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John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

672 William Shakespeare 1564-1616 John Bartlett

 
NUMBER:672
AUTHOR:William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
QUOTATION:Makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music. 1
ATTRIBUTION:The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.  [text]
WORKS:William Shakespeare Collection.
 
Note 1.
I will play the swan and die in music.—Othello, act v. sc. 2.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death.
King John, act v. sc. 7.

There, swan-like, let me sing and die.—Lord Byron: Don Juan, canto iii. st. 86.

You think that upon the score of fore-knowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death they sing more merrily than before, because of the joy they have in going to the God they serve.—Socrates: In Phaedo, 77. [back]