With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mis-temper'd weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your movéd prince.
Three civil brawls, bred of an angry word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,

Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,
And made Verona's ancient citizens

Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,

Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate.
If ever you disturb our streets again,

Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time, all the rest depart away:

You, Capulet, shall go along with me;
And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our farther pleaure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common judgment-place
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

MERCUTIO ON DREAMS

-ID., ACT I, SCENE 4.

Mercutio, a boon companion of Romeo's, becomes facetious over Romeo's faith in dreams, in a charming passage, in which he refers to Queen Mab, designated in folk-lore as the mid-wife of the Fairies, since it is her duty to deliver men of dreams during sleep by driving over them in her chariot.

O! then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies' midwife; and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone

On the forefinger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:

Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,

The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces, of the smallest spider's web,
The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film,
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies

straight;

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
Sometime she gallops o'er a counsellor's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit:
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice.

Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes;
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
And makes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled much misfortune bodes.

IAGO'S SUIT DENIED BY OTHELLO

SHAKESPEARE'S OTHELLO, ACT I, SCENE 1.

Iago has sued to be Othello's lieutenant, and bitterly resents his rejection.

Three great ones of the city,

In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Off-capp'd to him; and, by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place;
But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance,
Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war;

And, in conclusion,

Nonsuits my mediators; for "Certes," says he, "I have already chose my officer." And what was he?

Forsooth, a great arithmetician.

One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,

A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife;
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows

More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the togéd consuls can propose

As masterly as he: mere prattle without practice
Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had th' election;
And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds,
Christian and heathen must be be-lee'd and calm'd
By debitor and creditor; this counter-caster,
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,

And I, God bless the mark! his Moorship's ancient.

IAGO SWEARS REVENGE

-ID., ACT I, SCENE 1.

Iago, Othello's Ancient or Standard-bearer, than whom there is no blacker or more snaky villain in all Shakespeare, plans his foul treachery against his master. Roderigo has just counselled Iago not to be a follower of Othello.

O, sir! content you;

I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow'd. 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 nought but provender, and when he's old,
cashier'd.

Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are
Who, learn'd in forms and usages of duty,

Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,
Do well thrive by them 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 as 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.

OTHELLO'S DEFENSE

--ID., ACT I, SCENE 3.

Brabantio, the father of Desdemona, had accused Othello to the Duke and Senators of Venice of beguiling his daughter into marriage.

Most potent, grave and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approv'd good masters,
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her:
The very head and front of my offending

Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace;
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field,

And little of this great world can I speak,

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
And, therefore, little shall I grace my cause,

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,

I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver

Of my whole course of love: what drugs, what charms,

What conjuration and what mighty magic,—

For such proceeding I am charged withal,

I won his daughter with.

Her father lov'd me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I had pass'd.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it:
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,