The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs ? Who does me this?
Why, I should take it; for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-livered, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or, ere this,
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave;
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a fool, unpack my heart with words, -
A scullion!
upon 't! foh! About my brains! Humph, I have heard That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
Have, by the very cunning of the scene,
Been struck so to the soul, that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions;
For murder, though it hath no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father,
Before mine uncle; I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick; if he do blench,
I know my course. The spirit, that I have seen,
May be a devil, and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weakness, and my melancholy,
(As he is very potent with such spirits,)
Abuses me to damn me; I'll have grounds
More relative than this. The play 's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
LADY MACBETH'S SOLILOQUY.
GLAMIS thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised. - Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way.
Art not without ambition;
The illness should attend it.
What thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win; thou 'dst have, great Glamis,
That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it ;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,
Than wishest should be undone.” Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, come, you spirits
What tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctuous visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect, and it ! Come, you murd'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell!
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes ;
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, "Hold! hold!"
CATO'S SOLILOQUY ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
Ir must be so- Plato, thou reason'st well!.
Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longir g after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us:
'T is heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass !
The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it,
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,
(And that there is, all nature cries aloud
Through all her works,) he must delight in virtue;
And that which he delights in must be happy.
But when or where? This world- was made for Cæsar.
I'm weary of conjectures- this must end them
(Laying his hand on his sword.) Thus am I doubly arm'd. My death and life, My bane and antidote, are both before me. This in a moment brings me to an end; But this informs me I shall never die. The soul, secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years; But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the war of elements, The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.
LADY RANDOLPH'S SOLILOQUY
YE woods and wilds! whose melancholy gloom
Accords with my soul's sadness, and draws forth
The voice of sorrow from my bursting heart-
Farewell awhile. I will not leave you long;
For, in your shades, I deem some spirit dwells,
Who, from the chiding stream, or groaning oak,
Still hears and answers to Matilda's moan.
O Douglas! Douglas! if departed ghosts
Are e'er permitted to review this world,
Within the circle of that wood thou art;
And, with the passion of immortals, hear'st
My lamentation; hear'st thy wretched wife
Weep for her husband slain, her infant lost.
My brother's timeless death I seem to mourn,
Who perished with thee on this fatal day:
To thee I lift my voice; to thee address
The 'plaint, which mortal ear has never heard
Oh! disregard me not. Though I am cailed
Another's now, my heart is wholly thine:
Incapable of change, affection lies
Buried, my Douglas, in thy bloody grave.
OTHELLO'S VENGEFUL SORROW.
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance, of glorious war!
And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit ;
Farewell! Othello's occupation 's gone!-
O, that the slave had forty thousand lives:
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge!
Now do I see 't is true. Look here, Iago;
All my
fond love thus I do blow to heaven:
Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!
Yield up, O love, thy crown, and hearted throne,
To tyrannous hate! swell, bosom, with thy fraught,
For 't is of aspics' tongues!-
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont;
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Now, by yond' marble heaven,
In the due reverence of a sacred vow
I here engage my words.
MACBETH MEDITATING THE MURDER OF DUNCAN.
If it were done, when 't is done, then 't were well
It were done quickly. If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, -
We'd jump the life to come. - But in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but-teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He 's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed: then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off":
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed to every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.
A SOLILOQUY OF MACBETH.
Is this a dagger, which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind; a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
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