O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
William Shakespeare
1564 to 1616
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month—
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
Would have mourn'd longer—married with my uncle,
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
Let me not think on't—Frailty, thy name is woman!—
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
My father's brother, but no more like my father
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
A little month; or ere those shoes were old
As if increase of appetite had grown
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Like Niobe, all tears:—why she, even she—
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,