D'Arvit

Upon the king! Let us our lives, our souls
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children, and our sins lay on the king!
We must bear all. O hard condition,
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
But his own wringing! What infinite heart’s-ease
Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!
And what have kings, that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that sufferst more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? What are thy comings in?
O ceremony, show me but thy worth!
What is thy soul of adoration?
Art thou aught else but place, degree and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy being feared,
Than they in fearing.
What drinkst thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poisoned flattery? O be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
Thinkst thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?
Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Canst thou, when thou commands’t the beggars knee,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That plays’t so subtly with a king’s repose;
I am a king that find thee, and I know,
‘Tis not the balm, the scepter and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running ‘fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who with a body fill’d and a vacant mind
Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread;
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
But, like a lackey, from rise to set,
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night
Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,
Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
And follows so the ever-running year,
With profitable labour, to his grove,
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country’s peace,
Enjoys it; but in a grass brain little wots
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant the best advantages.

O! Woe is me!
Picture if thou will,
My frustration,
As i have aught to be called
Upon the platform
To deliver this ill-fated object of my doom!
Many a sleepless night
Have I suffered
To toil and anguish,
To vexation and despair,
To distress and ruin,
In order to mine memory commit,
Mine ill-fated soliloquy!
Mentors of torment,
Who hath to us imparted
Objects of ill-will
And contempt,
Thinkst thou are we happy
To experience such a life?
Our lights are burn’d,
The fiery rush washed away,
And yea! woe is me!
Woe is upon my day!

Next up:
In my next blog post, I shall write my entry a la Shakespeare!