# Result number

Work The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets are treated as single work with 154 parts.

Character Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet, the character name is "Poet."

Line Shows where the line falls within the work.

The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not restart for each scene.

Text The line's full text, with keywords highlighted within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.

1

Antony and Cleopatra
[II, 5]

Cleopatra

1058

And when good will is show'd, though't come
too short,
The actor may plead pardon. I'll none now:
Give me mine angle; we'll to the river: there,
My music playing far off, I will betray
Tawny-finn'd fishes; my bended hook shall pierce
Their slimy jaws; and, as I draw them up,
I'll think them every one an Antony,
And say 'Ah, ha! you're caught.'

2

Antony and Cleopatra
[III, 13]

Domitius Enobarus

2368

[Aside] 'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp
Than with an old one dying.

3

Hamlet
[III, 2]

Hamlet

1896

Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your
tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with
this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of
nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing,
whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as
'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show Virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his
form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though
it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious
grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance
o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I
have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly (not to
speak it profanely), that, neither having the accent of
Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's
journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated
humanity so abominably.

4

Hamlet
[III, 2]

Horatio

1967

Well, my lord.
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
Sound a flourish. [Enter Trumpets and Kettledrums. Danish
march. [Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern,
and other Lords attendant, with the Guard carrying torches.]

5

Henry IV, Part I
[I, 2]

Henry V

298

I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.

6

Henry IV, Part I
[III, 3]

Falstaff

2094

How! the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup: 'sblood, an
he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he
would say so.
[Enter PRINCE HENRY and PETO, marching, and FALSTAFF
meets them playing on his truncheon like a life]
How now, lad! is the wind in that door, i' faith?
must we all march?

7

Henry V
[I, 2]

Earl of Westmoreland

311

But there's a saying very old and true,
'If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin:'
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,
Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
To tear and havoc more than she can eat.

8

Henry VI, Part III
[IV, 3]

Second Watchman

2192

Stay, or thou diest!
[WARWICK and the rest cry all, 'Warwick! Warwick!']
and set upon the Guard, who fly, crying, 'Arm!
arm!' WARWICK and the rest following them]
[The drum playing and trumpet sounding, reenter]
WARWICK, SOMERSET, and the rest, bringing KING
EDWARD IV out in his gown, sitting in a chair.
RICHARD and HASTINGS fly over the stage]

9

Love's Labour's Lost
[IV, 3]

Dumain

1429

[Reads]
On a day—alack the day!—
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn;
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!
Do not call it sin in me,
That I am forsworn for thee;
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.
This will I send, and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note;
For none offend where all alike do dote.

10

Lover's Complaint

Shakespeare

240

'But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave
The thing we have not, mastering what not strives,
Playing the place which did no form receive,
Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves?
She that her fame so to herself contrives,
The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight,
And makes her absence valiant, not her might.

11

Merry Wives of Windsor
[I, 1]

Slender

262

I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised
my shin th' other day with playing at sword and
dagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a
dish of stewed prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot
abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your
dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town?

12

Midsummer Night's Dream
[II, 1]

Titania

433

Then I must be thy lady: but I know
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest Steppe of India?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.

13

Midsummer Night's Dream
[IV, 2]

Flute

1802

O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a
day during his life; he could not have 'scaped
sixpence a day: an the duke had not given him
sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged;
he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in
Pyramus, or nothing.

14

Passionate Pilgrim

Shakespeare

228

On a day, alack the day!
Love, whose month was ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind
All unseen, gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath,
'Air,' quoth he, 'thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alas! my hand hath sworn
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
Vow, alack! for youth unmeet:
Youth, so apt to pluck a sweet.
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.'

15

Romeo and Juliet
[II, 5]

Juliet

1398

Now, good sweet nurse,—O Lord, why look'st thou sad?
Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news
By playing it to me with so sour a face.

16

Tempest
[I, 2]

Prospero

532

So, slave; hence!
[Exit CALIBAN]
[Re-enter ARIEL, invisible, playing and singing;]
FERDINAND following]
ARIEL'S song.
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Courtsied when you have and kiss'd
The wild waves whist,
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
Hark, hark!
[Burthen [dispersedly, within] Bow-wow]
The watch-dogs bark!
[Burthen Bow-wow]
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.

17

Tempest
[II, 1]

(stage directions)

896

[Enter ARIEL, invisible, playing solemn music]

18

Tempest
[V, 1]

Prospero

2197

In this last tempest. I perceive these lords
At this encounter do so much admire
That they devour their reason and scarce think
Their eyes do offices of truth, their words
Are natural breath: but, howsoe'er you have
Been justled from your senses, know for certain
That I am Prospero and that very duke
Which was thrust forth of Milan, who most strangely
Upon this shore, where you were wreck'd, was landed,
To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;
For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,
Not a relation for a breakfast nor
Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir;
This cell's my court: here have I few attendants
And subjects none abroad: pray you, look in.
My dukedom since you have given me again,
I will requite you with as good a thing;
At least bring forth a wonder, to content ye
As much as me my dukedom.
[Here PROSPERO discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA]
playing at chess]

19

Timon of Athens
[I, 2]

(stage directions)

332

[Hautboys playing loud music. A great banquet]
served in; FLAVIUS and others attending; then enter
TIMON, ALCIBIADES, Lords, Senators, and VENTIDIUS.
Then comes, dropping, after all, APEMANTUS,
discontentedly, like himself]

20

Timon of Athens
[I, 2]

First Lord

473

You see, my lord, how ample you're beloved.
[Music. Re-enter Cupid with a mask of Ladies]
as Amazons, with lutes in their hands,
dancing and playing]