Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me?

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Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me? Page 6

by William Shakespeare


  Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay.

  Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel,

  Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.

  All may be well.

  [III, iii, 73–95] Hamlet, finding Claudius at prayer and vulnerable, senses a golden opportunity to kill him, but pauses, fearing he might thus save a soul whom he thinks deserves damnation:

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

  And now I’ll do’t. And so ’a goes to heaven.

  And so am I revenged. That would be scanned.

  A villain kills my father, and for that,

  I, his sole son, do this same villain send

  To heaven.

  Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

  ’A took my father grossly, full of bread,

  With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;

  And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?

  But in our circumstance and course of thought,

  ’Tis heavy with him! And am I then revenged,

  To take him in the purging of his soul,

  When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?

  No.

  Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.

  When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage,

  Or in th’incestuous pleasure of his bed,

  At game, a-swearing, or about some act

  That has no relish of salvation in’t –

  Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,

  And that his soul may be as damned and black

  As hell, whereto it goes.

  [IV, iv, 32–66] The news of a war to be fought over ownership of a tiny piece of territory sparks thoughts in Hamlet of his own failure to avenge even the most grievous of wrongs:

  How all occasions do inform against me

  And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,

  If his chief good and market of his time

  Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.

  Sure He that made us with such large discourse,

  Looking before and after, gave us not

  That capability and godlike reason

  To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be

  Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

  Of thinking too precisely on th’ event –

  A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom

  And ever three parts coward – I do not know

  Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do’,

  Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means

  To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me.

  Witness this army of such mass and charge,

  Led by a delicate and tender prince,

  Whose spirit, with divine ambition puffed,

  Makes mouths at the invisible event,

  Exposing what is mortal and unsure

  To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,

  Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great

  Is not to stir without great argument,

  But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

  When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,

  That have a father killed, a mother stained,

  Excitements of my reason and my blood,

  And let all sleep, while to my shame I see

  The imminent death of twenty thousand men

  That for a fantasy and trick of fame

  Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

  Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

  Which is not tomb enough and continent

  To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,

  My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

  Twelfth Night

  [II, ii, 17–41] When Viola, disguised as a boy, is sent a love token by the beautiful Olivia – who claims to be ‘returning’ it – she is struck by the power of a handsome form over female sensibilities:

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

  Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her!

  She made good view of me; indeed, so much

  That – methought – her eyes had lost her tongue,

  For she did speak in starts, distractedly.

  She loves me, sure, the cunning of her passion

  Invites me in this churlish messenger.

  None of my lord’s ring! Why, he sent her none.

  I am the man! If it be so – as ’tis –

  Poor lady, she were better love a dream.

  Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness

  Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.

  How easy is it for the proper false

  In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms.

  Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we,

  For such as we are made of, such we be.

  How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly;

  And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;

  And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.

  What will become of this? As I am man,

  My state is desperate for my master’s love.

  As I am woman – now alas the day,

  What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!

  O time, thou must untangle this, not I!

  It is too hard a knot for me t’ untie.

  Troilus and Cressida

  [I, i, 91–106] Though his city, Troy, is at war, Prince Troilus deems no dispute worthy of his Cressida-engrossed attention – his anger is saved for the difficult intermediary who is running his love affair, Lord Pandarus:

  Peace, you ungracious clamours! Peace, rude sounds!

  Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,

  When with your blood you daily paint her thus.

  I cannot fight upon this argument;

  It is too starved a subject for my sword.

  But Pandarus – O gods, how do you plague me!

  I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar,

  And he’s as tetchy to be wooed to woo

  As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.

  Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne’s love,

  What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we –

  Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:

  Between our Ilium and where she resides,

  Let it be called the wild and wandering flood,

  Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar

  Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.

  [I, ii, 281–95] Cressida too finds romance conducted through a go-between hard, but knows enough not to surrender any ground. Love, she senses, is as much a power-struggle as any war:

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

  He offers in another’s enterprise;

  But more in Troilus thousandfold I see

  Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be.

  Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing;

  Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.

  That she beloved knows naught that knows not this:

  Men prize the thing ungained more than it is.

  That she was never yet that ever knew

  Love got so sweet as when desire did sue;

  Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:

  ‘Achievement is command; ungained, beseech.’

  Then, though my heart’s content firm love doth bear,

  Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

  [III, ii, 16–27] All but overcome already by the anticipation of love, Troilus is sure he will be overwhelmed by love in fact – annihilated as effectively by pleasure, perhaps, as he might be by death in battle:

  I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.

  Th’ imaginary relish is so sweet

  That it enchants my sense. What will it be,

  When that the watery palate tastes indeed

  Love’s thrice-repurèd nectar? – death, I fear me,

  Swooning destruction, or some joy too fi
ne,

  Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness,

  For the capacity of my ruder powers.

  I fear it much; and I do fear besides

  That I shall lose distinction in my joys,

  As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps

  The enemy flying.

  Measure for Measure

  [II, ii, 162–87] Angelo, most pious of officials, claims he has resisted every other feminine temptation without difficulty, but is attracted despite himself to the chaste Isabella:

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

  The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?

  Ha?

  Not she, nor doth she tempt; but it is I

  That, lying by the violet in the sun,

  Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,

  Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be

  That modesty may more betray our sense

  Than woman’s lightness? Having waste ground enough,

  Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

  And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!

  What dost thou? Or what art thou, Angelo?

  Dost thou desire her foully for those things

  That make her good? O, let her brother live:

  Thieves for their robbery have authority

  When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,

  That I desire to hear her speak again,

  And feast upon her eyes? What is’t I dream on?

  O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,

  With saints dost bait thy hook. Most dangerous

  Is that temptation that doth goad us on

  To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet,

  With all her double vigour, art and nature,

  Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid

  Subdues me quite. Ever till now,

  When men were fond, I smiled and wondered how.

  [II, iv, 1–17] His unlicensed feelings for Isabella, fears Angelo, make a mockery of his religious faith:

  When I would pray and think, I think and pray

  To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words,

  Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,

  Anchors on Isabel: God in my mouth,

  As if I did but only chew His name,

  And in my heart the strong and swelling evil

  Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied,

  Is like a good thing being often read,

  Grown seared and tedious; yea, my gravity,

  Wherein, let no man hear me, I take pride,

  Could I with boot change for an idle plume

  Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,

  How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,

  Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls

  To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood;

  Let’s write ‘good Angel’ on the devil’s horn;

  ’Tis not the devil’s crest.

  [III, ii, 249–70] Angelo’s superior, the Duke of Vienna, is scathing about his deputy’s corruption – but more about his hypocrisy. He will be repaid in kind for his dishonesty that night, decides the Duke, when his spurned love Mariana comes to his bed in place of Isabella, whom Angelo has ordered to sleep with him in return for her brother’s life:

  He who the sword of heaven will bear

  Should be as holy as severe;

  Pattern in himself to know,

  Grace to stand, and virtue go;

  More nor less to others paying

  Than by self-offences weighing.

  Shame to him whose cruel striking

  Kills for faults of his own liking.

  Twice treble shame on Angelo,

  To weed my vice and let his grow.

  O, what may man within him hide,

  Though angel on the outward side?

  How may likeness made in crimes,

  Make a practice on the times,

  To draw with idle spiders’ strings

  Most ponderous and substantial things!

  Craft against vice I must apply.

  With Angelo tonight shall lie

  His old betrothed but despised:

  So disguise shall by th’ disguised

  Pay with falsehood false exacting,

  And perform an old contracting.

  Othello

  [III, iii, 255–74] Taken in as much by his own jealousy as by the lying insinuations of his malevolent ensign, Iago, the moor Othello is tragically ready to see his beloved Desdemona as his betrayer – no true falcon but an unruly ‘haggard’ hawk:

  This fellow’s of exceeding honesty,

  And knows all qualities, with a learnèd spirit

  Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard,

  Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings,

  I’d whistle her off and let her down the wind

  To prey at fortune. Haply, for I am black

  And have not those soft parts of conversation

  That chamberers have; or for I am declined

  Into the vale of years – yet that’s not much –

  She’s gone: I am abused, and my relief

  Must be to loathe her. O, curse of marriage!

  That we can call these delicate creatures ours

  And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad

  And live upon the vapour of a dungeon,

  Than keep a corner in the thing I love

  For others’ uses. Yet, ’tis the plague of great ones;

  Prerogatived are they less than the base.

  ’Tis destiny unshunnable, like death:

  Even then this forked plague is fated to us

  When we do quicken:

  [V, ii, 1–22] Convinced of his wife’s infidelity by no more compelling cause than his own frantic jealousy, Othello resolves to murder Desdemona:

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

  Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!

  It is the cause. Yet I’ll not shed her blood,

  Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,

  And smooth as monumental alabaster:

  Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.

  Put out the light, and then put out the light:

  If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

  I can again thy former light restore,

  Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,

  Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,

  I know not where is that Promethean heat

  That can thy light relume. When I have plucked thy rose,

  I cannot give it vital growth again,

  It must needs wither. I’ll smell it on the tree.

  He kisses her

  O, balmy breath, that dost almost persuade

  Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.

  Be thus when thou art dead and I will kill thee,

  And love thee after. One more, and this the last.

  So sweet was ne’er so fatal. I must weep.

  But they are cruel tears; this sorrow’s heavenly –

  It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.

  All’s Well That Ends Well

  [I, i, 78–97] Helena should, she knows, reserve her sorrow for the recent death of her beloved father – but she finds her overpowering love for Bertram displacing such filial feelings:

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

  And these great tears grace his remembrance more

  Than those I shed for him. What was he like?

  I have forgot him; my imagination

  Carries no favour in’t but Bertram’s.

  I am undone: there is no living, none,

  If Bertram be away. ’Twere all one

  That I should love a bright particular star

  And think to wed it, he is so above me.

  In his bright radiance and collateral light

  Must I be comforted, not in his sp
here.

  Th’ ambition in my love thus plagues itself:

  The hind that would be mated by the lion

  Must die for love. ’Twas pretty, though a plague,

  To see him every hour; to sit and draw

  His archèd brows, his hawking eye, his curls,

  In our heart’s table – heart too capable

  Of every line and trick of his sweet favour.

  But now he’s gone, and my idolatrous fancy

  Must sanctify his relics.

  Timon of Athens

  [IV, i, 1–41] Having squandered a fortune in hospitality and gifts, Timon finds himself forgotten by his so-called ‘friends’ when, exhausted by generosity, his money runs out. Bitterly disenchanted with the world of men, he takes refuge in the wild woods outside the city, but allows himself a single backward glance at his hometown as he leaves:

  Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall

  That girdles in those wolves, dive in the earth

  And fence not Athens. Matrons, turn incontinent.

  Obedience, fail in children. Slaves and fools

  Pluck the grave wrinkled Senate from the bench,

  And minister in their steads. To general filths

  Convert, o’th’instant, green virginity.

  Do’t in your parents’ eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast;

  Rather than render back, out with your knives

  And cut your trusters’ throats. Bound servants, steal.

  Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,

  And pill by law. Maid, to thy master’s bed;

  Thy mistress is o’th’brothel. Son of sixteen,

  Pluck the lined crutch from thy old limping sire,

  With it beat out his brains. Piety and fear,

  Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,

  Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,

  Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,

  Degrees, observances, customs, and laws,

  Decline to your confounding contraries

  And let confusion live. Plagues incident to men,

  Your potent and infectious fevers heap

  On Athens, ripe for stroke. Thou cold sciatica,

  Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt

  As lamely as their manners. Lust and liberty

  Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,

  That ’gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,

  And drown themselves in riot. Itches, blains,

  Sow all th’ Athenian bosoms, and their crop

 

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