Digital facsimile of the Bodleian First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, Arch. G c.7
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Rich. To thred the posterne of a Needles eye.
Rich. Thoughts tending to Ambition, they do plot
Rich. Vnlikely wonders; how these vaine weake nailes
Rich. May teare a passage through the Flinty ribbes
Rich. Of this hard world, my ragged prison walles:
Rich. And for they cannot, dye in their owne pride.
Rich. Thoughts tending to Content, flatter themselues,
Rich. That they are not the first of Fortunes slaues,
Rich. Nor shall not be the last. Like silly Beggars,
Rich. Who sitting in the Stockes, refuge their shame
Rich. That many haue, and others must sit there;
Rich. And in this Thought, they finde a kind of ease,
Rich. Bearing their owne misfortune on the backe
Rich. Of such as haue before indur'd the like.
Rich. Thus play I in one Prison, many people,
Rich. And none contented. Sometimes am I King;
Rich. Then Treason makes me wish my selfe a Beggar,
Rich. And so I am. Then crushing penurie,
Rich. Perswades me, I was better when a King:
Rich. Then am I king'd againe: and by and by,