Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself in a dark wilderness, 

for I had wandered from teh straight and true.

For backward to the kidneys turned the face, 

and backward always did they have to go,

as they ahd lost the sight of things ahead.

"My son, down in the pit below these rocks,"

he began, "there are three rings, small and smaller

as you go down, like thsoe you've left above.

They are filled with the spirits of the damned...

Since fraud's a sin peculiar to mankind,

God hates it more; and so the fraudulent

sink farther down, assailed by greater pain."

Down there we found a painted populace

who walked about with slow, slow steps, and wept; 

exhaustion and defeat dwelt in each face, 

They all wore hooded capes with cowls that hung

over their eyes, but in the ample style

they like to use at Cluny for the monks.

The outsides all were gilt in blinding gold;

inside, all lead, so heavy...

The standards of the king of Hell advance

toward us, and therefore look ahead and see,...

if you can make him out.

How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:

To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!

Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!

I dare damnation. To this point I stand, 

THat both the worlds I give to negligence, 

Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged

Most thoroughly for my father.

Why, man, they did make love to this employment;

They are not near my conscience; their defeat

Does by their own insinuation grow:

'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes 

Between the pass and fell incensed points

Of mighty opposites.

Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon-

He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother, 

Popp'd in between the election and my hopes, 

Thrown out his angle for my proper life, 

And with such cozenage - is't not perfect conscience, 

To quit him with this arm? and is't not to be damn'd,

To let this canker of our nature come

In further evil?

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.

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be

A couch for luxury and damned incest.

But howsomever thou pursues this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven...

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 quintessenve of dust?

Man delights not me - nor women neither, though by

your smiling you seem to say so.

Look whe'er he has not turn'd his color and

has tears in's eyes. Prithee no more.

My lord, I will use them according to their 

desert.

God's bodkin, man, much better: use every

man after his desert, adn who shall scape whipping?

Use them after your own honor and dignity - the less

they deserve, teh more merit is in your bounty.

Take them in.

Follow that lord, and look you 

mock him not.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here, 

 But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, 

Could force his soul so to his own conceit

That from her working all the visage wann'd, 

Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, 

A broken voice, an' his whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing,

For Hecuba!

I have heard 

That guilty creatures sitting at a play

Have by the very cunning of the scene

Been strook so to the soul, that presently

They ahve proclaim'd their malefactions

Get thee to a nunn'ry, why wouldst thou

be a breeder of sinners?

Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will

sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd

than the force of honesty can translate beauty into

his likeness. This was sometime a paradoz, but now

the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword, 

Th' expectation and rose of the fair state, 

The glass of fashion and the mould of form, 

Th' observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down! 

I have heard of  your paintings, well enough.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves

another. You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nick-

name God's creatures and make your wantonness

your ignorance...

O, confound the rest! 

Such love must needs be treason in my breast.

In second husband let me be accurs'd! 

None wed the second but who kill'd the first.

But what we do determine, oft we break.

Purpose is but the slave to memory,

Of violent birth, but poor validity,...

So think thou wilt no second husband wed,

But die thy thoughts when they first lord is dead.

No, faith, not a jot but to follow him thither

with mdoesty enough and likelihood to lead it: Alexan-

der died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth

to dust, teh dust is earth, of earth we make loam...

Imperious Ceasar, dead and turn'd to clay, 

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away...

Let four captains

Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, 

For he was likely, had he been put on,

To have prov'd most royal; and for his passage,

The soldiers' music and the rite of war

Speak loudly for him.

Muse, how it all began. Why was Juno outraged?

What could wound the Queen of the Gods with all her power?

A race I loathe is crossing the Tuscan sea, transporting

Troy to Italy, bearing their conquered household gods-

thrash your winds to fury, sink their warships, overhwhelm them

or break them apart, scatter their crews, drown them all!

Just as, all too often,

some huge crowd is seized by a vast uprising,

the rabble runs amok, all slaves to passion,

rocks, firebrands flying. Rage finds them arms

but then, if they chance to see a man among them, 

one whose devotion and public service lend him weight,

they stand there, stock still with their ears alert as

he rules their furor with his works and calms their passion.

is there anywhere, any place on earth

not filled with our ordeals? There's Priam, look!

Even here, merit will have its true reward...

even ehre, the world is a world of tears

and burdens of mortality touch the heart.

She wanders in frenzy through her city streets

like  wounded doe caught all of guard by a hunter

stalking the woods of Crete

Then, with the guests gone, and the dimming moon

quenching its light in turn, and the setting stars

inclining heads to sleep - alone in the echoing hall,

distraught, she flings herself on the couch taht he left empty.

What are you plotting now?

Wasting time in Libya - what hope misleads you so?

If such a glorious destiny cannot fire your spirit,

at least remember Ascanius rising into his prime,

the hopes you lodge in Iulus, your only heir - 

you owe him Italy's realm, the land of Rome!

No fame, no memory to be won

for punishing a woman: such victory reaps no praise

but to stamp this abomination out as she deserves,

to punish her now, they'll sing my praise for that.

What joy, to glut my heart with the fires of vengeance,

bring some peace to the ashes of my people!

The terrible Gates of War with their welded iron bars

will stand bolted shut, and locked inside, the Frenzy

of civil strife will crouch down on his savage weapons,

hands pinioned behind his back with a hundred brazen shackles,

monstrously roaring out from his bloody jaws.

They are the spirits

owed a second body by the Fates. They drink deep

of the river Lethe's current there, long drafts

that will set them free of cares, oblivious forever.

Now turn your eyes this way

and behold these people, your own Roman people. 

Here is Caesar and all the line of Iulus

soon to venture under the sky's great arch.

Here is the man, he's here! Time and again

you've heard his coming promised - Caesar Augustus!

Turnus' limbs went limp in the chill of death.

His life breath fled witha groan of outrage

down to the shades below.