Shakespeare first folio frontispiece
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This is the frontispiece from Shakespeare’s first folio, and is the most commonly know portrait of him, although many other interpretations and likenesses of him exist.
Transcription:
"To the Reader
This figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to out-doo the life
O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face, the Print would then surpasse
All, that was ever writ in brasse.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
Not on his picture, but his booke.BI"
