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Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear As huge as high Olympus.

Cas. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come! Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,

For Cassius is a-weary of the world:

Hated by one he loves-braved by his brother-
Checked like a bondman-all his faults observed,
Set in a note-book, learned and conned by rote,
To cast into my teeth-O, I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes!-There is my dagger,
And here my naked breast; within, a heart
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold!
If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth.
I that denied thee gold, will give my heart:
Strike, as thou didst at Cæsar; for I know,

When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.

Bru. Sheathe your dagger;

Be angry when you will, it shall have scope;
Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour.
O Cassius! you are yokèd with a lamb,
That carries anger as the flint bears fire;
Which, much enforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.

Cas. Hath Cassius lived

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,

When grief and blood ill-tempered vexeth him?

Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too.
Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.
Bru. And my heart too.

Cas. O Brutus!

Bru. What's the matter?

Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me, When that rash humour, which my mother gave me, Makes me forgetful?

Bru. Yes, Cassius; and, from henceforth,

When you are over-earnest with your Brutus,
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.

II.-MACDUFF, PRINCE MALCOLM, AND ROSSE.-Shakspeare.
Macd. See, who comes here?

Mal. My countryman; but yet I know him not.
Macd. My ever-gentle cousin!-welcome hither.

Mal. I know him now. Kind Powers! betimes remove

The means which make us strangers!

Rosse. Sir, amen.

Macd. Stands Scotland where it did?

Rosse. Alas, poor country,

Almost afraid to know itself!-it cannot

Be called our mother, but our grave; where nothing,

But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;

Where sighs and groans, and shrieks that rend the air,
Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy: the dead-man's knell

Is there scarce asked, for whom; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps--
Dying, or ere they sicken.

Macd. Oh, relation

Too nice, and yet too true!

Mal. What is the newest grief?

Rosse. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker;

Each minute teems a new one.

Macd. How does my wife?

Rosse. Why, well.

Macd. And all my children?

Rosse. Well too.

Macd. The tyrant has not battered at their peace?

Rosse. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave them.
Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes it?
Rosse. When I came hither to transport the tidings,

Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour

Of many worthy fellows that were out,
Which was to my belief witnessed the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot :--
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, and make women fight
To doff their dire distresses.

Mal. Be't their comfort

We're coming thither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;
An older, and a better soldier, none

That Christendom gives out.

Rosse. 'Would, I could answer

This comfort with the like! But I have words,
That would be howled out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not catch them.

Macd. What concern they?

The general cause? Or is it a fee-grief,
Due to some single breast?

Rosse. No mind that's honest

But in it shares some woe; though the main part

Pertains to you alone.

Macd. If it be mine,

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it!

Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound

That ever yet they heard.

Macd. Ah! I guess at it!

Rosse. Your castle is surprised, your wife and babes
Savagely slaughtered!-to relate the manner,

Were, on the quarry of these murdered deer,
To add the death of you.

Mal. Merciful Powers!

What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brow;
Give sorrow words; the grief, that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
Macd. My children too?-

Rosse. Wife. children, servants, all that could be found.
Macd. And I must be from thence! My wife killed too?

Rosse. I have said.

Mal. Be comforted.

Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,

To cure this deadly grief.

Macd. He has no children

-All my pretty ones?

Did you say all? what, all?-Oh, hell-kite!--all?
What! all my pretty ones, at one fell swoop?

Mal. Dispute it like a man.

Macd. I shall do so!

But I must also feel it as a man.

I cannot but remember such things were,

That were most precious to me: did heaven look on,
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,

They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls!

Mal. Be this the whetstone of your sword, let grief
Convert to wrath: blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue. But, gentle heaven!
Cut short all intermission: front to front,

Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him!--if he 'scape,
Then Heaven forgive him too!

III.-HENRY IV., NORTHUMBERLAND, AND HOTSPUR.-Shakspeare. King Henry. My blood hath been too cold and temperate, Unapt to stir at these indignities;

And you have found me; for, accordingly,

You tread upon my patience: but, be sure,

I will, from henceforth, rather be myself,

Mighty, and to be feared, than my condition,

Which has been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And, therefore, lost that title of respect

Which the proud soul ne'er pays, but to the proud.
North. My good lord,

Those prisoners, in your highness' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here, at Holmedon, took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied,
As is delivered to your majesty.

Hotspur. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new-reaped,
Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home;
He was perfumed like a milliner;

And, 'twixt his finger and his thumb, he held
A pouncet-box, which, ever and anon,

He gave his nose, and took't away again;—
And still he smiled and talked ;

And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He called them-untaught knaves, unmannerly,

To bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse,
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms,

He questioned me; among the rest, demanded
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf.

I, then, all smarting with my wounds-being galled,
To be so pestered with a popinjay--

Out of my grief, and my impatience,

Answered, neglectingly--I know not what-

He should, or he should not; for he made me mad,
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

And talk, so like a waiting gentlewoman,

Of guns, and drums, and wounds-O, save the mark!-
And telling me, "The sovereign'st thing on earth
Was spermaceti, for an inward bruise;"

And that

it was great pity--so it was

This villainous saltpetre should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good, tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly;" and, but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier!
-This bald, unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answered indirectly, as I said;

And, I beseech you, let not his report

Come current for an accusation,

Betwixt my love and your high majesty.

North. The circumstance considered, good my lord, Whatever Harry Percy then had said,

To such a person, and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest re-told,
May reasonably die, and never rise
To do him wrong, or any way impeach
What then he said, so he unsay it now.

King Henry. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners; But with proviso and exception

That we, at our own charge, shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;
Who, on my truth, hath wilfully betrayed
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against the great magician, bold Glendower.
Shall our coffers, then,

Be emptied, to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears,
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve;
For I shall never hold that man my friend,
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost,
To ransom home revolted Mortimer!

Hotspur. Revolted Mortimer!

He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,

But by the chance of war. To prove that true,

Needs no more but one tongue, for all those wounds,
Those mouthèd wounds, which valiantly he took,
When, on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,
In single opposition, hand to hand,

He did confound the best part of an hour,

In changing hardiment with great Glendower.

Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink,
Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;

Who, then, affrighted with their bloody looks,

Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,
Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.
Never did base and rotten policy

Colour her working with such deadly wounds;
And never could the noble Mortimer,
Receive so many, and all willingly.

Then, let him not be slandered with revolt!

King Henry. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou beliest him!

He never did encounter with Glendower.

Art not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth

Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.

Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me

As will displease you. My Lord Northumberland,
We license your departure--with your son.
Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it.

IV.—PRINCE HENRY AND SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.-Shakspeare.

Prince H. Welcome, Jack: where hast thou been?

Falstaff. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! Marry, and amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew nether stocks, and mend them, and foot them too. A plague of all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant?

Prince H. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter? pitifulhearted Titan, that melted at the sweet tale of the sun! If thou didst, then behold that compound.

Falstaff. You rogue, here's lime in this sack, too!-there is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man; yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it: a villainous coward! Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old. A bad world I say! I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or any thing. A plague of all cowards, I say still!

Prince H. How now, woolsack! what mutter you?

Falstaff. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom, with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects before me like a flock of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. Prince of Wales !

Prince H. Why, what's the matter?

Falstaff. Are you not a coward? Answer me to that.

You

Prince H. Why, ye fat paunch, an' ye call me coward, I'll stab thee. Falstaff. I call thee coward! I'll see thee hanged ere I call thee coward; but I would give a thousand pounds I could run as fast as

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