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Death: Quotations from Shakespearian Quotations

The blind cave of eternal night. Here is my journey's end; here is my butt,— O. v. 2.

And very sea-mark of my utmost sail. O ruin'd piece of nature! this great world— K. L. iv. 6.

Shall so wear out to nought. Nay, nothing; all is said: His tongue is now a stringless instrument; Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent. R. II. ii. 1 Dead, for my life. Even so;-my tale is told.— L. L. v. 2

Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground. R. II. iii. 2. Art thou gone too? all comfort go with thee! For none abides with me: my joy is-death; Death, at whose name I oft have been afeard, Because I wish'd this world's eternity. H./۳۱۲۹ O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertai And six or seven winters more respect Than a perpetual honour.— M. M. iii. 1

I am a tainted wether of the flock, Meetest for death; the weakest kind of front Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.— M. V. iv. 1

All is but toys: renown, and grace, is deed; The wine of life is drawr., and the mere lees Is less this vault to brag— M. ii. 3

To-day, how many would have giver their honours To have sav'd their carcasses! took heel to do't, And yet died too! I, in mine own woe charm'd, Could not find death, where I did hear him groan; Nor feel him, where he struck.— Cym. v. 3

It is too late; the life of all this blood Is touch'd corruptibly; and his pure brain (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling house,) Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Foretel the ending of mortality.— K. J. v. 7

So now prosperity begins to mellow, And drop into the rotten mouth of death,— R. III. iv. 4

Thou know'st 'tis common; all that live must lie, Passing through nature to eternity.— H. i. 2

This fell serjeant death Is strict in his arrest.— H. V. 5

Dost fall? If thou and nature can so gently part, The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch Which hurts and is desir'd. Dost thou lie still? If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world It is not worth leave-taking.— A. C. V. 2

O. our lives' sweetness! That with the pain of death, we'd hourly die, Rather than die at once!— K. L. v. 3

We must die, Messala: With meditating that she must die once,— J. C. iv. 3.

I have the patience to endure it now. O amiable, lovely death! Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness ! Arise forth from the couch of lasting night, Thou hate and terror to prosperity, And I will kiss thy détestable bones; And put my eye-balls in thy vaulty brows; And ring these fingers with thy household worms; And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust, And be a carrion monster like thyself: Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil'st; And buss thee as thy wife? Misery's love, O, come to me!— K. J. iii. 4.

Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you, The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death.— R. J. v. 3.

Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignity Is held from falling with so weak a wind, That it will quickly drop.— H. IV. PT. II. iv. 4

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with.— M. iii. 4

O, my love! my wife ! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there.— R. J. v. 3

By medicine life may be prolong'd, yet death Will seize the doctor too.— Cym. V. 5

That we shall die, we know; 'tis but the time,— J. C. iii. 1.

And drawing days out, that men stand upon. Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.— J. C. ii. 2.

Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close, And let us all to meditation.— H. VI. PT. II. iii. 3

Death remember'd, should be like a mirror, Who tells us, life's but a breath; to trust it, error— P. P. i. 1.

Oft have I seen a timely parted ghost, Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless, Being all descended to the labouring heart; Who, in the conflict that it holds with death, Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy; Which, with the heart there cools and ne'er returneth To blush and beautify the cheek again. H. VI. PT. II. iii. 2 The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil.— M. ii. 2.

Finish, good lady, the bright day is done, And we are for the dark.— A.C. v. 2

Dar'st thou die ? The sense of death is most in apprehension, And the poor beetle that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great, As when a giant dies.— M. M. iii. 1

Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.— R. II. ii. 1

O you mighty gods! This world I do renounce; and in your sights, Shake patiently my great affliction off: If I could bear it longer, and not fall To quarrel with your great opposeless wills, My snuff, and loathed part of nature, should Burn itself out.— K. L. iv. 6

Her blood is settled and these joints are stiff; Life and these lips have long been separated: Death lies on her, like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.— R. J. iv. 5

To die, is to be banish'd from myself.— T. G. iii. 1

O, death's a great disguiser.— M. M. iv. 2

We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.— K. J. iv. 2

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 regions of thick-ribbed ice: To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendant world; or to be worse than worst TS Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts 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.— M. M. iii. 1

Where art thou, death? Come hither, come! come, come, and take a queen Worth many babes and beggars,— A.C. v. 2.

Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness, And fear'st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes, Upon thy back hangs ragged misery, The world is not thy friend nor the world's law.— R. J. v. 1.

Receive what cheer you may; The night is long that never finds a day. M.iv.3. Just death, kind umpire of men's miseries, With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.— H. VI. PT. I. ii. 5.

I am resolv'd for death or dignity.— H. VI. PT. II. v. 1.

Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, When death's approach is seen so terrible!— H. VI. PT. II. iii. 3.

The worst is,-death, and death will have his day.— R. II. iii. 2.

He has walk'd the way of nature.— H.IV. PT. II. v. 2.

Pr'ythee, have done, And do not play in wench-like words with that Which is so serious. Let us bury him, And not protract with admiration, what Is now due debt. To the grave.— Cym. iv. 2

All good people, You that thus far have come to pity me, Hear what I say, and then go home and lose me. I have this day receiv'd a traitor's judgment, And by that name must die; yet, heaven bear witness, And if I have a conscience let it sink me, Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful! You few that lov'd me, And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham, His noble friends, and fellows, whom to leave Is only bitter to him, only dying, Go with me like good angels, to my end; And as the long divorce of steel falls on me, Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, And lift my soul to heaven. Lead on, o' God's name.— H. VIII. ii. 1.

Falstaff

'A made a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom child; 'a parted just between twelve and one ;--- e'en at the turning of the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers, ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. How now, Sir John, quoth I: what, man! be of good cheer. So 'a cried out, God! -three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.— H. V. ii. 3.

Gloucester, Humphrey, Duke Of

But, see, his face is black and full of blood; His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd, Staring full ghastly like a strangled man; His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling; His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdued. Look on the sheets, his hair, you see, is sticking; His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged, Like to the summer's corn by tempests lodg'd.— H.VI. PT. II. iii. 2

By his gates of breath, There lies a downy feather, which stirs not: Did he suspire, that light and weightless down Perforce must move. - My gracious lord! my father! This sleep is sound indeed; this is a sleep, That from this golden rigol hath divorc'd So many English kings.— H.IV. PT. II. iv.

I'll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech; For this among the rest was I ordain'd.- What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted See, how my sword weeps for the poor king's death! O, may such purple tears be always shed From those that wish the downfall of our house! If any spark of life be yet remaining, Down, down, to hell; and say, -I sent thee thither.— PT. III. V 6,

King Johnn

Aye, marry, now my soul hath elbow room; It would not out at windows nor at doors. There is so hot a summer in my bosom, That all my bowels crumble up to dust: I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen, Upon a parchment; and against this fire— Do I shrink up.

Prince Henry. How fares your Majesty? King John.-Poison'd, -ill fare;-dead, forsook, cast off: And none of you will bid the winter come, And thrust his icy fingers in my maw; Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course Through my burn'd bosom; nor entreat the north To make his break winds kiss my parched lips, And comfort me with cold: I do not ask you much I beg cold comfort. [Enter Falconbridge O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye: The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd; And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail, Are turned to one thread, one little hair: My heart hath one poor string to stay it by, Which holds but till thy news be utter'd; And then all this thou see'st is but a clod, And module of confounded royalty.— K. J. v. 7

JULIUS CÆSAR. - Et tu Brute? Then fall, Cæsar.— J. C. iii. 1

How many ages hence, Shall this our lofty scene be acted over,— J. C. iii. 1

In states unborn and accents yet unknown! - -— KING RICHARD II.

How now? what means death in this rude assault? Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument. Go thou and fill another room in hell. That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire, That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand Hath, with the king's blood, stain'd the king's own land. Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high; Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward here to lie.— R. II. v. 5

Warwick, Earl Of

Ah, who is nigh? come to me, friend or foe, And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick? Why ask I that? my mangled body shows, My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows,

Thou art too noble to conserve a life In base appliances.— M M. iii. 1.

Levels Distinctions

Thersites' body is as good as Ajax' When neither are alive.— Cym. iv 2

Being an ugly monster, 'Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds, Sweet words; or hath more ministers than we That draw his knives i' the war.— Cym. V. 3.

Relieves And Prevents Miseries

Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change. 4. C. v. 2. Duncan is in his grave; After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison. Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, Can touch him further.— M. iii. 2

Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd a blessed time, for, from this instant, There's nothing serious in mortality.— M. ii. 3

Give me your hand, Bassanio; fare you well? Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you; For herein Fortune shows herself more kind Than is her custom: it is still her use, To let the wretched man outlive his wealth, To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow, An age of poverty; from which ling'ring penance Of such a misery doth she cut me off.— M. V. iv. 1

Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life, Cuts off as many years of fearing death.— J. C. iii. 1.

Untimely

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd; No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head.— H. i. 5