“Mortal, what hast thou of such grave concernThat thou indulgest in too sickly plaints?Why this bemoaning and beweeping death?For if thy life aforetime and behindTo thee was grateful, and not all thy goodWas heaped as in sieve to flow awayAnd perish unavailingly, why not,Even like a banqueter, depart the hall,Laden with life?”

“How many actions most ridiculous/Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?CORIN: Into a thousand that I have forgotten.SILVIUS: O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily!/If thou remember'st not the slightest folly/That ever love did make thee run into,/Thou hast not loved:/Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,/Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,/Thou hast not loved...”

“Thine are these orbs of light and shade;Thou madest Life in man and brute;Thou madest Death; and lo, thy footIs on the skull which thou hast made.”

“A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee t'attain to! If thou wert the lion, the fox wouldbeguile thee; if thou wert the lamb, the fox wouldeat three: if thou wert the fox, the lion wouldsuspect thee, when peradventure thou wert accused bythe ass: if thou wert the ass, thy dulness wouldtorment thee, and still thou livedst but as abreakfast to the wolf: if thou wert the wolf, thygreediness would afflict thee, and oft thou shouldsthazard thy life for thy dinner: wert thou theunicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee andmake thine own self the conquest of thy fury: wertthou a bear, thou wouldst be killed by the horse:wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seized by theleopard: wert thou a leopard, thou wert german tothe lion and the spots of thy kindred were jurors onthy life: all thy safety were remotion and thydefence absence. What beast couldst thou be, thatwere not subject to a beast? and what a beast artthou already, that seest not thy loss intransformation!”

“If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood of thy son. And thous didst it of thine obstinacy. For I sought to turn thee unto love, and I implored of thee thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the tokens recounted of my mother. But I appealed unto thy heart in vain, and now is the time gone for meeting.”

“Death Be Not ProudDeath, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,And soonest our best men with thee do go,Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then?One short sleep past, we wake eternally,And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”