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Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me?

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by William Shakespeare




  Shakespeare

  * * *

  IS THIS A DAGGER WHICH

  I SEE BEFORE ME?

  Edited by

  Michael Kerrigan

  Contents

  Two Gentlemen of Verona

  Nay, ’twill be this hour ere I have done weeping

  Even as one heat another heat expels

  To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn

  How use doth breed a habit in a man!

  The Taming of the Shrew

  Thus have I politicly begun my reign

  Henry VI Part 2

  Anjou and Maine are given to the French

  Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts

  Henry VI Part 3

  The army of the Queen hath got the field

  This battle fares like to the morning’s war

  Ill blows the wind that profits nobody

  Ay, Edward will use women honourably

  What! Will the aspiring blood of Lancaster

  Titus Andronicus

  Now climbeth Tamora Olympus’ top

  Henry VI Part 1

  My thoughts are whirlèd like a potter’s wheel

  Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice

  Richard III

  Now is the winter of our discontent

  Was ever woman in this humour wooed?

  Give me another horse! Bind up my wounds!

  Love’s Labour’s Lost

  And I, forsooth, in love!

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  How happy some o’er other some can be!

  Romeo and Juliet

  But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

  O Romeo, Romeo! – wherefore art thou Romeo?

  Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds

  Richard II

  I have been studying how I may compare

  King John

  Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!

  Henry IV Part 1

  I know you all, and will awhile uphold

  ’Tis not due yet – I would be loath to pay him before his day

  For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart!

  Embowelled? If thou embowel me to-day, I’ll give you

  Henry IV Part 2

  How many thousands of my poorest subjects

  I would you had but the wit; ’twere better than your

  Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow

  Much Ado About Nothing

  I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much

  Henry V

  Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls

  O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts

  Julius Caesar

  It must be by his death; and, for my part

  Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar

  O conspiracy

  O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth

  As You Like It

  Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love

  Hamlet

  O that this too too sullied flesh would melt

  O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?

  O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

  To be, or not to be – that is the question

  ’Tis now the very witching time of night

  O, my offence is rank. It smells to heaven

  Now might I do it pat, now ’a is a-praying.

  How all occasions do inform against me

  Twelfth Night

  I left no ring with her; what means this lady?

  Troilus and Cressida

  Peace, you ungracious clamours! Peace, rude sounds!

  Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice

  I am giddy; expectation whirls me round

  Measure for Measure

  What’s this? What’s this? Is this her fault or mine?

  When I would pray and think, I think and pray

  He who the sword of heaven will bear

  Othello

  This fellow’s of exceeding honesty

  It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul

  All’s Well That Ends Well

  O, were that all! I think not on my father

  Timon of Athens

  Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall

  O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth

  King Lear

  Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law

  I heard myself proclaimed

  Yet better thus, and known to be contemned

  Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are

  Macbeth

  The raven himself is hoarse

  If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well

  Is this a dagger which I see before me

  She should have died hereafter

  Antony and Cleopatra

  I will o’ertake thee, Cleopatra

  Pericles, Prince of Tyre

  How courtesy would seem to cover sin

  Yet cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven!

  Coriolanus

  O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn

  The Winter’s Tale

  I would there were no age between ten and three-and

  Cymbeline

  The crickets sing, and man’s o’er-laboured sense

  Is there no way for men to be, but women

  I see a man’s life is a tedious one

  Yes, sir, to Milford Haven. Which is the way?

  Most welcome, bondage! For thou art a way

  The Tempest

  All the infections that the sun sucks up

  Here’s neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather

  Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves

  Henry VIII

  So farewell – to the little good you bear me

  The Two Noble Kinsmen

  Banished the kingdom? ’Tis a benefit

  Why should I love this gentleman? ’Tis odds

  I am very cold, and all the stars are out too

  Follow Penguin

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  Born 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, England

  Died 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon, England

  This selection of Shakespeare’s soliloquies has been edited by Michael Kerrigan.

  SHAKESPEARE IN PENGUIN CLASSICS

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  All’s Well That Ends Well

  Antony and Cleopatra

  As You Like It

  The Comedy of Errors

  Coriolanus

  Cymbeline

  Four Comedies

  Four Histories

  Four Tragedies

  Hamlet

  Henry IV Part 1

  Henry IV Part 2

  Henry V

  Henry VI Part 1

  Henry VI Part 2

  Henry VI Part 3

  Henry VIII

  Julius Caesar

  King John

  King Lear

  Love’s Labour’s Lost

  Macbeth

  Measure for Measure

  The Merchant of Venice

  The Merry Wives of Windsor

  Much Ado About Nothing

  Othello

  Pericles

  Richard II

  Richard III

  Romeo and Juliet

  The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint

  The Taming of the Shrew

  The Tempest

  Timon of Athens

  Titus Andronicus

  Troilus and Cressida

  Twelfth Night

  The Two Gentlemen of Verona

  The Two Noble Kinsmen

  The Winter’s Tale

  Two Gentlem
en of Verona

  [II, iii, 1–30] Off on his travels with his master Proteus, Launce the servant-boy has had to say his fond farewells: all have been gratifyingly sad to see him go except for ‘man’s best friend’:

  Nay, ’twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial’s court. I think Crab my dog be the sourest-natured dog that lives. My mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity; yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble-stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting. Why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I’ll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father. No, this left shoe is my father. No, no, left shoe is my mother. Nay, that cannot be so neither. Yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole. This shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father. A vengeance on’t, there ’tis. Now, sir, this staff is my sister; for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand. This hat is Nan our maid. I am the dog. No, the dog is himself, and I am the dog. O, the dog is me, and I am myself. Ay, so, so. Now come I to my father: ‘Father, your blessing.’ Now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping. Now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O, that she could speak now like an old woman! Well, I kiss her. Why, there ’tis; here’s my mother’s breath up and down. Now come I to my sister. Mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear, nor speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears.

  [II, iv, 190–212] Previously in love with Julia, but now newly smitten with Silvia, his best friend’s girl, Proteus finds it as hard to comprehend his fickle feelings as he does to justify them:

  Even as one heat another heat expels,

  Or as one nail by strength drives out another,

  So the remembrance of my former love

  Is by a newer object quite forgotten.

  Is it my mind, or Valentine’s praise,

  Her true perfection, or my false transgression,

  That makes me reasonless to reason thus?

  She is fair; and so is Julia that I love –

  That I did love, for now my love is thawed;

  Which, like a waxen image ’gainst a fire,

  Bears no impression of the thing it was.

  Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,

  And that I love him not as I was wont.

  O, but I love his lady too too much,

  And that’s the reason I love him so little.

  How shall I dote on her with more advice

  That thus without advice begin to love her!

  ’Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,

  And that hath dazzlèd my reason’s light;

  But when I look on her perfections,

  There is no reason but I shall be blind.

  If I can check my erring love, I will;

  If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill.

  [II, vi, 1–38] His dilemma deepening with his passion, Proteus ties himself up into emotional knots, as he seeks to square the demands of love and loyalty:

  To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;

  To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;

  To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn.

  And e’en that power which gave me first my oath

  Provokes me to this threefold perjury:

  Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.

  O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn’d,

  Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!

  At first I did adore a twinkling star,

  But now I worship a celestial sun.

  Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;

  And he wants wit that wants resolvèd will

  To learn his wit t’exchange the bad for better.

  Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad

  Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferred

  With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths!

  I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;

  But there I leave to love where I should love.

  Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose;

  If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;

  If I lose them, thus find I by their loss:

  For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.

  I to myself am dearer than a friend,

  For love is still most precious in itself;

  And Silvia – witness heaven, that made her fair! –

  Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.

  I will forget that Julia is alive,

  Remembering that my love to her is dead;

  And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy,

  Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.

  I cannot now prove constant to myself

  Without some treachery used to Valentine.

  [V, iv, 1–12] A loser, it seems, in love, Valentine finds solace in solitude:

  How use doth breed a habit in a man!

  This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,

  I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.

  Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,

  And to the nightingale’s complaining notes

  Tune my distresses, and record my woes.

  O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,

  Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,

  Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall

  And leave no memory of what it was!

  Repair me with thy presence, Silvia:

  Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.

  The Taming of the Shrew

  [IV, i, 174–97] Petruchio unfolds his masterplan for breaking the ungovernable Katherine to his will – he’ll treat the ‘shrew’ as a haggard or hawk and tame her that way:

  Thus have I politicly begun my reign,

  And ’tis my hope to end successfully.

  My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,

  And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged,

  For then she never looks upon her lure.

  Another way I have to man my haggard,

  To make her come, and know her keeper’s call,

  That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites

  That bate and beat and will not be obedient.

  She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat.

  Last night she slept not, nor tonight she shall not.

  As with the meat, some undeservèd fault

  I’ll find about the making of the bed,

  And here I’ll fling the pillow, there the bolster,

  This way the coverlet, another way the sheets.

  Ay, and amid this hurly I intend

  That all is done in reverend care of her.

  And, in conclusion, she shall watch all night,

  And if she chance to nod I’ll rail and brawl,

  And with the clamour keep her still awake.

  This is a way to kill a wife with kindness,

  And thus I’ll curb her mad and headstrong humour.

  He that knows better how to tame a shrew,

  Now let him speak –’tis charity to show.

  Henry VI Part 2

  [I, i, 212–57] His own house outmanoeuvred by that of Lancaster, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, can only fume in impotent fury as Henry VI squanders the power and influence of the Crown he believes should by rights be his:

  Anjou and Maine are given to the French;

  Paris is lost; the state of Normandy

  Stands on a tickle point now they are gone.

  Suffolk concluded on the articles,

  The peers agreed, and Henry was well pleased

  To change two dukedoms for a duke’s fair daughter.

  I cannot blame them all; what is’t to them?

  ’Tis thine they give away,
and not their own.

  Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage

  And purchase friends and give to courtesans,

  Still revelling like lords till all be gone;

  While as the silly owner of the goods

  Weeps over them, and wrings his hapless hands,

  And shakes his head, and trembling stands aloof,

  While all is shared and all is borne away,

  Ready to starve, and dare not touch his own.

  So York must sit and fret and bite his tongue,

  While his own lands are bargained for and sold.

  Methinks the realms of England, France, and Ireland,

  Bear that proportion to my flesh and blood

  As did the fatal brand Althaea burnt

  Unto the prince’s heart of Calydon.

  Anjou and Maine both given unto the French!

  Cold news for me; for I had hope of France,

  Even as I have of fertile England’s soil.

  A day will come when York shall claim his own,

  And therefore I will take the Nevils’ parts

  And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,

  And, when I spy advantage, claim the crown,

  For that’s the golden mark I seek to hit.

  Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right,

  Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist,

  Nor wear the diadem upon his head,

  Whose church-like humours fits not for a crown.

  Then, York, be still awhile, till time do serve;

  Watch thou, and wake, when others be asleep,

  To pry into the secrets of the state,

  Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love

  With his new bride and England’s dear-bought queen,

  And Humphrey with the peers be fall’n at jars.

  Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,

  With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed,

  And in my standard bear the arms of York,

  To grapple with the house of Lancaster;

  And force perforce I’ll make him yield the crown,

  Whose bookish rule hath pulled fair England down.

  [III, i, 331–83] Sent to Ireland to put down an insurrection – and, of course, be removed to a safe distance from the English throne – York sees his opportunity at last to turn unhappiness to action. The King is effectively providing him with an army, he reflects, while he himself has other strategies already in hand, including a second uprising – this one a good deal closer to home:

  Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts,

 

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