CHAPTER VI - BOOKS AND AUTHORS

Summary

Polonius. What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet. Words, words, words.

Hamlet, ii. ii. 189–90

Slender. I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here. How now, Simple! where have you been? I must wait on myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles about you, have you?

Simple. Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to Alice Shortcake upon All-Hallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas?

The Merry Wives of Windsor, i. i. 205–12

Patronage

To the right honourable Henry Wriothesly,

Earl of Southampton and Baron of Tichfield.

The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with happiness.

Your lordship's in all duty,

William Shakespeare

Dedication of The Rape of Lucrece, 1594

Most gracious and dread Sovereign,

… Thirteen years your Highness's servant, but yet nothing. Twenty friends that though they say they will be sure, I find them sure too slow. A thousand hopes, but all nothing. A hundred promises, but yet nothing.