Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.

THE HYPOCRISY OF ANGELO.

There my father's grave

Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die:
Thou art too noble to conserve a life

In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,-
Whose settled visage and deliberate word

Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth enmew
As falcon doth the fowl,-is yet a devil;
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.

VIRTUE AND GOODNESS.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

A BAWD.

The evil that thou causest to be done,
That is thy means to live: Do thou but think
What 'tis to cram a maw, or clothe a back,
From such a filthy vice: say to thyself,-
From their abominable and beastly touches
I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.
Canst thou believe thy living is a life

So stinkingly depending? Go, mend, go, mend.

ACT IV.

GREATNESS SUBJECT TO CENSURE.

*

O PLACE and greatness, millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee! volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious quests
Upon thy doings! thousand 'scapes of wit
Make thee the father of their idle dream,

And rack thee in their fancies.

Take, oh take, those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, but seal'd in vain.

Hide, oh hide, those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears:
But my poor heart first set free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.

SOUND SLEEP.

As fast lock'd up in sleep, as guiltless labour When it lies starkly * in the traveller's bones.

* Stifly.

O PRINCE, I conjure thee, as thou believ'st
There is another comfort than this world,
That thou neglect me not, with that opinion
That I am touch'd with madness: make not impos-
sible

That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible,
But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,
May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute,
As Angelo; even so may Angelo,

In all his dressings *, characts, titles, forms,
Be an arch-villain: believe it, royal prince,
If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,
Had I more name for badness.

* Habits and characters of office.

ACT I.

MIRTH AND MELANCHOLY.

Now, by two-headed Janus,

Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time :
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper;
And other of such vinegar aspect,

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

WORLDLINESS.

You have too much respect upon the world: They lose it, that do buy it with much care.

MEDIOCRITY.

For aught I see, they are as sick, that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing: It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

CHEERFULNESS.

Let me play the fool:

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,

Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?

Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish?

AFFECTED GRAVITY.

I tell thee what, Antonio,I love thee, and it is my love that speaks ;—

There are a sort of men, whose visages
Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond;
And do a wilful stillness* entertain,
With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say, I am Sir Oracle,
And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
O, my Antonio, I do know of these,
That therefore only are reputed wise,
For saying nothing.

HYPOCRISY.

Mark you this, Bassanio,
The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;
A goodly apple rotten at the heart;
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

LOQUACITY.

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice : His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and, when you have them, they are not worth the search.

SPECULATION MORE EASY THAN PRACTICE.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages, princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple.

* Obstinate silence.