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  ...touch the gate, You are a fair viol, and your sense the strings; Who, finger'd to make man his lawful music, Would draw heaven down, and all the gods to hearken; But being play'd upon before your time, Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime. Good sooth, I care not for you.
ANTIOCHUS. Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life, For that's an article within our law, As dangerous as the rest. Tour time's expired: Either expound now, or receive your sentence.
PERICLES. Great king, Few love to hear the sins they love to act.   'Twould braid yourself too near for me to tell it. Who has a book of all that monarchs do, He's more secure to keep it shut than shown: For vice repeated is like the wandering wind, Blows dust in others' eyes, to spread itself; And yet the end of all is bought thus dear, The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole casts Copp'd hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is throng'd By man's oppression; and the poor worm doth die...   Shakespeare, William

Excerpt from Pericles · This quote is about sin · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.


A bit about Shakespeare, William ...

Born ca. 1564 and died ca. 1616 during the Renaissance period (1450-1599). One of the greatest writers of all time, Shakespeare, the peerless poet of the Sonnets and the creator of such dramatic masterpieces as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and King Lear, is a playwright of paradigmatic originality. In his discussion of the Western literary canon, critic Harold Bloom declared: "Shakespeare and Dante are the center of the Canon because they excel all other Western writer in cognitive acuity, linguistic energy, and power of invention." However, one could go a step further and suggest that Shakespeare defines the Western canon because he transcends it. If Shakespeare, as Ben Jonson declared, "was not of an age, but for all time," the great dramatist, one could argue, spoke to the ultimate concerns of humankind, regardless of period or cultural tradition.

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