He helde about him alway, out of drede,
A world of folke.
Let the world slide, let the world go;
A fig for care, and a fig for woe!
If I can't pay, why I can owe,
And death makes equal the high and low.
Let the world wagge, and take mine ease in myne Inne.
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
Go, Soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless arrant:
Fear not to touch the best,
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
Historie of the World. Preface.
Historie of the World. Book v. Part 1.
f Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage,--the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power.
It is a world to see.
Fortune, the great commandress of the world,
Hath divers ways to advance her followers:
To some she gives honour without deserving,
To other some, deserving without honour.
To put a girdle round about the world.
Only a few industrious Scots perhaps, who indeed are dispersed over the face of the whole earth. But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on 't, in the world, than they are. And for my own part, I would a hundred thousand of them were there [Virginia]; for we are all one countrymen now, ye know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here.
And for the few that only lend their ear,
That few is all the world.
And who (in time) knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent
T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in the yet unformed Occident
May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?
When all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell that are not heaven.
I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness and the bettering of my mind.
Fortune reigns in gifts of the world.
Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.
O, how full of briers is this working-day world!
"Poor deer," quoth he, "thou makest a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which had too much."
O, good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion.
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags."
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard;
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Let the world slide.
Is it a world to hide virtues in?