Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2. Polonius.
Modern version:
“You may wonder if the stars are fire, You may wonder if the sun moves across the sky. You may wonder if the truth is a liar, But never wonder if I love.”
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Thy gift, thy tables, are within m… Full charactered with lasting memo… Which shall above that idle rank r… Beyond all date even to eternity— Or at the least, so long as brain…
From fairest creatures we desire i… That thereby beauty’s rose might n… But as the riper should by time de… His tender heir might bear his mem… But thou, contracted to thine own…
Those parts of thee that the world… Want nothing that the thought of h… All tongues, the voice of souls, g… Utt’ring bare truth, even so as fo… Thy outward thus with outward prai…
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost tho… Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy? Nature’s bequest gives nothing but… And being frank she lends to those… Then, beauteous niggard, why dost…
How can I then return in happy pl… That am debarred the benefit of re… When day’s oppression is not eased… But day by night, and night by day… And each, though enemies to either…
ROSES, their sharp spines being… Not royal in their smells alone, But in their hue; Maiden pinks, of odour faint, Daisies smell-less, yet most quain…
WHO is Silvia? What is she? That all our swains commend her… Holy, fair, and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend… That she might admired be.
Farewell!—God knows when we shall… I have a faint cold fear thrills t… That almost freezes up the heat of… I’ll call them back again to comfo… Nurse!—What should she do here?
Or I shall live your epitaph to m… Or you survive when I in earth am… From hence your memory death canno… Although in me each part will be f… Your name from hence immortal life…
Lord of my love, to whom in vassal… Thy merit hath my duty strongly kn… To thee I send this written embas… To witness duty, not to show my wi… Duty so great, which wit so poor a…
Our revels now are ended. These o… As I foretold you, were all spiri… Are melted into air, into thin air… And, like the baseless fabric of t… The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorge…
Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire! I do wander everywhere,
Who will believe my verse in time… If it were fill’d with your most h… Though yet, heaven knows, it is bu… Which hides your life and shows no… If I could write the beauty of yo…
O! how I faint when I of you do w… Knowing a better spirit doth use y… And in the praise thereof spends a… To make me tongue-tied speaking of… But since your worth—wide as the o…
From “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream,… PUCK sings: NOW the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon; Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,