 There is a kind of character from Measure for Measure, Act 1, Scene 1, by William Shakespeare, recorded for LibriVox.org by Ernst Patinama. Angelo, there is a kind of character in thy life that, to the observer doth thy history fully unfold, thyself and thy belongings are not thine own so proper as to waste thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, not lie them for themselves, for if our virtues did not go forth of us to all alike as if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched, but to funny issues. No nature never lends the smallest scruple of her excellence, but like a thrifty goddess she determines herself the glory for creditor, both thanks and use, but I do bend my speech to one that can my part in him advertise, hold there for Angelo. In our remove be thou at full ourself, mortality and mercy in Vienna live in thy tongue and heart. Otaskolis, though first in question, is thy secondary. Take thy commission, end of, there is a kind of character, from measure for measure, Act 1, Scene 1. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Ernst Patinama, Amsterdam, Denevalence. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. For Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5, by William Shakespeare. Recorded for LibriVox.org by David Federman. She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle, life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. End of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, from Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by David Federman. I fly a knit that threatening unkind brow, from the taming of the shrew, Act 5, Scene 2, by William Shakespeare. Recorded from LibriVox.org by Leslie Coons. Fie, fie, a knit that threatening unkind brow, and dart not scornful glances from those eyes to wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor. It blots thy beauty as frost to bite the meads, confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds, and in no sense is meat or amiable. A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty. And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty will deign to sip or touch one drop of it. 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, whilst thou liest warm at home secure and safe, and craves no other tribute at thy hands but love, fair looks, and true obedience. Too little payment for so great a debt. Such duty as the subject owes the prince even such a woman o'eth to her husband, and when she is froid, 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? I am ashamed that women are so simple to offer war when they should kneel for peace, or to seek for rule, supremacy, and sway when they are bound to serve, love, and obey. Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, unappetitial and troubled in the world, but that our soft conditions and our hearts should well agree with our external parts? Come, come, you froid and unable worms! My mind hath been as big as one of yours, my heart is great, my reason how play more to bandy word for word, and frown for frown. But now I see our lances, our but straws, our strength as weak, our weakness past compare, that seeming to be most which we indeed least are. Then veil your stomachs, for it is no boot, and place your hands below your husband's foot, in token of which duty, if he please, my hand is ready, may it do him ease. Rosalind's Epilogue, from As You Like It, Act 5, Epilogue, by William Shakespeare. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue, but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, it is true that a good play needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes, and good play is proved the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I then, that I am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play. I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me. My way is to conjure you, and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you, and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women, as I perceive by your simpering none of you hates them, that between you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied not, and I am sure as many have good beards or good faces, or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. End of Rosland's Epilogue from As You Like It, Act 5, Epilogue. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Think Not I Love Him, from As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 5, by William Shakespeare. Recorded for LibriVox.org by Leslie Coons. Think Not I Love Him, though I ask for him, does but a peevish boy, yet he talks well. What care I for words, yet words do well when he that speaks them pleases those that hear. And it is a pretty youth, not very pretty, but sure he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him. He'll make a proper man. The best thing in him is his complexion, and faster than his tongue did make a fence his eye did heal it up. He's not very tall, yet for his years he's tall. His leg is but so-so, and yet as well. There was a pretty redness in his lip, a little riper and more lusty red than that mixed in his cheek. It was just the difference between the constant red and mingled damask. There be some women, Sylveus, had they marked him in parcels, as I did, would have gone near to fall in love with him. But from my part, I love him not, nor hate him not. Yet I have more cause to hate him than to love him, for what did he to do to child at me? He said my eyes were black and my hair black, and now I am remembered scorned at me. I marvel why I answered not again. That's all one. I'm at this is no quittance. I'll write to him a very taunting letter, and thou shalt bear it with thou, Sylveus. End of Think Not I Love Him from As You Like It Act III, Scene V. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libervox.org. This is a digger which I see before me, from Macbeth, Act II, Scene I, by William Shakespeare, recorded for Libervox.org, by David Lawrence. Is this a digger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a digger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat of pressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable as this which now I draw. Thou marshallest me the way that I was going, and such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools of the other senses, or else worth all the rest. I see thee still, and on thy blade and dungeon gouts of blood, which was not so before. There's no such thing. It is the bloody business which informs us to mine eyes. Now, or the one-half world, nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse the curtain's sleep. Witchcraft celebrates, pale hectates, offerings, and withered murder, alarmed by his sentinel the wolf, whose howls his watch, thus with its stealthy pace, with Tarquin's ravishing strides toward his design moves like a ghost. Thou's sure and firm said earth, here not my steps, which way they walk, for fear thy very stones, prayed at my whereabout, and take the present horror from the time, which now suits with it. Whilst I threat, he lives, words to the heat of deeds, too cold breath gives. I go, and it is done, the bell invites me, here at Nod Duncan, for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven, or to hell. End of Is This A Dagger Which I See Before Me, from Macbeth, Act II, Scene I. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit thelibrivox.org. Recording by David Lawrence in Brampton, Ontario, September 2008. O that this too-too-solid flesh would melt, from Hamlet, Act I, Scene II, read for Librivox.org by Ernst Patinama. O that this too-too-solid flesh would melt, though, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the everlasting had not fixed his cannon, gains itself slaughter. O God, O God, a weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, seem to me all the uses of this world. Fy on't, no, fy, fy. It is an unweeded garden that grows to seed. Thing shrank and grows in nature possess it merely. That it should come to this. But two months dead, there not so much, not too. So excellent a king, that was to this, a purion to a satter. So loving to my mother, that he might not be teemed the winds of heaven, visitor face too roughly, heaven and earth must I remember. Why, she would hang on him, as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on, and yet, within a month, let me not think on it. Realty thy name is woman. A little month, or ere those shoes were old, with which you follow to my poor father's body. Like now, you'll be all tears. Why, she, even she, O heaven, a beast that once discourse of reason would have mourned her longer, married with my uncle, my father's brother, but no more like my father than I to her cullies. Within a month ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left a flushing of her gollet eyes. She married, O most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity, to incestuous sheets. It is not, nor it cannot come to good, but break my heart, for I must hold my tongue. End of monologue, O that this two-two solid flesh would melt, from Hamlet, Act One, Scene Two. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Ernst Patinama. I ask for him, it is but a peevish boy, yet he talks well. But what care I for words? Yet words do well when he that speaks them pleases those that hear. It is a pretty youth, not very pretty, but sure he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him. He'll make a proper man. The best thing in him is his complexion and faster than his tongue did make a fence. His eye did heal it up. He is not very tall. Yet for his years he's tall. His leg is but so-so, and yet his well. There was a pretty redness in his lip, a little riper and more lusty red than that mixed in his cheek. It was just the difference betwixt the constant red, and mingled to mass. There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him in parcels as I did, would have gone near to fall in love with him. But for my part I love him not, nor hate him not, and yet have more cause to hate him than to love him. For what had he to do to jide at me? He said, mine eyes were black, and my hair black, and now I am remembered scorned at me. I marvel why I answered not again. But that's all one, omittance is no quittance. I'll write to him a very taunting letter, and thou shall bear it, wilt thou, Silvius? End of think not I love him, though I ask for him. From as you like it. Act three, scene five. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Annabella Leone, Blackpool, England. Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs. From Richard Second. Act three, scene two, by William Shakespeare. Recorded for LibriVox.org by Ann Archesist. No matter where. Of comfort no man speak. Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs. Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. Let's choose executors and talk of wills. And yet, not so, for what can we bequeath save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all our bowling-brocks. And nothing can we call our own but death. And that small model of the barren earth which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. How some have been deposed, some slain in war, some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed, all murdered. For within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king keeps death his court. And there the ant exists, scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, allowing him a breath, a little seen to monarchize, be veered and kill with looks, infusing him with self and vain conceit, as if this flesh which walls about our life were brass impregnable and humored thus comes at the last and with a little pin bores through his castle wall and farewell king. Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood with solemn reverence, throw away respect, tradition, form, and ceremonious duty, for you have but mistook me all this while. I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, need friends, subjected thus, how can you say to me, I am a king. End of Let's Talk of Grades of Worms and Epitaphs from Richard II, Act 3, Scene 2. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. It must be by his death, and for my part, from Julia Caesar, Act 2, Scene 1, by William Shakespeare, recorded for LibriVox.org by Jerry Dixon. It must be by his death, and for my part I know no personal cause to spurn at him, but for the general. He would be crowned. How that might change his nature, there's the question. It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, and that craves wary walking. Crown him, that, and then I grant, we put a sting in him, that at his will he may do danger with. The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power. And to speak truth of Caesar, I have not known when his affection swayed more than his reason. But tis a common proof that lowliness is young ambition's ladder. Word to the climber upward turns his face, but when he once attains the utmost round, he then unto the latter turns his back, looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees by which he did ascend. So Caesar may, then lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel will bear no color for the thing he is, fashion it thus, that what he is augmented would run to these and these extremities. And therefore think him as a serpent's egg, which hatched what as his kind, grow mischievous, and kill him in the shell. End of It Must Be By His Death And For My Part From Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene I, by William Shakespeare. This recording is in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Jerry Dixon, Zephyr Hills, Florida. Has no wife. Thou shalt have none, Lysian. None in France. Then thou hast all again, poor Lord. Isst I that chase thee from thy country, and expose those tender limbs of thine to the event of the non-sparing war? And is it I that drive thee from the sportive court, where thou wast shot at with fair eyes to be the mark of smoky muskets? Oh, you leaden messengers that ride upon the violent speed of fire fly with false aim. Move the still-peacing air that sings with piercing. Do not touch my lord. Whoever shoots at him, I set him there. Whoever charges on his forward breast, I am the catered that to hold him to it. And, though I kill him not, I am the cause his death was so effected. Where I met the raven lion when he roared with sharp constraint of hunger, better twer that all the miseries which nature owes were mine at once. No, come thou home, Lysian, whence honour but of danger wins the scars, oft it loses all, I will be gone. My being here it is that holds thee hence. Shall I stay here to do it? No, no, although the air of paradise did found the house, and angels office all, I will be gone. The pitiful rumour may report my flight to consulate thine ear. Come night, end day, for with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away. End of Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France, from all's well that ends well. Act 3, Scene 2 This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Annabella Leone, Blackpool, England. Now my Charms are All Or Throne. From the Tempest, Epilogue by William Shakespeare. Read for LibriVox.org by Caitlin Cooper. Now my Charms are All Or Throne, and what strength I have is mine own, which is most faint now, to his true. I must be here confined by you, or sent to Naples. Let me not, since I have my victim got, and pardon the deceiver, dwell in this bare island by your spell, but release me from my bands with the help of your good hands. Gentle breath of yours my sails must fill, or else my project fails, which was to please. Now I want spirits to enforce, art to enchant, and my ending is despair, unless I be relieved by prayer, which pierces so that it assaults mercy itself and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon be, let your indulgence set me free. End of Now my Charms are All Or Throne. From the Tempest, Epilogue. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Shakespeare. Recorded for LibriVox.org by Arthos. Oh, then I see Queen Mabbeth been with you. She is the fairest midwife, and she comes in shape no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman, drawn with a team of little atomies, or thoughtmen's noses as they lie asleep. Her wagon-spokes made of long spider's legs, a cover of the wings of grasshoppers, the chasers of the smallest spider's web, the collars of the moonshine's walkery beams, her whip of cricket-spone, the lash of film, her wagonna, a small grey-coated knack, not so big as a round little worm pricked from the lazy finger of a maid. Her chariot is an empty hazelnut, made by the joiner-squirrel, or old grub, time out of mind of various coach-makers. And in this state she gallops night by night through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love, or courteous knees that dream on curtsies straight all lawyer's fingers, whose sweet dream fees all lady's lips, whose straight on kisses dream, which oft the angry mad with blisters plagues, because their mouths with sweet meats tainted are. Sometimes she gallops over a courteous nose, and then dreams he of smelling out a suit, and sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail, tickling a parson's nose as her eyes asleep, and then dreams he of another benefits. Sometime she drive a thorace soldier's neck, and then dreams he of cutting foreign throats of breeches, and of skados, Spanish blades of health's five fathom deep, and then an on drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes, and being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, and sleeps again. This is that very mad that plaits the mains of horses in the night, and bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, which once untangled much misfortune-boats. This is the hag when maids lie on their backs that presses them, and learns them first to bear, making them women of good courage. This is she. End of Queen Mab from Romeo and Juliet. Act 1, Scene 4 This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. by David Fetterman. If music be the food of love, play on. Give me access of it, that surfiting, the appetite may sicken and so die. That strain again, it had a dying fall. Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing and giving odor. Enough, no more. It is not so sweet now as it was before. Oh, spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou, that not withstanding thy capacity, receiveth as the sea, not enters there. Of what validity and pitch sower, but falls into abatement and low price, even in a minute, so full of shapes as fancy, that it alone is high fantastical. End of if music be the food of love. From Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 1 This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Duke Orsino, Why Should I Not? From Twelfth Night, Act 5, Scene 1, by William Shakespeare. Recorded for LibriVox.org by David Fetterman. Why Should I Not? Had I the heart to do it, liked the Egyptian thief at point of death, Kill what I love, savage jealousy that sometimes savers no plea. But hear me this, since you to non-regardants cast my faith, and that I partly know the instrument that screws me from my true place in your favor, live you, the marble-breasted tyrant still. But this, your minion, whom I know you love, and whom by heaven I swear I tender dearly, him will I tear out of that cruel eye, where he sits crowned in his master's spite. Come, boy, with me, my thoughts are ripe and mischief. I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love, despite a raven's heart within a dove. End of Why Should I Not? From Twelfth Night, Act 5, Scene 1. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. From King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1, by William Shakespeare. Read for LibriVox.org by Carolyn Francis. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. I love your majesty according to my bond, nor more nor less. Good my lord, you have begot me, bred me, loved me. I return those duties back as our right fit. Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sister's husbands, if they say they love you all? Happily, when I shall wed, that lord whose hand must take my plight, shall carry half my love with him, half my care and duty. Sure, I shall never marry like my sister's, to love my father all. End of Unhappy That I Am, I Cannot Heave My Heart Into My Mouth, From King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. But I do think it is their husband's faults. From Othello, Act 4, Scene 3, by William Shakespeare. This is a LibriVox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rhonda Thetterman. But I do think it is their husband's 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 despite. Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace, yet we have 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 it frailty that thus heirs? 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 so. And of, but I do think it is their husband's faults. From Othello, Act IV, Scene III. Sleeps upon this bank. Here will we sit and let the sounds of music creep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica, look how the floor of heaven is thick in laid with patins of bright gold, as not the smallest orb which thou beholest, but in his motion like an angel sings, still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins. Such harmony is in immortal songs, but whilst this muddy vesture of decay doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn, as sweetest touches pierce your mistress ear, and draw her home with music. I am never merry when I hear sweet music. The reason is your spirits are attentive, for do but know to wild and wanton herd, or race of youthful and unhandled cults, fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, which is the hot condition of their blood. If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, or any air of music touch their ears, you shall perceive them make a mutual stand, as savage eyes turned to a modest gaze, by the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods, since not so stockish, hard, and full of rage, but music for the time doth change his nature. A man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils, the motions of his spirit of duller's night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted, mark the music. End of Hell's sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank, from the Merchant of Venice, Act Five, Scene One. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. His acts begin seven ages, at first the infant, mulling and puking in the nurse's arms, then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school, and then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress's eyebrow, then a soldier, full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, jealous in honour, sudden and quick and quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation, even in the cannon's mouth, and then the justice, in fair round belly, with good capen lined, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances, and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the owing and slipper de pantalon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side, his youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide, for his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, turning again toward childish treble, pipes, and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all that ends this strange eventful history is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. End of all the world's a stage, from as you like it, act two, scene seven. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Faith Here It Is, from Romeo and Juliet. Act three, scene five, by William Shakespeare. This is a LibriVox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rhonda Federman. Faith Here It Is. Romeo is banished, and all the world to nothing, that he dares nare come back to challenge you. Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth. Then since the case so stands as now at Doth, I think it best you married with the county. Oh, he's a lovely gentleman. Romeo is a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam, hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye, as Paris hath. Be shrew my very heart, I think you are happy in this second match. For it excels your first. Or if it did not, your first is dead. Or twer as good he were, as living here, and you know use of him. End of Faith Here It Is.