Three Essays on Shakespeare's Tragedy of King Lear

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Page 83 - This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars...
Page 127 - And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, The extravagant" and erring" spirit hies To his confine; and of the truth herein This present object made probation.
Page 41 - These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us : though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects : love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide : in cities, mutinies ; in countries, discord ; in palaces, treason ; and the bond cracked 'twixt son and father.
Page 90 - Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues Have humbled to all strokes : that I am wretched Makes thee the happier : — heavens, deal so still ! Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man, That slaves your ordinance, that will not see Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly ; So distribution should undo excess, And each man have enough.
Page 91 - Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these ? O, I have ta'en Too little care of this ! Take physic, pomp ; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, And show the heavens more just.
Page 85 - If that the heavens do not their visible spirits Send quickly down to tame these vile offences, It will come, Humanity must perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep.
Page 114 - ... soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep ; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes ; And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again. This is that very Mab, That plats the manes of horses in the night; And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.
Page 26 - Kent. Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass! He hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer.
Page 77 - Lear. Be your tears wet? Yes, 'faith. I pray, weep not: If you have poison for me I will drink it. I know you do not love me ; for your sisters Have, as I do remember, done me wrong : You have some cause, they have not. Cor. No cause, no cause.
Page 87 - The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us : The dark and vicious place where thee he got, Cost him his eyes.

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