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Every one lets forth his spright,
In the church-way paths to glide.
And we fairies, that do run,

By the triple Hecate's team,
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic: not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallow'd house;
I am sent with broom before,

To

sweep the dust behind the door.

5. ARIEL'S SONG: FULL FATHOM.
Full fathom five thy father lies,
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,
Hark! now I hear them, Ding-dong-bell!

6. ARIEL'S SONG: WHERE THE BEE.

Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie,

There I couch when owls do cry :
On the bat's back I do fly

After sun-set merrily:

Merrily, merrily shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

7. THE PROGRESS OF LIFE.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts;
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eye-brow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

E'en in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly, with good capon lined
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shanks; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness; and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

8. LIFE.

Reason thus with life:

If I do lose thee I do lose a thing,

That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skiey influences,

That do this habitation, where thou keepest,
Hourly afflict: merely thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,

And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble:
For all th' accommodations that thou bearest
Are nursed by baseness: thou'rt by no means valiant ;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,

And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou'rt not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get:
And what thou hast, forgettest. Thou art not certain:
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor.

And vanish'd from our sight.

HAM.

'Tis very strange!

HOR. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true.
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.

HOR. We do, my lord.

HAM. Indeed, indeed, Sir, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch to-night?
HAM. Arm'd, say you' ?

HAM. From top to toe?

HOR. Arm'd, my lord. HOR. My lord, from head

HAM. Then saw you not his face?

HOR. O yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.
HAM What, look'd he frowningly ?

[to foot.

HOR. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. HAM. Pale or red.

HOR. Nay, very pale.

HAM. And fixed his eyes upon you? HOR. Most conHAM. I would I had been there!

HOR. It would have much amaz'd you.

HAM. Very like, very like. Staid it long?

[stantly.

HOR. While one with moderate haste might tell a HAM. His beard was grizzled ?-no

HOR. It was as I have seen it in his life,

A sable silver'd.

hundred.

HAM. I'll watch to-night; perchance 'twill walk again.
HOR. I warrant you it will.

HAM. If it assume my noble father's person,
I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape,
And bid me hold my peace.
I pray you all,

If

you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still;
And whatsoever shall befall to-night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue;
I will requite your love: so fare ye well.
Upon the platform 'twixt eleven and twelve
I'll visit you.

10. QUEEN MAB.

Other, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman ;

Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep :
Her waggon spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm,
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid.
Her chariot is an empty hazel nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love :
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream of courtesies straight :
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees:
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream;
Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit:
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson as he lies asleep;

Then dreams he of another benefice.
Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep, and them anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes;
And being thus trighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again.

11. THE APOTHECARY.

I do remember an apothecary,

And hereabouts he dwells, whom late I noted
In tattered weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples: meagre were his looks;
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuffed, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves.

A beggarly account of empty boxes;
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scattered to make
up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said,
An' if a man did need a poison now,

Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
Oh, this same thought did but fore-run my need,
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house.

12. HOTSPUR'S DESCRIPTION OF A FOP.

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 drest;
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new reaped,
Showed like a stubble land at harvest home.
He was perfuméd like a milliner;

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

He gave his nose, and took it away again;

Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,

Took it in snuff.—And still he smiled and talked;
And as the soldiers bare dead bodies by,

He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady-terms

He questioned me: amongst the rest demanded
My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.

I then, all smarting with my wounds, being galled
To be so pestered with a popinjay,

Out of my grief, and my impatience,

Answer'd neglectingly, 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: (God save the mark!)

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