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Iseb. Hark how I'll bribe you! Good my Ang. How! bribe me? [Lord, turn back Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold, Or stones whose rate is either rich or poor As fancy values them; but with true prayers, That shall be up at heaven, and enter there Ere the sun rise: prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal.

or mine?

The Power of virtuous Beauty. Isab. Save your honour! [Exit Isah. Ang. From thee; even from thy virtue !— What's this? What's this? Is this her fault, [ha! The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most? Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I, That, lying by the violet, in the sun, Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower, Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be, That inodesty may more betray our sense Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground Shall we desire to rase the sanctuary, [enough, And pitch our evils there? Oh, fie, fie, fie, What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo? Dost thou desire her foully, for those things That make her good? Oh, let her brother live: Thieves for their robbery have authority, When judges steal themselves. What! do I love That I desire to hear her speak again, [her, And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream Oh, cunning enemy, that to catch a saint, [on? With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangeIs that temptation, that does goad us on [rous To sin in loving virtue: ne'er could the strumpet,

With all her double vigor, art and nature, Once stir my temper: but this virtuous maid Subdues me quite.

True Repentance. [carry? Duke. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you Jul. I do; and bear the shame most patiently. Duke. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,

And try your penitence, if it be sound,
Or hollowly put on.

Jul. I'll gladly learn.

Duke. Love you the man that wrong'd you? Jul. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him. [ful act Duke. So then, it seems, your most offenceWas mutually committed? Jul. Mutually. [than his. Duke. Then was your sin of heavier kind

Jul. I do confess it, and repent, father. Duke. 'Tis meet so, daughter: but-lest you do repent

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,
Which sorrow is always to ourselves, not
Heaven;

Showing we would not spare Heaven, as we
But as we stand in fear-
[love it,
Jul. I do repent me as it is an evil;
And take the shame with joy.
Duke. There rest.

Love in a grave severe Governor.
When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To sev'ral subjects: Heav'n hath my empty

words:

Anchors on Isabel. Heav'n's in my mouth,
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
As if I did but only chew his name;
And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
Is like a good thing, being often read,
Of my conception: the state whereon I studied,
Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride,
Could I with boot, change for an idle plume
Which the air beats for vain. O place! →

form!

How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls To thy false seeming! Blood, thou still art

blood!

Let's write good angel on the devil's horn ;'Tis not the devil's crest.

A simile on the Presence of the beloved Object.
-O Heavens!

Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
Making both it unable for itself,
And dispossessing all my other parts
Of necessary fitness?

So play the foolish throngs with one that

swoons;

Come all to help him, and thus stop the air
By which he should revive: and even so
The gen'ral subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.

Fornication and Murder equalled.
Fie, these filthy vices!-It were as good,
To pardon him that hath from nature stol'n
A man already made, as to remit [image
Their saucy sweetness, that do coin Heaven's
In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made,
As to put mettle in restrained means,
To make a false one.

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self:

That is, were I under the terms of death,
Th'impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death as to a bed
That longing I have been sick for, ere I'd yield
My body up to shame.

Ang. Then must your brother die.
Isab. And 'twere the cheaper way:
Better it were a brother died at once,
Than that a sister, by redeeming him
Should die for ever.

Ang. Were not you then as cruel as the senThat have slander'd so? [tence you Isab. An ignominious ransom, and free parAre of two houses; lawful mercy sure, [don, Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

Self-interest palliates Faults.

Isab. It oft falls out, [what we mean. To have what we would have, we speak not I something do excuse the thing I hate, For his advantage that I dearly love.

Woman's Frailty.

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And yet runn'st tow'rd him still. Thou art not noble ;

For all the accommodations that thou bear'st Are nurs'd by baseness: thou art 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 art 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 striv'st to get;
And what thou hast, forgett'st. Thou art not
certain,

For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor; For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee. Friend thou hast

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[head,

The Terrors of Death most in Apprehension. Claud. Is there no remedy? Isab. None but such remedy as, to save a Would cleave a heart in twain.

Claud. But is there any?

Isab. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a fer'rous life shouldst entertain, And six or seven winters more respect Than a perpetual honor. Dar'st thou die? The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle that we tread upon, In corp'ral sufferance feels a pang as great As when a giant dies.

Resolution from a Sense of Honor. Claud. Why give you me this shame? Think you I can a resolution fetch From flow'ry tenderness? If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in my arms! [ther's grave Isab. There spake my brother; there my faDid utter forth a voice.

A sainted Hypocrite. Isah. Yes, thou must die: Thou art too noble to conserve a life [puty In base appliances. This outward sainted deWhose settled visage and delib'rate word Nips youth i' th' head, and follies doth emmew As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil;

His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.

Claud. The princely Angelo?

Isab. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
The damnedst body to invest and cover
In princely guards!

The Terrors of Death.

Isab. O, were it but my life,

I'd throw it down for your deliverance
As frankly as a pin!

Claud. Ah, Isabel!

Isab. What says my brother?
Claud. Death's a fearful thing.
Isab. And shamed life a hateful.

[where;
Claud. Ah, but to die, and go we know not
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the dilated spirit
To bathe in fiery floods; or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice :
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendant world; or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling! 'tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, imprisonment,
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.

Cowardly Apprehension of Death reproached.
Isab. Ŏ, faithless coward! O dishonest
wretch !

Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?
Is't not a kind of incest, to take life [think?
From thine own sister's shame? What should I
Heaven grant my mother play'd my father fair!
For such a warped slip of wilderness [ance
Ne'er issued from his blood.-Take my defi-
Die, perish might but my bending down

Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More or less to others paying,
Than by self offences weighing:
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!
Twice treble shame on Angelo,
To weed my vice and let his grow!
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
How may likeness made in crimes,
Mocking practice on the times,
To draw with idle spider's strings,
Most pond'rous and substantial things!
A beautiful Song.

Take, O take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,

Lights that do mislead the morn
But my kisses bring again;
Seals of love, but seal'd in vain.
Hide, O hide those hills of snow,

Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears;
But my poor heart first set free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.
Guilty Diligence.

With whispering and most guilty diligence,
In action all of precept, he did show me
The way twice o'er.

Greatness subject to Censure.

O place and greatness! millions of false eyes
Run with these false and most contrarious quests
Are struck upon thee; volumes of report
Upon thy doings: thousand 'scapes of wit
Make thee the father of their idle dream,
And rack thee in their fancies.

Execution finely expressed.
By eight to-morrow

Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed-Thou shalt be made immortal!
Oh, fie, fie, fie!

Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade;
Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd;
'Twere best thou diest quickly!

Virtue and Goodness."

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
A Bawd.

Fie, sirrah! a bawd- -a wicked bawd!
The evil that thou causest to be done,
That is thy means to live. Dost thou but think
What 'tis to cram a maw, or clothe a back,
From such a filthy vice? Say to thyself,
From their abominable and beastly touches
I drink, I eat, array myself, and live:-
Canst thou believe thy living is a life
So stinkingly depending! Go, mend; go mend!
Calumny unavoidable.

No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure 'scape: back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong,
Can tie the gall up in the sland'rous tongue?

Good Example necessary in Rulers.
He, who the sword of Heaven will bear,
Should be as holy as severe;

Sound Sleep.

As fast lock'd up in sleep, as guiltless labor When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones. Upright Governor supposed.

Prov. It is a bitter deputy.

Duke. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd Even with the stroke and line of his great

justice;

He doth with holy abstinence subdue
That in himself, which he spurs on his power
To qualify in others: were he meal'd
With that which he corrects, then were he
But this being so, he's just. [tyrannous:
Good Jailor.
This is a gentle provost; seldom, when
The steeled jailor is the friend of men.
Comfort from Despair.

But I will keep her ignorant of her good,
To make her heavenly comforts of despair,
When it is least expected.

Complaining useless.

Isab. Injurions world! most damned Angelo!
Duke. This nor hurts him, nor profits you

a jot:
Forbear it therefore, give your cause to Heaven!

Character of an Arch Hypocrite.
O, I conjure thee, prince, as thou believ'st
There is another comfort than this world,
That thou neglect me not, with that opinion
That I am touch'd with madness: make not
impossible
[sible
That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impos-
But one, the wickedest caitiff on the ground,
May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute,
As Angelo; even so may Angelo,

In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,
Be an arch villain: trust me, royal prince,
If he be less, he's nothing: but he's more,
Had I more names for badness.

Respect due to Place.
Respect to your great place!-and let the devil
Be sometimes honor'd for his burning throne.
Impossibility of Intercession.

Against all sense you do importune her. Should she kneel down, in mercy of this fact, Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break, And take her hence in horror!

Reformed Man sometimes best.

They say best men are moulded out of faults! And for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad; so may my husband. Intents more excusable than Acts. His act did not o'ertake his bad intent; And must be buried but as an intent; That perish'd by the way: thoughts are no Intents but merely thoughts.

[subjects;

§ 6. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

SHAKSPEARE. Natural Presentiment of Evil finely pointed out; with a Contrast of a cheerful and melancholy Man.

Ant. 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.

Salar. 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 over-peer the petty traffickers,
That curtsey to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.
Salan. Believe me, Sir, had I such ventures,
The better part of my affections would
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still forth,
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind:
Peering in maps, for ports, and piers, and roads:
And every object, that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,
Would make me sad.

Salar. My wind, cooling my broth, Would blow me to an ague, when I thought What harm a wind too great might do at sea. I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,

But I should think of shallows and of flats;
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
Vailing her high top lower than her ribs,
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church,
And see the holy edifice of stone,
And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream:
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks:
And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing? Shall I have the
thought

To think of this! and shall I lack the thought
That such a thing bechanc'd, would make me
But tell not me; I know Antonio
[sad?
Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune
for it,

My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year :
Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.
Sal. Why then you are in love..
Ant Fie, fie.

Sal. Not in love neither! Then let us say
you are sad,

Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy For you to laugh, and leap, and say you are

Janus,

merry, Because you are not sad. Now by two-headed Nature hath fram'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.

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[dible.

Silence is only commendable
In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not ven-
Generous and disinterested Friendship.
Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it:
And, if it stand, as you yourself still do,
Within the eye of honor, be assur'd
My purse, my person, my extremest means,
Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.

Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one
I shot his fellow of the self-same flight [shaft,
The self-same way, with more advised watch,
To find the other; and, by advent'ring both,
I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof,
Because what follows is pure innocence.
I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,
That which I owe is lost: but if you please
To shoot another arrow that self way

A Jew's Sanctity and Hypocrisy.

Shyl. When Jacob graz'd his uncle Laban's
sheep,

This Jacob from our holy Abraham was
(As his wise mother wrought in his behalf)
The third possessor; ay, he was the third.

Ant. And what of him? did he take interest?
Shyl. No, not take interest; not as you would
Directly interest; mark what Jacob did: [say,
When Laban and himself were compromis'd,
That all the eanlings, which were streak'd and
py'd,
[rank,
Should fall as Jacob's hire,—the ewes being
In end of autumn turned to the rams:

And when the work of generation was
Between those woolly breeders in the act,
The skilful shepherd peel'd me certain wands,
And, in the doing of the deed of kind,
He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes ;
Fall party-colour'd lambs, and those were
Who then conceiving, did in eaning time

Jacob's.

This was a way to thrive, and he was blest;
And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not.

Ant. This was a venture, Sir, that Jacob
serv'd for;

A thing not in his power to bring to pass,
But sway'd and fashion'd by the hand of Hea-
Was this inserted to make interest good? [ven.

Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt-Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?

As I will watch the aim,-or to find both,
Or bring your latter hazard back again,
And thankfully rest debtor for the first.
Ant. You know me well; and herein spend

but time,

To wind about my love with circumstance;
And, out of doubt, you do me now more wrong,
In making question of my uttermost,
Than if you had made waste of all I have.
Then do but say to me what I should do,
That in your knowledge may by me be done,
And I am prest unto it: therefore, speak.

-Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;
Neither have I money, nor commodity
To raise a present sum: therefore go forth,
Try what my credit can in Venice do;
That shall be rack'd even to the uttermost,
To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.
Go, presently inquire, and so will I,
Where money is; and I no question make
To have it of my trust, or for my sake.
A Jew's Malice.

Bass. This is signior Antonio.
Shyl. How like a fawning publican he looks!
I hate him, for he is a Christian: [Aside.
But more for that, in low simplicity,
He lends out money gratis, and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
If I can catch him once upon the hip
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our sacred nation; and he rails [gate,
E'en there, where merchants most do congre-
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe,
If I forgive him!

Shyl. I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast:
But note me, signior.-

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
Ant. Mark you this, Bassanio,
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!
The Jew's Expostulation.

Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my monies and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gabardine,
And all for use of that which is my own.
Well then, it now appears you need my
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Go to then ;-you come to me, and you say,
Shylock, we would have monies;" you say so;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard,
And foot me, as you spurn a stranger-cur
Over your threshold:-Monies is your suit.-
What should I say to you?-Should I not say,
Hath a dog money?-Is it possible

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-ог

A cur can lend three thousand ducats?"-
Shall I bend low, and, in a bondman's key,
With 'bated breath and whisp'ring humble-

ness,

Say this: "Fair Sir, you spit on me on Wed-
nesday last;

You spurn'd me such a day; another time
You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies
I'll lend you thus much monies?"

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