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by Neil Tibbetts
Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Romeo and Juliet
(Act 1: The Prologue)
PROLOGUE
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
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When Romeo and Juliet first meet it takes fourteen lines before
the first kiss! (Extracts from Act 1 Scene 5)
ROMEO
1[To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
2This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
3My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
4To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
5Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
6Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
7For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
8And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
ROMEO
9Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
10Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
11O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
12They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
13Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
ROMEO
14Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
JULIET
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO
Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
JULIET
You kiss by the book.
Macbeth
Act 1 Scene 3 - 3 witches, Macbeth and his friend
Banquo
Enter MACBETH and BANQUO
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MACBETH
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO
How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these
So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her chappy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
MACBETH
Speak, if you can: what are you?
First Witch
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
Second Witch
All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
Third Witch
All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!
BANQUO
Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.
First Witch
Hail!
Second Witch
Hail!
Third Witch
Hail!
First Witch
Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
Second Witch
Not so happy, yet much happier.
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Third Witch
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
First Witch
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit murder
when he is not sure. (Act 1 Scene 7)
MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business:
…………………………………………………………..
LADY MACBETH
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
2
MACBETH
Prithee, peace:
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH
What beast was't, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man.
MACBETH
If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH
We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.
MACBETH
Bring forth men-children only;
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males.
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