Coriolanus , Act II, Scene 3
BRUTUS
(to the citizens)
:
Could you not have told him
As you were lessoned? When he had no power
But was a petty servant to the state
He was your enemy, ever spake against
Your liberties and the charters that you bear
I'th'body of the weal; and now arriving
A place of potency and sway o'th' state,
If he should still malignantly remain
Fast foe to th' plebeii, your voices might
Be curses to yourselves. You should have said
That as his worthy deeds did claim no less
Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature
Would think upon you for your voices and
Translate his malice towards you into love,
Standing your friendly lord.
SICINIUS
(to the citizens)
:
Thus to have said
As you were foreadvised had touched his spirit
And tried his inclination, from him plucked
Either is gracious promise, which you might,
As cause had called you up, have held him to,
Or else it would have galled his surly nature,
Which easily endures not article
Tying him to aught. So putting him to rage,
You should have ta'en th'advantage of his choler
And passed him unelected.
BRUTUS
(to the citizens)
:
Did you perceive
He did solicit you in free contempt
When he did need your loves, and do you think
That his contempt shall not be bruising to you
When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies
No heart among you? Or had you tongues to cry
Against the rectorship of judgement?
SICINIUS
(to the citizens)
:
Have you
Ere now denied the asker, and now again,
Of him that did not ask but mock, bestow
Your sued-for tongues?
THIRD CITIZEN
:
He's not confirmed, we may deny him yet.
SECOND CITIZEN
:
And will deny him.
I'll have five hundred voices of that sound.
FIRST CITIZEN
:
I twice five hundred, and their friends to piece 'em.
BRUTUS
:
Get you hence instantly, and tell those friends
They have chose a consul that will from them take
Their liberties, make them of no more voice
Than dogs that are as often beat for barking
As therefor kept to do so.
Othello , Act I, Scene 1
IAGO
:
I follow him to serve my turn upon him.
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly followed. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time much like his master's ass,
For naught but provender, and when he's old, cashiered.
Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are
Who, trimmed in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
And throwing but shows of service on their lords
Do well thrive by 'em, and when they have lined their coats
Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul,
And such a one do I profess myself; for, sir,
It is as sure that you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor I would not be Iago.
In following him I follow but myself.
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so for my peculiar end.
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.
Richard III , Act III, Scene 7
BUCKINGHAM
:
Know then, it is your fault that you resign
The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
The sceptred office of your ancestors,
Your state of fortune and your due of birth,
The lineal glory of your royal house,
To the corruption of a blemished stock,
Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts —
Which here we waken to our country's good —
The noble isle doth want her proper limbs.
Her face defaced with scars of infamy,
Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants
And almost shouldered in the swallowing gulf
Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion,
Which to recure we heartily solicit
Your gracious self to take on you the charge
And kingly government of this your land,
Not as Protector, steward, substitute,
Or lowly factor for another's gain,
But as successively, from blood to blood,
Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
For this, consorted with the citizens,
Your very worshipful and loving friends,
And by their vehement instigation,
In this just cause come I to move your grace.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
:
I cannot tell if to depart in silence
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof
Best fitteth my degree or your condition.
Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert,
Unmeritable, shuns your high request.
First, if all obstacles were cut away
And that my path were even to the crown,
As the ripe revenue and due of birth,
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
So mighty and so many my defects,
That I would rather hide me from my greatness —
Being a barque to brook no mighty sea —
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smothered.
But, God be thanked, there is no need of me,
And much I need to help you, were there need.
The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,
Which, mellowed by the stealing hours of time,
Will well become the seat of majesty
And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
On him I lay that you would lay on me,
The right and fortune of his happy stars,
Which God defend that I should wring from him.
BUCKINGHAM
:
My lord, this argues conscience in your grace,
But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
All circumstances well considered.
You say that Edward is your brother's son,
So say we too, but not by Edward's wife,
For first was he contract to Lady Lucy,
Your mother lives a witness to his vow,
And afterward, by substitute, betrothed
To Bona, sister to the King of France.
These both put off, a poor petitioner,
A care-crazed mother to a many sons,
A beauty-waning and distressed widow
Even in the afternoon of her best days,
Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
Seduced the pitch and height of his degree
To base declension and loathed bigamy.
By her in his unlawful bed he got
This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince.
More bitterly could I expostulate,
Save that for reverence to some alive
I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
This proffered benefit of dignity,
If not to bless us and the land withal,
Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
From the corruption of abusing times
Unto a lineal, true-derived course.
MAYOR
(to Richard)
:
Do, good my lord. Your citizens entreat you.
BUCKINGHAM
(to Richard)
:
Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffered love.
CATESBY
(to Richard)
:
O make them joyful. Grant their lawful suit.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
:
Alas, why would you heap this care on me?
I am unfit for state and majesty.
I do beseech you, take it not amiss,
I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you.
BUCKINGHAM
:
If you refuse it, as, in love and zeal,
Loath to depose the child, your brother's son,
As well we know your tenderness of heart
And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
Which we have noted in you to your kindred,
And equally indeed to all estates,
Yet know, whe'er you accept our suit or no,
Your brother's son shall never reign our king;
But we will plant some other in the throne,
To the disgrace and downfall of your house.
And in this resolution here we leave you.
Come, citizens. 'Swounds, I'll entreat no more.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
:
O do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.
Exeunt Buckingham and some others.
CATESBY
:
Call him again, sweet prince. Accept their suit.
(ANOTHER)
:
If you deny them, all the land will rue it.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
:
Will you enforce me to a world of cares?
Call them again.
Exit one or more.
I am not made of stone,
But penetrable to your kind entreats,
Albeit against my conscience and my soul.
Enter Buckingham and the rest.
Cousin of Buckingham, and sage, grave men,
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear her burden, whe'er I will or no,
I must have patience to endure the load.
But if black scandal or foul-faced reproach
Attend the sequel of your imposition,
Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof.
For God doth know, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire of this.
MAYOR
:
God bless your grace! We see it and will say it.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
:
In saying so you shall but say the truth.
BUCKINGHAM
:
Then I salute you with this royal title:
Long live kind Richard, England's worthy king!
(ALL BUT RICHARD)
:
Amen.
Troilus and Cressida , Act I, Scene 3
ULYSSES
:
Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down
And the great Hector's sword had lacked a master
But for these instances:
The specialty of rule hath been neglected,
And look how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain: so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
Th'unworthiest shows as fairly in the masque
[...]
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Infixture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in all line of order.
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol,
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other, whose med'cinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil
And posts like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents, what mutiny?
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth?
Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture. O when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
The enterprise is sick. How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenity and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe;
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead.
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too,
Then everything includes itself in power:
Power into will, will into appetite,
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking;
And this neglection of degree it is,
That by a pace goes backward in a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdained
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next, by him beneath. So every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation.
And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length:
Troy in our weakness lives, not in her strength.
Henry IV, Part II , Act III, Scene 1
KING HENRY
:
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep? O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state
And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why li'st thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case, or a common 'larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafing clamour in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Power in the family
The Merchant of Venice , Act III, Scene 2
PORTIA
:
You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am. Though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish
To wish myself much better, yet for you
I would be trebled twenty times myself,
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,
That only to stand high in your account
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account. But the full sum of me
Is sum of something which, to term in gross
Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised,
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself and what is mine to you and yours
Is now converted. But now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,
This house, these servants, and this same myself
Are yours, my lord's. I give them with this ring,
Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
Let it presage the ruin of your love,
And be my vantage to exclaim on you.
King Lear , Act I, Scene 1
LEAR
:
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
Give me the map there. Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom, and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age,
Conferring them on younger strengths while we
Unburdened crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife
May be prevented now. The princes France and Burgundy —
Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love —
Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,
And here are to be answered. Tell me, my daughters,
Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state,
Which of you shall we say doth love us most,
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge? Goneril,
Our eldest born, speak first.
GONERIL
:
Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter,
Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty,
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare,
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour,
As much as child e'er loved or father found,
A love that makes breath poor and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
CORDELIA
(aside)
:
What shall Cordelia speak? Love and be silent.
LEAR
(to Goneril)
:
Of all these bounds even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests and with champaigns riched,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady. To thine and Albany's issues
Be this perpetual. What says our second daughter?
Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall?
REGAN
:
I am made of that self mettle as my sister,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
Only she comes too short, that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys,
Which the most precious square of sense possesses,
And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear highness' love.
CORDELIA
(aside)
:
Then, poor Cordelia,
And yet not so, since I am sure my love's
More ponderous than my tongue.
LEAR
(to Regan)
:
To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,
No less in space, validity, and pleasure
Than that conferred on Goneril. (to Cordelia)
Now our joy,
Although our last and least, to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interessed: what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA
:
Nothing, my lord.
LEAR
:
Nothing?
CORDELIA
:
Nothing.
LEAR
:
Nothing will come of nothing.
Henry IV, Part II , Act II, Scene 3
LADY PERCY
:
O yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!
The time was, father, that you broke your word
When you were more endeared to it than now,
When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
Threw many a northward look to see his father
Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
There were two honours lost, yours and your son's.
For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!
For his, it stuck upon him as the sun
In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light
Did all the chivalry of England move
To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
He had no legs that practised not his gait;
And speaking thick, which nature made him blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant.
For those that could speak low and tardily
Would turn their own perfection to abuse
To seem like him. So that in speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,
In military rules, humours of blood,
He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
That fashioned others. And him, O wondrous him!
O miracle of men! Him did you leave,
Second to none, unseconded by you,
To look upon the hideous god of war
In disadvantage, to abide a field
Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
Did seem defensible; so you left him.
Never, O never do his ghost the wrong
To hold your honour more precise and nice
With others than with him. Let them alone.
The Marshal and the Archbishop are strong.
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
Today might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
Have talked of Monmouth's grave.
NORTHUMBERLAND
:
Beshrew your heart,
Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me
With new lamenting ancient oversights.
Richard III , Act IV, Scene 4
QUEEN MARGARET
:
I called thee then‘vain flourish of my fortune’,
I called thee then, poor shadow,‘painted queen’,
The presentation of but what I was,
The flattering index of a direful pageant,
One heaved a-high to be hurled down below,
A mother only mocked with two fair babes,
A dream of what thou wast, a garish flag
To be the aim of every dangerous shot,
A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble,
A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.
Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?
Where are thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?
Who sues, and kneels, and says‘God save the Queen’?
Where be the bending peers that flattered thee?
Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?
Decline all this and see what now thou art:
For happy wife, a most distressed widow;
For joyful mother, one that wails the name;
For queen, a very caitiff, crowned with care;
For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;
For she that scorned at me, now scorned of me;
For she being feared of all, now fearing one;
For she commanding all, obeyed of none.
Thus hath the course of justice whirled about
And left thee but a very prey to time,
Having no more but thought of what thou wert
To torture thee the more, being what thou art.
Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not
Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?
Now thy proud neck bears half my burdened yoke,
From which, even here, I slip my weary head,
And leave the burden of it all on thee.
Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance.
A Midsummer Night's Dream , Act I, Scene 1
EGEUS
:
Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,
This hath bewitched the bosom of my child.
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes
And interchanged love tokens with my child.
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With feigning voice verses of feigning love,
And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats; messengers
Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth.
With cunning hast thou filched my daughter's heart,
Turned her obedience which is due to me
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,
Which I with more than with a common pain
'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.
Power in war and violence
Julius Caesar , Act II, Scene 1
BRUTUS
:
It must be by his death. And for my part
I know no personal cause to spurn at him
But for the general. He would be crowned.
How that might change his nature, there's the question.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder
And that craves wary walking. Crown him: that!
And then I grant we put a sting in him
That at his will he may do danger with.
Th'abuse of greatness is when it disjoins
Remorse from power. And to speak truth of Caesar,
I have not known when his affections swayed
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. So Caesar may.
Then lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel
Will bear no colour for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities;
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg,
Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous
And kill him in the shell.
Henry V , Act IV, Scene 1
HARRY : I think the King is but a man, as I am. The violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me. All his senses have but human conditions. His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man, and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore, when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are. Yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army.
BATES : He may show what outward courage he will, but I believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck. And so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.
KING HARRY : By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King. I think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is.
BATES : Then I would he were here alone. So should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.
KING HARRY : I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's minds. Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King's company, his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.
WILLIAMS : That's more than we know.
BATES : Ay, or more than we should seek after. For we know enough if we know we are the King's subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us.
WILLIAMS : But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads chopped off in a battle shall join together at the latter day and cry all,‘We died at such a place’— some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it — who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.
KING HARRY : So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father, that sent him. Or if a servant, under his master's command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant's damnation. But this is not so. The King is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant, for they purpose not their deaths when they propose their services. Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrament of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. Some, peradventure, have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. War is his beadle. War is his vengeance. So that here men are punished for before breach of the King's laws, in now the King's quarrel. Where they feared the death, they have borne life away, and where they would be safe, they perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the King guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject's duty is the King's, but every subject's soul is his own.
Hamlet , Act IV, Scene 4
HAMLET
:
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 god-like 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!
Henry IV, Part II , Act I, Scene 3
LORD BARDOLPH
:
Yes, if this present quality of war,
Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot,
Lives so in hope, as in an early spring
We see th'appearing buds, which to prove fruit
Hope gives not so much warrant as despair
That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Which if we find outweighs ability,
What do we then but draw anew the model
In fewer offices, or at least desist
To build at all? Much more in this great work —
Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down
And set another up — should we survey
The plot of situation and the model,
Consent upon a sure foundation,
Question surveyors, know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else
We fortify in paper and in figures,
Using the names of men instead of men,
Like one that draws the model of an house
Beyond his power to build it, who, half-through,
Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.
Macbeth , Act I, Scene 7
MACBETH
:
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly. If th'assassination
Could trammel up the consequence and catch
With his surcease success, that but this blow
Might be the be-all and end-all, here;
But here upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgement here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions which, being taught, return
To plague th'inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends th'ingredience of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against
The deep damnation of his taking-off,
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself
And falls on th'other.
Richard III , Act V, Scene 5
HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND
:
Why then, 'tis time to arm, and give direction.
Much that I could say, loving countrymen,
The leisure and enforcement of the time
Forbids to dwell on. Yet remember this:
God and our good cause fight upon our side.
The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,
Like high-reared bulwarks, stand before our forces.
Richard except, those whom we fight against
Had rather have us win than him they follow.
For what is he they follow? Truly friends,
A bloody tyrant and a homicide;
One raised in blood, and one in blood established;
One that made means to come by what he hath,
And slaughtered those that were the means to help him;
A base, foul stone, made precious by the foil
Of England's chair, where he is falsely set;
One that hath ever been God's enemy.
Then, if you fight against God's enemy,
God will, in justice, ward you as his soldiers.
If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,
You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain.
If you do fight against your country's foes,
Your country's fat shall pay your pains the hire.
If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,
Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors.
If you do free your children from the sword,
Your children's children quites it in your age.
Then, in the name of God and all these rights,
Advance your standards! Draw your willing swords!
For me the ransom of this bold attempt
Shall be my cold corpse on the earth's cold face;
But if I thrive, to gain of my attempt,
The least of you shall share his part thereof.
Sound drums and trumpets, bold and cheerfully!
God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!
Henry VI, Part II , Act I, Scene 1
YORK
:
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,
Whileas the seely 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 Neville's parts,
And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,
And, when I spy advantage, claim the crown.
Then, York, be still a while till time do serve.
Watch thou, and wake when others be asleep,
To pry into the secrets of the state —
Till Henry, surfeit in the 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.
The Tempest , Act III, Scene 3
ARIEL
:
You are three men of sin, whom destiny,
That hath to instrument this lower world
And what is in't, the never surfeited sea,
Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island
Where man doth not inhabit, you 'mongst men
Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad,
And even with suchlike valour men hang and drown
Their proper selves.
Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio draw.
You fools! I and my fellows
Are ministers of fate. The elements
Of whom your swords are tempered may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemocked-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
One dowl that's in my plume. My fellow ministers
Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,
Your swords are now too massy for your strengths
And will not be uplifted.
Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio stand amazed.
But remember,
For that's my business to you, that you three
From Milan did supplant good Prospero —
Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit it,
Him and his innocent child — for which foul deed,
The powers, delaying not forgetting, have
Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,
Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,
They have bereft, and do pronounce by me
Ling'ring perdition — worse than any death
Can be at once — shall step by step attend
You and your ways, whose wraths to guard you from,
Which here in this most desolate isle else falls
Upon your heads, is nothing but heart's sorrow
And a clear life ensuing.
He ascends and vanishes in thunder. Then, to soft music, enter the spirits again and dance with mocks and mows, and they depart, carrying out the table.
PROSPERO
:
Bravely the figure of this harpy has thou
Performed, my Ariel; a grace it had devouring.
Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated
In what thou hadst to say. So with good life
And observation strange my meaner ministers
Their several kinds have done. My high charms work,
And these mine enemies are all knit up
In their distractions. They now are in my power.
Coriolanus , Act I, Scene 1
FIRST CITIZEN : We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good. What authority surfeits on would relieve us. If they would yield us but the superfluity while it were wholesome we might guess they relieved us humanely, but they think we are too dear. The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance. Our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes ere we become rakes, for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.
Henry IV, Part I , Act I, Scene 3
HOTSPUR
:
Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin King
That wished him on the barren mountains starve.
But shall it be that you that set the crown
Upon the head of this forgetful man,
And for his sake wear the detested blot
Of murderous subornation, shall it be
That you a world of curses undergo,
Being the agents or base second means,
The cords, the ladder, or the hangman, rather?
O pardon me that I descend so low
To show the line and the predicament
Wherein you range under this subtle King!
Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,
Or fill up chronicles in time to come,
That men of your nobility and power
Did gage them both in an unjust behalf,
As both of you, God pardon it, have done:
To put down Richard, that sweet, lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?
And shall it in more shame be further spoken
That you are fooled, discarded, and shook off
By him for whom these shames ye underwent?
No, yet time serves wherein you may redeem
Your banished honours and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again,
Revenge for the jeering and disdained contempt
Of this proud King, who studies day and night
To answer all the debt he owes to you
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.
Therefore I say —
WORCESTER
:
Peace cousin, say no more.
Richard III , Act IV, Scene 3
TYRELL
:
The tyrannous and bloody act is done —
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.
Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn
To do this piece of ruthless butchery,
Albeit they were fleshed villains, bloody dogs,
Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,
Wept like two children in their deaths' sad story.
‘O thus’, quoth Dighton,‘lay the gentle babes’;
‘Thus, thus’, quoth Forrest,‘girdling one another
Within their alabaster innocent arms.
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
And in their summer beauty kissed each other.
A book of prayers on their pillow lay,
Which once’, quoth Forrest,‘almost changed my mind.
But O, the devil’— there the villain stopped,
When Dighton thus told on,‘We smothered
The most replenished sweet work of nature,
That from the prime creation e'er she framed.’
Hence both are gone, with conscience and remorse.
They could not speak, and so I left them both,
To bear this tidings to the bloody king.
Enter King Richard.
And here he comes. All health my sovereign lord.
KING RICHARD
:
Kind Tyrell, am I happy in thy news?
TYRELL
:
If to have done the thing you gave in charge
Beget your happiness, be happy then,
For it is done.
KING RICHARD
:
But didst thou see them dead?
TYRELL
:
I did my lord.
KING RICHARD
:
And buried, gentle Tyrell?
TYRELL
:
The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them,
But where, to say the truth, I do not know.
KING RICHARD
:
Come to me, Tyrell, soon, at after-supper,
When thou shalt tell the process of their death.
Meantime, but think how I may do thee good,
And be inheritor of thy desire.
Farewell till then.
TYRELL
:
I humbly take my leave.
KING RICHARD
:
The son of Clarence have I pent up close.
His daughter meanly have I matched in marriage,
The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,
And Anne, my wife, hath bid this world goodnight.
Now for I know the Breton Richmond aims
At young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,
And by that knot looks proudly o'er the crown,
To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.
Timon of Athens , Act V, Scene 5
ALCIBIADES
:
Sound to this coward and lascivious town
Our terrible approach.
A parley sounds. The senators appear upon the walls.
Till now you have gone on and filled the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice. Till now myself and such
As slept within the shadow of your power
Have wandered with our traversed arms and breathed
Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,
When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
Cries of itself‘No more’. Now breathless wrong
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease
And pursy insolence shall break his wind
With fear and horrid flight.
FIRST SENATOR
:
Noble and young,
When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,
We sent to thee to give thy rages balm,
To wipe out our ingratitude with loves
Above their quantity.
SECOND SENATOR
:
So did we woo
Transformed Timon to our city's love
By humble message and by promised means.
We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
The common stroke of war.
FIRST SENATOR
:
These walls of ours
Were not erected by their hands from whom
You have received your grief, nor are they such
That these great tow'rs, trophies, and schools should fall
For private faults in them.
SECOND SENATOR
:
Nor are they living
Who were the motives that you first went out.
Shame that they wanted cunning, in excess,
Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,
Into our city with thy banners spread.
By decimation and a tithed death,
If thy revenges hunger for that food
Which nature loathes, take thou the destined tenth,
And by the hazard of the spotted die
Let die the spotted.
Richard II , Act III, Scene 3
BOLINGBROKE
(to Northumberland)
:
Noble lord,
Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle,
Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
Into his ruined ears, and thus deliver:
Henry Bolingbroke
Upon his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand
And sends allegiance and true faith of heart
To his most royal person, hither come
Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,
Provided that my banishment repealed
And lands restored again be freely granted.
If not, I'll use the advantage of my power,
And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood
Rained from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen,
The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke
It is such crimson tempest should bedrench
The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,
My stooping duty tenderly shall show.
Go, signify as much, while here we march
Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.
Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum,
That from this castle's tottered battlements
Our fair appointments may be well perused.
Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
With no less terror than the elements
Of fire and water when their thund'ring shock
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water.
The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain
My waters: on the earth, and not on him.
Coriolanus , Act IV, Scene 5
CORIOLANUS
:
My name is Caius Martius, who hath done
To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces,
Great hurt and mischief. Thereto witness may
My surname Coriolanus. The painful service,
The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood
Shed for my thankless country, are requited
But with that surname — a good memory
And witness of the malice and displeasure
Which thou shouldst bear me. Only that name remains.
The cruelty and envy of the people,
Permitted by our dastard nobles, who
Have all forsook me, hath devoured the rest,
And suffered me by th'voice of slaves to be
Whooped out of Rome. Now this extremity
Hath brought me to thy hearth. Not out of hope —
Mistake me not — to save my life, for if
I had feared death, of all the men i'th'world
I would have 'voided thee, but in mere spite
To be full quit of those my banishers
Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast
A heart of wreak in thee that wilt revenge
Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims
Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight,
And make my misery serve thy turn. So use it
That my revengeful services may prove
As benefits to thee; for I will fight
Against my cankered country with the spleen
Of all the under-fiends. But if so be
Thou dar'st not this, and that to prove more fortunes
Thou'rt tired, then, in a word, I also am
Longer to live most weary and present
My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice,
Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,
Since I have ever followed thee with hate,
Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,
And cannot live but to thy shame unless
It be to do thee service.
Henry IV, Part II , Act IV, Scene 1
WESTMORLAND
:
Then, my lord,
Unto your grace do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,
And countenanced by boys and beggary,
I say, if damned commotion so appeared
In his true native and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords
Had not been here to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection
With your fair honours. You, Lord Archbishop,
Whose see is by a civil peace maintained,
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath tutored,
Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself
Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace
Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war,
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet and a point of war?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
:
Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.
Briefly, to this end: we are all diseased,
And with our surfeiting and wanton hours
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it; of which disease
Our late King Richard, being infected, died.
But my most noble lord of Westmorland,
I take not on me here as a physician,
Nor do I as an enemy to peace
Troop in the throngs of military men,
But rather show a while like fearful war
To diet rank minds, sick of happiness,
And purge th'obstructions which begin to stop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance justly weighed
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We see which way the stream of life doth run,
And are enforced from our most quiet shore
By the rough torrent of occasion;
And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to show in articles,
Which long ere this we offered to the King,
And might by no suit gain our audience.
When we are wronged and would unfold our griefs
We are denied access unto his person,
Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
The dangers of the days but newly gone,
Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet appearing blood, and the examples
Of every minute's instance, present now,
Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms,
Not to break peace, or any branch of it,
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.
Power of love, between men and women
Troilus and Cressida , Act III, Scene 2
TROILUS
:
Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
CRESSIDA
:
Hard to seem won, but I was won, my lord,
With the first glance that ever — pardon me,
If I confess much you will play the tyrant.
I love you now, but till now not so much
But I might master it. In faith, I lie.
My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
Why have I blabbed? Who shall be true to us,
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But though I loved you well I wooed you not.
And yet, good faith, I wished myself a man,
Or that we women had men's privilege
Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,
For in this rapture I shall surely speak
The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,
Cunning in dumbness, in my weakness draws
My soul of counsel from me. Stop my mouth.
TROILUS
:
And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
He kisses her.
Sonnet 150
O from what power hast thou this powerful might
With insufficiency my heart to sway,
To make me give the lie to my true sight
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantise of skill
That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.
If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act III, Scene 1
VALENTINE
:
And why not death, rather than living torment?
To die is to be banished from myself,
And Silvia is my self. Banished from her
Is self from self, a deadly banishment.
What light is light if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by,
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night
There is no music in the nightingale.
Unless I look on Silvia in the day
There is no day for me to look upon.
She is my essence, and I leave to be
If I be not by her fair influence
Fostered, illumined, cherished, kept alive.
I fly not death to fly his deadly doom,
Tarry I here I but attend on death,
But fly I hence, I fly away from life.
Much Ado About Nothing , Act III, Scene 1
HERO
:
O god of love! I know he doth deserve
As much as may be yielded to a man.
But nature never framed a woman's heart
Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.
Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprising what they look on, and her wit
Values itself so highly that to her
All matter else seems weak. She cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is so self-endeared.
URSULA
:
Sure, I think so.
And therefore certainly it were not good
She knew his love, lest she'll make sport at it.
HERO
:
Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,
How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,
But she would spell him backward. If fair-faced,
She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;
If black, why nature, drawing of an antic,
Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;
If low, an agate very vilely cut;
If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;
If silent, why, a block moved with none.
So turns she every man the wrong side out,
And never gives to truth and virtue that
Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.
URSULA
:
Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.
HERO
:
No, not to be so odd and from all fashions
As Beatrice is cannot be commendable.
But who dare tell her so? If I should speak
She would mock me into air. O, she would laugh me
Out of myself, press me to death with wit.
Therefore let Benedick, like covered fire,
Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly.
It were a better death than die with mocks,
Which is as bad as die with tickling.
The Taming of the Shrew , Act IV, Scene 1
PETRUCCIO
:
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 ate no meat today, nor none shall eat.
Last night she slept not, nor tonight she shall not.
As with the meat, some undeserved 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 reverent 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.
‘The Rape of Lucrece’ , lines 281—301
As corn o'ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear
Is almost choked by unresisted lust.
Away he steals with open list'ning ear,
Full of foul hope and full of fond mistrust,
Both which as servitors to the unjust
So cross him with their opposite persuasion
That now he vows a league, and now invasion.
Within his thought her heavenly image sits,
And in the selfsame seat sits Collatine.
That eye which looks on her confounds his wits,
That eye which him beholds, as more divine,
Unto a view so false will not incline,
But with a pure appeal seeks to the heart,
Which once corrupted, takes the worser part,
And therein heartens up his servile powers
Who, flattered by their leader's jocund show,
Stuff up his lust as minutes fill up hours,
And as their captain, so their pride doth grow,
Paying more slavish tribute than they owe.
By reprobate desire thus madly led
The Roman lord marcheth to Lucrece' bed.
A Midsummer Night's Dream , Act V, Scene 1
THESEUS
:
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
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.
The poet's eye, in a 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.
Such tricks hath strong imagination
That if it would but apprehend some joy
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Or in the night, imagining some fear;
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
Romeo and Juliet , Act III, Scene 3
ROMEO
:
'Tis torture and not mercy. Heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand,
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
But Romeo may not; he is banished.
Flies may do this, but I from this must fly.
They are free men, but I am banished.
And sayst thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,
But‘banished’to kill me.‘Banished’?
O friar, the damned use that word in hell.
Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver and my friend professed,
To mangle me with that word‘banished’?
All's Well That Ends Well , Act I, Scene 1
HELEN
:
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 sphere.
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 arched 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.
Sonnet 57
Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require;
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But like a sad slave stay and think of naught
Save, where you are, how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.
Love's Labour's Lost , Act I, Scene 2
ARMADO : I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe, which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread. I shall be forsworn, which is a great argument of falsehood, if I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted? Love is a familiar; love is a devil. There is no evil angel but love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent strength. Yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause will not serve my turn: the passado he respects not, the duello he regards not. His disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valour; rust, rapier; be still, drum; for your manager is in love, yea, he loveth. Assist me some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise wit, write, pen, for I am for whole volumes, in folio.
Romeo and Juliet , Act I, Scene 1
ROMEO
:
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first create,
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?
BENVOLIO
:
No coz, I rather weep.
ROMEO
:
Good heart, at what?
BENVOLIO
:
At thy good heart's oppression.
ROMEO
:
Why, such is love's transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate to have it pressed
With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes,
Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
Antony and Cleopatra , Act IV, Scene 13
CLEOPATRA
:
No more but e'en a woman, and commanded
By such poor passion as the maid that milks
And does the meanest chores. It were for me
To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods,
To tell them that this world did equal theirs
Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but naught.
Patience is sottish, and impatience does
Become a dog that's mad. Then is it sin
To rush into the secret house of death
Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?
What, what, good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian?
My noble girls! Ah, women, women! Look,
Our lamp is spent; it's out. Good sires take heart.
We'll bury him and then what's brave, what's noble.
Let's do it after the high Roman fashion
And make death proud to take us. Come away.
This case of that huge spirit now is cold.
Ah, women, women! Come. We have no friend
But resolution, and the briefest end.
Sonnet 26
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage
To witness duty, not to show my wit;
Duty so great which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare in wanting words to show it,
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And puts apparel on my tattered loving,
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect.
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.
The Taming of the Shrew , Act V, Scene 2
PETRUCCIO
:
Katherine, I charge thee tell these headstrong women
What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.
WIDOW
:
Come, come, you're mocking. We will have no telling.
PETRUCCIO
:
Come on, I say, and first begin with her.
WIDOW
:
She shall not.
PETRUCCIO
:
I say she shall, and first begin with her.
KATHERINE
:
Fie, fie, unknit that threat'ning, unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty,
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, and the day in cold,
While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience,
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul, contending rebel,
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace,
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, your froward and unable worms,
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot,
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.
Troilus and Cressida , Act II, Scene 2
TROILUS
:
I take today a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will,
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgement. How may I avoid
Although my will distaste what it elected
The wife I chose? There can be no evasion
To blench from this and to stand firm by honour.
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant
When we have spoiled them, nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in unrespective sewer
Because we now are full. It was thought meet
Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks;
Your breath of full consent bellied his sails,
The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce
And did him service. He touched the ports desired
And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive
He brought a Grecian Queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo's and makes stale the morning.
Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt.
Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl
Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships
And turned crowned kings to merchants.
If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went,
As you must needs, for you all cried,‘Go, go!’
If you'll confess he brought home noble prize,
As you must needs, for you all clapped your hands
And cried,‘Inestimable!’Why do you now
The issue of your proper wisdoms rate
And do a deed that never fortune did:
Beggar the estimation which you prized
Richer than sea and land? O theft most base,
That we have stol'n what we fear to keep!
But thieves unworthy of a thing so stol'n,
That in their country did them that disgrace
We fear to warrant in our native place.
Antony and Cleopatra , Act I, Scene 1
PHILO
:
Nay, but this dotage of our General's
O'erflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes
That o'er the files and musters of the war
Have glowed like plated Mars, now bend, now turn
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front. His captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy's lust.
Flourish. Enter Antony, Cleopatra, her ladies, the train, with eunuchs fanning her.
Look where they come.
Take but good note and you shall see in him
The triple pillar of the world transformed
Into a strumpet's fool. Behold and see.
CLEOPATRA (to Antony) : If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
ANTONY
:
There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
Othello , Act I, Scene 3
RODERIGO : What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it.
IAGO : Virtue? A fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners, so that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry, why, the power and incorrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the beam of our lives had not one scale of reason to peise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or scion.
Sonnet 131
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel,
For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan.
To say they err I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it to myself alone;
And to be sure that is not false I swear
A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,
One on another's neck do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgement's place.
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander as I think proceeds.
图书在版编目(CIP)数据
会饮篇:英汉对照/(古希腊)柏拉图著;孙平华,储春艳译.—北京:中译出版社,2015.11
(企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想)
ISBN 978-7-5001-4346-8
Ⅰ.①会… Ⅱ.①柏… ②孙… ③储… Ⅲ.①柏拉图(前427~前347)—美学思想—英、汉 Ⅳ.①B502.232 ②B83-095.45
中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字(2015)第267708号
(著作权合同登记:图字01-2015-7258号)
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This revised translation of The Republic first published in Penguin Classics 1987
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《伟大的思想》中文版序
企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国,已付梓八十种,尚有二十种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小,德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过二百万册,在全球众多读者间,尤其是学生当中,普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出,迈出了新的一步,令人欢欣鼓舞。
推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太久以来,确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作,因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑十分有用,但我想,如果能够重建托马斯·潘恩《常识》或约翰·罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境,营造更具亲和力的氛围,也许是一件有趣的事。这样,读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。
这样做有一定的缺陷:每位作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处,一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如,读者对亨利·梭罗创作时的情形毫无头绪,也不了解该书的接受情况以及影响;不过,这样做的优点也显而易见。最突出的优点是:作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯·潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯·达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在许多国家影响着许多人的生活,其影响难以估量;长达几个世纪,读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当·斯密或阿图尔·叔本华,或无法想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代久远,但其中的话语彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。
《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地域不同,收录的作家亦不同。在中国或美国,一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”,我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大,在于其影响之深远,而不意味着这些思想是“好”的,实际上一些书或可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响,例如,马塞尔·普鲁斯特承认受约翰·罗斯金影响很大,米歇尔·德·蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响,但其他作家彼此憎恶,如果发现他们被收入同一丛书,一定会气愤难平。不过,读者可自行判明这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望,您可以从阅读这些杰作中获得乐趣。
《伟大的思想》出版者
西蒙·温德尔
Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas
Penguin's Great Ideas series began publication in 2004. In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20. A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related,even smaller series in Germany.The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world — particularly students.The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development.
The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great non-fiction classics.For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction,extensive notes,a bibliography and so on.While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful,I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling — to recreate the atmosphere in which,for example,Thomas Paine's Common Sense or John Ruskin's On Art and Life was first published — where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense.
This method has its severe disadvantages — there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand,some important context might be missing.For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of the book's reception or influence.The advantages however are very clear — most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important.The sense of anger in Thomas Paine,of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin,of resignation in Seneca — few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives,sometimes for centuries,in many different countries.Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer — our politics,economics,intellectual lives,social planning,religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books,fi rst written down long ago.
The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve.In different parts of the world different writers would be included.In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others.In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere.We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas — these ideas are great because they have been so enormously influential,but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas — indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas.Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series — for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin,Michel de Montaigne to Seneca.But others hated each other and would be distressed to find themselves together in the same series! But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves.We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books.
Simon Winder
Publisher
Great Ideas
目录
Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas
Contents
译者导读
柏拉图(Plato,前427年—前347年),古希腊伟大的哲学家,也是全部西方哲学乃至整个西方文化最伟大的哲学家和思想家之一。柏拉图和他的老师苏格拉底以及他的学生亚里士多德被并称为古希腊三大哲学家。柏拉图是西方客观唯心主义的创始人,他的哲学体系博大精深,一生作品很多,写下了许多哲学对话录,并且后来在雅典创办了著名的书院。
《会饮篇》(或译作《飨宴篇》《宴话篇》)是柏拉图早期的一篇对话式作品,它描述了在一次宴会上,一群雅典男性对爱的本质的讨论。该作品以演讲和对话的形式写成,既有讽刺式的,也有认真的谈话。他们对话的大前提是(而且有些讲者更清楚说明),最高贵的爱是男人之间的爱。爱是对美的企盼,美貌、智慧和美德都被讨论。他们反对古希腊风俗中男人对少年的爱,说男人不应该在这些尚未了解基本美德,也未定型的少年身上下功夫,而更应该去爱一个男子并长相厮守,并强调两人间若只有美德与知识的交流最为崇高。柏拉图提出肉体的爱不如精神上对智慧和美德的爱,这就是著名的“柏拉图式的爱情”,这样的爱就是至善。在《会饮篇》里,柏拉图还描述了认识“美”的过程:从认识美的形体到美的道理、美的制度等等,逐级上升,经过飞跃最后认识到美本身,即“美的相”。柏拉图又进一步描述了这种“相”的基本特征:它是永恒的,不生不灭的,绝对的,单一的等等。
此书还收录了柏拉图著名的“洞穴寓言”,选自《理想国》。在《理想国》中,苏格拉底一开始提到了哲学家必须具备的各种素质,然后着重强调这些素质必须建立在学问的基础之上,最终则是建立在为善的学问基础之上。对苏格拉底来说它是善的本质。一些人认为善即快乐,或者认为善即学问。柏拉图简明扼要地驳斥了此类观点,却拒绝直接给出自己的看法,而是借用“洞穴寓言”来阐述他的观点,这是他首次详细解释唯心主义。
柏拉图还提到了太阳的比喻和分割线的比喻,柏拉图解释说,分割线比喻是太阳比喻的续篇,旨在进一步说明太阳比喻所涉及的现实中两种层次之间的关系。但它是从一个特定的角度来讲述的,即我们用来理解这两种层次或领域的心智状态。因此,这个线的目的主要也不是用来给事物分类。与可知领域相关的两种心智状态,都是与同种类型的东西(本质)打交道,尽管每种心智状态的处理方式各不相同;虽然在物质世界里,物质的东西与其自身的影子有区别,但这种差异主要用于阐明需要了解的东西当中存在的“真实”或真实性的程度——如果我们的学问仅局限于它的影子或影像,那么,我们对自身学问的东西了解就太有限了。就这个问题而言,就是仅仅局限于肤浅的外表了。