quote · Source-linked selection
And often did beguile her of her tears, When I did speak of some distressful stroke That my youth suffer'd. My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs; She swore, in faith, 't was strange, 't was passing strange. 'T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful; She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd That Heaven had made her such a man; she thank'd me, And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, I should but teach him how to tell my story, And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake: She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd, And I loved her that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I have used.
And often did beguile her of her tears, When I did speak of some distressful stroke That my youth suffer'd. My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs; She swore, in faith, 't was strange, 't was passing strange. 'T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful; She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd That Heaven had made her such a man; she thank'd me, And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, I should but teach him how to tell my story, And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake: She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd, And I loved her that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I have used.
Approximate author period: c. 1590 AD · renaissance
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- Author or tradition
- William Shakespeare
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1590 AD · renaissance
author lifetime midpoint
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Familiar Quotations, ninth edition (1905 printing) (1905 AD)
Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.
The voice behind the words.
Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.
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