I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world: And for because the world is populous And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it; yet I’ll hammer it out. My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul, My soul the father; and these two beget A generation of still-breeding thoughts, And these same thoughts people this little world, … Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails May tear a passage through the flinty ribs Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls, And, for they cannot, die in their own pride. Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves, Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame, That many have and others must sit there; And in this thought they find a kind of ease, Bearing their own misfortunes on the back Of such as have before endured the like. Thus play I in one person many people, And none contented: sometimes am I king; Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, And so I am: then crushing penury Persuades me I was better when a king; Then am I king’d again: and by and by Think that I am unking’d by Bolingbroke, And straight am nothing: but whate’er I be, Nor I nor any man that but man is With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased With being nothing. Music do I hear?
Music
Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is, When time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men’s lives. … I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; … This music mads me; let it sound no more; For though it have holp madmen to their wits, In me it seems it will make wise men mad. Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me! For ‘tis a sign of love; and love to Richard Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.