Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love:
On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies 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 dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear; at which he starts, and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again.

Gloster's Soliloquy.

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds, that lower'd upon our house,

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings;
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbèd steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, —
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I,-that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of features by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,

That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them ;—
Why I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time
Unless to see my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other.
And, if king Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,
About a prophecy, which says, that G
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy,
And his physicians fear him mightily.
He cannot live, I hope, and must not die,
Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven.
I'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,
With lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;
And, if I fail not in my deep intent,

Clarence hath not another day to live:

Which done, God take king Edward to his mercy,
And leave the world for me to bustle in!

For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.
What though I kill'd her husband and her father,
The readiest way to make the wench amends,
Is to become her husband, and her father:
The which will I; not all so much for love,
As for another secret close intent,

By marrying her, which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horse to market:

Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns:
When they are gone, then must I count my gains.

Henry V.

BEFORE THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT.

What's he that wishes men from England? you, cousin Westmoreland ?—No, my fair cousin if we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honour. I pray thee, cousin, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold: nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; it yearns me not, if men my garments wear; such outward things dwell not in my desires! But, if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. No, 'faith, my coz, wish not a man from England: I would not lose so great an honour, as one man more, methinks would share from me, for the best hope I have! Oh do not wish one more rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, throughout my host, that he who hath no stomach to this fight may straight depart: his passport shall be made, and crowns of convoy put into his purse: we would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us. This day is call'd the feast of Crispian: he that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand a tip-toe when this day is named, and rouse him at the name of Crispian: he that shall live this day, and see old age, will yearly on the vigil feast his friends, and say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian : then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars and say,"These wounds I had on Crispin's day." Old men forget; yet shall not all forget, but they'll remember with advantages, what feats they did that day. Then shall our names, familiar in their mouths as household words, Harry the king, Bedford, and Exeter, Warwick, and Talbot, Salisbury, and Gloster, be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd: this story shall the good man teach his son; and Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered: we few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he to-day that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother! be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition and gentlemen in England now a-bed, shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here! and hold their manhoods cheap, while any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. All things are ready if our minds be so. You know your places: God be with you all!

The Speech of Belial.

From Milton's "Paradise Lost."

"I should be much for open war, O, Peers,
As not behind in hate, if what was urged
Main reason to persuade immediate war
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success;
When he who most excels in fact of arms,
In what he counsels and in what excels
Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair
And utter dissolution, as the scope

Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.

First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled
With armed watch, that render all access
Impregnable; oft on the bordering deep
Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing
Scout far and wide into the realm of Night,
Scorning surprise. Or could we break our way
By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise
With blackest insurrection, to confound
Heaven's purest light, yet our great enemy
All incorruptible would on his throne
Sit unpolluted, and the ethereal mould
Incapable of stain would soon expel
Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair: we must exasperate

The almighty victor to spend all his rage,
And that must end us, that must be our cure—
To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated Night,
Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,
Let this be good, whether our angry foe
Can give it, or will ever? How he can
Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.

Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,
Belike through impotence, or unawares,
To give his enemies their wish, and end
Them in his anger, whom his anger saves
To punish endless? 'Wherefore cease we, then?'
Say they who counsel war, we are decreed,
Reserved, and destined to eternal woe;
Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,
What can we suffer worse?? Is this then worst,
Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
What when we fled amain, pursued and strook
With Heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought
The deep to shelter us? this Hell then seemed
A refuge from those wounds.
Or when we lay
Chained on the burning lake? that sure was worse.
What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,
Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames? or from above
Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right hand to plague us? What if all
Her stores were opened, and this firmament
Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impending horrors, threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads; while we perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest shall be hurled,
Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey
Of racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains;
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,
Ages of hopeless end!

This would be worse.

War therefore, open or concealed, alike

My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile

With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye

Views all things at one view? He from Heaven's heighth

All these our motions vain sees and derides,

Not more almighty to resist our might

Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.