Shakespear - a woman describing night terrors and PTSD.

“O my good lord, why are you thus alone? For what offense have I this fortnight been A banished woman from my Harry’s bed?

Tell me, sweet lord, what is ‘t that takes from thee Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?

Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, And start so often when thou sit’st alone?

Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks And given my treasures and my rights of thee To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?

In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars, Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed, Cry “Courage! To the field!” And thou hast talk’d Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin, Of prisoners’ ransom and of soldiers slain, And all the currents of a heady fight.

Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep, That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow Like bubbles in a late-disturbèd stream;

And in thy face strange motions have appeared, Such as we see when men restrain their breath On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these? Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, And I must know it, else he loves me not.” —Henry IV, Part 1 (2.3.39-67)