at Venice, gave His body to that pleasant country’s earth, And his pure soul unto his captain Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long.
 * Bishop of Carlisle, Scene I

 * You may my glories and my state depose, But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
 * King Richard, Scene I

 * O, that I were a mockery king of snow.
 * King Richard, Scene I

 * I am greater than a king: For when I was a king, my flatterers Were then but subjects; being now a subject, I have a king here to my flatterer. Being so great, I have no need to beg.
 * King Richard, Scene I

Act V

 * But soft, but see, or rather do not see, My fair rose wither: yet look up, behold, That you in pity may dissolve to dew, And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.
 * Queen, Scene I

 * As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious.
 * Duke of York, Scene II

 * It is as hard to come as for a camel To thread the postern of a small needle’s eye.
 * King Richard, Scene V; variant: "To thread the postern of a needle’s eye."

 * Thoughts tending to content, flatter themselves That they are not the first of fortune's slaves, Nor shall not be the last.
 * King Richard, Scene V

 * I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
 * King Richard, Scene V

title: Richard II (play)


text:
Othello

Othello: The Moor of Venice is a play (ca. 1603) by William Shakespeare. The play is a concentrated, tightly constructed domestic tragedy, with almost no subplot for relief, centered on five or six central characters. Othello is commonly considered one of Shakespeare's great tragedies and one of his finest works.

Act I

 * In following him, I follow but myself.
 * Iago, scene I

 * Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so, for my peculiar end: For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In compliment extern, 'tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
 * Iago, scene I

 * Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe.
 * Iago, scene I

 * Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
 * Iago, scene I

 * Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
 * Othello, scene II

 * Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, My very noble and approved good masters, That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, It is most true; true, I have married her: The very head and front of my offending Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech, And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace: For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith, Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used Their dearest action in the tented field, And little of this great world can I speak, More than pertains to feats of broil and battle, And therefore little shall I grace my cause In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, What conjuration and what mighty magic, For such proceeding I am charged withal, I won his daughter.
 * Othello, scene III

 * Her father loved me; oft invited me; Still question'd me the story of my life, From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes, That I have passed. I ran it through, even from my boyish days, To the very moment that he bade me tell it; Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances, Of moving accidents by flood and field Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach, Of being taken by the insolent foe And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence And portance in my travels' history: Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven It was my hint to speak,--such was the process; And of the Cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear Would Desdemona seriously incline: But still the house-affairs would draw her thence: Which ever as she could with haste dispatch, She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear Devour up my discourse: which I observing, Took once a pliant hour, and found good means To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, Whereof by parcels she had something heard, But not intentively: I did consent, And often did beguile her of her tears, When I did speak of some distressful stroke That my youth suffer'd. My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs: She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful: She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me, And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, I should but teach him how to tell my story. And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake: She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd, And I loved her that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I have used: Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
 * Othello, scene III

 * That I did love the Moor to live with him, My downright violence and storm of fortunes May trumpet to the world: my heart's subdued Even to the very quality of my lord:
 * Desdemona, scene III

 * But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
 * Duke, scene III

 * The robb'd that smiles, steals something from the thief; He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
 * Duke of Venice, scene III

 * Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: She has deceived her father, and may thee.
 * Brabantio, scene III

 * Thus do I ever make my fool my purse.
 * Iago, scene III

 * I hate the Moor; And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets He has done my office: I know not if 't be true; But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, will do as if for surety.
 * Iago, scene III

 * The Moor is of a free and open nature, That thinks men honest that but seem to be so, And will as tenderly be led by the nose As asses are.
 * Iago, scene III

Act II

 * If after every tempest come such calms, May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
 * Othello, scene i

 * She never yet was foolish that was fair; For even her folly help'd her to an heir.
 * Iago, scene I

 * Knavery's plain face is never seen till us'd.
 * Iago, scene i

 * Now, by heaven, My blood begins my safer guides to rule; And passion, having my best judgment collied, Assays to lead the way. 'Zounds, if I stir, Or do but lift this arm, the best of you Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know How this foul rout began, who set it on; And he that is approv'd in this offence, Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth, Shall lose me. What! in a town of war, Yet wild, the people's hearts brimful of fear, To manage private and domestic quarrel? In night, and on the court and guard of safety? 'Tis monstrous. Iago, who began't?
 * Othello, scene iii

 * But men are men; the best sometimes forget:
 * Iago, scene iii

 * Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving.
 * Iago, scene iii

 * And what's he then that says I play the villain? When this advice is free I give and honest, Probal to thinking and indeed the course To win the Moor again? For 'tis most easy The inclining Desdemona to subdue In any honest suit: she's framed as fruitful As the free elements. And then for her To win the Moor — were't to renounce his baptism, All seals and symbols of redeemed sin, His soul is so enfetter'd to her love, That she may make, unmake, do what she list, Even as her appetite shall play the god With his weak function. How am I then a villain To counsel Cassio to this parallel course, Directly to his good? Divinity of hell! When devils will the blackest sins put on, They do suggest at first with heavenly shows, As I do now: for whiles this honest fool Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor, I'll pour this pestilence into his ear, That she repeals him for her body's lust; And by how much she strives to do him good, She shall undo her credit with the Moor. So will I turn her virtue into pitch, And out of her own goodness make the net That shall enmesh them all.
 * Iago, scene iii

Act III

 * Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'll away. Go, vanish into air, away!
 * Clown, scene i

 * Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul, But I do love thee; and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.
 * Othello, scene iii

 * Men should be what they seem; Or those that be not, would they might seem none!
 * Iago, scene iii

 * Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; ’Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.
 * Iago, scene iii

 * O! beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.
 * Iago, scene iii

 * Think'st thou I'd make a life of jealousy, To follow still the changes of the moon With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt, Is once to be resolved.
 * Othello, scene iii

 * She did deceive her father, marrying you; And when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks She lov'd them most.
 * Iago, scene iii

 * Othello: I do not think but Desdemona's honest. Iago: Long live she so, and long live you to think so! Othello: And, yet, how nature erring from itself,— Iago: Ay, there's the point.
 * Scene iii

 * If she be false, O! then heaven mocks itself. I'll not believe't.
 * Othello, scene iii

 * O! now, for ever Farewell the tranquil mind; farewell content!
 * Othello, scene iii

 * Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore, Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof; Or, by the worth of mine eternal soul, Thou hadst been better have been born a dog Than answer my wak'd wrath.
 * Othello, scene iii

 * There are a kind of men so loose of soul, That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs.
 * Iago, scene iii

 * 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man: They are all but stomachs, and we all but food; They eat us hungerly, and when they are full, They belch us.
 * Emilia, scene iv

Act IV

 * Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed.
 * Iago, scene i

 * Who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch?
 * Emilia, scene iii

 * Heaven me such uses send, Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend.
 * Desdemona, scene iii

Act V

 * O damn'd Iago! O inhuman dog!
 * Roderigo, scene i

 * Put out the light, and then put out the light.
 * Othello, scene ii

 * [He kisses her] O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade Justice to break her sword. One more, one more! Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee, And love thee after. One more, and that's the last! So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep, But they are cruel tears. This sorrow's heavenly; It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.
 * Othello, scene ii

 * What noise is this? Not dead — not yet quite dead? I that am cruel am yet merciful; I would not have the linger in thy pain So, so.
 * Othello, scene ii

 * It is the very error of the moon; She comes more near the earth than she was wont; And makes men mad.
 * Othello, scene ii

 * I hold my peace, sir? no; No, I will speak as liberal as the north; Let heaven and men and devils, let them all, All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak.
 * Emilia, scene ii

 * Demand me nothing: what you know, you know: From this time forth I never will speak word.
 * Iago, scene ii

 * 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 lov'd not wisely but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdu'd eyes Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their med'cinable gum. Set you down this; And say besides, that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk Beat a Venetian and traduc'd the state, I took by the throat the circumcised dog, And smote him thus.
 * Othello, scene ii

 * I kissed thee ere I killed thee, no way but this, Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.
 * Othello, scene ii

title: Othello