Comedic Monologues

1. Puck – A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act 3, Scene 2)
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

Through the forest have I gone,
But Athenian found I none,
On whose eyes I might approve
This flower’s force in stirring love.
Yet who is here? Lysander! on the ground!
True, he forsook the maiden’s hand.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe.
When thou wakest, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:
So awake when I am gone;
For I must now to Oberon.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!

2. Helena – A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act 1, Scene 1)
"How happy some o’er other some can be!"

How happy some o’er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.

3. Gratiano – The Merchant of Venice (Act 1, Scene 1)
"Let me play the fool."

Let me play the fool:
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
I tell thee what, Antonio—
I hold the world but as the world,
A stage, where every man must play a part,
And mine a merry one.

4. Launce – Two Gentlemen of Verona (Act 2, Scene 3)
"Nay, ’twill be this hour ere I have done weeping."

Nay, ’twill be this hour ere I have done weeping;
All the kind of the Launces have this very fault.
I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son,
And am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial’s court.
I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog
That lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing,
My sister crying, our maid howling,
Our cat wringing her hands, and all our house
In a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear!

Dramatic Monologues

5. Juliet – Romeo and Juliet (Act 3, Scene 2)
"Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds."

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus’ lodging; such a wagoner
As Phaëton would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway eyes may wink,
And Romeo leap to these arms, untalked of and unseen.
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night.

6. Hamlet – Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 2)
"O, that this too too solid flesh would melt."

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two.
Frailty, thy name is woman!

7. Lady Macbeth – Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 5)
"The raven himself is hoarse."

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose.
Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes.

8. Ophelia – Hamlet (Act 4, Scene 5)
"They bore him barefaced on the bier."

They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain’d many a tear:
Fare you well, my dove!
You must sing ‘Down a-down, an you call him a-down-a.’
O, how the wheel becomes it!
It is the false steward, that stole his master’s daughter.
Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker’s daughter.
Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.
God be at your table!

Historical Monologues

9. Hotspur – Henry IV, Part 1 (Act 1, Scene 3)
"By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap."

By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks;
So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
Without corrival all her dignities:
But out upon this half-faced fellowship!

10. Henry V – Henry V (Act 3, Scene 1)
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more."

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height.