'Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell.'
Paradise Lost
This Nicholas at once let fly a fart
As loud as if it were a thunder-clap.
He was near blinded by the blast, poor chap,
But his hot iron was ready; with a thump
He smote him in the middle of the rump.
Miller's Tale
'. . . only add
Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add Faith,
Add Virtue, Patience, Temperance, add Love,
By name to come call's Charity, the soul
Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath
To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess
A paradise within th
Paradise Lost
To rest him selfe, foreby a fountaine syde,
Disarmed all of yron-coted Plate
Faerie Queene
'But of the Tree whose operation brings
Knowledge of good and ill, which I have set
The Pledge of thy Obedience and thy Faith,
Amid the Garden by the Tree of Life,
Remember what I warn thee, shun to taste.'
Paradise Lost
'Then hold it wise, for it seems so to me,
To make a virtue of necessity,
Take in good part what we may not eschew,
Especially whatever things are due
To all of us; his is a foolish soul
That's rebel against Him who guides the whole.'
Knight's Tale
'Is not short payne well borne, that brings long ease,
And layes the soule to sleepe in quiet grave?
Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life does greatly please.'
Faerie Queene
'I do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.'
Macbeth
'whose fault?
Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.'
Paradise Lost
'And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of Darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence.'
Macbeth
What in me is dark,
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the hight of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to man.
Paradise Lost
They said that of all the kings upon earth
he was the man most gracious and fair-minded,
kindest to his people and keenest to win fame.
Beowulf
His sad dull eies deepe sunck in hollow pits,
Could not endure th'unwonted sunne to view;
His bare thin cheekes for want of better bits,
And empty sides deceived of their dew,
Could make a stony hart his hap to rew;
His rawbone armes, whose mighty brawne
Faerie Queene
'He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear;
And you all know, security
Is mortals' chiefest enemy.'
Macbeth
Among innumerable false, unmov'd
Unshak'n, unseduc'd, unterrifi'd
His Loyalty he kept, his Love, his Zeal;
Nor number, nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, nor change his constant mind
Though single.
Paradise Lost
They had killed the enemy, courage quelled his life;
that pair of kinsmen, partners in nobility,
had destroyed the foe. So every man should act,
Be at hand when needed.
Beowulf
'A little water clears us of this deed.'
Macbeth
'Servant of God. Well done; well hast thou fought
The better fight, who single hast maintained
Against revolted multitudes the cause
Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms;
And for the testimony of truth hast borne
Universal reproach, far worse to
Paradise Lost
'In heavenly mercies hast thou not a part?
Why shouldst thou then despeire, that chosen art?
Where justice growes, there growes eke greter grace.'
Faerie Queene
'Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.'
Macbeth
No help or backing was to be had then
from his highborn comrades; that hand-picked troop
broke ranks and ran for their lives
to the safety of the wood.
Beowulf
'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.'
Macbeth
This carpenter awoke and heard him sing
And turning to his wife said, 'Alison!
Wife! Do you hear him! There goes Absalon
Chanting away under our chamber wall.'
And she, 'Yes, John, God knows I hear it all.'
Miller's Tale
'. . . yet when I approach
Her loveliness, so absolute she seems
And in herself complete, so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say,
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.'
Paradise Lost
Taking advantage of his open jaw,
Ran through his mouth with so importune might,
That deepe emperst his darksome hollow maw
And back retyrd, his life blood forth with all did draw.
Faerie Queene
'I marched out ahead of him, always there
at the front of the line; and I shall fight like that
for as long as I live.'
Beowulf
'Behold me then, mee for him, life for life
I offer, on mee let thine anger fall;
Account me man; I for his sake will leave
Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee
Freely put off, and for him lastly die.'
Paradise Lost
'Come, you Spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty!'
Macbeth
'Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more.'
Paradise Lost
And ever as he rode his hart did earne,
To prove his puissance in battell brave.
Faerie Queene
'But knowledge is as food, and needs no less
Her Temperance over Appetite, to know
In measure what the mind may well contain,
Oppresses else with Surfeit, and soon turns
Wisdom to Folly, as Nourishment to Wind.'
Paradise Lost
'Just so I ruled the Ring-Dane's country
for fifty years, defended them in wartime
with spear and sword against constant assaults
by many tribes. I came to believe
my enemies had faded from the face of the earth.'
Beowulf
'What better can we do, than to the place
Repairing where he judg'd us, prostrate fall
Before him reverent, and there confess
Humbly our faults, and pardon beg . . . .'
Paradise Lost
It was a goodly heape for to behould,
And spake the praises of the workmans witt;
But full great pittie, that so faire a mould
Did on so weake foundation ever sitt.
Faerie Queene
A Geat woman too sang out in grief;
with hair bound up, she unburdened herself
to her worst fears, a wild litany
of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded,
enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles,
slavery and abasement.
Beowulf
'Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.'
Macbeth
'But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his Providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labor must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil.'
Paradise Lost
'To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus:
Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear'd; 'tis much he dares;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To ac
Macbeth
'Out, damned spot!'
Macbeth
. . . though both
Not equal, as thir sex not equal seem'd;
For contemplation hee and valor form'd,
For softness shee and sweet attractive Grace,
Hee for God only, shee for God in him.'
Paradise Lost