“I was too young that time to value her,But now I know her. If she be a traitor, Why, so am I. We still have slept together,Rose at an instant, learned, played, eat together,And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,Still we went coupled and inseparable.”

“She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm 'i th' bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pinned in thought; and, with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more; but indeed our shows are more than will; for we still prove much in our vows but little in our love.”

“Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a highpraise, too brown for a fair praise and too littlefor a great praise: only this commendation I canafford her, that were she other than she is, shewere unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, Ido not like her. (Benedick, from Much Ado About Nothing)”

“I will play the swan. And die in music.”

“Therefore I lie with her and she with me,And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.”

“My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far more red than her lips' red;If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,But no such roses see I in her cheeks;And in some perfumes is there more delightThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound;I grant I never saw a goddess go;My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.”

“In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:It wearies me; you say it wearies you;But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,I am to learn;And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,That I have much ado to know myself.”