So long a wait. This is thy fate!
Thy barbs lodge not, and thou art but a toy to me!
Forsooth, the game’s afoot.
The stakes are great: thy kingdom’s wealth.
But what else, I ask, can I gain by it?
Thy power, that hath made thee so great, is gone.
Thy glory will not endure even a shadow of its former value.
Howe’er the man who once towered above the angels,
Thou art but a man,
And can be made to answer a man’s purposes.
Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.
– King Lear, V, vii
I cannot help it now,
Unless, by using means, I lame the foot
Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier,
Even to my person, than I thought he would
When first I did embrace him, yet his nature
In that’s no changeling; and I must excuse
What cannot be amended.
- Coriolanus, IV, vii.
A bard, they say?
I nick thee nay!
Algates I shall find a way,
My sonnets gay, in fine array
On any day,
To grace the pages of thy brain.
This is what I would not do:
If to be loved by a queen
Should be to be in servitude,
I cannot be a slave to her,
Or to the things that have her love.
And yet I love to be loved by thee.
On any day, by thy side
I will see a merry, merry crew.
And I’ll tell thee what I’ll do.
I’ll take thee with me to-morrow,
And, for the first time, thou shalt meet
Two gentlemen, who like the rest
Have much, much at heart, and do well.
The first is the bard,
The second, the gentleman.
And, I say, 'tis a jolly night,
For I know thou dost like to meet
The merry, merry crew.
We’ll laugh and talk
About all this world.
“How goes it, gentlemen?” I’ll ask them,
"With what do you jest?
“And in what kind of company?”
If thou art indeed a bard,
Prithee call me to thy side,
A wag with a sword in his hand.
Thy brow and throat I shall kiss
As often as I sit by,
And save thy sonnets from the fire.
For I need not tell you, I think,
A man may do anything,
As long as he does his duty.
Cite?
Out of my sight ! Thou dost infect mine eyes
Richard III; I ii
The unhappie imitator, I,
Have abused you
With diuerse stultiloquies,
Stolne and surreptitious expressions
Manifest from the Void.
Aroint thee!
— Macbeth, I, iii.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
— The Merchant of Venice, I, iii.
(Exit, pursued by a bear)
The Winter’s Tale, III, iii
I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Hamlet, III, iv
Enter a Messenger with two heads and a hand
– Titus Andronicus III.i.
Enter the Corpse of Henry VI.
– Richard III, I, II.
Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
– Hamlet, 5.2
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
Henry V, I, i
My favorite Shakespeare play (“The National Anthem in five acts,” Shaw joked).
Ding dong, Bard of Avon calling!
- The Flying Karamazov Brothers production of The Comedy of Errors
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, II, i
Oberon’s first line in the play; I still ruefully remember it from a high school production, when one night I blanked on it. 
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
The Merchant of Venice, V, i
To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?
— Hamlet, III, i
Soft you; a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know’t.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well…
Othello, V, ii