O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt. Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst How Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on 't, ah fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That is should come But two months dead -- nay, not so much, not two. So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth, Must I remember? Why, she As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on. And yet, within a month (Let me not think on 't; frailty, thy name is woman!) A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she followed my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears -- why she, (O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason Would have mourned longer!), married with my uncle, My father's brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules. Within a month, Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to good. |
From Hamlet by William Shakespeare |