Scene from King Lear.'-The Country near Dover. Enter GLOSTER, and EDGAR dressed like a peasant. Glo. When shall we come to the top of that same hill? Horrible steep: No, truly. Edg. Why, then your other senses grow imperfect By your eyes' anguish. Glo. So may it be, indeed: Methinks thy voice is alter'd; and thou speak'st In better phrase and matter than thou didst. Edg. You are much deceiv'd; in nothing am I chang'd, Methinks, you are better spoken. Edg. Come on, sir; here's the place!-stand still.-How fearful And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low! The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air, Set me where you stand. Glo. Let go my hand. Here, friend, is another purse; in it, a jewel Well worth a poor man's taking: fairies, and gods, Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going. [Seems to go. With all my heart. Glo. O you mighty gods! Glo. If I could bear it longer, and not fall To quarrel with your great opposeless wills, Edg. Gone, sir. Farewell, large cock-boat [GLOSTER leaps, and falls along. And yet I know not how conceit may rob Yields to the theft: had he been where he thought, Glo. Away, and let me die. Edg. Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air, Thou hadst shiver'd like an egg: but thou dost breathe; Edg. From the dread summit of this chalky bourn: Look up a-height;—the shrill-gorg'd lark so far Glo. Alack, I have no eyes. Is wretchedness depriv'd that benefit, To end itself by death? 'Twas yet some comfort, And frustrate his proud will. Edg. Give me your arm: Up: so.-How is 't? Feel you your legs? You stand. Edg. This is above all strangeness: Upon the crown o' the cliff, what thing was that Glo. A poor unfortunate beggar. Glo. I do remember now: henceforth I'll bear Affliction, till it do cry out itself, 'Enough, enough,' and die. That thing you speak of, I took it for a man; often 'twould say, The fiend, the fiend: ' he led me to that place. shrill-throated Description of Night in a Camp.-From King Henry V.' From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fix'd sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch: Fire answers fire; and through their paly flames Each battle 2 sees the other's umber'd3 face: pale 1 At each is supposed to be a misprint. Various corrections have been proposed, as attach'd; on end; at length; at least. 2 Body of troops; an obsolete usage. 3 Darkened as if with umber-an iron ore of a dark-brown colour. Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Give dreadful note of preparation. The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll, The morning's danger; and their gesture sad So many horrid ghosts. O, now, who will behold Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent, And calls them-brothers, friends, and countrymen. How dread an army hath enrounded him; With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty; His liberal eye doth give to every one, Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses : They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade; Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: weariness dog-rose LX. Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, Each changing place with that which goes before, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, And Time, that gave, doth now his gift confound. LXXI. No longer mourn for me when I am dead Song from 'As You Like It? Blow, blow, thou winter wind, As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly: This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Though thou the waters warp, As friend remembered not. Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly: This life is most jolly. weave into ice Ben Jonson: 1573-1637. From a Poem to the Memory of Shakspeare. The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! I mean with great but disproportioned Muses : 5 Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, And shake a stage: or when thy socks were on, Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Neat Terence,10 witty Plautus,10 now not please; As they were not of nature's family. Yet must I not give nature all; thy art, My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part. 40 1 John Lyly, born about 1554, wrote masques and plays for court entertainments. He was the originator of the affected style of writing called Euphuism. 2 Thomas Kyd, a play-writer about 1588. Jonson speaks sarcastically of Kyd, for he was the reverse of lively. 3 Christopher Marlowe, the greatest of Shakspeare's precursors. He was the first to introduce blank verse on the stage. 4 Eschylus, the father of Greek tragedy, born 525 B.C. 5 Euripides, born 480 B.C., and Sophocles, born about 495 B.C., were the other two great masters of Greek tragedy. 6 Pacuvius, one of the most celebrated of the early Roman tragedians, born about 220 b.c. 7 Accius, another Roman tragic poet, born about 170 B.C. 8 Lucan, a Roman poet, born here, 38 A.D. 9 Aristophanes, a Greek comic writer, born 444 B.c. 10 Terence, born 195 B.C., and Plautus, born 254 B.C., Roman comic poets. |