bonafides

She had done the safe thing—had accepted a life of slavery becauseshe was afraid. She was the kind of woman who might have been called“mammy” in some other household. She was the kind of woman whowould be held in contempt during the militant nineteen sixties. Thehouse-nigger, the handkerchief-head, the female Uncle Tom—the fright-ened powerless woman who had already lost all she could stand to lose,and who knew as little about the freedom of the North as she knew aboutthe hereafter.I looked down on her myself for a while. Moral superiority. Here wassomeone even less courageous than I was. That comforted me somehow.

Sarah, I’ve seen books written by slaves who’ve run away and livedin the North.”“Books!” She tried to sound contemptuous but sounded uncertaininstead. She couldn’t read. Books could be awesome mysteries to her, orthey could be dangerous time-wasting nonsense. It depended on hermood. Now her mood seemed to flicker between curiosity and fear. Fearwon. “Foolishness!” she said. “Niggers writing books!

“They do

The ones who make it. The ones living in freedom now.

“You need to see them—starving, ’bout naked, whipped, dragged, bit by dogs ... You need to seethem.”

“You need to look at some of theniggers they catch and bring back,”

Might not be alone as we look. People listen around here. And theytalk too.”

She jumped, looked around quickly. “You got no sense sometimes!Just talk all over your mouth!

When the time comes for me to stop working and get out of here, I’lldo it.

I ain’t goin’to take the blame for what they don’t do. Are you?”

“What’s it going to get them?”

Lazy niggers!

She was resented, of course,by slaves who made every effort to avoid jobs they didn’t like.

but without muchof the tension and strife Margaret generated

but I didn’t mind that

I worked where Ipleased, or where I saw that others needed help

No otherslave—house or field—had that much freedo

stinging

NATO

war

tough-as-nails woman.

He was just one of several regular employees at an auto-parts ware-house

No Doz.

casual labor agency

winos

madness

I do not set my life in a pin's fee;

beckons

it is a custom More honour'd in the breach than the observance. This heavy-headed revel east and west Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations: They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase Soil our addition; and indeed it takes20 From our achievements, though perform'd at height, The pith and marrow of our attribute.

The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels; And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,10 The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge.

I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, Have you so slander any moment leisure, As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.

When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter, Giving more light than heat, extinct in both, Even in their promise, as it is a-making, You must not take for fire

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain, If with too credent ear you list his songs,30 Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open To his unmaster'd importunity.

his will is not his own; For he himself is subject to his birth: He may not, as unvalued persons do, Carve for himself; for on his choice depends20 The safety and health of this whole state; And therefore must his choice be circumscribed Unto the voice and yielding of that body Whereof he is the head

For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour, Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.

yet, within a month-- Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!-- A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she follow'd my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she-- O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,150 Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle, My father's brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules: within a month: Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight, Let it be tenable in your silence still; And whatsoever else shall hap to-night, Give it an understanding, but no tongue:

the funeral baked meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables

But two months dead

Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet: I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

We pray you, throw to earth This unprevailing woe, and think of us As of a father: for let the world take note, You are the most immediate to our throne; And with no less nobility of love110 Than that which dearest father bears his son, Do I impart toward you.

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.70 Do not for ever with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust: Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.

My dread lord, Your leave and favour to return to France; From whence though willingly I came to Denmark, To show my duty in your coronation, Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,55 My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe, Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature5 That we with wisest sorrow think on him, Together with remembrance of ourselves. Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, The imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--10 With an auspicious and a dropping eye, With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, In equal scale weighing delight and dole,-- Taken to wife:

Mythopoei