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HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY.

To be, or not to be, that is the question;-
Whether 't is 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 heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 't is a consummation

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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 déspised 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.

SHAKSPEARE.

SOLILOQUY OF HAMLET'S UNCLE.

Он, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven.
It hath the primal, eldest curse upon it!
A brother's murder! Pray I cannot,

Though inclination be as sharp as 't will,
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent:
And like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood;
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy,
But to confront the visage of offense?

And what's in prayer, but this twofold force,

To be forestalled, ere we come to fall,

Or pardoned, being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But oh, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? "Forgive me my foul murder !''
That cannot be; since I am still possessed

Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen
May one be pardoned, and retain the offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 't is seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law but 't is not so above;
There, is no shuffling; there, the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
Oh wretched state! oh bosom, black as death!
Oh limed soul, that struggling to be free,

Art more engaged! Help, angels! make assay !
Bow, stubborn knees; and heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!

All may be well.

SHAKSPEARK

THE DYING HORSE

HEAVEN! what enormous strength does death possess ' How muscular the giant's arm must be

To grasp that strong-boned horse, and, spite of all
His furious efforts, fix him to the earth!

His writhing fibers speak his inward pain,

His smoking nostrils speak his inward fire!

how cold!

Oh! how he glares !—and hark! methinks I hear
His bubbling blood, which seems to burst the veins ;
How still he's now; - how fiery hot,
How terrible, how lifeless!-all within
A few brief moments! My reason staggers!
Philosophy, thou poor enlightened dotard,
Who canst assign for everything a cause,
Here take thy stand beside me, and explain
This hidden mystery. Bring with thee
The headstrong atheist, who laughs at heaven,
And impiously ascribes events to chance,
To help to solve this wonderful enigma!
First, tell me, ye proud, haughty reasoners,
Where the vast strength this creature late possessed
Has fled to? How the bright sparkling fire,
Which flashed but now from these dim rayless eyes,
Has been extinguished? — Oh, he 's dead! you say -
I know it well-but how, and by what means?
What! not a word! I ask you once again;
How comes it that the wondrous essence,

Which gave such vigor to these strong-nerved limbs,
Has leapt from its inclosure, and compelled
This noble workmanship of nature thus
To sink into a cold inactive clod?

BLACKETI

ANTONY OVER THE DEAD BODY OF CESAR.

O MIGHTY Cæsar! dost thou lie so low!
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure ?-- Fare thee well.
I know not, gentlemen, what you intend,
Who else must be let blood, who else is rank;

If I myself, there is no hour so fit

As Cæsar's death-hour; nor no instrument

Of half that worth, as those your swords, made rich With the most noble blood of all this world.

I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard,

Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke,
Fulfill your pleasure. Live a thousand years,
I shall not find myself so apt to die;
Nc place will please me so, no mean of death,

As here by Cæsar, and by you cut off,
The choice and master spirits of this age.

That I did love thee, Cæsar, oh! 't is true;
If ther thy spirit look upon us now,

Shall it not grieve thee, dearer than thy death,
To see thy Antony making his peace,
Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes,
Most noble in the presence of thy corse?
Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds,
Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood,
It would become me better, than to close

In terms of friendship with thine enemies.

Pardon me, Julius !-here wast thou bayed, brave heart Here didst thou fall; and here thy hunters stand, Signed in thy spoil, and crimsoned in thy lethe.

O pardon me, thou piece of bleeding earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophecy,
Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue,-
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury, and fierce civil strife,
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy:
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,

That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quartered with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Cæsar's spirit ranging for revenge,
With Até by his side, come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,
Cry, "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

SIIAKSPEARE

A SOLILOQUY FROM HAMLET.

O, THAT this too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on 't! O fie! 't is an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this! But two months dead!—nay, not so much, not two. So excellent a king; that was, to this,

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Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? And yet, within a month,
Let me not think on 't; Frailty, thy name is woman.
A little month; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears; - why she, even she,
O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourned longer, - married with my uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules:

It is not, nor it cannot come to good;

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue!

SHAKSPEARE

HAMLET ON HIS OWN IRRESOLUTION.

OH, what a rogue and peasant slave am I !
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That from her working, all his visage wann'd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What would he dc,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech:

Make mad the guilty, and appall the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze, indeed,

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