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Too oft before their buttons be disclosed;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth,
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then: best safety lies in fear;
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

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Weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent* ear you list† his songs;

36-i. 3.

Or lose your heart; or your chaste treasure open

To his unmastered importunity.

Fear it, fear it,

And keep you in the rear of your affection,

Out of the shot and danger of desire.

36-i. 3.

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Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless) libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read.||

645

Beauty heightened by goodness.

36-i. 3.

The hand, that hath made you fair, hath made you good: the goodness, that is cheap in beauty, makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, should keep the body of it ever fair. 5-iii. 1.

646

Grief alleviated by submission to Heaven.
Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not
In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid; now Heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid:

Your part in her you could not keep from death;
But Heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was her promotion;
For 'twas your heaven, she should be advanced:
And weep ye now, seeings he is advanced
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?

* Believing. § Careless.

† Listen to.

† Licentious.

|| Regards not his own lessons.

O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well.

647

35-iv. 5.

Conjugal affection needful in wives.

Fie, fie, unknit that threat'ning unkind brow;
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty, as frosts bite the meads;
Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds;
And in no sense is meet or amiable.

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12-v. 2.

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance: commits his body
To painful labour, both by sea and land;
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,
And craves no other tribute at thy hands,
But love, fair looks, and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.

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12-v. 2.

I am ashamed, that women are so simple
To offer war, where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world;
But that our soft conditions* and our hearts,
Should well agree with our external parts?

650

12-v. 2.

The same.

My noble father,

I do perceive here a divided duty:

To you, I am bound for life, and education;

My life and education, both do learn me

How to respect you; you are the lord of duty,

I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband;

And so much duty as my mother show'd

To you, preferring you before her father,

* Gentle tempers.

37-i. 3.

So much I challenge, that I may profess
Due to my lord.

651

The venomous effects of jealousy.
O beware of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock

The meat it feeds on.

37-iii. 3.

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But yet,

I do not like but yet, it does allay
The good precedence;* fye upon but yet:

But yet is as a gaoler to bring forth

Some monstrous malefactor.

653

30-ii. 5.

Violent delights have short duration.

Violent delights have violent ends,

And in their triumph die; like fire and powder, Which, as they kiss, consume: the sweetest honey

Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,

And in the taste confounds the appetite:

Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so,

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.t

654

35-ii. 5.

Delusion.

For love of grace,

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul;
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen.

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36-iii. 4.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this;

That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night:
And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next more easy:
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency.

* Preceding.

36-iii. 4.

† Precipitation produces mishap.

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Leave her to heaven,

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,

To prick and sting her.

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Thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
O, throw away the worser part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.
Grief not to be cherished.

658

Lay aside life-harming heaviness, And entertain a cheerful disposition.

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36-i. 5.

36-iii. 4.

17-ii. 2.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the foul* bosom of that perilous stuff,

Which weighs upon the heart?

15-v. 3.

660 Resignation to the will of God enjoined.

Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids

Seek for thy nobler father in the dust:

Thou know'st, 'tis common; all, that live, must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

36-i. 2.

661

The value of faithful servants.

If I

Had servants true about me ;† that bare eyes

To see alike mine honour, as their profits,

Their own particular thrifts, they would do that,

Which should undo more doing.

662

The severity of age to youth.

13-i. 2.

You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young; you measure the heat of our livers

with the bitterness of your galls.

19-i. 2.

663

Youth.

Deal mildly with his youth;

For young hot colts, being raged, do rage the more.

17-ii. 1.

* All the editions read stuff'd, which is evidently wrong. It should be foul bosom, as in As You Like It: "Cleanse the foul body of the infected world." -Act. ii. scene 7. † Eph. vi. 5-7.

664

Oppression to be avoided.

Press not a falling man too far; 'tis virtue:
His faults lie open to the laws; let them,
Not you correct them.

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Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,
Than fall, and bruise to death.

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25-iii. 2.

5-ii. 1.

Turn head, and stop pursuit: for coward dogs
Most spend their mouths,* when what they seem to

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I hate ingratitude more in a man,

Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,

Or any taint of vice, whose strong corruption

Inhabits our frail blood.

20-ii. 4.

4-iii. 4.

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Pray be counsell'd:

I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain, that leads my use of anger,

To better vantage.

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28-iii. 2.

Though all the world should crack their duty to you, And throw it from their soul; though perils did

Abound, as thick as thought could make them, and

Appear in forms more horrid; yet my duty,
As doth a rock against the chiding flood,

Should the approach of this wild river break,
And stand unshaken yours.

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25-iii. 2.

The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness,
And time to speak it in; you rub the sore,

When you should bring the plaster.

* Waste, exhaust.

1-ii. 1.

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