Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!

O Jest Unseen, Inscrutable, Invisible, As A Nose On A Man's Face, Or A Weathercock On A Steeple.

Haply For I Am Black, And Have Not Those Soft Parts Of Conversation That Chamberers Have; Or For I Am Declined Into The Vale Of Years—yet That’s Not Much— She’s Gone. I Am Abused, And My Relief Must Be To Loathe Her. O Curse Of Marriage, That We Can Call These Delicate Creatures Ours And Not Their Appetites! I Had Rather Be A Toad And Live Upon The Vapor Of A Dungeon Than Keep A Corner In The Thing I Love For Others’ Uses. Yet ’tis The Plague Of Great Ones; Prerogatived Are They Less Than The Base. ’tis Destiny Unshunnable, Like Death.

Preposterous Ass, That Never Read So Far To Know The Cause Why Music Was Ordain'd! Was It Not To Refresh The Mind Of Man, After His Studies Or His Usual Pain?

All Things Are Ready, If Our Mind Be So.

And Thence From Athens Turn Away Our Eyes To Seek New Friends And Stranger Companies.