QUOTES FROM THE BARD

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Agamemnon
CONTEXT:
AGAMEMNON
Princes,
What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below
Fails in the promised largeness: checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest reared,
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
That we come short of our suppose so far
That after seven years’ siege yet Troy walls stand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave’t surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abashed behold our works,
And call them shames? which are indeed nought else
But the protractive trials of great Jove
To find persistive constancy in men:
The fineness of which metal is not found
In fortune’s love; for then the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft seem all affined and kin:
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass or matter, by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.

DUTCH:
Doch als zij ‘t voorhoofd fronst, en stormt, en loeit,
Komt zifting, met een groote wan, en doet
Met krachtig schudden ‘t lichte kaf vervliegen;
Maar wat gewicht en echt gehalte heeft,
Blijft liggen, rijk in waarde en onvermengd.

MORE:
Design=A work in hand, enterprise, cause
Checks=Obstacles
Conflux=Confluence
Tortive=Twisted
Errant=Wandering
Suppose=Intention, expectation
Bias=Awry
Answering=Fulfilling
Unbodied=Abstract
Surmised=Imaginary
Shame=Disgrace
Protractive=Protracting
Persistive=Persistent
Metal=Mettle, spirit
Artist=Scholar
Unmingled=Pure
Compleat:
Design=Opzet, voorneemen, oogmerk, aanslag, toeleg, ontwerp
Check=Berispen, beteugelen, intoomen, verwyten
Conflux=’t Zamenvloed, vermenging van wateren
Tortile=Geboogen, gerekt, verdraaid, gekronkeld
Errant=Doolende, omzwervende
Suppose=Vermoeden, denken, onderstellen
To run bias=Schuin loopen
Surmise=Een vermoeden, waan
Shame (reproach, ignominy)=Schande
To protract=Uytstellen, verlengen
Persisting=Aanhoudende, byblyvende
Full of mettle=Vol vuurs, moedig
Unmingled=Ongemengd



Topics: plans/intentions, advice, failure, adversity, disappointment