Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

IV-Sempronius' Speech for War-TRAG. OF CATO.

MY voice is still for war.

Gods! Can a Roman senate long debate,
Which of the two to choose, slavery or death"!
No let us rise at once, gird on our swords,
And at the head of our remaining troops,
Attack the foe, break through the thick array
Of his throng'd legions, and charge home upon him.
Perhaps some arm more lucky than the rest,

May reach his heart, and free the world from bondage.
Rise, Fathers, rise; 'tis Rome demands your help:
Rise and revenge her slaughter'd citizens,

Or share their fate. The corps of half her senate
Manure the fields of Thessaly, while we
Sit here deliberating in cold debates,

If we should sacrifice our lives to honor,
Or wear them out in servitude and chains.
Rouse up, for shame! Our brothers of Pharsalia
Point at their wounds, and cry aloud, To battle:
Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow,
And Scipio's ghost walks unreveng'd amongst us.

V-Lucius' Speech for Peace.—IB.

MY thoughts, I must confess are turn'd on peace;
Already have our quarrels fill'd the world
With widows and with orphans: Scythia mourns
Our guilty wars, and earth's remotest regions
Lie half unpeopled by the feuds of Rome:

'Tis time to sheath the sword, and spare mankind
'Tis not Cesar, but the gods, my Fathers!
The gods declare against us, and repel
Our vain attempts. To urge the fee to battle
(Prompted by blind revenge and wild despair)
Were to refuse th'awards of Providence,
And not to rest in heaven's determination.
Already have we shown our love to Rome;
Now let us show submission to the gods.
We took up arms, not to revenge ourselves,

But free the commonwealth. When this end fails,

Arms have no further use. Our country's cause,

That drew our swords, now wrests them from our hands, And bids us not delight in Roman blood

Unprofitably shed. What men could do

Is done already. Heaven and earth will witness,
If Rome must fall that we are innocent.

VI-Hotspur's Accouns of the For.-HENRY IV.
MY lege, I did deny no prisoners.

But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,

Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,

Came there a certain lord; neat; trimly dress'd;
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd,
Show'd like a stubble land, at harvest home.
He was perfum'd like a milliner;

And, 'twixt his finger and his thumb, he held
A pouncet box, which, ever and anon,
He gave his nose

And still he smil'd and talk'd:

And as the soldiers bare dead bodies by,
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms

He question'd me; among the rest, demanded
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf:

I then, all smarting with my wounds, being gall'd
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,

Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answer'd-negligently-I know not what-
He should or should not; for he made me mad,
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman,

Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (heaven save the mark))
And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth

Was spermaceti for an inward bruise;

And that it was great pity, (so it was)
This villancus saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answer'd indirectly, as I said;
And I beseech you, let not this report
Come current for an accusation,

Betwixt my love, and your high Majesty.
VII.-Hotspur's Soliloquy on the Contents of a Letter

IB.

"BUT, for mine own part my lord, I could be well. contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house." He could be contented to be there! Why is he not then? In respect of the love he bears our house? He shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. "The purpose you undertake is dangerous." Why, that's certain! 'tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink

but I tell you, my lord Fool, out of this nettle danger, we plack this flower safely. "The purpose you undertake is dangerous; the friends you have named uncertain; the time itself unsorted; and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition."Say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lackbrain is this! Our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant; a good plot; good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty spirited rogue is this! Why, my lord of York commands the plot, and the general course of the action. By this hand, if I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is there not, besides, the Douglass? Have I not all their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month ? And are there not some of them set forward already ? What a Pagan rascal is this! An infidel-Ha! You shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the king, and lay open all our proceedings. O! I could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skimmed milk with so honorable an action. Hang him! Let him tell the king. We are prepared. I will set forward to night.

VIII-Othello's Apology for his Marriage.

TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO.
MOST potent, grave and reverend seigniors:
My very noble and approv'd 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 speech
And little bless'dwith the set phrase of peace:
For since thes. arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now, some nine moons wasted, they have us'd
Their dearest action, in the tented field;
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broils and battle;
And therefore, little shall I grace my cause,
In speaking of myself. Yet by your patience,
I will a round unvanish'd tale deliver,

Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,

What conjuration, and what mighty magic
(For such proceedings I am charg'd withall)
I won his daughter with.

Her father lov'd me; oft invited me ;
Still question'd me the story of my life
From year to year: the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I had past.

I ran it through, e'en 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 hairbreadth 'scapes in th' imminent deadly breach ;
Or being taken by the insolent foe,

And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,
And with it all my travel's history.
All these to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline;

But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She'd 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 distinctly. 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 wond'rous 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 lov'd her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. On this hint I spake ;
She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd;
And I lov'd her, that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft which I've us'd.

X.-Henry IV's Soliloquy on Sleep.-SHAKESPEARE.
HOW many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! gentle sleep!
Nature's soft nurse! how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night flies to thy slumbef,
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And luli'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god! Why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds, and leav'st a kingly couch,
A watchcase to a common larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the shipboy's eyes and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the tops,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamors in the slipp'ry shrouds,
That with the hurly, death itself awakes;
Canst thon, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and the stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy, lowly clown.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

X-Captain Bobadil's Method of defeating an Army.

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOR.

I WILL tell you, sir, by the way of private and under seal, I am a gentleman; and live here obscure, and to myself; but were I known to his Majesty and the Lords, observe me, I would undertake, upon this poor head and live, for the public benefit of the state, not only to spare the entire lives of his subjects in general, but to save the one half, nay three fourths of his yearly charge in holding war, and against what enemy soever. And bow would I do it, think you? Why thus, Sir.I would select nineteen more to myself, throughout the land gentlemen they should be; of good spirit, strong and able constitution. I would choose them by an instinct that I have. And I would teach these nineteen the special rules; as your Punto, your Reverso, your Stoccata, your Imbrocata, your Passada, your Monton. to; till they could all play very near, or altogether, as well as myself. This done; say the enemy were forty thousand strong. We twenty would come into the field the tenth of March, or thereabouts, and we would challenge twenty of the enemy; they could not, in their hon or, refuge us. Well we would kill them; challenge

« AnteriorContinuar »