Elizabethan/ Renaissance Plays Quotes

Let dangers go, they war shall be with me,
But such a war as breaks no bond of peace.
Speak thou fair words, I'll cross them with fair words;
Send thou sweet looks, I'll meet them with sweet looks;
Write loving lines, I'll answer loving lines;
Give me a kiss, I'll countercheck thy kiss.
Be this our warring peace, or peaceful war.

Thou talk’st of harvest when the corn is green.
The end is crown of every work well done;
The sickle comes not till the corn be ripe.
Be still, and ere I lead thee from this place
I’ll show thee Balthazar in heavy case.

But alas, destiny alloweth no dispute. Die, Hebe, Hebe, die.
Woeful Hebe, and only accursed Hebe! Farwell the sweet delights of life,
and welcome now the bitter pangs of death.

From my embracements thus he breaks away;
Oh that mine arms could close this isle about,
That I might pull him to me where I would,
Or that these tears that drizzle from mine eyes
Had power to mollify his stony heart
That, when I had him, we might never part.

Base fortune, now I see that in thy wheel
There is a point to which, when men aspire,
They tumble headlong down.

Dost though not know that love respects no blood,
Cares not for difference of birth or state?

A botcher, and no better at the first,
Who by base brokage getting some small stock,
Crept into service of a nobleman,
And by his servile flattery and fawning
Is now become the steward of his house,
And bravely jets it in his silken gown.

What, groans thou? Nay then, give me the weapon.
Take this for hind’ring Mosby’s love and mind.

Is it not passing brave to be a king,
And ride in triumph though Persepolis?

For I, the chiefest lamp of all the earth,
First rising in the east with mild aspect
But fixed now in the meridian line,
Will send up fire to your turning spheres
And cause the sun to borrow light of you.

O miserable and distressed Queen!
Would, when I left sweet France, and was embarked,
That charming Circe, walking on the waves,
Had changed my shape, or at the marriage day
The cup of Hymen had been full of poison,
Or with those arms, that twined about my neck
I had been stifled, and not lived to see
The King my lord thus to abandon me!
Like frantic Juno will I fill the earth
With ghastly murmur of my sighs and cries;
For never doted Jove on Ganymede
So much as he on cursed Gaveston:
But that will more exasperate his wrath;
I must entreat him, I must speak him fair,
And be a means to call home Gaveston:
And yet he'll ever dote on Gaveston;
And so am I for ever miserable.

Curse thy birth, thy life, thy death, being born to live in danger, and having lived, to die by deceit.

But how unseemly is it for my sex,
My discipline of arms and chivalry,
My nature, and the terror of my name,
To harbour thoughts effeminate and faint!
Save only that in beauty's just applause,
With whose instinct the soul of man is touch'd;
And every warrior that is rapt with love
Of fame, of valour, and of victory,
Must needs have beauty beat on his conceits:
I thus conceiving, and subduing both,
That which hath stoop'd the chiefest of the gods,
Even from the fiery-spangled veil of heaven,
To feel the lovely warmth of shepherds' flames,
And mask in cottages of strowed reeds,
Shall give the world to note, for all my birth,
That virtue solely is the sum of glory,
And fashions men with true nobility.

Do, and one day I'll make amends for all. I know he loves me well, but dares not come Because my husband is so jealous, And these my narrow-prying neighbours blab, Hinder our meetings when we would confer. But, if I live, that block shall be removed, And, Mosby, thou that comes to me by stealth, Shalt neither fear the biting speech of men Nor Arden's looks. As surely shall he die As I abhor him and love only thee

Fie on sinful fantasy!
Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,
As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually,
Pinch him for his villainy.
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out