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Wife: Quotations from Shakespearian Quotations

My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty: To you I am bound for life and education; My life and education both do learn me How to respect you; you are the lord of duty; I am hitherto your daughter: But here's my husband; And so much duty as my mother show'd Shakesprarian Dictionary. To you, preferring you before her father, So much! challenge that I may profess— 2. i. 3

Due to the Moor, my lord. Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, Is it excepted, I should know no secrets That appertain to you? Am I yourself But, as it were, on sort, or limitation; To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs Of your good pleasure? If it be no more, Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.— J. C. ii. 1.

Such duty as the subject owes the prince, Even such a woman oweth to her husband: And, when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And not obedient to his honest will, What is she but a foul contending rebel, And graceless traitor to her loving lord?— T. S. v. 2.

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee And for thy maintenance: commits his body To painful labour, both by sea and land; • To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, T While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe; And craves no other tribute at thy hands,— T. S. v. 2.

But love, fair looks, and true obedience. I will be master of what is mine own: She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household-stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything; And here she stands, touch her whoever dare; I will bring mine action on the proudest he— T. S. iii. 2.

That stops my wav in Padua. Go thy ways, Kate : That man i' the world, who shall report he has A better wife, let him in nought be trusted, For speaking false in that: Thou art, alone, (If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness, Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government, - Obeying in commanding, and thy parts Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out,)— H. VIII. ii. 4

The queen of earthly queens. You are my true and honourable wife; As dear to me, as are the ruddy drops,— J. C. ii. 1.

That visit my sad heart. O, ye gods, Render me worthy of this noble wife !— J. C. ii.

I grant I am a woman; but, withal, A woman that lord Brutus took to wife; I grant I am a woman; but, withal, A woman well reputed; Cato's daughter. Think you, I am no stronger than my sex, Being so father'd and so husbanded?— J.C. i 1

She is mine own; And I as rich in having such a jewel, As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.— T. G. ii. 4

Should all despair, That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind Would hang themselves. Physic for't there is none: It is a bawdy planet, that will strike Where 'tis predominant.— W. T. i. 2

As for my wife, I would you had her spirit in such another: The third 'o the world is yours: which, with a snafle, You may pace easy, but not such a wife.— A. C. ii 2

But the full sum of the Is sum of something; which, to term in gross, Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd: Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn; happier than this, She is not bred so dull but she can learn; Happiest of all, is, that her gentle spirit Commits itself to yours, to be directed, As from her lord, her governor, her king.— M. V. iii. 2

I am asham'd, that women are so simple To offer war where they should sue for peace; Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway, When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.— T. S. v.

Fye, fye, unknit that threat'ning unkind brow; And dart not scornful glances from those eyes, To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor; It blots thy beauty, as frosts bite the meads; Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds; And in no sense is meet or amiable.— T. S. v. 2.

Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered by a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marle ?— M. A. ii. 1.

Wife, Slighted

Alas, poor lady! 'Tis a hard bondage, to become the wife Of a detesting lord.— A. W. iii. 5

I do think, it is their husbands' faults, If wives do fall; Say, that they slack their duties And pour our treasures into foreign laps; Or else break out in peevish jealousies, Throwing restraint upon us; or, say, they strike us, Or scant our former having'in despight: Why, we have galls; and, though we have some grace, Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know, Their wives have sense like them: they see, and smell, And have their palates both for sweet and sour, As husbands have. What is it that they do, When they change us for others? Is it sport? I think it is: And doth affection breed it? I think it doth; Is't frailty, that thus errs? It is so too: And have not we affections? Desires for sport? and frailty, as men have? Then, let them use us well; else, let them know, The ills we do, their ills instruct us to.— O. iv. 3.