All’s Well That Ends Well / William Shakespeare

Title: All’s Well That Ends Well 

Author: William Shakespeare

Subjects: Play; Drama; Comedy

The play is based on a tale of Boccaccio's The Decameron. The play is considered one of Shakespeare’s "problem plays"; a play that poses complex ethical dilemmas that require more than typically simple solutions.

Romeo and Juliet / William Shakespeare

Title: Romeo and Juliet 

Author: William Shakespeare

Subjects: Classic; Drama; Play; Tragedy 

The title characters Romeo and Juliet are regarded as archetypal young lovers. The Story is about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. Romeo and Juliet borrows from a tradition of tragic love stories dating back to antiquity. One of these is Pyramus and Thisbe, from Ovid's Metamorphoses, which contains parallels to Shakespeare's story.

As You Like It / William Shakespeare

Title: As You Like It 

Author: William Shakespeare

Subjects: Drama; Play; Comedy 

As You Like It follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousin Celia to find safety and, eventually, love, in the Forest of Arden. In the forest, they encounter a variety of memorable characters, notably the melancholy traveller Jaques. Jaques provides a sharp contrast to the other characters in the play, always observing and disputing the hardships of life in the country.

The Comedy of Errors / William Shakespeare

Title: The Comedy of Errors 

Author: William Shakespeare

Subjects: Classic; Drama; Play

The Comedy of Errors tells the story of two sets of identical twins who were accidentally separated at birth. A series of wild mishaps based on mistaken identities lead to wrongful beatings, a near-seduction, the arrest, and false accusations of infidelity, theft, madness, and demonic possession.

Hamlet / William Shakespeare

Title: Hamlet (The Tragedy of Hamlet) 

Author: William Shakespeare

Subjects: Play; Drama; Tragedy 

The play depicts Prince Hamlet and his revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother. The story is endlessly retold and has many adaptation by others. It is one of the most powerful and influential works of world literature. 

Venus and Adonis / William Shakespeare

'Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.'

To the

Right Honorable Henry Wriothesly,

Earl of Southampton, and,

Baron of Tichfield.

Right Honorable,

I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed,

The Rape of Lucrece / William Shakespeare

To the Right Honorable Henry Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.

The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours;

The Phoenix and the Turtle / William Shakespeare

LET the bird of loudest lay, On the sole Arabian tree, Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou shrieking harbinger, Foul precurrer of the fiend, Augur of the fever's end, To this troop come thou not near! From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king: Keep the obsequy so strict. Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can, Be the death-divining swan, Lest the requiem lack his right. And thou treble-dated crow, That thy sable gender makest With the breath thou givest and takest, 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Sonnet-154 / William Shakespeare

CLIV.

The little Love-god lying once asleep

Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,

Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep

Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand

The fairest votary took up that fire

Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;

And so the general of hot desire

Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd.

Sonnet-153 / William Shakespeare

CLIII.

Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:

A maid of Dian's this advantage found,

And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep

In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;

Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love

A dateless lively heat, still to endure,

And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove

Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.

Sonnet-152 / William Shakespeare

CLII.

In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,

But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing,

In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,

In vowing new hate after new love bearing.

But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,

When I break twenty? I am perjured most;

For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee

And all my honest faith in thee is lost,

Sonnet-151 / William Shakespeare

CLI.

Love is too young to know what conscience is;

Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?

Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,

Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:

For, thou betraying me, I do betray

My nobler part to my gross body's treason;

My soul doth tell my body that he may

Triumph in love; flesh stays no father reason;

Sonnet-150 / William Shakespeare

CL.

O, from what power hast thou this powerful might

With insufficiency my heart to sway?

To make me give the lie to my true sight,

And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantize of skill

That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?

Sonnet-149 / William Shakespeare

CXLIX.

Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,

When I against myself with thee partake?

Do I not think on thee, when I forgot

Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?

Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?

On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?

Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend

Revenge upon myself with present moan?

Sonnet-148 / William Shakespeare

CXLVIII.

O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,

Which have no correspondence with true sight!

Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,

That censures falsely what they see aright?

If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,

What means the world to say it is not so?

If it be not, then love doth well denote

Love's eye is not so true as all men's 'No.'

Sonnet-147 / William Shakespeare

CXLVII.

My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

The uncertain sickly appetite to please.

My reason, the physician to my love,

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,

Hath left me, and I desperate now approve

Desire is death, which physic did except.

Sonnet-146 / William Shakespeare

CXLVI.

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

[ ] these rebel powers that thee array;

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?

Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?

Sonnet-145 / William Shakespeare

CXLV.

Those lips that Love's own hand did make

Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'

To me that languish'd for her sake;

But when she saw my woeful state,

Straight in her heart did mercy come,

Chiding that tongue that ever sweet

Was used in giving gentle doom,

And taught it thus anew to greet:

Sonnet-144 / William Shakespeare

CXLIV.

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,

Which like two spirits do suggest me still:

The better angel is a man right fair,

The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.

To win me soon to hell, my female evil

Tempteth my better angel from my side,

And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,

Wooing his purity with her foul pride.

Sonnet-143 / William Shakespeare

CXLIII.

Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch

One of her feather'd creatures broke away,

Sets down her babe and makes an swift dispatch

In pursuit of the thing she would have stay,

Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,

Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent

To follow that which flies before her face,

Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;