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Hippolyta. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd, And duty in his service perishing.

Theseus. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing. Hippolyta. He says they can do nothing in this kind.

Theseus. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
Our sport shall be, to take what they mistake:
And what poor duty cannot do,

Noble respect takes it in might, not merit.
Where I have come, great clerks have purpos'd
To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,
And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,
Not paying me a welcome: Trust me, sweet,
Out of this silence, yet I picked a welcome:
And in the modesty of fearful duty

I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity,
In least speak most, to my capacity.-Id.

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.

King. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live register'd upon our brazen tombs,

And then grace us in the disgrace of death;

When, spite of cormorant-devouring time,

The endeavour of this present breath may buy

That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors!-for so you are,
That war against your own affections,
And the huge army of the world's desires,
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
Our court shall be a little Academe,

Still and contemplative in living art.-Act 1. Sc. 1.
Longaville. I am resolv'd: 'tis but a three years' fast;
The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:

Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits

Make rich the ribs, but bank 'rout quite the wits.—Id.
Biron. At Christmas I no more desire a rose

Than wish a snow in May's new fangled show
But like of each thing that in season grows.-Id.

still, drum! for Assist me, some shall turn son

Armado. Adieu, valour! rust, rapier! be your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. extemporal god of rhyme, for, I am sure, I neteer. Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio. (Exit.)-Sc. 2.

Princess. Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise;

Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,

Not uttered by base sale of chapmen's tongues.-Act 2. Sc. 1.
Boyet. If my observation (which very seldom lies),
By the heart's still rhetorick, disclosed with eyes,
Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.--Id.

Princess. Nay, never paint me now;

Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.-Act 4. Sc. 1. Princess. And, out of question, so it is sometimes;

Glory grows guilty of detested crimes;

When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,

We bend to that the working of the heart.-Id.

Longaville. Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye ('Gainst which the world cannot hold argument), Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows, for thee broke, deserve not punishment.-Sc. 3.

Sir Nathaniel. Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy.-Act 5. Sc. 1.

Holofernes. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such phantastical phantasms, such unsociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography.-Id.

Princess. None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd, As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd

Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school;

And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.--Sc. 2.

Biron. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief.—Id.
Biron. Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.-Id.

Rosaline. A jest's propriety lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that makes it.-Id.

Salanio.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

Now, by two-headed Janus,

Nature hath form'd strange fellows in her time:

Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh, like parrots at a bag-piper;

And others of such vinegar aspect,

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.-Act 1. Sc. 1.
Gratiano. You look not well, signior Antonio ;
You have too much respect upon the world:
They lose it, that do buy it with much care.
Believe me you are marvellously chang'd.

Antonio. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano.
A stage, where every man must play a part,

And mine a sad one.

Gratiano.

Let me play the fool:

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;

And let my liver rather heat with wine

Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire in alabaster?

Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks;
There are a sort of men, whose visages
Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond,
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who would say, "I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my mouth, let no dog bark!"
O! my Antonio, I do know of these,
That therefore only are reputed wise,
For saying nothing;

I'll tell thee more of this another time:
But fish not, with this melancholy bait,

For this fool's gudgeon, this opinion.-Id.

Bassanio. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing more than any man in all Venice His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and, when you have them, they are not worth the search.- Id.

Portia. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions:

can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain

may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over a cold decree; such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good council the cripple.-Sc. 2.

Antonio. An evil soul, producing holy "witness," Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;

A goodly apple rotten at the heart;

O! what a goodly outside falsehood hath.-Sc. 3.

your

Launcelot Gobbo. Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the knowing me. It is a wise father that knows his own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of son. Give me your blessing: truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long, a man's son may, but in the end, truth will out.-Act 2. Sc. 2.

Shylock.

Fast bind, fast find;

A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.-Sc. 5.

Prince of Morocco. .

What have we here!

A carrion death, within whose empty eye

There is a written scroll: I'll read the writing.

"All that glisters is not gold,

Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold;
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms infold,
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscroll'd:

Fare you well; your

suit is cold."

Cold, indeed; and labour lost :

Then, farewell, heat; and welcome frost.

Portia, adieu! I have too griev'd a heart

To take a tedious leave: thus losers part.-Sc. 7.

Prince of Arragon.

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Who shall go about

To cozen fortune, and be honourable

Without the stamp of merit! let none presume
To wear an undeserved dignity.

O! that estates, degrees, and offices,

Were not deriv'd corruptly, and that clear honour
Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer!
How many then should cover that stand bare!
How many be commanded, that command!
How much low peasantry would then be glean'd

From the true seed of honour! and how much honour

Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,
To be new varnish'd!--Sc. 9.

Bassanio. The world is still deceived with ornament,
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it, and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
There is no vice so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;
Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk?
And these assume but valour's excrement,
To render them redoubted. Look on beauty,
And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weight;
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
Making them lightest that wear most of it:
So are those crisped snaky golden locks,
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness, often known

To be the dowry of a second head,

The scull that bred them, in the sepulchre.
Thus ornament is but the guiled shore

To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,

The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest.-Act 3. Sc. 2.

Portia. You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand, Such as I am: though, for myself alone,

I would not be ambitious in my wish,

To wish myself much better; yet, for you,
I would be trebled twenty times myself;

A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times
More rich..

That only to stand high on your account,

I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account; but the full sum of me
Is sum of something; which, to term in gross
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd:
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; happier than this,
She is not bred so dull; but she can learn ;

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