For him thou labor'st by thy flight to shun, And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble; For all the accommodations that thou bear'st Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself; For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not; For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get, And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
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ances, the rule appears to have been, that the fool, after struggling long against the stratagems of Death, at last became his victim.-- H. N. H.
14-15. Upon this passage Johnson observes: "A minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendor which dazzles the imagination. Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by baseness, by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contem- plation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornament from among the damps and darkness of the mine."--H. N. H.
17. "worm" is put for any creeping thing or serpent. Shakespeare adopts the vulgar error, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is forked. In old tapestries and paintings the tongues of serpents and dragons always appear barbed like the point of an arrow.--H. N. H.
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Publication Information: Book Title: Measure for Measure. Contributors: William Shakespeare - author. Publisher: Funk & Wagnalls. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1909. Page Number: 62.
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