Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell

That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

[V, v, 17–28] On hearing the news of his lady’s death, Macbeth retreats into a world of his own to reflect upon the meaningless futility of all he has fought and killed for:

She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word –

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Antony and Cleopatra

[IV, xiv, 44–54] Having parted at odds with his Egyptian lover, Antony is broken by the news of her death (though it will turn out to be untrue). He will himself commit suicide, he resolves, and they will be reconciled in the next life, like the Carthaginian Queen Dido and the Trojan hero Aeneas.

I will o’ertake thee, Cleopatra, and

Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now

All length is torture; since the torch is out,

Lie down, and stray no farther. Now all labour

Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles

Itself with strength. Seal then, and all is done.

Eros! – I come, my queen – Eros! Stay for me.

Where souls do couch on flowers, we’ll hand in hand,

And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:

Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops,

And all the haunt be ours.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre

[I, i, 122–43] Pericles is horror-struck – and terrified – when he realizes that his intended bride has been the incestuous lover of her father, the great king Antiochus:

How courtesy would seem to cover sin,

When what is done is like an hypocrite,

The which is good in nothing but in sight.

If it be true that I interpret false,

Then were it certain you were not so bad

As with foul incest to abuse your soul;

Where now you’re both a father and a son

By your untimely claspings with your child,

Which pleasures fits a husband, not a father,

And she, an eater of her mother’s flesh

By the defiling of her parents’ bed;

And both like serpents are, who though they feed

On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed.

Antioch, farewell, for wisdom sees those men

Blush not in actions blacker than the night

Will shun no course to keep them from the light.

One sin, I know, another doth provoke.

Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke.

Poison and treason are the hands of sin,

Ay, and the targets to put off the shame.

Then, lest my life be cropped to keep you clear,

By flight I’ll shun the danger which I fear.