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All for Love

Critique • Quotes

First edition, 1678First edition
By John Dryden
Publication details ▽ Publication details △

Subtitle
Or, the World Well Lost

First performance
1677

Literature form
Play

Genres
Tragedy

Writing language
English

Author's country
England

Length
Five acts

Notable lines

What flocks of critics hover here to-day,
As vultures wait on armies for their prey,
All gaping for the carcase of a play!

— First lines, "Prologue"

Portents and prodigies have grown so frequent,
That they have lost their name.

First lines, Act I, Scene 1

Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've need to show that they can think at all;
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls, must dive below.

"Prologue"

Give, you gods,
Give to your boy, your Caesar,
The rattle of a globe to play withal,
This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off;
I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.

 

Men are but children of a larger growth;
Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,
And full as craving, too, and full as vain.

 

My love's a noble madness,
Which shows the cause deserved it.

 

She loves you, even to madness.

With how much ease believe we what we wish!

 

Sleep, blest pair,
Secure from human chance, long ages out,
While all the storms of fate fly o'er your tomb;
And fame to late posterity shall tell,
No lovers lived so great, or died so well.

— Last lines, Act V, Scene 1

Let not the young and beauteous join with those;
For should you raise such numerous hosts of foes,
Young wits and sparks he to his aid must call;
'Tis more than one man's work to please you all.

— Last lines, "Epilogue"

 

Critique • Quotes

See also:

Edward II

Julius Caesar

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