OAK
PROSPERO
To the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire,
and rifted JOVE’S STOUT OAK
With his own bolt.
—Tempest [Act V, sc. 1]
WARWICK
Whose top-branch overpeer’d JOVE’S
SPREADING TREE
And kept low shrubs from winter’s powerful
wind.
—Henry VI, Pt. 3 [Act V, sc. 2]
BENEDICK
An OAK with but one
green leaf on it would
have answered her.
—Much Ado About Nothing [Act II, sc. 1]
ISABELLA
Thou split’st the unwedgable and gnarled OAK.
—Measure for Measure [Act II, sc. 2]
FIRST LORD
He lay along
Under an OAK, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood.
—As You Like It [Act II, sc. 1]
OLIVER
Under an OAK,
whose boughs were mossed with age,
And high top bald with dry antiquity.
—As You Like It [Act IV, sc. 3]
MARCIUS
He that depends
Upon your favours swims with fins of lead
And hews down OAKS with rushes.
—Coriolanus [Act I, sc. 1]
FENTON
Tonight at HERNE’S OAK,
just ’twixt twelve and one.
—Merry Wives of Windsor [Act IV, sc. 6]
ROSALIND
It may well be called JOVE’S TREE,
when it drops
forth such fruit.
—As You Like It [Act III, sc. 2]
FALSTAFF
Be you in the park about midnight at
HERNE’S OAK, and you shall see wonders.
—Merry Wives of Windsor [Act V, sc. 1]
PETER QUINCE
At the DUKE’S OAK we meet.
—A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Act I, sc. 2]
MISTRESS PAGE
They are all couched in a pit hard by
HERNE’S OAK. . . .
MISTRESS FORD
The hour draws on. To the OAK, to the OAK!
—Merry Wives of Windsor [Act V, sc. 3]
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Till ’tis one o’clock
Our dance of custom round about the OAK.
—Merry Wives of Windsor [Act V, sc. 5]
TIMON
The OAKS bear mast, the briers scarlet hips.
—Timon of Athens [Act IV, sc. 3]
NESTOR
When the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted OAKS.
—Troilus and Cressida [Act I, sc. 3]
VOLUMNIA
He comes the third time home with the OAKEN garland.
—Coriolanus [Act II, sc. 1]
TIMON
That numberless upon me struck as leaves
Do on the OAK, have with one winter’s brush
Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare
For every storm that blows.
—Timon of Athens [Act IV, sc. 3]
IAGO
She that so young could give out such a seeming
To seal her father’s eyes up close as OAK.
—Othello [Act III, sc. 3]
PROSPERO
If thou more murmur’st, I will rend an OAK,
And peg thee in his knotty entrails.
—Tempest [Act I, sc. 2]
ARVIRAGUS
To thee the reed is as the OAK.
—Cymbeline [Act IV, sc. 2]
KING LEAR
OAK-cleaving thunderbolts.
—King Lear [Act III, sc. 2]
NATHANIEL
Though to myself forsworn,
to thee I’ll faithful prove;
Those thoughts to me were OAKS,
to thee like osiers bow’d.
—Love’s Labour’s Lost [Act IV, sc. 2]
VOLUMNIA
To a cruel war I sent him,
from whence he returned,
his brows bound with OAK.
—Coriolanus [Act I, sc. 3]
MESSENGER
And many strokes, though with a little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest-timber’d OAK.
—Henry VI, Pt. 3 [Act II, sc. 1]
MISTRESS PAGE
There is an old tale goes that Herne the Hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the winter time at still midnight
Walk round about an OAK,
with great ragg’d horns . . .
MASTER PAGE
Why yet there want not many that do fear
In deep of night to walk by
this HERNE’S OAK . . .
MISTRESS FORD
That Falstaff at that OAK shall meet with us.
—Merry Wives of Windsor [Act IV, sc. 4]
MONTANO
What ribs of OAK,
when mountains melt on them,
Can hold the mortise?
—Othello [Act IV, sc. 1]
COMINIUS
He proved best man i’ the field, and for his meed
Was brow-bound with the OAK.
—Coriolanus [Act II, sc. 2]
SECOND SENATOR
The worthy fellow is our general; he’s the rock,
the OAK, not to be wind-shaken.
—Coriolanus [Act V, sc. 2]
VOLUMNIA
To charge thy sulphur with a bolt
That should but rive an OAK.
—Coriolanus [Act V, sc. 3]
CASCA
I have seen tempests when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty OAKS.
—Julius Cæsar [Act I, sc. 3]
MESSENGER
About his head he wears the winner’s OKE.
—Two Noble Kinsmen [Act IV, sc. 2]
Time’s glory is . . .
To dry the old OAK’S sap.
—Lucrece
PAULINA
As ever OAK or stone was sound.
—Winter’s Tale [Act II, sc. 3]