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"Miranda. My husband, then?
Ferdinand. Ay, with a heart as willing
As bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand.
Miranda. And mine, with my heart in 't."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Ferdinand and Miranda, in The Tempest, act 3, sc. 1, l. 89-90.
The marriage bond for these lovers becomes paradoxically their freedom. |
"Ghost. The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown.
Hamlet. O my prophetic soul!
My uncle?
Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Ghost and Hamlet, in Hamlet, act 1, sc. 5, l. 39-41.
Hamlet has half-guessed what the ghost reveals, that old Hamlet was murdered by his brother, who then married his widow, a marriage regarded as incestuous in Shakespeare's time. |
"O! that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew;
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world.
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed;"
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British poet. Hamlet (I, ii). . .
The Unabridged William Shakespeare, William George Clark and William Aldis Wright, eds. (1989) Running Press. |
"Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Hamlet, in Hamlet, act 1, sc. 5, l. 95-7.
Hamlet's father's ghost has just left him with the command, "remember me"; "globe" means his head (or the Globe Theater, or the world?). |
"'A parted ev'n just between twelve and one, ev'n at the
turning o' the tide; for after I saw him fumble with the
sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his finger's
end, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as
pen, and 'a babbled of green fields."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Hostess Quickly, in Henry V, act 2, sc. 3, l. 12-6.
On the death of Falstaff; "'A parted" means he departed. |
"I' th' world's volume
Our Britain seems as of it, but not in' t;
In a great pool a swan's nest."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Imogen, in Cymbeline, act 3, sc. 4, l. 139.
She thinks of going into exile abroad. |
"Ambition should be made of sterner stuff."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British poet. Julius Caesar (III, ii).
NAWM-1. The Unabridged William Shakespeare, William George Clark and William Aldis Wright, eds. (1989) Running Press. |
"I speak to thee plain soldier. If thou canst love me for this, take me."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. King Henry, in Henry V, act 5, sc. 2, l. 149.
His method of making love to the French Princess Katherine. |
"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings!
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed—
All murdered; for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humored thus,
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and—farewell, king!"
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British poet. King Richard II (III, ii).
Yielding to despair, and foreshadowing his own death. The Unabridged William Shakespeare, William George Clark and William Aldis Wright, eds. (1989) Running Press. |
"This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs. If we grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Launcelot Gobbo, in The Merchant of Venice, act 3, sc. 5, l. 23-6.
Referring to the conversion of Jessica, Shylock's daughter, to Christianity. |
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William Shakespeare
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