OBERON: Then, my queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after the night's shade:
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wandering moon.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, IV, i
HIPPOLYTA: I never heard so musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, IV, i
BOTTOM: I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, IV, i
BOTTOM: And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No more words: away! go, away!
A Midsummer Night's Dream, IV, ii
THESEUS: The lunatic, the lover and the
poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
THESEUS: The poet's eye, in fine frenzy
rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
THESEUS: Or in the night, imagining some
fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
THESEUS: That is some satire, keen and critical.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
THESEUS: "A tedious brief scene of young
Pyramus
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth."
Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief?
That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
A Midsummer Night's Dream,
PHILOSTRATE: A play there is, my lord, some
ten words long,
Which is as brief as I have known a play;
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
Which makes it tedious; for in all the play
There is not one word apt, one player fitted.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
PROLOGUE: That is the true beginning of our end.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
DEMETRIUS: It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse, my lord.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
THESEUS: The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
PUCK: If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
PUCK: Now to 'scape the serpent's
tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
CHORUS: From forth the fatal loins of these
two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life.
Romeo and Juliet, prologue
MONTAGUE: Away from light steals home my heavy
son
And private in his chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out
And makes himself an artificial night.
Romeo and Juliet, I, i
MONTAGUE: Black and portentous must this humour prove.
Romeo and Juliet, I, i
ROMEO: Love is a smoke made with the fume of
sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears.
Romeo and Juliet, I, i
ROMEO: What is it else? a madness most
discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
Romeo and Juliet, I, i
ROMEO: Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here.
Romeo and Juliet, I, i
SERVANT: I pray, sir, can you read?
ROMEO: Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
SERVANT: Perhaps you have learned it without book.
Romeo and Juliet, I, ii
BENVOLIO: Tut, you saw her fair, none else
being by:
Herself poised with herself in either eye:
But in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd
Your lady's love against some other maid
That I will show you shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well that now seems best.
Romeo and Juliet, I, ii
NURSE: And then my husband -- God be with his
soul,
A' was a merry man -- took up the child,
'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit,
Wilt thou not, Jule?'
Romeo and Juliet, I, iii
NURSE: An honour! Were not I thine only
nurse,
I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.
Romeo and Juliet, I, iii
LADY CAPULET: Read o'er the volume of young
Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen.
Romeo and Juliet, I, iii
ROMEO: I dream'd a dream to-night.
MERCUTIO: And so did I.
ROMEO: Well, what was yours?
MERCUTIO: That dreamers often lie.
Romeo and Juliet, I, iv
ROMEO: Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace.
Thou talk'st of nothing.
Romeo and Juliet, I, iv
MERCUTIO: True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air...
Romeo and Juliet, I, iv
ROMEO: I fear, too early: for my mind
misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels and expire the term
Of a despised life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
Romeo and Juliet, I, iv
CAPULET: Welcome, gentlemen. I have seen the
day
That I have worn a visor and could tell
A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,
Such as would please. 'Tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone.
Romeo and Juliet, I, v
ROMEO: O, she doth teach the torches to burn
bright.
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear --
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
Romeo and Juliet, I, v
ROMEO: If I profane with my unworthiest
hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand
too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Romeo and Juliet, I, v
JULIET: My only love sprung from my only
hate.
Too early seen unknown, and known too late.
Romeo and Juliet, I, v
CHORUS: But passion lends them power, time
means, to meet
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.
Romeo and Juliet, II, prologue
MERCUTIO: If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Romeo and Juliet, II, i
ROMEO: He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
ROMEO: But, soft! what light through yonder
window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
ROMEO: Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious
moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
ROMEO: See, how she leans her cheek upon her
hand.
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
JULIET: O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
JULIET: What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor
foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
JULIET: What's in a name? that which we call a
rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
JULIET: Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
ROMEO: With love's light wings did I
o'er-perch these walls,
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
JULIET: O, swear not by the moon, the
inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
JULIET: I have no joy of this contract
to-night:
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say 'It lightens.'
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
JULIET: My bounty is as boundless as the
sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
ROMEO: I would I were thy bird.
JULIET: Sweet, so would I:
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
JULIET: Good night, good night. Parting is
such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
FRIAR LAURENCE: The earth that's nature's
mother is her tomb;
What is her burying grave that is her womb.
Romeo and Juliet, II, iii
FRIAR LAURENCE: O, mickle is the powerful
grace that lies
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.
For naught so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give.
Romeo and Juliet, II, iii
FRIAR LAURENCE: Virtue itself turns vice being
misapplied;
And vice sometime's by action dignified.
Romeo and Juliet, II, iii
FRIAR LAURENCE: Be plain, good son, and homely
in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.
Romeo and Juliet, II, iii
FRIAR LAURENCE: Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
Romeo and Juliet, II, iii
MERCUTIO: Any man that can write may answer a letter.
Romeo and Juliet, II, iv
MERCUTIO: Now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature.
Romeo and Juliet, II, iv
NURSE: I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?
ROMEO: A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.
Romeo and Juliet, II, iv
JULIET: But old folks, many feign as they were
dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.
Romeo and Juliet, II, v