Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affection,
Figures pedantical--these summer flies
Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.
My dear, dear Lord, The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation; that away Men are but gilded loan or painted clay... Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; Take honor from me, and my life is done.
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But bad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
Don Pedro - (...)'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.' Benedick - The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vildly painted; and in such great letters as they writes, 'Here is good horse for hire', let them signify under my sign, 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.
Who would be so mocked with glory, or to live
But in a dream of friendship,
To have his pomp and all what state compounds
But only painted, like his varnished friends?