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THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
VENUS AND ADONIS
THE SONNETS
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117
Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time your own dear-purchased right,
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on just proof surmise, accumulate,
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:
Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
The constancy and virtue of your love.
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ACT II
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And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
Enter Oberon at one door, with his Train, and Titania at another, with
hers.
OBERON.
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
TITANIA.
What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence;
I have forsworn his bed and company.
OBERON.
Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?
TITANIA.
Then I must be thy lady; but I know
When thou hast stol’n away from fairyland,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steep of India,
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin’d mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded; and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity?
OBERON.
How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
TITANIA.
These are the forgeries of jealousy:
And never, since the middle summer’s spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By pavèd fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or on the beachèd margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb’d our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck’d up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,
Hath every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents.
The ox hath therefore stretch’d his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain’d a beard.
The fold stands empty in the drownèd field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine-men’s-morris is fill’d up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.
The human mortals want their winter here.
No night is now with hymn or carol blest.
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
OBERON.
Do you amend it, then. It lies in you.
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy
To be my henchman.
TITANIA.
Set your heart at rest;
The fairyland buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot’ress of my order,
And in the spicèd Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossip’d by my side;
And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,
Marking th’ embarkèd traders on the flood,
When we have laugh’d to see the sails conceive,
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
Following (her womb then rich with my young squire),
Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
And for her sake I will not part with him.
OBERON.
How long within this wood intend you stay?
TITANIA.
Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding-day.
If you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
OBERON.
Give me that boy and I will go with thee.
TITANIA.
Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.
We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
[_Exit Titania with her Train._]
OBERON.
Well, go thy way. Thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.—
My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb’rest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid’s music.
PUCK.
I remember.
OBERON.
That very time I saw, (but thou couldst not),
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm’d: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, thronèd by the west,
And loos’d his love-shaft smartly from his bow
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
And the imperial votress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower, the herb I showed thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
PUCK.
I’ll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
[_Exit Puck._]
OBERON.
Having once this juice,
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep,
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes:
The next thing then she waking looks upon
(Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape)
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm from off her sight
(As I can take it with another herb)
I’ll make her render up her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible;
And I will overhear their conference.
Enter Demetrius, Helena following him.
DEMETRIUS.
I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
The one I’ll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thou told’st me they were stol’n into this wood,
And here am I, and wode within this wood
Because I cannot meet with Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
HELENA.
You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant,
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.
DEMETRIUS.
Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?
Or rather do I not in plainest truth
Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?
HELENA.
And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love,
(And yet a place of high respect with me)
Than to be usèd as you use your dog?
DEMETRIUS.
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
HELENA.
And I am sick when I look not on you.
DEMETRIUS.
You do impeach your modesty too much
To leave the city and commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not,
To trust the opportunity of night.
And the ill counsel of a desert place,
With the rich worth of your virginity.
HELENA.
Your virtue is my privilege: for that.
It is not night when I do see your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night;
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you, in my respect, are all the world.
Then how can it be said I am alone
When all the world is here to look on me?
DEMETRIUS.
I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
HELENA.
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will, the story shall be chang’d;
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
The dove pursues the griffin, the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger. Bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues and valour flies!
DEMETRIUS.
I will not stay thy questions. Let me go,
Or if thou follow me, do not believe
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
HELENA.
Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.
We cannot fight for love as men may do.
We should be woo’d, and were not made to woo.
[_Exit Demetrius._]
I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.
[_Exit Helena._]
OBERON.
Fare thee well, nymph. Ere he do leave this grove,
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
Enter Puck.
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
PUCK.
Ay, there it is.
OBERON.
I pray thee give it me.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth. Anoint his eyes;
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care, that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love:
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
PUCK.
Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
[_Exeunt._]
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ACT IV
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URSULA.
Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder’s old coil at home: it
is proved, my Lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the Prince and
Claudio mightily abused; and Don John is the author of all, who
is fled and gone. Will you come presently?
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THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
VENUS AND ADONIS
THE SONNETS
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37
As a decrepit father takes delight,
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more
Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,
That I in thy abundance am sufficed,
And by a part of all thy glory live:
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,
This wish I have, then ten times happy me.
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ACT IV
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DON PEDRO.
Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the
fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.
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THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
VENUS AND ADONIS
THE SONNETS
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129
Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before a joy proposed behind a dream.
All this the world well knows yet none knows well,
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
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TWO GAOLERS
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QUEEN, wife to Cymbeline
IMOGEN, daughter to Cymbeline by a former queen
HELEN, a lady attending on Imogen
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ACT IV
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BENEDICK.
If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he
that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.
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ACT IV
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FRIAR.
Hear me a little;
For I have only been silent so long,
And given way unto this course of fortune,
By noting of the lady: I have mark’d
A thousand blushing apparitions
To start into her face; a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness bear away those blushes;
And in her eye there hath appear’d a fire,
To burn the errors that these princes hold
Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool;
Trust not my reading nor my observations,
Which with experimental seal doth warrant
The tenure of my book; trust not my age,
My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
Under some biting error.
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ACT IV
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Dramatis Personæ
KING HENRY V.
DUKE OF CLARENCE, brother to the King.
DUKE OF BEDFORD, brother to the King.
DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, brother to the King.
DUKE OF EXETER, uncle to the King.
DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King.
EARL OF SALISBURY.
EARL OF HUNTINGDON.
EARL OF WESTMORLAND.
EARL OF WARWICK.
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.
BISHOP OF ELY.
EARL OF CAMBRIDGE.
LORD SCROOP.
SIR THOMAS GREY.
SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, officer in King Henry’s army.
GOWER, officer in King Henry’s army.
FLUELLEN, officer in King Henry’s army.
MACMORRIS, officer in King Henry’s army.
JAMY, officer in King Henry’s army.
BATES, soldier in the same.
COURT, soldier in the same.
WILLIAMS, soldier in the same.
PISTOL.
NYM.
BARDOLPH.
BOY.
A Herald.
CHARLES VI, king of France.
LEWIS, the Dauphin.
DUKE OF BERRY.
DUKE OF BRITTANY.
DUKE OF BURGUNDY.
DUKE OF ORLEANS.
DUKE OF BOURBON.
The Constable of France.
RAMBURES, French Lord.
GRANDPRÉ, French Lord.
Governor of Harfleur
MONTJOY, a French herald.
Ambassadors to the King of England.
ISABEL, queen of France.
KATHARINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel.
ALICE, a lady attending on her.
HOSTESS of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Mistress Nell Quickly, and
now married to Pistol.
CHORUS.
Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, and
Attendants.
SCENE: England; afterwards France.
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LORD SCALES
LORD SAYE
MATTHEW GOUGH
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Alexander IDEN, a Kentish gentleman
Lords, Ladies, and Attendants, Petitioners, Aldermen, a Herald, a
Beadle, Sheriff, and Officers, Citizens, Prentices, Falconers, Guards,
Soldiers, Messengers, &c.
A Spirit
SCENE: England.
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ACT IV
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Scene I. The plains of Philippi.
Scene II. The same. The field of battle.
Scene III. Another part of the field.
Scene IV. Another part of the field.
Scene V. Another part of the field.
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ACT IV
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Re-enter Curtis.
GRUMIO.
Where is he?
CURTIS.
In her chamber, making a sermon of continency to her;
And rails, and swears, and rates, that she, poor soul,
Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak,
And sits as one new risen from a dream.
Away, away! for he is coming hither.
[_Exeunt._]
Re-enter Petruchio.
PETRUCHIO.
Thus have I politicly begun my reign,
And ’tis my hope to end successfully.
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty.
And till she stoop she must not be full-gorg’d,
For then she never looks upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come, and know her keeper’s call,
That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites
That bate and beat, and will not be obedient.
She eat no meat today, nor none shall eat;
Last night she slept not, nor tonight she shall not;
As with the meat, some undeserved fault
I’ll find about the making of the bed;
And here I’ll fling the pillow, there the bolster,
This way the coverlet, another way the sheets;
Ay, and amid this hurly I intend
That all is done in reverend care of her;
And, in conclusion, she shall watch all night:
And if she chance to nod I’ll rail and brawl,
And with the clamour keep her still awake.
This is a way to kill a wife with kindness;
And thus I’ll curb her mad and headstrong humour.
He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
Now let him speak; ’tis charity to show.
[_Exit._]
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THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
VENUS AND ADONIS
THE SONNETS
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39
O how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring:
And what is’t but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this, let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give:
That due to thee which thou deserv’st alone:
O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.
And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
By praising him here who doth hence remain.
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INDUCTION
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SCENE I. The same.
Enter Lord Bardolph.
LORD BARDOLPH.
Who keeps the gate here, ho?
The Porter opens the gate.
Where is the Earl?
PORTER.
What shall I say you are?
LORD BARDOLPH.
Tell thou the Earl
That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.
PORTER.
His lordship is walk’d forth into the orchard.
Please it your honour knock but at the gate,
And he himself will answer.
Enter Northumberland.
LORD BARDOLPH.
Here comes the Earl.
[_Exit Porter._]
NORTHUMBERLAND.
What news, Lord Bardolph? Every minute now
Should be the father of some stratagem.
The times are wild; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose
And bears down all before him.
LORD BARDOLPH.
Noble earl,
I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Good, an God will!
LORD BARDOLPH.
As good as heart can wish.
The King is almost wounded to the death;
And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
Kill’d by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John
And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;
And Harry Monmouth’s brawn, the hulk Sir John,
Is prisoner to your son. O, such a day,
So fought, so follow’d and so fairly won,
Came not till now to dignify the times
Since Caesar’s fortunes!
NORTHUMBERLAND.
How is this derived?
Saw you the field? Came you from Shrewsbury?
LORD BARDOLPH.
I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
A gentleman well bred and of good name,
That freely render’d me these news for true.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
On Tuesday last to listen after news.
Enter Travers.
LORD BARDOLPH.
My lord, I over-rode him on the way,
And he is furnish’d with no certainties
More than he haply may retail from me.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?
TRAVERS.
My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn’d me back
With joyful tidings, and, being better horsed,
Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard
A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
That stopp’d by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
He ask’d the way to Chester, and of him
I did demand what news from Shrewsbury.
He told me that rebellion had bad luck
And that young Harry Percy’s spur was cold.
With that he gave his able horse the head,
And bending forward struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head, and starting so
He seem’d in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Ha? Again:
Said he young Harry Percy’s spur was cold?
Of Hotspur, Coldspur? That rebellion
Had met ill luck?
LORD BARDOLPH.
My lord, I’ll tell you what:
If my young lord your son have not the day,
Upon mine honour, for a silken point
I’ll give my barony, never talk of it.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
Give then such instances of loss?
LORD BARDOLPH.
Who, he?
He was some hilding fellow that had stolen
The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,
Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.
Enter Morton.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.
So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness’d usurpation.
Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
MORTON.
I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord,
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
To fright our party.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
How doth my son and brother?
Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dread in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy’s death ere thou report’st it.
This thou wouldst say: “Your son did thus and thus;
Your brother thus; so fought the noble Douglas”
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with “Brother, son, and all are dead.”
MORTON.
Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
But, for my lord your son—
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Why, he is dead.
See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
He that but fears the thing he would not know
Hath by instinct knowledge from others’ eyes
That what he fear’d is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
Tell thou an earl his divination lies,
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
MORTON.
You are too great to be by me gainsaid,
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Yet, for all this, say not that Percy’s dead.
I see a strange confession in thine eye.
Thou shakest thy head and hold’st it fear or sin
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so.
The tongue offends not that reports his death;
And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
Not he which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember’d tolling a departing friend.
LORD BARDOLPH.
I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
MORTON.
I am sorry I should force you to believe
That which I would to God I had not seen;
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rend’ring faint quittance, wearied and outbreathed,
To Harry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
From whence with life he never more sprung up.
In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best-temper’d courage in his troops;
For from his metal was his party steel’d,
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn’d on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
And as the thing that’s heavy in itself
Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur’s loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field. Then was that noble Worcester
Too soon ta’en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain th’ appearance of the King,
Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
Of those that turn’d their backs, and in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
Is that the King hath won, and hath sent out
A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
Under the conduct of young Lancaster
And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well.
And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken’d joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
Out of his keeper’s arms, even so my limbs,
Weaken’d with grief, being now enraged with grief,
Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!
A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
Must glove this hand. And hence, thou sickly coif!
Thou art a guard too wanton for the head
Which princes, flesh’d with conquest, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron, and approach
The ragged’st hour that time and spite dare bring
To frown upon th’ enraged Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature’s hand
Keep the wild flood confined! Let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!
LORD BARDOLPH.
This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.
MORTON.
Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.
The lives of all your loving complices
Lean on your health; the which, if you give o’er
To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
You cast th’ event of war, my noble lord,
And summ’d the account of chance, before you said
“Let us make head.” It was your presurmise
That in the dole of blows your son might drop.
You knew he walk’d o’er perils, on an edge,
More likely to fall in than to get o’er.
You were advised his flesh was capable
Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit
Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged.
Yet did you say “Go forth;” and none of this,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The stiff-borne action. What hath then befall’n,
Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?
LORD BARDOLPH.
We all that are engaged to this loss
Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
That if we wrought out life ’twas ten to one;
And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed
Choked the respect of likely peril fear’d;
And since we are o’erset, venture again.
Come, we will put forth, body and goods.
MORTON.
’Tis more than time. And, my most noble lord,
I hear for certain, and dare speak the truth:
The gentle Archbishop of York is up
With well-appointed powers. He is a man
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corpse,
But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;
For that same word, “rebellion” did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls,
And they did fight with queasiness, constrain’d,
As men drink potions, that their weapons only
Seem’d on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,
This word, “rebellion,” it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion.
Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He’s follow’d both with body and with mind,
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones;
Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
And more and less do flock to follow him.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
Go in with me, and counsel every man
The aptest way for safety and revenge.
Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed.
Never so few, and never yet more need.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. London. A street.
Enter Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler.
FALSTAFF.
Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?
PAGE.
He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but, for the
party that owed it, he might have moe diseases than he knew for.
FALSTAFF.
Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this
foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends
to laughter more than I invent, or is invented on me. I am not only
witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk
before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If
the Prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me
off, why then I have no judgement. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art
fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never
manned with an agate till now, but I will inset you neither in gold nor
silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master,
for a jewel,—the juvenal, the Prince your master, whose chin is not yet
fledge. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he
shall get one off his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face
is a face-royal. God may finish it when He will, ’tis not a hair amiss
yet. He may keep it still at a face-royal, for a barber shall never
earn sixpence out of it. And yet he’ll be crowing as if he had writ man
ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but
he’s almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dommelton
about the satin for my short cloak and my slops?
PAGE.
He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph. He
would not take his band and yours, he liked not the security.
FALSTAFF.
Let him be damned like the glutton! Pray God his tongue be hotter! A
whoreson Achitophel! A rascally yea-forsooth knave, to bear a gentleman
in hand, and then stand upon security! The whoreson smooth-pates do now
wear nothing but high shoes and bunches of keys at their girdles; and
if a man is through with them in honest taking up, then they must stand
upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as
offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two and
twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me
“security”. Well, he may sleep in security, for he hath the horn of
abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it; and yet
cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him. Where’s
Bardolph?
PAGE.
He’s gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.
FALSTAFF.
I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a horse in Smithfield. An I
could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.
Enter the Lord Chief Justice and Servant.
PAGE.
Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the Prince for striking him
about Bardolph.
FALSTAFF.
Wait close, I will not see him.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
What’s he that goes there?
SERVANT.
Falstaff, an ’t please your lordship.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
He that was in question for the robbery?
SERVANT.
He, my lord; but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury, and, as
I hear, is now going with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
What, to York? Call him back again.
SERVANT.
Sir John Falstaff!
FALSTAFF.
Boy, tell him I am deaf.
PAGE.
You must speak louder, my master is deaf.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good.
Go pluck him by the elbow, I must speak with him.
SERVANT.
Sir John!
FALSTAFF.
What! A young knave, and begging! Is there not wars? Is there not
employment? Doth not the King lack subjects? Do not the rebels need
soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse
shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name
of rebellion can tell how to make it.
SERVANT.
You mistake me, sir.
FALSTAFF.
Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting my knighthood and
my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.
SERVANT.
I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside,
and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am
any other than an honest man.
FALSTAFF.
I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that which grows to me? If
thou get’st any leave of me, hang me; if thou tak’st leave, thou wert
better be hanged. You hunt counter. Hence! Avaunt!
SERVANT.
Sir, my lord would speak with you.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.
FALSTAFF.
My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see
your lordship abroad. I heard say your lordship was sick. I hope your
lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past
your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the
saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship to have a
reverend care of your health.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.
FALSTAFF.
An ’t please your lordship, I hear his Majesty is returned with some
discomfort from Wales.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
I talk not of his Majesty. You would not come when I sent for you.
FALSTAFF.
And I hear, moreover, his Highness is fallen into this same whoreson
apoplexy.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, God mend him! I pray you let me speak with you.
FALSTAFF.
This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy, an ’t please your
lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.
FALSTAFF.
It hath it original from much grief, from study and perturbation of the
brain. I have read the cause of his effects in Galen. It is a kind of
deafness.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
I think you are fallen into the disease, for you hear not what I say to
you.
FALSTAFF.
Very well, my lord, very well. Rather, an ’t please you, it is the
disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled
withal.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears, and
I care not if I do become your physician.
FALSTAFF.
I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient. Your lordship may
minister the potion of imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but
how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may
make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to
come speak with me.
FALSTAFF.
As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this
land-service, I did not come.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.
FALSTAFF.
He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.
FALSTAFF.
I would it were otherwise, I would my means were greater and my waist
slenderer.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
You have misled the youthful prince.
FALSTAFF.
The young prince hath misled me. I am the fellow with the great belly,
and he my dog.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound. Your day’s service at
Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night’s exploit on Gad’s
Hill. You may thank th’ unquiet time for your quiet o’er-posting that
action.
FALSTAFF.
My lord!
CHIEF JUSTICE.
But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.
FALSTAFF.
To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
What! You are as a candle, the better part burnt out.
FALSTAFF.
A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow. If I did say of wax, my growth
would approve the truth.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
There is not a white hair in your face but should have his effect of
gravity.
FALSTAFF.
His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.
FALSTAFF.
Not so, my lord, your ill angel is light, but I hope he that looks upon
me will take me without weighing. And yet in some respects, I grant, I
cannot go. I cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these
costermongers’ times that true valour is turned bearherd; pregnancy is
made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings. All
the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes
them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old consider not the
capacities of us that are young; you do measure the heat of our livers
with the bitterness of your galls, and we that are in the vaward of our
youth, I must confess, are wags too.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down
old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry
hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing
belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double,
your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity? And
will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!
FALSTAFF.
My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a
white head and something a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it
with halloing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I
will not. The truth is, I am only old in judgement and understanding;
and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me
the money, and have at him! For the box of the ear that the Prince gave
you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible
lord. I have checked him for it, and the young lion repents. Marry, not
in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, God send the Prince a better companion!
FALSTAFF.
God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, the King hath severed you and Prince Harry. I hear you are going
with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the Earl of
Northumberland.
FALSTAFF.
Yea, I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you
that kiss my lady Peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day;
for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to
sweat extraordinarily. If it be a hot day, and I brandish anything but
a bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a
dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it. Well, I
cannot last ever. But it was alway yet the trick of our English nation,
if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs say
I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name were
not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to
death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, be honest, be honest, and God bless your expedition!
FALSTAFF.
Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare
you well: commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.
[_Exeunt Chief Justice and Servant._]
FALSTAFF.
If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate
age and covetousness than he can part young limbs and lechery: but the
gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the
degrees prevent my curses. Boy!
PAGE.
Sir?
FALSTAFF.
What money is in my purse?
PAGE.
Seven groats and two pence.
FALSTAFF.
I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse. Borrowing
only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. Go bear
this letter to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the Prince; this to the
Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old Mistress Ursula, whom I have
weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair of my
chin. About it. You know where to find me. [_Exit Page_.] A pox of this
gout! or a gout of this pox! for the one or the other plays the rogue
with my great toe. ’Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my
colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will
make use of anything. I will turn diseases to commodity.
[_Exit._]
SCENE III. York. The Archbishop’s palace.
Enter the Archbishop, the Lords Hastings, Mowbray and Bardolph.
ARCHBISHOP.
Thus have you heard our cause and known our means,
And, my most noble friends, I pray you all
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes.
And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it?
MOWBRAY.
I well allow the occasion of our arms,
But gladly would be better satisfied
How in our means we should advance ourselves
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the King.
HASTINGS.
Our present musters grow upon the file
To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
And our supplies live largely in the hope
Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
With an incensed fire of injuries.
LORD BARDOLPH.
The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:
Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland.
HASTINGS.
With him we may.
LORD BARDOLPH.
Yea, marry, there’s the point:
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgement is, we should not step too far
Till we had his assistance by the hand;
For in a theme so bloody-faced as this
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids incertain should not be admitted.
ARCHBISHOP.
’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed
It was young Hotspur’s case at Shrewsbury.
LORD BARDOLPH.
It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flatt’ring himself in project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts,
And so, with great imagination
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
And winking leap’d into destruction.
HASTINGS.
But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.
LORD BARDOLPH.
Yes, if this present quality of war—
Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot—
Lives so in hope, as in an early spring
We see th’ appearing buds; which to prove fruit
Hope gives not so much warrant as despair
That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model,
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then we must rate the cost of the erection,
Which if we find outweighs ability,
What do we then but draw anew the model
In fewer offices, or at least desist
To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down
And set another up, should we survey
The plot of situation and the model,
Consent upon a sure foundation,
Question surveyors, know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else
We fortify in paper and in figures,
Using the names of men instead of men,
Like one that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it, who, half through,
Gives o’er and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds
And waste for churlish winter’s tyranny.
HASTINGS.
Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,
Should be still-born, and that we now possess’d
The utmost man of expectation,
I think we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the King.
LORD BARDOLPH.
What, is the King but five and twenty thousand?
HASTINGS.
To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph;
For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads: one power against the French,
And one against Glendower; perforce a third
Must take up us. So is the unfirm king
In three divided, and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.
ARCHBISHOP.
That he should draw his several strengths together
And come against us in full puissance
Need not be dreaded.
HASTINGS.
If he should do so,
He leaves his back unarm’d, the French and Welsh
Baying him at the heels: never fear that.
LORD BARDOLPH.
Who is it like should lead his forces hither?
HASTINGS.
The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;
Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth;
But who is substituted ’gainst the French
I have no certain notice.
ARCHBISHOP.
Let us on,
And publish the occasion of our arms.
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.
An habitation giddy and unsure
Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many, with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!
And being now trimm’d in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him
That thou provok’st thyself to cast him up.
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl’st to find it. What trust is in these times?
They that, when Richard lived, would have him die
Are now become enamour’d on his grave.
Thou that threw’st dust upon his goodly head
When through proud London he came sighing on
After th’ admired heels of Bolingbroke,
Criest now “O earth, yield us that king again,
And take thou this!” O thoughts of men accursed!
Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.
MOWBRAY.
Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on?
HASTINGS.
We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.
[_Exeunt._]
|
poem
| 14
|
A SOOTHSAYER
A CLOWN
| null |
SCENE I. Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra’s palace.
Enter Demetrius and Philo.
PHILO.
Nay, but this dotage of our general’s
O’erflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes,
That o’er the files and musters of the war
Have glowed like plated Mars, now bend, now turn
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front. His captain’s heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy’s lust.
Flourish. Enter Antony and Cleopatra, her Ladies, the Train, with
Eunuchs fanning her.
Look where they come:
Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple pillar of the world transform’d
Into a strumpet’s fool. Behold and see.
CLEOPATRA.
If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
ANTONY.
There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
CLEOPATRA.
I’ll set a bourn how far to be beloved.
ANTONY.
Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER.
News, my good lord, from Rome.
ANTONY.
Grates me, the sum.
CLEOPATRA.
Nay, hear them, Antony.
Fulvia perchance is angry; or who knows
If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent
His powerful mandate to you: “Do this or this;
Take in that kingdom and enfranchise that.
Perform’t, or else we damn thee.”
ANTONY.
How, my love?
CLEOPATRA.
Perchance! Nay, and most like.
You must not stay here longer; your dismission
Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.
Where’s Fulvia’s process?—Caesar’s I would say? Both?
Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt’s queen,
Thou blushest, Antony, and that blood of thine
Is Caesar’s homager; else so thy cheek pays shame
When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!
ANTONY.
Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay. Our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life
Is to do thus [_Embracing_]; when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do’t, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.
CLEOPATRA.
Excellent falsehood!
Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
I’ll seem the fool I am not. Antony
Will be himself.
ANTONY.
But stirred by Cleopatra.
Now, for the love of Love and her soft hours,
Let’s not confound the time with conference harsh.
There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch
Without some pleasure now. What sport tonight?
CLEOPATRA.
Hear the ambassadors.
ANTONY.
Fie, wrangling queen!
Whom everything becomes—to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee fair and admired!
No messenger but thine, and all alone
Tonight we’ll wander through the streets and note
The qualities of people. Come, my queen,
Last night you did desire it. Speak not to us.
[_Exeunt Antony and Cleopatra with the Train._]
DEMETRIUS.
Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?
PHILO.
Sir, sometimes when he is not Antony,
He comes too short of that great property
Which still should go with Antony.
DEMETRIUS.
I am full sorry
That he approves the common liar who
Thus speaks of him at Rome, but I will hope
Of better deeds tomorrow. Rest you happy!
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Alexandria. Another Room in Cleopatra’s palace.
Enter Enobarbus, a Soothsayer, Charmian, Iras, Mardian and Alexas.
CHARMIAN.
Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost most absolute
Alexas, where’s the soothsayer that you praised so to th’ queen? O,
that I knew this husband which you say must charge his horns with
garlands!
ALEXAS.
Soothsayer!
SOOTHSAYER.
Your will?
CHARMIAN.
Is this the man? Is’t you, sir, that know things?
SOOTHSAYER.
In nature’s infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.
ALEXAS.
Show him your hand.
ENOBARBUS.
Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
Cleopatra’s health to drink.
CHARMIAN.
Good, sir, give me good fortune.
SOOTHSAYER.
I make not, but foresee.
CHARMIAN.
Pray, then, foresee me one.
SOOTHSAYER.
You shall be yet far fairer than you are.
CHARMIAN.
He means in flesh.
IRAS.
No, you shall paint when you are old.
CHARMIAN.
Wrinkles forbid!
ALEXAS.
Vex not his prescience. Be attentive.
CHARMIAN.
Hush!
SOOTHSAYER.
You shall be more beloving than beloved.
CHARMIAN.
I had rather heat my liver with drinking.
ALEXAS.
Nay, hear him.
CHARMIAN.
Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married to three kings in a
forenoon and widow them all. Let me have a child at fifty, to whom
Herod of Jewry may do homage. Find me to marry me with Octavius Caesar,
and companion me with my mistress.
SOOTHSAYER.
You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.
CHARMIAN.
O, excellent! I love long life better than figs.
SOOTHSAYER.
You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune
Than that which is to approach.
CHARMIAN.
Then belike my children shall have no names. Prithee, how many boys and
wenches must I have?
SOOTHSAYER.
If every of your wishes had a womb,
And fertile every wish, a million.
CHARMIAN.
Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.
ALEXAS.
You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.
CHARMIAN.
Nay, come, tell Iras hers.
ALEXAS.
We’ll know all our fortunes.
ENOBARBUS.
Mine, and most of our fortunes tonight, shall be drunk to bed.
IRAS.
There’s a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.
CHARMIAN.
E’en as the o’erflowing Nilus presageth famine.
IRAS.
Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.
CHARMIAN.
Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I cannot
scratch mine ear. Prithee, tell her but workaday fortune.
SOOTHSAYER.
Your fortunes are alike.
IRAS.
But how, but how? give me particulars.
SOOTHSAYER.
I have said.
IRAS.
Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?
CHARMIAN.
Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you
choose it?
IRAS.
Not in my husband’s nose.
CHARMIAN.
Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas—come, his fortune! his
fortune! O, let him marry a woman that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech
thee, and let her die too, and give him a worse, and let worse follow
worse, till the worst of all follow him laughing to his grave,
fiftyfold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny
me a matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee!
IRAS.
Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! For, as it is a
heartbreaking to see a handsome man loose-wived, so it is a deadly
sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded. Therefore, dear Isis, keep
decorum and fortune him accordingly!
CHARMIAN.
Amen.
ALEXAS.
Lo now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they would make
themselves whores but they’d do’t!
Enter Cleopatra.
ENOBARBUS.
Hush, Here comes Antony.
CHARMIAN.
Not he, the queen.
CLEOPATRA.
Saw you my lord?
ENOBARBUS.
No, lady.
CLEOPATRA.
Was he not here?
CHARMIAN.
No, madam.
CLEOPATRA.
He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!
ENOBARBUS.
Madam?
CLEOPATRA.
Seek him and bring him hither. Where’s Alexas?
ALEXAS.
Here, at your service. My lord approaches.
Enter Antony with a Messenger.
CLEOPATRA.
We will not look upon him. Go with us.
[_Exeunt Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Charmian, Iras, Alexas and
Soothsayer._]
MESSENGER.
Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
ANTONY.
Against my brother Lucius.
MESSENGER.
Ay.
But soon that war had end, and the time’s state
Made friends of them, jointing their force ’gainst Caesar,
Whose better issue in the war from Italy
Upon the first encounter drave them.
ANTONY.
Well, what worst?
MESSENGER.
The nature of bad news infects the teller.
ANTONY.
When it concerns the fool or coward. On.
Things that are past are done with me. ’Tis thus:
Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,
I hear him as he flattered.
MESSENGER.
Labienus—
This is stiff news—hath with his Parthian force
Extended Asia from Euphrates
His conquering banner shook from Syria
To Lydia and to Ionia,
Whilst—
ANTONY.
“Antony”, thou wouldst say—
MESSENGER.
O, my lord!
ANTONY.
Speak to me home; mince not the general tongue.
Name Cleopatra as she is called in Rome;
Rail thou in Fulvia’s phrase, and taunt my faults
With such full licence as both truth and malice
Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds
When our quick minds lie still, and our ills told us
Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
MESSENGER.
At your noble pleasure.
[_Exit Messenger._]
Enter another Messenger.
ANTONY.
From Sicyon, ho, the news? Speak there!
SECOND MESSENGER.
The man from Sicyon—
ANTONY.
Is there such a one?
SECOND MESSENGER.
He stays upon your will.
ANTONY.
Let him appear.
[_Exit second Messenger._]
These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
Or lose myself in dotage.
Enter another Messenger with a letter.
What are you?
THIRD MESSENGER.
Fulvia thy wife is dead.
ANTONY.
Where died she?
THIRD MESSENGER.
In Sicyon:
Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
Importeth thee to know, this bears.
[_Gives a letter._]
ANTONY.
Forbear me.
[_Exit third Messenger._]
There’s a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it.
What our contempts doth often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again. The present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become
The opposite of itself. She’s good, being gone.
The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.
I must from this enchanting queen break off.
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch. How now, Enobarbus!
Enter Enobarbus.
ENOBARBUS.
What’s your pleasure, sir?
ANTONY.
I must with haste from hence.
ENOBARBUS.
Why then we kill all our women. We see how mortal an unkindness is to
them. If they suffer our departure, death’s the word.
ANTONY.
I must be gone.
ENOBARBUS.
Under a compelling occasion, let women die. It were pity to cast them
away for nothing, though, between them and a great cause they should be
esteemed nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies
instantly. I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer moment. I
do think there is mettle in death which commits some loving act upon
her, she hath such a celerity in dying.
ANTONY.
She is cunning past man’s thought.
ENOBARBUS.
Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of
pure love. We cannot call her winds and waters sighs and tears; they
are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report. This cannot
be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as
Jove.
ANTONY.
Would I had never seen her!
ENOBARBUS.
O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work, which not
to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel.
ANTONY.
Fulvia is dead.
ENOBARBUS.
Sir?
ANTONY.
Fulvia is dead.
ENOBARBUS.
Fulvia?
ANTONY.
Dead.
ENOBARBUS.
Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth their
deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to man the tailors
of the earth; comforting therein that when old robes are worn out,
there are members to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia,
then had you indeed a cut, and the case to be lamented. This grief is
crowned with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new petticoat:
and indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.
ANTONY.
The business she hath broached in the state
Cannot endure my absence.
ENOBARBUS.
And the business you have broached here cannot be without you,
especially that of Cleopatra’s, which wholly depends on your abode.
ANTONY.
No more light answers. Let our officers
Have notice what we purpose. I shall break
The cause of our expedience to the Queen,
And get her leave to part. For not alone
The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
Do strongly speak to us, but the letters too
Of many our contriving friends in Rome
Petition us at home. Sextus Pompeius
Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands
The empire of the sea. Our slippery people,
Whose love is never linked to the deserver
Till his deserts are past, begin to throw
Pompey the Great and all his dignities
Upon his son, who, high in name and power,
Higher than both in blood and life, stands up
For the main soldier; whose quality, going on,
The sides o’ th’ world may danger. Much is breeding
Which, like the courser’s hair, hath yet but life
And not a serpent’s poison. Say our pleasure
To such whose place is under us, requires
Our quick remove from hence.
ENOBARBUS.
I shall do’t.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra’s palace.
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Alexas and Iras.
CLEOPATRA.
Where is he?
CHARMIAN.
I did not see him since.
CLEOPATRA.
See where he is, who’s with him, what he does.
I did not send you. If you find him sad,
Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report
That I am sudden sick. Quick, and return.
[_Exit Alexas._]
CHARMIAN.
Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,
You do not hold the method to enforce
The like from him.
CLEOPATRA.
What should I do I do not?
CHARMIAN.
In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.
CLEOPATRA.
Thou teachest like a fool: the way to lose him.
CHARMIAN.
Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear.
In time we hate that which we often fear.
But here comes Antony.
Enter Antony.
CLEOPATRA.
I am sick and sullen.
ANTONY.
I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose—
CLEOPATRA.
Help me away, dear Charmian! I shall fall.
It cannot be thus long; the sides of nature
Will not sustain it.
ANTONY.
Now, my dearest queen—
CLEOPATRA.
Pray you, stand farther from me.
ANTONY.
What’s the matter?
CLEOPATRA.
I know by that same eye there’s some good news.
What, says the married woman you may go?
Would she had never given you leave to come!
Let her not say ’tis I that keep you here.
I have no power upon you; hers you are.
ANTONY.
The gods best know—
CLEOPATRA.
O, never was there queen
So mightily betrayed! Yet at the first
I saw the treasons planted.
ANTONY.
Cleopatra—
CLEOPATRA.
Why should I think you can be mine and true,
Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,
Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,
To be entangled with those mouth-made vows
Which break themselves in swearing!
ANTONY.
Most sweet queen—
CLEOPATRA.
Nay, pray you seek no colour for your going,
But bid farewell and go. When you sued staying,
Then was the time for words. No going then,
Eternity was in our lips and eyes,
Bliss in our brows’ bent; none our parts so poor
But was a race of heaven. They are so still,
Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,
Art turned the greatest liar.
ANTONY.
How now, lady!
CLEOPATRA.
I would I had thy inches, thou shouldst know
There were a heart in Egypt.
ANTONY.
Hear me, queen:
The strong necessity of time commands
Our services awhile, but my full heart
Remains in use with you. Our Italy
Shines o’er with civil swords; Sextus Pompeius
Makes his approaches to the port of Rome;
Equality of two domestic powers
Breed scrupulous faction; the hated, grown to strength,
Are newly grown to love; the condemned Pompey,
Rich in his father’s honour, creeps apace
Into the hearts of such as have not thrived
Upon the present state, whose numbers threaten;
And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge
By any desperate change. My more particular,
And that which most with you should safe my going,
Is Fulvia’s death.
CLEOPATRA.
Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die?
ANTONY.
She’s dead, my queen.
Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read
The garboils she awaked; at the last, best,
See when and where she died.
CLEOPATRA.
O most false love!
Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill
With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,
In Fulvia’s death how mine received shall be.
ANTONY.
Quarrel no more, but be prepared to know
The purposes I bear; which are, or cease,
As you shall give th’ advice. By the fire
That quickens Nilus’ slime, I go from hence
Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war
As thou affects.
CLEOPATRA.
Cut my lace, Charmian, come!
But let it be; I am quickly ill and well,
So Antony loves.
ANTONY.
My precious queen, forbear,
And give true evidence to his love, which stands
An honourable trial.
CLEOPATRA.
So Fulvia told me.
I prithee, turn aside and weep for her,
Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears
Belong to Egypt. Good now, play one scene
Of excellent dissembling, and let it look
Like perfect honour.
ANTONY.
You’ll heat my blood. No more.
CLEOPATRA.
You can do better yet, but this is meetly.
ANTONY.
Now, by my sword—
CLEOPATRA.
And target. Still he mends.
But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,
How this Herculean Roman does become
The carriage of his chafe.
ANTONY.
I’ll leave you, lady.
CLEOPATRA.
Courteous lord, one word.
Sir, you and I must part, but that’s not it;
Sir, you and I have loved, but there’s not it;
That you know well. Something it is I would—
O, my oblivion is a very Antony,
And I am all forgotten.
ANTONY.
But that your royalty
Holds idleness your subject, I should take you
For idleness itself.
CLEOPATRA.
’Tis sweating labour
To bear such idleness so near the heart
As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me,
Since my becomings kill me when they do not
Eye well to you. Your honour calls you hence;
Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,
And all the gods go with you! Upon your sword
Sit laurel victory, and smooth success
Be strewed before your feet!
ANTONY.
Let us go. Come.
Our separation so abides and flies
That thou, residing here, goes yet with me,
And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.
Away!
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE IV. Rome. An Apartment in Caesar’s House.
Enter Octavius [Caesar], Lepidus and their train.
CAESAR.
You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,
It is not Caesar’s natural vice to hate
Our great competitor. From Alexandria
This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
The lamps of night in revel: is not more manlike
Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy
More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or
Vouchsafed to think he had partners. You shall find there
A man who is the abstract of all faults
That all men follow.
LEPIDUS.
I must not think there are
Evils enough to darken all his goodness.
His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,
More fiery by night’s blackness; hereditary
Rather than purchased; what he cannot change
Than what he chooses.
CAESAR.
You are too indulgent. Let’s grant it is not
Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy,
To give a kingdom for a mirth, to sit
And keep the turn of tippling with a slave,
To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet
With knaves that smell of sweat. Say this becomes him—
As his composure must be rare indeed
Whom these things cannot blemish—yet must Antony
No way excuse his foils when we do bear
So great weight in his lightness. If he filled
His vacancy with his voluptuousness,
Full surfeits and the dryness of his bones
Call on him for’t. But to confound such time
That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud
As his own state and ours, ’tis to be chid
As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure
And so rebel to judgment.
Enter a Messenger.
LEPIDUS.
Here’s more news.
MESSENGER.
Thy biddings have been done, and every hour,
Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report
How ’tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea,
And it appears he is beloved of those
That only have feared Caesar. To the ports
The discontents repair, and men’s reports
Give him much wronged.
CAESAR.
I should have known no less.
It hath been taught us from the primal state
That he which is was wished until he were,
And the ebbed man, ne’er loved till ne’er worth love,
Comes deared by being lacked. This common body,
Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
To rot itself with motion.
Enter a second Messenger.
SECOND MESSENGER.
Caesar, I bring thee word
Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,
Make the sea serve them, which they ear and wound
With keels of every kind. Many hot inroads
They make in Italy—the borders maritime
Lack blood to think on’t—and flush youth revolt.
No vessel can peep forth but ’tis as soon
Taken as seen; for Pompey’s name strikes more
Than could his war resisted.
CAESAR.
Antony,
Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once
Was beaten from Modena, where thou slew’st
Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel
Did famine follow, whom thou fought’st against,
Though daintily brought up, with patience more
Than savages could suffer. Thou didst drink
The stale of horses and the gilded puddle
Which beasts would cough at. Thy palate then did deign
The roughest berry on the rudest hedge.
Yea, like the stag when snow the pasture sheets,
The barks of trees thou browsed. On the Alps
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh
Which some did die to look on. And all this—
It wounds thine honour that I speak it now—
Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek
So much as lanked not.
LEPIDUS.
’Tis pity of him.
CAESAR.
Let his shames quickly
Drive him to Rome. ’Tis time we twain
Did show ourselves i’ th’ field, and to that end
Assemble we immediate council. Pompey
Thrives in our idleness.
LEPIDUS.
Tomorrow, Caesar,
I shall be furnished to inform you rightly
Both what by sea and land I can be able
To front this present time.
CAESAR.
Till which encounter
It is my business too. Farewell.
LEPIDUS.
Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantime
Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,
To let me be partaker.
CAESAR.
Doubt not, sir.
I knew it for my bond.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE V. Alexandria. A Room in the Palace.
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras and Mardian.
CLEOPATRA.
Charmian!
CHARMIAN.
Madam?
CLEOPATRA.
Ha, ha!
Give me to drink mandragora.
CHARMIAN.
Why, madam?
CLEOPATRA.
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away.
CHARMIAN.
You think of him too much.
CLEOPATRA.
O, ’tis treason!
CHARMIAN.
Madam, I trust not so.
CLEOPATRA.
Thou, eunuch Mardian!
MARDIAN.
What’s your highness’ pleasure?
CLEOPATRA.
Not now to hear thee sing. I take no pleasure
In aught an eunuch has. ’Tis well for thee
That, being unseminared, thy freer thoughts
May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?
MARDIAN.
Yes, gracious madam.
CLEOPATRA.
Indeed?
MARDIAN.
Not in deed, madam, for I can do nothing
But what indeed is honest to be done.
Yet have I fierce affections, and think
What Venus did with Mars.
CLEOPATRA.
O, Charmian,
Where think’st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?
Or does he walk? Or is he on his horse?
O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
Do bravely, horse, for wot’st thou whom thou mov’st?
The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm
And burgonet of men. He’s speaking now,
Or murmuring “Where’s my serpent of old Nile?”
For so he calls me. Now I feed myself
With most delicious poison. Think on me
That am with Phœbus’ amorous pinches black,
And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Caesar,
When thou wast here above the ground, I was
A morsel for a monarch. And great Pompey
Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow;
There would he anchor his aspect, and die
With looking on his life.
Enter Alexas.
ALEXAS.
Sovereign of Egypt, hail!
CLEOPATRA.
How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!
Yet, coming from him, that great medicine hath
With his tinct gilded thee.
How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?
ALEXAS.
Last thing he did, dear queen,
He kissed—the last of many doubled kisses—
This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.
CLEOPATRA.
Mine ear must pluck it thence.
ALEXAS.
“Good friend,” quoth he,
“Say, the firm Roman to great Egypt sends
This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,
To mend the petty present, I will piece
Her opulent throne with kingdoms. All the east,
Say thou, shall call her mistress.” So he nodded
And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,
Who neighed so high that what I would have spoke
Was beastly dumbed by him.
CLEOPATRA.
What, was he sad or merry?
ALEXAS.
Like to the time o’ th’ year between the extremes
Of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry.
CLEOPATRA.
O well-divided disposition!—Note him,
Note him, good Charmian, ’tis the man; but note him:
He was not sad, for he would shine on those
That make their looks by his; he was not merry,
Which seemed to tell them his remembrance lay
In Egypt with his joy; but between both.
O heavenly mingle!—Be’st thou sad or merry,
The violence of either thee becomes,
So does it no man else.—Met’st thou my posts?
ALEXAS.
Ay, madam, twenty several messengers.
Why do you send so thick?
CLEOPATRA.
Who’s born that day
When I forget to send to Antony
Shall die a beggar.—Ink and paper, Charmian.—
Welcome, my good Alexas.—Did I, Charmian,
Ever love Caesar so?
CHARMIAN.
O that brave Caesar!
CLEOPATRA.
Be choked with such another emphasis!
Say “the brave Antony.”
CHARMIAN.
The valiant Caesar!
CLEOPATRA.
By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth
If thou with Caesar paragon again
My man of men.
CHARMIAN.
By your most gracious pardon,
I sing but after you.
CLEOPATRA.
My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then. But come, away,
Get me ink and paper.
He shall have every day a several greeting,
Or I’ll unpeople Egypt.
[_Exeunt._]
|
poem
| 15
|
ACT III
| null |
HERO.
Why, every day, tomorrow. Come, go in:
I’ll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel
Which is the best to furnish me tomorrow.
|
poem
| 16
|
LUCIUS
LUCULLUS
SEMPRONIUS
| null |
flattering lords
VENTIDIUS, one of Timon's false friends
ALCIBIADES, an Athenian captain
APEMANTUS, a churlish philosopher
FLAVIUS, steward to Timon
|
poem
| 17
|
THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
VENUS AND ADONIS
THE SONNETS
| null |
152
In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,
In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing:
But why of two oaths’ breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjured most,
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:
And all my honest faith in thee is lost.
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,
And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them swear against the thing they see.
For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I,
To swear against the truth so foul a lie.
|
poem
| 18
|
DUKE OF VENICE
| null |
SCENE I. Venice. A street.
Enter Roderigo and Iago.
RODERIGO.
Tush, never tell me, I take it much unkindly
That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse,
As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.
IAGO.
’Sblood, but you will not hear me.
If ever I did dream of such a matter,
Abhor me.
RODERIGO.
Thou told’st me, thou didst hold him in thy hate.
IAGO.
Despise me if I do not. Three great ones of the city,
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Off-capp’d to him; and by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.
But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance,
Horribly stuff’d with epithets of war:
And in conclusion,
Nonsuits my mediators: for “Certes,” says he,
“I have already chose my officer.”
And what was he?
Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
A fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife,
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows
More than a spinster, unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the toged consuls can propose
As masterly as he: mere prattle without practice
Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election,
And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds,
Christian and heathen, must be belee’d and calm’d
By debitor and creditor, this counter-caster,
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
And I, God bless the mark, his Moorship’s ancient.
RODERIGO.
By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.
IAGO.
Why, there’s no remedy. ’Tis the curse of service,
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
And not by old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to the first. Now sir, be judge yourself
Whether I in any just term am affin’d
To love the Moor.
RODERIGO.
I would not follow him, then.
IAGO.
O, sir, content you.
I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow’d. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master’s ass,
For nought but provender, and when he’s old, cashier’d.
Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are
Who, trimm’d in forms, and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
And throwing but shows of service on their lords,
Do well thrive by them, and when they have lin’d their coats,
Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul,
And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
In following him, I follow but myself.
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so for my peculiar end.
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In complement extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
RODERIGO.
What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe,
If he can carry’t thus!
IAGO.
Call up her father,
Rouse him, make after him, poison his delight,
Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen,
And though he in a fertile climate dwell,
Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy,
Yet throw such changes of vexation on’t,
As it may lose some color.
RODERIGO.
Here is her father’s house, I’ll call aloud.
IAGO.
Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell
As when, by night and negligence, the fire
Is spied in populous cities.
RODERIGO.
What ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho!
IAGO.
Awake! what ho, Brabantio! Thieves, thieves!
Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!
Thieves, thieves!
Brabantio appears above at a window.
BRABANTIO.
What is the reason of this terrible summons?
What is the matter there?
RODERIGO.
Signior, is all your family within?
IAGO.
Are your doors locked?
BRABANTIO.
Why, wherefore ask you this?
IAGO.
Zounds, sir, you’re robb’d, for shame put on your gown,
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise,
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
Arise, I say.
BRABANTIO.
What, have you lost your wits?
RODERIGO.
Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?
BRABANTIO.
Not I. What are you?
RODERIGO.
My name is Roderigo.
BRABANTIO.
The worser welcome.
I have charg’d thee not to haunt about my doors;
In honest plainness thou hast heard me say
My daughter is not for thee; and now in madness,
Being full of supper and distempering draughts,
Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come
To start my quiet.
RODERIGO.
Sir, sir, sir,—
BRABANTIO.
But thou must needs be sure
My spirit and my place have in them power
To make this bitter to thee.
RODERIGO.
Patience, good sir.
BRABANTIO.
What tell’st thou me of robbing?
This is Venice. My house is not a grange.
RODERIGO.
Most grave Brabantio,
In simple and pure soul I come to you.
IAGO.
Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not serve God if the devil
bid you. Because we come to do you service, and you think we are
ruffians, you’ll have your daughter cover’d with a Barbary horse;
you’ll have your nephews neigh to you; you’ll have coursers for cousins
and gennets for germans.
BRABANTIO.
What profane wretch art thou?
IAGO.
I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are
now making the beast with two backs.
BRABANTIO.
Thou art a villain.
IAGO.
You are a senator.
BRABANTIO.
This thou shalt answer. I know thee, Roderigo.
RODERIGO.
Sir, I will answer anything. But I beseech you,
If ’t be your pleasure, and most wise consent,
(As partly I find it is) that your fair daughter,
At this odd-even and dull watch o’ the night,
Transported with no worse nor better guard,
But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,
To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor:
If this be known to you, and your allowance,
We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs.
But if you know not this, my manners tell me,
We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe
That from the sense of all civility,
I thus would play and trifle with your reverence.
Your daughter (if you have not given her leave)
I say again, hath made a gross revolt,
Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
Of here and everywhere. Straight satisfy yourself:
If she be in her chamber or your house,
Let loose on me the justice of the state
For thus deluding you.
BRABANTIO.
Strike on the tinder, ho!
Give me a taper! Call up all my people!
This accident is not unlike my dream,
Belief of it oppresses me already.
Light, I say, light!
[_Exit from above._]
IAGO.
Farewell; for I must leave you:
It seems not meet nor wholesome to my place
To be produc’d, as if I stay I shall,
Against the Moor. For I do know the state,
However this may gall him with some check,
Cannot with safety cast him, for he’s embark’d
With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,
Which even now stand in act, that, for their souls,
Another of his fathom they have none
To lead their business. In which regard,
Though I do hate him as I do hell pains,
Yet, for necessity of present life,
I must show out a flag and sign of love,
Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him,
Lead to the Sagittary the raised search,
And there will I be with him. So, farewell.
[_Exit._]
Enter Brabantio with Servants and torches.
BRABANTIO.
It is too true an evil. Gone she is,
And what’s to come of my despised time,
Is naught but bitterness. Now Roderigo,
Where didst thou see her? (O unhappy girl!)
With the Moor, say’st thou? (Who would be a father!)
How didst thou know ’twas she? (O, she deceives me
Past thought.) What said she to you? Get more tapers,
Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think you?
RODERIGO.
Truly I think they are.
BRABANTIO.
O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!
Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds
By what you see them act. Is there not charms
By which the property of youth and maidhood
May be abused? Have you not read, Roderigo,
Of some such thing?
RODERIGO.
Yes, sir, I have indeed.
BRABANTIO.
Call up my brother. O, would you had had her!
Some one way, some another. Do you know
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?
RODERIGO.
I think I can discover him, if you please
To get good guard, and go along with me.
BRABANTIO.
Pray you lead on. At every house I’ll call,
I may command at most. Get weapons, ho!
And raise some special officers of night.
On, good Roderigo. I will deserve your pains.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Venice. Another street.
Enter Othello, Iago and Attendants with torches.
IAGO.
Though in the trade of war I have slain men,
Yet do I hold it very stuff o’ the conscience
To do no contriv’d murder; I lack iniquity
Sometimes to do me service: nine or ten times
I had thought to have yerk’d him here under the ribs.
OTHELLO.
’Tis better as it is.
IAGO.
Nay, but he prated,
And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms
Against your honour,
That with the little godliness I have,
I did full hard forbear him. But I pray you, sir,
Are you fast married? Be assur’d of this,
That the magnifico is much belov’d
And hath in his effect a voice potential
As double as the duke’s; he will divorce you,
Or put upon you what restraint and grievance
The law (with all his might to enforce it on)
Will give him cable.
OTHELLO.
Let him do his spite;
My services, which I have done the signiory,
Shall out-tongue his complaints. ’Tis yet to know,—
Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,
I shall promulgate,—I fetch my life and being
From men of royal siege. And my demerits
May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune
As this that I have reach’d. For know, Iago,
But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
I would not my unhoused free condition
Put into circumscription and confine
For the sea’s worth. But look, what lights come yond?
IAGO.
Those are the raised father and his friends:
You were best go in.
OTHELLO.
Not I; I must be found.
My parts, my title, and my perfect soul
Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?
IAGO.
By Janus, I think no.
Enter Cassio and Officers with torches.
OTHELLO.
The servants of the duke and my lieutenant.
The goodness of the night upon you, friends!
What is the news?
CASSIO.
The duke does greet you, general,
And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance
Even on the instant.
OTHELLO.
What is the matter, think you?
CASSIO.
Something from Cyprus, as I may divine.
It is a business of some heat. The galleys
Have sent a dozen sequent messengers
This very night at one another’s heels;
And many of the consuls, rais’d and met,
Are at the duke’s already. You have been hotly call’d for,
When, being not at your lodging to be found,
The senate hath sent about three several quests
To search you out.
OTHELLO.
’Tis well I am found by you.
I will but spend a word here in the house,
And go with you.
[_Exit._]
CASSIO.
Ancient, what makes he here?
IAGO.
Faith, he tonight hath boarded a land carrack:
If it prove lawful prize, he’s made forever.
CASSIO.
I do not understand.
IAGO.
He’s married.
CASSIO.
To who?
Enter Othello.
IAGO.
Marry to—Come, captain, will you go?
OTHELLO.
Have with you.
CASSIO.
Here comes another troop to seek for you.
Enter Brabantio, Roderigo and Officers with torches and weapons.
IAGO.
It is Brabantio. General, be advis’d,
He comes to bad intent.
OTHELLO.
Holla, stand there!
RODERIGO.
Signior, it is the Moor.
BRABANTIO.
Down with him, thief!
[_They draw on both sides._]
IAGO.
You, Roderigo! Come, sir, I am for you.
OTHELLO.
Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
Good signior, you shall more command with years
Than with your weapons.
BRABANTIO.
O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow’d my daughter?
Damn’d as thou art, thou hast enchanted her,
For I’ll refer me to all things of sense,
(If she in chains of magic were not bound)
Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,
So opposite to marriage, that she shunn’d
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,
Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
Of such a thing as thou—to fear, not to delight.
Judge me the world, if ’tis not gross in sense,
That thou hast practis’d on her with foul charms,
Abus’d her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
That weakens motion. I’ll have’t disputed on;
’Tis probable, and palpable to thinking.
I therefore apprehend and do attach thee
For an abuser of the world, a practiser
Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.—
Lay hold upon him, if he do resist,
Subdue him at his peril.
OTHELLO.
Hold your hands,
Both you of my inclining and the rest:
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it
Without a prompter. Where will you that I go
To answer this your charge?
BRABANTIO.
To prison, till fit time
Of law and course of direct session
Call thee to answer.
OTHELLO.
What if I do obey?
How may the duke be therewith satisfied,
Whose messengers are here about my side,
Upon some present business of the state,
To bring me to him?
OFFICER.
’Tis true, most worthy signior,
The duke’s in council, and your noble self,
I am sure is sent for.
BRABANTIO.
How? The duke in council?
In this time of the night? Bring him away;
Mine’s not an idle cause. The duke himself,
Or any of my brothers of the state,
Cannot but feel this wrong as ’twere their own.
For if such actions may have passage free,
Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. Venice. A council chamber.
The Duke and Senators sitting at a table; Officers attending.
DUKE.
There is no composition in these news
That gives them credit.
FIRST SENATOR.
Indeed, they are disproportion’d;
My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.
DUKE.
And mine a hundred and forty.
|
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ACT III
| null |
DOGBERRY.
Go, good partner, go get you to Francis Seacoal; bid him bring
his pen and inkhorn to the gaol: we are now to examination these
men.
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| 20
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THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
VENUS AND ADONIS
THE SONNETS
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84
Who is it that says most, which can say more,
Than this rich praise: that you alone are you,
In whose confine immured is the store,
Which should example where your equal grew.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,
That to his subject lends not some small glory,
But he that writes of you, if he can tell,
That you are you, so dignifies his story.
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admired every where.
You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.
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| 21
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ACT IV
| null |
Re-enter Biondello.
How now! what news?
BIONDELLO.
Sir, my mistress sends you word
That she is busy and she cannot come.
PETRUCHIO.
How! She’s busy, and she cannot come!
Is that an answer?
GREMIO.
Ay, and a kind one too:
Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.
PETRUCHIO.
I hope better.
HORTENSIO.
Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife
To come to me forthwith.
[_Exit Biondello._]
PETRUCHIO.
O, ho! entreat her!
Nay, then she must needs come.
HORTENSIO.
I am afraid, sir,
Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.
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| 22
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ACT III
| null |
Enter Gower.
GOWER.
Now sleep yslaked hath the rouse;
No din but snores about the house,
Made louder by the o’erfed breast
Of this most pompous marriage feast.
The cat, with eyne of burning coal,
Now couches fore the mouse’s hole;
And crickets sing at the oven’s mouth,
Are the blither for their drouth.
Hymen hath brought the bride to bed,
Where, by the loss of maidenhead,
A babe is moulded. Be attent,
And time that is so briefly spent
With your fine fancies quaintly eche:
What’s dumb in show I’ll plain with speech.
Dumb-show. Enter, Pericles and Simonides at one door with Attendants;
a Messenger meets them, kneels, and gives Pericles a letter: Pericles
shows it Simonides; the Lords kneel to him. Then enter Thaisa with
child, with Lychorida, a nurse. The King shows her the letter; she
rejoices: she and Pericles take leave of her father, and depart, with
Lychorida and their Attendants. Then exeunt Simonides and the rest.
By many a dern and painful perch
Of Pericles the careful search,
By the four opposing coigns
Which the world together joins,
Is made with all due diligence
That horse and sail and high expense
Can stead the quest. At last from Tyre,
Fame answering the most strange enquire,
To th’ court of King Simonides
Are letters brought, the tenour these:
Antiochus and his daughter dead;
The men of Tyrus on the head
Of Helicanus would set on
The crown of Tyre, but he will none:
The mutiny he there hastes t’oppress;
Says to ’em, if King Pericles
Come not home in twice six moons,
He, obedient to their dooms,
Will take the crown. The sum of this,
Brought hither to Pentapolis
Y-ravished the regions round,
And everyone with claps can sound,
‘Our heir apparent is a king!
Who dreamt, who thought of such a thing?’
Brief, he must hence depart to Tyre:
His queen with child makes her desire —
Which who shall cross? — along to go:
Omit we all their dole and woe:
Lychorida, her nurse, she takes,
And so to sea. Their vessel shakes
On Neptune’s billow; half the flood
Hath their keel cut: but fortune’s mood
Varies again; the grisled north
Disgorges such a tempest forth,
That, as a duck for life that dives,
So up and down the poor ship drives:
The lady shrieks, and well-a-near
Does fall in travail with her fear:
And what ensues in this fell storm
Shall for itself itself perform.
I nill relate, action may
Conveniently the rest convey;
Which might not what by me is told.
In your imagination hold
This stage the ship, upon whose deck
The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak.
[_Exit._]
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ACT IV
| null |
Enter Chorus.
CHORUS.
Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fix’d sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other’s watch;
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other’s umber’d face;
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.
Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
The confident and over-lusty French
Do the low-rated English play at dice;
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited Night
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp
So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently and inly ruminate
The morning’s danger; and their gesture sad,
Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats,
Presented them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruin’d band
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry, “Praise and glory on his head!”
For forth he goes and visits all his host,
Bids them good morrow with a modest smile,
And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watched night,
But freshly looks, and over-bears attaint
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks.
A largess universal like the sun
His liberal eye doth give to everyone,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.
And so our scene must to the battle fly,
Where—O for pity!—we shall much disgrace
With four or five most vile and ragged foils,
Right ill-dispos’d in brawl ridiculous,
The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,
Minding true things by what their mock’ries be.
[_Exit._]
SCENE I. The English camp at Agincourt.
Enter King Henry, Bedford and Gloucester.
KING HENRY.
Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger;
The greater therefore should our courage be.
Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out;
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,
Which is both healthful and good husbandry.
Besides, they are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all, admonishing
That we should dress us fairly for our end.
Thus may we gather honey from the weed,
And make a moral of the devil himself.
Enter Erpingham.
Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:
A good soft pillow for that good white head
Were better than a churlish turf of France.
ERPINGHAM.
Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me better,
Since I may say, “Now lie I like a king.”
KING HENRY.
’Tis good for men to love their present pains
Upon example; so the spirit is eased;
And when the mind is quick’ned, out of doubt,
The organs, though defunct and dead before,
Break up their drowsy grave and newly move,
With casted slough and fresh legerity.
Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,
Commend me to the princes in our camp;
Do my good morrow to them, and anon
Desire them all to my pavilion.
GLOUCESTER.
We shall, my liege.
ERPINGHAM.
Shall I attend your Grace?
KING HENRY.
No, my good knight;
Go with my brothers to my lords of England.
I and my bosom must debate a while,
And then I would no other company.
ERPINGHAM.
The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!
[_Exeunt all but King._]
KING HENRY.
God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak’st cheerfully.
Enter Pistol.
PISTOL.
_Qui vous là?_
KING HENRY.
A friend.
PISTOL.
Discuss unto me; art thou officer?
Or art thou base, common, and popular?
KING HENRY.
I am a gentleman of a company.
PISTOL.
Trail’st thou the puissant pike?
KING HENRY.
Even so. What are you?
PISTOL.
As good a gentleman as the Emperor.
KING HENRY.
Then you are a better than the King.
PISTOL.
The King’s a bawcock, and a heart of gold,
A lad of life, an imp of fame;
Of parents good, of fist most valiant.
I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string
I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?
KING HENRY.
Harry le Roy.
PISTOL.
Le Roy! a Cornish name. Art thou of Cornish crew?
KING HENRY.
No, I am a Welshman.
PISTOL.
Know’st thou Fluellen?
KING HENRY.
Yes.
PISTOL.
Tell him I’ll knock his leek about his pate
Upon Saint Davy’s day.
KING HENRY.
Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest he knock that
about yours.
PISTOL.
Art thou his friend?
KING HENRY.
And his kinsman too.
PISTOL.
The _fico_ for thee, then!
KING HENRY.
I thank you. God be with you!
PISTOL.
My name is Pistol call’d.
[_Exit._]
KING HENRY.
It sorts well with your fierceness.
Enter Fluellen and Gower.
GOWER.
Captain Fluellen!
FLUELLEN.
So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It is the greatest
admiration in the universal world, when the true and anchient
prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept. If you would take the
pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall find, I
warrant you, that there is no tiddle taddle nor pibble pabble in
Pompey’s camp. I warrant you, you shall find the ceremonies of the
wars, and the cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety of it,
and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.
GOWER.
Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.
FLUELLEN.
If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, is it meet,
think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass and a fool and a
prating coxcomb? In your own conscience, now?
GOWER.
I will speak lower.
FLUELLEN.
I pray you and beseech you that you will.
[_Exeunt Gower and Fluellen._]
KING HENRY.
Though it appear a little out of fashion,
There is much care and valour in this Welshman.
Enter three soldiers, John Bates, Alexander Court and Michael
Williams.
COURT.
Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder?
BATES.
I think it be; but we have no great cause to desire the approach of
day.
WILLIAMS.
We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see
the end of it. Who goes there?
KING HENRY.
A friend.
WILLIAMS.
Under what captain serve you?
KING HENRY.
Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.
WILLIAMS.
A good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I pray you, what thinks
he of our estate?
KING HENRY.
Even as men wreck’d upon a sand, that look to be wash’d off the next
tide.
BATES.
He hath not told his thought to the King?
KING HENRY.
No; nor it is not meet he should. For though I speak it to you, I think
the King is but a man as I am. The violet smells to him as it doth to
me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but
human conditions. His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears
but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet,
when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore, when he sees
reason of fears as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same
relish as ours are; yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any
appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army.
BATES.
He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as cold a
night as ’tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I
would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.
KING HENRY.
By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: I think he would
not wish himself anywhere but where he is.
BATES.
Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed,
and a many poor men’s lives saved.
KING HENRY.
I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here alone, howsoever
you speak this to feel other men’s minds. Methinks I could not die
anywhere so contented as in the King’s company, his cause being just
and his quarrel honourable.
WILLIAMS.
That’s more than we know.
BATES.
Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know
we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the
King wipes the crime of it out of us.
WILLIAMS.
But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning
to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp’d off in a
battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, “We died at
such a place”; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon
their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some
upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that
die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when
blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be
a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were
against all proportion of subjection.
KING HENRY.
So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully
miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule,
should be imposed upon his father that sent him; or if a servant, under
his master’s command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by
robbers and die in many irreconcil’d iniquities, you may call the
business of the master the author of the servant’s damnation. But this
is not so. The King is not bound to answer the particular endings of
his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for
they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services.
Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come
to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted
soldiers. Some peradventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and
contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of
perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored
the gentle bosom of Peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men
have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can
outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. War is his beadle,
war is his vengeance; so that here men are punish’d for before-breach
of the King’s laws in now the King’s quarrel. Where they feared the
death, they have borne life away; and where they would be safe, they
perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the King guilty of
their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the
which they are now visited. Every subject’s duty is the King’s; but
every subject’s soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the
wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his
conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the
time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him
that escapes, it were not sin to think that, making God so free an
offer, He let him outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach
others how they should prepare.
WILLIAMS.
’Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head, the
King is not to answer for it.
BATES.
I do not desire he should answer for me; and yet I determine to fight
lustily for him.
KING HENRY.
I myself heard the King say he would not be ransom’d.
WILLIAMS.
Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our throats are
cut, he may be ransom’d, and we ne’er the wiser.
KING HENRY.
If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.
WILLIAMS.
You pay him then. That’s a perilous shot out of an elder-gun, that a
poor and a private displeasure can do against a monarch! You may as
well go about to turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a
peacock’s feather. You’ll never trust his word after! Come, ’tis a
foolish saying.
KING HENRY.
Your reproof is something too round. I should be angry with you, if the
time were convenient.
WILLIAMS.
Let it be a quarrel between us if you live.
KING HENRY.
I embrace it.
WILLIAMS.
How shall I know thee again?
KING HENRY.
Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet; then, if
ever thou dar’st acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel.
WILLIAMS.
Here’s my glove; give me another of thine.
KING HENRY.
There.
WILLIAMS.
This will I also wear in my cap. If ever thou come to me and say, after
tomorrow, “This is my glove,” by this hand I will take thee a box on
the ear.
KING HENRY.
If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.
WILLIAMS.
Thou dar’st as well be hang’d.
KING HENRY.
Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King’s company.
WILLIAMS.
Keep thy word; fare thee well.
BATES.
Be friends, you English fools, be friends. We have French quarrels
enough, if you could tell how to reckon.
KING HENRY.
Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one they will beat
us, for they bear them on their shoulders; but it is no English treason
to cut French crowns, and tomorrow the King himself will be a clipper.
[_Exeunt soldiers._]
Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children, and our sins lay on the King!
We must bear all. O hard condition,
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
But his own wringing! What infinite heart’s ease
Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!
And what have kings, that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? What are thy comings in?
O Ceremony, show me but thy worth!
What is thy soul of adoration?
Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy being fear’d
Than they in fearing.
What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison’d flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy Ceremony give thee cure!
Think’st thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?
Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Canst thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That play’st so subtly with a king’s repose;
I am a king that find thee, and I know
’Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running ’fore the King,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous Ceremony,—
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who with a body fill’d and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread,
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
But, like a lackey, from the rise to set
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,
Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
And follows so the ever-running year,
With profitable labour, to his grave:
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country’s peace,
Enjoys it, but in gross brain little wots
What watch the King keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages.
Enter Erpingham.
ERPINGHAM.
My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,
Seek through your camp to find you.
KING HENRY.
Good old knight,
Collect them all together at my tent.
I’ll be before thee.
ERPINGHAM.
I shall do’t, my lord.
[_Exit._]
KING HENRY.
O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts.
Possess them not with fear. Take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O Lord,
O, not today, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown!
I Richard’s body have interred new,
And on it have bestow’d more contrite tears
Than from it issued forced drops of blood.
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a day their wither’d hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard’s soul. More will I do;
Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.
Enter Gloucester.
GLOUCESTER.
My liege!
KING HENRY.
My brother Gloucester’s voice? Ay;
I know thy errand, I will go with thee.
The day, my friends, and all things stay for me.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. The French camp.
Enter the Dauphin, Orleans, Rambures and others.
ORLEANS.
The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords!
DAUPHIN.
_Monte à cheval!_ My horse, _varlet! laquais_, ha!
ORLEANS.
O brave spirit!
DAUPHIN.
_Via, les eaux et terre!_
ORLEANS.
_Rien puis? L’air et feu?_
DAUPHIN.
_Cieux_, cousin Orleans.
Enter Constable.
Now, my Lord Constable!
CONSTABLE.
Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh!
DAUPHIN.
Mount them, and make incision in their hides,
That their hot blood may spin in English eyes,
And dout them with superfluous courage, ha!
RAMBURES.
What, will you have them weep our horses’ blood?
How shall we, then, behold their natural tears?
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER.
The English are embattl’d, you French peers.
CONSTABLE.
To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse!
Do but behold yon poor and starved band,
And your fair show shall suck away their souls,
Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.
There is not work enough for all our hands;
Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins
To give each naked curtle-axe a stain,
That our French gallants shall today draw out,
And sheathe for lack of sport. Let us but blow on them,
The vapour of our valour will o’erturn them.
’Tis positive ’gainst all exceptions, lords,
That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants,
Who in unnecessary action swarm
About our squares of battle, were enough
To purge this field of such a hilding foe,
Though we upon this mountain’s basis by
Took stand for idle speculation,
But that our honours must not. What’s to say?
A very little little let us do,
And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound
The tucket sonance and the note to mount;
For our approach shall so much dare the field
That England shall crouch down in fear and yield.
Enter Grandpré.
GRANDPRÉ.
Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?
Yond island carrions, desperate of their bones,
Ill-favouredly become the morning field.
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar’d host,
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps;
The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks
With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades
Lob down their heads, drooping the hides and hips,
The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes,
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
Lies foul with chew’d grass, still, and motionless;
And their executors, the knavish crows,
Fly o’er them, all impatient for their hour.
Description cannot suit itself in words
To demonstrate the life of such a battle,
In life so lifeless as it shows itself.
CONSTABLE.
They have said their prayers, and they stay for death.
DAUPHIN.
Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits
And give their fasting horses provender,
And after fight with them?
CONSTABLE.
I stay but for my guard; on to the field!
I will the banner from a trumpet take,
And use it for my haste. Come, come, away!
The sun is high, and we outwear the day.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. The English camp.
Enter Gloucester, Bedford, Exeter, Erpingham, with all his host:
Salisbury and Westmorland.
GLOUCESTER.
Where is the King?
BEDFORD.
The King himself is rode to view their battle.
WESTMORLAND.
Of fighting men they have full three-score thousand.
EXETER.
There’s five to one; besides, they all are fresh.
SALISBURY.
God’s arm strike with us! ’tis a fearful odds.
God be wi’ you, princes all; I’ll to my charge.
If we no more meet till we meet in heaven,
Then, joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford,
My dear Lord Gloucester, and my good Lord Exeter,
And my kind kinsman, warriors all, adieu!
BEDFORD.
Farewell, good Salisbury, and good luck go with thee!
EXETER.
Farewell, kind lord; fight valiantly today!
And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it,
For thou art fram’d of the firm truth of valour.
[_Exit Salisbury._]
BEDFORD.
He is as full of valour as of kindness,
Princely in both.
Enter the King.
WESTMORLAND.
O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work today!
KING.
What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmorland? No, my fair cousin.
If we are mark’d to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires;
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart. His passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse.
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, “These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford, and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Enter Salisbury.
SALISBURY.
My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed.
The French are bravely in their battles set,
And will with all expedience charge on us.
KING HENRY.
All things are ready, if our minds be so.
WESTMORLAND.
Perish the man whose mind is backward now!
KING HENRY.
Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz?
WESTMORLAND.
God’s will! my liege, would you and I alone,
Without more help, could fight this royal battle!
KING HENRY.
Why, now thou hast unwish’d five thousand men,
Which likes me better than to wish us one.
You know your places. God be with you all!
Tucket. Enter Montjoy.
MONTJOY.
Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry,
If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound,
Before thy most assured overthrow;
For certainly thou art so near the gulf,
Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy,
The Constable desires thee thou wilt mind
Thy followers of repentance; that their souls
May make a peaceful and a sweet retire
From off these fields, where, wretches, their poor bodies
Must lie and fester.
KING HENRY.
Who hath sent thee now?
MONTJOY.
The Constable of France.
KING HENRY.
I pray thee, bear my former answer back:
Bid them achieve me and then sell my bones.
Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus?
The man that once did sell the lion’s skin
While the beast liv’d, was kill’d with hunting him.
A many of our bodies shall no doubt
Find native graves, upon the which, I trust,
Shall witness live in brass of this day’s work;
And those that leave their valiant bones in France,
Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,
They shall be fam’d; for there the sun shall greet them,
And draw their honours reeking up to heaven;
Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,
The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.
Mark then abounding valour in our English,
That being dead, like to the bullet’s grazing,
Break out into a second course of mischief,
Killing in relapse of mortality.
Let me speak proudly: tell the Constable
We are but warriors for the working-day.
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch’d
With rainy marching in the painful field;
There’s not a piece of feather in our host—
Good argument, I hope, we will not fly—
And time hath worn us into slovenry;
But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim;
And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night
They’ll be in fresher robes, or they will pluck
The gay new coats o’er the French soldiers’ heads
And turn them out of service. If they do this—
As, if God please, they shall,—my ransom then
Will soon be levied. Herald, save thou thy labour.
Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald.
They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints;
Which if they have as I will leave ’em them,
Shall yield them little, tell the Constable.
MONTJOY.
I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well;
Thou never shalt hear herald any more.
[_Exit._]
KING HENRY.
I fear thou’lt once more come again for ransom.
Enter York.
YORK.
My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg
The leading of the vaward.
KING HENRY.
Take it, brave York. Now, soldiers, march away;
And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day!
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE IV. The field of battle.
Alarum. Excursions. Enter Pistol, French Soldier and Boy.
PISTOL.
Yield, cur!
FRENCH SOLDIER.
_Je pense que vous êtes le gentilhomme de bonne qualité._
PISTOL.
_Qualité? Caleno custore me!_
Art thou a gentleman?
What is thy name? Discuss.
FRENCH SOLDIER.
_O Seigneur Dieu!_
PISTOL.
O, Signieur Dew should be a gentleman.
Perpend my words, O Signieur Dew, and mark:
O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,
Except, O signieur, thou do give to me
Egregious ransom.
FRENCH SOLDIER.
_O, prenez miséricorde! Ayez pitié de moi!_
PISTOL.
Moy shall not serve; I will have forty moys,
Or I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat
In drops of crimson blood.
FRENCH SOLDIER.
_Est-il impossible d’échapper la force de ton bras?_
PISTOL.
Brass, cur!
Thou damned and luxurious mountain goat,
Offer’st me brass?
FRENCH SOLDIER.
_O pardonnez-moi!_
PISTOL.
Say’st thou me so? Is that a ton of moys?
Come hither, boy; ask me this slave in French
What is his name.
BOY.
_Écoutez. Comment êtes-vous appelé?_
FRENCH SOLDIER.
_Monsieur le Fer._
BOY.
He says his name is Master Fer.
PISTOL.
Master Fer! I’ll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him.
Discuss the same in French unto him.
BOY.
I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firk.
PISTOL.
Bid him prepare; for I will cut his throat.
FRENCH SOLDIER.
_Que dit-il, monsieur?_
BOY.
_Il me commande à vous dire que vous faites vous prêt, car ce soldat
ici est disposé tout à cette heure de couper votre gorge._
PISTOL.
Owy, cuppele gorge, permafoy,
Peasant, unless thou give me crowns, brave crowns;
Or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword.
FRENCH SOLDIER.
_O, je vous supplie, pour l’amour de Dieu, me pardonner! Je suis le
gentilhomme de bonne maison; gardez ma vie, et je vous donnerai deux
cents écus._
PISTOL.
What are his words?
BOY.
He prays you to save his life. He is a gentleman of a good house; and
for his ransom he will give you two hundred crowns.
PISTOL.
Tell him my fury shall abate, and I
The crowns will take.
FRENCH SOLDIER.
_Petit monsieur, que dit-il?_
BOY.
_Encore qu’il est contre son jurement de pardonner aucun prisonnier;
néanmoins, pour les écus que vous lui avez promis, il est content à
vous donner la liberté, le franchisement._
FRENCH SOLDIER.
_Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remerciements; et je m’estime
heureux que je suis tombé entre les mains d’un chevalier, je pense, le
plus brave, vaillant, et très distingué seigneur d’Angleterre._
PISTOL.
Expound unto me, boy.
BOY.
He gives you upon his knees, a thousand thanks; and he esteems himself
happy that he hath fallen into the hands of one, as he thinks, the most
brave, valorous, and thrice-worthy _seigneur_ of England.
PISTOL.
As I suck blood, I will some mercy show.
Follow me!
BOY.
_Suivez-vous le grand capitaine._
[_Exeunt Pistol and French Soldier._]
I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart; but the
saying is true, “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.” Bardolph
and Nym had ten times more valour than this roaring devil i’ the old
play, that everyone may pare his nails with a wooden dagger; and they
are both hang’d; and so would this be, if he durst steal anything
adventurously. I must stay with the lackeys with the luggage of our
camp. The French might have a good prey of us, if he knew of it; for
there is none to guard it but boys.
[_Exit._]
SCENE V. Another part of the field.
Enter Constable, Orleans, Bourbon, Dauphin and Rambures.
CONSTABLE.
_O diable!_
ORLEANS.
_O Seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!_
DAUPHIN.
_Mort de ma vie!_ all is confounded, all!
Reproach and everlasting shame
Sits mocking in our plumes.
[_A short alarum._]
_O méchante Fortune!_ Do not run away.
CONSTABLE.
Why, all our ranks are broke.
DAUPHIN.
O perdurable shame! Let’s stab ourselves,
Be these the wretches that we play’d at dice for?
ORLEANS.
Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?
BOURBON.
Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame!
Let’s die in honour! Once more back again!
And he that will not follow Bourbon now,
Let him go hence, and with his cap in hand,
Like a base pandar, hold the chamber door
Whilst by a slave, no gentler than my dog,
His fairest daughter is contaminated.
CONSTABLE.
Disorder, that hath spoil’d us, friend us now!
Let us on heaps go offer up our lives.
ORLEANS.
We are enough yet living in the field
To smother up the English in our throngs,
If any order might be thought upon.
BOURBON.
The devil take order now! I’ll to the throng.
Let life be short, else shame will be too long.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE VI. Another part of the field.
Alarum. Enter King Henry and his train, with prisoners.
KING HENRY.
Well have we done, thrice valiant countrymen.
But all’s not done; yet keep the French the field.
EXETER.
The Duke of York commends him to your Majesty.
KING HENRY.
Lives he, good uncle? Thrice within this hour
I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting.
From helmet to the spur all blood he was.
EXETER.
In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie,
Larding the plain; and by his bloody side,
Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds,
The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.
Suffolk first died; and York, all haggled over,
Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteeped,
And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes
That bloodily did yawn upon his face.
He cries aloud, “Tarry, my cousin Suffolk!
My soul shall thine keep company to heaven;
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast,
As in this glorious and well-foughten field
We kept together in our chivalry.”
Upon these words I came and cheer’d him up.
He smil’d me in the face, raught me his hand,
And, with a feeble gripe, says, “Dear my lord,
Commend my service to my sovereign.”
So did he turn and over Suffolk’s neck
He threw his wounded arm and kiss’d his lips;
And so espous’d to death, with blood he seal’d
A testament of noble-ending love.
The pretty and sweet manner of it forc’d
Those waters from me which I would have stopp’d;
But I had not so much of man in me,
And all my mother came into mine eyes
And gave me up to tears.
KING HENRY.
I blame you not;
For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.
[_Alarum._]
But hark! what new alarum is this same?
The French have reinforc’d their scatter’d men.
Then every soldier kill his prisoners;
Give the word through.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE VII. Another part of the field.
Enter Fluellen and Gower.
FLUELLEN.
Kill the poys and the luggage! ’Tis expressly against the law of arms.
’Tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offer’t; in
your conscience, now, is it not?
GOWER.
’Tis certain there’s not a boy left alive; and the cowardly rascals
that ran from the battle ha’ done this slaughter. Besides, they have
burned and carried away all that was in the King’s tent; wherefore the
King, most worthily, hath caus’d every soldier to cut his prisoner’s
throat. O, ’tis a gallant king!
FLUELLEN.
Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What call you the town’s
name where Alexander the Pig was born?
GOWER.
Alexander the Great.
FLUELLEN.
Why, I pray you, is not pig great? The pig, or the great, or the
mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save
the phrase is a little variations.
GOWER.
I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon. His father was called
Philip of Macedon, as I take it.
FLUELLEN.
I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. I tell you, Captain,
if you look in the maps of the ’orld, I warrant you sall find, in the
comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations, look
you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon; and there is also
moreover a river at Monmouth; it is call’d Wye at Monmouth; but it is
out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but ’tis all one,
’tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in
both. If you mark Alexander’s life well, Harry of Monmouth’s life is
come after it indifferent well; for there is figures in all things.
Alexander, God knows, and you know, in his rages, and his furies, and
his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and
his indignations, and also being a little intoxicates in his prains,
did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his best friend,
Cleitus.
GOWER.
Our King is not like him in that. He never kill’d any of his friends.
FLUELLEN.
It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out of my mouth,
ere it is made and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons
of it. As Alexander kill’d his friend Cleitus, being in his ales and
his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good
judgements, turn’d away the fat knight with the great belly doublet. He
was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I have forgot
his name.
GOWER.
Sir John Falstaff.
FLUELLEN.
That is he. I’ll tell you there is good men porn at Monmouth.
GOWER.
Here comes his Majesty.
Alarum. Enter King Henry and forces; Warwick, Gloucester, Exeter with
prisoners. Flourish.
KING HENRY.
I was not angry since I came to France
Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond hill.
If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
Or void the field; they do offend our sight.
If they’ll do neither, we will come to them,
And make them skirr away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings.
Besides, we’ll cut the throats of those we have,
And not a man of them that we shall take
Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.
Enter Montjoy.
EXETER.
Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.
GLOUCESTER.
His eyes are humbler than they us’d to be.
KING HENRY.
How now! what means this, herald? Know’st thou not
That I have fin’d these bones of mine for ransom?
Com’st thou again for ransom?
MONTJOY.
No, great King;
I come to thee for charitable license,
That we may wander o’er this bloody field
To book our dead, and then to bury them;
To sort our nobles from our common men.
For many of our princes—woe the while!—
Lie drown’d and soak’d in mercenary blood;
So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
In blood of princes; and their wounded steeds
Fret fetlock deep in gore, and with wild rage
Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,
Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great King,
To view the field in safety, and dispose
Of their dead bodies!
KING HENRY.
I tell thee truly, herald,
I know not if the day be ours or no;
For yet a many of your horsemen peer
And gallop o’er the field.
MONTJOY.
The day is yours.
KING HENRY.
Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!
What is this castle call’d that stands hard by?
MONTJOY.
They call it Agincourt.
KING HENRY.
Then call we this the field of Agincourt,
Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.
FLUELLEN.
Your grandfather of famous memory, an’t please your Majesty, and your
great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales, as I have read in the
chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France.
KING HENRY.
They did, Fluellen.
FLUELLEN.
Your Majesty says very true. If your Majesties is rememb’red of it, the
Welshmen did good service in garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks
in their Monmouth caps; which, your Majesty know, to this hour is an
honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your Majesty takes no
scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s day.
KING HENRY.
I wear it for a memorable honour;
For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.
FLUELLEN.
All the water in Wye cannot wash your Majesty’s Welsh plood out of your
pody, I can tell you that. Got pless it and preserve it, as long as it
pleases His grace, and His majesty too!
KING HENRY.
Thanks, good my countryman.
FLUELLEN.
By Jeshu, I am your Majesty’s countryman, I care not who know it. I
will confess it to all the ’orld. I need not be asham’d of your
Majesty, praised be God, so long as your Majesty is an honest man.
KING HENRY.
God keep me so!
Enter Williams.
Our heralds go with him;
Bring me just notice of the numbers dead
On both our parts. Call yonder fellow hither.
[_Exeunt Heralds with Montjoy._]
EXETER.
Soldier, you must come to the King.
KING HENRY.
Soldier, why wear’st thou that glove in thy cap?
WILLIAMS.
An’t please your Majesty, ’tis the gage of one that I should fight
withal, if he be alive.
KING HENRY.
An Englishman?
WILLIAMS.
An’t please your Majesty, a rascal that swagger’d with me last night;
who, if alive and ever dare to challenge this glove, I have sworn to
take him a box o’ the ear; or if I can see my glove in his cap, which
he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear if alive, I will strike it
out soundly.
KING HENRY.
What think you, Captain Fluellen, is it fit this soldier keep his oath?
FLUELLEN.
He is a craven and a villain else, an’t please your Majesty, in my
conscience.
KING HENRY.
It may be his enemy is a gentlemen of great sort, quite from the answer
of his degree.
FLUELLEN.
Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as Lucifier and
Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look your Grace, that he keep his
vow and his oath. If he be perjur’d, see you now, his reputation is as
arrant a villain and a Jacksauce, as ever his black shoe trod upon
God’s ground and His earth, in my conscience, la!
KING HENRY.
Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meet’st the fellow.
WILLIAMS.
So I will, my liege, as I live.
KING HENRY.
Who serv’st thou under?
WILLIAMS.
Under Captain Gower, my liege.
FLUELLEN.
Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and literatured in the
wars.
KING HENRY.
Call him hither to me, soldier.
WILLIAMS.
I will, my liege.
[_Exit._]
KING HENRY.
Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me and stick it in thy cap.
When Alençon and myself were down together, I pluck’d this glove from
his helm. If any man challenge this, he is a friend to Alençon, and an
enemy to our person. If thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou
dost me love.
FLUELLEN.
Your Grace does me as great honours as can be desir’d in the hearts of
his subjects. I would fain see the man, that has but two legs, that
shall find himself aggrief’d at this glove; that is all. But I would
fain see it once, an please God of His grace that I might see.
KING HENRY.
Know’st thou Gower?
FLUELLEN.
He is my dear friend, an please you.
KING HENRY.
Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.
FLUELLEN.
I will fetch him.
[_Exit._]
KING HENRY.
My Lord of Warwick, and my brother Gloucester,
Follow Fluellen closely at the heels.
The glove which I have given him for a favour
May haply purchase him a box o’ the ear.
It is the soldier’s; I by bargain should
Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick.
If that the soldier strike him, as I judge
By his blunt bearing he will keep his word,
Some sudden mischief may arise of it;
For I do know Fluellen valiant
And, touch’d with choler, hot as gunpowder,
And quickly will return an injury.
Follow, and see there be no harm between them.
Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE VIII. Before King Henry’s pavilion.
Enter Gower and Williams.
WILLIAMS.
I warrant it is to knight you, Captain.
Enter Fluellen.
FLUELLEN.
God’s will and his pleasure, captain, I beseech you now, come apace to
the King. There is more good toward you peradventure than is in your
knowledge to dream of.
WILLIAMS.
Sir, know you this glove?
FLUELLEN.
Know the glove! I know the glove is a glove.
WILLIAMS.
I know this; and thus I challenge it.
[_Strikes him._]
FLUELLEN.
’Sblood! an arrant traitor as any is in the universal world, or in
France, or in England!
GOWER.
How now, sir! you villain!
WILLIAMS.
Do you think I’ll be forsworn?
FLUELLEN.
Stand away, Captain Gower. I will give treason his payment into plows,
I warrant you.
WILLIAMS.
I am no traitor.
FLUELLEN.
That’s a lie in thy throat. I charge you in his Majesty’s name,
apprehend him; he’s a friend of the Duke Alençon’s.
Enter Warwick and Gloucester.
WARWICK.
How now, how now! what’s the matter?
FLUELLEN.
My lord of Warwick, here is—praised be God for it!—a most contagious
treason come to light, look you, as you shall desire in a summer’s day.
Here is his Majesty.
Enter King Henry and Exeter.
KING HENRY.
How now! what’s the matter?
FLUELLEN.
My liege, here is a villain and a traitor, that, look your Grace, has
struck the glove which your Majesty is take out of the helmet of
Alençon.
WILLIAMS.
My liege, this was my glove; here is the fellow of it; and he that I
gave it to in change promis’d to wear it in his cap. I promis’d to
strike him, if he did. I met this man with my glove in his cap, and I
have been as good as my word.
FLUELLEN.
Your Majesty hear now, saving your Majesty’s manhood, what an arrant,
rascally, beggarly, lousy knave it is. I hope your Majesty is pear me
testimony and witness, and will avouchment, that this is the glove of
Alençon that your Majesty is give me; in your conscience, now?
KING HENRY.
Give me thy glove, soldier. Look, here is the fellow of it.
’Twas I, indeed, thou promisedst to strike;
And thou hast given me most bitter terms.
FLUELLEN.
An it please your Majesty, let his neck answer for it, if there is any
martial law in the world.
KING HENRY.
How canst thou make me satisfaction?
WILLIAMS.
All offences, my lord, come from the heart. Never came any from mine
that might offend your Majesty.
KING HENRY.
It was ourself thou didst abuse.
WILLIAMS.
Your Majesty came not like yourself. You appear’d to me but as a common
man; witness the night, your garments, your lowliness; and what your
Highness suffer’d under that shape, I beseech you take it for your own
fault and not mine; for had you been as I took you for, I made no
offence; therefore, I beseech your Highness, pardon me.
KING HENRY.
Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns,
And give it to this fellow. Keep it, fellow;
And wear it for an honour in thy cap
Till I do challenge it. Give him his crowns;
And, captain, you must needs be friends with him.
FLUELLEN.
By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle enough in his belly.
Hold, there is twelve pence for you; and I pray you to serve God, and
keep you out of prawls, and prabbles, and quarrels, and dissensions,
and, I warrant you, it is the better for you.
WILLIAMS.
I will none of your money.
FLUELLEN.
It is with a good will; I can tell you, it will serve you to mend your
shoes. Come, wherefore should you be so pashful? Your shoes is not so
good. ’Tis a good silling, I warrant you, or I will change it.
Enter an English Herald.
KING HENRY.
Now, herald, are the dead numb’red?
HERALD.
Here is the number of the slaught’red French.
KING HENRY.
What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?
EXETER.
Charles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the King;
John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Boucicault:
Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,
Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.
KING HENRY.
This note doth tell me of ten thousand French
That in the field lie slain; of princes, in this number,
And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead
One hundred twenty-six; added to these,
Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,
Eight thousand and four hundred; of the which,
Five hundred were but yesterday dubb’d knights;
So that, in these ten thousand they have lost,
There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries;
The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,
And gentlemen of blood and quality.
The names of those their nobles that lie dead:
Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;
Jacques of Chatillon, Admiral of France;
The master of the Crossbows, Lord Rambures;
Great Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dauphin,
John, Duke of Alençon, Anthony, Duke of Brabant,
The brother to the Duke of Burgundy,
And Edward, Duke of Bar; of lusty earls,
Grandpré and Roussi, Fauconbridge and Foix,
Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrale.
Here was a royal fellowship of death!
Where is the number of our English dead?
[_Herald gives him another paper._]
Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire;
None else of name; and of all other men
But five and twenty.—O God, thy arm was here;
And not to us, but to thy arm alone,
Ascribe we all! When, without stratagem,
But in plain shock and even play of battle,
Was ever known so great and little loss
On one part and on the other? Take it, God,
For it is none but thine!
EXETER.
’Tis wonderful!
KING HENRY.
Come, go we in procession to the village;
And be it death proclaimed through our host
To boast of this or take that praise from God
Which is His only.
FLUELLEN.
Is it not lawful, an please your Majesty, to tell how many is kill’d?
KING HENRY.
Yes, Captain; but with this acknowledgment,
That God fought for us.
FLUELLEN.
Yes, my conscience, He did us great good.
KING HENRY.
Do we all holy rites.
Let there be sung _Non nobis_ and _Te Deum_,
The dead with charity enclos’d in clay,
And then to Calais; and to England then,
Where ne’er from France arriv’d more happy men.
[_Exeunt._]
|
poem
| 24
|
ACT IV
| null |
Dramatis Personæ
KING HENRY the Sixth
DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, uncle to the King, and Protector
DUKE OF BEDFORD, uncle to the King, and Regent of France
DUKE OF EXETER, (Thomas Beaufort), great-uncle to the King
BISHOP OF WINCHESTER (Henry Beaufort), great-uncle to the King,
afterwards Cardinal
DUKE OF SOMERSET (John Beaufort)
RICHARD PLANTAGENET, son of Richard, late Earl of Cambridge, afterwards
Duke of York
|
poem
| 25
|
ACT IV
| null |
BEATRICE.
Princes and Counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly
Count Comfect; a sweet gallant, surely! O! that I were a man for
his sake, or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake!
But manhood is melted into curtsies, valour into compliment, and
men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as
valiant as Hercules, that only tells a lie and swears it. I
cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with
grieving.
|
poem
| 26
|
ACT IV
| null |
BENEDICK.
‘Suffer love,’ a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I
love thee against my will.
|
poem
| 27
|
THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
VENUS AND ADONIS
THE SONNETS
| null |
148
O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight,
Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote,
Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s: no,
How can it? O how can love’s eye be true,
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
No marvel then though I mistake my view,
The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.
O cunning love, with tears thou keep’st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
|
poem
| 28
|
ACT IV
| null |
SCENE I. A room in the Castle.
Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
KING.
There’s matter in these sighs. These profound heaves
You must translate. ’tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?
QUEEN.
Bestow this place on us a little while.
[_To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who go out._]
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!
KING.
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
QUEEN.
Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries ‘A rat, a rat!’
And in this brainish apprehension kills
The unseen good old man.
KING.
O heavy deed!
It had been so with us, had we been there.
His liberty is full of threats to all;
To you yourself, to us, to everyone.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer’d?
It will be laid to us, whose providence
Should have kept short, restrain’d, and out of haunt
This mad young man. But so much was our love
We would not understand what was most fit,
But like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
QUEEN.
To draw apart the body he hath kill’d,
O’er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done.
KING.
O Gertrude, come away!
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch
But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed
We must with all our majesty and skill
Both countenance and excuse.—Ho, Guildenstern!
Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him.
Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.
[_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends,
And let them know both what we mean to do
And what’s untimely done, so haply slander,
Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,
Transports his poison’d shot, may miss our name,
And hit the woundless air. O, come away!
My soul is full of discord and dismay.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Another room in the Castle.
Enter Hamlet.
HAMLET.
Safely stowed.
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
[_Within._] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
HAMLET.
What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
ROSENCRANTZ.
What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
HAMLET.
Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.
ROSENCRANTZ.
Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence,
And bear it to the chapel.
HAMLET.
Do not believe it.
ROSENCRANTZ.
Believe what?
HAMLET.
That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded
of a sponge—what replication should be made by the son of a king?
ROSENCRANTZ.
Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
HAMLET.
Ay, sir; that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his
authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end: he
keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be
last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but
squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.
ROSENCRANTZ.
I understand you not, my lord.
HAMLET.
I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
ROSENCRANTZ.
My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the King.
HAMLET.
The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King
is a thing—
GUILDENSTERN.
A thing, my lord!
HAMLET.
Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. Another room in the Castle.
Enter King, attended.
KING.
I have sent to seek him and to find the body.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He’s lov’d of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
And where ’tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weigh’d,
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are reliev’d,
Or not at all.
Enter Rosencrantz.
How now? What hath befall’n?
ROSENCRANTZ.
Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord,
We cannot get from him.
KING.
But where is he?
ROSENCRANTZ.
Without, my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure.
KING.
Bring him before us.
ROSENCRANTZ.
Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.
Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern.
KING.
Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?
HAMLET.
At supper.
KING.
At supper? Where?
HAMLET.
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of
politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet.
We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots.
Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service,—two dishes,
but to one table. That’s the end.
KING.
Alas, alas!
HAMLET.
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the
fish that hath fed of that worm.
KING.
What dost thou mean by this?
HAMLET.
Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts
of a beggar.
KING.
Where is Polonius?
HAMLET.
In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there,
seek him i’ th’other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not
within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the
lobby.
KING.
[_To some Attendants._] Go seek him there.
HAMLET.
He will stay till you come.
[_Exeunt Attendants._]
KING.
Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,—
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done,—must send thee hence
With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
Th’associates tend, and everything is bent
For England.
HAMLET.
For England?
KING.
Ay, Hamlet.
HAMLET.
Good.
KING.
So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.
HAMLET.
I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for England! Farewell, dear
mother.
KING.
Thy loving father, Hamlet.
HAMLET.
My mother. Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one
flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England.
[_Exit._]
KING.
Follow him at foot. Tempt him with speed aboard;
Delay it not; I’ll have him hence tonight.
Away, for everything is seal’d and done
That else leans on th’affair. Pray you make haste.
[_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
And England, if my love thou hold’st at aught,—
As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us,—thou mayst not coldly set
Our sovereign process, which imports at full,
By letters conjuring to that effect,
The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me. Till I know ’tis done,
Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun.
[_Exit._]
SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.
Enter Fortinbras and Forces marching.
FORTINBRAS.
Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.
Tell him that by his license, Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promis’d march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his Majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye;
And let him know so.
CAPTAIN.
I will do’t, my lord.
FORTINBRAS.
Go softly on.
[_Exeunt all but the Captain._]
Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern &c.
HAMLET.
Good sir, whose powers are these?
CAPTAIN.
They are of Norway, sir.
HAMLET.
How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?
CAPTAIN.
Against some part of Poland.
HAMLET.
Who commands them, sir?
CAPTAIN.
The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
HAMLET.
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?
CAPTAIN.
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET.
Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
CAPTAIN.
Yes, it is already garrison’d.
HAMLET.
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw!
This is th’imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
CAPTAIN.
God b’ wi’ you, sir.
[_Exit._]
ROSENCRANTZ.
Will’t please you go, my lord?
HAMLET.
I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.
[_Exeunt all but Hamlet._]
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge. What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unus’d. Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th’event,—
A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward,—I do not know
Why yet I live to say this thing’s to do,
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me,
Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff’d,
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.
[_Exit._]
SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle.
Enter Queen, Horatio and a Gentleman.
QUEEN.
I will not speak with her.
GENTLEMAN.
She is importunate, indeed distract.
Her mood will needs be pitied.
QUEEN.
What would she have?
GENTLEMAN.
She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart,
Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
’Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
QUEEN.
Let her come in.
[_Exit Gentleman._]
To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Enter Ophelia.
OPHELIA.
Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?
QUEEN.
How now, Ophelia?
OPHELIA.
[_Sings._]
How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle bat and staff
And his sandal shoon.
QUEEN.
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
OPHELIA.
Say you? Nay, pray you mark.
[_Sings._]
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone,
At his head a grass green turf,
At his heels a stone.
QUEEN.
Nay, but Ophelia—
OPHELIA.
Pray you mark.
[_Sings._]
White his shroud as the mountain snow.
Enter King.
QUEEN.
Alas, look here, my lord!
OPHELIA.
[_Sings._]
Larded all with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers.
KING.
How do you, pretty lady?
OPHELIA.
Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we
know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!
KING.
Conceit upon her father.
OPHELIA.
Pray you, let’s have no words of this; but when they ask you what it
means, say you this:
[_Sings._]
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
KING.
Pretty Ophelia!
OPHELIA.
Indeed la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t.
[_Sings._]
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do’t if they come to’t;
By Cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promis’d me to wed.
So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.
KING.
How long hath she been thus?
OPHELIA.
I hope all will be well. We must be patient. But I cannot choose but
weep, to think they would lay him i’ th’ cold ground. My brother shall
know of it. And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach!
Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night.
[_Exit._]
KING.
Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.
[_Exit Horatio._]
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father’s death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions. First, her father slain;
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick and and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
For good Polonius’ death; and we have done but greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him. Poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts.
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father’s death,
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.
[_A noise within._]
QUEEN.
Alack, what noise is this?
KING.
Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
Enter a Gentleman.
What is the matter?
GENTLEMAN.
Save yourself, my lord.
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O’erbears your offices. The rabble call him lord,
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry ‘Choose we! Laertes shall be king!’
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
‘Laertes shall be king, Laertes king.’
QUEEN.
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry.
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.
[_A noise within._]
KING.
The doors are broke.
Enter Laertes, armed; Danes following.
LAERTES.
Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all without.
Danes.
No, let’s come in.
LAERTES.
I pray you, give me leave.
DANES.
We will, we will.
[_They retire without the door._]
LAERTES.
I thank you. Keep the door. O thou vile king,
Give me my father.
QUEEN.
Calmly, good Laertes.
LAERTES.
That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard;
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.
KING.
What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?—
Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.
There’s such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incens’d.—Let him go, Gertrude:—
Speak, man.
LAERTES.
Where is my father?
KING.
Dead.
QUEEN.
But not by him.
KING.
Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES.
How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with.
To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds, I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I’ll be reveng’d
Most throughly for my father.
KING.
Who shall stay you?
LAERTES.
My will, not all the world.
And for my means, I’ll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.
KING.
Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge
That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
LAERTES.
None but his enemies.
KING.
Will you know them then?
LAERTES.
To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And, like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
KING.
Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father’s death,
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment ’pear
As day does to your eye.
DANES.
[_Within._] Let her come in.
LAERTES.
How now! What noise is that?
Re-enter Ophelia, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.
O heat, dry up my brains. Tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye.
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens, is’t possible a young maid’s wits
Should be as mortal as an old man’s life?
Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
OPHELIA.
[_Sings._]
They bore him barefac’d on the bier,
Hey no nonny, nonny, hey nonny
And on his grave rain’d many a tear.—
Fare you well, my dove!
LAERTES.
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
OPHELIA.
You must sing ‘Down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.’ O, how the
wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master’s
daughter.
LAERTES.
This nothing’s more than matter.
OPHELIA.
There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray love, remember. And
there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.
LAERTES.
A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
OPHELIA.
There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you; and here’s
some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O you must wear
your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some
violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he made a
good end.
[_Sings._]
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
LAERTES.
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
OPHELIA.
[_Sings._]
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead,
Go to thy death-bed,
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll.
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan.
God ha’ mercy on his soul.
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b’ wi’ ye.
[_Exit._]
LAERTES.
Do you see this, O God?
KING.
Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
And they shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me.
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touch’d, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.
LAERTES.
Let this be so;
His means of death, his obscure burial,—
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones,
No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,—
Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call’t in question.
KING.
So you shall.
And where th’offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you go with me.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE VI. Another room in the Castle.
Enter Horatio and a Servant.
HORATIO.
What are they that would speak with me?
SERVANT.
Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.
HORATIO.
Let them come in.
[_Exit Servant._]
I do not know from what part of the world
I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.
Enter Sailors.
FIRST SAILOR.
God bless you, sir.
HORATIO.
Let him bless thee too.
FIRST SAILOR.
He shall, sir, and’t please him. There’s a letter for you, sir. It
comes from th’ambassador that was bound for England; if your name be
Horatio, as I am let to know it is.
HORATIO.
[_Reads._] ‘Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these
fellows some means to the King. They have letters for him. Ere we were
two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us
chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled
valour, and in the grapple I boarded them. On the instant they got
clear of our ship, so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt
with me like thieves of mercy. But they knew what they did; I am to do
a good turn for them. Let the King have the letters I have sent, and
repair thou to me with as much haste as thou wouldst fly death. I have
words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too
light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee
where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England:
of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.
He that thou knowest thine,
HAMLET.’
Come, I will give you way for these your letters,
And do’t the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE VII. Another room in the Castle.
Enter King and Laertes.
KING.
Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursu’d my life.
LAERTES.
It well appears. But tell me
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,
As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly were stirr’d up.
KING.
O, for two special reasons,
Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew’d,
But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,—
My virtue or my plague, be it either which,—
She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count I might not go,
Is the great love the general gender bear him,
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Would like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timber’d for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim’d them.
LAERTES.
And so have I a noble father lost,
A sister driven into desperate terms,
Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age
For her perfections. But my revenge will come.
KING.
Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
That we can let our beard be shook with danger,
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.
I lov’d your father, and we love ourself,
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine—
Enter a Messenger.
How now? What news?
MESSENGER.
Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.
This to your Majesty; this to the Queen.
KING.
From Hamlet! Who brought them?
MESSENGER.
Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.
They were given me by Claudio. He receiv’d them
Of him that brought them.
KING.
Laertes, you shall hear them.
Leave us.
[_Exit Messenger._]
[_Reads._] ‘High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your
kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes. When I
shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasions of my
sudden and more strange return.
HAMLET.’
What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
LAERTES.
Know you the hand?
KING.
’Tis Hamlet’s character. ’Naked!’
And in a postscript here he says ‘alone.’
Can you advise me?
LAERTES.
I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come,
It warms the very sickness in my heart
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
‘Thus diest thou.’
KING.
If it be so, Laertes,—
As how should it be so? How otherwise?—
Will you be rul’d by me?
LAERTES.
Ay, my lord;
So you will not o’errule me to a peace.
KING.
To thine own peace. If he be now return’d,
As checking at his voyage, and that he means
No more to undertake it, I will work him
To exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall;
And for his death no wind shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice
And call it accident.
LAERTES.
My lord, I will be rul’d;
The rather if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ.
KING.
It falls right.
You have been talk’d of since your travel much,
And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality
Wherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts
Did not together pluck such envy from him
As did that one, and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthiest siege.
LAERTES.
What part is that, my lord?
KING.
A very riband in the cap of youth,
Yet needful too, for youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness. Two months since
Here was a gentleman of Normandy,—
I’ve seen myself, and serv’d against, the French,
And they can well on horseback, but this gallant
Had witchcraft in’t. He grew unto his seat,
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
As had he been incorps’d and demi-natur’d
With the brave beast. So far he topp’d my thought
That I in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.
LAERTES.
A Norman was’t?
KING.
A Norman.
LAERTES.
Upon my life, Lamond.
KING.
The very same.
LAERTES.
I know him well. He is the brooch indeed
And gem of all the nation.
KING.
He made confession of you,
And gave you such a masterly report
For art and exercise in your defence,
And for your rapier most especially,
That he cried out ’twould be a sight indeed
If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation
He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you oppos’d them. Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o’er to play with him.
Now, out of this,—
LAERTES.
What out of this, my lord?
KING.
Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?
LAERTES.
Why ask you this?
KING.
Not that I think you did not love your father,
But that I know love is begun by time,
And that I see, in passages of proof,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still,
For goodness, growing to a pleurisy,
Dies in his own too much. That we would do,
We should do when we would; for this ‘would’ changes,
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift sigh
That hurts by easing. But to the quick o’ th’ulcer:
Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake
To show yourself your father’s son in deed,
More than in words?
LAERTES.
To cut his throat i’ th’ church.
KING.
No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;
Revenge should have no bounds. But good Laertes,
Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet return’d shall know you are come home:
We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence,
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together
And wager on your heads. He, being remiss,
Most generous, and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
A sword unbated, and in a pass of practice,
Requite him for your father.
LAERTES.
I will do’t.
And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
This is but scratch’d withal. I’ll touch my point
With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.
KING.
Let’s further think of this,
Weigh what convenience both of time and means
May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance.
’Twere better not assay’d. Therefore this project
Should have a back or second, that might hold
If this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see.
We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,—
I ha’t! When in your motion you are hot and dry,
As make your bouts more violent to that end,
And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepar’d him
A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck,
Our purpose may hold there.
Enter Queen.
How now, sweet Queen?
QUEEN.
One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,
So fast they follow. Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.
LAERTES.
Drown’d! O, where?
QUEEN.
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream.
There with fantastic garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up,
Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element. But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
LAERTES.
Alas, then she is drown’d?
QUEEN.
Drown’d, drown’d.
LAERTES.
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will. When these are gone,
The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord,
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly douts it.
[_Exit._]
KING.
Let’s follow, Gertrude;
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I this will give it start again;
Therefore let’s follow.
[_Exeunt._]
|
poem
| 29
|
THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
VENUS AND ADONIS
THE SONNETS
| null |
97
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness everywhere!
And yet this time removed was summer’s time,
The teeming autumn big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widowed wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute.
Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.
|
poem
| 30
|
THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
VENUS AND ADONIS
THE SONNETS
| null |
80
O how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your wort, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark (inferior far to his)
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,
Or (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride.
Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this: my love was my decay.
|
poem
| 31
|
ACT III
| null |
DOGBERRY.
You have: I knew it would be your answer. Well, for your favour,
sir, why, give God thanks, and make no boast of it; and for your
writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of
such vanity. You are thought here to be the most senseless and
fit man for the constable of the watch; therefore bear you the
lanthorn. This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom
men; you are to bid any man stand, in the Prince’s name.
|
poem
| 32
|
ACT IV
| null |
SCENE V. Mytilene. A street before the brothel.
Enter, from the brothel, two Gentlemen.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Did you ever hear the like?
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
No, nor never shall do in such a place as this, she being once gone.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
But to have divinity preached there! did you ever dream of such a
thing?
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy houses: shall’s go hear the
vestals sing?
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
I’ll do anything now that is virtuous; but I am out of the road of
rutting for ever.
[_Exeunt._]
|
poem
| 33
|
ACT II
| null |
DON PEDRO.
How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her
spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.
|
poem
| 34
|
ACT IV
| null |
CLAUDIO.
Leonato, stand I here?
Is this the Prince? Is this the Prince’s brother?
Is this face Hero’s? Are our eyes our own?
|
poem
| 35
|
End of preview. Expand
in Data Studio
Shakespeare Complete Works Dataset
This dataset contains the complete works of William Shakespeare, including:
- The Sonnets (154 sonnets)
- Plays (Tragedies, Comedies, Histories)
- Poems
Dataset Structure
Each entry contains:
work: The title of the worksection: Specific section (e.g., "Sonnet 1") if applicabletext: The actual text contenttype: Type of work (sonnet, play, poem)id: Unique identifier
Usage
from datasets import load_dataset
dataset = load_dataset("r-three/shakespeare-complete-works")
# Access a sonnet
print(dataset['train'][0])
Source
Public domain works by William Shakespeare.
Citation
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