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OPINION,-continued.

But fish not with this melancholy bait,
For this fool's gudgeon, this opinion.
Opinion's but a fool, that makes us scan
The outward habit for the inward man.

M. V. i. 1.

P. P. ii. 2.

A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin.

T. C. iii. 3.

OPPORTUNITY (See also DELAY, IRRESOLUTION, NEGLECT).

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat;

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose out ventures.

J.C. iv. 3.

Who seeks, and will not take, when once 'tis offer'd,
Shall never find it more.

A. C. ii. 7.

When the sun shines, let foolish gnats make sport,
But creep in crannies, when he hides his beams.

A little fire is quickly trodden out;
Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.

C. E. ii. 2.

H. VI. PT. III. iv. 8.

The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd,
And not neglected; else, if heaven would,
And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse.

R. II. iii. 2.

I find my zenith doth depend upon

A most auspicious star; whose influence

If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop.

OPPOSITION.

T. i. 2

Back, I say, go; lest I let forth your half pint of blood ;back, that's the utmost of your having:-back.

OPPRESSION.

I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd,
And duty in his service perishing.

C. v. 2.

M.N. v. 1.

I am an ass, indeed; you may prove it by my long ears. I have served him from the hour of my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for my service, but blows; when I am cold, he heats me with beating; when I am warm, he cools me with beating; I am awak'd with it, when I sleep; rais'd with it, when I sit; driven out of doors with it, when I go from home; welcomed home with it, when I return: nay, I bear it on my shoulders, as a

OPPRESSION,-continued. beggar her brat; and, I think, when he hath lam'd me, I shall beg with it from door to door.

Each new morn,

C. E. iv. 4.

New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face.

THE NATURAL DUTY OF RESISTANCE TO.
To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?
Not to the beast that would usurp their den.
Whose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?
Not his, that spoils her young before her face.
Who 'scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?
Not he that sets his foot upon her back.
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on,
And doves will peck, in safeguard of their brood.

The poor wren,

M. iv. 2.

H. VI. PT. III. ii. 2.

The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in the nest, against the owl.
OPTICS (See EYE).

ORATION, PEdantic.

Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,

Three pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation,
Figures pedantical; these summer flies
Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.
ORATOR.

Doubt not, my lord; I'll play the orator,
As if the golden fee, for which I plead,
Were for myself.

ORATORY, POPULAR.

For in such business,

M. iv. 2.

L. L. v. 2

R. III. iii. 5.

Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than their ears.

Pray, be content;

Mother, I am going to the market-place;

Chide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,

Cog their hearts from them, and come home belov'd
Of all the trades in Rome.

ORDER.

Degree being vizarded,

The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.

C. iii. 2.

C'. iii. 2

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,

Observe degree, priority, and place,

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,

ORDER,-continued.

Office, and custom, in all line of order:
And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol,
In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd
Amidst the other; whose med'cinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,

Sans check, to good and bad: But when the planets,
In evil mixture, to disorder wander,

What plagues, and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!

Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate

The unity and married calm of states

Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shak'd,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,

The enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from divided shores,
The primogeniture and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,

And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong
(Between whose endless jar justice resides)

Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite:

And appetite, a universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,

Must make perforce a universal prey,

And, last, eat up himself. Great Agamemnon;
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,

Follows the choking:

And this neglection of degree it is,

That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next, by him beneath: so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation.

T. C. i. 3.

ORDER,-continued.

The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it, and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
ORNAMENT.

Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,

The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest.

OTHELLO'S APOLOGY.

Rude am I in speech,

M.V. iii. 2.

M.V. iii. 2.

And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace;
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have us'd
Their dearest action in the tented field;
And little of this great world can I speak,

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;
And therefore little shall I grace my cause,

In speaking for myself: Yet, by your gracious patience,
I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver

Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration, and what mighty magic,

(For such proceeding I am charg'd withal)

I won his daughter with.

Her father lov'd me; oft invited me;
Still question'd me the story of my life,
From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have pass'd.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it.
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field;

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe,

And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,

And portance in my travel's history:

Wherein of antres vast, and desarts wild,

Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,
It was my hint to speak. Such was my process;

And of the cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. These things to hear,

OTHELLO'S APOLOGY,-continued.

Would Desdemona seriously incline:

But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste despatch,
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse: Which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour; and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not distinctively. I did consent;
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke,
That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;

She swore,-In faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange,
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:

She wish'd' she had not heard it; yet she wish'd
That heaven had made her such a man.

She thank'd me;

And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake;
She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd;
And I lov'd her, that she did pity them:
This only is the witchcraft I have us'd;
Here comes the lady, let her witness it.

FAREWELL.

O now, for ever,

Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner; and all quality,

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O, you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
Farewell!-Othello's occupation's gone!

HANDKERCHIEF.

There's magic in the web of it:

A sybil, that had number'd in the world
The sun to make two hundred compasses,

In her prophetic fury sew'd the work:

The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk;
And it was dy'd in mummy, which the skilful
Conserv'd of maidens' hearts.

O. i. 3.

O. iii. 3.

O. iii. 4.

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