Last words in Shakespeare
(Redirected from Last Words in Shakespeare)
The last words of characters in Shakespeare. In a minority of cases, a description of a character's off-stage death is included.
- I am dying, Egypt, dying:
- Give me some wine, and let me speak a little. . .
- The miserable change now at my end
- Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts
- In feeding them with those my former fortunes
- Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o' the world,
- The noblest; and do now not basely die,
- Not cowa
h'd. Now my spirit is going;
- I can no more.
- - Antony
- As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle,--
- O Antony!--Nay, I will take thee too.
- What should I stay--
- - Cleopatra, as she applies the second asp to her arm.
- O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt!
- - Claudius
- O, I am slain!
- - Polonius
- He is justly served;
- It is a poison temper'd by himself.
- Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
- Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
- Nor thine on me.
- - Laertes, talking of Claudius
- O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,
- Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
- If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
- Absent thee from felicity awhile,
- And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
- To tell my story. . .
- O, I die, Horatio;
- The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:
- I cannot live to hear the news from England;
- But I do prophesy the election lights
- On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
- So tell him, with the occurrences, more and less,
- Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
- - Hamlet
- No, no, the drink, the drink!—O my dear Hamlet! —
- The drink, the drink! I am poison’d.
- - Gertrude
O, Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth! I better brook the loss of brittle life Than those proud titles thou hast won of me; They wound my thoughts worse than sword my flesh: But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool; And time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy, But that the earthy and cold hand of death Lies on my tongue: no, Percy, thou art dust And food for--
Dies
- Laud be to God! even there my life must end.
- It hath been prophesied to me many years,
- I should not die but in Jerusalem;
- Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land:
- But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;
- In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.
- - King Henry IV
- a' parted even just between twelve
- and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for after
- I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with
- flowers and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew
- there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as
- a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. 'How now,
- sir John!' quoth I 'what, man! be o' good
- cheer.' So a' cried out 'God, God, God!' three or
- four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a'
- should not think of God; I hoped there was no need
- to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So
- a' bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my
- hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as
- cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and
- they were as cold as any stone, and so upward and
- upward, and all was as cold as any stone.
- - Mistress Quickly
- They say he cried out of sack.
- - Nym
- Ay, that a' did.
- - Mistress Quickly
- And of women.
- - Bardolph
- Nay, that a' did not.
- - Mistress Quickly
- Yes, that a' did; and said they were devils incarnate.
- - Boy describing Falstaff's death. Falstaff actually dies offstage.
- Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar!
- - Julius Caesar
- Caesar, thou art revenged,
- Even with the sword that kill'd thee.
- - Cassius
- Caesar, now be still:
- I kill'd not thee with half so good a will.
- - Brutus, as he runs on his sword
- O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye:
- The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd,
- And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail
- Are turned to one thread, one little hair:
- My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
- Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
- And then all this thou seest is but a clod
- And module of confounded royalty.
- - King John
- And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!
- Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
- And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,
- Never, never, never, never, never!
- Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.
- Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
- Look there, look there!
- - King Lear
- Slave, thou hast slain me: villain, take my purse:
- If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body;
- And give the letters which thou find'st about me
- To Edmund Earl of Gloucester, seek him out
- Upon the British party: O, untimely death!
- - Oswald
- I will not yield,
- To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
- And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
- Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
- And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
- Yet I will try the last. Before my body
- I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
- And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'
- - Macbeth
- He has kill'd me, mother:
- Run away, I pray you!
- - Macduff's son
O treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge-O slave!
- - Banquo
- O, who hath done this deed?
- - Emilia
- Nobody; I myself. Farewell.
- Commend me to my kind lord: O, farewell!
- - Desdemona
- What did thy song bode, lady?
- Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan,
- And die in music. [sings] 'Willow, willow, willow.'--
- Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor;
- So come my soul to bliss as I speak true;
- So speaking as I think, I die... I die.
- - Emilia
- Demand me nothing: what you know, you know:
- From this time forth I never will speak word.
- - Iago, who does not die onstage, but who is being led to his immediate torture and eventual death.
- Soft you; a word or two before you go.
- I have done the state some service, and they know't.
- No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
- When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
- 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
- Perplex'd 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. Set you down this;
- And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
- Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
- Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
- I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
- And smote him, thus.
- - Othello
- Stabs himself
- O bloody period!
- - Lododvico
- All that's spoke is marr'd.
- - Gratiano
- I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee: no way but this;
- Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.
- - Othello
- Falls on the bed, and dies
- O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
- For that I was his father Edward's son;
- That blood already, like the pelican,
- Hast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:
- My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,
- Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!
- May be a precedent and witness good
- That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:
- Join with the present sickness that I have;
- And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
- To crop at once a too long wither'd flower.
- Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
- These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
- Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:
- Love they to live that love and honour have.
- - John of Gaunt
- That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire
- That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
- Hath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land.
- Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;
- Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.
- - King Richard II
- Which of you, if you were a prince's son,
- Being pent from liberty, as I am now,
- if two such murderers as yourselves came to you,
- Would not entreat for life?
- My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks:
- O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
- Come thou on my side, and entreat for me,
- As you would beg, were you in my distress
- A begging prince what beggar pities not?
- - Clarence
- Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
- And I will stand the hazard of the die:
- I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
- Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
- A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
- - King Richard III, just before he engages in the fight with Richmond in which he dies.
- Let's to it pell-mell
- If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell!
- - Richard III, Ian McKellen and Richard Loncraine movie adaptation, taken from Richard's speech earlier in the play.
- Here, here will I remain
- With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
- Will I set up my everlasting rest,
- And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
- From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
- Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
- The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
- A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
- Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
- Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
- The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
- Here's to my love!
- O true apothecary!
- Thy drugs are quick. Thus, with a kiss, I die.
- - Romeo
- Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
- What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?
- Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
- O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
- To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;
- Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
- To make die with a restorative.
- Thy lips are warm.
- Yea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!
- This is thy sheath;
- there rust, and let me die.
- - Juliet
- Help me into some house, Benvolio,
- Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!
- They have made worms' meat of me: I have it,
- And soundly too: your houses!
- - Mercutio
- Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,
- Shall with him hence.
- - Tybalt
- O, I am slain! If thou be merciful,
- Open the tomb; lay me with Juliet.
- - Count Paris
- O, why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb?
- I am no baby, I, that with base prayers
- I should repent the evils I have done:
- Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did
- Would I perform, if I might have my will;
- If one good deed in all my life I did,
- I do repent it from my very soul.
- - Aaron the Moor
External links
[edit]- Full versions of all of Shakespeare's plays can be found at Wikisource