Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss, And boding screech-owls make the concert full! HOPE OF GOOD TIDINGS. O Hope! sweet flatterer, whose delusive touch The captive bending with the weight of bonds, Send back the exploring messenger with joy, And let me hail thee from that friendly grove.-Glover's Boadicea. RAGE. Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle: I am no traitor's uncle; and that word, grace, In an ungracious mouth, is but profane. Why have those banished and forbidden legs Frighting her pale-faced villages with war, Coms't thou because th' anointed King is hence? As when, brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself, O, then, how quickly should this arm of mine, Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee, And minister correction to thy faults! - Richard II. EAGER REVENGE. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue. But, gentle Heavens, Cut short all intermission; front to front, Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself; Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape, UNRESTRAINED FURY. Alive! in triumph! and Mercutio slain! And fire-ey'd fury be my conduct now!- That late thou gav'st me; for Mercutio's soul Is but a little way above our heads, Staying for thine to keep him company: And thou, or I, or both, must go with him.-Romeo and Juliet. REPROACH WITH WANT of ManlineSS. O, proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear: Authoriz'd by her grandam. Shame itself! TERROR BEFORE DREADFUL ACTIONS DESCRIBED Between the acting of a dreadful thing, Like a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection.-Julius Cæsar. HORROR AT A DREADFUL APPARITION. How ill this taper burns! -Ha! who comes here? I think it is the weakness of mine eyes That shapes this monstrous apparition. Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil, That mak'st my blood cold, and my hair to stare? SILENT GRIEF. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, FEAR OF BEING DISCOVERED A MURDERER. Alack! I am afraid they have awak’d, And 'tis not done:-th' attempt, and not the deed, My father as he slept, I had done't.-Macbeth. GRIEF CHOKING EXPRESSION. Macd. My children too? Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all that could be found. Macd. And I must be from thence! My wife kill'd, too? Rosse. I have said. Mal. Be comforted: Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge, To cure this deadly grief. Macd. He has no children.-All my pretty ones? Did you say all?-O, hell-kite! -All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop? Mal. Dispute it like a man. Macd. I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man: I cannot but remember such things were, That were most precious to me.-Did Heaven look on, They were all struck for thee. Naught that I am! D Not for their own demerits, but for mine, Fell slaughter on their souls.- Macbeth. BOASTING INDIGNANT CHAllenge. 'Swounds! show me what thou'lt do: Woul't weep? woul't fight? woul't fast? woul't tear thyself ? To outface me with leaping in her grave?, Be buried quick with her, and so will I: And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw Singeing his pate against the burning zone, VEXATION AT NEGLECTING ONE'S DUTY A broken voice, and his whole function suiting What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?- Hamlet. DESPAIR. Shakespeare has most exquisitely touched this fearful situation of human nature, when he draws Cardinal Beaufort, after a wicked life, dying in despair, and terrified with the murder of Duke Humphrey, to which he was accessory. K. Hen. How fares my lord? speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign Car. If thou be'st Death, I'll give thee England's treasure, Enough to purchase such another island, So thou wilt let me live and feel no pain. K. Hen. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, Where death's approach is seen so terrible! War. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee. O, torture me no more! I will confess. Alive again? then show me where he is; I'll give a thousand pounds to look upon him; Comb down his hair: look! look! it stands upright, K. Hen. O, thou Eternal Mover of the Heavens, That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul, And from his bosom purge this black despair. War. See how the pangs of death do make him grin. K. Hen. Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be. He dies, and makes no sign. O God, forgive him! 2d part Henry VI. The bare situation of the characters, the pause, and the few plain words of King Henry, "He dies, and makes no sign!" have more of the real sublime in them, than volumes of the labored speeches in most of our modern tragedies, which, in the emphatical language of Shakespeare, may be said to be "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." ENVY. Aside the devil turn'd For envy, yet, with jealous leer malign, Eyed them askance, and to himself thus plain’d. The happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill Of bliss on bliss; while I to hell am thrust, Where neither joy nor love, but fierce desire, Among our other torments not the least, Still unfulfill'd with pain of longing pines.- Paradise Lost. ENVY AMOUNTING TO HATRED. How like a fawning publican he looks! |