“I'll read enoughWhen I do see the very book indeedWhere all my sins are writ, and that's myself.Give me that glass and therein will I read.No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struckSo many blows upon this face of mineAnd made no deeper wounds?O flattering glass,Like to my followers in prosperityThou dost beguile me!”

“No deeper wrinkles yet?Hath sorrow struckSo many blows upon this face of mineAnd made no deeper wounds?”

“O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last,And careful hours with Time's deformed handHave written strange defeatures in my face.But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?”

“Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and which is more, an officer, and which is more, a householder, and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to . . . and one that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass!”

“I'll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book!”

“This rough magicI here abjure, and, when I have requiredSome heavenly music, which even now I do,To work mine end upon their senses thatThis airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,And deeper than did ever plummet soundI'll drown my book.”

“O my love, my wife!Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breathHath had no power yet upon thy beauty.”