Now clear the triple region of the air,

And let the majesty of heaven behold

Their scourge and terror tread on emperors.
Smile, stars, that reigned at my nativity,
And dim to borrow light of Cynthia.
For I, the chieftest 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.

I count religion but a childish toy

And hold there is no sin but ignorance.
Birds of the air will tell of murders past?
I am ashamed to hear such fooleries.
Many will talk of title to a crown.
What right had Caesar to the empire?
Might first made kings, and laws were then most sure
When, like the Draco's, they were writ in blood.
Hence comes it that a strong built citadel
Commands much more than letters can import:
Which maxim had but Phalaris observed,
He'd never bellowed in a brazen bull,
Of great ones envy: o'the poor petty wights
Let me be envied and not pitied!
But whither am I bound? I come not, I,
To read a lecture here in Britanie,
But to present the tragedy of a Jew
Who smiles to see how full his bags are crammed,
Which money was not got without my means.

Some powers divine, or else infernal, mixed

Their angry seeds at his conception;
For he was never sprung of human race.

But could youth last, and love still breed,

Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy Love.

The reward of sin is death? That's hard.

Si peccasse negamus, fallimur, et nulla est in nobis veritas.
If we say that we have no sin,
We deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us.
Why then belike we must sin,
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.
What doctrine call you this? Che sa , sa :
What will be, shall be! Divinity, adieu!
These metaphysics of magicians,
And necromantic books are heavenly!

It was a goodly heape for to behould,

   And spake the praises of the workmans wit;
   But full great pittie, that so faire a mould
   Did on so weake foundation euer sit:
   For on a sandie hill, that still did flit,
   And fall away, it mounted was full hie,
   That euery breath of heauen shaked it:
   And all the hinder parts, that few could spie,
Were ruinous and old, but painted cunningly.

Come live with me and be my Love,

And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then?

If all the pens that ever poets held
Had fed the feeling of their masters’ thoughts,
And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,
Their minds and muses on admired themes;
If all the heavenly quintessence they still
From their immortal flowers of poesy,
Wherein as in a high mirror we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit;
If these had made one poem’s period,
And all combined in beauty’s worthiness,
Yet should there hover in their restless heads,
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest.

With milk-white harts upon an ivory sled

Thou shalt be drawn amidst the frozen pools
And scale the icy mountains’ lofty tops,
Which with thy beauty will be soon resolved.

What, bring you scripture to confirm your wrongs?

Preach me not out of my possessions.
Some Jews are wicked, as all Christians are;
But say the tribe that I descended of
Were all in general cast away for sin,
 Shall I be tried for their transgression?
The man that dealeth righteously shall live.
And which of you can charge me otherwise?

I am a lord, for so my deeds shall prove,

And yet a shepherd by my parentage.
But, lady, this fair face and heavenly hue
Must grace his bed that conquers Asia
And means to be a terror to the world,
Measuring the limits of his empery
By east and west as Phoebus does his course.
These complete armour and this curtle-axe
are adjuncts more beseeming Tamburlaine.
And, madam, whatsoever you esteem
Of this success and loss unvalued,
Both may invest you Empress of the East,
And these that seem but silly country swins
May have the leading of so great an host
As with their weight shall make the mountains quake
Even as when windy exhalations,
Fighting for passage, tilt within the earth.

ITHAMORE: Why, was there ever seen such villainy.

So neatly plotted, and so well performed?
Both held in hand, and flatly both beguiled?

BUT let still Silence true night watches keepe,

That sacred peace may in assurance reign,
And timely sleep, when it is time to sleep,
May Pour his limbs forth on your pleasant plain,
The whiles an hundred little wingèd loves,
Like divers fethered doves,
Shall fly and flutter round about your bed,
And in the secret dark, that none reproves
Their pretty stealths shall work, and snares shall spread
To filch away sweet snatches of delight,
Concealed through covert night.
Ye sons of Venus, play your sports at will,
For greedy pleasure, careless of your toys,
Thinks more upon her paradise of joys,
Than what ye do, albeit good or ill.
All night therefore attend your merry play,
For it will soon be day:
Now none doth hinder you, that say or sing,
Ne will the woods now answer, nor your echo ring
MEPHISTOPHELES: Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
O Faustus, leave these frivolous demands,
Which strike a terror to my fainting soul.
FAUSTUS: What, is great Mephastophilis so passionate
For being deprivèd of the joys of heaven?
Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude,
And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess.

Your fearful minds are thick and misty, then

For there sits Death, there sits imperious Death,
Keeping his circuit by the slicing edge.
But I am pleased you shall not see him there;
He now is seated on my horsemen’s spears,
And on their points his fleshless body feeds.

MEPHISTOPHELES.: Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed

In one self-place; for where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be.
...
All places shall be hell that is not heaven.
FAUSTUS: Come, I think hell's a fable.
MEPHISTOPHELES.: Ay, think so still, till experience change thy mind.
...
FAUSTUS: Think'st thou that Faustus is so fond to imagine
That after this life there is any pain?
Tush, these are trifles and mere old wives' tales.

Well said, Theridamas! Speak in that mood,

For ‘will’ and ‘shall’ best fitteth Tamburlaine,
Whose smiling stars gives him assured hope
Of martial triumph ere he meet his foes.

And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony,

   Deformed creature, on a filthie swyne,
   His belly was vp-blowne with luxury,
   And eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne,
   And like a Crane his necke was long and fyne,
   With which he swallowd vp excessiue feast,
   For want whereof poore people oft did pyne;
   And all the way, most like a brutish beast,
   He spued vp his gorge, that all did him deteast.
ABIGAIL. Then were my thoughts so frail and unconfirmed
As I was chained to follies of the world,
But now experience, purchased with grief,
Has made me see the difference of things.
My sinful soul, alas, hath paced too long
The fatal labyrinth of misbelief,
Far from the son that gives eternal life.

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss:
Her lips sucks forth my soul, see where it flies!
Come Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven be in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena!

The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown,

That caused the eldest son of heavenly Ops
To thrust his doting father from his chair
And place himself in th’empyreal heaven,
Moved me to manage arms against thy state.
What better precedent than mighty Jove?
Nature, that framed us of four elements
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world
And measure every wand’ring planet’s course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Wills us to wear ourselves and never rest
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.

Her blisse is all in pleasure and delight,

Wherewith she makes her louers drunken mad,
And then with words & weedes of wondrous might,
On them she workes her will to vses bad:
My lifest Lord she thus beguiled had;
 For he was flesh: (all flesh doth frailtie breed.)
Whom when I heard to beene so ill bestad,
Weake wretch I wrapt my selfe in Palmers weed,
And cast to seeke him forth through daunger and great dreed.

Ah Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damned perpetually.
...
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.
O I'll leap up to my God! Who pulls me down?
See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah my Christ—
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ;
Yet will I call on him—O spare me, Lucifer!
...
Earth, gape! O no, it will not harbor me.
You stars that reigned at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
Into the entrails of yon laboring cloud,
That when you vomit forth into the air
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to heaven.
...
O God, if thou wilt not have mercy on my soul,
...
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be saved.
...
Cursed be the parents that engendered me:
No, Faustus, curse thy self, curse Lucifer,
That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven.
...
My God, my God, look not so fierce on me!
...
Ugly hell gape not! Come not, Lucifer!
I'll burn my books—ah, Mephistopheles!

CALME was the day, and through the trembling ayre

Sweete-breathing Zephyrus did softly play
A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay
Hot Titans beames, which then did glyster fayre;
When I, (whom sullein care,
Through discontent of my long fruitlesse stay
In Princes Court, and expectation vayne
Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away,
Like empty shaddowes, did afflict my brayne,)
Walkt forth to ease my payne
Along the shoare of silver streaming Themmes;
Whose rutty Bancke, the which his River hemmes,
Was paynted all with variable flowers,
And all the meades adornd with daintie gemmes
Fit to decke maydens bowres,
And crowne their Paramours
Against the Brydale day, which is not long:
Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.

FERNEZE. Content thee, Calymath, here thou must stay,

And live in Malta prisoner, for come all the world
To rescue thee, so will we guard us now,
As sooner shall they drink the ocean dry
Than conquer Malta or endanger us.
So march away, and let due praise be given
Neither to Fate nor Fortune, but to Heaven.

Sometimes the one would lift the other quight

  Aboue the waters, and then downe againe
  Her plong, as ouer maistered by might,
  Where both awhile would couered remaine,
  And each the other from to rise restraine;
  The whiles their snowy limbes, as through a vele,
  So through the Christall waues appeared plaine:
  Then suddeinly both would themselues vnhele,
And th'amarous sweet spoiles to greedy eyes reuele.

Ah, fair Zenocrate, divine Zenocrate!

Fair is too foul an epithet for thee
That, in passion for thy country’s love
And fear to see thy kingly father’s harm,
With hair dishevelled wip’st thy watery cheeks,
And like to Fora in her morning’s pride,
Shaking her silver tresses in the air,
Rain’st on the earth resolved pearl in the showers
And sprinkles sapphires on thy shining face
Where Beauty, mother to the Muses, sits
And comments volumes with her ivory pen,
Taking instructions from thy flowering eyes –
Eyes, when that Ebena steps to heaven
In silence of thy solemn evening’s walk,
Making the mantle of the richest night,
The moon, the planets, and the meteors, light.

If all the world and love were young,

And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy Love.

Now all is done; bring home the bride again,

bring home the triumph of our victory,
Bring home with you the glory of her gain,
With joyance bring her and with jollity.
Never had man more joyfull day then this,
Whom heaven would heap with bliss.
Make feast therefore now all this live long day,
This day for ever to me holy is,
Pour out the wine without restraint or stay,
Pour not by cups, but by the belly full,
Pour out to all that wull,
And sprinkle all the posts and walls with wine,
That they may sweat, and drunken be withall.
Crown ye God Bacchus with a coronal,
And Hymen also crown with wreaths of vine,
And let the Graces dance unto the rest;
For they can do it best:
The whiles the maidens do their carrol sing,
To which the woods shall answer and their echo ring.

Let ugly Darkness with her rusty coach,

Engirt with tempests wrapped in pitchy clouds,
Smother the earth with never-fading mists,
And let her horses from their nostrils breathe
Rebellious winds and dreadful thunderclaps,
That in this terror Tamburlaine may live,
And my pined soul, resolved in liquid air,
May still excruciate his tormented thoughts!
Then let the stony dart of senseless cold
Pierce through the centre of my withered heart
And make a passage for my loathed life!

Save only that in beauty’s just applause,

With whose instinct the soul of man is touched,
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 stopped the tempest of the gods,
Even from the fiery spangled veil of heaven,
To feel the lovely warmth of shepherds’ flames
And march in cottages of strewed weeds,
Shall give the world to note, for all my birth,
That virtue solely is the some of glory
And fashions men with true nobility.

Hail the world’s soul, and mine! More glad than is

The teeming earth to see the longed-for sun
Peep through the horns of the celestial Ram
Am I to view thy splendor darkening his,
That, lying here amongst my other hoards,
Show’st like a flame by night, or like the day
Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled
Unto the center. O thou son of Sol—
But brighter than thy father—let me kiss
With adoration thee and every relic
Of scared treasure in this blessed room.
Jonson’s Volpone
(do not confuse with the Jew of Malta)
True, my beloved Mosca. Yet I glory
More in the cunning purchase of my wealth
Than in the glad possession, since I gain
No common way. I use no trade, no venture;
I wound no earth with plowshares; fat no beasts
To feed the shambles; have no mills for iron,
Oil, corn, or men, to grind ‘em into powder;
I blow no subtle glass; expose no ships
To threat’nings of the furrow-faced sea;
I turn no money into the public bank,
Nor usure private—

Almost
All the wise world is little else in nature
But parasites or subparasites. And yet
I mean not those that have your bare town-art,
To know who’s fit to feed ‘em; have no house,
No family, no care, and therefore mold
Tales for men’s ears, to bait that sense; or get
Kitchen-invention, and some stale receipts
To please the belly and the groin; nor those,
With their court-dog tricks, that can fawn and fleer,
Make their revenue out of legs and faces,
Echo my lord, and lick away a moth;
But your fine, elegant rascal, that can rise
And stoop almost together, like an arrow,
Shoot through the air as nimbly as a star,
Turn short as doth a swallow, and be here
And there and here and yonder all at once,
Present to any humor, all ocasion,
And change a visor swifter than a thought!
This is the creature had the art born with him,
Toils not to learn it, but doth practice it
Out of most excellent nature, and such sparks
Are the true parasites, others but their zanies.

Honor? Tut, a breath.

There’s no such thing in nature: a mere term
Invented to awe fools. What is my gold
The worse for touching? Clothes for being looked on?
Why, this’s no more.
Corvino, referring to Celia;
Distinguish from Falstaff’s speech on honor.