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"My age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty but kindly."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Adam, in As You Like It, act 2, sc. 3. |
"In nature there's no blemish but the mind;
None can be called deformed but the unkind."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Antonio, in Twelfth Night, act 3, sc. 4, l. 367-8.
Mistaking Cesario (Viola) for Sebastian, he accuses him/her of being unnatural and ungrateful ("unkind"). |
"His tears run down his beard like winter's drops
From eaves of reeds."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Ariel, in The Tempest, act 5, sc. 1, l. 16-7.
Referring to old Gonzalo, whose tears show his pity for the madness afflicting Alonso. |
"He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier, and now is he turned orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Benedick, in Much Ado About Nothing, act 2, sc. 3, l. 18-21.
On Claudio's rhetorical flourishes now he has become a lover; "turned orthography" means become pedantic. |
"Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Brutus, in Julius Caesar, act 4, sc. 2. |
"See, Antony, that revels long a-nights,
Is notwithstanding up."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Caesar, in Julius Caesar, act 2, sc. 2, l. 116-7.
Greeting Antony. |
"Since you know you cannot see yourself
So well as by reflection, I, your glass,
Will modestly discover to yourself
That of yourself which yet you know not of."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Cassius, in Julius Caesar, act 1, sc. 2, l. 67-70.
Telling Brutus he can, like a mirror ("glass") reveal discreetly ("modestly discover") what Brutus fails to understand about himself. |
"When sorrows come they come not single spies,
But in battalions."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Claudius, in Hamlet, act 4, sc. 5, l. 76-7 (1604). |
"You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate
As reek a'th'rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air—I banish you!"
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Coriolanus, in Coriolanus, act 3, sc. 3, l. 120-3.
Sicinius, a tribune of the people, has just declared that Coriolanus should be banished. |
"Don Pedro. You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.
Beatrice. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Don Pedro and Beatrice, in Much Ado About Nothing, act 2, sc. 1, l. 283-6.
Beatrice has outsmarted Benedick, but she jokingly takes "put him down" literally. |
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William Shakespeare
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