William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

SOFT you; a word or two before you go.

I have done the state some service, and they know it:

No more of that.—I pray you, in your letters,

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak

Of one that loved, not wisely, but too well;

Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,

Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,

Albeit unusèd to the melting mood,

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their medicinal gum. Set you down this,

And say, besides, that in Aleppo once,

Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk

Beat a Venetian, and traduced the state,

I took by the throat the circumcisèd dog,

And smote him—thus.[Stabs himself.