Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
And pill by law! Maid, to thy master's bed;
Thy miftrefs is o' the brothel? Son of fixteen,
Pluck the lin'd crutch from the old limping fire,
With it beat out his brains! Piety and fear,
Religion to the gods, peace, juftice, truth,
Domeftic awe, night-reft, and neighbourhood,
Inftruction, manners, myfteries, and trades,
Degrees, obfervances, customs, and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
And yet confufion live!-Plagues incident to
Your potent and infectious fevers heap [men,
On Athens, ripe for ftroke! Thou cold fciatica,
Cripple our fenators, that their limbs may halt
As lamely as their manners. Luft and liberty
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth;
That 'gainst the ftream of virtue they may ftrive,
And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blairs,
Sow all the Athenian boloms; and their crop
Be general leproty; breath infect breath;
That their fociety, as their friendship, may
Be merely poifen! Nothing I'll bear from thee,
But nakedness, thou detestable town!

A Friend forfaken.

As we do tu n our backs

From our companion thrown into his grave,
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
Slink away; leave their falte vows with him,
Like crpty purses pick'd: and his poor leif,,
A dedicated beggar to the air,

With his difcate of all-thumm'd poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone.

On Gold.

What is here?

[gods:

Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold! No,
I am no idle votarift. Roots, you clear heavens!
Thus much of this will make black, white; foul,
fair,

Wrong, right, bafe, noble; old, young; coward,

valiant.

And give them title, knee, and approbation,
With fenators on the bench; this is it
That makes the wappen'd widow wed again;
She, whom the spitalhouse and ulcerous fores
Would catt the gorge at, this embalms and pien
Thou common whore of mankind, that putt sodds
To the Aprilday again. Come, danne cath,
Among the rout of nations, I will make the
Do thy right nature.

Timon to Alcibiades.

Go on-here's gold-go on;
Be as a planetary plague, when Jove
Will o'er fome high-vic'd city hang his peilon
In the fick air: let not thy fword ikip one:
Pity not honour'd age for his white beard;
He is an ufurer. Strike me the counterfeit ma-
It is her habit only that is honelt, trea;
Herfelf's a bawd. Let not the virgin's cheek
Make foft thy trenchant fword; for thole mik
paps,

That thro' the window-bars bore at men's eyes,
Are not within the leaf of pity writ;
But fet them down horrible traitors. Spare not
the babe,
(mercy
Whofe dimpled fimiles from fools exhauft the
Think it a baftard, whom the oracle
Hath doubtfully pronounc'd thy throat fhall cut,
And mince it fans remorfe. Swear against objec
Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes,
Whole proof, nor yells of mothers, maids,
babes,

Nor fight of priests in holy vestments bleeding,
Shall pierce a jot. There's gold to pay thy fo
Make large confusion; and, thy fury ipent, e
Confounded be thyfelf! fpeak not, begone.
To the Courtezans.
In hollow bones of man; ftrike their fharp fhich
Confumption fow
And mar men's fpurring. Crack the lawyert
That he may never more falfe title plead,
Nor found his quillets fhrilly: hear the flamen
That colds against the quality of fleth,
And not believes himfelt: down with the net,
Down with it flat; take the bridge quite away
Of him that, his particular to torche,
Smells from the genial weal; make curl'd-p
ruffians bald,

And let the unicarr'd braggarts of the war
Derive fome pain from you.

Timon's Reflections on the Earth. That nature, being fick of man's unkirdness, Should yet be hungry! Common mother, thou, Whofe womb uumcafurable, and infinite breat Teems, and feeds all; whofe telf-iame mettle Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is p., Engenders the black toad, and adder blue, Ha, you gods! why this? what this, you gods? The gilded newt, and eyclefs venom'd wom, why this [lides; With all the abhorred births below crifp heat, Will lug your priefts and fervants from your Whereon Hyperion's quickening fire doth thing, Pluck flout men's pillows from below theirYield him, who all thy human fons doth hate, This yellow flave [heads: From forth thy plenteous boiom, one poor roct! Will knit and brek religions; blefs the accurs'd, Entear thy fertile and conceptious w mh! Make the hoar leprosy ador'0; place thieves, Let it no more bring out ingrateful man!

Go

Do villainy; do, fince you profeís to do 't,
Like workmen: I'll example you with thievery.
The fun's a thief, and with his great attraction,

thy-Robs the vaft fea; the moon 's an arrant thiet,
[ielf And her pale fire the fnatches from the fun;
The fea's a thief, whofe liquid furge refolves
The moon into falt tears; the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breede by a composture ftolen
From gen'ral excrement: each things a hief,
The laws, your curb and whip,in their roughpow'r
Have uncheck'd theft. Love not yourselves,away;
Rob one another. There's more gold: cut throats;
All that you meet are thieves: to Athens, go,
Bicak open fhops; nothing can you steal,
But thieves do lote its

On bis honeft Steward.
Forgive my gen'ral and exceptlefs rashness,
You perpetual-fober gods! I do proclaim
One honeft man-mistake me not-but one;
No more, I pray-and he is a steward.
How fain would I have hated ail mankind,
And thou redeem'ft thyfelf: but all, fave thee,
I fell with curfes.

Methinks, thou art more honeft now than wife;|
For, by oppreffing and betraying me,

Thou might'ft have fooner got another fervice:
For many fo arrive at fecond mafters,
Upon their first lord's neck.

Wrong and Infolence.

Now breathlefs wrong

Shall fit and pant in your great chairs of ease;
And purfy infolence fhall break his wind
With fear, and horrid flight.

An Invitation to Love.

A Ring in a dark Pit.

Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
A precious ring, that lightens all the hole,
Which, like a taper in fome monument,
Doth fhine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,
And fhews the ragged entrails of this pit.

The birds chaunt melody on every bush
The fnake lies rolled in the cheerful fun;
The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind.
And make a chequer'd fhadow on the ground:
Under their (weet fhade, Aaron, let us fit;
And whilft the babbing echo mocks the hounds,
Replying thrilly to the well-tun'd horns,
As if a double hunt were heard at once-
Let us fit down, and mark their yelling noife:
And after conflict-fuch as was fuppos'd
The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoy'd,
When with a happy ftorm they were furpris'd,
And curtain'd with a counfel-keeping cave-
We may, each wreathed in the other's arms,
Our paftimes done, poffefs a golden flumber!
Whiles hounds, and horns, and fweet melodious
Be unto us as is a nurse's fong
[birds,
Of lullaby, to bring her babe afleep.

Young Lady playing on a Lute and finging,
Fair Philomela, the but loft her tongue,
And in a tedious fampler few'd her mind:
But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from the;
A craftier Tereus haft thou met withal,
And he hath cut those pretty fingers off,
That could have better few'd than Philomel.
O, had the monfter feen thofe lily hands,
Tremble, like afpen leaves, upon a lote
And make the filken strings delight to kiss them;
He would not then have touch'd them for his life
Or had he heard the heavenly harmony,
Which that fweet tongue hath made,
He would have dropt his knife, and fell asleep,
As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.

Vale, a dark and melancholy one defcribed.
A barren detefted vale, you fee, it is:
The trees, tho' fummer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with mofs, and baleful miffeltoe.
Here never shines the fun; here nothing breeds,
Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven.
And, when they fhew'd me this abhorr'd pit,
They told me, here, at dead time of the night,
A thoufand fiends, a thousand hifling fnakes,
Ten thousand fwelling toads, as many urchins,
Would make fuch fearful and confuled cries,
As any mortal body, hearing it,

Should straight fall mad, or elfe die fuddenly.

A Lady's Tongue cut out.

O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,
That blabb'd them with fuch pleasing eloqucnt,
Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage;
Where, like a fweet melodious bird, it fung
Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!

A Perfon in Defpair compared to one on a Rock, 5%.
For now I ftand as one upon a rock,
Environ'd with a wildnernels of fea;
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by a
Expecting ever when tome envious furge
Will in his brinish bowels fwallow him.

Tears compared to Der on a Lily. When I did naine her brothers, then fresh tras Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey-dew Upon a gather'd lily almoft wither'd.

Reflections on killing a Fly.

Mar. Alas, my lord, I have but kill'da fv.
Tit. But how, if that fly had a father and moti
How would he hang his flender gilded wings,
And buz lamenting doings in the air!
Poor harmless fly!

That with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry; and thou haft k

him!

Revenge.

Lo, by thy fide, where rape and murder fi2,
Now give fome furance that thou art revenge,
Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheel
And then I'll come, and be thy waggoner,
And whirl along with thee about the globe,
Provide thee two proper palfries, as black
To hale thy vengeful waggon fwift away,
And find out murderers in their guilty caves:
And, when thy car is loaden with their heads,
I will difimount, and by the waggon wheel
Trot, like a fervile footinan, all day long;
Even from Hyperion's rifing in the caft,
Until his very downfall in the fea,

§ 36. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. SHAKSPEARE.

Love in a brave young Soldier.

CAL
Why should I war without the walls of Troy,

ALL here my varlet, I'll unarm again :

That find fuch cruel battle here within ?
Each Trojan, that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.

The Greeks are ftrong and fkilful to their
ftrength,

Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant;
But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
Tamer than fleep, fonder than ignorance;
Lefs valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skill-lefs as unpractis 'd infancy.

O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus
When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad
In Creffid's love: Thou anfwer'ft, she is fair;
Pour'ft in the open ulcer of my heart {voice;
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her
Handleft in thy difcourfe-O, that her hand,
In whofe comparison all whites are ink,
Writing their own reproach; to whofe foft feizure
The cygnet's down is harth, and spirit of fenfe
Ilard as the palm of ploughman! This thou
tell'it me,

As true thou tell'it me, when I fay I love her;
But, taying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay't in every gafh that love hath given
The knife that made it.

[me

Take but degree away, untune that ftring,
And, hark, what difcord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters
Should lift their bofoms higher than the fhores,
And make a fop of all this folid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude fon fhould strike his father dead:
Force fhould be right; or, rather, right and
wrong

(Between whole endless jar juftice refides) [too.
Should lose their names, and fo fhould justice
Then every thing includes itfelf in power,
Power into will, will into appetite';
And appetite, an univerfal wolf,

So doubly feconded with will and power,
Muft make perforce an univerfal prey,
And laft cat up itfelf,

Conduct in War fuperior to Action.
The ftill and mental parts,

That do contrive how many hands shall strike
When fitnefs calls them on; and know, by mea-
fure

Why, this hath not a finger's dignity;
Of their obfervant toil, the enemies' weight-

They call this bed-work, mapp'ry, closet war:
So that the ram, that batters down the wall,
For the great fwing and rudeness of his poize,
They place before his hand that made the engine;
Or thofe, that with the fineness of their fouls
By reafon guide his execution.

Adverfity the Trial of Man.

-Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abafh'd behold our works,
And think them fhames, which are indeed nought
Put the protractive trials of great Jove,
The finenets of which metal is not found
To find perfiftive conftancy in men?
In fortune's love for then the bold and coward,
The wife and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and foft, feem all affin'd and kin:
But, in the wind and tempeft of her frown,
Diftinction, with a broad and pow'rful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mafs, or matter, by itself,
Lies rich in virtue, and unmingled.

Achilles defcribed by Ulyffes.

The great Achilles-whom opinion crowns
The finew and the fore-hand of our hoft-
Having his ear full of his airy fame,
Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent
Lies mocking our defigns: with him Patroclius,
Upon a lazy bed, the live-long day
Breaks fcurril jefts;

And with ridiculous and awkward action
(Which, flanderer! he imitation calls)
He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,
Thy toplefs deputation he puts on
And, like a ftrutting player-whole conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and found
'Twixt his ftretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,
Such to be pitied and o'erwrefted feeming
He acts thy greatnefs in: and when he speaks,
'Tis like a chime a mending: with terms unfquar'd,
Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropt,
Would feem hyperboles. At this fufty stuff,
The large Achilles, on his preft bed lolling,
From his deep cheft laughs out a loud applause;
Cries-"Excellent! 'tis Agamemnon juft!
Now play me Neftor-hem, and stroke thy beard,
As he, being dreft to fome oration."
That's done as near as the extremeft ends
Of parallels; as like as Vulcan and his wife :
Yet good Achilles ftill cries" Excellent !
'Tis Neftor right? Now play him me, Patroclus,
Arming to answer in a night-alarm."

And then, forfooth, the faint defects of age
Must be the scene of mirth; to cough and ipit,
And, with a pally fumbling on his gorget,
Shake in and out the rivet and at this port

Sir

Sir Valour dies; cries-"O! enough, Patroclus,
Or give me ribs of fteel! I shall fplit all
In pleasure of my fpleen." And, in this fashion
All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,
Severals and generals of grace exact,
Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,
Excitements to the field, or fpeech for truce,
Succefs or lofs, what is or is not, ferves
As ftuff for thefe two to make paradoxes.

Refpe&t.

I afk, that I might weaken reverence, And bid the cheek be ready with a blush Modeft as morning, when the coldly eyes The youthful Phoebus.

Doubt.

The wound of peace is furety,
Surety fecure; but modeft doubt is call'd
The beacon of the wife, the tent that fearches
To the bottom of the worst.

Pleafure and Revenge.
Pleasure, and revenge,

Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decifion.

The Subtlety of Ulyffes, and Stupidity of Ajax.
Ajax. I do hate a proud man, as I hate the
engendering of toads.

Neft. Yet he loves himself: is it not strange?
Ulyf. Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.
Aga. What's his excufe?

Ulf. He doth rely on none;
But carries on the ftream of his difpofe,
Without obfervance or refpect of any
In will peculiar, and in felf-admiffion,

That were to enlard his fat-already pride,
And add more coals to Cancer, when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion.
This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid !
And fay in thunder" Achilles, go to him."
Neft. O, this is well, he rubs the vein of him,
[Alide.
Dio. And how his filence drinks up this ap
plaufe!

Ajax. If I go to him with my armed fit
I'll path him o'er the face.

Aga. O no, you shall not go.

Ajax. An he be proud with me, I'll pheefe his pride: let me go to him.

Ulyf. Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

Ajax. A paltry, infolent fellow !
Neft. How he defcribes himself!
Ajax. Can he not be fociable?
Ulyf. The raven chides blackness.
Ajax. I'll let his humours blood.
Aga. He'll be the physician that should be the

patient.

[Afide
Ajax. An all men were o' my mind-
Ulyf. Wit would be out of fashion. [4
Ajax. He fhould not bear it fo;
He thould eat swords firft: fhall pride carry it!
Neft. An 't would, you'd carry half. [Ad
Ulyf. He would have ten fhares. [Aja
Ajax. I will knead him, I'll make him fupple
Neft. He is not yet through warm; force him
With praifes; pour in; his ambition's dry.

Ulf.My lord, you feed too much on this diflike.
Neft. Our noble general, do not do fo.
Dio. You must prepare to fight withert
Achilles.

Neft. Wherefore should you fo?
He is not emulous, as Achilles is.

Aga. Why will he not, upon our fair request, Untent his perfon, and fhare the air with us? Uly. Things fmall as nothing, for requeft's Ulyf. Why, 'tis this naming of him does him fake only, [nefs; Here is a man-but 'tis before his face- [harm. He makes important: poffeft he is with great- I will be filent. And fpeaks not to himfelf, but with a pride That quarrels at felf-breath: imagin'd worth Holds in his blood fuch fwoln and hot discourse, That 'twixt his mental and his active parts, Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages, And batters down himself: what should I fay? He is fo plaguy proud, that the death tokens of Cry, "No recovery."

Aga. Let Ajax go to him.

Dear lord, go you, and greet him in his tent: 'Tis faid, he holds you well; and will be led, At your requeft, a little from himself.

[it

Ulf. O Agamemnon, let it not be fo!
We'll confecrate the fteps that Ajax makes,
When they go from Achilles: fhall the proud
lord

That bates his arrogance with his own feam,
And never fuffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts, fave fuch as do revolve
And ruminate himfelf-fhall he be worshipp'd
Of that we hold an idol inore than he?
No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
Must not fo ftale his palm, nobly acquir'd;
Nor, by my will, affubjugate his merit.

[les:

Ulyf. Know the whole world, he is as valiant. Ajax. A whorefon dog! that shall pauiter thus with us!

Would he were a Trojan!

Neft. What a vice were it in Ajax now-
Ulys. If he were proud?

Dio. Or covetous of praife?

Ulyf. Ay, or furly borne?

Dio. Or ftrange, or felf-affected?
Ulf. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of

fweet compofure :

Praise him that got thee, the that gave thee fucki
Fam'd be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice fam'd beyond, beyond all erudition;
But he that difciplin'd thy arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And give him half and for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
To finewy Ajax. I will not praife thy wisdom,
Which, like a bourn, a pale, a fhore, confines
Thy fpacious and dilated parts: here's Nettor,
Inftructed by the antiquary times-

As amply titled as Achilles is, by going to Achille muft, he is, he cannot but be wife

But