William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)​

"The will is infinite
and the execution confin'd,
the desire is boundless
and the act a slave
to limit."



"La voluntad es infinita
y la ejecución confinada,
el deseo es ilimitado
y el acto un esclavo
del límite."

Sonnet 116 - William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 

Admit impediments. Love is not love 

Which alters when it alteration finds, 

Or bends with the remover to remove: 

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken; 

It is the star to every wandering bark, 

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. 

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 

Within his bending sickle's compass come; 

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 

 If this be error and upon me proved, 

 I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Shakespeare - Matthew Arnold (c.1849)

Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil'd searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure,
Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.—Better so!

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.






Source: Poetry Foundation

"If music be the food of love, play on" (...) - William Shakespeare

From Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, 1602:

DUKE ORSINO:
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.


ORSINO:
Si la música es alimento de amor, tocad,
siempre, tocad hasta saciarme.
Así el deseo languidecerá y entonces morirá. 
¡Oh, esa melodía...de nuevo...qué lenta se desvanece...!
Oh, inundó mi oído cual viento dulcísimo
que suspira sobre un lecho de violetas
dándole un perfume para luego quitárselo.
¡No, no más! ¡Que está perdiendo su dulzura!
Qué lozano, qué ágil eres, oh espíritu del amor,
eres inmenso como el océano;
así también tu avidez
–no importa lo que engulla, ni su precio ni su valor-
hace que todo quede disminuido, y degradado...
¡Y en un instante! Caprichosas son las formas del deseo,
tanto, que se diría que nada existe tan fantástico.