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In the due reverence of a sacred vow

I here engage my words.

OTHELLO DESCRIBES THE MAGIC HANDKERCHIEF HE GAVE TO HIS WIFE.

THAT handkerchief

Did an Egyptian to my mother give;

She was a charmer, and could almost read

The thoughts of people: she told her, while she kept it, 'T would make her amiable, and subdue my father Entirely to her love; but if she lost it,

Or made a gift of it, my father's eye

Should hold her loathly, and his spirit should hunt
After new fancies: She, dying, gave it me;

And bid me, when my

fate would have me wive,

To give it her. I did so and take heed on 't,
Make it a darling like your precious eye;

To lose 't or give 't away, were such perdition
As nothing else could match.

DESDEMONA'S GRIEF AT LOSING OTHELLO'S LOVE.

ALAS, Iago,

What shall I do to win my lord again?

Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven,
I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:
If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love,
Either in discourse of thought, or actual deed;
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
Delighted them in any other form;
Or that I do not yet, and ever did,
And ever will, though he do shake me off
To beggarly divorcement,-love him dearly,
Comfort forswear me !

Unkindness may do much ;

And his unkindness may defeat my life,

But never taint my love.

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OTHELLO'S LOST AFFECTION, THROUGH JEALOUSY, LESS

BEARABLE THAN ANY OTHER AFFLICTION.

HAD it pleased Heaven

To try me with affliction; had He rain'd

All kinds of sores, and shames, on my bare head;

Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips;

Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes;

I should have found in some place of my soul
A drop of patience: but, alas! to make me
The fixed figure for the time of scorn

To point his slow and moving finger at ;-
Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
But there, where I have garner'd up my heart;
Where either I must live, or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a cistern, for foul toads

To knot and gender in! turn thy complexion there,
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin!
Ay, there, look grim as hell!

OTHELLO DISCOVERS HOW HE HAD BEEN WROUGHT UPON

BY THE VILLAIN IAGO, AND DIES LAMENTING
CREDULITY.

SOFT you; a word or two, before you go.

I have done the state some service, and they know 't;
No more of that :-I
pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one, that loved not wisely, but too well;

Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one, whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,

Richer than all his tribe; of one, whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their medicinable gum: Set you down this:
And say, besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
Beat a Venetian, and traduced the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him-thus.

HIS

[Stabs himself.

KING LEAR.

LEAR'S IMPRECATION ON HIS DAUGHTER GONERIL.

HEAR, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!

Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains, and benefits,
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child.

CORNWALL'S CENSURE ON THE HONEST KENT.
THIS is some fellow,

Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness; and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature: He cannot flatter, he!
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth:
An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain.

These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbour more craft, and more corrupter ends,
Than twenty silly ducking observants,

That stretch their duties nicely.

THE FOOL'S HOME-TRUTHS.

WE'LL set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no labouring in the winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes, but blind men; and there's not a nose among twenty but can smell him that's stinking. Let go thy hold, when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following; but the great one that goes upward, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again : I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.

That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack, when it begins to rain,
And leave thee in the storm.
But I will tarry; the fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly:

The knave turns fool that runs away;
The fool no knave, perdy.

THINGS SUPPOSED NEEDFUL ARE OFTEN SUPERFLUOUS.

O, REASON not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:

Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's: thou art a lady;

If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm.—But, for true need,—
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger!
And let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks!—No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both,

That all the world shall-I will do such things-
What they are yet I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep;
No, I'll not weep:-

I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,

Or ere I'll weep:-O, fool, I shall go mad!

OUTWARD MALADIES NOT EQUAL TO THOSE OF THE

MIND.

THOU think'st 't is much, that this contentious storm Invades us to the skin: so 't is to thee;

But where the greater malady is fix'd,

The lesser is scarce felt. Thou 'dst shun a bear;

But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea,
Thou'dst meet the bear i' the mouth.

free,

When the mind 's

The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
Save what beats there.-Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand,
For lifting food to 't?-But I will punish home :—
No, I will weep no more.-In such a night
To shut me out!-Pour on: I will endure :-
:-
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!-
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,—
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.-

LEAR MORALIZES ON THE WRETCHED CONDITION OF

EDGAR.

THOU wert better in a grave, than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies.-Is man no more than this? Consider him well: Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume:-Ha! here's three of us are sophisticated!Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.—Off, off, you lendings:-Come; unbutton here.— [Tearing off his clothes.

BLIND GLOSTER LED BY EDGAR TO DOVER.

Glo. Know'st thou the way to Dover?

Edg. Both stile and gate, horse-way and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits: Bless theė, good man's son, from the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once.

Glo. Here, take this purse, you whom the heaven's plagues

Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched,
Makes thee the happier :-Heavens, deal so still!
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,

That slaves your ordinance, that will not see

Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly;

So distribution should undo excess,

And each man have enough.-Dost thou know Dover? Edg. Ay, master.

Glo. There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep:

Bring me but to the very brim of it,

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