"Methought I had, and often did I strive / To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood / Stopped-in my soul and would not let it forth / To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air, / But smothered it within my panting bulk, / Who almost burst to belch it in the sea."
— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Work Title
Date
1597
Metaphor
"Methought I had, and often did I strive / To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood / Stopped-in my soul and would not let it forth / To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air, / But smothered it within my panting bulk, / Who almost burst to belch it in the sea."
Metaphor in Context
CLARENCE
Methought I had, and often did I strive
To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood
Stopped-in my soul and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air,
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Who almost burst to belch it in the sea.
BRACKENBURY
Awaked you not in this sore agony?
CLARENCE
No, no, my dream was lengthened after life.
O then began the tempest to my soul!
I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that sour ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul
(I.iv.36-48)
Methought I had, and often did I strive
To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood
Stopped-in my soul and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air,
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Who almost burst to belch it in the sea.
BRACKENBURY
Awaked you not in this sore agony?
CLARENCE
No, no, my dream was lengthened after life.
O then began the tempest to my soul!
I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that sour ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul
(I.iv.36-48)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works. Oxford Shakespeare. Electronic Edition for the IBM PC. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, Editor.
Date of Entry
08/07/2003
