Mercy.

Well believe this,
No ceremony that to great ones ’longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace,
As mercy does...

A Sister pleading for a Brother's Life. Isab. So you must be the first, that gives this sentence; And he, that suffers : 0, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. . Could great men thunder, As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting, petty officer, Would use his heaven for thunder ; nothing but thunder.Merciful Heaven! Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Splitt’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, Than the soft myrtle.—0, but man, proud man! Dressed in a little brief authority; Most ignorant of what he's most assured, His glassy essence,-like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven, As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens, Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Fear of Death.
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling !-'tis too horrible !
The weariest and most loathèd worldly life,
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.

CYMBELINE.

Posthumus, Husband to IMOGEN, Daughter of CYMBELINE, King of

Britain, is banished to Italy.

Imogen and PISANIO.

Imogen. I would have broke mine eye-strings, cracked

them, but
To look upon him ; till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle:
Nay, followed him, till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air; and then
Have turned mine eye, and wept.—But, good Pisanio,
When shall we hear from him ?

Pisanio. Be assured, madam,
With his next vantage.

Imo. I did not take my leave of him, but had Most pretty things to say; ere I could tell him, How I would think on him, at certain hours,

Such thoughts, and such ; or I could make him swear
The shes of Italy should not betray
Mine interest, and his honour; or have charged him
At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,
To encounter me with orisons, for then
I am in heaven for him ; or ere I could
Give him that parting kiss, which I had set
Betwixt two charming words,-comes in my father,
And, like the tyrannous breathing of the north,
Shakes all our buds from grcwing.

Iachimo, an Italian, having a wager with Posthumus touching Imo

GEN's chastity, is concealed in a trunk in Imogen's chamber.

Imogen, reading in her bed; a Lady attending.
Imogen. What hour is it?
Lady. Almost midnight, madam.

Imo. I have read three hours then : mine eyes are weak :
Fold down the leaf, where I have left: To bed;
Take not

away

the
taper,

leave it burning;
And if thou canst awake by four o’the clock,
I pr'ythee, call me. Sleep hath seized me wholly.-
'To your protection I commend me, gods !
From fairies, and the tempters of the night,
Guard me, beseech ye !

[Sleeps. Iachimo (from the trunk]. The crickets sing, and

man's o'er-laboured sense
Repairs itself by rest : our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes, ere he wakened
The chastity he wounded.-Cytherea,
How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily!
And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!
But kiss; one kiss !—Rubies unparagoned,

How dearly they do't !-'Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus : the flame o' the taper
Bows toward her; and would under-peep her lids,
To see the enclosed lights, now canopied
Under these windows; white and azure, laced
With blue of heaven's own tinct.—But my design,
To note the chamber :-I will write all down :
Such and such pictures :—There the window :—Such
The adornment of her bed ;—the arras, figures,
Why, such and such :--And the contents o’the story, —
Ah, but some natural notes about her body,
Above ten thousand meaner movables
Would testify, to enrich mine inventory.
O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull

upon

her! And be her sense but as a monument, Thus in a chapel lying !--come off, come off ;

[Taking off her bracelet. As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard ! 'Tis mine, and this will witness outwardly, As strongly as the conscience does within, To the madding of her lord. On her left breast A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops I'the bottom of a cowslip: Here's a voucher, Stronger than ever law could make: this secret Will force him think I have picked the lock, and ta’en The treasure of her honour. No more.—To what end ? Why should I write this down, that's riveted, Screwed to my memory? She hath been reading late The tale of Tereus; here the leaf's turned down, Where Philomel gave up ;-I have enough: To the trunk again, and shut the spring of it. Swift, swift, you dragons of the night!-that dawning

May bare the raven's eye: I lodge in fear;
Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here ! [Clock.
One, two, three,—Time, time! [Goes into the trunk.

POSTHUMUS, convinced of IMOGEN’s perfidy, orders his Servant Pisanio

to slay her.

PISANIO and IMOGEN. Imo. Thou told'st me, when we came from horse, the

place Was near at hand :-ne’er longed my mother so To see me first, as I have now:- -Pisanio! Man ! Where is Posthumus ? What is in thy mind, That makes thee stare thus ? Wherefore breaks that sigh From the inward of thee? One, but painted thus, Would be interpreted a thing perplexed Beyond self-explication : put thyself Into a 'haviour of less fear, ere wildness Vanquish my staider senses. What's the matter? Why tender’st thou that paper to me, with A look untender? If it be summer news, Smile to’t before: if winterly, thou need'st But keep that countenance still.—My husband's hand ! That drug-damned Italy hath out-craftied him, And he's at some hard point.--Speak, man; thy tongue May take off some extremity, which to read Would be even mortal to me.

Pis. Please you, read; And you

shall find me, wretched man, a thing The most disdained of fortune.

Imo. (Reads.) Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath played false to my bed : the testimonies whereof lie bleeding in me. I speak not out of weak surmises; from proof as strong as my grief, and as certain as I expect