# Result number

Work The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets are treated as single work with 154 parts.

Character Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet, the character name is "Poet."

Line Shows where the line falls within the work.

The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not restart for each scene.

Text The line's full text, with keywords highlighted within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.

1

Cymbeline
[V, 4]

Posthumus Leonatus

3140

Most welcome, bondage! for thou art away,
think, to liberty: yet am I better
Than one that's sick o' the gout; since he had rather
Groan so in perpetuity than be cured
By the sure physician, death, who is the key
To unbar these locks. My conscience, thou art fetter'd
More than my shanks and wrists: you good gods, give me
The penitent instrument to pick that bolt,
Then, free for ever! Is't enough I am sorry?
So children temporal fathers do appease;
Gods are more full of mercy. Must I repent?
I cannot do it better than in gyves,
Desired more than constrain'd: to satisfy,
If of my freedom 'tis the main part, take
No stricter render of me than my all.
I know you are more clement than vile men,
Who of their broken debtors take a third,
A sixth, a tenth, letting them thrive again
On their abatement: that's not my desire:
For Imogen's dear life take mine; and though
'Tis not so dear, yet 'tis a life; you coin'd it:
'Tween man and man they weigh not every stamp;
Though light, take pieces for the figure's sake:
You rather mine, being yours: and so, great powers,
If you will take this audit, take this life,
And cancel these cold bonds. O Imogen!
I'll speak to thee in silence.
[Sleeps]
[Solemn music. Enter, as in an apparition,]
SICILIUS LEONATUS, father to Posthumus Leonatus,
an old man, attired like a warrior; leading in
his hand an ancient matron, his wife, and mother
to Posthumus Leonatus, with music before them:
then, after other music, follow the two young
Leonati, brothers to Posthumus Leonatus, with
wounds as they died in the wars. They circle
Posthumus Leonatus round, as he lies sleeping]

2

Henry IV, Part II
[V, 5]

Dancer

3711

First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech. My fear, is your
displeasure; my curtsy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons.
If you look for a good speech now, you undo me; for what I have
to say is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say will, I doubt,
prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the
venture.

Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the
end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to
promise you a better. I meant, indeed, to pay you with this; which if like an
ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle
creditors, lose. Here I promis'd you I would be, and here I
commit my body to your mercies. Bate me some, and I will pay you some,
and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely; and so I kneel down
before you—but, indeed, to pray for the Queen.

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command
me to use my legs? And yet that were but light payment—to dance out of
your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible
satisfaction, and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have
forgiven me. If the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree
with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloy'd
with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in
it, and make you merry with fair Katherine of France; where, for
anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already 'a
be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr and
this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will
bid you good night.

3

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

1011

'Why work'st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage,
Unless thou couldst return to make amends?
One poor retiring minute in an age
Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends,
Lending him wit that to bad debtors lends:
O, this dread night, wouldst thou one hour come back,
I could prevent this storm and shun thy wrack!