Act I, Scene 140

---

• Shakespeare. Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
  My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
  Lest sorrow lend me words and words express 1950
  The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
  If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
  Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
  As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
  No news but health from their physicians know; 1955
  For if I should despair, I should grow mad,
  And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
  Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
  Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be,
  That I may not be so, nor thou belied, 1960
  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.