O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall; I'll slay more gazers than the basalisks; I'll play the orator as well as Nestor, Decieve more slily that Ulysses could, And like a Sinon, take another Troy. I can add colors to the chameleon, Change shapes with Proteus for advantages And set the murderous Machiavel to school. Can I do this, and cannot get a crown? Tut! were it further off, I'll pluck it down.
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well. Treason has done his worst. Nor steel nor poison, malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further.