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Infects unseen.

Confess yourself to Heaven;

Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;

And do not spread the compost* on the weeds,

To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue:
For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;

Yea, curb† and woo, for leave to do him good.

Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in

twain.

Ham. Then throw away the worser part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.

Good night, but go not to my uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this;
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: refrain to-night:
And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next more easy:
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night!
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you.-For this same lord,

[Pointing to Polonius.

I do repent: but Heaven hath pleased it so
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night!
I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

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SORROWS RARELY SINGLE.

O Gertrude, Gertrude,

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions!

THE DIVINITY OF KINGS.

Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person;
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,

That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.

DESCRIPTION OF OPHELIA'S DEATH.

Queen. There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; Therewith fantastic garlands did she make

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds,
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself,

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time, she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element; but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

OPHELIA'S INTERMENT.

Lay her i' the earth;

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh,

*Licentious.

+ Insensible.

May violets spring!-I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.

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This same

Grave-digger, A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

Ham. This ?

Grave-digger. E'en that.

[Takes the skull.

Ham. Alas poor Yorick !-I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in

my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen ? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour* she must come; make her laugh at that.

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CONTEMPT OF CASSIUS FOR CESAR.

I was born free as Cæsar; so were you:
We both have fed as well; and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he.
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tyber chafing with her shores,
Cæsar said to me, Dar'st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point? Upon the word,
Accouter'd as I was, I plunged in,

And bade him follow: so, indeed, he did.
The torrent roar'd; and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Cæsar cry'd, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.
I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder

*Complexion.

The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tyber

Did I the tired Cæsar: and this man

Is now become a god: and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.

He had a fever when he was in Spain,

And when the fit was on him I did mark

How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake:
His coward lips did from their colour fly;

And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose its lustre: I did hear him groan :

Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,

Alas, (it cried,)

As a sick girl.

Give me some drink, Titinius,

Ye gods, it doth amaze me,

A man of such a feeble temper* should

So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone.

ANTONY'S FUNERAL ORATION.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil, that men do, lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Cæsar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honourable man;
So they are all, all honourable men,)
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

* Temperament.

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