Book

"VALENTINE. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:

    Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.

    Were't not affection chains thy tender days

    To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,

    I rather would entreat thy company

    To see the wonders of the world abroad,

    Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home,

    Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.

    But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein,

    Even as I would, when I to love begin.

  PROTEUS. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu!

    Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest

    Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel..."

Book

"SERAP. Portents and prodigies have grown so frequent,

      That they have lost their name. Our fruitful Nile

      Flowed ere the wonted season, with a torrent

      So unexpected, and so wondrous fierce,

      That the wild deluge overtook the haste

      Even of the hinds that watched it: Men and beasts

      Were borne above the tops of trees, that grew

      On the utmost margin of the water-mark.

      Then, with so swift an ebb that flood drove backward,

      It slipt from underneath the scaly herd:

      Here monstrous phocae: panted on the shore;

      Forsaken dolphins there with their broad tails,

      Lay lashing the departing waves: hard by them,

      Sea horses floundering in the slimy mud,

      Tossed up their heads, and dashed the ooze about them..."

-

Book

 " My dear Walkley

  You once asked me why I did not write a Don Juan play. The levity

with which you assumed this frightful responsibility has probably by

this time enabled you to forget it; but the day of reckoning has

arrived: here is your play! I say your play, because qui facit per

alium facit per se. * Its profits, like its labor, belong to me:

its morals, its manners, its philosophy, its influence on the young,

are for you to justify. You were of mature age when you made the

suggestion; and you knew your man. It is hardly fifteen years since,

as twin pioneers of the New Journalism of that time, we two, cradled

in the same new sheets, began an epoch in the criticism of the theatre

and the opera house by making it the pretext for a propaganda of our

own views of life. So you cannot plead ignorance of the character of

the force you set in motion. You meant me to epater le bourgeois..."

Book

"ALG. Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?

  LANE. I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.

  ALG. I'm sorry for that, for your sake. I don't play accurately-

     anyone can play accurately- but I play with wonderful

     expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my

     forte. I keep science for Life.

  LANE. Yes, sir.

  ALG. And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the

     cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell?

  LANE. Yes, sir. [Hands them on a salver.]

  ALG. [Inspects them, takes two, and sits down on the sofa.] Oh!...

     by the way, Lane, I see from your book that on Thursday night,

     when Lord Shoreman and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight

bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed...."

Book

 " COUNTESS. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

  BERTRAM. And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew;

    but I must attend his Majesty's command, to whom I am now in

    ward, evermore in subjection.

  LAFEU. You shall find of the King a husband, madam; you, sir, a

    father. He that so generally is at all times good must of

    necessity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would stir it

    up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such

    abundance.

  COUNTESS. What hope is there of his Majesty's amendment?

  LAFEU. He hath abandon'd his physicians, madam; under whose

    practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other

    advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time…”

Book

KENT. I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than

     Cornwall.

  GLOU. It did always seem so to us; but now, in the division of the

     kingdom, it appears not which of the Dukes he values most, for

     equalities are so weigh'd that curiosity in neither can make

     choice of either's moiety.

  KENT. Is not this your son, my lord?

  GLOU. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often

     blush'd to acknowledge him that now I am braz'd to't.

  KENT. I cannot conceive you.

Book

FIRST WITCH. When shall we three meet again?

    In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

  SECOND WITCH. When the hurlyburly's done,

    When the battle's lost and won.

  THIRD WITCH. That will be ere the set of sun.

  FIRST WITCH. Where the place?

  SECOND WITCH. Upon the heath.

  THIRD WITCH. There to meet with Macbeth.

  FIRST WITCH. I come, Graymalkin.

  ALL. Paddock calls. Anon!

    Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

    Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Book

 "PHILO. Nay, but this dotage of our general's

    O'erflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes,

    That o'er the files and musters of the war

    Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,

    The office and devotion of their view

    Upon a tawny front. His captain's heart,

    Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst

    The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,

    And is become the bellows and the fan

    To cool a gipsy’s lust..”

Book

 "ANTONIO. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.

    It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

    But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

    What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,

    I am to learn;

    And such a want-wit sadness makes of me

    That I have much ado to know myself.

  SALERIO. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;

    There where your argosies, with portly sail-

    Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,

    Or as it were the pageants of the sea-

    Do overpeer the petty traffickers,

    That curtsy to them, do them reverence,

    As they fly by them with their woven wings..."

Book

   "ARCHIDAMUS. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the

    like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see,

    as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your

    Sicilia.

  CAMILLO. I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to

    pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

  ARCHIDAMUS. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be

    justified in our loves; for indeed-

  CAMILLO. Beseech you-

  ARCHIDAMUS. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we

    cannot with such magnificence, in so rare- I know not what to

    say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses,

    unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot

    praise us, as little accuse us....."

Book

Drama [Tragedy]

"RODERIGO. Tush, never tell me! I take it much unkindly

    That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse

    As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.

  IAGO. 'Sblood, but you will not hear me.

    If ever I did dream of such a matter,

    Abhor me.

  RODERIGO. Thou told'st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.

  IAGO. Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city,

    In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,

    Off-capp'd to him; and, by the faith of man,

    I know my price, I am worth no worse a place..."

Book

  "FIRST GENTLEMAN. You do not meet a man but frowns; our bloods

    No more obey the heavens than our courtiers

    Still seem as does the King's.

  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But what's the matter?

  FIRST GENTLEMAN. His daughter, and the heir of's kingdom, whom

    He purpos'd to his wife's sole son- a widow

    That late he married- hath referr'd herself

    Unto a poor but worthy gentleman. She's wedded;

    Her husband banish'd; she imprison'd. All

    Is outward sorrow, though I think the King

    Be touch'd at very heart.

  SECOND GENTLEMAN. None but the King?..."

Book

Book

"LEON. I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this

    night to Messina.

  MESS. He is very near by this. He was not three leagues off when I

    left him.

  LEON. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

  MESS. But few of any sort, and none of name.

  LEON. A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full

    numbers. I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on

    a young Florentine called Claudio..."

Book

"THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour

    Draws on apace; four happy days bring in

    Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow

    This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,

    Like to a step-dame or a dowager,

    Long withering out a young man's revenue.

  HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;

    Four nights will quickly dream away the time;

    And then the moon, like to a silver bow

    New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night

    Of our solemnities..."