124 FREQUENTLY MENTIONED BY SHAKSPEARE. 



transport of the expecting Romeo, he well re- 

 marks, — 



" These violent delights have violent ends ; " 



and adds — 



" the sweetest honey 



Is loathsome in his own deliciousness. 

 And in the taste confounds the appetite ; 

 Therefore, love moderately." — Act II. Sc. V. 



But in general, the word is used metaphorically, not 

 literally. Thus Norfolk, in speaking of Cardinal 

 Wolsey, says, — 



" the king hath found 



Matter against him, that for ever mars 

 The honey of his langTiage." 



Henri/ VIII., Act III. Sc. II. 



And in the scene where Ophelia has borne the strange 

 and ungentle language of Hamlet, " get thee to a 

 nunnery," after her first thought, with all a woman's 

 fondness, has been given to his mental aberration: — 



*' O ! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ; " 



she deplores her own condition, in the words, — 



" And I of ladies most abject and wTetched, 

 That suck'd the honey of his music vows. " 



Act III. Sc. II. 



In the same manner the word is employed by 



Romeo, on his descent into the monument where lies 



the " living corse " of the " fair Juliet." 



" O my love ! my wife ! 



Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath. 



Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty," — Act V. Sc. III. 



