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Shakespeare's Comedy of Measure for Measure
Shakespeare's Comedy of Measure for Measure Author:William Shakespeare Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Street Before The Prison (iii. 2) ACT III Scene I. A Room in the Prison Enter Duke disguised as before, Claudio, and Provost Duke. So then you hope... more » of pardon from Lord Angelo ? Claudia. The miserable have no other medicine But only hope. - I 've hope to live, and am prepar'd to die. Duke, Be absolute for death ; either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life : , "jlf I do lose theejdoJoseaJbing/ [That none but fools would keepj/a breath thou art, 'servile 'to all theTskyey influences, That dost this habitation where thou keep'st 10 Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art death's fool ; For him thou labour's! by thy flight to shun, And yet runn'st toward him still. For all the accommodations that thou bear'st Are mirs'd by baseness, Thou 'rt by no means valiant ; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm. ThybesloJLiesLi§ sleep, And that thou oft provok'st, yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself ; For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains 20 That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not; For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get, And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain ; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon. If thou art rich, thou 'rt poor; For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none ; For thine own bowels which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, 30 Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age, But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both ; for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,...« less