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What if I do not? as, indeed, I do not:
Yet, for I know thou art religious,

And hast a thing within thee, called conscience;
And twenty popish tricks and ceremonies,
Which I have seen thee careful to observe,-
Therefore I urge thy oath ;-For that, I know,
An idiot holds his bauble for a god,

And keeps the oath, which by that God he

swears;

To that I'll urge him:-Therefore, thou shalt

VOW

By that same god, what god soe'er it be,
That thou ador'st and hast in reverence,-
To save my boy, to nourish, and bring him up.

TITUS ANDRONICUS, A. 5, s. 1.

OBTAINING A MAID IN MARRIAGE
VERSUS MEN FOR WAR.

My
queen, and son, are gone to France for aid;
And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick
Is thither gone, to crave the French king's sister
To wife for Edward: If this news be true,

Poor queen and son, your labour is but lost;
For Warwick is a subtle orator,

And Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.

By this account, then, Margaret may win him;
For she's a woman to be pitied much:

Her sighs will make a battery in his breast;
Her tears will pierce into a marble heart;
The tiger will be mild, while she doth mourn;
And Nero will be tainted with remorse,

To hear, and see, her plaints, her brinish tears.
Ay, but she's come to beg; Warwick, to give:

She, on his left side, craving aid for Henry;
He, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.
She weeps, and says-her Henry is depos'd;
He smiles, and says-his Edward is install'd;
That she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no

more:

Whiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the

wrong,

Inferreth arguments of mighty strength;
And, in conclusion, wins the king from her,
With promise of his sister, and what else,
To strengthen and support king Edward's place.
O Margaret, thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul,
Art then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn.

K. HENRY VI., PART III., A. 3, s. 1.

SLEEPING INNOCENCE.

THE crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense
Repairs itself by rest: Our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd
The chastity he wounded.-Cytherea,

How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily! And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!

But kiss; one kiss!-Rubies unparagon'd,
How dearly they do't!-'Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus: The flame o'the
taper

Bows toward her; and would under-peep her lids,

To see the enclosed lights, now canopied

Under these windows: White and azure, lac'd With blue of heaven's own tinct.-But my design,

To note the chamber:-I will write all down :Such, and such, pictures :-There the window :Such

The adornment of her bed;-The arras, figures, Why, such, and such:-And the contents o'the story,

Ah, but some natural notes about her body,
Above ten thousand meaner moveables
Would testify, to enrich mine inventory:
O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!
And be her sense but as a monument,
Thus in a chapel lying!-Come off, come off;
[Taking off her bracelet.
As slippery, as the Gordian knot was hard!—
'Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly,
As strongly as the conscience does within,
To the madding of her lord. On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops.
I'the bottom of a cowslip. Here's a voucher,
Stronger than ever law could make: this secret
Will force him think I have pick'd the lock, and

ta'en

The treasure of her honour. No more.-To what end?

Why should I write this down, that's rivetted, Screw'd to my memory? She hath been reading late

The tale of Tereus, here the leaf's turn'd down,
Where Philomel gave up; I have enough:
To the trunk again, and shut the spring of it.
Swift, swift, you dragons of the night!—that
dawning

May bare the raven's eye: I lodge in fear;
Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.

CYMBELINE, A. 2, s. 2.

MISERIES OF CIVIL WAR.

SHAME and confusion! all is on the rout;
Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds
Where it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,
Whom angry heavens do make their minister,
Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part

Hot coals of vengeance!-Let no soldier fly :
He that is truly dedicate to war,

Hath no self-love; nor he, that loves himself,
Hath not essentially, but by circumstance,
The name of valour.-O, let the vile world end,
[Seeing his dead father.
And the premised flames of the last day
Knit earth and heaven together!

Now let the general trumpet blow his blast,
Particularities and petty sounds

To cease! Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,
To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve
The silver livery of advised age;

And, in thy reverence, and thy chair-days, thus
To die in ruffian battle ?-Even at this sight,
My heart is turn'd to stone; and, while 'tis mine,
It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;
No more will I their babes: tears virginal
Shall be to me even as the dew to fire;
And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims,
Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.
Henceforth, I will not have to do with pity:
Meet I an infant of the house of York,
Into as many gobbets will I cut it,
As wild Medea young Absyrtus did:
In cruelty will I seek out my fame.
Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house;

[Taking up the body. As did Eneas old Anchises bear,

So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders;

But then Æneas bare a living load,
Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine.

K. HENRY VI., PART II., A. 5, 8. 2.

OLD JUDGES THE MOST MERCIFUL.

AND the new deputy now for the duke,—
Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness;
Or whether that the body public be

A horse whereon the governor doth ride,
Who, newly in the seat, that it may know
He can command, lets it straight feel the spur:
Whether the tyranny be in his place,

Or in his eminence that fills it up,

I stagger in:-But this new governor
Awakes me all the enroll'd penalties,

Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall

So long, that nineteen zodiacks have gone round,
And none of them been worn; and, for a name,
Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
Freshly on me:-'tis surely, for a name.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE, A. 1, s. 3.

OMENS MAY BE NOTICED.

WOE, woe, for England! not a whit for me; For I, too fond, might have prevented this: Stanley did dream, the boar did raise his helm; But I disdain'd it, and did scorn to fly.

Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,

And startled, when he look'd upon the Tower,
As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.
O, now I want the priest that spake to me:

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