Delights Shakespeare Quotes

These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey Is loathsome in his own deliciousness And in the taste confounds the appetite. Therefore love moderately; long love doth so; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

When we share our favorite titles, we can't help but share ourselves as well. Shakespeare said the eyes are the windows to the soul, but we readers know one's bookshelves reveal just as much.

What a piece of work is a 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! and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither; though by your smiling you seem to say so.

O, why should nature build so foul a den, Unless the gods delight in tragedies?

What a piece of work is a man! How noble is reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in 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! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.

I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a 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! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note; But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise, Who in despite of view is pleased to dote; Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted, Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone, Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited To any sensual feast* with thee alone*: But my five wits* nor my five senses can Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee, Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man*, Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be: Only my plague thus far I count my gain, That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

IN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION: WHAT SCENES ONE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE FILMED Shakespeare in the part of the King's Ghost. The beheading of Louis the Sixteenth, the drums drowning his speech on the scaffold. Herman Melville at breakfast, feeling a sardine to his cat. Poe's wedding. Lewis Carroll's picnics. The Russians leaving Alaska, delighted with the deal. Shot of a seal applauding.

The labor we delight in physics pain.

I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest mind i' the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether (He's an oddity in that he enjoys having fun)

I pray thee, cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless As water in a sieve: give not me counsel; Nor let no comforter delight mine ear But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine: ... for, brother, 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. Therefore give me no counsel: My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

Miss Rasputin, what a delight to finally meet you,” said the vamp, speaking with only the faintest hint of an accent. “Let’s hope you still feel that way in a few minutes, Mr. Delacroix.” “Pierre, please. And may I call you Evangaline?” Pierre smiled at her winsomely. “No, you may not. My name is Ms. Rasputin to you.” Her answer took the vamp aback, but he recovered quickly and smiled again showing off his small pointed canines. Pierre’s dark eyes flicked over to Ryker in his feline form and he raised an aristocratic brow. “My, what a big pussy you have.” “You know what they say, the bigger the better.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,-- Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.

O, had the monster seen those lily hands Tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute And make the silken strings delight to kiss them, He would not then have touched them for his life

Shakespeare said the eyes are the windows to the soul, but we readers know one’s bookshelves reveal just as much.

These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which, as they kiss, consume. —Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

May Hegel's philosophy of absolute nonsense - three-fourths cash and one-fourth crazy fancies - continue to pass for unfathomable wisdom without anyone suggesting as an appropriate motto for his writings Shakespeare's words: "Such stuff as madmen tongue and brain not," or, as an emblematical vignette, the cuttle-fish with its ink-bag, creating a cloud of darkness around it to prevent people from seeing what it is, with the device: mea caligine tutus. - May each day bring us, as hitherto, new systems adapted for University purposes, entirely made up of words and phrases and in a learned jargon besides, which allows people to talk whole days without saying anything; and may these delights never be disturbed by the Arabian proverb: "I hear the clappering of the mill, but I see no flour." - For all this is in accordance with the age and must have its course.

Rouse him:—make after him, poison his delight, Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen, And, though he in a fertile climate dwell, Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy, Yet throw such changes of vexation

Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light: Such comfort as do lusty young men feel When well-apparell'd April on the heel Of limping winter treads, even such delight Among fresh female buds shall you this night Inherit at my house; hear all, all see, And like her most whose merit most shall be:

We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,—the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man.

Who sees his true-love in her naked bed, Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white, But when his glutton eye so full hath fed, His other agents aim at like delight? Who is so faint that dare not be so bold To touch the fire, the weather being cold?

You are 'the best of cut-throats:'--do not start; The phrase is Shakespeare's, and not misapplied:-- War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art, Unless her cause by Right be sanctified. If you have acted once a generous part, The World, not the World's masters, will decide, And I shall be delighted to learn who, Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo? I am no flatterer--you've supped full of flattery: They say you like it too--'tis no great wonder: He whose whole life has been assault and battery, At last may get a little tired of thunder; And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he May like being praised for every lucky blunder; Called 'Saviour of the Nations'--not yet saved, And Europe's Liberator--still enslaved. I've done. Now go and dine from off the plate Presented by the Prince of the Brazils, And send the sentinel before your gate A slice or two from your luxurious meals: He fought, but has not fed so well of late...

Who are you? Or should I first present myself to you? I’m Damerel, you know.’ ‘Yes, so I supposed, at the outset of our delightful acquaintance. Later, of course, I was sure of it.’ ‘Oh, oh – ! My reputation, Iago, my reputation!’ he exclaimed, laughing again.

And, noble signior, If virtue no delighted beauty lack, Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither;

Say, what abridgement have you for this evening? What masque, what music? How shall we beguile The lazy time if not with some delight?

Those palates who, not yet two summers younger, must have inventions to delight the taste, would now be glad of bread, and beg for it.

I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation Prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king And queen moult no feather. I have of late--but Wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all Custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily With my disposition that this goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most Excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave O'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted With golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to Me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! 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! And yet, to me, What is this quintessence of dust? man delights not Me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling You seem to say so.

Although experience teach us this is true, That peaceful quietness brings most delight, When most of all abuses are controlled; Yet, insomuch it shall be known that we As well can master our affections As conquer other by the dint of sword,

The isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again.

I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal. I saw him put down the other day with an 80   ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he’s out of his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged. I protest I take these wise men, that crow so at these set kind of fools, no better than the fools’ zanies.

What say you, can you love the gentleman? This night you shall behold him at our feast. Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face, And find delight writ there with beauty's pen; Examine every married lineament, And see how one another lends content; And what obscured in this fair volume lies Find written in the margent of his eyes. This precious book of love, this unbound lover, To beautify him only lacks a cover. The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride For fair without the fair within to hide. That book in many's eyes doth share the glory, That in gold clasps locks in the golden story. So shall you share all that he doth possess, By having him, making yourself no less.

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world; or to be worse than worst Of those that lawless and incertain thought Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury and imprisonment Can lay on nature is a paradise To what we fear of death.

The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow.

Better suffer in hell in front of a god than taking delight in heaven without a god. I'm a god-loving Brahmin.

If virtue no delighted beauty lack, Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which as they kiss consume” ~ William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

There be some sports are painful, and their labour Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness Are nobly undergone and most poor matters Point to rich ends. This

Unless the gods delight in tragedies?

This talk of laughing all the way to the bank reminds me of a delightful line from Shakespeare: The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers. 2 Henry VI

poison his delight

These violent delights have violent ends ~ William Shakespeare. —Romeo and Juliet

These violent delights have violent ends

These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which as they kiss consume.

Like Princes crowned they bore them-- Like Demi-Gods they wrought, When the New World lay before them In headlong fact and thought. Fate and their foemen proved them Above all meed of praise, And Gloriana loved them, And Shakespeare wrote them plays! . . . . . . . Now Valour, Youth, and Life's delight break forth In flames of wondrous deed, and thought sublime--- Lightly to mould new worlds or lightly loose Words that shall shake and shape all after-time! Giants with giants, wits with wits engage, And England-England-England takes the breath Of morning, body and soul, till the great Age Fulfills in one great chord:--Elizabeth!

His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear’d arm Crested the world: his voice was propertied As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends; But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty, There was no winter in’t; an autumn ’twas That grew the more by reaping: his delights Were dolphin-like; they show’d his back above The element they lived in: in his livery Walk’d crowns and crownets; realms and islands were As plates dropp’d from his pocket.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.

Why, he is the Prince’s jester, a very dull fool; only his gift is in devising impossible slanders. None but libertines delight in him, and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy, for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him.

So, either by thy picture or my love,   Thy self away, art present still with me;   For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,   And I am still with them, and they with thee;     Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight     Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.

The fact is that moving matter about, while a certain amount of it is necessary to our existence, is emphatically not one of the ends of human life. If it were, we should have to consider every navvy superior to Shakespeare. We have been misled in this matter by two causes. One is the necessity of keeping the poor contented, which has led the rich, for thousands of years, to preach the dignity of labor, while taking care themselves to remain undignified in this respect. The other is the new pleasure in mechanism, which makes us delight in the astonishingly clever changes that we can produce on the earth's surface. Neither of these motives makes any great appeal to the actual worker. If you ask him what he thinks the best part of his life, he is not likely to say: "I enjoy manual work because it makes me feel that I am fulfilling man's noblest task, and because I like to think how much man can transform his planet. It is true that my body demands periods of rest, which I have to fill in as best I may, but I am never so happy as when the morning comes and I can return to the toil from which my contentment springs.

So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground; And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found. Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; Now counting best to be with you alone, Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure: Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look; Possessing or pursuing no delight Save what is had, or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did. On the other hand, novels which are works of the imagination, though not of a very high order, have been for years a wonderful relief and pleasure to me, and I often bless all novelists. A surprising number have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily–against which a law ought to be passed. A novel, according to my taste, does not come into the first class unless it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love, and if a pretty woman all the better. This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes is all the odder, as books on history, biographies, and travels (independently of any scientific facts which they may contain), and essays on all sorts of subjects interest me as much as ever they did. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organised or better constituted than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus suffered; and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.

They would carry their books to the woods and read aloud to one another. At picnic lunches near Cooper’s Bluff, they recited their favorite poems. “In the early days,” Fanny recalled, “we all delighted in Longfellow and Mrs. Browning and Owen Meredith.” Later, they turned to Swinburne, Kipling, Shelley, and Shakespeare. The Roosevelts

In high school, we barely brushed against Ogden Nash, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, or any of the other so-unserious writers who delight everyone they touch. This was, after all, a very expensive and important school. Instead, I was force-fed a few of Shakespeare's Greatest Hits, although the English needed translation, the broad comedy and wrenching drama were lost, and none of the magnificently dirty jokes were ever explained. (Incidentally, Romeo and Juliet, fully appreciated, might be banned in some U.S. states.) This was the Concordance again, and little more. So we'd read all the lines aloud, resign ourselves to a ponderous struggle, and soon give up the plot completely.

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe, Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature That we with wisest sorrow think on him Together with remembrance of ourselves. Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, Th' imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we—as ’twere with a defeated joy, With an auspicious and a dropping eye, With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, In equal scale weighing delight and dole— Taken to wife. Nor have we herein barred Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair along. For all, our thanks.

This she? no, this is Diomed's Cressida: If beauty have a soul, this is not she; If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies, If sanctimony be the gods' delight, If there be rule in unity itself, This is not she. O madness of discourse, That cause sets up with and against itself! Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt Without perdition, and loss assume all reason Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid. Within my soul there doth conduce a fight Of this strange nature that a thing inseparate Divides more wider than the sky and earth, And yet the spacious breadth of this division Admits no orifex for a point as subtle As Ariachne's broken woof to enter. Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates; Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven: Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself; The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolved, and loosed; And with another knot, five-finger-tied, The fractions of her faith, orts of her love, The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics Of her o'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked, I cried to dream again. STE.

I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium . . . . Shakespeare can not be recognized either as a great genius, or even as an average author. . . . far from being the height of perfection, [King Lear] is a very bad, carelessly composed production, . . . can not evoke among us anything but aversion and weariness. . . . All his characters speak, not their own, but always one and the same Shakespearian, pretentious, and unnatural language . . . .

These (Shakespeare, Milton, and Victor Hugo) not only knit and knot the logical texture of the style with all the dexterity and strength of prose; they not only fill up the pattern of the verse with infinite variety and sober wit; but they give us, besides, a rare and special pleasure, by the art, comparable to that of counterpoint, with which they follow at the same time, and now contrast, and now combine, the double pattern of the texture and the verse.  Here the sounding line concludes; a little further on, the well-knit sentence; and yet a little further, and both will reach their solution on the same ringing syllable.  The best that can be offered by the best writer of prose is to show us the development of the idea and the stylistic pattern proceed hand in hand, sometimes by an obvious and triumphant effort, sometimes with a great air of ease and nature.  The writer of verse, by virtue of conquering another difficulty, delights us with a new series of triumphs.  He follows three purposes where his rival followed only two; and the change is of precisely the same nature as that from melody to harmony. -ON SOME TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN LITERATURE

At the beginning of modernity, it may have been easier to acknowledge that there exists an innate tropism toward the gruesome. Edmund Burke observed that people like to look at images of suffering. “I am convinced we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others,” he wrote in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). “There is no spectacle we so eagerly pursue, as that of some uncommon and grievous calamity.” William Hazlitt, in his essay on Shakespeare’s Iago and the attraction of villainy on the stage, asks, “Why do we always read the accounts in the newspapers of dreadful fires and shocking murders?” Because, he answers, “love of mischief,” love of cruelty, is as natural to human beings as is sympathy.

When we reflect upon the works of William Shakespeare it is of course an amazement to consider that one man could have produced such a sumptuous, wise, varied, thrilling, ever-delighting body of work, but that is of course the hallmark of genius. Only one man had the circumstances and gifts to give us such incomparable works, and William Shakespeare of Stratford was unquestionably that man—whoever he was.

Irreligiosity of artists. Homer is so at home among his gods, and takes such delight in them as a poet that he surely must have been deeply irreligious. He took what popular belief offered him (a paltry, crude, in part horrible superstition) and dealt as freely as a sculptor with his clay, that is, with the same openness Aeschylus and Aristophanes possessed, and which in more recent times has distinguished the great artists of the Renaissance, as well as Shakespeare and Goethe.

Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain; As painfully to pore upon a book To seek the light of truth while truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look. Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile; So ere you find where light in darkness lies Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes. Study me how to please the eye indeed By fixing it upon a fairer eye, Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, And give him light that it was blinded by. Study is like the heavens’ glorious sun, That will not be deep searched with saucy looks. Small have continual plodders ever won Save base authority from others’ books. These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know is to know naught but fame, And every godfather can give a name. a

If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, But with good will. To show our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end.   Consider then we come but in despite. We do not come as minding to content you, Our true intent is. All for your delight, We are not here. That you should here repent you, The actors are at hand; and, by their show,   125 You shall know all that you are like to know. The.  This fellow doth not stand upon points.

In those days there was no money to buy books. Books you borrowed from the rental library of Shakespeare and Company, which was the library and bookstore of Sylvia Beach at 12 rue de l’Odéon. On a cold windswept street, this was a lovely, warm, cheerful place with a big stove in winter, tables and shelves of books, new books in the window, and photographs on the wall of famous writers both dead and living. The photographs all looked like snapshots and even the dead writers looked as though they had really been alive. Sylvia had a lively, very sharply cut face, brown eyes that were as alive as a small animal’s and as gay as a young girl’s, and wavy brown hair that was brushed back from her fine forehead and cut thick below her ears and at the line of the collar of the brown velvet jacket she wore. She had pretty legs and she was kind, cheerful and interested, and loved to make jokes and gossip. No one that I ever knew was nicer to me. I was very shy when I first went into the bookshop and I did not have enough money on me to join the rental library. She told me I could pay the deposit any time I had the money and made me out a card and said I could take as many books as I wished. There was no reason for her to trust me. She did not know me and the address I had given her, 74 rue Cardinal Lemoine, could not have been a poorer one. But she was delightful and charming and welcoming and behind her, as high as the wall and stretching out into the back room which gave onto the inner court of the building, were the shelves and shelves of the richness of the library.

Like Elizabeth, all her subjects were fond of the savage pastime of bear and bull baiting. It cannot be denied that this people had a taste for blood, took delight in brutal encounters, and drew the sword and swung the cudgel with great promptitude; nor were they fastidious in the matter of public executions. Kiechel says that when the criminal was driven in the cart under the gallows, and left hanging by the neck as the cart moved from under him, his friends and acquaintances pulled at his legs in order that he might be strangled the sooner.

Robin Goodfellow—A “puck” or mischievous fairy who delights in playing pranks on mortals; he is sometimes referred to simply as Puck. Robin is Oberon’s jester, and his antics are responsible for many of the complications that propel the play. At Oberon’s bidding, Robin sprinkles “love juice” in the eyes of various characters to change who they love, but he makes mistakes in his application that create conflicts Oberon never intended. Though Robin claims to make these mistakes honestly, he enjoys the conflict and mayhem that his mistakes cause.

differing plants, correspond to the law of the relative distances of the planets in approach to their central sun, wakes in him that hope of a central Will, which alone can justify one ecstatic throb at any seeming loveliness of the universe. For without the hope of such a centre, delight is unreason—a mockery not such as the skeleton at the Egyptian feast, but such rather as a crowned corpse at a feast of skeletons. Life without the higher glory of the unspeakable, the atmosphere of a God, is not life, is not worth living. He would rather cease to be, than walk the dull level of the commonplace

I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;-- Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun, And descant on mine own deformity: And therefore,--since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days,-- I am determined to prove a villain,

Let me confess that we two must be twain,   Although our undivided loves are one:   So shall those blots that do with me remain,   Without thy help, by me be borne alone.   In our two loves there is but one respect,   Though in our lives a separable spite,   Which though it alter not love's sole effect,   Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.   I may not evermore acknowledge thee,   Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,   Nor thou with public kindness honour me,   Unless thou take that honour from thy name:     But do not so, I love thee in such sort,     As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' force, Some in their garments though new-fangled ill; Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse; And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, Wherein it finds a joy above the rest: But these particulars are not my measure, All these I better in one general best. Thy love is better than high birth to me, Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost, Of more delight than hawks and horses be; And having thee, of all men's pride I boast: Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take All this away, and me most wretched make.

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other: When that mine eye is famish'd for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love's picture then my eye doth feast And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time mine eye is my heart's guest And in his thoughts of love doth share a part: So, either by thy picture or my love, Thyself away art resent still with me; For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move, And I am still with them and they with thee; Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.

For a queen who loved words as much as Elizabeth, Shakespeare’s plays were a stimulating delight. The playwright made up thousands of new words, more than 1,700 of which are still in common usage. They include: ‘bedroom’, ‘moonbeam’, ‘hobnob’, ‘lacklustre’ and ‘submerge’. His genius for inventing pithy phrases such as ‘all of a sudden’, ‘a foregone conclusion’ and ‘dead as a doornail’ also greatly enriched the language not just of the court, but of all levels of society. Repeating words and phrases heard in the latest Shakespeare comedy or tragedy began as an in-joke for those who had attended, but rapidly spread into common parlance.

Sunk for a long time in profound thoughts as to the value of obscurity, and the delight of having no name, but being like a wave which returns to the deep body of the sea; thinking how obscurity rids the mind of the irk of envy and spite; how it sets running in the veins the free waters of generosity and magnanimity; and allows giving and taking without thanks offered or praise given; which must have been the way of all great poets, he supposed (though his knowledge of Greek was not enough to bear him out), for, he thought, Shakespeare must have written like that, and the church builders built like that, anonymously, needing no thanking or naming, but only their work in the daytime and a little ale perhaps at night-'What an admirable life this is,' he thought, stretching his limbs out under the oak tree. 'And why not enjoy it this very moment?' The thought struck him like a bullet. Ambition dropped like a plummet. Rid of the heart-burn of rejected love, and of vanity rebuked, and all the other stings and pricks which the nettle-bed of life had burnt upon him when ambitious of fame, but could no longer inflict upon once careless of glory, he opened his eyes, which had been wide open all the time, but had seen only thoughts, and saw, lying in the hollow beneath him, his house.

Fame', he (Orlando) said, 'is like .. a braided coat which hampers the limbs; a jacket of silver which curbs the heart; a painted shield which covers a scarecrow,' etc. etc. .. While fame impedes and constricts, obscurity wraps about a man like a mist; obscurity is dark, ample and free; obscurity lets the mind take its way unimpeded. Over the obscure man is poured the merciful suffusion of darkness. None knows where he goes or comes. He may seek the truth and speak it; he alone is free; he alone is truthful; he alone is at peace. .. Sunk for a long time in profound thoughts as to the value of obscurity, and the delight of having no name, but being like a wave which returns to the deep body of the sea; thinking how obscurity rids the mind of the irk of envy and spite; how it sets running in the veins the free waters of generosity and magnanimity; and allows giving and taking without thanks offered or praise given; which must have been the way of all great poets, he supposed, .. for, he thought, Shakespeare must have written like that, and the church builders built like that, anonymously, needing no thanking or naming, but only their work in the daytime and a little ale perhaps at night - 'What an admirable life this is,' he thought, stretching his limbs out under the oak tree. 'And why not enjoy it this very moment?

There would therefore have been all the more delight at the birth of the first son William within less than a year of Margaret's death, tinged with more than a little anxiety, in view of the fateful words hic incepit pestis, 'here began plague', in the burial part of the register three months later. Just how close this dread flea-borne disease was to the Shakespeares can be guaged from the fact that their Henley Street neighbour Roger Green lost four of his children and town clerk Richard Symons three. One estimate suggests that the town lost around two hundred, or about fifteen per cent, of its population during this single outbreak. It is a sobering thought how much the world could have lost at this time by one ill-chanced flea-bite.

What is a novel, anyway? Only a very foolish person would attempt to give a definitive answer to that, beyond stating the more or less obvious facts that it is a literary narrative of some length which purports, on the reverse of the title page, not to be true, but seeks nevertheless to convince its readers that it is. It's typical of the cynicism of our age that, if you write a novel, everyone assumes it's about real people, thinly disguised; but if you write an autobiography everyone assumes you're lying your head off. Part of this is right, because every artist is, among other things, a con-artist. We con-artists do tell the truth, in a way; but, as Emily Dickenson said, we tell it slant. By indirection we find direction out -- so here, for easy reference, is an elimination-dance list of what novels are not. -- Novels are not sociological textbooks, although they may contain social comment and criticism. -- Novels are not political tracts, although "politics" -- in the sense of human power structures -- is inevitably one of their subjects. But if the author's main design on us is to convert us to something -- - whether that something be Christianity, capitalism, a belief in marriage as the only answer to a maiden's prayer, or feminism, we are likely to sniff it out, and to rebel. As Andre Gide once remarked, "It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written." -- Novels are not how-to books; they will not show you how to conduct a successful life, although some of them may be read this way. Is Pride and Prejudice about how a sensible middle-class nineteenth-century woman can snare an appropriate man with a good income, which is the best she can hope for out of life, given the limitations of her situation? Partly. But not completely. -- Novels are not, primarily, moral tracts. Their characters are not all models of good behaviour -- or, if they are, we probably won't read them. But they are linked with notions of morality, because they are about human beings and human beings divide behaviour into good and bad. The characters judge each other, and the reader judges the characters. However, the success of a novel does not depend on a Not Guilty verdict from the reader. As Keats said, Shakespeare took as much delight in creating Iago -- that arch-villain -- as he did in creating the virtuous Imogen. I would say probably more, and the proof of it is that I'd bet you're more likely to know which play Iago is in. -- But although a novel is not a political tract, a how-to-book, a sociology textbook or a pattern of correct morality, it is also not merely a piece of Art for Art's Sake, divorced from real life. It cannot do without a conception of form and a structure, true, but its roots are in the mud; its flowers, if any, come out of the rawness of its raw materials. -- In short, novels are ambiguous and multi-faceted, not because they're perverse, but because they attempt to grapple with what was once referred to as the human condition, and they do so using a medium which is notoriously slippery -- namely, language itself.

Earlier I described the component stages of sleep. Here, I reveal the attendant virtues of each. Ironically, most all of the "new," twenty-first century discoveries regarding sleep were delightfully summarized in 1611 in Macbeth, act two, scene two, where Shakespeare prophetically states that sleep is "the chief nourisher in life's feast."* Perhaps, with less highfalutin language, your mother offered similar advice, extolling the benefits of sleep in healing emotional wounds, helping you learn and remember, gifting you with the solutions to challenging problems, and preventing sickness and infection. Science, it seems has simply been evidential, providing proof of everything your mother, and apparently Shakespeare, knew about the wonders of sleep. ---------------------------------- *"Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, The death of each day's life, source labour's bath Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast,--" William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Folger Shakespeare Library (New York: Simon & Schuster; first edition, 2003).

Sunk for a long time in profound thoughts as to the value of obscurity, and the delight of having no name, but being like a wave which returns to the deep body of the sea; thinking how obscurity rids the mind of the irk of envy and spite; how it sets running in the veins the free waters of generosity and magnanimity; and allows giving and taking without thanks offered or praise given; which must have been the way of all great poets, he supposed (though his knowledge of Greek was not enough to bear him out), for, he thought, Shakespeare must have written like that, and the church builders built like that, anonymously, needing no thanking or naming, but only their work in the daytime and a little ale perhaps at night-'What an admirable life this is,' he thought, stretching his limbs out under the oak tree. 'And why not enjoy it this very moment?' The thought struck him like a bullet. Ambition dropped like a plummet. Rid of the heart-burn of rejected love, and of vanity rebuked, and all the other stings and pricks which the nettle-bed of life had burnt upon him when ambitious of fame, but could no longer inflict upon one careless of glory, he opened his eyes, which had been wide open all the time, but had seen only thoughts, and saw, lying in the hollow beneath him, his house.

He strode forward, heedless of the murmuring that began among the women when they saw him. Then Sara turned, and her gaze met his. Instantly a guilty blush spread over her cheeks that told him all he needed to know about her intent. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said in steely tones. “Class is over for today. Why don’t you all go up on deck and get a little fresh air?” When the women looked at Sara, she folded her hands primly in front of her and stared at him. “You have no right to dismiss my class, Captain Horn. Besides, we aren’t finished yet. I was telling them a story—” “I know. You were recounting Lysistrata.” Surprise flickered briefly in her eyes, but then turned smug and looked down her aristocratic little nose at him. “Yes, Lysistrata,” she said in a sweet voice that didn’t fool him for one minute. “Surely you have no objection to my educating the women on the great works of literature, Captain Horn.” “None at all.” He set his hands on his hips. “But I question your choice of material. Don’t you think Aristophanes is a bit beyond the abilities of your pupils?” He took great pleasure in the shock that passed over Sara’s face before she caught herself. Ignoring the rustle of whispers among the women, she stood a little straighter. “As if you know anything at all about Aristophanes.” “I don’t have to be an English lordling to know literature, Sara. I know all the blasted writers you English make so much of. Any one of them would have been a better choice for your charges than Aristophanes.” As she continued to glower at him unconvinced, he scoured his memory, searching through the hundreds of verse passages his English father had literally pounded into him. “You might have chosen Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, for example—‘fie, fie! Unknit that threatening unkind brow. / And dart not scornful glances from those eyes / to wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.’” It had been a long time since he’d recited his father’s favorite passages of Shakespeare, but the words were as fresh as if he’d learned them only yesterday. And if anyone knew how to use literature as a weapon, he did. His father had delighted in tormenting him with quotes about unrepentant children. Sara gaped at him as the other women looked from him to her in confusion. “How . . . I mean . . . when could you possibly—” “Never mind that. The point us, you’re telling them the tale of Lysistrata when what you should be telling them is ‘thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper. /thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee / and for thy maintenance commits his body / to painful labour by both sea and land.’” Her surprise at this knowledge of Shakespeare seemed to vanish as she recognized the passage he was quoting—the scene where Katherine accepts Petruchio as her lord and master before all her father’s guests. Sara’s eyes glittered as she stepped from among the women and came nearer to him. “We are not your wives yet. And Shakespeare also said ‘sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more / men were deceivers ever / one foot on sea and one on shore / to one thing constant never.’” “Ah, yes. Much Ado About Nothing. But even Beatrice changes her tune in the end, doesn’t she? I believe it’s Beatrice who says, ‘contempt, farewell! And maiden pride, adieu! / no glory lives behind the back of such./ and Benedick, love on, I will requite thee, / taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.’” “She was tricked into saying that! She was forced to acknowledge him as surely as you are forcing us!” “Forcing you?” he shouted. “You don’t know the meaning of force! I swear, if you—” He broke off when he realized that the women were staring at him with eyes round and fearful. Sara was twisting his words to make him sound like a monster. And succeeding, too, confound her.

Surely you’re not going to destroy another book, are you?” “I’ve decided my obsession with reading has gotten me absolutely nowhere, so . . . I’m tossing all the nonsense out of my life and intend to travel forth with less baggage.” “You love to read.” “And I’ll occasionally indulge that love, but enough is enough.” She held up her copy of Pride and Prejudice. “This, for all intent and purposes, is a fairy tale. I’m done with fairy tales for good, as well as anything by Shakespeare. I loathe his stories, don’t understand most of what he’s written, and I was only reading them because of any future children I hoped to have. But since I’m destined to remain a spinster forever . . . I’m chucking them into the fire.” “What do Shakespeare and any children you might have in the future have in common?” Millie sent him a look that clearly said she found him a little dense. “I wanted to be knowledgeable so that my children wouldn’t suffer any embarrassment because of my ignorance and lack of education.” Everett’s mouth dropped open before he had the presence of mind to snap it shut when she shot him a glare. Bracing himself in case she got it into her head to punch him as she’d done Mr. Victor, Everett stepped closer to her and pried the copy of Pride and Prejudice out of her hand. “Any child would be lucky to call you mother, Millie. You’re smart, well-read, curious about everything, and have a true love for children.” Staring at him for a long moment, Millie tilted her head. “I knew we should have summoned the physician to take a look at you after your last brawl.” “My wits are not addled, Millie. Quite honestly, my mind is clearer right now than it’s been in years.” He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it, relieved when her eyes widened just a bit. “And I have to tell you something else.” “What?” she asked in a voice that sounded somewhat breathless. “I can’t allow you to burn any Jane Austen book—but especially not Pride and Prejudice.” “That’s what you have to say to me—that I can’t burn a silly book?” “I finished the story, Millie. I read Pride and Prejudice from cover to cover, and . . . I’m your Mr. Darcy and you’re my Lizzy.” “You . . . finished . . . the story?” “Indeed. And if you didn’t hear me the first time, I’m Mr. Darcy.” “I’m fairly certain Mr. Darcy would have had an English accent, but since Lizzy did enjoy reading, I suppose it’s not too much of a stretch to compare me with her, although. . . .” As Millie continued talking, really rapidly at that, Everett simply watched her, taking in every detail of her face. Her green eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were flushed a delicate shade of pink. Brown curls had begun to escape the pins someone had put in her hair, and a spray of flowers that had been tucked into that hair was hanging somewhat forlornly over her ear. Her lips were still moving incredibly fast, but the second his gaze settled on them, he couldn’t seem to look away. They were delightful lips, just the right shade of pink, and . . . Everett leaned forward and claimed those rapidly moving lips with his own. For

Up to the age of 30 or beyond it, poetry of many kinds … gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare.… Formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great, delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music.… I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did.… My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive.… The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.13

It delighted him that he could find no use of the word modern in Shakespeare that did not carry its load of contempt.

when as I doe accustome abroad to marke the face and haire of every dame, and afterwards delight my selfe therewith privately at home,

What we find enjoyable we naturally find shareable. Why is this? Because joy shared is joy intensified. Shakespeare said it this way, “Joy delights in joy.” We love to see others discover joy in the things we have discovered joy in, and our joy is increased when they have praised what we have shared. We see this everywhere. When you hear a really funny joke, you call your best friend and laugh together. When you hear an incredible song, you post it to Facebook to let everyone hear it. When you take an adorable picture of your child, you send it to your extended family to get their “oh’s” and “ah’s.” This is the way God created us, because this is the way God Himself is.

Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain: As, painfully to pore upon a book To seek the light of truth; while truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look: Light seeking light doth light of light beguile: So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.

In 1640 an anthology of Shakespeare’s poems was published, irreverently questioning the Folio’s presentation of Shakespeare. It, too, featured a copy of the Droeshout portrait but added a bright light behind his subject’s head, suggesting the figure in front is but a shadow. To drive home the point, an accompanying poem called the figure a “shadow” and mimicked the language of Jonson’s famous tribute, sprinkling it with sarcastic question marks that contest the legitimacy of the image: This Shadow is renowned Shakespear’s? Soule of th’age The applause? Delight? The wonder of the stage. Some of the First Folio’s early readers apparently suspected that this was a false image of the author.

Luca picked up the leather-bound volume Cass had been reading. “Shakespeare,” he said, twirling the book in his hand. “Quite a tale. Pity how they both die at the end.” “Luca!” Cass gasped. Slipper jumped down from her lap and padded over to the fireplace. “I had only just completed the first quarto. I was looking for the second volume when you arrived.” Luca looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. A classmate was talking about it at university. You can still read it, Cassandra. It’s a fine story, if you like that sort of thing. As I recall, you used to be more into swordfights and sorcerers.” Cass was about to respond when Agnese glided into the library, dressed in a pearl gray dressing gown cinched at the waist with a wide white belt. “Do I hear arguing already? Save it for your marriage, children.” Her eyes brightened and her mouth curled upward as if Luca were a roasted bear on a platter, smelling of cloves and cinnamon. “Narissa told me you’d arrived,” Agnese continued. “I apologize for my state of disarray, dear. I retired early this evening.” “Signora Querini. You are every bit as lovely as I remember,” Luca said, his cheeks reddening slightly as he bowed toward Agnese. The old woman crowed with delight. “I daresay you are three or four times as lovely as I remember. Whatever herbs and potions you’re taking over there in France, can you spare some for an old lady?” Luca laughed. “No potions, Signora,” he said. “Just growing up.

The people setting out on these walks weren’t seeking to conquer peaks or test themselves against maps and miles. They were looking for a mystical communion with the land; they walked backwards in time to an imagined past suffused with magical, native glamour: to Merrie England, or to pre-historic England, pre-industrial visions that offered solace and safety to sorely troubled minds. For though railways and roads and a burgeoning market in countryside books had contributed to this movement, at heart it had grown out of the trauma of the Great War, and was flourishing in fear of the next. The critic Jed Esty has described this pastoral craze as one element in a wider movement of national cultural salvage in these years; it was a response to economic disaster, a contracting Empire and totalitarian threats from abroad. It was a movement that celebrated ancient sites and folk traditions. It delighted in Shakespeare and Chaucer, in Druids, in Arthurian legend. It believed that something essential about the nation had been lost and could be returned, if only in the imagination. White, caught up in this conservative, antiquarian mood, walked with his hawk and wrote of ghosts, of starry Orion naked and resplendent in the English sky, of all the imaginary lines men and time had drawn upon the landscape. By the fire, his hawk by his side, he brooded on the fate of nations.

Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain; As painfully to pore upon a book To seek the light of truth while truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look. Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile; So ere you find where light in darkness lies Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes. Study me how to please the eye indeed By fixing it upon a fairer eye, Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, And give him light that it was blinded by. Study is like the heavens’ glorious sun, That will not be deep searched with saucy looks. Small have continual plodders ever won Save base authority from others’ books. These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know is to know naught but fame, And every godfather can give a name.

The words that come most readily and most frequently to Emerson as he describes his life in nature are “delight” (used four times at the end of chapter 1 alone) and “wild.” He uses the language of vision and rapture. He speaks of light and delight, of wild delight, of wildness, of exhilaration, of gladness, and of the wild beauty of Shakespeare’s unmatchable gift for metaphor. Not only does Emerson accept the Greek idea that the universe is beauty, kosmos, but he emphasizes the experience of that beauty as a wild delight. This inner wildness, this habit of enthusiasm, this workaday embracing of the Dionysian is quintessential Emerson. He is wild or he is nothing.

Tybalt is dead, and Romeo — banished." That "banished," that one word "banished," Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death Was woe enough, if it had ended there; Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship And needly will be ranked with other griefs, Why followed not, when she said "Tybalt's dead," Thy father, or thy father, nay, or both, Which modern lamentation might have moved? But with a rearward following Tybalt's death, "Romeo is banished" — to speak that word Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead. "Romeo is banished" — There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.

Tybalt is dead, and Romeo — banished." That "banished," that one word "banished," Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death Was woe enough, if it had ended there; Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship And needly will be ranked with other griefs, Why followed not, when she said "Tybalt's dead," Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, Which modern lamentation might have moved? But with a rearward following Tybalt's death, "Romeo is banished" — to speak that word Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead. "Romeo is banished" — There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.

Why I, in this weak piping time of piece, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to see my shadow in the sun And descant on my own deformity