The Language of Shakespeare – Modern Terms Coined by the Bard

Nurse: Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word: and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself: but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into a fool’s paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they say: for the gentlewoman is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.

Shylock: Go to then, you come to me, and you say, “Shylock, we would have moneys,” you say so. . . . Shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key, With bated breath and whisp’ring humbleness, Say this: “Fair sir, you spet on me Wednesday last, You spurn’d me such a day, another time You call’d me dog; and for these courtesies I’ll lend you thus much moneys”?

Edgar : The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us: The dark and vicious place where thee he got Cost him his eyes. Edmund: Th’ hast spoken right, ’tis true. The wheel is come full circle, I am here.

Polonius: Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

Falstaff : I will not lend thee a penny. Pistol : Why then the world’s mine oyster, Which I with sword will open.

Iago : It is as sure as you are Roderigo, Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago. In following him, I follow but myself; Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so, for my peculiar end; For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In complement extern, ’tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.