PROSPERO: Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.
The Tempest, epilogue
WOLSEY: I have touch'd the highest point of
all my greatness;
And, from that full meridian of my glory,
I haste now to my setting: I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation m the evening,
And no man see me more.
Henry VIII, III, ii
GRIFFITH: Men's evil manners live in brass;
their virtues
We write in water.
Henry VIII, IV, ii
GARDINER: Affairs that walk,
As they say spirits do, at midnight have
In them a wilder nature than the business
That seeks dispatch by day.
Henry VIII, V, i
Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosèd here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones
And cursed be he that moves my bones.
Epitaph on Shakespeare's grave at Stratford