Careful Words

forfeit (n.)

forfeit (v.)

forfeit (adj.)

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;

And He that might the vantage best have took

Found out the remedy. How would you be,

If He, which is the top of judgment, should

But judge you as you are?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd

As home his footsteps he hath turn'd

From wandering on a foreign strand?

If such there breathe, go, mark him well!

For him no minstrel raptures swell;

High though his titles, proud his name,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,—

Despite those titles, power, and pelf,

The wretch, concentred all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 1.