The Complete Works of William ShakespeareShakespeare, William
General
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, William
English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
by William Shakespeare
Contents
THE SONNETS
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
THE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
AS YOU LIKE IT
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
THE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS
CYMBELINE
THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK
THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH
THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH
THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH
THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH
THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH
THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH
KING HENRY THE EIGHTH
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN
THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR
THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR
LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE
PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE
KING RICHARD THE SECOND
KING RICHARD THE THIRD
THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
THE TEMPEST
THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS
THE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN
THE WINTER’S TALE
A LOVER’S COMPLAINT
THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
VENUS AND ADONIS
THE SONNETS
1
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
2
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
3
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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