in which pore men be but the lokers on

from Thomas More, The History of King Richard III (ca. 1515)

[the context: Richard and Buckingham, in engineering their takeover of the realm, have staged a scene in which Buckingham, before a large group of citizens, offers Richard the crown several times, but he bashfully refuses--until he is compelled by the shouts of 'the people' (not really the citizens, but their hired plants in the crowd).]

With this there was a great shout, crying kyng Richarde king Richard. And then the lordes went up to the kyng (for so was he from that time called) and the people departed, talkyng diversly of the matter every man as his fantasye gave hym. But muche they talked and marveiled of the maner of this dealing, that the matter was on both partes made so straunge, as though neither had ever communed with the other thereof before, when that themselves wel wist there was no man so dul that heard them, but he perceived wel inough, that all the matter was made betwene them. Howbeit somme excused that agayne, and sayde all must be done in good order though. And men must sometime for the manner sake not bee a knowen what they knowe. For at the consecracion of a bishop, every man woteth well by the paying for his bulles, that he purposeth to be one, & though he paye for nothing elles. And yet must he bee twise asked whyther he wil be bishop or no, and he muste twyse say naye, and at the third tyme take it as compelled ther unto by his owne wyll.

And in a stage play all the people know right wel, that he that playeth the sowdayne is percase as sowter. [that is, the actor playing the sultan is actually a shoemaker]. Yet if one should have so little sense to shewe out of seasonne what acquaintance he hath with him, and calle him by his owne name whyle he standeth in his magestie, one of his tormentors might hap to break his head, and worth[il]y [so] for marring of the play. And so they said that these matters bee Kynges games, as it were stage playes, and for the more part plaied upon scafoldes. In which pore men be but the lokers on. And thei that wise be, wil medle no farther. For they that sometyme step up and play with them, when they cannot play their partes, they disorder the play & do themselves no good.

how I, or you, or we, might feel, sometimes

from Italo Calvino, The Road to San Giovanni trans. Tim Parks (1993)

For the brief span of our lifetimes, everything remains there on the screen, distressingly present; the first images of eros and premonitions of death catch up with us in every dream; the end of the world began with us and shows no signs of ending; the film we thought we were watching is the story of our lives.