I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.-

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business, which informs

Thus to mine eyes. - Now o'er the one half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleeper; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design.
Moves like a ghost.- Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

[A bell rings.]

I go, and it is done: the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

[Exit.

T

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY

From Hamlet'

O BE, or not to be; that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?- To die—to sleep-
No more;- -and by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die; - to sleep; -
To sleep! perchance to dream;-

ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.— Soft you, now!
The fair Ophelia.- Nymph, in thy orisons,
Be all my sins remembered.

OTHELLO'S WOOING

From Othello'

ER father loved me; oft invited me:

HER

Still questioned me the story of my life,

From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I had passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To the very moment that he bade me tell it:

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field;

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' th' imminent deadly breach;

Of being taken by the insolent foe,

And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,

And portance in my travel's history;

Wherein of antres vast, and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak, such was the process;·

And of the cannibals that each other eat,

The anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear,
Would Desdemona seriously incline:

But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse. Which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour; and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively: I did consent;

And often did beguile her of her tears,

When I did speak of some distressful stroke

That my youth suffered. My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:

She swore,-in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:

She wished she had not heard it; yet she wished

That heaven had made her such a man: she thanked me;
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her. On this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used:

Here comes the lady; let her witness it.