Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers / an exposition of their similarities of throught and expression, preceded by a view of emblem-literature down to A.D. 1616

by Henry Green

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.”

Or, in Hotspur’s words (1 Henry IV., act v. sc. 2, l. 82, vol. iv. p. 337),—

“O gentlemen, the time of life is short!

To spend that shortness basely were too long,

If life did ride upon a dial’s point,

Still ending at the arrival of an hour.”

And for eternity’s Emblem,[^[187]] the Egyptians, we are told (Horapollo, i. 1), made golden figures of the Basilisk, with its tail covered by the rest of its body; so Otho Vænius presents the device to us. But Shakespeare, without symbol, names the desire, the feeling, the fact itself; he makes Cleopatra exclaim (Antony and Cleopatra, act v. sc. 2, l. 277, vol. ix. p. 150), “I have immortal longings in me,” “I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life.”

When Romeo asks (Romeo and Juliet, act v. sc. 1, l. 15, vol. vii. p. 117),—