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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Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Like Niobe, all tears:—why she, even she—
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Would have mourn'd longer—married with my uncle,
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
A little month; or ere those shoes were old
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month—
As if increase of appetite had grown
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
My father's brother, but no more like my father
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
Let me not think on't—Frailty, thy name is woman!—
It is not nor it cannot come to good: