What poets say about love

part 19

You would for paradise break faith and troth,

And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.

        Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 143.       331

A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind.

A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound.

        Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 334.      332

Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:

For valour, is not Love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?

        Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 339.       333

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods

Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

        Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 344.       334

But love is blind, and lovers cannot see

The pretty follies that themselves commit.

        Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 6. L. 36.             335

            Yet I have not seen

So likely an ambassador of love;

A day in April never came so sweet,

To show how costly summer was at hand,

As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.

        Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 9. L. 91.             336

And swearing till my very roof was dry

With oaths of love.

        Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 206.         337

Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;

Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.

        Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 217.   338

Ay me! for aught that I ever could read,

Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth.

        Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 132.            339

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

        Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 234.            340

Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity

In least speak most, to my capacity.

        Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 104.           341

Speak low, if you speak love.

        Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 102.            342

Friendship is constant in all other things

Save in the office and affairs of love:

Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;

Let every eye negotiate for itself

And trust no agent.

        Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 182.            343

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

        Much Ado About Nothing. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 106.          344

            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.

        Othello. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 166.        345

            Perdition catch my soul,

But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,

Chaos is come again.

        Othello. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 89.       346

What! keep a week away? seven days and nights?

Eight score eight hours? and lovers’ absent hours,

More tedious than the dial eight score times?

O, weary reckoning!

        Othello. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 173.     347

If heaven would make me such another world

Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,

I’ld not have sold her for it.

        Othello. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 144.       348

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate

Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak

Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;

Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,

Perplexed in the extreme: of one, whose hand

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,

Richer than all his tribe: of one, whose subdued eyes,

Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their medicinal gum.

        Othello. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 383. (“Base Indian”‌ is “base Judean”‌ in first folio.)    349

There is no creature loves me,

And if I die, no soul shall pity me.

        Richard III. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 200.            350