Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world.
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world.
- Source
- Familiar Quotations, ninth edition (1905 printing)
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Read the original context ↗ - Attribution confidence
- attributed · historical anthology
Preserved as printed; independently unverified. - Historical coordinate
- c. 1590 AD · renaissance
author lifetime midpoint; not composition date. - Rights & edition
- Public domain (United States)
Translations and rights may differ elsewhere.
Provenance and licences ↗
Word-matched topics
The voice behind the words.
Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.
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