_Prologue to Addison's Cato_. A. POPE.
As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious.
_Richard II., Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned?
_Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears.
_Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage, where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
_Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
I have heard
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul, that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions.
* * * * *
The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
_Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Lo, where the stage, the poor, degraded stage,
Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age.
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