Strong both against the deed: then, as his host, Who should against his murtherer 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, hors'd Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind.-I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, And falls on the other.
86.- Witches.-Act IV. Sc. 1.
A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder.
Enter the three Witches.
1st Witch. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
2nd Witch. Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd.
3rd Witch. Harpier cries :-'T is time, 't is time. 1st Witch. Round about the caldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone, Days and nights hast thirty-one Swelter'd venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i' the charmed pot! All. Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble.
2nd Witch. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake: Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble; Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble.
87.-Juliet's Soliloquy before taking the potion. Act IV. Sc. 3.
Jul. Farewell!-God knows, when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life:
I'll call them back again to comfort me ;- Nurse-What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.— Come, phial.-
What if this mixture do not work at all? Shall I be married then to-morrow morning? No, no;-this shall forbid it :- lie thou there.-
What if it be a poison, which the friar Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead; Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd, Because he married me before to Romeo? I fear, it is: and yet, methinks, it should not, For he hath still been tried a holy man: How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point! Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,— As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where, for these many hundred years, the bones Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd ; Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, Lies fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they say, At some hours in the night spirits resort ;- Alack, alack! it is not like, that I,
So early waking,-what with loathsome smells; And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth, That living mortals, hearing them, run mad ;— O! if I wake, shall I not be distraught, Environed with all these hideous fears? And madly play with my forefathers' joints? And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud? And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains ? O, look! methinks, I see my cousin's ghost Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body Upon a rapier's point :-Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo,-here's drink-I drink to thee. [She throws herself on the bed.
Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it;
My part of death no one so true Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown : A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
Twelfth Night. Act II. Sc. 4.
Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie :
There I couch when owls do cry,
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily:
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
The Tempest. Act V. Sc. 1.
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green : The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours: I must go seek some dew-drops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Midsummer Night's Dream. Act II. Sc. 1.
The forward violet thus did I chide ;
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells, In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd. The lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair: The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, One blushing shame, another white despair; A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both, And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath; But for his theft, in pride of all his growth A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see, But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee.
THE SHAKSPEARIAN DRAMATISTS.
Ben Jonson. 1573-1637. (Manual, p. 160.)
92. FROM THE SAD SHEPHERD; OR, A TALE OF ROBIN HOOD. Alken, an old Shepherd, instructs Robin Hood's men how to find a Witch, and how she is to be hunted.
Alken. Within a gloomy dimble she doth dwell,
Down in a pit o'ergrown with brakes and briars,
Close by the ruins of a shaken abbey,
Torn with an earthquake down unto the ground, 'Mongst graves, and grots, near an old charnel-house, Where you shall find her sitting in her fourm, As fearful, and melancholic, as that She is about; with caterpillars' kells, And knotty cobwebs, rounded in with spells. Then she steals forth to relief, in the fogs, And rotten mists, upon the fens and bogs, Down to the drowned lands of Lincolnshire;
To make ewes cast their lambs, swine eat their farrow; The housewife's tun not work, nor the milk churn; Writhe children's wrists, and suck their breath in sleep; Get vials of their blood; and where the sea Casts up his slimy ooze, search for a weed To open locks with, and to rivet charms, Planted about her, in the wicked seat Of all her mischiefs, which are manifold.
Wherewith she kills; where the sad mandrake grows, Whose groans are deathful; the dead numbing nightshade; The stupefying hemlock; adder's tongue,
And martegan; the shrieks of luckless owls,
We hear, and croaking night-crows in the air;
Green-bellied snakes; blue fire drakes in the sky;
And giddy flitter-mice with leather wings;
The scaly beetles, with their habergeons
That make a humming murmur as they fly;
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