Page:Richard II (1921) Yale.djvu/112

100 And for because the world is populous,

And here is not a creature but myself,

I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.

My brain I'll prove the female to my soul;

My soul the father: and these two beget

A generation of still-breeding thoughts,

And these same thoughts people this little world

In humours like the people of this world,

For no thought is contented. The better sort,

As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd

With scruples, and do set the word itself

Against the word:

As thus, 'Come, little ones'; and then again,

'It is as hard to come as for a camel

To thread the postern of a needle's eye.'

Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot

Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails

May tear a passage through the flinty ribs

Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;

And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.

Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves

That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,

Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars

Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,

That many have and others must sit there:

And in this thought they find a kind of ease,

Bearing their own misfortunes on the back

Of such as have before endur'd the like.

Thus play I in one person many people,

And none contented: sometimes am I king;

 6 prove: establish as

8 still-breeding: continually breeding

9 little world; cf. n.

10 humours: temperaments

13 scruples: doubts

13, 14 word: the Gospel

15, 16 ''Cf. St. Matthew 11. 28; 19. 14, 24''

17 postern: small gate

21 ragged: rough

25 silly: poor

26 refuge their shame: cover their shame with the reflection

