Religion to the Gods, Peace, Juftice, Truth,
Domestick Awe, Night-reft, and Neighbourhood,
Inftruction, Manners, Myfteries and Trades,
Degrees, Obfervances, Customs and Laws,
Decline to your confounding Contraries.
And yet Confufion live: Plagues incident to Man,
Your potent and infectious Fevers heap
On Athens, ripe for Stroke. Thou cold Sciatica,
Cripple our Senators, that their Limbs may halt
As lamely as their Manners. Luft and Liberty
Creep in the Minds and Marrows of our Youth,
That 'gainst the Stream of Virtue they may ftrive,"
And drown themfelves in Riot. Itches, Blains,
Sow all the Athenian Bofoms, and their Crop
Be general Leprofie: Breath infect Breath,
That their Society (as their Friendship) may
Be meerly Poifon. Nothing I'll bear from thee,
But Nakedness, thou deteftable Town.
Thus much of this, will make
Black, White; Foul, Fair; Wrong, Right;
Bafe, Noble; Old, Young; Coward, Valiant.
Ha,you Gods! why this? what this, you Gods? why, this
Will lug your Priests and Servants from your Sides;
Pluck ftout Mens Pillows from below their Heads.
Will knit and break Religions, blefs the accurs'd,
Make the hoar Leprofie ador'd, place Thieves,
give them Title, Knee, and Approbation
With Senators on the Bench: This is it
That makes the wappen'd Widow wed again;
She, whom the Spittle-Houfe, and ulcerous Sores,
Would caft the gorge at: this embalms and spices
To th' April day again.
What a God's Gold, that he is worshipt In a bafer Temple, than where Swice feed? 'Tis thou that rig'st the Bark, and plow'st the Foam, Setlest admir'd Reverence in a Slave ;
To thee be worship, and thy Saints for aye
Be crown'd with Plagues, that thee alone obey.
Of Lowlinefs, or Humility.
But 'tis a common Proof,
That Lowliness is young Ambition's Ladder,
Whereto the Climber upward turns his Face;
But when he once attains the upmost Round,
He then unto the Ladder turns his Back,
Looks in the Clouds, fcorning the base Degrees
By which he did afcend.
Brutus. In Julius Cafar.
Sham'st thou to fhew thy dang'rous Brow by Night,
When Evils are most free? O then, by Day
Where wilt thou find a Cavern dark enough,
To mask thy monstrous Vifage? Seek none, Confpiracy,
Hide it in Smiles and Affability:
For if thou path thy native Semblance on,
Not Erebus it felf were dim enough,
To hide thee from Prevention.
Methought I heard a Voice cry, fleep no_more ;
Macbeth doth murther fleep, the innocent fleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd Sleeve of Care,
The Death of each Day's Life, fore Labour's Bath,
Balm of hurt Minds, great Nature's fecond Course,
Chief Nourisher in Life's Feaft.
Life's but a walking Shadow, a poor Player,
That ftruts and frets his Hour upon
And then is heard no more. It is a Tale
Told by an Ideot, full of Sound and Fury
Signifying nothing.
But Virtue, as it never will be mov'd,
Tho' Lewdnefs court it in a fhape of Heav'n;
So Luft, tho' to a radiant Angel link'd,
Will fate it self in a Celestial Bed, and prey on Garbage.
Gkoft. Hamlet Prince of Denmark.
What a Piece of Work is Man! how noble in Reafon! how infinite in Faculty in Form and Moving, how exprefs and admirable! in Action, how like an Angel! in Apprehenfion, how like a God! the Beauty of the World, the Paragon of Animals; and yet to me, what is this Quinteffence of Duft? Man delights not me. Hamlet. Ibid.
I have heard, that guilty Creatures fitting at a Play,
Have, by the very Cunning of the Scene,
Been ftruck unto the Soul, that prefently
They have proclaim'd their Malefactions,
To be, or not to be, that is the Question:
Whether, 'tis nobler in the Mind, to fuffer
The Slings and Arrows of outragious Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of Troubles,
And by oppofing, end them. To dye, to fleep
I
No more; and by a fleep, to fay we end
The Heart-ach, and the thousand natural Shocks
That Fleh is Heir to; 'tis a Confummation
Devoutly to be wifh'd. To dye to fleep
To fleep, perchance to dream; ay, there's the Rub
For in that Sleep of Death, what Dreams may come,
When we have fhuffled off this mortal Coil,
Muft give us Paufe. There's the Respect
That makes Calamity of fo long Life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of Time,
The Oppreffor's Wrong, the Poor Man's Contumely,
The Pangs of defpis'd Love, the Law's Delay,
The Infolence 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 Fardles bear
To grunt and fweat under a weary Life,
But that the Dread of fomething after Death,
The undiscover'd Country, from whose Borne
No Traveller returns, puzzles the Will,
And makes us rather bear those Ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Be thou as chaste as Ice, as pure as Snow, thou shalt
If his chief Good and Market of his Time
Be but to fleep and feed? A Beaft, no more;
Sure he that made us with fuch large Discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That Capability and God-like Reafon
To ruft in us unus'd.
The needs of Life few.
O reafon not the need: Our bafest Beggars
Are in the pooreft thing fuperfluous;
Allow not Nature more than Nature needs,
Man's Life is cheap as Beafts. Thou art a Lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why Nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'ft,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. Lear, in King Lear.
Tempestuous Night.
Things that love Night,
Love not fuch Nights as thefe: the wrathful Skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their Caves: Since I was Man,
Such fheets of fire, fuch burfis of horrid Thunder,
Such groans of roaring Wind, and Rain, I never
Remember to have heard. Man's Nature cannot carry
Th' Affliction, not the Fear.
Kent. Ibid.
Is Man no more than this? Confider him well. Thou ow'ft the Worm no Silk, the Beast no Hide, the Sheep no Wool, the Cat no Perfume. Ha! Here's three on's are fophifticated. Thou art the thing it felf; unaccommodated Man is no more but fuch a poor, bare, forked Animal as thou art. Lear. Ibid.
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