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Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all.

      — King Lear, Act IV Scene 6

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1-20 of 37 total

KEYWORD: stage

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# 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

Antony and Cleopatra
[III, 6]

Octavius

1869

Why have you stol'n upon us thus! You come not
Like Caesar's sister: the wife of Antony
Should have an army for an usher, and
The neighs of horse to tell of her approach
Long ere she did appear; the trees by the way
Should have borne men; and expectation fainted,
Longing for what it had not; nay, the dust
Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,
Raised by your populous troops: but you are come
A market-maid to Rome; and have prevented
The ostentation of our love, which, left unshown,
Is often left unloved; we should have met you
By sea and land; supplying every stage
With an augmented greeting.

2

Antony and Cleopatra
[III, 10]

(stage directions)

2057

[CANIDIUS marcheth with his land army one way over]
the stage; and TAURUS, the lieutenant of OCTAVIUS
CAESAR, the other way. After their going in, is
heard the noise of a sea-fight]

3

Antony and Cleopatra
[IV, 3]

(stage directions)

2587

[They place themselves in every corner of the stage]

4

Antony and Cleopatra
[IV, 3]

(stage directions)

2593

[Music of the hautboys as under the stage]

5

Antony and Cleopatra
[V, 2]

Cleopatra

3657

Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors
Will catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers
Ballad us out o' tune: the quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels; Antony
Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I' the posture of a whore.

6

As You Like It
[II, 7]

Jaques (lord)

1037

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

7

Coriolanus
[V, 5]

(stage directions)

3805

[Enter two Senators with VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA,]
VALERIA, &c. passing over the stage,
followed by Patricians and others]

8

Hamlet
[I, 5]

(stage directions)

900

Ghost cries under the stage.

9

Hamlet
[II, 2]

Hamlet

1620

Ay, so, God b' wi' ye!
[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]
Now I am alone.
O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That, from her working, all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing! No, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by th' nose? gives me the lie i' th' throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this, ha?
'Swounds, I should take it! for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal. Bloody bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murther'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must (like a whore) unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! Hum, I have heard
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ, I'll have these Players
Play something like the murther of my father
Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil; and the devil hath power
T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds
More relative than this. The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King. Exit.

10

Hamlet
[IV, 4]

(stage directions)

2784

Enter Fortinbras with his Army over the stage.

11

Hamlet
[V, 2]

Horatio

4039

Not from his mouth,
Had it th' ability of life to thank you.
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on th' inventors' heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.

12

Hamlet
[V, 2]

Fortinbras

4064

Let four captains
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have prov'd most royally; and for his passage
The soldiers' music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this
Becomes the field but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

13

Henry IV, Part II
[I, 1]

Earl of Northumberland

194

For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well;
And as the wretch whose fever-weak'ned joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs,
Weak'ned with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,
Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!
A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
Must glove this hand; and hence, thou sickly coif!
Thou art a guard too wanton for the head
Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring
To frown upon th' enrag'd Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confin'd! Let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage
To feed contention in a ling'ring act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end
And darkness be the burier of the dead!

14

Henry IV, Part II
[V, 5]

(stage directions)

3592

Trumpets sound, and the KING and his train pass over the stage. After them enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and page

15

Henry V
[Prologue, 1]

Chorus

2

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide on man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

16

Henry V
[V, 2]

Chorus

3360

Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
Our bending author hath pursued the story,
In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England: Fortune made his sword;
By which the world's best garden be achieved,
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King
Of France and England, did this king succeed;
Whose state so many had the managing,
That they lost France and made his England bleed:
Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.

17

Henry VI, Part III
[IV, 3]

Second Watchman

2192

Stay, or thou diest!
[WARWICK and the rest cry all, 'Warwick! Warwick!']
and set upon the Guard, who fly, crying, 'Arm!
arm!' WARWICK and the rest following them]
[The drum playing and trumpet sounding, reenter]
WARWICK, SOMERSET, and the rest, bringing KING
EDWARD IV out in his gown, sitting in a chair.
RICHARD and HASTINGS fly over the stage]

18

Henry VIII
[II, 4]

(stage directions)

1333

[Trumpets, sennet, and cornets. Enter two Vergers,]
with short silver wands; next them, two Scribes, in
the habit of doctors; after them, CANTERBURY alone;
after him, LINCOLN, Ely, Rochester, and Saint
Asaph; next them, with some small distance, follows
a Gentleman bearing the purse, with the great seal,
and a cardinal's hat; then two Priests, bearing
each a silver cross; then a Gentleman-usher
bare-headed, accompanied with a Sergeant-at-arms
bearing a silver mace; then two Gentlemen bearing
two great silver pillars; after them, side by side,
CARDINAL WOLSEY and CARDINAL CAMPEIUS; two Noblemen
with the sword and mace. KING HENRY VIII takes
place under the cloth of state; CARDINAL WOLSEY and
CARDINAL CAMPEIUS sit under him as judges. QUEEN
KATHARINE takes place some distance from KING
HENRY VIII. The Bishops place themselves on each
side the court, in manner of a consistory; below
them, the Scribes. The Lords sit next the Bishops.
The rest of the Attendants stand in convenient
order about the stage]

19

Henry VIII
[IV, 1]

(stage directions)

2451

[They pass over the stage in order and state]

20

Henry VIII
[V, 5]

(stage directions)

3368

[Enter trumpets, sounding; then two Aldermen, Lord]
Mayor, Garter, CRANMER, NORFOLK with his marshal's
staff, SUFFOLK, two Noblemen bearing great
standing-bowls for the christening-gifts; then
four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the
Duchess of Norfolk, godmother, bearing the child
richly habited in a mantle, &c., train borne by a
Lady; then follows the Marchioness Dorset, the
other godmother, and Ladies. The troop pass once
about the stage, and Garter speaks]

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