All for Love
CRITIQUE | THE TEXT
First editionSubtitle
Or, the World Well Lost
First performance
1677
Literature form(s
Play
Genres
Tragedy
Writing language
English
Author's country
England
Length
Five acts
Notable lines
First lines
What flocks of critics hover here to-day,
As vultures wait on armies for their prey,
All gaping for the carcase of a play!
Prologue
Portents and prodigies have grown so frequent,
That they have lost their name.
Act I, Scene 1
Passages
Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've need to show that they can think at all;
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls, must dive below.
Prologue
Give, you gods,
Give to your boy, your Caesar,
The rattle of a globe to play withal,
This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off;
I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.
Men are but children of a larger growth;
Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,
And full as craving, too, and full as vain.
My love's a noble madness,
Which shows the cause deserved it.
She loves you, even to madness.
With how much ease believe we what we wish!
Last lines
Sleep, blest pair,
Secure from human chance, long ages out,
While all the storms of fate fly o'er your tomb;
And fame to late posterity shall tell,
No lovers lived so great, or died so well.
Act V, Scene 1
Let not the young and beauteous join with those;
For should you raise such numerous hosts of foes,
Young wits and sparks he to his aid must call;
'Tis more than one man's work to please you all.
Prologue
CRITIQUE | THE TEXT
