Ay, but to die, and go we know not where (Measure for Measure)

Themes: Broken Promises, Classical, Death, Measure for Measure, Shakespeare, Siblings
Length: 1 Minute

Claudio is expressing his fear of death and the unknown, reflecting on the broken promises and the consequences he faces.

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; to lie in cold obstruction and to rot; this sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit to bathe in fiery floods, or to reside in thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; to be imprison’d in the viewless winds, and blown with restless violence round about the pendent world; or to be worse than worst of those that lawless and incertain thought imagine howling: ’tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life that age, ache, penury and imprisonment can lay on nature is a paradise to what we fear of death.