For when my outward action doth demonstrate

The native act and figure of my heart

In compliment extern, 'tis not long after

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve

For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

Even now, now, very now, an old black ram

Is tupping your white ewe.

Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.

Though in the trade of war I have slain men,

Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience

To do no contrived murder: I lack iniquity

Sometimes to do me service.

Thus do I ever make my fool my purse.

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.

But words are words; I never yet did hear

That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.

Knavery's plain face is never seen till us'd.

O! I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!

Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used; exclaim no more against it.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving.

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

O! beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock

The meat it feeds on.

Think'st thou I'd make a life of jealousy,

To follow still the changes of the moon

With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt,

Is once to be resolved.

If she be false, O! then heaven mocks itself.

O curse of marriage,

That we can call these delicate creatures ours,

And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad,

And live upon the vapour of a dungeon,

Than keep a corner in the thing I love

For others' uses.

Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore,

Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof;

Or, by the worth of mine eternal soul,

Thou hadst been better have been born a dog

Than answer my wak'd wrath.

Who would not make her husband a cuckold, to make him a monarch?

Heaven me such uses send,

Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend.

O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade

Justice to break her sword. One more, one more!

Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,

And love thee after. One more, and that's the last!

So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,

But they are cruel tears. This sorrow's heavenly;

It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.

I pray you, in your letters,

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice: then, must you speak

Of one that lov'd not wisely but too well;

Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,

Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdu'd eyes

Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their med'cinable gum. Set you down this;

And say besides, that in Aleppo once,

Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk

Beat a Venetian and traduc'd the state,

I took by the throat the circumcised dog,

And smote him thus.

I kissed thee ere I killed thee, no way but this,

Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.

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