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Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

by E. Nesbit

August, 1998  [Etext #1429]


Project Gutenberg's Etext of Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
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Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

By E. Nesbit




"It may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected
a system of civil and economical prudence.  He has been imitated
by all succeeding writers; and it may be doubted whether from all
his successors more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more rules
of practical prudence can be collected than he alone has given to
his country."--Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON.




PREFACE



The writings of Shakespeare have been justly termed "the richest,
the purest, the fairest, that genius uninspired ever penned."

Shakespeare instructed by delighting.  His plays alone (leaving
mere science out of the question), contain more actual wisdom than
the whole body of English learning.  He is the teacher of all
good-- pity, generosity, true courage, love.  His bright wit is
cut out "into little stars."  His solid masses of knowledge are
meted out in morsels and proverbs, and thus distributed, there is
scarcely a corner of the English-speaking world to-day which he
does not illuminate, or a cottage which he does not enrich.  His
bounty is like the sea, which, though often unacknowledged, is
everywhere felt.  As his friend, Ben Jonson, wrote of him, "He
was not of an age but for all time."  He ever kept the highroad
of human life whereon all travel.  He did not pick out by-paths
of feeling and sentiment.  In his creations we have no moral
highwaymen, sentimental thieves, interesting villains, and amiable,
elegant adventuresses--no delicate entanglements of situation, in
which the grossest images are presented to the mind disguised
under the superficial attraction of style and sentiment.  He
flattered no bad passion, disguised no vice in the garb of virtue,
trifled with no just and generous principle.  While causing us to
laugh at folly, and shudder at crime, he still preserves our love
for our fellow-beings, and our reverence for ourselves.

Shakespeare was familiar with all beautiful forms and images, with
all that is sweet or majestic in the simple aspects of nature, of
that indestructible love of flowers and fragrance, and dews, and
clear waters--and soft airs and sounds, and bright skies and
woodland solitudes, and moon-light bowers, which are the material
elements of poetry,--and with that fine sense of their indefinable
relation to mental emotion, which is its essence and vivifying
soul--and which, in the midst of his most busy and tragical scenes,
falls like gleams of sunshine on rocks and ruins--contrasting with
all that is rugged or repulsive, and reminding us of the existence
of purer and brighter elements.

These things considered, what wonder is it that the works of
Shakespeare, next to the Bible, are the most highly esteemed of
all the classics of English literature.  "So extensively have the
characters of Shakespeare been drawn upon by artists, poets, and
writers of fiction," says an American author,--"So interwoven are
these characters in the great body of English literature, that to
be ignorant of the plot of these dramas is often a cause of
embarrassment."

But Shakespeare wrote for grown-up people, for men and women, and
in words that little folks cannot understand.

Hence this volume.  To reproduce the entertaining stories contained
in the plays of Shakespeare, in a form so simple that children
can understand and enjoy them, was the object had in view by the
author of these Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare.

And that the youngest readers may not stumble in pronouncing any
unfamiliar names to be met with in the stories, the editor has
prepared and included in the volume a Pronouncing Vocabulary of
Difficult Names.  To which is added a collection of Shakespearean
Quotations, classified in alphabetical order, illustrative of the
wisdom and genius of the world's greatest dramatist.

E. T. R.




A BRIEF LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE.



In the register of baptisms of the parish church of Stratford-upon-Avon,
a market town in Warwickshire, England, appears, under date of
April 26, 1564, the entry of the baptism of William, the son of
John Shakspeare.  The entry is in Latin--"Gulielmus filius Johannis
Shakspeare."

The date of William Shakespeare's birth has usually been taken as
three days before his baptism, but there is certainly no evidence
of this fact.

The family name was variously spelled, the dramatist himself not
always spelling it in the same way.  While in the baptismal record
the name is spelled "Shakspeare," in several authentic autographs
of the dramatist it reads "Shakspere," and in the first edition
of his works it is printed "Shakespeare."

Halliwell tells us, that there are not less than thirty-four ways
in which the various members of the Shakespeare family wrote the
name, and in the council-book of the corporation of Stratford,
where it is introduced one hundred and sixty-six times during the
period that the dramatist's father was a member of the municipal
body, there are fourteen different spellings.  The modern
"Shakespeare" is not among them.

Shakespeare's father, while an alderman at Stratford, appears to
have been unable to write his name, but as at that time nine men
out of ten were content to make their mark for a signature, the
fact is not specially to his discredit.

The traditions and other sources of information about the occupation
of Shakespeare's father differ.  He is described as a butcher, a
woolstapler, and a glover, and it is not impossible that he may
have been all of these simultaneously or at different times, or
that if he could not properly be called any one of them, the nature
of his occupation was such as to make it easy to understand how
the various traditions sprang up.  He was a landed proprietor and
cultivator of his own land even before his marriage, and he received
with his wife, who was Mary Arden, daughter of a country gentleman,
the estate of Asbies, 56 acres in extent.  William was the third
child.  The two older than he were daughters, and both probably
died in infancy.  After him was born three sons and a daughter.
For ten or twelve years at least, after Shakespeare's birth his
father continued to be in easy circumstances.  In the year 1568
he was the high bailiff or chief magistrate of Stratford, and for
many years afterwards he held the position of alderman as he had
done for three years before.  To the completion of his tenth year,
therefore, it is natural to suppose that William Shakespeare would
get the best education that Stratford could afford.  The free
school of the town was open to all boys and like all the
grammar-schools of that time, was under the direction of men who,
as graduates of the universities, were qualified to diffuse that
sound scholarship which was once the boast of England.  There is
no record of Shakespeare's having been at this school, but there
can be no rational doubt that he was educated there.  His father
could not have procured for him a better education anywhere.  To
those who have studied Shakespeare's works without being influenced
by the old traditional theory that he had received a very narrow
education, they abound with evidences that he must have been
solidly grounded in the learning, properly so called, was taught
in the grammar schools.

There are local associations connected with Stratford which could
not be without their influence in the formation of young Shakespeare's
mind.  Within the range of such a boy's curiosity were the fine
old historic towns of Warwick and Coventry, the sumptuous palace
of Kenilworth, the grand monastic remains of Evesham.  His own
Avon abounded with spots of singular beauty, quiet hamlets, solitary
woods.  Nor was Stratford shut out from the general world, as many
country towns are.  It was a great highway, and dealers with every
variety of merchandise resorted to its markets.  The eyes of the
poet dramatist must always have been open for observation.  But
nothing is known positively of Shakespeare from his birth to his
marriage to Anne Hathaway in 1582, and from that date nothing but
the birth of three children until we find him an actor in London
about 1589.

How long acting continued to be Shakespeare's sole profession we
have no means of knowing, but it is in the highest degree probable
that very soon after arriving in London he began that work of
adaptation by which he is known to have begun his literary career.
To improve and alter older plays not up to the standard that was
required at the time was a common practice even among the best
dramatists of the day, and Shakespeare's abilities would speedily
mark him out as eminently fitted for this kind of work.  When the
alterations in plays originally composed by other writers became
very extensive, the work of adaptation would become in reality a
work of creation.  And this is exactly what we have examples of
in a few of Shakespeare's early works, which are known to have
been founded on older plays.

It is unnecessary here to extol the published works of the world's
greatest dramatist.  Criticism has been exhausted upon them, and
the finest minds of England, Germany, and America have devoted
their powers to an elucidation of their worth.

Shakespeare died at Stratford on the 23rd of April, 1616.  His
father had died before him, in 1602, and his mother in 1608.  His
wife survived him till August, 1623.  His so Hamnet died in 1596
at the age of eleven years.  His two daughters survived him, the
eldest of whom, Susanna, had, in 1607, married a physician of
Stratford, Dr. Hall.  The only issue of this marriage, a daughter
named Elizabeth, born in 1608, married first Thomas Nasbe, and
afterwards Sir John Barnard, but left no children by either
marriage.  Shakespeare's younger daughter, Judith, on the 10th of
February, 1616, married a Stratford gentleman named Thomas Quincy,
by whom she had three sons, all of whom died, however, without
issue.  There are thus no direct descendants of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's fellow-actors, fellow-dramatists, and those who knew
him in other ways, agree in expressing not only admiration of his
genius, but their respect and love for the man.  Ben Jonson said,
"I love the man, and do honor his memory, on this side idolatry,
as much as any.  He was indeed honest, and of an open and free
nature."  He was buried on the second day after his death, on the
north side of the chancel of Stratford church.  Over his grave
there is a flat stone with this inscription, said to have been
written by himself:

    Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare
    To digg the dust encloased heare:
    Blest be ye man yt spares these stones,
    And curst be he yt moves my bones.




CONTENTS                                       PAGE



PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
A BRIEF LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE . . . . . . . . . . . 7
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM . . . . . . . . . . .  19
THE TEMPEST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33
AS YOU LIKE IT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  44
THE WINTER'S TALE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  54
KING LEAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  67
TWELFTH NIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  74
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING  . . . . . . . . . . . .  86
ROMEO AND JULIET  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
PERICLES  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
HAMLET  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
CYMBELINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
MACBETH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE  . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
TIMON OF ATHENS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
OTHELLO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
MEASURE FOR MEASURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL . . . . . . . . . . . 272
PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF NAMES . . . . . . . . 286
QUOTATIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE . . . . . . . . . . 288




ILLUSTRATIONS                                  PAGE



TITANIA: THE QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES . . . . . . .  20
THE QUARREL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
HELENA IN THE WOOD  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
TITANIA PLACED UNDER A SPELL  . . . . . . . . .  30
TITANIA AWAKES  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
PRINCE FERDINAND IN THE SEA . . . . . . . . . .  36
PRINCE FERDINAND SEES MIRANDA . . . . . . . . .  39
PLAYING CHESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  42
ROSALIND AND CELIA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  44
ROSALIND GIVES ORLANDO A CHAIN  . . . . . . . .  47
GANYMEDE FAINTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  51
LEFT ON THE SEA-COAST . . . . . . . . . . . . .  54
THE KING WOULD NOT LOOK . . . . . . . . . . . .  57
LEONTES RECEIVING FLORIZEL AND PERDITA  . . . .  60
FLORIZEL AND PERDITA TALKING  . . . . . . . . .  62
HERMOINE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  65
CORDELIA AND THE KING OF FRANCE . . . . . . . .  67
GONERIL AND REGAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  69
CORDELIA IN PRISON  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  73
VIOLA AND THE CAPTAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . .  74
VIOLA AS "CESARIO" MEETS OLIVIA . . . . . . . .  76
"YOU TOO HAVE BEEN IN LOVE" . . . . . . . . . .  78
CLAUDIA AND HERO  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  86
HERO AND URSULA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  90
BENEDICK  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  94
FRIAR FRANCIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
ROMEO AND TYBALT FIGHT  . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
ROMEO DISCOVERS JULIET  . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
MARRIAGE OF ROMEO AND JULIET  . . . . . . . . . 111
THE NURSE THINKS JULIET DEAD  . . . . . . . . . 115
ROMEO ENTERING THE TOMB . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
PERICLES WINS IN THE TOURNAMENT . . . . . . . . 122
PERICLES AND MARINA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
THE KING'S GHOST APPEARS  . . . . . . . . . . . 131
POLONIUS KILLED BY HAMLET . . . . . . . . . . . 135
DROWNING OF OPHELIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
IACHIMO AND IMOGEN  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
IACHIMO IN THE TRUNK  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
IMOGEN STUPEFIED  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
IMOGEN AND LEONATUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
THE THREE WITCHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
FROM "MACBETH"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
LADY MACBETH  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
KING AND QUEEN MACBETH  . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
MACBETH AND MACDUFF FIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . 163
ANTIPHOLUS AND DROMIO . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
LUCIANA AND ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE  . . . . . . 175
THE GOLDSMITH AND ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE . . .  178
AEMILIA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  181
THE PRINCE OF MOROCCO  . . . . . . . . . . . .  187
ANTONIO SIGNS THE BOND . . . . . . . . . . . .  188
JESSICA LEAVING HOME . . . . . . . . . . . . .  191
BASSANIO PARTS WITH THE RING . . . . . . . . .  192
POET READING TO TIMON  . . . . . . . . . . . .  194
PAINTER SHOWING TIMON A PICTURE  . . . . . . .  197
"NOTHING BUT AN EMPTY BOX" . . . . . . . . . .  200
TIMON GROWS SULLEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  204
OTHELLO TELLING DESDEMONA HIS ADVENTURES . . .  211
OTHELLO  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  213
THE DRINK OF WINE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  218
CASSIO GIVES THE HANDKERCHIEF  . . . . . . . .  222
DESDEMONA WEEPING  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  225
THE MUSIC MASTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  229
KATHARINE BOXES THE SERVANT'S EARS . . . . . .  232
PETRUCHIO FINDS FAULT WITH THE SUPPER  . . . .  235
THE DUKE IN THE FRIAR'S DRESS  . . . . . . . .  244
ISABELLA PLEADS WITH ANGELO  . . . . . . . . .  247
"YOUR FRIAR IS NOW YOUR PRINCE"  . . . . . . .  253
VALENTINE WRITES A LETTER FOR SILVIA . . . . .  258
SILVIA READING THE LETTER  . . . . . . . . . .  259
THE SERENADE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  263
ONE OF THE OUTLAWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  267
HELENA AND BERTRAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  272
HELENA AND THE KING  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  276
READING BERTRAM'S LETTER . . . . . . . . . . .  281
HELENA AND THE WIDOW . . . . . . . . . . . . .  284




LIST OF FOUR-COLOR PLATES                      PAGE



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE  . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece
TITANIA AND THE CLOWN  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
FERDINAND AND MIRANDA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
PRINCE FLORIZEL AND PERDITA  . . . . . . . . . . 54
ROMEO AND JULIET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  105
IMOGEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  141
CHOOSING THE CASKET  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  183
PETRUCHIO AND KATHERINE  . . . . . . . . . . .  228




A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM



Hermia and Lysander were lovers; but Hermia's father wished her to
marry another man, named Demetrius.

Now, in Athens, where they lived, there was a wicked law, by which
any girl who refused to marry according to her father's wishes,
might be put to death.  Hermia's father was so angry with her for
refusing to do as he wished, that he actually brought her before
the Duke of Athens to ask that she might be killed, if she still
refused to obey him.  The Duke gave her four days to think about
it, and, at the end of that time, if she still refused to marry
Demetrius, she would have to die.

Lysander of course was nearly mad with grief, and the best thing
to do seemed to him for Hermia to run away to his aunt's house at
a place beyond the reach of that cruel law; and there he would
come to her and marry her.  But before she started, she told her
friend, Helena, what she was going to do.

Helena had been Demetrius' sweetheart long before his marriage with
Hermia had been thought of, and being very silly, like all jealous
people, she could not see that it was not poor Hermia's fault that
Demetrius wished to marry her instead of his own lady, Helena.
She knew that if she told Demetrius that Hermia was going, as she
was, to the wood outside Athens, he would follow her, "and I can
follow him, and at least I shall see him," she said to herself.
So she went to him, and betrayed her friend's secret.

Now this wood where Lysander was to meet Hermia, and where the
other two had decided to follow them, was full of fairies, as most
woods are, if one only had the eyes to see them, and in this wood
on this night were the King and Queen of the fairies, Oberon and
Titania.  Now fairies are very wise people, but now and then they
can be quite as foolish as mortal folk.  Oberon and Titania, who
might have been as happy as the days were long, had thrown away
all their joy in a foolish quarrel.  They never met without saying
disagreeable things to each other, and scolded each other so
dreadfully that all their little fairy followers, for fear, would
creep into acorn cups and hide them there.

So, instead of keeping one happy Court and dancing all night through
in the moonlight as is fairies' use, the King with his attendants
wandered through one part of the wood, while the Queen with hers
kept state in another.  And the cause of all this trouble was a
little Indian boy whom Titania had taken to be one of her followers.
Oberon wanted the child to follow him and be one of his fairy
knights; but the Queen would not give him up.

On this night, in a mossy moonlit glade, the King and Queen of the
fairies met.

"Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania," said the King.

"What! jealous, Oberon?" answered the Queen.  "You spoil everything
with your quarreling.  Come, fairies, let us leave him.  I am not
friends with him now."

"It rests with you to make up the quarrel," said the King.

"Give me that little Indian boy, and I will again be your humble
servant and suitor."

"Set your mind at rest," said the Queen.  "Your whole fairy kingdom
buys not that boy from me.  Come, fairies."

And she and her train rode off down the moonbeams.

"Well, go your ways," said Oberon.  "But I'll be even with you
before you leave this wood."

Then Oberon called his favorite fairy, Puck.  Puck was the spirit
of mischief.  He used to slip into the dairies and take the cream
away, and get into the churn so that the butter would not come,
and turn the beer sour, and lead people out of their way on dark
nights and then laugh at them, and tumble people's stools from
under them when they were going to sit down, and upset their hot
ale over their chins when they were going to drink.

"Now," said Oberon to this little sprite, "fetch me the flower
called Love-in-idleness.  The juice of that little purple flower
laid on the eyes of those who sleep will make them, when they
wake, to love the first thing they see.  I will put some of the
juice of that flower on my Titania's eyes, and when she wakes she
will love the first thing she sees, were it lion, bear, or wolf,
or bull, or meddling monkey, or a busy ape."

While Puck was gone, Demetrius passed through the glade followed
by poor Helena, and still she told him how she loved him and
reminded him of all his promises, and still he told her that he
did not and could not love her, and that his promises were nothing.
Oberon was sorry for poor Helena, and when Puck returned with
the flower, he bade him follow Demetrius and put some of the juice
on his eyes, so that he might love Helena when he woke and looked
on her, as much as she loved him.  So Puck set off, and wandering
through the wood found, not Demetrius, but Lysander, on whose eyes
he put the juice; but when Lysander woke, he saw not his own
Hermia, but Helena, who was walking through the wood looking for
the cruel Demetrius; and directly lie saw her he loved her and
left his own lady, under the spell of the purple flower.

When Hermia woke she found Lysander gone, and wandered about the
wood trying to find him.  Puck went back and told Oberon what lie
had done, and Oberon soon found that he had made a mistake, and
set about looking for Demetrius, and having found him, put some
of the juice on his eyes.  And the first thing Demetrius saw when
he woke was also Helena.  So now Demetrius and Lysander were both
following her through the wood, and it was Hermia's turn to follow
her lover as Helena had done before.  The end of it was that Helena
and Hermia began to quarrel, and Demetrius and Lysander went off
to fight.  Oberon was very sorry to see his kind scheme to help
these lovers turn out so badly.  So he said to Puck--

"These two young men are going to fight.  You must overhang the
night with drooping fog, and lead them so astray, that one will
never find the other.  When they are tired out, they will fall
asleep.  Then drop this other herb on Lysander's eyes.  That will
give him his old sight and his old love.  Then each man will have
the lady who loves him, and they will all think that this has been
only a Midsummer Night's Dream.  Then when this is done, all will
be well with them."

So Puck went and did as he was told, and when the two had fallen
asleep without meeting each other, Puck poured the juice on
Lysander's eyes, and said:--

       "When thou wakest,
        Thou takest
        True delight
        In the sight
        Of thy former lady's eye:
        Jack shall have Jill;
        Nought shall go ill."

Meanwhile Oberon found Titania asleep on a bank where grew wild
thyme, oxlips, and violets, and woodbine, musk-roses and eglantine.
There Titania always slept a part of the night, wrapped in the
enameled skin of a snake.  Oberon stooped over her and laid the
juice on her eyes, saying:--

       "What thou seest when thou wake,
        Do it for thy true love take."

Now, it happened that when Titania woke the first thing she saw
was a stupid clown, one of a party of players who had come out
into the wood to rehearse their play.  This clown had met with
Puck, who had clapped an ass's head on his shoulders so that it
looked as if it grew there.  Directly Titania woke and saw this
dreadful monster, she said, "What angel is this?  Are you as wise
as you are beautiful?"

"If I am wise enough to find my way out of this wood, that's enough
for me," said the foolish clown.

"Do not desire to go out of the wood," said Titania.  The spell of
the love-juice was on her, and to her the clown seemed the most
beautiful and delightful creature on all the earth.  "I love you,"
she went on.  "Come with me, and I will give you fairies to attend
on you."

So she called four fairies, whose names were Peaseblossom, Cobweb,
Moth, and Mustardseed.

"You must attend this gentleman," said the Queen.  "Feed him with
apricots and dewberries, purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries.
Steal honey-bags for him from the bumble-bees, and with the wings
of painted butterflies fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes."

"I will," said one of the fairies, and all the others said, "I
will."

"Now, sit down with me," said the Queen to the clown, "and let me
stroke your dear cheeks, and stick musk-roses in your smooth,
sleek head, and kiss your fair large ears, my gentle joy."

"Where's Peaseblossom?" asked the clown with the ass's head.  He
did not care much about the Queen's affection, but he was very
proud of having fairies to wait on him.  "Ready," said
Peaseblossom.

"Scratch my head, Peaseblossom," said the clown.  "Where's Cobweb?"
"Ready," said Cobweb.

"Kill me," said the clown, "the red bumble-bee on the top of the
thistle yonder, and bring me the honey-bag.  Where's
Mustardseed?"

"Ready," said Mustardseed.

"Oh, I want nothing," said the clown.  "Only just help Cobweb to
scratch.  I must go to the barber's, for methinks I am marvelous
hairy about the face."

"Would you like anything to eat?" said the fairy Queen.

"I should like some good dry oats," said the clown--for his donkey's
head made him desire donkey's food--"and some hay to follow."

"Shall some of my fairies fetch you new nuts from the squirrel's
house?" asked the Queen.

"I'd rather have a handful or two of good dried peas," said the
clown.  "But please don't let any of your people disturb me; I am
going to sleep."

Then said the Queen, "And I will wind thee in my arms."

And so when Oberon came along he found his beautiful Queen lavishing
kisses and endearments on a clown with a donkey's head.

And before he released her from the enchantment, he persuaded her
to give him the little Indian boy he so much desired to have.
Then he took pity on her, and threw some juice of the disenchanting
flower on her pretty eyes; and then in a moment she saw plainly
the donkey-headed clown she had been loving, and knew how foolish
she had been.

Oberon took off the ass's head from the clown, and left him to
finish his sleep with his own silly head lying on the thyme and
violets.

Thus all was made plain and straight again.  Oberon and Titania
loved each other more than ever.  Demetrius thought of no one but
Helena, and Helena had never had any thought of anyone but
Demetrius.

As for Hermia and Lysander, they were as loving a couple as you
could meet in a day's march, even through a fairy wood.

So the four mortal lovers went back to Athens and were married;
and the fairy King and Queen live happily together in that very
wood at this very day.




THE TEMPEST



Prospero, the Duke of Milan, was a learned and studious man, who
lived among his books, leaving the management of his dukedom to
his brother Antonio, in whom indeed he had complete trust.  But
that trust was ill-rewarded, for Antonio wanted to wear the duke's
crown himself, and, to gain his ends, would have killed his brother
but for the love the people bore him.  However, with the help of
Prospero's great enemy, Alonso, King of Naples, he managed to get
into his hands the dukedom with all its honor, power, and riches.
For they took Prospero to sea, and when they were far away from
land, forced him into a little boat with no tackle, mast, or sail.
In their cruelty and hatred they put his little daughter, Miranda
(not yet three years old), into the boat with him, and sailed
away, leaving them to their fate.

But one among the courtiers with Antonio was true to his rightful
master, Prospero.  To save the duke from his enemies was impossible,
but much could be done to remind him of a subject's love.  So this
worthy lord, whose name was Gonzalo, secretly placed in the boat
some fresh water, provisions, and clothes, and what Prospero valued
most of all, some of his precious books.

The boat was cast on an island, and Prospero and his little one
landed in safety.  Now this island was enchanted, and for years
had lain under the spell of a fell witch, Sycorax, who had imprisoned
in the trunks of trees all the good spirits she found there.  She
died shortly before Prospero was cast on those shores, but the
spirits, of whom Ariel was the chief, still remained in their
prisons.

Prospero was a great magician, for he had devoted himself almost
entirely to the study of magic during the years in which he allowed
his brother to manage the affairs of Milan.  By his art he set
free the imprisoned spirits, yet kept them obedient to his will,
and they were more truly his subjects than his people in Milan
had been.  For he treated them kindly as long as they did his
bidding, and he exercised his power over them wisely and well.
One creature alone he found it necessary to treat with harshness:
this was Caliban, the son of the wicked old witch, a hideous,
deformed monster, horrible to look on, and vicious and brutal in
all his habits.

When Miranda was grown up into a maiden, sweet and fair to see, it
chanced that Antonio and Alonso, with Sebastian, his brother, and
Ferdinand, his son, were at sea together with old Gonzalo, and
their ship came near Prospero's island.  Prospero, knowing they
were there, raised by his art a great storm, so that even the
sailors on board gave themselves up for lost; and first among them
all Prince Ferdinand leaped into the sea, and, as his father
thought in his grief, was drowned.  But Ariel brought him safe
ashore; and all the rest of the crew, although they were washed
overboard, were landed unhurt in different parts of the island,
and the good ship herself, which they all thought had been wrecked,
lay at anchor in the harbor whither Ariel had brought her.  Such
wonders could Prospero and his spirits perform.

While yet the tempest was raging, Prospero showed his daughter the
brave ship laboring in the trough of the sea, and told her that
it was filled with living human beings like themselves.  She, in
pity of their lives, prayed him who had raised this storm to quell
it.  Then her father bade her to have no fear, for he intended to
save every one of them.

Then, for the first time, he told her the story of his life and
hers, and that he had caused this storm to rise in order that his
enemies, Antonio and Alonso, who were on board, might be delivered
into his hands.

When he had made an end of his story he charmed her into sleep,
for Ariel was at hand, and he had work for him to do.  Ariel, who
longed for his complete freedom, grumbled to be kept in drudgery,
but on being threateningly reminded of all the sufferings he had
undergone when Sycorax ruled in the land, and of the debt of
gratitude he owed to the master who had made those sufferings to
end, he ceased to complain, and promised faithfully to do whatever
Prospero might command.

"Do so," said Prospero, "and in two days I will discharge thee."

Then he bade Ariel take the form of a water nymph and sent him in
search of the young prince.  And Ariel, invisible to Ferdinand,
hovered near him, singing the while--

   "Come unto these yellow sands
      And then take hands:
    Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd
      (The wild waves whist),
    Foot it featly here and there;
    And, sweet sprites, the burden bear!"

And Ferdinand followed the magic singing, as the song changed to
a solemn air, and the words brought grief to his heart, and tears
to his eyes, for thus they ran--

   "Full fathom five thy father lies;
      Of his bones are coral made.
    Those are pearls that were his eyes,
      Nothing of him that doth fade,
    But doth suffer a sea-change
    Into something rich and strange.
    Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.
    Hark! now I hear them,-- ding dong bell!"

And so singing, Ariel led the spell-bound prince into the presence
of Prospero and Miranda.  Then, behold! all happened as Prospero
desired.  For Miranda, who had never, since she could first
remember, seen any human being save her father, looked on the
youthful prince with reverence in her eyes, and love in her secret
heart.

"I might call him," she said, "a thing divine, for nothing natural
I ever saw so noble!"

And Ferdinand, beholding her beauty with wonder and delight,
exclaimed--

"Most sure the goddess on whom these airs attend!"

Nor did he attempt to hide the passion which she inspired in him,
for scarcely had they exchanged half a dozen sentences, before he
vowed to make her his queen if she were willing.  But Prospero,
though secretly delighted, pretended wrath.

"You come here as a spy," he said to Ferdinand.  "I will manacle
your neck and feet together, and you shall feed on fresh water
mussels, withered roots and husk, and have sea-water to drink.
Follow."

"No," said Ferdinand, and drew his sword.  But on the instant
Prospero charmed him so that he stood there like a statue, still
as stone; and Miranda in terror prayed her father to have mercy
on her lover.  But he harshly refused her, and made Ferdinand
follow him to his cell.  There he set the Prince to work, making
him remove thousands of heavy logs of timber and pile them up;
and Ferdinand patiently obeyed, and thought his toil all too well
repaid by the sympathy of the sweet Miranda.

She in very pity would have helped him in his hard work, but he
would not let her, yet he could not keep from her the secret of
his love, and she, hearing it, rejoiced and promised to be his
wife.

Then Prospero released him from his servitude, and glad at heart,
he gave his consent to their marriage.

"Take her," he said, "she is thine own."

In the meantime, Antonio and Sebastian in another part of the island
were plotting the murder of Alonso, the King of Naples, for
Ferdinand being dead, as they thought, Sebastian would succeed to
the throne on Alonso's death.  And they would have carried out
their wicked purpose while their victim was asleep, but that Ariel
woke him in good time.

Many tricks did Ariel play them.  Once he set a banquet before
them, and just as they were going to fall to, he appeared to them
amid thunder and lightning in the form of a harpy, and immediately
the banquet disappeared.  Then Ariel upbraided them with their
sins and vanished too.

Prospero by his enchantments drew them all to the grove without
his cell, where they waited, trembling and afraid, and now at last
bitterly repenting them of their sins.

Prospero determined to make one last use of his magic power, "And
then," said he, "I'll break my staff and deeper than did ever
plummet sound I'll drown my book."

So he made heavenly music to sound in the air, and appeared to them
in his proper shape as the Duke of Milan.  Because they repented,
he forgave them and told them the story of his life since they
had cruelly committed him and his baby daughter to the mercy of
wind and waves.  Alonso, who seemed sorriest of them all for his
past crimes, lamented the loss of his heir.  But Prospero drew
back a curtain and showed them Ferdinand and Miranda playing at
chess.  Great was Alonso's joy to greet his loved son again, and
when he heard that the fair maid with whom Ferdinand was playing
was Prospero's daughter, and that the young folks had plighted
their troth, he said--

"Give me your hands, let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
that doth not wish you joy."

So all ended happily.  The ship was safe in the harbor, and next
day they all set sail for Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda were
to be married.  Ariel gave them calm seas and auspicious gales;
and many were the rejoicings at the wedding.

Then Prospero, after many years of absence, went back to his own
dukedom, where he was welcomed with great joy by his faithful
subjects.  He practiced the arts of magic no more, but his life
was happy, and not only because he had found his own again, but
chiefly because, when his bitterest foes who had done him deadly
wrong lay at his mercy, he took no vengeance on them, but nobly
forgave them.

As for Ariel, Prospero made him free as air, so that he could wander
where he would, and sing with a light heart his sweet song--

   "Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
    In a cowslip's bell I lie;
    There I couch when owls do cry.
    On the bat's back I do fly
    After summer, merrily:
    Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
    Under the blossom that hangs on the bough."




AS YOU LIKE IT



There was once a wicked Duke named Frederick, who took the dukedom
that should have belonged to his brother, sending him into exile.
His brother went into the Forest of Arden, where he lived the
life of a bold forester, as Robin Hood did in Sherwood Forest in
merry England.

The banished Duke's daughter, Rosalind, remained with Celia,
Frederick's daughter, and the two loved each other more than most
sisters.  One day there was a wrestling match at Court, and Rosalind
and Celia went to see it.  Charles, a celebrated wrestler, was
there, who had killed many men in contests of this kind.  Orlando,
the young man he was to wrestle with, was so slender and youthful,
that Rosalind and Celia thought he would surely be killed, as
others had been; so they spoke to him, and asked him not to attempt
so dangerous an adventure; but the only effect of their words was
to make him wish more to come off well in the encounter, so as to
win praise from such sweet ladies.

Orlando, like Rosalind's father, was being kept out of his inheritance
by his brother, and was so sad at his brother's unkindness that,
until he saw Rosalind, he did not care much whether he lived or
died.  But now the sight of the fair Rosalind gave him strength
and courage, so that he did marvelously, and at last, threw Charles
to such a tune, that the wrestler had to be carried off the ground.
Duke Frederick was pleased with his courage, and asked his name.

"My name is Orlando, and I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de
Boys," said the young man.

Now Sir Rowland de Boys, when he was alive, had been a good friend
to the banished Duke, so that Frederick heard with regret whose
son Orlando was, and would not befriend him.  But Rosalind was
delighted to hear that this handsome young stranger was the son
of her father's old friend, and as they were going away, she turned
back more than once to say another kind word to the brave young
man.

"Gentleman," she said, giving him a chain from her neck, "wear this
for me.  I could give more, but that my hand lacks means."

Rosalind and Celia, when they were alone, began to talk about the
handsome wrestler, and Rosalind confessed that she loved him at
first sight.

"Come, come," said Celia, "wrestle with thy affections."

"Oh," answered Rosalind, "they take the part of a better wrestler
than myself.  Look, here comes the Duke."

"With his eyes full of anger," said Celia.

"You must leave the Court at once," he said to Rosalind.  "Why?"
she asked.

"Never mind why," answered the Duke, "you are banished.  If within
ten days you are found within twenty miles of my Court, you die."

So Rosalind set out to seek her father, the banished Duke, in the
Forest of Arden.  Celia loved her too much to let her go alone,
and as it was rather a dangerous journey, Rosalind, being the
taller, dressed up as a young countryman, and her cousin as a
country girl, and Rosalind said that she would be called Ganymede,
and Celia, Aliena.  They were very tired when at last they came
to the Forest of Arden, and as they were sitting on the grass a
countryman passed that way, and Ganymede asked him if he could
get them food.  He did so, and told them that a shepherd's flocks
and house were to be sold.  They bought these and settled down as
shepherd and shepherdess in the forest.

In the meantime, Oliver having sought to take his brother Orlando's
life, Orlando also wandered into the forest, and there met with
the rightful Duke, and being kindly received, stayed with him.
Now, Orlando could think of nothing but Rosalind, and he went
about the forest carving her name on trees, and writing love
sonnets and hanging them on the bushes, and there Rosalind and
Celia found them.  One day Orlando met them, but he did not know
Rosalind in her boy's clothes, though he liked the pretty shepherd
youth, because he fancied a likeness in him to her he loved.

"There is a foolish lover," said Rosalind, "who haunts these woods
and hangs sonnets on the trees.  If I could find him, I would soon
cure him of his folly."

Orlando confessed that he was the foolish lover, and Rosalind
said--"If you will come and see me every day, I will pretend to
be Rosalind, and I will take her part, and be wayward and contrary,
as is the way of women, till I make you ashamed of your folly in
loving her."

And so every day he went to her house, and took a pleasure in saying
to her all the pretty things he would have said to Rosalind; and
she had the fine and secret joy of knowing that all his love-words
came to the right ears.  Thus many days passed pleasantly away.

One morning, as Orlando was going to visit Ganymede, he saw a man
asleep on the ground, and that there was a lioness crouching near,
waiting for the man who was asleep to wake: for they say that
lions will not prey on anything that is dead or sleeping.  Then
Orlando looked at the man, and saw that it was his wicked brother,
Oliver, who had tried to take his life.  He fought with the lioness
and killed her, and saved his brother's life.

While Orlando was fighting the lioness, Oliver woke to see his
brother, whom he had treated so badly, saving him from a wild
beast at the risk of his own life.  This made him repent of his
wickedness, and he begged Orlando's pardon, and from thenceforth
they were dear brothers.  The lioness had wounded Orlando's arm
so much, that he could not go on to see the shepherd, so he sent
his brother to ask Ganymede to come to him.

Oliver went and told the whole story to Ganymede and Aliena, and
Aliena was so charmed with his manly way of confessing his faults,
that she fell in love with him at once.  But when Ganymede heard
of the danger Orlando had been in she fainted; and when she came
to herself, said truly enough, "I should have been a woman by
right."

Oliver went back to his brother and told him all this, saying, "I
love Aliena so well that I will give up my estates to you and
marry her, and live here as a shepherd."

"Let your wedding be to-morrow," said Orlando, "and I will ask the
Duke and his friends."

When Orlando told Ganymede how his brother was to be married on
the morrow, he added: "Oh, how bitter a thing it is to look into
happiness through another man's eyes."

Then answered Rosalind, still in Ganymede's dress and speaking with
his voic--"If you do love Rosalind so near the heart, then when
your brother marries Aliena, shall you marry her."

Now the next day the Duke and his followers, and Orlando, and
Oliver, and Aliena, were all gathered together for the wedding.

Then Ganymede came in and said to the Duke, "If I bring in your
daughter Rosalind, will you give her to Orlando here?"  "That I
would," said the Duke, "if I had all kingdoms to give with her."

"And you say you will have her when I bring her?" she said to
Orlando.  "That would I," he answered, "were I king of all
kingdoms."

Then Rosalind and Celia went out, and Rosalind put on her pretty
woman's clothes again, and after a while came back.

She turned to her father--"I give myself to you, for I am yours."
"If there be truth in sight," he said, "you are my daughter."

Then she said to Orlando, "I give myself to you, for I am yours."
"If there be truth in sight," he said, "you are my Rosalind."

"I will have no father if you be not he," she said to the Duke,
and to Orlando, "I will have no husband if you be not he."

So Orlando and Rosalind were married, and Oliver and Celia, and
they lived happy ever after, returning with the Duke to the kingdom.
For Frederick had been shown by a holy hermit the wickedness of
his ways, and so gave back the dukedom of his brother, and himself
went into a monastery to pray for forgiveness.

The wedding was a merry one, in the mossy glades of the forest.
A shepherd and shepherdess who had been friends with Rosalind,
when she was herself disguised as a shepherd, were married on the
same day, and all with such pretty feastings and merrymakings as
could be nowhere within four walls, but only in the beautiful
green wood.




THE WINTER'S TALE



Leontes was the King of Sicily, and his dearest friend was Polixenes,
King of Bohemia.  They had been brought up together, and only
separated when they reached man's estate and each had to go and
rule over his kingdom.  After many years, when each was married
and had a son, Polixenes came to stay with Leontes in Sicily.

Leontes was a violent-tempered man and rather silly, and he took
it into his stupid head that his wife, Hermione, liked Polixenes
better than she did him, her own husband.  When once he had got
this into his head, nothing could put it out; and he ordered one
of his lords, Camillo, to put a poison in Polixenes' wine.  Camillo
tried to dissuade him from this wicked action, but finding he was
not to be moved, pretended to consent.  He then told Polixenes
what was proposed against him, and they fled from the Court of
Sicily that night, and returned to Bohemia, where Camillo lived
on as Polixenes' friend and counselor.

Leontes threw the Queen into prison; and her son, the heir to the
throne, died of sorrow to see his mother so unjustly and cruelly
treated.

While the Queen was in prison she had a little baby, and a friend
of hers, named Paulina, had the baby dressed in its best, and took
it to show the King, thinking that the sight of his helpless little
daughter would soften his heart towards his dear Queen, who had
never done him any wrong, and who loved him a great deal more than
he deserved; but the King would not look at the baby, and ordered
Paulina's husband to take it away in a ship, and leave it in the
most desert and dreadful place he could find, which Paulina's
husband, very much against his will, was obliged to do.

Then the poor Queen was brought up to be tried for treason in
preferring Polixenes to her King; but really she had never thought
of anyone except Leontes, her husband.  Leontes had sent some
messengers to ask the god, Apollo, whether he was not right in
his cruel thoughts of the Queen.  But he had not patience to wait
till they came back, and so it happened that they arrived in the
middle of the trial.  The Oracle said--

"Hermione is innocent, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject,
Leontes a jealous tyrant, and the King shall live without an heir,
if that which is lost be not found."

Then a man came and told them that the little Prince was dead.
The poor Queen, hearing this, fell down in a fit; and then the
King saw how wicked and wrong he had been.  He ordered Paulina
and the ladies who were with the Queen to take her away, and try
to restore her.  But Paulina came back in a few moments, and told
the King that Hermione was dead.

Now Leontes' eyes were at last opened to his folly.  His Queen was
dead, and the little daughter who might have been a comfort to
him he had sent away to be the prey of wolves and kites.  Life
had nothing left for him now.  He gave himself up to his grief,
and passed in any sad years in prayer and remorse.

The baby Princess was left on the seacoast of Bohemia, the very
kingdom where Polixenes reigned.  Paulina's husband never went
home to tell Leontes where he had left the baby; for as he was
going back to the ship, he met a bear and was torn to pieces.  So
there was an end of him.

But the poor deserted little baby was found by a shepherd.  She
was richly dressed, and had with her some jewels, and a paper was
pinned to her cloak, saying that her name was Perdita, and that
she came of noble parents.

The shepherd, being a kind-hearted man, took home the little baby
to his wife, and they brought it up as their own child.  She had
no more teaching than a shepherd's child generally has, but she
inherited from her royal mother many graces and charms, so that
she was quite different from the other maidens in the village
where she lived.

One day Prince Florizel, the son of the good King of Bohemia, was
bunting near the shepherd's house and saw Perdita, now grown up
to a charming woman.  He made friends with the shepherd, not
telling him that he was the Prince, but saying that his name was
Doricles, and that he was a private gentleman; and then, being
deeply in love with the pretty Perdita, he came almost daily to
see her.

The King could not understand what it was that took his son nearly
every day from home; so he set people to watch him, and then found
out that the heir of the King of Bohemia was in love with Perdita,
the pretty shepherd girl.  Polixenes, wishing to see whether this
was true, disguised himself, and went with the faithful Camillo,
in disguise too, to the old shepherd's house.  They arrived at
the feast of sheep-shearing, and, though strangers, they were made
very welcome.  There was dancing going on, and a peddler was
selling ribbons and laces and gloves, which the young men bought
for their sweethearts.

Florizel and Perdita, however, were taking no part in this gay
scene, but sat quietly together talking.  The King noticed the
charming manners and great beauty of Perdita, never guessing that
she was the daughter of his old friend, Leontes.  He said to
Camillo--

"This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever ran on the green
sward.  Nothing she does or seems but smacks of something greater
than herself--too noble for this place."

And Camillo answered, "In truth she is the Queen of curds and
cream."

But when Florizel, who did not recognize his father, called upon
the strangers to witness his betrothal with the pretty shepherdess,
the King made himself known and forbade the marriage, adding that
if ever she saw Florizel again, he would kill her and her old
father, the shepherd; and with that he left them.  But Camillo
remained behind, for he was charmed with Perdita, and wished to
befriend her.

Camillo had long known how sorry Leontes was for that foolish
madness of his, and he longed to go iback to Sicily to see his
old master.  He now proposed that the young people should go there
and claim the protection of Leontes.  So they went, and the shepherd
went with them, taking Perdita's jewels, her baby clothes, and
the paper he had found pinned to her cloak.

Leontes received them with great kindness.  He was very polite to
Prince Florizel, but all his looks were for Perdita.  He saw how
much she was like the Queen Hermione, and said again and again--

"Such a sweet creature my daughter might have been, if I had not
cruelly sent her from me."

When the old shepherd heard that the King had lost a baby daughter,
who had been left upon the coast of Bohemia, he felt sure that
Perdita, the child he had reared, must be the King's daughter,
and when he told his tale and showed the jewels and the paper,
the King perceived that Perdita was indeed his long-lost child.
He welcomed her with joy, and rewarded the good shepherd.

Polixenes had hastened after his son to prevent his marriage with
Perdita, but when he found that she was the daughter of his old
friend, he was only too glad to give his consent.

Yet Leontes could not be happy.  He remembered how his fair Queen,
who should have been at his side to share his joy in his daughter's
happiness, was dead through his unkindness, and he could say
nothing for a long time but--

"Oh, thy mother! thy mother!" and ask forgiveness of the King of
Bohemia, and then kiss his daughter again, and then the Prince
Florizel, and then thank the old shepherd for all his goodness.

Then Paulina, who had been high all these years in the King's favor,
because of her kindness to the dead Queen Hermione, said--"I have
a statue made in the likeness of the dead Queen, a piece many
years in doing, and performed by the rare Italian master, Giulio
Romano.  I keep it in a private house apart, and there, ever since
you lost your Queen, I have gone twice or thrice a day.  Will it
please your Majesty to go and see the statue?"

So Leontes and Polixenes, and Florizel and Perdita, with Camillo
and their attendants, went to Paulina's house where there was a
heavy purple curtain screening off an alcove; and Paulina, with
her hand on the curtain, said--

"She was peerless when she was alive, and I do believe that her
dead likeness excels whatever yet you have looked upon, or that
the hand of man hath done.  Therefore I keep it lonely, apart.
But here it is--behold, and say, 'tis well."

And with that she drew back the curtain and showed them the statue.
The King gazed and gazed on the beautiful statue of his dead
wife, but said nothing.

"I like your silence," said Paulina; "it the more shows off your
wonder.  But speak, is it not like her?"

"It is almost herself," said the King, "and yet, Paulina, Hermione
was not so much wrinkled, nothing so old as this seems."

"Oh, not by much," said Polixenes.

"Al," said Paulina, "that is the cleverness of the carver, who
shows her to us as she would have been had she lived till now."

And still Leontes looked at the statue and could not take his eyes
away.

"If I had known," said Paulina, "that this poor image would so have
stirred your grief, and love, I would not have shown it to you."

But he only answered, "Do not draw the curtain."

"No, you must not look any longer," said Paulina, "or you will
think it moves."

"Let be! let be!" said the King.  "Would you not think it
breathed?"

"I will draw the curtain," said Paulina; " you will think it lives
presently."

"Ah, sweet Paulina," said Leontes, "make me to think so twenty
years together."

"If you can bear it," said Paulina, "I can make the statue move,
make it come down and take you by the hand.  Only you would think
it was by wicked magic."

"Whatever you can make her do, I am content to look on," said the
King.

And then, all folks there admiring and beholding, the statue moved
from its pedestal, and came down the steps and put its arms round
the King's neck, and he held her face and kissed her many times,
for this was no statue, but the real living Queen Hermione herself.
She had lived hidden, by Paulina's kindness, all these years,
and would not discover herself to her husband, though she knew he
had repented, because she could not quite forgive him till she
knew what had become of her little baby.

Now that Perdita was found, she forgave her husband everything,
and it was like a new and beautiful marriage to them, to be together
once more.

Florizel and Perdita were married and lived long and happily.

To Leontes his many years of suffering were well paid for in the
moment when, after long grief and pain, he felt the arms of his
true love around him once again.




KING LEAR



King Lear was old and tired.  He was aweary of the business of his
kingdom, and wished only to end his days quietly near his three
daughters.  Two of his daughters were married to the Dukes of
Albany and Cornwall; and the Duke of Burgundy and the King of
France were both suitors for the hand of Cordelia, his youngest
daughter.

Lear called his three daughters together, and told them that he
proposed to divide his kingdom between them.  "But first," said
he, "I should like to know much you love me."

Goneril, who was really a very wicked woman, and did not love her
father at all, said she loved him more than words could say; she
loved him dearer than eyesight, space or liberty, more than life,
grace, health, beauty, and honor.

"I love you as much as my sister and more," professed Regan, "since
I care for nothing but my father's love."

Lear was very much pleased with Regan's professions, and turned to
his youngest daughter, Cordelia.  "Now, our joy, though last not
least," he said, "the best part of my kingdom have I kept for you.
What can you say?"

"Nothing, my lord," answered Cordelia.

"Nothing can come of nothing.  Speak again," said the King.

And Cordelia answered, "I love your Majesty according to my duty--no
more, no less."

And this she said, because she was disgusted with the way in which
her sisters professed love, when really they had not even a right
sense of duty to their old father.

"I am your daughter," she went on, "and you have brought me up and
loved me, and I return you those duties back as are right and fit,
obey you, love you, and most honor you."

Lear, who loved Cordelia best, had wished her to make more extravagant
professions of love than her sisters.  "Go," he said, "be for ever
a stranger to my heart and me."

The Earl of Kent, one of Lear's favorite courtiers and captains,
tried to say a word for Cordelia's sake, but Lear would not listen.
He divided the kingdom between Goneril and Regan, and told them
that he should only keep a hundred knights at arms, and would live
with his daughters by turns.

When the Duke of Burgundy knew that Cordelia would have no share
of the kingdom, he gave up his courtship of her.  But the King of
France was wiser, and said, "Thy dowerless daughter, King, is
Queen of us--of ours, and our fair France."

"Take her, take her," said the King; "for I will never see that
face of hers again."

So Cordelia became Queen of France, and the Earl of Kent, for having
ventured to take her part, was banished from the kingdom.  The
King now went to stay with his daughter Goneril, who had got
everything from her father that he had to give, and now began to
grudge even the hundred knights that he had reserved for himself.
She was harsh and undutiful to him, and her servants either
refused to obey his orders or pretended that they did not hear
them.

Now the Earl of Kent, when he was banished, made as though he would
go into another country, but instead he came back in the disguise
of a servingman and took service with the King.  The King had now
two friends--the Earl of Kent, whom he only knew as his servant,
and his Fool, who was faithful to him.  Goneril told her father
plainly that his knights only served to fill her Court with riot
and feasting; and so she begged him only to keep a few old men
about him such as himself.

"My train are men who know all parts of duty," said Lear.  "Goneril,
I will not trouble you further--yet I have left another
daughter."

And his horses being saddled, he set out with his followers for
the castle of Regan.  But she, who had formerly outdone her sister
in professions of attachment to the King, now seemed to outdo her
in undutiful conduct, saying that fifty knights were too many to
wait on him, and Goneril (who had hurried thither to prevent Regan
showing any kindness to the old King) said five were too many,
since her servants could wait on him.

Then when Lear saw that what they really wanted was to drive him
away, he left them.  It was a wild and stormy night, and he wandered
about the heath half mad with misery, and with no companion but
the poor Fool.  But presently his servant, the good Earl of Kent,
met him, and at last persuaded him to lie down in a wretched little
hovel.  At daybreak the Earl of Kent removed his royal master to
Dover, and hurried to the Court of France to tell Cordelia what
had happened.

Cordelia's husband gave her an army and with it she landed at Dover.
Here she found poor King Lear, wandering about the fields, wearing
a crown of nettles and weeds.  They brought him back and fed and
clothed him, and Cordelia came to him and kissed him.

"You must bear with me," said Lear; "forget and forgive.  I am old
and foolish."

And now he knew at last which of his children it was that had loved
him best, and who was worthy of his love.

Goneril and Regan joined their armies to fight Cordelia's army,
and were successful; and Cordelia and her father were thrown into
prison.  Then Goneril's husband, the Duke of Albany, who was a
good man, and had not known how wicked his wife was, heard the
truth of the whole story; and when Goneril found that her husband
knew her for the wicked woman she was, she killed herself, having
a little time before given a deadly poison to her sister, Regan,
out of a spirit of jealousy.

But they had arranged that Cordelia should be hanged in prison,
and though the Duke of Albany sent messengers at once, it was too
late.  The old King came staggering into the tent of the Duke of
Albany, carrying the body of his dear daughter Cordelia, in his
arms.

And soon after, with words of love for her upon his lips, he fell
with her still in his arms, and died.




TWELFTH NIGHT



Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, was deeply in love with a beautiful
Countess named Olivia.  Yet was all his love in vain, for she
disdained his suit; and when her brother died, she sent back a
messenger from the Duke, bidding him tell his master that for
seven years she would not let the very air behold her face, but
that, like a nun, she would walk veiled; and all this for the sake
of a dead brother's love, which she would keep fresh and lasting
in her sad remembrance.

The Duke longed for someone to whom he could tell his sorrow, and
repeat over and over again the story of his love.  And chance
brought him such a companion.  For about this time a goodly ship
was wrecked on the Illyrian coast, and among those who reached
land in safety were the captain and a fair young maid, named Viola.
But she was little grateful for being rescued from the perils of
the sea, since she feared that her twin brother was drowned,
Sebastian, as dear to her as the heart in her bosom, and so like
her that, but for the difference in their manner of dress, one
could hardly be told from the other.  The captain, for her comfort,
told her that he had seen her brother bind himself "to a strong
mast that lived upon the sea," and that thus there was hope that
he might be saved.

Viola now asked in whose country she was, and learning that the
young Duke Orsino ruled there, and was as noble in his nature as
in his name, she decided to disguise herself in male attire, and
seek for employment with him as a page.

In this she succeeded, and now from day to day she had to listen
to the story of Orsino's love.  At first she sympathized very
truly with him, but soon her sympathy grew to love.  At last it
occurred to Orsino that his hopeless love-suit might prosper better
if he sent this pretty lad to woo Olivia for him.  Viola unwillingly
went on this errand, but when she came to the house, Malvolio,
Olivia's steward, a vain, officious man, sick, as his mistress
told him, of self-love, forbade the messenger admittance.

Viola, however (who was now called Cesario), refused to take any
denial, and vowed to have speech with the Countess.  Olivia,
hearing how her instructions were defied and curious to see this
daring youth, said, "We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy."

When Viola was admitted to her presence and the servants had been
sent away, she listened patiently to the reproaches which this
bold messenger from the Duke poured upon her, and listening she
fell in love with the supposed Cesario; and when Cesario had gone,
Olivia longed to send some love-token after him.  So, calling
Malvolio, she bade him follow the boy.

"He left this ring behind him," she said, taking one from her
finger.  "Tell him I will none of it."

Malvolio did as he was bid, and then Viola, who of course knew
perfectly well that she had left no ring behind her, saw with a
woman's quickness that Olivia loved her.  Then she went back to
the Duke, very sad at heart for her lover, and for Olivia, and
for herself.

It was but cold comfort she could give Orsino, who now sought to
ease the pangs of despised love by listening to sweet music, while
Cesario stood by his side.

"Ah," said the Duke to his page that night, "you too have been in
love."

"A little," answered Viola.

"What kind of woman is it?" he asked.

"Of your complexion," she answered.

"What years, i' faith?" was his next question.

To this came the pretty answer, "About your years, my lord."

"Too old, by Heaven!" cried the Duke.  "Let still the woman take
an elder than herself."

And Viola very meekly said, "I think it well, my lord."

By and by Orsino begged Cesario once more to visit Olivia and to
plead his love-suit.  But she, thinking to dissuade him, said--

"If some lady loved you as you love Olivia?"

"Ah! that cannot be," said the Duke.

"But I know," Viola went on, "what love woman may have for a man.
My father had a daughter loved a man, as it might be," she added
blushing, "perhaps, were I a woman, I should love your lordship."

"And what is her history?" he asked.

"A blank, my lord," Viola answered.  "She never told her love, but
let concealment like a worm in the bud feed on her damask cheek:
she pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy she
sat, like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief.  Was not this
love indeed?"

"But died thy sister of her love, my boy?" the Duke asked; and
Viola, who had all the time been telling her own love for him in
this pretty fashion, said--

"I am all the daughters my father has and all the brothers-- Sir,
shall I go to the lady?"

"To her in haste," said the Duke, at once forgetting all about the
story, "and give her this jewel."

So Viola went, and this time poor Olivia was unable to hide her
love, and openly confessed it with such passionate truth, that
Viola left her hastily, saying--

"Nevermore will I deplore my master's tears to you."

But in vowing this, Viola did not know the tender pity she would
feel for other's suffering.  So when Olivia, in the violence of
her love, sent a messenger, praying Cesario to visit her once
more, Cesario had no heart to refuse the request.

But the favors which Olivia bestowed upon this mere page aroused
the jealousy of Sir Andrew Aguecheek, a foolish, rejected lover
of hers, who at that time was staying at her house with her merry
old uncle Sir Toby.  This same Sir Toby dearly loved a practical
joke, and knowing Sir Andrew to be an arrant coward, he thought
that if he could bring off a duel between him and Cesario, there
would be rare sport indeed.  So he induced Sir Andrew to send a
challenge, which he himself took to Cesario.  The poor page, in
great terror, said--

"I will return again to the house, I am no fighter."

"Back you shall not to the house," said Sir Toby, "unless you fight
me first."

And as he looked a very fierce old gentleman, Viola thought it best
to await Sir Andrew's coming; and when he at last made his
appearance, in a great fright, if the truth had been known, she
tremblingly drew her sword, and Sir Andrew in like fear followed
her example.  Happily for them both, at this moment some officers
of the Court came on the scene, and stopped the intended duel.
Viola gladly made off with what speed she might, while Sir Toby
called after her--

"A very paltry boy, and more a coward than a hare!"

Now, while these things were happening, Sebastian had escaped all
the dangers of the deep, and had landed safely in Illyria, where
he determined to make his way to the Duke's Court.  On his way
thither he passed Olivia's house just as Viola had left it in such
a hurry, and whom should he meet but Sir Andrew and Sir Toby.
Sir Andrew, mistaking Sebastian for the cowardly Cesario, took
his courage in both hands, and walking up to him struck him,
saying, "There's for you."

"Why, there's for you; and there, and there!" said Sebastian,
bitting back a great deal harder, and again and again, till Sir
Toby came to the rescue of his friend.  Sebastian, however, tore
himself free from Sir Toby's clutches, and drawing his sword would
have fought them both, but that Olivia herself, having heard of
the quarrel, came running in, and with many reproaches sent Sir
Toby and his friend away.  Then turning to Sebastian, whom she
too thought to be Cesario, she besought him with many a pretty
speech to come into the house with her.

Sebastian, half dazed and all delighted with her beauty and grace,
readily consented, and that very day, so great was Olivia's baste,
they were married before she had discovered that he was not Cesario,
or Sebastian was quite certain whether or not he was in a dream.

Meanwhile Orsino, hearing how ill Cesario sped with Olivia, visited
her himself, taking Cesario with him.  Olivia met them both before
her door, and seeing, as she thought, her husband there, reproached
him for leaving her, while to the Duke she said that his suit was
as fat and wholesome to her as howling after music.

"Still so cruel?" said Orsino.

"Still so constant," she answered.

Then Orsino's anger growing to cruelty, he vowed that, to be revenged
on her, he would kill Cesario, whom he knew she loved.  "Come,
boy," he said to the page.

And Viola, following him as he moved away, said, "I, to do you
rest, a thousand deaths would die."

A great fear took hold on Olivia, and she cried aloud, "Cesario,
husband, stay!"

"Her husband?" asked the Duke angrily.

"No, my lord, not I," said Viola.

"Call forth the holy father," cried Olivia.

And the priest who had married Sebastian and Olivia, coming in,
declared Cesario to be the bridegroom.

"O thou dissembling cub!" the Duke exclaimed.  "Farewell, and take
her, but go where thou and I henceforth may never meet."

At this moment Sir Andrew came up with bleeding crown, complaining
that Cesario had broken his head, and Sir Toby's as well.

"I never hurt you," said Viola, very positively; "you drew your
sword on me, but I bespoke you fair, and hurt you not."

Yet, for all her protesting, no one there believed her; but all
their thoughts were on a sudden changed to wonder, when Sebastian
came in.

"I am sorry, madam," he said to his wife, "I have hurt your kinsman.
Pardon me, sweet, even for the vows we made each other so late
ago."

"One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!" cried the Duke,
looking first at Viola, and then at Sebastian.

"An apple cleft in two," said one who knew Sebastian, "is not more
twin than these two creatures.  Which is Sebastian?"

"I never had a brother," said Sebastian.  "I had a sister, whom
the blind waves and surges have devoured."  "Were you a woman,"
he said to Viola, "I should let my tears fall upon your cheek,
and say, 'Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!'"

Then Viola, rejoicing to see her dear brother alive, confessed that
she was indeed his sister, Viola.  As she spoke, Orsino felt the
pity that is akin to love.

"Boy," he said, "thou hast said to me a thousand times thou never
shouldst love woman like to me."

"And all those sayings will I overswear," Viola replied, "and all
those swearings keep true."

"Give me thy hand," Orsino cried in gladness.  "Thou shalt be my
wife, and my fancy's queen."

Thus was the gentle Viola made happy, while Olivia found in Sebastian
a constant lover, and a good husband, and he in her a true and
loving wife.




MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING



In Sicily is a town called Messina, which is the scene of a curious
storm in a teacup that raged several hundred years ago.

It began with sunshine.  Don Pedro, Prince of Arragon, in Spain,
had gained so complete a victory over his foes that the very land
whence they came is forgotten.  Feeling happy and playful after
the fatigues of war, Don Pedro came for a holiday to Messina, and
in his suite were his stepbrother Don John and two young Italian
lords, Benedick and Claudio.

Benedick was a merry chatterbox, who had determined to live a
bachelor.  Claudio, on the other hand, no sooner arrived at Messina
than he fell in love with Hero, the daughter of Leonato, Governor
of Messina.

One July day, a perfumer called Borachio was burning dried lavender
in a musty room in Leonato's house, when the sound of conversation
floated through the open window.

"Give me your candid opinion of Hero," Claudio, asked, and Borachio
settled himself for comfortable listening.

"Too short and brown for praise," was Benedick's reply; "but alter
her color or height, and you spoil her."

"In my eyes she is the sweetest of women," said Claudio.

"Not in mine," retorted Benedick, "and I have no need for glasses.
She is like the last day of December compared with the first of
May if you set her beside her cousin.  Unfortunately, the Lady
Beatrice is a fury."

Beatrice was Leonato's niece.  She amused herself by saying witty
and severe things about Benedick, who called her Dear Lady Disdain.
She was wont to say that she was born under a dancing star, and
could not therefore be dull.

Claudio and Benedick were still talking when Don Pedro came up and
said good-humoredly, "Well, gentlemen, what's the secret?"

"I am longing," answered Benedick, "for your Grace to command me
to tell."

"I charge you, then, on your allegiance to tell me," said Don Pedro,
falling in with his humor.

"I can be as dumb as a mute," apologized Benedick to Claudio, "but
his Grace commands my speech."  To Don Pedro he said, "Claudio is
in love with Hero, Leonato's short daughter."

Don Pedro was pleased, for he admired Hero and was fond of Claudio.
When Benedick had departed, he said to Claudio, "Be steadfast in
your love for Hero, and I will help you to win her.  To-night her
father gives a masquerade, and I will pretend I am Claudio, and
tell her how Claudio loves her, and if she be pleased, I will go
to her father and ask his consent to your union."

Most men like to do their own wooing, but if you fall in love with
a Governor's only daughter, you are fortunate if you can trust a
prince to plead for you.

Claudio then was fortunate, but he was unfortunate as well, for he
had an enemy who was outwardly a friend.  This enemy was Don
Pedro's stepbrother Don John, who was jealous of Claudio because
Don Pedro preferred him to Don John.

It was to Don John that Borachio came with the interesting conversation
which he had overheard.

"I shall have some fun at that masquerade myself," said Don John
when Borachio ceased speaking.

On the night of the masquerade, Don Pedro, masked and pretending
he was Claudio, asked Hero if he might walk with her.

They moved away together, and Don John went up to Claudio and said,
"Signor Benedick, I believe?"  "The same," fibbed Claudio.

"I should be much obliged then," said Don John, "if you would use
your influence with my brother to cure him of his love for Hero.
She is beneath him in rank."

"How do you know he loves her?" inquired Claudio.

"I heard him swear his affection," was the reply, and Borachio
chimed in with, "So did I too."

Claudio was then left to himself, and his thought was that his
Prince had betrayed him.  "Farewell, Hero," he muttered; "I was
a fool to trust to an agent."

Meanwhile Beatrice and Benedick (who was masked) were having a
brisk exchange of opinions.

"Did Benedick ever make you laugh?" asked she.

"Who is Benedick?" he inquired.

"A Prince's jester," replied Beatrice, and she spoke so sharply
that "I would not marry her," he declared afterwards, "if her
estate were the Garden of Eden."

But the principal speaker at the masquerade was neither Beatrice
nor Benedick.  It was Don Pedro, who carried out his plan to the
letter, and brought the light back to Claudio's face in a twinkling,
by appearing before him with Leonato and Hero, and saying, "Claudio,
when would you like to go to church?"

"To-morrow," was the prompt answer.  "Time goes on crutches till
I marry Hero."

"Give her a week, my dear son," said Leonato, and Claudio's heart
thumped with joy.

"And now," said the amiable Don Pedro, "we must find a wife for
Signor Benedick.  It is a task for Hercules."

"I will help you," said Leonato, "if I have to sit up ten nights."

Then Hero spoke.  "I will do what I can, my lord, to find a good
husband for Beatrice."

Thus, with happy laughter, ended the masquerade which had given
Claudio a lesson for nothing.

Borachio cheered up Don John by laying a plan before him with which
he was confident he could persuade both Claudio and Don Pedro that
Hero was a fickle girl who had two strings to her bow.  Don John
agreed to this plan of hate.

Don Pedro, on the other hand, had devised a cunning plan of love.
"If," he said to Leonato, "we pretend, when Beatrice is near
enough to overhear us, that Benedick is pining for her love, she
will pity him, see his good qualities, and love him.  And if, when
Benedick thinks we don't know he is listening, we say how sad it
is that the beautiful Beatrice should be in love with a heartless
scoffer like Benedick, he will certainly be on his knees before
her in a week or less."

So one day, when Benedick was reading in a summer-house, Claudio
sat down outside it with Leonato, and said, "Your daughter told
me something about a letter she wrote."

"Letter!" exclaimed Leonato.  "She will get up twenty times in the
night and write goodness knows what.  But once Hero peeped, and
saw the words 'Benedick and Beatrice' on the sheet, and then
Beatrice tore it up."

"Hero told me," said Claudio, "that she cried, 'O sweet Benedick!'"

Benedick was touched to the core by this improbable story, which
he was vain enough to believe.  "She is fair and good," he said
to himself.  "I must not seem proud.  I feel that I love her.
People will laugh, of course; but their paper bullets will do me
no harm."

At this moment Beatrice came to the summerhouse, and said, "Against
my will, I have come to tell you that dinner is ready."

"Fair Beatrice, I thank you," said Benedick.

"I took no more pains to come than you take pains to thank me,"
was the rejoinder, intended to freeze him.

But it did not freeze him.  It warmed him.  The meaning he squeezed
out of her rude speech was that she was delighted to come to him.

Hero, who had undertaken the task of melting the heart of Beatrice,
took no trouble to seek an occasion.  She simply said to her maid
Margaret one day, "Run into the parlor and whisper to Beatrice
that Ursula and I are talking about her in the orchard."

Having said this, she felt as sure that Beatrice would overhear
what was meant for her ears as if she had made an appointment with
her cousin.

In the orchard was a bower, screened from the sun by honeysuckles,
and Beatrice entered it a few minutes after Margaret had gone on
her errand.

"But are you sure," asked Ursula, who was one of Hero's attendants,
"that Benedick loves Beatrice so devotedly?"

"So say the Prince and my betrothed," replied Hero, "and they wished
me to tell her, but I said, 'No!  Let Benedick get over it.'"

"Why did you say that?"

"Because Beatrice is unbearably proud.  Her eyes sparkle with
disdain and scorn.  She is too conceited to love.  I should not
like to see her making game of poor Benedick's love.  I would
rather see Benedick waste away like a covered fire."

"I don't agree with you," said Ursula.  "I think your cousin is
too clear-sighted not to see the merits of Benedick."  "He is the
one man in Italy, except Claudio," said Hero.

The talkers then left the orchard, and Beatrice, excited and tender,
stepped out of the summer-house, saying to herself, "Poor dear
Benedick, be true to me, and your love shall tame this wild heart
of mine."

We now return to the plan of hate.

The night before the day fixed for Claudio's wedding, Don John
entered a room in which Don Pedro and Claudio were conversing,
and asked Claudio if he intended to be married to-morrow.

"You know he does!" said Don Pedro.

"He may know differently," said Don John, "when he has seen what
I will show him if he will follow me."

They followed him into the garden; and they saw a lady leaning out
of Hero's window talking love to Borachio.

Claudio thought the lady was Hero, and said, "I will shame her for
it to-morrow!" Don Pedro thought she was Hero, too; but she was
not Hero; she was Margaret.

Don John chuckled noiselessly when Claudio and Don Pedro quitted
the garden; he gave Borachio a purse containing a thousand ducats.

The money made Borachio feel very gay, and when he was walking in
the street with his friend Conrade, he boasted of his wealth and
the giver, and told what he had done.

A watchman overheard them, and thought that a man who had been paid
a thousand ducats for villainy was worth taking in charge.  He
therefore arrested Borachio and Conrade, who spent the rest of
the night in prison.

Before noon of the next day half the aristocrats in Messina were
at church.  Hero thought it was her wedding day, and she was there
in her wedding dress, no cloud on her pretty face or in her frank
and shining eyes.

The priest was Friar Francis.

Turning to Claudio, he said, "You come hither, my lord, to marry
this lady?"  "No!" contradicted Claudio.

Leonato thought he was quibbling over grammar.  "You should have
said, Friar," said he, "'You come to be married to her.'"

Friar Francis turned to Hero.  "Lady," he said, "you come hither
to be married to this Count?"  "I do," replied Hero.

"If either of you know any impediment to this marriage, I charge
you to utter it," said the Friar.

"Do you know of any, Hero?" asked Claudio.  "None," said she.

"Know you of any, Count?" demanded the Friar.  "I dare reply for
him, 'None,'" said Leonato.

Claudio exclaimed bitterly, "O! what will not men dare say! Father,"
he continued, "will you give me your daughter?"  "As freely,"
replied Leonato, "as God gave her to me."

"And what can I give you," asked Claudio, "which is worthy of this
gift?"  "Nothing," said Don Pedro, "unless you give the gift back
to the giver."

"Sweet Prince, you teach me," said Claudio.  "There, Leonato, take
her back."

These brutal words were followed by others which flew from Claudio,
Don Pedro and Don John.

The church seemed no longer sacred.  Hero took her own part as long
as she could, then she swooned.  All her persecutors left the
church, except her father, who was befooled by the accusations
against her, and cried, "Hence from her!  Let her die!"

But Friar Francis saw Hero blameless with his clear eyes that probed
the soul.  "She is innocent," he said; "a thousand signs have told
me so."

Hero revived under his kind gaze.  Her father, flurried and angry,
knew not what to think, and the Friar said, "They have left her
as one dead with shame.  Let us pretend that she is dead until the
truth is declared, and slander turns to remorse."

"The Friar advises well," said Benedick.  Then Hero was led away
into a retreat, and Beatrice and Benedick remained alone in the
church.

Benedick knew she had been weeping bitterly and long.  "Surely I
do believe your fair cousin is wronged," he said.  She still wept.

"Is it not strange," asked Benedick, gently, "that I love nothing
in the world as well as you?"

"It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing as well as you,"
said Beatrice, "but I do not say it.  I am sorry for my cousin."

"Tell me what to do for her," said Benedick.  "Kill Claudio."

"Ha! not for the wide world," said Benedick.  "Your refusal kills
me," said Beatrice.  "Farewell."

"Enough!  I will challenge him," cried Benedick.

During this scene Borachio and Conrade were in prison.  There they
were examined by a constable called Dogberry.

The watchman gave evidence to the effect that Borachio had said
that he had received a thousand ducats for conspiring against
Hero.

Leonato was not present at this examination, but he was nevertheless
now thoroughly convinced Of Hero's innocence.  He played the part
of bereaved father very well, and when Don Pedro and Claudio called
on him in a friendly way, he said to the Italian, "You have
slandered my child to death, and I challenge you to combat."

"I cannot fight an old man," said Claudio.

"You could kill a girl," sneered Leonato, and Claudio crimsoned.

Hot words grew from hot words, and both Don Pedro and Claudio were
feeling scorched when Leonato left the room and Benedick entered.

"The old man," said Claudio, "was like to have snapped my nose
off."

"You are a villain!" said Benedick, shortly.  "Fight me when and
with what weapon you please, or I call you a coward."

Claudio was astounded, but said, "I'll meet you.  Nobody shall say
I can't carve a calf's head."

Benedick smiled, and as it was time for Don Pedro to receive
officials, the Prince sat down in a chair of state and prepared
his mind for justice.

The door soon opened to admit Dogberry and his prisoners.

"What offence," said Don Pedro, "are these men charged with?"

Borachio thought the moment a happy one for making a clean breast
of it.  He laid the whole blame on Don John, who had disappeared.
"The lady Hero being dead," he said, "I desire nothing but the
reward of a murderer."

Claudio heard with anguish and deep repentance.

Upon the re-entrance of Leonato be said to him, "This slave makes
clear your daughter's innocence.  Choose your revenge.

"Leonato," said Don Pedro, humbly, "I am ready for any penance you
may impose."

"I ask you both, then," said Leonato, "to proclaim my daughter's
innocence, and to honor her tomb by singing her praise before it.
As for you, Claudio, I have this to say: my brother has a daughter
so like Hero that she might be a copy of her.  Marry her, and my
vengeful feelings die."

"Noble sir," said Claudio, "I am yours."  Claudio then went to his
room and composed a solemn song.  Going to the church with Don
Pedro and his attendants, he sang it before the monument of
Leonato's family.  When he had ended he said, "Good night, Hero.
Yearly will I do this."

He then gravely, as became a gentleman whose heart was Hero's, made
ready to marry a girl whom he did not love.  He was told to meet
her in Leonato's house, and was faithful to his appointment.

He was shown into a room where Antonio (Leonato's brother) and
several masked ladies entered after him.  Friar Francis, Leonato,
and Benedick were present.

Antonio led one of the ladies towards Claudio.

"Sweet," said the young man, "let me see your face."

"Swear first to marry her," said Leonato.

"Give me your hand," said Claudio to the lady; "before this holy
friar I swear to marry you if you will be my wife."

"Alive I was your wife," said the lady, as she drew off her mask.

"Another Hero!" exclaimed Claudio.

"Hero died," explained Leonato, "only while slander lived."

The Friar was then going to marry the reconciled pair, but Benedick
interrupted him with, "Softly, Friar; which of these ladies is
Beatrice?"

Hereat Beatrice unmasked, and Benedick said, "You love me, don't
you?"

"Only moderately," was the reply.  "Do you love me?"

"Moderately," answered Benedick.

"I was told you were well-nigh dead for me," remarked Beatrice.

"Of you I was told the same," said Benedick.

"Here's your own hand in evidence of your love," said Claudio,
producing a feeble sonnet which Benedick had written to his
sweetheart.  "And here," said Hero, "is a tribute to Benedick,
which I picked out of the ' pocket of Beatrice."

"A miracle!" exclaimed Benedick.  "Our hands are against our hearts!
Come, I will marry you, Beatrice."

"You shall be my husband to save your life," was the rejoinder.

Benedick kissed her on the mouth; and the Friar married them after
he had married Claudio and Hero.

"How is Benedick the married man?" asked Don Pedro.

"Too happy to be made unhappy," replied Benedick.  "Crack what
jokes you will.  As for you, Claudio, I had hoped to run you
through the body, but as you are now my kinsman, live whole and
love my cousin."

"My cudgel was in love with you, Benedick, until to-day," said
Claudio; but, "Come, come, let's dance," said Benedick.

And dance they did.  Not even the news of the capture of Don John
was able to stop the flying feet of the happy lovers, for revenge
is not sweet against an evil man who has failed to do harm.




ROMEO AND JULIET



Once upon a time there lived in Verona two great families named
Montagu and Capulet.  They were both rich, and I suppose they were
as sensible, in most things, as other rich people.  But in one
thing they were extremely silly.  There was an old, old quarrel
between the two families, and instead of making it up like reasonable
folks, they made a sort of pet of their quarrel, and would not
let it die out.  So that a Montagu wouldn't speak to a Capulet if
he met one in the street--nor a Capulet to a Montagu--or if they
did speak, it was to say rude and unpleasant things, which often
ended in a fight.  And their relations and servants were just as
foolish, so that street fights and duels and uncomfortablenesses
of that kind were always growing out of the Montagu-and-Capulet
quarrel.

Now Lord Capulet, the head of that family, gave a party-- a grand
supper and a dance--and he was so hospitable that he said anyone
might come to it except (of course) the Montagues.  But there was
a young Montagu named Romeo, who very much wanted to be there,
because Rosaline, the lady he loved, had been asked.  This lady
had never been at all kind to him, and he had no reason to love
her; but the fact was that he wanted to love somebody, and as he
hadn't seen the right lady, he was obliged to love the wrong one.
So to the Capulet's grand party he came, with his friends Mercutio
and Benvolio.

Old Capulet welcomed him and his two friends very kindly--and young
Romeo moved about among the crowd of courtly folk dressed in their
velvets and satins, the men with jeweled sword hilts and collars,
and the ladies with brilliant gems on breast and arms, and stones
of price set in their bright girdles.  Romeo was in his best too,
and though he wore a black mask over his eyes and nose, everyone
could see by his mouth and his hair, and the way he held his head,
that he was twelve times handsomer than anyone else in the room.

Presently amid the dancers he saw a lady so beautiful and so lovable
that from that moment he never again gave one thought to that
Rosaline whom he had thought he loved.  And he looked at this
other fair lady, as she moved in the dance in her white satin and
pearls, and all the world seemed vain and worthless to him compared
with her.  And he was saying this, or something like it, when
Tybalt, Lady Capulet's nephew, hearing his voice, knew him to be
Romeo.  Tybalt, being very angry, went at once to his uncle, and
told him how a Montagu had come uninvited to the feast; but old
Capulet was too fine a gentleman to be discourteous to any man
under his own roof, and he bade Tybalt be quiet.  But this young
man only waited for a chance to quarrel with Romeo.

In the meantime Romeo made his way to the fair lady, and told her
in sweet words that he loved her, and kissed her.  Just then her
mother sent for her, and then Romeo found out that the lady on
whom he had set his heart's hopes was Juliet, the daughter of Lord
Capulet, his sworn foe.  So he went away, sorrowing indeed, but
loving her none the less.

Then Juliet said to her nurse:

"Who is that gentleman that would not dance?"

"His name is Romeo, and a Montagu, the only son of your great
enemy," answered the nurse.

Then Juliet went to her room, and looked out of her window, over
the beautiful green-grey garden, where the moon was shining.  And
Romeo was hidden in that garden among the trees--because he could
not bear to go right away without trying to see her again.  So
she--not knowing him to be there--spoke her secret thought aloud,
and told the quiet garden how she loved Romeo.

And Romeo heard and was glad beyond measure.  Hidden below, he
looked up and saw her fair face in the moonlight, framed in the
blossoming creepers that grew round her window, and as he looked
and listened, he felt as though he had been carried away in a
dream, and set down by some magician in that beautiful and enchanted
garden.

"Ah--why are you called Romeo?" said Juliet.  "Since I love you,
what does it matter what you are called?"

"Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized--henceforth I never
will be Romeo," he cried, stepping into the full white moonlight
from the shade of the cypresses and oleanders that had hidden him.

She was frightened at first, but when she saw that it was Romeo
himself, and no stranger, she too was glad, and, he standing in
the garden below and she leaning from the window, they spoke long
together, each one trying to find the sweetest words in the world,
to make that pleasant talk that lovers use.  And the tale of all
they said, and the sweet music their voices made together, is all
set down in a golden book, where you children may read it for
yourselves some day.

And the time passed so quickly, as it does for folk who love each
other and are together, that when the time came to part, it seemed
as though they had met but that moment-- and indeed they hardly
knew how to part.

"I will send to you to-morrow," said Juliet.

And so at last, with lingering and longing, they said good-bye.

Juliet went into her room, and a dark curtain bid her bright window.
Romeo went away through the still and dewy garden like a man in
a dream.

The next morning, very early, Romeo went to Friar Laurence, a
priest, and, telling him all the story, begged him to marry him
to Juliet without delay.  And this, after some talk, the priest
consented to do.

So when Juliet sent her old nurse to Romeo that day to know what
he purposed to do, the old woman took back a a message that all
was well, and all things ready for the marriage of Juliet and
Romeo on the next morning.

The young lovers were afraid to ask their parents' consent to their
marriage, as young people should do, because of this foolish old
quarrel between the Capulets and the Montagues.

And Friar Laurence was willing to help the young lovers secretly,
because he thought that when they were once married their parents
might soon be told, and that the match might put a happy end to
the old quarrel.

So the next morning early, Romeo and Juliet were married at Friar
Laurence's cell, and parted with tears and kisses.  And Romeo
promised to come into the garden that evening, and the nurse got
ready a rope-ladder to let down from the window, so that Romeo
could climb up and talk to his dear wife quietly and alone.

But that very day a dreadful thing happened.

Tybalt, the young man who had been so vexed at Romeo's going to
the Capulet's feast, met him and his two friends, Mercutio and
Benvolio, in the street, called Romeo a villain, and asked him to
fight.  Romeo had no wish to fight with Juliet's cousin, but
Mercutio drew his sword, and he and Tybalt fought.  And Mercutio
was killed.  When Romeo saw that this friend was dead, he forgot
everything except anger at the man who had killed him, and he and
Tybalt fought till Tybalt fell dead.

So, on the very day of his wedding, Romeo killed his dear Juliet's
cousin, and was sentenced to be banished.  Poor Juliet and her
young husband met that night indeed; he climbed the rope-ladder
among the flowers, and found her window, but their meeting was a
sad one, and they parted with bitter tears and hearts heavy,
because they could not know when they should meet again.

Now Juliet's father, who, of course, had no idea that she was
married, wished her to wed a gentleman named Paris, and was so
angry when she refused, that she hurried away to ask Friar Laurence
what she should do.  He advised her to pretend to consent, and
then he said:

"I will give you a draught that will make you seem to be dead for
two days, and then when they take you to church it will be to bury
you, and not to marry you.  They will put you in the vault thinking
you are dead, and before you wake up Romeo and I will be there to
take care of you.  Will you do this, or are you afraid?"

"I will do it; talk not to me of fear!" said Juliet.  And she went
home and told her father she would marry Paris.  If she had spoken
out and told her father the truth .  .  .  well, then this would
have been a different story.

Lord Capulet was very much pleased to get his own way, and set
about inviting his friends and getting the wedding feast ready.
Everyone stayed up all night, for there was a great deal to do,
and very little time to do it in.  Lord Capulet was anxious to
get Juliet married because he saw she was very unhappy.  Of course
she was really fretting about her husband Romeo, but her father
thought she was grieving for the death of her cousin Tybalt, and
he thought marriage would give her something else to think about.

Early in the morning the nurse came to call Juliet, and to dress
her for her wedding; but she would not wake, and at last the nurse
cried out suddenly--

"Alas! alas! help! help! my lady's dead! Oh, well-a-day that ever
I was born!"

Lady Capulet came running in, and then Lord Capulet, and Lord Paris,
the bridegroom.  There lay Juliet cold and white and lifeless,
and all their weeping could not wake her.  So it was a burying
that day instead of a marrying.  Meantime Friar Laurence had sent
a messenger to Mantua with a letter to Romeo telling him of all
these things; and all would have been well, only the messenger
was delayed, and could not go.

But ill news travels fast.  Romeo's servant who knew the secret of
the marriage, but not of Juliet's pretended death, heard of her
funeral, and hurried to Mantua to tell Romeo how his young wife
was dead and lying in the grave.

"Is it so?" cried Romeo, heart-broken.  "Then I will lie by Juliet's
side to-night."

And he bought himself a poison, and went straight back to Verona.
He hastened to the tomb where Juliet was lying.  It was not a
grave, but a vault.  He broke open the door, and was just going
down the stone steps that led to the vault where all the dead
Capulets lay, when he heard a voice bebind him calling on him to
stop.

It was the Count Paris, who was to have married Juliet that very
day.

"How dare you come here and disturb the dead bodies of the Capulets,
you vile Montagu?" cried Paris.

Poor Romeo, half mad with sorrow, yet tried to answer gently.

"You were told," said Paris, "that if you returned to Verona you
must die."

"I must indeed," said Romeo.  "I came here for nothing else.  Good,
gentle youth--leave me!  Oh, go--before I do you any harm!  I love
you better than myself--go--leave me here--"

Then Paris said, "I defy you, and I arrest you as a felon," and
Romeo, in his anger and despair, drew his sword.  They fought,
and Paris was killed.

As Romeo's sword pierced him, Paris cried--

"Oh, I am slain!  If thou be merciful, open the tomb, and lay me
with Juliet!"

And Romeo said, "In faith I will."

And he carried the dead man into the tomb and laid him by the dear
Juliet's side.  Then he kneeled by Juliet and spoke to her, and
held her in his arms, and kissed her cold lips, believing that
she was dead, while all the while she was coming nearer and nearer
to the time of her awakening.  Then he drank the poison, and died
beside his sweetheart and wife.

Now came Friar Laurence when it was too late, and saw all that had
happened--and then poor Juliet woke out of her sleep to find her
husband and her friend both dead beside her.

The noise of the fight had brought other folks to the place too,
and Friar Laurence, hearing them, ran away, and Juliet was left
alone.  She saw the cup that had held the poison, and knew how
all had happened, and since no poison was left for her, she drew
her Romeo's dagger and thrust it through her heart--and so, falling
with her head on her Romeo's breast, she died.  And here ends the
story of these faithful and most unhappy lovers.

            *    *    *    *    *    *    *

And when the old folks knew from Friar Laurence of all that had
befallen, they sorrowed exceedingly, and now, seeing all the
mischief their wicked quarrel had wrought, they repented them of
it, and over the bodies of their dead children they clasped hands
at last, in friendship and forgiveness.




PERICLES



Pericles, the Prince of Tyre, was unfortunate enough to make an
enemy of Antiochus, the powerful and wicked King of Antioch; and
so great was the danger in which he stood that, on the advice of
his trusty counselor, Lord Helicanus, he determined to travel
about the world for a time.  He came to this decision despite the
fact that, by the death of his father, he was now King of Tyre.
So he set sail for Tarsus, appointing Helicanus Regent during his
absence.  That he did wisely in thus leaving his kingdom was soon
made clear.

Hardly had he sailed on his voyage, when Lord Thaliard arrived from
Antioch with instructions from his royal master to kill Pericles.
The faithful Helicanus soon discovered the deadly purpose of this
wicked lord, and at once sent messengers to Tarsus to warn the
King of the danger which threatened him.

The people of Tarsus were in such poverty and distress that Pericles,
feeling that he could find no safe refuge there, put to sea again.
But a dreadful storm overtook the ship in which he was, and the
good vessel was wrecked, while of all on board only Pericles was
saved.  Bruised and wet and faint, he was flung upon the cruel
rocks on the coast of Pentapolis, the country of the good King
Simonides.  Worn out as he was, he looked for nothing but death,
and that speedily.  But some fishermen, coming down to the beach,
found him there, and gave him clothes and bade him be of good cheer.

"Thou shalt come home with me," said one of them, "and we will have
flesh for holidays, fish for fasting days, and moreo'er, puddings
and flapjacks, and thou shalt be welcome."

They told him that on the morrow many princes and knights were
going to the King's Court, there to joust and tourney for the love
of his daughter, the beautiful Princess Thaisa

"Did but my fortunes equal my desires," said Pericles, "I'd wish
to make one there."

As he spoke, some of the fishermen came by, drawing their net, and
it dragged heavily, resisting all their efforts, but at last they
hauled it in, to find that it contained a suit of rusty armor;
and looking at it, he blessed Fortune for her kindness, for he
saw that it was his own, which had been given to him by his dead
father.  He begged the fishermen to let him have it that he might
go to Court and take part in the tournament, promising that if
ever his ill fortunes bettered, he would reward them well.  The
fishermen readily consented, and being thus fully equipped, Pericles
set off in his rusty armor to the King's Court.

In the tournament none bore himself so well as Pericles, and he
won the wreath of victory, which the fair Princess herself placed
on his brows.  Then at her father's command she asked him who he
was, and whence he came; and he answered that he was a knight of
Tyre, by name Pericles, but he did not tell her that he was the
King of that country, for he knew that if once his whereabouts
became known to Antiochus, his life would not be worth a pin's
purchase.

Nevertheless Thaisa loved him dearly, and the King was so pleased
with his courage and graceful bearing that he gladly permitted
his daughter to have her own way, when she told him she would
marry the stranger knight or die.

Thus Pericles became the husband of the fair lady for whose sake
he had striven with the knights who came in all their bravery to
joust and tourney for her love.

Meanwhile the wicked King Antiochus had died, and the people in
Tyre, hearing no news of their King, urged Lord Helicanus to ascend
the vacant throne.  But they could only get him to promise that
he would become their King, if at the end of a year Pericles did
not come back.  Moreover, he sent forth messengers far and wide
in search of the missing Pericles.

Some of these made their way to Pentapolis, and finding their King
there, told him how discontented his people were at his long
absence, and that, Antiochus being dead, there was nothing now to
hinder him from returning to his kingdom.  Then Pericles told his
wife and father-in-law who he really was, and they and all the
subjects of Simonides greatly rejoiced to know that the gallant
husband of Thaisa was a King in his own right.  So Pericles set
sail with his dear wife for his native land.  But once more the
sea was cruel to him, for again a dreadful storm broke out, and
while it was at its height, a servant came to tell him that a
little daughter was born to him.  This news would have made his
heart glad indeed, but that the servant went on to add that his
wife--his dear, dear Thaisa--was dead.

While he was praying the gods to be good to his little baby girl,
the sailors came to him, declaring that the dead Queen must be
thrown overboard, for they believed that the storm would never
cease so long as a dead body remained in the vessel.  So Thaisa
was laid in a big chest with spices and jewels, and a scroll on
which the sorrowful King wrote these lines:

   "Here I give to understand
    (If e'er this coffin drive a-land),
    I, King Pericles, have lost
    This Queen worth all our mundane cost.
    Who finds her, give her burying;
    She was the daughter of a King;
    Besides this treasure for a fee,
    The gods requite his charity!"

Then the chest was cast into the sea, and the waves taking it, by
and by washed it ashore at Ephesus, where it was found by the
servants of a lord named Cerimon.  He at once ordered it to be
opened, and when he saw how lovely Thaisa looked, he doubted if
she were dead, and took immediate steps to restore her.  Then a
great wonder happened, for she, who had been thrown into the sea
as dead, came back to life.  But feeling sure that she would never
see her husband again, Thaisa retired from the world, and became
a priestess of the Goddess Diana.

While these things were happening, Pericles went on to Tarsus with
his little daughter, whom he called Marina, because she had been
born at sea.  Leaving her in the hands of his old friend the
Governor of Tarsus, the King sailed for his own dominions.

Now Dionyza, the wife of the Governor of Tarsus, was a jealous and
wicked woman, and finding that the young Princess grew up a more
accomplished and charming girl than her own daughter, she determined
to take Marina's life.  So when Marina was fourteen, Dionyza
ordered one of her servants to take her away and kill her.  This
villain would have done so, but that he was interrupted by some
pirates who came in and carried Marina off to sea with them, and
took her to Mitylene, where they sold her as a slave.  Yet such
was her goodness, her grace, and her beauty, that she soon became
honored there, and Lysimachus, the young Governor, fell deep in
love with her, and would have married her, but that he thought
she must be of too humble parentage to become the wife of one in
his high position.

The wicked Dionyza believed, from her servant's report, that Marina
was really dead, and so she put up a monument to her memory, and
showed it to King Pericles, when after long years of absence he
came to see his much-loved child.  When he heard that she was
dead, his grief was terrible to see.  He set sail once more, and
putting on sackcloth, vowed never to wash his face or cut his hair
again.  There was a pavilion erected on deck, and there he lay
alone, and for three months he spoke word to none.

At last it chanced that his ship came into the port of Mitylene,
and Lysimachus, the Governor, went on board to enquire whence the
vessel came.  When he heard the story of Pericles' sorrow and
silence, he bethought him of Marina, and believing that she could
rouse the King from his stupor, sent for her and bade her try her
utmost to persuade the King to speak, promising whatever reward
she would, if she succeeded.  Marina gladly obeyed, and sending
the rest away, she sat and sang to her poor grief-laden father,
yet, sweet as was her voice, he made no sign.  So presently she
spoke to him, saying that her grief might equal his, for, though
she was a slave, she came from ancestors that stood equal to mighty
kings.

Something in her voice and story touched the King's heart, and he
looked up at her, and as he looked, he saw with wonder how like
she was to his lost wife, so with a great hope springing up in
his heart, he bade her tell her story.

Then, with many interruptions from the King, she told him who she
was and how she had escaped from the cruel Dionyza.  So Pericles
knew that this was indeed his daughter, and he kissed her again
and again, crying that his great seas of joy drowned him with
their sweetness.  "Give me my robes," he said: "O Heaven, bless
my girl!"

Then there came to him, though none else could hear it, the sound
of heavenly music, and falling asleep, he beheld the goddess Diana,
in a vision.

"Go," she said to him, "to my temple at Ephesus, and when my maiden
priests are met together, reveal how thou at sea didst lose thy
wife."

Pericles obeyed the goddess and told his tale before her altar.
Hardly had he made an end, when the chief priestess, crying out,
"You are--you are--O royal Pericles!" fell fainting to the ground,
and presently recovering, she spoke again to him, "O my lord, are
you not Pericles?"  "The voice of dead Thaisa!" exclaimed the King
in wonder.  "That Thaisa am I," she said, and looking at her he
saw that she spoke the very truth.

Thus Pericles and Thaisa, after long and bitter suffering, found
happiness once more, and in the joy of their meeting they forgot
the pain of the past.  To Marina great happiness was given, and
not only in being restored to her dear parents; for she married
Lysimachus, and became a princess in the land where she had been
sold as a slave.




HAMLET



Hamlet was the only son of the King of Denmark.  He loved his father
and mother dearly--and was happy in the love of a sweet lady named
Ophelia.  Her father, Polonius, was the King's Chamberlain.

While Hamlet was away studying at Wittenberg, his father died.
Young Hamlet hastened home in great grief to hear that a serpent
had stung the King, and that he was dead.  The young Prince had
loved his father so tenderly that you may judge what he felt when
he found that the Queen, before yet the King had been laid in the
ground a month, had determined to marry again--and to marry the
dead King's brother.

Hamlet refused to put off mourning for the wedding.

"It is not only the black I wear on my body," he said, "that proves
my loss.  I wear mourning in my heart for my dead father.  His
son at least remembers him, and grieves still."

Then said Claudius the King's brother, "This grief is unreasonable.
Of course you must sorrow at the loss of your father, but--"

"Ah," said Hamlet, bitterly, "I cannot in one little month forget
those I love."

With that the Queen and Claudius left him, to make merry over their
wedding, forgetting the poor good King who had been so kind to
them both.

And Hamlet, left alone, began to wonder and to question as to what
he ought to do.  For he could not believe the story about the
snake-bite.  It seemed to him all too plain that the wicked Claudius
had killed the King, so as to get the crown and marry the Queen.
Yet he had no proof, and could not accuse Claudius.

And while he was thus thinking came Horatio, a fellow student of
his, from Wittenberg.

"What brought you here?" asked Hamlet, when he had greeted his
friend kindly.

"I came, my lord, to see your father's funeral."

"I think it was to see my mother's wedding," said Hamlet, bitterly.
"My father!  We shall not look upon his like again."

"My lord," answered Horatio, "I think I saw him yesternight."

Then, while Hamlet listened in surprise, Horatio told how he, with
two gentlemen of the guard, had seen the King's ghost on the
battlements.  Hamlet went that night, and true enough, at midnight,
the ghost of the King, in the armor he had been wont to wear,
appeared on the battlements in the chill moonlight.  Hamlet was
a brave youth.  Instead of running away from the ghost he spoke
to it--and when it beckoned him he followed it to a quiet place,
and there the ghost told him that what he had suspected was true.
The wicked Claudius had indeed killed his good brother the King,
by dropping poison into his ear as he slept in his orchard in the
afternoon.

"And you," said the ghost, "must avenge this cruel murder-- on my
wicked brother.  But do nothing against the Queen-- for I have
loved her, and she is your mother.  Remember me."

Then seeing the morning approach, the ghost vanished.

"Now," said Hamlet, "there is nothing left but revenge.  Remember
thee--I will remember nothing else--books, pleasure, youth--let
all go--and your commands alone live on my brain."

So when his friends came back he made them swear to keep the secret
of the ghost, and then went in from the battlements, now gray with
mingled dawn and moonlight, to think how he might best avenge his
murdered father.

The shock of seeing and hearing his father's ghost made him feel
almost mad, and for fear that his uncle might notice that he was
not himself, he determined to hide his mad longing for revenge
under a pretended madness in other matters.

And when he met Ophelia, who loved him--and to whom he had given
gifts, and letters, and many loving words--he behaved so wildly
to her, that she could not but think him mad.  For she loved him
so that she could not believe he would be as cruel as this, unless
he were quite mad.  So she told her father, and showed him a pretty
letter from Hamlet.  And in the letter was much folly, and this
pretty verse--

       "Doubt that the stars are fire;
          Doubt that the sun doth move;
        Doubt truth to be a liar;
          But never doubt I love."

And from that time everyone believed that the cause of Hamlet's
supposed madness was love.

Poor Hamlet was very unhappy.  He longed to obey his father's
ghost--and yet he was too gentle and kindly to wish to kill another
man, even his father's murderer.  And sometimes he wondered whether,
after all, the ghost spoke truly.

Just at this time some actors came to the Court, and Hamlet ordered
them to perform a certain play before the King and Queen.  Now,
this play was the story of a man who had been murdered in his
garden by a near relation, who afterwards married the dead man's
wife.

You may imagine the feelings of the wicked King, as he sat on his
throne, with the Queen beside him and all his Court around, and
saw, acted on the stage, the very wickedness that he had himself
done.  And when, in the play, the wicked relation poured poison
into the ear of the sleeping man, the wicked Claudius suddenly
rose, and staggered from the room--the Queen and others
following.

Then said Hamlet to his friends--

"Now I am sure the ghost spoke true.  For if Claudius had not done
this murder, he could not have been so distressed to see it in a
play."

Now the Queen sent for Hamlet, by the King's desire, to scold him
for his conduct during the play, and for other matters; and
Claudius, wishing to know exactly what happened, told old Polonius
to hide himself behind the hangings in the Queen's room.  And as
they talked, the Queen got frightened at Hamlet's rough, strange
words, and cried for help, and Polonius behind the curtain cried
out too.  Hamlet, thinking it was the King who was hidden there,
thrust with his sword at the hangings, and killed, not the King,
but poor old Polonius.

So now Hamlet had offended his uncle and his mother, and by bad
hap killed his true love's father.

"Oh! what a rash and bloody deed is this," cried the Queen.

And Hamlet answered bitterly, "Almost as bad as to kill a king,
and marry his brother."  Then Hamlet told the Queen plainly all
his thoughts and how he knew of the murder, and begged her, at
least, to have no more friendship or kindness of the base Claudius,
who had killed the good King.  And as they spoke the King's ghost
again appeared before Hamlet, but the Queen could not see it.  So
when the ghost had gone, they parted.

When the Queen told Claudius what had passed, and how Polonius was
dead, he said, "This shows plainly that Hamlet is mad, and since
he has killed the Chancellor, it is for his own safety that we
must carry out our plan, and send him away to England."

So Hamlet was sent, under charge of two courtiers who served the
King, and these bore letters to the English Court, requiring that
Hamlet should be put to death.  But Hamlet had the good sense to
get at these letters, and put in others instead, with the names
of the two courtiers who were so ready to betray him.  Then, as
the vessel went to England, Hamlet escaped on board a pirate ship,
and the two wicked courtiers left him to his fate, and went on to
meet theirs.

Hamlet hurried home, but in the meantime a dreadful thing had
happened.  Poor pretty Ophelia, having lost her lover and her
father, lost her wits too, and went in sad madness about the Court,
with straws, and weeds, and flowers in her hair, singing strange
scraps of songs, and talking poor, foolish, pretty talk with no
heart of meaning to it.  And one day, coming to a stream where
willows grew, she tried to bang a flowery garland on a willow,
and fell into the water with all her flowers, and so died.

And Hamlet had loved her, though his plan of seeming madness had
made him hide it; and when he came back, he found the King and
Queen, and the Court, weeping at the funeral of his dear love and
lady.

Ophelia's brother, Laertes, had also just come to Court to ask
justice for the death of his father, old Polonius; and now, wild
with grief, he leaped into his sister's grave, to clasp her in
his arms once more.

"I loved her more than forty thousand brothers," cried Hamlet, and
leapt into the grave after him, and they fought till they were
parted.

Afterwards Hamlet begged Laertes to forgive him.

"I could not bear," he said, "that any, even a brother, should seem
to love her more than I."

But the wicked Claudius would not let them be friends.  He told
Laertes how Hamlet had killed old Polonius, and between them they
made a plot to slay Hamlet by treachery.

Laertes challenged him to a fencing match, and all the Court were
present.  Hamlet had the blunt foil always used in fencing, but
Laertes had prepared for himself a sword, sharp, and tipped with
poison.  And the wicked King had made ready a bowl of poisoned
wine, which he meant to give poor Hamlet when he should grow warm
with the sword play, and should call for drink.

So Laertes and Hamlet fought, and Laertes, after some fencing, gave
Hamlet a sharp sword thrust.  Hamlet, angry at this treachery--for
they had been fencing, not as men fight, but as they play--closed
with Laertes in a struggle; both dropped their swords, and when
they picked them up again, Hamlet, without noticing it, had
exchanged his own blunt sword for Laertes' sharp and poisoned one.
And with one thrust of it he pierced Laertes, who fell dead by
his own treachery.

At this moment the Queen cried out, "The drink, the drink!  Oh, my
dear Hamlet!  I am poisoned!"

She had drunk of the poisoned bowl the King had prepared for Hamlet,
and the King saw the Queen, whom, wicked as he was, he really
loved, fall dead by his means.

Then Ophelia being dead, and Polonius, and the Queen, and Laertes,
and the two courtiers who had been sent to England, Hamlet at last
found courage to do the ghost's bidding and avenge his father's
murder--which, if he had braced up his heart to do long before,
all these lives had been spared, and none had suffered but the
wicked King, who well deserved to die.

Hamlet, his heart at last being great enough to do the deed he
ought, turned the poisoned sword on the false King.

"Then--venom--do thy work!" he cried, and the King died.

So Hamlet in the end kept the promise he had made his father.  And
all being now accomplished, he himself died.  And those who stood
by saw him die, with prayers and tears, for his friends and his
people loved him with their whole hearts.  Thus ends the tragic
tale of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.




CYMBELINE



Cymbeline was the King of Britain.  He had three children.  The
two sons were stolen away from him when they were quite little
children, and he was left with only one daughter, Imogen.  The
King married a second time, and brought up Leonatus, the son of
a dear friend, as Imogen's playfellow; and when Leonatus was old
enough, Imogen secretly married him.  This made the King and Queen
very angry, and the King, to punish Leonatus, banished him from
Britain.

Poor Imogen was nearly heart-broken at parting from Leonatus, and
he was not less unhappy.  For they were not only lovers and husband
and wife, but they had been friends and comrades ever since they
were quite little children.  With many tears and kisses they said
"Good-bye."  They promised never to forget each other, and that
they would never care for anyone else as long as they lived.

"This diamond was my mother's, love," said Imogen; "take it, my
heart, and keep it as long as you love me."

"Sweetest, fairest," answered Leonatus, "wear this bracelet for my
sake."

"Ah!" cried Imogen, weeping, "when shall we meet again?"

And while they were still in each other's arms, the King came in,
and Leonatus had to leave without more farewell.

When he was come to Rome, where he had gone to stay with an old
friend of his father's, he spent his days still in thinking of
his dear Imogen, and his nights in dreaming of her.  One day at
a feast some Italian and French noblemen were talking of their
sweethearts, and swearing that they were the most faithful and
honorable and beautiful ladies in the world.  And a Frenchman
reminded Leonatus how he had said many times that his wife Imogen
was more fair, wise, and constant than any of the ladies in
France.

"I say so still," said Leonatus.

"She is not so good but that she would deceive," said Iachimo, one
of the Italian nobles.

"She never would deceive," said Leonatus.

"I wager," said Iachimo, "that, if I go to Britain, I can persuade
your wife to do whatever I wish, even if it should be against your
wishes."

"That you will never do," said Leonatus.  "I wager this ring upon
my finger," which was the very ring Imogen had given him at parting,
"that my wife will keep all her vows to me, and that you will
never persuade her to do otherwise."

So Iachimo wagered half his estate against the ring on Leonatus's
finger, and started forthwith for Britain, with a letter of
introduction to Leonatus's wife.  When he reached there he was
received with all kindness; but he was still determined to win
his wager.

He told Imogen that her husband thought no more of her, and went
on to tell many cruel lies about him.  Imogen listened at first,
but presently perceived what a wicked person Iachimo was, and
ordered him to leave her.  Then he said--

"Pardon me, fair lady, all that I have said is untrue.  I only told
you this to see whether you would believe me, or whether you were
as much to be trusted as your husband thinks.  Will you forgive
me?"

"I forgive you freely," said Imogen.

"Then," went on Iachimo, "perhaps you will prove it by taking charge
of a trunk, containing a number of jewels which your husband and
I and some other gentlemen have bought as a present for the Emperor
of Rome."

"I will indeed," said Imogen, "do anything for my husband and a
friend of my husband's.  Have the jewels sent into my room, and
I will take care of them."

"It is only for one night," said Iachimo, "for I leave Britain
again to-morrow."

So the trunk was carried into Imogen's room, and that night she
went to bed and to sleep.  When she was fast asleep, the lid of
the trunk opened and a man got out.  It was Iachimo.  The story
about the jewels was as untrue as the rest of the things he had
said.  He had only wished to get into her room to win his wicked
wager.  He looked about him and noticed the furniture, and then
crept to the side of the bed where Imogen was asleep and took from
her arm the gold bracelet which had been the parting gift of her
husband.  Then he crept back to the trunk, and next morning sailed
for Rome.

When he met Leonatus, he said--

"I have been to Britain and I have won the wager, for your wife no
longer thinks about you.  She stayed talking with me all one night
in her room, which is hung with tapestry and has a carved
chimney-piece, and silver andirons in the shape of two winking
Cupids."

"I do not believe she has forgotten me; I do not believe she stayed
talking with you in her room.  You have heard her room described
by the servants."

"Ah!" said Iachimo, "but she gave me this bracelet.  She took it
from her arm.  I see her yet.  Her pretty action did outsell her
gift, and yet enriched it too.  She gave it me, and said she prized
it once."

"Take the ring," cried Leonatus, "you have won; and you might have
won my life as well, for I care nothing for it now I know my lady
has forgotten me."

And mad with anger, he wrote letters to Britain to his old servant,
Pisanio, ordering him to take Imogen to Milford Haven, and to
murder her, because she had forgotten him and given away his gift.
At the same time he wrote to Imogen herself, telling her to go
with Pisanio, his old servant, to Milford Haven, and that he, her
husband, would be there to meet her.

Now when Pisanio got this letter he was too good to carry out its
orders, and too wise to let them alone altogether.  So he gave
Imogen the letter from her husband, and started with her for
Milford Haven.  Before he left, the wicked Queen gave him a drink
which, she said, would be useful in sickness.  She hoped he would
give it to Imogen, and that Imogen would die, and the wicked
Queen's son could be King.  For the Queen thought this drink was
a poison, but really and truly it was only a sleeping-draft.

When Pisanio and Imogen came near to Milford Haven, he told her
what was really in the letter he had had from her husband.

"I must go on to Rome, and see him myself," said Imogen.

And then Pisanio helped her to dress in boy's clothes, and sent
her on her way, and went back to the Court.  Before he went he
gave her the drink he had had from the Queen.

Imogen went on, getting more and more tired, and at last came to
a cave.  Someone seemed to live there, but no one was in just
then.  So she went in, and as she was almost dying of hunger, she
took some food she saw there, and had just done so, when an old
man and two boys came into the cave.  She was very much frightened
when she saw them, for she thought that they would be angry with
her for taking their food, though she had meant to leave money
for it on the table.  But to her surprise they welcomed her kindly.
She looked very pretty in her boy's clothes and her face was
good, as well as pretty.

"You shall be our brother," said both the boys; and so she stayed
with them, and helped to cook the food, and make things comfortable.
But one day when the old man, whose name was Bellarius, was out
hunting with the two boys, Imogen felt ill, and thought she would
try the medicine Pisanio had given her.  So she took it, and at
once became like a dead creature, so that when Bellarius and the
boys came back from hunting, they thought she was dead, and with
many tears and funeral songs, they carried her away and laid her
in the wood, covered with flowers.

They sang sweet songs to her, and strewed flowers on her, pale
primroses, and the azure harebell, and eglantine, and furred moss,
and went away sorrowful.  No sooner had they gone than Imogen
awoke, and not knowing how she came there, nor where she was, went
wandering through the wood.

Now while Imogen had been living in the cave, the Romans had decided
to attack Britain, and their army had come over, and with them
Leonatus, who had grown sorry for his wickedness against Imogen,
so had come back, not to fight with the Romans against Britain,
but with the Britons against Rome.  So as Imogen wandered alone,
she met with Lucius, the Roman General, and took service with him
as his page.

When the battle was fought between the Romans and Britons, Bellarius
and his two boys fought for their own country, and Leonatus,
disguised as a British peasant, fought beside them.  The Romans
had taken Cymbeline prisoner, and old Bellarius, with his sons
and Leonatus, bravely rescued the King.  Then the Britons won the
battle, and among the prisoners brought before the King were
Lucius, with Imogen, Iachimo, and Leonatus, who had put on the
uniform of a Roman soldier.  He was tired of his life since he
had cruelly ordered his wife to be killed, and he hoped that, as
a Roman soldier, he would be put to death.

When they were brought before the King, Lucius spoke out--

"A Roman with a Roman's heart can suffer," he said.  "If I must
die, so be it.  This one thing only will I entreat.  My boy, a
Briton born, let him be ransomed.  Never master had a page so
kind, so duteous, diligent, true.  He has done no Briton harm,
though he has served a Roman.  Save him, Sir."

Then Cymbeline looked on the page, who was his own daughter, Imogen,
in disguise, and though he did not recognize her, he felt such a
kindness that he not only spared the boy's life, but he said--

"He shall have any boon he likes to ask of me, even though he ask
a prisoner, the noblest taken."

Then Imogen said, "The boon I ask is that this gentleman shall say
from whom he got the ring he has on his finger," and she pointed
to Iachimo.

"Speak," said Cymbeline, "how did you get that diamond?"

Then Iachimo told the whole truth of his villainy.  At this, Leonatus
was unable to contain himself, and casting aside all thought of
disguise, he came forward, cursing himself for his folly in having
believed Iachimo's lying story, and calling again and again on
his wife whom he believed dead.

"Oh, Imogen, my love, my life!" he cried.  "Oh, Imogen!

"Then Imogen, forgetting she was disguised, cried out, "Peace, my
lord--here, here!"

Leonatus turned to strike the forward page who thus interfered in
his great trouble, and then he saw that it was his wife, Imogen,
and they fell into each other's arms.

The King was so glad to see his dear daughter again, and so grateful
to the man who had rescued him (whom he now found to be Leonatus),
that he gave his blessing on their marriage, and then he turned
to Bellarius, and the two boys.  Now Bellarius spoke--

"I am your old servant, Bellarius.  You accused me of treason when
I had only been loyal to you, and to be doubted, made me disloyal.
So I stole your two sons, and see,--they are here!"  And he brought
forward the two boys, who had sworn to be brothers to Imogen when
they thought she was a boy like themselves.

The wicked Queen was dead of some of her own poisons, and the King,
with his three children about him, lived to a happy old age.

So the wicked were punished, and the good and true lived happy ever
after.  So may the wicked suffer, and honest folk prosper till
the world's end.




MACBETH



When a person is asked to tell the story of Macbeth, he can tell
two stories.  One is of a man called Macbeth who came to the throne
of Scotland by a crime in the year of our Lord 1039, and reigned
justly and well, on the whole, for fifteen years or more.  This
story is part of Scottish history.  The other story issues from
a place called Imagination; it is gloomy and wonderful, and you
shall hear it.

A year or two before Edward the Confessor began to rule England,
a battle was won in Scotland against a Norwegian King by two
generals named Macbeth and Banquo.  After the battle, the generals
walked together towards Forres, in Elginshire, where Duncan, King
of Scotland, was awaiting them.

While they were crossing a lonely heath, they saw three bearded
women, sisters, hand in hand, withered in appearance and wild in
their attire.

"Speak, who are you?" demanded Macbeth.

"Hail, Macbeth, chieftain of Glamis," said the first woman.

"Hail, Macbeth, chieftain of Cawdor," said the second woman.

"Hail, Macbeth, King that is to be," said the third woman.

Then Banquo asked, "What of me?" and the third woman replied, "Thou
shalt be the father of kings."

"Tell me more," said Macbeth.  "By my father's death I am chieftain
of Glamis, but the chieftain of Cawdor lives, and the King lives,
and his children live.  Speak, I charge you!"

The women replied only by vanishing, as though suddenly mixed with
the air.

Banquo and Macbeth knew then that they had been addressed by witches,
and were discussing their prophecies when two nobles approached.
One of them thanked Macbeth, in the King's name, for his military
services, and the other said, "He bade me call you chieftain of
Cawdor."

Macbeth then learned that the man who had yesterday borne that
title was to die for treason, and he could not help thinking, "The
third witch called me, 'King that is to be.'"

"Banquo," he said, "you see that the witches spoke truth concerning
me.  Do you not believe, therefore, that your child and grandchild
will be kings?"

Banquo frowned.  Duncan had two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, and
he deemed it disloyal to hope that his son Fleance should rule
Scotland.  He told Macbeth that the witches might have intended
to tempt them both into villainy by their prophecies concerning
the throne.  Macbeth, however, thought the prophecy that he should
be King too pleasant to keep to himself, and he mentioned it to
his wife in a letter.

Lady Macbeth was the grand-daughter of a King of Scotland who had
died in defending his crown against the King who preceded Duncan,
and by whose order her only brother was slain.  To her, Duncan
was a reminder of bitter wrongs.  Her husband had royal blood in
his veins, and when she read his letter, she was determined that
he should be King.

When a messenger arrived to inform her that Duncan would pass a
night in Macbeth's castle, she nerved herself for a very base
action.

She told Macbeth almost as soon as she saw him that Duncan must
spend a sunless morrow.  She meant that Duncan must die, and that
the dead are blind.  "We will speak further," said Macbeth uneasily,
and at night, with his memory full of Duncan's kind words, he
would fain have spared his guest.

"Would you live a coward?" demanded Lady Macbeth, who seems to have
thought that morality and cowardice were the same.

"I dare do all that may become a man," replied Macbeth; "who dare
do more is none."

"Why did you write that letter to me?" she inquired fiercely, and
with bitter words she egged him on to murder, and with cunning
words she showed him how to do it.

After supper Duncan went to bed, and two grooms were placed on
guard at his bedroom door.  Lady Macbeth caused them to drink wine
till they were stupefied.  She then took their daggers and would
have killed the King herself if his sleeping face had not looked
like her father's.

Macbeth came later, and found the daggers lying by the grooms; and
soon with red hands he appeared before his wife, saying, "Methought
I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more!  Macbeth destroys the sleeping.'"

"Wash your hands," said she.  "Why did you not leave the daggers
by the grooms?  Take them back, and smear the grooms with blood."

"I dare not," said Macbeth.

His wife dared, and she returned to him with hands red as his own,
but a heart less white, she proudly told him, for she scorned his
fear.

The murderers heard a knocking, and Macbeth wished it was a knocking
which could wake the dead.  It was the knocking of Macduff, the
chieftain of Fife, who had been told by Duncan to visit him early.
Macbeth went to him, and showed him the door of the King's room.

Macduff entered, and came out again crying, "O horror! horror!
horror!"

Macbeth appeared as horror-stricken as Macduff, and pretending that
he could not bear to see life in Duncan's murderers, he slew the
two grooms with their own daggers before they could proclaim their
innocence.

These murders did not shriek out, and Macbeth was crowned at Scone.
One of Duncan's sons went to Ireland, the other to England.
Macbeth was King.  But he was discontented.  The prophecy concerning
Banquo oppressed his mind.  If Fleance were to rule, a son of
Macbeth would not rule.  Macbeth determined, therefore, to murder
both Banquo and his son.  He hired two ruffians, who slew Banquo
one night when he was on his way with Fleance to a banquet which
Macbeth was giving to his nobles.  Fleance escaped.

Meanwhile Macbeth and his Queen received their guests very graciously,
and he expressed a wish for them which has been uttered thousands
of times since his day--"Now good digestion wait on appetite, and
health on both."

"We pray your Majesty to sit with us," said Lennox, a Scotch noble;
but ere Macbeth could reply, the ghost of Banquo entered the
banqueting hall and sat in Macbeth's place.

Not noticing the ghost, Macbeth observed that, if Banquo were
present, he could say that he had collected under his roof the
choicest chivalry of Scotland.  Macduff, however, had curtly
declined his invitation.

The King was again pressed to take a seat, and Lennox, to whom
Banquo's ghost was invisible, showed him the chair where it sat.

But Macbeth, with his eyes of genius, saw the ghost.  He saw it
like a form of mist and blood, and he demanded passionately, "Which
of you have done this?"

Still none saw the ghost but he, and to the ghost Macbeth said,
"Thou canst not say I did it."

The ghost glided out, and Macbeth was impudent enough to raise a
glass of wine "to the general joy of the whole table, and to our
dear friend Banquo, whom we miss."

The toast was drunk as the ghost of Banquo entered for the second
time.

"Begone!" cried Macbeth.  "You are senseless, mindless! Hide in
the earth, thou horrible shadow."

Again none saw the ghost but he.

"What is it your Majesty sees?" asked one of the nobles.

The Queen dared not permit an answer to be given to this question.
She hurriedly begged her guests to quit a sick man who was likely
to grow worse if he was obliged to talk.

Macbeth, however, was well enough next day to converse with the
witches whose prophecies had so depraved him.

He found them in a cavern on a thunderous day.  They were revolving
round a cauldron in which were boiling particles of many strange
and horrible creatures, and they knew he was coming before he
arrived.

"Answer me what I ask you," said the King.

"Would you rather hear it from us or our masters?" asked the first
witch.

"Call them," replied Macbeth.

Thereupon the witches poured blood into the cauldron and grease
into the flame that licked it, and a helmeted head appeared with
the visor on, so that Macbeth could only see its eyes.

He was speaking to the head, when the first witch said gravely,
"He knows thy thought," and a voice in the head said, "Macbeth,
beware Macduff, the chieftain of Fife."  The head then descended
Into the cauldron till it disappeared.

"One word more," pleaded Macbeth.

"He will not be commanded," said the first witch, and then a crowned
child ascended from the cauldron bearing a tree in his hand The
child said--

    "Macbeth shall be unconquerable till
     The Wood of Birnam climbs Dunsinane Hill."

"That will never be," said Macbeth; and he asked to be told if
Banquo's descendants would ever rule Scotland.

The cauldron sank into the earth; music was heard, and a procession
of phantom kings filed past Macbeth; behind them was Banquo's
ghost.  In each king, Macbeth saw a likeness to Banquo, and he
counted eight kings.

Then he was suddenly left alone.

His next proceeding was to send murderers to Macduff's castle.
They did not find Macduff, and asked Lady Macduff where he was.
She gave a stinging answer, and her questioner called Macduff a
traitor.  "Thou liest!" shouted Macduff's little son, who was
immediately stabbed, and with his last breath entreated his mother
to fly.  The murderers did not leave the castle while one of its
inmates remained alive.

Macduff was in England listening, with Malcolm, to a doctor's tale
of cures wrought by Edward the Confessor when his friend Ross came
to tell him that his wife and children were no more.  At first
Ross dared not speak the truth, and turn Macduff's bright sympathy
with sufferers relieved by royal virtue into sorrow and hatred.
But when Malcolm said that England was sending an army into Scotland
against Macbeth, Ross blurted out his news, and Macduff cried,
""All dead, did you say?  All my pretty ones and their mother? Did
you say all?"

His sorry hope was in revenge, but if he could have looked into
Macbeth's castle on Dunsinane Hill, he would have seen at work a
force more solemn than revenge.  Retribution was working, for Lady
Macbeth was mad.  She walked in her sleep amid ghastly dreams.
She was wont to wash her hands for a quarter of an hour at a time;
but after all her washing, would still see a red spot of blood
upon her skin.  It was pitiful to hear her cry that all the perfumes
of Arabia could not sweeten her little hand.

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?" inquired Macbeth of
the doctor, but the doctor replied that his patient must minister
to her own mind.  This reply gave Macbeth a scorn of medicine.
"Throw physic to the dogs," he said; "I'll none of it."

One day he heard a sound of women crying.  An officer approched
him and said, "The Queen, your Majesty, is dead."  "Out, brief
candle," muttered Macbeth, meaning that life was like a candle,
at the mercy of a puff of air.  He did not weep; he was too familiar
with death.

Presently a messenger told him that he saw Birnam Wood on the march.
Macbeth called him a liar and a slave, and threatened to hang
him if he had made a mistake.  "If you are right you can hang me,"
he said.

From the turret windows of Dunsinane Castle, Birnam Wood did indeed
appear to be marching.  Every soldier of the English army held
aloft a bough which he had cut from a tree in that wood, and like
human trees they climbed Dunsinane Hill.

Macbeth had still his courage.  He went to battle to conquer or
die, and the first thing he did was to kill the English general's
son in single combat.  Macbeth then felt that no man could fight
him and live, and when Macduff came to him blazing for revenge,
Macbeth said to him, "Go back; I have spilt too much of your blood
already."

"My voice is in my sword," replied Macduff, and hacked at him and
bade him yield.

"I will not yield!" said Macbeth, but his last hour had struck.
He fell.

Macbeth's men were in retreat when Macduff came before Malcolm
holding a King's head by the hair.

"Hail, King!" he said; and the new King looked at the old.

So Malcolm reigned after Macbeth; but in years that came afterwards
the descendants of Banquo were kings.




THE COMEDY OF ERRORS



AEGEON was a merchant of Syracuse, which is a seaport in Sicily.
His wife was AEmilia, and they were very happy until AEgeon's
manager died, and he was obliged to go by himself to a place called
Epidamnum on the Adriatic.  As soon as she could AEmilia followed
him, and after they had been together some time two baby boys were
born to them.  The babies were exactly alike; even when they were
dressed differently they looked the same.

And now you must believe a very strange thing.  At the same inn
where these children were born, and on the same day, two baby boys
were born to a much poorer couple than AEmilia and AEgeon; so
poor, indeed, were the parents of these twins that they sold them
to the parents of the other twins.

AEmilia was eager to show her children to her friends in Syracuse,
and in treacherous weather she and AEgeon and the four babies
sailed homewards.

They were still far from Syracuse when their ship sprang a leak,
and the crew left it in a body by the only boat, caring little
what became of their passengers.

AEmilia fastened one of her children to a mast and tied one of the
slave-children to him; AEgeon followed her example with the
remaining children.  Then the parents secured themselves to the
same masts, and hoped for safety.

The ship, however, suddenly struck a rock and was split in two,
and AEmilia, and the two children whom she had tied, floated away
from AEgeon and the other children.  AEmilia and her charges were
picked up by some people of Epidamnum, but some fishermen of
Corinth took the babies from her by force, and she returned to
Epidanmum alone, and very miserable.  Afterwards she settled in
Ephesus, a famous town in Asia Minor.

AEgeon and his charges were also saved; and, more fortunate than
AEmilia, he was able to return to Syracuse and keep them till they
were eighteen.  His own child he called Antipholus, and the
slavechild he called Dromio; and, strangely enough, these were
the names given to the children who floated away from him.

At the age of eighteen the son who was with AEgeon grew restless
with a desire to find his brother.  AEgeon let him depart with
his servant, and the young men are henceforth known as Antipholus
of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse.

Let alone, AEgeon found his home too dreary to dwell in, and traveled
for five years.  He did not, during his absence, learn all the
news of Syracuse, or he would never have gone to Ephesus.

As it was, his melancholy wandering ceased in that town, where he
was arrested almost as soon as he arrived.  He then found that
the Duke of Syracuse had been acting in so tyrannical a manner to
Ephesians unlucky enough to fall into his hands, that the Government
of Ephesus had angrily passed a law which punished by death or a
fine of a thousand pounds any Syracusan who should come to Ephesus.
AEgeon was brought before Solinus, Duke of Ephesus, who told him
that he must die or pay a thousand pounds before the end of the
day.

You will think there was fate in this when I tell you that the
children who were kidnaped by the fishermen of Corinth were now
citizens of Ephesus, whither they had been brought by Duke Menaphon,
an uncle of Duke Solinus.  They will henceforth be called Antipholus
of Ephesus and Dromio of Ephesus.

Moreover, on the very day when AEgeon was arrested, Antipholus of
Syracuse landed in Ephesus and pretended that he came from Epidamnum
in order to avoid a penalty.  He handed his money to his servant
Dromio of Syracuse, and bade him take it to the Centaur Inn and
remain there till he came.

In less than ten minutes he was met on the Mart by Dromio of Ephesus,
his brother's slave, and immediately mistook him for his own
Dromio.  "Why are you back so soon?  Where did you leave the money?"
asked Antipholus of Syracuse.

This Drornio knew of no money except sixpence, which he had received
on the previous Wednesday and given to the saddler; but he did
know that his mistress was annoyed because his master was not in
to dinner, and he asked Antipholus of Syracuse to go to a house
called The Phoenix without delay.  His speech angered the hearer,
who would have beaten him if he had not fled.  Antipholus of
Syracuse them went to The Centaur, found that his gold had been
deposited there, and walked out of the inn.

He was wandering about Ephesus when two beautiful ladies signaled
to him with their hands.  They were sisters, and their names were
Adriana and Luciana.  Adriana was the wife of his brother Antipholus
of Ephesus, and she had made up her mind, from the strange account
given her by Dromio of Ephesus, that her husband preferred another
woman to his wife.  "Ay, you may look as if you did not know me,"
she said to the man who was really her brother-in-law, "but I can
remember when no words were sweet unless I said them, no meat
flavorsome unless I carved it."

"Is it I you address?" said Antipholus of Syracuse stiffly.  "I do
not know you."

"Fie, brother," said Luciana.  "You know perfectly well that she
sent Dromio to you to bid you come to dinner"; and Adriana said,
"Come, come; I have been made a fool of long enough.  My truant
husband shall dine with me and confess his silly pranks and be
forgiven."

They were determined ladies, and Antipholus of Syracuse grew weary
of disputing with them, and followed them obediently to The Phoenix,
where a very late "mid-day" dinner awaited them.

They were at dinner when Antipholus of Ephesus and his slave Dromio
demanded admittance.  "Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cecily, Gillian,
Ginn!" shouted Dromio of Ephesus, who knew all his fellow-servants'
names by heart.

From within came the reply, "Fool, dray-horse, coxcomb, idiot!"
It was Dromio of Syracuse unconsciously insulting his brother.

Master and man did their best to get in, short of using a crowbar,
and finally went away; but Antipholus of Ephesus felt so annoyed
with his wife that he decided to give a gold chain which he had
promised her, to another woman.

Inside The Phoenix, Luciana, who believed Antipholus of Syracuse
to be her sister's husband, attempted, by a discourse in rhyme,
when alone with him, to make him kinder to Adriana.  In reply he
told her that he was not married, but that he loved her so much
that, if Luciana were a mermaid, he would gladly lie on the sea
if he might feel beneath him her floating golden hair.

Luciana was shocked and left him, and reported his lovemaking to
Adriana, who said that her husband was old and ugly, and not fit
to be seen or heard, though secretly she was very fond of him.

Antipholus of Syracuse soon received a visitor in the shape of
Angelo the goldsmith, of whom Antipholus of Ephesus had ordered
the chain which he had promised his wife and intended to give to
another woman.

The goldsmith handed the chain to Antipholus of Syracuse, and
treated his "I bespoke it not" as mere fun, so that the puzzled
merchant took the chain as good-humoredly as he had partaken of
Adriana's dinner.  He offered payment, but Angelo foolishly said
he would call again.

The consequence was that Angelo was without money when a creditor
of the sort that stands no nonsense, threatened him with arrest
unless he paid his debt immediately.  This creditor had brought
a police officer with him, and Angelo was relieved to see Antipholus
of Ephesus coming out of the house where he had been dining because
he had been locked out of The Phoenix.  Bitter was Angelo's dismay
when Antipholus denied receipt of the chain.  Angelo could have
sent his mother to prison if she had said that, and he gave
Antipholus of Ephesus in charge.

At this moment up came Dromio of Syracuse and told the wrong
Antipholus that he had shipped his goods, and that a favorable
wind was blowing.  To the ears of Antipholus of Ephesus this talk
was simple nonsense.  He would gladly have beaten the slave, but
contented himself with crossly telling him to hurry to Adriana
and bid her send to her arrested husband a purse of money which
she would find in his desk.

Though Adriana was furious with her husband because she thought he
had been making love to her sister, she did not prevent Luciana
from getting the purse, and she bade Dromio of Syracuse bring home
his master immediately.

Unfortunately, before Dromio could reach the police station he met
his real master, who had never been arrested, and did not understand
what he meant by offering him a purse.  Antipholus of Syracuse
was further surprised when a lady whom he did not know asked him
for a chain that he had promised her.  She was, of course, the
lady with whom Antipholus of Ephesus had dined when his brother
was occupying his place at table.  "Avaunt, thou witch!" was the
answer which, to her astonishment, she received.

Meanwhile Antipholus of Ephesus waited vainly for the money which
was to have released him.  Never a good-tempered man, he was crazy
with anger when Dromio of Ephesus, who, of course, had not been
instructed to fetch a purse, appeared with nothing more useful
than a rope.  He beat the slave in the street despite the remonstrance
of the police officer; and his temper did not mend when Adriana,
Luciana, and a doctor arrived under the impression that he was
mad and must have his pulse felt.  He raged so much that men came
forward to bind him.  But the kindness of Adriana spared him this
shame.  She promised to pay the sum demanded of him, and asked
the doctor to lead him to The Phoenix.

Angelo's merchant creditor being paid, the two were friendly again,
and might soon have been seen chatting before an abbey about the
odd behavior of Antipholus of Ephesus.  "Softly," said the merchant
at last, "that's he, I think."

It was not; it was Antipholus of Syracuse with his servant Dromio,
and he wore Angelo's chain round his neck!  The reconciled pair
fairly pounced upon him to know what he meant by denying the
receipt of the chain he had the impudence to wear.  Antipholus of
Syracuse lost his temper, and drew his sword, and at that moment
Adriana and several others appeared.  "Hold!" shouted the careful
wife.  "Hurt him not; he is mad.  Take his sword away.  Bind
him--and Dromio too."

Dromio of Syracuse did not wish to be bound, and he said to his
master, "Run, master!  Into that abbey, quick, or we shall be
robbed!"

They accordingly retreated into the abbey.

Adriana, Luciana, and a crowd remained outside, and the Abbess came
out, and said, "People, why do you gather here?"

"To fetch my poor distracted husband," replied Adriana.

Angelo and the merchant remarked that they had not known that he
was mad.

Adriana then told the Abbess rather too much about her wifely
worries, for the Abbess received the idea that Adriana was a shrew,
and that if her husband was distracted he had better not return
to her for the present.

Adriana determined, therefore, to complain to Duke Solinus, and,
lo and behold! a minute afterwards the great man appeared with
officers and two others.  The others were AEgeon and the headsman.
The thousand marks had not been found, and AEgeon's fate seemed
sealed.

Ere the Duke could pass the abbey Adriana knelt before him, and
told a woeful tale of a mad husband rushing about stealing jewelry
and drawing his sword, adding that the Abbess refused to allow
her to lead him home.

The Duke bade the Abbess be summoned, and no sooner had he given
the order than a servant from The Phoenix ran to Adriana with the
tale that his master had singed off the doctor's beard.

"Nonsense!" said Adriana, "he's in the abbey."

"As sure as I live I speak the truth," said the servant.

Antipholus of Syracuse had not come out of the abbey, before his
brother of Ephesus prostrated himself in front of the Duke,
exclaiming, "Justice, most gracious Duke, against that woman."
He pointed to Adriana.  "She has treated another man like her
husband in my own house."

Even while he was speaking AEgeon said, "Unless I am delirious, I
see my son Antipholus."

No one noticed him, and Antipholus of Ephesus went on to say how
the doctor, whom he called "a threadbare juggler," had been one
of a gang who tied him to his slave Dromio, and thrust them into
a vault whence he had escaped by gnawing through his bonds.

The Duke could not understand how the same man who spoke to him
was seen to go into the abbey, and he was still wondering when
AEgeon asked Antipholus of Ephesus if he was not his son.  He
replied, "I never saw my father in my life;" but so deceived was
AEgeon by his likeness to the brother whom he had brought up, that
he said, "Thou art ashamed to acknowledge me in misery."

Soon, however, the Abbess advanced with Antipholus of Syracuse and
Dromio of Syracuse.

Then cried Adriana, "I see two husbands or mine eyes deceive me;"
and Antipholus, espying his father, said, "Thou art AEgeon or his
ghost."

It was a day of surprises, for the Abbess said, "I will free that
man by paying his fine, and gain my husband whom I lost.  Speak,
AEgeon, for I am thy wife AEmilia."

The Duke was touched.  "He is free without a fine," he said.

So AEgeon and AEmilia were reunited, and Adriana and her husband
reconciled; but no one was happier than Antipholus of Syracuse,
who, in the Duke's presence, went to Luciana and said, "I told
you I loved you.  Will you be my wife?"

Her answer was given by a look, and therefore is not written.

The two Dromios were glad to think they would receive no more
beatings.




THE MERCHANT OF VENICE



Antonio was a rich and prosperous merchant of Venice.  His ships
were on nearly every sea, and he traded with Portugal, with Mexico,
with England, and with India.  Although proud of his riches, he
was very generous with them, and delighted to use them in relieving
the wants of his friends, among whom his relation, Bassanio, held
the first place.

Now Bassanio, like many another gay and gallant gentleman, was
reckless and extravagant, and finding that he had not only come
to the end of his fortune, but was also unable to pay his creditors,
he went to Antonio for further help.

"To you, Antonio," he said, "I owe the most in money and in love:
and I have thought of a plan to pay everything I owe if you will
but help me."

"Say what I can do, and it shall be done," answered his friend.

Then said Bassanio, "In Belmont is a lady richly left, and from
all quarters of the globe renowned suitors come to woo her, not
only because she is rich, but because she is beautiful and good
as well.  She looked on me with such favor when last we met, that
I feel sure that I should win her away from all rivals for her
love had I but the means to go to Belmont, where she lives."

"All my fortunes," said Antonio, "are at sea, and so I have no
ready money; but luckily my credit is good in Venice, and I will
borrow for you what you need."

There was living in Venice at this time a rich money-lender, named
Shylock.  Antonio despised and disliked this man very much, and
treated him with the greatest harshness and scorn.  He would thrust
him, like a cur, over his threshold, and would even spit on him.
Shylock submitted to all these indignities with a patient shrug;
but deep in his heart he cherished a desire for revenge on the
rich, smug merchant.  For Antonio both hurt his pride and injured
his business.  "But for him," thought Shylock, "I should be richer
by half a million ducats.  On the market place, and wherever he
can, he denounces the rate of interest I charge, and--worse than
that--he lends out money freely."

So when Bassanio came to him to ask for a loan of three thousand
ducats to Antonio for three months, Shylock hid his hatred, and
turning to Antonio, said--"Harshly as you have treated me, I would
be friends with you and have your love.  So I will lend you the
money and charge you no interest.  But, just for fun, you shall
sign a bond in which it shall be agreed that if you do not repay
me in three months' time, then I shall have the right to a pound
of your flesh, to be cut from what part of your body I choose."

"No," cried Bassanio to his friend, "you shall run no such risk
for me."

"Why, fear not," said Antonio, "my ships will be home a month before
the time.  I will sign the bond."

Thus Bassanio was furnished with the means to go to Belmont, there
to woo the lovely Portia.  The very night he started, the
money-lender's pretty daughter, Jessica, ran away from her father's
house with her lover, and she took with her from her father's
hoards some bags of ducats and precious stones.  Shylock's grief
and anger were terrible to see.  His love for her changed to hate.
"I would she were dead at my feet and the jewels in her ear," he
cried.  His only comfort now was in hearing of the serious losses
which had befallen Antonio, some of whose ships were wrecked.
"Let him look to his bond," said Shylock, "let him look to his bond."

Meanwhile Bassanio had reached Belmont, and had visited the fair
Portia.  He found, as he had told Antonio, that the rumor of her
wealth and beauty had drawn to her suitors from far and near.
But to all of them Portia had but one reply.  She would only accept
that suitor who would pledge himself to abide by the terms of her
father's will.  These were conditions that frightened away many
an ardent wooer.  For he who would win Portia's heart and hand,
had to guess which of three caskets held her portrait.  If he
guessed aright, then Portia would be his bride; if wrong, then he
was bound by oath never to reveal which casket he chose, never to
marry, and to go away at once.

The caskets were of gold, silver, and lead.  The gold one bore this
inscription:--"Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire";
the silver one had this:--"Who chooseth me shall get as much as
he deserves"; while on the lead one were these words:--"Who chooseth
me must give and hazard all he hath."  The Prince of Morocco, as
brave as he was black, was among the first to submit to this test.
He chose the gold casket, for he said neither base lead nor silver
could contain her picture.  So be chose the gold casket, and found
inside the likeness of what many men desire--death.

After him came the haughty Prince of Arragon, and saying, "Let me
have what I deserve--surely I deserve the lady," he chose the
silver one, and found inside a fool's head.  "Did I deserve no
more than a fool's head?" he cried.

Then at last came Bassanio, and Portia would have delayed him from
making his choice from very fear of his choosing wrong.  For she
loved him dearly, even as he loved her.  "But," said Bassanio,
let me choose at once, for, as I am, I live upon the rack."

Then Portia bade her servants to bring music and play while her
gallant lover made his choice.  And Bassanio took the oath and
walked up to the caskets--the musicians playing softly the while.
"Mere outward show," he said, "is to be despised.  The world is
still deceived with ornament, and so no gaudy gold or shining
silver for me.  I choose the lead casket; joy be the consequence!"
And opening it, he found fair Portia's portrait inside, and he
turned to her and asked if it were true that she was his.

"Yes," said Portia, "I am yours, and this house is yours, and with
them I give you this ring, from which you must never part."

And Bassanio, saying that he could hardly speak for joy, found
words to swear that he would never part with the ring while he
lived.

Then suddenly all his happiness was dashed with sorrow, for messengers
came from Venice to tell him that Antonio was ruined, and that
Shylock demanded from the Duke the fulfilment of the bond, under
which he was entitled to a pound of the merchant's flesh.  Portia
was as grieved as Bassanio to hear of the danger which threatened
his friend.

"First," she said, "take me to church and make me your wife, and
then go to Venice at once to help your friend.  You shall take
with you money enough to pay his debt twenty times over."

But when her newly-made husband had gone, Portia went after him,
and arrived in Venice disguised as a lawyer, and with an introduction
from a celebrated lawyer Bellario, whom the Duke of Venice had
called in to decide the legal questions raised by Shylock's claim
to a pound of Antonio's flesh.  When the Court met, Bassanio
offered Shylock twice the money borrowed, if he would withdraw
his claim.  But the money-lender's only answer was--

   "If every ducat in six thousand ducats,
    Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,
    I would not draw them,--I would have my bond."

It was then that Portia arrived in her disguise, and not even her
own husband knew her.  The Duke gave her welcome on account of
the great Bellario's introduction, and left the settlement of the
case to her.  Then in noble words she bade Shylock have mercy.
But he was deaf to her entreaties.  "I will have the pound of
flesh," was his reply.

"What have you to say?" asked Portia of the merchant.

"But little," he answered; "I am armed and well prepared."

"The Court awards you a pound of Antonio's flesh," said Portia to
the money-lender.

"Most righteous judge!" cried Shylock.  "A sentence: come,
prepare."

"Tarry a little.  This bond gives you no right to Antonio's blood,
only to his flesh.  If, then, you spill a drop of his blood, all
your property will be forfeited to the State.  Such is the Law."

And Shylock, in his fear, said, "Then I will take Bassanio's offer."

"No," said Portia sternly, "you shall have nothing but your bond.
Take your pound of flesh, but remember, that if you take more or
less, even by the weight of a hair, you will lose your property
and your life."

Shylock now grew very much frightened.  "Give me my three thousand
ducats that I lent him, and let him go."

Bassanio would have paid it to him, but said Portia, "No!  He shall
have nothing but his bond."

"You, a foreigner," she added, "have sought to take the life of a
Venetian citizen, and thus by the Venetian law, your life and
goods are forfeited.  Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the
Duke."

Thus were the tables turned, and no mercy would have been shown to
Shylock had it not been for Antonio.  As it was, the money-lender
forfeited half his fortune to the State, and he had to settle the
other half on his daughter's husband, and with this he had to be
content.

Bassanio, in his gratitude to the clever lawyer, was induced to
part with the ring his wife had given him, and with which he had
promised never to part, and when on his return to Belmont he
confessed as much to Portia, she seemed very angry, and vowed she
would not be friends with him until she had her ring again.  But
at last she told him that it was she who, in the disguise of the
lawyer, had saved his friend's life, and got the ring from him.
So Bassanio was forgiven, and made happier than ever, to know how
rich a prize he had drawn in the lottery of the caskets.




TIMON OF ATHENS



Four hundred years before the birth of Christ, a man lived in Athens
whose generosity was not only great, but absurd.  He was very
rich, but no worldly wealth was enough for a man who spent and
gave like Timon.  If anybody gave Timon a horse, he received from
Timon twenty better horses.  If anybody borrowed money of Timon
and offered to repay it, Timon was offended.  If a poet had written
a poem and Timon had time to read it, he would be sure to buy it;
and a painter had only to hold up his canvas in front of Timon to
receive double its market price.

Flavius, his steward, looked with dismay at his reckless mode of
life.  When Timon's house was full of noisy lords drinking and
spilling costly wine, Flavius would sit in a cellar and cry.  He
would say to himself, "There are ten thousand candles burning in
this house, and each of those singers braying in the concert-room
costs a poor man's yearly income a night"; and he would remember
a terrible thing said by Apemantus, one of his master's friends,
"O what a number of men eat Timon, and Timon sees them not!"

Of course, Timon was much praised.

A jeweler who sold him a diamond pretended that it was not quite
perfect till Timon wore it.  "You mend the jewel by wearing it,"
he said.  Timon gave the diamond to a lord called Sempronius, and
the lord exclaimed, "O, he's the very soul of bounty."  "Timon is
infinitely dear to me," said another lord, called Lucullus, to
whom he gave a beautiful horse; and other Athenians paid him
compliments as sweet.

But when Apemantus had listened to some of them, he said, "I'm
going to knock out an honest Athenian's brains."

"You will die for that," said Timon.

"Then I shall die for doing nothing," said Apemantus.  And now you
know what a joke was like four hundred years before Christ.

This Apernantus was a frank despiser of mankind, but a healthy one,
because he was not unhappy.  In this mixed world anyone with a
number of acquaintances knows a person who talks bitterly of men,
but does not shun them, and boasts that he is never deceived by
their fine speeches, and is inwardly cheerful and proud.  Apemantus
was a man like that.

Timon, you will be surprised to hear, became much worse than
Apemantus, after the dawning of a day which we call Quarter Day.

Quarter Day is the day when bills pour in.  The grocer, the butcher,
and the baker are all thinking of their debtors on that day, and
the wise man has saved enough money to be ready for them.  But
Timon had not; and he did not only owe money for food.  He owed
it for jewels and horses and furniture; and, worst of all, he owed
it to money-lenders, who expected him to pay twice as much as he
had borrowed.

Quarter Day is a day when promises to pay are scorned, and on that
day Timon was asked for a large sum of money.  "Sell some land,"
he said to his steward.  "You have no land," was the reply.
"Nonsense!  I had a hundred, thousand acres," said Timon.  "You
could have spent the price of the world if you had possessed it,"
said Flavius.

"Borrow some then," said Timon; "try Ventidius."  He thought of
Ventidius because he had once got Ventidius out of prison by paying
a creditor of this young man.  Ventidius was now rich.  Timon
trusted in his gratitude.  But not for all; so much did he owe!
Servants were despatched with requests for loans of money to
several friends:

One servant (Flaminius) went to Lucullus.  When he was announced
Lucullus said, "A gift, I warrant.  I dreamt of a silver jug and
basin last night."  Then, changing his tone, "How is that honorable,
free-hearted, perfect gentleman, your master, eh?"

"Well in health, sir," replied Flaminius.

"And what have you got there under your cloak?" asked Lucullus,
jovially.

"Faith, sir, nothing but an empty box, which, on my master's behalf,
I beg you to fill with money, sir."

"La! la! la!" said Lucullus, who could not pretend to mean, "Ha!
ha! ha!" "Your master's one fault is that he is too fond of giving
parties.  I've warned him that it was expensive.  Now, look here,
Flaminius, you know this is no time to lend money without security,
so suppose you act like a good boy and tell him that I was not at
home.  Here's three solidares for yourself."

"Back, wretched money," cried Flaminius, "to him who worships you!"

Others of Timon's friends were tried and found stingy.  Amongst
them was Sempronius.

"Hum," he said to Timon's servant, "has he asked Ventidius?  Ventidius
is beholden to him."

"He refused."

"Well, have you asked Lucullus?"

"He refused."

"A poor compliment to apply to me last of all," said Sempronius,
in affected anger.  "If he had sent to me at first, I would gladly
have lent him money, but I'm not going to be such a fool as to
lend him any now."

"Your lordship makes a good villain," said the servant.

When Timon found that his friends were so mean, he took advantage
of a lull in his storm of creditors to invite Ventidius and Company
to a banquet.  Flavius was horrified, but Ventidius and Company,
were not in the least ashamed, and they assembled accordingly in
Timon's house, and said to one another that their princely host
had been jesting with them.

"I had to put off an important engagement in order to come here,"
said Lucullus; "but who could refuse Timon?"

"It was a real grief to me to be without ready money when he asked
for some," said Sempronius.

"The same here," chimed in a third lord.

Timon now appeared, and his guests vied with one another in apologies
and compliments.  Inwardly sneering, Timon was gracious to them
all.

In the banqueting ball was a table resplendent with covered dishes.
Mouths watered.  These summer-friends loved good food.

"Be seated, worthy friends," said Timon.  He then prayed aloud to
the gods of Greece.  "Give each man enough," he said, "for if you,
who are our gods, were to borrow of men they would cease to adore
you.  Let men love the joint more than the host.  Let every score
of guests contain twenty villains.  Bless my friends as much as
they have blessed me.  Uncover the dishes, dogs, and lap!"

The hungry lords were too much surprised by this speech to resent
it.  They thought Timon was unwell, and, although he had called
them dogs, they uncovered the dishes.

There was nothing in them but warm water.

"May you never see a better feast," wished Timon "I wash off the
flatteries with which you plastered me and sprinkle you with your
villainy."  With these words he threw the water into his guests'
faces, and then he pelted them with the dishes.  Having thus ended
the banquet, he went into an outhouse, seized a spade, and quitted
Athens for ever.

His next dwelling was a cave near the sea.

Of all his friends, the only one who had not refused him aid was
a handsome soldier named Alcibiades, and he had not been asked
because, having quarreled with the Government of Athens, he had
left that town.  The thought that Alcibiades might have proved a
true friend did not soften Timon's bitter feeling.  He was too
weak-minded to discern the fact that good cannot be far from evil
in this mixed world.  He determined to see nothing better in all
mankind than the ingratitude of Ventidius and the meanness of
Lucullus.

He became a vegetarian, and talked pages to himself as he dug in
the earth for food.

One day, when he was digging for roots near the shore, his spade
struck gold.  If he had been a wise man he would have enriched
himself quickly, and returned to Athens to live in comfort.  But
the sight of the gold vein gave no joy but only scorn to Timon.
"This yellow slave," he said, "will make and break religions.  It
will make black white and foul fair.  It will buy murder and bless
the accursed."

He was still ranting when Alcibiades, now an enemy of Athens,
approached with his soldiers and two beautiful women who cared
for nothing but pleasure.

Timon was so changed by his bad thoughts and rough life that
Alcibiades did not recognize him at first.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"A beast, as you are," was the reply.

Alcibiades knew his voice, and offered him help and money.  But
Timon would none of it, and began to insult the women.  They,
however, when they found he had discovered a gold mine, cared not
a jot for his opinion of them, but said, "Give us some gold, good
Timon.  Have you more?"

With further insults, Timon filled their aprons with gold ore.

"Farewell," said Alcibiades, who deemed that Timon's wits were
lost; and then his disciplined soldiers left without profit the
mine which could have paid their wages, and marched towards Athens.

Timon continued to dig and curse, and affected great delight when
he dug up a root and discovered that it was not a grape.

Just then Apemantus appeared.  "I am told that you imitate me,"
said Apemantus.  "Only," said Timon, "because you haven't a dog
which I can imitate."

"You are revenging yourself on your friends by punishing yourself,"
said Apemantus.  "That is very silly, for they live just as
comfortably as they ever did.  I am sorry that a fool should
imitate me."

"If I were like you," said Timon, "I should throw myself away."

"You have done so," sneered Apemantus.  "Will the cold brook make
you a good morning drink, or an east wind warm your clothes as a
valet would?"

"Off with you!" said Timon; but Apemantus stayed a while longer
and told him he had a passion for extremes, which was true.
Apemantus even made a pun, but there was no good laughter to be
got out of Timon.

Finally, they lost their temper like two schoolboys, and Timon said
he was sorry to lose the stone which he flung at Apemantus, who
left him with an evil wish.

This was almost an "at home" day for Timon, for when Apemantus had
departed, he was visited by some robbers.  They wanted gold.

"You want too much," said Timon.  "Here are water, roots and
berries."

"We are not birds and pigs," said a robber.

"No, you are cannibals," said Timon.  "Take the gold, then, and
may it poison you!  Henceforth rob one another."

He spoke so frightfully to them that, though they went away with
full pockets, they almost repented of their trade.  His last
visitor on that day of visits was his good steward Flavius.  "My
dearest master!" cried he.

"Away!  What are you?" said Timon.

"Have you forgotten me, sir?" asked Flavius, mournfully.

"I have forgotten all men," was the reply; "and if you'll allow
that you are a man, I have forgotten you."

"I was your honest servant," said Flavius.

"Nonsense!  I never had an honest man about me," retorted Timon.

Flavius began to cry.

"What! shedding tears?" said Timon.  "Come nearer, then.  I will
love you because you are a woman, and unlike men, who only weep
when they laugh or beg."

They talked awhile; then Timon said, "Yon gold is mine.  I will
make you rich, Flavius, if you promise me to live by yourself and
hate mankind.  I will make you very rich if you promise me that
you will see the flesh slide off the beggar's bones before you
feed him, and let the debtor die in jail before you pay his debt."

Flavius simply said, "Let me stay to comfort you, my master."

"If you dislike cursing, leave me," replied Timon, and he turned
his back on Flavius, who went sadly back to Athens, too much
accustomed to obedience to force his services upon his ailing
master.

The steward had accepted nothing, but a report got about that a
mighty nugget of gold had been given him by his former master,
and Timon therefore received more visitors.  They were a painter
and a poet, whom he had patronized in his prosperity.

"Hail, worthy Timon!" said the poet.  "We heard with astonishment
how your friends deserted you.  No whip's large enough for their
backs!"

"We have come," put in the painter, "to offer our services."

"You've heard that I have gold," said Timon.

"There was a report," said the painter, blushing; "but my friend
and I did not come for that."

"Good honest men!" jeered Timon.  "All the same, you shall have
plenty of gold if you will rid me of two villains."

"Name them," said his two visitors in one breath.  "Both of you!"
answered Timon.  Giving the painter a whack with a big stick, he
said, "Put that into your palette and make money out of it."  Then
he gave a whack to the poet, and said, "Make a poem out of that
and get paid for it.  There's gold for you."

They hurriedly withdrew.

Finally Timon was visited by two senators who, now that Athens was
threatened by Alcibiades, desired to have on their side this bitter
noble whose gold might help the foe.

"Forget your injuries," said the first senator.  "Athens offers
you dignities whereby you may honorably live."

"Athens confesses that your merit was overlooked, and wishes to
atone, and more than atone, for her forgetfulness," said the second
senator.

"Worthy senators," replied Timon, in his grim way, "I am almost
weeping; you touch me so!  All I need are the eyes of a woman and
the heart of a fool.  "

But the senators were patriots.  They believed that this bitter
man could save Athens, and they would not quarrel with him.  "Be
our captain," they said, "and lead Athens against Alcibiades, who
threatens to destroy her."

"Let him destroy the Athenians too, for all I care," said Timon;
and seeing an evil despair in his face, they left him.

The senators returned to Athens, and soon afterwards trumpets were
blown before its walls.  Upon the walls they stood and listened
to Alcibiades, who told them that wrong-doers should quake in
their easy chairs.  They looked at his confident army, and were
convinced that Athens must yield if he assaulted it, therefore
they used the voice that strikes deeper than arrows.

"These walls of ours were built by the hands of men who never
wronged you, Alcibiades," said the first senator.

"Enter," said the second senator, "and slay every tenth man, if
your revenge needs human flesh."

"Spare the cradle," said the first senator.

"I ask only justice," said Alcibiades.  "If you admit my army, I
will inflict the penalty of your own laws upon any soldier who
breaks them."

At that moment a soldier approached Alcibiades, and said, "My noble
general, Timon is dead."  He handed Alcibiades a sheet of wax,
saying, "He is buried by the sea, on the beach, and over his grave
is a stone with letters on it which I cannot read, and therefore
I have impressed them on wax."

Alcibiades read from the sheet of wax this couplet--

   "Here lie I, Timon, who, alive,
        all living men did hate.
    Pass by and say your worst; but pass,
        and stay not here your gait."

"Dead, then, is noble Timon," said Alcibiades; and be entered Athens
with an olive branch instead of a sword.

So it was one of Timon's friends who was generous in a greater
matter than Timon's need; yet are the sorrow and rage of Timon
remembered as a warning lest another ingratitude should arise to
turn love into hate.




OTHELLO



Four hundred years ago there lived in Venice an ensign named Iago,
who hated his general, Othello, for not making him a lieutenant.
Instead of Iago, who was strongly recommended, Othello had chosen
Michael Cassio, whose smooth tongue had helped him to win the
heart of Desdemona.  lago had a friend called Roderigo, who supplied
him with money and felt he could not be happy unless Desdemona
was his wife.

Othello was a Moor, but of so dark a complexion that his enemies
called him a Blackamoor.  His life had been hard and exciting.
He had been vanquished in battle and sold into slavery; and he
had been a great traveler and seen men whose shoulders were higher
than their heads.  Brave as a lion, he had one great fault--jealousy.
His love was a terrible selfishness.  To love a woman meant with
him to possess her as absolutely as he possessed something that
did not live and think.  The story of Othello is a story of jealousy.

One night Iago told Roderigo that Othello had carried off Desdemona
without the knowledge of her father, Brabantio.  He persuaded
Roderigo to arouse Brabantio, and when that senator appeared Iago
told him of Desdemona's elopement in the most unpleasant way.
Though he was Othello's officer, he termed him a thief and a
Barbary horse.

Brabantio accused Othello before the Duke of Venice of using sorcery
to fascinate his daughter, but Othello said that the only sorcery
he used was his voice, which told Desdemona his adventures and
hair-breadth escapes.  Desdemona was led into the council-chamber,
and she explained how she could love Othello despite his almost
black face by saying, "I saw Othello's visage in his mind."

As Othello had married Desdemona, and she was glad to be his wife,
there was no more to be said against him, especially as the Duke
wished him to go to Cyprus to defend it against the Turks.  Othello
was quite ready to go, and Desdemona, who pleaded to go with him,
was pernutted to join him at Cyprus.

Othello's feelings on landing in this island were intensely joyful.
"Oh, my sweet," he said to Desdemona, who arrived with Iago, his
wife, and Roderigo before him, "I hardly know what I say to you.
I am in love with my own happiness."

News coming presently that the Turkish fleet was out of action, he
proclaimed a festival in Cyprus from five to eleven at night.

Cassio was on duty in the Castle where Othello ruled Cyprus, so
Iago decided to make the lieutenant drink too much.  He had some
difficulty, as Cassio knew that wine soon went to his head, but
servants brought wine into the room where Cassio was, and Iago
sang a drinking song, and so Cassio lifted a glass too often to
the health of the general.

When Cassio was inclined to be quarrelsome, Iago told Roderigo to
say something unpleasant to him.  Cassio cudgeled Roderigo, who
ran into the presence of Montano, the ex-governor.  Montano civilly
interceded for Roderigo, but received so rude an answer from Cassio
that he said, "Come, come, you're drunk!"  Cassio then wounded him,
and Iago sent Roderigo out to scare the town with a cry of mutiny.

The uproar aroused Othello, who, on learning its cause, said,
"Cassio, I love thee, but never more be officer of mine."

On Cassio and Iago being alone together, the disgraced man moaned
about his reputation.  Iago said reputation and humbug were the
same thing.  "O God," exclaimed Cassio, without heeding him, "that
men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their
brains!"

Iago advised him to beg Desdemona to ask Othello to pardon him.
Cassio was pleased with the advice, and next morning made his
request to Desdemona in the garden of the castle.  She was kindness
itself, and said, "Be merry, Cassio, for I would rather die than
forsake your cause."

Cassio at that moment saw Othello advancing with Iago, and retired
hurriedly.

Iago said, "I don't like that."

"What did you say?" asked Othello, who felt that he had meant
something unpleasant, but Iago pretended he had said nothing.
"Was not that Cassio who went from my wife?" asked Othello, and
Iago, who knew that it was Cassio and why it was Cassio, said, "I
cannot think it was Cassio who stole away in that guilty manner."

Desdemona told Othello that it was grief and humility which made
Cassio retreat at his approach.  She reminded him how Cassio had
taken his part when she was still heart-free, and found fault with
her Moorish lover.  Othello was melted, and said, "I will deny
thee nothing," but Desdemona told him that what she asked was as
much for his good as dining.

Desdemona left the garden, and Iago asked if it was really true
that Cassio had known Desdemona before her marriage.

"Yes," said Othello.

"Indeed," said Iago, as though something that had mystified him
was now very clear.

"Is he not honest?" demanded Othello, and Iago repeated the adjective
inquiringly, as though he were afraid to say "No."

"What do you mean?" insisted Othello.

To this Iago would only say the flat opposite of what he said to
Cassio.  He had told Cassio that reputation was humbug.  To Othello
he said, "Who steals my purse steals trash, but he who filches
from me my good name ruins me."

At this Othello almost leapt into the air, and Iago was so confident
of his jealousy that he ventured to warn him against it.  Yes, it
was no other than Iago who called jealousy "the green-eyed monster
which doth mock the meat it feeds on."

Iago having given jealousy one blow, proceeded to feed it with the
remark that Desdemona deceived her father when she eloped with
Othello.  "If she deceived him, why not you?" was his meaning.

Presently Desdemona re-entered to tell Othello that dinner was
ready.  She saw that he was ill at ease.  He explained it by a
pain in his forehead.  Desdemona then produced a handkerchief,
which Othello had given her.  A prophetess, two hundred years old,
had made this handkerchief from the silk of sacred silkworms, dyed
it in a liquid prepared from the hearts of maidens, and embroidered
it with strawberries.  Gentle Desdemona thought of it simply as
a cool, soft thing for a throbbing brow; she knew of no spell upon
it that would work destruction for her who lost it.  "Let me tie
it round your head," she said to Othello; "you will be well in an
hour."  But Othello pettishly said it was too small, and let it
fall.  Desdemona and he then went indoors to dinner, and Emilia
picked up the handkerchief which Iago had often asked her to steal.

She was looking at it when Iago came in.  After a few words about
it he snatched it from her, and bade her leave him.

In the garden he was joined by Othello, who seemed hungry for the
worst lies he could offer.  He therefore told Othello that he had
seen Cassio wipe his mouth with a handkerchief, which, because it
was spotted with strawberries, he guessed to be one that Othello
had given his wife.

The unhappy Moor went mad with fury, and Iago bade the heavens
witness that he devoted his hand and heart and brain to Othello's
service.  "I accept your love," said Othello.  "Within three days
let me hear that Cassio is dead."

Iago's next step was to leave Desdemona's handkerchief in Cassio's
room.  Cassio saw it, and knew it was not his, but he liked the
strawberry pattern on it, and he gave it to his sweetheart Bianca
and asked her to copy it for him.

Iago's next move was to induce Othello, who had been bullying
Desdemona about the handkerchief, to play the eavesdropper to a
conversation between Cassio and himself.  His intention was to
talk about Cassio's sweetheart, and allow Othello to suppose that
the lady spoken of was Desdemona.

"How are you, lieutenant?" asked Iago when Cassio appeared.

"The worse for being called what I am not," replied Cassio, gloomily.

"Keep on reminding Desdemona, and you'll soon be restored," said
Iago, adding, in a tone too low for Othello to hear, "If Bianca
could set the matter right, how quickly it would mend!"

"Alas! poor rogue," said Cassio, "I really think she loves me,"
and like the talkative coxcomb he was, Cassio was led on to boast
of Bianca's fondness for him, while Othello imagined, with choked
rage, that he prattled of Desdemona, and thought, "I see your
nose, Cassio, but not the dog I shall throw it to."

Othello was still spying when Bianca entered, boiling over with
the idea that Cassio, whom she considered her property, had asked
her to copy the embroidery on the handkerchief of a new sweetheart.
She tossed him the handkerchief with scornful words, and Cassio
departed with her.

Othello had seen Bianca, who was in station lower, in beauty and
speech inferior far, to Desdemona and he began in spite of himself
to praise his wife to the villain before him.  He praised her
skill with the needle, her voice that could "sing the savageness
out of a bear," her wit, her sweetness, the fairness of her skin.
Every time he praised her Iago said something that made him
remember his anger and utter it foully, and yet he must needs
praise her, and say, "The pity of it, Iago!  O Iago, the pity of
it, Iago!"

There was never in all Iago's villainy one moment of wavering.  If
there had been he might have wavered then.

"Strangle her," he said; and "Good, good!" said his miserable dupe.

The pair were still talking murder when Desdemona appeared with a
relative of Desdemona's father, called Lodovico, who bore a letter
for Othello from the Duke of Venice.  The letter recalled Othello
from Cyprus, and gave the governorship to Cassio.

Luckless Desdemona seized this unhappy moment to urge once more
the suit of Cassio.

"Fire and brimstone!" shouted Othello.

"It may be the letter agitates him," explained Lodovico to Desdemona,
and he told her what it contained.

"I am glad," said Desdemona.  It was the first bitter speech that
Othello's unkindness had wrung out of her.

"I am glad to see you lose your temper," said Othello.

"Why, sweet Othello?" she asked, sarcastically; and Othello slapped
her face.

Now was the time for Desdemona to have saved her life by separation,
but she knew not her peril--only that her love was wounded to the
core.  "I have not deserved this," she said, and the tears rolled
slowly down her face.

Lodovico was shocked and disgusted.  "My lord," he said, "this
would not be believed in Venice.  Make her amends;" but, like a
madman talking in his nightmare, Othello poured out his foul
thought in ugly speech, and roared, "Out of my sight!"

"I will not stay to offend you," said his wife, but she lingered
even in going, and only when he shouted "Avaunt!" did she leave
her husband and his guests.

Othello then invited Lodovico to supper, adding, "You are welcome,
sir, to Cyprus.  Goats and monkeys!"  Without waiting for a reply
he left the company.

Distinguished visitors detest being obliged to look on at family
quarrels, and dislike being called either goats or monkeys, and
Lodovico asked Iago for an explanation.

True to himself, Iago, in a round-about way, said that Othello was
worse than he seemed, and advised them to study his behavior and
save him from the discomfort of answering any more questions.

He proceeded to tell Roderigo to murder Cassio.  Roderigo was out
of tune with his friend.  He had given Iago quantities of jewels
for Desdemona without effect; Desdemona had seen none of them,
for Iago was a thief.

Iago smoothed him with a lie, and when Cassio was leaving Bianca's
house, Roderigo wounded him, and was wounded in return.  Cassio
shouted, and Lodovico and a friend came running up.  Cassio pointed
out Roderigo as his assailant, and Iago, hoping to rid himself of
an inconvenient friend, called him "Villain!" and stabbed him,
but not to death.

At the Castle, Desdemona was in a sad mood.  She told Emilia that
she must leave her; her husband wished it.  "Dismiss me!" exclaimed
Emilia.  "It was his bidding, said Desdemona; we must not displease
him now."

She sang a song which a girl had sung whose lover had been base to
her--a song of a maiden crying by that tree whose boughs droop as
though it weeps, and she went to bed and slept.

She woke with her husband's wild eyes upon her.  "Have you prayed
to-night?" he asked; and he told this blameless and sweet woman
to ask God's pardon for any sin she might have on her conscience.
"I would not kill thy soul," he said.

He told her that Cassio had confessed, but she knew Cassio had
nought to confess that concerned her.  She said that Cassio could
not say anything that would damage her.  Othello said his mouth
was stopped.

Then Desdemona wept, but with violent words, in spite of all her
pleading, Othello pressed upon her throat and mortally hurt her.

Then with boding heart came Emilia, and besought entrance at the
door, and Othello unlocked it, and a voice came from the bed
saying, "A guiltless death I die."

"Who did it?" cried Emilia; and the voice said, "Nobody--I myself.
Farewell!"

"'Twas I that killed her," said Othello.

He poured out his evidence by that sad bed to the people who came
running in, Iago among them; but when he spoke of the handkerchief,
Emilia told the truth.

And Othello knew.  "Are there no stones in heaven but thunderbolts?"
he exclaimed, and ran at Iago, who gave Emilia her death-blow and
fled.

But they brought him back, and the death that came to him later on
was a relief from torture.

They would have taken Othello back to Venice to try him there, but
he escaped them on his sword.  "A word or two before you go," he
said to the Venetians in the chamber.  "Speak of me as I was--no
better, no worse.  Say I cast away the pearl of pearls, and wept
with these hard eyes; and say that, when in Aleppo years ago I
saw a Turk beating a Venetian, I took him by the throat and smote
him thus."

With his own hand he stabbed himself to the heart; and ere he died
his lips touched the face of Desdemona with despairing love.




THE TAMING OF THE SHREW



There lived in Padua a gentleman named Baptista, who had two fair
daughters.  The eldest, Katharine, was so very cross and ill-tempered,
and unmannerly, that no one ever dreamed of marrying her, while
her sister, Bianca, was so sweet and pretty, and pleasant-spoken,
that more than one suitor asked her father for her hand.  But
Baptista said the elder daughter must marry first.

So Bianca's suitors decided among themselves to try and get some
one to marry Katharine--and then the father could at least be got
to listen to their suit for Bianca.

A gentleman from Verona, named Petruchio, was the one they thought
of, and, half in jest, they asked him if he would marry Katharine,
the disagreeable scold.  Much to their surprise he said yes, that
was just the sort of wife for him, and if Katharine were handsome
and rich, he himself would undertake soon to make her
good-tempered.

Petruchio began by asking Baptista's permission to pay court to
his gentle daughter Katharine--and Baptista was obliged to own
that she was anything but gentle.  And just then her music master
rushed in, complaining that the naughty girl had broken her lute
over his head, because he told her she was not playing correctly.

"Never mind," said Petruchio, "I love her better than ever, and
long to have some chat with her."

When Katharine came, he said, "Good-morrow, Kate--for that, I hear,
is your name."

"You've only heard half," said Katharine, rudely.

"Oh, no," said Petruchio, "they call you plain Kate, and bonny
Kate, and sometimes Kate the shrew, and so, hearing your mildness
praised in every town, and your beauty too, I ask you for my wife."

"Your wife!" cried Kate.  "Never!"  She said some extremely
disagreeable things to him, and, I am sorry to say, ended by
boxing his ears.

"If you do that again, I'll cuff you," he said quietly; and still
protested, with many compliments, that he would marry none but
her.

When Baptista came back, he asked at once--

"How speed you with my daughter?"

"How should I speed but well," replied Petruchio--"how, but well?"

"How now, daughter Katharine?" the father went on.

"I don't think," said Katharine, angrily, "you are acting a father's
part in wishing me to marry this mad-cap ruffian."

"Ah!" said Petruchio, "you and all the world would talk amiss of
her.  You should see how kind she is to me when we are alone.  In
short, I will go off to Venice to buy fine things for our
wedding--for--kiss me, Kate! we will be married on Sunday."

With that, Katharine flounced out of the room by one door in a
violent temper, and he, laughing, went out by the other.  But
whether she fell in love with Petruchio, or whether she was only
glad to meet a man who was not afraid of her, or whether she was
flattered that, in spite of her rough words and spiteful usage,
he still desired her for his wife--she did indeed marry him on
Sunday, as he had sworn she should.

To vex and humble Katharine's naughty, proud spirit, he was late
at the wedding, and when he came, came wearing such shabby clothes
that she was ashamed to be seen with him.  His servant was dressed
in the same shabby way, and the horses they rode were the sport
of everyone they passed.

And, after the marriage, when should have been the wedding breakfast,
Petruchio carried his wife away, not allowing her to eat or
drink--saying that she was his now, and he could do as he liked
with her.

And his manner was so violent, and he behaved all through his
wedding in so mad and dreadful a manner, that Katharine trembled
and went with him.  He mounted her on a stumbling, lean, old horse,
and they journeyed by rough muddy ways to Petruchio's house, he
scolding and snarling all the way.

She was terribly tired when she reached her new home, but Petruchio
was determined that she should neither eat nor sleep that night,
for he had made up his mind to teach his bad-tempered wife a lesson
she would never forget.

So he welcomed her kindly to his house, but when supper was served
he found fault with everything--the meat was burnt, he said, and
ill-served, and he loved her far too much to let her eat anything
but the best.  At last Katharine, tired out with her journey, went
supperless to bed.  Then her husband, still telling her how he
loved her, and how anxious he was that she should sleep well,
pulled her bed to pieces, throwing the pillows and bedclothes on
the floor, so that she could not go to bed at all, and still kept
growling and scolding at the servants so that Kate might see how
unbeautiful a thing ill-temper was.

The next day, too, Katharine's food was all found fault with, and
caught away before she could touch a mouthful, and she was sick
and giddy for want of sleep.  Then she said to one of the
servants--

"I pray thee go and get me some repast.  I care not what."

"What say you to a neat's foot?" said the servant.

Katharine said "Yes," eagerly; but the servant, who was in his
master's secret, said he feared it was not good for hasty-tempered
people.  Would she like tripe?

"Bring it me," said Katharine.

"I don't think that is good for hasty-tempered people," said the
servant.  "What do you say to a dish of beef and mustard?"

"I love it," said Kate.

"But mustard is too hot."

"Why, then, the beef, and let the mustard go," cried Katharine,
who was getting hungrier and hungrier.

"No," said the servant, "you must have the mustard, or you get no
beef from me."

"Then," cried Katharine, losing patience, "let it be both, or one,
or anything thou wilt."

"Why, then," said the servant, "the mustard without the beef!"

Then Katharine saw he was making fun of her, and boxed his ears.

Just then Petruchio brought her some food--but she had scarcely
begun to satisfy her hunger, before he called for the tailor to
bring her new clothes, and the table was cleared, leaving her
still hungry.  Katharine was pleased with the pretty new dress
and cap that the tailor had made for her, but Petruchio found
fault with everything, flung the cap and gown on the floor vowing
his dear wife should not wear any such foolish things.

"I will have them," cried Katharine.  "All gentlewomen wear such
caps as these--"

"When you are gentle you shall have one too," he answered, "and
not till then."  When he had driven away the tailor with angry
words--but privately asking his friend to see him paid--Petruchio
said--

"Come, Kate, let's go to your father's, shabby as we are, for as
the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so honor peereth in
the meanest habit.  It is about seven o'clock now.  We shall easily
get there by dinner-time."

"It's nearly two," said Kate, but civilly enough, for she had grown
to see that she could not bully her husband, as she had done her
father and her sister; "it's nearly two, and it will be supper-time
before we get there."

"It shall be seven," said Petruchio, obstinately, "before I start.
Why, whatever I say or do, or think, you do nothing but contradict.
I won't go to-day, and before I do go, it shall be what o'clock
I say it is."

At last they started for her father's house.

"Look at the moon," said he.

"It's the sun," said Katharine, and indeed it was.

"I say it is the moon.  Contradicting again!  It shall be sun or
moon, or whatever I choose, or I won't take you to your
father's."

Then Katharine gave in, once and for all.  "What you will have it
named," she said, "it is, and so it shall be so for Katharine."
And so it was, for from that moment Katharine felt that she had
met her master, and never again showed her naughty tempers to him,
or anyone else.

So they journeyed on to Baptista's house, and arriving there, they
found all folks keeping Bianca's wedding feast, and that of another
newly married couple, Hortensio and his wife.  They were made
welcome, and sat down to the feast, and all was merry, save that
Hortensio's wife, seeing Katharine subdued to her husband, thought
she could safely say many disagreeable things, that in the old
days, when Katharine was free and froward, she would not have
dared to say.  But Katharine answered with such spirit and such
moderation, that she turned the laugh against the new bride.

After dinner, when the ladies had retired, Baptista joined in a
laugh against Petruchio, saying "Now in good sadness, son Petruchio,
I fear you have got the veriest shrew of all."

"You are wrong," said Petruchio, "let me prove it to you.  Each of
us shall send a message to his wife, desiring her to come to him,
and the one whose wife comes most readily shall win a wager which
we will agree on."

The others said yes readily enough, for each thought his own wife
the most dutiful, and each thought he was quite sure to win the
wager.

They proposed a wager of twenty crowns.

"Twenty crowns," said Petruchio, "I'll venture so much on my hawk
or hound, but twenty times as much upon my wife."

"A hundred then," cried Lucentio, Bianca's husband.

"Content," cried the others.

Then Lucentio sent a message to the fair Bianca bidding her to come
to him.  And Baptista said he was certain his daughter would come.
But the servant coming back, said--

"Sir, my mistress is busy, and she cannot come."'

"There's an answer for you," said Petruchio.

"You may think yourself fortunate if your wife does not send you
a worse."

"I hope, better," Petruchio answered.  Then Hortensio said--

"Go and entreat my wife to come to me at once."

"Oh--if you entreat her," said Petruchio.

"I am afraid," answered Hortensio, sharply, "do what you can, yours
will not be entreated."

But now the servant came in, and said--

"She says you are playing some jest, she will not come."

"Better and better," cried Petruchio; "now go to your mistress and
say I command her to come to me."

They all began to laugh, saying they knew what her answer would
be, and that she would not come.

Then suddenly Baptista cried--

"Here comes Katharine!"  And sure enough--there she was.

"What do you wish, sir?" she asked her husband.

"Where are your sister and Hortensio's wife?"

"Talking by the parlor fire."

"Fetch them here."

When she was gone to fetch them, Lucentio said--

"Here is a wonder!"

"I wonder what it means," said Hortensio.

"It means peace," said Petruchio, "and love, and quiet life."

"Well," said Baptista, "you have won the wager, and I will add
another twenty thousand crowns to her dowry--another dowry for
another daughter--for she is as changed as if she were someone
else."

So Petruchio won his wager, and had in Katharine always a loving
wife and true, and now he had broken her proud and angry spirit
he loved her well, and there was nothing ever but love between
those two.  And so they lived happy ever afterwards.




MEASURE FOR MEASURE



More centuries ago than I care to say, the people of Vienna were
governed too mildly.  The reason was that the reigning Duke Vicentio
was excessively good-natured, and disliked to see offenders made
unhappy.

The consequence was that the number of ill-behaved persons in Vienna
was enough to make the Duke shake his head in sorrow when his
chief secretary showed him it at the end of a list.  He decided,
therefore, that wrongdoers must be punished.  But popularity was
dear to him.  He knew that, if he were suddenly strict after being
lax, he would cause people to call him a tyrant.  For this reason
he told his Privy Council that he must go to Poland on important
business of state.  "I have chosen Angelo to rule in my absence,"
said he.

Now this Angelo, although he appeared to be noble, was really a
mean man.  He had promised to marry a girl called Mariana, and
now would have nothing to say to her, because her dowry had been
lost.  So poor Mariana lived forlornly, waiting every day for the
footstep of her stingy lover, and loving him still.

Having appointed Angelo his deputy, the Duke went to a friar called
Thomas and asked him for a friar's dress and instruction in the
art of giving religious counsel, for he did not intend to go to
Poland, but to stay at home and see how Angelo governed.

Angelo had not been a day in office when he condemned to death a
young man named Claudio for an act of rash selfishness which
nowadays would only be punished by severe reproof.

Claudio had a queer friend called Lucio, and Lucio saw a chance of
freedom for Claudio if Claudio's beautiful sister Isabella would
plead with Angelo.

Isabella was at that time living in a nunnery.  Nobody had won her
heart, and she thought she would like to become a sister, or nun.

Meanwhile Claudio did not lack an advocate.

An ancient lord, Escalus, was for leniency.  "Let us cut a little,
but not kill," he said.  "This gentleman had a most noble father."

Angelo was unmoved.  "If twelve men find me guilty, I ask no more
mercy than is in the law."

Angelo then ordered the Provost to see that Claudio was executed
at nine the next morning.

After the issue of this order Angelo was told that the sister of
the condemned man desired to see him.

"Admit her," said Angelo.

On entering with Lucio, the beautiful girl said, "I am a woeful
suitor to your Honor."

"Well?" said Angelo.

She colored at his chill monosyllable and the ascending red increased
the beauty of her face.  "I have a brother who is condemned to
die," she continued.  "Condemn the fault, I pray you, and spare
my brother."

"Every fault," said Angelo, "is condemned before it is committed.
A fault cannot suffer.  Justice would be void if the committer
of a fault went free."

She would have left the court if Lucio had not whispered to her,
"You are too cold; you could not speak more tamely if you wanted
a pin."

So Isabella attacked Angelo again, and when he said, "I will not
pardon him," she was not discouraged, and when he said, "He's
sentenced; 'tis too late," she returned to the assult.  But all
her fighting was with reasons, and with reasons she could not
prevail over the Deputy.

She told him that nothing becomes power like mercy.  She told him
that humanity receives and requires mercy from Heaven, that it
was good to have gigantic strength, and had to use it like a giant.
She told him that lightning rives the oak and spares the myrtle.
She bade him look for fault in his own breast, and if he found
one, to refrain from making it an argument against her brother's
life.

Angelo found a fault in his breast at that moment.  He loved
Isabella's beauty, and was tempted to do for her beauty what he
would not do for the love of man.

He appeared to relent, for he said, "Come to me to-morrow before
noon."

She had, at any rate, succeeded in prolonging her brother's life
for a few hours.'

In her absence Angelo's conscience rebuked him for trifling with
his judicial duty.

When Isabella called on him the second time, he said, "Your brother
cannot live."

Isabella was painfully astonished, but all she said was, "Even so.
Heaven keep your Honor."

But as she turned to go, Angelo felt that his duty and honor were
slight in comparison with the loss of her.

"Give me your love," he said, "and Claudio shall be freed."

"Before I would marry you, he should die if he had twenty heads to
lay upon the block," said Isabella, for she saw then that he was
not the just man he pretended to be.

So she went to her brother in prison, to inform him that he must
die.  At first he was boastful, and promised to hug the darkness
of death.  But when he clearly understood that his sister could
buy his life by marrying Angelo, he felt his life more valuable
than her happiness, and he exclaimed, "Sweet sister, let me live."

"O faithless coward!  O dishonest wretch!" she cried.

At this moment the Duke came forward, in the habit of a friar, to
request some speech with Isabella.  He called himself Friar
Lodowick.

The Duke then told her that Angelo was affianced to Mariana, whose
love-story he related.  He then asked her to consider this plan.
Let Mariana, in the dress of Isabella, go closely veiled to
Angelo, and say, in a voice resembling Isabella's, that if Claudio
were spared she would marry him.  Let her take the ring from
Angelo's little finger, that it might be afterwards proved that
his visitor was Mariana.

Isabella had, of course, a great respect for friars, who are as
nearly like nuns as men can be.  She agreed, therefore, to the
Duke's plan.  They were to meet again at the moated grange,
Mariana's house.

In the street the Duke saw Lucio, who, seeing a man dressed like
a friar, called out, "What news of the Duke, friar?"  "I have none,"
said the Duke.

Lucio then told the Duke some stories about Angelo.  Then he told
one about the Duke.  The Duke contradicted him.  Lucio was provoked,
and called the Duke "a shallow, ignorant fool," though he pretended
to love him.  "The Duke shall know you better if I live to report
you," said the Duke, grimly.  Then he asked Escalus, whom he saw
in the street, what he thought of his ducal master.  Escalus, who
imagined he was speaking to a friar, replied, "The Duke is a very
temperate gentleman, who prefers to see another merry to being
merry himself."

The Duke then proceeded to call on Mariana.

Isabella arrived immediately afterwards, and the Duke introduced
the two girls to one another, both of whom thought he was a friar.
They went into a chamber apart from him to discuss the saving of
Claudio, and while they talked in low and earnest tones, the Duke
looked out of the window and saw the broken sheds and flower-beds
black with moss, which betrayed Mariana's indifference to her
country dwelling.  Some women would have beautified their garden:
not she.  She was for the town; she neglected the joys of the
country.  He was sure that Angelo would not make her unhappier.

"We are agreed, father," said Isabella, as she returned with Mariana.

So Angelo was deceived by the girl whom he had dismissed from his
love, and put on her finger a ring he wore, in which was set a
milky stone which flashed in the light with secret colors.

Hearing of her success, the Duke went next day to the prison prepared
to learn that an order had arrived for Claudio's release.  It had
not, however, but a letter was banded to the Provost while he
waited.  His amazement was great when the Provost read aloud these
words, "Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be
executed by four of the clock.  Let me have his head sent me by
five."

But the Duke said to the Provost, "You must show the Deputy another
head," and he held out a letter and a signet.  "Here," he said,
"are the hand and seal of the Duke.  He is to return, I tell you,
and Angelo knows it not.  Give Angelo another head."

The Provost thought, "This friar speaks with power.  I know the
Duke's signet and I know his hand."

He said at length, "A man died in prison this morning, a pirate of
the age of Claudio, with a beard of his color.  I will show his
head."

The pirate's head was duly shown to Angelo, who was deceived by
its resemblance to Claudio's.

The Duke's return was so popular that the citizens removed the city
gates from their hinges to assist his entry into Vienna.  Angelo
and Escalus duly presented themselves, and were profusely praised
for their conduct of affairs in the Duke's absence.

It was, therefore, the more unpleasant for Angelo when Isabella,
passionately angered by his treachery, knelt before the Duke, and
cried for justice.

When her story was told, the Duke cried, "To prison with her for
a slanderer of our right hand!  But stay, who persuaded you to come
here?"

"Friar Lodowick," said she.

"Who knows him?" inquired the Duke.

"I do, my lord," replied Lucio.  "I beat him because he spake
against your Grace."

A friar called Peter here said, "Friar Lodowick is a holy man."

Isabella was removed by an officer, and Mariana came forward.  She
took off her veil, and said to Angelo, "This is the face you once
swore was worth looking on."

Bravely he faced her as she put out her hand and said, "This is
the hand which wears the ring you thought to give another."

"I know the woman," said Angelo.  "Once there was talk of marriage
between us, but I found her frivolous."

Mariana here burst out that they were affianced by the strongest
vows.  Angelo replied by asking the Duke to insist on the production
of Friar Lodowick.

"He shall appear," promised the Duke, and bade Escalus examine the
missing witness thoroughly while he was elsewhere.

Presently the Duke re-appeared in the character of Friar Lodowick,
and accompanied by Isabella and the Provost.  He was not so much
examined as abused and threatened by Escalus.  Lucio asked him to
deny, if he dared, that he called the Duke a fool and a coward,
and had had his nose pulled for his impudence.

"To prison with him!" shouted Escalus, but as hands were laid upon
him, the Duke pulled off his friar's hood, and was a Duke before
them all.

"Now," he said to Angelo, "if you have any impudence that can yet
serve you, work it for all it's worth."

"Immediate sentence and death is all I beg," was the reply.

"Were you affianced to Mariana?" asked the Duke.

"I was," said Angelo.

"Then marry her instantly," said his master.  "Marry them," he said
to Friar Peter, "and return with them here."

"Come hither, Isabel," said the Duke, in tender tones.  "Your friar
is now your Prince, and grieves he was too late to save your
brother;" but well the roguish Duke knew he had saved him.

"O pardon me," she cried, "that I employed my Sovereign in my
trouble."

"You are pardoned," he said, gaily.

At that moment Angelo and his wife re-entered.  "And now, Angelo,"
said the Duke, gravely, "we condemn thee to the block on which
Claudio laid his head!"

"O my most gracious lord," cried Mariana, "mock me not!"

"You shall buy a better husband," said the Duke.

"O my dear lord," said she, "I crave no better man."

Isabella nobly added her prayer to Mariana's, but the Duke feigned
inflexibility.

"Provost," he said, "how came it that Claudio as executed at an
unusual hour?"

Afraid to confess the lie he had imposed upon Angelo, the Provost
said, "I had a private message."

"You are discharged from your office," said the Duke.  The Provost
then departed.  Angelo said, "I am sorry to have caused such
sorrow.  I prefer death to mercy."  Soon there was a motion in
the crowd.  The Provost re-appeared with Claudio.  Like a big
child the Provost said, "I saved this man; he is like Claudio."
The Duke was amused, and said to Isabella, "I pardon him because
he is like your brother.  He is like my brother, too, if you, dear
Isabel, will be mine."

She was his with a smile, and the Duke forgave Angelo, and promoted
the Provost.

Lucio he condemned to marry a stout woman with a bitter tongue.




TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA



Only one of them was really a gentleman, as you will discover later.
Their names were Valentine and Proteus.  They were friends, and
lived at Verona, a town in northern Italy.  Valentine was happy
in his name because it was that of the patron saint of lovers; it
is hard for a Valentine to be fickle or mean.  Proteus was unhappy
in his name, because it was that of a famous shape-changer, and
therefore it encouraged him to be a lover at one time and a traitor
at another.

One day, Valentine told his friend that he was going to Milan.
"I'm not in love like you," said he, "and therefore I don't want
to stay at home."

Proteus was in love with a beautiful yellow-haired girl called
Julia, who was rich, and had no one to order her about.  He was,
however, sorry to part from Valentine, and he said, "If ever you
are in danger tell me, and I will pray for you."  Valentine then
went to Milan with a servant called Speed, and at Milan he fell
in love with the Duke of Milan's daughter, Silvia.

When Proteus and Valentine parted Julia had not acknowledged that
she loved Proteus.  Indeed, she had actually torn up one of his
letters in the presence of her maid, Lucetta.  Lucetta, however,
was no simpleton, for when she saw the pieces she said to herself,
"All she wants is to be annoyed by another letter."  Indeed, no
sooner had Lucetta left her alone than Julia repented of her
tearing, and placed between her dress and her heart the torn piece
of paper on which Proteus had signed his name.  So by tearing a
letter written by Proteus she discovered that she loved him.
Then, like a brave, sweet girl, she wrote to Proteus, "Be patient,
and you shall marry me."

Delighted with these words Proteus walked about, flourishing Julia's
letter and talking to himself.

"What have you got there?" asked his father, Antonio.

"A letter from Valentine," fibbed Proteus.

"Let me read it," said Antonio.

"There is no news," said deceitful Proteus; "he only says that he
is very happy, and the Duke of Milan is kind to him, and that he
wishes I were with him."

This fib had the effect of making Antonio think that his son should
go to Milan and enjoy the favors in which Valentine basked.  "You
must go to-morrow," he decreed.  Proteus was dismayed.  "Give me
time to get my outfit ready."  He was met with the promise, "What
you need shall be sent after you."

It grieved Julia to part from her lover before their engagement
was two days' old.  She gave him a ring, and said, "Keep this for
my sake," and he gave her a ring, and they kissed like two who
intend to be true till death.  Then Proteus departed for Milan.

Meanwhile Valentine was amusing Silvia, whose grey eyes, laughing
at him under auburn hair, had drowned him in love.  One day she
told him that she wanted to write a pretty letter to a gentleman
whom she thought well of, but had no time: would he write it?  Very
much did Valentine dislike writing that letter, but he did write
it, and gave it to her coldly.  "Take it back," she said; "you
did it unwillingly."

"Madam," he said, "it was difficult to write such a letter for
you."

"Take it back," she commanded; "you did not write tenderly enough."

Valentine was left with the letter, and condemned to write another;
but his servant Speed saw that, in effect, the Lady Silvia had
allowed Valentine to write for her a love-letter to Valentine's
own self.  "The joke," he said, "is as invisible as a weather-cock
on a steeple."  He meant that it was very plain; and he went on
to say exactly what it was: "If master will write her love-letters,
he must answer them."

On the arrival of Proteus, he was introduced by Valentine to Silvia
and afterwards, when they were alone, Valentine asked Proteus how
his love for Julia was prospering.

"Why," said Proteus, "you used to get wearied when I spoke of her."

"Aye," confessed Valentine, "but it's different now.  I can eat
and drink all day with nothing but love on my plate and love in
my cup."

"You idolize Silvia," said Proteus.

"She is divine," said Valentine.

"Come, come!" remonstrated Proteus.

"Well, if she's not divine," said Valentine, "she is the queen of
all women on earth."

"Except Julia," said Proteus.

"Dear boy," said Valentine, "Julia is not excepted; but I will
grant that she alone is worthy to bear my lady's train."

"Your bragging astounds me," said Proteus.

But he had seen Silvia, and he felt suddenly that the yellow-haired
Julia was black in comparison.  He became in thought a villain
without delay, and said to himself what he had never said before--"I
to myself am dearer than my friend."

It would have been convenient for Valentine if Proteus had changed,
by the power of the god whose name he bore, the shape of his body
at the evil moment when he despised Julia in admiring Silvia.
But his body did not change; his smile was still affectionate,
and Valentine confided to him the great secret that Silvia had
now promised to run away with him.  "In the pocket of this cloak,"
said Valentine, "I have a silken rope ladder, with hooks which
will clasp the window-bar of her room."

Proteus knew the reason why Silvia and her lover were bent on
flight.  The Duke intended her to wed Sir Thurio, a gentlemanly
noodle for whom she did not care a straw.

Proteus thought that if he could get rid of Valentine he might make
Silvia fond of him, especially if the Duke insisted on her enduring
Sir Thurio's tiresome chatter.  He therefore went to the Duke,
and said, "Duty before friendship!  It grieves me to thwart my
friend Valentine, but your Grace should know that he intends
to-night to elope with your Grace's daughter."  He begged the Duke
not to tell Valentine the giver of this information, and the Duke
assured him that his name would not be divulged.

Early that evening the Duke summoned Valentine, who came to him
wearing a large cloak with a bulging pocket.

"You know," said the Duke, "my desire to marry my daughter to Sir
Thurio?"

"I do," replied Valentine.  "He is virtuous and generous, as befits
a man so honored in your Grace's thoughts."

"Nevertheless she dislikes him," said the Duke.  "She is a peevish,
proud, disobedient girl, and I should be sorry to leave her a
penny.  I intend, therefore, to marry again."

Valentine bowed.

"I hardly know how the young people of to-day make love," continued
the Duke, "and I thought that you would be just the man to teach
me how to win the lady of my choice."

"Jewels have been known to plead rather well," said Valentine.

"I have tried them," said the Duke.

"The habit of liking the giver may grow if your Grace gives her
some more."

"The chief difficulty," pursued the Duke, "is this.  The lady is
promised to a young gentleman, and it is hard to have a word with
her.  She is, in fact, locked up."

"Then your Grace should propose an elopement," said Valentine.
"Try a rope ladder."

"But how should I carry it?" asked the Duke.

"A rope ladder is light," said Valentine; "You can carry it in a
cloak."

"Like yours?"

"Yes, your Grace."

"Then yours will do.  Kindly lend it to me."

Valentine had talked himself into a trap.  He could not refuse to
lend his cloak, and when the Duke had donned it, his Grace drew
from the pocket a sealed missive addressed to Silvia.  He coolly
opened it, and read these words: "Silvia, you shall be free
to-night."

"Indeed," he said, "and here's the rope ladder.  Prettily contrived,
but not perfectly.  I give you, sir, a day to leave my dominions.
If you are in Milan by this time to-morrow, you die."

Poor Valentine was saddened to the core.  "Unless I look on Silvia
in the day," he said, "there is no day for me to look upon."

Before he went he took farewell of Proteus, who proved a hypocrite
of the first order.  "Hope is a lover's staff," said Valentine's
betrayer; "walk hence with that."

After leaving Milan, Valentine and his servant wandered into a
forest near Mantua where the great poet Virgil lived.  In the
forest, however, the poets (if any) were brigands, who bade the
travelers stand.  They obeyed, and Valentine made so good an
impression upon his captors that they offered him his life on
condition that he became their captain.

"I accept," said Valentine, "provided you release my servant, and
are not violent to women or the poor."

The reply was worthy of Virgil, and Valentine became a brigand
chief.

We return now to Julia, who found Verona too dull to live in since
Proteus had gone.  She begged her maid Lucetta to devise a way by
which she could see him.  "Better wait for him to return," said
Lucetta, and she talked so sensibly that Julia saw it was idle to
hope that Lucetta would bear the blame of any rash and interesting
adventure.  Julia therefore said that she intended to go to Milan
and dressed like a page.

"You must cut off your hair then," said Lucetta, who thought that
at this announcement Julia would immediately abandon her scheme.

"I shall knot it up," was the disappointing rejoinder.

Lucetta then tried to make the scheme seem foolish to Julia, but
Julia had made up her mind and was not to be put off by ridicule;
and when her toilet was completed, she looked as comely a page as
one could wish to see.

Julia assumed the male name Sebastian, and arrived in Milan in time
to hear music being performed outside the Duke's palace.

"They are serenading the Lady Silvia," said a man to her.

Suddenly she heard a voice lifted in song, and she knew that voice.
It was the voice of Proteus.  But what was he singing?

   "Who is Silvia? what is she,
      That all our swains commend her?
    Holy, fair, and wise is she;
      The heaven such grace did lend her
    That she might admired be."

Julia tried not to hear the rest, but these two lines somehow
thundered into her mind--

   "Then to Silvia let us sing;
    She excels each mortal thing."

Then Proteus thought Silvia excelled Julia; and, since he sang so
beautifully for all the world to hear, it seemed that he was not
only false to Julia, but had forgotten her.  Yet Julia still loved
him.  She even went to him, and asked to be his page, and Proteus
engaged her.

One day, he handed to her the ring which she had given him, and
said, "Sebastian, take that to the Lady Silvia, and say that I
should like the picture of her she promised me."

Silvia had promised the picture, but she disliked Proteus.  She
was obliged to talk to him because he was high in the favor of
her father, who thought he pleaded with her on behalf of Sir
Thurio.  Silvia had learned from Valentine that Proteus was pledged
to a sweetheart in Verona; and when he said tender things to her,
she felt that he was disloyal in friendship as well as love.

Julia bore the ring to Silvia, but Silvia said, "I will not wrong
the woman who gave it him by wearing it."

"She thanks you," said Julia.

"You know her, then?" said Silvia, and Julia spoke so tenderly of
herself that Silvia wished that Sebastian would marry Julia.

Silvia gave Julia her portrait for Proteus, who would have received
it the worse for extra touches on the nose and eyes if Julia had
not made up her mind that she was as pretty as Silvia.

Soon there was an uproar in the palace.  Silvia had fled.

The Duke was certain that her intention was to join the exiled
Valentine, and he was not wrong.

Without delay he started in pursuit, with Sir Thurio, Proteus, and
some servants.

The members of the pursuing party got separated, and Proteus and
Julia (in her page's dress) were by themselves when they saw
Silvia, who had been taken prisoner by outlaws and was now being
led to their Captain.  Proteus rescued her, and then said, "I have
saved you from death; give me one kind look."

"O misery, to be helped by you!" cried Silvia.  "I would rather be
a lion's breakfast."

Julia was silent, but cheerful.  Proteus was so much annoyed with
Silvia that he threatened her, and seized her by the waist.

"O heaven!" cried Silvia.

At that instant there was a noise of crackling branches.  Valentine
came crashing through the Mantuan forest to the rescue of his
beloved.  Julia feared he would slay Proteus, and hurried to help
her false lover.  But he struck no blow, he only said, "Proteus,
I am sorry I must never trust you more."

Thereat Proteus felt his guilt, and fell on his knees, saying,
"Forgive me!  I grieve!  I suffer!"

"Then you are my friend once more," said the generous Valentine.
"If Silvia, that is lost to me, will look on you with favor, I
promise that I will stand aside and bless you both."

These words were terrible to Julia, and she swooned.  Valentine
revived her, and said, "What was the matter, boy?"

"I remembered," fibbed Julia, "that I was charged to give a ring
to the Lady Silvia, and that I did not."

"Well, give it to me," said Proteus.

She handed him a ring, but it was the ring that Proteus gave to
Julia before he left Verona.

Proteus looked at her hand, and crimsoned to the roots of his hair.

"I changed my shape when you changed your mind," said she.

"But I love you again," said he.

Just then outlaws entered, bringing two prizes--the Duke and Sir
Thurio.

"Forbear!" cried Valentine, sternly.  "The Duke is sacred."

Sir Thurio exclaimed, "There's Silvia; she's mine!"

"Touch her, and you die!" said Valentine.

"I should be a fool to risk anything for her," said Sir Thurio.

"Then you are base," said the Duke.  "Valentine, you are a brave
man.  Your banishment is over.  I recall you.  You may marry
Silvia.  You deserve her."

"I thank your Grace," said Valentine, deeply moved, "and yet must
ask you one more boon."

"I grant it," said the Duke.

"Pardon these men, your Grace, and give them employment.  They are
better than their calling."

"I pardon them and you," said the Duke.  "Their work henceforth
shall be for wages."

"What think you of this page, your Grace?" asked Valentine, indicating
Julia.

The Duke glanced at her, and said, "I think the boy has grace in
him."

"More grace than boy, say I," laughed Valentine, and the only
punishment which Proteus had to bear for his treacheries against
love and friendship was the recital in his presence of the adventures
of Julia-Sebastian of Verona.




ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL



In the year thirteen hundred and something, the Countess of Rousillon
was unhappy in her palace near the Pyrenees.  She had lost her
husband, and the King of France had summoned her son Bertram to
Paris, hundreds of miles away.

Bertram was a pretty youth with curling hair, finely arched eyebrows,
and eyes as keen as a hawk's.  He was as proud as ignorance could
make him, and would lie with a face like truth itself to gain a
selfish end.  But a pretty youth is a pretty youth, and Helena
was in love with him.

Helena was the daughter of a great doctor who had died in the
service of the Count of Rousillon.  Her sole fortune consisted in
a few of her father's prescriptions.

When Bertram had gone, Helena's forlorn look was noticed by the
Countess, who told her that she was exactly the same to her as
her own child.  Tears then gathered in Helena's eyes, for she felt
that the Countess made Bertram seem like a brother whom she could
never marry.  The Countess guessed her secret forthwith, and Helena
confessed that Bertram was to her as the sun is to the day.

She hoped, however, to win this sun by earning the gratitude of
the King of France, who suffered from a lingering illness, which
made him lame.  The great doctors attached to the Court despaired
of curing him, but Helena had confidence in a prescription which
her father had used with success.

Taking an affectionate leave of the Countess, she went to Paris,
and was allowed to see the King.

He was very polite, but it was plain he thought her a quack.  "It
would not become me," he said, "to apply to a simple maiden for
the relief which all the learned doctors cannot give me."

"Heaven uses weak instruments sometimes," said Helena, and she
declared that she would forfeit her life if she failed to make
him well.

"And if you succeed?" questioned the King.

"Then I will ask your Majesty to give me for a husband the man whom
I choose!"

So earnest a young lady could not be resisted forever by a suffering
king.  Helena, therefore, became the King's doctor, and in two
days the royal cripple could skip.

He summoned his courtiers, and they made a glittering throng in
the throne room of his palace.  Well might the country girl have
been dazzled, and seen a dozen husbands worth dreaming of among
the handsome young noblemen before her.  But her eyes only wandered
till they found Bertram.  Then she went up to him, and said, "I
dare not say I take you, but I am yours!"  Raising her voice that
the King might hear, she added, "This is the Man!"

"Bertram," said the King, "take her; she's your wife!"

"My wife, my liege?" said Bertram.  "I beg your Majesty to permit
me to choose a wife."

"Do you know, Bertram, what she has done for your King?" asked the
monarch, who had treated Bertram like a son.

"Yes, your Majesty," replied Bertram; "but why should I marry a
girl who owes her breeding to my father's charity?"

"You disdain her for lacking a title, but I can give her a title,"
said the King; and as he looked at the sulky youth a thought came
to him, and he added, "Strange that you think so much of blood
when you could not distinguish your own from a beggar's if you
saw them mixed together in a bowl."

"I cannot love her," asserted Bertram; and Helena said gently,
"Urge him not, your Majesty.  I am glad to have cured my King for
my country's sake."

"My honor requires that scornful boy's obedience," said the King.
"Bertram, make up your mind to this.  You marry this lady, of
whom you are so unworthy, or you learn how a king can hate.  Your
answer?"

Bertram bowed low and said, "Your Majesty has ennobled the lady by
your interest in her.  I submit."

"Take her by the band," said the King, "and tell her she is yours."

Bertram obeyed, and with little delay he was married to Helena.

Fear of the King, however, could not make him a lover.  Ridicule
helped to sour him.  A base soldier named Parolles told him to
his face that now he had a "kicky-wicky" his business was not to
fight but to stay at home.  "Kicky-wicky" was only a silly epithet
for a wife, but it made Bertram feel he could not bear having a
wife, and that he must go to the war in Italy, though the King
had forbidden him.

Helena he ordered to take leave of the King and return to Rousillon,
giving her letters for his mother and herself.  He then rode off,
bidding her a cold good-bye.

She opened the letter addressed to herself, and read, "When you
can get the ring from my finger you can call me husband, but
against that 'when' I write 'never.'"

Dry-eyed had Helena been when she entered the King's presence and
said farewell, but he was uneasy on her account, and gave her a
ring from his own finger, saying, "If you send this to me, I shall
know you are in trouble, and help you."

She did not show him Bertram's letter to his wife; it would have
made him wish to kill the truant Count; but she went back to
Rousillon and handed her mother-in-law the second letter.  It was
short and bitter.  "I have run away," it said.  "If the world be
broad enough, I will be always far away from her."

"Cheer up," said the noble widow to the deserted wife.  "I wash
his name out of my blood, and you alone are my child."

The Dowager Countess, however, was still mother enough to Bertram
to lay the blame of his conduct on Parolles, whom she called "a
very tainted fellow."

Helena did not stay long at Rousillon.  She clad herself as a
pilgrim, and, leaving a letter for her mother-in-law, secretly
set out for Florence.

On entering that city she inquired of a woman the way to the
Pilgrims' House of Rest, but the woman begged "the holy pilgrim"
to lodge with her.

Helena found that her hostess was a widow, who had a beautiful
daughter named Diana.

When Diana heard that Helena came from France, she said, "A countryman
of yours, Count Rousillon, has done worthy service for Florence."
But after a time, Diana had something to tell which was not at
all worthy of Helena's husband.  Bertram was making love to Diana.
He did not hide the fact that he was married, but Diana heard
from Parolles that his wife was not worth caring for.

The widow was anxious for Diana's sake, and Helena decided to inform
her that she was the Countess Rousillon.

"He keeps asking Diana for a lock of her hair," said the widow.

Helena smiled mournfully, for her hair was as fine as Diana's and
of the same color.  Then an idea struck her, and she said, "Take
this purse of gold for yourself.  I will give Diana three thousand
crowns if she will help me to carry out this plan.  Let her promise
to give a lock of her hair to my husband if he will give her the
ring which he wears on his finger.  It is an ancestral ring.  Five
Counts of Rousillon have worn it, yet he will yield it up for a
lock of your daughter's hair.  Let your daughter insist that he
shall cut the lock of hair from her in a dark room, and agree in
advance that she shall not speak a single word."

The widow listened attentively, with the purse of gold in her lap.
She said at last, "I consent, if Diana is willing."

Diana was willing, and, strange to say, the prospect of cutting
off a lock of hair from a silent girl in a dark room was so pleasing
to Bertram that he handed Diana his ring, and was told when to
follow her into the dark room.  At the time appointed he came with
a sharp knife, and felt a sweet face touch his as he cut off the
lock of hair, and he left the room satisfied, like a man who is
filled with renown, and on his finger was a ring which the girl
in the dark room had given him.

The war was nearly over, but one of its concluding chapters taught
Bertram that the soldier who had been impudent enough to call
Helena his "kicky-wicky" was far less courageous than a wife.
Parolles was such a boaster, and so fond of trimmmgs to his clothes,
that the French officers played him a trick to discover what he
was made of.  He had lost his drum, and had said that he would
regain it unless he was killed in the attempt.  His attempt was
a very poor one, and he was inventing the story of a heroic failure,
when he was surrounded and disarmed.

"Portotartarossa," said a French lord.

"What horrible lingo is this?" thought Parolles, who had been
blindfolded.

"He's calling for the tortures," said a French man, affecting to
act as interpreter.  "What will you say without 'em?"

"As much," replied Parolles, "as I could possibly say if you pinched
me like a pasty."  He was as good as his word.  He told them how
many there were in each regiment of the Florentine army, and he
refreshed them with spicy anecdotes of the officers commanding it.

Bertram was present, and heard a letter read, in which Parolles
told Diana that he was a fool.

"This is your devoted friend," said a French lord.

"He is a cat to me now," said Bertram, who detested our hearthrug
pets.

Parolles was finally let go, but henceforth he felt like a sneak,
and was not addicted to boasting.

We now return to France with Helena, who had spread a report of
her death, which was conveyed to the Dowager Countess at Rousillon
by Lafeu, a lord who wished to marry his daughter Magdalen to
Bertram.

The King mourned for Helena, but he approved of the marriage proposed
for Bertram, and paid a visit to Rousillon in order to see it
accomplished.

"His great offense is dead," he said.  "Let Bertram approach me."

Then Bertram, scarred in the cheek, knelt before his Sovereign,
and said that if he had not loved Lafeu's daughter before he
married Helena, he would have prized his wife, whom he now loved
when it was too late.

"Love that is late offends the Great Sender," said the King.
"Forget sweet Helena, and give a ring to Magdalen."

Bertram immediately gave a ring to Lafeu, who said indignantly,
"It's Helena's!"

"It's not!" said Bertram.

Hereupon the King asked to look at the ring, and said, "This is
the ring I gave to Helena, and bade her send to me if ever she
needed help.  So you had the cunning to get from her what could
help her most."

Bertram denied again that the ring was Helena's, but even his mother
said it was.

"You lie!" exclaimed the King.  "Seize him, guards!" but even while
they were seizing him, Bertram wondered how the ring, which he
thought Diana had given him, came to be so like Helena's.  A
gentleman now entered, craving permission to deliver a petition
to the King.  It was a petition signed Diana Capilet, and it begged
that the King would order Bertram to marry her whom he had deserted
after winning her love.

"I'd sooner buy a son-in-law at a fair than take Bertram now," said
Lafeu.

"Admit the petitioner," said the King.

Bertram found himself confronted by Diana and her mother.  He denied
that Diana had any claim on him, and spoke of her as though her
life was spent in the gutter.  But she asked him what sort of
gentlewoman it was to whom he gave, as to her he gave, the ring
of his ancestors now missing from his finger?

Bertram was ready to sink into the earth, but fate had one crowning
generosity reserved for him.  Helena entered.

"Do I see reality?" asked the King.

"O pardon! pardon!" cried Bertram.

She held up his ancestral ring.  "Now that I have this," said she,
"will you love me, Bertram?"

"To the end of my life," cried he.

"My eyes smell onions," said Lafeu.  Tears for Helena were twinkling
in them.

The King praised Diana when he was fully informed by that not very
shy young lady of the meaning of her conduct.  For Helena's sake
she had wished to expose Bertram's meanness, not only to the King,
but to himself.  His pride was now in shreds, and it is believed
that he made a husband of some sort after all.




PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF NAMES.



   [Key.-

   a,e,i,o,u -- as in hat, bet, it, hot, hut;
   â,ê,î,ô,û -- as in ate, mote, mite, mote, mute;
   å         -- as in America, freeman, coward;
   ë     -- as in her, fern;
   ü         -- as in burn, furl. ]

    Adriana (ad-ri-â'-nå)
    AEgeon (ê'-ge-on)
    AEmilia (ê-mil'-i-å)
    Alcibiades (al-si-bî'-å-dêz)
    Aliena  (â-li-ê'-nå)
    Angelo (an'-je-lô)
    Antioch (an'-ti-ok)
    Antiochus (an-tî'-o-kus)
    Antipholus (an-tif'-o-lus)
    Antonio (an-tô'-ni-ô)
    Apemantus (ap-e-man'-tus)
    Apollo (å-pol'-ô)
    Ariel (â'ri-el)
    Arragon (ar'-å-gon)

    Banquo (ban'-kwô)
    Baptista (bap-tis'-tå)
    Bassanio (bas-sa'-ni-ô)
    Beatrice (bê'å-tris)
    Bellario (bel-lâ'-ri-ô)
    Bellarius (bel-lâ'-ri-us)
    Benedick (ben'-e-dik)
    Benvolio (ben-vô'-li-ô)
    Bertram (bër'-tram)
    Bianca (bê-an'-kå)
    Borachio (bô-rach'-i-ô)
    Brabantio (brå-ban'chô)
    Burgundy (bür'-gun-di)

    Caliban (kal'-i-ban)
    Camillo (kå-mil'-ô)
    Capulet (kap'-û-let)
    Cassio (kas'-i-ô)
    Celia (sê'-li-å)
    Centaur (sen'-tawr)
    Cerimon (sê'-ri-mon)
    Cesario (se-sâ'-ri-ô)
    Claudio (klaw'-di-ô)
    Claudius (klaw'-di-us)
    Cordelia (kawr-dê'-li-å)
    Cornwall (kawrn'-wawl)
    Cymbeline (sim'-be-lên)

    Demetrius (de-mê'-tri-us)
    Desdemona (des-de-mô-nå)
    Diana (dî-an'-å)
    Dionyza (dî-ô-nî'-zå)
    Donalbain (don'-al-ban)
    Doricles (dor'-i-klêz)
    Dromio (drô'-mi-ô)
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QUOTATIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE



ACTION.

    Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
    More learned than their ears.

        Coriolanus -- III. 2.




ADVERSITY.

    Sweet are the uses of adversity,
    Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
    Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

        As You Like It -- II. 1.


    That, Sir, which serves and seeks for gain,
       And follows but for form,
    Will pack, when it begins to rain,
       And leave thee in the storm.

        King Lear -- II. 4.


    Ah! when the means are gone, that buy this praise,
    The breath is gone whereof this praise is made:
    Feast won--fast lost; one cloud of winter showers,
    These flies are couched.

        Timon of Athens -- II. 2.





ADVICE TO A SON LEAVING HOME.

    Give thy thoughts no tongue,
    Nor any unproportioned thought his act
    Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
    The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried
    Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
    But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
    Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware
    Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,
    Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee.
    Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
    Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment,
    Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
    But not expressed in fancy: rich, not gaudy:
    For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
    And they in France, of the best rank and station,
    Are most select and generous, chief in that.
    Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:
    For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
    And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
    This above all.--To thine ownself be true;
    And it must follow, as the night the day,
    Thou canst not then be false to any man.

        Hamlet -- I. 3.




AGE.

    My May of life Is
    fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf:
    And that which should accompany old age,
    As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
    I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
    Curses not loud, but deep, mouth-honor, breath,
    Which the poor heart would feign deny, but dare not.

        Macbeth -- V. 3.




AMBITION.

    Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of
    the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. And I
    hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but
    a shadow's shadow.

        Hamlet -- II 2.


    I charge thee fling away ambition;
    By that sin fell the angels, how can man then,
    The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't?
    Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee;
    Corruption wins not more than honesty.
    Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
    To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not!
    Let all the ends, thou aim'st at, be thy country's,
    Thy God's, and truth's.

        King Henry VIII. -- III. 2.




ANGER.

    Anger is like
    A full-hot horse, who being allowed his way,
    Self-mettle tires him.

        King Henry VIII. -- I. 1.




ARROGANCE.

    There are a sort of men, whose visages
    Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
    And do a willful stillness entertain,
    With purpose to be dressed in an opinion
    Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
    As who should say, " I am Sir Oracle,
    And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!"
    O! my Antonio, I do know of these
    That therefore are reputed wise
    For saying nothing, when, I am sure,
    If they should speak, would almost dam those ears,
    Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.

        The Merchant of Venice -- I. 1.




AUTHORITY.

    Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar?
    And the creature run from the cur?
    There thou might'st behold the great image of authority
    a dog's obeyed in office.

        King Lear -- IV. 6.


    Could great men thunder
    As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
    For every pelting, petty officer
    Would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but thunder--
    Merciful heaven!
    Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
    Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
    Than the soft myrtle!--O, but man, proud man!
    Drest in a little brief authority --
    Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
    His glassy essence,--like an angry ape,
    Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
    As make the angels weep.

        Measure for Measure -- II. 2.



BEAUTY.

    The hand, that hath made you fair, hath made you good: the
    goodness, that is cheap in beauty, makes beauty brief in goodness;
    but grace, being the soul of your complexion, should keep the body
    of it ever fair.

        Measure for Measure -- III. 1.




BLESSINGS UNDERVALUED.

    It so falls out
    That what we have we prize not to the worth,
    Whiles we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost,
    Why, then we rack the value; then we find
    The virtue, that possession would not show us
    Whiles it was ours.

        Much Ado About Nothing -- IV. 1.




BRAGGARTS.

    It will come to pass,
    That every braggart shall be found an ass.

        All's Well that Ends Well -- IV. 3.


    They that have the voice of lions, and the act of bares,
    are they not monsters?

        Troilus and Cressida -- III. 2.




CALUMNY.

    Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,
    thou shalt not escape calumny.

        Hamlet -- III. 1.


    No might nor greatness in mortality
    Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny
    The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong,
    Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?

        Measure for Measure -- III. 2.




CEREMONY.

    Ceremony
    Was but devised at first, to set a gloss
    On faint deeds, hollow welcomes.
    Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown;
    But where there is true friendship, there needs none.

        Timon of Athens -- I. 2.




COMFORT.

    Men
    Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief
    Which they themselves not feel; but tasting it,
    Their counsel turns to passion, which before
    Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
    Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
    Charm ache with air, and agony with words:
    No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience
    To those that wring under the load of sorrow;
    But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency,
    To be so moral, when he shall endure
    The like himself.

        Much Ado About Nothing -- V. 1.


    Well, every one can master a grief, but he that has it.

        Idem -- II.




COMPARISON.

    When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.
    So doth the greater glory dim the less;
    A substitute shines brightly as a king,
    Until a king be by; and then his state
    Empties itself, as does an inland brook
    Into the main of waters.

        Merchant of Venice -- V. 1.




CONSCIENCE.

    Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
    And thus the native hue of resolution
    Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
    And enterprises of great pith and moment,
    With this regard, their currents turn awry,
    And lose the name of action.

        Hamlet -- III. 1.




CONTENT.

    My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
    Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,
    Nor to be seen; my crown is called "content";
    A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.

        King Henry VI., Part 3d - III. 1.




CONTENTION.

    How, in one house,
    Should many people, under two commands,
    Hold amity?

        King Lear -- II. 4.


    When two authorities are set up,
    Neither supreme, how soon confusion
    May enter twixt the gap of both, and take
    The one by the other.

        Coriolanus -- III. 1.




CONTENTMENT.

    'Tis better to be lowly born,
    And range with humble livers in content,
    Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,
    And wear a golden sorrow.

        King Henry VIII. -- II. 3.




COWARDS.

    Cowards die many times before their deaths;
    The valiant never taste of death but once.

        Julius Caesar -- II. 2.




CUSTOM.

    That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
    Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this:
    That to the use of actions fair and good
    He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
    That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night:
    And that shall lend a kind of easiness
    To the next abstinence: the next more easy:
    For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
    And either curb the devil, or throw him out
    With wondrous potency.

        Hamlet -- III. 4.


    A custom
    More honored in the breach, then the observance.

        Idem -- I. 4.




DEATH.

    Kings, and mightiest potentates, must die;
    For that's the end of human misery.

        King Henry VI., Part 1st -- III. 2.


    Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
    It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
    Seeing that death, a necessary end,
    Will come, when it will come.

        Julius Caesar -- II. 2.


    The dread of something after death,
    Makes us rather bear those ills we have,
    Than fly to others we know not of.

        Hamlet -- III. 1.


    The sense of death is most in apprehension.

        Measure for Measure -- III. 1.


    By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death
    Will seize the doctor too.

        Cymbeline -- V. 5.




DECEPTION.

    The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
    An evil soul, producing holy witness,
    Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;
    A goodly apple rotten at the heart;
    O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

        Merchant of Venice -- I. 3.




DEEDS.

    Foul deeds will rise,
    Though all the earth o'erwhelm them to men's eyes.

        Hamlet -- I. 2.


    How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds,
    Makes deeds ill done!

        King John -- IV. 2.




DELAY.

    That we would do,
    We should do when we would; for this would changes,
    And hath abatements and delays as many,
    As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
    And then this should is like a spendthrift sigh,
    That hurts by easing.

        Hamlet -- IV. 7.




DELUSION.

    For love of grace,
    Lay not that flattering unction to your soul;
    It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
    Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
    Infects unseen.

        Hamlet -- III. 4.




DISCRETION.

    Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop,
    Not to outsport discretion.

        Othello -- II. 3.




DOUBTS AND FEARS.

    I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in
    To saucy doubts and fears.

        Macbeth -- III. 4.




DRUNKENNESS.

    Boundless intemperance.
    In nature is a tyranny; it hath been
    Th' untimely emptying of the happy throne,
    And fall of many kings.

        Measure for Measure -- I. 3.




DUTY OWING TO OURSELVES AND OTHERS.

    Love all, trust a few,
    Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy
    Rather in power, than use; and keep thy friend
    Under thy own life's key; be checked for silence,
    But never taxed for speech.

        All's Well that Ends Well -- I. 1.




EQUIVOCATION.

    But yet
    I do not like but yet, it does allay
    The good precedence; fye upon but yet:
    But yet is as a gailer to bring forth
    Some monstrous malefactor.

        Antony and Cleopatra -- II. 5.




EXCESS.

    A surfeit of the sweetest things
    The deepest loathing to the stomach brings.

        Midsummer Night's Dream -- II. 3.


    Every inordinate cup is unblessed,
    and the ingredient is a devil.

        Othello -- II. 3.




FALSEHOOD.

    Falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent,
    Three things that women hold in hate.

        Two Gentlemen of Verona -- III. 2.




FEAR.

    Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds
    Where it should guard.

        King Henry VI., Part 2d -- V. 2.


    Fear, and be slain; no worse can come, to fight:
    And fight and die, is death destroying death;
    Where fearing dying, pays death servile breath.

        King Richard II. -- III. 2.




FEASTS.

    Small cheer, and great welcome, makes a merry feast.

        Comedy of Errors -- III. 1.




FILIAL INGRATITUDE.

    Ingratitude!  Thou marble-hearted fiend,
    More hideous, when thou showest thee in a child,
    Than the sea-monster.

        King Lear -- I. 4.


    How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
    To have a thankless child

        Idem -- I. 4.




FORETHOUGHT.

    Determine on some course,
    More than a wild exposure to each cause
    That starts i' the way before thee.

        Coriolanus -- IV. 1.




FORTITUDE.

    Yield not thy neck
    To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind
    Still ride in triumph over all mischance.

        King Henry VI., Part 3d -- III. 3.




FORTUNE.

    When fortune means to men most good,
    She looks upon them with a threatening eye.

        King John -- III. 4.




GREATNESS.

    Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!
    This is the state of man: To-day he puts forth
    The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
    And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
    The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost;
    And,--when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
    His greatness is ripening,--nips his root,
    And then he falls, as I do.

        King Henry VIII. -- III. 2.


    Some are born great, some achieve greatness,
    and some have greatness thrust upon them.

        Twelfth Night -- II. 5.




HAPPINESS.

    O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness
    through another man's eyes.

        As You Like It -- V. 2.




HONESTY.

    An honest man is able to speak for himself,
    when a knave is not.

        King Henry VI., Part 2d -- V. 1.


    To be honest, as this world goes, is to be
    one man picked out of ten thousand.

        Hamlet -- II. 2.




HYPOCRISY.

    Devils soonest tempt,
    resembling spirits of light.

        Love's Labor Lost -- IV. 3.


    One may smile, and smile,
             and be a villain.

        Hamlet -- I. 5.





INNOCENCE.

    The trust I have is in mine innocence,
    And therefore am I bold and resolute.

        Troilus and Cressida -- IV. 4.




INSINUATIONS.

    The shrug, the hum, or ha; these petty brands,
    That calumny doth use;--
                            For calumny will sear
    Virtue itself:--these shrugs, these bums, and ha's,
    When you have said, she's goodly, come between,
    Ere you can say she's honest.

        Winter's Tale -- II. 1.




JEALOUSY.

    Trifles, light as air,
    Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong
    As proofs of holy writ.

        Othello -- III. 3.


    O beware of jealousy:
    It is the green-eyed monster, which does mock
    The meat it feeds on.

        Idem.




JESTS.

    A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
    of him that hears it.

        Love's Labor Lost -- V. 2.


    He jests at scars,
    that never felt a wound.

        Romeo and Juliet -- II. 2.




JUDGMENT.

    Heaven is above all; there sits a Judge,
    That no king can corrupt.

        King Henry VIII, -- III. 1.




LIFE.

    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
    And then is heard no more: it is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.

        Macbeth -- V. 5.


    We are such stuff
    As dreams are made of, and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep.

        The Tempest -- IV. 1.




LOVE.

    A murd'rous, guilt shows not itself more soon,
    Than love that would seem bid: love's night is noon.

        Twelfth Night -- III. 2.


    Sweet love, changing his property,
    Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.

        King Richard II. -- III. 2.


    When love begins to sicken and decay,
    It useth an enforced ceremony.

        Julius Caesar -- II. 2.


    The course of true-love
    never did run smooth.

        Midsummer Night's Dream -- I. 1.


    Love looks not with the eyes,
    but with the mind.

        Idem.


    She never told her love,--
    But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,
    Feed on her damask check: she pined in thought
    And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
    She sat like Patience on a monument,
    Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?

        Twelfth Night -- II. 4.


    But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
    The pretty follies that themselves commit.

        The Merchant of Venice -- II. 6.




MAN.

    What a piece of work is man!  How noble in reason!
    How infinite in faculties! in form, and moving,
    how express and admirable! in  action, how like
    an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the
    beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!

        Hamlet -- II. 2.




MERCY.

    The quality of mercy is not strained:
    it droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven,
    Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd;
    It blesses him that gives, and him that takes:
    'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
    The throned monarch better than his crown:
    His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
    The attribute to awe and majesty,
    Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
    But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
    It is an attribute to God himself;
    And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
    When mercy seasons justice.
                                Consider this,--
    That, in the course of justice, none of us
    Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
    And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
    The deeds of mercy.

        Merchant of Venice -- IV. 1.




MERIT.

    Who shall go about
    To cozen fortune, and be honorable
    Without the stamp of merit!  Let none presume
    To wear an undeserved dignity.

        Merchant of Venice -- II. 9.




MODESTY.

    It is the witness still of excellency,
    To put a strange face on his own perfection.

        Much Ado About Nothing -- II. 3.




MORAL CONQUEST.

    Brave conquerors! for so you are,
    That war against your own affections,
    And the huge army of the world's desires.

        Love's Labor's Lost  -- I. 1.




MURDER.

    The great King of kings
    Hath in the table of his law commanded,
    That thou shalt do no murder.
    Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his band,
    To hurl upon their heads thatbreak his law.

        King Richard III. -- I. 4.


    Blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
    Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth.

        King Richard II. -- I. 1.




MUSIC.

    The man that hath no music in himself,
    Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
    Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
    The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
    And his affections dark as Erebus:
    Let no such man be trusted.

        Merchant of Venice -- V. 1.




NAMES.

    What's in a name? that, which we call a rose,
    By any other name would smell as sweet.

        Romeo and Juliet -- II. 2.


    Good name, in man, and woman,
    Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
    Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing.
    'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
    But he, that filches from me my good name,
    Robs me of that, which not enriches him,
    And makes me poor indeed.

        Othello -- III. 3.




NATURE.

    One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

        Troilus and Cressida -- III. 3.




NEWS, GOOD AND BAD.

    Though it be honest, it is never good
    To bring bad news. Give to a gracious message
    An host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell
    Themselves, when they be felt.

        Antony and Cleopatra -- II. 5.




OFFICE.

    'Tis the curse of service;
    Preferment goes by letter, and affection,
    Not by the old gradation, where each second
    Stood heir to the first.

        Othello -- I. 1.




OPPORTUNITY.

    Who seeks, and will not take when offered,
    Shall never find it more.

        Antony and Cleopatra -- II. 7.


    There is a tide in the affairs of men,
    Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
    Omitted, all the voyage of their life
    Is bound in shallows, and in miseries:
    And we must take the current when it serves,
    Or lose our ventures.

        Julius Caesar -- IV. 3.




OPPRESSION.

    Press not a falling man too far; 'tis virtue:
    His faults lie open to the laws; let them,
    Not you, correct them.

        King Henry VIII. -- III. 2.




PAST AND FUTURE.

    O thoughts of men accurst!
    Past, and to come, seem best; things present, worst.

        King Henry IV., Part 2d -- I. 3.




PATIENCE.

    How poor are they, that have not patience!--
    What wound did ever heal, but by degrees?

        Othello -- II. 3.




PEACE.

    A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
    For then both parties nobly are subdued,
    And neither party loser.

    King Henry IV., Part 2d -- IV. 2.


    I will use the olive with my sword:
    Make war breed peace; make peace stint war; make each
    Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.

        Timon of Athens -- V. 5.


    I know myself now; and I feel within me
    A peace above all earthly dignities,
    A still and quiet conscience.

        King Henry VIII. -- III. 2.




PENITENCE.

    Who by repentance is not satisfied,
    Is nor of heaven, nor earth; for these are pleased;
    By penitence the Eternal's wrath appeased.

        Two Gentlemen of Verona -- V. 4.




PLAYERS.

    All the world's a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players:
    They have their exits and their entrances;
    And one man in his time plays many parts.

        As You Like It -- II. 7.


    There be players, that I have seen play,--
    and heard others praise, and that highly,--
    not to speak it profanely, that,
    neither having the accent of Christians,
    nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man,
    have so strutted, and bellowed,
    that I have thought some of nature's journeymen
    had made men and not made them well,
    they imitated humanity so abominably.

        Hamlet -- III. 2.




POMP.

    Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
    And, live we how we can, yet die we must.

        King Henry V. Part 3d -- V. 2.




PRECEPT AND PRACTICE.

    If to do were as easy as to know what were good
    to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's
    cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that
    follows his own instructions: I can easier teach
    twenty what were good to be done, than be one of
    twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may
    devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps
    o'er a cold decree: such a bare is madness, the
    youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel,
    the cripple.

        The Merchant of Venice -- I. 2.




PRINCES AND TITLES.

    Princes have but their titles for their glories,
    An outward honor for an inward toil;
    And, for unfelt imaginations,
    They often feel a world of restless cares:
    So that, between their titles, and low name,
    There's nothing differs but the outward fame.

        King Richard III. -- I. 4.




QUARRELS.

    In a false quarrel these is no true valor.

        Much Ado About Nothing -- V. 1.


    Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
    And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
    Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

        King Henry VI., Part 2d -- III. 2.




RAGE.

    Men in rage strike those that wish them best.

        Othello -- II. 3.




REPENTANCE.

    Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
    Which after-hours give leisure to repent.

        King Richard III. -- IV. 4.




REPUTATION.

    The purest treasure mortal times afford,
    Is--spotless reputation; that away,
    Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
    A jewel in a ten-times-barred-up chest
    I-- a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

        King Richard II. -- I. 1.




RETRIBUTION.

    The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
    Make instruments to scourge us.

        King Lear -- V. S.


    If these men have defeated the law,
    and outrun native punishment,
    though they can outstrip men,
    they have no wings to fly from God.

        King Henry V. -- IV. 1.




SCARS.

    A sear nobly got, or a noble scar,
    is a good livery of honor.

        All's Well that Ends Well -- IV. 6.


    To such as boasting show their scars,
    A mock is due.

        Troilus and Cressida -- IV. 5.




SELF-CONQUEST.

    Better conquest never can'st thou make,
    Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts
    Against those giddy loose suggestions.

        King John -- III. 1.




SELF-EXERTION.

    Men at some time are masters of their fates;
       The fault is not in our stars,
    But in ourselves.

        Julius Caesar -- I. 2.




SELF-RELIANCE.

    Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
    Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
    Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull
    Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.

        All's Well that Ends Well -- I. 1.




SILENCE.

    Out of this silence, yet I picked a welcome;
    And in the modesty of fearful duty
    I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
    Of saucy and audacious eloquence.

        Midsummer Night's Dream -- V. 1.


    The silence often of pure innocence
    Persuades, when speaking fails.

        Winter's Tale -- II. 2.


    Silence is the perfectest herald of joy:
    I were but little happy, if I could say how much.

        Much Ado About Nothing -- II. 1.




SLANDER.

    Slander,
    Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
    Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
    Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
    All corners of the world; kings, queens, and states,
    Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave,
    This viperous slander enters.

        Cymbeline -- III. 4.




SLEEP.

    The innocent sleep;
    Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care,
    The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
    Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
    Chief nourisher in life's feast.

        Macbeth -- II. 2.




SUICIDE.

    Against self-slaughter
    There is a prohibition so divine,
    That cravens my weak hand.

        Cymbeline -- III. 4.




TEMPERANCE.

    Though I look old, yet am I strong and lusty:
    For in my youth I never did apply
    Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
    Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
    The means of weakness and debility:
    Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
    Frosty, but kindly.

        As You Like It -- II. 3.




THEORY AND PRACTICE.

    There was never yet philosopher,
    That could endure the tooth-ache patiently;
    However, they have writ the style of the gods,
    And made a pish at chance and sufferance.

        Much Ado About Nothing -- V. 1.




TREACHERY.

    Though those, that are betrayed,
    Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
    Stands in worse case of woe.

        Cymbeline -- III. 4.




VALOR.

    The better part of valor is--discretion.

        King Henry IV., Part 1st -- V. 4.


    When Valor preys on reason,
    It eats the sword it fights with.

        Antony and Cleopatra -- III. 2.


    What valor were it, when a cur doth grin
    For one to thrust his band between his teeth,
    When he might spurn him with his foot away?

        King Henry VI., Part 1st -- I. 4.




WAR.

    Take care
    How you awake the sleeping sword of war:
    We charge you in the name of God, take heed.

        King Henry IV., Part 1st -- I. 2.




WELCOME.

    Welcome ever smiles,
    And farewell goes out sighing.

        Troilus and Cressida -- III. 3.




WINE.

    Good wine is a good familiar creature,
    if it be well used.

        Othello -- II. 3.


    O thou invisible spirit of wine,
    if thou hast no name to be known by,
    let us call thee --devil!. . .  O, that
    men should put an enemy in their mouths,
    to steal away their brains!
    that we should with joy, revel,
    pleasure, and applause,
    transform ourselves into beasts!

        Othello -- II. 3.




WOMAN.

    A woman impudent and mannish grown
    Is not more loathed than an effeminate man.

        Troilus and Cressida -- III. 3.




WORDS.

    Words without thoughts
    never to heaven go.

        Hamlet -- III. 3.


    Few words shall fit the trespass best,
    Where no excuse can give the fault amending.

        Troilus and Cressida -- III. 2.




WORLDLY CARE.

    You have too much respect upon the world:
    They lose it, that do buy it with much care.

        Merchant of Venice -- I. 1.




WORLDLY HONORS.

    Not a man, for being simply man,
    Hath any honor; but honor for those honors
    That are without him, as place, riches, favor,
    Prizes of accident as oftas merit;
    Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
    The love that leaned on them, as slippery too,
    Do one pluck down another, and together
    Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me.

        Troilus and Cressida -- III. 3.





End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare