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Cancel, and tear to pieces, that great bond Which keeps me pale!-Light thickens; and the crow

Makes wing to the rooky wood:

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; Whiles night's black agents to their prey do rouse. Thou marvell'st at my words: but hold thee still; Things, bad begun, make strong themselves by ill: So, pr'ythee, go with me.

MACBETH, A. 3, s. 2.

CONSCIENCE LAID OPEN.

I AM myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better, my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in: What should such fellows as I do, crawling between earth and heaven! We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us.

CONSCIENCE.

HAMLET, A. 3, s. 1.

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself, in fearing to be spilt.

HAMLET, A. 4, s. 5.

CONSCIENCE WHEN SEARED.

O, 'TIS too true! how smart A lash that speech doth give my conscience! The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burden!

HAMLET, A. 3, s. 1.

CONSCIENCE THE PROOF OF THE
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

O, I HAVE pass'd a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days;
So full of dismal terror was the time.
Methought, that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;
And, in my company, my brother Gloster:
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches; thence we look'd toward
England,

And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought, that Gloster stumbled; and, in
falling,

Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

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All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes

Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes,) reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
Often did I strive

To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
O, then began the tempest to my soul!
I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renown'd Warwick;
Who cry'd aloud,-What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?
And so he vanish'd: Then came wand'ring by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood; and he shriek'd out aloud,-
Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjur'd
Clarence,-

That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;
Sieze on him, furies, take him to your torments!
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise,
I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell;
Such terrible impression made my dream.
O, Brakenbury, I have done these things,—
That now give evidence against my soul,-

For Edward's sake; and, see, how he requites me!

O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,
But thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone:

0, spare my guiltless wife, and my poor children!

I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

K. RICHARD III., A. 1, s. 4.

CONSCIOUSNESS OF CONSCIENCE.

THIS push

Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare
not.

MACBETH, A. 4, s. 3.

CONSIDERATION AND POSITION
SHOULD GO HAND IN HAND.

YES, like enough, high-battled Cæsar will
Unstate his happiness, and be stag'd to the show,
Against a sworder.-I see, men's judgments are
A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,
To suffer all alike. That he should dream,

Knowing all measures, the full Cæsar will Answer his emptiness!-Cæsar, thou hast subdu'd His judgment too.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, A. 3, s. 11.

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From my cold heart let heaven engender hail,
And poison it in the source; and the first stone
Drop in my neck: as it determines, so
Dissolve my life! The next Cæsarion smite!
Till, by degrees, the memory of my womb,
Together with my brave Egyptians all,
By the discandying of this pelleted storm,
Lie graveless; till the flies and gnats of Nile
Have buried them for prey.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, A. 3, s. 11.

CONTEMN NOT YOUR ENEMY.

In cases of defence, 'tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems,
So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat, with scanting
A little cloth.

K. HENRY V., A. 2, s. 4.

CONTRITION, FORGIVENESS, AND.

EXPIATION.

Most welcome, bondage! for thou art a way, I think, to liberty: Yet am I better

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