Soliloquy from Shakespeare'sAs You Like It
JAQUES: All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, 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' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon 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 lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
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
Soliloquy from Shakespeare'sHamlet
HAMLET: To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
Monologue from Racine's Mithridate
MONIMA: I cannot keep the secret longer,
My sorrow is too violent for silence.
Tho' Duty's stern decree condemn's my tongue,
Yet must I violate her harsh commands,
And utter for the first time and the last
The language of my heart. Long have you loved me,
Long has an equal tenderness for you
Moved me with sad concern. Retrace the time
When first you own'd affection for these charms
Unworthy of your praise, the short-lived hope,
The trouble that your father's passion raised,
Tortured to lose me and to see him blest,
To bow to duty when your heart was torn.
You cannot, Prince, recall those memories
Without repeating in your own misfortunes
My story too; and, when I heard this morning
Your tale, my heart responded to it all.
Futile or rather fatal sympathy!
Union too perfect to be realized!
Ah! with what cruel care did Heav'n entwine
Two hearts it never destined for each other!
For, howsoe'er my heart is drawn to yours,
I tell you once for all, where Honour leads
I needs must follow, even to the altar,
To swear to you an everlasting silence.
I hear you groan: but, miserable fate,
Your father claims me, I may ne'er be yours.
You must yourself support my feeble will,
And help me from my heart to banish you;
Let me at least rely upon your kindness
My presence to avoid henceforth for ever.
Have I not said enough, Sir, to persuade you
How many reasons urge you to obey me?
After this moment, if that gallant heart
Has ever felt true love for Monima,
I will not recognize its loyalty
Save by the care you take to shun me always.
Monologue from Moliere's The Love-Tiff
GROS-RENÉ: I will never trouble my head about women again! I renounce them all, and if you are wise, you'll do the same. For, master, people say that woman is an animal hard to be known, and naturally very prone to evil; and as an animal is always an animal, and will never be anything but an animal, though it lived for a hundred thousand years, so, without contradiction, a woman is always a woman, and will never be anything but a woman as long as the world endures. Wherefore, as a certain Greek author says: a woman's head is like a quicksand; for pray, mark well this argument, which is most weighty: As the head is the chief of the body, and as the body without a chief is worse than a beast, unless the chief has a good understanding with the body, and unless everything be as well regulated as if it were measured with a pair of compasses, we see certain confusions arrive; the animal part then endeavours to get the better of the rational, and we see one pull to the right, another to the left; one wants something soft, another something hard; in short, everything goes topsyturvy. This is to show that here below, as it has been explained to me, a woman's head is like a weather-cock on the top of a house, which veers about at the slightest breeze; that is why cousin Aristotle often compares her to the sea; hence people say that nothing in the world is so stable as the waves. Now, by comparison--for comparison makes us comprehend an argument distinctly--and we learned men love a comparison better than a similitude--by comparison, then, if you please, master, as we see that the sea, when a storm rises, begins to rage, the wind roars and destroys, billows dash against billows with a great hullabaloo, and the ship, in spite of the mariner, goes sometimes down to the cellar and sometimes up into the garret; so, when a woman gets whims and crotchets into her head, we see a tempest in the form of a violent storm, which will break out by certain . . . words, and then a . . . certain wind, which by . . . certain waves in . . . a certain manner, like a sand-bank . . . when ...... In short, woman is worse than the devil.