Fiction About Poisonings

"Claudius: But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,— Hamlet: [Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind. Claudius: How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Hamlet: Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun."

"Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not be forever with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust: Thou know'st tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity."

"'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe."

"O! that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew;"

"But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!"

"O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, 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 it should come to this! 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 would hang on him, 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 follow'd my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears:----why she, even she---- O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd 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: But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue."

"In my mind's eye, Horatio."

"He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again."

"Give it an understanding, but no tongue."

"My father's spirit in arms! all is not well; I doubt some foul play: would the night were come! Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes."

"Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede."

"Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar."

"Taking the measure of an unmade grave."

"Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate-tree: Believe me, love, it was the nightingale."

"It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps."

"Farewell, farewell, one kiss and I'll descend."

"Some grief shows much of love, But much of grief shows still some want of wit."

"Villain and he be many miles asunder."

"Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this, Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it: If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help, Do thou but call my resolution wise, And with this knife I'll help it presently. God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands; And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd, Shall be the label to another deed, Or my true heart with treacherous revolt Turn to another, this shall slay them both: Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time, Give me some present counsel; or, behold, 'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that Which the commission of thy years and art Could to no issue of true honour bring. Be not so long to speak; I long to die, If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy."

"O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of yonder tower; Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears; Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house, O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones, With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls; Or bid me go into a new-made grave, And hide me with a dead man in his shroud; Things that to hear them told, have made me tremble; And I will do it without fear or doubt. To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love."

"I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, That almost freezes up the heat of life."

"Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field."

"She's not well married that lives married long, But she's best married that dies married young."

"All things that we ordained festival, Turn from their office to black funeral: Our instruments to melancholy bells; Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast; Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change; Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse, And all things change them to the contrary."

"O mischief, thou art swift To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!"

"I do remember an apothecary, And hereabouts a' dwells, which late I noted In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples; meagre were his looks; Sharp misery had worn him to the bones: And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff'd and other skins Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show. Noting this penury, to myself I said, An if a man did need a poison now, Whose sale is present death in Mantua, Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him."

"Let me have A dram of poison; such soon-speeding gear As will disperse itself through all the veins, That the life-weary taker may fall dead, And that the trunk may be discharged of breath As violently as hasty powder fired Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb."

"The world affords no law to make thee rich; Then be not poor, but break it, and take this."

"Shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous, And that the lean abhorrèd monster keeps Thee here in the dark to be his paramour?"

"Benvolio: What, art thou hurt? Mercutio: Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough."

"Romeo: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. Mercutio: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o' both your houses!"

"Mercutio: Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm. Romeo: I thought all for the best. Mercutio: Help me into some house, Benvolio, Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms' meat of me: I have it, And soundly too: your houses!"

"This gentleman, the prince's near ally, My very friend, hath got this mortal hurt In my behalf; my reputation stain'd With Tybalt's slander,—Tybalt, that an hour Hath been my kinsman: O sweet Juliet, Thy beauty hath made me effeminate, And in my temper soften'd valour's steel!"

"O, I am fortune's fool!"

"Lady Capulet: I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give; Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live. Prince: Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio; Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe? Montague: Not Romeo, prince, he was Mercutio's friend; His fault concludes but what the law should end, The life of Tybalt. Prince: And for that offence Immediately we do exile him hence: I have an interest in your hate's proceeding, My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding; But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine, That you shall all repent the loss of mine: I will be deaf to pleading and excuses; Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses: Therefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste, Else, when he's found, that hour is his last. Bear hence this body, and attend our will: Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill."

"For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven's back."

"Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of Heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun."

"So tedious is this day As is the night before some festival To an impatient child that hath new robes And may not wear them."

"Every tongue that speaks But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence."

"O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once! To prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty! Vile earth, to earth resign, end motion here, And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!"

"O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! ... A damned saint, an honourable villain!"

"O, that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace!"

"There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men; all are perjured, All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers."

"He was not born to shame: Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit; For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd Sole monarch of the universal earth."

"Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts, And thou art wedded to calamity."

"O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!"

"They may seize On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand."

"'Banished'? O friar, the damned use that word in hell; Howling attends it: how hast thou the heart, Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd, To mangle me with that word 'banished'?"

"Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy."

"But to my mind, — though I am native here And to the manner born, — it is a custom More honour'd in the breach than the observance."