To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,

  Be it so she will not here before your grace

  Consent to marry with Demetrius,

  I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:

  As she is mine, I may dispose of her,

  Which shall be either to this gentleman

  Or to her death, according to our law

  Immediately provided in that case.

  THESEUS:

  What say you Hermia? Be advised, fair maid.

  To you your father should be as a god,

  One that composed your beauties, yea, and one

  To whom you are but as a form in wax,

  By him imprinted, and within his power

  To leave the figure or disfigure it.

  Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

  HERMIA:

  So is Lysander.

  THESEUS:

  In himself he is,

  But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,

  The other must be held the worthier.

  HERMIA:

  I would my father looked but with my eyes.

  THESEUS:

  Rather your eyes must with his judgement look.

  HERMIA:

  I do entreat your grace to pardon me.

  I know not by what power I am made bold,

  Nor how it may concern my modesty

  In such a presence here to plead my thoughts,

  But I beseech your grace that I may know

  The worst that may befall me in this case

  If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

  THESEUS:

  Either to die the death, or to abjure

  For ever the society of men.

  Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires.

  Know of your youth, examine well your blood,

  Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice,

  You can endure the livery of a nun,

  For aye to be in shady cloister mewed,

  To live a barren sister all your life,

  Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.

  Thrice blessed they that master so their blood

  To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;

  But earthlier happy is the rose distilled

  Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,

  Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

  HERMIA:

  So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,

  Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

  Unto his lordship whose unwished yoke

  My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

  The Winter’s Tale, Act I, Scene 2

  HERMIONE:

  If you would seek us,

  We are yours i’th’ garden. Shall’s attend you there?

  LEONTES:

  To your own bents dispose you. You’ll be found,

  Be you beneath the sky. I am angling now,

  Though you perceive me not how I give line.

  Go to, go to!

  How she holds up the neb, the bill to him,

  And arms her with the boldness of a wife

  To her allowing husband!

  Exeunt Polixenes and Hermione.

  Gone already.

  Inch-thick, knee-deep, o’er head and ears a forked one!

  Go play, boy, play. Thy mother plays, and I

  Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue

  Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamour

  Will be my knell. Go play, boy, play. There have been,

  Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now,

  And many a man there is, even at this present,

  Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by th’arm,

  That little thinks she has been sluiced in’s absence,

  And his pond fished by his next neighbour, by

  Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there’s comfort in’t,

  Whiles other men have gates, and those gates opened,

  As mine, against their will. Should all despair

  That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind

  Would hang themselves. Physic for’t there’s none.

  It is a bawdy planet, that will strike

  Where ’tis predominant; and ’tis powerful. Think it:

  From east, west, north, and south, be it concluded,

  No barricado for a belly. Know’t,

  It will let in and out the enemy

  With bag and baggage. Many thousand on’s

  Have the disease and feel’t not.

  The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2

  MIRANDA:

  If by your art, my dearest father, you have

  Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.

  The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,

  But that the sea, mounting to th’ welkin’s cheek,

  Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered

  With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel,

  Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,

  Dashed all to pieces! O, the cry did knock

  Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished.

  Had I been any god if power I would

  Have sunk the sea within the earth, or ere

  It should the good ship so have swallowed and

  The fraughting souls within her.

  PROSPERO:

  Be collected.

  No more amazement. Tell your piteous heart

  There’s no harm done.

  MIRANDA:

  O woe the day!

  PROSPERO:

  No harm.

  I have done nothing but in care of thee,

  Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who

  Art ignorant of what thou art, naught knowing

  Of whence I am, nor that I am more better

  Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell

  And thy no greater father.

  All’s Well That Ends Well, Act II, Scene 3

  KING:

  ’Tis only title thou disdain’st in her, the which

  I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,

  Of colour, weight, and heat, poured all together,

  Would quite confound distinction, yet stands off

  In differences so mighty. If she be

  All that is virtuous, save what thou dislik’st –

  ‘A poor physician’s daughter’ – thou dislik’st

  Of virtue for the name. But do not so.

  From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,

  The place is dignified by th’ doer’s deed.

  Where great additions swell’s, and virtue none,

  It is a dropsied honour. Good alone

  Is good without a name, vileness is so:

  The property by what it is should go,

  Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair.

  In these to nature she’s immediate heir,

  And these breed honour. That is honour’s scorn,

  Which challenges itself as honour’s born,

  And is not like the sire. Honours thrive

  When rather from our acts we them derive

  Than our foregoers. The mere word’s a slave,

  Debauched on every tomb, on every grave

  A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb

  Where dust and dammed oblivion is the tomb

  Of honoured bones indeed. What should be said?

  If thou canst like this creature as a maid

  I can create the rest. Virtue and she

  Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.

  BERTRAM:

  I cannot love her, nor will strive to do’t.

  KING:

  Thou wrong’st thyself. If thou shouldst strive to choose –

  HELEN:

  That you are well restored, my lord, I’m glad.

  Let the rest go.

  KING:

  Mine honour’s at the stake, which to defeat

  I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,

  Proud, scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,

  That dost in vile misprision shackle up

  My love and her desert; that canst not dream,

  We, poising us in her defective scale,

  Shall weigh to the beam; that wilt not know

  It is in us to plant thine honour where

  We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt,

  Obey our will, which travails in thy good;

  Believe not thy disdain, but presently

  Do thine own fortunes that obedient right

  Which both thy duty owes and our power claims,

  Or I will throw thee from my care for ever

  Into the staggers and the careless lapse

  Of youth and ignorance, both my revenge and hate

  Loosing upon thee in the name of justice

  Without all terms of pity. Speak. Thine answer.

  BERTRAM:

  Pardon, my gracious lord, for I submit

  My fancy to your eyes. When I consider

  What great creation and what dole of honour

  Flies where you bid it, I find that she, which late

  Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now

  The praised of the King, who, so ennobled,

  Is as ’twere born so.

  Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene 4

  ANGELO:

  Who will believe thee, Isabel?

  My unsoiled name, th’austereness of my life,

  My vouch against you, and my place i’th’ state,

  Will so your accusation overweigh

  That you shall stifle in your own report,

  And smell of calumny. I have begun,

  And now I give my sensual race the rein.

  Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite.

  Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes

  That banish what they sue for. Redeem thy brother

  By yielding up thy body to my will,

  Or else he must not only die the death,

  But thy unkindness shall his death draw out

  To ling’ring sufferance. Answer me tomorrow,

  Or by the affection that now guides me most,

  I’ll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,

  Say what you can, my false o’erweighs your true.

  Exit.

  ISABELLA:

  To whom should I complain? Did I tell this

  Who would believe me? O perilous mouths

  That bear in them one and the selfsame tongue

  Either of condemnation or aproof,

  Bidding the law make curtsy to their will,

  Hooking both right and wrong to th’appetite,

  To follow as it draws! I’ll to my brother.

  Though he hath fall’n by prompture of the blood,

  Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour

  That had he twenty heads to tender down

  On twenty bloody blocks, he’d yield them up

  Before his sister should her body stoop

  To such abhorred pollution.

  Then Isabel live chaste, and brother die.

  More than our brother is our chastity.

  Henry IV, Part II, Act IV, Scene 5

  PRINCE HARRY:

  I never thought to hear you speak again.

  KING HENRY:

  Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.

  I stay too long by thee. I weary thee.

  Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair

  That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours

  Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth,

  Thou seek’st the greatness that will overwhelm thee!

  Stay but a little, for my cloud of dignity

  Is held from falling with so weak a wind

  That it will quickly drop. My day is dim.

  Thou hast stol’n that which after some few hours

  Were thine without offence, and at my death

  Thou hast sealed up my expectation.

  Thy life did manifest thou loved’st me not,

  And thou wilt have me die assured of it.

  Thou hidst a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,

  Whom thou hast whetted on thy stony heart

  To stab at half an hour of my life.

  What, canst thou not forbear me half an hour?

  Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,

  And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear

  That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.

  Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse

  Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head.

  Only compound me with forgotten dust.

  Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.

  Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;

  For now a time is come to mock at form.

  Harry the Fifth is crowned. Up, vanity!

  Down, royal state! All you sage counsellors, hence!

  And to the English court assemble now

  From every region apes of idleness!

  Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum!

  Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,

  Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit

  The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?

  Be happy, he will trouble you no more.

  England shall double gild his treble guilt;

  England shall give him office, honour, might;

  For the fifth Harry from curbed licence plucks

  The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog

  Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.

  O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!

  When that my care could not withhold thy riots,

  What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?

  O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,

  Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants.

  PRINCE HARRY:

  O pardon me, my liege! But for my tears,

  The moist impediments unto my speech,

  I had forestalled this dear and deep rebuke

  Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard

  The course of it so far. There is your crown.

  (He returns the crown and kneels.)

  And He that wears the crown immortally

  Long guard it yours! If I affect it more

  Than as your honour and as your renown,

  Let me no more from this obedience rise,

  Which is my most true and inward duteous spirit

  Teacheth this prostrate and exterior bending.

  God witness with me, when I here came in

  And found no course of breath within your majesty,

  How cold it struck my heart. If I do feign,

  O, let me in my present wildness die,

  And never live to show th’incredulous world

  The noble change that I have purposed.

  Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,

  And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,

  I spake unto this crown as having sense

  And thus upbraided it: ‘The care on thee depending

  Hath fed upon the body of my father,

  Therefore thou best of gold art worst of gold.

  Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,

  Preserving life in medicine potable,

  But thou, most fine, most honoured, most renowned,

  Hast eat thy bearer up.’ Thus, my royal liege,

  Accusing it, I put it on my head,

  To try with it, as with an enemy

  That had before my face murdered my father,

  The quarrel of a true inheritor.

  But if it did infect my blood with joy

  Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride,

  If any rebel or vain spirit of mine

  Did with the least affection of a welcome

  Give entertainment to the might of it,

  Let God for ever keep it from my head,

  And make me as the poorest vassal is,

  That doth with awe and terror kneel to it.

  KING HENRY:

  O my son,

  God put it in thy mind to take it hence,

  That thou mightst win the more thy father’s love,

  Pleading so wisely in excuse of it!

  Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed,

  And hear, I think, the very latest counsel

  That ever I shall breathe.

  Prince Harry sits by the bed.

  God knows, my son,

  By what bypaths and indirect crook’d ways

  I met this crown; and I myself know well

  How troublesome it sat upon my head.

  To thee it shall descend with better quiet,

  Better opinion, better confirmation;

  For all the soil of the achievement goes

  With me into the earth. It seemed in me

  But as an honour snatched with boist’rous hand,

  And I had many living to upbraid

  My gain of it by their assistances,

  Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed

  Wounding supposed peace. All these bold fears

  Thou seest with peril I have answered;

  For all my reign hath been but as a scene

  Acting that argument. And now my death

  Changes the mood, for what in me was purchased

  Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort,

  So thou the garland wear’st successively.

  Yet though thou stand’st more sure than I could do,

  Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green,

  And all thy friends–which thou must make thy friends–

  Have but their stings and teeth newly ta’en out,

  By whose fell working I was first advanced,

  And by whose power I well might lodge a fear

  To be again displaced; which to avoid

  I cut them off, and had a purpose now

  To lead out many to the Holy Land,

  Lest rest and lying still might make them look

  Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,

  Be it thy course to busy giddy minds

  With foreign quarrels, that action hence borne out

  May waste the memory of the former days.

  More would I, but my lungs are wasted so

  That strength of speech is utterly denied me.

  How came I by the crown, O god forgive,

  And grant it may with thee in true peace live!

  PRINCE HARRY:

  My gracious liege,

  You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it to me,

  Then plain and right must my possession be,