Project Gutenberg’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, by William
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See at the end of this file: * CONTENT NOTE (added in 2017) *


Title: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Author: William Shakespeare

Release Date: January 1994 [EBook #100]
Last Updated: June 14, 2018

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ***




The Complete Works of William Shakespeare



by William Shakespeare




      Contents



               THE SONNETS

               ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

               THE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

               AS YOU LIKE IT

               THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

               THE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS

               CYMBELINE

               THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

               THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

               THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

               THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH

               THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH

               THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

               THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

               KING HENRY THE EIGHTH

               KING JOHN

               THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR

               THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR

               LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

               THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH

               MEASURE FOR MEASURE

               THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

               THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

               A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

               MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

               THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, MOOR OF VENICE

               PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE

               KING RICHARD THE SECOND

               KING RICHARD THE THIRD

               THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET

               THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

               THE TEMPEST

               THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS

               THE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS

               THE HISTORY OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

               TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL

               THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

               THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN

               THE WINTER’S TALE

               A LOVER’S COMPLAINT

               THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM

               THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE

               THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

               VENUS AND ADONIS






THE SONNETS

                    1

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding:
  Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
  To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.


                    2

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
  This were to be new made when thou art old,
  And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.


                    3

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother’s glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime,
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
  But if thou live remembered not to be,
  Die single and thine image dies with thee.


                    4

Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,
Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thy self alone,
Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
  Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
  Which used lives th’ executor to be.


                    5

Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’er-snowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer’s distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
  But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,
  Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.


                    6

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,
With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-killed:
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
  Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair,
  To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.


                    7

Lo in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty,
And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
But when from highmost pitch with weary car,
Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,
The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:
  So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:
  Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.


                    8

Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:
Mark how one string sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
  Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
  Sings this to thee, ‘Thou single wilt prove none’.


                    9

Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye,
That thou consum’st thy self in single life?
Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,
The world will be thy widow and still weep,
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep,
By children’s eyes, her husband’s shape in mind:
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it:
  No love toward others in that bosom sits
  That on himself such murd’rous shame commits.


                    10

For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any
Who for thy self art so unprovident.
Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lov’st is most evident:
For thou art so possessed with murd’rous hate,
That ’gainst thy self thou stick’st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire:
O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,
Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,
  Make thee another self for love of me,
  That beauty still may live in thine or thee.


                    11

As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow’st,
In one of thine, from that which thou departest,
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow’st,
Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,
Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,
Without this folly, age, and cold decay,
If all were minded so, the times should cease,
And threescore year would make the world away:
Let those whom nature hath not made for store,
Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:
Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
  She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,
  Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.


                    12

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o’er with white:
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow,
  And nothing ’gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
  Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.


                    13

O that you were your self, but love you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live,
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination, then you were
Your self again after your self’s decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day
And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?
  O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,
  You had a father, let your son say so.


                    14

Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy,
But not to tell of good, or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality,
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find.
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And constant stars in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive
If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:
  Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
  Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.


                    15

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment.
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory.
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night,
  And all in war with Time for love of you,
  As he takes from you, I engraft you new.


                    16

But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?
And fortify your self in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens yet unset,
With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life repair
Which this (Time’s pencil) or my pupil pen
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair
Can make you live your self in eyes of men.
  To give away your self, keeps your self still,
  And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.


                    17

Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say this poet lies,
Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.
So should my papers (yellowed with their age)
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage,
And stretched metre of an antique song.
  But were some child of yours alive that time,
  You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.


                    18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


                    19

Devouring Time blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
And do whate’er thou wilt swift-footed Time
To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
O carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,
Him in thy course untainted do allow,
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
  Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
  My love shall in my verse ever live young.


                    20

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,
Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,
A woman’s gentle heart but not acquainted
With shifting change as is false women’s fashion,
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created,
Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
  But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure,
  Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.


                    21

So is it not with me as with that muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems:
With April’s first-born flowers and all things rare,
That heaven’s air in this huge rondure hems.
O let me true in love but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair,
As any mother’s child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven’s air:
  Let them say more that like of hearsay well,
  I will not praise that purpose not to sell.


                    22

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date,
But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O therefore love be of thyself so wary,
As I not for my self, but for thee will,
Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
  Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
  Thou gav’st me thine not to give back again.


                    23

As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;
So I for fear of trust, forget to say,
The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,
And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,
O’ercharged with burthen of mine own love’s might:
O let my looks be then the eloquence,
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.
  O learn to read what silent love hath writ,
  To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.


                    24

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,
Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart,
My body is the frame wherein ’tis held,
And perspective it is best painter’s art.
For through the painter must you see his skill,
To find where your true image pictured lies,
Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
  Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
  They draw but what they see, know not the heart.


                    25

Let those who are in favour with their stars,
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars
Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;
Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread,
But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
  Then happy I that love and am beloved
  Where I may not remove nor be removed.


                    26

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;
To thee I send this written embassage
To witness duty, not to show my wit.
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul’s thought (all naked) will bestow it:
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And puts apparel on my tattered loving,
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,
  Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,
  Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.


                    27

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired.
For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see.
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
  Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,
  For thee, and for my self, no quiet find.


                    28

How can I then return in happy plight
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day’s oppression is not eased by night,
But day by night and night by day oppressed.
And each (though enemies to either’s reign)
Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
I tell the day to please him thou art bright,
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even.
  But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
  And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger


                    29

When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon my self and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate,
  For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
  That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


                    30

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan th’ expense of many a vanished sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
  But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)
  All losses are restored, and sorrows end.


                    31

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear,
But things removed that hidden in thee lie.
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give,
That due of many, now is thine alone.
  Their images I loved, I view in thee,
  And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.


                    32

If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:
Compare them with the bett’ring of the time,
And though they be outstripped by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,
’Had my friend’s Muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought
To march in ranks of better equipage:
  But since he died and poets better prove,
  Theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love’.


                    33

Full many a glorious morning have I seen,
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green;
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
With all triumphant splendour on my brow,
But out alack, he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath masked him from me now.
  Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,
  Suns of the world may stain, when heaven’s sun staineth.


                    34

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy brav’ry in their rotten smoke?
’Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak,
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief,
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,
Th’ offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence’s cross.
  Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
  And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.


                    35

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
My self corrupting salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,
Thy adverse party is thy advocate,
And ’gainst my self a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate,
  That I an accessary needs must be,
  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.


                    36

Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which though it alter not love’s sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
  But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
  As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.


                    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.


                    38

How can my muse want subject to invent
While thou dost breathe that pour’st into my verse,
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent,
For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
O give thy self the thanks if aught in me,
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,
For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thy self dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
  If my slight muse do please these curious days,
  The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.


                    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.


                    40

Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:
Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,
But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief
Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear greater wrong, than hate’s known injury.
  Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
  Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.


                    41

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.
And when a woman woos, what woman’s son,
Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?
Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:
  Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
  Thine by thy beauty being false to me.


                    42

That thou hast her it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,
Thou dost love her, because thou know’st I love her,
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suff’ring my friend for my sake to approve her.
If I lose thee, my loss is my love’s gain,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross,
  But here’s the joy, my friend and I are one,
  Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.


                    43

When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected,
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright
How would thy shadow’s form, form happy show,
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
  All days are nights to see till I see thee,
  And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.


                    44

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way,
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend, time’s leisure with my moan.
  Receiving nought by elements so slow,
  But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.


                    45

The other two, slight air, and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide,
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee,
My life being made of four, with two alone,
Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.
Until life’s composition be recured,
By those swift messengers returned from thee,
Who even but now come back again assured,
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.
  This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,
  I send them back again and straight grow sad.


                    46

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight,
Mine eye, my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,
My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To side this title is impanelled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye’s moiety, and the dear heart’s part.
  As thus, mine eye’s due is thy outward part,
  And my heart’s right, thy inward love of heart.


                    47

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other,
When that mine eye is famished for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;
With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart:
Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.
So either by thy picture or my love,
Thy self away, art present still with me,
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee.
  Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
  Awakes my heart, to heart’s and eye’s delight.


                    48

How careful was I when I took my way,
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
That to my use it might unused stay
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,
Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
Thee have I not locked up in any chest,
Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,
Within the gentle closure of my breast,
From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,
  And even thence thou wilt be stol’n I fear,
  For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.


                    49

Against that time (if ever that time come)
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advised respects,
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,
When love converted from the thing it was
Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
Against that time do I ensconce me here
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this my hand, against my self uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,
  To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,
  Since why to love, I can allege no cause.


                    50

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek (my weary travel’s end)
Doth teach that case and that repose to say
’Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.’
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed being made from thee:
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side,
  For that same groan doth put this in my mind,
  My grief lies onward and my joy behind.


                    51

Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,
Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,
From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?
Till I return of posting is no need.
O what excuse will my poor beast then find,
When swift extremity can seem but slow?
Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,
In winged speed no motion shall I know,
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,
Therefore desire (of perfect’st love being made)
Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,
But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,
  Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,
  Towards thee I’ll run, and give him leave to go.


                    52

So am I as the rich whose blessed key,
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since seldom coming in that long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special-blest,
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.
  Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
  Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.


                    53

What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one, hath every one, one shade,
And you but one, can every shadow lend:
Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,
Is poorly imitated after you,
On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear,
And you in every blessed shape we know.
  In all external grace you have some part,
  But you like none, none you for constant heart.


                    54

O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour, which doth in it live:
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye,
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:
But for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,
Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:
  And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
  When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.


                    55

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn:
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
  So till the judgment that your self arise,
  You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.


                    56

Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but to-day by feeding is allayed,
To-morrow sharpened in his former might.
So love be thou, although to-day thou fill
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,
To-morrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness:
Let this sad interim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,
Come daily to the banks, that when they see:
Return of love, more blest may be the view.
  Or call it winter, which being full of care,
  Makes summer’s welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.


                    57

Being your slave what should I do but tend,
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend;
Nor services to do till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu.
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But like a sad slave stay and think of nought
Save where you are, how happy you make those.
  So true a fool is love, that in your will,
  (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.


                    58

That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand th’ account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.
O let me suffer (being at your beck)
Th’ imprisoned absence of your liberty,
And patience tame to sufferance bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong,
That you your self may privilage your time
To what you will, to you it doth belong,
Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.
  I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
  Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.


                    59

If there be nothing new, but that which is,
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which labouring for invention bear amis
The second burthen of a former child!
O that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done.
That I might see what the old world could say,
To this composed wonder of your frame,
Whether we are mended, or whether better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
  O sure I am the wits of former days,
  To subjects worse have given admiring praise.


                    60

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,
Crooked eclipses ’gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
  And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
  Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.


                    61

Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?
O no, thy love though much, is not so great,
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake.
  For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
  From me far off, with others all too near.


                    62

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account,
And for my self mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me my self indeed
beated and chopt with tanned antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:
Self, so self-loving were iniquity.
  ’Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,
  Painting my age with beauty of thy days.


                    63

Against my love shall be as I am now
With Time’s injurious hand crushed and o’erworn,
When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn
Hath travelled on to age’s steepy night,
And all those beauties whereof now he’s king
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring:
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding age’s cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life.
  His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
  And they shall live, and he in them still green.


                    64

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,
When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.
When I have seen such interchange of State,
Or state it self confounded, to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
  This thought is as a death which cannot choose
  But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.


                    65

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out,
Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?
O fearful meditation, where alack,
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
  O none, unless this miracle have might,
  That in black ink my love may still shine bright.


                    66

Tired with all these for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill.
  Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
  Save that to die, I leave my love alone.


                    67

Ah wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve,
And lace it self with his society?
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeming of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek,
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is,
Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins,
For she hath no exchequer now but his,
And proud of many, lives upon his gains?
  O him she stores, to show what wealth she had,
  In days long since, before these last so bad.


                    68

Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow:
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head,
Ere beauty’s dead fleece made another gay:
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament, it self and true,
Making no summer of another’s green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,
  And him as for a map doth Nature store,
  To show false Art what beauty was of yore.


                    69

Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view,
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:
All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that in guess they measure by thy deeds,
Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
  But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
  The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.


                    70

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair,
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve,
Thy worth the greater being wooed of time,
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present’st a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,
Either not assailed, or victor being charged,
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,
  If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,
  Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.


                    71

No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay if you read this line, remember not,
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay.
  Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
  And mock you with me after I am gone.


                    72

O lest the world should task you to recite,
What merit lived in me that you should love
After my death (dear love) forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I,
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.
  For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
  And so should you, to love things nothing worth.


                    73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
  This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
  To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.


                    74

But be contented when that fell arrest,
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review,
The very part was consecrate to thee,
The earth can have but earth, which is his due,
My spirit is thine the better part of me,
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretch’s knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered,
  The worth of that, is that which it contains,
  And that is this, and this with thee remains.


                    75

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look,
Possessing or pursuing no delight
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
  Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
  Or gluttoning on all, or all away.


                    76

Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
O know sweet love I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument:
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
  For as the sun is daily new and old,
  So is my love still telling what is told.


                    77

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,
These vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear,
And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory,
Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know,
Time’s thievish progress to eternity.
Look what thy memory cannot contain,
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
  Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.


                    78

So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse,
As every alien pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing,
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,
In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.
  But thou art all my art, and dost advance
  As high as learning, my rude ignorance.


                    79

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
But now my gracious numbers are decayed,
And my sick muse doth give an other place.
I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again,
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word,
From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give
And found it in thy cheek: he can afford
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.
  Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
  Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.


                    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 worth (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.


                    81

Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men’s eyes shall lie,
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o’er-read,
And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead,
  You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)
  Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.


                    82

I grant thou wert not married to my muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,
And therefore art enforced to seek anew,
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.
And do so love, yet when they have devised,
What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,
In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.
  And their gross painting might be better used,
  Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.


                    83

I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set,
I found (or thought I found) you did exceed,
That barren tender of a poet’s debt:
And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you your self being extant well might show,
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
This silence for my sin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory being dumb,
For I impair not beauty being mute,
When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,
  Than both your poets can in praise devise.


                    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.


                    85

My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise richly compiled,
Reserve their character with golden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,
And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,
To every hymn that able spirit affords,
In polished form of well refined pen.
Hearing you praised, I say ’tis so, ’tis true,
And to the most of praise add something more,
But that is in my thought, whose love to you
(Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,
  Then others, for the breath of words respect,
  Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.


                    86

Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast,
I was not sick of any fear from thence.
  But when your countenance filled up his line,
  Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.


                    87

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate,
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thy self thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking,
So thy great gift upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
  Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,
  In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.


                    88

When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
Upon thy side, against my self I’ll fight,
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:
That thou in losing me, shalt win much glory:
And I by this will be a gainer too,
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to my self I do,
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
  Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
  That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.


                    89

Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
And I will comment upon that offence,
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desired change,
As I’ll my self disgrace, knowing thy will,
I will acquaintance strangle and look strange:
Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue,
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,
Lest I (too much profane) should do it wronk:
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
  For thee, against my self I’ll vow debate,
  For I must ne’er love him whom thou dost hate.


                    90

Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,
Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss:
Ah do not, when my heart hath ’scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset come, so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune’s might.
  And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
  Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.


                    91

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force,
Some in their garments though new-fangled ill:
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,
But these particulars are not my measure,
All these I better in one general best.
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments’ costs,
Of more delight than hawks and horses be:
And having thee, of all men’s pride I boast.
  Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,
  All this away, and me most wretchcd make.


                    92

But do thy worst to steal thy self away,
For term of life thou art assured mine,
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
When in the least of them my life hath end,
I see, a better state to me belongs
Than that, which on thy humour doth depend.
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,
O what a happy title do I find,
Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
  But what’s so blessed-fair that fears no blot?
  Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.


                    93

So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband, so love’s face,
May still seem love to me, though altered new:
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,
In many’s looks, the false heart’s history
Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.
But heaven in thy creation did decree,
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,
Whate’er thy thoughts, or thy heart’s workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.
  How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow,
  If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.


                    94

They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing, they most do show,
Who moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,
And husband nature’s riches from expense,
Tibey are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence:
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to it self, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
  For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,
  Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.


                    95

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,
Which like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
(Making lascivious comments on thy sport)
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,
Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.
O what a mansion have those vices got,
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!
  Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,
  The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.


                    96

Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:
Thou mak’st faults graces, that to thee resort:
As on the finger of a throned queen,
The basest jewel will be well esteemed:
So are those errors that in thee are seen,
To truths translated, and for true things deemed.
How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
If like a lamb he could his looks translate!
How many gazers mightst thou lead away,
if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!
  But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
  As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.


                    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.


                    98

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell:
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,
They were but sweet, but figures of delight:
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
  Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,
  As with your shadow I with these did play.


                    99

The forward violet thus did I chide,
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells,
In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair,
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair:
A third nor red, nor white, had stol’n of both,
And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,
But for his theft in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
  More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
  But sweet, or colour it had stol’n from thee.


                    100

Where art thou Muse that thou forget’st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
In gentle numbers time so idly spent,
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise resty Muse, my love’s sweet face survey,
If time have any wrinkle graven there,
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make time’s spoils despised everywhere.
  Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
  So thou prevent’st his scythe, and crooked knife.


                    101

O truant Muse what shall be thy amends,
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends:
So dost thou too, and therein dignified:
Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,
’Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,
Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay:
But best is best, if never intermixed’?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for’t lies in thee,
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb:
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
  Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,
  To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.


                    102

My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,
I love not less, though less the show appear,
That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,
The owner’s tongue doth publish every where.
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing,
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild music burthens every bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
  Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:
  Because I would not dull you with my song.


                    103

Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument all bare is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside.
O blame me not if I no more can write!
Look in your glass and there appears a face,
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
For to no other pass my verses tend,
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.
  And more, much more than in my verse can sit,
  Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.


                    104

To me fair friend you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.
Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.
  For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,
  Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.


                    105

Let not my love be called idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence,
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,
Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words,
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
  Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.
  Which three till now, never kept seat in one.


                    106

When in the chronicle of wasted time,
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed,
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
  For we which now behold these present days,
  Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.


                    107

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage,
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
Since spite of him I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes.
  And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
  When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.


                    108

What’s in the brain that ink may character,
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit,
What’s new to speak, what now to register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,
I must each day say o’er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love’s fresh case,
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page,
  Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
  Where time and outward form would show it dead.


                    109

O never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,
As easy might I from my self depart,
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love, if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that my self bring water for my stain,
Never believe though in my nature reigned,
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:
  For nothing this wide universe I call,
  Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all.


                    110

Alas ’tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made my self a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new.
Most true it is, that I have looked on truth
Askance and strangely: but by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays proved thee my best of love.
Now all is done, have what shall have no end,
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am confined.
  Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
  Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.


                    111

O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:
Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,
Whilst like a willing patient I will drink,
Potions of eisel ’gainst my strong infection,
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance to correct correction.
  Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,
  Even that your pity is enough to cure me.


                    112

Your love and pity doth th’ impression fill,
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all the world, and I must strive,
To know my shames and praises from your tongue,
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others’ voices, that my adder’s sense,
To critic and to flatterer stopped are:
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.
  You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
  That all the world besides methinks are dead.


                    113

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about,
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out:
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:
For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed’st creature,
The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
  Incapable of more, replete with you,
  My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.


                    114

Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you
Drink up the monarch’s plague this flattery?
Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this alchemy?
To make of monsters, and things indigest,
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best
As fast as objects to his beams assemble:
O ’tis the first, ’tis flattery in my seeing,
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is ’greeing,
And to his palate doth prepare the cup.
  If it be poisoned, ’tis the lesser sin,
  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.


                    115

Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer,
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,
But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents
Creep in ’twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of alt’ring things:
Alas why fearing of time’s tyranny,
Might I not then say ‘Now I love you best,’
When I was certain o’er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
  Love is a babe, then might I not say so
  To give full growth to that which still doth grow.


                    116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
  If this be error and upon me proved,
  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


                    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.


                    118

Like as to make our appetite more keen
With eager compounds we our palate urge,
As to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
Even so being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,
To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love t’ anticipate
The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state
Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.
  But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
  Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you.


                    119

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw my self to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O benefit of ill, now I find true
That better is, by evil still made better.
And ruined love when it is built anew
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
  So I return rebuked to my content,
  And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.


                    120

That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken
As I by yours, y’have passed a hell of time,
And I a tyrant have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O that our night of woe might have remembered
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me then tendered
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
  But that your trespass now becomes a fee,
  Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.


                    121

’Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
When not to be, receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,
Not by our feeling, but by others’ seeing.
For why should others’ false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses, reckon up their own,
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown
  Unless this general evil they maintain,
  All men are bad and in their badness reign.


                    122

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date even to eternity.
Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist,
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed:
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
  To keep an adjunct to remember thee
  Were to import forgetfulness in me.


                    123

No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,
They are but dressings Of a former sight:
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire,
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
And rather make them born to our desire,
Than think that we before have heard them told:
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wond’ring at the present, nor the past,
For thy records, and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste:
  This I do vow and this shall ever be,
  I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.


                    124

If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered,
As subject to time’s love or to time’s hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
No it was builded far from accident,
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th’ inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic,
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
  To this I witness call the fools of time,
  Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.


                    125

Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more by paying too much rent
For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee.
  Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul
  When most impeached, stands least in thy control.


                    126

O thou my lovely boy who in thy power,
Dost hold Time’s fickle glass his fickle hour:
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st,
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st.
If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)
As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,
She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!
  Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
  And her quietus is to render thee.


                    127

In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were it bore not beauty’s name:
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame,
For since each hand hath put on nature’s power,
Fairing the foul with art’s false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,
At such who not born fair no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem,
  Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
  That every tongue says beauty should look so.


                    128

How oft when thou, my music, music play’st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand.
To be so tickled they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than living lips,
  Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
  Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.


                    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.


                    130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red, than her lips red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
  And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,
  As any she belied with false compare.


                    131

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know’st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;
To say they err, I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it to my self alone.
And to be sure that is not false I swear,
A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,
One on another’s neck do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgment’s place.
  In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
  And thence this slander as I think proceeds.


                    132

Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even
Doth half that glory to the sober west
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.
  Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
  And all they foul that thy complexion lack.


                    133

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;
Is’t not enough to torture me alone,
But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be?
Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,
And my next self thou harder hast engrossed,
Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,
A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:
Prison my heart in thy steel bosom’s ward,
But then my friend’s heart let my poor heart bail,
Whoe’er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,
Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.
  And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,
  Perforce am thine and all that is in me.


                    134

So now I have confessed that he is thine,
And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,
My self I’ll forfeit, so that other mine,
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous, and he is kind,
He learned but surety-like to write for me,
Under that bond that him as fist doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer that put’st forth all to use,
And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
  Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,
  He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.


                    135

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus,
More than enough am I that vex thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store,
So thou being rich in will add to thy will
One will of mine to make thy large will more.
  Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,
  Think all but one, and me in that one Will.


                    136

If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,
And will thy soul knows is admitted there,
Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.
Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love,
Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,
In things of great receipt with case we prove,
Among a number one is reckoned none.
Then in the number let me pass untold,
Though in thy store’s account I one must be,
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.
  Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
  And then thou lov’st me for my name is Will.


                    137

Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,
Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyes’ falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
Why should my heart think that a several plot,
Which my heart knows the wide world’s common place?
Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not
To put fair truth upon so foul a face?
  In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,
  And to this false plague are they now transferred.


                    138

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue,
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told.
  Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
  And in our faults by lies we flattered be.


                    139

O call not me to justify the wrong,
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,
Use power with power, and slay me not by art,
Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,
What need’st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o’erpressed defence can bide?
Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
  Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,
  Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.


                    140

Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit better it were,
Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,
As testy sick men when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know.
For if I should despair I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee,
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
  That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.


                    141

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note,
But ’tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.
Nor are mine cars with thy tongue’s tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits, nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart’s slave and vassal wretch to be:
  Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
  That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.


                    142

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,
O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,
Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,
And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robbed others’ beds’ revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov’st those,
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,
Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
  If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
  By self-example mayst thou be denied.


                    143

Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch,
One of her feathered creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent,
To follow that which flies before her face:
Not prizing her poor infant’s discontent;
So run’st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,
But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:
And play the mother’s part, kiss me, be kind.
  So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,
  If thou turn back and my loud crying still.


                    144

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still,
The better angel is a man right fair:
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell my female evil,
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,
But being both from me both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell.
  Yet this shall I ne’er know but live in doubt,
  Till my bad angel fire my good one out.


                    145

Those lips that Love’s own hand did make,
Breathed forth the sound that said ‘I hate’,
To me that languished for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,
Was used in giving gentle doom:
And taught it thus anew to greet:
‘I hate’ she altered with an end,
That followed it as gentle day,
Doth follow night who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
  ‘I hate’, from hate away she threw,
  And saved my life saying ‘not you’.


                    146

Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth these rebel powers array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms inheritors of this excess
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end?
Then soul live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more,
  So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
  And death once dead, there’s no more dying then.


                    147

My love is as a fever longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please:
My reason the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as mad men’s are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed.
  For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
  Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.


                    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.


                    149

Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,
When I against my self with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee when I forgot
Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,
On whom frown’st thou that I do fawn upon,
Nay if thou lour’st on me do I not spend
Revenge upon my self with present moan?
What merit do I in my self respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
  But love hate on for now I know thy mind,
  Those that can see thou lov’st, and I am blind.


                    150

O from what power hast thou this powerful might,
With insufficiency my heart to sway,
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds,
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.
  If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
  More worthy I to be beloved of thee.


                    151

Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body’s treason,
My soul doth tell my body that he may,
Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
  No want of conscience hold it that I call,
  Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.


                    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 be.


                    153

Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,
A maid of Dian’s this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground:
Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love,
A dateless lively heat still to endure,
And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove,
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure:
But at my mistress’ eye Love’s brand new-fired,
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast,
I sick withal the help of bath desired,
And thither hied a sad distempered guest.
  But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,
  Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress’ eyes.


                    154

The little Love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,
Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,
The fairest votary took up that fire,
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,
And so the general of hot desire,
Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love’s fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
For men discased, but I my mistress’ thrall,
  Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
  Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.


THE END




ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

Dramatis Personae

  KING OF FRANCE
  THE DUKE OF FLORENCE
  BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon
  LAFEU, an old lord
  PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram
  TWO FRENCH LORDS, serving with Bertram

  STEWARD, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon
  LAVACHE, a clown and Servant to the Countess of Rousillon
  A PAGE, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon

  COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, mother to Bertram
  HELENA, a gentlewoman protected by the Countess
  A WIDOW OF FLORENCE.
  DIANA, daughter to the Widow

 VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow
  MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow

  Lords, Officers, Soldiers, etc., French and Florentine

SCENE: Rousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles

ACT I. SCENE 1. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in
black

  COUNTESS. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.
  BERTRAM. And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew;
    but I must attend his Majesty's command, to whom I am now in
    ward, evermore in subjection.
  LAFEU. You shall find of the King a husband, madam; you, sir, a
    father. He that so generally is at all times good must of
    necessity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would stir it
    up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such
    abundance.
  COUNTESS. What hope is there of his Majesty's amendment?
  LAFEU. He hath abandon'd his physicians, madam; under whose
    practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other
    advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.
  COUNTESS. This young gentlewoman had a father- O, that 'had,' how
    sad a passage 'tis!-whose skill was almost as great as his
    honesty; had it stretch'd so far, would have made nature
    immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for
    the King's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of
    the King's disease.
  LAFEU. How call'd you the man you speak of, madam?
  COUNTESS. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his
    great right to be so- Gerard de Narbon.
  LAFEU. He was excellent indeed, madam; the King very lately spoke
    of him admiringly and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have
    liv'd still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.
  BERTRAM. What is it, my good lord, the King languishes of?
  LAFEU. A fistula, my lord.
  BERTRAM. I heard not of it before.
  LAFEU. I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the
    daughter of Gerard de Narbon?
  COUNTESS. His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my
    overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education
    promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts
    fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities,
    there commendations go with pity-they are virtues and traitors
    too. In her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives
    her honesty, and achieves her goodness.
  LAFEU. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.
  COUNTESS. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in.
    The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the
    tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No
    more of this, Helena; go to, no more, lest it be rather thought
    you affect a sorrow than to have-
  HELENA. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
  LAFEU. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead: excessive
    grief the enemy to the living.
  COUNTESS. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it
    soon mortal.
  BERTRAM. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
  LAFEU. How understand we that?
  COUNTESS. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father
    In manners, as in shape! Thy blood and virtue
    Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
    Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
    Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy
    Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
    Under thy own life's key; be check'd for silence,
    But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
    That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
    Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,
    'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
    Advise him.
  LAFEU. He cannot want the best
    That shall attend his love.
  COUNTESS. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.            Exit
  BERTRAM. The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts be
    servants to you!  [To HELENA]  Be comfortable to my mother, your
    mistress, and make much of her.
  LAFEU. Farewell, pretty lady; you must hold the credit of your
    father.                             Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU
  HELENA. O, were that all! I think not on my father;
    And these great tears grace his remembrance more
    Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
    I have forgot him; my imagination
    Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.
    I am undone; there is no living, none,
    If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one
    That I should love a bright particular star
    And think to wed it, he is so above me.
    In his bright radiance and collateral light
    Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
    Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
    The hind that would be mated by the lion
    Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,
    To see him every hour; to sit and draw
    His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
    In our heart's table-heart too capable
    Of every line and trick of his sweet favour.
    But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
    Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?

                       Enter PAROLLES

    [Aside]  One that goes with him. I love him for his sake;
    And yet I know him a notorious liar,
    Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
    Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him
    That they take place when virtue's steely bones
    Looks bleak i' th' cold wind; withal, full oft we see
    Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
  PAROLLES. Save you, fair queen!
  HELENA. And you, monarch!
  PAROLLES. No.
  HELENA. And no.
  PAROLLES. Are you meditating on virginity?
  HELENA. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a
    question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it
    against him?
  PAROLLES. Keep him out.
  HELENA. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the
    defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.
  PAROLLES. There is none. Man, setting down before you, will
    undermine you and blow you up.
  HELENA. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up!
    Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men?
  PAROLLES. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown
    up; marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves
     made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth
    of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational
    increase; and there was never virgin got till virginity was first
    lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity
    by being once lost may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it
    is ever lost. 'Tis too cold a companion; away with't.
  HELENA. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a
    virgin.
  PAROLLES. There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the rule
    of nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your
    mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs
    himself is a virgin; virginity murders itself, and should be
    buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate
    offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a
    cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with
    feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud,
    idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the
    canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by't. Out with't.
    Within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly
    increase; and the principal itself not much the worse. Away
    with't.
  HELENA. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?
  PAROLLES. Let me see. Marry, ill to like him that ne'er it likes.
    'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept,
    the less worth. Off with't while 'tis vendible; answer the time
    of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of
    fashion, richly suited but unsuitable; just like the brooch and
    the toothpick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your
    pie and your porridge than in your cheek. And your virginity,
    your old virginity, is like one of our French wither'd pears: it
    looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a wither'd pear; it was
    formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a wither'd pear. Will you
    anything with it?
  HELENA. Not my virginity yet.
    There shall your master have a thousand loves,
    A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
    A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
    A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
    A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
    His humble ambition, proud humility,
    His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
    His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
    Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms
    That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-
    I know not what he shall. God send him well!
    The court's a learning-place, and he is one-
  PAROLLES. What one, i' faith?
  HELENA. That I wish well. 'Tis pity-
  PAROLLES. What's pity?
  HELENA. That wishing well had not a body in't
    Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,
    Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
    Might with effects of them follow our friends
    And show what we alone must think, which never
    Returns us thanks.

                      Enter PAGE

  PAGE. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.      Exit PAGE
  PAROLLES. Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I will
    think of thee at court.
  HELENA. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.
  PAROLLES. Under Mars, I.
  HELENA. I especially think, under Mars.
  PAROLLES. Why under Man?
  HELENA. The wars hath so kept you under that you must needs be born
    under Mars.
  PAROLLES. When he was predominant.
  HELENA. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
  PAROLLES. Why think you so?
  HELENA. You go so much backward when you fight.
  PAROLLES. That's for advantage.
  HELENA. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: but the
    composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of
    a good wing, and I like the wear well.
  PAROLLES. I am so full of business I cannot answer thee acutely. I
    will return perfect courtier; in the which my instruction shall
    serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's
    counsel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else
    thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes
    thee away. Farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers;
    when thou hast none, remember thy friends. Get thee a good
    husband and use him as he uses thee. So, farewell.
 Exit
  HELENA. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
    Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky
    Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull
    Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
    What power is it which mounts my love so high,
    That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
    The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
    To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
    Impossible be strange attempts to those
    That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose
    What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove
    To show her merit that did miss her love?
    The King's disease-my project may deceive me,
    But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me.        Exit

ACT I. SCENE 2. Paris. The KING'S palace

Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING OF FRANCE, with letters, and divers
ATTENDANTS

  KING. The Florentines and Senoys are by th' ears;
    Have fought with equal fortune, and continue
    A braving war.
  FIRST LORD. So 'tis reported, sir.
  KING. Nay, 'tis most credible. We here receive it,
    A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
    With caution, that the Florentine will move us
    For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
    Prejudicates the business, and would seem
    To have us make denial.
  FIRST LORD. His love and wisdom,
    Approv'd so to your Majesty, may plead
    For amplest credence.
  KING. He hath arm'd our answer,
    And Florence is denied before he comes;
    Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
    The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
    To stand on either part.
  SECOND LORD. It well may serve
    A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
    For breathing and exploit.
  KING. What's he comes here?

              Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES

  FIRST LORD. It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,
    Young Bertram.
  KING. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
    Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
    Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral parts
    Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.
  BERTRAM. My thanks and duty are your Majesty's.
  KING. I would I had that corporal soundness now,
    As when thy father and myself in friendship
    First tried our soldiership. He did look far
    Into the service of the time, and was
    Discipled of the bravest. He lasted long;
    But on us both did haggish age steal on,
    And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
    To talk of your good father. In his youth
    He had the wit which I can well observe
    To-day in our young lords; but they may jest
    Till their own scorn return to them unnoted
    Ere they can hide their levity in honour.
    So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
    Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
    His equal had awak'd them; and his honour,
    Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
    Exception bid him speak, and at this time
    His tongue obey'd his hand. Who were below him
    He us'd as creatures of another place;
    And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
    Making them proud of his humility
    In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
    Might be a copy to these younger times;
    Which, followed well, would demonstrate them now
    But goers backward.
  BERTRAM. His good remembrance, sir,
    Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;
    So in approof lives not his epitaph
    As in your royal speech.
  KING. Would I were with him! He would always say-
    Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
    He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them
    To grow there, and to bear- 'Let me not live'-
    This his good melancholy oft began,
    On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
    When it was out-'Let me not live' quoth he
    'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
    Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
    All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
    Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
    Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd.
    I, after him, do after him wish too,
    Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
    I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
    To give some labourers room.
  SECOND LORD. You're loved, sir;
    They that least lend it you shall lack you first.
  KING. I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, Count,
    Since the physician at your father's died?
    He was much fam'd.
  BERTRAM. Some six months since, my lord.
  KING. If he were living, I would try him yet-
    Lend me an arm-the rest have worn me out
    With several applications. Nature and sickness
    Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, Count;
    My son's no dearer.
  BERTRAM. Thank your Majesty.                 Exeunt [Flourish]

ACT I. SCENE 3. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter COUNTESS, STEWARD, and CLOWN

  COUNTESS. I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman?
  STEWARD. Madam, the care I have had to even your content I wish
    might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we
    wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings,
    when of ourselves we publish them.
  COUNTESS. What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah. The
    complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe; 'tis my
    slowness that I do not, for I know you lack not folly to commit
    them and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.
  CLOWN. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.
  COUNTESS. Well, sir.
  CLOWN. No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of
    the rich are damn'd; but if I may have your ladyship's good will
    to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.
  COUNTESS. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?
  CLOWN. I do beg your good will in this case.
  COUNTESS. In what case?
  CLOWN. In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no heritage; and I
    think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue o'
    my body; for they say bames are blessings.
  COUNTESS. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.
  CLOWN. My poor body, madam, requires it. I am driven on by the
    flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.
  COUNTESS. Is this all your worship's reason?
  CLOWN. Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are.
  COUNTESS. May the world know them?
  CLOWN. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh
    and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry that I may repent.
  COUNTESS. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.
  CLOWN. I am out o' friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for
    my wife's sake.
  COUNTESS. Such friends are thine enemies, knave.
  CLOWN. Y'are shallow, madam-in great friends; for the knaves come
    to do that for me which I am aweary of. He that ears my land
    spares my team, and gives me leave to in the crop. If I be his
    cuckold, he's my drudge. He that comforts my wife is the
    cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and
    blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my flesh and blood
    is my friend; ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend. If men
    could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in
    marriage; for young Charbon the puritan and old Poysam the
    papist, howsome'er their hearts are sever'd in religion, their
    heads are both one; they may jowl horns together like any deer
    i' th' herd.
  COUNTESS. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouth'd and calumnious knave?
  CLOWN. A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way:

              For I the ballad will repeat,
                Which men full true shall find:
              Your marriage comes by destiny,
                Your cuckoo sings by kind.

  COUNTESS. Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon.
  STEWARD. May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you.
    Of her I am to speak.
  COUNTESS. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her; Helen
    I mean.
  CLOWN.  [Sings]

               'Was this fair face the cause' quoth she
                 'Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
               Fond done, done fond,
                 Was this King Priam's joy?'
               With that she sighed as she stood,
               With that she sighed as she stood,
                 And gave this sentence then:
               'Among nine bad if one be good,
               Among nine bad if one be good,
                 There's yet one good in ten.'

  COUNTESS. What, one good in ten? You corrupt the song, sirrah.
  CLOWN. One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o' th'
    song. Would God would serve the world so all the year! We'd find
    no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson. One in ten,
    quoth 'a! An we might have a good woman born before every blazing
    star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well: a man
    may draw his heart out ere 'a pluck one.
  COUNTESS. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you.
  CLOWN. That man should be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done!
    Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will
    wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart.
    I am going, forsooth. The business is for Helen to come hither.
 Exit
  COUNTESS. Well, now.
  STEWARD. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.
  COUNTESS. Faith I do. Her father bequeath'd her to me; and she
    herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as
    much love as she finds. There is more owing her than is paid; and
    more shall be paid her than she'll demand.
  STEWARD. Madam, I was very late more near her than I think she
    wish'd me. Alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own
    words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they
    touch'd not any stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your
    son. Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such
    difference betwixt their two estates; Love no god, that would not
    extend his might only where qualities were level; Diana no queen
    of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surpris'd without
    rescue in the first assault, or ransom afterward. This she
    deliver'd in the most bitter touch of sorrow that e'er I heard
    virgin exclaim in; which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you
    withal; sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you
    something to know it.
  COUNTESS. YOU have discharg'd this honestly; keep it to yourself.
    Many likelihoods inform'd me of this before, which hung so
    tott'ring in the balance that I could neither believe nor
    misdoubt. Pray you leave me. Stall this in your bosom; and I
    thank you for your honest care. I will speak with you further
    anon.                                           Exit STEWARD

                            Enter HELENA

    Even so it was with me when I was young.
    If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn
    Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;
    Our blood to us, this to our blood is born.
    It is the show and seal of nature's truth,
    Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth.
    By our remembrances of days foregone,
    Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.
    Her eye is sick on't; I observe her now.
  HELENA. What is your pleasure, madam?
  COUNTESS. You know, Helen,
    I am a mother to you.
  HELENA. Mine honourable mistress.
  COUNTESS. Nay, a mother.
    Why not a mother? When I said 'a mother,'
    Methought you saw a serpent. What's in 'mother'
    That you start at it? I say I am your mother,
    And put you in the catalogue of those
    That were enwombed mine. 'Tis often seen
    Adoption strives with nature, and choice breeds
    A native slip to us from foreign seeds.
    You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
    Yet I express to you a mother's care.
    God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood
    To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,
    That this distempered messenger of wet,
    The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?
    Why, that you are my daughter?
  HELENA. That I am not.
  COUNTESS. I say I am your mother.
  HELENA. Pardon, madam.
    The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
    I am from humble, he from honoured name;
    No note upon my parents, his all noble.
    My master, my dear lord he is; and I
    His servant live, and will his vassal die.
    He must not be my brother.
  COUNTESS. Nor I your mother?
  HELENA. You are my mother, madam; would you were-
    So that my lord your son were not my brother-
    Indeed my mother! Or were you both our mothers,
    I care no more for than I do for heaven,
    So I were not his sister. Can't no other,
    But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?
  COUNTESS. Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law.
    God shield you mean it not! 'daughter' and 'mother'
    So strive upon your pulse. What! pale again?
    My fear hath catch'd your fondness. Now I see
    The myst'ry of your loneliness, and find
    Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross
    You love my son; invention is asham'd,
    Against the proclamation of thy passion,
    To say thou dost not. Therefore tell me true;
    But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look, thy cheeks
    Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes
    See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours
    That in their kind they speak it; only sin
    And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
    That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
    If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew;
    If it be not, forswear't; howe'er, I charge thee,
    As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
    To tell me truly.
  HELENA. Good madam, pardon me.
  COUNTESS. Do you love my son?
  HELENA. Your pardon, noble mistress.
  COUNTESS. Love you my son?
  HELENA. Do not you love him, madam?
  COUNTESS. Go not about; my love hath in't a bond
    Whereof the world takes note. Come, come, disclose
    The state of your affection; for your passions
    Have to the full appeach'd.
  HELENA. Then I confess,
    Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
    That before you, and next unto high heaven,
    I love your son.
    My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love.
    Be not offended, for it hurts not him
    That he is lov'd of me; I follow him not
    By any token of presumptuous suit,
    Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
    Yet never know how that desert should be.
    I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
    Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
    I still pour in the waters of my love,
    And lack not to lose still. Thus, Indian-like,
    Religious in mine error, I adore
    The sun that looks upon his worshipper
    But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
    Let not your hate encounter with my love,
    For loving where you do; but if yourself,
    Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
    Did ever in so true a flame of liking
    Wish chastely and love dearly that your Dian
    Was both herself and Love; O, then, give pity
    To her whose state is such that cannot choose
    But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
    That seeks not to find that her search implies,
    But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies!
  COUNTESS. Had you not lately an intent-speak truly-
    To go to Paris?
  HELENA. Madam, I had.
  COUNTESS. Wherefore? Tell true.
  HELENA. I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.
    You know my father left me some prescriptions
    Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading
    And manifest experience had collected
    For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
    In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them,
    As notes whose faculties inclusive were
    More than they were in note. Amongst the rest
    There is a remedy, approv'd, set down,
    To cure the desperate languishings whereof
    The King is render'd lost.
  COUNTESS. This was your motive
    For Paris, was it? Speak.
  HELENA. My lord your son made me to think of this,
    Else Paris, and the medicine, and the King,
    Had from the conversation of my thoughts
    Haply been absent then.
  COUNTESS. But think you, Helen,
    If you should tender your supposed aid,
    He would receive it? He and his physicians
    Are of a mind: he, that they cannot help him;
    They, that they cannot help. How shall they credit
    A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
    Embowell'd of their doctrine, have let off
    The danger to itself?
  HELENA. There's something in't
    More than my father's skill, which was the great'st
    Of his profession, that his good receipt
    Shall for my legacy be sanctified
    By th' luckiest stars in heaven; and, would your honour
    But give me leave to try success, I'd venture
    The well-lost life of mine on his Grace's cure.
    By such a day and hour.
  COUNTESS. Dost thou believe't?
  HELENA. Ay, madam, knowingly.
  COUNTESS. Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,
    Means and attendants, and my loving greetings
    To those of mine in court. I'll stay at home,
    And pray God's blessing into thy attempt.
    Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
    What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.          Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 1. Paris. The KING'S palace

Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING with divers young LORDS taking
leave for the Florentine war; BERTRAM and PAROLLES; ATTENDANTS

  KING. Farewell, young lords; these war-like principles
    Do not throw from you. And you, my lords, farewell;
    Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all,
    The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis receiv'd,
    And is enough for both.
  FIRST LORD. 'Tis our hope, sir,
    After well-ent'red soldiers, to return
    And find your Grace in health.
  KING. No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart
    Will not confess he owes the malady
    That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords;
    Whether I live or die, be you the sons
    Of worthy Frenchmen; let higher Italy-
    Those bated that inherit but the fall
    Of the last monarchy-see that you come
    Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when
    The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,
    That fame may cry you aloud. I say farewell.
  SECOND LORD. Health, at your bidding, serve your Majesty!
  KING. Those girls of Italy, take heed of them;
    They say our French lack language to deny,
    If they demand; beware of being captives
    Before you serve.
    BOTH. Our hearts receive your warnings.
  KING. Farewell.  [To ATTENDANTS]  Come hither to me.
                                       The KING retires attended
  FIRST LORD. O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!
  PAROLLES. 'Tis not his fault, the spark.
    SECOND LORD. O, 'tis brave wars!
  PAROLLES. Most admirable! I have seen those wars.
  BERTRAM. I am commanded here and kept a coil with
    'Too young' and next year' and "Tis too early.'
  PAROLLES. An thy mind stand to 't, boy, steal away bravely.
  BERTRAM. I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,
    Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,
    Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn
    But one to dance with. By heaven, I'll steal away.
  FIRST LORD. There's honour in the theft.
  PAROLLES. Commit it, Count.
  SECOND LORD. I am your accessary; and so farewell.
  BERTRAM. I grow to you, and our parting is a tortur'd body.
  FIRST LORD. Farewell, Captain.
  SECOND LORD. Sweet Monsieur Parolles!
  PAROLLES. Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and
    lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall find in the regiment of
    the Spinii one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of
    war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword
    entrench'd it. Say to him I live; and observe his reports for me.
  FIRST LORD. We shall, noble Captain.
  PAROLLES. Mars dote on you for his novices!       Exeunt LORDS
    What will ye do?

                            Re-enter the KING

  BERTRAM. Stay; the King!
  PAROLLES. Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have
    restrain'd yourself within the list of too cold an adieu. Be more
    expressive to them; for they wear themselves in the cap of the
    time; there do muster true gait; eat, speak, and move, under the
    influence of the most receiv'd star; and though the devil lead
    the measure, such are to be followed. After them, and take a more
    dilated farewell.
  BERTRAM. And I will do so.
  PAROLLES. Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.
                                     Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLES

                              Enter LAFEU

  LAFEU.  [Kneeling]  Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.
  KING. I'll fee thee to stand up.
  LAFEU. Then here's a man stands that has brought his pardon.
    I would you had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy;
    And that at my bidding you could so stand up.
  KING. I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,
    And ask'd thee mercy for't.
  LAFEU. Good faith, across!
    But, my good lord, 'tis thus: will you be cur'd
    Of your infirmity?
  KING. No.
  LAFEU. O, will you eat
    No grapes, my royal fox? Yes, but you will
    My noble grapes, an if my royal fox
    Could reach them: I have seen a medicine
    That's able to breathe life into a stone,
    Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary
    With spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch
    Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay,
    To give great Charlemain a pen in's hand
    And write to her a love-line.
  KING. What her is this?
  LAFEU. Why, Doctor She! My lord, there's one arriv'd,
    If you will see her. Now, by my faith and honour,
    If seriously I may convey my thoughts
    In this my light deliverance, I have spoke
    With one that in her sex, her years, profession,
    Wisdom, and constancy, hath amaz'd me more
    Than I dare blame my weakness. Will you see her,
    For that is her demand, and know her business?
    That done, laugh well at me.
  KING. Now, good Lafeu,
    Bring in the admiration, that we with the
    May spend our wonder too, or take off thine
    By wond'ring how thou took'st it.
  LAFEU. Nay, I'll fit you,
    And not be all day neither.                       Exit LAFEU
  KING. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

                   Re-enter LAFEU with HELENA

  LAFEU. Nay, come your ways.
  KING. This haste hath wings indeed.
  LAFEU. Nay, come your ways;
    This is his Majesty; say your mind to him.
    A traitor you do look like; but such traitors
    His Majesty seldom fears. I am Cressid's uncle,
    That dare leave two together. Fare you well.            Exit
  KING. Now, fair one, does your business follow us?
  HELENA. Ay, my good lord.
    Gerard de Narbon was my father,
    In what he did profess, well found.
  KING. I knew him.
  HELENA. The rather will I spare my praises towards him;
    Knowing him is enough. On's bed of death
    Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one,
    Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,
    And of his old experience th' only darling,
    He bade me store up as a triple eye,
    Safer than mine own two, more dear. I have so:
    And, hearing your high Majesty is touch'd
    With that malignant cause wherein the honour
    Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,
    I come to tender it, and my appliance,
    With all bound humbleness.
  KING. We thank you, maiden;
    But may not be so credulous of cure,
    When our most learned doctors leave us, and
    The congregated college have concluded
    That labouring art can never ransom nature
    From her inaidable estate-I say we must not
    So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
    To prostitute our past-cure malady
    To empirics; or to dissever so
    Our great self and our credit to esteem
    A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.
  HELENA. My duty then shall pay me for my pains.
    I will no more enforce mine office on you;
    Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
    A modest one to bear me back again.
  KING. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful.
    Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I give
    As one near death to those that wish him live.
    But what at full I know, thou know'st no part;
    I knowing all my peril, thou no art.
  HELENA. What I can do can do no hurt to try,
    Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy.
    He that of greatest works is finisher
    Oft does them by the weakest minister.
    So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
    When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown
    From simple sources, and great seas have dried
    When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
    Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
    Where most it promises; and oft it hits
    Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.
  KING. I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid;
    Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid;
    Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward.
  HELENA. Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd.
    It is not so with Him that all things knows,
    As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows;
    But most it is presumption in us when
    The help of heaven we count the act of men.
    Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;
    Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
    I am not an impostor, that proclaim
    Myself against the level of mine aim;
    But know I think, and think I know most sure,
    My art is not past power nor you past cure.
  KING. Art thou so confident? Within what space
    Hop'st thou my cure?
  HELENA. The greatest Grace lending grace.
    Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
    Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,
    Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
    Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp,
    Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass
    Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass,
    What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
    Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.
  KING. Upon thy certainty and confidence
    What dar'st thou venture?
  HELENA. Tax of impudence,
    A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,
    Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name
    Sear'd otherwise; ne worse of worst-extended
    With vilest torture let my life be ended.
  KING. Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak
    His powerful sound within an organ weak;
    And what impossibility would slay
    In common sense, sense saves another way.
    Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate
    Worth name of life in thee hath estimate:
    Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all
    That happiness and prime can happy call.
    Thou this to hazard needs must intimate
    Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.
    Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,
    That ministers thine own death if I die.
  HELENA. If I break time, or flinch in property
    Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;
    And well deserv'd. Not helping, death's my fee;
    But, if I help, what do you promise me?
  KING. Make thy demand.
  HELENA. But will you make it even?
  KING. Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.
  HELENA. Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand
    What husband in thy power I will command.
    Exempted be from me the arrogance
    To choose from forth the royal blood of France,
    My low and humble name to propagate
    With any branch or image of thy state;
    But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
    Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
  KING. Here is my hand; the premises observ'd,
    Thy will by my performance shall be serv'd.
    So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
    Thy resolv'd patient, on thee still rely.
    More should I question thee, and more I must,
    Though more to know could not be more to trust,
    From whence thou cam'st, how tended on. But rest
    Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest.
    Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed
    As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.
                                              [Flourish. Exeunt]

ACT II. SCENE 2. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN

  COUNTESS. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your
    breeding.
  CLOWN. I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught. I know my
    business is but to the court.
  COUNTESS. To the court! Why, what place make you special, when you
    put off that with such contempt? But to the court!
  CLOWN. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may
    easily put it off at court. He that cannot make a leg, put off's
    cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip,
    nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for
    the court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all men.
  COUNTESS. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions.
  CLOWN. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks-the pin
    buttock, the quatch buttock, the brawn buttock, or any buttock.
  COUNTESS. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?
  CLOWN. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your
    French crown for your taffety punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's
    forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for Mayday,
    as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding
    quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's
    mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.
  COUNTESS. Have you, I, say, an answer of such fitness for all
    questions?
  CLOWN. From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit
    any question.
  COUNTESS. It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit
    all demands.
  CLOWN. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should
    speak truth of it. Here it is, and all that belongs to't. Ask me
    if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.
  COUNTESS. To be young again, if we could, I will be a fool in
    question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir,
    are you a courtier?
  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-There's a simple putting off. More, more, a
    hundred of them.
  COUNTESS. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.
  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Thick, thick; spare not me.
  COUNTESS. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.
  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Nay, put me to't, I warrant you.
  COUNTESS. You were lately whipp'd, sir, as I think.
  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Spare not me.
  COUNTESS. Do you cry 'O Lord, sir!' at your whipping, and 'spare
    not me'? Indeed your 'O Lord, sir!' is very sequent to your
    whipping. You would answer very well to a whipping, if you were
    but bound to't.
  CLOWN. I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my 'O Lord, sir!' I see
    thing's may serve long, but not serve ever.
  COUNTESS. I play the noble housewife with the time,
    To entertain it so merrily with a fool.
  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Why, there't serves well again.
  COUNTESS. An end, sir! To your business: give Helen this,
    And urge her to a present answer back;
    Commend me to my kinsmen and my son. This is not much.
  CLOWN. Not much commendation to them?
  COUNTESS. Not much employment for you. You understand me?
  CLOWN. Most fruitfully; I am there before my legs.
  COUNTESS. Haste you again.                              Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 3. Paris. The KING'S palace

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES

  LAFEU. They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical
    persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and
    causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors,
    ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit
    ourselves to an unknown fear.
  PAROLLES. Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot
    out in our latter times.
  BERTRAM. And so 'tis.
  LAFEU. To be relinquish'd of the artists-
  PAROLLES. So I say-both of Galen and Paracelsus.
  LAFEU. Of all the learned and authentic fellows-
  PAROLLES. Right; so I say.
  LAFEU. That gave him out incurable-
  PAROLLES. Why, there 'tis; so say I too.
  LAFEU. Not to be help'd-
  PAROLLES. Right; as 'twere a man assur'd of a-
  LAFEU. Uncertain life and sure death.
  PAROLLES. Just; you say well; so would I have said.
  LAFEU. I may truly say it is a novelty to the world.
  PAROLLES. It is indeed. If you will have it in showing, you shall
    read it in what-do-ye-call't here.
  LAFEU.  [Reading the ballad title]  'A Showing of a Heavenly
    Effect in an Earthly Actor.'
  PAROLLES. That's it; I would have said the very same.
  LAFEU. Why, your dolphin is not lustier. 'Fore me, I speak in
    respect-
  PAROLLES. Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange; that is the brief
    and the tedious of it; and he's of a most facinerious spirit that
    will not acknowledge it to be the-
  LAFEU. Very hand of heaven.
  PAROLLES. Ay; so I say.
  LAFEU. In a most weak-
  PAROLLES. And debile minister, great power, great transcendence;
    which should, indeed, give us a further use to be made than alone
    the recov'ry of the King, as to be-
  LAFEU. Generally thankful.

                 Enter KING, HELENA, and ATTENDANTS

  PAROLLES. I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the King.
  LAFEU. Lustig, as the Dutchman says. I'll like a maid the better,
    whilst I have a tooth in my head. Why, he's able to lead her a
    coranto.
  PAROLLES. Mort du vinaigre! Is not this Helen?
  LAFEU. 'Fore God, I think so.
  KING. Go, call before me all the lords in court.
                                               Exit an ATTENDANT
    Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side;
    And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense
    Thou has repeal'd, a second time receive
    The confirmation of my promis'd gift,
    Which but attends thy naming.

                     Enter three or four LORDS

    Fair maid, send forth thine eye. This youthful parcel
    Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,
    O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice
    I have to use. Thy frank election make;
    Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.
  HELENA. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress
    Fall, when love please. Marry, to each but one!
  LAFEU. I'd give bay Curtal and his furniture
    My mouth no more were broken than these boys',
    And writ as little beard.
  KING. Peruse them well.
    Not one of those but had a noble father.
  HELENA. Gentlemen,
    Heaven hath through me restor'd the King to health.
  ALL. We understand it, and thank heaven for you.
  HELENA. I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest
    That I protest I simply am a maid.
    Please it your Majesty, I have done already.
    The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me:
    'We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,
    Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever,
    We'll ne'er come there again.'
  KING. Make choice and see:
    Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.
  HELENA. Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,
    And to imperial Love, that god most high,
    Do my sighs stream. Sir, will you hear my suit?
  FIRST LORD. And grant it.
  HELENA. Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.
  LAFEU. I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my
    life.
  HELENA. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,
    Before I speak, too threat'ningly replies.
    Love make your fortunes twenty times above
    Her that so wishes, and her humble love!
  SECOND LORD. No better, if you please.
  HELENA. My wish receive,
    Which great Love grant; and so I take my leave.
  LAFEU. Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine I'd have
    them whipt; or I would send them to th' Turk to make eunuchs of.
  HELENA. Be not afraid that I your hand should take;
    I'll never do you wrong for your own sake.
    Blessing upon your vows; and in your bed
    Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!
  LAFEU. These boys are boys of ice; they'll none have her.
    Sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got 'em.
  HELENA. You are too young, too happy, and too good,
    To make yourself a son out of my blood.
  FOURTH LORD. Fair one, I think not so.
  LAFEU. There's one grape yet; I am sure thy father drunk wine-but
    if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known
    thee already.
  HELENA.  [To BERTRAM]  I dare not say I take you; but I give
    Me and my service, ever whilst I live,
    Into your guiding power. This is the man.
  KING. Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she's thy wife.
  BERTRAM. My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your Highness,
    In such a business give me leave to use
    The help of mine own eyes.
  KING. Know'st thou not, Bertram,
    What she has done for me?
  BERTRAM. Yes, my good lord;
    But never hope to know why I should marry her.
  KING. Thou know'st she has rais'd me from my sickly bed.
  BERTRAM. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down
    Must answer for your raising? I know her well:
    She had her breeding at my father's charge.
    A poor physician's daughter my wife! Disdain
    Rather corrupt me ever!
  KING. 'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, the which
    I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,
    Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,
    Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
    In differences so mighty. If she be
    All that is virtuous-save what thou dislik'st,
    A poor physician's daughter-thou dislik'st
    Of virtue for the name; but do not so.
    From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
    The place is dignified by the doer's deed;
    Where great additions swell's, and virtue none,
    It is a dropsied honour. Good alone
    Is good without a name. Vileness is so:
    The property by what it is should go,
    Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
    In these to nature she's immediate heir;
    And these breed honour. That is honour's scorn
    Which challenges itself as honour's born
    And is not like the sire. Honours thrive
    When rather from our acts we them derive
    Than our fore-goers. The mere word's a slave,
    Debauch'd on every tomb, on every grave
    A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb
    Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb
    Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be said?
    If thou canst like this creature as a maid,
    I can create the rest. Virtue and she
    Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.
  BERTRAM. I cannot love her, nor will strive to do 't.
  KING. Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.
  HELENA. That you are well restor'd, my lord, I'm glad.
    Let the rest go.
  KING. My honour's at the stake; which to defeat,
    I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,
    Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,
    That dost in vile misprision shackle up
    My love and her desert; that canst not dream
    We, poising us in her defective scale,
    Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know
    It is in us to plant thine honour where
    We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt;
    Obey our will, which travails in thy good;
    Believe not thy disdain, but presently
    Do thine own fortunes that obedient right
    Which both thy duty owes and our power claims;
    Or I will throw thee from my care for ever
    Into the staggers and the careless lapse
    Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hate
    Loosing upon thee in the name of justice,
    Without all terms of pity. Speak; thine answer.
  BERTRAM. Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit
    My fancy to your eyes. When I consider
    What great creation and what dole of honour
    Flies where you bid it, I find that she which late
    Was in my nobler thoughts most base is now
    The praised of the King; who, so ennobled,
    Is as 'twere born so.
  KING. Take her by the hand,
    And tell her she is thine; to whom I promise
    A counterpoise, if not to thy estate
    A balance more replete.
  BERTRAM. I take her hand.
  KING. Good fortune and the favour of the King
    Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony
    Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,
    And be perform'd to-night. The solemn feast
    Shall more attend upon the coming space,
    Expecting absent friends. As thou lov'st her,
    Thy love's to me religious; else, does err.
              Exeunt all but LAFEU and PAROLLES who stay behind,
                                      commenting of this wedding
  LAFEU. Do you hear, monsieur? A word with you.
  PAROLLES. Your pleasure, sir?
  LAFEU. Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.
  PAROLLES. Recantation! My Lord! my master!
  LAFEU. Ay; is it not a language I speak?
  PAROLLES. A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody
    succeeding. My master!
  LAFEU. Are you companion to the Count Rousillon?
  PAROLLES. To any count; to all counts; to what is man.
  LAFEU. To what is count's man: count's master is of another style.
  PAROLLES. You are too old, sir; let it satisfy you, you are too
    old.
  LAFEU. I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which title age
    cannot bring thee.
  PAROLLES. What I dare too well do, I dare not do.
  LAFEU. I did think thee, for two ordinaries, to be a pretty wise
    fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might
    pass. Yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly
    dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burden. I
    have now found thee; when I lose thee again I care not; yet art
    thou good for nothing but taking up; and that thou'rt scarce
    worth.
  PAROLLES. Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee-
  LAFEU. Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy
    trial; which if-Lord have mercy on thee for a hen! So, my good
    window of lattice, fare thee well; thy casement I need not open,
    for I look through thee. Give me thy hand.
  PAROLLES. My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.
  LAFEU. Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.
  PAROLLES. I have not, my lord, deserv'd it.
  LAFEU. Yes, good faith, ev'ry dram of it; and I will not bate thee
    a scruple.
  PAROLLES. Well, I shall be wiser.
  LAFEU. Ev'n as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack
    o' th' contrary. If ever thou be'st bound in thy scarf and
    beaten, thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage. I
    have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my
    knowledge, that I may say in the default 'He is a man I know.'
  PAROLLES. My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.
  LAFEU. I would it were hell pains for thy sake, and my poor doing
    eternal; for doing I am past, as I will by thee, in what motion
    age will give me leave.                                 Exit
  PAROLLES. Well, thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off me:
    scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord! Well, I must be patient; there
    is no fettering of authority. I'll beat him, by my life, if I can
    meet him with any convenience, an he were double and double a
    lord. I'll have no more pity of his age than I would have of-
    I'll beat him, and if I could but meet him again.

                         Re-enter LAFEU

  LAFEU. Sirrah, your lord and master's married; there's news for
    you; you have a new mistress.
  PAROLLES. I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some
    reservation of your wrongs. He is my good lord: whom I serve
    above is my master.
  LAFEU. Who? God?
  PAROLLES. Ay, sir.
  LAFEU. The devil it is that's thy master. Why dost thou garter up
    thy arms o' this fashion? Dost make hose of thy sleeves? Do other
    servants so? Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose
    stands. By mine honour, if I were but two hours younger, I'd beat
    thee. Methink'st thou art a general offence, and every man should
    beat thee. I think thou wast created for men to breathe
    themselves upon thee.
  PAROLLES. This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.
  LAFEU. Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel
    out of a pomegranate; you are a vagabond, and no true traveller;
    you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the
    commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry. You are
    not worth another word, else I'd call you knave. I leave you.
 Exit

                           Enter BERTRAM

  PAROLLES. Good, very, good, it is so then. Good, very good; let it
    be conceal'd awhile.
  BERTRAM. Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever!
  PAROLLES. What's the matter, sweetheart?
  BERTRAM. Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,
    I will not bed her.
  PAROLLES. What, what, sweetheart?
  BERTRAM. O my Parolles, they have married me!
    I'll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.
  PAROLLES. France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits
    The tread of a man's foot. To th' wars!
  BERTRAM. There's letters from my mother; what th' import is I know
    not yet.
  PAROLLES. Ay, that would be known. To th' wars, my boy, to th'
      wars!
    He wears his honour in a box unseen
    That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,
    Spending his manly marrow in her arms,
    Which should sustain the bound and high curvet
    Of Mars's fiery steed. To other regions!
    France is a stable; we that dwell in't jades;
    Therefore, to th' war!
  BERTRAM. It shall be so; I'll send her to my house,
    Acquaint my mother with my hate to her,
    And wherefore I am fled; write to the King
    That which I durst not speak. His present gift
    Shall furnish me to those Italian fields
    Where noble fellows strike. War is no strife
    To the dark house and the detested wife.
  PAROLLES. Will this capriccio hold in thee, art sure?
  BERTRAM. Go with me to my chamber and advise me.
    I'll send her straight away. To-morrow
    I'll to the wars, she to her single sorrow.
  PAROLLES. Why, these balls bound; there's noise in it. 'Tis hard:
    A young man married is a man that's marr'd.
    Therefore away, and leave her bravely; go.
    The King has done you wrong; but, hush, 'tis so.      Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 4. Paris. The KING'S palace

Enter HELENA and CLOWN

  HELENA. My mother greets me kindly; is she well?
  CLOWN. She is not well, but yet she has her health; she's very
    merry, but yet she is not well. But thanks be given, she's very
    well, and wants nothing i' th' world; but yet she is not well.
  HELENA. If she be very well, what does she ail that she's not very
    well?
  CLOWN. Truly, she's very well indeed, but for two things.
  HELENA. What two things?
  CLOWN. One, that she's not in heaven, whither God send her quickly!
    The other, that she's in earth, from whence God send her quickly!

                        Enter PAROLLES

  PAROLLES. Bless you, my fortunate lady!
  HELENA. I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good
    fortunes.
  PAROLLES. You had my prayers to lead them on; and to keep them on,
    have them still. O, my knave, how does my old lady?
  CLOWN. So that you had her wrinkles and I her money, I would she
    did as you say.
  PAROLLES. Why, I say nothing.
  CLOWN. Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man's tongue shakes
    out his master's undoing. To say nothing, to do nothing, to know
    nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your
    title, which is within a very little of nothing.
  PAROLLES. Away! th'art a knave.
  CLOWN. You should have said, sir, 'Before a knave th'art a knave';
    that's 'Before me th'art a knave.' This had been truth, sir.
  PAROLLES. Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee.
  CLOWN. Did you find me in yourself, sir, or were you taught to find
    me? The search, sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find
    in you, even to the world's pleasure and the increase of
    laughter.
  PAROLLES. A good knave, i' faith, and well fed.
    Madam, my lord will go away to-night:
    A very serious business calls on him.
    The great prerogative and rite of love,
    Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;
    But puts it off to a compell'd restraint;
    Whose want, and whose delay, is strew'd with sweets,
    Which they distil now in the curbed time,
    To make the coming hour o'erflow with joy
    And pleasure drown the brim.
  HELENA. What's his else?
  PAROLLES. That you will take your instant leave o' th' King,
    And make this haste as your own good proceeding,
    Strength'ned with what apology you think
    May make it probable need.
  HELENA. What more commands he?
  PAROLLES. That, having this obtain'd, you presently
    Attend his further pleasure.
  HELENA. In everything I wait upon his will.
  PAROLLES. I shall report it so.
  HELENA. I pray you.                              Exit PAROLLES
    Come, sirrah.                                         Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 5. Paris. The KING'S palace

Enter LAFEU and BERTRAM

  LAFEU. But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.
  BERTRAM. Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.
  LAFEU. You have it from his own deliverance.
  BERTRAM. And by other warranted testimony.
  LAFEU. Then my dial goes not true; I took this lark for a bunting.
  BERTRAM. I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge,
    and accordingly valiant.
  LAFEU. I have then sinn'd against his experience and transgress'd
    against his valour; and my state that way is dangerous, since I
    cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes; I pray you
    make us friends; I will pursue the amity

                         Enter PAROLLES

  PAROLLES.  [To BERTRAM]  These things shall be done, sir.
  LAFEU. Pray you, sir, who's his tailor?
  PAROLLES. Sir!
  LAFEU. O, I know him well. Ay, sir; he, sir, 's a good workman, a
    very good tailor.
  BERTRAM.  [Aside to PAROLLES]  Is she gone to the King?
  PAROLLES. She is.
  BERTRAM. Will she away to-night?
  PAROLLES. As you'll have her.
  BERTRAM. I have writ my letters, casketed my treasure,
    Given order for our horses; and to-night,
    When I should take possession of the bride,
    End ere I do begin.
  LAFEU. A good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner;
    but one that lies three-thirds and uses a known truth to pass a
    thousand nothings with, should be once heard and thrice beaten.
    God save you, Captain.
  BERTRAM. Is there any unkindness between my lord and you, monsieur?
  PAROLLES. I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord's
    displeasure.
  LAFEU. You have made shift to run into 't, boots and spurs and all,
    like him that leapt into the custard; and out of it you'll run
    again, rather than suffer question for your residence.
  BERTRAM. It may be you have mistaken him, my lord.
  LAFEU. And shall do so ever, though I took him at's prayers.
    Fare you well, my lord; and believe this of me: there can be no
    kernal in this light nut; the soul of this man is his clothes;
    trust him not in matter of heavy consequence; I have kept of them
    tame, and know their natures. Farewell, monsieur; I have spoken
    better of you than you have or will to deserve at my hand; but we
    must do good against evil.                              Exit
  PAROLLES. An idle lord, I swear.
  BERTRAM. I think so.
  PAROLLES. Why, do you not know him?
  BERTRAM. Yes, I do know him well; and common speech
    Gives him a worthy pass. Here comes my clog.

                          Enter HELENA

  HELENA. I have, sir, as I was commanded from you,
    Spoke with the King, and have procur'd his leave
    For present parting; only he desires
    Some private speech with you.
  BERTRAM. I shall obey his will.
    You must not marvel, Helen, at my course,
    Which holds not colour with the time, nor does
    The ministration and required office
    On my particular. Prepar'd I was not
    For such a business; therefore am I found
    So much unsettled. This drives me to entreat you
    That presently you take your way for home,
    And rather muse than ask why I entreat you;
    For my respects are better than they seem,
    And my appointments have in them a need
    Greater than shows itself at the first view
    To you that know them not. This to my mother.
                                               [Giving a letter]
    'Twill be two days ere I shall see you; so
    I leave you to your wisdom.
  HELENA. Sir, I can nothing say
    But that I am your most obedient servant.
  BERTRAM. Come, come, no more of that.
  HELENA. And ever shall
    With true observance seek to eke out that
    Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail'd
    To equal my great fortune.
  BERTRAM. Let that go.
    My haste is very great. Farewell; hie home.
  HELENA. Pray, sir, your pardon.
  BERTRAM. Well, what would you say?
  HELENA. I am not worthy of the wealth I owe,
    Nor dare I say 'tis mine, and yet it is;
    But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal
    What law does vouch mine own.
  BERTRAM. What would you have?
  HELENA. Something; and scarce so much; nothing, indeed.
    I would not tell you what I would, my lord.
    Faith, yes:
    Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss.
  BERTRAM. I pray you, stay not, but in haste to horse.
  HELENA. I shall not break your bidding, good my lord.
  BERTRAM. Where are my other men, monsieur?
    Farewell!                                        Exit HELENA
    Go thou toward home, where I will never come
    Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum.
    Away, and for our flight.
  PAROLLES. Bravely, coragio!                             Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 1. Florence. The DUKE's palace

        Flourish. Enter the DUKE OF FLORENCE, attended; two
               FRENCH LORDS, with a TROOP OF SOLDIERS

  DUKE. So that, from point to point, now have you hear
    The fundamental reasons of this war;
    Whose great decision hath much blood let forth
    And more thirsts after.
  FIRST LORD. Holy seems the quarrel
    Upon your Grace's part; black and fearful
    On the opposer.
  DUKE. Therefore we marvel much our cousin France
    Would in so just a business shut his bosom
    Against our borrowing prayers.
  SECOND LORD. Good my lord,
    The reasons of our state I cannot yield,
    But like a common and an outward man
    That the great figure of a council frames
    By self-unable motion; therefore dare not
    Say what I think of it, since I have found
    Myself in my incertain grounds to fail
    As often as I guess'd.
  DUKE. Be it his pleasure.
  FIRST LORD. But I am sure the younger of our nature,
    That surfeit on their ease, will day by day
    Come here for physic.
  DUKE. Welcome shall they be
    And all the honours that can fly from us
    Shall on them settle. You know your places well;
    When better fall, for your avails they fell.
    To-morrow to th' field. Flourish.                     Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 2. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN

  COUNTESS. It hath happen'd all as I would have had it, save that he
    comes not along with her.
  CLOWN. By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy
    man.
  COUNTESS. By what observance, I pray you?
  CLOWN. Why, he will look upon his boot and sing; mend the ruff and
    sing; ask questions and sing; pick his teeth and sing. I know a
    man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a
    song.
  COUNTESS. Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come.
                                              [Opening a letter]
  CLOWN. I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court. Our old ling
    and our Isbels o' th' country are nothing like your old ling and
    your Isbels o' th' court. The brains of my Cupid's knock'd out;
    and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.
  COUNTESS. What have we here?
  CLOWN. E'en that you have there.                          Exit
  COUNTESS.  [Reads]  'I have sent you a daughter-in-law; she hath
    recovered the King and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded
    her; and sworn to make the "not" eternal. You shall hear I am run
    away; know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough
    in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty to you.
                                           Your unfortunate son,
                                                       BERTRAM.'
    This is not well, rash and unbridled boy,
    To fly the favours of so good a king,
    To pluck his indignation on thy head
    By the misprizing of a maid too virtuous
    For the contempt of empire.

                           Re-enter CLOWN

  CLOWN. O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers
    and my young lady.
  COUNTESS. What is the -matter?
  CLOWN. Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your
    son will not be kill'd so soon as I thought he would.
  COUNTESS. Why should he be kill'd?
  CLOWN. So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does the
    danger is in standing to 't; that's the loss of men, though it be
    the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more. For my
    part, I only hear your son was run away.                Exit

              Enter HELENA and the two FRENCH GENTLEMEN

  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Save you, good madam.
  HELENA. Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Do not say so.
  COUNTESS. Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen-
    I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief
    That the first face of neither, on the start,
    Can woman me unto 't. Where is my son, I pray you?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Madam, he's gone to serve the Duke of Florence.
    We met him thitherward; for thence we came,
    And, after some dispatch in hand at court,
    Thither we bend again.
  HELENA. Look on this letter, madam; here's my passport.
    [Reads]  'When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which
    never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body
    that I am father to, then call me husband; but in such a "then" I
    write a "never."
    This is a dreadful sentence.
  COUNTESS. Brought you this letter, gentlemen?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam;
    And for the contents' sake are sorry for our pains.
  COUNTESS. I prithee, lady, have a better cheer;
    If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,
    Thou robb'st me of a moiety. He was my son;
    But I do wash his name out of my blood,
    And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam.
  COUNTESS. And to be a soldier?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Such is his noble purpose; and, believe 't,
    The Duke will lay upon him all the honour
    That good convenience claims.
  COUNTESS. Return you thither?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.
  HELENA.  [Reads]  'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.'
    'Tis bitter.
  COUNTESS. Find you that there?
  HELENA. Ay, madam.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis but the boldness of his hand haply, which
    his heart was not consenting to.
  COUNTESS. Nothing in France until he have no wife!
    There's nothing here that is too good for him
    But only she; and she deserves a lord
    That twenty such rude boys might tend upon,
    And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A servant only, and a gentleman
    Which I have sometime known.
  COUNTESS. Parolles, was it not?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Ay, my good lady, he.
  COUNTESS. A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.
    My son corrupts a well-derived nature
    With his inducement.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Indeed, good lady,
    The fellow has a deal of that too much
    Which holds him much to have.
  COUNTESS. Y'are welcome, gentlemen.
    I will entreat you, when you see my son,
    To tell him that his sword can never win
    The honour that he loses. More I'll entreat you
    Written to bear along.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. We serve you, madam,
    In that and all your worthiest affairs.
  COUNTESS. Not so, but as we change our courtesies.
    Will you draw near?            Exeunt COUNTESS and GENTLEMEN
  HELENA. 'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.'
    Nothing in France until he has no wife!
    Thou shalt have none, Rousillon, none in France
    Then hast thou all again. Poor lord! is't
    That chase thee from thy country, and expose
    Those tender limbs of thine to the event
    Of the non-sparing war? And is it I
    That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou
    Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark
    Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,
    That ride upon the violent speed of fire,
    Fly with false aim; move the still-piecing air,
    That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord.
    Whoever shoots at him, I set him there;
    Whoever charges on his forward breast,
    I am the caitiff that do hold him to't;
    And though I kill him not, I am the cause
    His death was so effected. Better 'twere
    I met the ravin lion when he roar'd
    With sharp constraint of hunger; better 'twere
    That all the miseries which nature owes
    Were mine at once. No; come thou home, Rousillon,
    Whence honour but of danger wins a scar,
    As oft it loses all. I will be gone.
    My being here it is that holds thee hence.
    Shall I stay here to do 't? No, no, although
    The air of paradise did fan the house,
    And angels offic'd all. I will be gone,
    That pitiful rumour may report my flight
    To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day.
    For with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away.         Exit

ACT III. SCENE 3. Florence. Before the DUKE's palace

Flourish. Enter the DUKE OF FLORENCE, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, SOLDIERS, drum
and trumpets

  DUKE. The General of our Horse thou art; and we,
    Great in our hope, lay our best love and credence
    Upon thy promising fortune.
  BERTRAM. Sir, it is
    A charge too heavy for my strength; but yet
    We'll strive to bear it for your worthy sake
    To th' extreme edge of hazard.
  DUKE. Then go thou forth;
    And Fortune play upon thy prosperous helm,
    As thy auspicious mistress!
  BERTRAM. This very day,
    Great Mars, I put myself into thy file;
    Make me but like my thoughts, and I shall prove
    A lover of thy drum, hater of love.                   Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 4. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter COUNTESS and STEWARD

  COUNTESS. Alas! and would you take the letter of her?
    Might you not know she would do as she has done
    By sending me a letter? Read it again.
  STEWARD.  [Reads]  'I am Saint Jaques' pilgrim, thither gone.
    Ambitious love hath so in me offended
    That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon,
    With sainted vow my faults to have amended.
    Write, write, that from the bloody course of war
    My dearest master, your dear son, may hie.
    Bless him at home in peace, whilst I from far
    His name with zealous fervour sanctify.
    His taken labours bid him me forgive;
    I, his despiteful Juno, sent him forth
    From courtly friends, with camping foes to live,
    Where death and danger dogs the heels of worth.
    He is too good and fair for death and me;
    Whom I myself embrace to set him free.'
  COUNTESS. Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!
    Rinaldo, you did never lack advice so much
    As letting her pass so; had I spoke with her,
    I could have well diverted her intents,
    Which thus she hath prevented.
  STEWARD. Pardon me, madam;
    If I had given you this at over-night,
    She might have been o'er ta'en; and yet she writes
    Pursuit would be but vain.
  COUNTESS. What angel shall
    Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive,
    Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear
    And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath
    Of greatest justice. Write, write, Rinaldo,
    To this unworthy husband of his wife;
    Let every word weigh heavy of her worth
    That he does weigh too light. My greatest grief,
    Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.
    Dispatch the most convenient messenger.
    When haply he shall hear that she is gone
    He will return; and hope I may that she,
    Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,
    Led hither by pure love. Which of them both
    Is dearest to me I have no skill in sense
    To make distinction. Provide this messenger.
    My heart is heavy, and mine age is weak;
    Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak.     Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 5.

Without the walls of Florence
A tucket afar off. Enter an old WIDOW OF FLORENCE, her daughter DIANA,
VIOLENTA, and MARIANA, with other CITIZENS

  WIDOW. Nay, come; for if they do approach the city we shall lose
    all the sight.
  DIANA. They say the French count has done most honourable service.
  WIDOW. It is reported that he has taken their great'st commander;
    and that with his own hand he slew the Duke's brother.  [Tucket]
    We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary way. Hark! you
    may know by their trumpets.
  MARIANA. Come, let's return again, and suffice ourselves with the
    report of it. Well, Diana, take heed of this French earl; the
    honour of a maid is her name, and no legacy is so rich as
    honesty.
  WIDOW. I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited by a
    gentleman his companion.
  MARIANA. I know that knave, hang him! one Parolles; a filthy
    officer he is in those suggestions for the young earl. Beware of
    them, Diana: their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all
    these engines of lust, are not the things they go under; many a
    maid hath been seduced by them; and the misery is, example, that
    so terrible shows in the wreck of maidenhood, cannot for all that
    dissuade succession, but that they are limed with the twigs that
    threatens them. I hope I need not to advise you further; but I
    hope your own grace will keep you where you are, though there
    were no further danger known but the modesty which is so lost.
  DIANA. You shall not need to fear me.

            Enter HELENA in the dress of a pilgrim

  WIDOW. I hope so. Look, here comes a pilgrim. I know she will lie
    at my house: thither they send one another. I'll question her.
    God save you, pilgrim! Whither are bound?
  HELENA. To Saint Jaques le Grand.
    Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you?
  WIDOW. At the Saint Francis here, beside the port.
  HELENA. Is this the way?
                                                  [A march afar]
  WIDOW. Ay, marry, is't. Hark you! They come this way.
    If you will tarry, holy pilgrim,
    But till the troops come by,
    I will conduct you where you shall be lodg'd;
    The rather for I think I know your hostess
    As ample as myself.
  HELENA. Is it yourself?
  WIDOW. If you shall please so, pilgrim.
  HELENA. I thank you, and will stay upon your leisure.
  WIDOW. You came, I think, from France?
  HELENA. I did so.
  WIDOW. Here you shall see a countryman of yours
    That has done worthy service.
  HELENA. His name, I pray you.
  DIANA. The Count Rousillon. Know you such a one?
  HELENA. But by the ear, that hears most nobly of him;
    His face I know not.
  DIANA. What some'er he is,
    He's bravely taken here. He stole from France,
    As 'tis reported, for the King had married him
    Against his liking. Think you it is so?
  HELENA. Ay, surely, mere the truth; I know his lady.
  DIANA. There is a gentleman that serves the Count
    Reports but coarsely of her.
  HELENA. What's his name?
  DIANA. Monsieur Parolles.
  HELENA. O, I believe with him,
    In argument of praise, or to the worth
    Of the great Count himself, she is too mean
    To have her name repeated; all her deserving
    Is a reserved honesty, and that
    I have not heard examin'd.
  DIANA. Alas, poor lady!
    'Tis a hard bondage to become the wife
    Of a detesting lord.
  WIDOW. I sweet, good creature, wheresoe'er she is
    Her heart weighs sadly. This young maid might do her
    A shrewd turn, if she pleas'd.
  HELENA. How do you mean?
    May be the amorous Count solicits her
    In the unlawful purpose.
  WIDOW. He does, indeed;
    And brokes with all that can in such a suit
    Corrupt the tender honour of a maid;
    But she is arm'd for him, and keeps her guard
    In honestest defence.

    Enter, with drum and colours, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and the
                          whole ARMY

  MARIANA. The gods forbid else!
  WIDOW. So, now they come.
    That is Antonio, the Duke's eldest son;
    That, Escalus.
  HELENA. Which is the Frenchman?
  DIANA. He-
    That with the plume; 'tis a most gallant fellow.
    I would he lov'd his wife; if he were honester
    He were much goodlier. Is't not a handsome gentleman?
  HELENA. I like him well.
  DIANA. 'Tis pity he is not honest. Yond's that same knave
    That leads him to these places; were I his lady
    I would poison that vile rascal.
  HELENA. Which is he?
  DIANA. That jack-an-apes with scarfs. Why is he melancholy?
  HELENA. Perchance he's hurt i' th' battle.
  PAROLLES. Lose our drum! well.
  MARIANA. He's shrewdly vex'd at something.
    Look, he has spied us.
  WIDOW. Marry, hang you!
  MARIANA. And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier!
                              Exeunt BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and ARMY
  WIDOW. The troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you
    Where you shall host. Of enjoin'd penitents
    There's four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound,
    Already at my house.
  HELENA. I humbly thank you.
    Please it this matron and this gentle maid
    To eat with us to-night; the charge and thanking
    Shall be for me, and, to requite you further,
    I will bestow some precepts of this virgin,
    Worthy the note.
    BOTH. We'll take your offer kindly.                   Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 6. Camp before Florence

Enter BERTRAM, and the two FRENCH LORDS

  SECOND LORD. Nay, good my lord, put him to't; let him have his way.
  FIRST LORD. If your lordship find him not a hiding, hold me no more
    in your respect.
  SECOND LORD. On my life, my lord, a bubble.
  BERTRAM. Do you think I am so far deceived in him?
  SECOND LORD. Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge,
    without any malice, but to speak of him as my kinsman, he's a
    most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly
    promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your
    lordship's entertainment.
  FIRST LORD. It were fit you knew him; lest, reposing too far in his
    virtue, which he hath not, he might at some great and trusty
    business in a main danger fail you.
  BERTRAM. I would I knew in what particular action to try him.
  FIRST LORD. None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which
    you hear him so confidently undertake to do.
  SECOND LORD. I with a troop of Florentines will suddenly surprise
    him; such I will have whom I am sure he knows not from the enemy.
    We will bind and hoodwink him so that he shall suppose no other
    but that he is carried into the leaguer of the adversaries when
    we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship present at
    his examination; if he do not, for the promise of his life and in
    the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to betray you and
    deliver all the intelligence in his power against you, and that
    with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never trust my
    judgment in anything.
  FIRST LORD. O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he
    says he has a stratagem for't. When your lordship sees the bottom
    of his success in't, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of
    ore will be melted, if you give him not John Drum's
    entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes.

                      Enter PAROLLES

  SECOND LORD. O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of
    his design; let him fetch off his drum in any hand.
  BERTRAM. How now, monsieur! This drum sticks sorely in your
    disposition.
  FIRST LORD. A pox on 't; let it go; 'tis but a drum.
  PAROLLES. But a drum! Is't but a drum? A drum so lost! There was
    excellent command: to charge in with our horse upon our own
    wings, and to rend our own soldiers!
  FIRST LORD. That was not to be blam'd in the command of the
    service; it was a disaster of war that Caesar himself could not
    have prevented, if he had been there to command.
  BERTRAM. Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success.
    Some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum; but it is not to
    be recovered.
  PAROLLES. It might have been recovered.
  BERTRAM. It might, but it is not now.
  PAROLLES. It is to be recovered. But that the merit of service is
    seldom attributed to the true and exact performer, I would have
    that drum or another, or 'hic jacet.'
  BERTRAM. Why, if you have a stomach, to't, monsieur. If you think
    your mystery in stratagem can bring this instrument of honour
    again into his native quarter, be magnanimous in the enterprise,
    and go on; I will grace the attempt for a worthy exploit. If you
    speed well in it, the Duke shall both speak of it and extend to
    you what further becomes his greatness, even to the utmost
    syllable of our worthiness.
  PAROLLES. By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it.
  BERTRAM. But you must not now slumber in it.
  PAROLLES. I'll about it this evening; and I will presently pen
    down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my certainty, put myself
    into my mortal preparation; and by midnight look to hear further
    from me.
  BERTRAM. May I be bold to acquaint his Grace you are gone about it?
  PAROLLES. I know not what the success will be, my lord, but the
    attempt I vow.
  BERTRAM. I know th' art valiant; and, to the of thy soldiership,
    will subscribe for thee. Farewell.
  PAROLLES. I love not many words.                          Exit
  SECOND LORD. No more than a fish loves water. Is not this a strange
    fellow, my lord, that so confidently seems to undertake this
    business, which he knows is not to be done; damns himself to do,
    and dares better be damn'd than to do 't.
  FIRST LORD. You do not know him, my lord, as we do. Certain it is
    that he will steal himself into a man's favour, and for a week
    escape a great deal of discoveries; but when you find him out,
    you have him ever after.
  BERTRAM. Why, do you think he will make no deed at all of this that
    so seriously he does address himself unto?
  SECOND LORD. None in the world; but return with an invention, and
    clap upon you two or three probable lies. But we have almost
    emboss'd him. You shall see his fall to-night; for indeed he is
    not for your lordship's respect.
  FIRST LORD. We'll make you some sport with the fox ere we case him.
    He was first smok'd by the old Lord Lafeu. When his disguise and
    he is parted, tell me what a sprat you shall find him; which you
    shall see this very night.
  SECOND LORD. I must go look my twigs; he shall be caught.
  BERTRAM. Your brother, he shall go along with me.
  SECOND LORD. As't please your lordship. I'll leave you.   Exit
  BERTRAM. Now will I lead you to the house, and show you
    The lass I spoke of.
  FIRST LORD. But you say she's honest.
  BERTRAM. That's all the fault. I spoke with her but once,
    And found her wondrous cold; but I sent to her,
    By this same coxcomb that we have i' th' wind,
    Tokens and letters which she did re-send;
    And this is all I have done. She's a fair creature;
    Will you go see her?
  FIRST LORD. With all my heart, my lord.                 Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 7. Florence. The WIDOW'S house

Enter HELENA and WIDOW

  HELENA. If you misdoubt me that I am not she,
    I know not how I shall assure you further
    But I shall lose the grounds I work upon.
  WIDOW. Though my estate be fall'n, I was well born,
    Nothing acquainted with these businesses;
    And would not put my reputation now
    In any staining act.
  HELENA. Nor would I wish you.
  FIRST give me trust the Count he is my husband,
    And what to your sworn counsel I have spoken
    Is so from word to word; and then you cannot,
    By the good aid that I of you shall borrow,
    Err in bestowing it.
  WIDOW. I should believe you;
    For you have show'd me that which well approves
    Y'are great in fortune.
  HELENA. Take this purse of gold,
    And let me buy your friendly help thus far,
    Which I will over-pay and pay again
    When I have found it. The Count he woos your daughter
    Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty,
    Resolv'd to carry her. Let her in fine consent,
    As we'll direct her how 'tis best to bear it.
    Now his important blood will nought deny
    That she'll demand. A ring the County wears
    That downward hath succeeded in his house
    From son to son some four or five descents
    Since the first father wore it. This ring he holds
    In most rich choice; yet, in his idle fire,
    To buy his will, it would not seem too dear,
    Howe'er repented after.
  WIDOW. Now I see
    The bottom of your purpose.
  HELENA. You see it lawful then. It is no more
    But that your daughter, ere she seems as won,
    Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter;
    In fine, delivers me to fill the time,
    Herself most chastely absent. After this,
    To marry her, I'll add three thousand crowns
    To what is pass'd already.
  WIDOW. I have yielded.
    Instruct my daughter how she shall persever,
    That time and place with this deceit so lawful
    May prove coherent. Every night he comes
    With musics of all sorts, and songs compos'd
    To her unworthiness. It nothing steads us
    To chide him from our eaves, for he persists
    As if his life lay on 't.
  HELENA. Why then to-night
    Let us assay our plot; which, if it speed,
    Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed,
    And lawful meaning in a lawful act;
    Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact.
    But let's about it.                                   Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1. Without the Florentine camp

Enter SECOND FRENCH LORD with five or six other SOLDIERS in ambush

  SECOND LORD. He can come no other way but by this hedge-corner.
    When you sally upon him, speak what terrible language you will;
    though you understand it not yourselves, no matter; for we must
    not seem to understand him, unless some one among us, whom we
    must produce for an interpreter.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Good captain, let me be th' interpreter.
  SECOND LORD. Art not acquainted with him? Knows he not thy voice?
  FIRST SOLDIER. No, sir, I warrant you.
  SECOND LORD. But what linsey-woolsey has thou to speak to us again?
  FIRST SOLDIER. E'en such as you speak to me.
  SECOND LORD. He must think us some band of strangers i' th'
    adversary's entertainment. Now he hath a smack of all
    neighbouring languages, therefore we must every one be a man of
    his own fancy; not to know what we speak one to another, so we
    seem to know, is to know straight our purpose: choughs' language,
    gabble enough, and good enough. As for you, interpreter, you must
    seem very politic. But couch, ho! here he comes; to beguile two
    hours in a sleep, and then to return and swear the lies he forges.

                         Enter PAROLLES

  PAROLLES. Ten o'clock. Within these three hours 'twill be time
    enough to go home. What shall I say I have done? It must be a
    very plausive invention that carries it. They begin to smoke me;
    and disgraces have of late knock'd to often at my door. I find my
    tongue is too foolhardy; but my heart hath the fear of Mars
    before it, and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my
    tongue.
  SECOND LORD. This is the first truth that e'er thine own tongue was
    guilty of.
  PAROLLES. What the devil should move me to undertake the recovery
    of this drum, being not ignorant of the impossibility, and
    knowing I had no such purpose? I must give myself some hurts, and
    say I got them in exploit. Yet slight ones will not carry it.
    They will say 'Came you off with so little?' And great ones I
    dare not give. Wherefore, what's the instance? Tongue, I must put
    you into a butterwoman's mouth, and buy myself another of
    Bajazet's mule, if you prattle me into these perils.
  SECOND LORD. Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that
    he is?
  PAROLLES. I would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn,
    or the breaking of my Spanish sword.
  SECOND LORD. We cannot afford you so.
  PAROLLES. Or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in
    stratagem.
  SECOND LORD. 'Twould not do.
  PAROLLES. Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripp'd.
  SECOND LORD. Hardly serve.
  PAROLLES. Though I swore I leap'd from the window of the citadel-
  SECOND LORD. How deep?
  PAROLLES. Thirty fathom.
  SECOND LORD. Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed.
  PAROLLES. I would I had any drum of the enemy's; I would swear I
    recover'd it.
  SECOND LORD. You shall hear one anon.          [Alarum within]
  PAROLLES. A drum now of the enemy's!
  SECOND LORD. Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo.
  ALL. Cargo, cargo, cargo, villianda par corbo, cargo.
  PAROLLES. O, ransom, ransom! Do not hide mine eyes.
                                            [They blindfold him]
  FIRST SOLDIER. Boskos thromuldo boskos.
  PAROLLES. I know you are the Muskos' regiment,
    And I shall lose my life for want of language.
    If there be here German, or Dane, Low Dutch,
    Italian, or French, let him speak to me;
    I'll discover that which shall undo the Florentine.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Boskos vauvado. I understand thee, and can speak thy
    tongue. Kerely-bonto, sir, betake thee to thy faith, for
    seventeen poniards are at thy bosom.
  PAROLLES. O!
  FIRST SOLDIER. O, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche.
  SECOND LORD. Oscorbidulchos volivorco.
  FIRST SOLDIER. The General is content to spare thee yet;
    And, hoodwink'd as thou art, will lead thee on
    To gather from thee. Haply thou mayst inform
    Something to save thy life.
  PAROLLES. O, let me live,
    And all the secrets of our camp I'll show,
    Their force, their purposes. Nay, I'll speak that
    Which you will wonder at.
  FIRST SOLDIER. But wilt thou faithfully?
  PAROLLES. If I do not, damn me.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Acordo linta.
    Come on; thou art granted space.
                   Exit, PAROLLES guarded. A short alarum within
  SECOND LORD. Go, tell the Count Rousillon and my brother
    We have caught the woodcock, and will keep him muffled
    Till we do hear from them.
  SECOND SOLDIER. Captain, I will.
  SECOND LORD. 'A will betray us all unto ourselves-
    Inform on that.
  SECOND SOLDIER. So I will, sir.
  SECOND LORD. Till then I'll keep him dark and safely lock'd.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 2. Florence. The WIDOW'S house

Enter BERTRAM and DIANA

  BERTRAM. They told me that your name was Fontibell.
  DIANA. No, my good lord, Diana.
  BERTRAM. Titled goddess;
    And worth it, with addition! But, fair soul,
    In your fine frame hath love no quality?
    If the quick fire of youth light not your mind,
    You are no maiden, but a monument;
    When you are dead, you should be such a one
    As you are now, for you are cold and stern;
    And now you should be as your mother was
    When your sweet self was got.
  DIANA. She then was honest.
  BERTRAM. So should you be.
  DIANA. No.
    My mother did but duty; such, my lord,
    As you owe to your wife.
  BERTRAM. No more o'that!
    I prithee do not strive against my vows.
    I was compell'd to her; but I love the
    By love's own sweet constraint, and will for ever
    Do thee all rights of service.
  DIANA. Ay, so you serve us
    Till we serve you; but when you have our roses
    You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves,
    And mock us with our bareness.
  BERTRAM. How have I sworn!
  DIANA. 'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,
    But the plain single vow that is vow'd true.
    What is not holy, that we swear not by,
    But take the High'st to witness. Then, pray you, tell me:
    If I should swear by Jove's great attributes
    I lov'd you dearly, would you believe my oaths
    When I did love you ill? This has no holding,
    To swear by him whom I protest to love
    That I will work against him. Therefore your oaths
    Are words and poor conditions, but unseal'd-
    At least in my opinion.
  BERTRAM. Change it, change it;
    Be not so holy-cruel. Love is holy;
    And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts
    That you do charge men with. Stand no more off,
    But give thyself unto my sick desires,
    Who then recovers. Say thou art mine, and ever
    My love as it begins shall so persever.
  DIANA. I see that men make ropes in such a scarre
    That we'll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.
  BERTRAM. I'll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power
    To give it from me.
  DIANA. Will you not, my lord?
  BERTRAM. It is an honour 'longing to our house,
    Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
    Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world
    In me to lose.
  DIANA. Mine honour's such a ring:
    My chastity's the jewel of our house,
    Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
    Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world
    In me to lose. Thus your own proper wisdom
    Brings in the champion Honour on my part
    Against your vain assault.
  BERTRAM. Here, take my ring;
    My house, mine honour, yea, my life, be thine,
    And I'll be bid by thee.
  DIANA. When midnight comes, knock at my chamber window;
    I'll order take my mother shall not hear.
    Now will I charge you in the band of truth,
    When you have conquer'd my yet maiden bed,
    Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me:
    My reasons are most strong; and you shall know them
    When back again this ring shall be deliver'd.
    And on your finger in the night I'll put
    Another ring, that what in time proceeds
    May token to the future our past deeds.
    Adieu till then; then fail not. You have won
    A wife of me, though there my hope be done.
  BERTRAM. A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.
 Exit
  DIANA. For which live long to thank both heaven and me!
    You may so in the end.
    My mother told me just how he would woo,
    As if she sat in's heart; she says all men
    Have the like oaths. He had sworn to marry me
    When his wife's dead; therefore I'll lie with him
    When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,
    Marry that will, I live and die a maid.
    Only, in this disguise, I think't no sin
    To cozen him that would unjustly win.                   Exit

ACT IV. SCENE 3. The Florentine camp

Enter the two FRENCH LORDS, and two or three SOLDIERS

  SECOND LORD. You have not given him his mother's letter?
  FIRST LORD. I have deliv'red it an hour since. There is something
    in't that stings his nature; for on the reading it he chang'd
    almost into another man.
  SECOND LORD. He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking off
    so good a wife and so sweet a lady.
  FIRST LORD. Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure
    of the King, who had even tun'd his bounty to sing happiness to
    him. I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly
    with you.
  SECOND LORD. When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave
    of it.
  FIRST LORD. He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence,
    of a most chaste renown; and this night he fleshes his will in
    the spoil of her honour. He hath given her his monumental ring,
    and thinks himself made in the unchaste composition.
  SECOND LORD. Now, God delay our rebellion! As we are ourselves,
    what things are we!
  FIRST LORD. Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course of
    all treasons we still see them reveal themselves till they attain
    to their abhorr'd ends; so he that in this action contrives
    against his own nobility, in his proper stream, o'erflows
    himself.
  SECOND LORD. Is it not meant damnable in us to be trumpeters of our
    unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company to-night?
  FIRST LORD. Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour.
  SECOND LORD. That approaches apace. I would gladly have him see his
    company anatomiz'd, that he might take a measure of his own
    judgments, wherein so curiously he had set this counterfeit.
  FIRST LORD. We will not meddle with him till he come; for his
    presence must be the whip of the other.
  SECOND LORD. In the meantime, what hear you of these wars?
  FIRST LORD. I hear there is an overture of peace.
  SECOND LORD. Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded.
  FIRST LORD. What will Count Rousillon do then? Will he travel
    higher, or return again into France?
  SECOND LORD. I perceive, by this demand, you are not altogether
    of his counsel.
  FIRST LORD. Let it be forbid, sir! So should I be a great deal
    of his act.
  SECOND LORD. Sir, his wife, some two months since, fled from his
    house. Her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le Grand;
    which holy undertaking with most austere sanctimony she
    accomplish'd; and, there residing, the tenderness of her nature
    became as a prey to her grief; in fine, made a groan of her last
    breath, and now she sings in heaven.
  FIRST LORD. How is this justified?
  SECOND LORD. The stronger part of it by her own letters, which
    makes her story true even to the point of her death. Her death
    itself, which could not be her office to say is come, was
    faithfully confirm'd by the rector of the place.
  FIRST LORD. Hath the Count all this intelligence?
  SECOND LORD. Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from
    point, to the full arming of the verity.
  FIRST LORD. I am heartily sorry that he'll be glad of this.
  SECOND LORD. How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our
    losses!
  FIRST LORD. And how mightily some other times we drown our gain in
    tears! The great dignity that his valour hath here acquir'd for
    him shall at home be encount'red with a shame as ample.
  SECOND LORD. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill
    together. Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipt them
    not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherish'd by
    our virtues.

                      Enter a MESSENGER

    How now? Where's your master?
  SERVANT. He met the Duke in the street, sir; of whom he hath taken
    a solemn leave. His lordship will next morning for France. The
    Duke hath offered him letters of commendations to the King.
  SECOND LORD. They shall be no more than needful there, if they were
    more than they can commend.
  FIRST LORD. They cannot be too sweet for the King's tartness.
    Here's his lordship now.

                        Enter BERTRAM

    How now, my lord, is't not after midnight?
  BERTRAM. I have to-night dispatch'd sixteen businesses, a month's
    length apiece; by an abstract of success: I have congied with the
    Duke, done my adieu with his nearest; buried a wife, mourn'd for
    her; writ to my lady mother I am returning; entertain'd my
    convoy; and between these main parcels of dispatch effected many
    nicer needs. The last was the greatest, but that I have not ended
    yet.
  SECOND LORD. If the business be of any difficulty and this morning
    your departure hence, it requires haste of your lordship.
  BERTRAM. I mean the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of it
    hereafter. But shall we have this dialogue between the Fool and
    the Soldier? Come, bring forth this counterfeit module has
    deceiv'd me like a double-meaning prophesier.
  SECOND LORD. Bring him forth.  [Exeunt SOLDIERS]  Has sat i' th'
    stocks all night, poor gallant knave.
  BERTRAM. No matter; his heels have deserv'd it, in usurping his
    spurs so long. How does he carry himself?
  SECOND LORD. I have told your lordship already the stocks carry
    him. But to answer you as you would be understood: he weeps like
    a wench that had shed her milk; he hath confess'd himself to
    Morgan, whom he supposes to be a friar, from the time of his
    remembrance to this very instant disaster of his setting i' th'
    stocks. And what think you he hath confess'd?
  BERTRAM. Nothing of me, has 'a?
  SECOND LORD. His confession is taken, and it shall be read to his
    face; if your lordship be in't, as I believe you are, you must
    have the patience to hear it.

                   Enter PAROLLES guarded, and
                  FIRST SOLDIER as interpreter

  BERTRAM. A plague upon him! muffled! He can say nothing of me.
  SECOND LORD. Hush, hush! Hoodman comes. Portotartarossa.
  FIRST SOLDIER. He calls for the tortures. What will you say without
    'em?
  PAROLLES. I will confess what I know without constraint; if ye
    pinch me like a pasty, I can say no more.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Bosko chimurcho.
  SECOND LORD. Boblibindo chicurmurco.
  FIRST SOLDIER. YOU are a merciful general. Our General bids you
    answer to what I shall ask you out of a note.
  PAROLLES. And truly, as I hope to live.
  FIRST SOLDIER. 'First demand of him how many horse the Duke is
    strong.' What say you to that?
  PAROLLES. Five or six thousand; but very weak and unserviceable.
    The troops are all scattered, and the commanders very poor
    rogues, upon my reputation and credit, and as I hope to live.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Shall I set down your answer so?
  PAROLLES. Do; I'll take the sacrament on 't, how and which way you
    will.
  BERTRAM. All's one to him. What a past-saving slave is this!
  SECOND LORD. Y'are deceiv'd, my lord; this is Monsieur Parolles,
    the gallant militarist-that was his own phrase-that had the whole
    theoric of war in the knot of his scarf, and the practice in the
    chape of his dagger.
  FIRST LORD. I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword
    clean; nor believe he can have everything in him by wearing his
    apparel neatly.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down.
  PAROLLES. 'Five or six thousand horse' I said-I will say true- 'or
    thereabouts' set down, for I'll speak truth.
  SECOND LORD. He's very near the truth in this.
  BERTRAM. But I con him no thanks for't in the nature he delivers it.
  PAROLLES. 'Poor rogues' I pray you say.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down.
  PAROLLES. I humbly thank you, sir. A truth's a truth-the rogues are
    marvellous poor.
  FIRST SOLDIER. 'Demand of him of what strength they are a-foot.'
    What say you to that?
  PAROLLES. By my troth, sir, if I were to live this present hour, I
    will tell true. Let me see: Spurio, a hundred and fifty;
    Sebastian, so many; Corambus, so many; Jaques, so many; Guiltian,
    Cosmo, Lodowick, and Gratii, two hundred fifty each; mine own
    company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred fifty each; so
    that the muster-file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not
    to fifteen thousand poll; half of the which dare not shake the
    snow from off their cassocks lest they shake themselves to
    pieces.
  BERTRAM. What shall be done to him?
  SECOND LORD. Nothing, but let him have thanks. Demand of him my
    condition, and what credit I have with the Duke.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down. 'You shall demand of him
    whether one Captain Dumain be i' th' camp, a Frenchman; what his
    reputation is with the Duke, what his valour, honesty, expertness
    in wars; or whether he thinks it were not possible, with
    well-weighing sums of gold, to corrupt him to a revolt.' What say
    you to this? What do you know of it?
  PAROLLES. I beseech you, let me answer to the particular of the
    inter'gatories. Demand them singly.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Do you know this Captain Dumain?
  PAROLLES. I know him: 'a was a botcher's prentice in Paris, from
    whence he was whipt for getting the shrieve's fool with child-a
    dumb innocent that could not say him nay.
  BERTRAM. Nay, by your leave, hold your hands; though I know his
    brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, is this captain in the Duke of Florence's
    camp?
  PAROLLES. Upon my knowledge, he is, and lousy.
  SECOND LORD. Nay, look not so upon me; we shall hear of your
    lordship anon.
  FIRST SOLDIER. What is his reputation with the Duke?
  PAROLLES. The Duke knows him for no other but a poor officer of
    mine; and writ to me this other day to turn him out o' th' band.
    I think I have his letter in my pocket.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Marry, we'll search.
  PAROLLES. In good sadness, I do not know; either it is there or it
    is upon a file with the Duke's other letters in my tent.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Here 'tis; here's a paper. Shall I read it to you?
  PAROLLES. I do not know if it be it or no.
  BERTRAM. Our interpreter does it well.
  SECOND LORD. Excellently.
  FIRST SOLDIER.  [Reads]  'Dian, the Count's a fool, and full of
    gold.'
  PAROLLES. That is not the Duke's letter, sir; that is an
    advertisement to a proper maid in Florence, one Diana, to take
    heed of the allurement of one Count Rousillon, a foolish idle
    boy, but for all that very ruttish. I pray you, sir, put it up
    again.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Nay, I'll read it first by your favour.
  PAROLLES. My meaning in't, I protest, was very honest in the behalf
    of the maid; for I knew the young Count to be a dangerous and
    lascivious boy, who is a whale to virginity, and devours up all
    the fry it finds.
  BERTRAM. Damnable both-sides rogue!
  FIRST SOLDIER.                                         [Reads]
    'When he swears oaths, bid him drop gold, and take it;
    After he scores, he never pays the score.
    Half won is match well made; match, and well make it;
    He ne'er pays after-debts, take it before.
    And say a soldier, Dian, told thee this:
    Men are to mell with, boys are not to kiss;
    For count of this, the Count's a fool, I know it,
    Who pays before, but not when he does owe it.
    Thine, as he vow'd to thee in thine ear,
                                                   PAROLLES.'
  BERTRAM. He shall be whipt through the army with this rhyme in's
    forehead.
  FIRST LORD. This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold
    linguist, and the amnipotent soldier.
  BERTRAM. I could endure anything before but a cat, and now he's a
    cat to me.
  FIRST SOLDIER. I perceive, sir, by our General's looks we shall be
    fain to hang you.
  PAROLLES. My life, sir, in any case! Not that I am afraid to die,
    but that, my offences being many, I would repent out the
    remainder of nature. Let me live, sir, in a dungeon, i' th'
    stocks, or anywhere, so I may live.
  FIRST SOLDIER. We'll see what may be done, so you confess freely;
    therefore, once more to this Captain Dumain: you have answer'd to
    his reputation with the Duke, and to his valour; what is his
    honesty?
  PAROLLES. He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister; for rapes
    and ravishments he parallels Nessus. He professes not keeping of
    oaths; in breaking 'em he is stronger than Hercules. He will lie,
    sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool.
    Drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will be swine-drunk; and
    in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bedclothes about
    him; but they know his conditions and lay him in straw. I have
    but little more to say, sir, of his honesty. He has everything
    that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should
    have he has nothing.
  SECOND LORD. I begin to love him for this.
  BERTRAM. For this description of thine honesty? A pox upon him! For
    me, he's more and more a cat.
  FIRST SOLDIER. What say you to his expertness in war?
  PAROLLES. Faith, sir, has led the drum before the English
    tragedians-to belie him I will not-and more of his soldier-ship
    I know not, except in that country he had the honour to be the
    officer at a place there called Mile-end to instruct for the
    doubling of files-I would do the man what honour I can-but of
    this I am not certain.
  SECOND LORD. He hath out-villain'd villainy so far that the rarity
    redeems him.
  BERTRAM. A pox on him! he's a cat still.
  FIRST SOLDIER. His qualities being at this poor price, I need not
    to ask you if gold will corrupt him to revolt.
  PAROLLES. Sir, for a cardecue he will sell the fee-simple of his
    salvation, the inheritance of it; and cut th' entail from all
    remainders and a perpetual succession for it perpetually.
  FIRST SOLDIER. What's his brother, the other Captain Dumain?
  FIRST LORD. Why does he ask him of me?
  FIRST SOLDIER. What's he?
  PAROLLES. E'en a crow o' th' same nest; not altogether so great as
    the first in goodness, but greater a great deal in evil. He
    excels his brother for a coward; yet his brother is reputed one
    of the best that is. In a retreat he outruns any lackey: marry,
    in coming on he has the cramp.
  FIRST SOLDIER. If your life be saved, will you undertake to betray
    the Florentine?
  PAROLLES. Ay, and the Captain of his Horse, Count Rousillon.
  FIRST SOLDIER. I'll whisper with the General, and know his
    pleasure.
  PAROLLES.  [Aside]  I'll no more drumming. A plague of all drums!
    Only to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition of
    that lascivious young boy the Count, have I run into this danger.
    Yet who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken?
  FIRST SOLDIER. There is no remedy, sir, but you must die.
    The General says you that have so traitorously discover'd the
    secrets of your army, and made such pestiferous reports of men
    very nobly held, can serve the world for no honest use; therefore
    you must die. Come, headsman, of with his head.
  PAROLLES. O Lord, sir, let me live, or let me see my death!
  FIRST SOLDIER. That shall you, and take your leave of all your
    friends.  [Unmuffling him]  So look about you; know you any here?
  BERTRAM. Good morrow, noble Captain.
  FIRST LORD. God bless you, Captain Parolles.
  SECOND LORD. God save you, noble Captain.
  FIRST LORD. Captain, what greeting will you to my Lord Lafeu? I am
    for France.
  SECOND LORD. Good Captain, will you give me a copy of the sonnet
    you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rousillon? An I were not
    a very coward I'd compel it of you; but fare you well.
                                        Exeunt BERTRAM and LORDS
  FIRST SOLDIER. You are undone, Captain, all but your scarf; that
    has a knot on 't yet.
  PAROLLES. Who cannot be crush'd with a plot?
  FIRST SOLDIER. If you could find out a country where but women were
    that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent
    nation. Fare ye well, sir; I am for France too; we shall speak of
    you there.                                Exit with SOLDIERS
  PAROLLES. Yet am I thankful. If my heart were great,
    'Twould burst at this. Captain I'll be no more;
    But I will eat, and drink, and sleep as soft
    As captain shall. Simply the thing I am
    Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart,
    Let him fear this; for it will come to pass
    That every braggart shall be found an ass.
    Rust, sword; cool, blushes; and, Parolles, live
    Safest in shame. Being fool'd, by fool'ry thrive.
    There's place and means for every man alive.
    I'll after them.                                        Exit

ACT IV SCENE 4. The WIDOW'S house

Enter HELENA, WIDOW, and DIANA

  HELENA. That you may well perceive I have not wrong'd you!
    One of the greatest in the Christian world
    Shall be my surety; fore whose throne 'tis needful,
    Ere I can perfect mine intents, to kneel.
    Time was I did him a desired office,
    Dear almost as his life; which gratitude
    Through flinty Tartar's bosom would peep forth,
    And answer 'Thanks.' I duly am inform'd
    His Grace is at Marseilles, to which place
    We have convenient convoy. You must know
    I am supposed dead. The army breaking,
    My husband hies him home; where, heaven aiding,
    And by the leave of my good lord the King,
    We'll be before our welcome.
  WIDOW. Gentle madam,
    You never had a servant to whose trust
    Your business was more welcome.
  HELENA. Nor you, mistress,
    Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour
    To recompense your love. Doubt not but heaven
    Hath brought me up to be your daughter's dower,
    As it hath fated her to be my motive
    And helper to a husband. But, O strange men!
    That can such sweet use make of what they hate,
    When saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts
    Defiles the pitchy night. So lust doth play
    With what it loathes, for that which is away.
    But more of this hereafter. You, Diana,
    Under my poor instructions yet must suffer
    Something in my behalf.
  DIANA. Let death and honesty
    Go with your impositions, I am yours
    Upon your will to suffer.
  HELENA. Yet, I pray you:
    But with the word the time will bring on summer,
    When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns
    And be as sweet as sharp. We must away;
    Our waggon is prepar'd, and time revives us.
    All's Well that Ends Well. Still the fine's the crown.
    Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.           Exeunt

ACT IV SCENE 5. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter COUNTESS, LAFEU, and CLOWN

  LAFEU. No, no, no, son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow
    there, whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbak'd
    and doughy youth of a nation in his colour. Your daughter-in-law
    had been alive at this hour, and your son here at home, more
    advanc'd by the King than by that red-tail'd humble-bee I speak
    of.
  COUNTESS. I would I had not known him. It was the death of the most
    virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had praise for creating. If
    she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a
    mother. I could not have owed her a more rooted love.
  LAFEU. 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand
    sallets ere we light on such another herb.
  CLOWN. Indeed, sir, she was the sweet-marjoram of the sallet, or,
    rather, the herb of grace.
  LAFEU. They are not sallet-herbs, you knave; they are nose-herbs.
  CLOWN. I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir; I have not much skill in
    grass.
  LAFEU. Whether dost thou profess thyself-a knave or a fool?
  CLOWN. A fool, sir, at a woman's service, and a knave at a man's.
  LAFEU. Your distinction?
  CLOWN. I would cozen the man of his wife, and do his service.
  LAFEU. So you were a knave at his service, indeed.
  CLOWN. And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service.
  LAFEU. I will subscribe for thee; thou art both knave and fool.
  CLOWN. At your service.
  LAFEU. No, no, no.
  CLOWN. Why, sir, if I cannot serve you, I can serve as great a
    prince as you are.
  LAFEU. Who's that? A Frenchman?
  CLOWN. Faith, sir, 'a has an English name; but his fisnomy is more
    hotter in France than there.
  LAFEU. What prince is that?
  CLOWN. The Black Prince, sir; alias, the Prince of Darkness; alias,
    the devil.
  LAFEU. Hold thee, there's my purse. I give thee not this to suggest
    thee from thy master thou talk'st of; serve him still.
  CLOWN. I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire;
    and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. But, sure, he
    is the prince of the world; let his nobility remain in's court. I
    am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too
    little for pomp to enter. Some that humble themselves may; but
    the many will be too chill and tender: and they'll be for the
    flow'ry way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.
  LAFEU. Go thy ways, I begin to be aweary of thee; and I tell thee
    so before, because I would not fall out with thee. Go thy ways;
    let my horses be well look'd to, without any tricks.
  CLOWN. If I put any tricks upon 'em, sir, they shall be jades'
    tricks, which are their own right by the law of nature.
 Exit
  LAFEU. A shrewd knave, and an unhappy.
  COUNTESS. So 'a is. My lord that's gone made himself much  sport
    out of him. By his authority he remains here, which he thinks is
    a patent for his sauciness; and indeed he has no pace, but runs
    where he will.
  LAFEU. I like him well; 'tis not amiss. And I was about to tell
    you, since I heard of the good lady's death, and that my lord
    your son was upon his return home, I moved the King my master to
    speak in the behalf of my daughter; which, in the minority of
    them both, his Majesty out of a self-gracious remembrance did
    first propose. His Highness hath promis'd me to do it; and, to
    stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son, there
    is no fitter matter. How does your ladyship like it?
  COUNTESS. With very much content, my lord; and I wish it happily
    effected.
  LAFEU. His Highness comes post from Marseilles, of as able body as
    when he number'd thirty; 'a will be here to-morrow, or I am
    deceiv'd by him that in such intelligence hath seldom fail'd.
  COUNTESS. It rejoices me that I hope I shall see him ere I die.
    I have letters that my son will be here to-night. I shall beseech
    your lordship to remain with me tal they meet together.
  LAFEU. Madam, I was thinking with what manners I might safely be
    admitted.
  COUNTESS. You need but plead your honourable privilege.
  LAFEU. Lady, of that I have made a bold charter; but, I thank my
    God, it holds yet.

                         Re-enter CLOWN

  CLOWN. O madam, yonder's my lord your son with a patch of velvet
    on's face; whether there be a scar under 't or no, the velvet
    knows; but 'tis a goodly patch of velvet. His left cheek is a
    cheek of two pile and a half, but his right cheek is worn bare.
  LAFEU. A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good liv'ry of
    honour; so belike is that.
  CLOWN. But it is your carbonado'd face.
  LAFEU. Let us go see your son, I pray you;
    I long to talk with the young noble soldier.
  CLOWN. Faith, there's a dozen of 'em, with delicate fine hats, and
    most courteous feathers, which bow the head and nod at every man.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1. Marseilles. A street

Enter HELENA, WIDOW, and DIANA, with two ATTENDANTS

  HELENA. But this exceeding posting day and night
    Must wear your spirits low; we cannot help it.
    But since you have made the days and nights as one,
    To wear your gentle limbs in my affairs,
    Be bold you do so grow in my requital
    As nothing can unroot you.

                      Enter a GENTLEMAN

    In happy time!
    This man may help me to his Majesty's ear,
    If he would spend his power. God save you, sir.
  GENTLEMAN. And you.
  HELENA. Sir, I have seen you in the court of France.
  GENTLEMAN. I have been sometimes there.
  HELENA. I do presume, sir, that you are not fall'n
    From the report that goes upon your goodness;
    And therefore, goaded with most sharp occasions,
    Which lay nice manners by, I put you to
    The use of your own virtues, for the which
    I shall continue thankful.
  GENTLEMAN. What's your will?
  HELENA. That it will please you
    To give this poor petition to the King;
    And aid me with that store of power you have
    To come into his presence.
  GENTLEMAN. The King's not here.
  HELENA. Not here, sir?
  GENTLEMAN. Not indeed.
    He hence remov'd last night, and with more haste
    Than is his use.
  WIDOW. Lord, how we lose our pains!
  HELENA. All's Well That Ends Well yet,
    Though time seem so adverse and means unfit.
    I do beseech you, whither is he gone?
  GENTLEMAN. Marry, as I take it, to Rousillon;
    Whither I am going.
  HELENA. I do beseech you, sir,
    Since you are like to see the King before me,
    Commend the paper to his gracious hand;
    Which I presume shall render you no blame,
    But rather make you thank your pains for it.
    I will come after you with what good speed
    Our means will make us means.
  GENTLEMAN. This I'll do for you.
  HELENA. And you shall find yourself to be well thank'd,
    Whate'er falls more. We must to horse again;
    Go, go, provide.                                      Exeunt

ACT V SCENE 2. Rousillon. The inner court of the COUNT'S palace

Enter CLOWN and PAROLLES

  PAROLLES. Good Monsieur Lavache, give my Lord Lafeu this letter. I
    have ere now, sir, been better known to you, when I have held
    familiarity with fresher clothes; but I am now, sir, muddied in
    Fortune's mood, and smell somewhat strong of her strong
    displeasure.
  CLOWN. Truly, Fortune's displeasure is but sluttish, if it smell
    so strongly as thou speak'st of. I will henceforth eat no fish
    of Fortune's butt'ring. Prithee, allow the wind.
  PAROLLES. Nay, you need not to stop your nose, sir; I spake but by
    a metaphor.
  CLOWN. Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my nose; or
    against any man's metaphor. Prithee, get thee further.
  PAROLLES. Pray you, sir, deliver me this paper.
  CLOWN. Foh! prithee stand away. A paper from Fortune's close-stool
    to give to a nobleman! Look here he comes himself.

                           Enter LAFEU

    Here is a pur of Fortune's, sir, or of Fortune's cat, but not
    a musk-cat, that has fall'n into the unclean fishpond of her
    displeasure, and, as he says, is muddied withal. Pray you, sir,
    use the carp as you may; for he looks like a poor, decayed,
    ingenious, foolish, rascally knave. I do pity his distress
    in my similes of comfort, and leave him to your lordship.
 Exit
  PAROLLES. My lord, I am a man whom Fortune hath cruelly scratch'd.
  LAFEU. And what would you have me to do? 'Tis too late to pare her
    nails now. Wherein have you played the knave with Fortune, that
    she should scratch you, who of herself is a good lady and would
    not have knaves thrive long under her? There's a cardecue for
    you. Let the justices make you and Fortune friends; I am for
    other business.
  PAROLLES. I beseech your honour to hear me one single word.
  LAFEU. You beg a single penny more; come, you shall ha't; save your
    word.
  PAROLLES. My name, my good lord, is Parolles.
  LAFEU. You beg more than word then. Cox my passion! give me your
    hand. How does your drum?
  PAROLLES. O my good lord, you were the first that found me.
  LAFEU. Was I, in sooth? And I was the first that lost thee.
  PAROLLES. It lies in you, my lord, to bring me in some grace, for
    you did bring me out.
  LAFEU. Out upon thee, knave! Dost thou put upon me at once both the
    office of God and the devil? One brings the in grace, and the
    other brings thee out.    [Trumpets sound]  The King's coming; I
    know by his trumpets. Sirrah, inquire further after me; I had
    talk of you last night. Though you are a fool and a knave, you
    shall eat. Go to; follow.
  PAROLLES. I praise God for you.                         Exeunt

ACT V SCENE 3. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Flourish. Enter KING, COUNTESS, LAFEU, the two FRENCH LORDS, with
ATTENDANTS

  KING. We lost a jewel of her, and our esteem
    Was made much poorer by it; but your son,
    As mad in folly, lack'd the sense to know
    Her estimation home.
  COUNTESS. 'Tis past, my liege;
    And I beseech your Majesty to make it
    Natural rebellion, done i' th' blaze of youth,
    When oil and fire, too strong for reason's force,
    O'erbears it and burns on.
  KING. My honour'd lady,
    I have forgiven and forgotten all;
    Though my revenges were high bent upon him
    And watch'd the time to shoot.
  LAFEU. This I must say-
    But first, I beg my pardon: the young lord
    Did to his Majesty, his mother, and his lady,
    Offence of mighty note; but to himself
    The greatest wrong of all. He lost a wife
    Whose beauty did astonish the survey
    Of richest eyes; whose words all ears took captive;
    Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn'd to serve
    Humbly call'd mistress.
  KING. Praising what is lost
    Makes the remembrance dear. Well, call him hither;
    We are reconcil'd, and the first view shall kill
    All repetition. Let him not ask our pardon;
    The nature of his great offence is dead,
    And deeper than oblivion do we bury
    Th' incensing relics of it; let him approach,
    A stranger, no offender; and inform him
    So 'tis our will he should.
  GENTLEMAN. I shall, my liege.                 Exit GENTLEMAN
  KING. What says he to your daughter? Have you spoke?
  LAFEU. All that he is hath reference to your Highness.
  KING. Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me
    That sets him high in fame.

                          Enter BERTRAM

  LAFEU. He looks well on 't.
  KING. I am not a day of season,
    For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail
    In me at once. But to the brightest beams
    Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth;
    The time is fair again.
  BERTRAM. My high-repented blames,
    Dear sovereign, pardon to me.
  KING. All is whole;
    Not one word more of the consumed time.
    Let's take the instant by the forward top;
    For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
    Th' inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
    Steals ere we can effect them. You remember
    The daughter of this lord?
  BERTRAM. Admiringly, my liege. At first
    I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart
    Durst make too bold herald of my tongue;
    Where the impression of mine eye infixing,
    Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,
    Which warp'd the line of every other favour,
    Scorn'd a fair colour or express'd it stol'n,
    Extended or contracted all proportions
    To a most hideous object. Thence it came
    That she whom all men prais'd, and whom myself,
    Since I have lost, have lov'd, was in mine eye
    The dust that did offend it.
  KING. Well excus'd.
    That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away
    From the great compt; but love that comes too late,
    Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,
    To the great sender turns a sour offence,
    Crying 'That's good that's gone.' Our rash faults
    Make trivial price of serious things we have,
    Not knowing them until we know their grave.
    Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,
    Destroy our friends, and after weep their dust;
    Our own love waking cries to see what's done,
    While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon.
    Be this sweet Helen's knell. And now forget her.
    Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin.
    The main consents are had; and here we'll stay
    To see our widower's second marriage-day.
  COUNTESS. Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless!
    Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cesse!
  LAFEU. Come on, my son, in whom my house's name
    Must be digested; give a favour from you,
    To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter,
    That she may quickly come.
                                          [BERTRAM gives a ring]
    By my old beard,
    And ev'ry hair that's on 't, Helen, that's dead,
    Was a sweet creature; such a ring as this,
    The last that e'er I took her leave at court,
    I saw upon her finger.
  BERTRAM. Hers it was not.
  KING. Now, pray you, let me see it; for mine eye,
    While I was speaking, oft was fasten'd to't.
    This ring was mine; and when I gave it Helen
    I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood
    Necessitied to help, that by this token
    I would relieve her. Had you that craft to reave her
    Of what should stead her most?
  BERTRAM. My gracious sovereign,
    Howe'er it pleases you to take it so,
    The ring was never hers.
  COUNTESS. Son, on my life,
    I have seen her wear it; and she reckon'd it
    At her life's rate.
  LAFEU. I am sure I saw her wear it.
  BERTRAM. You are deceiv'd, my lord; she never saw it.
    In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,
    Wrapp'd in a paper, which contain'd the name
    Of her that threw it. Noble she was, and thought
    I stood engag'd; but when I had subscrib'd
    To mine own fortune, and inform'd her fully
    I could not answer in that course of honour
    As she had made the overture, she ceas'd,
    In heavy satisfaction, and would never
    Receive the ring again.
  KING. Plutus himself,
    That knows the tinct and multiplying med'cine,
    Hath not in nature's mystery more science
    Than I have in this ring. 'Twas mine, 'twas Helen's,
    Whoever gave it you. Then, if you know
    That you are well acquainted with yourself,
    Confess 'twas hers, and by what rough enforcement
    You got it from her. She call'd the saints to surety
    That she would never put it from her finger
    Unless she gave it to yourself in bed-
    Where you have never come- or sent it us
    Upon her great disaster.
  BERTRAM. She never saw it.
  KING. Thou speak'st it falsely, as I love mine honour;
    And mak'st conjectural fears to come into me
    Which I would fain shut out. If it should prove
    That thou art so inhuman- 'twill not prove so.
    And yet I know not- thou didst hate her deadly,
    And she is dead; which nothing, but to close
    Her eyes myself, could win me to believe
    More than to see this ring. Take him away.
                                          [GUARDS seize BERTRAM]
    My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall,
    Shall tax my fears of little vanity,
    Having vainly fear'd too little. Away with him.
    We'll sift this matter further.
  BERTRAM. If you shall prove
    This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy
    Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence,
    Where she yet never was.                       Exit, guarded
  KING. I am wrapp'd in dismal thinkings.

                        Enter a GENTLEMAN

  GENTLEMAN. Gracious sovereign,
    Whether I have been to blame or no, I know not:
    Here's a petition from a Florentine,
    Who hath, for four or five removes, come short
    To tender it herself. I undertook it,
    Vanquish'd thereto by the fair grace and speech
    Of the poor suppliant, who by this, I know,
    Is here attending; her business looks in her
    With an importing visage; and she told me
    In a sweet verbal brief it did concern
    Your Highness with herself.
  KING.  [Reads the letter]  'Upon his many protestations to marry me
    when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won me. Now is the
    Count Rousillon a widower; his vows are forfeited to me, and my
    honour's paid to him. He stole from Florence, taking no leave,
    and I follow him to his country for justice. Grant it me, O King!
    in you it best lies; otherwise a seducer flourishes, and a poor
    maid is undone.
                                                DIANA CAPILET.'
  LAFEU. I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll for this.
    I'll none of him.
  KING. The heavens have thought well on thee, Lafeu,
    To bring forth this discov'ry. Seek these suitors.
    Go speedily, and bring again the Count.
                                               Exeunt ATTENDANTS
    I am afeard the life of Helen, lady,
    Was foully snatch'd.
  COUNTESS. Now, justice on the doers!

                       Enter BERTRAM, guarded

  KING. I wonder, sir, sith wives are monsters to you.
    And that you fly them as you swear them lordship,
    Yet you desire to marry.
                                           Enter WIDOW and DIANA
    What woman's that?
  DIANA. I am, my lord, a wretched Florentine,
    Derived from the ancient Capilet.
    My suit, as I do understand, you know,
    And therefore know how far I may be pitied.
  WIDOW. I am her mother, sir, whose age and honour
    Both suffer under this complaint we bring,
    And both shall cease, without your remedy.
  KING. Come hither, Count; do you know these women?
  BERTRAM. My lord, I neither can nor will deny
    But that I know them. Do they charge me further?
  DIANA. Why do you look so strange upon your wife?
  BERTRAM. She's none of mine, my lord.
  DIANA. If you shall marry,
    You give away this hand, and that is mine;
    You give away heaven's vows, and those are mine;
    You give away myself, which is known mine;
    For I by vow am so embodied yours
    That she which marries you must marry me,
    Either both or none.
  LAFEU.  [To BERTRAM]  Your reputation comes too short for
    my daughter; you are no husband for her.
  BERTRAM. My lord, this is a fond and desp'rate creature
    Whom sometime I have laugh'd with. Let your Highness
    Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour
    Than for to think that I would sink it here.
  KING. Sir, for my thoughts, you have them ill to friend
    Till your deeds gain them. Fairer prove your honour
    Than in my thought it lies!
  DIANA. Good my lord,
    Ask him upon his oath if he does think
    He had not my virginity.
  KING. What say'st thou to her?
  BERTRAM. She's impudent, my lord,
    And was a common gamester to the camp.
  DIANA. He does me wrong, my lord; if I were so
    He might have bought me at a common price.
    Do not believe him. o, behold this ring,
    Whose high respect and rich validity
    Did lack a parallel; yet, for all that,
    He gave it to a commoner o' th' camp,
    If I be one.
  COUNTESS. He blushes, and 'tis it.
    Of six preceding ancestors, that gem
    Conferr'd by testament to th' sequent issue,
    Hath it been ow'd and worn. This is his wife:
    That ring's a thousand proofs.
  KING. Methought you said
    You saw one here in court could witness it.
  DIANA. I did, my lord, but loath am to produce
    So bad an instrument; his name's Parolles.
  LAFEU. I saw the man to-day, if man he be.
  KING. Find him, and bring him hither.        Exit an ATTENDANT
  BERTRAM. What of him?
    He's quoted for a most perfidious slave,
    With all the spots o' th' world tax'd and debauch'd,
    Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth.
    Am I or that or this for what he'll utter
    That will speak anything?
  KING. She hath that ring of yours.
  BERTRAM. I think she has. Certain it is I lik'd her,
    And boarded her i' th' wanton way of youth.
    She knew her distance, and did angle for me,
    Madding my eagerness with her restraint,
    As all impediments in fancy's course
    Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine,
    Her infinite cunning with her modern grace
    Subdu'd me to her rate. She got the ring;
    And I had that which any inferior might
    At market-price have bought.
  DIANA. I must be patient.
    You that have turn'd off a first so noble wife
    May justly diet me. I pray you yet-
    Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband-
    Send for your ring, I will return it home,
    And give me mine again.
  BERTRAM. I have it not.
  KING. What ring was yours, I pray you?
  DIANA. Sir, much like
    The same upon your finger.
  KING. Know you this ring? This ring was his of late.
  DIANA. And this was it I gave him, being abed.
  KING. The story, then, goes false you threw it him
    Out of a casement.
  DIANA. I have spoke the truth.

                       Enter PAROLLES

  BERTRAM. My lord, I do confess the ring was hers.
  KING. You boggle shrewdly; every feather starts you.
    Is this the man you speak of?
  DIANA. Ay, my lord.
  KING. Tell me, sirrah-but tell me true I charge you,
    Not fearing the displeasure of your master,
    Which, on your just proceeding, I'll keep off-
    By him and by this woman here what know you?
  PAROLLES. So please your Majesty, my master hath been an honourable
    gentleman; tricks he hath had in him, which gentlemen have.
  KING. Come, come, to th' purpose. Did he love this woman?
  PAROLLES. Faith, sir, he did love her; but how?
  KING. How, I pray you?
  PAROLLES. He did love her, sir, as a gentleman loves a woman.
  KING. How is that?
  PAROLLES. He lov'd her, sir, and lov'd her not.
  KING. As thou art a knave and no knave.
    What an equivocal companion is this!
  PAROLLES. I am a poor man, and at your Majesty's command.
  LAFEU. He's a good drum, my lord, but a naughty orator.
  DIANA. Do you know he promis'd me marriage?
  PAROLLES. Faith, I know more than I'll speak.
  KING. But wilt thou not speak all thou know'st?
  PAROLLES. Yes, so please your Majesty. I did go between them, as I
    said; but more than that, he loved her-for indeed he was mad for
    her, and talk'd of Satan, and of Limbo, and of Furies, and I know
    not what. Yet I was in that credit with them at that time that I
    knew of their going to bed; and of other motions, as promising
    her marriage, and things which would derive me ill will to speak
    of; therefore I will not speak what I know.
  KING. Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say they are
    married; but thou art too fine in thy evidence; therefore stand
    aside.
    This ring, you say, was yours?
  DIANA. Ay, my good lord.
  KING. Where did you buy it? Or who gave it you?
  DIANA. It was not given me, nor I did not buy it.
  KING. Who lent it you?
  DIANA. It was not lent me neither.
  KING. Where did you find it then?
  DIANA. I found it not.
  KING. If it were yours by none of all these ways,
    How could you give it him?
  DIANA. I never gave it him.
  LAFEU. This woman's an easy glove, my lord; she goes of and on at
    pleasure.
  KING. This ring was mine, I gave it his first wife.
  DIANA. It might be yours or hers, for aught I know.
  KING. Take her away, I do not like her now;
    To prison with her. And away with him.
    Unless thou tell'st me where thou hadst this ring,
    Thou diest within this hour.
  DIANA. I'll never tell you.
  KING. Take her away.
  DIANA. I'll put in bail, my liege.
  KING. I think thee now some common customer.
  DIANA. By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you.
  KING. Wherefore hast thou accus'd him all this while?
  DIANA. Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty.
    He knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to't:
    I'll swear I am a maid, and he knows not.
    Great King, I am no strumpet, by my life;
    I am either maid, or else this old man's wife.
                                             [Pointing to LAFEU]
  KING. She does abuse our ears; to prison with her.
  DIANA. Good mother, fetch my bail. Stay, royal sir;
                                                      Exit WIDOW
    The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for,
    And he shall surety me. But for this lord
    Who hath abus'd me as he knows himself,
    Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him.
    He knows himself my bed he hath defil'd;
    And at that time he got his wife with child.
    Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick;
    So there's my riddle: one that's dead is quick-
    And now behold the meaning.

                     Re-enter WIDOW with HELENA

  KING. Is there no exorcist
    Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
    Is't real that I see?
  HELENA. No, my good lord;
    'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see,
    The name and not the thing.
  BERTRAM. Both, both; o, pardon!
  HELENA. O, my good lord, when I was like this maid,
    I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring,
    And, look you, here's your letter. This it says:
    'When from my finger you can get this ring,
    And are by me with child,' etc. This is done.
    Will you be mine now you are doubly won?
  BERTRAM. If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,
    I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.
  HELENA. If it appear not plain, and prove untrue,
    Deadly divorce step between me and you!
    O my dear mother, do I see you living?
  LAFEU. Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon. [To PAROLLES]
    Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher. So, I
    thank thee. Wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee;
    let thy curtsies alone, they are scurvy ones.
  KING. Let us from point to point this story know,
    To make the even truth in pleasure flow.
    [To DIANA]  If thou beest yet a fresh uncropped flower,
    Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;
    For I can guess that by thy honest aid
    Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.-
    Of that and all the progress, more and less,
    Resolvedly more leisure shall express.
    All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,
    The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.       [Flourish]

EPILOGUE EPILOGUE.

  KING. The King's a beggar, now the play is done.
    All is well ended if this suit be won,
    That you express content; which we will pay
    With strife to please you, day exceeding day.
    Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;
    Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.
                                                    Exeunt omnes

THE END

1607




THE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  MARK ANTONY,         Triumvirs
  OCTAVIUS CAESAR,         "
  M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS,     "
  SEXTUS POMPEIUS,         "
  DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, friend to Antony
  VENTIDIUS,             "    "   "
  EROS,                  "    "   "
  SCARUS,                "    "   "
  DERCETAS,              "    "   "
  DEMETRIUS,             "    "   "
  PHILO,                 "    "   "
  MAECENAS,   friend to Caesar
  AGRIPPA,       "    "   "
  DOLABELLA,     "    "   "
  PROCULEIUS,    "    "   "
  THYREUS,       "    "   "
  GALLUS,        "    "   "
  MENAS,      friend to Pompey
  MENECRATES,    "    "    "
  VARRIUS,       "    "    "
  TAURUS, Lieutenant-General to Caesar
  CANIDIUS, Lieutenant-General to Antony
  SILIUS, an Officer in Ventidius's army
  EUPHRONIUS, an Ambassador from Antony to Caesar
  ALEXAS,   attendant on Cleopatra
  MARDIAN,      "     "      "
  SELEUCUS,     "     "      "
  DIOMEDES,     "     "      "
  A SOOTHSAYER
  A CLOWN

  CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt
  OCTAVIA, sister to Caesar and wife to Antony
  CHARMIAN, lady attending on Cleopatra
  IRAS,       "      "      "     "

  Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants

SCENE: The Roman Empire

ACT I. SCENE I. Alexandria. 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 glow'd 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, 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 reckon'd.
  CLEOPATRA. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd.
  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 pow'rful 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-tongu'd Fulvia scolds. The messengers!
  ANTONY. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
    Of the rang'd 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 [emhracing], 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 stirr'd 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 to-night?
  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 admir'd.
    No messenger but thine, and all alone
    To-night 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 priz'd 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 to-morrow. Rest you happy!            Exeunt

SCENE II. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a SOOTHSAYER

  CHARMIAN. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost
    most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you prais'd 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.

                       Enter ENOBARBUS

  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 prov'd 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, to-night, 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 worky-day 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-wiv'd, 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'ld 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 dispos'd 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 and attendants

  CLEOPATRA. We will not look upon him. Go with us.
                       Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, and the rest
  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 flatter'd.
  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 call'd 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
  ANTONY. From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!
  FIRST ATTENDANT. The man from Sicyon- is there such an one?
  SECOND ATTENDANT. He stays upon your will.
  ANTONY. Let him appear.
    These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
    Or lose myself in dotage.

                 Enter another MESSENGER with a letter

    What are you?
  SECOND MESSENGER. Fulvia thy wife is dead.
  ANTONY. Where died she?
  SECOND MESSENGER. In Sicyon.
    Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
    Importeth thee to know, this bears.       [Gives the letter]
  ANTONY. Forbear me.                             Exit 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 low'ring, does become
    The opposite of itself. She's good, being gone;
    The hand could pluck her back that shov'd 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!

                    Re-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 show'r 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 crown'd 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 broach'd 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 to
    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 link'd 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. CLEOPATRA'S palace

Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS

  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.

                            Enter ANTONY

    But here comes 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 betray'd! 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 turn'd 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 condemn'd 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 awak'd. 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 receiv'd shall be.
  ANTONY. Quarrel no more, but be prepar'd 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 lov'd- 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 strew'd 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. CAESAR'S house

Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, reading a letter; 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
    Vouchsaf'd 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 enow to darken all his goodness.
    His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven,
    More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary
    Rather than purchas'd; 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 fill'd
    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 belov'd of those
    That only have fear'd Caesar. To the ports
    The discontents repair, and men's reports
    Give him much wrong'd.
  CAESAR. I should have known no less.
    It hath been taught us from the primal state
    That he which is was wish'd until he were;
    And the ebb'd man, ne'er lov'd till ne'er worth love,
    Comes dear'd by being lack'd. This common body,
    Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
    Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
    To rot itself with motion.
  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 brows'd. 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 lank'd 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. To-morrow, Caesar,
    I shall be furnish'd 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. CLEOPATRA'S 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 unseminar'd, 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 Phoebus' 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 med'cine hath
    With his tinct gilded thee.
    How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?
  ALEXAS. Last thing he did, dear Queen,
    He kiss'd- 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 neigh'd so high that what I would have spoke
    Was beastly dumb'd 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 seem'd 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 chok'd 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

ACT II. SCENE I. Messina. POMPEY'S house

Enter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS, in warlike manner

  POMPEY. If the great gods be just, they shall assist
    The deeds of justest men.
  MENECRATES. Know, worthy Pompey,
    That what they do delay they not deny.
  POMPEY. Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays
    The thing we sue for.
  MENECRATES. We, ignorant of ourselves,
    Beg often our own harms, which the wise pow'rs
    Deny us for our good; so find we profit
    By losing of our prayers.
  POMPEY. I shall do well.
    The people love me, and the sea is mine;
    My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope
    Says it will come to th' full. Mark Antony
    In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make
    No wars without doors. Caesar gets money where
    He loses hearts. Lepidus flatters both,
    Of both is flatter'd; but he neither loves,
    Nor either cares for him.
  MENAS. Caesar and Lepidus
    Are in the field. A mighty strength they carry.
  POMPEY. Where have you this? 'Tis false.
  MENAS. From Silvius, sir.
  POMPEY. He dreams. I know they are in Rome together,
    Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,
    Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wan'd lip!
    Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both;
    Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,
    Keep his brain fuming. Epicurean cooks
    Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite,
    That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour
    Even till a Lethe'd dullness-

                       Enter VARRIUS

    How now, Varrius!
  VARRIUS. This is most certain that I shall deliver:
    Mark Antony is every hour in Rome
    Expected. Since he went from Egypt 'tis
    A space for farther travel.
  POMPEY. I could have given less matter
    A better ear. Menas, I did not think
    This amorous surfeiter would have donn'd his helm
    For such a petty war; his soldiership
    Is twice the other twain. But let us rear
    The higher our opinion, that our stirring
    Can from the lap of Egypt's widow pluck
    The ne'er-lust-wearied Antony.
  MENAS. I cannot hope
    Caesar and Antony shall well greet together.
    His wife that's dead did trespasses to Caesar;
    His brother warr'd upon him; although, I think,
    Not mov'd by Antony.
  POMPEY. I know not, Menas,
    How lesser enmities may give way to greater.
    Were't not that we stand up against them all,
    'Twere pregnant they should square between themselves;
    For they have entertained cause enough
    To draw their swords. But how the fear of us
    May cement their divisions, and bind up
    The petty difference we yet not know.
    Be't as our gods will have't! It only stands
    Our lives upon to use our strongest hands.
    Come, Menas.                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Rome. The house of LEPIDUS

Enter ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS

  LEPIDUS. Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,
    And shall become you well, to entreat your captain
    To soft and gentle speech.
  ENOBARBUS. I shall entreat him
    To answer like himself. If Caesar move him,
    Let Antony look over Caesar's head
    And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,
    Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard,
    I would not shave't to-day.
  LEPIDUS. 'Tis not a time
    For private stomaching.
  ENOBARBUS. Every time
    Serves for the matter that is then born in't.
  LEPIDUS. But small to greater matters must give way.
  ENOBARBUS. Not if the small come first.
  LEPIDUS. Your speech is passion;
    But pray you stir no embers up. Here comes
    The noble Antony.

                Enter ANTONY and VENTIDIUS

  ENOBARBUS. And yonder, Caesar.

            Enter CAESAR, MAECENAS, and AGRIPPA

  ANTONY. If we compose well here, to Parthia.
    Hark, Ventidius.
  CAESAR. I do not know, Maecenas. Ask Agrippa.
  LEPIDUS. Noble friends,
    That which combin'd us was most great, and let not
    A leaner action rend us. What's amiss,
    May it be gently heard. When we debate
    Our trivial difference loud, we do commit
    Murder in healing wounds. Then, noble partners,
    The rather for I earnestly beseech,
    Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,
    Nor curstness grow to th' matter.
  ANTONY. 'Tis spoken well.
    Were we before our arinies, and to fight,
    I should do thus.                                 [Flourish]
  CAESAR. Welcome to Rome.
  ANTONY. Thank you.
  CAESAR. Sit.
  ANTONY. Sit, sir.
  CAESAR. Nay, then.                                  [They sit]
  ANTONY. I learn you take things ill which are not so,
    Or being, concern you not.
  CAESAR. I must be laugh'd at
    If, or for nothing or a little,
    Should say myself offended, and with you
    Chiefly i' the world; more laugh'd at that I should
    Once name you derogately when to sound your name
    It not concern'd me.
  ANTONY. My being in Egypt, Caesar,
    What was't to you?
  CAESAR. No more than my residing here at Rome
    Might be to you in Egypt. Yet, if you there
    Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt
    Might be my question.
  ANTONY. How intend you- practis'd?
  CAESAR. You may be pleas'd to catch at mine intent
    By what did here befall me. Your wife and brother
    Made wars upon me, and their contestation
    Was theme for you; you were the word of war.
  ANTONY. You do mistake your business; my brother never
    Did urge me in his act. I did inquire it,
    And have my learning from some true reports
    That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather
    Discredit my authority with yours,
    And make the wars alike against my stomach,
    Having alike your cause? Of this my letters
    Before did satisfy you. If you'll patch a quarrel,
    As matter whole you have not to make it with,
    It must not be with this.
  CAESAR. You praise yourself
    By laying defects of judgment to me; but
    You patch'd up your excuses.
  ANTONY. Not so, not so;
    I know you could not lack, I am certain on't,
    Very necessity of this thought, that I,
    Your partner in the cause 'gainst which he fought,
    Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars
    Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,
    I would you had her spirit in such another!
    The third o' th' world is yours, which with a snaffle
    You may pace easy, but not such a wife.
  ENOBARBUS. Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to
    wars with the women!
  ANTONY. So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar,
    Made out of her impatience- which not wanted
    Shrewdness of policy too- I grieving grant
    Did you too much disquiet. For that you must
    But say I could not help it.
  CAESAR. I wrote to you
    When rioting in Alexandria; you
    Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts
    Did gibe my missive out of audience.
  ANTONY. Sir,
    He fell upon me ere admitted. Then
    Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want
    Of what I was i' th' morning; but next day
    I told him of myself, which was as much
    As to have ask'd him pardon. Let this fellow
    Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,
    Out of our question wipe him.
  CAESAR. You have broken
    The article of your oath, which you shall never
    Have tongue to charge me with.
  LEPIDUS. Soft, Caesar!
  ANTONY. No;
    Lepidus, let him speak.
    The honour is sacred which he talks on now,
    Supposing that I lack'd it. But on, Caesar:
    The article of my oath-
  CAESAR. To lend me arms and aid when I requir'd them,
    The which you both denied.
  ANTONY. Neglected, rather;
    And then when poisoned hours had bound me up
    From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may,
    I'll play the penitent to you; but mine honesty
    Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power
    Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia,
    To have me out of Egypt, made wars here;
    For which myself, the ignorant motive, do
    So far ask pardon as befits mine honour
    To stoop in such a case.
  LEPIDUS. 'Tis noble spoken.
  MAECENAS. If it might please you to enforce no further
    The griefs between ye- to forget them quite
    Were to remember that the present need
    Speaks to atone you.
  LEPIDUS. Worthily spoken, Maecenas.
  ENOBARBUS. Or, if you borrow one another's love for the instant,
    you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again.
    You shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to
    do.
  ANTONY. Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more.
  ENOBARBUS. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.
  ANTONY. You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.
  ENOBARBUS. Go to, then- your considerate stone!
  CAESAR. I do not much dislike the matter, but
    The manner of his speech; for't cannot be
    We shall remain in friendship, our conditions
    So diff'ring in their acts. Yet if I knew
    What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge
    O' th' world, I would pursue it.
  AGRIPPA. Give me leave, Caesar.
  CAESAR. Speak, Agrippa.
  AGRIPPA. Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,
    Admir'd Octavia. Great Mark Antony
    Is now a widower.
  CAESAR. Say not so, Agrippa.
    If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
    Were well deserv'd of rashness.
  ANTONY. I am not married, Caesar. Let me hear
    Agrippa further speak.
  AGRIPPA. To hold you in perpetual amity,
    To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
    With an unslipping knot, take Antony
    Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims
    No worse a husband than the best of men;
    Whose virtue and whose general graces speak
    That which none else can utter. By this marriage
    All little jealousies, which now seem great,
    And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
    Would then be nothing. Truths would be tales,
    Where now half tales be truths. Her love to both
    Would each to other, and all loves to both,
    Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke;
    For 'tis a studied, not a present thought,
    By duty ruminated.
  ANTONY. Will Caesar speak?
  CAESAR. Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd
    With what is spoke already.
  ANTONY. What power is in Agrippa,
    If I would say 'Agrippa, be it so,'
    To make this good?
  CAESAR. The power of Caesar, and
    His power unto Octavia.
  ANTONY. May I never
    To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,
    Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand.
    Further this act of grace; and from this hour
    The heart of brothers govern in our loves
    And sway our great designs!
  CAESAR. There is my hand.
    A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother
    Did ever love so dearly. Let her live
    To join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never
    Fly off our loves again!
  LEPIDUS. Happily, amen!
  ANTONY. I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst Pompey;
    For he hath laid strange courtesies and great
    Of late upon me. I must thank him only,
    Lest my remembrance suffer ill report;
    At heel of that, defy him.
  LEPIDUS. Time calls upon's.
    Of us must Pompey presently be sought,
    Or else he seeks out us.
  ANTONY. Where lies he?
  CAESAR. About the Mount Misenum.
  ANTONY. What is his strength by land?
  CAESAR. Great and increasing; but by sea
    He is an absolute master.
  ANTONY. So is the fame.
    Would we had spoke together! Haste we for it.
    Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we
    The business we have talk'd of.
  CAESAR. With most gladness;
    And do invite you to my sister's view,
    Whither straight I'll lead you.
  ANTONY. Let us, Lepidus,
    Not lack your company.
  LEPIDUS. Noble Antony,
    Not sickness should detain me.                    [Flourish]
                     Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS, AGRIPPA, MAECENAS
  MAECENAS. Welcome from Egypt, sir.
  ENOBARBUS. Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas! My honourable
    friend, Agrippa!
  AGRIPPA. Good Enobarbus!
  MAECENAS. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well
    digested. You stay'd well by't in Egypt.
  ENOBARBUS. Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance and made
    the night light with drinking.
  MAECENAS. Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but
    twelve persons there. Is this true?
  ENOBARBUS. This was but as a fly by an eagle. We had much more
    monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.
  MAECENAS. She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.
  ENOBARBUS. When she first met Mark Antony she purs'd up his heart,
    upon the river of Cydnus.
  AGRIPPA. There she appear'd indeed! Or my reporter devis'd well for
    her.
  ENOBARBUS. I will tell you.
    The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
    Burn'd on the water. The poop was beaten gold;
    Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
    The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
    Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
    The water which they beat to follow faster,
    As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
    It beggar'd all description. She did lie
    In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold, of tissue,
    O'erpicturing that Venus where we see
    The fancy out-work nature. On each side her
    Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
    With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
    To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
    And what they undid did.
  AGRIPPA. O, rare for Antony!
  ENOBARBUS. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
    So many mermaids, tended her i' th' eyes,
    And made their bends adornings. At the helm
    A seeming mermaid steers. The silken tackle
    Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands
    That yarely frame the office. From the barge
    A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
    Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
    Her people out upon her; and Antony,
    Enthron'd i' th' market-place, did sit alone,
    Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,
    Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
    And made a gap in nature.
  AGRIPPA. Rare Egyptian!
  ENOBARBUS. Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
    Invited her to supper. She replied
    It should be better he became her guest;
    Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony,
    Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,
    Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast,
    And for his ordinary pays his heart
    For what his eyes eat only.
  AGRIPPA. Royal wench!
    She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed.
    He ploughed her, and she cropp'd.
  ENOBARBUS. I saw her once
    Hop forty paces through the public street;
    And, having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,
    That she did make defect perfection,
    And, breathless, pow'r breathe forth.
  MAECENAS. Now Antony must leave her utterly.
  ENOBARBUS. Never! He will not.
    Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
    Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
    The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
    Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
    Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
    Bless her when she is riggish.
  MAECENAS. If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle
    The heart of Antony, Octavia is
    A blessed lottery to him.
  AGRIPPA. Let us go.
    Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest
    Whilst you abide here.
  ENOBARBUS. Humbly, sir, I thank you.                    Exeunt

SCENE III. Rome. CAESAR'S house

Enter ANTONY, CAESAR, OCTAVIA between them

  ANTONY. The world and my great office will sometimes
    Divide me from your bosom.
  OCTAVIA. All which time
    Before the gods my knee shall bow my prayers
    To them for you.
  ANTONY. Good night, sir. My Octavia,
    Read not my blemishes in the world's report.
    I have not kept my square; but that to come
    Shall all be done by th' rule. Good night, dear lady.
  OCTAVIA. Good night, sir.
  CAESAR. Good night.                  Exeunt CAESAR and OCTAVIA

                        Enter SOOTHSAYER

  ANTONY. Now, sirrah, you do wish yourself in Egypt?
  SOOTHSAYER. Would I had never come from thence, nor you thither!
  ANTONY. If you can- your reason.
  SOOTHSAYER. I see it in my motion, have it not in my tongue; but
    yet hie you to Egypt again.
  ANTONY. Say to me,
    Whose fortunes shall rise higher, Caesar's or mine?
  SOOTHSAYER. Caesar's.
    Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side.
    Thy daemon, that thy spirit which keeps thee, is
    Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,
    Where Caesar's is not; but near him thy angel
    Becomes a fear, as being o'erpow'r'd. Therefore
    Make space enough between you.
  ANTONY. Speak this no more.
  SOOTHSAYER. To none but thee; no more but when to thee.
    If thou dost play with him at any game,
    Thou art sure to lose; and of that natural luck
    He beats thee 'gainst the odds. Thy lustre thickens
    When he shines by. I say again, thy spirit
    Is all afraid to govern thee near him;
    But, he away, 'tis noble.
  ANTONY. Get thee gone.
    Say to Ventidius I would speak with him.
                                                 Exit SOOTHSAYER
    He shall to Parthia.- Be it art or hap,
    He hath spoken true. The very dice obey him;
    And in our sports my better cunning faints
    Under his chance. If we draw lots, he speeds;
    His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
    When it is all to nought, and his quails ever
    Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds. I will to Egypt;
    And though I make this marriage for my peace,
    I' th' East my pleasure lies.

                       Enter VENTIDIUS

    O, come, Ventidius,
    You must to Parthia. Your commission's ready;
    Follow me and receive't.                              Exeunt

SCENE IV. Rome. A street

Enter LEPIDUS, MAECENAS, and AGRIPPA

  LEPIDUS. Trouble yourselves no further. Pray you hasten
    Your generals after.
  AGRIPPA. Sir, Mark Antony
    Will e'en but kiss Octavia, and we'll follow.
  LEPIDUS. Till I shall see you in your soldier's dress,
    Which will become you both, farewell.
  MAECENAS. We shall,
    As I conceive the journey, be at th' Mount
    Before you, Lepidus.
  LEPIDUS. Your way is shorter;
    My purposes do draw me much about.
    You'll win two days upon me.
  BOTH. Sir, good success!
  LEPIDUS. Farewell.                                      Exeunt

SCENE V. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS

  CLEOPATRA. Give me some music- music, moody food
    Of us that trade in love.
  ALL. The music, ho!

                    Enter MARDIAN the eunuch

  CLEOPATRA. Let it alone! Let's to billiards. Come, Charmian.
  CHARMIAN. My arm is sore; best play with Mardian.
  CLEOPATRA. As well a woman with an eunuch play'd
    As with a woman. Come, you'll play with me, sir?
  MARDIAN. As well as I can, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. And when good will is show'd, though't come too short,
    The actor may plead pardon. I'll none now.
    Give me mine angle- we'll to th' river. There,
    My music playing far off, I will betray
    Tawny-finn'd fishes; my bended hook shall pierce
    Their slimy jaws; and as I draw them up
    I'll think them every one an Antony,
    And say 'Ah ha! Y'are caught.'
  CHARMIAN. 'Twas merry when
    You wager'd on your angling; when your diver
    Did hang a salt fish on his hook, which he
    With fervency drew up.
  CLEOPATRA. That time? O times
    I laughed him out of patience; and that night
    I laugh'd him into patience; and next morn,
    Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed,
    Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst
    I wore his sword Philippan.

                    Enter a MESSENGER

    O! from Italy?
    Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,
    That long time have been barren.
  MESSENGER. Madam, madam-
  CLEOPATRA. Antony's dead! If thou say so, villain,
    Thou kill'st thy mistress; but well and free,
    If thou so yield him, there is gold, and here
    My bluest veins to kiss- a hand that kings
    Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing.
  MESSENGER. First, madam, he is well.
  CLEOPATRA. Why, there's more gold.
    But, sirrah, mark, we use
    To say the dead are well. Bring it to that,
    The gold I give thee will I melt and pour
    Down thy ill-uttering throat.
  MESSENGER. Good madam, hear me.
  CLEOPATRA. Well, go to, I will.
    But there's no goodness in thy face. If Antony
    Be free and healthful- why so tart a favour
    To trumpet such good tidings? If not well,
    Thou shouldst come like a Fury crown'd with snakes,
    Not like a formal man.
  MESSENGER. Will't please you hear me?
  CLEOPATRA. I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st.
    Yet, if thou say Antony lives, is well,
    Or friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,
    I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail
    Rich pearls upon thee.
  MESSENGER. Madam, he's well.
  CLEOPATRA. Well said.
  MESSENGER. And friends with Caesar.
  CLEOPATRA. Th'art an honest man.
  MESSENGER. Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.
  CLEOPATRA. Make thee a fortune from me.
  MESSENGER. But yet, madam-
  CLEOPATRA. I do not like 'but yet.' It does allay
    The good precedence; fie upon 'but yet'!
    'But yet' is as a gaoler to bring forth
    Some monstrous malefactor. Prithee, friend,
    Pour out the pack of matter to mine ear,
    The good and bad together. He's friends with Caesar;
    In state of health, thou say'st; and, thou say'st, free.
  MESSENGER. Free, madam! No; I made no such report.
    He's bound unto Octavia.
  CLEOPATRA. For what good turn?
  MESSENGER. For the best turn i' th' bed.
  CLEOPATRA. I am pale, Charmian.
  MESSENGER. Madam, he's married to Octavia.
  CLEOPATRA. The most infectious pestilence upon thee!
                                              [Strikes him down]
  MESSENGER. Good madam, patience.
  CLEOPATRA. What say you? Hence,                  [Strikes him]
    Horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes
    Like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head;
                                     [She hales him up and down]
    Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire and stew'd in brine,
    Smarting in ling'ring pickle.
  MESSENGER. Gracious madam,
    I that do bring the news made not the match.
  CLEOPATRA. Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,
    And make thy fortunes proud. The blow thou hadst
    Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage;
    And I will boot thee with what gift beside
    Thy modesty can beg.
  MESSENGER. He's married, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. Rogue, thou hast liv'd too long.    [Draws a knife]
  MESSENGER. Nay, then I'll run.
    What mean you, madam? I have made no fault.             Exit
  CHARMIAN. Good madam, keep yourself within yourself:
    The man is innocent.
  CLEOPATRA. Some innocents scape not the thunderbolt.
    Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures
    Turn all to serpents! Call the slave again.
    Though I am mad, I will not bite him. Call!
  CHARMIAN. He is afear'd to come.
  CLEOPATRA. I will not hurt him.
    These hands do lack nobility, that they strike
    A meaner than myself; since I myself
    Have given myself the cause.

                    Enter the MESSENGER again

    Come hither, sir.
    Though it be honest, it is never good
    To bring bad news. Give to a gracious message
    An host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell
    Themselves when they be felt.
  MESSENGER. I have done my duty.
  CLEOPATRA. Is he married?
    I cannot hate thee worser than I do
    If thou again say 'Yes.'
  MESSENGER. He's married, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. The gods confound thee! Dost thou hold there still?
  MESSENGER. Should I lie, madam?
  CLEOPATRA. O, I would thou didst,
    So half my Egypt were submerg'd and made
    A cistern for scal'd snakes! Go, get thee hence.
    Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me
    Thou wouldst appear most ugly. He is married?
  MESSENGER. I crave your Highness' pardon.
  CLEOPATRA. He is married?
  MESSENGER. Take no offence that I would not offend you;
    To punish me for what you make me do
    Seems much unequal. He's married to Octavia.
  CLEOPATRA. O, that his fault should make a knave of thee
    That art not what th'art sure of! Get thee hence.
    The merchandise which thou hast brought from Rome
    Are all too dear for me. Lie they upon thy hand,
    And be undone by 'em!                         Exit MESSENGER
  CHARMIAN. Good your Highness, patience.
  CLEOPATRA. In praising Antony I have disprais'd Caesar.
  CHARMIAN. Many times, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. I am paid for't now. Lead me from hence,
    I faint. O Iras, Charmian! 'Tis no matter.
    Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him
    Report the feature of Octavia, her years,
    Her inclination; let him not leave out
    The colour of her hair. Bring me word quickly.
                                                     Exit ALEXAS
    Let him for ever go- let him not, Charmian-
    Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,
    The other way's a Mars.                         [To MARDIAN]
    Bid you Alexas
    Bring me word how tall she is.- Pity me, Charmian,
    But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber.        Exeunt

SCENE VI. Near Misenum

Flourish. Enter POMPEY and MENAS at one door, with drum and trumpet; at
another, CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, ENOBARBUS, MAECENAS, AGRIPPA, with
soldiers marching

  POMPEY. Your hostages I have, so have you mine;
    And we shall talk before we fight.
  CAESAR. Most meet
    That first we come to words; and therefore have we
    Our written purposes before us sent;
    Which if thou hast considered, let us know
    If 'twill tie up thy discontented sword
    And carry back to Sicily much tall youth
    That else must perish here.
  POMPEY. To you all three,
    The senators alone of this great world,
    Chief factors for the gods: I do not know
    Wherefore my father should revengers want,
    Having a son and friends, since Julius Caesar,
    Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,
    There saw you labouring for him. What was't
    That mov'd pale Cassius to conspire? and what
    Made the all-honour'd honest Roman, Brutus,
    With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom,
    To drench the Capitol, but that they would
    Have one man but a man? And that is it
    Hath made me rig my navy, at whose burden
    The anger'd ocean foams; with which I meant
    To scourge th' ingratitude that despiteful Rome
    Cast on my noble father.
  CAESAR. Take your time.
  ANTONY. Thou canst not fear us, Pompey, with thy sails;
    We'll speak with thee at sea; at land thou know'st
    How much we do o'er-count thee.
  POMPEY. At land, indeed,
    Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house.
    But since the cuckoo builds not for himself,
    Remain in't as thou mayst.
  LEPIDUS. Be pleas'd to tell us-
    For this is from the present- how you take
    The offers we have sent you.
  CAESAR. There's the point.
  ANTONY. Which do not be entreated to, but weigh
    What it is worth embrac'd.
  CAESAR. And what may follow,
    To try a larger fortune.
  POMPEY. You have made me offer
    Of Sicily, Sardinia; and I must
    Rid all the sea of pirates; then to send
    Measures of wheat to Rome; this 'greed upon,
    To part with unhack'd edges and bear back
    Our targes undinted.
  ALL. That's our offer.
  POMPEY. Know, then,
    I came before you here a man prepar'd
    To take this offer; but Mark Antony
    Put me to some impatience. Though I lose
    The praise of it by telling, you must know,
    When Caesar and your brother were at blows,
    Your mother came to Sicily and did find
    Her welcome friendly.
  ANTONY. I have heard it, Pompey,
    And am well studied for a liberal thanks
    Which I do owe you.
  POMPEY. Let me have your hand.
    I did not think, sir, to have met you here.
  ANTONY. The beds i' th' East are soft; and thanks to you,
    That call'd me timelier than my purpose hither;
    For I have gained by't.
  CAESAR. Since I saw you last
    There is a change upon you.
  POMPEY. Well, I know not
    What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face;
    But in my bosom shall she never come
    To make my heart her vassal.
  LEPIDUS. Well met here.
  POMPEY. I hope so, Lepidus. Thus we are agreed.
    I crave our composition may be written,
    And seal'd between us.
  CAESAR. That's the next to do.
  POMPEY. We'll feast each other ere we part, and let's
    Draw lots who shall begin.
  ANTONY. That will I, Pompey.
  POMPEY. No, Antony, take the lot;
    But, first or last, your fine Egyptian cookery
    Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar
    Grew fat with feasting there.
  ANTONY. You have heard much.
  POMPEY. I have fair meanings, sir.
  ANTONY. And fair words to them.
  POMPEY. Then so much have I heard;
    And I have heard Apollodorus carried-
  ENOBARBUS. No more of that! He did so.
  POMPEY. What, I pray you?
  ENOBARBUS. A certain queen to Caesar in a mattress.
  POMPEY. I know thee now. How far'st thou, soldier?
  ENOBARBUS. Well;
    And well am like to do, for I perceive
    Four feasts are toward.
  POMPEY. Let me shake thy hand.
    I never hated thee; I have seen thee fight,
    When I have envied thy behaviour.
  ENOBARBUS. Sir,
    I never lov'd you much; but I ha' prais'd ye
    When you have well deserv'd ten times as much
    As I have said you did.
  POMPEY. Enjoy thy plainness;
    It nothing ill becomes thee.
    Aboard my galley I invite you all.
    Will you lead, lords?
  ALL. Show's the way, sir.
  POMPEY. Come.               Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS and MENAS
  MENAS. [Aside] Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have made this
    treaty.- You and I have known, sir.
  ENOBARBUS. At sea, I think.
  MENAS. We have, sir.
  ENOBARBUS. You have done well by water.
  MENAS. And you by land.
  ENOBARBUS. I Will praise any man that will praise me; though it
    cannot be denied what I have done by land.
  MENAS. Nor what I have done by water.
  ENOBARBUS. Yes, something you can deny for your own safety: you
    have been a great thief by sea.
  MENAS. And you by land.
  ENOBARBUS. There I deny my land service. But give me your hand,
    Menas; if our eyes had authority, here they might take two
    thieves kissing.
  MENAS. All men's faces are true, whatsome'er their hands are.
  ENOBARBUS. But there is never a fair woman has a true face.
  MENAS. No slander: they steal hearts.
  ENOBARBUS. We came hither to fight with you.
  MENAS. For my part, I am sorry it is turn'd to a drinking.
    Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.
  ENOBARBUS. If he do, sure he cannot weep't back again.
  MENAS. Y'have said, sir. We look'd not for Mark Antony here. Pray
    you, is he married to Cleopatra?
  ENOBARBUS. Caesar' sister is call'd Octavia.
  MENAS. True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus.
  ENOBARBUS. But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.
  MENAS. Pray ye, sir?
  ENOBARBUS. 'Tis true.
  MENAS. Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together.
  ENOBARBUS. If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not
    prophesy so.
  MENAS. I think the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage
    than the love of the parties.
  ENOBARBUS. I think so too. But you shall find the band that seems
    to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler of
    their amity: Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation.
  MENAS. Who would not have his wife so?
  ENOBARBUS. Not he that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony. He
    will to his Egyptian dish again; then shall the sighs of Octavia
    blow the fire up in Caesar, and, as I said before, that which is
    the strength of their amity shall prove the immediate author of
    their variance. Antony will use his affection where it is; he
    married but his occasion here.
  MENAS. And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard? I have a
    health for you.
  ENOBARBUS. I shall take it, sir. We have us'd our throats in Egypt.
  MENAS. Come, let's away.                                Exeunt

ACT_2|SC_7
                           SCENE VII.
             On board POMPEY'S galley, off Misenum

     Music plays. Enter two or three SERVANTS with a banquet

  FIRST SERVANT. Here they'll be, man. Some o' their plants are
    ill-rooted already; the least wind i' th' world will blow them
    down.
  SECOND SERVANT. Lepidus is high-colour'd.
  FIRST SERVANT. They have made him drink alms-drink.
  SECOND SERVANT. As they pinch one another by the disposition, he
    cries out 'No more!'; reconciles them to his entreaty and himself
    to th' drink.
  FIRST SERVANT. But it raises the greater war between him and his
    discretion.
  SECOND SERVANT. Why, this it is to have a name in great men's
    fellowship. I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service
    as a partizan I could not heave.
  FIRST SERVANT. To be call'd into a huge sphere, and not to be seen
    to move in't, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully
    disaster the cheeks.

           A sennet sounded. Enter CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS,
            POMPEY, AGRIPPA, MAECENAS, ENOBARBUS, MENAS,
                         with other CAPTAINS

  ANTONY. [To CAESAR] Thus do they, sir: they take the flow o' th'
      Nile
    By certain scales i' th' pyramid; they know
    By th' height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth
    Or foison follow. The higher Nilus swells
    The more it promises; as it ebbs, the seedsman
    Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
    And shortly comes to harvest.
  LEPIDUS. Y'have strange serpents there.
  ANTONY. Ay, Lepidus.
  LEPIDUS. Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the
    operation of your sun; so is your crocodile.
  ANTONY. They are so.
  POMPEY. Sit- and some wine! A health to Lepidus!
  LEPIDUS. I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out.
  ENOBARBUS. Not till you have slept. I fear me you'll be in till
    then.
  LEPIDUS. Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies' pyramises are
    very goodly things. Without contradiction I have heard that.
  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] Pompey, a word.
  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] Say in mine ear; what is't?
  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] Forsake thy seat, I do beseech thee,
      Captain,
    And hear me speak a word.
  POMPEY. [ Whispers in's ear ] Forbear me till anon-
    This wine for Lepidus!
  LEPIDUS. What manner o' thing is your crocodile?
  ANTONY. It is shap'd, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it
    hath breadth; it is just so high as it is, and moves with it own
    organs. It lives by that which nourisheth it, and the elements
    once out of it, it transmigrates.
  LEPIDUS. What colour is it of?
  ANTONY. Of it own colour too.
  LEPIDUS. 'Tis a strange serpent.
  ANTONY. 'Tis so. And the tears of it are wet.
  CAESAR. Will this description satisfy him?
  ANTONY. With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a very
    epicure.
  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] Go, hang, sir, hang! Tell me of that!
      Away!
    Do as I bid you.- Where's this cup I call'd for?
  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] If for the sake of merit thou wilt hear
      me,
    Rise from thy stool.
  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] I think th'art mad. [Rises and walks
    aside] The matter?
  MENAS. I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes.
  POMPEY. Thou hast serv'd me with much faith. What's else to say?-
    Be jolly, lords.
  ANTONY. These quicksands, Lepidus,
    Keep off them, for you sink.
  MENAS. Wilt thou be lord of all the world?
  POMPEY. What say'st thou?
  MENAS. Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? That's twice.
  POMPEY. How should that be?
  MENAS. But entertain it,
    And though you think me poor, I am the man
    Will give thee all the world.
  POMPEY. Hast thou drunk well?
  MENAS. No, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.
    Thou art, if thou dar'st be, the earthly Jove;
    Whate'er the ocean pales or sky inclips
    Is thine, if thou wilt ha't.
  POMPEY. Show me which way.
  MENAS. These three world-sharers, these competitors,
    Are in thy vessel. Let me cut the cable;
    And when we are put off, fall to their throats.
    All there is thine.
  POMPEY. Ah, this thou shouldst have done,
    And not have spoke on't. In me 'tis villainy:
    In thee't had been good service. Thou must know
    'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour:
    Mine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue
    Hath so betray'd thine act. Being done unknown,
    I should have found it afterwards well done,
    But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.
  MENAS. [Aside] For this,
    I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more.
    Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd,
    Shall never find it more.
  POMPEY. This health to Lepidus!
  ANTONY. Bear him ashore. I'll pledge it for him, Pompey.
  ENOBARBUS. Here's to thee, Menas!
  MENAS. Enobarbus, welcome!
  POMPEY. Fill till the cup be hid.
  ENOBARBUS. There's a strong fellow, Menas.
               [Pointing to the servant who carries off LEPIDUS]
  MENAS. Why?
  ENOBARBUS. 'A bears the third part of the world, man; see'st not?
  MENAS. The third part, then, is drunk. Would it were all,
    That it might go on wheels!
  ENOBARBUS. Drink thou; increase the reels.
  MENAS. Come.
  POMPEY. This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.
  ANTONY. It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels, ho!
    Here's to Caesar!
  CAESAR. I could well forbear't.
    It's monstrous labour when I wash my brain
    And it grows fouler.
  ANTONY. Be a child o' th' time.
  CAESAR. Possess it, I'll make answer.
    But I had rather fast from all four days
    Than drink so much in one.
  ENOBARBUS. [To ANTONY] Ha, my brave emperor!
    Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals
    And celebrate our drink?
  POMPEY. Let's ha't, good soldier.
  ANTONY. Come, let's all take hands,
    Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense
    In soft and delicate Lethe.
  ENOBARBUS. All take hands.
    Make battery to our ears with the loud music,
    The while I'll place you; then the boy shall sing;
    The holding every man shall bear as loud
    As his strong sides can volley.
               [Music plays. ENOBARBUS places them hand in hand]

                        THE SONG
            Come, thou monarch of the vine,
            Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
            In thy fats our cares be drown'd,
            With thy grapes our hairs be crown'd.
            Cup us till the world go round,
            Cup us till the world go round!

  CAESAR. What would you more? Pompey, good night. Good brother,
    Let me request you off; our graver business
    Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let's part;
    You see we have burnt our cheeks. Strong Enobarb
    Is weaker than the wine, and mine own tongue
    Splits what it speaks. The wild disguise hath almost
    Antick'd us all. What needs more words? Good night.
    Good Antony, your hand.
  POMPEY. I'll try you on the shore.
  ANTONY. And shall, sir. Give's your hand.
  POMPEY. O Antony,
    You have my father's house- but what? We are friends.
    Come, down into the boat.
  ENOBARBUS. Take heed you fall not.
                              Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS and MENAS
    Menas, I'll not on shore.
  MENAS. No, to my cabin.
    These drums! these trumpets, flutes! what!
    Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell
    To these great fellows. Sound and be hang'd, sound out!
                                  [Sound a flourish, with drums]
  ENOBARBUS. Hoo! says 'a. There's my cap.
  MENAS. Hoo! Noble Captain, come.                        Exeunt
ACT_3|SC_1
                     ACT III. SCENE I.
                     A plain in Syria

       Enter VENTIDIUS, as it were in triumph, with SILIUS
      and other Romans, OFFICERS and soldiers; the dead body
                of PACORUS borne before him

  VENTIDIUS. Now, darting Parthia, art thou struck, and now
    Pleas'd fortune does of Marcus Crassus' death
    Make me revenger. Bear the King's son's body
    Before our army. Thy Pacorus, Orodes,
    Pays this for Marcus Crassus.
  SILIUS. Noble Ventidius,
    Whilst yet with Parthian blood thy sword is warm
    The fugitive Parthians follow; spur through Media,
    Mesopotamia, and the shelters whither
    The routed fly. So thy grand captain, Antony,
    Shall set thee on triumphant chariots and
    Put garlands on thy head.
  VENTIDIUS. O Silius, Silius,
    I have done enough. A lower place, note well,
    May make too great an act; for learn this, Silius:
    Better to leave undone than by our deed
    Acquire too high a fame when him we serve's away.
    Caesar and Antony have ever won
    More in their officer, than person. Sossius,
    One of my place in Syria, his lieutenant,
    For quick accumulation of renown,
    Which he achiev'd by th' minute, lost his favour.
    Who does i' th' wars more than his captain can
    Becomes his captain's captain; and ambition,
    The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss
    Than gain which darkens him.
    I could do more to do Antonius good,
    But 'twould offend him; and in his offence
    Should my performance perish.
  SILIUS. Thou hast, Ventidius, that
    Without the which a soldier and his sword
    Grants scarce distinction. Thou wilt write to Antony?
  VENTIDIUS. I'll humbly signify what in his name,
    That magical word of war, we have effected;
    How, with his banners, and his well-paid ranks,
    The ne'er-yet-beaten horse of Parthia
    We have jaded out o' th' field.
  SILIUS. Where is he now?
  VENTIDIUS. He purposeth to Athens; whither, with what haste
    The weight we must convey with's will permit,
    We shall appear before him.- On, there; pass along.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_2
                            SCENE II. Rome. CAESAR'S house

        Enter AGRIPPA at one door, ENOBARBUS at another

  AGRIPPA. What, are the brothers parted?
  ENOBARBUS. They have dispatch'd with Pompey; he is gone;
    The other three are sealing. Octavia weeps
    To part from Rome; Caesar is sad; and Lepidus,
    Since Pompey's feast, as Menas says, is troubled
    With the green sickness.
  AGRIPPA. 'Tis a noble Lepidus.
  ENOBARBUS. A very fine one. O, how he loves Caesar!
  AGRIPPA. Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony!
  ENOBARBUS. Caesar? Why he's the Jupiter of men.
  AGRIPPA. What's Antony? The god of Jupiter.
  ENOBARBUS. Spake you of Caesar? How! the nonpareil!
  AGRIPPA. O, Antony! O thou Arabian bird!
  ENOBARBUS. Would you praise Caesar, say 'Caesar'- go no further.
  AGRIPPA. Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises.
  ENOBARBUS. But he loves Caesar best. Yet he loves Antony.
    Hoo! hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, bards, poets, cannot
    Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number- hoo!-
    His love to Antony. But as for Caesar,
    Kneel down, kneel down, and wonder.
  AGRIPPA. Both he loves.
  ENOBARBUS. They are his shards, and he their beetle. [Trumpets
      within] So-
    This is to horse. Adieu, noble Agrippa.
  AGRIPPA. Good fortune, worthy soldier, and farewell.

           Enter CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, and OCTAVIA

  ANTONY. No further, sir.
  CAESAR. You take from me a great part of myself;
    Use me well in't. Sister, prove such a wife
    As my thoughts make thee, and as my farthest band
    Shall pass on thy approof. Most noble Antony,
    Let not the piece of virtue which is set
    Betwixt us as the cement of our love
    To keep it builded be the ram to batter
    The fortress of it; for better might we
    Have lov'd without this mean, if on both parts
    This be not cherish'd.
  ANTONY. Make me not offended
    In your distrust.
  CAESAR. I have said.
  ANTONY. You shall not find,
    Though you be therein curious, the least cause
    For what you seem to fear. So the gods keep you,
    And make the hearts of Romans serve your ends!
    We will here part.
  CAESAR. Farewell, my dearest sister, fare thee well.
    The elements be kind to thee and make
    Thy spirits all of comfort! Fare thee well.
  OCTAVIA. My noble brother!
  ANTONY. The April's in her eyes. It is love's spring,
    And these the showers to bring it on. Be cheerful.
  OCTAVIA. Sir, look well to my husband's house; and-
  CAESAR. What, Octavia?
  OCTAVIA. I'll tell you in your ear.
  ANTONY. Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can
    Her heart inform her tongue- the swan's down feather,
    That stands upon the swell at the full of tide,
    And neither way inclines.
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] Will Caesar weep?
  AGRIPPA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] He has a cloud in's face.
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] He were the worse for that, were he a
      horse;
    So is he, being a man.
  AGRIPPA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] Why, Enobarbus,
    When Antony found Julius Caesar dead,
    He cried almost to roaring; and he wept
    When at Philippi he found Brutus slain.
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] That year, indeed, he was troubled
      with a rheum;
    What willingly he did confound he wail'd,
    Believe't- till I weep too.
  CAESAR. No, sweet Octavia,
    You shall hear from me still; the time shall not
    Out-go my thinking on you.
  ANTONY. Come, sir, come;
    I'll wrestle with you in my strength of love.
    Look, here I have you; thus I let you go,
    And give you to the gods.
  CAESAR. Adieu; be happy!
  LEPIDUS. Let all the number of the stars give light
    To thy fair way!
  CAESAR. Farewell, farewell!                   [Kisses OCTAVIA]
  ANTONY. Farewell!                       Trumpets sound. Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_3
                          SCENE III.
              Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

         Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS

  CLEOPATRA. Where is the fellow?
  ALEXAS. Half afeard to come.
  CLEOPATRA. Go to, go to.

                Enter the MESSENGER as before

    Come hither, sir.
  ALEXAS. Good Majesty,
    Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you
    But when you are well pleas'd.
  CLEOPATRA. That Herod's head
    I'll have. But how, when Antony is gone,
    Through whom I might command it? Come thou near.
  MESSENGER. Most gracious Majesty!
  CLEOPATRA. Didst thou behold Octavia?
  MESSENGER. Ay, dread Queen.
  CLEOPATRA. Where?
  MESSENGER. Madam, in Rome
    I look'd her in the face, and saw her led
    Between her brother and Mark Antony.
  CLEOPATRA. Is she as tall as me?
  MESSENGER. She is not, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. Didst hear her speak? Is she shrill-tongu'd or low?
  MESSENGER. Madam, I heard her speak: she is low-voic'd.
  CLEOPATRA. That's not so good. He cannot like her long.
  CHARMIAN. Like her? O Isis! 'tis impossible.
  CLEOPATRA. I think so, Charmian. Dull of tongue and dwarfish!
    What majesty is in her gait? Remember,
    If e'er thou look'dst on majesty.
  MESSENGER. She creeps.
    Her motion and her station are as one;
    She shows a body rather than a life,
    A statue than a breather.
  CLEOPATRA. Is this certain?
  MESSENGER. Or I have no observance.
  CHARMIAN. Three in Egypt
    Cannot make better note.
  CLEOPATRA. He's very knowing;
    I do perceive't. There's nothing in her yet.
    The fellow has good judgment.
  CHARMIAN. Excellent.
  CLEOPATRA. Guess at her years, I prithee.
  MESSENGER. Madam,
    She was a widow.
  CLEOPATRA. Widow? Charmian, hark!
  MESSENGER. And I do think she's thirty.
  CLEOPATRA. Bear'st thou her face in mind? Is't long or round?
  MESSENGER. Round even to faultiness.
  CLEOPATRA. For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.
    Her hair, what colour?
  MESSENGER. Brown, madam; and her forehead
    As low as she would wish it.
  CLEOPATRA. There's gold for thee.
    Thou must not take my former sharpness ill.
    I will employ thee back again; I find thee
    Most fit for business. Go make thee ready;
    Our letters are prepar'd.                   Exeunt MESSENGER
  CHARMIAN. A proper man.
  CLEOPATRA. Indeed, he is so. I repent me much
    That so I harried him. Why, methinks, by him,
    This creature's no such thing.
  CHARMIAN. Nothing, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. The man hath seen some majesty, and should know.
  CHARMIAN. Hath he seen majesty? Isis else defend,
    And serving you so long!
  CLEOPATRA. I have one thing more to ask him yet, good Charmian.
    But 'tis no matter; thou shalt bring him to me
    Where I will write. All may be well enough.
  CHARMIAN. I warrant you, madam.                         Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_4
                          SCENE IV.
                  Athens. ANTONY'S house

                 Enter ANTONY and OCTAVIA

  ANTONY. Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that-
    That were excusable, that and thousands more
    Of semblable import- but he hath wag'd
    New wars 'gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it
    To public ear;
    Spoke scandy of me; when perforce he could not
    But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly
    He vented them, most narrow measure lent me;
    When the best hint was given him, he not took't,
    Or did it from his teeth.
  OCTAVIA. O my good lord,
    Believe not all; or if you must believe,
    Stomach not all. A more unhappy lady,
    If this division chance, ne'er stood between,
    Praying for both parts.
    The good gods will mock me presently
    When I shall pray 'O, bless my lord and husband!'
    Undo that prayer by crying out as loud
    'O, bless my brother!' Husband win, win brother,
    Prays, and destroys the prayer; no mid-way
    'Twixt these extremes at all.
  ANTONY. Gentle Octavia,
    Let your best love draw to that point which seeks
    Best to preserve it. If I lose mine honour,
    I lose myself; better I were not yours
    Than yours so branchless. But, as you requested,
    Yourself shall go between's. The meantime, lady,
    I'll raise the preparation of a war
    Shall stain your brother. Make your soonest haste;
    So your desires are yours.
  OCTAVIA. Thanks to my lord.
    The Jove of power make me, most weak, most weak,
    Your reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be
    As if the world should cleave, and that slain men
    Should solder up the rift.
  ANTONY. When it appears to you where this begins,
    Turn your displeasure that way, for our faults
    Can never be so equal that your love
    Can equally move with them. Provide your going;
    Choose your own company, and command what cost
    Your heart has mind to.                               Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_5
                           SCENE V.
                   Athens. ANTONY'S house

             Enter ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting

  ENOBARBUS. How now, friend Eros!
  EROS. There's strange news come, sir.
  ENOBARBUS. What, man?
  EROS. Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.
  ENOBARBUS. This is old. What is the success?
  EROS. Caesar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey,
    presently denied him rivality, would not let him partake in the
    glory of the action; and not resting here, accuses him of letters
    he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him.
    So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.
  ENOBARBUS. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps- no more;
    And throw between them all the food thou hast,
    They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?
  EROS. He's walking in the garden- thus, and spurns
    The rush that lies before him; cries 'Fool Lepidus!'
    And threats the throat of that his officer
    That murd'red Pompey.
  ENOBARBUS. Our great navy's rigg'd.
  EROS. For Italy and Caesar. More, Domitius:
    My lord desires you presently; my news
    I might have told hereafter.
  ENOBARBUS. 'Twill be naught;
    But let it be. Bring me to Antony.
  EROS. Come, sir.                                        Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_6
                          SCENE VI.
                   Rome. CAESAR'S house

             Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MAECENAS

  CAESAR. Contemning Rome, he has done all this and more
    In Alexandria. Here's the manner of't:
    I' th' market-place, on a tribunal silver'd,
    Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold
    Were publicly enthron'd; at the feet sat
    Caesarion, whom they call my father's son,
    And all the unlawful issue that their lust
    Since then hath made between them. Unto her
    He gave the stablishment of Egypt; made her
    Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,
    Absolute queen.
  MAECENAS. This in the public eye?
  CAESAR. I' th' common show-place, where they exercise.
    His sons he there proclaim'd the kings of kings:
    Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia,
    He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd
    Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia. She
    In th' habiliments of the goddess Isis
    That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience,
    As 'tis reported, so.
  MAECENAS. Let Rome be thus
    Inform'd.
  AGRIPPA. Who, queasy with his insolence
    Already, will their good thoughts call from him.
  CAESAR. The people knows it, and have now receiv'd
    His accusations.
  AGRIPPA. Who does he accuse?
  CAESAR. Caesar; and that, having in Sicily
    Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him
    His part o' th' isle. Then does he say he lent me
    Some shipping, unrestor'd. Lastly, he frets
    That Lepidus of the triumvirate
    Should be depos'd; and, being, that we detain
    All his revenue.
  AGRIPPA. Sir, this should be answer'd.
  CAESAR. 'Tis done already, and messenger gone.
    I have told him Lepidus was grown too cruel,
    That he his high authority abus'd,
    And did deserve his change. For what I have conquer'd
    I grant him part; but then, in his Armenia
    And other of his conquer'd kingdoms,
    Demand the like.
  MAECENAS. He'll never yield to that.
  CAESAR. Nor must not then be yielded to in this.

                Enter OCTAVIA, with her train

  OCTAVIA. Hail, Caesar, and my lord! hail, most dear Caesar!
  CAESAR. That ever I should call thee cast-away!
  OCTAVIA. You have not call'd me so, nor have you cause.
  CAESAR. Why have you stol'n upon us thus? You come not
    Like Caesar's sister. The wife of Antony
    Should have an army for an usher, and
    The neighs of horse to tell of her approach
    Long ere she did appear. The trees by th' way
    Should have borne men, and expectation fainted,
    Longing for what it had not. Nay, the dust
    Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,
    Rais'd by your populous troops. But you are come
    A market-maid to Rome, and have prevented
    The ostentation of our love, which left unshown
    Is often left unlov'd. We should have met you
    By sea and land, supplying every stage
    With an augmented greeting.
  OCTAVIA. Good my lord,
    To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did it
    On my free will. My lord, Mark Antony,
    Hearing that you prepar'd for war, acquainted
    My grieved ear withal; whereon I begg'd
    His pardon for return.
  CAESAR. Which soon he granted,
    Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.
  OCTAVIA. Do not say so, my lord.
  CAESAR. I have eyes upon him,
    And his affairs come to me on the wind.
    Where is he now?
  OCTAVIA. My lord, in Athens.
  CAESAR. No, my most wronged sister: Cleopatra
    Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire
    Up to a whore, who now are levying
    The kings o' th' earth for war. He hath assembled
    Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus
    Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king
    Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas;
    King Manchus of Arabia; King of Pont;
    Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king
    Of Comagene; Polemon and Amyntas,
    The kings of Mede and Lycaonia, with
    More larger list of sceptres.
  OCTAVIA. Ay me most wretched,
    That have my heart parted betwixt two friends,
    That does afflict each other!
  CAESAR. Welcome hither.
    Your letters did withhold our breaking forth,
    Till we perceiv'd both how you were wrong led
    And we in negligent danger. Cheer your heart;
    Be you not troubled with the time, which drives
    O'er your content these strong necessities,
    But let determin'd things to destiny
    Hold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome;
    Nothing more dear to me. You are abus'd
    Beyond the mark of thought, and the high gods,
    To do you justice, make their ministers
    Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort,
    And ever welcome to us.
  AGRIPPA. Welcome, lady.
  MAECENAS. Welcome, dear madam.
    Each heart in Rome does love and pity you;
    Only th' adulterous Antony, most large
    In his abominations, turns you off,
    And gives his potent regiment to a trull
    That noises it against us.
  OCTAVIA. Is it so, sir?
  CAESAR. Most certain. Sister, welcome. Pray you
    Be ever known to patience. My dear'st sister!         Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_7
                          SCENE VII.
                  ANTONY'S camp near Actium

                Enter CLEOPATRA and ENOBARBUS

  CLEOPATRA. I will be even with thee, doubt it not.
  ENOBARBUS. But why, why,
  CLEOPATRA. Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars,
    And say'st it is not fit.
  ENOBARBUS. Well, is it, is it?
  CLEOPATRA. Is't not denounc'd against us? Why should not we
    Be there in person?
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] Well, I could reply:
    If we should serve with horse and mares together
    The horse were merely lost; the mares would bear
    A soldier and his horse.
  CLEOPATRA. What is't you say?
  ENOBARBUS. Your presence needs must puzzle Antony;
    Take from his heart, take from his brain, from's time,
    What should not then be spar'd. He is already
    Traduc'd for levity; and 'tis said in Rome
    That Photinus an eunuch and your maids
    Manage this war.
  CLEOPATRA. Sink Rome, and their tongues rot
    That speak against us! A charge we bear i' th' war,
    And, as the president of my kingdom, will
    Appear there for a man. Speak not against it;
    I will not stay behind.

                   Enter ANTONY and CANIDIUS

  ENOBARBUS. Nay, I have done.
    Here comes the Emperor.
  ANTONY. Is it not strange, Canidius,
    That from Tarentum and Brundusium
    He could so quickly cut the Ionian sea,
    And take in Toryne?- You have heard on't, sweet?
  CLEOPATRA. Celerity is never more admir'd
    Than by the negligent.
  ANTONY. A good rebuke,
    Which might have well becom'd the best of men
    To taunt at slackness. Canidius, we
    Will fight with him by sea.
  CLEOPATRA. By sea! What else?
  CANIDIUS. Why will my lord do so?
  ANTONY. For that he dares us to't.
  ENOBARBUS. So hath my lord dar'd him to single fight.
  CANIDIUS. Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia,
    Where Caesar fought with Pompey. But these offers,
    Which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off;
    And so should you.
  ENOBARBUS. Your ships are not well mann'd;
    Your mariners are muleteers, reapers, people
    Ingross'd by swift impress. In Caesar's fleet
    Are those that often have 'gainst Pompey fought;
    Their ships are yare; yours heavy. No disgrace
    Shall fall you for refusing him at sea,
    Being prepar'd for land.
  ANTONY. By sea, by sea.
  ENOBARBUS. Most worthy sir, you therein throw away
    The absolute soldiership you have by land;
    Distract your army, which doth most consist
    Of war-mark'd footmen; leave unexecuted
    Your own renowned knowledge; quite forgo
    The way which promises assurance; and
    Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard
    From firm security.
  ANTONY. I'll fight at sea.
  CLEOPATRA. I have sixty sails, Caesar none better.
  ANTONY. Our overplus of shipping will we burn,
    And, with the rest full-mann'd, from th' head of Actium
    Beat th' approaching Caesar. But if we fail,
    We then can do't at land.

                       Enter a MESSENGER

    Thy business?
  MESSENGER. The news is true, my lord: he is descried;
    Caesar has taken Toryne.
  ANTONY. Can he be there in person? 'Tis impossible-
    Strange that his power should be. Canidius,
    Our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land,
    And our twelve thousand horse. We'll to our ship.
    Away, my Thetis!

                       Enter a SOLDIER

    How now, worthy soldier?
  SOLDIER. O noble Emperor, do not fight by sea;
    Trust not to rotten planks. Do you misdoubt
    This sword and these my wounds? Let th' Egyptians
    And the Phoenicians go a-ducking; we
    Have us'd to conquer standing on the earth
    And fighting foot to foot.
  ANTONY. Well, well- away.
                         Exeunt ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, and ENOBARBUS
  SOLDIER. By Hercules, I think I am i' th' right.
  CANIDIUS. Soldier, thou art; but his whole action grows
    Not in the power on't. So our leader's led,
    And we are women's men.
  SOLDIER. You keep by land
    The legions and the horse whole, do you not?
  CANIDIUS. Marcus Octavius, Marcus Justeius,
    Publicola, and Caelius are for sea;
    But we keep whole by land. This speed of Caesar's
    Carries beyond belief.
  SOLDIER. While he was yet in Rome,
    His power went out in such distractions as
    Beguil'd all spies.
  CANIDIUS. Who's his lieutenant, hear you?
  SOLDIER. They say one Taurus.
  CANIDIUS. Well I know the man.

                        Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. The Emperor calls Canidius.
  CANIDIUS. With news the time's with labour and throes forth
    Each minute some.                                     Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_8
                          SCENE VIII.
                      A plain near Actium

             Enter CAESAR, with his army, marching

  CAESAR. Taurus!
  TAURUS. My lord?
  CAESAR. Strike not by land; keep whole; provoke not battle
    Till we have done at sea. Do not exceed
    The prescript of this scroll. Our fortune lies
    Upon this jump.                                       Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_9
                           SCENE IX.
                  Another part of the plain

                  Enter ANTONY and ENOBARBUS

  ANTONY. Set we our squadrons on yon side o' th' hill,
    In eye of Caesar's battle; from which place
    We may the number of the ships behold,
    And so proceed accordingly.                           Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_10
                           SCENE X.
                 Another part of the plain

        CANIDIUS marcheth with his land army one way
        over the stage, and TAURUS, the Lieutenant of
      CAESAR, the other way. After their going in is heard
                   the noise of a sea-fight

                    Alarum. Enter ENOBARBUS

  ENOBARBUS. Naught, naught, all naught! I can behold no longer.
    Th' Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,
    With all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder.
    To see't mine eyes are blasted.

                        Enter SCARUS

  SCARUS. Gods and goddesses,
    All the whole synod of them!
  ENOBARBUS. What's thy passion?
  SCARUS. The greater cantle of the world is lost
    With very ignorance; we have kiss'd away
    Kingdoms and provinces.
  ENOBARBUS. How appears the fight?
  SCARUS. On our side like the token'd pestilence,
    Where death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt-
    Whom leprosy o'ertake!- i' th' midst o' th' fight,
    When vantage like a pair of twins appear'd,
    Both as the same, or rather ours the elder-
    The breese upon her, like a cow in June-
    Hoists sails and flies.
  ENOBARBUS. That I beheld;
    Mine eyes did sicken at the sight and could not
    Endure a further view.
  SCARUS. She once being loof'd,
    The noble ruin of her magic, Antony,
    Claps on his sea-wing, and, like a doting mallard,
    Leaving the fight in height, flies after her.
    I never saw an action of such shame;
    Experience, manhood, honour, ne'er before
    Did violate so itself.
  ENOBARBUS. Alack, alack!

                       Enter CANIDIUS

  CANIDIUS. Our fortune on the sea is out of breath,
    And sinks most lamentably. Had our general
    Been what he knew himself, it had gone well.
    O, he has given example for our flight
    Most grossly by his own!
  ENOBARBUS. Ay, are you thereabouts?
    Why then, good night indeed.
  CANIDIUS. Toward Peloponnesus are they fled.
  SCARUS. 'Tis easy to't; and there I will attend
    What further comes.
  CANIDIUS. To Caesar will I render
    My legions and my horse; six kings already
    Show me the way of yielding.
  ENOBARBUS. I'll yet follow
    The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason
    Sits in the wind against me.                          Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_11
                         SCENE XI.
              Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

               Enter ANTONY With attendants

  ANTONY. Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon't;
    It is asham'd to bear me. Friends, come hither.
    I am so lated in the world that I
    Have lost my way for ever. I have a ship
    Laden with gold; take that; divide it. Fly,
    And make your peace with Caesar.
  ALL. Fly? Not we!
  ANTONY. I have fled myself, and have instructed cowards
    To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone;
    I have myself resolv'd upon a course
    Which has no need of you; be gone.
    My treasure's in the harbour, take it. O,
    I follow'd that I blush to look upon.
    My very hairs do mutiny; for the white
    Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them
    For fear and doting. Friends, be gone; you shall
    Have letters from me to some friends that will
    Sweep your way for you. Pray you look not sad,
    Nor make replies of loathness; take the hint
    Which my despair proclaims. Let that be left
    Which leaves itself. To the sea-side straight way.
    I will possess you of that ship and treasure.
    Leave me, I pray, a little; pray you now;
    Nay, do so, for indeed I have lost command;
    Therefore I pray you. I'll see you by and by.    [Sits down]

            Enter CLEOPATRA, led by CHARMIAN and IRAS,
                         EROS following

  EROS. Nay, gentle madam, to him! Comfort him.
  IRAS. Do, most dear Queen.
  CHARMIAN. Do? Why, what else?
  CLEOPATRA. Let me sit down. O Juno!
  ANTONY. No, no, no, no, no.
  EROS. See you here, sir?
  ANTONY. O, fie, fie, fie!
  CHARMIAN. Madam!
  IRAS. Madam, O good Empress!
  EROS. Sir, sir!
  ANTONY. Yes, my lord, yes. He at Philippi kept
    His sword e'en like a dancer, while I struck
    The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and 'twas I
    That the mad Brutus ended; he alone
    Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had
    In the brave squares of war. Yet now- no matter.
  CLEOPATRA. Ah, stand by!
  EROS. The Queen, my lord, the Queen!
  IRAS. Go to him, madam, speak to him.
    He is unqualitied with very shame.
  CLEOPATRA. Well then, sustain me. O!
 EROS. Most noble sir, arise; the Queen approaches.
    Her head's declin'd, and death will seize her but
    Your comfort makes the rescue.
  ANTONY. I have offended reputation-
    A most unnoble swerving.
  EROS. Sir, the Queen.
  ANTONY. O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See
    How I convey my shame out of thine eyes
    By looking back what I have left behind
    'Stroy'd in dishonour.
  CLEOPATRA. O my lord, my lord,
    Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought
    You would have followed.
  ANTONY. Egypt, thou knew'st too well
    My heart was to thy rudder tied by th' strings,
    And thou shouldst tow me after. O'er my spirit
    Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that
    Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
    Command me.
  CLEOPATRA. O, my pardon!
  ANTONY. Now I must
    To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
    And palter in the shifts of lowness, who
    With half the bulk o' th' world play'd as I pleas'd,
    Making and marring fortunes. You did know
    How much you were my conqueror, and that
    My sword, made weak by my affection, would
    Obey it on all cause.
  CLEOPATRA. Pardon, pardon!
  ANTONY. Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates
    All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss;
    Even this repays me.
    We sent our schoolmaster; is 'a come back?
    Love, I am full of lead. Some wine,
    Within there, and our viands! Fortune knows
    We scorn her most when most she offers blows.         Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_12
                         SCENE XII.
                   CAESAR'S camp in Egypt

   Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, THYREUS, with others

  CAESAR. Let him appear that's come from Antony.
    Know you him?
  DOLABELLA. Caesar, 'tis his schoolmaster:
    An argument that he is pluck'd, when hither
    He sends so poor a pinion of his wing,
    Which had superfluous kings for messengers
    Not many moons gone by.

            Enter EUPHRONIUS, Ambassador from ANTONY

  CAESAR. Approach, and speak.
  EUPHRONIUS. Such as I am, I come from Antony.
    I was of late as petty to his ends
    As is the morn-dew on the myrtle leaf
    To his grand sea.
  CAESAR. Be't so. Declare thine office.
  EUPHRONIUS. Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and
    Requires to live in Egypt; which not granted,
    He lessens his requests and to thee sues
    To let him breathe between the heavens and earth,
    A private man in Athens. This for him.
    Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness,
    Submits her to thy might, and of thee craves
    The circle of the Ptolemies for her heirs,
    Now hazarded to thy grace.
  CAESAR. For Antony,
    I have no ears to his request. The Queen
    Of audience nor desire shall fail, so she
    From Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend,
    Or take his life there. This if she perform,
    She shall not sue unheard. So to them both.
  EUPHRONIUS. Fortune pursue thee!
  CAESAR. Bring him through the bands.           Exit EUPHRONIUS
    [To THYREUS] To try thy eloquence, now 'tis time. Dispatch;
    From Antony win Cleopatra. Promise,
    And in our name, what she requires; add more,
    From thine invention, offers. Women are not
    In their best fortunes strong; but want will perjure
    The ne'er-touch'd vestal. Try thy cunning, Thyreus;
    Make thine own edict for thy pains, which we
    Will answer as a law.
  THYREUS. Caesar, I go.
  CAESAR. Observe how Antony becomes his flaw,
    And what thou think'st his very action speaks
    In every power that moves.
  THYREUS. Caesar, I shall.                               Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_13
                           SCENE XIII.
               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

        Enter CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, and IRAS

  CLEOPATRA. What shall we do, Enobarbus?
  ENOBARBUS. Think, and die.
  CLEOPATRA. Is Antony or we in fault for this?
  ENOBARBUS. Antony only, that would make his will
    Lord of his reason. What though you fled
    From that great face of war, whose several ranges
    Frighted each other? Why should he follow?
    The itch of his affection should not then
    Have nick'd his captainship, at such a point,
    When half to half the world oppos'd, he being
    The mered question. 'Twas a shame no less
    Than was his loss, to course your flying flags
    And leave his navy gazing.
  CLEOPATRA. Prithee, peace.

          Enter EUPHRONIUS, the Ambassador; with ANTONY

  ANTONY. Is that his answer?
  EUPHRONIUS. Ay, my lord.
  ANTONY. The Queen shall then have courtesy, so she
    Will yield us up.
  EUPHRONIUS. He says so.
  ANTONY. Let her know't.
    To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head,
    And he will fill thy wishes to the brim
    With principalities.
  CLEOPATRA. That head, my lord?
  ANTONY. To him again. Tell him he wears the rose
    Of youth upon him; from which the world should note
    Something particular. His coin, ships, legions,
    May be a coward's whose ministers would prevail
    Under the service of a child as soon
    As i' th' command of Caesar. I dare him therefore
    To lay his gay comparisons apart,
    And answer me declin'd, sword against sword,
    Ourselves alone. I'll write it. Follow me.
                                    Exeunt ANTONY and EUPHRONIUS
  EUPHRONIUS. [Aside] Yes, like enough high-battled Caesar will
    Unstate his happiness, and be stag'd to th' show
    Against a sworder! I see men's judgments are
    A parcel of their fortunes, and things outward
    Do draw the inward quality after them,
    To suffer all alike. That he should dream,
    Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will
    Answer his emptiness! Caesar, thou hast subdu'd
    His judgment too.

                       Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. A messenger from Caesar.
  CLEOPATRA. What, no more ceremony? See, my women!
    Against the blown rose may they stop their nose
    That kneel'd unto the buds. Admit him, sir.     Exit SERVANT
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] Mine honesty and I begin to square.
    The loyalty well held to fools does make
    Our faith mere folly. Yet he that can endure
    To follow with allegiance a fall'n lord
    Does conquer him that did his master conquer,
    And earns a place i' th' story.

                       Enter THYREUS

  CLEOPATRA. Caesar's will?
  THYREUS. Hear it apart.
  CLEOPATRA. None but friends: say boldly.
  THYREUS. So, haply, are they friends to Antony.
  ENOBARBUS. He needs as many, sir, as Caesar has,
    Or needs not us. If Caesar please, our master
    Will leap to be his friend. For us, you know
    Whose he is we are, and that is Caesar's.
  THYREUS. So.
    Thus then, thou most renown'd: Caesar entreats
    Not to consider in what case thou stand'st
    Further than he is Caesar.
  CLEOPATRA. Go on. Right royal!
  THYREUS. He knows that you embrace not Antony
    As you did love, but as you fear'd him.
  CLEOPATRA. O!
  THYREUS. The scars upon your honour, therefore, he
    Does pity, as constrained blemishes,
    Not as deserv'd.
  CLEOPATRA. He is a god, and knows
    What is most right. Mine honour was not yielded,
    But conquer'd merely.
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] To be sure of that,
    I will ask Antony. Sir, sir, thou art so leaky
    That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for
    Thy dearest quit thee.                                  Exit
  THYREUS. Shall I say to Caesar
    What you require of him? For he partly begs
    To be desir'd to give. It much would please him
    That of his fortunes you should make a staff
    To lean upon. But it would warm his spirits
    To hear from me you had left Antony,
    And put yourself under his shroud,
    The universal landlord.
  CLEOPATRA. What's your name?
  THYREUS. My name is Thyreus.
  CLEOPATRA. Most kind messenger,
    Say to great Caesar this: in deputation
    I kiss his conquring hand. Tell him I am prompt
    To lay my crown at 's feet, and there to kneel.
    Tell him from his all-obeying breath I hear
    The doom of Egypt.
  THYREUS. 'Tis your noblest course.
    Wisdom and fortune combating together,
    If that the former dare but what it can,
    No chance may shake it. Give me grace to lay
    My duty on your hand.
  CLEOPATRA. Your Caesar's father oft,
    When he hath mus'd of taking kingdoms in,
    Bestow'd his lips on that unworthy place,
    As it rain'd kisses.

                Re-enter ANTONY and ENOBARBUS

  ANTONY. Favours, by Jove that thunders!
    What art thou, fellow?
  THYREUS. One that but performs
    The bidding of the fullest man, and worthiest
    To have command obey'd.
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] You will be whipt.
  ANTONY. Approach there.- Ah, you kite!- Now, gods and devils!
    Authority melts from me. Of late, when I cried 'Ho!'
    Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth
    And cry 'Your will?' Have you no ears? I am
    Antony yet.

                       Enter servants

    Take hence this Jack and whip him.
  ENOBARBUS. 'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp
    Than with an old one dying.
  ANTONY. Moon and stars!
    Whip him. Were't twenty of the greatest tributaries
    That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them
    So saucy with the hand of she here- what's her name
    Since she was Cleopatra? Whip him, fellows,
    Till like a boy you see him cringe his face,
    And whine aloud for mercy. Take him hence.
  THYMUS. Mark Antony-
  ANTONY. Tug him away. Being whipt,
    Bring him again: the Jack of Caesar's shall
    Bear us an errand to him.       Exeunt servants with THYREUS
    You were half blasted ere I knew you. Ha!
    Have I my pillow left unpress'd in Rome,
    Forborne the getting of a lawful race,
    And by a gem of women, to be abus'd
    By one that looks on feeders?
  CLEOPATRA. Good my lord-
  ANTONY. You have been a boggler ever.
    But when we in our viciousness grow hard-
    O misery on't!- the wise gods seel our eyes,
    In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us
    Adore our errors, laugh at's while we strut
    To our confusion.
  CLEOPATRA. O, is't come to this?
  ANTONY. I found you as a morsel cold upon
    Dead Caesar's trencher. Nay, you were a fragment
    Of Cneius Pompey's, besides what hotter hours,
    Unregist'red in vulgar fame, you have
    Luxuriously pick'd out; for I am sure,
    Though you can guess what temperance should be,
    You know not what it is.
  CLEOPATRA. Wherefore is this?
  ANTONY. To let a fellow that will take rewards,
    And say 'God quit you!' be familiar with
    My playfellow, your hand, this kingly seal
    And plighter of high hearts! O that I were
    Upon the hill of Basan to outroar
    The horned herd! For I have savage cause,
    And to proclaim it civilly were like
    A halter'd neck which does the hangman thank
    For being yare about him.

              Re-enter a SERVANT with THYREUS

    Is he whipt?
  SERVANT. Soundly, my lord.
  ANTONY. Cried he? and begg'd 'a pardon?
  SERVANT. He did ask favour.
  ANTONY. If that thy father live, let him repent
    Thou wast not made his daughter; and be thou sorry
    To follow Caesar in his triumph, since
    Thou hast been whipt for following him. Henceforth
    The white hand of a lady fever thee!
    Shake thou to look on't. Get thee back to Caesar;
    Tell him thy entertainment; look thou say
    He makes me angry with him; for he seems
    Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am,
    Not what he knew I was. He makes me angry;
    And at this time most easy 'tis to do't,
    When my good stars, that were my former guides,
    Have empty left their orbs and shot their fires
    Into th' abysm of hell. If he mislike
    My speech and what is done, tell him he has
    Hipparchus, my enfranched bondman, whom
    He may at pleasure whip or hang or torture,
    As he shall like, to quit me. Urge it thou.
    Hence with thy stripes, be gone.                Exit THYREUS
  CLEOPATRA. Have you done yet?
  ANTONY. Alack, our terrene moon
    Is now eclips'd, and it portends alone
    The fall of Antony.
  CLEOPATRA. I must stay his time.
  ANTONY. To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes
    With one that ties his points?
  CLEOPATRA. Not know me yet?
  ANTONY. Cold-hearted toward me?
  CLEOPATRA. Ah, dear, if I be so,
    From my cold heart let heaven engender hail,
    And poison it in the source, and the first stone
    Drop in my neck; as it determines, so
    Dissolve my life! The next Caesarion smite!
    Till by degrees the memory of my womb,
    Together with my brave Egyptians all,
    By the discandying of this pelleted storm,
    Lie graveless, till the flies and gnats of Nile
    Have buried them for prey.
  ANTONY. I am satisfied.
    Caesar sits down in Alexandria, where
    I will oppose his fate. Our force by land
    Hath nobly held; our sever'd navy to
    Have knit again, and fleet, threat'ning most sea-like.
    Where hast thou been, my heart? Dost thou hear, lady?
    If from the field I shall return once more
    To kiss these lips, I will appear in blood.
    I and my sword will earn our chronicle.
    There's hope in't yet.
  CLEOPATRA. That's my brave lord!
  ANTONY. I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breath'd,
    And fight maliciously. For when mine hours
    Were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives
    Of me for jests; but now I'll set my teeth,
    And send to darkness all that stop me. Come,
    Let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me
    All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more;
    Let's mock the midnight bell.
  CLEOPATRA. It is my birthday.
    I had thought t'have held it poor; but since my lord
    Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.
  ANTONY. We will yet do well.
  CLEOPATRA. Call all his noble captains to my lord.
  ANTONY. Do so, we'll speak to them; and to-night I'll force
    The wine peep through their scars. Come on, my queen,
    There's sap in't yet. The next time I do fight
    I'll make death love me; for I will contend
    Even with his pestilent scythe.     Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS
  ENOBARBUS. Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious
    Is to be frighted out of fear, and in that mood
    The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still
    A diminution in our captain's brain
    Restores his heart. When valour preys on reason,
    It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek
    Some way to leave him.                                  Exit

ACT_4|SC_1
                      ACT IV. SCENE I.
              CAESAR'S camp before Alexandria

      Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MAECENAS, with his army;
                 CAESAR reading a letter

  CAESAR. He calls me boy, and chides as he had power
    To beat me out of Egypt. My messenger
    He hath whipt with rods; dares me to personal combat,
    Caesar to Antony. Let the old ruffian know
    I have many other ways to die, meantime
    Laugh at his challenge.
  MAECENAS. Caesar must think
    When one so great begins to rage, he's hunted
    Even to falling. Give him no breath, but now
    Make boot of his distraction. Never anger
    Made good guard for itself.
  CAESAR. Let our best heads
    Know that to-morrow the last of many battles
    We mean to fight. Within our files there are
    Of those that serv'd Mark Antony but late
    Enough to fetch him in. See it done;
    And feast the army; we have store to do't,
    And they have earn'd the waste. Poor Antony!          Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_2
                          SCENE II.
               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace

      Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, IRAS,
                     ALEXAS, with others

  ANTONY. He will not fight with me, Domitius?
  ENOBARBUS. No.
  ANTONY. Why should he not?
  ENOBARBUS. He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune,
    He is twenty men to one.
  ANTONY. To-morrow, soldier,
    By sea and land I'll fight. Or I will live,
    Or bathe my dying honour in the blood
    Shall make it live again. Woo't thou fight well?
  ENOBARBUS. I'll strike, and cry 'Take all.'
  ANTONY. Well said; come on.
    Call forth my household servants; let's to-night
    Be bounteous at our meal.

                Enter three or four servitors

    Give me thy hand,
    Thou has been rightly honest. So hast thou;
    Thou, and thou, and thou. You have serv'd me well,
    And kings have been your fellows.
  CLEOPATRA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] What means this?
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to CLEOPATRA] 'Tis one of those odd tricks which
      sorrow shoots
    Out of the mind.
  ANTONY. And thou art honest too.
    I wish I could be made so many men,
    And all of you clapp'd up together in
    An Antony, that I might do you service
    So good as you have done.
  SERVANT. The gods forbid!
  ANTONY. Well, my good fellows, wait on me to-night.
    Scant not my cups, and make as much of me
    As when mine empire was your fellow too,
    And suffer'd my command.
  CLEOPATRA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] What does he mean?
    ENOBARBUS. [Aside to CLEOPATRA] To make his followers weep.
  ANTONY. Tend me to-night;
    May be it is the period of your duty.
    Haply you shall not see me more; or if,
    A mangled shadow. Perchance to-morrow
    You'll serve another master. I look on you
    As one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends,
    I turn you not away; but, like a master
    Married to your good service, stay till death.
    Tend me to-night two hours, I ask no more,
    And the gods yield you for't!
  ENOBARBUS. What mean you, sir,
    To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep;
    And I, an ass, am onion-ey'd. For shame!
    Transform us not to women.
  ANTONY. Ho, ho, ho!
    Now the witch take me if I meant it thus!
    Grace grow where those drops fall! My hearty friends,
    You take me in too dolorous a sense;
    For I spake to you for your comfort, did desire you
    To burn this night with torches. Know, my hearts,
    I hope well of to-morrow, and will lead you
    Where rather I'll expect victorious life
    Than death and honour. Let's to supper, come,
    And drown consideration.                              Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_3
                          SCENE III.
             Alexandria. Before CLEOPATRA's palace

                 Enter a company of soldiers

  FIRST SOLDIER. Brother, good night. To-morrow is the day.
  SECOND SOLDIER. It will determine one way. Fare you well.
    Heard you of nothing strange about the streets?
  FIRST SOLDIER. Nothing. What news?
  SECOND SOLDIER. Belike 'tis but a rumour. Good night to you.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, sir, good night.
                                      [They meet other soldiers]
  SECOND SOLDIER. Soldiers, have careful watch.
  FIRST SOLDIER. And you. Good night, good night.
                [The two companies separate and place themselves
                                   in every corner of the stage]
  SECOND SOLDIER. Here we. And if to-morrow
    Our navy thrive, I have an absolute hope
    Our landmen will stand up.
  THIRD SOLDIER. 'Tis a brave army,
    And full of purpose.
                      [Music of the hautboys is under the stage]
  SECOND SOLDIER. Peace, what noise?
  THIRD SOLDIER. List, list!
  SECOND SOLDIER. Hark!
  THIRD SOLDIER. Music i' th' air.
  FOURTH SOLDIER. Under the earth.
  THIRD SOLDIER. It signs well, does it not?
  FOURTH SOLDIER. No.
  THIRD SOLDIER. Peace, I say!
    What should this mean?
  SECOND SOLDIER. 'Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony lov'd,
    Now leaves him.
  THIRD SOLDIER. Walk; let's see if other watchmen
    Do hear what we do.
  SECOND SOLDIER. How now, masters!
  SOLDIERS. [Speaking together] How now!
    How now! Do you hear this?
  FIRST SOLDIER. Ay; is't not strange?
  THIRD SOLDIER. Do you hear, masters? Do you hear?
  FIRST SOLDIER. Follow the noise so far as we have quarter;
    Let's see how it will give off.
  SOLDIERS. Content. 'Tis strange.                        Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_4
                           SCENE IV.
               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace

         Enter ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS,
                          with others

  ANTONY. Eros! mine armour, Eros!
  CLEOPATRA. Sleep a little.
  ANTONY. No, my chuck. Eros! Come, mine armour, Eros!

                   Enter EROS with armour

    Come, good fellow, put mine iron on.
    If fortune be not ours to-day, it is
    Because we brave her. Come.
  CLEOPATRA. Nay, I'll help too.
    What's this for?
  ANTONY. Ah, let be, let be! Thou art
    The armourer of my heart. False, false; this, this.
  CLEOPATRA. Sooth, la, I'll help. Thus it must be.
  ANTONY. Well, well;
    We shall thrive now. Seest thou, my good fellow?
    Go put on thy defences.
  EROS. Briefly, sir.
  CLEOPATRA. Is not this buckled well?
  ANTONY. Rarely, rarely!
    He that unbuckles this, till we do please
    To daff't for our repose, shall hear a storm.
    Thou fumblest, Eros, and my queen's a squire
    More tight at this than thou. Dispatch. O love,
    That thou couldst see my wars to-day, and knew'st
    The royal occupation! Thou shouldst see
    A workman in't.

                   Enter an armed SOLDIER

    Good-morrow to thee. Welcome.
    Thou look'st like him that knows a warlike charge.
    To business that we love we rise betime,
    And go to't with delight.
  SOLDIER. A thousand, sir,
    Early though't be, have on their riveted trim,
    And at the port expect you.
                            [Shout. Flourish of trumpets within]

                 Enter CAPTAINS and soldiers

  CAPTAIN. The morn is fair. Good morrow, General.
  ALL. Good morrow, General.
  ANTONY. 'Tis well blown, lads.
    This morning, like the spirit of a youth
    That means to be of note, begins betimes.
    So, so. Come, give me that. This way. Well said.
    Fare thee well, dame, whate'er becomes of me.
    This is a soldier's kiss. Rebukeable,
    And worthy shameful check it were, to stand
    On more mechanic compliment; I'll leave thee
    Now like a man of steel. You that will fight,
    Follow me close; I'll bring you to't. Adieu.
                      Exeunt ANTONY, EROS, CAPTAINS and soldiers
  CHARMIAN. Please you retire to your chamber?
  CLEOPATRA. Lead me.
    He goes forth gallantly. That he and Caesar might
    Determine this great war in single fight!
    Then, Antony- but now. Well, on.                      Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_5
                          SCENE V.
                  Alexandria. ANTONY'S camp

        Trumpets sound. Enter ANTONY and EROS, a SOLDIER
                       meeting them

  SOLDIER. The gods make this a happy day to Antony!
  ANTONY. Would thou and those thy scars had once prevail'd
    To make me fight at land!
  SOLDIER. Hadst thou done so,
    The kings that have revolted, and the soldier
    That has this morning left thee, would have still
    Followed thy heels.
  ANTONY. Who's gone this morning?
  SOLDIER. Who?
    One ever near thee. Call for Enobarbus,
    He shall not hear thee; or from Caesar's camp
    Say 'I am none of thine.'
  ANTONY. What say'st thou?
  SOLDIER. Sir,
    He is with Caesar.
  EROS. Sir, his chests and treasure
    He has not with him.
  ANTONY. Is he gone?
  SOLDIER. Most certain.
  ANTONY. Go, Eros, send his treasure after; do it;
    Detain no jot, I charge thee. Write to him-
    I will subscribe- gentle adieus and greetings;
    Say that I wish he never find more cause
    To change a master. O, my fortunes have
    Corrupted honest men! Dispatch. Enobarbus!            Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_6
                         SCENE VI.
                 Alexandria. CAESAR'S camp

       Flourish. Enter AGRIPPA, CAESAR, With DOLABELLA
                       and ENOBARBUS

  CAESAR. Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight.
    Our will is Antony be took alive;
    Make it so known.
  AGRIPPA. Caesar, I shall.                                 Exit
  CAESAR. The time of universal peace is near.
    Prove this a prosp'rous day, the three-nook'd world
    Shall bear the olive freely.

                     Enter A MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Antony
    Is come into the field.
  CAESAR. Go charge Agrippa
    Plant those that have revolted in the vant,
    That Antony may seem to spend his fury
    Upon himself.                       Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS
  ENOBARBUS. Alexas did revolt and went to Jewry on
    Affairs of Antony; there did dissuade
    Great Herod to incline himself to Caesar
    And leave his master Antony. For this pains
    Casaer hath hang'd him. Canidius and the rest
    That fell away have entertainment, but
    No honourable trust. I have done ill,
    Of which I do accuse myself so sorely
    That I will joy no more.

                  Enter a SOLDIER of CAESAR'S

  SOLDIER. Enobarbus, Antony
    Hath after thee sent all thy treasure, with
    His bounty overplus. The messenger
    Came on my guard, and at thy tent is now
    Unloading of his mules.
  ENOBARBUS. I give it you.
  SOLDIER. Mock not, Enobarbus.
    I tell you true. Best you saf'd the bringer
    Out of the host. I must attend mine office,
    Or would have done't myself. Your emperor
    Continues still a Jove.                                 Exit
  ENOBARBUS. I am alone the villain of the earth,
    And feel I am so most. O Antony,
    Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid
    My better service, when my turpitude
    Thou dost so crown with gold! This blows my heart.
    If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean
    Shall outstrike thought; but thought will do't, I feel.
    I fight against thee? No! I will go seek
    Some ditch wherein to die; the foul'st best fits
    My latter part of life.                                 Exit

ACT_4|SC_7
                          SCENE VII.
             Field of battle between the camps

         Alarum. Drums and trumpets. Enter AGRIPPA
                        and others

  AGRIPPA. Retire. We have engag'd ourselves too far.
    Caesar himself has work, and our oppression
    Exceeds what we expected.                             Exeunt

          Alarums. Enter ANTONY, and SCARUS wounded

  SCARUS. O my brave Emperor, this is fought indeed!
    Had we done so at first, we had droven them home
    With clouts about their heads.
  ANTONY. Thou bleed'st apace.
  SCARUS. I had a wound here that was like a T,
    But now 'tis made an H.
  ANTONY. They do retire.
  SCARUS. We'll beat'em into bench-holes. I have yet
    Room for six scotches more.

                        Enter EROS

  EROS. They are beaten, sir, and our advantage serves
    For a fair victory.
  SCARUS. Let us score their backs
    And snatch 'em up, as we take hares, behind.
    'Tis sport to maul a runner.
  ANTONY. I will reward thee
    Once for thy sprightly comfort, and tenfold
    For thy good valour. Come thee on.
    SCARUS. I'll halt after.                              Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_8
                         SCENE VIII.
               Under the walls of Alexandria

        Alarum. Enter ANTONY, again in a march; SCARUS
                        with others

  ANTONY. We have beat him to his camp. Run one before
    And let the Queen know of our gests. To-morrow,
    Before the sun shall see's, we'll spill the blood
    That has to-day escap'd. I thank you all;
    For doughty-handed are you, and have fought
    Not as you serv'd the cause, but as't had been
    Each man's like mine; you have shown all Hectors.
    Enter the city, clip your wives, your friends,
    Tell them your feats; whilst they with joyful tears
    Wash the congealment from your wounds and kiss
    The honour'd gashes whole.

                 Enter CLEOPATRA, attended

    [To SCARUS] Give me thy hand-
    To this great fairy I'll commend thy acts,
    Make her thanks bless thee. O thou day o' th' world,
    Chain mine arm'd neck. Leap thou, attire and all,
    Through proof of harness to my heart, and there
    Ride on the pants triumphing.
  CLEOPATRA. Lord of lords!
    O infinite virtue, com'st thou smiling from
    The world's great snare uncaught?
  ANTONY. Mine nightingale,
    We have beat them to their beds. What, girl! though grey
    Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we
    A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can
    Get goal for goal of youth. Behold this man;
    Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand-
    Kiss it, my warrior- he hath fought to-day
    As if a god in hate of mankind had
    Destroyed in such a shape.
  CLEOPATRA. I'll give thee, friend,
    An armour all of gold; it was a king's.
  ANTONY. He has deserv'd it, were it carbuncled
    Like holy Phoebus' car. Give me thy hand.
    Through Alexandria make a jolly march;
    Bear our hack'd targets like the men that owe them.
    Had our great palace the capacity
    To camp this host, we all would sup together,
    And drink carouses to the next day's fate,
    Which promises royal peril. Trumpeters,
    With brazen din blast you the city's ear;
    Make mingle with our rattling tabourines,
    That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together
    Applauding our approach.                              Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_9
                         SCENE IX.
                      CAESAR'S camp

      Enter a CENTURION and his company; ENOBARBUS follows

  CENTURION. If we be not reliev'd within this hour,
    We must return to th' court of guard. The night
    Is shiny, and they say we shall embattle
    By th' second hour i' th' morn.
  FIRST WATCH. This last day was
    A shrewd one to's.
  ENOBARBUS. O, bear me witness, night-
  SECOND WATCH. What man is this?
  FIRST WATCH. Stand close and list him.
  ENOBARBUS. Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon,
    When men revolted shall upon record
    Bear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did
    Before thy face repent!
  CENTURION. Enobarbus?
  SECOND WATCH. Peace!
    Hark further.
  ENOBARBUS. O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
    The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,
    That life, a very rebel to my will,
    May hang no longer on me. Throw my heart
    Against the flint and hardness of my fault,
    Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder,
    And finish all foul thoughts. O Antony,
    Nobler than my revolt is infamous,
    Forgive me in thine own particular,
    But let the world rank me in register
    A master-leaver and a fugitive!
    O Antony! O Antony!                                   [Dies]
  FIRST WATCH. Let's speak to him.
  CENTURION. Let's hear him, for the things he speaks
    May concern Caesar.
  SECOND WATCH. Let's do so. But he sleeps.
  CENTURION. Swoons rather; for so bad a prayer as his
    Was never yet for sleep.
  FIRST WATCH. Go we to him.
  SECOND WATCH. Awake, sir, awake; speak to us.
  FIRST WATCH. Hear you, sir?
  CENTURION. The hand of death hath raught him.
    [Drums afar off ] Hark! the drums
    Demurely wake the sleepers. Let us bear him
    To th' court of guard; he is of note. Our hour
    Is fully out.
  SECOND WATCH. Come on, then;
    He may recover yet.                     Exeunt with the body

ACT_4|SC_10
                          SCENE X.
                    Between the two camps

            Enter ANTONY and SCARUS, with their army

  ANTONY. Their preparation is to-day by sea;
    We please them not by land.
  SCARUS. For both, my lord.
  ANTONY. I would they'd fight i' th' fire or i' th' air;
    We'd fight there too. But this it is, our foot
    Upon the hills adjoining to the city
    Shall stay with us- Order for sea is given;
    They have put forth the haven-
    Where their appointment we may best discover
    And look on their endeavour.                          Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_11
                         SCENE XI.
                    Between the camps

                Enter CAESAR and his army

  CAESAR. But being charg'd, we will be still by land,
    Which, as I take't, we shall; for his best force
    Is forth to man his galleys. To the vales,
    And hold our best advantage.                          Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_12
                         SCENE XII.
                  A hill near Alexandria

                  Enter ANTONY and SCARUS

  ANTONY. Yet they are not join'd. Where yond pine does stand
    I shall discover all. I'll bring thee word
    Straight how 'tis like to go.                           Exit
  SCARUS. Swallows have built
    In Cleopatra's sails their nests. The augurers
    Say they know not, they cannot tell; look grimly,
    And dare not speak their knowledge. Antony
    Is valiant and dejected; and by starts
    His fretted fortunes give him hope and fear
    Of what he has and has not.
                            [Alarum afar off, as at a sea-fight]

                      Re-enter ANTONY

  ANTONY. All is lost!
    This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.
    My fleet hath yielded to the foe, and yonder
    They cast their caps up and carouse together
    Like friends long lost. Triple-turn'd whore! 'tis thou
    Hast sold me to this novice; and my heart
    Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;
    For when I am reveng'd upon my charm,
    I have done all. Bid them all fly; begone.       Exit SCARUS
    O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more!
    Fortune and Antony part here; even here
    Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts
    That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave
    Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
    On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark'd
    That overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am.
    O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm-
    Whose eye beck'd forth my wars and call'd them home,
    Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end-
    Like a right gypsy hath at fast and loose
    Beguil'd me to the very heart of loss.
    What, Eros, Eros!

                      Enter CLEOPATRA

    Ah, thou spell! Avaunt!
  CLEOPATRA. Why is my lord enrag'd against his love?
  ANTONY. Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving
    And blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee
    And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians;
    Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot
    Of all thy sex; most monster-like, be shown
    For poor'st diminutives, for doits, and let
    Patient Octavia plough thy visage up
    With her prepared nails.                      Exit CLEOPATRA
    'Tis well th'art gone,
    If it be well to live; but better 'twere
    Thou fell'st into my fury, for one death
    Might have prevented many. Eros, ho!
    The shirt of Nessus is upon me; teach me,
    Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage;
    Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o' th' moon,
    And with those hands that grasp'd the heaviest club
    Subdue my worthiest self. The witch shall die.
    To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall
    Under this plot. She dies for't. Eros, ho!              Exit

ACT_4|SC_13
                          SCENE XIII.
               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace

      Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN

  CLEOPATRA. Help me, my women. O, he is more mad
    Than Telamon for his shield; the boar of Thessaly
    Was never so emboss'd.
  CHARMIAN. To th'monument!
    There lock yourself, and send him word you are dead.
    The soul and body rive not more in parting
    Than greatness going off.
  CLEOPATRA. To th' monument!
    Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself;
    Say that the last I spoke was 'Antony'
    And word it, prithee, piteously. Hence, Mardian,
    And bring me how he takes my death. To th' monument!
                                                          Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_14
                          SCENE XIV.
                     CLEOPATRA'S palace

                   Enter ANTONY and EROS

  ANTONY. Eros, thou yet behold'st me?
  EROS. Ay, noble lord.
  ANTONY. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish;
    A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
    A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,
    A forked mountain, or blue promontory
    With trees upon't that nod unto the world
    And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs;
    They are black vesper's pageants.
  EROS. Ay, my lord.
  ANTONY. That which is now a horse, even with a thought
    The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,
    As water is in water.
  EROS. It does, my lord.
  ANTONY. My good knave Eros, now thy captain is
    Even such a body. Here I am Antony;
    Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.
    I made these wars for Egypt; and the Queen-
    Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine,
    Which, whilst it was mine, had annex'd unto't
    A million moe, now lost- she, Eros, has
    Pack'd cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my glory
    Unto an enemy's triumph.
    Nay, weep not, gentle Eros; there is left us
    Ourselves to end ourselves.

                         Enter MARDIAN

    O, thy vile lady!
    She has robb'd me of my sword.
  MARDIAN. No, Antony;
    My mistress lov'd thee, and her fortunes mingled
    With thine entirely.
  ANTONY. Hence, saucy eunuch; peace!
    She hath betray'd me, and shall die the death.
  MARDIAN. Death of one person can be paid but once,
    And that she has discharg'd. What thou wouldst do
    Is done unto thy hand. The last she spake
    Was 'Antony! most noble Antony!'
    Then in the midst a tearing groan did break
    The name of Antony; it was divided
    Between her heart and lips. She rend'red life,
    Thy name so buried in her.
  ANTONY. Dead then?
  MARDIAN. Dead.
  ANTONY. Unarm, Eros; the long day's task is done,
    And we must sleep. That thou depart'st hence safe
    Does pay thy labour richly. Go.                 Exit MARDIAN
    Off, pluck off!
    The sevenfold shield of Ajax cannot keep
    The battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides!
    Heart, once be stronger than thy continent,
    Crack thy frail case. Apace, Eros, apace.-
    No more a soldier. Bruised pieces, go;
    You have been nobly borne.- From me awhile.        Exit EROS
    I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and
    Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now
    All length is torture. Since the torch is out,
    Lie down, and stray no farther. Now all labour
    Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles
    Itself with strength. Seal then, and all is done.
    Eros!- I come, my queen.- Eros!- Stay for me;
    Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand,
    And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze.
    Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops,
    And all the haunt be ours.- Come, Eros, Eros!

                       Re-enter EROS

  EROS. What would my lord?
  ANTONY. Since Cleopatra died,
    I have liv'd in such dishonour that the gods
    Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword
    Quarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back
    With ships made cities, condemn myself to lack
    The courage of a woman; less noble mind
    Than she which by her death our Caesar tells
    'I am conqueror of myself.' Thou art sworn, Eros,
    That, when the exigent should come- which now
    Is come indeed- when I should see behind me
    Th' inevitable prosecution of
    Disgrace and horror, that, on my command,
    Thou then wouldst kill me. Do't; the time is come.
    Thou strik'st not me; 'tis Caesar thou defeat'st.
    Put colour in thy cheek.
  EROS. The gods withhold me!
    Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts,
    Though enemy, lost aim and could not?
  ANTONY. Eros,
    Wouldst thou be window'd in great Rome and see
    Thy master thus with pleach'd arms, bending down
    His corrigible neck, his face subdu'd
    To penetrative shame, whilst the wheel'd seat
    Of fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded
    His baseness that ensued?
  EROS. I would not see't.
  ANTONY. Come, then; for with a wound I must be cur'd.
    Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn
    Most useful for thy country.
  EROS. O, sir, pardon me!
  ANTONY. When I did make thee free, swor'st thou not then
    To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once,
    Or thy precedent services are all
    But accidents unpurpos'd. Draw, and come.
  EROS. Turn from me then that noble countenance,
    Wherein the worship of the whole world lies.
  ANTONY. Lo thee!                            [Turning from him]
  EROS. My sword is drawn.
  ANTONY. Then let it do at once
    The thing why thou hast drawn it.
  EROS. My dear master,
    My captain and my emperor, let me say,
    Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.
  ANTONY. 'Tis said, man; and farewell.
  EROS. Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now?
  ANTONY. Now, Eros.
  EROS. Why, there then! Thus do I escape the sorrow
    Of Antony's death.                            [Kills himself
  ANTONY. Thrice nobler than myself!
    Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what
    I should, and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros
    Have, by their brave instruction, got upon me
    A nobleness in record. But I will be
    A bridegroom in my death, and run into't
    As to a lover's bed. Come, then; and, Eros,
    Thy master dies thy scholar. To do thus
                                          [Falling on his sword]
    I learn'd of thee. How? not dead? not dead?-
    The guard, ho! O, dispatch me!

                  Enter DERCETAS and a guard

  FIRST GUARD. What's the noise?
  ANTONY. I have done my work ill, friends. O, make an end
    Of what I have begun.
  SECOND GUARD. The star is fall'n.
  FIRST GUARD. And time is at his period.
  ALL. Alas, and woe!
  ANTONY. Let him that loves me, strike me dead.
  FIRST GUARD. Not I.
  SECOND GUARD. Nor I.
  THIRD GUARD. Nor any one.                         Exeunt guard
  DERCETAS. Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly.
    This sword but shown to Caesar, with this tidings,
    Shall enter me with him.

                       Enter DIOMEDES

  DIOMEDES. Where's Antony?
  DERCETAS. There, Diomed, there.
  DIOMEDES. Lives he?
    Wilt thou not answer, man?                     Exit DERCETAS
  ANTONY. Art thou there, Diomed? Draw thy sword and give me
    Sufficing strokes for death.
  DIOMEDES. Most absolute lord,
    My mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee.
  ANTONY. When did she send thee?
  DIOMEDES. Now, my lord.
  ANTONY. Where is she?
  DIOMEDES. Lock'd in her monument. She had a prophesying fear
    Of what hath come to pass; for when she saw-
    Which never shall be found- you did suspect
    She had dispos'd with Caesar, and that your rage
    Would not be purg'd, she sent you word she was dead;
    But fearing since how it might work, hath sent
    Me to proclaim the truth; and I am come,
    I dread, too late.
  ANTONY. Too late, good Diomed. Call my guard, I prithee.
  DIOMEDES. What, ho! the Emperor's guard! The guard, what ho!
    Come, your lord calls!

             Enter four or five of the guard of ANTONY

  ANTONY. Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides;
    'Tis the last service that I shall command you.
  FIRST GUARD. Woe, woe are we, sir, you may not live to wear
    All your true followers out.
  ALL. Most heavy day!
  ANTONY. Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate
    To grace it with your sorrows. Bid that welcome
    Which comes to punish us, and we punish it,
    Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up.
    I have led you oft; carry me now, good friends,
    And have my thanks for all.           Exeunt, hearing ANTONY
ACT_4|SC_15
                         SCENE XV.
                   Alexandria. A monument

      Enter CLEOPATRA and her maids aloft, with CHARMIAN
                         and IRAS

  CLEOPATRA. O Charmian, I will never go from hence!
  CHARMIAN. Be comforted, dear madam.
  CLEOPATRA. No, I will not.
    All strange and terrible events are welcome,
    But comforts we despise; our size of sorrow,
    Proportion'd to our cause, must be as great
    As that which makes it.

                   Enter DIOMEDES, below

    How now! Is he dead?
  DIOMEDES. His death's upon him, but not dead.
    Look out o' th' other side your monument;
    His guard have brought him thither.

            Enter, below, ANTONY, borne by the guard

  CLEOPATRA. O sun,
    Burn the great sphere thou mov'st in! Darkling stand
    The varying shore o' th' world. O Antony,
    Antony, Antony! Help, Charmian; help, Iras, help;
    Help, friends below! Let's draw him hither.
  ANTONY. Peace!
    Not Caesar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony,
    But Antony's hath triumph'd on itself.
  CLEOPATRA. So it should be, that none but Antony
    Should conquer Antony; but woe 'tis so!
  ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying; only
    I here importune death awhile, until
    Of many thousand kisses the poor last
    I lay upon thy lips.
  CLEOPATRA. I dare not, dear.
    Dear my lord, pardon! I dare not,
    Lest I be taken. Not th' imperious show
    Of the full-fortun'd Caesar ever shall
    Be brooch'd with me. If knife, drugs, serpents, have
    Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe.
    Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes
    And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour
    Demuring upon me. But come, come, Antony-
    Help me, my women- we must draw thee up;
    Assist, good friends.
  ANTONY. O, quick, or I am gone.
  CLEOPATRA. Here's sport indeed! How heavy weighs my lord!
    Our strength is all gone into heaviness;
    That makes the weight. Had I great Juno's power,
    The strong-wing'd Mercury should fetch thee up,
    And set thee by Jove's side. Yet come a little.
    Wishers were ever fools. O come, come,
                          [They heave ANTONY aloft to CLEOPATRA]
    And welcome, welcome! Die where thou hast liv'd.
    Quicken with kissing. Had my lips that power,
    Thus would I wear them out.
  ALL. A heavy sight!
  ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying.
    Give me some wine, and let me speak a little.
  CLEOPATRA. No, let me speak; and let me rail so high
    That the false huswife Fortune break her wheel,
    Provok'd by my offence.
  ANTONY. One word, sweet queen:
    Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. O!
  CLEOPATRA. They do not go together.
  ANTONY. Gentle, hear me:
    None about Caesar trust but Proculeius.
  CLEOPATRA. My resolution and my hands I'll trust;
    None about Caesar
  ANTONY. The miserable change now at my end
    Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts
    In feeding them with those my former fortunes
    Wherein I liv'd the greatest prince o' th' world,
    The noblest; and do now not basely die,
    Not cowardly put off my helmet to
    My countryman- a Roman by a Roman
    Valiantly vanquish'd. Now my spirit is going
    I can no more.
  CLEOPATRA. Noblest of men, woo't die?
    Hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide
    In this dull world, which in thy absence is
    No better than a sty? O, see, my women,        [Antony dies]
    The crown o' th' earth doth melt. My lord!
    O, wither'd is the garland of the war,
    The soldier's pole is fall'n! Young boys and girls
    Are level now with men. The odds is gone,
    And there is nothing left remarkable
    Beneath the visiting moon.                          [Swoons]
  CHARMIAN. O, quietness, lady!
  IRAS. She's dead too, our sovereign.
  CHARMIAN. Lady!
  IRAS. Madam!
  CHARMIAN. O madam, madam, madam!
  IRAS. Royal Egypt, Empress!
  CHARMIAN. Peace, peace, Iras!
  CLEOPATRA. No more but e'en a woman, and commanded
    By such poor passion as the maid that milks
    And does the meanest chares. It were for me
    To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;
    To tell them that this world did equal theirs
    Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but nought;
    Patience is sottish, and impatience does
    Become a dog that's mad. Then is it sin
    To rush into the secret house of death
    Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?
    What, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian!
    My noble girls! Ah, women, women, look,
    Our lamp is spent, it's out! Good sirs, take heart.
    We'll bury him; and then, what's brave, what's noble,
    Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
    And make death proud to take us. Come, away;
    This case of that huge spirit now is cold.
    Ah, women, women! Come; we have no friend
    But resolution and the briefest end.
                   Exeunt; those above hearing off ANTONY'S body

ACT_5|SC_1
                       ACT V. SCENE I.
                  Alexandria. CAESAR'S camp

      Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, MAECENAS, GALLUS,
          PROCULEIUS, and others, his Council of War

  CAESAR. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield;
    Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks
    The pauses that he makes.
  DOLABELLA. Caesar, I shall.                               Exit

             Enter DERCETAS With the sword of ANTONY

  CAESAR. Wherefore is that? And what art thou that dar'st
    Appear thus to us?
  DERCETAS. I am call'd Dercetas;
    Mark Antony I serv'd, who best was worthy
    Best to be serv'd. Whilst he stood up and spoke,
    He was my master, and I wore my life
    To spend upon his haters. If thou please
    To take me to thee, as I was to him
    I'll be to Caesar; if thou pleasest not,
    I yield thee up my life.
  CAESAR. What is't thou say'st?
  DERCETAS. I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.
  CAESAR. The breaking of so great a thing should make
    A greater crack. The round world
    Should have shook lions into civil streets,
    And citizens to their dens. The death of Antony
    Is not a single doom; in the name lay
    A moiety of the world.
  DERCETAS. He is dead, Caesar,
    Not by a public minister of justice,
    Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand
    Which writ his honour in the acts it did
    Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,
    Splitted the heart. This is his sword;
    I robb'd his wound of it; behold it stain'd
    With his most noble blood.
  CAESAR. Look you sad, friends?
    The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings
    To wash the eyes of kings.
  AGRIPPA. And strange it is
    That nature must compel us to lament
    Our most persisted deeds.
  MAECENAS. His taints and honours
    Wag'd equal with him.
  AGRIPPA. A rarer spirit never
    Did steer humanity. But you gods will give us
    Some faults to make us men. Caesar is touch'd.
  MAECENAS. When such a spacious mirror's set before him,
    He needs must see himself.
  CAESAR. O Antony,
    I have follow'd thee to this! But we do lance
    Diseases in our bodies. I must perforce
    Have shown to thee such a declining day
    Or look on thine; we could not stall together
    In the whole world. But yet let me lament,
    With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,
    That thou, my brother, my competitor
    In top of all design, my mate in empire,
    Friend and companion in the front of war,
    The arm of mine own body, and the heart
    Where mine his thoughts did kindle- that our stars,
    Unreconciliable, should divide
    Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends-

                    Enter an EGYPTIAN

    But I will tell you at some meeter season.
    The business of this man looks out of him;
    We'll hear him what he says. Whence are you?
  EGYPTIAN. A poor Egyptian, yet the Queen, my mistress,
    Confin'd in all she has, her monument,
    Of thy intents desires instruction,
    That she preparedly may frame herself
    To th' way she's forc'd to.
  CAESAR. Bid her have good heart.
    She soon shall know of us, by some of ours,
    How honourable and how kindly we
    Determine for her; for Caesar cannot learn
    To be ungentle.
  EGYPTIAN. So the gods preserve thee!                      Exit
  CAESAR. Come hither, Proculeius. Go and say
    We purpose her no shame. Give her what comforts
    The quality of her passion shall require,
    Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke
    She do defeat us; for her life in Rome
    Would be eternal in our triumph. Go,
    And with your speediest bring us what she says,
    And how you find her.
  PROCULEIUS. Caesar, I shall.                              Exit
  CAESAR. Gallus, go you along.                      Exit GALLUS
    Where's Dolabella, to second Proculeius?
  ALL. Dolabella!
  CAESAR. Let him alone, for I remember now
    How he's employ'd; he shall in time be ready.
    Go with me to my tent, where you shall see
    How hardly I was drawn into this war,
    How calm and gentle I proceeded still
    In all my writings. Go with me, and see
    What I can show in this.                              Exeunt

ACT_5|SC_2
                         SCENE II.
                Alexandria. The monument

      Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN

  CLEOPATRA. My desolation does begin to make
    A better life. 'Tis paltry to be Caesar:
    Not being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave,
    A minister of her will; and it is great
    To do that thing that ends all other deeds,
    Which shackles accidents and bolts up change,
    Which sleeps, and never palates more the dug,
    The beggar's nurse and Caesar's.

       Enter, to the gates of the monument, PROCULEIUS, GALLUS,
                          and soldiers

  PROCULEIUS. Caesar sends greetings to the Queen of Egypt,
    And bids thee study on what fair demands
    Thou mean'st to have him grant thee.
  CLEOPATRA. What's thy name?
  PROCULEIUS. My name is Proculeius.
  CLEOPATRA. Antony
    Did tell me of you, bade me trust you; but
    I do not greatly care to be deceiv'd,
    That have no use for trusting. If your master
    Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him
    That majesty, to keep decorum, must
    No less beg than a kingdom. If he please
    To give me conquer'd Egypt for my son,
    He gives me so much of mine own as I
    Will kneel to him with thanks.
  PROCULEIUS. Be of good cheer;
    Y'are fall'n into a princely hand; fear nothing.
    Make your full reference freely to my lord,
    Who is so full of grace that it flows over
    On all that need. Let me report to him
    Your sweet dependency, and you shall find
    A conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness
    Where he for grace is kneel'd to.
  CLEOPATRA. Pray you tell him
    I am his fortune's vassal and I send him
    The greatness he has got. I hourly learn
    A doctrine of obedience, and would gladly
    Look him i' th' face.
  PROCULEIUS. This I'll report, dear lady.
    Have comfort, for I know your plight is pitied
    Of him that caus'd it.
  GALLUS. You see how easily she may be surpris'd.

      Here PROCULEIUS and two of the guard ascend the
       monument by a ladder placed against a window,
       and come behind CLEOPATRA. Some of the guard
                unbar and open the gates

    Guard her till Caesar come.                             Exit
  IRAS. Royal Queen!
  CHARMIAN. O Cleopatra! thou art taken, Queen!
  CLEOPATRA. Quick, quick, good hands.        [Drawing a dagger]
  PROCULEIUS. Hold, worthy lady, hold,             [Disarms her]
    Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this
    Reliev'd, but not betray'd.
  CLEOPATRA. What, of death too,
    That rids our dogs of languish?
  PROCULEIUS. Cleopatra,
    Do not abuse my master's bounty by
    Th' undoing of yourself. Let the world see
    His nobleness well acted, which your death
    Will never let come forth.
  CLEOPATRA. Where art thou, death?
    Come hither, come! Come, come, and take a queen
    Worth many babes and beggars!
  PROCULEIUS. O, temperance, lady!
  CLEOPATRA. Sir, I will eat no meat; I'll not drink, sir;
    If idle talk will once be necessary,
    I'll not sleep neither. This mortal house I'll ruin,
    Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I
    Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,
    Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye
    Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up,
    And show me to the shouting varletry
    Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
    Be gentle grave unto me! Rather on Nilus' mud
    Lay me stark-nak'd, and let the water-flies
    Blow me into abhorring! Rather make
    My country's high pyramides my gibbet,
    And hang me up in chains!
  PROCULEIUS. You do extend
    These thoughts of horror further than you shall
    Find cause in Caesar.

                      Enter DOLABELLA

  DOLABELLA. Proculeius,
    What thou hast done thy master Caesar knows,
    And he hath sent for thee. For the Queen,
    I'll take her to my guard.
  PROCULEIUS. So, Dolabella,
    It shall content me best. Be gentle to her.
    [To CLEOPATRA] To Caesar I will speak what you shall please,
    If you'll employ me to him.
  CLEOPATRA. Say I would die.
                                  Exeunt PROCULEIUS and soldiers
  DOLABELLA. Most noble Empress, you have heard of me?
  CLEOPATRA. I cannot tell.
  DOLABELLA. Assuredly you know me.
  CLEOPATRA. No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.
    You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams;
    Is't not your trick?
  DOLABELLA. I understand not, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony-
    O, such another sleep, that I might see
    But such another man!
  DOLABELLA. If it might please ye-
  CLEOPATRA. His face was as the heav'ns, and therein stuck
    A sun and moon, which kept their course and lighted
    The little O, the earth.
  DOLABELLA. Most sovereign creature-
  CLEOPATRA. His legs bestrid the ocean; his rear'd arm
    Crested the world. His voice was propertied
    As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
    But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
    He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
    There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas
    That grew the more by reaping. His delights
    Were dolphin-like: they show'd his back above
    The element they liv'd in. In his livery
    Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
    As plates dropp'd from his pocket.
  DOLABELLA. Cleopatra-
  CLEOPATRA. Think you there was or might be such a man
    As this I dreamt of?
  DOLABELLA. Gentle madam, no.
  CLEOPATRA. You lie, up to the hearing of the gods.
    But if there be nor ever were one such,
    It's past the size of drearning. Nature wants stuff
    To vie strange forms with fancy; yet t' imagine
    An Antony were nature's piece 'gainst fancy,
    Condemning shadows quite.
  DOLABELLA. Hear me, good madam.
    Your loss is, as yourself, great; and you bear it
    As answering to the weight. Would I might never
    O'ertake pursu'd success, but I do feel,
    By the rebound of yours, a grief that smites
    My very heart at root.
  CLEOPATRA. I thank you, sir.
    Know you what Caesar means to do with me?
  DOLABELLA. I am loath to tell you what I would you knew.
  CLEOPATRA. Nay, pray you, sir.
  DOLABELLA. Though he be honourable-
  CLEOPATRA. He'll lead me, then, in triumph?
  DOLABELLA. Madam, he will. I know't.                [Flourish]
                              [Within: 'Make way there-Caesar!']

       Enter CAESAR; GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, MAECENAS, SELEUCUS,
                     and others of his train

  CAESAR. Which is the Queen of Egypt?
  DOLABELLA. It is the Emperor, madam.        [CLEOPATPA kneels]
  CAESAR. Arise, you shall not kneel.
    I pray you, rise; rise, Egypt.
  CLEOPATRA. Sir, the gods
    Will have it thus; my master and my lord
    I must obey.
  CAESAR. Take to you no hard thoughts.
    The record of what injuries you did us,
    Though written in our flesh, we shall remember
    As things but done by chance.
  CLEOPATRA. Sole sir o' th' world,
    I cannot project mine own cause so well
    To make it clear, but do confess I have
    Been laden with like frailties which before
    Have often sham'd our sex.
  CAESAR. Cleopatra, know
    We will extenuate rather than enforce.
    If you apply yourself to our intents-
    Which towards you are most gentle- you shall find
    A benefit in this change; but if you seek
    To lay on me a cruelty by taking
    Antony's course, you shall bereave yourself
    Of my good purposes, and put your children
    To that destruction which I'll guard them from,
    If thereon you rely. I'll take my leave.
  CLEOPATRA. And may, through all the world. 'Tis yours, and we,
    Your scutcheons and your signs of conquest, shall
    Hang in what place you please. Here, my good lord.
  CAESAR. You shall advise me in all for Cleopatra.
  CLEOPATRA. This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels,
    I am possess'd of. 'Tis exactly valued,
    Not petty things admitted. Where's Seleucus?
  SELEUCUS. Here, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. This is my treasurer; let him speak, my lord,
    Upon his peril, that I have reserv'd
    To myself nothing. Speak the truth, Seleucus.
  SELEUCUS. Madam,
    I had rather seal my lips than to my peril
    Speak that which is not.
  CLEOPATRA. What have I kept back?
  SELEUCUS. Enough to purchase what you have made known.
  CAESAR. Nay, blush not, Cleopatra; I approve
    Your wisdom in the deed.
  CLEOPATRA. See, Caesar! O, behold,
    How pomp is followed! Mine will now be yours;
    And, should we shift estates, yours would be mine.
    The ingratitude of this Seleucus does
    Even make me wild. O slave, of no more trust
    Than love that's hir'd! What, goest thou back? Thou shalt
    Go back, I warrant thee; but I'll catch thine eyes
    Though they had wings. Slave, soulless villain, dog!
    O rarely base!
  CAESAR. Good Queen, let us entreat you.
  CLEOPATRA. O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this,
    That thou vouchsafing here to visit me,
    Doing the honour of thy lordliness
    To one so meek, that mine own servant should
    Parcel the sum of my disgraces by
    Addition of his envy! Say, good Caesar,
    That I some lady trifles have reserv'd,
    Immoment toys, things of such dignity
    As we greet modern friends withal; and say
    Some nobler token I have kept apart
    For Livia and Octavia, to induce
    Their mediation- must I be unfolded
    With one that I have bred? The gods! It smites me
    Beneath the fall I have. [To SELEUCUS] Prithee go hence;
    Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits
    Through th' ashes of my chance. Wert thou a man,
    Thou wouldst have mercy on me.
  CAESAR. Forbear, Seleucus.                       Exit SELEUCUS
  CLEOPATRA. Be it known that we, the greatest, are misthought
    For things that others do; and when we fall
    We answer others' merits in our name,
    Are therefore to be pitied.
  CAESAR. Cleopatra,
    Not what you have reserv'd, nor what acknowledg'd,
    Put we i' th' roll of conquest. Still be't yours,
    Bestow it at your pleasure; and believe
    Caesar's no merchant, to make prize with you
    Of things that merchants sold. Therefore be cheer'd;
    Make not your thoughts your prisons. No, dear Queen;
    For we intend so to dispose you as
    Yourself shall give us counsel. Feed and sleep.
    Our care and pity is so much upon you
    That we remain your friend; and so, adieu.
  CLEOPATRA. My master and my lord!
  CAESAR. Not so. Adieu.
                           Flourish. Exeunt CAESAR and his train
  CLEOPATRA. He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not
    Be noble to myself. But hark thee, Charmian!
                                             [Whispers CHARMIAN]
  IRAS. Finish, good lady; the bright day is done,
    And we are for the dark.
  CLEOPATRA. Hie thee again.
    I have spoke already, and it is provided;
    Go put it to the haste.
  CHARMIAN. Madam, I will.

                      Re-enter DOLABELLA

  DOLABELLA. Where's the Queen?
  CHARMIAN. Behold, sir.                                    Exit
  CLEOPATRA. Dolabella!
  DOLABELLA. Madam, as thereto sworn by your command,
    Which my love makes religion to obey,
    I tell you this: Caesar through Syria
    Intends his journey, and within three days
    You with your children will he send before.
    Make your best use of this; I have perform'd
    Your pleasure and my promise.
  CLEOPATRA. Dolabella,
    I shall remain your debtor.
  DOLABELLA. I your servant.
    Adieu, good Queen; I must attend on Caesar.
  CLEOPATRA. Farewell, and thanks.                Exit DOLABELLA
    Now, Iras, what think'st thou?
    Thou an Egyptian puppet shall be shown
    In Rome as well as I. Mechanic slaves,
    With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
    Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,
    Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded,
    And forc'd to drink their vapour.
  IRAS. The gods forbid!
  CLEOPATRA. Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras. Saucy lictors
    Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhymers
    Ballad us out o' tune; the quick comedians
    Extemporally will stage us, and present
    Our Alexandrian revels; Antony
    Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
    Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
    I' th' posture of a whore.
  IRAS. O the good gods!
  CLEOPATRA. Nay, that's certain.
  IRAS. I'll never see't, for I am sure mine nails
    Are stronger than mine eyes.
  CLEOPATRA. Why, that's the way
    To fool their preparation and to conquer
    Their most absurd intents.

                      Enter CHARMIAN

    Now, Charmian!
    Show me, my women, like a queen. Go fetch
    My best attires. I am again for Cydnus,
    To meet Mark Antony. Sirrah, Iras, go.
    Now, noble Charmian, we'll dispatch indeed;
    And when thou hast done this chare, I'll give thee leave
    To play till doomsday. Bring our crown and all.
                                       Exit IRAS. A noise within
    Wherefore's this noise?

                     Enter a GUARDSMAN

  GUARDSMAN. Here is a rural fellow
    That will not be denied your Highness' presence.
    He brings you figs.
  CLEOPATRA. Let him come in.                     Exit GUARDSMAN
    What poor an instrument
    May do a noble deed! He brings me liberty.
    My resolution's plac'd, and I have nothing
    Of woman in me. Now from head to foot
    I am marble-constant; now the fleeting moon
    No planet is of mine.

          Re-enter GUARDSMAN and CLOWN, with a basket

  GUARDSMAN. This is the man.
  CLEOPATRA. Avoid, and leave him.                Exit GUARDSMAN
    Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there
    That kills and pains not?
  CLOWN. Truly, I have him. But I would not be the party that should
    desire you to touch him, for his biting is immortal; those that
    do die of it do seldom or never recover.
  CLEOPATRA. Remember'st thou any that have died on't?
  CLOWN. Very many, men and women too. I heard of one of them no
    longer than yesterday: a very honest woman, but something given
    to lie, as a woman should not do but in the way of honesty; how
    she died of the biting of it, what pain she felt- truly she makes
    a very good report o' th' worm. But he that will believe all that
    they say shall never be saved by half that they do. But this is
    most falliable, the worm's an odd worm.
  CLEOPATRA. Get thee hence; farewell.
  CLOWN. I wish you all joy of the worm.
                                          [Sets down the basket]
  CLEOPATRA. Farewell.
  CLOWN. You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his
    kind.
  CLEOPATRA. Ay, ay; farewell.
  CLOWN. Look you, the worm is not to be trusted but in the keeping
    of wise people; for indeed there is no goodness in the worm.
  CLEOPATRA. Take thou no care; it shall be heeded.
  CLOWN. Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is not worth
    the feeding.
  CLEOPATRA. Will it eat me?
  CLOWN. You must not think I am so simple but I know the devil
    himself will not eat a woman. I know that a woman is a dish for
    the gods, if the devil dress her not. But truly, these same
    whoreson devils do the gods great harm in their women, for in
    every ten that they make the devils mar five.
  CLEOPATRA. Well, get thee gone; farewell.
  CLOWN. Yes, forsooth. I wish you joy o' th' worm.         Exit

             Re-enter IRAS, with a robe, crown, &c.

  CLEOPATRA. Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
    Immortal longings in me. Now no more
    The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip.
    Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear
    Antony call. I see him rouse himself
    To praise my noble act. I hear him mock
    The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
    To excuse their after wrath. Husband, I come.
    Now to that name my courage prove my title!
    I am fire and air; my other elements
    I give to baser life. So, have you done?
    Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
    Farewell, kind Charmian. Iras, long farewell.
                              [Kisses them. IRAS falls and dies]
    Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?
    If thus thou and nature can so gently part,
    The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,
    Which hurts and is desir'd. Dost thou lie still?
    If thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world
    It is not worth leave-taking.
  CHARMIAN. Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain, that I may say
    The gods themselves do weep.
  CLEOPATRA. This proves me base.
    If she first meet the curled Antony,
    He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss
    Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou mortal wretch,
                    [To an asp, which she applies to her breast]
    With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
    Of life at once untie. Poor venomous fool,
    Be angry and dispatch. O couldst thou speak,
    That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass
    Unpolicied!
  CHARMIAN. O Eastern star!
  CLEOPATRA. Peace, peace!
    Dost thou not see my baby at my breast
    That sucks the nurse asleep?
  CHARMIAN. O, break! O, break!
  CLEOPATRA. As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle-
    O Antony! Nay, I will take thee too:
                               [Applying another asp to her arm]
    What should I stay-                                   [Dies]
  CHARMIAN. In this vile world? So, fare thee well.
    Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies
    A lass unparallel'd. Downy windows, close;
    And golden Phoebus never be beheld
    Of eyes again so royal! Your crown's awry;
    I'll mend it and then play-

                  Enter the guard, rushing in

  FIRST GUARD. Where's the Queen?
  CHARMIAN. Speak softly, wake her not.
  FIRST GUARD. Caesar hath sent-
  CHARMIAN. Too slow a messenger.               [Applies an asp]
    O, come apace, dispatch. I partly feel thee.
  FIRST GUARD. Approach, ho! All's not well: Caesar's beguil'd.
  SECOND GUARD. There's Dolabella sent from Caesar; call him.
  FIRST GUARD. What work is here! Charmian, is this well done?
  CHARMIAN. It is well done, and fitting for a princes
    Descended of so many royal kings.
    Ah, soldier!                                 [CHARMIAN dies]

                      Re-enter DOLABELLA

  DOLABELLA. How goes it here?
  SECOND GUARD. All dead.
  DOLABELLA. Caesar, thy thoughts
    Touch their effects in this. Thyself art coming
    To see perform'd the dreaded act which thou
    So sought'st to hinder.
                      [Within: 'A way there, a way for Caesar!']

              Re-enter CAESAR and all his train

  DOLABELLA. O sir, you are too sure an augurer:
    That you did fear is done.
  CAESAR. Bravest at the last,
    She levell'd at our purposes, and being royal,
    Took her own way. The manner of their deaths?
    I do not see them bleed.
  DOLABELLA. Who was last with them?
  FIRST GUARD. A simple countryman that brought her figs.
    This was his basket.
  CAESAR. Poison'd then.
  FIRST GUARD. O Caesar,
    This Charmian liv'd but now; she stood and spake.
    I found her trimming up the diadem
    On her dead mistress. Tremblingly she stood,
    And on the sudden dropp'd.
  CAESAR. O noble weakness!
    If they had swallow'd poison 'twould appear
    By external swelling; but she looks like sleep,
    As she would catch another Antony
    In her strong toil of grace.
  DOLABELLA. Here on her breast
    There is a vent of blood, and something blown;
    The like is on her arm.
  FIRST GUARD. This is an aspic's trail; and these fig-leaves
    Have slime upon them, such as th' aspic leaves
    Upon the caves of Nile.
  CAESAR. Most probable
    That so she died; for her physician tells me
    She hath pursu'd conclusions infinite
    Of easy ways to die. Take up her bed,
    And bear her women from the monument.
    She shall be buried by her Antony;
    No grave upon the earth shall clip in it
    A pair so famous. High events as these
    Strike those that make them; and their story is
    No less in pity than his glory which
    Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall
    In solemn show attend this funeral,
    And then to Rome. Come, Dolabella, see
    High order in this great solemnity.                   Exeunt

THE END

1601




AS YOU LIKE IT

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

  DUKE, living in exile
  FREDERICK, his brother, and usurper of his dominions
  AMIENS, lord attending on the banished Duke
  JAQUES,   "      "       "  "     "      "
  LE BEAU, a courtier attending upon Frederick
  CHARLES, wrestler to Frederick
  OLIVER, son of Sir Rowland de Boys
  JAQUES,   "   "  "    "     "  "
  ORLANDO,  "   "  "    "     "  "
  ADAM,   servant to Oliver
  DENNIS,     "     "   "
  TOUCHSTONE, the court jester
  SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a vicar
  CORIN,    shepherd
  SILVIUS,     "
  WILLIAM, a country fellow, in love with Audrey
  A person representing HYMEN

  ROSALIND, daughter to the banished Duke
  CELIA, daughter to Frederick
  PHEBE, a shepherdes
  AUDREY, a country wench

  Lords, Pages, Foresters, and Attendants

SCENE: OLIVER'S house; FREDERICK'S court; and the Forest of Arden

ACT I. SCENE I. Orchard of OLIVER'S house

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM

  ORLANDO. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me
  by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou say'st, charged my
  brother, on his blessing, to breed me well; and there begins my
  sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks
  goldenly of his profit. For my part, he keeps me rustically at home,
  or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call
  you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth that differs not from
  the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred better; for, besides that
  they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage, and
  to that end riders dearly hir'd; but I, his brother, gain nothing
  under him but growth; for the which his animals on his dunghills are
  as much bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so
  plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave me his
  countenance seems to take from me. He lets me feed with his hinds,
  bars me the place of a brother, and as much as in him lies, mines my
  gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and
  the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny
  against this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know
  no wise remedy how to avoid it.

                           Enter OLIVER

  ADAM. Yonder comes my master, your brother.
  ORLANDO. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me
    up.                                           [ADAM retires]
  OLIVER. Now, sir! what make you here?
  ORLANDO. Nothing; I am not taught to make any thing.
  OLIVER. What mar you then, sir?
  ORLANDO. Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a
    poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.
  OLIVER. Marry, sir, be better employed, and be nought awhile.
  ORLANDO. Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What
    prodigal portion have I spent that I should come to such penury?
  OLIVER. Know you where you are, sir?
  ORLANDO. O, sir, very well; here in your orchard.
  OLIVER. Know you before whom, sir?
  ORLANDO. Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are
    my eldest brother; and in the gentle condition of blood, you
    should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better
    in that you are the first-born; but the same tradition takes not
    away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us. I have as
    much of my father in me as you, albeit I confess your coming
    before me is nearer to his reverence.
  OLIVER. What, boy!                               [Strikes him]
  ORLANDO. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.
  OLIVER. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?
  ORLANDO. I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de
    Boys. He was my father; and he is thrice a villain that says such
    a father begot villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not
    take this hand from thy throat till this other had pull'd out thy
    tongue for saying so. Thou has rail'd on thyself.
  ADAM. [Coming forward] Sweet masters, be patient; for your father's
    remembrance, be at accord.
  OLIVER. Let me go, I say.
  ORLANDO. I will not, till I please; you shall hear me. My father
    charg'd you in his will to give me good education: you have
    train'd me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all
    gentleman-like qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in
    me, and I will no longer endure it; therefore allow me such
    exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me the poor
    allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy
    my fortunes.
  OLIVER. And what wilt thou do? Beg, when that is spent? Well, sir,
    get you in. I will not long be troubled with you; you shall have
    some part of your will. I pray you leave me.
  ORLANDO. I no further offend you than becomes me for my good.
  OLIVER. Get you with him, you old dog.
  ADAM. Is 'old dog' my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in
    your service. God be with my old master! He would not have spoke
    such a word.
                                         Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM
  OLIVER. Is it even so? Begin you to grow upon me? I will physic
    your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla,
    Dennis!

                          Enter DENNIS

  DENNIS. Calls your worship?
  OLIVER. not Charles, the Duke's wrestler, here to speak with me?
  DENNIS. So please you, he is here at the door and importunes access
    to you.
  OLIVER. Call him in. [Exit DENNIS] 'Twill be a good way; and
    to-morrow the wrestling is.

                          Enter CHARLES

  CHARLES. Good morrow to your worship.
  OLIVER. Good Monsieur Charles! What's the new news at the new
    court?
  CHARLES. There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news; that
    is, the old Duke is banished by his younger brother the new Duke;
    and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary
    exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new Duke;
    therefore he gives them good leave to wander.
  OLIVER. Can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke's daughter, be banished
    with her father?
  CHARLES. O, no; for the Duke's daughter, her cousin, so loves her,
    being ever from their cradles bred together, that she would have
    followed her exile, or have died to stay behind her. She is at
    the court, and no less beloved of her uncle than his own
    daughter; and never two ladies loved as they do.
  OLIVER. Where will the old Duke live?
  CHARLES. They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many
    merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood
    of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day,
    and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.
  OLIVER. What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new Duke?
  CHARLES. Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a
    matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand that your younger
    brother, Orlando, hath a disposition to come in disguis'd against
    me to try a fall. To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; and he
    that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well.
    Your brother is but young and tender; and, for your love, I would
    be loath to foil him, as I must, for my own honour, if he come
    in; therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint
    you withal, that either you might stay him from his intendment,
    or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is
    thing of his own search and altogether against my will.
  OLIVER. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt
    find I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my
    brother's purpose herein, and have by underhand means laboured to
    dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. I'll tell thee,
    Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France; full of
    ambition, an envious emulator of every man's good parts, a secret
    and villainous contriver against me his natural brother.
    Therefore use thy discretion: I had as lief thou didst break his
    neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to't; for if thou
    dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace
    himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap
    thee by some treacherous device, and never leave thee till he
    hath ta'en thy life by some indirect means or other; for, I
    assure thee, and almost with tears I speak it, there is not one
    so young and so villainous this day living. I speak but brotherly
    of him; but should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must blush
    and weep, and thou must look pale and wonder.
  CHARLES. I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come
    to-morrow I'll give him his payment. If ever he go alone again,
    I'll never wrestle for prize more. And so, God keep your worship!
 Exit
  OLIVER. Farewell, good Charles. Now will I stir this gamester. I
    hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why,
    hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle; never school'd and
    yet learned; full of noble device; of all sorts enchantingly
    beloved; and, indeed, so much in the heart of the world, and
    especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am
    altogether misprised. But it shall not be so long; this wrestler
    shall clear all. Nothing remains but that I kindle the boy
    thither, which now I'll go about.                       Exit

SCENE II. A lawn before the DUKE'S palace

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA

  CELIA. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.
  ROSALIND. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and
    would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget
    a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any
    extraordinary pleasure.
  CELIA. Herein I see thou lov'st me not with the full weight that I
    love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy
    uncle, the Duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I
    could have taught my love to take thy father for mine; so wouldst
    thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously temper'd
    as mine is to thee.
  ROSALIND. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to
    rejoice in yours.
  CELIA. You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to
    have; and, truly, when he dies thou shalt be his heir; for what
    he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee
    again in affection. By mine honour, I will; and when I break that
    oath, let me turn monster; therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear
    Rose, be merry.
  ROSALIND. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports.
    Let me see; what think you of falling in love?
  CELIA. Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal; but love no man
    in good earnest, nor no further in sport neither than with safety
    of a pure blush thou mayst in honour come off again.
  ROSALIND. What shall be our sport, then?
  CELIA. Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her
    wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.
  ROSALIND. I would we could do so; for her benefits are mightily
    misplaced; and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her
    gifts to women.
  CELIA. 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce makes
    honest; and those that she makes honest she makes very
    ill-favouredly.
  ROSALIND. Nay; now thou goest from Fortune's office to Nature's:
    Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of
    Nature.

                         Enter TOUCHSTONE

  CELIA. No; when Nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by
    Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature hath given us wit to
    flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune sent in this fool to cut off
    the argument?
  ROSALIND. Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when
    Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of Nature's wit.
  CELIA. Peradventure this is not Fortune's work neither, but
    Nature's, who perceiveth our natural wits too dull to reason of
    such goddesses, and hath sent this natural for our whetstone; for
    always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How
    now, wit! Whither wander you?
  TOUCHSTONE. Mistress, you must come away to your father.
  CELIA. Were you made the messenger?
  TOUCHSTONE. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you.
  ROSALIND. Where learned you that oath, fool?
  TOUCHSTONE. Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they were
    good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught.
    Now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard
    was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.
  CELIA. How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge?
  ROSALIND. Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.
  TOUCHSTONE. Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear
    by your beards that I am a knave.
  CELIA. By our beards, if we had them, thou art.
  TOUCHSTONE. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were. But if you
    swear by that that not, you are not forsworn; no more was this
    knight, swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he
    had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancackes or
    that mustard.
  CELIA. Prithee, who is't that thou mean'st?
  TOUCHSTONE. One that old Frederick, your father, loves.
  CELIA. My father's love is enough to honour him. Enough, speak no
    more of him; you'll be whipt for taxation one of these days.
  TOUCHSTONE. The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise
    men do foolishly.
  CELIA. By my troth, thou sayest true; for since the little wit that
    fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have
    makes a great show. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau.

                           Enter LE BEAU

  ROSALIND. With his mouth full of news.
  CELIA. Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young.
  ROSALIND. Then shall we be news-cramm'd.
  CELIA. All the better; we shall be the more marketable. Bon jour,
    Monsieur Le Beau. What's the news?
  LE BEAU. Fair Princess, you have lost much good sport.
  CELIA. Sport! of what colour?
  LE BEAU. What colour, madam? How shall I answer you?
  ROSALIND. As wit and fortune will.
  TOUCHSTONE. Or as the Destinies decrees.
  CELIA. Well said; that was laid on with a trowel.
  TOUCHSTONE. Nay, if I keep not my rank-
  ROSALIND. Thou losest thy old smell.
  LE BEAU. You amaze me, ladies. I would have told you of good
    wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.
  ROSALIND. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.
  LE BEAU. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your
    ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is yet to do; and
    here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.
  CELIA. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.
  LE BEAU. There comes an old man and his three sons-
  CELIA. I could match this beginning with an old tale.
  LE BEAU. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence.
  ROSALIND. With bills on their necks: 'Be it known unto all men by
    these presents'-
  LE BEAU. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the Duke's
    wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of
    his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him. So he serv'd
    the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man,
    their father, making such pitiful dole over them that all the
    beholders take his part with weeping.
  ROSALIND. Alas!
  TOUCHSTONE. But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have
    lost?
  LE BEAU. Why, this that I speak of.
  TOUCHSTONE. Thus men may grow wiser every day. It is the first time
    that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.
  CELIA. Or I, I promise thee.
  ROSALIND. But is there any else longs to see this broken music in
    his sides? Is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking? Shall we
    see this wrestling, cousin?
  LE BEAU. You must, if you stay here; for here is the place
    appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it.
  CELIA. Yonder, sure, they are coming. Let us now stay and see it.

           Flourish. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, LORDS, ORLANDO,
                     CHARLES, and ATTENDANTS

  FREDERICK. Come on; since the youth will not be entreated, his own
    peril on his forwardness.
  ROSALIND. Is yonder the man?
  LE BEAU. Even he, madam.
  CELIA. Alas, he is too young; yet he looks successfully.
  FREDERICK. How now, daughter and cousin! Are you crept hither to
    see the wrestling?
  ROSALIND. Ay, my liege; so please you give us leave.
  FREDERICK. You will take little delight in it, I can tell you,
    there is such odds in the man. In pity of the challenger's youth
    I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to
    him, ladies; see if you can move him.
  CELIA. Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau.
  FREDERICK. Do so; I'll not be by.
                                     [DUKE FREDERICK goes apart]
  LE BEAU. Monsieur the Challenger, the Princess calls for you.
  ORLANDO. I attend them with all respect and duty.
  ROSALIND. Young man, have you challeng'd Charles the wrestler?
  ORLANDO. No, fair Princess; he is the general challenger. I come
    but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth.
  CELIA. Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years.
    You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength; if you saw
    yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judgment, the
    fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal
    enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to embrace your own
    safety and give over this attempt.
  ROSALIND. Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore be
    misprised: we will make it our suit to the Duke that the
    wrestling might not go forward.
  ORLANDO. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts,
    wherein I confess me much guilty to deny so fair and excellent
    ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go
    with me to my trial; wherein if I be foil'd there is but one
    sham'd that was never gracious; if kill'd, but one dead that is
    willing to be so. I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none
    to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only
    in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when
    I have made it empty.
  ROSALIND. The little strength that I have, I would it were with
    you.
  CELIA. And mine to eke out hers.
  ROSALIND. Fare you well. Pray heaven I be deceiv'd in you!
  CELIA. Your heart's desires be with you!
  CHARLES. Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to
    lie with his mother earth?
  ORLANDO. Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.
  FREDERICK. You shall try but one fall.
  CHARLES. No, I warrant your Grace, you shall not entreat him to a
    second, that have so mightily persuaded him from a first.
  ORLANDO. You mean to mock me after; you should not have mock'd me
    before; but come your ways.
  ROSALIND. Now, Hercules be thy speed, young man!
  CELIA. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the
    leg.                                          [They wrestle]
  ROSALIND. O excellent young man!
  CELIA. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should
    down.
                                      [CHARLES is thrown. Shout]
  FREDERICK. No more, no more.
  ORLANDO. Yes, I beseech your Grace; I am not yet well breath'd.
  FREDERICK. How dost thou, Charles?
  LE BEAU. He cannot speak, my lord.
  FREDERICK. Bear him away. What is thy name, young man?
  ORLANDO. Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of Sir Rowland de
    Boys.
  FREDERICK. I would thou hadst been son to some man else.
    The world esteem'd thy father honourable,
    But I did find him still mine enemy.
    Thou shouldst have better pleas'd me with this deed,
    Hadst thou descended from another house.
    But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth;
    I would thou hadst told me of another father.
                                 Exeunt DUKE, train, and LE BEAU
  CELIA. Were I my father, coz, would I do this?
  ORLANDO. I am more proud to be Sir Rowland's son,
    His youngest son- and would not change that calling
    To be adopted heir to Frederick.
  ROSALIND. My father lov'd Sir Rowland as his soul,
    And all the world was of my father's mind;
    Had I before known this young man his son,
    I should have given him tears unto entreaties
    Ere he should thus have ventur'd.
  CELIA. Gentle cousin,
    Let us go thank him, and encourage him;
    My father's rough and envious disposition
    Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserv'd;
    If you do keep your promises in love
    But justly as you have exceeded all promise,
    Your mistress shall be happy.
  ROSALIND. Gentleman,        [Giving him a chain from her neck]
    Wear this for me; one out of suits with fortune,
    That could give more, but that her hand lacks means.
    Shall we go, coz?
  CELIA. Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman.
  ORLANDO. Can I not say 'I thank you'? My better parts
    Are all thrown down; and that which here stands up
    Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.
  ROSALIND. He calls us back. My pride fell with my fortunes;
    I'll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir?
    Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown
    More than your enemies.
  CELIA. Will you go, coz?
  ROSALIND. Have with you. Fare you well.
                                       Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA
  ORLANDO. What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?
    I cannot speak to her, yet she urg'd conference.
    O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown!
    Or Charles or something weaker masters thee.

                      Re-enter LE BEAU

  LE BEAU. Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you
    To leave this place. Albeit you have deserv'd
    High commendation, true applause, and love,
    Yet such is now the Duke's condition
    That he misconstrues all that you have done.
    The Duke is humorous; what he is, indeed,
    More suits you to conceive than I to speak of.
  ORLANDO. I thank you, sir; and pray you tell me this:
    Which of the two was daughter of the Duke
    That here was at the wrestling?
  LE BEAU. Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners;
    But yet, indeed, the smaller is his daughter;
    The other is daughter to the banish'd Duke,
    And here detain'd by her usurping uncle,
    To keep his daughter company; whose loves
    Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters.
    But I can tell you that of late this Duke
    Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece,
    Grounded upon no other argument
    But that the people praise her for her virtues
    And pity her for her good father's sake;
    And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady
    Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well.
    Hereafter, in a better world than this,
    I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.
  ORLANDO. I rest much bounden to you; fare you well.
                                                    Exit LE BEAU
    Thus must I from the smoke into the smother;
    From tyrant Duke unto a tyrant brother.
    But heavenly Rosalind!                                  Exit

SCENE III. The DUKE's palace

Enter CELIA and ROSALIND

  CELIA. Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy!
    Not a word?
  ROSALIND. Not one to throw at a dog.
  CELIA. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs;
    throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.
  ROSALIND. Then there were two cousins laid up, when the one should
    be lam'd with reasons and the other mad without any.
  CELIA. But is all this for your father?
  ROSALIND. No, some of it is for my child's father. O, how full of
    briers is this working-day world!
  CELIA. They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday
    foolery; if we walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats
    will catch them.
  ROSALIND. I could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my
    heart.
  CELIA. Hem them away.
  ROSALIND. I would try, if I could cry 'hem' and have him.
  CELIA. Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.
  ROSALIND. O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself.
  CELIA. O, a good wish upon you! You will try in time, in despite of
    a fall. But, turning these jests out of service, let us talk in
    good earnest. Is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall
    into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son?
  ROSALIND. The Duke my father lov'd his father dearly.
  CELIA. Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly?
    By this kind of chase I should hate him, for my father hated his
    father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando.
  ROSALIND. No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.
  CELIA. Why should I not? Doth he not deserve well?

                    Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with LORDS

  ROSALIND. Let me love him for that; and do you love him because I
    do. Look, here comes the Duke.
  CELIA. With his eyes full of anger.
  FREDERICK. Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste,
    And get you from our court.
  ROSALIND. Me, uncle?
  FREDERICK. You, cousin.
    Within these ten days if that thou beest found
    So near our public court as twenty miles,
    Thou diest for it.
  ROSALIND. I do beseech your Grace,
    Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me.
    If with myself I hold intelligence,
    Or have acquaintance with mine own desires;
    If that I do not dream, or be not frantic-
    As I do trust I am not- then, dear uncle,
    Never so much as in a thought unborn
    Did I offend your Highness.
  FREDERICK. Thus do all traitors;
    If their purgation did consist in words,
    They are as innocent as grace itself.
    Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.
  ROSALIND. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor.
    Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.
  FREDERICK. Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough.
  ROSALIND. SO was I when your Highness took his dukedom;
    So was I when your Highness banish'd him.
    Treason is not inherited, my lord;
    Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
    What's that to me? My father was no traitor.
    Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
    To think my poverty is treacherous.
  CELIA. Dear sovereign, hear me speak.
  FREDERICK. Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake,
    Else had she with her father rang'd along.
  CELIA. I did not then entreat to have her stay;
    It was your pleasure, and your own remorse;
    I was too young that time to value her,
    But now I know her. If she be a traitor,
    Why so am I: we still have slept together,
    Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together;
    And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
    Still we went coupled and inseparable.
  FREDERICK. She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
    Her very silence and her patience,
    Speak to the people, and they pity her.
    Thou art a fool. She robs thee of thy name;
    And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
    When she is gone. Then open not thy lips.
    Firm and irrevocable is my doom
    Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd.
  CELIA. Pronounce that sentence, then, on me, my liege;
    I cannot live out of her company.
  FREDERICK. You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself.
    If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
    And in the greatness of my word, you die.
                                           Exeunt DUKE and LORDS
  CELIA. O my poor Rosalind! Whither wilt thou go?
    Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
    I charge thee be not thou more griev'd than I am.
  ROSALIND. I have more cause.
  CELIA. Thou hast not, cousin.
    Prithee be cheerful. Know'st thou not the Duke
    Hath banish'd me, his daughter?
  ROSALIND. That he hath not.
  CELIA. No, hath not? Rosalind lacks, then, the love
    Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one.
    Shall we be sund'red? Shall we part, sweet girl?
    No; let my father seek another heir.
    Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
    Whither to go, and what to bear with us;
    And do not seek to take your charge upon you,
    To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out;
    For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
    Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.
  ROSALIND. Why, whither shall we go?
  CELIA. To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.
  ROSALIND. Alas, what danger will it be to us,
    Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
    Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
  CELIA. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,
    And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
    The like do you; so shall we pass along,
    And never stir assailants.
  ROSALIND. Were it not better,
    Because that I am more than common tall,
    That I did suit me all points like a man?
    A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
    A boar spear in my hand; and- in my heart
    Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will-
    We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
    As many other mannish cowards have
    That do outface it with their semblances.
  CELIA. What shall I call thee when thou art a man?
  ROSALIND. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page,
    And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
    But what will you be call'd?
  CELIA. Something that hath a reference to my state:
    No longer Celia, but Aliena.
  ROSALIND. But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal
    The clownish fool out of your father's court?
    Would he not be a comfort to our travel?
  CELIA. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;
    Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away,
    And get our jewels and our wealth together;
    Devise the fittest time and safest way
    To hide us from pursuit that will be made
    After my flight. Now go we in content
    To liberty, and not to banishment.                    Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. The Forest of Arden

Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three LORDS, like foresters

  DUKE SENIOR. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
    Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
    Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
    More free from peril than the envious court?
    Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
    The seasons' difference; as the icy fang
    And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
    Which when it bites and blows upon my body,
    Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
    'This is no flattery; these are counsellors
    That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
    Sweet are the uses of adversity,
    Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
    Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
    And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
    Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
    Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
    I would not change it.
  AMIENS. Happy is your Grace,
    That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
    Into so quiet and so sweet a style.
  DUKE SENIOR. Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
    And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
    Being native burghers of this desert city,
    Should, in their own confines, with forked heads
    Have their round haunches gor'd.
  FIRST LORD. Indeed, my lord,
    The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;
    And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
    Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.
    To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself
    Did steal behind him as he lay along
    Under an oak whose antique root peeps out
    Upon the brook that brawls along this wood!
    To the which place a poor sequest'red stag,
    That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
    Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,
    The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans
    That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
    Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
    Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
    In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool,
    Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
    Stood on th' extremest verge of the swift brook,
    Augmenting it with tears.
  DUKE SENIOR. But what said Jaques?
    Did he not moralize this spectacle?
  FIRST LORD. O, yes, into a thousand similes.
    First, for his weeping into the needless stream:
    'Poor deer,' quoth he 'thou mak'st a testament
    As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
    To that which had too much.' Then, being there alone,
    Left and abandoned of his velvet friends:
    ''Tis right'; quoth he 'thus misery doth part
    The flux of company.' Anon, a careless herd,
    Full of the pasture, jumps along by him
    And never stays to greet him. 'Ay,' quoth Jaques
    'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
    'Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look
    Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?'
    Thus most invectively he pierceth through
    The body of the country, city, court,
    Yea, and of this our life; swearing that we
    Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,
    To fright the animals, and to kill them up
    In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.
  DUKE SENIOR. And did you leave him in this contemplation?
  SECOND LORD. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting
    Upon the sobbing deer.
  DUKE SENIOR. Show me the place;
    I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
    For then he's full of matter.
  FIRST LORD. I'll bring you to him straight.             Exeunt

SCENE II. The DUKE'S palace

Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with LORDS

  FREDERICK. Can it be possible that no man saw them?
    It cannot be; some villains of my court
    Are of consent and sufferance in this.
  FIRST LORD. I cannot hear of any that did see her.
    The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,
    Saw her abed, and in the morning early
    They found the bed untreasur'd of their mistress.
  SECOND LORD. My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft
    Your Grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.
    Hisperia, the Princess' gentlewoman,
    Confesses that she secretly o'erheard
    Your daughter and her cousin much commend
    The parts and graces of the wrestler
    That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;
    And she believes, wherever they are gone,
    That youth is surely in their company.
  FREDERICK. Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither.
    If he be absent, bring his brother to me;
    I'll make him find him. Do this suddenly;
    And let not search and inquisition quail
    To bring again these foolish runaways.                Exeunt

SCENE III. Before OLIVER'S house

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting

  ORLANDO. Who's there?
  ADAM. What, my young master? O my gentle master!
    O my sweet master! O you memory
    Of old Sir Rowland! Why, what make you here?
    Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?
    And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?
    Why would you be so fond to overcome
    The bonny prizer of the humorous Duke?
    Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
    Know you not, master, to some kind of men
    Their graces serve them but as enemies?
    No more do yours. Your virtues, gentle master,
    Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.
    O, what a world is this, when what is comely
    Envenoms him that bears it!
  ORLANDO. Why, what's the matter?
  ADAM. O unhappy youth!
    Come not within these doors; within this roof
    The enemy of all your graces lives.
    Your brother- no, no brother; yet the son-
    Yet not the son; I will not call him son
    Of him I was about to call his father-
    Hath heard your praises; and this night he means
    To burn the lodging where you use to lie,
    And you within it. If he fail of that,
    He will have other means to cut you off;
    I overheard him and his practices.
    This is no place; this house is but a butchery;
    Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.
  ORLANDO. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?
  ADAM. No matter whither, so you come not here.
  ORLANDO. What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food,
    Or with a base and boist'rous sword enforce
    A thievish living on the common road?
    This I must do, or know not what to do;
    Yet this I will not do, do how I can.
    I rather will subject me to the malice
    Of a diverted blood and bloody brother.
  ADAM. But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,
    The thrifty hire I sav'd under your father,
    Which I did store to be my foster-nurse,
    When service should in my old limbs lie lame,
    And unregarded age in corners thrown.
    Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed,
    Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
    Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;
    All this I give you. Let me be your servant;
    Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
    For in my youth I never did apply
    Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
    Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
    The means of weakness and debility;
    Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
    Frosty, but kindly. Let me go with you;
    I'll do the service of a younger man
    In all your business and necessities.
  ORLANDO. O good old man, how well in thee appears
    The constant service of the antique world,
    When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
    Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
    Where none will sweat but for promotion,
    And having that do choke their service up
    Even with the having; it is not so with thee.
    But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree
    That cannot so much as a blossom yield
    In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry.
    But come thy ways, we'll go along together,
    And ere we have thy youthful wages spent
    We'll light upon some settled low content.
  ADAM. Master, go on; and I will follow the
    To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.
    From seventeen years till now almost four-score
    Here lived I, but now live here no more.
    At seventeen years many their fortunes seek,
    But at fourscore it is too late a week;
    Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
    Than to die well and not my master's debtor.          Exeunt

SCENE IV. The Forest of Arden

Enter ROSALIND for GANYMEDE, CELIA for ALIENA, and CLOWN alias
TOUCHSTONE

  ROSALIND. O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!
  TOUCHSTONE. I Care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary.
  ROSALIND. I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel,
    and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as
    doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat;
    therefore, courage, good Aliena.
  CELIA. I pray you bear with me; I cannot go no further.
  TOUCHSTONE. For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear you;
    yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you; for I think you
    have no money in your purse.
  ROSALIND. Well,. this is the Forest of Arden.
  TOUCHSTONE. Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at
    home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.

                        Enter CORIN and SILVIUS

  ROSALIND. Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here, a
    young man and an old in solemn talk.
  CORIN. That is the way to make her scorn you still.
  SILVIUS. O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her!
  CORIN. I partly guess; for I have lov'd ere now.
  SILVIUS. No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess,
    Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover
    As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow.
    But if thy love were ever like to mine,
    As sure I think did never man love so,
    How many actions most ridiculous
    Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?
  CORIN. Into a thousand that I have forgotten.
  SILVIUS. O, thou didst then never love so heartily!
    If thou rememb'rest not the slightest folly
    That ever love did make thee run into,
    Thou hast not lov'd;
    Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,
    Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,
    Thou hast not lov'd;
    Or if thou hast not broke from company
    Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,
    Thou hast not lov'd.
    O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe!                          Exit Silvius
  ROSALIND. Alas, poor shepherd! searching of thy wound,
    I have by hard adventure found mine own.
  TOUCHSTONE. And I mine. I remember, when I was in love, I broke my
    sword upon a stone, and bid him take that for coming a-night to
    Jane Smile; and I remember the kissing of her batler, and the
    cow's dugs that her pretty chopt hands had milk'd; and I remember
    the wooing of  peascod instead of her; from whom I took two cods,
    and giving her them again, said with weeping tears 'Wear these
    for my sake.' We that are true lovers run into strange capers;
    but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal
    in folly.
  ROSALIND. Thou speak'st wiser than thou art ware of.
  TOUCHSTONE. Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I break
    my shins against it.
  ROSALIND. Jove, Jove! this shepherd's passion
    Is much upon my fashion.
  TOUCHSTONE. And mine; but it grows something stale with me.
  CELIA. I pray you, one of you question yond man
    If he for gold will give us any food;
    I faint almost to death.
  TOUCHSTONE. Holla, you clown!
  ROSALIND. Peace, fool; he's not thy Ensman.
  CORIN. Who calls?
  TOUCHSTONE. Your betters, sir.
  CORIN. Else are they very wretched.
  ROSALIND. Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend.
  CORIN. And to you, gentle sir, and to you all.
  ROSALIND. I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold
    Can in this desert place buy entertainment,
    Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed.
    Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd,
    And faints for succour.
  CORIN. Fair sir, I pity her,
    And wish, for her sake more than for mine own,
    My fortunes were more able to relieve her;
    But I am shepherd to another man,
    And do not shear the fleeces that I graze.
    My master is of churlish disposition,
    And little recks to find the way to heaven
    By doing deeds of hospitality.
    Besides, his cote, his flocks, and bounds of feed,
    Are now on sale; and at our sheepcote now,
    By reason of his absence, there is nothing
    That you will feed on; but what is, come see,
    And in my voice most welcome shall you be.
  ROSALIND. What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture?
  CORIN. That young swain that you saw here but erewhile,
    That little cares for buying any thing.
  ROSALIND. I pray thee, if it stand with honesty,
    Buy thou the cottage, pasture, and the flock,
    And thou shalt have to pay for it of us.
  CELIA. And we will mend thy wages. I like this place,
    And willingly could waste my time in it.
  CORIN. Assuredly the thing is to be sold.
    Go with me; if you like upon report
    The soil, the profit, and this kind of life,
    I will your very faithful feeder be,
    And buy it with your gold right suddenly.             Exeunt

SCENE V. Another part of the forest

Enter AMIENS, JAQUES, and OTHERS

                       SONG
  AMIENS.    Under the greenwood tree
               Who loves to lie with me,
               And turn his merry note
               Unto the sweet bird's throat,
             Come hither, come hither, come hither.
               Here shall he see
               No enemy
             But winter and rough weather.

  JAQUES. More, more, I prithee, more.
  AMIENS. It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.
  JAQUES. I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy
    out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more.
  AMIENS. My voice is ragged; I know I cannot please you.
  JAQUES. I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing.
    Come, more; another stanzo. Call you 'em stanzos?
  AMIENS. What you will, Monsieur Jaques.
  JAQUES. Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will
    you sing?
  AMIENS. More at your request than to please myself.
  JAQUES. Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you; but
    that they call compliment is like th' encounter of two dog-apes;
    and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks have given him a
    penny, and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you
    that will not, hold your tongues.
  AMIENS. Well, I'll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the Duke
    will drink under this tree. He hath been all this day to look
    you.
  JAQUES. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is to
    disputable for my company. I think of as many matters as he; but
    I give heaven thanks, and make no boast of them. Come, warble,
    come.

                       SONG
              [All together here]

           Who doth ambition shun,
           And loves to live i' th' sun,
           Seeking the food he eats,
           And pleas'd with what he gets,
         Come hither, come hither, come hither.
           Here shall he see
           No enemy
           But winter and rough weather.

  JAQUES. I'll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in
    despite of my invention.
  AMIENS. And I'll sing it.
  JAQUES. Thus it goes:

             If it do come to pass
             That any man turn ass,
             Leaving his wealth and ease
             A stubborn will to please,
           Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame;
             Here shall he see
             Gross fools as he,
             An if he will come to me.

  AMIENS. What's that 'ducdame'?
  JAQUES. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. I'll
    go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the
    first-born of Egypt.
  AMIENS. And I'll go seek the Duke; his banquet is prepar'd.
                                                Exeunt severally

SCENE VI. The forest

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM

  ADAM. Dear master, I can go no further. O, I die for food! Here lie
    I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master.
  ORLANDO. Why, how now, Adam! No greater heart in thee? Live a
    little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little. If this uncouth
    forest yield anything savage, I will either be food for it or
    bring it for food to thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy
    powers. For my sake be comfortable; hold death awhile at the
    arm's end. I will here be with the presently; and if I bring thee
    not something to eat, I will give thee leave to die; but if thou
    diest before I come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said!
    thou look'st cheerly; and I'll be with thee quickly. Yet thou
    liest in the bleak air. Come, I will bear thee to some shelter;
    and thou shalt not die for lack of a dinner, if there live
    anything in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam!          Exeunt

SCENE VII. The forest

A table set out. Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and LORDS, like outlaws

  DUKE SENIOR. I think he be transform'd into a beast;
    For I can nowhere find him like a man.
  FIRST LORD. My lord, he is but even now gone hence;
    Here was he merry, hearing of a song.
  DUKE SENIOR. If he, compact of jars, grow musical,
    We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.
    Go seek him; tell him I would speak with him.

                         Enter JAQUES

  FIRST LORD. He saves my labour by his own approach.
  DUKE SENIOR. Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this,
    That your poor friends must woo your company?
    What, you look merrily!
  JAQUES. A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' th' forest,
    A motley fool. A miserable world!
    As I do live by food, I met a fool,
    Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
    And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
    In good set terms- and yet a motley fool.
    'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I; 'No, sir,' quoth he,
    'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.'
    And then he drew a dial from his poke,
    And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
    Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock;
    Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags;
    'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine;
    And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
    And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
    And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
    And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
    The motley fool thus moral on the time,
    My lungs began to crow like chanticleer
    That fools should be so deep contemplative;
    And I did laugh sans intermission
    An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
    A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.
  DUKE SENIOR. What fool is this?
  JAQUES. O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier,
    And says, if ladies be but young and fair,
    They have the gift to know it; and in his brain,
    Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
    After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd
    With observation, the which he vents
    In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!
    I am ambitious for a motley coat.
  DUKE SENIOR. Thou shalt have one.
  JAQUES. It is my only suit,
    Provided that you weed your better judgments
    Of all opinion that grows rank in them
    That I am wise. I must have liberty
    Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
    To blow on whom I please, for so fools have;
    And they that are most galled with my folly,
    They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?
    The why is plain as way to parish church:
    He that a fool doth very wisely hit
    Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
    Not to seem senseless of the bob; if not,
    The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd
    Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool.
    Invest me in my motley; give me leave
    To speak my mind, and I will through and through
    Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world,
    If they will patiently receive my medicine.
  DUKE SENIOR. Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.
  JAQUES. What, for a counter, would I do but good?
  DUKE SENIOR. Most Mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin;
    For thou thyself hast been a libertine,
    As sensual as the brutish sting itself;
    And all th' embossed sores and headed evils
    That thou with license of free foot hast caught
    Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.
  JAQUES. Why, who cries out on pride
    That can therein tax any private party?
    Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
    Till that the wearer's very means do ebb?
    What woman in the city do I name
    When that I say the city-woman bears
    The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
    Who can come in and say that I mean her,
    When such a one as she such is her neighbour?
    Or what is he of basest function
    That says his bravery is not on my cost,
    Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits
    His folly to the mettle of my speech?
    There then! how then? what then? Let me see wherein
    My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,
    Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,
    Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies,
    Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here?

             Enter ORLANDO with his sword drawn

  ORLANDO. Forbear, and eat no more.
  JAQUES. Why, I have eat none yet.
  ORLANDO. Nor shalt not, till necessity be serv'd.
  JAQUES. Of what kind should this cock come of?
  DUKE SENIOR. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress?
    Or else a rude despiser of good manners,
    That in civility thou seem'st so empty?
  ORLANDO. You touch'd my vein at first: the thorny point
    Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show
    Of smooth civility; yet arn I inland bred,
    And know some nurture. But forbear, I say;
    He dies that touches any of this fruit
    Till I and my affairs are answered.
  JAQUES. An you will not be answer'd with reason, I must die.
  DUKE SENIOR. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force
    More than your force move us to gentleness.
  ORLANDO. I almost die for food, and let me have it.
  DUKE SENIOR. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.
  ORLANDO. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you;
    I thought that all things had been savage here,
    And therefore put I on the countenance
    Of stern commandment. But whate'er you are
    That in this desert inaccessible,
    Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
    Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;
    If ever you have look'd on better days,
    If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church,
    If ever sat at any good man's feast,
    If ever from your eyelids wip'd a tear,
    And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied,
    Let gentleness my strong enforcement be;
    In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.
  DUKE SENIOR. True is it that we have seen better days,
    And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church,
    And sat at good men's feasts, and wip'd our eyes
    Of drops that sacred pity hath engend'red;
    And therefore sit you down in gentleness,
    And take upon command what help we have
    That to your wanting may be minist'red.
  ORLANDO. Then but forbear your food a little while,
    Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,
    And give it food. There is an old poor man
    Who after me hath many a weary step
    Limp'd in pure love; till he be first suffic'd,
    Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger,
    I will not touch a bit.
  DUKE SENIOR. Go find him out.
    And we will nothing waste till you return.
  ORLANDO. I thank ye; and be blest for your good comfort!
 Exit
  DUKE SENIOR. Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
    This wide and universal theatre
    Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
    Wherein we play in.
  JAQUES. All the world's a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players;
    They have their exits and their entrances;
    And one man in his time plays many parts,
    His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
    Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
    Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
    And shining morning face, creeping like snail
    Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
    Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
    Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
    Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
    Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
    Seeking the bubble reputation
    Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
    In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
    With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
    Full of wise saws and modern instances;
    And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
    Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
    With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
    His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
    For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
    Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
    And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
    That ends this strange eventful history,
    Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

                  Re-enter ORLANDO with ADAM

  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome. Set down your venerable burden.
    And let him feed.
  ORLANDO. I thank you most for him.
  ADAM. So had you need;
    I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.
  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome; fall to. I will not trouble you
    As yet to question you about your fortunes.
    Give us some music; and, good cousin, sing.

                         SONG
            Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
            Thou art not so unkind
              As man's ingratitude;
            Thy tooth is not so keen,
            Because thou art not seen,
              Although thy breath be rude.
    Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly.
    Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
            Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
              This life is most jolly.

            Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
            That dost not bite so nigh
              As benefits forgot;
            Though thou the waters warp,
            Thy sting is not so sharp
              As friend rememb'red not.
    Heigh-ho! sing, &c.

  DUKE SENIOR. If that you were the good Sir Rowland's son,
    As you have whisper'd faithfully you were,
    And as mine eye doth his effigies witness
    Most truly limn'd and living in your face,
    Be truly welcome hither. I am the Duke
    That lov'd your father. The residue of your fortune,
    Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man,
    Thou art right welcome as thy master is.
    Support him by the arm. Give me your hand,
    And let me all your fortunes understand.              Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. The palace

Enter DUKE FREDERICK, OLIVER, and LORDS

  FREDERICK. Not see him since! Sir, sir, that cannot be.
    But were I not the better part made mercy,
    I should not seek an absent argument
    Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:
    Find out thy brother wheresoe'er he is;
    Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living
    Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more
    To seek a living in our territory.
    Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine
    Worth seizure do we seize into our hands,
    Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth
    Of what we think against thee.
  OLIVER. O that your Highness knew my heart in this!
    I never lov'd my brother in my life.
  FREDERICK. More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors;
    And let my officers of such a nature
    Make an extent upon his house and lands.
    Do this expediently, and turn him going.              Exeunt

SCENE II. The forest

Enter ORLANDO, with a paper

  ORLANDO. Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love;
    And thou, thrice-crowned Queen of Night, survey
    With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
    Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway.
    O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books,
    And in their barks my thoughts I'll character,
    That every eye which in this forest looks
    Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where.
    Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree,
    The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.             Exit

                     Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE

  CORIN. And how like you this shepherd's life, Master Touchstone?
  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good
    life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is nought.
    In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in
    respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in
    respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect
    it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life,
    look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty
    in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in
    thee, shepherd?
  CORIN. No more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at
    ease he is; and that he that wants money, means, and content, is
    without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet,
    and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a
    great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath
    learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding,
    or comes of a very dull kindred.
  TOUCHSTONE. Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in
    court, shepherd?
  CORIN. No, truly.
  TOUCHSTONE. Then thou art damn'd.
  CORIN. Nay, I hope.
  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, thou art damn'd, like an ill-roasted egg, all on
    one side.
  CORIN. For not being at court? Your reason.
  TOUCHSTONE. Why, if thou never wast at court thou never saw'st good
    manners; if thou never saw'st good manners, then thy manners must
    be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art
    in a parlous state, shepherd.
  CORIN. Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the
    court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the
    country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not
    at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be
    uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds.
  TOUCHSTONE. Instance, briefly; come, instance.
  CORIN. Why, we are still handling our ewes; and their fells, you
    know, are greasy.
  TOUCHSTONE. Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? And is not the
    grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow,
    shallow. A better instance, I say; come.
  CORIN. Besides, our hands are hard.
  TOUCHSTONE. Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. A
    more sounder instance; come.
  CORIN. And they are often tarr'd over with the surgery of our
    sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier's hands are
    perfum'd with civet.
  TOUCHSTONE. Most shallow man! thou worm's meat in respect of a good
    piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise, and perpend: civet is
    of a baser birth than tar- the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend
    the instance, shepherd.
  CORIN. You have too courtly a wit for me; I'll rest.
  TOUCHSTONE. Wilt thou rest damn'd? God help thee, shallow man! God
    make incision in thee! thou art raw.
  CORIN. Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I
    wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other
    men's good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is
    to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.
  TOUCHSTONE. That is another simple sin in you: to bring the ewes
    and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the
    copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether, and to betray
    a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram,
    out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not damn'd for this,
    the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how
    thou shouldst scape.
  CORIN. Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother.

                  Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper

  ROSALIND.   'From the east to western Inde,
              No jewel is like Rosalinde.
              Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
              Through all the world bears Rosalinde.
              All the pictures fairest lin'd
              Are but black to Rosalinde.
              Let no face be kept in mind
              But the fair of Rosalinde.'
  TOUCHSTONE. I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners, and
    suppers, and sleeping hours, excepted. It is the right
    butter-women's rank to market.
  ROSALIND. Out, fool!
  TOUCHSTONE.   For a taste:
                If a hart do lack a hind,
                Let him seek out Rosalinde.
                If the cat will after kind,
                So be sure will Rosalinde.
                Winter garments must be lin'd,
                So must slender Rosalinde.
                They that reap must sheaf and bind,
                Then to cart with Rosalinde.
                Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
                Such a nut is Rosalinde.
                He that sweetest rose will find
                Must find love's prick and Rosalinde.
    This is the very false gallop of verses; why do you infect
    yourself with them?
  ROSALIND. Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.
  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.
  ROSALIND. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a
    medlar. Then it will be the earliest fruit i' th' country; for
    you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right
    virtue of the medlar.
  TOUCHSTONE. You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest
    judge.

                      Enter CELIA, with a writing

  ROSALIND. Peace!
    Here comes my sister, reading; stand aside.
  CELIA.   'Why should this a desert be?
             For it is unpeopled? No;
           Tongues I'll hang on every tree
             That shall civil sayings show.
           Some, how brief the life of man
             Runs his erring pilgrimage,
           That the streching of a span
             Buckles in his sum of age;
           Some, of violated vows
             'Twixt the souls of friend and friend;
           But upon the fairest boughs,
             Or at every sentence end,
           Will I Rosalinda write,
             Teaching all that read to know
           The quintessence of every sprite
             Heaven would in little show.
           Therefore heaven Nature charg'd
             That one body should be fill'd
           With all graces wide-enlarg'd.
             Nature presently distill'd
           Helen's cheek, but not her heart,
             Cleopatra's majesty,
           Atalanta's better part,
             Sad Lucretia's modesty.
           Thus Rosalinde of many parts
             By heavenly synod was devis'd,
           Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,
             To have the touches dearest priz'd.
           Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
           And I to live and die her slave.'
  ROSALIND. O most gentle pulpiter! What tedious homily of love have
    you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried 'Have
    patience, good people.'
  CELIA. How now! Back, friends; shepherd, go off a little; go with
    him, sirrah.
  TOUCHSTONE. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat;
    though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.
                                     Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE
  CELIA. Didst thou hear these verses?
  ROSALIND. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them
    had in them more feet than the verses would bear.
  CELIA. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verses.
  ROSALIND. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves
    without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.
  CELIA. But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be
    hang'd and carved upon these trees?
  ROSALIND. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you
    came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree. I was never so
    berhym'd since Pythagoras' time that I was an Irish rat, which I
    can hardly remember.
  CELIA. Trow you who hath done this?
  ROSALIND. Is it a man?
  CELIA. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck.
    Change you colour?
  ROSALIND. I prithee, who?
  CELIA. O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but
    mountains may be remov'd with earthquakes, and so encounter.
  ROSALIND. Nay, but who is it?
  CELIA. Is it possible?
  ROSALIND. Nay, I prithee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell
    me who it is.
  CELIA. O wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful wonderful, and yet
    again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!
  ROSALIND. Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am
    caparison'd like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my
    disposition? One inch of delay more is a South Sea of discovery.
    I prithee tell me who is it quickly, and speak apace. I would
    thou could'st stammer, that thou mightst pour this conceal'd man
    out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of narrow-mouth'd bottle-
    either too much at once or none at all. I prithee take the cork
    out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.
  CELIA. So you may put a man in your belly.
  ROSALIND. Is he of God's making? What manner of man?
    Is his head worth a hat or his chin worth a beard?
  CELIA. Nay, he hath but a little beard.
  ROSALIND. Why, God will send more if the man will be thankful. Let
    me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the
    knowledge of his chin.
  CELIA. It is young Orlando, that tripp'd up the wrestler's heels
    and your heart both in an instant.
  ROSALIND. Nay, but the devil take mocking! Speak sad brow and true
    maid.
  CELIA. I' faith, coz, 'tis he.
  ROSALIND. Orlando?
  CELIA. Orlando.
  ROSALIND. Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose?
    What did he when thou saw'st him? What said he? How look'd he?
    Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where
    remains he? How parted he with thee? And when shalt thou see him
    again? Answer me in one word.
  CELIA. You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first; 'tis a word too
    great for any mouth of this age's size. To say ay and no to these
    particulars is more than to answer in a catechism.
  ROSALIND. But doth he know that I am in this forest, and in man's
    apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled?
  CELIA. It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the
    propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my finding him, and
    relish it with good observance. I found him under a tree, like a
    dropp'd acorn.
  ROSALIND. It may well be call'd Jove's tree, when it drops forth
    such fruit.
  CELIA. Give me audience, good madam.
  ROSALIND. Proceed.
  CELIA. There lay he, stretch'd along like a wounded knight.
  ROSALIND. Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes
    the ground.
  CELIA. Cry 'Holla' to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets
    unseasonably. He was furnish'd like a hunter.
  ROSALIND. O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart.
  CELIA. I would sing my song without a burden; thou bring'st me out
    of tune.
  ROSALIND. Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.
    Sweet, say on.
  CELIA. You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?

                   Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES

  ROSALIND. 'Tis he; slink by, and note him. JAQUES. I thank you for
  your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.
  ORLANDO. And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for
  your society. JAQUES. God buy you; let's meet as little as we can.
  ORLANDO. I do desire we may be better strangers. JAQUES. I pray you
  mar no more trees with writing love songs in their barks. ORLANDO. I
  pray you mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.
  JAQUES. Rosalind is your love's name? ORLANDO. Yes, just. JAQUES. I
  do not like her name. ORLANDO. There was no thought of pleasing you
  when she was christen'd. JAQUES. What stature is she of? ORLANDO.
  Just as high as my heart. JAQUES. You are full of pretty answers.
  Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conn'd them
  out of rings? ORLANDO. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth,
  from whence you have studied your questions. JAQUES. You have a
  nimble wit; I think 'twas made of Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down
  with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all
  our misery. ORLANDO. I will chide no breather in the world but
  myself, against whom I know most faults. JAQUES. The worst fault you
  have is to be in love. ORLANDO. 'Tis a fault I will not change for
  your best virtue. I am weary of you. JAQUES. By my troth, I was
  seeking for a fool when I found you. ORLANDO. He is drown'd in the
  brook; look but in, and you shall see him. JAQUES. There I shall see
  mine own figure. ORLANDO. Which I take to be either a fool or a
  cipher. JAQUES. I'll tarry no longer with you; farewell, good Signior
  Love. ORLANDO. I am glad of your departure; adieu, good Monsieur
  Melancholy. Exit JAQUES ROSALIND. [Aside to CELIA] I will speak to
  him like a saucy lackey, and under that habit play the knave with
  him.- Do you hear, forester? ORLANDO. Very well; what would you?
  ROSALIND. I pray you, what is't o'clock? ORLANDO. You should ask me
  what time o' day; there's no clock in the forest. ROSALIND. Then
  there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing every minute and
  groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a
  clock. ORLANDO. And why not the swift foot of Time? Had not that been
  as proper? ROSALIND. By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces
  with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time
  trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still
  withal. ORLANDO. I prithee, who doth he trot withal? ROSALIND. Marry,
  he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage
  and the day it is solemniz'd; if the interim be but a se'nnight,
  Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year.
  ORLANDO. Who ambles Time withal? ROSALIND. With a priest that lacks
  Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout; for the one sleeps
  easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because
  he feels no pain; the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful
  learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury. These
  Time ambles withal. ORLANDO. Who doth he gallop withal? ROSALIND.
  With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly as foot can
  fall, he thinks himself too soon there. ORLANDO. Who stays it still
  withal? ROSALIND. With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep
  between term and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves.
  ORLANDO. Where dwell you, pretty youth? ROSALIND. With this
  shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe
  upon a petticoat. ORLANDO. Are you native of this place? ROSALIND. As
  the coney that you see dwell where she is kindled. ORLANDO. Your
  accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a
  dwelling. ROSALIND. I have been told so of many; but indeed an old
  religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an
  inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in
  love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God
  I am not a woman, to be touch'd with so many giddy offences as he
  hath generally tax'd their whole sex withal. ORLANDO. Can you
  remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of
  women? ROSALIND. There were none principal; they were all like one
  another as halfpence are; every one fault seeming monstrous till his
  fellow-fault came to match it. ORLANDO. I prithee recount some of
  them. ROSALIND. No; I will not cast away my physic but on those that
  are sick. There is a man haunts the forest that abuses our young
  plants with carving 'Rosalind' on their barks; hangs odes upon
  hawthorns and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name
  of Rosalind. If I could meet that fancy-monger, I would give him some
  good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.
  ORLANDO. I am he that is so love-shak'd; I pray you tell me your
  remedy. ROSALIND. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you; he
  taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am
  sure you are not prisoner. ORLANDO. What were his marks? ROSALIND. A
  lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye and sunken, which you have
  not; an unquestionable spirit, which you have not; a beard neglected,
  which you have not; but I pardon you for that, for simply your having
  in beard is a younger brother's revenue. Then your hose should be
  ungarter'd, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbutton'd, your shoe
  untied, and every thing about you demonstrating a careless
  desolation. But you are no such man; you are rather point-device in
  your accoutrements, as loving yourself than seeming the lover of any
  other. ORLANDO. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.
  ROSALIND. Me believe it! You may as soon make her that you love
  believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do than to confess she
  does. That is one of the points in the which women still give the lie
  to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the
  verses on the trees wherein Rosalind is so admired? ORLANDO. I swear
  to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that
  unfortunate he. ROSALIND. But are you so much in love as your rhymes
  speak? ORLANDO. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.
  ROSALIND. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well
  a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not
  so punish'd and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the
  whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.
  ORLANDO. Did you ever cure any so? ROSALIND. Yes, one; and in this
  manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him
  every day to woo me; at which time would I, being but a moonish
  youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud,
  fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of
  smiles; for every passion something and for no passion truly
  anything, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this
  colour; would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then
  forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my
  suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness;
  which was, to forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a
  nook merely monastic. And thus I cur'd him; and this way will I take
  upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that
  there shall not be one spot of love in 't. ORLANDO. I would not be
  cured, youth. ROSALIND. I would cure you, if you would but call me
  Rosalind, and come every day to my cote and woo me. ORLANDO. Now, by
  the faith of my love, I will. Tell me where it is. ROSALIND. Go with
  me to it, and I'll show it you; and, by the way, you shall tell me
  where in the forest you live. Will you go? ORLANDO. With all my
  heart, good youth. ROSALIND. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come,
  sister, will you go?                                                 
   Exeunt

SCENE III. The forest

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind

  TOUCHSTONE. Come apace, good Audrey; I will fetch up your goats,
    Audrey. And how, Audrey, am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature
    content you?
  AUDREY. Your features! Lord warrant us! What features?
  TOUCHSTONE. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most
    capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
  JAQUES. [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a
    thatch'd house!
  TOUCHSTONE. When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's
    good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it
    strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.
    Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.
  AUDREY. I do not know what 'poetical' is. Is it honest in deed and
    word? Is it a true thing?
  TOUCHSTONE. No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning,
    and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry may
    be said as lovers they do feign.
  AUDREY. Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical?
  TOUCHSTONE. I do, truly, for thou swear'st to me thou art honest;
    now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst
    feign.
  AUDREY. Would you not have me honest?
  TOUCHSTONE. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favour'd; for honesty
    coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.
  JAQUES. [Aside] A material fool!
  AUDREY. Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me
    honest.
  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were
    to put good meat into an unclean dish.
  AUDREY. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
  TOUCHSTONE. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness;
    sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will
    marry thee; and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext,
    the vicar of the next village, who hath promis'd to meet me in
    this place of the forest, and to couple us.
  JAQUES. [Aside] I would fain see this meeting.
  AUDREY. Well, the gods give us joy!
  TOUCHSTONE. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger
    in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no
    assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are
    odious, they are necessary. It is said: 'Many a man knows no end
    of his goods.' Right! Many a man has good horns and knows no end
    of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 'tis none of his
    own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest
    deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man therefore
    blessed? No; as a wall'd town is more worthier than a village, so
    is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare
    brow of a bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no
    skill, by so much is horn more precious than to want. Here comes
    Sir Oliver.

                       Enter SIR OLIVER MARTEXT

    Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you dispatch us here
    under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel?
  MARTEXT. Is there none here to give the woman?
  TOUCHSTONE. I will not take her on gift of any man.
  MARTEXT. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.
  JAQUES. [Discovering himself] Proceed, proceed; I'll give her.
  TOUCHSTONE. Good even, good Master What-ye-call't; how do you, sir?
    You are very well met. Goddild you for your last company. I am
    very glad to see you. Even a toy in hand here, sir. Nay; pray be
    cover'd.
  JAQUES. Will you be married, motley?
  TOUCHSTONE. As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and
    the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons
    bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.
  JAQUES. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married
    under a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church and have a good
    priest that can tell you what marriage is; this fellow will but
    join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will
    prove a shrunk panel, and like green timber warp, warp.
  TOUCHSTONE. [Aside] I am not in the mind but I were better to be
    married of him than of another; for he is not like to marry me
    well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me
    hereafter to leave my wife.
  JAQUES. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.
  TOUCHSTONE. Come, sweet Audrey;
    We must be married or we must live in bawdry.
    Farewell, good Master Oliver. Not-
               O sweet Oliver,
               O brave Oliver,
           Leave me not behind thee.
    But-
                 Wind away,
               Begone, I say,
           I will not to wedding with thee.
                           Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE, and AUDREY
  MARTEXT. 'Tis no matter; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all
    shall flout me out of my calling.                       Exit

SCENE IV. The forest

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA

  ROSALIND. Never talk to me; I will weep.
  CELIA. Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider that tears
    do not become a man.
  ROSALIND. But have I not cause to weep?
  CELIA. As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.
  ROSALIND. His very hair is of the dissembling colour.
  CELIA. Something browner than Judas's.
    Marry, his kisses are Judas's own children.
  ROSALIND. I' faith, his hair is of a good colour.
  CELIA. An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour.
  ROSALIND. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of
    holy bread.
  CELIA. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana. A nun of
    winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of
    chastity is in them.
  ROSALIND. But why did he swear he would come this morning, and
    comes not?
  CELIA. Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.
  ROSALIND. Do you think so?
  CELIA. Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer; but
    for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as covered
    goblet or a worm-eaten nut.
  ROSALIND. Not true in love?
  CELIA. Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in.
  ROSALIND. You have heard him swear downright he was.
  CELIA. 'Was' is not 'is'; besides, the oath of a lover is no
    stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmer
    of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the Duke,
    your father.
  ROSALIND. I met the Duke yesterday, and had much question with him.
    He asked me of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as
    he; so he laugh'd and let me go. But what talk we of fathers when
    there is such a man as Orlando?
  CELIA. O, that's a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave
    words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite
    traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puny tilter, that
    spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble
    goose. But all's brave that youth mounts and folly guides. Who
    comes here?

                         Enter CORIN

  CORIN. Mistress and master, you have oft enquired
    After the shepherd that complain'd of love,
    Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
    Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
    That was his mistress.
  CELIA. Well, and what of him?
  CORIN. If you will see a pageant truly play'd
    Between the pale complexion of true love
    And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
    Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you,
    If you will mark it.
  ROSALIND. O, come, let us remove!
    The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
    Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
    I'll prove a busy actor in their play.                Exeunt

SCENE V. Another part of the forest

Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE

  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe.
    Say that you love me not; but say not so
    In bitterness. The common executioner,
    Whose heart th' accustom'd sight of death makes hard,
    Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
    But first begs pardon. Will you sterner be
    Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?

          Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, at a distance

  PHEBE. I would not be thy executioner;
    I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
    Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye.
    'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
    That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,
    Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
    Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
    Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
    And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.
    Now counterfeit to swoon; why, now fall down;
    Or, if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
    Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.
    Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.
    Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
    Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,
    The cicatrice and capable impressure
    Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,
    Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;
    Nor, I am sure, there is not force in eyes
    That can do hurt.
  SILVIUS. O dear Phebe,
    If ever- as that ever may be near-
    You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
    Then shall you know the wounds invisible
    That love's keen arrows make.
  PHEBE. But till that time
    Come not thou near me; and when that time comes,
    Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;
    As till that time I shall not pity thee.
  ROSALIND. [Advancing] And why, I pray you? Who might be your
      mother,
    That you insult, exult, and all at once,
    Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty-
    As, by my faith, I see no more in you
    Than without candle may go dark to bed-
    Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
    Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
    I see no more in you than in the ordinary
    Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life,
    I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
    No faith, proud mistress, hope not after it;
    'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
    Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,
    That can entame my spirits to your worship.
    You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
    Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?
    You are a thousand times a properer man
    Than she a woman. 'Tis such fools as you
    That makes the world full of ill-favour'd children.
    'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;
    And out of you she sees herself more proper
    Than any of her lineaments can show her.
    But, mistress, know yourself. Down on your knees,
    And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love;
    For I must tell you friendly in your ear:
    Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.
    Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;
    Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
    So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.
  PHEBE. Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together;
    I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.
  ROSALIND. He's fall'n in love with your foulness, and she'll fall
    in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee
    with frowning looks, I'll sauce her with bitter words. Why look
    you so upon me?
  PHEBE. For no ill will I bear you.
  ROSALIND. I pray you do not fall in love with me,
    For I am falser than vows made in wine;
    Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
    'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
    Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.
    Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,
    And be not proud; though all the world could see,
    None could be so abus'd in sight as he.
    Come, to our flock.        Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN
  PHEBE. Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:
    'Who ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight?'
  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe.
  PHEBE. Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius?
  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe, pity me.
  PHEBE. Why, I arn sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.
  SILVIUS. Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.
    If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
    By giving love, your sorrow and my grief
    Were both extermin'd.
  PHEBE. Thou hast my love; is not that neighbourly?
  SILVIUS. I would have you.
  PHEBE. Why, that were covetousness.
    Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;
    And yet it is not that I bear thee love;
    But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
    Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
    I will endure; and I'll employ thee too.
    But do not look for further recompense
    Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd.
  SILVIUS. So holy and so perfect is my love,
    And I in such a poverty of grace,
    That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
    To glean the broken ears after the man
    That the main harvest reaps; loose now and then
    A scatt'red smile, and that I'll live upon.
  PHEBE. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?
  SILVIUS. Not very well; but I have met him oft;
    And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds
    That the old carlot once was master of.
  PHEBE. Think not I love him, though I ask for him;
    'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well.
    But what care I for words? Yet words do well
    When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
    It is a pretty youth- not very pretty;
    But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him.
    He'll make a proper man. The best thing in him
    Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
    Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
    He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall;
    His leg is but so-so; and yet 'tis well.
    There was a pretty redness in his lip,
    A little riper and more lusty red
    Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference
    Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
    There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him
    In parcels as I did, would have gone near
    To fall in love with him; but, for my part,
    I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet
    I have more cause to hate him than to love him;
    For what had he to do to chide at me?
    He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black,
    And, now I am rememb'red, scorn'd at me.
    I marvel why I answer'd not again;
    But that's all one: omittance is no quittance.
    I'll write to him a very taunting letter,
    And thou shalt bear it; wilt thou, Silvius?
  SILVIUS. Phebe, with all my heart.
  PHEBE. I'll write it straight;
    The matter's in my head and in my heart;
    I will be bitter with him and passing short.
    Go with me, Silvius.                                  Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. The forest

Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES

  JAQUES. I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with
    thee.
  ROSALIND. They say you are a melancholy fellow.
  JAQUES. I am so; I do love it better than laughing.
  ROSALIND. Those that are in extremity of either are abominable
    fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than
    drunkards.
  JAQUES. Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.
  ROSALIND. Why then, 'tis good to be a post.
  JAQUES. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is
    emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the
    courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is
    ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's,
    which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these; but it is a
    melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted
    from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my
    travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous
    sadness.
  ROSALIND. A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be
    sad. I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then
    to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and
    poor hands.
  JAQUES. Yes, I have gain'd my experience.

                        Enter ORLANDO

  ROSALIND. And your experience makes you sad. I had rather have a
    fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad- and to
    travel for it too.
  ORLANDO. Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind!
  JAQUES. Nay, then, God buy you, an you talk in blank verse.
  ROSALIND. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; look you lisp and wear
    strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be
    out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making
    you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have
    swam in a gondola. [Exit JAQUES] Why, how now, Orlando! where
    have you been all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such
    another trick, never come in my sight more.
  ORLANDO. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.
  ROSALIND. Break an hour's promise in love! He that will divide a
    minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the
    thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said
    of him that Cupid hath clapp'd him o' th' shoulder, but I'll
    warrant him heart-whole.
  ORLANDO. Pardon me, dear Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I had
    as lief be woo'd of a snail.
  ORLANDO. Of a snail!
  ROSALIND. Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries
    his house on his head- a better jointure, I think, than you make
    a woman; besides, he brings his destiny with him.
  ORLANDO. What's that?
  ROSALIND. Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholding to
    your wives for; but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents
    the slander of his wife.
  ORLANDO. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.
  ROSALIND. And I am your Rosalind.
  CELIA. It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a
    better leer than you.
  ROSALIND. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour,
    and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I
    were your very very Rosalind?
  ORLANDO. I would kiss before I spoke.
  ROSALIND. Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were
    gravell'd for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.
    Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for
    lovers lacking- God warn us!- matter, the cleanliest shift is to
    kiss.
  ORLANDO. How if the kiss be denied?
  ROSALIND. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new
    matter.
  ORLANDO. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?
  ROSALIND. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I
    should think my honesty ranker than my wit.
  ORLANDO. What, of my suit?
  ROSALIND. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit.
    Am not I your Rosalind?
  ORLANDO. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking
    of her.
  ROSALIND. Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.
  ORLANDO. Then, in mine own person, I die.
  ROSALIND. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six
    thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man
    died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had
    his brains dash'd out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he
    could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love.
    Leander, he would have liv'd many a fair year, though Hero had
    turn'd nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for,
    good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and,
    being taken with the cramp, was drown'd; and the foolish
    chroniclers of that age found it was- Hero of Sestos. But these
    are all lies: men have died from time to time, and worms have
    eaten them, but not for love.
  ORLANDO. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I
    protest, her frown might kill me.
  ROSALIND. By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I
    will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and ask me
    what you will, I will grant it.
  ORLANDO. Then love me, Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays, and all.
  ORLANDO. And wilt thou have me?
  ROSALIND. Ay, and twenty such.
  ORLANDO. What sayest thou?
  ROSALIND. Are you not good?
  ORLANDO. I hope so.
  ROSALIND. Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come,
    sister, you shall be the priest, and marry us. Give me your hand,
    Orlando. What do you say, sister?
  ORLANDO. Pray thee, marry us.
  CELIA. I cannot say the words.
  ROSALIND. You must begin 'Will you, Orlando'-
  CELIA. Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?
  ORLANDO. I will.
  ROSALIND. Ay, but when?
  ORLANDO. Why, now; as fast as she can marry us.
  ROSALIND. Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'
  ORLANDO. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.
  ROSALIND. I might ask you for your commission; but- I do take thee,
    Orlando, for my husband. There's a girl goes before the priest;
    and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her actions.
  ORLANDO. So do all thoughts; they are wing'd.
  ROSALIND. Now tell me how long you would have her, after you have
    possess'd her.
  ORLANDO. For ever and a day.
  ROSALIND. Say 'a day' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; men are
    April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when
    they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will
    be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,
    more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than
    an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for
    nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you
    are dispos'd to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when
    thou are inclin'd to sleep.
  ORLANDO. But will my Rosalind do so?
  ROSALIND. By my life, she will do as I do.
  ORLANDO. O, but she is wise.
  ROSALIND. Or else she could not have the wit to do this. The wiser,
    the waywarder. Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out
    at the casement; shut that, and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop
    that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.
  ORLANDO. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say 'Wit,
    whither wilt?' ROSALIND. Nay, you might keep that check for it,
    till you met your
    wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.
  ORLANDO. And what wit could wit have to excuse that?
  ROSALIND. Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never
    take her without her answer, unless you take her without her
    tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's
    occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will
    breed it like a fool!
  ORLANDO. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.
  ROSALIND. Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours!
  ORLANDO. I must attend the Duke at dinner; by two o'clock I will be
    with thee again.
  ROSALIND. Ay, go your ways, go your ways. I knew what you would
    prove; my friends told me as much, and I thought no less. That
    flattering tongue of yours won me. 'Tis but one cast away, and
    so, come death! Two o'clock is your hour?
  ORLANDO. Ay, sweet Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and
    by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot
    of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will
    think you the most pathetical break-promise, and the most hollow
    lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind, that may
    be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful. Therefore
    beware my censure, and keep your promise.
  ORLANDO. With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my
    Rosalind; so, adieu.
  ROSALIND. Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
    offenders, and let Time try. Adieu.             Exit ORLANDO
  CELIA. You have simply misus'd our sex in your love-prate. We must
    have your doublet and hose pluck'd over your head, and show the
    world what the bird hath done to her own nest.
  ROSALIND. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst
    know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded;
    my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.
  CELIA. Or rather, bottomless; that as fast as you pour affection
    in, it runs out.
  ROSALIND. No; that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of
    thought, conceiv'd of spleen, and born of madness; that blind
    rascally boy, that abuses every one's eyes, because his own are
    out- let him be judge how deep I am in love. I'll tell thee,
    Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I'll go find a
    shadow, and sigh till he come.
  CELIA. And I'll sleep.                                  Exeunt

SCENE II. The forest

        Enter JAQUES and LORDS, in the habit of foresters

  JAQUES. Which is he that killed the deer?
  LORD. Sir, it was I.
  JAQUES. Let's present him to the Duke, like a Roman conqueror; and
    it would do well to set the deer's horns upon his head for a
    branch of victory. Have you no song, forester, for this purpose?
  LORD. Yes, sir.
  JAQUES. Sing it; 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise
    enough.

                    SONG.

      What shall he have that kill'd the deer?
      His leather skin and horns to wear.
                              [The rest shall hear this burden:]
           Then sing him home.

      Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;
      It was a crest ere thou wast born.
           Thy father's father wore it;
           And thy father bore it.
      The horn, the horn, the lusty horn,
      Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.                   Exeunt

SCENE III. The forest

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA

  ROSALIND. How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock?
    And here much Orlando!
  CELIA. I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath
    ta'en his bow and arrows, and is gone forth- to sleep. Look, who
    comes here.

                      Enter SILVIUS

  SILVIUS. My errand is to you, fair youth;
    My gentle Phebe did bid me give you this.
    I know not the contents; but, as I guess
    By the stern brow and waspish action
    Which she did use as she was writing of it,
    It bears an angry tenour. Pardon me,
    I am but as a guiltless messenger.
  ROSALIND. Patience herself would startle at this letter,
    And play the swaggerer. Bear this, bear all.
    She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
    She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
    Were man as rare as Phoenix. 'Od's my will!
    Her love is not the hare that I do hunt;
    Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,
    This is a letter of your own device.
  SILVIUS. No, I protest, I know not the contents;
    Phebe did write it.
  ROSALIND. Come, come, you are a fool,
    And turn'd into the extremity of love.
    I saw her hand; she has a leathern hand,
    A freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think
    That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands;
    She has a huswife's hand- but that's no matter.
    I say she never did invent this letter:
    This is a man's invention, and his hand.
  SILVIUS. Sure, it is hers.
  ROSALIND. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style;
    A style for challengers. Why, she defies me,
    Like Turk to Christian. Women's gentle brain
    Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention,
    Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect
    Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?
  SILVIUS. So please you, for I never heard it yet;
    Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty.
  ROSALIND. She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.
                                                         [Reads]

            'Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,
            That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?'

    Can a woman rail thus?
  SILVIUS. Call you this railing?
  ROSALIND. 'Why, thy godhead laid apart,
             Warr'st thou with a woman's heart?'

    Did you ever hear such railing?

            'Whiles the eye of man did woo me,
            That could do no vengeance to me.'

    Meaning me a beast.

            'If the scorn of your bright eyne
            Have power to raise such love in mine,
            Alack, in me what strange effect
            Would they work in mild aspect!
            Whiles you chid me, I did love;
            How then might your prayers move!
            He that brings this love to the
            Little knows this love in me;
            And by him seal up thy mind,
            Whether that thy youth and kind
            Will the faithful offer take
            Of me and all that I can make;
            Or else by him my love deny,
            And then I'll study how to die.'
  SILVIUS. Call you this chiding?
  CELIA. Alas, poor shepherd!
  ROSALIND. Do you pity him? No, he deserves no pity. Wilt thou love
    such a woman? What, to make thee an instrument, and play false
    strains upon thee! Not to be endur'd! Well, go your way to her,
    for I see love hath made thee tame snake, and say this to her-
    that if she love me, I charge her to love thee; if she will not,
    I will never have her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a
    true lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more company.
                                                    Exit SILVIUS

                         Enter OLIVER

  OLIVER. Good morrow, fair ones; pray you, if you know,
    Where in the purlieus of this forest stands
    A sheep-cote fenc'd about with olive trees?
  CELIA. West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom.
    The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream
    Left on your right hand brings you to the place.
    But at this hour the house doth keep itself;
    There's none within.
  OLIVER. If that an eye may profit by a tongue,
    Then should I know you by description-
    Such garments, and such years: 'The boy is fair,
    Of female favour, and bestows himself
    Like a ripe sister; the woman low,
    And browner than her brother.' Are not you
    The owner of the house I did inquire for?
  CELIA. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say we are.
  OLIVER. Orlando doth commend him to you both;
    And to that youth he calls his Rosalind
    He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?
  ROSALIND. I am. What must we understand by this?
  OLIVER. Some of my shame; if you will know of me
    What man I am, and how, and why, and where,
    This handkercher was stain'd.
  CELIA. I pray you, tell it.
  OLIVER. When last the young Orlando parted from you,
    He left a promise to return again
    Within an hour; and, pacing through the forest,
    Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
    Lo, what befell! He threw his eye aside,
    And mark what object did present itself.
    Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age,
    And high top bald with dry antiquity,
    A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,
    Lay sleeping on his back. About his neck
    A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself,
    Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd
    The opening of his mouth; but suddenly,
    Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,
    And with indented glides did slip away
    Into a bush; under which bush's shade
    A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,
    Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,
    When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis
    The royal disposition of that beast
    To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.
    This seen, Orlando did approach the man,
    And found it was his brother, his elder brother.
  CELIA. O, I have heard him speak of that same brother;
    And he did render him the most unnatural
    That liv'd amongst men.
  OLIVER. And well he might so do,
    For well I know he was unnatural.
  ROSALIND. But, to Orlando: did he leave him there,
    Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness?
  OLIVER. Twice did he turn his back, and purpos'd so;
    But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
    And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
    Made him give battle to the lioness,
    Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling
    From miserable slumber I awak'd.
  CELIA. Are you his brother?
  ROSALIND. Was't you he rescu'd?
  CELIA. Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him?
  OLIVER. 'Twas I; but 'tis not I. I do not shame
    To tell you what I was, since my conversion
    So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
  ROSALIND. But for the bloody napkin?
  OLIVER. By and by.
    When from the first to last, betwixt us two,
    Tears our recountments had most kindly bath'd,
    As how I came into that desert place-
    In brief, he led me to the gentle Duke,
    Who gave me fresh array and entertainment,
    Committing me unto my brother's love;
    Who led me instantly unto his cave,
    There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm
    The lioness had torn some flesh away,
    Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted,
    And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind.
    Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound,
    And, after some small space, being strong at heart,
    He sent me hither, stranger as I am,
    To tell this story, that you might excuse
    His broken promise, and to give this napkin,
    Dy'd in his blood, unto the shepherd youth
    That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.
                                               [ROSALIND swoons]
  CELIA. Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede!
  OLIVER. Many will swoon when they do look on blood.
  CELIA. There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede!
  OLIVER. Look, he recovers.
  ROSALIND. I would I were at home.
  CELIA. We'll lead you thither.
    I pray you, will you take him by the arm?
  OLIVER. Be of good cheer, youth. You a man!
    You lack a man's heart.
  ROSALIND. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think
    this was well counterfeited. I pray you tell your brother how
    well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!
  OLIVER. This was not counterfeit; there is too great testimony in
    your complexion that it was a passion of earnest.
  ROSALIND. Counterfeit, I assure you.
  OLIVER. Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man.
  ROSALIND. So I do; but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by
    right.
  CELIA. Come, you look paler and paler; pray you draw homewards.
    Good sir, go with us.
  OLIVER. That will I, for I must bear answer back
    How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. I shall devise something; but, I pray you, commend my
    counterfeiting to him. Will you go?                   Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. The forest

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY

  TOUCHSTONE. We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.
  AUDREY. Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old
    gentleman's saying.
  TOUCHSTONE. A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Martext.
    But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to
    you.
  AUDREY. Ay, I know who 'tis; he hath no interest in me in the
    world; here comes the man you mean.

                         Enter WILLIAM

  TOUCHSTONE. It is meat and drink to me to see a clown. By my troth,
    we that have good wits have much to answer for: we shall be
    flouting; we cannot hold.
  WILLIAM. Good ev'n, Audrey.
  AUDREY. God ye good ev'n, William.
  WILLIAM. And good ev'n to you, sir.
  TOUCHSTONE. Good ev'n, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy
    head; nay, prithee be cover'd. How old are you, friend?
  WILLIAM. Five and twenty, sir.
  TOUCHSTONE. A ripe age. Is thy name William?
  WILLIAM. William, sir.
  TOUCHSTONE. A fair name. Wast born i' th' forest here?
  WILLIAM. Ay, sir, I thank God.
  TOUCHSTONE. 'Thank God.' A good answer.
    Art rich?
  WILLIAM. Faith, sir, so so.
  TOUCHSTONE. 'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good; and
    yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?
  WILLIAM. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.
  TOUCHSTONE. Why, thou say'st well. I do now remember a saying: 'The
    fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be
    a fool.' The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a
    grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth; meaning
    thereby that grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do
    love this maid?
  WILLIAM. I do, sir.
  TOUCHSTONE. Give me your hand. Art thou learned?
  WILLIAM. No, sir.
  TOUCHSTONE. Then learn this of me: to have is to have; for it is a
    figure in rhetoric that drink, being pour'd out of cup into a
    glass, by filling the one doth empty the other; for all your
    writers do consent that ipse is he; now, you are not ipse, for I
    am he.
  WILLIAM. Which he, sir?
  TOUCHSTONE. He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you
    clown, abandon- which is in the vulgar leave- the society- which
    in the boorish is company- of this female- which in the common is
    woman- which together is: abandon the society of this female; or,
    clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest;
    or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into
    death, thy liberty into bondage. I will deal in poison with thee,
    or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction;
    will o'er-run thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and
    fifty ways; therefore tremble and depart.
  AUDREY. Do, good William.
  WILLIAM. God rest you merry, sir.                         Exit

                          Enter CORIN

  CORIN. Our master and mistress seeks you; come away, away.
  TOUCHSTONE. Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey. I attend, I attend.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. The forest

Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER

  ORLANDO. Is't possible that on so little acquaintance you should
    like her? that but seeing you should love her? and loving woo?
    and, wooing, she should grant? and will you persever to enjoy
    her?
  OLIVER. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty
    of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden
    consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say with her that she
    loves me; consent with both that we may enjoy each other. It
    shall be to your good; for my father's house and all the revenue
    that was old Sir Rowland's will I estate upon you, and here live
    and die a shepherd.
  ORLANDO. You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow.
    Thither will I invite the Duke and all's contented followers. Go
    you and prepare Aliena; for, look you, here comes my Rosalind.

                        Enter ROSALIND

  ROSALIND. God save you, brother.
  OLIVER. And you, fair sister.                             Exit
  ROSALIND. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear
    thy heart in a scarf!
  ORLANDO. It is my arm.
  ROSALIND. I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a
    lion.
  ORLANDO. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.
  ROSALIND. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon
    when he show'd me your handkercher?
  ORLANDO. Ay, and greater wonders than that.
  ROSALIND. O, I know where you are. Nay, 'tis true. There was never
    any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams and Caesar's
    thrasonical brag of 'I came, saw, and overcame.' For your brother
    and my sister no sooner met but they look'd; no sooner look'd but
    they lov'd; no sooner lov'd but they sigh'd; no sooner sigh'd but
    they ask'd one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but
    they sought the remedy- and in these degrees have they made pair
    of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else
    be incontinent before marriage. They are in the very wrath of
    love, and they will together. Clubs cannot part them.
  ORLANDO. They shall be married to-morrow; and I will bid the Duke
    to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into
    happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I
    to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I
    shall think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.
  ROSALIND. Why, then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for
    Rosalind?
  ORLANDO. I can live no longer by thinking.
  ROSALIND. I will weary you, then, no longer with idle talking. Know
    of me then- for now I speak to some purpose- that I know you are
    a gentleman of good conceit. I speak not this that you should
    bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you
    are; neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in some
    little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good, and
    not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do
    strange things. I have, since I was three year old, convers'd
    with a magician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable.
    If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries
    it out, when your brother marries Aliena shall you marry her. I
    know into what straits of fortune she is driven; and it is not
    impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set
    her before your eyes to-morrow, human as she is, and without any
    danger.
  ORLANDO. Speak'st thou in sober meanings?
  ROSALIND. By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I say I
    am a magician. Therefore put you in your best array, bid your
    friends; for if you will be married to-morrow, you shall; and to
    Rosalind, if you will.

                     Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE

    Look, here comes a lover of mine, and a lover of hers.
  PHEBE. Youth, you have done me much ungentleness
    To show the letter that I writ to you.
  ROSALIND. I care not if I have. It is my study
    To seem despiteful and ungentle to you.
    You are there follow'd by a faithful shepherd;
    Look upon him, love him; he worships you.
  PHEBE. Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.
  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of sighs and tears;
    And so am I for Phebe.
  PHEBE. And I for Ganymede.
  ORLANDO. And I for Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. And I for no woman.
  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of faith and service;
    And so am I for Phebe.
  PHEBE. And I for Ganymede.
  ORLANDO. And I for Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. And I for no woman.
  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of fantasy,
    All made of passion, and all made of wishes;
    All adoration, duty, and observance,
    All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,
    All purity, all trial, all obedience;
    And so am I for Phebe.
  PHEBE. And so am I for Ganymede.
  ORLANDO. And so am I for Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. And so am I for no woman.
  PHEBE. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
  SILVIUS. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
  ORLANDO. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
  ROSALIND. Why do you speak too, 'Why blame you me to love you?'
  ORLANDO. To her that is not here, nor doth not hear.
  ROSALIND. Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling of Irish
    wolves against the moon. [To SILVIUS] I will help you if I can.
    [To PHEBE] I would love you if I could.- To-morrow meet me all
    together. [ To PHEBE ] I will marry you if ever I marry woman,
    and I'll be married to-morrow. [To ORLANDO] I will satisfy you if
    ever I satisfied man, and you shall be married to-morrow. [To
    Silvius] I will content you if what pleases you contents you, and
    you shall be married to-morrow. [To ORLANDO] As you love
    Rosalind, meet. [To SILVIUS] As you love Phebe, meet;- and as I
    love no woman, I'll meet. So, fare you well; I have left you
    commands.
  SILVIUS. I'll not fail, if I live.
  PHEBE. Nor I.
  ORLANDO. Nor I.                                         Exeunt

SCENE III. The forest

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY

  TOUCHSTONE. To-morrow is the joyful day, Audre'y; to-morrow will we
    be married.
  AUDREY. I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is no
    dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the world. Here come
    two of the banish'd Duke's pages.

                            Enter two PAGES

  FIRST PAGE. Well met, honest gentleman.
  TOUCHSTONE. By my troth, well met. Come sit, sit, and a song.
  SECOND PAGE. We are for you; sit i' th' middle.
  FIRST PAGE. Shall we clap into't roundly, without hawking, or
    spitting, or saying we are hoarse, which are the only prologues
    to a bad voice?
  SECOND PAGE. I'faith, i'faith; and both in a tune, like two gipsies
    on a horse.

                      SONG.
        It was a lover and his lass,
          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
        That o'er the green corn-field did pass
          In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
        When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.
        Sweet lovers love the spring.

        Between the acres of the rye,
          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
        These pretty country folks would lie,
          In the spring time, &c.

        This carol they began that hour,
          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
        How that a life was but a flower,
          In the spring time, &c.

        And therefore take the present time,
          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
        For love is crowned with the prime,
          In the spring time, &c.

  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great
    matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable.
  FIRST PAGE. YOU are deceiv'd, sir; we kept time, we lost not our
    time.
  TOUCHSTONE. By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear such
    a foolish song. God buy you; and God mend your voices. Come,
    Audrey.                                               Exeunt

SCENE IV. The forest

Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, JAQUES, ORLANDO, OLIVER, and CELIA

  DUKE SENIOR. Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy
    Can do all this that he hath promised?
  ORLANDO. I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not:
    As those that fear they hope, and know they fear.

               Enter ROSALIND, SILVIUS, and PHEBE

  ROSALIND. Patience once more, whiles our compact is urg'd:
    You say, if I bring in your Rosalind,
    You will bestow her on Orlando here?
  DUKE SENIOR. That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.
  ROSALIND. And you say you will have her when I bring her?
  ORLANDO. That would I, were I of all kingdoms king.
  ROSALIND. You say you'll marry me, if I be willing?
  PHEBE. That will I, should I die the hour after.
  ROSALIND. But if you do refuse to marry me,
    You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?
  PHEBE. So is the bargain.
  ROSALIND. You say that you'll have Phebe, if she will?
  SILVIUS. Though to have her and death were both one thing.
  ROSALIND. I have promis'd to make all this matter even.
    Keep you your word, O Duke, to give your daughter;
    You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter;
    Keep your word, Phebe, that you'll marry me,
    Or else, refusing me, to wed this shepherd;
    Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her
    If she refuse me; and from hence I go,
    To make these doubts all even.
                                       Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA
  DUKE SENIOR. I do remember in this shepherd boy
    Some lively touches of my daughter's favour.
  ORLANDO. My lord, the first time that I ever saw him
    Methought he was a brother to your daughter.
    But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,
    And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments
    Of many desperate studies by his uncle,
    Whom he reports to be a great magician,
    Obscured in the circle of this forest.

                    Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY

  JAQUES. There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are
    coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of very strange beasts which
    in all tongues are call'd fools.
  TOUCHSTONE. Salutation and greeting to you all!
  JAQUES. Good my lord, bid him welcome. This is the motley-minded
    gentleman that I have so often met in the forest. He hath been a
     courtier, he swears.
  TOUCHSTONE. If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation.
    I have trod a measure; I have flatt'red a lady; I have been
    politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have undone
    three tailors; I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought
    one.
  JAQUES. And how was that ta'en up?
  TOUCHSTONE. Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the
    seventh cause.
  JAQUES. How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow.
  DUKE SENIOR. I like him very well.
  TOUCHSTONE. God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I press in
    here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear
    and to forswear, according as marriage binds and blood breaks. A
    poor virgin, sir, an ill-favour'd thing, sir, but mine own; a
    poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that man else will. Rich
    honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl
    in your foul oyster.
  DUKE SENIOR. By my faith, he is very swift and sententious.
  TOUCHSTONE. According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet
    diseases.
  JAQUES. But, for the seventh cause: how did you find the quarrel on
    the seventh cause?
  TOUCHSTONE. Upon a lie seven times removed- bear your body more
    seeming, Audrey- as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain
    courtier's beard; he sent me word, if I said his beard was not
    cut well, he was in the mind it was. This is call'd the Retort
    Courteous. If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would
    send me word he cut it to please himself. This is call'd the Quip
    Modest. If again it was not well cut, he disabled my judgment.
    This is call'd the Reply Churlish. If again it was not well cut,
    he would answer I spake not true. This is call'd the Reproof
    Valiant. If again it was not well cut, he would say I lie. This
    is call'd the Countercheck Quarrelsome. And so to the Lie
    Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.
  JAQUES. And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut?
  TOUCHSTONE. I durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial, nor
    he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so we measur'd swords
    and parted.
  JAQUES. Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?
  TOUCHSTONE. O, sir, we quarrel in print by the book, as you have
    books for good manners. I will name you the degrees. The first,
    the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the
    Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
    Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance;
    the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie
    Direct; and you may avoid that too with an If. I knew when seven
    justices could not take up a quarrel; but when the parties were
    met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as: 'If you
    said so, then I said so.' And they shook hands, and swore
    brothers. Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If.
  JAQUES. Is not this a rare fellow, my lord?
    He's as good at any thing, and yet a fool.
  DUKE SENIOR. He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the
    presentation of that he shoots his wit:

          Enter HYMEN, ROSALIND, and CELIA. Still MUSIC

    HYMEN.    Then is there mirth in heaven,
              When earthly things made even
                Atone together.
              Good Duke, receive thy daughter;
              Hymen from heaven brought her,
                Yea, brought her hither,
              That thou mightst join her hand with his,
              Whose heart within his bosom is.
  ROSALIND. [To DUKE] To you I give myself, for I am yours.
    [To ORLANDO] To you I give myself, for I am yours.
  DUKE SENIOR. If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter.
  ORLANDO. If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind.
  PHEBE. If sight and shape be true,
    Why then, my love adieu!
  ROSALIND. I'll have no father, if you be not he;
    I'll have no husband, if you be not he;
    Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she.
  HYMEN.    Peace, ho! I bar confusion;
            'Tis I must make conclusion
              Of these most strange events.
            Here's eight that must take hands
            To join in Hymen's bands,
              If truth holds true contents.
            You and you no cross shall part;
            You and you are heart in heart;
            You to his love must accord,
            Or have a woman to your lord;
            You and you are sure together,
            As the winter to foul weather.
            Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing,
            Feed yourselves with questioning,
            That reason wonder may diminish,
            How thus we met, and these things finish.

                       SONG
            Wedding is great Juno's crown;
              O blessed bond of board and bed!
            'Tis Hymen peoples every town;
              High wedlock then be honoured.
            Honour, high honour, and renown,
            To Hymen, god of every town!

  DUKE SENIOR. O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me!
    Even daughter, welcome in no less degree.
  PHEBE. I will not eat my word, now thou art mine;
    Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.

                 Enter JAQUES de BOYS

  JAQUES de BOYS. Let me have audience for a word or two.
    I am the second son of old Sir Rowland,
    That bring these tidings to this fair assembly.
    Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day
    Men of great worth resorted to this forest,
    Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot,
    In his own conduct, purposely to take
    His brother here, and put him to the sword;
    And to the skirts of this wild wood he came,
    Where, meeting with an old religious man,
    After some question with him, was converted
    Both from his enterprise and from the world;
    His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
    And all their lands restor'd to them again
    That were with him exil'd. This to be true
    I do engage my life.
  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome, young man.
    Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding:
    To one, his lands withheld; and to the other,
    A land itself at large, a potent dukedom.
    First, in this forest let us do those ends
    That here were well begun and well begot;
    And after, every of this happy number,
    That have endur'd shrewd days and nights with us,
    Shall share the good of our returned fortune,
    According to the measure of their states.
    Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity,
    And fall into our rustic revelry.
    Play, music; and you brides and bridegrooms all,
    With measure heap'd in joy, to th' measures fall.
  JAQUES. Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly,
    The Duke hath put on a religious life,
    And thrown into neglect the pompous court.
  JAQUES DE BOYS. He hath.
  JAQUES. To him will I. Out of these convertites
    There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.
    [To DUKE] You to your former honour I bequeath;
    Your patience and your virtue well deserves it.
    [To ORLANDO] You to a love that your true faith doth merit;
    [To OLIVER] You to your land, and love, and great allies
    [To SILVIUS] You to a long and well-deserved bed;
    [To TOUCHSTONE] And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage
    Is but for two months victuall'd.- So to your pleasures;
    I am for other than for dancing measures.
  DUKE SENIOR. Stay, Jaques, stay.
  JAQUES. To see no pastime I. What you would have
    I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave.               Exit
  DUKE SENIOR. Proceed, proceed. We will begin these rites,
    As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.    [A dance] Exeunt

EPILOGUE
                           EPILOGUE.
  ROSALIND. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but
    it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it
    be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play
    needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and
    good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a
    case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot
    insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not
    furnish'd like a beggar; therefore to beg will not become me. My
    way is to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge
    you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of
    this play as please you; and I charge you, O men, for the love
    you bear to women- as I perceive by your simp'ring none of you
    hates them- that between you and the women the play may please.
    If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that
    pleas'd me, complexions that lik'd me, and breaths that I defied
    not; and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces,
    or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy,
    bid me farewell.

THE END

1593



THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

SOLINUS, Duke of Ephesus
AEGEON, a merchant of Syracuse

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS twin brothers and sons to
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Aegion and Aemelia

DROMIO OF EPHESUS twin brothers, and attendants on
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE the two Antipholuses

BALTHAZAR, a merchant
ANGELO, a goldsmith
FIRST MERCHANT, friend to Antipholus of Syracuse
SECOND MERCHANT, to whom Angelo is a debtor
PINCH, a schoolmaster

AEMILIA, wife to AEgeon; an abbess at Ephesus
ADRIANA, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus
LUCIANA, her sister
LUCE, servant to Adriana

A COURTEZAN

Gaoler, Officers, Attendants

SCENE: Ephesus

ACT I. SCENE 1

A hall in the DUKE'S palace

Enter the DUKE OF EPHESUS, AEGEON, the Merchant of Syracuse, GAOLER,
OFFICERS, and other ATTENDANTS

AEGEON. Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall,
  And by the doom of death end woes and all.
DUKE. Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more;
  I am not partial to infringe our laws.
  The enmity and discord which of late
  Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke
  To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,
  Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives,
  Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,
  Excludes all pity from our threat'ning looks.
  For, since the mortal and intestine jars
  'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,
  It hath in solemn synods been decreed,
  Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,
  To admit no traffic to our adverse towns;
  Nay, more: if any born at Ephesus
  Be seen at any Syracusian marts and fairs;
  Again, if any Syracusian born
  Come to the bay of Ephesus-he dies,
  His goods confiscate to the Duke's dispose,
  Unless a thousand marks be levied,
  To quit the penalty and to ransom him.
  Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,
  Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;
  Therefore by law thou art condemn'd to die.
AEGEON. Yet this my comfort: when your words are done,
  My woes end likewise with the evening sun.
DUKE. Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause
  Why thou departed'st from thy native home,
  And for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus.
AEGEON. A heavier task could not have been impos'd
  Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable;
  Yet, that the world may witness that my end
  Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,
  I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.
  In Syracuse was I born, and wed
  Unto a woman, happy but for me,
  And by me, had not our hap been bad.
  With her I liv'd in joy; our wealth increas'd
  By prosperous voyages I often made
  To Epidamnum; till my factor's death,
  And the great care of goods at random left,
  Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse:
  From whom my absence was not six months old,
  Before herself, almost at fainting under
  The pleasing punishment that women bear,
  Had made provision for her following me,
  And soon and safe arrived where I was.
  There had she not been long but she became
  A joyful mother of two goodly sons;
  And, which was strange, the one so like the other
  As could not be disdnguish'd but by names.
  That very hour, and in the self-same inn,
  A mean woman was delivered
  Of such a burden, male twins, both alike.
  Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,
  I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.
  My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,
  Made daily motions for our home return;
  Unwilling, I agreed. Alas! too soon
  We came aboard.
  A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd
  Before the always-wind-obeying deep
  Gave any tragic instance of our harm:
  But longer did we not retain much hope,
  For what obscured light the heavens did grant
  Did but convey unto our fearful minds
  A doubtful warrant of immediate death;
  Which though myself would gladly have embrac'd,
  Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,
  Weeping before for what she saw must come,
  And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,
  That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,
  Forc'd me to seek delays for them and me.
  And this it was, for other means was none:
  The sailors sought for safety by our boat,
  And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us;
  My wife, more careful for the latter-born,
  Had fast'ned him unto a small spare mast,
  Such as sea-faring men provide for storms;
  To him one of the other twins was bound,
  Whilst I had been like heedful of the other.
  The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I,
  Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,
  Fast'ned ourselves at either end the mast,
  And, floating straight, obedient to the stream,
  Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought.
  At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,
  Dispers'd those vapours that offended us;
  And, by the benefit of his wished light,
  The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered
  Two ships from far making amain to us-
  Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this.
  But ere they came-O, let me say no more!
  Gather the sequel by that went before.
DUKE. Nay, forward, old man, do not break off so;
  For we may pity, though not pardon thee.
AEGEON. O, had the gods done so, I had not now
  Worthily term'd them merciless to us!
  For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues,
  We were encount'red by a mighty rock,
  Which being violently borne upon,
  Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst;
  So that, in this unjust divorce of us,
  Fortune had left to both of us alike
  What to delight in, what to sorrow for.
  Her part, poor soul, seeming as burdened
  With lesser weight, but not with lesser woe,
  Was carried with more speed before the wind;
  And in our sight they three were taken up
  By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.
  At length another ship had seiz'd on us;
  And, knowing whom it was their hap to save,
  Gave healthful welcome to their ship-wreck'd guests,
  And would have reft the fishers of their prey,
  Had not their bark been very slow of sail;
  And therefore homeward did they bend their course.
  Thus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss,
  That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd,
  To tell sad stories of my own mishaps.
DUKE. And, for the sake of them thou sorrowest for,
  Do me the favour to dilate at full
  What have befall'n of them and thee till now.
AEGEON. My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care,
  At eighteen years became inquisitive
  After his brother, and importun'd me
  That his attendant-so his case was like,
  Reft of his brother, but retain'd his name-
  Might bear him company in the quest of him;
  Whom whilst I laboured of a love to see,
  I hazarded the loss of whom I lov'd.
  Five summers have I spent in farthest Greece,
  Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia,
  And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus;
  Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought
  Or that or any place that harbours men.
  But here must end the story of my life;
  And happy were I in my timely death,
  Could all my travels warrant me they live.
DUKE. Hapless, Aegeon, whom the fates have mark'd
  To bear the extremity of dire mishap!
  Now, trust me, were it not against our laws,
  Against my crown, my oath, my dignity,
  Which princes, would they, may not disannul,
  My soul should sue as advocate for thee.
  But though thou art adjudged to the death,
  And passed sentence may not be recall'd
  But to our honour's great disparagement,
  Yet will I favour thee in what I can.
  Therefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day
  To seek thy help by beneficial hap.
  Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus;
  Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum,
  And live; if no, then thou art doom'd to die.
  Gaoler, take him to thy custody.
GAOLER. I will, my lord.
AEGEON. Hopeless and helpless doth Aegeon wend,
  But to procrastinate his lifeless end.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE 2

The mart

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and FIRST MERCHANT

FIRST MERCHANT. Therefore, give out you are of Epidamnum,
  Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate.
  This very day a Syracusian merchant
  Is apprehended for arrival here;
  And, not being able to buy out his life,
  According to the statute of the town,
  Dies ere the weary sun set in the west.
  There is your money that I had to keep.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host.
  And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee.
  Within this hour it will be dinner-time;
  Till that, I'll view the manners of the town,
  Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,
  And then return and sleep within mine inn;
  For with long travel I am stiff and weary.
  Get thee away.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Many a man would take you at your word,
  And go indeed, having so good a mean.

 [_Exit._]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. A trusty villain, sir, that very oft,
  When I am dull with care and melancholy,
  Lightens my humour with his merry jests.
  What, will you walk with me about the town,
  And then go to my inn and dine with me?
FIRST MERCHANT. I am invited, sir, to certain merchants,
  Of whom I hope to make much benefit;
  I crave your pardon. Soon at five o'clock,
  Please you, I'll meet with you upon the mart,
  And afterward consort you till bed time.
  My present business calls me from you now.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Farewell till then. I will go lose myself,
  And wander up and down to view the city.
FIRST MERCHANT. Sir, I commend you to your own content.

 [_Exit FIRST MERCHANT._]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He that commends me to mine own content
  Commends me to the thing I cannot get.
  I to the world am like a drop of water
  That in the ocean seeks another drop,
  Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
  Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.
  So I, to find a mother and a brother,
  In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.

Enter DROMIO OF EPHESUS

  Here comes the almanac of my true date.
  What now? How chance thou art return'd so soon?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Return'd so soon! rather approach'd too late.
  The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit;
  The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell-
  My mistress made it one upon my cheek;
  She is so hot because the meat is cold,
  The meat is cold because you come not home,
  You come not home because you have no stomach,
  You have no stomach, having broke your fast;
  But we, that know what 'tis to fast and pray,
  Are penitent for your default to-day.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Stop in your wind, sir; tell me this, I pray:
  Where have you left the money that I gave you?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. O-Sixpence that I had a Wednesday last
  To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper?
  The saddler had it, sir; I kept it not.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I am not in a sportive humour now;
  Tell me, and dally not, where is the money?
  We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust
  So great a charge from thine own custody?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I pray you jest, sir, as you sit at dinner.
  I from my mistress come to you in post;
  If I return, I shall be post indeed,
  For she will score your fault upon my pate.
  Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,
  And strike you home without a messenger.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of
season;
  Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.
  Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. To me, sir? Why, you gave no gold to me.
  ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come on, sir knave, have done your
  foolishness,
  And tell me how thou hast dispos'd thy charge.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart
  Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner.
  My mistress and her sister stays for you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me
  In what safe place you have bestow'd my money,
  Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours,
  That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd.
  Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
  Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,
  But not a thousand marks between you both.
  If I should pay your worship those again,
  Perchance you will not bear them patiently.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy mistress' marks! What mistress, slave, hast
thou?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;
  She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,
  And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,
  Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.
[Beats him]
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. What mean you, sir? For God's sake hold your hands!
  Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.

 [_Exit._]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Upon my life, by some device or other
  The villain is o'erraught of all my money.
  They say this town is full of cozenage;
  As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
  Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
  Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
  Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
  And many such-like liberties of sin;
  If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
  I'll to the Centaur to go seek this slave.
  I greatly fear my money is not safe.

 [_Exit._]

ACT II. SCENE 1

The house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS

Enter ADRIANA, wife to ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, with LUCIANA, her sister

ADRIANA. Neither my husband nor the slave return'd
  That in such haste I sent to seek his master!
  Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.
LUCIANA. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,
  And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner;
  Good sister, let us dine, and never fret.
  A man is master of his liberty;
  Time is their master, and when they see time,
  They'll go or come. If so, be patient, sister.
ADRIANA. Why should their liberty than ours be more?
LUCIANA. Because their business still lies out o' door.
ADRIANA. Look when I serve him so, he takes it ill.
LUCIANA. O, know he is the bridle of your will.
ADRIANA. There's none but asses will be bridled so.
LUCIANA. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.
  There's nothing situate under heaven's eye
  But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.
  The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,
  Are their males' subjects, and at their controls.
  Man, more divine, the master of all these,
  Lord of the wide world and wild wat'ry seas,
  Indu'd with intellectual sense and souls,
  Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,
  Are masters to their females, and their lords;
  Then let your will attend on their accords.
ADRIANA. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.
LUCIANA. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.
ADRIANA. But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway.
LUCIANA. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey.
ADRIANA. How if your husband start some other where?
LUCIANA. Till he come home again, I would forbear.
ADRIANA. Patience unmov'd! no marvel though she pause:
  They can be meek that have no other cause.
  A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,
  We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
  But were we burd'ned with like weight of pain,
  As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.
  So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,
  With urging helpless patience would relieve me;
  But if thou live to see like right bereft,
  This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.
LUCIANA. Well, I will marry one day, but to try.
  Here comes your man, now is your husband nigh.

Enter DROMIO OF EPHESUS

ADRIANA. Say, is your tardy master now at hand?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he's at two hands with me, and that my two
  ears can witness.
ADRIANA. Say, didst thou speak with him? Know'st thou his mind?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear.
  Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.
LUCIANA. Spake he so doubtfully thou could'st not feel his meaning?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he struck so plainly I could to
  well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully that I could
  scarce understand them.
ADRIANA. But say, I prithee, is he coming home?
  It seems he hath great care to please his wife.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.
ADRIANA. Horn-mad, thou villain!
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I mean not cuckold-mad;
  But, sure, he is stark mad.
  When I desir'd him to come home to dinner,
  He ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold.
  "Tis dinner time' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.
  'Your meat doth burn' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.
  'Will you come home?' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.
  'Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?'
  'The pig' quoth I 'is burn'd'; 'My gold!' quoth he.
  'My mistress, sir,' quoth I; 'Hang up thy mistress;
  I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress.'
LUCIANA. Quoth who?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Quoth my master.
  'I know' quoth he 'no house, no wife, no mistress.'
  So that my errand, due unto my tongue,
  I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders;
  For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.
ADRIANA. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Go back again, and be new beaten home?
  For God's sake, send some other messenger.
ADRIANA. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. And he will bless that cross with other beating;
  Between you I shall have a holy head.
ADRIANA. Hence, prating peasant! Fetch thy master home.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Am I so round with you, as you with me,
  That like a football you do spurn me thus?
  You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither;
  If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.

 [_Exit._]

LUCIANA. Fie, how impatience loureth in your face!
ADRIANA. His company must do his minions grace,
  Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.
  Hath homely age th' alluring beauty took
  From my poor cheek? Then he hath wasted it.
  Are my discourses dull? Barren my wit?
  If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,
  Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard.
  Do their gay vestments his affections bait?
  That's not my fault; he's master of my state.
  What ruins are in me that can be found
  By him not ruin'd? Then is he the ground
  Of my defeatures. My decayed fair
  A sunny look of his would soon repair.
  But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale,
  And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.
LUCIANA. Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence.
ADRIANA. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.
  I know his eye doth homage otherwhere;
  Or else what lets it but he would be here?
  Sister, you know he promis'd me a chain;
  Would that alone a love he would detain,
  So he would keep fair quarter with his bed!
  I see the jewel best enamelled
  Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still
  That others touch and, often touching, will
  Where gold; and no man that hath a name
  By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.
  Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,
  I'll weep what's left away, and weeping die.
LUCIANA. How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE 2

The mart

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up
  Safe at the Centaur, and the heedful slave
  Is wand'red forth in care to seek me out.
  By computation and mine host's report
  I could not speak with Dromio since at first
  I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes.

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

  How now, sir, is your merry humour alter'd?
  As you love strokes, so jest with me again.
  You know no Centaur! You receiv'd no gold!
  Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner!
  My house was at the Phoenix! Wast thou mad,
  That thus so madly thou didst answer me?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. What answer, sir? When spake I such a word?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Even now, even here, not half an hour since.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I did not see you since you sent me hence,
  Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou didst deny the gold's receipt,
  And told'st me of a mistress and a dinner;
  For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeas'd.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am glad to see you in this merry vein.
  What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?
  Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.
[Beating him]
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Hold, sir, for God's sake! Now your jest is
earnest.
  Upon what bargain do you give it me?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Because that I familiarly sometimes
  Do use you for my fool and chat with you,
  Your sauciness will jest upon my love,
  And make a common of my serious hours.
  When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport,
  But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.
  If you will jest with me, know my aspect,
  And fashion your demeanour to my looks,
  Or I will beat this method in your sconce.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sconce, call you it? So you would
  leave battering, I had rather have it a head. An you use
  these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and
  insconce it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders.
  But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Dost thou not know?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Shall I tell you why?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say
  every why hath a wherefore.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, first for flouting me; and then wherefore,
  For urging it the second time to me.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
  When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?
  Well, sir, I thank you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thank me, sir! for what?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, for this something that you gave
  me for nothing.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I'll make you amends next, to
  give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinnertime?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In good time, sir, what's that?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Basting.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Your reason?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Lest it make you choleric, and purchase me
  another dry basting.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, learn to jest in good time;
  there's a time for all things.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I durst have denied that, before you
  were so choleric.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By what rule, sir?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the
  plain bald pate of Father Time himself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Let's hear it.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There's no time for a man to recover
  his hair that grows bald by nature.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. May he not do it by fine and recovery?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and
  recover the lost hair of another man.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why is Time such a niggard of
  hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Because it is a blessing that he bestows
  on beasts, and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath
  given them in wit.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, but there's many a man
  hath more hair than wit.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not a man of those but he hath the
  wit to lose his hair.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, thou didst conclude hairy
  men plain dealers without wit.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost;
  yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For what reason?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. For two; and sound ones too.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sound I pray you.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sure ones, then.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Certain ones, then.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Name them.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The one, to save the money that he spends in
  tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his
  porridge.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. You would all this time have prov'd there
  is no time for all things.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to recover
  hair lost by nature.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. But your reason was not substantial, why
  there is no time to recover.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald,
  and therefore to the world's end will have bald followers.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I knew 't'would be a bald conclusion. But,
  soft, who wafts us yonder?

Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA

ADRIANA. Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown.
  Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects;
  I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.
  The time was once when thou unurg'd wouldst vow
  That never words were music to thine ear,
  That never object pleasing in thine eye,
  That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
  That never meat sweet-savour'd in thy taste,
  Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd to thee.
  How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,
  That thou art then estranged from thyself?
  Thyself I call it, being strange to me,
  That, undividable, incorporate,
  Am better than thy dear self's better part.
  Ah, do not tear away thyself from me;
  For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall
  A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
  And take unmingled thence that drop again
  Without addition or diminishing,
  As take from me thyself, and not me too.
  How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
  Should'st thou but hear I were licentious,
  And that this body, consecrate to thee,
  By ruffian lust should be contaminate!
  Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me,
  And hurl the name of husband in my face,
  And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow,
  And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring,
  And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?
  I know thou canst, and therefore see thou do it.
  I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;
  My blood is mingled with the crime of lust;
  For if we two be one, and thou play false,
  I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
  Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
  Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;
  I live dis-stain'd, thou undishonoured.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:
  In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
  As strange unto your town as to your talk,
  Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,
  Wants wit in all one word to understand.
LUCIANA. Fie, brother, how the world is chang'd with you!
  When were you wont to use my sister thus?
  She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By Dromio?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By me?
ADRIANA. By thee; and this thou didst return from him-
  That he did buffet thee, and in his blows
  Denied my house for his, me for his wife.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?
  What is the course and drift of your compact?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, Sir? I never saw her till this time.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou liest; for even her very words
  Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I never spake with her in all my life.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How can she thus, then, call us by our names,
  Unless it be by inspiration?
ADRIANA. How ill agrees it with your gravity
  To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
  Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!
  Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,
  But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
  Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;
  Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
  Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
  Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
  If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
  Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;
  Who all, for want of pruning, with intrusion
  Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme.
  What, was I married to her in my dream?
  Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?
  What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?
  Until I know this sure uncertainty,
  I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy.
LUCIANA. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, for my beads! I cross me for sinner.
  This is the fairy land. O spite of spites!
  We talk with goblins, owls, and sprites.
  If we obey them not, this will ensue:
  They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.
LUCIANA. Why prat'st thou to thyself, and answer'st not?
  Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am transformed, master, am not I?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think thou art in mind, and so am I.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou hast thine own form.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, I am an ape.
LUCIANA. If thou art chang'd to aught, 'tis to an ass.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for grass.
  'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be
  But I should know her as well as she knows me.
ADRIANA. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,
  To put the finger in the eye and weep,
  Whilst man and master laughs my woes to scorn.
  Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.
  Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day,
  And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.
  Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,
  Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter.
  Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
  Sleeping or waking, mad or well-advis'd?
  Known unto these, and to myself disguis'd!
  I'll say as they say, and persever so,
  And in this mist at all adventures go.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I be porter at the gate?
ADRIANA. Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate.
LUCIANA. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.

 [_Exeunt._]

ACT III. SCENE 1

Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, DROMIO OF EPHESUS, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us all;
  My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours.
  Say that I linger'd with you at your shop
  To see the making of her carcanet,
  And that to-morrow you will bring it home.
  But here's a villain that would face me down
  He met me on the mart, and that I beat him,
  And charg'd him with a thousand marks in gold,
  And that I did deny my wife and house.
  Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know.
  That you beat me at the mart I have your hand to show;
  If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,
  Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I think thou art an ass.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Marry, so it doth appear
  By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.
  I should kick, being kick'd; and being at that pass,
  You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Y'are sad, Signior Balthazar; pray God our cheer
  May answer my good will and your good welcome here.
BALTHAZAR. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish,
  A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.
BALTHAZAR. Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And welcome more common; for that's nothing
  but words.
BALTHAZAR. Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Ay, to a niggardly host and more sparing guest.
  But though my cates be mean, take them in good part;
  Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart.
  But, soft, my door is lock'd; go bid them let us in.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, Ginn!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. [Within] Mome, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb, idiot,
patch!
  Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch.
  Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such store,
  When one is one too many? Go get thee from the door.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. What patch is made our porter?
  My master stays in the street.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Let him walk from whence he came,
    lest he catch cold on's feet.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Who talks within there? Ho, open the door!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Right, sir; I'll tell you when,
    an you'll tell me wherefore.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wherefore? For my dinner;
    I have not din'd to-day.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Nor to-day here you must not;
    come again when you may.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What art thou that keep'st me out
    from the house I owe?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  The porter for this time,
    sir, and my name is Dromio.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Villain, thou hast stol'n both mine
    office and my name!
  The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.
  If thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place,
  Thou wouldst have chang'd thy face for a name, or thy name for an
  ass.

Enter LUCE, within

LUCE.  [Within]  What a coil is there, Dromio? Who are those at the
gate?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Let my master in, Luce.
LUCE.  [Within]  Faith, no, he comes too late;
  And so tell your master.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Lord, I must laugh!
  Have at you with a proverb: Shall I set in my staff?
LUCE.  [Within]  Have at you with another: that's-when? can you tell?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  If thy name be called Luce
    -Luce, thou hast answer'd him well.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do you hear, you minion? You'll let us in, I
hope?
LUCE.  [Within]  I thought to have ask'd you.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  And you said no.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. SO, Come, help: well struck! there was blow for
blow.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou baggage, let me in.
LUCE.  [Within]  Can you tell for whose sake?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, knock the door hard.
LUCE.  [Within]  Let him knock till it ache.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You'll cry for this, minion, if beat the door
down.
LUCE.  [Within] What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?

Enter ADRIANA, within

ADRIANA.  [Within]  Who is that at the door, that keeps all this noise?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  By my troth, your town is
    troubled with unruly boys.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Are you there, wife? You might
    have come before.
ADRIANA.  [Within]  Your wife, sir knave! Go get you from the door.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. If YOU went in pain, master, this 'knave' would go
sore.
ANGELO. Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome; we would fain have
either.
BALTHAZAR. In debating which was best, we shall part with neither.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. They stand at the door, master; bid them welcome
hither.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is something in the wind, that we cannot
get in.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. You would say so, master, if your garments were
thin.
  Your cake here is warm within; you stand here in the cold;
  It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go fetch me something; I'll break ope the gate.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Break any breaking here,
    and I'll break your knave's pate.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. A man may break a word with you,
    sir; and words are but wind;
  Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  It seems thou want'st breaking;
    out upon thee, hind!
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's too much 'out upon thee!' pray thee let me
in.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Ay, when fowls have no
    feathers and fish have no fin.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Well, I'll break in; go borrow me a crow.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. A crow without feather? Master, mean you so?
  For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather;
  If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow.
BALTHAZAR. Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so!
  Herein you war against your reputation,
  And draw within the compass of suspect
  Th' unviolated honour of your wife.
  Once this-your long experience of her wisdom,
  Her sober virtue, years, and modesty,
  Plead on her part some cause to you unknown;
  And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse
  Why at this time the doors are made against you.
  Be rul'd by me: depart in patience,
  And let us to the Tiger all to dinner;
  And, about evening, come yourself alone
  To know the reason of this strange restraint.
  If by strong hand you offer to break in
  Now in the stirring passage of the day,
  A vulgar comment will be made of it,
  And that supposed by the common rout
  Against your yet ungalled estimation
  That may with foul intrusion enter in
  And dwell upon your grave when you are dead;
  For slander lives upon succession,
  For ever hous'd where it gets possession.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You have prevail'd. I will depart in quiet,
  And in despite of mirth mean to be merry.
  I know a wench of excellent discourse,
  Pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle;
  There will we dine. This woman that I mean,
  My wife-but, I protest, without desert-
  Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal;
  To her will we to dinner.  [To ANGELO]  Get you home
  And fetch the chain; by this I know 'tis made.
  Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine;
  For there's the house. That chain will I bestow-
  Be it for nothing but to spite my wife-
  Upon mine hostess there; good sir, make haste.
  Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,
  I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me.
ANGELO. I'll meet you at that place some hour hence.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do so; this jest shall cost me some expense.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE 2

Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS

Enter LUCIANA with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

LUCIANA. And may it be that you have quite forgot
  A husband's office? Shall, Antipholus,
  Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?
  Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?
  If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
  Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness;
  Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;
  Muffle your false love with some show of blindness;
  Let not my sister read it in your eye;
  Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;
  Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;
  Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;
  Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;
  Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;
  Be secret-false. What need she be acquainted?
  What simple thief brags of his own attaint?
  'Tis double wrong to truant with your bed
  And let her read it in thy looks at board;
  Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;
  Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.
  Alas, poor women! make us but believe,
  Being compact of credit, that you love us;
  Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;
  We in your motion turn, and you may move us.
  Then, gentle brother, get you in again;
  Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife.
  'Tis holy sport to be a little vain
  When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Sweet mistress-what your name is else, I know
not,
  Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine-
  Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not
  Than our earth's wonder-more than earth, divine.
  Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;
  Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit,
  Smoth'red in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
  The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
  Against my soul's pure truth why labour you
  To make it wander in an unknown field?
  Are you a god? Would you create me new?
  Transform me, then, and to your pow'r I'll yield.
  But if that I am I, then well I know
  Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
  Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;
  Far more, far more, to you do I decline.
  O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
  To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears.
  Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote;
  Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
  And as a bed I'll take them, and there he;
  And in that glorious supposition think
  He gains by death that hath such means to die.
  Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink.
LUCIANA. What, are you mad, that you do reason so?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.
LUCIANA. It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
LUCIANA. Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
LUCIANA. Why call you me love? Call my sister so.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy sister's sister.
LUCIANA. That's my sister.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No;
  It is thyself, mine own self's better part;
  Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,
  My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim,
  My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.
LUCIANA. All this my sister is, or else should be.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee;
  Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;
  Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife.
  Give me thy hand.
LUCIANA. O, soft, sir, hold you still;
  I'll fetch my sister to get her good will.

 [_Exit LUCIANA._]

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, how now, Dromio! Where run'st thou
  so fast?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?
  Am I your man? Am I myself?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art Dromio, thou art my
  man, thou art thyself.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and besides
  myself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What woman's man, and how besides thyself?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due
  to a woman-one that claims me, one that haunts me, one
  that will have me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What claim lays she to thee?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, such claim as you would
  lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast: not
  that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she,
  being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is she?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A very reverent body; ay, such a one
  as a man may not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.'
  I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a
  wondrous fat marriage.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How dost thou mean a fat marriage?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench,
  and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but
  to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light.
  I warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn
  Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday, she'll burn
  week longer than the whole world.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What complexion is she of?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Swart, like my shoe; but her face
  nothing like so clean kept; for why, she sweats, a man may
  go over shoes in the grime of it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. That's a fault that water will mend.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood
  could not do it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What's her name?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nell, sir; but her name and three
  quarters, that's an ell and three quarters, will not measure
  her from hip to hip.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Then she bears some breadth?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No longer from head to foot than
  from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find
  out countries in her.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In what part of her body stands Ireland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by
  the bogs.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Scotland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I found it by the barrenness, hard in
  the palm of the hand.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where France?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. In her forehead, arm'd and reverted,
  making war against her heir.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where England?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I
  could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her
  chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Spain?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, I saw it not, but I felt it hot in
  her breath.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where America, the Indies?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, sir, upon her nose, an o'er embellished with
  rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the
  hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be
  ballast at her nose.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, Sir, I did not look so low. To
  conclude: this drudge or diviner laid claim to me; call'd me
  Dromio; swore I was assur'd to her; told me what privy
  marks I had about me, as, the mark of my shoulder, the
  mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I,
  amaz'd, ran from her as a witch.
  And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith,
    and my heart of steel,
  She had transform'd me to a curtal dog, and made me turn i' th'
  wheel.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go hie thee presently post to the road;
  An if the wind blow any way from shore,
  I will not harbour in this town to-night.
  If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
  Where I will walk till thou return to me.
  If every one knows us, and we know none,
  'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. As from a bear a man would run for life,
  So fly I from her that would be my wife.

 [_Exit._]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's none but witches do inhabit here,
  And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence.
  She that doth call me husband, even my soul
  Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,
  Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,
  Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
  Hath almost made me traitor to myself;
  But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,
  I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.

Enter ANGELO with the chain

ANGELO. Master Antipholus!
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Ay, that's my name.
ANGELO. I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain.
  I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine;
  The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is your will that I shall do with this?
ANGELO. What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.
ANGELO. Not once nor twice, but twenty times you have.
  Go home with it, and please your wife withal;
  And soon at supper-time I'll visit you,
  And then receive my money for the chain.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
  For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.
ANGELO. You are a merry man, sir; fare you well.
[Exit]
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What I should think of this cannot tell:
  But this I think, there's no man is so vain
  That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain.
  I see a man here needs not live by shifts,
  When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.
  I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay;
  If any ship put out, then straight away.
[Exit]

ACT IV. SCENE 1

A public place

Enter SECOND MERCHANT, ANGELO, and an OFFICER

SECOND MERCHANT. You know since Pentecost the sum is due,
  And since I have not much importun'd you;
  Nor now I had not, but that I am bound
  To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage.
  Therefore make present satisfaction,
  Or I'll attach you by this officer.
ANGELO. Even just the sum that I do owe to you
  Is growing to me by Antipholus;
  And in the instant that I met with you
  He had of me a chain; at five o'clock
  I shall receive the money for the same.
  Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,
  I will discharge my bond, and thank you too.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS, from the
COURTEZAN'S

OFFICER. That labour may you save; see where he comes.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. While I go to the goldsmith's house, go thou
  And buy a rope's end; that will I bestow
  Among my wife and her confederates,
  For locking me out of my doors by day.
  But, soft, I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone;
  Buy thou a rope, and bring it home to me.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I buy a thousand pound a year; I buy a rope.
[Exit DROMIO]
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. A man is well holp up that trusts to you!
  I promised your presence and the chain;
  But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.
  Belike you thought our love would last too long,
  If it were chain'd together, and therefore came not.
ANGELO. Saving your merry humour, here's the note
  How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,
  The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,
  Which doth amount to three odd ducats more
  Than I stand debted to this gentleman.
  I pray you see him presently discharg'd,
  For he is bound to sea, and stays but for it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I am not furnish'd with the present money;
  Besides, I have some business in the town.
  Good signior, take the stranger to my house,
  And with you take the chain, and bid my wife
  Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof.
  Perchance I will be there as soon as you.
ANGELO. Then you will bring the chain to her yourself?
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; bear it with you, lest I come not time
enough.
ANGELO. Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about you?
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. An if I have not, sir, I hope you have;
  Or else you may return without your money.
ANGELO. Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain;
  Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,
  And I, to blame, have held him here too long.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Lord! you use this dalliance to excuse
  Your breach of promise to the Porpentine;
  I should have chid you for not bringing it,
  But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.
SECOND MERCHANT. The hour steals on; I pray you, sir, dispatch.
ANGELO. You hear how he importunes me-the chain!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Why, give it to my wife, and fetch your money.
ANGELO. Come, come, you know I gave it you even now.
  Either send the chain or send by me some token.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fie, now you run this humour out of breath!
  Come, where's the chain? I pray you let me see it.
SECOND MERCHANT. My business cannot brook this dalliance.
  Good sir, say whe'r you'll answer me or no;
  If not, I'll leave him to the officer.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I answer you! What should I answer you?
ANGELO. The money that you owe me for the chain.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I owe you none till I receive the chain.
ANGELO. You know I gave it you half an hour since.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You gave me none; you wrong me much to say so.
ANGELO. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it.
  Consider how it stands upon my credit.
SECOND MERCHANT. Well, officer, arrest him at my suit.
OFFICER. I do; and charge you in the Duke's name to obey me.
ANGELO. This touches me in reputation.
  Either consent to pay this sum for me,
  Or I attach you by this officer.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Consent to pay thee that I never had!
  Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'st.
ANGELO. Here is thy fee; arrest him, officer.
  I would not spare my brother in this case,
  If he should scorn me so apparently.
OFFICER. I do arrest you, sir; you hear the suit.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I do obey thee till I give thee bail.
  But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear
  As all the metal in your shop will answer.
ANGELO. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus,
  To your notorious shame, I doubt it not.

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, from the bay

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, there's a bark of Epidamnum
  That stays but till her owner comes aboard,
  And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,
  I have convey'd aboard; and I have bought
  The oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitx.
  The ship is in her trim; the merry wind
  Blows fair from land; they stay for nought at an
  But for their owner, master, and yourself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. How now! a madman? Why, thou peevish sheep,
  What ship of Epidamnum stays for me?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. THOU drunken slave! I sent the for a rope;
  And told thee to what purpose and what end.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. YOU sent me for a rope's end as soon-
  You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I Will debate this matter at more leisure,
  And teach your ears to list me with more heed.
  To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight;
  Give her this key, and tell her in the desk
  That's cover'd o'er with Turkish tapestry
  There is a purse of ducats; let her send it.
  Tell her I am arrested in the street,
  And that shall bail me; hie thee, slave, be gone.
  On, officer, to prison till it come.
[Exeunt all but DROMIO]
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. To Adriana! that is where we din'd,
  Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband.
  She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.
  Thither I must, although against my will,
  For servants must their masters' minds fulfil.
[Exit]

SCENE 2

The house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS

Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA

ADRIANA. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
  Might'st thou perceive austerely in his eye
  That he did plead in earnest? Yea or no?
  Look'd he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?
  What observation mad'st thou in this case
  Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face?
LUCIANA. First he denied you had in him no right.
ADRIANA. He meant he did me none-the more my spite.
LUCIANA. Then swore he that he was a stranger here.
ADRIANA. And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.
LUCIANA. Then pleaded I for you.
ADRIANA. And what said he?
LUCIANA. That love I begg'd for you he begg'd of me.
ADRIANA. With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?
LUCIANA. With words that in an honest suit might move.
  First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.
ADRIANA. Didst speak him fair?
LUCIANA. Have patience, I beseech.
ADRIANA. I cannot, nor I will not hold me still;
  My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
  He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,
  Ill-fac'd, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;
  Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind;
  Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.
LUCIANA. Who would be jealous then of such a one?
  No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone.
ADRIANA. Ah, but I think him better than I say,
  And yet would herein others' eyes were worse.
  Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;
  My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Here go-the desk, the purse. Sweet
  now, make haste.
LUCIANA. How hast thou lost thy breath?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By running fast.
ADRIANA. Where is thy master, Dromio? Is he well?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.
  A devil in an everlasting garment hath him;
  One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel;
  A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;
  A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff;
  A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands
  The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands;
  A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well;
  One that, before the Judgment, carries poor souls to hell.
ADRIANA. Why, man, what is the matter?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I do not know the matter; he is rested on the case.
ADRIANA. What, is he arrested? Tell me, at whose suit?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;
  But he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I tell.
  Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk?
ADRIANA. Go fetch it, sister.  [Exit LUCIANA]  This I wonder at:
  Thus he unknown to me should be in debt.
  Tell me, was he arrested on a band?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. on a band, but on a stronger thing,
  A chain, a chain. Do you not hear it ring?
ADRIANA. What, the chain?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, no, the bell; 'tis time that I were gone.
  It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.
ADRIANA. The hours come back! That did I never hear.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O yes. If any hour meet a sergeant,
    'a turns back for very fear.
ADRIANA. As if Time were in debt! How fondly dost thou reason!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Time is a very bankrupt, and owes
    more than he's worth to season.
  Nay, he's a thief too: have you not heard men say
  That Time comes stealing on by night and day?
  If 'a be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,
  Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?

Re-enter LUCIANA with a purse

ADRIANA. Go, Dromio, there's the money; bear it straight,
  And bring thy master home immediately.
  Come, sister; I am press'd down with conceit-
  Conceit, my comfort and my injury.
[Exeunt]

SCENE 3

The mart

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's not a man I meet but doth salute me
  As if I were their well-acquainted friend;
  And every one doth call me by my name.
  Some tender money to me, some invite me,
  Some other give me thanks for kindnesses,
  Some offer me commodities to buy;
  Even now a tailor call'd me in his shop,
  And show'd me silks that he had bought for me,
  And therewithal took measure of my body.
  Sure, these are but imaginary wiles,
  And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, here's the gold you sent me
  for. What, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparell'd?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What gold is this? What Adam dost thou mean?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not that Adam that kept the Paradise,
  but that Adam that keeps the prison; he that goes in the
  calf's skin that was kill'd for the Prodigal; he that came behind
  you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you forsake your liberty.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I understand thee not.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No? Why, 'tis a plain case: he that
  went, like a bass-viol, in a case of leather; the man, sir,
  that, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a sob, and rest
  them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed men, and give
  them suits of durance; he that sets up his rest to do more
  exploits with his mace than a morris-pike.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, thou mean'st an officer?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band;
  that brings any man to answer it that breaks his band; on
  that thinks a man always going to bed, and says 'God give
  you good rest!'
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, there rest in your foolery. Is
  there any ship puts forth to-night? May we be gone?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Why, sir, I brought you word an
  hour since that the bark Expedition put forth to-night; and
  then were you hind'red by the sergeant, to tarry for the
  boy Delay. Here are the angels that you sent for to deliver you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The fellow is distract, and so am I;
  And here we wander in illusions.
  Some blessed power deliver us from hence!

Enter a COURTEZAN

COURTEZAN. Well met, well met, Master Antipholus.
  I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now.
  Is that the chain you promis'd me to-day?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me not.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, is this Mistress Satan?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. It is the devil.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's
  dam, and here she comes in the habit of a light wench; and
  thereof comes that the wenches say 'God damn me!' That's
  as much to say 'God make me a light wench!' It is written
  they appear to men like angels of light; light is an effect
  of fire, and fire will burn; ergo, light wenches will burn.
  Come not near her.
COURTEZAN. Your man and you are marvellous merry, sir.
  Will you go with me? We'll mend our dinner here.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, if you do, expect spoon-meat,
  or bespeak a long spoon.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, Dromio?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, he must have a long spoon
  that must eat with the devil.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avoid then, fiend! What tell'st thou me of
supping?
  Thou art, as you are all, a sorceress;
  I conjure thee to leave me and be gone.
COURTEZAN. Give me the ring of mine you had at dinner,
  Or, for my diamond, the chain you promis'd,
  And I'll be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Some devils ask but the parings of one's nail,
  A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,
  A nut, a cherry-stone;
  But she, more covetous, would have a chain.
  Master, be wise; an if you give it her,
  The devil will shake her chain, and fright us with it.
COURTEZAN. I pray you, sir, my ring, or else the chain;
  I hope you do not mean to cheat me so.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avaunt, thou witch! Come, Dromio, let us go.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Fly pride' says the peacock. Mistress, that you
know.
[Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
COURTEZAN. Now, out of doubt, Antipholus is mad,
  Else would he never so demean himself.
  A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats,
  And for the same he promis'd me a chain;
  Both one and other he denies me now.
  The reason that I gather he is mad,
  Besides this present instance of his rage,
  Is a mad tale he told to-day at dinner
  Of his own doors being shut against his entrance.
  Belike his wife, acquainted with his fits,
  On purpose shut the doors against his way.
  My way is now to hie home to his house,
  And tell his wife that, being lunatic,
  He rush'd into my house and took perforce
  My ring away. This course I fittest choose,
  For forty ducats is too much to lose.
[Exit]

SCENE 4

A street

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS with the OFFICER

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fear me not, man; I will not break away.
  I'll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money,
  To warrant thee, as I am 'rested for.
  My wife is in a wayward mood to-day,
  And will not lightly trust the messenger.
  That I should be attach'd in Ephesus,
  I tell you 'twill sound harshly in her cars.

Enter DROMIO OF EPHESUS, with a rope's-end

  Here comes my man; I think he brings the money. How now, sir! Have
  you that I sent you for? DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's that, I warrant
  you, will pay them all. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. But where's the money?
  DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, sir, I gave the money for the rope.
  ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Five hundred ducats, villain, for rope? DROMIO
  OF EPHESUS. I'll serve you, sir, five hundred at the rate. ANTIPHOLUS
  OF EPHESUS. To what end did I bid thee hie thee home? DROMIO OF
  EPHESUS. To a rope's-end, sir; and to that end am I return'd.
  ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And to that end, sir, I will welcome you.
  [Beating him] OFFICER. Good sir, be patient. DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay,
  'tis for me to be patient; I am in adversity. OFFICER. Good now, hold
  thy tongue. DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, rather persuade him to hold his
  hands. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou whoreson, senseless villain!
  DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I would I were senseless, sir, that I might not
  feel your blows. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou art sensible in nothing
  but blows, and so is an ass. DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I am an ass indeed;
  you may prove it by my long 'ears. I have served him from the hour of
  my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for my
  service but blows. When I am cold he heats me with beating; when I am
  warm he cools me with beating. I am wak'd with it when I sleep;
  rais'd with it when I sit; driven out of doors with it when I go from
  home; welcom'd home with it when I return; nay, I bear it on my
  shoulders as beggar wont her brat; and I think, when he hath lam'd
  me, I shall beg with it from door to door.

Enter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and a SCHOOLMASTER call'd PINCH

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Come, go along; my wife is coming yonder.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Mistress, 'respice finem,' respect your end; or
  rather, to prophesy like the parrot, 'Beware the rope's-end.'
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wilt thou still talk?
[Beating him]
COURTEZAN. How say you now? Is not your husband mad?
ADRIANA. His incivility confirms no less.
  Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer:
  Establish him in his true sense again,
  And I will please you what you will demand.
LUCIANA. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!
COURTEZAN. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy.
PINCH. Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is my hand, and let it feel your ear.
[Striking him]
PINCH. I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,
  To yield possession to my holy prayers,
  And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight.
  I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad.
ADRIANA. O, that thou wert not, poor distressed soul!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You minion, you, are these your customers?
  Did this companion with the saffron face
  Revel and feast it at my house to-day,
  Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut,
  And I denied to enter in my house?
ADRIANA. O husband, God doth know you din'd at home,
  Where would you had remain'd until this time,
  Free from these slanders and this open shame!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Din'd at home! Thou villain, what sayest thou?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, Sooth to say, you did not dine at home.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Were not my doors lock'd up and I shut out?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Perdie, your doors were lock'd and you shut out.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not she herself revile me there?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sans fable, she herself revil'd you there.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and scorn
me?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Certes, she did; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not I in rage depart from thence?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. In verity, you did. My bones bear witness,
  That since have felt the vigour of his rage.
ADRIANA. Is't good to soothe him in these contraries?
PINCH. It is no shame; the fellow finds his vein,
  And, yielding to him, humours well his frenzy.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou hast suborn'd the goldsmith to arrest me.
ADRIANA. Alas, I sent you money to redeem you,
  By Dromio here, who came in haste for it.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Money by me! Heart and goodwill you might,
  But surely, master, not a rag of money.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Went'st not thou to her for purse of ducats?
ADRIANA. He came to me, and I deliver'd it.
LUCIANA. And I am witness with her that she did.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. God and the rope-maker bear me witness
  That I was sent for nothing but a rope!
PINCH. Mistress, both man and master is possess'd;
  I know it by their pale and deadly looks.
  They must be bound, and laid in some dark room.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Say, wherefore didst thou lock me forth to-day?
  And why dost thou deny the bag of gold?
ADRIANA. I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. And, gentle master, I receiv'd no gold;
  But I confess, sir, that we were lock'd out.
ADRIANA. Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in both.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all,
  And art confederate with a damned pack
  To make a loathsome abject scorn of me;
  But with these nails I'll pluck out these false eyes
  That would behold in me this shameful sport.
ADRIANA. O, bind him, bind him; let him not come near me.
PINCH. More company! The fiend is strong within him.

Enter three or four, and offer to bind him. He strives

LUCIANA. Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What, will you murder me? Thou gaoler, thou,
  I am thy prisoner. Wilt thou suffer them
  To make a rescue?
OFFICER. Masters, let him go;
  He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him.
PINCH. Go bind this man, for he is frantic too.
[They bind DROMIO]
ADRIANA. What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer?
  Hast thou delight to see a wretched man
  Do outrage and displeasure to himself?
OFFICER. He is my prisoner; if I let him go,
  The debt he owes will be requir'd of me.
ADRIANA. I will discharge thee ere I go from thee;
  Bear me forthwith unto his creditor,
  And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it.
  Good Master Doctor, see him safe convey'd
  Home to my house. O most unhappy day!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O most unhappy strumpet!
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, I am here ent'red in bond for you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Out on thee, villian! Wherefore
  dost thou mad me?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Will you be bound for nothing?
  Be mad, good master; cry 'The devil!'
LUCIANA. God help, poor souls, how idly do they talk!
ADRIANA. Go bear him hence. Sister, go you with me.
[Exeunt all but ADRIANA, LUCIANA, OFFICERS, and COURTEZAN
  Say now, whose suit is he arrested at?
OFFICER. One Angelo, a goldsmith; do you know him?
ADRIANA. I know the man. What is the sum he owes?
OFFICER. Two hundred ducats.
ADRIANA. Say, how grows it due?
OFFICER. Due for a chain your husband had of him.
ADRIANA. He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it not.
COURTEZAN. When as your husband, all in rage, to-day
  Came to my house, and took away my ring-
  The ring I saw upon his finger now-
  Straight after did I meet him with a chain.
ADRIANA. It may be so, but I did never see it.
  Come, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is;
  I long to know the truth hereof at large.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, with his rapier drawn, and
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

LUCIANA. God, for thy mercy! they are loose again. ADRIANA. And come
with naked swords. Let's call more help to have them bound again.
OFFICER. Away, they'll kill us! [Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE as fast as may be, frighted ANTIPHOLUS OF
SYRACUSE. I see these witches are afraid of swords. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
She that would be your wife now ran from you. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Come to the Centaur; fetch our stuff from thence. I long that we were
safe and sound aboard. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, stay here this night;
they will surely do us no harm; you saw they speak us fair, give us
gold; methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for the mountain
of mad flesh that claims marriage of me, could find in my heart to stay
here still and turn witch. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I will not stay
to-night for all the town; Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard.
[Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1

A street before a priory

Enter SECOND MERCHANT and ANGELO

ANGELO. I am sorry, sir, that I have hind'red you;
  But I protest he had the chain of me,
  Though most dishonestly he doth deny it.
SECOND MERCHANT. How is the man esteem'd here in the city?
ANGELO. Of very reverend reputation, sir,
  Of credit infinite, highly belov'd,
  Second to none that lives here in the city;
  His word might bear my wealth at any time.
SECOND MERCHANT. Speak softly; yonder, as I think, he walks.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

ANGELO. 'Tis so; and that self chain about his neck
  Which he forswore most monstrously to have.
  Good sir, draw near to me, I'll speak to him.
  Signior Andpholus, I wonder much
  That you would put me to this shame and trouble;
  And, not without some scandal to yourself,
  With circumstance and oaths so to deny
  This chain, which now you wear so openly.
  Beside the charge, the shame, imprisonment,
  You have done wrong to this my honest friend;
  Who, but for staying on our controversy,
  Had hoisted sail and put to sea to-day.
  This chain you had of me; can you deny it?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think I had; I never did deny it.
SECOND MERCHANT. Yes, that you did, sir, and forswore it too.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Who heard me to deny it or forswear it?
SECOND MERCHANT. These ears of mine, thou know'st, did hear thee.
  Fie on thee, wretch! 'tis pity that thou liv'st
  To walk where any honest men resort.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art a villain to impeach me thus;
  I'll prove mine honour and mine honesty
  Against thee presently, if thou dar'st stand.
SECOND MERCHANT. I dare, and do defy thee for a villain.
[They draw]

Enter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and OTHERS

ADRIANA. Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake! He is mad.
  Some get within him, take his sword away;
  Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Run, master, run; for God's sake take a house.
  This is some priory. In, or we are spoil'd.
[Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE to the priory

Enter the LADY ABBESS

ABBESS. Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither?
ADRIANA. To fetch my poor distracted husband hence.
  Let us come in, that we may bind him fast,
  And bear him home for his recovery.
ANGELO. I knew he was not in his perfect wits.
SECOND MERCHANT. I am sorry now that I did draw on him.
ABBESS. How long hath this possession held the man?
ADRIANA. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad,
  And much different from the man he was;
  But till this afternoon his passion
  Ne'er brake into extremity of rage.
ABBESS. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea?
  Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye
  Stray'd his affection in unlawful love?
  A sin prevailing much in youthful men
  Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing.
  Which of these sorrows is he subject to?
ADRIANA. To none of these, except it be the last;
  Namely, some love that drew him oft from home.
ABBESS. You should for that have reprehended him.
ADRIANA. Why, so I did.
ABBESS. Ay, but not rough enough.
ADRIANA. As roughly as my modesty would let me.
ABBESS. Haply in private.
ADRIANA. And in assemblies too.
ABBESS. Ay, but not enough.
ADRIANA. It was the copy of our conference.
  In bed, he slept not for my urging it;
  At board, he fed not for my urging it;
  Alone, it was the subject of my theme;
  In company, I often glanced it;
  Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.
ABBESS. And thereof came it that the man was mad.
  The venom clamours of a jealous woman
  Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
  It seems his sleeps were hind'red by thy railing,
  And thereof comes it that his head is light.
  Thou say'st his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings:
  Unquiet meals make ill digestions;
  Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;
  And what's a fever but a fit of madness?
  Thou say'st his sports were hind'red by thy brawls.
  Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue
  But moody and dull melancholy,
  Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,
  And at her heels a huge infectious troop
  Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?
  In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest,
  To be disturb'd would mad or man or beast.
  The consequence is, then, thy jealous fits
  Hath scar'd thy husband from the use of wits.
LUCIANA. She never reprehended him but mildly,
  When he demean'd himself rough, rude, and wildly.
  Why bear you these rebukes, and answer not?
ADRIANA. She did betray me to my own reproof.
  Good people, enter, and lay hold on him.
ABBESS. No, not a creature enters in my house.
ADRIANA. Then let your servants bring my husband forth.
ABBESS. Neither; he took this place for sanctuary,
  And it shall privilege him from your hands
  Till I have brought him to his wits again,
  Or lose my labour in assaying it.
ADRIANA. I will attend my husband, be his nurse,
  Diet his sickness, for it is my office,
  And will have no attorney but myself;
  And therefore let me have him home with me.
ABBESS. Be patient; for I will not let him stir
  Till I have us'd the approved means I have,
  With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers,
  To make of him a formal man again.
  It is a branch and parcel of mine oath,
  A charitable duty of my order;
  Therefore depart, and leave him here with me.
ADRIANA. I will not hence and leave my husband here;
  And ill it doth beseem your holiness
  To separate the husband and the wife.
ABBESS. Be quiet, and depart; thou shalt not have him.
[Exit]
LUCIANA. Complain unto the Duke of this indignity.
ADRIANA. Come, go; I will fall prostrate at his feet,
  And never rise until my tears and prayers
  Have won his Grace to come in person hither
  And take perforce my husband from the Abbess.
SECOND MERCHANT. By this, I think, the dial points at five;
  Anon, I'm sure, the Duke himself in person
  Comes this way to the melancholy vale,
  The place of death and sorry execution,
  Behind the ditches of the abbey here.
ANGELO. Upon what cause?
SECOND MERCHANT. To see a reverend Syracusian merchant,
  Who put unluckily into this bay
  Against the laws and statutes of this town,
  Beheaded publicly for his offence.
ANGELO. See where they come; we will behold his death.
LUCIANA. Kneel to the Duke before he pass the abbey.

Enter the DUKE, attended; AEGEON, bareheaded; with the HEADSMAN and
other OFFICERS

DUKE. Yet once again proclaim it publicly,
  If any friend will pay the sum for him,
  He shall not die; so much we tender him.
ADRIANA. Justice, most sacred Duke, against the Abbess!
DUKE. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady;
  It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong.
ADRIANA. May it please your Grace, Antipholus, my husband,
  Who I made lord of me and all I had
  At your important letters-this ill day
  A most outrageous fit of madness took him,
  That desp'rately he hurried through the street,
  With him his bondman all as mad as he,
  Doing displeasure to the citizens
  By rushing in their houses, bearing thence
  Rings, jewels, anything his rage did like.
  Once did I get him bound and sent him home,
  Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went,
  That here and there his fury had committed.
  Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,
  He broke from those that had the guard of him,
  And with his mad attendant and himself,
  Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords,
  Met us again and, madly bent on us,
  Chas'd us away; till, raising of more aid,
  We came again to bind them. Then they fled
  Into this abbey, whither we pursu'd them;
  And here the Abbess shuts the gates on us,
  And will not suffer us to fetch him out,
  Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence.
  Therefore, most gracious Duke, with thy command
  Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help.
DUKE. Long since thy husband serv'd me in my wars,
  And I to thee engag'd a prince's word,
  When thou didst make him master of thy bed,
  To do him all the grace and good I could.
  Go, some of you, knock at the abbey gate,
  And bid the Lady Abbess come to me,
  I will determine this before I stir.

Enter a MESSENGER

MESSENGER. O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself!
  My master and his man are both broke loose,
  Beaten the maids a-row and bound the doctor,
  Whose beard they have sing'd off with brands of fire;
  And ever, as it blaz'd, they threw on him
  Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair.
  My master preaches patience to him, and the while
  His man with scissors nicks him like a fool;
  And sure, unless you send some present help,
  Between them they will kill the conjurer.
ADRIANA. Peace, fool! thy master and his man are here,
  And that is false thou dost report to us.
MESSENGER. Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true;
  I have not breath'd almost since I did see it.
  He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you,
  To scorch your face, and to disfigure you.
[Cry within]
  Hark, hark, I hear him, mistress; fly, be gone!
DUKE. Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberds.
ADRIANA. Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you
  That he is borne about invisible.
  Even now we hous'd him in the abbey here,
  And now he's there, past thought of human reason.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS and DROMIO OFEPHESUS

ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, most gracious Duke; O, grant me justice!
  Even for the service that long since I did thee,
  When I bestrid thee in the wars, and took
  Deep scars to save thy life; even for the blood
  That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice.
AEGEON. Unless the fear of death doth make me dote,
  I see my son Antipholus, and Dromio.
ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, sweet Prince, against that woman there!
  She whom thou gav'st to me to be my wife,
  That hath abused and dishonoured me
  Even in the strength and height of injury.
  Beyond imagination is the wrong
  That she this day hath shameless thrown on me.
DUKE. Discover how, and thou shalt find me just.
ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. This day, great Duke, she shut the doors upon me,
  While she with harlots feasted in my house.
DUKE. A grievous fault. Say, woman, didst thou so?
ADRIANA. No, my good lord. Myself, he, and my sister,
  To-day did dine together. So befall my soul
  As this is false he burdens me withal!
LUCIANA. Ne'er may I look on day nor sleep on night
  But she tells to your Highness simple truth!
ANGELO. O peflur'd woman! They are both forsworn.
  In this the madman justly chargeth them.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. My liege, I am advised what I say;
  Neither disturbed with the effect of wine,
  Nor heady-rash, provok'd with raging ire,
  Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.
  This woman lock'd me out this day from dinner;
  That goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her,
  Could witness it, for he was with me then;
  Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,
  Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,
  Where Balthazar and I did dine together.
  Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,
  I went to seek him. In the street I met him,
  And in his company that gentleman.
  There did this perjur'd goldsmith swear me down
  That I this day of him receiv'd the chain,
  Which, God he knows, I saw not; for the which
  He did arrest me with an officer.
  I did obey, and sent my peasant home
  For certain ducats; he with none return'd.
  Then fairly I bespoke the officer
  To go in person with me to my house.
  By th' way we met my wife, her sister, and a rabble more
  Of vile confederates. Along with them
  They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain,
  A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
  A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller,
  A needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp-looking wretch,
  A living dead man. This pernicious slave,
  Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer,
  And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,
  And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me,
  Cries out I was possess'd. Then all together
  They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence,
  And in a dark and dankish vault at home
  There left me and my man, both bound together;
  Till, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,
  I gain'd my freedom, and immediately
  Ran hither to your Grace; whom I beseech
  To give me ample satisfaction
  For these deep shames and great indignities.
ANGELO. My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him,
  That he din'd not at home, but was lock'd out.
DUKE. But had he such a chain of thee, or no?
ANGELO. He had, my lord, and when he ran in here,
  These people saw the chain about his neck.
SECOND MERCHANT. Besides, I will be sworn these ears of mine
  Heard you confess you had the chain of him,
  After you first forswore it on the mart;
  And thereupon I drew my sword on you,
  And then you fled into this abbey here,
  From whence, I think, you are come by miracle.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never came within these abbey walls,
  Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me;
  I never saw the chain, so help me Heaven!
  And this is false you burden me withal.
DUKE. Why, what an intricate impeach is this!
  I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup.
  If here you hous'd him, here he would have been;
  If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly.
  You say he din'd at home: the goldsmith here
  Denies that saying. Sirrah, what say you?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, he din'd with her there, at the Porpentine.
COURTEZAN. He did; and from my finger snatch'd that ring.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. 'Tis true, my liege; this ring I had of her.
DUKE. Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here?
COURTEZAN. As sure, my liege, as I do see your Grace.
DUKE. Why, this is strange. Go call the Abbess hither.
  I think you are all mated or stark mad.
[Exit one to the ABBESS
AEGEON. Most mighty Duke, vouchsafe me speak a word:
  Haply I see a friend will save my life
  And pay the sum that may deliver me.
DUKE. Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt.
AEGEON. Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus?
  And is not that your bondman Dromio?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Within this hour I was his bondman, sir,
  But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords
  Now am I Dromio and his man unbound.
AEGEON. I am sure you both of you remember me.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ourselves we do remember, sir, by you;
  For lately we were bound as you are now.
  You are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir?
AEGEON. Why look you strange on me? You know me well.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw you in my life till now.
AEGEON. O! grief hath chang'd me since you saw me last;
  And careful hours with time's deformed hand
  Have written strange defeatures in my face.
  But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Neither.
AEGEON. Dromio, nor thou?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, trust me, sir, nor I.
AEGEON. I am sure thou dost.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not; and
  whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him.
AEGEON. Not know my voice! O time's extremity,
  Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue
  In seven short years that here my only son
  Knows not my feeble key of untun'd cares?
  Though now this grained face of mine be hid
  In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,
  And all the conduits of my blood froze up,
  Yet hath my night of life some memory,
  My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left,
  My dull deaf ears a little use to hear;
  All these old witnesses-I cannot err-
  Tell me thou art my son Antipholus.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw my father in my life.
AEGEON. But seven years since, in Syracuse, boy,
  Thou know'st we parted; but perhaps, my son,
  Thou sham'st to acknowledge me in misery.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. The Duke and all that know me in
  the city Can witness with me that it is not so:
  I ne'er saw Syracuse in my life.
DUKE. I tell thee, Syracusian, twenty years
  Have I been patron to Antipholus,
  During which time he ne'er saw Syracuse.
  I see thy age and dangers make thee dote.

Re-enter the ABBESS, with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

ABBESS. Most mighty Duke, behold a man much wrong'd.
[All gather to see them]
ADRIANA. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.
DUKE. One of these men is genius to the other;
  And so of these. Which is the natural man,
  And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, sir, am Dromio; command him away.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I, Sir, am Dromio; pray let me stay.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Aegeon, art thou not? or else his
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, my old master! who hath bound
ABBESS. Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds,
  And gain a husband by his liberty.
  Speak, old Aegeon, if thou be'st the man
  That hadst a wife once call'd Aemilia,
  That bore thee at a burden two fair sons.
  O, if thou be'st the same Aegeon, speak,
  And speak unto the same Aemilia!
AEGEON. If I dream not, thou art Aemilia.
  If thou art she, tell me where is that son
  That floated with thee on the fatal raft?
ABBESS. By men of Epidamnum he and I
  And the twin Dromio, all were taken up;
  But by and by rude fishermen of Corinth
  By force took Dromio and my son from them,
  And me they left with those of Epidamnum.
  What then became of them I cannot tell;
  I to this fortune that you see me in.
DUKE. Why, here begins his morning story right.
  These two Antipholus', these two so like,
  And these two Dromios, one in semblance-
  Besides her urging of her wreck at sea-
  These are the parents to these children,
  Which accidentally are met together.
  Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse.
DUKE. Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I came from Corinth, my most gracious lord.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. And I with him.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Brought to this town by that most famous
warrior,
  Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle.
ADRIANA. Which of you two did dine with me to-day?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I, gentle mistress.
ADRIANA. And are not you my husband?
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; I say nay to that.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. And so do I, yet did she call me so;
  And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,
  Did call me brother.  [To LUCIANA]  What I told you then,
  I hope I shall have leisure to make good;
  If this be not a dream I see and hear.
ANGELO. That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think it be, sir; I deny it not.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And you, sir, for this chain arrested me.
ANGELO. I think I did, sir; I deny it not.
ADRIANA. I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,
  By Dromio; but I think he brought it not.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, none by me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. This purse of ducats I receiv'd from you,
  And Dromio my man did bring them me.
  I see we still did meet each other's man,
  And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,
  And thereupon these ERRORS are arose.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. These ducats pawn I for my father here.
DUKE. It shall not need; thy father hath his life.
COURTEZAN. Sir, I must have that diamond from you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There, take it; and much thanks for my
  good cheer.
ABBESS. Renowned Duke, vouchsafe to take the pains
  To go with us into the abbey here,
  And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes;
  And all that are assembled in this place
  That by this sympathized one day's error
  Have suffer'd wrong, go keep us company,
  And we shall make full satisfaction.
  Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail
  Of you, my sons; and till this present hour
  My heavy burden ne'er delivered.
  The Duke, my husband, and my children both,
  And you the calendars of their nativity,
  Go to a gossips' feast, and go with me;
  After so long grief, such nativity!
DUKE. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast.
[Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, ANTIPHOLUS OF
EPHESUS, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard?
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embark'd?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He speaks to me. I am your master, Dromio.
  Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon.
  Embrace thy brother there; rejoice with him.
[Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There is a fat friend at your master's house,
  That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner;
  She now shall be my sister, not my wife.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother;
  I see by you I am a sweet-fac'd youth.
  Will you walk in to see their gossiping?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not I, sir; you are my elder.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. That's a question; how shall we try it?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. We'll draw cuts for the senior; till then,
    lead thou first.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, then, thus:
  We came into the world like brother and brother,
  And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.
[Exeunt

THE END

1608



THE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS

Dramatis Personae

  CAIUS MARCIUS, afterwards CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS

    Generals against the Volscians
  TITUS LARTIUS
  COMINIUS

  MENENIUS AGRIPPA, friend to Coriolanus

    Tribunes of the People
  SICINIUS VELUTUS
  JUNIUS BRUTUS

  YOUNG MARCIUS, son to Coriolanus
  A ROMAN HERALD
  NICANOR, a Roman
  TULLUS AUFIDIUS, General of the Volscians
  LIEUTENANT, to Aufidius
  CONSPIRATORS, With Aufidius
  ADRIAN, a Volscian
  A CITIZEN of Antium
  TWO VOLSCIAN GUARDS

  VOLUMNIA, mother to Coriolanus
  VIRGILIA, wife to Coriolanus
  VALERIA, friend to Virgilia
  GENTLEWOMAN attending on Virgilia

  Roman and Volscian Senators, Patricians, Aediles, Lictors,
    Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, Servants to Aufidius, and other
    Attendants

SCENE: Rome and the neighbourhood; Corioli and the neighbourhood;
Antium

ACT I. SCENE I. Rome. A street

Enter a company of mutinous citizens, with staves, clubs, and other
weapons

  FIRST CITIZEN. Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.
  ALL. Speak, speak.
  FIRST CITIZEN. YOU are all resolv'd rather to die than to famish?
  ALL. Resolv'd, resolv'd.
  FIRST CITIZEN. First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the
    people.
  ALL. We know't, we know't.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own
    price. Is't a verdict?
  ALL. No more talking on't; let it be done. Away, away!
  SECOND CITIZEN. One word, good citizens.
  FIRST CITIZEN. We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good.
    What authority surfeits on would relieve us; if they would yield
    us but the superfluity while it were wholesome, we might guess
    they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too dear. The
    leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an
    inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a
    gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes ere we become
    rakes; for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in
    thirst for revenge.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?
  FIRST CITIZEN. Against him first; he's a very dog to the
    commonalty.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Consider you what services he has done for his
    country?
  FIRST CITIZEN. Very well, and could be content to give him good
    report for't but that he pays himself with being proud.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Nay, but speak not maliciously.
  FIRST CITIZEN. I say unto you, what he hath done famously he did it
    to that end; though soft-conscienc'd men can be content to say it
    was for his country, he did it to please his mother and to be
    partly proud, which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue.
  SECOND CITIZEN. What he cannot help in his nature you account a
    vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.
  FIRST CITIZEN. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations;
    he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.  [Shouts
    within]  What shouts are these? The other side o' th' city is
    risen. Why stay we prating here? To th' Capitol!
  ALL. Come, come.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Soft! who comes here?

                       Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA

  SECOND CITIZEN. Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always lov'd
    the people.
  FIRST CITIZEN. He's one honest enough; would all the rest were so!
  MENENIUS. What work's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you
    With bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Our business is not unknown to th' Senate; they have
    had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll
    show 'em in deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths;
    they shall know we have strong arms too.
  MENENIUS. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,
    Will you undo yourselves?
  FIRST CITIZEN. We cannot, sir; we are undone already.
  MENENIUS. I tell you, friends, most charitable care
    Have the patricians of you. For your wants,
    Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well
    Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them
    Against the Roman state; whose course will on
    The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
    Of more strong link asunder than can ever
    Appear in your impediment. For the dearth,
    The gods, not the patricians, make it, and
    Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
    You are transported by calamity
    Thither where more attends you; and you slander
    The helms o' th' state, who care for you like fathers,
    When you curse them as enemies.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er car'd for us
    yet. Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses cramm'd with
    grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily
    any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more
    piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor. If the
    wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear
    us.
  MENENIUS. Either you must
    Confess yourselves wondrous malicious,
    Or be accus'd of folly. I shall tell you
    A pretty tale. It may be you have heard it;
    But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture
    To stale't a little more.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Well, I'll hear it, sir; yet you must not think to
    fob off our disgrace with a tale. But, an't please you, deliver.
  MENENIUS. There was a time when all the body's members
    Rebell'd against the belly; thus accus'd it:
    That only like a gulf it did remain
    I' th' midst o' th' body, idle and unactive,
    Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
    Like labour with the rest; where th' other instruments
    Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
    And, mutually participate, did minister
    Unto the appetite and affection common
    Of the whole body. The belly answer'd-
  FIRST CITIZEN. Well, sir, what answer made the belly?
  MENENIUS. Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,
    Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus-
    For look you, I may make the belly smile
    As well as speak- it tauntingly replied
    To th' discontented members, the mutinous parts
    That envied his receipt; even so most fitly
    As you malign our senators for that
    They are not such as you.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Your belly's answer- What?
    The kingly crowned head, the vigilant eye,
    The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,
    Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,
    With other muniments and petty helps
    Is this our fabric, if that they-
  MENENIUS. What then?
    Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? What then?
  FIRST CITIZEN. Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,
    Who is the sink o' th' body-
  MENENIUS. Well, what then?
  FIRST CITIZEN. The former agents, if they did complain,
    What could the belly answer?
  MENENIUS. I will tell you;
    If you'll bestow a small- of what you have little-
    Patience awhile, you'st hear the belly's answer.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Y'are long about it.
  MENENIUS. Note me this, good friend:
    Your most grave belly was deliberate,
    Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered.
    'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he
    'That I receive the general food at first
    Which you do live upon; and fit it is,
    Because I am the storehouse and the shop
    Of the whole body. But, if you do remember,
    I send it through the rivers of your blood,
    Even to the court, the heart, to th' seat o' th' brain;
    And, through the cranks and offices of man,
    The strongest nerves and small inferior veins
    From me receive that natural competency
    Whereby they live. And though that all at once
    You, my good friends'- this says the belly; mark me.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Ay, sir; well, well.
  MENENIUS. 'Though all at once cannot
    See what I do deliver out to each,
    Yet I can make my audit up, that all
    From me do back receive the flour of all,
    And leave me but the bran.' What say you to' t?
  FIRST CITIZEN. It was an answer. How apply you this?
  MENENIUS. The senators of Rome are this good belly,
    And you the mutinous members; for, examine
    Their counsels and their cares, digest things rightly
    Touching the weal o' th' common, you shall find
    No public benefit which you receive
    But it proceeds or comes from them to you,
    And no way from yourselves. What do you think,
    You, the great toe of this assembly?
  FIRST CITIZEN. I the great toe? Why the great toe?
  MENENIUS. For that, being one o' th' lowest, basest, poorest,
    Of this most wise rebellion, thou goest foremost.
    Thou rascal, that art worst in blood to run,
    Lead'st first to win some vantage.
    But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs.
    Rome and her rats are at the point of battle;
    The one side must have bale.

                      Enter CAIUS MARCIUS

    Hail, noble Marcius!
  MARCIUS. Thanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues
    That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,
    Make yourselves scabs?
  FIRST CITIZEN. We have ever your good word.
  MARCIUS. He that will give good words to thee will flatter
    Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,
    That like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you,
    The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,
    Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;
    Where foxes, geese; you are no surer, no,
    Than is the coal of fire upon the ice
    Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is
    To make him worthy whose offence subdues him,
    And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness
    Deserves your hate; and your affections are
    A sick man's appetite, who desires most that
    Which would increase his evil. He that depends
    Upon your favours swims with fins of lead,
    And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?
    With every minute you do change a mind
    And call him noble that was now your hate,
    Him vile that was your garland. What's the matter
    That in these several places of the city
    You cry against the noble Senate, who,
    Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else
    Would feed on one another? What's their seeking?
  MENENIUS. For corn at their own rates, whereof they say
    The city is well stor'd.
  MARCIUS. Hang 'em! They say!
    They'll sit by th' fire and presume to know
    What's done i' th' Capitol, who's like to rise,
    Who thrives and who declines; side factions, and give out
    Conjectural marriages, making parties strong,
    And feebling such as stand not in their liking
    Below their cobbled shoes. They say there's grain enough!
    Would the nobility lay aside their ruth
    And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry
    With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high
    As I could pick my lance.
  MENENIUS. Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;
    For though abundantly they lack discretion,
    Yet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you,
    What says the other troop?
  MARCIUS. They are dissolv'd. Hang 'em!
    They said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs-
    That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,
    That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not
    Corn for the rich men only. With these shreds
    They vented their complainings; which being answer'd,
    And a petition granted them- a strange one,
    To break the heart of generosity
    And make bold power look pale- they threw their caps
    As they would hang them on the horns o' th' moon,
    Shouting their emulation.
  MENENIUS. What is granted them?
  MARCIUS. Five tribunes, to defend their vulgar wisdoms,
    Of their own choice. One's Junius Brutus-
    Sicinius Velutus, and I know not. 'Sdeath!
    The rabble should have first unroof'd the city
    Ere so prevail'd with me; it will in time
    Win upon power and throw forth greater themes
    For insurrection's arguing.
  MENENIUS. This is strange.
  MARCIUS. Go get you home, you fragments.

                     Enter a MESSENGER, hastily

  MESSENGER. Where's Caius Marcius?
  MARCIUS. Here. What's the matter?
  MESSENGER. The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.
  MARCIUS. I am glad on't; then we shall ha' means to vent
    Our musty superfluity. See, our best elders.

         Enter COMINIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, with other SENATORS;
                  JUNIUS BRUTUS and SICINIUS VELUTUS

  FIRST SENATOR. Marcius, 'tis true that you have lately told us:
    The Volsces are in arms.
  MARCIUS. They have a leader,
    Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to't.
    I sin in envying his nobility;
    And were I anything but what I am,
    I would wish me only he.
  COMINIUS. You have fought together?
  MARCIUS. Were half to half the world by th' ears, and he
    Upon my party, I'd revolt, to make
    Only my wars with him. He is a lion
    That I am proud to hunt.
  FIRST SENATOR. Then, worthy Marcius,
    Attend upon Cominius to these wars.
  COMINIUS. It is your former promise.
  MARCIUS. Sir, it is;
    And I am constant. Titus Lartius, thou
    Shalt see me once more strike at Tullus' face.
    What, art thou stiff? Stand'st out?
  LARTIUS. No, Caius Marcius;
    I'll lean upon one crutch and fight with t'other
    Ere stay behind this business.
  MENENIUS. O, true bred!
  FIRST SENATOR. Your company to th' Capitol; where, I know,
    Our greatest friends attend us.
  LARTIUS.  [To COMINIUS]  Lead you on.
    [To MARCIUS]  Follow Cominius; we must follow you;
    Right worthy you priority.
  COMINIUS. Noble Marcius!
  FIRST SENATOR.  [To the Citizens]  Hence to your homes; be gone.
  MARCIUS. Nay, let them follow.
    The Volsces have much corn: take these rats thither
    To gnaw their garners. Worshipful mutineers,
    Your valour puts well forth; pray follow.
         Ciitzens steal away. Exeunt all but SICINIUS and BRUTUS
  SICINIUS. Was ever man so proud as is this Marcius?
  BRUTUS. He has no equal.
  SICINIUS. When we were chosen tribunes for the people-
  BRUTUS. Mark'd you his lip and eyes?
  SICINIUS. Nay, but his taunts!
  BRUTUS. Being mov'd, he will not spare to gird the gods.
  SICINIUS. Bemock the modest moon.
  BRUTUS. The present wars devour him! He is grown
    Too proud to be so valiant.
  SICINIUS. Such a nature,
    Tickled with good success, disdains the shadow
    Which he treads on at noon. But I do wonder
    His insolence can brook to be commanded
    Under Cominius.
  BRUTUS. Fame, at the which he aims-
    In whom already he is well grac'd- cannot
    Better be held nor more attain'd than by
    A place below the first; for what miscarries
    Shall be the general's fault, though he perform
    To th' utmost of a man, and giddy censure
    Will then cry out of Marcius 'O, if he
    Had borne the business!'
  SICINIUS. Besides, if things go well,
    Opinion, that so sticks on Marcius, shall
    Of his demerits rob Cominius.
  BRUTUS. Come.
    Half all Cominius' honours are to Marcius,
    Though Marcius earn'd them not; and all his faults
    To Marcius shall be honours, though indeed
    In aught he merit not.
  SICINIUS. Let's hence and hear
    How the dispatch is made, and in what fashion,
    More than his singularity, he goes
    Upon this present action.
  BRUTUS. Let's along.                                    Exeunt

SCENE II. Corioli. The Senate House.

Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS with SENATORS of Corioli

  FIRST SENATOR. So, your opinion is, Aufidius,
    That they of Rome are ent'red in our counsels
    And know how we proceed.
  AUFIDIUS. Is it not yours?
    What ever have been thought on in this state
    That could be brought to bodily act ere Rome
    Had circumvention? 'Tis not four days gone
    Since I heard thence; these are the words- I think
    I have the letter here;.yes, here it is:
    [Reads]  'They have press'd a power, but it is not known
    Whether for east or west. The dearth is great;
    The people mutinous; and it is rumour'd,
    Cominius, Marcius your old enemy,
    Who is of Rome worse hated than of you,
    And Titus Lartius, a most valiant Roman,
    These three lead on this preparation
    Whither 'tis bent. Most likely 'tis for you;
    Consider of it.'
  FIRST SENATOR. Our army's in the field;
    We never yet made doubt but Rome was ready
    To answer us.
  AUFIDIUS. Nor did you think it folly
    To keep your great pretences veil'd till when
    They needs must show themselves; which in the hatching,
    It seem'd, appear'd to Rome. By the discovery
    We shall be short'ned in our aim, which was
    To take in many towns ere almost Rome
    Should know we were afoot.
  SECOND SENATOR. Noble Aufidius,
    Take your commission; hie you to your bands;
    Let us alone to guard Corioli.
    If they set down before's, for the remove
    Bring up your army; but I think you'll find
    Th' have not prepar'd for us.
  AUFIDIUS. O, doubt not that!
    I speak from certainties. Nay more,
    Some parcels of their power are forth already,
    And only hitherward. I leave your honours.
    If we and Caius Marcius chance to meet,
    'Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike
    Till one can do no more.
  ALL. The gods assist you!
  AUFIDIUS. And keep your honours safe!
  FIRST SENATOR. Farewell.
  SECOND SENATOR. Farewell.
  ALL. Farewell.                                           Exeunt

SCENE III. Rome. MARCIUS' house

Enter VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA, mother and wife to MARCIUS; they set them
down on two low stools and sew

  VOLUMNIA. I pray you, daughter, sing, or express yourself in a more
    comfortable sort. If my son were my husband, I should freelier
    rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour than in the
    embracements of his bed where he would show most love. When yet
    he was but tender-bodied, and the only son of my womb; when youth
    with comeliness pluck'd all gaze his way; when, for a day of
    kings' entreaties, a mother should not sell him an hour from her
    beholding; I, considering how honour would become such a person-
    that it was no better than picture-like to hang by th' wall, if
    renown made it not stir- was pleas'd to let him seek danger where
    he was to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him, from whence he
    return'd his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I
    sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than
    now in first seeing he had proved himself a man.
  VIRGILIA. But had he died in the business, madam, how then?
  VOLUMNIA. Then his good report should have been my son; I therein
    would have found issue. Hear me profess sincerely: had I a dozen
    sons, each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my
    good Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country
    than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.

                        Enter a GENTLEWOMAN

  GENTLEWOMAN. Madam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you.
  VIRGILIA. Beseech you give me leave to retire myself.
  VOLUMNIA. Indeed you shall not.
    Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum;
    See him pluck Aufidius down by th' hair;
    As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him.
    Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus:
    'Come on, you cowards! You were got in fear,
    Though you were born in Rome.' His bloody brow
    With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes,
    Like to a harvest-man that's task'd to mow
    Or all or lose his hire.
  VIRGILIA. His bloody brow? O Jupiter, no blood!
  VOLUMNIA. Away, you fool! It more becomes a man
    Than gilt his trophy. The breasts of Hecuba,
    When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier
    Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood
    At Grecian sword, contemning. Tell Valeria
    We are fit to bid her welcome.              Exit GENTLEWOMAN
  VIRGILIA. Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!
  VOLUMNIA. He'll beat Aufidius' head below his knee
    And tread upon his neck.

         Re-enter GENTLEWOMAN, With VALERIA and an usher

  VALERIA. My ladies both, good day to you.
  VOLUMNIA. Sweet madam!
  VIRGILIA. I am glad to see your ladyship.
  VALERIA. How do you both? You are manifest housekeepers. What are
    you sewing here? A fine spot, in good faith. How does your little
    son?
  VIRGILIA. I thank your ladyship; well, good madam.
  VOLUMNIA. He had rather see the swords and hear a drum than look
    upon his schoolmaster.
  VALERIA. O' my word, the father's son! I'll swear 'tis a very
    pretty boy. O' my troth, I look'd upon him a Wednesday half an
    hour together; has such a confirm'd countenance! I saw him run
    after a gilded butterfly; and when he caught it he let it go
    again, and after it again, and over and over he comes, and up
    again, catch'd it again; or whether his fall enrag'd him, or how
    'twas, he did so set his teeth and tear it. O, I warrant, how he
    mammock'd it!
  VOLUMNIA. One on's father's moods.
  VALERIA. Indeed, la, 'tis a noble child.
  VIRGILIA. A crack, madam.
  VALERIA. Come, lay aside your stitchery; I must have you play the
    idle huswife with me this afternoon.
  VIRGILIA. No, good madam; I will not out of doors.
  VALERIA. Not out of doors!
  VOLUMNIA. She shall, she shall.
  VIRGILIA. Indeed, no, by your patience; I'll not over the threshold
    till my lord return from the wars.
  VALERIA. Fie, you confine yourself most unreasonably; come, you
    must go visit the good lady that lies in.
  VIRGILIA. I will wish her speedy strength, and visit her with my
    prayers; but I cannot go thither.
  VOLUMNIA. Why, I pray you?
  VIRGILIA. 'Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love.
  VALERIA. You would be another Penelope; yet they say all the yarn
    she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths.
    Come, I would your cambric were sensible as your finger, that you
    might leave pricking it for pity. Come, you shall go with us.
  VIRGILIA. No, good madam, pardon me; indeed I will not forth.
  VALERIA. In truth, la, go with me; and I'll tell you excellent news
    of your husband.
  VIRGILIA. O, good madam, there can be none yet.
  VALERIA. Verily, I do not jest with you; there came news from him
    last night.
  VIRGILIA. Indeed, madam?
  VALERIA. In earnest, it's true; I heard a senator speak it. Thus it
    is: the Volsces have an army forth; against whom Cominius the
    general is gone, with one part of our Roman power. Your lord and
    Titus Lartius are set down before their city Corioli; they
    nothing doubt prevailing and to make it brief wars. This is true,
    on mine honour; and so, I pray, go with us.
  VIRGILIA. Give me excuse, good madam; I will obey you in everything
    hereafter.
  VOLUMNIA. Let her alone, lady; as she is now, she will but disease
    our better mirth.
  VALERIA. In troth, I think she would. Fare you well, then. Come,
    good sweet lady. Prithee, Virgilia, turn thy solemness out o'
    door and go along with us.
  VIRGILIA. No, at a word, madam; indeed I must not. I wish you much
    mirth.
  VALERIA. Well then, farewell.                           Exeunt

SCENE IV. Before Corioli

Enter MARCIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, with drum and colours, with CAPTAINS and
soldiers. To them a MESSENGER

  MARCIUS. Yonder comes news; a wager- they have met.
  LARTIUS. My horse to yours- no.
  MARCIUS. 'Tis done.
  LARTIUS. Agreed.
  MARCIUS. Say, has our general met the enemy?
  MESSENGER. They lie in view, but have not spoke as yet.
  LARTIUS. So, the good horse is mine.
  MARCIUS. I'll buy him of you.
  LARTIUS. No, I'll nor sell nor give him; lend you him I will
    For half a hundred years. Summon the town.
  MARCIUS. How far off lie these armies?
  MESSENGER. Within this mile and half.
  MARCIUS. Then shall we hear their 'larum, and they ours.
    Now, Mars, I prithee, make us quick in work,
    That we with smoking swords may march from hence
    To help our fielded friends! Come, blow thy blast.

          They sound a parley. Enter two SENATORS with others,
                      on the walls of Corioli

    Tullus Aufidius, is he within your walls?
  FIRST SENATOR. No, nor a man that fears you less than he:
    That's lesser than a little.  [Drum afar off]  Hark, our drums
    Are bringing forth our youth. We'll break our walls
    Rather than they shall pound us up; our gates,
    Which yet seem shut, we have but pinn'd with rushes;
    They'll open of themselves.  [Alarum far off]  Hark you far off!
    There is Aufidius. List what work he makes
    Amongst your cloven army.
  MARCIUS. O, they are at it!
  LARTIUS. Their noise be our instruction. Ladders, ho!

                   Enter the army of the Volsces

  MARCIUS. They fear us not, but issue forth their city.
    Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight
    With hearts more proof than shields. Advance, brave Titus.
    They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,
    Which makes me sweat with wrath. Come on, my fellows.
    He that retires, I'll take him for a Volsce,
    And he shall feel mine edge.

          Alarum. The Romans are beat back to their trenches.
                      Re-enter MARCIUS, cursing

  MARCIUS. All the contagion of the south light on you,
    You shames of Rome! you herd of- Boils and plagues
    Plaster you o'er, that you may be abhorr'd
    Farther than seen, and one infect another
    Against the wind a mile! You souls of geese
    That bear the shapes of men, how have you run
    From slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell!
    All hurt behind! Backs red, and faces pale
    With flight and agued fear! Mend and charge home,
    Or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe
    And make my wars on you. Look to't. Come on;
    If you'll stand fast we'll beat them to their wives,
    As they us to our trenches. Follow me.

         Another alarum. The Volsces fly, and MARCIUS follows
                          them to the gates

    So, now the gates are ope; now prove good seconds;
    'Tis for the followers fortune widens them,
    Not for the fliers. Mark me, and do the like.

                    [MARCIUS enters the gates]

  FIRST SOLDIER. Fool-hardiness; not I.
  SECOND SOLDIER. Not I.                    [MARCIUS is shut in]
  FIRST SOLDIER. See, they have shut him in.
  ALL. To th' pot, I warrant him.             [Alarum continues]

                      Re-enter TITUS LARTIUS

  LARTIUS. What is become of Marcius?
  ALL. Slain, sir, doubtless.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Following the fliers at the very heels,
    With them he enters; who, upon the sudden,
    Clapp'd to their gates. He is himself alone,
    To answer all the city.
  LARTIUS. O noble fellow!
    Who sensibly outdares his senseless sword,
    And when it bows stand'st up. Thou art left, Marcius;
    A carbuncle entire, as big as thou art,
    Were not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier
    Even to Cato's wish, not fierce and terrible
    Only in strokes; but with thy grim looks and
    The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds
    Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world
    Were feverous and did tremble.

          Re-enter MARCIUS, bleeding, assaulted by the enemy

  FIRST SOLDIER. Look, sir.
  LARTIUS. O, 'tis Marcius!
    Let's fetch him off, or make remain alike.
                            [They fight, and all enter the city]

SCENE V. Within Corioli. A street

Enter certain Romans, with spoils

  FIRST ROMAN. This will I carry to Rome.
  SECOND ROMAN. And I this.
  THIRD ROMAN. A murrain on 't! I took this for silver.
                               [Alarum continues still afar off]

          Enter MARCIUS and TITUS LARTIUS With a trumpeter

  MARCIUS. See here these movers that do prize their hours
    At a crack'd drachma! Cushions, leaden spoons,
    Irons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would
    Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves,
    Ere yet the fight be done, pack up. Down with them!
                                                Exeunt pillagers
    And hark, what noise the general makes! To him!
    There is the man of my soul's hate, Aufidius,
    Piercing our Romans; then, valiant Titus, take
    Convenient numbers to make good the city;
    Whilst I, with those that have the spirit, will haste
    To help Cominius.
  LARTIUS. Worthy sir, thou bleed'st;
    Thy exercise hath been too violent
    For a second course of fight.
  MARCIUS. Sir, praise me not;
    My work hath yet not warm'd me. Fare you well;
    The blood I drop is rather physical
    Than dangerous to me. To Aufidius thus
    I will appear, and fight.
  LARTIUS. Now the fair goddess, Fortune,
    Fall deep in love with thee, and her great charms
    Misguide thy opposers' swords! Bold gentleman,
    Prosperity be thy page!
  MARCIUS. Thy friend no less
    Than those she placeth highest! So farewell.
  LARTIUS. Thou worthiest Marcius!                  Exit MARCIUS
    Go sound thy trumpet in the market-place;
    Call thither all the officers o' th' town,
    Where they shall know our mind. Away!                 Exeunt

SCENE VI. Near the camp of COMINIUS

Enter COMINIUS, as it were in retire, with soldiers

  COMINIUS. Breathe you, my friends. Well fought; we are come off
    Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands
    Nor cowardly in retire. Believe me, sirs,
    We shall be charg'd again. Whiles we have struck,
    By interims and conveying gusts we have heard
    The charges of our friends. The Roman gods,
    Lead their successes as we wish our own,
    That both our powers, with smiling fronts encount'ring,
    May give you thankful sacrifice!

                         Enter A MESSENGER

    Thy news?
  MESSENGER. The citizens of Corioli have issued
    And given to Lartius and to Marcius battle;
    I saw our party to their trenches driven,
    And then I came away.
  COMINIUS. Though thou speak'st truth,
    Methinks thou speak'st not well. How long is't since?
  MESSENGER. Above an hour, my lord.
  COMINIUS. 'Tis not a mile; briefly we heard their drums.
    How couldst thou in a mile confound an hour,
    And bring thy news so late?
  MESSENGER. Spies of the Volsces
    Held me in chase, that I was forc'd to wheel
    Three or four miles about; else had I, sir,
    Half an hour since brought my report.

                           Enter MARCIUS

  COMINIUS. Who's yonder
    That does appear as he were flay'd? O gods!
    He has the stamp of Marcius, and I have
    Before-time seen him thus.
  MARCIUS. Come I too late?
  COMINIUS. The shepherd knows not thunder from a tabor
    More than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue
    From every meaner man.
  MARCIUS. Come I too late?
  COMINIUS. Ay, if you come not in the blood of others,
    But mantled in your own.
  MARCIUS. O! let me clip ye
    In arms as sound as when I woo'd, in heart
    As merry as when our nuptial day was done,
    And tapers burn'd to bedward.
  COMINIUS. Flower of warriors,
    How is't with Titus Lartius?
  MARCIUS. As with a man busied about decrees:
    Condemning some to death and some to exile;
    Ransoming him or pitying, threat'ning th' other;
    Holding Corioli in the name of Rome
    Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash,
    To let him slip at will.
  COMINIUS. Where is that slave
    Which told me they had beat you to your trenches?
    Where is he? Call him hither.
  MARCIUS. Let him alone;
    He did inform the truth. But for our gentlemen,
    The common file- a plague! tribunes for them!
    The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge
    From rascals worse than they.
  COMINIUS. But how prevail'd you?
  MARCIUS. Will the time serve to tell? I do not think.
    Where is the enemy? Are you lords o' th' field?
    If not, why cease you till you are so?
  COMINIUS. Marcius,
    We have at disadvantage fought, and did
    Retire to win our purpose.
  MARCIUS. How lies their battle? Know you on which side
    They have plac'd their men of trust?
  COMINIUS. As I guess, Marcius,
    Their bands i' th' vaward are the Antiates,
    Of their best trust; o'er them Aufidius,
    Their very heart of hope.
  MARCIUS. I do beseech you,
    By all the battles wherein we have fought,
    By th' blood we have shed together, by th' vows
    We have made to endure friends, that you directly
    Set me against Aufidius and his Antiates;
    And that you not delay the present, but,
    Filling the air with swords advanc'd and darts,
    We prove this very hour.
  COMINIUS. Though I could wish
    You were conducted to a gentle bath
    And balms applied to you, yet dare I never
    Deny your asking: take your choice of those
    That best can aid your action.
  MARCIUS. Those are they
    That most are willing. If any such be here-
    As it were sin to doubt- that love this painting
    Wherein you see me smear'd; if any fear
    Lesser his person than an ill report;
    If any think brave death outweighs bad life
    And that his country's dearer than himself;
    Let him alone, or so many so minded,
    Wave thus to express his disposition,
    And follow Marcius.           [They all shout and wave their
       swords, take him up in their arms and cast up their caps]
    O, me alone! Make you a sword of me?
    If these shows be not outward, which of you
    But is four Volsces? None of you but is
    Able to bear against the great Aufidius
    A shield as hard as his. A certain number,
    Though thanks to all, must I select from all; the rest
    Shall bear the business in some other fight,
    As cause will be obey'd. Please you to march;
    And four shall quickly draw out my command,
    Which men are best inclin'd.
  COMINIUS. March on, my fellows;
    Make good this ostentation, and you shall
    Divide in all with us.                                Exeunt

SCENE VII. The gates of Corioli

TITUS LARTIUS, having set a guard upon Corioli, going with drum and
trumpet toward COMINIUS and CAIUS MARCIUS, enters with a LIEUTENANT,
other soldiers, and a scout

  LARTIUS. So, let the ports be guarded; keep your duties
    As I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch
    Those centuries to our aid; the rest will serve
    For a short holding. If we lose the field
    We cannot keep the town.
  LIEUTENANT. Fear not our care, sir.
  LARTIUS. Hence, and shut your gates upon's.
    Our guider, come; to th' Roman camp conduct us.       Exeunt

SCENE VIII. A field of battle between the Roman and the Volscian camps

Alarum, as in battle. Enter MARCIUS and AUFIDIUS at several doors

  MARCIUS. I'll fight with none but thee, for I do hate thee
    Worse than a promise-breaker.
  AUFIDIUS. We hate alike:
    Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor
    More than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.
  MARCIUS. Let the first budger die the other's slave,
    And the gods doom him after!
  AUFIDIUS. If I fly, Marcius,
    Halloa me like a hare.
  MARCIUS. Within these three hours, Tullus,
    Alone I fought in your Corioli walls,
    And made what work I pleas'd. 'Tis not my blood
    Wherein thou seest me mask'd. For thy revenge
    Wrench up thy power to th' highest.
  AUFIDIUS. Wert thou the Hector
    That was the whip of your bragg'd progeny,
    Thou shouldst not scape me here.

       Here they fight, and certain Volsces come in the aid
        of AUFIDIUS. MARCIUS fights till they be driven in
                             breathless

    Officious, and not valiant, you have sham'd me
    In your condemned seconds.                            Exeunt

SCENE IX. The Roman camp

Flourish. Alarum. A retreat is sounded. Enter, at one door,
COMINIUS with the Romans; at another door, MARCIUS, with his arm in a
scarf

  COMINIUS. If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work,
    Thou't not believe thy deeds; but I'll report it
    Where senators shall mingle tears with smiles;
    Where great patricians shall attend, and shrug,
    I' th' end admire; where ladies shall be frighted
    And, gladly quak'd, hear more; where the dull tribunes,
    That with the fusty plebeians hate thine honours,
    Shall say against their hearts 'We thank the gods
    Our Rome hath such a soldier.'
    Yet cam'st thou to a morsel of this feast,
    Having fully din'd before.

         Enter TITUS LARTIUS, with his power, from the pursuit

  LARTIUS. O General,
    Here is the steed, we the caparison.
    Hadst thou beheld-
  MARCIUS. Pray now, no more; my mother,
    Who has a charter to extol her blood,
    When she does praise me grieves me. I have done
    As you have done- that's what I can; induc'd
    As you have been- that's for my country.
    He that has but effected his good will
    Hath overta'en mine act.
  COMINIUS. You shall not be
    The grave of your deserving; Rome must know
    The value of her own. 'Twere a concealment
    Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement,
    To hide your doings and to silence that
    Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch'd,
    Would seem but modest. Therefore, I beseech you,
    In sign of what you are, not to reward
    What you have done, before our army hear me.
  MARCIUS. I have some wounds upon me, and they smart
    To hear themselves rememb'red.
  COMINIUS. Should they not,
    Well might they fester 'gainst ingratitude
    And tent themselves with death. Of all the horses-
    Whereof we have ta'en good, and good store- of all
    The treasure in this field achiev'd and city,
    We render you the tenth; to be ta'en forth
    Before the common distribution at
    Your only choice.
  MARCIUS. I thank you, General,
    But cannot make my heart consent to take
    A bribe to pay my sword. I do refuse it,
    And stand upon my common part with those
    That have beheld the doing.

           A long flourish. They all cry 'Marcius, Marcius!'
   cast up their caps and lances. COMINIUS and LARTIUS stand bare

    May these same instruments which you profane
    Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall
    I' th' field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be
    Made all of false-fac'd soothing. When steel grows
    Soft as the parasite's silk, let him be made
    An overture for th' wars. No more, I say.
    For that I have not wash'd my nose that bled,
    Or foil'd some debile wretch, which without note
    Here's many else have done, you shout me forth
    In acclamations hyperbolical,
    As if I lov'd my little should be dieted
    In praises sauc'd with lies.
  COMINIUS. Too modest are you;
    More cruel to your good report than grateful
    To us that give you truly. By your patience,
    If 'gainst yourself you be incens'd, we'll put you-
    Like one that means his proper harm- in manacles,
    Then reason safely with you. Therefore be it known,
    As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius
    Wears this war's garland; in token of the which,
    My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,
    With all his trim belonging; and from this time,
    For what he did before Corioli, can him
    With all th' applause-and clamour of the host,
    Caius Marcius Coriolanus.
    Bear th' addition nobly ever!
                           [Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums]
  ALL. Caius Marcius Coriolanus!
  CORIOLANUS. I will go wash;
    And when my face is fair you shall perceive
    Whether I blush or no. Howbeit, I thank you;
    I mean to stride your steed, and at all times
    To undercrest your good addition
    To th' fairness of my power.
  COMINIUS. So, to our tent;
    Where, ere we do repose us, we will write
    To Rome of our success. You, Titus Lartius,
    Must to Corioli back. Send us to Rome
    The best, with whom we may articulate
    For their own good and ours.
  LARTIUS. I shall, my lord.
  CORIOLANUS. The gods begin to mock me. I, that now
    Refus'd most princely gifts, am bound to beg
    Of my Lord General.
  COMINIUS. Take't- 'tis yours; what is't?
  CORIOLANUS. I sometime lay here in Corioli
    At a poor man's house; he us'd me kindly.
    He cried to me; I saw him prisoner;
    But then Aufidius was within my view,
    And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity. I request you
    To give my poor host freedom.
  COMINIUS. O, well begg'd!
    Were he the butcher of my son, he should
    Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.
  LARTIUS. Marcius, his name?
  CORIOLANUS. By Jupiter, forgot!
    I am weary; yea, my memory is tir'd.
    Have we no wine here?
  COMINIUS. Go we to our tent.
    The blood upon your visage dries; 'tis time
    It should be look'd to. Come.                         Exeunt

SCENE X. The camp of the Volsces

A flourish. Cornets. Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS bloody, with two or three
soldiers

  AUFIDIUS. The town is ta'en.
  FIRST SOLDIER. 'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition.
  AUFIDIUS. Condition!
    I would I were a Roman; for I cannot,
    Being a Volsce, be that I am. Condition?
    What good condition can a treaty find
    I' th' part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius,
    I have fought with thee; so often hast thou beat me;
    And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter
    As often as we eat. By th' elements,
    If e'er again I meet him beard to beard,
    He's mine or I am his. Mine emulation
    Hath not that honour in't it had; for where
    I thought to crush him in an equal force,
    True sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way,
    Or wrath or craft may get him.
  FIRST SOLDIER. He's the devil.
  AUFIDIUS. Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd
    With only suff'ring stain by him; for him
    Shall fly out of itself. Nor sleep nor sanctuary,
    Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,
    The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice,
    Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up
    Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst
    My hate to Marcius. Where I find him, were it
    At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,
    Against the hospitable canon, would I
    Wash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to th' city;
    Learn how 'tis held, and what they are that must
    Be hostages for Rome.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Will not you go?
  AUFIDIUS. I am attended at the cypress grove; I pray you-
    'Tis south the city mills- bring me word thither
    How the world goes, that to the pace of it
    I may spur on my journey.
  FIRST SOLDIER. I shall, sir.                            Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Rome. A public place

Enter MENENIUS, with the two Tribunes of the people, SICINIUS and
BRUTUS

  MENENIUS. The augurer tells me we shall have news tonight.
  BRUTUS. Good or bad?
  MENENIUS. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love
    not Marcius.
  SICINIUS. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
  MENENIUS. Pray you, who does the wolf love?
  SICINIUS. The lamb.
  MENENIUS. Ay, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would the
    noble Marcius.
  BRUTUS. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.
  MENENIUS. He's a bear indeed, that lives fike a lamb. You two are
    old men; tell me one thing that I shall ask you.
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, sir.
  MENENIUS. In what enormity is Marcius poor in that you two have not
    in abundance?
  BRUTUS. He's poor in no one fault, but stor'd with all.
  SICINIUS. Especially in pride.
  BRUTUS. And topping all others in boasting.
  MENENIUS. This is strange now. Do you two know how you are censured
    here in the city- I mean of us o' th' right-hand file? Do you?
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Why, how are we censur'd?
  MENENIUS. Because you talk of pride now- will you not be angry?
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, well, sir, well.
  MENENIUS. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of
    occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience. Give your
    dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures- at the
    least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame
    Marcius for being proud?
  BRUTUS. We do it not alone, sir.
  MENENIUS. I know you can do very little alone; for your helps are
    many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your
    abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You talk of
    pride. O that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your
    necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O
    that you could!
  BOTH TRIBUNES. What then, sir?
  MENENIUS. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,
    proud, violent, testy magistrates-alias fools- as any in Rome.
  SICINIUS. Menenius, you are known well enough too.
  MENENIUS. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves
    a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to
    be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint, hasty
    and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more
    with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the
    morning. What I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath.
    Meeting two such wealsmen as you are- I cannot call you
    Lycurguses- if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I
    make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your worships have
    deliver'd the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with
    the major part of your syllables; and though I must be content to
    bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie
    deadly that tell you you have good faces. If you see this in the
    map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too?
    What harm can your bisson conspectuities glean out of this
    character, if I be known well enough too?
  BRUTUS. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough.
  MENENIUS. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are
    ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear out a good
    wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and
    a fosset-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence
    to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter
    between party and party, if you chance to be pinch'd with the
    colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody flag
    against all patience, and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss
    the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing. All
    the peace you make in their cause is calling both the parties
    knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.
  BRUTUS. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber
    for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.
  MENENIUS. Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall
    encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak
    best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your
    beards; and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to
    stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entomb'd in an ass's
    pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying Marcius is proud; who, in a
    cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion;
    though peradventure some of the best of 'em were hereditary
    hangmen. God-den to your worships. More of your conversation
    would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly
    plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave of you.
                                  [BRUTUS and SICINIUS go aside]

               Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and VALERIA

    How now, my as fair as noble ladies- and the moon, were she
    earthly, no nobler- whither do you follow your eyes so fast?
  VOLUMNIA. Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the
    love of Juno, let's go.
  MENENIUS. Ha! Marcius coming home?
  VOLUMNIA. Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous
    approbation.
  MENENIUS. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!
    Marcius coming home!
  VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA. Nay, 'tis true.
  VOLUMNIA. Look, here's a letter from him; the state hath another,
    his wife another; and I think there's one at home for you.
  MENENIUS. I will make my very house reel to-night. A letter for me?
  VIRGILIA. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw't.
  MENENIUS. A letter for me! It gives me an estate of seven years'
    health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician. The
    most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic and, to
    this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench. Is he
    not wounded? He was wont to come home wounded.
  VIRGILIA. O, no, no, no.
  VOLUMNIA. O, he is wounded, I thank the gods for't.
  MENENIUS. So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings a victory in
    his pocket? The wounds become him.
  VOLUMNIA. On's brows, Menenius, he comes the third time home with
    the oaken garland.
  MENENIUS. Has he disciplin'd Aufidius soundly?
  VOLUMNIA. Titus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius
    got off.
  MENENIUS. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that; an he
    had stay'd by him, I would not have been so fidius'd for all the
    chests in Corioli and the gold that's in them. Is the Senate
    possess'd of this?
  VOLUMNIA. Good ladies, let's go. Yes, yes, yes: the Senate has
    letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name
    of the war; he hath in this action outdone his former deeds
    doubly.
  VALERIA. In troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.
  MENENIUS. Wondrous! Ay, I warrant you, and not without his true
    purchasing.
  VIRGILIA. The gods grant them true!
  VOLUMNIA. True! pow, waw.
  MENENIUS. True! I'll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded?
    [To the TRIBUNES]  God save your good worships! Marcius is coming
    home; he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?
  VOLUMNIA. I' th' shoulder and i' th' left arm; there will be large
    cicatrices to show the people when he shall stand for his place.
    He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i' th' body.
  MENENIUS. One i' th' neck and two i' th' thigh- there's nine that I
    know.
  VOLUMNIA. He had before this last expedition twenty-five wounds
    upon him.
  MENENIUS. Now it's twenty-seven; every gash was an enemy's grave.
    [A shout and flourish]  Hark! the trumpets.
  VOLUMNIA. These are the ushers of Marcius. Before him he carries
      noise, and behind him he leaves tears;
    Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie,
    Which, being advanc'd, declines, and then men die.

            A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter COMINIUS the
              GENERAL, and TITUS LARTIUS; between them,
           CORIOLANUS, crown'd with an oaken garland; with
                   CAPTAINS and soldiers and a HERALD

  HERALD. Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight
    Within Corioli gates, where he hath won,
    With fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these
    In honour follows Coriolanus.
    Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!             [Flourish]
  ALL. Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!
  CORIOLANUS. No more of this, it does offend my heart.
    Pray now, no more.
  COMINIUS. Look, sir, your mother!
  CORIOLANUS. O,
    You have, I know, petition'd all the gods
    For my prosperity!                                  [Kneels]
  VOLUMNIA. Nay, my good soldier, up;
    My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and
    By deed-achieving honour newly nam'd-
    What is it? Coriolanus must I can thee?
    But, O, thy wife!
  CORIOLANUS. My gracious silence, hail!
    Wouldst thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home,
    That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,
    Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear,
    And mothers that lack sons.
  MENENIUS. Now the gods crown thee!
  CORIOLANUS. And live you yet?  [To VALERIA]  O my sweet lady,
    pardon.
  VOLUMNIA. I know not where to turn.
    O, welcome home! And welcome, General.
    And y'are welcome all.
  MENENIUS. A hundred thousand welcomes. I could weep
    And I could laugh; I am light and heavy. Welcome!
    A curse begin at very root on's heart
    That is not glad to see thee! You are three
    That Rome should dote on; yet, by the faith of men,
    We have some old crab trees here at home that will not
    Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors.
    We call a nettle but a nettle, and
    The faults of fools but folly.
  COMINIUS. Ever right.
  CORIOLANUS. Menenius ever, ever.
  HERALD. Give way there, and go on.
  CORIOLANUS.  [To his wife and mother]  Your hand, and yours.
    Ere in our own house I do shade my head,
    The good patricians must be visited;
    From whom I have receiv'd not only greetings,
    But with them change of honours.
  VOLUMNIA. I have lived
    To see inherited my very wishes,
    And the buildings of my fancy; only
    There's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but
    Our Rome will cast upon thee.
  CORIOLANUS. Know, good mother,
    I had rather be their servant in my way
    Than sway with them in theirs.
  COMINIUS. On, to the Capitol.
                 [Flourish. Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before]

                BRUTUS and SICINIUS come forward

  BRUTUS. All tongues speak of him and the bleared sights
    Are spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurse
    Into a rapture lets her baby cry
    While she chats him; the kitchen malkin pins
    Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,
    Clamb'ring the walls to eye him; stalls, bulks, windows,
    Are smother'd up, leads fill'd and ridges hors'd
    With variable complexions, all agreeing
    In earnestness to see him. Seld-shown flamens
    Do press among the popular throngs and puff
    To win a vulgar station; our veil'd dames
    Commit the war of white and damask in
    Their nicely gawded cheeks to th' wanton spoil
    Of Phoebus' burning kisses. Such a pother,
    As if that whatsoever god who leads him
    Were slily crept into his human powers,
    And gave him graceful posture.
  SICINIUS. On the sudden
    I warrant him consul.
  BRUTUS. Then our office may
    During his power go sleep.
  SICINIUS. He cannot temp'rately transport his honours
    From where he should begin and end, but will
    Lose those he hath won.
  BRUTUS. In that there's comfort.
  SICINIUS. Doubt not
    The commoners, for whom we stand, but they
    Upon their ancient malice will forget
    With the least cause these his new honours; which
    That he will give them make I as little question
    As he is proud to do't.
  BRUTUS. I heard him swear,
    Were he to stand for consul, never would he
    Appear i' th' market-place, nor on him put
    The napless vesture of humility;
    Nor, showing, as the manner is, his wounds
    To th' people, beg their stinking breaths.
  SICINIUS. 'Tis right.
  BRUTUS. It was his word. O, he would miss it rather
    Than carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him
    And the desire of the nobles.
  SICINIUS. I wish no better
    Than have him hold that purpose, and to put it
    In execution.
  BRUTUS. 'Tis most like he will.
  SICINIUS. It shall be to him then as our good wills:
    A sure destruction.
  BRUTUS. So it must fall out
    To him or our authorities. For an end,
    We must suggest the people in what hatred
    He still hath held them; that to's power he would
    Have made them mules, silenc'd their pleaders, and
    Dispropertied their freedoms; holding them
    In human action and capacity
    Of no more soul nor fitness for the world
    Than camels in their war, who have their provand
    Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows
    For sinking under them.
  SICINIUS. This, as you say, suggested
    At some time when his soaring insolence
    Shall touch the people- which time shall not want,
    If he be put upon't, and that's as easy
    As to set dogs on sheep- will be his fire
    To kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze
    Shall darken him for ever.

                           Enter A MESSENGER

  BRUTUS. What's the matter?
  MESSENGER. You are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought
    That Marcius shall be consul.
    I have seen the dumb men throng to see him and
    The blind to hear him speak; matrons flung gloves,
    Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,
    Upon him as he pass'd; the nobles bended
    As to Jove's statue, and the commons made
    A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts.
    I never saw the like.
  BRUTUS. Let's to the Capitol,
    And carry with us ears and eyes for th' time,
    But hearts for the event.
  SICINIUS. Have with you.                                Exeunt

SCENE II. Rome. The Capitol

Enter two OFFICERS, to lay cushions, as it were in the Capitol

  FIRST OFFICER. Come, come, they are almost here. How many stand for
    consulships?
  SECOND OFFICER. Three, they say; but 'tis thought of every one
    Coriolanus will carry it.
  FIRST OFFICER. That's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud and
    loves not the common people.
  SECOND OFFICER. Faith, there have been many great men that have
    flatter'd the people, who ne'er loved them; and there be many
    that they have loved, they know not wherefore; so that, if they
    love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground.
    Therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or
    hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in their
    disposition, and out of his noble carelessness lets them plainly
    see't.
  FIRST OFFICER. If he did not care whether he had their love or no,
    he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm;
    but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can
    render it him, and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover
    him their opposite. Now to seem to affect the malice and
    displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes- to
    flatter them for their love.
  SECOND OFFICER. He hath deserved worthily of his country; and his
    ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, having been
    supple and courteous to the people, bonneted, without any further
    deed to have them at all, into their estimation and report; but
    he hath so planted his honours in their eyes and his actions in
    their hearts that for their tongues to be silent and not confess
    so much were a kind of ingrateful injury; to report otherwise
    were a malice that, giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof
    and rebuke from every car that heard it.
  FIRST OFFICER. No more of him; he's a worthy man. Make way, they
    are coming.

         A sennet. Enter the PATRICIANS and the TRIBUNES
         OF THE PEOPLE, LICTORS before them; CORIOLANUS,
            MENENIUS, COMINIUS the Consul. SICINIUS and
               BRUTUS take their places by themselves.
                         CORIOLANUS stands

  MENENIUS. Having determin'd of the Volsces, and
    To send for Titus Lartius, it remains,
    As the main point of this our after-meeting,
    To gratify his noble service that
    Hath thus stood for his country. Therefore please you,
    Most reverend and grave elders, to desire
    The present consul and last general
    In our well-found successes to report
    A little of that worthy work perform'd
    By Caius Marcius Coriolanus; whom
    We met here both to thank and to remember
    With honours like himself.                 [CORIOLANUS sits]
  FIRST SENATOR. Speak, good Cominius.
    Leave nothing out for length, and make us think
    Rather our state's defective for requital
    Than we to stretch it out. Masters o' th' people,
    We do request your kindest ears; and, after,
    Your loving motion toward the common body,
    To yield what passes here.
  SICINIUS. We are convented
    Upon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts
    Inclinable to honour and advance
    The theme of our assembly.
  BRUTUS. Which the rather
    We shall be bless'd to do, if he remember
    A kinder value of the people than
    He hath hereto priz'd them at.
  MENENIUS. That's off, that's off;
    I would you rather had been silent. Please you
    To hear Cominius speak?
  BRUTUS. Most willingly.
    But yet my caution was more pertinent
    Than the rebuke you give it.
  MENENIUS. He loves your people;
    But tie him not to be their bedfellow.
    Worthy Cominius, speak.
                       [CORIOLANUS rises, and offers to go away]
    Nay, keep your place.
  FIRST SENATOR. Sit, Coriolanus, never shame to hear
    What you have nobly done.
  CORIOLANUS. Your Honours' pardon.
    I had rather have my wounds to heal again
    Than hear say how I got them.
  BRUTUS. Sir, I hope
    My words disbench'd you not.
  CORIOLANUS. No, sir; yet oft,
    When blows have made me stay, I fled from words.
    You sooth'd not, therefore hurt not. But your people,
    I love them as they weigh-
  MENENIUS. Pray now, sit down.
  CORIOLANUS. I had rather have one scratch my head i' th' sun
    When the alarum were struck than idly sit
    To hear my nothings monster'd.                          Exit
  MENENIUS. Masters of the people,
    Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter-
    That's thousand to one good one- when you now see
    He had rather venture all his limbs for honour
    Than one on's ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.
  COMINIUS. I shall lack voice; the deeds of Coriolanus
    Should not be utter'd feebly. It is held
    That valour is the chiefest virtue and
    Most dignifies the haver. If it be,
    The man I speak of cannot in the world
    Be singly counterpois'd. At sixteen years,
    When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought
    Beyond the mark of others; our then Dictator,
    Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight
    When with his Amazonian chin he drove
    The bristled lips before him; he bestrid
    An o'erpress'd Roman and i' th' consul's view
    Slew three opposers; Tarquin's self he met,
    And struck him on his knee. In that day's feats,
    When he might act the woman in the scene,
    He prov'd best man i' th' field, and for his meed
    Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age
    Man-ent'red thus, he waxed like a sea,
    And in the brunt of seventeen battles since
    He lurch'd all swords of the garland. For this last,
    Before and in Corioli, let me say
    I cannot speak him home. He stopp'd the fliers,
    And by his rare example made the coward
    Turn terror into sport; as weeds before
    A vessel under sail, so men obey'd
    And fell below his stem. His sword, death's stamp,
    Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot
    He was a thing of blood, whose every motion
    Was tim'd with dying cries. Alone he ent'red
    The mortal gate of th' city, which he painted
    With shunless destiny; aidless came off,
    And with a sudden re-enforcement struck
    Corioli like a planet. Now all's his.
    When by and by the din of war 'gan pierce
    His ready sense, then straight his doubled spirit
    Re-quick'ned what in flesh was fatigate,
    And to the battle came he; where he did
    Run reeking o'er the lives of men, as if
    'Twere a perpetual spoil; and till we call'd
    Both field and city ours he never stood
    To ease his breast with panting.
  MENENIUS. Worthy man!
  FIRST SENATOR. He cannot but with measure fit the honours
    Which we devise him.
  COMINIUS. Our spoils he kick'd at,
    And look'd upon things precious as they were
    The common muck of the world. He covets less
    Than misery itself would give, rewards
    His deeds with doing them, and is content
    To spend the time to end it.
  MENENIUS. He's right noble;
    Let him be call'd for.
  FIRST SENATOR. Call Coriolanus.
    OFFICER. He doth appear.

                            Re-enter CORIOLANUS

  MENENIUS. The Senate, Coriolanus, are well pleas'd
    To make thee consul.
  CORIOLANUS. I do owe them still
    My life and services.
  MENENIUS. It then remains
    That you do speak to the people.
  CORIOLANUS. I do beseech you
    Let me o'erleap that custom; for I cannot
    Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them
    For my wounds' sake to give their suffrage. Please you
    That I may pass this doing.
  SICINIUS. Sir, the people
    Must have their voices; neither will they bate
    One jot of ceremony.
  MENENIUS. Put them not to't.
    Pray you go fit you to the custom, and
    Take to you, as your predecessors have,
    Your honour with your form.
  CORIOLANUS. It is a part
    That I shall blush in acting, and might well
    Be taken from the people.
  BRUTUS. Mark you that?
  CORIOLANUS. To brag unto them 'Thus I did, and thus!'
    Show them th' unaching scars which I should hide,
    As if I had receiv'd them for the hire
    Of their breath only!
  MENENIUS. Do not stand upon't.
    We recommend to you, Tribunes of the People,
    Our purpose to them; and to our noble consul
    Wish we all joy and honour.
  SENATORS. To Coriolanus come all joy and honour!
                             [Flourish. Cornets. Then exeunt all
                                        but SICINIUS and BRUTUS]
  BRUTUS. You see how he intends to use the people.
  SICINIUS. May they perceive's intent! He will require them
    As if he did contemn what he requested
    Should be in them to give.
  BRUTUS. Come, we'll inform them
    Of our proceedings here. On th' market-place
    I know they do attend us.                             Exeunt

SCENE III. Rome. The Forum

Enter seven or eight citizens

  FIRST CITIZEN. Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to
    deny him.
  SECOND CITIZEN. We may, sir, if we will.
  THIRD CITIZEN. We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a
    power that we have no power to do; for if he show us his wounds
    and tell us his deeds, we are to put our tongues into those
    wounds and speak for them; so, if he tell us his noble deeds, we
    must also tell him our noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is
    monstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful were to make a
    monster of the multitude; of the which we being members should
    bring ourselves to be monstrous members.
  FIRST CITIZEN. And to make us no better thought of, a little help
    will serve; for once we stood up about the corn, he himself stuck
    not to call us the many-headed multitude.
  THIRD CITIZEN. We have been call'd so of many; not that our heads
    are some brown, some black, some abram, some bald, but that our
    wits are so diversely colour'd; and truly I think if all our wits
    were to issue out of one skull, they would fly east, west, north,
    south, and their consent of one direct way should be at once to
    all the points o' th' compass.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Think you so? Which way do you judge my wit would
    fly?
  THIRD CITIZEN. Nay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's
    will- 'tis strongly wedg'd up in a block-head; but if it were at
    liberty 'twould sure southward.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Why that way?
  THIRD CITIZEN. To lose itself in a fog; where being three parts
   melted away with rotten dews, the fourth would return for
    conscience' sake, to help to get thee a wife.
  SECOND CITIZEN. YOU are never without your tricks; you may, you
    may.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Are you all resolv'd to give your voices? But that's
    no matter, the greater part carries it. I say, if he would
    incline to the people, there was never a worthier man.

                Enter CORIOLANUS, in a gown of humility,
                               with MENENIUS

    Here he comes, and in the gown of humility. Mark his behaviour.
    We are not to stay all together, but to come by him where he
    stands, by ones, by twos, and by threes. He's to make his
    requests by particulars, wherein every one of us has a single
    honour, in giving him our own voices with our own tongues;
    therefore follow me, and I'll direct you how you shall go by him.
  ALL. Content, content.                         Exeunt citizens
  MENENIUS. O sir, you are not right; have you not known
    The worthiest men have done't?
  CORIOLANUS. What must I say?
    'I pray, sir'- Plague upon't! I cannot bring
    My tongue to such a pace. 'Look, sir, my wounds
    I got them in my country's service, when
    Some certain of your brethren roar'd and ran
    From th' noise of our own drums.'
  MENENIUS. O me, the gods!
    You must not speak of that. You must desire them
    To think upon you.
  CORIOLANUS. Think upon me? Hang 'em!
    I would they would forget me, like the virtues
    Which our divines lose by 'em.
  MENENIUS. You'll mar all.
    I'll leave you. Pray you speak to 'em, I pray you,
    In wholesome manner.                                    Exit

                       Re-enter three of the citizens

  CORIOLANUS. Bid them wash their faces
    And keep their teeth clean. So, here comes a brace.
    You know the cause, sir, of my standing here.
  THIRD CITIZEN. We do, sir; tell us what hath brought you to't.
  CORIOLANUS. Mine own desert.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Your own desert?
  CORIOLANUS. Ay, not mine own desire.
  THIRD CITIZEN. How, not your own desire?
  CORIOLANUS. No, sir, 'twas never my desire yet to trouble the poor
    with begging.
  THIRD CITIZEN. YOU MUST think, if we give you anything, we hope to
    gain by you.
  CORIOLANUS. Well then, I pray, your price o' th' consulship?
  FIRST CITIZEN. The price is to ask it kindly.
  CORIOLANUS. Kindly, sir, I pray let me ha't. I have wounds to show
    you, which shall be yours in private. Your good voice, sir; what
    say you?
  SECOND CITIZEN. You shall ha' it, worthy sir.
  CORIOLANUS. A match, sir. There's in all two worthy voices begg'd.
    I have your alms. Adieu.
  THIRD CITIZEN. But this is something odd.
  SECOND CITIZEN. An 'twere to give again- but 'tis no matter.
                                       Exeunt the three citizens

                      Re-enter two other citizens

  CORIOLANUS. Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your
    voices that I may be consul, I have here the customary gown.
  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have deserved nobly of your country, and you
    have not deserved nobly.
  CORIOLANUS. Your enigma?
  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have been a scourge to her enemies; you have
    been a rod to her friends. You have not indeed loved the common
    people.
  CORIOLANUS. You should account me the more virtuous, that I have
    not been common in my love. I will, sir, flatter my sworn
    brother, the people, to earn a dearer estimation of them; 'tis a
    condition they account gentle; and since the wisdom of their
    choice is rather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise
    the insinuating nod and be off to them most counterfeitly. That
    is, sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment of some popular man
    and give it bountiful to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you I
    may be consul.
  FIFTH CITIZEN. We hope to find you our friend; and therefore give
    you our voices heartily.
  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have received many wounds for your country.
  CORIOLANUS. I will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I
    will make much of your voices, and so trouble you no farther.
  BOTH CITIZENS. The gods give you joy, sir, heartily!
                                                 Exeunt citizens
  CORIOLANUS. Most sweet voices!
    Better it is to die, better to starve,
    Than crave the hire which first we do deserve.
    Why in this wolvish toge should I stand here
    To beg of Hob and Dick that do appear
    Their needless vouches? Custom calls me to't.
    What custom wills, in all things should we do't,
    The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
    And mountainous error be too highly heap'd
    For truth to o'erpeer. Rather than fool it so,
    Let the high office and the honour go
    To one that would do thus. I am half through:
    The one part suffered, the other will I do.

                      Re-enter three citizens more

    Here come moe voices.
    Your voices. For your voices I have fought;
    Watch'd for your voices; for your voices bear
    Of wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six
    I have seen and heard of; for your voices have
    Done many things, some less, some more. Your voices?
    Indeed, I would be consul.
  SIXTH CITIZEN. He has done nobly, and cannot go without any honest
    man's voice.
  SEVENTH CITIZEN. Therefore let him be consul. The gods give him
    joy, and make him good friend to the people!
  ALL. Amen, amen. God save thee, noble consul!
                                                 Exeunt citizens
  CORIOLANUS. Worthy voices!

             Re-enter MENENIUS with BRUTUS and SICINIUS

  MENENIUS. You have stood your limitation, and the tribunes
    Endue you with the people's voice. Remains
    That, in th' official marks invested, you
    Anon do meet the Senate.
  CORIOLANUS. Is this done?
  SICINIUS. The custom of request you have discharg'd.
    The people do admit you, and are summon'd
    To meet anon, upon your approbation.
  CORIOLANUS. Where? At the Senate House?
  SICINIUS. There, Coriolanus.
  CORIOLANUS. May I change these garments?
  SICINIUS. You may, sir.
  CORIOLANUS. That I'll straight do, and, knowing myself again,
    Repair to th' Senate House.
  MENENIUS. I'll keep you company. Will you along?
  BRUTUS. We stay here for the people.
  SICINIUS. Fare you well.
                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and MENENIUS
    He has it now; and by his looks methinks
    'Tis warm at's heart.
  BRUTUS. With a proud heart he wore
    His humble weeds. Will you dismiss the people?

                            Re-enter citizens

  SICINIUS. How now, my masters! Have you chose this man?
  FIRST CITIZEN. He has our voices, sir.
  BRUTUS. We pray the gods he may deserve your loves.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Amen, sir. To my poor unworthy notice,
    He mock'd us when he begg'd our voices.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Certainly;
    He flouted us downright.
  FIRST CITIZEN. No, 'tis his kind of speech- he did not mock us.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Not one amongst us, save yourself, but says
    He us'd us scornfully. He should have show'd us
    His marks of merit, wounds receiv'd for's country.
  SICINIUS. Why, so he did, I am sure.
  ALL. No, no; no man saw 'em.
  THIRD CITIZEN. He said he had wounds which he could show in
      private,
    And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,
    'I would be consul,' says he; 'aged custom
    But by your voices will not so permit me;
    Your voices therefore.' When we granted that,
    Here was 'I thank you for your voices. Thank you,
    Your most sweet voices. Now you have left your voices,
    I have no further with you.' Was not this mockery?
  SICINIUS. Why either were you ignorant to see't,
    Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness
    To yield your voices?
  BRUTUS. Could you not have told him-
    As you were lesson'd- when he had no power
    But was a petty servant to the state,
    He was your enemy; ever spake against
    Your liberties and the charters that you bear
    I' th' body of the weal; and now, arriving
    A place of potency and sway o' th' state,
    If he should still malignantly remain
    Fast foe to th' plebeii, your voices might
    Be curses to yourselves? You should have said
    That as his worthy deeds did claim no less
    Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature
    Would think upon you for your voices, and
    Translate his malice towards you into love,
    Standing your friendly lord.
  SICINIUS. Thus to have said,
    As you were fore-advis'd, had touch'd his spirit
    And tried his inclination; from him pluck'd
    Either his gracious promise, which you might,
    As cause had call'd you up, have held him to;
    Or else it would have gall'd his surly nature,
    Which easily endures not article
    Tying him to aught. So, putting him to rage,
    You should have ta'en th' advantage of his choler
    And pass'd him unelected.
  BRUTUS. Did you perceive
    He did solicit you in free contempt
    When he did need your loves; and do you think
    That his contempt shall not be bruising to you
    When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies
    No heart among you? Or had you tongues to cry
    Against the rectorship of judgment?
  SICINIUS. Have you
    Ere now denied the asker, and now again,
    Of him that did not ask but mock, bestow
    Your su'd-for tongues?
  THIRD CITIZEN. He's not confirm'd: we may deny him yet.
  SECOND CITIZENS. And will deny him;
    I'll have five hundred voices of that sound.
  FIRST CITIZEN. I twice five hundred, and their friends to piece
    'em.
  BRUTUS. Get you hence instantly, and tell those friends
    They have chose a consul that will from them take
    Their liberties, make them of no more voice
    Than dogs, that are as often beat for barking
    As therefore kept to do so.
  SICINIUS. Let them assemble;
    And, on a safer judgment, all revoke
    Your ignorant election. Enforce his pride
    And his old hate unto you; besides, forget not
    With what contempt he wore the humble weed;
    How in his suit he scorn'd you; but your loves,
    Thinking upon his services, took from you
    Th' apprehension of his present portance,
    Which, most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion
    After the inveterate hate he bears you.
  BRUTUS. Lay
    A fault on us, your tribunes, that we labour'd,
    No impediment between, but that you must
    Cast your election on him.
  SICINIUS. Say you chose him
    More after our commandment than as guided
    By your own true affections; and that your minds,
    Pre-occupied with what you rather must do
    Than what you should, made you against the grain
    To voice him consul. Lay the fault on us.
  BRUTUS. Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you,
    How youngly he began to serve his country,
    How long continued; and what stock he springs of-
    The noble house o' th' Marcians; from whence came
    That Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's son,
    Who, after great Hostilius, here was king;
    Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,
    That our best water brought by conduits hither;
    And Censorinus, nobly named so,
    Twice being by the people chosen censor,
    Was his great ancestor.
  SICINIUS. One thus descended,
    That hath beside well in his person wrought
    To be set high in place, we did commend
    To your remembrances; but you have found,
    Scaling his present bearing with his past,
    That he's your fixed enemy, and revoke
    Your sudden approbation.
  BRUTUS. Say you ne'er had done't-
    Harp on that still- but by our putting on;
    And presently, when you have drawn your number,
    Repair to th' Capitol.
  CITIZENS. will will so; almost all
    Repent in their election.                   Exeunt plebeians
  BRUTUS. Let them go on;
    This mutiny were better put in hazard
    Than stay, past doubt, for greater.
    If, as his nature is, he fall in rage
    With their refusal, both observe and answer
    The vantage of his anger.
  SICINIUS. To th' Capitol, come.
    We will be there before the stream o' th' people;
    And this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own,
    Which we have goaded onward.                          Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Rome. A street

Cornets. Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, all the GENTRY, COMINIUS,
TITUS LARTIUS, and other SENATORS

  CORIOLANUS. Tullus Aufidius, then, had made new head?
  LARTIUS. He had, my lord; and that it was which caus'd
    Our swifter composition.
  CORIOLANUS. So then the Volsces stand but as at first,
    Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road
    Upon's again.
  COMINIUS. They are worn, Lord Consul, so
    That we shall hardly in our ages see
    Their banners wave again.
  CORIOLANUS. Saw you Aufidius?
  LARTIUS. On safeguard he came to me, and did curse
    Against the Volsces, for they had so vilely
    Yielded the town. He is retir'd to Antium.
  CORIOLANUS. Spoke he of me?
  LARTIUS. He did, my lord.
  CORIOLANUS. How? What?
  LARTIUS. How often he had met you, sword to sword;
    That of all things upon the earth he hated
    Your person most; that he would pawn his fortunes
    To hopeless restitution, so he might
    Be call'd your vanquisher.
  CORIOLANUS. At Antium lives he?
  LARTIUS. At Antium.
  CORIOLANUS. I wish I had a cause to seek him there,
    To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.

                       Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS

    Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,
    The tongues o' th' common mouth. I do despise them,
    For they do prank them in authority,
    Against all noble sufferance.
  SICINIUS. Pass no further.
  CORIOLANUS. Ha! What is that?
  BRUTUS. It will be dangerous to go on- no further.
  CORIOLANUS. What makes this change?
  MENENIUS. The matter?
  COMINIUS. Hath he not pass'd the noble and the common?
  BRUTUS. Cominius, no.
  CORIOLANUS. Have I had children's voices?
  FIRST SENATOR. Tribunes, give way: he shall to th' market-place.
  BRUTUS. The people are incens'd against him.
  SICINIUS. Stop,
    Or all will fall in broil.
  CORIOLANUS. Are these your herd?
    Must these have voices, that can yield them now
    And straight disclaim their tongues? What are your offices?
    You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?
    Have you not set them on?
  MENENIUS. Be calm, be calm.
  CORIOLANUS. It is a purpos'd thing, and grows by plot,
    To curb the will of the nobility;
    Suffer't, and live with such as cannot rule
    Nor ever will be rul'd.
  BRUTUS. Call't not a plot.
    The people cry you mock'd them; and of late,
    When corn was given them gratis, you repin'd;
    Scandal'd the suppliants for the people, call'd them
    Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.
  CORIOLANUS. Why, this was known before.
  BRUTUS. Not to them all.
  CORIOLANUS. Have you inform'd them sithence?
  BRUTUS. How? I inform them!
  COMINIUS. You are like to do such business.
  BRUTUS. Not unlike
    Each way to better yours.
  CORIOLANUS. Why then should I be consul? By yond clouds,
    Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me
    Your fellow tribune.
  SICINIUS. You show too much of that
    For which the people stir; if you will pass
    To where you are bound, you must enquire your way,
    Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,
    Or never be so noble as a consul,
    Nor yoke with him for tribune.
  MENENIUS. Let's be calm.
  COMINIUS. The people are abus'd; set on. This palt'ring
    Becomes not Rome; nor has Coriolanus
    Deserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely
    I' th' plain way of his merit.
  CORIOLANUS. Tell me of corn!
    This was my speech, and I will speak't again-
  MENENIUS. Not now, not now.
  FIRST SENATOR. Not in this heat, sir, now.
  CORIOLANUS. Now, as I live, I will.
    My nobler friends, I crave their pardons.
    For the mutable, rank-scented meiny, let them
    Regard me as I do not flatter, and
    Therein behold themselves. I say again,
    In soothing them we nourish 'gainst our Senate
    The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
    Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd, and scatter'd,
    By mingling them with us, the honour'd number,
    Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
    Which they have given to beggars.
  MENENIUS. Well, no more.
  FIRST SENATOR. No more words, we beseech you.
  CORIOLANUS. How? no more!
    As for my country I have shed my blood,
    Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs
    Coin words till their decay against those measles
    Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought
    The very way to catch them.
  BRUTUS. You speak o' th' people
    As if you were a god, to punish; not
    A man of their infirmity.
  SICINIUS. 'Twere well
    We let the people know't.
  MENENIUS. What, what? his choler?
  CORIOLANUS. Choler!
    Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,
    By Jove, 'twould be my mind!
  SICINIUS. It is a mind
    That shall remain a poison where it is,
    Not poison any further.
  CORIOLANUS. Shall remain!
    Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you
    His absolute 'shall'?
  COMINIUS. 'Twas from the canon.
  CORIOLANUS. 'Shall'!
    O good but most unwise patricians! Why,
    You grave but reckless senators, have you thus
    Given Hydra here to choose an officer
    That with his peremptory 'shall,' being but
    The horn and noise o' th' monster's, wants not spirit
    To say he'll turn your current in a ditch,
    And make your channel his? If he have power,
    Then vail your ignorance; if none, awake
    Your dangerous lenity. If you are learn'd,
    Be not as common fools; if you are not,
    Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,
    If they be senators; and they are no less,
    When, both your voices blended, the great'st taste
    Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate;
    And such a one as he, who puts his 'shall,'
    His popular 'shall,' against a graver bench
    Than ever frown'd in Greece. By Jove himself,
    It makes the consuls base; and my soul aches
    To know, when two authorities are up,
    Neither supreme, how soon confusion
    May enter 'twixt the gap of both and take
    The one by th' other.
  COMINIUS. Well, on to th' market-place.
  CORIOLANUS. Whoever gave that counsel to give forth
    The corn o' th' storehouse gratis, as 'twas us'd
    Sometime in Greece-
  MENENIUS. Well, well, no more of that.
  CORIOLANUS. Though there the people had more absolute pow'r-
    I say they nourish'd disobedience, fed
    The ruin of the state.
  BRUTUS. Why shall the people give
    One that speaks thus their voice?
  CORIOLANUS. I'll give my reasons,
    More worthier than their voices. They know the corn
    Was not our recompense, resting well assur'd
    They ne'er did service for't; being press'd to th' war
    Even when the navel of the state was touch'd,
    They would not thread the gates. This kind of service
    Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i' th' war,
    Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd
    Most valour, spoke not for them. Th' accusation
    Which they have often made against the Senate,
    All cause unborn, could never be the native
    Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?
    How shall this bosom multiplied digest
    The Senate's courtesy? Let deeds express
    What's like to be their words: 'We did request it;
    We are the greater poll, and in true fear
    They gave us our demands.' Thus we debase
    The nature of our seats, and make the rabble
    Call our cares fears; which will in time
    Break ope the locks o' th' Senate and bring in
    The crows to peck the eagles.
  MENENIUS. Come, enough.
  BRUTUS. Enough, with over measure.
  CORIOLANUS. No, take more.
    What may be sworn by, both divine and human,
    Seal what I end withal! This double worship,
    Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
    Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom,
    Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
    Of general ignorance- it must omit
    Real necessities, and give way the while
    To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr'd, it follows
    Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you-
    You that will be less fearful than discreet;
    That love the fundamental part of state
    More than you doubt the change on't; that prefer
    A noble life before a long, and wish
    To jump a body with a dangerous physic
    That's sure of death without it- at once pluck out
    The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick
    The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonour
    Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state
    Of that integrity which should become't,
    Not having the power to do the good it would,
    For th' ill which doth control't.
  BRUTUS. Has said enough.
  SICINIUS. Has spoken like a traitor and shall answer
    As traitors do.
  CORIOLANUS. Thou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee!
    What should the people do with these bald tribunes,
    On whom depending, their obedience fails
    To the greater bench? In a rebellion,
    When what's not meet, but what must be, was law,
    Then were they chosen; in a better hour
    Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
    And throw their power i' th' dust.
  BRUTUS. Manifest treason!
  SICINIUS. This a consul? No.
  BRUTUS. The aediles, ho!

                           Enter an AEDILE

    Let him be apprehended.
  SICINIUS. Go call the people,  [Exit AEDILE]  in whose name myself
    Attach thee as a traitorous innovator,
    A foe to th' public weal. Obey, I charge thee,
    And follow to thine answer.
  CORIOLANUS. Hence, old goat!
  PATRICIANS. We'll surety him.
  COMINIUS. Ag'd sir, hands off.
  CORIOLANUS. Hence, rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones
    Out of thy garments.
  SICINIUS. Help, ye citizens!

              Enter a rabble of plebeians, with the AEDILES

  MENENIUS. On both sides more respect.
  SICINIUS. Here's he that would take from you all your power.
  BRUTUS. Seize him, aediles.
    PLEBEIANS. Down with him! down with him!
  SECOND SENATOR. Weapons, weapons, weapons!
                              [They all bustle about CORIOLANUS]
  ALL. Tribunes! patricians! citizens! What, ho! Sicinius!
    Brutus! Coriolanus! Citizens!
  PATRICIANS. Peace, peace, peace; stay, hold, peace!
  MENENIUS. What is about to be? I am out of breath;
    Confusion's near; I cannot speak. You tribunes
    To th' people- Coriolanus, patience!
    Speak, good Sicinius.
  SICINIUS. Hear me, people; peace!
  PLEBEIANS. Let's hear our tribune. Peace! Speak, speak, speak.
  SICINIUS. You are at point to lose your liberties.
    Marcius would have all from you; Marcius,
    Whom late you have nam'd for consul.
  MENENIUS. Fie, fie, fie!
    This is the way to kindle, not to quench.
  FIRST SENATOR. To unbuild the city, and to lay all flat.
  SICINIUS. What is the city but the people?
  PLEBEIANS. True,
    The people are the city.
  BRUTUS. By the consent of all we were establish'd
    The people's magistrates.
  PLEBEIANS. You so remain.
  MENENIUS. And so are like to do.
  COMINIUS. That is the way to lay the city flat,
    To bring the roof to the foundation,
    And bury all which yet distinctly ranges
    In heaps and piles of ruin.
  SICINIUS. This deserves death.
  BRUTUS. Or let us stand to our authority
    Or let us lose it. We do here pronounce,
    Upon the part o' th' people, in whose power
    We were elected theirs: Marcius is worthy
    Of present death.
  SICINIUS. Therefore lay hold of him;
    Bear him to th' rock Tarpeian, and from thence
    Into destruction cast him.
  BRUTUS. AEdiles, seize him.
  PLEBEIANS. Yield, Marcius, yield.
  MENENIUS. Hear me one word; beseech you, Tribunes,
    Hear me but a word.
  AEDILES. Peace, peace!
  MENENIUS. Be that you seem, truly your country's friend,
    And temp'rately proceed to what you would
    Thus violently redress.
  BRUTUS. Sir, those cold ways,
    That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous
    Where the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him
    And bear him to the rock.
                                    [CORIOLANUS draws his sword]
  CORIOLANUS. No: I'll die here.
    There's some among you have beheld me fighting;
    Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.
  MENENIUS. Down with that sword! Tribunes, withdraw awhile.
  BRUTUS. Lay hands upon him.
  MENENIUS. Help Marcius, help,
    You that be noble; help him, young and old.
  PLEBEIANS. Down with him, down with him!
                      [In this mutiny the TRIBUNES, the AEDILES,
                                     and the people are beat in]
  MENENIUS. Go, get you to your house; be gone, away.
    All will be nought else.
  SECOND SENATOR. Get you gone.
  CORIOLANUS. Stand fast;
    We have as many friends as enemies.
  MENENIUS. Shall it be put to that?
  FIRST SENATOR. The gods forbid!
    I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;
    Leave us to cure this cause.
  MENENIUS. For 'tis a sore upon us
    You cannot tent yourself; be gone, beseech you.
  COMINIUS. Come, sir, along with us.
  CORIOLANUS. I would they were barbarians, as they are,
    Though in Rome litter'd; not Romans, as they are not,
    Though calved i' th' porch o' th' Capitol.
  MENENIUS. Be gone.
    Put not your worthy rage into your tongue;
    One time will owe another.
  CORIOLANUS. On fair ground
    I could beat forty of them.
  MENENIUS. I could myself
    Take up a brace o' th' best of them; yea, the two tribunes.
  COMINIUS. But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic,
    And manhood is call'd foolery when it stands
    Against a falling fabric. Will you hence,
    Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend
    Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear
    What they are us'd to bear.
  MENENIUS. Pray you be gone.
    I'll try whether my old wit be in request
    With those that have but little; this must be patch'd
    With cloth of any colour.
  COMINIUS. Nay, come away.
                     Exeunt CORIOLANUS and COMINIUS, with others
  PATRICIANS. This man has marr'd his fortune.
  MENENIUS. His nature is too noble for the world:
    He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
    Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth;
    What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;
    And, being angry, does forget that ever
    He heard the name of death.                 [A noise within]
    Here's goodly work!
  PATRICIANS. I would they were a-bed.
  MENENIUS. I would they were in Tiber.
    What the vengeance, could he not speak 'em fair?

            Re-enter BRUTUS and SICINIUS, the rabble again

  SICINIUS. Where is this viper
    That would depopulate the city and
    Be every man himself?
  MENENIUS. You worthy Tribunes-
  SICINIUS. He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock
    With rigorous hands; he hath resisted law,
    And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
    Than the severity of the public power,
    Which he so sets at nought.
  FIRST CITIZEN. He shall well know
    The noble tribunes are the people's mouths,
    And we their hands.
  PLEBEIANS. He shall, sure on't.
  MENENIUS. Sir, sir-
  SICINIUS. Peace!
  MENENIUS. Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt
    With modest warrant.
  SICINIUS. Sir, how comes't that you
    Have holp to make this rescue?
  MENENIUS. Hear me speak.
    As I do know the consul's worthiness,
    So can I name his faults.
  SICINIUS. Consul! What consul?
  MENENIUS. The consul Coriolanus.
  BRUTUS. He consul!
  PLEBEIANS. No, no, no, no, no.
  MENENIUS. If, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,
    I may be heard, I would crave a word or two;
    The which shall turn you to no further harm
    Than so much loss of time.
  SICINIUS. Speak briefly, then,
    For we are peremptory to dispatch
    This viperous traitor; to eject him hence
    Were but one danger, and to keep him here
    Our certain death; therefore it is decreed
    He dies to-night.
  MENENIUS. Now the good gods forbid
    That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
    Towards her deserved children is enroll'd
    In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
    Should now eat up her own!
  SICINIUS. He's a disease that must be cut away.
  MENENIUS. O, he's a limb that has but a disease-
    Mortal, to cut it off: to cure it, easy.
    What has he done to Rome that's worthy death?
    Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost-
    Which I dare vouch is more than that he hath
    By many an ounce- he dropt it for his country;
    And what is left, to lose it by his country
    Were to us all that do't and suffer it
    A brand to th' end o' th' world.
  SICINIUS. This is clean kam.
  BRUTUS. Merely awry. When he did love his country,
    It honour'd him.
  SICINIUS. The service of the foot,
    Being once gangren'd, is not then respected
    For what before it was.
  BRUTUS. We'll hear no more.
    Pursue him to his house and pluck him thence,
    Lest his infection, being of catching nature,
    Spread further.
  MENENIUS. One word more, one word
    This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find
    The harm of unscann'd swiftness, will, too late,
    Tie leaden pounds to's heels. Proceed by process,
    Lest parties- as he is belov'd- break out,
    And sack great Rome with Romans.
  BRUTUS. If it were so-
  SICINIUS. What do ye talk?
    Have we not had a taste of his obedience-
    Our aediles smote, ourselves resisted? Come!
  MENENIUS. Consider this: he has been bred i' th' wars
    Since 'a could draw a sword, and is ill school'd
    In bolted language; meal and bran together
    He throws without distinction. Give me leave,
    I'll go to him and undertake to bring him
    Where he shall answer by a lawful form,
    In peace, to his utmost peril.
  FIRST SENATOR. Noble Tribunes,
    It is the humane way; the other course
    Will prove too bloody, and the end of it
    Unknown to the beginning.
  SICINIUS. Noble Menenius,
    Be you then as the people's officer.
    Masters, lay down your weapons.
  BRUTUS. Go not home.
  SICINIUS. Meet on the market-place. We'll attend you there;
    Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed
    In our first way.
  MENENIUS. I'll bring him to you.
    [To the SENATORS]  Let me desire your company; he must come,
    Or what is worst will follow.
  FIRST SENATOR. Pray you let's to him.                   Exeunt

SCENE II. Rome. The house of CORIOLANUS

Enter CORIOLANUS with NOBLES

  CORIOLANUS. Let them pull all about mine ears, present me
    Death on the wheel or at wild horses' heels;
    Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
    That the precipitation might down stretch
    Below the beam of sight; yet will I still
    Be thus to them.
  FIRST PATRICIAN. You do the nobler.
  CORIOLANUS. I muse my mother
    Does not approve me further, who was wont
    To call them woollen vassals, things created
    To buy and sell with groats; to show bare heads
    In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder,
    When one but of my ordinance stood up
    To speak of peace or war.

                          Enter VOLUMNIA

    I talk of you:
    Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me
    False to my nature? Rather say I play
    The man I am.
  VOLUMNIA. O, sir, sir, sir,
    I would have had you put your power well on
    Before you had worn it out.
  CORIOLANUS. Let go.
  VOLUMNIA. You might have been enough the man you are
    With striving less to be so; lesser had been
    The thwartings of your dispositions, if
    You had not show'd them how ye were dispos'd,
    Ere they lack'd power to cross you.
  CORIOLANUS. Let them hang.
  VOLUMNIA. Ay, and burn too.

                    Enter MENENIUS with the SENATORS

  MENENIUS. Come, come, you have been too rough, something too rough;
    You must return and mend it.
  FIRST SENATOR. There's no remedy,
    Unless, by not so doing, our good city
    Cleave in the midst and perish.
  VOLUMNIA. Pray be counsell'd;
    I have a heart as little apt as yours,
    But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
    To better vantage.
  MENENIUS. Well said, noble woman!
    Before he should thus stoop to th' herd, but that
    The violent fit o' th' time craves it as physic
    For the whole state, I would put mine armour on,
    Which I can scarcely bear.
  CORIOLANUS. What must I do?
  MENENIUS. Return to th' tribunes.
  CORIOLANUS. Well, what then, what then?
  MENENIUS. Repent what you have spoke.
  CORIOLANUS. For them! I cannot do it to the gods;
    Must I then do't to them?
  VOLUMNIA. You are too absolute;
    Though therein you can never be too noble
    But when extremities speak. I have heard you say
    Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends,
    I' th' war do grow together; grant that, and tell me
    In peace what each of them by th' other lose
    That they combine not there.
  CORIOLANUS. Tush, tush!
  MENENIUS. A good demand.
  VOLUMNIA. If it be honour in your wars to seem
    The same you are not, which for your best ends
    You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse
    That it shall hold companionship in peace
    With honour as in war; since that to both
    It stands in like request?
  CORIOLANUS. Why force you this?
  VOLUMNIA. Because that now it lies you on to speak
    To th' people, not by your own instruction,
    Nor by th' matter which your heart prompts you,
    But with such words that are but roted in
    Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables
    Of no allowance to your bosom's truth.
    Now, this no more dishonours you at all
    Than to take in a town with gentle words,
    Which else would put you to your fortune and
    The hazard of much blood.
    I would dissemble with my nature where
    My fortunes and my friends at stake requir'd
    I should do so in honour. I am in this
    Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;
    And you will rather show our general louts
    How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon 'em
    For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard
    Of what that want might ruin.
  MENENIUS. Noble lady!
    Come, go with us, speak fair; you may salve so,
    Not what is dangerous present, but the los
    Of what is past.
  VOLUMNIA. I prithee now, My son,
    Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand;
    And thus far having stretch'd it- here be with them-
    Thy knee bussing the stones- for in such busines
    Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th' ignorant
    More learned than the ears- waving thy head,
    Which often thus correcting thy-stout heart,
    Now humble as the ripest mulberry
    That will not hold the handling. Or say to them
    Thou art their soldier and, being bred in broils,
    Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,
    Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,
    In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame
    Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far
    As thou hast power and person.
  MENENIUS. This but done
    Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;
    For they have pardons, being ask'd, as free
    As words to little purpose.
  VOLUMNIA. Prithee now,
    Go, and be rul'd; although I know thou hadst rather
    Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf
    Than flatter him in a bower.

                           Enter COMINIUS

    Here is Cominius.
  COMINIUS. I have been i' th' market-place; and, sir, 'tis fit
    You make strong party, or defend yourself
    By calmness or by absence; all's in anger.
  MENENIUS. Only fair speech.
  COMINIUS. I think 'twill serve, if he
    Can thereto frame his spirit.
  VOLUMNIA. He must and will.
    Prithee now, say you will, and go about it.
  CORIOLANUS. Must I go show them my unbarb'd sconce? Must I
    With my base tongue give to my noble heart
    A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do't;
    Yet, were there but this single plot to lose,
    This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it,
    And throw't against the wind. To th' market-place!
    You have put me now to such a part which never
    I shall discharge to th' life.
  COMINIUS. Come, come, we'll prompt you.
  VOLUMNIA. I prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said
    My praises made thee first a soldier, so,
    To have my praise for this, perform a part
    Thou hast not done before.
  CORIOLANUS. Well, I must do't.
    Away, my disposition, and possess me
    Some harlot's spirit! My throat of war be turn'd,
    Which quier'd with my drum, into a pipe
    Small as an eunuch or the virgin voice
    That babies lulls asleep! The smiles of knaves
    Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up
    The glasses of my sight! A beggar's tongue
    Make motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees,
    Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his
    That hath receiv'd an alms! I will not do't,
    Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth,
    And by my body's action teach my mind
    A most inherent baseness.
  VOLUMNIA. At thy choice, then.
    To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour
    Than thou of them. Come all to ruin. Let
    Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear
    Thy dangerous stoutness; for I mock at death
    With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.
    Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me;
    But owe thy pride thyself.
  CORIOLANUS. Pray be content.
    Mother, I am going to the market-place;
    Chide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,
    Cog their hearts from them, and come home belov'd
    Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going.
    Commend me to my wife. I'll return consul,
    Or never trust to what my tongue can do
    I' th' way of flattery further.
  VOLUMNIA. Do your will.                                   Exit
  COMINIUS. Away! The tribunes do attend you. Arm yourself
    To answer mildly; for they are prepar'd
    With accusations, as I hear, more strong
    Than are upon you yet.
  CORIOLANUS. The word is 'mildly.' Pray you let us go.
    Let them accuse me by invention; I
    Will answer in mine honour.
  MENENIUS. Ay, but mildly.
  CORIOLANUS. Well, mildly be it then- mildly.            Exeunt

SCENE III. Rome. The Forum

Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS

  BRUTUS. In this point charge him home, that he affects
    Tyrannical power. If he evade us there,
    Enforce him with his envy to the people,
    And that the spoil got on the Antiates
    Was ne'er distributed.

                           Enter an AEDILE

    What, will he come?
  AEDILE. He's coming.
  BRUTUS. How accompanied?
  AEDILE. With old Menenius, and those senators
    That always favour'd him.
  SICINIUS. Have you a catalogue
    Of all the voices that we have procur'd,
    Set down by th' poll?
  AEDILE. I have; 'tis ready.
  SICINIUS. Have you corrected them by tribes?
  AEDILE. I have.
  SICINIUS. Assemble presently the people hither;
    And when they hear me say 'It shall be so
    I' th' right and strength o' th' commons' be it either
    For death, for fine, or banishment, then let them,
    If I say fine, cry 'Fine!'- if death, cry 'Death!'
    Insisting on the old prerogative
    And power i' th' truth o' th' cause.
  AEDILE. I shall inform them.
  BRUTUS. And when such time they have begun to cry,
    Let them not cease, but with a din confus'd
    Enforce the present execution
    Of what we chance to sentence.
  AEDILE. Very well.
  SICINIUS. Make them be strong, and ready for this hint,
    When we shall hap to give't them.
  BRUTUS. Go about it.                               Exit AEDILE
    Put him to choler straight. He hath been us'd
    Ever to conquer, and to have his worth
    Of contradiction; being once chaf'd, he cannot
    Be rein'd again to temperance; then he speaks
    What's in his heart, and that is there which looks
    With us to break his neck.

          Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS and COMINIUS, with others

  SICINIUS. Well, here he comes.
  MENENIUS. Calmly, I do beseech you.
  CORIOLANUS. Ay, as an ostler, that for th' poorest piece
    Will bear the knave by th' volume. Th' honour'd gods
    Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice
    Supplied with worthy men! plant love among's!
    Throng our large temples with the shows of peace,
    And not our streets with war!
  FIRST SENATOR. Amen, amen!
  MENENIUS. A noble wish.

                  Re-enter the.AEDILE,with the plebeians

  SICINIUS. Draw near, ye people.
  AEDILE. List to your tribunes. Audience! peace, I say!
  CORIOLANUS. First, hear me speak.
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, say. Peace, ho!
  CORIOLANUS. Shall I be charg'd no further than this present?
    Must all determine here?
  SICINIUS. I do demand,
    If you submit you to the people's voices,
    Allow their officers, and are content
    To suffer lawful censure for such faults
    As shall be prov'd upon you.
  CORIOLANUS. I am content.
  MENENIUS. Lo, citizens, he says he is content.
    The warlike service he has done, consider; think
    Upon the wounds his body bears, which show
    Like graves i' th' holy churchyard.
  CORIOLANUS. Scratches with briers,
    Scars to move laughter only.
  MENENIUS. Consider further,
    That when he speaks not like a citizen,
    You find him like a soldier; do not take
    His rougher accents for malicious sounds,
    But, as I say, such as become a soldier
    Rather than envy you.
  COMINIUS. Well, well! No more.
  CORIOLANUS. What is the matter,
    That being pass'd for consul with full voice,
    I am so dishonour'd that the very hour
    You take it off again?
  SICINIUS. Answer to us.
  CORIOLANUS. Say then; 'tis true, I ought so.
  SICINIUS. We charge you that you have contriv'd to take
    From Rome all season'd office, and to wind
    Yourself into a power tyrannical;
    For which you are a traitor to the people.
  CORIOLANUS. How- traitor?
  MENENIUS. Nay, temperately! Your promise.
  CORIOLANUS. The fires i' th' lowest hell fold in the people!
    Call me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune!
    Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,
    In thy hands clutch'd as many millions, in
    Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say
    'Thou liest' unto thee with a voice as free
    As I do pray the gods.
  SICINIUS. Mark you this, people?
  PLEBEIANS. To th' rock, to th' rock, with him!
  SICINIUS. Peace!
    We need not put new matter to his charge.
    What you have seen him do and heard him speak,
    Beating your officers, cursing yourselves,
    Opposing laws with strokes, and here defying
    Those whose great power must try him- even this,
    So criminal and in such capital kind,
    Deserves th' extremest death.
  BRUTUS. But since he hath
    Serv'd well for Rome-
  CORIOLANUS. What do you prate of service?
  BRUTUS. I talk of that that know it.
  CORIOLANUS. You!
  MENENIUS. Is this the promise that you made your mother?
  COMINIUS. Know, I pray you-
  CORIOLANUS. I'll know no further.
    Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,
    Vagabond exile, flaying, pent to linger
    But with a grain a day, I would not buy
    Their mercy at the price of one fair word,
    Nor check my courage for what they can give,
    To have't with saying 'Good morrow.'
  SICINIUS. For that he has-
    As much as in him lies- from time to time
    Envied against the people, seeking means
    To pluck away their power; as now at last
    Given hostile strokes, and that not in the presence
    Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers
    That do distribute it- in the name o' th' people,
    And in the power of us the tribunes, we,
    Ev'n from this instant, banish him our city,
    In peril of precipitation
    From off the rock Tarpeian, never more
    To enter our Rome gates. I' th' people's name,
    I say it shall be so.
  PLEBEIANS. It shall be so, it shall be so! Let him away!
    He's banish'd, and it shall be so.
  COMINIUS. Hear me, my masters and my common friends-
  SICINIUS. He's sentenc'd; no more hearing.
  COMINIUS. Let me speak.
    I have been consul, and can show for Rome
    Her enemies' marks upon me. I do love
    My country's good with a respect more tender,
    More holy and profound, than mine own life,
    My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase
    And treasure of my loins. Then if I would
    Speak that-
  SICINIUS. We know your drift. Speak what?
  BRUTUS. There's no more to be said, but he is banish'd,
    As enemy to the people and his country.
    It shall be so.
  PLEBEIANS. It shall be so, it shall be so.
  CORIOLANUS. YOU common cry of curs, whose breath I hate
    As reek o' th' rotten fens, whose loves I prize
    As the dead carcasses of unburied men
    That do corrupt my air- I banish you.
    And here remain with your uncertainty!
    Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts;
    Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,
    Fan you into despair! Have the power still
    To banish your defenders, till at length
    Your ignorance- which finds not till it feels,
    Making but reservation of yourselves
    Still your own foes- deliver you
    As most abated captives to some nation
    That won you without blows! Despising
    For you the city, thus I turn my back;
    There is a world elsewhere.
                                              Exeunt CORIOLANUS,
                   COMINIUS, MENENIUS, with the other PATRICIANS
  AEDILE. The people's enemy is gone, is gone!
                        [They all shout and throw up their caps]
  PLEBEIANS. Our enemy is banish'd, he is gone! Hoo-oo!
  SICINIUS. Go see him out at gates, and follow him,
    As he hath follow'd you, with all despite;
    Give him deserv'd vexation. Let a guard
    Attend us through the city.
  PLEBEIANS. Come, come, let's see him out at gates; come!
    The gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come.           Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Rome. Before a gate of the city

Enter CORIOLANUS, VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, MENENIUS, COMINIUS, with the
young NOBILITY of Rome

  CORIOLANUS. Come, leave your tears; a brief farewell. The beast
    With many heads butts me away. Nay, mother,
    Where is your ancient courage? You were us'd
    To say extremities was the trier of spirits;
    That common chances common men could bear;
    That when the sea was calm all boats alike
    Show'd mastership in floating; fortune's blows,
    When most struck home, being gentle wounded craves
    A noble cunning. You were us'd to load me
    With precepts that would make invincible
    The heart that conn'd them.
  VIRGILIA. O heavens! O heavens!
  CORIOLANUS. Nay, I prithee, woman-
  VOLUMNIA. Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,
    And occupations perish!
  CORIOLANUS. What, what, what!
    I shall be lov'd when I am lack'd. Nay, mother,
    Resume that spirit when you were wont to say,
    If you had been the wife of Hercules,
    Six of his labours you'd have done, and sav'd
    Your husband so much sweat. Cominius,
    Droop not; adieu. Farewell, my wife, my mother.
    I'll do well yet. Thou old and true Menenius,
    Thy tears are salter than a younger man's
    And venomous to thine eyes. My sometime General,
    I have seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld
    Heart-hard'ning spectacles; tell these sad women
    'Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes,
    As 'tis to laugh at 'em. My mother, you wot well
    My hazards still have been your solace; and
    Believe't not lightly- though I go alone,
    Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen
    Makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen- your son
    Will or exceed the common or be caught
    With cautelous baits and practice.
  VOLUMNIA. My first son,
    Whither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius
    With thee awhile; determine on some course
    More than a wild exposture to each chance
    That starts i' th' way before thee.
  VIRGILIA. O the gods!
  COMINIUS. I'll follow thee a month, devise with the
    Where thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us,
    And we of thee; so, if the time thrust forth
    A cause for thy repeal, we shall not send
    O'er the vast world to seek a single man,
    And lose advantage, which doth ever cool
    I' th' absence of the needer.
  CORIOLANUS. Fare ye well;
    Thou hast years upon thee, and thou art too full
    Of the wars' surfeits to go rove with one
    That's yet unbruis'd; bring me but out at gate.
    Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and
    My friends of noble touch; when I am forth,
    Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you come.
    While I remain above the ground you shall
    Hear from me still, and never of me aught
    But what is like me formerly.
  MENENIUS. That's worthily
    As any ear can hear. Come, let's not weep.
    If I could shake off but one seven years
    From these old arms and legs, by the good gods,
    I'd with thee every foot.
  CORIOLANUS. Give me thy hand.
    Come.                                                 Exeunt

SCENE II. Rome. A street near the gate

Enter the two Tribunes, SICINIUS and BRUTUS with the AEDILE

  SICINIUS. Bid them all home; he's gone, and we'll no further.
    The nobility are vex'd, whom we see have sided
    In his behalf.
  BRUTUS. Now we have shown our power,
    Let us seem humbler after it is done
    Than when it was a-doing.
  SICINIUS. Bid them home.
    Say their great enemy is gone, and they
    Stand in their ancient strength.
  BRUTUS. Dismiss them home.                         Exit AEDILE
    Here comes his mother.

                   Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and MENENIUS

  SICINIUS. Let's not meet her.
  BRUTUS. Why?
  SICINIUS. They say she's mad.
  BRUTUS. They have ta'en note of us; keep on your way.
  VOLUMNIA. O, Y'are well met; th' hoarded plague o' th' gods
    Requite your love!
  MENENIUS. Peace, peace, be not so loud.
  VOLUMNIA. If that I could for weeping, you should hear-
    Nay, and you shall hear some.  [To BRUTUS] Will you be gone?
  VIRGILIA.  [To SICINIUS]  You shall stay too. I would I had the
      power
    To say so to my husband.
  SICINIUS. Are you mankind?
  VOLUMNIA. Ay, fool; is that a shame? Note but this, fool:
    Was not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship
    To banish him that struck more blows for Rome
    Than thou hast spoken words?
  SICINIUS. O blessed heavens!
  VOLUMNIA. Moe noble blows than ever thou wise words;
    And for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what- yet go!
    Nay, but thou shalt stay too. I would my son
    Were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,
    His good sword in his hand.
  SICINIUS. What then?
  VIRGILIA. What then!
    He'd make an end of thy posterity.
  VOLUMNIA. Bastards and all.
    Good man, the wounds that he does bear for Rome!
  MENENIUS. Come, come, peace.
  SICINIUS. I would he had continued to his country
    As he began, and not unknit himself
    The noble knot he made.
  BRUTUS. I would he had.
  VOLUMNIA. 'I would he had!' 'Twas you incens'd the rabble-
    Cats that can judge as fitly of his worth
    As I can of those mysteries which heaven
    Will not have earth to know.
  BRUTUS. Pray, let's go.
  VOLUMNIA. Now, pray, sir, get you gone;
    You have done a brave deed. Ere you go, hear this:
    As far as doth the Capitol exceed
    The meanest house in Rome, so far my son-
    This lady's husband here, this, do you see?-
    Whom you have banish'd does exceed you an.
  BRUTUS. Well, well, we'll leave you.
  SICINIUS. Why stay we to be baited
    With one that wants her wits?                Exeunt TRIBUNES
  VOLUMNIA. Take my prayers with you.
    I would the gods had nothing else to do
    But to confirm my curses. Could I meet 'em
    But once a day, it would unclog my heart
    Of what lies heavy to't.
  MENENIUS. You have told them home,
    And, by my troth, you have cause. You'll sup with me?
  VOLUMNIA. Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,
    And so shall starve with feeding. Come, let's go.
    Leave this faint puling and lament as I do,
    In anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come.
                                    Exeunt VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA
  MENENIUS. Fie, fie, fie!                                  Exit

SCENE III. A highway between Rome and Antium

Enter a ROMAN and a VOLSCE, meeting

  ROMAN. I know you well, sir, and you know me; your name, I think,
    is Adrian.
  VOLSCE. It is so, sir. Truly, I have forgot you.
  ROMAN. I am a Roman; and my services are, as you are, against 'em.
    Know you me yet?
  VOLSCE. Nicanor? No!
  ROMAN. The same, sir.
  VOLSCE. YOU had more beard when I last saw you, but your favour is
    well appear'd by your tongue. What's the news in Rome? I have a
    note from the Volscian state, to find you out there. You have
    well saved me a day's journey.
  ROMAN. There hath been in Rome strange insurrections: the people
    against the senators, patricians, and nobles.
  VOLSCE. Hath been! Is it ended, then? Our state thinks not so; they
    are in a most warlike preparation, and hope to come upon them in
    the heat of their division.
  ROMAN. The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing would make
    it flame again; for the nobles receive so to heart the banishment
    of that worthy Coriolanus that they are in a ripe aptness to take
    all power from the people, and to pluck from them their tribunes
    for ever. This lies glowing, I can tell you, and is almost mature
    for the violent breaking out.
  VOLSCE. Coriolanus banish'd!
  ROMAN. Banish'd, sir.
  VOLSCE. You will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor.
  ROMAN. The day serves well for them now. I have heard it said the
    fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is when she's fall'n out
    with her husband. Your noble Tullus Aufidius will appear well in
    these wars, his great opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no
    request of his country.
  VOLSCE. He cannot choose. I am most fortunate thus accidentally to
    encounter you; you have ended my business, and I will merrily
    accompany you home.
  ROMAN. I shall between this and supper tell you most strange things
    from Rome, all tending to the good of their adversaries. Have you
    an army ready, say you?
  VOLSCE. A most royal one: the centurions and their charges,
    distinctly billeted, already in th' entertainment, and to be on
    foot at an hour's warning.
  ROMAN. I am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the man, I
    think, that shall set them in present action. So, sir, heartily
    well met, and most glad of your company.
  VOLSCE. You take my part from me, sir. I have the most cause to be
    glad of yours.
  ROMAN. Well, let us go together.

SCENE IV. Antium. Before AUFIDIUS' house

Enter CORIOLANUS, in mean apparel, disguis'd and muffled

  CORIOLANUS. A goodly city is this Antium. City,
    'Tis I that made thy widows: many an heir
    Of these fair edifices fore my wars
    Have I heard groan and drop. Then know me not.
    Lest that thy wives with spits and boys with stones,
    In puny battle slay me.

                           Enter A CITIZEN

    Save you, sir.
  CITIZEN. And you.
  CORIOLANUS. Direct me, if it be your will,
    Where great Aufidius lies. Is he in Antium?
  CITIZEN. He is, and feasts the nobles of the state
    At his house this night.
  CORIOLANUS. Which is his house, beseech you?
  CITIZEN. This here before you.
  CORIOLANUS. Thank you, sir; farewell.             Exit CITIZEN
    O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,
    Whose double bosoms seems to wear one heart,
    Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise
    Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love,
    Unseparable, shall within this hour,
    On a dissension of a doit, break out
    To bitterest enmity; so fellest foes,
    Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep
    To take the one the other, by some chance,
    Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends
    And interjoin their issues. So with me:
    My birthplace hate I, and my love's upon
    This enemy town. I'll enter. If he slay me,
    He does fair justice: if he give me way,
    I'll do his country service.

SCENE V. Antium. AUFIDIUS' house

Music plays. Enter A SERVINGMAN

  FIRST SERVANT. Wine, wine, wine! What service is here! I think our
  fellows are asleep.                                     Exit

                     Enter another SERVINGMAN

  SECOND SERVANT.Where's Cotus? My master calls for him.
    Cotus!                                                  Exit

                       Enter CORIOLANUS

  CORIOLANUS. A goodly house. The feast smells well, but I
    Appear not like a guest.

                 Re-enter the first SERVINGMAN

  FIRST SERVANT. What would you have, friend?
    Whence are you? Here's no place for you: pray go to the door.
 Exit
  CORIOLANUS. I have deserv'd no better entertainment
    In being Coriolanus.

                   Re-enter second SERVINGMAN

  SECOND SERVANT. Whence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his
    head that he gives entrance to such companions? Pray get you out.
  CORIOLANUS. Away!
  SECOND SERVANT. Away? Get you away.
  CORIOLANUS. Now th' art troublesome.
  SECOND SERVANT. Are you so brave? I'll have you talk'd with anon.

          Enter a third SERVINGMAN. The first meets him

  THIRD SERVANT. What fellow's this?
  FIRST SERVANT. A strange one as ever I look'd on. I cannot get him
    out o' th' house. Prithee call my master to him.
  THIRD SERVANT. What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you avoid the
    house.
  CORIOLANUS. Let me but stand- I will not hurt your hearth.
  THIRD SERVANT. What are you?
  CORIOLANUS. A gentleman.
  THIRD SERVANT. A marv'llous poor one.
  CORIOLANUS. True, so I am.
  THIRD SERVANT. Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other
    station; here's no place for you. Pray you avoid. Come.
  CORIOLANUS. Follow your function, go and batten on cold bits.
                                      [Pushes him away from him]
  THIRD SERVANT. What, you will not? Prithee tell my master what a
    strange guest he has here.
  SECOND SERVANT. And I shall.                              Exit
  THIRD SERVANT. Where dwell'st thou?
  CORIOLANUS. Under the canopy.
  THIRD SERVANT. Under the canopy?
  CORIOLANUS. Ay.
  THIRD SERVANT. Where's that?
  CORIOLANUS. I' th' city of kites and crows.
  THIRD SERVANT. I' th' city of kites and crows!
    What an ass it is! Then thou dwell'st with daws too?
  CORIOLANUS. No, I serve not thy master.
  THIRD SERVANT. How, sir! Do you meddle with my master?
  CORIOLANUS. Ay; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy
    mistress. Thou prat'st and prat'st; serve with thy trencher;
    hence!                                      [Beats him away]

             Enter AUFIDIUS with the second SERVINGMAN

  AUFIDIUS. Where is this fellow?
  SECOND SERVANT. Here, sir; I'd have beaten him like a dog, but for
    disturbing the lords within.
  AUFIDIUS. Whence com'st thou? What wouldst thou? Thy name?
    Why speak'st not? Speak, man. What's thy name?
  CORIOLANUS.  [Unmuffling]  If, Tullus,
    Not yet thou know'st me, and, seeing me, dost not
    Think me for the man I am, necessity
    Commands me name myself.
  AUFIDIUS. What is thy name?
  CORIOLANUS. A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,
    And harsh in sound to thine.
  AUFIDIUS. Say, what's thy name?
    Thou has a grim appearance, and thy face
    Bears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn,
    Thou show'st a noble vessel. What's thy name?
  CORIOLANUS. Prepare thy brow to frown- know'st thou me yet?
  AUFIDIUS. I know thee not. Thy name?
  CORIOLANUS. My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done
    To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces,
    Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may
    My surname, Coriolanus. The painful service,
    The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood
    Shed for my thankless country, are requited
    But with that surname- a good memory
    And witness of the malice and displeasure
    Which thou shouldst bear me. Only that name remains;
    The cruelty and envy of the people,
    Permitted by our dastard nobles, who
    Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest,
    An suffer'd me by th' voice of slaves to be
    Whoop'd out of Rome. Now this extremity
    Hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope,
    Mistake me not, to save my life; for if
    I had fear'd death, of all the men i' th' world
    I would have 'voided thee; but in mere spite,
    To be full quit of those my banishers,
    Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast
    A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge
    Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims
    Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight
    And make my misery serve thy turn. So use it
    That my revengeful services may prove
    As benefits to thee; for I will fight
    Against my cank'red country with the spleen
    Of all the under fiends. But if so be
    Thou dar'st not this, and that to prove more fortunes
    Th'art tir'd, then, in a word, I also am
    Longer to live most weary, and present
    My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;
    Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,
    Since I have ever followed thee with hate,
    Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,
    And cannot live but to thy shame, unless
    It be to do thee service.
  AUFIDIUS. O Marcius, Marcius!
    Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart
    A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter
    Should from yond cloud speak divine things,
    And say ''Tis true,' I'd not believe them more
    Than thee, all noble Marcius. Let me twine
    Mine arms about that body, where against
    My grained ash an hundred times hath broke
    And scarr'd the moon with splinters; here I clip
    The anvil of my sword, and do contest
    As hotly and as nobly with thy love
    As ever in ambitious strength I did
    Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,
    I lov'd the maid I married; never man
    Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,
    Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart
    Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
    Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars, I tell the
    We have a power on foot, and I had purpose
    Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,
    Or lose mine arm for't. Thou hast beat me out
    Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
    Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me-
    We have been down together in my sleep,
    Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat-
    And wak'd half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius,
    Had we no other quarrel else to Rome but that
    Thou art thence banish'd, we would muster all
    From twelve to seventy, and, pouring war
    Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
    Like a bold flood o'erbeat. O, come, go in,
    And take our friendly senators by th' hands,
    Who now are here, taking their leaves of me
    Who am prepar'd against your territories,
    Though not for Rome itself.
  CORIOLANUS. You bless me, gods!
  AUFIDIUS. Therefore, most. absolute sir, if thou wilt have
    The leading of thine own revenges, take
    Th' one half of my commission, and set down-
    As best thou art experienc'd, since thou know'st
    Thy country's strength and weakness- thine own ways,
    Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,
    Or rudely visit them in parts remote
    To fright them ere destroy. But come in;
    Let me commend thee first to those that shall
    Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!
    And more a friend than e'er an enemy;
    Yet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand; most welcome!
                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS

                    The two SERVINGMEN come forward

  FIRST SERVANT. Here's a strange alteration!
  SECOND SERVANT. By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with
    a cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a false report
    of him.
  FIRST SERVANT. What an arm he has! He turn'd me about with his
    finger and his thumb, as one would set up a top.
  SECOND SERVANT. Nay, I knew by his face that there was something in
    him; he had, sir, a kind of face, methought- I cannot tell how to
    term it.
  FIRST SERVANT. He had so, looking as it were- Would I were hang'd,
    but I thought there was more in him than I could think.
  SECOND SERVANT. So did I, I'll be sworn. He is simply the rarest
    man i' th' world.
  FIRST SERVANT. I think he is; but a greater soldier than he you wot
    on.
  SECOND SERVANT. Who, my master?
  FIRST SERVANT. Nay, it's no matter for that.
  SECOND SERVANT. Worth six on him.
  FIRST SERVANT. Nay, not so neither; but I take him to be the
    greater soldier.
  SECOND SERVANT. Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that;
    for the defence of a town our general is excellent.
  FIRST SERVANT. Ay, and for an assault too.

                       Re-enter the third SERVINGMAN

  THIRD SERVANT. O slaves, I can tell you news- news, you rascals!
  BOTH. What, what, what? Let's partake.
  THIRD SERVANT. I would not be a Roman, of all nations;
    I had as lief be a condemn'd man.
  BOTH. Wherefore? wherefore?
  THIRD SERVANT. Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general-
    Caius Marcius.
  FIRST SERVANT. Why do you say 'thwack our general'?
  THIRD SERVANT. I do not say 'thwack our general,' but he was always
    good enough for him.
  SECOND SERVANT. Come, we are fellows and friends. He was ever too
    hard for him, I have heard him say so himself.
  FIRST SERVANT. He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth
    on't; before Corioli he scotch'd him and notch'd him like a
    carbonado.
  SECOND SERVANT. An he had been cannibally given, he might have
    broil'd and eaten him too.
  FIRST SERVANT. But more of thy news!
  THIRD SERVANT. Why, he is so made on here within as if he were son
    and heir to Mars; set at upper end o' th' table; no question
    asked him by any of the senators but they stand bald before him.
    Our general himself makes a mistress of him, sanctifies himself
    with's hand, and turns up the white o' th' eye to his discourse.
    But the bottom of the news is, our general is cut i' th' middle
    and but one half of what he was yesterday, for the other has half
    by the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says,
    and sowl the porter of Rome gates by th' ears; he will mow all
    down before him, and leave his passage poll'd.
  SECOND SERVANT. And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.
  THIRD SERVANT. Do't! He will do't; for look you, sir, he has as
    many friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it were, durst
    not- look you, sir- show themselves, as we term it, his friends,
    whilst he's in directitude.
  FIRST SERVANT. Directitude? What's that?
  THIRD SERVANT. But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again and
    the man in blood, they will out of their burrows, like conies
    after rain, and revel an with him.
  FIRST SERVANT. But when goes this forward?
  THIRD SERVANT. To-morrow, to-day, presently. You shall have the
    drum struck up this afternoon; 'tis as it were parcel of their
    feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips.
  SECOND SERVANT. Why, then we shall have a stirring world again.
    This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and
    breed ballad-makers.
  FIRST SERVANT. Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as
    day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.
    Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mull'd, deaf, sleepy,
    insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war's a
    destroyer of men.
  SECOND SERVANT. 'Tis so; and as war in some sort may be said to be
    a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of
    cuckolds.
  FIRST SERVANT. Ay, and it makes men hate one another.
  THIRD SERVANT. Reason: because they then less need one another. The
    wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap as Volscians.
    They are rising, they are rising.
  BOTH. In, in, in, in!                                   Exeunt

SCENE VI. Rome. A public place

Enter the two Tribunes, SICINIUS and BRUTUS

  SICINIUS. We hear not of him, neither need we fear him.
    His remedies are tame. The present peace
    And quietness of the people, which before
    Were in wild hurry, here do make his friends
    Blush that the world goes well; who rather had,
    Though they themselves did suffer by't, behold
    Dissentious numbers pest'ring streets than see
    Our tradesmen singing in their shops, and going
    About their functions friendly.

                          Enter MENENIUS

  BRUTUS. We stood to't in good time. Is this Menenius?
  SICINIUS. 'Tis he, 'tis he. O, he is grown most kind
    Of late. Hail, sir!
  MENENIUS. Hail to you both!
  SICINIUS. Your Coriolanus is not much miss'd
    But with his friends. The commonwealth doth stand,
    And so would do, were he more angry at it.
  MENENIUS. All's well, and might have been much better
    He could have temporiz'd.
  SICINIUS. Where is he, hear you?
  MENENIUS. Nay, I hear nothing; his mother and his wife
    Hear nothing from him.

                     Enter three or four citizens

  CITIZENS. The gods preserve you both!
  SICINIUS. God-den, our neighbours.
  BRUTUS. God-den to you all, god-den to you an.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Ourselves, our wives, and children, on our knees
    Are bound to pray for you both.
  SICINIUS. Live and thrive!
  BRUTUS. Farewell, kind neighbours; we wish'd Coriolanus
    Had lov'd you as we did.
  CITIZENS. Now the gods keep you!
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Farewell, farewell.             Exeunt citizens
  SICINIUS. This is a happier and more comely time
    Than when these fellows ran about the streets
    Crying confusion.
  BRUTUS. Caius Marcius was
    A worthy officer i' the war, but insolent,
    O'ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,
    Self-loving-
  SICINIUS. And affecting one sole throne,
    Without assistance.
  MENENIUS. I think not so.
  SICINIUS. We should by this, to all our lamentation,
    If he had gone forth consul, found it so.
  BRUTUS. The gods have well prevented it, and Rome
    Sits safe and still without him.

                             Enter an AEDILE

  AEDILE. Worthy tribunes,
    There is a slave, whom we have put in prison,
    Reports the Volsces with several powers
    Are ent'red in the Roman territories,
    And with the deepest malice of the war
    Destroy what lies before 'em.
  MENENIUS. 'Tis Aufidius,
    Who, hearing of our Marcius' banishment,
    Thrusts forth his horns again into the world,
    Which were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome,
    And durst not once peep out.
  SICINIUS. Come, what talk you of Marcius?
  BRUTUS. Go see this rumourer whipp'd. It cannot be
    The Volsces dare break with us.
  MENENIUS. Cannot be!
    We have record that very well it can;
    And three examples of the like hath been
    Within my age. But reason with the fellow
    Before you punish him, where he heard this,
    Lest you shall chance to whip your information
    And beat the messenger who bids beware
    Of what is to be dreaded.
  SICINIUS. Tell not me.
    I know this cannot be.
  BRUTUS. Not Possible.

                           Enter A MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. The nobles in great earnestness are going
    All to the Senate House; some news is come
    That turns their countenances.
  SICINIUS. 'Tis this slave-
    Go whip him fore the people's eyes- his raising,
    Nothing but his report.
  MESSENGER. Yes, worthy sir,
    The slave's report is seconded, and more,
    More fearful, is deliver'd.
  SICINIUS. What more fearful?
  MESSENGER. It is spoke freely out of many mouths-
    How probable I do not know- that Marcius,
    Join'd with Aufidius, leads a power 'gainst Rome,
    And vows revenge as spacious as between
    The young'st and oldest thing.
  SICINIUS. This is most likely!
  BRUTUS. Rais'd only that the weaker sort may wish
    Good Marcius home again.
  SICINIUS. The very trick on 't.
  MENENIUS. This is unlikely.
    He and Aufidius can no more atone
    Than violent'st contrariety.

                      Enter a second MESSENGER

  SECOND MESSENGER. You are sent for to the Senate.
    A fearful army, led by Caius Marcius
    Associated with Aufidius, rages
    Upon our territories, and have already
    O'erborne their way, consum'd with fire and took
    What lay before them.

                            Enter COMINIUS

  COMINIUS. O, you have made good work!
  MENENIUS. What news? what news?
  COMINIUS. You have holp to ravish your own daughters and
    To melt the city leads upon your pates,
    To see your wives dishonour'd to your noses-
  MENENIUS. What's the news? What's the news?
  COMINIUS. Your temples burned in their cement, and
    Your franchises, whereon you stood, confin'd
    Into an auger's bore.
  MENENIUS. Pray now, your news?
    You have made fair work, I fear me. Pray, your news.
    If Marcius should be join'd wi' th' Volscians-
  COMINIUS. If!
    He is their god; he leads them like a thing
    Made by some other deity than Nature,
    That shapes man better; and they follow him
    Against us brats with no less confidence
    Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,
    Or butchers killing flies.
  MENENIUS. You have made good work,
    You and your apron men; you that stood so much
    Upon the voice of occupation and
    The breath of garlic-eaters!
  COMINIUS. He'll shake
    Your Rome about your ears.
  MENENIUS. As Hercules
    Did shake down mellow fruit. You have made fair work!
  BRUTUS. But is this true, sir?
  COMINIUS. Ay; and you'll look pale
    Before you find it other. All the regions
    Do smilingly revolt, and who resists
    Are mock'd for valiant ignorance,
    And perish constant fools. Who is't can blame him?
    Your enemies and his find something in him.
  MENENIUS. We are all undone unless
    The noble man have mercy.
  COMINIUS. Who shall ask it?
    The tribunes cannot do't for shame; the people
    Deserve such pity of him as the wolf
    Does of the shepherds; for his best friends, if they
    Should say 'Be good to Rome'- they charg'd him even
    As those should do that had deserv'd his hate,
    And therein show'd fike enemies.
  MENENIUS. 'Tis true;
    If he were putting to my house the brand
    That should consume it, I have not the face
    To say 'Beseech you, cease.' You have made fair hands,
    You and your crafts! You have crafted fair!
  COMINIUS. You have brought
    A trembling upon Rome, such as was never
    S' incapable of help.
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Say not we brought it.
  MENENIUS. How! Was't we? We lov'd him, but, like beasts
    And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,
    Who did hoot him out o' th' city.
  COMINIUS. But I fear
    They'll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,
    The second name of men, obeys his points
    As if he were his officer. Desperation
    Is all the policy, strength, and defence,
    That Rome can make against them.

                       Enter a troop of citizens

  MENENIUS. Here comes the clusters.
    And is Aufidius with him? You are they
    That made the air unwholesome when you cast
    Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at
    Coriolanus' exile. Now he's coming,
    And not a hair upon a soldier's head
    Which will not prove a whip; as many coxcombs
    As you threw caps up will he tumble down,
    And pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter;
    If he could burn us all into one coal
    We have deserv'd it.
  PLEBEIANS. Faith, we hear fearful news.
  FIRST CITIZEN. For mine own part,
    When I said banish him, I said 'twas pity.
  SECOND CITIZEN. And so did I.
  THIRD CITIZEN. And so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very
    many of us. That we did, we did for the best; and though we
    willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against our
    will.
  COMINIUS. Y'are goodly things, you voices!
  MENENIUS. You have made
    Good work, you and your cry! Shall's to the Capitol?
  COMINIUS. O, ay, what else?
                                    Exeunt COMINIUS and MENENIUS
  SICINIUS. Go, masters, get you be not dismay'd;
    These are a side that would be glad to have
    This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,
    And show no sign of fear.
  FIRST CITIZEN. The gods be good to us! Come, masters, let's home. I
    ever said we were i' th' wrong when we banish'd him.
  SECOND CITIZEN. So did we all. But come, let's home.
                                                 Exeunt citizens
  BRUTUS. I do not like this news.
  SICINIUS. Nor I.
  BRUTUS. Let's to the Capitol. Would half my wealth
    Would buy this for a lie!
  SICINIUS. Pray let's go.                                Exeunt

SCENE VII. A camp at a short distance from Rome

Enter AUFIDIUS with his LIEUTENANT

  AUFIDIUS. Do they still fly to th' Roman?
  LIEUTENANT. I do not know what witchcraft's in him, but
    Your soldiers use him as the grace fore meat,
    Their talk at table, and their thanks at end;
    And you are dark'ned in this action, sir,
    Even by your own.
  AUFIDIUS. I cannot help it now,
    Unless by using means I lame the foot
    Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier,
    Even to my person, than I thought he would
    When first I did embrace him; yet his nature
    In that's no changeling, and I must excuse
    What cannot be amended.
  LIEUTENANT. Yet I wish, sir-
    I mean, for your particular- you had not
    Join'd in commission with him, but either
    Had borne the action of yourself, or else
    To him had left it solely.
  AUFIDIUS. I understand thee well; and be thou sure,
    When he shall come to his account, he knows not
    What I can urge against him. Although it seems,
    And so he thinks, and is no less apparent
    To th' vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly
    And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,
    Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon
    As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone
    That which shall break his neck or hazard mine
    Whene'er we come to our account.
  LIEUTENANT. Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome?
  AUFIDIUS. All places yield to him ere he sits down,
    And the nobility of Rome are his;
    The senators and patricians love him too.
    The tribunes are no soldiers, and their people
    Will be as rash in the repeal as hasty
    To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome
    As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
    By sovereignty of nature. First he was
    A noble servant to them, but he could not
    Carry his honours even. Whether 'twas pride,
    Which out of daily fortune ever taints
    The happy man; whether defect of judgment,
    To fail in the disposing of those chances
    Which he was lord of; or whether nature,
    Not to be other than one thing, not moving
    From th' casque to th' cushion, but commanding peace
    Even with the same austerity and garb
    As he controll'd the war; but one of these-
    As he hath spices of them all- not all,
    For I dare so far free him- made him fear'd,
    So hated, and so banish'd. But he has a merit
    To choke it in the utt'rance. So our virtues
    Lie in th' interpretation of the time;
    And power, unto itself most commendable,
    Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair
    T' extol what it hath done.
    One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;
    Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.
    Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,
    Thou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Rome. A public place

Enter MENENIUS, COMINIUS, SICINIUS and BRUTUS, the two Tribunes, with
others

  MENENIUS. No, I'll not go. You hear what he hath said
    Which was sometime his general, who lov'd him
    In a most dear particular. He call'd me father;
    But what o' that? Go, you that banish'd him:
    A mile before his tent fall down, and knee
    The way into his mercy. Nay, if he coy'd
    To hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home.
  COMINIUS. He would not seem to know me.
  MENENIUS. Do you hear?
  COMINIUS. Yet one time he did call me by my name.
    I urg'd our old acquaintance, and the drops
    That we have bled together. 'Coriolanus'
    He would not answer to; forbid all names;
    He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
    Till he had forg'd himself a name i' th' fire
    Of burning Rome.
  MENENIUS. Why, so! You have made good work.
    A pair of tribunes that have wrack'd for Rome
    To make coals cheap- a noble memory!
  COMINIUS. I minded him how royal 'twas to pardon
    When it was less expected; he replied,
    It was a bare petition of a state
    To one whom they had punish'd.
  MENENIUS. Very well.
    Could he say less?
  COMINIUS. I offer'd to awaken his regard
    For's private friends; his answer to me was,
    He could not stay to pick them in a pile
    Of noisome musty chaff. He said 'twas folly,
    For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt
    And still to nose th' offence.
  MENENIUS. For one poor grain or two!
    I am one of those. His mother, wife, his child,
    And this brave fellow too- we are the grains:
    You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt
    Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.
  SICINIUS. Nay, pray be patient; if you refuse your aid
    In this so never-needed help, yet do not
    Upbraid's with our distress. But sure, if you
    Would be your country's pleader, your good tongue,
    More than the instant army we can make,
    Might stop our countryman.
  MENENIUS. No; I'll not meddle.
  SICINIUS. Pray you go to him.
  MENENIUS. What should I do?
  BRUTUS. Only make trial what your love can do
    For Rome, towards Marcius.
  MENENIUS. Well, and say that Marcius
    Return me, as Cominius is return'd,
    Unheard- what then?
    But as a discontented friend, grief-shot
    With his unkindness? Say't be so?
  SICINIUS. Yet your good will
    Must have that thanks from Rome after the measure
    As you intended well.
  MENENIUS. I'll undertake't;
    I think he'll hear me. Yet to bite his lip
    And hum at good Cominius much unhearts me.
    He was not taken well: he had not din'd;
    The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then
    We pout upon the morning, are unapt
    To give or to forgive; but when we have stuff'd
    These pipes and these conveyances of our blood
    With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
    Than in our priest-like fasts. Therefore I'll watch him
    Till he be dieted to my request,
    And then I'll set upon him.
  BRUTUS. You know the very road into his kindness
    And cannot lose your way.
  MENENIUS. Good faith, I'll prove him,
    Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge
    Of my success.                                          Exit
  COMINIUS. He'll never hear him.
  SICINIUS. Not?
  COMINIUS. I tell you he does sit in gold, his eye
    Red as 'twould burn Rome, and his injury
    The gaoler to his pity. I kneel'd before him;
    'Twas very faintly he said 'Rise'; dismiss'd me
    Thus with his speechless hand. What he would do,
    He sent in writing after me; what he would not,
    Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions;
    So that all hope is vain,
    Unless his noble mother and his wife,
    Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him
    For mercy to his country. Therefore let's hence,
    And with our fair entreaties haste them on.           Exeunt

SCENE II. The Volscian camp before Rome

Enter MENENIUS to the WATCH on guard

  FIRST WATCH. Stay. Whence are you?
  SECOND WATCH. Stand, and go back.
  MENENIUS. You guard like men, 'tis well; but, by your leave,
    I am an officer of state and come
    To speak with Coriolanus.
  FIRST WATCH. From whence?
  MENENIUS. From Rome.
  FIRST WATCH. YOU may not pass; you must return. Our general
    Will no more hear from thence.
  SECOND WATCH. You'll see your Rome embrac'd with fire before
    You'll speak with Coriolanus.
  MENENIUS. Good my friends,
    If you have heard your general talk of Rome
    And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks
    My name hath touch'd your ears: it is Menenius.
  FIRST WATCH. Be it so; go back. The virtue of your name
    Is not here passable.
  MENENIUS. I tell thee, fellow,
    Thy general is my lover. I have been
    The book of his good acts whence men have read
    His fame unparallel'd haply amplified;
    For I have ever verified my friends-
    Of whom he's chief- with all the size that verity
    Would without lapsing suffer. Nay, sometimes,
    Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground,
    I have tumbled past the throw, and in his praise
    Have almost stamp'd the leasing; therefore, fellow,
    I must have leave to pass.
  FIRST WATCH. Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his behalf
    as you have uttered words in your own, you should not pass here;
    no, though it were as virtuous to lie as to live chastely.
    Therefore go back.
  MENENIUS. Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, always
    factionary on the party of your general.
  SECOND WATCH. Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you
    have, I am one that, telling true under him, must say you cannot
    pass. Therefore go back.
  MENENIUS. Has he din'd, canst thou tell? For I would not speak with
    him till after dinner.
  FIRST WATCH. You are a Roman, are you?
  MENENIUS. I am as thy general is.
  FIRST WATCH. Then you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you, when
    you have push'd out your gates the very defender of them, and in
    a violent popular ignorance given your enemy your shield, think
    to front his revenges with the easy groans of old women, the
    virginal palms of your daughters, or with the palsied
    intercession of such a decay'd dotant as you seem to be? Can you
    think to blow out the intended fire your city is ready to flame
    in with such weak breath as this? No, you are deceiv'd; therefore
    back to Rome and prepare for your execution. You are condemn'd;
    our general has sworn you out of reprieve and pardon.
  MENENIUS. Sirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would use me
    with estimation.
  FIRST WATCH. Come, my captain knows you not.
  MENENIUS. I mean thy general.
  FIRST WATCH. My general cares not for you. Back, I say; go, lest I
    let forth your half pint of blood. Back- that's the utmost of
    your having. Back.
  MENENIUS. Nay, but fellow, fellow-

                      Enter CORIOLANUS with AUFIDIUS

  CORIOLANUS. What's the matter?
  MENENIUS. Now, you companion, I'll say an errand for you; you shall
    know now that I am in estimation; you shall perceive that a Jack
    guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus. Guess but by my
    entertainment with him if thou stand'st not i' th' state of
    hanging, or of some death more long in spectatorship and crueller
    in suffering; behold now presently, and swoon for what's to come
    upon thee. The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy
    particular prosperity, and love thee no worse than thy old father
    Menenius does! O my son! my son! thou art preparing fire for us;
    look thee, here's water to quench it. I was hardly moved to come
    to thee; but being assured none but myself could move thee, I
    have been blown out of your gates with sighs, and conjure thee to
    pardon Rome and thy petitionary countrymen. The good gods assuage
    thy wrath, and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet here; this,
    who, like a block, hath denied my access to thee.
  CORIOLANUS. Away!
  MENENIUS. How! away!
  CORIOLANUS. Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs
    Are servanted to others. Though I owe
    My revenge properly, my remission lies
    In Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar,
    Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison rather
    Than pity note how much. Therefore be gone.
    Mine ears against your suits are stronger than
    Your gates against my force. Yet, for I lov'd thee,
    Take this along; I writ it for thy sake     [Gives a letter]
    And would have sent it. Another word, Menenius,
    I will not hear thee speak. This man, Aufidius,
    Was my belov'd in Rome; yet thou behold'st.
  AUFIDIUS. You keep a constant temper.
                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and Aufidius
  FIRST WATCH. Now, sir, is your name Menenius?
  SECOND WATCH. 'Tis a spell, you see, of much power! You know the
    way home again.
  FIRST WATCH. Do you hear how we are shent for keeping your
    greatness back?
  SECOND WATCH. What cause, do you think, I have to swoon?
  MENENIUS. I neither care for th' world nor your general; for such
    things as you, I can scarce think there's any, y'are so slight.
    He that hath a will to die by himself fears it not from another.
    Let your general do his worst. For you, be that you are, long;
    and your misery increase with your age! I say to you, as I was
    said to: Away!                                          Exit
  FIRST WATCH. A noble fellow, I warrant him.
  SECOND WATCH. The worthy fellow is our general; he's the rock, the
    oak not to be wind-shaken.                            Exeunt

SCENE III. The tent of CORIOLANUS

Enter CORIOLANUS, AUFIDIUS, and others

  CORIOLANUS. We will before the walls of Rome to-morrow
    Set down our host. My partner in this action,
    You must report to th' Volscian lords how plainly
    I have borne this business.
  AUFIDIUS. Only their ends
    You have respected; stopp'd your ears against
    The general suit of Rome; never admitted
    A private whisper- no, not with such friends
    That thought them sure of you.
  CORIOLANUS. This last old man,
    Whom with crack'd heart I have sent to Rome,
    Lov'd me above the measure of a father;
    Nay, godded me indeed. Their latest refuge
    Was to send him; for whose old love I have-
    Though I show'd sourly to him- once more offer'd
    The first conditions, which they did refuse
    And cannot now accept. To grace him only,
    That thought he could do more, a very little
    I have yielded to; fresh embassies and suits,
    Nor from the state nor private friends, hereafter
    Will I lend ear to.  [Shout within]  Ha! what shout is this?
    Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow
    In the same time 'tis made? I will not.

       Enter, in mourning habits, VIRGILIA, VOLUMNIA, VALERIA,
                   YOUNG MARCIUS, with attendants

    My wife comes foremost, then the honour'd mould
    Wherein this trunk was fram'd, and in her hand
    The grandchild to her blood. But out, affection!
    All bond and privilege of nature, break!
    Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.
    What is that curtsy worth? or those doves' eyes,
    Which can make gods forsworn? I melt, and am not
    Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows,
    As if Olympus to a molehill should
    In supplication nod; and my young boy
    Hath an aspect of intercession which
    Great nature cries 'Deny not.' Let the Volsces
    Plough Rome and harrow Italy; I'll never
    Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand
    As if a man were author of himself
    And knew no other kin.
  VIRGILIA. My lord and husband!
  CORIOLANUS. These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.
  VIRGILIA. The sorrow that delivers us thus chang'd
    Makes you think so.
  CORIOLANUS. Like a dull actor now
    I have forgot my part and I am out,
    Even to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,
    Forgive my tyranny; but do not say,
    For that, 'Forgive our Romans.' O, a kiss
    Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!
    Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss
    I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip
    Hath virgin'd it e'er since. You gods! I prate,
    And the most noble mother of the world
    Leave unsaluted. Sink, my knee, i' th' earth;       [Kneels]
    Of thy deep duty more impression show
    Than that of common sons.
  VOLUMNIA. O, stand up blest!
    Whilst with no softer cushion than the flint
    I kneel before thee, and unproperly
    Show duty, as mistaken all this while
    Between the child and parent.                       [Kneels]
  CORIOLANUS. What's this?
    Your knees to me, to your corrected son?
    Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach
    Fillip the stars; then let the mutinous winds
    Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun,
    Murd'ring impossibility, to make
    What cannot be slight work.
  VOLUMNIA. Thou art my warrior;
    I holp to frame thee. Do you know this lady?
  CORIOLANUS. The noble sister of Publicola,
    The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle
    That's curdied by the frost from purest snow,
    And hangs on Dian's temple- dear Valeria!
  VOLUMNIA. This is a poor epitome of yours,
    Which by th' interpretation of full time
    May show like all yourself.
  CORIOLANUS. The god of soldiers,
    With the consent of supreme Jove, inform
    Thy thoughts with nobleness, that thou mayst prove
    To shame unvulnerable, and stick i' th' wars
    Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,
    And saving those that eye thee!
  VOLUMNIA. Your knee, sirrah.
  CORIOLANUS. That's my brave boy.
  VOLUMNIA. Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself,
    Are suitors to you.
  CORIOLANUS. I beseech you, peace!
    Or, if you'd ask, remember this before:
    The thing I have forsworn to grant may never
    Be held by you denials. Do not bid me
    Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate
    Again with Rome's mechanics. Tell me not
    Wherein I seem unnatural; desire not
    T'allay my rages and revenges with
    Your colder reasons.
  VOLUMNIA. O, no more, no more!
    You have said you will not grant us any thing-
    For we have nothing else to ask but that
    Which you deny already; yet we will ask,
    That, if you fail in our request, the blame
    May hang upon your hardness; therefore hear us.
  CORIOLANUS. Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark; for we'll
    Hear nought from Rome in private. Your request?
  VOLUMNIA. Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
    And state of bodies would bewray what life
    We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself
    How more unfortunate than all living women
    Are we come hither; since that thy sight, which should
    Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
    Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow,
    Making the mother, wife, and child, to see
    The son, the husband, and the father, tearing
    His country's bowels out. And to poor we
    Thine enmity's most capital: thou bar'st us
    Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort
    That all but we enjoy. For how can we,
    Alas, how can we for our country pray,
    Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory,
    Whereto we are bound? Alack, or we must lose
    The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,
    Our comfort in the country. We must find
    An evident calamity, though we had
    Our wish, which side should win; for either thou
    Must as a foreign recreant be led
    With manacles through our streets, or else
    Triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin,
    And bear the palm for having bravely shed
    Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,
    I purpose not to wait on fortune till
    These wars determine; if I can not persuade thee
    Rather to show a noble grace to both parts
    Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner
    March to assault thy country than to tread-
    Trust to't, thou shalt not- on thy mother's womb
    That brought thee to this world.
  VIRGILIA. Ay, and mine,
    That brought you forth this boy to keep your name
    Living to time.
  BOY. 'A shall not tread on me!
    I'll run away till I am bigger, but then I'll fight.
  CORIOLANUS. Not of a woman's tenderness to be
    Requires nor child nor woman's face to see.
    I have sat too long.                                [Rising]
  VOLUMNIA. Nay, go not from us thus.
    If it were so that our request did tend
    To save the Romans, thereby to destroy
    The Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us
    As poisonous of your honour. No, our suit
    Is that you reconcile them: while the Volsces
    May say 'This mercy we have show'd,' the Romans
    'This we receiv'd,' and each in either side
    Give the all-hail to thee, and cry 'Be blest
    For making up this peace!' Thou know'st, great son,
    The end of war's uncertain; but this certain,
    That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit
    Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name
    Whose repetition will be dogg'd with curses;
    Whose chronicle thus writ: 'The man was noble,
    But with his last attempt he wip'd it out,
    Destroy'd his country, and his name remains
    To th' ensuing age abhorr'd.' Speak to me, son.
    Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour,
    To imitate the graces of the gods,
    To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' th' air,
    And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt
    That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?
    Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man
    Still to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you:
    He cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy;
    Perhaps thy childishness will move him more
    Than can our reasons. There's no man in the world
    More bound to's mother, yet here he lets me prate
    Like one i' th' stocks. Thou hast never in thy life
    Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy,
    When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,
    Has cluck'd thee to the wars, and safely home
    Loaden with honour. Say my request's unjust,
    And spurn me back; but if it he not so,
    Thou art not honest, and the gods will plague thee,
    That thou restrain'st from me the duty which
    To a mother's part belongs. He turns away.
    Down, ladies; let us shame him with our knees.
    To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride
    Than pity to our prayers. Down. An end;
    This is the last. So we will home to Rome,
    And die among our neighbours. Nay, behold's!
    This boy, that cannot tell what he would have
    But kneels and holds up hands for fellowship,
    Does reason our petition with more strength
    Than thou hast to deny't. Come, let us go.
    This fellow had a Volscian to his mother;
    His wife is in Corioli, and his child
    Like him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch.
    I am hush'd until our city be afire,
    And then I'll speak a little.
                              [He holds her by the hand, silent]
  CORIOLANUS. O mother, mother!
    What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,
    The gods look down, and this unnatural scene
    They laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!
    You have won a happy victory to Rome;
    But for your son- believe it, O, believe it!-
    Most dangerously you have with him prevail'd,
    If not most mortal to him. But let it come.
    Aufidius, though I cannot make true wars,
    I'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,
    Were you in my stead, would you have heard
    A mother less, or granted less, Aufidius?
  AUFIDIUS. I was mov'd withal.
  CORIOLANUS. I dare be sworn you were!
    And, sir, it is no little thing to make
    Mine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,
    What peace you'fl make, advise me. For my part,
    I'll not to Rome, I'll back with you; and pray you
    Stand to me in this cause. O mother! wife!
  AUFIDIUS.  [Aside]  I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy
      honour
    At difference in thee. Out of that I'll work
    Myself a former fortune.
  CORIOLANUS.  [To the ladies]  Ay, by and by;
    But we will drink together; and you shall bear
    A better witness back than words, which we,
    On like conditions, will have counter-seal'd.
    Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve
    To have a temple built you. All the swords
    In Italy, and her confederate arms,
    Could not have made this peace.                       Exeunt

SCENE IV. Rome. A public place

Enter MENENIUS and SICINIUS

  MENENIUS. See you yond coign o' th' Capitol, yond cornerstone?
  SICINIUS. Why, what of that?
  MENENIUS. If it be possible for you to displace it with your little
    finger, there is some hope the ladies of Rome, especially his
    mother, may prevail with him. But I say there is no hope in't;
    our throats are sentenc'd, and stay upon execution.
  SICINIUS. Is't possible that so short a time can alter the
    condition of a man?
  MENENIUS. There is differency between a grub and a butterfly; yet
    your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown from man to
    dragon; he has wings, he's more than a creeping thing.
  SICINIUS. He lov'd his mother dearly.
  MENENIUS. So did he me; and he no more remembers his mother now
    than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness of his face sours ripe
    grapes; when he walks, he moves like an engine and the ground
    shrinks before his treading. He is able to pierce a corslet with
    his eye, talks like a knell, and his hum is a battery. He sits in
    his state as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids be done is
    finish'd with his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but
    eternity, and a heaven to throne in.
  SICINIUS. Yes- mercy, if you report him truly.
  MENENIUS. I paint him in the character. Mark what mercy his mother
    shall bring from him. There is no more mercy in him than there is
    milk in a male tiger; that shall our poor city find. And all this
    is 'long of you.
  SICINIUS. The gods be good unto us!
  MENENIUS. No, in such a case the gods will not be good unto us.
    When we banish'd him we respected not them; and, he returning to
    break our necks, they respect not us.

                           Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Sir, if you'd save your life, fly to your house.
    The plebeians have got your fellow tribune
    And hale him up and down; all swearing if
    The Roman ladies bring not comfort home
    They'll give him death by inches.

                         Enter another MESSENGER

  SICINIUS. What's the news?
  SECOND MESSENGER. Good news, good news! The ladies have prevail'd,
    The Volscians are dislodg'd, and Marcius gone.
    A merrier day did never yet greet Rome,
    No, not th' expulsion of the Tarquins.
  SICINIUS. Friend,
    Art thou certain this is true? Is't most certain?
  SECOND MESSENGER. As certain as I know the sun is fire.
    Where have you lurk'd, that you make doubt of it?
    Ne'er through an arch so hurried the blown tide
    As the recomforted through th' gates. Why, hark you!
                  [Trumpets, hautboys, drums beat, all together]
    The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries, and fifes,
    Tabors and cymbals, and the shouting Romans,
    Make the sun dance. Hark you!               [A shout within]
  MENENIUS. This is good news.
    I will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia
    Is worth of consuls, senators, patricians,
    A city full; of tribunes such as you,
    A sea and land full. You have pray'd well to-day:
    This morning for ten thousand of your throats
    I'd not have given a doit. Hark, how they joy!
                                   [Sound still with the shouts]
  SICINIUS. First, the gods bless you for your tidings; next,
    Accept my thankfulness.
  SECOND MESSENGER. Sir, we have all
    Great cause to give great thanks.
  SICINIUS. They are near the city?
  MESSENGER. Almost at point to enter.
  SICINIUS. We'll meet them,
    And help the joy.                                     Exeunt

SCENE V. Rome. A street near the gate

Enter two SENATORS With VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, VALERIA, passing over the
stage,
'With other LORDS

  FIRST SENATOR. Behold our patroness, the life of Rome!
    Call all your tribes together, praise the gods,
    And make triumphant fires; strew flowers before them.
    Unshout the noise that banish'd Marcius,
    Repeal him with the welcome of his mother;
  ALL. Welcome, ladies, welcome!
                    [A flourish with drums and trumpets. Exeunt]

SCENE VI. Corioli. A public place

Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS with attendents

  AUFIDIUS. Go tell the lords o' th' city I am here;
    Deliver them this paper' having read it,
    Bid them repair to th' market-place, where I,
    Even in theirs and in the commons' ears,
    Will vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse
    The city ports by this hath enter'd and
    Intends t' appear before the people, hoping
    To purge himself with words. Dispatch.
                                               Exeunt attendants

           Enter three or four CONSPIRATORS of AUFIDIUS' faction

    Most welcome!
  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. How is it with our general?
  AUFIDIUS. Even so
    As with a man by his own alms empoison'd,
    And with his charity slain.
  SECOND CONSPIRATOR. Most noble sir,
    If you do hold the same intent wherein
    You wish'd us parties, we'll deliver you
    Of your great danger.
  AUFIDIUS. Sir, I cannot tell;
    We must proceed as we do find the people.
  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. The people will remain uncertain whilst
    'Twixt you there's difference; but the fall of either
    Makes the survivor heir of all.
  AUFIDIUS. I know it;
    And my pretext to strike at him admits
    A good construction. I rais'd him, and I pawn'd
    Mine honour for his truth; who being so heighten'd,
    He watered his new plants with dews of flattery,
    Seducing so my friends; and to this end
    He bow'd his nature, never known before
    But to be rough, unswayable, and free.
  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. Sir, his stoutness
    When he did stand for consul, which he lost
    By lack of stooping-
  AUFIDIUS. That I would have spoken of.
    Being banish'd for't, he came unto my hearth,
    Presented to my knife his throat. I took him;
    Made him joint-servant with me; gave him way
    In all his own desires; nay, let him choose
    Out of my files, his projects to accomplish,
    My best and freshest men; serv'd his designments
    In mine own person; holp to reap the fame
    Which he did end all his, and took some pride
    To do myself this wrong. Till, at the last,
    I seem'd his follower, not partner; and
    He wag'd me with his countenance as if
    I had been mercenary.
  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. So he did, my lord.
    The army marvell'd at it; and, in the last,
    When he had carried Rome and that we look'd
    For no less spoil than glory-
  AUFIDIUS. There was it;
    For which my sinews shall be stretch'd upon him.
    At a few drops of women's rheum, which are
    As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour
    Of our great action; therefore shall he die,
    And I'll renew me in his fall. But, hark!
                                                      [Drums and
                trumpets sound, with great shouts of the people]
  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. Your native town you enter'd like a post,
    And had no welcomes home; but he returns
    Splitting the air with noise.
  SECOND CONSPIRATOR. And patient fools,
    Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear
    With giving him glory.
  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. Therefore, at your vantage,
    Ere he express himself or move the people
    With what he would say, let him feel your sword,
    Which we will second. When he lies along,
    After your way his tale pronounc'd shall bury
    His reasons with his body.
  AUFIDIUS. Say no more:
    Here come the lords.

                     Enter the LORDS of the city

  LORDS. You are most welcome home.
  AUFIDIUS. I have not deserv'd it.
    But, worthy lords, have you with heed perused
    What I have written to you?
  LORDS. We have.
  FIRST LORD. And grieve to hear't.
    What faults he made before the last, I think
    Might have found easy fines; but there to end
    Where he was to begin, and give away
    The benefit of our levies, answering us
    With our own charge, making a treaty where
    There was a yielding- this admits no excuse.
  AUFIDIUS. He approaches; you shall hear him.

            Enter CORIOLANUS, marching with drum and colours;
                      the commoners being with him

  CORIOLANUS. Hail, lords! I am return'd your soldier;
    No more infected with my country's love
    Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting
    Under your great command. You are to know
    That prosperously I have attempted, and
    With bloody passage led your wars even to
    The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home
    Doth more than counterpoise a full third part
    The charges of the action. We have made peace
    With no less honour to the Antiates
    Than shame to th' Romans; and we here deliver,
    Subscrib'd by th' consuls and patricians,
    Together with the seal o' th' Senate, what
    We have compounded on.
  AUFIDIUS. Read it not, noble lords;
    But tell the traitor in the highest degree
    He hath abus'd your powers.
  CORIOLANUS. Traitor! How now?
  AUFIDIUS. Ay, traitor, Marcius.
  CORIOLANUS. Marcius!
  AUFIDIUS. Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius! Dost thou think
    I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name
    Coriolanus, in Corioli?
    You lords and heads o' th' state, perfidiously
    He has betray'd your business and given up,
    For certain drops of salt, your city Rome-
    I say your city- to his wife and mother;
    Breaking his oath and resolution like
    A twist of rotten silk; never admitting
    Counsel o' th' war; but at his nurse's tears
    He whin'd and roar'd away your victory,
    That pages blush'd at him, and men of heart
    Look'd wond'ring each at others.
  CORIOLANUS. Hear'st thou, Mars?
  AUFIDIUS. Name not the god, thou boy of tears-
  CORIOLANUS. Ha!
  AUFIDIUS. -no more.
  CORIOLANUS. Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart
    Too great for what contains it. 'Boy'! O slave!
    Pardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever
    I was forc'd to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords,
    Must give this cur the lie; and his own notion-
    Who wears my stripes impress'd upon him, that
    Must bear my beating to his grave- shall join
    To thrust the lie unto him.
  FIRST LORD. Peace, both, and hear me speak.
  CORIOLANUS. Cut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads,
    Stain all your edges on me. 'Boy'! False hound!
    If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there
    That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I
    Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli.
    Alone I did it. 'Boy'!
  AUFIDIUS. Why, noble lords,
    Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune,
    Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart,
    Fore your own eyes and ears?
  CONSPIRATORS. Let him die for't.
  ALL THE PEOPLE. Tear him to pieces. Do it presently. He kill'd my
    son. My daughter. He kill'd my cousin Marcus. He kill'd my
    father.
  SECOND LORD. Peace, ho! No outrage- peace!
    The man is noble, and his fame folds in
    This orb o' th' earth. His last offences to us
    Shall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,
    And trouble not the peace.
  CORIOLANUS. O that I had him,
    With six Aufidiuses, or more- his tribe,
    To use my lawful sword!
  AUFIDIUS. Insolent villain!
  CONSPIRATORS. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!
           [The CONSPIRATORS draw and kill CORIOLANUS,who falls.
                                         AUFIDIUS stands on him]
  LORDS. Hold, hold, hold, hold!
  AUFIDIUS. My noble masters, hear me speak.
  FIRST LORD. O Tullus!
  SECOND LORD. Thou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.
  THIRD LORD. Tread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet;
    Put up your swords.
  AUFIDIUS. My lords, when you shall know- as in this rage,
    Provok'd by him, you cannot- the great danger
    Which this man's life did owe you, you'll rejoice
    That he is thus cut off. Please it your honours
    To call me to your Senate, I'll deliver
    Myself your loyal servant, or endure
    Your heaviest censure.
  FIRST LORD. Bear from hence his body,
    And mourn you for him. Let him be regarded
    As the most noble corse that ever herald
    Did follow to his um.
  SECOND LORD. His own impatience
    Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.
    Let's make the best of it.
  AUFIDIUS. My rage is gone,
    And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.
    Help, three o' th' chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.
    Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully;
    Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he
    Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,
    Which to this hour bewail the injury,
    Yet he shall have a noble memory.
    Assist.               Exeunt, bearing the body of CORIOLANUS
                                          [A dead march sounded]

THE END

1609



CYMBELINE

Dramatis Personae

  CYMBELINE, King of Britain
  CLOTEN, son to the Queen by a former husband
  POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, a gentleman, husband to Imogen
  BELARIUS, a banished lord, disguised under the name of Morgan

  GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS, sons to Cymbeline, disguised under the
            names of POLYDORE and CADWAL, supposed sons to Belarius
  PHILARIO, Italian, friend to Posthumus
  IACHIMO,  Italian, friend to Philario
  A FRENCH GENTLEMAN, friend to Philario
  CAIUS LUCIUS, General of the Roman Forces
  A ROMAN CAPTAIN
  TWO BRITISH CAPTAINS
  PISANIO, servant to Posthumus
  CORNELIUS, a physician
  TWO LORDS of Cymbeline's court
  TWO GENTLEMEN of the same
  TWO GAOLERS

  QUEEN, wife to Cymbeline
  IMOGEN, daughter to Cymbeline by a former queen
  HELEN, a lady attending on Imogen

  APPARITIONS

  Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators, Tribunes, a Soothsayer, a
    Dutch Gentleman, a Spanish Gentleman, Musicians, Officers,
    Captains, Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants

SCENE: Britain; Italy

ACT I. SCENE I. Britain. The garden of CYMBELINE'S palace

  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You do not meet a man but frowns; our bloods
    No more obey the heavens than our courtiers
    Still seem as does the King's.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But what's the matter?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. His daughter, and the heir of's kingdom, whom
    He purpos'd to his wife's sole son- a widow
    That late he married- hath referr'd herself
    Unto a poor but worthy gentleman. She's wedded;
    Her husband banish'd; she imprison'd. All
    Is outward sorrow, though I think the King
    Be touch'd at very heart.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. None but the King?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. He that hath lost her too. So is the Queen,
    That most desir'd the match. But not a courtier,
    Although they wear their faces to the bent
    Of the King's looks, hath a heart that is not
    Glad at the thing they scowl at.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And why so?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. He that hath miss'd the Princess is a thing
    Too bad for bad report; and he that hath her-
    I mean that married her, alack, good man!
    And therefore banish'd- is a creature such
    As, to seek through the regions of the earth
    For one his like, there would be something failing
    In him that should compare. I do not think
    So fair an outward and such stuff within
    Endows a man but he.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. You speak him far.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I do extend him, sir, within himself;
    Crush him together rather than unfold
    His measure duly.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What's his name and birth?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I cannot delve him to the root; his father
    Was call'd Sicilius, who did join his honour
    Against the Romans with Cassibelan,
    But had his titles by Tenantius, whom
    He serv'd with glory and admir'd success,
    So gain'd the sur-addition Leonatus;
    And had, besides this gentleman in question,
    Two other sons, who, in the wars o' th' time,
    Died with their swords in hand; for which their father,
    Then old and fond of issue, took such sorrow
    That he quit being; and his gentle lady,
    Big of this gentleman, our theme, deceas'd
    As he was born. The King he takes the babe
    To his protection, calls him Posthumus Leonatus,
    Breeds him and makes him of his bed-chamber,
    Puts to him all the learnings that his time
    Could make him the receiver of; which he took,
    As we do air, fast as 'twas minist'red,
    And in's spring became a harvest, liv'd in court-
    Which rare it is to do- most prais'd, most lov'd,
    A sample to the youngest; to th' more mature
    A glass that feated them; and to the graver
    A child that guided dotards. To his mistress,
    For whom he now is banish'd- her own price
    Proclaims how she esteem'd him and his virtue;
    By her election may be truly read
    What kind of man he is.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I honour him
    Even out of your report. But pray you tell me,
    Is she sole child to th' King?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. His only child.
    He had two sons- if this be worth your hearing,
    Mark it- the eldest of them at three years old,
    I' th' swathing clothes the other, from their nursery
    Were stol'n; and to this hour no guess in knowledge
    Which way they went.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. How long is this ago?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Some twenty years.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That a king's children should be so convey'd,
    So slackly guarded, and the search so slow
    That could not trace them!
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Howsoe'er 'tis strange,
    Or that the negligence may well be laugh'd at,
    Yet is it true, sir.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I do well believe you.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. We must forbear; here comes the gentleman,
    The Queen, and Princess.                              Exeunt

              Enter the QUEEN, POSTHUMUS, and IMOGEN

  QUEEN. No, be assur'd you shall not find me, daughter,
    After the slander of most stepmothers,
    Evil-ey'd unto you. You're my prisoner, but
    Your gaoler shall deliver you the keys
    That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus,
    So soon as I can win th' offended King,
    I will be known your advocate. Marry, yet
    The fire of rage is in him, and 'twere good
    You lean'd unto his sentence with what patience
    Your wisdom may inform you.
  POSTHUMUS. Please your Highness,
    I will from hence to-day.
  QUEEN. You know the peril.
    I'll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying
    The pangs of barr'd affections, though the King
    Hath charg'd you should not speak together.             Exit
  IMOGEN. O dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant
    Can tickle where she wounds! My dearest husband,
    I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing-
    Always reserv'd my holy duty- what
    His rage can do on me. You must be gone;
    And I shall here abide the hourly shot
    Of angry eyes, not comforted to live
    But that there is this jewel in the world
    That I may see again.
  POSTHUMUS. My queen! my mistress!
    O lady, weep no more, lest I give cause
    To be suspected of more tenderness
    Than doth become a man. I will remain
    The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth;
    My residence in Rome at one Philario's,
    Who to my father was a friend, to me
    Known but by letter; thither write, my queen,
    And with mine eyes I'll drink the words you send,
    Though ink be made of gall.

                     Re-enter QUEEN

  QUEEN. Be brief, I pray you.
    If the King come, I shall incur I know not
    How much of his displeasure. [Aside] Yet I'll move him
    To walk this way. I never do him wrong
    But he does buy my injuries, to be friends;
    Pays dear for my offences.                              Exit
  POSTHUMUS. Should we be taking leave
    As long a term as yet we have to live,
    The loathness to depart would grow. Adieu!
  IMOGEN. Nay, stay a little.
    Were you but riding forth to air yourself,
    Such parting were too petty. Look here, love:
    This diamond was my mother's; take it, heart;
    But keep it till you woo another wife,
    When Imogen is dead.
  POSTHUMUS. How, how? Another?
    You gentle gods, give me but this I have,
    And sear up my embracements from a next
    With bonds of death! Remain, remain thou here
                                              [Puts on the ring]
    While sense can keep it on. And, sweetest, fairest,
    As I my poor self did exchange for you,
    To your so infinite loss, so in our trifles
    I still win of you. For my sake wear this;
    It is a manacle of love; I'll place it
    Upon this fairest prisoner.     [Puts a bracelet on her arm]
  IMOGEN. O the gods!
    When shall we see again?

                  Enter CYMBELINE and LORDS

  POSTHUMUS. Alack, the King!
  CYMBELINE. Thou basest thing, avoid; hence from my sight
    If after this command thou fraught the court
    With thy unworthiness, thou diest. Away!
    Thou'rt poison to my blood.
  POSTHUMUS. The gods protect you,
    And bless the good remainders of the court!
    I am gone.                                              Exit
  IMOGEN. There cannot be a pinch in death
    More sharp than this is.
  CYMBELINE. O disloyal thing,
    That shouldst repair my youth, thou heap'st
    A year's age on me!
  IMOGEN. I beseech you, sir,
    Harm not yourself with your vexation.
    I am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare
    Subdues all pangs, all fears.
  CYMBELINE. Past grace? obedience?
  IMOGEN. Past hope, and in despair; that way past grace.
  CYMBELINE. That mightst have had the sole son of my queen!
  IMOGEN. O blessed that I might not! I chose an eagle,
    And did avoid a puttock.
  CYMBELINE. Thou took'st a beggar, wouldst have made my throne
    A seat for baseness.
  IMOGEN. No; I rather added
    A lustre to it.
  CYMBELINE. O thou vile one!
  IMOGEN. Sir,
    It is your fault that I have lov'd Posthumus.
    You bred him as my playfellow, and he is
    A man worth any woman; overbuys me
    Almost the sum he pays.
  CYMBELINE. What, art thou mad?
  IMOGEN. Almost, sir. Heaven restore me! Would I were
    A neat-herd's daughter, and my Leonatus
    Our neighbour shepherd's son!

                          Re-enter QUEEN

  CYMBELINE. Thou foolish thing!
    [To the QUEEN] They were again together. You have done
    Not after our command. Away with her,
    And pen her up.
  QUEEN. Beseech your patience.- Peace,
    Dear lady daughter, peace!- Sweet sovereign,
    Leave us to ourselves, and make yourself some comfort
    Out of your best advice.
  CYMBELINE. Nay, let her languish
    A drop of blood a day and, being aged,
    Die of this folly.                          Exit, with LORDS

                          Enter PISANIO

  QUEEN. Fie! you must give way.
    Here is your servant. How now, sir! What news?
  PISANIO. My lord your son drew on my master.
  QUEEN. Ha!
    No harm, I trust, is done?
  PISANIO. There might have been,
    But that my master rather play'd than fought,
    And had no help of anger; they were parted
    By gentlemen at hand.
  QUEEN. I am very glad on't.
  IMOGEN. Your son's my father's friend; he takes his part
    To draw upon an exile! O brave sir!
    I would they were in Afric both together;
    Myself by with a needle, that I might prick
    The goer-back. Why came you from your master?
  PISANIO. On his command. He would not suffer me
    To bring him to the haven; left these notes
    Of what commands I should be subject to,
    When't pleas'd you to employ me.
  QUEEN. This hath been
    Your faithful servant. I dare lay mine honour
    He will remain so.
  PISANIO. I humbly thank your Highness.
  QUEEN. Pray walk awhile.
  IMOGEN. About some half-hour hence,
    Pray you speak with me. You shall at least
    Go see my lord aboard. For this time leave me.        Exeunt

SCENE II. Britain. A public place

Enter CLOTEN and two LORDS

  FIRST LORD. Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt; the violence
    of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice. Where air comes out,
    air comes in; there's none abroad so wholesome as that you vent.
  CLOTEN. If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it. Have I hurt him?
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] No, faith; not so much as his patience.
  FIRST LORD. Hurt him! His body's a passable carcass if he be not
    hurt. It is a throughfare for steel if it be not hurt.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] His steel was in debt; it went o' th' back
    side the town.
  CLOTEN. The villain would not stand me.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] No; but he fled forward still, toward your
    face.
  FIRST LORD. Stand you? You have land enough of your own; but he
    added to your having, gave you some ground.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] As many inches as you have oceans.
    Puppies!
  CLOTEN. I would they had not come between us.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] So would I, till you had measur'd how long a
    fool you were upon the ground.
  CLOTEN. And that she should love this fellow, and refuse me!
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] If it be a sin to make a true election, she is
    damn'd.
  FIRST LORD. Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go
    not together; she's a good sign, but I have seen small reflection
    of her wit.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection
    should hurt her.
  CLOTEN. Come, I'll to my chamber. Would there had been some hurt
    done!
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of
    an ass, which is no great hurt.
  CLOTEN. You'll go with us?
  FIRST LORD. I'll attend your lordship.
  CLOTEN. Nay, come, let's go together.
  SECOND LORD. Well, my lord.                             Exeunt

SCENE III. Britain. CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO

  IMOGEN. I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' th' haven,
    And questioned'st every sail; if he should write,
    And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost,
    As offer'd mercy is. What was the last
    That he spake to thee?
  PISANIO. It was: his queen, his queen!
  IMOGEN. Then wav'd his handkerchief?
  PISANIO. And kiss'd it, madam.
  IMOGEN. Senseless linen, happier therein than I!
    And that was all?
  PISANIO. No, madam; for so long
    As he could make me with his eye, or care
    Distinguish him from others, he did keep
    The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,
    Still waving, as the fits and stirs of's mind
    Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on,
    How swift his ship.
  IMOGEN. Thou shouldst have made him
    As little as a crow, or less, ere left
    To after-eye him.
  PISANIO. Madam, so I did.
  IMOGEN. I would have broke mine eyestrings, crack'd them but
    To look upon him, till the diminution
    Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
    Nay, followed him till he had melted from
    The smallness of a gnat to air, and then
    Have turn'd mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio,
    When shall we hear from him?
  PISANIO. Be assur'd, madam,
    With his next vantage.
  IMOGEN. I did not take my leave of him, but had
    Most pretty things to say. Ere I could tell him
    How I would think on him at certain hours
    Such thoughts and such; or I could make him swear
    The shes of Italy should not betray
    Mine interest and his honour; or have charg'd him,
    At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,
    T' encounter me with orisons, for then
    I am in heaven for him; or ere I could
    Give him that parting kiss which I had set
    Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father,
    And like the tyrannous breathing of the north
    Shakes all our buds from growing.

                        Enter a LADY

  LADY. The Queen, madam,
    Desires your Highness' company.
  IMOGEN. Those things I bid you do, get them dispatch'd.
    I will attend the Queen.
  PISANIO. Madam, I shall.                                Exeunt

SCENE IV. Rome. PHILARIO'S house

Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a FRENCHMAN, a DUTCHMAN, and a SPANIARD

  IACHIMO. Believe it, sir, I have seen him in Britain. He was then
    of a crescent note, expected to prove so worthy as since he hath
    been allowed the name of. But I could then have look'd on him
    without the help of admiration, though the catalogue of his
    endowments had been tabled by his side, and I to peruse him by
    items.
  PHILARIO. You speak of him when he was less furnish'd than now he
    is with that which makes him both without and within.
  FRENCHMAN. I have seen him in France; we had very many there could
    behold the sun with as firm eyes as he.
  IACHIMO. This matter of marrying his king's daughter, wherein he
    must be weighed rather by her value than his own, words him, I
    doubt not, a great deal from the matter.
  FRENCHMAN. And then his banishment.
  IACHIMO. Ay, and the approbation of those that weep this lamentable
    divorce under her colours are wonderfully to extend him, be it
    but to fortify her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay
    flat, for taking a beggar, without less quality. But how comes it
    he is to sojourn with you? How creeps acquaintance?
  PHILARIO. His father and I were soldiers together, to whom I have
    been often bound for no less than my life.

                       Enter POSTHUMUS

    Here comes the Briton. Let him be so entertained amongst you as
    suits with gentlemen of your knowing to a stranger of his quality.
    I beseech you all be better known to this gentleman, whom I commend
    to you as a noble friend of mine. How worthy he is I will leave to
    appear hereafter, rather than story him in his own hearing.
    FRENCHMAN. Sir, we have known together in Orleans. POSTHUMUS. Since
    when I have been debtor to you for courtesies, which I will be ever
    to pay and yet pay still. FRENCHMAN. Sir, you o'errate my poor
    kindness. I was glad I did atone my countryman and you; it had been
    pity you should have been put together with so mortal a purpose as
    then each bore, upon importance of so slight and trivial a nature.
    POSTHUMUS. By your pardon, sir. I was then a young traveller;
    rather shunn'd to go even with what I heard than in my every action
    to be guided by others' experiences; but upon my mended judgment-
    if I offend not to say it is mended- my quarrel was not altogether
    slight. FRENCHMAN. Faith, yes, to be put to the arbitrement of
    swords, and by such two that would by all likelihood have
    confounded one the other or have fall'n both. IACHIMO. Can we, with
    manners, ask what was the difference? FRENCHMAN. Safely, I think.
    'Twas a contention in public, which may, without contradiction,
    suffer the report. It was much like an argument that fell out last
    night, where each of us fell in praise of our country mistresses;
    this gentleman at that time vouching- and upon warrant of bloody
    affirmation- his to be more fair, virtuous, wise, chaste, constant,
    qualified, and less attemptable, than any the rarest of our ladies
    in France. IACHIMO. That lady is not now living, or this
    gentleman's opinion, by this, worn out. POSTHUMUS. She holds her
    virtue still, and I my mind. IACHIMO. You must not so far prefer
    her fore ours of Italy. POSTHUMUS. Being so far provok'd as I was
    in France, I would abate her nothing, though I profess myself her
    adorer, not her friend. IACHIMO. As fair and as good- a kind of
    hand-in-hand comparison- had been something too fair and too good
    for any lady in Britain. If she went before others I have seen as
    that diamond of yours outlustres many I have beheld, I could not
    but believe she excelled many; but I have not seen the most
    precious diamond that is, nor you the lady. POSTHUMUS. I prais'd
    her as I rated her. So do I my stone. IACHIMO. What do you esteem
    it at? POSTHUMUS. More than the world enjoys. IACHIMO. Either your
    unparagon'd mistress is dead, or she's outpriz'd by a trifle.
    POSTHUMUS. You are mistaken: the one may be sold or given, if there
    were wealth enough for the purchase or merit for the gift; the
    other is not a thing for sale, and only the gift of the gods.
    IACHIMO. Which the gods have given you? POSTHUMUS. Which by their
    graces I will keep. IACHIMO. You may wear her in title yours; but
    you know strange fowl light upon neighbouring ponds. Your ring may
    be stol'n too. So your brace of unprizable estimations, the one is
    but frail and the other casual; a cunning thief, or a
    that-way-accomplish'd courtier, would hazard the winning both of
    first and last. POSTHUMUS. Your Italy contains none so accomplish'd
    a courtier to convince the honour of my mistress, if in the holding
    or loss of that you term her frail. I do nothing doubt you have
    store of thieves; notwithstanding, I fear not my ring. PHILARIO.
    Let us leave here, gentlemen. POSTHUMUS. Sir, with all my heart.
    This worthy signior, I thank him, makes no stranger of me; we are
    familiar at first. IACHIMO. With five times so much conversation I
    should get ground of your fair mistress; make her go back even to
    the yielding, had I admittance and opportunity to friend.
    POSTHUMUS. No, no. IACHIMO. I dare thereupon pawn the moiety of my
    estate to your ring, which, in my opinion, o'ervalues it something.
    But I make my wager rather against your confidence than her
    reputation; and, to bar your offence herein too, I durst attempt it
    against any lady in the world. POSTHUMUS. You are a great deal
    abus'd in too bold a persuasion, and I doubt not you sustain what
    y'are worthy of by your attempt. IACHIMO. What's that? POSTHUMUS. A
    repulse; though your attempt, as you call it, deserve more- a
    punishment too. PHILARIO. Gentlemen, enough of this. It came in too
    suddenly; let it die as it was born, and I pray you be better
    acquainted. IACHIMO. Would I had put my estate and my neighbour's
    on th' approbation of what I have spoke! POSTHUMUS. What lady would
    you choose to assail? IACHIMO. Yours, whom in constancy you think
    stands so safe. I will lay you ten thousand ducats to your ring
    that, commend me to the court where your lady is, with no more
    advantage than the opportunity of a second conference, and I will
    bring from thence that honour of hers which you imagine so
    reserv'd. POSTHUMUS. I will wage against your gold, gold to it. My
    ring I hold dear as my finger; 'tis part of it. IACHIMO. You are a
    friend, and therein the wiser. If you buy ladies' flesh at a
    million a dram, you cannot preserve it from tainting. But I see you
    have some religion in you, that you fear. POSTHUMUS. This is but a
    custom in your tongue; you bear a graver purpose, I hope. IACHIMO.
    I am the master of my speeches, and would undergo what's spoken, I
    swear. POSTHUMUS. Will you? I Shall but lend my diamond till your
    return. Let there be covenants drawn between's. My mistress exceeds
    in goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking. I dare you to
    this match: here's my ring. PHILARIO. I will have it no lay.
    IACHIMO. By the gods, it is one. If I bring you no sufficient
    testimony that I have enjoy'd the dearest bodily part of your
    mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours; so is your diamond too.
    If I come off, and leave her in such honour as you have trust in,
    she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yours- provided I
    have your commendation for my more free entertainment. POSTHUMUS. I
    embrace these conditions; let us have articles betwixt us. Only,
    thus far you shall answer: if you make your voyage upon her, and
    give me directly to understand you have prevail'd, I am no further
    your enemy- she is not worth our debate; if she remain unseduc'd,
    you not making it appear otherwise, for your ill opinion and th'
    assault you have made to her chastity you shall answer me with your
    sword. IACHIMO. Your hand- a covenant! We will have these things
    set down by lawful counsel, and straight away for Britain, lest the
    bargain should catch cold and starve. I will fetch my gold and have
    our two wagers recorded. POSTHUMUS. Agreed.                Exeunt
    POSTHUMUS and IACHIMO FRENCHMAN. Will this hold, think you?
    PHILARIO. Signior Iachimo will not from it. Pray let us follow 'em.
    Exeunt

SCENE V. Britain. CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter QUEEN, LADIES, and CORNELIUS

  QUEEN. Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers;
    Make haste; who has the note of them?
  LADY. I, madam.
  QUEEN. Dispatch.                                 Exeunt LADIES
    Now, Master Doctor, have you brought those drugs?
  CORNELIUS. Pleaseth your Highness, ay. Here they are, madam.
                                              [Presenting a box]
    But I beseech your Grace, without offence-
    My conscience bids me ask- wherefore you have
    Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds
    Which are the movers of a languishing death,
    But, though slow, deadly?
  QUEEN. I wonder, Doctor,
    Thou ask'st me such a question. Have I not been
    Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn'd me how
    To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so
    That our great king himself doth woo me oft
    For my confections? Having thus far proceeded-
    Unless thou think'st me devilish- is't not meet
    That I did amplify my judgment in
    Other conclusions? I will try the forces
    Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
    We count not worth the hanging- but none human-
    To try the vigour of them, and apply
    Allayments to their act, and by them gather
    Their several virtues and effects.
  CORNELIUS. Your Highness
    Shall from this practice but make hard your heart;
    Besides, the seeing these effects will be
    Both noisome and infectious.
  QUEEN. O, content thee.

                        Enter PISANIO

    [Aside] Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him
    Will I first work. He's for his master,
    An enemy to my son.- How now, Pisanio!
    Doctor, your service for this time is ended;
    Take your own way.
  CORNELIUS. [Aside] I do suspect you, madam;
    But you shall do no harm.
  QUEEN. [To PISANIO] Hark thee, a word.
  CORNELIUS. [Aside] I do not like her. She doth think she has
    Strange ling'ring poisons. I do know her spirit,
    And will not trust one of her malice with
    A drug of such damn'd nature. Those she has
    Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile,
    Which first perchance she'll prove on cats and dogs,
    Then afterward up higher; but there is
    No danger in what show of death it makes,
    More than the locking up the spirits a time,
    To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd
    With a most false effect; and I the truer
    So to be false with her.
  QUEEN. No further service, Doctor,
    Until I send for thee.
  CORNELIUS. I humbly take my leave.                        Exit
  QUEEN. Weeps she still, say'st thou? Dost thou think in time
    She will not quench, and let instructions enter
    Where folly now possesses? Do thou work.
    When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son,
    I'll tell thee on the instant thou art then
    As great as is thy master; greater, for
    His fortunes all lie speechless, and his name
    Is at last gasp. Return he cannot, nor
    Continue where he is. To shift his being
    Is to exchange one misery with another,
    And every day that comes comes comes to
    A day's work in him. What shalt thou expect
    To be depender on a thing that leans,
    Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends
    So much as but to prop him?
                  [The QUEEN drops the box. PISANIO takes it up]
    Thou tak'st up
    Thou know'st not what; but take it for thy labour.
    It is a thing I made, which hath the King
    Five times redeem'd from death. I do not know
    What is more cordial. Nay, I prithee take it;
    It is an earnest of a further good
    That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how
    The case stands with her; do't as from thyself.
    Think what a chance thou changest on; but think
    Thou hast thy mistress still; to boot, my son,
    Who shall take notice of thee. I'll move the King
    To any shape of thy preferment, such
    As thou'lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly,
    That set thee on to this desert, am bound
    To load thy merit richly. Call my women.
    Think on my words.                              Exit PISANIO
    A sly and constant knave,
    Not to be shak'd; the agent for his master,
    And the remembrancer of her to hold
    The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that
    Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her
    Of leigers for her sweet; and which she after,
    Except she bend her humour, shall be assur'd
    To taste of too.

                   Re-enter PISANIO and LADIES

    So, so. Well done, well done.
    The violets, cowslips, and the primroses,
    Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio;
    Think on my words.                   Exeunt QUEEN and LADIES
  PISANIO. And shall do.
    But when to my good lord I prove untrue
    I'll choke myself- there's all I'll do for you.         Exit

SCENE VI. Britain. The palace

Enter IMOGEN alone

  IMOGEN. A father cruel and a step-dame false;
    A foolish suitor to a wedded lady
    That hath her husband banish'd. O, that husband!
    My supreme crown of grief! and those repeated
    Vexations of it! Had I been thief-stol'n,
    As my two brothers, happy! but most miserable
    Is the desire that's glorious. Blessed be those,
    How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,
    Which seasons comfort. Who may this be? Fie!

                    Enter PISANIO and IACHIMO

  PISANIO. Madam, a noble gentleman of Rome
    Comes from my lord with letters.
  IACHIMO. Change you, madam?
    The worthy Leonatus is in safety,
    And greets your Highness dearly.         [Presents a letter]
  IMOGEN. Thanks, good sir.
    You're kindly welcome.
  IACHIMO. [Aside] All of her that is out of door most rich!
    If she be furnish'd with a mind so rare,
    She is alone th' Arabian bird, and I
    Have lost the wager. Boldness be my friend!
    Arm me, audacity, from head to foot!
    Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight;
    Rather, directly fly.
  IMOGEN. [Reads] 'He is one of the noblest note, to whose
    kindnesses I am most infinitely tied. Reflect upon him
    accordingly, as you value your trust.       LEONATUS.'

    So far I read aloud;
    But even the very middle of my heart
    Is warm'd by th' rest and takes it thankfully.
    You are as welcome, worthy sir, as I
    Have words to bid you; and shall find it so
    In all that I can do.
  IACHIMO. Thanks, fairest lady.
    What, are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes
    To see this vaulted arch and the rich crop
    Of sea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt
    The fiery orbs above and the twinn'd stones
    Upon the number'd beach, and can we not
    Partition make with spectacles so precious
    'Twixt fair and foul?
  IMOGEN. What makes your admiration?
  IACHIMO. It cannot be i' th' eye, for apes and monkeys,
    'Twixt two such shes, would chatter this way and
    Contemn with mows the other; nor i' th' judgment,
    For idiots in this case of favour would
    Be wisely definite; nor i' th' appetite;
    Sluttery, to such neat excellence oppos'd,
    Should make desire vomit emptiness,
    Not so allur'd to feed.
  IMOGEN. What is the matter, trow?
  IACHIMO. The cloyed will-
    That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, that tub
    Both fill'd and running- ravening first the lamb,
    Longs after for the garbage.
  IMOGEN. What, dear sir,
    Thus raps you? Are you well?
  IACHIMO. Thanks, madam; well.- Beseech you, sir,
    Desire my man's abode where I did leave him.
    He's strange and peevish.
  PISANIO. I was going, sir,
    To give him welcome.                                    Exit
  IMOGEN. Continues well my lord? His health beseech you?
  IACHIMO. Well, madam.
  IMOGEN. Is he dispos'd to mirth? I hope he is.
  IACHIMO. Exceeding pleasant; none a stranger there
    So merry and so gamesome. He is call'd
    The Britain reveller.
  IMOGEN. When he was here
    He did incline to sadness, and oft-times
    Not knowing why.
  IACHIMO. I never saw him sad.
    There is a Frenchman his companion, one
    An eminent monsieur that, it seems, much loves
    A Gallian girl at home. He furnaces
    The thick sighs from him; whiles the jolly Briton-
    Your lord, I mean- laughs from's free lungs, cries 'O,
    Can my sides hold, to think that man- who knows
    By history, report, or his own proof,
    What woman is, yea, what she cannot choose
    But must be- will's free hours languish for
    Assured bondage?'
  IMOGEN. Will my lord say so?
  IACHIMO. Ay, madam, with his eyes in flood with laughter.
    It is a recreation to be by
    And hear him mock the Frenchman. But heavens know
    Some men are much to blame.
  IMOGEN. Not he, I hope.
  IACHIMO. Not he; but yet heaven's bounty towards him might
    Be us'd more thankfully. In himself, 'tis much;
    In you, which I account his, beyond all talents.
    Whilst I am bound to wonder, I am bound
    To pity too.
  IMOGEN. What do you pity, sir?
  IACHIMO. Two creatures heartily.
  IMOGEN. Am I one, sir?
    You look on me: what wreck discern you in me
    Deserves your pity?
  IACHIMO. Lamentable! What,
    To hide me from the radiant sun and solace
    I' th' dungeon by a snuff?
  IMOGEN. I pray you, sir,
    Deliver with more openness your answers
    To my demands. Why do you pity me?
  IACHIMO. That others do,
    I was about to say, enjoy your- But
    It is an office of the gods to venge it,
    Not mine to speak on't.
  IMOGEN. You do seem to know
    Something of me, or what concerns me; pray you-
    Since doubting things go ill often hurts more
    Than to be sure they do; for certainties
    Either are past remedies, or, timely knowing,
    The remedy then born- discover to me
    What both you spur and stop.
  IACHIMO. Had I this cheek
    To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch,
    Whose every touch, would force the feeler's soul
    To th' oath of loyalty; this object, which
    Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye,
    Fixing it only here; should I, damn'd then,
    Slaver with lips as common as the stairs
    That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands
    Made hard with hourly falsehood- falsehood as
    With labour; then by-peeping in an eye
    Base and illustrious as the smoky light
    That's fed with stinking tallow- it were fit
    That all the plagues of hell should at one time
    Encounter such revolt.
  IMOGEN. My lord, I fear,
    Has forgot Britain.
  IACHIMO. And himself. Not I
    Inclin'd to this intelligence pronounce
    The beggary of his change; but 'tis your graces
    That from my mutest conscience to my tongue
    Charms this report out.
  IMOGEN. Let me hear no more.
  IACHIMO. O dearest soul, your cause doth strike my heart
    With pity that doth make me sick! A lady
    So fair, and fasten'd to an empery,
    Would make the great'st king double, to be partner'd
    With tomboys hir'd with that self exhibition
    Which your own coffers yield! with diseas'd ventures
    That play with all infirmities for gold
    Which rottenness can lend nature! such boil'd stuff
    As well might poison poison! Be reveng'd;
    Or she that bore you was no queen, and you
    Recoil from your great stock.
  IMOGEN. Reveng'd?
    How should I be reveng'd? If this be true-
    As I have such a heart that both mine ears
    Must not in haste abuse- if it be true,
    How should I be reveng'd?
  IACHIMO. Should he make me
    Live like Diana's priest betwixt cold sheets,
    Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps,
    In your despite, upon your purse? Revenge it.
    I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure,
    More noble than that runagate to your bed,
    And will continue fast to your affection,
    Still close as sure.
  IMOGEN. What ho, Pisanio!
  IACHIMO. Let me my service tender on your lips.
  IMOGEN. Away! I do condemn mine ears that have
    So long attended thee. If thou wert honourable,
    Thou wouldst have told this tale for virtue, not
    For such an end thou seek'st, as base as strange.
    Thou wrong'st a gentleman who is as far
    From thy report as thou from honour; and
    Solicits here a lady that disdains
    Thee and the devil alike.- What ho, Pisanio!-
    The King my father shall be made acquainted
    Of thy assault. If he shall think it fit
    A saucy stranger in his court to mart
    As in a Romish stew, and to expound
    His beastly mind to us, he hath a court
    He little cares for, and a daughter who
    He not respects at all.- What ho, Pisanio!
  IACHIMO. O happy Leonatus! I may say
    The credit that thy lady hath of thee
    Deserves thy trust, and thy most perfect goodness
    Her assur'd credit. Blessed live you long,
    A lady to the worthiest sir that ever
    Country call'd his! and you his mistress, only
    For the most worthiest fit! Give me your pardon.
    I have spoke this to know if your affiance
    Were deeply rooted, and shall make your lord
    That which he is new o'er; and he is one
    The truest manner'd, such a holy witch
    That he enchants societies into him,
    Half all men's hearts are his.
  IMOGEN. You make amends.
  IACHIMO. He sits 'mongst men like a descended god:
    He hath a kind of honour sets him of
    More than a mortal seeming. Be not angry,
    Most mighty Princess, that I have adventur'd
    To try your taking of a false report, which hath
    Honour'd with confirmation your great judgment
    In the election of a sir so rare,
    Which you know cannot err. The love I bear him
    Made me to fan you thus; but the gods made you,
    Unlike all others, chaffless. Pray your pardon.
  IMOGEN. All's well, sir; take my pow'r i' th' court for yours.
  IACHIMO. My humble thanks. I had almost forgot
    T' entreat your Grace but in a small request,
    And yet of moment too, for it concerns
    Your lord; myself and other noble friends
    Are partners in the business.
  IMOGEN. Pray what is't?
  IACHIMO. Some dozen Romans of us, and your lord-
    The best feather of our wing- have mingled sums
    To buy a present for the Emperor;
    Which I, the factor for the rest, have done
    In France. 'Tis plate of rare device, and jewels
    Of rich and exquisite form, their values great;
    And I am something curious, being strange,
    To have them in safe stowage. May it please you
    To take them in protection?
  IMOGEN. Willingly;
    And pawn mine honour for their safety. Since
    My lord hath interest in them, I will keep them
    In my bedchamber.
  IACHIMO. They are in a trunk,
    Attended by my men. I will make bold
    To send them to you only for this night;
    I must aboard to-morrow.
  IMOGEN. O, no, no.
  IACHIMO. Yes, I beseech; or I shall short my word
    By length'ning my return. From Gallia
    I cross'd the seas on purpose and on promise
    To see your Grace.
  IMOGEN. I thank you for your pains.
    But not away to-morrow!
  IACHIMO. O, I must, madam.
    Therefore I shall beseech you, if you please
    To greet your lord with writing, do't to-night.
    I have outstood my time, which is material
    'To th' tender of our present.
  IMOGEN. I will write.
    Send your trunk to me; it shall safe be kept
    And truly yielded you. You're very welcome.           Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Britain. Before CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter CLOTEN and the two LORDS

  CLOTEN. Was there ever man had such luck! When I kiss'd the jack,
    upon an up-cast to be hit away! I had a hundred pound on't; and
    then a whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing, as if I
    borrowed mine oaths of him, and might not spend them at my
    pleasure.
  FIRST LORD. What got he by that? You have broke his pate with your
    bowl.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] If his wit had been like him that broke it, it
    would have run all out.
  CLOTEN. When a gentleman is dispos'd to swear, it is not for any
    standers-by to curtail his oaths. Ha?
  SECOND LORD. No, my lord; [Aside] nor crop the ears of them.
  CLOTEN. Whoreson dog! I give him satisfaction? Would he had been
    one of my rank!
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] To have smell'd like a fool.
  CLOTEN. I am not vex'd more at anything in th' earth. A pox on't! I
    had rather not be so noble as I am; they dare not fight with me,
    because of the Queen my mother. Every jackslave hath his bellyful
    of fighting, and I must go up and down like a cock that nobody
    can match.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] You are cock and capon too; and you crow,
    cock, with your comb on.
  CLOTEN. Sayest thou?
  SECOND LORD. It is not fit your lordship should undertake every
    companion that you give offence to.
  CLOTEN. No, I know that; but it is fit I should commit offence to
    my inferiors.
  SECOND LORD. Ay, it is fit for your lordship only.
  CLOTEN. Why, so I say.
  FIRST LORD. Did you hear of a stranger that's come to court
    to-night?
  CLOTEN. A stranger, and I not known on't?
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] He's a strange fellow himself, and knows it
    not.
  FIRST LORD. There's an Italian come, and, 'tis thought, one of
    Leonatus' friends.
  CLOTEN. Leonatus? A banish'd rascal; and he's another, whatsoever
    he be. Who told you of this stranger?
  FIRST LORD. One of your lordship's pages.
  CLOTEN. Is it fit I went to look upon him? Is there no derogation
    in't?
  SECOND LORD. You cannot derogate, my lord.
  CLOTEN. Not easily, I think.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] You are a fool granted; therefore your issues,
    being foolish, do not derogate.
  CLOTEN. Come, I'll go see this Italian. What I have lost to-day at
    bowls I'll win to-night of him. Come, go.
  SECOND LORD. I'll attend your lordship.
                                    Exeunt CLOTEN and FIRST LORD
    That such a crafty devil as is his mother
    Should yield the world this ass! A woman that
    Bears all down with her brain; and this her son
    Cannot take two from twenty, for his heart,
    And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princess,
    Thou divine Imogen, what thou endur'st,
    Betwixt a father by thy step-dame govern'd,
    A mother hourly coining plots, a wooer
    More hateful than the foul expulsion is
    Of thy dear husband, than that horrid act
    Of the divorce he'd make! The heavens hold firm
    The walls of thy dear honour, keep unshak'd
    That temple, thy fair mind, that thou mayst stand
    T' enjoy thy banish'd lord and this great land!         Exit

SCENE II. Britain. IMOGEN'S bedchamber in CYMBELINE'S palace; a trunk
in one corner

Enter IMOGEN in her bed, and a LADY attending

  IMOGEN. Who's there? My woman? Helen?
  LADY. Please you, madam.
  IMOGEN. What hour is it?
  LADY. Almost midnight, madam.
  IMOGEN. I have read three hours then. Mine eyes are weak;
    Fold down the leaf where I have left. To bed.
    Take not away the taper, leave it burning;
    And if thou canst awake by four o' th' clock,
    I prithee call me. Sleep hath seiz'd me wholly.    Exit LADY
    To your protection I commend me, gods.
    From fairies and the tempters of the night
    Guard me, beseech ye!
                          [Sleeps. IACHIMO comes from the trunk]
  IACHIMO. The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense
    Repairs itself by rest. Our Tarquin thus
    Did softly press the rushes ere he waken'd
    The chastity he wounded. Cytherea,
    How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily,
    And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!
    But kiss; one kiss! Rubies unparagon'd,
    How dearly they do't! 'Tis her breathing that
    Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' th' taper
    Bows toward her and would under-peep her lids
    To see th' enclosed lights, now canopied
    Under these windows white and azure, lac'd
    With blue of heaven's own tinct. But my design
    To note the chamber. I will write all down:
    Such and such pictures; there the window; such
    Th' adornment of her bed; the arras, figures-
    Why, such and such; and the contents o' th' story.
    Ah, but some natural notes about her body
    Above ten thousand meaner movables
    Would testify, t' enrich mine inventory.
    O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!
    And be her sense but as a monument,
    Thus in a chapel lying! Come off, come off;
                                       [Taking off her bracelet]
    As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard!
    'Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly,
    As strongly as the conscience does within,
    To th' madding of her lord. On her left breast
    A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
    I' th' bottom of a cowslip. Here's a voucher
    Stronger than ever law could make; this secret
    Will force him think I have pick'd the lock and ta'en
    The treasure of her honour. No more. To what end?
    Why should I write this down that's riveted,
    Screw'd to my memory? She hath been reading late
    The tale of Tereus; here the leaf's turn'd down
    Where Philomel gave up. I have enough.
    To th' trunk again, and shut the spring of it.
    Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning
    May bare the raven's eye! I lodge in fear;
    Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.  [Clock strikes]
    One, two, three. Time, time!             Exit into the trunk

SCENE III. CYMBELINE'S palace. An ante-chamber adjoining IMOGEN'S
apartments

Enter CLOTEN and LORDS

  FIRST LORD. Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the most
    coldest that ever turn'd up ace.
  CLOTEN. It would make any man cold to lose.
  FIRST LORD. But not every man patient after the noble temper of
    your lordship. You are most hot and furious when you win.
  CLOTEN. Winning will put any man into courage. If I could get this
    foolish Imogen, I should have gold enough. It's almost morning,
    is't not?
  FIRST LORD. Day, my lord.
  CLOTEN. I would this music would come. I am advised to give her
    music a mornings; they say it will penetrate.

                       Enter musicians

    Come on, tune. If you can penetrate her with your fingering, so.
    We'll try with tongue too. If none will do, let her remain; but
    I'll never give o'er. First, a very excellent good-conceited thing;
    after, a wonderful sweet air, with admirable rich words to it- and
    then let her consider.

                 SONG

      Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
        And Phoebus 'gins arise,
      His steeds to water at those springs
        On chalic'd flow'rs that lies;
      And winking Mary-buds begin
        To ope their golden eyes.
      With everything that pretty bin,
        My lady sweet, arise;
          Arise, arise!

    So, get you gone. If this penetrate, I will consider your music the
    better; if it do not, it is a vice in her ears which horsehairs and
    calves' guts, nor the voice of unpaved eunuch to boot, can never
    amend.                      Exeunt musicians

                    Enter CYMBELINE and QUEEN

  SECOND LORD. Here comes the King.
  CLOTEN. I am glad I was up so late, for that's the reason I was up
    so early. He cannot choose but take this service I have done
    fatherly.- Good morrow to your Majesty and to my gracious mother.
  CYMBELINE. Attend you here the door of our stern daughter?
    Will she not forth?
  CLOTEN. I have assail'd her with musics, but she vouchsafes no
    notice.
  CYMBELINE. The exile of her minion is too new;
    She hath not yet forgot him; some more time
    Must wear the print of his remembrance out,
    And then she's yours.
  QUEEN. You are most bound to th' King,
    Who lets go by no vantages that may
    Prefer you to his daughter. Frame yourself
    To orderly soliciting, and be friended
    With aptness of the season; make denials
    Increase your services; so seem as if
    You were inspir'd to do those duties which
    You tender to her; that you in all obey her,
    Save when command to your dismission tends,
    And therein you are senseless.
  CLOTEN. Senseless? Not so.

                    Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. So like you, sir, ambassadors from Rome;
    The one is Caius Lucius.
  CYMBELINE. A worthy fellow,
    Albeit he comes on angry purpose now;
    But that's no fault of his. We must receive him
    According to the honour of his sender;
    And towards himself, his goodness forespent on us,
    We must extend our notice. Our dear son,
    When you have given good morning to your mistress,
    Attend the Queen and us; we shall have need
    T' employ you towards this Roman. Come, our queen.
                                           Exeunt all but CLOTEN
  CLOTEN. If she be up, I'll speak with her; if not,
    Let her lie still and dream. By your leave, ho!     [Knocks]
    I know her women are about her; what
    If I do line one of their hands? 'Tis gold
    Which buys admittance; oft it doth-yea, and makes
    Diana's rangers false themselves, yield up
    Their deer to th' stand o' th' stealer; and 'tis gold
    Which makes the true man kill'd and saves the thief;
    Nay, sometime hangs both thief and true man. What
    Can it not do and undo? I will make
    One of her women lawyer to me, for
    I yet not understand the case myself.
    By your leave.                                      [Knocks]

                            Enter a LADY

  LADY. Who's there that knocks?
  CLOTEN. A gentleman.
  LADY. No more?
  CLOTEN. Yes, and a gentlewoman's son.
  LADY. That's more
    Than some whose tailors are as dear as yours
    Can justly boast of. What's your lordship's pleasure?
  CLOTEN. Your lady's person; is she ready?
  LADY. Ay,
    To keep her chamber.
  CLOTEN. There is gold for you; sell me your good report.
  LADY. How? My good name? or to report of you
    What I shall think is good? The Princess!

                        Enter IMOGEN

  CLOTEN. Good morrow, fairest sister. Your sweet hand.
                                                       Exit LADY
  IMOGEN. Good morrow, sir. You lay out too much pains
    For purchasing but trouble. The thanks I give
    Is telling you that I am poor of thanks,
    And scarce can spare them.
  CLOTEN. Still I swear I love you.
  IMOGEN. If you but said so, 'twere as deep with me.
    If you swear still, your recompense is still
    That I regard it not.
  CLOTEN. This is no answer.
  IMOGEN. But that you shall not say I yield, being silent,
    I would not speak. I pray you spare me. Faith,
    I shall unfold equal discourtesy
    To your best kindness; one of your great knowing
    Should learn, being taught, forbearance.
  CLOTEN. To leave you in your madness 'twere my sin;
    I will not.
  IMOGEN. Fools are not mad folks.
  CLOTEN. Do you call me fool?
  IMOGEN. As I am mad, I do;
    If you'll be patient, I'll no more be mad;
    That cures us both. I am much sorry, sir,
    You put me to forget a lady's manners
    By being so verbal; and learn now, for all,
    That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce,
    By th' very truth of it, I care not for you,
    And am so near the lack of charity
    To accuse myself I hate you; which I had rather
    You felt than make't my boast.
  CLOTEN. You sin against
    Obedience, which you owe your father. For
    The contract you pretend with that base wretch,
    One bred of alms and foster'd with cold dishes,
    With scraps o' th' court- it is no contract, none.
    And though it be allowed in meaner parties-
    Yet who than he more mean?- to knit their souls-
    On whom there is no more dependency
    But brats and beggary- in self-figur'd knot,
    Yet you are curb'd from that enlargement by
    The consequence o' th' crown, and must not foil
    The precious note of it with a base slave,
    A hilding for a livery, a squire's cloth,
    A pantler- not so eminent!
  IMOGEN. Profane fellow!
    Wert thou the son of Jupiter, and no more
    But what thou art besides, thou wert too base
    To be his groom. Thou wert dignified enough,
    Even to the point of envy, if 'twere made
    Comparative for your virtues to be styl'd
    The under-hangman of his kingdom, and hated
    For being preferr'd so well.
  CLOTEN. The south fog rot him!
  IMOGEN. He never can meet more mischance than come
    To be but nam'd of thee. His mean'st garment
    That ever hath but clipp'd his body is dearer
    In my respect than all the hairs above thee,
    Were they all made such men. How now, Pisanio!

                    Enter PISANIO

  CLOTEN. 'His garments'! Now the devil-
  IMOGEN. To Dorothy my woman hie thee presently.
  CLOTEN. 'His garment'!
  IMOGEN. I am sprited with a fool;
    Frighted, and ang'red worse. Go bid my woman
    Search for a jewel that too casually
    Hath left mine arm. It was thy master's; shrew me,
    If I would lose it for a revenue
    Of any king's in Europe! I do think
    I saw't this morning; confident I am
    Last night 'twas on mine arm; I kiss'd it.
    I hope it be not gone to tell my lord
    That I kiss aught but he.
  PISANIO. 'Twill not be lost.
  IMOGEN. I hope so. Go and search.                 Exit PISANIO
  CLOTEN. You have abus'd me.
    'His meanest garment'!
  IMOGEN. Ay, I said so, sir.
    If you will make 't an action, call witness to 't.
  CLOTEN. I will inform your father.
  IMOGEN. Your mother too.
    She's my good lady and will conceive, I hope,
    But the worst of me. So I leave you, sir,
    To th' worst of discontent.                             Exit
  CLOTEN. I'll be reveng'd.
    'His mean'st garment'! Well.                            Exit

SCENE IV. Rome. PHILARIO'S house

Enter POSTHUMUS and PHILARIO

  POSTHUMUS. Fear it not, sir; I would I were so sure
    To win the King as I am bold her honour
    Will remain hers.
  PHILARIO. What means do you make to him?
  POSTHUMUS. Not any; but abide the change of time,
    Quake in the present winter's state, and wish
    That warmer days would come. In these fear'd hopes
    I barely gratify your love; they failing,
    I must die much your debtor.
  PHILARIO. Your very goodness and your company
    O'erpays all I can do. By this your king
    Hath heard of great Augustus. Caius Lucius
    Will do's commission throughly; and I think
    He'll grant the tribute, send th' arrearages,
    Or look upon our Romans, whose remembrance
    Is yet fresh in their grief.
  POSTHUMUS. I do believe
    Statist though I am none, nor like to be,
    That this will prove a war; and you shall hear
    The legions now in Gallia sooner landed
    In our not-fearing Britain than have tidings
    Of any penny tribute paid. Our countrymen
    Are men more order'd than when Julius Caesar
    Smil'd at their lack of skill, but found their courage
    Worthy his frowning at. Their discipline,
    Now mingled with their courages, will make known
    To their approvers they are people such
    That mend upon the world.

                      Enter IACHIMO

  PHILARIO. See! Iachimo!
  POSTHUMUS. The swiftest harts have posted you by land,
    And winds of all the comers kiss'd your sails,
    To make your vessel nimble.
  PHILARIO. Welcome, sir.
  POSTHUMUS. I hope the briefness of your answer made
    The speediness of your return.
  IACHIMO. Your lady
    Is one of the fairest that I have look'd upon.
  POSTHUMUS. And therewithal the best; or let her beauty
    Look through a casement to allure false hearts,
    And be false with them.
  IACHIMO. Here are letters for you.
  POSTHUMUS. Their tenour good, I trust.
  IACHIMO. 'Tis very like.
  PHILARIO. Was Caius Lucius in the Britain court
    When you were there?
  IACHIMO. He was expected then,
    But not approach'd.
  POSTHUMUS. All is well yet.
    Sparkles this stone as it was wont, or is't not
    Too dull for your good wearing?
  IACHIMO. If I have lost it,
    I should have lost the worth of it in gold.
    I'll make a journey twice as far t' enjoy
    A second night of such sweet shortness which
    Was mine in Britain; for the ring is won.
  POSTHUMUS. The stone's too hard to come by.
  IACHIMO. Not a whit,
    Your lady being so easy.
  POSTHUMUS. Make not, sir,
    Your loss your sport. I hope you know that we
    Must not continue friends.
  IACHIMO. Good sir, we must,
    If you keep covenant. Had I not brought
    The knowledge of your mistress home, I grant
    We were to question farther; but I now
    Profess myself the winner of her honour,
    Together with your ring; and not the wronger
    Of her or you, having proceeded but
    By both your wills.
  POSTHUMUS. If you can make't apparent
    That you have tasted her in bed, my hand
    And ring is yours. If not, the foul opinion
    You had of her pure honour gains or loses
    Your sword or mine, or masterless leaves both
    To who shall find them.
  IACHIMO. Sir, my circumstances,
    Being so near the truth as I will make them,
    Must first induce you to believe- whose strength
    I will confirm with oath; which I doubt not
    You'll give me leave to spare when you shall find
    You need it not.
  POSTHUMUS. Proceed.
  IACHIMO. First, her bedchamber,
    Where I confess I slept not, but profess
    Had that was well worth watching-it was hang'd
    With tapestry of silk and silver; the story,
    Proud Cleopatra when she met her Roman
    And Cydnus swell'd above the banks, or for
    The press of boats or pride. A piece of work
    So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive
    In workmanship and value; which I wonder'd
    Could be so rarely and exactly wrought,
    Since the true life on't was-
  POSTHUMUS. This is true;
    And this you might have heard of here, by me
    Or by some other.
  IACHIMO. More particulars
    Must justify my knowledge.
  POSTHUMUS. So they must,
    Or do your honour injury.
  IACHIMO. The chimney
    Is south the chamber, and the chimneypiece
    Chaste Dian bathing. Never saw I figures
    So likely to report themselves. The cutter
    Was as another nature, dumb; outwent her,
    Motion and breath left out.
  POSTHUMUS. This is a thing
    Which you might from relation likewise reap,
    Being, as it is, much spoke of.
  IACHIMO. The roof o' th' chamber
    With golden cherubins is fretted; her andirons-
    I had forgot them- were two winking Cupids
    Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely
    Depending on their brands.
  POSTHUMUS. This is her honour!
    Let it be granted you have seen all this, and praise
    Be given to your remembrance; the description
    Of what is in her chamber nothing saves
    The wager you have laid.
  IACHIMO. Then, if you can,                [Shows the bracelet]
    Be pale. I beg but leave to air this jewel. See!
    And now 'tis up again. It must be married
    To that your diamond; I'll keep them.
  POSTHUMUS. Jove!
    Once more let me behold it. Is it that
    Which I left with her?
  IACHIMO. Sir- I thank her- that.
    She stripp'd it from her arm; I see her yet;
    Her pretty action did outsell her gift,
    And yet enrich'd it too. She gave it me, and said
    She priz'd it once.
  POSTHUMUS. May be she pluck'd it of
    To send it me.
  IACHIMO. She writes so to you, doth she?
  POSTHUMUS. O, no, no, no! 'tis true. Here, take this too;
                                                [Gives the ring]
    It is a basilisk unto mine eye,
    Kills me to look on't. Let there be no honour
    Where there is beauty; truth where semblance; love
    Where there's another man. The vows of women
    Of no more bondage be to where they are made
    Than they are to their virtues, which is nothing.
    O, above measure false!
  PHILARIO. Have patience, sir,
    And take your ring again; 'tis not yet won.
    It may be probable she lost it, or
    Who knows if one her women, being corrupted
    Hath stol'n it from her?
  POSTHUMUS. Very true;
    And so I hope he came by't. Back my ring.
    Render to me some corporal sign about her,
    More evident than this; for this was stol'n.
  IACHIMO. By Jupiter, I had it from her arm!
  POSTHUMUS. Hark you, he swears; by Jupiter he swears.
    'Tis true- nay, keep the ring, 'tis true. I am sure
    She would not lose it. Her attendants are
    All sworn and honourable- they induc'd to steal it!
    And by a stranger! No, he hath enjoy'd her.
    The cognizance of her incontinency
    Is this: she hath bought the name of whore thus dearly.
    There, take thy hire; and all the fiends of hell
    Divide themselves between you!
  PHILARIO. Sir, be patient;
    This is not strong enough to be believ'd
    Of one persuaded well of.
  POSTHUMUS. Never talk on't;
    She hath been colted by him.
  IACHIMO. If you seek
    For further satisfying, under her breast-
    Worthy the pressing- lies a mole, right proud
    Of that most delicate lodging. By my life,
    I kiss'd it; and it gave me present hunger
    To feed again, though full. You do remember
    This stain upon her?
  POSTHUMUS. Ay, and it doth confirm
    Another stain, as big as hell can hold,
    Were there no more but it.
  IACHIMO. Will you hear more?
  POSTHUMUS. Spare your arithmetic; never count the turns.
    Once, and a million!
  IACHIMO. I'll be sworn-
  POSTHUMUS. No swearing.
    If you will swear you have not done't, you lie;
    And I will kill thee if thou dost deny
    Thou'st made me cuckold.
  IACHIMO. I'll deny nothing.
  POSTHUMUS. O that I had her here to tear her limb-meal!
    I will go there and do't, i' th' court, before
    Her father. I'll do something-                          Exit
  PHILARIO. Quite besides
    The government of patience! You have won.
    Let's follow him and pervert the present wrath
    He hath against himself.
  IACHIMO. With all my heart.                             Exeunt

SCENE V. Rome. Another room in PHILARIO'S house

Enter POSTHUMUS

  POSTHUMUS. Is there no way for men to be, but women
    Must be half-workers? We are all bastards,
    And that most venerable man which I
    Did call my father was I know not where
    When I was stamp'd. Some coiner with his tools
    Made me a counterfeit; yet my mother seem'd
    The Dian of that time. So doth my wife
    The nonpareil of this. O, vengeance, vengeance!
    Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd,
    And pray'd me oft forbearance; did it with
    A pudency so rosy, the sweet view on't
    Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that I thought her
    As chaste as unsunn'd snow. O, all the devils!
    This yellow Iachimo in an hour- was't not?
    Or less!- at first? Perchance he spoke not, but,
    Like a full-acorn'd boar, a German one,
    Cried 'O!' and mounted; found no opposition
    But what he look'd for should oppose and she
    Should from encounter guard. Could I find out
    The woman's part in me! For there's no motion
    That tends to vice in man but I affirm
    It is the woman's part. Be it lying, note it,
    The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;
    Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers;
    Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,
    Nice longing, slanders, mutability,
    All faults that man may name, nay, that hell knows,
    Why, hers, in part or all; but rather all;
    For even to vice
    They are not constant, but are changing still
    One vice but of a minute old for one
    Not half so old as that. I'll write against them,
    Detest them, curse them. Yet 'tis greater skill
    In a true hate to pray they have their will:
    The very devils cannot plague them better.              Exit

ACT III. SCENE I. Britain. A hall in CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter in state, CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, and LORDS at one door, and at
another CAIUS LUCIUS and attendants

  CYMBELINE. Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us?
  LUCIUS. When Julius Caesar- whose remembrance yet
    Lives in men's eyes, and will to ears and tongues
    Be theme and hearing ever- was in this Britain,
    And conquer'd it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,
    Famous in Caesar's praises no whit less
    Than in his feats deserving it, for him
    And his succession granted Rome a tribute,
    Yearly three thousand pounds, which by thee lately
    Is left untender'd.
  QUEEN. And, to kill the marvel,
    Shall be so ever.
  CLOTEN. There be many Caesars
    Ere such another Julius. Britain is
    A world by itself, and we will nothing pay
    For wearing our own noses.
  QUEEN. That opportunity,
    Which then they had to take from 's, to resume
    We have again. Remember, sir, my liege,
    The kings your ancestors, together with
    The natural bravery of your isle, which stands
    As Neptune's park, ribb'd and pal'd in
    With rocks unscalable and roaring waters,
    With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats
    But suck them up to th' top-mast. A kind of conquest
    Caesar made here; but made not here his brag
    Of 'came, and saw, and overcame.' With shame-
    The first that ever touch'd him- he was carried
    From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping-
    Poor ignorant baubles!- on our terrible seas,
    Like egg-shells mov'd upon their surges, crack'd
    As easily 'gainst our rocks; for joy whereof
    The fam'd Cassibelan, who was once at point-
    O, giglot fortune!- to master Caesar's sword,
    Made Lud's Town with rejoicing fires bright
    And Britons strut with courage.
  CLOTEN. Come, there's no more tribute to be paid. Our kingdom is
    stronger than it was at that time; and, as I said, there is no
    moe such Caesars. Other of them may have crook'd noses; but to
    owe such straight arms, none.
  CYMBELINE. Son, let your mother end.
  CLOTEN. We have yet many among us can gripe as hard as Cassibelan.
    I do not say I am one; but I have a hand. Why tribute? Why should
    we pay tribute? If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket,
    or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light;
    else, sir, no more tribute, pray you now.
  CYMBELINE. You must know,
    Till the injurious Romans did extort
    This tribute from us, we were free. Caesar's ambition-
    Which swell'd so much that it did almost stretch
    The sides o' th' world- against all colour here
    Did put the yoke upon's; which to shake of
    Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon
    Ourselves to be.
  CLOTEN. We do.
  CYMBELINE. Say then to Caesar,
    Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which
    Ordain'd our laws- whose use the sword of Caesar
    Hath too much mangled; whose repair and franchise
    Shall, by the power we hold, be our good deed,
    Though Rome be therefore angry. Mulmutius made our laws,
    Who was the first of Britain which did put
    His brows within a golden crown, and call'd
    Himself a king.
  LUCIUS. I am sorry, Cymbeline,
    That I am to pronounce Augustus Caesar-
    Caesar, that hath moe kings his servants than
    Thyself domestic officers- thine enemy.
    Receive it from me, then: war and confusion
    In Caesar's name pronounce I 'gainst thee; look
    For fury not to be resisted. Thus defied,
    I thank thee for myself.
  CYMBELINE. Thou art welcome, Caius.
    Thy Caesar knighted me; my youth I spent
    Much under him; of him I gather'd honour,
    Which he to seek of me again, perforce,
    Behoves me keep at utterance. I am perfect
    That the Pannonians and Dalmatians for
    Their liberties are now in arms, a precedent
    Which not to read would show the Britons cold;
    So Caesar shall not find them.
  LUCIUS. Let proof speak.
  CLOTEN. His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or
    two, or longer. If you seek us afterwards in other terms, you
    shall find us in our salt-water girdle. If you beat us out of it,
    it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare
    the better for you; and there's an end.
  LUCIUS. So, sir.
  CYMBELINE. I know your master's pleasure, and he mine;
    All the remain is, welcome.                           Exeunt

SCENE II. Britain. Another room in CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter PISANIO reading of a letter

  PISANIO. How? of adultery? Wherefore write you not
    What monsters her accuse? Leonatus!
    O master, what a strange infection
    Is fall'n into thy ear! What false Italian-
    As poisonous-tongu'd as handed- hath prevail'd
    On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal? No.
    She's punish'd for her truth, and undergoes,
    More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults
    As would take in some virtue. O my master!
    Thy mind to her is now as low as were
    Thy fortunes. How? that I should murder her?
    Upon the love, and truth, and vows, which I
    Have made to thy command? I, her? Her blood?
    If it be so to do good service, never
    Let me be counted serviceable. How look I
    That I should seem to lack humanity
    So much as this fact comes to? [Reads] 'Do't. The letter
    That I have sent her, by her own command
    Shall give thee opportunity.' O damn'd paper,
    Black as the ink that's on thee! Senseless bauble,
    Art thou a fedary for this act, and look'st
    So virgin-like without? Lo, here she comes.

                      Enter IMOGEN

    I am ignorant in what I am commanded.
  IMOGEN. How now, Pisanio!
  PISANIO. Madam, here is a letter from my lord.
  IMOGEN. Who? thy lord? That is my lord- Leonatus?
    O, learn'd indeed were that astronomer
    That knew the stars as I his characters-
    He'd lay the future open. You good gods,
    Let what is here contain'd relish of love,
    Of my lord's health, of his content; yet not
    That we two are asunder- let that grieve him!
    Some griefs are med'cinable; that is one of them,
    For it doth physic love- of his content,
    All but in that. Good wax, thy leave. Blest be
    You bees that make these locks of counsel! Lovers
    And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike;
    Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet
    You clasp young Cupid's tables. Good news, gods!
                                                         [Reads]
    'Justice and your father's wrath, should he take me in his
    dominion, could not be so cruel to me as you, O the dearest of
    creatures, would even renew me with your eyes. Take notice that I
    am in Cambria, at Milford Haven. What your own love will out of
    this advise you, follow. So he wishes you all happiness that
    remains loyal to his vow, and your increasing in love
                                            LEONATUS POSTHUMUS.'

    O for a horse with wings! Hear'st thou, Pisanio?
    He is at Milford Haven. Read, and tell me
    How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs
    May plod it in a week, why may not I
    Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio-
    Who long'st like me to see thy lord, who long'st-
    O, let me 'bate!- but not like me, yet long'st,
    But in a fainter kind- O, not like me,
    For mine's beyond beyond!-say, and speak thick-
    Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing
    To th' smothering of the sense- how far it is
    To this same blessed Milford. And by th' way
    Tell me how Wales was made so happy as
    T' inherit such a haven. But first of all,
    How we may steal from hence; and for the gap
    That we shall make in time from our hence-going
    And our return, to excuse. But first, how get hence.
    Why should excuse be born or ere begot?
    We'll talk of that hereafter. Prithee speak,
    How many score of miles may we well ride
    'Twixt hour and hour?
  PISANIO. One score 'twixt sun and sun,
    Madam, 's enough for you, and too much too.
  IMOGEN. Why, one that rode to's execution, man,
    Could never go so slow. I have heard of riding wagers
    Where horses have been nimbler than the sands
    That run i' th' clock's behalf. But this is fool'ry.
    Go bid my woman feign a sickness; say
    She'll home to her father; and provide me presently
    A riding suit, no costlier than would fit
    A franklin's huswife.
  PISANIO. Madam, you're best consider.
  IMOGEN. I see before me, man. Nor here, nor here,
    Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them
    That I cannot look through. Away, I prithee;
    Do as I bid thee. There's no more to say;
    Accessible is none but Milford way.                   Exeunt

SCENE III. Wales. A mountainous country with a cave

Enter from the cave BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS

  BELARIUS. A goodly day not to keep house with such
    Whose roof's as low as ours! Stoop, boys; this gate
    Instructs you how t' adore the heavens, and bows you
    To a morning's holy office. The gates of monarchs
    Are arch'd so high that giants may jet through
    And keep their impious turbans on without
    Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!
    We house i' th' rock, yet use thee not so hardly
    As prouder livers do.
  GUIDERIUS. Hail, heaven!
  ARVIRAGUS. Hail, heaven!
  BELARIUS. Now for our mountain sport. Up to yond hill,
    Your legs are young; I'll tread these flats. Consider,
    When you above perceive me like a crow,
    That it is place which lessens and sets off;
    And you may then revolve what tales I have told you
    Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war.
    This service is not service so being done,
    But being so allow'd. To apprehend thus
    Draws us a profit from all things we see,
    And often to our comfort shall we find
    The sharded beetle in a safer hold
    Than is the full-wing'd eagle. O, this life
    Is nobler than attending for a check,
    Richer than doing nothing for a bribe,
    Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk:
    Such gain the cap of him that makes him fine,
    Yet keeps his book uncross'd. No life to ours!
  GUIDERIUS. Out of your proof you speak. We, poor unfledg'd,
    Have never wing'd from view o' th' nest, nor know not
    What air's from home. Haply this life is best,
    If quiet life be best; sweeter to you
    That have a sharper known; well corresponding
    With your stiff age. But unto us it is
    A cell of ignorance, travelling abed,
    A prison for a debtor that not dares
    To stride a limit.
  ARVIRAGUS. What should we speak of
    When we are old as you? When we shall hear
    The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
    In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse.
    The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;
    We are beastly: subtle as the fox for prey,
    Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat.
    Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
    We make a choir, as doth the prison'd bird,
    And sing our bondage freely.
  BELARIUS. How you speak!
    Did you but know the city's usuries,
    And felt them knowingly- the art o' th' court,
    As hard to leave as keep, whose top to climb
    Is certain falling, or so slipp'ry that
    The fear's as bad as falling; the toil o' th' war,
    A pain that only seems to seek out danger
    I' th'name of fame and honour, which dies i' th'search,
    And hath as oft a sland'rous epitaph
    As record of fair act; nay, many times,
    Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse-
    Must curtsy at the censure. O, boys, this story
    The world may read in me; my body's mark'd
    With Roman swords, and my report was once
    first with the best of note. Cymbeline lov'd me;
    And when a soldier was the theme, my name
    Was not far off. Then was I as a tree
    Whose boughs did bend with fruit; but in one night
    A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,
    Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
    And left me bare to weather.
  GUIDERIUS. Uncertain favour!
  BELARIUS. My fault being nothing- as I have told you oft-
    But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail'd
    Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline
    I was confederate with the Romans. So
    Follow'd my banishment, and this twenty years
    This rock and these demesnes have been my world,
    Where I have liv'd at honest freedom, paid
    More pious debts to heaven than in all
    The fore-end of my time. But up to th' mountains!
    This is not hunters' language. He that strikes
    The venison first shall be the lord o' th' feast;
    To him the other two shall minister;
    And we will fear no poison, which attends
    In place of greater state. I'll meet you in the valleys.
                                  Exeunt GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS
    How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!
    These boys know little they are sons to th' King,
    Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
    They think they are mine; and though train'd up thus meanly
    I' th' cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
    The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them
    In simple and low things to prince it much
    Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,
    The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who
    The King his father call'd Guiderius- Jove!
    When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell
    The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out
    Into my story; say 'Thus mine enemy fell,
    And thus I set my foot on's neck'; even then
    The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats,
    Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture
    That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal,
    Once Arviragus, in as like a figure
    Strikes life into my speech, and shows much more
    His own conceiving. Hark, the game is rous'd!
    O Cymbeline, heaven and my conscience knows
    Thou didst unjustly banish me! Whereon,
    At three and two years old, I stole these babes,
    Thinking to bar thee of succession as
    Thou refts me of my lands. Euriphile,
    Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their mother,
    And every day do honour to her grave.
    Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call'd,
    They take for natural father. The game is up.           Exit

SCENE IV. Wales, near Milford Haven

Enter PISANIO and IMOGEN

  IMOGEN. Thou told'st me, when we came from horse, the place
    Was near at hand. Ne'er long'd my mother so
    To see me first as I have now. Pisanio! Man!
    Where is Posthumus? What is in thy mind
    That makes thee stare thus? Wherefore breaks that sigh
    From th' inward of thee? One but painted thus
    Would be interpreted a thing perplex'd
    Beyond self-explication. Put thyself
    Into a haviour of less fear, ere wildness
    Vanquish my staider senses. What's the matter?
    Why tender'st thou that paper to me with
    A look untender! If't be summer news,
    Smile to't before; if winterly, thou need'st
    But keep that count'nance still. My husband's hand?
    That drug-damn'd Italy hath out-craftied him,
    And he's at some hard point. Speak, man; thy tongue
    May take off some extremity, which to read
    Would be even mortal to me.
  PISANIO. Please you read,
    And you shall find me, wretched man, a thing
    The most disdain'd of fortune.
  IMOGEN. [Reads] 'Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath play'd the strumpet in
    my bed, the testimonies whereof lie bleeding in me. I speak not
    out of weak surmises, but from proof as strong as my grief and as
    certain as I expect my revenge. That part thou, Pisanio, must act
    for me, if thy faith be not tainted with the breach of hers. Let
    thine own hands take away her life; I shall give thee opportunity
    at Milford Haven; she hath my letter for the purpose; where, if
    thou fear to strike, and to make me certain it is done, thou art
    the pander to her dishonour, and equally to me disloyal.'
  PISANIO. What shall I need to draw my sword? The paper
    Hath cut her throat already. No, 'tis slander,
    Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
    Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
    Rides on the posting winds and doth belie
    All corners of the world. Kings, queens, and states,
    Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave,
    This viperous slander enters. What cheer, madam?
  IMOGEN. False to his bed? What is it to be false?
    To lie in watch there, and to think on him?
    To weep twixt clock and clock? If sleep charge nature,
    To break it with a fearful dream of him,
    And cry myself awake? That's false to's bed,
    Is it?
  PISANIO. Alas, good lady!
  IMOGEN. I false! Thy conscience witness! Iachimo,
    Thou didst accuse him of incontinency;
    Thou then look'dst like a villain; now, methinks,
    Thy favour's good enough. Some jay of Italy,
    Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him.
    Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion,
    And for I am richer than to hang by th' walls
    I must be ripp'd. To pieces with me! O,
    Men's vows are women's traitors! All good seeming,
    By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought
    Put on for villainy; not born where't grows,
    But worn a bait for ladies.
  PISANIO. Good madam, hear me.
  IMOGEN. True honest men being heard, like false Aeneas,
    Were, in his time, thought false; and Sinon's weeping
    Did scandal many a holy tear, took pity
    From most true wretchedness. So thou, Posthumus,
    Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men:
    Goodly and gallant shall be false and perjur'd
    From thy great fail. Come, fellow, be thou honest;
    Do thou thy master's bidding; when thou seest him,
    A little witness my obedience. Look!
    I draw the sword myself; take it, and hit
    The innocent mansion of my love, my heart.
    Fear not; 'tis empty of all things but grief;
    Thy master is not there, who was indeed
    The riches of it. Do his bidding; strike.
    Thou mayst be valiant in a better cause,
    But now thou seem'st a coward.
  PISANIO. Hence, vile instrument!
    Thou shalt not damn my hand.
  IMOGEN. Why, I must die;
    And if I do not by thy hand, thou art
    No servant of thy master's. Against self-slaughter
    There is a prohibition so divine
    That cravens my weak hand. Come, here's my heart-
    Something's afore't. Soft, soft! we'll no defence!-
    Obedient as the scabbard. What is here?
    The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus
    All turn'd to heresy? Away, away,
    Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more
    Be stomachers to my heart. Thus may poor fools
    Believe false teachers; though those that are betray'd
    Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
    Stands in worse case of woe. And thou, Posthumus,
    That didst set up my disobedience 'gainst the King
    My father, and make me put into contempt the suits
    Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find
    It is no act of common passage but
    A strain of rareness; and I grieve myself
    To think, when thou shalt be disedg'd by her
    That now thou tirest on, how thy memory
    Will then be pang'd by me. Prithee dispatch.
    The lamp entreats the butcher. Where's thy knife?
    Thou art too slow to do thy master's bidding,
    When I desire it too.
  PISANIO. O gracious lady,
    Since I receiv'd command to do this busines
    I have not slept one wink.
  IMOGEN. Do't, and to bed then.
  PISANIO. I'll wake mine eyeballs first.
  IMOGEN. Wherefore then
    Didst undertake it? Why hast thou abus'd
    So many miles with a pretence? This place?
    Mine action and thine own? our horses' labour?
    The time inviting thee? the perturb'd court,
    For my being absent?- whereunto I never
    Purpose return. Why hast thou gone so far
    To be unbent when thou hast ta'en thy stand,
    Th' elected deer before thee?
  PISANIO. But to win time
    To lose so bad employment, in the which
    I have consider'd of a course. Good lady,
    Hear me with patience.
  IMOGEN. Talk thy tongue weary- speak.
    I have heard I am a strumpet, and mine ear,
    Therein false struck, can take no greater wound,
    Nor tent to bottom that. But speak.
  PISANIO. Then, madam,
    I thought you would not back again.
  IMOGEN. Most like-
    Bringing me here to kill me.
  PISANIO. Not so, neither;
    But if I were as wise as honest, then
    My purpose would prove well. It cannot be
    But that my master is abus'd. Some villain,
    Ay, and singular in his art, hath done you both
    This cursed injury.
  IMOGEN. Some Roman courtezan!
  PISANIO. No, on my life!
    I'll give but notice you are dead, and send him
    Some bloody sign of it, for 'tis commanded
    I should do so. You shall be miss'd at court,
    And that will well confirm it.
  IMOGEN. Why, good fellow,
    What shall I do the while? where bide? how live?
    Or in my life what comfort, when I am
    Dead to my husband?
  PISANIO. If you'll back to th' court-
  IMOGEN. No court, no father, nor no more ado
    With that harsh, noble, simple nothing-
    That Cloten, whose love-suit hath been to me
    As fearful as a siege.
  PISANIO. If not at court,
    Then not in Britain must you bide.
  IMOGEN. Where then?
    Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,
    Are they not but in Britain? I' th' world's volume
    Our Britain seems as of it, but not in't;
    In a great pool a swan's nest. Prithee think
    There's livers out of Britain.
  PISANIO. I am most glad
    You think of other place. Th' ambassador,
  LUCIUS the Roman, comes to Milford Haven
    To-morrow. Now, if you could wear a mind
    Dark as your fortune is, and but disguise
    That which t' appear itself must not yet be
    But by self-danger, you should tread a course
    Pretty and full of view; yea, happily, near
    The residence of Posthumus; so nigh, at least,
    That though his actions were not visible, yet
    Report should render him hourly to your ear
    As truly as he moves.
  IMOGEN. O! for such means,
    Though peril to my modesty, not death on't,
    I would adventure.
  PISANIO. Well then, here's the point:
    You must forget to be a woman; change
    Command into obedience; fear and niceness-
    The handmaids of all women, or, more truly,
    Woman it pretty self- into a waggish courage;
    Ready in gibes, quick-answer'd, saucy, and
    As quarrelous as the weasel. Nay, you must
    Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek,
    Exposing it- but, O, the harder heart!
    Alack, no remedy!- to the greedy touch
    Of common-kissing Titan, and forget
    Your laboursome and dainty trims wherein
    You made great Juno angry.
  IMOGEN. Nay, be brief;
    I see into thy end, and am almost
    A man already.
  PISANIO. First, make yourself but like one.
    Fore-thinking this, I have already fit-
    'Tis in my cloak-bag- doublet, hat, hose, all
    That answer to them. Would you, in their serving,
    And with what imitation you can borrow
    From youth of such a season, fore noble Lucius
    Present yourself, desire his service, tell him
    Wherein you're happy- which will make him know
    If that his head have ear in music; doubtless
    With joy he will embrace you; for he's honourable,
    And, doubling that, most holy. Your means abroad-
    You have me, rich; and I will never fail
    Beginning nor supplyment.
  IMOGEN. Thou art all the comfort
    The gods will diet me with. Prithee away!
    There's more to be consider'd; but we'll even
    All that good time will give us. This attempt
    I am soldier to, and will abide it with
    A prince's courage. Away, I prithee.
  PISANIO. Well, madam, we must take a short farewell,
    Lest, being miss'd, I be suspected of
    Your carriage from the court. My noble mistress,
    Here is a box; I had it from the Queen.
    What's in't is precious. If you are sick at sea
    Or stomach-qualm'd at land, a dram of this
    Will drive away distemper. To some shade,
    And fit you to your manhood. May the gods
    Direct you to the best!
  IMOGEN. Amen. I thank thee.                   Exeunt severally

SCENE V. Britain. CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, LUCIUS, and LORDS

  CYMBELINE. Thus far; and so farewell.
  LUCIUS. Thanks, royal sir.
    My emperor hath wrote; I must from hence,
    And am right sorry that I must report ye
    My master's enemy.
  CYMBELINE. Our subjects, sir,
    Will not endure his yoke; and for ourself
    To show less sovereignty than they, must needs
    Appear unkinglike.
  LUCIUS. So, sir. I desire of you
    A conduct overland to Milford Haven.
    Madam, all joy befall your Grace, and you!
  CYMBELINE. My lords, you are appointed for that office;
    The due of honour in no point omit.
    So farewell, noble Lucius.
  LUCIUS. Your hand, my lord.
  CLOTEN. Receive it friendly; but from this time forth
    I wear it as your enemy.
  LUCIUS. Sir, the event
    Is yet to name the winner. Fare you well.
  CYMBELINE. Leave not the worthy Lucius, good my lords,
    Till he have cross'd the Severn. Happiness!
                                         Exeunt LUCIUS and LORDS
  QUEEN. He goes hence frowning; but it honours us
    That we have given him cause.
  CLOTEN. 'Tis all the better;
    Your valiant Britons have their wishes in it.
  CYMBELINE. Lucius hath wrote already to the Emperor
    How it goes here. It fits us therefore ripely
    Our chariots and our horsemen be in readiness.
    The pow'rs that he already hath in Gallia
    Will soon be drawn to head, from whence he moves
    His war for Britain.
  QUEEN. 'Tis not sleepy business,
    But must be look'd to speedily and strongly.
  CYMBELINE. Our expectation that it would be thus
    Hath made us forward. But, my gentle queen,
    Where is our daughter? She hath not appear'd
    Before the Roman, nor to us hath tender'd
    The duty of the day. She looks us like
    A thing more made of malice than of duty;
    We have noted it. Call her before us, for
    We have been too slight in sufferance.      Exit a MESSENGER
  QUEEN. Royal sir,
    Since the exile of Posthumus, most retir'd
    Hath her life been; the cure whereof, my lord,
    'Tis time must do. Beseech your Majesty,
    Forbear sharp speeches to her; she's a lady
    So tender of rebukes that words are strokes,
    And strokes death to her.

                 Re-enter MESSENGER

  CYMBELINE. Where is she, sir? How
    Can her contempt be answer'd?
  MESSENGER. Please you, sir,
    Her chambers are all lock'd, and there's no answer
    That will be given to th' loud of noise we make.
  QUEEN. My lord, when last I went to visit her,
    She pray'd me to excuse her keeping close;
    Whereto constrain'd by her infirmity
    She should that duty leave unpaid to you
    Which daily she was bound to proffer. This
    She wish'd me to make known; but our great court
    Made me to blame in memory.
  CYMBELINE. Her doors lock'd?
    Not seen of late? Grant, heavens, that which I fear
    Prove false!                                            Exit
  QUEEN. Son, I say, follow the King.
  CLOTEN. That man of hers, Pisanio, her old servant,
    I have not seen these two days.
  QUEEN. Go, look after.                             Exit CLOTEN
    Pisanio, thou that stand'st so for Posthumus!
    He hath a drug of mine. I pray his absence
    Proceed by swallowing that; for he believes
    It is a thing most precious. But for her,
    Where is she gone? Haply despair hath seiz'd her;
    Or, wing'd with fervour of her love, she's flown
    To her desir'd Posthumus. Gone she is
    To death or to dishonour, and my end
    Can make good use of either. She being down,
    I have the placing of the British crown.

                   Re-enter CLOTEN

    How now, my son?
  CLOTEN. 'Tis certain she is fled.
    Go in and cheer the King. He rages; none
    Dare come about him.
  QUEEN. All the better. May
    This night forestall him of the coming day!             Exit
  CLOTEN. I love and hate her; for she's fair and royal,
    And that she hath all courtly parts more exquisite
    Than lady, ladies, woman. From every one
    The best she hath, and she, of all compounded,
    Outsells them all. I love her therefore; but
    Disdaining me and throwing favours on
    The low Posthumus slanders so her judgment
    That what's else rare is chok'd; and in that point
    I will conclude to hate her, nay, indeed,
    To be reveng'd upon her. For when fools
    Shall-

                    Enter PISANIO

    Who is here? What, are you packing, sirrah?
    Come hither. Ah, you precious pander! Villain,
    Where is thy lady? In a word, or else
    Thou art straightway with the fiends.
  PISANIO. O good my lord!
  CLOTEN. Where is thy lady? or, by Jupiter-
    I will not ask again. Close villain,
    I'll have this secret from thy heart, or rip
    Thy heart to find it. Is she with Posthumus?
    From whose so many weights of baseness cannot
    A dram of worth be drawn.
  PISANIO. Alas, my lord,
    How can she be with him? When was she miss'd?
    He is in Rome.
  CLOTEN. Where is she, sir? Come nearer.
    No farther halting! Satisfy me home
    What is become of her.
  PISANIO. O my all-worthy lord!
  CLOTEN. All-worthy villain!
    Discover where thy mistress is at once,
    At the next word. No more of 'worthy lord'!
    Speak, or thy silence on the instant is
    Thy condemnation and thy death.
  PISANIO. Then, sir,
    This paper is the history of my knowledge
    Touching her flight.                   [Presenting a letter]
  CLOTEN. Let's see't. I will pursue her
    Even to Augustus' throne.
  PISANIO. [Aside] Or this or perish.
    She's far enough; and what he learns by this
    May prove his travel, not her danger.
  CLOTEN. Humh!
  PISANIO. [Aside] I'll write to my lord she's dead. O Imogen,
    Safe mayst thou wander, safe return again!
  CLOTEN. Sirrah, is this letter true?
  PISANIO. Sir, as I think.
  CLOTEN. It is Posthumus' hand; I know't. Sirrah, if thou wouldst
    not be a villain, but do me true service, undergo those
    employments wherein I should have cause to use thee with a
    serious industry- that is, what villainy soe'er I bid thee do, to
    perform it directly and truly- I would think thee an honest man;
    thou shouldst neither want my means for thy relief nor my voice
    for thy preferment.
  PISANIO. Well, my good lord.
  CLOTEN. Wilt thou serve me? For since patiently and constantly thou
    hast stuck to the bare fortune of that beggar Posthumus, thou
    canst not, in the course of gratitude, but be a diligent follower
    of mine. Wilt thou serve me?
  PISANIO. Sir, I will.
  CLOTEN. Give me thy hand; here's my purse. Hast any of thy late
    master's garments in thy possession?
  PISANIO. I have, my lord, at my lodging, the same suit he wore when
    he took leave of my lady and mistress.
  CLOTEN. The first service thou dost me, fetch that suit hither. Let
    it be thy first service; go.
  PISANIO. I shall, my lord.                                Exit
  CLOTEN. Meet thee at Milford Haven! I forgot to ask him one thing;
    I'll remember't anon. Even there, thou villain Posthumus, will I
    kill thee. I would these garments were come. She said upon a
    time- the bitterness of it I now belch from my heart- that she
    held the very garment of Posthumus in more respect than my noble
    and natural person, together with the adornment of my qualities.
    With that suit upon my back will I ravish her; first kill him,
    and in her eyes. There shall she see my valour, which will then
    be a torment to her contempt. He on the ground, my speech of
    insultment ended on his dead body, and when my lust hath dined-
    which, as I say, to vex her I will execute in the clothes that
    she so prais'd- to the court I'll knock her back, foot her home
    again. She hath despis'd me rejoicingly, and I'll be merry in my
    revenge.

                Re-enter PISANIO, with the clothes

    Be those the garments?
  PISANIO. Ay, my noble lord.
  CLOTEN. How long is't since she went to Milford Haven?
  PISANIO. She can scarce be there yet.
  CLOTEN. Bring this apparel to my chamber; that is the second thing
    that I have commanded thee. The third is that thou wilt be a
    voluntary mute to my design. Be but duteous and true, preferment
    shall tender itself to thee. My revenge is now at Milford, would
    I had wings to follow it! Come, and be true.            Exit
  PISANIO. Thou bid'st me to my loss; for true to thee
    Were to prove false, which I will never be,
    To him that is most true. To Milford go,
    And find not her whom thou pursuest. Flow, flow,
    You heavenly blessings, on her! This fool's speed
    Be cross'd with slowness! Labour be his meed!           Exit

SCENE VI. Wales. Before the cave of BELARIUS

Enter IMOGEN alone, in boy's clothes

  IMOGEN. I see a man's life is a tedious one.
    I have tir'd myself, and for two nights together
    Have made the ground my bed. I should be sick
    But that my resolution helps me. Milford,
    When from the mountain-top Pisanio show'd thee,
    Thou wast within a ken. O Jove! I think
    Foundations fly the wretched; such, I mean,
    Where they should be reliev'd. Two beggars told me
    I could not miss my way. Will poor folks lie,
    That have afflictions on them, knowing 'tis
    A punishment or trial? Yes; no wonder,
    When rich ones scarce tell true. To lapse in fulness
    Is sorer than to lie for need; and falsehood
    Is worse in kings than beggars. My dear lord!
    Thou art one o' th' false ones. Now I think on thee
    My hunger's gone; but even before, I was
    At point to sink for food. But what is this?
    Here is a path to't; 'tis some savage hold.
    I were best not call; I dare not call. Yet famine,
    Ere clean it o'erthrow nature, makes it valiant.
    Plenty and peace breeds cowards; hardness ever
    Of hardiness is mother. Ho! who's here?
    If anything that's civil, speak; if savage,
    Take or lend. Ho! No answer? Then I'll enter.
    Best draw my sword; and if mine enemy
    But fear the sword, like me, he'll scarcely look on't.
    Such a foe, good heavens!                 Exit into the cave

            Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS

  BELARIUS. You, Polydore, have prov'd best woodman and
    Are master of the feast. Cadwal and I
    Will play the cook and servant; 'tis our match.
    The sweat of industry would dry and die
    But for the end it works to. Come, our stomachs
    Will make what's homely savoury; weariness
    Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
    Finds the down pillow hard. Now, peace be here,
    Poor house, that keep'st thyself!
  GUIDERIUS. I am thoroughly weary.
  ARVIRAGUS. I am weak with toil, yet strong in appetite.
  GUIDERIUS. There is cold meat i' th' cave; we'll browse on that
    Whilst what we have kill'd be cook'd.
  BELARIUS. [Looking into the cave] Stay, come not in.
    But that it eats our victuals, I should think
    Here were a fairy.
  GUIDERIUS. What's the matter, sir?
  BELARIUS.. By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,
    An earthly paragon! Behold divineness
    No elder than a boy!

                       Re-enter IMOGEN

  IMOGEN. Good masters, harm me not.
    Before I enter'd here I call'd, and thought
    To have begg'd or bought what I have took. Good troth,
    I have stol'n nought; nor would not though I had found
    Gold strew'd i' th' floor. Here's money for my meat.
    I would have left it on the board, so soon
    As I had made my meal, and parted
    With pray'rs for the provider.
  GUIDERIUS. Money, youth?
  ARVIRAGUS. All gold and silver rather turn to dirt,
    As 'tis no better reckon'd but of those
    Who worship dirty gods.
  IMOGEN. I see you're angry.
    Know, if you kill me for my fault, I should
    Have died had I not made it.
  BELARIUS. Whither bound?
  IMOGEN. To Milford Haven.
  BELARIUS. What's your name?
  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir. I have a kinsman who
    Is bound for Italy; he embark'd at Milford;
    To whom being going, almost spent with hunger,
    I am fall'n in this offence.
  BELARIUS. Prithee, fair youth,
    Think us no churls, nor measure our good minds
    By this rude place we live in. Well encounter'd!
    'Tis almost night; you shall have better cheer
    Ere you depart, and thanks to stay and eat it.
    Boys, bid him welcome.
  GUIDERIUS. Were you a woman, youth,
    I should woo hard but be your groom. In honesty
    I bid for you as I'd buy.
  ARVIRAGUS. I'll make't my comfort
    He is a man. I'll love him as my brother;
    And such a welcome as I'd give to him
    After long absence, such is yours. Most welcome!
    Be sprightly, for you fall 'mongst friends.
  IMOGEN. 'Mongst friends,
    If brothers. [Aside] Would it had been so that they
    Had been my father's sons! Then had my prize
    Been less, and so more equal ballasting
    To thee, Posthumus.
  BELARIUS. He wrings at some distress.
  GUIDERIUS. Would I could free't!
  ARVIRAGUS. Or I, whate'er it be,
    What pain it cost, what danger! Gods!
  BELARIUS. [Whispering] Hark, boys.
  IMOGEN. [Aside] Great men,
    That had a court no bigger than this cave,
    That did attend themselves, and had the virtue
    Which their own conscience seal'd them, laying by
    That nothing-gift of differing multitudes,
    Could not out-peer these twain. Pardon me, gods!
    I'd change my sex to be companion with them,
    Since Leonatus' false.
  BELARIUS. It shall be so.
    Boys, we'll go dress our hunt. Fair youth, come in.
    Discourse is heavy, fasting; when we have supp'd,
    We'll mannerly demand thee of thy story,
    So far as thou wilt speak it.
  GUIDERIUS. Pray draw near.
  ARVIRAGUS. The night to th' owl and morn to th' lark less welcome.
  IMOGEN. Thanks, sir.
  ARVIRAGUS. I pray draw near.                            Exeunt

SCENE VII. Rome. A public place

Enter two ROMAN SENATORS and TRIBUNES

  FIRST SENATOR. This is the tenour of the Emperor's writ:
    That since the common men are now in action
    'Gainst the Pannonians and Dalmatians,
    And that the legions now in Gallia are
    Full weak to undertake our wars against
    The fall'n-off Britons, that we do incite
    The gentry to this business. He creates
    Lucius proconsul; and to you, the tribunes,
    For this immediate levy, he commands
    His absolute commission. Long live Caesar!
  TRIBUNE. Is Lucius general of the forces?
  SECOND SENATOR. Ay.
  TRIBUNE. Remaining now in Gallia?
  FIRST SENATOR. With those legions
    Which I have spoke of, whereunto your levy
    Must be supplyant. The words of your commission
    Will tie you to the numbers and the time
    Of their dispatch.
  TRIBUNE. We will discharge our duty.                    Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Wales. Near the cave of BELARIUS

Enter CLOTEN alone

  CLOTEN. I am near to th' place where they should meet, if Pisanio
  have mapp'd it truly. How fit his garments serve me! Why should his
  mistress, who was made by him that made the tailor, not be fit too?
  The rather- saving reverence of the word- for 'tis said a woman's
  fitness comes by fits. Therein I must play the workman. I dare speak
  it to myself, for it is not vain-glory for a man and his glass to
  confer in his own chamber- I mean, the lines of my body are as well
  drawn as his; no less young, more strong, not beneath him in
  fortunes, beyond him in the advantage of the time, above him in
  birth, alike conversant in general services, and more remarkable in
  single oppositions. Yet this imperceiverant thing loves him in my
  despite. What mortality is! Posthumus, thy head, which now is growing
  upon thy shoulders, shall within this hour be off; thy mistress
  enforced; thy garments cut to pieces before her face; and all this
  done, spurn her home to her father, who may, haply, be a little angry
  for my so rough usage; but my mother, having power of his testiness,
  shall turn all into my commendations. My horse is tied up safe. Out,
  sword, and to a sore purpose! Fortune, put them into my hand. This is
  the very description of their meeting-place; and the fellow dares not
  deceive me.                                             Exit

SCENE II. Wales. Before the cave of BELARIUS

Enter, from the cave, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, and IMOGEN

  BELARIUS. [To IMOGEN] You are not well. Remain here in the cave;
    We'll come to you after hunting.
  ARVIRAGUS. [To IMOGEN] Brother, stay here.
    Are we not brothers?
  IMOGEN. So man and man should be;
    But clay and clay differs in dignity,
    Whose dust is both alike. I am very sick.
  GUIDERIUS. Go you to hunting; I'll abide with him.
  IMOGEN. So sick I am not, yet I am not well;
    But not so citizen a wanton as
    To seem to die ere sick. So please you, leave me;
    Stick to your journal course. The breach of custom
    Is breach of all. I am ill, but your being by me
    Cannot amend me; society is no comfort
    To one not sociable. I am not very sick,
    Since I can reason of it. Pray you trust me here.
    I'll rob none but myself; and let me die,
    Stealing so poorly.
  GUIDERIUS. I love thee; I have spoke it.
    How much the quantity, the weight as much
    As I do love my father.
  BELARIUS. What? how? how?
  ARVIRAGUS. If it be sin to say so, sir, I yoke me
    In my good brother's fault. I know not why
    I love this youth, and I have heard you say
    Love's reason's without reason. The bier at door,
    And a demand who is't shall die, I'd say
    'My father, not this youth.'
  BELARIUS. [Aside] O noble strain!
    O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness!
    Cowards father cowards and base things sire base.
    Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace.
    I'm not their father; yet who this should be
    Doth miracle itself, lov'd before me.-
    'Tis the ninth hour o' th' morn.
  ARVIRAGUS. Brother, farewell.
  IMOGEN. I wish ye sport.
  ARVIRAGUS. Your health. [To BELARIUS] So please you, sir.
  IMOGEN. [Aside] These are kind creatures. Gods, what lies I have
      heard!
    Our courtiers say all's savage but at court.
    Experience, O, thou disprov'st report!
    Th' imperious seas breed monsters; for the dish,
    Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.
    I am sick still; heart-sick. Pisanio,
    I'll now taste of thy drug.                  [Swallows some]
  GUIDERIUS. I could not stir him.
    He said he was gentle, but unfortunate;
    Dishonestly afflicted, but yet honest.
  ARVIRAGUS. Thus did he answer me; yet said hereafter
    I might know more.
  BELARIUS. To th' field, to th' field!
    We'll leave you for this time. Go in and rest.
  ARVIRAGUS. We'll not be long away.
  BELARIUS. Pray be not sick,
    For you must be our huswife.
  IMOGEN. Well, or ill,
    I am bound to you.
  BELARIUS. And shalt be ever.         Exit IMOGEN into the cave
    This youth, howe'er distress'd, appears he hath had
    Good ancestors.
  ARVIRAGUS. How angel-like he sings!
  GUIDERIUS. But his neat cookery! He cut our roots in characters,
    And sauc'd our broths as Juno had been sick,
    And he her dieter.
  ARVIRAGUS. Nobly he yokes
    A smiling with a sigh, as if the sigh
    Was that it was for not being such a smile;
    The smile mocking the sigh that it would fly
    From so divine a temple to commix
    With winds that sailors rail at.
  GUIDERIUS. I do note
    That grief and patience, rooted in him both,
    Mingle their spurs together.
  ARVIRAGUS. Grow patience!
    And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine
    His perishing root with the increasing vine!
  BELARIUS. It is great morning. Come, away! Who's there?

                      Enter CLOTEN

  CLOTEN. I cannot find those runagates; that villain
    Hath mock'd me. I am faint.
  BELARIUS. Those runagates?
    Means he not us? I partly know him; 'tis
    Cloten, the son o' th' Queen. I fear some ambush.
    I saw him not these many years, and yet
    I know 'tis he. We are held as outlaws. Hence!
  GUIDERIUS. He is but one; you and my brother search
    What companies are near. Pray you away;
    Let me alone with him.         Exeunt BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS
  CLOTEN. Soft! What are you
    That fly me thus? Some villain mountaineers?
    I have heard of such. What slave art thou?
  GUIDERIUS. A thing
    More slavish did I ne'er than answering
    'A slave' without a knock.
  CLOTEN. Thou art a robber,
    A law-breaker, a villain. Yield thee, thief.
  GUIDERIUS. To who? To thee? What art thou? Have not I
    An arm as big as thine, a heart as big?
    Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not
    My dagger in my mouth. Say what thou art;
    Why I should yield to thee.
  CLOTEN. Thou villain base,
    Know'st me not by my clothes?
  GUIDERIUS. No, nor thy tailor, rascal,
    Who is thy grandfather; he made those clothes,
    Which, as it seems, make thee.
  CLOTEN. Thou precious varlet,
    My tailor made them not.
  GUIDERIUS. Hence, then, and thank
    The man that gave them thee. Thou art some fool;
    I am loath to beat thee.
  CLOTEN. Thou injurious thief,
    Hear but my name, and tremble.
  GUIDERIUS. What's thy name?
  CLOTEN. Cloten, thou villain.
  GUIDERIUS. Cloten, thou double villain, be thy name,
    I cannot tremble at it. Were it toad, or adder, spider,
    'Twould move me sooner.
  CLOTEN. To thy further fear,
    Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know
    I am son to th' Queen.
  GUIDERIUS. I'm sorry for't; not seeming
    So worthy as thy birth.
  CLOTEN. Art not afeard?
  GUIDERIUS. Those that I reverence, those I fear- the wise:
    At fools I laugh, not fear them.
  CLOTEN. Die the death.
    When I have slain thee with my proper hand,
    I'll follow those that even now fled hence,
    And on the gates of Lud's Town set your heads.
    Yield, rustic mountaineer.                  Exeunt, fighting

                Re-enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS

  BELARIUS. No company's abroad.
  ARVIRAGUS. None in the world; you did mistake him, sure.
  BELARIUS. I cannot tell; long is it since I saw him,
    But time hath nothing blurr'd those lines of favour
    Which then he wore; the snatches in his voice,
    And burst of speaking, were as his. I am absolute
    'Twas very Cloten.
  ARVIRAGUS. In this place we left them.
    I wish my brother make good time with him,
    You say he is so fell.
  BELARIUS. Being scarce made up,
    I mean to man, he had not apprehension
    Or roaring terrors; for defect of judgment
    Is oft the cease of fear.

              Re-enter GUIDERIUS with CLOTEN'S head

    But, see, thy brother.
  GUIDERIUS. This Cloten was a fool, an empty purse;
    There was no money in't. Not Hercules
    Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none;
    Yet I not doing this, the fool had borne
    My head as I do his.
  BELARIUS. What hast thou done?
  GUIDERIUS. I am perfect what: cut off one Cloten's head,
    Son to the Queen, after his own report;
    Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer, and swore
    With his own single hand he'd take us in,
    Displace our heads where- thank the gods!- they grow,
    And set them on Lud's Town.
  BELARIUS. We are all undone.
  GUIDERIUS. Why, worthy father, what have we to lose
    But that he swore to take, our lives? The law
    Protects not us; then why should we be tender
    To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us,
    Play judge and executioner all himself,
    For we do fear the law? What company
    Discover you abroad?
  BELARIUS. No single soul
    Can we set eye on, but in an safe reason
    He must have some attendants. Though his humour
    Was nothing but mutation- ay, and that
    From one bad thing to worse- not frenzy, not
    Absolute madness could so far have rav'd,
    To bring him here alone. Although perhaps
    It may be heard at court that such as we
    Cave here, hunt here, are outlaws, and in time
    May make some stronger head- the which he hearing,
    As it is like him, might break out and swear
    He'd fetch us in; yet is't not probable
    To come alone, either he so undertaking
    Or they so suffering. Then on good ground we fear,
    If we do fear this body hath a tail
    More perilous than the head.
  ARVIRAGUS. Let ordinance
    Come as the gods foresay it. Howsoe'er,
    My brother hath done well.
  BELARIUS. I had no mind
    To hunt this day; the boy Fidele's sickness
    Did make my way long forth.
  GUIDERIUS. With his own sword,
    Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta'en
    His head from him. I'll throw't into the creek
    Behind our rock, and let it to the sea
    And tell the fishes he's the Queen's son, Cloten.
    That's all I reck.                                      Exit
  BELARIUS. I fear'twill be reveng'd.
    Would, Polydore, thou hadst not done't! though valour
    Becomes thee well enough.
  ARVIRAGUS. Would I had done't,
    So the revenge alone pursu'd me! Polydore,
    I love thee brotherly, but envy much
    Thou hast robb'd me of this deed. I would revenges,
    That possible strength might meet, would seek us through,
    And put us to our answer.
  BELARIUS. Well, 'tis done.
    We'll hunt no more to-day, nor seek for danger
    Where there's no profit. I prithee to our rock.
    You and Fidele play the cooks; I'll stay
    Till hasty Polydore return, and bring him
    To dinner presently.
  ARVIRAGUS. Poor sick Fidele!
    I'll willingly to him; to gain his colour
    I'd let a parish of such Cloten's blood,
    And praise myself for charity.                          Exit
  BELARIUS. O thou goddess,
    Thou divine Nature, thou thyself thou blazon'st
    In these two princely boys! They are as gentle
    As zephyrs blowing below the violet,
    Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,
    Their royal blood enchaf'd, as the rud'st wind
    That by the top doth take the mountain pine
    And make him stoop to th' vale. 'Tis wonder
    That an invisible instinct should frame them
    To royalty unlearn'd, honour untaught,
    Civility not seen from other, valour
    That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop
    As if it had been sow'd. Yet still it's strange
    What Cloten's being here to us portends,
    Or what his death will bring us.

                    Re-enter GUIDERIUS

  GUIDERIUS. Where's my brother?
    I have sent Cloten's clotpoll down the stream,
    In embassy to his mother; his body's hostage
    For his return.                               [Solemn music]
  BELARIUS. My ingenious instrument!
    Hark, Polydore, it sounds. But what occasion
    Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!
  GUIDERIUS. Is he at home?
  BELARIUS. He went hence even now.
  GUIDERIUS. What does he mean? Since death of my dear'st mother
    It did not speak before. All solemn things
    Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?
    Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys
    Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.
    Is Cadwal mad?

       Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, with IMOGEN as dead, bearing
                         her in his arms

  BELARIUS. Look, here he comes,
    And brings the dire occasion in his arms
    Of what we blame him for!
  ARVIRAGUS. The bird is dead
    That we have made so much on. I had rather
    Have skipp'd from sixteen years of age to sixty,
    To have turn'd my leaping time into a crutch,
    Than have seen this.
  GUIDERIUS. O sweetest, fairest lily!
    My brother wears thee not the one half so well
    As when thou grew'st thyself.
  BELARIUS. O melancholy!
    Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find
    The ooze to show what coast thy sluggish crare
    Might'st easiliest harbour in? Thou blessed thing!
    Jove knows what man thou mightst have made; but I,
    Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy.
    How found you him?
  ARVIRAGUS. Stark, as you see;
    Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,
    Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at; his right cheek
    Reposing on a cushion.
  GUIDERIUS. Where?
  ARVIRAGUS. O' th' floor;
    His arms thus leagu'd. I thought he slept, and put
    My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness
    Answer'd my steps too loud.
  GUIDERIUS. Why, he but sleeps.
    If he be gone he'll make his grave a bed;
    With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
    And worms will not come to thee.
  ARVIRAGUS. With fairest flowers,
    Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele,
    I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack
    The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
    The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor
    The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
    Out-sweet'ned not thy breath. The ruddock would,
    With charitable bill- O bill, sore shaming
    Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie
    Without a monument!- bring thee all this;
    Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flow'rs are none,
    To winter-ground thy corse-
  GUIDERIUS. Prithee have done,
    And do not play in wench-like words with that
    Which is so serious. Let us bury him,
    And not protract with admiration what
    Is now due debt. To th' grave.
  ARVIRAGUS. Say, where shall's lay him?
  GUIDERIUS. By good Euriphile, our mother.
  ARVIRAGUS. Be't so;
    And let us, Polydore, though now our voices
    Have got the mannish crack, sing him to th' ground,
    As once to our mother; use like note and words,
    Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.
  GUIDERIUS. Cadwal,
    I cannot sing. I'll weep, and word it with thee;
    For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse
    Than priests and fanes that lie.
  ARVIRAGUS. We'll speak it, then.
  BELARIUS. Great griefs, I see, med'cine the less, for Cloten
    Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys;
    And though he came our enemy, remember
    He was paid for that. Though mean and mighty rotting
    Together have one dust, yet reverence-
    That angel of the world- doth make distinction
    Of place 'tween high and low. Our foe was princely;
    And though you took his life, as being our foe,
    Yet bury him as a prince.
  GUIDERIUS. Pray you fetch him hither.
    Thersites' body is as good as Ajax',
    When neither are alive.
  ARVIRAGUS. If you'll go fetch him,
    We'll say our song the whilst. Brother, begin.
                                                   Exit BELARIUS
  GUIDERIUS. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to th' East;
    My father hath a reason for't.
  ARVIRAGUS. 'Tis true.
  GUIDERIUS. Come on, then, and remove him.
  ARVIRAGUS. So. Begin.

                      SONG

  GUIDERIUS. Fear no more the heat o' th' sun
               Nor the furious winter's rages;
             Thou thy worldly task hast done,
               Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
             Golden lads and girls all must,
             As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

  ARVIRAGUS. Fear no more the frown o' th' great;
               Thou art past the tyrant's stroke.
             Care no more to clothe and eat;
               To thee the reed is as the oak.
             The sceptre, learning, physic, must
             All follow this and come to dust.

  GUIDERIUS. Fear no more the lightning flash,
  ARVIRAGUS.   Nor th' all-dreaded thunder-stone;
  GUIDERIUS. Fear not slander, censure rash;
  ARVIRAGUS.   Thou hast finish'd joy and moan.
  BOTH.      All lovers young, all lovers must
             Consign to thee and come to dust.

  GUIDERIUS. No exorciser harm thee!
  ARVIRAGUS. Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
  GUIDERIUS. Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
  ARVIRAGUS. Nothing ill come near thee!
  BOTH.      Quiet consummation have,
             And renowned be thy grave!

         Re-enter BELARIUS with the body of CLOTEN

  GUIDERIUS. We have done our obsequies. Come, lay him down.
  BELARIUS. Here's a few flowers; but 'bout midnight, more.
    The herbs that have on them cold dew o' th' night
    Are strewings fit'st for graves. Upon their faces.
    You were as flow'rs, now wither'd. Even so
    These herblets shall which we upon you strew.
    Come on, away. Apart upon our knees.
    The ground that gave them first has them again.
    Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.
                                           Exeunt all but IMOGEN
  IMOGEN. [Awaking] Yes, sir, to Milford Haven. Which is the way?
    I thank you. By yond bush? Pray, how far thither?
    'Ods pittikins! can it be six mile yet?
    I have gone all night. Faith, I'll lie down and sleep.
    But, soft! no bedfellow. O gods and goddesses!
                                               [Seeing the body]
    These flow'rs are like the pleasures of the world;
    This bloody man, the care on't. I hope I dream;
    For so I thought I was a cave-keeper,
    And cook to honest creatures. But 'tis not so;
    'Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,
    Which the brain makes of fumes. Our very eyes
    Are sometimes, like our judgments, blind. Good faith,
    I tremble still with fear; but if there be
    Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity
    As a wren's eye, fear'd gods, a part of it!
    The dream's here still. Even when I wake it is
    Without me, as within me; not imagin'd, felt.
    A headless man? The garments of Posthumus?
    I know the shape of's leg; this is his hand,
    His foot Mercurial, his Martial thigh,
    The brawns of Hercules; but his Jovial face-
    Murder in heaven! How! 'Tis gone. Pisanio,
    All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks,
    And mine to boot, be darted on thee! Thou,
    Conspir'd with that irregulous devil, Cloten,
    Hath here cut off my lord. To write and read
    Be henceforth treacherous! Damn'd Pisanio
    Hath with his forged letters- damn'd Pisanio-
    From this most bravest vessel of the world
    Struck the main-top. O Posthumus! alas,
    Where is thy head? Where's that? Ay me! where's that?
    Pisanio might have kill'd thee at the heart,
    And left this head on. How should this be? Pisanio?
    'Tis he and Cloten; malice and lucre in them
    Have laid this woe here. O, 'tis pregnant, pregnant!
    The drug he gave me, which he said was precious
    And cordial to me, have I not found it
    Murd'rous to th' senses? That confirms it home.
    This is Pisanio's deed, and Cloten. O!
    Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,
    That we the horrider may seem to those
    Which chance to find us. O, my lord, my lord!
                                    [Falls fainting on the body]

           Enter LUCIUS, CAPTAINS, and a SOOTHSAYER

  CAPTAIN. To them the legions garrison'd in Gallia,
    After your will, have cross'd the sea, attending
    You here at Milford Haven; with your ships,
    They are in readiness.
  LUCIUS. But what from Rome?
  CAPTAIN. The Senate hath stirr'd up the confiners
    And gentlemen of Italy, most willing spirits,
    That promise noble service; and they come
    Under the conduct of bold Iachimo,
    Sienna's brother.
  LUCIUS. When expect you them?
  CAPTAIN. With the next benefit o' th' wind.
  LUCIUS. This forwardness
    Makes our hopes fair. Command our present numbers
    Be muster'd; bid the captains look to't. Now, sir,
    What have you dream'd of late of this war's purpose?
  SOOTHSAYER. Last night the very gods show'd me a vision-
    I fast and pray'd for their intelligence- thus:
    I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd
    From the spongy south to this part of the west,
    There vanish'd in the sunbeams; which portends,
    Unless my sins abuse my divination,
    Success to th' Roman host.
  LUCIUS. Dream often so,
    And never false. Soft, ho! what trunk is here
    Without his top? The ruin speaks that sometime
    It was a worthy building. How? a page?
    Or dead or sleeping on him? But dead, rather;
    For nature doth abhor to make his bed
    With the defunct, or sleep upon the dead.
    Let's see the boy's face.
  CAPTAIN. He's alive, my lord.
  LUCIUS. He'll then instruct us of this body. Young one,
    Inform us of thy fortunes; for it seems
    They crave to be demanded. Who is this
    Thou mak'st thy bloody pillow? Or who was he
    That, otherwise than noble nature did,
    Hath alter'd that good picture? What's thy interest
    In this sad wreck? How came't? Who is't? What art thou?
  IMOGEN. I am nothing; or if not,
    Nothing to be were better. This was my master,
    A very valiant Briton and a good,
    That here by mountaineers lies slain. Alas!
    There is no more such masters. I may wander
    From east to occident; cry out for service;
    Try many, all good; serve truly; never
    Find such another master.
  LUCIUS. 'Lack, good youth!
    Thou mov'st no less with thy complaining than
    Thy master in bleeding. Say his name, good friend.
  IMOGEN. Richard du Champ. [Aside] If I do lie, and do
    No harm by it, though the gods hear, I hope
    They'll pardon it.- Say you, sir?
  LUCIUS. Thy name?
  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir.
  LUCIUS. Thou dost approve thyself the very same;
    Thy name well fits thy faith, thy faith thy name.
    Wilt take thy chance with me? I will not say
    Thou shalt be so well master'd; but, be sure,
    No less belov'd. The Roman Emperor's letters,
    Sent by a consul to me, should not sooner
    Than thine own worth prefer thee. Go with me.
  IMOGEN. I'll follow, sir. But first, an't please the gods,
    I'll hide my master from the flies, as deep
    As these poor pickaxes can dig; and when
    With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha' strew'd his grave,
    And on it said a century of prayers,
    Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep and sigh;
    And leaving so his service, follow you,
    So please you entertain me.
  LUCIUS. Ay, good youth;
    And rather father thee than master thee.
    My friends,
    The boy hath taught us manly duties; let us
    Find out the prettiest daisied plot we can,
    And make him with our pikes and partisans
    A grave. Come, arm him. Boy, he is preferr'd
    By thee to us; and he shall be interr'd
    As soldiers can. Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes.
    Some falls are means the happier to arise.            Exeunt

SCENE III. Britain. CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter CYMBELINE, LORDS, PISANIO, and attendants

  CYMBELINE. Again! and bring me word how 'tis with her.
                                               Exit an attendant
    A fever with the absence of her son;
    A madness, of which her life's in danger. Heavens,
    How deeply you at once do touch me! Imogen,
    The great part of my comfort, gone; my queen
    Upon a desperate bed, and in a time
    When fearful wars point at me; her son gone,
    So needful for this present. It strikes me past
    The hope of comfort. But for thee, fellow,
    Who needs must know of her departure and
    Dost seem so ignorant, we'll enforce it from thee
    By a sharp torture.
  PISANIO. Sir, my life is yours;
    I humbly set it at your will; but for my mistress,
    I nothing know where she remains, why gone,
    Nor when she purposes return. Beseech your Highness,
    Hold me your loyal servant.
  LORD. Good my liege,
    The day that she was missing he was here.
    I dare be bound he's true and shall perform
    All parts of his subjection loyally. For Cloten,
    There wants no diligence in seeking him,
    And will no doubt be found.
  CYMBELINE. The time is troublesome.
    [To PISANIO] We'll slip you for a season; but our jealousy
    Does yet depend.
  LORD. So please your Majesty,
    The Roman legions, all from Gallia drawn,
    Are landed on your coast, with a supply
    Of Roman gentlemen by the Senate sent.
  CYMBELINE. Now for the counsel of my son and queen!
    I am amaz'd with matter.
  LORD. Good my liege,
    Your preparation can affront no less
    Than what you hear of. Come more, for more you're ready.
    The want is but to put those pow'rs in motion
    That long to move.
  CYMBELINE. I thank you. Let's withdraw,
    And meet the time as it seeks us. We fear not
    What can from Italy annoy us; but
    We grieve at chances here. Away!      Exeunt all but PISANIO
  PISANIO. I heard no letter from my master since
    I wrote him Imogen was slain. 'Tis strange.
    Nor hear I from my mistress, who did promise
    To yield me often tidings. Neither know
    What is betid to Cloten, but remain
    Perplex'd in all. The heavens still must work.
    Wherein I am false I am honest; not true, to be true.
    These present wars shall find I love my country,
    Even to the note o' th' King, or I'll fall in them.
    All other doubts, by time let them be clear'd:
    Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer'd.      Exit

SCENE IV. Wales. Before the cave of BELARIUS

Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS

  GUIDERIUS. The noise is round about us.
  BELARIUS. Let us from it.
  ARVIRAGUS. What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it
    From action and adventure?
  GUIDERIUS. Nay, what hope
    Have we in hiding us? This way the Romans
    Must or for Britons slay us, or receive us
    For barbarous and unnatural revolts
    During their use, and slay us after.
  BELARIUS. Sons,
    We'll higher to the mountains; there secure us.
    To the King's party there's no going. Newness
    Of Cloten's death- we being not known, not muster'd
    Among the bands-may drive us to a render
    Where we have liv'd, and so extort from's that
    Which we have done, whose answer would be death,
    Drawn on with torture.
  GUIDERIUS. This is, sir, a doubt
    In such a time nothing becoming you
    Nor satisfying us.
  ARVIRAGUS. It is not likely
    That when they hear the Roman horses neigh,
    Behold their quarter'd fires, have both their eyes
    And ears so cloy'd importantly as now,
    That they will waste their time upon our note,
    To know from whence we are.
  BELARIUS. O, I am known
    Of many in the army. Many years,
    Though Cloten then but young, you see, not wore him
    From my remembrance. And, besides, the King
    Hath not deserv'd my service nor your loves,
    Who find in my exile the want of breeding,
    The certainty of this hard life; aye hopeless
    To have the courtesy your cradle promis'd,
    But to be still hot summer's tanlings and
    The shrinking slaves of winter.
  GUIDERIUS. Than be so,
    Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to th' army.
    I and my brother are not known; yourself
    So out of thought, and thereto so o'ergrown,
    Cannot be questioned.
  ARVIRAGUS. By this sun that shines,
    I'll thither. What thing is't that I never
    Did see man die! scarce ever look'd on blood
    But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison!
    Never bestrid a horse, save one that had
    A rider like myself, who ne'er wore rowel
    Nor iron on his heel! I am asham'd
    To look upon the holy sun, to have
    The benefit of his blest beams, remaining
    So long a poor unknown.
  GUIDERIUS. By heavens, I'll go!
    If you will bless me, sir, and give me leave,
    I'll take the better care; but if you will not,
    The hazard therefore due fall on me by
    The hands of Romans!
  ARVIRAGUS. So say I. Amen.
  BELARIUS. No reason I, since of your lives you set
    So slight a valuation, should reserve
    My crack'd one to more care. Have with you, boys!
    If in your country wars you chance to die,
    That is my bed too, lads, and there I'll lie.
    Lead, lead. [Aside] The time seems long; their blood thinks scorn
    Till it fly out and show them princes born.           Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Britain. The Roman camp

Enter POSTHUMUS alone, with a bloody handkerchief

  POSTHUMUS. Yea, bloody cloth, I'll keep thee; for I wish'd
    Thou shouldst be colour'd thus. You married ones,
    If each of you should take this course, how many
    Must murder wives much better than themselves
    For wrying but a little! O Pisanio!
    Every good servant does not all commands;
    No bond but to do just ones. Gods! if you
    Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never
    Had liv'd to put on this; so had you saved
    The noble Imogen to repent, and struck
    Me, wretch more worth your vengeance. But alack,
    You snatch some hence for little faults; that's love,
    To have them fall no more. You some permit
    To second ills with ills, each elder worse,
    And make them dread it, to the doer's thrift.
    But Imogen is your own. Do your best wills,
    And make me blest to obey. I am brought hither
    Among th' Italian gentry, and to fight
    Against my lady's kingdom. 'Tis enough
    That, Britain, I have kill'd thy mistress; peace!
    I'll give no wound to thee. Therefore, good heavens,
    Hear patiently my purpose. I'll disrobe me
    Of these Italian weeds, and suit myself
    As does a Britain peasant. So I'll fight
    Against the part I come with; so I'll die
    For thee, O Imogen, even for whom my life
    Is every breath a death. And thus unknown,
    Pitied nor hated, to the face of peril
    Myself I'll dedicate. Let me make men know
    More valour in me than my habits show.
    Gods, put the strength o' th' Leonati in me!
    To shame the guise o' th' world, I will begin
    The fashion- less without and more within.              Exit

SCENE II. Britain. A field of battle between the British and Roman
camps

Enter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, and the Roman army at one door, and the British
army at another, LEONATUS POSTHUMUS following like a poor soldier. They
march over and go out.  Alarums.  Then enter again, in skirmish,
IACHIMO and POSTHUMUS.  He vanquisheth and disarmeth IACHIMO, and then
leaves him

  IACHIMO. The heaviness and guilt within my bosom
    Takes off my manhood. I have belied a lady,
    The Princess of this country, and the air on't
    Revengingly enfeebles me; or could this carl,
    A very drudge of nature's, have subdu'd me
    In my profession? Knighthoods and honours borne
    As I wear mine are titles but of scorn.
    If that thy gentry, Britain, go before
    This lout as he exceeds our lords, the odds
    Is that we scarce are men, and you are gods.            Exit

    The battle continues; the BRITONS fly; CYMBELINE is taken.
    Then enter to his rescue BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS

  BELARIUS. Stand, stand! We have th' advantage of the ground;
    The lane is guarded; nothing routs us but
    The villainy of our fears.
  GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS. Stand, stand, and fight!

    Re-enter POSTHUMUS, and seconds the Britons; they rescue
    CYMBELINE, and exeunt. Then re-enter LUCIUS and IACHIMO,
                         with IMOGEN

  LUCIUS. Away, boy, from the troops, and save thyself;
    For friends kill friends, and the disorder's such
    As war were hoodwink'd.
  IACHIMO. 'Tis their fresh supplies.
  LUCIUS. It is a day turn'd strangely. Or betimes
    Let's reinforce or fly.                               Exeunt

SCENE III. Another part of the field

Enter POSTHUMUS and a Britain LORD

  LORD. Cam'st thou from where they made the stand?
  POSTHUMUS. I did:
    Though you, it seems, come from the fliers.
  LORD. I did.
  POSTHUMUS. No blame be to you, sir, for all was lost,
    But that the heavens fought. The King himself
    Of his wings destitute, the army broken,
    And but the backs of Britons seen, an flying,
    Through a strait lane- the enemy, full-hearted,
    Lolling the tongue with slaught'ring, having work
    More plentiful than tools to do't, struck down
    Some mortally, some slightly touch'd, some falling
    Merely through fear, that the strait pass was damm'd
    With dead men hurt behind, and cowards living
    To die with length'ned shame.
  LORD. Where was this lane?
  POSTHUMUS. Close by the battle, ditch'd, and wall'd with turf,
    Which gave advantage to an ancient soldier-
    An honest one, I warrant, who deserv'd
    So long a breeding as his white beard came to,
    In doing this for's country. Athwart the lane
    He, with two striplings- lads more like to run
    The country base than to commit such slaughter;
    With faces fit for masks, or rather fairer
    Than those for preservation cas'd or shame-
    Made good the passage, cried to those that fled
    'Our Britain's harts die flying, not our men.
    To darkness fleet souls that fly backwards! Stand;
    Or we are Romans and will give you that,
    Like beasts, which you shun beastly, and may save
    But to look back in frown. Stand, stand!' These three,
    Three thousand confident, in act as many-
    For three performers are the file when all
    The rest do nothing- with this word 'Stand, stand!'
    Accommodated by the place, more charming
    With their own nobleness, which could have turn'd
    A distaff to a lance, gilded pale looks,
    Part shame, part spirit renew'd; that some turn'd coward
    But by example- O, a sin in war
    Damn'd in the first beginners!- gan to look
    The way that they did and to grin like lions
    Upon the pikes o' th' hunters. Then began
    A stop i' th' chaser, a retire; anon
    A rout, confusion thick. Forthwith they fly,
    Chickens, the way which they stoop'd eagles; slaves,
    The strides they victors made; and now our cowards,
    Like fragments in hard voyages, became
    The life o' th' need. Having found the back-door open
    Of the unguarded hearts, heavens, how they wound!
    Some slain before, some dying, some their friends
    O'erborne i' th' former wave. Ten chas'd by one
    Are now each one the slaughterman of twenty.
    Those that would die or ere resist are grown
    The mortal bugs o' th' field.
  LORD. This was strange chance:
    A narrow lane, an old man, and two boys.
  POSTHUMUS. Nay, do not wonder at it; you are made
    Rather to wonder at the things you hear
    Than to work any. Will you rhyme upon't,
    And vent it for a mock'ry? Here is one:
    'Two boys, an old man (twice a boy), a lane,
    Preserv'd the Britons, was the Romans' bane.'
  LORD. Nay, be not angry, sir.
  POSTHUMUS. 'Lack, to what end?
    Who dares not stand his foe I'll be his friend;
    For if he'll do as he is made to do,
    I know he'll quickly fly my friendship too.
    You have put me into rhyme.
  LORD. Farewell; you're angry.                             Exit
  POSTHUMUS. Still going? This is a lord! O noble misery,
    To be i' th' field and ask 'What news?' of me!
    To-day how many would have given their honours
    To have sav'd their carcasses! took heel to do't,
    And yet died too! I, in mine own woe charm'd,
    Could not find death where I did hear him groan,
    Nor feel him where he struck. Being an ugly monster,
    'Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds,
    Sweet words; or hath moe ministers than we
    That draw his knives i' th' war. Well, I will find him;
    For being now a favourer to the Briton,
    No more a Briton, I have resum'd again
    The part I came in. Fight I will no more,
    But yield me to the veriest hind that shall
    Once touch my shoulder. Great the slaughter is
    Here made by th' Roman; great the answer be
    Britons must take. For me, my ransom's death;
    On either side I come to spend my breath,
    Which neither here I'll keep nor bear again,
    But end it by some means for Imogen.

            Enter two BRITISH CAPTAINS and soldiers

  FIRST CAPTAIN. Great Jupiter be prais'd! Lucius is taken.
    'Tis thought the old man and his sons were angels.
  SECOND CAPTAIN. There was a fourth man, in a silly habit,
    That gave th' affront with them.
  FIRST CAPTAIN. So 'tis reported;
    But none of 'em can be found. Stand! who's there?
  POSTHUMUS. A Roman,
    Who had not now been drooping here if seconds
    Had answer'd him.
  SECOND CAPTAIN. Lay hands on him; a dog!
    A leg of Rome shall not return to tell
    What crows have peck'd them here. He brags his service,
    As if he were of note. Bring him to th' King.

   Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, and Roman
   captives. The CAPTAINS present POSTHUMUS to CYMBELINE, who delivers
            him over to a gaoler. Exeunt omnes

SCENE IV. Britain. A prison

Enter POSTHUMUS and two GAOLERS

  FIRST GAOLER. You shall not now be stol'n, you have locks upon you;
    So graze as you find pasture.
  SECOND GAOLER. Ay, or a stomach.                Exeunt GAOLERS
  POSTHUMUS. Most welcome, bondage! for thou art a way,
    I think, to liberty. Yet am I better
    Than one that's sick o' th' gout, since he had rather
    Groan so in perpetuity than be cur'd
    By th' sure physician death, who is the key
    T' unbar these locks. My conscience, thou art fetter'd
    More than my shanks and wrists; you good gods, give me
    The penitent instrument to pick that bolt,
    Then, free for ever! Is't enough I am sorry?
    So children temporal fathers do appease;
    Gods are more full of mercy. Must I repent,
    I cannot do it better than in gyves,
    Desir'd more than constrain'd. To satisfy,
    If of my freedom 'tis the main part, take
    No stricter render of me than my all.
    I know you are more clement than vile men,
    Who of their broken debtors take a third,
    A sixth, a tenth, letting them thrive again
    On their abatement; that's not my desire.
    For Imogen's dear life take mine; and though
    'Tis not so dear, yet 'tis a life; you coin'd it.
    'Tween man and man they weigh not every stamp;
    Though light, take pieces for the figure's sake;
    You rather mine, being yours. And so, great pow'rs,
    If you will take this audit, take this life,
    And cancel these cold bonds. O Imogen!
    I'll speak to thee in silence.                      [Sleeps]

        Solemn music. Enter, as in an apparition, SICILIUS
        LEONATUS, father to POSTHUMUS, an old man attired
         like a warrior; leading in his hand an ancient
          matron, his WIFE, and mother to POSTHUMUS, with
        music before them. Then, after other music, follows
           the two young LEONATI, brothers to POSTHUMUS,
              with wounds, as they died in the wars.
          They circle POSTHUMUS round as he lies sleeping

  SICILIUS. No more, thou thunder-master, show
              Thy spite on mortal flies.
            With Mars fall out, with Juno chide,
              That thy adulteries
                Rates and revenges.
            Hath my poor boy done aught but well,
              Whose face I never saw?
            I died whilst in the womb he stay'd
              Attending nature's law;
            Whose father then, as men report
              Thou orphans' father art,
            Thou shouldst have been, and shielded him
              From this earth-vexing smart.

  MOTHER.   Lucina lent not me her aid,
              But took me in my throes,
            That from me was Posthumus ripp'd,
              Came crying 'mongst his foes,
                A thing of pity.

  SICILIUS. Great Nature like his ancestry
              Moulded the stuff so fair
            That he deserv'd the praise o' th' world
              As great Sicilius' heir.

  FIRST BROTHER. When once he was mature for man,
              In Britain where was he
            That could stand up his parallel,
              Or fruitful object be
            In eye of Imogen, that best
              Could deem his dignity?

  MOTHER.   With marriage wherefore was he mock'd,
              To be exil'd and thrown
            From Leonati seat and cast
            From her his dearest one,
              Sweet Imogen?

  SICILIUS. Why did you suffer Iachimo,
              Slight thing of Italy,
            To taint his nobler heart and brain
              With needless jealousy,
            And to become the geck and scorn
              O' th' other's villainy?

  SECOND BROTHER. For this from stiller seats we came,
              Our parents and us twain,
            That, striking in our country's cause,
              Fell bravely and were slain,
            Our fealty and Tenantius' right
              With honour to maintain.

  FIRST BROTHER. Like hardiment Posthumus hath
              To Cymbeline perform'd.
            Then, Jupiter, thou king of gods,
              Why hast thou thus adjourn'd
            The graces for his merits due,
              Being all to dolours turn'd?

  SICILIUS. Thy crystal window ope; look out;
              No longer exercise
            Upon a valiant race thy harsh
              And potent injuries.

  MOTHER.   Since, Jupiter, our son is good,
              Take off his miseries.

  SICILIUS. Peep through thy marble mansion. Help!
              Or we poor ghosts will cry
            To th' shining synod of the rest
              Against thy deity.

  BROTHERS. Help, Jupiter! or we appeal,
              And from thy justice fly.

       JUPITER descends-in thunder and lightning, sitting
       upon an eagle. He throws a thunderbolt. The GHOSTS
                     fall on their knees

  JUPITER. No more, you petty spirits of region low,
    Offend our hearing; hush! How dare you ghosts
    Accuse the Thunderer whose bolt, you know,
    Sky-planted, batters all rebelling coasts?
    Poor shadows of Elysium, hence and rest
    Upon your never-withering banks of flow'rs.
    Be not with mortal accidents opprest:
    No care of yours it is; you know 'tis ours.
    Whom best I love I cross; to make my gift,
    The more delay'd, delighted. Be content;
    Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift;
    His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent.
    Our Jovial star reign'd at his birth, and in
    Our temple was he married. Rise and fade!
    He shall be lord of Lady Imogen,
    And happier much by his affliction made.
    This tablet lay upon his breast, wherein
    Our pleasure his full fortune doth confine;
    And so, away; no farther with your din
    Express impatience, lest you stir up mine.
    Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.            [Ascends]
  SICILIUS. He came in thunder; his celestial breath
    Was sulpherous to smell; the holy eagle
    Stoop'd as to foot us. His ascension is
    More sweet than our blest fields. His royal bird
    Prunes the immortal wing, and cloys his beak,
    As when his god is pleas'd.
  ALL. Thanks, Jupiter!
  SICILIUS. The marble pavement closes, he is enter'd
    His radiant roof. Away! and, to be blest,
    Let us with care perform his great behest.   [GHOSTS vanish]

  POSTHUMUS. [Waking] Sleep, thou has been a grandsire and begot
    A father to me; and thou hast created
    A mother and two brothers. But, O scorn,
    Gone! They went hence so soon as they were born.
    And so I am awake. Poor wretches, that depend
    On greatness' favour, dream as I have done;
    Wake and find nothing. But, alas, I swerve;
    Many dream not to find, neither deserve,
    And yet are steep'd in favours; so am I,
    That have this golden chance, and know not why.
    What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O rare one!
    Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
    Nobler than that it covers. Let thy effects
    So follow to be most unlike our courtiers,
    As good as promise.

    [Reads] 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown,
    without seeking find, and be embrac'd by a piece of tender air;
    and when from a stately cedar shall be lopp'd branches which,
    being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old
    stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries,
    Britain be fortunate and flourish in peace and plenty.'

    'Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen
    Tongue, and brain not; either both or nothing,
    Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such
    As sense cannot untie. Be what it is,
    The action of my life is like it, which
    I'll keep, if but for sympathy.

                  Re-enter GAOLER

  GAOLER. Come, sir, are you ready for death?
  POSTHUMUS. Over-roasted rather; ready long ago.
  GAOLER. Hanging is the word, sir; if you be ready for that, you are
    well cook'd.
  POSTHUMUS. So, if I prove a good repast to the spectators, the dish
    pays the shot.
  GAOLER. A heavy reckoning for you, sir. But the comfort is, you
    shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern bills,
    which are often the sadness of parting, as the procuring of mirth.
    You come in faint for want of meat, depart reeling with too much
    drink; sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are
    paid too much; purse and brain both empty; the brain the heavier
    for being too light, the purse too light, being drawn of
    heaviness. O, of this contradiction you shall now be quit. O, the
    charity of a penny cord! It sums up thousands in a trice. You
    have no true debitor and creditor but it; of what's past, is, and
    to come, the discharge. Your neck, sir, is pen, book, and
    counters; so the acquittance follows.
  POSTHUMUS. I am merrier to die than thou art to live.
  GAOLER. Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the toothache. But a
    man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to
    bed, I think he would change places with his officer; for look
    you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.
  POSTHUMUS. Yes indeed do I, fellow.
  GAOLER. Your death has eyes in's head, then; I have not seen him so
    pictur'd. You must either be directed by some that take upon them
    to know, or to take upon yourself that which I am sure you do not
    know, or jump the after-inquiry on your own peril. And how you
    shall speed in your journey's end, I think you'll never return to
    tell one.
  POSTHUMUS. I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to direct
    them the way I am going, but such as wink and will not use them.
  GAOLER. What an infinite mock is this, that a man should have the
    best use of eyes to see the way of blindness! I am sure hanging's
    the way of winking.

                        Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Knock off his manacles; bring your prisoner to the King.
  POSTHUMUS. Thou bring'st good news: I am call'd to be made free.
  GAOLER. I'll be hang'd then.
  POSTHUMUS. Thou shalt be then freer than a gaoler; no bolts for the
    dead.                         Exeunt POSTHUMUS and MESSENGER
  GAOLER. Unless a man would marry a gallows and beget young gibbets,
    I never saw one so prone. Yet, on my conscience, there are verier
    knaves desire to live, for all he be a Roman; and there be some
    of them too that die against their wills; so should I, if I were
    one. I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good. O, there
    were desolation of gaolers and gallowses! I speak against my
    present profit, but my wish hath a preferment in't.     Exit

SCENE V. Britain. CYMBELINE'S tent

Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, LORDS,
OFFICERS, and attendants

  CYMBELINE. Stand by my side, you whom the gods have made
    Preservers of my throne. Woe is my heart
    That the poor soldier that so richly fought,
    Whose rags sham'd gilded arms, whose naked breast
    Stepp'd before targes of proof, cannot be found.
    He shall be happy that can find him, if
    Our grace can make him so.
  BELARIUS. I never saw
    Such noble fury in so poor a thing;
    Such precious deeds in one that promis'd nought
    But beggary and poor looks.
  CYMBELINE. No tidings of him?
  PISANIO. He hath been search'd among the dead and living,
    But no trace of him.
  CYMBELINE. To my grief, I am
    The heir of his reward; [To BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS]
      which I will add
    To you, the liver, heart, and brain, of Britain,
    By whom I grant she lives. 'Tis now the time
    To ask of whence you are. Report it.
  BELARIUS. Sir,
    In Cambria are we born, and gentlemen;
    Further to boast were neither true nor modest,
    Unless I add we are honest.
  CYMBELINE. Bow your knees.
    Arise my knights o' th' battle; I create you
    Companions to our person, and will fit you
    With dignities becoming your estates.

             Enter CORNELIUS and LADIES

    There's business in these faces. Why so sadly
    Greet you our victory? You look like Romans,
    And not o' th' court of Britain.
  CORNELIUS. Hail, great King!
    To sour your happiness I must report
    The Queen is dead.
  CYMBELINE. Who worse than a physician
    Would this report become? But I consider
    By med'cine'life may be prolong'd, yet death
    Will seize the doctor too. How ended she?
  CORNELIUS. With horror, madly dying, like her life;
    Which, being cruel to the world, concluded
    Most cruel to herself. What she confess'd
    I will report, so please you; these her women
    Can trip me if I err, who with wet cheeks
    Were present when she finish'd.
  CYMBELINE. Prithee say.
  CORNELIUS. First, she confess'd she never lov'd you; only
    Affected greatness got by you, not you;
    Married your royalty, was wife to your place;
    Abhorr'd your person.
  CYMBELINE. She alone knew this;
    And but she spoke it dying, I would not
    Believe her lips in opening it. Proceed.
  CORNELIUS. Your daughter, whom she bore in hand to love
    With such integrity, she did confess
    Was as a scorpion to her sight; whose life,
    But that her flight prevented it, she had
    Ta'en off by poison.
  CYMBELINE. O most delicate fiend!
    Who is't can read a woman? Is there more?
  CORNELIUS. More, sir, and worse. She did confess she had
    For you a mortal mineral, which, being took,
    Should by the minute feed on life, and ling'ring,
    By inches waste you. In which time she purpos'd,
    By watching, weeping, tendance, kissing, to
    O'ercome you with her show; and in time,
    When she had fitted you with her craft, to work
    Her son into th' adoption of the crown;
    But failing of her end by his strange absence,
    Grew shameless-desperate, open'd, in despite
    Of heaven and men, her purposes, repented
    The evils she hatch'd were not effected; so,
    Despairing, died.
  CYMBELINE. Heard you all this, her women?
  LADY. We did, so please your Highness.
  CYMBELINE. Mine eyes
    Were not in fault, for she was beautiful;
    Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor my heart
    That thought her like her seeming. It had been vicious
    To have mistrusted her; yet, O my daughter!
    That it was folly in me thou mayst say,
    And prove it in thy feeling. Heaven mend all!

         Enter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, the SOOTHSAYER, and other
      Roman prisoners, guarded; POSTHUMUS behind, and IMOGEN

    Thou com'st not, Caius, now for tribute; that
    The Britons have raz'd out, though with the loss
    Of many a bold one, whose kinsmen have made suit
    That their good souls may be appeas'd with slaughter
    Of you their captives, which ourself have granted;
    So think of your estate.
  LUCIUS. Consider, sir, the chance of war. The day
    Was yours by accident; had it gone with us,
    We should not, when the blood was cool, have threaten'd
    Our prisoners with the sword. But since the gods
    Will have it thus, that nothing but our lives
    May be call'd ransom, let it come. Sufficeth
    A Roman with a Roman's heart can suffer.
    Augustus lives to think on't; and so much
    For my peculiar care. This one thing only
    I will entreat: my boy, a Briton born,
    Let him be ransom'd. Never master had
    A page so kind, so duteous, diligent,
    So tender over his occasions, true,
    So feat, so nurse-like; let his virtue join
    With my request, which I'll make bold your Highness
    Cannot deny; he hath done no Briton harm
    Though he have serv'd a Roman. Save him, sir,
    And spare no blood beside.
  CYMBELINE. I have surely seen him;
    His favour is familiar to me. Boy,
    Thou hast look'd thyself into my grace,
    And art mine own. I know not why, wherefore
    To say 'Live, boy.' Ne'er thank thy master. Live;
    And ask of Cymbeline what boon thou wilt,
    Fitting my bounty and thy state, I'll give it;
    Yea, though thou do demand a prisoner,
    The noblest ta'en.
  IMOGEN. I humbly thank your Highness.
  LUCIUS. I do not bid thee beg my life, good lad,
    And yet I know thou wilt.
  IMOGEN. No, no! Alack,
    There's other work in hand. I see a thing
    Bitter to me as death; your life, good master,
    Must shuffle for itself.
  LUCIUS. The boy disdains me,
    He leaves me, scorns me. Briefly die their joys
    That place them on the truth of girls and boys.
    Why stands he so perplex'd?
  CYMBELINE. What wouldst thou, boy?
    I love thee more and more; think more and more
    What's best to ask. Know'st him thou look'st on? Speak,
    Wilt have him live? Is he thy kin? thy friend?
  IMOGEN. He is a Roman, no more kin to me
    Than I to your Highness; who, being born your vassal,
    Am something nearer.
  CYMBELINE. Wherefore ey'st him so?
  IMOGEN. I'll tell you, sir, in private, if you please
    To give me hearing.
  CYMBELINE. Ay, with all my heart,
    And lend my best attention. What's thy name?
  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir.
  CYMBELINE. Thou'rt my good youth, my page;
    I'll be thy master. Walk with me; speak freely.
                           [CYMBELINE and IMOGEN converse apart]
  BELARIUS. Is not this boy reviv'd from death?
  ARVIRAGUS. One sand another
    Not more resembles- that sweet rosy lad
    Who died and was Fidele. What think you?
  GUIDERIUS. The same dead thing alive.
  BELARIUS. Peace, peace! see further. He eyes us not; forbear.
    Creatures may be alike; were't he, I am sure
    He would have spoke to us.
  GUIDERIUS. But we saw him dead.
  BELARIUS. Be silent; let's see further.
  PISANIO. [Aside] It is my mistress.
    Since she is living, let the time run on
    To good or bad.               [CYMBELINE and IMOGEN advance]
  CYMBELINE. Come, stand thou by our side;
    Make thy demand aloud. [To IACHIMO] Sir, step you forth;
    Give answer to this boy, and do it freely,
    Or, by our greatness and the grace of it,
    Which is our honour, bitter torture shall
    Winnow the truth from falsehood. On, speak to him.
  IMOGEN. My boon is that this gentleman may render
    Of whom he had this ring.
  POSTHUMUS. [Aside] What's that to him?
  CYMBELINE. That diamond upon your finger, say
    How came it yours?
  IACHIMO. Thou'lt torture me to leave unspoken that
    Which to be spoke would torture thee.
  CYMBELINE. How? me?
  IACHIMO. I am glad to be constrain'd to utter that
    Which torments me to conceal. By villainy
    I got this ring; 'twas Leonatus' jewel,
    Whom thou didst banish; and- which more may grieve thee,
    As it doth me- a nobler sir ne'er liv'd
    'Twixt sky and ground. Wilt thou hear more, my lord?
  CYMBELINE. All that belongs to this.
  IACHIMO. That paragon, thy daughter,
    For whom my heart drops blood and my false spirits
    Quail to remember- Give me leave, I faint.
  CYMBELINE. My daughter? What of her? Renew thy strength;
    I had rather thou shouldst live while nature will
    Than die ere I hear more. Strive, man, and speak.
  IACHIMO. Upon a time- unhappy was the clock
    That struck the hour!- was in Rome- accurs'd
    The mansion where!- 'twas at a feast- O, would
    Our viands had been poison'd, or at least
    Those which I heav'd to head!- the good Posthumus-
    What should I say? he was too good to be
    Where ill men were, and was the best of all
    Amongst the rar'st of good ones- sitting sadly
    Hearing us praise our loves of Italy
    For beauty that made barren the swell'd boast
    Of him that best could speak; for feature, laming
    The shrine of Venus or straight-pight Minerva,
    Postures beyond brief nature; for condition,
    A shop of all the qualities that man
    Loves woman for; besides that hook of wiving,
    Fairness which strikes the eye-
  CYMBELINE. I stand on fire.
    Come to the matter.
  IACHIMO. All too soon I shall,
    Unless thou wouldst grieve quickly. This Posthumus,
    Most like a noble lord in love and one
    That had a royal lover, took his hint;
    And not dispraising whom we prais'd- therein
    He was as calm as virtue- he began
    His mistress' picture; which by his tongue being made,
    And then a mind put in't, either our brags
    Were crack'd of kitchen trulls, or his description
    Prov'd us unspeaking sots.
  CYMBELINE. Nay, nay, to th' purpose.
  IACHIMO. Your daughter's chastity- there it begins.
    He spake of her as Dian had hot dreams
    And she alone were cold; whereat I, wretch,
    Made scruple of his praise, and wager'd with him
    Pieces of gold 'gainst this which then he wore
    Upon his honour'd finger, to attain
    In suit the place of's bed, and win this ring
    By hers and mine adultery. He, true knight,
    No lesser of her honour confident
    Than I did truly find her, stakes this ring;
    And would so, had it been a carbuncle
    Of Phoebus' wheel; and might so safely, had it
    Been all the worth of's car. Away to Britain
    Post I in this design. Well may you, sir,
    Remember me at court, where I was taught
    Of your chaste daughter the wide difference
    'Twixt amorous and villainous. Being thus quench'd
    Of hope, not longing, mine Italian brain
    Gan in your duller Britain operate
    Most vilely; for my vantage, excellent;
    And, to be brief, my practice so prevail'd
    That I return'd with simular proof enough
    To make the noble Leonatus mad,
    By wounding his belief in her renown
    With tokens thus and thus; averring notes
    Of chamber-hanging, pictures, this her bracelet-
    O cunning, how I got it!- nay, some marks
    Of secret on her person, that he could not
    But think her bond of chastity quite crack'd,
    I having ta'en the forfeit. Whereupon-
    Methinks I see him now-
  POSTHUMUS. [Coming forward] Ay, so thou dost,
    Italian fiend! Ay me, most credulous fool,
    Egregious murderer, thief, anything
    That's due to all the villains past, in being,
    To come! O, give me cord, or knife, or poison,
    Some upright justicer! Thou, King, send out
    For torturers ingenious. It is I
    That all th' abhorred things o' th' earth amend
    By being worse than they. I am Posthumus,
    That kill'd thy daughter; villain-like, I lie-
    That caus'd a lesser villain than myself,
    A sacrilegious thief, to do't. The temple
    Of virtue was she; yea, and she herself.
    Spit, and throw stones, cast mire upon me, set
    The dogs o' th' street to bay me. Every villain
    Be call'd Posthumus Leonatus, and
    Be villainy less than 'twas! O Imogen!
    My queen, my life, my wife! O Imogen,
    Imogen, Imogen!
  IMOGEN. Peace, my lord. Hear, hear!
  POSTHUMUS. Shall's have a play of this? Thou scornful page,
    There lies thy part.                [Strikes her. She falls]
  PISANIO. O gentlemen, help!
    Mine and your mistress! O, my lord Posthumus!
    You ne'er kill'd Imogen till now. Help, help!
    Mine honour'd lady!
  CYMBELINE. Does the world go round?
  POSTHUMUS. How comes these staggers on me?
  PISANIO. Wake, my mistress!
  CYMBELINE. If this be so, the gods do mean to strike me
    To death with mortal joy.
  PISANIO. How fares my mistress?
  IMOGEN. O, get thee from my sight;
    Thou gav'st me poison. Dangerous fellow, hence!
    Breathe not where princes are.
  CYMBELINE. The tune of Imogen!
  PISANIO. Lady,
    The gods throw stones of sulphur on me, if
    That box I gave you was not thought by me
    A precious thing! I had it from the Queen.
  CYMBELINE. New matter still?
  IMOGEN. It poison'd me.
  CORNELIUS. O gods!
    I left out one thing which the Queen confess'd,
    Which must approve thee honest. 'If Pisanio
    Have' said she 'given his mistress that confection
    Which I gave him for cordial, she is serv'd
    As I would serve a rat.'
  CYMBELINE. What's this, Cornelius?
  CORNELIUS. The Queen, sir, very oft importun'd me
    To temper poisons for her; still pretending
    The satisfaction of her knowledge only
    In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs,
    Of no esteem. I, dreading that her purpose
    Was of more danger, did compound for her
    A certain stuff, which, being ta'en would cease
    The present pow'r of life, but in short time
    All offices of nature should again
    Do their due functions. Have you ta'en of it?
  IMOGEN. Most like I did, for I was dead.
  BELARIUS. My boys,
    There was our error.
  GUIDERIUS. This is sure Fidele.
  IMOGEN. Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
    Think that you are upon a rock, and now
    Throw me again.                              [Embracing him]
  POSTHUMUS. Hang there like fruit, my soul,
    Till the tree die!
  CYMBELINE. How now, my flesh? my child?
    What, mak'st thou me a dullard in this act?
    Wilt thou not speak to me?
  IMOGEN. [Kneeling] Your blessing, sir.
  BELARIUS. [To GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS] Though you did love this
      youth, I blame ye not;
    You had a motive for't.
  CYMBELINE. My tears that fall
    Prove holy water on thee! Imogen,
    Thy mother's dead.
  IMOGEN. I am sorry for't, my lord.
  CYMBELINE. O, she was naught, and long of her it was
    That we meet here so strangely; but her son
    Is gone, we know not how nor where.
  PISANIO. My lord,
    Now fear is from me, I'll speak troth. Lord Cloten,
    Upon my lady's missing, came to me
    With his sword drawn, foam'd at the mouth, and swore,
    If I discover'd not which way she was gone,
    It was my instant death. By accident
    I had a feigned letter of my master's
    Then in my pocket, which directed him
    To seek her on the mountains near to Milford;
    Where, in a frenzy, in my master's garments,
    Which he enforc'd from me, away he posts
    With unchaste purpose, and with oath to violate
    My lady's honour. What became of him
    I further know not.
  GUIDERIUS. Let me end the story:
    I slew him there.
  CYMBELINE. Marry, the gods forfend!
    I would not thy good deeds should from my lips
    Pluck a hard sentence. Prithee, valiant youth,
    Deny't again.
  GUIDERIUS. I have spoke it, and I did it.
  CYMBELINE. He was a prince.
  GUIDERIUS. A most incivil one. The wrongs he did me
    Were nothing prince-like; for he did provoke me
    With language that would make me spurn the sea,
    If it could so roar to me. I cut off's head,
    And am right glad he is not standing here
    To tell this tale of mine.
  CYMBELINE. I am sorry for thee.
    By thine own tongue thou art condemn'd, and must
    Endure our law. Thou'rt dead.
  IMOGEN. That headless man
    I thought had been my lord.
  CYMBELINE. Bind the offender,
    And take him from our presence.
  BELARIUS. Stay, sir King.
    This man is better than the man he slew,
    As well descended as thyself, and hath
    More of thee merited than a band of Clotens
    Had ever scar for. [To the guard] Let his arms alone;
    They were not born for bondage.
  CYMBELINE. Why, old soldier,
    Wilt thou undo the worth thou art unpaid for
    By tasting of our wrath? How of descent
    As good as we?
  ARVIRAGUS. In that he spake too far.
  CYMBELINE. And thou shalt die for't.
  BELARIUS. We will die all three;
    But I will prove that two on's are as good
    As I have given out him. My sons, I must
    For mine own part unfold a dangerous speech,
    Though haply well for you.
  ARVIRAGUS. Your danger's ours.
  GUIDERIUS. And our good his.
  BELARIUS. Have at it then by leave!
    Thou hadst, great King, a subject who
    Was call'd Belarius.
  CYMBELINE. What of him? He is
    A banish'd traitor.
  BELARIUS. He it is that hath
    Assum'd this age; indeed a banish'd man;
    I know not how a traitor.
  CYMBELINE. Take him hence,
    The whole world shall not save him.
  BELARIUS. Not too hot.
    First pay me for the nursing of thy sons,
    And let it be confiscate all, so soon
    As I have receiv'd it.
  CYMBELINE. Nursing of my sons?
  BELARIUS. I am too blunt and saucy: here's my knee.
    Ere I arise I will prefer my sons;
    Then spare not the old father. Mighty sir,
    These two young gentlemen that call me father,
    And think they are my sons, are none of mine;
    They are the issue of your loins, my liege,
    And blood of your begetting.
  CYMBELINE. How? my issue?
  BELARIUS. So sure as you your father's. I, old Morgan,
    Am that Belarius whom you sometime banish'd.
    Your pleasure was my mere offence, my punishment
    Itself, and all my treason; that I suffer'd
    Was all the harm I did. These gentle princes-
    For such and so they are- these twenty years
    Have I train'd up; those arts they have as
    Could put into them. My breeding was, sir, as
    Your Highness knows. Their nurse, Euriphile,
    Whom for the theft I wedded, stole these children
    Upon my banishment; I mov'd her to't,
    Having receiv'd the punishment before
    For that which I did then. Beaten for loyalty
    Excited me to treason. Their dear loss,
    The more of you 'twas felt, the more it shap'd
    Unto my end of stealing them. But, gracious sir,
    Here are your sons again, and I must lose
    Two of the sweet'st companions in the world.
    The benediction of these covering heavens
    Fall on their heads like dew! for they are worthy
    To inlay heaven with stars.
  CYMBELINE. Thou weep'st and speak'st.
    The service that you three have done is more
    Unlike than this thou tell'st. I lost my children.
    If these be they, I know not how to wish
    A pair of worthier sons.
  BELARIUS. Be pleas'd awhile.
    This gentleman, whom I call Polydore,
    Most worthy prince, as yours, is true Guiderius;
    This gentleman, my Cadwal, Arviragus,
    Your younger princely son; he, sir, was lapp'd
    In a most curious mantle, wrought by th' hand
    Of his queen mother, which for more probation
    I can with ease produce.
  CYMBELINE. Guiderius had
    Upon his neck a mole, a sanguine star;
    It was a mark of wonder.
  BELARIUS. This is he,
    Who hath upon him still that natural stamp.
    It was wise nature's end in the donation,
    To be his evidence now.
  CYMBELINE. O, what am I?
    A mother to the birth of three? Ne'er mother
    Rejoic'd deliverance more. Blest pray you be,
    That, after this strange starting from your orbs,
    You may reign in them now! O Imogen,
    Thou hast lost by this a kingdom.
  IMOGEN. No, my lord;
    I have got two worlds by't. O my gentle brothers,
    Have we thus met? O, never say hereafter
    But I am truest speaker! You call'd me brother,
    When I was but your sister: I you brothers,
    When we were so indeed.
  CYMBELINE. Did you e'er meet?
  ARVIRAGUS. Ay, my good lord.
  GUIDERIUS. And at first meeting lov'd,
    Continu'd so until we thought he died.
  CORNELIUS. By the Queen's dram she swallow'd.
  CYMBELINE. O rare instinct!
    When shall I hear all through? This fierce abridgment
    Hath to it circumstantial branches, which
    Distinction should be rich in. Where? how liv'd you?
    And when came you to serve our Roman captive?
    How parted with your brothers? how first met them?
    Why fled you from the court? and whither? These,
    And your three motives to the battle, with
    I know not how much more, should be demanded,
    And all the other by-dependences,
    From chance to chance; but nor the time nor place
    Will serve our long interrogatories. See,
    Posthumus anchors upon Imogen;
    And she, like harmless lightning, throws her eye
    On him, her brothers, me, her master, hitting
    Each object with a joy; the counterchange
    Is severally in all. Let's quit this ground,
    And smoke the temple with our sacrifices.
    [To BELARIUS] Thou art my brother; so we'll hold thee ever.
  IMOGEN. You are my father too, and did relieve me
    To see this gracious season.
  CYMBELINE. All o'erjoy'd
    Save these in bonds. Let them be joyful too,
    For they shall taste our comfort.
  IMOGEN. My good master,
    I will yet do you service.
  LUCIUS. Happy be you!
  CYMBELINE. The forlorn soldier, that so nobly fought,
    He would have well becom'd this place and grac'd
    The thankings of a king.
  POSTHUMUS. I am, sir,
    The soldier that did company these three
    In poor beseeming; 'twas a fitment for
    The purpose I then follow'd. That I was he,
    Speak, Iachimo. I had you down, and might
    Have made you finish.
  IACHIMO. [Kneeling] I am down again;
    But now my heavy conscience sinks my knee,
    As then your force did. Take that life, beseech you,
    Which I so often owe; but your ring first,
    And here the bracelet of the truest princess
    That ever swore her faith.
  POSTHUMUS. Kneel not to me.
    The pow'r that I have on you is to spare you;
    The malice towards you to forgive you. Live,
    And deal with others better.
  CYMBELINE. Nobly doom'd!
    We'll learn our freeness of a son-in-law;
    Pardon's the word to all.
  ARVIRAGUS. You holp us, sir,
    As you did mean indeed to be our brother;
    Joy'd are we that you are.
  POSTHUMUS. Your servant, Princes. Good my lord of Rome,
    Call forth your soothsayer. As I slept, methought
    Great Jupiter, upon his eagle back'd,
    Appear'd to me, with other spritely shows
    Of mine own kindred. When I wak'd, I found
    This label on my bosom; whose containing
    Is so from sense in hardness that I can
    Make no collection of it. Let him show
    His skill in the construction.
  LUCIUS. Philarmonus!
  SOOTHSAYER. Here, my good lord.
  LUCIUS. Read, and declare the meaning.
  SOOTHSAYER. [Reads] 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself
    unknown, without seeking find, and be embrac'd by
    a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall
    be lopp'd branches which, being dead many years, shall
    after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow;
    then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate
    and flourish in peace and plenty.'
    Thou, Leonatus, art the lion's whelp;
    The fit and apt construction of thy name,
    Being Leo-natus, doth import so much.
    [To CYMBELINE] The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter,
    Which we call 'mollis aer,' and 'mollis aer'
    We term it 'mulier'; which 'mulier' I divine
    Is this most constant wife, who even now
    Answering the letter of the oracle,
    Unknown to you, unsought, were clipp'd about
    With this most tender air.
  CYMBELINE. This hath some seeming.
  SOOTHSAYER. The lofty cedar, royal Cymbeline,
    Personates thee; and thy lopp'd branches point
    Thy two sons forth, who, by Belarius stol'n,
    For many years thought dead, are now reviv'd,
    To the majestic cedar join'd, whose issue
    Promises Britain peace and plenty.
  CYMBELINE. Well,
    My peace we will begin. And, Caius Lucius,
    Although the victor, we submit to Caesar
    And to the Roman empire, promising
    To pay our wonted tribute, from the which
    We were dissuaded by our wicked queen,
    Whom heavens in justice, both on her and hers,
    Have laid most heavy hand.
  SOOTHSAYER. The fingers of the pow'rs above do tune
    The harmony of this peace. The vision
    Which I made known to Lucius ere the stroke
    Of yet this scarce-cold battle, at this instant
    Is full accomplish'd; for the Roman eagle,
    From south to west on wing soaring aloft,
    Lessen'd herself and in the beams o' th' sun
    So vanish'd; which foreshow'd our princely eagle,
    Th'imperial Caesar, Caesar, should again unite
    His favour with the radiant Cymbeline,
    Which shines here in the west.
  CYMBELINE. Laud we the gods;
    And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
    From our bless'd altars. Publish we this peace
    To all our subjects. Set we forward; let
    A Roman and a British ensign wave
    Friendly together. So through Lud's Town march;
    And in the temple of great Jupiter
    Our peace we'll ratify; seal it with feasts.
    Set on there! Never was a war did cease,
    Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace.      Exeunt

THE END

1604



THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK



by William Shakespeare






Contents

ACT I
Scene I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.
Scene II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle
Scene III. A room in Polonius’s house.
Scene IV. The platform.
Scene V. A more remote part of the Castle.

ACT II
Scene I. A room in Polonius’s house.
Scene II. A room in the Castle.

ACT III
Scene I. A room in the Castle.
Scene II. A hall in the Castle.
Scene III. A room in the Castle.
Scene IV. Another room in the Castle.

ACT IV
Scene I. A room in the Castle.
Scene II. Another room in the Castle.
Scene III. Another room in the Castle.
Scene IV. A plain in Denmark.
Scene V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle.
Scene VI. Another room in the Castle.
Scene VII. Another room in the Castle.

ACT V
Scene I. A churchyard.
Scene II. A hall in the Castle.




 Dramatis Personæ

HAMLET, Prince of Denmark.
CLAUDIUS, King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle.
The GHOST of the late king, Hamlet’s father.
GERTRUDE, the Queen, Hamlet’s mother, now wife of Claudius.
POLONIUS, Lord Chamberlain.
LAERTES, Son to Polonius.
OPHELIA, Daughter to Polonius.
HORATIO, Friend to Hamlet.
FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway.
VOLTEMAND, Courtier.
CORNELIUS, Courtier.
ROSENCRANTZ, Courtier.
GUILDENSTERN, Courtier.
MARCELLUS, Officer.
BARNARDO, Officer.
FRANCISCO, a Soldier
OSRIC, Courtier.
REYNALDO, Servant to Polonius.
Players.
A Gentleman, Courtier.
A Priest.
Two Clowns, Grave-diggers.
A Captain.
English Ambassadors.
Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and Attendants.

SCENE. Elsinore.



ACT I

SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.

 Enter Francisco and Barnardo, two sentinels.

BARNARDO.
Who’s there?

FRANCISCO.
Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

BARNARDO.
Long live the King!

FRANCISCO.
Barnardo?

BARNARDO.
He.

FRANCISCO.
You come most carefully upon your hour.

BARNARDO.
’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO.
For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.

BARNARDO.
Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO.
Not a mouse stirring.

BARNARDO.
Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

 Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

FRANCISCO.
I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?

HORATIO.
Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS.
And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO.
Give you good night.

MARCELLUS.
O, farewell, honest soldier, who hath reliev’d you?

FRANCISCO.
Barnardo has my place. Give you good-night.

 [_Exit._]

MARCELLUS.
Holla, Barnardo!

BARNARDO.
Say, what, is Horatio there?

HORATIO.
A piece of him.

BARNARDO.
Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.

MARCELLUS.
What, has this thing appear’d again tonight?

BARNARDO.
I have seen nothing.

MARCELLUS.
Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.
Therefore I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night,
That if again this apparition come
He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

HORATIO.
Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.

BARNARDO.
Sit down awhile,
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.

HORATIO.
Well, sit we down,
And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.

BARNARDO.
Last night of all,
When yond same star that’s westward from the pole,
Had made his course t’illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one—

MARCELLUS.
Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again.

 Enter Ghost.

BARNARDO.
In the same figure, like the King that’s dead.

MARCELLUS.
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

BARNARDO.
Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.

HORATIO.
Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.

BARNARDO
It would be spoke to.

MARCELLUS.
Question it, Horatio.

HORATIO.
What art thou that usurp’st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak.

MARCELLUS.
It is offended.

BARNARDO.
See, it stalks away.

HORATIO.
Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee speak!

 [_Exit Ghost._]

MARCELLUS.
’Tis gone, and will not answer.

BARNARDO.
How now, Horatio! You tremble and look pale.
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on’t?

HORATIO.
Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.

MARCELLUS.
Is it not like the King?

HORATIO.
As thou art to thyself:
Such was the very armour he had on
When he th’ambitious Norway combated;
So frown’d he once, when in an angry parle
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
’Tis strange.

MARCELLUS.
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

HORATIO.
In what particular thought to work I know not;
But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

MARCELLUS.
Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land,
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week.
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
Who is’t that can inform me?

HORATIO.
That can I;
At least, the whisper goes so. Our last King,
Whose image even but now appear’d to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride,
Dar’d to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet,
For so this side of our known world esteem’d him,
Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal’d compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
Which he stood seiz’d of, to the conqueror;
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our King; which had return’d
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
Had he been vanquisher; as by the same cov’nant
And carriage of the article design’d,
His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle, hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in’t; which is no other,
As it doth well appear unto our state,
But to recover of us by strong hand
And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
So by his father lost. And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations,
The source of this our watch, and the chief head
Of this post-haste and rummage in the land.

BARNARDO.
I think it be no other but e’en so:
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch so like the King
That was and is the question of these wars.

HORATIO.
A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.

 Re-enter Ghost.

But, soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again!
I’ll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me.
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me.
If thou art privy to thy country’s fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O speak!
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it. Stay, and speak!

 [_The cock crows._]

Stop it, Marcellus!

MARCELLUS.
Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

HORATIO.
Do, if it will not stand.

BARNARDO.
’Tis here!

HORATIO.
’Tis here!

 [_Exit Ghost._]

MARCELLUS.
’Tis gone!
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence,
For it is as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.

BARNARDO.
It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

HORATIO.
And then it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
Th’extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine. And of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

MARCELLUS.
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm;
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.

HORATIO.
So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But look, the morn in russet mantle clad,
Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
Break we our watch up, and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
Unto young Hamlet; for upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MARCELLUS.
Let’s do’t, I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.

 Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius,
 Laertes, Voltemand,
Cornelius, Lords and Attendant.

KING.
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
Th’imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr’d
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail’d to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew’s purpose, to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions are all made
Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the King, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.
Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.

CORNELIUS and VOLTEMAND.
In that, and all things, will we show our duty.

KING.
We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.

 [_Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius._]

And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?
You told us of some suit. What is’t, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

LAERTES.
Dread my lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France,
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark
To show my duty in your coronation;
Yet now I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

KING.
Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

POLONIUS.
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laboursome petition; and at last
Upon his will I seal’d my hard consent.
I do beseech you give him leave to go.

KING.
Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son—

HAMLET.
[_Aside._] A little more than kin, and less than kind.

KING.
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET.
Not so, my lord, I am too much i’ the sun.

QUEEN.
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know’st ’tis common, all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET.
Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN.
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET.
Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.
’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc’d breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

KING.
’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father;
But you must know, your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term
To do obsequious sorrow. But to persevere
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief,
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool’d;
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie, ’tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died today,
‘This must be so.’ We pray you throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father; for let the world take note
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

QUEEN.
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
I pray thee stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

HAMLET.
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

KING.
Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply.
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforc’d accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks today
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the King’s rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

 [_Exeunt all but Hamlet._]

HAMLET.
O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter. O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! Oh fie! ’tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on; and yet, within a month—
Let me not think on’t—Frailty, thy name is woman!
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father’s body
Like Niobe, all tears.—Why she, even she—
O God! A beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourn’d longer,—married with mine uncle,
My father’s brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month?
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

 Enter Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo.

HORATIO.
Hail to your lordship!

HAMLET.
I am glad to see you well:
Horatio, or I do forget myself.

HORATIO.
The same, my lord,
And your poor servant ever.

HAMLET.
Sir, my good friend;
I’ll change that name with you:
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?—
Marcellus?

MARCELLUS.
My good lord.

HAMLET.
I am very glad to see you.—Good even, sir.—
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

HORATIO.
A truant disposition, good my lord.

HAMLET.
I would not hear your enemy say so;
Nor shall you do my ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself. I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

HORATIO.
My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

HAMLET.
I prithee do not mock me, fellow-student.
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

HORATIO.
Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.

HAMLET.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio.
My father,—methinks I see my father.

HORATIO.
Where, my lord?

HAMLET.
In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

HORATIO.
I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

HAMLET.
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

HORATIO.
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET.
Saw? Who?

HORATIO.
My lord, the King your father.

HAMLET.
The King my father!

HORATIO.
Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear, till I may deliver
Upon the witness of these gentlemen
This marvel to you.

HAMLET.
For God’s love let me hear.

HORATIO.
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch
In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,
Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d
By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distill’d
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.

HAMLET.
But where was this?

MARCELLUS.
My lord, upon the platform where we watch.

HAMLET.
Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO.
My lord, I did;
But answer made it none: yet once methought
It lifted up it head, and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak.
But even then the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish’d from our sight.

HAMLET.
’Tis very strange.

HORATIO.
As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true;
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.

HAMLET.
Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch tonight?

Mar. and BARNARDO.
We do, my lord.

HAMLET.
Arm’d, say you?

Both.
Arm’d, my lord.

HAMLET.
From top to toe?

BOTH.
My lord, from head to foot.

HAMLET.
Then saw you not his face?

HORATIO.
O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up.

HAMLET.
What, look’d he frowningly?

HORATIO.
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET.
Pale, or red?

HORATIO.
Nay, very pale.

HAMLET.
And fix’d his eyes upon you?

HORATIO.
Most constantly.

HAMLET.
I would I had been there.

HORATIO.
It would have much amaz’d you.

HAMLET.
Very like, very like. Stay’d it long?

HORATIO.
While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.
Longer, longer.

HORATIO.
Not when I saw’t.

HAMLET.
His beard was grizzled, no?

HORATIO.
It was, as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silver’d.

HAMLET.
I will watch tonight;
Perchance ’twill walk again.

HORATIO.
I warrant you it will.

HAMLET.
If it assume my noble father’s person,
I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still;
And whatsoever else shall hap tonight,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
I will requite your loves. So, fare ye well.
Upon the platform ’twixt eleven and twelve,
I’ll visit you.

ALL.
Our duty to your honour.

HAMLET.
Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.

 [_Exeunt Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo._]

My father’s spirit in arms! All is not well;
I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. A room in Polonius’s house.

 Enter Laertes and Ophelia.

LAERTES.
My necessaries are embark’d. Farewell.
And, sister, as the winds give benefit
And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.

OPHELIA.
Do you doubt that?

LAERTES.
For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood;
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting;
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more.

OPHELIA.
No more but so?

LAERTES.
Think it no more.
For nature crescent does not grow alone
In thews and bulk; but as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
The virtue of his will; but you must fear,
His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth:
He may not, as unvalu’d persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The sanctity and health of this whole state;
And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed; which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster’d importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Virtue itself scopes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then, best safety lies in fear.
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

OPHELIA.
I shall th’effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart. But good my brother,
Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst like a puff’d and reckless libertine
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.

LAERTES.
O, fear me not.
I stay too long. But here my father comes.

 Enter Polonius.

A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

POLONIUS.
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame.
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There, my blessing with you.

 [_Laying his hand on Laertes’s head._]

And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear’t that th’opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee.

LAERTES.
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

POLONIUS.
The time invites you; go, your servants tend.

LAERTES.
Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well
What I have said to you.

OPHELIA.
’Tis in my memory lock’d,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

LAERTES.
Farewell.

 [_Exit._]

POLONIUS.
What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

OPHELIA.
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

POLONIUS.
Marry, well bethought:
’Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you; and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.
If it be so,—as so ’tis put on me,
And that in way of caution,—I must tell you
You do not understand yourself so clearly
As it behoves my daughter and your honour.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.

OPHELIA.
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me.

POLONIUS.
Affection! Pooh! You speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

OPHELIA.
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

POLONIUS.
Marry, I’ll teach you; think yourself a baby;
That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay,
Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;
Or,—not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
Roaming it thus,—you’ll tender me a fool.

OPHELIA.
My lord, he hath importun’d me with love
In honourable fashion.

POLONIUS.
Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.

OPHELIA.
And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

POLONIUS.
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire. From this time
Be something scanter of your maiden presence;
Set your entreatments at a higher rate
Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him that he is young;
And with a larger tether may he walk
Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile. This is for all.
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
Have you so slander any moment leisure
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to’t, I charge you; come your ways.

OPHELIA.
I shall obey, my lord.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. The platform.

 Enter Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus.

HAMLET.
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

HORATIO.
It is a nipping and an eager air.

HAMLET.
What hour now?

HORATIO.
I think it lacks of twelve.

MARCELLUS.
No, it is struck.

HORATIO.
Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

 [_A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within._]

What does this mean, my lord?

HAMLET.
The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels;
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

HORATIO.
Is it a custom?

HAMLET.
Ay marry is’t;
And to my mind, though I am native here,
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour’d in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduc’d and tax’d of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform’d at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So oft it chances in particular men
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin,
By their o’ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by some habit, that too much o’erleavens
The form of plausive manners;—that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being Nature’s livery or Fortune’s star,—
His virtues else,—be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault. The dram of evil
Doth all the noble substance often doubt
To his own scandal.

HORATIO.
Look, my lord, it comes!

 Enter Ghost.

HAMLET.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com’st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canoniz’d bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,
Hath op’d his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?

 [_Ghost beckons Hamlet._]

HORATIO.
It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

MARCELLUS.
Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground.
But do not go with it.

HORATIO.
No, by no means.

HAMLET.
It will not speak; then will I follow it.

HORATIO.
Do not, my lord.

HAMLET.
Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.

HORATIO.
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness? Think of it.
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fadoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.

HAMLET.
It waves me still.
Go on, I’ll follow thee.

MARCELLUS.
You shall not go, my lord.

HAMLET.
Hold off your hands.

HORATIO.
Be rul’d; you shall not go.

HAMLET.
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.

 [_Ghost beckons._]

Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen.

 [_Breaking free from them._]

By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me.
I say, away!—Go on, I’ll follow thee.

 [_Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet._]

HORATIO.
He waxes desperate with imagination.

MARCELLUS.
Let’s follow; ’tis not fit thus to obey him.

HORATIO.
Have after. To what issue will this come?

MARCELLUS.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

HORATIO.
Heaven will direct it.

MARCELLUS.
Nay, let’s follow him.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. A more remote part of the Castle.

 Enter Ghost and Hamlet.

HAMLET.
Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak, I’ll go no further.

GHOST.
Mark me.

HAMLET.
I will.

GHOST.
My hour is almost come,
When I to sulph’rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.

HAMLET.
Alas, poor ghost!

GHOST.
Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.

HAMLET.
Speak, I am bound to hear.

GHOST.
So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

HAMLET.
What?

GHOST.
I am thy father’s spirit,
Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin’d to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg’d away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

HAMLET.
O God!

GHOST.
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET.
Murder!

GHOST.
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

HAMLET.
Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge.

GHOST.
I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.
’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abus’d; but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.

HAMLET.
O my prophetic soul!
Mine uncle!

GHOST.
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,—
O wicked wit, and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
O Hamlet, what a falling off was there,
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage; and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine. But virtue, as it never will be mov’d,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;
So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage.
But soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body;
And with a sudden vigour it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark’d about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatch’d:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhous’led, disappointed, unanel’d;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
O horrible! O horrible! most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But howsoever thou pursu’st this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Hamlet, remember me.

 [_Exit._]

HAMLET.
O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix’d with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling damned villain!
My tables. Meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.

 [_Writing._]

So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
It is ‘Adieu, adieu, remember me.’
I have sworn’t.

HORATIO and MARCELLUS.
[_Within._] My lord, my lord.

MARCELLUS.
[_Within._] Lord Hamlet.

HORATIO.
[_Within._] Heaven secure him.

HAMLET.
So be it!

MARCELLUS.
[_Within._] Illo, ho, ho, my lord!

HAMLET.
Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.

 Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

MARCELLUS.
How is’t, my noble lord?

HORATIO.
What news, my lord?

HAMLET.
O, wonderful!

HORATIO.
Good my lord, tell it.

HAMLET.
No, you’ll reveal it.

HORATIO.
Not I, my lord, by heaven.

MARCELLUS.
Nor I, my lord.

HAMLET.
How say you then, would heart of man once think it?—
But you’ll be secret?

HORATIO and MARCELLUS.
Ay, by heaven, my lord.

HAMLET.
There’s ne’er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he’s an arrant knave.

HORATIO.
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.

HAMLET.
Why, right; you are i’ the right;
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:
You, as your business and desires shall point you,—
For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is;—and for my own poor part,
Look you, I’ll go pray.

HORATIO.
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

HAMLET.
I’m sorry they offend you, heartily;
Yes faith, heartily.

HORATIO.
There’s no offence, my lord.

HAMLET.
Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
For your desire to know what is between us,
O’ermaster’t as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.

HORATIO.
What is’t, my lord? We will.

HAMLET.
Never make known what you have seen tonight.

HORATIO and MARCELLUS.
My lord, we will not.

HAMLET.
Nay, but swear’t.

HORATIO.
In faith, my lord, not I.

MARCELLUS.
Nor I, my lord, in faith.

HAMLET.
Upon my sword.

MARCELLUS.
We have sworn, my lord, already.

HAMLET.
Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

GHOST.
[_Cries under the stage._] Swear.

HAMLET.
Ha, ha boy, say’st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?
Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage.
Consent to swear.

HORATIO.
Propose the oath, my lord.

HAMLET.
Never to speak of this that you have seen.
Swear by my sword.

GHOST.
[_Beneath._] Swear.

HAMLET.
_Hic et ubique?_ Then we’ll shift our ground.
Come hither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword.
Never to speak of this that you have heard.
Swear by my sword.

GHOST.
[_Beneath._] Swear.

HAMLET.
Well said, old mole! Canst work i’ th’earth so fast?
A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.

HORATIO.
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.

HAMLET.
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come,
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,—
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on—
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber’d thus, or this head-shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As ‘Well, we know’, or ‘We could and if we would’,
Or ‘If we list to speak’; or ‘There be and if they might’,
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
That you know aught of me:—this not to do.
So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
Swear.

GHOST.
[_Beneath._] Swear.

HAMLET.
Rest, rest, perturbed spirit. So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you;
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do t’express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right.
Nay, come, let’s go together.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT II

SCENE I. A room in Polonius’s house.

 Enter Polonius and Reynaldo.

POLONIUS.
Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.

REYNALDO.
I will, my lord.

POLONIUS.
You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before you visit him, to make inquiry
Of his behaviour.

REYNALDO.
My lord, I did intend it.

POLONIUS.
Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir,
Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
What company, at what expense; and finding
By this encompassment and drift of question,
That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it.
Take you as ’twere some distant knowledge of him,
As thus, ‘I know his father and his friends,
And in part him’—do you mark this, Reynaldo?

REYNALDO.
Ay, very well, my lord.

POLONIUS.
‘And in part him, but,’ you may say, ‘not well;
But if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild;
Addicted so and so;’ and there put on him
What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
As may dishonour him; take heed of that;
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.

REYNALDO.
As gaming, my lord?

POLONIUS.
Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing,
Quarrelling, drabbing. You may go so far.

REYNALDO.
My lord, that would dishonour him.

POLONIUS.
Faith no, as you may season it in the charge.
You must not put another scandal on him,
That he is open to incontinency;
That’s not my meaning: but breathe his faults so quaintly
That they may seem the taints of liberty;
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimed blood,
Of general assault.

REYNALDO.
But my good lord—

POLONIUS.
Wherefore should you do this?

REYNALDO.
Ay, my lord, I would know that.

POLONIUS.
Marry, sir, here’s my drift,
And I believe it is a fetch of warrant.
You laying these slight sullies on my son,
As ’twere a thing a little soil’d i’ th’ working,
Mark you,
Your party in converse, him you would sound,
Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur’d
He closes with you in this consequence;
‘Good sir,’ or so; or ‘friend,’ or ‘gentleman’—
According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country.

REYNALDO.
Very good, my lord.

POLONIUS.
And then, sir, does he this,—
He does—What was I about to say?
By the mass, I was about to say something. Where did I leave?

REYNALDO.
At ‘closes in the consequence.’
At ‘friend or so,’ and ‘gentleman.’

POLONIUS.
At ‘closes in the consequence’ ay, marry!
He closes with you thus: ‘I know the gentleman,
I saw him yesterday, or t’other day,
Or then, or then, with such and such; and, as you say,
There was he gaming, there o’ertook in’s rouse,
There falling out at tennis’: or perchance,
‘I saw him enter such a house of sale’—
_Videlicet_, a brothel, or so forth. See you now;
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses, and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out.
So by my former lecture and advice
Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?

REYNALDO.
My lord, I have.

POLONIUS.
God b’ wi’ you, fare you well.

REYNALDO.
Good my lord.

POLONIUS.
Observe his inclination in yourself.

REYNALDO.
I shall, my lord.

POLONIUS.
And let him ply his music.

REYNALDO.
Well, my lord.

POLONIUS.
Farewell.

 [_Exit Reynaldo._]

 Enter Ophelia.

How now, Ophelia, what’s the matter?

OPHELIA.
Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted.

POLONIUS.
With what, in the name of God?

OPHELIA.
My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac’d,
No hat upon his head, his stockings foul’d,
Ungart’red, and down-gyved to his ankle,
Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors, he comes before me.

POLONIUS.
Mad for thy love?

OPHELIA.
My lord, I do not know, but truly I do fear it.

POLONIUS.
What said he?

OPHELIA.
He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
And with his other hand thus o’er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so,
At last,—a little shaking of mine arm,
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He rais’d a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being. That done, he lets me go,
And with his head over his shoulder turn’d
He seem’d to find his way without his eyes,
For out o’ doors he went without their help,
And to the last bended their light on me.

POLONIUS.
Come, go with me. I will go seek the King.
This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself,
And leads the will to desperate undertakings,
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures. I am sorry,—
What, have you given him any hard words of late?

OPHELIA.
No, my good lord; but as you did command,
I did repel his letters and denied
His access to me.

POLONIUS.
That hath made him mad.
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
I had not quoted him. I fear’d he did but trifle,
And meant to wreck thee. But beshrew my jealousy!
It seems it is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion. Come, go we to the King.
This must be known, which, being kept close, might move
More grief to hide than hate to utter love.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A room in the Castle.

 Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Attendants.

KING.
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet’s transformation; so I call it,
Since nor th’exterior nor the inward man
Resembles that it was. What it should be,
More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him
So much from th’understanding of himself,
I cannot dream of. I entreat you both
That, being of so young days brought up with him,
And since so neighbour’d to his youth and humour,
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
Some little time, so by your companies
To draw him on to pleasures and to gather,
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus
That, open’d, lies within our remedy.

QUEEN.
Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of you,
And sure I am, two men there are not living
To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
To show us so much gentry and good will
As to expend your time with us awhile,
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king’s remembrance.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Both your majesties
Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to entreaty.

GUILDENSTERN.
We both obey,
And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,
To lay our service freely at your feet
To be commanded.

KING.
Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

QUEEN.
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changed son. Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

GUILDENSTERN.
Heavens make our presence and our practices
Pleasant and helpful to him.

QUEEN.
Ay, amen.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and some Attendants._]

 Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS.
Th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
Are joyfully return’d.

KING.
Thou still hast been the father of good news.

POLONIUS.
Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege,
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
Both to my God and to my gracious King:
And I do think,—or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath us’d to do—that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.

KING.
O speak of that, that do I long to hear.

POLONIUS.
Give first admittance to th’ambassadors;
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.

KING.
Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.

 [_Exit Polonius._]

He tells me, my sweet queen, that he hath found
The head and source of all your son’s distemper.

QUEEN.
I doubt it is no other but the main,
His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.

KING.
Well, we shall sift him.

 Enter Polonius with Voltemand and Cornelius.

Welcome, my good friends!
Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?

VOLTEMAND.
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew’s levies, which to him appear’d
To be a preparation ’gainst the Polack;
But better look’d into, he truly found
It was against your Highness; whereat griev’d,
That so his sickness, age, and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,
Receives rebuke from Norway; and in fine,
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give th’assay of arms against your Majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
And his commission to employ those soldiers
So levied as before, against the Polack:
With an entreaty, herein further shown,
[_Gives a paper._]
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such regards of safety and allowance
As therein are set down.

KING.
It likes us well;
And at our more consider’d time we’ll read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.
Go to your rest, at night we’ll feast together:.
Most welcome home.

 [_Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius._]

POLONIUS.
This business is well ended.
My liege and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time.
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it; for to define true madness,
What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

QUEEN.
More matter, with less art.

POLONIUS.
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true ’tis pity;
And pity ’tis ’tis true. A foolish figure,
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him then. And now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend,
I have a daughter—have whilst she is mine—
Who in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise.
[_Reads._]
_To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia_—
That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; ‘beautified’ is a vile
phrase: but you shall hear.
[_Reads._]
_these; in her excellent white bosom, these, &c._

QUEEN.
Came this from Hamlet to her?

POLONIUS.
Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.
[_Reads._]
  _Doubt thou the stars are fire,
     Doubt that the sun doth move,
   Doubt truth to be a liar,
     But never doubt I love.
O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon my
groans. But that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
  Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,
     HAMLET._
This in obedience hath my daughter show’d me;
And more above, hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.

KING.
But how hath she receiv’d his love?

POLONIUS.
What do you think of me?

KING.
As of a man faithful and honourable.

POLONIUS.
I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing,
As I perceiv’d it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me, what might you,
Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play’d the desk or table-book,
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or look’d upon this love with idle sight,
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.
This must not be.’ And then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,
And he, repulsed,—a short tale to make—
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we wail for.

KING.
Do you think ’tis this?

QUEEN.
It may be, very likely.

POLONIUS.
Hath there been such a time, I’d fain know that,
That I have positively said ‘’Tis so,’
When it prov’d otherwise?

KING.
Not that I know.

POLONIUS.
Take this from this, if this be otherwise.
[_Points to his head and shoulder._]
If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.

KING.
How may we try it further?

POLONIUS.
You know sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.

QUEEN.
So he does indeed.

POLONIUS.
At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him.
Be you and I behind an arras then,
Mark the encounter. If he love her not,
And be not from his reason fall’n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.

KING.
We will try it.

 Enter Hamlet, reading.

QUEEN.
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

POLONIUS.
Away, I do beseech you, both away
I’ll board him presently. O, give me leave.

 [_Exeunt King, Queen and Attendants._]

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

HAMLET.
Well, God-a-mercy.

POLONIUS.
Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET.
Excellent well. You’re a fishmonger.

POLONIUS.
Not I, my lord.

HAMLET.
Then I would you were so honest a man.

POLONIUS.
Honest, my lord?

HAMLET.
Ay sir, to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out
of ten thousand.

POLONIUS.
That’s very true, my lord.

HAMLET.
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing
carrion,—
Have you a daughter?

POLONIUS.
I have, my lord.

HAMLET.
Let her not walk i’ th’ sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as your
daughter may conceive. Friend, look to’t.

POLONIUS.
How say you by that? [_Aside._] Still harping on my daughter. Yet he
knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, far
gone. And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very
near this. I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET.
Words, words, words.

POLONIUS.
What is the matter, my lord?

HAMLET.
Between who?

POLONIUS.
I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

HAMLET.
Slanders, sir. For the satirical slave says here that old men have grey
beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber
and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together
with most weak hams. All which, sir, though I most powerfully and
potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.
For you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could
go backward.

POLONIUS.
[_Aside._] Though this be madness, yet there is a method in’t.—
Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

HAMLET.
Into my grave?

POLONIUS.
Indeed, that is out o’ the air. [_Aside._] How pregnant sometimes his
replies are! A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and
sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him and
suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.
My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

HAMLET.
You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part
withal, except my life, except my life, except my life.

POLONIUS.
Fare you well, my lord.

HAMLET.
These tedious old fools.

 Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

POLONIUS.
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.

ROSENCRANTZ.
[_To Polonius._] God save you, sir.

 [_Exit Polonius._]

GUILDENSTERN.
My honoured lord!

ROSENCRANTZ.
My most dear lord!

HAMLET.
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,
Rosencrantz. Good lads, how do ye both?

ROSENCRANTZ.
As the indifferent children of the earth.

GUILDENSTERN.
Happy in that we are not over-happy;
On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.

HAMLET.
Nor the soles of her shoe?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Neither, my lord.

HAMLET.
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

GUILDENSTERN.
Faith, her privates we.

HAMLET.
In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What’s
the news?

ROSENCRANTZ.
None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.

HAMLET.
Then is doomsday near. But your news is not true. Let me question more
in particular. What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of
Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN.
Prison, my lord?

HAMLET.
Denmark’s a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Then is the world one.

HAMLET.
A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons,
Denmark being one o’ th’ worst.

ROSENCRANTZ.
We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET.
Why, then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad but
thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Why, then your ambition makes it one; ’tis too narrow for your mind.

HAMLET.
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of
infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

GUILDENSTERN.
Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the
ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAMLET.
A dream itself is but a shadow.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is
but a shadow’s shadow.

HAMLET.
Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch’d heroes
the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to th’ court? For, by my fay, I cannot
reason.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
We’ll wait upon you.

HAMLET.
No such matter. I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for,
to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But,
in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

ROSENCRANTZ.
To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

HAMLET.
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you. And sure,
dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent
for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal
justly with me. Come, come; nay, speak.

GUILDENSTERN.
What should we say, my lord?

HAMLET.
Why, anything. But to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a
kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft
enough to colour. I know the good King and Queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZ.
To what end, my lord?

HAMLET.
That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our
fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our
ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could
charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent
for or no.

ROSENCRANTZ.
[_To Guildenstern._] What say you?

HAMLET.
[_Aside._] Nay, then I have an eye of you. If you love me, hold not
off.

GUILDENSTERN.
My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET.
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery,
and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no feather. I have of
late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom
of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that
this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this
most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging
firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it
appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of
vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason? How infinite
in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable? In action
how like an angel? In apprehension, how like a god? The beauty of the
world, the paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this
quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither,
though by your smiling you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZ.
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAMLET.
Why did you laugh then, when I said ‘Man delights not me’?

ROSENCRANTZ.
To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten entertainment
the players shall receive from you. We coted them on the way, and
hither are they coming to offer you service.

HAMLET.
He that plays the king shall be welcome,—his Majesty shall have tribute
of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover
shall not sigh gratis, the humorous man shall end his part in peace;
the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle a’ th’ sere;
and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt
for’t. What players are they?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Even those you were wont to take such delight in—the tragedians of the
city.

HAMLET.
How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and
profit, was better both ways.

ROSENCRANTZ.
I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.

HAMLET.
Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are
they so followed?

ROSENCRANTZ.
No, indeed, they are not.

HAMLET.
How comes it? Do they grow rusty?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an
ayry of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question,
and are most tyrannically clapped for’t. These are now the fashion, and
so berattle the common stages—so they call them—that many wearing
rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.

HAMLET.
What, are they children? Who maintains ’em? How are they escoted? Will
they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? Will they not say
afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players—as it is
most like, if their means are no better—their writers do them wrong to
make them exclaim against their own succession?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it
no sin to tarre them to controversy. There was for a while, no money
bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the
question.

HAMLET.
Is’t possible?

GUILDENSTERN.
O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

HAMLET.
Do the boys carry it away?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Ay, that they do, my lord. Hercules and his load too.

HAMLET.
It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and those that
would make mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty,
fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little. ’Sblood,
there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find
it out.

 [_Flourish of trumpets within._]

GUILDENSTERN.
There are the players.

HAMLET.
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come. The
appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you
in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which I tell you must show
fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You
are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN.
In what, my dear lord?

HAMLET.
I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a
hawk from a handsaw.

 Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS.
Well be with you, gentlemen.

HAMLET.
Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too, at each ear a hearer. That great
baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Happily he’s the second time come to them; for they say an old man is
twice a child.

HAMLET.
I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it.—You say
right, sir: for a Monday morning ’twas so indeed.

POLONIUS.
My lord, I have news to tell you.

HAMLET.
My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome—

POLONIUS.
The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET.
Buzz, buzz.

POLONIUS.
Upon my honour.

HAMLET.
Then came each actor on his ass—

POLONIUS.
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history,
pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem
unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light, for the
law of writ and the liberty. These are the only men.

HAMLET.
O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

POLONIUS.
What treasure had he, my lord?

HAMLET.
Why—
   ’One fair daughter, and no more,
   The which he loved passing well.’

POLONIUS.
[_Aside._] Still on my daughter.

HAMLET.
Am I not i’ th’ right, old Jephthah?

POLONIUS.
If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing
well.

HAMLET.
Nay, that follows not.

POLONIUS.
What follows then, my lord?

HAMLET.
Why,
   As by lot, God wot,
and then, you know,
   It came to pass, as most like it was.
The first row of the pious chanson will show you more. For look where
my abridgement comes.

 Enter four or five Players.

You are welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to see thee well.
Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! Thy face is valanc’d since I
saw thee last. Com’st thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young lady
and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I
saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a
piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring. Masters, you
are all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at anything
we see. We’ll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your
quality. Come, a passionate speech.

FIRST PLAYER.
What speech, my lord?

HAMLET.
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or if it
was, not above once, for the play, I remember, pleased not the million,
’twas caviare to the general. But it was—as I received it, and others,
whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine—an excellent
play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as
cunning. I remember one said there were no sallets in the lines to make
the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indite the
author of affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as
sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it, I
chiefly loved. ’Twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it
especially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your
memory, begin at this line, let me see, let me see:
   _The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast,—_
It is not so: it begins with Pyrrhus—
   _The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
   Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
   When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
   Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d
   With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot
   Now is he total gules, horridly trick’d
   With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
   Bak’d and impasted with the parching streets,
   That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
   To their vile murders. Roasted in wrath and fire,
   And thus o’ersized with coagulate gore,
   With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
   Old grandsire Priam seeks._
So, proceed you.

POLONIUS.
’Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.

FIRST PLAYER.
   _Anon he finds him,
   Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,
   Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
   Repugnant to command. Unequal match’d,
   Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;
   But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
   Th’unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
   Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
   Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
   Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo, his sword,
   Which was declining on the milky head
   Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ th’air to stick.
   So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
   And like a neutral to his will and matter,
   Did nothing.
   But as we often see against some storm,
   A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
   The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
   As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
   Doth rend the region; so after Pyrrhus’ pause,
   Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work,
   And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall
   On Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne,
   With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword
   Now falls on Priam.
   Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
   In general synod, take away her power;
   Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
   And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
   As low as to the fiends._

POLONIUS.
This is too long.

HAMLET.
It shall to the barber’s, with your beard.—Prythee say on.
He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps.
Say on; come to Hecuba.

FIRST PLAYER.
   _But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen,—_

HAMLET.
‘The mobled queen’?

POLONIUS.
That’s good! ‘Mobled queen’ is good.

FIRST PLAYER.
   _Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames
   With bisson rheum. A clout upon that head
   Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
   About her lank and all o’erteemed loins,
   A blanket, in th’alarm of fear caught up—
   Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d,
   ’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d.
   But if the gods themselves did see her then,
   When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
   In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,
   The instant burst of clamour that she made,—
   Unless things mortal move them not at all,—
   Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
   And passion in the gods._

POLONIUS.
Look, where he has not turn’d his colour, and has tears in’s eyes. Pray
you, no more.

HAMLET.
’Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.—Good my
lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be
well used; for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time.
After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill
report while you live.

POLONIUS.
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

HAMLET.
God’s bodikin, man, better. Use every man after his desert, and who
should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity. The
less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

POLONIUS.
Come, sirs.

HAMLET.
Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow.

 [_Exeunt Polonius with all the Players but the First._]

Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play _The Murder of Gonzago_?

FIRST PLAYER.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of some
dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, could
you not?

FIRST PLAYER.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.

 [_Exit First Player._]

[_To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern_] My good friends, I’ll leave you
till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Good my lord.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

HAMLET.
Ay, so, God b’ wi’ ye. Now I am alone.
O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wan’d;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba?
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing. No, not for a king
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i’ th’ throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha! ’Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Oh vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion! Fie upon’t! Foh!
About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene,
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim’d their malefactions.
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks;
I’ll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil, and the devil hath power
T’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds
More relative than this. The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

 [_Exit._]



ACT III

SCENE I. A room in the Castle.

 Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

KING.
And can you by no drift of circumstance
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

ROSENCRANTZ.
He does confess he feels himself distracted,
But from what cause he will by no means speak.

GUILDENSTERN.
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.

QUEEN.
Did he receive you well?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Most like a gentleman.

GUILDENSTERN.
But with much forcing of his disposition.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Niggard of question, but of our demands,
Most free in his reply.

QUEEN.
Did you assay him to any pastime?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Madam, it so fell out that certain players
We o’er-raught on the way. Of these we told him,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it. They are about the court,
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.

POLONIUS.
’Tis most true;
And he beseech’d me to entreat your Majesties
To hear and see the matter.

KING.
With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclin’d.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.

ROSENCRANTZ.
We shall, my lord.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

KING.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as ’twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia.
Her father and myself, lawful espials,
Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge,
And gather by him, as he is behav’d,
If’t be th’affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.

QUEEN.
I shall obey you.
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet’s wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.

OPHELIA.
Madam, I wish it may.

 [_Exit Queen._]

POLONIUS.
Ophelia, walk you here.—Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves.—[_To Ophelia._] Read on this book,
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.—We are oft to blame in this,
’Tis too much prov’d, that with devotion’s visage
And pious action we do sugar o’er
The devil himself.

KING.
[_Aside._] O ’tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
O heavy burden!

POLONIUS.
I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.

 [_Exeunt King and Polonius._]

 Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET.
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.

OPHELIA.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLET.
I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

OPHELIA.
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longed long to re-deliver.
I pray you, now receive them.

HAMLET.
No, not I.
I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA.
My honour’d lord, you know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath compos’d
As made the things more rich; their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.

HAMLET.
Ha, ha! Are you honest?

OPHELIA.
My lord?

HAMLET.
Are you fair?

OPHELIA.
What means your lordship?

HAMLET.
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse
to your beauty.

OPHELIA.
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

HAMLET.
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from
what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty
into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives
it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIA.
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET.
You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old
stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.

OPHELIA.
I was the more deceived.

HAMLET.
Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am
myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things
that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud,
revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have
thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act
them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and
heaven? We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us. Go thy ways to a
nunnery. Where’s your father?

OPHELIA.
At home, my lord.

HAMLET.
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but
in’s own house. Farewell.

OPHELIA.
O help him, you sweet heavens!

HAMLET.
If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou
as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get
thee to a nunnery, go: farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a
fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To
a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.

OPHELIA.
O heavenly powers, restore him!

HAMLET.
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one
face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you
lisp, and nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your
ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t, it hath made me mad. I say, we
will have no more marriages. Those that are married already, all but
one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.

 [_Exit._]

OPHELIA.
O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,
Th’expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th’observ’d of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck’d the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh,
That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy. O woe is me,
T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see.

 Enter King and Polonius.

KING.
Love? His affections do not that way tend,
Nor what he spake, though it lack’d form a little,
Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul
O’er which his melancholy sits on brood,
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger, which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply the seas and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel
This something settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on’t?

POLONIUS.
It shall do well. But yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,
We heard it all. My lord, do as you please,
But if you hold it fit, after the play,
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief, let her be round with him,
And I’ll be plac’d, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.

KING.
It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.

 Enter Hamlet and certain Players.

HAMLET.
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on
the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as
lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much
with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent,
tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and
beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the
soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to
tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for
the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and
noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It
out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

FIRST PLAYER.
I warrant your honour.

HAMLET.
Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor.
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special
observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything
so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
first and now, was and is, to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature;
to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age
and body of the time his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come
tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the
judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance
o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have
seen play—and heard others praise, and that highly—not to speak it
profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait
of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have
thought some of Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

FIRST PLAYER.
I hope we have reform’d that indifferently with us, sir.

HAMLET.
O reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no
more than is set down for them. For there be of them that will
themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
too, though in the meantime some necessary question of the play be then
to be considered. That’s villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.

 [_Exeunt Players._]

 Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

How now, my lord?
Will the King hear this piece of work?

POLONIUS.
And the Queen too, and that presently.

HAMLET.
Bid the players make haste.

 [_Exit Polonius._]

Will you two help to hasten them?

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
We will, my lord.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

HAMLET.
What ho, Horatio!

 Enter Horatio.

HORATIO.
Here, sweet lord, at your service.

HAMLET.
Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man
As e’er my conversation cop’d withal.

HORATIO.
O my dear lord.

HAMLET.
Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter’d?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal’d thee for herself. For thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards
Hast ta’en with equal thanks. And bles’d are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. Something too much of this.
There is a play tonight before the King.
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee, of my father’s death.
I prythee, when thou see’st that act a-foot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle. If his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen;
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note;
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face;
And after we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.

HORATIO.
Well, my lord.
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

HAMLET.
They are coming to the play. I must be idle.
Get you a place.

 Danish march. A flourish. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia,
 Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and others.

KING.
How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLET.
Excellent, i’ faith; of the chameleon’s dish: I eat the air,
promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

KING.
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.

HAMLET.
No, nor mine now. [_To Polonius._] My lord, you play’d once i’
th’university, you say?

POLONIUS.
That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.

HAMLET.
What did you enact?

POLONIUS.
I did enact Julius Caesar. I was kill’d i’ th’ Capitol. Brutus killed
me.

HAMLET.
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be the
players ready?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

QUEEN.
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLET.
No, good mother, here’s metal more attractive.

POLONIUS.
[_To the King._] O ho! do you mark that?

HAMLET.
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

 [_Lying down at Ophelia’s feet._]

OPHELIA.
No, my lord.

HAMLET.
I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA.
I think nothing, my lord.

HAMLET.
That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.

OPHELIA.
What is, my lord?

HAMLET.
Nothing.

OPHELIA.
You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET.
Who, I?

OPHELIA.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry? For look
you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within’s two
hours.

OPHELIA.
Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.

HAMLET.
So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of
sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then
there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year. But
by’r lady, he must build churches then; or else shall he suffer not
thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ‘For, O, for O, the
hobby-horse is forgot!’

 Trumpets sound. The dumb show enters.

_Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him and he
her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her
up, and declines his head upon her neck. Lays him down upon a bank of
flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow,
takes off his crown, kisses it, pours poison in the King’s ears, and
exits. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate
action. The Poisoner with some three or four Mutes, comes in again,
seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner
woos the Queen with gifts. She seems loth and unwilling awhile, but in
the end accepts his love._

 [_Exeunt._]

OPHELIA.
What means this, my lord?

HAMLET.
Marry, this is miching mallicho; it means mischief.

OPHELIA.
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

 Enter Prologue.

HAMLET.
We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they’ll
tell all.

OPHELIA.
Will they tell us what this show meant?

HAMLET.
Ay, or any show that you’ll show him. Be not you ashamed to show, he’ll
not shame to tell you what it means.

OPHELIA.
You are naught, you are naught: I’ll mark the play.

PROLOGUE.
   _For us, and for our tragedy,
   Here stooping to your clemency,
   We beg your hearing patiently._

HAMLET.
Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

OPHELIA.
’Tis brief, my lord.

HAMLET.
As woman’s love.

 Enter a King and a Queen.

PLAYER KING.
Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round
Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow’d sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

PLAYER QUEEN.
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o’er ere love be done.
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women’s fear and love holds quantity,
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now what my love is, proof hath made you know,
And as my love is siz’d, my fear is so.
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

PLAYER KING.
Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too:
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour’d, belov’d, and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou—

PLAYER QUEEN.
O confound the rest.
Such love must needs be treason in my breast.
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who kill’d the first.

HAMLET.
[_Aside._] Wormwood, wormwood.

PLAYER QUEEN.
The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.

PLAYER KING.
I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine, oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity:
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,
But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
Most necessary ’tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy.
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye; nor ’tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change,
For ’tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favourite flies,
The poor advanc’d makes friends of enemies;
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend:
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown.
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
So think thou wilt no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

PLAYER QUEEN.
Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,
Sport and repose lock from me day and night,
To desperation turn my trust and hope,
An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope,
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy!
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife.

HAMLET.
[_To Ophelia._] If she should break it now.

PLAYER KING.
’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
[_Sleeps._]

PLAYER QUEEN.
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain.

 [_Exit._]

HAMLET.
Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN.
The lady protests too much, methinks.

HAMLET.
O, but she’ll keep her word.

KING.
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?

HAMLET.
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ th’ world.

KING.
What do you call the play?

HAMLET.
_The Mousetrap._ Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a
murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the Duke’s name, his wife Baptista:
you shall see anon; ’tis a knavish piece of work: but what o’ that?
Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the
gall’d jade wince; our withers are unwrung.

 Enter Lucianus.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.

OPHELIA.
You are a good chorus, my lord.

HAMLET.
I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets
dallying.

OPHELIA.
You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

HAMLET.
It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

OPHELIA.
Still better, and worse.

HAMLET.
So you mistake your husbands.—Begin, murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable
faces, and begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

LUCIANUS.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property
On wholesome life usurp immediately.

 [_Pours the poison into the sleeper’s ears._]

HAMLET.
He poisons him i’ th’garden for’s estate. His name’s Gonzago. The story
is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how
the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.

OPHELIA.
The King rises.

HAMLET.
What, frighted with false fire?

QUEEN.
How fares my lord?

POLONIUS.
Give o’er the play.

KING.
Give me some light. Away.

All.
Lights, lights, lights.

 [_Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio._]

HAMLET.
   Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
     The hart ungalled play;
   For some must watch, while some must sleep,
     So runs the world away.
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, if the rest of my
fortunes turn Turk with me; with two Provincial roses on my razed
shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

HORATIO.
Half a share.

HAMLET.
A whole one, I.
   For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
     This realm dismantled was
   Of Jove himself, and now reigns here
     A very, very—pajock.

HORATIO.
You might have rhymed.

HAMLET.
O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst
perceive?

HORATIO.
Very well, my lord.

HAMLET.
Upon the talk of the poisoning?

HORATIO.
I did very well note him.

HAMLET.
Ah, ha! Come, some music. Come, the recorders.
   For if the king like not the comedy,
   Why then, belike he likes it not, perdie.
Come, some music.

 Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

GUILDENSTERN.
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

HAMLET.
Sir, a whole history.

GUILDENSTERN.
The King, sir—

HAMLET.
Ay, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERN.
Is in his retirement, marvellous distempered.

HAMLET.
With drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERN.
No, my lord; rather with choler.

HAMLET.
Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the
doctor, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him
into far more choler.

GUILDENSTERN.
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so
wildly from my affair.

HAMLET.
I am tame, sir, pronounce.

GUILDENSTERN.
The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me
to you.

HAMLET.
You are welcome.

GUILDENSTERN.
Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall
please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s
commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my
business.

HAMLET.
Sir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERN.
What, my lord?

HAMLET.
Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s diseased. But, sir, such answer
as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother.
Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say,—

ROSENCRANTZ.
Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and
admiration.

HAMLET.
O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no sequel
at the heels of this mother’s admiration?

ROSENCRANTZ.
She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.

HAMLET.
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further
trade with us?

ROSENCRANTZ.
My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET.
And so I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the
door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.

HAMLET.
Sir, I lack advancement.

ROSENCRANTZ.
How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your
succession in Denmark?

HAMLET.
Ay, sir, but while the grass grows—the proverb is something musty.

 Re-enter the Players with recorders.

O, the recorders. Let me see one.—To withdraw with you, why do you go
about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN.
O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

HAMLET.
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN.
My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET.
I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN.
Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET.
I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN.
I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET.
’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and
thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most
eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

GUILDENSTERN.
But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the
skill.

HAMLET.
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play
upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart
of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my
compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little
organ, yet cannot you make it speak. ’Sblood, do you think I am easier
to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though
you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

 Enter Polonius.

God bless you, sir.

POLONIUS.
My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

HAMLET.
Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?

POLONIUS.
By the mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed.

HAMLET.
Methinks it is like a weasel.

POLONIUS.
It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET.
Or like a whale.

POLONIUS.
Very like a whale.

HAMLET.
Then will I come to my mother by and by.—They fool me to the top of my
bent.—I will come by and by.

POLONIUS.
I will say so.

 [_Exit._]

HAMLET.
By and by is easily said. Leave me, friends.

 [_Exeunt all but Hamlet._]

’Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft now, to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites.
How in my words somever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. A room in the Castle.

 Enter King, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

KING.
I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you,
I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you.
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.

GUILDENSTERN.
We will ourselves provide.
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your Majesty.

ROSENCRANTZ.
The single and peculiar life is bound
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from ’noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but like a gulf doth draw
What’s near it with it. It is a massy wheel
Fix’d on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis’d and adjoin’d; which when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boist’rous ruin. Never alone
Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.

KING.
Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
We will haste us.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

 Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS.
My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.
Behind the arras I’ll convey myself
To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him home,
And as you said, and wisely was it said,
’Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear
The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege,
I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.

KING.
Thanks, dear my lord.

 [_Exit Polonius._]

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,—
A brother’s murder! Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon’d being down? Then I’ll look up.
My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder!
That cannot be; since I am still possess’d
Of those effects for which I did the murder,—
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon’d and retain th’offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature, and we ourselves compell’d
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that struggling to be free,
Art more engag’d! Help, angels! Make assay:
Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.
All may be well.

 [_Retires and kneels._]

 Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET.
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying.
And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I reveng’d. That would be scann’d:
A villain kills my father, and for that
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven. O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread,
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
’Tis heavy with him. And am I then reveng’d,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season’d for his passage? No.
Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage,
Or in th’incestuous pleasure of his bed,
At gaming, swearing; or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in’t,
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn’d and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

 [_Exit._]

 The King rises and advances.

KING.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE IV. Another room in the Castle.

 Enter Queen and Polonius.

POLONIUS.
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him,
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your Grace hath screen’d and stood between
Much heat and him. I’ll silence me e’en here.
Pray you be round with him.

HAMLET.
[_Within._] Mother, mother, mother.

QUEEN.
I’ll warrant you, Fear me not.
Withdraw, I hear him coming.

 [_Polonius goes behind the arras._]

 Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET.
Now, mother, what’s the matter?

QUEEN.
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET.
Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN.
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET.
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN.
Why, how now, Hamlet?

HAMLET.
What’s the matter now?

QUEEN.
Have you forgot me?

HAMLET.
No, by the rood, not so.
You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife,
And, would it were not so. You are my mother.

QUEEN.
Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak.

HAMLET.
Come, come, and sit you down, you shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.

QUEEN.
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!

POLONIUS.
[_Behind._] What, ho! help, help, help!

HAMLET.
How now? A rat? [_Draws._]
Dead for a ducat, dead!

 [_Makes a pass through the arras._]

POLONIUS.
[_Behind._] O, I am slain!

 [_Falls and dies._]

QUEEN.
O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET.
Nay, I know not. is it the King?

 [_Draws forth Polonius._]

QUEEN.
O what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET.
A bloody deed. Almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king and marry with his brother.

QUEEN.
As kill a king?

HAMLET.
Ay, lady, ’twas my word.—
[_To Polonius._] Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune,
Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.—
Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit you down,
And let me wring your heart, for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damned custom have not braz’d it so,
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

QUEEN.
What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

HAMLET.
Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there. Makes marriage vows
As false as dicers’ oaths. O such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words. Heaven’s face doth glow,
Yea this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.

QUEEN.
Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

HAMLET.
Look here upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow,
Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself,
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command,
A station like the herald Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
This was your husband. Look you now what follows.
Here is your husband, like a mildew’d ear
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense
Is apoplex’d, for madness would not err
Nor sense to ecstacy was ne’er so thrall’d
But it reserv’d some quantity of choice
To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t
That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope. O shame! where is thy blush?
Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.

QUEEN.
O Hamlet, speak no more.
Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.

HAMLET.
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty.

QUEEN.
O speak to me no more;
These words like daggers enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet.

HAMLET.
A murderer and a villain;
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord. A vice of kings,
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
And put it in his pocket!

QUEEN.
No more.

HAMLET.
A king of shreds and patches!—

 Enter Ghost.

Save me and hover o’er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

QUEEN.
Alas, he’s mad.

HAMLET.
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps’d in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O say!

GHOST.
Do not forget. This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But look, amazement on thy mother sits.
O step between her and her fighting soul.
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLET.
How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN.
Alas, how is’t with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,
Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

HAMLET.
On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares,
His form and cause conjoin’d, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.—Do not look upon me,
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects. Then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.

QUEEN.
To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET.
Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN.
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET.
Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN.
No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET.
Why, look you there! look how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he liv’d!
Look where he goes even now out at the portal.

 [_Exit Ghost._]

QUEEN.
This is the very coinage of your brain.
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

HAMLET.
Ecstasy!
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
That I have utter’d. Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks.
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,
Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

QUEEN.
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET.
O throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night. But go not to mine uncle’s bed.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence. The next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night,
And when you are desirous to be bles’d,
I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord
[_Pointing to Polonius._]
I do repent; but heaven hath pleas’d it so,
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.

QUEEN.
What shall I do?

HAMLET.
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed,
Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse,
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn’d fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. ’Twere good you let him know,
For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house’s top,
Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep
And break your own neck down.

QUEEN.
Be thou assur’d, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.

HAMLET.
I must to England, you know that?

QUEEN.
Alack,
I had forgot. ’Tis so concluded on.

HAMLET.
There’s letters seal’d: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang’d,—
They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard, and ’t shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon. O, ’tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing.
I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Mother, good night. Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish peating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.

 [_Exit Hamlet dragging out Polonius._]



ACT IV

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._]



ACT V

SCENE I. A churchyard.

 Enter two Clowns with spades, &c.

FIRST CLOWN.
Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully seeks her
own salvation?

SECOND CLOWN.
I tell thee she is, and therefore make her grave straight. The crowner
hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWN.
How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

SECOND CLOWN.
Why, ’tis found so.

FIRST CLOWN.
It must be _se offendendo_, it cannot be else. For here lies the point:
if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three
branches. It is to act, to do, and to perform: argal, she drowned
herself wittingly.

SECOND CLOWN.
Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,—

FIRST CLOWN.
Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. Here stands the man; good. If
the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, will he nill he, he
goes,—mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he
drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death
shortens not his own life.

SECOND CLOWN.
But is this law?

FIRST CLOWN.
Ay, marry, is’t, crowner’s quest law.

SECOND CLOWN.
Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she
should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWN.
Why, there thou say’st. And the more pity that great folk should have
countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their
even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but
gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam’s profession.

SECOND CLOWN.
Was he a gentleman?

FIRST CLOWN.
He was the first that ever bore arms.

SECOND CLOWN.
Why, he had none.

FIRST CLOWN.
What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The
Scripture says Adam digg’d. Could he dig without arms? I’ll put another
question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess
thyself—

SECOND CLOWN.
Go to.

FIRST CLOWN.
What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright,
or the carpenter?

SECOND CLOWN.
The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

FIRST CLOWN.
I like thy wit well in good faith, the gallows does well. But how does
it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now, thou dost ill to say
the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may
do well to thee. To’t again, come.

SECOND CLOWN.
Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

FIRST CLOWN.
Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

SECOND CLOWN.
Marry, now I can tell.

FIRST CLOWN.
To’t.

SECOND CLOWN.
Mass, I cannot tell.

 Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance.

FIRST CLOWN.
Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his
pace with beating; and when you are asked this question next, say ‘a
grave-maker’. The houses he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to
Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of liquor.

 [_Exit Second Clown._]

[_Digs and sings._]

   In youth when I did love, did love,
     Methought it was very sweet;
   To contract, O, the time for, a, my behove,
     O methought there was nothing meet.

HAMLET.
Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at
grave-making?

HORATIO.
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

HAMLET.
’Tis e’en so; the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

FIRST CLOWN.
[_Sings._]
   But age with his stealing steps
     Hath claw’d me in his clutch,
   And hath shipp’d me into the land,
     As if I had never been such.

 [_Throws up a skull._]

HAMLET.
That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the knave jowls
it to th’ ground, as if ’twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first
murder! This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now
o’er-offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not?

HORATIO.
It might, my lord.

HAMLET.
Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost
thou, good lord?’ This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my
lord such-a-one’s horse when he meant to beg it, might it not?

HORATIO.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
Why, e’en so: and now my Lady Worm’s; chapless, and knocked about the
mazard with a sexton’s spade. Here’s fine revolution, an we had the
trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play
at loggets with ’em? Mine ache to think on’t.

FIRST CLOWN.
[_Sings._]
   A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,
     For and a shrouding-sheet;
   O, a pit of clay for to be made
     For such a guest is meet.

 [_Throws up another skull._]

HAMLET.
There’s another. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be
his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?
Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce
with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery?
Hum. This fellow might be in’s time a great buyer of land, with his
statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his
recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his
recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers
vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the
length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his
lands will scarcely lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself
have no more, ha?

HORATIO.
Not a jot more, my lord.

HAMLET.
Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?

HORATIO.
Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

HAMLET.
They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will
speak to this fellow.—Whose grave’s this, sir?

FIRST CLOWN.
Mine, sir.
[_Sings._]
   O, a pit of clay for to be made
     For such a guest is meet.

HAMLET.
I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in’t.

FIRST CLOWN.
You lie out on’t, sir, and therefore ’tis not yours.
For my part, I do not lie in’t, yet it is mine.

HAMLET.
Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say it is thine. ’Tis for the dead,
not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

FIRST CLOWN.
’Tis a quick lie, sir; ’t will away again from me to you.

HAMLET.
What man dost thou dig it for?

FIRST CLOWN.
For no man, sir.

HAMLET.
What woman then?

FIRST CLOWN.
For none neither.

HAMLET.
Who is to be buried in’t?

FIRST CLOWN.
One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.

HAMLET.
How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation
will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note
of it, the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so
near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe.—How long hast thou
been a grave-maker?

FIRST CLOWN.
Of all the days i’ th’ year, I came to’t that day that our last King
Hamlet o’ercame Fortinbras.

HAMLET.
How long is that since?

FIRST CLOWN.
Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day
that young Hamlet was born,—he that is mad, and sent into England.

HAMLET.
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

FIRST CLOWN.
Why, because he was mad; he shall recover his wits there; or if he do
not, it’s no great matter there.

HAMLET.
Why?

FIRST CLOWN.
’Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

HAMLET.
How came he mad?

FIRST CLOWN.
Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET.
How strangely?

FIRST CLOWN.
Faith, e’en with losing his wits.

HAMLET.
Upon what ground?

FIRST CLOWN.
Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty
years.

HAMLET.
How long will a man lie i’ th’earth ere he rot?

FIRST CLOWN.
Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,—as we have many pocky corses
nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in,—he will last you some
eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.

HAMLET.
Why he more than another?

FIRST CLOWN.
Why, sir, his hide is so tann’d with his trade that he will keep out
water a great while. And your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson
dead body. Here’s a skull now; this skull hath lain in the earth
three-and-twenty years.

HAMLET.
Whose was it?

FIRST CLOWN.
A whoreson, mad fellow’s it was. Whose do you think it was?

HAMLET.
Nay, I know not.

FIRST CLOWN.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! A pour’d a flagon of Rhenish on my
head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.

HAMLET.
This?

FIRST CLOWN.
E’en that.

HAMLET.
Let me see. [_Takes the skull._] Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him,
Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my
imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I
have kiss’d I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols?
your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table
on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen?
Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch
thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that.—Prythee,
Horatio, tell me one thing.

HORATIO.
What’s that, my lord?

HAMLET.
Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ th’earth?

HORATIO.
E’en so.

HAMLET.
And smelt so? Pah!

 [_Throws down the skull._]

HORATIO.
E’en so, my lord.

HAMLET.
To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace
the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

HORATIO.
’Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.

HAMLET.
No, faith, not a jot. But to follow him thither with modesty enough,
and likelihood to lead it; as thus. Alexander died, Alexander was
buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we
make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not
stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth which kept the world in awe
Should patch a wall t’expel the winter’s flaw.
But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King.

 Enter priests, &c, in procession; the corpse of Ophelia, Laertes and
 Mourners following; King, Queen, their Trains, &c.

The Queen, the courtiers. Who is that they follow?
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo it own life. ’Twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile and mark.

 [_Retiring with Horatio._]

LAERTES.
What ceremony else?

HAMLET.
That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.

LAERTES.
What ceremony else?

PRIEST.
Her obsequies have been as far enlarg’d
As we have warranties. Her death was doubtful;
And but that great command o’ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodg’d
Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.
Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.

LAERTES.
Must there no more be done?

PRIEST.
No more be done.
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing sage requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.

LAERTES.
Lay her i’ th’earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist’ring angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.

HAMLET.
What, the fair Ophelia?

QUEEN.
[_Scattering flowers._] Sweets to the sweet. Farewell.
I hop’d thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid,
And not have strew’d thy grave.

LAERTES.
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Depriv’d thee of. Hold off the earth a while,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
[_Leaps into the grave._]
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.

HAMLET.
[_Advancing._]
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wand’ring stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
[_Leaps into the grave._]

LAERTES.
[_Grappling with him._] The devil take thy soul!

HAMLET.
Thou pray’st not well.
I prythee take thy fingers from my throat;
For though I am not splenative and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear. Away thy hand!

KING.
Pluck them asunder.

QUEEN.
Hamlet! Hamlet!

All.
Gentlemen!

HORATIO.
Good my lord, be quiet.

 [_The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave._]

HAMLET.
Why, I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

QUEEN.
O my son, what theme?

HAMLET.
I lov’d Ophelia; forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

KING.
O, he is mad, Laertes.

QUEEN.
For love of God forbear him!

HAMLET.
’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do:
Woul’t weep? woul’t fight? woul’t fast? woul’t tear thyself?
Woul’t drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I.
And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart. Nay, an thou’lt mouth,
I’ll rant as well as thou.

QUEEN.
This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclos’d,
His silence will sit drooping.

HAMLET.
Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I lov’d you ever. But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

 [_Exit._]

KING.
I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.

 [_Exit Horatio._]

[_To Laertes_]
Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech;
We’ll put the matter to the present push.—
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
This grave shall have a living monument.
An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then in patience our proceeding be.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.

 Enter Hamlet and Horatio.

HAMLET.
So much for this, sir. Now let me see the other;
You do remember all the circumstance?

HORATIO.
Remember it, my lord!

HAMLET.
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay
Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly,
And prais’d be rashness for it,—let us know,
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

HORATIO.
That is most certain.

HAMLET.
Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark
Grop’d I to find out them; had my desire,
Finger’d their packet, and in fine, withdrew
To mine own room again, making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,
Oh royal knavery! an exact command,
Larded with many several sorts of reasons,
Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s too,
With ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
That on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.

HORATIO.
Is’t possible?

HAMLET.
Here’s the commission, read it at more leisure.
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

HORATIO.
I beseech you.

HAMLET.
Being thus benetted round with villanies,—
Or I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play,—I sat me down,
Devis’d a new commission, wrote it fair:
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour’d much
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now
It did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote?

HORATIO.
Ay, good my lord.

HAMLET.
An earnest conjuration from the King,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma ’tween their amities,
And many such-like ‘as’es of great charge,
That on the view and know of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allow’d.

HORATIO.
How was this seal’d?

HAMLET.
Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
I had my father’s signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal:
Folded the writ up in the form of the other,
Subscrib’d it: gave’t th’impression; plac’d it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight, and what to this was sequent
Thou know’st already.

HORATIO.
So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.

HAMLET.
Why, man, they did make love to this employment.
They are not near my conscience; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow.
’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.

HORATIO.
Why, what a king is this!

HAMLET.
Does it not, thinks’t thee, stand me now upon,—
He that hath kill’d my king, and whor’d my mother,
Popp’d in between th’election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage—is’t not perfect conscience
To quit him with this arm? And is’t not to be damn’d
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?

HORATIO.
It must be shortly known to him from England
What is the issue of the business there.

HAMLET.
It will be short. The interim is mine;
And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘One’.
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For by the image of my cause I see
The portraiture of his. I’ll court his favours.
But sure the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a tow’ring passion.

HORATIO.
Peace, who comes here?

 Enter Osric.

OSRIC.
Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

HAMLET.
I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this waterfly?

HORATIO.
No, my good lord.

HAMLET.
Thy state is the more gracious; for ’tis a vice to know him. He hath
much land, and fertile; let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib
shall stand at the king’s mess; ’tis a chough; but, as I say, spacious
in the possession of dirt.

OSRIC.
Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing
to you from his Majesty.

HAMLET.
I will receive it with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet to his
right use; ’tis for the head.

OSRIC.
I thank your lordship, ’tis very hot.

HAMLET.
No, believe me, ’tis very cold, the wind is northerly.

OSRIC.
It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

HAMLET.
Methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.

OSRIC.
Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,—as ’twere—I cannot tell how.
But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a
great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter,—

HAMLET.
I beseech you, remember,—

 [_Hamlet moves him to put on his hat._]

OSRIC.
Nay, in good faith; for mine ease, in good faith. Sir, here is newly
come to court Laertes; believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most
excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing. Indeed,
to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry; for
you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see.

HAMLET.
Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you, though I know, to
divide him inventorially would dizzy th’arithmetic of memory, and yet
but yaw neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the verity of
extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article and his infusion of
such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his semblable
is his mirror and who else would trace him his umbrage, nothing more.

OSRIC.
Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

HAMLET.
The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer
breath?

OSRIC.
Sir?

HORATIO.
Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue? You will do’t, sir,
really.

HAMLET.
What imports the nomination of this gentleman?

OSRIC.
Of Laertes?

HORATIO.
His purse is empty already, all’s golden words are spent.

HAMLET.
Of him, sir.

OSRIC.
I know you are not ignorant,—

HAMLET.
I would you did, sir; yet in faith if you did, it would not much
approve me. Well, sir?

OSRIC.
You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is,—

HAMLET.
I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence;
but to know a man well were to know himself.

OSRIC.
I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him, by them
in his meed he’s unfellowed.

HAMLET.
What’s his weapon?

OSRIC.
Rapier and dagger.

HAMLET.
That’s two of his weapons. But well.

OSRIC.
The King, sir, hath wager’d with him six Barbary horses, against the
which he has imponed, as I take it, six French rapiers and poniards,
with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so. Three of the carriages,
in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most
delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit.

HAMLET.
What call you the carriages?

HORATIO.
I knew you must be edified by the margin ere you had done.

OSRIC.
The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

HAMLET.
The phrase would be more german to the matter if we could carry cannon
by our sides. I would it might be hangers till then. But on. Six
Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three
liberal conceited carriages: that’s the French bet against the Danish.
Why is this all imponed, as you call it?

OSRIC.
The King, sir, hath laid that in a dozen passes between you and him, he
shall not exceed you three hits. He hath laid on twelve for nine. And
it would come to immediate trial if your lordship would vouchsafe the
answer.

HAMLET.
How if I answer no?

OSRIC.
I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.

HAMLET.
Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his Majesty, it is the
breathing time of day with me. Let the foils be brought, the gentleman
willing, and the King hold his purpose, I will win for him if I can; if
not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

OSRIC.
Shall I re-deliver you e’en so?

HAMLET.
To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.

OSRIC.
I commend my duty to your lordship.

HAMLET.
Yours, yours.

 [_Exit Osric._]

He does well to commend it himself, there are no tongues else for’s
turn.

HORATIO.
This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.

HAMLET.
He did comply with his dug before he suck’d it. Thus has he,—and many
more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes on,— only got
the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of yeasty
collection, which carries them through and through the most fanned and
winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are
out,

 Enter a Lord.

LORD.
My lord, his Majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who brings
back to him that you attend him in the hall. He sends to know if your
pleasure hold to play with Laertes or that you will take longer time.

HAMLET.
I am constant to my purposes, they follow the King’s pleasure. If his
fitness speaks, mine is ready. Now or whensoever, provided I be so able
as now.

LORD.
The King and Queen and all are coming down.

HAMLET.
In happy time.

LORD.
The Queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes
before you fall to play.

HAMLET.
She well instructs me.

 [_Exit Lord._]

HORATIO.
You will lose this wager, my lord.

HAMLET.
I do not think so. Since he went into France, I have been in continual
practice. I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill
all’s here about my heart: but it is no matter.

HORATIO.
Nay, good my lord.

HAMLET.
It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving as would
perhaps trouble a woman.

HORATIO.
If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair
hither, and say you are not fit.

HAMLET.
Not a whit, we defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of
a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it
will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.
Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?

 Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Lords, Osric and Attendants with foils &c.

KING.
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.

 [_The King puts Laertes’s hand into Hamlet’s._]

HAMLET.
Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong;
But pardon’t as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows, and you must needs have heard,
How I am punish’d with sore distraction.
What I have done
That might your nature, honour, and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet.
If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness. If’t be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d;
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purpos’d evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts
That I have shot my arrow o’er the house
And hurt my brother.

LAERTES.
I am satisfied in nature,
Whose motive in this case should stir me most
To my revenge. But in my terms of honour
I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement
Till by some elder masters of known honour
I have a voice and precedent of peace
To keep my name ungor’d. But till that time
I do receive your offer’d love like love,
And will not wrong it.

HAMLET.
I embrace it freely,
And will this brother’s wager frankly play.—
Give us the foils; come on.

LAERTES.
Come, one for me.

HAMLET.
I’ll be your foil, Laertes; in mine ignorance
Your skill shall like a star i’ th’ darkest night,
Stick fiery off indeed.

LAERTES.
You mock me, sir.

HAMLET.
No, by this hand.

KING.
Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
You know the wager?

HAMLET.
Very well, my lord.
Your Grace has laid the odds o’ the weaker side.

KING.
I do not fear it. I have seen you both;
But since he is better’d, we have therefore odds.

LAERTES.
This is too heavy. Let me see another.

HAMLET.
This likes me well. These foils have all a length?

 [_They prepare to play._]

OSRIC.
Ay, my good lord.

KING.
Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire;
The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath,
And in the cup an union shall he throw
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups;
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin.
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

HAMLET.
Come on, sir.

LAERTES.
Come, my lord.

 [_They play._]

HAMLET.
One.

LAERTES.
No.

HAMLET.
Judgment.

OSRIC.
A hit, a very palpable hit.

LAERTES.
Well; again.

KING.
Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
Here’s to thy health.

 [_Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within._]

Give him the cup.

HAMLET.
I’ll play this bout first; set it by awhile.

 [_They play._]

Come. Another hit; what say you?


LAERTES.
A touch, a touch, I do confess.

KING.
Our son shall win.

QUEEN.
He’s fat, and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows.
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

HAMLET.
Good madam.

KING.
Gertrude, do not drink.

QUEEN.
I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.

KING.
[_Aside._] It is the poison’d cup; it is too late.

HAMLET.
I dare not drink yet, madam. By and by.

QUEEN.
Come, let me wipe thy face.

LAERTES.
My lord, I’ll hit him now.

KING.
I do not think’t.

LAERTES.
[_Aside._] And yet ’tis almost ’gainst my conscience.

HAMLET.
Come for the third, Laertes. You do but dally.
I pray you pass with your best violence.
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

LAERTES.
Say you so? Come on.

 [_They play._]

OSRIC.
Nothing neither way.

LAERTES.
Have at you now.

 [_Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in scuffling, they change rapiers, and
 Hamlet wounds Laertes._]

KING.
Part them; they are incens’d.

HAMLET.
Nay, come again!

 [_The Queen falls._]

OSRIC.
Look to the Queen there, ho!

HORATIO.
They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?

OSRIC.
How is’t, Laertes?

LAERTES.
Why, as a woodcock to my own springe, Osric.
I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery.

HAMLET.
How does the Queen?

KING.
She swoons to see them bleed.

QUEEN.
No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet!
The drink, the drink! I am poison’d.

 [_Dies._]

HAMLET.
O villany! Ho! Let the door be lock’d:
Treachery! Seek it out.

 [_Laertes falls._]

LAERTES.
It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain.
No medicine in the world can do thee good.
In thee there is not half an hour of life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenom’d. The foul practice
Hath turn’d itself on me. Lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison’d.
I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.

HAMLET.
The point envenom’d too!
Then, venom, to thy work.

 [_Stabs the King._]

OSRIC and LORDS.
Treason! treason!

KING.
O yet defend me, friends. I am but hurt.

HAMLET.
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.

 [_King dies._]

LAERTES.
He is justly serv’d.
It is a poison temper’d by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.

 [_Dies._]

HAMLET.
Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu.
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time,—as this fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest,—O, I could tell you,—
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead,
Thou liv’st; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.

HORATIO.
Never believe it.
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
Here’s yet some liquor left.

HAMLET.
As th’art a man,
Give me the cup. Let go; by Heaven, I’ll have’t.
O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me.
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.

 [_March afar off, and shot within._]

What warlike noise is this?

OSRIC.
Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
To the ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley.

HAMLET.
O, I die, Horatio.
The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit:
I cannot live to hear the news from England,
But I do prophesy th’election lights
On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice.
So tell him, with the occurrents more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

 [_Dies._]

HORATIO.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Why does the drum come hither?

 [_March within._]

 Enter Fortinbras, the English Ambassadors and others.

FORTINBRAS.
Where is this sight?

HORATIO.
What is it you would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

FORTINBRAS.
This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?

FIRST AMBASSADOR.
The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late.
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfill’d,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Where should we have our thanks?

HORATIO.
Not from his mouth,
Had it th’ability of life to thank you.
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England
Are here arriv’d, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view,
And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc’d cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on the inventors’ heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.

FORTINBRAS.
Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

HORATIO.
Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.
But let this same be presently perform’d,
Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more mischance
On plots and errors happen.

FORTINBRAS.
Let four captains
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have prov’d most royally; and for his passage,
The soldiers’ music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

 [_A dead march._]

 [_Exeunt, bearing off the bodies, after which a peal of ordnance is
 shot off._]



THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH




by William Shakespeare






 Dramatis Personæ

KING HENRY the Fourth.
HENRY, PRINCE of Wales, son to the King.
Prince John of LANCASTER, son to the King.
Earl of WESTMORELAND.
Sir Walter BLUNT.
Thomas Percy, Earl of WORCESTER.
Henry Percy, Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND.
Henry Percy, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son.
Edmund MORTIMER, Earl of March.
Scroop, ARCHBISHOP of York.
SIR MICHAEL, his Friend.
Archibald, Earl of DOUGLAS.
Owen GLENDOWER.
Sir Richard VERNON.
Sir John FALSTAFF.
POINS.
GADSHILL.
PETO.
BARDOLPH.
LADY PERCY, Wife to Hotspur.
Lady Mortimer, Daughter to Glendower.
Mrs. Quickly, Hostess in Eastcheap.
Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers,
Carriers, Travellers and Attendants.

SCENE. England and Wales.

ACT I

SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter the King Henry, Westmoreland, Sir Walter Blunt, and others.]

KING.
So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in strands afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces:  those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way, and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ—
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engaged to fight—
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,
To chase these pagans in those holy fields
Over whose acres walk’d those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail’d
For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose now is twelvemonth old,
And bootless ’tis to tell you we will go:
Therefore we meet not now.—Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our Council did decree
In forwarding this dear expedience.

WESTMORELAND.
My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight; when, all athwart, there came
A post from Wales loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against th’ irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken;
A thousand of his people butchered,
Upon whose dead corpse’ there was such misuse,
Such beastly, shameless transformation,
By those Welshwomen done, as may not be
Without much shame re-told or spoken of.

KING.
It seems, then, that the tidings of this broil
Brake off our business for the Holy Land.

WESTMORELAND.
This, match’d with other, did, my gracious lord;
For more uneven and unwelcome news
Came from the North, and thus it did import:
On Holy-rood day the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,
At Holmedon met;
Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour,
As by discharge of their artillery,
And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.

KING.
Here is a dear and true-industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain’d with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The Earl of Douglas is discomfited:
Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,
Balk’d in their own blood, did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon’s plains:  of prisoners, Hotspur took
Mordake the Earl of Fife and eldest son
To beaten Douglas; and the Earls of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.
And is not this an honourable spoil,
A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not?

WESTMORELAND.
Faith, ’tis a conquest for a prince to boast of.

KING.
Yea, there thou makest me sad, and makest me sin
In envy that my Lord Northumberland
Should be the father to so blest a son,—
A son who is the theme of honour’s tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant;
Who is sweet Fortune’s minion and her pride:
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonour stain the brow
Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And call’d mine Percy, his Plantagenet!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine:
But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz,
Of this young Percy’s pride? the prisoners,
Which he in this adventure hath surprised,
To his own use he keeps; and sends me word,
I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.

WESTMORELAND.
This is his uncle’s teaching, this is Worcester,
Malevolent to you in all aspects;
Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up
The crest of youth against your dignity.

KING.
But I have sent for him to answer this;
And for this cause awhile we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.
Cousin, on Wednesday next our Council we
Will hold at Windsor; so inform the lords:
But come yourself with speed to us again;
For more is to be said and to be done
Than out of anger can be uttered.

WESTMORELAND.
I will, my liege.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The same. An Apartment of Prince Henry’s.

[Enter Prince Henry and Falstaff.]

FALSTAFF.
Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

PRINCE.
Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee
after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast
forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a
devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? unless hours were cups
of sack, and minutes capons, and the blessed Sun himself a fair hot
wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be
so superfluous to demand the time of the day.

FALSTAFF.
Indeed, you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses go by the
Moon and the seven stars, and not by Phoebus,—he, that wandering knight
so fair. And I pr’ythee, sweet wag, when thou art king,—as, God save
thy Grace—Majesty I should say, for grace thou wilt have none,—

PRINCE.
What, none?

FALSTAFF.
No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and
butter.

PRINCE.
Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly.

FALSTAFF.
Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires
of the night’s body be called thieves of the day’s beauty:  let us be
Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the Moon; and let
men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by
our noble and chaste mistress the Moon, under whose countenance we
steal.

PRINCE.
Thou say’st well, and it holds well too; for the fortune of us that are
the Moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the
sea is, by the Moon. As, for proof, now: A purse of gold most
resolutely snatch’d on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on
Tuesday morning; got with swearing Lay by, and spent with crying Bring
in; now ill as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder, and by-and-by in
as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

FALSTAFF.
By the Lord, thou say’st true, lad.  And is not my hostess of the
tavern a most sweet wench?

PRINCE.
As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle.  And is not a buff
jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?

FALSTAFF.
How now, how now, mad wag! what, in thy quips and thy quiddities? what
a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?

PRINCE.
Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?

FALSTAFF.
Well, thou hast call’d her to a reckoning many a time and oft.

PRINCE.
Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?

FALSTAFF.
No; I’ll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.

PRINCE.
Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch; and where it would
not, I have used my credit.

FALSTAFF.
Yea, and so used it, that, were it not here apparent that thou art
heir-apparent—But I pr’ythee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows
standing in England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobb’d as
it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do not thou,
when thou art king, hang a thief.

PRINCE.
No; thou shalt.

FALSTAFF.
Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I’ll be a brave judge.

PRINCE.
Thou judgest false already:  I mean, thou shalt have the hanging of the
thieves, and so become a rare hangman.

FALSTAFF.
Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humour; as well as
waiting in the Court, I can tell you.

PRINCE.
For obtaining of suits?

FALSTAFF.
Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no lean wardrobe.
’Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib-cat or a lugg’d bear.

PRINCE.
Or an old lion, or a lover’s lute.

FALSTAFF.
Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.

PRINCE.
What say’st thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor-ditch?

FALSTAFF.
Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art, indeed, the most
comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince,—But, Hal, I pr’ythee
trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a
commodity of good names were to be bought. An old lord of the Council
rated me the other day in the street about you, sir,—but I mark’d him
not; and yet he talk’d very wisely,—but I regarded him not; and yet he
talk’d wisely, and in the street too.

PRINCE.
Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man
regards it.

FALSTAFF.
O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art, indeed, able to corrupt a
saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal; God forgive thee for it!
Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man should
speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over
this life, and I will give it over; by the Lord, an I do not, I am a
villain:  I’ll be damn’d for never a king’s son in Christendom.

PRINCE.
Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack?

FALSTAFF.
Zounds, where thou wilt, lad; I’ll make one:  an I do not, call me
villain, and baffle me.

PRINCE.
I see a good amendment of life in thee,—from praying to purse-taking.

FALSTAFF.
Why, Hal, ’tis my vocation, Hal; ’tis no sin for a man to labour in his
vocation.

[Enter Poins.]

POINS.
Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match. O, if men were to be
saved by merit, what hole in Hell were hot enough for him? This is the
most omnipotent villain that ever cried Stand! to a true man.

PRINCE.
Good morrow, Ned.

POINS.
Good morrow, sweet Hal.—What says Monsieur Remorse? what says Sir John
Sack-and-sugar? Jack, how agrees the Devil and thee about thy soul,
that thou soldest him on Good-Friday last for a cup of Madeira and a
cold capon’s leg?

PRINCE.
Sir John stands to his word,—the Devil shall have his bargain;
for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs,—he will give the
Devil his due.

POINS.
Then art thou damn’d for keeping thy word with the Devil.

PRINCE.
Else he had been damn’d for cozening the Devil.

POINS.
But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four o’clock, early at
Gads-hill! there are pilgrims gong to Canterbury with rich offerings,
and traders riding to London with fat purses: I have visards for you
all; you have horses for yourselves:  Gadshill lies to-night in
Rochester:  I have bespoke supper to-morrow night in Eastcheap:  we may
do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full
of crowns; if you will not, tarry at home and be hang’d.

FALSTAFF.
Hear ye, Yedward; if I tarry at home and go not, I’ll hang you for
going.

POINS.
You will, chops?

FALSTAFF.
Hal, wilt thou make one?

PRINCE.
Who, I rob? I a thief? not I, by my faith.

FALSTAFF.
There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou
camest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten
shillings.

PRINCE.
Well, then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.

FALSTAFF.
Why, that’s well said.

PRINCE.
Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.

FALSTAFF.
By the Lord, I’ll be a traitor, then, when thou art king.

PRINCE.
I care not.

POINS.
Sir John, I pr’ythee, leave the Prince and me alone: I will lay him
down such reasons for this adventure, that he shall go.

FALSTAFF.
Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion, and him the ears of
profiting, that what thou speakest may move, and what he hears may be
believed, that the true Prince may, for recreation- sake, prove a false
thief; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell; you
shall find me in Eastcheap.

PRINCE.
Farewell, thou latter Spring! farewell, All-hallown Summer!

[Exit Falstaff.]

POINS.
Now, my good sweet honey-lord, ride with us to-morrow:  I have a jest
to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and
Gadshill, shall rob those men that we have already waylaid:  yourself
and I will not be there; and when they have the booty, if you and I do
not rob them, cut this head off from my shoulders.

PRINCE.
But how shall we part with them in setting forth?

POINS.
Why, we will set forth before or after them, and appoint them a place
of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail; and then will they
adventure upon the exploit themselves; which they shall have no sooner
achieved but we’ll set upon them.

PRINCE.
Ay, but ’tis like that they will know us by our horses, by our habits,
and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.

POINS.
Tut! our horses they shall not see,—I’ll tie them in the wood; our
visards we will change, after we leave them; and, sirrah, I have cases
of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.

PRINCE.
But I doubt they will be too hard for us.

POINS.
Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever
turn’d back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason,
I’ll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the
incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we
meet at supper: how thirty, at least, he fought with; what wards, what
blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lies the
jest.

PRINCE.
Well, I’ll go with thee:  provide us all things necessary and meet me
to-night in Eastcheap; there I’ll sup. Farewell.

POINS.
Farewell, my lord.

[Exit.]

PRINCE.
I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyok’d humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the Sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother-up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But, when they seldom come, they wish’d-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off,
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time, when men think least I will.

[Exit.]

SCENE III. The Same. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter King Henry, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter
Blunt, and others.]

KING.
My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
Unapt to stir at these indignities,
And you have found me; for, accordingly,
You tread upon my patience:  but be sure
I will from henceforth rather be myself,
Mighty and to be fear’d, than my condition,
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect
Which the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud.

WORCESTER.
Our House, my sovereign liege, little deserves
The scourge of greatness to be used on it;
And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
My good lord,—

KING.
Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see
Danger and disobedience in thine eye:
O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
And majesty might never yet endure
The moody frontier of a servant brow.
You have good leave to leave us:  when we need
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.

[Exit Worcester.]

[To Northumberland.]

You were about to speak.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
Yea, my good lord.
Those prisoners in your Highness’ name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As is deliver’d to your Majesty:
Either envy, therefore, or misprision
Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.

HOTSPUR.
My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But, I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress’d,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap’d
Show’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home:
He was perfumed like a milliner;
And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose, and took’t away again;
Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff:  and still he smiled and talk’d;
And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He question’d me; amongst the rest, demanded
My prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
Out of my grief and my impatience
To be so pester’d with a popinjay,
Answer’d neglectingly, I know not what,—
He should, or he should not; for’t made me mad
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman
Of guns and drums and wounds,—God save the mark!—
And telling me the sovereign’st thing on Earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villainous salt-petre should be digg’d
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy’d
So cowardly; and, but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answered indirectly, as I said;
And I beseech you, let not his report
Come current for an accusation
Betwixt my love and your high Majesty.

BLUNT.
The circumstance consider’d, good my lord,
Whatever Harry Percy then had said
To such a person, and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest re-told,
May reasonably die, and never rise
To do him wrong, or any way impeach
What then he said, so he unsay it now.

KING.
Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,
But with proviso and exception,
That we at our own charge shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;
Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray’d
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against that great magician, damn’d Glendower,
Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,
Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve;
For I shall never hold that man my friend
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
To ransom home revolted Mortimer.

HOTSPUR.
Revolted Mortimer!
He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,
But by the chance of war:  to prove that true
Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,
Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took,
When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank,
In single opposition, hand to hand,
He did confound the best part of an hour
In changing hardiment with great Glendower.
Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink,
Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood;
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank
Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.
Never did base and rotten policy
Colour her working with such deadly wounds;
Nor never could the noble Mortimer
Receive so many, and all willingly:
Then let not him be slander’d with revolt.

KING.
Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him;
He never did encounter with Glendower:
I tell thee,
He durst as well have met the Devil alone
As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
Art not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer:
Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
As will displease you.—My Lord Northumberland,
We license your departure with your son.—
Send us your prisoners, or you’ll hear of it.

[Exeunt King Henry, Blunt, and train.]

HOTSPUR.
An if the Devil come and roar for them,
I will not send them:  I will after straight,
And tell him so; for I will else my heart,
Although it be with hazard of my head.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
What, drunk with choler? stay, and pause awhile:
Here comes your uncle.

[Re-enter Worcester.]

HOTSPUR.
Speak of Mortimer!
Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul
Want mercy, if I do not join with him:
Yea, on his part I’ll empty all these veins,
And shed my dear blood drop by drop i’ the dust,
But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer
As high i’ the air as this unthankful King,
As this ingrate and canker’d Bolingbroke.

NORTH.
[To Worcester.]
Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.

WORCESTER.
Who struck this heat up after I was gone?

HOTSPUR.
He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;
And when I urged the ransom once again
Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek look’d pale,
And on my face he turn’d an eye of death,
Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

WORCESTER.
I cannot blame him:  was not he proclaim’d
By Richard that dead is the next of blood?

NORTHUMBERLAND.
He was; I heard the proclamation:
And then it was when the unhappy King—
Whose wrongs in us God pardon!—did set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;
From whence he intercepted did return
To be deposed, and shortly murdered.

WORCESTER.
And for whose death we in the world’s wide mouth
Live scandalized and foully spoken of.

HOTSPUR.
But, soft! I pray you; did King Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
Heir to the crown?

NORTHUMBERLAND.
He did; myself did hear it.

HOTSPUR.
Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin King,
That wish’d him on the barren mountains starve.
But shall it be, that you, that set the crown
Upon the head of this forgetful man,
And for his sake wear the detested blot
Of murderous subornation,—shall it be,
That you a world of curses undergo,
Being the agents, or base second means,
The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?—
O, pardon me, that I descend so low,
To show the line and the predicament
Wherein you range under this subtle King;—
Shall it, for shame, be spoken in these days,
Or fill up chronicles in time to come,
That men of your nobility and power
Did gage them both in an unjust behalf,—
As both of you, God pardon it! have done,—
To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?
And shall it, in more shame, be further spoken,
That you are fool’d, discarded, and shook off
By him for whom these shames ye underwent?
No! yet time serves, wherein you may redeem
Your banish’d honours, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again;
Revenge the jeering and disdain’d contempt
Of this proud King, who studies day and night
To answer all the debt he owes to you
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths:
Therefore, I say,—

WORCESTER.
Peace, cousin, say no more:
And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontent
I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous;
As full of peril and adventurous spirit
As to o’er-walk a current roaring loud
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

HOTSPUR.
If we fall in, good night, or sink or swim!
Send danger from the east unto the west,
So honour cross it from the north to south,
And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare!

NORTHUMBERLAND.
Imagination of some great exploit
Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.

HOTSPUR.
By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced Moon;
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks;
So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
Without corrival all her dignities:
But out upon this half-faced fellowship!

WORCESTER.
He apprehends a world of figures here,
But not the form of what he should attend.—
Good cousin, give me audience for a while.

HOTSPUR.
I cry you mercy.

WORCESTER.
Those same noble Scots
That are your prisoners,—

HOTSPUR.
I’ll keep them all;
By God, he shall not have a Scot of them;
No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not:
I’ll keep them, by this hand.

WORCESTER.
You start away,
And lend no ear unto my purposes.
Those prisoners you shall keep;—

HOTSPUR.
Nay, I will; that’s flat.
He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I’ll holla Mortimer!
Nay,
I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but Mortimer, and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion.

WORCESTER.
Hear you, cousin; a word.

HOTSPUR.
All studies here I solemnly defy,
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke:
And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales,
But that I think his father loves him not,
And would be glad he met with some mischance,
I’d have him poison’d with a pot of ale.

WORCESTER.
Farewell, kinsman:  I will talk to you
When you are better temper’d to attend.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou, to break into this woman’s mood,
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!

HOTSPUR.
Why, look you, I am whipp’d and scourged with rods,
Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear
Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.
In Richard’s time,—what do you call the place?—
A plague upon’t!—it is in Gioucestershire;—
’Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept,
His uncle York;—where I first bow’d my knee
Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke;—
When you and he came back from Ravenspurg.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
At Berkeley-castle.

HOTSPUR.
You say true:—
Why, what a candy deal of courtesy
This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!
Look, when his infant fortune came to age,
And, Gentle Harry Percy, and kind cousin,—
O, the Devil take such cozeners!—God forgive me!—
Good uncle, tell your tale; for I have done.

WORCESTER.
Nay, if you have not, to’t again;
We’ll stay your leisure.

HOTSPUR.
I have done, i’faith.

WORCESTER.
Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.
Deliver them up without their ransom straight,
And make the Douglas’ son your only mean
For powers in Scotland; which, for divers reasons
Which I shall send you written, be assured,
Will easily be granted.—
[To Northumberland.] You, my lord,
Your son in Scotland being thus employ’d,
Shall secretly into the bosom creep
Of that same noble prelate, well beloved,
Th’ Archbishop.

HOTSPUR.
Of York, is’t not?

WORCESTER.
True; who bears hard
His brother’s death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop.
I speak not this in estimation,
As what I think might be, but what I know
Is ruminated, plotted, and set down,
And only stays but to behold the face
Of that occasion that shall bring it on.

HOTSPUR.
I smell’t:  upon my life, it will do well.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
Before the game’s a-foot, thou still lett’st slip.

HOTSPUR.
Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot:—
And then the power of Scotland and of York
To join with Mortimer, ha?

WORCESTER.
And so they shall.

HOTSPUR.
In faith, it is exceedingly well aim’d.

WORCESTER.
And ’tis no little reason bids us speed,
To save our heads by raising of a head;
For, bear ourselves as even as we can,
The King will always think him in our debt,
And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,
Till he hath found a time to pay us home:
And see already how he doth begin
To make us strangers to his looks of love.

HOTSPUR.
He does, he does:  we’ll be revenged on him.

WORCESTER.
Cousin, farewell:  no further go in this
Than I by letters shall direct your course.
When time is ripe,— which will be suddenly,—
I’ll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer;
Where you and Douglas, and our powers at once,
As I will fashion it, shall happily meet,
To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,
Which now we hold at much uncertainty.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
Farewell, good brother:  we shall thrive, I trust.

HOTSPUR.
Uncle, adieu: O, let the hours be short,
Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!

[Exeunt.]

ACT II

SCENE I. Rochester. An Inn-Yard.

[Enter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand.]

FIRST CARRIER.
Heigh-ho! an’t be not four by the day, I’ll be hang’d:
Charles’ wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse’ not
pack’d.—What, ostler!

OSTLER.
[within.] Anon, anon.

FIRST CARRIER.
I pr’ythee, Tom, beat Cut’s saddle, put a few flocks in the point; the
poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.

[Enter another Carrier.]

SECOND CARRIER.
Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to
give poor jades the bots; this house is turned upside down since Robin
ostler died.

FIRST CARRIER.
Poor fellow! never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death
of him.

SECOND CARRIER.
I think this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas:
 I am stung like a tench.

FIRST CARRIER.
Like a tench! by the Mass, there is ne’er a king in Christendom could
be better bit than I have been since the first cock.—What,

ostler! come away and be hang’d; come away.

SECOND CARRIER.
I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger, to be delivered as
far as Charing-cross.

FIRST CARRIER.
’Odsbody! the turkeys in my pannier are quite starved.—What, ostler! A
plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy head? canst not hear? An
’twere not as good a deed as drink to break the pate of thee, I am a
very villain. Come, and be hang’d: hast no faith in thee?

[Enter Gadshill.]

GADSHILL.
Good morrow, carriers. What’s o’clock?

FIRST CARRIER.
I think it be two o’clock.

GADSHILL.
I pr’ythee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable.

FIRST CARRIER.
Nay, soft, I pray ye; I know a trick worth two of that, i’faith.

GADSHILL.
I pr’ythee, lend me thine.

SECOND CARRIER.
Ay, when? canst tell? Lend me thy lantern, quoth a? marry, I’ll see
thee hang’d first.

GADSHILL.
Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?

SECOND CARRIER.
Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.—
Come, neighbour Muggs, we’ll call up the gentlemen:  they will
along with company, for they have great charge.

[Exeunt Carriers.]

GADSHILL.
What, ho! chamberlain!

CHAMBERLAIN.
[Within.] At hand, quoth pick-purse.

GADSHILL.
That’s even as fair as—at hand, quoth the chamberlain; for thou variest
no more from picking of purses than giving direction doth from
labouring; thou lay’st the plot how.

[Enter Chamberlain.]

CHAMBERLAIN.
Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I told you
yesternight:  there’s a franklin in the wild of Kent hath brought three
hundred marks with him in gold:  I heard him tell it to one of his
company last night at supper; a kind of auditor; one that hath
abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call
for eggs and butter; they will away presently.

GADSHILL.
Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’ clerks, I’ll give thee
this neck.

CHAMBERLAIN.
No, I’ll none of it: I pr’ythee, keep that for the hangman; for
I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of
falsehood may.

GADSHILL.
What talkest thou to me of the hangman? if I hang, I’ll make a fat pair
of gallows; for, if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou
know’st he is no starveling. Tut! there are other Trojans that thou
dreamest not of, the which, for sport-sake, are content to do the
profession some grace; that would, if matters should be look’d into,
for their own credit-sake, make all whole. I am joined with no foot
land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, none of these mad
mustachio purple-hued malt-worms; but with nobility and tranquillity,
burgomasters and great oneyers; such as can hold in, such as will
strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner
than pray:  and yet, zwounds, I lie; for they pray continually to their
saint, the Commonwealth; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her,
for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots.

CHAMBERLAIN.
What, the Commonwealth their boots? will she hold out water in foul
way?

GADSHILL.
She will, she will; justice hath liquor’d her. We steal as in a castle,
cock-sure; we have the receipt of fernseed,—we walk invisible.

CHAMBERLAIN.
Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the night than to
fern-seed for your walking invisible.

GADSHILL.
Give me thy hand:  thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as
I am a true man.

CHAMBERLAIN.
Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.

GADSHILL.
Go to; homo is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler bring my
gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The Road by Gads-hill.

[Enter Prince Henry and Poins; Bardolph and Peto at some distance.]

POINS.
Come, shelter, shelter:  I have remov’d Falstaff’s horse, and he frets
like a gumm’d velvet.

PRINCE.
Stand close.

[They retire.]

[Enter Falstaff.]

FALSTAFF.
Poins! Poins, and be hang’d! Poins!

PRINCE.
[Coming forward.]
Peace, ye fat-kidney’d rascal! what a brawling dost thou keep!

FALSTAFF.
Where’s Poins, Hal?

PRINCE.
He is walk’d up to the top of the hill: I’ll go seek him.

[Retires.]

FALSTAFF.
I am accursed to rob in that thief’s company:  the rascal hath removed
my horse, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by
the squire further a-foot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but
to die a fair death for all this, if I ’scape hanging for killing that
rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty
year, and yet I am bewitch’d with the rogue’s company. If the rascal
have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hang’d; it
could not be else:  I have drunk medicines.— Poins!—Hal!—a plague upon
you both!—Bardolph!—Peto!—I’ll starve, ere I’ll rob a foot further. An
’twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and to leave
these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth.
Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles a-foot with
me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough:  a plague
upon’t, when thieves cannot be true one to another! [They whistle.]
Whew!—A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues; give me my
horse, and be hang’d!

PRINCE.
[Coming forward.] Peace! lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground,
and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.

FALSTAFF.
Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? ’Sblood, I’ll not
bear mine own flesh so far a-foot again for all the coin in thy
father’s exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?

PRINCE.
Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.

FALSTAFF.
I pr’ythee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king’s son.

PRINCE.
Out, ye rogue! shall I be your ostler?

FALSTAFF.
Go, hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta’en,
I’ll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to
filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison. When a jest is so
forward, and a-foot too, I hate it.

[Enter Gadshill.]

GADSHILL.
Stand!

FALSTAFF.
So I do, against my will.

POINS.
O, ’tis our setter: I know his voice.

[Comes forward with Bardolph and Peto.]

BARDOLPH.
What news?

GADSHILL.
Case ye, case ye; on with your visards:  there’s money of the King’s
coming down the hill; ’tis going to the King’s exchequer.

FALSTAFF.
You lie, ye rogue; ’tis going to the King’s tavern.

GADSHILL.
There’s enough to make us all.

FALSTAFF.
To be hang’d.

PRINCE.
Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned
Poins and I will walk lower; if they ’scape from your
encounter, then they light on us.

PETO.
How many be there of them?

GADSHILL.
Some eight or ten.

FALSTAFF.
Zwounds, will they not rob us?

PRINCE.
What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?

FALSTAFF.
Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no coward,
Hal.

PRINCE.
Well, we leave that to the proof.

POINS.
Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge:  when thou need’st him,
there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast.

FALSTAFF.
Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hang’d.

PRINCE.
[aside to POINTZ.] Ned, where are our disguises?

POINS.
[aside to PRINCE HENRY.] Here, hard by:  stand close.

[Exeunt Prince and Poins.]

FALSTAFF.
Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I:  every man to his
business.

[Enter Travellers.]

FIRST TRAVELLER.
Come, neighbour:
The boy shall lead our horses down the hill;
We’ll walk a-foot awhile and ease our legs.

FALSTAFF, GADSHILL., &C.
Stand!

SECOND TRAVELLER.
Jesu bless us!

FALSTAFF.
Strike; down with them; cut the villains’ throats. Ah, whoreson
caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth: down with them;
fleece them.

FIRST TRAVELLER.
O, we’re undone, both we and ours for ever!

FALSTAFF.
Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs; I would
your store were here! On, bacons on! What, ye knaves! young men must
live. You are grand-jurors, are ye? we’ll jure ye, i’faith.

[Exeunt Fals., Gads., &c., driving the Travellers out.]

[Re-enter Prince Henry and Poins, in buckram suits.]

PRINCE.
The thieves have bound the true men. Now, could thou and I rob the
thieves, and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week,
laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.

POINS.
Stand close:  I hear them coming.

[They retire.]

[Re-enter Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto.]

FALSTAFF.
Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day.
An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there’s no
equity stirring:  there’s no more valour in that Poins than in a

wild duck.

[As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon them.]

PRINCE.
Your money!

POINS.
Villains!

[Falstaff, after a blow or two, and the others run away, leaving the
booty behind them.]

PRINCE.
Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse:
The thieves are scatter’d, and possess’d with fear
So strongly that they dare not meet each other;
Each takes his fellow for an officer.
Away, good Ned. Fat Falstaff sweats to death,
And lards the lean earth as he walks along:
Were’t not for laughing, I should pity him.

POINS.
How the rogue roar’d!

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Warkworth.  A Room in the Castle.

[Enter Hotspur, reading a letter.]

HOTSPUR.
—But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be
there, in respect of the love I bear your House.—He could be contented;
why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our House!—he
shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house.
Let me see some more. The purpose you undertake is dangerous;—Why,
that’s certain:  ’tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but
I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this
flower, safety. The purpose you undertake is dangerous; the friends you
have named uncertain; the time itself unsorted; and your whole plot too
light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.— Say you so, say
you so?  I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and
you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good
plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good plot, good
friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends.
What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my Lord of York commends the
plot and the general course of the action. Zwounds! an I were now by
this rascal, I could brain him with his lady’s fan. Is there not my
father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York,
and Owen Glendower? is there not, besides, the Douglas? have I not all
their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month? and
are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is
this! an infidel! Ha! you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and
cold heart, will he to the King, and lay open all our proceedings. O, I
could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of
skimm’d milk with so honourable an action! Hang him! let him tell the
King:  we are prepared. I will set forward to-night.—

[Enter Lady Percy.]

How now, Kate! I must leave you within these two hours.

LADY PERCY.
O, my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offence have I this fortnight been
A banish’d woman from my Harry’s bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
And start so often when thou sitt’st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch’d,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
Cry Courage! to the field!  And thou hast talk’d
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
Of prisoners ransomed, and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirr’d thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow,
Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream;
And in thy face strange motions have appear’d,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.

HOTSPUR.
What, ho!

[Enter a Servant.]

Is Gilliams with the packet gone?

SERVANT.
He is, my lord, an hour ago.

HOTSPUR.
Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?

SERVANT.
One horse, my lord, he brought even now.

HOTSPUR.
What horse? a roan, a crop-ear, is it not?

SERVANT.
It is, my lord.

HOTSPUR.
That roan shall be my throne.
Well, I will back him straight:  O esperance!—
Bid Butler lead him forth into the park.

[Exit Servant.]

LADY PERCY.
But hear you, my lord.

HOTSPUR.
What say’st thou, my lady?

LADY PERCY.
What is it carries you away?

HOTSPUR.
Why, my horse, my love, my horse.

LADY PERCY.
Out, you mad-headed ape!
A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen
As you are toss’d with. In faith,
I’ll know your business, Harry, that I will.
I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir
About his title, and hath sent for you
To line his enterprise:  but if you go,—

HOTSPUR.
So far a-foot, I shall be weary, love.

LADY PERCY.
Come, come, you paraquito, answer me
Directly to this question that I ask:
In faith, I’ll break thy little finger, Harry,
An if thou wilt not tell me true.

HOTSPUR.
Away,
Away, you trifler! Love? I love thee not,
I care not for thee, Kate:  this is no world
To play with mammets and to tilt with lips:
We must have bloody noses and crack’d crowns,
And pass them current too.—Gods me, my horse!—
What say’st thou, Kate? what wouldst thou have with me?

LADY PERCY.
Do you not love me? do you not indeed?
Well, do not, then; for, since you love me not,
I will not love myself. Do you not love me?
Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.

HOTSPUR.
Come, wilt thou see me ride?
And when I am o’ horseback, I will swear
I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate;
I must not have you henceforth question me
Whither I go, nor reason whereabout:
Whither I must, I must; and, to conclude,
This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate.
I know you wise; but yet no further wise
Than Harry Percy’s wife; constant you are;
But yet a woman:  and, for secrecy,
No lady closer; for I well believe
Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know;
And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.

LADY PERCY.
How! so far?

HOTSPUR.
Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate:
Whither I go, thither shall you go too;
To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you.
Will this content you, Kate?

LADY PERCY.
It must of force.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s-Head Tavern.

[Enter Prince Henry.]

PRINCE.
Ned, pr’ythee, come out of that fat room, and lend me thy hand to laugh
a little.

[Enter Poins.]

POINS.
Where hast been, Hal?

PRINCE.
With three or four loggerheads amongst three or fourscore hogsheads. I
have sounded the very base-string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn
brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their Christian
names, as, Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their
salvation, that though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of
courtesy; and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff, but a
corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy,—by the Lord, so they call
me;—and, when I am King of England, I shall command all the good lads
in Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, dying scarlet; and, when you
breathe in your watering, they cry hem! and bid you play it off. To
conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I
can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life. I tell
thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour, that thou wert not with me in
this action. But, sweet Ned,—to sweeten which name of Ned, I give thee
this pennyworth of sugar, clapp’d even now into my hand by an
under-skinker; one that never spake other English in his life than
Eight shillings and sixpence, and You are welcome; with this shrill
addition, Anon, anon, sir! Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon,—or
so.  But, Ned, to drive away the time till Falstaff come, I pr’ythee,
do thou stand in some by-room, while I question my puny drawer to what
end he gave me the sugar; and do thou never leave calling Francis! that
his tale to me may be nothing but Anon.  Step aside, and I’ll show thee
a precedent.

[Exit Poins.]

POINS.
[Within.]  Francis!

PRINCE.

Thou art perfect.

POINS.
[Within.]  Francis!

[Enter Francis.]

FRANCIS.
Anon, anon, sir.—Look down into the Pomegranate, Ralph.

PRINCE.
Come hither, Francis.

FRANCIS.
My lord?

PRINCE.
How long hast thou to serve, Francis?

FRANCIS.
Forsooth, five years, and as much as to—

POINS.
[within.] Francis!

FRANCIS.
Anon, anon, sir.

PRINCE.
Five year! by’r Lady, a long lease for the clinking of pewter. But,
Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play the coward with thy
indenture and show it a fair pair of heels and run from it?

FRANCIS.
O Lord, sir, I’ll be sworn upon all the books in England,
I could find in my heart—

POINS.
[within.] Francis!

FRANCIS.
Anon, anon, sir.

PRINCE.
How old art thou, Francis?

FRANCIS.
Let me see,—about Michaelmas next I shall be—

POINS.
[within.] Francis!

FRANCIS.
Anon, sir.—Pray you, stay a little, my lord.

PRINCE.
Nay, but hark you, Francis:  for the sugar thou gavest me, ’twas a
pennyworth, was’t not?

FRANCIS.
O Lord, sir, I would it had been two!

PRINCE.
I will give thee for it a thousand pound:  ask me when thou wilt, and
thou shalt have it.

POINS.
[within.] Francis!

FRANCIS.
Anon, anon.

PRINCE.
Anon, Francis? No, Francis; but to-morrow, Francis; or,
Francis, a Thursday; or, indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But,
Francis,—

FRANCIS.
My lord?

PRINCE.
—wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, nott-pated,
agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue,
Spanish-pouch,—

FRANCIS.
O Lord, sir, who do you mean?

PRINCE.
Why, then, your brown bastard is your only drink; for, look you,
Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully:  in Barbary, sir, it
cannot come to so much.

FRANCIS.
What, sir?

POINS.
[within.] Francis!

PRINCE.
Away, you rogue! dost thou not hear them call?

[Here they both call him; Francis stands amazed, not knowing which way
to go.]

[Enter Vintner.]

VINTNER.
What, stand’st thou still, and hear’st such a calling? Look to the
guests within. [Exit Francis.]—My lord, old Sir John, with half-a-dozen
more, are at the door:  shall I let them in?

PRINCE.
Let them alone awhile, and then open the door.

[Exit Vintner.]

Poins!

[Re-enter Poins.]

POINS.
Anon, anon, sir.

PRINCE.
Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at the door:  shall we
be merry?

POINS.
As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye; what cunning match have you
made with this jest of the drawer? Come, what’s the issue?

PRINCE.
I am now of all humours that have showed themselves humours since the
old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve
o’clock at midnight.—What’s o’clock, Francis?

FRANCIS.
[Within.]  Anon, anon, sir.

PRINCE.
That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet
the son of a woman! His industry is up-stairs and down-stairs; his
eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy’s mind, the
Hotspur of the North; he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots
at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, Fie upon this
quiet life! I want work. O my sweet Harry, says she, how many hast thou
 kill’d to-day?  Give my roan horse a drench, says he; and answers,
Some fourteen, an hour after,—a trifle, a trifle. I pr’ythee, call in
Falstaff:  I’ll play Percy, and that damn’d brawn shall play Dame
Mortimer his wife. Rivo! says the drunkard. Call in ribs, call in
tallow.

[Enter Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto; followed by
Francis with wine.]

POINS.
Welcome, Jack:  where hast thou been?

FALSTAFF.
A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! marry, and
amen!—
Give me a cup of sack, boy.—Ere I lead this life long, I’ll sew
nether-stocks, and mend them and foot them too. A plague of all
cowards!—
Give me a cup of sack, rogue.—Is there no virtue extant?

[Drinks.]

PRINCE.
Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter? pitiful-hearted
butter, that melted at the sweet tale of the Sun! if thou didst, then
behold that compound.

FALSTAFF.
You rogue, here’s lime in this sack too:  there is nothing but roguery
to be found in villainous man:  yet a coward is worse than a cup of
sack with lime in it, a villanous coward.—Go thy ways, old Jack:  die
when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face
of the Earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good
men unhang’d in England; and one of them is fat, and grows old: God
help the while! a bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver; I could
sing psalms or any thing. A plague of all cowards! I say still.

PRINCE.
How now, wool-sack? what mutter you?

FALSTAFF.
A king’s son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of
lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild-geese,
I’ll never wear hair on my face more. You Prince of Wales!

PRINCE.
Why, you whoreson round man, what’s the matter?

FALSTAFF.
Are not you a coward? answer me to that:—and Poins there?

POINS.
Zwounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the Lord, I’ll stab
thee.

FALSTAFF.
I call thee coward!  I’ll see thee damn’d ere I call thee coward: but I
would give a thousand pound, I could run as fast as thou canst. You are
straight enough in the shoulders; you care not who sees your back: 
call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! give
me them that will face me.—Give me a cup of sack: I am a rogue, if I
drunk to-day.

PRINCE.
O villain! thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunk’st last.

FALSTAFF.
All is one for that. A plague of all cowards! still say I.

[Drinks.]

PRINCE.
What’s the matter?

FALSTAFF.
What’s the matter? there be four of us here have ta’en a thousand pound
this day morning.

PRINCE.
Where is it, Jack? where is it?

FALSTAFF.
Where is it! taken from us it is:  a hundred upon poor four of us!

PRINCE.
What, a hundred, man?

FALSTAFF.
I am a rogue, if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them two
hours together. I have ’scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust
through the doublet, four through the hose; my buckler cut through and
through; my sword hack’d like a hand-saw,—ecce signum! I never dealt
better since I was a man:  all would not do. A plague of all cowards!
Let them speak:  if they speak more or less than truth, they are
villains and the sons of darkness.

PRINCE.
Speak, sirs; how was it?

GADSHILL.
We four set upon some dozen,—

FALSTAFF.
Sixteen at least, my lord.

GADSHILL.
—and bound them.

PETO.
No, no; they were not bound.

FALSTAFF.
You rogue, they were bound, every man of them; or I am a Jew else, an
Ebrew Jew.

GADSHILL.
As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men sea upon us,—

FALSTAFF.
And unbound the rest, and then come in the other.

PRINCE.
What, fought you with them all?

FALSTAFF.
All? I know not what you call all; but if I fought not with fifty of
them, I am a bunch of radish:  if there were not two or three and fifty
upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged creature.

PRINCE.
Pray God you have not murdered some of them.

FALSTAFF.
Nay, that’s past praying for: I have pepper’d two of them; two I
am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what,
Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.
Thou knowest my old ward:  here I lay, and thus I bore my point.
Four rogues in buckram let drive at me,—

PRINCE.
What, four? thou saidst but two even now.

FALSTAFF.
Four, Hal; I told thee four.

POINS.
Ay, ay, he said four.

FALSTAFF.
These four came all a-front, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more
ado but took all their seven points in my target, thus.

PRINCE.
Seven? why, there were but four even now.

FALSTAFF.
In buckram?

POINS.
Ay, four, in buckram suits.

FALSTAFF.
Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.

PRINCE.
[aside to Poins.] Pr’ythee let him alone; we shall have more anon.

FALSTAFF.
Dost thou hear me, Hal?

PRINCE.
Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.

FALSTAFF.
Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in buckram that I
told thee of,—

PRINCE.
So, two more already.

FALSTAFF.
—their points being broken,—

POINS.
Down fell their hose.

FALSTAFF.
—began to give me ground:  but I followed me close, came in foot and
hand; and with a thought seven of the eleven I paid.

PRINCE.
O monstrous! eleven buckram men grown out of two!

FALSTAFF.
But, as the Devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves in Kendal
Green came at my back and let drive at me; for it was so dark, Hal,
that thou couldst not see thy hand.

PRINCE.
These lies are like the father that begets them, gross as a mountain,
open, palpable. Why, thou nott-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene
greasy tallow-keech,—

FALSTAFF.
What, art thou mad? art thou mad? is not the truth the truth?

PRINCE.
Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green, when it was so
dark thou couldst not see thy hand? come, tell us your reason: what
sayest thou to this?

POINS.
Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.

FALSTAFF.
What, upon compulsion? No; were I at the strappado, or all the racks in
the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on
compulsion! if reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give
no man a reason upon compulsion, I.

PRINCE.
I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin; this sanguine coward, this
bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh,—

FALSTAFF.
Away, you starveling, you eel-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, you
stock-fish,—
O, for breath to utter what is like thee!—you tailor’s-yard, you
sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck,—

PRINCE.
Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again:  and, when thou hast tired
thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this:—

POINS.
Mark, Jack.

PRINCE.
—We two saw you four set on four; you bound them, and were masters of
their wealth.—Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down.— Then did
we two set on you four; and, with a word, outfaced you from your prize,
and have it; yea, and can show it you here in the house: and, Falstaff,
you carried yourself away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and
roared for mercy, and still ran and roar’d, as ever I heard bull-calf.
What a slave art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then
say it was in fight! What trick, what device, what starting-hole canst
thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?

POINS.
Come, let’s hear, Jack; what trick hast thou now?

FALSTAFF.
By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear ye, my
masters: Was it for me to kill the heir-apparent? should I turn upon
the true Prince? why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules:  but
beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true Prince. Instinct is a
great matter; I was now a coward on instinct. I shall think the better
of myself and thee during my life; I for a valiant lion, and thou for a
true prince.  But, by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money.—
[To Hostess within.]  Hostess, clap-to the doors:  watch to-night, pray
to-morrow.—Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good
fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry? shall we have a play
extempore?

PRINCE.
Content; and the argument shall be thy running away.

FALSTAFF.
Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me!

[Enter the Hostess.]

HOSTESS.
O Jesu, my lord the Prince,—

PRINCE.
How now, my lady the hostess! What say’st thou to me?

HOSTESS.
Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the Court at door would speak
with you: he says he comes from your father.

PRINCE.
Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him back again
to my mother.

FALSTAFF.
What manner of man is he?

HOSTESS.
An old man.

FALSTAFF.
What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his
answer?

PRINCE.
Pr’ythee, do, Jack.

FALSTAFF.
Faith, and I’ll send him packing.

[Exit.]

PRINCE.
Now, sirs:—by’r Lady, you fought fair;—so did you, Peto;—so did you,
Bardolph:  you are lions, too, you ran away upon instinct, you will not
touch the true Prince; no,—fie!

BARDOLPH.
Faith, I ran when I saw others run.

PRINCE.
Tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff’s sword so hack’d?

PETO.
Why, he hack’d it with his dagger; and said he would swear truth out of
England, but he would make you believe it was done in fight; and
persuaded us to do the like.

BARDOLPH.
Yea, and to tickle our noses with spear-grass to make them bleed; and
then to beslubber our garments with it, and swear it was the blood of
true men. I did that I did not this seven year before; I blush’d to
hear his monstrous devices.

PRINCE.
O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert
taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blush’d extempore. Thou
hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou rann’st away: what
instinct hadst thou for it?

BARDOLPH.
My lord, do you see these meteors? do you behold these exhalations?

PRINCE.
I do.

BARDOLPH.
What think you they portend?

PRINCE.
Hot livers and cold purses.

BARDOLPH.
Choler, my lord, if rightly taken.

PRINCE.
No, if rightly taken, halter.—Here comes lean Jack, here comes
bare-bone.—

[Enter Falstaff.]

How now, my sweet creature of bombast! How long is’t ago, Jack, since
thou saw’st thine own knee?

FALSTAFF.
My own knee! when I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle’s
talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman’s thumb-ring:
a plague of sighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder.
There’s villanous news abroad:  here was Sir John Bracy from your
father; you must to the Court in the morning. That same mad fellow of
the North, Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and
swore the Devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook,—what
a plague call you him?

POINS.
O, Glendower.

FALSTAFF.
Owen, Owen,—the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer; and old
Northumberland; and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that
runs o’ horseback up a hill perpendicular,—

PRINCE.
He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying.

FALSTAFF.
You have hit it.

PRINCE.
So did he never the sparrow.

FALSTAFF.
Well, that rascal hath good metal in him; he will not run.

PRINCE.
Why, what a rascal art thou, then, to praise him so for running!

FALSTAFF.
O’ horseback, ye cuckoo! but a-foot he will not budge a foot.

PRINCE.
Yes, Jack, upon instinct.

FALSTAFF.
I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and
a thousand blue-caps more: Worcester is stolen away to-night; thy
father’s beard is turn’d white with the news:  you may buy land now as
cheap as stinking mackerel. But, tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible
afeard? thou being heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out three
such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that
devil Glendower? art thou not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood
thrill at it?

PRINCE.
Not a whit, i’faith; I lack some of thy instinct.

FALSTAFF.
Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow when thou comest to thy
father.  If thou love life, practise an answer.

PRINCE.
Do thou stand for my father and examine me upon the particulars of my
life.

FALSTAFF.
Shall I? content:  this chair shall be my state, this dagger my
sceptre, and this cushion my crown.

PRINCE.
Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden
dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown.

FALSTAFF.
Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be
moved.— Give me a cup of sack, to make my eyes look red, that it may be
thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in
King Cambyses’ vein.

PRINCE.
Well, here is my leg.

FALSTAFF.
And here is my speech.—Stand aside, nobility.

HOSTESS.
O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i faith!

FALSTAFF.
Weep not, sweet Queen; for trickling tears are vain.

HOSTESS.
O, the Father, how he holds his countenance!

FALSTAFF.
For God’s sake, lords, convey my tristful Queen;
For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.

HOSTESS.
O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever
I see!

FALSTAFF.
Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain.—Harry, I do not only
marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied:
 for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it
grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou
art my son, I have partly thy mother’s word, partly my own opinion; but
chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy
nether lip, that doth warrant me. If, then, thou be son to me, here
lies the point:  Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall
the blessed Sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries? a
question not to be ask’d. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and
take purses? a question to be ask’d. There is a thing, Harry, which
thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the
name of pitch:  this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile;
so doth the company thou keepest:  for, Harry, now I do not speak to
thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in
words only, but in woes also.  And yet there is a virtuous man whom I
have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.

PRINCE.
What manner of man, an it like your Majesty?

FALSTAFF.
A goodly portly man, i’faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a
pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some
fifty, or, by’r Lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me,
his name is Falstaff:  if that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth
me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If, then, the tree may be
known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily I
speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff:  him keep with, the rest
banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me where hast thou
been this month?

PRINCE.
Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I’ll play my
father.

FALSTAFF.
Depose me! if thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in
word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker or a
poulter’s hare.

PRINCE.
Well, here I am set.

FALSTAFF.
And here I stand.—Judge, my masters.

PRINCE.
Now, Harry, whence come you?

FALSTAFF.
My noble lord, from Eastcheap.

PRINCE.
The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.

FALSTAFF.
’Sblood, my lord, they are false.—Nay, I’ll tickle ye for a young
prince, i’faith.

PRINCE.
Swearest thou, ungracious boy? henceforth ne’er look on me. Thou art
violently carried away from grace:  there is a devil haunts thee, in
the likeness of an old fat man,—a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost
thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of
beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of
sack, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that
reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in
years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? wherein neat
and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in
craft? wherein crafty, but in villany? wherein villainous, but in all
things? wherein worthy, but in nothing?

FALSTAFF.
I would your Grace would take me with you:  whom means your Grace?

PRINCE.
That villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old
white-bearded Satan.

FALSTAFF.
My lord, the man I know.

PRINCE.
I know thou dost.

FALSTAFF.
But to say I know more harm in him than in myself, were to say more
than I know. That he is old,—(the more the pity,—his white hairs do
witness it. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! if to be
old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damn’d: if
to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No,
my good lord:  banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but, for
sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant
Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack
Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy
Harry’s company:  banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.

PRINCE.
I do, I will.

[A knocking heard.]

[Exeunt Hostess, Francis, and Bardolph.]

[Enter Bardolph, running.]

BARDOLPH.
O, my lord, my lord! the sheriff with a most monstrous watch is at the
door.

FALSTAFF.
Out, ye rogue!—Play out the play:  I have much to say in the behalf of
that Falstaff.

[Re-enter the Hostess, hastily.]

HOSTESS.
O Jesu, my lord, my lord,—

PRINCE.
Heigh, heigh! the Devil rides upon a fiddlestick:  what’s the matter?

HOSTESS.
The sheriff and all the watch are at the door:  they are come to search
the house. Shall I let them in?

FALSTAFF.
Dost thou hear, Hal? never call a true piece of gold a counterfeit:
thou art essentially mad without seeming so.

PRINCE.
And thou a natural coward, without instinct.

FALSTAFF.
I deny your major:  if you will deny the sheriff, so; if not, let him
enter:  if I become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my
bringing up! I hope I shall as soon be strangled with a halter as
another.

PRINCE.
Go, hide thee behind the arras:—the rest walk, up above.  Now, my
masters, for a true face and good conscience.

FALSTAFF.
Both which I have had; but their date is out, and therefore I’ll hide
me.

PRINCE.
Call in the sheriff.—

[Exeunt all but the Prince and Poins.]

[Enter Sheriff and Carrier.]

Now, master sheriff, what’s your will with me?

SHERIFF.
First, pardon me, my lord. A hue-and-cry
Hath followed certain men unto this house.

PRINCE.
What men?

SHERIFF.
One of them is well known, my gracious lord,—
A gross fat man.

CARRIER.
As fat as butter.

PRINCE.
The man, I do assure you, is not here;
For I myself at this time have employ’d him.
And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee,
That I will, by to-morrow dinner-time,
Send him to answer thee, or any man,
For any thing he shall be charged withal:
And so, let me entreat you leave the house.

SHERIFF.
I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen
Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.

PRINCE.
It may be so:  if he have robb’d these men,
He shall be answerable; and so, farewell.

SHERIFF.
Good night, my noble lord.

PRINCE.
I think it is good morrow, is it not?

SHERIFF.
Indeed, my lord, I think’t be two o’clock.

[Exit Sheriff and Carrier.]

PRINCE.
This oily rascal is known as well as Paul’s. Go, call him forth.

POINS.
Falstaff!—fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a horse.

PRINCE.
Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.

[Poins searches.]

What hast thou found?

POINS.
Nothing but papers, my lord.

PRINCE.
Let’s see what they be:  read them.

POINS.
[reads]
Item, A capon, . . . . . . . . .  2s. 2d.
Item, Sauce, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4d.
Item, Sack two gallons ,. . . 5s. 8d.
Item, Anchovies and sack after supper,  2s. 6d.
Item, Bread, . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ob.

PRINCE.
O monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal
of sack! What there is else, keep close; we’ll read it at more
advantage:  there let him sleep till day. I’ll to the Court in the
morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable.
I’ll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot; and I know his death will
be a march of twelve-score. The money shall be paid back again with
advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so, good morrow,
Poins.

POINS.
Good morrow, good my lord.

[Exeunt.]

ACT III

SCENE I. Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon’s House.

[Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer, and Glendower.]

MORTIMER.
These promises are fair, the parties sure,
And our induction full of prosperous hope.

HOTSPUR.
Lord Mortimer,—and cousin Glendower,—Will you sit down?—
And uncle Worcester,—A plague upon it!  I have forgot the map.

GLENDOWER.
No, here it is.
Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur;
For by that name as oft as Lancaster
Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale, and with
A rising sigh he wisheth you in Heaven.

HOTSPUR.
And you in Hell, as oft as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of.

GLENDOWER.
I cannot blame him:  at my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; ay, and at my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the Earth
Shaked like a coward.

HOTSPUR.
Why, so it would have done at the same season, if your mother’s cat had
but kitten’d, though yourself had never been born.

GLENDOWER.
I say the Earth did shake when I was born.

HOTSPUR.
And I say the Earth was not of my mind, if you suppose as fearing you
it shook.

GLENDOWER.
The Heavens were all on fire, the Earth did tremble.

HOTSPUR.
O, then th’ Earth shook to see the Heavens on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming Earth
Is with a kind of colic pinch’d and vex’d
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldam Earth, and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth,
Our grandam Earth, having this distemperature,
In passion shook.

GLENDOWER.
Cousin, of many men
I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
To tell you once again, that at my birth
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes;
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have mark’d me extraordinary;
And all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.
Where is he living,—clipp’d in with the sea
That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,—
Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me?
And bring him out that is but woman’s son
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art,
And hold me pace in deep experiments.

HOTSPUR.
I think there is no man speaks better Welsh.—I’ll to dinner.

MORTIMER.
Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him mad.

GLENDOWER.
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

HOTSPUR.
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?

GLENDOWER.
Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the Devil.

HOTSPUR.
And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the Devil
By telling truth:  tell truth, and shame the Devil.
If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,
And I’ll be sworn I’ve power to shame him hence.
O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the Devil!

MORTIMER.
Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.

GLENDOWER.
Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head
Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye
And sandy-bottom’d Severn have I sent
Him bootless home and weather-beaten back.

HOTSPUR.
Home without boots, and in foul weather too!
How ’scaped he agues, in the Devil’s name!

GLENDOWER.
Come, here’s the map:  shall we divide our right
According to our threefold order ta’en?

MORTIMER.
Th’ archdeacon hath divided it
Into three limits very equally.
England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,
By south and east is to my part assign’d:
All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,
And all the fertile land within that bound,
To Owen Glendower:—and, dear coz, to you
The remnant northward, lying off from Trent.
And our indentures tripartite are drawn;
Which being sealed interchangeably,—
A business that this night may execute,—
To-morrow, cousin Percy, you, and I,
And my good Lord of Worcester, will set forth
To meet your father and the Scottish power,
As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.
My father Glendower is not ready yet,
Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days:—
[To Glend.] Within that space you may have drawn together
Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.

GLENDOWER.
A shorter time shall send me to you, lords:
And in my conduct shall your ladies come;
From whom you now must steal, and take no leave,
For there will be a world of water shed
Upon the parting of your wives and you.

HOTSPUR.
Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here,
In quantity equals not one of yours.
See how this river comes me cranking in,
And cuts me from the best of all my land
A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.
I’ll have the current in this place damn’d up;
And here the smug and sliver Trent shall run
In a new channel, fair and evenly:
It shall not wind with such a deep indent,
To rob me of so rich a bottom here.

GLENDOWER.
Not wind? it shall, it must; you see it doth.

MORTIMER.
Yea, but
Mark how he bears his course, and runs me up
With like advantage on the other side;
Gelding th’ opposed continent as much
As on the other side it takes from you.

WORCESTER.
Yea, but a little charge will trench him here,
And on this north side win this cape of land;
And then he runneth straight and evenly.

HOTSPUR.
I’ll have it so:  a little charge will do it.

GLENDOWER.
I will not have it alter’d.

HOTSPUR.
Will not you?

GLENDOWER.
No, nor you shall not.

HOTSPUR.
Who shall say me nay?

GLENDOWER.
Why, that will I.

HOTSPUR.
Let me not understand you, then; speak it in Welsh.

GLENDOWER.
I can speak English, lord, as well as you;
For I was train’d up in the English Court;
Where, being but young, I framed to the harp
Many an English ditty lovely well,
And gave the tongue a helpful ornament,
A virtue that was never seen in you.

HOTSPUR.
Marry, and I am glad of it with all my heart:
I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew,
Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers;
I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn’d,
Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree;
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry:
’Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.

GLENDOWER.
Come, you shall have Trent turn’d.

HOTSPUR.
I do not care:  I’ll give thrice so much land
To any well-deserving friend;
But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
I’ll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
Are the indentures drawn? shall we be gone?
GLEND.

The Moon shines fair; you may away by night:
I’ll in and haste the writer, and withal
Break with your wives of your departure hence:
I am afraid my daughter will run mad,
So much she doteth on her Mortimer.

[Exit.]

MORTIMER.
Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father!

HOTSPUR.
I cannot choose:  sometimes he angers me
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,
And of a dragon and a finless fish,
A clip-wing’d griffin and a moulten raven,
A couching lion and a ramping cat,
And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff
As puts me from my faith. I tell you what,
He held me last night at the least nine hours
In reckoning up the several devils’ names
That were his lacqueys:  I cried hum, and well,
But mark’d him not a word. O, he’s as tedious
As a tired horse, a railing wife;
Worse than a smoky house: I had rather live
With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far,
Than feed on cates and have him talk to me
In any summer-house in Christendom.

MORTIMER.
In faith, he is a worthy gentleman;
Exceedingly well-read, and profited
In strange concealments; valiant as a lion,
And wondrous affable, and as bountiful
As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?
He holds your temper in a high respect,
And curbs himself even of his natural scope
When you do cross his humour; faith, he does:
I warrant you, that man is not alive
Might so have tempted him as you have done,
Without the taste of danger and reproof:
But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.

WORCESTER.
In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blunt;
And since your coming hither have done enough
To put him quite beside his patience.
You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault:
Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood—
And that’s the dearest grace it renders you,—
Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,
Defect of manners, want of government,
Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain;
The least of which haunting a nobleman
Loseth men’s hearts, and leaves behind a stain
Upon the beauty of all parts besides,
Beguiling them of commendation.

HOTSPUR.
Well, I am school’d:  good manners be your speed!
Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.

[Re-enter Glendower, with Lady Mortimer and Lady Percy.]

MORTIMER.
This is the deadly spite that angers me,
My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.

GLENDOWER.
My daughter weeps:  she will not part with you;
She’ll be a soldier too, she’ll to the wars.

MORTIMER.
Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy
Shall follow in your conduct speedily.

[Glendower speaks to Lady Mortimer in Welsh, and she answers him in the
same.]

GLENDOWER.
She’s desperate here; a peevish self-will’d harlotry,
One that no persuasion can do good upon.

[Lady Mortimer speaks to Mortimer in Welsh.]

MORTIMER.
I understand thy looks: that pretty Welsh
Which thou pour’st down from these swelling heavens
I am too perfect in; and, but for shame,
In such a parley should I answer thee.

[Lady Mortimer speaks to him again in Welsh.]

I understand thy kisses, and thou mine,
And that’s a feeling disputation:
But I will never be a truant, love,
Till I have learn’d thy language; for thy tongue
Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn’d,
Sung by a fair queen in a Summer’s bower,
With ravishing division, to her lute.

GLENDOWER.
Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.

[Lady Mortimer speaks to Mortimer again in Welsh.]

MORTIMER.
O, I am ignorance itself in this!

GLENDOWER.
She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down,
And rest your gentle head upon her lap,
And she will sing the song that pleaseth you,
And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep,
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness;
Making such difference betwixt wake and sleep,
As is the difference betwixt day and night,
The hour before the heavenly-harness’d team
Begins his golden progress in the East.

MORTIMER.
With all my heart I’ll sit and hear her sing:
By that time will our book, I think, be drawn.

GLENDOWER.
Do so:
An those musicians that shall play to you
Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence,
And straight they shall be here:  sit, and attend.

HOTSPUR.
Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down:  come, quick, quick, that I
may lay my head in thy lap.

LADY PERCY.
Go, ye giddy goose.

[The music plays.]

HOTSPUR.
Now I perceive the Devil understands Welsh;
And ’tis no marvel he’s so humorous.
By’r Lady, he’s a good musician.

LADY PERCY.
Then should you be nothing but musical; for you are altogether governed
by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh.

HOTSPUR.
I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish.

LADY PERCY.
Wouldst thou have thy head broken?

HOTSPUR.
No.

LADY PERCY.
Then be still.

HOTSPUR.
Neither; ’tis a woman’s fault.

LADY PERCY.
Now God help thee!

HOTSPUR.
Peace! she sings.

[A Welsh song by Lady Mortimer.]

Come, Kate, I’ll have your song too.

LADY PERCY.
Not mine, in good sooth.

HOTSPUR.
Not yours, in good sooth! ’Heart! you swear like a
comfit-maker’s wife. Not mine, in good sooth; and, As true
as I live; and, As God shall mend me; and, As sure as day;
And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths,
As if thou ne’er walk’dst further than Finsbury.
Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,
A good mouth-filling oath; and leave in sooth,
And such protest of pepper-gingerbread,
To velvet-guards and Sunday-citizens. Come, sing.

LADY PERCY.
I will not sing.

HOTSPUR.
’Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbreast-teacher.
An the indentures be drawn, I’ll away within these two hours;
and so, come in when ye will.

[Exit.]

GLENDOWER.
Come, come, Lord Mortimer; you are as slow
As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go.
By this our book’s drawn; we’ll but seal, and then
To horse immediately.

MORTIMER.
With all my heart.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. London. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, and Lords.]

KING.
Lords, give us leave; the Prince of Wales and I
Must have some private conference: but be near at hand,
For we shall presently have need of you.

[Exeunt Lords.]

I know not whether God will have it so,
For some displeasing service I have done,
That, in His secret doom, out of my blood
He’ll breed revengement and a scourge for me;
But thou dost, in thy passages of life,
Make me believe that thou art only mark’d
For the hot vengeance and the rod of Heaven
To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,
Could such inordinate and low desires,
Such poor, such base, such lewd, such mean attempts,
Such barren pleasures, rude society,
As thou art match’d withal and grafted to,
Accompany the greatness of thy blood,
And hold their level with thy princely heart?

PRINCE.
So please your Majesty, I would I could
Quit all offences with as clear excuse
As well as I am doubtless I can purge
Myself of many I am charged withal:
Yet such extenuation let me beg,
As, in reproof of many tales devised
By smiling pick-thanks and base news-mongers,—
Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear,—
I may, for some things true, wherein my youth
Hath faulty wander’d and irregular,
Find pardon on my true submission.

KING.
God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry,
At thy affections, which do hold a wing
Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.
Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost,
Which by thy younger brother is supplied;
And art almost an alien to the hearts
Of all the Court and princes of my blood:
The hope and expectation of thy time
Is ruin’d; and the soul of every man
Prophetically does forethink thy fall.
Had I so lavish of my presence been,
So common-hackney’d in the eyes of men,
So stale and cheap to vulgar company,
Opinion, that did help me to the crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession,
And left me in reputeless banishment,

A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.
By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But, like a comet, I was wonder’d at;
That men would tell their children, This is he;
Others would say, Where, which is Bolingbroke?
And then I stole all courtesy from Heaven,
And dress’d myself in such humility,
That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of the crowned King.
Thus did I keep my person fresh and new;
My presence, like a robe pontifical,
Ne’er seen but wonder’d at:  and so my state,
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast,
And won by rareness such solemnity.
The skipping King, he ambled up and down
With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,
Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state,
Mingled his royalty, with capering fools;
Had his great name profaned with their scorns;
And gave his countenance, against his name,
To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push
Of every beardless vain comparative;
Grew a companion to the common streets,
Enfeoff’d himself to popularity;
That, being dally swallow’d by men’s eyes,
They surfeited with honey, and began
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
So, when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes
As, sick and blunted with community,
Afford no extraordinary gaze,
Such as is bent on sun-like majesty
When it shines seldom in admiring eyes;
But rather drowsed, and hung their eyelids down,
Slept in his face, and render’d such aspect
As cloudy men use to their adversaries,
Being with his presence glutted, gorged, and full.
And in that very line, Harry, stand’st thou;
For thou hast lost thy princely privilege
With vile participation:  not an eye
But is a-weary of thy common sight,
Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more;
Which now doth that I would not have it do,
Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.

PRINCE.
I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord,
Be more myself.

KING.
For all the world,
As thou art to this hour, was Richard then
When I from France set foot at Ravenspurg;
And even as I was then is Percy now.
Now, by my sceptre, and my soul to boot,
He hath more worthy interest to the state
Than thou, the shadow of succession;
For, of no right, nor colour like to right,
He doth fill fields with harness in the realm,
Turns head against the lion’s armed jaws;
And, being no more in debt to years than thou,
Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on
To bloody battles and to bruising arms.
What never-dying honour hath he got
Against renowned Douglas! whose high deeds,
Whose hot incursions, and great name in arms,
Holds from all soldiers chief majority
And military title capital
Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ:
Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathing-clothes,
This infant warrior, in his enterprises
Discomfited great Douglas; ta’en him once,
Enlarged him, and made a friend of him,
To fill the mouth of deep defiance up,
And shake the peace and safety of our throne.
And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland,
Th’ Archbishop’s Grace of York, Douglas, and Mortimer
Capitulate against us, and are up.
But wherefore do I tell these news to thee?
Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,
Which art my near’st and dearest enemy?
Thou that art like enough,—through vassal fear,
Base inclination, and the start of spleen,—
To fight against me under Percy’s pay,
To dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns,
To show how much thou art degenerate.

PRINCE.
Do not think so; you shall not find it so:
And God forgive them that so much have sway’d
Your Majesty’s good thoughts away from me!
I will redeem all this on Percy’s head,
And, in the closing of some glorious day,
Be bold to tell you that I am your son;
When I will wear a garment all of blood,
And stain my favour in a bloody mask,
Which, wash’d away, shall scour my shame with it:
And that shall be the day, whene’er it lights,
That this same child of honour and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,
And your unthought-of Harry, chance to meet.
For every honour sitting on his helm,
Would they were multitudes, and on my head
My shames redoubled! for the time will come,
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
T’ engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call hall to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up,
Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
This, in the name of God, I promise here:
The which if I perform, and do survive,
I do beseech your Majesty, may salve
The long-grown wounds of my intemperance:
If not, the end of life cancels all bands;
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.

KING.
A hundred thousand rebels die in this.
Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.—

[Enter Sir Walter Blunt.]

How now, good Blunt! thy looks are full of speed.

BLUNT.
So is the business that I come to speak of.
Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word
That Douglas and the English rebels met
Th’ eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury:
A mighty and a fearful head they are,
If promises be kept on every hand,
As ever offer’d foul play in a State.

KING.
The Earl of Westmoreland set forth to-day;
With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster;
For this advertisement is five days old.
On Wednesday next you, Harry, shall set forward;
On Thursday we ourselves will march:
Our meeting is Bridgenorth:  and, Harry, you
Shall march through Glostershire; by which account,
Our business valued, some twelve days hence
Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet.
Our hands are full of business:  let’s away;
Advantage feeds him fat, while men delay.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s-Head Tavern.

[Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.]

FALSTAFF.
Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? do I not
bate? do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s
loose gown; I am withered like an old apple-John. Well, I’ll repent,
and that suddenly, while I am in some liking; I shall be out of heart
shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not
forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a
brewer’s horse:  the inside of a church! Company, villainous company,
hath been the spoil of me.

BARDOLPH.
Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.

FALSTAFF.
Why, there is it:  come, sing me a song; make me merry. I was as
virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore
little; diced not above seven times a week; paid money that I borrowed
—three or four times; lived well, and in good compass:  and now I live
out of all order, out of all compass.

BARDOLPH.
Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all
compass, —out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

FALSTAFF.
Do thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life:  thou art our admiral,
thou bearest the lantern in the poop,—but ’tis in the nose of thee;
thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.

BARDOLPH.
Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.

FALSTAFF.
No, I’ll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a
death’s-head or a memento mori:  I never see thy face but I think upon
hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his
robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would
swear by thy face; my oath should be, By this fire, that’s God’s angel:
 but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light
in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou rann’st up Gad’s-hill
in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an
ignis fatuus or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money. O,
thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast
saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in
the night betwixt tavern and tavern:  but the sack that thou hast drunk
me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler’s
in Europe. I have maintain’d that salamander of yours with fire any
time this two-and-thirty years; God reward me for it!

BARDOLPH.
’Sblood, I would my face were in your stomach!

FALSTAFF.
God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burn’d.—

[Enter the Hostess.]

How now, Dame Partlet the hen! have you enquir’d yet who pick’d my
pocket?

HOSTESS.
Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? do you think I keep thieves
in my house? I have search’d, I have inquired, so has my husband, man
by man, boy by boy, servant by servant: the tithe of a hair was never
lost in my house before.

FALSTAFF.
Ye lie, hostess:  Bardolph was shaved, and lost many a hair; and
I’ll be sworn my pocket was pick’d. Go to, you are a woman, go.

HOSTESS.
Who, I? no; I defy thee:  God’s light, I was never call’d so in mine
own house before.

FALSTAFF.
Go to, I know you well enough.

HOSTESS.
No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir John: you
owe me money, Sir John; and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it:
I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.

FALSTAFF.
Dowlas, filthy dowlas:  I have given them away to bakers’ wives, and
they have made bolters of them.

HOSTESS.
Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell.
You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings,
and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.

FALSTAFF.
He had his part of it; let him pay.

HOSTESS.
He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.

FALSTAFF.
How! poor? look upon his face; what call you rich? let them coin his
nose, let them coin his cheeks:  I’ll not pay a denier. What, will you
make a younker of me? shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I
shall have my pocket pick’d? I have lost a seal-ring of my
grandfather’s worth forty mark.

HOSTESS.
O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that
ring was copper!

FALSTAFF.
How! the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup:  ’sblood, an he were here, I
would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.—

[Enter Prince Henry and Poins, marching.  Falstaff meets them, playing
on his truncheon like a fife.]

How now, lad? is the wind in that door, i’faith? must we all march?

BARDOLPH.
Yea, two-and-two, Newgate-fashion.

HOSTESS.
My lord, I pray you, hear me.

PRINCE.
What say’st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him
well; he is an honest man.

HOSTESS.
Good my lord, hear me.

FALSTAFF.
Pr’ythee, let her alone, and list to me.

PRINCE.
What say’st thou, Jack?

FALSTAFF.
The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my pocket
pick’d:  this house is turn’d bawdy-house; they pick pockets.

PRINCE.
What didst thou lose, Jack?

FALSTAFF.
Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound a-piece
and a seal-ring of my grandfather’s.

PRINCE.
A trifle, some eight-penny matter.

HOSTESS.
So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your Grace say so; and, my
lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouth’d man as he is;
and said he would cudgel you.

PRINCE.
What! he did not?

HOSTESS.
There’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.

FALSTAFF.
There’s no more faith in thee than in a stew’d prune; nor no more truth
in thee than in a drawn fox; and, for woman-hood, Maid Marian may be
the deputy’s wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go.

HOSTESS.
Say, what thing? what thing?  I am an honest man’s wife:  and, setting
thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.

FALSTAFF.
Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.

HOSTESS.
Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?

FALSTAFF.
What beast!  why, an otter.

PRINCE.
An otter, Sir John, why an otter?

FALSTAFF.
Why, she’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.

HOSTESS.
Thou art an unjust man in saying so; thou or any man knows where to
have me, thou knave, thou!

PRINCE.
Thou say’st true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly.

HOSTESS.
So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day you ought him a
thousand pound.

PRINCE.
Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?

FALSTAFF.

A thousand pound, Hal! a million:  thy love is worth a million; thou
owest me thy love.

HOSTESS.
Nay, my lord, he call’d you Jack, and said he would cudgel you.

FALSTAFF.
Did I, Bardolph?

BARDOLPH.
Indeed, Sir John, you said so.

FALSTAFF.
Yea, if he said my ring was copper.

PRINCE.
I say ’tis copper:  darest thou be as good as thy word now?

FALSTAFF.
Why, Hal, thou know’st, as thou art but man, I dare; but as thou art
prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp.

PRINCE.
And why not as the lion?

FALSTAFF.
The King himself is to be feared as the lion:  dost thou think I’ll
fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle
break.

PRINCE.
Sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of
thine; it is all fill’d up with midriff. Charge an honest woman with
picking thy pocket! why, thou whoreson, impudent, emboss’d rascal, if
there were anything in thy pocket but tavern-reckonings, and one poor
pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded,—if thy pocket were
enrich’d with any other injuries but these, I am a villain:  and yet
you will stand to it; you will not pocket-up wrong. Art thou not
ashamed!

FALSTAFF.
Dost thou hear, Hal? thou know’st, in the state of innocency Adam fell;
and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou
see’st I have more flesh than another man; and therefore more frailty.
You confess, then, you pick’d my pocket?

PRINCE.
It appears so by the story.

FALSTAFF.
Hostess, I forgive thee:  go, make ready breakfast; love thy husband,
look to thy servants, cherish thy guests:  thou shalt find me tractable
to any honest reason; thou see’st I am pacified.—Still?  Nay, pr’ythee,
be gone.

[Exit Hostess.]

Now, Hal, to the news at Court:  for the robbery, lad, how is that
answered?

PRINCE.
O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee:  the money is
paid back again.

FALSTAFF.
O, I do not like that paying back; ’tis a double labour.

PRINCE.
I am good friends with my father, and may do any thing.

FALSTAFF.
Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it with
unwash’d hands too.

BARDOLPH.
Do, my lord.

PRINCE.
I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of Foot.

FALSTAFF.
I would it had been of Horse. Where shall I find one that can steal
well? O, for a fine thief, of the age of two-and-twenty or thereabouts!
I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels; they
offend none but the virtuous:  I laud them, I praise them.

PRINCE.
Bardolph,—

BARDOLPH.
My lord?

PRINCE.
Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,
To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.—

[Exit Bardolph.]

Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou and I
Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner-time.—

[Exit Poins.]

Meet me to-morrow, Jack, i’ the Temple-hall
At two o’clock in th’ afternoon:
There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive
Money and order for their furniture.
The land is burning; Percy stands on high;
And either they or we must lower lie.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
Rare words! brave world!—Hostess, my breakfast; come:—
O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!

[Exit.]

ACT IV

SCENE I. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.

[Enter Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas.]

HOTSPUR.
Well said, my noble Scot:  if speaking truth
In this fine age were not thought flattery,
Such attribution should the Douglas have,
As not a soldier of this season’s stamp
Should go so general-current through the world.
By God, I cannot flatter; I defy
The tongues of soothers; but a braver place
In my heart’s love hath no man than yourself:
Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.

DOUGLAS.
Thou art the king of honour:
No man so potent breathes upon the ground
But I will beard him.

HOTSPUR.
Do so, and ’tis well.—

[Enter a Messenger with letters.]

What letters hast thou there?—I can but thank you.

MESSENGER.
These letters come from your father.

HOTSPUR.
Letters from him! why comes he not himself?

MESSENGER.
He cannot come, my lord; he’s grievous sick.

HOTSPUR.
Zwounds! how has he the leisure to be sick
In such a justling time? Who leads his power?
Under whose government come they along?

MESSENGER.
His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord.

WORCESTER.
I pr’ythee, tell me, doth he keep his bed?

MESSENGER.
He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,
And at the time of my departure thence
He was much fear’d by his physicians.

WORCESTER.
I would the state of time had first been whole
Ere he by sickness had been visited:
His health was never better worth than now.

HOTSPUR.
Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect
The very life-blood of our enterprise;
’Tis catching hither, even to our camp.

He writes me here, that inward sickness,—
And that his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn; no did he think it meet
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust
On any soul removed, but on his own.
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,
That with our small conjunction we should on,
To see how fortune is disposed to us;
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,
Because the King is certainly possess’d
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?

WORCESTER.
Your father’s sickness is a maim to us.

HOTSPUR.
A perilous gash, a very limb lopp’d off:—
And yet, in faith, ’tis not; his present want
Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good
To set the exact wealth of all our states
All at one cast? to set so rich a main
On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?
It were not good; for therein should we read
The very bottom and the soul of hope,
The very list, the very utmost bound
Of all our fortunes.

DOUGLAS.
Faith, and so we should;
Where now remains a sweet reversion;
And we may boldly spend upon the hope
Of what is to come in:
A comfort of retirement lives in this.

HOTSPUR.
A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,
If that the Devil and mischance look big
Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

WORCESTER.
But yet I would your father had been here.
The quality and hair of our attempt
Brooks no division:  it will be thought
By some, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike
Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence:
And think how such an apprehension
May turn the tide of fearful faction,
And breed a kind of question in our cause;
For well you know we of the offering side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,
And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us.
This absence of your father’s draws a curtain,
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear
Before not dreamt of.

HOTSPUR.
Nay, you strain too far.
I, rather, of his absence make this use:
It lends a lustre and more great opinion,
A larger dare to our great enterprise,
Than if the earl were here; for men must think,
If we, without his help, can make a head
To push against the kingdom, with his help
We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down.
Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.

DOUGLAS.
As heart can think:  there is not such a word
Spoke in Scotland as this term of fear.

[Enter Sir Richard Vernon.]

HOTSPUR.
My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul.

VERNON.
Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord.
The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,
Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John.

HOTSPUR.
No harm:  what more?

VERNON.
And further, I have learn’d
The King himself in person is set forth,
Or hitherwards intended speedily,
With strong and mighty preparation.

HOTSPUR.
He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,
The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,
And his comrades, that daff the world aside,
And bid it pass?

VERNON.
All furnish’d, all in arms;
All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Bate it; like eagles having lately bathed;
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May
And gorgeous as the Sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry—with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d—
Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury,
And vault it with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

HOTSPUR.
No more, no more:  worse than the Sun in March,
This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come;
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war,
All hot and bleeding, will we offer them:
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,
And yet not ours.—Come, let me taste my horse,
Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt,
Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales:
Harry and Harry shall, hot horse to horse,
Meet, and ne’er part till one drop down a corse.—
O, that Glendower were come!

VERNON.
There is more news:
I learn’d in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.

DOUGLAS.
That’s the worst tidings that I hear of yet.

WORCESTER.
Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.

HOTSPUR.
What may the King’s whole battle reach unto?

VERNON.
To thirty thousand.

HOTSPUR.
Forty let it be:
My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers of us may serve so great a day.
Come, let us take a muster speedily:
Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.

DOUGLAS.
Talk not of dying:  I am out of fear
Of death or death’s hand for this one half-year.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. A public Road near Coventry.

[Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.]

FALSTAFF.
Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack:  our
soldiers shall march through; we’ll to Sutton-Co’fil’ to-night.

BARDOLPH.
Will you give me money, captain?

FALSTAFF.
Lay out, lay out.

BARDOLPH.
This bottle makes an angel.

FALSTAFF.
An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty,
take them all; I’ll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant
Peto meet me at the town’s end.

BARDOLPH.
I will, captain:  farewell.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have
misused the King’s press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred
and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press’d me none but
good householders, yeomen’s sons; inquired me out contracted bachelors,
such as had been ask’d twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm
slaves as had as lief hear the Devil as a drum; such as fear the report
of a caliver worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild-duck. I press’d me
none but such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bodies no bigger
than pins’-heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my
whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of
companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the
glutton’s dogs licked his sores; and such as, indeed, were never
soldiers, but discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger
brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a
calm world and a long peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than
an old faced ancient:  and such have I, to fill up the rooms of them
that have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a
hundred and fifty tattered Prodigals lately come from swine-keeping,
from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told
me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and press’d the dead bodies. No eye
hath seen such scarecrows. I’ll not march through Coventry with them,
that’s flat:  nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if
they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison.
There’s but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is
two napkins tack’d together and thrown over the shoulders like a
herald’s coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen
from my host at Saint Alban’s, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry.
But that’s all one; they’ll find linen enough on every hedge.

[Enter Prince Henry and Westmoreland.]

PRINCE.
How now, blown Jack! how now, quilt!

FALSTAFF.
What, Hal! how now, mad wag! what a devil dost thou in
Warwickshire?—My good Lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy:
I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.

WESTMORELAND.
Faith, Sir John, ’tis more than time that I were there, and you too;
but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell you, looks for us
all:  we must away all, to-night.

FALSTAFF.
Tut, never fear me:  I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

PRINCE.
I think, to steal cream, indeed; for thy theft hath already made thee
butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after?

FALSTAFF.
Mine, Hal, mine.

PRINCE.
I did never see such pitiful rascals.

FALSTAFF.
Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder;
they’ll fill a pit as well as better:  tush, man, mortal men, mortal
men.

WESTMORELAND.
Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare,—too
beggarly.

FALSTAFF.
Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that; and, for
their bareness, I am sure they never learn’d that of me.

PRINCE.
No, I’ll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs bare. But,
sirrah, make haste:  Percy is already in the field.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
What, is the King encamp’d?

WESTMORELAND.
He is, Sir John:  I fear we shall stay too long.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
Well,
To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast
Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.

[Exit.]

SCENE III. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.

[Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, and Vernon.]

HOTSPUR.
We’ll fight with him to-night.

WORCESTER.
It may not be.

DOUGLAS.
You give him, then, advantage.

VERNON.
Not a whit.

HOTSPUR.
Why say you so? looks he not for supply?

VERNON.
So do we.

HOTSPUR.
His is certain, ours is doubtful.

WORCESTER.
Good cousin, be advised; stir not to-night.

VERNON.
Do not, my lord.

DOUGLAS.
You do not counsel well:
You speak it out of fear and cold heart.

VERNON.
Do me no slander, Douglas:  by my life,—
And I dare well maintain it with my life,—
If well-respected honour bid me on,
I hold as little counsel with weak fear
As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives:
Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle
Which of us fears.

DOUGLAS.
Yea, or to-night.

VERNON.
Content.

HOTSPUR.
To-night, say I.

VERNON.
Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much,
Being men of such great leading as you are,
That you foresee not what impediments
Drag back our expedition:  certain Horse
Of my cousin Vernon’s are not yet come up:
Your uncle Worcester’s Horse came but to-day;
And now their pride and mettle is asleep,
Their courage with hard labour tame and dull,
That not a horse is half the half himself.

HOTSPUR.
So are the horses of the enemy
In general, journey-bated and brought low:
The better part of ours are full of rest.

WORCESTER.
The number of the King exceedeth ours.
For God’s sake, cousin, stay till all come in.

[The Trumpet sounds a parley.]

[Enter Sir Walter Blunt.]

BLUNT.
I come with gracious offers from the King,
If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.

HOTSPUR.
Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt; and would to God
You were of our determination!
Some of us love you well; and even those some
Envy your great deservings and good name,
Because you are not of our quality,
But stand against us like an enemy.

BLUNT.
And God defend but still I should stand so,
So long as out of limit and true rule
You stand against anointed majesty!
But to my charge:  the King hath sent to know
The nature of your griefs; and whereupon
You conjure from the breast of civil peace
Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land
Audacious cruelty. If that the King
Have any way your good deserts forgot,
Which he confesseth to be manifold,
He bids you name your griefs; and with all speed
You shall have your desires with interest,
And pardon absolute for yourself and these
Herein misled by your suggestion.

HOTSPUR.
The King is kind; and well we know the King
Knows at what time to promise, when to pay.
My father and my uncle and myself
Did give him that same royalty he wears;
And—when he was not six-and-twenty strong,
Sick in the world’s regard, wretched and low,
A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home—
My father gave him welcome to the shore:
And—when he heard him swear and vow to God,
He came but to be Duke of Lancaster,
To sue his livery and beg his peace,
With tears of innocence and terms of zeal—
My father, in kind heart and pity moved,
Swore him assistance, and performed it too.
Now, when the lords and barons of the realm
Perceived Northumberland did lean to him,
The more and less came in with cap and knee;
Met him in boroughs, cities, villages,
Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes,
Laid gifts before him, proffer’d him their oaths,
Give him their heirs as pages, follow’d him
Even at the heels in golden multitudes.
He presently—as greatness knows itself—
Steps me a little higher than his vow
Made to my father, while his blood was poor,
Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurg;
And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform
Some certain edicts and some strait decrees
That lie too heavy on the commonwealth;
Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep
Over his country’s wrongs; and, by this face,
This seeming brow of justice, did he win
The hearts of all that he did angle for:
Proceeded further; cut me off the heads
Of all the favourites, that the absent King
In deputation left behind him here
When he was personal in the Irish war.

BLUNT.
Tut, I came not to hear this.

HOTSPUR.
Then to the point:
In short time after, he deposed the King;
Soon after that, deprived him of his life;
And, in the neck of that, task’d the whole State:
To make that worse, suffer’d his kinsman March
(Who is, if every owner were well placed,
Indeed his king) to be engaged in Wales,
There without ransom to lie forfeited;
Disgraced me in my happy victories,
Sought to entrap me by intelligence;
Rated my uncle from the Council-board;
In rage dismiss’d my father from the Court;
Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong;
And, in conclusion, drove us to seek out
This head of safety; and withal to pry
Into his title, the which now we find
Too indirect for long continuance.

BLUNT.
Shall I return this answer to the King?

HOTSPUR.
Not so, Sir Walter:  we’ll withdraw awhile.
Go to the King; and let there be impawn’d
Some surety for a safe return again,
And in the morning early shall my uncle
Bring him our purposes: and so, farewell.

BLUNT.
I would you would accept of grace and love.

HOTSPUR.
And may be so we shall.

BLUNT.
Pray God you do.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. York.  A Room in the Archbishop’s Palace.

[Enter the Archbishop of York and Sir Michael.]

ARCHBISHOP.
Hie, good Sir Michael; bear this sealed brief
With winged haste to the Lord Marshal;
This to my cousin Scroop; and all the rest
To whom they are directed. If you knew
How much they do import, you would make haste.

SIR MICHAEL.
My good lord,
I guess their tenour.

ARCHBISHOP.
Like enough you do.
To-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day
Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men
Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury,
As I am truly given to understand,
The King, with mighty and quick-raised power,
Meets with Lord Harry:  and, I fear, Sir Michael,
What with the sickness of Northumberland,
Whose power was in the first proportion,
And what with Owen Glendower’s absence thence,
Who with them was a rated sinew too,
And comes not in, o’er-rul’d by prophecies,—
I fear the power of Percy is too weak
To wage an instant trial with the King.

SIR MICHAEL.
Why, my good lord, you need not fear;
There’s Douglas and Lord Mortimer.

ARCHBISHOP.
No, Mortimer’s not there.

SIR MICHAEL.
But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy,
And there’s my Lord of Worcester; and a head
Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.

ARCHBISHOP.
And so there is:  but yet the King hath drawn
The special head of all the land together;
The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,
The noble Westmoreland, and warlike Blunt;
And many more corrivals and dear men
Of estimation and command in arms.

SIR MICHAEL.
Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well opposed.

ARCHBISHOP.
I hope no less, yet needful ’tis to fear;
And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed:
For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King
Dismiss his power, he means to visit us,
For he hath heard of our confederacy;
And ’tis but wisdom to make strong against him:
Therefore make haste. I must go write again
To other friends; and so, farewell, Sir Michael.

[Exeunt.]

ACT V

SCENE I. The King’s Camp near Shrewsbury.

[Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Lancaster, Sir Walter Blunt, and Sir
John Falstaff.]

KING.
How bloodily the Sun begins to peer
Above yon busky hill! the day looks pale
At his distemperature.

PRINCE.
The southern wind
Doth play the trumpet to his purposes;
And by his hollow whistling in the leaves
Foretells a tempest and a blustering day.

KING.
Then with the losers let it sympathize,
For nothing can seem foul to those that win.—

[The trumpet sounds. Enter Worcester and Vernon.]

How, now, my Lord of Worcester! ’tis not well
That you and I should meet upon such terms
As now we meet. You have deceived our trust;
And made us doff our easy robes of peace,
To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel:
This is not well, my lord, this is not well.
What say you to’t? will you again unknit
This churlish knot of all-abhorred war,
And move in that obedient orb again
Where you did give a fair and natural light;
And be no more an exhaled meteor,
A prodigy of fear, and a portent
Of broached mischief to the unborn times?

WORCESTER.
Hear me, my liege:
For mine own part, I could be well content
To entertain the lag-end of my life
With quiet hours; for I do protest,
I have not sought the day of this dislike.

KING.
You have not sought it! why, how comes it, then?

FALSTAFF.
Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.

PRINCE.
Peace, chewet, peace!

WORCESTER.
It pleased your Majesty to turn your looks
Of favour from myself and all our House;
And yet I must remember you, my lord,
We were the first and dearest of your friends.
For you my staff of office did I break
In Richard’s time; and posted day and night
To meet you on the way, and kiss your hand,
When yet you were in place and in account
Nothing so strong and fortunate as I.
It was myself, my brother, and his son,
That brought you home, and boldly did outdare
The dangers of the time. You swore to us,—
And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,—
That you did nothing purpose ’gainst the state;
Nor claim no further than your new-fall’n right,
The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster:
To this we swore our aid. But in short space
It rain’d down fortune showering on your head;
And such a flood of greatness fell on you,—
What with our help, what with the absent King,
What with the injuries of a wanton time,
The seeming sufferances that you had borne,
And the contrarious winds that held the King
So long in his unlucky Irish wars
That all in England did repute him dead,—
And, from this swarm of fair advantages,
You took occasion to be quickly woo’d
To gripe the general sway into your hand;
Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster;
And, being fed by us, you used us so
As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo-bird,
Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest;
Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk,
That even our love thirst not come near your sight
For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing
We were enforced, for safety-sake, to fly
Out of your sight, and raise this present head:
Whereby we stand opposed by such means
As you yourself have forged against yourself,
By unkind usage, dangerous countenance,
And violation of all faith and troth
Sworn to tis in your younger enterprise.

KING.
These things, indeed, you have articulate,
Proclaim’d at market-crosses, read in churches,
To face the garment of rebellion
With some fine colour that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,
Which gape and rub the elbow at the news
Of hurlyburly innovation:
And never yet did insurrection want
Such water-colours to impaint his cause;
Nor moody beggars, starving for a time
Of pellmell havoc and confusion.

PRINCE.
In both our armies there is many a soul
Shall pay full dearly for this encounter,
If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew,
The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world
In praise of Henry Percy:  by my hopes,
This present enterprise set off his head,
I do not think a braver gentleman,
More active-valiant or more valiant-young,
More daring or more bold, is now alive
To grace this latter age with noble deeds.
For my part,—I may speak it to my shame,—
I have a truant been to chivalry;
And so I hear he doth account me too:
Yet this before my father’s Majesty,—
I am content that he shall take the odds
Of his great name and estimation,
And will, to save the blood on either side,
Try fortune with him in a single fight.

KING.
And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee,
Albeit considerations infinite
Do make against it.—No, good Worcester, no;
We love our people well; even those we love
That are misled upon your cousin’s part;
And, will they take the offer of our grace,
Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man
Shall be my friend again, and I’ll be his:
So tell your cousin, and then bring me word
What he will do:  but, if he will not yield,
Rebuke and dread correction wait on us,
And they shall do their office. So, be gone;
We will not now be troubled with reply:
We offer fair; take it advisedly.

[Exit Worcester with Vernon.]

PRINCE.
It will not be accepted, on my life:
The Douglas and the Hotspur both together
Are confident against the world in arms.

KING.
Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge;
For, on their answer, will we set on them:
And God befriend us, as our cause is just!

[Exeunt the King, Blunt, and Prince John.]

FALSTAFF.
Hal, if thou see me down in the battle, and bestride me, so; ’tis a
point of friendship.

PRINCE.
Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship.
Say thy prayers, and farewell.

FALSTAFF.
I would it were bedtime, Hal, and all well.

PRINCE.
Why, thou owest God a death.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
’Tis not due yet; I would be loth to pay Him before His day. What need
I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter;
honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come
on? how then? Can honor set-to a leg? no:  or an arm? no:  or take away
the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? no.
What is honour? a word. What is that word, honour? air. A trim
reckoning!—Who hath it? he that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no.
Doth be hear it? no. Is it insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will
it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it.
Therefore I’ll none of it:  honour is a mere scutcheon:—and so ends my
catechism.

[Exit.]

SCENE II. The Rebel Camp.

[Enter Worcester and Vernon.]

WORCESTER.
O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,
The liberal-kind offer of the King.

VERNON.
’Twere best he did.

WORCESTER.
Then are we all undone.
It is not possible, it cannot be,
The King should keep his word in loving us;
He will suspect us still, and find a time
To punish this offence in other faults:
Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;
For treason is but trusted like the fox,
Who, ne’er so tame, so cherish’d, and lock’d up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.
Look how we can, or sad or merrily,
Interpretation will misquote our looks;
And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,
The better cherish’d, still the nearer death.
My nephew’s trespass may be well forgot:
It hath th’ excuse of youth and heat of blood,
And an adopted name of privilege,—
A hare-brain’d Hotspur, govern’d by a spleen:
All his offences live upon my head
And on his father’s:  we did train him on;
And, his corruption being ta’en from us,
We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all.
Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know,
In any case, the offer of the King.

VERNON.
Deliver what you will, I’ll say ’tis so.
Here comes your cousin.

[Enter Hotspur and Douglas; Officers and Soldiers behind.]

HOTSPUR.
My uncle is return’d: deliver up
My Lord of Westmoreland.—Uncle, what news?

WORCESTER.
The King will bid you battle presently.

DOUGLAS.
Defy him by the Lord Of Westmoreland.

HOTSPUR.
Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so.

DOUGLAS.
Marry, I shall, and very willingly.

[Exit.]

WORCESTER.
There is no seeming mercy in the King.

HOTSPUR.
Did you beg any? God forbid!

WORCESTER.
I told him gently of our grievances,
Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus,
By new-forswearing that he is forsworn:
He calls us rebels, traitors; and will scourge
With haughty arms this hateful name in us.

[Re-enter Douglas.]

DOUGLAS.
Arm, gentlemen; to arms! for I have thrown
A brave defiance in King Henry’s teeth,
And Westmoreland, that was engaged, did bear it;
Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.

WORCESTER.
The Prince of Wales stepp’d forth before the King,
And, nephew, challenged you to single fight.

HOTSPUR.
O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads;
And that no man might draw short breath to-day
But I and Harry Monmouth! Tell me, tell me,
How show’d his tasking? seem’d it in contempt?

VERNON.
No, by my soul: I never in my life
Did hear a challenge urged more modestly,
Unless a brother should a brother dare
To gentle exercise and proof of arms.
He gave you all the duties of a man;
Trimm’d up your praises with a princely tongue;
Spoke your deservings like a chronicle;
Making you ever better than his praise,
By still dispraising praise valued with you;
And, which became him like a prince indeed,
He made a blushing cital of himself;
And chid his truant youth with such a grace,
As if he master’d there a double spirit,
Of teaching and of learning instantly.
There did he pause:  but let me tell the world,
If he outlive the envy of this day,
England did never owe so sweet a hope,
So much misconstrued in his wantonness.

HOTSPUR.
Cousin, I think thou art enamoured
Upon his follies: never did I hear
Of any prince so wild o’ liberty.
But be he as he will, yet once ere night
I will embrace him with a soldier’s arm,
That he shall shrink under my courtesy.—
Arm, arm with speed:  and, fellows, soldiers, friends,
Better consider what you have to do
Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,
Can lift your blood up with persuasion.

[Enter a Messenger.]

MESSENGER.
My lord, here are letters for you.

HOTSPUR.
I cannot read them now.—
O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
To spend that shortness basely were too long,
If life did ride upon a dial’s point,
Still ending at th’ arrival of an hour.
An if we live, we live to tread on kings;
If die, brave death, when princes die with us!
Now, for our consciences, the arms are fair,
When the intent of bearing them is just.

[Enter another Messenger.]

MESSENGER.
My lord, prepare:  the King comes on apace.

HOTSPUR.
I thank him, that he cuts me from my tale,
For I profess not talking; only this,
Let each man do his best:  and here draw I
A sword, whose temper I intend to stain
With the best blood that I can meet withal
In the adventure of this perilous day.
Now, Esperance! Percy! and set on.
Sound all the lofty instruments of war,
And by that music let us all embrace;
For, Heaven to Earth, some of us never shall
A second time do such a courtesy.

[The trumpets sound.  They embrace, and exeunt.]

SCENE III. Plain between the Camps.

[Excursions, and Parties fighting.  Alarum to the battle.
Then enter Douglas and Sir Walter Blunt, meeting.]

BLUNT.
What is thy name, that in the battle thus
Thou crossest me? what honour dost thou seek
Upon my head?

DOUGLAS.
Know, then, my name is Douglas,
And I do haunt thee in the battle thus
Because some tell me that thou art a king.

BLUNT.
They tell thee true.

DOUGLAS.
The Lord of Stafford dear to-day hath bought
Thy likeness; for, instead of thee, King Harry,
This sword hath ended him:  so shall it thee,
Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner.

BLUNT.
I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot;
And thou shalt find a king that will revenge
Lord Stafford’s death.

[They fight, and Blunt is slain. Enter Hotspur.]

HOTSPUR.
O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus,
I never had triumphed o’er a Scot.

DOUGLAS.
All’s done, all’s won; here breathless lies the King.

HOTSPUR.
Where?

DOUGLAS.
Here.

HOTSPUR.
This, Douglas? no; I know this face full well:
A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt;
Semblably furnish’d like the King himself.

DOUGLAS.
A fool go with thy soul, where’re it goes!
A borrow’d title hast thou bought too dear:
Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?

HOTSPUR.
The King hath many marching in his coats.

DOUGLAS.
Now, by my sword, I will kill all his coats;
I’ll murder all his wardrobe piece by piece,
Until I meet the King.

HOTSPUR.
Up, and away!
Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day.

[Exeunt.]

[Alarums. Enter Falstaff.]

FALSTAFF.
Though I could ’scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot here; here’s
no scoring but upon the pate.—Soft! who are you? Sir Walter Blunt: 
there’s honour for you! here’s no vanity! I am as hot as molten lead,
and as heavy too:  God keep lead out of me! I need no more weight than
mine own bowels. I have led my ragamuffins where they are peppered: 
there’s not three of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for
the town’s end, to beg during life. But who comes here?

[Enter Prince Henry.]

PRINCE.
What, stand’st thou idle here? lend me thy sword:
Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff
Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies,
Whose deaths are yet unrevenged:  I pr’ythee,
Lend me thy sword.

FALSTAFF.
O Hal, I pr’ythee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk
Gregory never did such deeds in arms as I have done this
day. I have paid Percy, I have made him sure.

PRINCE.
He is indeed; and living to kill thee.
I pr’ythee, lend me thy sword.

FALSTAFF.
Nay, before God, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou gett’st not my sword; but
take my pistol, if thou wilt.

PRINCE.
Give it me:  what, is it in the case?

FALSTAFF.
Ay, Hal. ’Tis hot, ’tis hot:  there’s that will sack a city.

[The Prince draws out a bottle of sack.]

What, is’t a time to jest and dally now?

[Throws it at him, and exit.]

FALSTAFF.
Well, if Percy be alive, I’ll pierce him. If he do come in my way, so;
if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him make a carbonado of
me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath:  give me life;
which if I can save, so; if not, honour comes unlooked for, and there’s
an end.

[Exit.]

SCENE IV. Another Part of the Field.

[Alarums. Excursions. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry,
Lancaster, and Westmoreland.]

KING.
I pr’ythee,
Harry, withdraw thyself; thou bleedest too much.—
Lord John of Lancaster, go you unto him.

LANCASTER.
Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too.

PRINCE.
I do beseech your Majesty, make up,
Lest your retirement do amaze your friends.

KING.
I will do so.—
My Lord of Westmoreland, lead him to his tent.

WESTMORELAND.
Come, my lord, I’ll lead you to your tent.

PRINCE.
Lead me, my lord?  I do not need your help:
And God forbid, a shallow scratch should drive
The Prince of Wales from such a field as this,
Where stain’d nobility lies trodden on,
And rebels’ arms triumph in massacres!

LANCASTER.
We breathe too long:—come, cousin Westmoreland,
Our duty this way lies; for God’s sake, come.

[Exeunt Lancaster and Westmoreland.]

PRINCE.
By Heaven, thou hast deceived me, Lancaster;
I did not think thee lord of such a spirit:
Before, I loved thee as a brother, John;
But now I do respect thee as my soul.

KING.
I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point
With lustier maintenance than I did look for
Of such an ungrown warrior.

PRINCE.
O, this boy
Lends mettle to us all!

[Exit.]

[Alarums. Enter Douglas.]

DOUGLAS.
Another king! they grow like Hydra’s heads:
I am the Douglas, fatal to all those

That wear those colours on them.—What art thou,
That counterfeit’st the person of a king?

KING.
The King himself; who, Douglas, grieves at heart
So many of his shadows thou hast met,
And not the very King. I have two boys
Seek Percy and thyself about the field:
But, seeing thou fall’st on me so luckily,
I will assay thee; so, defend thyself.

DOUGLAS.
I fear thou art another counterfeit;
And yet, in faith, thou bear’st thee like a king:
But mine I’m sure thou art, whoe’er thou be,
And thus I win thee.

[They fight; the King being in danger, re-enter Prince Henry.]

PRINCE.
Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like
Never to hold it up again! the spirits
Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt are in my arms:
It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee;
Who never promiseth but he means to pay.—

[They fight:  Douglas flies.]

Cheerly, my lord:  how fares your Grace?
Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent,
And so hath Clifton:  I’ll to Clifton straight.

KING.
Stay, and breathe awhile:
Thou hast redeem’d thy lost opinion;
And show’d thou makest some tender of my life,
In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.

PRINCE.
O God, they did me too much injury
That ever said I hearken’d for your death!
If it were so, I might have let alone
Th’ insulting hand of Douglas over you,
Which would have been as speedy in your end
As all the poisonous potions in the world,
And saved the treacherous labour of your son.

KING.
Make up to Clifton:  I’ll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey.

[Exit.]

[Enter Hotspur.]

HOTSPUR.
If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.

PRINCE.
Thou speak’st as if I would deny my name.

HOTSPUR.
My name is Harry Percy.

PRINCE.
Why, then I see
A very valiant rebel of the name.
I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,
To share with me in glory any more:
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere;
Nor can one England brook a double reign,
Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.

HOTSPUR.
Nor shall it, Harry; for the hour is come
To end the one of us; and would to God
Thy name in arms were now as great as mine!

PRINCE.
I’ll make it greater ere I part from thee;
And all the budding honours on thy crest
I’ll crop, to make a garland for my head.

HOTSPUR.
I can no longer brook thy vanities.

[They fight.]

[Enter Falstaff.]

FALSTAFF.
Well said, Hal! to it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy’s play here, I
can tell you.

[Re-enter Douglas; he fights with Falstaff, who falls down as if he
were dead, and exit Douglas. Hotspure is wounded, and falls.]

HOTSPUR.
O Harry, thou hast robb’d me of my youth!
I better brook the loss of brittle life
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;
They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh:
But thoughts the slave of life, and life Time’s fool,
And Time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy,
But that the earthy and cold hand of death
Lies on my tongue:  no, Percy, thou art dust,
And food for—

[Dies.]

PRINCE.
For worms, brave Percy:  fare thee well, great heart!
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
If thou wert sensible of courtesy,
I should not make so dear a show of zeal:
But let my favours hide thy mangled face;
And, even in thy behalf, I’ll thank myself
For doing these fair rites of tenderness.
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to Heaven!
Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remember’d in thy epitaph!—

[Sees Falstaff on the ground.]

What, old acquaintance? could not all this flesh
Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!
I could have better spared a better man:
O, I should have a heavy miss of thee,
If I were much in love with vanity!
Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,
Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.
Embowell’d will I see thee by-and-by:
Till then in blood by noble Percy lie.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
[Rising.] Embowell’d! if thou embowel me to-day, I’ll give you leave to
powder me and eat me too to-morrow. ’Sblood, ’twas time to counterfeit,
or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit! I
lie; I am no counterfeit:  to die, is to be a counterfeit; for he is
but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man:  but to
counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit,
but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of
valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.—
Zwounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead:  how,
if he should counterfeit too, and rise? by my faith, I am afraid he
would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I’ll make him sure; yea,
and I’ll swear I kill’d him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing
confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, with a new
wound in your thigh, come you along with me.

[Takes Hotspur on his hack.]

[Re-enter Prince Henry and Lancaster.]

PRINCE.
Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou flesh’d
Thy maiden sword.

LANCASTER.
But, soft! whom have we here?
Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?

PRINCE.
I did; I saw him dead, breathless and bleeding
Upon the ground.—
Art thou alive? or is it fantasy
That plays upon our eyesight? I pr’ythee, speak;
We will not trust our eyes without our ears.
Thou art not what thou seem’st.

FALSTAFF.
No, that’s certain; I am not a double man:  but if I be not Jack
Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy!  [Throwing the body down.]
if your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next
Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.

PRINCE.
Why, Percy I kill’d myself, and saw thee dead.

FALSTAFF.
Didst thou?— Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!— I grant you
I was down and out of breath; and so was he:  but we rose both at an
instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be
believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin
upon their own heads. I’ll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound
in the thigh:  if the man were alive, and would deny it, zwounds, I
would make him eat a piece of my sword.

LANCASTER.
This is the strangest tale that ever I heard.

PRINCE.
This is the strangest fellow, brother John.—
Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back:
For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,
I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have.—

[A retreat is sounded.]

The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours.
Come, brother, let’s to th’ highest of the field,
To see what friends are living, who are dead.

[Exeunt Prince Henry and Lancaster.]

FALSTAFF.
I’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward
him! If I do grow great, I’ll grow less; for I’ll purge, and leave
sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do.

[Exit, bearing off the body.]

SCENE V. Another Part of the Field.

[The trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry,
Lancaster, Westmoreland, and others, with Worcester and
Vernon prisoners.]

KING.
Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.—
Ill-spirited Worcester! did not we send grace,
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary?
Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman’s trust?
Three knights upon our party slain to-day,
A noble earl, and many a creature else,
Had been alive this hour,
If, like a Christian, thou hadst truly borne
Betwixt our armies true intelligence.

WORCESTER.
What I have done my safety urged me to;
And I embrace this fortune patiently,
Since not to be avoided it fails on me.

KING.
Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too:
Other offenders we will pause upon.—

[Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, guarded.]

How goes the field?

PRINCE.
The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw
The fortune of the day quite turn’d from him,
The noble Percy slain, and all his men
Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest;
And, falling from a hill, he was so bruised
That the pursuers took him. At my tent
The Douglas is:  and I beseech your Grace
I may dispose of him.

KING.
With all my heart.

PRINCE.
Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you
This honourable bounty shall belong:
Go to the Douglas, and deliver him
Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free:
His valour, shown upon our crests to-day,
Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds
Even in the bosom of our adversaries.

KING.
Then this remains, that we divide our power.—
You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland,
Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed,
To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop,
Who, as we hear, are busily in arms:
Myself,—and you, son Harry,—will towards Wales,
To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway,
Meeting the check of such another day;
And since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave till all our own be won.

[Exeunt.]



THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

Dramatis Personae

  RUMOUR, the Presenter
  KING HENRY THE FOURTH

  HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards HENRY
  PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER
  PRINCE HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
  THOMAS, DUKE OF CLARENCE
    Sons of Henry IV

  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND
  SCROOP, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
  LORD MOWBRAY
  LORD HASTINGS
  LORD BARDOLPH
  SIR JOHN COLVILLE
  TRAVERS and MORTON, retainers of Northumberland
    Opposites against King Henry IV

  EARL OF WARWICK
  EARL OF WESTMORELAND
  EARL OF SURREY
  EARL OF KENT
  GOWER
  HARCOURT
  BLUNT
    Of the King's party

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
  SERVANT, to Lord Chief Justice

  SIR JOHN FALSTAFF
  EDWARD POINS
  BARDOLPH
  PISTOL
  PETO
    Irregular humourists

  PAGE, to Falstaff

  ROBERT SHALLOW and SILENCE, country Justices
  DAVY, servant to Shallow

  FANG and SNARE, Sheriff's officers

  RALPH MOULDY
  SIMON SHADOW
  THOMAS WART
  FRANCIS FEEBLE
  PETER BULLCALF
    Country soldiers

  FRANCIS, a drawer

  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND
  LADY PERCY, Percy's widow
  HOSTESS QUICKLY, of the Boar's Head, Eastcheap
  DOLL TEARSHEET

  LORDS, Attendants, Porter, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, Servants,
    Speaker of the Epilogue

                       SCENE: England

INDUCTION
                         INDUCTION.
           Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S Castle

            Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues

  RUMOUR. Open your ears; for which of you will stop
    The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
    I, from the orient to the drooping west,
    Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
    The acts commenced on this ball of earth.
    Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
    The which in every language I pronounce,
    Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
    I speak of peace while covert emnity,
    Under the smile of safety, wounds the world;
    And who but Rumour, who but only I,
    Make fearful musters and prepar'd defence,
    Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,
    Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
    And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe
    Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
    And of so easy and so plain a stop
    That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
    The still-discordant wav'ring multitude,
    Can play upon it. But what need I thus
    My well-known body to anatomize
    Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
    I run before King Harry's victory,
    Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,
    Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
    Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
    Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
    To speak so true at first? My office is
    To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
    Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,
    And that the King before the Douglas' rage
    Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
    This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
    Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
    And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
    Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
    Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,
    And not a man of them brings other news
    Than they have learnt of me. From Rumour's tongues
    They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.
 Exit

ACT I. SCENE I. Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S Castle

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 followed, and so fairly won,
    Came not till now to dignify the times,
    Since Cxsar's fortunes!
  NORTHUMBERLAND. How is this deriv'd?
    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 rend'red me these news for true.

                         Enter TRAVERS

  NORTHUMBERLAND. Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
    On Tuesday last to listen after news.
  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 hors'd,
    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 stol'n
    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 shak'st 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,
    Rememb'red 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 out-breath'd,
    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 steeled;
    Which once in him abated, an 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-weak'ned 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,
    Weak'ned with grief, being now enrag'd 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' enrag'd Northumberland!
    Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature's hand
    Keep the wild flood confin'd! Let order die!
    And let this world no longer be a stage
    To feed contention in a ling'ring 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 pre-surmise
    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 advis'd his flesh was capable
    Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit
    Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;
    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 ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
    Chok'd 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 pow'rs. 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.
    Suppos'd 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, scrap'd 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 wip'd 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 SIR JOHN 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 intends 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
    overwhelm'd 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 judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be
    worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never mann'd 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 damn'd, like the Glutton; pray God his tongue
    be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! A rascal-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 look'd 'a 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 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
    mann'd, hors'd, and wiv'd.

              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 robb'ry? 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 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 hang'd. 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 return'd 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 fall'n 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
  fall'n 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 advis'd 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-heal'd
  wound. Your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over
  your night's exploit on Gadshill. You may thank th' unquiet time for
  your quiet o'erposting 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, 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  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 turn'd berod; pregnancy is made a tapster, and
  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,
  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
  hallooing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will
  not. The truth is, I am only old in judgment 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 check'd 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 sever'd you. 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 'a 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 perceiv'd 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, THOMAS MOWBRAY the EARL MARSHAL, LORD HASTINGS,
and LORD 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 amis;
    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 judgment is we should not step too far
    Till we had his assistance by the hand;
    For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd 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 lin'd himself with hope,
    Eating the air and 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, leapt 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 so 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 at his 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 against 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 liv'd, 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 accurs'd!
    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

ACT II. SCENE I. London. A street

Enter HOSTESS with two officers, FANG and SNARE

  HOSTESS. Master Fang, have you ent'red the action?
  FANG. It is ent'red.
  HOSTESS. Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? Will 'a stand
    to't?
  FANG. Sirrah, where's Snare?
  HOSTESS. O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.
  SNARE. Here, here.
  FANG. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.
  HOSTESS. Yea, good Master Snare; I have ent'red him and all.
  SNARE. It may chance cost some of our lives, for he will stab.
  HOSTESS. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabb'd me in mine own
    house, and that most beastly. In good faith, 'a cares not what
    mischief he does, if his weapon be out; he will foin like any
    devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.
  FANG. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.
  HOSTESS. No, nor I neither; I'll be at your elbow.
  FANG. An I but fist him once; an 'a come but within my vice!
  HOSTESS. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an
    infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure.
    Good Master Snare, let him not scape. 'A comes continuantly to
    Pie-corner- saving your manhoods- to buy a saddle; and he is
    indited to dinner to the Lubber's Head in Lumbert Street, to
    Master Smooth's the silkman. I pray you, since my exion is
    ent'red, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be
    brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor
    lone woman to bear; and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and
    have been fubb'd off, and fubb'd off, and fubb'd off, from this
    day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no
    honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and
    a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.

            Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, PAGE, and BARDOLPH

    Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph,
    with him. Do your offices, do your offices, Master Fang and
    Master Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices.
  FALSTAFF. How now! whose mare's dead? What's the matter?
  FANG. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.
  FALSTAFF. Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph. Cut me off the villian's
    head. Throw the quean in the channel.
  HOSTESS. Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the channel.
    Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue! Murder, murder! Ah,
    thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the
    King's? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a
    man-queller and a woman-queller.
  FALSTAFF. Keep them off, Bardolph.
  FANG. A rescue! a rescue!
  HOSTESS. Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wot, wot thou!
    thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!
  PAGE. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian!
    I'll tickle your catastrophe.

              Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and his men

  CHIEF JUSTICE. What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!
  HOSTESS. Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. How now, Sir John! what, are you brawling here?
    Doth this become your place, your time, and business?
    You should have been well on your way to York.
    Stand from him, fellow; wherefore hang'st thou upon him?
  HOSTESS. O My most worshipful lord, an't please your Grace, I am a
    poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. For what sum?
  HOSTESS. It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all- all I
    have. He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my
    substance into that fat belly of his. But I will have some of it
    out again, or I will ride thee a nights like a mare.
  FALSTAFF. I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any
    vantage of ground to get up.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. How comes this, Sir John? Fie! What man of good
    temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not
    ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by
    her own?
  FALSTAFF. What is the gross sum that I owe thee?
  HOSTESS. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money
    too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in
    my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon
    Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the Prince broke thy head for
    liking his father to singing-man of Windsor- thou didst swear to
    me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my
    lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the
    butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly? Coming
    in to borrow a mess of vinegar, telling us she had a good dish of
    prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told
    thee they were ill for green wound? And didst thou not, when she
    was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with
    such poor people, saying that ere long they should call me madam?
    And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch the thirty
    shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath. Deny it, if thou
    canst.
  FALSTAFF. My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and
    down the town that her eldest son is like you. She hath been in
    good case, and, the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But
    for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress
    against them.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your
    manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a
    confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more
    than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level
    consideration. You have, as it appears to me, practis'd upon the
    easy yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses
    both in purse and in person.
  HOSTESS. Yea, in truth, my lord.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and
    unpay the villainy you have done with her; the one you may do
    with sterling money, and the other with current repentance.
  FALSTAFF. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You
    call honourable boldness impudent sauciness; if a man will make
    curtsy and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble
    duty rememb'red, I will not be your suitor. I say to you I do
    desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty
    employment in the King's affairs.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in
    th' effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.
  FALSTAFF. Come hither, hostess.

                               Enter GOWER

  CHIEF JUSTICE. Now, Master Gower, what news?
  GOWER. The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
    Are near at hand. The rest the paper tells. [Gives a letter]
  FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman!
  HOSTESS. Faith, you said so before.
  FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman! Come, no more words of it.
  HOSTESS. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn
    both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.
  FALSTAFF. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking; and for thy
    walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or
    the German hunting, in water-work, is worth a thousand of these
    bed-hangers and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound,
    if thou canst. Come, and 'twere not for thy humours, there's not
    a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the
    action. Come, thou must not be in this humour with me; dost not
    know me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to this.
  HOSTESS. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles;
    i' faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la!
  FALSTAFF. Let it alone; I'll make other shift. You'll be a fool
    still.
  HOSTESS. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown.
    I hope you'll come to supper. you'll pay me all together?
  FALSTAFF. Will I live?  [To BARDOLPH]  Go, with her, with her; hook
    on, hook on.
  HOSTESS. Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?
  FALSTAFF. No more words; let's have her.
                          Exeunt HOSTESS, BARDOLPH, and OFFICERS
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I have heard better news.
  FALSTAFF. What's the news, my lord?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Where lay the King to-night?
  GOWER. At Basingstoke, my lord.
  FALSTAFF. I hope, my lord, all's well. What is the news, my lord?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Come all his forces back?
  GOWER. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,
    Are march'd up to my Lord of Lancaster,
    Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
  FALSTAFF. Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. You shall have letters of me presently.
    Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.
  FALSTAFF. My lord!
  CHIEF JUSTICE. What's the matter?
  FALSTAFF. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?
  GOWER. I must wait upon my good lord here, I thank you, good Sir
    John.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to
    take soldiers up in counties as you go.
  FALSTAFF. Will you sup with me, Master Gower?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir
    John?
  FALSTAFF. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that
    taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for
    tap, and so part fair.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Now, the Lord lighten thee! Thou art a great fool.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. London. Another street

Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS

  PRINCE. Before God, I am exceeding weary.
  POINS. Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have
    attach'd one of so high blood.
  PRINCE. Faith, it does me; though it discolours the complexion of
    my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to
    desire small beer?
  POINS. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to
    remember so weak a composition.
  PRINCE. Belike then my appetite was not-princely got; for, by my
    troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But
    indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with my
    greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name, or
    to know thy face to-morrow, or to take note how many pair of silk
    stockings thou hast- viz., these, and those that were thy
    peach-colour'd ones- or to bear the inventory of thy shirts- as,
    one for superfluity, and another for use! But that the
    tennis-court-keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb of
    linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast
    not done a great while, because the rest of thy low countries
    have made a shift to eat up thy holland. And God knows whether
    those that bawl out of the ruins of thy linen shall inherit his
    kingdom; but the midwives say the children are not in the fault;
    whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily
    strengthened.
  POINS. How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you
    should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would
    do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is?
  PRINCE. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?
  POINS. Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.
  PRINCE. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.
  POINS. Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will
    tell.
  PRINCE. Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be sad, now
    my father is sick; albeit I could tell to thee- as to one it
    pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend- I could be
    sad and sad indeed too.
  POINS. Very hardly upon such a subject.
  PRINCE. By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil's book
    as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency: let the end
    try the man. But I tell thee my heart bleeds inwardly that my
    father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art hath
    in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.
  POINS. The reason?
  PRINCE. What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep?
  POINS. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.
  PRINCE. It would be every man's thought; and thou art a blessed
    fellow to think as every man thinks. Never a man's thought in the
    world keeps the road-way better than thine. Every man would think
    me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful
    thought to think so?
  POINS. Why, because you have been so lewd and so much engraffed to
    Falstaff.
  PRINCE. And to thee.
  POINS. By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with mine
    own ears. The worst that they can say of me is that I am a second
    brother and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two
    things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes
    Bardolph.

                         Enter BARDOLPH and PAGE

  PRINCE. And the boy that I gave Falstaff. 'A had him from me
    Christian; and look if the fat villain have not transform'd him
    ape.
  BARDOLPH. God save your Grace!
  PRINCE. And yours, most noble Bardolph!
  POINS. Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be
    blushing? Wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms
    are you become! Is't such a matter to get a pottle-pot's
    maidenhead?
  PAGE. 'A calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I
    could discern no part of his face from the window. At last I
    spied his eyes; and methought he had made two holes in the
    alewife's new petticoat, and so peep'd through.
  PRINCE. Has not the boy profited?
  BARDOLPH. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!
  PAGE. Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!
  PRINCE. Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?
  PAGE. Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered of a
    firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream.
  PRINCE. A crown's worth of good interpretation. There 'tis, boy.
                                                [Giving a crown]
  POINS. O that this blossom could be kept from cankers!
    Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
  BARDOLPH. An you do not make him be hang'd among you, the gallows
    shall have wrong.
  PRINCE. And how doth thy master, Bardolph?
  BARDOLPH. Well, my lord. He heard of your Grace's coming to town.
    There's a letter for you.
  POINS. Deliver'd with good respect. And how doth the martlemas,
    your master?
  BARDOLPH. In bodily health, sir.
  POINS. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but that moves
    not him. Though that be sick, it dies not.
  PRINCE. I do allow this well to be as familiar with me as my dog;
    and he holds his place, for look you how he writes.
  POINS.  [Reads]  'John Falstaff, knight'- Every man must know that
    as oft as he has occasion to name himself, even like those that
    are kin to the King; for they never prick their finger but they
    say 'There's some of the King's blood spilt.' 'How comes that?'
    says he that takes upon him not to conceive. The answer is as
    ready as a borrower's cap: 'I am the King's poor cousin, sir.'
  PRINCE. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from
    Japhet. But the letter:  [Reads]  'Sir John Falstaff, knight, to
    the son of the King nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales,
    greeting.'
  POINS. Why, this is a certificate.
  PRINCE. Peace!  [Reads]  'I will imitate the honourable Romans in
    brevity.'-
  POINS. He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.
  PRINCE.  [Reads]  'I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I
    leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy
    favours so much that he swears thou art to marry his sister Nell.
    Repent at idle times as thou mayst, and so farewell.
      Thine, by yea and no- which is as much as to say as
        thou usest him- JACK FALSTAFF with my familiars,
        JOHN with my brothers and sisters, and SIR JOHN with
        all Europe.'
  POINS. My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.
  PRINCE. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use
    me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister?
  POINS. God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.
  PRINCE. Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits
    of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. Is your master here in
    London?
  BARDOLPH. Yea, my lord.
  PRINCE. Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?
  BARDOLPH. At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.
  PRINCE. What company?
  PAGE. Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.
  PRINCE. Sup any women with him?
  PAGE. None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll
    Tearsheet.
  PRINCE. What pagan may that be?
  PAGE. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.
  PRINCE. Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull.
    Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?
  POINS. I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you.
  PRINCE. Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that
    I am yet come to town. There's for your silence.
  BARDOLPH. I have no tongue, sir.
  PAGE. And for mine, sir, I will govern it.
  PRINCE. Fare you well; go.            Exeunt BARDOLPH and PAGE
    This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.
  POINS. I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and
    London.
  PRINCE. How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his
    true colours, and not ourselves be seen?
  POINS. Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait upon him at
    his table as drawers.
  PRINCE. From a god to a bull? A heavy descension! It was Jove's
    case. From a prince to a prentice? A low transformation! That
    shall be mine; for in everything the purpose must weigh with the
    folly. Follow me, Ned.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE III. Warkworth. Before the castle

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY

  NORTHUMBERLAND. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,
    Give even way unto my rough affairs;
    Put not you on the visage of the times
    And be, like them, to Percy troublesome.
  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. I have given over, I will speak no more.
    Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn;
    And but my going nothing can redeem it.
  LADY PERCY. O, yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!
    The time was, father, that you broke your word,
    When you were more endear'd to it than now;
    When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
    Threw many a northward look to see his father
    Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
    Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
    There were two honours lost, yours and your son's.
    For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!
    For his, it stuck upon him as the sun
    In the grey vault of heaven; and by his light
    Did all the chivalry of England move
    To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass
    Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
    He had no legs that practis'd not his gait;
    And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
    Became the accents of the valiant;
    For those who could speak low and tardily
    Would turn their own perfection to abuse
    To seem like him: so that in speech, in gait,
    In diet, in affections of delight,
    In military rules, humours of blood,
    He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
    That fashion'd others. And him- O wondrous him!
    O miracle of men!- him did you leave-
    Second to none, unseconded by you-
    To look upon the hideous god of war
    In disadvantage, to abide a field
    Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
    Did seem defensible. So you left him.
    Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong
    To hold your honour more precise and nice
    With others than with him! Let them alone.
    The Marshal and the Archbishop are strong.
    Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
    To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
    Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Beshrew your heart,
    Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me
    With new lamenting ancient oversights.
    But I must go and meet with danger there,
    Or it will seek me in another place,
    And find me worse provided.
  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. O, fly to Scotland
    Till that the nobles and the armed commons
    Have of their puissance made a little taste.
  LADY PERCY. If they get ground and vantage of the King,
    Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
    To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
    First let them try themselves. So did your son;
    He was so suff'red; so came I a widow;
    And never shall have length of life enough
    To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,
    That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
    For recordation to my noble husband.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Come, come, go in with me. 'Tis with my mind
    As with the tide swell'd up unto his height,
    That makes a still-stand, running neither way.
    Fain would I go to meet the Archbishop,
    But many thousand reasons hold me back.
    I will resolve for Scotland. There am I,
    Till time and vantage crave my company.               Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. The Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap

Enter FRANCIS and another DRAWER

  FRANCIS. What the devil hast thou brought there-apple-johns? Thou
    knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.
  SECOND DRAWER. Mass, thou say'st true. The Prince once set a dish
    of apple-johns before him, and told him there were five more Sir
    Johns; and, putting off his hat, said 'I will now take my leave
    of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.' It ang'red him
    to the heart; but he hath forgot that.
  FRANCIS. Why, then, cover and set them down; and see if thou canst
    find out Sneak's noise; Mistress Tearsheet would fain hear some
    music.

                        Enter third DRAWER

  THIRD DRAWER. Dispatch! The room where they supp'd is too hot;
    they'll come in straight.
  FRANCIS. Sirrah, here will be the Prince and Master Poins anon; and
    they will put on two of our jerkins and aprons; and Sir John must
    not know of it. Bardolph hath brought word.
  THIRD DRAWER. By the mass, here will be old uds; it will be an
    excellent stratagem.
  SECOND DRAWER. I'll see if I can find out Sneak.
                                 Exeunt second and third DRAWERS

                Enter HOSTESS and DOLL TEARSHEET

  HOSTESS. I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent
    good temperality. Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart
    would desire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any
    rose, in good truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much
    canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes
    the blood ere one can say 'What's this?' How do you now?
  DOLL. Better than I was- hem.
  HOSTESS. Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold.
    Lo, here comes Sir John.

                          Enter FALSTAFF

  FALSTAFF.  [Singing]  'When Arthur first in court'- Empty the
    jordan.  [Exit FRANCIS]- [Singing]  'And was a worthy king'- How
    now, Mistress Doll!
  HOSTESS. Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.
  FALSTAFF. So is all her sect; and they be once in a calm, they are
    sick.
  DOLL. A pox damn you, you muddy rascal! Is that all the comfort you
    give me?
  FALSTAFF. You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.
  DOLL. I make them! Gluttony and diseases make them: I make them
    not.
  FALSTAFF. If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make
    the diseases, Doll. We catch of you, Doll, we catch of you; grant
    that, my poor virtue, grant that.
  DOLL. Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.
  FALSTAFF. 'Your brooches, pearls, and ouches.' For to serve bravely
    is to come halting off; you know, to come off the breach with his
    pike bent bravely, and to surgery bravely; to venture upon the
    charg'd chambers bravely-
  DOLL. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
  HOSTESS. By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet
    but you fall to some discord. You are both, i' good truth, as
    rheumatic as two dry toasts; you cannot one bear with another's
    confirmities. What the good-year! one must bear, and that must be
    you. You are the weaker vessel, as as they say, the emptier
    vessel.
  DOLL. Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogs-head?
    There's a whole merchant's venture of Bourdeaux stuff in him; you
    have not seen a hulk better stuff'd in the hold. Come, I'll be
    friends with thee, Jack. Thou art going to the wars; and whether
    I shall ever see thee again or no, there is nobody cares.

                            Re-enter FRANCIS

  FRANCIS. Sir, Ancient Pistol's below and would speak with you.
  DOLL. Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come hither; it is
    the foul-mouth'dst rogue in England.
  HOSTESS. If he swagger, let him not come here. No, by my faith! I
    must live among my neighbours; I'll no swaggerers. I am in good
    name and fame with the very best. Shut the door. There comes no
    swaggerers here; I have not liv'd all this while to have
    swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you.
  FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear, hostess?
  HOSTESS. Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John; there comes no
    swaggerers here.
  FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear? It is mine ancient.
  HOSTESS. Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me; and your ancient
    swagg'rer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick, the
    debuty, t' other day; and, as he said to me- 'twas no longer ago
    than Wednesday last, i' good faith!- 'Neighbour Quickly,' says
    he- Master Dumbe, our minister, was by then- 'Neighbour Quickly,'
    says he 'receive those that are civil, for' said he 'you are in
    an ill name.' Now 'a said so, I can tell whereupon. 'For' says he
    'you are an honest woman and well thought on, therefore take heed
    what guests you receive. Receive' says he 'no swaggering
    companions.' There comes none here. You would bless you to hear
    what he said. No, I'll no swagg'rers.
  FALSTAFF. He's no swagg'rer, hostess; a tame cheater, i' faith; you
    may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound. He'll not swagger
    with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of
    resistance. Call him up, drawer.
                                                    Exit FRANCIS
  HOSTESS. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house,
    nor no cheater; but I do not love swaggering, by my troth. I am
    the worse when one says 'swagger.' Feel, masters, how I shake;
    look you, I warrant you.
  DOLL. So you do, hostess.
  HOSTESS. Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf. I
    cannot abide swagg'rers.

                   Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and PAGE

  PISTOL. God save you, Sir John!
  FALSTAFF. Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with
    a cup of sack; do you discharge upon mine hostess.
  PISTOL. I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.
  FALSTAFF. She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall not hardly offend
    her.
  HOSTESS. Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets. I'll drink no
    more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I.
  PISTOL. Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.
  DOLL. Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What! you poor,
    base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy
    rogue, away! I am meat for your master.
  PISTOL. I know you, Mistress Dorothy.
  DOLL. Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! By this
    wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the
    saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you
    basket-hilt stale juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir?
    God's light, with two points on your shoulder? Much!
  PISTOL. God let me not live but I will murder your ruff for this.
  FALSTAFF. No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here.
    Discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.
  HOSTESS. No, good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.
  DOLL. Captain! Thou abominable damn'd cheater, art thou not ashamed
    to be called captain? An captains were of my mind, they would
    truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you
    have earn'd them. You a captain! you slave, for what? For tearing
    a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house? He a captain! hang him,
    rogue! He lives upon mouldy stew'd prunes and dried cakes. A
    captain! God's light, these villains will make the word as odious
    as the word 'occupy'; which was an excellent good word before it
    was ill sorted. Therefore captains had need look to't.
  BARDOLPH. Pray thee go down, good ancient.
  FALSTAFF. Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.
  PISTOL. Not I! I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could tear
    her; I'll be reveng'd of her.
  PAGE. Pray thee go down.
  PISTOL. I'll see her damn'd first; to Pluto's damn'd lake, by this
    hand, to th' infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also.
    Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have
    we not Hiren here?
  HOSTESS. Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i' faith; I
    beseek you now, aggravate your choler.
  PISTOL. These be good humours, indeed! Shall packhorses,
    And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,
    Which cannot go but thirty mile a day,
    Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
    And Troiant Greeks? Nay, rather damn them with
    King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
    Shall we fall foul for toys?
  HOSTESS. By my troth, Captain, these are very bitter words.
  BARDOLPH. Be gone, good ancient; this will grow to a brawl anon.
  PISTOL. Die men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have we not Hiren
    here?
  HOSTESS. O' my word, Captain, there's none such here. What the
    good-year! do you think I would deny her? For God's sake, be
    quiet.
  PISTOL. Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
    Come, give's some sack.
    'Si fortune me tormente sperato me contento.'
    Fear we broadsides? No, let the fiend give fire.
    Give me some sack; and, sweetheart, lie thou there.
                                         [Laying down his sword]
    Come we to full points here, and are etceteras nothings?
  FALSTAFF. Pistol, I would be quiet.
  PISTOL. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf. What! we have seen the seven
    stars.
  DOLL. For God's sake thrust him down stairs; I cannot endure such a
    fustian rascal.
  PISTOL. Thrust him down stairs! Know we not Galloway nags?
  FALSTAFF. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling.
    Nay, an 'a do nothing but speak nothing, 'a shall be nothing
    here.
  BARDOLPH. Come, get you down stairs.
  PISTOL. What! shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue?
                                        [Snatching up his sword]
    Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
    Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
    Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!
  HOSTESS. Here's goodly stuff toward!
  FALSTAFF. Give me my rapier, boy.
  DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.
  FALSTAFF. Get you down stairs.
                                [Drawing and driving PISTOL out]
  HOSTESS. Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping house afore
    I'll be in these tirrits and frights. So; murder, I warrant now.
    Alas, alas! put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.
                                      Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH
  DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone. Ah, you
    whoreson little valiant villain, you!
  HOSTESS. Are you not hurt i' th' groin? Methought 'a made a shrewd
    thrust at your belly.

                        Re-enter BARDOLPH

  FALSTAFF. Have you turn'd him out a doors?
  BARDOLPH. Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk. You have hurt him, sir, i'
    th' shoulder.
  FALSTAFF. A rascal! to brave me!
  DOLL. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou
    sweat'st! Come, let me wipe thy face. Come on, you whoreson
    chops. Ah, rogue! i' faith, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as
    Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better
    than the Nine Worthies. Ah, villain!
  FALSTAFF. A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.
  DOLL. Do, an thou dar'st for thy heart. An thou dost, I'll canvass
    thee between a pair of sheets.

                          Enter musicians

  PAGE. The music is come, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Don. A rascal
    bragging slave! The rogue fled from me like quick-silver.
  DOLL. I' faith, and thou follow'dst him like a church. Thou
    whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave
    fighting a days and foining a nights, and begin to patch up thine
    old body for heaven?

       Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS disguised as drawers

  FALSTAFF. Peace, good Doll! Do not speak like a death's-head; do
    not bid me remember mine end.
  DOLL. Sirrah, what humour's the Prince of?
  FALSTAFF. A good shallow young fellow. 'A would have made a good
    pantler; 'a would ha' chipp'd bread well.
  DOLL. They say Poins has a good wit.
  FALSTAFF. He a good wit! hang him, baboon! His wit's as thick as
    Tewksbury mustard; there's no more conceit in him than is in a
    mallet.
  DOLL. Why does the Prince love him so, then?
  FALSTAFF. Because their legs are both of a bigness, and 'a plays at
    quoits well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles'
    ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild mare with the boys, and
    jumps upon join'd-stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears
    his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of the Leg, and breeds
    no bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other gambol
    faculties 'a has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the
    which the Prince admits him. For the Prince himself is such
    another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their
    avoirdupois.
  PRINCE. Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?
  POINS. Let's beat him before his whore.
  PRINCE. Look whe'er the wither'd elder hath not his poll claw'd
    like a parrot.
  POINS. Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive
    performance?
  FALSTAFF. Kiss me, Doll.
  PRINCE. Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! What says th'
    almanac to that?
  POINS. And look whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping
    to his master's old tables, his note-book, his counsel-keeper.
  FALSTAFF. Thou dost give me flattering busses.
  DOLL. By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.
  FALSTAFF. I am old, I am old.
  DOLL. I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of
    them all.
  FALSTAFF. What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money a
    Thursday. Shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry song, come. 'A
    grows late; we'll to bed. Thou't forget me when I am gone.
  DOLL. By my troth, thou't set me a-weeping, an thou say'st so.
    Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return. Well,
    hearken a' th' end.
  FALSTAFF. Some sack, Francis.
  PRINCE & POINS. Anon, anon, sir.                   [Advancing]
  FALSTAFF. Ha! a bastard son of the King's? And art thou not Poins
    his brother?
  PRINCE. Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou
    lead!
  FALSTAFF. A better than thou. I am a gentleman: thou art a drawer.
  PRINCE. Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears.
  HOSTESS. O, the Lord preserve thy Grace! By my troth, welcome to
    London. Now the Lord bless that sweet face of thine. O Jesu, are
    you come from Wales?
  FALSTAFF. Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light
    flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.
                                    [Leaning his band upon DOLL]
  DOLL. How, you fat fool! I scorn you.
  POINS. My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all
    to a merriment, if you take not the heat.
  PRINCE. YOU whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you speak of
    me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!
  HOSTESS. God's blessing of your good heart! and so she is, by my
    troth.
  FALSTAFF. Didst thou hear me?
  PRINCE. Yea; and you knew me, as you did when you ran away by
    Gadshill. You knew I was at your back, and spoke it on purpose to
    try my patience.
  FALSTAFF. No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within
    hearing.
  PRINCE. I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse, and
    then I know how to handle you.
  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Hal, o' mine honour; no abuse.
  PRINCE. Not- to dispraise me, and call me pander, and
    bread-chipper, and I know not what!
  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Hal.
  POINS. No abuse!
  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Ned, i' th' world; honest Ned, none. I
    disprais'd him before the wicked- that the wicked might not fall
    in love with thee; in which doing, I have done the part of a
    careful friend and a true subject; and thy father is to give me
    thanks for it. No abuse, Hal; none, Ned, none; no, faith, boys,
    none.
  PRINCE. See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth not
    make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to close with us? Is
    she of the wicked? Is thine hostess here of the wicked? Or is thy
    boy of the wicked? Or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his
    nose, of the wicked?
  POINS. Answer, thou dead elm, answer.
  FALSTAFF. The fiend hath prick'd down Bardolph irrecoverable; and
    his face is Lucifer's privy-kitchen, where he doth nothing but
    roast malt-worms. For the boy- there is a good angel about him;
    but the devil outbids him too.
  PRINCE. For the women?
  FALSTAFF. For one of them- she's in hell already, and burns poor
    souls. For th' other- I owe her money; and whether she be damn'd
    for that, I know not.
  HOSTESS. No, I warrant you.
  FALSTAFF. No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for that.
    Marry, there is another indictment upon thee for suffering flesh
    to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law; for the which I
    think thou wilt howl.
  HOSTESS. All vict'lers do so. What's a joint of mutton or two in a
    whole Lent?
  PRINCE. You, gentlewoman-
  DOLL. What says your Grace?
  FALSTAFF. His Grace says that which his flesh rebels against.
                                               [Knocking within]
  HOSTESS. Who knocks so loud at door? Look to th' door there,
    Francis.

                              Enter PETO

  PRINCE. Peto, how now! What news?
  PETO. The King your father is at Westminster;
    And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
    Come from the north; and as I came along
    I met and overtook a dozen captains,
    Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
    And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.
  PRINCE. By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame
    So idly to profane the precious time,
    When tempest of commotion, like the south,
    Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt
    And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
    Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.

                        Exeunt PRINCE, POINS, PETO, and BARDOLPH

  FALSTAFF. Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we
    must hence, and leave it unpick'd.  [Knocking within]  More
    knocking at the door!

                      Re-enter BARDOLPH

    How now! What's the matter?
  BARDOLPH. You must away to court, sir, presently;
    A dozen captains stay at door for you.
  FALSTAFF.  [To the PAGE]. Pay the musicians, sirrah.- Farewell,
    hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of
    merit are sought after; the undeserver may sleep, when the man of
    action is call'd on. Farewell, good wenches. If I be not sent
    away post, I will see you again ere I go.
  DOLL. I cannot speak. If my heart be not ready to burst!
    Well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
  FALSTAFF. Farewell, farewell.
                                    Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH
  HOSTESS. Well, fare thee well. I have known thee these twenty-nine
    years, come peascod-time; but an honester and truer-hearted man
    -well fare thee well.
  BARDOLPH.  [ Within]  Mistress Tearsheet!
  HOSTESS. What's the matter?
  BARDOLPH.  [ Within]  Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.
  HOSTESS. O, run Doll, run, run, good Come.  [To BARDOLPH]  She
    comes blubber'd.- Yea, will you come, Doll?           Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Westminster. The palace

Enter the KING in his nightgown, with a page

  KING. Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
    But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters
    And well consider of them. Make good speed.        Exit page
    How many thousands of my poorest subjects
    Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
    Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee,
    That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down,
    And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
    Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
    Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
    And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
    Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
    Under the canopies of costly state,
    And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
    O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
    In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
    A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?
    Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
    Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
    In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
    And in the visitation of the winds,
    Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
    Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
    With deafing clamour in the slippery clouds,
    That with the hurly death itself awakes?
    Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
    To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
    And in the calmest and most stillest night,
    With all appliances and means to boot,
    Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
    Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

                    Enter WARWICK and Surrey

  WARWICK. Many good morrows to your Majesty!
  KING. Is it good morrow, lords?
  WARWICK. 'Tis one o'clock, and past.
  KING. Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
    Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?
  WARWICK. We have, my liege.
  KING. Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
    How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,
    And with what danger, near the heart of it.
  WARWICK. It is but as a body yet distempered;
    Which to his former strength may be restored
    With good advice and little medicine.
    My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.
  KING. O God! that one might read the book of fate,
    And see the revolution of the times
    Make mountains level, and the continent,
    Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
    Into the sea; and other times to see
    The beachy girdle of the ocean
    Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
    And changes fill the cup of alteration
    With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
    The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
    What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
    Would shut the book and sit him down and die.
    'Tis not ten years gone
    Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
    Did feast together, and in two years after
    Were they at wars. It is but eight years since
    This Percy was the man nearest my soul;
    Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs
    And laid his love and life under my foot;
    Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
    Gave him defiance. But which of you was by-
    [To WARWICK]  You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember-
    When Richard, with his eye brim full of tears,
    Then check'd and rated by Northumberland,
    Did speak these words, now prov'd a prophecy?
    'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
    My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne'-
    Though then, God knows, I had no such intent
    But that necessity so bow'd the state
    That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss-
    'The time shall come'- thus did he follow it-
    'The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,
    Shall break into corruption' so went on,
    Foretelling this same time's condition
    And the division of our amity.
  WARWICK. There is a history in all men's lives,
    Figuring the natures of the times deceas'd;
    The which observ'd, a man may prophesy,
    With a near aim, of the main chance of things
    As yet not come to life, who in their seeds
    And weak beginning lie intreasured.
    Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
    And, by the necessary form of this,
    King Richard might create a perfect guess
    That great Northumberland, then false to him,
    Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;
    Which should not find a ground to root upon
    Unless on you.
  KING. Are these things then necessities?
    Then let us meet them like necessities;
    And that same word even now cries out on us.
    They say the Bishop and Northumberland
    Are fifty thousand strong.
  WARWICK. It cannot be, my lord.
    Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
    The numbers of the feared. Please it your Grace
    To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
    The powers that you already have sent forth
    Shall bring this prize in very easily.
    To comfort you the more, I have receiv'd
    A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
    Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill;
    And these unseasoned hours perforce must ad
    Unto your sickness.
  KING. I will take your counsel.
    And, were these inward wars once out of hand,
    We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.            Exeunt

SCENE II. Gloucestershire. Before Justice, SHALLOW'S house

Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE,
BULLCALF, and servants behind

  SHALLOW. Come on, come on, come on; give me your hand, sir; give me
    your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by the rood! And how doth my
    good cousin Silence?
  SILENCE. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.
  SHALLOW. And how doth my cousin, your bed-fellow? and your fairest
    daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?
  SILENCE. Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow!
  SHALLOW. By yea and no, sir. I dare say my cousin William is become
    a good scholar; he is at Oxford still, is he not?
  SILENCE. Indeed, sir, to my cost.
  SHALLOW. 'A must, then, to the Inns o' Court shortly. I was once of
    Clement's Inn; where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet.
  SILENCE. You were call'd 'lusty Shallow' then, cousin.
  SHALLOW. By the mass, I was call'd anything; and I would have done
    anything indeed too, and roundly too. There was I, and little
    John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Barnes, and Francis
    Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotsole man- you had not four such
    swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again. And I may say to
    you we knew where the bona-robas were, and had the best of them
    all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, boy,
    and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
  SILENCE. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about
    soldiers?
  SHALLOW. The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break
    Scoggin's head at the court gate, when 'a was a crack not thus
    high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson
    Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad
    days that I have spent! and to see how many of my old
    acquaintance are dead!
  SILENCE. We shall all follow, cousin.
  SHALLOW. Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very sure. Death, as the
    Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a good yoke
    of bullocks at Stamford fair?
  SILENCE. By my troth, I was not there.
  SHALLOW. Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?
  SILENCE. Dead, sir.
  SHALLOW. Jesu, Jesu, dead! drew a good bow; and dead! 'A shot a
    fine shoot. John a Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on
    his head. Dead! 'A would have clapp'd i' th' clout at twelve
    score, and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen
    and a half, that it would have done a man's heart good to see.
    How a score of ewes now?
  SILENCE. Thereafter as they be- a score of good ewes may be worth
    ten pounds.
  SHALLOW. And is old Double dead?

                    Enter BARDOLPH, and one with him

  SILENCE. Here come two of Sir John Falstaffs men, as I think.
  SHALLOW. Good morrow, honest gentlemen.
  BARDOLPH. I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow?
  SHALLOW. I am Robert Shallow, sir, a poor esquire of this county,
    and one of the King's justices of the peace. What is your good
    pleasure with me?
  BARDOLPH. My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain, Sir
    John Falstaff- a tall gentleman, by heaven, and a most gallant
    leader.
  SHALLOW. He greets me well, sir; I knew him a good back-sword man.
    How doth the good knight? May I ask how my lady his wife doth?
  BARDOLPH. Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accommodated than with a
    wife.
  SHALLOW. It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is well said indeed
    too. 'Better accommodated!' It is good; yea, indeed, is it. Good
    phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable.
    'Accommodated!' It comes of accommodo. Very good; a good phrase.
  BARDOLPH. Pardon, sir; I have heard the word. 'Phrase' call you it?
    By this day, I know not the phrase; but I will maintain the word
    with my sword to be a soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding
    good command, by heaven. Accommodated: that is, when a man is, as
    they say, accommodated; or, when a man is being-whereby 'a may be
    thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing.

                              Enter FALSTAFF

  SHALLOW. It is very just. Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me
    your good hand, give me your worship's good hand. By my troth,
    you like well and bear your years very well. Welcome, good Sir
    John.
  FALSTAFF. I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert Shallow.
    Master Surecard, as I think?
  SHALLOW. No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with
   me.
  FALSTAFF. Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of the
    peace.
  SILENCE. Your good worship is welcome.
  FALSTAFF. Fie! this is hot weather. Gentlemen, have you provided me
    here half a dozen sufficient men?
  SHALLOW. Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?
  FALSTAFF. Let me see them, I beseech you.
  SHALLOW. Where's the roll? Where's the roll? Where's the roll? Let
    me see, let me see, let me see. So, so, so, so,- so, so- yea,
    marry, sir. Rafe Mouldy! Let them appear as I call; let them do
    so, let them do so. Let me see; where is Mouldy?
  MOULDY. Here, an't please you.
  SHALLOW. What think you, Sir John? A good-limb'd fellow; young,
    strong, and of good friends.
  FALSTAFF. Is thy name Mouldy?
  MOULDY. Yea, an't please you.
  FALSTAFF. 'Tis the more time thou wert us'd.
  SHALLOW. Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i' faith! Things that are
    mouldy lack use. Very singular good! In faith, well said, Sir
    John; very well said.
  FALSTAFF. Prick him.
  MOULDY. I was prick'd well enough before, an you could have let me
    alone. My old dame will be undone now for one to do her husbandry
    and her drudgery. You need not to have prick'd me; there are
    other men fitter to go out than I.
  FALSTAFF. Go to; peace, Mouldy; you shall go. Mouldy, it is time
    you were spent.
  MOULDY. Spent!
  SHALLOW. Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside; know you where you are?
    For th' other, Sir John- let me see. Simon Shadow!
  FALSTAFF. Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under. He's like to be
    a cold soldier.
  SHALLOW. Where's Shadow?
  SHADOW. Here, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Shadow, whose son art thou?
  SHADOW. My mother's son, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Thy mother's son! Like enough; and thy father's shadow.
    So the son of the female is the shadow of the male. It is often
    so indeed; but much of the father's substance!
  SHALLOW. Do you like him, Sir John?
  FALSTAFF. Shadow will serve for summer. Prick him; for we have a
    number of shadows fill up the muster-book.
  SHALLOW. Thomas Wart!
  FALSTAFF. Where's he?
  WART. Here, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Is thy name Wart?
  WART. Yea, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Thou art a very ragged wart.
  SHALLOW. Shall I prick him, Sir John?
  FALSTAFF. It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon his
    back, and the whole frame stands upon pins. Prick him no more.
  SHALLOW. Ha, ha, ha! You can do it, sir; you can do it. I commend
    you well. Francis Feeble!
  FEEBLE. Here, sir.
  FALSTAFF. What trade art thou, Feeble?
  FEEBLE. A woman's tailor, sir.
  SHALLOW. Shall I prick him, sir?
  FALSTAFF. You may; but if he had been a man's tailor, he'd ha'
    prick'd you. Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle as
    thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?
  FEEBLE. I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.
  FALSTAFF. Well said, good woman's tailor! well said, courageous
    Feeble! Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or most
    magnanimous mouse. Prick the woman's tailor- well, Master
    Shallow, deep, Master Shallow.
  FEEBLE. I would Wart might have gone, sir.
  FALSTAFF. I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst mend
    him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private
    soldier, that is the leader of so many thousands. Let that
    suffice, most forcible Feeble.
  FEEBLE. It shall suffice, sir.
  FALSTAFF. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next?
  SHALLOW. Peter Bullcalf o' th' green!
  FALSTAFF. Yea, marry, let's see Bullcalf.
  BULLCALF. Here, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf till
    he roar again.
  BULLCALF. O Lord! good my lord captain-
  FALSTAFF. What, dost thou roar before thou art prick'd?
  BULLCALF. O Lord, sir! I am a diseased man.
  FALSTAFF. What disease hast thou?
  BULLCALF. A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught with
    ringing in the King's affairs upon his coronation day, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown. We will have
    away thy cold; and I will take such order that thy friends shall
    ring for thee. Is here all?
  SHALLOW. Here is two more call'd than your number. You must have
    but four here, sir; and so, I pray you, go in with me to dinner.
  FALSTAFF. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry
    dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the
    windmill in Saint George's Field?
  FALSTAFF. No more of that, Master Shallow, no more of that.
  SHALLOW. Ha, 'twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?
  FALSTAFF. She lives, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. She never could away with me.
  FALSTAFF. Never, never; she would always say she could not abide
    Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. By the mass, I could anger her to th' heart. She was then
    a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?
  FALSTAFF. Old, old, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old;
    certain she's old; and had Robin Nightwork, by old Nightwork,
    before I came to Clement's Inn.
  SILENCE. That's fifty-five year ago.
  SHALLOW. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this
    knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?
  FALSTAFF. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, Sir
    John, we have. Our watchword was 'Hem, boys!' Come, let's to
    dinner; come, let's to dinner. Jesus, the days that we have seen!
    Come, come.
                                Exeunt FALSTAFF and the JUSTICES
  BULLCALF. Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and
    here's four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very
    truth, sir, I had as lief be hang'd, sir, as go. And yet, for
    mine own part, sir, I do not care; but rather because I am
    unwilling and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my
    friends; else, sir, I did not care for mine own part so much.
  BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.
  MOULDY. And, good Master Corporal Captain, for my old dame's sake,
    stand my friend. She has nobody to do anything about her when I
    am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself. You shall have
    forty, sir.
  BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.
  FEEBLE. By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God
    a death. I'll ne'er bear a base mind. An't be my destiny, so;
    an't be not, so. No man's too good to serve 's Prince; and, let
    it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the
    next.
  BARDOLPH. Well said; th'art a good fellow.
  FEEBLE. Faith, I'll bear no base mind.

                    Re-enter FALSTAFF and the JUSTICES

  FALSTAFF. Come, sir, which men shall I have?
  SHALLOW. Four of which you please.
  BARDOLPH. Sir, a word with you. I have three pound to free Mouldy
    and Bullcalf.
  FALSTAFF. Go to; well.
  SHALLOW. Come, Sir John, which four will you have?
  FALSTAFF. Do you choose for me.
  SHALLOW. Marry, then- Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and Shadow.
  FALSTAFF. Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home till
    you are past service; and for your part, Bullcalf, grow you come
    unto it. I will none of you.
  SHALLOW. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong. They are your
    likeliest men, and I would have you serv'd with the best.
  FALSTAFF. Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man?
    Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big
    assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here's
    Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is. 'A shall charge you
    and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer, come
    off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket.
    And this same half-fac'd fellow, Shadow- give me this man. He
    presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim
    level at the edge of a penknife. And, for a retreat- how swiftly
    will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off! O, give me the
    spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into
    Wart's hand, Bardolph.
  BARDOLPH. Hold, Wart. Traverse- thus, thus, thus.
  FALSTAFF. Come, manage me your caliver. So- very well. Go to; very
    good; exceeding good. O, give me always a little, lean, old,
    chopt, bald shot. Well said, i' faith, Wart; th'art a good scab.
    Hold, there's a tester for thee.
  SHALLOW. He is not his craft's master, he doth not do it right. I
    remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at Clement's Inn- I was
    then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show- there was a little quiver
    fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus; and 'a would
    about and about, and come you in and come you in. 'Rah, tah,
    tah!' would 'a say; 'Bounce!' would 'a say; and away again would
    'a go, and again would 'a come. I shall ne'er see such a fellow.
  FALSTAFF. These fellows will do well. Master Shallow, God keep you!
    Master Silence, I will not use many words with you: Fare you
    well! Gentlemen both, I thank you. I must a dozen mile to-night.
    Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.
  SHALLOW. Sir John, the Lord bless you; God prosper your affairs;
    God send us peace! At your return, visit our house; let our old
    acquaintance be renewed. Peradventure I will with ye to the
    court.
  FALSTAFF. Fore God, would you would.
  SHALLOW. Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you.
  FALSTAFF. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.  [Exeunt JUSTICES]  On,
    Bardolph; lead the men away.  [Exeunt all but FALSTAFF]  As I
    return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see the bottom of
    justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this
    vice of lying! This same starv'd justice hath done nothing but
    prate to me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he hath
    done about Turnbull Street; and every third word a lie, duer paid
    to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at
    Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring.
    When 'a was naked, he was for all the world like a fork'd radish,
    with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. 'A was so
    forlorn that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible. 'A
    was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the
    whores call'd him mandrake. 'A came ever in the rearward of the
    fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscutch'd huswifes that
    he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies or
    his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire,
    and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been sworn
    brother to him; and I'll be sworn 'a ne'er saw him but once in
    the Tiltyard; and then he burst his head for crowding among the
    marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his own
    name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an
    eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a
    court- and now has he land and beeves. Well, I'll be acquainted
    with him if I return; and 't shall go hard but I'll make him a
    philosopher's two stones to me. If the young dace be a bait for
    the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap
    at him. Let time shape, and there an end.               Exit

ACT IV. SCENE I. Yorkshire. Within the Forest of Gaultree

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and others

  ARCHBISHOP. What is this forest call'd
  HASTINGS. 'Tis Gaultree Forest, an't shall please your Grace.
  ARCHBISHOP. Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers forth
    To know the numbers of our enemies.
  HASTINGS. We have sent forth already.
  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis well done.
    My friends and brethren in these great affairs,
    I must acquaint you that I have receiv'd
    New-dated letters from Northumberland;
    Their cold intent, tenour, and substance, thus:
    Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
    As might hold sortance with his quality,
    The which he could not levy; whereupon
    He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes,
    To Scotland; and concludes in hearty prayers
    That your attempts may overlive the hazard
    And fearful meeting of their opposite.
  MOWBRAY. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground
    And dash themselves to pieces.

                          Enter A MESSENGER

  HASTINGS. Now, what news?
  MESSENGER. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,
    In goodly form comes on the enemy;
    And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number
    Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.
  MOWBRAY. The just proportion that we gave them out.
    Let us sway on and face them in the field.

                        Enter WESTMORELAND

  ARCHBISHOP. What well-appointed leader fronts us here?
  MOWBRAY. I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.
  WESTMORELAND. Health and fair greeting from our general,
    The Prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.
  ARCHBISHOP. Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace,
    What doth concern your coming.
  WESTMORELAND. Then, my lord,
    Unto your Grace do I in chief address
    The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
    Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
    Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,
    And countenanc'd by boys and beggary-
    I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd
    In his true, native, and most proper shape,
    You, reverend father, and these noble lords,
    Had not been here to dress the ugly form
    Of base and bloody insurrection
    With your fair honours. You, Lord Archbishop,
    Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd,
    Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd,
    Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd,
    Whose white investments figure innocence,
    The dove, and very blessed spirit of peace-
    Wherefore you do so ill translate yourself
    Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
    Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war;
    Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
    Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine
    To a loud trumpet and a point of war?
  ARCHBISHOP. Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.
    Briefly to this end: we are all diseas'd
    And with our surfeiting and wanton hours
    Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
    And we must bleed for it; of which disease
    Our late King, Richard, being infected, died.
    But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,
    I take not on me here as a physician;
    Nor do I as an enemy to peace
    Troop in the throngs of military men;
    But rather show awhile like fearful war
    To diet rank minds sick of happiness,
    And purge th' obstructions which begin to stop
    Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
    I have in equal balance justly weigh'd
    What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
    And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
    We see which way the stream of time doth run
    And are enforc'd from our most quiet there
    By the rough torrent of occasion;
    And have the summary of all our griefs,
    When time shall serve, to show in articles;
    Which long ere this we offer'd to the King,
    And might by no suit gain our audience:
    When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,
    We are denied access unto his person,
    Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
    The dangers of the days but newly gone,
    Whose memory is written on the earth
    With yet appearing blood, and the examples
    Of every minute's instance, present now,
    Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms;
    Not to break peace, or any branch of it,
    But to establish here a peace indeed,
    Concurring both in name and quality.
  WESTMORELAND. When ever yet was your appeal denied;
    Wherein have you been galled by the King;
    What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you
    That you should seal this lawless bloody book
    Of forg'd rebellion with a seal divine,
    And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?
  ARCHBISHOP. My brother general, the commonwealth,
    To brother horn an household cruelty,
    I make my quarrel in particular.
  WESTMORELAND. There is no need of any such redress;
    Or if there were, it not belongs to you.
  MOWBRAY. Why not to him in part, and to us all
    That feel the bruises of the days before,
    And suffer the condition of these times
    To lay a heavy and unequal hand
    Upon our honours?
  WESTMORELAND. O my good Lord Mowbray,
    Construe the times to their necessities,
    And you shall say, indeed, it is the time,
    And not the King, that doth you injuries.
    Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,
    Either from the King or in the present time,
    That you should have an inch of any ground
    To build a grief on. Were you not restor'd
    To all the Duke of Norfolk's signiories,
    Your noble and right well-rememb'red father's?
  MOWBRAY. What thing, in honour, had my father lost
    That need to be reviv'd and breath'd in me?
    The King that lov'd him, as the state stood then,
    Was force perforce compell'd to banish him,
    And then that Henry Bolingbroke and he,
    Being mounted and both roused in their seats,
    Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
    Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,
    Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel,
    And the loud trumpet blowing them together-
    Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay'd
    My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
    O, when the King did throw his warder down-
    His own life hung upon the staff he threw-
    Then threw he down himself, and all their lives
    That by indictment and by dint of sword
    Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.
  WESTMORELAND. You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.
    The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
    In England the most valiant gentleman.
    Who knows on whom fortune would then have smil'd?
    But if your father had been victor there,
    He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry;
    For all the country, in a general voice,
    Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love
    Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on,
    And bless'd and grac'd indeed more than the King.
    But this is mere digression from my purpose.
    Here come I from our princely general
    To know your griefs; to tell you from his Grace
    That he will give you audience; and wherein
    It shall appear that your demands are just,
    You shall enjoy them, everything set off
    That might so much as think you enemies.
  MOWBRAY. But he hath forc'd us to compel this offer;
    And it proceeds from policy, not love.
  WESTMORELAND. Mowbray. you overween to take it so.
    This offer comes from mercy, not from fear;
    For, lo! within a ken our army lies-
    Upon mine honour, all too confident
    To give admittance to a thought of fear.
    Our battle is more full of names than yours,
    Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
    Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;
    Then reason will our hearts should be as good.
    Say you not, then, our offer is compell'd.
  MOWBRAY. Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.
  WESTMORELAND. That argues but the shame of your offence:
    A rotten case abides no handling.
  HASTINGS. Hath the Prince John a full commission,
    In very ample virtue of his father,
    To hear and absolutely to determine
    Of what conditions we shall stand upon?
  WESTMORELAND. That is intended in the general's name.
    I muse you make so slight a question.
  ARCHBISHOP. Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
    For this contains our general grievances.
    Each several article herein redress'd,
    All members of our cause, both here and hence,
    That are insinewed to this action,
    Acquitted by a true substantial form,
    And present execution of our wills
    To us and to our purposes confin'd-
    We come within our awful banks again,
    And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
  WESTMORELAND. This will I show the general. Please you, lords,
    In sight of both our battles we may meet;
    And either end in peace- which God so frame!-
    Or to the place of diff'rence call the swords
    Which must decide it.
  ARCHBISHOP. My lord, we will do so.          Exit WESTMORELAND
  MOWBRAY. There is a thing within my bosom tells me
    That no conditions of our peace can stand.
  HASTINGS. Fear you not that: if we can make our peace
    Upon such large terms and so absolute
    As our conditions shall consist upon,
    Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
  MOWBRAY. Yea, but our valuation shall be such
    That every slight and false-derived cause,
    Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason,
    Shall to the King taste of this action;
    That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
    We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind
    That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,
    And good from bad find no partition.
  ARCHBISHOP. No, no, my lord. Note this: the King is weary
    Of dainty and such picking grievances;
    For he hath found to end one doubt by death
    Revives two greater in the heirs of life;
    And therefore will he wipe his tables clean,
    And keep no tell-tale to his memory
    That may repeat and history his los
    To new remembrance. For full well he knows
    He cannot so precisely weed this land
    As his misdoubts present occasion:
    His foes are so enrooted with his friends
    That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
    He doth unfasten so and shake a friend.
    So that this land, like an offensive wife
    That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes,
    As he is striking, holds his infant up,
    And hangs resolv'd correction in the arm
    That was uprear'd to execution.
  HASTINGS. Besides, the King hath wasted all his rods
    On late offenders, that he now doth lack
    The very instruments of chastisement;
    So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
    May offer, but not hold.
  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis very true;
    And therefore be assur'd, my good Lord Marshal,
    If we do now make our atonement well,
    Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
    Grow stronger for the breaking.
  MOWBRAY. Be it so.
    Here is return'd my Lord of Westmoreland.

                       Re-enter WESTMORELAND

  WESTMORELAND. The Prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your lordship
    To meet his Grace just distance 'tween our armies?
  MOWBRAY. Your Grace of York, in God's name then, set forward.
  ARCHBISHOP. Before, and greet his Grace. My lord, we come.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Another part of the forest

Enter, from one side, MOWBRAY, attended; afterwards, the ARCHBISHOP,
HASTINGS, and others; from the other side, PRINCE JOHN of LANCASTER,
WESTMORELAND, OFFICERS, and others

  PRINCE JOHN. You are well encount'red here, my cousin Mowbray.
    Good day to you, gentle Lord Archbishop;
    And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.
    My Lord of York, it better show'd with you
    When that your flock, assembled by the bell,
    Encircled you to hear with reverence
    Your exposition on the holy text
    Than now to see you here an iron man,
    Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,
    Turning the word to sword, and life to death.
    That man that sits within a monarch's heart
    And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
    Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
    Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach
    In shadow of such greatness! With you, Lord Bishop,
    It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken
    How deep you were within the books of God?
    To us the speaker in His parliament,
    To us th' imagin'd voice of God himself,
    The very opener and intelligencer
    Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven,
    And our dull workings. O, who shall believe
    But you misuse the reverence of your place,
    Employ the countenance and grace of heav'n
    As a false favourite doth his prince's name,
    In deeds dishonourable? You have ta'en up,
    Under the counterfeited zeal of God,
    The subjects of His substitute, my father,
    And both against the peace of heaven and him
    Have here up-swarm'd them.
  ARCHBISHOP. Good my Lord of Lancaster,
    I am not here against your father's peace;
    But, as I told my Lord of Westmoreland,
    The time misord'red doth, in common sense,
    Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form
    To hold our safety up. I sent your Grace
    The parcels and particulars of our grief,
    The which hath been with scorn shov'd from the court,
    Whereon this hydra son of war is born;
    Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep
    With grant of our most just and right desires;
    And true obedience, of this madness cur'd,
    Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.
  MOWBRAY. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes
    To the last man.
  HASTINGS. And though we here fall down,
    We have supplies to second our attempt.
    If they miscarry, theirs shall second them;
    And so success of mischief shall be born,
    And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up
    Whiles England shall have generation.
  PRINCE JOHN. YOU are too shallow, Hastings, much to shallow,
    To sound the bottom of the after-times.
  WESTMORELAND. Pleaseth your Grace to answer them directly
    How far forth you do like their articles.
  PRINCE JOHN. I like them all and do allow them well;
    And swear here, by the honour of my blood,
    My father's purposes have been mistook;
    And some about him have too lavishly
    Wrested his meaning and authority.
    My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress'd;
    Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,
    Discharge your powers unto their several counties,
    As we will ours; and here, between the armies,
    Let's drink together friendly and embrace,
    That all their eyes may bear those tokens home
    Of our restored love and amity.
  ARCHBISHOP. I take your princely word for these redresses.
  PRINCE JOHN. I give it you, and will maintain my word;
    And thereupon I drink unto your Grace.
  HASTINGS. Go, Captain, and deliver to the army
    This news of peace. Let them have pay, and part.
    I know it will please them. Hie thee, Captain.
                                                    Exit Officer
  ARCHBISHOP. To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.
  WESTMORELAND. I pledge your Grace; and if you knew what pains
    I have bestow'd to breed this present peace,
    You would drink freely; but my love to ye
    Shall show itself more openly hereafter.
  ARCHBISHOP. I do not doubt you.
  WESTMORELAND. I am glad of it.
    Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.
  MOWBRAY. You wish me health in very happy season,
    For I am on the sudden something ill.
  ARCHBISHOP. Against ill chances men are ever merry;
    But heaviness foreruns the good event.
  WESTMORELAND. Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow
    Serves to say thus, 'Some good thing comes to-morrow.'
  ARCHBISHOP. Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.
  MOWBRAY. So much the worse, if your own rule be true.
                                                 [Shouts within]
  PRINCE JOHN. The word of peace is rend'red. Hark, how they shout!
  MOWBRAY. This had been cheerful after victory.
  ARCHBISHOP. A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
    For then both parties nobly are subdu'd,
    And neither party loser.
  PRINCE JOHN. Go, my lord,
    And let our army be discharged too.
                                               Exit WESTMORELAND
    And, good my lord, so please you let our trains
    March by us, that we may peruse the men
    We should have cop'd withal.
  ARCHBISHOP. Go, good Lord Hastings,
    And, ere they be dismiss'd, let them march by.
                                                   Exit HASTINGS
  PRINCE JOHN. I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night together.

                      Re-enter WESTMORELAND

    Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?
  WESTMORELAND. The leaders, having charge from you to stand,
    Will not go off until they hear you speak.
  PRINCE JOHN. They know their duties.

                        Re-enter HASTINGS

  HASTINGS. My lord, our army is dispers'd already.
    Like youthful steers unyok'd, they take their courses
    East, west, north, south; or like a school broke up,
    Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.
  WESTMORELAND. Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which
    I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason;
    And you, Lord Archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,
    Of capital treason I attach you both.
  MOWBRAY. Is this proceeding just and honourable?
  WESTMORELAND. Is your assembly so?
  ARCHBISHOP. Will you thus break your faith?
  PRINCE JOHN. I pawn'd thee none:
    I promis'd you redress of these same grievances
    Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,
    I will perform with a most Christian care.
    But for you, rebels- look to taste the due
    Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.
    Most shallowly did you these arms commence,
    Fondly brought here, and foolishly sent hence.
    Strike up our drums, pursue the scatt'red stray.
    God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day.
    Some guard these traitors to the block of death,
    Treason's true bed and yielder-up of breath.          Exeunt

SCENE III. Another part of the forest

Alarum; excursions. Enter FALSTAFF and COLVILLE, meeting

  FALSTAFF. What's your name, sir? Of what condition are you, and of
    what place, I pray?
  COLVILLE. I am a knight sir; and my name is Colville of the Dale.
  FALSTAFF. Well then, Colville is your name, a knight is your
    degree, and your place the Dale. Colville shall still be your
    name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place- a place
    deep enough; so shall you be still Colville of the Dale.
  COLVILLE. Are not you Sir John Falstaff?
  FALSTAFF. As good a man as he, sir, whoe'er I am. Do you yield,
    sir, or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat, they are the drops
    of thy lovers, and they weep for thy death; therefore rouse up
    fear and trembling, and do observance to my mercy.
  COLVILLE. I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought
    yield me.
  FALSTAFF. I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine;
    and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word but my name.
    An I had but a belly of any indifferency, I were simply the most
    active fellow in Europe. My womb, my womb, my womb undoes me.
    Here comes our general.

            Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND,
                            BLUNT, and others

  PRINCE JOHN. The heat is past; follow no further now.
    Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.
                                               Exit WESTMORELAND
    Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?
    When everything is ended, then you come.
    These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,
    One time or other break some gallows' back.
  FALSTAFF. I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I never
    knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valour. Do you
    think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? Have I, in my poor and
    old motion, the expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with
    the very extremest inch of possibility; I have found'red nine
    score and odd posts; and here, travel tainted as I am, have, in
    my pure and immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colville of the
    Dale,a most furious knight and valorous enemy. But what of that?
    He saw me, and yielded; that I may justly say with the hook-nos'd
    fellow of Rome-I came, saw, and overcame.
  PRINCE JOHN. It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.
  FALSTAFF. I know not. Here he is, and here I yield him; and I
    beseech your Grace, let it be book'd with the rest of this day's
    deeds; or, by the Lord, I will have it in a particular ballad
    else, with mine own picture on the top on't, Colville kissing my
    foot; to the which course if I be enforc'd, if you do not all
    show like gilt twopences to me, and I, in the clear sky of fame,
    o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the
    element, which show like pins' heads to her, believe not the word
    of the noble. Therefore let me have right, and let desert mount.
  PRINCE JOHN. Thine's too heavy to mount.
  FALSTAFF. Let it shine, then.
  PRINCE JOHN. Thine's too thick to shine.
  FALSTAFF. Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me good,
    and call it what you will.
  PRINCE JOHN. Is thy name Colville?
  COLVILLE. It is, my lord.
  PRINCE JOHN. A famous rebel art thou, Colville.
  FALSTAFF. And a famous true subject took him.
  COLVILLE. I am, my lord, but as my betters are
    That led me hither. Had they been rul'd by me,
    You should have won them dearer than you have.
  FALSTAFF. I know not how they sold themselves; but thou, like a
    kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis; and I thank thee for
    thee.

                       Re-enter WESTMORELAND

  PRINCE JOHN. Now, have you left pursuit?
  WESTMORELAND. Retreat is made, and execution stay'd.
  PRINCE JOHN. Send Colville, with his confederates,
    To York, to present execution.
    Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure.
                                         Exeunt BLUNT and others
    And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords.
    I hear the King my father is sore sick.
    Our news shall go before us to his Majesty,
    Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him
    And we with sober speed will follow you.
  FALSTAFF. My lord, I beseech you, give me leave to go through
    Gloucestershire; and, when you come to court, stand my good lord,
    pray, in your good report.
  PRINCE JOHN. Fare you well, Falstaff. I, in my condition,
    Shall better speak of you than you deserve.
                                         Exeunt all but FALSTAFF
  FALSTAFF. I would you had but the wit; 'twere better than your
    dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not
    love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh- but that's no marvel;
    he drinks no wine. There's never none of these demure boys come
    to any proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and
    making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male
    green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get wenches. They
    are generally fools and cowards-which some of us should be too,
    but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold
    operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all
    the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it
    apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and
    delectable shapes; which delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue,
    which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of
    your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood; which before,
    cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the
    badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it,
    and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extremes. It
    illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the
    rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital
    commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their
    captain, the heart, who, great and puff'd up with this retinue,
    doth any deed of courage- and this valour comes of sherris. So
    that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets
    it a-work; and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil
    till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes
    it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did
    naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and
    bare land, manured, husbanded, and till'd, with excellent
    endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris,
    that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons,
    the first humane principle I would teach them should be to
    forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.

                           Enter BARDOLPH

    How now, Bardolph!
  BARDOLPH. The army is discharged all and gone.
  FALSTAFF. Let them go. I'll through Gloucestershire, and there will
    I visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him already
    temp'ring between my finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal
    with him. Come away.                                  Exeunt

SCENE IV. Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber

Enter the KING, PRINCE THOMAS OF CLARENCE, PRINCE HUMPHREY OF
GLOUCESTER,
WARWICK, and others

  KING. Now, lords, if God doth give successful end
    To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,
    We will our youth lead on to higher fields,
    And draw no swords but what are sanctified.
    Our navy is address'd, our power connected,
    Our substitutes in absence well invested,
    And everything lies level to our wish.
    Only we want a little personal strength;
    And pause us till these rebels, now afoot,
    Come underneath the yoke of government.
  WARWICK. Both which we doubt not but your Majesty
    Shall soon enjoy.
  KING. Humphrey, my son of Gloucester,
    Where is the Prince your brother?
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. I think he's gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.
  KING. And how accompanied?
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. I do not know, my lord.
  KING. Is not his brother, Thomas of Clarence, with him?
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. No, my good lord, he is in presence here.
  CLARENCE. What would my lord and father?
  KING. Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.
    How chance thou art not with the Prince thy brother?
    He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas.
    Thou hast a better place in his affection
    Than all thy brothers; cherish it, my boy,
    And noble offices thou mayst effect
    Of mediation, after I am dead,
    Between his greatness and thy other brethren.
    Therefore omit him not; blunt not his love,
    Nor lose the good advantage of his grace
    By seeming cold or careless of his will;
    For he is gracious if he be observ'd.
    He hath a tear for pity and a hand
    Open as day for melting charity;
    Yet notwithstanding, being incens'd, he is flint;
    As humorous as winter, and as sudden
    As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
    His temper, therefore, must be well observ'd.
    Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
    When you perceive his blood inclin'd to mirth;
    But, being moody, give him line and scope
    Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,
    Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas,
    And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,
    A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,
    That the united vessel of their blood,
    Mingled with venom of suggestion-
    As, force perforce, the age will pour it in-
    Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
    As aconitum or rash gunpowder.
  CLARENCE. I shall observe him with all care and love.
  KING. Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?
  CLARENCE. He is not there to-day; he dines in London.
  KING. And how accompanied? Canst thou tell that?
  CLARENCE. With Poins, and other his continual followers.
  KING. Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds;
    And he, the noble image of my youth,
    Is overspread with them; therefore my grief
    Stretches itself beyond the hour of death.
    The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape,
    In forms imaginary, th'unguided days
    And rotten times that you shall look upon
    When I am sleeping with my ancestors.
    For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,
    When rage and hot blood are his counsellors
    When means and lavish manners meet together,
    O, with what wings shall his affections fly
    Towards fronting peril and oppos'd decay!
  WARWICK. My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite.
    The Prince but studies his companions
    Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,
    'Tis needful that the most immodest word
    Be look'd upon and learnt; which once attain'd,
    Your Highness knows, comes to no further use
    But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,
    The Prince will, in the perfectness of time,
    Cast off his followers; and their memory
    Shall as a pattern or a measure live
    By which his Grace must mete the lives of other,
    Turning past evils to advantages.
  KING. 'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb
    In the dead carrion.

                      Enter WESTMORELAND

    Who's here? Westmoreland?
  WESTMORELAND. Health to my sovereign, and new happiness
    Added to that that am to deliver!
    Prince John, your son, doth kiss your Grace's hand.
    Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings, and all,
    Are brought to the correction of your law.
    There is not now a rebel's sword unsheath'd,
    But Peace puts forth her olive everywhere.
    The manner how this action hath been borne
    Here at more leisure may your Highness read,
    With every course in his particular.
  KING. O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird,
    Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
    The lifting up of day.

                        Enter HARCOURT

    Look here's more news.
  HARCOURT. From enemies heaven keep your Majesty;
    And, when they stand against you, may they fall
    As those that I am come to tell you of!
    The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,
    With a great power of English and of Scots,
    Are by the shrieve of Yorkshire overthrown.
    The manner and true order of the fight
    This packet, please it you, contains at large.
  KING. And wherefore should these good news make me sick?
    Will Fortune never come with both hands full,
    But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
    She either gives a stomach and no food-
    Such are the poor, in health- or else a feast,
    And takes away the stomach- such are the rich
    That have abundance and enjoy it not.
    I should rejoice now at this happy news;
    And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy.
    O me! come near me now I am much ill.
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. Comfort, your Majesty!
  CLARENCE. O my royal father!
  WESTMORELAND. My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up.
  WARWICK. Be patient, Princes; you do know these fits
    Are with his Highness very ordinary.
    Stand from him, give him air; he'll straight be well.
  CLARENCE. No, no; he cannot long hold out these pangs.
    Th' incessant care and labour of his mind
    Hath wrought the mure that should confine it in
    So thin that life looks through, and will break out.
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. The people fear me; for they do observe
    Unfather'd heirs and loathly births of nature.
    The seasons change their manners, as the year
    Had found some months asleep, and leapt them over.
  CLARENCE. The river hath thrice flow'd, no ebb between;
    And the old folk, Time's doting chronicles,
    Say it did so a little time before
    That our great grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died.
  WARWICK. Speak lower, Princes, for the King recovers.
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. This apoplexy will certain be his end.
  KING. I pray you take me up, and bear me hence
    Into some other chamber. Softly, pray.                Exeunt

SCENE V. Westminster. Another chamber

The KING lying on a bed; CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, and others in
attendance

  KING. Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;
    Unless some dull and favourable hand
    Will whisper music to my weary spirit.
  WARWICK. Call for the music in the other room.
  KING. Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
  CLARENCE. His eye is hollow, and he changes much.
  WARWICK. Less noise! less noise!

                        Enter PRINCE HENRY

  PRINCE. Who saw the Duke of Clarence?
  CLARENCE. I am here, brother, full of heaviness.
  PRINCE. How now! Rain within doors, and none abroad!
    How doth the King?
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. Exceeding ill.
  PRINCE. Heard he the good news yet? Tell it him.
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. He alt'red much upon the hearing it.
  PRINCE. If he be sick with joy, he'll recover without physic.
  WARWICK. Not so much noise, my lords. Sweet Prince, speak low;
    The King your father is dispos'd to sleep.
  CLARENCE. Let us withdraw into the other room.
  WARWICK. Will't please your Grace to go along with us?
  PRINCE. No; I will sit and watch here by the King.
                                       Exeunt all but the PRINCE
    Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
    Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
    O polish'd perturbation! golden care!
    That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide
    To many a watchful night! Sleep with it now!
    Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
    As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
    Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!
    When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
    Like a rich armour worn in heat of day
    That scald'st with safety. By his gates of breath
    There lies a downy feather which stirs not.
    Did he suspire, that light and weightless down
    Perforce must move. My gracious lord! my father!
    This sleep is sound indeed; this is a sleep
    That from this golden rigol hath divorc'd
    So many English kings. Thy due from me
    Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood
    Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,
    Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously.
    My due from thee is this imperial crown,
    Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,
    Derives itself to me.  [Putting on the crown]  Lo where it sits-
    Which God shall guard; and put the world's whole strength
    Into one giant arm, it shall not force
    This lineal honour from me. This from thee
    Will I to mine leave as 'tis left to me.                Exit
  KING. Warwick! Gloucester! Clarence!

           Re-enter WARWICK, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE

  CLARENCE. Doth the King call?
  WARWICK. What would your Majesty? How fares your Grace?
  KING. Why did you leave me here alone, my lords?
  CLARENCE. We left the Prince my brother here, my liege,
    Who undertook to sit and watch by you.
  KING. The Prince of Wales! Where is he? Let me see him.
    He is not here.
  WARWICK. This door is open; he is gone this way.
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. He came not through the chamber where we stay'd.
  KING. Where is the crown? Who took it from my pillow?
  WARWICK. When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.
  KING. The Prince hath ta'en it hence. Go, seek him out.
    Is he so hasty that he doth suppose
    My sleep my death?
    Find him, my lord of Warwick; chide him hither.
                                                    Exit WARWICK
    This part of his conjoins with my disease
    And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are!
    How quickly nature falls into revolt
    When gold becomes her object!
    For this the foolish over-careful fathers
    Have broke their sleep with thoughts,
    Their brains with care, their bones with industry;
    For this they have engrossed and pil'd up
    The cank'red heaps of strange-achieved gold;
    For this they have been thoughtful to invest
    Their sons with arts and martial exercises;
    When, like the bee, tolling from every flower
    The virtuous sweets,
    Our thighs with wax, our mouths with honey pack'd,
    We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,
    Are murd'red for our pains. This bitter taste
    Yields his engrossments to the ending father.

                         Re-enter WARWICK

    Now where is he that will not stay so long
    Till his friend sickness hath determin'd me?
  WARWICK. My lord, I found the Prince in the next room,
    Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks,
    With such a deep demeanour in great sorrow,
    That tyranny, which never quaff'd but blood,
    Would, by beholding him, have wash'd his knife
    With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.
  KING. But wherefore did he take away the crown?

                        Re-enter PRINCE HENRY

    Lo where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry.
    Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.
                          Exeunt all but the KING and the PRINCE
  PRINCE. I never thought to hear you speak again.
  KING. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
    I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.
    Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair
    That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours
    Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!
    Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee.
    Stay but a little, for my cloud of dignity
    Is held from falling with so weak a wind
    That it will quickly drop; my day is dim.
    Thou hast stol'n that which, after some few hours,
    Were thine without offense; and at my death
    Thou hast seal'd up my expectation.
    Thy life did manifest thou lov'dst me not,
    And thou wilt have me die assur'd of it.
    Thou hid'st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,
    Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,
    To stab at half an hour of my life.
    What, canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
    Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself;
    And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
    That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.
    Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse
    Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head;
    Only compound me with forgotten dust;
    Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.
    Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;
    For now a time is come to mock at form-
    Harry the Fifth is crown'd. Up, vanity:
    Down, royal state. All you sage counsellors, hence.
    And to the English court assemble now,
    From every region, apes of idleness.
    Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum.
    Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,
    Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit
    The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
    Be happy, he will trouble you no more.
    England shall double gild his treble guilt;
    England shall give him office, honour, might;
    For the fifth Harry from curb'd license plucks
    The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
    Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.
    O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
    When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
    What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?
    O, thou wilt be a wilderness again.
    Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!
  PRINCE. O, pardon me, my liege! But for my tears,
    The moist impediments unto my speech,
    I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke
    Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard
    The course of it so far. There is your crown,
    And he that wears the crown immortally
    Long guard it yours!  [Kneeling]  If I affect it more
    Than as your honour and as your renown,
    Let me no more from this obedience rise,
    Which my most inward true and duteous spirit
    Teacheth this prostrate and exterior bending!
    God witness with me, when I here came in
    And found no course of breath within your Majesty,
    How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,
    O, let me in my present wildness die,
    And never live to show th' incredulous world
    The noble change that I have purposed!
    Coming to look on you, thinking you dead-
    And dead almost, my liege, to think you were-
    I spake unto this crown as having sense,
    And thus upbraided it: 'The care on thee depending
    Hath fed upon the body of my father;
    Therefore thou best of gold art worst of gold.
    Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,
    Preserving life in med'cine potable;
    But thou, most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd,
    Hast eat thy bearer up.' Thus, my most royal liege,
    Accusing it, I put it on my head,
    To try with it- as with an enemy
    That had before my face murd'red my father-
    The quarrel of a true inheritor.
    But if it did infect my blood with joy,
    Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride;
    If any rebel or vain spirit of mine
    Did with the least affection of a welcome
    Give entertainment to the might of it,
    Let God for ever keep it from my head,
    And make me as the poorest vassal is,
    That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!
  KING. O my son,
    God put it in thy mind to take it hence,
    That thou mightst win the more thy father's love,
    Pleading so wisely in excuse of it!
    Come hither, Harry; sit thou by my bed,
    And hear, I think, the very latest counsel
    That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son,
    By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways
    I met this crown; and I myself know well
    How troublesome it sat upon my head:
    To thee it shall descend with better quiet,
    Better opinion, better confirmation;
    For all the soil of the achievement goes
    With me into the earth. It seem'd in me
    But as an honour snatch'd with boist'rous hand;
    And I had many living to upbraid
    My gain of it by their assistances;
    Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,
    Wounding supposed peace. All these bold fears
    Thou seest with peril I have answered;
    For all my reign hath been but as a scene
    Acting that argument. And now my death
    Changes the mood; for what in me was purchas'd
    Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort;
    So thou the garland wear'st successively.
    Yet, though thou stand'st more sure than I could do,
    Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green;
    And all my friends, which thou must make thy friends,
    Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;
    By whose fell working I was first advanc'd,
    And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
    To be again displac'd; which to avoid,
    I cut them off; and had a purpose now
    To lead out many to the Holy Land,
    Lest rest and lying still might make them look
    Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,
    Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
    With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out,
    May waste the memory of the former days.
    More would I, but my lungs are wasted so
    That strength of speech is utterly denied me.
    How I came by the crown, O God, forgive;
    And grant it may with thee in true peace live!
  PRINCE. My gracious liege,
    You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
    Then plain and right must my possession be;
    Which I with more than with a common pain
    'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.

       Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WARWICK, LORDS, and others

  KING. Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.
  PRINCE JOHN. Health, peace, and happiness, to my royal father!
  KING. Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John;
    But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown
    From this bare wither'd trunk. Upon thy sight
    My worldly business makes a period.
    Where is my Lord of Warwick?
  PRINCE. My Lord of Warwick!
  KING. Doth any name particular belong
    Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?
  WARWICK. 'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord.
  KING. Laud be to God! Even there my life must end.
    It hath been prophesied to me many years,
    I should not die but in Jerusalem;
    Which vainly I suppos'd the Holy Land.
    But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;
    In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.                    Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Gloucestershire. SHALLOW'S house

Enter SHALLOW, FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, and PAGE

  SHALLOW. By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away to-night.
    What, Davy, I say!
  FALSTAFF. You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.
  SHALLOW. I will not excuse you; you shall not be excus'd; excuses
    shall not be admitted; there is no excuse shall serve; you shall
    not be excus'd. Why, Davy!

                            Enter DAVY

  DAVY. Here, sir.
  SHALLOW. Davy, Davy, Davy, Davy; let me see, Davy; let me see,
    Davy; let me see- yea, marry, William cook, bid him come hither.
    Sir John, you shall not be excus'd.
  DAVY. Marry, sir, thus: those precepts cannot be served; and,
    again, sir- shall we sow the headland with wheat?
  SHALLOW. With red wheat, Davy. But for William cook- are there no
    young pigeons?
  DAVY. Yes, sir. Here is now the smith's note for shoeing and
    plough-irons.
  SHALLOW. Let it be cast, and paid. Sir John, you shall not be
    excused.
  DAVY. Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must needs be had; and,
    sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages about the sack he
    lost the other day at Hinckley fair?
  SHALLOW. 'A shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple of
    short-legg'd hens, a joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny
    kickshaws, tell William cook.
  DAVY. Doth the man of war stay all night, sir?
  SHALLOW. Yea, Davy; I will use him well. A friend i' th' court is
    better than a penny in purse. Use his men well, Davy; for they
    are arrant knaves and will backbite.
  DAVY. No worse than they are backbitten, sir; for they have
    marvellous foul linen.
  SHALLOW. Well conceited, Davy- about thy business, Davy.
  DAVY. I beseech you, sir, to countenance William Visor of Woncot
    against Clement Perkes o' th' hill.
  SHALLOW. There, is many complaints, Davy, against that Visor. That
    Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge.
  DAVY. I grant your worship that he is a knave, sir; but yet God
    forbid, sir, but a knave should have some countenance at his
    friend's request. An honest man, sir, is able to speak for
    himself, when a knave is not. I have serv'd your worship truly,
    sir, this eight years; an I cannot once or twice in a quarter
    bear out a knave against an honest man, I have but a very little
    credit with your worship. The knave is mine honest friend, sir;
    therefore, I beseech you, let him be countenanc'd.
  SHALLOW. Go to; I say he shall have no wrong. Look about,
  DAVY.  [Exit DAVY]  Where are you, Sir John? Come, come, come, off
    with your boots. Give me your hand, Master Bardolph.
  BARDOLPH. I am glad to see your worship.
  SHALLOW. I thank thee with all my heart, kind Master Bardolph.
    [To the PAGE]  And welcome, my tall fellow. Come, Sir John.
  FALSTAFF. I'll follow you, good Master Robert Shallow.
    [Exit SHALLOW]  Bardolph, look to our horses.  [Exeunt BARDOLPH
    and PAGE]  If I were sawed into quantities, I should make four
    dozen of such bearded hermits' staves as Master Shallow. It is a
    wonderful thing to see the semblable coherence of his men's
    spirits and his. They, by observing of him, do bear themselves
    like foolish justices: he, by conversing with them, is turned
    into a justice-like serving-man. Their spirits are so married in
    conjunction with the participation of society that they flock
    together in consent, like so many wild geese. If I had a suit to
    Master Shallow, I would humour his men with the imputation of
    being near their master; if to his men, I would curry with Master
    Shallow that no man could better command his servants. It is
    certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught,
    as men take diseases, one of another; therefore let men take heed
    of their company. I will devise matter enough out of this Shallow
    to keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing out of six
    fashions, which is four terms, or two actions; and 'a shall laugh
    without intervallums. O, it is much that a lie with a slight
    oath, and a jest with a sad brow will do with a fellow that never
    had the ache in his shoulders! O, you shall see him laugh till
    his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up!
  SHALLOW.  [Within]  Sir John!
  FALSTAFF. I come, Master Shallow; I come, Master Shallow.
 Exit

SCENE II. Westminster. The palace

Enter, severally, WARWICK, and the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE

  WARWICK. How now, my Lord Chief Justice; whither away?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. How doth the King?
  WARWICK. Exceeding well; his cares are now all ended.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I hope, not dead.
  WARWICK. He's walk'd the way of nature;
    And to our purposes he lives no more.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I would his Majesty had call'd me with him.
    The service that I truly did his life
    Hath left me open to all injuries.
  WARWICK. Indeed, I think the young king loves you not.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I know he doth not, and do arm myself
    To welcome the condition of the time,
    Which cannot look more hideously upon me
    Than I have drawn it in my fantasy.

              Enter LANCASTER, CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER,
                     WESTMORELAND, and others

  WARWICK. Here comes the heavy issue of dead Harry.
    O that the living Harry had the temper
    Of he, the worst of these three gentlemen!
    How many nobles then should hold their places
    That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort!
  CHIEF JUSTICE. O God, I fear all will be overturn'd.
  PRINCE JOHN. Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.
  GLOUCESTER & CLARENCE. Good morrow, cousin.
  PRINCE JOHN. We meet like men that had forgot to speak.
  WARWICK. We do remember; but our argument
    Is all too heavy to admit much talk.
  PRINCE JOHN. Well, peace be with him that hath made us heavy!
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Peace be with us, lest we be heavier!
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. O, good my lord, you have lost a friend indeed;
    And I dare swear you borrow not that face
    Of seeming sorrow- it is sure your own.
  PRINCE JOHN. Though no man be assur'd what grace to find,
    You stand in coldest expectation.
    I am the sorrier; would 'twere otherwise.
  CLARENCE. Well, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair;
    Which swims against your stream of quality.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sweet Princes, what I did, I did in honour,
    Led by th' impartial conduct of my soul;
    And never shall you see that I will beg
    A ragged and forestall'd remission.
    If truth and upright innocency fail me,
    I'll to the King my master that is dead,
    And tell him who hath sent me after him.
  WARWICK. Here comes the Prince.

            Enter KING HENRY THE FIFTH, attended

  CHIEF JUSTICE. Good morrow, and God save your Majesty!
  KING. This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,
    Sits not so easy on me as you think.
    Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear.
    This is the English, not the Turkish court;
    Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
    But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers,
    For, by my faith, it very well becomes you.
    Sorrow so royally in you appears
    That I will deeply put the fashion on,
    And wear it in my heart. Why, then, be sad;
    But entertain no more of it, good brothers,
    Than a joint burden laid upon us all.
    For me, by heaven, I bid you be assur'd,
    I'll be your father and your brother too;
    Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares.
    Yet weep that Harry's dead, and so will I;
    But Harry lives that shall convert those tears
    By number into hours of happiness.
  BROTHERS. We hope no otherwise from your Majesty.
  KING. You all look strangely on me; and you most.
    You are, I think, assur'd I love you not.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I am assur'd, if I be measur'd rightly,
    Your Majesty hath no just cause to hate me.
  KING. No?
    How might a prince of my great hopes forget
    So great indignities you laid upon me?
    What, rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison,
    Th' immediate heir of England! Was this easy?
    May this be wash'd in Lethe and forgotten?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I then did use the person of your father;
    The image of his power lay then in me;
    And in th' administration of his law,
    Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
    Your Highness pleased to forget my place,
    The majesty and power of law and justice,
    The image of the King whom I presented,
    And struck me in my very seat of judgment;
    Whereon, as an offender to your father,
    I gave bold way to my authority
    And did commit you. If the deed were ill,
    Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
    To have a son set your decrees at nought,
    To pluck down justice from your awful bench,
    To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword
    That guards the peace and safety of your person;
    Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image,
    And mock your workings in a second body.
    Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours;
    Be now the father, and propose a son;
    Hear your own dignity so much profan'd,
    See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,
    Behold yourself so by a son disdain'd;
    And then imagine me taking your part
    And, in your power, soft silencing your son.
    After this cold considerance, sentence me;
    And, as you are a king, speak in your state
    What I have done that misbecame my place,
    My person, or my liege's sovereignty.
  KING. You are right, Justice, and you weigh this well;
    Therefore still bear the balance and the sword;
    And I do wish your honours may increase
    Till you do live to see a son of mine
    Offend you, and obey you, as I did.
    So shall I live to speak my father's words:
    'Happy am I that have a man so bold
    That dares do justice on my proper son;
    And not less happy, having such a son
    That would deliver up his greatness so
    Into the hands of justice.' You did commit me;
    For which I do commit into your hand
    Th' unstained sword that you have us'd to bear;
    With this remembrance- that you use the same
    With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit
    As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand.
    You shall be as a father to my youth;
    My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear;
    And I will stoop and humble my intents
    To your well-practis'd wise directions.
    And, Princes all, believe me, I beseech you,
    My father is gone wild into his grave,
    For in his tomb lie my affections;
    And with his spirits sadly I survive,
    To mock the expectation of the world,
    To frustrate prophecies, and to raze out
    Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
    After my seeming. The tide of blood in me
    Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now.
    Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,
    Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,
    And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
    Now call we our high court of parliament;
    And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,
    That the great body of our state may go
    In equal rank with the best govern'd nation;
    That war, or peace, or both at once, may be
    As things acquainted and familiar to us;
    In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.
    Our coronation done, we will accite,
    As I before rememb'red, all our state;
    And- God consigning to my good intents-
    No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say,
    God shorten Harry's happy life one day.               Exeunt

SCENE III. Gloucestershire. SHALLOW'S orchard

Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, SILENCE, BARDOLPH, the PAGE, and DAVY

  SHALLOW. Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we
    will eat a last year's pippin of mine own graffing, with a dish
    of caraways, and so forth. Come, cousin Silence. And then to bed.
  FALSTAFF. Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling and rich.
  SHALLOW. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John
    -marry, good air. Spread, Davy, spread, Davy; well said, Davy.
  FALSTAFF. This Davy serves you for good uses; he is your
    serving-man and your husband.
  SHALLOW. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet, Sir
    John. By the mass, I have drunk too much sack at supper. A good
    varlet. Now sit down, now sit down; come, cousin.
  SILENCE. Ah, sirrah! quoth-a- we shall               [Singing]

              Do nothing but eat and make good cheer,
              And praise God for the merry year;
              When flesh is cheap and females dear,
              And lusty lads roam here and there,
                  So merrily,
                And ever among so merrily.

  FALSTAFF. There's a merry heart! Good Master Silence, I'll give you
    a health for that anon.
  SHALLOW. Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy.
  DAVY. Sweet sir, sit; I'll be with you anon; most sweet sir, sit.
    Master Page, good Master Page, sit. Proface! What you want in
    meat, we'll have in drink. But you must bear; the heart's all.
 Exit
  SHALLOW. Be merry, Master Bardolph; and, my little soldier there,
    be merry.
  SILENCE.  [Singing]

         Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;
         For women are shrews, both short and tall;
         'Tis merry in hall when beards wag an;
           And welcome merry Shrove-tide.
         Be merry, be merry.

  FALSTAFF. I did not think Master Silence had been a man of this
    mettle.
  SILENCE. Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere now.

                          Re-enter DAVY

  DAVY.  [To BARDOLPH]  There's a dish of leather-coats for you.
  SHALLOW. Davy!
  DAVY. Your worship! I'll be with you straight.  [To BARDOLPH]
    A cup of wine, sir?
  SILENCE.  [Singing]

         A cup of wine that's brisk and fine,
         And drink unto the leman mine;
           And a merry heart lives long-a.

  FALSTAFF. Well said, Master Silence.
  SILENCE. An we shall be merry, now comes in the sweet o' th' night.
  FALSTAFF. Health and long life to you, Master Silence!
  SILENCE.  [Singing]

         Fill the cup, and let it come,
         I'll pledge you a mile to th' bottom.

  SHALLOW. Honest Bardolph, welcome; if thou want'st anything and
    wilt not call, beshrew thy heart. Welcome, my little tiny thief
    and welcome indeed too. I'll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all
    the cabileros about London.
  DAVY. I hope to see London once ere I die.
  BARDOLPH. An I might see you there, Davy!
  SHALLOW. By the mass, you'R crack a quart together- ha! will you
    not, Master Bardolph?
  BARDOLPH. Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot.
  SHALLOW. By God's liggens, I thank thee. The knave will stick by
    thee, I can assure thee that. 'A will not out, 'a; 'tis true
    bred.
  BARDOLPH. And I'll stick by him, sir.
  SHALLOW. Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing; be merry.
    [One knocks at door]  Look who's at door there, ho! Who knocks?
                                                       Exit DAVY
  FALSTAFF.  [To SILENCE, who has drunk a bumper]  Why, now you have
    done me right.
  SILENCE.  [Singing]

         Do me right,
         And dub me knight.
           Samingo.

    Is't not so?
  FALSTAFF. 'Tis so.
  SILENCE. Is't so? Why then, say an old man can do somewhat.

                        Re-enter DAVY

  DAVY. An't please your worship, there's one Pistol come from the
    court with news.
  FALSTAFF. From the court? Let him come in.

                        Enter PISTOL

    How now, Pistol?
  PISTOL. Sir John, God save you!
  FALSTAFF. What wind blew you hither, Pistol?
  PISTOL. Not the ill wind which blows no man to good. Sweet knight,
    thou art now one of the greatest men in this realm.
  SILENCE. By'r lady, I think 'a be, but goodman Puff of Barson.
  PISTOL. Puff!
    Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!
    Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend,
    And helter-skelter have I rode to thee;
    And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys,
    And golden times, and happy news of price.
  FALSTAFF. I pray thee now, deliver them like a man of this world.
  PISTOL. A foutra for the world and worldlings base!
    I speak of Africa and golden joys.
  FALSTAFF. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?
    Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof.
  SILENCE.  [Singing]  And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.
  PISTOL. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons?
    And shall good news be baffled?
    Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap.
  SHALLOW. Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding.
  PISTOL. Why, then, lament therefore.
  SHALLOW. Give me pardon, sir. If, sir, you come with news from the
    court, I take it there's but two ways- either to utter them or
    conceal them. I am, sir, under the King, in some authority.
  PISTOL. Under which king, Bezonian? Speak, or die.
  SHALLOW. Under King Harry.
  PISTOL. Harry the Fourth- or Fifth?
  SHALLOW. Harry the Fourth.
  PISTOL. A foutra for thine office!
    Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is King;
    Harry the Fifth's the man. I speak the truth.
    When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like
    The bragging Spaniard.
  FALSTAFF. What, is the old king dead?
  PISTOL. As nail in door. The things I speak are just.
  FALSTAFF. Away, Bardolph! saddle my horse. Master Robert Shallow,
    choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine. Pistol, I
    will double-charge thee with dignities.
  BARDOLPH. O joyful day!
    I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.
  PISTOL. What, I do bring good news?
  FALSTAFF. Carry Master Silence to bed. Master Shallow, my Lord
    Shallow, be what thou wilt- I am Fortune's steward. Get on thy
    boots; we'll ride all night. O sweet Pistol! Away, Bardolph!
    [Exit BARDOLPH]  Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and withal
    devise something to do thyself good. Boot, boot, Master Shallow!
    I know the young King is sick for me. Let us take any man's
    horses: the laws of England are at my commandment. Blessed are
    they that have been my friends; and woe to my Lord Chief Justice!
  PISTOL. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!
    'Where is the life that late I led?' say they.
    Why, here it is; welcome these pleasant days!         Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. A street

Enter BEADLES, dragging in HOSTESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET

  HOSTESS. No, thou arrant knave; I would to God that I might die,
    that I might have thee hang'd. Thou hast drawn my shoulder out of
    joint.
  FIRST BEADLE. The constables have delivered her over to me; and she
    shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her. There hath been
    a man or two lately kill'd about her.
  DOLL. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what,
    thou damn'd tripe-visag'd rascal, an the child I now go with do
    miscarry, thou wert better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou
    paper-fac'd villain.
  HOSTESS. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! He would make this a
    bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb
    miscarry!
  FIRST BEADLE. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again;
    you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for
    the man is dead that you and Pistol beat amongst you.
  DOLL. I'll tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I will have you
    as soundly swing'd for this- you blue-bottle rogue, you filthy
    famish'd correctioner, if you be not swing'd, I'll forswear
    half-kirtles.
  FIRST BEADLE. Come, come, you she knight-errant, come.
  HOSTESS. O God, that right should thus overcome might!
    Well, of sufferance comes ease.
  DOLL. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice.
  HOSTESS. Ay, come, you starv'd bloodhound.
  DOLL. Goodman death, goodman bones!
  HOSTESS. Thou atomy, thou!
  DOLL. Come, you thin thing! come, you rascal!
  FIRST BEADLE. Very well.                                Exeunt

SCENE V. Westminster. Near the Abbey

Enter GROOMS, strewing rushes

  FIRST GROOM. More rushes, more rushes!
  SECOND GROOM. The trumpets have sounded twice.
  THIRD GROOM. 'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the
    coronation. Dispatch, dispatch.                       Exeunt

        Trumpets sound, and the KING and his train pass
       over the stage. After them enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW,
                  PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and page

  FALSTAFF. Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will make the
    King do you grace. I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do
    but mark the countenance that he will give me.
  PISTOL. God bless thy lungs, good knight!
  FALSTAFF. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.  [To SHALLOW]  O, if
    I had had to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the
    thousand pound I borrowed of you. But 'tis no matter; this poor
    show doth better; this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.
  SHALLOW. It doth so.
  FALSTAFF. It shows my earnestness of affection-
  SHALLOW. It doth so.
  FALSTAFF. My devotion-
  SHALLOW. It doth, it doth, it doth.
  FALSTAFF. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate,
    not to remember, not to have patience to shift me-
  SHALLOW. It is best, certain.
  FALSTAFF. But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with
    desire to see him; thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs
    else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but to
    see him.
  PISTOL. 'Tis 'semper idem' for 'obsque hoc nihil est.' 'Tis all in
    every part.
  SHALLOW. 'Tis so, indeed.
  PISTOL. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver
    And make thee rage.
    Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
    Is in base durance and contagious prison;
    Hal'd thither
    By most mechanical and dirty hand.
    Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's snake,
    For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.
  FALSTAFF. I will deliver her.
                         [Shouts,within, and the trumpets sound]
  PISTOL. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

        Enter the KING and his train, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
                               among them

  FALSTAFF. God save thy Grace, King Hal; my royal Hal!
  PISTOL. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!
  FALSTAFF. God save thee, my sweet boy!
  KING. My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Have you your wits? Know you what 'tis you speak?
  FALSTAFF. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!
  KING. I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.
    How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
    I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
    So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;
    But being awak'd, I do despise my dream.
    Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
    Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
    For thee thrice wider than for other men-
    Reply not to me with a fool-born jest;
    Presume not that I am the thing I was,
    For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
    That I have turn'd away my former self;
    So will I those that kept me company.
    When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
    Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
    The tutor and the feeder of my riots.
    Till then I banish thee, on pain of death,
    As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
    Not to come near our person by ten mile.
    For competence of life I will allow you,
    That lack of means enforce you not to evils;
    And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
    We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
    Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
    To see perform'd the tenour of our word.
    Set on.                        Exeunt the KING and his train
  FALSTAFF. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pounds.
  SHALLOW. Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have
    home with me.
  FALSTAFF. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at
    this; I shall be sent for in private to him. Look you, he must
    seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancements; I will be the
    man yet that shall make you great.
  SHALLOW. I cannot perceive how, unless you give me your doublet,
    and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me
    have five hundred of my thousand.
  FALSTAFF. Sir, I will be as good as my word. This that you heard
    was but a colour.
  SHALLOW. A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John.
  FALSTAFF. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, Lieutenant
    Pistol; come, Bardolph. I shall be sent for soon at night.

            Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE,
                            with officers

  CHIEF JUSTICE. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet;
    Take all his company along with him.
  FALSTAFF. My lord, my lord-
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I cannot now speak. I will hear you soon.
    Take them away.
  PISTOL. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta.
           Exeunt all but PRINCE JOHN and the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
  PRINCE JOHN. I like this fair proceeding of the King's.
    He hath intent his wonted followers
    Shall all be very well provided for;
    But all are banish'd till their conversations
    Appear more wise and modest to the world.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. And so they are.
  PRINCE JOHN. The King hath call'd his parliament, my lord.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. He hath.
  PRINCE JOHN. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,
    We bear our civil swords and native fire
    As far as France. I heard a bird so sing,
    Whose music, to my thinking, pleas'd the King.
    Come, will you hence?                                 Exeunt

EPILOGUE EPILOGUE.

  First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech. My fear, is your
  displeasure; my curtsy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons.
  If you look for a good speech now, you undo me; for what I have to
  say is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say will, I
  doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the
  venture. Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in
  the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to
  promise you a better. I meant, indeed, to pay you with this; which if
  like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my
  gentle creditors, lose. Here I promis'd you I would be, and here I
  commit my body to your mercies. Bate me some, and I will pay you
  some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely; and so I kneel
  down before you- but, indeed, to pray for the Queen. If my tongue
  cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs?
  And yet that were but light payment-to dance out of your debt. But a
  good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so would I.
  All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me. If the gentlemen will not,
  then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never
  seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you
  be not too much cloy'd with fat meat, our humble author will continue
  the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair
  Katherine of France; where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die
  of a sweat, unless already 'a be killed with your hard opinions; for
  Oldcastle died a martyr and this is not the man. My tongue is weary;
  when my legs are too, I will bid you good night.

THE END

1599



THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  CHORUS
  KING HENRY THE FIFTH
  DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, brother to the King
  DUKE OF BEDFORD,       "     "  "    "
  DUKE OF EXETER, Uncle to the King
  DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King
  EARL OF SALISBURY
  EARL OF WESTMORELAND
  EARL OF WARWICK
  ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
  BISHOP OF ELY

  EARL OF CAMBRIDGE, conspirator against the King
  LORD SCROOP,            "         "     "    "
  SIR THOMAS GREY,        "         "     "    "
  SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, officer in the King's army
  GOWER,                  "      "  "    "     "
  FLUELLEN,               "      "  "    "     "
  MACMORRIS,              "      "  "    "     "
  JAMY,                   "      "  "    "     "

  BATES,    soldier in the King's army
  COURT,       "    "   "    "     "
  WILLIAMS,    "    "   "    "     "
  NYM,         "    "   "    "     "
  BARDOLPH,    "    "   "    "     "
  PISTOL,      "    "   "    "     "

  BOY                               A HERALD

  CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France
  LEWIS, the Dauphin                DUKE OF BURGUNDY
  DUKE OF ORLEANS                   DUKE OF BRITAINE
  DUKE OF BOURBON                   THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE
  RAMBURES, French Lord
  GRANDPRE,    "    "
  GOVERNOR OF HARFLEUR              MONTJOY, a French herald
  AMBASSADORS to the King of England

  ISABEL, Queen of France
  KATHERINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel
  ALICE, a lady attending her
  HOSTESS of the Boar's Head, Eastcheap; formerly Mrs. Quickly, now
    married to Pistol

  Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, Attendants

                              SCENE: England and France

PROLOGUE PROLOGUE.

                          Enter CHORUS

 CHORUS. O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
   The brightest heaven of invention,
   A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
   And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
   Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
   Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
   Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire,
   Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
   The flat unraised spirits that hath dar'd
   On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
   So great an object. Can this cockpit hold
   The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
   Within this wooden O the very casques
   That did affright the air at Agincourt?
   O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
   Attest in little place a million;
   And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
   On your imaginary forces work.
   Suppose within the girdle of these walls
   Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
   Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
   The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.
   Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:
   Into a thousand parts divide one man,
   And make imaginary puissance;
   Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
   Printing their proud hoofs i' th' receiving earth;
   For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
   Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
   Turning th' accomplishment of many years
   Into an hour-glass; for the which supply,
   Admit me Chorus to this history;
   Who prologue-like, your humble patience pray
   Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.               Exit

ACT I. SCENE I. London. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and the BISHOP OF ELY

 CANTERBURY. My lord, I'll tell you: that self bill is urg'd
   Which in th' eleventh year of the last king's reign
   Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd
   But that the scambling and unquiet time
   Did push it out of farther question.
 ELY. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
 CANTERBURY. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
   We lose the better half of our possession;
   For all the temporal lands which men devout
   By testament have given to the church
   Would they strip from us; being valu'd thus-
   As much as would maintain, to the King's honour,
   Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
   Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
   And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
   Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,
   A hundred alms-houses right well supplied;
   And to the coffers of the King, beside,
   A thousand pounds by th' year: thus runs the bill.
 ELY. This would drink deep.
 CANTERBURY. 'T would drink the cup and all.
 ELY. But what prevention?
 CANTERBURY. The King is full of grace and fair regard.
 ELY. And a true lover of the holy Church.
 CANTERBURY. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.
   The breath no sooner left his father's body
   But that his wildness, mortified in him,
   Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,
   Consideration like an angel came
   And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,
   Leaving his body as a paradise
   T'envelop and contain celestial spirits.
   Never was such a sudden scholar made;
   Never came reformation in a flood,
   With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
   Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulnes
   So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
   As in this king.
 ELY. We are blessed in the change.
 CANTERBURY. Hear him but reason in divinity,
   And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
   You would desire the King were made a prelate;
   Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
   You would say it hath been all in all his study;
   List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
   A fearful battle rend'red you in music.
   Turn him to any cause of policy,
   The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
   Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
   The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
   And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears
   To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;
   So that the art and practic part of life
   Must be the mistress to this theoric;
   Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it,
   Since his addiction was to courses vain,
   His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow,
   His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
   And never noted in him any study,
   Any retirement, any sequestration
   From open haunts and popularity.
 ELY. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
   And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
   Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality;
   And so the Prince obscur'd his contemplation
   Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
   Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
   Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
 CANTERBURY. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd;
   And therefore we must needs admit the means
   How things are perfected.
 ELY. But, my good lord,
   How now for mitigation of this bill
   Urg'd by the Commons? Doth his Majesty
   Incline to it, or no?
 CANTERBURY. He seems indifferent
   Or rather swaying more upon our part
   Than cherishing th' exhibiters against us;
   For I have made an offer to his Majesty-
   Upon our spiritual convocation
   And in regard of causes now in hand,
   Which I have open'd to his Grace at large,
   As touching France- to give a greater sum
   Than ever at one time the clergy yet
   Did to his predecessors part withal.
 ELY. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
 CANTERBURY. With good acceptance of his Majesty;
   Save that there was not time enough to hear,
   As I perceiv'd his Grace would fain have done,
   The severals and unhidden passages
   Of his true tides to some certain dukedoms,
   And generally to the crown and seat of France,
   Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather.
 ELY. What was th' impediment that broke this off?
 CANTERBURY. The French ambassador upon that instant
   Crav'd audience; and the hour, I think, is come
   To give him hearing: is it four o'clock?
 ELY. It is.
 CANTERBURY. Then go we in, to know his embassy;
   Which I could with a ready guess declare,
   Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.
 ELY. I'll wait upon you, and I long to hear it.          Exeunt

SCENE II. London. The Presence Chamber in the KING'S palace

Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and
attendants

  KING HENRY. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?
  EXETER. Not here in presence.
  KING HENRY. Send for him, good uncle.
  WESTMORELAND. Shall we call in th' ambassador, my liege?
  KING HENRY. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolv'd,
    Before we hear him, of some things of weight
    That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.

              Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and
                       the BISHOP OF ELY

  CANTERBURY. God and his angels guard your sacred throne,
    And make you long become it!
  KING HENRY. Sure, we thank you.
    My learned lord, we pray you to proceed,
    And justly and religiously unfold
    Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
    Or should or should not bar us in our claim;
    And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
    That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
    Or nicely charge your understanding soul
    With opening titles miscreate whose right
    Suits not in native colours with the truth;
    For God doth know how many, now in health,
    Shall drop their blood in approbation
    Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
    Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
    How you awake our sleeping sword of war-
    We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;
    For never two such kingdoms did contend
    Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
    Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,
    'Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords
    That makes such waste in brief mortality.
    Under this conjuration speak, my lord;
    For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
    That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
    As pure as sin with baptism.
  CANTERBURY. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
    That owe yourselves, your lives, and services,
    To this imperial throne. There is no bar
    To make against your Highness' claim to France
    But this, which they produce from Pharamond:
    'In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant'-
    'No woman shall succeed in Salique land';
    Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
    To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
    The founder of this law and female bar.
    Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
    That the land Salique is in Germany,
    Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;
    Where Charles the Great, having subdu'd the Saxons,
    There left behind and settled certain French;
    Who, holding in disdain the German women
    For some dishonest manners of their life,
    Establish'd then this law: to wit, no female
    Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
    Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
    Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.
    Then doth it well appear the Salique law
    Was not devised for the realm of France;
    Nor did the French possess the Salique land
    Until four hundred one and twenty years
    After defunction of King Pharamond,
    Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;
    Who died within the year of our redemption
    Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
    Subdu'd the Saxons, and did seat the French
    Beyond the river Sala, in the year
    Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
    King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,
    Did, as heir general, being descended
    Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
    Make claim and title to the crown of France.
    Hugh Capet also, who usurp'd the crown
    Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male
    Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,
    To find his title with some shows of truth-
    Though in pure truth it was corrupt and naught-
    Convey'd himself as th' heir to th' Lady Lingare,
    Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
    To Lewis the Emperor, and Lewis the son
    Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,
    Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
    Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
    Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
    That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
    Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
    Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of Lorraine;
    By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great
    Was re-united to the Crown of France.
    So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
    King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,
    King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
    To hold in right and tide of the female;
    So do the kings of France unto this day,
    Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law
    To bar your Highness claiming from the female;
    And rather choose to hide them in a net
    Than amply to imbar their crooked tides
    Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.
  KING HENRY. May I with right and conscience make this claim?
  CANTERBURY. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
    For in the book of Numbers is it writ,
    When the man dies, let the inheritance
    Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
    Stand for your own, unwind your bloody flag,
    Look back into your mighty ancestors.
    Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb,
    From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
    And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,
    Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
    Making defeat on the fun power of France,
    Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
    Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp
    Forage in blood of French nobility.
    O noble English, that could entertain
    With half their forces the full pride of France,
    And let another half stand laughing by,
    All out of work and cold for action!
  ELY. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,
    And with your puissant arm renew their feats.
    You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;
    The blood and courage that renowned them
    Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
    Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
    Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
  EXETER. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
    Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
    As did the former lions of your blood.
  WESTMORELAND. They know your Grace hath cause and means and might-
    So hath your Highness; never King of England
    Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,
    Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England
    And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.
  CANTERBURY. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
    With blood and sword and fire to win your right!
    In aid whereof we of the spiritualty
    Will raise your Highness such a mighty sum
    As never did the clergy at one time
    Bring in to any of your ancestors.
  KING HENRY. We must not only arm t' invade the French,
    But lay down our proportions to defend
    Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
    With all advantages.
  CANTERBURY. They of those marches, gracious sovereign,
    Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
    Our inland from the pilfering borderers.
  KING HENRY. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,
    But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
    Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
    For you shall read that my great-grandfather
    Never went with his forces into France
    But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
    Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
    With ample and brim fulness of his force,
    Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,
    Girdling with grievous siege castles and towns;
    That England, being empty of defence,
    Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighbourhood.
  CANTERBURY. She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege;
    For hear her but exampled by herself:
    When all her chivalry hath been in France,
    And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
    She hath herself not only well defended
    But taken and impounded as a stray
    The King of Scots; whom she did send to France,
    To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings,
    And make her chronicle as rich with praise
    As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
    With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
  WESTMORELAND. But there's a saying, very old and true:

          'If that you will France win,
          Then with Scotland first begin.'

    For once the eagle England being in prey,
    To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
    Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs,
    Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
    To tear and havoc more than she can eat.
  EXETER. It follows, then, the cat must stay at home;
    Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,
    Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries
    And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
    While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
    Th' advised head defends itself at home;
    For government, though high, and low, and lower,
    Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
    Congreeing in a full and natural close,
    Like music.
  CANTERBURY. Therefore doth heaven divide
    The state of man in divers functions,
    Setting endeavour in continual motion;
    To which is fixed as an aim or but
    Obedience; for so work the honey bees,
    Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
    The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
    They have a king, and officers of sorts,
    Where some like magistrates correct at home;
    Others like merchants venture trade abroad;
    Others like soldiers, armed in their stings,
    Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
    Which pillage they with merry march bring home
    To the tent-royal of their emperor;
    Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
    The singing masons building roofs of gold,
    The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
    The poor mechanic porters crowding in
    Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
    The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,
    Delivering o'er to executors pale
    The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,
    That many things, having full reference
    To one consent, may work contrariously;
    As many arrows loosed several ways
    Come to one mark, as many ways meet in one town,
    As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,
    As many lines close in the dial's centre;
    So many a thousand actions, once afoot,
    End in one purpose, and be all well home
    Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.
    Divide your happy England into four;
    Whereof take you one quarter into France,
    And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
    If we, with thrice such powers left at home,
    Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,
    Let us be worried, and our nation lose
    The name of hardiness and policy.
  KING HENRY. Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.
                                          Exeunt some attendants
    Now are we well resolv'd; and, by God's help
    And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
    France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
    Or break it all to pieces; or there we'll sit,
    Ruling in large and ample empery
    O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,
    Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
    Tombless, with no remembrance over them.
    Either our history shall with full mouth
    Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,
    Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,
    Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.

                  Enter AMBASSADORS of France

    Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure
    Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear
    Your greeting is from him, not from the King.
  AMBASSADOR. May't please your Majesty to give us leave
    Freely to render what we have in charge;
    Or shall we sparingly show you far of
    The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy?
  KING HENRY. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,
    Unto whose grace our passion is as subject
    As are our wretches fett'red in our prisons;
    Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness
    Tell us the Dauphin's mind.
  AMBASSADOR. Thus then, in few.
    Your Highness, lately sending into France,
    Did claim some certain dukedoms in the right
    Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.
    In answer of which claim, the Prince our master
    Says that you savour too much of your youth,
    And bids you be advis'd there's nought in France
    That can be with a nimble galliard won;
    You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
    He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
    This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
    Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim
    Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.
  KING HENRY. What treasure, uncle?
  EXETER. Tennis-balls, my liege.
  KING HENRY. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
    His present and your pains we thank you for.
    When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
    We will in France, by God's grace, play a set
    Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
    Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
    That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
    With chaces. And we understand him well,
    How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
    Not measuring what use we made of them.
    We never valu'd this poor seat of England;
    And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
    To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common
    That men are merriest when they are from home.
    But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
    Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness,
    When I do rouse me in my throne of France;
    For that I have laid by my majesty
    And plodded like a man for working-days;
    But I will rise there with so full a glory
    That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
    Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
    And tell the pleasant Prince this mock of his
    Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones, and his soul
    Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
    That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows
    Shall this his mock mock of their dear husbands;
    Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
    And some are yet ungotten and unborn
    That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.
    But this lies all within the will of God,
    To whom I do appeal; and in whose name,
    Tell you the Dauphin, I am coming on,
    To venge me as I may and to put forth
    My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.
    So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin
    His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
    When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.
    Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.
                                              Exeunt AMBASSADORS
  EXETER. This was a merry message.
  KING HENRY. We hope to make the sender blush at it.
    Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour
    That may give furth'rance to our expedition;
    For we have now no thought in us but France,
    Save those to God, that run before our business.
    Therefore let our proportions for these wars
    Be soon collected, and all things thought upon
    That may with reasonable swiftness ad
    More feathers to our wings; for, God before,
    We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door.
    Therefore let every man now task his thought
    That this fair action may on foot be brought.         Exeunt

ACT II. PROLOGUE.

Flourish. Enter CHORUS

  CHORUS. Now all the youth of England are on fire,
    And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;
    Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought
    Reigns solely in the breast of every man;
    They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,
    Following the mirror of all Christian kings
    With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
    For now sits Expectation in the air,
    And hides a sword from hilts unto the point
    With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets,
    Promis'd to Harry and his followers.
    The French, advis'd by good intelligence
    Of this most dreadful preparation,
    Shake in their fear and with pale policy
    Seek to divert the English purposes.
    O England! model to thy inward greatness,
    Like little body with a mighty heart,
    What mightst thou do that honour would thee do,
    Were all thy children kind and natural!
    But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out
    A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills
    With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men-
    One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,
    Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,
    Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland,
    Have, for the gilt of France- O guilt indeed!-
    Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful France;
    And by their hands this grace of kings must die-
    If hell and treason hold their promises,
    Ere he take ship for France- and in Southampton.
    Linger your patience on, and we'll digest
    Th' abuse of distance, force a play.
    The sum is paid, the traitors are agreed,
    The King is set from London, and the scene
    Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton;
    There is the play-house now, there must you sit,
    And thence to France shall we convey you safe
    And bring you back, charming the narrow seas
    To give you gentle pass; for, if we may,
    We'll not offend one stomach with our play.
    But, till the King come forth, and not till then,
    Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.                 Exit

SCENE I. London. Before the Boar's Head Tavern, Eastcheap

Enter CORPORAL NYM and LIEUTENANT BARDOLPH

  BARDOLPH. Well met, Corporal Nym.
  NYM. Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph.
  BARDOLPH. What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends yet?
  NYM. For my part, I care not; I say little, but when time shall
    serve, there shall be smiles- but that shall be as it may. I dare
    not fight; but I will wink and hold out mine iron. It is a simple
    one; but what though? It will toast cheese, and it will endure
    cold as another man's sword will; and there's an end.
  BARDOLPH. I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends; and we'll
    be all three sworn brothers to France. Let't be so, good Corporal
    Nym.
  NYM. Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the certain of it;
    and when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may. That is my
    rest, that is the rendezvous of it.
  BARDOLPH. It is certain, Corporal, that he is married to Nell
    Quickly; and certainly she did you wrong, for you were
    troth-plight to her.
  NYM. I cannot tell; things must be as they may. Men may sleep, and
    they may have their throats about them at that time; and some say
    knives have edges. It must be as it may; though patience be a
    tired mare, yet she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I
    cannot tell.

                     Enter PISTOL and HOSTESS

  BARDOLPH. Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife. Good Corporal, be
    patient here.
  NYM. How now, mine host Pistol!
  PISTOL. Base tike, call'st thou me host?
    Now by this hand, I swear I scorn the term;
    Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.
  HOSTESS. No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and board a
    dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick of
    their needles, but it will be thought we keep a bawdy-house
    straight. [Nym draws] O well-a-day, Lady, if he be not drawn! Now
    we shall see wilful adultery and murder committed.
  BARDOLPH. Good Lieutenant, good Corporal, offer nothing here.
  NYM. Pish!
  PISTOL. Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prick-ear'd cur of
    Iceland!
  HOSTESS. Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour, and put up your sword.
  NYM. Will you shog off? I would have you solus.
  PISTOL. 'Solus,' egregious dog? O viper vile!
    The 'solus' in thy most mervailous face;
    The 'solus' in thy teeth, and in thy throat,
    And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy;
    And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!
    I do retort the 'solus' in thy bowels;
    For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,
    And flashing fire will follow.
  NYM. I am not Barbason: you cannot conjure me. I have an humour to
    knock you indifferently well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I
    will scour you with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms; if you
    would walk off I would prick your guts a little, in good terms,
    as I may, and thaes the humour of it.
  PISTOL. O braggart vile and damned furious wight!
    The grave doth gape and doting death is near;
    Therefore exhale.                             [PISTOL draws]
  BARDOLPH. Hear me, hear me what I say: he that strikes the first
    stroke I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier.
                                                         [Draws]
  PISTOL. An oath of mickle might; and fury shall abate.
                           [PISTOL and Nym sheathe their swords]
    Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give;
    Thy spirits are most tall.
  NYM. I will cut thy throat one time or other, in fair terms; that
    is the humour of it.
  PISTOL. 'Couple a gorge!'
    That is the word. I thee defy again.
    O hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get?
    No; to the spital go,
    And from the powd'ring tub of infamy
    Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,
    Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse.
    I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly
    For the only she; and- pauca, there's enough.
    Go to.

                        Enter the Boy

  BOY. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master; and your
    hostess- he is very sick, and would to bed. Good Bardolph, put
    thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan.
    Faith, he's very ill.
  BARDOLPH. Away, you rogue.
  HOSTESS. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these
    days: the King has kill'd his heart. Good husband, come home
    presently.                            Exeunt HOSTESS and BOY
  BARDOLPH. Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France
    together; why the devil should we keep knives to cut one
    another's throats?
  PISTOL. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!
  NYM. You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?
  PISTOL. Base is the slave that pays.
  NYM. That now I will have; that's the humour of it.
  PISTOL. As manhood shall compound: push home.
                                           [PISTOL and Nym draw]
  BARDOLPH. By this sword, he that makes the first thrust I'll kill
    him; by this sword, I will.
  PISTOL. Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course.
                                            [Sheathes his sword]
  BARDOLPH. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends; an
    thou wilt not, why then be enemies with me too. Prithee put up.
  NYM. I shall have my eight shillings I won of you at betting?
  PISTOL. A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;
    And liquor likewise will I give to thee,
    And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood.
    I'll live by Nym and Nym shall live by me.
    Is not this just? For I shall sutler be
    Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
    Give me thy hand.
  NYM. [Sheathing his sword] I shall have my noble?
  PISTOL. In cash most justly paid.
  NYM. [Shaking hands] Well, then, that's the humour of't.

                       Re-enter HOSTESS

  HOSTESS. As ever you come of women, come in quickly to Sir John.
    Ah, poor heart! he is so shak'd of a burning quotidian tertian
    that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.
  NYM. The King hath run bad humours on the knight; that's the even
    of it.
  PISTOL. Nym, thou hast spoke the right;
    His heart is fracted and corroborate.
  NYM. The King is a good king, but it must be as it may; he passes
    some humours and careers.
  PISTOL. Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, we will live.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Southampton. A council-chamber

Enter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND

  BEDFORD. Fore God, his Grace is bold, to trust these traitors.
  EXETER. They shall be apprehended by and by.
  WESTMORELAND. How smooth and even they do bear themselves,
    As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
    Crowned with faith and constant loyalty!
  BEDFORD. The King hath note of all that they intend,
    By interception which they dream not of.
  EXETER. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
    Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours-
    That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
    His sovereign's life to death and treachery!

               Trumpets sound. Enter the KING, SCROOP,
                  CAMBRIDGE, GREY, and attendants

  KING HENRY. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.
    My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham,
    And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts.
    Think you not that the pow'rs we bear with us
    Will cut their passage through the force of France,
    Doing the execution and the act
    For which we have in head assembled them?
  SCROOP. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.
  KING HENRY. I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded
    We carry not a heart with us from hence
    That grows not in a fair consent with ours;
    Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
    Success and conquest to attend on us.
  CAMBRIDGE. Never was monarch better fear'd and lov'd
    Than is your Majesty. There's not, I think, a subject
    That sits in heart-grief and uneasines
    Under the sweet shade of your government.
  GREY. True: those that were your father's enemies
    Have steep'd their galls in honey, and do serve you
    With hearts create of duty and of zeal.
  KING HENRY. We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,
    And shall forget the office of our hand
    Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
    According to the weight and worthiness.
  SCROOP. So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
    And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
    To do your Grace incessant services.
  KING HENRY. We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
    Enlarge the man committed yesterday
    That rail'd against our person. We consider
    It was excess of wine that set him on;
    And on his more advice we pardon him.
  SCROOP. That's mercy, but too much security.
    Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example
    Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
  KING HENRY. O, let us yet be merciful!
  CAMBRIDGE. So may your Highness, and yet punish too.
  GREY. Sir,
    You show great mercy if you give him life,
    After the taste of much correction.
  KING HENRY. Alas, your too much love and care of me
    Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch!
    If little faults proceeding on distemper
    Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye
    When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested,
    Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man,
    Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care
    And tender preservation of our person,
    Would have him punish'd. And now to our French causes:
    Who are the late commissioners?
  CAMBRIDGE. I one, my lord.
    Your Highness bade me ask for it to-day.
  SCROOP. So did you me, my liege.
  GREY. And I, my royal sovereign.
  KING HENRY. Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours;
    There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, Sir Knight,
    Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.
    Read them, and know I know your worthiness.
    My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter,
    We will aboard to-night. Why, how now, gentlemen?
    What see you in those papers, that you lose
    So much complexion? Look ye how they change!
    Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you there
    That have so cowarded and chas'd your blood
    Out of appearance?
  CAMBRIDGE. I do confess my fault,
    And do submit me to your Highness' mercy.
  GREY, SCROOP. To which we all appeal.
  KING HENRY. The mercy that was quick in us but late
   By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd.
    You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
    For your own reasons turn into your bosoms
    As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.
    See you, my princes and my noble peers,
    These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here-
    You know how apt our love was to accord
    To furnish him with an appertinents
    Belonging to his honour; and this man
    Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd,
    And sworn unto the practices of France
    To kill us here in Hampton; to the which
    This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
    Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O,
    What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel,
    Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature?
    Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
    That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
    That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,
    Wouldst thou have practis'd on me for thy use-
    May it be possible that foreign hire
    Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
    That might annoy my finger? 'Tis so strange
    That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
    As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
    Treason and murder ever kept together,
    As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
    Working so grossly in a natural cause
    That admiration did not whoop at them;
    But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
    Wonder to wait on treason and on murder;
    And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
    That wrought upon thee so preposterously
    Hath got the voice in hell for excellence;
    And other devils that suggest by treasons
    Do botch and bungle up damnation
    With patches, colours, and with forms, being fetch'd
    From glist'ring semblances of piety;
    But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,
    Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
    Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
    If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus
    Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
    He might return to vasty Tartar back,
    And tell the legions 'I can never win
    A soul so easy as that Englishman's.'
    O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
    The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
    Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned?
    Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?
    Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?
    Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,
    Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
    Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
    Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,
    Not working with the eye without the ear,
    And but in purged judgment trusting neither?
    Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem;
    And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot
    To mark the full-fraught man and best indued
    With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
    For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
    Another fall of man. Their faults are open.
    Arrest them to the answer of the law;
    And God acquit them of their practices!
  EXETER. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl
      of Cambridge.
    I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord Scroop
      of Masham.
    I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey,
      knight, of Northumberland.
  SCROOP. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd,
    And I repent my fault more than my death;
    Which I beseech your Highness to forgive,
    Although my body pay the price of it.
  CAMBRIDGE. For me, the gold of France did not seduce,
    Although I did admit it as a motive
    The sooner to effect what I intended;
    But God be thanked for prevention,
    Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
    Beseeching God and you to pardon me.
  GREY. Never did faithful subject more rejoice
    At the discovery of most dangerous treason
    Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,
    Prevented from a damned enterprise.
    My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
  KING HENRY. God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
    You have conspir'd against our royal person,
    Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers
    Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death;
    Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
    His princes and his peers to servitude,
    His subjects to oppression and contempt,
    And his whole kingdom into desolation.
    Touching our person seek we no revenge;
    But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
    Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
    We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
    Poor miserable wretches, to your death;
    The taste whereof God of his mercy give
    You patience to endure, and true repentance
    Of all your dear offences. Bear them hence.
                     Exeunt CAMBRIDGE, SCROOP, and GREY, guarded
    Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof
    Shall be to you as us like glorious.
    We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
    Since God so graciously hath brought to light
    This dangerous treason, lurking in our way
    To hinder our beginnings; we doubt not now
    But every rub is smoothed on our way.
    Then, forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver
    Our puissance into the hand of God,
    Putting it straight in expedition.
    Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance;
    No king of England, if not king of France!
                                                Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE III. Eastcheap. Before the Boar's Head tavern

Enter PISTOL, HOSTESS, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy

  HOSTESS. Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to
     Staines.
  PISTOL. No; for my manly heart doth earn.
    Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;
    Boy, bristle thy courage up. For Falstaff he is dead,
    And we must earn therefore.
  BARDOLPH. Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in
    heaven or in hell!
  HOSTESS. Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's bosom, if
    ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went
    away an it had been any christom child; 'a parted ev'n just
    between twelve and one, ev'n at the turning o' th' tide; for
    after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers,
    and smile upon his fingers' end, I knew there was but one way;
    for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbl'd of green
    fields. 'How now, Sir John!' quoth I 'What, man, be o' good
    cheer.' So 'a cried out 'God, God, God!' three or four times. Now
    I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I hop'd
    there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.
    So 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet; I put my hand into
    the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I
    felt to his knees, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold
    as any stone.
  NYM. They say he cried out of sack.
  HOSTESS. Ay, that 'a did.
  BARDOLPH. And of women.
  HOSTESS. Nay, that 'a did not.
  BOY. Yes, that 'a did, and said they were devils incarnate.
  HOSTESS. 'A could never abide carnation; 'twas a colour he never
    liked.
  BOY. 'A said once the devil would have him about women.
  HOSTESS. 'A did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was
    rheumatic, and talk'd of the Whore of Babylon.
  BOY. Do you not remember 'a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's nose,
    and 'a said it was a black soul burning in hell?
  BARDOLPH. Well, the fuel is gone that maintain'd that fire: that's
    all the riches I got in his service.
  NYM. Shall we shog? The King will be gone from Southampton.
  PISTOL. Come, let's away. My love, give me thy lips.
    Look to my chattles and my moveables;
    Let senses rule. The word is 'Pitch and Pay.'
    Trust none;
    For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,
    And Holdfast is the only dog, my duck.
    Therefore, Caveto be thy counsellor.
    Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,
    Let us to France, like horse-leeches, my boys,
    To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck.
  BOY. And that's but unwholesome food, they say.
  PISTOL. Touch her soft mouth and march.
  BARDOLPH. Farewell, hostess.                     [Kissing her]
  NYM. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but adieu.
  PISTOL. Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee command.
  HOSTESS. Farewell; adieu.                               Exeunt

SCENE IV. France. The KING'S palace

Flourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the DUKES OF BERRI and
BRITAINE, the CONSTABLE, and others

  FRENCH KING. Thus comes the English with full power upon us;
    And more than carefully it us concerns
    To answer royally in our defences.
    Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Britaine,
    Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,
    And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,
    To line and new repair our towns of war
    With men of courage and with means defendant;
    For England his approaches makes as fierce
    As waters to the sucking of a gulf.
    It fits us, then, to be as provident
    As fear may teach us, out of late examples
    Left by the fatal and neglected English
    Upon our fields.
  DAUPHIN. My most redoubted father,
    It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;
    For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,
    Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,
    But that defences, musters, preparations,
    Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,
    As were a war in expectation.
    Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all go forth
    To view the sick and feeble parts of France;
    And let us do it with no show of fear-
    No, with no more than if we heard that England
    Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance;
    For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,
    Her sceptre so fantastically borne
    By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
    That fear attends her not.
  CONSTABLE. O peace, Prince Dauphin!
    You are too much mistaken in this king.
    Question your Grace the late ambassadors
    With what great state he heard their embassy,
    How well supplied with noble counsellors,
    How modest in exception, and withal
    How terrible in constant resolution,
    And you shall find his vanities forespent
    Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
    Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
    As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
    That shall first spring and be most delicate.
  DAUPHIN. Well, 'tis not so, my Lord High Constable;
    But though we think it so, it is no matter.
    In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh
    The enemy more mighty than he seems;
    So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
    Which of a weak and niggardly projection
    Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting
    A little cloth.
  FRENCH KING. Think we King Harry strong;
    And, Princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
    The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;
    And he is bred out of that bloody strain
    That haunted us in our familiar paths.
    Witness our too much memorable shame
    When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
    And all our princes capdv'd by the hand
    Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;
    Whiles that his mountain sire- on mountain standing,
    Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun-
    Saw his heroical seed, and smil'd to see him,
    Mangle the work of nature, and deface
    The patterns that by God and by French fathers
    Had twenty years been made. This is a stern
    Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
    The native mightiness and fate of him.

                      Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Ambassadors from Harry King of England
    Do crave admittance to your Majesty.
  FRENCH KING. We'll give them present audience. Go and bring them.
                              Exeunt MESSENGER and certain LORDS
    You see this chase is hotly followed, friends.
  DAUPHIN. Turn head and stop pursuit; for coward dogs
    Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten
    Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,
    Take up the English short, and let them know
    Of what a monarchy you are the head.
    Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
    As self-neglecting.

               Re-enter LORDS, with EXETER and train

  FRENCH KING. From our brother of England?
  EXETER. From him, and thus he greets your Majesty:
    He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,
    That you divest yourself, and lay apart
    The borrowed glories that by gift of heaven,
    By law of nature and of nations, 'longs
    To him and to his heirs- namely, the crown,
    And all wide-stretched honours that pertain,
    By custom and the ordinance of times,
    Unto the crown of France. That you may know
    'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,
    Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
    Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd,
    He sends you this most memorable line,       [Gives a paper]
    In every branch truly demonstrative;
    Willing you overlook this pedigree.
    And when you find him evenly deriv'd
    From his most fam'd of famous ancestors,
    Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
    Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
    From him, the native and true challenger.
  FRENCH KING. Or else what follows?
  EXETER. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
    Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it.
    Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
    In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
    That if requiring fail, he will compel;
    And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
    Deliver up the crown; and to take mercy
    On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
    Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
    Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
    The dead men's blood, the privy maidens' groans,
    For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,
    That shall be swallowed in this controversy.
    This is his claim, his threat'ning, and my message;
    Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
    To whom expressly I bring greeting too.
  FRENCH KING. For us, we will consider of this further;
    To-morrow shall you bear our full intent
    Back to our brother of England.
  DAUPHIN. For the Dauphin:
    I stand here for him. What to him from England?
  EXETER. Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,
    And anything that may not misbecome
    The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
    Thus says my king: an if your father's Highness
    Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
    Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his Majesty,
    He'll call you to so hot an answer of it
    That caves and womby vaultages of France
    Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
    In second accent of his ordinance.
  DAUPHIN. Say, if my father render fair return,
    It is against my will; for I desire
    Nothing but odds with England. To that end,
    As matching to his youth and vanity,
    I did present him with the Paris balls.
  EXETER. He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
    Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe;
    And be assur'd you'll find a difference,
    As we his subjects have in wonder found,
    Between the promise of his greener days
    And these he masters now. Now he weighs time
    Even to the utmost grain; that you shall read
    In your own losses, if he stay in France.
  FRENCH KING. To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.
  EXETER. Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king
    Come here himself to question our delay;
    For he is footed in this land already.
  FRENCH KING. You shall be soon dispatch'd with fair conditions.
    A night is but small breath and little pause
    To answer matters of this consequence.      Flourish. Exeunt

ACT III. PROLOGUE.

Flourish. Enter CHORUS

  CHORUS. Thus with imagin'd wing our swift scene flies,
    In motion of no less celerity
    Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
    The well-appointed King at Hampton pier
    Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet
    With silken streamers the young Phorbus fanning.
    Play with your fancies; and in them behold
    Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
    Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
    To sounds confus'd; behold the threaden sails,
    Borne with th' invisible and creeping wind,
    Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,
    Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think
    You stand upon the rivage and behold
    A city on th' inconstant billows dancing;
    For so appears this fleet majestical,
    Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!
    Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy
    And leave your England as dead midnight still,
    Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,
    Either past or not arriv'd to pith and puissance;
    For who is he whose chin is but enrich'd
    With one appearing hair that will not follow
    These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
    Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege;
    Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
    With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
    Suppose th' ambassador from the French comes back;
    Tells Harry that the King doth offer him
    Katherine his daughter, and with her to dowry
    Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.
    The offer likes not; and the nimble gunner
    With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,
                                   [Alarum, and chambers go off]
    And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
    And eke out our performance with your mind.             Exit

SCENE I. France. Before Harfleur

Alarum. Enter the KING, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, and soldiers with
scaling-ladders

  KING. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
    Or close the wall up with our English dead.
    In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
    As modest stillness and humility;
    But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
    Then imitate the action of the tiger:
    Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
    Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
    Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
    Let it pry through the portage of the head
    Like the brass cannon: let the brow o'erwhelm it
    As fearfully as doth a galled rock
    O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
    Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
    Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide;
    Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
    To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
    Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof-
    Fathers that like so many Alexanders
    Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
    And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
    Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
    That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
    Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
    And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
    Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
    The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
    That you are worth your breeding- which I doubt not;
    For there is none of you so mean and base
    That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
    I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
    Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
    Follow your spirit; and upon this charge
    Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
                           [Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off]

SCENE II. Before Harfleur

Enter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and BOY

  BARDOLPH. On, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach!
  NYM. Pray thee, Corporal, stay; the knocks are too hot, and for
    mine own part I have not a case of lives. The humour of it is too
    hot; that is the very plain-song of it.
  PISTOL. The plain-song is most just; for humours do abound:

        Knocks go and come; God's vassals drop and die;
                    And sword and shield
                    In bloody field
                 Doth win immortal fame.

  BOY. Would I were in an alehouse in London! I wouid give all my
    fame for a pot of ale and safety.
  PISTOL. And I:

               If wishes would prevail with me,
               My purpose should not fail with me,
                   But thither would I hie.

  BOY.             As duly, but not as truly,
                   As bird doth sing on bough.

                         Enter FLUELLEN

  FLUELLEN. Up to the breach, you dogs!
    Avaunt, you cullions!                 [Driving them forward]
  PISTOL. Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould.
    Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage;
    Abate thy rage, great duke.
    Good bawcock, bate thy rage. Use lenity, sweet chuck.
  NYM. These be good humours. Your honour wins bad humours.
                                              Exeunt all but BOY
  BOY. As young as I am, I have observ'd these three swashers. I am
    boy to them all three; but all they three, though they would
    serve me, could not be man to me; for indeed three such antics do
    not amount to a man. For Bardolph, he is white-liver'd and
    red-fac'd; by the means whereof 'a faces it out, but fights not.
    For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword; by the
    means whereof 'a breaks words and keeps whole weapons. For Nym,
    he hath heard that men of few words are the best men, and
    therefore he scorns to say his prayers lest 'a should be thought
    a coward; but his few bad words are match'd with as few good
    deeds; for 'a never broke any man's head but his own, and that
    was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal anything,
    and call it purchase. Bardolph stole a lute-case, bore it twelve
    leagues, and sold it for three halfpence. Nym and Bardolph are
    sworn brothers in filching, and in Calais they stole a
    fire-shovel; I knew by that piece of service the men would carry
    coals. They would have me as familiar with men's pockets as their
    gloves or their handkerchers; which makes much against my
    manhood, if I should take from another's pocket to put into mine;
    for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I must leave them and
    seek some better service; their villainy goes against my weak
    stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.               Exit

                 Re-enter FLUELLEN, GOWER following

  GOWER. Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the mines; the
    Duke of Gloucester would speak with you.
  FLUELLEN. To the mines! Tell you the Duke it is not so good to come
    to the mines; for, look you, the mines is not according to the
    disciplines of the war; the concavities of it is not sufficient.
    For, look you, th' athversary- you may discuss unto the Duke,
    look you- is digt himself four yard under the countermines; by
    Cheshu, I think 'a will plow up all, if there is not better
    directions.
  GOWER. The Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of the siege is
    given, is altogether directed by an Irishman- a very vallant
    gentleman, i' faith.
  FLUELLEN. It is Captain Macmorris, is it not?
  GOWER. I think it be.
  FLUELLEN. By Cheshu, he is an ass, as in the world: I will verify
    as much in his beard; he has no more directions in the true
    disciplines of the wars, look you, of the Roman disciplines, than
    is a puppy-dog.

                 Enter MACMORRIS and CAPTAIN JAMY

  GOWER. Here 'a comes; and the Scots captain, Captain Jamy, with
    him.
  FLUELLEN. Captain Jamy is a marvellous falorous gentleman, that is
    certain, and of great expedition and knowledge in th' aunchient
    wars, upon my particular knowledge of his directions. By Cheshu,
    he will maintain his argument as well as any military man in the
    world, in the disciplines of the pristine wars of the Romans.
  JAMY. I say gud day, Captain Fluellen.
  FLUELLEN. God-den to your worship, good Captain James.
  GOWER. How now, Captain Macmorris! Have you quit the mines? Have
    the pioneers given o'er?
  MACMORRIS. By Chrish, la, tish ill done! The work ish give over,
    the trompet sound the retreat. By my hand, I swear, and my
    father's soul, the work ish ill done; it ish give over; I would
    have blowed up the town, so Chrish save me, la, in an hour. O,
    tish ill done, tish ill done; by my hand, tish ill done!
  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will you voutsafe
    me, look you, a few disputations with you, as partly touching or
    concerning the disciplines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way
    of argument, look you, and friendly communication; partly to
    satisfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction, look you, of
    my mind, as touching the direction of the military discipline,
    that is the point.
  JAMY. It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captains bath; and I sall
    quit you with gud leve, as I may pick occasion; that sall I,
    marry.
  MACMORRIS. It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me. The day
    is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the King, and the
    Dukes; it is no time to discourse. The town is beseech'd, and the
    trumpet call us to the breach; and we talk and, be Chrish, do
    nothing. 'Tis shame for us all, so God sa' me, 'tis shame to
    stand still; it is shame, by my hand; and there is throats to be
    cut, and works to be done; and there ish nothing done, so Chrish
    sa' me, la.
  JAMY. By the mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves to
    slomber, ay'll de gud service, or I'll lig i' th' grund for it;
    ay, or go to death. And I'll pay't as valorously as I may, that
    sall I suerly do, that is the breff and the long. Marry, I wad
    full fain heard some question 'tween you tway.
  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your
    correction, there is not many of your nation-
  MACMORRIS. Of my nation? What ish my nation? Ish a villain, and a
    bastard, and a knave, and a rascal. What ish my nation? Who talks
    of my nation?
  FLUELLEN. Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is meant,
    Captain Macmorris, peradventure I shall think you do not use me
    with that affability as in discretion you ought to use me, look
    you; being as good a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of
    war and in the derivation of my birth, and in other
    particularities.
  MACMORRIS. I do not know you so good a man as myself; so
    Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.
  GOWER. Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.
  JAMY. Ah! that's a foul fault.              [A parley sounded]
  GOWER. The town sounds a parley.
  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, when there is more better opportunity
    to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know
    the disciplines of war; and there is an end.          Exeunt

SCENE III. Before the gates of Harfleur

Enter the GOVERNOR and some citizens on the walls.  Enter the KING and
all his train before the gates

  KING HENRY. How yet resolves the Governor of the town?
    This is the latest parle we will admit;
    Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves
    Or, like to men proud of destruction,
    Defy us to our worst; for, as I am a soldier,
    A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
    If I begin the batt'ry once again,
    I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
    Till in her ashes she lie buried.
    The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
    And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,
    In liberty of bloody hand shall range
    With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
    Your fresh fair virgins and your flow'ring infants.
    What is it then to me if impious war,
    Array'd in flames, like to the prince of fiends,
    Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
    Enlink'd to waste and desolation?
    What is't to me when you yourselves are cause,
    If your pure maidens fall into the hand
    Of hot and forcing violation?
    What rein can hold licentious wickednes
    When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
    We may as bootless spend our vain command
    Upon th' enraged soldiers in their spoil,
    As send precepts to the Leviathan
    To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
    Take pity of your town and of your people
    Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
    Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
    O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
    Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy.
    If not- why, in a moment look to see
    The blind and bloody with foul hand
    Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
    Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
    And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls;
    Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
    Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd
    Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
    At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
    What say you? Will you yield, and this avoid?
    Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?
  GOVERNOR. Our expectation hath this day an end:
    The Dauphin, whom of succours we entreated,
    Returns us that his powers are yet not ready
    To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great King,
    We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.
    Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours;
    For we no longer are defensible.
  KING HENRY. Open your gates. [Exit GOVERNOR] Come, uncle Exeter,
    Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain,
    And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French;
    Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,
    The winter coming on, and sickness growing
    Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.
    To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest;
    To-morrow for the march are we addrest.
               [Flourish. The KING and his train enter the town]

SCENE IV. Rouen. The FRENCH KING'S palace

Enter KATHERINE and ALICE

  KATHERINE. Alice, tu as ete en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le
    langage.
  ALICE. Un peu, madame.
  KATHERINE. Je te prie, m'enseignez; il faut que j'apprenne a
    parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en Anglais?
  ALICE. La main? Elle est appelee de hand.
  KATHERINE. De hand. Et les doigts?
  ALICE. Les doigts? Ma foi, j'oublie les doigts; mais je me
    souviendrai. Les doigts? Je pense qu'ils sont appeles de fingres;
    oui, de fingres.
  KATHERINE. La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense que
    je suis le bon ecolier; j'ai gagne deux mots d'Anglais vitement.
    Comment appelez-vous les ongles?
  ALICE. Les ongles? Nous les appelons de nails.
  KATHERINE. De nails. Ecoutez; dites-moi si je parle bien: de hand,
    de fingres, et de nails.
  ALICE. C'est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Anglais.
  KATHERINE. Dites-moi l'Anglais pour le bras.
  ALICE. De arm, madame.
  KATHERINE. Et le coude?
  ALICE. D'elbow.
  KATHERINE. D'elbow. Je m'en fais la repetition de tous les mots que
    vous m'avez appris des a present.
  ALICE. Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.
  KATHERINE. Excusez-moi, Alice; ecoutez: d'hand, de fingre, de
    nails, d'arma, de bilbow.
  ALICE. D'elbow, madame.
  KATHERINE. O Seigneur Dieu, je m'en oublie! D'elbow.
    Comment appelez-vous le col?
  ALICE. De nick, madame.
  KATHERINE. De nick. Et le menton?
  ALICE. De chin.
  KATHERINE. De sin. Le col, de nick; le menton, de sin.
  ALICE. Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en verite, vous prononcez les mots
    aussi droit que les natifs d'Angleterre.
  KATHERINE. Je ne doute point d'apprendre, par la grace de Dieu, et
    en peu de temps.
  ALICE. N'avez-vous pas deja oublie ce que je vous ai enseigne?
  KATHERINE. Non, je reciterai a vous promptement: d'hand, de fingre,
    de mails-
  ALICE. De nails, madame.
  KATHERINE. De nails, de arm, de ilbow.
  ALICE. Sauf votre honneur, d'elbow.
  KATHERINE. Ainsi dis-je; d'elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment
    appelez-vous le pied et la robe?
  ALICE. Le foot, madame; et le count.
  KATHERINE. Le foot et le count. O Seigneur Dieu! ils sont mots de
    son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les
    dames d'honneur d'user: je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant
    les seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le
    count! Neanmoins, je reciterai une autre fois ma lecon ensemble:
    d'hand, de fingre, de nails, d'arm, d'elbow, de nick, de sin, de
    foot, le count.
  ALICE. Excellent, madame!
  KATHERINE. C'est assez pour une fois: allons-nous a diner.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE V. The FRENCH KING'S palace

Enter the KING OF FRANCE, the DAUPHIN, DUKE OF BRITAINE, the CONSTABLE
OF FRANCE, and others

  FRENCH KING. 'Tis certain he hath pass'd the river Somme.
  CONSTABLE. And if he be not fought withal, my lord,
    Let us not live in France; let us quit an,
    And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.
  DAUPHIN. O Dieu vivant! Shall a few sprays of us,
    The emptying of our fathers' luxury,
    Our scions, put in wild and savage stock,
    Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds,
    And overlook their grafters?
  BRITAINE. Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!
    Mort Dieu, ma vie! if they march along
    Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom
    To buy a slobb'ry and a dirty farm
    In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.
  CONSTABLE. Dieu de batailles! where have they this mettle?
    Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull;
    On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
    Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,
    A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley-broth,
    Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?
    And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
    Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,
    Let us not hang like roping icicles
    Upon our houses' thatch, whiles a more frosty people
    Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields-
    Poor we call them in their native lords!
  DAUPHIN. By faith and honour,
    Our madams mock at us and plainly say
    Our mettle is bred out, and they will give
    Their bodies to the lust of English youth
    To new-store France with bastard warriors.
  BRITAINE. They bid us to the English dancing-schools
    And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos,
    Saying our grace is only in our heels
    And that we are most lofty runaways.
  FRENCH KING. Where is Montjoy the herald? Speed him hence;
    Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.
    Up, Princes, and, with spirit of honour edged
    More sharper than your swords, hie to the field:
    Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;
    You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri,
    Alengon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;
    Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,
    Beaumont, Grandpre, Roussi, and Fauconbridge,
    Foix, Lestrake, Bouciqualt, and Charolois;
    High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and knights,
    For your great seats now quit you of great shames.
    Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
    With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur.
    Rush on his host as doth the melted snow
    Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat
    The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon;
    Go down upon him, you have power enough,
    And in a captive chariot into Rouen
    Bring him our prisoner.
  CONSTABLE. This becomes the great.
    Sorry am I his numbers are so few,
    His soldiers sick and famish'd in their march;
    For I am sure, when he shall see our army,
    He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear,
    And for achievement offer us his ransom.
  FRENCH KING. Therefore, Lord Constable, haste on Montjoy,
    And let him say to England that we send
    To know what willing ransom he will give.
    Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen.
  DAUPHIN. Not so, I do beseech your Majesty.
  FRENCH KING. Be patient, for you shall remain with us.
    Now forth, Lord Constable and Princes all,
    And quickly bring us word of England's fall.          Exeunt

SCENE VI. The English camp in Picardy

Enter CAPTAINS, English and Welsh, GOWER and FLUELLEN

  GOWER. How now, Captain Fluellen! Come you from the bridge?
  FLUELLEN. I assure you there is very excellent services committed
    at the bridge.
  GOWER. Is the Duke of Exeter safe?
  FLUELLEN. The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon; and a
    man that I love and honour with my soul, and my heart, and my
    duty, and my live, and my living, and my uttermost power. He is
    not- God be praised and blessed!- any hurt in the world, but
    keeps the bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There
    is an aunchient Lieutenant there at the bridge- I think in my
    very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is
    man of no estimation in the world; but I did see him do as
    gallant service.
  GOWER. What do you call him?
  FLUELLEN. He is call'd Aunchient Pistol.
  GOWER. I know him not.

                            Enter PISTOL

  FLUELLEN. Here is the man.
  PISTOL. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours.
    The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.
  FLUELLEN. Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at his
    hands.
  PISTOL. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,
    And of buxom valour, hath by cruel fate
    And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel,
    That goddess blind,
    That stands upon the rolling restless stone-
  FLUELLEN. By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted
    blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that
    Fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to
    signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning,
    and inconstant, and mutability, and variation; and her foot, look
    you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and
    rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description
    of it: Fortune is an excellent moral.
  PISTOL. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;
    For he hath stol'n a pax, and hanged must 'a be-
    A damned death!
    Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free,
    And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate.
    But Exeter hath given the doom of death
    For pax of little price.
    Therefore, go speak- the Duke will hear thy voice;
    And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut
    With edge of penny cord and vile reproach.
    Speak, Captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.
  FLUELLEN. Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.
  PISTOL. Why then, rejoice therefore.
  FLUELLEN. Certainly, Aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice at;
    for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the Duke to
    use his good pleasure, and put him to execution; for discipline
    ought to be used.
  PISTOL. Die and be damn'd! and figo for thy friendship!
  FLUELLEN. It is well.
  PISTOL. The fig of Spain!                                 Exit
  FLUELLEN. Very good.
  GOWER. Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I remember him
    now- a bawd, a cutpurse.
  FLUELLEN. I'll assure you, 'a utt'red as prave words at the pridge
    as you shall see in a summer's day. But it is very well; what he
    has spoke to me, that is well, I warrant you, when time is serve.
  GOWER. Why, 'tis a gull a fool a rogue, that now and then goes to
    the wars to grace himself, at his return into London, under the
    form of a soldier. And such fellows are perfect in the great
    commanders' names; and they will learn you by rote where services
    were done- at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at such a
    convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgrac'd, what
    terms the enemy stood on; and this they con perfectly in the
    phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned oaths; and what
    a beard of the General's cut and a horrid suit of the camp will
    do among foaming bottles and ale-wash'd wits is wonderful to be
    thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders of the age,
    or else you may be marvellously mistook.
  FLUELLEN. I tell you what, Captain Gower, I do perceive he is not
    the man that he would gladly make show to the world he is; if I
    find a hole in his coat I will tell him my mind. [Drum within]
    Hark you, the King is coming; and I must speak with him from the
    pridge.

         Drum and colours. Enter the KING and his poor soldiers,
                          and GLOUCESTER

    God pless your Majesty!
  KING HENRY. How now, Fluellen! Cam'st thou from the bridge?
  FLUELLEN. Ay, so please your Majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very
    gallantly maintain'd the pridge; the French is gone off, look
    you, and there is gallant and most prave passages. Marry, th'
    athversary was have possession of the pridge; but he is enforced
    to retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of the pridge; I can
    tell your Majesty the Duke is a prave man.
  KING HENRY. What men have you lost, Fluellen!
  FLUELLEN. The perdition of th' athversary hath been very great,
    reasonable great; marry, for my part, I think the Duke hath lost
    never a man, but one that is like to be executed for robbing a
    church- one Bardolph, if your Majesty know the man; his face is
    all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o' fire; and his
    lips blows at his nose, and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes
    plue and sometimes red; but his nose is executed and his fire's
    out.
  KING HENRY. We would have all such offenders so cut off. And we
    give express charge that in our marches through the country there
    be nothing compell'd from the villages, nothing taken but paid
    for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful
    language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom the
    gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

                        Tucket. Enter MONTJOY

  MONTJOY. You know me by my habit.
  KING HENRY. Well then, I know thee; what shall I know of thee?
  MONTJOY. My master's mind.
  KING HENRY. Unfold it.
  MONTJOY. Thus says my king. Say thou to Harry of England: Though we
    seem'd dead we did but sleep; advantage is a better soldier than
    rashness. Tell him we could have rebuk'd him at Harfleur, but
    that we thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full
    ripe. Now we speak upon our cue, and our voice is imperial:
    England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our
    sufferance. Bid him therefore consider of his ransom, which must
    proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost,
    the disgrace we have digested; which, in weight to re-answer, his
    pettiness would bow under. For our losses his exchequer is too
    poor; for th' effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom
    too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person kneeling
    at our feet but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add
    defiance; and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his
    followers, whose condemnation is pronounc'd. So far my king and
    master; so much my office.
  KING HENRY. What is thy name? I know thy quality.
  MONTJOY. Montjoy.
  KING HENRY. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,
    And tell thy king I do not seek him now,
    But could be willing to march on to Calais
    Without impeachment; for, to say the sooth-
    Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much
    Unto an enemy of craft and vantage-
    My people are with sickness much enfeebled;
    My numbers lessen'd; and those few I have
    Almost no better than so many French;
    Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
    I thought upon one pair of English legs
    Did march three Frenchmen. Yet forgive me, God,
    That I do brag thus; this your air of France
    Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.
    Go, therefore, tell thy master here I am;
    My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk;
    My army but a weak and sickly guard;
    Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
    Though France himself and such another neighbour
    Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.
    Go, bid thy master well advise himself.
    If we may pass, we will; if we be hind'red,
    We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
    Discolour; and so, Montjoy, fare you well.
    The sum of all our answer is but this:
    We would not seek a battle as we are;
    Nor as we are, we say, we will not shun it.
    So tell your master.
  MONTJOY. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness.     Exit
  GLOUCESTER. I hope they will not come upon us now.
  KING HENRY. We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.
    March to the bridge, it now draws toward night;
    Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,
    And on to-morrow bid them march away.                 Exeunt

SCENE VII. The French camp near Agincourt

Enter the CONSTABLE OF FRANCE, the LORD RAMBURES, the DUKE OF ORLEANS,
the DAUPHIN, with others

  CONSTABLE. Tut! I have the best armour of the world.
    Would it were day!
  ORLEANS. You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his
    due.
  CONSTABLE. It is the best horse of Europe.
  ORLEANS. Will it never be morning?
  DAUPHIN. My Lord of Orleans and my Lord High Constable, you talk of
    horse and armour?
  ORLEANS. You are as well provided of both as any prince in the
    world.
  DAUPHIN. What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with
    any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! he bounds from the
    earth as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the
    Pegasus, chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him I soar, I
    am a hawk. He trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it;
    the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of
    Hermes.
  ORLEANS. He's of the colour of the nutmeg.
  DAUPHIN. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus:
    he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water
    never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his
    rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you
    may call beasts.
  CONSTABLE. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent
    horse.
  DAUPHIN. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the
    bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.
  ORLEANS. No more, cousin.
  DAUPHIN. Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the rising of
    the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my
    palfrey. It is a theme as fluent as the sea: turn the sands into
    eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: 'tis a
    subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's
    sovereign to ride on; and for the world- familiar to us and
    unknown- to lay apart their particular functions and wonder at
    him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus: 'Wonder
    of nature'-
  ORLEANS. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.
  DAUPHIN. Then did they imitate that which I compos'd to my courser;
    for my horse is my mistress.
  ORLEANS. Your mistress bears well.
  DAUPHIN. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a
    good and particular mistress.
  CONSTABLE. Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly
    shook your back.
  DAUPHIN. So perhaps did yours.
  CONSTABLE. Mine was not bridled.
  DAUPHIN. O, then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode like a
    kern of Ireland, your French hose off and in your strait
    strossers.
  CONSTABLE. You have good judgment in horsemanship.
  DAUPHIN. Be warn'd by me, then: they that ride so, and ride not
    warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have my horse to my
    mistress.
  CONSTABLE. I had as lief have my mistress a jade.
  DAUPHIN. I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears his own hair.
  CONSTABLE. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to
    my mistress.
  DAUPHIN. 'Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et la
    truie lavee au bourbier.' Thou mak'st use of anything.
  CONSTABLE. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such
    proverb so little kin to the purpose.
  RAMBURES. My Lord Constable, the armour that I saw in your tent
    to-night- are those stars or suns upon it?
  CONSTABLE. Stars, my lord.
  DAUPHIN. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.
  CONSTABLE. And yet my sky shall not want.
  DAUPHIN. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and 'twere
    more honour some were away.
  CONSTABLE. Ev'n as your horse bears your praises, who would trot as
    well were some of your brags dismounted.
  DAUPHIN. Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will it
    never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be
    paved with English faces.
  CONSTABLE. I will not say so, for fear I should be fac'd out of my
    way; but I would it were morning, for I would fain be about the
    ears of the English.
  RAMBURES. Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
  CONSTABLE. You must first go yourself to hazard ere you have them.
  DAUPHIN. 'Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself.               Exit
  ORLEANS. The Dauphin longs for morning.
  RAMBURES. He longs to eat the English.
  CONSTABLE. I think he will eat all he kills.
  ORLEANS. By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince.
  CONSTABLE. Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.
  ORLEANS. He is simply the most active gentleman of France.
  CONSTABLE. Doing is activity, and he will still be doing.
  ORLEANS. He never did harm that I heard of.
  CONSTABLE. Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name
    still.
  ORLEANS. I know him to be valiant.
  CONSTABLE. I was told that by one that knows him better than you.
  ORLEANS. What's he?
  CONSTABLE. Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he car'd not
    who knew it.
  ORLEANS. He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.
  CONSTABLE. By my faith, sir, but it is; never anybody saw it but
      his lackey.
    'Tis a hooded valour, and when it appears it will bate.
  ORLEANS. Ill-wind never said well.
  CONSTABLE. I will cap that proverb with 'There is flattery in
    friendship.'
  ORLEANS. And I will take up that with 'Give the devil his due.'
  CONSTABLE. Well plac'd! There stands your friend for the devil;
    have at the very eye of that proverb with 'A pox of the devil!'
  ORLEANS. You are the better at proverbs by how much 'A fool's bolt
    is soon shot.'
  CONSTABLE. You have shot over.
  ORLEANS. 'Tis not the first time you were overshot.

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen
    hundred paces of your tents.
  CONSTABLE. Who hath measur'd the ground?
  MESSENGER. The Lord Grandpre.
  CONSTABLE. A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were day!
    Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for the dawning as we
    do.
  ORLEANS. What a wretched and peevish fellow is this King of
    England, to mope with his fat-brain'd followers so far out of his
    knowledge!
  CONSTABLE. If the English had any apprehension, they would run
    away.
  ORLEANS. That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual
    armour, they could never wear such heavy head-pieces.
  RAMBURES. That island of England breeds very valiant creatures;
    their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
  ORLEANS. Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian
    bear, and have their heads crush'd like rotten apples! You may as
    well say that's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the
    lip of a lion.
  CONSTABLE. Just, just! and the men do sympathise with the mastiffs
    in robustious and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their
    wives; and then give them great meals of beef and iron and steel;
    they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.
  ORLEANS. Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
  CONSTABLE. Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs to
    eat, and none to fight. Now is it time to arm. Come, shall we
    about it?
  ORLEANS. It is now two o'clock; but let me see- by ten
    We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.              Exeunt

ACT IV. PROLOGUE.

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 ton,
    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
    Presenteth 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 every one,
    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. France. The English camp at Agincourt

Enter the KING, 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 awhile,
    And then I would no other company.
  ERPINGHAM. The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!
                                         Exeunt all but the KING
  KING HENRY. God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'st cheerfully.

                          Enter PISTOL

  PISTOL. Qui va la?
  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 figo 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 fewer. It is the
    greatest admiration in the universal world, when the true and
    aunchient 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 to-morrow, '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 enow, 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 to-morrow 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!
    Thinks 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 tide 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 Pheebus, 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. Good old knight,
    Collect them all together at my tent:
    I'll be before thee.
  ERPINGHAM. I shall do't, my lord.                         Exit
  KING. O God of battles, steel my soldiers' hearts,
    Possess them not with fear! Take from them now
    The sense of reck'ning, if th' opposed numbers
    Pluck their hearts from them! Not to-day, O Lord,
    O, not to-day, think not upon the fault
    My father made in compassing the crown!
    I Richard's body have interred new,
    And on it have bestowed 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. Montez a cheval! My horse! Varlet, laquais! Ha!
  ORLEANS. O brave spirit!
  DAUPHIN. Via! Les eaux et la terre-
  ORLEANS. Rien puis? L'air et le feu.
  DAUPHIN. Ciel! 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 to-day 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 enow
    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 couch down in fear and yield.

                        Enter GRANDPRE

  GRANDPRE. 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, dropping the hides and hips,
    The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes,
    And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal'd bit
    Lies foul with chaw'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 guidon. 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 WESTMORELAND

  GLOUCESTER. Where is the King?
  BEDFORD. The King himself is rode to view their battle.
  WESTMORELAND. 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 bye 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 to-day;
    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

  WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
    But one ten thousand of those men in England
    That do no work to-day!
  KING. What's he that wishes so?
    My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
    If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
    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, Westmoreland, 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 nam'd,
    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 'To-morrow 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 rememb'red.
    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 to-day 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-a-bed
    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.

                      Re-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.
  WESTMORELAND. Perish the man whose mind is backward now!
  KING HENRY. Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz?
  WESTMORELAND. 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 wilt once more come again for a ransom.

                    Enter the DUKE OF 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 FRENCH SOLDIER, PISTOL, and BOY

  PISTOL. Yield, cur!
  FRENCH SOLDIER. Je pense que vous etes le gentilhomme de bonne
    qualite.
  PISTOL. Cality! Calen o custure 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 misericorde; ayez pitie 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'echapper 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. Ecoutez: comment etes-vous appele?
  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 a vous dire que vous faites vous pret; car ce
    soldat ici est dispose tout a 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 gentilhomme de bonne maison. Gardez ma vie, et
    je vous donnerai deux cents ecus.
  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, neamnoins, pour les ecus que vous l'avez promis, il
    est content a vous donner la liberte, le franchisement.
  FRENCH SOLDIER. Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remercimens; et
    je m'estime heureux que je suis tombe entre les mains d'un
    chevalier, je pense, le plus brave, vaillant, et tres distingue
    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 fall'n into the hands of one-
    as he thinks- the most brave, valorous, and thrice-worthy
    signieur of England.
  PISTOL. As I suck blood, I will some mercy show.
    Follow me.                                              Exit
  BOY. Suivez-vous le grand capitaine.       Exit 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' th' old play, that every one 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 of battle

Enter CONSTABLE, ORLEANS, BOURBON, DAUPHIN, and RAMBURES

  CONSTABLE. O diable!
  ORLEANS. O Seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!
  DAUPHIN. Mort Dieu, ma vie! all is confounded, all!
    Reproach and everlasting shame
    Sits mocking in our plumes.                 [A short alarum]
    O mechante fortune! Do not run away.
  CONSTABLE. Why, an 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 us 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 pander, hold the chamber-door
    Whilst by a slave, no gender 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 enow 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 the KING and his train, with prisoners; EXETER, and
others

  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 grip, 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 offert; 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 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 judgments, 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 the KING, WARWICK, GLOUCESTER,
            EXETER, and others, 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 licence,
    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, care not who
    know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I need not be
    asham'd of your Majesty, praised be Got, so long as your Majesty
    is an honest man.

                       Enter WILLIAMS

  KING HENRY. God keep me so! 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 'a live and ever dare to challenge this
    glove, I have sworn to take him a box o' th' 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 Alencon and myself were down together, I
    pluck'd this glove from his helm. If any man challenge this, he
    is a friend to Alencon 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' th' 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's 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 Alencon'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 the KING 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 Alencon.
  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 Alencon 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 promised'st to strike,
    And thou hast given me most bitter terms.
  FLUELLEN. An 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 the 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.
                                                 [Gives a paper]
  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 Bouciqualt;
    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;
    Jaques of Chatillon, Admiral of France;
    The master of the cross-bows, Lord Rambures;
    Great Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dolphin;
    John Duke of Alencon; Antony Duke of Brabant,
    The brother to the Duke of Burgundy;
    And Edward Duke of Bar. Of lusty earls,
    Grandpre and Roussi, Fauconbridge and Foix,
    Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrake.
    Here was a royal fellowship of death!
    Where is the number of our English dead?
                                 [HERALD presents another paper]
    Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
    Sir Richard Kikely, 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 los
    On one part and on th' 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

ACT V. PROLOGUE.

Enter CHORUS

  CHORUS. Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story
    That I may prompt them; and of such as have,
    I humbly pray them to admit th' excuse
    Of time, of numbers, and due course of things,
    Which cannot in their huge and proper life
    Be here presented. Now we bear the King
    Toward Calais. Grant him there. There seen,
    Heave him away upon your winged thoughts
    Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach
    Pales in the flood with men, with wives, and boys,
    Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep-mouth'd sea,
    Which, like a mighty whiffler, fore the King
    Seems to prepare his way. So let him land,
    And solemnly see him set on to London.
    So swift a pace hath thought that even now
    You may imagine him upon Blackheath;
    Where that his lords desire him to have borne
    His bruised helmet and his bended sword
    Before him through the city. He forbids it,
    Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride;
    Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent,
    Quite from himself to God. But now behold
    In the quick forge and working-house of thought,
    How London doth pour out her citizens!
    The mayor and all his brethren in best sort-
    Like to the senators of th' antique Rome,
    With the plebeians swarming at their heels-
    Go forth and fetch their conqu'ring Caesar in;
    As, by a lower but loving likelihood,
    Were now the General of our gracious Empress-
    As in good time he may- from Ireland coming,
    Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,
    How many would the peaceful city quit
    To welcome him! Much more, and much more cause,
    Did they this Harry. Now in London place him-
    As yet the lamentation of the French
    Invites the King of England's stay at home;
    The Emperor's coming in behalf of France
    To order peace between them; and omit
    All the occurrences, whatever chanc'd,
    Till Harry's back-return again to France.
    There must we bring him; and myself have play'd
    The interim, by rememb'ring you 'tis past.
    Then brook abridgment; and your eyes advance,
    After your thoughts, straight back again to France.     Exit

SCENE I. France.  The English camp

Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER

  GOWER. Nay, that's right; but why wear you your leek to-day? Saint
    Davy's day is past.
  FLUELLEN. There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all
    things. I will tell you, ass my friend, Captain Gower: the
    rascally, scald, beggarly, lousy, pragging knave, Pistol- which
    you and yourself and all the world know to be no petter than a
    fellow, look you now, of no merits- he is come to me, and prings
    me pread and salt yesterday, look you, and bid me eat my leek; it
    was in a place where I could not breed no contendon with him; but
    I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once
    again, and then I will tell him a little piece of my desires.

                          Enter PISTOL

  GOWER. Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.
  FLUELLEN. 'Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey-cocks.
    God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, God
    pless you!
  PISTOL. Ha! art thou bedlam? Dost thou thirst, base Troyan,
    To have me fold up Parca's fatal web?
    Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.
  FLUELLEN. I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy knave, at my
    desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you,
    this leek; because, look you, you do not love it, nor your
    affections, and your appetites, and your digestions, does not
    agree with it, I would desire you to eat it.
  PISTOL. Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.
  FLUELLEN. There is one goat for you.  [Strikes him]  Will you be so
    good, scald knave, as eat it?
  PISTOL. Base Troyan, thou shalt die.
  FLUELLEN. You say very true, scald knave- when God's will is. I
    will desire you to live in the meantime, and eat your victuals;
    come, there is sauce for it.  [Striking him again]  You call'd me
    yesterday mountain-squire; but I will make you to-day a squire of
    low degree. I pray you fall to; if you can mock a leek, you can
    eat a leek.
  GOWER. Enough, Captain, you have astonish'd him.
  FLUELLEN. I say I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will
    peat his pate four days. Bite, I pray you, it is good for your
    green wound and your ploody coxcomb.
  PISTOL. Must I bite?
  FLUELLEN. Yes, certainly, and out of doubt, and out of question
    too, and ambiguides.
  PISTOL. By this leek, I will most horribly revenge- I eat and eat,
    I swear-
  FLUELLEN. Eat, I pray you; will you have some more sauce to your
    leek? There is not enough leek to swear by.
  PISTOL. Quiet thy cudgel: thou dost see I eat.
  FLUELLEN. Much good do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, pray you
    throw none away; the skin is good for your broken coxcomb. When
    you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you mock at
    'em; that is all.
  PISTOL. Good.
  FLUELLEN. Ay, leeks is good. Hold you, there is a groat to heal
    your pate.
  PISTOL. Me a groat!
  FLUELLEN. Yes, verily and in truth, you shall take it; or I have
    another leek in my pocket which you shall eat.
  PISTOL. I take thy groat in earnest of revenge.
  FLUELLEN. If I owe you anything I will pay you in cudgels; you
    shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God bye
    you, and keep you, and heal your pate.
 Exit
  PISTOL. All hell shall stir for this.
  GOWER. Go, go: you are a couterfeit cowardly knave. Will you mock
    at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable respect, and
    worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour, and dare not
    avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen you gleeking
    and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought,
    because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could
    not therefore handle an English cudgel; you find it otherwise,
    and henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good English
    condition. Fare ye well.                                Exit
  PISTOL. Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now?
    News have I that my Nell is dead i' th' spital
    Of malady of France;
    And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.
    Old I do wax; and from my weary limbs
    Honour is cudgell'd. Well, bawd I'll turn,
    And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand.
    To England will I steal, and there I'll steal;
    And patches will I get unto these cudgell'd scars,
    And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.                Exit

SCENE II. France. The FRENCH KING'S palace

Enter at one door, KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK,
WESTMORELAND, and other LORDS; at another, the FRENCH KING, QUEEN
ISABEL, the PRINCESS KATHERINE, ALICE, and other LADIES; the DUKE OF
BURGUNDY, and his train

  KING HENRY. Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!
    Unto our brother France, and to our sister,
    Health and fair time of day; joy and good wishes
    To our most fair and princely cousin Katherine.
    And, as a branch and member of this royalty,
    By whom this great assembly is contriv'd,
    We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy.
    And, princes French, and peers, health to you all!
  FRENCH KING. Right joyous are we to behold your face,
    Most worthy brother England; fairly met!
    So are you, princes English, every one.
  QUEEN ISABEL. So happy be the issue, brother England,
    Of this good day and of this gracious meeting
    As we are now glad to behold your eyes-
    Your eyes, which hitherto have home in them,
    Against the French that met them in their bent,
    The fatal balls of murdering basilisks;
    The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,
    Have lost their quality; and that this day
    Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.
  KING HENRY. To cry amen to that, thus we appear.
  QUEEN ISABEL. You English princes an, I do salute you.
  BURGUNDY. My duty to you both, on equal love,
    Great Kings of France and England! That I have labour'd
    With all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavours,
    To bring your most imperial Majesties
    Unto this bar and royal interview,
    Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.
    Since then my office hath so far prevail'd
    That face to face and royal eye to eye
    You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me
    If I demand, before this royal view,
    What rub or what impediment there is
    Why that the naked, poor, and mangled Peace,
    Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births,
    Should not in this best garden of the world,
    Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?
    Alas, she hath from France too long been chas'd!
    And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,
    Corrupting in it own fertility.
    Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
    Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleach'd,
    Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,
    Put forth disorder'd twigs; her fallow leas
    The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory,
    Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts
    That should deracinate such savagery;
    The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
    The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover,
    Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
    Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems
    But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
    Losing both beauty and utility.
    And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,
    Defective in their natures, grow to wildness;
    Even so our houses and ourselves and children
    Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,
    The sciences that should become our country;
    But grow, like savages- as soldiers will,
    That nothing do but meditate on blood-
    To swearing and stern looks, diffus'd attire,
    And everything that seems unnatural.
    Which to reduce into our former favout
    You are assembled; and my speech entreats
    That I may know the let why gentle Peace
    Should not expel these inconveniences
    And bless us with her former qualities.
  KING HENRY. If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace
    Whose want gives growth to th' imperfections
    Which you have cited, you must buy that peace
    With full accord to all our just demands;
    Whose tenours and particular effects
    You have, enschedul'd briefly, in your hands.
  BURGUNDY. The King hath heard them; to the which as yet
    There is no answer made.
  KING HENRY. Well then, the peace,
    Which you before so urg'd, lies in his answer.
  FRENCH KING. I have but with a cursorary eye
    O'erglanced the articles; pleaseth your Grace
    To appoint some of your council presently
    To sit with us once more, with better heed
    To re-survey them, we will suddenly
    Pass our accept and peremptory answer.
  KING HENRY. Brother, we shall. Go, uncle Exeter,
    And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester,
    Warwick, and Huntington, go with the King;
    And take with you free power to ratify,
    Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best
    Shall see advantageable for our dignity,
    Any thing in or out of our demands;
    And we'll consign thereto. Will you, fair sister,
    Go with the princes or stay here with us?
  QUEEN ISABEL. Our gracious brother, I will go with them;
    Haply a woman's voice may do some good,
    When articles too nicely urg'd be stood on.
  KING HENRY. Yet leave our cousin Katherine here with us;
    She is our capital demand, compris'd
    Within the fore-rank of our articles.
  QUEEN ISABEL. She hath good leave.
                   Exeunt all but the KING, KATHERINE, and ALICE
  KING HENRY. Fair Katherine, and most fair,
    Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms
    Such as will enter at a lady's ear,
    And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?
  KATHERINE. Your Majesty shall mock me; I cannot speak your England.
  KING HENRY. O fair Katherine, if you will love me soundly with your
    French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with
    your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?
  KATHERINE. Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is like me.
  KING HENRY. An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.
  KATHERINE. Que dit-il? que je suis semblable a les anges?
  ALICE. Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.
  KING HENRY. I said so, dear Katherine, and I must not blush to
    affirm it.
  KATHERINE. O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de
    tromperies.
  KING HENRY. What says she, fair one? that the tongues of men are
    full of deceits?
  ALICE. Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits- dat is
    de Princess.
  KING HENRY. The Princess is the better English-woman. I' faith,
    Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am glad thou
    canst speak no better English; for if thou couldst, thou wouldst
    find me such a plain king that thou wouldst think I had sold my
    farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but
    directly to say 'I love you.' Then, if you urge me farther than
    to say 'Do you in faith?' I wear out my suit. Give me your
    answer; i' faith, do; and so clap hands and a bargain. How say
    you, lady?
  KATHERINE. Sauf votre honneur, me understand well.
  KING HENRY. Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for
    your sake, Kate, why you undid me; for the one I have neither
    words nor measure, and for the other I have no strength in
    measure, yet a reasonable measure in strength. If I could win a
    lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my armour
    on my back, under the correction of bragging be it spoken, I
    should quickly leap into wife. Or if I might buffet for my love,
    or bound my horse for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher,
    and sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God, Kate, I
    cannot look greenly, nor gasp out my cloquence, nor I have no
    cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use
    till urg'd, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a
    fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sunburning,
    that never looks in his glass for love of anything he sees there,
    let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain soldier. If thou
    canst love me for this, take me; if not, to say to thee that I
    shall die is true- but for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love
    thee too. And while thou liv'st, dear Kate, take a fellow of
    plain and uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee right,
    because he hath not the gift to woo in other places; for these
    fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into
    ladies' favours, they do always reason themselves out again.
    What! a speaker is but a prater: a rhyme is but a ballad. A good
    leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will
    turn white; a curl'd pate will grow bald; a fair face will
    wither; a full eye will wax hollow. But a good heart, Kate, is
    the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon- for
    it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.
    If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me, take a
    soldier; take a soldier, take a king. And what say'st thou, then,
    to my love? Speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.
  KATHERINE. Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?
  KING HENRY. No, it is not possible you should love the enemy of
    France, Kate, but in loving me you should love the friend of
    France; for I love France so well that I will not part with a
    village of it; I will have it all mine. And, Kate, when France is
    mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine.
  KATHERINE. I cannot tell vat is dat.
  KING HENRY. No, Kate? I will tell thee in French, which I am sure
    will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her
    husband's neck, hardly to be shook off. Je quand sur le
    possession de France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi-
    let me see, what then? Saint Denis be my speed!- donc votre est
    France et vous etes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to
    conquer the kingdom as to speak so much more French: I shall
    never move thee in French, unless it be to laugh at me.
  KATHERINE. Sauf votre honneur, le Francais que vous parlez, il est
    meilleur que l'Anglais lequel je parle.
  KING HENRY. No, faith, is't not, Kate; but thy speaking of my
    tongue, and I thine, most truly falsely, must needs be granted to
    be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much
    English- Canst thou love me?
  KATHERINE. I cannot tell.
  KING HENRY. Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I'll ask them.
    Come, I know thou lovest me; and at night, when you come into
    your closet, you'll question this gentlewoman about me; and I
    know, Kate, you will to her dispraise those parts in me that you
    love with your heart. But, good Kate, mock me mercifully; the
    rather, gentle Princess, because I love thee cruelly. If ever
    thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a saving faith within me tells
    me thou shalt, I get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore
    needs prove a good soldier-breeder. Shall not thou and I, between
    Saint Denis and Saint George, compound a boy, half French, half
    English, that shall go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the
    beard? Shall we not? What say'st thou, my fair flower-de-luce?
  KATHERINE. I do not know dat.
  KING HENRY. No: 'tis hereafter to know, but now to promise; do but
    now promise, Kate, you will endeavour for your French part of
    such a boy; and for my English moiety take the word of a king and
    a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katherine du monde, mon
   tres cher et divin deesse?
  KATHERINE. Your Majestee ave fausse French enough to deceive de
    most sage damoiselle dat is en France.
  KING HENRY. Now, fie upon my false French! By mine honour, in true
    English, I love thee, Kate; by which honour I dare not swear thou
    lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost,
    notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage. Now
    beshrew my father's ambition! He was thinking of civil wars when
    he got me; therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with
    an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies I fright them.
    But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear:
    my comfort is, that old age, that in layer-up of beauty, can do
    no more spoil upon my face; thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the
    worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and
    better. And therefore tell me, most fair Katherine, will you have
    me? Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your
    heart with the looks of an empress; take me by the hand and say
    'Harry of England, I am thine.' Which word thou shalt no sooner
    bless mine ear withal but I will tell thee aloud 'England is
    thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet
    is thine'; who, though I speak it before his face, if he be not
    fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good
    fellows. Come, your answer in broken music- for thy voice is
    music and thy English broken; therefore, Queen of all, Katherine,
    break thy mind to me in broken English, wilt thou have me?
  KATHERINE. Dat is as it shall please de roi mon pere.
  KING HENRY. Nay, it will please him well, Kate- it shall please
    him, Kate.
  KATHERINE. Den it sall also content me.
  KING HENRY. Upon that I kiss your hand, and I can you my queen.
  KATHERINE. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je ne
    veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en baisant la main
    d'une, notre seigneur, indigne serviteur; excusez-moi, je vous
    supplie, mon tres puissant seigneur.
  KING HENRY. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.
  KATHERINE. Les dames et demoiselles pour etre baisees devant leur
    noces, il n'est pas la coutume de France.
  KING HENRY. Madame my interpreter, what says she?
  ALICE. Dat it is not be de fashion pour le ladies of France- I
    cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish.
  KING HENRY. To kiss.
  ALICE. Your Majestee entendre bettre que moi.
  KING HENRY. It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss
    before they are married, would she say?
  ALICE. Oui, vraiment.
  KING HENRY. O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate,
    you and I cannot be confin'd within the weak list of a country's
    fashion; we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that
    follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults- as I will
    do yours for upholding the nice fashion of your country in
    denying me a kiss; therefore, patiently and yielding.  [Kissing
    her]  You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more
    eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the
    French council; and they should sooner persuade Henry of England
    than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.

             Enter the FRENCH POWER and the ENGLISH LORDS

  BURGUNDY. God save your Majesty! My royal cousin,
    Teach you our princess English?
  KING HENRY. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I
    love her; and that is good English.
  BURGUNDY. Is she not apt?
  KING HENRY. Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not
    smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of
    flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in
    her that he will appear in his true likeness.
  BURGUNDY. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for
    that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if
    conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked
    and blind. Can you blame her, then, being a maid yet ros'd over
    with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of
    a naked blind boy in her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a
    hard condition for a maid to consign to.
  KING HENRY. Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and
    enforces.
  BURGUNDY. They are then excus'd, my lord, when they see not what
    they do.
  KING HENRY. Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent
    winking.
  BURGUNDY. I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach
    her to know my meaning; for maids well summer'd and warm kept are
    like flies at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their
    eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not
    abide looking on.
  KING HENRY. This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer; and
    so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she
    must be blind too.
  BURGUNDY. As love is, my lord, before it loves.
  KING HENRY. It is so; and you may, some of you, thank love for my
    blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair
    French maid that stands in my way.
  FRENCH KING. Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities
    turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls
    that war hath never ent'red.
  KING HENRY. Shall Kate be my wife?
  FRENCH KING. So please you.
  KING HENRY. I am content, so the maiden cities you talk of may wait
    on her; so the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show
    me the way to my will.
  FRENCH KING. We have consented to all terms of reason.
  KING HENRY. Is't so, my lords of England?
  WESTMORELAND. The king hath granted every article:
    His daughter first; and then in sequel, all,
    According to their firm proposed natures.
  EXETER. Only he hath not yet subscribed this:
      Where your Majesty demands that the King of France, having any
    occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your Highness
    in this form and with this addition, in French, Notre tres cher
    fils Henri, Roi d'Angleterre, Heritier de France; and thus in
    Latin, Praeclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliae et
    Haeres Franciae.
  FRENCH KING. Nor this I have not, brother, so denied
    But our request shall make me let it pass.
  KING HENRY. I pray you, then, in love and dear alliance,
    Let that one article rank with the rest;
    And thereupon give me your daughter.
  FRENCH KING. Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up
    Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms
    Of France and England, whose very shores look pale
    With envy of each other's happiness,
    May cease their hatred; and this dear conjunction
    Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord
    In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance
    His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France.
  LORDS. Amen!
  KING HENRY. Now, welcome, Kate; and bear me witness all,
    That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.       [Floulish]
  QUEEN ISABEL. God, the best maker of all marriages,
    Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!
    As man and wife, being two, are one in love,
    So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal
    That never may ill office or fell jealousy,
    Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage,
    Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms,
    To make divorce of their incorporate league;
    That English may as French, French Englishmen,
    Receive each other. God speak this Amen!
  ALL. Amen!
  KING HENRY. Prepare we for our marriage; on which day,
    My Lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath,
    And all the peers', for surety of our leagues.
    Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me,
    And may our oaths well kept and prosp'rous be!
                                                  Sennet. Exeunt

EPILOGUE EPILOGUE.

                          Enter CHORUS

  CHORUS. Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
    Our bending author hath pursu'd the story,
    In little room confining mighty men,
    Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
    Small time, but, in that small, most greatly lived
    This star of England. Fortune made his sword;
    By which the world's best garden he achieved,
    And of it left his son imperial lord.
    Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd king
    Of France and England, did this king succeed;
    Whose state so many had the managing
    That they lost France and made his England bleed;
    Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,
    In your fair minds let this acceptance take.            Exit

THE END

1592



THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH

Dramatis Personae

  KING HENRY THE SIXTH
  DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, uncle to the King, and Protector
  DUKE OF BEDFORD, uncle to the King, and Regent of France
  THOMAS BEAUFORT, DUKE OF EXETER, great-uncle to the king
  HENRY BEAUFORT, great-uncle to the King, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,
     and afterwards CARDINAL
  JOHN BEAUFORT, EARL OF SOMERSET, afterwards Duke
  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, son of Richard late Earl of Cambridge,
    afterwards DUKE OF YORK
  EARL OF WARWICK
  EARL OF SALISBURY
  EARL OF SUFFOLK
  LORD TALBOT, afterwards EARL OF SHREWSBURY
  JOHN TALBOT, his son
  EDMUND MORTIMER, EARL OF MARCH
  SIR JOHN FASTOLFE
  SIR WILLIAM LUCY
  SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE
  SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE
  MAYOR of LONDON
  WOODVILLE, Lieutenant of the Tower
  VERNON, of the White Rose or York faction
  BASSET, of the Red Rose or Lancaster faction
  A LAWYER
  GAOLERS, to Mortimer
  CHARLES, Dauphin, and afterwards King of France
  REIGNIER, DUKE OF ANJOU, and titular King of Naples
  DUKE OF BURGUNDY
  DUKE OF ALENCON
  BASTARD OF ORLEANS
  GOVERNOR OF PARIS
  MASTER-GUNNER OF ORLEANS, and his SON
  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH FORCES in Bordeaux
  A FRENCH SERGEANT
  A PORTER
  AN OLD SHEPHERD, father to Joan la Pucelle
  MARGARET, daughter to Reignier, afterwards married to
    King Henry
  COUNTESS OF AUVERGNE
  JOAN LA PUCELLE, Commonly called JOAN OF ARC

  Lords, Warders of the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers,
  Messengers, English and French Attendants. Fiends appearing
    to La Pucelle

SCENE: England and France

The First Part of King Henry the Sixth

ACT I. SCENE 1.

Westminster Abbey

Dead March. Enter the funeral of KING HENRY THE FIFTH, attended on by
the DUKE OF BEDFORD, Regent of France, the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER,
Protector, the DUKE OF EXETER, the EARL OF WARWICK, the BISHOP OF
WINCHESTER

  BEDFORD. Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to
    night! Comets, importing change of times and states,
    Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky
    And with them scourge the bad revolting stars
    That have consented unto Henry's death!
    King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long!
    England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.
  GLOUCESTER. England ne'er had a king until his time.
    Virtue he had, deserving to command;
    His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams;
    His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings;
    His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire,
    More dazzled and drove back his enemies
    Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces.
    What should I say? His deeds exceed all speech:
    He ne'er lift up his hand but conquered.
  EXETER. We mourn in black; why mourn we not in blood?
    Henry is dead and never shall revive.
    Upon a wooden coffin we attend;
    And death's dishonourable victory
    We with our stately presence glorify,
    Like captives bound to a triumphant car.
    What! shall we curse the planets of mishap
    That plotted thus our glory's overthrow?
    Or shall we think the subtle-witted French
    Conjurers and sorcerers, that, afraid of him,
    By magic verses have contriv'd his end?
  WINCHESTER. He was a king bless'd of the King of kings;
    Unto the French the dreadful judgment-day
    So dreadful will not be as was his sight.
    The battles of the Lord of Hosts he fought;
    The Church's prayers made him so prosperous.
  GLOUCESTER. The Church! Where is it? Had not churchmen
    pray'd,
    His thread of life had not so soon decay'd.
    None do you like but an effeminate prince,
    Whom like a school-boy you may overawe.
  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, whate'er we like, thou art
    Protector
    And lookest to command the Prince and realm.
    Thy wife is proud; she holdeth thee in awe
    More than God or religious churchmen may.
  GLOUCESTER. Name not religion, for thou lov'st the flesh;
    And ne'er throughout the year to church thou go'st,
    Except it be to pray against thy foes.
  BEDFORD. Cease, cease these jars and rest your minds in peace;
    Let's to the altar. Heralds, wait on us.
    Instead of gold, we'll offer up our arms,
    Since arms avail not, now that Henry's dead.
    Posterity, await for wretched years,
    When at their mothers' moist'ned eyes babes shall suck,
    Our isle be made a nourish of salt tears,
    And none but women left to wail the dead.
  HENRY the Fifth, thy ghost I invocate:
    Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils,
    Combat with adverse planets in the heavens.
    A far more glorious star thy soul will make
    Than Julius Caesar or bright

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My honourable lords, health to you all!
    Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,
    Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture:
    Guienne, Champagne, Rheims, Orleans,
    Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost.
  BEDFORD. What say'st thou, man, before dead Henry's corse?
    Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns
    Will make him burst his lead and rise from death.
  GLOUCESTER. Is Paris lost? Is Rouen yielded up?
    If Henry were recall'd to life again,
    These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.
  EXETER. How were they lost? What treachery was us'd?
  MESSENGER. No treachery, but want of men and money.
    Amongst the soldiers this is muttered
    That here you maintain several factions;
    And whilst a field should be dispatch'd and fought,
    You are disputing of your generals:
    One would have ling'ring wars, with little cost;
    Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings;
    A third thinks, without expense at all,
    By guileful fair words peace may be obtain'd.
    Awake, awake, English nobility!
    Let not sloth dim your honours, new-begot.
    Cropp'd are the flower-de-luces in your arms;
    Of England's coat one half is cut away.
  EXETER. Were our tears wanting to this funeral,
    These tidings would call forth their flowing tides.
  BEDFORD. Me they concern; Regent I am of France.
    Give me my steeled coat; I'll fight for France.
    Away with these disgraceful wailing robes!
    Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes,
    To weep their intermissive miseries.

                   Enter a second MESSENGER

  SECOND MESSENGER. Lords, view these letters full of bad
    mischance.
    France is revolted from the English quite,
    Except some petty towns of no import.
    The Dauphin Charles is crowned king in Rheims;
    The Bastard of Orleans with him is join'd;
    Reignier, Duke of Anjou, doth take his part;
    The Duke of Alencon flieth to his side.
  EXETER. The Dauphin crowned king! all fly to him!
    O, whither shall we fly from this reproach?
  GLOUCESTER. We will not fly but to our enemies' throats.
    Bedford, if thou be slack I'll fight it out.
  BEDFORD. Gloucester, why doubt'st thou of my forwardness?
    An army have I muster'd in my thoughts,
    Wherewith already France is overrun.

                   Enter a third MESSENGER

  THIRD MESSENGER. My gracious lords, to add to your
    laments,
    Wherewith you now bedew King Henry's hearse,
    I must inform you of a dismal fight
    Betwixt the stout Lord Talbot and the French.
  WINCHESTER. What! Wherein Talbot overcame? Is't so?
  THIRD MESSENGER. O, no; wherein Lord Talbot was
    o'erthrown.
    The circumstance I'll tell you more at large.
    The tenth of August last this dreadful lord,
    Retiring from the siege of Orleans,
    Having full scarce six thousand in his troop,
    By three and twenty thousand of the French
    Was round encompassed and set upon.
    No leisure had he to enrank his men;
    He wanted pikes to set before his archers;
    Instead whereof sharp stakes pluck'd out of hedges
    They pitched in the ground confusedly
    To keep the horsemen off from breaking in.
    More than three hours the fight continued;
    Where valiant Talbot, above human thought,
    Enacted wonders with his sword and lance:
    Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand him;
    Here, there, and everywhere, enrag'd he slew
    The French exclaim'd the devil was in arms;
    All the whole army stood agaz'd on him.
    His soldiers, spying his undaunted spirit,
    'A Talbot! a Talbot!' cried out amain,
    And rush'd into the bowels of the battle.
    Here had the conquest fully been seal'd up
    If Sir John Fastolfe had not play'd the coward.
    He, being in the vaward plac'd behind
    With purpose to relieve and follow them-
    Cowardly fled, not having struck one stroke;
    Hence grew the general wreck and massacre.
    Enclosed were they with their enemies.
    A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin's grace,
    Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back;
    Whom all France, with their chief assembled strength,
    Durst not presume to look once in the face.
  BEDFORD. Is Talbot slain? Then I will slay myself,
    For living idly here in pomp and ease,
    Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid,
    Unto his dastard foemen is betray'd.
  THIRD MESSENGER. O no, he lives, but is took prisoner,
    And Lord Scales with him, and Lord Hungerford;
    Most of the rest slaughter'd or took likewise.
  BEDFORD. His ransom there is none but I shall pay.
    I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne;
    His crown shall be the ransom of my friend;
    Four of their lords I'll change for one of ours.
    Farewell, my masters; to my task will I;
    Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make
    To keep our great Saint George's feast withal.
    Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take,
    Whose bloody deeds shall make an Europe quake.
  THIRD MESSENGER. So you had need; for Orleans is besieg'd;
    The English army is grown weak and faint;
    The Earl of Salisbury craveth supply
    And hardly keeps his men from mutiny,
    Since they, so few, watch such a multitude.
  EXETER. Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn,
    Either to quell the Dauphin utterly,
    Or bring him in obedience to your yoke.
  BEDFORD. I do remember it, and here take my leave
    To go about my preparation.                             Exit
  GLOUCESTER. I'll to the Tower with all the haste I can
    To view th' artillery and munition;
    And then I will proclaim young Henry king.              Exit
  EXETER. To Eltham will I, where the young King is,
    Being ordain'd his special governor;
    And for his safety there I'll best devise.              Exit
  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Each hath his place and function to
    attend:
    I am left out; for me nothing remains.
    But long I will not be Jack out of office.
    The King from Eltham I intend to steal,
    And sit at chiefest stern of public weal.             Exeunt

                          SCENE 2.

                  France. Before Orleans

      Sound a flourish. Enter CHARLES THE DAUPHIN, ALENCON,
           and REIGNIER, marching with drum and soldiers

  CHARLES. Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens
    So in the earth, to this day is not known.
    Late did he shine upon the English side;
    Now we are victors, upon us he smiles.
    What towns of any moment but we have?
    At pleasure here we lie near Orleans;
    Otherwhiles the famish'd English, like pale ghosts,
    Faintly besiege us one hour in a month.
  ALENCON. They want their porridge and their fat bull
    beeves.
    Either they must be dieted like mules
    And have their provender tied to their mouths,
    Or piteous they will look, like drowned mice.
  REIGNIER. Let's raise the siege. Why live we idly here?
    Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear;
    Remaineth none but mad-brain'd Salisbury,
    And he may well in fretting spend his gall
    Nor men nor money hath he to make war.
  CHARLES. Sound, sound alarum; we will rush on them.
    Now for the honour of the forlorn French!
    Him I forgive my death that killeth me,
    When he sees me go back one foot or flee.             Exeunt

       Here alarum. They are beaten hack by the English, with
         great loss. Re-enter CHARLES, ALENCON, and REIGNIER

  CHARLES. Who ever saw the like? What men have I!
    Dogs! cowards! dastards! I would ne'er have fled
    But that they left me midst my enemies.
  REIGNIER. Salisbury is a desperate homicide;
    He fighteth as one weary of his life.
    The other lords, like lions wanting food,
    Do rush upon us as their hungry prey.
  ALENCON. Froissart, a countryman of ours, records
    England all Olivers and Rowlands bred
    During the time Edward the Third did reign.
    More truly now may this be verified;
    For none but Samsons and Goliases
    It sendeth forth to skirmish. One to ten!
    Lean raw-bon'd rascals! Who would e'er suppose
    They had such courage and audacity?
  CHARLES. Let's leave this town; for they are hare-brain'd
    slaves,
    And hunger will enforce them to be more eager.
    Of old I know them; rather with their teeth
    The walls they'll tear down than forsake the siege.
  REIGNIER. I think by some odd gimmers or device
    Their arms are set, like clocks, still to strike on;
    Else ne'er could they hold out so as they do.
    By my consent, we'll even let them alone.
  ALENCON. Be it so.

                   Enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS

  BASTARD. Where's the Prince Dauphin? I have news for him.
  CHARLES. Bastard of Orleans, thrice welcome to us.
  BASTARD. Methinks your looks are sad, your cheer appall'd.
    Hath the late overthrow wrought this offence?
    Be not dismay'd, for succour is at hand.
    A holy maid hither with me I bring,
    Which, by a vision sent to her from heaven,
    Ordained is to raise this tedious siege
    And drive the English forth the bounds of France.
    The spirit of deep prophecy she hath,
    Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome:
    What's past and what's to come she can descry.
    Speak, shall I call her in? Believe my words,
    For they are certain and unfallible.
  CHARLES. Go, call her in.                       [Exit BASTARD]
    But first, to try her skill,
    Reignier, stand thou as Dauphin in my place;
    Question her proudly; let thy looks be stern;
    By this means shall we sound what skill she hath.

                  Re-enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS with
                          JOAN LA PUCELLE

  REIGNIER. Fair maid, is 't thou wilt do these wondrous feats?
  PUCELLE. Reignier, is 't thou that thinkest to beguile me?
    Where is the Dauphin? Come, come from behind;
    I know thee well, though never seen before.
    Be not amaz'd, there's nothing hid from me.
    In private will I talk with thee apart.
    Stand back, you lords, and give us leave awhile.
  REIGNIER. She takes upon her bravely at first dash.
  PUCELLE. Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd's daughter,
    My wit untrain'd in any kind of art.
    Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleas'd
    To shine on my contemptible estate.
    Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs
    And to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks,
    God's Mother deigned to appear to me,
    And in a vision full of majesty
    Will'd me to leave my base vocation
    And free my country from calamity
    Her aid she promis'd and assur'd success.
    In complete glory she reveal'd herself;
    And whereas I was black and swart before,
    With those clear rays which she infus'd on me
    That beauty am I bless'd with which you may see.
    Ask me what question thou canst possible,
    And I will answer unpremeditated.
    My courage try by combat if thou dar'st,
    And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.
    Resolve on this: thou shalt be fortunate
    If thou receive me for thy warlike mate.
  CHARLES. Thou hast astonish'd me with thy high terms.
    Only this proof I'll of thy valour make
    In single combat thou shalt buckle with me;
    And if thou vanquishest, thy words are true;
    Otherwise I renounce all confidence.
  PUCELLE. I am prepar'd; here is my keen-edg'd sword,
    Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side,
    The which at Touraine, in Saint Katherine's churchyard,
    Out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth.
  CHARLES. Then come, o' God's name; I fear no woman.
  PUCELLE. And while I live I'll ne'er fly from a man.
                 [Here they fight and JOAN LA PUCELLE overcomes]
  CHARLES. Stay, stay thy hands; thou art an Amazon,
    And fightest with the sword of Deborah.
  PUCELLE. Christ's Mother helps me, else I were too weak.
  CHARLES. Whoe'er helps thee, 'tis thou that must help me.
    Impatiently I burn with thy desire;
    My heart and hands thou hast at once subdu'd.
    Excellent Pucelle, if thy name be so,
    Let me thy servant and not sovereign be.
    'Tis the French Dauphin sueth to thee thus.
  PUCELLE. I must not yield to any rites of love,
    For my profession's sacred from above.
    When I have chased all thy foes from hence,
    Then will I think upon a recompense.
  CHARLES. Meantime look gracious on thy prostrate thrall.
  REIGNIER. My lord, methinks, is very long in talk.
  ALENCON. Doubtless he shrives this woman to her smock;
    Else ne'er could he so long protract his speech.
  REIGNIER. Shall we disturb him, since he keeps no mean?
  ALENCON. He may mean more than we poor men do know;
    These women are shrewd tempters with their tongues.
  REIGNIER. My lord, where are you? What devise you on?
    Shall we give o'er Orleans, or no?
  PUCELLE. Why, no, I say; distrustful recreants!
    Fight till the last gasp; I will be your guard.
  CHARLES. What she says I'll confirm; we'll fight it out.
  PUCELLE. Assign'd am I to be the English scourge.
    This night the siege assuredly I'll raise.
    Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days,
    Since I have entered into these wars.
    Glory is like a circle in the water,
    Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself
    Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
    With Henry's death the English circle ends;
    Dispersed are the glories it included.
    Now am I like that proud insulting ship
    Which Caesar and his fortune bare at once.
  CHARLES. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?
    Thou with an eagle art inspired then.
    Helen, the mother of great Constantine,
    Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters were like thee.
    Bright star of Venus, fall'n down on the earth,
    How may I reverently worship thee enough?
  ALENCON. Leave off delays, and let us raise the siege.
  REIGNIER. Woman, do what thou canst to save our honours;
    Drive them from Orleans, and be immortaliz'd.
  CHARLES. Presently we'll try. Come, let's away about it.
    No prophet will I trust if she prove false.           Exeunt

                          SCENE 3.

                London. Before the Tower gates

       Enter the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, with his serving-men
                       in blue coats

  GLOUCESTER. I am come to survey the Tower this day;
    Since Henry's death, I fear, there is conveyance.
    Where be these warders that they wait not here?
    Open the gates; 'tis Gloucester that calls.
  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  Who's there that knocks so
    imperiously?
  FIRST SERVING-MAN. It is the noble Duke of Gloucester.
  SECOND WARDER.  [Within]  Whoe'er he be, you may not be
    let in.
  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Villains, answer you so the Lord
    Protector?
  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  The Lord protect him! so we
    answer him.
    We do no otherwise than we are will'd.
  GLOUCESTER. Who willed you, or whose will stands but
    mine?
    There's none Protector of the realm but I.
    Break up the gates, I'll be your warrantize.
    Shall I be flouted thus by dunghill grooms?
                  [GLOUCESTER'S men rush at the Tower gates, and
                         WOODVILLE the Lieutenant speaks within]
  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  What noise is this? What traitors
    have we here?
  GLOUCESTER. Lieutenant, is it you whose voice I hear?
    Open the gates; here's Gloucester that would enter.
  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  Have patience, noble Duke, I may
    not open;
    The Cardinal of Winchester forbids.
    From him I have express commandment
    That thou nor none of thine shall be let in.
  GLOUCESTER. Faint-hearted Woodville, prizest him fore me?
    Arrogant Winchester, that haughty prelate
    Whom Henry, our late sovereign, ne'er could brook!
    Thou art no friend to God or to the King.
    Open the gates, or I'll shut thee out shortly.
  SERVING-MEN. Open the gates unto the Lord Protector,
    Or we'll burst them open, if that you come not quickly.

       Enter to the PROTECTOR at the Tower gates WINCHESTER
                   and his men in tawny coats

  WINCHESTER. How now, ambitious Humphry! What means
    this?
  GLOUCESTER. Peel'd priest, dost thou command me to be
    shut out?
  WINCHESTER. I do, thou most usurping proditor,
    And not Protector of the King or realm.
  GLOUCESTER. Stand back, thou manifest conspirator,
    Thou that contrived'st to murder our dead lord;
    Thou that giv'st whores indulgences to sin.
    I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,
    If thou proceed in this thy insolence.
  WINCHESTER. Nay, stand thou back; I will not budge a foot.
    This be Damascus; be thou cursed Cain,
    To slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt.
  GLOUCESTER. I will not slay thee, but I'll drive thee back.
    Thy scarlet robes as a child's bearing-cloth
    I'll use to carry thee out of this place.
  WINCHESTER. Do what thou dar'st; I beard thee to thy face.
  GLOUCESTER. What! am I dar'd and bearded to my face?
    Draw, men, for all this privileged place
    Blue-coats to tawny-coats. Priest, beware your beard;
    I mean to tug it, and to cuff you soundly;
    Under my feet I stamp thy cardinal's hat;
    In spite of Pope or dignities of church,
    Here by the cheeks I'll drag thee up and down.
  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, thou wilt answer this before the
    Pope.
  GLOUCESTER. Winchester goose! I cry 'A rope, a rope!'
    Now beat them hence; why do you let them stay?
    Thee I'll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep's array.
    Out, tawny-coats! Out, scarlet hypocrite!

         Here GLOUCESTER'S men beat out the CARDINAL'S
        men; and enter in the hurly burly the MAYOR OF
                  LONDON and his OFFICERS

  MAYOR. Fie, lords! that you, being supreme magistrates,
    Thus contumeliously should break the peace!
  GLOUCESTER. Peace, Mayor! thou know'st little of my wrongs:
    Here's Beaufort, that regards nor God nor King,
    Hath here distrain'd the Tower to his use.
  WINCHESTER. Here's Gloucester, a foe to citizens;
    One that still motions war and never peace,
    O'ercharging your free purses with large fines;
    That seeks to overthrow religion,
    Because he is Protector of the realm,
    And would have armour here out of the Tower,
    To crown himself King and suppress the Prince.
  GLOUCESTER. I Will not answer thee with words, but blows.
                                      [Here they skirmish again]
  MAYOR. Nought rests for me in this tumultuous strife
    But to make open proclamation.
    Come, officer, as loud as e'er thou canst,
    Cry.
  OFFICER.  [Cries]  All manner of men assembled here in arms
    this day against God's peace and the King's, we charge
    and command you, in his Highness' name, to repair to
    your several dwelling-places; and not to wear, handle, or
    use, any sword, weapon, or dagger, henceforward, upon
    pain of death.
  GLOUCESTER. Cardinal, I'll be no breaker of the law;
    But we shall meet and break our minds at large.
  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, we'll meet to thy cost, be sure;
    Thy heart-blood I will have for this day's work.
  MAYOR. I'll call for clubs if you will not away.
    This Cardinal's more haughty than the devil.
  GLOUCESTER. Mayor, farewell; thou dost but what thou
    mayst.
  WINCHESTER. Abominable Gloucester, guard thy head,
    For I intend to have it ere long.
                    Exeunt, severally, GLOUCESTER and WINCHESTER
                                             with their servants
  MAYOR. See the coast clear'd, and then we will depart.
    Good God, these nobles should such stomachs bear!
    I myself fight not once in forty year.                Exeunt

                               SCENE 4.

                        France. Before Orleans

               Enter, on the walls, the MASTER-GUNNER
                       OF ORLEANS and his BOY

  MASTER-GUNNER. Sirrah, thou know'st how Orleans is
    besieg'd,
    And how the English have the suburbs won.
  BOY. Father, I know; and oft have shot at them,
    Howe'er unfortunate I miss'd my aim.
  MASTER-GUNNER. But now thou shalt not. Be thou rul'd
    by me.
    Chief master-gunner am I of this town;
    Something I must do to procure me grace.
    The Prince's espials have informed me
    How the English, in the suburbs close intrench'd,
    Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars
    In yonder tower, to overpeer the city,
    And thence discover how with most advantage
    They may vex us with shot or with assault.
    To intercept this inconvenience,
    A piece of ordnance 'gainst it I have plac'd;
    And even these three days have I watch'd
    If I could see them. Now do thou watch,
    For I can stay no longer.
    If thou spy'st any, run and bring me word;
    And thou shalt find me at the Governor's.               Exit
  BOY. Father, I warrant you; take you no care;
    I'll never trouble you, if I may spy them.              Exit

          Enter SALISBURY and TALBOT on the turrets, with
            SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE, SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE,
                            and others

  SALISBURY. Talbot, my life, my joy, again return'd!
    How wert thou handled being prisoner?
    Or by what means got'st thou to be releas'd?
    Discourse, I prithee, on this turret's top.
  TALBOT. The Earl of Bedford had a prisoner
    Call'd the brave Lord Ponton de Santrailles;
    For him was I exchang'd and ransomed.
    But with a baser man of arms by far
    Once, in contempt, they would have barter'd me;
    Which I disdaining scorn'd, and craved death
    Rather than I would be so vile esteem'd.
    In fine, redeem'd I was as I desir'd.
    But, O! the treacherous Fastolfe wounds my heart
    Whom with my bare fists I would execute,
    If I now had him brought into my power.
  SALISBURY. Yet tell'st thou not how thou wert entertain'd.
  TALBOT. With scoffs, and scorns, and contumelious taunts,
    In open market-place produc'd they me
    To be a public spectacle to all;
    Here, said they, is the terror of the French,
    The scarecrow that affrights our children so.
    Then broke I from the officers that led me,
    And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground
    To hurl at the beholders of my shame;
    My grisly countenance made others fly;
    None durst come near for fear of sudden death.
    In iron walls they deem'd me not secure;
    So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread
    That they suppos'd I could rend bars of steel
    And spurn in pieces posts of adamant;
    Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had
    That walk'd about me every minute-while;
    And if I did but stir out of my bed,
    Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.

                Enter the BOY with a linstock

  SALISBURY. I grieve to hear what torments you endur'd;
    But we will be reveng'd sufficiently.
    Now it is supper-time in Orleans:
    Here, through this grate, I count each one
    And view the Frenchmen how they fortify.
    Let us look in; the sight will much delight thee.
    Sir Thomas Gargrave and Sir William Glansdale,
    Let me have your express opinions
    Where is best place to make our batt'ry next.
  GARGRAVE. I think at the North Gate; for there stand lords.
  GLANSDALE. And I here, at the bulwark of the bridge.
  TALBOT. For aught I see, this city must be famish'd,
    Or with light skirmishes enfeebled.
                     [Here they shoot and SALISBURY and GARGRAVE
                                                      fall down]
  SALISBURY. O Lord, have mercy on us, wretched sinners!
  GARGRAVE. O Lord, have mercy on me, woeful man!
  TALBOT. What chance is this that suddenly hath cross'd us?
    Speak, Salisbury; at least, if thou canst speak.
    How far'st thou, mirror of all martial men?
    One of thy eyes and thy cheek's side struck off!
    Accursed tower! accursed fatal hand
    That hath contriv'd this woeful tragedy!
    In thirteen battles Salisbury o'ercame;
    Henry the Fifth he first train'd to the wars;
    Whilst any trump did sound or drum struck up,
    His sword did ne'er leave striking in the field.
    Yet liv'st thou, Salisbury? Though thy speech doth fail,
    One eye thou hast to look to heaven for grace;
    The sun with one eye vieweth all the world.
    Heaven, be thou gracious to none alive
    If Salisbury wants mercy at thy hands!
    Bear hence his body; I will help to bury it.
    Sir Thomas Gargrave, hast thou any life?
    Speak unto Talbot; nay, look up to him.
    Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort,
    Thou shalt not die whiles
    He beckons with his hand and smiles on me,
    As who should say 'When I am dead and gone,
    Remember to avenge me on the French.'
    Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero,
    Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.
    Wretched shall France be only in my name.
                  [Here an alarum, and it thunders and lightens]
    What stir is this? What tumult's in the heavens?
    Whence cometh this alarum and the noise?

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord, the French have gather'd
    head
    The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd,
    A holy prophetess new risen up,
    Is come with a great power to raise the siege.
                  [Here SALISBURY lifteth himself up and groans]
  TALBOT. Hear, hear how dying Salisbury doth groan.
    It irks his heart he cannot be reveng'd.
    Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you.
    Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,
    Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels
    And make a quagmire of your mingled brains.
    Convey me Salisbury into his tent,
    And then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen dare.
                                                  Alarum. Exeunt

                             SCENE 5.

                          Before Orleans

         Here an alarum again, and TALBOT pursueth the
      DAUPHIN and driveth him. Then enter JOAN LA PUCELLE
       driving Englishmen before her. Then enter TALBOT

  TALBOT. Where is my strength, my valour, and my force?
    Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them;
    A woman clad in armour chaseth them.

                          Enter LA PUCELLE

    Here, here she comes. I'll have a bout with thee.
    Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee;
    Blood will I draw on thee-thou art a witch
    And straightway give thy soul to him thou serv'st.
  PUCELLE. Come, come, 'tis only I that must disgrace thee.
                                               [Here they fight]
  TALBOT. Heavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail?
    My breast I'll burst with straining of my courage.
    And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder,
    But I will chastise this high minded strumpet.
                                              [They fight again]
  PUCELLE. Talbot, farewell; thy hour is not yet come.
    I must go victual Orleans forthwith.
             [A short alarum; then enter the town with soldiers]
    O'ertake me if thou canst; I scorn thy strength.
    Go, go, cheer up thy hungry starved men;
    Help Salisbury to make his testament.
    This day is ours, as many more shall be.                Exit
  TALBOT. My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;
    I know not where I am nor what I do.
    A witch by fear, not force, like Hannibal,
    Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists.
    So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench
    Are from their hives and houses driven away.
    They call'd us, for our fierceness, English dogs;
    Now like to whelps we crying run away.
                                                [A short alarum]
    Hark, countrymen! Either renew the fight
    Or tear the lions out of England's coat;
    Renounce your soil, give sheep in lions' stead:
    Sheep run not half so treacherous from the wolf,
    Or horse or oxen from the leopard,
    As you fly from your oft subdued slaves.
                                 [Alarum. Here another skirmish]
    It will not be-retire into your trenches.
    You all consented unto Salisbury's death,
    For none would strike a stroke in his revenge.
    Pucelle is ent'red into Orleans
    In spite of us or aught that we could do.
    O, would I were to die with Salisbury!
    The shame hereof will make me hide my head.
                                    Exit TALBOT. Alarum; retreat

                             SCENE 6.

                              ORLEANS

        Flourish. Enter on the walls, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES,
                REIGNIER, ALENCON, and soldiers

  PUCELLE. Advance our waving colours on the walls;
    Rescu'd is Orleans from the English.
    Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word.
  CHARLES. Divinest creature, Astraea's daughter,
    How shall I honour thee for this success?
    Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens,
    That one day bloom'd and fruitful were the next.
    France, triumph in thy glorious prophetess.
    Recover'd is the town of Orleans.
    More blessed hap did ne'er befall our state.
  REIGNIER. Why ring not out the bells aloud throughout the
    town?
    Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires
    And feast and banquet in the open streets
    To celebrate the joy that God hath given us.
  ALENCON. All France will be replete with mirth and joy
    When they shall hear how we have play'd the men.
  CHARLES. 'Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is won;
    For which I will divide my crown with her;
    And all the priests and friars in my realm
    Shall in procession sing her endless praise.
    A statelier pyramis to her I'll rear
    Than Rhodope's of Memphis ever was.
    In memory of her, when she is dead,
    Her ashes, in an urn more precious
    Than the rich jewel'd coffer of Darius,
    Transported shall be at high festivals
    Before the kings and queens of France.
    No longer on Saint Denis will we cry,
    But Joan la Pucelle shall be France's saint.
    Come in, and let us banquet royally
    After this golden day of victory. Flourish.           Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 1.

Before Orleans

Enter a FRENCH SERGEANT and two SENTINELS

  SERGEANT. Sirs, take your places and be vigilant.
    If any noise or soldier you perceive
    Near to the walls, by some apparent sign
    Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.
  FIRST SENTINEL. Sergeant, you shall.           [Exit SERGEANT]
    Thus are poor servitors,
    When others sleep upon their quiet beds,
    Constrain'd to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.

             Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, and forces,
          with scaling-ladders; their drums beating a dead
                              march

  TALBOT. Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgundy,
    By whose approach the regions of Artois,
    Wallon, and Picardy, are friends to us,
    This happy night the Frenchmen are secure,
    Having all day carous'd and banqueted;
    Embrace we then this opportunity,
    As fitting best to quittance their deceit,
    Contriv'd by art and baleful sorcery.
  BEDFORD. Coward of France, how much he wrongs his fame,
    Despairing of his own arm's fortitude,
    To join with witches and the help of hell!
  BURGUNDY. Traitors have never other company.
    But what's that Pucelle whom they term so pure?
  TALBOT. A maid, they say.
  BEDFORD. A maid! and be so martial!
  BURGUNDY. Pray God she prove not masculine ere long,
    If underneath the standard of the French
    She carry armour as she hath begun.
  TALBOT. Well, let them practise and converse with spirits:
    God is our fortress, in whose conquering name
    Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.
  BEDFORD. Ascend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee.
  TALBOT. Not all together; better far, I guess,
    That we do make our entrance several ways;
    That if it chance the one of us do fail
    The other yet may rise against their force.
  BEDFORD. Agreed; I'll to yond corner.
  BURGUNDY. And I to this.
  TALBOT. And here will Talbot mount or make his grave.
    Now, Salisbury, for thee, and for the right
    Of English Henry, shall this night appear
    How much in duty I am bound to both.
             [The English scale the walls and cry 'Saint George!
                                                     a Talbot!']
    SENTINEL. Arm! arm! The enemy doth make assault.

           The French leap o'er the walls in their shirts.
           Enter, several ways, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER,
                     half ready and half unready

  ALENCON. How now, my lords? What, all unready so?
  BASTARD. Unready! Ay, and glad we 'scap'd so well.
  REIGNIER. 'Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds,
    Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.
  ALENCON. Of all exploits since first I follow'd arms
    Ne'er heard I of a warlike enterprise
    More venturous or desperate than this.
  BASTARD. I think this Talbot be a fiend of hell.
  REIGNIER. If not of hell, the heavens, sure, favour him
  ALENCON. Here cometh Charles; I marvel how he sped.

                    Enter CHARLES and LA PUCELLE

  BASTARD. Tut! holy Joan was his defensive guard.
  CHARLES. Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame?
    Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal,
    Make us partakers of a little gain
    That now our loss might be ten times so much?
  PUCELLE. Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend?
    At all times will you have my power alike?
    Sleeping or waking, must I still prevail
    Or will you blame and lay the fault on me?
    Improvident soldiers! Had your watch been good
    This sudden mischief never could have fall'n.
  CHARLES. Duke of Alencon, this was your default
    That, being captain of the watch to-night,
    Did look no better to that weighty charge.
  ALENCON. Had all your quarters been as safely kept
    As that whereof I had the government,
    We had not been thus shamefully surpris'd.
  BASTARD. Mine was secure.
  REIGNIER. And so was mine, my lord.
  CHARLES. And, for myself, most part of all this night,
    Within her quarter and mine own precinct
    I was employ'd in passing to and fro
    About relieving of the sentinels.
    Then how or which way should they first break in?
  PUCELLE. Question, my lords, no further of the case,
    How or which way; 'tis sure they found some place
    But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.
    And now there rests no other shift but this
    To gather our soldiers, scatter'd and dispers'd,
    And lay new platforms to endamage them.

               Alarum. Enter an ENGLISH SOLDIER, crying
            'A Talbot! A Talbot!' They fly, leaving their
                           clothes behind

  SOLDIER. I'll be so bold to take what they have left.
    The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword;
    For I have loaden me with many spoils,
    Using no other weapon but his name.                     Exit

                             SCENE 2.

                      ORLEANS. Within the town

            Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, a CAPTAIN,
                           and others

  BEDFORD. The day begins to break, and night is fled
    Whose pitchy mantle over-veil'd the earth.
    Here sound retreat and cease our hot pursuit.
                                               [Retreat sounded]
  TALBOT. Bring forth the body of old Salisbury
    And here advance it in the market-place,
    The middle centre of this cursed town.
    Now have I paid my vow unto his soul;
    For every drop of blood was drawn from him
    There hath at least five Frenchmen died to-night.
    And that hereafter ages may behold
    What ruin happened in revenge of him,
    Within their chiefest temple I'll erect
    A tomb, wherein his corpse shall be interr'd;
    Upon the which, that every one may read,
    Shall be engrav'd the sack of Orleans,
    The treacherous manner of his mournful death,
    And what a terror he had been to France.
    But, lords, in all our bloody massacre,
    I muse we met not with the Dauphin's grace,
    His new-come champion, virtuous Joan of Arc,
    Nor any of his false confederates.
  BEDFORD. 'Tis thought, Lord Talbot, when the fight began,
    Rous'd on the sudden from their drowsy beds,
    They did amongst the troops of armed men
    Leap o'er the walls for refuge in the field.
  BURGUNDY. Myself, as far as I could well discern
    For smoke and dusky vapours of the night,
    Am sure I scar'd the Dauphin and his trull,
    When arm in arm they both came swiftly running,
    Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves
    That could not live asunder day or night.
    After that things are set in order here,
    We'll follow them with all the power we have.

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. All hail, my lords! Which of this princely train
    Call ye the warlike Talbot, for his acts
    So much applauded through the realm of France?
  TALBOT. Here is the Talbot; who would speak with him?
  MESSENGER. The virtuous lady, Countess of Auvergne,
    With modesty admiring thy renown,
    By me entreats, great lord, thou wouldst vouchsafe
    To visit her poor castle where she lies,
    That she may boast she hath beheld the man
    Whose glory fills the world with loud report.
  BURGUNDY. Is it even so? Nay, then I see our wars
    Will turn into a peaceful comic sport,
    When ladies crave to be encount'red with.
    You may not, my lord, despise her gentle suit.
  TALBOT. Ne'er trust me then; for when a world of men
    Could not prevail with all their oratory,
    Yet hath a woman's kindness overrul'd;
    And therefore tell her I return great thanks
    And in submission will attend on her.
    Will not your honours bear me company?
  BEDFORD. No, truly; 'tis more than manners will;
    And I have heard it said unbidden guests
    Are often welcomest when they are gone.
  TALBOT. Well then, alone, since there's no remedy,
    I mean to prove this lady's courtesy.
    Come hither, Captain.  [Whispers]   You perceive my mind?
  CAPTAIN. I do, my lord, and mean accordingly.           Exeunt

                             SCENE 3.

                      AUVERGNE. The Castle

               Enter the COUNTESS and her PORTER

  COUNTESS. Porter, remember what I gave in charge;
    And when you have done so, bring the keys to me.
  PORTER. Madam, I will.
  COUNTESS. The plot is laid; if all things fall out right,
    I shall as famous be by this exploit.
    As Scythian Tomyris by Cyrus' death.
    Great is the rumour of this dreadful knight,
    And his achievements of no less account.
    Fain would mine eyes be witness with mine ears
    To give their censure of these rare reports.

    Enter MESSENGER and TALBOT.

  MESSENGER. Madam, according as your ladyship desir'd,
    By message crav'd, so is Lord Talbot come.
  COUNTESS. And he is welcome. What! is this the man?
  MESSENGER. Madam, it is.
  COUNTESS. Is this the scourge of France?
    Is this Talbot, so much fear'd abroad
    That with his name the mothers still their babes?
    I see report is fabulous and false.
    I thought I should have seen some Hercules,
    A second Hector, for his grim aspect
    And large proportion of his strong-knit limbs.
    Alas, this is a child, a silly dwarf!
    It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp
    Should strike such terror to his enemies.
  TALBOT. Madam, I have been bold to trouble you;
    But since your ladyship is not at leisure,
    I'll sort some other time to visit you.              [Going]
  COUNTESS. What means he now? Go ask him whither he
    goes.
  MESSENGER. Stay, my Lord Talbot; for my lady craves
    To know the cause of your abrupt departure.
  TALBOT. Marry, for that she's in a wrong belief,
    I go to certify her Talbot's here.

                      Re-enter PORTER With keys

  COUNTESS. If thou be he, then art thou prisoner.
  TALBOT. Prisoner! To whom?
  COUNTESS. To me, blood-thirsty lord
    And for that cause I train'd thee to my house.
    Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me,
    For in my gallery thy picture hangs;
    But now the substance shall endure the like
    And I will chain these legs and arms of thine
    That hast by tyranny these many years
    Wasted our country, slain our citizens,
    And sent our sons and husbands captivate.
  TALBOT. Ha, ha, ha!
  COUNTESS. Laughest thou, wretch? Thy mirth shall turn to
    moan.
  TALBOT. I laugh to see your ladyship so fond
    To think that you have aught but Talbot's shadow
    Whereon to practise your severity.
  COUNTESS. Why, art not thou the man?
  TALBOT. I am indeed.
  COUNTESS. Then have I substance too.
  TALBOT. No, no, I am but shadow of myself.
    You are deceiv'd, my substance is not here;
    For what you see is but the smallest part
    And least proportion of humanity.
    I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here,
    It is of such a spacious lofty pitch
    Your roof were not sufficient to contain 't.
  COUNTESS. This is a riddling merchant for the nonce;
    He will be here, and yet he is not here.
    How can these contrarieties agree?
  TALBOT. That will I show you presently.

                   Winds his horn; drums strike up;
                  a peal of ordnance. Enter soldiers

    How say you, madam? Are you now persuaded
    That Talbot is but shadow of himself?
    These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength,
    With which he yoketh your rebellious necks,
    Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns,
    And in a moment makes them desolate.
  COUNTESS. Victorious Talbot! pardon my abuse.
    I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited,
    And more than may be gathered by thy shape.
    Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath,
    For I am sorry that with reverence
    I did not entertain thee as thou art.
  TALBOT. Be not dismay'd, fair lady; nor misconster
    The mind of Talbot as you did mistake
    The outward composition of his body.
    What you have done hath not offended me.
    Nor other satisfaction do I crave
    But only, with your patience, that we may
    Taste of your wine and see what cates you have,
    For soldiers' stomachs always serve them well.
  COUNTESS. With all my heart, and think me honoured
    To feast so great a warrior in my house.              Exeunt

                            SCENE 4.

                   London. The Temple garden

         Enter the EARLS OF SOMERSET, SUFFOLK, and WARWICK;
           RICHARD PLANTAGENET, VERNON, and another LAWYER

  PLANTAGENET. Great lords and gentlemen, what means this
    silence?
    Dare no man answer in a case of truth?
  SUFFOLK. Within the Temple Hall we were too loud;
    The garden here is more convenient.
  PLANTAGENET. Then say at once if I maintain'd the truth;
    Or else was wrangling Somerset in th' error?
  SUFFOLK. Faith, I have been a truant in the law
    And never yet could frame my will to it;
    And therefore frame the law unto my will.
  SOMERSET. Judge you, my Lord of Warwick, then, between us.
  WARWICK. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;
    Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;
    Between two blades, which bears the better temper;
    Between two horses, which doth bear him best;
    Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye
    I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment;
    But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
    Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.
  PLANTAGENET. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:
    The truth appears so naked on my side
    That any purblind eye may find it out.
  SOMERSET. And on my side it is so well apparell'd,
    So clear, so shining, and so evident,
    That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.
  PLANTAGENET. Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,
    In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts.
    Let him that is a true-born gentleman
    And stands upon the honour of his birth,
    If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
    From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.
  SOMERSET. Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,
    But dare maintain the party of the truth,
    Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.
  WARWICK. I love no colours; and, without all colour
    Of base insinuating flattery,
    I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.
  SUFFOLK. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset,
    And say withal I think he held the right.
  VERNON. Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more
    Till you conclude that he upon whose side
    The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree
    Shall yield the other in the right opinion.
  SOMERSET. Good Master Vernon, it is well objected;
    If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.
  PLANTAGENET. And I.
  VERNON. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case,
    I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,
    Giving my verdict on the white rose side.
  SOMERSET. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,
    Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red,
    And fall on my side so, against your will.
  VERNON. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,
    Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt
    And keep me on the side where still I am.
  SOMERSET. Well, well, come on; who else?
  LAWYER.  [To Somerset]  Unless my study and my books be
    false,
    The argument you held was wrong in you;
    In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.
  PLANTAGENET. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?
  SOMERSET. Here in my scabbard, meditating that
    Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.
  PLANTAGENET. Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our
    roses;
    For pale they look with fear, as witnessing
    The truth on our side.
  SOMERSET. No, Plantagenet,
    'Tis not for fear but anger that thy cheeks
    Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses,
    And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.
  PLANTAGENET. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?
  SOMERSET. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?
  PLANTAGENET. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;
    Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.
  SOMERSET. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding roses,
    That shall maintain what I have said is true,
    Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.
  PLANTAGENET. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand,
    I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.
  SUFFOLK. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.
  PLANTAGENET. Proud Pole, I will, and scorn both him and
    thee.
  SUFFOLK. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat.
  SOMERSET. Away, away, good William de la Pole!
    We grace the yeoman by conversing with him.
  WARWICK. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset;
    His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence,
    Third son to the third Edward, King of England.
    Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root?
  PLANTAGENET. He bears him on the place's privilege,
    Or durst not for his craven heart say thus.
  SOMERSET. By Him that made me, I'll maintain my words
    On any plot of ground in Christendom.
    Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge,
    For treason executed in our late king's days?
    And by his treason stand'st not thou attainted,
    Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?
    His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;
    And till thou be restor'd thou art a yeoman.
  PLANTAGENET. My father was attached, not attainted;
    Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;
    And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
    Were growing time once ripened to my will.
    For your partaker Pole, and you yourself,
    I'll note you in my book of memory
    To scourge you for this apprehension.
    Look to it well, and say you are well warn'd.
  SOMERSET. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still;
    And know us by these colours for thy foes
    For these my friends in spite of thee shall wear.
  PLANTAGENET. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,
    As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,
    Will I for ever, and my faction, wear,
    Until it wither with me to my grave,
    Or flourish to the height of my degree.
  SUFFOLK. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambition!
    And so farewell until I meet thee next.                 Exit
  SOMERSET. Have with thee, Pole. Farewell, ambitious
    Richard.                                                Exit
  PLANTAGENET. How I am brav'd, and must perforce endure
    it!
  WARWICK. This blot that they object against your house
    Shall be wip'd out in the next Parliament,
    Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester;
    And if thou be not then created York,
    I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
    Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,
    Against proud Somerset and William Pole,
    Will I upon thy party wear this rose;
    And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day,
    Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,
    Shall send between the Red Rose and the White
    A thousand souls to death and deadly night.
  PLANTAGENET. Good Master Vernon, I am bound to you
    That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.
  VERNON. In your behalf still will I wear the same.
  LAWYER. And so will I.
  PLANTAGENET. Thanks, gentle sir.
    Come, let us four to dinner. I dare say
    This quarrel will drink blood another day.            Exeunt

                             SCENE 5.

                       The Tower of London

         Enter MORTIMER, brought in a chair, and GAOLERS

  MORTIMER. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
    Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.
    Even like a man new haled from the rack,
    So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;
    And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,
    Nestor-like aged in an age of care,
    Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.
    These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,
    Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent;
    Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,
    And pithless arms, like to a withered vine
    That droops his sapless branches to the ground.
    Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,
    Unable to support this lump of clay,
    Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,
    As witting I no other comfort have.
    But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?
  FIRST KEEPER. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come.
    We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber;
    And answer was return'd that he will come.
  MORTIMER. Enough; my soul shall then be satisfied.
    Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine.
    Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,
    Before whose glory I was great in arms,
    This loathsome sequestration have I had;
    And even since then hath Richard been obscur'd,
    Depriv'd of honour and inheritance.
    But now the arbitrator of despairs,
    Just Death, kind umpire of men's miseries,
    With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.
    I would his troubles likewise were expir'd,
    That so he might recover what was lost.

                     Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET

  FIRST KEEPER. My lord, your loving nephew now is come.
  MORTIMER. Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?
  PLANTAGENET. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly us'd,
    Your nephew, late despised Richard, comes.
  MORTIMER. Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck
    And in his bosom spend my latter gasp.
    O, tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks,
    That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.
    And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock,
    Why didst thou say of late thou wert despis'd?
  PLANTAGENET. First, lean thine aged back against mine arm;
    And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease.
    This day, in argument upon a case,
    Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me;
    Among which terms he us'd his lavish tongue
    And did upbraid me with my father's death;
    Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,
    Else with the like I had requited him.
    Therefore, good uncle, for my father's sake,
    In honour of a true Plantagenet,
    And for alliance sake, declare the cause
    My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.
  MORTIMER. That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me
    And hath detain'd me all my flow'ring youth
    Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,
    Was cursed instrument of his decease.
  PLANTAGENET. Discover more at large what cause that was,
    For I am ignorant and cannot guess.
  MORTIMER. I will, if that my fading breath permit
    And death approach not ere my tale be done.
    Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,
    Depos'd his nephew Richard, Edward's son,
    The first-begotten and the lawful heir
    Of Edward king, the third of that descent;
    During whose reign the Percies of the north,
    Finding his usurpation most unjust,
    Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne.
    The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this
    Was, for that-young Richard thus remov'd,
    Leaving no heir begotten of his body-
    I was the next by birth and parentage;
    For by my mother I derived am
    From Lionel Duke of Clarence, third son
    To King Edward the Third; whereas he
    From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,
    Being but fourth of that heroic line.
    But mark: as in this haughty great attempt
    They laboured to plant the rightful heir,
    I lost my liberty, and they their lives.
    Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,
    Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign,
    Thy father, Earl of Cambridge, then deriv'd
    From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,
    Marrying my sister, that thy mother was,
    Again, in pity of my hard distress,
    Levied an army, weening to redeem
    And have install'd me in the diadem;
    But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,
    And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,
    In whom the title rested, were suppress'd.
  PLANTAGENET. Of Which, my lord, your honour is the last.
  MORTIMER. True; and thou seest that I no issue have,
    And that my fainting words do warrant death.
    Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather;
    But yet be wary in thy studious care.
  PLANTAGENET. Thy grave admonishments prevail with me.
    But yet methinks my father's execution
    Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.
  MORTIMER. With silence, nephew, be thou politic;
    Strong fixed is the house of Lancaster
    And like a mountain not to be remov'd.
    But now thy uncle is removing hence,
    As princes do their courts when they are cloy'd
    With long continuance in a settled place.
  PLANTAGENET. O uncle, would some part of my young years
    Might but redeem the passage of your age!
  MORTIMER. Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer
    doth
    Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.
    Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good;
    Only give order for my funeral.
    And so, farewell; and fair be all thy hopes,
    And prosperous be thy life in peace and war!          [Dies]
  PLANTAGENET. And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!
    In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,
    And like a hermit overpass'd thy days.
    Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast;
    And what I do imagine, let that rest.
    Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself
    Will see his burial better than his life.
                Exeunt GAOLERS, hearing out the body of MORTIMER
    Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,
    Chok'd with ambition of the meaner sort;
    And for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,
    Which Somerset hath offer'd to my house,
    I doubt not but with honour to redress;
    And therefore haste I to the Parliament,
    Either to be restored to my blood,
    Or make my ill th' advantage of my good.                Exit

ACT III. SCENE 1.

London. The Parliament House

Flourish. Enter the KING, EXETER, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, SOMERSET, and
SUFFOLK; the BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, RICHARD PLANTAGENET, and others.
GLOUCESTER offers to put up a bill; WINCHESTER snatches it, and tears
it

  WINCHESTER. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines,
    With written pamphlets studiously devis'd?
    Humphrey of Gloucester, if thou canst accuse
    Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge,
    Do it without invention, suddenly;
    I with sudden and extemporal speech
    Purpose to answer what thou canst object.
  GLOUCESTER. Presumptuous priest, this place commands my
    patience,
    Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonour'd me.
    Think not, although in writing I preferr'd
    The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes,
    That therefore I have forg'd, or am not able
    Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen.
    No, prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness,
    Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,
    As very infants prattle of thy pride.
    Thou art a most pernicious usurer;
    Froward by nature, enemy to peace;
    Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
    A man of thy profession and degree;
    And for thy treachery, what's more manifest
    In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life,
    As well at London Bridge as at the Tower?
    Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,
    The King, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt
    From envious malice of thy swelling heart.
  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, I do defy thee. Lords, vouchsafe
    To give me hearing what I shall reply.
    If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,
    As he will have me, how am I so poor?
    Or how haps it I seek not to advance
    Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?
    And for dissension, who preferreth peace
    More than I do, except I be provok'd?
    No, my good lords, it is not that offends;
    It is not that that incens'd hath incens'd the Duke:
    It is because no one should sway but he;
    No one but he should be about the King;
    And that engenders thunder in his breast
    And makes him roar these accusations forth.
    But he shall know I am as good
  GLOUCESTER. As good!
    Thou bastard of my grandfather!
  WINCHESTER. Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray,
    But one imperious in another's throne?
  GLOUCESTER. Am I not Protector, saucy priest?
  WINCHESTER. And am not I a prelate of the church?
  GLOUCESTER. Yes, as an outlaw in a castle keeps,
    And useth it to patronage his theft.
  WINCHESTER. Unreverent Gloucester!
  GLOUCESTER. Thou art reverend
    Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.
  WINCHESTER. Rome shall remedy this.
  WARWICK. Roam thither then.
  SOMERSET. My lord, it were your duty to forbear.
  WARWICK. Ay, see the bishop be not overborne.
  SOMERSET. Methinks my lord should be religious,
    And know the office that belongs to such.
  WARWICK. Methinks his lordship should be humbler;
    It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.
  SOMERSET. Yes, when his holy state is touch'd so near.
  WARWICK. State holy or unhallow'd, what of that?
    Is not his Grace Protector to the King?
  PLANTAGENET.  [Aside]  Plantagenet, I see, must hold his
    tongue,
    Lest it be said 'Speak, sirrah, when you should;
    Must your bold verdict enter talk with lords?'
    Else would I have a fling at Winchester.
  KING HENRY. Uncles of Gloucester and of Winchester,
    The special watchmen of our English weal,
    I would prevail, if prayers might prevail
    To join your hearts in love and amity.
    O, what a scandal is it to our crown
    That two such noble peers as ye should jar!
    Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell
    Civil dissension is a viperous worm
    That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.
                  [A noise within: 'Down with the tawny coats!']
    What tumult's this?
  WARWICK. An uproar, I dare warrant,
    Begun through malice of the Bishop's men.
                              [A noise again: 'Stones! Stones!']

                Enter the MAYOR OF LONDON, attended

  MAYOR. O, my good lords, and virtuous Henry,
    Pity the city of London, pity us!
    The Bishop and the Duke of Gloucester's men,
    Forbidden late to carry any weapon,
    Have fill'd their pockets full of pebble stones
    And, banding themselves in contrary parts,
    Do pelt so fast at one another's pate
    That many have their giddy brains knock'd out.
    Our windows are broke down in every street,
    And we for fear compell'd to shut our shops.

        Enter in skirmish, the retainers of GLOUCESTER and
               WINCHESTER, with bloody pates

  KING HENRY. We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,
    To hold your slaught'ring hands and keep the peace.
    Pray, uncle Gloucester, mitigate this strife.
  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Nay, if we be forbidden stones, we'll
    fall to it with our teeth.
  SECOND SERVING-MAN. Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.
                                                [Skirmish again]
  GLOUCESTER. You of my household, leave this peevish broil,
    And set this unaccustom'd fight aside.
  THIRD SERVING-MAN. My lord, we know your Grace to be a
    man
    Just and upright, and for your royal birth
    Inferior to none but to his Majesty;
    And ere that we will suffer such a prince,
    So kind a father of the commonweal,
    To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,
    We and our wives and children all will fight
    And have our bodies slaught'red by thy foes.
  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Ay, and the very parings of our nails
    Shall pitch a field when we are dead.          [Begin again]
  GLOUCESTER. Stay, stay, I say!
    And if you love me, as you say you do,
    Let me persuade you to forbear awhile.
  KING HENRY. O, how this discord doth afflict my soul!
    Can you, my Lord of Winchester, behold
    My sighs and tears and will not once relent?
    Who should be pitiful, if you be not?
    Or who should study to prefer a peace,
    If holy churchmen take delight in broils?
  WARWICK. Yield, my Lord Protector; yield, Winchester;
    Except you mean with obstinate repulse
    To slay your sovereign and destroy the realm.
    You see what mischief, and what murder too,
    Hath been enacted through your enmity;
    Then be at peace, except ye thirst for blood.
  WINCHESTER. He shall submit, or I will never yield.
  GLOUCESTER. Compassion on the King commands me stoop,
    Or I would see his heart out ere the priest
    Should ever get that privilege of me.
  WARWICK. Behold, my Lord of Winchester, the Duke
    Hath banish'd moody discontented fury,
    As by his smoothed brows it doth appear;
    Why look you still so stem and tragical?
  GLOUCESTER. Here, Winchester, I offer thee my hand.
  KING HENRY. Fie, uncle Beaufort! I have heard you preach
    That malice was a great and grievous sin;
    And will not you maintain the thing you teach,
    But prove a chief offender in the same?
  WARWICK. Sweet King! The Bishop hath a kindly gird.
    For shame, my Lord of Winchester, relent;
    What, shall a child instruct you what to do?
  WINCHESTER. Well, Duke of Gloucester, I will yield to thee;
    Love for thy love and hand for hand I give.
  GLOUCESTER  [Aside]  Ay, but, I fear me, with a hollow
    heart.
    See here, my friends and loving countrymen:
    This token serveth for a flag of truce
    Betwixt ourselves and all our followers.
    So help me God, as I dissemble not!
  WINCHESTER  [Aside]  So help me God, as I intend it not!
  KING HENRY. O loving uncle, kind Duke of Gloucester,
    How joyful am I made by this contract!
    Away, my masters! trouble us no more;
    But join in friendship, as your lords have done.
  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Content: I'll to the surgeon's.
  SECOND SERVING-MAN. And so will I.
  THIRD SERVING-MAN. And I will see what physic the tavern
    affords.                         Exeunt servants, MAYOR, &C.
  WARWICK. Accept this scroll, most gracious sovereign;
    Which in the right of Richard Plantagenet
    We do exhibit to your Majesty.
  GLOUCESTER. Well urg'd, my Lord of Warwick; for, sweet
    prince,
    An if your Grace mark every circumstance,
    You have great reason to do Richard right;
    Especially for those occasions
    At Eltham Place I told your Majesty.
  KING HENRY. And those occasions, uncle, were of force;
    Therefore, my loving lords, our pleasure is
    That Richard be restored to his blood.
  WARWICK. Let Richard be restored to his blood;
    So shall his father's wrongs be recompens'd.
  WINCHESTER. As will the rest, so willeth Winchester.
  KING HENRY. If Richard will be true, not that alone
    But all the whole inheritance I give
    That doth belong unto the house of York,
    From whence you spring by lineal descent.
  PLANTAGENET. Thy humble servant vows obedience
    And humble service till the point of death.
  KING HENRY. Stoop then and set your knee against my foot;
    And in reguerdon of that duty done
    I girt thee with the valiant sword of York.
    Rise, Richard, like a true Plantagenet,
    And rise created princely Duke of York.
  PLANTAGENET. And so thrive Richard as thy foes may fall!
    And as my duty springs, so perish they
    That grudge one thought against your Majesty!
  ALL. Welcome, high Prince, the mighty Duke of York!
  SOMERSET.  [Aside]  Perish, base Prince, ignoble Duke of
    York!
  GLOUCESTER. Now will it best avail your Majesty
    To cross the seas and to be crown'd in France:
    The presence of a king engenders love
    Amongst his subjects and his loyal friends,
    As it disanimates his enemies.
  KING HENRY. When Gloucester says the word, King Henry
    goes;
    For friendly counsel cuts off many foes.
  GLOUCESTER. Your ships already are in readiness.
                         Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but EXETER
  EXETER. Ay, we may march in England or in France,
    Not seeing what is likely to ensue.
    This late dissension grown betwixt the peers
    Burns under feigned ashes of forg'd love
    And will at last break out into a flame;
    As fest'red members rot but by degree
    Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away,
    So will this base and envious discord breed.
    And now I fear that fatal prophecy.
    Which in the time of Henry nam'd the Fifth
    Was in the mouth of every sucking babe:
    That Henry born at Monmouth should win all,
    And Henry born at Windsor should lose all.
    Which is so plain that Exeter doth wish
    His days may finish ere that hapless time.              Exit

                             SCENE 2.

                      France. Before Rouen

       Enter LA PUCELLE disguis'd, with four soldiers dressed
            like countrymen, with sacks upon their backs

  PUCELLE. These are the city gates, the gates of Rouen,
    Through which our policy must make a breach.
    Take heed, be wary how you place your words;
    Talk like the vulgar sort of market-men
    That come to gather money for their corn.
    If we have entrance, as I hope we shall,
    And that we find the slothful watch but weak,
    I'll by a sign give notice to our friends,
    That Charles the Dauphin may encounter them.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the city,
    And we be lords and rulers over Rouen;
    Therefore we'll knock.                              [Knocks]
  WATCH.  [Within]  Qui est la?
  PUCELLE. Paysans, pauvres gens de France
    Poor market-folks that come to sell their corn.
  WATCH. Enter, go in; the market-bell is rung.
  PUCELLE. Now, Rouen, I'll shake thy bulwarks to the
    ground.

                               [LA PUCELLE, &c., enter the town]

        Enter CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER, and forces

  CHARLES. Saint Denis bless this happy stratagem!
    And once again we'll sleep secure in Rouen.
  BASTARD. Here ent'red Pucelle and her practisants;
    Now she is there, how will she specify
    Here is the best and safest passage in?
  ALENCON. By thrusting out a torch from yonder tower;
    Which once discern'd shows that her meaning is
    No way to that, for weakness, which she ent'red.

             Enter LA PUCELLE, on the top, thrusting out
                         a torch burning

  PUCELLE. Behold, this is the happy wedding torch
    That joineth Rouen unto her countrymen,
    But burning fatal to the Talbotites.                    Exit
  BASTARD. See, noble Charles, the beacon of our friend;
    The burning torch in yonder turret stands.
  CHARLES. Now shine it like a comet of revenge,
    A prophet to the fall of all our foes!
  ALENCON. Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends;
    Enter, and cry 'The Dauphin!' presently,
    And then do execution on the watch. Alarum.           Exeunt

              An alarum. Enter TALBOT in an excursion

  TALBOT. France, thou shalt rue this treason with thy tears,
    If Talbot but survive thy treachery.
  PUCELLE, that witch, that damned sorceress,
    Hath wrought this hellish mischief unawares,
    That hardly we escap'd the pride of France.             Exit

        An alarum; excursions. BEDFORD brought in sick in
          a chair. Enter TALBOT and BURGUNDY without;
         within, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON,
                 and REIGNIER, on the walls

  PUCELLE. Good morrow, gallants! Want ye corn for bread?
    I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast
    Before he'll buy again at such a rate.
    'Twas full of darnel-do you like the taste?
  BURGUNDY. Scoff on, vile fiend and shameless courtezan.
    I trust ere long to choke thee with thine own,
    And make thee curse the harvest of that corn.
  CHARLES. Your Grace may starve, perhaps, before that time.
  BEDFORD. O, let no words, but deeds, revenge this treason!
  PUCELLE. What you do, good grey beard? Break a
    lance,
    And run a tilt at death within a chair?
  TALBOT. Foul fiend of France and hag of all despite,
    Encompass'd with thy lustful paramours,
    Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age
    And twit with cowardice a man half dead?
    Damsel, I'll have a bout with you again,
    Or else let Talbot perish with this shame.
  PUCELLE. Are ye so hot, sir? Yet, Pucelle, hold thy peace;
    If Talbot do but thunder, rain will follow.
                 [The English party whisper together in council]
    God speed the parliament! Who shall be the Speaker?
  TALBOT. Dare ye come forth and meet us in the field?
  PUCELLE. Belike your lordship takes us then for fools,
    To try if that our own be ours or no.
  TALBOT. I speak not to that railing Hecate,
    But unto thee, Alencon, and the rest.
    Will ye, like soldiers, come and fight it out?
  ALENCON. Signior, no.
  TALBOT. Signior, hang! Base muleteers of France!
    Like peasant foot-boys do they keep the walls,
    And dare not take up arms like gentlemen.
  PUCELLE. Away, captains! Let's get us from the walls;
    For Talbot means no goodness by his looks.
    God b'uy, my lord; we came but to tell you
    That we are here.                      Exeunt from the walls
  TALBOT. And there will we be too, ere it be long,
    Or else reproach be Talbot's greatest fame!
    Vow, Burgundy, by honour of thy house,
    Prick'd on by public wrongs sustain'd in France,
    Either to get the town again or die;
    And I, as sure as English Henry lives
    And as his father here was conqueror,
    As sure as in this late betrayed town
    Great Coeur-de-lion's heart was buried
    So sure I swear to get the town or die.
  BURGUNDY. My vows are equal partners with thy vows.
  TALBOT. But ere we go, regard this dying prince,
    The valiant Duke of Bedford. Come, my lord,
    We will bestow you in some better place,
    Fitter for sickness and for crazy age.
  BEDFORD. Lord Talbot, do not so dishonour me;
    Here will I sit before the walls of Rouen,
    And will be partner of your weal or woe.
  BURGUNDY. Courageous Bedford, let us now persuade you.
  BEDFORD. Not to be gone from hence; for once I read
    That stout Pendragon in his litter sick
    Came to the field, and vanquished his foes.
    Methinks I should revive the soldiers' hearts,
    Because I ever found them as myself.
  TALBOT. Undaunted spirit in a dying breast!
    Then be it so. Heavens keep old Bedford safe!
    And now no more ado, brave Burgundy,
    But gather we our forces out of hand
    And set upon our boasting enemy.
          Exeunt against the town all but BEDFORD and attendants

           An alarum; excursions. Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE,
                           and a CAPTAIN

  CAPTAIN. Whither away, Sir John Fastolfe, in such haste?
  FASTOLFE. Whither away? To save myself by flight:
    We are like to have the overthrow again.
  CAPTAIN. What! Will you and leave Lord Talbot?
  FASTOLFE. Ay,
    All the Talbots in the world, to save my life.          Exit
  CAPTAIN. Cowardly knight! ill fortune follow thee!
                                              Exit into the town

         Retreat; excursions. LA PUCELLE, ALENCON,
                      and CHARLES fly

  BEDFORD. Now, quiet soul, depart when heaven please,
    For I have seen our enemies' overthrow.
    What is the trust or strength of foolish man?
    They that of late were daring with their scoffs
    Are glad and fain by flight to save themselves.
            [BEDFORD dies and is carried in by two in his chair]

          An alarum. Re-enter TALBOT, BURGUNDY, and the rest

  TALBOT. Lost and recovered in a day again!
    This is a double honour, Burgundy.
    Yet heavens have glory for this victory!
  BURGUNDY. Warlike and martial Talbot, Burgundy
    Enshrines thee in his heart, and there erects
    Thy noble deeds as valour's monuments.
  TALBOT. Thanks, gentle Duke. But where is Pucelle now?
    I think her old familiar is asleep.
    Now where's the Bastard's braves, and Charles his gleeks?
    What, all amort? Rouen hangs her head for grief
    That such a valiant company are fled.
    Now will we take some order in the town,
    Placing therein some expert officers;
    And then depart to Paris to the King,
    For there young Henry with his nobles lie.
  BURGUNDY. What Lord Talbot pleaseth Burgundy.
  TALBOT. But yet, before we go, let's not forget
    The noble Duke of Bedford, late deceas'd,
    But see his exequies fulfill'd in Rouen.
    A braver soldier never couched lance,
    A gentler heart did never sway in court;
    But kings and mightiest potentates must die,
    For that's the end of human misery.                   Exeunt

                             SCENE 3.

                      The plains near Rouen

        Enter CHARLES, the BASTARD, ALENCON, LA PUCELLE,
                          and forces

  PUCELLE. Dismay not, Princes, at this accident,
    Nor grieve that Rouen is so recovered.
    Care is no cure, but rather corrosive,
    For things that are not to be remedied.
    Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while
    And like a peacock sweep along his tail;
    We'll pull his plumes and take away his train,
    If Dauphin and the rest will be but rul'd.
  CHARLES. We have guided by thee hitherto,
    And of thy cunning had no diffidence;
    One sudden foil shall never breed distrust
  BASTARD. Search out thy wit for secret policies,
    And we will make thee famous through the world.
    ALENCON. We'll set thy statue in some holy place,
    And have thee reverenc'd like a blessed saint.
    Employ thee, then, sweet virgin, for our good.
  PUCELLE. Then thus it must be; this doth Joan devise:
    By fair persuasions, mix'd with sug'red words,
    We will entice the Duke of Burgundy
    To leave the Talbot and to follow us.
  CHARLES. Ay, marry, sweeting, if we could do that,
    France were no place for Henry's warriors;
    Nor should that nation boast it so with us,
    But be extirped from our provinces.
  ALENCON. For ever should they be expuls'd from France,
    And not have tide of an earldom here.
  PUCELLE. Your honours shall perceive how I will work
    To bring this matter to the wished end.
                                          [Drum sounds afar off]
    Hark! by the sound of drum you may perceive
    Their powers are marching unto Paris-ward.

          Here sound an English march. Enter, and pass over
                at a distance, TALBOT and his forces

    There goes the Talbot, with his colours spread,
    And all the troops of English after him.

            French march. Enter the DUKE OF BURGUNDY and
                         his forces

    Now in the rearward comes the Duke and his.
    Fortune in favour makes him lag behind.
    Summon a parley; we will talk with him.
                                       [Trumpets sound a parley]
  CHARLES. A parley with the Duke of Burgundy!
  BURGUNDY. Who craves a parley with the Burgundy?
  PUCELLE. The princely Charles of France, thy countryman.
  BURGUNDY. What say'st thou, Charles? for I am marching
    hence.
  CHARLES. Speak, Pucelle, and enchant him with thy words.
  PUCELLE. Brave Burgundy, undoubted hope of France!
    Stay, let thy humble handmaid speak to thee.
  BURGUNDY. Speak on; but be not over-tedious.
  PUCELLE. Look on thy country, look on fertile France,
    And see the cities and the towns defac'd
    By wasting ruin of the cruel foe;
    As looks the mother on her lowly babe
    When death doth close his tender dying eyes,
    See, see the pining malady of France;
    Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds,
    Which thou thyself hast given her woeful breast.
    O, turn thy edged sword another way;
    Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help!
    One drop of blood drawn from thy country's bosom
    Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore.
    Return thee therefore with a flood of tears,
    And wash away thy country's stained spots.
  BURGUNDY. Either she hath bewitch'd me with her words,
    Or nature makes me suddenly relent.
  PUCELLE. Besides, all French and France exclaims on thee,
    Doubting thy birth and lawful progeny.
    Who join'st thou with but with a lordly nation
    That will not trust thee but for profit's sake?
    When Talbot hath set footing once in France,
    And fashion'd thee that instrument of ill,
    Who then but English Henry will be lord,
    And thou be thrust out like a fugitive?
    Call we to mind-and mark but this for proof:
    Was not the Duke of Orleans thy foe?
    And was he not in England prisoner?
    But when they heard he was thine enemy
    They set him free without his ransom paid,
    In spite of Burgundy and all his friends.
    See then, thou fight'st against thy countrymen,
    And join'st with them will be thy slaughtermen.
    Come, come, return; return, thou wandering lord;
    Charles and the rest will take thee in their arms.
  BURGUNDY. I am vanquished; these haughty words of hers
    Have batt'red me like roaring cannon-shot
    And made me almost yield upon my knees.
    Forgive me, country, and sweet countrymen
    And, lords, accept this hearty kind embrace.
    My forces and my power of men are yours;
    So, farewell, Talbot; I'll no longer trust thee.
  PUCELLE. Done like a Frenchman-  [Aside]  turn and turn
    again.
  CHARLES. Welcome, brave Duke! Thy friendship makes us
    fresh.
  BASTARD. And doth beget new courage in our breasts.
  ALENCON. Pucelle hath bravely play'd her part in this,
    And doth deserve a coronet of gold.
  CHARLES. Now let us on, my lords, and join our powers,
    And seek how we may prejudice the foe.                Exeunt

                          SCENE 4.

                     Paris. The palace

         Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK,
             SUFFOLK, SOMERSET, WARWICK, EXETER,
           VERNON, BASSET, and others. To them, with
                     his soldiers, TALBOT

  TALBOT. My gracious Prince, and honourable peers,
    Hearing of your arrival in this realm,
    I have awhile given truce unto my wars
    To do my duty to my sovereign;
    In sign whereof, this arm that hath reclaim'd
    To your obedience fifty fortresses,
    Twelve cities, and seven walled towns of strength,
    Beside five hundred prisoners of esteem,
    Lets fall his sword before your Highness' feet,
    And with submissive loyalty of heart
    Ascribes the glory of his conquest got
    First to my God and next unto your Grace.           [Kneels]
  KING HENRY. Is this the Lord Talbot, uncle Gloucester,
    That hath so long been resident in France?
  GLOUCESTER. Yes, if it please your Majesty, my liege.
  KING HENRY. Welcome, brave captain and victorious lord!
    When I was young, as yet I am not old,
    I do remember how my father said
    A stouter champion never handled sword.
    Long since we were resolved of your truth,
    Your faithful service, and your toil in war;
    Yet never have you tasted our reward,
    Or been reguerdon'd with so much as thanks,
    Because till now we never saw your face.
    Therefore stand up; and for these good deserts
    We here create you Earl of Shrewsbury;
    And in our coronation take your place.
              Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but VERNON and BASSET
  VERNON. Now, sir, to you, that were so hot at sea,
    Disgracing of these colours that I wear
    In honour of my noble Lord of York
    Dar'st thou maintain the former words thou spak'st?
  BASSET. Yes, sir; as well as you dare patronage
    The envious barking of your saucy tongue
    Against my lord the Duke of Somerset.
  VERNON. Sirrah, thy lord I honour as he is.
  BASSET. Why, what is he? As good a man as York!
  VERNON. Hark ye: not so. In witness, take ye that.
                                                   [Strikes him]
  BASSET. Villain, thou knowest the law of arms is such
    That whoso draws a sword 'tis present death,
    Or else this blow should broach thy dearest blood.
    But I'll unto his Majesty and crave
    I may have liberty to venge this wrong;
    When thou shalt see I'll meet thee to thy cost.
  VERNON. Well, miscreant, I'll be there as soon as you;
    And, after, meet you sooner than you would.           Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

Park. The palace

Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK, SUFFOLK, SOMERSET,
WARWICK,
TALBOT, EXETER, the GOVERNOR OF PARIS, and others

  GLOUCESTER. Lord Bishop, set the crown upon his head.
  WINCHESTER. God save King Henry, of that name the Sixth!
  GLOUCESTER. Now, Governor of Paris, take your oath
                                               [GOVERNOR kneels]
    That you elect no other king but him,
    Esteem none friends but such as are his friends,
    And none your foes but such as shall pretend
    Malicious practices against his state.
    This shall ye do, so help you righteous God!
                                   Exeunt GOVERNOR and his train

                    Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE

  FASTOLFE. My gracious sovereign, as I rode from Calais,
    To haste unto your coronation,
    A letter was deliver'd to my hands,
    Writ to your Grace from th' Duke of Burgundy.
  TALBOT. Shame to the Duke of Burgundy and thee!
    I vow'd, base knight, when I did meet thee next
    To tear the Garter from thy craven's leg,  [Plucking it off]
    Which I have done, because unworthily
    Thou wast installed in that high degree.
    Pardon me, princely Henry, and the rest:
    This dastard, at the battle of Patay,
    When but in all I was six thousand strong,
    And that the French were almost ten to one,
    Before we met or that a stroke was given,
    Like to a trusty squire did run away;
    In which assault we lost twelve hundred men;
    Myself and divers gentlemen beside
    Were there surpris'd and taken prisoners.
    Then judge, great lords, if I have done amiss,
    Or whether that such cowards ought to wear
    This ornament of knighthood-yea or no.
  GLOUCESTER. To say the truth, this fact was infamous
    And ill beseeming any common man,
    Much more a knight, a captain, and a leader.
  TALBOT. When first this order was ordain'd, my lords,
    Knights of the Garter were of noble birth,
    Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage,
    Such as were grown to credit by the wars;
    Not fearing death nor shrinking for distress,
    But always resolute in most extremes.
    He then that is not furnish'd in this sort
    Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight,
    Profaning this most honourable order,
    And should, if I were worthy to be judge,
    Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born swain
    That doth presume to boast of gentle blood.
  KING HENRY. Stain to thy countrymen, thou hear'st thy
    doom.
    Be packing, therefore, thou that wast a knight;
    Henceforth we banish thee on pain of death.
                                                   Exit FASTOLFE
    And now, my Lord Protector, view the letter
    Sent from our uncle Duke of Burgundy.
  GLOUCESTER.  [Viewing the superscription]  What means his
    Grace, that he hath chang'd his style?
    No more but plain and bluntly 'To the King!'
    Hath he forgot he is his sovereign?
    Or doth this churlish superscription
    Pretend some alteration in good-will?
    What's here?  [Reads]  'I have, upon especial cause,
    Mov'd with compassion of my country's wreck,
    Together with the pitiful complaints
    Of such as your oppression feeds upon,
    Forsaken your pernicious faction,
    And join'd with Charles, the rightful King of France.'
    O monstrous treachery! Can this be so
    That in alliance, amity, and oaths,
    There should be found such false dissembling guile?
  KING HENRY. What! Doth my uncle Burgundy revolt?
  GLOUCESTER. He doth, my lord, and is become your foe.
  KING HENRY. Is that the worst this letter doth contain?
  GLOUCESTER. It is the worst, and all, my lord, he writes.
  KING HENRY. Why then Lord Talbot there shall talk with
    him
    And give him chastisement for this abuse.
    How say you, my lord, are you not content?
  TALBOT. Content, my liege! Yes; but that I am prevented,
    I should have begg'd I might have been employ'd.
  KING HENRY. Then gather strength and march unto him
    straight;
    Let him perceive how ill we brook his treason.
    And what offence it is to flout his friends.
  TALBOT. I go, my lord, in heart desiring still
    You may behold confusion of your foes.                  Exit

                       Enter VERNON and BASSET

  VERNON. Grant me the combat, gracious sovereign.
  BASSET. And me, my lord, grant me the combat too.
  YORK. This is my servant: hear him, noble Prince.
  SOMERSET. And this is mine: sweet Henry, favour him.
  KING HENRY. Be patient, lords, and give them leave to speak.
    Say, gentlemen, what makes you thus exclaim,
    And wherefore crave you combat, or with whom?
  VERNON. With him, my lord; for he hath done me wrong.
  BASSET. And I with him; for he hath done me wrong.
  KING HENRY. What is that wrong whereof you both
    complain? First let me know, and then I'll answer you.
  BASSET. Crossing the sea from England into France,
    This fellow here, with envious carping tongue,
    Upbraided me about the rose I wear,
    Saying the sanguine colour of the leaves
    Did represent my master's blushing cheeks
    When stubbornly he did repugn the truth
    About a certain question in the law
    Argu'd betwixt the Duke of York and him;
    With other vile and ignominious terms
    In confutation of which rude reproach
    And in defence of my lord's worthiness,
    I crave the benefit of law of arms.
  VERNON. And that is my petition, noble lord;
    For though he seem with forged quaint conceit
    To set a gloss upon his bold intent,
    Yet know, my lord, I was provok'd by him,
    And he first took exceptions at this badge,
    Pronouncing that the paleness of this flower
    Bewray'd the faintness of my master's heart.
  YORK. Will not this malice, Somerset, be left?
  SOMERSET. Your private grudge, my Lord of York, will out,
    Though ne'er so cunningly you smother it.
  KING HENRY. Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick
    men, When for so slight and frivolous a cause
    Such factious emulations shall arise!
    Good cousins both, of York and Somerset,
    Quiet yourselves, I pray, and be at peace.
  YORK. Let this dissension first be tried by fight,
    And then your Highness shall command a peace.
  SOMERSET. The quarrel toucheth none but us alone;
    Betwixt ourselves let us decide it then.
  YORK. There is my pledge; accept it, Somerset.
  VERNON. Nay, let it rest where it began at first.
  BASSET. Confirm it so, mine honourable lord.
  GLOUCESTER. Confirm it so? Confounded be your strife;
    And perish ye, with your audacious prate!
    Presumptuous vassals, are you not asham'd
    With this immodest clamorous outrage
    To trouble and disturb the King and us?
    And you, my lords- methinks you do not well
    To bear with their perverse objections,
    Much less to take occasion from their mouths
    To raise a mutiny betwixt yourselves.
    Let me persuade you take a better course.
  EXETER. It grieves his Highness. Good my lords, be friends.
  KING HENRY. Come hither, you that would be combatants:
    Henceforth I charge you, as you love our favour,
    Quite to forget this quarrel and the cause.
    And you, my lords, remember where we are:
    In France, amongst a fickle wavering nation;
    If they perceive dissension in our looks
    And that within ourselves we disagree,
    How will their grudging stomachs be provok'd
    To wilful disobedience, and rebel!
    Beside, what infamy will there arise
    When foreign princes shall be certified
    That for a toy, a thing of no regard,
    King Henry's peers and chief nobility
    Destroy'd themselves and lost the realm of France!
    O, think upon the conquest of my father,
    My tender years; and let us not forgo
    That for a trifle that was bought with blood!
    Let me be umpire in this doubtful strife.
    I see no reason, if I wear this rose,
                                         [Putting on a red rose]
    That any one should therefore be suspicious
    I more incline to Somerset than York:
    Both are my kinsmen, and I love them both.
    As well they may upbraid me with my crown,
    Because, forsooth, the King of Scots is crown'd.
    But your discretions better can persuade
    Than I am able to instruct or teach;
    And, therefore, as we hither came in peace,
    So let us still continue peace and love.
    Cousin of York, we institute your Grace
    To be our Regent in these parts of France.
    And, good my Lord of Somerset, unite
    Your troops of horsemen with his bands of foot;
    And like true subjects, sons of your progenitors,
    Go cheerfully together and digest
    Your angry choler on your enemies.
    Ourself, my Lord Protector, and the rest,
    After some respite will return to Calais;
    From thence to England, where I hope ere long
    To be presented by your victories
    With Charles, Alencon, and that traitorous rout.
                         Flourish. Exeunt all but YORK, WARWICK,
                                                  EXETER, VERNON
  WARWICK. My Lord of York, I promise you, the King
    Prettily, methought, did play the orator.
  YORK. And so he did; but yet I like it not,
    In that he wears the badge of Somerset.
  WARWICK. Tush, that was but his fancy; blame him not;
    I dare presume, sweet prince, he thought no harm.
  YORK. An if I wist he did-but let it rest;
    Other affairs must now be managed.
                                           Exeunt all but EXETER
  EXETER. Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice;
    For had the passions of thy heart burst out,
    I fear we should have seen decipher'd there
    More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,
    Than yet can be imagin'd or suppos'd.
    But howsoe'er, no simple man that sees
    This jarring discord of nobility,
    This shouldering of each other in the court,
    This factious bandying of their favourites,
    But that it doth presage some ill event.
    'Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands;
    But more when envy breeds unkind division:
    There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.           Exit

                               SCENE 2.

                        France. Before Bordeaux

                   Enter TALBOT, with trump and drum

  TALBOT. Go to the gates of Bordeaux, trumpeter;
    Summon their general unto the wall.

             Trumpet sounds a parley. Enter, aloft, the
                 GENERAL OF THE FRENCH, and others

    English John Talbot, Captains, calls you forth,
    Servant in arms to Harry King of England;
    And thus he would open your city gates,
    Be humble to us, call my sovereignvours
    And do him homage as obedient subjects,
    And I'll withdraw me and my bloody power;
    But if you frown upon this proffer'd peace,
    You tempt the fury of my three attendants,
    Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire;
    Who in a moment even with the earth
    Shall lay your stately and air braving towers,
    If you forsake the offer of their love.
  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH. Thou ominous and fearful owl of
    death,
    Our nation's terror and their bloody scourge!
    The period of thy tyranny approacheth.
    On us thou canst not enter but by death;
    For, I protest, we are well fortified,
    And strong enough to issue out and fight.
    If thou retire, the Dauphin, well appointed,
    Stands with the snares of war to tangle thee.
    On either hand thee there are squadrons pitch'd
    To wall thee from the liberty of flight,
    And no way canst thou turn thee for redress
    But death doth front thee with apparent spoil
    And pale destruction meets thee in the face.
    Ten thousand French have ta'en the sacrament
    To rive their dangerous artillery
    Upon no Christian soul but English Talbot.
    Lo, there thou stand'st, a breathing valiant man,
    Of an invincible unconquer'd spirit!
    This is the latest glory of thy praise
    That I, thy enemy, due thee withal;
    For ere the glass that now begins to run
    Finish the process of his sandy hour,
    These eyes that see thee now well coloured
    Shall see thee withered, bloody, pale, and dead.
                                                 [Drum afar off]
    Hark! hark! The Dauphin's drum, a warning bell,
    Sings heavy music to thy timorous soul;
    And mine shall ring thy dire departure out.             Exit
  TALBOT. He fables not; I hear the enemy.
    Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.
    O, negligent and heedless discipline!
    How are we park'd and bounded in a pale
    A little herd of England's timorous deer,
    Maz'd with a yelping kennel of French curs!
    If we be English deer, be then in blood;
    Not rascal-like to fall down with a pinch,
    But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags,
    Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel
    And make the cowards stand aloof at bay.
    Sell every man his life as dear as mine,
    And they shall find dear deer of us, my friends.
    God and Saint George, Talbot and England's right,
    Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight!          Exeunt

                          SCENE 3.

                      Plains in Gascony

        Enter YORK, with trumpet and many soldiers. A
                   MESSENGER meets him

  YORK. Are not the speedy scouts return'd again
    That dogg'd the mighty army of the Dauphin?
  MESSENGER. They are return'd, my lord, and give it out
    That he is march'd to Bordeaux with his power
    To fight with Talbot; as he march'd along,
    By your espials were discovered
    Two mightier troops than that the Dauphin led,
    Which join'd with him and made their march for
    Bordeaux.
  YORK. A plague upon that villain Somerset
    That thus delays my promised supply
    Of horsemen that were levied for this siege!
    Renowned Talbot doth expect my aid,
    And I am louted by a traitor villain
    And cannot help the noble chevalier.
    God comfort him in this necessity!
    If he miscarry, farewell wars in France.

                      Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY

  LUCY. Thou princely leader of our English strength,
    Never so needful on the earth of France,
    Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot,
    Who now is girdled with a waist of iron
    And hemm'd about with grim destruction.
    To Bordeaux, warlike Duke! to Bordeaux, York!
    Else, farewell Talbot, France, and England's honour.
  YORK. O God, that Somerset, who in proud heart
    Doth stop my cornets, were in Talbot's place!
    So should we save a valiant gentleman
    By forfeiting a traitor and a coward.
    Mad ire and wrathful fury makes me weep
    That thus we die while remiss traitors sleep.
  LUCY. O, send some succour to the distress'd lord!
  YORK. He dies; we lose; I break my warlike word.
    We mourn: France smiles. We lose: they daily get-
    All long of this vile traitor Somerset.
  LUCY. Then God take mercy on brave Talbot's soul,
    And on his son, young John, who two hours since
    I met in travel toward his warlike father.
    This seven years did not Talbot see his son;
    And now they meet where both their lives are done.
  YORK. Alas, what joy shall noble Talbot have
    To bid his young son welcome to his grave?
    Away! vexation almost stops my breath,
    That sund'red friends greet in the hour of death.
    Lucy, farewell; no more my fortune can
    But curse the cause I cannot aid the man.
    Maine, Blois, Poictiers, and Tours, are won away
    Long all of Somerset and his delay.         Exit with forces
  LUCY. Thus, while the vulture of sedition
    Feeds in the bosom of such great commanders,
    Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss
    The conquest of our scarce cold conqueror,
    That ever-living man of memory,
    Henry the Fifth. Whiles they each other cross,
    Lives, honours, lands, and all, hurry to loss.          Exit

                             SCENE 4.

                     Other plains of Gascony

        Enter SOMERSET, With his forces; an OFFICER of
                     TALBOT'S with him

  SOMERSET. It is too late; I cannot send them now.
    This expedition was by York and Talbot
    Too rashly plotted; all our general force
    Might with a sally of the very town
    Be buckled with. The over daring Talbot
    Hath sullied all his gloss of former honour
    By this unheedful, desperate, wild adventure.
    York set him on to fight and die in shame.
    That, Talbot dead, great York might bear the name.
  OFFICER. Here is Sir William Lucy, who with me
    Set from our o'er-match'd forces forth for aid.

                       Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY

  SOMERSET. How now, Sir William! Whither were you sent?
  LUCY. Whither, my lord! From bought and sold Lord
    Talbot,
    Who, ring'd about with bold adversity,
    Cries out for noble York and Somerset
    To beat assailing death from his weak legions;
    And whiles the honourable captain there
    Drops bloody sweat from his war-wearied limbs
    And, in advantage ling'ring, looks for rescue,
    You, his false hopes, the trust of England's honour,
    Keep off aloof with worthless emulation.
    Let not your private discord keep away
    The levied succours that should lend him aid,
    While he, renowned noble gentleman,
    Yield up his life unto a world of odds.
    Orleans the Bastard, Charles, Burgundy,
    Alencon, Reignier, compass him about,
    And Talbot perisheth by your default.
  SOMERSET. York set him on; York should have sent him aid.
  LUCY. And York as fast upon your Grace exclaims,
    Swearing that you withhold his levied host,
    Collected for this expedition.
  SOMERSET. York lies; he might have sent and had the horse.
    I owe him little duty and less love,
    And take foul scorn to fawn on him by sending.
  LUCY. The fraud of England, not the force of France,
    Hath now entrapp'd the noble minded Talbot.
    Never to England shall he bear his life,
    But dies betray'd to fortune by your strife.
  SOMERSET. Come, go; I will dispatch the horsemen straight;
    Within six hours they will be at his aid.
  LUCY. Too late comes rescue; he is ta'en or slain,
    For fly he could not if he would have fled;
    And fly would Talbot never, though he might.
  SOMERSET. If he be dead, brave Talbot, then, adieu!
  LUCY. His fame lives in the world, his shame in you.       Exeunt

                               SCENE 5.

                   The English camp near Bordeaux

                    Enter TALBOT and JOHN his son

  TALBOT. O young John Talbot! I did send for thee
    To tutor thee in stratagems of war,
    That Talbot's name might be in thee reviv'd
    When sapless age and weak unable limbs
    Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.
    But, O malignant and ill-boding stars!
    Now thou art come unto a feast of death,
    A terrible and unavoided danger;
    Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse,
    And I'll direct thee how thou shalt escape
    By sudden flight. Come, dally not, be gone.
  JOHN. Is my name Talbot, and am I your son?
    And shall I fly? O, if you love my mother,
    Dishonour not her honourable name,
    To make a bastard and a slave of me!
    The world will say he is not Talbot's blood
    That basely fled when noble Talbot stood.
  TALBOT. Fly to revenge my death, if I be slain.
  JOHN. He that flies so will ne'er return again.
  TALBOT. If we both stay, we both are sure to die.
  JOHN. Then let me stay; and, father, do you fly.
    Your loss is great, so your regard should be;
    My worth unknown, no loss is known in me;
    Upon my death the French can little boast;
    In yours they will, in you all hopes are lost.
    Flight cannot stain the honour you have won;
    But mine it will, that no exploit have done;
    You fled for vantage, every one will swear;
    But if I bow, they'll say it was for fear.
    There is no hope that ever I will stay
    If the first hour I shrink and run away.
    Here, on my knee, I beg mortality,
    Rather than life preserv'd with infamy.
  TALBOT. Shall all thy mother's hopes lie in one tomb?
  JOHN. Ay, rather than I'll shame my mother's womb.
  TALBOT. Upon my blessing I command thee go.
  JOHN. To fight I will, but not to fly the foe.
  TALBOT. Part of thy father may be sav'd in thee.
  JOHN. No part of him but will be shame in me.
  TALBOT. Thou never hadst renown, nor canst not lose it.
  JOHN. Yes, your renowned name; shall flight abuse it?
  TALBOT. Thy father's charge shall clear thee from that stain.
  JOHN. You cannot witness for me, being slain.
    If death be so apparent, then both fly.
  TALBOT. And leave my followers here to fight and die?
    My age was never tainted with such shame.
  JOHN. And shall my youth be guilty of such blame?
    No more can I be severed from your side
    Than can yourself yourself yourself in twain divide.
    Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I;
    For live I will not if my father die.
  TALBOT. Then here I take my leave of thee, fair son,
    Born to eclipse thy life this afternoon.
    Come, side by side together live and die;
    And soul with soul from France to heaven fly.         Exeunt

                             SCENE 6.

                         A field of battle

         Alarum: excursions wherein JOHN TALBOT is hemm'd
                  about, and TALBOT rescues him

  TALBOT. Saint George and victory! Fight, soldiers, fight.
    The Regent hath with Talbot broke his word
    And left us to the rage of France his sword.
    Where is John Talbot? Pause and take thy breath;
    I gave thee life and rescu'd thee from death.
  JOHN. O, twice my father, twice am I thy son!
    The life thou gav'st me first was lost and done
    Till with thy warlike sword, despite of fate,
    To my determin'd time thou gav'st new date.
  TALBOT. When from the Dauphin's crest thy sword struck
    fire,
    It warm'd thy father's heart with proud desire
    Of bold-fac'd victory. Then leaden age,
    Quicken'd with youthful spleen and warlike rage,
    Beat down Alencon, Orleans, Burgundy,
    And from the pride of Gallia rescued thee.
    The ireful bastard Orleans, that drew blood
    From thee, my boy, and had the maidenhood
    Of thy first fight, I soon encountered
    And, interchanging blows, I quickly shed
    Some of his bastard blood; and in disgrace
    Bespoke him thus: 'Contaminated, base,
    And misbegotten blood I spill of thine,
    Mean and right poor, for that pure blood of mine
    Which thou didst force from Talbot, my brave boy.'
    Here purposing the Bastard to destroy,
    Came in strong rescue. Speak, thy father's care;
    Art thou not weary, John? How dost thou fare?
    Wilt thou yet leave the battle, boy, and fly,
    Now thou art seal'd the son of chivalry?
    Fly, to revenge my death when I am dead:
    The help of one stands me in little stead.
    O, too much folly is it, well I wot,
    To hazard all our lives in one small boat!
    If I to-day die not with Frenchmen's rage,
    To-morrow I shall die with mickle age.
    By me they nothing gain an if I stay:
    'Tis but the short'ning of my life one day.
    In thee thy mother dies, our household's name,
    My death's revenge, thy youth, and England's fame.
    All these and more we hazard by thy stay;
    All these are sav'd if thou wilt fly away.
  JOHN. The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart;
    These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart.
    On that advantage, bought with such a shame,
    To save a paltry life and slay bright fame,
    Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,
    The coward horse that bears me fall and die!
    And like me to the peasant boys of France,
    To be shame's scorn and subject of mischance!
    Surely, by all the glory you have won,
    An if I fly, I am not Talbot's son;
    Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot;
    If son to Talbot, die at Talbot's foot.
  TALBOT. Then follow thou thy desp'rate sire of Crete,
    Thou Icarus; thy life to me is sweet.
    If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side;
    And, commendable prov'd, let's die in pride.          Exeunt

                               SCENE 7.

                      Another part of the field

       Alarum; excursions. Enter old TALBOT led by a SERVANT

  TALBOT. Where is my other life? Mine own is gone.
    O, where's young Talbot? Where is valiant John?
    Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity,
    Young Talbot's valour makes me smile at thee.
    When he perceiv'd me shrink and on my knee,
    His bloody sword he brandish'd over me,
    And like a hungry lion did commence
    Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience;
    But when my angry guardant stood alone,
    Tend'ring my ruin and assail'd of none,
    Dizzy-ey'd fury and great rage of heart
    Suddenly made him from my side to start
    Into the clust'ring battle of the French;
    And in that sea of blood my boy did drench
    His overmounting spirit; and there died,
    My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.

         Enter soldiers, bearing the body of JOHN TALBOT

  SERVANT. O my dear lord, lo where your son is borne!
  TALBOT. Thou antic Death, which laugh'st us here to scorn,
    Anon, from thy insulting tyranny,
    Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,
    Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky,
    In thy despite shall scape mortality.
    O thou whose wounds become hard-favoured Death,
    Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath!
    Brave Death by speaking, whether he will or no;
    Imagine him a Frenchman and thy foe.
    Poor boy! he smiles, methinks, as who should say,
    Had Death been French, then Death had died to-day.
    Come, come, and lay him in his father's arms.
    My spirit can no longer bear these harms.
    Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,
    Now my old arms are young John Talbot's grave.        [Dies]

            Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BURGUNDY, BASTARD,
                     LA PUCELLE, and forces

  CHARLES. Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,
    We should have found a bloody day of this.
  BASTARD. How the young whelp of Talbot's, raging wood,
    Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen's blood!
  PUCELLE. Once I encount'red him, and thus I said:
    'Thou maiden youth, be vanquish'd by a maid.'
    But with a proud majestical high scorn
    He answer'd thus: 'Young Talbot was not born
    To be the pillage of a giglot wench.'
    So, rushing in the bowels of the French,
    He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.
  BURGUNDY. Doubtless he would have made a noble knight.
    See where he lies inhearsed in the arms
    Of the most bloody nurser of his harms!
  BASTARD. Hew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder,
    Whose life was England's glory, Gallia's wonder.
  CHARLES. O, no; forbear! For that which we have fled
    During the life, let us not wrong it dead.

            Enter SIR WILLIAM Lucy, attended; a FRENCH
                         HERALD preceding

  LUCY. Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin's tent,
    To know who hath obtain'd the glory of the day.
  CHARLES. On what submissive message art thou sent?
  LUCY. Submission, Dauphin! 'Tis a mere French word:
    We English warriors wot not what it means.
    I come to know what prisoners thou hast ta'en,
    And to survey the bodies of the dead.
  CHARLES. For prisoners ask'st thou? Hell our prison is.
    But tell me whom thou seek'st.
  LUCY. But where's the great Alcides of the field,
    Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,
    Created for his rare success in arms
    Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence,
    Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
    Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,
    Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
    The thrice victorious Lord of Falconbridge,
    Knight of the noble order of Saint George,
    Worthy Saint Michael, and the Golden Fleece,
    Great Marshal to Henry the Sixth
    Of all his wars within the realm of France?
  PUCELLE. Here's a silly-stately style indeed!
    The Turk, that two and fifty kingdoms hath,
    Writes not so tedious a style as this.
    Him that thou magnifi'st with all these tides,
    Stinking and fly-blown lies here at our feet.
  LUCY. Is Talbot slain-the Frenchmen's only scourge,
    Your kingdom's terror and black Nemesis?
    O, were mine eye-bans into bullets turn'd,
    That I in rage might shoot them at your faces!
    O that I could but can these dead to life!
    It were enough to fright the realm of France.
    Were but his picture left amongst you here,
    It would amaze the proudest of you all.
    Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence
    And give them burial as beseems their worth.
  PUCELLE. I think this upstart is old Talbot's ghost,
    He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit.
    For God's sake, let him have them; to keep them here,
    They would but stink, and putrefy the air.
  CHARLES. Go, take their bodies hence.
  LUCY. I'll bear them hence; but from their ashes shall be
    rear'd
    A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.
  CHARLES. So we be rid of them, do with them what thou
    wilt.
    And now to Paris in this conquering vein!
    All will be ours, now bloody Talbot's slain.          Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1.

London. The palace

Sennet. Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, and EXETER

  KING HENRY. Have you perus'd the letters from the Pope,
    The Emperor, and the Earl of Armagnac?
  GLOUCESTER. I have, my lord; and their intent is this:
    They humbly sue unto your Excellence
    To have a godly peace concluded of
    Between the realms of England and of France.
  KING HENRY. How doth your Grace affect their motion?
  GLOUCESTER. Well, my good lord, and as the only means
    To stop effusion of our Christian blood
    And stablish quietness on every side.
  KING HENRY. Ay, marry, uncle; for I always thought
    It was both impious and unnatural
    That such immanity and bloody strife
    Should reign among professors of one faith.
  GLOUCESTER. Beside, my lord, the sooner to effect
    And surer bind this knot of amity,
    The Earl of Armagnac, near knit to Charles,
    A man of great authority in France,
    Proffers his only daughter to your Grace
    In marriage, with a large and sumptuous dowry.
  KING HENRY. Marriage, uncle! Alas, my years are young
    And fitter is my study and my books
    Than wanton dalliance with a paramour.
    Yet call th' ambassadors, and, as you please,
    So let them have their answers every one.
    I shall be well content with any choice
    Tends to God's glory and my country's weal.

                   Enter in Cardinal's habit
        BEAUFORT, the PAPAL LEGATE, and two AMBASSADORS

  EXETER. What! Is my Lord of Winchester install'd
    And call'd unto a cardinal's degree?
    Then I perceive that will be verified
    Henry the Fifth did sometime prophesy:
    'If once he come to be a cardinal,
    He'll make his cap co-equal with the crown.'
  KING HENRY. My Lords Ambassadors, your several suits
    Have been consider'd and debated on.
    Your purpose is both good and reasonable,
    And therefore are we certainly resolv'd
    To draw conditions of a friendly peace,
    Which by my Lord of Winchester we mean
    Shall be transported presently to France.
  GLOUCESTER. And for the proffer of my lord your master,
    I have inform'd his Highness so at large,
    As, liking of the lady's virtuous gifts,
    Her beauty, and the value of her dower,
    He doth intend she shall be England's Queen.
  KING HENRY.  [To AMBASSADOR]  In argument and proof of
    which contract,
    Bear her this jewel, pledge of my affection.
    And so, my Lord Protector, see them guarded
    And safely brought to Dover; where inshipp'd,
    Commit them to the fortune of the sea.

                        Exeunt all but WINCHESTER and the LEGATE
  WINCHESTER. Stay, my Lord Legate; you shall first receive
    The sum of money which I promised
    Should be delivered to his Holiness
    For clothing me in these grave ornaments.
  LEGATE. I will attend upon your lordship's leisure.
  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Now Winchester will not submit, I
    trow,
    Or be inferior to the proudest peer.
    Humphrey of Gloucester, thou shalt well perceive
    That neither in birth or for authority
    The Bishop will be overborne by thee.
    I'll either make thee stoop and bend thy knee,
    Or sack this country with a mutiny.                   Exeunt

                              SCENE 2.

                       France. Plains in Anjou

              Enter CHARLES, BURGUNDY, ALENCON, BASTARD,
                   REIGNIER, LA PUCELLE, and forces

  CHARLES. These news, my lords, may cheer our drooping
    spirits:
    'Tis said the stout Parisians do revolt
    And turn again unto the warlike French.
  ALENCON. Then march to Paris, royal Charles of France,
    And keep not back your powers in dalliance.
  PUCELLE. Peace be amongst them, if they turn to us;
    Else ruin combat with their palaces!

                            Enter a SCOUT

  SCOUT. Success unto our valiant general,
    And happiness to his accomplices!
  CHARLES. What tidings send our scouts? I prithee speak.
  SCOUT. The English army, that divided was
    Into two parties, is now conjoin'd in one,
    And means to give you battle presently.
  CHARLES. Somewhat too sudden, sirs, the warning is;
    But we will presently provide for them.
  BURGUNDY. I trust the ghost of Talbot is not there.
    Now he is gone, my lord, you need not fear.
  PUCELLE. Of all base passions fear is most accurs'd.
    Command the conquest, Charles, it shall be thine,
    Let Henry fret and all the world repine.
  CHARLES. Then on, my lords; and France be fortunate!
                                                          Exeunt

                            SCENE 3.

                         Before Angiers

              Alarum, excursions. Enter LA PUCELLE

  PUCELLE. The Regent conquers and the Frenchmen fly.
    Now help, ye charming spells and periapts;
    And ye choice spirits that admonish me
    And give me signs of future accidents;             [Thunder]
    You speedy helpers that are substitutes
    Under the lordly monarch of the north,
    Appear and aid me in this enterprise!

                          Enter FIENDS

    This speedy and quick appearance argues proof
    Of your accustom'd diligence to me.
    Now, ye familiar spirits that are cull'd
    Out of the powerful regions under earth,
    Help me this once, that France may get the field.
                                       [They walk and speak not]
    O, hold me not with silence over-long!
    Where I was wont to feed you with my blood,
    I'll lop a member off and give it you
    In earnest of a further benefit,
    So you do condescend to help me now.
                                         [They hang their heads]
    No hope to have redress? My body shall
    Pay recompense, if you will grant my suit.
                                        [They shake their heads]
    Cannot my body nor blood sacrifice
    Entreat you to your wonted furtherance?
    Then take my soul-my body, soul, and all,
    Before that England give the French the foil.
                                                   [They depart]
    See! they forsake me. Now the time is come
    That France must vail her lofty-plumed crest
    And let her head fall into England's lap.
    My ancient incantations are too weak,
    And hell too strong for me to buckle with.
    Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.            Exit

          Excursions. Enter French and English, fighting.
         LA PUCELLE and YORK fight hand to hand; LA PUCELLE
                    is taken. The French fly

  YORK. Damsel of France, I think I have you fast.
    Unchain your spirits now with spelling charms,
    And try if they can gain your liberty.
    A goodly prize, fit for the devil's grace!
    See how the ugly witch doth bend her brows
    As if, with Circe, she would change my shape!
  PUCELLE. Chang'd to a worser shape thou canst not be.
  YORK. O, Charles the Dauphin is a proper man:
    No shape but his can please your dainty eye.
  PUCELLE. A plaguing mischief fight on Charles and thee!
    And may ye both be suddenly surpris'd
    By bloody hands, in sleeping on your beds!
  YORK. Fell banning hag; enchantress, hold thy tongue.
  PUCELLE. I prithee give me leave to curse awhile.
  YORK. Curse, miscreant, when thou comest to the stake.
                                                          Exeunt

          Alarum. Enter SUFFOLK, with MARGARET in his hand

  SUFFOLK. Be what thou wilt, thou art my prisoner.
                                                  [Gazes on her]
    O fairest beauty, do not fear nor fly!
    For I will touch thee but with reverent hands;
    I kiss these fingers for eternal peace,
    And lay them gently on thy tender side.
    Who art thou? Say, that I may honour thee.
  MARGARET. Margaret my name, and daughter to a king,
    The King of Naples-whosoe'er thou art.
  SUFFOLK. An earl I am, and Suffolk am I call'd.
    Be not offended, nature's miracle,
    Thou art allotted to be ta'en by me.
    So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,
    Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.
    Yet, if this servile usage once offend,
    Go and be free again as Suffolk's friend.     [She is going]
    O, stay!  [Aside]  I have no power to let her pass;
    My hand would free her, but my heart says no.
    As plays the sun upon the glassy streams,
    Twinkling another counterfeited beam,
    So seems this gorgeous beauty to mine eyes.
    Fain would I woo her, yet I dare not speak.
    I'll call for pen and ink, and write my mind.
    Fie, de la Pole! disable not thyself;
    Hast not a tongue? Is she not here thy prisoner?
    Wilt thou be daunted at a woman's sight?
    Ay, beauty's princely majesty is such
    Confounds the tongue and makes the senses rough.
  MARGARET. Say, Earl of Suffolk, if thy name be so,
    What ransom must I pay before I pass?
    For I perceive I am thy prisoner.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  How canst thou tell she will deny thy
    suit,
    Before thou make a trial of her love?
  MARGARET. Why speak'st thou not? What ransom must I
    pay?
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;
    She is a woman, therefore to be won.
  MARGARET. Wilt thou accept of ransom-yea or no?
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Fond man, remember that thou hast a
    wife;
    Then how can Margaret be thy paramour?
  MARGARET. I were best leave him, for he will not hear.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  There all is marr'd; there lies a cooling
    card.
  MARGARET. He talks at random; sure, the man is mad.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  And yet a dispensation may be had.
  MARGARET. And yet I would that you would answer me.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  I'll win this Lady Margaret. For whom?
    Why, for my King! Tush, that's a wooden thing!
  MARGARET. He talks of wood. It is some carpenter.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Yet so my fancy may be satisfied,
    And peace established between these realms.
    But there remains a scruple in that too;
    For though her father be the King of Naples,
    Duke of Anjou and Maine, yet is he poor,
    And our nobility will scorn the match.
  MARGARET. Hear ye, Captain-are you not at leisure?
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  It shall be so, disdain they ne'er so much.
    Henry is youthful, and will quickly yield.
    Madam, I have a secret to reveal.
  MARGARET.  [Aside]  What though I be enthrall'd? He seems
    a knight,
    And will not any way dishonour me.
  SUFFOLK. Lady, vouchsafe to listen what I say.
  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Perhaps I shall be rescu'd by the French;
    And then I need not crave his courtesy.
  SUFFOLK. Sweet madam, give me hearing in a cause
  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Tush! women have been captivate ere
    now.
  SUFFOLK. Lady, wherefore talk you so?
  MARGARET. I cry you mercy, 'tis but quid for quo.
  SUFFOLK. Say, gentle Princess, would you not suppose
    Your bondage happy, to be made a queen?
  MARGARET. To be a queen in bondage is more vile
    Than is a slave in base servility;
    For princes should be free.
  SUFFOLK. And so shall you,
    If happy England's royal king be free.
  MARGARET. Why, what concerns his freedom unto me?
  SUFFOLK. I'll undertake to make thee Henry's queen,
    To put a golden sceptre in thy hand
    And set a precious crown upon thy head,
    If thou wilt condescend to be my-
  MARGARET. What?
  SUFFOLK. His love.
  MARGARET. I am unworthy to be Henry's wife.
  SUFFOLK. No, gentle madam; I unworthy am
    To woo so fair a dame to be his wife
    And have no portion in the choice myself.
    How say you, madam? Are ye so content?
  MARGARET. An if my father please, I am content.
  SUFFOLK. Then call our captains and our colours forth!
    And, madam, at your father's castle walls
    We'll crave a parley to confer with him.

           Sound a parley. Enter REIGNIER on the walls

    See, Reignier, see, thy daughter prisoner!
  REIGNIER. To whom?
  SUFFOLK. To me.
  REIGNIER. Suffolk, what remedy?
    I am a soldier and unapt to weep
    Or to exclaim on fortune's fickleness.
  SUFFOLK. Yes, there is remedy enough, my lord.
    Consent, and for thy honour give consent,
    Thy daughter shall be wedded to my king,
    Whom I with pain have woo'd and won thereto;
    And this her easy-held imprisonment
    Hath gain'd thy daughter princely liberty.
  REIGNIER. Speaks Suffolk as he thinks?
  SUFFOLK. Fair Margaret knows
    That Suffolk doth not flatter, face, or feign.
  REIGNIER. Upon thy princely warrant I descend
    To give thee answer of thy just demand.
                                    Exit REIGNIER from the walls
  SUFFOLK. And here I will expect thy coming.

                Trumpets sound. Enter REIGNIER below

  REIGNIER. Welcome, brave Earl, into our territories;
    Command in Anjou what your Honour pleases.
  SUFFOLK. Thanks, Reignier, happy for so sweet a child,
    Fit to be made companion with a king.
    What answer makes your Grace unto my suit?
  REIGNIER. Since thou dost deign to woo her little worth
    To be the princely bride of such a lord,
    Upon condition I may quietly
    Enjoy mine own, the country Maine and Anjou,
    Free from oppression or the stroke of war,
    My daughter shall be Henry's, if he please.
  SUFFOLK. That is her ransom; I deliver her.
    And those two counties I will undertake
    Your Grace shall well and quietly enjoy.
  REIGNIER. And I again, in Henry's royal name,
    As deputy unto that gracious king,
    Give thee her hand for sign of plighted faith.
  SUFFOLK. Reignier of France, I give thee kingly thanks,
    Because this is in traffic of a king.
    [Aside]  And yet, methinks, I could be well content
    To be mine own attorney in this case.
    I'll over then to England with this news,
    And make this marriage to be solemniz'd.
    So, farewell, Reignier. Set this diamond safe
    In golden palaces, as it becomes.
  REIGNIER. I do embrace thee as I would embrace
    The Christian prince, King Henry, were he here.
  MARGARET. Farewell, my lord. Good wishes, praise, and
    prayers,
    Shall Suffolk ever have of Margaret.          [She is going]
  SUFFOLK. Farewell, sweet madam. But hark you, Margaret
    No princely commendations to my king?
  MARGARET. Such commendations as becomes a maid,
    A virgin, and his servant, say to him.
  SUFFOLK. Words sweetly plac'd and modestly directed.
    But, madam, I must trouble you again
    No loving token to his Majesty?
  MARGARET. Yes, my good lord: a pure unspotted heart,
    Never yet taint with love, I send the King.
  SUFFOLK. And this withal.                         [Kisses her]
  MARGARET. That for thyself, I will not so presume
    To send such peevish tokens to a king.
                                    Exeunt REIGNIER and MARGARET
  SUFFOLK. O, wert thou for myself! But, Suffolk, stay;
    Thou mayst not wander in that labyrinth:
    There Minotaurs and ugly treasons lurk.
    Solicit Henry with her wondrous praise.
    Bethink thee on her virtues that surmount,
    And natural graces that extinguish art;
    Repeat their semblance often on the seas,
    That, when thou com'st to kneel at Henry's feet,
    Thou mayst bereave him of his wits with wonder.         Exit

                               SCENE 4.

                  Camp of the DUKE OF YORK in Anjou

                   Enter YORK, WARWICK, and others
  YORK. Bring forth that sorceress, condemn'd to burn.

              Enter LA PUCELLE, guarded, and a SHEPHERD

  SHEPHERD. Ah, Joan, this kills thy father's heart outright!
    Have I sought every country far and near,
    And, now it is my chance to find thee out,
    Must I behold thy timeless cruel death?
    Ah, Joan, sweet daughter Joan, I'll die with thee!
  PUCELLE. Decrepit miser! base ignoble wretch!
    I am descended of a gentler blood;
    Thou art no father nor no friend of mine.
  SHEPHERD. Out, out! My lords, an please you, 'tis not so;
    I did beget her, all the parish knows.
    Her mother liveth yet, can testify
    She was the first fruit of my bach'lorship.
  WARWICK. Graceless, wilt thou deny thy parentage?
  YORK. This argues what her kind of life hath been-
    Wicked and vile; and so her death concludes.
  SHEPHERD. Fie, Joan, that thou wilt be so obstacle!
    God knows thou art a collop of my flesh;
    And for thy sake have I shed many a tear.
    Deny me not, I prithee, gentle Joan.
  PUCELLE. Peasant, avaunt! You have suborn'd this man
    Of purpose to obscure my noble birth.
  SHEPHERD. 'Tis true, I gave a noble to the priest
    The morn that I was wedded to her mother.
    Kneel down and take my blessing, good my girl.
    Wilt thou not stoop? Now cursed be the time
    Of thy nativity. I would the milk
    Thy mother gave thee when thou suck'dst her breast
    Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake.
    Or else, when thou didst keep my lambs afield,
    I wish some ravenous wolf had eaten thee.
    Dost thou deny thy father, cursed drab?
    O, burn her, burn her! Hanging is too good.             Exit
  YORK. Take her away; for she hath liv'd too long,
    To fill the world with vicious qualities.
  PUCELLE. First let me tell you whom you have condemn'd:
    Not me begotten of a shepherd swain,
    But issued from the progeny of kings;
    Virtuous and holy, chosen from above
    By inspiration of celestial grace,
    To work exceeding miracles on earth.
    I never had to do with wicked spirits.
    But you, that are polluted with your lusts,
    Stain'd with the guiltless blood of innocents,
    Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices,
    Because you want the grace that others have,
    You judge it straight a thing impossible
    To compass wonders but by help of devils.
    No, misconceived! Joan of Arc hath been
    A virgin from her tender infancy,
    Chaste and immaculate in very thought;
    Whose maiden blood, thus rigorously effus'd,
    Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.
  YORK. Ay, ay. Away with her to execution!
  WARWICK. And hark ye, sirs; because she is a maid,
    Spare for no fagots, let there be enow.
    Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake,
    That so her torture may be shortened.
  PUCELLE. Will nothing turn your unrelenting hearts?
    Then, Joan, discover thine infirmity
    That warranteth by law to be thy privilege:
    I am with child, ye bloody homicides;
    Murder not then the fruit within my womb,
    Although ye hale me to a violent death.
  YORK. Now heaven forfend! The holy maid with child!
  WARWICK. The greatest miracle that e'er ye wrought:
    Is all your strict preciseness come to this?
  YORK. She and the Dauphin have been juggling.
    I did imagine what would be her refuge.
  WARWICK. Well, go to; we'll have no bastards live;
    Especially since Charles must father it.
  PUCELLE. You are deceiv'd; my child is none of his:
    It was Alencon that enjoy'd my love.
  YORK. Alencon, that notorious Machiavel!
    It dies, an if it had a thousand lives.
  PUCELLE. O, give me leave, I have deluded you.
    'Twas neither Charles nor yet the Duke I nam'd,
    But Reignier, King of Naples, that prevail'd.
  WARWICK. A married man! That's most intolerable.
  YORK. Why, here's a girl! I think she knows not well
    There were so many-whom she may accuse.
  WARWICK. It's sign she hath been liberal and free.
  YORK. And yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure.
    Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat and thee.
    Use no entreaty, for it is in vain.
  PUCELLE. Then lead me hence-with whom I leave my
    curse:
    May never glorious sun reflex his beams
    Upon the country where you make abode;
    But darkness and the gloomy shade of death
    Environ you, till mischief and despair
    Drive you to break your necks or hang yourselves!
                                                   Exit, guarded
  YORK. Break thou in pieces and consume to ashes,
    Thou foul accursed minister of hell!

               Enter CARDINAL BEAUFORT, attended

  CARDINAL. Lord Regent, I do greet your Excellence
    With letters of commission from the King.
    For know, my lords, the states of Christendom,
    Mov'd with remorse of these outrageous broils,
    Have earnestly implor'd a general peace
    Betwixt our nation and the aspiring French;
    And here at hand the Dauphin and his train
    Approacheth, to confer about some matter.
  YORK. Is all our travail turn'd to this effect?
    After the slaughter of so many peers,
    So many captains, gentlemen, and soldiers,
    That in this quarrel have been overthrown
    And sold their bodies for their country's benefit,
    Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace?
    Have we not lost most part of all the towns,
    By treason, falsehood, and by treachery,
    Our great progenitors had conquered?
    O Warwick, Warwick! I foresee with grief
    The utter loss of all the realm of France.
  WARWICK. Be patient, York. If we conclude a peace,
    It shall be with such strict and severe covenants
    As little shall the Frenchmen gain thereby.

        Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BASTARD, REIGNIER, and others

  CHARLES. Since, lords of England, it is thus agreed
    That peaceful truce shall be proclaim'd in France,
    We come to be informed by yourselves
    What the conditions of that league must be.
  YORK. Speak, Winchester; for boiling choler chokes
    The hollow passage of my poison'd voice,
    By sight of these our baleful enemies.
  CARDINAL. Charles, and the rest, it is enacted thus:
    That, in regard King Henry gives consent,
    Of mere compassion and of lenity,
    To ease your country of distressful war,
    An suffer you to breathe in fruitful peace,
    You shall become true liegemen to his crown;
    And, Charles, upon condition thou wilt swear
    To pay him tribute and submit thyself,
    Thou shalt be plac'd as viceroy under him,
    And still enjoy thy regal dignity.
  ALENCON. Must he be then as shadow of himself?
    Adorn his temples with a coronet
    And yet, in substance and authority,
    Retain but privilege of a private man?
    This proffer is absurd and reasonless.
  CHARLES. 'Tis known already that I am possess'd
    With more than half the Gallian territories,
    And therein reverenc'd for their lawful king.
    Shall I, for lucre of the rest unvanquish'd,
    Detract so much from that prerogative
    As to be call'd but viceroy of the whole?
    No, Lord Ambassador; I'll rather keep
    That which I have than, coveting for more,
    Be cast from possibility of all.
  YORK. Insulting Charles! Hast thou by secret means
    Us'd intercession to obtain a league,
    And now the matter grows to compromise
    Stand'st thou aloof upon comparison?
    Either accept the title thou usurp'st,
    Of benefit proceeding from our king
    And not of any challenge of desert,
    Or we will plague thee with incessant wars.
  REIGNIER.  [To CHARLES]  My lord, you do not well in
    obstinacy
    To cavil in the course of this contract.
    If once it be neglected, ten to one
    We shall not find like opportunity.
  ALENCON.  [To CHARLES]  To say the truth, it is your policy
    To save your subjects from such massacre
    And ruthless slaughters as are daily seen
    By our proceeding in hostility;
    And therefore take this compact of a truce,
    Although you break it when your pleasure serves.
  WARWICK. How say'st thou, Charles? Shall our condition
    stand?
  CHARLES. It shall;
    Only reserv'd, you claim no interest
    In any of our towns of garrison.
  YORK. Then swear allegiance to his Majesty:
    As thou art knight, never to disobey
    Nor be rebellious to the crown of England
    Thou, nor thy nobles, to the crown of England.
                    [CHARLES and the rest give tokens of fealty]
    So, now dismiss your army when ye please;
    Hang up your ensigns, let your drums be still,
    For here we entertain a solemn peace.                 Exeunt

                              SCENE 5.

                         London. The palace

            Enter SUFFOLK, in conference with the KING,
                     GLOUCESTER and EXETER

  KING HENRY. Your wondrous rare description, noble Earl,
    Of beauteous Margaret hath astonish'd me.
    Her virtues, graced with external gifts,
    Do breed love's settled passions in my heart;
    And like as rigour of tempestuous gusts
    Provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide,
    So am I driven by breath of her renown
    Either to suffer shipwreck or arrive
    Where I may have fruition of her love.
  SUFFOLK. Tush, my good lord! This superficial tale
    Is but a preface of her worthy praise.
    The chief perfections of that lovely dame,
    Had I sufficient skill to utter them,
    Would make a volume of enticing lines,
    Able to ravish any dull conceit;
    And, which is more, she is not so divine,
    So full-replete with choice of all delights,
    But with as humble lowliness of mind
    She is content to be at your command
    Command, I mean, of virtuous intents,
    To love and honour Henry as her lord.
  KING HENRY. And otherwise will Henry ne'er presume.
    Therefore, my Lord Protector, give consent
    That Margaret may be England's royal Queen.
  GLOUCESTER. So should I give consent to flatter sin.
    You know, my lord, your Highness is betroth'd
    Unto another lady of esteem.
    How shall we then dispense with that contract,
    And not deface your honour with reproach?
  SUFFOLK. As doth a ruler with unlawful oaths;
    Or one that at a triumph, having vow'd
    To try his strength, forsaketh yet the lists
    By reason of his adversary's odds:
    A poor earl's daughter is unequal odds,
    And therefore may be broke without offence.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, what, I pray, is Margaret more than
    that?
    Her father is no better than an earl,
    Although in glorious titles he excel.
  SUFFOLK. Yes, my lord, her father is a king,
    The King of Naples and Jerusalem;
    And of such great authority in France
    As his alliance will confirm our peace,
    And keep the Frenchmen in allegiance.
  GLOUCESTER. And so the Earl of Armagnac may do,
    Because he is near kinsman unto Charles.
  EXETER. Beside, his wealth doth warrant a liberal dower;
    Where Reignier sooner will receive than give.
  SUFFOLK. A dow'r, my lords! Disgrace not so your king,
    That he should be so abject, base, and poor,
    To choose for wealth and not for perfect love.
    Henry is able to enrich his queen,
    And not to seek a queen to make him rich.
    So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,
    As market-men for oxen, sheep, or horse.
    Marriage is a matter of more worth
    Than to be dealt in by attorneyship;
    Not whom we will, but whom his Grace affects,
    Must be companion of his nuptial bed.
    And therefore, lords, since he affects her most,
    It most of all these reasons bindeth us
    In our opinions she should be preferr'd;
    For what is wedlock forced but a hell,
    An age of discord and continual strife?
    Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss,
    And is a pattern of celestial peace.
    Whom should we match with Henry, being a king,
    But Margaret, that is daughter to a king?
    Her peerless feature, joined with her birth,
    Approves her fit for none but for a king;
    Her valiant courage and undaunted spirit,
    More than in women commonly is seen,
    Will answer our hope in issue of a king;
    For Henry, son unto a conqueror,
    Is likely to beget more conquerors,
    If with a lady of so high resolve
    As is fair Margaret he be link'd in love.
    Then yield, my lords; and here conclude with me
    That Margaret shall be Queen, and none but she.
  KING HENRY. Whether it be through force of your report,
    My noble Lord of Suffolk, or for that
    My tender youth was never yet attaint
    With any passion of inflaming love,
    I cannot tell; but this I am assur'd,
    I feel such sharp dissension in my breast,
    Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,
    As I am sick with working of my thoughts.
    Take therefore shipping; post, my lord, to France;
    Agree to any covenants; and procure
    That Lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come
    To cross the seas to England, and be crown'd
    King Henry's faithful and anointed queen.
    For your expenses and sufficient charge,
    Among the people gather up a tenth.
    Be gone, I say; for till you do return
    I rest perplexed with a thousand cares.
    And you, good uncle, banish all offence:
    If you do censure me by what you were,
    Not what you are, I know it will excuse
    This sudden execution of my will.
    And so conduct me where, from company,
    I may revolve and ruminate my grief.                    Exit
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, grief, I fear me, both at first and last.
                                    Exeunt GLOUCESTER and EXETER
  SUFFOLK. Thus Suffolk hath prevail'd; and thus he goes,
    As did the youthful Paris once to Greece,
    With hope to find the like event in love
    But prosper better than the Troyan did.
    Margaret shall now be Queen, and rule the King;
    But I will rule both her, the King, and realm.          Exit

THE END

1591



THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

Dramatis Personae

  KING HENRY THE SIXTH
  HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his uncle
  CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, great-uncle to the King
  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK
  EDWARD and RICHARD, his sons
  DUKE OF SOMERSET
  DUKE OF SUFFOLK
  DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
  LORD CLIFFORD
  YOUNG CLIFFORD, his son
  EARL OF SALISBURY
  EARL OF WARWICK
  LORD SCALES
  LORD SAY
  SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD
  WILLIAM STAFFORD, his brother
  SIR JOHN STANLEY
  VAUX
  MATTHEW GOFFE
  A LIEUTENANT, a SHIPMASTER, a MASTER'S MATE, and WALTER WHITMORE
  TWO GENTLEMEN, prisoners with Suffolk
  JOHN HUME and JOHN SOUTHWELL, two priests
  ROGER BOLINGBROKE, a conjurer
  A SPIRIT raised by him
  THOMAS HORNER, an armourer
  PETER, his man
  CLERK OF CHATHAM
  MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS
  SAUNDER SIMPCOX, an impostor
  ALEXANDER IDEN, a Kentish gentleman
  JACK CADE, a rebel
  GEORGE BEVIS, JOHN HOLLAND, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH THE WEAVER,
    MICHAEL, &c., followers of Cade
  TWO MURDERERS

  MARGARET, Queen to King Henry
  ELEANOR, Duchess of Gloucester
  MARGERY JOURDAIN, a witch
  WIFE to SIMPCOX

  Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Petitioners, Aldermen, a Herald,
    a Beadle, a Sheriff, Officers, Citizens, Prentices, Falconers,
    Guards, Soldiers, Messengers, &c.

SCENE: England

ACT I. SCENE I. London. The palace

Flourish of trumpets; then hautboys. Enter the KING, DUKE HUMPHREY OF
GLOUCESTER, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and CARDINAL BEAUFORT, on the one side;
the QUEEN, SUFFOLK, YORK, SOMERSET, and BUCKINGHAM, on the other

  SUFFOLK. As by your high imperial Majesty
    I had in charge at my depart for France,
    As procurator to your Excellence,
    To marry Princess Margaret for your Grace;
    So, in the famous ancient city Tours,
    In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,
    The Dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretagne, and Alencon,
    Seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops,
    I have perform'd my task, and was espous'd;
    And humbly now upon my bended knee,
    In sight of England and her lordly peers,
    Deliver up my title in the Queen
    To your most gracious hands, that are the substance
    Of that great shadow I did represent:
    The happiest gift that ever marquis gave,
    The fairest queen that ever king receiv'd.
  KING HENRY. Suffolk, arise. Welcome, Queen Margaret:
    I can express no kinder sign of love
    Than this kind kiss. O Lord, that lends me life,
    Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!
    For thou hast given me in this beauteous face
    A world of earthly blessings to my soul,
    If sympathy of love unite our thoughts.
  QUEEN. Great King of England, and my gracious lord,
    The mutual conference that my mind hath had,
    By day, by night, waking and in my dreams,
    In courtly company or at my beads,
    With you, mine alder-liefest sovereign,
    Makes me the bolder to salute my king
    With ruder terms, such as my wit affords
    And over-joy of heart doth minister.
  KING HENRY. Her sight did ravish, but her grace in speech,
    Her words y-clad with wisdom's majesty,
    Makes me from wond'ring fall to weeping joys,
    Such is the fulness of my heart's content.
    Lords, with one cheerful voice welcome my love.
  ALL. [Kneeling] Long live Queen Margaret, England's happiness!
  QUEEN. We thank you all.                            [Flourish]
  SUFFOLK. My Lord Protector, so it please your Grace,
    Here are the articles of contracted peace
    Between our sovereign and the French King Charles,
    For eighteen months concluded by consent.
  GLOUCESTER. [Reads] 'Imprimis: It is agreed between the French King
    Charles and William de la Pole, Marquess of Suffolk, ambassador
    for Henry King of England, that the said Henry shall espouse the
    Lady Margaret, daughter unto Reignier King of Naples, Sicilia,
    and Jerusalem, and crown her Queen of England ere the thirtieth
    of May next ensuing.
      Item: That the duchy of Anjou and the county of Maine shall be
    released and delivered to the King her father'-
                                           [Lets the paper fall]
  KING HENRY. Uncle, how now!
  GLOUCESTER. Pardon me, gracious lord;
    Some sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart,
    And dimm'd mine eyes, that I can read no further.
  KING HENRY. Uncle of Winchester, I pray read on.
  CARDINAL. [Reads] 'Item: It is further agreed between them that the
    duchies of Anjou and Maine shall be released and delivered over
    to the King her father, and she sent over of the King of
    England's own proper cost and charges, without having any dowry.'
  KING HENRY. They please us well. Lord Marquess, kneel down.
    We here create thee the first Duke of Suffolk,
    And girt thee with the sword. Cousin of York,
    We here discharge your Grace from being Regent
    I' th' parts of France, till term of eighteen months
    Be full expir'd. Thanks, uncle Winchester,
    Gloucester, York, Buckingham, Somerset,
    Salisbury, and Warwick;
    We thank you all for this great favour done
    In entertainment to my princely queen.
    Come, let us in, and with all speed provide
    To see her coronation be perform'd.
                                 Exeunt KING, QUEEN, and SUFFOLK
  GLOUCESTER. Brave peers of England, pillars of the state,
    To you Duke Humphrey must unload his grief
    Your grief, the common grief of all the land.
    What! did my brother Henry spend his youth,
    His valour, coin, and people, in the wars?
    Did he so often lodge in open field,
    In winter's cold and summer's parching heat,
    To conquer France, his true inheritance?
    And did my brother Bedford toil his wits
    To keep by policy what Henry got?
    Have you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,
    Brave York, Salisbury, and victorious Warwick,
    Receiv'd deep scars in France and Normandy?
    Or hath mine uncle Beaufort and myself,
    With all the learned Council of the realm,
    Studied so long, sat in the Council House
    Early and late, debating to and fro
    How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe?
    And had his Highness in his infancy
    Crowned in Paris, in despite of foes?
    And shall these labours and these honours die?
    Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,
    Your deeds of war, and all our counsel die?
    O peers of England, shameful is this league!
    Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame,
    Blotting your names from books of memory,
    Razing the characters of your renown,
    Defacing monuments of conquer'd France,
    Undoing all, as all had never been!
  CARDINAL. Nephew, what means this passionate discourse,
    This peroration with such circumstance?
    For France, 'tis ours; and we will keep it still.
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, uncle, we will keep it if we can;
    But now it is impossible we should.
    Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roast,
    Hath given the duchy of Anjou and Maine
    Unto the poor King Reignier, whose large style
    Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.
  SALISBURY. Now, by the death of Him that died for all,
    These counties were the keys of Normandy!
    But wherefore weeps Warwick, my valiant son?
  WARWICK. For grief that they are past recovery;
    For were there hope to conquer them again
    My sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no tears.
    Anjou and Maine! myself did win them both;
    Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer;
    And are the cities that I got with wounds
    Deliver'd up again with peaceful words?
    Mort Dieu!
  YORK. For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate,
    That dims the honour of this warlike isle!
    France should have torn and rent my very heart
    Before I would have yielded to this league.
    I never read but England's kings have had
    Large sums of gold and dowries with their wives;
    And our King Henry gives away his own
    To match with her that brings no vantages.
  GLOUCESTER. A proper jest, and never heard before,
    That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth
    For costs and charges in transporting her!
    She should have stay'd in France, and starv'd in France,
    Before-
  CARDINAL. My Lord of Gloucester, now ye grow too hot:
    It was the pleasure of my lord the King.
  GLOUCESTER. My Lord of Winchester, I know your mind;
    'Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,
    But 'tis my presence that doth trouble ye.
    Rancour will out: proud prelate, in thy face
    I see thy fury; if I longer stay
    We shall begin our ancient bickerings.
    Lordings, farewell; and say, when I am gone,
    I prophesied France will be lost ere long.              Exit
  CARDINAL. So, there goes our Protector in a rage.
    'Tis known to you he is mine enemy;
    Nay, more, an enemy unto you all,
    And no great friend, I fear me, to the King.
    Consider, lords, he is the next of blood
    And heir apparent to the English crown.
    Had Henry got an empire by his marriage
    And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,
    There's reason he should be displeas'd at it.
    Look to it, lords; let not his smoothing words
    Bewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.
    What though the common people favour him,
    Calling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloucester,'
    Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice
    'Jesu maintain your royal excellence!'
    With 'God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!'
    I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,
    He will be found a dangerous Protector.
  BUCKINGHAM. Why should he then protect our sovereign,
    He being of age to govern of himself?
    Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,
    And all together, with the Duke of Suffolk,
    We'll quickly hoise Duke Humphrey from his seat.
  CARDINAL. This weighty business will not brook delay;
    I'll to the Duke of Suffolk presently.                  Exit
  SOMERSET. Cousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey's pride
    And greatness of his place be grief to us,
    Yet let us watch the haughty cardinal;
    His insolence is more intolerable
    Than all the princes in the land beside;
    If Gloucester be displac'd, he'll be Protector.
  BUCKINGHAM. Or thou or I, Somerset, will be Protector,
    Despite Duke Humphrey or the Cardinal.
                                  Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and SOMERSET
  SALISBURY. Pride went before, ambition follows him.
    While these do labour for their own preferment,
    Behoves it us to labour for the realm.
    I never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloucester
    Did bear him like a noble gentleman.
    Oft have I seen the haughty Cardinal-
    More like a soldier than a man o' th' church,
    As stout and proud as he were lord of all-
    Swear like a ruffian and demean himself
    Unlike the ruler of a commonweal.
    Warwick my son, the comfort of my age,
    Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy housekeeping,
    Hath won the greatest favour of the commons,
    Excepting none but good Duke Humphrey.
    And, brother York, thy acts in Ireland,
    In bringing them to civil discipline,
    Thy late exploits done in the heart of France
    When thou wert Regent for our sovereign,
    Have made thee fear'd and honour'd of the people:
    Join we together for the public good,
    In what we can, to bridle and suppress
    The pride of Suffolk and the Cardinal,
    With Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition;
    And, as we may, cherish Duke Humphrey's deeds
    While they do tend the profit of the land.
  WARWICK. So God help Warwick, as he loves the land
    And common profit of his country!
  YORK. And so says York- [Aside] for he hath greatest cause.
  SALISBURY. Then let's make haste away and look unto the main.
  WARWICK. Unto the main! O father, Maine is lost-
    That Maine which by main force Warwick did win,
    And would have kept so long as breath did last.
    Main chance, father, you meant; but I meant Maine,
    Which I will win from France, or else be slain.
                                    Exeunt WARWICK and SALISBURY
  YORK. Anjou and Maine are given to the French;
    Paris is lost; the state of Normandy
    Stands on a tickle point now they are gone.
    Suffolk concluded on the articles;
    The peers agreed; and Henry was well pleas'd
    To changes two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter.
    I cannot blame them all: what is't to them?
    'Tis thine they give away, and not their own.
    Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage,
    And purchase friends, and give to courtezans,
    Still revelling like lords till all be gone;
    While as the silly owner of the goods
    Weeps over them and wrings his hapless hands
    And shakes his head and trembling stands aloof,
    While all is shar'd and all is borne away,
    Ready to starve and dare not touch his own.
    So York must sit and fret and bite his tongue,
    While his own lands are bargain'd for and sold.
    Methinks the realms of England, France, and Ireland,
    Bear that proportion to my flesh and blood
    As did the fatal brand Althaea burnt
    Unto the prince's heart of Calydon.
    Anjou and Maine both given unto the French!
    Cold news for me, for I had hope of France,
    Even as I have of fertile England's soil.
    A day will come when York shall claim his own;
    And therefore I will take the Nevils' parts,
    And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,
    And when I spy advantage, claim the crown,
    For that's the golden mark I seek to hit.
    Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right,
    Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist,
    Nor wear the diadem upon his head,
    Whose church-like humours fits not for a crown.
    Then, York, be still awhile, till time do serve;
    Watch thou and wake, when others be asleep,
    To pry into the secrets of the state;
    Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love
    With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen,
    And Humphrey with the peers be fall'n at jars;
    Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,
    With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfum'd,
    And in my standard bear the arms of York,
    To grapple with the house of Lancaster;
    And force perforce I'll make him yield the crown,
    Whose bookish rule hath pull'd fair England down.       Exit

SCENE II. The DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S house

Enter DUKE and his wife ELEANOR

  DUCHESS. Why droops my lord, like over-ripen'd corn
    Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?
    Why doth the great Duke Humphrey knit his brows,
    As frowning at the favours of the world?
    Why are thine eyes fix'd to the sullen earth,
    Gazing on that which seems to dim thy sight?
    What see'st thou there? King Henry's diadem,
    Enchas'd with all the honours of the world?
    If so, gaze on, and grovel on thy face
    Until thy head be circled with the same.
    Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold.
    What, is't too short? I'll lengthen it with mine;
    And having both together heav'd it up,
    We'll both together lift our heads to heaven,
    And never more abase our sight so low
    As to vouchsafe one glance unto the ground.
  GLOUCESTER. O Nell, sweet Nell, if thou dost love thy lord,
    Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts!
    And may that thought, when I imagine ill
    Against my king and nephew, virtuous Henry,
    Be my last breathing in this mortal world!
    My troublous dreams this night doth make me sad.
  DUCHESS. What dream'd my lord? Tell me, and I'll requite it
    With sweet rehearsal of my morning's dream.
  GLOUCESTER. Methought this staff, mine office-badge in court,
    Was broke in twain; by whom I have forgot,
    But, as I think, it was by th' Cardinal;
    And on the pieces of the broken wand
    Were plac'd the heads of Edmund Duke of Somerset
    And William de la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk.
    This was my dream; what it doth bode God knows.
  DUCHESS. Tut, this was nothing but an argument
    That he that breaks a stick of Gloucester's grove
    Shall lose his head for his presumption.
    But list to me, my Humphrey, my sweet Duke:
    Methought I sat in seat of majesty
    In the cathedral church of Westminster,
    And in that chair where kings and queens were crown'd;
    Where Henry and Dame Margaret kneel'd to me,
    And on my head did set the diadem.
  GLOUCESTER. Nay, Eleanor, then must I chide outright.
    Presumptuous dame, ill-nurtur'd Eleanor!
    Art thou not second woman in the realm,
    And the Protector's wife, belov'd of him?
    Hast thou not worldly pleasure at command
    Above the reach or compass of thy thought?
    And wilt thou still be hammering treachery
    To tumble down thy husband and thyself
    From top of honour to disgrace's feet?
    Away from me, and let me hear no more!
  DUCHESS. What, what, my lord! Are you so choleric
    With Eleanor for telling but her dream?
    Next time I'll keep my dreams unto myself
    And not be check'd.
  GLOUCESTER. Nay, be not angry; I am pleas'd again.

                       Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My Lord Protector, 'tis his Highness' pleasure
    You do prepare to ride unto Saint Albans,
    Where as the King and Queen do mean to hawk.
  GLOUCESTER. I go. Come, Nell, thou wilt ride with us?
  DUCHESS. Yes, my good lord, I'll follow presently.
                                 Exeunt GLOUCESTER and MESSENGER
    Follow I must; I cannot go before,
    While Gloucester bears this base and humble mind.
    Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,
    I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks
    And smooth my way upon their headless necks;
    And, being a woman, I will not be slack
    To play my part in Fortune's pageant.
    Where are you there, Sir John? Nay, fear not, man,
    We are alone; here's none but thee and I.

                           Enter HUME

  HUME. Jesus preserve your royal Majesty!
  DUCHESS. What say'st thou? Majesty! I am but Grace.
  HUME. But, by the grace of God and Hume's advice,
    Your Grace's title shall be multiplied.
  DUCHESS. What say'st thou, man? Hast thou as yet conferr'd
    With Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch of Eie,
    With Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?
    And will they undertake to do me good?
  HUME. This they have promised, to show your Highness
    A spirit rais'd from depth of underground
    That shall make answer to such questions
    As by your Grace shall be propounded him
  DUCHESS. It is enough; I'll think upon the questions;
    When from Saint Albans we do make return
    We'll see these things effected to the full.
    Here, Hume, take this reward; make merry, man,
    With thy confederates in this weighty cause.            Exit
  HUME. Hume must make merry with the Duchess' gold;
    Marry, and shall. But, how now, Sir John Hume!
    Seal up your lips and give no words but mum:
    The business asketh silent secrecy.
    Dame Eleanor gives gold to bring the witch:
    Gold cannot come amiss were she a devil.
    Yet have I gold flies from another coast-
    I dare not say from the rich Cardinal,
    And from the great and new-made Duke of Suffolk;
    Yet I do find it so; for, to be plain,
    They, knowing Dame Eleanor's aspiring humour,
    Have hired me to undermine the Duchess,
    And buzz these conjurations in her brain.
    They say 'A crafty knave does need no broker';
    Yet am I Suffolk and the Cardinal's broker.
    Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near
    To call them both a pair of crafty knaves.
    Well, so its stands; and thus, I fear, at last
    Hume's knavery will be the Duchess' wreck,
    And her attainture will be Humphrey's fall
    Sort how it will, I shall have gold for all.            Exit

SCENE III. London. The palace

Enter three or four PETITIONERS, PETER, the Armourer's man, being one

  FIRST PETITIONER. My masters, let's stand close; my Lord Protector
    will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our
    supplications in the quill.
  SECOND PETITIONER. Marry, the Lord protect him, for he's a good
    man, Jesu bless him!

                       Enter SUFFOLK and QUEEN

  FIRST PETITIONER. Here 'a comes, methinks, and the Queen with him.
    I'll be the first, sure.
  SECOND PETITIONER. Come back, fool; this is the Duke of Suffolk and
    not my Lord Protector.
  SUFFOLK. How now, fellow! Wouldst anything with me?
  FIRST PETITIONER. I pray, my lord, pardon me; I took ye for my Lord
    Protector.
  QUEEN. [Reads] 'To my Lord Protector!' Are your supplications to
    his lordship? Let me see them. What is thine?
  FIRST PETITIONER. Mine is, an't please your Grace, against John
    Goodman, my Lord Cardinal's man, for keeping my house and lands,
    and wife and all, from me.
  SUFFOLK. Thy wife too! That's some wrong indeed. What's yours?
    What's here! [Reads] 'Against the Duke of Suffolk, for enclosing
    the commons of Melford.' How now, sir knave!
  SECOND PETITIONER. Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our
    whole township.
  PETER. [Presenting his petition] Against my master, Thomas Horner,
    for saying that the Duke of York was rightful heir to the crown.
  QUEEN. What say'st thou? Did the Duke of York say he was rightful
    heir to the crown?
  PETER. That my master was? No, forsooth. My master said that he
    was, and that the King was an usurper.
  SUFFOLK. Who is there? [Enter servant] Take this fellow in, and
    send for his master with a pursuivant presently. We'll hear more
    of your matter before the King.
                                         Exit servant with PETER
  QUEEN. And as for you, that love to be protected
    Under the wings of our Protector's grace,
    Begin your suits anew, and sue to him.
                                       [Tears the supplications]
    Away, base cullions! Suffolk, let them go.
  ALL. Come, let's be gone.                               Exeunt
  QUEEN. My Lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise,
    Is this the fashions in the court of England?
    Is this the government of Britain's isle,
    And this the royalty of Albion's king?
    What, shall King Henry be a pupil still,
    Under the surly Gloucester's governance?
    Am I a queen in title and in style,
    And must be made a subject to a duke?
    I tell thee, Pole, when in the city Tours
    Thou ran'st a tilt in honour of my love
    And stol'st away the ladies' hearts of France,
    I thought King Henry had resembled thee
    In courage, courtship, and proportion;
    But all his mind is bent to holiness,
    To number Ave-Maries on his beads;
    His champions are the prophets and apostles;
    His weapons, holy saws of sacred writ;
    His study is his tilt-yard, and his loves
    Are brazen images of canonized saints.
    I would the college of the Cardinals
    Would choose him Pope, and carry him to Rome,
    And set the triple crown upon his head;
    That were a state fit for his holiness.
  SUFFOLK. Madam, be patient. As I was cause
    Your Highness came to England, so will I
    In England work your Grace's full content.
  QUEEN. Beside the haughty Protector, have we Beaufort
    The imperious churchman; Somerset, Buckingham,
    And grumbling York; and not the least of these
    But can do more in England than the King.
  SUFFOLK. And he of these that can do most of all
    Cannot do more in England than the Nevils;
    Salisbury and Warwick are no simple peers.
  QUEEN. Not all these lords do vex me half so much
    As that proud dame, the Lord Protector's wife.
    She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,
    More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife.
    Strangers in court do take her for the Queen.
    She bears a duke's revenues on her back,
    And in her heart she scorns our poverty;
    Shall I not live to be aveng'd on her?
    Contemptuous base-born callet as she is,
    She vaunted 'mongst her minions t' other day
    The very train of her worst wearing gown
    Was better worth than all my father's lands,
    Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.
  SUFFOLK. Madam, myself have lim'd a bush for her,
    And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds
    That she will light to listen to the lays,
    And never mount to trouble you again.
    So, let her rest. And, madam, list to me,
    For I am bold to counsel you in this:
    Although we fancy not the Cardinal,
    Yet must we join with him and with the lords,
    Till we have brought Duke Humphrey in disgrace.
    As for the Duke of York, this late complaint
    Will make but little for his benefit.
    So one by one we'll weed them all at last,
    And you yourself shall steer the happy helm.

          Sound a sennet. Enter the KING, DUKE HUMPHREY,
     CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BUCKINGHAM, YORK, SOMERSET, SALISBURY,
              WARWICK, and the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER

  KING HENRY. For my part, noble lords, I care not which:
    Or Somerset or York, all's one to me.
  YORK. If York have ill demean'd himself in France,
    Then let him be denay'd the regentship.
  SOMERSET. If Somerset be unworthy of the place,
    Let York be Regent; I will yield to him.
  WARWICK. Whether your Grace be worthy, yea or no,
    Dispute not that; York is the worthier.
  CARDINAL. Ambitious Warwick, let thy betters speak.
  WARWICK. The Cardinal's not my better in the field.
  BUCKINGHAM. All in this presence are thy betters, Warwick.
  WARWICK. Warwick may live to be the best of all.
  SALISBURY. Peace, son! And show some reason, Buckingham,
    Why Somerset should be preferr'd in this.
  QUEEN. Because the King, forsooth, will have it so.
  GLOUCESTER. Madam, the King is old enough himself
    To give his censure. These are no women's matters.
  QUEEN. If he be old enough, what needs your Grace
    To be Protector of his Excellence?
  GLOUCESTER. Madam, I am Protector of the realm;
    And at his pleasure will resign my place.
  SUFFOLK. Resign it then, and leave thine insolence.
    Since thou wert king- as who is king but thou?-
    The commonwealth hath daily run to wrack,
    The Dauphin hath prevail'd beyond the seas,
    And all the peers and nobles of the realm
    Have been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.
  CARDINAL. The commons hast thou rack'd; the clergy's bags
    Are lank and lean with thy extortions.
  SOMERSET. Thy sumptuous buildings and thy wife's attire
    Have cost a mass of public treasury.
  BUCKINGHAM. Thy cruelty in execution
    Upon offenders hath exceeded law,
    And left thee to the mercy of the law.
  QUEEN. Thy sale of offices and towns in France,
    If they were known, as the suspect is great,
    Would make thee quickly hop without thy head.
                  Exit GLOUCESTER. The QUEEN drops QUEEN her fan
    Give me my fan. What, minion, can ye not?
                        [She gives the DUCHESS a box on the ear]
    I cry your mercy, madam; was it you?
  DUCHESS. Was't I? Yea, I it was, proud Frenchwoman.
    Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
    I could set my ten commandments in your face.
  KING HENRY. Sweet aunt, be quiet; 'twas against her will.
  DUCHESS. Against her will, good King? Look to 't in time;
    She'll hamper thee and dandle thee like a baby.
    Though in this place most master wear no breeches,
    She shall not strike Dame Eleanor unreveng'd.           Exit
  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,
    And listen after Humphrey, how he proceeds.
    She's tickled now; her fume needs no spurs,
    She'll gallop far enough to her destruction.            Exit

                      Re-enter GLOUCESTER

  GLOUCESTER. Now, lords, my choler being overblown
    With walking once about the quadrangle,
    I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.
    As for your spiteful false objections,
    Prove them, and I lie open to the law;
    But God in mercy so deal with my soul
    As I in duty love my king and country!
    But to the matter that we have in hand:
    I say, my sovereign, York is meetest man
    To be your Regent in the realm of France.
  SUFFOLK. Before we make election, give me leave
    To show some reason, of no little force,
    That York is most unmeet of any man.
  YORK. I'll tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unmeet:
    First, for I cannot flatter thee in pride;
    Next, if I be appointed for the place,
    My Lord of Somerset will keep me here
    Without discharge, money, or furniture,
    Till France be won into the Dauphin's hands.
    Last time I danc'd attendance on his will
    Till Paris was besieg'd, famish'd, and lost.
  WARWICK. That can I witness; and a fouler fact
    Did never traitor in the land commit.
  SUFFOLK. Peace, headstrong Warwick!
  WARWICK. Image of pride, why should I hold my peace?

        Enter HORNER, the Armourer, and his man PETER, guarded

  SUFFOLK. Because here is a man accus'd of treason:
    Pray God the Duke of York excuse himself!
  YORK. Doth any one accuse York for a traitor?
  KING HENRY. What mean'st thou, Suffolk? Tell me, what are these?
  SUFFOLK. Please it your Majesty, this is the man
    That doth accuse his master of high treason;
    His words were these: that Richard Duke of York
    Was rightful heir unto the English crown,
    And that your Majesty was an usurper.
  KING HENRY. Say, man, were these thy words?
  HORNER. An't shall please your Majesty, I never said nor thought
    any such matter. God is my witness, I am falsely accus'd by the
    villain.
  PETER. [Holding up his hands] By these ten bones, my lords, he did
    speak them to me in the garret one night, as we were scouring my
    Lord of York's armour.
  YORK. Base dunghill villain and mechanical,
    I'll have thy head for this thy traitor's speech.
    I do beseech your royal Majesty,
    Let him have all the rigour of the law.
  HORNER`. Alas, my lord, hang me if ever I spake the words. My
    accuser is my prentice; and when I did correct him for his fault
    the other day, he did vow upon his knees he would be even with
    me. I have good witness of this; therefore I beseech your
    Majesty, do not cast away an honest man for a villain's
    accusation.
  KING HENRY. Uncle, what shall we say to this in law?
  GLOUCESTER. This doom, my lord, if I may judge:
    Let Somerset be Regent o'er the French,
    Because in York this breeds suspicion;
    And let these have a day appointed them
    For single combat in convenient place,
    For he hath witness of his servant's malice.
    This is the law, and this Duke Humphrey's doom.
  SOMERSET. I humbly thank your royal Majesty.
  HORNER. And I accept the combat willingly.
  PETER. Alas, my lord, I cannot fight; for God's sake, pity my case!
    The spite of man prevaileth against me. O Lord, have mercy upon
    me, I shall never be able to fight a blow! O Lord, my heart!
  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, or you must fight or else be hang'd.
  KING HENRY. Away with them to prison; and the day of combat shall
    be the last of the next month.
    Come, Somerset, we'll see thee sent away.   Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. The DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S garden

Enter MARGERY JOURDAIN, the witch; the two priests, HUME and SOUTHWELL;
and BOLINGBROKE

  HUME. Come, my masters; the Duchess, I tell you, expects
    performance of your promises.
  BOLINGBROKE. Master Hume, we are therefore provided; will her
    ladyship behold and hear our exorcisms?
  HUME. Ay, what else? Fear you not her courage.
  BOLINGBROKE. I have heard her reported to be a woman of an
    invincible spirit; but it shall be convenient, Master Hume, that
    you be by her aloft while we be busy below; and so I pray you go,
    in God's name, and leave us. [Exit HUME] Mother Jourdain, be you
    prostrate and grovel on the earth; John Southwell, read you; and
    let us to our work.

                 Enter DUCHESS aloft, followed by HUME

  DUCHESS. Well said, my masters; and welcome all. To this gear, the
    sooner the better.
  BOLINGBROKE. Patience, good lady; wizards know their times:
    Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,
    The time of night when Troy was set on fire;
    The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl,
    And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves-
    That time best fits the work we have in hand.
    Madam, sit you, and fear not: whom we raise
    We will make fast within a hallow'd verge.

     [Here they do the ceremonies belonging, and make the circle;
          BOLINGBROKE or SOUTHWELL reads: 'Conjuro te,' &c.
     It thunders and lightens terribly; then the SPIRIT riseth]

  SPIRIT. Adsum.
  MARGERY JOURDAIN. Asmath,
    By the eternal God, whose name and power
    Thou tremblest at, answer that I shall ask;
    For till thou speak thou shalt not pass from hence.
  SPIRIT. Ask what thou wilt; that I had said and done.
  BOLINGBROKE. [Reads] 'First of the king: what shall of him become?'
  SPIRIT. The Duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;
    But him outlive, and die a violent death.
             [As the SPIRIT speaks, SOUTHWELL writes the answer]
  BOLINGBROKE. 'What fates await the Duke of Suffolk?'
  SPIRIT. By water shall he die and take his end.
  BOLINGBROKE. 'What shall befall the Duke of Somerset?'
  SPIRIT. Let him shun castles:
    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains
    Than where castles mounted stand.
    Have done, for more I hardly can endure.
  BOLINGBROKE. Descend to darkness and the burning lake;
    False fiend, avoid!       Thunder and lightning. Exit SPIRIT

               Enter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUKE OF
                 BUCKINGHAM with guard, and break in

  YORK. Lay hands upon these traitors and their trash.
    Beldam, I think we watch'd you at an inch.
    What, madam, are you there? The King and commonweal
    Are deeply indebted for this piece of pains;
    My Lord Protector will, I doubt it not,
    See you well guerdon'd for these good deserts.
  DUCHESS. Not half so bad as thine to England's king,
    Injurious Duke, that threatest where's no cause.
  BUCKINGHAM. True, madam, none at all. What can you this?
    Away with them! let them be clapp'd up close,
    And kept asunder. You, madam, shall with us.
    Stafford, take her to thee.
    We'll see your trinkets here all forthcoming.
    All, away!
                Exeunt, above, DUCHESS and HUME, guarded; below,
                       WITCH, SOUTHWELL and BOLINGBROKE, guarded
  YORK. Lord Buckingham, methinks you watch'd her well.
    A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon!
    Now, pray, my lord, let's see the devil's writ.
    What have we here?                                   [Reads]
    'The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;
    But him outlive, and die a violent death.'
    Why, this is just
    'Aio te, Aeacida, Romanos vincere posse.'
    Well, to the rest:
    'Tell me what fate awaits the Duke of Suffolk?'
    'By water shall he die and take his end.'
    'What shall betide the Duke of Somerset?'
    'Let him shun castles;
    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains
    Than where castles mounted stand.'
    Come, come, my lords;
    These oracles are hardly attain'd,
    And hardly understood.
    The King is now in progress towards Saint Albans,
    With him the husband of this lovely lady;
    Thither go these news as fast as horse can carry them-
    A sorry breakfast for my Lord Protector.
  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace shall give me leave, my Lord of York,
    To be the post, in hope of his reward.
  YORK. At your pleasure, my good lord.
    Who's within there, ho?

                       Enter a serving-man

    Invite my Lords of Salisbury and Warwick
    To sup with me to-morrow night. Away!                 Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Saint Albans

Enter the KING, QUEEN, GLOUCESTER, CARDINAL, and SUFFOLK, with
Falconers halloing

  QUEEN. Believe me, lords, for flying at the brook,
    I saw not better sport these seven years' day;
    Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high,
    And ten to one old Joan had not gone out.
  KING HENRY. But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,
    And what a pitch she flew above the rest!
    To see how God in all His creatures works!
    Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.
  SUFFOLK. No marvel, an it like your Majesty,
    My Lord Protector's hawks do tow'r so well;
    They know their master loves to be aloft,
    And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.
  GLOUCESTER. My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind
    That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.
  CARDINAL. I thought as much; he would be above the clouds.
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, my lord Cardinal, how think you by that?
    Were it not good your Grace could fly to heaven?
  KING HENRY. The treasury of everlasting joy!
  CARDINAL. Thy heaven is on earth; thine eyes and thoughts
    Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart;
    Pernicious Protector, dangerous peer,
    That smooth'st it so with King and commonweal.
  GLOUCESTER. What, Cardinal, is your priesthood grown peremptory?
    Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?
    Churchmen so hot? Good uncle, hide such malice;
    With such holiness can you do it?
  SUFFOLK. No malice, sir; no more than well becomes
    So good a quarrel and so bad a peer.
  GLOUCESTER. As who, my lord?
  SUFFOLK. Why, as you, my lord,
    An't like your lordly Lord's Protectorship.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, Suffolk, England knows thine insolence.
  QUEEN. And thy ambition, Gloucester.
  KING HENRY. I prithee, peace,
    Good Queen, and whet not on these furious peers;
    For blessed are the peacemakers on earth.
  CARDINAL. Let me be blessed for the peace I make
    Against this proud Protector with my sword!
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Faith, holy uncle, would 'twere
    come to that!
  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Marry, when thou dar'st.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Make up no factious numbers for the
      matter;
    In thine own person answer thy abuse.
  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Ay, where thou dar'st not peep; an
      if thou dar'st,
    This evening on the east side of the grove.
  KING HENRY. How now, my lords!
  CARDINAL. Believe me, cousin Gloucester,
    Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,
    We had had more sport. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Come with thy
      two-hand sword.
  GLOUCESTER. True, uncle.
  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Are ye advis'd? The east side of
    the grove?
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Cardinal, I am with you.
  KING HENRY. Why, how now, uncle Gloucester!
  GLOUCESTER. Talking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.
    [Aside to CARDINAL] Now, by God's Mother, priest,
    I'll shave your crown for this,
    Or all my fence shall fail.
  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Medice, teipsum;
    Protector, see to't well; protect yourself.
  KING HENRY. The winds grow high; so do your stomachs, lords.
    How irksome is this music to my heart!
    When such strings jar, what hope of harmony?
    I pray, my lords, let me compound this strife.

         Enter a TOWNSMAN of Saint Albans, crying 'A miracle!'

  GLOUCESTER. What means this noise?
    Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim?
  TOWNSMAN. A miracle! A miracle!
  SUFFOLK. Come to the King, and tell him what miracle.
  TOWNSMAN. Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Albans shrine
    Within this half hour hath receiv'd his sight;
    A man that ne'er saw in his life before.
  KING HENRY. Now God be prais'd that to believing souls
    Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair!

           Enter the MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS and his brethren,
               bearing Simpcox between two in a chair;
                 his WIFE and a multitude following

  CARDINAL. Here comes the townsmen on procession
    To present your Highness with the man.
  KING HENRY. Great is his comfort in this earthly vale,
    Although by his sight his sin be multiplied.
  GLOUCESTER. Stand by, my masters; bring him near the King;
    His Highness' pleasure is to talk with him.
  KING HENRY. Good fellow, tell us here the circumstance,
    That we for thee may glorify the Lord.
    What, hast thou been long blind and now restor'd?
  SIMPCOX. Born blind, an't please your Grace.
  WIFE. Ay indeed was he.
  SUFFOLK. What woman is this?
  WIFE. His wife, an't like your worship.
  GLOUCESTER. Hadst thou been his mother, thou couldst have better
    told.
  KING HENRY. Where wert thou born?
  SIMPCOX. At Berwick in the north, an't like your Grace.
  KING HENRY. Poor soul, God's goodness hath been great to thee.
    Let never day nor night unhallowed pass,
    But still remember what the Lord hath done.
  QUEEN. Tell me, good fellow, cam'st thou here by chance,
    Or of devotion, to this holy shrine?
  SIMPCOX. God knows, of pure devotion; being call'd
    A hundred times and oft'ner, in my sleep,
    By good Saint Alban, who said 'Simpcox, come,
    Come, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee.'
  WIFE. Most true, forsooth; and many time and oft
    Myself have heard a voice to call him so.
  CARDINAL. What, art thou lame?
  SIMPCOX. Ay, God Almighty help me!
  SUFFOLK. How cam'st thou so?
  SIMPCOX. A fall off of a tree.
  WIFE. A plum tree, master.
  GLOUCESTER. How long hast thou been blind?
  SIMPCOX. O, born so, master!
  GLOUCESTER. What, and wouldst climb a tree?
  SIMPCOX. But that in all my life, when I was a youth.
  WIFE. Too true; and bought his climbing very dear.
  GLOUCESTER. Mass, thou lov'dst plums well, that wouldst venture so.
  SIMPCOX. Alas, good master, my wife desir'd some damsons
    And made me climb, With danger of my life.
  GLOUCESTER. A subtle knave! But yet it shall not serve:
    Let me see thine eyes; wink now; now open them;
    In my opinion yet thou seest not well.
  SIMPCOX. Yes, master, clear as day, I thank God and Saint Alban.
  GLOUCESTER. Say'st thou me so? What colour is this cloak of?
  SIMPCOX. Red, master; red as blood.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, that's well said. What colour is my gown of?
  SIMPCOX. Black, forsooth; coal-black as jet.
  KING HENRY. Why, then, thou know'st what colour jet is of?
  SUFFOLK. And yet, I think, jet did he never see.
  GLOUCESTER. But cloaks and gowns before this day a many.
  WIFE. Never before this day in all his life.
  GLOUCESTER. Tell me, sirrah, what's my name?
  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I know not.
  GLOUCESTER. What's his name?
  SIMPCOX. I know not.
  GLOUCESTER. Nor his?
  SIMPCOX. No, indeed, master.
  GLOUCESTER. What's thine own name?
  SIMPCOX. Saunder Simpcox, an if it please you, master.
  GLOUCESTER. Then, Saunder, sit there, the lying'st knave in
    Christendom. If thou hadst been born blind, thou mightst as well
    have known all our names as thus to name the several colours we
    do wear. Sight may distinguish of colours; but suddenly to
    nominate them all, it is impossible. My lords, Saint Alban here
    hath done a miracle; and would ye not think his cunning to be
    great that could restore this cripple to his legs again?
  SIMPCOX. O master, that you could!
  GLOUCESTER. My masters of Saint Albans, have you not beadles in
    your town, and things call'd whips?
  MAYOR. Yes, my lord, if it please your Grace.
  GLOUCESTER. Then send for one presently.
  MAYOR. Sirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight.
                                               Exit an attendant
  GLOUCESTER. Now fetch me a stool hither by and by. [A stool
    brought] Now, sirrah, if you mean to save yourself from whipping,
    leap me over this stool and run away.
  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone!
    You go about to torture me in vain.

                         Enter a BEADLE with whips

  GLOUCESTER. Well, sir, we must have you find your legs.
    Sirrah beadle, whip him till he leap over that same stool.
  BEADLE. I will, my lord. Come on, sirrah; off with your doublet
    quickly.
  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, what shall I do? I am not able to stand.

           After the BEADLE hath hit him once, he leaps over
           the stool and runs away; and they follow and cry
                             'A miracle!'

  KING HENRY. O God, seest Thou this, and bearest so long?
  QUEEN. It made me laugh to see the villain run.
  GLOUCESTER. Follow the knave, and take this drab away.
  WIFE. Alas, sir, we did it for pure need!
  GLOUCESTER. Let them be whipp'd through every market town till they
    come to Berwick, from whence they came.
                                 Exeunt MAYOR, BEADLE, WIFE, &c.
  CARDINAL. Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to-day.
  SUFFOLK. True; made the lame to leap and fly away.
  GLOUCESTER. But you have done more miracles than I:
    You made in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly.

                         Enter BUCKINGHAM

  KING HENRY. What tidings with our cousin Buckingham?
  BUCKINGHAM. Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold:
    A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent,
    Under the countenance and confederacy
    Of Lady Eleanor, the Protector's wife,
    The ringleader and head of all this rout,
    Have practis'd dangerously against your state,
    Dealing with witches and with conjurers,
    Whom we have apprehended in the fact,
    Raising up wicked spirits from under ground,
    Demanding of King Henry's life and death
    And other of your Highness' Privy Council,
    As more at large your Grace shall understand.
  CARDINAL. And so, my Lord Protector, by this means
    Your lady is forthcoming yet at London.
    This news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge;
    'Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.
  GLOUCESTER. Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my heart.
    Sorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my powers;
    And, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to the
    Or to the meanest groom.
  KING HENRY. O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones,
    Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby!
  QUEEN. Gloucester, see here the tainture of thy nest;
    And look thyself be faultless, thou wert best.
  GLOUCESTER. Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal
    How I have lov'd my King and commonweal;
    And for my wife I know not how it stands.
    Sorry I am to hear what I have heard.
    Noble she is; but if she have forgot
    Honour and virtue, and convers'd with such
    As, like to pitch, defile nobility,
    I banish her my bed and company
    And give her as a prey to law and shame,
    That hath dishonoured Gloucester's honest name.
  KING HENRY. Well, for this night we will repose us here.
    To-morrow toward London back again
    To look into this business thoroughly
    And call these foul offenders to their answers,
    And poise the cause in justice' equal scales,
    Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.
                                                Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE II. London. The DUKE OF YORK'S garden

Enter YORK, SALISBURY, and WARWICK

  YORK. Now, my good Lords of Salisbury and Warwick,
    Our simple supper ended, give me leave
    In this close walk to satisfy myself
    In craving your opinion of my tide,
    Which is infallible, to England's crown.
  SALISBURY. My lord, I long to hear it at full.
  WARWICK. Sweet York, begin; and if thy claim be good,
    The Nevils are thy subjects to command.
  YORK. Then thus:
    Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons;
    The first, Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales;
    The second, William of Hatfield; and the third,
    Lionel Duke of Clarence; next to whom
    Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster;
    The fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York;
    The sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester;
    William of Windsor was the seventh and last.
    Edward the Black Prince died before his father
    And left behind him Richard, his only son,
    Who, after Edward the Third's death, reign'd as king
    Till Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster,
    The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt,
    Crown'd by the name of Henry the Fourth,
    Seiz'd on the realm, depos'd the rightful king,
    Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she came.
    And him to Pomfret, where, as all you know,
    Harmless Richard was murdered traitorously.
  WARWICK. Father, the Duke hath told the truth;
    Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown.
  YORK. Which now they hold by force, and not by right;
    For Richard, the first son's heir, being dead,
    The issue of the next son should have reign'd.
  SALISBURY. But William of Hatfield died without an heir.
  YORK. The third son, Duke of Clarence, from whose line
    I claim the crown, had issue Philippe, a daughter,
    Who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March;
    Edmund had issue, Roger Earl of March;
    Roger had issue, Edmund, Anne, and Eleanor.
  SALISBURY. This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke,
    As I have read, laid claim unto the crown;
    And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king,
    Who kept him in captivity till he died.
    But, to the rest.
  YORK. His eldest sister, Anne,
    My mother, being heir unto the crown,
    Married Richard Earl of Cambridge, who was
    To Edmund Langley, Edward the Third's fifth son, son.
    By her I claim the kingdom: she was heir
    To Roger Earl of March, who was the son
    Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,
    Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence;
    So, if the issue of the elder son
    Succeed before the younger, I am King.
  WARWICK. What plain proceedings is more plain than this?
    Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,
    The fourth son: York claims it from the third.
    Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign.
    It fails not yet, but flourishes in thee
    And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock.
    Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together,
    And in this private plot be we the first
    That shall salute our rightful sovereign
    With honour of his birthright to the crown.
  BOTH. Long live our sovereign Richard, England's King!
  YORK. We thank you, lords. But I am not your king
    Till I be crown'd, and that my sword be stain'd
    With heart-blood of the house of Lancaster;
    And that's not suddenly to be perform'd,
    But with advice and silent secrecy.
    Do you as I do in these dangerous days:
    Wink at the Duke of Suffolk's insolence,
    At Beaufort's pride, at Somerset's ambition,
    At Buckingham, and all the crew of them,
    Till they have snar'd the shepherd of the flock,
    That virtuous prince, the good Duke Humphrey;
    'Tis that they seek; and they, in seeking that,
    Shall find their deaths, if York can prophesy.
  SALISBURY. My lord, break we off; we know your mind at full.
  WARWICK. My heart assures me that the Earl of Warwick
    Shall one day make the Duke of York a king.
  YORK. And, Nevil, this I do assure myself,
    Richard shall live to make the Earl of Warwick
    The greatest man in England but the King.             Exeunt

SCENE III. London. A hall of justice

Sound trumpets. Enter the KING and State: the QUEEN, GLOUCESTER, YORK,
SUFFOLK, and SALISBURY, with guard, to banish the DUCHESS. Enter,
guarded, the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, MARGERY JOURDAIN, HUME, SOUTHWELL,
and BOLINGBROKE

  KING HENRY. Stand forth, Dame Eleanor Cobham, Gloucester's wife:
    In sight of God and us, your guilt is great;
    Receive the sentence of the law for sins
    Such as by God's book are adjudg'd to death.
    You four, from hence to prison back again;
    From thence unto the place of execution:
    The witch in Smithfield shall be burnt to ashes,
    And you three shall be strangled on the gallows.
    You, madam, for you are more nobly born,
    Despoiled of your honour in your life,
    Shall, after three days' open penance done,
    Live in your country here in banishment
    With Sir John Stanley in the Isle of Man.
  DUCHESS. Welcome is banishment; welcome were my death.
  GLOUCESTER. Eleanor, the law, thou seest, hath judged thee.
    I cannot justify whom the law condemns.
             Exeunt the DUCHESS and the other prisoners, guarded
    Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief.
    Ah, Humphrey, this dishonour in thine age
    Will bring thy head with sorrow to the ground!
    I beseech your Majesty give me leave to go;
    Sorrow would solace, and mine age would ease.
  KING HENRY. Stay, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester; ere thou go,
    Give up thy staff; Henry will to himself
    Protector be; and God shall be my hope,
    My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.
    And go in peace, Humphrey, no less belov'd
    Than when thou wert Protector to thy King.
  QUEEN. I see no reason why a king of years
    Should be to be protected like a child.
    God and King Henry govern England's realm!
    Give up your staff, sir, and the King his realm.
  GLOUCESTER. My staff! Here, noble Henry, is my staff.
    As willingly do I the same resign
    As ere thy father Henry made it mine;
    And even as willingly at thy feet I leave it
    As others would ambitiously receive it.
    Farewell, good King; when I am dead and gone,
    May honourable peace attend thy throne!                 Exit
  QUEEN. Why, now is Henry King, and Margaret Queen,
    And Humphrey Duke of Gloucester scarce himself,
    That bears so shrewd a maim: two pulls at once-
    His lady banish'd and a limb lopp'd off.
    This staff of honour raught, there let it stand
    Where it best fits to be, in Henry's hand.
  SUFFOLK. Thus droops this lofty pine and hangs his sprays;
    Thus Eleanor's pride dies in her youngest days.
  YORK. Lords, let him go. Please it your Majesty,
    This is the day appointed for the combat;
    And ready are the appellant and defendant,
    The armourer and his man, to enter the lists,
    So please your Highness to behold the fight.
  QUEEN. Ay, good my lord; for purposely therefore
    Left I the court, to see this quarrel tried.
  KING HENRY. A God's name, see the lists and all things fit;
    Here let them end it, and God defend the right!
  YORK. I never saw a fellow worse bested,
    Or more afraid to fight, than is the appellant,
    The servant of his armourer, my lords.

        Enter at one door, HORNER, the Armourer, and his
         NEIGHBOURS, drinking to him so much that he is
        drunk; and he enters with a drum before him and
       his staff with a sand-bag fastened to it; and at the
        other door PETER, his man, with a drum and sandbag,
                  and PRENTICES drinking to him

  FIRST NEIGHBOUR. Here, neighbour Horner, I drink to you in a cup of
    sack; and fear not, neighbour, you shall do well enough.
  SECOND NEIGHBOUR. And here, neighbour, here's a cup of charneco.
  THIRD NEIGHBOUR. And here's a pot of good double beer, neighbour;
    drink, and fear not your man.
  HORNER. Let it come, i' faith, and I'll pledge you all; and a fig
    for Peter!
  FIRST PRENTICE. Here, Peter, I drink to thee; and be not afraid.
  SECOND PRENTICE. Be merry, Peter, and fear not thy master: fight
    for credit of the prentices.
  PETER. I thank you all. Drink, and pray for me, I pray you; for I
    think I have taken my last draught in this world. Here, Robin, an
    if I die, I give thee my apron; and, Will, thou shalt have my
    hammer; and here, Tom, take all the money that I have. O Lord
    bless me, I pray God! for I am never able to deal with my master,
    he hath learnt so much fence already.
  SALISBURY. Come, leave your drinking and fall to blows.
    Sirrah, what's thy name?
  PETER. Peter, forsooth.
  SALISBURY. Peter? What more?
  PETER. Thump.
  SALISBURY. Thump? Then see thou thump thy master well.
  HORNER. Masters, I am come hither, as it were, upon my man's
    instigation, to prove him a knave and myself an honest man; and
    touching the Duke of York, I will take my death I never meant him
    any ill, nor the King, nor the Queen; and therefore, Peter, have
    at thee with a down right blow!
  YORK. Dispatch- this knave's tongue begins to double.
    Sound, trumpets, alarum to the combatants!
                 [Alarum. They fight and PETER strikes him down]
  HORNER. Hold, Peter, hold! I confess, I confess treason.
                                                          [Dies]
  YORK. Take away his weapon. Fellow, thank God, and the good wine in
    thy master's way.
  PETER. O God, have I overcome mine enemies in this presence? O
    Peter, thou hast prevail'd in right!
  KING HENRY. Go, take hence that traitor from our sight,
    For by his death we do perceive his guilt;
    And God in justice hath reveal'd to us
    The truth and innocence of this poor fellow,
    Which he had thought to have murder'd wrongfully.
    Come, fellow, follow us for thy reward.
                                        Sound a flourish. Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. A street

Enter DUKE HUMPHREY and his men, in mourning cloaks

  GLOUCESTER. Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud,
    And after summer evermore succeeds
    Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold;
    So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.
    Sirs, what's o'clock?
  SERVING-MAN. Ten, my lord.
  GLOUCESTER. Ten is the hour that was appointed me
    To watch the coming of my punish'd duchess.
    Uneath may she endure the flinty streets
    To tread them with her tender-feeling feet.
    Sweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook
    The abject people gazing on thy face,
    With envious looks, laughing at thy shame,
    That erst did follow thy proud chariot wheels
    When thou didst ride in triumph through the streets.
    But, soft! I think she comes, and I'll prepare
    My tear-stain'd eyes to see her miseries.

          Enter the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER in a white sheet,
            and a taper burning in her hand, with SIR JOHN
               STANLEY, the SHERIFF, and OFFICERS

  SERVING-MAN. So please your Grace, we'll take her from the sheriff.
  GLOUCESTER. No, stir not for your lives; let her pass by.
  DUCHESS. Come you, my lord, to see my open shame?
    Now thou dost penance too. Look how they gaze!
    See how the giddy multitude do point
    And nod their heads and throw their eyes on thee;
    Ah, Gloucester, hide thee from their hateful looks,
    And, in thy closet pent up, rue my shame
    And ban thine enemies, both mine and thine!
  GLOUCESTER. Be patient, gentle Nell; forget this grief.
  DUCHESS. Ah, Gloucester, teach me to forget myself!
    For whilst I think I am thy married wife
    And thou a prince, Protector of this land,
    Methinks I should not thus be led along,
    Mail'd up in shame, with papers on my back,
    And follow'd with a rabble that rejoice
    To see my tears and hear my deep-fet groans.
    The ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet,
    And when I start, the envious people laugh
    And bid me be advised how I tread.
    Ah, Humphrey, can I bear this shameful yoke?
    Trowest thou that e'er I'll look upon the world
    Or count them happy that enjoy the sun?
    No; dark shall be my light and night my day;
    To think upon my pomp shall be my hell.
    Sometimes I'll say I am Duke Humphrey's wife,
    And he a prince, and ruler of the land;
    Yet so he rul'd, and such a prince he was,
    As he stood by whilst I, his forlorn duchess,
    Was made a wonder and a pointing-stock
    To every idle rascal follower.
    But be thou mild, and blush not at my shame,
    Nor stir at nothing till the axe of death
    Hang over thee, as sure it shortly will.
    For Suffolk- he that can do all in all
    With her that hateth thee and hates us all-
    And York, and impious Beaufort, that false priest,
    Have all lim'd bushes to betray thy wings,
    And, fly thou how thou canst, they'll tangle thee.
    But fear not thou until thy foot be snar'd,
    Nor never seek prevention of thy foes.
  GLOUCESTER. Ah, Nell, forbear! Thou aimest all awry.
    I must offend before I be attainted;
    And had I twenty times so many foes,
    And each of them had twenty times their power,
    All these could not procure me any scathe
    So long as I am loyal, true, and crimeless.
    Wouldst have me rescue thee from this reproach?
    Why, yet thy scandal were not wip'd away,
    But I in danger for the breach of law.
    Thy greatest help is quiet, gentle Nell.
    I pray thee sort thy heart to patience;
    These few days' wonder will be quickly worn.

                          Enter a HERALD

  HERALD. I summon your Grace to his Majesty's Parliament,
    Holden at Bury the first of this next month.
  GLOUCESTER. And my consent ne'er ask'd herein before!
    This is close dealing. Well, I will be there.    Exit HERALD
    My Nell, I take my leave- and, master sheriff,
    Let not her penance exceed the King's commission.
  SHERIFF. An't please your Grace, here my commission stays;
    And Sir John Stanley is appointed now
    To take her with him to the Isle of Man.
  GLOUCESTER. Must you, Sir John, protect my lady here?
  STANLEY. So am I given in charge, may't please your Grace.
  GLOUCESTER. Entreat her not the worse in that I pray
    You use her well; the world may laugh again,
    And I may live to do you kindness if
    You do it her. And so, Sir John, farewell.
  DUCHESS. What, gone, my lord, and bid me not farewell!
  GLOUCESTER. Witness my tears, I cannot stay to speak.
                                  Exeunt GLOUCESTER and servants
  DUCHESS. Art thou gone too? All comfort go with thee!
    For none abides with me. My joy is death-
    Death, at whose name I oft have been afeard,
    Because I wish'd this world's eternity.
    Stanley, I prithee go, and take me hence;
    I care not whither, for I beg no favour,
    Only convey me where thou art commanded.
  STANLEY. Why, madam, that is to the Isle of Man,
    There to be us'd according to your state.
  DUCHESS. That's bad enough, for I am but reproach-
    And shall I then be us'd reproachfully?
  STANLEY. Like to a duchess and Duke Humphrey's lady;
    According to that state you shall be us'd.
  DUCHESS. Sheriff, farewell, and better than I fare,
    Although thou hast been conduct of my shame.
  SHERIFF. It is my office; and, madam, pardon me.
  DUCHESS. Ay, ay, farewell; thy office is discharg'd.
    Come, Stanley, shall we go?
  STANLEY. Madam, your penance done, throw off this sheet,
    And go we to attire you for our journey.
  DUCHESS. My shame will not be shifted with my sheet.
    No, it will hang upon my richest robes
    And show itself, attire me how I can.
    Go, lead the way; I long to see my prison.            Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. The Abbey at Bury St. Edmunds

Sound a sennet. Enter the KING, the QUEEN, CARDINAL, SUFFOLK, YORK,
BUCKINGHAM, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the Parliament

  KING HENRY. I muse my Lord of Gloucester is not come.
    'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man,
    Whate'er occasion keeps him from us now.
  QUEEN. Can you not see, or will ye not observe
    The strangeness of his alter'd countenance?
    With what a majesty he bears himself;
    How insolent of late he is become,
    How proud, how peremptory, and unlike himself?
    We know the time since he was mild and affable,
    And if we did but glance a far-off look
    Immediately he was upon his knee,
    That all the court admir'd him for submission.
    But meet him now and be it in the morn,
    When every one will give the time of day,
    He knits his brow and shows an angry eye
    And passeth by with stiff unbowed knee,
    Disdaining duty that to us belongs.
    Small curs are not regarded when they grin,
    But great men tremble when the lion roars,
    And Humphrey is no little man in England.
    First note that he is near you in descent,
    And should you fall he is the next will mount;
    Me seemeth, then, it is no policy-
    Respecting what a rancorous mind he bears,
    And his advantage following your decease-
    That he should come about your royal person
    Or be admitted to your Highness' Council.
    By flattery hath he won the commons' hearts;
    And when he please to make commotion,
    'Tis to be fear'd they all will follow him.
    Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;
    Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden
    And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.
    The reverent care I bear unto my lord
    Made me collect these dangers in the Duke.
    If it be fond, can it a woman's fear;
    Which fear if better reasons can supplant,
    I will subscribe, and say I wrong'd the Duke.
    My Lord of Suffolk, Buckingham, and York,
    Reprove my allegation if you can,
    Or else conclude my words effectual.
  SUFFOLK. Well hath your Highness seen into this duke;
    And had I first been put to speak my mind,
    I think I should have told your Grace's tale.
    The Duchess, by his subornation,
    Upon my life, began her devilish practices;
    Or if he were not privy to those faults,
    Yet by reputing of his high descent-
    As next the King he was successive heir-
    And such high vaunts of his nobility,
    Did instigate the bedlam brainsick Duchess
    By wicked means to frame our sovereign's fall.
    Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep,
    And in his simple show he harbours treason.
    The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb.
    No, no, my sovereign, Gloucester is a man
    Unsounded yet, and full of deep deceit.
  CARDINAL. Did he not, contrary to form of law,
    Devise strange deaths for small offences done?
  YORK. And did he not, in his protectorship,
    Levy great sums of money through the realm
    For soldiers' pay in France, and never sent it?
    By means whereof the towns each day revolted.
  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, these are petty faults to faults unknown
    Which time will bring to light in smooth Duke Humphrey.
  KING HENRY. My lords, at once: the care you have of us,
    To mow down thorns that would annoy our foot,
    Is worthy praise; but shall I speak my conscience?
    Our kinsman Gloucester is as innocent
    From meaning treason to our royal person
    As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove:
    The Duke is virtuous, mild, and too well given
    To dream on evil or to work my downfall.
  QUEEN. Ah, what's more dangerous than this fond affiance?
    Seems he a dove? His feathers are but borrow'd,
    For he's disposed as the hateful raven.
    Is he a lamb? His skin is surely lent him,
    For he's inclin'd as is the ravenous wolf.
    Who cannot steal a shape that means deceit?
    Take heed, my lord; the welfare of us all
    Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man.

                          Enter SOMERSET

  SOMERSET. All health unto my gracious sovereign!
  KING HENRY. Welcome, Lord Somerset. What news from France?
  SOMERSET. That all your interest in those territories
    Is utterly bereft you; all is lost.
  KING HENRY. Cold news, Lord Somerset; but God's will be done!
  YORK. [Aside] Cold news for me; for I had hope of France
    As firmly as I hope for fertile England.
    Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud,
    And caterpillars eat my leaves away;
    But I will remedy this gear ere long,
    Or sell my title for a glorious grave.

                         Enter GLOUCESTER

  GLOUCESTER. All happiness unto my lord the King!
    Pardon, my liege, that I have stay'd so long.
  SUFFOLK. Nay, Gloucester, know that thou art come too soon,
    Unless thou wert more loyal than thou art.
    I do arrest thee of high treason here.
  GLOUCESTER. Well, Suffolk, thou shalt not see me blush
    Nor change my countenance for this arrest:
    A heart unspotted is not easily daunted.
    The purest spring is not so free from mud
    As I am clear from treason to my sovereign.
    Who can accuse me? Wherein am I guilty?
  YORK. 'Tis thought, my lord, that you took bribes of France
    And, being Protector, stay'd the soldiers' pay;
    By means whereof his Highness hath lost France.
  GLOUCESTER. Is it but thought so? What are they that think it?
    I never robb'd the soldiers of their pay
    Nor ever had one penny bribe from France.
    So help me God, as I have watch'd the night-
    Ay, night by night- in studying good for England!
    That doit that e'er I wrested from the King,
    Or any groat I hoarded to my use,
    Be brought against me at my trial-day!
    No; many a pound of mine own proper store,
    Because I would not tax the needy commons,
    Have I dispursed to the garrisons,
    And never ask'd for restitution.
  CARDINAL. It serves you well, my lord, to say so much.
  GLOUCESTER. I say no more than truth, so help me God!
  YORK. In your protectorship you did devise
    Strange tortures for offenders, never heard of,
    That England was defam'd by tyranny.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, 'tis well known that whiles I was Protector
    Pity was all the fault that was in me;
    For I should melt at an offender's tears,
    And lowly words were ransom for their fault.
    Unless it were a bloody murderer,
    Or foul felonious thief that fleec'd poor passengers,
    I never gave them condign punishment.
    Murder indeed, that bloody sin, I tortur'd
    Above the felon or what trespass else.
  SUFFOLK. My lord, these faults are easy, quickly answer'd;
    But mightier crimes are laid unto your charge,
    Whereof you cannot easily purge yourself.
    I do arrest you in His Highness' name,
    And here commit you to my Lord Cardinal
    To keep until your further time of trial.
  KING HENRY. My Lord of Gloucester, 'tis my special hope
    That you will clear yourself from all suspense.
    My conscience tells me you are innocent.
  GLOUCESTER. Ah, gracious lord, these days are dangerous!
    Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition,
    And charity chas'd hence by rancour's hand;
    Foul subornation is predominant,
    And equity exil'd your Highness' land.
    I know their complot is to have my life;
    And if my death might make this island happy
    And prove the period of their tyranny,
    I would expend it with all willingness.
    But mine is made the prologue to their play;
    For thousands more that yet suspect no peril
    Will not conclude their plotted tragedy.
    Beaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's malice,
    And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate;
    Sharp Buckingham unburdens with his tongue
    The envious load that lies upon his heart;
    And dogged York, that reaches at the moon,
    Whose overweening arm I have pluck'd back,
    By false accuse doth level at my life.
    And you, my sovereign lady, with the rest,
    Causeless have laid disgraces on my head,
    And with your best endeavour have stirr'd up
    My liefest liege to be mine enemy;
    Ay, all of you have laid your heads together-
    Myself had notice of your conventicles-
    And all to make away my guiltless life.
    I shall not want false witness to condemn me
    Nor store of treasons to augment my guilt.
    The ancient proverb will be well effected:
    'A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.'
  CARDINAL. My liege, his railing is intolerable.
    If those that care to keep your royal person
    From treason's secret knife and traitor's rage
    Be thus upbraided, chid, and rated at,
    And the offender granted scope of speech,
    'Twill make them cool in zeal unto your Grace.
  SUFFOLK. Hath he not twit our sovereign lady here
    With ignominious words, though clerkly couch'd,
    As if she had suborned some to swear
    False allegations to o'erthrow his state?
  QUEEN. But I can give the loser leave to chide.
  GLOUCESTER. Far truer spoke than meant: I lose indeed.
    Beshrew the winners, for they play'd me false!
    And well such losers may have leave to speak.
  BUCKINGHAM. He'll wrest the sense, and hold us here all day.
    Lord Cardinal, he is your prisoner.
  CARDINAL. Sirs, take away the Duke, and guard him sure.
  GLOUCESTER. Ah, thus King Henry throws away his crutch
    Before his legs be firm to bear his body!
    Thus is the shepherd beaten from thy side,
    And wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.
    Ah, that my fear were false! ah, that it were!
    For, good King Henry, thy decay I fear.        Exit, guarded
  KING HENRY. My lords, what to your wisdoms seemeth best
    Do or undo, as if ourself were here.
  QUEEN. What, will your Highness leave the Parliament?
  KING HENRY. Ay, Margaret; my heart is drown'd with grief,
    Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes;
    My body round engirt with misery-
    For what's more miserable than discontent?
    Ah, uncle Humphrey, in thy face I see
    The map of honour, truth, and loyalty!
    And yet, good Humphrey, is the hour to come
    That e'er I prov'd thee false or fear'd thy faith.
    What louring star now envies thy estate
    That these great lords, and Margaret our Queen,
    Do seek subversion of thy harmless life?
    Thou never didst them wrong, nor no man wrong;
    And as the butcher takes away the calf,
    And binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays,
    Bearing it to the bloody slaughter-house,
    Even so, remorseless, have they borne him hence;
    And as the dam runs lowing up and down,
    Looking the way her harmless young one went,
    And can do nought but wail her darling's loss,
    Even so myself bewails good Gloucester's case
    With sad unhelpful tears, and with dimm'd eyes
    Look after him, and cannot do him good,
    So mighty are his vowed enemies.
    His fortunes I will weep, and 'twixt each groan
    Say 'Who's a traitor? Gloucester he is none.'           Exit
  QUEEN. Free lords, cold snow melts with the sun's hot beams:
    Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,
    Too full of foolish pity; and Gloucester's show
    Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile
    With sorrow snares relenting passengers;
    Or as the snake, roll'd in a flow'ring bank,
    With shining checker'd slough, doth sting a child
    That for the beauty thinks it excellent.
    Believe me, lords, were none more wise than I-
    And yet herein I judge mine own wit good-
    This Gloucester should be quickly rid the world
    To rid us from the fear we have of him.
  CARDINAL. That he should die is worthy policy;
    But yet we want a colour for his death.
    'Tis meet he be condemn'd by course of law.
  SUFFOLK. But, in my mind, that were no policy:
    The King will labour still to save his life;
    The commons haply rise to save his life;
    And yet we have but trivial argument,
    More than mistrust, that shows him worthy death.
  YORK. So that, by this, you would not have him die.
  SUFFOLK. Ah, York, no man alive so fain as I!
  YORK. 'Tis York that hath more reason for his death.
    But, my Lord Cardinal, and you, my Lord of Suffolk,
    Say as you think, and speak it from your souls:
    Were't not all one an empty eagle were set
    To guard the chicken from a hungry kite
    As place Duke Humphrey for the King's Protector?
  QUEEN. So the poor chicken should be sure of death.
  SUFFOLK. Madam, 'tis true; and were't not madness then
    To make the fox surveyor of the fold?
    Who being accus'd a crafty murderer,
    His guilt should be but idly posted over,
    Because his purpose is not executed.
    No; let him die, in that he is a fox,
    By nature prov'd an enemy to the flock,
    Before his chaps be stain'd with crimson blood,
    As Humphrey, prov'd by reasons, to my liege.
    And do not stand on quillets how to slay him;
    Be it by gins, by snares, by subtlety,
    Sleeping or waking, 'tis no matter how,
    So he be dead; for that is good deceit
    Which mates him first that first intends deceit.
  QUEEN. Thrice-noble Suffolk, 'tis resolutely spoke.
  SUFFOLK. Not resolute, except so much were done,
    For things are often spoke and seldom meant;
    But that my heart accordeth with my tongue,
    Seeing the deed is meritorious,
    And to preserve my sovereign from his foe,
    Say but the word, and I will be his priest.
  CARDINAL. But I would have him dead, my Lord of Suffolk,
    Ere you can take due orders for a priest;
    Say you consent and censure well the deed,
    And I'll provide his executioner-
    I tender so the safety of my liege.
  SUFFOLK. Here is my hand the deed is worthy doing.
  QUEEN. And so say I.
  YORK. And I. And now we three have spoke it,
    It skills not greatly who impugns our doom.

                          Enter a POST

  POST. Great lords, from Ireland am I come amain
    To signify that rebels there are up
    And put the Englishmen unto the sword.
    Send succours, lords, and stop the rage betime,
    Before the wound do grow uncurable;
    For, being green, there is great hope of help.
  CARDINAL. A breach that craves a quick expedient stop!
    What counsel give you in this weighty cause?
  YORK. That Somerset be sent as Regent thither;
    'Tis meet that lucky ruler be employ'd,
    Witness the fortune he hath had in France.
  SOMERSET. If York, with all his far-fet policy,
    Had been the Regent there instead of me,
    He never would have stay'd in France so long.
  YORK. No, not to lose it all as thou hast done.
    I rather would have lost my life betimes
    Than bring a burden of dishonour home
    By staying there so long till all were lost.
    Show me one scar character'd on thy skin:
    Men's flesh preserv'd so whole do seldom win.
  QUEEN. Nay then, this spark will prove a raging fire,
    If wind and fuel be brought to feed it with;
    No more, good York; sweet Somerset, be still.
    Thy fortune, York, hadst thou been Regent there,
    Might happily have prov'd far worse than his.
  YORK. What, worse than nought? Nay, then a shame take all!
  SOMERSET. And in the number, thee that wishest shame!
  CARDINAL. My Lord of York, try what your fortune is.
    Th' uncivil kerns of Ireland are in arms
    And temper clay with blood of Englishmen;
    To Ireland will you lead a band of men,
    Collected choicely, from each county some,
    And try your hap against the Irishmen?
  YORK. I will, my lord, so please his Majesty.
  SUFFOLK. Why, our authority is his consent,
    And what we do establish he confirms;
    Then, noble York, take thou this task in hand.
  YORK. I am content; provide me soldiers, lords,
    Whiles I take order for mine own affairs.
  SUFFOLK. A charge, Lord York, that I will see perform'd.
    But now return we to the false Duke Humphrey.
  CARDINAL. No more of him; for I will deal with him
    That henceforth he shall trouble us no more.
    And so break off; the day is almost spent.
    Lord Suffolk, you and I must talk of that event.
  YORK. My Lord of Suffolk, within fourteen days
    At Bristol I expect my soldiers;
    For there I'll ship them all for Ireland.
  SUFFOLK. I'll see it truly done, my Lord of York.
                                             Exeunt all but YORK
  YORK. Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts
    And change misdoubt to resolution;
    Be that thou hop'st to be; or what thou art
    Resign to death- it is not worth th' enjoying.
    Let pale-fac'd fear keep with the mean-born man
    And find no harbour in a royal heart.
    Faster than spring-time show'rs comes thought on thought,
    And not a thought but thinks on dignity.
    My brain, more busy than the labouring spider,
    Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.
    Well, nobles, well, 'tis politicly done
    To send me packing with an host of men.
    I fear me you but warm the starved snake,
    Who, cherish'd in your breasts, will sting your hearts.
    'Twas men I lack'd, and you will give them me;
    I take it kindly. Yet be well assur'd
    You put sharp weapons in a madman's hands.
    Whiles I in Ireland nourish a mighty band,
    I will stir up in England some black storm
    Shall blow ten thousand souls to heaven or hell;
    And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage
    Until the golden circuit on my head,
    Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams,
    Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw.
    And for a minister of my intent
    I have seduc'd a headstrong Kentishman,
    John Cade of Ashford,
    To make commotion, as full well he can,
    Under the tide of John Mortimer.
    In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade
    Oppose himself against a troop of kerns,
    And fought so long tiff that his thighs with darts
    Were almost like a sharp-quill'd porpentine;
    And in the end being rescu'd, I have seen
    Him caper upright like a wild Morisco,
    Shaking the bloody darts as he his bells.
    Full often, like a shag-hair'd crafty kern,
    Hath he conversed with the enemy,
    And undiscover'd come to me again
    And given me notice of their villainies.
    This devil here shall be my substitute;
    For that John Mortimer, which now is dead,
    In face, in gait, in speech, he doth resemble.
    By this I shall perceive the commons' mind,
    How they affect the house and claim of York.
    Say he be taken, rack'd, and tortured;
    I know no pain they can inflict upon him
    Will make him say I mov'd him to those arms.
    Say that he thrive, as 'tis great like he will,
    Why, then from Ireland come I with my strength,
    And reap the harvest which that rascal sow'd;
    For Humphrey being dead, as he shall be,
    And Henry put apart, the next for me.                   Exit

SCENE II. Bury St. Edmunds. A room of state

Enter two or three MURDERERS running over the stage, from the murder of
DUKE HUMPHREY

  FIRST MURDERER. Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know
    We have dispatch'd the Duke, as he commanded.
  SECOND MURDERER. O that it were to do! What have we done?
    Didst ever hear a man so penitent?

                           Enter SUFFOLK

  FIRST MURDERER. Here comes my lord.
  SUFFOLK. Now, sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing?
  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, my good lord, he's dead.
  SUFFOLK. Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house;
    I will reward you for this venturous deed.
    The King and all the peers are here at hand.
    Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,
    According as I gave directions?
  FIRST MURDERER. 'Tis, my good lord.
  SUFFOLK. Away! be gone.                       Exeunt MURDERERS

             Sound trumpets. Enter the KING, the QUEEN,
                CARDINAL, SOMERSET, with attendants

  KING HENRY. Go call our uncle to our presence straight;
    Say we intend to try his Grace to-day,
    If he be guilty, as 'tis published.
  SUFFOLK. I'll call him presently, my noble lord.          Exit
  KING HENRY. Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all,
    Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester
    Than from true evidence, of good esteem,
    He be approv'd in practice culpable.
  QUEEN. God forbid any malice should prevail
    That faultless may condemn a nobleman!
    Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion!
  KING HENRY. I thank thee, Meg; these words content me much.

                           Re-enter SUFFOLK

    How now! Why look'st thou pale? Why tremblest thou?
    Where is our uncle? What's the matter, Suffolk?
  SUFFOLK. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.
  QUEEN. Marry, God forfend!
  CARDINAL. God's secret judgment! I did dream to-night
    The Duke was dumb and could not speak a word.
                                               [The KING swoons]
  QUEEN. How fares my lord? Help, lords! The King is dead.
  SOMERSET. Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.
  QUEEN. Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!
  SUFFOLK. He doth revive again; madam, be patient.
  KING. O heavenly God!
  QUEEN. How fares my gracious lord?
  SUFFOLK. Comfort, my sovereign! Gracious Henry, comfort!
  KING HENRY. What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?
    Came he right now to sing a raven's note,
    Whose dismal tune bereft my vital pow'rs;
    And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,
    By crying comfort from a hollow breast,
    Can chase away the first conceived sound?
    Hide not thy poison with such sug'red words;
    Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say,
    Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting.
    Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!
    Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny
    Sits in grim majesty to fright the world.
    Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding;
    Yet do not go away; come, basilisk,
    And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;
    For in the shade of death I shall find joy-
    In life but double death,'now Gloucester's dead.
  QUEEN. Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?
    Although the Duke was enemy to him,
    Yet he most Christian-like laments his death;
    And for myself- foe as he was to me-
    Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,
    Or blood-consuming sighs, recall his life,
    I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,
    Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,
    And all to have the noble Duke alive.
    What know I how the world may deem of me?
    For it is known we were but hollow friends:
    It may be judg'd I made the Duke away;
    So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,
    And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.
    This get I by his death. Ay me, unhappy!
    To be a queen and crown'd with infamy!
  KING HENRY. Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!
  QUEEN. Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.
    What, dost thou turn away, and hide thy face?
    I am no loathsome leper- look on me.
    What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?
    Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn Queen.
    Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?
    Why, then Dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.
    Erect his statue and worship it,
    And make my image but an alehouse sign.
    Was I for this nigh wreck'd upon the sea,
    And twice by awkward wind from England's bank
    Drove back again unto my native clime?
    What boded this but well-forewarning wind
    Did seem to say 'Seek not a scorpion's nest,
    Nor set no footing on this unkind shore'?
    What did I then but curs'd the gentle gusts,
    And he that loos'd them forth their brazen caves;
    And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore,
    Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?
    Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,
    But left that hateful office unto thee.
    The pretty-vaulting sea refus'd to drown me,
    Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore
    With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness;
    The splitting rocks cow'r'd in the sinking sands
    And would not dash me with their ragged sides,
    Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,
    Might in thy palace perish Margaret.
    As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,
    When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,
    I stood upon the hatches in the storm;
    And when the dusky sky began to rob
    My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view,
    I took a costly jewel from my neck-
    A heart it was, bound in with diamonds-
    And threw it towards thy land. The sea receiv'd it;
    And so I wish'd thy body might my heart.
    And even with this I lost fair England's view,
    And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,
    And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles
    For losing ken of Albion's wished coast.
    How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue-
    The agent of thy foul inconstancy-
    To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did
    When he to madding Dido would unfold
    His father's acts commenc'd in burning Troy!
    Am I not witch'd like her? Or thou not false like him?
    Ay me, I can no more! Die, Margaret,
    For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.

               Noise within. Enter WARWICK, SALISBURY,
                          and many commons

  WARWICK. It is reported, mighty sovereign,
    That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murd'red
    By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort's means.
    The commons, like an angry hive of bees
    That want their leader, scatter up and down
    And care not who they sting in his revenge.
    Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny
    Until they hear the order of his death.
  KING HENRY. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;
    But how he died God knows, not Henry.
    Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,
    And comment then upon his sudden death.
  WARWICK. That shall I do, my liege. Stay, Salisbury,
    With the rude multitude till I return.                  Exit
                                   Exit SALISBURY with the commons
  KING HENRY. O Thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts-
    My thoughts that labour to persuade my soul
    Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life!
    If my suspect be false, forgive me, God;
    For judgment only doth belong to Thee.
    Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips
    With twenty thousand kisses and to drain
    Upon his face an ocean of salt tears
    To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk;
    And with my fingers feel his hand un-feeling;
    But all in vain are these mean obsequies;
    And to survey his dead and earthy image,
    What were it but to make my sorrow greater?

               Bed put forth with the body. Enter WARWICK

  WARWICK. Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.
  KING HENRY. That is to see how deep my grave is made;
    For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,
    For, seeing him, I see my life in death.
  WARWICK. As surely as my soul intends to live
    With that dread King that took our state upon Him
    To free us from his Father's wrathful curse,
    I do believe that violent hands were laid
    Upon the life of this thrice-famed Duke.
  SUFFOLK. A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!
    What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?
  WARWICK. See how the blood is settled in his face.
    Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,
    Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,
    Being all descended to the labouring heart,
    Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
    Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy,
    Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth
    To blush and beautify the cheek again.
    But see, his face is black and full of blood;
    His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,
    Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;
    His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling;
    His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd
    And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.
    Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking;
    His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,
    Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodged.
    It cannot be but he was murd'red here:
    The least of all these signs were probable.
  SUFFOLK. Why, Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?
    Myself and Beaufort had him in protection;
    And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.
  WARWICK. But both of you were vow'd Duke Humphrey's foes;
    And you, forsooth, had the good Duke to keep.
    'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend;
    And 'tis well seen he found an enemy.
  QUEEN. Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen
    As guilty of Duke Humphrey's timeless death.
  WARWICK. Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh,
    And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,
    But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?
    Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest
    But may imagine how the bird was dead,
    Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?
    Even so suspicious is this tragedy.
  QUEEN. Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where's your knife?
    Is Beaufort term'd a kite? Where are his talons?
  SUFFOLK. I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;
    But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,
    That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart
    That slanders me with murder's crimson badge.
    Say if thou dar'st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,
    That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.
                           Exeunt CARDINAL, SOMERSET, and others
  WARWICK. What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?
  QUEEN. He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,
    Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,
    Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.
  WARWICK. Madam, be still- with reverence may I say;
    For every word you speak in his behalf
    Is slander to your royal dignity.
  SUFFOLK. Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour,
    If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,
    Thy mother took into her blameful bed
    Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock
    Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,
    And never of the Nevils' noble race.
  WARWICK. But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee,
    And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,
    Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,
    And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,
    I would, false murd'rous coward, on thy knee
    Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech
    And say it was thy mother that thou meant'st,
    That thou thyself was born in bastardy;
    And, after all this fearful homage done,
    Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell,
    Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men.
  SUFFOLK. Thou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood,
    If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.
  WARWICK. Away even now, or I will drag thee hence.
    Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee,
    And do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost.
                                      Exeunt SUFFOLK and WARWICK
  KING HENRY. What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
    Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;
    And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
    Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
                                                [A noise within]
  QUEEN. What noise is this?

       Re-enter SUFFOLK and WARWICK, with their weapons drawn

  KING. Why, how now, lords, your wrathful weapons drawn
    Here in our presence! Dare you be so bold?
    Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?
  SUFFOLK. The trait'rous Warwick, with the men of Bury,
    Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.

                        Re-enter SALISBURY

  SALISBURY. [To the Commons within] Sirs, stand apart, the King
      shall know your mind.
    Dread lord, the commons send you word by me
    Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,
    Or banished fair England's territories,
    They will by violence tear him from your palace
    And torture him with grievous ling'ring death.
    They say by him the good Duke Humphrey died;
    They say in him they fear your Highness' death;
    And mere instinct of love and loyalty,
    Free from a stubborn opposite intent,
    As being thought to contradict your liking,
    Makes them thus forward in his banishment.
    They say, in care of your most royal person,
    That if your Highness should intend to sleep
    And charge that no man should disturb your rest,
    In pain of your dislike or pain of death,
    Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,
    Were there a serpent seen with forked tongue
    That slily glided towards your Majesty,
    It were but necessary you were wak'd,
    Lest, being suffer'd in that harmful slumber,
    The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal.
    And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,
    That they will guard you, whe'er you will or no,
    From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is;
    With whose envenomed and fatal sting
    Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,
    They say, is shamefully bereft of life.
  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, my Lord of Salisbury!
  SUFFOLK. 'Tis like the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds,
    Could send such message to their sovereign;
    But you, my lord, were glad to be employ'd,
    To show how quaint an orator you are.
    But all the honour Salisbury hath won
    Is that he was the lord ambassador
    Sent from a sort of tinkers to the King.
  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, or we will all break in!
  KING HENRY. Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me
    I thank them for their tender loving care;
    And had I not been cited so by them,
    Yet did I purpose as they do entreat;
    For sure my thoughts do hourly prophesy
    Mischance unto my state by Suffolk's means.
    And therefore by His Majesty I swear,
    Whose far unworthy deputy I am,
    He shall not breathe infection in this air
    But three days longer, on the pain of death.
                                                  Exit SALISBURY
  QUEEN. O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk!
  KING HENRY. Ungentle Queen, to call him gentle Suffolk!
    No more, I say; if thou dost plead for him,
    Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.
    Had I but said, I would have kept my word;
    But when I swear, it is irrevocable.
    If after three days' space thou here be'st found
    On any ground that I am ruler of,
    The world shall not be ransom for thy life.
    Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me;
    I have great matters to impart to thee.
                                Exeunt all but QUEEN and SUFFOLK
  QUEEN. Mischance and sorrow go along with you!
    Heart's discontent and sour affliction
    Be playfellows to keep you company!
    There's two of you; the devil make a third,
    And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!
  SUFFOLK. Cease, gentle Queen, these execrations,
    And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.
  QUEEN. Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch,
    Has thou not spirit to curse thine enemy?
  SUFFOLK. A plague upon them! Wherefore should I curse them?
    Would curses kill as doth the mandrake's groan,
    I would invent as bitter searching terms,
    As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,
    Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,
    With full as many signs of deadly hate,
    As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave.
    My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words,
    Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint,
    Mine hair be fix'd an end, as one distract;
    Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban;
    And even now my burden'd heart would break,
    Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!
    Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!
    Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!
    Their chiefest prospect murd'ring basilisks!
    Their softest touch as smart as lizards' stings!
    Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss,
    And boding screech-owls make the consort full!
    all the foul terrors in dark-seated hell-
  QUEEN. Enough, sweet Suffolk, thou torment'st thyself;
    And these dread curses, like the sun 'gainst glass,
    Or like an overcharged gun, recoil,
    And turns the force of them upon thyself.
  SUFFOLK. You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?
    Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from,
    Well could I curse away a winter's night,
    Though standing naked on a mountain top
    Where biting cold would never let grass grow,
    And think it but a minute spent in sport.
  QUEEN. O, let me entreat thee cease! Give me thy hand,
    That I may dew it with my mournful tears;
    Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place
    To wash away my woeful monuments.
    O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,
    That thou might'st think upon these by the seal,
    Through whom a thousand sighs are breath'd for thee!
    So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;
    'Tis but surmis'd whiles thou art standing by,
    As one that surfeits thinking on a want.
    I will repeal thee or, be well assur'd,
    Adventure to be banished myself;
    And banished I am, if but from thee.
    Go, speak not to me; even now be gone.
    O, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn'd
    Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,
    Loather a hundred times to part than die.
    Yet now, farewell; and farewell life with thee!
  SUFFOLK. Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished,
    Once by the King and three times thrice by thee,
    'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence;
    A wilderness is populous enough,
    So Suffolk had thy heavenly company;
    For where thou art, there is the world itself,
    With every several pleasure in the world;
    And where thou art not, desolation.
    I can no more: Live thou to joy thy life;
    Myself no joy in nought but that thou liv'st.

                           Enter VAUX

  QUEEN. Whither goes Vaux so fast? What news, I prithee?
  VAUX. To signify unto his Majesty
    That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death;
    For suddenly a grievous sickness took him
    That makes him gasp, and stare, and catch the air,
    Blaspheming God, and cursing men on earth.
    Sometime he talks as if Duke Humphrey's ghost
    Were by his side; sometime he calls the King
    And whispers to his pillow, as to him,
    The secrets of his overcharged soul;
    And I am sent to tell his Majesty
    That even now he cries aloud for him.
  QUEEN. Go tell this heavy message to the King.       Exit VAUX
    Ay me! What is this world! What news are these!
    But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor loss,
    Omitting Suffolk's exile, my soul's treasure?
    Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,
    And with the southern clouds contend in tears-
    Theirs for the earth's increase, mine for my sorrows?
    Now get thee hence: the King, thou know'st, is coming;
    If thou be found by me; thou art but dead.
  SUFFOLK. If I depart from thee I cannot live;
    And in thy sight to die, what were it else
    But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?
    Here could I breathe my soul into the air,
    As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe
    Dying with mother's dug between its lips;
    Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad
    And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,
    To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth;
    So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul,
    Or I should breathe it so into thy body,
    And then it liv'd in sweet Elysium.
    To die by thee were but to die in jest:
    From thee to die were torture more than death.
    O, let me stay, befall what may befall!
  QUEEN. Away! Though parting be a fretful corrosive,
    It is applied to a deathful wound.
    To France, sweet Suffolk. Let me hear from thee;
    For whereso'er thou art in this world's globe
    I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.
  SUFFOLK. I go.
  QUEEN. And take my heart with thee.           [She kisses him]
  SUFFOLK. A jewel, lock'd into the woefull'st cask
    That ever did contain a thing of worth.
    Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we:
    This way fall I to death.
  QUEEN. This way for me.                       Exeunt severally

SCENE III. London. CARDINAL BEAUFORT'S bedchamber

Enter the KING, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the CARDINAL in bed

  KING HENRY. How fares my lord? Speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign.
  CARDINAL. If thou be'st Death I'll give thee England's treasure,
    Enough to purchase such another island,
    So thou wilt let me live and feel no pain.
  KING HENRY. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life
    Where death's approach is seen so terrible!
  WARWICK. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.
  CARDINAL. Bring me unto my trial when you will.
    Died he not in his bed? Where should he die?
    Can I make men live, whe'er they will or no?
    O, torture me no more! I will confess.
    Alive again? Then show me where he is;
    I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him.
    He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.
    Comb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright,
    Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul!
    Give me some drink; and bid the apothecary
    Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.
  KING HENRY. O Thou eternal Mover of the heavens,
    Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch!
    O, beat away the busy meddling fiend
    That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul,
    And from his bosom purge this black despair!
  WARWICK. See how the pangs of death do make him grin
  SALISBURY. Disturb him not, let him pass peaceably.
  KING HENRY. Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be!
    Lord Card'nal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss,
    Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope.
    He dies, and makes no sign: O God, forgive him!
  WARWICK. So bad a death argues a monstrous life.
  KING HENRY. Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
    Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close;
    And let us all to meditation.                         Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. The coast of Kent

Alarum.  Fight at sea.  Ordnance goes off.  Enter a LIEUTENANT, a
SHIPMASTER and his MATE, and WALTER WHITMORE, with sailors; SUFFOLK and
other GENTLEMEN, as prisoners

  LIEUTENANT. The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day
    Is crept into the bosom of the sea;
    And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades
    That drag the tragic melancholy night;
    Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings
    Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws
    Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.
    Therefore bring forth the soldiers of our prize;
    For, whilst our pinnace anchors in the Downs,
    Here shall they make their ransom on the sand,
    Or with their blood stain this discoloured shore.
    Master, this prisoner freely give I thee;
    And thou that art his mate make boot of this;
    The other, Walter Whitmore, is thy share.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What is my ransom, master, let me know?
  MASTER. A thousand crowns, or else lay down your head.
  MATE. And so much shall you give, or off goes yours.
  LIEUTENANT. What, think you much to pay two thousand crowns,
    And bear the name and port of gentlemen?
    Cut both the villains' throats- for die you shall;
    The lives of those which we have lost in fight
    Be counterpois'd with such a petty sum!
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll give it, sir: and therefore spare my life.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And so will I, and write home for it straight.
  WHITMORE. I lost mine eye in laying the prize aboard,
    [To SUFFOLK] And therefore, to revenge it, shalt thou die;
    And so should these, if I might have my will.
  LIEUTENANT. Be not so rash; take ransom, let him live.
  SUFFOLK. Look on my George, I am a gentleman:
    Rate me at what thou wilt, thou shalt be paid.
  WHITMORE. And so am I: my name is Walter Whitmore.
    How now! Why start'st thou? What, doth death affright?
  SUFFOLK. Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.
    A cunning man did calculate my birth
    And told me that by water I should die;
    Yet let not this make thee be bloody-minded;
    Thy name is Gualtier, being rightly sounded.
  WHITMORE. Gualtier or Walter, which it is I care not:
    Never yet did base dishonour blur our name
    But with our sword we wip'd away the blot;
    Therefore, when merchant-like I sell revenge,
    Broke be my sword, my arms torn and defac'd,
    And I proclaim'd a coward through the world.
  SUFFOLK. Stay, Whitmore, for thy prisoner is a prince,
    The Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole.
  WHITMORE. The Duke of Suffolk muffled up in rags?
  SUFFOLK. Ay, but these rags are no part of the Duke:
    Jove sometime went disguis'd, and why not I?
  LIEUTENANT. But Jove was never slain, as thou shalt be.
  SUFFOLK. Obscure and lowly swain, King Henry's blood,
    The honourable blood of Lancaster,
    Must not be shed by such a jaded groom.
    Hast thou not kiss'd thy hand and held my stirrup,
    Bareheaded plodded by my foot-cloth mule,
    And thought thee happy when I shook my head?
    How often hast thou waited at my cup,
    Fed from my trencher, kneel'd down at the board,
    When I have feasted with Queen Margaret?
    Remember it, and let it make thee crestfall'n,
    Ay, and allay thus thy abortive pride,
    How in our voiding-lobby hast thou stood
    And duly waited for my coming forth.
    This hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf,
    And therefore shall it charm thy riotous tongue.
  WHITMORE. Speak, Captain, shall I stab the forlorn swain?
  LIEUTENANT. First let my words stab him, as he hath me.
  SUFFOLK. Base slave, thy words are blunt, and so art thou.
  LIEUTENANT. Convey him hence, and on our longboat's side
    Strike off his head.
  SUFFOLK. Thou dar'st not, for thy own.
  LIEUTENANT. Poole!
  SUFFOLK. Poole?
  LIEUTENANT. Ay, kennel, puddle, sink, whose filth and dirt
    Troubles the silver spring where England drinks;
    Now will I dam up this thy yawning mouth
    For swallowing the treasure of the realm.
    Thy lips, that kiss'd the Queen, shall sweep the ground;
    And thou that smil'dst at good Duke Humphrey's death
    Against the senseless winds shalt grin in vain,
    Who in contempt shall hiss at thee again;
    And wedded be thou to the hags of hell
    For daring to affy a mighty lord
    Unto the daughter of a worthless king,
    Having neither subject, wealth, nor diadem.
    By devilish policy art thou grown great,
    And, like ambitious Sylla, overgorg'd
    With gobbets of thy mother's bleeding heart.
    By thee Anjou and Maine were sold to France;
    The false revolting Normans thorough thee
    Disdain to call us lord; and Picardy
    Hath slain their governors, surpris'd our forts,
    And sent the ragged soldiers wounded home.
    The princely Warwick, and the Nevils all,
    Whose dreadful swords were never drawn in vain,
    As hating thee, are rising up in arms;
    And now the house of York- thrust from the crown
    By shameful murder of a guiltless king
    And lofty proud encroaching tyranny-
    Burns with revenging fire, whose hopeful colours
    Advance our half-fac'd sun, striving to shine,
    Under the which is writ 'Invitis nubibus.'
    The commons here in Kent are up in arms;
    And to conclude, reproach and beggary
    Is crept into the palace of our King,
    And all by thee. Away! convey him hence.
  SUFFOLK. O that I were a god, to shoot forth thunder
    Upon these paltry, servile, abject drudges!
    Small things make base men proud: this villain here,
    Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more
    Than Bargulus, the strong Illyrian pirate.
    Drones suck not eagles' blood but rob beehives.
    It is impossible that I should die
    By such a lowly vassal as thyself.
    Thy words move rage and not remorse in me.
    I go of message from the Queen to France:
    I charge thee waft me safely cross the Channel.
  LIEUTENANT. Walter-
  WHITMORE. Come, Suffolk, I must waft thee to thy death.
  SUFFOLK. Gelidus timor occupat artus: it is thee I fear.
  WHITMORE. Thou shalt have cause to fear before I leave thee.
    What, are ye daunted now? Now will ye stoop?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My gracious lord, entreat him, speak him fair.
  SUFFOLK. Suffolk's imperial tongue is stem and rough,
    Us'd to command, untaught to plead for favour.
    Far be it we should honour such as these
    With humble suit: no, rather let my head
    Stoop to the block than these knees bow to any
    Save to the God of heaven and to my king;
    And sooner dance upon a bloody pole
    Than stand uncover'd to the vulgar groom.
    True nobility is exempt from fear:
    More can I bear than you dare execute.
  LIEUTENANT. Hale him away, and let him talk no more.
  SUFFOLK. Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,
    That this my death may never be forgot-
    Great men oft die by vile bezonians:
    A Roman sworder and banditto slave
    Murder'd sweet Tully; Brutus' bastard hand
    Stabb'd Julius Caesar; savage islanders
    Pompey the Great; and Suffolk dies by pirates.
                                        Exit WALTER with SUFFOLK
  LIEUTENANT. And as for these, whose ransom we have set,
    It is our pleasure one of them depart;
    Therefore come you with us, and let him go.
                              Exeunt all but the FIRST GENTLEMAN

                Re-enter WHITMORE with SUFFOLK'S body

  WHITMORE. There let his head and lifeless body lie,
    Until the Queen his mistress bury it.                   Exit
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. O barbarous and bloody spectacle!
    His body will I bear unto the King.
    If he revenge it not, yet will his friends;
    So will the Queen, that living held him dear.
                                              Exit with the body

SCENE II. Blackheath

Enter GEORGE BEVIS and JOHN HOLLAND

  GEORGE. Come and get thee a sword, though made of a lath; they have
    been up these two days.
  JOHN. They have the more need to sleep now, then.
  GEORGE. I tell thee Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the
    commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it.
  JOHN. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say it was never
    merry world in England since gentlemen came up.
  GEORGE. O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded in handicraftsmen.
  JOHN. The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.
  GEORGE. Nay, more, the King's Council are no good workmen.
  JOHN. True; and yet it is said 'Labour in thy vocation'; which is
    as much to say as 'Let the magistrates be labouring men'; and
    therefore should we be magistrates.
  GEORGE. Thou hast hit it; for there's no better sign of a brave
    mind than a hard hand.
  JOHN. I see them! I see them! There's Best's son, the tanner of
    Wingham-
  GEORGE. He shall have the skins of our enemies to make dog's
    leather of.
  JOHN. And Dick the butcher-
  GEORGE. Then is sin struck down, like an ox, and iniquity's throat
    cut like a calf.
  JOHN. And Smith the weaver-
  GEORGE. Argo, their thread of life is spun.
  JOHN. Come, come, let's fall in with them.

                Drum. Enter CADE, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH
             THE WEAVER, and a SAWYER, with infinite numbers

  CADE. We John Cade, so term'd of our supposed father-
  DICK. [Aside] Or rather, of stealing a cade of herrings.
  CADE. For our enemies shall fall before us, inspired with the
    spirit of putting down kings and princes- command silence.
  DICK. Silence!
  CADE. My father was a Mortimer-
  DICK. [Aside] He was an honest man and a good bricklayer.
  CADE. My mother a Plantagenet-
  DICK. [Aside] I knew her well; she was a midwife.
  CADE. My wife descended of the Lacies-
  DICK. [Aside] She was, indeed, a pedlar's daughter, and sold many
    laces.
  SMITH. [Aside] But now of late, not able to travel with her furr'd
    pack, she washes bucks here at home.
  CADE. Therefore am I of an honourable house.
  DICK. [Aside] Ay, by my faith, the field is honourable, and there
    was he born, under a hedge, for his father had never a house but
    the cage.
  CADE. Valiant I am.
  SMITH. [Aside] 'A must needs; for beggary is valiant.
  CADE. I am able to endure much.
  DICK. [Aside] No question of that; for I have seen him whipt three
    market days together.
  CADE. I fear neither sword nor fire.
  SMITH. [Aside] He need not fear the sword, for his coat is of
    proof.
  DICK. [Aside] But methinks he should stand in fear of fire, being
    burnt i' th' hand for stealing of sheep.
  CADE. Be brave, then, for your captain is brave, and vows
    reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves
    sold for a penny; the three-hoop'd pot shall have ten hoops; and
    I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the realm shall be
    in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass. And
    when I am king- as king I will be
  ALL. God save your Majesty!
  CADE. I thank you, good people- there shall be no money; all shall
    eat and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one
    livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their
    lord.
  DICK. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
  CADE. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that
    of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That
    parchment, being scribbl'd o'er, should undo a man? Some say the
    bee stings; but I say 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once
    to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. How now! Who's
    there?

              Enter some, bringing in the CLERK OF CHATHAM

  SMITH. The clerk of Chatham. He can write and read and cast
    accompt.
  CADE. O monstrous!
  SMITH. We took him setting of boys' copies.
  CADE. Here's a villain!
  SMITH. Has a book in his pocket with red letters in't.
  CADE. Nay, then he is a conjurer.
  DICK. Nay, he can make obligations and write court-hand.
  CADE. I am sorry for't; the man is a proper man, of mine honour;
    unless I find him guilty, he shall not die. Come hither, sirrah,
    I must examine thee. What is thy name?
  CLERK. Emmanuel.
  DICK. They use to write it on the top of letters; 'twill go hard
    with you.
  CADE. Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast thou a
    mark to thyself, like a honest plain-dealing man?
  CLERK. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can
    write my name.
  ALL. He hath confess'd. Away with him! He's a villain and a
    traitor.
  CADE. Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and inkhorn about
    his neck.                            Exit one with the CLERK

                           Enter MICHAEL

  MICHAEL. Where's our General?
  CADE. Here I am, thou particular fellow.
  MICHAEL. Fly, fly, fly! Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother are
    hard by, with the King's forces.
  CADE. Stand, villain, stand, or I'll fell thee down. He shall be
    encount'red with a man as good as himself. He is but a knight,
    is 'a?
  MICHAEL. No.
  CADE. To equal him, I will make myself a knight presently.
    [Kneels] Rise up, Sir John Mortimer. [Rises] Now have at him!

                Enter SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD and WILLIAM
                  his brother, with drum and soldiers

  STAFFORD. Rebellious hinds, the filth and scum of Kent,
    Mark'd for the gallows, lay your weapons down;
    Home to your cottages, forsake this groom;
    The King is merciful if you revolt.
  WILLIAM STAFFORD. But angry, wrathful, and inclin'd to blood,
    If you go forward; therefore yield or die.
  CADE. As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not;
    It is to you, good people, that I speak,
    O'er whom, in time to come, I hope to reign;
    For I am rightful heir unto the crown.
  STAFFORD. Villain, thy father was a plasterer;
    And thou thyself a shearman, art thou not?
  CADE. And Adam was a gardener.
  WILLIAM STAFFORD. And what of that?
  CADE. Marry, this: Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March,
    Married the Duke of Clarence' daughter, did he not?
  STAFFORD. Ay, sir.
  CADE. By her he had two children at one birth.
  WILLIAM STAFFORD. That's false.
  CADE. Ay, there's the question; but I say 'tis true.
    The elder of them being put to nurse,
    Was by a beggar-woman stol'n away,
    And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,
    Became a bricklayer when he came to age.
    His son am I; deny it if you can.
  DICK. Nay, 'tis too true; therefore he shall be king.
  SMITH. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks
    are alive at this day to testify it; therefore deny it not.
  STAFFORD. And will you credit this base drudge's words
    That speaks he knows not what?
  ALL. Ay, marry, will we; therefore get ye gone.
  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Jack Cade, the Duke of York hath taught you this.
  CADE. [Aside] He lies, for I invented it myself- Go to, sirrah,
    tell the King from me that for his father's sake, Henry the
    Fifth, in whose time boys went to span-counter for French crowns,
    I am content he shall reign; but I'll be Protector over him.
  DICK. And furthermore, we'll have the Lord Say's head for selling
    the dukedom of Maine.
  CADE. And good reason; for thereby is England main'd and fain to go
    with a staff, but that my puissance holds it up. Fellow kings, I
    tell you that that Lord Say hath gelded the commonwealth and made
    it an eunuch; and more than that, he can speak French, and
    therefore he is a traitor.
  STAFFORD. O gross and miserable ignorance!
  CADE. Nay, answer if you can; the Frenchmen are our enemies. Go to,
    then, I ask but this: can he that speaks with the tongue of an
    enemy be a good counsellor, or no?
  ALL. No, no; and therefore we'll have his head.
  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Well, seeing gentle words will not prevail,
    Assail them with the army of the King.
  STAFFORD. Herald, away; and throughout every town
    Proclaim them traitors that are up with Cade;
    That those which fly before the battle ends
    May, even in their wives'and children's sight,
    Be hang'd up for example at their doors.
    And you that be the King's friends, follow me.
                           Exeunt the TWO STAFFORDS and soldiers
  CADE. And you that love the commons follow me.
    Now show yourselves men; 'tis for liberty.
    We will not leave one lord, one gentleman;
    Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon,
    For they are thrifty honest men and such
    As would- but that they dare not- take our parts.
  DICK. They are all in order, and march toward us.
  CADE. But then are we in order when we are most out of order. Come,
    march forward.                                        Exeunt

SCENE III. Another part of Blackheath

Alarums to the fight, wherein both the STAFFORDS are slain.
Enter CADE and the rest

  CADE. Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford?
  DICK. Here, sir.
  CADE. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou behavedst
    thyself as if thou hadst been in thine own slaughter-house;
    therefore thus will I reward thee- the Lent shall be as long
    again as it is, and thou shalt have a licence to kill for a
    hundred lacking one.
  DICK. I desire no more.
  CADE. And, to speak truth, thou deserv'st no less. [Putting on SIR
    HUMPHREY'S brigandine] This monument of the victory will I bear,
    and the bodies shall be dragged at my horse heels till I do come
    to London, where we will have the mayor's sword borne before us.
  DICK. If we mean to thrive and do good, break open the gaols and
    let out the prisoners.
  CADE. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, let's march towards
    London.                                               Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. The palace

Enter the KING with a supplication, and the QUEEN with SUFFOLK'S head;
the DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, and the LORD SAY

  QUEEN. Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind
    And makes it fearful and degenerate;
    Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.
    But who can cease to weep, and look on this?
    Here may his head lie on my throbbing breast;
    But where's the body that I should embrace?
  BUCKINGHAM. What answer makes your Grace to the rebels'
    supplication?
  KING HENRY. I'll send some holy bishop to entreat;
    For God forbid so many simple souls
    Should perish by the sword! And I myself,
    Rather than bloody war shall cut them short,
    Will parley with Jack Cade their general.
    But stay, I'll read it over once again.
  QUEEN. Ah, barbarous villains! Hath this lovely face
    Rul'd like a wandering planet over me,
    And could it not enforce them to relent
    That were unworthy to behold the same?
  KING HENRY. Lord Say, Jack Cade hath sworn to have thy head.
  SAY. Ay, but I hope your Highness shall have his.
  KING HENRY. How now, madam!
    Still lamenting and mourning for Suffolk's death?
    I fear me, love, if that I had been dead,
    Thou wouldst not have mourn'd so much for me.
  QUEEN. No, my love, I should not mourn, but die for thee.

                        Enter A MESSENGER

  KING HENRY. How now! What news? Why com'st thou in such haste?
  MESSENGER. The rebels are in Southwark; fly, my lord!
    Jack Cade proclaims himself Lord Mortimer,
    Descended from the Duke of Clarence' house,
    And calls your Grace usurper, openly,
    And vows to crown himself in Westminster.
    His army is a ragged multitude
    Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless;
    Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother's death
    Hath given them heart and courage to proceed.
    All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen,
    They call false caterpillars and intend their death.
  KING HENRY. O graceless men! they know not what they do.
  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious lord, retire to Killingworth
    Until a power be rais'd to put them down.
  QUEEN. Ah, were the Duke of Suffolk now alive,
    These Kentish rebels would be soon appeas'd!
  KING HENRY. Lord Say, the traitors hate thee;
    Therefore away with us to Killingworth.
  SAY. So might your Grace's person be in danger.
    The sight of me is odious in their eyes;
    And therefore in this city will I stay
    And live alone as secret as I may.

                      Enter another MESSENGER

  SECOND MESSENGER. Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge.
    The citizens fly and forsake their houses;
    The rascal people, thirsting after prey,
    Join with the traitor; and they jointly swear
    To spoil the city and your royal court.
  BUCKINGHAM. Then linger not, my lord; away, take horse.
  KING HENRY. Come Margaret; God, our hope, will succour us.
  QUEEN. My hope is gone, now Suffolk is deceas'd.
  KING HENRY. [To LORD SAY] Farewell, my lord, trust not the Kentish
    rebels.
  BUCKINGHAM. Trust nobody, for fear you be betray'd.
  SAY. The trust I have is in mine innocence,
    And therefore am I bold and resolute.                 Exeunt

SCENE V. London. The Tower

Enter LORD SCALES Upon the Tower, walking. Then enter two or three
CITIZENS, below

  SCALES. How now! Is Jack Cade slain?
  FIRST CITIZEN. No, my lord, nor likely to be slain; for they have
    won the bridge, killing all those that withstand them.
    The Lord Mayor craves aid of your honour from the
    Tower, to defend the city from the rebels.
  SCALES. Such aid as I can spare you shall command,
    But I am troubled here with them myself;
    The rebels have assay'd to win the Tower.
    But get you to Smithfield, and gather head,
    And thither I will send you Matthew Goffe;
    Fight for your King, your country, and your lives;
    And so, farewell, for I must hence again.             Exeunt

SCENE VI. London. Cannon street

Enter JACK CADE and the rest, and strikes his staff on London Stone

  CADE. Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon
  London Stone, I charge and command that, of the city's cost, the
  pissing conduit run nothing but claret wine this first year of our
  reign. And now henceforward it shall be treason for any that calls me
  other than Lord Mortimer.

                    Enter a SOLDIER, running

  SOLDIER. Jack Cade! Jack Cade!
  CADE. Knock him down there.                    [They kill him]
  SMITH. If this fellow be wise, he'll never call ye Jack Cade more;
    I think he hath a very fair warning.
  DICK. My lord, there's an army gathered together in Smithfield.
  CADE. Come then, let's go fight with them. But first go and set
    London Bridge on fire; and, if you can, burn down the Tower too.
    Come, let's away.                                     Exeunt

SCENE VII. London. Smithfield

Alarums. MATTHEW GOFFE is slain, and all the rest.  Then enter JACK
CADE, with his company

  CADE. So, sirs. Now go some and pull down the Savoy; others to th'
    Inns of Court; down with them all.
  DICK. I have a suit unto your lordship.
  CADE. Be it a lordship, thou shalt have it for that word.
  DICK. Only that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.
  JOHN. [Aside] Mass, 'twill be sore law then; for he was thrust in
    the mouth with a spear, and 'tis not whole yet.
  SMITH. [Aside] Nay, John, it will be stinking law; for his breath
    stinks with eating toasted cheese.
  CADE. I have thought upon it; it shall be so. Away, burn all the
    records of the realm. My mouth shall be the Parliament of
    England.
  JOHN. [Aside] Then we are like to have biting statutes, unless his
    teeth be pull'd out.
  CADE. And henceforward all things shall be in common.

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My lord, a prize, a prize! Here's the Lord Say, which sold
  the towns in France; he that made us pay one and twenty fifteens, and
  one shining to the pound, the last subsidy.

                Enter GEORGE BEVIS, with the LORD SAY

  CADE. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times. Ah, thou say,
    thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! Now art thou within point
    blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my
    Majesty for giving up of Normandy unto Mounsieur Basimecu the
    Dauphin of France? Be it known unto thee by these presence, even
    the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom that must
    sweep the court clean of such filth as thou art. Thou hast most
    traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a
    grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other
    books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to
    be us'd, and, contrary to the King, his crown, and dignity, thou
    hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou
    hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and
    such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.
    Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before
    them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou
    hast put them in prison, and because they could not read, thou
    hast hang'd them, when, indeed, only for that cause they have
    been most worthy to live. Thou dost ride in a foot-cloth, dost
    thou not?
  SAY. What of that?
  CADE. Marry, thou ought'st not to let thy horse wear a cloak, when
    honester men than thou go in their hose and doublets.
  DICK. And work in their shirt too, as myself, for example, that am
    a butcher.
  SAY. You men of Kent-
  DICK. What say you of Kent?
  SAY. Nothing but this: 'tis 'bona terra, mala gens.'
  CADE. Away with him, away with him! He speaks Latin.
  SAY. Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.
    Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ,
    Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle.
    Sweet is the country, because full of riches;
    The people liberal valiant, active, wealthy;
    Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.
    I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy;
    Yet, to recover them, would lose my life.
    Justice with favour have I always done;
    Pray'rs and tears have mov'd me, gifts could never.
    When have I aught exacted at your hands,
    But to maintain the King, the realm, and you?
    Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,
    Because my book preferr'd me to the King,
    And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,
    Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,
    Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits
    You cannot but forbear to murder me.
    This tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings
    For your behoof.
  CADE. Tut, when struck'st thou one blow in the field?
  SAY. Great men have reaching hands. Oft have I struck
    Those that I never saw, and struck them dead.
  GEORGE. O monstrous coward! What, to come behind folks?
  SAY. These cheeks are pale for watching for your good.
  CADE. Give him a box o' th' ear, and that will make 'em red again.
  SAY. Long sitting to determine poor men's causes
    Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.
  CADE. Ye shall have a hempen caudle then, and the help of hatchet.
  DICK. Why dost thou quiver, man?
  SAY. The palsy, and not fear, provokes me.
  CADE. Nay, he nods at us, as who should say 'I'll be even with
    you'; I'll see if his head will stand steadier on a pole, or no.
    Take him away, and behead him.
  SAY. Tell me: wherein have I offended most?
    Have I affected wealth or honour? Speak.
    Are my chests fill'd up with extorted gold?
    Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?
    Whom have I injur'd, that ye seek my death?
    These hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding,
    This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts.
    O, let me live!
  CADE. [Aside] I feel remorse in myself with his words; but I'll
    bridle it. He shall die, an it be but for pleading so well for
    his life.- Away with him! He has a familiar under his tongue; he
    speaks not o' God's name. Go, take him away, I say, and strike
    off his head presently, and then break into his son-in-law's
    house, Sir James Cromer, and strike off his head, and bring them
    both upon two poles hither.
  ALL. It shall be done.
  SAY. Ah, countrymen! if when you make your pray'rs,
    God should be so obdurate as yourselves,
    How would it fare with your departed souls?
    And therefore yet relent and save my life.
  CADE. Away with him, and do as I command ye.  [Exeunt some with
    LORD SAY]  The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head
    on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute; there shall not a
    maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they
    have it. Men shall hold of me in capite; and we charge and
    command that their wives be as free as heart can wish or tongue
    can tell.
  DICK. My lord, when shall we go to Cheapside, and take up
    commodities upon our bills?
  CADE. Marry, presently.
  ALL. O, brave!

                      Re-enter one with the heads

  CADE. But is not this braver? Let them kiss one another, for they
  lov'd well when they were alive. Now part them again, lest they
  consult about the giving up of some more towns in France. Soldiers,
  defer the spoil of the city until night; for with these borne before
  us instead of maces will we ride through the streets, and at every
  corner have them kiss. Away!     Exeunt

SCENE VIII. Southwark

Alarum and retreat. Enter again CADE and all his rabblement

  CADE. Up Fish Street! down Saint Magnus' Corner! Kill and knock down!
  Throw them into Thames!               [Sound a parley] What noise is
  this I hear? Dare any be so bold to sound retreat or parley when I
  command them kill?

            Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD, attended

  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, here they be that dare and will disturb thee.
    And therefore yet relent, and save my life.
    Know, Cade, we come ambassadors from the King
    Unto the commons whom thou hast misled;
    And here pronounce free pardon to them all
    That will forsake thee and go home in peace.
  CLIFFORD. What say ye, countrymen? Will ye relent
    And yield to mercy whilst 'tis offer'd you,
    Or let a rebel lead you to your deaths?
    Who loves the King, and will embrace his pardon,
    Fling up his cap and say 'God save his Majesty!'
    Who hateth him and honours not his father,
    Henry the Fifth, that made all France to quake,
    Shake he his weapon at us and pass by.
  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!
  CADE. What, Buckingham and Clifford, are ye so brave?
    And you, base peasants, do ye believe him? Will you needs be
    hang'd with your about your necks? Hath my sword therefore broke
    through London gates, that you should leave me at the White Hart
    in Southwark? I thought ye would never have given out these arms
    till you had recovered your ancient freedom. But you are all
    recreants and dastards, and delight to live in slavery to the
    nobility. Let them break your backs with burdens, take your
    houses over your heads, ravish your wives and daughters before
    your faces. For me, I will make shift for one; and so God's curse
    light upon you all!
  ALL. We'll follow Cade, we'll follow Cade!
  CLIFFORD. Is Cade the son of Henry the Fifth,
    That thus you do exclaim you'll go with him?
    Will he conduct you through the heart of France,
    And make the meanest of you earls and dukes?
    Alas, he hath no home, no place to fly to;
    Nor knows he how to live but by the spoil,
    Unless by robbing of your friends and us.
    Were't not a shame that whilst you live at jar
    The fearful French, whom you late vanquished,
    Should make a start o'er seas and vanquish you?
    Methinks already in this civil broil
    I see them lording it in London streets,
    Crying 'Villiago!' unto all they meet.
    Better ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry
    Than you should stoop unto a Frenchman's mercy.
    To France, to France, and get what you have lost;
    Spare England, for it is your native coast.
    Henry hath money; you are strong and manly.
    God on our side, doubt not of victory.
  ALL. A Clifford! a Clifford! We'll follow the King and Clifford.
  CADE. Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this
    multitude? The name of Henry the Fifth hales them to an hundred
    mischiefs, and makes them leave me desolate. I see them lay their
    heads together to surprise me. My sword make way for me for here
    is no staying. In despite of the devils and hell, have through
    the very middest of you! and heavens and honour be witness that
    no want of resolution in me, but only my followers' base and
    ignominious treasons, makes me betake me to my heels.
 Exit
  BUCKINGHAM. What, is he fled? Go some, and follow him;
    And he that brings his head unto the King
    Shall have a thousand crowns for his reward.
                                             Exeunt some of them
    Follow me, soldiers; we'll devise a mean
    To reconcile you all unto the King.                   Exeunt

SCENE IX. Killing, worth Castle

Sound trumpets. Enter KING, QUEEN, and SOMERSET, on the terrace

  KING HENRY. Was ever king that joy'd an earthly throne
    And could command no more content than I?
    No sooner was I crept out of my cradle
    But I was made a king, at nine months old.
    Was never subject long'd to be a King
    As I do long and wish to be a subject.

               Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD

  BUCKINGHAM. Health and glad tidings to your Majesty!
  KING HENRY. Why, Buckingham, is the traitor Cade surpris'd?
    Or is he but retir'd to make him strong?

     Enter, below, multitudes, with halters about their necks

  CLIFFORD. He is fled, my lord, and all his powers do yield,
    And humbly thus, with halters on their necks,
    Expect your Highness' doom of life or death.
  KING HENRY. Then, heaven, set ope thy everlasting gates,
    To entertain my vows of thanks and praise!
    Soldiers, this day have you redeem'd your lives,
    And show'd how well you love your Prince and country.
    Continue still in this so good a mind,
    And Henry, though he be infortunate,
    Assure yourselves, will never be unkind.
    And so, with thanks and pardon to you all,
    I do dismiss you to your several countries.
  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!

                     Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Please it your Grace to be advertised
    The Duke of York is newly come from Ireland
    And with a puissant and a mighty power
    Of gallowglasses and stout kerns
    Is marching hitherward in proud array,
    And still proclaimeth, as he comes along,
    His arms are only to remove from thee
    The Duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor.
  KING HENRY. Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and York distress'd;
    Like to a ship that, having scap'd a tempest,
    Is straightway calm'd, and boarded with a pirate;
    But now is Cade driven back, his men dispers'd,
    And now is York in arms to second him.
    I pray thee, Buckingham, go and meet him
    And ask him what's the reason of these arms.
    Tell him I'll send Duke Edmund to the Tower-
    And Somerset, we will commit thee thither
    Until his army be dismiss'd from him.
  SOMERSET. My lord,
    I'll yield myself to prison willingly,
    Or unto death, to do my country good.
  KING HENRY. In any case be not too rough in terms,
    For he is fierce and cannot brook hard language.
  BUCKINGHAM. I will, my lord, and doubt not so to deal
    As all things shall redound unto your good.
  KING HENRY. Come, wife, let's in, and learn to govern better;
    For yet may England curse my wretched reign.
                                                Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE X. Kent. Iden's garden

Enter CADE

  CADE. Fie on ambitions! Fie on myself, that have a sword and yet am
  ready to famish! These five days have I hid me in these woods and
  durst not peep out, for all the country is laid for me; but now am I
  so hungry that, if I might have a lease of my life for a thousand
  years, I could stay no longer. Wherefore, on a brick wall have I
  climb'd into this garden, to see if I can eat grass or pick a sallet
  another while, which is not amiss to cool a man's stomach this hot
  weather. And I think this word 'sallet' was born to do me good; for
  many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pain had been cleft with a
  brown bill; and many a time, when I have been dry, and bravely
  marching, it hath serv'd me instead of a quart-pot to drink in; and
  now the word 'sallet' must serve me to feed on.

                             Enter IDEN

  IDEN. Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court
    And may enjoy such quiet walks as these?
    This small inheritance my father left me
    Contenteth me, and worth a monarchy.
    I seek not to wax great by others' waning
    Or gather wealth I care not with what envy;
    Sufficeth that I have maintains my state,
    And sends the poor well pleased from my gate.
  CADE. Here's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a stray, for
    entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt
    betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the King by carrying my
    head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich and
    swallow my sword like a great pin ere thou and I part.
  IDEN. Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be,
    I know thee not; why then should I betray thee?
    Is't not enough to break into my garden
    And like a thief to come to rob my grounds,
    Climbing my walls in spite of me the owner,
    But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms?
  CADE. Brave thee? Ay, by the best blood that ever was broach'd, and
    beard thee too. Look on me well: I have eat no meat these five
    days, yet come thou and thy five men and if I do not leave you
    all as dead as a door-nail, I pray God I may never eat grass
    more.
  IDEN. Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England stands,
    That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent,
    Took odds to combat a poor famish'd man.
    Oppose thy steadfast-gazing eyes to mine;
    See if thou canst outface me with thy looks;
    Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser;
    Thy hand is but a finger to my fist,
    Thy leg a stick compared with this truncheon;
    My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast,
    And if mine arm be heaved in the air,
    Thy grave is digg'd already in the earth.
    As for words, whose greatness answers words,
    Let this my sword report what speech forbears.
  CADE. By my valour, the most complete champion that ever I heard!
    Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the burly bon'd
    clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I beseech
    God on my knees thou mayst be turn'd to hobnails. [Here they
    fight; CADE falls] O, I am slain! famine and no other hath slain
    me. Let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but the
    ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them all. Wither, garden, and
    be henceforth a burying place to all that do dwell in this house,
    because the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.
  IDEN. Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?
    Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed
    And hang thee o'er my tomb when I am dead.
    Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point,
    But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat
    To emblaze the honour that thy master got.
  CADE. Iden, farewell; and be proud of thy victory. Tell Kent from
    me she hath lost her best man, and exhort all the world to be
    cowards; for I, that never feared any, am vanquished by famine,
    not by valour.                                        [Dies]
  IDEN. How much thou wrong'st me, heaven be my judge.
    Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee!
    And as I thrust thy body in with my sword,
    So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell.
    Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels
    Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave,
    And there cut off thy most ungracious head,
    Which I will bear in triumph to the King,
    Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon.               Exit

ACT V. SCENE I. Fields between Dartford and Blackheath

Enter YORK, and his army of Irish, with drum and colours

  YORK. From Ireland thus comes York to claim his right
    And pluck the crown from feeble Henry's head:
    Ring bells aloud, burn bonfires clear and bright,
    To entertain great England's lawful king.
    Ah, sancta majestas! who would not buy thee dear?
    Let them obey that knows not how to rule;
    This hand was made to handle nought but gold.
    I cannot give due action to my words
    Except a sword or sceptre balance it.
    A sceptre shall it have, have I a soul
    On which I'll toss the flower-de-luce of France.

                         Enter BUCKINGHAM

    [Aside] Whom have we here? Buckingham, to disturb me?
    The King hath sent him, sure: I must dissemble.
  BUCKINGHAM. York, if thou meanest well I greet thee well.
  YORK. Humphrey of Buckingham, I accept thy greeting.
    Art thou a messenger, or come of pleasure?
  BUCKINGHAM. A messenger from Henry, our dread liege,
    To know the reason of these arms in peace;
    Or why thou, being a subject as I am,
    Against thy oath and true allegiance sworn,
    Should raise so great a power without his leave,
    Or dare to bring thy force so near the court.
  YORK. [Aside] Scarce can I speak, my choler is so great.
    O, I could hew up rocks and fight with flint,
    I am so angry at these abject terms;
    And now, like Ajax Telamonius,
    On sheep or oxen could I spend my fury.
    I am far better born than is the King,
    More like a king, more kingly in my thoughts;
    But I must make fair weather yet awhile,
    Till Henry be more weak and I more strong.-
    Buckingham, I prithee, pardon me
    That I have given no answer all this while;
    My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.
    The cause why I have brought this army hither
    Is to remove proud Somerset from the King,
    Seditious to his Grace and to the state.
  BUCKINGHAM. That is too much presumption on thy part;
    But if thy arms be to no other end,
    The King hath yielded unto thy demand:
    The Duke of Somerset is in the Tower.
  YORK. Upon thine honour, is he prisoner?
  BUCKINGHAM. Upon mine honour, he is prisoner.
  YORK. Then, Buckingham, I do dismiss my pow'rs.
    Soldiers, I thank you all; disperse yourselves;
    Meet me to-morrow in Saint George's field,
    You shall have pay and everything you wish.
    And let my sovereign, virtuous Henry,
    Command my eldest son, nay, all my sons,
    As pledges of my fealty and love.
    I'll send them all as willing as I live:
    Lands, goods, horse, armour, anything I have,
    Is his to use, so Somerset may die.
  BUCKINGHAM. York, I commend this kind submission.
    We twain will go into his Highness' tent.

                  Enter the KING, and attendants

  KING HENRY. Buckingham, doth York intend no harm to us,
    That thus he marcheth with thee arm in arm?
  YORK. In all submission and humility
    York doth present himself unto your Highness.
  KING HENRY. Then what intends these forces thou dost bring?
  YORK. To heave the traitor Somerset from hence,
    And fight against that monstrous rebel Cade,
    Who since I heard to be discomfited.

                    Enter IDEN, with CADE's head

  IDEN. If one so rude and of so mean condition
    May pass into the presence of a king,
    Lo, I present your Grace a traitor's head,
    The head of Cade, whom I in combat slew.
  KING HENRY. The head of Cade! Great God, how just art Thou!
    O, let me view his visage, being dead,
    That living wrought me such exceeding trouble.
    Tell me, my friend, art thou the man that slew him?
  IDEN. I was, an't like your Majesty.
  KING HENRY. How art thou call'd? And what is thy degree?
  IDEN. Alexander Iden, that's my name;
    A poor esquire of Kent that loves his king.
  BUCKINGHAM. So please it you, my lord, 'twere not amiss
    He were created knight for his good service.
  KING HENRY. Iden, kneel down. [He kneels] Rise up a knight.
    We give thee for reward a thousand marks,
    And will that thou thenceforth attend on us.
  IDEN. May Iden live to merit such a bounty,
    And never live but true unto his liege!

                    Enter the QUEEN and SOMERSET

  KING HENRY. See, Buckingham! Somerset comes with th' Queen:
    Go, bid her hide him quickly from the Duke.
  QUEEN. For thousand Yorks he shall not hide his head,
    But boldly stand and front him to his face.
  YORK. How now! Is Somerset at liberty?
    Then, York, unloose thy long-imprisoned thoughts
    And let thy tongue be equal with thy heart.
    Shall I endure the sight of Somerset?
    False king, why hast thou broken faith with me,
    Knowing how hardly I can brook abuse?
    King did I call thee? No, thou art not king;
    Not fit to govern and rule multitudes,
    Which dar'st not, no, nor canst not rule a traitor.
    That head of thine doth not become a crown;
    Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff,
    And not to grace an awful princely sceptre.
    That gold must round engirt these brows of mine,
    Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,
    Is able with the change to kill and cure.
    Here is a hand to hold a sceptre up,
    And with the same to act controlling laws.
    Give place. By heaven, thou shalt rule no more
    O'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.
  SOMERSET. O monstrous traitor! I arrest thee, York,
    Of capital treason 'gainst the King and crown.
    Obey, audacious traitor; kneel for grace.
  YORK. Wouldst have me kneel? First let me ask of these,
    If they can brook I bow a knee to man.
    Sirrah, call in my sons to be my bail:        Exit attendant
    I know, ere thy will have me go to ward,
    They'll pawn their swords for my enfranchisement.
  QUEEN. Call hither Clifford; bid him come amain,
    To say if that the bastard boys of York
    Shall be the surety for their traitor father.
                                                 Exit BUCKINGHAM
  YORK. O blood-bespotted Neapolitan,
    Outcast of Naples, England's bloody scourge!
    The sons of York, thy betters in their birth,
    Shall be their father's bail; and bane to those
    That for my surety will refuse the boys!

               Enter EDWARD and RICHARD PLANTAGENET

    See where they come: I'll warrant they'll make it good.

                     Enter CLIFFORD and his SON

  QUEEN. And here comes Clifford to deny their bail.
  CLIFFORD. Health and all happiness to my lord the King!
                                                        [Kneels]
  YORK. I thank thee, Clifford. Say, what news with thee?
    Nay, do not fright us with an angry look.
    We are thy sovereign, Clifford, kneel again;
    For thy mistaking so, we pardon thee.
  CLIFFORD. This is my King, York, I do not mistake;
    But thou mistakes me much to think I do.
    To Bedlam with him! Is the man grown mad?
  KING HENRY. Ay, Clifford; a bedlam and ambitious humour
    Makes him oppose himself against his king.
  CLIFFORD. He is a traitor; let him to the Tower,
    And chop away that factious pate of his.
  QUEEN. He is arrested, but will not obey;
    His sons, he says, shall give their words for him.
  YORK. Will you not, sons?
  EDWARD. Ay, noble father, if our words will serve.
  RICHARD. And if words will not, then our weapons shall.
  CLIFFORD. Why, what a brood of traitors have we here!
  YORK. Look in a glass, and call thy image so:
    I am thy king, and thou a false-heart traitor.
    Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,
    That with the very shaking of their chains
    They may astonish these fell-lurking curs.
    Bid Salisbury and Warwick come to me.

               Enter the EARLS OF WARWICK and SALISBURY

  CLIFFORD. Are these thy bears? We'll bait thy bears to death,
    And manacle the berard in their chains,
    If thou dar'st bring them to the baiting-place.
  RICHARD. Oft have I seen a hot o'er weening cur
    Run back and bite, because he was withheld;
    Who, being suffer'd, with the bear's fell paw,
    Hath clapp'd his tail between his legs and cried;
    And such a piece of service will you do,
    If you oppose yourselves to match Lord Warwick.
  CLIFFORD. Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump,
    As crooked in thy manners as thy shape!
  YORK. Nay, we shall heat you thoroughly anon.
  CLIFFORD. Take heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves.
  KING HENRY. Why, Warwick, hath thy knee forgot to bow?
    Old Salisbury, shame to thy silver hair,
    Thou mad misleader of thy brainsick son!
    What, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian
    And seek for sorrow with thy spectacles?
    O, where is faith? O, where is loyalty?
    If it be banish'd from the frosty head,
    Where shall it find a harbour in the earth?
    Wilt thou go dig a grave to find out war
    And shame thine honourable age with blood?
    Why art thou old, and want'st experience?
    Or wherefore dost abuse it, if thou hast it?
    For shame! In duty bend thy knee to me,
    That bows unto the grave with mickle age.
  SALISBURY. My lord, I have considered with myself
    The tide of this most renowned duke,
    And in my conscience do repute his Grace
    The rightful heir to England's royal seat.
  KING HENRY. Hast thou not sworn allegiance unto me?
  SALISBURY. I have.
  KING HENRY. Canst thou dispense with heaven for such an oath?
  SALISBURY. It is great sin to swear unto a sin;
    But greater sin to keep a sinful oath.
    Who can be bound by any solemn vow
    To do a murd'rous deed, to rob a man,
    To force a spotless virgin's chastity,
    To reave the orphan of his patrimony,
    To wring the widow from her custom'd right,
    And have no other reason for this wrong
    But that he was bound by a solemn oath?
  QUEEN. A subtle traitor needs no sophister.
  KING HENRY. Call Buckingham, and bid him arm himself.
  YORK. Call Buckingham, and all the friends thou hast,
    I am resolv'd for death or dignity.
  CLIFFORD. The first I warrant thee, if dreams prove true.
  WARWICK. You were best to go to bed and dream again
    To keep thee from the tempest of the field.
  CLIFFORD. I am resolv'd to bear a greater storm
    Than any thou canst conjure up to-day;
    And that I'll write upon thy burgonet,
    Might I but know thee by thy household badge.
  WARWICK. Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,
    The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,
    This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet,
    As on a mountain-top the cedar shows,
    That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,
    Even to affright thee with the view thereof.
  CLIFFORD. And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear
    And tread it under foot with all contempt,
    Despite the berard that protects the bear.
  YOUNG CLIFFORD. And so to arms, victorious father,
    To quell the rebels and their complices.
  RICHARD. Fie! charity, for shame! Speak not in spite,
    For you shall sup with Jesu Christ to-night.
  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Foul stigmatic, that's more than thou canst tell.
  RICHARD. If not in heaven, you'll surely sup in hell.
                                                Exeunt severally

SCENE II. Saint Albans

Alarums to the battle. Enter WARWICK

  WARWICK. Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls;
    And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,
    Now, when the angry trumpet sounds alarum
    And dead men's cries do fill the empty air,
    Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me.
    Proud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland,
  WARWICK is hoarse with calling thee to arms.

                          Enter YORK

    How now, my noble lord! what, all a-foot?
  YORK. The deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed;
    But match to match I have encount'red him,
    And made a prey for carrion kites and crows
    Even of the bonny beast he lov'd so well.

                      Enter OLD CLIFFORD

  WARWICK. Of one or both of us the time is come.
  YORK. Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase,
    For I myself must hunt this deer to death.
  WARWICK. Then, nobly, York; 'tis for a crown thou fight'st.
    As I intend, Clifford, to thrive to-day,
    It grieves my soul to leave thee unassail'd.            Exit
  CLIFFORD. What seest thou in me, York? Why dost thou pause?
  YORK. With thy brave bearing should I be in love
    But that thou art so fast mine enemy.
  CLIFFORD. Nor should thy prowess want praise and esteem
    But that 'tis shown ignobly and in treason.
  YORK. So let it help me now against thy sword,
    As I in justice and true right express it!
  CLIFFORD. My soul and body on the action both!
  YORK. A dreadful lay! Address thee instantly.
                                 [They fight and CLIFFORD falls]
  CLIFFORD. La fin couronne les oeuvres.                  [Dies]
  YORK. Thus war hath given thee peace, for thou art still.
    Peace with his soul, heaven, if it be thy will!         Exit

                     Enter YOUNG CLIFFORD

  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Shame and confusion! All is on the rout;
    Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds
    Where it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,
    Whom angry heavens do make their minister,
    Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part
    Hot coals of vengeance! Let no soldier fly.
    He that is truly dedicate to war
    Hath no self-love; nor he that loves himself
    Hath not essentially, but by circumstance,
    The name of valour.                 [Sees his father's body]
    O, let the vile world end
    And the premised flames of the last day
    Knit earth and heaven together!
    Now let the general trumpet blow his blast,
    Particularities and petty sounds
    To cease! Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,
    To lose thy youth in peace and to achieve
    The silver livery of advised age,
    And in thy reverence and thy chair-days thus
    To die in ruffian battle? Even at this sight
    My heart is turn'd to stone; and while 'tis mine
    It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;
    No more will I their babes. Tears virginal
    Shall be to me even as the dew to fire;
    And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims,
    Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.
    Henceforth I will not have to do with pity:
    Meet I an infant of the house of York,
    Into as many gobbets will I cut it
    As wild Medea young Absyrtus did;
    In cruelty will I seek out my fame.
    Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house;
    As did Aeneas old Anchises bear,
    So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders;
    But then Aeneas bare a living load,
    Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine.
                                              Exit with the body

       Enter RICHARD and SOMERSET to fight. SOMERSET is killed

  RICHARD. So, lie thou there;
    For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,
    The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset
    Hath made the wizard famous in his death.
    Sword, hold thy temper; heart, be wrathful still:
    Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill.             Exit

        Fight. Excursions. Enter KING, QUEEN, and others

  QUEEN. Away, my lord! You are slow; for shame, away!
  KING HENRY. Can we outrun the heavens? Good Margaret, stay.
  QUEEN. What are you made of? You'll nor fight nor fly.
    Now is it manhood, wisdom, and defence,
    To give the enemy way, and to secure us
    By what we can, which can no more but fly.
                                               [Alarum afar off]
    If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom
    Of all our fortunes; but if we haply scape-
    As well we may, if not through your neglect-
    We shall to London get, where you are lov'd,
    And where this breach now in our fortunes made
    May readily be stopp'd.

                     Re-enter YOUNG CLIFFORD

  YOUNG CLIFFORD. But that my heart's on future mischief set,
    I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly;
    But fly you must; uncurable discomfit
    Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts.
    Away, for your relief! and we will live
    To see their day and them our fortune give.
    Away, my lord, away!                                  Exeunt

SCENE III. Fields near Saint Albans

Alarum. Retreat. Enter YORK, RICHARD, WARWICK, and soldiers, with drum
and colours

  YORK. Of Salisbury, who can report of him,
    That winter lion, who in rage forgets
    Aged contusions and all brush of time
    And, like a gallant in the brow of youth,
    Repairs him with occasion? This happy day
    Is not itself, nor have we won one foot,
    If Salisbury be lost.
  RICHARD. My noble father,
    Three times to-day I holp him to his horse,
    Three times bestrid him, thrice I led him off,
    Persuaded him from any further act;
    But still where danger was, still there I met him;
    And like rich hangings in a homely house,
    So was his will in his old feeble body.
    But, noble as he is, look where he comes.

                         Enter SALISBURY

  SALISBURY. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought to-day!
    By th' mass, so did we all. I thank you, Richard:
    God knows how long it is I have to live,
    And it hath pleas'd Him that three times to-day
    You have defended me from imminent death.
    Well, lords, we have not got that which we have;
    'Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,
    Being opposites of such repairing nature.
  YORK. I know our safety is to follow them;
    For, as I hear, the King is fled to London
    To call a present court of Parliament.
    Let us pursue him ere the writs go forth.
    What says Lord Warwick? Shall we after them?
  WARWICK. After them? Nay, before them, if we can.
    Now, by my faith, lords, 'twas a glorious day:
    Saint Albans' battle, won by famous York,
    Shall be eterniz'd in all age to come.
    Sound drum and trumpets and to London all;
    And more such days as these to us befall!             Exeunt

THE END

1591



THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  KING HENRY THE SIXTH
  EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, his son
  LEWIS XI, King of France           DUKE OF SOMERSET
  DUKE OF EXETER                     EARL OF OXFORD
  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND             EARL OF WESTMORELAND
  LORD CLIFFORD
  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK
  EDWARD, EARL OF MARCH, afterwards KING EDWARD IV, his son
  EDMUND, EARL OF RUTLAND, his son
  GEORGE, afterwards DUKE OF CLARENCE, his son
  RICHARD, afterwards DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his son
  DUKE OF NORFOLK                    MARQUIS OF MONTAGUE
  EARL OF WARWICK                    EARL OF PEMBROKE
  LORD HASTINGS                      LORD STAFFORD
  SIR JOHN MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York
  SIR HUGH MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York
  HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, a youth
  LORD RIVERS, brother to Lady Grey
  SIR WILLIAM STANLEY                SIR JOHN MONTGOMERY
  SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE                TUTOR, to Rutland
  MAYOR OF YORK                      LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER
  A NOBLEMAN                         TWO KEEPERS
  A HUNTSMAN
  A SON that has killed his father
  A FATHER that has killed his son

  QUEEN MARGARET
  LADY GREY, afterwards QUEEN to Edward IV
  BONA, sister to the French Queen

  Soldiers, Attendants, Messengers, Watchmen, etc.

SCENE: England and France

ACT I. SCENE I. London. The Parliament House

Alarum. Enter DUKE OF YORK, EDWARD, RICHARD, NORFOLK, MONTAGUE,
WARWICK, and soldiers, with white roses in their hats

  WARWICK. I wonder how the King escap'd our hands.
  YORK. While we pursu'd the horsemen of the north,
    He slily stole away and left his men;
    Whereat the great Lord of Northumberland,
    Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat,
    Cheer'd up the drooping army, and himself,
    Lord Clifford, and Lord Stafford, all abreast,
    Charg'd our main battle's front, and, breaking in,
    Were by the swords of common soldiers slain.
  EDWARD. Lord Stafford's father, Duke of Buckingham,
    Is either slain or wounded dangerous;
    I cleft his beaver with a downright blow.
    That this is true, father, behold his blood.
  MONTAGUE. And, brother, here's the Earl of Wiltshire's blood,
    Whom I encount'red as the battles join'd.
  RICHARD. Speak thou for me, and tell them what I did.
                                 [Throwing down SOMERSET'S head]
  YORK. Richard hath best deserv'd of all my sons.
    But is your Grace dead, my Lord of Somerset?
  NORFOLK. Such hope have all the line of John of Gaunt!
  RICHARD. Thus do I hope to shake King Henry's head.
  WARWICK. And so do I. Victorious Prince of York,
    Before I see thee seated in that throne
    Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,
    I vow by heaven these eyes shall never close.
    This is the palace of the fearful King,
    And this the regal seat. Possess it, York;
    For this is thine, and not King Henry's heirs'.
  YORK. Assist me then, sweet Warwick, and I will;
    For hither we have broken in by force.
  NORFOLK. We'll all assist you; he that flies shall die.
  YORK. Thanks, gentle Norfolk. Stay by me, my lords;
    And, soldiers, stay and lodge by me this night.
                                                    [They go up]
  WARWICK. And when the King comes, offer him no violence.
    Unless he seek to thrust you out perforce.
  YORK. The Queen this day here holds her parliament,
    But little thinks we shall be of her council.
    By words or blows here let us win our right.
  RICHARD. Arm'd as we are, let's stay within this house.
  WARWICK. The bloody parliament shall this be call'd,
    Unless Plantagenet, Duke of York, be King,
    And bashful Henry depos'd, whose cowardice
    Hath made us by-words to our enemies.
  YORK. Then leave me not, my lords; be resolute:
    I mean to take possession of my right.
  WARWICK. Neither the King, nor he that loves him best,
    The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,
    Dares stir a wing if Warwick shake his bells.
    I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares.
    Resolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.
                                      [YORK occupies the throne]

       Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,
        WESTMORELAND, EXETER, and others, with red roses in
                            their hats

  KING HENRY. My lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits,
    Even in the chair of state! Belike he means,
    Back'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,
    To aspire unto the crown and reign as king.
    Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father;
    And thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have vow'd revenge
    On him, his sons, his favourites, and his friends.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. If I be not, heavens be reveng'd on me!
  CLIFFORD. The hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.
  WESTMORELAND. What, shall we suffer this? Let's pluck him down;
    My heart for anger burns; I cannot brook it.
  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle Earl of Westmoreland.
  CLIFFORD. Patience is for poltroons such as he;
    He durst not sit there had your father liv'd.
    My gracious lord, here in the parliament
    Let us assail the family of York.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well hast thou spoken, cousin; be it so.
  KING HENRY. Ah, know you not the city favours them,
    And they have troops of soldiers at their beck?
  EXETER. But when the Duke is slain they'll quickly fly.
  KING HENRY. Far be the thought of this from Henry's heart,
    To make a shambles of the parliament house!
    Cousin of Exeter, frowns, words, and threats,
    Shall be the war that Henry means to use.
    Thou factious Duke of York, descend my throne
    And kneel for grace and mercy at my feet;
    I am thy sovereign.
  YORK. I am thine.
  EXETER. For shame, come down; he made thee Duke of York.
  YORK. 'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was.
  EXETER. Thy father was a traitor to the crown.
  WARWICK. Exeter, thou art a traitor to the crown
    In following this usurping Henry.
  CLIFFORD. Whom should he follow but his natural king?
  WARWICK. True, Clifford; and that's Richard Duke of York.
  KING HENRY. And shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?
  YORK. It must and shall be so; content thyself.
  WARWICK. Be Duke of Lancaster; let him be King.
  WESTMORELAND. He is both King and Duke of Lancaster;
    And that the Lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.
  WARWICK. And Warwick shall disprove it. You forget
    That we are those which chas'd you from the field,
    And slew your fathers, and with colours spread
    March'd through the city to the palace gates.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yes, Warwick, I remember it to my grief;
    And, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.
  WESTMORELAND. Plantagenet, of thee, and these thy sons,
    Thy kinsmen, and thy friends, I'll have more lives
    Than drops of blood were in my father's veins.
  CLIFFORD. Urge it no more; lest that instead of words
    I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger
    As shall revenge his death before I stir.
  WARWICK. Poor Clifford, how I scorn his worthless threats!
  YORK. Will you we show our title to the crown?
    If not, our swords shall plead it in the field.
  KING HENRY. What title hast thou, traitor, to the crown?
    Thy father was, as thou art, Duke of York;
    Thy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March:
    I am the son of Henry the Fifth,
    Who made the Dauphin and the French to stoop,
    And seiz'd upon their towns and provinces.
  WARWICK. Talk not of France, sith thou hast lost it all.
  KING HENRY. The Lord Protector lost it, and not I:
    When I was crown'd, I was but nine months old.
  RICHARD. You are old enough now, and yet methinks you lose.
    Father, tear the crown from the usurper's head.
  EDWARD. Sweet father, do so; set it on your head.
  MONTAGUE. Good brother, as thou lov'st and honourest arms,
    Let's fight it out and not stand cavilling thus.
  RICHARD. Sound drums and trumpets, and the King will fly.
  YORK. Sons, peace!
  KING HENRY. Peace thou! and give King Henry leave to speak.
  WARWICK. Plantagenet shall speak first. Hear him, lords;
    And be you silent and attentive too,
    For he that interrupts him shall not live.
  KING HENRY. Think'st thou that I will leave my kingly throne,
    Wherein my grandsire and my father sat?
    No; first shall war unpeople this my realm;
    Ay, and their colours, often borne in France,
    And now in England to our heart's great sorrow,
    Shall be my winding-sheet. Why faint you, lords?
    My title's good, and better far than his.
  WARWICK. Prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be King.
  KING HENRY. Henry the Fourth by conquest got the crown.
  YORK. 'Twas by rebellion against his king.
  KING HENRY. [Aside] I know not what to say; my title's weak.-
    Tell me, may not a king adopt an heir?
  YORK. What then?
  KING HENRY. An if he may, then am I lawful King;
    For Richard, in the view of many lords,
    Resign'd the crown to Henry the Fourth,
    Whose heir my father was, and I am his.
  YORK. He rose against him, being his sovereign,
    And made him to resign his crown perforce.
  WARWICK. Suppose, my lords, he did it unconstrain'd,
    Think you 'twere prejudicial to his crown?
  EXETER. No; for he could not so resign his crown
    But that the next heir should succeed and reign.
  KING HENRY. Art thou against us, Duke of Exeter?
  EXETER. His is the right, and therefore pardon me.
  YORK. Why whisper you, my lords, and answer not?
  EXETER. My conscience tells me he is lawful King.
  KING HENRY. [Aside] All will revolt from me, and turn to him.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Plantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st,
    Think not that Henry shall be so depos'd.
  WARWICK. Depos'd he shall be, in despite of all.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Thou art deceiv'd. 'Tis not thy southern power
    Of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,
    Which makes thee thus presumptuous and proud,
    Can set the Duke up in despite of me.
  CLIFFORD. King Henry, be thy title right or wrong,
    Lord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence.
    May that ground gape, and swallow me alive,
    Where I shall kneel to him that slew my father!
  KING HENRY. O Clifford, how thy words revive my heart!
  YORK. Henry of Lancaster, resign thy crown.
    What mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?
  WARWICK. Do right unto this princely Duke of York;
    Or I will fill the house with armed men,
    And over the chair of state, where now he sits,
    Write up his title with usurping blood.
                                [He stamps with his foot and the
                                       soldiers show themselves]
  KING HENRY. My Lord of Warwick, hear but one word:
    Let me for this my life-time reign as king.
  YORK. Confirm the crown to me and to mine heirs,
    And thou shalt reign in quiet while thou liv'st.
  KING HENRY. I am content. Richard Plantagenet,
    Enjoy the kingdom after my decease.
  CLIFFORD. What wrong is this unto the Prince your son!
  WARWICK. What good is this to England and himself!
  WESTMORELAND. Base, fearful, and despairing Henry!
  CLIFFORD. How hast thou injur'd both thyself and or us!
  WESTMORELAND. I cannot stay to hear these articles.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nor I.
  CLIFFORD. Come, cousin, let us tell the Queen these news.
  WESTMORELAND. Farewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king,
    In whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be thou a prey unto the house of York
    And die in bands for this unmanly deed!
  CLIFFORD. In dreadful war mayst thou be overcome,
    Or live in peace abandon'd and despis'd!
                                Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, CLIFFORD,
                                                and WESTMORELAND
  WARWICK. Turn this way, Henry, and regard them not.
  EXETER. They seek revenge, and therefore will not yield.
  KING HENRY. Ah, Exeter!
  WARWICK. Why should you sigh, my lord?
  KING HENRY. Not for myself, Lord Warwick, but my son,
    Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit.
    But be it as it may. [To YORK] I here entail
    The crown to thee and to thine heirs for ever;
    Conditionally, that here thou take an oath
    To cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,
    To honour me as thy king and sovereign,
    And neither by treason nor hostility
    To seek to put me down and reign thyself.
  YORK. This oath I willingly take, and will perform.
                                        [Coming from the throne]
  WARWICK. Long live King Henry! Plantagenet, embrace him.
  KING HENRY. And long live thou, and these thy forward sons!
  YORK. Now York and Lancaster are reconcil'd.
  EXETER. Accurs'd be he that seeks to make them foes!
                                   [Sennet. Here they come down]
  YORK. Farewell, my gracious lord; I'll to my castle.
  WARWICK. And I'll keep London with my soldiers.
  NORFOLK. And I to Norfolk with my followers.
  MONTAGUE. And I unto the sea, from whence I came.
                                             Exeunt the YORKISTS
  KING HENRY. And I, with grief and sorrow, to the court.

            Enter QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE OF WALES

  EXETER. Here comes the Queen, whose looks bewray her anger.
    I'll steal away.
  KING HENRY. Exeter, so will I.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, go not from me; I will follow thee.
  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle queen, and I will stay.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Who can be patient in such extremes?
    Ah, wretched man! Would I had died a maid,
    And never seen thee, never borne thee son,
    Seeing thou hast prov'd so unnatural a father!
    Hath he deserv'd to lose his birthright thus?
    Hadst thou but lov'd him half so well as I,
    Or felt that pain which I did for him once,
    Or nourish'd him as I did with my blood,
    Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there
    Rather than have made that savage duke thine heir,
    And disinherited thine only son.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Father, you cannot disinherit me.
    If you be King, why should not I succeed?
  KING HENRY. Pardon me, Margaret; pardon me, sweet son.
    The Earl of Warwick and the Duke enforc'd me.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Enforc'd thee! Art thou King and wilt be
      forc'd?
    I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!
    Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me;
    And giv'n unto the house of York such head
    As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.
    To entail him and his heirs unto the crown,
    What is it but to make thy sepulchre
    And creep into it far before thy time?
    Warwick is Chancellor and the lord of Calais;
    Stern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas;
    The Duke is made Protector of the realm;
    And yet shalt thou be safe? Such safety finds
    The trembling lamb environed with wolves.
    Had I been there, which am a silly woman,
    The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes
    Before I would have granted to that act.
    But thou prefer'st thy life before thine honour;
    And seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself,
    Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,
    Until that act of parliament be repeal'd
    Whereby my son is disinherited.
    The northern lords that have forsworn thy colours
    Will follow mine, if once they see them spread;
    And spread they shall be, to thy foul disgrace
    And utter ruin of the house of York.
    Thus do I leave thee. Come, son, let's away;
    Our army is ready; come, we'll after them.
  KING HENRY. Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hast spoke too much already; get thee gone.
  KING HENRY. Gentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, to be murder'd by his enemies.
  PRINCE OF WALES. When I return with victory from the field
    I'll see your Grace; till then I'll follow her.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Come, son, away; we may not linger thus.
                            Exeunt QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE
  KING HENRY. Poor queen! How love to me and to her son
    Hath made her break out into terms of rage!
    Reveng'd may she be on that hateful Duke,
    Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,
    Will cost my crown, and like an empty eagle
    Tire on the flesh of me and of my son!
    The loss of those three lords torments my heart.
    I'll write unto them, and entreat them fair;
    Come, cousin, you shall be the messenger.
  EXETER. And I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.        Exeunt

SCENE II. Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire

Flourish. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and MONTAGUE

  RICHARD. Brother, though I be youngest, give me leave.
  EDWARD. No, I can better play the orator.
  MONTAGUE. But I have reasons strong and forcible.

                     Enter the DUKE OF YORK

  YORK. Why, how now, sons and brother! at a strife?
    What is your quarrel? How began it first?
  EDWARD. No quarrel, but a slight contention.
  YORK. About what?
  RICHARD. About that which concerns your Grace and us-
    The crown of England, father, which is yours.
  YORK. Mine, boy? Not till King Henry be dead.
  RICHARD. Your right depends not on his life or death.
  EDWARD. Now you are heir, therefore enjoy it now.
    By giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,
    It will outrun you, father, in the end.
  YORK. I took an oath that he should quietly reign.
  EDWARD. But for a kingdom any oath may be broken:
    I would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.
  RICHARD. No; God forbid your Grace should be forsworn.
  YORK. I shall be, if I claim by open war.
  RICHARD. I'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me speak.
  YORK. Thou canst not, son; it is impossible.
  RICHARD. An oath is of no moment, being not took
    Before a true and lawful magistrate
    That hath authority over him that swears.
    Henry had none, but did usurp the place;
    Then, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,
    Your oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.
    Therefore, to arms. And, father, do but think
    How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,
    Within whose circuit is Elysium
    And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.
    Why do we linger thus? I cannot rest
    Until the white rose that I wear be dy'd
    Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.
  YORK. Richard, enough; I will be King, or die.
    Brother, thou shalt to London presently
    And whet on Warwick to this enterprise.
    Thou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk
    And tell him privily of our intent.
    You, Edward, shall unto my Lord Cobham,
    With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise;
    In them I trust, for they are soldiers,
    Witty, courteous, liberal, full of spirit.
    While you are thus employ'd, what resteth more
    But that I seek occasion how to rise,
    And yet the King not privy to my drift,
    Nor any of the house of Lancaster?

                      Enter a MESSENGER

    But, stay. What news? Why com'st thou in such post?
  MESSENGER. The Queen with all the northern earls and lords
    Intend here to besiege you in your castle.
    She is hard by with twenty thousand men;
    And therefore fortify your hold, my lord.
  YORK. Ay, with my sword. What! think'st thou that we fear them?
    Edward and Richard, you shall stay with me;
    My brother Montague shall post to London.
    Let noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,
    Whom we have left protectors of the King,
    With pow'rful policy strengthen themselves
    And trust not simple Henry nor his oaths.
  MONTAGUE. Brother, I go; I'll win them, fear it not.
    And thus most humbly I do take my leave.                Exit

              Enter SIR JOHN and SIR HUGH MORTIMER

  YORK. Sir john and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine uncles!
    You are come to Sandal in a happy hour;
    The army of the Queen mean to besiege us.
  SIR JOHN. She shall not need; we'll meet her in the field.
  YORK. What, with five thousand men?
  RICHARD. Ay, with five hundred, father, for a need.
    A woman's general; what should we fear?
                                              [A march afar off]
  EDWARD. I hear their drums. Let's set our men in order,
    And issue forth and bid them battle straight.
  YORK. Five men to twenty! Though the odds be great,
    I doubt not, uncle, of our victory.
    Many a battle have I won in France,
    When as the enemy hath been ten to one;
    Why should I not now have the like success?           Exeunt

SCENE III. Field of battle between Sandal Castle and Wakefield

Alarum. Enter RUTLAND and his TUTOR

  RUTLAND. Ah, whither shall I fly to scape their hands?
    Ah, tutor, look where bloody Clifford comes!

                  Enter CLIFFORD and soldiers

  CLIFFORD. Chaplain, away! Thy priesthood saves thy life.
    As for the brat of this accursed duke,
    Whose father slew my father, he shall die.
  TUTOR. And I, my lord, will bear him company.
  CLIFFORD. Soldiers, away with him!
  TUTOR. Ah, Clifford, murder not this innocent child,
    Lest thou be hated both of God and man.
                                    Exit, forced off by soldiers
  CLIFFORD. How now, is he dead already? Or is it fear
    That makes him close his eyes? I'll open them.
  RUTLAND. So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch
    That trembles under his devouring paws;
    And so he walks, insulting o'er his prey,
    And so he comes, to rend his limbs asunder.
    Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,
    And not with such a cruel threat'ning look!
    Sweet Clifford, hear me speak before I die.
    I am too mean a subject for thy wrath;
    Be thou reveng'd on men, and let me live.
  CLIFFORD. In vain thou speak'st, poor boy; my father's blood
    Hath stopp'd the passage where thy words should enter.
  RUTLAND. Then let my father's blood open it again:
    He is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him.
  CLIFFORD. Had I thy brethren here, their lives and thine
    Were not revenge sufficient for me;
    No, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves
    And hung their rotten coffins up in chains,
    It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart.
    The sight of any of the house of York
    Is as a fury to torment my soul;
    And till I root out their accursed line
    And leave not one alive, I live in hell.
    Therefore-
  RUTLAND. O, let me pray before I take my death!
    To thee I pray: sweet Clifford, pity me.
  CLIFFORD. Such pity as my rapier's point affords.
  RUTLAND. I never did thee harm; why wilt thou slay me?
  CLIFFORD. Thy father hath.
  RUTLAND. But 'twas ere I was born.
    Thou hast one son; for his sake pity me,
    Lest in revenge thereof, sith God is just,
    He be as miserably slain as I.
    Ah, let me live in prison all my days;
    And when I give occasion of offence
    Then let me die, for now thou hast no cause.
  CLIFFORD. No cause!
    Thy father slew my father; therefore, die.       [Stabs him]
  RUTLAND. Di faciant laudis summa sit ista tuae!         [Dies]
  CLIFFORD. Plantagenet, I come, Plantagenet;
    And this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade
    Shall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,
    Congeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both.          Exit

SCENE IV. Another part of the field

Alarum. Enter the DUKE OF YORK

  YORK. The army of the Queen hath got the field.
    My uncles both are slain in rescuing me;
    And all my followers to the eager foe
    Turn back and fly, like ships before the wind,
    Or lambs pursu'd by hunger-starved wolves.
    My sons- God knows what hath bechanced them;
    But this I know- they have demean'd themselves
    Like men born to renown by life or death.
    Three times did Richard make a lane to me,
    And thrice cried 'Courage, father! fight it out.'
    And full as oft came Edward to my side
    With purple falchion, painted to the hilt
    In blood of those that had encount'red him.
    And when the hardiest warriors did retire,
    Richard cried 'Charge, and give no foot of ground!'
    And cried 'A crown, or else a glorious tomb!
    A sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!'
    With this we charg'd again; but out alas!
    We bodg'd again; as I have seen a swan
    With bootless labour swim against the tide
    And spend her strength with over-matching waves.
                                         [A short alarum within]
    Ah, hark! The fatal followers do pursue,
    And I am faint and cannot fly their fury;
    And were I strong, I would not shun their fury.
    The sands are numb'red that make up my life;
    Here must I stay, and here my life must end.

         Enter QUEEN MARGARET, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,
               the PRINCE OF WALES, and soldiers

    Come, bloody Clifford, rough Northumberland,
    I dare your quenchless fury to more rage;
    I am your butt, and I abide your shot.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.
  CLIFFORD. Ay, to such mercy as his ruthless arm
    With downright payment show'd unto my father.
    Now Phaethon hath tumbled from his car,
    And made an evening at the noontide prick.
  YORK. My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth
    A bird that will revenge upon you all;
    And in that hope I throw mine eyes to heaven,
    Scorning whate'er you can afflict me with.
    Why come you not? What! multitudes, and fear?
  CLIFFORD. So cowards fight when they can fly no further;
    So doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons;
    So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,
    Breathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.
  YORK. O Clifford, but bethink thee once again,
    And in thy thought o'errun my former time;
    And, if thou canst for blushing, view this face,
    And bite thy tongue that slanders him with cowardice
    Whose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere this!
  CLIFFORD. I will not bandy with thee word for word,
    But buckler with thee blows, twice two for one.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Hold, valiant Clifford; for a thousand causes
    I would prolong awhile the traitor's life.
    Wrath makes him deaf; speak thou, Northumberland.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Hold, Clifford! do not honour him so much
    To prick thy finger, though to wound his heart.
    What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,
    For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,
    When he might spurn him with his foot away?
    It is war's prize to take all vantages;
    And ten to one is no impeach of valour.
                         [They lay hands on YORK, who struggles]
  CLIFFORD. Ay, ay, so strives the woodcock with the gin.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. So doth the cony struggle in the net.
  YORK. So triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty;
    So true men yield, with robbers so o'er-match'd.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. What would your Grace have done unto him now?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Brave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,
    Come, make him stand upon this molehill here
    That raught at mountains with outstretched arms,
    Yet parted but the shadow with his hand.
    What, was it you that would be England's king?
    Was't you that revell'd in our parliament
    And made a preachment of your high descent?
    Where are your mess of sons to back you now?
    The wanton Edward and the lusty George?
    And where's that valiant crook-back prodigy,
    Dicky your boy, that with his grumbling voice
    Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?
    Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?
    Look, York: I stain'd this napkin with the blood
    That valiant Clifford with his rapier's point
    Made issue from the bosom of the boy;
    And if thine eyes can water for his death,
    I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.
    Alas, poor York! but that I hate thee deadly,
    I should lament thy miserable state.
    I prithee grieve to make me merry, York.
    What, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails
    That not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?
    Why art thou patient, man? Thou shouldst be mad;
    And I to make thee mad do mock thee thus.
    Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.
    Thou wouldst be fee'd, I see, to make me sport;
    York cannot speak unless he wear a crown.
    A crown for York!-and, lords, bow low to him.
    Hold you his hands whilst I do set it on.
                             [Putting a paper crown on his head]
    Ay, marry, sir, now looks he like a king!
    Ay, this is he that took King Henry's chair,
    And this is he was his adopted heir.
    But how is it that great Plantagenet
    Is crown'd so soon and broke his solemn oath?
    As I bethink me, you should not be King
    Till our King Henry had shook hands with death.
    And will you pale your head in Henry's glory,
    And rob his temples of the diadem,
    Now in his life, against your holy oath?
    O, 'tis a fault too too
    Off with the crown and with the crown his head;
    And, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.
  CLIFFORD. That is my office, for my father's sake.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, stay; let's hear the orisons he makes.
  YORK. She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,
    Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth!
    How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex
    To triumph like an Amazonian trull
    Upon their woes whom fortune captivates!
    But that thy face is visard-like, unchanging,
    Made impudent with use of evil deeds,
    I would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush.
    To tell thee whence thou cam'st, of whom deriv'd,
    Were shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not shameless.
    Thy father bears the type of King of Naples,
    Of both the Sicils and Jerusalem,
    Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.
    Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?
    It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen;
    Unless the adage must be verified,
    That beggars mounted run their horse to death.
    'Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud;
    But, God He knows, thy share thereof is small.
    'Tis virtue that doth make them most admir'd;
    The contrary doth make thee wond'red at.
    'Tis government that makes them seem divine;
    The want thereof makes thee abominable.
    Thou art as opposite to every good
    As the Antipodes are unto us,
    Or as the south to the septentrion.
    O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide!
    How couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,
    To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,
    And yet be seen to bear a woman's face?
    Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible:
    Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.
    Bid'st thou me rage? Why, now thou hast thy wish;
    Wouldst have me weep? Why, now thou hast thy will;
    For raging wind blows up incessant showers,
    And when the rage allays, the rain begins.
    These tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies;
    And every drop cries vengeance for his death
    'Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee, false Frenchwoman.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Beshrew me, but his passions move me so
    That hardly can I check my eyes from tears.
  YORK. That face of his the hungry cannibals
    Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd with blood;
    But you are more inhuman, more inexorable-
    O, ten times more- than tigers of Hyrcania.
    See, ruthless queen, a hapless father's tears.
    This cloth thou dipp'dst in blood of my sweet boy,
    And I with tears do wash the blood away.
    Keep thou the napkin, and go boast of this;
    And if thou tell'st the heavy story right,
    Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears;
    Yea, even my foes will shed fast-falling tears
    And say 'Alas, it was a piteous deed!'
    There, take the crown, and with the crown my curse;
    And in thy need such comfort come to thee
    As now I reap at thy too cruel hand!
    Hard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world;
    My soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads!
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Had he been slaughter-man to all my kin,
    I should not for my life but weep with him,
    To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.
  QUEEN MARGARET. What, weeping-ripe, my Lord Northumberland?
    Think but upon the wrong he did us all,
    And that will quickly dry thy melting tears.
  CLIFFORD. Here's for my oath, here's for my father's death.
                                                  [Stabbing him]
  QUEEN MARGARET. And here's to right our gentle-hearted king.
                                                  [Stabbing him]
  YORK. Open Thy gate of mercy, gracious God!
    My soul flies through these wounds to seek out Thee.
                                                          [Dies]
  QUEEN MARGARET. Off with his head, and set it on York gates;
    So York may overlook the town of York.
                                                Flourish. Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. A plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire

A march. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and their power

  EDWARD. I wonder how our princely father scap'd,
    Or whether he be scap'd away or no
    From Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit.
    Had he been ta'en, we should have heard the news;
    Had he been slain, we should have heard the news;
    Or had he scap'd, methinks we should have heard
    The happy tidings of his good escape.
    How fares my brother? Why is he so sad?
  RICHARD. I cannot joy until I be resolv'd
    Where our right valiant father is become.
    I saw him in the battle range about,
    And watch'd him how he singled Clifford forth.
    Methought he bore him in the thickest troop
    As doth a lion in a herd of neat;
    Or as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs,
    Who having pinch'd a few and made them cry,
    The rest stand all aloof and bark at him.
    So far'd our father with his enemies;
    So fled his enemies my warlike father.
    Methinks 'tis prize enough to be his son.
    See how the morning opes her golden gates
    And takes her farewell of the glorious sun.
    How well resembles it the prime of youth,
    Trimm'd like a younker prancing to his love!
  EDWARD. Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?
  RICHARD. Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;
    Not separated with the racking clouds,
    But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.
    See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,
    As if they vow'd some league inviolable.
    Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.
    In this the heaven figures some event.
  EDWARD. 'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.
    I think it cites us, brother, to the field,
    That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,
    Each one already blazing by our meeds,
    Should notwithstanding join our lights together
    And overshine the earth, as this the world.
    Whate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear
    Upon my target three fair shining suns.
  RICHARD. Nay, bear three daughters- by your leave I speak it,
    You love the breeder better than the male.

                 Enter a MESSENGER, blowing

    But what art thou, whose heavy looks foretell
    Some dreadful story hanging on thy tongue?
  MESSENGER. Ah, one that was a woeful looker-on
    When as the noble Duke of York was slain,
    Your princely father and my loving lord!
  EDWARD. O, speak no more! for I have heard too much.
  RICHARD. Say how he died, for I will hear it all.
  MESSENGER. Environed he was with many foes,
    And stood against them as the hope of Troy
    Against the Greeks that would have ent'red Troy.
    But Hercules himself must yield to odds;
    And many strokes, though with a little axe,
    Hews down and fells the hardest-timber'd oak.
    By many hands your father was subdu'd;
    But only slaught'red by the ireful arm
    Of unrelenting Clifford and the Queen,
    Who crown'd the gracious Duke in high despite,
    Laugh'd in his face; and when with grief he wept,
    The ruthless Queen gave him to dry his cheeks
    A napkin steeped in the harmless blood
    Of sweet young Rutland, by rough Clifford slain;
    And after many scorns, many foul taunts,
    They took his head, and on the gates of York
    They set the same; and there it doth remain,
    The saddest spectacle that e'er I view'd.
  EDWARD. Sweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,
    Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.
    O Clifford, boist'rous Clifford, thou hast slain
    The flow'r of Europe for his chivalry;
    And treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him,
    For hand to hand he would have vanquish'd thee.
    Now my soul's palace is become a prison.
    Ah, would she break from hence, that this my body
    Might in the ground be closed up in rest!
    For never henceforth shall I joy again;
    Never, O never, shall I see more joy.
  RICHARD. I cannot weep, for all my body's moisture
    Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart;
    Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burden,
    For self-same wind that I should speak withal
    Is kindling coals that fires all my breast,
    And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.
    To weep is to make less the depth of grief.
    Tears then for babes; blows and revenge for me!
    Richard, I bear thy name; I'll venge thy death,
    Or die renowned by attempting it.
  EDWARD. His name that valiant duke hath left with thee;
    His dukedom and his chair with me is left.
  RICHARD. Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,
    Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun;
    For chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom, say:
    Either that is thine, or else thou wert not his.

         March. Enter WARWICK, MONTAGUE, and their army

  WARWICK. How now, fair lords! What fare? What news abroad?
  RICHARD. Great Lord of Warwick, if we should recount
    Our baleful news and at each word's deliverance
    Stab poinards in our flesh till all were told,
    The words would add more anguish than the wounds.
    O valiant lord, the Duke of York is slain!
  EDWARD. O Warwick, Warwick! that Plantagenet
    Which held thee dearly as his soul's redemption
    Is by the stern Lord Clifford done to death.
  WARWICK. Ten days ago I drown'd these news in tears;
    And now, to add more measure to your woes,
    I come to tell you things sith then befall'n.
    After the bloody fray at Wakefield fought,
    Where your brave father breath'd his latest gasp,
    Tidings, as swiftly as the posts could run,
    Were brought me of your loss and his depart.
    I, then in London, keeper of the King,
    Muster'd my soldiers, gathered flocks of friends,
    And very well appointed, as I thought,
    March'd toward Saint Albans to intercept the Queen,
    Bearing the King in my behalf along;
    For by my scouts I was advertised
    That she was coming with a full intent
    To dash our late decree in parliament
    Touching King Henry's oath and your succession.
    Short tale to make- we at Saint Albans met,
    Our battles join'd, and both sides fiercely fought;
    But whether 'twas the coldness of the King,
    Who look'd full gently on his warlike queen,
    That robb'd my soldiers of their heated spleen,
    Or whether 'twas report of her success,
    Or more than common fear of Clifford's rigour,
    Who thunders to his captives blood and death,
    I cannot judge; but, to conclude with truth,
    Their weapons like to lightning came and went:
    Our soldiers', like the night-owl's lazy flight
    Or like an idle thresher with a flail,
    Fell gently down, as if they struck their friends.
    I cheer'd them up with justice of our cause,
    With promise of high pay and great rewards,
    But all in vain; they had no heart to fight,
    And we in them no hope to win the day;
    So that we fled: the King unto the Queen;
    Lord George your brother, Norfolk, and myself,
    In haste post-haste are come to join with you;
    For in the marches here we heard you were
    Making another head to fight again.
  EDWARD. Where is the Duke of Norfolk, gentle Warwick?
    And when came George from Burgundy to England?
  WARWICK. Some six miles off the Duke is with the soldiers;
    And for your brother, he was lately sent
    From your kind aunt, Duchess of Burgundy,
    With aid of soldiers to this needful war.
  RICHARD. 'Twas odds, belike, when valiant Warwick fled.
    Oft have I heard his praises in pursuit,
    But ne'er till now his scandal of retire.
  WARWICK. Nor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear;
    For thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine
    Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head
    And wring the awful sceptre from his fist,
    Were he as famous and as bold in war
    As he is fam'd for mildness, peace, and prayer.
  RICHARD. I know it well, Lord Warwick; blame me not.
    'Tis love I bear thy glories makes me speak.
    But in this troublous time what's to be done?
    Shall we go throw away our coats of steel
    And wrap our bodies in black mourning-gowns,
    Numbering our Ave-Maries with our beads?
    Or shall we on the helmets of our foes
    Tell our devotion with revengeful arms?
    If for the last, say 'Ay,' and to it, lords.
  WARWICK. Why, therefore Warwick came to seek you out;
    And therefore comes my brother Montague.
    Attend me, lords. The proud insulting Queen,
    With Clifford and the haught Northumberland,
    And of their feather many moe proud birds,
    Have wrought the easy-melting King like wax.
    He swore consent to your succession,
    His oath enrolled in the parliament;
    And now to London all the crew are gone
    To frustrate both his oath and what beside
    May make against the house of Lancaster.
    Their power, I think, is thirty thousand strong.
    Now if the help of Norfolk and myself,
    With all the friends that thou, brave Earl of March,
    Amongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,
    Will but amount to five and twenty thousand,
    Why, Via! to London will we march amain,
    And once again bestride our foaming steeds,
    And once again cry 'Charge upon our foes!'
    But never once again turn back and fly.
  RICHARD. Ay, now methinks I hear great Warwick speak.
    Ne'er may he live to see a sunshine day
    That cries 'Retire!' if Warwick bid him stay.
  EDWARD. Lord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I lean;
    And when thou fail'st- as God forbid the hour!-
    Must Edward fall, which peril heaven forfend.
  WARWICK. No longer Earl of March, but Duke of York;
    The next degree is England's royal throne,
    For King of England shalt thou be proclaim'd
    In every borough as we pass along;
    And he that throws not up his cap for joy
    Shall for the fault make forfeit of his head.
    King Edward, valiant Richard, Montague,
    Stay we no longer, dreaming of renown,
    But sound the trumpets and about our task.
  RICHARD. Then, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel,
    As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,
    I come to pierce it or to give thee mine.
  EDWARD. Then strike up drums. God and Saint George for us!

                       Enter a MESSENGER

  WARWICK. How now! what news?
  MESSENGER. The Duke of Norfolk sends you word by me
    The Queen is coming with a puissant host,
    And craves your company for speedy counsel.
  WARWICK. Why, then it sorts; brave warriors, let's away.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Before York

Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, QUEEN MARGARET, the PRINCE OF WALES,
CLIFFORD,
NORTHUMBERLAND, with drum and trumpets

  QUEEN MARGARET. Welcome, my lord, to this brave town of York.
    Yonder's the head of that arch-enemy
    That sought to be encompass'd with your crown.
    Doth not the object cheer your heart, my lord?
  KING HENRY. Ay, as the rocks cheer them that fear their wreck-
    To see this sight, it irks my very soul.
    Withhold revenge, dear God; 'tis not my fault,
    Nor wittingly have I infring'd my vow.
  CLIFFORD. My gracious liege, this too much lenity
    And harmful pity must be laid aside.
    To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?
    Not to the beast that would usurp their den.
    Whose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?
    Not his that spoils her young before her face.
    Who scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?
    Not he that sets his foot upon her back,
    The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on,
    And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.
    Ambitious York did level at thy crown,
    Thou smiling while he knit his angry brows.
    He, but a Duke, would have his son a king,
    And raise his issue like a loving sire:
    Thou, being a king, bless'd with a goodly son,
    Didst yield consent to disinherit him,
    Which argued thee a most unloving father.
    Unreasonable creatures feed their young;
    And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,
    Yet, in protection of their tender ones,
    Who hath not seen them- even with those wings
    Which sometime they have us'd with fearful flight-
    Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest,
    Offering their own lives in their young's defence
    For shame, my liege, make them your precedent!
    Were it not pity that this goodly boy
    Should lose his birthright by his father's fault,
    And long hereafter say unto his child
    'What my great-grandfather and grandsire got
    My careless father fondly gave away'?
    Ah, what a shame were this! Look on the boy;
    And let his manly face, which promiseth
    Successful fortune, steel thy melting heart
    To hold thine own and leave thine own with him.
  KING HENRY. Full well hath Clifford play'd the orator,
    Inferring arguments of mighty force.
    But, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear
    That things ill got had ever bad success?
    And happy always was it for that son
    Whose father for his hoarding went to hell?
    I'll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind;
    And would my father had left me no more!
    For all the rest is held at such a rate
    As brings a thousand-fold more care to keep
    Than in possession any jot of pleasure.
    Ah, cousin York! would thy best friends did know
    How it doth grieve me that thy head is here!
  QUEEN MARGARET. My lord, cheer up your spirits; our foes are nigh,
    And this soft courage makes your followers faint.
    You promis'd knighthood to our forward son:
    Unsheathe your sword and dub him presently.
    Edward, kneel down.
  KING HENRY. Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight;
    And learn this lesson: Draw thy sword in right.
  PRINCE OF WALES. My gracious father, by your kingly leave,
    I'll draw it as apparent to the crown,
    And in that quarrel use it to the death.
  CLIFFORD. Why, that is spoken like a toward prince.

                      Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Royal commanders, be in readiness;
    For with a band of thirty thousand men
    Comes Warwick, backing of the Duke of York,
    And in the towns, as they do march along,
    Proclaims him king, and many fly to him.
    Darraign your battle, for they are at hand.
  CLIFFORD. I would your Highness would depart the field:
    The Queen hath best success when you are absent.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, good my lord, and leave us to our fortune.
  KING HENRY. Why, that's my fortune too; therefore I'll stay.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be it with resolution, then, to fight.
  PRINCE OF WALES. My royal father, cheer these noble lords,
    And hearten those that fight in your defence.
    Unsheathe your sword, good father; cry 'Saint George!'

         March. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD, WARWICK,
                NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, and soldiers

  EDWARD. Now, perjur'd Henry, wilt thou kneel for grace
    And set thy diadem upon my head,
    Or bide the mortal fortune of the field?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Go rate thy minions, proud insulting boy.
    Becomes it thee to be thus bold in terms
    Before thy sovereign and thy lawful king?
  EDWARD. I am his king, and he should bow his knee.
    I was adopted heir by his consent:
    Since when, his oath is broke; for, as I hear,
    You that are King, though he do wear the crown,
    Have caus'd him by new act of parliament
    To blot out me and put his own son in.
  CLIFFORD. And reason too:
    Who should succeed the father but the son?
  RICHARD. Are you there, butcher? O, I cannot speak!
  CLIFFORD. Ay, crook-back, here I stand to answer thee,
    Or any he, the proudest of thy sort.
  RICHARD. 'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was it not?
  CLIFFORD. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied.
  RICHARD. For God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight.
  WARWICK. What say'st thou, Henry? Wilt thou yield the crown?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, how now, long-tongu'd Warwick! Dare you speak?
    When you and I met at Saint Albans last
    Your legs did better service than your hands.
  WARWICK. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis thine.
  CLIFFORD. You said so much before, and yet you fled.
  WARWICK. 'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. No, nor your manhood that durst make you stay.
  RICHARD. Northumberland, I hold thee reverently.
    Break off the parley; for scarce I can refrain
    The execution of my big-swol'n heart
    Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.
  CLIFFORD. I slew thy father; call'st thou him a child?
  RICHARD. Ay, like a dastard and a treacherous coward,
    As thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland;
    But ere sunset I'll make thee curse the deed.
  KING HENRY. Have done with words, my lords, and hear me speak.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Defy them then, or else hold close thy lips.
  KING HENRY. I prithee give no limits to my tongue:
    I am a king, and privileg'd to speak.
  CLIFFORD. My liege, the wound that bred this meeting here
    Cannot be cur'd by words; therefore be still.
  RICHARD. Then, executioner, unsheathe thy sword.
    By Him that made us all, I am resolv'd
    That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.
  EDWARD. Say, Henry, shall I have my right, or no?
    A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day
    That ne'er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.
  WARWICK. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head;
    For York in justice puts his armour on.
  PRINCE OF WALES. If that be right which Warwick says is right,
    There is no wrong, but every thing is right.
  RICHARD. Whoever got thee, there thy mother stands;
    For well I wot thou hast thy mother's tongue.
  QUEEN MARGARET. But thou art neither like thy sire nor dam;
    But like a foul misshapen stigmatic,
    Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided,
    As venom toads or lizards' dreadful stings.
  RICHARD. Iron of Naples hid with English gilt,
    Whose father bears the title of a king-
    As if a channel should be call'd the sea-
    Sham'st thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,
    To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?
  EDWARD. A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns
    To make this shameless callet know herself.
    Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,
    Although thy husband may be Menelaus;
    And ne'er was Agamemmon's brother wrong'd
    By that false woman as this king by thee.
    His father revell'd in the heart of France,
    And tam'd the King, and made the Dauphin stoop;
    And had he match'd according to his state,
    He might have kept that glory to this day;
    But when he took a beggar to his bed
    And grac'd thy poor sire with his bridal day,
    Even then that sunshine brew'd a show'r for him
    That wash'd his father's fortunes forth of France
    And heap'd sedition on his crown at home.
    For what hath broach'd this tumult but thy pride?
    Hadst thou been meek, our title still had slept;
    And we, in pity of the gentle King,
    Had slipp'd our claim until another age.
  GEORGE. But when we saw our sunshine made thy spring,
    And that thy summer bred us no increase,
    We set the axe to thy usurping root;
    And though the edge hath something hit ourselves,
    Yet know thou, since we have begun to strike,
    We'll never leave till we have hewn thee down,
    Or bath'd thy growing with our heated bloods.
  EDWARD. And in this resolution I defy thee;
    Not willing any longer conference,
    Since thou deniest the gentle King to speak.
    Sound trumpets; let our bloody colours wave,
    And either victory or else a grave!
  QUEEN MARGARET. Stay, Edward.
  EDWARD. No, wrangling woman, we'll no longer stay;
    These words will cost ten thousand lives this day.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE III. A field of battle between Towton and Saxton, in Yorkshire

Alarum; excursions. Enter WARWICK

  WARWICK. Forspent with toil, as runners with a race,
    I lay me down a little while to breathe;
    For strokes receiv'd and many blows repaid
    Have robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,
    And spite of spite needs must I rest awhile.

                     Enter EDWARD, running

  EDWARD. Smile, gentle heaven, or strike, ungentle death;
    For this world frowns, and Edward's sun is clouded.
  WARWICK. How now, my lord. What hap? What hope of good?

                         Enter GEORGE

  GEORGE. Our hap is lost, our hope but sad despair;
    Our ranks are broke, and ruin follows us.
    What counsel give you? Whither shall we fly?
  EDWARD. Bootless is flight: they follow us with wings;
    And weak we are, and cannot shun pursuit.

                         Enter RICHARD

  RICHARD. Ah, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself?
    Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,
    Broach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance;
    And in the very pangs of death he cried,
    Like to a dismal clangor heard from far,
    'Warwick, revenge! Brother, revenge my death.'
    So, underneath the belly of their steeds,
    That stain'd their fetlocks in his smoking blood,
    The noble gentleman gave up the ghost.
  WARWICK. Then let the earth be drunken with our blood.
    I'll kill my horse, because I will not fly.
    Why stand we like soft-hearted women here,
    Wailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage,
    And look upon, as if the tragedy
    Were play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors?
    Here on my knee I vow to God above
    I'll never pause again, never stand still,
    Till either death hath clos'd these eyes of mine
    Or fortune given me measure of revenge.
  EDWARD. O Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine,
    And in this vow do chain my soul to thine!
    And ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face
    I throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to Thee,
    Thou setter-up and plucker-down of kings,
    Beseeching Thee, if with Thy will it stands
    That to my foes this body must be prey,
    Yet that Thy brazen gates of heaven may ope
    And give sweet passage to my sinful soul.
    Now, lords, take leave until we meet again,
    Where'er it be, in heaven or in earth.
  RICHARD. Brother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Warwick,
    Let me embrace thee in my weary arms.
    I that did never weep now melt with woe
    That winter should cut off our spring-time so.
  WARWICK. Away, away! Once more, sweet lords, farewell.
  GEORGE. Yet let us all together to our troops,
    And give them leave to fly that will not stay,
    And call them pillars that will stand to us;
    And if we thrive, promise them such rewards
    As victors wear at the Olympian games.
    This may plant courage in their quailing breasts,
    For yet is hope of life and victory.
    Forslow no longer; make we hence amain.               Exeunt

SCENE IV. Another part of the field

Excursions. Enter RICHARD and CLIFFORD

  RICHARD. Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone.
    Suppose this arm is for the Duke of York,
    And this for Rutland; both bound to revenge,
    Wert thou environ'd with a brazen wall.
  CLIFFORD. Now, Richard, I am with thee here alone.
    This is the hand that stabbed thy father York;
    And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland;
    And here's the heart that triumphs in their death
    And cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother
    To execute the like upon thyself;
    And so, have at thee!                           [They fight]

                 Enter WARWICK; CLIFFORD flies

  RICHARD. Nay, Warwick, single out some other chase;
    For I myself will hunt this wolf to death.            Exeunt

SCENE V. Another part of the field

Alarum. Enter KING HENRY alone

  KING HENRY. This battle fares like to the morning's war,
    When dying clouds contend with growing light,
    What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
    Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
    Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea
    Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind;
    Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea
    Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind.
    Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;
    Now one the better, then another best;
    Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
    Yet neither conqueror nor conquered.
    So is the equal poise of this fell war.
    Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
    To whom God will, there be the victory!
    For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,
    Have chid me from the battle, swearing both
    They prosper best of all when I am thence.
    Would I were dead, if God's good will were so!
    For what is in this world but grief and woe?
    O God! methinks it were a happy life
    To be no better than a homely swain;
    To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
    To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
    Thereby to see the minutes how they run-
    How many makes the hour full complete,
    How many hours brings about the day,
    How many days will finish up the year,
    How many years a mortal man may live.
    When this is known, then to divide the times-
    So many hours must I tend my flock;
    So many hours must I take my rest;
    So many hours must I contemplate;
    So many hours must I sport myself;
    So many days my ewes have been with young;
    So many weeks ere the poor fools will can;
    So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
    So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
    Pass'd over to the end they were created,
    Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
    Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
    Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
    To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
    Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
    To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
    O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
    And to conclude: the shepherd's homely curds,
    His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
    His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
    All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
    Is far beyond a prince's delicates-
    His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
    His body couched in a curious bed,
    When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.

       Alarum. Enter a son that hath kill'd his Father, at
       one door; and a FATHER that hath kill'd his Son, at
                         another door

  SON. Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.
    This man whom hand to hand I slew in fight
    May be possessed with some store of crowns;
    And I, that haply take them from him now,
    May yet ere night yield both my life and them
    To some man else, as this dead man doth me.
    Who's this? O God! It is my father's face,
    Whom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd.
    O heavy times, begetting such events!
    From London by the King was I press'd forth;
    My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,
    Came on the part of York, press'd by his master;
    And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life,
    Have by my hands of life bereaved him.
    Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did.
    And pardon, father, for I knew not thee.
    My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks;
    And no more words till they have flow'd their fill.
  KING HENRY. O piteous spectacle! O bloody times!
    Whiles lions war and battle for their dens,
    Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.
    Weep, wretched man; I'll aid thee tear for tear;
    And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,
    Be blind with tears and break o'ercharg'd with grief.

               Enter FATHER, bearing of his SON

  FATHER. Thou that so stoutly hath resisted me,
    Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold;
    For I have bought it with an hundred blows.
    But let me see. Is this our foeman's face?
    Ah, no, no, no, no, it is mine only son!
    Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,
    Throw up thine eye! See, see what show'rs arise,
    Blown with the windy tempest of my heart
    Upon thy wounds, that kills mine eye and heart!
    O, pity, God, this miserable age!
    What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,
    Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,
    This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!
    O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,
    And hath bereft thee of thy life too late!
  KING HENRY. Woe above woe! grief more than common grief!
    O that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!
    O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!
    The red rose and the white are on his face,
    The fatal colours of our striving houses:
    The one his purple blood right well resembles;
    The other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth.
    Wither one rose, and let the other flourish!
    If you contend, a thousand lives must perish.
  SON. How will my mother for a father's death
    Take on with me, and ne'er be satisfied!
  FATHER. How will my wife for slaughter of my son
    Shed seas of tears, and ne'er be satisfied!
  KING HENRY. How will the country for these woeful chances
    Misthink the King, and not be satisfied!
  SON. Was ever son so rued a father's death?
  FATHER. Was ever father so bemoan'd his son?
  KING HENRY. Was ever king so griev'd for subjects' woe?
    Much is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.
  SON. I'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.
                                              Exit with the body
  FATHER. These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;
    My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,
    For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go;
    My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;
    And so obsequious will thy father be,
    Even for the loss of thee, having no more,
    As Priam was for all his valiant sons.
    I'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,
    For I have murdered where I should not kill.
                                              Exit with the body
  KING HENRY. Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,
    Here sits a king more woeful than you are.

           Alarums, excursions. Enter QUEEN MARGARET,
                  PRINCE OF WALES, and EXETER

  PRINCE OF WALES. Fly, father, fly; for all your friends are fled,
    And Warwick rages like a chafed bull.
    Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Mount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain.
    Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds
    Having the fearful flying hare in sight,
    With fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath,
    And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,
    Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.
  EXETER. Away! for vengeance comes along with them.
    Nay, stay not to expostulate; make speed;
    Or else come after. I'll away before.
  KING HENRY. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter.
    Not that I fear to stay, but love to go
    Whither the Queen intends. Forward; away!             Exeunt

SCENE VI. Another part of the field

A loud alarum. Enter CLIFFORD, wounded

  CLIFFORD. Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,
    Which, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.
    O Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow
    More than my body's parting with my soul!
    My love and fear glu'd many friends to thee;
    And, now I fall, thy tough commixture melts,
    Impairing Henry, strength'ning misproud York.
    The common people swarm like summer flies;
    And whither fly the gnats but to the sun?
    And who shines now but Henry's enemies?
    O Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent
    That Phaethon should check thy fiery steeds,
    Thy burning car never had scorch'd the earth!
    And, Henry, hadst thou sway'd as kings should do,
    Or as thy father and his father did,
    Giving no ground unto the house of York,
    They never then had sprung like summer flies;
    I and ten thousand in this luckless realm
    Had left no mourning widows for our death;
    And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.
    For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?
    And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?
    Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds.
    No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight.
    The foe is merciless and will not pity;
    For at their hands I have deserv'd no pity.
    The air hath got into my deadly wounds,
    And much effuse of blood doth make me faint.
    Come, York and Richard, Warwick and the rest;
    I stabb'd your fathers' bosoms: split my breast.
                                                     [He faints]

       Alarum and retreat. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD
               MONTAGUE, WARWICK, and soldiers

  EDWARD. Now breathe we, lords. Good fortune bids us pause
    And smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.
    Some troops pursue the bloody-minded Queen
    That led calm Henry, though he were a king,
    As doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust,
    Command an argosy to stern the waves.
    But think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them?
  WARWICK. No, 'tis impossible he should escape;
    For, though before his face I speak the words,
    Your brother Richard mark'd him for the grave;
    And, whereso'er he is, he's surely dead.
                                     [CLIFFORD groans, and dies]
  RICHARD. Whose soul is that which takes her heavy leave?
    A deadly groan, like life and death's departing.
    See who it is.
  EDWARD. And now the battle's ended,
    If friend or foe, let him be gently used.
  RICHARD. Revoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis Clifford;
    Who not contented that he lopp'd the branch
    In hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth,
    But set his murd'ring knife unto the root
    From whence that tender spray did sweetly spring-
    I mean our princely father, Duke of York.
  WARWICK. From off the gates of York fetch down the head,
    Your father's head, which Clifford placed there;
    Instead whereof let this supply the room.
    Measure for measure must be answered.
  EDWARD. Bring forth that fatal screech-owl to our house,
    That nothing sung but death to us and ours.
    Now death shall stop his dismal threat'ning sound,
    And his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.
  WARWICK. I think his understanding is bereft.
    Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?
    Dark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life,
    And he nor sees nor hears us what we say.
  RICHARD. O, would he did! and so, perhaps, he doth.
    'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,
    Because he would avoid such bitter taunts
    Which in the time of death he gave our father.
  GEORGE. If so thou think'st, vex him with eager words.
  RICHARD. Clifford, ask mercy and obtain no grace.
  EDWARD. Clifford, repent in bootless penitence.
  WARWICK. Clifford, devise excuses for thy faults.
  GEORGE. While we devise fell tortures for thy faults.
  RICHARD. Thou didst love York, and I am son to York.
  EDWARD. Thou pitied'st Rutland, I will pity thee.
  GEORGE. Where's Captain Margaret, to fence you now?
  WARWICK. They mock thee, Clifford; swear as thou wast wont.
  RICHARD. What, not an oath? Nay, then the world goes hard
    When Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.
    I know by that he's dead; and by my soul,
    If this right hand would buy two hours' life,
    That I in all despite might rail at him,
    This hand should chop it off, and with the issuing blood
    Stifle the villain whose unstanched thirst
    York and young Rutland could not satisfy.
  WARWICK. Ay, but he's dead. Off with the traitor's head,
    And rear it in the place your father's stands.
    And now to London with triumphant march,
    There to be crowned England's royal King;
    From whence shall Warwick cut the sea to France,
    And ask the Lady Bona for thy queen.
    So shalt thou sinew both these lands together;
    And, having France thy friend, thou shalt not dread
    The scatt'red foe that hopes to rise again;
    For though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,
    Yet look to have them buzz to offend thine ears.
    First will I see the coronation;
    And then to Brittany I'll cross the sea
    To effect this marriage, so it please my lord.
  EDWARD. Even as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it be;
    For in thy shoulder do I build my seat,
    And never will I undertake the thing
    Wherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.
    Richard, I will create thee Duke of Gloucester;
    And George, of Clarence; Warwick, as ourself,
    Shall do and undo as him pleaseth best.
  RICHARD. Let me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester;
    For Gloucester's dukedom is too ominous.
  WARWICK. Tut, that's a foolish observation.
    Richard, be Duke of Gloucester. Now to London
    To see these honours in possession.                   Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. A chase in the north of England

Enter two KEEPERS, with cross-bows in their hands

  FIRST KEEPER. Under this thick-grown brake we'll shroud ourselves,
    For through this laund anon the deer will come;
    And in this covert will we make our stand,
    Culling the principal of all the deer.
  SECOND KEEPER. I'll stay above the hill, so both may shoot.
  FIRST KEEPER. That cannot be; the noise of thy cross-bow
    Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.
    Here stand we both, and aim we at the best;
    And, for the time shall not seem tedious,
    I'll tell thee what befell me on a day
    In this self-place where now we mean to stand.
  SECOND KEEPER. Here comes a man; let's stay till he be past.

        Enter KING HENRY, disguised, with a prayer-book

  KING HENRY. From Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love,
    To greet mine own land with my wishful sight.
    No, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine;
    Thy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,
    Thy balm wash'd off wherewith thou wast anointed.
    No bending knee will call thee Caesar now,
    No humble suitors press to speak for right,
    No, not a man comes for redress of thee;
    For how can I help them and not myself?
  FIRST KEEPER. Ay, here's a deer whose skin's a keeper's fee.
    This is the quondam King; let's seize upon him.
  KING HENRY. Let me embrace thee, sour adversity,
    For wise men say it is the wisest course.
  SECOND KEEPER. Why linger we? let us lay hands upon him.
  FIRST KEEPER. Forbear awhile; we'll hear a little more.
  KING HENRY. My Queen and son are gone to France for aid;
    And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick
    Is thither gone to crave the French King's sister
    To wife for Edward. If this news be true,
    Poor queen and son, your labour is but lost;
    For Warwick is a subtle orator,
    And Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.
    By this account, then, Margaret may win him;
    For she's a woman to be pitied much.
    Her sighs will make a batt'ry in his breast;
    Her tears will pierce into a marble heart;
    The tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;
    And Nero will be tainted with remorse
    To hear and see her plaints, her brinish tears.
    Ay, but she's come to beg: Warwick, to give.
    She, on his left side, craving aid for Henry:
    He, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.
    She weeps, and says her Henry is depos'd:
    He smiles, and says his Edward is install'd;
    That she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no more;
    Whiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the wrong,
    Inferreth arguments of mighty strength,
    And in conclusion wins the King from her
    With promise of his sister, and what else,
    To strengthen and support King Edward's place.
    O Margaret, thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul,
    Art then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn!
  SECOND KEEPER. Say, what art thou that talk'st of kings and queens?
  KING HENRY. More than I seem, and less than I was born to:
    A man at least, for less I should not be;
    And men may talk of kings, and why not I?
  SECOND KEEPER. Ay, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king.
  KING HENRY. Why, so I am- in mind; and that's enough.
  SECOND KEEPER. But, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?
  KING HENRY. My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
    Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,
    Not to be seen. My crown is call'd content;
    A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.
  SECOND KEEPER. Well, if you be a king crown'd with content,
    Your crown content and you must be contented
    To go along with us; for as we think,
    You are the king King Edward hath depos'd;
    And we his subjects, sworn in all allegiance,
    Will apprehend you as his enemy.
  KING HENRY. But did you never swear, and break an oath?
  SECOND KEEPER. No, never such an oath; nor will not now.
  KING HENRY. Where did you dwell when I was King of England?
  SECOND KEEPER. Here in this country, where we now remain.
  KING HENRY. I was anointed king at nine months old;
    My father and my grandfather were kings;
    And you were sworn true subjects unto me;
    And tell me, then, have you not broke your oaths?
  FIRST KEEPER. No;
    For we were subjects but while you were king.
  KING HENRY. Why, am I dead? Do I not breathe a man?
    Ah, simple men, you know not what you swear!
    Look, as I blow this feather from my face,
    And as the air blows it to me again,
    Obeying with my wind when I do blow,
    And yielding to another when it blows,
    Commanded always by the greater gust,
    Such is the lightness of you common men.
    But do not break your oaths; for of that sin
    My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.
    Go where you will, the King shall be commanded;
    And be you kings: command, and I'll obey.
  FIRST KEEPER. We are true subjects to the King, King Edward.
  KING HENRY. So would you be again to Henry,
    If he were seated as King Edward is.
  FIRST KEEPER. We charge you, in God's name and the King's,
    To go with us unto the officers.
  KING HENRY. In God's name, lead; your King's name be obey'd;
    And what God will, that let your King perform;
    And what he will, I humbly yield unto.                Exeunt

SCENE II. London. The palace

Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and LADY GREY

  KING EDWARD. Brother of Gloucester, at Saint Albans' field
    This lady's husband, Sir Richard Grey, was slain,
    His land then seiz'd on by the conqueror.
    Her suit is now to repossess those lands;
    Which we in justice cannot well deny,
    Because in quarrel of the house of York
    The worthy gentleman did lose his life.
  GLOUCESTER. Your Highness shall do well to grant her suit;
    It were dishonour to deny it her.
  KING EDWARD. It were no less; but yet I'll make a pause.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Yea, is it so?
    I see the lady hath a thing to grant,
    Before the King will grant her humble suit.
  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] He knows the game; how true he
    keeps the wind!
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Silence!
  KING EDWARD. Widow, we will consider of your suit;
    And come some other time to know our mind.
  LADY GREY. Right gracious lord, I cannot brook delay.
    May it please your Highness to resolve me now;
    And what your pleasure is shall satisfy me.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, widow? Then I'll warrant you all your
      lands,
    An if what pleases him shall pleasure you.
    Fight closer or, good faith, you'll catch a blow.
  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I fear her not, unless she chance
    to fall.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] God forbid that, for he'll take
    vantages.
  KING EDWARD. How many children hast thou, widow, tell me.
  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I think he means to beg a child of
    her.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Nay, then whip me; he'll rather
    give her two.
  LADY GREY. Three, my most gracious lord.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] You shall have four if you'll be rul'd by him.
  KING EDWARD. 'Twere pity they should lose their father's lands.
  LADY GREY. Be pitiful, dread lord, and grant it, then.
  KING EDWARD. Lords, give us leave; I'll try this widow's wit.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, good leave have you; for you will have
      leave
    Till youth take leave and leave you to the crutch.
                              [GLOUCESTER and CLARENCE withdraw]
  KING EDWARD. Now tell me, madam, do you love your children?
  LADY GREY. Ay, full as dearly as I love myself.
  KING EDWARD. And would you not do much to do them good?
  LADY GREY. To do them good I would sustain some harm.
  KING EDWARD. Then get your husband's lands, to do them good.
  LADY GREY. Therefore I came unto your Majesty.
  KING EDWARD. I'll tell you how these lands are to be got.
  LADY GREY. So shall you bind me to your Highness' service.
  KING EDWARD. What service wilt thou do me if I give them?
  LADY GREY. What you command that rests in me to do.
  KING EDWARD. But you will take exceptions to my boon.
  LADY GREY. No, gracious lord, except I cannot do it.
  KING EDWARD. Ay, but thou canst do what I mean to ask.
  LADY GREY. Why, then I will do what your Grace commands.
  GLOUCESTER. He plies her hard; and much rain wears the marble.
  CLARENCE. As red as fire! Nay, then her wax must melt.
  LADY GREY. Why stops my lord? Shall I not hear my task?
  KING EDWARD. An easy task; 'tis but to love a king.
  LADY GREY. That's soon perform'd, because I am a subject.
  KING EDWARD. Why, then, thy husband's lands I freely give thee.
  LADY GREY. I take my leave with many thousand thanks.
  GLOUCESTER. The match is made; she seals it with a curtsy.
  KING EDWARD. But stay thee- 'tis the fruits of love I mean.
  LADY GREY. The fruits of love I mean, my loving liege.
  KING EDWARD. Ay, but, I fear me, in another sense.
    What love, thinkst thou, I sue so much to get?
  LADY GREY. My love till death, my humble thanks, my prayers;
    That love which virtue begs and virtue grants.
  KING EDWARD. No, by my troth, I did not mean such love.
  LADY GREY. Why, then you mean not as I thought you did.
  KING EDWARD. But now you partly may perceive my mind.
  LADY GREY. My mind will never grant what I perceive
    Your Highness aims at, if I aim aright.
  KING EDWARD. To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.
  LADY GREY. To tell you plain, I had rather lie in prison.
  KING EDWARD. Why, then thou shalt not have thy husband's lands.
  LADY GREY. Why, then mine honesty shall be my dower;
    For by that loss I will not purchase them.
  KING EDWARD. Therein thou wrong'st thy children mightily.
  LADY GREY. Herein your Highness wrongs both them and me.
    But, mighty lord, this merry inclination
    Accords not with the sadness of my suit.
    Please you dismiss me, either with ay or no.
  KING EDWARD. Ay, if thou wilt say ay to my request;
    No, if thou dost say no to my demand.
  LADY GREY. Then, no, my lord. My suit is at an end.
  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes him not; she knits her brows.
  CLARENCE. He is the bluntest wooer in Christendom.
  KING EDWARD. [Aside] Her looks doth argue her replete with modesty;
    Her words doth show her wit incomparable;
    All her perfections challenge sovereignty.
    One way or other, she is for a king;
    And she shall be my love, or else my queen.
    Say that King Edward take thee for his queen?
  LADY GREY. 'Tis better said than done, my gracious lord.
    I am a subject fit to jest withal,
    But far unfit to be a sovereign.
  KING EDWARD. Sweet widow, by my state I swear to thee
    I speak no more than what my soul intends;
    And that is to enjoy thee for my love.
  LADY GREY. And that is more than I will yield unto.
    I know I am too mean to be your queen,
    And yet too good to be your concubine.
  KING EDWARD. You cavil, widow; I did mean my queen.
  LADY GREY. 'Twill grieve your Grace my sons should call you father.
  KING EDWARD.No more than when my daughters call thee mother.
    Thou art a widow, and thou hast some children;
    And, by God's Mother, I, being but a bachelor,
    Have other some. Why, 'tis a happy thing
    To be the father unto many sons.
    Answer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.
  GLOUCESTER. The ghostly father now hath done his shrift.
  CLARENCE. When he was made a shriver, 'twas for shrift.
  KING EDWARD. Brothers, you muse what chat we two have had.
  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes it not, for she looks very sad.
  KING EDWARD. You'd think it strange if I should marry her.
  CLARENCE. To who, my lord?
  KING EDWARD. Why, Clarence, to myself.
  GLOUCESTER. That would be ten days' wonder at the least.
  CLARENCE. That's a day longer than a wonder lasts.
  GLOUCESTER. By so much is the wonder in extremes.
  KING EDWARD. Well, jest on, brothers; I can tell you both
    Her suit is granted for her husband's lands.

                       Enter a NOBLEMAN

  NOBLEMAN. My gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken
    And brought your prisoner to your palace gate.
  KING EDWARD. See that he be convey'd unto the Tower.
    And go we, brothers, to the man that took him
    To question of his apprehension.
    Widow, go you along. Lords, use her honourably.
                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, Edward will use women honourably.
    Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,
    That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring
    To cross me from the golden time I look for!
    And yet, between my soul's desire and me-
    The lustful Edward's title buried-
    Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,
    And all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,
    To take their rooms ere I can place myself.
    A cold premeditation for my purpose!
    Why, then I do but dream on sovereignty;
    Like one that stands upon a promontory
    And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,
    Wishing his foot were equal with his eye;
    And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,
    Saying he'll lade it dry to have his way-
    So do I wish the crown, being so far off;
    And so I chide the means that keeps me from it;
    And so I say I'll cut the causes off,
    Flattering me with impossibilities.
    My eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,
    Unless my hand and strength could equal them.
    Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard;
    What other pleasure can the world afford?
    I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap,
    And deck my body in gay ornaments,
    And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.
    O miserable thought! and more unlikely
    Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns.
    Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb;
    And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
    She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe
    To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub
    To make an envious mountain on my back,
    Where sits deformity to mock my body;
    To shape my legs of an unequal size;
    To disproportion me in every part,
    Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp
    That carries no impression like the dam.
    And am I, then, a man to be belov'd?
    O monstrous fault to harbour such a thought!
    Then, since this earth affords no joy to me
    But to command, to check, to o'erbear such
    As are of better person than myself,
    I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,
    And whiles I live t' account this world but hell,
    Until my misshap'd trunk that bear this head
    Be round impaled with a glorious crown.
    And yet I know not how to get the crown,
    For many lives stand between me and home;
    And I- like one lost in a thorny wood
    That rents the thorns and is rent with the thorns,
    Seeking a way and straying from the way
    Not knowing how to find the open air,
    But toiling desperately to find it out-
    Torment myself to catch the English crown;
    And from that torment I will free myself
    Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.
    Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
    And cry 'Content!' to that which grieves my heart,
    And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
    And frame my face to all occasions.
    I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;
    I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
    I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
    Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,
    And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.
    I can add colours to the chameleon,
    Change shapes with Protheus for advantages,
    And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
    Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
    Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.           Exit

SCENE III. France.  The KING'S palace

Flourish.  Enter LEWIS the French King, his sister BONA, his Admiral
call'd BOURBON; PRINCE EDWARD, QUEEN MARGARET, and the EARL of OXFORD. 
LEWIS sits, and riseth up again

  LEWIS. Fair Queen of England, worthy Margaret,
    Sit down with us. It ill befits thy state
    And birth that thou shouldst stand while Lewis doth sit.
  QUEEN MARGARET. No, mighty King of France. Now Margaret
    Must strike her sail and learn a while to serve
    Where kings command. I was, I must confess,
    Great Albion's Queen in former golden days;
    But now mischance hath trod my title down
    And with dishonour laid me on the ground,
    Where I must take like seat unto my fortune,
    And to my humble seat conform myself.
  LEWIS. Why, say, fair Queen, whence springs this deep despair?
  QUEEN MARGARET. From such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears
    And stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in cares.
  LEWIS. Whate'er it be, be thou still like thyself,
    And sit thee by our side. [Seats her by him] Yield not thy neck
    To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind
    Still ride in triumph over all mischance.
    Be plain, Queen Margaret, and tell thy grief;
    It shall be eas'd, if France can yield relief.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Those gracious words revive my drooping thoughts
    And give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.
    Now therefore be it known to noble Lewis
    That Henry, sole possessor of my love,
    Is, of a king, become a banish'd man,
    And forc'd to live in Scotland a forlorn;
    While proud ambitious Edward Duke of York
    Usurps the regal title and the seat
    Of England's true-anointed lawful King.
    This is the cause that I, poor Margaret,
    With this my son, Prince Edward, Henry's heir,
    Am come to crave thy just and lawful aid;
    And if thou fail us, all our hope is done.
    Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help;
    Our people and our peers are both misled,
    Our treasure seiz'd, our soldiers put to flight,
    And, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight.
  LEWIS. Renowned Queen, with patience calm the storm,
    While we bethink a means to break it off.
  QUEEN MARGARET. The more we stay, the stronger grows our foe.
  LEWIS. The more I stay, the more I'll succour thee.
  QUEEN MARGARET. O, but impatience waiteth on true sorrow.
    And see where comes the breeder of my sorrow!

                        Enter WARWICK

  LEWIS. What's he approacheth boldly to our presence?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Our Earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest friend.
  LEWIS. Welcome, brave Warwick! What brings thee to France?
                                      [He descends. She ariseth]
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, now begins a second storm to rise;
    For this is he that moves both wind and tide.
  WARWICK. From worthy Edward, King of Albion,
    My lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,
    I come, in kindness and unfeigned love,
    First to do greetings to thy royal person,
    And then to crave a league of amity,
    And lastly to confirm that amity
    With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant
    That virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,
    To England's King in lawful marriage.
  QUEEN MARGARET. [Aside] If that go forward, Henry's hope is done.
  WARWICK. [To BONA] And, gracious madam, in our king's behalf,
    I am commanded, with your leave and favour,
    Humbly to kiss your hand, and with my tongue
    To tell the passion of my sovereign's heart;
    Where fame, late ent'ring at his heedful ears,
    Hath plac'd thy beauty's image and thy virtue.
  QUEEN MARGARET. King Lewis and Lady Bona, hear me speak
    Before you answer Warwick. His demand
    Springs not from Edward's well-meant honest love,
    But from deceit bred by necessity;
    For how can tyrants safely govern home
    Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?
    To prove him tyrant this reason may suffice,
    That Henry liveth still; but were he dead,
    Yet here Prince Edward stands, King Henry's son.
    Look therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage
    Thou draw not on thy danger and dishonour;
    For though usurpers sway the rule a while
    Yet heav'ns are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.
  WARWICK. Injurious Margaret!
  PRINCE OF WALES. And why not Queen?
  WARWICK. Because thy father Henry did usurp;
    And thou no more art prince than she is queen.
  OXFORD. Then Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt,
    Which did subdue the greatest part of Spain;
    And, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth,
    Whose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest;
    And, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth,
    Who by his prowess conquered all France.
    From these our Henry lineally descends.
  WARWICK. Oxford, how haps it in this smooth discourse
    You told not how Henry the Sixth hath lost
    All that which Henry the Fifth had gotten?
    Methinks these peers of France should smile at that.
    But for the rest: you tell a pedigree
    Of threescore and two years- a silly time
    To make prescription for a kingdom's worth.
  OXFORD. Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,
    Whom thou obeyed'st thirty and six years,
    And not betray thy treason with a blush?
  WARWICK. Can Oxford that did ever fence the right
    Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree?
    For shame! Leave Henry, and call Edward king.
  OXFORD. Call him my king by whose injurious doom
    My elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere,
    Was done to death; and more than so, my father,
    Even in the downfall of his mellow'd years,
    When nature brought him to the door of death?
    No, Warwick, no; while life upholds this arm,
    This arm upholds the house of Lancaster.
  WARWICK. And I the house of York.
  LEWIS. Queen Margaret, Prince Edward, and Oxford,
    Vouchsafe at our request to stand aside
    While I use further conference with Warwick.
                                              [They stand aloof]
  QUEEN MARGARET. Heavens grant that Warwick's words bewitch him not!
  LEWIS. Now, Warwick, tell me, even upon thy conscience,
    Is Edward your true king? for I were loath
    To link with him that were not lawful chosen.
  WARWICK. Thereon I pawn my credit and mine honour.
  LEWIS. But is he gracious in the people's eye?
  WARWICK. The more that Henry was unfortunate.
  LEWIS. Then further: all dissembling set aside,
    Tell me for truth the measure of his love
    Unto our sister Bona.
  WARWICK. Such it seems
    As may beseem a monarch like himself.
    Myself have often heard him say and swear
    That this his love was an eternal plant
    Whereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,
    The leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun,
    Exempt from envy, but not from disdain,
    Unless the Lady Bona quit his pain.
  LEWIS. Now, sister, let us hear your firm resolve.
  BONA. Your grant or your denial shall be mine.
    [To WARWICK] Yet I confess that often ere this day,
    When I have heard your king's desert recounted,
    Mine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.
  LEWIS. Then, Warwick, thus: our sister shall be Edward's.
    And now forthwith shall articles be drawn
    Touching the jointure that your king must make,
    Which with her dowry shall be counterpois'd.
    Draw near, Queen Margaret, and be a witness
    That Bona shall be wife to the English king.
  PRINCE OF WALES. To Edward, but not to the English king.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Deceitful Warwick, it was thy device
    By this alliance to make void my suit.
    Before thy coming, Lewis was Henry's friend.
  LEWIS. And still is friend to him and Margaret.
    But if your title to the crown be weak,
    As may appear by Edward's good success,
    Then 'tis but reason that I be releas'd
    From giving aid which late I promised.
    Yet shall you have all kindness at my hand
    That your estate requires and mine can yield.
  WARWICK. Henry now lives in Scotland at his case,
    Where having nothing, nothing can he lose.
    And as for you yourself, our quondam queen,
    You have a father able to maintain you,
    And better 'twere you troubled him than France.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick,
    Proud setter up and puller down of kings!
    I will not hence till with my talk and tears,
    Both full of truth, I make King Lewis behold
    Thy sly conveyance and thy lord's false love;
    For both of you are birds of self-same feather.
                                    [POST blowing a horn within]
  LEWIS. Warwick, this is some post to us or thee.

                       Enter the POST

  POST. My lord ambassador, these letters are for you,
    Sent from your brother, Marquis Montague.
    These from our King unto your Majesty.
    And, madam, these for you; from whom I know not.
                                   [They all read their letters]
  OXFORD. I like it well that our fair Queen and mistress
    Smiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, mark how Lewis stamps as he were nettled.
    I hope all's for the best.
  LEWIS. Warwick, what are thy news? And yours, fair Queen?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Mine such as fill my heart with unhop'd joys.
  WARWICK. Mine, full of sorrow and heart's discontent.
  LEWIS. What, has your king married the Lady Grey?
    And now, to soothe your forgery and his,
    Sends me a paper to persuade me patience?
    Is this th' alliance that he seeks with France?
    Dare he presume to scorn us in this manner?
  QUEEN MARGARET. I told your Majesty as much before.
    This proveth Edward's love and Warwick's honesty.
  WARWICK. King Lewis, I here protest in sight of heaven,
    And by the hope I have of heavenly bliss,
    That I am clear from this misdeed of Edward's-
    No more my king, for he dishonours me,
    But most himself, if he could see his shame.
    Did I forget that by the house of York
    My father came untimely to his death?
    Did I let pass th' abuse done to my niece?
    Did I impale him with the regal crown?
    Did I put Henry from his native right?
    And am I guerdon'd at the last with shame?
    Shame on himself! for my desert is honour;
    And to repair my honour lost for him
    I here renounce him and return to Henry.
    My noble Queen, let former grudges pass,
    And henceforth I am thy true servitor.
    I will revenge his wrong to Lady Bona,
    And replant Henry in his former state.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Warwick, these words have turn'd my hate to love;
    And I forgive and quite forget old faults,
    And joy that thou becom'st King Henry's friend.
  WARWICK. So much his friend, ay, his unfeigned friend,
    That if King Lewis vouchsafe to furnish us
    With some few bands of chosen soldiers,
    I'll undertake to land them on our coast
    And force the tyrant from his seat by war.
    'Tis not his new-made bride shall succour him;
    And as for Clarence, as my letters tell me,
    He's very likely now to fall from him
    For matching more for wanton lust than honour
    Or than for strength and safety of our country.
  BONA. Dear brother, how shall Bona be reveng'd
    But by thy help to this distressed queen?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Renowned Prince, how shall poor Henry live
    Unless thou rescue him from foul despair?
  BONA. My quarrel and this English queen's are one.
  WARWICK. And mine, fair Lady Bona, joins with yours.
  LEWIS. And mine with hers, and thine, and Margaret's.
    Therefore, at last, I firmly am resolv'd
    You shall have aid.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Let me give humble thanks for all at once.
  LEWIS. Then, England's messenger, return in post
    And tell false Edward, thy supposed king,
    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers
    To revel it with him and his new bride.
    Thou seest what's past; go fear thy king withal.
  BONA. Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,
    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Tell him my mourning weeds are laid aside,
    And I am ready to put armour on.
  WARWICK. Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong,
    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.
    There's thy reward; be gone.                       Exit POST
  LEWIS. But, Warwick,
    Thou and Oxford, with five thousand men,
    Shall cross the seas and bid false Edward battle:
    And, as occasion serves, this noble Queen
    And Prince shall follow with a fresh supply.
    Yet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt:
    What pledge have we of thy firm loyalty?
  WARWICK. This shall assure my constant loyalty:
    That if our Queen and this young Prince agree,
    I'll join mine eldest daughter and my joy
    To him forthwith in holy wedlock bands.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Yes, I agree, and thank you for your motion.
    Son Edward, she is fair and virtuous,
    Therefore delay not- give thy hand to Warwick;
    And with thy hand thy faith irrevocable
    That only Warwick's daughter shall be thine.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Yes, I accept her, for she well deserves it;
    And here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.
                                  [He gives his hand to WARWICK]
  LEWIS. stay we now? These soldiers shall be levied;
    And thou, Lord Bourbon, our High Admiral,
    Shall waft them over with our royal fleet.
    I long till Edward fall by war's mischance
    For mocking marriage with a dame of France.
                                          Exeunt all but WARWICK
  WARWICK. I came from Edward as ambassador,
    But I return his sworn and mortal foe.
    Matter of marriage was the charge he gave me,
    But dreadful war shall answer his demand.
    Had he none else to make a stale but me?
    Then none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.
    I was the chief that rais'd him to the crown,
    And I'll be chief to bring him down again;
    Not that I pity Henry's misery,
    But seek revenge on Edward's mockery.                   Exit

ACT IV. SCENE I. London. The palace

Enter GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, SOMERSET, and MONTAGUE

  GLOUCESTER. Now tell me, brother Clarence, what think you
    Of this new marriage with the Lady Grey?
    Hath not our brother made a worthy choice?
  CLARENCE. Alas, you know 'tis far from hence to France!
    How could he stay till Warwick made return?
  SOMERSET. My lords, forbear this talk; here comes the King.

           Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, attended; LADY
          GREY, as Queen; PEMBROKE, STAFFORD, HASTINGS,
      and others. Four stand on one side, and four on the other

  GLOUCESTER. And his well-chosen bride.
  CLARENCE. I mind to tell him plainly what I think.
  KING EDWARD. Now, brother of Clarence, how like you our choice
    That you stand pensive as half malcontent?
  CLARENCE. As well as Lewis of France or the Earl of Warwick,
    Which are so weak of courage and in judgment
    That they'll take no offence at our abuse.
  KING EDWARD. Suppose they take offence without a cause;
    They are but Lewis and Warwick: I am Edward,
    Your King and Warwick's and must have my will.
  GLOUCESTER. And shall have your will, because our King.
    Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.
  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother Richard, are you offended too?
  GLOUCESTER. Not I.
    No, God forbid that I should wish them sever'd
    Whom God hath join'd together; ay, and 'twere pity
    To sunder them that yoke so well together.
  KING EDWARD. Setting your scorns and your mislike aside,
    Tell me some reason why the Lady Grey
    Should not become my wife and England's Queen.
    And you too, Somerset and Montague,
    Speak freely what you think.
  CLARENCE. Then this is mine opinion: that King Lewis
    Becomes your enemy for mocking him
    About the marriage of the Lady Bona.
  GLOUCESTER. And Warwick, doing what you gave in charge,
    Is now dishonoured by this new marriage.
  KING EDWARD. What if both Lewis and Warwick be appeas'd
    By such invention as I can devise?
  MONTAGUE. Yet to have join'd with France in such alliance
    Would more have strength'ned this our commonwealth
    'Gainst foreign storms than any home-bred marriage.
  HASTINGS. Why, knows not Montague that of itself
    England is safe, if true within itself?
  MONTAGUE. But the safer when 'tis back'd with France.
  HASTINGS. 'Tis better using France than trusting France.
    Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas
    Which He hath giv'n for fence impregnable,
    And with their helps only defend ourselves.
    In them and in ourselves our safety lies.
  CLARENCE. For this one speech Lord Hastings well deserves
    To have the heir of the Lord Hungerford.
  KING EDWARD. Ay, what of that? it was my will and grant;
    And for this once my will shall stand for law.
  GLOUCESTER. And yet methinks your Grace hath not done well
    To give the heir and daughter of Lord Scales
    Unto the brother of your loving bride.
    She better would have fitted me or Clarence;
    But in your bride you bury brotherhood.
  CLARENCE. Or else you would not have bestow'd the heir
    Of the Lord Bonville on your new wife's son,
    And leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.
  KING EDWARD. Alas, poor Clarence! Is it for a wife
    That thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.
  CLARENCE. In choosing for yourself you show'd your judgment,
    Which being shallow, you shall give me leave
    To play the broker in mine own behalf;
    And to that end I shortly mind to leave you.
  KING EDWARD. Leave me or tarry, Edward will be King,
    And not be tied unto his brother's will.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My lords, before it pleas'd his Majesty
    To raise my state to title of a queen,
    Do me but right, and you must all confess
    That I was not ignoble of descent:
    And meaner than myself have had like fortune.
    But as this title honours me and mine,
    So your dislikes, to whom I would be pleasing,
    Doth cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.
  KING EDWARD. My love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns.
    What danger or what sorrow can befall thee,
    So long as Edward is thy constant friend
    And their true sovereign whom they must obey?
    Nay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,
    Unless they seek for hatred at my hands;
    Which if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,
    And they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I hear, yet say not much, but think the more.

                          Enter a POST

  KING EDWARD. Now, messenger, what letters or what news
    From France?
  MESSENGER. My sovereign liege, no letters, and few words,
    But such as I, without your special pardon,
    Dare not relate.
  KING EDWARD. Go to, we pardon thee; therefore, in brief,
    Tell me their words as near as thou canst guess them.
    What answer makes King Lewis unto our letters?
  MESSENGER. At my depart, these were his very words:
    'Go tell false Edward, the supposed king,
    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers
    To revel it with him and his new bride.'
  KING EDWARD. IS Lewis so brave? Belike he thinks me Henry.
    But what said Lady Bona to my marriage?
  MESSENGER. These were her words, utt'red with mild disdain:
    'Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,
    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.'
  KING EDWARD. I blame not her: she could say little less;
    She had the wrong. But what said Henry's queen?
    For I have heard that she was there in place.
  MESSENGER. 'Tell him' quoth she 'my mourning weeds are done,
    And I am ready to put armour on.'
  KING EDWARD. Belike she minds to play the Amazon.
    But what said Warwick to these injuries?
  MESSENGER. He, more incens'd against your Majesty
    Than all the rest, discharg'd me with these words:
    'Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong;
    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.'
  KING EDWARD. Ha! durst the traitor breathe out so proud words?
    Well, I will arm me, being thus forewarn'd.
    They shall have wars and pay for their presumption.
    But say, is Warwick friends with Margaret?
  MESSENGER. Ay, gracious sovereign; they are so link'd in friendship
    That young Prince Edward marries Warwick's daughter.
  CLARENCE. Belike the elder; Clarence will have the younger.
    Now, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,
    For I will hence to Warwick's other daughter;
    That, though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage
    I may not prove inferior to yourself.
    You that love me and Warwick, follow me.
                                      Exit, and SOMERSET follows
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Not I.
    My thoughts aim at a further matter; I
    Stay not for the love of Edward but the crown.
  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Somerset both gone to Warwick!
    Yet am I arm'd against the worst can happen;
    And haste is needful in this desp'rate case.
    Pembroke and Stafford, you in our behalf
    Go levy men and make prepare for war;
    They are already, or quickly will be landed.
    Myself in person will straight follow you.
                                    Exeunt PEMBROKE and STAFFORD
    But ere I go, Hastings and Montague,
    Resolve my doubt. You twain, of all the rest,
    Are near to Warwick by blood and by alliance.
    Tell me if you love Warwick more than me?
    If it be so, then both depart to him:
    I rather wish you foes than hollow friends.
    But if you mind to hold your true obedience,
    Give me assurance with some friendly vow,
    That I may never have you in suspect.
  MONTAGUE. So God help Montague as he proves true!
  HASTINGS. And Hastings as he favours Edward's cause!
  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, will you stand by us?
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, in despite of all that shall withstand you.
  KING EDWARD. Why, so! then am I sure of victory.
    Now therefore let us hence, and lose no hour
    Till we meet Warwick with his foreign pow'r.          Exeunt

SCENE II. A plain in Warwickshire

Enter WARWICK and OXFORD, with French soldiers

  WARWICK. Trust me, my lord, all hitherto goes well;
    The common people by numbers swarm to us.

                 Enter CLARENCE and SOMERSET

    But see where Somerset and Clarence comes.
    Speak suddenly, my lords- are we all friends?
  CLARENCE. Fear not that, my lord.
  WARWICK. Then, gentle Clarence, welcome unto Warwick;
    And welcome, Somerset. I hold it cowardice
    To rest mistrustful where a noble heart
    Hath pawn'd an open hand in sign of love;
    Else might I think that Clarence, Edward's brother,
    Were but a feigned friend to our proceedings.
    But welcome, sweet Clarence; my daughter shall be thine.
    And now what rests but, in night's coverture,
    Thy brother being carelessly encamp'd,
    His soldiers lurking in the towns about,
    And but attended by a simple guard,
    We may surprise and take him at our pleasure?
    Our scouts have found the adventure very easy;
    That as Ulysses and stout Diomede
    With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,
    And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds,
    So we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,
    At unawares may beat down Edward's guard
    And seize himself- I say not 'slaughter him,'
    For I intend but only to surprise him.
    You that will follow me to this attempt,
    Applaud the name of Henry with your leader.
                                         [They all cry 'Henry!']
    Why then, let's on our way in silent sort.
    For Warwick and his friends, God and Saint George!    Exeunt

SCENE III. Edward's camp, near Warwick

Enter three WATCHMEN, to guard the KING'S tent

  FIRST WATCHMAN. Come on, my masters, each man take his stand;
    The King by this is set him down to sleep.
  SECOND WATCHMAN. What, will he not to bed?
  FIRST WATCHMAN. Why, no; for he hath made a solemn vow
    Never to lie and take his natural rest
    Till Warwick or himself be quite suppress'd.
  SECOND WATCHMAN. To-morrow then, belike, shall be the day,
    If Warwick be so near as men report.
  THIRD WATCHMAN. But say, I pray, what nobleman is that
    That with the King here resteth in his tent?
  FIRST WATCHMAN. 'Tis the Lord Hastings, the King's chiefest friend.
  THIRD WATCHMAN. O, is it So? But why commands the King
    That his chief followers lodge in towns about him,
    While he himself keeps in the cold field?
  SECOND WATCHMAN. 'Tis the more honour, because more dangerous.
  THIRD WATCHMAN. Ay, but give me worship and quietness;
    I like it better than dangerous honour.
    If Warwick knew in what estate he stands,
    'Tis to be doubted he would waken him.
  FIRST WATCHMAN. Unless our halberds did shut up his passage.
  SECOND WATCHMAN. Ay, wherefore else guard we his royal tent
    But to defend his person from night-foes?

             Enter WARWICK, CLARENCE, OXFORD, SOMERSET,
                   and French soldiers, silent all

  WARWICK. This is his tent; and see where stand his guard.
    Courage, my masters! Honour now or never!
    But follow me, and Edward shall be ours.
  FIRST WATCHMAN. Who goes there?
  SECOND WATCHMAN. Stay, or thou diest.

       WARWICK and the rest cry all 'Warwick! Warwick!' and
      set upon the guard, who fly, crying 'Arm! Arm!' WARWICK
                   and the rest following them

      The drum playing and trumpet sounding, re-enter WARWICK
         and the rest, bringing the KING out in his gown,
   sitting in a chair. GLOUCESTER and HASTINGS fly over the stage

  SOMERSET. What are they that fly there?
  WARWICK. Richard and Hastings. Let them go; here is the Duke.
  KING EDWARD. The Duke! Why, Warwick, when we parted,
    Thou call'dst me King?
  WARWICK. Ay, but the case is alter'd.
    When you disgrac'd me in my embassade,
    Then I degraded you from being King,
    And come now to create you Duke of York.
    Alas, how should you govern any kingdom
    That know not how to use ambassadors,
    Nor how to be contented with one wife,
    Nor how to use your brothers brotherly,
    Nor how to study for the people's welfare,
    Nor how to shroud yourself from enemies?
  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother of Clarence, art thou here too?
    Nay, then I see that Edward needs must down.
    Yet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,
    Of thee thyself and all thy complices,
    Edward will always bear himself as King.
    Though fortune's malice overthrow my state,
    My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.
  WARWICK. Then, for his mind, be Edward England's king;
                                           [Takes off his crown]
    But Henry now shall wear the English crown
    And be true King indeed; thou but the shadow.
    My Lord of Somerset, at my request,
    See that forthwith Duke Edward be convey'd
    Unto my brother, Archbishop of York.
    When I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows,
    I'll follow you and tell what answer
    Lewis and the Lady Bona send to him.
    Now for a while farewell, good Duke of York.
  KING EDWARD. What fates impose, that men must needs abide;
    It boots not to resist both wind and tide.
                                    [They lead him out forcibly]
  OXFORD. What now remains, my lords, for us to do
    But march to London with our soldiers?
  WARWICK. Ay, that's the first thing that we have to do;
    To free King Henry from imprisonment,
    And see him seated in the regal throne.               Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. The palace

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and RIVERS

  RIVERS. Madam, what makes you in this sudden change?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Why, brother Rivers, are you yet to learn
    What late misfortune is befall'n King Edward?
  RIVERS. What, loss of some pitch'd battle against Warwick?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, but the loss of his own royal person.
  RIVERS. Then is my sovereign slain?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner;
    Either betray'd by falsehood of his guard
    Or by his foe surpris'd at unawares;
    And, as I further have to understand,
    Is new committed to the Bishop of York,
    Fell Warwick's brother, and by that our foe.
  RIVERS. These news, I must confess, are full of grief;
    Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may:
    Warwick may lose that now hath won the day.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Till then, fair hope must hinder life's decay.
    And I the rather wean me from despair
    For love of Edward's offspring in my womb.
    This is it that makes me bridle passion
    And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross;
    Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear
    And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,
    Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown
    King Edward's fruit, true heir to th' English crown.
  RIVERS. But, madam, where is Warwick then become?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I am inform'd that he comes towards London
    To set the crown once more on Henry's head.
    Guess thou the rest: King Edward's friends must down.
    But to prevent the tyrant's violence-
    For trust not him that hath once broken faith-
    I'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary
    To save at least the heir of Edward's right.
    There shall I rest secure from force and fraud.
    Come, therefore, let us fly while we may fly:
    If Warwick take us, we are sure to die.               Exeunt

SCENE V. A park near Middleham Castle in Yorkshire

Enter GLOUCESTER, LORD HASTINGS, SIR WILLIAM STANLEY, and others

  GLOUCESTER. Now, my Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,
    Leave off to wonder why I drew you hither
    Into this chiefest thicket of the park.
    Thus stands the case: you know our King, my brother,
    Is prisoner to the Bishop here, at whose hands
    He hath good usage and great liberty;
    And often but attended with weak guard
    Comes hunting this way to disport himself.
    I have advertis'd him by secret means
    That if about this hour he make this way,
    Under the colour of his usual game,
    He shall here find his friends, with horse and men,
    To set him free from his captivity.

             Enter KING EDWARD and a HUNTSMAN with him

  HUNTSMAN. This way, my lord; for this way lies the game.
  KING EDWARD. Nay, this way, man. See where the huntsmen stand.
    Now, brother of Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and the rest,
    Stand you thus close to steal the Bishop's deer?
  GLOUCESTER. Brother, the time and case requireth haste;
    Your horse stands ready at the park corner.
  KING EDWARD. But whither shall we then?
  HASTINGS. To Lynn, my lord; and shipt from thence to Flanders.
  GLOUCESTER. Well guess'd, believe me; for that was my meaning.
  KING EDWARD. Stanley, I will requite thy forwardness.
  GLOUCESTER. But wherefore stay we? 'Tis no time to talk.
  KING EDWARD. Huntsman, what say'st thou? Wilt thou go along?
  HUNTSMAN. Better do so than tarry and be hang'd.
  GLOUCESTER. Come then, away; let's ha' no more ado.
  KING EDWARD. Bishop, farewell. Shield thee from Warwick's frown,
    And pray that I may repossess the crown.              Exeunt

SCENE VI. London. The Tower

Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLARENCE, WARWICK, SOMERSET, young HENRY,
EARL OF RICHMOND, OXFORD, MONTAGUE, LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER, and
attendants

  KING HENRY. Master Lieutenant, now that God and friends
    Have shaken Edward from the regal seat
    And turn'd my captive state to liberty,
    My fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,
    At our enlargement what are thy due fees?
  LIEUTENANT. Subjects may challenge nothing of their sov'reigns;
    But if an humble prayer may prevail,
    I then crave pardon of your Majesty.
  KING HENRY. For what, Lieutenant? For well using me?
    Nay, be thou sure I'll well requite thy kindness,
    For that it made my imprisonment a pleasure;
    Ay, such a pleasure as incaged birds
    Conceive when, after many moody thoughts,
    At last by notes of household harmony
    They quite forget their loss of liberty.
    But, Warwick, after God, thou set'st me free,
    And chiefly therefore I thank God and thee;
    He was the author, thou the instrument.
    Therefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite
    By living low where fortune cannot hurt me,
    And that the people of this blessed land
    May not be punish'd with my thwarting stars,
    Warwick, although my head still wear the crown,
    I here resign my government to thee,
    For thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.
  WARWICK. Your Grace hath still been fam'd for virtuous,
    And now may seem as wise as virtuous
    By spying and avoiding fortune's malice,
    For few men rightly temper with the stars;
    Yet in this one thing let me blame your Grace,
    For choosing me when Clarence is in place.
  CLARENCE. No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,
    To whom the heav'ns in thy nativity
    Adjudg'd an olive branch and laurel crown,
    As likely to be blest in peace and war;
    And therefore I yield thee my free consent.
  WARWICK. And I choose Clarence only for Protector.
  KING HENRY. Warwick and Clarence, give me both your hands.
    Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts,
    That no dissension hinder government.
    I make you both Protectors of this land,
    While I myself will lead a private life
    And in devotion spend my latter days,
    To sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise.
  WARWICK. What answers Clarence to his sovereign's will?
  CLARENCE. That he consents, if Warwick yield consent,
    For on thy fortune I repose myself.
  WARWICK. Why, then, though loath, yet must I be content.
    We'll yoke together, like a double shadow
    To Henry's body, and supply his place;
    I mean, in bearing weight of government,
    While he enjoys the honour and his ease.
    And, Clarence, now then it is more than needful
    Forthwith that Edward be pronounc'd a traitor,
    And all his lands and goods confiscated.
  CLARENCE. What else? And that succession be determin'd.
  WARWICK. Ay, therein Clarence shall not want his part.
  KING HENRY. But, with the first of all your chief affairs,
    Let me entreat- for I command no more-
    That Margaret your Queen and my son Edward
    Be sent for to return from France with speed;
    For till I see them here, by doubtful fear
    My joy of liberty is half eclips'd.
  CLARENCE. It shall be done, my sovereign, with all speed.
  KING HENRY. My Lord of Somerset, what youth is that,
    Of whom you seem to have so tender care?
  SOMERSET. My liege, it is young Henry, Earl of Richmond.
  KING HENRY. Come hither, England's hope.
                                     [Lays his hand on his head]
    If secret powers
    Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,
    This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss.
    His looks are full of peaceful majesty;
    His head by nature fram'd to wear a crown,
    His hand to wield a sceptre; and himself
    Likely in time to bless a regal throne.
    Make much of him, my lords; for this is he
    Must help you more than you are hurt by me.

                          Enter a POST

  WARWICK. What news, my friend?
  POST. That Edward is escaped from your brother
    And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.
  WARWICK. Unsavoury news! But how made he escape?
  POST. He was convey'd by Richard Duke of Gloucester
    And the Lord Hastings, who attended him
    In secret ambush on the forest side
    And from the Bishop's huntsmen rescu'd him;
    For hunting was his daily exercise.
  WARWICK. My brother was too careless of his charge.
    But let us hence, my sovereign, to provide
    A salve for any sore that may betide.
                   Exeunt all but SOMERSET, RICHMOND, and OXFORD
  SOMERSET. My lord, I like not of this flight of Edward's;
    For doubtless Burgundy will yield him help,
    And we shall have more wars befor't be long.
    As Henry's late presaging prophecy
    Did glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,
    So doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts,
    What may befall him to his harm and ours.
    Therefore, Lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,
    Forthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany,
    Till storms be past of civil enmity.
  OXFORD. Ay, for if Edward repossess the crown,
    'Tis like that Richmond with the rest shall down.
  SOMERSET. It shall be so; he shall to Brittany.
    Come therefore, let's about it speedily.              Exeunt

SCENE VII. Before York

Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and soldiers

  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, Lord Hastings, and the rest,
    Yet thus far fortune maketh us amends,
    And says that once more I shall interchange
    My waned state for Henry's regal crown.
    Well have we pass'd and now repass'd the seas,
    And brought desired help from Burgundy;
    What then remains, we being thus arriv'd
    From Ravenspurgh haven before the gates of York,
    But that we enter, as into our dukedom?
  GLOUCESTER. The gates made fast! Brother, I like not this;
    For many men that stumble at the threshold
    Are well foretold that danger lurks within.
  KING EDWARD. Tush, man, abodements must not now affright us.
    By fair or foul means we must enter in,
    For hither will our friends repair to us.
  HASTINGS. My liege, I'll knock once more to summon them.

         Enter, on the walls, the MAYOR OF YORK and
                       his BRETHREN

  MAYOR. My lords, we were forewarned of your coming
    And shut the gates for safety of ourselves,
    For now we owe allegiance unto Henry.
  KING EDWARD. But, Master Mayor, if Henry be your King,
    Yet Edward at the least is Duke of York.
  MAYOR. True, my good lord; I know you for no less.
  KING EDWARD. Why, and I challenge nothing but my dukedom,
    As being well content with that alone.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] But when the fox hath once got in his nose,
    He'll soon find means to make the body follow.
  HASTINGS. Why, Master Mayor, why stand you in a doubt?
    Open the gates; we are King Henry's friends.
  MAYOR. Ay, say you so? The gates shall then be open'd.
                                                   [He descends]
  GLOUCESTER. A wise stout captain, and soon persuaded!
  HASTINGS. The good old man would fain that all were well,
    So 'twere not long of him; but being ent'red,
    I doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade
    Both him and all his brothers unto reason.

             Enter, below, the MAYOR and two ALDERMEN

  KING EDWARD. So, Master Mayor. These gates must not be shut
    But in the night or in the time of war.
    What! fear not, man, but yield me up the keys;
                                                [Takes his keys]
    For Edward will defend the town and thee,
    And all those friends that deign to follow me.

           March. Enter MONTGOMERY with drum and soldiers

  GLOUCESTER. Brother, this is Sir John Montgomery,
    Our trusty friend, unless I be deceiv'd.
  KING EDWARD. Welcome, Sir john! But why come you in arms?
  MONTGOMERY. To help King Edward in his time of storm,
    As every loyal subject ought to do.
  KING EDWARD. Thanks, good Montgomery; but we now forget
    Our title to the crown, and only claim
    Our dukedom till God please to send the rest.
  MONTGOMERY. Then fare you well, for I will hence again.
    I came to serve a king and not a duke.
    Drummer, strike up, and let us march away.
                                      [The drum begins to march]
  KING EDWARD. Nay, stay, Sir John, a while, and we'll debate
    By what safe means the crown may be recover'd.
  MONTGOMERY. What talk you of debating? In few words:
    If you'll not here proclaim yourself our King,
    I'll leave you to your fortune and be gone
    To keep them back that come to succour you.
    Why shall we fight, if you pretend no title?
  GLOUCESTER. Why, brother, wherefore stand you on nice points?
  KING EDWARD. When we grow stronger, then we'll make our claim;
    Till then 'tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.
  HASTINGS. Away with scrupulous wit! Now arms must rule.
  GLOUCESTER. And fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.
    Brother, we will proclaim you out of hand;
    The bruit thereof will bring you many friends.
  KING EDWARD. Then be it as you will; for 'tis my right,
    And Henry but usurps the diadem.
  MONTGOMERY. Ay, now my sovereign speaketh like himself;
    And now will I be Edward's champion.
  HASTINGS. Sound trumpet; Edward shall be here proclaim'd.
    Come, fellow soldier, make thou proclamation.
                                   [Gives him a paper. Flourish]
  SOLDIER. [Reads] 'Edward the Fourth, by the grace of God,
    King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, &c.'
  MONTGOMERY. And whoso'er gainsays King Edward's right,
    By this I challenge him to single fight.
                                          [Throws down gauntlet]
  ALL. Long live Edward the Fourth!
  KING EDWARD. Thanks, brave Montgomery, and thanks unto you all;
    If fortune serve me, I'll requite this kindness.
    Now for this night let's harbour here in York;
    And when the morning sun shall raise his car
    Above the border of this horizon,
    We'll forward towards Warwick and his mates;
    For well I wot that Henry is no soldier.
    Ah, froward Clarence, how evil it beseems the
    To flatter Henry and forsake thy brother!
    Yet, as we may, we'll meet both thee and Warwick.
    Come on, brave soldiers; doubt not of the day,
    And, that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.        Exeunt

SCENE VIII. London. The palace

Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, WARWICK, MONTAGUE, CLARENCE, OXFORD, and
EXETER

  WARWICK. What counsel, lords? Edward from Belgia,
    With hasty Germans and blunt Hollanders,
    Hath pass'd in safety through the narrow seas
    And with his troops doth march amain to London;
    And many giddy people flock to him.
  KING HENRY. Let's levy men and beat him back again.
  CLARENCE. A little fire is quickly trodden out,
    Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.
  WARWICK. In Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,
    Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;
    Those will I muster up, and thou, son Clarence,
    Shalt stir up in Suffolk, Norfolk, and in Kent,
    The knights and gentlemen to come with thee.
    Thou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,
    Northampton, and in Leicestershire, shalt find
    Men well inclin'd to hear what thou command'st.
    And thou, brave Oxford, wondrous well belov'd,
    In Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends.
    My sovereign, with the loving citizens,
    Like to his island girt in with the ocean
    Or modest Dian circled with her nymphs,
    Shall rest in London till we come to him.
    Fair lords, take leave and stand not to reply.
    Farewell, my sovereign.
  KING HENRY. Farewell, my Hector and my Troy's true hope.
  CLARENCE. In sign of truth, I kiss your Highness' hand.
  KING HENRY. Well-minded Clarence, be thou fortunate!
  MONTAGUE. Comfort, my lord; and so I take my leave.
  OXFORD. [Kissing the KING'S band] And thus I seal my truth and bid
    adieu.
  KING HENRY. Sweet Oxford, and my loving Montague,
    And all at once, once more a happy farewell.
  WARWICK. Farewell, sweet lords; let's meet at Coventry.
                              Exeunt all but the KING and EXETER
  KING HENRY. Here at the palace will I rest a while.
    Cousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship?
    Methinks the power that Edward hath in field
    Should not be able to encounter mine.
  EXETER. The doubt is that he will seduce the rest.
  KING HENRY. That's not my fear; my meed hath got me fame:
    I have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands,
    Nor posted off their suits with slow delays;
    My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,
    My mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs,
    My mercy dried their water-flowing tears;
    I have not been desirous of their wealth,
    Nor much oppress'd them with great subsidies,
    Nor forward of revenge, though they much err'd.
    Then why should they love Edward more than me?
    No, Exeter, these graces challenge grace;
    And, when the lion fawns upon the lamb,
    The lamb will never cease to follow him.
                      [Shout within 'A Lancaster! A Lancaster!']
  EXETER. Hark, hark, my lord! What shouts are these?

            Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, and soldiers

  KING EDWARD. Seize on the shame-fac'd Henry, bear him hence;
    And once again proclaim us King of England.
    You are the fount that makes small brooks to flow.
    Now stops thy spring; my sea shall suck them dry,
    And swell so much the higher by their ebb.
    Hence with him to the Tower: let him not speak.
                                     Exeunt some with KING HENRY
    And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course,
    Where peremptory Warwick now remains.
    The sun shines hot; and, if we use delay,
    Cold biting winter mars our hop'd-for hay.
  GLOUCESTER. Away betimes, before his forces join,
    And take the great-grown traitor unawares.
    Brave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.         Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Coventry

Enter WARWICK, the MAYOR OF COVENTRY, two MESSENGERS, and others upon
the walls

  WARWICK. Where is the post that came from valiant Oxford?
    How far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?
  FIRST MESSENGER. By this at Dunsmore, marching hitherward.
  WARWICK. How far off is our brother Montague?
    Where is the post that came from Montague?
  SECOND MESSENGER. By this at Daintry, with a puissant troop.

                   Enter SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE

  WARWICK. Say, Somerville, what says my loving son?
    And by thy guess how nigh is Clarence now?
  SOMERVILLE. At Southam I did leave him with his forces,
    And do expect him here some two hours hence.
                                                    [Drum heard]
  WARWICK. Then Clarence is at hand; I hear his drum.
  SOMERVILLE. It is not his, my lord; here Southam lies.
    The drum your Honour hears marcheth from Warwick.
  WARWICK. Who should that be? Belike unlook'd for friends.
  SOMERVILLE. They are at hand, and you shall quickly know.

        March. Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER,
                         and soldiers

  KING EDWARD. Go, trumpet, to the walls, and sound a parle.
  GLOUCESTER. See how the surly Warwick mans the wall.
  WARWICK. O unbid spite! Is sportful Edward come?
    Where slept our scouts or how are they seduc'd
    That we could hear no news of his repair?
  KING EDWARD. Now, Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,
    Speak gentle words, and humbly bend thy knee,
    Call Edward King, and at his hands beg mercy?
    And he shall pardon thee these outrages.
  WARWICK. Nay, rather, wilt thou draw thy forces hence,
    Confess who set thee up and pluck'd thee down,
    Call Warwick patron, and be penitent?
    And thou shalt still remain the Duke of York.
  GLOUCESTER. I thought, at least, he would have said the King;
    Or did he make the jest against his will?
  WARWICK. Is not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift?
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, by my faith, for a poor earl to give.
    I'll do thee service for so good a gift.
  WARWICK. 'Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.
  KING EDWARD. Why then 'tis mine, if but by Warwick's gift.
  WARWICK. Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight;
    And, weakling, Warwick takes his gift again;
    And Henry is my King, Warwick his subject.
  KING EDWARD. But Warwick's king is Edward's prisoner.
    And, gallant Warwick, do but answer this:
    What is the body when the head is off?
  GLOUCESTER. Alas, that Warwick had no more forecast,
    But, whiles he thought to steal the single ten,
    The king was slily finger'd from the deck!
    You left poor Henry at the Bishop's palace,
    And ten to one you'll meet him in the Tower.
  KING EDWARD. 'Tis even so; yet you are Warwick still.
  GLOUCESTER. Come, Warwick, take the time; kneel down, kneel down.
    Nay, when? Strike now, or else the iron cools.
  WARWICK. I had rather chop this hand off at a blow,
    And with the other fling it at thy face,
    Than bear so low a sail to strike to thee.
  KING EDWARD. Sail how thou canst, have wind and tide thy friend,
    This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair,
    Shall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off,
    Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood:
    'Wind-changing Warwick now can change no more.'

               Enter OXFORD, with drum and colours

  WARWICK. O cheerful colours! See where Oxford comes.
  OXFORD. Oxford, Oxford, for Lancaster!
                              [He and his forces enter the city]
  GLOUCESTER. The gates are open, let us enter too.
  KING EDWARD. So other foes may set upon our backs.
    Stand we in good array, for they no doubt
    Will issue out again and bid us battle;
    If not, the city being but of small defence,
    We'll quietly rouse the traitors in the same.
  WARWICK. O, welcome, Oxford! for we want thy help.

             Enter MONTAGUE, with drum and colours

  MONTAGUE. Montague, Montague, for Lancaster!
                              [He and his forces enter the city]
  GLOUCESTER. Thou and thy brother both shall buy this treason
    Even with the dearest blood your bodies bear.
  KING EDWARD. The harder match'd, the greater victory.
    My mind presageth happy gain and conquest.

             Enter SOMERSET, with drum and colours

  SOMERSET. Somerset, Somerset, for Lancaster!
                              [He and his forces enter the city]
  GLOUCESTER. Two of thy name, both Dukes of Somerset,
    Have sold their lives unto the house of York;
    And thou shalt be the third, if this sword hold.

             Enter CLARENCE, with drum and colours

  WARWICK. And lo where George of Clarence sweeps along,
    Of force enough to bid his brother battle;
    With whom an upright zeal to right prevails
    More than the nature of a brother's love.
  CLARENCE. Clarence, Clarence, for Lancaster!
  KING EDWARD. Et tu Brute- wilt thou stab Caesar too?
    A parley, sirrah, to George of Clarence.
                  [Sound a parley. RICHARD and CLARENCE whisper]
  WARWICK. Come, Clarence, come. Thou wilt if Warwick call.
  CLARENCE. [Taking the red rose from his hat and throwing
      it at WARWICK]
    Father of Warwick, know you what this means?
    Look here, I throw my infamy at thee.
    I will not ruinate my father's house,
    Who gave his blood to lime the stones together,
    And set up Lancaster. Why, trowest thou, Warwick,
    That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,
    To bend the fatal instruments of war
    Against his brother and his lawful King?
    Perhaps thou wilt object my holy oath.
    To keep that oath were more impiety
    Than Jephtha when he sacrific'd his daughter.
    I am so sorry for my trespass made
    That, to deserve well at my brother's hands,
    I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe;
    With resolution whereso'er I meet thee-
    As I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad-
    To plague thee for thy foul misleading me.
    And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee,
    And to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.
    Pardon me, Edward, I will make amends;
    And, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,
    For I will henceforth be no more unconstant.
  KING EDWARD. Now welcome more, and ten times more belov'd,
    Than if thou never hadst deserv'd our hate.
  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, good Clarence; this is brother-like.
  WARWICK. O passing traitor, perjur'd and unjust!
  KING EDWARD. What, Warwick, wilt thou leave die town and fight?
    Or shall we beat the stones about thine ears?
  WARWICK. Alas, I am not coop'd here for defence!
    I will away towards Barnet presently
    And bid thee battle, Edward, if thou dar'st.
  KING EDWARD. Yes, Warwick, Edward dares and leads the way.
    Lords, to the field; Saint George and victory!
                                                 Exeunt YORKISTS
                         [March. WARWICK and his company follow]

SCENE II. A field of battle near Barnet

Alarum and excursions. Enter KING EDWARD, bringing forth WARWICK,
wounded

  KING EDWARD. So, lie thou there. Die thou, and die our fear;
    For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all.
    Now, Montague, sit fast; I seek for thee,
    That Warwick's bones may keep thine company.            Exit
  WARWICK. Ah, who is nigh? Come to me, friend or foe,
    And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?
    Why ask I that? My mangled body shows,
    My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows,
    That I must yield my body to the earth
    And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.
    Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,
    Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,
    Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,
    Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree
    And kept low shrubs from winter's pow'rful wind.
    These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,
    Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun
    To search the secret treasons of the world;
    The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood,
    Were lik'ned oft to kingly sepulchres;
    For who liv'd King, but I could dig his grave?
    And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?
    Lo now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!
    My parks, my walks, my manors, that I had,
    Even now forsake me; and of all my lands
    Is nothing left me but my body's length.
    what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
    And live we how we can, yet die we must.

                  Enter OXFORD and SOMERSET

  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick, Warwick! wert thou as we are,
    We might recover all our loss again.
    The Queen from France hath brought a puissant power;
    Even now we heard the news. Ah, couldst thou fly!
  WARWICK. Why then, I would not fly. Ah, Montague,
    If thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand,
    And with thy lips keep in my soul a while!
    Thou lov'st me not; for, brother, if thou didst,
    Thy tears would wash this cold congealed blood
    That glues my lips and will not let me speak.
    Come quickly, Montague, or I am dead.
  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick! Montague hath breath'd his last;
    And to the latest gasp cried out for Warwick,
    And said 'Commend me to my valiant brother.'
    And more he would have said; and more he spoke,
    Which sounded like a clamour in a vault,
    That mought not be distinguish'd; but at last,
    I well might hear, delivered with a groan,
    'O farewell, Warwick!'
  WARWICK. Sweet rest his soul! Fly, lords, and save yourselves:
    For Warwick bids you all farewell, to meet in heaven.
                                                          [Dies]
  OXFORD. Away, away, to meet the Queen's great power!
                                  [Here they bear away his body]

SCENE III. Another part of the field

Flourish. Enter KING in triumph; with GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and the
rest

  KING EDWARD. Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,
    And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.
    But in the midst of this bright-shining day
    I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud
    That will encounter with our glorious sun
    Ere he attain his easeful western bed-
    I mean, my lords, those powers that the Queen
    Hath rais'd in Gallia have arriv'd our coast
    And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.
  CLARENCE. A little gale will soon disperse that cloud
    And blow it to the source from whence it came;
    Thy very beams will dry those vapours up,
    For every cloud engenders not a storm.
  GLOUCESTER. The Queen is valued thirty thousand strong,
    And Somerset, with Oxford, fled to her.
    If she have time to breathe, be well assur'd
    Her faction will be full as strong as ours.
  KING EDWARD. are advertis'd by our loving friends
    That they do hold their course toward Tewksbury;
    We, having now the best at Barnet field,
    Will thither straight, for willingness rids way;
    And as we march our strength will be augmented
    In every county as we go along.
    Strike up the drum; cry 'Courage!' and away.          Exeunt

SCENE IV. Plains wear Tewksbury

Flourish. March. Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD, SOMERSET, OXFORD,
and SOLDIERS

  QUEEN MARGARET. Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their
      loss,
    But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
    What though the mast be now blown overboard,
    The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,
    And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood;
    Yet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he
    Should leave the helm and, like a fearful lad,
    With tearful eyes add water to the sea
    And give more strength to that which hath too much;
    Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,
    Which industry and courage might have sav'd?
    Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!
    Say Warwick was our anchor; what of that?
    And Montague our top-mast; what of him?
    Our slaught'red friends the tackles; what of these?
    Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?
    And Somerset another goodly mast?
    The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?
    And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I
    For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?
    We will not from the helm to sit and weep,
    But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,
    From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck,
    As good to chide the waves as speak them fair.
    And what is Edward but a ruthless sea?
    What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?
    And Richard but a ragged fatal rock?
    All these the enemies to our poor bark.
    Say you can swim; alas, 'tis but a while!
    Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink.
    Bestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,
    Or else you famish- that's a threefold death.
    This speak I, lords, to let you understand,
    If case some one of you would fly from us,
    That there's no hop'd-for mercy with the brothers
    More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and rocks.
    Why, courage then! What cannot be avoided
    'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Methinks a woman of this valiant spirit
    Should, if a coward hear her speak these words,
    Infuse his breast with magnanimity
    And make him naked foil a man-at-arms.
    I speak not this as doubting any here;
    For did I but suspect a fearful man,
    He should have leave to go away betimes,
    Lest in our need he might infect another
    And make him of the like spirit to himself.
    If any such be here- as God forbid!-
    Let him depart before we need his help.
  OXFORD. Women and children of so high a courage,
    And warriors faint! Why, 'twere perpetual shame.
    O brave young Prince! thy famous grandfather
    Doth live again in thee. Long mayst thou Eve
    To bear his image and renew his glories!
  SOMERSET. And he that will not fight for such a hope,
    Go home to bed and, like the owl by day,
    If he arise, be mock'd and wond'red at.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Thanks, gentle Somerset; sweet Oxford, thanks.
  PRINCE OF WALES. And take his thanks that yet hath nothing else.

                        Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Prepare you, lords, for Edward is at hand
    Ready to fight; therefore be resolute.
  OXFORD. I thought no less. It is his policy
    To haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.
  SOMERSET. But he's deceiv'd; we are in readiness.
  QUEEN MARGARET. This cheers my heart, to see your forwardness.
  OXFORD. Here pitch our battle; hence we will not budge.

      Flourish and march. Enter, at a distance, KING EDWARD,
               GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and soldiers

  KING EDWARD. Brave followers, yonder stands the thorny wood
    Which, by the heavens' assistance and your strength,
    Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.
    I need not add more fuel to your fire,
    For well I wot ye blaze to burn them out.
    Give signal to the fight, and to it, lords.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say
    My tears gainsay; for every word I speak,
    Ye see, I drink the water of my eye.
    Therefore, no more but this: Henry, your sovereign,
    Is prisoner to the foe; his state usurp'd,
    His realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,
    His statutes cancell'd, and his treasure spent;
    And yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil.
    You fight in justice. Then, in God's name, lords,
    Be valiant, and give signal to the fight.
                             Alarum, retreat, excursions. Exeunt

SCENE V. Another part of the field

Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and forces,
With QUEEN MARGARET, OXFORD, and SOMERSET, prisoners

  KING EDWARD. Now here a period of tumultuous broils.
    Away with Oxford to Hames Castle straight;
    For Somerset, off with his guilty head.
    Go, bear them hence; I will not hear them speak.
  OXFORD. For my part, I'll not trouble thee with words.
  SOMERSET. Nor I, but stoop with patience to my fortune.
                             Exeunt OXFORD and SOMERSET, guarded
  QUEEN MARGARET. So part we sadly in this troublous world,
    To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.
  KING EDWARD. Is proclamation made that who finds Edward
    Shall have a high reward, and he his life?
  GLOUCESTER. It is; and lo where youthful Edward comes.

                Enter soldiers, with PRINCE EDWARD

  KING EDWARD. Bring forth the gallant; let us hear him speak.
    What, can so young a man begin to prick?
    Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make
    For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,
    And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to?
  PRINCE OF WALES. Speak like a subject, proud ambitious York.
    Suppose that I am now my father's mouth;
    Resign thy chair, and where I stand kneel thou,
    Whilst I propose the self-same words to the
    Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ah, that thy father had been so resolv'd!
  GLOUCESTER. That you might still have worn the petticoat
    And ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Let Aesop fable in a winter's night;
    His currish riddle sorts not with this place.
  GLOUCESTER. By heaven, brat, I'll plague ye for that word.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, thou wast born to be a plague to men.
  GLOUCESTER. For God's sake, take away this captive scold.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, take away this scolding crookback rather.
  KING EDWARD. Peace, wilful boy, or I will charm your tongue.
  CLARENCE. Untutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.
  PRINCE OF WALES. I know my duty; you are all undutiful.
    Lascivious Edward, and thou perjur'd George,
    And thou misshapen Dick, I tell ye all
    I am your better, traitors as ye are;
    And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.
  KING EDWARD. Take that, the likeness of this railer here.
                                                     [Stabs him]
  GLOUCESTER. Sprawl'st thou? Take that, to end thy agony.
                                                     [Stabs him]
  CLARENCE. And there's for twitting me with perjury.
                                                     [Stabs him]
  QUEEN MARGARET. O, kill me too!
  GLOUCESTER. Marry, and shall.             [Offers to kill her]
  KING EDWARD. Hold, Richard, hold; for we have done to much.
  GLOUCESTER. Why should she live to fill the world with words?
  KING EDWARD. What, doth she swoon? Use means for her recovery.
  GLOUCESTER. Clarence, excuse me to the King my brother.
    I'll hence to London on a serious matter;
    Ere ye come there, be sure to hear some news.
  CLARENCE. What? what?
  GLOUCESTER. The Tower! the Tower!                         Exit
  QUEEN MARGARET. O Ned, sweet Ned, speak to thy mother, boy!
    Canst thou not speak? O traitors! murderers!
    They that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all,
    Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,
    If this foul deed were by to equal it.
    He was a man: this, in respect, a child;
    And men ne'er spend their fury on a child.
    What's worse than murderer, that I may name it?
    No, no, my heart will burst, an if I speak-
    And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.
    Butchers and villains! bloody cannibals!
    How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd!
    You have no children, butchers, if you had,
    The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse.
    But if you ever chance to have a child,
    Look in his youth to have him so cut off
    As, deathsmen, you have rid this sweet young prince!
  KING EDWARD. Away with her; go, bear her hence perforce.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, never bear me hence; dispatch me here.
    Here sheathe thy sword; I'll pardon thee my death.
    What, wilt thou not? Then, Clarence, do it thou.
  CLARENCE. By heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Good Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do it.
  CLARENCE. Didst thou not hear me swear I would not do it?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself.
    'Twas sin before, but now 'tis charity.
    What! wilt thou not? Where is that devil's butcher,
    Hard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou?
    Thou art not here. Murder is thy alms-deed;
    Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.
  KING EDWARD. Away, I say; I charge ye bear her hence.
  QUEEN MARGARET. So come to you and yours as to this prince.
                                          Exit, led out forcibly
  KING EDWARD. Where's Richard gone?
  CLARENCE. To London, all in post; and, as I guess,
    To make a bloody supper in the Tower.
  KING EDWARD. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his head.
    Now march we hence. Discharge the common sort
    With pay and thanks; and let's away to London
    And see our gentle queen how well she fares.
    By this, I hope, she hath a son for me.               Exeunt

SCENE VI. London. The Tower

Enter KING HENRY and GLOUCESTER with the LIEUTENANT, on the walls

  GLOUCESTER. Good day, my lord. What, at your book so hard?
  KING HENRY. Ay, my good lord- my lord, I should say rather.
    'Tis sin to flatter; 'good' was little better.
    'Good Gloucester' and 'good devil' were alike,
    And both preposterous; therefore, not 'good lord.'
  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves; we must confer.
                                                 Exit LIEUTENANT
  KING HENRY. So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;
    So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece,
    And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.
    What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?
  GLOUCESTER. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind:
    The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
  KING HENRY. The bird that hath been limed in a bush
    With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;
    And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,
    Have now the fatal object in my eye
    Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and kill'd.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete
    That taught his son the office of a fowl!
    And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.
  KING HENRY. I, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus;
    Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;
    The sun that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy,
    Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea
    Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.
    Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!
    My breast can better brook thy dagger's point
    Than can my ears that tragic history.
    But wherefore dost thou come? Is't for my life?
  GLOUCESTER. Think'st thou I am an executioner?
  KING HENRY. A persecutor I am sure thou art.
    If murdering innocents be executing,
    Why, then thou are an executioner.
  GLOUCESTER. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.
  KING HENRY. Hadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst presume,
    Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.
    And thus I prophesy, that many a thousand
    Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear,
    And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,
    And many an orphan's water-standing eye-
    Men for their sons, wives for their husbands,
    Orphans for their parents' timeless death-
    Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
    The owl shriek'd at thy birth- an evil sign;
    The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
    Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees;
    The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,
    And chatt'ring pies in dismal discords sung;
    Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,
    And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope,
    To wit, an indigest deformed lump,
    Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.
    Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,
    To signify thou cam'st to bite the world;
    And if the rest be true which I have heard,
    Thou cam'st-
  GLOUCESTER. I'll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech.
                                                     [Stabs him]
    For this, amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.
  KING HENRY. Ay, and for much more slaughter after this.
    O, God forgive my sins and pardon thee!               [Dies]
  GLOUCESTER. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
    Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.
    See how my sword weeps for the poor King's death.
    O, may such purple tears be always shed
    From those that wish the downfall of our house!
    If any spark of life be yet remaining,
    Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither-
                                               [Stabs him again]
    I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
    Indeed, 'tis true that Henry told me of;
    For I have often heard my mother say
    I came into the world with my legs forward.
    Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste
    And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?
    The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried
    'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'
    And so I was, which plainly signified
    That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
    Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,
    Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
    I have no brother, I am like no brother;
    And this word 'love,' which greybeards call divine,
    Be resident in men like one another,
    And not in me! I am myself alone.
    Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light,
    But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;
    For I will buzz abroad such prophecies
    That Edward shall be fearful of his life;
    And then to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.
    King Henry and the Prince his son are gone.
    Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest;
    Counting myself but bad till I be best.
    I'll throw thy body in another room,
    And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.
                                              Exit with the body

SCENE VII. London. The palace

Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, QUEEN ELIZABETH, CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER,
HASTINGS, NURSE, with the Young PRINCE, and attendants

  KING EDWARD. Once more we sit in England's royal throne,
    Repurchas'd with the blood of enemies.
    What valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,
    Have we mow'd down in tops of all their pride!
    Three Dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd
    For hardy and undoubted champions;
    Two Cliffords, as the father and the son;
    And two Northumberlands- two braver men
    Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound;
    With them the two brave bears, Warwick and Montague,
    That in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion
    And made the forest tremble when they roar'd.
    Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat
    And made our footstool of security.
    Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy.
    Young Ned, for thee thine uncles and myself
    Have in our armours watch'd the winter's night,
    Went all afoot in summer's scalding heat,
    That thou might'st repossess the crown in peace;
    And of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I'll blast his harvest if your head were laid;
    For yet I am not look'd on in the world.
    This shoulder was ordain'd so thick to heave;
    And heave it shall some weight or break my back.
    Work thou the way- and that shall execute.
  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Gloucester, love my lovely queen;
    And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.
  CLARENCE. The duty that I owe unto your Majesty
    I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.
  KING EDWARD. Thanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks.
  GLOUCESTER. And that I love the tree from whence thou sprang'st,
    Witness the loving kiss I give the fruit.
    [Aside] To say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his master
    And cried 'All hail!' when as he meant all harm.
  KING EDWARD. Now am I seated as my soul delights,
    Having my country's peace and brothers' loves.
  CLARENCE. What will your Grace have done with Margaret?
    Reignier, her father, to the King of France
    Hath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,
    And hither have they sent it for her ransom.
  KING EDWARD. Away with her, and waft her hence to France.
    And now what rests but that we spend the time
    With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,
    Such as befits the pleasure of the court?
    Sound drums and trumpets. Farewell, sour annoy!
    For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.             Exeunt

THE END

1611



KING HENRY THE EIGHTH

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  KING HENRY THE EIGHTH
  CARDINAL WOLSEY               CARDINAL CAMPEIUS
  CAPUCIUS, Ambassador from the Emperor Charles V
  CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
  DUKE OF NORFOLK               DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
  DUKE OF SUFFOLK               EARL OF SURREY
  LORD CHAMBERLAIN              LORD CHANCELLOR
  GARDINER, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER
  BISHOP OF LINCOLN             LORD ABERGAVENNY
  LORD SANDYS                   SIR HENRY GUILDFORD
  SIR THOMAS LOVELL             SIR ANTHONY DENNY
  SIR NICHOLAS VAUX             SECRETARIES to Wolsey
  CROMWELL, servant to Wolsey
  GRIFFITH, gentleman-usher to Queen Katharine
  THREE GENTLEMEN
  DOCTOR BUTTS, physician to the King
  GARTER KING-AT-ARMS
  SURVEYOR to the Duke of Buckingham
  BRANDON, and a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS
  DOORKEEPER Of the Council chamber
  PORTER, and his MAN           PAGE to Gardiner
  A CRIER

  QUEEN KATHARINE, wife to King Henry, afterwards divorced
  ANNE BULLEN, her Maid of Honour, afterwards Queen
  AN OLD LADY, friend to Anne Bullen
  PATIENCE, woman to Queen Katharine

  Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Lords and Ladies in the Dumb
       Shows; Women attending upon the Queen; Scribes,
       Officers, Guards, and other Attendants; Spirits

                          SCENE:

              London; Westminster; Kimbolton

                 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH

                     THE PROLOGUE.

    I come no more to make you laugh; things now
    That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
    Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,
    Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,
    We now present. Those that can pity here
    May, if they think it well, let fall a tear:
    The subject will deserve it. Such as give
    Their money out of hope they may believe
    May here find truth too. Those that come to see
    Only a show or two, and so agree
    The play may pass, if they be still and willing,
    I'll undertake may see away their shilling
    Richly in two short hours. Only they
    That come to hear a merry bawdy play,
    A noise of targets, or to see a fellow
    In a long motley coat guarded with yellow,
    Will be deceiv'd; for, gentle hearers, know,
    To rank our chosen truth with such a show
    As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting
    Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring
    To make that only true we now intend,
    Will leave us never an understanding friend.
    Therefore, for goodness sake, and as you are known
    The first and happiest hearers of the town,
    Be sad, as we would make ye. Think ye see
    The very persons of our noble story
    As they were living; think you see them great,
    And follow'd with the general throng and sweat
    Of thousand friends; then, in a moment, see
    How soon this mightiness meets misery.
    And if you can be merry then, I'll say
    A man may weep upon his wedding-day.

ACT I. SCENE 1.

London. The palace

Enter the DUKE OF NORFOLK at one door; at the other, the DUKE OF
BUCKINGHAM and the LORD ABERGAVENNY

  BUCKINGHAM. Good morrow, and well met. How have ye done
    Since last we saw in France?
  NORFOLK. I thank your Grace,
    Healthful; and ever since a fresh admirer
    Of what I saw there.
  BUCKINGHAM. An untimely ague
    Stay'd me a prisoner in my chamber when
    Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,
    Met in the vale of Andren.
  NORFOLK. 'Twixt Guynes and Arde-
    I was then present, saw them salute on horseback;
    Beheld them, when they lighted, how they clung
    In their embracement, as they grew together;
    Which had they, what four thron'd ones could have weigh'd
    Such a compounded one?
  BUCKINGHAM. All the whole time
    I was my chamber's prisoner.
  NORFOLK. Then you lost
    The view of earthly glory; men might say,
    Till this time pomp was single, but now married
    To one above itself. Each following day
    Became the next day's master, till the last
    Made former wonders its. To-day the French,
    All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods,
    Shone down the English; and to-morrow they
    Made Britain India: every man that stood
    Show'd like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were
    As cherubins, an gilt; the madams too,
    Not us'd to toil, did almost sweat to bear
    The pride upon them, that their very labour
    Was to them as a painting. Now this masque
    Was cried incomparable; and th' ensuing night
    Made it a fool and beggar. The two kings,
    Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst,
    As presence did present them: him in eye
    still him in praise; and being present both,
    'Twas said they saw but one, and no discerner
    Durst wag his tongue in censure. When these suns-
    For so they phrase 'em-by their heralds challeng'd
    The noble spirits to arms, they did perform
    Beyond thought's compass, that former fabulous story,
    Being now seen possible enough, got credit,
    That Bevis was believ'd.
  BUCKINGHAM. O, you go far!
  NORFOLK. As I belong to worship, and affect
    In honour honesty, the tract of ev'rything
    Would by a good discourser lose some life
    Which action's self was tongue to. All was royal:
    To the disposing of it nought rebell'd;
    Order gave each thing view. The office did
    Distinctly his full function.
  BUCKINGHAM. Who did guide-
    I mean, who set the body and the limbs
    Of this great sport together, as you guess?
  NORFOLK. One, certes, that promises no element
    In such a business.
  BUCKINGHAM. I pray you, who, my lord?
  NORFOLK. All this was ord'red by the good discretion
    Of the right reverend Cardinal of York.
  BUCKINGHAM. The devil speed him! No man's pie is freed
    From his ambitious finger. What had he
    To do in these fierce vanities? I wonder
    That such a keech can with his very bulk
    Take up the rays o' th' beneficial sun,
    And keep it from the earth.
  NORFOLK. Surely, sir,
    There's in him stuff that puts him to these ends;
    For, being not propp'd by ancestry, whose grace
    Chalks successors their way, nor call'd upon
    For high feats done to th' crown, neither allied
    To eminent assistants, but spider-like,
    Out of his self-drawing web, 'a gives us note
    The force of his own merit makes his way-
    A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys
    A place next to the King.
  ABERGAVENNY. I cannot tell
    What heaven hath given him-let some graver eye
    Pierce into that; but I can see his pride
    Peep through each part of him. Whence has he that?
    If not from hell, the devil is a niggard
    Or has given all before, and he begins
    A new hell in himself.
  BUCKINGHAM. Why the devil,
    Upon this French going out, took he upon him-
    Without the privity o' th' King-t' appoint
    Who should attend on him? He makes up the file
    Of all the gentry; for the most part such
    To whom as great a charge as little honour
    He meant to lay upon; and his own letter,
    The honourable board of council out,
    Must fetch him in he papers.
  ABERGAVENNY. I do know
    Kinsmen of mine, three at the least, that have
    By this so sicken'd their estates that never
    They shall abound as formerly.
  BUCKINGHAM. O, many
    Have broke their backs with laying manors on 'em
    For this great journey. What did this vanity
    But minister communication of
    A most poor issue?
  NORFOLK. Grievingly I think
    The peace between the French and us not values
    The cost that did conclude it.
  BUCKINGHAM. Every man,
    After the hideous storm that follow'd, was
    A thing inspir'd, and, not consulting, broke
    Into a general prophecy-that this tempest,
    Dashing the garment of this peace, aboded
    The sudden breach on't.
  NORFOLK. Which is budded out;
    For France hath flaw'd the league, and hath attach'd
    Our merchants' goods at Bordeaux.
  ABERGAVENNY. Is it therefore
    Th' ambassador is silenc'd?
  NORFOLK. Marry, is't.
  ABERGAVENNY. A proper tide of a peace, and purchas'd
    At a superfluous rate!
  BUCKINGHAM. Why, all this business
    Our reverend Cardinal carried.
  NORFOLK. Like it your Grace,
    The state takes notice of the private difference
    Betwixt you and the Cardinal. I advise you-
    And take it from a heart that wishes towards you
    Honour and plenteous safety-that you read
    The Cardinal's malice and his potency
    Together; to consider further, that
    What his high hatred would effect wants not
    A minister in his power. You know his nature,
    That he's revengeful; and I know his sword
    Hath a sharp edge-it's long and't may be said
    It reaches far, and where 'twill not extend,
    Thither he darts it. Bosom up my counsel
    You'll find it wholesome. Lo, where comes that rock
    That I advise your shunning.

      Enter CARDINAL WOLSEY, the purse borne before him, certain of the
      guard, and two SECRETARIES with papers. The CARDINAL in his
      passage fixeth his eye on BUCKINGHAM, and BUCKINGHAM on him, both
      full of disdain

  WOLSEY. The Duke of Buckingham's surveyor? Ha!
    Where's his examination?
  SECRETARY. Here, so please you.
  WOLSEY. Is he in person ready?
  SECRETARY. Ay, please your Grace.
  WOLSEY. Well, we shall then know more, and Buckingham
    shall lessen this big look.
                                          Exeunt WOLSEY and his train
  BUCKINGHAM. This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd, and I
    Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best
    Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar's book
    Outworths a noble's blood.
  NORFOLK. What, are you chaf'd?
    Ask God for temp'rance; that's th' appliance only
    Which your disease requires.
  BUCKINGHAM. I read in's looks
    Matter against me, and his eye revil'd
    Me as his abject object. At this instant
    He bores me with some trick. He's gone to th' King;
    I'll follow, and outstare him.
  NORFOLK. Stay, my lord,
    And let your reason with your choler question
    What 'tis you go about. To climb steep hills
    Requires slow pace at first. Anger is like
    A full hot horse, who being allow'd his way,
    Self-mettle tires him. Not a man in England
    Can advise me like you; be to yourself
    As you would to your friend.
  BUCKINGHAM. I'll to the King,
    And from a mouth of honour quite cry down
    This Ipswich fellow's insolence; or proclaim
    There's difference in no persons.
  NORFOLK. Be advis'd:
    Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
    That it do singe yourself. We may outrun
    By violent swiftness that which we run at,
    And lose by over-running. Know you not
    The fire that mounts the liquor till't run o'er
    In seeming to augment it wastes it? Be advis'd.
    I say again there is no English soul
    More stronger to direct you than yourself,
    If with the sap of reason you would quench
    Or but allay the fire of passion.
  BUCKINGHAM. Sir,
    I am thankful to you, and I'll go along
    By your prescription; but this top-proud fellow-
    Whom from the flow of gan I name not, but
    From sincere motions, by intelligence,
    And proofs as clear as founts in July when
    We see each grain of gravel-I do know
    To be corrupt and treasonous.
  NORFOLK. Say not treasonous.
  BUCKINGHAM. To th' King I'll say't, and make my vouch as strong
    As shore of rock. Attend: this holy fox,
    Or wolf, or both-for he is equal rav'nous
    As he is subtle, and as prone to mischief
    As able to perform't, his mind and place
    Infecting one another, yea, reciprocally-
    Only to show his pomp as well in France
    As here at home, suggests the King our master
    To this last costly treaty, th' interview
    That swallowed so much treasure and like a glass
    Did break i' th' wrenching.
  NORFOLK. Faith, and so it did.
  BUCKINGHAM. Pray, give me favour, sir; this cunning cardinal
    The articles o' th' combination drew
    As himself pleas'd; and they were ratified
    As he cried 'Thus let be' to as much end
    As give a crutch to th' dead. But our Count-Cardinal
    Has done this, and 'tis well; for worthy Wolsey,
    Who cannot err, he did it. Now this follows,
    Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy
    To th' old dam treason: Charles the Emperor,
    Under pretence to see the Queen his aunt-
    For 'twas indeed his colour, but he came
    To whisper Wolsey-here makes visitation-
    His fears were that the interview betwixt
    England and France might through their amity
    Breed him some prejudice; for from this league
    Peep'd harms that menac'd him-privily
    Deals with our Cardinal; and, as I trow-
    Which I do well, for I am sure the Emperor
    Paid ere he promis'd; whereby his suit was granted
    Ere it was ask'd-but when the way was made,
    And pav'd with gold, the Emperor thus desir'd,
    That he would please to alter the King's course,
    And break the foresaid peace. Let the King know,
    As soon he shall by me, that thus the Cardinal
    Does buy and sell his honour as he pleases,
    And for his own advantage.
  NORFOLK. I am sorry
    To hear this of him, and could wish he were
    Something mistaken in't.
  BUCKINGHAM. No, not a syllable:
    I do pronounce him in that very shape
    He shall appear in proof.

       Enter BRANDON, a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS before him,
              and two or three of the guard

  BRANDON. Your office, sergeant: execute it.
  SERGEANT. Sir,
    My lord the Duke of Buckingham, and Earl
    Of Hereford, Stafford, and Northampton, I
    Arrest thee of high treason, in the name
    Of our most sovereign King.
  BUCKINGHAM. Lo you, my lord,
    The net has fall'n upon me! I shall perish
    Under device and practice.
  BRANDON. I am sorry
    To see you ta'en from liberty, to look on
    The business present; 'tis his Highness' pleasure
    You shall to th' Tower.
  BUCKINGHAM. It will help nothing
    To plead mine innocence; for that dye is on me
    Which makes my whit'st part black. The will of heav'n
    Be done in this and all things! I obey.
    O my Lord Aberga'ny, fare you well!
  BRANDON. Nay, he must bear you company.
    [To ABERGAVENNY]  The King
    Is pleas'd you shall to th' Tower, till you know
    How he determines further.
  ABERGAVENNY. As the Duke said,
    The will of heaven be done, and the King's pleasure
    By me obey'd.
  BRANDON. Here is warrant from
    The King t' attach Lord Montacute and the bodies
    Of the Duke's confessor, John de la Car,
    One Gilbert Peck, his chancellor-
  BUCKINGHAM. So, so!
    These are the limbs o' th' plot; no more, I hope.
  BRANDON. A monk o' th' Chartreux.
  BUCKINGHAM. O, Nicholas Hopkins?
  BRANDON. He.
  BUCKINGHAM. My surveyor is false. The o'er-great Cardinal
    Hath show'd him gold; my life is spann'd already.
    I am the shadow of poor Buckingham,
    Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on
    By dark'ning my clear sun. My lord, farewell.
    Exeunt

ACT I. SCENE 2.

London. The Council Chamber

Cornets. Enter KING HENRY, leaning on the CARDINAL'S shoulder, the
NOBLES, and SIR THOMAS LOVELL, with others. The CARDINAL places himself
under the KING'S feet on his right side

  KING. My life itself, and the best heart of it,
    Thanks you for this great care; I stood i' th' level
    Of a full-charg'd confederacy, and give thanks
    To you that chok'd it. Let be call'd before us
    That gentleman of Buckingham's. In person
    I'll hear his confessions justify;
    And point by point the treasons of his master
    He shall again relate.

      A noise within, crying 'Room for the Queen!' Enter the QUEEN,
      usher'd by the DUKES OF NORFOLK and SUFFOLK; she kneels. The KING
      riseth from his state, takes her up, kisses and placeth her by
      him

  QUEEN KATHARINE. Nay, we must longer kneel: I am suitor.
  KING. Arise, and take place by us. Half your suit
    Never name to us: you have half our power.
    The other moiety ere you ask is given;
    Repeat your will, and take it.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Thank your Majesty.
    That you would love yourself, and in that love
    Not unconsidered leave your honour nor
    The dignity of your office, is the point
    Of my petition.
  KING. Lady mine, proceed.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am solicited, not by a few,
    And those of true condition, that your subjects
    Are in great grievance: there have been commissions
    Sent down among 'em which hath flaw'd the heart
    Of all their loyalties; wherein, although,
    My good Lord Cardinal, they vent reproaches
    Most bitterly on you as putter-on
    Of these exactions, yet the King our master-
    Whose honour Heaven shield from soil!-even he escapes not
    Language unmannerly; yea, such which breaks
    The sides of loyalty, and almost appears
    In loud rebellion.
  NORFOLK. Not almost appears-
    It doth appear; for, upon these taxations,
    The clothiers all, not able to maintain
    The many to them 'longing, have put of
    The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers, who
    Unfit for other life, compell'd by hunger
    And lack of other means, in desperate manner
    Daring th' event to th' teeth, are all in uproar,
    And danger serves among them.
  KING. Taxation!
    Wherein? and what taxation? My Lord Cardinal,
    You that are blam'd for it alike with us,
    Know you of this taxation?
  WOLSEY. Please you, sir,
    I know but of a single part in aught
    Pertains to th' state, and front but in that file
    Where others tell steps with me.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. No, my lord!
    You know no more than others! But you frame
    Things that are known alike, which are not wholesome
    To those which would not know them, and yet must
    Perforce be their acquaintance. These exactions,
    Whereof my sovereign would have note, they are
    Most pestilent to th' hearing; and to bear 'em
    The back is sacrifice to th' load. They say
    They are devis'd by you, or else you suffer
    Too hard an exclamation.
  KING. Still exaction!
    The nature of it? In what kind, let's know,
    Is this exaction?
  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am much too venturous
    In tempting of your patience, but am bold'ned
    Under your promis'd pardon. The subjects' grief
    Comes through commissions, which compels from each
    The sixth part of his substance, to be levied
    Without delay; and the pretence for this
    Is nam'd your wars in France. This makes bold mouths;
    Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze
    Allegiance in them; their curses now
    Live where their prayers did; and it's come to pass
    This tractable obedience is a slave
    To each incensed will. I would your Highness
    Would give it quick consideration, for
    There is no primer business.
  KING. By my life,
    This is against our pleasure.
  WOLSEY. And for me,
    I have no further gone in this than by
    A single voice; and that not pass'd me but
    By learned approbation of the judges. If I am
    Traduc'd by ignorant tongues, which neither know
    My faculties nor person, yet will be
    The chronicles of my doing, let me say
    'Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake
    That virtue must go through. We must not stint
    Our necessary actions in the fear
    To cope malicious censurers, which ever
    As rav'nous fishes do a vessel follow
    That is new-trimm'd, but benefit no further
    Than vainly longing. What we oft do best,
    By sick interpreters, once weak ones, is
    Not ours, or not allow'd; what worst, as oft
    Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up
    For our best act. If we shall stand still,
    In fear our motion will be mock'd or carp'd at,
    We should take root here where we sit, or sit
    State-statues only.
  KING. Things done well
    And with a care exempt themselves from fear:
    Things done without example, in their issue
    Are to be fear'd. Have you a precedent
    Of this commission? I believe, not any.
    We must not rend our subjects from our laws,
    And stick them in our will. Sixth part of each?
    A trembling contribution! Why, we take
    From every tree lop, bark, and part o' th' timber;
    And though we leave it with a root, thus hack'd,
    The air will drink the sap. To every county
    Where this is question'd send our letters with
    Free pardon to each man that has denied
    The force of this commission. Pray, look tot;
    I put it to your care.
  WOLSEY. [Aside to the SECRETARY]  A word with you.
    Let there be letters writ to every shire
    Of the King's grace and pardon. The grieved commons
    Hardly conceive of me-let it be nois'd
    That through our intercession this revokement
    And pardon comes. I shall anon advise you
    Further in the proceeding.                         Exit SECRETARY

                    Enter SURVEYOR

  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham
    Is run in your displeasure.
  KING. It grieves many.
    The gentleman is learn'd and a most rare speaker;
    To nature none more bound; his training such
    That he may furnish and instruct great teachers
    And never seek for aid out of himself. Yet see,
    When these so noble benefits shall prove
    Not well dispos'd, the mind growing once corrupt,
    They turn to vicious forms, ten times more ugly
    Than ever they were fair. This man so complete,
    Who was enroll'd 'mongst wonders, and when we,
    Almost with ravish'd list'ning, could not find
    His hour of speech a minute-he, my lady,
    Hath into monstrous habits put the graces
    That once were his, and is become as black
    As if besmear'd in hell. Sit by us; you shall hear-
    This was his gentleman in trust-of him
    Things to strike honour sad. Bid him recount
    The fore-recited practices, whereof
    We cannot feel too little, hear too much.
  WOLSEY. Stand forth, and with bold spirit relate what you,
    Most like a careful subject, have collected
    Out of the Duke of Buckingham.
  KING. Speak freely.
  SURVEYOR. First, it was usual with him-every day
    It would infect his speech-that if the King
    Should without issue die, he'll carry it so
    To make the sceptre his. These very words
    I've heard him utter to his son-in-law,
    Lord Aberga'ny, to whom by oath he menac'd
    Revenge upon the Cardinal.
  WOLSEY. Please your Highness, note
    This dangerous conception in this point:
    Not friended by his wish, to your high person
    His will is most malignant, and it stretches
    Beyond you to your friends.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. My learn'd Lord Cardinal,
    Deliver all with charity.
  KING. Speak on.
    How grounded he his title to the crown
    Upon our fail? To this point hast thou heard him
    At any time speak aught?
  SURVEYOR. He was brought to this
    By a vain prophecy of Nicholas Henton.
  KING. What was that Henton?
  SURVEYOR. Sir, a Chartreux friar,
    His confessor, who fed him every minute
    With words of sovereignty.
  KING. How know'st thou this?
  SURVEYOR. Not long before your Highness sped to France,
    The Duke being at the Rose, within the parish
    Saint Lawrence Poultney, did of me demand
    What was the speech among the Londoners
    Concerning the French journey. I replied
    Men fear'd the French would prove perfidious,
    To the King's danger. Presently the Duke
    Said 'twas the fear indeed and that he doubted
    'Twould prove the verity of certain words
    Spoke by a holy monk 'that oft' says he
    'Hath sent to me, wishing me to permit
    John de la Car, my chaplain, a choice hour
    To hear from him a matter of some moment;
    Whom after under the confession's seal
    He solemnly had sworn that what he spoke
    My chaplain to no creature living but
    To me should utter, with demure confidence
    This pausingly ensu'd: "Neither the King nor's heirs,
    Tell you the Duke, shall prosper; bid him strive
    To gain the love o' th' commonalty; the Duke
    Shall govern England."'
  QUEEN KATHARINE. If I know you well,
    You were the Duke's surveyor, and lost your office
    On the complaint o' th' tenants. Take good heed
    You charge not in your spleen a noble person
    And spoil your nobler soul. I say, take heed;
    Yes, heartily beseech you.
  KING. Let him on.
    Go forward.
  SURVEYOR. On my soul, I'll speak but truth.
    I told my lord the Duke, by th' devil's illusions
    The monk might be deceiv'd, and that 'twas dangerous
      for him
    To ruminate on this so far, until
    It forg'd him some design, which, being believ'd,
    It was much like to do. He answer'd 'Tush,
    It can do me no damage'; adding further
    That, had the King in his last sickness fail'd,
    The Cardinal's and Sir Thomas Lovell's heads
    Should have gone off.
  KING. Ha! what, so rank? Ah ha!
    There's mischief in this man. Canst thou say further?
  SURVEYOR. I can, my liege.
  KING. Proceed.
  SURVEYOR. Being at Greenwich,
    After your Highness had reprov'd the Duke
    About Sir William Bulmer-
  KING. I remember
    Of such a time: being my sworn servant,
    The Duke retain'd him his. But on: what hence?
  SURVEYOR. 'If' quoth he 'I for this had been committed-
    As to the Tower I thought-I would have play'd
    The part my father meant to act upon
    Th' usurper Richard; who, being at Salisbury,
    Made suit to come in's presence, which if granted,
    As he made semblance of his duty, would
    Have put his knife into him.'
  KING. A giant traitor!
  WOLSEY. Now, madam, may his Highness live in freedom,
    And this man out of prison?
  QUEEN KATHARINE. God mend all!
  KING. There's something more would out of thee: what say'st?
  SURVEYOR. After 'the Duke his father' with the 'knife,'
    He stretch'd him, and, with one hand on his dagger,
    Another spread on's breast, mounting his eyes,
    He did discharge a horrible oath, whose tenour
    Was, were he evil us'd, he would outgo
    His father by as much as a performance
    Does an irresolute purpose.
  KING. There's his period,
    To sheath his knife in us. He is attach'd;
    Call him to present trial. If he may
    Find mercy in the law, 'tis his; if none,
    Let him not seek't of us. By day and night!
    He's traitor to th' height.                                Exeunt

ACT I. SCENE 3.

London. The palace

Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN and LORD SANDYS

  CHAMBERLAIN. Is't possible the spells of France should juggle
    Men into such strange mysteries?
  SANDYS. New customs,
    Though they be never so ridiculous,
    Nay, let 'em be unmanly, yet are follow'd.
  CHAMBERLAIN. As far as I see, all the good our English
    Have got by the late voyage is but merely
    A fit or two o' th' face; but they are shrewd ones;
    For when they hold 'em, you would swear directly
    Their very noses had been counsellors
    To Pepin or Clotharius, they keep state so.
  SANDYS. They have all new legs, and lame ones. One would take it,
    That never saw 'em pace before, the spavin
    Or springhalt reign'd among 'em.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Death! my lord,
    Their clothes are after such a pagan cut to't,
    That sure th' have worn out Christendom.

           Enter SIR THOMAS LOVELL

    How now?
    What news, Sir Thomas Lovell?
  LOVELL. Faith, my lord,
    I hear of none but the new proclamation
    That's clapp'd upon the court gate.
  CHAMBERLAIN. What is't for?
  LOVELL. The reformation of our travell'd gallants,
    That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors.
  CHAMBERLAIN. I am glad 'tis there. Now I would pray our monsieurs
    To think an English courtier may be wise,
    And never see the Louvre.
  LOVELL. They must either,
    For so run the conditions, leave those remnants
    Of fool and feather that they got in France,
    With all their honourable points of ignorance
    Pertaining thereunto-as fights and fireworks;
    Abusing better men than they can be,
    Out of a foreign wisdom-renouncing clean
    The faith they have in tennis, and tall stockings,
    Short blist'red breeches, and those types of travel
    And understand again like honest men,
    Or pack to their old playfellows. There, I take it,
    They may, cum privilegio, wear away
    The lag end of their lewdness and be laugh'd at.
  SANDYS. 'Tis time to give 'em physic, their diseases
    Are grown so catching.
  CHAMBERLAIN. What a loss our ladies
    Will have of these trim vanities!
  LOVELL. Ay, marry,
    There will be woe indeed, lords: the sly whoresons
    Have got a speeding trick to lay down ladies.
    A French song and a fiddle has no fellow.
  SANDYS. The devil fiddle 'em! I am glad they are going,
    For sure there's no converting 'em. Now
    An honest country lord, as I am, beaten
    A long time out of play, may bring his plainsong
    And have an hour of hearing; and, by'r Lady,
    Held current music too.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Well said, Lord Sandys;
    Your colt's tooth is not cast yet.
  SANDYS. No, my lord,
    Nor shall not while I have a stamp.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Sir Thomas,
    Whither were you a-going?
  LOVELL. To the Cardinal's;
    Your lordship is a guest too.
  CHAMBERLAIN. O, 'tis true;
    This night he makes a supper, and a great one,
    To many lords and ladies; there will be
    The beauty of this kingdom, I'll assure you.
  LOVELL. That churchman bears a bounteous mind indeed,
    A hand as fruitful as the land that feeds us;
    His dews fall everywhere.
  CHAMBERLAIN. No doubt he's noble;
    He had a black mouth that said other of him.
  SANDYS. He may, my lord; has wherewithal. In him
    Sparing would show a worse sin than ill doctrine:
    Men of his way should be most liberal,
    They are set here for examples.
  CHAMBERLAIN. True, they are so;
    But few now give so great ones. My barge stays;
    Your lordship shall along. Come, good Sir Thomas,
    We shall be late else; which I would not be,
    For I was spoke to, with Sir Henry Guildford,
    This night to be comptrollers.
  SANDYS. I am your lordship's.                                Exeunt

ACT I. SCENE 4.

London. The Presence Chamber in York Place

Hautboys. A small table under a state for the Cardinal, a longer table
for the guests. Then enter ANNE BULLEN, and divers other LADIES and
GENTLEMEN, as guests, at one door; at another door enter SIR HENRY
GUILDFORD

  GUILDFORD. Ladies, a general welcome from his Grace
    Salutes ye all; this night he dedicates
    To fair content and you. None here, he hopes,
    In all this noble bevy, has brought with her
    One care abroad; he would have all as merry
    As, first, good company, good wine, good welcome,
    Can make good people.

       Enter LORD CHAMBERLAIN, LORD SANDYS, and SIR
                  THOMAS LOVELL

    O, my lord, y'are tardy,
    The very thought of this fair company
    Clapp'd wings to me.
  CHAMBERLAIN. You are young, Sir Harry Guildford.
  SANDYS. Sir Thomas Lovell, had the Cardinal
    But half my lay thoughts in him, some of these
    Should find a running banquet ere they rested
    I think would better please 'em. By my life,
    They are a sweet society of fair ones.
  LOVELL. O that your lordship were but now confessor
    To one or two of these!
  SANDYS. I would I were;
    They should find easy penance.
  LOVELL. Faith, how easy?
  SANDYS. As easy as a down bed would afford it.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Sweet ladies, will it please you sit? Sir Harry,
    Place you that side; I'll take the charge of this.
    His Grace is ent'ring. Nay, you must not freeze:
    Two women plac'd together makes cold weather.
    My Lord Sandys, you are one will keep 'em waking:
    Pray sit between these ladies.
  SANDYS. By my faith,
    And thank your lordship. By your leave, sweet ladies.
                 [Seats himself between ANNE BULLEN and another lady]
    If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;
    I had it from my father.
  ANNE. Was he mad, sir?
  SANDYS. O, very mad, exceeding mad, in love too.
    But he would bite none; just as I do now,
    He would kiss you twenty with a breath.              [Kisses her]
  CHAMBERLAIN. Well said, my lord.
    So, now y'are fairly seated. Gentlemen,
    The penance lies on you if these fair ladies
    Pass away frowning.
  SANDYS. For my little cure,
    Let me alone.

         Hautboys. Enter CARDINAL WOLSEY, attended; and
                         takes his state

  WOLSEY. Y'are welcome, my fair guests. That noble lady
    Or gentleman that is not freely merry
    Is not my friend. This, to confirm my welcome-
    And to you all, good health!                             [Drinks]
  SANDYS. Your Grace is noble.
    Let me have such a bowl may hold my thanks
    And save me so much talking.
  WOLSEY. My Lord Sandys,
    I am beholding to you. Cheer your neighbours.
    Ladies, you are not merry. Gentlemen,
    Whose fault is this?
  SANDYS. The red wine first must rise
    In their fair cheeks, my lord; then we shall have 'em
    Talk us to silence.
  ANNE. You are a merry gamester,
    My Lord Sandys.
  SANDYS. Yes, if I make my play.
    Here's to your ladyship; and pledge it, madam,
    For 'tis to such a thing-
  ANNE. You cannot show me.
  SANDYS. I told your Grace they would talk anon.
                             [Drum and trumpet. Chambers discharg'd]
  WOLSEY. What's that?
  CHAMBERLAIN. Look out there, some of ye.             Exit a SERVANT
  WOLSEY. What warlike voice,
    And to what end, is this? Nay, ladies, fear not:
    By all the laws of war y'are privileg'd.

            Re-enter SERVANT

  CHAMBERLAIN. How now! what is't?
  SERVANT. A noble troop of strangers-
    For so they seem. Th' have left their barge and landed,
    And hither make, as great ambassadors
    From foreign princes.
  WOLSEY. Good Lord Chamberlain,
    Go, give 'em welcome; you can speak the French tongue;
    And pray receive 'em nobly and conduct 'em
    Into our presence, where this heaven of beauty
    Shall shine at full upon them. Some attend him.
              Exit CHAMBERLAIN attended. All rise, and tables remov'd
    You have now a broken banquet, but we'll mend it.
    A good digestion to you all; and once more
    I show'r a welcome on ye; welcome all.

      Hautboys. Enter the KING, and others, as maskers,
      habited like shepherds, usher'd by the LORD CHAMBERLAIN.
      They pass directly before the CARDINAL,
      and gracefully salute him

    A noble company! What are their pleasures?
  CHAMBERLAIN. Because they speak no English, thus they pray'd
    To tell your Grace, that, having heard by fame
    Of this so noble and so fair assembly
    This night to meet here, they could do no less,
    Out of the great respect they bear to beauty,
    But leave their flocks and, under your fair conduct,
    Crave leave to view these ladies and entreat
    An hour of revels with 'em.
  WOLSEY. Say, Lord Chamberlain,
    They have done my poor house grace; for which I pay 'em
    A thousand thanks, and pray 'em take their pleasures.
                   [They choose ladies. The KING chooses ANNE BULLEN]
  KING. The fairest hand I ever touch'd! O beauty,
    Till now I never knew thee!                        [Music. Dance]
  WOLSEY. My lord!
  CHAMBERLAIN. Your Grace?
  WOLSEY. Pray tell 'em thus much from me:
    There should be one amongst 'em, by his person,
    More worthy this place than myself; to whom,
    If I but knew him, with my love and duty
    I would surrender it.
  CHAMBERLAIN. I will, my lord.
                                         [He whispers to the maskers]
  WOLSEY. What say they?
  CHAMBERLAIN. Such a one, they all confess,
    There is indeed; which they would have your Grace
    Find out, and he will take it.
  WOLSEY. Let me see, then.                    [Comes from his state]
    By all your good leaves, gentlemen, here I'll make
    My royal choice.
  KING.  [Unmasking]  Ye have found him, Cardinal.
    You hold a fair assembly; you do well, lord.
    You are a churchman, or, I'll tell you, Cardinal,
    I should judge now unhappily.
  WOLSEY. I am glad
    Your Grace is grown so pleasant.
  KING. My Lord Chamberlain,
    Prithee come hither: what fair lady's that?
  CHAMBERLAIN. An't please your Grace, Sir Thomas Bullen's
      daughter-
    The Viscount Rochford-one of her Highness' women.
  KING. By heaven, she is a dainty one. Sweet heart,
    I were unmannerly to take you out
    And not to kiss you. A health, gentlemen!
    Let it go round.
  WOLSEY. Sir Thomas Lovell, is the banquet ready
    I' th' privy chamber?
  LOVELL. Yes, my lord.
  WOLSEY. Your Grace,
    I fear, with dancing is a little heated.
  KING. I fear, too much.
  WOLSEY. There's fresher air, my lord,
    In the next chamber.
  KING. Lead in your ladies, ev'ry one. Sweet partner,
    I must not yet forsake you. Let's be merry:
    Good my Lord Cardinal, I have half a dozen healths
    To drink to these fair ladies, and a measure
    To lead 'em once again; and then let's dream
    Who's best in favour. Let the music knock it.
                                                Exeunt, with trumpets

ACT II. SCENE 1.

Westminster. A street

Enter two GENTLEMEN, at several doors

  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Whither away so fast?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. O, God save ye!
    Ev'n to the Hall, to hear what shall become
    Of the great Duke of Buckingham.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll save you
    That labour, sir. All's now done but the ceremony
    Of bringing back the prisoner.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Were you there?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, indeed, was I.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Pray, speak what has happen'd.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You may guess quickly what.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Is he found guilty?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, truly is he, and condemn'd upon't.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I am sorry for't.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. So are a number more.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But, pray, how pass'd it?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll tell you in a little. The great Duke.
    Came to the bar; where to his accusations
    He pleaded still not guilty, and alleged
    Many sharp reasons to defeat the law.
    The King's attorney, on the contrary,
    Urg'd on the examinations, proofs, confessions,
    Of divers witnesses; which the Duke desir'd
    To have brought, viva voce, to his face;
    At which appear'd against him his surveyor,
    Sir Gilbert Peck his chancellor, and John Car,
    Confessor to him, with that devil-monk,
    Hopkins, that made this mischief.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That was he
    That fed him with his prophecies?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. The same.
    All these accus'd him strongly, which he fain
    Would have flung from him; but indeed he could not;
    And so his peers, upon this evidence,
    Have found him guilty of high treason. Much
    He spoke, and learnedly, for life; but all
    Was either pitied in him or forgotten.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. After all this, how did he bear him-self
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. When he was brought again to th' bar to hear
    His knell rung out, his judgment, he was stirr'd
    With such an agony he sweat extremely,
    And something spoke in choler, ill and hasty;
    But he fell to himself again, and sweetly
    In all the rest show'd a most noble patience.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I do not think he fears death.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Sure, he does not;
    He never was so womanish; the cause
    He may a little grieve at.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Certainly
    The Cardinal is the end of this.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis likely,
    By all conjectures: first, Kildare's attainder,
    Then deputy of Ireland, who remov'd,
    Earl Surrey was sent thither, and in haste too,
    Lest he should help his father.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That trick of state
    Was a deep envious one.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. At his return
    No doubt he will requite it. This is noted,
    And generally: whoever the King favours
    The Cardinal instantly will find employment,
    And far enough from court too.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. All the commons
    Hate him perniciously, and, o' my conscience,
    Wish him ten fathom deep: this Duke as much
    They love and dote on; call him bounteous Buckingham,
    The mirror of all courtesy-

      Enter BUCKINGHAM from his arraignment, tip-staves
      before him; the axe with the edge towards him; halberds
      on each side; accompanied with SIR THOMAS
      LOVELL, SIR NICHOLAS VAUX, SIR WILLIAM SANDYS,
      and common people, etc.

  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Stay there, sir,
    And see the noble ruin'd man you speak of.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Let's stand close, and behold him.
  BUCKINGHAM. All good people,
    You that thus far have come to pity me,
    Hear what I say, and then go home and lose me.
    I have this day receiv'd a traitor's judgment,
    And by that name must die; yet, heaven bear witness,
    And if I have a conscience, let it sink me
    Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful!
    The law I bear no malice for my death:
    'T has done, upon the premises, but justice.
    But those that sought it I could wish more Christians.
    Be what they will, I heartily forgive 'em;
    Yet let 'em look they glory not in mischief
    Nor build their evils on the graves of great men,
    For then my guiltless blood must cry against 'em.
    For further life in this world I ne'er hope
    Nor will I sue, although the King have mercies
    More than I dare make faults. You few that lov'd me
    And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham,
    His noble friends and fellows, whom to leave
    Is only bitter to him, only dying,
    Go with me like good angels to my end;
    And as the long divorce of steel falls on me
    Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,
    And lift my soul to heaven. Lead on, a God's name.
  LOVELL. I do beseech your Grace, for charity,
    If ever any malice in your heart
    Were hid against me, now to forgive me frankly.
  BUCKINGHAM. Sir Thomas Lovell, I as free forgive you
    As I would be forgiven. I forgive all.
    There cannot be those numberless offences
    'Gainst me that I cannot take peace with. No black envy
    Shall mark my grave. Commend me to his Grace;
    And if he speak of Buckingham, pray tell him
    You met him half in heaven. My vows and prayers
    Yet are the King's, and, till my soul forsake,
    Shall cry for blessings on him. May he live
    Longer than I have time to tell his years;
    Ever belov'd and loving may his rule be;
    And when old time Shall lead him to his end,
    Goodness and he fill up one monument!
  LOVELL. To th' water side I must conduct your Grace;
    Then give my charge up to Sir Nicholas Vaux,
    Who undertakes you to your end.
  VAUX. Prepare there;
    The Duke is coming; see the barge be ready;
    And fit it with such furniture as suits
    The greatness of his person.
  BUCKINGHAM. Nay, Sir Nicholas,
    Let it alone; my state now will but mock me.
    When I came hither I was Lord High Constable
    And Duke of Buckingham; now, poor Edward Bohun.
    Yet I am richer than my base accusers
    That never knew what truth meant; I now seal it;
    And with that blood will make 'em one day groan fort.
    My noble father, Henry of Buckingham,
    Who first rais'd head against usurping Richard,
    Flying for succour to his servant Banister,
    Being distress'd, was by that wretch betray'd
    And without trial fell; God's peace be with him!
    Henry the Seventh succeeding, truly pitying
    My father's loss, like a most royal prince,
    Restor'd me to my honours, and out of ruins
    Made my name once more noble. Now his son,
    Henry the Eighth, life, honour, name, and all
    That made me happy, at one stroke has taken
    For ever from the world. I had my trial,
    And must needs say a noble one; which makes me
    A little happier than my wretched father;
    Yet thus far we are one in fortunes: both
    Fell by our servants, by those men we lov'd most-
    A most unnatural and faithless service.
    Heaven has an end in all. Yet, you that hear me,
    This from a dying man receive as certain:
    Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels,
    Be sure you be not loose; for those you make friends
    And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
    The least rub in your fortunes, fall away
    Like water from ye, never found again
    But where they mean to sink ye. All good people,
    Pray for me! I must now forsake ye; the last hour
    Of my long weary life is come upon me.
    Farewell;
    And when you would say something that is sad,
    Speak how I fell. I have done; and God forgive me!
                                          Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and train
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. O, this is full of pity! Sir, it calls,
    I fear, too many curses on their heads
    That were the authors.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. If the Duke be guiltless,
    'Tis full of woe; yet I can give you inkling
    Of an ensuing evil, if it fall,
    Greater than this.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Good angels keep it from us!
    What may it be? You do not doubt my faith, sir?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. This secret is so weighty, 'twill require
    A strong faith to conceal it.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Let me have it;
    I do not talk much.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I am confident.
    You shall, sir. Did you not of late days hear
    A buzzing of a separation
    Between the King and Katharine?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, but it held not;
    For when the King once heard it, out of anger
    He sent command to the Lord Mayor straight
    To stop the rumour and allay those tongues
    That durst disperse it.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But that slander, sir,
    Is found a truth now; for it grows again
    Fresher than e'er it was, and held for certain
    The King will venture at it. Either the Cardinal
    Or some about him near have, out of malice
    To the good Queen, possess'd him with a scruple
    That will undo her. To confirm this too,
    Cardinal Campeius is arriv'd and lately;
    As all think, for this business.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis the Cardinal;
    And merely to revenge him on the Emperor
    For not bestowing on him at his asking
    The archbishopric of Toledo, this is purpos'd.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I think you have hit the mark; but is't
        not cruel
    That she should feel the smart of this? The Cardinal
    Will have his will, and she must fall.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis woeful.
    We are too open here to argue this;
    Let's think in private more.                               Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 2.

London. The palace

Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN reading this letter

  CHAMBERLAIN. 'My lord,
    'The horses your lordship sent for, with all the care
    had, I saw well chosen, ridden, and furnish'd. They were
    young and handsome, and of the best breed in the north.
    When they were ready to set out for London, a man of
    my Lord Cardinal's, by commission, and main power, took
    'em from me, with this reason: his master would be serv'd
    before a subject, if not before the King; which stopp'd
    our mouths, sir.'

    I fear he will indeed. Well, let him have them.
    He will have all, I think.

    Enter to the LORD CHAMBERLAIN the DUKES OF NORFOLK and SUFFOLK

  NORFOLK. Well met, my Lord Chamberlain.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Good day to both your Graces.
  SUFFOLK. How is the King employ'd?
  CHAMBERLAIN. I left him private,
    Full of sad thoughts and troubles.
  NORFOLK. What's the cause?
  CHAMBERLAIN. It seems the marriage with his brother's wife
    Has crept too near his conscience.
  SUFFOLK. No, his conscience
    Has crept too near another lady.
  NORFOLK. 'Tis so;
    This is the Cardinal's doing; the King-Cardinal,
    That blind priest, like the eldest son of fortune,
    Turns what he list. The King will know him one day.
  SUFFOLK. Pray God he do! He'll never know himself else.
  NORFOLK. How holily he works in all his business!
    And with what zeal! For, now he has crack'd the league
    Between us and the Emperor, the Queen's great nephew,
    He dives into the King's soul and there scatters
    Dangers, doubts, wringing of the conscience,
    Fears, and despairs-and all these for his marriage;
    And out of all these to restore the King,
    He counsels a divorce, a loss of her
    That like a jewel has hung twenty years
    About his neck, yet never lost her lustre;
    Of her that loves him with that excellence
    That angels love good men with; even of her
    That, when the greatest stroke of fortune falls,
    Will bless the King-and is not this course pious?
  CHAMBERLAIN. Heaven keep me from such counsel! 'Tis most true
    These news are everywhere; every tongue speaks 'em,
    And every true heart weeps for 't. All that dare
    Look into these affairs see this main end-
    The French King's sister. Heaven will one day open
    The King's eyes, that so long have slept upon
    This bold bad man.
  SUFFOLK. And free us from his slavery.
  NORFOLK. We had need pray, and heartily, for our deliverance;
    Or this imperious man will work us an
    From princes into pages. All men's honours
    Lie like one lump before him, to be fashion'd
    Into what pitch he please.
  SUFFOLK. For me, my lords,
    I love him not, nor fear him-there's my creed;
    As I am made without him, so I'll stand,
    If the King please; his curses and his blessings
    Touch me alike; th' are breath I not believe in.
    I knew him, and I know him; so I leave him
    To him that made him proud-the Pope.
  NORFOLK. Let's in;
    And with some other business put the King
    From these sad thoughts that work too much upon him.
    My lord, you'll bear us company?
  CHAMBERLAIN. Excuse me,
    The King has sent me otherwhere; besides,
    You'll find a most unfit time to disturb him.
    Health to your lordships!
  NORFOLK. Thanks, my good Lord Chamberlain.
                            Exit LORD CHAMBERLAIN; and the KING draws
                               the curtain and sits reading pensively
  SUFFOLK. How sad he looks; sure, he is much afflicted.
  KING. Who's there, ha?
  NORFOLK. Pray God he be not angry.
  KING HENRY. Who's there, I say? How dare you thrust yourselves
    Into my private meditations?
    Who am I, ha?
  NORFOLK. A gracious king that pardons all offences
    Malice ne'er meant. Our breach of duty this way
    Is business of estate, in which we come
    To know your royal pleasure.
  KING. Ye are too bold.
    Go to; I'll make ye know your times of business.
    Is this an hour for temporal affairs, ha?

      Enter WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS with a commission

    Who's there? My good Lord Cardinal? O my Wolsey,
    The quiet of my wounded conscience,
    Thou art a cure fit for a King.  [To CAMPEIUS]  You're
      welcome,
    Most learned reverend sir, into our kingdom.
    Use us and it.  [To WOLSEY]  My good lord, have great care
    I be not found a talker.
  WOLSEY. Sir, you cannot.
    I would your Grace would give us but an hour
    Of private conference.
  KING.  [To NORFOLK and SUFFOLK]  We are busy; go.
  NORFOLK.  [Aside to SUFFOLK]  This priest has no pride in him!
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside to NORFOLK]  Not to speak of!
    I would not be so sick though for his place.
    But this cannot continue.
  NORFOLK.  [Aside to SUFFOLK]  If it do,
    I'll venture one have-at-him.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside to NORFOLK]  I another.
                                           Exeunt NORFOLK and SUFFOLK
  WOLSEY. Your Grace has given a precedent of wisdom
    Above all princes, in committing freely
    Your scruple to the voice of Christendom.
    Who can be angry now? What envy reach you?
    The Spaniard, tied by blood and favour to her,
    Must now confess, if they have any goodness,
    The trial just and noble. All the clerks,
    I mean the learned ones, in Christian kingdoms
    Have their free voices. Rome the nurse of judgment,
    Invited by your noble self, hath sent
    One general tongue unto us, this good man,
    This just and learned priest, Cardinal Campeius,
    Whom once more I present unto your Highness.
  KING. And once more in mine arms I bid him welcome,
    And thank the holy conclave for their loves.
    They have sent me such a man I would have wish'd for.
  CAMPEIUS. Your Grace must needs deserve an strangers' loves,
    You are so noble. To your Highness' hand
    I tender my commission; by whose virtue-
    The court of Rome commanding-you, my Lord
    Cardinal of York, are join'd with me their servant
    In the unpartial judging of this business.
  KING. Two equal men. The Queen shall be acquainted
    Forthwith for what you come. Where's Gardiner?
  WOLSEY. I know your Majesty has always lov'd her
    So dear in heart not to deny her that
    A woman of less place might ask by law-
    Scholars allow'd freely to argue for her.
  KING. Ay, and the best she shall have; and my favour
    To him that does best. God forbid else. Cardinal,
    Prithee call Gardiner to me, my new secretary;
    I find him a fit fellow.                              Exit WOLSEY

          Re-enter WOLSEY with GARDINER

  WOLSEY.  [Aside to GARDINER]  Give me your hand: much
      joy and favour to you;
    You are the King's now.
  GARDINER.  [Aside to WOLSEY]  But to be commanded
    For ever by your Grace, whose hand has rais'd me.
  KING. Come hither, Gardiner.                   [Walks and whispers]
  CAMPEIUS. My Lord of York, was not one Doctor Pace
    In this man's place before him?
  WOLSEY. Yes, he was.
  CAMPEIUS. Was he not held a learned man?
  WOLSEY. Yes, surely.
  CAMPEIUS. Believe me, there's an ill opinion spread then,
    Even of yourself, Lord Cardinal.
  WOLSEY. How! Of me?
  CAMPEIUS. They will not stick to say you envied him
    And, fearing he would rise, he was so virtuous,
    Kept him a foreign man still; which so griev'd him
    That he ran mad and died.
  WOLSEY. Heav'n's peace be with him!
    That's Christian care enough. For living murmurers
    There's places of rebuke. He was a fool,
    For he would needs be virtuous: that good fellow,
    If I command him, follows my appointment.
    I will have none so near else. Learn this, brother,
    We live not to be grip'd by meaner persons.
  KING. Deliver this with modesty to th' Queen.
                                                        Exit GARDINER
    The most convenient place that I can think of
    For such receipt of learning is Blackfriars;
    There ye shall meet about this weighty business-
    My Wolsey, see it furnish'd. O, my lord,
    Would it not grieve an able man to leave
    So sweet a bedfellow? But, conscience, conscience!
    O, 'tis a tender place! and I must leave her.              Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 3.

London. The palace

Enter ANNE BULLEN and an OLD LADY

  ANNE. Not for that neither. Here's the pang that pinches:
    His Highness having liv'd so long with her, and she
    So good a lady that no tongue could ever
    Pronounce dishonour of her-by my life,
    She never knew harm-doing-O, now, after
    So many courses of the sun enthroned,
    Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which
    To leave a thousand-fold more bitter than
    'Tis sweet at first t' acquire-after this process,
    To give her the avaunt, it is a pity
    Would move a monster.
  OLD LADY. Hearts of most hard temper
    Melt and lament for her.
  ANNE. O, God's will! much better
    She ne'er had known pomp; though't be temporal,
    Yet, if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce
    It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance panging
    As soul and body's severing.
  OLD LADY. Alas, poor lady!
    She's a stranger now again.
  ANNE. So much the more
    Must pity drop upon her. Verily,
    I swear 'tis better to be lowly born
    And range with humble livers in content
    Than to be perk'd up in a glist'ring grief
    And wear a golden sorrow.
  OLD LADY. Our content
    Is our best having.
  ANNE. By my troth and maidenhead,
    I would not be a queen.
  OLD LADY. Beshrew me, I would,
    And venture maidenhead for 't; and so would you,
    For all this spice of your hypocrisy.
    You that have so fair parts of woman on you
    Have too a woman's heart, which ever yet
    Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty;
    Which, to say sooth, are blessings; and which gifts,
    Saving your mincing, the capacity
    Of your soft cheveril conscience would receive
    If you might please to stretch it.
  ANNE. Nay, good troth.
  OLD LADY. Yes, troth and troth. You would not be a queen!
  ANNE. No, not for all the riches under heaven.
  OLD LADY. 'Tis strange: a threepence bow'd would hire me,
    Old as I am, to queen it. But, I pray you,
    What think you of a duchess? Have you limbs
    To bear that load of title?
  ANNE. No, in truth.
  OLD LADY. Then you are weakly made. Pluck off a little;
    I would not be a young count in your way
    For more than blushing comes to. If your back
    Cannot vouchsafe this burden, 'tis too weak
    Ever to get a boy.
  ANNE. How you do talk!
    I swear again I would not be a queen
    For all the world.
  OLD LADY. In faith, for little England
    You'd venture an emballing. I myself
    Would for Carnarvonshire, although there long'd
    No more to th' crown but that. Lo, who comes here?

         Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN

  CHAMBERLAIN. Good morrow, ladies. What were't worth to know
    The secret of your conference?
  ANNE. My good lord,
    Not your demand; it values not your asking.
    Our mistress' sorrows we were pitying.
  CHAMBERLAIN. It was a gentle business and becoming
    The action of good women; there is hope
    All will be well.
  ANNE. Now, I pray God, amen!
  CHAMBERLAIN. You bear a gentle mind, and heav'nly blessings
    Follow such creatures. That you may, fair lady,
    Perceive I speak sincerely and high notes
    Ta'en of your many virtues, the King's Majesty
    Commends his good opinion of you to you, and
    Does purpose honour to you no less flowing
    Than Marchioness of Pembroke; to which tide
    A thousand pound a year, annual support,
    Out of his grace he adds.
  ANNE. I do not know
    What kind of my obedience I should tender;
    More than my all is nothing, nor my prayers
    Are not words duly hallowed, nor my wishes
    More worth than empty vanities; yet prayers and wishes
    Are all I can return. Beseech your lordship,
    Vouchsafe to speak my thanks and my obedience,
    As from a blushing handmaid, to his Highness;
    Whose health and royalty I pray for.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Lady,
    I shall not fail t' approve the fair conceit
    The King hath of you.  [Aside]  I have perus'd her well:
    Beauty and honour in her are so mingled
    That they have caught the King; and who knows yet
    But from this lady may proceed a gem
    To lighten all this isle?-I'll to the King
    And say I spoke with you.
  ANNE. My honour'd lord!                       Exit LORD CHAMBERLAIN
  OLD LADY. Why, this it is: see, see!
    I have been begging sixteen years in court-
    Am yet a courtier beggarly-nor could
    Come pat betwixt too early and too late
    For any suit of pounds; and you, O fate!
    A very fresh-fish here-fie, fie, fie upon
    This compell'd fortune!-have your mouth fill'd up
    Before you open it.
  ANNE. This is strange to me.
  OLD LADY. How tastes it? Is it bitter? Forty pence, no.
    There was a lady once-'tis an old story-
    That would not be a queen, that would she not,
    For all the mud in Egypt. Have you heard it?
  ANNE. Come, you are pleasant.
  OLD LADY. With your theme I could
    O'ermount the lark. The Marchioness of Pembroke!
    A thousand pounds a year for pure respect!
    No other obligation! By my life,
    That promises moe thousands: honour's train
    Is longer than his foreskirt. By this time
    I know your back will bear a duchess. Say,
    Are you not stronger than you were?
  ANNE. Good lady,
    Make yourself mirth with your particular fancy,
    And leave me out on't. Would I had no being,
    If this salute my blood a jot; it faints me
    To think what follows.
    The Queen is comfortless, and we forgetful
    In our long absence. Pray, do not deliver
    What here y' have heard to her.
  OLD LADY. What do you think me?                              Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 4.

London. A hall in Blackfriars

Trumpets, sennet, and cornets. Enter two VERGERS, with short silver
wands; next them, two SCRIBES, in the habit of doctors; after them, the
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY alone; after him, the BISHOPS OF LINCOLN, ELY,
ROCHESTER, and SAINT ASAPH; next them, with some small distance,
follows a GENTLEMAN bearing the purse, with the great seal, and a
Cardinal's hat; then two PRIESTS, bearing each silver cross; then a
GENTLEMAN USHER bareheaded, accompanied with a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS bearing
a silver mace; then two GENTLEMEN bearing two great silver pillars;
after them, side by side, the two CARDINALS, WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS; two
NOBLEMEN with the sword and mace. Then enter the KING and QUEEN and
their trains. The KING takes place under the cloth of state; the two
CARDINALS sit under him as judges. The QUEEN takes place some distance
from the KING. The BISHOPS place themselves on each side of the court,
in manner of consistory; below them the SCRIBES. The LORDS sit next the
BISHOPS. The rest of the attendants stand in convenient order about the
stage

  WOLSEY. Whilst our commission from Rome is read,
    Let silence be commanded.
  KING. What's the need?
    It hath already publicly been read,
    And on all sides th' authority allow'd;
    You may then spare that time.
  WOLSEY. Be't so; proceed.
  SCRIBE. Say 'Henry King of England, come into the court.'
  CRIER. Henry King of England, &c.
  KING. Here.
  SCRIBE. Say 'Katharine Queen of England, come into the court.'
  CRIER. Katharine Queen of England, &c.

     The QUEEN makes no answer, rises out of her chair,
     goes about the court, comes to the KING, and kneels
     at his feet; then speaks

  QUEEN KATHARINE. Sir, I desire you do me right and justice,
    And to bestow your pity on me; for
    I am a most poor woman and a stranger,
    Born out of your dominions, having here
    No judge indifferent, nor no more assurance
    Of equal friendship and proceeding. Alas, sir,
    In what have I offended you? What cause
    Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure
    That thus you should proceed to put me of
    And take your good grace from me? Heaven witness,
    I have been to you a true and humble wife,
    At all times to your will conformable,
    Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,
    Yea, subject to your countenance-glad or sorry
    As I saw it inclin'd. When was the hour
    I ever contradicted your desire
    Or made it not mine too? Or which of your friends
    Have I not strove to love, although I knew
    He were mine enemy? What friend of mine
    That had to him deriv'd your anger did
    Continue in my liking? Nay, gave notice
    He was from thence discharg'd? Sir, call to mind
    That I have been your wife in this obedience
    Upward of twenty years, and have been blest
    With many children by you. If, in the course
    And process of this time, you can report,
    And prove it too against mine honour, aught,
    My bond to wedlock or my love and duty,
    Against your sacred person, in God's name,
    Turn me away and let the foul'st contempt
    Shut door upon me, and so give me up
    To the sharp'st kind of justice. Please you, sir,
    The King, your father, was reputed for
    A prince most prudent, of an excellent
    And unmatch'd wit and judgment; Ferdinand,
    My father, King of Spain, was reckon'd one
    The wisest prince that there had reign'd by many
    A year before. It is not to be question'd
    That they had gather'd a wise council to them
    Of every realm, that did debate this business,
    Who deem'd our marriage lawful. Wherefore I humbly
    Beseech you, sir, to spare me till I may
    Be by my friends in Spain advis'd, whose counsel
    I will implore. If not, i' th' name of God,
    Your pleasure be fulfill'd!
  WOLSEY. You have here, lady,
    And of your choice, these reverend fathers-men
    Of singular integrity and learning,
    Yea, the elect o' th' land, who are assembled
    To plead your cause. It shall be therefore bootless
    That longer you desire the court, as well
    For your own quiet as to rectify
    What is unsettled in the King.
  CAMPEIUS. His Grace
    Hath spoken well and justly; therefore, madam,
    It's fit this royal session do proceed
    And that, without delay, their arguments
    Be now produc'd and heard.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Lord Cardinal,
    To you I speak.
  WOLSEY. Your pleasure, madam?
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Sir,
    I am about to weep; but, thinking that
    We are a queen, or long have dream'd so, certain
    The daughter of a king, my drops of tears
    I'll turn to sparks of fire.
  WOLSEY. Be patient yet.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. I Will, when you are humble; nay, before
    Or God will punish me. I do believe,
    Induc'd by potent circumstances, that
    You are mine enemy, and make my challenge
    You shall not be my judge; for it is you
    Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me-
    Which God's dew quench! Therefore I say again,
    I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul
    Refuse you for my judge, whom yet once more
    I hold my most malicious foe and think not
    At all a friend to truth.
  WOLSEY. I do profess
    You speak not like yourself, who ever yet
    Have stood to charity and display'd th' effects
    Of disposition gentle and of wisdom
    O'ertopping woman's pow'r. Madam, you do me wrong:
    I have no spleen against you, nor injustice
    For you or any; how far I have proceeded,
    Or how far further shall, is warranted
    By a commission from the Consistory,
    Yea, the whole Consistory of Rome. You charge me
    That I have blown this coal: I do deny it.
    The King is present; if it be known to him
    That I gainsay my deed, how may he wound,
    And worthily, my falsehood! Yea, as much
    As you have done my truth. If he know
    That I am free of your report, he knows
    I am not of your wrong. Therefore in him
    It lies to cure me, and the cure is to
    Remove these thoughts from you; the which before
    His Highness shall speak in, I do beseech
    You, gracious madam, to unthink your speaking
    And to say so no more.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. My lord, my lord,
    I am a simple woman, much too weak
    T' oppose your cunning. Y'are meek and humble-mouth'd;
    You sign your place and calling, in full seeming,
    With meekness and humility; but your heart
    Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride.
    You have, by fortune and his Highness' favours,
    Gone slightly o'er low steps, and now are mounted
    Where pow'rs are your retainers, and your words,
    Domestics to you, serve your will as't please
    Yourself pronounce their office. I must tell you
    You tender more your person's honour than
    Your high profession spiritual; that again
    I do refuse you for my judge and here,
    Before you all, appeal unto the Pope,
    To bring my whole cause 'fore his Holiness
    And to be judg'd by him.
                     [She curtsies to the KING, and offers to depart]
  CAMPEIUS. The Queen is obstinate,
    Stubborn to justice, apt to accuse it, and
    Disdainful to be tried by't; 'tis not well.
    She's going away.
  KING. Call her again.
  CRIER. Katharine Queen of England, come into the court.
  GENTLEMAN USHER. Madam, you are call'd back.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. What need you note it? Pray you keep your way;
    When you are call'd, return. Now the Lord help!
    They vex me past my patience. Pray you pass on.
    I will not tarry; no, nor ever more
    Upon this business my appearance make
    In any of their courts.           Exeunt QUEEN and her attendants
  KING. Go thy ways, Kate.
    That man i' th' world who shall report he has
    A better wife, let him in nought be trusted
    For speaking false in that. Thou art, alone-
    If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness,
    Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government,
    Obeying in commanding, and thy parts
    Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out-
    The queen of earthly queens. She's noble born;
    And like her true nobility she has
    Carried herself towards me.
  WOLSEY. Most gracious sir,
    In humblest manner I require your Highness
    That it shall please you to declare in hearing
    Of all these ears-for where I am robb'd and bound,
    There must I be unloos'd, although not there
    At once and fully satisfied-whether ever I
    Did broach this business to your Highness, or
    Laid any scruple in your way which might
    Induce you to the question on't, or ever
    Have to you, but with thanks to God for such
    A royal lady, spake one the least word that might
    Be to the prejudice of her present state,
    Or touch of her good person?
  KING. My Lord Cardinal,
    I do excuse you; yea, upon mine honour,
    I free you from't. You are not to be taught
    That you have many enemies that know not
    Why they are so, but, like to village curs,
    Bark when their fellows do. By some of these
    The Queen is put in anger. Y'are excus'd.
    But will you be more justified? You ever
    Have wish'd the sleeping of this business; never desir'd
    It to be stirr'd; but oft have hind'red, oft,
    The passages made toward it. On my honour,
    I speak my good Lord Cardinal to this point,
    And thus far clear him. Now, what mov'd me to't,
    I will be bold with time and your attention.
    Then mark th' inducement. Thus it came-give heed to't:
    My conscience first receiv'd a tenderness,
    Scruple, and prick, on certain speeches utter'd
    By th' Bishop of Bayonne, then French ambassador,
    Who had been hither sent on the debating
    A marriage 'twixt the Duke of Orleans and
    Our daughter Mary. I' th' progress of this business,
    Ere a determinate resolution, he-
    I mean the Bishop-did require a respite
    Wherein he might the King his lord advertise
    Whether our daughter were legitimate,
    Respecting this our marriage with the dowager,
    Sometimes our brother's wife. This respite shook
    The bosom of my conscience, enter'd me,
    Yea, with a splitting power, and made to tremble
    The region of my breast, which forc'd such way
    That many maz'd considerings did throng
    And press'd in with this caution. First, methought
    I stood not in the smile of heaven, who had
    Commanded nature that my lady's womb,
    If it conceiv'd a male child by me, should
    Do no more offices of life to't than
    The grave does to the dead; for her male issue
    Or died where they were made, or shortly after
    This world had air'd them. Hence I took a thought
    This was a judgment on me, that my kingdom,
    Well worthy the best heir o' th' world, should not
    Be gladded in't by me. Then follows that
    I weigh'd the danger which my realms stood in
    By this my issue's fail, and that gave to me
    Many a groaning throe. Thus hulling in
    The wild sea of my conscience, I did steer
    Toward this remedy, whereupon we are
    Now present here together; that's to say
    I meant to rectify my conscience, which
    I then did feel full sick, and yet not well,
    By all the reverend fathers of the land
    And doctors learn'd. First, I began in private
    With you, my Lord of Lincoln; you remember
    How under my oppression I did reek,
    When I first mov'd you.
  LINCOLN. Very well, my liege.
  KING. I have spoke long; be pleas'd yourself to say
    How far you satisfied me.
  LINCOLN. So please your Highness,
    The question did at first so stagger me-
    Bearing a state of mighty moment in't
    And consequence of dread-that I committed
    The daring'st counsel which I had to doubt,
    And did entreat your Highness to this course
    Which you are running here.
  KING. I then mov'd you,
    My Lord of Canterbury, and got your leave
    To make this present summons. Unsolicited
    I left no reverend person in this court,
    But by particular consent proceeded
    Under your hands and seals; therefore, go on,
    For no dislike i' th' world against the person
    Of the good Queen, but the sharp thorny points
    Of my alleged reasons, drives this forward.
    Prove but our marriage lawful, by my life
    And kingly dignity, we are contented
    To wear our moral state to come with her,
    Katharine our queen, before the primest creature
    That's paragon'd o' th' world.
  CAMPEIUS. So please your Highness,
    The Queen being absent, 'tis a needful fitness
    That we adjourn this court till further day;
    Meanwhile must be an earnest motion
    Made to the Queen to call back her appeal
    She intends unto his Holiness.
  KING.  [Aside]  I may perceive
    These cardinals trifle with me. I abhor
    This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome.
    My learn'd and well-beloved servant, Cranmer,
    Prithee return. With thy approach I know
    My comfort comes along. -Break up the court;
    I say, set on.                   Exuent in manner as they entered

ACT III. SCENE 1.

London. The QUEEN'S apartments

Enter the QUEEN and her women, as at work

  QUEEN KATHARINE. Take thy lute, wench. My soul grows
      sad with troubles;
    Sing and disperse 'em, if thou canst. Leave working.

                    SONG

        Orpheus with his lute made trees,
        And the mountain tops that freeze,
          Bow themselves when he did sing;
        To his music plants and flowers
        Ever sprung, as sun and showers
          There had made a lasting spring.

        Every thing that heard him play,
        Even the billows of the sea,
          Hung their heads and then lay by.
        In sweet music is such art,
        Killing care and grief of heart
          Fall asleep or hearing die.

              Enter a GENTLEMAN

  QUEEN KATHARINE. How now?
  GENTLEMAN. An't please your Grace, the two great Cardinals
    Wait in the presence.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Would they speak with me?
  GENTLEMAN. They will'd me say so, madam.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Pray their Graces
    To come near. [Exit GENTLEMAN] What can be their business
    With me, a poor weak woman, fall'n from favour?
    I do not like their coming. Now I think on't,
    They should be good men, their affairs as righteous;
    But all hoods make not monks.

         Enter the two CARDINALS, WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS

  WOLSEY. Peace to your Highness!
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Your Graces find me here part of housewife;
    I would be all, against the worst may happen.
    What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords?
  WOLSEY. May it please you, noble madam, to withdraw
    Into your private chamber, we shall give you
    The full cause of our coming.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Speak it here;
    There's nothing I have done yet, o' my conscience,
    Deserves a corner. Would all other women
    Could speak this with as free a soul as I do!
    My lords, I care not-so much I am happy
    Above a number-if my actions
    Were tried by ev'ry tongue, ev'ry eye saw 'em,
    Envy and base opinion set against 'em,
    I know my life so even. If your business
    Seek me out, and that way I am wife in,
    Out with it boldly; truth loves open dealing.
  WOLSEY. Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina serenis-sima-
  QUEEN KATHARINE. O, good my lord, no Latin!
    I am not such a truant since my coming,
    As not to know the language I have liv'd in;
    A strange tongue makes my cause more strange, suspicious;
    Pray speak in English. Here are some will thank you,
    If you speak truth, for their poor mistress' sake:
    Believe me, she has had much wrong. Lord Cardinal,
    The willing'st sin I ever yet committed
    May be absolv'd in English.
  WOLSEY. Noble lady,
    I am sorry my integrity should breed,
    And service to his Majesty and you,
    So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant
    We come not by the way of accusation
    To taint that honour every good tongue blesses,
    Nor to betray you any way to sorrow-
    You have too much, good lady; but to know
    How you stand minded in the weighty difference
    Between the King and you, and to deliver,
    Like free and honest men, our just opinions
    And comforts to your cause.
  CAMPEIUS. Most honour'd madam,
    My Lord of York, out of his noble nature,
    Zeal and obedience he still bore your Grace,
    Forgetting, like a good man, your late censure
    Both of his truth and him-which was too far-
    Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace,
    His service and his counsel.
  QUEEN KATHARINE.  [Aside]  To betray me.-
    My lords, I thank you both for your good wins;
    Ye speak like honest men-pray God ye prove so!
    But how to make ye suddenly an answer,
    In such a point of weight, so near mine honour,
    More near my life, I fear, with my weak wit,
    And to such men of gravity and learning,
    In truth I know not. I was set at work
    Among my maids, full little, God knows, looking
    Either for such men or such business.
    For her sake that I have been-for I feel
    The last fit of my greatness-good your Graces,
    Let me have time and counsel for my cause.
    Alas, I am a woman, friendless, hopeless!
  WOLSEY. Madam, you wrong the King's love with these fears;
    Your hopes and friends are infinite.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. In England
    But little for my profit; can you think, lords,
    That any Englishman dare give me counsel?
    Or be a known friend, 'gainst his Highness' pleasure-
    Though he be grown so desperate to be honest-
    And live a subject? Nay, forsooth, my friends,
    They that must weigh out my afflictions,
    They that my trust must grow to, live not here;
    They are, as all my other comforts, far hence,
    In mine own country, lords.
  CAMPEIUS. I would your Grace
    Would leave your griefs, and take my counsel.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. How, sir?
  CAMPEIUS. Put your main cause into the King's protection;
    He's loving and most gracious. 'Twill be much
    Both for your honour better and your cause;
    For if the trial of the law o'ertake ye
    You'll part away disgrac'd.
  WOLSEY. He tells you rightly.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Ye tell me what ye wish for both-my ruin.
    Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon ye!
    Heaven is above all yet: there sits a Judge
    That no king can corrupt.
  CAMPEIUS. Your rage mistakes us.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. The more shame for ye; holy men I thought ye,
    Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues;
    But cardinal sins and hollow hearts I fear ye.
    Mend 'em, for shame, my lords. Is this your comfort?
    The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady-
    A woman lost among ye, laugh'd at, scorn'd?
    I will not wish ye half my miseries:
    I have more charity; but say I warned ye.
    Take heed, for heaven's sake take heed, lest at once
    The burden of my sorrows fall upon ye.
  WOLSEY. Madam, this is a mere distraction;
    You turn the good we offer into envy.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Ye turn me into nothing. Woe upon ye,
    And all such false professors! Would you have me-
    If you have any justice, any pity,
    If ye be any thing but churchmen's habits-
    Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me?
    Alas! has banish'd me his bed already,
    His love too long ago! I am old, my lords,
    And all the fellowship I hold now with him
    Is only my obedience. What can happen
    To me above this wretchedness? All your studies
    Make me a curse like this.
  CAMPEIUS. Your fears are worse.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Have I liv'd thus long-let me speak myself,
    Since virtue finds no friends-a wife, a true one?
    A woman, I dare say without vain-glory,
    Never yet branded with suspicion?
    Have I with all my full affections
    Still met the King, lov'd him next heav'n, obey'd him,
    Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him,
    Almost forgot my prayers to content him,
    And am I thus rewarded? 'Tis not well, lords.
    Bring me a constant woman to her husband,
    One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure,
    And to that woman, when she has done most,
    Yet will I add an honour-a great patience.
  WOLSEY. Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty,
    To give up willingly that noble title
    Your master wed me to: nothing but death
    Shall e'er divorce my dignities.
  WOLSEY. Pray hear me.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Would I had never trod this English earth,
    Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it!
    Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your hearts.
    What will become of me now, wretched lady?
    I am the most unhappy woman living.
    [To her WOMEN]  Alas, poor wenches, where are now
      your fortunes?
    Shipwreck'd upon a kingdom, where no pity,
    No friends, no hope; no kindred weep for me;
    Almost no grave allow'd me. Like the My,
    That once was mistress of the field, and flourish'd,
    I'll hang my head and perish.
  WOLSEY. If your Grace
    Could but be brought to know our ends are honest,
    You'd feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady,
    Upon what cause, wrong you? Alas, our places,
    The way of our profession is against it;
    We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow 'em.
    For goodness' sake, consider what you do;
    How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly
    Grow from the King's acquaintance, by this carriage.
    The hearts of princes kiss obedience,
    So much they love it; but to stubborn spirits
    They swell and grow as terrible as storms.
    I know you have a gentle, noble temper,
    A soul as even as a calm. Pray think us
    Those we profess, peace-makers, friends, and servants.
  CAMPEIUS. Madam, you'll find it so. You wrong your virtues
    With these weak women's fears. A noble spirit,
    As yours was put into you, ever casts
    Such doubts as false coin from it. The King loves you;
    Beware you lose it not. For us, if you please
    To trust us in your business, we are ready
    To use our utmost studies in your service.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Do what ye will my lords; and pray
      forgive me
    If I have us'd myself unmannerly;
    You know I am a woman, lacking wit
    To make a seemly answer to such persons.
    Pray do my service to his Majesty;
    He has my heart yet, and shall have my prayers
    While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers,
    Bestow your counsels on me; she now begs
    That little thought, when she set footing here,
    She should have bought her dignities so dear.              Exeunt

ACT III.SCENE 2.

London. The palace

Enter the DUKE OF NORFOLK, the DUKE OF SUFFOLK, the EARL OF SURREY, and
the LORD CHAMBERLAIN

  NORFOLK. If you will now unite in your complaints
    And force them with a constancy, the Cardinal
    Cannot stand under them: if you omit
    The offer of this time, I cannot promise
    But that you shall sustain moe new disgraces
    With these you bear already.
  SURREY. I am joyful
    To meet the least occasion that may give me
    Remembrance of my father-in-law, the Duke,
    To be reveng'd on him.
  SUFFOLK. Which of the peers
    Have uncontemn'd gone by him, or at least
    Strangely neglected? When did he regard
    The stamp of nobleness in any person
    Out of himself?
  CHAMBERLAIN. My lords, you speak your pleasures.
    What he deserves of you and me I know;
    What we can do to him-though now the time
    Gives way to us-I much fear. If you cannot
    Bar his access to th' King, never attempt
    Anything on him; for he hath a witchcraft
    Over the King in's tongue.
  NORFOLK. O, fear him not!
    His spell in that is out; the King hath found
    Matter against him that for ever mars
    The honey of his language. No, he's settled,
    Not to come off, in his displeasure.
  SURREY. Sir,
    I should be glad to hear such news as this
    Once every hour.
  NORFOLK. Believe it, this is true:
    In the divorce his contrary proceedings
    Are all unfolded; wherein he appears
    As I would wish mine enemy.
  SURREY. How came
    His practices to light?
  SUFFOLK. Most Strangely.
  SURREY. O, how, how?
  SUFFOLK. The Cardinal's letters to the Pope miscarried,
    And came to th' eye o' th' King; wherein was read
    How that the Cardinal did entreat his Holiness
    To stay the judgment o' th' divorce; for if
    It did take place, 'I do' quoth he 'perceive
    My king is tangled in affection to
    A creature of the Queen's, Lady Anne Bullen.'
  SURREY. Has the King this?
  SUFFOLK. Believe it.
  SURREY. Will this work?
  CHAMBERLAIN. The King in this perceives him how he coasts
    And hedges his own way. But in this point
    All his tricks founder, and he brings his physic
    After his patient's death: the King already
    Hath married the fair lady.
  SURREY. Would he had!
  SUFFOLK. May you be happy in your wish, my lord!
    For, I profess, you have it.
  SURREY. Now, all my joy
    Trace the conjunction!
  SUFFOLK. My amen to't!
  NORFOLK. An men's!
  SUFFOLK. There's order given for her coronation;
    Marry, this is yet but young, and may be left
    To some ears unrecounted. But, my lords,
    She is a gallant creature, and complete
    In mind and feature. I persuade me from her
    Will fall some blessing to this land, which shall
    In it be memoriz'd.
  SURREY. But will the King
    Digest this letter of the Cardinal's?
    The Lord forbid!
  NORFOLK. Marry, amen!
  SUFFOLK. No, no;
    There be moe wasps that buzz about his nose
    Will make this sting the sooner. Cardinal Campeius
    Is stol'n away to Rome; hath ta'en no leave;
    Has left the cause o' th' King unhandled, and
    Is posted, as the agent of our Cardinal,
    To second all his plot. I do assure you
    The King cried 'Ha!' at this.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Now, God incense him,
    And let him cry 'Ha!' louder!
  NORFOLK. But, my lord,
    When returns Cranmer?
  SUFFOLK. He is return'd in his opinions; which
    Have satisfied the King for his divorce,
    Together with all famous colleges
    Almost in Christendom. Shortly, I believe,
    His second marriage shall be publish'd, and
    Her coronation. Katharine no more
    Shall be call'd queen, but princess dowager
    And widow to Prince Arthur.
  NORFOLK. This same Cranmer's
    A worthy fellow, and hath ta'en much pain
    In the King's business.
  SUFFOLK. He has; and we shall see him
    For it an archbishop.
  NORFOLK. So I hear.
  SUFFOLK. 'Tis so.

        Enter WOLSEY and CROMWELL

    The Cardinal!
  NORFOLK. Observe, observe, he's moody.
  WOLSEY. The packet, Cromwell,
    Gave't you the King?
  CROMWELL. To his own hand, in's bedchamber.
  WOLSEY. Look'd he o' th' inside of the paper?
  CROMWELL. Presently
    He did unseal them; and the first he view'd,
    He did it with a serious mind; a heed
    Was in his countenance. You he bade
    Attend him here this morning.
  WOLSEY. Is he ready
    To come abroad?
  CROMWELL. I think by this he is.
  WOLSEY. Leave me awhile.                              Exit CROMWELL
    [Aside]  It shall be to the Duchess of Alencon,
    The French King's sister; he shall marry her.
    Anne Bullen! No, I'll no Anne Bullens for him;
    There's more in't than fair visage. Bullen!
    No, we'll no Bullens. Speedily I wish
    To hear from Rome. The Marchioness of Pembroke!
  NORFOLK. He's discontented.
  SUFFOLK. May be he hears the King
    Does whet his anger to him.
  SURREY. Sharp enough,
    Lord, for thy justice!
  WOLSEY.  [Aside]  The late Queen's gentlewoman, a knight's
      daughter,
    To be her mistress' mistress! The Queen's queen!
    This candle burns not clear. 'Tis I must snuff it;
    Then out it goes. What though I know her virtuous
    And well deserving? Yet I know her for
    A spleeny Lutheran; and not wholesome to
    Our cause that she should lie i' th' bosom of
    Our hard-rul'd King. Again, there is sprung up
    An heretic, an arch one, Cranmer; one
    Hath crawl'd into the favour of the King,
    And is his oracle.
  NORFOLK. He is vex'd at something.

        Enter the KING, reading of a schedule, and LOVELL

  SURREY. I would 'twere something that would fret the string,
    The master-cord on's heart!
  SUFFOLK. The King, the King!
  KING. What piles of wealth hath he accumulated
    To his own portion! And what expense by th' hour
    Seems to flow from him! How, i' th' name of thrift,
    Does he rake this together?-Now, my lords,
    Saw you the Cardinal?
  NORFOLK. My lord, we have
    Stood here observing him. Some strange commotion
    Is in his brain: he bites his lip and starts,
    Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground,
    Then lays his finger on his temple; straight
    Springs out into fast gait; then stops again,
    Strikes his breast hard; and anon he casts
    His eye against the moon. In most strange postures
    We have seen him set himself.
  KING. It may well be
    There is a mutiny in's mind. This morning
    Papers of state he sent me to peruse,
    As I requir'd; and wot you what I found
    There-on my conscience, put unwittingly?
    Forsooth, an inventory, thus importing
    The several parcels of his plate, his treasure,
    Rich stuffs, and ornaments of household; which
    I find at such proud rate that it outspeaks
    Possession of a subject.
  NORFOLK. It's heaven's will;
    Some spirit put this paper in the packet
    To bless your eye withal.
  KING. If we did think
    His contemplation were above the earth
    And fix'd on spiritual object, he should still
    dwell in his musings; but I am afraid
    His thinkings are below the moon, not worth
    His serious considering.
                        [The KING takes his seat and whispers LOVELL,
                                           who goes to the CARDINAL]
  WOLSEY. Heaven forgive me!
    Ever God bless your Highness!
  KING. Good, my lord,
    You are full of heavenly stuff, and bear the inventory
    Of your best graces in your mind; the which
    You were now running o'er. You have scarce time
    To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span
    To keep your earthly audit; sure, in that
    I deem you an ill husband, and am glad
    To have you therein my companion.
  WOLSEY. Sir,
    For holy offices I have a time; a time
    To think upon the part of business which
    I bear i' th' state; and nature does require
    Her times of preservation, which perforce
    I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal,
    Must give my tendance to.
  KING. You have said well.
  WOLSEY. And ever may your Highness yoke together,
    As I will lend you cause, my doing well
    With my well saying!
  KING. 'Tis well said again;
    And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well;
    And yet words are no deeds. My father lov'd you:
    He said he did; and with his deed did crown
    His word upon you. Since I had my office
    I have kept you next my heart; have not alone
    Employ'd you where high profits might come home,
    But par'd my present havings to bestow
    My bounties upon you.
  WOLSEY.  [Aside]  What should this mean?
  SURREY.  [Aside]  The Lord increase this business!
  KING. Have I not made you
    The prime man of the state? I pray you tell me
    If what I now pronounce you have found true;
    And, if you may confess it, say withal
    If you are bound to us or no. What say you?
  WOLSEY. My sovereign, I confess your royal graces,
    Show'r'd on me daily, have been more than could
    My studied purposes requite; which went
    Beyond all man's endeavours. My endeavours,
    Have ever come too short of my desires,
    Yet fil'd with my abilities; mine own ends
    Have been mine so that evermore they pointed
    To th' good of your most sacred person and
    The profit of the state. For your great graces
    Heap'd upon me, poor undeserver, I
    Can nothing render but allegiant thanks;
    My pray'rs to heaven for you; my loyalty,
    Which ever has and ever shall be growing,
    Till death, that winter, kill it.
  KING. Fairly answer'd!
    A loyal and obedient subject is
    Therein illustrated; the honour of it
    Does pay the act of it, as, i' th' contrary,
    The foulness is the punishment. I presume
    That, as my hand has open'd bounty to you,
    My heart dropp'd love, my pow'r rain'd honour, more
    On you than any, so your hand and heart,
    Your brain, and every function of your power,
    Should, notwithstanding that your bond of duty,
    As 'twere in love's particular, be more
    To me, your friend, than any.
  WOLSEY. I do profess
    That for your Highness' good I ever labour'd
    More than mine own; that am, have, and will be-
    Though all the world should crack their duty to you,
    And throw it from their soul; though perils did
    Abound as thick as thought could make 'em, and
    Appear in forms more horrid-yet my duty,
    As doth a rock against the chiding flood,
    Should the approach of this wild river break,
    And stand unshaken yours.
  KING. 'Tis nobly spoken.
    Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast,
    For you have seen him open 't. Read o'er this;
                                                  [Giving him papers]
    And after, this; and then to breakfast with
    What appetite you have.
                Exit the KING, frowning upon the CARDINAL; the NOBLES
                             throng after him, smiling and whispering
  WOLSEY. What should this mean?
    What sudden anger's this? How have I reap'd it?
    He parted frowning from me, as if ruin
    Leap'd from his eyes; so looks the chafed lion
    Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him-
    Then makes him nothing. I must read this paper;
    I fear, the story of his anger. 'Tis so;
    This paper has undone me. 'Tis th' account
    Of all that world of wealth I have drawn together
    For mine own ends; indeed to gain the popedom,
    And fee my friends in Rome. O negligence,
    Fit for a fool to fall by! What cross devil
    Made me put this main secret in the packet
    I sent the King? Is there no way to cure this?
    No new device to beat this from his brains?
    I know 'twill stir him strongly; yet I know
    A way, if it take right, in spite of fortune,
    Will bring me off again. What's this? 'To th' Pope.'
    The letter, as I live, with all the business
    I writ to's Holiness. Nay then, farewell!
    I have touch'd the highest point of all my greatness,
    And from that full meridian of my glory
    I haste now to my setting. I shall fall
    Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
    And no man see me more.

        Re-enter to WOLSEY the DUKES OF NORFOLK and
        SUFFOLK, the EARL OF SURREY, and the LORD
        CHAMBERLAIN

  NORFOLK. Hear the King's pleasure, Cardinal, who commands you
    To render up the great seal presently
    Into our hands, and to confine yourself
    To Asher House, my Lord of Winchester's,
    Till you hear further from his Highness.
  WOLSEY. Stay:
    Where's your commission, lords? Words cannot carry
    Authority so weighty.
  SUFFOLK. Who dares cross 'em,
    Bearing the King's will from his mouth expressly?
  WOLSEY. Till I find more than will or words to do it-
    I mean your malice-know, officious lords,
    I dare and must deny it. Now I feel
    Of what coarse metal ye are moulded-envy;
    How eagerly ye follow my disgraces,
    As if it fed ye; and how sleek and wanton
    Ye appear in every thing may bring my ruin!
    Follow your envious courses, men of malice;
    You have Christian warrant for 'em, and no doubt
    In time will find their fit rewards. That seal
    You ask with such a violence, the King-
    Mine and your master-with his own hand gave me;
    Bade me enjoy it, with the place and honours,
    During my life; and, to confirm his goodness,
    Tied it by letters-patents. Now, who'll take it?
  SURREY. The King, that gave it.
  WOLSEY. It must be himself then.
  SURREY. Thou art a proud traitor, priest.
  WOLSEY. Proud lord, thou liest.
    Within these forty hours Surrey durst better
    Have burnt that tongue than said so.
  SURREY. Thy ambition,
    Thou scarlet sin, robb'd this bewailing land
    Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law.
    The heads of all thy brother cardinals,
    With thee and all thy best parts bound together,
    Weigh'd not a hair of his. Plague of your policy!
    You sent me deputy for Ireland;
    Far from his succour, from the King, from all
    That might have mercy on the fault thou gav'st him;
    Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,
    Absolv'd him with an axe.
  WOLSEY. This, and all else
    This talking lord can lay upon my credit,
    I answer is most false. The Duke by law
    Found his deserts; how innocent I was
    From any private malice in his end,
    His noble jury and foul cause can witness.
    If I lov'd many words, lord, I should tell you
    You have as little honesty as honour,
    That in the way of loyalty and truth
    Toward the King, my ever royal master,
    Dare mate a sounder man than Surrey can be
    And an that love his follies.
  SURREY. By my soul,
    Your long coat, priest, protects you; thou shouldst feel
    My sword i' the life-blood of thee else. My lords
    Can ye endure to hear this arrogance?
    And from this fellow? If we live thus tamely,
    To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,
    Farewell nobility! Let his Grace go forward
    And dare us with his cap like larks.
  WOLSEY. All goodness
    Is poison to thy stomach.
  SURREY. Yes, that goodness
    Of gleaning all the land's wealth into one,
    Into your own hands, Cardinal, by extortion;
    The goodness of your intercepted packets
    You writ to th' Pope against the King; your goodness,
    Since you provoke me, shall be most notorious.
    My Lord of Norfolk, as you are truly noble,
    As you respect the common good, the state
    Of our despis'd nobility, our issues,
    Whom, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen-
    Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles
    Collected from his life. I'll startle you
    Worse than the sacring bell, when the brown wench
    Lay kissing in your arms, Lord Cardinal.
  WOLSEY. How much, methinks, I could despise this man,
    But that I am bound in charity against it!
  NORFOLK. Those articles, my lord, are in the King's hand;
    But, thus much, they are foul ones.
  WOLSEY. So much fairer
    And spotless shall mine innocence arise,
    When the King knows my truth.
  SURREY. This cannot save you.
    I thank my memory I yet remember
    Some of these articles; and out they shall.
    Now, if you can blush and cry guilty, Cardinal,
    You'll show a little honesty.
  WOLSEY. Speak on, sir;
    I dare your worst objections. If I blush,
    It is to see a nobleman want manners.
  SURREY. I had rather want those than my head. Have at you!
    First, that without the King's assent or knowledge
    You wrought to be a legate; by which power
    You maim'd the jurisdiction of all bishops.
  NORFOLK. Then, that in all you writ to Rome, or else
    To foreign princes, 'Ego et Rex meus'
    Was still inscrib'd; in which you brought the King
    To be your servant.
  SUFFOLK. Then, that without the knowledge
    Either of King or Council, when you went
    Ambassador to the Emperor, you made bold
    To carry into Flanders the great seal.
  SURREY. Item, you sent a large commission
    To Gregory de Cassado, to conclude,
    Without the King's will or the state's allowance,
    A league between his Highness and Ferrara.
  SUFFOLK. That out of mere ambition you have caus'd
    Your holy hat to be stamp'd on the King's coin.
  SURREY. Then, that you have sent innumerable substance,
    By what means got I leave to your own conscience,
    To furnish Rome and to prepare the ways
    You have for dignities, to the mere undoing
    Of all the kingdom. Many more there are,
    Which, since they are of you, and odious,
    I will not taint my mouth with.
  CHAMBERLAIN. O my lord,
    Press not a falling man too far! 'Tis virtue.
    His faults lie open to the laws; let them,
    Not you, correct him. My heart weeps to see him
    So little of his great self.
  SURREY. I forgive him.
  SUFFOLK. Lord Cardinal, the King's further pleasure is-
    Because all those things you have done of late,
    By your power legatine within this kingdom,
    Fall into th' compass of a praemunire-
    That therefore such a writ be sued against you:
    To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements,
    Chattels, and whatsoever, and to be
    Out of the King's protection. This is my charge.
  NORFOLK. And so we'll leave you to your meditations
    How to live better. For your stubborn answer
    About the giving back the great seal to us,
    The King shall know it, and, no doubt, shall thank you.
    So fare you well, my little good Lord Cardinal.
                                                Exeunt all but WOLSEY
  WOLSEY. So farewell to the little good you bear me.
    Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!
    This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
    The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms
    And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
    The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
    And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
    His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
    And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd,
    Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
    This many summers in a sea of glory;
    But far beyond my depth. My high-blown pride
    At length broke under me, and now has left me,
    Weary and old with service, to the mercy
    Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.
    Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye;
    I feel my heart new open'd. O, how wretched
    Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!
    There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
    That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin
    More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
    And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
    Never to hope again.

         Enter CROMWELL, standing amazed

    Why, how now, Cromwell!
  CROMWELL. I have no power to speak, sir.
  WOLSEY. What, amaz'd
    At my misfortunes? Can thy spirit wonder
    A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep,
    I am fall'n indeed.
  CROMWELL. How does your Grace?
  WOLSEY. Why, well;
    Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell.
    I know myself now, and I feel within me
    A peace above all earthly dignities,
    A still and quiet conscience. The King has cur'd me,
    I humbly thank his Grace; and from these shoulders,
    These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken
    A load would sink a navy-too much honour.
    O, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden
    Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven!
  CROMWELL. I am glad your Grace has made that right use of it.
  WOLSEY. I hope I have. I am able now, methinks,
    Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,
    To endure more miseries and greater far
    Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.
    What news abroad?
  CROMWELL. The heaviest and the worst
    Is your displeasure with the King.
  WOLSEY. God bless him!
  CROMWELL. The next is that Sir Thomas More is chosen
    Lord Chancellor in your place.
  WOLSEY. That's somewhat sudden.
    But he's a learned man. May he continue
    Long in his Highness' favour, and do justice
    For truth's sake and his conscience; that his bones
    When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,
    May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on him!
    What more?
  CROMWELL. That Cranmer is return'd with welcome,
    Install'd Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.
  WOLSEY. That's news indeed.
  CROMWELL. Last, that the Lady Anne,
    Whom the King hath in secrecy long married,
    This day was view'd in open as his queen,
    Going to chapel; and the voice is now
    Only about her coronation.
  WOLSEY. There was the weight that pull'd me down.
      O Cromwell,
    The King has gone beyond me. All my glories
    In that one woman I have lost for ever.
    No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours,
    Or gild again the noble troops that waited
    Upon my smiles. Go get thee from me, Cromwell;
    I am a poor fall'n man, unworthy now
    To be thy lord and master. Seek the King;
    That sun, I pray, may never set! I have told him
    What and how true thou art. He will advance thee;
    Some little memory of me will stir him-
    I know his noble nature-not to let
    Thy hopeful service perish too. Good Cromwell,
    Neglect him not; make use now, and provide
    For thine own future safety.
  CROMWELL. O my lord,
    Must I then leave you? Must I needs forgo
    So good, so noble, and so true a master?
    Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron,
    With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord.
    The King shall have my service; but my prayers
    For ever and for ever shall be yours.
  WOLSEY. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear
    In all my miseries; but thou hast forc'd me,
    Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.
    Let's dry our eyes; and thus far hear me, Cromwell,
    And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
    And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
    Of me more must be heard of, say I taught thee-
    Say Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
    And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,
    Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in-
    A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.
    Mark but my fall and that that ruin'd me.
    Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:
    By that sin fell the angels. How can man then,
    The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?
    Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee;
    Corruption wins not more than honesty.
    Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace
    To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not;
    Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,
    Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,
    Thou fall'st a blessed martyr!
    Serve the King, and-prithee lead me in.
    There take an inventory of all I have
    To the last penny; 'tis the King's. My robe,
    And my integrity to heaven, is all
    I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell!
    Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal
    I serv'd my King, he would not in mine age
    Have left me naked to mine enemies.
  CROMWELL. Good sir, have patience.
  WOLSEY. So I have. Farewell
    The hopes of court! My hopes in heaven do dwell.           Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

A street in Westminster

Enter two GENTLEMEN, meeting one another

  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Y'are well met once again.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. So are you.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You come to take your stand here, and
      behold
    The Lady Anne pass from her coronation?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis all my business. At our last encounter
    The Duke of Buckingham came from his trial.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis very true. But that time offer'd
      sorrow;
    This, general joy.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis well. The citizens,
    I am sure, have shown at full their royal minds-
    As, let 'em have their rights, they are ever forward-
    In celebration of this day with shows,
    Pageants, and sights of honour.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Never greater,
    Nor, I'll assure you, better taken, sir.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. May I be bold to ask what that contains,
    That paper in your hand?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes; 'tis the list
    Of those that claim their offices this day,
    By custom of the coronation.
    The Duke of Suffolk is the first, and claims
    To be High Steward; next, the Duke of Norfolk,
    He to be Earl Marshal. You may read the rest.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I thank you, sir; had I not known
      those customs,
    I should have been beholding to your paper.
    But, I beseech you, what's become of Katharine,
    The Princess Dowager? How goes her business?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. That I can tell you too. The Archbishop
    Of Canterbury, accompanied with other
    Learned and reverend fathers of his order,
    Held a late court at Dunstable, six miles of
    From Ampthill, where the Princess lay; to which
    She was often cited by them, but appear'd not.
    And, to be short, for not appearance and
    The King's late scruple, by the main assent
    Of all these learned men, she was divorc'd,
    And the late marriage made of none effect;
    Since which she was removed to Kimbolton,
    Where she remains now sick.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Alas, good lady!                       [Trumpets]
    The trumpets sound. Stand close, the Queen is coming.
[Hautboys]

              THE ORDER OF THE CORONATION.

    1. A lively flourish of trumpets.
    2. Then two JUDGES.
    3. LORD CHANCELLOR, with purse and mace before him.
    4. CHORISTERS singing.                                    [Music]
    5. MAYOR OF LONDON, bearing the mace. Then GARTER, in
       his coat of arms, and on his head he wore a gilt copper
       crown.
    6. MARQUIS DORSET, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head a
       demi-coronal of gold. With him, the EARL OF SURREY,
       bearing the rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an
       earl's coronet. Collars of Esses.
    7. DUKE OF SUFFOLK, in his robe of estate, his coronet on
       his head, bearing a long white wand, as High Steward.
       With him, the DUKE OF NORFOLK, with the rod of
       marshalship, a coronet on his head. Collars of Esses.
    8. A canopy borne by four of the CINQUE-PORTS; under it
       the QUEEN in her robe; in her hair richly adorned with
       pearl, crowned. On each side her, the BISHOPS OF LONDON
       and WINCHESTER.
    9. The old DUCHESS OF NORFOLK, in a coronal of gold
       wrought with flowers, bearing the QUEEN'S train.
   10. Certain LADIES or COUNTESSES, with plain circlets of gold
       without flowers.

             Exeunt, first passing over the stage in order and state,
                                and then a great flourish of trumpets

  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A royal train, believe me. These know.
    Who's that that bears the sceptre?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Marquis Dorset;
    And that the Earl of Surrey, with the rod.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A bold brave gentleman. That should be
    The Duke of Suffolk?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis the same-High Steward.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And that my Lord of Norfolk?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN.  [Looking on the QUEEN]  Heaven
      bless thee!
    Thou hast the sweetest face I ever look'd on.
    Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel;
    Our king has all the Indies in his arms,
    And more and richer, when he strains that lady;
    I cannot blame his conscience.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. They that bear
    The cloth of honour over her are four barons
    Of the Cinque-ports.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Those men are happy; and so are all
      are near her.
    I take it she that carries up the train
    Is that old noble lady, Duchess of Norfolk.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. It is; and all the rest are countesses.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Their coronets say so. These are stars indeed,
    And sometimes falling ones.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. No more of that.
                   Exit Procession, with a great flourish of trumpets

               Enter a third GENTLEMAN

    God save you, sir! Where have you been broiling?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Among the crowds i' th' Abbey, where a finger
    Could not be wedg'd in more; I am stifled
    With the mere rankness of their joy.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. You saw
    The ceremony?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. That I did.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. How was it?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Well worth the seeing.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Good sir, speak it to us.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. As well as I am able. The rich stream
    Of lords and ladies, having brought the Queen
    To a prepar'd place in the choir, fell of
    A distance from her, while her Grace sat down
    To rest awhile, some half an hour or so,
    In a rich chair of state, opposing freely
    The beauty of her person to the people.
    Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman
    That ever lay by man; which when the people
    Had the full view of, such a noise arose
    As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest,
    As loud, and to as many tunes; hats, cloaks-
    Doublets, I think-flew up, and had their faces
    Been loose, this day they had been lost. Such joy
    I never saw before. Great-bellied women,
    That had not half a week to go, like rams
    In the old time of war, would shake the press,
    And make 'em reel before 'em. No man living
    Could say 'This is my wife' there, all were woven
    So strangely in one piece.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But what follow'd?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. At length her Grace rose, and with
      modest paces
    Came to the altar, where she kneel'd, and saintlike
    Cast her fair eyes to heaven, and pray'd devoutly.
    Then rose again, and bow'd her to the people;
    When by the Archbishop of Canterbury
    She had all the royal makings of a queen:
    As holy oil, Edward Confessor's crown,
    The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems
    Laid nobly on her; which perform'd, the choir,
    With all the choicest music of the kingdom,
    Together sung 'Te Deum.' So she parted,
    And with the same full state pac'd back again
    To York Place, where the feast is held.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Sir,
    You must no more call it York Place: that's past:
    For since the Cardinal fell that title's lost.
    'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. I know it;
    But 'tis so lately alter'd that the old name
    Is fresh about me.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What two reverend bishops
    Were those that went on each side of the Queen?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Stokesly and Gardiner: the one of Winchester,
    Newly preferr'd from the King's secretary;
    The other, London.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. He of Winchester
    Is held no great good lover of the Archbishop's,
    The virtuous Cranmer.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. All the land knows that;
    However, yet there is no great breach. When it comes,
    Cranmer will find a friend will not shrink from him.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Who may that be, I pray you?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Thomas Cromwell,
    A man in much esteem with th' King, and truly
    A worthy friend. The King has made him Master
    O' th' jewel House,
    And one, already, of the Privy Council.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. He will deserve more.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Yes, without all doubt.
    Come, gentlemen, ye shall go my way, which
    Is to th' court, and there ye shall be my guests:
    Something I can command. As I walk thither,
    I'll tell ye more.
  BOTH. You may command us, sir.                               Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 2.

Kimbolton

Enter KATHARINE, Dowager, sick; led between GRIFFITH, her Gentleman
Usher, and PATIENCE, her woman

  GRIFFITH. How does your Grace?
  KATHARINE. O Griffith, sick to death!
    My legs like loaden branches bow to th' earth,
    Willing to leave their burden. Reach a chair.
    So-now, methinks, I feel a little ease.
    Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me,
    That the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolsey,
    Was dead?
  GRIFFITH. Yes, madam; but I think your Grace,
    Out of the pain you suffer'd, gave no ear to't.
  KATHARINE. Prithee, good Griffith, tell me how he died.
    If well, he stepp'd before me, happily,
    For my example.
  GRIFFITH. Well, the voice goes, madam;
    For after the stout Earl Northumberland
    Arrested him at York and brought him forward,
    As a man sorely tainted, to his answer,
    He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill
    He could not sit his mule.
  KATHARINE. Alas, poor man!
  GRIFFITH. At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester,
    Lodg'd in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,
    With all his covent, honourably receiv'd him;
    To whom he gave these words: 'O father Abbot,
    An old man, broken with the storms of state,
    Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
    Give him a little earth for charity!'
    So went to bed; where eagerly his sickness
    Pursu'd him still And three nights after this,
    About the hour of eight-which he himself
    Foretold should be his last-full of repentance,
    Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
    He gave his honours to the world again,
    His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.
  KATHARINE. So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him!
    Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him,
    And yet with charity. He was a man
    Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
    Himself with princes; one that, by suggestion,
    Tied all the kingdom. Simony was fair play;
    His own opinion was his law. I' th' presence
    He would say untruths, and be ever double
    Both in his words and meaning. He was never,
    But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.
    His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
    But his performance, as he is now, nothing.
    Of his own body he was ill, and gave
    The clergy ill example.
  GRIFFITH. Noble madam,
    Men's evil manners live in brass: their virtues
    We write in water. May it please your Highness
    To hear me speak his good now?
  KATHARINE. Yes, good Griffith;
    I were malicious else.
  GRIFFITH. This Cardinal,
    Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly
    Was fashion'd to much honour from his cradle.
    He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;
    Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading;
    Lofty and sour to them that lov'd him not,
    But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.
    And though he were unsatisfied in getting-
    Which was a sin-yet in bestowing, madam,
    He was most princely: ever witness for him
    Those twins of learning that he rais'd in you,
    Ipswich and Oxford! One of which fell with him,
    Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;
    The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous,
    So excellent in art, and still so rising,
    That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.
    His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him;
    For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
    And found the blessedness of being little.
    And, to add greater honours to his age
    Than man could give him, he died fearing God.
  KATHARINE. After my death I wish no other herald,
    No other speaker of my living actions,
    To keep mine honour from corruption,
    But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.
    Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me,
    With thy religious truth and modesty,
    Now in his ashes honour. Peace be with him!
    patience, be near me still, and set me lower:
    I have not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith,
    Cause the musicians play me that sad note
    I nam'd my knell, whilst I sit meditating
    On that celestial harmony I go to.
                                              [Sad and solemn music]
  GRIFFITH. She is asleep. Good wench, let's sit down quiet,
    For fear we wake her. Softly, gentle Patience.

                 THE VISION.

      Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six PERSONAGES clad
      in white robes, wearing on their heads garlands of bays, and
      golden vizards on their faces; branches of bays or palm in their
      hands. They first congee unto her, then dance; and, at certain
      changes, the first two hold a spare garland over her head, at
      which the other four make reverent curtsies. Then the two that
      held the garland deliver the same to the other next two, who
      observe the same order in their changes, and holding the garland
      over her head; which done, they deliver the same garland to the
      last two, who likewise observe the same order; at which, as it
      were by inspiration, she makes in her sleep signs of rejoicing,
      and holdeth up her hands to heaven. And so in their dancing
      vanish, carrying the garland with them. The music continues

  KATHARINE. Spirits of peace, where are ye? Are ye all gone?
    And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?
  GRIFFITH. Madam, we are here.
  KATHARINE. It is not you I call for.
    Saw ye none enter since I slept?
  GRIFFITH. None, madam.
  KATHARINE. No? Saw you not, even now, a blessed troop
    Invite me to a banquet; whose bright faces
    Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?
    They promis'd me eternal happiness,
    And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel
    I am not worthy yet to wear. I shall, assuredly.
  GRIFFITH. I am most joyful, madam, such good dreams
    Possess your fancy.
  KATHARINE. Bid the music leave,
    They are harsh and heavy to me.                    [Music ceases]
  PATIENCE. Do you note
    How much her Grace is alter'd on the sudden?
    How long her face is drawn! How pale she looks,
    And of an earthly cold! Mark her eyes.
  GRIFFITH. She is going, wench. Pray, pray.
  PATIENCE. Heaven comfort her!

             Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. An't like your Grace-
  KATHARINE. You are a saucy fellow.
    Deserve we no more reverence?
  GRIFFITH. You are to blame,
    Knowing she will not lose her wonted greatness,
    To use so rude behaviour. Go to, kneel.
  MESSENGER. I humbly do entreat your Highness' pardon;
    My haste made me unmannerly. There is staying
    A gentleman, sent from the King, to see you.
  KATHARINE. Admit him entrance, Griffith; but this fellow
    Let me ne'er see again.                            Exit MESSENGER

              Enter LORD CAPUCIUS

    If my sight fail not,
    You should be Lord Ambassador from the Emperor,
    My royal nephew, and your name Capucius.
  CAPUCIUS. Madam, the same-your servant.
  KATHARINE. O, my Lord,
    The times and titles now are alter'd strangely
    With me since first you knew me. But, I pray you,
    What is your pleasure with me?
  CAPUCIUS. Noble lady,
    First, mine own service to your Grace; the next,
    The King's request that I would visit you,
    Who grieves much for your weakness, and by me
    Sends you his princely commendations
    And heartily entreats you take good comfort.
  KATHARINE. O my good lord, that comfort comes too late,
    'Tis like a pardon after execution:
    That gentle physic, given in time, had cur'd me;
    But now I am past all comforts here, but prayers.
    How does his Highness?
  CAPUCIUS. Madam, in good health.
  KATHARINE. So may he ever do! and ever flourish
    When I shall dwell with worms, and my poor name
    Banish'd the kingdom! Patience, is that letter
    I caus'd you write yet sent away?
  PATIENCE. No, madam.                       [Giving it to KATHARINE]
  KATHARINE. Sir, I most humbly pray you to deliver
    This to my lord the King.
  CAPUCIUS. Most willing, madam.
  KATHARINE. In which I have commended to his goodness
    The model of our chaste loves, his young daughter-
    The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her!-
    Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding-
    She is young, and of a noble modest nature;
    I hope she will deserve well-and a little
    To love her for her mother's sake, that lov'd him,
    Heaven knows how dearly. My next poor petition
    Is that his noble Grace would have some pity
    Upon my wretched women that so long
    Have follow'd both my fortunes faithfully;
    Of which there is not one, I dare avow-
    And now I should not lie-but will deserve,
    For virtue and true beauty of the soul,
    For honesty and decent carriage,
    A right good husband, let him be a noble;
    And sure those men are happy that shall have 'em.
    The last is for my men-they are the poorest,
    But poverty could never draw 'em from me-
    That they may have their wages duly paid 'em,
    And something over to remember me by.
    If heaven had pleas'd to have given me longer life
    And able means, we had not parted thus.
    These are the whole contents; and, good my lord,
    By that you love the dearest in this world,
    As you wish Christian peace to souls departed,
    Stand these poor people's friend, and urge the King
    To do me this last right.
  CAPUCIUS. By heaven, I will,
    Or let me lose the fashion of a man!
  KATHARINE. I thank you, honest lord. Remember me
    In all humility unto his Highness;
    Say his long trouble now is passing
    Out of this world. Tell him in death I bless'd him,
    For so I will. Mine eyes grow dim. Farewell,
    My lord. Griffith, farewell. Nay, Patience,
    You must not leave me yet. I must to bed;
    Call in more women. When I am dead, good wench,
    Let me be us'd with honour; strew me over
    With maiden flowers, that all the world may know
    I was a chaste wife to my grave. Embalm me,
    Then lay me forth; although unqueen'd, yet like
    A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me.
    I can no more.                          Exeunt, leading KATHARINE

ACT V. SCENE 1.

London. A gallery in the palace

Enter GARDINER, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, a PAGE with a torch before him,
met by SIR THOMAS LOVELL

  GARDINER. It's one o'clock, boy, is't not?
  BOY. It hath struck.
  GARDINER. These should be hours for necessities,
    Not for delights; times to repair our nature
    With comforting repose, and not for us
    To waste these times. Good hour of night, Sir Thomas!
    Whither so late?
  LOVELL. Came you from the King, my lord?
  GARDINER. I did, Sir Thomas, and left him at primero
    With the Duke of Suffolk.
  LOVELL. I must to him too,
    Before he go to bed. I'll take my leave.
  GARDINER. Not yet, Sir Thomas Lovell. What's the matter?
    It seems you are in haste. An if there be
    No great offence belongs to't, give your friend
    Some touch of your late business. Affairs that walk-
    As they say spirits do-at midnight, have
    In them a wilder nature than the business
    That seeks despatch by day.
  LOVELL. My lord, I love you;
    And durst commend a secret to your ear
    Much weightier than this work. The Queen's in labour,
    They say in great extremity, and fear'd
    She'll with the labour end.
  GARDINER. The fruit she goes with
    I pray for heartily, that it may find
    Good time, and live; but for the stock, Sir Thomas,
    I wish it grubb'd up now.
  LOVELL. Methinks I could
    Cry thee amen; and yet my conscience says
    She's a good creature, and, sweet lady, does
    Deserve our better wishes.
  GARDINER. But, sir, sir-
    Hear me, Sir Thomas. Y'are a gentleman
    Of mine own way; I know you wise, religious;
    And, let me tell you, it will ne'er be well-
    'Twill not, Sir Thomas Lovell, take't of me-
    Till Cranmer, Cromwell, her two hands, and she,
    Sleep in their graves.
  LOVELL. Now, sir, you speak of two
    The most remark'd i' th' kingdom. As for Cromwell,
    Beside that of the Jewel House, is made Master
    O' th' Rolls, and the King's secretary; further, sir,
    Stands in the gap and trade of moe preferments,
    With which the time will load him. Th' Archbishop
    Is the King's hand and tongue, and who dare speak
    One syllable against him?
  GARDINER. Yes, yes, Sir Thomas,
    There are that dare; and I myself have ventur'd
    To speak my mind of him; and indeed this day,
    Sir-I may tell it you-I think I have
    Incens'd the lords o' th' Council, that he is-
    For so I know he is, they know he is-
    A most arch heretic, a pestilence
    That does infect the land; with which they moved
    Have broken with the King, who hath so far
    Given ear to our complaint-of his great grace
    And princely care, foreseeing those fell mischiefs
    Our reasons laid before him-hath commanded
    To-morrow morning to the Council board
    He be convented. He's a rank weed, Sir Thomas,
    And we must root him out. From your affairs
    I hinder you too long-good night, Sir Thomas.
  LOVELL. Many good nights, my lord; I rest your servant.
                                             Exeunt GARDINER and PAGE

         Enter the KING and the DUKE OF SUFFOLK

  KING. Charles, I will play no more to-night;
    My mind's not on't; you are too hard for me.
  SUFFOLK. Sir, I did never win of you before.
  KING. But little, Charles;
    Nor shall not, when my fancy's on my play.
    Now, Lovell, from the Queen what is the news?
  LOVELL. I could not personally deliver to her
    What you commanded me, but by her woman
    I sent your message; who return'd her thanks
    In the great'st humbleness, and desir'd your Highness
    Most heartily to pray for her.
  KING. What say'st thou, ha?
    To pray for her? What, is she crying out?
  LOVELL. So said her woman; and that her suff'rance made
    Almost each pang a death.
  KING. Alas, good lady!
  SUFFOLK. God safely quit her of her burden, and
    With gentle travail, to the gladding of
    Your Highness with an heir!
  KING. 'Tis midnight, Charles;
    Prithee to bed; and in thy pray'rs remember
    Th' estate of my poor queen. Leave me alone,
    For I must think of that which company
    Will not be friendly to.
  SUFFOLK. I wish your Highness
    A quiet night, and my good mistress will
    Remember in my prayers.
  KING. Charles, good night.                             Exit SUFFOLK

         Enter SIR ANTHONY DENNY

    Well, sir, what follows?
  DENNY. Sir, I have brought my lord the Archbishop,
    As you commanded me.
  KING. Ha! Canterbury?
  DENNY. Ay, my good lord.
  KING. 'Tis true. Where is he, Denny?
  DENNY. He attends your Highness' pleasure.
  KING. Bring him to us.                                   Exit DENNY
  LOVELL.  [Aside]  This is about that which the bishop spake.
    I am happily come hither.

         Re-enter DENNY, With CRANMER

  KING. Avoid the gallery.                     [LOVELL seems to stay]
    Ha! I have said. Be gone.
    What!                                     Exeunt LOVELL and DENNY
  CRANMER.  [Aside]  I am fearful-wherefore frowns he thus?
    'Tis his aspect of terror. All's not well.
  KING. How now, my lord? You do desire to know
    Wherefore I sent for you.
  CRANMER.  [Kneeling]  It is my duty
    T'attend your Highness' pleasure.
  KING. Pray you, arise,
    My good and gracious Lord of Canterbury.
    Come, you and I must walk a turn together;
    I have news to tell you; come, come, me your hand.
    Ah, my good lord, I grieve at what I speak,
    And am right sorry to repeat what follows.
    I have, and most unwillingly, of late
    Heard many grievous-I do say, my lord,
    Grievous-complaints of you; which, being consider'd,
    Have mov'd us and our Council that you shall
    This morning come before us; where I know
    You cannot with such freedom purge yourself
    But that, till further trial in those charges
    Which will require your answer, you must take
    Your patience to you and be well contented
    To make your house our Tow'r. You a brother of us,
    It fits we thus proceed, or else no witness
    Would come against you.
  CRANMER. I humbly thank your Highness
    And am right glad to catch this good occasion
    Most throughly to be winnowed where my chaff
    And corn shall fly asunder; for I know
    There's none stands under more calumnious tongues
    Than I myself, poor man.
  KING. Stand up, good Canterbury;
    Thy truth and thy integrity is rooted
    In us, thy friend. Give me thy hand, stand up;
    Prithee let's walk. Now, by my holidame,
    What manner of man are you? My lord, I look'd
    You would have given me your petition that
    I should have ta'en some pains to bring together
    Yourself and your accusers, and to have heard you
    Without indurance further.
  CRANMER. Most dread liege,
    The good I stand on is my truth and honesty;
    If they shall fail, I with mine enemies
    Will triumph o'er my person; which I weigh not,
    Being of those virtues vacant. I fear nothing
    What can be said against me.
  KING. Know you not
    How your state stands i' th' world, with the whole world?
    Your enemies are many, and not small; their practices
    Must bear the same proportion; and not ever
    The justice and the truth o' th' question carries
    The due o' th' verdict with it; at what ease
    Might corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt
    To swear against you? Such things have been done.
    You are potently oppos'd, and with a malice
    Of as great size. Ween you of better luck,
    I mean in perjur'd witness, than your Master,
    Whose minister you are, whiles here He liv'd
    Upon this naughty earth? Go to, go to;
    You take a precipice for no leap of danger,
    And woo your own destruction.
  CRANMER. God and your Majesty
    Protect mine innocence, or I fall into
    The trap is laid for me!
  KING. Be of good cheer;
    They shall no more prevail than we give way to.
    Keep comfort to you, and this morning see
    You do appear before them; if they shall chance,
    In charging you with matters, to commit you,
    The best persuasions to the contrary
    Fail not to use, and with what vehemency
    Th' occasion shall instruct you. If entreaties
    Will render you no remedy, this ring
    Deliver them, and your appeal to us
    There make before them. Look, the good man weeps!
    He's honest, on mine honour. God's blest Mother!
    I swear he is true-hearted, and a soul
    None better in my kingdom. Get you gone,
    And do as I have bid you.
                                                         Exit CRANMER
    He has strangled his language in his tears.

           Enter OLD LADY

  GENTLEMAN.  [Within]  Come back; what mean you?
  OLD LADY. I'll not come back; the tidings that I bring
    Will make my boldness manners. Now, good angels
    Fly o'er thy royal head, and shade thy person
    Under their blessed wings!
  KING. Now, by thy looks
    I guess thy message. Is the Queen deliver'd?
    Say ay, and of a boy.
  OLD LADY. Ay, ay, my liege;
    And of a lovely boy. The God of Heaven
    Both now and ever bless her! 'Tis a girl,
    Promises boys hereafter. Sir, your queen
    Desires your visitation, and to be
    Acquainted with this stranger; 'tis as like you
    As cherry is to cherry.
  KING. Lovell!

           Enter LOVELL

  LOVELL. Sir?
  KING. Give her an hundred marks. I'll to the Queen.            Exit
  OLD LADY. An hundred marks? By this light, I'll ha' more!
    An ordinary groom is for such payment.
    I will have more, or scold it out of him.
    Said I for this the girl was like to him! I'll
    Have more, or else unsay't; and now, while 'tis hot,
    I'll put it to the issue.                                  Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 2.

Lobby before the Council Chamber

Enter CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

  CRANMER. I hope I am not too late; and yet the gentleman
    That was sent to me from the Council pray'd me
    To make great haste. All fast? What means this? Ho!
    Who waits there? Sure you know me?

           Enter KEEPER

  KEEPER. Yes, my lord;
    But yet I cannot help you.
  CRANMER. Why?
  KEEPER. Your Grace must wait till you be call'd for.

           Enter DOCTOR BUTTS

  CRANMER. So.
  BUTTS.  [Aside]  This is a piece of malice. I am glad
    I came this way so happily; the King
    Shall understand it presently.                               Exit
  CRANMER.  [Aside]  'Tis Butts,
    The King's physician; as he pass'd along,
    How earnestly he cast his eyes upon me!
    Pray heaven he sound not my disgrace! For certain,
    This is of purpose laid by some that hate me-
    God turn their hearts! I never sought their malice-
    To quench mine honour; they would shame to make me
    Wait else at door, a fellow councillor,
    'Mong boys, grooms, and lackeys. But their pleasures
    Must be fulfill'd, and I attend with patience.

         Enter the KING and BUTTS at window above

  BUTTS. I'll show your Grace the strangest sight-
  KING. What's that, Butts?
  BUTTS. I think your Highness saw this many a day.
  KING. Body a me, where is it?
  BUTTS. There my lord:
    The high promotion of his Grace of Canterbury;
    Who holds his state at door, 'mongst pursuivants,
    Pages, and footboys.
  KING. Ha, 'tis he indeed.
    Is this the honour they do one another?
    'Tis well there's one above 'em yet. I had thought
    They had parted so much honesty among 'em-
    At least good manners-as not thus to suffer
    A man of his place, and so near our favour,
    To dance attendance on their lordships' pleasures,
    And at the door too, like a post with packets.
    By holy Mary, Butts, there's knavery!
    Let 'em alone, and draw the curtain close;
    We shall hear more anon.                                   Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 3.

The Council Chamber

A Council table brought in, with chairs and stools, and placed under
the state. Enter LORD CHANCELLOR, places himself at the upper end of
the table on the left band, a seat being left void above him, as for
Canterbury's seat. DUKE OF SUFFOLK, DUKE OF NORFOLK, SURREY, LORD
CHAMBERLAIN, GARDINER, seat themselves in order on each side; CROMWELL
at lower end, as secretary. KEEPER at the door

  CHANCELLOR. Speak to the business, master secretary;
    Why are we met in council?
  CROMWELL. Please your honours,
    The chief cause concerns his Grace of Canterbury.
  GARDINER. Has he had knowledge of it?
  CROMWELL. Yes.
  NORFOLK. Who waits there?
  KEEPER. Without, my noble lords?
  GARDINER. Yes.
  KEEPER. My Lord Archbishop;
    And has done half an hour, to know your pleasures.
  CHANCELLOR. Let him come in.
  KEEPER. Your Grace may enter now.

      CRANMER approaches the Council table

  CHANCELLOR. My good Lord Archbishop, I am very sorry
    To sit here at this present, and behold
    That chair stand empty; but we all are men,
    In our own natures frail and capable
    Of our flesh; few are angels; out of which frailty
    And want of wisdom, you, that best should teach us,
    Have misdemean'd yourself, and not a little,
    Toward the King first, then his laws, in filling
    The whole realm by your teaching and your chaplains-
    For so we are inform'd-with new opinions,
    Divers and dangerous; which are heresies,
    And, not reform'd, may prove pernicious.
  GARDINER. Which reformation must be sudden too,
    My noble lords; for those that tame wild horses
    Pace 'em not in their hands to make 'em gentle,
    But stop their mouth with stubborn bits and spur 'em
    Till they obey the manage. If we suffer,
    Out of our easiness and childish pity
    To one man's honour, this contagious sickness,
    Farewell all physic; and what follows then?
    Commotions, uproars, with a general taint
    Of the whole state; as of late days our neighbours,
    The upper Germany, can dearly witness,
    Yet freshly pitied in our memories.
  CRANMER. My good lords, hitherto in all the progress
    Both of my life and office, I have labour'd,
    And with no little study, that my teaching
    And the strong course of my authority
    Might go one way, and safely; and the end
    Was ever to do well. Nor is there living-
    I speak it with a single heart, my lords-
    A man that more detests, more stirs against,
    Both in his private conscience and his place,
    Defacers of a public peace than I do.
    Pray heaven the King may never find a heart
    With less allegiance in it! Men that make
    Envy and crooked malice nourishment
    Dare bite the best. I do beseech your lordships
    That, in this case of justice, my accusers,
    Be what they will, may stand forth face to face
    And freely urge against me.
  SUFFOLK. Nay, my lord,
    That cannot be; you are a councillor,
    And by that virtue no man dare accuse you.
  GARDINER. My lord, because we have business of more moment,
    We will be short with you. 'Tis his Highness' pleasure
    And our consent, for better trial of you,
    From hence you be committed to the Tower;
    Where, being but a private man again,
    You shall know many dare accuse you boldly,
    More than, I fear, you are provided for.
  CRANMER. Ah, my good Lord of Winchester, I thank you;
    You are always my good friend; if your will pass,
    I shall both find your lordship judge and juror,
    You are so merciful. I see your end-
    'Tis my undoing. Love and meekness, lord,
    Become a churchman better than ambition;
    Win straying souls with modesty again,
    Cast none away. That I shall clear myself,
    Lay all the weight ye can upon my patience,
    I make as little doubt as you do conscience
    In doing daily wrongs. I could say more,
    But reverence to your calling makes me modest.
  GARDINER. My lord, my lord, you are a sectary;
    That's the plain truth. Your painted gloss discovers,
    To men that understand you, words and weakness.
  CROMWELL. My Lord of Winchester, y'are a little,
    By your good favour, too sharp; men so noble,
    However faulty, yet should find respect
    For what they have been; 'tis a cruelty
    To load a falling man.
  GARDINER. Good Master Secretary,
    I cry your honour mercy; you may, worst
    Of all this table, say so.
  CROMWELL. Why, my lord?
  GARDINER. Do not I know you for a favourer
    Of this new sect? Ye are not sound.
  CROMWELL. Not sound?
  GARDINER. Not sound, I say.
  CROMWELL. Would you were half so honest!
    Men's prayers then would seek you, not their fears.
  GARDINER. I shall remember this bold language.
  CROMWELL. Do.
    Remember your bold life too.
  CHANCELLOR. This is too much;
    Forbear, for shame, my lords.
  GARDINER. I have done.
  CROMWELL. And I.
  CHANCELLOR. Then thus for you, my lord: it stands agreed,
    I take it, by all voices, that forthwith
    You be convey'd to th' Tower a prisoner;
    There to remain till the King's further pleasure
    Be known unto us. Are you all agreed, lords?
  ALL. We are.
  CRANMER. Is there no other way of mercy,
    But I must needs to th' Tower, my lords?
  GARDINER. What other
    Would you expect? You are strangely troublesome.
    Let some o' th' guard be ready there.

           Enter the guard

  CRANMER. For me?
    Must I go like a traitor thither?
  GARDINER. Receive him,
    And see him safe i' th' Tower.
  CRANMER. Stay, good my lords,
    I have a little yet to say. Look there, my lords;
    By virtue of that ring I take my cause
    Out of the gripes of cruel men and give it
    To a most noble judge, the King my master.
  CHAMBERLAIN. This is the King's ring.
  SURREY. 'Tis no counterfeit.
  SUFFOLK. 'Tis the right ring, by heav'n. I told ye all,
    When we first put this dangerous stone a-rolling,
    'Twould fall upon ourselves.
  NORFOLK. Do you think, my lords,
    The King will suffer but the little finger
    Of this man to be vex'd?
  CHAMBERLAIN. 'Tis now too certain;
    How much more is his life in value with him!
    Would I were fairly out on't!
  CROMWELL. My mind gave me,
    In seeking tales and informations
    Against this man-whose honesty the devil
    And his disciples only envy at-
    Ye blew the fire that burns ye. Now have at ye!

      Enter the KING frowning on them; he takes his seat

  GARDINER. Dread sovereign, how much are we bound to heaven
    In daily thanks, that gave us such a prince;
    Not only good and wise but most religious;
    One that in all obedience makes the church
    The chief aim of his honour and, to strengthen
    That holy duty, out of dear respect,
    His royal self in judgment comes to hear
    The cause betwixt her and this great offender.
  KING. You were ever good at sudden commendations,
    Bishop of Winchester. But know I come not
    To hear such flattery now, and in my presence
    They are too thin and bare to hide offences.
    To me you cannot reach you play the spaniel,
    And think with wagging of your tongue to win me;
    But whatsoe'er thou tak'st me for, I'm sure
    Thou hast a cruel nature and a bloody.
    [To CRANMER]  Good man, sit down. Now let me see the proudest
    He that dares most but wag his finger at thee.
    By all that's holy, he had better starve
    Than but once think this place becomes thee not.
  SURREY. May it please your Grace-
  KING. No, sir, it does not please me.
    I had thought I had had men of some understanding
    And wisdom of my Council; but I find none.
    Was it discretion, lords, to let this man,
    This good man-few of you deserve that title-
    This honest man, wait like a lousy footboy
    At chamber door? and one as great as you are?
    Why, what a shame was this! Did my commission
    Bid ye so far forget yourselves? I gave ye
    Power as he was a councillor to try him,
    Not as a groom. There's some of ye, I see,
    More out of malice than integrity,
    Would try him to the utmost, had ye mean;
    Which ye shall never have while I live.
  CHANCELLOR. Thus far,
    My most dread sovereign, may it like your Grace
    To let my tongue excuse all. What was purpos'd
    concerning his imprisonment was rather-
    If there be faith in men-meant for his trial
    And fair purgation to the world, than malice,
    I'm sure, in me.
  KING. Well, well, my lords, respect him;
    Take him, and use him well, he's worthy of it.
    I will say thus much for him: if a prince
    May be beholding to a subject,
    Am for his love and service so to him.
    Make me no more ado, but all embrace him;
    Be friends, for shame, my lords! My Lord of Canterbury,
    I have a suit which you must not deny me:
    That is, a fair young maid that yet wants baptism;
    You must be godfather, and answer for her.
  CRANMER. The greatest monarch now alive may glory
    In such an honour; how may I deserve it,
    That am a poor and humble subject to you?
  KING. Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons. You
      shall have
    Two noble partners with you: the old Duchess of Norfolk
    And Lady Marquis Dorset. Will these please you?
    Once more, my Lord of Winchester, I charge you,
    Embrace and love this man.
  GARDINER. With a true heart
    And brother-love I do it.
  CRANMER. And let heaven
    Witness how dear I hold this confirmation.
  KING. Good man, those joyful tears show thy true heart.
    The common voice, I see, is verified
    Of thee, which says thus: 'Do my Lord of Canterbury
    A shrewd turn and he's your friend for ever.'
    Come, lords, we trifle time away; I long
    To have this young one made a Christian.
    As I have made ye one, lords, one remain;
    So I grow stronger, you more honour gain.                  Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 4.

The palace yard

Noise and tumult within. Enter PORTER and his MAN

  PORTER. You'll leave your noise anon, ye rascals. Do you
    take the court for Paris garden? Ye rude slaves, leave your
    gaping.
    [Within: Good master porter, I belong to th' larder.]
  PORTER. Belong to th' gallows, and be hang'd, ye rogue! Is
    this a place to roar in? Fetch me a dozen crab-tree staves,
    and strong ones; these are but switches to 'em. I'll scratch
    your heads. You must be seeing christenings? Do you look
    for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals?
  MAN. Pray, sir, be patient; 'tis as much impossible,
    Unless we sweep 'em from the door with cannons,
    To scatter 'em as 'tis to make 'em sleep
    On May-day morning; which will never be.
    We may as well push against Paul's as stir 'em.
  PORTER. How got they in, and be hang'd?
  MAN. Alas, I know not: how gets the tide in?
    As much as one sound cudgel of four foot-
    You see the poor remainder-could distribute,
    I made no spare, sir.
  PORTER. You did nothing, sir.
  MAN. I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand,
    To mow 'em down before me; but if I spar'd any
    That had a head to hit, either young or old,
    He or she, cuckold or cuckold-maker,
    Let me ne'er hope to see a chine again;
    And that I would not for a cow, God save her!
    [ Within: Do you hear, master porter?]
  PORTER. I shall be with you presently, good master puppy.
    Keep the door close, sirrah.
  MAN. What would you have me do?
  PORTER. What should you do, but knock 'em down by th'
    dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in? Or have we some
    strange Indian with the great tool come to court, the
    women so besiege us? Bless me, what a fry of fornication
    is at door! On my Christian conscience, this one christening
    will beget a thousand: here will be father, godfather,
    and all together.
  MAN. The spoons will be the bigger, sir. There is a fellow
    somewhat near the door, he should be a brazier by his
    face, for, o' my conscience, twenty of the dog-days now
    reign in's nose; all that stand about him are under the line,
    they need no other penance. That fire-drake did I hit three
    times on the head, and three times was his nose discharged
    against me; he stands there like a mortar-piece, to blow us.
    There was a haberdasher's wife of small wit near him, that
    rail'd upon me till her pink'd porringer fell off her head,
    for kindling such a combustion in the state. I miss'd the
    meteor once, and hit that woman, who cried out 'Clubs!'
    when I might see from far some forty truncheoners draw
    to her succour, which were the hope o' th' Strand, where
    she was quartered. They fell on; I made good my place.
    At length they came to th' broomstaff to me; I defied 'em
    still; when suddenly a file of boys behind 'em, loose shot,
    deliver'd such a show'r of pebbles that I was fain to draw
    mine honour in and let 'em win the work: the devil was
    amongst 'em, I think surely.
  PORTER. These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse
    and fight for bitten apples; that no audience but the tribulation
    of Tower-hill or the limbs of Limehouse, their dear
    brothers, are able to endure. I have some of 'em in Limbo
    Patrum, and there they are like to dance these three days;
    besides the running banquet of two beadles that is to come.

          Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN

  CHAMBERLAIN. Mercy o' me, what a multitude are here!
    They grow still too; from all parts they are coming,
    As if we kept a fair here! Where are these porters,
    These lazy knaves? Y'have made a fine hand, fellows.
    There's a trim rabble let in: are all these
    Your faithful friends o' th' suburbs? We shall have
    Great store of room, no doubt, left for the ladies,
    When they pass back from the christening.
  PORTER. An't please your honour,
    We are but men; and what so many may do,
    Not being torn a pieces, we have done.
    An army cannot rule 'em.
  CHAMBERLAIN. As I live,
    If the King blame me for't, I'll lay ye an
    By th' heels, and suddenly; and on your heads
    Clap round fines for neglect. Y'are lazy knaves;
    And here ye lie baiting of bombards, when
    Ye should do service. Hark! the trumpets sound;
    Th' are come already from the christening.
    Go break among the press and find a way out
    To let the troops pass fairly, or I'll find
    A Marshalsea shall hold ye play these two months.
  PORTER. Make way there for the Princess.
  MAN. You great fellow,
    Stand close up, or I'll make your head ache.
  PORTER. You i' th' camlet, get up o' th' rail;
    I'll peck you o'er the pales else.                         Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 5.

The palace

Enter TRUMPETS, sounding; then two ALDERMEN, LORD MAYOR, GARTER,
CRANMER, DUKE OF NORFOLK, with his marshal's staff, DUKE OF SUFFOLK,
two Noblemen bearing great standing-bowls for the christening gifts;
then four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the DUCHESS OF
NORFOLK, godmother, bearing the CHILD richly habited in a mantle, etc.,
train borne by a LADY; then follows the MARCHIONESS DORSET, the other
godmother, and LADIES. The troop pass once about the stage, and GARTER
speaks

  GARTER. Heaven, from thy endless goodness, send prosperous life, long
  and ever-happy, to the high and mighty Princess of England,
  Elizabeth!

           Flourish. Enter KING and guard

  CRANMER.  [Kneeling]  And to your royal Grace and the
      good Queen!
    My noble partners and myself thus pray:
    All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady,
    Heaven ever laid up to make parents happy,
    May hourly fall upon ye!
  KING. Thank you, good Lord Archbishop.
    What is her name?
  CRANMER. Elizabeth.
  KING. Stand up, lord.                   [The KING kisses the child]
    With this kiss take my blessing: God protect thee!
    Into whose hand I give thy life.
  CRANMER. Amen.
  KING. My noble gossips, y'have been too prodigal;
    I thank ye heartily. So shall this lady,
    When she has so much English.
  CRANMER. Let me speak, sir,
    For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter
    Let none think flattery, for they'll find 'em truth.
    This royal infant-heaven still move about her!-
    Though in her cradle, yet now promises
    Upon this land a thousand blessings,
    Which time shall bring to ripeness. She shall be-
    But few now living can behold that goodness-
    A pattern to all princes living with her,
    And all that shall succeed. Saba was never
    More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue
    Than this pure soul shall be. All princely graces
    That mould up such a mighty piece as this is,
    With all the virtues that attend the good,
    Shall still be doubled on her. Truth shall nurse her,
    Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her;
    She shall be lov'd and fear'd. Her own shall bless her:
    Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,
    And hang their heads with sorrow. Good grows with her;
    In her days every man shall eat in safety
    Under his own vine what he plants, and sing
    The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours.
    God shall be truly known; and those about her
    From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,
    And by those claim their greatness, not by blood.
    Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when
    The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix
    Her ashes new create another heir
    As great in admiration as herself,
    So shall she leave her blessedness to one-
    When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness-
    Who from the sacred ashes of her honour
    Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was,
    And so stand fix'd. Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror,
    That were the servants to this chosen infant,
    Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him;
    Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,
    His honour and the greatness of his name
    Shall be, and make new nations; he shall flourish,
    And like a mountain cedar reach his branches
    To all the plains about him; our children's children
    Shall see this and bless heaven.
  KING. Thou speakest wonders.
  CRANMER. She shall be, to the happiness of England,
    An aged princess; many days shall see her,
    And yet no day without a deed to crown it.
    Would I had known no more! But she must die-
    She must, the saints must have her-yet a virgin;
    A most unspotted lily shall she pass
    To th' ground, and all the world shall mourn her.
  KING. O Lord Archbishop,
    Thou hast made me now a man; never before
    This happy child did I get anything.
    This oracle of comfort has so pleas'd me
    That when I am in heaven I shall desire
    To see what this child does, and praise my Maker.
    I thank ye all. To you, my good Lord Mayor,
    And you, good brethren, I am much beholding;
    I have receiv'd much honour by your presence,
    And ye shall find me thankful. Lead the way, lords;
    Ye must all see the Queen, and she must thank ye,
    She will be sick else. This day, no man think
    Has business at his house; for all shall stay.
    This little one shall make it holiday.                     Exeunt

KING_HENRY_VIII|EPILOGUE THE EPILOGUE.

    'Tis ten to one this play can never please
    All that are here. Some come to take their ease
    And sleep an act or two; but those, we fear,
    W'have frighted with our trumpets; so, 'tis clear,
    They'll say 'tis nought; others to hear the city
    Abus'd extremely, and to cry 'That's witty!'
    Which we have not done neither; that, I fear,
    All the expected good w'are like to hear
    For this play at this time is only in
    The merciful construction of good women;
    For such a one we show'd 'em. If they smile
    And say 'twill do, I know within a while
    All the best men are ours; for 'tis ill hap
    If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap.

THE END

1597



KING JOHN

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

    KING JOHN
    PRINCE HENRY, his son
    ARTHUR, DUKE OF BRITAINE, son of Geffrey, late Duke of
      Britaine, the elder brother of King John
    EARL OF PEMBROKE
    EARL OF ESSEX
    EARL OF SALISBURY
    LORD BIGOT
    HUBERT DE BURGH
    ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, son to Sir Robert Faulconbridge
    PHILIP THE BASTARD, his half-brother
    JAMES GURNEY, servant to Lady Faulconbridge
    PETER OF POMFRET, a prophet

    KING PHILIP OF FRANCE
    LEWIS, the Dauphin
    LYMOGES, Duke of Austria
    CARDINAL PANDULPH, the Pope's legate
    MELUN, a French lord
    CHATILLON, ambassador from France to King John

    QUEEN ELINOR, widow of King Henry II and mother to
      King John
    CONSTANCE, Mother to Arthur
    BLANCH OF SPAIN, daughter to the King of Castile
      and niece to King John
    LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, widow of Sir Robert Faulconbridge

    Lords, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers,
      Soldiers, Executioners, Messengers, Attendants

SCENE: England and France

ACT I. SCENE 1

KING JOHN's palace

Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others,
with CHATILLON

  KING JOHN. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?
  CHATILLON. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France
    In my behaviour to the majesty,
    The borrowed majesty, of England here.
  ELINOR. A strange beginning- 'borrowed majesty'!
  KING JOHN. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.
  CHATILLON. Philip of France, in right and true behalf
    Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,
    Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
    To this fair island and the territories,
    To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
    Desiring thee to lay aside the sword
    Which sways usurpingly these several titles,
    And put the same into young Arthur's hand,
    Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.
  KING JOHN. What follows if we disallow of this?
  CHATILLON. The proud control of fierce and bloody war,
    To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.
  KING JOHN. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,
    Controlment for controlment- so answer France.
  CHATILLON. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth-
    The farthest limit of my embassy.
  KING JOHN. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace;
    Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
    For ere thou canst report I will be there,
    The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.
    So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath
    And sullen presage of your own decay.
    An honourable conduct let him have-
    Pembroke, look to 't. Farewell, Chatillon.
                                        Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE
  ELINOR. What now, my son! Have I not ever said
    How that ambitious Constance would not cease
    Till she had kindled France and all the world
    Upon the right and party of her son?
    This might have been prevented and made whole
    With very easy arguments of love,
    Which now the manage of two kingdoms must
    With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.
  KING JOHN. Our strong possession and our right for us!
  ELINOR. Your strong possession much more than your right,
    Or else it must go wrong with you and me;
    So much my conscience whispers in your ear,
    Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.

                  Enter a SHERIFF

  ESSEX. My liege, here is the strangest controversy
    Come from the country to be judg'd by you
    That e'er I heard. Shall I produce the men?
  KING JOHN. Let them approach.                          Exit SHERIFF
    Our abbeys and our priories shall pay
    This expedition's charge.

     Enter ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE and PHILIP, his bastard
                     brother

    What men are you?
  BASTARD. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman
    Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,
    As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge-
    A soldier by the honour-giving hand
    Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.
  KING JOHN. What art thou?
  ROBERT. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.
  KING JOHN. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?
    You came not of one mother then, it seems.
  BASTARD. Most certain of one mother, mighty king-
    That is well known- and, as I think, one father;
    But for the certain knowledge of that truth
    I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother.
    Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.
  ELINOR. Out on thee, rude man! Thou dost shame thy mother,
    And wound her honour with this diffidence.
  BASTARD. I, madam? No, I have no reason for it-
    That is my brother's plea, and none of mine;
    The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out
    At least from fair five hundred pound a year.
    Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land!
  KING JOHN. A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,
    Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?
  BASTARD. I know not why, except to get the land.
    But once he slander'd me with bastardy;
    But whe'er I be as true begot or no,
    That still I lay upon my mother's head;
    But that I am as well begot, my liege-
    Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!-
    Compare our faces and be judge yourself.
    If old Sir Robert did beget us both
    And were our father, and this son like him-
    O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee
    I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!
  KING JOHN. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!
  ELINOR. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;
    The accent of his tongue affecteth him.
    Do you not read some tokens of my son
    In the large composition of this man?
  KING JOHN. Mine eye hath well examined his parts
    And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,
    What doth move you to claim your brother's land?
  BASTARD. Because he hath a half-face, like my father.
    With half that face would he have all my land:
    A half-fac'd groat five hundred pound a year!
  ROBERT. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,
    Your brother did employ my father much-
  BASTARD. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:
    Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.
  ROBERT. And once dispatch'd him in an embassy
    To Germany, there with the Emperor
    To treat of high affairs touching that time.
    Th' advantage of his absence took the King,
    And in the meantime sojourn'd at my father's;
    Where how he did prevail I shame to speak-
    But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores
    Between my father and my mother lay,
    As I have heard my father speak himself,
    When this same lusty gentleman was got.
    Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd
    His lands to me, and took it on his death
    That this my mother's son was none of his;
    And if he were, he came into the world
    Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.
    Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,
    My father's land, as was my father's will.
  KING JOHN. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate:
    Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him,
    And if she did play false, the fault was hers;
    Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands
    That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,
    Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,
    Had of your father claim'd this son for his?
    In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept
    This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;
    In sooth, he might; then, if he were my brother's,
    My brother might not claim him; nor your father,
    Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes:
    My mother's son did get your father's heir;
    Your father's heir must have your father's land.
  ROBERT. Shall then my father's will be of no force
    To dispossess that child which is not his?
  BASTARD. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,
    Than was his will to get me, as I think.
  ELINOR. Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,
    And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,
    Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,
    Lord of thy presence and no land beside?
  BASTARD. Madam, an if my brother had my shape
    And I had his, Sir Robert's his, like him;
    And if my legs were two such riding-rods,
    My arms such eel-skins stuff'd, my face so thin
    That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose
    Lest men should say 'Look where three-farthings goes!'
    And, to his shape, were heir to all this land-
    Would I might never stir from off this place,
    I would give it every foot to have this face!
    I would not be Sir Nob in any case.
  ELINOR. I like thee well. Wilt thou forsake thy fortune,
    Bequeath thy land to him and follow me?
    I am a soldier and now bound to France.
  BASTARD. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance.
    Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,
    Yet sell your face for fivepence and 'tis dear.
    Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.
  ELINOR. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.
  BASTARD. Our country manners give our betters way.
  KING JOHN. What is thy name?
  BASTARD. Philip, my liege, so is my name begun:
    Philip, good old Sir Robert's wife's eldest son.
  KING JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bearest:
    Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great-
    Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.
  BASTARD. Brother by th' mother's side, give me your hand;
    My father gave me honour, yours gave land.
    Now blessed be the hour, by night or day,
    When I was got, Sir Robert was away!
  ELINOR. The very spirit of Plantagenet!
    I am thy grandam, Richard: call me so.
  BASTARD. Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though?
    Something about, a little from the right,
    In at the window, or else o'er the hatch;
    Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;
    And have is have, however men do catch.
    Near or far off, well won is still well shot;
    And I am I, howe'er I was begot.
  KING JOHN. Go, Faulconbridge; now hast thou thy desire:
    A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.
    Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed
    For France, for France, for it is more than need.
  BASTARD. Brother, adieu. Good fortune come to thee!
    For thou wast got i' th' way of honesty.
                                           Exeunt all but the BASTARD
    A foot of honour better than I was;
    But many a many foot of land the worse.
    Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.
    'Good den, Sir Richard!'-'God-a-mercy, fellow!'
    And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter;
    For new-made honour doth forget men's names:
    'Tis too respective and too sociable
    For your conversion. Now your traveller,
    He and his toothpick at my worship's mess-
    And when my knightly stomach is suffic'd,
    Why then I suck my teeth and catechize
    My picked man of countries: 'My dear sir,'
    Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin
    'I shall beseech you'-That is question now;
    And then comes answer like an Absey book:
    'O sir,' says answer 'at your best command,
    At your employment, at your service, sir!'
    'No, sir,' says question 'I, sweet sir, at yours.'
    And so, ere answer knows what question would,
    Saving in dialogue of compliment,
    And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
    The Pyrenean and the river Po-
    It draws toward supper in conclusion so.
    But this is worshipful society,
    And fits the mounting spirit like myself;
    For he is but a bastard to the time
    That doth not smack of observation-
    And so am I, whether I smack or no;
    And not alone in habit and device,
    Exterior form, outward accoutrement,
    But from the inward motion to deliver
    Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth;
    Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
    Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;
    For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.
    But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?
    What woman-post is this? Hath she no husband
    That will take pains to blow a horn before her?

      Enter LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, and JAMES GURNEY

    O me, 'tis my mother! How now, good lady!
    What brings you here to court so hastily?
  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Where is that slave, thy brother?
      Where is he
    That holds in chase mine honour up and down?
  BASTARD. My brother Robert, old Sir Robert's son?
    Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?
    Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so?
  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,
    Sir Robert's son! Why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert?
    He is Sir Robert's son, and so art thou.
  BASTARD. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile?
  GURNEY. Good leave, good Philip.
  BASTARD. Philip-Sparrow! James,
    There's toys abroad-anon I'll tell thee more.
                                                          Exit GURNEY
    Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son;
    Sir Robert might have eat his part in me
    Upon Good Friday, and ne'er broke his fast.
    Sir Robert could do: well-marry, to confess-
    Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it:
    We know his handiwork. Therefore, good mother,
    To whom am I beholding for these limbs?
    Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.
  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,
    That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour?
    What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?
  BASTARD. Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.
    What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my shoulder.
    But, mother, I am not Sir Robert's son:
    I have disclaim'd Sir Robert and my land;
    Legitimation, name, and all is gone.
    Then, good my mother, let me know my father-
    Some proper man, I hope. Who was it, mother?
  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?
  BASTARD. As faithfully as I deny the devil.
  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father.
    By long and vehement suit I was seduc'd
    To make room for him in my husband's bed.
    Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge!
    Thou art the issue of my dear offence,
    Which was so strongly urg'd past my defence.
  BASTARD. Now, by this light, were I to get again,
    Madam, I would not wish a better father.
    Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,
    And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly;
    Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,
    Subjected tribute to commanding love,
    Against whose fury and unmatched force
    The aweless lion could not wage the fight
    Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand.
    He that perforce robs lions of their hearts
    May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother,
    With all my heart I thank thee for my father!
    Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well
    When I was got, I'll send his soul to hell.
    Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin;
    And they shall say when Richard me begot,
    If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin.
    Who says it was, he lies; I say 'twas not.                 Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 1

France. Before Angiers

Enter, on one side, AUSTRIA and forces; on the other, KING PHILIP OF
FRANCE,
LEWIS the Dauphin, CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and forces

  KING PHILIP. Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.
    Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,
    Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart
    And fought the holy wars in Palestine,
    By this brave duke came early to his grave;
    And for amends to his posterity,
    At our importance hither is he come
    To spread his colours, boy, in thy behalf;
    And to rebuke the usurpation
    Of thy unnatural uncle, English John.
    Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.
  ARTHUR. God shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's death
    The rather that you give his offspring life,
    Shadowing their right under your wings of war.
    I give you welcome with a powerless hand,
    But with a heart full of unstained love;
    Welcome before the gates of Angiers, Duke.
  KING PHILIP. A noble boy! Who would not do thee right?
  AUSTRIA. Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss
    As seal to this indenture of my love:
    That to my home I will no more return
    Till Angiers and the right thou hast in France,
    Together with that pale, that white-fac'd shore,
    Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides
    And coops from other lands her islanders-
    Even till that England, hedg'd in with the main,
    That water-walled bulwark, still secure
    And confident from foreign purposes-
    Even till that utmost corner of the west
    Salute thee for her king. Till then, fair boy,
    Will I not think of home, but follow arms.
  CONSTANCE. O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks,
    Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength
    To make a more requital to your love!
  AUSTRIA. The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords
    In such a just and charitable war.
  KING PHILIP. Well then, to work! Our cannon shall be bent
    Against the brows of this resisting town;
    Call for our chiefest men of discipline,
    To cull the plots of best advantages.
    We'll lay before this town our royal bones,
    Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood,
    But we will make it subject to this boy.
  CONSTANCE. Stay for an answer to your embassy,
    Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood;
    My Lord Chatillon may from England bring
    That right in peace which here we urge in war,
    And then we shall repent each drop of blood
    That hot rash haste so indirectly shed.

                  Enter CHATILLON

  KING PHILIP. A wonder, lady! Lo, upon thy wish,
    Our messenger Chatillon is arriv'd.
    What England says, say briefly, gentle lord;
    We coldly pause for thee. Chatillon, speak.
  CHATILLON. Then turn your forces from this paltry siege
    And stir them up against a mightier task.
    England, impatient of your just demands,
    Hath put himself in arms. The adverse winds,
    Whose leisure I have stay'd, have given him time
    To land his legions all as soon as I;
    His marches are expedient to this town,
    His forces strong, his soldiers confident.
    With him along is come the mother-queen,
    An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife;
    With her the Lady Blanch of Spain;
    With them a bastard of the king's deceas'd;
    And all th' unsettled humours of the land-
    Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,
    With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens-
    Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,
    Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,
    To make a hazard of new fortunes here.
    In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits
    Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er
    Did never float upon the swelling tide
    To do offence and scathe in Christendom.             [Drum beats]
    The interruption of their churlish drums
    Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand;
    To parley or to fight, therefore prepare.
  KING PHILIP. How much unlook'd for is this expedition!
  AUSTRIA. By how much unexpected, by so much
    We must awake endeavour for defence,
    For courage mounteth with occasion.
    Let them be welcome then; we are prepar'd.

       Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the BASTARD,
                 PEMBROKE, and others

  KING JOHN. Peace be to France, if France in peace permit
    Our just and lineal entrance to our own!
    If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,
    Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct
    Their proud contempt that beats His peace to heaven!
  KING PHILIP. Peace be to England, if that war return
    From France to England, there to live in peace!
    England we love, and for that England's sake
    With burden of our armour here we sweat.
    This toil of ours should be a work of thine;
    But thou from loving England art so far
    That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,
    Cut off the sequence of posterity,
    Outfaced infant state, and done a rape
    Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.
    Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face:
    These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his;
    This little abstract doth contain that large
    Which died in Geffrey, and the hand of time
    Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.
    That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,
    And this his son; England was Geffrey's right,
    And this is Geffrey's. In the name of God,
    How comes it then that thou art call'd a king,
    When living blood doth in these temples beat
    Which owe the crown that thou o'er-masterest?
  KING JOHN. From whom hast thou this great commission, France,
    To draw my answer from thy articles?
  KING PHILIP. From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts
    In any breast of strong authority
    To look into the blots and stains of right.
    That judge hath made me guardian to this boy,
    Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong,
    And by whose help I mean to chastise it.
  KING JOHN. Alack, thou dost usurp authority.
  KING PHILIP. Excuse it is to beat usurping down.
  ELINOR. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?
  CONSTANCE. Let me make answer: thy usurping son.
  ELINOR. Out, insolent! Thy bastard shall be king,
    That thou mayst be a queen and check the world!
  CONSTANCE. My bed was ever to thy son as true
    As thine was to thy husband; and this boy
    Liker in feature to his father Geffrey
    Than thou and John in manners-being as Eke
    As rain to water, or devil to his dam.
    My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think
    His father never was so true begot;
    It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.
  ELINOR. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.
  CONSTANCE. There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.
  AUSTRIA. Peace!
  BASTARD. Hear the crier.
  AUSTRIA. What the devil art thou?
  BASTARD. One that will play the devil, sir, with you,
    An 'a may catch your hide and you alone.
    You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
    Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard;
    I'll smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right;
    Sirrah, look to 't; i' faith I will, i' faith.
  BLANCH. O, well did he become that lion's robe
    That did disrobe the lion of that robe!
  BASTARD. It lies as sightly on the back of him
    As great Alcides' shows upon an ass;
    But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back,
    Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.
  AUSTRIA. What cracker is this same that deafs our ears
    With this abundance of superfluous breath?
    King Philip, determine what we shall do straight.
  KING PHILIP. Women and fools, break off your conference.
    King John, this is the very sum of all:
    England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
    In right of Arthur, do I claim of thee;
    Wilt thou resign them and lay down thy arms?
  KING JOHN. My life as soon. I do defy thee, France.
    Arthur of Britaine, yield thee to my hand,
    And out of my dear love I'll give thee more
    Than e'er the coward hand of France can win.
    Submit thee, boy.
  ELINOR. Come to thy grandam, child.
  CONSTANCE. Do, child, go to it grandam, child;
    Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will
    Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.
    There's a good grandam!
  ARTHUR. Good my mother, peace!
    I would that I were low laid in my grave:
    I am not worth this coil that's made for me.
  ELINOR. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.
  CONSTANCE. Now shame upon you, whe'er she does or no!
    His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shames,
    Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,
    Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee;
    Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib'd
    To do him justice and revenge on you.
  ELINOR. Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!
  CONSTANCE. Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth,
    Call not me slanderer! Thou and thine usurp
    The dominations, royalties, and rights,
    Of this oppressed boy; this is thy eldest son's son,
    Infortunate in nothing but in thee.
    Thy sins are visited in this poor child;
    The canon of the law is laid on him,
    Being but the second generation
    Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.
  KING JOHN. Bedlam, have done.
  CONSTANCE. I have but this to say-
    That he is not only plagued for her sin,
    But God hath made her sin and her the plague
    On this removed issue, plagued for her
    And with her plague; her sin his injury,
    Her injury the beadle to her sin;
    All punish'd in the person of this child,
    And all for her-a plague upon her!
  ELINOR. Thou unadvised scold, I can produce
    A will that bars the title of thy son.
  CONSTANCE. Ay, who doubts that? A will, a wicked will;
    A woman's will; a cank'red grandam's will!
  KING PHILIP. Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate.
    It ill beseems this presence to cry aim
    To these ill-tuned repetitions.
    Some trumpet summon hither to the walls
    These men of Angiers; let us hear them speak
    Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's.

      Trumpet sounds. Enter citizens upon the walls

  CITIZEN. Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?
  KING PHILIP. 'Tis France, for England.
  KING JOHN. England for itself.
    You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects-
  KING PHILIP. You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects,
    Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle-
  KING JOHN. For our advantage; therefore hear us first.
    These flags of France, that are advanced here
    Before the eye and prospect of your town,
    Have hither march'd to your endamagement;
    The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,
    And ready mounted are they to spit forth
    Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls;
    All preparation for a bloody siege
    And merciless proceeding by these French
    Confront your city's eyes, your winking gates;
    And but for our approach those sleeping stones
    That as a waist doth girdle you about
    By the compulsion of their ordinance
    By this time from their fixed beds of lime
    Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made
    For bloody power to rush upon your peace.
    But on the sight of us your lawful king,
    Who painfully with much expedient march
    Have brought a countercheck before your gates,
    To save unscratch'd your city's threat'ned cheeks-
    Behold, the French amaz'd vouchsafe a parle;
    And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire,
    To make a shaking fever in your walls,
    They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke,
    To make a faithless error in your cars;
    Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,
    And let us in-your King, whose labour'd spirits,
    Forwearied in this action of swift speed,
    Craves harbourage within your city walls.
  KING PHILIP. When I have said, make answer to us both.
    Lo, in this right hand, whose protection
    Is most divinely vow'd upon the right
    Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,
    Son to the elder brother of this man,
    And king o'er him and all that he enjoys;
    For this down-trodden equity we tread
    In warlike march these greens before your town,
    Being no further enemy to you
    Than the constraint of hospitable zeal
    In the relief of this oppressed child
    Religiously provokes. Be pleased then
    To pay that duty which you truly owe
    To him that owes it, namely, this young prince;
    And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear,
    Save in aspect, hath all offence seal'd up;
    Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent
    Against th' invulnerable clouds of heaven;
    And with a blessed and unvex'd retire,
    With unhack'd swords and helmets all unbruis'd,
    We will bear home that lusty blood again
    Which here we came to spout against your town,
    And leave your children, wives, and you, in peace.
    But if you fondly pass our proffer'd offer,
    'Tis not the roundure of your old-fac'd walls
    Can hide you from our messengers of war,
    Though all these English and their discipline
    Were harbour'd in their rude circumference.
    Then tell us, shall your city call us lord
    In that behalf which we have challeng'd it;
    Or shall we give the signal to our rage,
    And stalk in blood to our possession?
  CITIZEN. In brief: we are the King of England's subjects;
    For him, and in his right, we hold this town.
  KING JOHN. Acknowledge then the King, and let me in.
  CITIZEN. That can we not; but he that proves the King,
    To him will we prove loyal. Till that time
    Have we ramm'd up our gates against the world.
  KING JOHN. Doth not the crown of England prove the King?
    And if not that, I bring you witnesses:
    Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed-
  BASTARD. Bastards and else.
  KING JOHN. To verify our title with their lives.
  KING PHILIP. As many and as well-born bloods as those-
  BASTARD. Some bastards too.
  KING PHILIP. Stand in his face to contradict his claim.
  CITIZEN. Till you compound whose right is worthiest,
    We for the worthiest hold the right from both.
  KING JOHN. Then God forgive the sin of all those souls
    That to their everlasting residence,
    Before the dew of evening fall shall fleet
    In dreadful trial of our kingdom's king!
  KING PHILIP. Amen, Amen! Mount, chevaliers; to arms!
  BASTARD. Saint George, that swing'd the dragon, and e'er since
    Sits on's horse back at mine hostess' door,
    Teach us some fence!  [To AUSTRIA]  Sirrah, were I at home,
    At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,
    I would set an ox-head to your lion's hide,
    And make a monster of you.
  AUSTRIA. Peace! no more.
  BASTARD. O, tremble, for you hear the lion roar!
  KING JOHN. Up higher to the plain, where we'll set forth
    In best appointment all our regiments.
  BASTARD. Speed then to take advantage of the field.
  KING PHILIP. It shall be so; and at the other hill
    Command the rest to stand. God and our right!              Exeunt

    Here, after excursions, enter the HERALD OF FRANCE,
              with trumpets, to the gates

  FRENCH HERALD. You men of Angiers, open wide your gates
    And let young Arthur, Duke of Britaine, in,
    Who by the hand of France this day hath made
    Much work for tears in many an English mother,
    Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground;
    Many a widow's husband grovelling lies,
    Coldly embracing the discoloured earth;
    And victory with little loss doth play
    Upon the dancing banners of the French,
    Who are at hand, triumphantly displayed,
    To enter conquerors, and to proclaim
    Arthur of Britaine England's King and yours.

         Enter ENGLISH HERALD, with trumpet

  ENGLISH HERALD. Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells:
    King John, your king and England's, doth approach,
    Commander of this hot malicious day.
    Their armours that march'd hence so silver-bright
    Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood.
    There stuck no plume in any English crest
    That is removed by a staff of France;
    Our colours do return in those same hands
    That did display them when we first march'd forth;
    And like a jolly troop of huntsmen come
    Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,
    Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes.
    Open your gates and give the victors way.
  CITIZEN. Heralds, from off our tow'rs we might behold
    From first to last the onset and retire
    Of both your armies, whose equality
    By our best eyes cannot be censured.
    Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer'd blows;
    Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power;
    Both are alike, and both alike we like.
    One must prove greatest. While they weigh so even,
    We hold our town for neither, yet for both.

    Enter the two KINGS, with their powers, at several doors

  KING JOHN. France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?
    Say, shall the current of our right run on?
    Whose passage, vex'd with thy impediment,
    Shall leave his native channel and o'erswell
    With course disturb'd even thy confining shores,
    Unless thou let his silver water keep
    A peaceful progress to the ocean.
  KING PHILIP. England, thou hast not sav'd one drop of blood
    In this hot trial more than we of France;
    Rather, lost more. And by this hand I swear,
    That sways the earth this climate overlooks,
    Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,
    We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear,
    Or add a royal number to the dead,
    Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss
    With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.
  BASTARD. Ha, majesty! how high thy glory tow'rs
    When the rich blood of kings is set on fire!
    O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel;
    The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs;
    And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men,
    In undetermin'd differences of kings.
    Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus?
    Cry 'havoc!' kings; back to the stained field,
    You equal potents, fiery kindled spirits!
    Then let confusion of one part confirm
    The other's peace. Till then, blows, blood, and death!
  KING JOHN. Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?
  KING PHILIP. Speak, citizens, for England; who's your king?
  CITIZEN. The King of England, when we know the King.
  KING PHILIP. Know him in us that here hold up his right.
  KING JOHN. In us that are our own great deputy
    And bear possession of our person here,
    Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.
  CITIZEN. A greater pow'r than we denies all this;
    And till it be undoubted, we do lock
    Our former scruple in our strong-barr'd gates;
    King'd of our fears, until our fears, resolv'd,
    Be by some certain king purg'd and depos'd.
  BASTARD. By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,
    And stand securely on their battlements
    As in a theatre, whence they gape and point
    At your industrious scenes and acts of death.
    Your royal presences be rul'd by me:
    Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,
    Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend
    Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.
    By east and west let France and England mount
    Their battering cannon, charged to the mouths,
    Till their soul-fearing clamours have brawl'd down
    The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city.
    I'd play incessantly upon these jades,
    Even till unfenced desolation
    Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.
    That done, dissever your united strengths
    And part your mingled colours once again,
    Turn face to face and bloody point to point;
    Then in a moment Fortune shall cull forth
    Out of one side her happy minion,
    To whom in favour she shall give the day,
    And kiss him with a glorious victory.
    How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?
    Smacks it not something of the policy?
  KING JOHN. Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,
    I like it well. France, shall we knit our pow'rs
    And lay this Angiers even with the ground;
    Then after fight who shall be king of it?
  BASTARD. An if thou hast the mettle of a king,
    Being wrong'd as we are by this peevish town,
    Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,
    As we will ours, against these saucy walls;
    And when that we have dash'd them to the ground,
    Why then defy each other, and pell-mell
    Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell.
  KING PHILIP. Let it be so. Say, where will you assault?
  KING JOHN. We from the west will send destruction
    Into this city's bosom.
  AUSTRIA. I from the north.
  KING PHILIP. Our thunder from the south
    Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.
  BASTARD.  [Aside]  O prudent discipline! From north to south,
    Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth.
    I'll stir them to it.-Come, away, away!
  CITIZEN. Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,
    And I shall show you peace and fair-fac'd league;
    Win you this city without stroke or wound;
    Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds
    That here come sacrifices for the field.
    Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.
  KING JOHN. Speak on with favour; we are bent to hear.
  CITIZEN. That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,
    Is niece to England; look upon the years
    Of Lewis the Dauphin and that lovely maid.
    If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,
    Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?
    If zealous love should go in search of virtue,
    Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?
    If love ambitious sought a match of birth,
    Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch?
    Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,
    Is the young Dauphin every way complete-
    If not complete of, say he is not she;
    And she again wants nothing, to name want,
    If want it be not that she is not he.
    He is the half part of a blessed man,
    Left to be finished by such as she;
    And she a fair divided excellence,
    Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.
    O, two such silver currents, when they join,
    Do glorify the banks that bound them in;
    And two such shores to two such streams made one,
    Two such controlling bounds, shall you be, Kings,
    To these two princes, if you marry them.
    This union shall do more than battery can
    To our fast-closed gates; for at this match
    With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,
    The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope
    And give you entrance; but without this match,
    The sea enraged is not half so deaf,
    Lions more confident, mountains and rocks
    More free from motion-no, not Death himself
    In mortal fury half so peremptory
    As we to keep this city.
  BASTARD. Here's a stay
    That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death
    Out of his rags! Here's a large mouth, indeed,
    That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas;
    Talks as familiarly of roaring lions
    As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!
    What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?
    He speaks plain cannon-fire, and smoke and bounce;
    He gives the bastinado with his tongue;
    Our ears are cudgell'd; not a word of his
    But buffets better than a fist of France.
    Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words
    Since I first call'd my brother's father dad.
  ELINOR. Son, list to this conjunction, make this match;
    Give with our niece a dowry large enough;
    For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie
    Thy now unsur'd assurance to the crown
    That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe
    The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.
    I see a yielding in the looks of France;
    Mark how they whisper. Urge them while their souls
    Are capable of this ambition,
    Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath
    Of soft petitions, pity, and remorse,
    Cool and congeal again to what it was.
  CITIZEN. Why answer not the double majesties
    This friendly treaty of our threat'ned town?
  KING PHILIP. Speak England first, that hath been forward first
    To speak unto this city: what say you?
  KING JOHN. If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son,
    Can in this book of beauty read 'I love,'
    Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen;
    For Anjou, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers,
    And all that we upon this side the sea-
    Except this city now by us besieg'd-
    Find liable to our crown and dignity,
    Shall gild her bridal bed, and make her rich
    In titles, honours, and promotions,
    As she in beauty, education, blood,
    Holds hand with any princess of the world.
  KING PHILIP. What say'st thou, boy? Look in the lady's face.
  LEWIS. I do, my lord, and in her eye I find
    A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,
    The shadow of myself form'd in her eye;
    Which, being but the shadow of your son,
    Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow.
    I do protest I never lov'd myself
    Till now infixed I beheld myself
    Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.
                                               [Whispers with BLANCH]
  BASTARD.  [Aside]  Drawn in the flattering table of her eye,
    Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow,
    And quarter'd in her heart-he doth espy
    Himself love's traitor. This is pity now,
    That hang'd and drawn and quarter'd there should be
    In such a love so vile a lout as he.
  BLANCH. My uncle's will in this respect is mine.
    If he see aught in you that makes him like,
    That anything he sees which moves his liking
    I can with ease translate it to my will;
    Or if you will, to speak more properly,
    I will enforce it eas'ly to my love.
    Further I will not flatter you, my lord,
    That all I see in you is worthy love,
    Than this: that nothing do I see in you-
    Though churlish thoughts themselves should be your judge-
    That I can find should merit any hate.
  KING JOHN. What say these young ones? What say you, my niece?
  BLANCH. That she is bound in honour still to do
    What you in wisdom still vouchsafe to say.
  KING JOHN. Speak then, Prince Dauphin; can you love this lady?
  LEWIS. Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love;
    For I do love her most unfeignedly.
  KING JOHN. Then do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine,
    Poictiers, and Anjou, these five provinces,
    With her to thee; and this addition more,
    Full thirty thousand marks of English coin.
    Philip of France, if thou be pleas'd withal,
    Command thy son and daughter to join hands.
  KING PHILIP. It likes us well; young princes, close your hands.
  AUSTRIA. And your lips too; for I am well assur'd
    That I did so when I was first assur'd.
  KING PHILIP. Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates,
    Let in that amity which you have made;
    For at Saint Mary's chapel presently
    The rites of marriage shall be solemniz'd.
    Is not the Lady Constance in this troop?
    I know she is not; for this match made up
    Her presence would have interrupted much.
    Where is she and her son? Tell me, who knows.
  LEWIS. She is sad and passionate at your Highness' tent.
  KING PHILIP. And, by my faith, this league that we have made
    Will give her sadness very little cure.
    Brother of England, how may we content
    This widow lady? In her right we came;
    Which we, God knows, have turn'd another way,
    To our own vantage.
  KING JOHN. We will heal up all,
    For we'll create young Arthur Duke of Britaine,
    And Earl of Richmond; and this rich fair town
    We make him lord of. Call the Lady Constance;
    Some speedy messenger bid her repair
    To our solemnity. I trust we shall,
    If not fill up the measure of her will,
    Yet in some measure satisfy her so
    That we shall stop her exclamation.
    Go we as well as haste will suffer us
    To this unlook'd-for, unprepared pomp.
                                           Exeunt all but the BASTARD
  BASTARD. Mad world! mad kings! mad composition!
    John, to stop Arthur's tide in the whole,
    Hath willingly departed with a part;
    And France, whose armour conscience buckled on,
    Whom zeal and charity brought to the field
    As God's own soldier, rounded in the ear
    With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil,
    That broker that still breaks the pate of faith,
    That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,
    Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,
    Who having no external thing to lose
    But the word 'maid,' cheats the poor maid of that;
    That smooth-fac'd gentleman, tickling commodity,
    Commodity, the bias of the world-
    The world, who of itself is peised well,
    Made to run even upon even ground,
    Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,
    This sway of motion, this commodity,
    Makes it take head from all indifferency,
    From all direction, purpose, course, intent-
    And this same bias, this commodity,
    This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,
    Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,
    Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid,
    From a resolv'd and honourable war,
    To a most base and vile-concluded peace.
    And why rail I on this commodity?
    But for because he hath not woo'd me yet;
    Not that I have the power to clutch my hand
    When his fair angels would salute my palm,
    But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
    Like a poor beggar raileth on the rich.
    Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
    And say there is no sin but to be rich;
    And being rich, my virtue then shall be
    To say there is no vice but beggary.
    Since kings break faith upon commodity,
    Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.                   Exit

ACT III. SCENE 1.

France. The FRENCH KING'S camp

Enter CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and SALISBURY

  CONSTANCE. Gone to be married! Gone to swear a peace!
    False blood to false blood join'd! Gone to be friends!
    Shall Lewis have Blanch, and Blanch those provinces?
    It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard;
    Be well advis'd, tell o'er thy tale again.
    It cannot be; thou dost but say 'tis so;
    I trust I may not trust thee, for thy word
    Is but the vain breath of a common man:
    Believe me I do not believe thee, man;
    I have a king's oath to the contrary.
    Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me,
    For I am sick and capable of fears,
    Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears;
    A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;
    A woman, naturally born to fears;
    And though thou now confess thou didst but jest,
    With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,
    But they will quake and tremble all this day.
    What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?
    Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?
    What means that hand upon that breast of thine?
    Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,
    Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?
    Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?
    Then speak again-not all thy former tale,
    But this one word, whether thy tale be true.
  SALISBURY. As true as I believe you think them false
    That give you cause to prove my saying true.
  CONSTANCE. O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,
    Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die;
    And let belief and life encounter so
    As doth the fury of two desperate men
    Which in the very meeting fall and die!
    Lewis marry Blanch! O boy, then where art thou?
    France friend with England; what becomes of me?
    Fellow, be gone: I cannot brook thy sight;
    This news hath made thee a most ugly man.
  SALISBURY. What other harm have I, good lady, done
    But spoke the harm that is by others done?
  CONSTANCE. Which harm within itself so heinous is
    As it makes harmful all that speak of it.
  ARTHUR. I do beseech you, madam, be content.
  CONSTANCE. If thou that bid'st me be content wert grim,
    Ugly, and sland'rous to thy mother's womb,
    Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,
    Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,
    Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending marks,
    I would not care, I then would be content;
    For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou
    Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.
    But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy,
    Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great:
    Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,
    And with the half-blown rose; but Fortune, O!
    She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee;
    Sh' adulterates hourly with thine uncle John,
    And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on France
    To tread down fair respect of sovereignty,
    And made his majesty the bawd to theirs.
    France is a bawd to Fortune and King John-
    That strumpet Fortune, that usurping John!
    Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forsworn?
    Envenom him with words, or get thee gone
    And leave those woes alone which I alone
    Am bound to under-bear.
  SALISBURY. Pardon me, madam,
    I may not go without you to the kings.
  CONSTANCE. Thou mayst, thou shalt; I will not go with thee;
    I will instruct my sorrows to be proud,
    For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.
    To me, and to the state of my great grief,
    Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great
    That no supporter but the huge firm earth
    Can hold it up.                     [Seats herself on the ground]
    Here I and sorrows sit;
    Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.

       Enter KING JOHN, KING PHILIP, LEWIS, BLANCH,
       ELINOR, the BASTARD, AUSTRIA, and attendants

  KING PHILIP. 'Tis true, fair daughter, and this blessed day
    Ever in France shall be kept festival.
    To solemnize this day the glorious sun
    Stays in his course and plays the alchemist,
    Turning with splendour of his precious eye
    The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold.
    The yearly course that brings this day about
    Shall never see it but a holiday.
  CONSTANCE.  [Rising]  A wicked day, and not a holy day!
    What hath this day deserv'd? what hath it done
    That it in golden letters should be set
    Among the high tides in the calendar?
    Nay, rather turn this day out of the week,
    This day of shame, oppression, perjury;
    Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child
    Pray that their burdens may not fall this day,
    Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd;
    But on this day let seamen fear no wreck;
    No bargains break that are not this day made;
    This day, all things begun come to ill end,
    Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!
  KING PHILIP. By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause
    To curse the fair proceedings of this day.
    Have I not pawn'd to you my majesty?
  CONSTANCE. You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit
    Resembling majesty, which, being touch'd and tried,
    Proves valueless; you are forsworn, forsworn;
    You came in arms to spill mine enemies' blood,
    But now in arms you strengthen it with yours.
    The grappling vigour and rough frown of war
    Is cold in amity and painted peace,
    And our oppression hath made up this league.
    Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjur'd kings!
    A widow cries: Be husband to me, heavens!
    Let not the hours of this ungodly day
    Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset,
    Set armed discord 'twixt these perjur'd kings!
    Hear me, O, hear me!
  AUSTRIA. Lady Constance, peace!
  CONSTANCE. War! war! no peace! Peace is to me a war.
    O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame
    That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!
    Thou little valiant, great in villainy!
    Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!
    Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight
    But when her humorous ladyship is by
    To teach thee safety! Thou art perjur'd too,
    And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou,
    A ramping fool, to brag and stamp and swear
    Upon my party! Thou cold-blooded slave,
    Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side,
    Been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend
    Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength,
    And dost thou now fall over to my foes?
    Thou wear a lion's hide! Doff it for shame,
    And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.
  AUSTRIA. O that a man should speak those words to me!
  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.
  AUSTRIA. Thou dar'st not say so, villain, for thy life.
  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.
  KING JOHN. We like not this: thou dost forget thyself.

                  Enter PANDULPH

  KING PHILIP. Here comes the holy legate of the Pope.
  PANDULPH. Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven!
    To thee, King John, my holy errand is.
    I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal,
    And from Pope Innocent the legate here,
    Do in his name religiously demand
    Why thou against the Church, our holy mother,
    So wilfully dost spurn; and force perforce
    Keep Stephen Langton, chosen Archbishop
    Of Canterbury, from that holy see?
    This, in our foresaid holy father's name,
    Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee.
  KING JOHN. What earthly name to interrogatories
    Can task the free breath of a sacred king?
    Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name
    So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous,
    To charge me to an answer, as the Pope.
    Tell him this tale, and from the mouth of England
    Add thus much more, that no Italian priest
    Shall tithe or toll in our dominions;
    But as we under heaven are supreme head,
    So, under Him that great supremacy,
    Where we do reign we will alone uphold,
    Without th' assistance of a mortal hand.
    So tell the Pope, all reverence set apart
    To him and his usurp'd authority.
  KING PHILIP. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this.
  KING JOHN. Though you and all the kings of Christendom
    Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,
    Dreading the curse that money may buy out,
    And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust,
    Purchase corrupted pardon of a man,
    Who in that sale sells pardon from himself-
    Though you and all the rest, so grossly led,
    This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish;
    Yet I alone, alone do me oppose
    Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes.
  PANDULPH. Then by the lawful power that I have
    Thou shalt stand curs'd and excommunicate;
    And blessed shall he be that doth revolt
    From his allegiance to an heretic;
    And meritorious shall that hand be call'd,
    Canonized, and worshipp'd as a saint,
    That takes away by any secret course
    Thy hateful life.
  CONSTANCE. O, lawful let it be
    That I have room with Rome to curse awhile!
    Good father Cardinal, cry thou 'amen'
    To my keen curses; for without my wrong
    There is no tongue hath power to curse him right.
  PANDULPH. There's law and warrant, lady, for my curse.
  CONSTANCE. And for mine too; when law can do no right,
    Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong;
    Law cannot give my child his kingdom here,
    For he that holds his kingdom holds the law;
    Therefore, since law itself is perfect wrong,
    How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?
  PANDULPH. Philip of France, on peril of a curse,
    Let go the hand of that arch-heretic,
    And raise the power of France upon his head,
    Unless he do submit himself to Rome.
  ELINOR. Look'st thou pale, France? Do not let go thy hand.
  CONSTANCE. Look to that, devil, lest that France repent
    And by disjoining hands hell lose a soul.
  AUSTRIA. King Philip, listen to the Cardinal.
  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on his recreant limbs.
  AUSTRIA. Well, ruffian, I must pocket up these wrongs,
    Because-
  BASTARD. Your breeches best may carry them.
  KING JOHN. Philip, what say'st thou to the Cardinal?
  CONSTANCE. What should he say, but as the Cardinal?
  LEWIS. Bethink you, father; for the difference
    Is purchase of a heavy curse from Rome
    Or the light loss of England for a friend.
    Forgo the easier.
  BLANCH. That's the curse of Rome.
  CONSTANCE. O Lewis, stand fast! The devil tempts thee here
    In likeness of a new untrimmed bride.
  BLANCH. The Lady Constance speaks not from her faith,
    But from her need.
  CONSTANCE. O, if thou grant my need,
    Which only lives but by the death of faith,
    That need must needs infer this principle-
    That faith would live again by death of need.
    O then, tread down my need, and faith mounts up:
    Keep my need up, and faith is trodden down!
  KING JOHN. The King is mov'd, and answers not to this.
  CONSTANCE. O be remov'd from him, and answer well!
  AUSTRIA. Do so, King Philip; hang no more in doubt.
  BASTARD. Hang nothing but a calf's-skin, most sweet lout.
  KING PHILIP. I am perplex'd and know not what to say.
  PANDULPH. What canst thou say but will perplex thee more,
    If thou stand excommunicate and curs'd?
  KING PHILIP. Good reverend father, make my person yours,
    And tell me how you would bestow yourself.
    This royal hand and mine are newly knit,
    And the conjunction of our inward souls
    Married in league, coupled and link'd together
    With all religious strength of sacred vows;
    The latest breath that gave the sound of words
    Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love,
    Between our kingdoms and our royal selves;
    And even before this truce, but new before,
    No longer than we well could wash our hands,
    To clap this royal bargain up of peace,
    Heaven knows, they were besmear'd and overstain'd
    With slaughter's pencil, where revenge did paint
    The fearful difference of incensed kings.
    And shall these hands, so lately purg'd of blood,
    So newly join'd in love, so strong in both,
    Unyoke this seizure and this kind regreet?
    Play fast and loose with faith? so jest with heaven,
    Make such unconstant children of ourselves,
    As now again to snatch our palm from palm,
    Unswear faith sworn, and on the marriage-bed
    Of smiling peace to march a bloody host,
    And make a riot on the gentle brow
    Of true sincerity? O, holy sir,
    My reverend father, let it not be so!
    Out of your grace, devise, ordain, impose,
    Some gentle order; and then we shall be blest
    To do your pleasure, and continue friends.
  PANDULPH. All form is formless, order orderless,
    Save what is opposite to England's love.
    Therefore, to arms! be champion of our church,
    Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse-
    A mother's curse-on her revolting son.
    France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,
    A chafed lion by the mortal paw,
    A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,
    Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.
  KING PHILIP. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.
  PANDULPH. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith;
    And like. a civil war set'st oath to oath.
    Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow
    First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform'd,
    That is, to be the champion of our Church.
    What since thou swor'st is sworn against thyself
    And may not be performed by thyself,
    For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss
    Is not amiss when it is truly done;
    And being not done, where doing tends to ill,
    The truth is then most done not doing it;
    The better act of purposes mistook
    Is to mistake again; though indirect,
    Yet indirection thereby grows direct,
    And falsehood cures, as fire cools fire
    Within the scorched veins of one new-burn'd.
    It is religion that doth make vows kept;
    But thou hast sworn against religion
    By what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st,
    And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth
    Against an oath; the truth thou art unsure
    To swear swears only not to be forsworn;
    Else what a mockery should it be to swear!
    But thou dost swear only to be forsworn;
    And most forsworn to keep what thou dost swear.
    Therefore thy later vows against thy first
    Is in thyself rebellion to thyself;
    And better conquest never canst thou make
    Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts
    Against these giddy loose suggestions;
    Upon which better part our pray'rs come in,
    If thou vouchsafe them. But if not, then know
    The peril of our curses fight on thee
    So heavy as thou shalt not shake them off,
    But in despair die under the black weight.
  AUSTRIA. Rebellion, flat rebellion!
  BASTARD. Will't not be?
    Will not a calf's-skin stop that mouth of thine?
  LEWIS. Father, to arms!
  BLANCH. Upon thy wedding-day?
    Against the blood that thou hast married?
    What, shall our feast be kept with slaughtered men?
    Shall braying trumpets and loud churlish drums,
    Clamours of hell, be measures to our pomp?
    O husband, hear me! ay, alack, how new
    Is 'husband' in my mouth! even for that name,
    Which till this time my tongue did ne'er pronounce,
    Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms
    Against mine uncle.
  CONSTANCE. O, upon my knee,
    Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,
    Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom
    Forethought by heaven!
  BLANCH. Now shall I see thy love. What motive may
    Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?
  CONSTANCE. That which upholdeth him that thee upholds,
    His honour. O, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour!
  LEWIS. I muse your Majesty doth seem so cold,
    When such profound respects do pull you on.
  PANDULPH. I will denounce a curse upon his head.
  KING PHILIP. Thou shalt not need. England, I will fall from thee.
  CONSTANCE. O fair return of banish'd majesty!
  ELINOR. O foul revolt of French inconstancy!
  KING JOHN. France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour.
  BASTARD. Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time,
    Is it as he will? Well then, France shall rue.
  BLANCH. The sun's o'ercast with blood. Fair day, adieu!
    Which is the side that I must go withal?
    I am with both: each army hath a hand;
    And in their rage, I having hold of both,
    They whirl asunder and dismember me.
    Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win;
    Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose;
    Father, I may not wish the fortune thine;
    Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive.
    Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose:
    Assured loss before the match be play'd.
  LEWIS. Lady, with me, with me thy fortune lies.
  BLANCH. There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.
  KING JOHN. Cousin, go draw our puissance together.
                                                         Exit BASTARD
    France, I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath,
    A rage whose heat hath this condition
    That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,
    The blood, and dearest-valu'd blood, of France.
  KING PHILIP. Thy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn
    To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire.
    Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.
  KING JOHN. No more than he that threats. To arms let's hie!
                                                     Exeunt severally

SCENE 2.

France. Plains near Angiers

Alarums, excursions. Enter the BASTARD with AUSTRIA'S head

  BASTARD. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;
    Some airy devil hovers in the sky
    And pours down mischief. Austria's head lie there,
    While Philip breathes.

          Enter KING JOHN, ARTHUR, and HUBERT

  KING JOHN. Hubert, keep this boy. Philip, make up:
    My mother is assailed in our tent,
    And ta'en, I fear.
  BASTARD. My lord, I rescued her;
    Her Highness is in safety, fear you not;
    But on, my liege, for very little pains
    Will bring this labour to an happy end.                    Exeunt

SCENE 3.

France. Plains near Angiers

Alarums, excursions, retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR, the
BASTARD, HUBERT, and LORDS

  KING JOHN.  [To ELINOR]  So shall it be; your Grace shall stay
      behind,
    So strongly guarded.  [To ARTHUR]  Cousin, look not sad;
    Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will
    As dear be to thee as thy father was.
  ARTHUR. O, this will make my mother die with grief!
  KING JOHN.  [To the BASTARD]  Cousin, away for England! haste
      before,
    And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags
    Of hoarding abbots; imprisoned angels
    Set at liberty; the fat ribs of peace
    Must by the hungry now be fed upon.
    Use our commission in his utmost force.
  BASTARD. Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back,
    When gold and silver becks me to come on.
    I leave your Highness. Grandam, I will pray,
    If ever I remember to be holy,
    For your fair safety. So, I kiss your hand.
  ELINOR. Farewell, gentle cousin.
  KING JOHN. Coz, farewell.
                                                         Exit BASTARD
  ELINOR. Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.
  KING JOHN. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,
    We owe thee much! Within this wall of flesh
    There is a soul counts thee her creditor,
    And with advantage means to pay thy love;
    And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
    Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.
    Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say-
    But I will fit it with some better time.
    By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham'd
    To say what good respect I have of thee.
  HUBERT. I am much bounden to your Majesty.
  KING JOHN. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet,
    But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er so slow,
    Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.
    I had a thing to say-but let it go:
    The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,
    Attended with the pleasures of the world,
    Is all too wanton and too full of gawds
    To give me audience. If the midnight bell
    Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth
    Sound on into the drowsy race of night;
    If this same were a churchyard where we stand,
    And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
    Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,
    Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy-thick,
    Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,
    Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes
    And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,
    A passion hateful to my purposes;
    Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
    Hear me without thine cars, and make reply
    Without a tongue, using conceit alone,
    Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words-
    Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,
    I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.
    But, ah, I will not! Yet I love thee well;
    And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.
  HUBERT. So well that what you bid me undertake,
    Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
    By heaven, I would do it.
  KING JOHN. Do not I know thou wouldst?
    Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
    On yon young boy. I'll tell thee what, my friend,
    He is a very serpent in my way;
    And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,
    He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?
    Thou art his keeper.
  HUBERT. And I'll keep him so
    That he shall not offend your Majesty.
  KING JOHN. Death.
  HUBERT. My lord?
  KING JOHN. A grave.
  HUBERT. He shall not live.
  KING JOHN. Enough!
    I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee.
    Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee.
    Remember. Madam, fare you well;
    I'll send those powers o'er to your Majesty.
  ELINOR. My blessing go with thee!
  KING JOHN.  [To ARTHUR]  For England, cousin, go;
    Hubert shall be your man, attend on you
    With all true duty. On toward Calais, ho!                  Exeunt

SCENE 4.

France. The FRENCH KING's camp

Enter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and attendants

  KING PHILIP. So by a roaring tempest on the flood
    A whole armado of convicted sail
    Is scattered and disjoin'd from fellowship.
  PANDULPH. Courage and comfort! All shall yet go well.
  KING PHILIP. What can go well, when we have run so ill.
    Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?
    Arthur ta'en prisoner? Divers dear friends slain?
    And bloody England into England gone,
    O'erbearing interruption, spite of France?
  LEWIS. he hath won, that hath he fortified;
    So hot a speed with such advice dispos'd,
    Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,
    Doth want example; who hath read or heard
    Of any kindred action like to this?
  KING PHILIP. Well could I bear that England had this praise,
    So we could find some pattern of our shame.

                   Enter CONSTANCE

    Look who comes here! a grave unto a soul;
    Holding th' eternal spirit, against her will,
    In the vile prison of afflicted breath.
    I prithee, lady, go away with me.
  CONSTANCE. Lo now! now see the issue of your peace!
  KING PHILIP. Patience, good lady! Comfort, gentle Constance!
  CONSTANCE. No, I defy all counsel, all redress,
    But that which ends all counsel, true redress-
    Death, death; O amiable lovely death!
    Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!
    Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
    Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
    And I will kiss thy detestable bones,
    And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows,
    And ring these fingers with thy household worms,
    And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,
    And be a carrion monster like thyself.
    Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil'st,
    And buss thee as thy wife. Misery's love,
    O, come to me!
  KING PHILIP. O fair affliction, peace!
  CONSTANCE. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry.
    O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!
    Then with a passion would I shake the world,
    And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy
    Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,
    Which scorns a modern invocation.
  PANDULPH. Lady, you utter madness and not sorrow.
  CONSTANCE. Thou art not holy to belie me so.
    I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;
    My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;
    Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost.
    I am not mad-I would to heaven I were!
    For then 'tis like I should forget myself.
    O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
    Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
    And thou shalt be canoniz'd, Cardinal;
    For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,
    My reasonable part produces reason
    How I may be deliver'd of these woes,
    And teaches me to kill or hang myself.
    If I were mad I should forget my son,
    Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.
    I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
    The different plague of each calamity.
  KING PHILIP. Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note
    In the fair multitude of those her hairs!
    Where but by a chance a silver drop hath fall'n,
    Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
    Do glue themselves in sociable grief,
    Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,
    Sticking together in calamity.
  CONSTANCE. To England, if you will.
  KING PHILIP. Bind up your hairs.
  CONSTANCE. Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?
    I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud
    'O that these hands could so redeem my son,
    As they have given these hairs their liberty!'
    But now I envy at their liberty,
    And will again commit them to their bonds,
    Because my poor child is a prisoner.
    And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say
    That we shall see and know our friends in heaven;
    If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
    For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
    To him that did but yesterday suspire,
    There was not such a gracious creature born.
    But now will canker sorrow eat my bud
    And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
    And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
    As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;
    And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
    When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
    I shall not know him. Therefore never, never
    Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.
  PANDULPH. You hold too heinous a respect of grief.
  CONSTANCE. He talks to me that never had a son.
  KING PHILIP. You are as fond of grief as of your child.
  CONSTANCE. Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
    Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
    Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
    Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
    Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
    Then have I reason to be fond of grief.
    Fare you well; had you such a loss as I,
    I could give better comfort than you do.
    I will not keep this form upon my head,
                                                   [Tearing her hair]
    When there is such disorder in my wit.
    O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
    My life, my joy, my food, my ail the world!
    My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!                      Exit
  KING PHILIP. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.         Exit
  LEWIS. There's nothing in this world can make me joy.
    Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
    Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;
    And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste,
    That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.
  PANDULPH. Before the curing of a strong disease,
    Even in the instant of repair and health,
    The fit is strongest; evils that take leave
    On their departure most of all show evil;
    What have you lost by losing of this day?
  LEWIS. All days of glory, joy, and happiness.
  PANDULPH. If you had won it, certainly you had.
    No, no; when Fortune means to men most good,
    She looks upon them with a threat'ning eye.
    'Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost
    In this which he accounts so clearly won.
    Are not you griev'd that Arthur is his prisoner?
  LEWIS. As heartily as he is glad he hath him.
  PANDULPH. Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.
    Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit;
    For even the breath of what I mean to speak
    Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,
    Out of the path which shall directly lead
    Thy foot to England's throne. And therefore mark:
    John hath seiz'd Arthur; and it cannot be
    That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,
    The misplac'd John should entertain an hour,
    One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.
    A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand
    Must be boisterously maintain'd as gain'd,
    And he that stands upon a slipp'ry place
    Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up;
    That John may stand then, Arthur needs must fall;
    So be it, for it cannot be but so.
  LEWIS. But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall?
  PANDULPH. You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,
    May then make all the claim that Arthur did.
  LEWIS. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.
  PANDULPH. How green you are and fresh in this old world!
    John lays you plots; the times conspire with you;
    For he that steeps his safety in true blood
    Shall find but bloody safety and untrue.
    This act, so evilly borne, shall cool the hearts
    Of all his people and freeze up their zeal,
    That none so small advantage shall step forth
    To check his reign but they will cherish it;
    No natural exhalation in the sky,
    No scope of nature, no distemper'd day,
    No common wind, no customed event,
    But they will pluck away his natural cause
    And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs,
    Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven,
    Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.
  LEWIS. May be he will not touch young Arthur's life,
    But hold himself safe in his prisonment.
  PANDULPH. O, Sir, when he shall hear of your approach,
    If that young Arthur be not gone already,
    Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts
    Of all his people shall revolt from him,
    And kiss the lips of unacquainted change,
    And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath
    Out of the bloody fingers' ends of john.
    Methinks I see this hurly all on foot;
    And, O, what better matter breeds for you
    Than I have nam'd! The bastard Faulconbridge
    Is now in England ransacking the Church,
    Offending charity; if but a dozen French
    Were there in arms, they would be as a can
    To train ten thousand English to their side;
    Or as a little snow, tumbled about,
    Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,
    Go with me to the King. 'Tis wonderful
    What may be wrought out of their discontent,
    Now that their souls are topful of offence.
    For England go; I will whet on the King.
  LEWIS. Strong reasons makes strong actions. Let us go;
    If you say ay, the King will not say no.                   Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

England. A castle

Enter HUBERT and EXECUTIONERS

  HUBERT. Heat me these irons hot; and look thou stand
    Within the arras. When I strike my foot
    Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth
    And bind the boy which you shall find with me
    Fast to the chair. Be heedful; hence, and watch.
  EXECUTIONER. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed.
  HUBERT. Uncleanly scruples! Fear not you. Look to't.
                                                  Exeunt EXECUTIONERS
    Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you.

                    Enter ARTHUR

  ARTHUR. Good morrow, Hubert.
  HUBERT. Good morrow, little Prince.
  ARTHUR. As little prince, having so great a tide
    To be more prince, as may be. You are sad.
  HUBERT. Indeed I have been merrier.
  ARTHUR. Mercy on me!
    Methinks no body should be sad but I;
    Yet, I remember, when I was in France,
    Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,
    Only for wantonness. By my christendom,
    So I were out of prison and kept sheep,
    I should be as merry as the day is long;
    And so I would be here but that I doubt
    My uncle practises more harm to me;
    He is afraid of me, and I of him.
    Is it my fault that I was Geffrey's son?
    No, indeed, ist not; and I would to heaven
    I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.
  HUBERT.  [Aside]  If I talk to him, with his innocent prate
    He will awake my mercy, which lies dead;
    Therefore I will be sudden and dispatch.
  ARTHUR. Are you sick, Hubert? You look pale to-day;
    In sooth, I would you were a little sick,
    That I might sit all night and watch with you.
    I warrant I love you more than you do me.
  HUBERT.  [Aside]  His words do take possession of my bosom.-
    Read here, young Arthur.                        [Showing a paper]
      [Aside]  How now, foolish rheum!
    Turning dispiteous torture out of door!
    I must be brief, lest resolution drop
    Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.-
    Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?
  ARTHUR. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect.
    Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?
  HUBERT. Young boy, I must.
  ARTHUR. And will you?
  HUBERT. And I will.
  ARTHUR. Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,
    I knit my handkerchief about your brows-
    The best I had, a princess wrought it me-
    And I did never ask it you again;
    And with my hand at midnight held your head;
    And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,
    Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time,
    Saying 'What lack you?' and 'Where lies your grief?'
    Or 'What good love may I perform for you?'
    Many a poor man's son would have lyen still,
    And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you;
    But you at your sick service had a prince.
    Nay, you may think my love was crafty love,
    And call it cunning. Do, an if you will.
    If heaven be pleas'd that you must use me ill,
    Why, then you must. Will you put out mine eyes,
    These eyes that never did nor never shall
    So much as frown on you?
  HUBERT. I have sworn to do it;
    And with hot irons must I burn them out.
  ARTHUR. Ah, none but in this iron age would do it!
    The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,
    Approaching near these eyes would drink my tears,
    And quench his fiery indignation
    Even in the matter of mine innocence;
    Nay, after that, consume away in rust
    But for containing fire to harm mine eye.
    Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer'd iron?
    An if an angel should have come to me
    And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,
    I would not have believ'd him-no tongue but Hubert's.
  HUBERT.  [Stamps]  Come forth.

     Re-enter EXECUTIONERS, With cord, irons, etc.

    Do as I bid you do.
  ARTHUR. O, save me, Hubert, save me! My eyes are out
    Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.
  HUBERT. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.
  ARTHUR. Alas, what need you be so boist'rous rough?
    I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still.
    For heaven sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!
    Nay, hear me, Hubert! Drive these men away,
    And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;
    I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word,
    Nor look upon the iron angrily;
    Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you,
    Whatever torment you do put me to.
  HUBERT. Go, stand within; let me alone with him.
  EXECUTIONER. I am best pleas'd to be from such a deed.
                                                  Exeunt EXECUTIONERS
  ARTHUR. Alas, I then have chid away my friend!
    He hath a stern look but a gentle heart.
    Let him come back, that his compassion may
    Give life to yours.
  HUBERT. Come, boy, prepare yourself.
  ARTHUR. Is there no remedy?
  HUBERT. None, but to lose your eyes.
  ARTHUR. O heaven, that there were but a mote in yours,
    A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,
    Any annoyance in that precious sense!
    Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there,
    Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.
  HUBERT. Is this your promise? Go to, hold your tongue.
  ARTHUR. Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues
    Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes.
    Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert;
    Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue,
    So I may keep mine eyes. O, spare mine eyes,
    Though to no use but still to look on you!
    Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold
    And would not harm me.
  HUBERT. I can heat it, boy.
  ARTHUR. No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief,
    Being create for comfort, to be us'd
    In undeserved extremes. See else yourself:
    There is no malice in this burning coal;
    The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out,
    And strew'd repentant ashes on his head.
  HUBERT. But with my breath I can revive it, boy.
  ARTHUR. An if you do, you will but make it blush
    And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert.
    Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes,
    And, like a dog that is compell'd to fight,
    Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.
    All things that you should use to do me wrong
    Deny their office; only you do lack
    That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends,
    Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses.
  HUBERT. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eye
    For all the treasure that thine uncle owes.
    Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy,
    With this same very iron to burn them out.
  ARTHUR. O, now you look like Hubert! All this while
    You were disguis'd.
  HUBERT. Peace; no more. Adieu.
    Your uncle must not know but you are dead:
    I'll fill these dogged spies with false reports;
    And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure
    That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world,
    Will not offend thee.
  ARTHUR. O heaven! I thank you, Hubert.
  HUBERT. Silence; no more. Go closely in with me.
    Much danger do I undergo for thee.                         Exeunt

SCENE 2.

England. KING JOHN'S palace

Enter KING JOHN, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other LORDS

  KING JOHN. Here once again we sit, once again crown'd,
    And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.
  PEMBROKE. This once again, but that your Highness pleas'd,
    Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before,
    And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off,
    The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt;
    Fresh expectation troubled not the land
    With any long'd-for change or better state.
  SALISBURY. Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
    To guard a title that was rich before,
    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
    To throw a perfume on the violet,
    To smooth the ice, or add another hue
    Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
    To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
    Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
  PEMBROKE. But that your royal pleasure must be done,
    This act is as an ancient tale new told
    And, in the last repeating, troublesome,
    Being urged at a time unseasonable.
  SALISBURY. In this the antique and well-noted face
    Of plain old form is much disfigured;
    And like a shifted wind unto a sail
    It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,
    Startles and frights consideration,
    Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected,
    For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.
  PEMBROKE. When workmen strive to do better than well,
    They do confound their skill in covetousness;
    And oftentimes excusing of a fault
    Doth make the fault the worse by th' excuse,
    As patches set upon a little breach
    Discredit more in hiding of the fault
    Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.
  SALISBURY. To this effect, before you were new-crown'd,
    We breath'd our counsel; but it pleas'd your Highness
    To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd,
    Since all and every part of what we would
    Doth make a stand at what your Highness will.
  KING JOHN. Some reasons of this double coronation
    I have possess'd you with, and think them strong;
    And more, more strong, when lesser is my fear,
    I shall indue you with. Meantime but ask
    What you would have reform'd that is not well,
    And well shall you perceive how willingly
    I will both hear and grant you your requests.
  PEMBROKE. Then I, as one that am the tongue of these,
    To sound the purposes of all their hearts,
    Both for myself and them- but, chief of all,
    Your safety, for the which myself and them
    Bend their best studies, heartily request
    Th' enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint
    Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent
    To break into this dangerous argument:
    If what in rest you have in right you hold,
    Why then your fears-which, as they say, attend
    The steps of wrong-should move you to mew up
    Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days
    With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth
    The rich advantage of good exercise?
    That the time's enemies may not have this
    To grace occasions, let it be our suit
    That you have bid us ask his liberty;
    Which for our goods we do no further ask
    Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
    Counts it your weal he have his liberty.
  KING JOHN. Let it be so. I do commit his youth
    To your direction.

                     Enter HUBERT

    [Aside]  Hubert, what news with you?
  PEMBROKE. This is the man should do the bloody deed:
    He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine;
    The image of a wicked heinous fault
    Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his
    Doth show the mood of a much troubled breast,
    And I do fearfully believe 'tis done
    What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.
  SALISBURY. The colour of the King doth come and go
    Between his purpose and his conscience,
    Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set.
    His passion is so ripe it needs must break.
  PEMBROKE. And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence
    The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.
  KING JOHN. We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.
    Good lords, although my will to give is living,
    The suit which you demand is gone and dead:
    He tells us Arthur is deceas'd to-night.
  SALISBURY. Indeed, we fear'd his sickness was past cure.
  PEMBROKE. Indeed, we heard how near his death he was,
    Before the child himself felt he was sick.
    This must be answer'd either here or hence.
  KING JOHN. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?
    Think you I bear the shears of destiny?
    Have I commandment on the pulse of life?
  SALISBURY. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame
    That greatness should so grossly offer it.
    So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.
  PEMBROKE. Stay yet, Lord Salisbury, I'll go with thee
    And find th' inheritance of this poor child,
    His little kingdom of a forced grave.
    That blood which ow'd the breadth of all this isle
    Three foot of it doth hold-bad world the while!
    This must not be thus borne: this will break out
    To all our sorrows, and ere long I doubt.            Exeunt LORDS
  KING JOHN. They burn in indignation. I repent.
    There is no sure foundation set on blood,
    No certain life achiev'd by others' death.

                 Enter a MESSENGER

    A fearful eye thou hast; where is that blood
    That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?
    So foul a sky clears not without a storm.
    Pour down thy weather-how goes all in France?
  MESSENGER. From France to England. Never such a pow'r
    For any foreign preparation
    Was levied in the body of a land.
    The copy of your speed is learn'd by them,
    For when you should be told they do prepare,
    The tidings comes that they are all arriv'd.
  KING JOHN. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?
    Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,
    That such an army could be drawn in France,
    And she not hear of it?
  MESSENGER. My liege, her ear
    Is stopp'd with dust: the first of April died
    Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord,
    The Lady Constance in a frenzy died
    Three days before; but this from rumour's tongue
    I idly heard-if true or false I know not.
  KING JOHN. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!
    O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd
    My discontented peers! What! mother dead!
    How wildly then walks my estate in France!
    Under whose conduct came those pow'rs of France
    That thou for truth giv'st out are landed here?
  MESSENGER. Under the Dauphin.
  KING JOHN. Thou hast made me giddy
    With these in tidings.

         Enter the BASTARD and PETER OF POMFRET

    Now! What says the world
    To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff
    My head with more ill news, for it is fun.
  BASTARD. But if you be afear'd to hear the worst,
    Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.
  KING JOHN. Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz'd
    Under the tide; but now I breathe again
    Aloft the flood, and can give audience
    To any tongue, speak it of what it will.
  BASTARD. How I have sped among the clergymen
    The sums I have collected shall express.
    But as I travell'd hither through the land,
    I find the people strangely fantasied;
    Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams.
    Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear;
    And here's a prophet that I brought with me
    From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found
    With many hundreds treading on his heels;
    To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,
    That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,
    Your Highness should deliver up your crown.
  KING JOHN. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?
  PETER. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.
  KING JOHN. Hubert, away with him; imprison him;
    And on that day at noon whereon he says
    I shall yield up my crown let him be hang'd.
    Deliver him to safety; and return,
    For I must use thee.
                                               Exit HUBERT with PETER
    O my gentle cousin,
    Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?
  BASTARD. The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it;
    Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,
    With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,
    And others more, going to seek the grave
    Of Arthur, whom they say is kill'd to-night
    On your suggestion.
  KING JOHN. Gentle kinsman, go
    And thrust thyself into their companies.
    I have a way to will their loves again;
    Bring them before me.
  BASTARD. I Will seek them out.
  KING JOHN. Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.
    O, let me have no subject enemies
    When adverse foreigners affright my towns
    With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!
    Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels,
    And fly like thought from them to me again.
  BASTARD. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.
  KING JOHN. Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.
                                                         Exit BASTARD
    Go after him; for he perhaps shall need
    Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;
    And be thou he.
  MESSENGER. With all my heart, my liege.                        Exit
  KING JOHN. My mother dead!

                   Re-enter HUBERT

  HUBERT. My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;
    Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about
    The other four in wondrous motion.
  KING JOHN. Five moons!
  HUBERT. Old men and beldams in the streets
    Do prophesy upon it dangerously;
    Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths;
    And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
    And whisper one another in the ear;
    And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist,
    Whilst he that hears makes fearful action
    With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
    I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
    The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
    With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
    Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
    Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste
    Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,
    Told of a many thousand warlike French
    That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent.
    Another lean unwash'd artificer
    Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.
  KING JOHN. Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?
    Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?
    Thy hand hath murd'red him. I had a mighty cause
    To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.
  HUBERT. No had, my lord! Why, did you not provoke me?
  KING JOHN. It is the curse of kings to be attended
    By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
    To break within the bloody house of life,
    And on the winking of authority
    To understand a law; to know the meaning
    Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns
    More upon humour than advis'd respect.
  HUBERT. Here is your hand and seal for what I did.
  KING JOHN. O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth
    Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal
    Witness against us to damnation!
    How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
    Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,
    A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,
    Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame,
    This murder had not come into my mind;
    But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,
    Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,
    Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger,
    I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;
    And thou, to be endeared to a king,
    Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.
  HUBERT. My lord-
  KING JOHN. Hadst thou but shook thy head or made pause,
    When I spake darkly what I purposed,
    Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,
    As bid me tell my tale in express words,
    Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,
    And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me.
    But thou didst understand me by my signs,
    And didst in signs again parley with sin;
    Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,
    And consequently thy rude hand to act
    The deed which both our tongues held vile to name.
    Out of my sight, and never see me more!
    My nobles leave me; and my state is braved,
    Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign pow'rs;
    Nay, in the body of the fleshly land,
    This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,
    Hostility and civil tumult reigns
    Between my conscience and my cousin's death.
  HUBERT. Arm you against your other enemies,
    I'll make a peace between your soul and you.
    Young Arthur is alive. This hand of mine
    Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
    Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
    Within this bosom never ent'red yet
    The dreadful motion of a murderous thought
    And you have slander'd nature in my form,
    Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,
    Is yet the cover of a fairer mind
    Than to be butcher of an innocent child.
  KING JOHN. Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers,
    Throw this report on their incensed rage
    And make them tame to their obedience!
    Forgive the comment that my passion made
    Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,
    And foul imaginary eyes of blood
    Presented thee more hideous than thou art.
    O, answer not; but to my closet bring
    The angry lords with all expedient haste.
    I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.                  Exeunt

SCENE 3.

England. Before the castle

Enter ARTHUR, on the walls

  ARTHUR. The wall is high, and yet will I leap down.
    Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!
    There's few or none do know me; if they did,
    This ship-boy's semblance hath disguis'd me quite.
    I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.
    If I get down and do not break my limbs,
    I'll find a thousand shifts to get away.
    As good to die and go, as die and stay.              [Leaps down]
    O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones.
    Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!
    [Dies]

          Enter PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and BIGOT

  SALISBURY. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury;
    It is our safety, and we must embrace
    This gentle offer of the perilous time.
  PEMBROKE. Who brought that letter from the Cardinal?
  SALISBURY. The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,
    Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love
    Is much more general than these lines import.
  BIGOT. To-morrow morning let us meet him then.
  SALISBURY. Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be
    Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet.

                 Enter the BASTARD

  BASTARD. Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords!
    The King by me requests your presence straight.
  SALISBURY. The King hath dispossess'd himself of us.
    We will not line his thin bestained cloak
    With our pure honours, nor attend the foot
    That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.
    Return and tell him so. We know the worst.
  BASTARD. Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.
  SALISBURY. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.
  BASTARD. But there is little reason in your grief;
    Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now.
  PEMBROKE. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.
  BASTARD. 'Tis true-to hurt his master, no man else.
  SALISBURY. This is the prison. What is he lies here?
  PEMBROKE. O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
    The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.
  SALISBURY. Murder, as hating what himself hath done,
    Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.
  BIGOT. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,
    Found it too precious-princely for a grave.
  SALISBURY. Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld,
    Or have you read or heard, or could you think?
    Or do you almost think, although you see,
    That you do see? Could thought, without this object,
    Form such another? This is the very top,
    The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,
    Of murder's arms; this is the bloodiest shame,
    The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,
    That ever wall-ey'd wrath or staring rage
    Presented to the tears of soft remorse.
  PEMBROKE. All murders past do stand excus'd in this;
    And this, so sole and so unmatchable,
    Shall give a holiness, a purity,
    To the yet unbegotten sin of times,
    And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,
    Exampled by this heinous spectacle.
  BASTARD. It is a damned and a bloody work;
    The graceless action of a heavy hand,
    If that it be the work of any hand.
  SALISBURY. If that it be the work of any hand!
    We had a kind of light what would ensue.
    It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand;
    The practice and the purpose of the King;
    From whose obedience I forbid my soul
    Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
    And breathing to his breathless excellence
    The incense of a vow, a holy vow,
    Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
    Never to be infected with delight,
    Nor conversant with ease and idleness,
    Till I have set a glory to this hand
    By giving it the worship of revenge.
  PEMBROKE. and BIGOT. Our souls religiously confirm thy words.

                     Enter HUBERT

  HUBERT. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you.
    Arthur doth live; the King hath sent for you.
  SALISBURY. O, he is bold, and blushes not at death!
    Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!
  HUBERT. I am no villain.
  SALISBURY. Must I rob the law?                  [Drawing his sword]
  BASTARD. Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.
  SALISBURY. Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin.
  HUBERT. Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say;
    By heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours.
    I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,
    Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;
    Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget
    Your worth, your greatness and nobility.
  BIGOT. Out, dunghill! Dar'st thou brave a nobleman?
  HUBERT. Not for my life; but yet I dare defend
    My innocent life against an emperor.
  SALISBURY. Thou art a murderer.
  HUBERT. Do not prove me so.
    Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe'er speaks false,
    Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.
  PEMBROKE. Cut him to pieces.
  BASTARD. Keep the peace, I say.
  SALISBURY. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge.
  BASTARD. Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury.
    If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,
    Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,
    I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime;
    Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron
    That you shall think the devil is come from hell.
  BIGOT. What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?
    Second a villain and a murderer?
  HUBERT. Lord Bigot, I am none.
  BIGOT. Who kill'd this prince?
  HUBERT. 'Tis not an hour since I left him well.
    I honour'd him, I lov'd him, and will weep
    My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.
  SALISBURY. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,
    For villainy is not without such rheum;
    And he, long traded in it, makes it seem
    Like rivers of remorse and innocency.
    Away with me, all you whose souls abhor
    Th' uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house;
    For I am stifled with this smell of sin.
  BIGOT. Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!
  PEMBROKE. There tell the King he may inquire us out.
                                                         Exeunt LORDS
  BASTARD. Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work?
    Beyond the infinite and boundless reach
    Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,
    Art thou damn'd, Hubert.
  HUBERT. Do but hear me, sir.
  BASTARD. Ha! I'll tell thee what:
    Thou'rt damn'd as black-nay, nothing is so black-
    Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer;
    There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell
    As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.
  HUBERT. Upon my soul-
  BASTARD. If thou didst but consent
    To this most cruel act, do but despair;
    And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
    That ever spider twisted from her womb
    Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam
    To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,
    Put but a little water in a spoon
    And it shall be as all the ocean,
    Enough to stifle such a villain up
    I do suspect thee very grievously.
  HUBERT. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,
    Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath
    Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,
    Let hell want pains enough to torture me!
    I left him well.
  BASTARD. Go, bear him in thine arms.
    I am amaz'd, methinks, and lose my way
    Among the thorns and dangers of this world.
    How easy dost thou take all England up!
    From forth this morsel of dead royalty
    The life, the right, and truth of all this realm
    Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
    To tug and scamble, and to part by th' teeth
    The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.
    Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty
    Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest
    And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace;
    Now powers from home and discontents at home
    Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,
    As doth a raven on a sick-fall'n beast,
    The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
    Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can
    Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child,
    And follow me with speed. I'll to the King;
    A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
    And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.                Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1. England. KING JOHN'S palace

Enter KING JOHN, PANDULPH, and attendants

  KING JOHN. Thus have I yielded up into your hand
    The circle of my glory.
  PANDULPH.  [Gives back the crown]  Take again
    From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,
    Your sovereign greatness and authority.
  KING JOHN. Now keep your holy word; go meet the French;
    And from his Holiness use all your power
    To stop their marches fore we are inflam'd.
    Our discontented counties do revolt;
    Our people quarrel with obedience,
    Swearing allegiance and the love of soul
    To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.
    This inundation of mistemp'red humour
    Rests by you only to be qualified.
    Then pause not; for the present time's so sick
    That present med'cine must be minist'red
    Or overthrow incurable ensues.
  PANDULPH. It was my breath that blew this tempest up,
    Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope;
    But since you are a gentle convertite,
    My tongue shall hush again this storm of war
    And make fair weather in your blust'ring land.
    On this Ascension-day, remember well,
    Upon your oath of service to the Pope,
    Go I to make the French lay down their arms.                 Exit
  KING JOHN. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet
    Say that before Ascension-day at noon
    My crown I should give off? Even so I have.
    I did suppose it should be on constraint;
    But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.

                 Enter the BASTARD

  BASTARD. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out
    But Dover Castle. London hath receiv'd,
    Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers.
    Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone
    To offer service to your enemy;
    And wild amazement hurries up and down
    The little number of your doubtful friends.
  KING JOHN. Would not my lords return to me again
    After they heard young Arthur was alive?
    BASTARD. They found him dead, and cast into the streets,
    An empty casket, where the jewel of life
    By some damn'd hand was robbed and ta'en away.
  KING JOHN. That villain Hubert told me he did live.
  BASTARD. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.
    But wherefore do you droop? Why look you sad?
    Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
    Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
    Govern the motion of a kingly eye.
    Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
    Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow
    Of bragging horror; so shall inferior eyes,
    That borrow their behaviours from the great,
    Grow great by your example and put on
    The dauntless spirit of resolution.
    Away, and glister like the god of war
    When he intendeth to become the field;
    Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
    What, shall they seek the lion in his den,
    And fright him there, and make him tremble there?
    O, let it not be said! Forage, and run
    To meet displeasure farther from the doors
    And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.
  KING JOHN. The legate of the Pope hath been with me,
    And I have made a happy peace with him;
    And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers
    Led by the Dauphin.
  BASTARD. O inglorious league!
    Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
    Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,
    Insinuation, parley, and base truce,
    To arms invasive? Shall a beardless boy,
    A cock'red silken wanton, brave our fields
    And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
    Mocking the air with colours idly spread,
    And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms.
    Perchance the Cardinal cannot make your peace;
    Or, if he do, let it at least be said
    They saw we had a purpose of defence.
  KING JOHN. Have thou the ordering of this present time.
  BASTARD. Away, then, with good courage!
    Yet, I know
    Our party may well meet a prouder foe.                     Exeunt

SCENE 2. England. The DAUPHIN'S camp at Saint Edmundsbury

Enter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and soldiers

  LEWIS. My Lord Melun, let this be copied out
    And keep it safe for our remembrance;
    Return the precedent to these lords again,
    That, having our fair order written down,
    Both they and we, perusing o'er these notes,
    May know wherefore we took the sacrament,
    And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.
  SALISBURY. Upon our sides it never shall be broken.
    And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear
    A voluntary zeal and an unurg'd faith
    To your proceedings; yet, believe me, Prince,
    I am not glad that such a sore of time
    Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,
    And heal the inveterate canker of one wound
    By making many. O, it grieves my soul
    That I must draw this metal from my side
    To be a widow-maker! O, and there
    Where honourable rescue and defence
    Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!
    But such is the infection of the time
    That, for the health and physic of our right,
    We cannot deal but with the very hand
    Of stern injustice and confused wrong.
    And is't not pity, O my grieved friends!
    That we, the sons and children of this isle,
    Were born to see so sad an hour as this;
    Wherein we step after a stranger-march
    Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up
    Her enemies' ranks-I must withdraw and weep
    Upon the spot of this enforced cause-
    To grace the gentry of a land remote
    And follow unacquainted colours here?
    What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove!
    That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,
    Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself
    And grapple thee unto a pagan shore,
    Where these two Christian armies might combine
    The blood of malice in a vein of league,
    And not to spend it so unneighbourly!
  LEWIS. A noble temper dost thou show in this;
    And great affections wrestling in thy bosom
    Doth make an earthquake of nobility.
    O, what a noble combat hast thou fought
    Between compulsion and a brave respect!
    Let me wipe off this honourable dew
    That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.
    My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,
    Being an ordinary inundation;
    But this effusion of such manly drops,
    This show'r, blown up by tempest of the soul,
    Startles mine eyes and makes me more amaz'd
    Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven
    Figur'd quite o'er with burning meteors.
    Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,
    And with a great heart heave away this storm;
    Commend these waters to those baby eyes
    That never saw the giant world enrag'd,
    Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,
    Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping.
    Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep
    Into the purse of rich prosperity
    As Lewis himself. So, nobles, shall you all,
    That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.

                Enter PANDULPH

    And even there, methinks, an angel spake:
    Look where the holy legate comes apace,
    To give us warrant from the hand of heaven
    And on our actions set the name of right
    With holy breath.
  PANDULPH. Hail, noble prince of France!
    The next is this: King John hath reconcil'd
    Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,
    That so stood out against the holy Church,
    The great metropolis and see of Rome.
    Therefore thy threat'ning colours now wind up
    And tame the savage spirit of wild war,
    That, like a lion fostered up at hand,
    It may lie gently at the foot of peace
    And be no further harmful than in show.
  LEWIS. Your Grace shall pardon me, I will not back:
    I am too high-born to be propertied,
    To be a secondary at control,
    Or useful serving-man and instrument
    To any sovereign state throughout the world.
    Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars
    Between this chastis'd kingdom and myself
    And brought in matter that should feed this fire;
    And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out
    With that same weak wind which enkindled it.
    You taught me how to know the face of right,
    Acquainted me with interest to this land,
    Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;
    And come ye now to tell me John hath made
    His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?
    I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,
    After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;
    And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I back
    Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?
    Am I Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,
    What men provided, what munition sent,
    To underprop this action? Is 't not I
    That undergo this charge? Who else but I,
    And such as to my claim are liable,
    Sweat in this business and maintain this war?
    Have I not heard these islanders shout out
    'Vive le roi!' as I have bank'd their towns?
    Have I not here the best cards for the game
    To will this easy match, play'd for a crown?
    And shall I now give o'er the yielded set?
    No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.
  PANDULPH. You look but on the outside of this work.
  LEWIS. Outside or inside, I will not return
    Till my attempt so much be glorified
    As to my ample hope was promised
    Before I drew this gallant head of war,
    And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world
    To outlook conquest, and to will renown
    Even in the jaws of danger and of death.
                                                     [Trumpet sounds]
    What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?

             Enter the BASTARD, attended

  BASTARD. According to the fair play of the world,
    Let me have audience: I am sent to speak.
    My holy lord of Milan, from the King
    I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;
    And, as you answer, I do know the scope
    And warrant limited unto my tongue.
  PANDULPH. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,
    And will not temporize with my entreaties;
    He flatly says he'll not lay down his arms.
  BASTARD. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd,
    The youth says well. Now hear our English King;
    For thus his royalty doth speak in me.
    He is prepar'd, and reason too he should.
    This apish and unmannerly approach,
    This harness'd masque and unadvised revel
    This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops,
    The King doth smile at; and is well prepar'd
    To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms,
    From out the circle of his territories.
    That hand which had the strength, even at your door.
    To cudgel you and make you take the hatch,
    To dive like buckets in concealed wells,
    To crouch in litter of your stable planks,
    To lie like pawns lock'd up in chests and trunks,
    To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety out
    In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake
    Even at the crying of your nation's crow,
    Thinking this voice an armed Englishman-
    Shall that victorious hand be feebled here
    That in your chambers gave you chastisement?
    No. Know the gallant monarch is in arms
    And like an eagle o'er his aery tow'rs
    To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.
    And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,
    You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb
    Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;
    For your own ladies and pale-visag'd maids,
    Like Amazons, come tripping after drums,
    Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,
    Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts
    To fierce and bloody inclination.
  LEWIS. There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;
    We grant thou canst outscold us. Fare thee well;
    We hold our time too precious to be spent
    With such a brabbler.
  PANDULPH. Give me leave to speak.
  BASTARD. No, I will speak.
  LEWIS. We will attend to neither.
    Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war,
    Plead for our interest and our being here.
  BASTARD. Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out;
    And so shall you, being beaten. Do but start
    And echo with the clamour of thy drum,
    And even at hand a drum is ready brac'd
    That shall reverberate all as loud as thine:
    Sound but another, and another shall,
    As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear
    And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder; for at hand-
    Not trusting to this halting legate here,
    Whom he hath us'd rather for sport than need-
    Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits
    A bare-ribb'd death, whose office is this day
    To feast upon whole thousands of the French.
  LEWIS. Strike up our drums to find this danger out.
  BASTARD. And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.
    Exeunt

SCENE 3.

England. The field of battle

Alarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT

  KING JOHN. How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.
  HUBERT. Badly, I fear. How fares your Majesty?
  KING JOHN. This fever that hath troubled me so long
    Lies heavy on me. O, my heart is sick!

                  Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge,
    Desires your Majesty to leave the field
    And send him word by me which way you go.
  KING JOHN. Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there.
  MESSENGER. Be of good comfort; for the great supply
    That was expected by the Dauphin here
    Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin Sands;
    This news was brought to Richard but even now.
    The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.
  KING JOHN. Ay me, this tyrant fever burns me up
    And will not let me welcome this good news.
    Set on toward Swinstead; to my litter straight;
    Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.                    Exeunt

SCENE 4.

England. Another part of the battlefield

Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and BIGOT

  SALISBURY. I did not think the King so stor'd with friends.
  PEMBROKE. Up once again; put spirit in the French;
    If they miscarry, we miscarry too.
  SALISBURY. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge,
    In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.
  PEMBROKE. They say King John, sore sick, hath left the field.

                 Enter MELUN, wounded

  MELUN. Lead me to the revolts of England here.
  SALISBURY. When we were happy we had other names.
  PEMBROKE. It is the Count Melun.
  SALISBURY. Wounded to death.
  MELUN. Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold;
    Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,
    And welcome home again discarded faith.
    Seek out King John, and fall before his feet;
    For if the French be lords of this loud day,
    He means to recompense the pains you take
    By cutting off your heads. Thus hath he sworn,
    And I with him, and many moe with me,
    Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury;
    Even on that altar where we swore to you
    Dear amity and everlasting love.
  SALISBURY. May this be possible? May this be true?
  MELUN. Have I not hideous death within my view,
    Retaining but a quantity of life,
    Which bleeds away even as a form of wax
    Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?
    What in the world should make me now deceive,
    Since I must lose the use of all deceit?
    Why should I then be false, since it is true
    That I must die here, and live hence by truth?
    I say again, if Lewis do will the day,
    He is forsworn if e'er those eyes of yours
    Behold another day break in the east;
    But even this night, whose black contagious breath
    Already smokes about the burning crest
    Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun,
    Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire,
    Paying the fine of rated treachery
    Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives.
    If Lewis by your assistance win the day.
    Commend me to one Hubert, with your King;
    The love of him-and this respect besides,
    For that my grandsire was an Englishman-
    Awakes my conscience to confess all this.
    In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence
    From forth the noise and rumour of the field,
    Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts
    In peace, and part this body and my soul
    With contemplation and devout desires.
  SALISBURY. We do believe thee; and beshrew my soul
    But I do love the favour and the form
    Of this most fair occasion, by the which
    We will untread the steps of damned flight,
    And like a bated and retired flood,
    Leaving our rankness and irregular course,
    Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd,
    And calmly run on in obedience
    Even to our ocean, to great King John.
    My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence;
    For I do see the cruel pangs of death
    Right in thine eye. Away, my friends! New flight,
    And happy newness, that intends old right.
                                            Exeunt, leading off MELUN

SCENE 5.

England. The French camp

Enter LEWIS and his train

  LEWIS. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set,
    But stay'd and made the western welkin blush,
    When English measure backward their own ground
    In faint retire. O, bravely came we off,
    When with a volley of our needless shot,
    After such bloody toil, we bid good night;
    And wound our tott'ring colours clearly up,
    Last in the field and almost lords of it!

                 Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Where is my prince, the Dauphin?
  LEWIS. Here; what news?
  MESSENGER. The Count Melun is slain; the English lords
    By his persuasion are again fall'n off,
    And your supply, which you have wish'd so long,
    Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.
  LEWIS. Ah, foul shrewd news! Beshrew thy very heart!
    I did not think to be so sad to-night
    As this hath made me. Who was he that said
    King John did fly an hour or two before
    The stumbling night did part our weary pow'rs?
  MESSENGER. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.
  LEWIS. keep good quarter and good care to-night;
    The day shall not be up so soon as I
    To try the fair adventure of to-morrow.                    Exeunt

SCENE 6.

An open place wear Swinstead Abbey

Enter the BASTARD and HUBERT, severally

  HUBERT. Who's there? Speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot.
  BASTARD. A friend. What art thou?
  HUBERT. Of the part of England.
  BASTARD. Whither dost thou go?
  HUBERT. What's that to thee? Why may I not demand
    Of thine affairs as well as thou of mine?
  BASTARD. Hubert, I think.
  HUBERT. Thou hast a perfect thought.
    I will upon all hazards well believe
    Thou art my friend that know'st my tongue so well.
    Who art thou?
  BASTARD. Who thou wilt. And if thou please,
    Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think
    I come one way of the Plantagenets.
  HUBERT. Unkind remembrance! thou and eyeless night
    Have done me shame. Brave soldier, pardon me
    That any accent breaking from thy tongue
    Should scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.
  BASTARD. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?
  HUBERT. Why, here walk I in the black brow of night
    To find you out.
  BASTARD. Brief, then; and what's the news?
  HUBERT. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,
    Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.
  BASTARD. Show me the very wound of this ill news;
    I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.
  HUBERT. The King, I fear, is poison'd by a monk;
    I left him almost speechless and broke out
    To acquaint you with this evil, that you might
    The better arm you to the sudden time
    Than if you had at leisure known of this.
  BASTARD. How did he take it; who did taste to him?
  HUBERT. A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain,
    Whose bowels suddenly burst out. The King
    Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.
  BASTARD. Who didst thou leave to tend his Majesty?
  HUBERT. Why, know you not? The lords are all come back,
    And brought Prince Henry in their company;
    At whose request the King hath pardon'd them,
    And they are all about his Majesty.
  BASTARD. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,
    And tempt us not to bear above our power!
    I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,
    Passing these flats, are taken by the tide-
    These Lincoln Washes have devoured them;
    Myself, well-mounted, hardly have escap'd.
    Away, before! conduct me to the King;
    I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.                     Exeunt

SCENE 7.

The orchard at Swinstead Abbey

Enter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT

  PRINCE HENRY. It is too late; the life of all his blood
    Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain.
    Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house,
    Doth by the idle comments that it makes
    Foretell the ending of mortality.

                   Enter PEMBROKE

  PEMBROKE. His Highness yet doth speak, and holds belief
    That, being brought into the open air,
    It would allay the burning quality
    Of that fell poison which assaileth him.
  PRINCE HENRY. Let him be brought into the orchard here.
    Doth he still rage?                                    Exit BIGOT
  PEMBROKE. He is more patient
    Than when you left him; even now he sung.
  PRINCE HENRY. O vanity of sickness! Fierce extremes
    In their continuance will not feel themselves.
    Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
    Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now
    Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds
    With many legions of strange fantasies,
    Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,
    Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death should sing.
    I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan
    Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
    And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
    His soul and body to their lasting rest.
  SALISBURY. Be of good comfort, Prince; for you are born
    To set a form upon that indigest
    Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.

       Re-enter BIGOT and attendants, who bring in
                KING JOHN in a chair

  KING JOHN. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room;
    It would not out at windows nor at doors.
    There is so hot a summer in my bosom
    That all my bowels crumble up to dust.
    I am a scribbled form drawn with a pen
    Upon a parchment, and against this fire
    Do I shrink up.
  PRINCE HENRY. How fares your Majesty?
  KING JOHN. Poison'd-ill-fare! Dead, forsook, cast off;
    And none of you will bid the winter come
    To thrust his icy fingers in my maw,
    Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
    Through my burn'd bosom, nor entreat the north
    To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips
    And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much;
    I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait
    And so ingrateful you deny me that.
  PRINCE HENRY. O that there were some virtue in my tears,
    That might relieve you!
  KING JOHN. The salt in them is hot.
    Within me is a hell; and there the poison
    Is as a fiend confin'd to tyrannize
    On unreprievable condemned blood.

                 Enter the BASTARD

  BASTARD. O, I am scalded with my violent motion
    And spleen of speed to see your Majesty!
  KING JOHN. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye!
    The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt,
    And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail
    Are turned to one thread, one little hair;
    My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
    Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
    And then all this thou seest is but a clod
    And module of confounded royalty.
  BASTARD. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,
    Where God He knows how we shall answer him;
    For in a night the best part of my pow'r,
    As I upon advantage did remove,
    Were in the Washes all unwarily
    Devoured by the unexpected flood.                 [The KING dies]
  SALISBURY. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.
    My liege! my lord! But now a king-now thus.
  PRINCE HENRY. Even so must I run on, and even so stop.
    What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
    When this was now a king, and now is clay?
  BASTARD. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind
    To do the office for thee of revenge,
    And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,
    As it on earth hath been thy servant still.
    Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,
    Where be your pow'rs? Show now your mended faiths,
    And instantly return with me again
    To push destruction and perpetual shame
    Out of the weak door of our fainting land.
    Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;
    The Dauphin rages at our very heels.
  SALISBURY. It seems you know not, then, so much as we:
    The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
    Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,
    And brings from him such offers of our peace
    As we with honour and respect may take,
    With purpose presently to leave this war.
  BASTARD. He will the rather do it when he sees
    Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.
  SALISBURY. Nay, 'tis in a manner done already;
    For many carriages he hath dispatch'd
    To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel
    To the disposing of the Cardinal;
    With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,
    If you think meet, this afternoon will post
    To consummate this business happily.
  BASTARD. Let it be so. And you, my noble Prince,
    With other princes that may best be spar'd,
    Shall wait upon your father's funeral.
  PRINCE HENRY. At Worcester must his body be interr'd;
    For so he will'd it.
  BASTARD. Thither shall it, then;
    And happily may your sweet self put on
    The lineal state and glory of the land!
    To whom, with all submission, on my knee
    I do bequeath my faithful services
    And true subjection everlastingly.
  SALISBURY. And the like tender of our love we make,
    To rest without a spot for evermore.
  PRINCE HENRY. I have a kind soul that would give you thanks,
    And knows not how to do it but with tears.
  BASTARD. O, let us pay the time but needful woe,
    Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.
    This England never did, nor never shall,
    Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
    But when it first did help to wound itself.
    Now these her princes are come home again,
    Come the three corners of the world in arms,
    And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
    If England to itself do rest but true.                     Exeunt

THE END

1599



THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR




by William Shakespeare






Contents

ACT I
Scene I. Rome. A street.
Scene II. The same. A public place.
Scene III. The same. A street.


ACT II
Scene I. Rome. Brutus’ orchard.
Scene II. A room in Caesar’s palace.
Scene III. A street near the Capitol.
Scene IV. Another part of the same street, before the house of Brutus.


ACT III
Scene I. Rome. Before the Capitol; the Senate sitting.
Scene II. The same. The Forum.
Scene III. The same. A street.


ACT IV
Scene I. A room in Antony’s house.
Scene II. Before Brutus’ tent, in the camp near Sardis.
Scene III. Within the tent of Brutus.


ACT V
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.





 Dramatis Personæ

JULIUS CAESAR
OCTAVIUS CAESAR, Triumvir after his death.
MARCUS ANTONIUS,    ”    ”     ”
M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS,   ”    ”     ”
CICERO, PUBLIUS, POPILIUS LENA, Senators.
MARCUS BRUTUS, Conspirator against Caesar.
CASSIUS, ”    ”     ”
CASCA,   ”    ”     ”
TREBONIUS,     ”    ”     ”
LIGARIUS,”    ”     ”
DECIUS BRUTUS, ”    ”     ”
METELLUS CIMBER,     ”    ”     ”
CINNA,   ”    ”     ”
FLAVIUS, tribune
MARULLUS, tribune
ARTEMIDORUS, a Sophist of Cnidos.
A Soothsayer
CINNA, a poet.
Another Poet.
LUCILIUS, TITINIUS, MESSALA, young CATO, and VOLUMNIUS, Friends to
Brutus and Cassius.
VARRO, CLITUS, CLAUDIUS, STRATO, LUCIUS, DARDANIUS, Servants to Brutus
PINDARUS, Servant to Cassius


CALPHURNIA, wife to Caesar
PORTIA, wife to Brutus

The Ghost of Caesar


Senators, Citizens, Soldiers, Commoners, Messengers, and Servants.

SCENE: Rome, the conspirators’ camp near Sardis, and the plains of
Philippi.



ACT I

SCENE I. Rome. A street.

 Enter Flavius, Marullus and a throng of Citizens.

FLAVIUS.
Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home.
Is this a holiday? What, know you not,
Being mechanical, you ought not walk
Upon a labouring day without the sign
Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?

CARPENTER.
Why, sir, a carpenter.

MARULLUS.
Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
What dost thou with thy best apparel on?
You, sir, what trade are you?

COBBLER.
Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a
cobbler.

MARULLUS.
But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.

COBBLER.
A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe conscience, which is
indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.

MARULLUS.
What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, what trade?

COBBLER.
Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me; yet, if you be out, sir, I
can mend you.

MARULLUS.
What mean’st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow!

COBBLER.
Why, sir, cobble you.

FLAVIUS.
Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

COBBLER.
Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl; I meddle with no
tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters, but withal I am indeed, sir,
a surgeon to old shoes: when they are in great danger, I recover them.
As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather have gone upon my
handiwork.

FLAVIUS.
But wherefore art not in thy shop today?
Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

COBBLER.
Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. But
indeed, sir, we make holiday to see Caesar, and to rejoice in his
triumph.

MARULLUS.
Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb’d up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The livelong day with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks
To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her concave shores?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way,
That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.

FLAVIUS.
Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault
Assemble all the poor men of your sort,
Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

 [_Exeunt Citizens._]

See whether their basest metal be not mov’d;
They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.
Go you down that way towards the Capitol;
This way will I. Disrobe the images,
If you do find them deck’d with ceremonies.

MARULLUS.
May we do so?
You know it is the feast of Lupercal.

FLAVIUS.
It is no matter; let no images
Be hung with Caesar’s trophies. I’ll about
And drive away the vulgar from the streets;
So do you too, where you perceive them thick.
These growing feathers pluck’d from Caesar’s wing
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
Who else would soar above the view of men,
And keep us all in servile fearfulness.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. The same. A public place.

 Enter, in procession, with music, Caesar; Antony, for the course;
 Calphurnia, Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius and Casca; a great
 crowd following, among them a Soothsayer.

CAESAR.
Calphurnia.

CASCA.
Peace, ho! Caesar speaks.

 [_Music ceases._]

CAESAR.
Calphurnia.

CALPHURNIA.
Here, my lord.

CAESAR.
Stand you directly in Antonius’ way,
When he doth run his course. Antonius.

ANTONY.
Caesar, my lord?

CAESAR.
Forget not in your speed, Antonius,
To touch Calphurnia; for our elders say,
The barren, touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their sterile curse.

ANTONY.
I shall remember.
When Caesar says “Do this,” it is perform’d.

CAESAR.
Set on; and leave no ceremony out.

 [_Music._]

SOOTHSAYER.
Caesar!

CAESAR.
Ha! Who calls?

CASCA.
Bid every noise be still; peace yet again!

 [_Music ceases._]

CAESAR.
Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music,
Cry “Caesar”! Speak. Caesar is turn’d to hear.

SOOTHSAYER.
Beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR.
What man is that?

BRUTUS.
A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR.
Set him before me; let me see his face.

CASSIUS.
Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

CAESAR.
What say’st thou to me now? Speak once again.

SOOTHSAYER.
Beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR.
He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass.

 [_Sennet. Exeunt all but Brutus and Cassius._]

CASSIUS.
Will you go see the order of the course?

BRUTUS.
Not I.

CASSIUS.
I pray you, do.

BRUTUS.
I am not gamesome: I do lack some part
Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.
Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires;
I’ll leave you.

CASSIUS.
Brutus, I do observe you now of late:
I have not from your eyes that gentleness
And show of love as I was wont to have.
You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand
Over your friend that loves you.

BRUTUS.
Cassius,
Be not deceived: if I have veil’d my look,
I turn the trouble of my countenance
Merely upon myself. Vexed I am
Of late with passions of some difference,
Conceptions only proper to myself,
Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviors;
But let not therefore my good friends be grieved
(Among which number, Cassius, be you one)
Nor construe any further my neglect,
Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shows of love to other men.

CASSIUS.
Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion;
By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried
Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.
Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?

BRUTUS.
No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself
But by reflection, by some other thing.

CASSIUS.
’Tis just:
And it is very much lamented, Brutus,
That you have no such mirrors as will turn
Your hidden worthiness into your eye,
That you might see your shadow. I have heard
Where many of the best respect in Rome,
(Except immortal Caesar) speaking of Brutus,
And groaning underneath this age’s yoke,
Have wish’d that noble Brutus had his eyes.

BRUTUS.
Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,
That you would have me seek into myself
For that which is not in me?

CASSIUS.
Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear;
And since you know you cannot see yourself
So well as by reflection, I, your glass,
Will modestly discover to yourself
That of yourself which you yet know not of.
And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus:
Were I a common laugher, or did use
To stale with ordinary oaths my love
To every new protester; if you know
That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard,
And after scandal them; or if you know
That I profess myself in banqueting,
To all the rout, then hold me dangerous.

 [_Flourish and shout._]

BRUTUS.
What means this shouting? I do fear the people
Choose Caesar for their king.

CASSIUS.
Ay, do you fear it?
Then must I think you would not have it so.

BRUTUS.
I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well,
But wherefore do you hold me here so long?
What is it that you would impart to me?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honour in one eye and death i’ the other,
And I will look on both indifferently;
For let the gods so speed me as I love
The name of honour more than I fear death.

CASSIUS.
I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favour.
Well, honour is the subject of my story.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Caesar; so were you;
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter’s cold as well as he:
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me, “Dar’st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,
And bade him follow: so indeed he did.
The torrent roar’d, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive the point propos’d,
Caesar cried, “Help me, Cassius, or I sink!”
I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man
Is now become a god; and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And when the fit was on him I did mark
How he did shake: ’tis true, this god did shake:
His coward lips did from their colour fly,
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his lustre. I did hear him groan:
Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas, it cried, “Give me some drink, Titinius,”
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone.

 [_Shout. Flourish._]

BRUTUS.
Another general shout?
I do believe that these applauses are
For some new honours that are heap’d on Caesar.

CASSIUS.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
“Brutus” and “Caesar”: what should be in that “Caesar”?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with ’em,
“Brutus” will start a spirit as soon as “Caesar.”
Now in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham’d!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age since the great flood,
But it was fam’d with more than with one man?
When could they say, till now, that talk’d of Rome,
That her wide walls encompass’d but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.
O, you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once that would have brook’d
Th’ eternal devil to keep his state in Rome,
As easily as a king!

BRUTUS.
That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;
What you would work me to, I have some aim:
How I have thought of this, and of these times,
I shall recount hereafter. For this present,
I would not, so with love I might entreat you,
Be any further mov’d. What you have said,
I will consider; what you have to say
I will with patience hear; and find a time
Both meet to hear and answer such high things.
Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this:
Brutus had rather be a villager
Than to repute himself a son of Rome
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.

CASSIUS.
I am glad that my weak words
Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.

 Enter Caesar and his Train.

BRUTUS.
The games are done, and Caesar is returning.

CASSIUS.
As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve,
And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you
What hath proceeded worthy note today.

BRUTUS.
I will do so. But, look you, Cassius,
The angry spot doth glow on Caesar’s brow,
And all the rest look like a chidden train:
Calphurnia’s cheek is pale; and Cicero
Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes
As we have seen him in the Capitol,
Being cross’d in conference by some senators.

CASSIUS.
Casca will tell us what the matter is.

CAESAR.
Antonius.

ANTONY.
Caesar?

CAESAR.
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

ANTONY.
Fear him not, Caesar; he’s not dangerous;
He is a noble Roman and well given.

CAESAR.
Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much,
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music.
Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock’d himself and scorn’d his spirit
That could be mov’d to smile at anything.
Such men as he be never at heart’s ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous.
I rather tell thee what is to be fear’d
Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar.
Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,
And tell me truly what thou think’st of him.

 [_Exeunt Caesar and his Train. Casca stays._]

CASCA.
You pull’d me by the cloak; would you speak with me?

BRUTUS.
Ay, Casca, tell us what hath chanc’d today,
That Caesar looks so sad.

CASCA.
Why, you were with him, were you not?

BRUTUS.
I should not then ask Casca what had chanc’d.

CASCA.
Why, there was a crown offer’d him; and being offer’d him, he put it by
with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell a-shouting.

BRUTUS.
What was the second noise for?

CASCA.
Why, for that too.

CASSIUS.
They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for?

CASCA.
Why, for that too.

BRUTUS.
Was the crown offer’d him thrice?

CASCA.
Ay, marry, was’t, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than
other; and at every putting-by mine honest neighbours shouted.

CASSIUS.
Who offer’d him the crown?

CASCA.
Why, Antony.

BRUTUS.
Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.

CASCA.
I can as well be hang’d, as tell the manner of it: it was mere foolery;
I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown; yet ’twas not a
crown neither, ’twas one of these coronets; and, as I told you, he put
it by once: but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had
it. Then he offered it to him again: then he put it by again: but, to
my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he
offered it the third time; he put it the third time by; and still, as
he refus’d it, the rabblement hooted, and clapp’d their chopt hands,
and threw up their sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of
stinking breath because Caesar refus’d the crown, that it had, almost,
choked Caesar, for he swooned, and fell down at it. And for mine own
part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the
bad air.

CASSIUS.
But, soft! I pray you. What, did Caesar swoon?

CASCA.
He fell down in the market-place, and foam’d at mouth, and was
speechless.

BRUTUS.
’Tis very like: he hath the falling-sickness.

CASSIUS.
No, Caesar hath it not; but you, and I,
And honest Casca, we have the falling-sickness.

CASCA.
I know not what you mean by that; but I am sure Caesar fell down. If
the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he
pleased and displeased them, as they use to do the players in the
theatre, I am no true man.

BRUTUS.
What said he when he came unto himself?

CASCA.
Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common herd was glad
he refused the crown, he pluck’d me ope his doublet, and offer’d them
his throat to cut. And I had been a man of any occupation, if I would
not have taken him at a word, I would I might go to hell among the
rogues. And so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said, if he
had done or said anything amiss, he desir’d their worships to think it
was his infirmity. Three or four wenches where I stood cried, “Alas,
good soul!” and forgave him with all their hearts. But there’s no heed
to be taken of them: if Caesar had stabb’d their mothers, they would
have done no less.

BRUTUS.
And, after that, he came thus sad away?

CASCA.
Ay.

CASSIUS.
Did Cicero say anything?

CASCA.
Ay, he spoke Greek.

CASSIUS.
To what effect?

CASCA.
Nay, and I tell you that, I’ll ne’er look you i’ the face again. But
those that understood him smil’d at one another and shook their heads;
but for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I could tell you more news
too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar’s images, are
put to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could
remember it.

CASSIUS.
Will you sup with me tonight, Casca?

CASCA.
No, I am promis’d forth.

CASSIUS.
Will you dine with me tomorrow?

CASCA.
Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner worth the
eating.

CASSIUS.
Good. I will expect you.

CASCA.
Do so; farewell both.

 [_Exit Casca._]

BRUTUS.
What a blunt fellow is this grown to be!
He was quick mettle when he went to school.

CASSIUS.
So is he now in execution
Of any bold or noble enterprise,
However he puts on this tardy form.
This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,
Which gives men stomach to digest his words
With better appetite.

BRUTUS.
And so it is. For this time I will leave you:
Tomorrow, if you please to speak with me,
I will come home to you; or, if you will,
Come home to me, and I will wait for you.

CASSIUS.
I will do so: till then, think of the world.

 [_Exit Brutus._]

Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet I see,
Thy honourable metal may be wrought
From that it is dispos’d: therefore ’tis meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes;
For who so firm that cannot be seduc’d?
Caesar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus.
If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius,
He should not humour me. I will this night,
In several hands, in at his windows throw,
As if they came from several citizens,
Writings, all tending to the great opinion
That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely
Caesar’s ambition shall be glanced at.
And after this, let Caesar seat him sure,
For we will shake him, or worse days endure.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. The same. A street.

 Thunder and lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, Casca with his
 sword drawn, and Cicero.

CICERO.
Good even, Casca: brought you Caesar home?
Why are you breathless, and why stare you so?

CASCA.
Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth
Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv’d the knotty oaks; and I have seen
Th’ ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds:
But never till tonight, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.

CICERO.
Why, saw you anything more wonderful?

CASCA.
A common slave, you’d know him well by sight,
Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches join’d, and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire remain’d unscorch’d.
Besides, I ha’ not since put up my sword,
Against the Capitol I met a lion,
Who glared upon me, and went surly by,
Without annoying me. And there were drawn
Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw
Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets.
And yesterday the bird of night did sit,
Even at noonday upon the marketplace,
Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,
“These are their reasons; they are natural”;
For I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.

CICERO.
Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time.
But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
Comes Caesar to the Capitol tomorrow?

CASCA.
He doth, for he did bid Antonius
Send word to you he would be there tomorrow.

CICERO.
Goodnight then, Casca: this disturbed sky
Is not to walk in.

CASCA.
Farewell, Cicero.

 [_Exit Cicero._]

 Enter Cassius.

CASSIUS.
Who’s there?

CASCA.
A Roman.

CASSIUS.
Casca, by your voice.

CASCA.
Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this!

CASSIUS.
A very pleasing night to honest men.

CASCA.
Who ever knew the heavens menace so?

CASSIUS.
Those that have known the earth so full of faults.
For my part, I have walk’d about the streets,
Submitting me unto the perilous night;
And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,
Have bar’d my bosom to the thunder-stone;
And when the cross blue lightning seem’d to open
The breast of heaven, I did present myself
Even in the aim and very flash of it.

CASCA.
But wherefore did you so much tempt the Heavens?
It is the part of men to fear and tremble,
When the most mighty gods by tokens send
Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.

CASSIUS.
You are dull, Casca; and those sparks of life
That should be in a Roman you do want,
Or else you use not. You look pale and gaze,
And put on fear and cast yourself in wonder,
To see the strange impatience of the Heavens:
But if you would consider the true cause
Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
Why birds and beasts, from quality and kind;
Why old men, fools, and children calculate,
Why all these things change from their ordinance,
Their natures, and pre-formed faculties,
To monstrous quality; why, you shall find
That Heaven hath infus’d them with these spirits,
To make them instruments of fear and warning
Unto some monstrous state.
Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man
Most like this dreadful night,
That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars,
As doth the lion in the Capitol;
A man no mightier than thyself, or me,
In personal action; yet prodigious grown,
And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.

CASCA.
’Tis Caesar that you mean; is it not, Cassius?

CASSIUS.
Let it be who it is: for Romans now
Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;
But, woe the while! our fathers’ minds are dead,
And we are govern’d with our mothers’ spirits;
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

CASCA.
Indeed, they say the senators tomorrow
Mean to establish Caesar as a king;
And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
In every place, save here in Italy.

CASSIUS.
I know where I will wear this dagger then;
Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius:
Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
If I know this, know all the world besides,
That part of tyranny that I do bear
I can shake off at pleasure.

 [_Thunder still._]

CASCA.
So can I:
So every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity.

CASSIUS.
And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?
Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire
Begin it with weak straws. What trash is Rome,
What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves
For the base matter to illuminate
So vile a thing as Caesar! But, O grief,
Where hast thou led me? I, perhaps, speak this
Before a willing bondman: then I know
My answer must be made; but I am arm’d,
And dangers are to me indifferent.

CASCA.
You speak to Casca, and to such a man
That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand:
Be factious for redress of all these griefs,
And I will set this foot of mine as far
As who goes farthest.

CASSIUS.
There’s a bargain made.
Now know you, Casca, I have mov’d already
Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans
To undergo with me an enterprise
Of honourable-dangerous consequence;
And I do know by this, they stay for me
In Pompey’s Porch: for now, this fearful night,
There is no stir or walking in the streets;
And the complexion of the element
In favour’s like the work we have in hand,
Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.

 Enter Cinna.

CASCA.
Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.

CASSIUS.
’Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait;
He is a friend. Cinna, where haste you so?

CINNA.
To find out you. Who’s that? Metellus Cimber?

CASSIUS.
No, it is Casca, one incorporate
To our attempts. Am I not stay’d for, Cinna?

CINNA.
I am glad on’t. What a fearful night is this!
There’s two or three of us have seen strange sights.

CASSIUS.
Am I not stay’d for? tell me.

CINNA.
Yes, you are. O Cassius, if you could
But win the noble Brutus to our party—

CASSIUS.
Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper,
And look you lay it in the praetor’s chair,
Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this
In at his window; set this up with wax
Upon old Brutus’ statue: all this done,
Repair to Pompey’s Porch, where you shall find us.
Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?

CINNA.
All but Metellus Cimber, and he’s gone
To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie,
And so bestow these papers as you bade me.

CASSIUS.
That done, repair to Pompey’s theatre.

 [_Exit Cinna._]

Come, Casca, you and I will yet, ere day,
See Brutus at his house: three parts of him
Is ours already, and the man entire
Upon the next encounter, yields him ours.

CASCA.
O, he sits high in all the people’s hearts!
And that which would appear offence in us,
His countenance, like richest alchemy,
Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

CASSIUS.
Him, and his worth, and our great need of him,
You have right well conceited. Let us go,
For it is after midnight; and ere day,
We will awake him, and be sure of him.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT II

SCENE I. Rome. Brutus’ orchard.

 Enter Brutus.

BRUTUS.
What, Lucius, ho!
I cannot, by the progress of the stars,
Give guess how near to day.—Lucius, I say!
I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly.
When, Lucius, when? Awake, I say! What, Lucius!

 Enter Lucius.

LUCIUS.
Call’d you, my lord?

BRUTUS.
Get me a taper in my study, Lucius:
When it is lighted, come and call me here.

LUCIUS.
I will, my lord.

 [_Exit._]

BRUTUS.
It must be by his death: and for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crown’d:
How that might change his nature, there’s the question.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,
And that craves wary walking. Crown him?—that;
And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
Th’ abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power; and, to speak truth of Caesar,
I have not known when his affections sway’d
More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. So Caesar may;
Then lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel
Will bear no colour for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities:
And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg
Which hatch’d, would, as his kind grow mischievous;
And kill him in the shell.

 Enter Lucius.

LUCIUS.
The taper burneth in your closet, sir.
Searching the window for a flint, I found
This paper, thus seal’d up, and I am sure
It did not lie there when I went to bed.

 [_Gives him the letter._]

BRUTUS.
Get you to bed again; it is not day.
Is not tomorrow, boy, the Ides of March?

LUCIUS.
I know not, sir.

BRUTUS.
Look in the calendar, and bring me word.

LUCIUS.
I will, sir.

 [_Exit._]

BRUTUS.
The exhalations, whizzing in the air
Give so much light that I may read by them.

 [_Opens the letter and reads._]

_Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake and see thyself.
Shall Rome, &c. Speak, strike, redress!_
“Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake!”
Such instigations have been often dropp’d
Where I have took them up.
“Shall Rome, &c.” Thus must I piece it out:
Shall Rome stand under one man’s awe? What, Rome?
My ancestors did from the streets of Rome
The Tarquin drive, when he was call’d a king.
“Speak, strike, redress!” Am I entreated
To speak and strike? O Rome, I make thee promise,
If the redress will follow, thou receivest
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus.

 Enter Lucius.

LUCIUS.
Sir, March is wasted fifteen days.

 [_Knock within._]

BRUTUS.
’Tis good. Go to the gate, somebody knocks.

 [_Exit Lucius._]

Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar,
I have not slept.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.

 Enter Lucius.

LUCIUS.
Sir, ’tis your brother Cassius at the door,
Who doth desire to see you.

BRUTUS.
Is he alone?

LUCIUS.
No, sir, there are moe with him.

BRUTUS.
Do you know them?

LUCIUS.
No, sir, their hats are pluck’d about their ears,
And half their faces buried in their cloaks,
That by no means I may discover them
By any mark of favour.

BRUTUS.
Let ’em enter.

 [_Exit Lucius._]

They are the faction. O conspiracy,
Sham’st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O, then, by day
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy;
Hide it in smiles and affability:
For if thou path, thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention.

 Enter Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus Cimber and Trebonius.

CASSIUS.
I think we are too bold upon your rest:
Good morrow, Brutus; do we trouble you?

BRUTUS.
I have been up this hour, awake all night.
Know I these men that come along with you?

CASSIUS.
Yes, every man of them; and no man here
But honours you; and everyone doth wish
You had but that opinion of yourself
Which every noble Roman bears of you.
This is Trebonius.

BRUTUS.
He is welcome hither.

CASSIUS.
This Decius Brutus.

BRUTUS.
He is welcome too.

CASSIUS.
This, Casca; this, Cinna; and this, Metellus Cimber.

BRUTUS.
They are all welcome.
What watchful cares do interpose themselves
Betwixt your eyes and night?

CASSIUS.
Shall I entreat a word?

 [_They whisper._]

DECIUS.
Here lies the east: doth not the day break here?

CASCA.
No.

CINNA.
O, pardon, sir, it doth; and yon grey lines
That fret the clouds are messengers of day.

CASCA.
You shall confess that you are both deceiv’d.
Here, as I point my sword, the Sun arises;
Which is a great way growing on the South,
Weighing the youthful season of the year.
Some two months hence, up higher toward the North
He first presents his fire; and the high East
Stands, as the Capitol, directly here.

BRUTUS.
Give me your hands all over, one by one.

CASSIUS.
And let us swear our resolution.

BRUTUS.
No, not an oath. If not the face of men,
The sufferance of our souls, the time’s abuse—
If these be motives weak, break off betimes,
And every man hence to his idle bed.
So let high-sighted tyranny range on,
Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,
As I am sure they do, bear fire enough
To kindle cowards, and to steel with valour
The melting spirits of women; then, countrymen,
What need we any spur but our own cause
To prick us to redress? what other bond
Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word,
And will not palter? and what other oath
Than honesty to honesty engag’d,
That this shall be, or we will fall for it?
Swear priests and cowards, and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprise,
Nor th’ insuppressive mettle of our spirits,
To think that or our cause or our performance
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a several bastardy,
If he do break the smallest particle
Of any promise that hath pass’d from him.

CASSIUS.
But what of Cicero? Shall we sound him?
I think he will stand very strong with us.

CASCA.
Let us not leave him out.

CINNA.
No, by no means.

METELLUS.
O, let us have him, for his silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,
And buy men’s voices to commend our deeds.
It shall be said, his judgment rul’d our hands;
Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,
But all be buried in his gravity.

BRUTUS.
O, name him not; let us not break with him;
For he will never follow anything
That other men begin.

CASSIUS.
Then leave him out.

CASCA.
Indeed, he is not fit.

DECIUS.
Shall no man else be touch’d but only Caesar?

CASSIUS.
Decius, well urg’d. I think it is not meet,
Mark Antony, so well belov’d of Caesar,
Should outlive Caesar: we shall find of him
A shrewd contriver; and you know, his means,
If he improve them, may well stretch so far
As to annoy us all; which to prevent,
Let Antony and Caesar fall together.

BRUTUS.
Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,
To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs,
Like wrath in death, and envy afterwards;
For Antony is but a limb of Caesar.
Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar,
And in the spirit of men there is no blood.
O, that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit,
And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,
Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide ’em. This shall mark
Our purpose necessary, and not envious;
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call’d purgers, not murderers.
And for Mark Antony, think not of him;
For he can do no more than Caesar’s arm
When Caesar’s head is off.

CASSIUS.
Yet I fear him;
For in the ingrafted love he bears to Caesar—

BRUTUS.
Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:
If he love Caesar, all that he can do
Is to himself; take thought and die for Caesar.
And that were much he should; for he is given
To sports, to wildness, and much company.

TREBONIUS.
There is no fear in him; let him not die;
For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter.

 [_Clock strikes._]

BRUTUS.
Peace! count the clock.

CASSIUS.
The clock hath stricken three.

TREBONIUS.
’Tis time to part.

CASSIUS.
But it is doubtful yet
Whether Caesar will come forth today or no;
For he is superstitious grown of late,
Quite from the main opinion he held once
Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies.
It may be these apparent prodigies,
The unaccustom’d terror of this night,
And the persuasion of his augurers,
May hold him from the Capitol today.

DECIUS.
Never fear that: if he be so resolved,
I can o’ersway him, for he loves to hear
That unicorns may be betray’d with trees,
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers.
But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
Let me work;
For I can give his humour the true bent,
And I will bring him to the Capitol.

CASSIUS.
Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him.

BRUTUS.
By the eighth hour: is that the uttermost?

CINNA.
Be that the uttermost; and fail not then.

METELLUS.
Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard,
Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey;
I wonder none of you have thought of him.

BRUTUS.
Now, good Metellus, go along by him:
He loves me well, and I have given him reason;
Send him but hither, and I’ll fashion him.

CASSIUS.
The morning comes upon’s. We’ll leave you, Brutus.
And, friends, disperse yourselves; but all remember
What you have said, and show yourselves true Romans.

BRUTUS.
Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily;
Let not our looks put on our purposes,
But bear it as our Roman actors do,
With untired spirits and formal constancy.
And so, good morrow to you everyone.

 [_Exeunt all but Brutus._]

Boy! Lucius! Fast asleep? It is no matter;
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber:
Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,
Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou sleep’st so sound.

 Enter Portia.

PORTIA.
Brutus, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Portia, what mean you? Wherefore rise you now?
It is not for your health thus to commit
Your weak condition to the raw cold morning.

PORTIA.
Nor for yours neither. Y’ have ungently, Brutus,
Stole from my bed; and yesternight at supper,
You suddenly arose, and walk’d about,
Musing and sighing, with your arms across;
And when I ask’d you what the matter was,
You star’d upon me with ungentle looks.
I urg’d you further; then you scratch’d your head,
And too impatiently stamp’d with your foot;
Yet I insisted, yet you answer’d not,
But with an angry wafture of your hand
Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did,
Fearing to strengthen that impatience
Which seem’d too much enkindled; and withal
Hoping it was but an effect of humour,
Which sometime hath his hour with every man.
It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep;
And could it work so much upon your shape
As it hath much prevail’d on your condition,
I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord,
Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.

BRUTUS.
I am not well in health, and that is all.

PORTIA.
Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health,
He would embrace the means to come by it.

BRUTUS.
Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed.

PORTIA.
Is Brutus sick, and is it physical
To walk unbraced and suck up the humours
Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick,
And will he steal out of his wholesome bed
To dare the vile contagion of the night,
And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air
To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus;
You have some sick offence within your mind,
Which, by the right and virtue of my place,
I ought to know of: and, upon my knees,
I charm you, by my once commended beauty,
By all your vows of love, and that great vow
Which did incorporate and make us one,
That you unfold to me, your self, your half,
Why you are heavy, and what men tonight
Have had resort to you; for here have been
Some six or seven, who did hide their faces
Even from darkness.

BRUTUS.
Kneel not, gentle Portia.

PORTIA.
I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.
Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,
Is it excepted I should know no secrets
That appertain to you? Am I your self
But, as it were, in sort or limitation,
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,
And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs
Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,
Portia is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife.

BRUTUS.
You are my true and honourable wife,
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.

PORTIA.
If this were true, then should I know this secret.
I grant I am a woman; but withal
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife;
I grant I am a woman; but withal
A woman well reputed, Cato’s daughter.
Think you I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so father’d and so husbanded?
Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose ’em.
I have made strong proof of my constancy,
Giving myself a voluntary wound
Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience
And not my husband’s secrets?

BRUTUS.
O ye gods,
Render me worthy of this noble wife!

 [_Knock._]

Hark, hark, one knocks. Portia, go in awhile;
And by and by thy bosom shall partake
The secrets of my heart.
All my engagements I will construe to thee,
All the charactery of my sad brows.
Leave me with haste.

 [_Exit Portia._]

 Enter Lucius with Ligarius.

Lucius, who’s that knocks?

LUCIUS.
Here is a sick man that would speak with you.

BRUTUS.
Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of.
Boy, stand aside. Caius Ligarius, how?

LIGARIUS.
Vouchsafe good-morrow from a feeble tongue.

BRUTUS.
O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius,
To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick!

LIGARIUS.
I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand
Any exploit worthy the name of honour.

BRUTUS.
Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius,
Had you a healthful ear to hear of it.

LIGARIUS.
By all the gods that Romans bow before,
I here discard my sickness. Soul of Rome!
Brave son, derived from honourable loins!
Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjur’d up
My mortified spirit. Now bid me run,
And I will strive with things impossible,
Yea, get the better of them. What’s to do?

BRUTUS.
A piece of work that will make sick men whole.

LIGARIUS.
But are not some whole that we must make sick?

BRUTUS.
That must we also. What it is, my Caius,
I shall unfold to thee, as we are going,
To whom it must be done.

LIGARIUS.
Set on your foot,
And with a heart new-fir’d I follow you,
To do I know not what; but it sufficeth
That Brutus leads me on.

 [_Thunder._]

BRUTUS.
Follow me then.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A room in Caesar’s palace.

 Thunder and lightning. Enter Caesar, in his nightgown.

CAESAR.
Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace tonight:
Thrice hath Calphurnia in her sleep cried out,
“Help, ho! They murder Caesar!” Who’s within?

 Enter a Servant.

SERVANT.
My lord?

CAESAR.
Go bid the priests do present sacrifice,
And bring me their opinions of success.

SERVANT.
I will, my lord.

 [_Exit._]

 Enter Calphurnia.

CALPHURNIA.
What mean you, Caesar? Think you to walk forth?
You shall not stir out of your house today.

CAESAR.
Caesar shall forth. The things that threaten’d me
Ne’er look’d but on my back; when they shall see
The face of Caesar, they are vanished.

CALPHURNIA.
Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies,
Yet now they fright me. There is one within,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets,
And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead;
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan,
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.
O Caesar, these things are beyond all use,
And I do fear them!

CAESAR.
What can be avoided
Whose end is purpos’d by the mighty gods?
Yet Caesar shall go forth; for these predictions
Are to the world in general as to Caesar.

CALPHURNIA.
When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

CAESAR.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

 Enter Servant.

What say the augurers?

SERVANT.
They would not have you to stir forth today.
Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,
They could not find a heart within the beast.

CAESAR.
The gods do this in shame of cowardice:
Caesar should be a beast without a heart
If he should stay at home today for fear.
No, Caesar shall not. Danger knows full well
That Caesar is more dangerous than he.
We are two lions litter’d in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible,
And Caesar shall go forth.

CALPHURNIA.
Alas, my lord,
Your wisdom is consum’d in confidence.
Do not go forth today: call it my fear
That keeps you in the house, and not your own.
We’ll send Mark Antony to the Senate-house,
And he shall say you are not well today.
Let me upon my knee prevail in this.

CAESAR.
Mark Antony shall say I am not well,
And for thy humour, I will stay at home.

 Enter Decius.

Here’s Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so.

DECIUS.
Caesar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy Caesar.
I come to fetch you to the Senate-house.

CAESAR.
And you are come in very happy time
To bear my greeting to the Senators,
And tell them that I will not come today.
Cannot, is false; and that I dare not, falser:
I will not come today. Tell them so, Decius.

CALPHURNIA.
Say he is sick.

CAESAR.
Shall Caesar send a lie?
Have I in conquest stretch’d mine arm so far,
To be afeard to tell grey-beards the truth?
Decius, go tell them Caesar will not come.

DECIUS.
Most mighty Caesar, let me know some cause,
Lest I be laugh’d at when I tell them so.

CAESAR.
The cause is in my will; I will not come.
That is enough to satisfy the Senate.
But for your private satisfaction,
Because I love you, I will let you know:
Calphurnia here, my wife, stays me at home.
She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,
Which like a fountain with an hundred spouts
Did run pure blood; and many lusty Romans
Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it.
And these does she apply for warnings and portents
And evils imminent; and on her knee
Hath begg’d that I will stay at home today.

DECIUS.
This dream is all amiss interpreted:
It was a vision fair and fortunate.
Your statue spouting blood in many pipes,
In which so many smiling Romans bath’d,
Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck
Reviving blood, and that great men shall press
For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance.
This by Calphurnia’s dream is signified.

CAESAR.
And this way have you well expounded it.

DECIUS.
I have, when you have heard what I can say;
And know it now. The Senate have concluded
To give this day a crown to mighty Caesar.
If you shall send them word you will not come,
Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock
Apt to be render’d, for someone to say,
“Break up the Senate till another time,
When Caesar’s wife shall meet with better dreams.”
If Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper
“Lo, Caesar is afraid”?
Pardon me, Caesar; for my dear dear love
To your proceeding bids me tell you this,
And reason to my love is liable.

CAESAR.
How foolish do your fears seem now, Calphurnia!
I am ashamed I did yield to them.
Give me my robe, for I will go.

 Enter Brutus, Ligarius, Metellus, Casca, Trebonius, Cinna and Publius.

And look where Publius is come to fetch me.

PUBLIUS.
Good morrow, Caesar.

CAESAR.
Welcome, Publius.
What, Brutus, are you stirr’d so early too?
Good morrow, Casca. Caius Ligarius,
Caesar was ne’er so much your enemy
As that same ague which hath made you lean.
What is’t o’clock?

BRUTUS.
Caesar, ’tis strucken eight.

CAESAR.
I thank you for your pains and courtesy.

 Enter Antony.

See! Antony, that revels long a-nights,
Is notwithstanding up. Good morrow, Antony.

ANTONY.
So to most noble Caesar.

CAESAR.
Bid them prepare within.
I am to blame to be thus waited for.
Now, Cinna; now, Metellus; what, Trebonius!
I have an hour’s talk in store for you:
Remember that you call on me today;
Be near me, that I may remember you.

TREBONIUS.
Caesar, I will. [_Aside._] and so near will I be,
That your best friends shall wish I had been further.

CAESAR.
Good friends, go in, and taste some wine with me;
And we, like friends, will straightway go together.

BRUTUS.
[_Aside._] That every like is not the same, O Caesar,
The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. A street near the Capitol.

 Enter Artemidorus, reading a paper.

ARTEMIDORUS.
_“Caesar, beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius; come not near Casca;
have an eye to Cinna; trust not Trebonius; mark well Metellus Cimber;
Decius Brutus loves thee not; thou hast wrong’d Caius Ligarius. There
is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent against Caesar. If
thou be’st not immortal, look about you: security gives way to
conspiracy. The mighty gods defend thee!
Thy lover, Artemidorus.”_
Here will I stand till Caesar pass along,
And as a suitor will I give him this.
My heart laments that virtue cannot live
Out of the teeth of emulation.
If thou read this, O Caesar, thou mayest live;
If not, the Fates with traitors do contrive.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE IV. Another part of the same street, before the house of Brutus.

 Enter Portia and Lucius.

PORTIA.
I pr’ythee, boy, run to the Senate-house;
Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone.
Why dost thou stay?

LUCIUS.
To know my errand, madam.

PORTIA.
I would have had thee there and here again,
Ere I can tell thee what thou shouldst do there.
[_Aside._] O constancy, be strong upon my side,
Set a huge mountain ’tween my heart and tongue!
I have a man’s mind, but a woman’s might.
How hard it is for women to keep counsel!
Art thou here yet?

LUCIUS.
Madam, what should I do?
Run to the Capitol, and nothing else?
And so return to you, and nothing else?

PORTIA.
Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well,
For he went sickly forth: and take good note
What Caesar doth, what suitors press to him.
Hark, boy, what noise is that?

LUCIUS.
I hear none, madam.

PORTIA.
Pr’ythee, listen well.
I heard a bustling rumour, like a fray,
And the wind brings it from the Capitol.

LUCIUS.
Sooth, madam, I hear nothing.

 Enter the Soothsayer.

PORTIA.
Come hither, fellow:
Which way hast thou been?

SOOTHSAYER.
At mine own house, good lady.

PORTIA.
What is’t o’clock?

SOOTHSAYER.
About the ninth hour, lady.

PORTIA.
Is Caesar yet gone to the Capitol?

SOOTHSAYER.
Madam, not yet. I go to take my stand,
To see him pass on to the Capitol.

PORTIA.
Thou hast some suit to Caesar, hast thou not?

SOOTHSAYER.
That I have, lady, if it will please Caesar
To be so good to Caesar as to hear me,
I shall beseech him to befriend himself.

PORTIA.
Why, know’st thou any harm’s intended towards him?

SOOTHSAYER.
None that I know will be, much that I fear may chance.
Good morrow to you. Here the street is narrow.
The throng that follows Caesar at the heels,
Of Senators, of Praetors, common suitors,
Will crowd a feeble man almost to death:
I’ll get me to a place more void, and there
Speak to great Caesar as he comes along.

 [_Exit._]

PORTIA.
I must go in.
[_Aside._] Ay me, how weak a thing
The heart of woman is! O Brutus,
The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise!
Sure, the boy heard me. Brutus hath a suit
That Caesar will not grant. O, I grow faint.
Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord;
Say I am merry; come to me again,
And bring me word what he doth say to thee.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT III

SCENE I. Rome. Before the Capitol; the Senate sitting.

 A crowd of people in the street leading to the Capitol. Flourish.
 Enter Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Metellus, Trebonius,
 Cinna, Antony, Lepidus, Artemidorus, Publius, Popilius and the
 Soothsayer.

CAESAR.
The Ides of March are come.

SOOTHSAYER.
Ay, Caesar; but not gone.

ARTEMIDORUS.
Hail, Caesar! Read this schedule.

DECIUS.
Trebonius doth desire you to o’er-read,
At your best leisure, this his humble suit.

ARTEMIDORUS.
O Caesar, read mine first; for mine’s a suit
That touches Caesar nearer. Read it, great Caesar.

CAESAR.
What touches us ourself shall be last serv’d.

ARTEMIDORUS.
Delay not, Caesar. Read it instantly.

CAESAR.
What, is the fellow mad?

PUBLIUS.
Sirrah, give place.

CASSIUS.
What, urge you your petitions in the street?
Come to the Capitol.

Caesar enters the Capitol, the rest following. All the Senators rise.

POPILIUS.
I wish your enterprise today may thrive.

CASSIUS.
What enterprise, Popilius?

POPILIUS.
Fare you well.

 [_Advances to Caesar._]

BRUTUS.
What said Popilius Lena?

CASSIUS.
He wish’d today our enterprise might thrive.
I fear our purpose is discovered.

BRUTUS.
Look how he makes to Caesar: mark him.

CASSIUS.
Casca, be sudden, for we fear prevention.
Brutus, what shall be done? If this be known,
Cassius or Caesar never shall turn back,
For I will slay myself.

BRUTUS.
Cassius, be constant:
Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes;
For look, he smiles, and Caesar doth not change.

CASSIUS.
Trebonius knows his time, for look you, Brutus,
He draws Mark Antony out of the way.

 [_Exeunt Antony and Trebonius. Caesar and the Senators take their
 seats._]

DECIUS.
Where is Metellus Cimber? Let him go,
And presently prefer his suit to Caesar.

BRUTUS.
He is address’d; press near and second him.

CINNA.
Casca, you are the first that rears your hand.

CAESAR.
Are we all ready? What is now amiss
That Caesar and his Senate must redress?

METELLUS.
Most high, most mighty, and most puissant Caesar,
Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat
An humble heart.

 [_Kneeling._]

CAESAR.
I must prevent thee, Cimber.
These couchings and these lowly courtesies
Might fire the blood of ordinary men,
And turn pre-ordinance and first decree
Into the law of children. Be not fond,
To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood
That will be thaw’d from the true quality
With that which melteth fools; I mean sweet words,
Low-crooked curtsies, and base spaniel fawning.
Thy brother by decree is banished:
If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him,
I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.
Know, Caesar dost not wrong, nor without cause
Will he be satisfied.

METELLUS.
Is there no voice more worthy than my own,
To sound more sweetly in great Caesar’s ear
For the repealing of my banish’d brother?

BRUTUS.
I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar;
Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may
Have an immediate freedom of repeal.

CAESAR.
What, Brutus?

CASSIUS.
Pardon, Caesar; Caesar, pardon:
As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall,
To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber.

CAESAR.
I could be well mov’d, if I were as you;
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumber’d sparks,
They are all fire, and every one doth shine;
But there’s but one in all doth hold his place.
So in the world; ’tis furnish’d well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshak’d of motion: and that I am he,
Let me a little show it, even in this,
That I was constant Cimber should be banish’d,
And constant do remain to keep him so.

CINNA.
O Caesar,—

CAESAR.
Hence! wilt thou lift up Olympus?

DECIUS.
Great Caesar,—

CAESAR.
Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?

CASCA.
Speak, hands, for me!

 [_Casca stabs Caesar in the neck. Caesar catches hold of his arm. He
 is then stabbed by several other Conspirators, and at last by Marcus
 Brutus._]

CAESAR.
_Et tu, Brute?_—Then fall, Caesar!

 [_Dies. The Senators and People retire in confusion._]

CINNA.
Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.

CASSIUS.
Some to the common pulpits and cry out,
“Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!”

BRUTUS.
People and Senators, be not affrighted.
Fly not; stand still; ambition’s debt is paid.

CASCA.
Go to the pulpit, Brutus.

DECIUS.
And Cassius too.

BRUTUS.
Where’s Publius?

CINNA.
Here, quite confounded with this mutiny.

METELLUS.
Stand fast together, lest some friend of Caesar’s
Should chance—

BRUTUS.
Talk not of standing. Publius, good cheer!
There is no harm intended to your person,
Nor to no Roman else. So tell them, Publius.

CASSIUS.
And leave us, Publius; lest that the people
Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief.

BRUTUS.
Do so; and let no man abide this deed
But we the doers.

 Enter Trebonius.

CASSIUS.
Where’s Antony?

TREBONIUS.
Fled to his house amaz’d.
Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run,
As it were doomsday.

BRUTUS.
Fates, we will know your pleasures.
That we shall die, we know; ’tis but the time
And drawing days out, that men stand upon.

CASCA.
Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life
Cuts off so many years of fearing death.

BRUTUS.
Grant that, and then is death a benefit:
So are we Caesar’s friends, that have abridg’d
His time of fearing death. Stoop, Romans, stoop,
And let us bathe our hands in Caesar’s blood
Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords:
Then walk we forth, even to the market-place,
And waving our red weapons o’er our heads,
Let’s all cry, “Peace, freedom, and liberty!”

CASSIUS.
Stoop then, and wash. How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In States unborn, and accents yet unknown!

BRUTUS.
How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,
That now on Pompey’s basis lies along,
No worthier than the dust!

CASSIUS.
So oft as that shall be,
So often shall the knot of us be call’d
The men that gave their country liberty.

DECIUS.
What, shall we forth?

CASSIUS.
Ay, every man away.
Brutus shall lead; and we will grace his heels
With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome.

 Enter a Servant.

BRUTUS.
Soft, who comes here? A friend of Antony’s.

SERVANT.
Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel;
Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down;
And, being prostrate, thus he bade me say:
Brutus is noble, wise, valiant, and honest;
Caesar was mighty, bold, royal, and loving;
Say I love Brutus and I honour him;
Say I fear’d Caesar, honour’d him, and lov’d him.
If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony
May safely come to him, and be resolv’d
How Caesar hath deserv’d to lie in death,
Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead
So well as Brutus living; but will follow
The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus
Thorough the hazards of this untrod state,
With all true faith. So says my master Antony.

BRUTUS.
Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman;
I never thought him worse.
Tell him, so please him come unto this place,
He shall be satisfied and, by my honour,
Depart untouch’d.

SERVANT.
I’ll fetch him presently.

 [_Exit._]

BRUTUS.
I know that we shall have him well to friend.

CASSIUS.
I wish we may: but yet have I a mind
That fears him much; and my misgiving still
Falls shrewdly to the purpose.

 Enter Antony.

BRUTUS.
But here comes Antony. Welcome, Mark Antony.

ANTONY.
O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low?
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well.
I know not, gentlemen, what you intend,
Who else must be let blood, who else is rank:
If I myself, there is no hour so fit
As Caesar’s death’s hour; nor no instrument
Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich
With the most noble blood of all this world.
I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard,
Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke,
Fulfill your pleasure. Live a thousand years,
I shall not find myself so apt to die.
No place will please me so, no means of death,
As here by Caesar, and by you cut off,
The choice and master spirits of this age.

BRUTUS.
O Antony, beg not your death of us.
Though now we must appear bloody and cruel,
As by our hands and this our present act
You see we do; yet see you but our hands
And this the bleeding business they have done.
Our hearts you see not; they are pitiful;
And pity to the general wrong of Rome—
As fire drives out fire, so pity pity—
Hath done this deed on Caesar. For your part,
To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony;
Our arms in strength of malice, and our hearts
Of brothers’ temper, do receive you in
With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence.

CASSIUS.
Your voice shall be as strong as any man’s
In the disposing of new dignities.

BRUTUS.
Only be patient till we have appeas’d
The multitude, beside themselves with fear,
And then we will deliver you the cause
Why I, that did love Caesar when I struck him,
Have thus proceeded.

ANTONY.
I doubt not of your wisdom.
Let each man render me his bloody hand.
First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you;
Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand.
Now, Decius Brutus, yours; now yours, Metellus;
Yours, Cinna; and, my valiant Casca, yours;
Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius.
Gentlemen all—alas, what shall I say?
My credit now stands on such slippery ground,
That one of two bad ways you must conceit me,
Either a coward or a flatterer.
That I did love thee, Caesar, O, ’tis true:
If then thy spirit look upon us now,
Shall it not grieve thee dearer than thy death,
To see thy Antony making his peace,
Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes,
Most noble, in the presence of thy corse?
Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds,
Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood,
It would become me better than to close
In terms of friendship with thine enemies.
Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bay’d, brave hart;
Here didst thou fall; and here thy hunters stand,
Sign’d in thy spoil, and crimson’d in thy lethe.
O world, thou wast the forest to this hart;
And this indeed, O world, the heart of thee.
How like a deer strucken by many princes,
Dost thou here lie!

CASSIUS.
Mark Antony,—

ANTONY.
Pardon me, Caius Cassius:
The enemies of Caesar shall say this;
Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty.

CASSIUS.
I blame you not for praising Caesar so;
But what compact mean you to have with us?
Will you be prick’d in number of our friends,
Or shall we on, and not depend on you?

ANTONY.
Therefore I took your hands; but was indeed
Sway’d from the point, by looking down on Caesar.
Friends am I with you all, and love you all,
Upon this hope, that you shall give me reasons
Why, and wherein, Caesar was dangerous.

BRUTUS.
Or else were this a savage spectacle.
Our reasons are so full of good regard
That were you, Antony, the son of Caesar,
You should be satisfied.

ANTONY.
That’s all I seek,
And am moreover suitor that I may
Produce his body to the market-place;
And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend,
Speak in the order of his funeral.

BRUTUS.
You shall, Mark Antony.

CASSIUS.
Brutus, a word with you.
[_Aside to Brutus._] You know not what you do. Do not consent
That Antony speak in his funeral.
Know you how much the people may be mov’d
By that which he will utter?

BRUTUS.
[_Aside to Cassius._] By your pardon:
I will myself into the pulpit first,
And show the reason of our Caesar’s death.
What Antony shall speak, I will protest
He speaks by leave and by permission;
And that we are contented Caesar shall
Have all true rights and lawful ceremonies.
It shall advantage more than do us wrong.

CASSIUS.
[_Aside to Brutus._] I know not what may fall; I like it not.

BRUTUS.
Mark Antony, here, take you Caesar’s body.
You shall not in your funeral speech blame us,
But speak all good you can devise of Caesar,
And say you do’t by our permission;
Else shall you not have any hand at all
About his funeral. And you shall speak
In the same pulpit whereto I am going,
After my speech is ended.

ANTONY.
Be it so;
I do desire no more.

BRUTUS.
Prepare the body, then, and follow us.

 [_Exeunt all but Antony._]

ANTONY.
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,
Which, like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue,
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quartered with the hands of war;
All pity chok’d with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from Hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

 Enter a Servant.

You serve Octavius Caesar, do you not?

SERVANT.
I do, Mark Antony.

ANTONY.
Caesar did write for him to come to Rome.

SERVANT.
He did receive his letters, and is coming,
And bid me say to you by word of mouth,—
[_Seeing the body._] O Caesar!

ANTONY.
Thy heart is big, get thee apart and weep.
Passion, I see, is catching; for mine eyes,
Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine,
Began to water. Is thy master coming?

SERVANT.
He lies tonight within seven leagues of Rome.

ANTONY.
Post back with speed, and tell him what hath chanc’d.
Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome,
No Rome of safety for Octavius yet.
Hie hence, and tell him so. Yet stay awhile;
Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse
Into the market-place: there shall I try,
In my oration, how the people take
The cruel issue of these bloody men;
According to the which thou shalt discourse
To young Octavius of the state of things.
Lend me your hand.

 [_Exeunt with Caesar’s body._]

SCENE II. The same. The Forum.

 Enter Brutus and goes into the pulpit, and Cassius, with a throng of
 Citizens.

CITIZENS.
We will be satisfied; let us be satisfied.

BRUTUS.
Then follow me, and give me audience, friends.
Cassius, go you into the other street
And part the numbers.
Those that will hear me speak, let ’em stay here;
Those that will follow Cassius, go with him;
And public reasons shall be rendered
Of Caesar’s death.

FIRST CITIZEN.
I will hear Brutus speak.

SECOND CITIZEN.
I will hear Cassius; and compare their reasons,
When severally we hear them rendered.

 [_Exit Cassius, with some of the Citizens. Brutus goes into the
 rostrum._]

THIRD CITIZEN.
The noble Brutus is ascended: silence!

BRUTUS.
Be patient till the last.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause; and be silent,
that you may hear. Believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine
honour, that you may believe. Censure me in your wisdom, and awake your
senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this
assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ love
to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus
rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less,
but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living, and die
all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar
loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he
was valiant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There
is tears, for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and
death, for his ambition. Who is here so base, that would be a bondman?
If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude, that would
not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so
vile, that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I
offended. I pause for a reply.

CITIZENS.
None, Brutus, none.

BRUTUS.
Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Caesar than you shall
do to Brutus. The question of his death is enroll’d in the Capitol, his
glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor his offences enforc’d,
for which he suffered death.

 Enter Antony and others, with Caesar’s body.

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony, who, though he had no hand
in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the
commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart, that, as I
slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for
myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.

CITIZENS.
Live, Brutus! live, live!

FIRST CITIZEN.
Bring him with triumph home unto his house.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Give him a statue with his ancestors.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Let him be Caesar.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Caesar’s better parts
Shall be crown’d in Brutus.

FIRST CITIZEN.
We’ll bring him to his house with shouts and clamours.

BRUTUS.
My countrymen,—

SECOND CITIZEN.
Peace! Silence! Brutus speaks.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Peace, ho!

BRUTUS.
Good countrymen, let me depart alone,
And, for my sake, stay here with Antony.
Do grace to Caesar’s corpse, and grace his speech
Tending to Caesar’s glories, which Mark Antony,
By our permission, is allow’d to make.
I do entreat you, not a man depart,
Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.

 [_Exit._]

FIRST CITIZEN.
Stay, ho! and let us hear Mark Antony.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Let him go up into the public chair.
We’ll hear him. Noble Antony, go up.

ANTONY.
For Brutus’ sake, I am beholding to you.

 [_Goes up._]

FOURTH CITIZEN.
What does he say of Brutus?

THIRD CITIZEN.
He says, for Brutus’ sake
He finds himself beholding to us all.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
’Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here!

FIRST CITIZEN.
This Caesar was a tyrant.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Nay, that’s certain.
We are blest that Rome is rid of him.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Peace! let us hear what Antony can say.

ANTONY.
You gentle Romans,—

CITIZENS.
Peace, ho! let us hear him.

ANTONY.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all, all honourable men,
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And sure he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me.
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Methinks there is much reason in his sayings.

SECOND CITIZEN.
If thou consider rightly of the matter,
Caesar has had great wrong.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Has he, masters?
I fear there will a worse come in his place.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Mark’d ye his words? He would not take the crown;
Therefore ’tis certain he was not ambitious.

FIRST CITIZEN.
If it be found so, some will dear abide it.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Poor soul, his eyes are red as fire with weeping.

THIRD CITIZEN.
There’s not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Now mark him; he begins again to speak.

ANTONY.
But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
O masters! If I were dispos’d to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honourable men.
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honourable men.
But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar,
I found it in his closet; ’tis his will:
Let but the commons hear this testament,
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,
And they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
We’ll hear the will. Read it, Mark Antony.

CITIZENS.
The will, the will! We will hear Caesar’s will.

ANTONY.
Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it.
It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you.
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;
And being men, hearing the will of Caesar,
It will inflame you, it will make you mad.
’Tis good you know not that you are his heirs;
For if you should, O, what would come of it?

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Read the will! We’ll hear it, Antony;
You shall read us the will, Caesar’s will!

ANTONY.
Will you be patient? Will you stay awhile?
I have o’ershot myself to tell you of it.
I fear I wrong the honourable men
Whose daggers have stabb’d Caesar; I do fear it.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
They were traitors. Honourable men!

CITIZENS.
The will! The testament!

SECOND CITIZEN.
They were villains, murderers. The will! Read the will!

ANTONY.
You will compel me then to read the will?
Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar,
And let me show you him that made the will.
Shall I descend? and will you give me leave?

CITIZENS.
Come down.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Descend.

 [_He comes down._]

THIRD CITIZEN.
You shall have leave.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
A ring! Stand round.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Stand from the hearse, stand from the body.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Room for Antony, most noble Antony!

ANTONY.
Nay, press not so upon me; stand far off.

CITIZENS.
Stand back; room! bear back.

ANTONY.
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle. I remember
The first time ever Caesar put it on;
’Twas on a Summer’s evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii.
Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through:
See what a rent the envious Casca made:
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb’d;
And as he pluck’d his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Caesar follow’d it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolv’d
If Brutus so unkindly knock’d, or no;
For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel.
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar lov’d him.
This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms,
Quite vanquish’d him: then burst his mighty heart;
And in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey’s statue
Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourish’d over us.
O, now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity. These are gracious drops.
Kind souls, what weep you when you but behold
Our Caesar’s vesture wounded? Look you here,
Here is himself, marr’d, as you see, with traitors.

FIRST CITIZEN.
O piteous spectacle!

SECOND CITIZEN.
O noble Caesar!

THIRD CITIZEN.
O woeful day!

FOURTH CITIZEN.
O traitors, villains!

FIRST CITIZEN.
O most bloody sight!

SECOND CITIZEN.
We will be revenged.

CITIZENS.
Revenge,—about,—seek,—burn,—fire,—kill,—slay,—let not a traitor live!

ANTONY.
Stay, countrymen.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Peace there! Hear the noble Antony.

SECOND CITIZEN.
We’ll hear him, we’ll follow him, we’ll die with him.

ANTONY.
Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
They that have done this deed are honourable.
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,
That made them do it. They’re wise and honourable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts.
I am no orator, as Brutus is;
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That love my friend; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him.
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men’s blood. I only speak right on.
I tell you that which you yourselves do know,
Show you sweet Caesar’s wounds, poor poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Caesar, that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

CITIZENS.
We’ll mutiny.

FIRST CITIZEN.
We’ll burn the house of Brutus.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Away, then! come, seek the conspirators.

ANTONY.
Yet hear me, countrymen; yet hear me speak.

CITIZENS.
Peace, ho! Hear Antony; most noble Antony.

ANTONY.
Why, friends, you go to do you know not what.
Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your loves?
Alas, you know not; I must tell you then.
You have forgot the will I told you of.

CITIZENS.
Most true; the will!—let’s stay, and hear the will.

ANTONY.
Here is the will, and under Caesar’s seal.
To every Roman citizen he gives,
To every several man, seventy-five drachmas.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Most noble Caesar! We’ll revenge his death.

THIRD CITIZEN.
O, royal Caesar!

ANTONY.
Hear me with patience.

CITIZENS.
Peace, ho!

ANTONY.
Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbors, and new-planted orchards,
On this side Tiber; he hath left them you,
And to your heirs forever; common pleasures,
To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.
Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?

FIRST CITIZEN.
Never, never. Come, away, away!
We’ll burn his body in the holy place,
And with the brands fire the traitors’ houses.
Take up the body.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Go, fetch fire.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Pluck down benches.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Pluck down forms, windows, anything.

 [_Exeunt Citizens, with the body._]

ANTONY.
Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot,
Take thou what course thou wilt!

 Enter a Servant.

How now, fellow?

SERVANT.
Sir, Octavius is already come to Rome.

ANTONY.
Where is he?

SERVANT.
He and Lepidus are at Caesar’s house.

ANTONY.
And thither will I straight to visit him.
He comes upon a wish. Fortune is merry,
And in this mood will give us anything.

SERVANT.
I heard him say Brutus and Cassius
Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome.

ANTONY.
Belike they had some notice of the people,
How I had moved them. Bring me to Octavius.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. The same. A street.

 Enter Cinna, the poet, and after him the citizens.

CINNA.
I dreamt tonight that I did feast with Caesar,
And things unluckily charge my fantasy.
I have no will to wander forth of doors,
Yet something leads me forth.

FIRST CITIZEN.
What is your name?

SECOND CITIZEN.
Whither are you going?

THIRD CITIZEN.
Where do you dwell?

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Are you a married man or a bachelor?

SECOND CITIZEN.
Answer every man directly.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Ay, and briefly.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Ay, and wisely.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Ay, and truly, you were best.

CINNA.
What is my name? Whither am I going? Where do I dwell? Am I a married
man or a bachelor? Then, to answer every man directly and briefly,
wisely and truly. Wisely I say I am a bachelor.

SECOND CITIZEN.
That’s as much as to say they are fools that marry; you’ll bear me a
bang for that, I fear. Proceed, directly.

CINNA.
Directly, I am going to Caesar’s funeral.

FIRST CITIZEN.
As a friend, or an enemy?

CINNA.
As a friend.

SECOND CITIZEN.
That matter is answered directly.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
For your dwelling, briefly.

CINNA.
Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Your name, sir, truly.

CINNA.
Truly, my name is Cinna.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Tear him to pieces! He’s a conspirator.

CINNA.
I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.

CINNA.
I am not Cinna the conspirator.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
It is no matter, his name’s Cinna; pluck but his name out of his heart,
and turn him going.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Tear him, tear him! Come; brands, ho! firebrands. To Brutus’, to
Cassius’; burn all. Some to Decius’ house, and some to Casca’s, some to
Ligarius’. Away, go!

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT IV

SCENE I. Rome. A room in Antony’s house.

 Enter Antony, Octavius and Lepidus, seated at a table.

ANTONY.
These many then shall die; their names are prick’d.

OCTAVIUS.
Your brother too must die; consent you, Lepidus?

LEPIDUS.
I do consent,—

OCTAVIUS.
Prick him down, Antony.

LEPIDUS.
Upon condition Publius shall not live,
Who is your sister’s son, Mark Antony.

ANTONY.
He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him.
But, Lepidus, go you to Caesar’s house;
Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine
How to cut off some charge in legacies.

LEPIDUS.
What, shall I find you here?

OCTAVIUS.
Or here, or at the Capitol.

 [_Exit Lepidus._]

ANTONY.
This is a slight unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands. Is it fit,
The three-fold world divided, he should stand
One of the three to share it?

OCTAVIUS.
So you thought him,
And took his voice who should be prick’d to die
In our black sentence and proscription.

ANTONY.
Octavius, I have seen more days than you;
And though we lay these honours on this man,
To ease ourselves of divers sland’rous loads,
He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold,
To groan and sweat under the business,
Either led or driven, as we point the way;
And having brought our treasure where we will,
Then take we down his load, and turn him off,
Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears,
And graze in commons.

OCTAVIUS.
You may do your will;
But he’s a tried and valiant soldier.

ANTONY.
So is my horse, Octavius; and for that
I do appoint him store of provender.
It is a creature that I teach to fight,
To wind, to stop, to run directly on,
His corporal motion govern’d by my spirit.
And, in some taste, is Lepidus but so:
He must be taught, and train’d, and bid go forth:
A barren-spirited fellow; one that feeds
On objects, arts, and imitations,
Which, out of use and stal’d by other men,
Begin his fashion. Do not talk of him
But as a property. And now, Octavius,
Listen great things. Brutus and Cassius
Are levying powers; we must straight make head.
Therefore let our alliance be combin’d,
Our best friends made, our means stretch’d;
And let us presently go sit in council,
How covert matters may be best disclos’d,
And open perils surest answered.

OCTAVIUS.
Let us do so: for we are at the stake,
And bay’d about with many enemies;
And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear,
Millions of mischiefs.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Before Brutus’ tent, in the camp near Sardis.

 Drum. Enter  Brutus, Lucilius, Titinius and Soldiers; Pindarus meeting
 them; Lucius at some distance.

BRUTUS.
Stand, ho!

LUCILIUS.
Give the word, ho! and stand.

BRUTUS.
What now, Lucilius! is Cassius near?

LUCILIUS.
He is at hand, and Pindarus is come
To do you salutation from his master.

 [_Pindarus gives a letter to Brutus._]

BRUTUS.
He greets me well. Your master, Pindarus,
In his own change, or by ill officers,
Hath given me some worthy cause to wish
Things done, undone: but, if he be at hand,
I shall be satisfied.

PINDARUS.
I do not doubt
But that my noble master will appear
Such as he is, full of regard and honour.

BRUTUS.
He is not doubted. A word, Lucilius;
How he received you, let me be resolv’d.

LUCILIUS.
With courtesy and with respect enough,
But not with such familiar instances,
Nor with such free and friendly conference,
As he hath us’d of old.

BRUTUS.
Thou hast describ’d
A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucilius,
When love begins to sicken and decay
It useth an enforced ceremony.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith;
But hollow men, like horses hot at hand,
Make gallant show and promise of their mettle;

 [_Low march within._]

But when they should endure the bloody spur,
They fall their crests, and like deceitful jades
Sink in the trial. Comes his army on?

LUCILIUS.
They meant this night in Sardis to be quarter’d;
The greater part, the horse in general,
Are come with Cassius.

 Enter Cassius and Soldiers.

BRUTUS.
Hark! he is arriv’d.
March gently on to meet him.

CASSIUS.
Stand, ho!

BRUTUS.
Stand, ho! Speak the word along.

FIRST SOLDIER.
Stand!

SECOND SOLDIER.
Stand!

THIRD SOLDIER.
Stand!

CASSIUS.
Most noble brother, you have done me wrong.

BRUTUS.
Judge me, you gods; wrong I mine enemies?
And if not so, how should I wrong a brother?

CASSIUS.
Brutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs;
And when you do them—

BRUTUS.
Cassius, be content.
Speak your griefs softly, I do know you well.
Before the eyes of both our armies here,
Which should perceive nothing but love from us,
Let us not wrangle. Bid them move away;
Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge your griefs,
And I will give you audience.

CASSIUS.
Pindarus,
Bid our commanders lead their charges off
A little from this ground.

BRUTUS.
Lucilius, do you the like; and let no man
Come to our tent till we have done our conference.
Lucius and Titinius, guard our door.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Within the tent of Brutus.

 Enter Brutus and Cassius.

CASSIUS.
That you have wrong’d me doth appear in this:
You have condemn’d and noted Lucius Pella
For taking bribes here of the Sardians;
Wherein my letters, praying on his side
Because I knew the man, were slighted off.

BRUTUS.
You wrong’d yourself to write in such a case.

CASSIUS.
In such a time as this it is not meet
That every nice offence should bear his comment.

BRUTUS.
Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemn’d to have an itching palm,
To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservers.

CASSIUS.
I an itching palm!
You know that you are Brutus that speak this,
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last.

BRUTUS.
The name of Cassius honours this corruption,
And chastisement doth therefore hide his head.

CASSIUS.
Chastisement!

BRUTUS.
Remember March, the Ides of March remember:
Did not great Julius bleed for justice’ sake?
What villain touch’d his body, that did stab,
And not for justice? What! Shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world
But for supporting robbers, shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honours
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.

CASSIUS.
Brutus, bait not me,
I’ll not endure it. You forget yourself,
To hedge me in. I am a soldier, I,
Older in practice, abler than yourself
To make conditions.

BRUTUS.
Go to; you are not, Cassius.

CASSIUS.
I am.

BRUTUS.
I say you are not.

CASSIUS.
Urge me no more, I shall forget myself;
Have mind upon your health, tempt me no farther.

BRUTUS.
Away, slight man!

CASSIUS.
Is’t possible?

BRUTUS.
Hear me, for I will speak.
Must I give way and room to your rash choler?
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?

CASSIUS.
O ye gods, ye gods! Must I endure all this?

BRUTUS.
All this? ay, more: fret till your proud heart break;
Go show your slaves how choleric you are,
And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge?
Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humour? By the gods,
You shall digest the venom of your spleen,
Though it do split you; for, from this day forth,
I’ll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspish.

CASSIUS.
Is it come to this?

BRUTUS.
You say you are a better soldier:
Let it appear so; make your vaunting true,
And it shall please me well. For mine own part,
I shall be glad to learn of noble men.

CASSIUS.
You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus.
I said, an elder soldier, not a better:
Did I say better?

BRUTUS.
If you did, I care not.

CASSIUS.
When Caesar liv’d, he durst not thus have mov’d me.

BRUTUS.
Peace, peace! you durst not so have tempted him.

CASSIUS.
I durst not?

BRUTUS.
No.

CASSIUS.
What? durst not tempt him?

BRUTUS.
For your life you durst not.

CASSIUS.
Do not presume too much upon my love.
I may do that I shall be sorry for.

BRUTUS.
You have done that you should be sorry for.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,
For I am arm’d so strong in honesty,
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not. I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me;
For I can raise no money by vile means:
By Heaven, I had rather coin my heart,
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash
By any indirection. I did send
To you for gold to pay my legions,
Which you denied me: was that done like Cassius?
Should I have answer’d Caius Cassius so?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him to pieces!

CASSIUS.
I denied you not.

BRUTUS.
You did.

CASSIUS.
I did not. He was but a fool
That brought my answer back. Brutus hath riv’d my heart.
A friend should bear his friend’s infirmities;
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.

BRUTUS.
I do not, till you practise them on me.

CASSIUS.
You love me not.

BRUTUS.
I do not like your faults.

CASSIUS.
A friendly eye could never see such faults.

BRUTUS.
A flatterer’s would not, though they do appear
As huge as high Olympus.

CASSIUS.
Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come,
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,
For Cassius is a-weary of the world:
Hated by one he loves; brav’d by his brother;
Check’d like a bondman; all his faults observ’d,
Set in a note-book, learn’d and conn’d by rote,
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger,
And here my naked breast; within, a heart
Dearer than Plutus’ mine, richer than gold:
If that thou be’st a Roman, take it forth.
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart:
Strike as thou didst at Caesar; for I know,
When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.

BRUTUS.
Sheathe your dagger.
Be angry when you will, it shall have scope;
Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour.
O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb
That carries anger as the flint bears fire,
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.

CASSIUS.
Hath Cassius liv’d
To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,
When grief and blood ill-temper’d vexeth him?

BRUTUS.
When I spoke that, I was ill-temper’d too.

CASSIUS.
Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.

BRUTUS.
And my heart too.

CASSIUS.
O Brutus!

BRUTUS.
What’s the matter?

CASSIUS.
Have not you love enough to bear with me,
When that rash humour which my mother gave me
Makes me forgetful?

BRUTUS.
Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth,
When you are over-earnest with your Brutus,
He’ll think your mother chides, and leave you so.

 Enter Poet, followed by Lucilius, Titinius and Lucius.

POET.
[_Within._] Let me go in to see the generals,
There is some grudge between ’em; ’tis not meet
They be alone.

LUCILIUS.
[_Within._] You shall not come to them.

POET.
[_Within._] Nothing but death shall stay me.

CASSIUS.
How now! What’s the matter?

POET.
For shame, you generals! What do you mean?
Love, and be friends, as two such men should be;
For I have seen more years, I’m sure, than ye.

CASSIUS.
Ha, ha! How vilely doth this cynic rhyme!

BRUTUS.
Get you hence, sirrah. Saucy fellow, hence!

CASSIUS.
Bear with him, Brutus; ’tis his fashion.

BRUTUS.
I’ll know his humour when he knows his time.
What should the wars do with these jigging fools?
Companion, hence!

CASSIUS.
Away, away, be gone!

 [_Exit Poet._]

BRUTUS.
Lucilius and Titinius, bid the commanders
Prepare to lodge their companies tonight.

CASSIUS.
And come yourselves and bring Messala with you
Immediately to us.

 [_Exeunt Lucilius and Titinius._]

BRUTUS.
Lucius, a bowl of wine.

 [_Exit Lucius._]

CASSIUS.
I did not think you could have been so angry.

BRUTUS.
O Cassius, I am sick of many griefs.

CASSIUS.
Of your philosophy you make no use,
If you give place to accidental evils.

BRUTUS.
No man bears sorrow better. Portia is dead.

CASSIUS.
Ha? Portia?

BRUTUS.
She is dead.

CASSIUS.
How ’scap’d I killing, when I cross’d you so?
O insupportable and touching loss!
Upon what sickness?

BRUTUS.
Impatient of my absence,
And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony
Have made themselves so strong; for with her death
That tidings came. With this she fell distract,
And, her attendants absent, swallow’d fire.

CASSIUS.
And died so?

BRUTUS.
Even so.

CASSIUS.
O ye immortal gods!

 Enter Lucius, with wine and a taper.

BRUTUS.
Speak no more of her. Give me a bowl of wine.
In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius.

 [_Drinks._]

CASSIUS.
My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge.
Fill, Lucius, till the wine o’erswell the cup.
I cannot drink too much of Brutus’ love.

 [_Drinks._]

 [_Exit Lucius._]

 Enter Titinius and Messala.

BRUTUS.
Come in, Titinius!
Welcome, good Messala.
Now sit we close about this taper here,
And call in question our necessities.

CASSIUS.
Portia, art thou gone?

BRUTUS.
No more, I pray you.
Messala, I have here received letters,
That young Octavius and Mark Antony
Come down upon us with a mighty power,
Bending their expedition toward Philippi.

MESSALA.
Myself have letters of the selfsame tenor.

BRUTUS.
With what addition?

MESSALA.
That by proscription and bills of outlawry
Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus
Have put to death an hundred Senators.

BRUTUS.
Therein our letters do not well agree.
Mine speak of seventy Senators that died
By their proscriptions, Cicero being one.

CASSIUS.
Cicero one!

MESSALA.
Cicero is dead,
And by that order of proscription.
Had you your letters from your wife, my lord?

BRUTUS.
No, Messala.

MESSALA.
Nor nothing in your letters writ of her?

BRUTUS.
Nothing, Messala.

MESSALA.
That, methinks, is strange.

BRUTUS.
Why ask you? Hear you aught of her in yours?

MESSALA.
No, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Now as you are a Roman, tell me true.

MESSALA.
Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell,
For certain she is dead, and by strange manner.

BRUTUS.
Why, farewell, Portia. We must die, Messala.
With meditating that she must die once,
I have the patience to endure it now.

MESSALA.
Even so great men great losses should endure.

CASSIUS.
I have as much of this in art as you,
But yet my nature could not bear it so.

BRUTUS.
Well, to our work alive. What do you think
Of marching to Philippi presently?

CASSIUS.
I do not think it good.

BRUTUS.
Your reason?

CASSIUS.
This it is:
’Tis better that the enemy seek us;
So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers,
Doing himself offence, whilst we, lying still,
Are full of rest, defence, and nimbleness.

BRUTUS.
Good reasons must of force give place to better.
The people ’twixt Philippi and this ground
Do stand but in a forced affection;
For they have grudg’d us contribution.
The enemy, marching along by them,
By them shall make a fuller number up,
Come on refresh’d, new-added, and encourag’d;
From which advantage shall we cut him off
If at Philippi we do face him there,
These people at our back.

CASSIUS.
Hear me, good brother.

BRUTUS.
Under your pardon. You must note besides,
That we have tried the utmost of our friends,
Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe.
The enemy increaseth every day;
We, at the height, are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

CASSIUS.
Then, with your will, go on:
We’ll along ourselves, and meet them at Philippi.

BRUTUS.
The deep of night is crept upon our talk,
And nature must obey necessity,
Which we will niggard with a little rest.
There is no more to say?

CASSIUS.
No more. Good night:
Early tomorrow will we rise, and hence.

 Enter Lucius.

BRUTUS.
Lucius! My gown.

 [_Exit Lucius._]

Farewell now, good Messala.
Good night, Titinius. Noble, noble Cassius,
Good night, and good repose.

CASSIUS.
O my dear brother!
This was an ill beginning of the night.
Never come such division ’tween our souls!
Let it not, Brutus.

 Enter Lucius with the gown.

BRUTUS.
Everything is well.

CASSIUS.
Good night, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Good night, good brother.

TITINIUS and MESSALA.
Good night, Lord Brutus.

BRUTUS.
Farewell, everyone.

 [_Exeunt Cassius, Titinius and Messala._]

Give me the gown. Where is thy instrument?

LUCIUS.
Here in the tent.

BRUTUS.
What, thou speak’st drowsily?
Poor knave, I blame thee not, thou art o’er-watch’d.
Call Claudius and some other of my men;
I’ll have them sleep on cushions in my tent.

LUCIUS.
Varro and Claudius!

 Enter Varro and Claudius.

VARRO.
Calls my lord?

BRUTUS.
I pray you, sirs, lie in my tent and sleep;
It may be I shall raise you by-and-by
On business to my brother Cassius.

VARRO.
So please you, we will stand and watch your pleasure.

BRUTUS.
I will not have it so; lie down, good sirs,
It may be I shall otherwise bethink me.
Look, Lucius, here’s the book I sought for so;
I put it in the pocket of my gown.

 [_Servants lie down._]

LUCIUS.
I was sure your lordship did not give it me.

BRUTUS.
Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful.
Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile,
And touch thy instrument a strain or two?

LUCIUS.
Ay, my lord, an’t please you.

BRUTUS.
It does, my boy.
I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing.

LUCIUS.
It is my duty, sir.

BRUTUS.
I should not urge thy duty past thy might;
I know young bloods look for a time of rest.

LUCIUS.
I have slept, my lord, already.

BRUTUS.
It was well done, and thou shalt sleep again;
I will not hold thee long. If I do live,
I will be good to thee.

 [_Lucius plays and sings till he falls asleep._]

This is a sleepy tune. O murd’rous slumber,
Layest thou thy leaden mace upon my boy,
That plays thee music? Gentle knave, good night;
I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee.
If thou dost nod, thou break’st thy instrument;
I’ll take it from thee; and, good boy, good night.
Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turn’d down
Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.

 Enter the Ghost of Caesar.

How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here?
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me. Art thou anything?
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That mak’st my blood cold and my hair to stare?
Speak to me what thou art.

GHOST.
Thy evil spirit, Brutus.

BRUTUS.
Why com’st thou?

GHOST.
To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.

BRUTUS.
Well; then I shall see thee again?

GHOST.
Ay, at Philippi.

BRUTUS.
Why, I will see thee at Philippi then.

 [_Ghost vanishes._]

Now I have taken heart, thou vanishest.
Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with thee.
Boy! Lucius! Varro! Claudius! Sirs, awake! Claudius!

LUCIUS.
The strings, my lord, are false.

BRUTUS.
He thinks he still is at his instrument.
Lucius, awake!

LUCIUS.
My lord?

BRUTUS.
Didst thou dream, Lucius, that thou so criedst out?

LUCIUS.
My lord, I do not know that I did cry.

BRUTUS.
Yes, that thou didst. Didst thou see anything?

LUCIUS.
Nothing, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Sleep again, Lucius. Sirrah Claudius!
Fellow thou, awake!

VARRO.
My lord?

CLAUDIUS.
My lord?

BRUTUS.
Why did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep?

VARRO. CLAUDIUS.
Did we, my lord?

BRUTUS.
Ay. Saw you anything?

VARRO.
No, my lord, I saw nothing.

CLAUDIUS.
Nor I, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Go and commend me to my brother Cassius;
Bid him set on his powers betimes before,
And we will follow.

VARRO. CLAUDIUS.
It shall be done, my lord.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT V

SCENE I. The plains of Philippi.

 Enter Octavius, Antony and their Army.

OCTAVIUS.
Now, Antony, our hopes are answered.
You said the enemy would not come down,
But keep the hills and upper regions.
It proves not so; their battles are at hand,
They mean to warn us at Philippi here,
Answering before we do demand of them.

ANTONY.
Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know
Wherefore they do it. They could be content
To visit other places, and come down
With fearful bravery, thinking by this face
To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage;
But ’tis not so.

 Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER.
Prepare you, generals.
The enemy comes on in gallant show;
Their bloody sign of battle is hung out,
And something to be done immediately.

ANTONY.
Octavius, lead your battle softly on
Upon the left hand of the even field.

OCTAVIUS.
Upon the right hand I. Keep thou the left.

ANTONY.
Why do you cross me in this exigent?

OCTAVIUS.
I do not cross you; but I will do so.

 [_March._]

Drum. Enter Brutus, Cassius and their Army; Lucilius, Titinius, Messala
and others.

BRUTUS.
They stand, and would have parley.

CASSIUS.
Stand fast, Titinius; we must out and talk.

OCTAVIUS.
Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle?

ANTONY.
No, Caesar, we will answer on their charge.
Make forth; the generals would have some words.

OCTAVIUS.
Stir not until the signal.

BRUTUS.
Words before blows: is it so, countrymen?

OCTAVIUS.
Not that we love words better, as you do.

BRUTUS.
Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.

ANTONY.
In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words;
Witness the hole you made in Caesar’s heart,
Crying, “Long live! Hail, Caesar!”

CASSIUS.
Antony,
The posture of your blows are yet unknown;
But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,
And leave them honeyless.

ANTONY.
Not stingless too.

BRUTUS.
O yes, and soundless too,
For you have stol’n their buzzing, Antony,
And very wisely threat before you sting.

ANTONY.
Villains, you did not so when your vile daggers
Hack’d one another in the sides of Caesar:
You show’d your teeth like apes, and fawn’d like hounds,
And bow’d like bondmen, kissing Caesar’s feet;
Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind
Struck Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers!

CASSIUS.
Flatterers! Now, Brutus, thank yourself.
This tongue had not offended so today,
If Cassius might have rul’d.

OCTAVIUS.
Come, come, the cause. If arguing makes us sweat,
The proof of it will turn to redder drops.
Look, I draw a sword against conspirators.
When think you that the sword goes up again?
Never, till Caesar’s three and thirty wounds
Be well aveng’d; or till another Caesar
Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors.

BRUTUS.
Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors’ hands,
Unless thou bring’st them with thee.

OCTAVIUS.
So I hope.
I was not born to die on Brutus’ sword.

BRUTUS.
O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain,
Young man, thou couldst not die more honourable.

CASSIUS.
A peevish school-boy, worthless of such honour,
Join’d with a masker and a reveller.

ANTONY.
Old Cassius still!

OCTAVIUS.
Come, Antony; away!
Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth.
If you dare fight today, come to the field;
If not, when you have stomachs.

 [_Exeunt Octavius, Antony and their Army._]

CASSIUS.
Why now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark!
The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.

BRUTUS.
Ho, Lucilius! Hark, a word with you.

LUCILIUS.
My lord?

 [_Brutus and Lucilius talk apart._]

CASSIUS.
Messala.

MESSALA.
What says my General?

CASSIUS.
Messala,
This is my birth-day; as this very day
Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala:
Be thou my witness that against my will
As Pompey was, am I compell’d to set
Upon one battle all our liberties.
You know that I held Epicurus strong,
And his opinion. Now I change my mind,
And partly credit things that do presage.
Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign
Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perch’d,
Gorging and feeding from our soldiers’ hands,
Who to Philippi here consorted us.
This morning are they fled away and gone,
And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites
Fly o’er our heads, and downward look on us,
As we were sickly prey: their shadows seem
A canopy most fatal, under which
Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.

MESSALA.
Believe not so.

CASSIUS.
I but believe it partly,
For I am fresh of spirit, and resolv’d
To meet all perils very constantly.

BRUTUS.
Even so, Lucilius.

CASSIUS.
Now, most noble Brutus,
The gods today stand friendly, that we may,
Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age!
But, since the affairs of men rest still incertain,
Let’s reason with the worst that may befall.
If we do lose this battle, then is this
The very last time we shall speak together:
What are you then determined to do?

BRUTUS.
Even by the rule of that philosophy
By which I did blame Cato for the death
Which he did give himself, I know not how,
But I do find it cowardly and vile,
For fear of what might fall, so to prevent
The time of life, arming myself with patience
To stay the providence of some high powers
That govern us below.

CASSIUS.
Then, if we lose this battle,
You are contented to be led in triumph
Thorough the streets of Rome?

BRUTUS.
No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble Roman,
That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome;
He bears too great a mind. But this same day
Must end that work the Ides of March begun;
And whether we shall meet again I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take.
For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius.
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why then this parting was well made.

CASSIUS.
For ever and for ever farewell, Brutus.
If we do meet again, we’ll smile indeed;
If not, ’tis true this parting was well made.

BRUTUS.
Why then, lead on. O, that a man might know
The end of this day’s business ere it come!
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known. Come, ho! away!

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. The same. The field of battle.

 Alarum. Enter Brutus and Messala.

BRUTUS.
Ride, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills
Unto the legions on the other side.

 [_Loud alarum._]

Let them set on at once; for I perceive
But cold demeanor in Octavius’ wing,
And sudden push gives them the overthrow.
Ride, ride, Messala; let them all come down.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Another part of the field.

 Alarum. Enter Cassius and Titinius.

CASSIUS.
O, look, Titinius, look, the villains fly!
Myself have to mine own turn’d enemy:
This ensign here of mine was turning back;
I slew the coward, and did take it from him.

TITINIUS.
O Cassius, Brutus gave the word too early,
Who, having some advantage on Octavius,
Took it too eagerly: his soldiers fell to spoil,
Whilst we by Antony are all enclos’d.

 Enter Pindarus.

PINDARUS.
Fly further off, my lord, fly further off;
Mark Antony is in your tents, my lord.
Fly, therefore, noble Cassius, fly far off.

CASSIUS.
This hill is far enough. Look, look, Titinius;
Are those my tents where I perceive the fire?

TITINIUS.
They are, my lord.

CASSIUS.
Titinius, if thou lovest me,
Mount thou my horse and hide thy spurs in him,
Till he have brought thee up to yonder troops
And here again, that I may rest assur’d
Whether yond troops are friend or enemy.

TITINIUS.
I will be here again, even with a thought.

 [_Exit._]

CASSIUS.
Go, Pindarus, get higher on that hill,
My sight was ever thick. Regard Titinius,
And tell me what thou notest about the field.

 [_Pindarus goes up._]

This day I breathed first. Time is come round,
And where I did begin, there shall I end.
My life is run his compass. Sirrah, what news?

PINDARUS.
[_Above._] O my lord!

CASSIUS.
What news?

PINDARUS.
[_Above._] Titinius is enclosed round about
With horsemen, that make to him on the spur,
Yet he spurs on. Now they are almost on him.
Now, Titinius! Now some light. O, he lights too.
He’s ta’en!

 [_Shout._]

And, hark! they shout for joy.

CASSIUS.
Come down; behold no more.
O, coward that I am, to live so long,
To see my best friend ta’en before my face!

 [_Pindarus descends._]

Come hither, sirrah.
In Parthia did I take thee prisoner;
And then I swore thee, saving of thy life,
That whatsoever I did bid thee do,
Thou shouldst attempt it. Come now, keep thine oath.
Now be a freeman; and with this good sword,
That ran through Caesar’s bowels, search this bosom.
Stand not to answer. Here, take thou the hilts;
And when my face is cover’d, as ’tis now,
Guide thou the sword.—Caesar, thou art reveng’d,
Even with the sword that kill’d thee.

 [_Dies._]

PINDARUS.
So, I am free, yet would not so have been,
Durst I have done my will. O Cassius!
Far from this country Pindarus shall run,
Where never Roman shall take note of him.

 [_Exit._]

 Enter Titinius with Messala.

MESSALA.
It is but change, Titinius; for Octavius
Is overthrown by noble Brutus’ power,
As Cassius’ legions are by Antony.

TITINIUS.
These tidings would well comfort Cassius.

MESSALA.
Where did you leave him?

TITINIUS.
All disconsolate,
With Pindarus his bondman, on this hill.

MESSALA.
Is not that he that lies upon the ground?

TITINIUS.
He lies not like the living. O my heart!

MESSALA.
Is not that he?

TITINIUS.
No, this was he, Messala,
But Cassius is no more. O setting sun,
As in thy red rays thou dost sink to night,
So in his red blood Cassius’ day is set.
The sun of Rome is set. Our day is gone;
Clouds, dews, and dangers come; our deeds are done.
Mistrust of my success hath done this deed.

MESSALA.
Mistrust of good success hath done this deed.
O hateful Error, Melancholy’s child!
Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men
The things that are not? O Error, soon conceiv’d,
Thou never com’st unto a happy birth,
But kill’st the mother that engender’d thee!

TITINIUS.
What, Pindarus! where art thou, Pindarus?

MESSALA.
Seek him, Titinius, whilst I go to meet
The noble Brutus, thrusting this report
Into his ears. I may say thrusting it;
For piercing steel and darts envenomed
Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus
As tidings of this sight.

TITINIUS.
Hie you, Messala,
And I will seek for Pindarus the while.

 [_Exit Messala._]

Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius?
Did I not meet thy friends? And did not they
Put on my brows this wreath of victory,
And bid me give it thee? Didst thou not hear their shouts?
Alas, thou hast misconstrued everything!
But, hold thee, take this garland on thy brow;
Thy Brutus bid me give it thee, and I
Will do his bidding. Brutus, come apace,
And see how I regarded Caius Cassius.
By your leave, gods. This is a Roman’s part.
Come, Cassius’ sword, and find Titinius’ heart.

 [_Dies._]

 Alarum. Enter Brutus, Messala, young Cato, Strato, Volumnius and
 Lucilius.

BRUTUS.
Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie?

MESSALA.
Lo, yonder, and Titinius mourning it.

BRUTUS.
Titinius’ face is upward.

CATO.
He is slain.

BRUTUS.
O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!
Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords
In our own proper entrails.

 [_Low alarums._]

CATO.
Brave Titinius!
Look whether he have not crown’d dead Cassius!

BRUTUS.
Are yet two Romans living such as these?
The last of all the Romans, fare thee well!
It is impossible that ever Rome
Should breed thy fellow. Friends, I owe more tears
To this dead man than you shall see me pay.
I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.
Come therefore, and to Thassos send his body.
His funerals shall not be in our camp,
Lest it discomfort us. Lucilius, come;
And come, young Cato; let us to the field.
Labeo and Flavius, set our battles on.
’Tis three o’clock; and Romans, yet ere night
We shall try fortune in a second fight.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. Another part of the field.

 Alarum. Enter fighting soldiers of both armies; then Brutus, Messala,
 young Cato, Lucilius, Flavius and others.

BRUTUS.
Yet, countrymen, O, yet hold up your heads!

CATO.
What bastard doth not? Who will go with me?
I will proclaim my name about the field.
I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho!
A foe to tyrants, and my country’s friend.
I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho!

 [_Charges the enemy._]

LUCILIUS.
And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I;
Brutus, my country’s friend; know me for Brutus!

 [_Exit, charging the enemy. Cato is overpowered, and falls._]

LUCILIUS.
O young and noble Cato, art thou down?
Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius,
And mayst be honour’d, being Cato’s son.

FIRST SOLDIER.
Yield, or thou diest.

LUCILIUS.
Only I yield to die:
There is so much that thou wilt kill me straight;

 [_Offering money_]

Kill Brutus, and be honour’d in his death.

FIRST SOLDIER.
We must not. A noble prisoner!

SECOND SOLDIER.
Room, ho! Tell Antony, Brutus is ta’en.

FIRST SOLDIER.
I’ll tell the news. Here comes the General.

 Enter Antony.

Brutus is ta’en, Brutus is ta’en, my lord.

ANTONY.
Where is he?

LUCILIUS.
Safe, Antony; Brutus is safe enough.
I dare assure thee that no enemy
Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus.
The gods defend him from so great a shame!
When you do find him, or alive or dead,
He will be found like Brutus, like himself.

ANTONY.
This is not Brutus, friend; but, I assure you,
A prize no less in worth. Keep this man safe,
Give him all kindness. I had rather have
Such men my friends than enemies. Go on,
And see whether Brutus be alive or dead;
And bring us word unto Octavius’ tent
How everything is chanc’d.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Another part of the field.

 Enter Brutus, Dardanius, Clitus, Strato and Volumnius.

BRUTUS.
Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this rock.

CLITUS.
Statilius show’d the torch-light; but, my lord,
He came not back: he is or ta’en or slain.

BRUTUS.
Sit thee down, Clitus. Slaying is the word;
It is a deed in fashion. Hark thee, Clitus.

 [_Whispering._]

CLITUS.
What, I, my lord? No, not for all the world.

BRUTUS.
Peace then, no words.

CLITUS.
I’ll rather kill myself.

BRUTUS.
Hark thee, Dardanius.

 [_Whispers him._]

DARDANIUS.
Shall I do such a deed?

CLITUS.
O Dardanius!

DARDANIUS.
O Clitus!

CLITUS.
What ill request did Brutus make to thee?

DARDANIUS.
To kill him, Clitus. Look, he meditates.

CLITUS.
Now is that noble vessel full of grief,
That it runs over even at his eyes.

BRUTUS.
Come hither, good Volumnius; list a word.

VOLUMNIUS.
What says my lord?

BRUTUS.
Why, this, Volumnius:
The ghost of Caesar hath appear’d to me
Two several times by night; at Sardis once,
And this last night here in Philippi fields.
I know my hour is come.

VOLUMNIUS.
Not so, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Nay I am sure it is, Volumnius.
Thou seest the world, Volumnius, how it goes;
Our enemies have beat us to the pit.

 [_Low alarums._]

It is more worthy to leap in ourselves
Than tarry till they push us. Good Volumnius,
Thou know’st that we two went to school together;
Even for that our love of old, I pr’ythee
Hold thou my sword-hilts, whilst I run on it.

VOLUMNIUS.
That’s not an office for a friend, my lord.

 [_Alarums still._]

CLITUS.
Fly, fly, my lord! there is no tarrying here.

BRUTUS.
Farewell to you; and you; and you, Volumnius.
Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep;
Farewell to thee too, Strato.—Countrymen,
My heart doth joy, that yet in all my life
I found no man but he was true to me.
I shall have glory by this losing day
More than Octavius and Mark Antony
By this vile conquest shall attain unto.
So fare you well at once; for Brutus’ tongue
Hath almost ended his life’s history.
Night hangs upon mine eyes; my bones would rest,
That have but labour’d to attain this hour.

 [_Alarums. Cry within, “Fly, fly, fly!”._]

CLITUS.
Fly, my lord, fly!

BRUTUS.
Hence! I will follow.

 [_Exeunt Clitus, Dardanius and Volumnius._]

I pr’ythee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord.
Thou art a fellow of a good respect;
Thy life hath had some smatch of honour in it.
Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face,
While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato?

STRATO.
Give me your hand first. Fare you well, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Farewell, good Strato.—Caesar, now be still:
I kill’d not thee with half so good a will.

 [_He runs on his sword, and dies._]

 Alarum. Retreat. Enter Antony, Octavius, Messala, Lucilius and the
 Army.

OCTAVIUS.
What man is that?

MESSALA.
My master’s man. Strato, where is thy master?

STRATO.
Free from the bondage you are in, Messala.
The conquerors can but make a fire of him;
For Brutus only overcame himself,
And no man else hath honour by his death.

LUCILIUS.
So Brutus should be found. I thank thee, Brutus,
That thou hast prov’d Lucilius’ saying true.

OCTAVIUS.
All that serv’d Brutus, I will entertain them.
Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me?

STRATO.
Ay, if Messala will prefer me to you.

OCTAVIUS.
Do so, good Messala.

MESSALA.
How died my master, Strato?

STRATO.
I held the sword, and he did run on it.

MESSALA.
Octavius, then take him to follow thee,
That did the latest service to my master.

ANTONY.
This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, “This was a man!”

OCTAVIUS.
According to his virtue let us use him
With all respect and rites of burial.
Within my tent his bones tonight shall lie,
Most like a soldier, order’d honourably.
So call the field to rest, and let’s away,
To part the glories of this happy day.

 [_Exeunt._]



THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR



by William Shakespeare





Contents

ACT I
Scene I. A Room of State in King Lear’s Palace.
Scene II. A Hall in the Earl of Gloucester’s Castle.
Scene III. A Room in the Duke of Albany’s Palace.
Scene IV. A Hall in Albany’s Palace.
Scene V. Court before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.

ACT II
Scene I. A court within the Castle of the Earl of Gloucester.
Scene II. Before Gloucester’s Castle.
Scene III. The open Country.
Scene IV. Before Gloucester’s Castle.

ACT III
Scene I. A Heath.
Scene II. Another part of the heath.
Scene III. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.
Scene IV. A part of the Heath with a Hovel.
Scene V. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.
Scene VI. A Chamber in a Farmhouse adjoining the Castle.
Scene VII. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

ACT IV
Scene I. The heath.
Scene II. Before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.
Scene III. The French camp near Dover.
Scene IV. The French camp. A Tent.
Scene V. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.
Scene VI. The country near Dover.
Scene VII. A Tent in the French Camp.

ACT V
Scene I. The Camp of the British Forces near Dover.
Scene II. A field between the two Camps.
Scene III. The British Camp near Dover.




 Dramatis Personæ

LEAR, King of Britain.
GONERIL, eldest daughter to Lear.
REGAN, second daughter to Lear.
CORDELIA, youngest daughter to Lear.
DUKE of ALBANY, married to Goneril.
DUKE of CORNWALL, married to Regan.
KING of FRANCE.
DUKE of BURGUNDY.
EARL of GLOUCESTER.
EDGAR, elder son to Gloucester.
EDMUND, younger bastard son to Gloucester.
EARL of KENT.
FOOL.
OSWALD, steward to Goneril.
CURAN, a Courtier.
OLD MAN, Tenant to Gloucester.
Physician.
An Officer employed by Edmund.
Gentleman, attendant on Cordelia.
A Herald.
Servants to Cornwall.

Knights attending on the King, Officers, Messengers, Soldiers and
Attendants.

SCENE: Britain.



ACT I

SCENE I. A Room of State in King Lear’s Palace.

 Enter Kent, Gloucester and Edmund.

KENT.
I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.

GLOUCESTER.
It did always seem so to us; but now, in the division of the kingdom,
it appears not which of the Dukes he values most, for qualities are so
weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice of either’s moiety.

KENT.
Is not this your son, my lord?

GLOUCESTER.
His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blush’d to
acknowledge him that now I am braz’d to’t.

KENT.
I cannot conceive you.

GLOUCESTER.
Sir, this young fellow’s mother could; whereupon she grew round-wombed,
and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her
bed. Do you smell a fault?

KENT.
I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.

GLOUCESTER.
But I have a son, sir, by order of law, some year elder than this, who
yet is no dearer in my account: though this knave came something
saucily to the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair;
there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be
acknowledged. Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund?

EDMUND.
No, my lord.

GLOUCESTER.
My Lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.

EDMUND.
My services to your lordship.

KENT.
I must love you, and sue to know you better.

EDMUND.
Sir, I shall study deserving.

GLOUCESTER.
He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again. The King is
coming.

 [_Sennet within._]

 Enter Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia and Attendants.

LEAR.
Attend the lords of France and Burgundy,
Gloucester.

GLOUCESTER.
I shall, my lord.

 [_Exeunt Gloucester and Edmund._]

LEAR.
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
Give me the map there. Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom: and ’tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburden’d crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters’ several dowers, that future strife
May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy,
Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love,
Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,
And here are to be answer’d. Tell me, my daughters,—
Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state,—
Which of you shall we say doth love us most?
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge.—Goneril,
Our eldest born, speak first.

GONERIL.
Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter;
Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty;
Beyond what can be valu’d, rich or rare;
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
As much as child e’er lov’d, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

CORDELIA.
[_Aside._] What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.

LEAR.
Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests and with champains rich’d,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady: to thine and Albany’s issue
Be this perpetual.—What says our second daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall? Speak.

REGAN.
Sir, I am made of the self mettle as my sister,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
Only she comes too short, that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys
Which the most precious square of sense possesses,
And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear highness’ love.

CORDELIA.
[_Aside._] Then poor Cordelia,
And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love’s
More ponderous than my tongue.

LEAR.
To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom;
No less in space, validity, and pleasure
Than that conferr’d on Goneril.—Now, our joy,
Although the last and least; to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interess’d; what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.

CORDELIA.
Nothing, my lord.

LEAR.
Nothing?

CORDELIA.
Nothing.

LEAR.
Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.

CORDELIA.
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.

LEAR.
How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,
Lest you may mar your fortunes.

CORDELIA.
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty:
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.

LEAR.
But goes thy heart with this?

CORDELIA.
Ay, my good lord.

LEAR.
So young, and so untender?

CORDELIA.
So young, my lord, and true.

LEAR.
Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower:
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night;
By all the operation of the orbs,
From whom we do exist and cease to be;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour’d, pitied, and reliev’d,
As thou my sometime daughter.

KENT.
Good my liege,—

LEAR.
Peace, Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I lov’d her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery. [_To Cordelia._] Hence and avoid my sight!
So be my grave my peace, as here I give
Her father’s heart from her! Call France. Who stirs?
Call Burgundy! Cornwall and Albany,
With my two daughters’ dowers digest this third:
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
I do invest you jointly with my power,
Pre-eminence, and all the large effects
That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course,
With reservation of an hundred knights,
By you to be sustain’d, shall our abode
Make with you by due turn. Only we shall retain
The name, and all the addition to a king; the sway,
Revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm,
This coronet part between you.
 [_Giving the crown._]

KENT.
Royal Lear,
Whom I have ever honour’d as my king,
Lov’d as my father, as my master follow’d,
As my great patron thought on in my prayers.—

LEAR.
The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.

KENT.
Let it fall rather, though the fork invade
The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly
When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man?
Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak,
When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour’s bound
When majesty falls to folly. Reverse thy state;
And in thy best consideration check
This hideous rashness: answer my life my judgement,
Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least;
Nor are those empty-hearted, whose low sounds
Reverb no hollowness.

LEAR.
Kent, on thy life, no more.

KENT.
My life I never held but as a pawn
To wage against thine enemies; ne’er fear to lose it,
Thy safety being the motive.

LEAR.
Out of my sight!

KENT.
See better, Lear; and let me still remain
The true blank of thine eye.

LEAR.
Now, by Apollo,—

KENT.
Now by Apollo, King,
Thou swear’st thy gods in vain.

LEAR.
O vassal! Miscreant!

 [_Laying his hand on his sword._]

ALBANY and CORNWALL.
Dear sir, forbear!

KENT.
Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow
Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,
Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat,
I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.

LEAR.
Hear me, recreant! on thine allegiance, hear me!
Since thou hast sought to make us break our vows,
Which we durst never yet, and with strain’d pride
To come betwixt our sentences and our power,
Which nor our nature, nor our place can bear,
Our potency made good, take thy reward.
Five days we do allot thee for provision,
To shield thee from disasters of the world;
And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
Upon our kingdom: if, on the next day following,
Thy banish’d trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter,
This shall not be revok’d.

KENT.
Fare thee well, King: sith thus thou wilt appear,
Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.
[_To Cordelia._] The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,
That justly think’st and hast most rightly said!
[_To Goneril and Regan._] And your large speeches may your deeds
approve,
That good effects may spring from words of love.
Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu;
He’ll shape his old course in a country new.

 [_Exit._]

 Flourish. Re-enter Gloucester, with France, Burgundy and Attendants.

CORDELIA.
Here’s France and Burgundy, my noble lord.

LEAR.
My Lord of Burgundy,
We first address toward you, who with this king
Hath rivall’d for our daughter: what in the least
Will you require in present dower with her,
Or cease your quest of love?

BURGUNDY.
Most royal majesty,
I crave no more than hath your highness offer’d,
Nor will you tender less?

LEAR.
Right noble Burgundy,
When she was dear to us, we did hold her so;
But now her price is fall’n. Sir, there she stands:
If aught within that little-seeming substance,
Or all of it, with our displeasure piec’d,
And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
She’s there, and she is yours.

BURGUNDY.
I know no answer.

LEAR.
Will you, with those infirmities she owes,
Unfriended, new adopted to our hate,
Dower’d with our curse, and stranger’d with our oath,
Take her or leave her?

BURGUNDY.
Pardon me, royal sir;
Election makes not up in such conditions.

LEAR.
Then leave her, sir; for, by the power that made me,
I tell you all her wealth. [_To France_] For you, great king,
I would not from your love make such a stray
To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you
T’avert your liking a more worthier way
Than on a wretch whom nature is asham’d
Almost t’acknowledge hers.

FRANCE.
This is most strange,
That she, who even but now was your best object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
The best, the dearest, should in this trice of time
Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle
So many folds of favour. Sure her offence
Must be of such unnatural degree
That monsters it, or your fore-vouch’d affection
Fall into taint; which to believe of her
Must be a faith that reason without miracle
Should never plant in me.

CORDELIA.
I yet beseech your majesty,
If for I want that glib and oily art
To speak and purpose not; since what I well intend,
I’ll do’t before I speak,—that you make known
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
No unchaste action or dishonour’d step,
That hath depriv’d me of your grace and favour;
But even for want of that for which I am richer,
A still soliciting eye, and such a tongue
As I am glad I have not, though not to have it
Hath lost me in your liking.

LEAR.
Better thou hadst
Not been born than not to have pleas’d me better.

FRANCE.
Is it but this?—a tardiness in nature
Which often leaves the history unspoke
That it intends to do? My lord of Burgundy,
What say you to the lady? Love’s not love
When it is mingled with regards that stands
Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.

BURGUNDY.
Royal King,
Give but that portion which yourself propos’d,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.

LEAR.
Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm.

BURGUNDY.
I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father
That you must lose a husband.

CORDELIA.
Peace be with Burgundy!
Since that respects of fortunes are his love,
I shall not be his wife.

FRANCE.
Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;
Most choice forsaken; and most lov’d, despis’d!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
Be it lawful, I take up what’s cast away.
Gods, gods! ’Tis strange that from their cold’st neglect
My love should kindle to inflam’d respect.
Thy dowerless daughter, King, thrown to my chance,
Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France:
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
Can buy this unpriz’d precious maid of me.
Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind:
Thou losest here, a better where to find.

LEAR.
Thou hast her, France: let her be thine; for we
Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
That face of hers again. Therefore be gone
Without our grace, our love, our benison.
Come, noble Burgundy.

 [_Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, Cornwall, Albany, Gloucester and
 Attendants._]

FRANCE.
Bid farewell to your sisters.

CORDELIA.
The jewels of our father, with wash’d eyes
Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are;
And like a sister am most loath to call
Your faults as they are nam’d. Love well our father:
To your professed bosoms I commit him:
But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.
So farewell to you both.

REGAN.
Prescribe not us our duties.

GONERIL.
Let your study
Be to content your lord, who hath receiv’d you
At fortune’s alms. You have obedience scanted,
And well are worth the want that you have wanted.

CORDELIA.
Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides:
Who covers faults, at last shame derides.
Well may you prosper.

FRANCE.
Come, my fair Cordelia.

 [_Exeunt France and Cordelia._]

GONERIL.
Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly appertains
to us both. I think our father will hence tonight.

REGAN.
That’s most certain, and with you; next month with us.

GONERIL.
You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we have made of
it hath not been little: he always loved our sister most; and with what
poor judgement he hath now cast her off appears too grossly.

REGAN.
’Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known
himself.

GONERIL.
The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look
from his age to receive not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted
condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and
choleric years bring with them.

REGAN.
Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent’s
banishment.

GONERIL.
There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him.
Pray you let us hit together: if our father carry authority with such
disposition as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.

REGAN.
We shall further think of it.

GONERIL.
We must do something, and i’ th’ heat.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A Hall in the Earl of Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Edmund with a letter.

EDMUND.
Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me?
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With base? With baseness? bastardy? Base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth within a dull stale tired bed
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops
Got ’tween asleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate: fine word: legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow, I prosper.
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

 Enter Gloucester.

GLOUCESTER.
Kent banish’d thus! and France in choler parted!
And the King gone tonight! Prescrib’d his pow’r!
Confin’d to exhibition! All this done
Upon the gad!—Edmund, how now! What news?

EDMUND.
So please your lordship, none.

 [_Putting up the letter._]

GLOUCESTER.
Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?

EDMUND.
I know no news, my lord.

GLOUCESTER.
What paper were you reading?

EDMUND.
Nothing, my lord.

GLOUCESTER.
No? What needed then that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket? The
quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself. Let’s see. Come,
if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles.

EDMUND.
I beseech you, sir, pardon me. It is a letter from my brother that I
have not all o’er-read; and for so much as I have perus’d, I find it
not fit for your o’er-looking.

GLOUCESTER.
Give me the letter, sir.

EDMUND.
I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I
understand them, are to blame.

GLOUCESTER.
Let’s see, let’s see!

EDMUND.
I hope, for my brother’s justification, he wrote this but as an essay,
or taste of my virtue.

GLOUCESTER.
[_Reads._] ‘This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter to
the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness
cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the
oppression of aged tyranny; who sways not as it hath power, but as it
is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father
would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for
ever, and live the beloved of your brother EDGAR.’
Hum! Conspiracy? ‘Sleep till I wake him, you should enjoy half his
revenue.’—My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? A heart and brain
to breed it in? When came this to you? Who brought it?

EDMUND.
It was not brought me, my lord, there’s the cunning of it. I found it
thrown in at the casement of my closet.

GLOUCESTER.
You know the character to be your brother’s?

EDMUND.
If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his; but in
respect of that, I would fain think it were not.

GLOUCESTER.
It is his.

EDMUND.
It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the contents.

GLOUCESTER.
Has he never before sounded you in this business?

EDMUND.
Never, my lord. But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit that,
sons at perfect age, and fathers declined, the father should be as ward
to the son, and the son manage his revenue.

GLOUCESTER.
O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter! Abhorred villain!
Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than brutish! Go, sirrah,
seek him; I’ll apprehend him. Abominable villain, Where is he?

EDMUND.
I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to suspend your
indignation against my brother till you can derive from him better
testimony of his intent, you should run a certain course; where, if you
violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a
great gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his
obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath writ this to
feel my affection to your honour, and to no other pretence of danger.

GLOUCESTER.
Think you so?

EDMUND.
If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us
confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your satisfaction,
and that without any further delay than this very evening.

GLOUCESTER.
He cannot be such a monster.

EDMUND.
Nor is not, sure.

GLOUCESTER.
To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him. Heaven and
earth! Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I pray you: frame the
business after your own wisdom. I would unstate myself to be in a due
resolution.

EDMUND.
I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find
means, and acquaint you withal.

GLOUCESTER.
These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us: though
the wisdom of Nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds
itself scourged by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls
off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in
palaces, treason; and the bond cracked ’twixt son and father. This
villain of mine comes under the prediction; there’s son against father:
the King falls from bias of nature; there’s father against child. We
have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery,
and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves. Find out
this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully.—And
the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offence, honesty! ’Tis
strange.

 [_Exit._]

EDMUND.
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in
fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on
necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers
by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an
enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to
lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star. My father
compounded with my mother under the dragon’s tail, and my nativity was
under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. Fut! I
should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.

 Enter Edgar.

Pat! he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy: my cue is
villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o’Bedlam.—O, these eclipses
do portend these divisions! Fa, sol, la, mi.

EDGAR.
How now, brother Edmund, what serious contemplation are you in?

EDMUND.
I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what
should follow these eclipses.

EDGAR.
Do you busy yourself with that?

EDMUND.
I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily: as of
unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth,
dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and
maledictions against King and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment
of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not
what.

EDGAR.
How long have you been a sectary astronomical?

EDMUND.
Come, come! when saw you my father last?

EDGAR.
The night gone by.

EDMUND.
Spake you with him?

EDGAR.
Ay, two hours together.

EDMUND.
Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him, by word nor
countenance?

EDGAR.
None at all.

EDMUND.
Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him: and at my entreaty
forbear his presence until some little time hath qualified the heat of
his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth in him that with the
mischief of your person it would scarcely allay.

EDGAR.
Some villain hath done me wrong.

EDMUND.
That’s my fear. I pray you have a continent forbearance till the speed
of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging,
from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: pray ye, go;
there’s my key. If you do stir abroad, go armed.

EDGAR.
Armed, brother?

EDMUND.
Brother, I advise you to the best; I am no honest man if there be any
good meaning toward you: I have told you what I have seen and heard.
But faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it: pray you, away!

EDGAR.
Shall I hear from you anon?

EDMUND.
I do serve you in this business.

 [_Exit Edgar._]

A credulous father! and a brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms
That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty
My practices ride easy! I see the business.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit;
All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. A Room in the Duke of Albany’s Palace.

 Enter Goneril and Oswald.

GONERIL.
Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?

OSWALD.
Ay, madam.

GONERIL.
By day and night, he wrongs me; every hour
He flashes into one gross crime or other,
That sets us all at odds; I’ll not endure it:
His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us
On every trifle. When he returns from hunting,
I will not speak with him; say I am sick.
If you come slack of former services,
You shall do well; the fault of it I’ll answer.

 [_Horns within._]

OSWALD.
He’s coming, madam; I hear him.

GONERIL.
Put on what weary negligence you please,
You and your fellows; I’d have it come to question:
If he distaste it, let him to our sister,
Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one,
Not to be overruled. Idle old man,
That still would manage those authorities
That he hath given away! Now, by my life,
Old fools are babes again; and must be us’d
With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abus’d.
Remember what I have said.

OSWALD.
Very well, madam.

GONERIL.
And let his knights have colder looks among you;
What grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows so;
I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall,
That I may speak. I’ll write straight to my sister
To hold my very course. Prepare for dinner.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A Hall in Albany’s Palace.

 Enter Kent, disguised.

KENT.
If but as well I other accents borrow,
That can my speech defuse, my good intent
May carry through itself to that full issue
For which I rais’d my likeness. Now, banish’d Kent,
If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn’d,
So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov’st,
Shall find thee full of labours.

 Horns within. Enter King Lear, Knights and Attendants.

LEAR.
Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it ready.

 [_Exit an Attendant._]

How now! what art thou?

KENT.
A man, sir.

LEAR.
What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with us?

KENT.
I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will
put me in trust; to love him that is honest; to converse with him that
is wise and says little; to fear judgement; to fight when I cannot
choose; and to eat no fish.

LEAR.
What art thou?

KENT.
A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the King.

LEAR.
If thou be’st as poor for a subject as he’s for a king, thou art poor
enough. What wouldst thou?

KENT.
Service.

LEAR.
Who wouldst thou serve?

KENT.
You.

LEAR.
Dost thou know me, fellow?

KENT.
No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call
master.

LEAR.
What’s that?

KENT.
Authority.

LEAR.
What services canst thou do?

KENT.
I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it
and deliver a plain message bluntly. That which ordinary men are fit
for, I am qualified in, and the best of me is diligence.

LEAR.
How old art thou?

KENT.
Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing; nor so old to dote on
her for anything: I have years on my back forty-eight.

LEAR.
Follow me; thou shalt serve me. If I like thee no worse after dinner, I
will not part from thee yet. Dinner, ho, dinner! Where’s my knave? my
fool? Go you and call my fool hither.

 [_Exit an Attendant._]

 Enter Oswald.

You, you, sirrah, where’s my daughter?

OSWALD.
So please you,—

 [_Exit._]

LEAR.
What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back.

 [_Exit a Knight._]

Where’s my fool? Ho, I think the world’s asleep.

 Re-enter Knight.

How now! where’s that mongrel?

KNIGHT.
He says, my lord, your daughter is not well.

LEAR.
Why came not the slave back to me when I called him?

KNIGHT.
Sir, he answered me in the roundest manner, he would not.

LEAR.
He would not?

KNIGHT.
My lord, I know not what the matter is; but to my judgement your
highness is not entertained with that ceremonious affection as you were
wont; there’s a great abatement of kindness appears as well in the
general dependants as in the Duke himself also, and your daughter.

LEAR.
Ha! say’st thou so?

KNIGHT.
I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken; for my duty cannot
be silent when I think your highness wronged.

LEAR.
Thou but rememberest me of mine own conception: I have perceived a most
faint neglect of late; which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous
curiosity than as a very pretence and purpose of unkindness: I will
look further into’t. But where’s my fool? I have not seen him this two
days.

KNIGHT.
Since my young lady’s going into France, sir, the fool hath much pined
away.

LEAR.
No more of that; I have noted it well. Go you and tell my daughter I
would speak with her.

 [_Exit Attendant._]

Go you, call hither my fool.

 [_Exit another Attendant._]

 Re-enter Oswald.

O, you, sir, you, come you hither, sir: who am I, sir?

OSWALD.
My lady’s father.

LEAR.
My lady’s father! my lord’s knave: you whoreson dog! you slave! you
cur!

OSWALD.
I am none of these, my lord; I beseech your pardon.

LEAR.
Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?

 [_Striking him._]

OSWALD.
I’ll not be struck, my lord.

KENT.
Nor tripp’d neither, you base football player.

 [_Tripping up his heels._]

LEAR.
I thank thee, fellow. Thou serv’st me, and I’ll love thee.

KENT.
Come, sir, arise, away! I’ll teach you differences: away, away! If you
will measure your lubber’s length again, tarry; but away! go to; have
you wisdom? So.

 [_Pushes Oswald out._]

LEAR.
Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there’s earnest of thy service.

 [_Giving Kent money._]

 Enter Fool.

FOOL.
Let me hire him too; here’s my coxcomb.

 [_Giving Kent his cap._]

LEAR.
How now, my pretty knave, how dost thou?

FOOL.
Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.

KENT.
Why, fool?

FOOL.
Why, for taking one’s part that’s out of favour. Nay, an thou canst not
smile as the wind sits, thou’lt catch cold shortly: there, take my
coxcomb: why, this fellow has banish’d two on’s daughters, and did the
third a blessing against his will; if thou follow him, thou must needs
wear my coxcomb. How now, nuncle! Would I had two coxcombs and two
daughters!

LEAR.
Why, my boy?

FOOL.
If I gave them all my living, I’d keep my coxcombs myself. There’s
mine; beg another of thy daughters.

LEAR.
Take heed, sirrah, the whip.

FOOL.
Truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when the Lady
Brach may stand by the fire and stink.

LEAR.
A pestilent gall to me!

FOOL.
Sirrah, I’ll teach thee a speech.

LEAR.
Do.

FOOL.
Mark it, nuncle:
    Have more than thou showest,
    Speak less than thou knowest,
    Lend less than thou owest,
    Ride more than thou goest,
    Learn more than thou trowest,
    Set less than thou throwest;
    Leave thy drink and thy whore,
    And keep in-a-door,
    And thou shalt have more
    Than two tens to a score.

KENT.
This is nothing, fool.

FOOL.
Then ’tis like the breath of an unfee’d lawyer, you gave me nothing
for’t. Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?

LEAR.
Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing.

FOOL.
[_to Kent._] Prythee tell him, so much the rent of his land comes to:
he will not believe a fool.

LEAR.
A bitter fool.

FOOL.
Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a
sweet one?

LEAR.
No, lad; teach me.

FOOL.
   That lord that counsell’d thee
     To give away thy land,
   Come place him here by me,
     Do thou for him stand.
   The sweet and bitter fool
     Will presently appear;
   The one in motley here,
     The other found out there.

LEAR.
Dost thou call me fool, boy?

FOOL.
All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.

KENT.
This is not altogether fool, my lord.

FOOL.
No, faith; lords and great men will not let me; if I had a monopoly
out, they would have part on’t and ladies too, they will not let me
have all the fool to myself; they’ll be snatching. Nuncle, give me an
egg, and I’ll give thee two crowns.

LEAR.
What two crowns shall they be?

FOOL.
Why, after I have cut the egg i’ the middle and eat up the meat, the
two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i’ the middle and
gav’st away both parts, thou bor’st thine ass on thy back o’er the
dirt: thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav’st thy
golden one away. If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped
that first finds it so.
[_Singing._]
   Fools had ne’er less grace in a year;
     For wise men are grown foppish,
   And know not how their wits to wear,
     Their manners are so apish.

LEAR.
When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?

FOOL.
I have used it, nuncle, e’er since thou mad’st thy daughters thy
mothers; for when thou gav’st them the rod, and put’st down thine own
breeches,
[_Singing._]
   Then they for sudden joy did weep,
     And I for sorrow sung,
   That such a king should play bo-peep,
     And go the fools among.
Prythee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach thy fool to lie; I
would fain learn to lie.

LEAR.
An you lie, sirrah, we’ll have you whipped.

FOOL.
I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are: they’ll have me whipped
for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipped for lying; and sometimes I
am whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind o’thing than
a fool: and yet I would not be thee, nuncle: thou hast pared thy wit
o’both sides, and left nothing i’ the middle: here comes one o’ the
parings.

 Enter Goneril.

LEAR.
How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on? Methinks you are too
much of late i’ the frown.

FOOL.
Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her
frowning. Now thou art an O without a figure: I am better than thou art
now. I am a fool, thou art nothing. [_To Goneril._] Yes, forsooth, I
will hold my tongue. So your face bids me, though you say nothing. Mum,
mum,
     He that keeps nor crust nor crum,
     Weary of all, shall want some.
[_Pointing to Lear_.] That’s a shealed peascod.

GONERIL.
Not only, sir, this your all-licens’d fool,
But other of your insolent retinue
Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth
In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir,
I had thought, by making this well known unto you,
To have found a safe redress; but now grow fearful,
By what yourself too late have spoke and done,
That you protect this course, and put it on
By your allowance; which if you should, the fault
Would not scape censure, nor the redresses sleep,
Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal,
Might in their working do you that offence
Which else were shame, that then necessity
Will call discreet proceeding.

FOOL.
For you know, nuncle,
   The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long
   That it’s had it head bit off by it young.
So out went the candle, and we were left darkling.

LEAR.
Are you our daughter?

GONERIL.
Come, sir,
I would you would make use of that good wisdom,
Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away
These dispositions, which of late transform you
From what you rightly are.

FOOL.
May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse? Whoop, Jug! I love
thee!

LEAR.
Doth any here know me? This is not Lear;
Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?
Either his notion weakens, his discernings
Are lethargied. Ha! waking? ’Tis not so!
Who is it that can tell me who I am?

FOOL.
Lear’s shadow.

LEAR.
I would learn that; for by the marks of sovereignty, knowledge and
reason, I should be false persuaded I had daughters.

FOOL.
Which they will make an obedient father.

LEAR.
Your name, fair gentlewoman?

GONERIL.
This admiration, sir, is much o’ the favour
Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you
To understand my purposes aright:
As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;
Men so disorder’d, so debosh’d and bold
That this our court, infected with their manners,
Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust
Makes it more like a tavern or a brothel
Than a grac’d palace. The shame itself doth speak
For instant remedy. Be, then, desir’d
By her that else will take the thing she begs
A little to disquantity your train;
And the remainder that shall still depend,
To be such men as may besort your age,
Which know themselves, and you.

LEAR.
Darkness and devils!
Saddle my horses; call my train together.
Degenerate bastard! I’ll not trouble thee:
Yet have I left a daughter.

GONERIL.
You strike my people; and your disorder’d rabble
Make servants of their betters.

 Enter Albany.

LEAR.
Woe that too late repents!—
[_To Albany._] O, sir, are you come?
Is it your will? Speak, sir.—Prepare my horses.
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster!

ALBANY.
Pray, sir, be patient.

LEAR.
[_to Goneril._] Detested kite, thou liest.
My train are men of choice and rarest parts,
That all particulars of duty know;
And in the most exact regard support
The worships of their name. O most small fault,
How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!
Which, like an engine, wrench’d my frame of nature
From the fix’d place; drew from my heart all love,
And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!
[_Striking his head._] Beat at this gate that let thy folly in
And thy dear judgement out! Go, go, my people.

ALBANY.
My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant
Of what hath moved you.

LEAR.
It may be so, my lord.
Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen, that it may live
And be a thwart disnatur’d torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away!

 [_Exit._]

ALBANY.
Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this?

GONERIL.
Never afflict yourself to know more of it;
But let his disposition have that scope
That dotage gives it.

 Re-enter Lear.

LEAR.
What, fifty of my followers at a clap?
Within a fortnight?

ALBANY.
What’s the matter, sir?

LEAR.
I’ll tell thee. [_To Goneril._] Life and death! I am asham’d
That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus;
That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,
Should make thee worth them. Blasts and fogs upon thee!
Th’untented woundings of a father’s curse
Pierce every sense about thee! Old fond eyes,
Beweep this cause again, I’ll pluck ye out,
And cast you with the waters that you lose
To temper clay. Ha! Let it be so.
I have another daughter,
Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable:
When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails
She’ll flay thy wolvish visage. Thou shalt find
That I’ll resume the shape which thou dost think
I have cast off for ever.

 [_Exeunt Lear, Kent and Attendants._]

GONERIL.
Do you mark that?

ALBANY.
I cannot be so partial, Goneril,
To the great love I bear you,—

GONERIL.
Pray you, content. What, Oswald, ho!
[_To the Fool._] You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master.

FOOL.
Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry and take the fool with thee.
   A fox when one has caught her,
   And such a daughter,
   Should sure to the slaughter,
   If my cap would buy a halter;
   So the fool follows after.

 [_Exit._]

GONERIL.
This man hath had good counsel.—A hundred knights!
’Tis politic and safe to let him keep
At point a hundred knights: yes, that on every dream,
Each buzz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike,
He may enguard his dotage with their powers,
And hold our lives in mercy. Oswald, I say!

ALBANY.
Well, you may fear too far.

GONERIL.
Safer than trust too far:
Let me still take away the harms I fear,
Not fear still to be taken: I know his heart.
What he hath utter’d I have writ my sister:
If she sustain him and his hundred knights,
When I have show’d th’unfitness,—

 Re-enter Oswald.

How now, Oswald!
What, have you writ that letter to my sister?

OSWALD.
Ay, madam.

GONERIL.
Take you some company, and away to horse:
Inform her full of my particular fear;
And thereto add such reasons of your own
As may compact it more. Get you gone;
And hasten your return.

 [_Exit Oswald._]

No, no, my lord!
This milky gentleness and course of yours,
Though I condemn not, yet, under pardon,
You are much more attask’d for want of wisdom
Than prais’d for harmful mildness.

ALBANY.
How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell:
Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.

GONERIL.
Nay then,—

ALBANY.
Well, well; the event.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Court before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.

 Enter Lear, Kent and Fool.

LEAR.
Go you before to Gloucester with these letters: acquaint my daughter no
further with anything you know than comes from her demand out of the
letter. If your diligence be not speedy, I shall be there afore you.

KENT.
I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered your letter.

 [_Exit._]

FOOL.
If a man’s brains were in’s heels, were’t not in danger of kibes?

LEAR.
Ay, boy.

FOOL.
Then I prythee be merry; thy wit shall not go slipshod.

LEAR.
Ha, ha, ha!

FOOL.
Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly, for though she’s as
like this as a crab’s like an apple, yet I can tell what I can tell.

LEAR.
What canst tell, boy?

FOOL.
She’ll taste as like this as a crab does to a crab. Thou canst tell why
one’s nose stands i’the middle on’s face?

LEAR.
No.

FOOL.
Why, to keep one’s eyes of either side’s nose, that what a man cannot
smell out, he may spy into.

LEAR.
I did her wrong.

FOOL.
Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?

LEAR.
No.

FOOL.
Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.

LEAR.
Why?

FOOL.
Why, to put’s head in; not to give it away to his daughters, and leave
his horns without a case.

LEAR.
I will forget my nature. So kind a father! Be my horses ready?

FOOL.
Thy asses are gone about ’em. The reason why the seven stars are no
more than seven is a pretty reason.

LEAR.
Because they are not eight?

FOOL.
Yes indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool.

LEAR.
To tak’t again perforce!—Monster ingratitude!

FOOL.
If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I’ld have thee beaten for being old
before thy time.

LEAR.
How’s that?

FOOL.
Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.

LEAR.
O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!
Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

 Enter Gentleman.

How now? are the horses ready?

GENTLEMAN.
Ready, my lord.

LEAR.
Come, boy.

FOOL.
She that’s a maid now, and laughs at my departure,
Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT II

SCENE I. A court within the Castle of the Earl of Gloucester.

 Enter Edmund and Curan, meeting.

EDMUND.
Save thee, Curan.

CURAN.
And you, sir. I have been with your father, and given him notice that
the Duke of Cornwall and Regan his Duchess will be here with him this
night.

EDMUND.
How comes that?

CURAN.
Nay, I know not. You have heard of the news abroad; I mean the
whispered ones, for they are yet but ear-kissing arguments?

EDMUND.
Not I: pray you, what are they?

CURAN.
Have you heard of no likely wars toward, ’twixt the two dukes of
Cornwall and Albany?

EDMUND.
Not a word.

CURAN.
You may do, then, in time. Fare you well, sir.

 [_Exit._]

EDMUND.
The Duke be here tonight? The better! best!
This weaves itself perforce into my business.
My father hath set guard to take my brother;
And I have one thing, of a queasy question,
Which I must act. Briefness and fortune work!
Brother, a word, descend, brother, I say!

 Enter Edgar.

My father watches: O sir, fly this place;
Intelligence is given where you are hid;
You have now the good advantage of the night.
Have you not spoken ’gainst the Duke of Cornwall?
He’s coming hither; now, i’ the night, i’ the haste,
And Regan with him: have you nothing said
Upon his party ’gainst the Duke of Albany?
Advise yourself.

EDGAR.
I am sure on’t, not a word.

EDMUND.
I hear my father coming:—pardon me;
In cunning I must draw my sword upon you:
Draw: seem to defend yourself: now quit you well.
Yield: come before my father. Light, ho, here!
Fly, brother. Torches, torches!—So farewell.

 [_Exit Edgar._]

Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion
Of my more fierce endeavour: [_Wounds his arm._]
I have seen drunkards
Do more than this in sport. Father, father!
Stop, stop! No help?

 Enter Gloucester and Servants with torches.

GLOUCESTER.
Now, Edmund, where’s the villain?

EDMUND.
Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out,
Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon
To stand auspicious mistress.

GLOUCESTER.
But where is he?

EDMUND.
Look, sir, I bleed.

GLOUCESTER.
Where is the villain, Edmund?

EDMUND.
Fled this way, sir. When by no means he could,—

GLOUCESTER.
Pursue him, ho! Go after.

 [_Exeunt Servants._]

—By no means what?

EDMUND.
Persuade me to the murder of your lordship;
But that I told him the revenging gods
’Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend;
Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond
The child was bound to the father; sir, in fine,
Seeing how loathly opposite I stood
To his unnatural purpose, in fell motion
With his prepared sword, he charges home
My unprovided body, latch’d mine arm;
But when he saw my best alarum’d spirits,
Bold in the quarrel’s right, rous’d to th’encounter,
Or whether gasted by the noise I made,
Full suddenly he fled.

GLOUCESTER.
Let him fly far;
Not in this land shall he remain uncaught;
And found—dispatch’d. The noble Duke my master,
My worthy arch and patron, comes tonight:
By his authority I will proclaim it,
That he which finds him shall deserve our thanks,
Bringing the murderous coward to the stake;
He that conceals him, death.

EDMUND.
When I dissuaded him from his intent,
And found him pight to do it, with curst speech
I threaten’d to discover him: he replied,
‘Thou unpossessing bastard! dost thou think,
If I would stand against thee, would the reposal
Of any trust, virtue, or worth in thee
Make thy words faith’d? No: what I should deny
As this I would; ay, though thou didst produce
My very character, I’d turn it all
To thy suggestion, plot, and damned practice:
And thou must make a dullard of the world,
If they not thought the profits of my death
Were very pregnant and potential spurs
To make thee seek it.

GLOUCESTER.
O strange and fast’ned villain!
Would he deny his letter, said he? I never got him.

 [_Tucket within._]

Hark, the Duke’s trumpets! I know not why he comes.
All ports I’ll bar; the villain shall not scape;
The Duke must grant me that: besides, his picture
I will send far and near, that all the kingdom
May have due note of him; and of my land,
Loyal and natural boy, I’ll work the means
To make thee capable.

 Enter Cornwall, Regan and Attendants.

CORNWALL.
How now, my noble friend! since I came hither,
Which I can call but now, I have heard strange news.

REGAN.
If it be true, all vengeance comes too short
Which can pursue th’offender. How dost, my lord?

GLOUCESTER.
O madam, my old heart is crack’d, it’s crack’d!

REGAN.
What, did my father’s godson seek your life?
He whom my father nam’d? your Edgar?

GLOUCESTER.
O lady, lady, shame would have it hid!

REGAN.
Was he not companion with the riotous knights
That tend upon my father?

GLOUCESTER.
I know not, madam; ’tis too bad, too bad.

EDMUND.
Yes, madam, he was of that consort.

REGAN.
No marvel then though he were ill affected:
’Tis they have put him on the old man’s death,
To have the expense and waste of his revenues.
I have this present evening from my sister
Been well inform’d of them; and with such cautions
That if they come to sojourn at my house,
I’ll not be there.

CORNWALL.
Nor I, assure thee, Regan.
Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father
A childlike office.

EDMUND.
It was my duty, sir.

GLOUCESTER.
He did bewray his practice; and receiv’d
This hurt you see, striving to apprehend him.

CORNWALL.
Is he pursued?

GLOUCESTER.
Ay, my good lord.

CORNWALL.
If he be taken, he shall never more
Be fear’d of doing harm: make your own purpose,
How in my strength you please. For you, Edmund,
Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant
So much commend itself, you shall be ours:
Natures of such deep trust we shall much need;
You we first seize on.

EDMUND.
I shall serve you, sir, truly, however else.

GLOUCESTER.
For him I thank your grace.

CORNWALL.
You know not why we came to visit you?

REGAN.
Thus out of season, threading dark-ey’d night:
Occasions, noble Gloucester, of some poise,
Wherein we must have use of your advice.
Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister,
Of differences, which I best thought it fit
To answer from our home; the several messengers
From hence attend dispatch. Our good old friend,
Lay comforts to your bosom; and bestow
Your needful counsel to our business,
Which craves the instant use.

GLOUCESTER.
I serve you, madam:
Your graces are right welcome.

 [_Exeunt. Flourish._]

SCENE II. Before Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Kent and Oswald, severally.

OSWALD.
Good dawning to thee, friend: art of this house?

KENT.
Ay.

OSWALD.
Where may we set our horses?

KENT.
I’ the mire.

OSWALD.
Prythee, if thou lov’st me, tell me.

KENT.
I love thee not.

OSWALD.
Why then, I care not for thee.

KENT.
If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold, I would make thee care for me.

OSWALD.
Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.

KENT.
Fellow, I know thee.

OSWALD.
What dost thou know me for?

KENT.
A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow,
beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave;
a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing,
super-serviceable, finical rogue; one trunk-inheriting slave; one that
wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the
composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of
a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou
deniest the least syllable of thy addition.

OSWALD.
Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that’s
neither known of thee nor knows thee?

KENT.
What a brazen-faced varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me! Is it two
days ago since I tripped up thy heels and beat thee before the King?
Draw, you rogue: for, though it be night, yet the moon shines; I’ll
make a sop o’ the moonshine of you: draw, you whoreson cullionly
barber-monger, draw!

 [_Drawing his sword._]

OSWALD.
Away! I have nothing to do with thee.

KENT.
Draw, you rascal: you come with letters against the King; and take
vanity the puppet’s part against the royalty of her father: draw, you
rogue, or I’ll so carbonado your shanks:—draw, you rascal; come your
ways!

OSWALD.
Help, ho! murder! help!

KENT.
Strike, you slave; stand, rogue, stand; you neat slave, strike!

 [_Beating him._]

OSWALD.
Help, ho! murder! murder!

 Enter Edmund, Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester and Servants.

EDMUND.
How now! What’s the matter? Part!

KENT.
With you, goodman boy, if you please: come, I’ll flesh ye; come on,
young master.

GLOUCESTER.
Weapons! arms! What’s the matter here?

CORNWALL.
Keep peace, upon your lives, he dies that strikes again. What is the
matter?

REGAN.
The messengers from our sister and the King.

CORNWALL.
What is your difference? Speak.

OSWALD.
I am scarce in breath, my lord.

KENT.
No marvel, you have so bestirr’d your valour. You cowardly rascal,
nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee.

CORNWALL.
Thou art a strange fellow: a tailor make a man?

KENT.
Ay, a tailor, sir: a stonecutter or a painter could not have made him
so ill, though he had been but two years at the trade.

CORNWALL.
Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?

OSWALD.
This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of his grey
beard,—

KENT.
Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you’ll give me
leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar and daub the
walls of a jakes with him. Spare my grey beard, you wagtail?

CORNWALL.
Peace, sirrah!
You beastly knave, know you no reverence?

KENT.
Yes, sir; but anger hath a privilege.

CORNWALL.
Why art thou angry?

KENT.
That such a slave as this should wear a sword,
Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain
Which are too intrince t’unloose; smooth every passion
That in the natures of their lords rebel;
Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;
Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters,
Knowing naught, like dogs, but following.
A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
I’d drive ye cackling home to Camelot.

CORNWALL.
What, art thou mad, old fellow?

GLOUCESTER.
How fell you out? Say that.

KENT.
No contraries hold more antipathy
Than I and such a knave.

CORNWALL.
Why dost thou call him knave? What is his fault?

KENT.
His countenance likes me not.

CORNWALL.
No more perchance does mine, or his, or hers.

KENT.
Sir, ’tis my occupation to be plain:
I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands on any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant.

CORNWALL.
This is some fellow
Who, having been prais’d for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he,
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth!
An they will take it, so; if not, he’s plain.
These kind of knaves I know which in this plainness
Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends
Than twenty silly-ducking observants
That stretch their duties nicely.

KENT.
Sir, in good faith, in sincere verity,
Under th’allowance of your great aspect,
Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire
On flickering Phoebus’ front,—

CORNWALL.
What mean’st by this?

KENT.
To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I
am no flatterer: he that beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain
knave; which, for my part, I will not be, though I should win your
displeasure to entreat me to’t.

CORNWALL.
What was the offence you gave him?

OSWALD.
I never gave him any:
It pleas’d the King his master very late
To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;
When he, compact, and flattering his displeasure,
Tripp’d me behind; being down, insulted, rail’d
And put upon him such a deal of man,
That worthied him, got praises of the King
For him attempting who was self-subdu’d;
And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit,
Drew on me here again.

KENT.
None of these rogues and cowards
But Ajax is their fool.

CORNWALL.
Fetch forth the stocks!
You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart,
We’ll teach you.

KENT.
Sir, I am too old to learn:
Call not your stocks for me: I serve the King;
On whose employment I was sent to you:
You shall do small respect, show too bold malice
Against the grace and person of my master,
Stocking his messenger.

CORNWALL.
Fetch forth the stocks!
As I have life and honour, there shall he sit till noon.

REGAN.
Till noon! Till night, my lord; and all night too!

KENT.
Why, madam, if I were your father’s dog,
You should not use me so.

REGAN.
Sir, being his knave, I will.

 [_Stocks brought out._]

CORNWALL.
This is a fellow of the selfsame colour
Our sister speaks of. Come, bring away the stocks!

GLOUCESTER.
Let me beseech your grace not to do so:
His fault is much, and the good King his master
Will check him for’t: your purpos’d low correction
Is such as basest and contemned’st wretches
For pilferings and most common trespasses,
Are punish’d with. The King must take it ill
That he, so slightly valued in his messenger,
Should have him thus restrained.

CORNWALL.
I’ll answer that.

REGAN.
My sister may receive it much more worse,
To have her gentleman abus’d, assaulted,
For following her affairs. Put in his legs.

 [_Kent is put in the stocks._]

CORNWALL.
Come, my good lord, away.

 [_Exeunt all but Gloucester and Kent._]

GLOUCESTER.
I am sorry for thee, friend; ’tis the Duke’s pleasure,
Whose disposition, all the world well knows,
Will not be rubb’d nor stopp’d; I’ll entreat for thee.

KENT.
Pray do not, sir: I have watch’d, and travell’d hard;
Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I’ll whistle.
A good man’s fortune may grow out at heels:
Give you good morrow!

GLOUCESTER.
The Duke’s to blame in this: ’twill be ill taken.

 [_Exit._]

KENT.
Good King, that must approve the common saw,
Thou out of heaven’s benediction com’st
To the warm sun.
Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,
That by thy comfortable beams I may
Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles
But misery. I know ’tis from Cordelia,
Who hath most fortunately been inform’d
Of my obscured course. And shall find time
From this enormous state, seeking to give
Losses their remedies. All weary and o’erwatch’d,
Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold
This shameful lodging.
Fortune, good night: smile once more, turn thy wheel!

 [_He sleeps._]

SCENE III. The open Country.

 Enter Edgar.

EDGAR.
I heard myself proclaim’d,
And by the happy hollow of a tree
Escap’d the hunt. No port is free, no place
That guard and most unusual vigilance
Does not attend my taking. While I may scape
I will preserve myself: and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast: my face I’ll grime with filth,
Blanket my loins; elf all my hair in knots,
And with presented nakedness outface
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb’d and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom,
That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE IV. Before Gloucester’s Castle; Kent in the stocks.

 Enter Lear, Fool and Gentleman.

LEAR.
’Tis strange that they should so depart from home,
And not send back my messenger.

GENTLEMAN.
As I learn’d,
The night before there was no purpose in them
Of this remove.

KENT.
Hail to thee, noble master!

LEAR.
Ha! Mak’st thou this shame thy pastime?

KENT.
No, my lord.

FOOL.
Ha, ha! he wears cruel garters. Horses are tied by the heads; dogs and
bears by the neck, monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs: when a
man is overlusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether-stocks.

LEAR.
What’s he that hath so much thy place mistook
To set thee here?

KENT.
It is both he and she,
Your son and daughter.

LEAR.
No.

KENT.
Yes.

LEAR.
No, I say.

KENT.
I say, yea.

LEAR.
No, no; they would not.

KENT.
Yes, they have.

LEAR.
By Jupiter, I swear no.

KENT.
By Juno, I swear ay.

LEAR.
They durst not do’t.
They could not, would not do’t; ’tis worse than murder,
To do upon respect such violent outrage:
Resolve me, with all modest haste, which way
Thou mightst deserve or they impose this usage,
Coming from us.

KENT.
My lord, when at their home
I did commend your highness’ letters to them,
Ere I was risen from the place that show’d
My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,
Stew’d in his haste, half breathless, panting forth
From Goneril his mistress salutations;
Deliver’d letters, spite of intermission,
Which presently they read; on those contents,
They summon’d up their meiny, straight took horse;
Commanded me to follow and attend
The leisure of their answer; gave me cold looks:
And meeting here the other messenger,
Whose welcome I perceiv’d had poison’d mine,
Being the very fellow which of late
Display’d so saucily against your highness,
Having more man than wit about me, drew;
He rais’d the house with loud and coward cries.
Your son and daughter found this trespass worth
The shame which here it suffers.

FOOL.
Winter’s not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way.
  Fathers that wear rags
    Do make their children blind,
  But fathers that bear bags
    Shall see their children kind.
  Fortune, that arrant whore,
  Ne’er turns the key to th’ poor.
But for all this, thou shalt have as many dolours for thy daughters as
thou canst tell in a year.

LEAR.
O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!
_Hysterica passio_, down, thou climbing sorrow,
Thy element’s below! Where is this daughter?

KENT.
With the earl, sir, here within.

LEAR.
Follow me not; stay here.

 [_Exit._]

GENTLEMAN.
Made you no more offence but what you speak of?

KENT.
None.
How chance the King comes with so small a number?

FOOL.
An thou hadst been set i’ the stocks for that question, thou hadst well
deserved it.

KENT.
Why, fool?

FOOL.
We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no labouring
i’the winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but
blind men; and there’s not a nose among twenty but can smell him that’s
stinking. Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it
break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes upward,
let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel,
give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a
fool gives it.
          That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
             And follows but for form,
          Will pack when it begins to rain,
             And leave thee in the storm.
          But I will tarry; the fool will stay,
             And let the wise man fly:
          The knave turns fool that runs away;
             The fool no knave perdy.

KENT.
Where learn’d you this, fool?

FOOL.
Not i’ the stocks, fool.

 Enter Lear and Gloucester.

LEAR.
Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary?
They have travell’d all the night? Mere fetches;
The images of revolt and flying off.
Fetch me a better answer.

GLOUCESTER.
My dear lord,
You know the fiery quality of the Duke;
How unremovable and fix’d he is
In his own course.

LEAR.
Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!
Fiery? What quality? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester,
I’d speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.

GLOUCESTER.
Well, my good lord, I have inform’d them so.

LEAR.
Inform’d them! Dost thou understand me, man?

GLOUCESTER.
Ay, my good lord.

LEAR.
The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father
Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends, service,
Are they inform’d of this? My breath and blood!
Fiery? The fiery Duke, tell the hot Duke that—
No, but not yet: maybe he is not well:
Infirmity doth still neglect all office
Whereto our health is bound: we are not ourselves
When nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind
To suffer with the body: I’ll forbear;
And am fallen out with my more headier will,
To take the indispos’d and sickly fit
For the sound man. [_Looking on Kent._]
Death on my state! Wherefore
Should he sit here? This act persuades me
That this remotion of the Duke and her
Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.
Go tell the Duke and’s wife I’d speak with them,
Now, presently: bid them come forth and hear me,
Or at their chamber door I’ll beat the drum
Till it cry sleep to death.

GLOUCESTER.
I would have all well betwixt you.

 [_Exit._]

LEAR.
O me, my heart, my rising heart! But down!

FOOL.
Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she put ’em i’
the paste alive; she knapped ’em o’ the coxcombs with a stick and cried
‘Down, wantons, down!’ ’Twas her brother that, in pure kindness to his
horse buttered his hay.

 Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester and Servants.

LEAR.
Good morrow to you both.

CORNWALL.
Hail to your grace!

 [_Kent here set at liberty._]

REGAN.
I am glad to see your highness.

LEAR.
Regan, I think you are; I know what reason
I have to think so: if thou shouldst not be glad,
I would divorce me from thy mother’s tomb,
Sepulchring an adultress. [_To Kent_] O, are you free?
Some other time for that.—Beloved Regan,
Thy sister’s naught: O Regan, she hath tied
Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here.

 [_Points to his heart._]

I can scarce speak to thee; thou’lt not believe
With how deprav’d a quality—O Regan!

REGAN.
I pray you, sir, take patience. I have hope
You less know how to value her desert
Than she to scant her duty.

LEAR.
Say, how is that?

REGAN.
I cannot think my sister in the least
Would fail her obligation. If, sir, perchance
She have restrain’d the riots of your followers,
’Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,
As clears her from all blame.

LEAR.
My curses on her.

REGAN.
O, sir, you are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine: you should be rul’d and led
By some discretion, that discerns your state
Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you,
That to our sister you do make return;
Say you have wrong’d her, sir.

LEAR.
Ask her forgiveness?
Do you but mark how this becomes the house?
‘Dear daughter, I confess that I am old;
[_Kneeling._]
Age is unnecessary: on my knees I beg
That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.’

REGAN.
Good sir, no more! These are unsightly tricks:
Return you to my sister.

LEAR.
[_Rising._] Never, Regan:
She hath abated me of half my train;
Look’d black upon me; struck me with her tongue,
Most serpent-like, upon the very heart.
All the stor’d vengeances of heaven fall
On her ingrateful top! Strike her young bones,
You taking airs, with lameness!

CORNWALL.
Fie, sir, fie!

LEAR.
You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames
Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty,
You fen-suck’d fogs, drawn by the powerful sun,
To fall and blast her pride!

REGAN.
O the blest gods!
So will you wish on me when the rash mood is on.

LEAR.
No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse.
Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give
Thee o’er to harshness. Her eyes are fierce; but thine
Do comfort, and not burn. ’Tis not in thee
To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train,
To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes,
And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt
Against my coming in. Thou better know’st
The offices of nature, bond of childhood,
Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude;
Thy half o’ the kingdom hast thou not forgot,
Wherein I thee endow’d.

REGAN.
Good sir, to the purpose.

LEAR.
Who put my man i’ the stocks?

 [_Tucket within._]

CORNWALL.
What trumpet’s that?

REGAN.
I know’t, my sister’s: this approves her letter,
That she would soon be here.

 Enter Oswald.

Is your lady come?

LEAR.
This is a slave, whose easy borrowed pride
Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows.
Out, varlet, from my sight!

CORNWALL.
What means your grace?

LEAR.
Who stock’d my servant? Regan, I have good hope
Thou didst not know on’t. Who comes here? O heavens!

 Enter Goneril.

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway
Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,
Make it your cause; send down, and take my part!
[_To Goneril._] Art not asham’d to look upon this beard?
O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?

GONERIL.
Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended?
All’s not offence that indiscretion finds
And dotage terms so.

LEAR.
O sides, you are too tough!
Will you yet hold? How came my man i’ the stocks?

CORNWALL.
I set him there, sir: but his own disorders
Deserv’d much less advancement.

LEAR.
You? Did you?

REGAN.
I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.
If, till the expiration of your month,
You will return and sojourn with my sister,
Dismissing half your train, come then to me:
I am now from home, and out of that provision
Which shall be needful for your entertainment.

LEAR.
Return to her, and fifty men dismiss’d?
No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose
To wage against the enmity o’ the air;
To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,
Necessity’s sharp pinch! Return with her?
Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took
Our youngest born, I could as well be brought
To knee his throne, and, squire-like, pension beg
To keep base life afoot. Return with her?
Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter
To this detested groom.

 [_Pointing to Oswald._]

GONERIL.
At your choice, sir.

LEAR.
I prythee, daughter, do not make me mad:
I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell:
We’ll no more meet, no more see one another.
But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;
Or rather a disease that’s in my flesh,
Which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil,
A plague sore, or embossed carbuncle
In my corrupted blood. But I’ll not chide thee;
Let shame come when it will, I do not call it:
I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,
Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove:
Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure:
I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,
I and my hundred knights.

REGAN.
Not altogether so,
I look’d not for you yet, nor am provided
For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister;
For those that mingle reason with your passion
Must be content to think you old, and so—
But she knows what she does.

LEAR.
Is this well spoken?

REGAN.
I dare avouch it, sir: what, fifty followers?
Is it not well? What should you need of more?
Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger
Speak ’gainst so great a number? How in one house
Should many people, under two commands,
Hold amity? ’Tis hard; almost impossible.

GONERIL.
Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance
From those that she calls servants, or from mine?

REGAN.
Why not, my lord? If then they chanc’d to slack ye,
We could control them. If you will come to me,—
For now I spy a danger,—I entreat you
To bring but five-and-twenty: to no more
Will I give place or notice.

LEAR.
I gave you all,—

REGAN.
And in good time you gave it.

LEAR.
Made you my guardians, my depositaries;
But kept a reservation to be followed
With such a number. What, must I come to you
With five-and-twenty, Regan, said you so?

REGAN.
And speak’t again my lord; no more with me.

LEAR.
Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour’d
When others are more wicked; not being the worst
Stands in some rank of praise.
[_To Goneril._] I’ll go with thee:
Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,
And thou art twice her love.

GONERIL.
Hear me, my lord:
What need you five-and-twenty? Ten? Or five?
To follow in a house where twice so many
Have a command to tend you?

REGAN.
What need one?

LEAR.
O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need,—
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
If it be you that stirs these daughters’ hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women’s weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall,—I will do such things,—
What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep;
No, I’ll not weep:— [_Storm and tempest._]
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep.—O fool, I shall go mad!

 [_Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent and Fool._]

CORNWALL.
Let us withdraw; ’twill be a storm.

REGAN.
This house is little: the old man and his people
Cannot be well bestow’d.

GONERIL.
’Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest
And must needs taste his folly.

REGAN.
For his particular, I’ll receive him gladly,
But not one follower.

GONERIL.
So am I purpos’d.
Where is my lord of Gloucester?

 Enter Gloucester.

CORNWALL.
Followed the old man forth, he is return’d.

GLOUCESTER.
The King is in high rage.

CORNWALL.
Whither is he going?

GLOUCESTER.
He calls to horse; but will I know not whither.

CORNWALL.
’Tis best to give him way; he leads himself.

GONERIL.
My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.

GLOUCESTER.
Alack, the night comes on, and the high winds
Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about
There’s scarce a bush.

REGAN.
O, sir, to wilful men
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors.
He is attended with a desperate train,
And what they may incense him to, being apt
To have his ear abus’d, wisdom bids fear.

CORNWALL.
Shut up your doors, my lord; ’tis a wild night.
My Regan counsels well: come out o’ the storm.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT III

SCENE I. A Heath.

 A storm with thunder and lightning. Enter Kent and a Gentleman,
 severally.

KENT.
Who’s there, besides foul weather?

GENTLEMAN.
One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

KENT.
I know you. Where’s the King?

GENTLEMAN.
Contending with the fretful elements;
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curled waters ’bove the main,
That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,
Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage,
Catch in their fury and make nothing of;
Strives in his little world of man to outscorn
The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.

KENT.
But who is with him?

GENTLEMAN.
None but the fool, who labours to out-jest
His heart-struck injuries.

KENT.
Sir, I do know you;
And dare, upon the warrant of my note
Commend a dear thing to you. There is division,
Although as yet the face of it be cover’d
With mutual cunning, ’twixt Albany and Cornwall;
Who have, as who have not, that their great stars
Throne’d and set high; servants, who seem no less,
Which are to France the spies and speculations
Intelligent of our state. What hath been seen,
Either in snuffs and packings of the Dukes;
Or the hard rein which both of them have borne
Against the old kind King; or something deeper,
Whereof, perchance, these are but furnishings;—
But, true it is, from France there comes a power
Into this scatter’d kingdom; who already,
Wise in our negligence, have secret feet
In some of our best ports, and are at point
To show their open banner.—Now to you:
If on my credit you dare build so far
To make your speed to Dover, you shall find
Some that will thank you making just report
Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow
The King hath cause to plain.
I am a gentleman of blood and breeding;
And from some knowledge and assurance
Offer this office to you.

GENTLEMAN.
I will talk further with you.

KENT.
No, do not.
For confirmation that I am much more
Than my out-wall, open this purse, and take
What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia,
As fear not but you shall, show her this ring;
And she will tell you who your fellow is
That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!
I will go seek the King.

GENTLEMAN.
Give me your hand: have you no more to say?

KENT.
Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet:
That, when we have found the King, in which your pain
That way, I’ll this; he that first lights on him
Holla the other.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Another part of the heath.

 Storm continues. Enter Lear and Fool.

LEAR.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

FOOL.
O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this
rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in; and ask thy daughters
blessing: here’s a night pities neither wise men nor fools.

LEAR.
Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters;
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, call’d you children;
You owe me no subscription: then let fall
Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis’d old man:
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That will with two pernicious daughters join
Your high-engender’d battles ’gainst a head
So old and white as this! O! O! ’tis foul!

FOOL.
He that has a house to put’s head in has a good head-piece.
   The codpiece that will house
     Before the head has any,
   The head and he shall louse:
     So beggars marry many.
   The man that makes his toe
     What he his heart should make
   Shall of a corn cry woe,
     And turn his sleep to wake.
For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

LEAR.
No, I will be the pattern of all patience;
I will say nothing.

 Enter Kent.

KENT.
Who’s there?

FOOL.
Marry, here’s grace and a codpiece; that’s a wise man and a fool.

KENT.
Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night
Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves. Since I was man,
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain I never
Remember to have heard. Man’s nature cannot carry
Th’affliction, nor the fear.

LEAR.
Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pudder o’er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes
Unwhipp’d of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjur’d, and thou simular of virtue
That art incestuous. Caitiff, to pieces shake
That under covert and convenient seeming
Hast practis’d on man’s life: close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
More sinn’d against than sinning.

KENT.
Alack, bareheaded!
Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;
Some friendship will it lend you ’gainst the tempest:
Repose you there, whilst I to this hard house,—
More harder than the stones whereof ’tis rais’d;
Which even but now, demanding after you,
Denied me to come in,—return, and force
Their scanted courtesy.

LEAR.
My wits begin to turn.
Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art cold?
I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.
Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That’s sorry yet for thee.

FOOL.
[_Singing._]
   He that has and a little tiny wit,
     With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain,
   Must make content with his fortunes fit,
     Though the rain it raineth every day.

LEAR.
True, boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.

 [_Exeunt Lear and Kent._]

FOOL.
This is a brave night to cool a courtezan. I’ll speak a prophecy ere I
go:
   When priests are more in word than matter;
   When brewers mar their malt with water;
   When nobles are their tailors’ tutors;
   No heretics burn’d, but wenches’ suitors;
   When every case in law is right;
   No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
   When slanders do not live in tongues;
   Nor cut-purses come not to throngs;
   When usurers tell their gold i’ the field;
   And bawds and whores do churches build,
   Then shall the realm of Albion
   Come to great confusion:
   Then comes the time, who lives to see’t,
   That going shall be us’d with feet.
This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Gloucester and Edmund.

GLOUCESTER.
Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing. When I desired
their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine
own house; charged me on pain of perpetual displeasure, neither to
speak of him, entreat for him, or any way sustain him.

EDMUND.
Most savage and unnatural!

GLOUCESTER.
Go to; say you nothing. There is division between the Dukes, and a
worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night;—’tis
dangerous to be spoken;—I have locked the letter in my closet: these
injuries the King now bears will be revenged home; there’s part of a
power already footed: we must incline to the King. I will look him, and
privily relieve him: go you and maintain talk with the Duke, that my
charity be not of him perceived: if he ask for me, I am ill, and gone
to bed. If I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the King my old
master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund;
pray you be careful.

 [_Exit._]

EDMUND.
This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the Duke
Instantly know; and of that letter too.
This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me
That which my father loses, no less than all:
The younger rises when the old doth fall.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE IV. A part of the Heath with a Hovel.

 Storm continues. Enter Lear, Kent and Fool.

KENT.
Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter:
The tyranny of the open night’s too rough
For nature to endure.

LEAR.
Let me alone.

KENT.
Good my lord, enter here.

LEAR.
Wilt break my heart?

KENT.
I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.

LEAR.
Thou think’st ’tis much that this contentious storm
Invades us to the skin: so ’tis to thee,
But where the greater malady is fix’d,
The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’dst shun a bear;
But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,
Thou’dst meet the bear i’ the mouth. When the mind’s free,
The body’s delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand
For lifting food to’t? But I will punish home;
No, I will weep no more. In such a night
To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure:
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.

KENT.
Good my lord, enter here.

LEAR.
Prythee go in thyself; seek thine own ease:
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt me more. But I’ll go in.
[_To the Fool._] In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty,
Nay, get thee in. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep.

 [_Fool goes in._]

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them
And show the heavens more just.

EDGAR.
[_Within._] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!

 [_The Fool runs out from the hovel._]

FOOL.
Come not in here, nuncle, here’s a spirit.
Help me, help me!

KENT.
Give me thy hand. Who’s there?

FOOL.
A spirit, a spirit: he says his name’s poor Tom.

KENT.
What art thou that dost grumble there i’ the straw?
Come forth.

 Enter Edgar, disguised as a madman.

EDGAR.
Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blows the
cold wind. Humh! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.

LEAR.
Didst thou give all to thy two daughters?
And art thou come to this?

EDGAR.
Who gives anything to poor Tom? Whom the foul fiend hath led through
fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and
quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow and halters in his
pew, set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to ride on
a bay trotting horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow
for a traitor. Bless thy five wits! 	Tom’s a-cold. O, do, de, do,
de, do, de. Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking! Do
poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes. There could I have
him now, and there,—and there again, and there.

 [_Storm continues._]

LEAR.
What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?
Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give ’em all?

FOOL.
Nay, he reserv’d a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

LEAR.
Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air
Hang fated o’er men’s faults light on thy daughters!

KENT.
He hath no daughters, sir.

LEAR.
Death, traitor! nothing could have subdu’d nature
To such a lowness but his unkind daughters.
Is it the fashion that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! ’twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.

EDGAR.
   Pillicock sat on Pillicock hill,
     Alow, alow, loo loo!

FOOL.
This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.

EDGAR.
Take heed o’ th’ foul fiend: obey thy parents; keep thy word justly;
swear not; commit not with man’s sworn spouse; set not thy sweet-heart
on proud array. Tom’s a-cold.

LEAR.
What hast thou been?

EDGAR.
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair; wore
gloves in my cap; served the lust of my mistress’ heart, and did the
act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and
broke them in the sweet face of heaven. One that slept in the
contriving of lust, and waked to do it. Wine loved I deeply, dice
dearly; and in woman out-paramour’d the Turk. False of heart, light of
ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness,
dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes nor the
rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to woman. Keep thy foot out of
brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lender’s book, and
defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind:
says suum, mun, nonny. Dolphin my boy, boy, sessa! let him trot by.

 [_Storm still continues._]

LEAR.
Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered
body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider
him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no
wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here’s three on’s are sophisticated! Thou
art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor,
bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton
here.

 [_Tears off his clothes._]

FOOL.
Prythee, nuncle, be contented; ’tis a naughty night to swim in. Now a
little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher’s heart, a small
spark, all the rest on’s body cold. Look, here comes a walking fire.

EDGAR.
This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks
till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and
makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature
of earth.
   Swithold footed thrice the old;
   He met the nightmare, and her nine-fold;
     Bid her alight and her troth plight,
   And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!

KENT.
How fares your grace?

 Enter Gloucester with a torch.

LEAR.
What’s he?

KENT.
Who’s there? What is’t you seek?

GLOUCESTER.
What are you there? Your names?

EDGAR.
Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole, the
wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul
fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat and the
ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped
from tithing to tithing, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who
hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body,
     Horse to ride, and weapon to wear.
     But mice and rats and such small deer,
     Have been Tom’s food for seven long year.
Beware my follower. Peace, Smulkin; peace, thou fiend!

GLOUCESTER.
What, hath your grace no better company?

EDGAR.
The prince of darkness is a gentleman:
Modo he’s call’d, and Mahu.

GLOUCESTER.
Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile
That it doth hate what gets it.

EDGAR.
Poor Tom’s a-cold.

GLOUCESTER.
Go in with me: my duty cannot suffer
T’obey in all your daughters’ hard commands;
Though their injunction be to bar my doors,
And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,
Yet have I ventur’d to come seek you out,
And bring you where both fire and food is ready.

LEAR.
First let me talk with this philosopher.
What is the cause of thunder?

KENT.
Good my lord, take his offer; go into the house.

LEAR.
I’ll talk a word with this same learned Theban.
What is your study?

EDGAR.
How to prevent the fiend and to kill vermin.

LEAR.
Let me ask you one word in private.

KENT.
Importune him once more to go, my lord;
His wits begin t’unsettle.

GLOUCESTER.
Canst thou blame him?
His daughters seek his death. Ah, that good Kent!
He said it would be thus, poor banish’d man!
Thou sayest the King grows mad; I’ll tell thee, friend,
I am almost mad myself. I had a son,
Now outlaw’d from my blood; he sought my life
But lately, very late: I lov’d him, friend,
No father his son dearer: true to tell thee,

 [_Storm continues._]

The grief hath craz’d my wits. What a night’s this!
I do beseech your grace.

LEAR.
O, cry you mercy, sir.
Noble philosopher, your company.

EDGAR.
Tom’s a-cold.

GLOUCESTER.
In, fellow, there, into the hovel; keep thee warm.

LEAR.
Come, let’s in all.

KENT.
This way, my lord.

LEAR.
With him;
I will keep still with my philosopher.

KENT.
Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow.

GLOUCESTER.
Take him you on.

KENT.
Sirrah, come on; go along with us.

LEAR.
Come, good Athenian.

GLOUCESTER.
No words, no words, hush.

EDGAR.
   Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
   His word was still—Fie, foh, and fum,
   I smell the blood of a British man.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Cornwall and Edmund.

CORNWALL.
I will have my revenge ere I depart his house.

EDMUND.
How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty,
something fears me to think of.

CORNWALL.
I now perceive it was not altogether your brother’s evil disposition
made him seek his death; but a provoking merit, set a-work by a
reproveable badness in himself.

EDMUND.
How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the
letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the
advantages of France. O heavens! that this treason were not; or not I
the detector!

CORNWALL.
Go with me to the Duchess.

EDMUND.
If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in
hand.

CORNWALL.
True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloucester. Seek out where thy
father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.

EDMUND.
[_Aside._] If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his
suspicion more fully. I will persever in my course of loyalty, though
the conflict be sore between that and my blood.

CORNWALL.
I will lay trust upon thee; and thou shalt find a dearer father in my
love.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. A Chamber in a Farmhouse adjoining the Castle.

 Enter Gloucester, Lear, Kent, Fool and Edgar.

GLOUCESTER.
Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully. I will piece out
the comfort with what addition I can: I will not be long from you.

KENT.
All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience:— the gods
reward your kindness!

 [_Exit Gloucester._]

EDGAR.
Frateretto calls me; and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of
darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.

FOOL.
Prythee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman.

LEAR.
A king, a king!

FOOL.
No, he’s a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son; for he’s a mad
yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him.

LEAR.
To have a thousand with red burning spits
Come hissing in upon ’em.

EDGAR.
The foul fiend bites my back.

FOOL.
He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a
boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.

LEAR.
It shall be done; I will arraign them straight.
[_To Edgar._] Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer;
[_To the Fool._] Thou, sapient sir, sit here. Now, you she-foxes!—

EDGAR.
Look, where he stands and glares! Want’st thou eyes at trial, madam?
  Come o’er the bourn, Bessy, to me.

FOOL.
   Her boat hath a leak,
   And she must not speak
   Why she dares not come over to thee.

EDGAR.
The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale.
Hoppedance cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring. Croak not, black
angel; I have no food for thee.

KENT.
How do you, sir? Stand you not so amaz’d;
Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?

LEAR.
I’ll see their trial first. Bring in their evidence.
[_To Edgar._] Thou, robed man of justice, take thy place.
[_To the Fool._] And thou, his yokefellow of equity,
Bench by his side. [_To Kent._] You are o’ the commission,
Sit you too.

EDGAR.
   Let us deal justly.
   Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
     Thy sheep be in the corn;
   And for one blast of thy minikin mouth
     Thy sheep shall take no harm.
Purr! the cat is grey.

LEAR.
Arraign her first; ’tis Goneril. I here take my oath before this
honourable assembly, she kicked the poor King her father.

FOOL.
Come hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril?

LEAR.
She cannot deny it.

FOOL.
Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool.

LEAR.
And here’s another, whose warp’d looks proclaim
What store her heart is made on. Stop her there!
Arms, arms! sword! fire! Corruption in the place!
False justicer, why hast thou let her ’scape?

EDGAR.
Bless thy five wits!

KENT.
O pity! Sir, where is the patience now
That you so oft have boasted to retain?

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] My tears begin to take his part so much
They mar my counterfeiting.

LEAR.
The little dogs and all,
Trey, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.

EDGAR.
Tom will throw his head at them. Avaunt, you curs!
   Be thy mouth or black or white,
   Tooth that poisons if it bite;
   Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,
   Hound or spaniel, brach or him,
   Or bobtail tike or trundle-tail,
   Tom will make them weep and wail;
   For, with throwing thus my head,
   Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.
Do, de, de, de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes and fairs and market towns.
Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.

LEAR.
Then let them anatomize Regan; see what breeds about her heart. Is
there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts? [_To Edgar._]
You, sir, I entertain you for one of my hundred; only I do not like the
fashion of your garments. You’ll say they are Persian; but let them be
changed.

KENT.
Now, good my lord, lie here and rest awhile.

LEAR.
Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains.
So, so. We’ll go to supper i’ the morning.

FOOL.
And I’ll go to bed at noon.

 Enter Gloucester.

GLOUCESTER.
Come hither, friend;
Where is the King my master?

KENT.
Here, sir; but trouble him not, his wits are gone.

GLOUCESTER.
Good friend, I prythee, take him in thy arms;
I have o’erheard a plot of death upon him;
There is a litter ready; lay him in’t
And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet
Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master;
If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life,
With thine, and all that offer to defend him,
Stand in assured loss. Take up, take up;
And follow me, that will to some provision
Give thee quick conduct.

KENT.
Oppressed nature sleeps.
This rest might yet have balm’d thy broken sinews,
Which, if convenience will not allow,
Stand in hard cure. Come, help to bear thy master;
[_To the Fool._] Thou must not stay behind.

GLOUCESTER.
Come, come, away!

 [_Exeunt Kent, Gloucester and the Fool bearing off Lear._]

EDGAR.
When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers, suffers most i’ the mind,
Leaving free things and happy shows behind:
But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend makes the King bow;
He childed as I fathered! Tom, away!
Mark the high noises; and thyself bewray,
When false opinion, whose wrong thoughts defile thee,
In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee.
What will hap more tonight, safe ’scape the King!
Lurk, lurk.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE VII. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Cornwall, Regan, Goneril, Edmund and Servants.

CORNWALL.
Post speedily to my lord your husband, show him this letter: the army
of France is landed. Seek out the traitor Gloucester.

 [_Exeunt some of the Servants._]

REGAN.
Hang him instantly.

GONERIL.
Pluck out his eyes.

CORNWALL.
Leave him to my displeasure. Edmund, keep you our sister company: the
revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father are not fit
for your beholding. Advise the Duke where you are going, to a most
festinate preparation: we are bound to the like. Our posts shall be
swift and intelligent betwixt us. Farewell, dear sister, farewell, my
lord of Gloucester.

 Enter Oswald.

How now! Where’s the King?

OSWALD.
My lord of Gloucester hath convey’d him hence:
Some five or six and thirty of his knights,
Hot questrists after him, met him at gate;
Who, with some other of the lord’s dependants,
Are gone with him toward Dover: where they boast
To have well-armed friends.

CORNWALL.
Get horses for your mistress.

GONERIL.
Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.

CORNWALL.
Edmund, farewell.

 [_Exeunt Goneril, Edmund and Oswald._]

Go seek the traitor Gloucester,
Pinion him like a thief, bring him before us.

 [_Exeunt other Servants._]

Though well we may not pass upon his life
Without the form of justice, yet our power
Shall do a courtesy to our wrath, which men
May blame, but not control. Who’s there? The traitor?

 Enter Gloucester and Servants.

REGAN.
Ingrateful fox! ’tis he.

CORNWALL.
Bind fast his corky arms.

GLOUCESTER.
What mean your graces?
Good my friends, consider you are my guests.
Do me no foul play, friends.

CORNWALL.
Bind him, I say.

 [_Servants bind him._]

REGAN.
Hard, hard. O filthy traitor!

GLOUCESTER.
Unmerciful lady as you are, I’m none.

CORNWALL.
To this chair bind him. Villain, thou shalt find—

 [_Regan plucks his beard._]

GLOUCESTER.
By the kind gods, ’tis most ignobly done
To pluck me by the beard.

REGAN.
So white, and such a traitor!

GLOUCESTER.
Naughty lady,
These hairs which thou dost ravish from my chin
Will quicken, and accuse thee. I am your host:
With robber’s hands my hospitable favours
You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?

CORNWALL.
Come, sir, what letters had you late from France?

REGAN.
Be simple answer’d, for we know the truth.

CORNWALL.
And what confederacy have you with the traitors,
Late footed in the kingdom?

REGAN.
To whose hands have you sent the lunatic King?
Speak.

GLOUCESTER.
I have a letter guessingly set down,
Which came from one that’s of a neutral heart,
And not from one oppos’d.

CORNWALL.
Cunning.

REGAN.
And false.

CORNWALL.
Where hast thou sent the King?

GLOUCESTER.
To Dover.

REGAN.
Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charg’d at peril,—

CORNWALL.
Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.

GLOUCESTER.
I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.

REGAN.
Wherefore to Dover, sir?

GLOUCESTER.
Because I would not see thy cruel nails
Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister
In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.
The sea, with such a storm as his bare head
In hell-black night endur’d, would have buoy’d up,
And quench’d the stelled fires;
Yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to rain.
If wolves had at thy gate howl’d that stern time,
Thou shouldst have said, ‘Good porter, turn the key.’
All cruels else subscrib’d: but I shall see
The winged vengeance overtake such children.

CORNWALL.
See’t shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair.
Upon these eyes of thine I’ll set my foot.

 [_Gloucester is held down in his chair, while Cornwall plucks out one
 of his eyes and sets his foot on it._]

GLOUCESTER.
He that will think to live till he be old,
Give me some help!—O cruel! O you gods!

REGAN.
One side will mock another; the other too!

CORNWALL.
If you see vengeance—

FIRST SERVANT.
Hold your hand, my lord:
I have serv’d you ever since I was a child;
But better service have I never done you
Than now to bid you hold.

REGAN.
How now, you dog!

FIRST SERVANT.
If you did wear a beard upon your chin,
I’d shake it on this quarrel. What do you mean?

CORNWALL.
My villain?

 [_Draws, and runs at him._]

FIRST SERVANT.
Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger.

 [_Draws. They fight. Cornwall is wounded._]

REGAN.
[_To another servant._] Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus?

 [_Snatches a sword, comes behind, and stabs him._]

FIRST SERVANT.
O, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left
To see some mischief on him. O!

 [_Dies._]

CORNWALL.
Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!
Where is thy lustre now?

 [_Tears out Gloucester’s other eye and throws it on the ground._]

GLOUCESTER.
All dark and comfortless. Where’s my son Edmund?
Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature
To quit this horrid act.

REGAN.
Out, treacherous villain!
Thou call’st on him that hates thee: it was he
That made the overture of thy treasons to us;
Who is too good to pity thee.

GLOUCESTER.
O my follies! Then Edgar was abus’d.
Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!

REGAN.
Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell
His way to Dover. How is’t, my lord? How look you?

CORNWALL.
I have receiv’d a hurt: follow me, lady.
Turn out that eyeless villain. Throw this slave
Upon the dunghill. Regan, I bleed apace:
Untimely comes this hurt: give me your arm.

 [_Exit Cornwall, led by Regan; Servants unbind Gloucester and lead him
 out._]

SECOND SERVANT.
I’ll never care what wickedness I do,
If this man come to good.

THIRD SERVANT.
If she live long,
And in the end meet the old course of death,
Women will all turn monsters.

SECOND SERVANT.
Let’s follow the old Earl, and get the bedlam
To lead him where he would: his roguish madness
Allows itself to anything.

THIRD SERVANT.
Go thou: I’ll fetch some flax and whites of eggs
To apply to his bleeding face. Now heaven help him!

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT IV

SCENE I. The heath.

 Enter Edgar.

EDGAR.
Yet better thus, and known to be contemn’d,
Than still contemn’d and flatter’d. To be worst,
The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,
Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear:
The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. Welcome then,
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace;
The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst
Owes nothing to thy blasts.

 Enter Gloucester, led by an Old Man.

But who comes here? My father, poorly led?
World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
Life would not yield to age.

OLD MAN.
O my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father’s tenant these
fourscore years.

GLOUCESTER.
Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone.
Thy comforts can do me no good at all;
Thee they may hurt.

OLD MAN.
You cannot see your way.

GLOUCESTER.
I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;
I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ’tis seen
Our means secure us, and our mere defects
Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar,
The food of thy abused father’s wrath!
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I’d say I had eyes again!

OLD MAN.
How now! Who’s there?

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] O gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am at the worst’?
I am worse than e’er I was.

OLD MAN.
’Tis poor mad Tom.

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] And worse I may be yet. The worst is not
So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’

OLD MAN.
Fellow, where goest?

GLOUCESTER.
Is it a beggar-man?

OLD MAN.
Madman, and beggar too.

GLOUCESTER.
He has some reason, else he could not beg.
I’ the last night’s storm I such a fellow saw;
Which made me think a man a worm. My son
Came then into my mind, and yet my mind
Was then scarce friends with him.
I have heard more since.
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,
They kill us for their sport.

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] How should this be?
Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
Angering itself and others. Bless thee, master!

GLOUCESTER.
Is that the naked fellow?

OLD MAN.
Ay, my lord.

GLOUCESTER.
Then prythee get thee away. If for my sake
Thou wilt o’ertake us hence a mile or twain,
I’ the way toward Dover, do it for ancient love,
And bring some covering for this naked soul,
Which I’ll entreat to lead me.

OLD MAN.
Alack, sir, he is mad.

GLOUCESTER.
’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.
Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure;
Above the rest, be gone.

OLD MAN.
I’ll bring him the best ’parel that I have,
Come on’t what will.

 [_Exit._]

GLOUCESTER.
Sirrah naked fellow.

EDGAR.
Poor Tom’s a-cold.
[_Aside._] I cannot daub it further.

GLOUCESTER.
Come hither, fellow.

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] And yet I must. Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.

GLOUCESTER.
Know’st thou the way to Dover?

EDGAR.
Both stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared
out of his good wits. Bless thee, good man’s son, from the foul fiend!
Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut;
Hobbididence, prince of darkness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder;
Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing, who since possesses
chambermaids and waiting women. So, bless thee, master!

GLOUCESTER.
Here, take this purse, thou whom the heaven’s plagues
Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
Makes thee the happier. Heavens deal so still!
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?

EDGAR.
Ay, master.

GLOUCESTER.
There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully in the confined deep:
Bring me but to the very brim of it,
And I’ll repair the misery thou dost bear
With something rich about me: from that place
I shall no leading need.

EDGAR.
Give me thy arm:
Poor Tom shall lead thee.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.

 Enter Goneril, Edmund; Oswald meeting them.

GONERIL.
Welcome, my lord. I marvel our mild husband
Not met us on the way. Now, where’s your master?

OSWALD.
Madam, within; but never man so chang’d.
I told him of the army that was landed;
He smil’d at it: I told him you were coming;
His answer was, ‘The worse.’ Of Gloucester’s treachery
And of the loyal service of his son
When I inform’d him, then he call’d me sot,
And told me I had turn’d the wrong side out.
What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;
What like, offensive.

GONERIL.
[_To Edmund._] Then shall you go no further.
It is the cowish terror of his spirit,
That dares not undertake. He’ll not feel wrongs
Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way
May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;
Hasten his musters and conduct his powers.
I must change names at home, and give the distaff
Into my husband’s hands. This trusty servant
Shall pass between us. Ere long you are like to hear,
If you dare venture in your own behalf,
A mistress’s command. [_Giving a favour._]
Wear this; spare speech;
Decline your head. This kiss, if it durst speak,
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.
Conceive, and fare thee well.

EDMUND.
Yours in the ranks of death.

 [_Exit Edmund._]

GONERIL.
My most dear Gloucester.
O, the difference of man and man!
To thee a woman’s services are due;
My fool usurps my body.

OSWALD.
Madam, here comes my lord.

 [_Exit._]

 Enter Albany.

GONERIL.
I have been worth the whistle.

ALBANY.
O Goneril!
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face! I fear your disposition;
That nature which contemns its origin
Cannot be bordered certain in itself.
She that herself will sliver and disbranch
From her material sap, perforce must wither
And come to deadly use.

GONERIL.
No more; the text is foolish.

ALBANY.
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile;
Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform’d?
A father, and a gracious aged man,
Whose reverence even the head-lugg’d bear would lick,
Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.
Could my good brother suffer you to do it?
A man, a prince, by him so benefitted!
If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
It will come,
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.

GONERIL.
Milk-liver’d man!
That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know’st
Fools do those villains pity who are punish’d
Ere they have done their mischief. Where’s thy drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;
With plumed helm thy state begins to threat,
Whilst thou, a moral fool, sitt’st still, and criest
‘Alack, why does he so?’

ALBANY.
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
So horrid as in woman.

GONERIL.
O vain fool!

ALBANY.
Thou changed and self-cover’d thing, for shame!
Be-monster not thy feature! Were’t my fitness
To let these hands obey my blood.
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
Thy flesh and bones. Howe’er thou art a fiend,
A woman’s shape doth shield thee.

GONERIL.
Marry, your manhood, mew!

 Enter a Messenger.

ALBANY.
What news?

MESSENGER.
O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall’s dead;
Slain by his servant, going to put out
The other eye of Gloucester.

ALBANY.
Gloucester’s eyes!

MESSENGER.
A servant that he bred, thrill’d with remorse,
Oppos’d against the act, bending his sword
To his great master; who, thereat enrag’d,
Flew on him, and amongst them fell’d him dead;
But not without that harmful stroke which since
Hath pluck’d him after.

ALBANY.
This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge! But, O poor Gloucester!
Lost he his other eye?

MESSENGER.
Both, both, my lord.
This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer;
’Tis from your sister.

GONERIL.
[_Aside._] One way I like this well;
But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,
May all the building in my fancy pluck
Upon my hateful life. Another way
The news is not so tart. I’ll read, and answer.

 [_Exit._]

ALBANY.
Where was his son when they did take his eyes?

MESSENGER.
Come with my lady hither.

ALBANY.
He is not here.

MESSENGER.
No, my good lord; I met him back again.

ALBANY.
Knows he the wickedness?

MESSENGER.
Ay, my good lord. ’Twas he inform’d against him;
And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment
Might have the freer course.

ALBANY.
Gloucester, I live
To thank thee for the love thou show’dst the King,
And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend,
Tell me what more thou know’st.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. The French camp near Dover.

 Enter Kent and a Gentleman.

KENT.
Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back, know you no reason?

GENTLEMAN.
Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth
is thought of, which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger
that his personal return was most required and necessary.

KENT.
Who hath he left behind him general?

GENTLEMAN.
The Mareschal of France, Monsieur La Far.

KENT.
Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?

GENTLEMAN.
Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;
And now and then an ample tear trill’d down
Her delicate cheek. It seem’d she was a queen
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king o’er her.

KENT.
O, then it mov’d her.

GENTLEMAN.
Not to a rage: patience and sorrow strove
Who should express her goodliest. You have seen
Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears
Were like a better day. Those happy smilets
That play’d on her ripe lip seem’d not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence
As pearls from diamonds dropp’d. In brief,
Sorrow would be a rarity most belov’d,
If all could so become it.

KENT.
Made she no verbal question?

GENTLEMAN.
Faith, once or twice she heav’d the name of ‘father’
Pantingly forth, as if it press’d her heart;
Cried ‘Sisters, sisters! Shame of ladies! sisters!
Kent! father! sisters! What, i’ the storm? i’ the night?
Let pity not be believ’d!’ There she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
And clamour master’d her: then away she started
To deal with grief alone.

KENT.
It is the stars,
The stars above us govern our conditions;
Else one self mate and make could not beget
Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?

GENTLEMAN.
No.

KENT.
Was this before the King return’d?

GENTLEMAN.
No, since.

KENT.
Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear’s i’ the town;
Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers
What we are come about, and by no means
Will yield to see his daughter.

GENTLEMAN.
Why, good sir?

KENT.
A sovereign shame so elbows him. His own unkindness,
That stripp’d her from his benediction, turn’d her
To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights
To his dog-hearted daughters, these things sting
His mind so venomously that burning shame
Detains him from Cordelia.

GENTLEMAN.
Alack, poor gentleman!

KENT.
Of Albany’s and Cornwall’s powers you heard not?

GENTLEMAN.
’Tis so; they are afoot.

KENT.
Well, sir, I’ll bring you to our master Lear
And leave you to attend him. Some dear cause
Will in concealment wrap me up awhile;
When I am known aright, you shall not grieve
Lending me this acquaintance.
I pray you, go along with me.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. The French camp. A Tent.

 Enter with drum and colours, Cordelia, Physician and Soldiers.

CORDELIA.
Alack, ’tis he: why, he was met even now
As mad as the vex’d sea; singing aloud;
Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow weeds,
With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn. A century send forth;
Search every acre in the high-grown field,
And bring him to our eye.

 [_Exit an Officer._]

What can man’s wisdom
In the restoring his bereaved sense,
He that helps him take all my outward worth.

PHYSICIAN.
There is means, madam:
Our foster nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lacks; that to provoke in him
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish.

CORDELIA.
All bless’d secrets,
All you unpublish’d virtues of the earth,
Spring with my tears! Be aidant and remediate
In the good man’s distress! Seek, seek for him;
Lest his ungovern’d rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it.

 Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER.
News, madam;
The British powers are marching hitherward.

CORDELIA.
’Tis known before. Our preparation stands
In expectation of them. O dear father,
It is thy business that I go about;
Therefore great France
My mourning and important tears hath pitied.
No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our ag’d father’s right:
Soon may I hear and see him!

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Regan and Oswald.

REGAN.
But are my brother’s powers set forth?

OSWALD.
Ay, madam.

REGAN.
Himself in person there?

OSWALD.
Madam, with much ado.
Your sister is the better soldier.

REGAN.
Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?

OSWALD.
No, madam.

REGAN.
What might import my sister’s letter to him?

OSWALD.
I know not, lady.

REGAN.
Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.
It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out,
To let him live. Where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone
In pity of his misery, to dispatch
His nighted life; moreover to descry
The strength o’ th’enemy.

OSWALD.
I must needs after him, madam, with my letter.

REGAN.
Our troops set forth tomorrow; stay with us;
The ways are dangerous.

OSWALD.
I may not, madam:
My lady charg’d my duty in this business.

REGAN.
Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you
Transport her purposes by word? Belike,
Somethings, I know not what, I’ll love thee much.
Let me unseal the letter.

OSWALD.
Madam, I had rather—

REGAN.
I know your lady does not love her husband;
I am sure of that; and at her late being here
She gave strange oeillades and most speaking looks
To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom.

OSWALD.
I, madam?

REGAN.
I speak in understanding; y’are, I know’t:
Therefore I do advise you take this note:
My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk’d,
And more convenient is he for my hand
Than for your lady’s. You may gather more.
If you do find him, pray you give him this;
And when your mistress hears thus much from you,
I pray desire her call her wisdom to her.
So, fare you well.
If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,
Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.

OSWALD.
Would I could meet him, madam! I should show
What party I do follow.

REGAN.
Fare thee well.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. The country near Dover.

 Enter Gloucester, and Edgar  dressed like a peasant.

GLOUCESTER.
When shall I come to the top of that same hill?

EDGAR.
You do climb up it now. Look how we labour.

GLOUCESTER.
Methinks the ground is even.

EDGAR.
Horrible steep.
Hark, do you hear the sea?

GLOUCESTER.
No, truly.

EDGAR.
Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect
By your eyes’ anguish.

GLOUCESTER.
So may it be indeed.
Methinks thy voice is alter’d; and thou speak’st
In better phrase and matter than thou didst.

EDGAR.
Y’are much deceiv’d: in nothing am I chang’d
But in my garments.

GLOUCESTER.
Methinks you’re better spoken.

EDGAR.
Come on, sir; here’s the place. Stand still. How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire—dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
Diminish’d to her cock; her cock a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge
That on th’unnumber’d idle pebble chafes
Cannot be heard so high. I’ll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

GLOUCESTER.
Set me where you stand.

EDGAR.
Give me your hand.
You are now within a foot of th’extreme verge.
For all beneath the moon would I not leap upright.

GLOUCESTER.
Let go my hand.
Here, friend, ’s another purse; in it a jewel
Well worth a poor man’s taking. Fairies and gods
Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off;
Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.

EDGAR.
Now fare ye well, good sir.

 [_Seems to go._]

GLOUCESTER.
With all my heart.

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] Why I do trifle thus with his despair
Is done to cure it.

GLOUCESTER.
O you mighty gods!
This world I do renounce, and in your sights,
Shake patiently my great affliction off:
If I could bear it longer, and not fall
To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
My snuff and loathed part of nature should
Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!
Now, fellow, fare thee well.

EDGAR.
Gone, sir, farewell.

 [_Gloucester leaps, and falls along_]

And yet I know not how conceit may rob
The treasury of life when life itself
Yields to the theft. Had he been where he thought,
By this had thought been past. Alive or dead?
Ho you, sir! friend! Hear you, sir? speak!
Thus might he pass indeed: yet he revives.
What are you, sir?

GLOUCESTER.
Away, and let me die.

EDGAR.
Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
So many fathom down precipitating,
Thou’dst shiver’d like an egg: but thou dost breathe;
Hast heavy substance; bleed’st not; speak’st; art sound.
Ten masts at each make not the altitude
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell.
Thy life is a miracle. Speak yet again.

GLOUCESTER.
But have I fall’n, or no?

EDGAR.
From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.
Look up a-height, the shrill-gorg’d lark so far
Cannot be seen or heard. Do but look up.

GLOUCESTER.
Alack, I have no eyes.
Is wretchedness depriv’d that benefit
To end itself by death? ’Twas yet some comfort
When misery could beguile the tyrant’s rage
And frustrate his proud will.

EDGAR.
Give me your arm.
Up, so. How is’t? Feel you your legs? You stand.

GLOUCESTER.
Too well, too well.

EDGAR.
This is above all strangeness.
Upon the crown o’ the cliff what thing was that
Which parted from you?

GLOUCESTER.
A poor unfortunate beggar.

EDGAR.
As I stood here below, methought his eyes
Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,
Horns whelk’d and waved like the enraged sea.
It was some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father,
Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours
Of men’s impossibilities, have preserv’d thee.

GLOUCESTER.
I do remember now: henceforth I’ll bear
Affliction till it do cry out itself
‘Enough, enough,’ and die. That thing you speak of,
I took it for a man; often ’twould say,
‘The fiend, the fiend’; he led me to that place.

EDGAR.
Bear free and patient thoughts. But who comes here?

 Enter Lear, fantastically dressed up with flowers.

The safer sense will ne’er accommodate
His master thus.

LEAR.
No, they cannot touch me for coining. I am the King himself.

EDGAR.
O thou side-piercing sight!

LEAR.
Nature’s above art in that respect. There’s your press money. That
fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a clothier’s yard.
Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace, this piece of toasted cheese will
do’t. There’s my gauntlet; I’ll prove it on a giant. Bring up the brown
bills. O, well flown, bird! i’ the clout, i’ the clout. Hewgh! Give the
word.

EDGAR.
Sweet marjoram.

LEAR.
Pass.

GLOUCESTER.
I know that voice.

LEAR.
Ha! Goneril with a white beard! They flattered me like a dog; and told
me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say
‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to was no good
divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me
chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found
’em, there I smelt ’em out. Go to, they are not men o’ their words:
they told me I was everything; ’tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.

GLOUCESTER.
The trick of that voice I do well remember:
Is’t not the King?

LEAR.
Ay, every inch a king.
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.
I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause?
Adultery? Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:
The wren goes to’t, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight. Let copulation thrive;
For Gloucester’s bastard son was kinder to his father
Than my daughters got ’tween the lawful sheets.
To’t, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers.
Behold yond simp’ring dame,
Whose face between her forks presages snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure’s name.
The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to’t with a more riotous
appetite. Down from the waist they are centaurs, though women all
above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit, beneath is all the
fiend’s; there’s hell, there’s darkness, there is the sulphurous pit;
burning, scalding, stench, consumption. Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! Give
me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination.
There’s money for thee.

GLOUCESTER.
O, let me kiss that hand!

LEAR.
Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.

GLOUCESTER.
O ruin’d piece of nature, this great world
Shall so wear out to naught. Dost thou know me?

LEAR.
I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at me?
No, do thy worst, blind Cupid; I’ll not love.
Read thou this challenge; mark but the penning of it.

GLOUCESTER.
Were all the letters suns, I could not see one.

EDGAR.
I would not take this from report,
It is, and my heart breaks at it.

LEAR.
Read.

GLOUCESTER.
What, with the case of eyes?

LEAR.
O, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in
your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light, yet
you see how this world goes.

GLOUCESTER.
I see it feelingly.

LEAR.
What, art mad? A man may see how the world goes with no eyes. Look with
thine ears. See how yon justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark, in
thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which
is the thief? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?

GLOUCESTER.
Ay, sir.

LEAR.
And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great
image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tatter’d clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pygmy’s straw does pierce it.
None does offend, none, I say none; I’ll able ’em;
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal the accuser’s lips. Get thee glass eyes,
And like a scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not. Now, now, now, now:
Pull off my boots: harder, harder, so.

EDGAR.
O, matter and impertinency mix’d!
Reason in madness!

LEAR.
If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.
I know thee well enough, thy name is Gloucester.
Thou must be patient; we came crying hither:
Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air
We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee: mark.

GLOUCESTER.
Alack, alack the day!

LEAR.
When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools. This a good block:
It were a delicate stratagem to shoe
A troop of horse with felt. I’ll put’t in proof
And when I have stol’n upon these son-in-laws,
Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!

 Enter a Gentleman with Attendants.

GENTLEMAN.
O, here he is: lay hand upon him. Sir,
Your most dear daughter—

LEAR.
No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even
The natural fool of fortune. Use me well;
You shall have ransom. Let me have surgeons;
I am cut to the brains.

GENTLEMAN.
You shall have anything.

LEAR.
No seconds? All myself?
Why, this would make a man a man of salt,
To use his eyes for garden water-pots,
Ay, and for laying autumn’s dust.

GENTLEMAN.
Good sir.

LEAR.
I will die bravely, like a smug bridegroom.
What! I will be jovial. Come, come,
I am a king, my masters, know you that.

GENTLEMAN.
You are a royal one, and we obey you.

LEAR.
Then there’s life in’t. Come, and you get it,
You shall get it by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa!

 [_Exit running. Attendants follow._]

GENTLEMAN.
A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch,
Past speaking of in a king! Thou hast one daughter
Who redeems nature from the general curse
Which twain have brought her to.

EDGAR.
Hail, gentle sir.

GENTLEMAN.
Sir, speed you. What’s your will?

EDGAR.
Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward?

GENTLEMAN.
Most sure and vulgar.
Everyone hears that, which can distinguish sound.

EDGAR.
But, by your favour,
How near’s the other army?

GENTLEMAN.
Near and on speedy foot; the main descry
Stands on the hourly thought.

EDGAR.
I thank you sir, that’s all.

GENTLEMAN.
Though that the queen on special cause is here,
Her army is mov’d on.

EDGAR.
I thank you, sir.

 [_Exit Gentleman._]

GLOUCESTER.
You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me;
Let not my worser spirit tempt me again
To die before you please.

EDGAR.
Well pray you, father.

GLOUCESTER.
Now, good sir, what are you?

EDGAR.
A most poor man, made tame to fortune’s blows;
Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows,
Am pregnant to good pity. Give me your hand,
I’ll lead you to some biding.

GLOUCESTER.
Hearty thanks:
The bounty and the benison of heaven
To boot, and boot.

 Enter Oswald.

OSWALD.
A proclaim’d prize! Most happy!
That eyeless head of thine was first fram’d flesh
To raise my fortunes. Thou old unhappy traitor,
Briefly thyself remember. The sword is out
That must destroy thee.

GLOUCESTER.
Now let thy friendly hand
Put strength enough to’t.

 [_Edgar interposes._]

OSWALD.
Wherefore, bold peasant,
Dar’st thou support a publish’d traitor? Hence;
Lest that th’infection of his fortune take
Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.

EDGAR.
Chill not let go, zir, without vurther ’casion.

OSWALD.
Let go, slave, or thou diest!

EDGAR.
Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor volke pass. An chud ha’ bin
zwaggered out of my life, ’twould not ha’ bin zo long as ’tis by a
vortnight. Nay, come not near th’old man; keep out, che vor ye, or ise
try whether your costard or my ballow be the harder: chill be plain
with you.

OSWALD.
Out, dunghill!

EDGAR.
Chill pick your teeth, zir. Come! No matter vor your foins.

 [_They fight, and Edgar knocks him down._]

OSWALD.
Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse.
If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body;
And give the letters which thou find’st about me
To Edmund, Earl of Gloucester. Seek him out
Upon the British party. O, untimely death!

 [_Dies._]

EDGAR.
I know thee well. A serviceable villain,
As duteous to the vices of thy mistress
As badness would desire.

GLOUCESTER.
What, is he dead?

EDGAR.
Sit you down, father; rest you.
Let’s see these pockets; the letters that he speaks of
May be my friends. He’s dead; I am only sorry
He had no other deathsman. Let us see:
Leave, gentle wax; and, manners, blame us not.
To know our enemies’ minds, we rip their hearts,
Their papers is more lawful.
[_Reads._] ‘Let our reciprocal vows be remembered. You have many
opportunities to cut him off: if your will want not, time and place
will be fruitfully offered. There is nothing done if he return the
conqueror: then am I the prisoner, and his bed my gaol; from the
loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the place for your
labour. ‘Your (wife, so I would say) affectionate servant, ‘Goneril.’
O indistinguish’d space of woman’s will!
A plot upon her virtuous husband’s life,
And the exchange my brother! Here in the sands
Thee I’ll rake up, the post unsanctified
Of murderous lechers: and in the mature time,
With this ungracious paper strike the sight
Of the death-practis’d Duke: for him ’tis well
That of thy death and business I can tell.

 [_Exit Edgar, dragging out the body._]

GLOUCESTER.
The King is mad: how stiff is my vile sense,
That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling
Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract:
So should my thoughts be sever’d from my griefs,
And woes by wrong imaginations lose
The knowledge of themselves.

 [_A drum afar off._]

EDGAR.
Give me your hand.
Far off methinks I hear the beaten drum.
Come, father, I’ll bestow you with a friend.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VII. A Tent in the French Camp.

Lear on a bed, asleep, soft music playing; Physician, Gentleman and
others attending.

 Enter Cordelia and Kent.

CORDELIA.
O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work
To match thy goodness? My life will be too short,
And every measure fail me.

KENT.
To be acknowledg’d, madam, is o’erpaid.
All my reports go with the modest truth;
Nor more, nor clipp’d, but so.

CORDELIA.
Be better suited,
These weeds are memories of those worser hours:
I prythee put them off.

KENT.
Pardon, dear madam;
Yet to be known shortens my made intent.
My boon I make it that you know me not
Till time and I think meet.

CORDELIA.
Then be’t so, my good lord. [_To the Physician._] How, does the King?

PHYSICIAN.
Madam, sleeps still.

CORDELIA.
O you kind gods,
Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
The untun’d and jarring senses, O, wind up
Of this child-changed father.

PHYSICIAN.
So please your majesty
That we may wake the King: he hath slept long.

CORDELIA.
Be govern’d by your knowledge, and proceed
I’ the sway of your own will. Is he array’d?

PHYSICIAN.
Ay, madam. In the heaviness of sleep
We put fresh garments on him.
Be by, good madam, when we do awake him;
I doubt not of his temperance.

CORDELIA.
Very well.

PHYSICIAN.
Please you draw near. Louder the music there!

CORDELIA.
O my dear father! Restoration hang
Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!

KENT.
Kind and dear princess!

CORDELIA.
Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Did challenge pity of them. Was this a face
To be oppos’d against the warring winds?
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick cross lightning? to watch, poor perdu!
With this thin helm? Mine enemy’s dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn
In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!
’Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
Had not concluded all. He wakes; speak to him.

PHYSICIAN.
Madam, do you; ’tis fittest.

CORDELIA.
How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?

LEAR.
You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.

CORDELIA.
Sir, do you know me?

LEAR.
You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?

CORDELIA.
Still, still, far wide!

PHYSICIAN.
He’s scarce awake: let him alone awhile.

LEAR.
Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
I am mightily abus’d. I should e’en die with pity,
To see another thus. I know not what to say.
I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see;
I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur’d
Of my condition!

CORDELIA.
O, look upon me, sir,
And hold your hands in benediction o’er me.
No, sir, you must not kneel.

LEAR.
Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.

CORDELIA.
And so I am. I am.

LEAR.
Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray weep not:
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.
You have some cause, they have not.

CORDELIA.
No cause, no cause.

LEAR.
Am I in France?

KENT.
In your own kingdom, sir.

LEAR.
Do not abuse me.

PHYSICIAN.
Be comforted, good madam, the great rage,
You see, is kill’d in him: and yet it is danger
To make him even o’er the time he has lost.
Desire him to go in; trouble him no more
Till further settling.

CORDELIA.
Will’t please your highness walk?

LEAR.
You must bear with me:
Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish.

 [_Exeunt Lear, Cordelia, Physician and Attendants._]

GENTLEMAN.
Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?

KENT.
Most certain, sir.

GENTLEMAN.
Who is conductor of his people?

KENT.
As ’tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.

GENTLEMAN.
They say Edgar, his banished son, is with the Earl of Kent in Germany.

KENT.
Report is changeable. ’Tis time to look about; the powers of the
kingdom approach apace.

GENTLEMAN.
The arbitrement is like to be bloody.
Fare you well, sir.

 [_Exit._]

KENT.
My point and period will be throughly wrought,
Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought.

 [_Exit._]



ACT V

SCENE I. The Camp of the British Forces near Dover.

 Enter, with drum and colours Edmund, Regan, Officers, Soldiers and
 others.

EDMUND.
Know of the Duke if his last purpose hold,
Or whether since he is advis’d by aught
To change the course, he’s full of alteration
And self-reproving, bring his constant pleasure.

 [_To an Officer, who goes out._]

REGAN.
Our sister’s man is certainly miscarried.

EDMUND.
’Tis to be doubted, madam.

REGAN.
Now, sweet lord,
You know the goodness I intend upon you:
Tell me but truly, but then speak the truth,
Do you not love my sister?

EDMUND.
In honour’d love.

REGAN.
But have you never found my brother’s way
To the forfended place?

EDMUND.
That thought abuses you.

REGAN.
I am doubtful that you have been conjunct
And bosom’d with her, as far as we call hers.

EDMUND.
No, by mine honour, madam.

REGAN.
I never shall endure her, dear my lord,
Be not familiar with her.

EDMUND.
Fear not,
She and the Duke her husband!

 Enter with drum and colours Albany, Goneril and Soldiers.

GONERIL.
[_Aside._] I had rather lose the battle than that sister
Should loosen him and me.

ALBANY.
Our very loving sister, well be-met.
Sir, this I heard: the King is come to his daughter,
With others whom the rigour of our state
Forc’d to cry out. Where I could not be honest,
I never yet was valiant. For this business,
It toucheth us as France invades our land,
Not bolds the King, with others whom I fear
Most just and heavy causes make oppose.

EDMUND.
Sir, you speak nobly.

REGAN.
Why is this reason’d?

GONERIL.
Combine together ’gainst the enemy;
For these domestic and particular broils
Are not the question here.

ALBANY.
Let’s, then, determine with the ancient of war
On our proceeding.

EDMUND.
I shall attend you presently at your tent.

REGAN.
Sister, you’ll go with us?

GONERIL.
No.

REGAN.
’Tis most convenient; pray you, go with us.

GONERIL.
[_Aside_.] O, ho, I know the riddle. I will go.

 [_Exeunt Edmund, Regan, Goneril, Officers, Soldiers and Attendants._]

 As they are going out, enter Edgar disguised.

EDGAR.
If e’er your grace had speech with man so poor,
Hear me one word.

ALBANY.
I’ll overtake you. Speak.

EDGAR.
Before you fight the battle, ope this letter.
If you have victory, let the trumpet sound
For him that brought it: wretched though I seem,
I can produce a champion that will prove
What is avouched there. If you miscarry,
Your business of the world hath so an end,
And machination ceases. Fortune love you!

ALBANY.
Stay till I have read the letter.

EDGAR.
I was forbid it.
When time shall serve, let but the herald cry,
And I’ll appear again.

ALBANY.
Why, fare thee well. I will o’erlook thy paper.

 [_Exit Edgar._]

 Enter Edmund.

EDMUND.
The enemy’s in view; draw up your powers.
Here is the guess of their true strength and forces
By diligent discovery; but your haste
Is now urg’d on you.

ALBANY.
We will greet the time.

 [_Exit._]

EDMUND.
To both these sisters have I sworn my love;
Each jealous of the other, as the stung
Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?
Both? One? Or neither? Neither can be enjoy’d,
If both remain alive. To take the widow
Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril;
And hardly shall I carry out my side,
Her husband being alive. Now, then, we’ll use
His countenance for the battle; which being done,
Let her who would be rid of him devise
His speedy taking off. As for the mercy
Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia,
The battle done, and they within our power,
Shall never see his pardon: for my state
Stands on me to defend, not to debate.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE II. A field between the two Camps.

 Alarum within. Enter with drum and colours, Lear, Cordelia and their
 Forces, and exeunt.

 Enter Edgar and Gloucester.

EDGAR.
Here, father, take the shadow of this tree
For your good host; pray that the right may thrive:
If ever I return to you again,
I’ll bring you comfort.

GLOUCESTER.
Grace go with you, sir!

 [_Exit Edgar._]

 Alarum and retreat within. Enter Edgar.

EDGAR.
Away, old man, give me thy hand, away!
King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta’en:
Give me thy hand; come on!

GLOUCESTER.
No further, sir; a man may rot even here.

EDGAR.
What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
Ripeness is all. Come on.

GLOUCESTER.
And that’s true too.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. The British Camp near Dover.

 Enter in conquest with drum and colours, Edmund, Lear and Cordelia as
 prisoners; Officers, Soldiers, &c.

EDMUND.
Some officers take them away: good guard
Until their greater pleasures first be known
That are to censure them.

CORDELIA.
We are not the first
Who with best meaning have incurr’d the worst.
For thee, oppressed King, I am cast down;
Myself could else out-frown false fortune’s frown.
Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?

LEAR.
No, no, no, no. Come, let’s away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing I’ll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness. So we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;
And take upon’s the mystery of things,
As if we were God’s spies. And we’ll wear out,
In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones
That ebb and flow by the moon.

EDMUND.
Take them away.

LEAR.
Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?
He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes;
The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell,
Ere they shall make us weep!
We’ll see ’em starve first: come.

 [_Exeunt Lear and Cordelia, guarded._]

EDMUND.
Come hither, captain, hark.
Take thou this note [_giving a paper_]; go follow them to prison.
One step I have advanc’d thee; if thou dost
As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way
To noble fortunes: know thou this, that men
Are as the time is; to be tender-minded
Does not become a sword. Thy great employment
Will not bear question; either say thou’lt do’t,
Or thrive by other means.

CAPTAIN.
I’ll do’t, my lord.

EDMUND.
About it; and write happy when thou hast done.
Mark, I say, instantly; and carry it so
As I have set it down.

CAPTAIN.
I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats;
If it be man’s work, I’ll do’t.

 [_Exit._]

 Flourish. Enter Albany, Goneril, Regan, Officers and Attendants.

ALBANY.
Sir, you have show’d today your valiant strain,
And fortune led you well: you have the captives
Who were the opposites of this day’s strife:
I do require them of you, so to use them
As we shall find their merits and our safety
May equally determine.

EDMUND.
Sir, I thought it fit
To send the old and miserable King
To some retention and appointed guard;
Whose age has charms in it, whose title more,
To pluck the common bosom on his side,
And turn our impress’d lances in our eyes
Which do command them. With him I sent the queen;
My reason all the same; and they are ready
Tomorrow, or at further space, to appear
Where you shall hold your session. At this time
We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost his friend;
And the best quarrels in the heat are curs’d
By those that feel their sharpness.
The question of Cordelia and her father
Requires a fitter place.

ALBANY.
Sir, by your patience,
I hold you but a subject of this war,
Not as a brother.

REGAN.
That’s as we list to grace him.
Methinks our pleasure might have been demanded
Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers;
Bore the commission of my place and person;
The which immediacy may well stand up
And call itself your brother.

GONERIL.
Not so hot:
In his own grace he doth exalt himself,
More than in your addition.

REGAN.
In my rights,
By me invested, he compeers the best.

ALBANY.
That were the most, if he should husband you.

REGAN.
Jesters do oft prove prophets.

GONERIL.
Holla, holla!
That eye that told you so look’d but asquint.

REGAN.
Lady, I am not well; else I should answer
From a full-flowing stomach. General,
Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony;
Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine:
Witness the world that I create thee here
My lord and master.

GONERIL.
Mean you to enjoy him?

ALBANY.
The let-alone lies not in your good will.

EDMUND.
Nor in thine, lord.

ALBANY.
Half-blooded fellow, yes.

REGAN.
[_To Edmund._] Let the drum strike, and prove my title thine.

ALBANY.
Stay yet; hear reason: Edmund, I arrest thee
On capital treason; and, in thine arrest,
This gilded serpent. [_pointing to Goneril._]
For your claim, fair sister,
I bar it in the interest of my wife;
’Tis she is sub-contracted to this lord,
And I her husband contradict your bans.
If you will marry, make your loves to me,
My lady is bespoke.

GONERIL.
An interlude!

ALBANY.
Thou art arm’d, Gloucester. Let the trumpet sound:
If none appear to prove upon thy person
Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
There is my pledge. [_Throwing down a glove._]
I’ll make it on thy heart,
Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less
Than I have here proclaim’d thee.

REGAN.
Sick, O, sick!

GONERIL.
[_Aside._] If not, I’ll ne’er trust medicine.

EDMUND.
There’s my exchange. [_Throwing down a glove._]
What in the world he is
That names me traitor, villain-like he lies.
Call by thy trumpet: he that dares approach,
On him, on you, who not? I will maintain
My truth and honour firmly.

ALBANY.
A herald, ho!

 Enter a Herald.

Trust to thy single virtue; for thy soldiers,
All levied in my name, have in my name
Took their discharge.

REGAN.
My sickness grows upon me.

ALBANY.
She is not well. Convey her to my tent.

 [_Exit Regan, led._]

Come hither, herald. Let the trumpet sound
And read out this.

OFFICER.
Sound, trumpet!

 [_A trumpet sounds._]

HERALD.
[_Reads._] ‘If any man of quality or degree within the lists of the
army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloucester, that he is
a manifold traitor, let him appear by the third sound of the trumpet.
He is bold in his defence.’

EDMUND.
Sound!

 [_First trumpet._]

HERALD.
Again!

 [_Second trumpet._]

HERALD.
Again!

 Third trumpet. Trumpet answers within. Enter Edgar, armed, preceded by
 a trumpet.

ALBANY.
Ask him his purposes, why he appears
Upon this call o’ the trumpet.

HERALD.
What are you?
Your name, your quality? and why you answer
This present summons?

EDGAR.
Know my name is lost;
By treason’s tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit.
Yet am I noble as the adversary
I come to cope.

ALBANY.
Which is that adversary?

EDGAR.
What’s he that speaks for Edmund, Earl of Gloucester?

EDMUND.
Himself, what say’st thou to him?

EDGAR.
Draw thy sword,
That if my speech offend a noble heart,
Thy arm may do thee justice: here is mine.
Behold, it is the privilege of mine honours,
My oath, and my profession: I protest,
Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,
Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,
Thy valour and thy heart, thou art a traitor;
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;
Conspirant ’gainst this high illustrious prince;
And, from the extremest upward of thy head
To the descent and dust beneath thy foot,
A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou ‘No,’
This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are bent
To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,
Thou liest.

EDMUND.
In wisdom I should ask thy name;
But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,
And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes,
What safe and nicely I might well delay
By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn.
Back do I toss those treasons to thy head,
With the hell-hated lie o’erwhelm thy heart;
Which for they yet glance by and scarcely bruise,
This sword of mine shall give them instant way,
Where they shall rest for ever. Trumpets, speak!

 [_Alarums. They fight. Edmund falls._]

ALBANY.
Save him, save him!

GONERIL.
This is mere practice, Gloucester:
By the law of arms thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite; thou art not vanquish’d,
But cozen’d and beguil’d.

ALBANY.
Shut your mouth, dame,
Or with this paper shall I stop it. Hold, sir;
Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil.
No tearing, lady; I perceive you know it.

 [_Gives the letter to Edmund._]

GONERIL.
Say if I do, the laws are mine, not thine:
Who can arraign me for’t?

 [_Exit._]

ALBANY.
Most monstrous! O!
Know’st thou this paper?

EDMUND.
Ask me not what I know.

ALBANY.
[_To an Officer, who goes out._] Go after her; she’s desperate; govern
her.

EDMUND.
What you have charg’d me with, that have I done;
And more, much more; the time will bring it out.
’Tis past, and so am I. But what art thou
That hast this fortune on me? If thou’rt noble,
I do forgive thee.

EDGAR.
Let’s exchange charity.
I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;
If more, the more thou hast wrong’d me.
My name is Edgar and thy father’s son.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us:
The dark and vicious place where thee he got
Cost him his eyes.

EDMUND.
Thou hast spoken right, ’tis true;
The wheel is come full circle; I am here.

ALBANY.
Methought thy very gait did prophesy
A royal nobleness. I must embrace thee.
Let sorrow split my heart if ever I
Did hate thee or thy father.

EDGAR.
Worthy prince, I know’t.

ALBANY.
Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the miseries of your father?

EDGAR.
By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale;
And when ’tis told, O that my heart would burst!
The bloody proclamation to escape
That follow’d me so near,—O, our lives’ sweetness!
That with the pain of death we’d hourly die
Rather than die at once!—taught me to shift
Into a madman’s rags; t’assume a semblance
That very dogs disdain’d; and in this habit
Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
Their precious stones new lost; became his guide,
Led him, begg’d for him, sav’d him from despair;
Never,—O fault!—reveal’d myself unto him
Until some half hour past, when I was arm’d;
Not sure, though hoping of this good success,
I ask’d his blessing, and from first to last
Told him my pilgrimage. But his flaw’d heart,
Alack, too weak the conflict to support!
’Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly.

EDMUND.
This speech of yours hath mov’d me,
And shall perchance do good, but speak you on;
You look as you had something more to say.

ALBANY.
If there be more, more woeful, hold it in;
For I am almost ready to dissolve,
Hearing of this.

EDGAR.
This would have seem’d a period
To such as love not sorrow; but another,
To amplify too much, would make much more,
And top extremity.
Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man
Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunn’d my abhorr’d society; but then finding
Who ’twas that so endur’d, with his strong arms
He fastened on my neck, and bellow’d out
As he’d burst heaven; threw him on my father;
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
That ever ear receiv’d, which in recounting
His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack. Twice then the trumpets sounded,
And there I left him tranc’d.

ALBANY.
But who was this?

EDGAR.
Kent, sir, the banish’d Kent; who in disguise
Follow’d his enemy king and did him service
Improper for a slave.

 Enter a Gentleman hastily, with a bloody knife.

GENTLEMAN.
Help, help! O, help!

EDGAR.
What kind of help?

ALBANY.
Speak, man.

EDGAR.
What means this bloody knife?

GENTLEMAN.
’Tis hot, it smokes;
It came even from the heart of—O! she’s dead!

ALBANY.
Who dead? Speak, man.

GENTLEMAN.
Your lady, sir, your lady; and her sister
By her is poisoned; she hath confesses it.

EDMUND.
I was contracted to them both, all three
Now marry in an instant.

EDGAR.
Here comes Kent.

 Enter Kent.

ALBANY.
Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead.
This judgement of the heavens that makes us tremble
Touches us not with pity. O, is this he?
The time will not allow the compliment
Which very manners urges.

KENT.
I am come
To bid my King and master aye good night:
Is he not here?

ALBANY.
Great thing of us forgot!
Speak, Edmund, where’s the King? and where’s Cordelia?

 The bodies of Goneril and Regan are brought in.

Seest thou this object, Kent?

KENT.
Alack, why thus?

EDMUND.
Yet Edmund was belov’d.
The one the other poisoned for my sake,
And after slew herself.

ALBANY.
Even so. Cover their faces.

EDMUND.
I pant for life. Some good I mean to do,
Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send,
Be brief in it, to the castle; for my writ
Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia;
Nay, send in time.

ALBANY.
Run, run, O, run!

EDGAR.
To who, my lord? Who has the office? Send
Thy token of reprieve.

EDMUND.
Well thought on: take my sword,
Give it the captain.

EDGAR.
Haste thee for thy life.

 [_Exit Edgar._]

EDMUND.
He hath commission from thy wife and me
To hang Cordelia in the prison, and
To lay the blame upon her own despair,
That she fordid herself.

ALBANY.
The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.

 [_Edmund is borne off._]

 Enter Lear with Cordelia dead in his arms; Edgar, Officer and others
 following.

LEAR.
Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stone.
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’ld use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone for ever!
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

KENT.
Is this the promis’d end?

EDGAR.
Or image of that horror?

ALBANY.
Fall, and cease!

LEAR.
This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.

KENT.
O, my good master! [_Kneeling._]

LEAR.
Prythee, away!

EDGAR.
’Tis noble Kent, your friend.

LEAR.
A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have sav’d her; now she’s gone for ever!
Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!
What is’t thou say’st? Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.
I kill’d the slave that was a-hanging thee.

OFFICER.
’Tis true, my lords, he did.

LEAR.
Did I not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
I would have made them skip. I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me. Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o’ the best, I’ll tell you straight.

KENT.
If Fortune brag of two she lov’d and hated,
One of them we behold.

LEAR.
This is a dull sight. Are you not Kent?

KENT.
The same,
Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius?

LEAR.
He’s a good fellow, I can tell you that;
He’ll strike, and quickly too:. He’s dead and rotten.

KENT.
No, my good lord; I am the very man.

LEAR.
I’ll see that straight.

KENT.
That from your first of difference and decay
Have follow’d your sad steps.

LEAR.
You are welcome hither.

KENT.
Nor no man else. All’s cheerless, dark and deadly.
Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves,
And desperately are dead.

LEAR.
Ay, so I think.

ALBANY.
He knows not what he says; and vain is it
That we present us to him.

EDGAR.
Very bootless.

 Enter an Officer.

OFFICER.
Edmund is dead, my lord.

ALBANY.
That’s but a trifle here.
You lords and noble friends, know our intent.
What comfort to this great decay may come
Shall be applied For us, we will resign,
During the life of this old majesty,
To him our absolute power;
[_to Edgar and Kent_] you to your rights;
With boot and such addition as your honours
Have more than merited. All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue and all foes
The cup of their deservings. O, see, see!

LEAR.
And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her: look, her lips,
Look there, look there!

 [_He dies._]

EDGAR.
He faints! My lord, my lord!

KENT.
Break, heart; I prythee break!

EDGAR.
Look up, my lord.

KENT.
Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! He hates him
That would upon the rack of this rough world
Stretch him out longer.

EDGAR.
He is gone indeed.

KENT.
The wonder is, he hath endur’d so long:
He but usurp’d his life.

ALBANY.
Bear them from hence. Our present business
Is general woe. [_To Edgar and Kent._] Friends of my soul, you twain,
Rule in this realm and the gor’d state sustain.

KENT.
I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls me, I must not say no.

EDGAR.
The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most; we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

 [_Exeunt with a dead march._]





LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

Dramatis Personae.

  FERDINAND, King of Navarre
  BEROWNE,    lord attending on the King
  LONGAVILLE,  "      "      "   "   "
  DUMAIN,      "      "      "   "   "
  BOYET,   lord attending on the Princess of France
  MARCADE,   "     "       "  "     "      "    "
  DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, fantastical Spaniard
  SIR NATHANIEL, a curate
  HOLOFERNES, a schoolmaster
  DULL, a constable
  COSTARD, a clown
  MOTH, page to Armado
  A FORESTER

  THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE
  ROSALINE, lady attending on the Princess
  MARIA,      "     "       "  "     "
  KATHARINE, lady attending on the Princess
  JAQUENETTA, a country wench

  Lords, Attendants, etc.

SCENE: Navarre

ACT I. SCENE I. Navarre. The King's park

Enter the King, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN

  KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
    Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs,
    And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
    When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
    Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy
    That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,
    And make us heirs of all eternity.
    Therefore, brave conquerors- for so you are
    That war against your own affections
    And the huge army of the world's desires-
    Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
    Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
    Our court shall be a little Academe,
    Still and contemplative in living art.
    You three, Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville,
    Have sworn for three years' term to live with me
    My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
    That are recorded in this schedule here.
    Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,
    That his own hand may strike his honour down
    That violates the smallest branch herein.
    If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,
    Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.
  LONGAVILLE. I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three years' fast.
    The mind shall banquet, though the body pine.
    Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
    Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.
  DUMAIN. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified.
    The grosser manner of these world's delights
    He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves;
    To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,
    With all these living in philosophy.
  BEROWNE. I can but say their protestation over;
    So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
    That is, to live and study here three years.
    But there are other strict observances,
    As: not to see a woman in that term,
    Which I hope well is not enrolled there;
    And one day in a week to touch no food,
    And but one meal on every day beside,
    The which I hope is not enrolled there;
    And then to sleep but three hours in the night
    And not be seen to wink of all the day-
    When I was wont to think no harm all night,
    And make a dark night too of half the day-
    Which I hope well is not enrolled there.
    O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
    Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!
  KING. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.
  BEROWNE. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:
    I only swore to study with your Grace,
    And stay here in your court for three years' space.
  LONGAVILLE. You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.
  BEROWNE. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
    What is the end of study, let me know.
  KING. Why, that to know which else we should not know.
  BEROWNE. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?
  KING. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.
  BEROWNE. Come on, then; I will swear to study so,
    To know the thing I am forbid to know,
    As thus: to study where I well may dine,
    When I to feast expressly am forbid;
    Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
    When mistresses from common sense are hid;
    Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
    Study to break it, and not break my troth.
    If study's gain be thus, and this be so,
    Study knows that which yet it doth not know.
    Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.
  KING. These be the stops that hinder study quite,
    And train our intellects to vain delight.
  BEROWNE. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain
    Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain,
    As painfully to pore upon a book
    To seek the light of truth; while truth the while
    Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
    Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile;
    So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
    Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
    Study me how to please the eye indeed,
    By fixing it upon a fairer eye;
    Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
    And give him light that it was blinded by.
    Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,
    That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks;
    Small have continual plodders ever won,
    Save base authority from others' books.
    These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights
    That give a name to every fixed star
    Have no more profit of their shining nights
    Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
    Too much to know is to know nought but fame;
    And every godfather can give a name.
  KING. How well he's read, to reason against reading!
  DUMAIN. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!
  LONGAVILLE. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.
  BEROWNE. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.
  DUMAIN. How follows that?
  BEROWNE. Fit in his place and time.
  DUMAIN. In reason nothing.
  BEROWNE. Something then in rhyme.
  LONGAVILLE. Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
    That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
  BEROWNE. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast
    Before the birds have any cause to sing?
    Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
    At Christmas I no more desire a rose
    Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;
    But like of each thing that in season grows;
    So you, to study now it is too late,
    Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.
  KING. Well, sit out; go home, Berowne; adieu.
  BEROWNE. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you;
    And though I have for barbarism spoke more
    Than for that angel knowledge you can say,
    Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore,
    And bide the penance of each three years' day.
    Give me the paper; let me read the same;
    And to the strictest decrees I'll write my name.
  KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!
  BEROWNE. [Reads] 'Item. That no woman shall come within a mile of
    my court'- Hath this been proclaimed?
  LONGAVILLE. Four days ago.
  BEROWNE. Let's see the penalty. [Reads] '-on pain of losing her
    tongue.' Who devis'd this penalty?
  LONGAVILLE. Marry, that did I.
  BEROWNE. Sweet lord, and why?
  LONGAVILLE. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.
  BEROWNE. A dangerous law against gentility.
    [Reads] 'Item. If any man be seen to talk with a woman within
    the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the
    rest of the court can possibly devise.'
    This article, my liege, yourself must break;
    For well you know here comes in embassy
    The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak-
    A mild of grace and complete majesty-
    About surrender up of Aquitaine
    To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father;
    Therefore this article is made in vain,
    Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.
  KING. What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.
  BEROWNE. So study evermore is over-shot.
    While it doth study to have what it would,
    It doth forget to do the thing it should;
    And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
    'Tis won as towns with fire- so won, so lost.
  KING. We must of force dispense with this decree;
    She must lie here on mere necessity.
  BEROWNE. Necessity will make us all forsworn
    Three thousand times within this three years' space;
    For every man with his affects is born,
    Not by might mast'red, but by special grace.
    If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:
    I am forsworn on mere necessity.
    So to the laws at large I write my name;        [Subscribes]
    And he that breaks them in the least degree
    Stands in attainder of eternal shame.
    Suggestions are to other as to me;
    But I believe, although I seem so loath,
    I am the last that will last keep his oath.
    But is there no quick recreation granted?
  KING. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
    With a refined traveller of Spain,
    A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
    That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
    One who the music of his own vain tongue
    Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;
    A man of complements, whom right and wrong
    Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.
    This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
    For interim to our studies shall relate,
    In high-born words, the worth of many a knight
    From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate.
    How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
    But I protest I love to hear him lie,
    And I will use him for my minstrelsy.
  BEROWNE. Armado is a most illustrious wight,
    A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.
  LONGAVILLE. Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;
    And so to study three years is but short.

      Enter DULL, a constable, with a letter, and COSTARD

  DULL. Which is the Duke's own person?
  BEROWNE. This, fellow. What wouldst?
  DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace's
    farborough; but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.
  BEROWNE. This is he.
  DULL. Signior Arme- Arme- commends you. There's villainy abroad;
    this letter will tell you more.
  COSTARD. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.
  KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado.
  BEROWNE. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.
  LONGAVILLE. A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us patience!
  BEROWNE. To hear, or forbear hearing?
  LONGAVILLE. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or, to
    forbear both.
  BEROWNE. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb
    in the merriness.
  COSTARD. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.
    The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.
  BEROWNE. In what manner?
  COSTARD. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was
    seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form,
    and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in
    manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner- it is the
    manner of a man to speak to a woman. For the form- in some form.
  BEROWNE. For the following, sir?
  COSTARD. As it shall follow in my correction; and God defend the
    right!
  KING. Will you hear this letter with attention?
  BEROWNE. As we would hear an oracle.
  COSTARD. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.
  KING. [Reads] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole
    dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god and body's fost'ring
    patron'-
  COSTARD. Not a word of Costard yet.
  KING. [Reads] 'So it is'-
  COSTARD. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling
    true, but so.
  KING. Peace!
  COSTARD. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!
  KING. No words!
  COSTARD. Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.
  KING. [Reads] 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I
    did commend the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome
    physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook
    myself to walk. The time When? About the sixth hour; when beasts
    most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment
    which is called supper. So much for the time When. Now for the
    ground Which? which, I mean, I upon; it is ycleped thy park. Then
    for the place Where? where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene
    and most prepost'rous event that draweth from my snow-white pen
    the ebon-coloured ink which here thou viewest, beholdest,
    surveyest, or seest. But to the place Where? It standeth
    north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy
    curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain,
    that base minnow of thy mirth,'
  COSTARD. Me?
  KING. 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'
  COSTARD. Me?
  KING. 'that shallow vassal,'
  COSTARD. Still me?
  KING. 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'
  COSTARD. O, me!
  KING. 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed
    edict and continent canon; which, with, O, with- but with this I
    passion to say wherewith-'
  COSTARD. With a wench.
    King. 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy
    more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed
    duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of
    punishment, by thy sweet Grace's officer, Antony Dull, a man of
    good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.'
  DULL. Me, an't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.
  KING. 'For Jaquenetta- so is the weaker vessel called, which I
    apprehended with the aforesaid swain- I keep her as a vessel of
    thy law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice,
    bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and
    heart-burning heat of duty,
                                         DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'

  BEROWNE. This is not so well as I look'd for, but the best that
    ever I heard.
  KING. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to
    this?
  COSTARD. Sir, I confess the wench.
  KING. Did you hear the proclamation?
  COSTARD. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the
    marking of it.
  KING. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment to be taken with a
    wench.
  COSTARD. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damsel.
  KING. Well, it was proclaimed damsel.
  COSTARD. This was no damsel neither, sir; she was a virgin.
  KING. It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed virgin.
  COSTARD. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.
  KING. This 'maid' not serve your turn, sir.
  COSTARD. This maid will serve my turn, sir.
  KING. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week
    with bran and water.
  COSTARD. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.
  KING. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
    My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o'er;
    And go we, lords, to put in practice that
    Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.
                             Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN
  BEROWNE. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat
    These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.
    Sirrah, come on.
  COSTARD. I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was taken
    with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore
    welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile
    again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. The park

Enter ARMADO and MOTH, his page

  ARMADO. Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows
    melancholy?
  MOTH. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.
  ARMADO. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.
  MOTH. No, no; O Lord, sir, no!
  ARMADO. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender
    juvenal?
  MOTH. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough signior.
  ARMADO. Why tough signior? Why tough signior?
  MOTH. Why tender juvenal? Why tender juvenal?
  ARMADO. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton
    appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.
  MOTH. And I, tough signior, as an appertinent title to your old
    time, which we may name tough.
  ARMADO. Pretty and apt.
  MOTH. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and
    my saying pretty?
  ARMADO. Thou pretty, because little.
  MOTH. Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?
  ARMADO. And therefore apt, because quick.
  MOTH. Speak you this in my praise, master?
  ARMADO. In thy condign praise.
  MOTH. I will praise an eel with the same praise.
  ARMADO. that an eel is ingenious?
  MOTH. That an eel is quick.
  ARMADO. I do say thou art quick in answers; thou heat'st my blood.
  MOTH. I am answer'd, sir.
  ARMADO. I love not to be cross'd.
  MOTH. [Aside] He speaks the mere contrary: crosses love not him.
  ARMADO. I have promised to study three years with the Duke.
  MOTH. You may do it in an hour, sir.
  ARMADO. Impossible.
  MOTH. How many is one thrice told?
  ARMADO. I am ill at reck'ning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.
  MOTH. You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.
  ARMADO. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete
    man.
  MOTH. Then I am sure you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace
    amounts to.
  ARMADO. It doth amount to one more than two.
  MOTH. Which the base vulgar do call three.
  ARMADO. True.
  MOTH. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is three
    studied ere ye'll thrice wink; and how easy it is to put 'years'
    to the word 'three,' and study three years in two words, the
    dancing horse will tell you.
  ARMADO. A most fine figure!
  MOTH. [Aside] To prove you a cipher.
  ARMADO. I will hereupon confess I am in love. And as it is base for
    a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing
    my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from
    the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and
    ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devis'd curtsy. I
    think scorn to sigh; methinks I should out-swear Cupid. Comfort
    me, boy; what great men have been in love?
  MOTH. Hercules, master.
  ARMADO. Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name more;
    and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.
  MOTH. Samson, master; he was a man of good carriage, great
    carriage, for he carried the town gates on his back like a
    porter; and he was in love.
  ARMADO. O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee
    in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in
    love too. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?
  MOTH. A woman, master.
  ARMADO. Of what complexion?
  MOTH. Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the
    four.
  ARMADO. Tell me precisely of what complexion.
  MOTH. Of the sea-water green, sir.
  ARMADO. Is that one of the four complexions?
  MOTH. As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.
  ARMADO. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers; but to have a love
    of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He
    surely affected her for her wit.
  MOTH. It was so, sir; for she had a green wit.
  ARMADO. My love is most immaculate white and red.
  MOTH. Most maculate thoughts, master, are mask'd under such
    colours.
  ARMADO. Define, define, well-educated infant.
  MOTH. My father's wit my mother's tongue assist me!
  ARMADO. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty, and pathetical!
  MOTH.      If she be made of white and red,
               Her faults will ne'er be known;
             For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
               And fears by pale white shown.
             Then if she fear, or be to blame,
               By this you shall not know;
             For still her cheeks possess the same
               Which native she doth owe.
    A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red.
  ARMADO. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?
  MOTH. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages
    since; but I think now 'tis not to be found; or if it were, it
    would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.
  ARMADO. I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may
    example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love
    that country girl that I took in the park with the rational hind
    Costard; she deserves well.
  MOTH. [Aside] To be whipt; and yet a better love than my master.
  ARMADO. Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love.
  MOTH. And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.
  ARMADO. I say, sing.
  MOTH. Forbear till this company be past.

                Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA

  DULL. Sir, the Duke's pleasure is that you keep Costard safe; and
    you must suffer him to take no delight nor no penance; but 'a
    must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at
    the park; she is allow'd for the day-woman. Fare you well.
  ARMADO. I do betray myself with blushing. Maid!
  JAQUENETTA. Man!
  ARMADO. I will visit thee at the lodge.
  JAQUENETTA. That's hereby.
  ARMADO. I know where it is situate.
  JAQUENETTA. Lord, how wise you are!
  ARMADO. I will tell thee wonders.
  JAQUENETTA. With that face?
  ARMADO. I love thee.
  JAQUENETTA. So I heard you say.
  ARMADO. And so, farewell.
  JAQUENETTA. Fair weather after you!
  DULL. Come, Jaquenetta, away.             Exit with JAQUENETTA
  ARMADO. Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be
    pardoned.
  COSTARD. Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full
    stomach.
  ARMADO. Thou shalt be heavily punished.
  COSTARD. I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but
    lightly rewarded.
  ARMADO. Take away this villain; shut him up.
  MOTH. Come, you transgressing slave, away.
  COSTARD. Let me not be pent up, sir; I will fast, being loose.
  MOTH. No, sir; that were fast, and loose. Thou shalt to prison.
  COSTARD. Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I
    have seen, some shall see.
  MOTH. What shall some see?
  COSTARD. Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It is
    not for prisoners to be too silent in their words, and therefore
    I will say nothing. I thank God I have as little patience as
    another man, and therefore I can be quiet.
                                         Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD
  ARMADO. I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe,
    which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread.
    I shall be forsworn- which is a great argument of falsehood- if I
    love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted?
    Love is a familiar; Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but
    Love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent
    strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit.
    Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore
    too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause
    will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello
    he regards not; his disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory
    is to subdue men. Adieu, valour; rust, rapier; be still, drum;
    for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some
    extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet.
    Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.
 Exit

ACT II. SCENE II. The park

Enter the PRINCESS OF FRANCE, with three attending ladies,
ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, and two other LORDS

  BOYET. Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits.
    Consider who the King your father sends,
    To whom he sends, and what's his embassy:
    Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem,
    To parley with the sole inheritor
    Of all perfections that a man may owe,
    Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight
    Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.
    Be now as prodigal of all dear grace
    As Nature was in making graces dear,
    When she did starve the general world beside
    And prodigally gave them all to you.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
    Needs not the painted flourish of your praise.
    Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
    Not utt'red by base sale of chapmen's tongues;
    I am less proud to hear you tell my worth
    Than you much willing to be counted wise
    In spending your wit in the praise of mine.
    But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,
    You are not ignorant all-telling fame
    Doth noise abroad Navarre hath made a vow,
    Till painful study shall outwear three years,
    No woman may approach his silent court.
    Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course,
    Before we enter his forbidden gates,
    To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,
    Bold of your worthiness, we single you
    As our best-moving fair solicitor.
    Tell him the daughter of the King of France,
    On serious business, craving quick dispatch,
    Importunes personal conference with his Grace.
    Haste, signify so much; while we attend,
    Like humble-visag'd suitors, his high will.
  BOYET. Proud of employment, willingly I go.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.
                                                      Exit BOYET
    Who are the votaries, my loving lords,
    That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?
  FIRST LORD. Lord Longaville is one.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Know you the man?
  MARIA. I know him, madam; at a marriage feast,
    Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir
    Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized
    In Normandy, saw I this Longaville.
    A man of sovereign parts, peerless esteem'd,
    Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms;
    Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.
    The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,
    If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,
    Is a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will,
    Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills
    It should none spare that come within his power.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?
  MARIA. They say so most that most his humours know.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Such short-liv'd wits do wither as they grow.
    Who are the rest?
  KATHARINE. The young Dumain, a well-accomplish'd youth,
    Of all that virtue love for virtue loved;
    Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill,
    For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,
    And shape to win grace though he had no wit.
    I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once;
    And much too little of that good I saw
    Is my report to his great worthiness.
  ROSALINE. Another of these students at that time
    Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.
    Berowne they call him; but a merrier man,
    Within the limit of becoming mirth,
    I never spent an hour's talk withal.
    His eye begets occasion for his wit,
    For every object that the one doth catch
    The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,
    Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,
    Delivers in such apt and gracious words
    That aged ears play truant at his tales,
    And younger hearings are quite ravished;
    So sweet and voluble is his discourse.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God bless my ladies! Are they all in love,
    That every one her own hath garnished
    With such bedecking ornaments of praise?
  FIRST LORD. Here comes Boyet.

                       Re-enter BOYET

  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Now, what admittance, lord?
  BOYET. Navarre had notice of your fair approach,
    And he and his competitors in oath
    Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady,
    Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:
    He rather means to lodge you in the field,
    Like one that comes here to besiege his court,
    Than seek a dispensation for his oath,
    To let you enter his unpeopled house.
                                    [The LADIES-IN-WAITING mask]

             Enter KING, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BEROWNE,
                         and ATTENDANTS

    Here comes Navarre.
  KING. Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome' I
    have not yet. The roof of this court is too high to be yours, and
    welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.
  KING. You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will be welcome then; conduct me thither.
  KING. Hear me, dear lady: I have sworn an oath-
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Our Lady help my lord! He'll be forsworn.
  KING. Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing
    else.
  KING. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,
    Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.
    I hear your Grace hath sworn out house-keeping.
    'Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,
    And sin to break it.
    But pardon me, I am too sudden bold;
    To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.
    Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,
    And suddenly resolve me in my suit.         [Giving a paper]
  KING. Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. YOU Will the sooner that I were away,
    For you'll prove perjur'd if you make me stay.
  BEROWNE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
  KATHARINE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
  BEROWNE. I know you did.
  KATHARINE. How needless was it then to ask the question!
  BEROWNE. You must not be so quick.
  KATHARINE. 'Tis long of you, that spur me with such questions.
  BEROWNE. Your wit 's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.
  KATHARINE. Not till it leave the rider in the mire.
  BEROWNE. What time o' day?
  KATHARINE. The hour that fools should ask.
  BEROWNE. Now fair befall your mask!
  KATHARINE. Fair fall the face it covers!
  BEROWNE. And send you many lovers!
  KATHARINE. Amen, so you be none.
  BEROWNE. Nay, then will I be gone.
  KING. Madam, your father here doth intimate
    The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;
    Being but the one half of an entire sum
    Disbursed by my father in his wars.
    But say that he or we, as neither have,
    Receiv'd that sum, yet there remains unpaid
    A hundred thousand more, in surety of the which,
    One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,
    Although not valued to the money's worth.
    If then the King your father will restore
    But that one half which is unsatisfied,
    We will give up our right in Aquitaine,
    And hold fair friendship with his Majesty.
    But that, it seems, he little purposeth,
    For here he doth demand to have repaid
    A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,
    On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,
    To have his title live in Aquitaine;
    Which we much rather had depart withal,
    And have the money by our father lent,
    Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.
    Dear Princess, were not his requests so far
    From reason's yielding, your fair self should make
    A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast,
    And go well satisfied to France again.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You do the King my father too much wrong,
    And wrong the reputation of your name,
    In so unseeming to confess receipt
    Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.
  KING. I do protest I never heard of it;
    And, if you prove it, I'll repay it back
    Or yield up Aquitaine.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We arrest your word.
    Boyet, you can produce acquittances
    For such a sum from special officers
    Of Charles his father.
  KING. Satisfy me so.
  BOYET. So please your Grace, the packet is not come,
    Where that and other specialties are bound;
    To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.
  KING. It shall suffice me; at which interview
    All liberal reason I will yield unto.
    Meantime receive such welcome at my hand
    As honour, without breach of honour, may
    Make tender of to thy true worthiness.
    You may not come, fair Princess, within my gates;
    But here without you shall be so receiv'd
    As you shall deem yourself lodg'd in my heart,
    Though so denied fair harbour in my house.
    Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell.
    To-morrow shall we visit you again.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet health and fair desires consort your
    Grace!
  KING. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.
                                            Exit with attendants
  BEROWNE. Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.
  ROSALINE. Pray you, do my commendations;
    I would be glad to see it.
  BEROWNE. I would you heard it groan.
  ROSALINE. Is the fool sick?
  BEROWNE. Sick at the heart.
  ROSALINE. Alack, let it blood.
  BEROWNE. Would that do it good?
  ROSALINE. My physic says 'ay.'
  BEROWNE. Will YOU prick't with your eye?
  ROSALINE. No point, with my knife.
  BEROWNE. Now, God save thy life!
  ROSALINE. And yours from long living!
  BEROWNE. I cannot stay thanksgiving.                [Retiring]
  DUMAIN. Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?
  BOYET. The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.
  DUMAIN. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well.          Exit
  LONGAVILLE. I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?
  BOYET. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.
  LONGAVILLE. Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.
  BOYET. She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.
  LONGAVILLE. Pray you, sir, whose daughter?
  BOYET. Her mother's, I have heard.
  LONGAVILLE. God's blessing on your beard!
  BOYET. Good sir, be not offended;
    She is an heir of Falconbridge.
  LONGAVILLE. Nay, my choler is ended.
    She is a most sweet lady.
  BOYET. Not unlike, sir; that may be.           Exit LONGAVILLE
  BEROWNE. What's her name in the cap?
  BOYET. Rosaline, by good hap.
  BEROWNE. Is she wedded or no?
  BOYET. To her will, sir, or so.
  BEROWNE. You are welcome, sir; adieu!
  BOYET. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.
                                     Exit BEROWNE. LADIES Unmask
  MARIA. That last is Berowne, the merry mad-cap lord;
    Not a word with him but a jest.
  BOYET. And every jest but a word.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. It was well done of you to take him at his
    word.
  BOYET. I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.
  KATHARINE. Two hot sheeps, marry!
  BOYET. And wherefore not ships?
    No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.
  KATHARINE. You sheep and I pasture- shall that finish the jest?
  BOYET. So you grant pasture for me.     [Offering to kiss her]
  KATHARINE. Not so, gentle beast;
    My lips are no common, though several they be.
  BOYET. Belonging to whom?
  KATHARINE. To my fortunes and me.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles,
      agree;
    This civil war of wits were much better used
    On Navarre and his book-men, for here 'tis abused.
  BOYET. If my observation, which very seldom lies,
    By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,
    Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. With what?
  BOYET. With that which we lovers entitle 'affected.'
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Your reason?
  BOYET. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire
    To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire.
    His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed,
    Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed;
    His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,
    Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;
    All senses to that sense did make their repair,
    To feel only looking on fairest of fair.
    Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,
    As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;
    Who, tend'ring their own worth from where they were glass'd,
    Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd.
    His face's own margent did quote such amazes
    That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.
    I'll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,
    An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Come, to our pavilion. Boyet is dispos'd.
  BOYET. But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos'd;
    I only have made a mouth of his eye,
    By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.
  MARIA. Thou art an old love-monger, and speakest skilfully.
  KATHARINE. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him.
  ROSALINE. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but
    grim.
  BOYET. Do you hear, my mad wenches?
  MARIA. No.
  BOYET. What, then; do you see?
  MARIA. Ay, our way to be gone.
  BOYET. You are too hard for me.                         Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. The park

Enter ARMADO and MOTH

  ARMADO. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.
                                         [MOTH sings Concolinel]
  ARMADO. Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years, take this key, give
    enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither; I must
    employ him in a letter to my love.
  MOTH. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?
  ARMADO. How meanest thou? Brawling in French?
  MOTH. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's
    end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your
    eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the
    throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime
    through the nose, as if you snuff'd up love by smelling love,
    with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes, with
    your arms cross'd on your thin-belly doublet, like a rabbit on a
    spit, or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old
    painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away.
    These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice
    wenches, that would be betrayed without these; and make them men
    of note- do you note me?- that most are affected to these.
  ARMADO. How hast thou purchased this experience?
  MOTH. By my penny of observation.
  ARMADO. But O- but O-
  MOTH. The hobby-horse is forgot.
  ARMADO. Call'st thou my love 'hobby-horse'?
  MOTH. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love
    perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?
  ARMADO. Almost I had.
  MOTH. Negligent student! learn her by heart.
  ARMADO. By heart and in heart, boy.
  MOTH. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.
  ARMADO. What wilt thou prove?
  MOTH. A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon the
    instant. By heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by
    her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with
    her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you
    cannot enjoy her.
  ARMADO. I am all these three.
  MOTH. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.
  ARMADO. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter.
  MOTH. A message well sympathiz'd- a horse to be ambassador for an
    ass.
  ARMADO. Ha, ha, what sayest thou?
  MOTH. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is
    very slow-gaited. But I go.
  ARMADO. The way is but short; away.
  MOTH. As swift as lead, sir.
  ARMADO. The meaning, pretty ingenious?
    Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?
  MOTH. Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.
  ARMADO. I say lead is slow.
  MOTH. You are too swift, sir, to say so:
    Is that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun?
  ARMADO. Sweet smoke of rhetoric!
    He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he;
    I shoot thee at the swain.
  MOTH. Thump, then, and I flee.                            Exit
  ARMADO. A most acute juvenal; volable and free of grace!
    By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face;
    Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.
    My herald is return'd.

                       Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD

  MOTH. A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.
  ARMADO. Some enigma, some riddle; come, thy l'envoy; begin.
  COSTARD. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail, sir.
    O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain; no l'envoy, no l'envoy; no
    salve, sir, but a plantain!
  ARMADO. By virtue thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought, my
    spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous
    smiling. O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take
    salve for l'envoy, and the word 'l'envoy' for a salve?
  MOTH. Do the wise think them other? Is not l'envoy a salve?
  ARMADO. No, page; it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain
    Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
    I will example it:
           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
           Were still at odds, being but three.
    There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.
  MOTH. I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.
  ARMADO.  The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
           Were still at odds, being but three.
  MOTH.    Until the goose came out of door,
           And stay'd the odds by adding four.
    Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy.
           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
           Were still at odds, being but three.
  ARMADO.  Until the goose came out of door,
           Staying the odds by adding four.
  MOTH. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; would you desire more?
  COSTARD. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.
    Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.
    To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose;
    Let me see: a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.
  ARMADO. Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?
  MOTH. By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
    Then call'd you for the l'envoy.
  COSTARD. True, and I for a plantain. Thus came your argument in;
    Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;
    And he ended the market.
  ARMADO. But tell me: how was there a costard broken in a shin?
  MOTH. I will tell you sensibly.
  COSTARD. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak that
      l'envoy.
    I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,
    Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.
  ARMADO. We will talk no more of this matter.
  COSTARD. Till there be more matter in the shin.
  ARMADO. Sirrah Costard. I will enfranchise thee.
  COSTARD. O, Marry me to one Frances! I smell some l'envoy, some
    goose, in this.
  ARMADO. By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,
    enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained,
    captivated, bound.
  COSTARD. True, true; and now you will be my purgation, and let me
    loose.
  ARMADO. I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in
    lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this
    significant [giving a letter] to the country maid Jaquenetta;
    there is remuneration, for the best ward of mine honour is
    rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.                  Exit
  MOTH. Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.
  COSTARD. My sweet ounce of man's flesh, my incony Jew!
                                                       Exit MOTH
    Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, that's the
    Latin word for three farthings. Three farthings- remuneration.
    'What's the price of this inkle?'- 'One penny.'- 'No, I'll give
    you a remuneration.' Why, it carries it. Remuneration! Why, it is
    a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of
    this word.

                          Enter BEROWNE

  BEROWNE. My good knave Costard, exceedingly well met!
  COSTARD. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for
    a remuneration?
  BEROWNE. What is a remuneration?
  COSTARD. Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.
  BEROWNE. Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.
  COSTARD. I thank your worship. God be wi' you!
  BEROWNE. Stay, slave; I must employ thee.
    As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
    Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
  COSTARD. When would you have it done, sir?
  BEROWNE. This afternoon.
  COSTARD. Well, I will do it, sir; fare you well.
  BEROWNE. Thou knowest not what it is.
  COSTARD. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
  BEROWNE. Why, villain, thou must know first.
  COSTARD. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.
  BEROWNE. It must be done this afternoon.
    Hark, slave, it is but this:
    The Princess comes to hunt here in the park,
    And in her train there is a gentle lady;
    When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,
    And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her,
    And to her white hand see thou do commend
    This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.
                                         [Giving him a shilling]
  COSTARD. Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration; a
    'leven-pence farthing better; most sweet gardon! I will do it,
    sir, in print. Gardon- remuneration!                    Exit
  BEROWNE. And I, forsooth, in love; I, that have been love's whip;
    A very beadle to a humorous sigh;
    A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;
    A domineering pedant o'er the boy,
    Than whom no mortal so magnificent!
    This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,
    This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
    Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
    Th' anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
    Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
    Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
    Sole imperator, and great general
    Of trotting paritors. O my little heart!
    And I to be a corporal of his field,
    And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!
    What! I love, I sue, I seek a wife-
    A woman, that is like a German clock,
    Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
    And never going aright, being a watch,
    But being watch'd that it may still go right!
    Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all;
    And, among three, to love the worst of all,
    A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,
    With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes;
    Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed,
    Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.
    And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!
    To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague
    That Cupid will impose for my neglect
    Of his almighty dreadful little might.
    Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan:
    Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.              Exit

ACT IV. SCENE I. The park

Enter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, LORDS,
ATTENDANTS, and a FORESTER

  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was that the King that spurr'd his horse so
      hard
    Against the steep uprising of the hill?
  BOYET. I know not; but I think it was not he.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whoe'er 'a was, 'a show'd a mounting mind.
    Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch;
    On Saturday we will return to France.
    Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
    That we must stand and play the murderer in?
  FORESTER. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
    A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I thank my beauty I am fair that shoot,
    And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.
  FORESTER. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What, what? First praise me, and again say no?
    O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!
  FORESTER. Yes, madam, fair.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, never paint me now;
    Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
    Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:
                                             [ Giving him money]
    Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
  FORESTER. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. See, see, my beauty will be sav'd by merit.
    O heresy in fair, fit for these days!
    A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.
    But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill,
    And shooting well is then accounted ill;
    Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
    Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;
    If wounding, then it was to show my skill,
    That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.
    And, out of question, so it is sometimes:
    Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,
    When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,
    We bend to that the working of the heart;
    As I for praise alone now seek to spill
    The poor deer's blood that my heart means no ill.
  BOYET. Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty
    Only for praise sake, when they strive to be
    Lords o'er their lords?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Only for praise; and praise we may afford
    To any lady that subdues a lord.

                       Enter COSTARD

  BOYET. Here comes a member of the commonwealth.
  COSTARD. God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that
    have no heads.
  COSTARD. Which is the greatest lady, the highest?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The thickest and the tallest.
  COSTARD. The thickest and the tallest! It is so; truth is truth.
    An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
    One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit.
    Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What's your will, sir? What's your will?
  COSTARD. I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one
    Lady Rosaline.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O, thy letter, thy letter! He's a good friend
      of mine.
    Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve.
    Break up this capon.
  BOYET. I am bound to serve.
    This letter is mistook; it importeth none here.
    It is writ to Jaquenetta.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We will read it, I swear.
    Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.
  BOYET. [Reads] 'By heaven, that thou art fair is most infallible;
    true that thou art beauteous; truth itself that thou art lovely.
    More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth
    itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal. The
    magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the
    pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that
    might rightly say, 'Veni, vidi, vici'; which to annothanize in
    the vulgar,- O base and obscure vulgar!- videlicet, He came, saw,
    and overcame. He came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who came?-
    the king. Why did he come?- to see. Why did he see?-to overcome.
    To whom came he?- to the beggar. What saw he?- the beggar. Who
    overcame he?- the beggar. The conclusion is victory; on whose
    side?- the king's. The captive is enrich'd; on whose side?- the
    beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial; on whose side?- the
    king's. No, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king, for so
    stands the comparison; thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy
    lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I enforce thy
    love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou
    exchange for rags?- robes, for tittles?- titles, for thyself?
    -me. Thus expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my
    eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.
                  Thine in the dearest design of industry,
                                           DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.

    'Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar
    'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey;
    Submissive fall his princely feet before,
    And he from forage will incline to play.
    But if thou strive, poor soul, what are thou then?
    Food for his rage, repasture for his den.'
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What plume of feathers is he that indited this
      letter?
    What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?
  BOYET. I am much deceived but I remember the style.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it
    erewhile.
  BOYET. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;
    A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport
    To the Prince and his book-mates.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou fellow, a word.
    Who gave thee this letter?
  COSTARD. I told you: my lord.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. To whom shouldst thou give it?
  COSTARD. From my lord to my lady.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. From which lord to which lady?
  COSTARD. From my Lord Berowne, a good master of mine,
    To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords,
      away.
    [To ROSALINE] Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another
      day.                             Exeunt PRINCESS and TRAIN
  BOYET. Who is the shooter? who is the shooter?
  ROSALINE. Shall I teach you to know?
  BOYET. Ay, my continent of beauty.
  ROSALINE. Why, she that bears the bow.
    Finely put off!
  BOYET. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,
    Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.
    Finely put on!
  ROSALINE. Well then, I am the shooter.
  BOYET. And who is your deer?
  ROSALINE. If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.
    Finely put on indeed!
  MARIA. You Still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the
    brow.
  BOYET. But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now?
  ROSALINE. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man
    when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit
    it?
  BOYET. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when
    Queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit
    it.
  ROSALINE. [Singing]
            Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,
            Thou canst not hit it, my good man.
  BOYET.    An I cannot, cannot, cannot,
            An I cannot, another can.
                                   Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE
  COSTARD. By my troth, most pleasant! How both did fit it!
  MARIA. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.
  BOYET. A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!
    Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.
  MARIA. Wide o' the bow-hand! I' faith, your hand is out.
  COSTARD. Indeed, 'a must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the
    clout.
  BOYET. An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.
  COSTARD. Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.
  MARIA. Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.
  COSTARD. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to
    bowl.
  BOYET. I fear too much rubbing; good-night, my good owl.
                                          Exeunt BOYET and MARIA
  COSTARD. By my soul, a swain, a most simple clown!
    Lord, Lord! how the ladies and I have put him down!
    O' my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit!
    When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.
    Armado a th' t'one side- O, a most dainty man!
    To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!
    To see him kiss his hand, and how most sweetly 'a will swear!
    And his page a t' other side, that handful of wit!
    Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
    Sola, sola!                                     Exit COSTARD

SCENE II. The park

From the shooting within, enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL

  NATHANIEL. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of
    a good conscience.
  HOLOFERNES. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe as
    the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo,
    the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on
    the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.
  NATHANIEL. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly
    varied, like a scholar at the least; but, sir, I assure ye it was
    a buck of the first head.
  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.
  DULL. 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.
  HOLOFERNES. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation,
    as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were,
    replication, or rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his
    inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated,
    unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest
    unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a deer.
  DULL. I Said the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.
  HOLOFERNES. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus!
    O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
  NATHANIEL. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in
      a book;
    He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his
    intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible
    in the duller parts;
    And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful should
      be-
    Which we of taste and feeling are- for those parts that do
      fructify in us more than he.
    For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,
    So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school.
    But, omne bene, say I, being of an old father's mind:
    Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.
  DULL. You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit
    What was a month old at Cain's birth that's not five weeks old as
      yet?
  HOLOFERNES. Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.
  DULL. What is Dictynna?
  NATHANIEL. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.
  HOLOFERNES. The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,
    And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.
    Th' allusion holds in the exchange.
  DULL. 'Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.
  HOLOFERNES. God comfort thy capacity! I say th' allusion holds in
    the exchange.
  DULL. And I say the polusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is
    never but a month old; and I say, beside, that 'twas a pricket
    that the Princess kill'd.
  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on
    the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call the deer
    the Princess kill'd a pricket.
  NATHANIEL. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shall please
    you to abrogate scurrility.
  HOLOFERNES. I Will something affect the letter, for it argues
    facility.

    The preyful Princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing
      pricket.
    Some say a sore; but not a sore till now made sore with shooting.
    The dogs did yell; put el to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket-
    Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.
    If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores o' sorel.
    Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.

  NATHANIEL. A rare talent!
  DULL. [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a
    talent.
  HOLOFERNES. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish
    extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects,
    ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions. These are begot in
    the ventricle of memory, nourish'd in the womb of pia mater, and
    delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in
    those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.
  NATHANIEL. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my
    parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their
    daughters profit very greatly under you. You are a good member of
    the commonwealth.
  HOLOFERNES. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want
    no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will put it to
    them; but, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. A soul feminine saluteth
    us.

                    Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD

  JAQUENETTA. God give you good morrow, Master Person.
  HOLOFERNES. Master Person, quasi pers-one. And if one should be
    pierc'd which is the one?
  COSTARD. Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likest to a
    hogshead.
  HOLOFERNES. Piercing a hogshead! A good lustre of conceit in a turf
    of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine; 'tis
    pretty; it is well.
  JAQUENETTA. Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter;
    it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I
    beseech you read it.
  HOLOFERNES. Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra
    Ruminat-
    and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as
    the traveller doth of Venice:
                   Venetia, Venetia,
                   Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia.
    Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not,
    loves thee not-
                      Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.
    Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather as
    Horace says in his- What, my soul, verses?
  NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned.
  HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.
  NATHANIEL. [Reads] 'If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to
      love?
    Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!
    Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove;
    Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.
    Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,
    Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend.
    If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;
    Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;
    All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;
    Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire.
    Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,
    Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.
    Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong,
    That singes heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.'
  HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophas, and so miss the accent:
    let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified;
    but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy,
    caret. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why, indeed, 'Naso' but for
    smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of
    invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the
    ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin,
    was this directed to you?
  JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange
    queen's lords.
  HOLOFERNES. I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white
    hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again on
    the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party
    writing to the person written unto: 'Your Ladyship's in all
    desired employment, Berowne.' Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne is one
    of the votaries with the King; and here he hath framed a letter
    to a sequent of the stranger queen's which accidentally, or by
    the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet;
    deliver this paper into the royal hand of the King; it may
    concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty. Adieu.
  JAQUENETTA. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life!
  COSTARD. Have with thee, my girl.
                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA
  NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very
    religiously; and, as a certain father saith-
  HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colourable
    colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir
    Nathaniel?
  NATHANIEL. Marvellous well for the pen.
  HOLOFERNES. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of
    mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify
    the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the
    parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben
    venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned,
    neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your
    society.
  NATHANIEL. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the
    happiness of life.
  HOLOFERNES. And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.
    [To DULL] Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay:
    pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to
    our recreation.                                       Exeunt

SCENE III. The park

Enter BEROWNE, with a paper his band, alone

  BEROWNE. The King he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself. They
  have pitch'd a toil: I am tolling in a pitch- pitch that defiles.
  Defile! a foul word. Well, 'set thee down, sorrow!' for so they say
  the fool said, and so say I, and I am the fool. Well proved, wit. By
  the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me- I
  a sheep. Well proved again o' my side. I will not love; if I do, hang
  me. I' faith, I will not. O, but her eye! By this light, but for her
  eye, I would not love her- yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing
  in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love; and
  it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of
  my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets
  already; the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it:
  sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not
  care a pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper;
  God give him grace to groan! [Climbs into a tree]

                      Enter the KING, with a paper

  KING. Ay me!
  BEROWNE. Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd
    him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!
  KING. [Reads]
      'So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
      To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
      As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
      The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows;
      Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
      Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
      As doth thy face through tears of mine give light.
      Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep;
      No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
      So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
      Do but behold the tears that swell in me,
      And they thy glory through my grief will show.
      But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
      My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
      O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel
      No thought can think nor tongue of mortal tell.'
    How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper-
    Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?
                                                   [Steps aside]

                  Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper

    What, Longaville, and reading! Listen, car.
  BEROWNE. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!
  LONGAVILLE. Ay me, I am forsworn!
  BEROWNE. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.
  KING. In love, I hope; sweet fellowship in shame!
  BEROWNE. One drunkard loves another of the name.
  LONGAVILLE. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so?
  BEROWNE. I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know;
    Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,
    The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.
  LONGAVILLE. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.
    O sweet Maria, empress of my love!
    These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.
  BEROWNE. O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:
    Disfigure not his slop.
  LONGAVILLE. This same shall go.          [He reads the sonnet]
      'Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
      'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
      Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
      Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
      A woman I forswore; but I will prove,
      Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
      My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
      Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.
      Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is;
      Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
      Exhal'st this vapour-vow; in thee it is.
      If broken, then it is no fault of mine;
      If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
      To lose an oath to win a paradise?'
  BEROWNE. This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity,
    A green goose a goddess- pure, pure idolatry.
    God amend us, God amend! We are much out o' th' way.

                      Enter DUMAIN, with a paper

  LONGAVILLE. By whom shall I send this?- Company! Stay.
                                                   [Steps aside]
  BEROWNE. 'All hid, all hid'- an old infant play.
    Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,
    And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.
    More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!
    Dumain transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish!
  DUMAIN. O most divine Kate!
  BEROWNE. O most profane coxcomb!
  DUMAIN. By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!
  BEROWNE. By earth, she is not, corporal: there you lie.
  DUMAIN. Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.
  BEROWNE. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.
  DUMAIN. As upright as the cedar.
  BEROWNE. Stoop, I say;
    Her shoulder is with child.
  DUMAIN. As fair as day.
  BEROWNE. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.
  DUMAIN. O that I had my wish!
  LONGAVILLE. And I had mine!
  KING. And I mine too,.good Lord!
  BEROWNE. Amen, so I had mine! Is not that a good word?
  DUMAIN. I would forget her; but a fever she
    Reigns in my blood, and will rememb'red be.
  BEROWNE. A fever in your blood? Why, then incision
    Would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision!
  DUMAIN. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.
  BEROWNE. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.
  DUMAIN. [Reads]
        'On a day-alack the day!-
        Love, whose month is ever May,
        Spied a blossom passing fair
        Playing in the wanton air.
        Through the velvet leaves the wind,
        All unseen, can passage find;
        That the lover, sick to death,
        Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
        "Air," quoth he "thy cheeks may blow;
        Air, would I might triumph so!
        But, alack, my hand is sworn
        Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn;
        Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
        Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
        Do not call it sin in me
        That I am forsworn for thee;
        Thou for whom Jove would swear
        Juno but an Ethiope were;
        And deny himself for Jove,
        Turning mortal for thy love."'
    This will I send; and something else more plain
    That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
    O, would the King, Berowne and Longaville,
    Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
    Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;
    For none offend where all alike do dote.
  LONGAVILLE. [Advancing] Dumain, thy love is far from charity,
    That in love's grief desir'st society;
    You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
    To be o'erheard and taken napping so.
  KING. [Advancing] Come, sir, you blush; as his, your case is such.
    You chide at him, offending twice as much:
    You do not love Maria! Longaville
    Did never sonnet for her sake compile;
    Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
    His loving bosom, to keep down his heart.
    I have been closely shrouded in this bush,
    And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.
    I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion,
    Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.
    'Ay me!' says one. 'O Jove!' the other cries.
    One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other's eyes.
    [To LONGAVILLE] You would for paradise break faith and troth;
    [To Dumain] And Jove for your love would infringe an oath.
    What will Berowne say when that he shall hear
    Faith infringed which such zeal did swear?
    How will he scorn, how will he spend his wit!
    How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it!
    For all the wealth that ever I did see,
    I would not have him know so much by me.
  BEROWNE. [Descending] Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy,
    Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.
    Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove
    These worms for loving, that art most in love?
    Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears
    There is no certain princess that appears;
    You'll not be perjur'd; 'tis a hateful thing;
    Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.
    But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,
    All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?
    You found his mote; the King your mote did see;
    But I a beam do find in each of three.
    O, what a scene of fool'ry have I seen,
    Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!
    O, me, with what strict patience have I sat,
    To see a king transformed to a gnat!
    To see great Hercules whipping a gig,
    And profound Solomon to tune a jig,
    And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
    And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!
    Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain?
    And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
    And where my liege's? All about the breast.
    A caudle, ho!
  KING. Too bitter is thy jest.
    Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?
  BEROWNE. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you.
    I that am honest, I that hold it sin
    To break the vow I am engaged in;
    I am betrayed by keeping company
    With men like you, men of inconstancy.
    When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
    Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time
    In pruning me? When shall you hear that I
    Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
    A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,
    A leg, a limb-
  KING. Soft! whither away so fast?
    A true man or a thief that gallops so?
  BEROWNE. I post from love; good lover, let me go.

                 Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD

  JAQUENETTA. God bless the King!
  KING. What present hast thou there?
  COSTARD. Some certain treason.
  KING. What makes treason here?
  COSTARD. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.
  KING. If it mar nothing neither,
    The treason and you go in peace away together.
  JAQUENETTA. I beseech your Grace, let this letter be read;
    Our person misdoubts it: 'twas treason, he said.
  KING. Berowne, read it over.        [BEROWNE reads the letter]
    Where hadst thou it?
  JAQUENETTA. Of Costard.
  KING. Where hadst thou it?
  COSTARD. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.
                                      [BEROWNE tears the letter]
  KING. How now! What is in you? Why dost thou tear it?
  BEROWNE. A toy, my liege, a toy! Your Grace needs not fear it.
  LONGAVILLE. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear
     it.
  DUMAIN. It is Berowne's writing, and here is his name.
                                       [Gathering up the pieces]
  BEROWNE. [ To COSTARD] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born
      to do me shame.
    Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.
  KING. What?
  BEROWNE. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess;
    He, he, and you- and you, my liege!- and I
    Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
    O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.
    DUMAIN. Now the number is even.
  BEROWNE. True, true, we are four.
    Will these turtles be gone?
  KING. Hence, sirs, away.
  COSTARD. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.
                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA
  BEROWNE. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!
    As true we are as flesh and blood can be.
    The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;
    Young blood doth not obey an old decree.
    We cannot cross the cause why we were born,
    Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.
  KING. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?
  BEROWNE. 'Did they?' quoth you. Who sees the heavenly Rosaline
    That, like a rude and savage man of Inde
    At the first op'ning of the gorgeous east,
    Bows not his vassal head and, strucken blind,
    Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?
    What peremptory eagle-sighted eye
    Dares look upon the heaven of her brow
    That is not blinded by her majesty?
  KING. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now?
    My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;
    She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.
  BEROWNE. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.
    O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
    Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty
    Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek,
    Where several worthies make one dignity,
    Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.
    Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues-
    Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not!
    To things of sale a seller's praise belongs:
    She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot.
    A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,
    Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye.
    Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,
    And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.
    O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine!
  KING. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.
  BEROWNE. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!
    A wife of such wood were felicity.
    O, who can give an oath? Where is a book?
    That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack,
    If that she learn not of her eye to look.
    No face is fair that is not full so black.
  KING. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,
    The hue of dungeons, and the school of night;
    And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.
  BEROWNE. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
    O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,
    It mourns that painting and usurping hair
    Should ravish doters with a false aspect;
    And therefore is she born to make black fair.
    Her favour turns the fashion of the days;
    For native blood is counted painting now;
    And therefore red that would avoid dispraise
    Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.
  DUMAIN. To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.
  LONGAVILLE. And since her time are colliers counted bright.
  KING. And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.
  DUMAIN. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.
  BEROWNE. Your mistresses dare never come in rain
    For fear their colours should be wash'd away.
  KING. 'Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,
    I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.
  BEROWNE. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.
  KING. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.
  DUMAIN. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
  LONGAVILLE. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.
                                              [Showing his shoe]
  BEROWNE. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
    Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!
  DUMAIN. O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies
    The street should see as she walk'd overhead.
  KING. But what of this? Are we not all in love?
  BEROWNE. Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.
  KING. Then leave this chat; and, good Berowne, now prove
    Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.
  DUMAIN. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.
  LONGAVILLE. O, some authority how to proceed;
    Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil!
  DUMAIN. Some salve for perjury.
  BEROWNE. 'Tis more than need.
    Have at you, then, affection's men-at-arms.
    Consider what you first did swear unto:
    To fast, to study, and to see no woman-
    Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
    Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young,
    And abstinence engenders maladies.
    And, where that you you have vow'd to study, lords,
    In that each of you have forsworn his book,
    Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?
    For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
    Have found the ground of study's excellence
    Without the beauty of a woman's face?
    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
    They are the ground, the books, the academes,
    From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
    Why, universal plodding poisons up
    The nimble spirits in the arteries,
    As motion and long-during action tires
    The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
    Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
    You have in that forsworn the use of eyes,
    And study too, the causer of your vow;
    For where is author in the world
    Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
    Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
    And where we are our learning likewise is;
    Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,
    With ourselves.
    Do we not likewise see our learning there?
    O, we have made a vow to study, lords,
    And in that vow we have forsworn our books.
    For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
    In leaden contemplation have found out
    Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes
    Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?
    Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;
    And therefore, finding barren practisers,
    Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil;
    But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
    Lives not alone immured in the brain,
    But with the motion of all elements
    Courses as swift as thought in every power,
    And gives to every power a double power,
    Above their functions and their offices.
    It adds a precious seeing to the eye:
    A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind.
    A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
    When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd.
    Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
    Than are the tender horns of cockled snails:
    Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.
    For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
    Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
    Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical
    As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.
    And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
    Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.
    Never durst poet touch a pen to write
    Until his ink were temp'red with Love's sighs;
    O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
    And plant in tyrants mild humility.
    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive.
    They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
    They are the books, the arts, the academes,
    That show, contain, and nourish, all the world,
    Else none at all in aught proves excellent.
    Then fools you were these women to forswear;
    Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
    For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;
    Or for Love's sake, a word that loves all men;
    Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;
    Or women's sake, by whom we men are men-
    Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
    Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
    It is religion to be thus forsworn;
    For charity itself fulfils the law,
    And who can sever love from charity?
  KING. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!
  BEROWNE. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;
    Pell-mell, down with them! be first advis'd,
    In conflict, that you get the sun of them.
  LONGAVILLE. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by.
    Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?
  KING. And win them too; therefore let us devise
    Some entertainment for them in their tents.
  BEROWNE. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;
    Then homeward every man attach the hand
    Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon
    We will with some strange pastime solace them,
    Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
    For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
    Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
  KING. Away, away! No time shall be omitted
    That will betime, and may by us be fitted.
  BEROWNE. Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn,
    And justice always whirls in equal measure.
    Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;
    If so, our copper buys no better treasure.            Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. The park

Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL

  HOLOFERNES. Satis quod sufficit.
  NATHANIEL. I praise God for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner have
    been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty
    without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without
    opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam
    day with a companion of the King's who is intituled, nominated,
    or called, Don Adriano de Armado.
  HOLOFERNES. Novi hominem tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his
    discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his
    gait majestical and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and
    thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd,
    as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.
  NATHANIEL. A most singular and choice epithet.
                                      [Draws out his table-book]
  HOLOFERNES. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than
    the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes,
    such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of
    orthography, as to speak 'dout' fine, when he should say 'doubt';
    'det' when he should pronounce 'debt'- d, e, b, t, not d, e, t.
    He clepeth a calf 'cauf,' half 'hauf'; neighbour vocatur
    'nebour'; 'neigh' abbreviated 'ne.' This is abhominable- which he
    would call 'abbominable.' It insinuateth me of insanie: ne
    intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.
  NATHANIEL. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.
  HOLOFERNES. 'Bone'?- 'bone' for 'bene.' Priscian a little
    scratch'd; 'twill serve.

                 Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD

  NATHANIEL. Videsne quis venit?
  HOLOFERNES. Video, et gaudeo.
  ARMADO. [To MOTH] Chirrah!
  HOLOFERNES. Quare 'chirrah,' not 'sirrah'?
  ARMADO. Men of peace, well encount'red.
  HOLOFERNES. Most military sir, salutation.
  MOTH. [Aside to COSTARD] They have been at a great feast of
    languages and stol'n the scraps.
  COSTARD. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words. I
    marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou are
    not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou art
    easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.
  MOTH. Peace! the peal begins.
  ARMADO. [To HOLOFERNES] Monsieur, are you not lett'red?
  MOTH. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, b, spelt
    backward with the horn on his head?
  HOLOFERNES. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.
  MOTH. Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.
  HOLOFERNES. Quis, quis, thou consonant?
  MOTH. The third of the five vowels, if You repeat them; or the
    fifth, if I.
  HOLOFERNES. I will repeat them: a, e, I-
  MOTH. The sheep; the other two concludes it: o, U.
  ARMADO. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch,
    a quick venue of wit- snip, snap, quick and home. It rejoiceth my
    intellect. True wit!
  MOTH. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.
  HOLOFERNES. What is the figure? What is the figure?
  MOTH. Horns.
  HOLOFERNES. Thou disputes like an infant; go whip thy gig.
  MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your
    infamy circum circa- a gig of a cuckold's horn.
  COSTARD. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it
    to buy ginger-bread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I had
    of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of
    discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but
    my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to;
    thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.
  HOLOFERNES. O, I smell false Latin; 'dunghill' for unguem.
  ARMADO. Arts-man, preambulate; we will be singuled from the
    barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the
    top of the mountain?
  HOLOFERNES. Or mons, the hill.
  ARMADO. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.
  HOLOFERNES. I do, sans question.
  ARMADO. Sir, it is the King's most sweet pleasure and affection to
    congratulate the Princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of
    this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon.
  HOLOFERNES. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable,
    congruent, and measurable, for the afternoon. The word is well
    cull'd, chose, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.
  ARMADO. Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do
    assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us, let
    it pass. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy. I beseech
    thee, apparel thy head. And among other importunate and most
    serious designs, and of great import indeed, too- but let that
    pass; for I must tell thee it will please his Grace, by the
    world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder, and with his royal
    finger thus dally with my excrement, with my mustachio; but,
    sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable:
    some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart
    to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world;
    but let that pass. The very all of all is- but, sweet heart, I do
    implore secrecy- that the King would have me present the
    Princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show,
    or pageant, or antic, or firework. Now, understanding that the
    curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and sudden
    breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal,
    to the end to crave your assistance.
  HOLOFERNES. Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.
    Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some
    show in the posterior of this day, to be rend'red by our
    assistance, the King's command, and this most gallant,
    illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the Princess- I say
    none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.
  NATHANIEL. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?
  HOLOFERNES. Joshua, yourself; myself, Alexander; this gallant
    gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great
    limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page, Hercules.
  ARMADO. Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for that
    Worthy's thumb; he is not so big as the end of his club.
  HOLOFERNES. Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in
    minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I
    will have an apology for that purpose.
  MOTH. An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you may
    cry 'Well done, Hercules; now thou crushest the snake!' That is
    the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the grace to
    do it.
  ARMADO. For the rest of the Worthies?
  HOLOFERNES. I will play three myself.
  MOTH. Thrice-worthy gentleman!
  ARMADO. Shall I tell you a thing?
  HOLOFERNES. We attend.
  ARMADO. We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech you,
    follow.
  HOLOFERNES. Via, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this
    while.
  DULL. Nor understood none neither, sir.
  HOLOFERNES. Allons! we will employ thee.
  DULL. I'll make one in a dance, or so, or I will play
    On the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.
  HOLOFERNES. Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. The park

Enter the PRINCESS, MARIA, KATHARINE, and ROSALINE

  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,
    If fairings come thus plentifully in.
    A lady wall'd about with diamonds!
    Look you what I have from the loving King.
  ROSALINE. Madam, came nothing else along with that?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nothing but this! Yes, as much love in rhyme
    As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper
    Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all,
    That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.
  ROSALINE. That was the way to make his godhead wax;
    For he hath been five thousand year a boy.
  KATHARINE. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.
  ROSALINE. You'll ne'er be friends with him: 'a kill'd your sister.
  KATHARINE. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;
    And so she died. Had she been light, like you,
    Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
    She might 'a been a grandam ere she died.
    And so may you; for a light heart lives long.
  ROSALINE. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?
  KATHARINE. A light condition in a beauty dark.
  ROSALINE. We need more light to find your meaning out.
  KATHARINE. You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff;
    Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.
  ROSALINE. Look what you do, you do it still i' th' dark.
  KATHARINE. So do not you; for you are a light wench.
  ROSALINE. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.
  KATHARINE. You weigh me not? O, that's you care not for me.
  ROSALINE. Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.
    But, Rosaline, you have a favour too?
    Who sent it? and what is it?
  ROSALINE. I would you knew.
    An if my face were but as fair as yours,
    My favour were as great: be witness this.
    Nay, I have verses too, I thank Berowne;
    The numbers true, and, were the numb'ring too,
    I were the fairest goddess on the ground.
    I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.
    O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Anything like?
  ROSALINE. Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Beauteous as ink- a good conclusion.
  KATHARINE. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.
  ROSALINE. Ware pencils, ho! Let me not die your debtor,
    My red dominical, my golden letter:
    O that your face were not so full of O's!
  KATHARINE. A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows!
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair
    Dumain?
  KATHARINE. Madam, this glove.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Did he not send you twain?
  KATHARINE. Yes, madam; and, moreover,
    Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;
    A huge translation of hypocrisy,
    Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.
  MARIA. This, and these pearl, to me sent Longaville;
    The letter is too long by half a mile.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart
    The chain were longer and the letter short?
  MARIA. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.
  ROSALINE. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
    That same Berowne I'll torture ere I go.
    O that I knew he were but in by th' week!
    How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek,
    And wait the season, and observe the times,
    And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes,
    And shape his service wholly to my hests,
    And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
    So pertaunt-like would I o'ersway his state
    That he should be my fool, and I his fate.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. None are so surely caught, when they are
      catch'd,
    As wit turn'd fool; folly, in wisdom hatch'd,
    Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school,
    And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.
  ROSALINE. The blood of youth burns not with such excess
    As gravity's revolt to wantonness.
  MARIA. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note
    As fool'ry in the wise when wit doth dote,
    Since all the power thereof it doth apply
    To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

                          Enter BOYET

  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.
  BOYET. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her Grace?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thy news, Boyet?
  BOYET. Prepare, madam, prepare!
    Arm, wenches, arm! Encounters mounted are
    Against your peace. Love doth approach disguis'd,
    Armed in arguments; you'll be surpris'd.
    Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;
    Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Saint Dennis to Saint Cupid! What are they
    That charge their breath against us? Say, scout, say.
  BOYET. Under the cool shade of a sycamore
    I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour;
    When, lo, to interrupt my purpos'd rest,
    Toward that shade I might behold addrest
    The King and his companions; warily
    I stole into a neighbour thicket by,
    And overheard what you shall overhear-
    That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here.
    Their herald is a pretty knavish page,
    That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage.
    Action and accent did they teach him there:
    'Thus must thou speak' and 'thus thy body bear,'
    And ever and anon they made a doubt
    Presence majestical would put him out;
    'For' quoth the King 'an angel shalt thou see;
    Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.'
    The boy replied 'An angel is not evil;
    I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.'
    With that all laugh'd, and clapp'd him on the shoulder,
    Making the bold wag by their praises bolder.
    One rubb'd his elbow, thus, and fleer'd, and swore
    A better speech was never spoke before.
    Another with his finger and his thumb
    Cried 'Via! we will do't, come what will come.'
    The third he caper'd, and cried 'All goes well.'
    The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell.
    With that they all did tumble on the ground,
    With such a zealous laughter, so profound,
    That in this spleen ridiculous appears,
    To check their folly, passion's solemn tears.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But what, but what, come they to visit us?
  BOYET. They do, they do, and are apparell'd thus,
    Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.
    Their purpose is to parley, court, and dance;
    And every one his love-feat will advance
    Unto his several mistress; which they'll know
    By favours several which they did bestow.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And will they so? The gallants shall be task'd,
    For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd;
    And not a man of them shall have the grace,
    Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.
    Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,
    And then the King will court thee for his dear;
    Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine,
    So shall Berowne take me for Rosaline.
    And change you favours too; so shall your loves
    Woo contrary, deceiv'd by these removes.
  ROSALINE. Come on, then, wear the favours most in sight.
  KATHARINE. But, in this changing, what is your intent?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The effect of my intent is to cross theirs.
    They do it but in mocking merriment,
    And mock for mock is only my intent.
    Their several counsels they unbosom shall
    To loves mistook, and so be mock'd withal
    Upon the next occasion that we meet
    With visages display'd to talk and greet.
  ROSALINE. But shall we dance, if they desire us to't?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, to the death, we will not move a foot,
    Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace;
    But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face.
  BOYET. Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart,
    And quite divorce his memory from his part.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt
    The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out.
    There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown,
    To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own;
    So shall we stay, mocking intended game,
    And they well mock'd depart away with shame.
                                         [Trumpet sounds within]
  BOYET. The trumpet sounds; be mask'd; the maskers come.
                                               [The LADIES mask]

          Enter BLACKAMOORS music, MOTH as Prologue, the
     KING and his LORDS as maskers, in the guise of Russians

  MOTH. All hail, the richest heauties on the earth!
  BOYET. Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.
  MOTH. A holy parcel of the fairest dames
                            [The LADIES turn their backs to him]
    That ever turn'd their- backs- to mortal views!
  BEROWNE. Their eyes, villain, their eyes.
  MOTH. That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views!
    Out-
  BOYET. True; out indeed.
  MOTH. Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe
    Not to behold-
  BEROWNE. Once to behold, rogue.
  MOTH. Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes- with your
    sun-beamed eyes-
  BOYET. They will not answer to that epithet;
    You were best call it 'daughter-beamed eyes.'
  MOTH. They do not mark me, and that brings me out.
  BEROWNE. Is this your perfectness? Be gone, you rogue.
                                                       Exit MOTH
  ROSALINE. What would these strangers? Know their minds, Boyet.
    If they do speak our language, 'tis our will
    That some plain man recount their purposes.
    Know what they would.
  BOYET. What would you with the Princess?
  BEROWNE. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.
  ROSALINE. What would they, say they?
  BOYET. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.
  ROSALINE. Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.
  BOYET. She says you have it, and you may be gone.
  KING. Say to her we have measur'd many miles
    To tread a measure with her on this grass.
  BOYET. They say that they have measur'd many a mile
    To tread a measure with you on this grass.
  ROSALINE. It is not so. Ask them how many inches
    Is in one mile? If they have measured many,
    The measure, then, of one is eas'ly told.
  BOYET. If to come hither you have measur'd miles,
    And many miles, the Princess bids you tell
    How many inches doth fill up one mile.
  BEROWNE. Tell her we measure them by weary steps.
  BOYET. She hears herself.
  ROSALINE. How many weary steps
    Of many weary miles you have o'ergone
    Are numb'red in the travel of one mile?
  BEROWNE. We number nothing that we spend for you;
    Our duty is so rich, so infinite,
    That we may do it still without accompt.
    Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,
    That we, like savages, may worship it.
  ROSALINE. My face is but a moon, and clouded too.
  KING. Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do.
    Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,
    Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne.
  ROSALINE. O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;
    Thou now requests but moonshine in the water.
  KING. Then in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.
    Thou bid'st me beg; this begging is not strange.
  ROSALINE. Play, music, then. Nay, you must do it soon.
    Not yet? No dance! Thus change I like the moon.
  KING. Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?
  ROSALINE. You took the moon at full; but now she's changed.
  KING. Yet still she is the Moon, and I the Man.
    The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.
  ROSALINE. Our ears vouchsafe it.
  KING. But your legs should do it.
  ROSALINE. Since you are strangers, and come here by chance,
    We'll not be nice; take hands. We will not dance.
  KING. Why take we hands then?
  ROSALINE. Only to part friends.
    Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.
  KING. More measure of this measure; be not nice.
  ROSALINE. We can afford no more at such a price.
  KING. Price you yourselves. What buys your company?
  ROSALINE. Your absence only.
  KING. That can never be.
  ROSALINE. Then cannot we be bought; and so adieu-
    Twice to your visor and half once to you.
  KING. If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat.
  ROSALINE. In private then.
  KING. I am best pleas'd with that.       [They converse apart]
  BEROWNE. White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.
  BEROWNE. Nay, then, two treys, an if you grow so nice,
    Metheglin, wort, and malmsey; well run dice!
    There's half a dozen sweets.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Seventh sweet, adieu!
    Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you.
  BEROWNE. One word in secret.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Let it not be sweet.
  BEROWNE. Thou grievest my gall.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Gall! bitter.
  BEROWNE. Therefore meet.                 [They converse apart]
  DUMAIN. Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?
  MARIA. Name it.
  DUMAIN. Fair lady-
  MARIA. Say you so? Fair lord-
    Take that for your fair lady.
  DUMAIN. Please it you,
    As much in private, and I'll bid adieu.
                                           [They converse apart]
  KATHARINE. What, was your vizard made without a tongue?
  LONGAVILLE. I know the reason, lady, why you ask.
  KATHARINE. O for your reason! Quickly, sir; I long.
  LONGAVILLE. You have a double tongue within your mask,
    And would afford my speechless vizard half.
  KATHARINE. 'Veal' quoth the Dutchman. Is not 'veal' a calf?
  LONGAVILLE. A calf, fair lady!
  KATHARINE. No, a fair lord calf.
  LONGAVILLE. Let's part the word.
  KATHARINE. No, I'll not be your half.
    Take all and wean it; it may prove an ox.
  LONGAVILLE. Look how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!
    Will you give horns, chaste lady? Do not so.
  KATHARINE. Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.
  LONGAVILLE. One word in private with you ere I die.
  KATHARINE. Bleat softly, then; the butcher hears you cry.
                                           [They converse apart]
  BOYET. The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
    As is the razor's edge invisible,
    Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,
    Above the sense of sense; so sensible
    Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings,
    Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.
  ROSALINE. Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.
  BEROWNE. By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!
  KING. Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.
                             Exeunt KING, LORDS, and BLACKAMOORS
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits.
    Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?
  BOYET. Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out.
  ROSALINE. Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!
    Will they not, think you, hang themselves to-night?
    Or ever but in vizards show their faces?
    This pert Berowne was out of count'nance quite.
  ROSALINE. They were all in lamentable cases!
    The King was weeping-ripe for a good word.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Berowne did swear himself out of all suit.
  MARIA. Dumain was at my service, and his sword.
    'No point' quoth I; my servant straight was mute.
  KATHARINE. Lord Longaville said I came o'er his heart;
    And trow you what he call'd me?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Qualm, perhaps.
  KATHARINE. Yes, in good faith.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Go, sickness as thou art!
  ROSALINE. Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.
    But will you hear? The King is my love sworn.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And quick Berowne hath plighted faith to me.
  KATHARINE. And Longaville was for my service born.
  MARIA. Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree.
  BOYET. Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:
    Immediately they will again be here
    In their own shapes; for it can never be
    They will digest this harsh indignity.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Will they return?
  BOYET. They will, they will, God knows,
    And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows;
    Therefore, change favours; and, when they repair,
    Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. How blow? how blow? Speak to be understood.
  BOYET. Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud:
    Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown,
    Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do
    If they return in their own shapes to woo?
  ROSALINE. Good madam, if by me you'll be advis'd,
    Let's mock them still, as well known as disguis'd.
    Let us complain to them what fools were here,
    Disguis'd like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;
    And wonder what they were, and to what end
    Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd,
    And their rough carriage so ridiculous,
    Should be presented at our tent to us.
  BOYET. Ladies, withdraw; the gallants are at hand.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er land.
                 Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA

         Re-enter the KING, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN,
                        in their proper habits

  KING. Fair sir, God save you! Where's the Princess?
  BOYET. Gone to her tent. Please it your Majesty
    Command me any service to her thither?
  KING. That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.
  BOYET. I will; and so will she, I know, my lord.          Exit
  BEROWNE. This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease,
    And utters it again when God doth please.
    He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares
    At wakes, and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;
    And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,
    Have not the grace to grace it with such show.
    This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;
    Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.
    'A can carve too, and lisp; why this is he
    That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy;
    This is the ape of form, Monsieur the Nice,
    That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice
    In honourable terms; nay, he can sing
    A mean most meanly; and in ushering,
    Mend him who can. The ladies call him sweet;
    The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.
    This is the flow'r that smiles on every one,
    To show his teeth as white as whales-bone;
    And consciences that will not die in debt
    Pay him the due of 'honey-tongued Boyet.'
  KING. A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,
    That put Armado's page out of his part!

        Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET; ROSALINE,
                      MARIA, and KATHARINE

  BEROWNE. See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou
    Till this man show'd thee? And what art thou now?
  KING. All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I conceive.
  KING. Construe my speeches better, if you may.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Then wish me better; I will give you leave.
  KING. We came to visit you, and purpose now
    To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. This field shall hold me, and so hold your vow:
    Nor God, nor I, delights in perjur'd men.
  KING. Rebuke me not for that which you provoke.
    The virtue of your eye must break my oath.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You nickname virtue: vice you should have
      spoke;
    For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.
    Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure
    As the unsullied lily, I protest,
    A world of torments though I should endure,
    I would not yield to be your house's guest;
    So much I hate a breaking cause to be
    Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.
  KING. O, you have liv'd in desolation here,
    Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;
    We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game;
    A mess of Russians left us but of late.
  KING. How, madam! Russians!
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Ay, in truth, my lord;
    Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.
  ROSALINE. Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord.
    My lady, to the manner of the days,
    In courtesy gives undeserving praise.
    We four indeed confronted were with four
    In Russian habit; here they stayed an hour
    And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,
    They did not bless us with one happy word.
    I dare not call them fools; but this I think,
    When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.
  BEROWNE. This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,
    Your wit makes wise things foolish; when we greet,
    With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,
    By light we lose light; your capacity
    Is of that nature that to your huge store
    Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.
  ROSALINE. This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye-
  BEROWNE. I am a fool, and full of poverty.
  ROSALINE. But that you take what doth to you belong,
    It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.
  BEROWNE. O, I am yours, and all that I possess.
  ROSALINE. All the fool mine?
  BEROWNE. I cannot give you less.
  ROSALINE. Which of the vizards was it that you wore?
  BEROWNE. Where? when? what vizard? Why demand you this?
  ROSALINE. There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case
    That hid the worse and show'd the better face.
  KING. We were descried; they'll mock us now downright.
  DUMAIN. Let us confess, and turn it to a jest.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Amaz'd, my lord? Why looks your Highness sad?
  ROSALINE. Help, hold his brows! he'll swoon! Why look you pale?
    Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.
  BEROWNE. Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.
    Can any face of brass hold longer out?
    Here stand I, lady- dart thy skill at me,
    Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout,
    Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance,
    Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;
    And I will wish thee never more to dance,
    Nor never more in Russian habit wait.
    O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd,
    Nor to the motion of a school-boy's tongue,
    Nor never come in vizard to my friend,
    Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song.
    Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
    Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation,
    Figures pedantical- these summer-flies
    Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.
    I do forswear them; and I here protest,
    By this white glove- how white the hand, God knows!-
    Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd
    In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes.
    And, to begin, wench- so God help me, law!-
    My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.
  ROSALINE. Sans 'sans,' I pray you.
  BEROWNE. Yet I have a trick
    Of the old rage; bear with me, I am sick;
    I'll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see-
    Write 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three;
    They are infected; in their hearts it lies;
    They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes.
    These lords are visited; you are not free,
    For the Lord's tokens on you do I see.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, they are free that gave these tokens to us.
  BEROWNE. Our states are forfeit; seek not to undo us.
  ROSALINE. It is not so; for how can this be true,
    That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?
  BEROWNE. Peace; for I will not have to do with you.
  ROSALINE. Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.
  BEROWNE. Speak for yourselves; my wit is at an end.
  KING. Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression
    Some fair excuse.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The fairest is confession.
    Were not you here but even now, disguis'd?
  KING. Madam, I was.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And were you well advis'd?
  KING. I was, fair madam.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When you then were here,
    What did you whisper in your lady's ear?
  KING. That more than all the world I did respect her.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When she shall challenge this, you will reject
    her.
  KING. Upon mine honour, no.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Peace, peace, forbear;
    Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.
  KING. Despise me when I break this oath of mine.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will; and therefore keep it. Rosaline,
    What did the Russian whisper in your ear?
  ROSALINE. Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear
    As precious eyesight, and did value me
    Above this world; adding thereto, moreover,
    That he would wed me, or else die my lover.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God give thee joy of him! The noble lord
     Most honourably doth uphold his word.
  KING. What mean you, madam? By my life, my troth,
    I never swore this lady such an oath.
  ROSALINE. By heaven, you did; and, to confirm it plain,
    You gave me this; but take it, sir, again.
  KING. My faith and this the Princess I did give;
    I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;
    And Lord Berowne, I thank him, is my dear.
    What, will you have me, or your pearl again?
 BEROWNE. Neither of either; I remit both twain.
    I see the trick on't: here was a consent,
    Knowing aforehand of our merriment,
    To dash it like a Christmas comedy.
    Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,
    Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,
    That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick
    To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd,
    Told our intents before; which once disclos'd,
    The ladies did change favours; and then we,
    Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she.
    Now, to our perjury to add more terror,
    We are again forsworn in will and error.
    Much upon this it is; [To BOYET] and might not you
    Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?
    Do not you know my lady's foot by th' squier,
    And laugh upon the apple of her eye?
    And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,
    Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?
    You put our page out. Go, you are allow'd;
    Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.
    You leer upon me, do you? There's an eye
    Wounds like a leaden sword.
  BOYET. Full merrily
    Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.
  BEROWNE. Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace; I have done.

                          Enter COSTARD

    Welcome, pure wit! Thou part'st a fair fray.
  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, they would know
     Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no?
  BEROWNE. What, are there but three?
  COSTARD. No, sir; but it is vara fine,
    For every one pursents three.
  BEROWNE. And three times thrice is nine.
  COSTARD. Not so, sir; under correction, sir,
    I hope it is not so.
    You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what we
      know;
    I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir-
  BEROWNE. Is not nine.
  COSTARD. Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount.
  BEROWNE. By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.
  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, it were pity you should get your living by
    reck'ning, sir.
  BEROWNE. How much is it?
  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will
    show whereuntil it doth amount. For mine own part, I am, as they
    say, but to parfect one man in one poor man, Pompion the Great,
    sir.
  BEROWNE. Art thou one of the Worthies?
  COSTARD. It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompey the Great;
    for mine own part, I know not the degree of the Worthy; but I am
    to stand for him.
  BEROWNE. Go, bid them prepare.
  COSTARD. We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some care.
                                                    Exit COSTARD
  KING. Berowne, they will shame us; let them not approach.
  BEROWNE. We are shame-proof, my lord, and 'tis some policy
    To have one show worse than the King's and his company.
  KING. I say they shall not come.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now.
    That sport best pleases that doth least know how;
    Where zeal strives to content, and the contents
    Dies in the zeal of that which it presents.
    Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,
    When great things labouring perish in their birth.
  BEROWNE. A right description of our sport, my lord.

                        Enter ARMADO

  ARMADO. Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal sweet
    breath as will utter a brace of words.
           [Converses apart with the KING, and delivers a paper]
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Doth this man serve God?
  BEROWNE. Why ask you?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'A speaks not like a man of God his making.
  ARMADO. That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for, I
    protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical; too too vain,
    too too vain; but we will put it, as they say, to fortuna de la
    guerra. I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement!
                                                     Exit ARMADO
  KING. Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He presents
    Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the Great; the parish curate,
    Alexander; Arinado's page, Hercules; the pedant, Judas
    Maccabaeus.
    And if these four Worthies in their first show thrive,
    These four will change habits and present the other five.
  BEROWNE. There is five in the first show.
  KING. You are deceived, 'tis not so.
  BEROWNE. The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool, and
    the boy:
    Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again
    Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein.
  KING. The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.

                   Enter COSTARD, armed for POMPEY

  COSTARD. I Pompey am-
  BEROWNE. You lie, you are not he.
  COSTARD. I Pompey am-
  BOYET. With libbard's head on knee.
  BEROWNE. Well said, old mocker; I must needs be friends with thee.
  COSTARD. I Pompey am, Pompey surnam'd the Big-
   DUMAIN. The Great.
  COSTARD. It is Great, sir.
    Pompey surnam'd the Great,
    That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to
      sweat;
    And travelling along this coast, I bere am come by chance,
    And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France.

    If your ladyship would say 'Thanks, Pompey,' I had done.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Great thanks, great Pompey.
  COSTARD. 'Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect.
    I made a little fault in Great.
  BEROWNE. My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy.

                 Enter SIR NATHANIEL, for ALEXANDER

  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander;
    By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering might.
    My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander-
  BOYET. Your nose says, no, you are not; for it stands to right.
  BEROWNE. Your nose smells 'no' in this, most tender-smelling
    knight.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good
    Alexander.
  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander-
  BOYET. Most true, 'tis right, you were so, Alisander.
  BEROWNE. Pompey the Great!
  COSTARD. Your servant, and Costard.
  BEROWNE. Take away the conqueror, take away Alisander.
  COSTARD. [To Sir Nathaniel] O, Sir, you have overthrown Alisander
    the conqueror! You will be scrap'd out of the painted cloth for
    this. Your lion, that holds his poleaxe sitting on a close-stool,
    will be given to Ajax. He will be the ninth Worthy. A conqueror
    and afeard to speak! Run away for shame, Alisander.
    [Sir Nathaniel retires] There, an't shall please you, a foolish
    mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dash'd. He is a
    marvellous good neighbour, faith, and a very good bowler; but for
    Alisander- alas! you see how 'tis- a little o'erparted. But there
    are Worthies a-coming will speak their mind in some other sort.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Stand aside, good Pompey.

         Enter HOLOFERNES, for JUDAS; and MOTH, for HERCULES

  HOLOFERNES. Great Hercules is presented by this imp,
    Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canus;
    And when be was a babe, a child, a shrimp,
    Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus.
    Quoniam he seemeth in minority,
    Ergo I come with this apology.
    Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.      [MOTH retires]
    Judas I am-
  DUMAIN. A Judas!
  HOLOFERNES. Not Iscariot, sir.
    Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.
  DUMAIN. Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas.
  BEROWNE. A kissing traitor. How art thou prov'd Judas?
  HOLOFERNES. Judas I am-
  DUMAIN. The more shame for you, Judas!
  HOLOFERNES. What mean you, sir?
  BOYET. To make Judas hang himself.
  HOLOFERNES. Begin, sir; you are my elder.
  BEROWNE. Well followed: Judas was hanged on an elder.
  HOLOFERNES. I will not be put out of countenance.
  BEROWNE. Because thou hast no face.
  HOLOFERNES. What is this?
  BOYET. A cittern-head.
  DUMAIN. The head of a bodkin.
  BEROWNE. A death's face in a ring.
  LONGAVILLE. The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.
  BOYET. The pommel of Coesar's falchion.
  DUMAIN. The carv'd-bone face on a flask.
  BEROWNE. Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch.
  DUMAIN. Ay, and in a brooch of lead.
  BEROWNE. Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer. And now,
    forward; for we have put thee in countenance.
  HOLOFERNES. You have put me out of countenance.
  BEROWNE. False: we have given thee faces.
  HOLOFERNES. But you have outfac'd them all.
  BEROWNE. An thou wert a lion we would do so.
  BOYET. Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go.
    And so adieu, sweet Jude! Nay, why dost thou stay?
  DUMAIN. For the latter end of his name.
  BEROWNE. For the ass to the Jude; give it him- Jud-as, away.
  HOLOFERNES. This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.
  BOYET. A light for Monsieur Judas! It grows dark, he may stumble.
                                            [HOLOFERNES retires]
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Alas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited!

                   Enter ARMADO, for HECTOR

  BEROWNE. Hide thy head, Achilles; here comes Hector in arms.
  DUMAIN. Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.
  KING. Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this.
  BOYET. But is this Hector?
  DUMAIN. I think Hector was not so clean-timber'd.
  LONGAVILLE. His leg is too big for Hector's.
  DUMAIN. More calf, certain.
  BOYET. No; he is best indued in the small.
  BEROWNE. This cannot be Hector.
  DUMAIN. He's a god or a painter, for he makes faces.
  ARMADO. The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,
    Gave Hector a gift-
  DUMAIN. A gilt nutmeg.
  BEROWNE. A lemon.
  LONGAVILLE. Stuck with cloves.
  DUMAIN. No, cloven.
  ARMADO. Peace!
    The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,
    Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;
    A man so breathed that certain he would fight ye,
    From morn till night out of his pavilion.
    I am that flower-
  DUMAIN. That mint.
  LONGAVILLE. That columbine.
  ARMADO. Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue.
  LONGAVILLE. I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against
    Hector.
  DUMAIN. Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.
  ARMADO. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat
    not the bones of the buried; when he breathed, he was a man. But
    I will forward with my device. [To the PRINCESS] Sweet royalty,
    bestow on me the sense of hearing.

          [BEROWNE steps forth, and speaks to COSTARD]

  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Speak, brave Hector; we are much delighted.
  ARMADO. I do adore thy sweet Grace's slipper.
  BOYET. [Aside to DUMAIN] Loves her by the foot.
  DUMAIN. [Aside to BOYET] He may not by the yard.
  ARMADO. This Hector far surmounted Hannibal-
  COSTARD. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two
    months on her way.
  ARMADO. What meanest thou?
  COSTARD. Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor wench
    is cast away. She's quick; the child brags in her belly already;
    'tis yours.
  ARMADO. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? Thou shalt die.
  COSTARD. Then shall Hector be whipt for Jaquenetta that is quick by
    him, and hang'd for Pompey that is dead by him.
  DUMAIN. Most rare Pompey!
  BOYET. Renowned Pompey!
  BEROWNE. Greater than Great! Great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the
    Huge!
  DUMAIN. Hector trembles.
  BEROWNE. Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! Stir them on! stir
    them on!
  DUMAIN. Hector will challenge him.
  BEROWNE. Ay, if 'a have no more man's blood in his belly than will
    sup a flea.
  ARMADO. By the North Pole, I do challenge thee.
  COSTARD. I will not fight with a pole, like a Northern man; I'll
    slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you, let me borrow my
    arms again.
  DUMAIN. Room for the incensed Worthies!
  COSTARD. I'll do it in my shirt.
  DUMAIN. Most resolute Pompey!
  MOTH. Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not see
    Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You will lose
    your reputation.
  ARMADO. Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my
    shirt.
  DUMAIN. You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge.
  ARMADO. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.
  BEROWNE. What reason have you for 't?
  ARMADO. The naked truth of it is: I have no shirt; I go woolward
    for penance.
  BOYET. True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen;
    since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but a dishclout of
    Jaquenetta's, and that 'a wears next his heart for a favour.

                 Enter as messenger, MONSIEUR MARCADE

  MARCADE. God save you, madam!
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Welcome, Marcade;
    But that thou interruptest our merriment.
  MARCADE. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring
    Is heavy in my tongue. The King your father-
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Dead, for my life!
  MARCADE. Even so; my tale is told.
  BEROWNE. WOrthies away; the scene begins to cloud.
  ARMADO. For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have seen the
    day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will
    right myself like a soldier.                 Exeunt WORTHIES
  KING. How fares your Majesty?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night.
  KING. Madam, not so; I do beseech you stay.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords,
    For all your fair endeavours, and entreat,
    Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe
    In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide
    The liberal opposition of our spirits,
    If over-boldly we have borne ourselves
    In the converse of breath- your gentleness
    Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord.
    A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.
    Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks
    For my great suit so easily obtain'd.
  KING. The extreme parts of time extremely forms
    All causes to the purpose of his speed;
    And often at his very loose decides
    That which long process could not arbitrate.
    And though the mourning brow of progeny
    Forbid the smiling courtesy of love
    The holy suit which fain it would convince,
    Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,
    Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it
    From what it purpos'd; since to wail friends lost
    Is not by much so wholesome-profitable
    As to rejoice at friends but newly found.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I understand you not; my griefs are double.
  BEROWNE. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;
    And by these badges understand the King.
    For your fair sakes have we neglected time,
    Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies,
    Hath much deformed us, fashioning our humours
    Even to the opposed end of our intents;
    And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,
    As love is full of unbefitting strains,
    All wanton as a child, skipping and vain;
    Form'd by the eye and therefore, like the eye,
    Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms,
    Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll
    To every varied object in his glance;
    Which parti-coated presence of loose love
    Put on by us, if in your heavenly eyes
    Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,
    Those heavenly eyes that look into these faults
    Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,
    Our love being yours, the error that love makes
    Is likewise yours. We to ourselves prove false,
    By being once false for ever to be true
    To those that make us both- fair ladies, you;
    And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,
    Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love;
    Your favours, the ambassadors of love;
    And, in our maiden council, rated them
    At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,
    As bombast and as lining to the time;
    But more devout than this in our respects
    Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
    In their own fashion, like a merriment.
  DUMAIN. Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest.
  LONGAVILLE. So did our looks.
  ROSALINE. We did not quote them so.
  KING. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
    Grant us your loves.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. A time, methinks, too short
    To make a world-without-end bargain in.
    No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur'd much,
    Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this,
    If for my love, as there is no such cause,
    You will do aught- this shall you do for me:
    Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed
    To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
    Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
    There stay until the twelve celestial signs
    Have brought about the annual reckoning.
    If this austere insociable life
    Change not your offer made in heat of blood,
    If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds,
    Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
    But that it bear this trial, and last love,
    Then, at the expiration of the year,
    Come, challenge me, challenge me by these deserts;
    And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,
    I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut
    My woeful self up in a mournful house,
    Raining the tears of lamentation
    For the remembrance of my father's death.
    If this thou do deny, let our hands part,
    Neither intitled in the other's heart.
  KING. If this, or more than this, I would deny,
    To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
    The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
    Hence hermit then, my heart is in thy breast.
  BEROWNE. And what to me, my love? and what to me?
  ROSALINE. You must he purged too, your sins are rack'd;
    You are attaint with faults and perjury;
    Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,
    A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
    But seek the weary beds of people sick.
  DUMAIN. But what to me, my love? but what to me?
    A wife?
  KATHARINE. A beard, fair health, and honesty;
    With threefold love I wish you all these three.
  DUMAIN. O, shall I say I thank you, gentle wife?
  KATHARINE. No so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day
    I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say.
    Come when the King doth to my lady come;
    Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.
  DUMAIN. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.
  KATHARINE. Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.
  LONGAVILLE. What says Maria?
  MARIA. At the twelvemonth's end
    I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
  LONGAVILLE. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.
  MARIA. The liker you; few taller are so young.
  BEROWNE. Studies my lady? Mistress, look on me;
    Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
    What humble suit attends thy answer there.
    Impose some service on me for thy love.
  ROSALINE. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Berowne,
    Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue
    Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,
    Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,
    Which you on all estates will execute
    That lie within the mercy of your wit.
    To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
    And therewithal to win me, if you please,
    Without the which I am not to be won,
    You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
    Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
    With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
    With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
    To enforce the pained impotent to smile.
  BEROWNE. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?
    It cannot be; it is impossible;
    Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.
  ROSALINE. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,
    Whose influence is begot of that loose grace
    Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.
    A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
    Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
    Of him that makes it; then, if sickly ears,
    Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
    Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
    And I will have you and that fault withal.
    But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
    And I shall find you empty of that fault,
    Right joyful of your reformation.
  BEROWNE. A twelvemonth? Well, befall what will befall,
    I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. [ To the King] Ay, sweet my lord, and so I take
    my leave.
  KING. No, madam; we will bring you on your way.
  BEROWNE. Our wooing doth not end like an old play:
    Jack hath not Jill. These ladies' courtesy
    Might well have made our sport a comedy.
  KING. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth an' a day,
    And then 'twill end.
  BEROWNE. That's too long for a play.

                          Re-enter ARMADO

  ARMADO. Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me-
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was not that not Hector?
  DUMAIN. The worthy knight of Troy.
  ARMADO. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a
    votary: I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her
    sweet love three year. But, most esteemed greatness, will you
    hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in
    praise of the Owl and the Cuckoo? It should have followed in the
    end of our show.
  KING. Call them forth quickly; we will do so.
  ARMADO. Holla! approach.

                            Enter All

    This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring- the one
    maintained by the Owl, th' other by the Cuckoo. Ver, begin.

                      SPRING
         When daisies pied and violets blue
         And lady-smocks all silver-white
         And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
         Do paint the meadows with delight,
         The cuckoo then on every tree
         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
              'Cuckoo;
         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,
         Unpleasing to a married ear!

         When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
         And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks;
         When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,
         And maidens bleach their summer smocks;
         The cuckoo then on every tree
         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
              'Cuckoo;
         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,
         Unpleasing to a married ear!

                    WINTER

         When icicles hang by the wall,
         And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
         And Tom bears logs into the hall,
         And milk comes frozen home in pail,
         When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
         Then nightly sings the staring owl:
              'Tu-who;
         Tu-whit, Tu-who'- A merry note,
         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

         When all aloud the wind doth blow,
         And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
         And birds sit brooding in the snow,
         And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
         When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
         Then nightly sings the staring owl:
              'Tu-who;
         Tu-whit, To-who'- A merry note,
         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

  ARMADO. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.
    You that way: we this way.                            Exeunt

THE END

1606



THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH

Dramatis Personae

  DUNCAN, King of Scotland
  MACBETH, Thane of Glamis and Cawdor, a general in the King's army
  LADY MACBETH, his wife
  MACDUFF, Thane of Fife, a nobleman of Scotland
  LADY MACDUFF, his wife
  MALCOLM, elder son of Duncan
  DONALBAIN, younger son of Duncan
  BANQUO, Thane of Lochaber, a general in the King's army
  FLEANCE, his son
  LENNOX, nobleman of Scotland
  ROSS, nobleman of Scotland
  MENTEITH nobleman of Scotland
  ANGUS, nobleman of Scotland
  CAITHNESS, nobleman of Scotland
  SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland, general of the English forces
  YOUNG SIWARD, his son
  SEYTON, attendant to Macbeth
  HECATE, Queen of the Witches
  The Three Witches
  Boy, Son of Macduff
  Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth
  An English Doctor
  A Scottish Doctor
  A Sergeant
  A Porter
  An Old Man
  The Ghost of Banquo and other Apparitions
  Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murtherers, Attendants,
     and Messengers

SCENE: Scotland and England

ACT I. SCENE I. A desert place. Thunder and lightning.

Enter three Witches.

  FIRST WITCH. When shall we three meet again?
    In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
  SECOND WITCH. When the hurlyburly's done,
    When the battle's lost and won.
  THIRD WITCH. That will be ere the set of sun.
  FIRST WITCH. Where the place?
  SECOND WITCH. Upon the heath.
  THIRD WITCH. There to meet with Macbeth.
  FIRST WITCH. I come, Graymalkin.
  ALL. Paddock calls. Anon!
    Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
    Hover through the fog and filthy air.                Exeunt.

SCENE II. A camp near Forres. Alarum within.

Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a
bleeding Sergeant.

  DUNCAN. What bloody man is that? He can report,
    As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
    The newest state.
  MALCOLM. This is the sergeant
    Who like a good and hardy soldier fought
    'Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!
    Say to the King the knowledge of the broil
    As thou didst leave it.
  SERGEANT. Doubtful it stood,
    As two spent swimmers that do cling together
    And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald-
    Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
    The multiplying villainies of nature
    Do swarm upon him -from the Western Isles
    Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
    And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
    Show'd like a rebel's whore. But all's too weak;
    For brave Macbeth -well he deserves that name-
    Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
    Which smoked with bloody execution,
    Like Valor's minion carved out his passage
    Till he faced the slave,
    Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
    Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
    And fix'd his head upon our battlements.
  DUNCAN. O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!
  SERGEANT. As whence the sun 'gins his reflection
    Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,
    So from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come
    Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark.
    No sooner justice had, with valor arm'd,
    Compell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
    But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,
    With furbish'd arms and new supplies of men,
    Began a fresh assault.
  DUNCAN. Dismay'd not this
    Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo.?
  SERGEANT. Yes,
    As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
    If I say sooth, I must report they were
    As cannons overcharged with double cracks,
    So they
    Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.
    Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
    Or memorize another Golgotha,
    I cannot tell-
    But I am faint; my gashes cry for help.
  DUNCAN. So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;
    They smack of honor both. Go get him surgeons.
                                        Exit Sergeant, attended.
    Who comes here?

                       Enter Ross.

  MALCOLM The worthy Thane of Ross.
  LENNOX. What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
    That seems to speak things strange.
  ROSS. God save the King!
  DUNCAN. Whence camest thou, worthy Thane?
  ROSS. From Fife, great King,
    Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
    And fan our people cold.
    Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
    Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
    The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict,
    Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,
    Confronted him with self-comparisons,
    Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,
    Curbing his lavish spirit; and, to conclude,
    The victory fell on us.
  DUNCAN. Great happiness!
  ROSS. That now
    Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition;
    Nor would we deign him burial of his men
    Till he disbursed, at Saint Colme's Inch,
    Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
  DUNCAN. No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
    Our bosom interest. Go pronounce his present death,
    And with his former title greet Macbeth.
  ROSS. I'll see it done.
  DUNCAN. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE III. A heath. Thunder.

Enter the three Witches.

  FIRST WITCH. Where hast thou been, sister?
  SECOND WITCH. Killing swine.
  THIRD WITCH. Sister, where thou?
  FIRST WITCH. A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
    And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd. "Give me," quoth I.
    "Aroint thee, witch!" the rump-fed ronyon cries.
    Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master the Tiger;
    But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
    And, like a rat without a tail,
    I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.
  SECOND WITCH. I'll give thee a wind.
  FIRST WITCH. Thou'rt kind.
  THIRD WITCH. And I another.
  FIRST WITCH. I myself have all the other,
    And the very ports they blow,
    All the quarters that they know
    I' the shipman's card.
    I will drain him dry as hay:
    Sleep shall neither night nor day
    Hang upon his penthouse lid;
    He shall live a man forbid.
    Weary se'nnights nine times nine
    Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine;
    Though his bark cannot be lost,
    Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd.
    Look what I have.
  SECOND WITCH. Show me, show me.
  FIRST WITCH. Here I have a pilot's thumb,
    Wreck'd as homeward he did come.                Drum within.
  THIRD WITCH. A drum, a drum!
    Macbeth doth come.
  ALL. The weird sisters, hand in hand,
    Posters of the sea and land,
    Thus do go about, about,
    Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
    And thrice again, to make up nine.
    Peace! The charm's wound up.

                 Enter Macbeth and Banquo.

  MACBETH. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
  BANQUO. How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these
    So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
    That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
    And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
    That man may question? You seem to understand me,
    By each at once her choppy finger laying
    Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,
    And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
    That you are so.
  MACBETH. Speak, if you can. What are you?
  FIRST WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
  SECOND WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
  THIRD WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!
  BANQUO. Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
    Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,
    Are ye fantastical or that indeed
    Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
    You greet with present grace and great prediction
    Of noble having and of royal hope,
    That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not.
    If you can look into the seeds of time,
    And say which grain will grow and which will not,
    Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
    Your favors nor your hate.
  FIRST WITCH. Hail!
  SECOND WITCH. Hail!
  THIRD WITCH. Hail!
  FIRST WITCH. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
  SECOND WITCH. Not so happy, yet much happier.
  THIRD WITCH. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.
    So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
  FIRST WITCH. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
  MACBETH. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.
    By Sinel's death I know I am Thane of Glamis;
    But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,
    A prosperous gentleman; and to be King
    Stands not within the prospect of belief,
    No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
    You owe this strange intelligence, or why
    Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
    With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.
                                                 Witches vanish.
  BANQUO. The earth hath bubbles as the water has,
    And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?
  MACBETH. Into the air, and what seem'd corporal melted
    As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!
  BANQUO. Were such things here as we do speak about?
    Or have we eaten on the insane root
    That takes the reason prisoner?
  MACBETH. Your children shall be kings.
  BANQUO. You shall be King.
  MACBETH. And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?
  BANQUO. To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?

                Enter Ross and Angus.

  ROSS. The King hath happily received, Macbeth,
    The news of thy success; and when he reads
    Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
    His wonders and his praises do contend
    Which should be thine or his. Silenced with that,
    In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,
    He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
    Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
    Strange images of death. As thick as hail
    Came post with post, and every one did bear
    Thy praises in his kingdom's great defense,
    And pour'd them down before him.
  ANGUS. We are sent
    To give thee, from our royal master, thanks;
    Only to herald thee into his sight,
    Not pay thee.
  ROSS. And for an earnest of a greater honor,
    He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor.
    In which addition, hail, most worthy Thane,
    For it is thine.
  BANQUO. What, can the devil speak true?
  MACBETH. The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me
    In borrow'd robes?
  ANGUS. Who was the Thane lives yet,
    But under heavy judgement bears that life
    Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined
    With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
    With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
    He labor'd in his country's wreck, I know not;
    But treasons capital, confess'd and proved,
    Have overthrown him.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!
    The greatest is behind. [To Ross and Angus] Thanks for your
      pains.
    [Aside to Banquo] Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
    When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me
    Promised no less to them?
  BANQUO. [Aside to Macbeth.] That, trusted home,
    Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
    Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange;
    And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
    The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
    Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
    In deepest consequence-
    Cousins, a word, I pray you.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] Two truths are told,
    As happy prologues to the swelling act
    Of the imperial theme-I thank you, gentlemen.
    [Aside.] This supernatural soliciting
    Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
    Why hath it given me earnest of success,
    Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
    If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
    Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
    And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
    Against the use of nature? Present fears
    Are less than horrible imaginings:
    My thought, whose murther yet is but fantastical,
    Shakes so my single state of man that function
    Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
    But what is not.
  BANQUO. Look, how our partner's rapt.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] If chance will have me King, why, chance may
      crown me
    Without my stir.
  BANQUO. New honors come upon him,
    Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
    But with the aid of use.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] Come what come may,
    Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
  BANQUO. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
  MACBETH. Give me your favor; my dull brain was wrought
    With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
    Are register'd where every day I turn
    The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.
    Think upon what hath chanced, and at more time,
    The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak
    Our free hearts each to other.
  BANQUO. Very gladly.
  MACBETH. Till then, enough. Come, friends.             Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Forres. The palace.

Flourish. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, and Attendants.

  DUNCAN. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
    Those in commission yet return'd?
  MALCOLM. My liege,
    They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
    With one that saw him die, who did report
    That very frankly he confess'd his treasons,
    Implored your Highness' pardon, and set forth
    A deep repentance. Nothing in his life
    Became him like the leaving it; he died
    As one that had been studied in his death,
    To throw away the dearest thing he owed
    As 'twere a careless trifle.
  DUNCAN. There's no art
    To find the mind's construction in the face:
    He was a gentleman on whom I built
    An absolute trust.

             Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.

    O worthiest cousin!
    The sin of my ingratitude even now
    Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before,
    That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
    To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved,
    That the proportion both of thanks and payment
    Might have been mine! Only I have left to say,
    More is thy due than more than all can pay.
  MACBETH. The service and the loyalty lowe,
    In doing it, pays itself. Your Highness' part
    Is to receive our duties, and our duties
    Are to your throne and state, children and servants,
    Which do but what they should, by doing everything
    Safe toward your love and honor.
  DUNCAN. Welcome hither.
    I have begun to plant thee, and will labor
    To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,
    That hast no less deserved, nor must be known
    No less to have done so; let me infold thee
    And hold thee to my heart.
  BANQUO. There if I grow,
    The harvest is your own.
  DUNCAN. My plenteous joys,
    Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves
    In drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
    And you whose places are the nearest, know
    We will establish our estate upon
    Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter
    The Prince of Cumberland; which honor must
    Not unaccompanied invest him only,
    But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
    On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,
    And bind us further to you.
  MACBETH. The rest is labor, which is not used for you.
    I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful
    The hearing of my wife with your approach;
    So humbly take my leave.
  DUNCAN. My worthy Cawdor!
  MACBETH. [Aside.] The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
    On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
    For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
    Let not light see my black and deep desires.
    The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
    Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.          Exit.
  DUNCAN. True, worthy Banquo! He is full so valiant,
    And in his commendations I am fed;
    It is a banquet to me. Let's after him,
    Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.
    It is a peerless kinsman.                  Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE V. Inverness. Macbeth's castle.

Enter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter.

  LADY MACBETH. "They met me in the day of success, and I have learned
  by the perfectest report they have more in them than mortal
  knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they
  made themselves air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in
  the wonder of it, came missives from the King, who all-hailed me
  'Thane of Cawdor'; by which title, before, these weird sisters
  saluted me and referred me to the coming on of time with 'Hail, King
  that shalt be!' This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest
  partner of greatness, that thou mightst not lose the dues of
  rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay
  it to thy heart, and farewell."

    Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
    What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature.
    It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
    To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great;
    Art not without ambition, but without
    The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,
    That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
    And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou'ldst have, great Glamis,
    That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it;
    And that which rather thou dost fear to do
    Than wishest should be undone." Hie thee hither,
    That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
    And chastise with the valor of my tongue
    All that impedes thee from the golden round,
    Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
    To have thee crown'd withal.

                     Enter a Messenger.

    What is your tidings?
  MESSENGER. The King comes here tonight.
  LADY MACBETH. Thou'rt mad to say it!
    Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,
    Would have inform'd for preparation.
  MESSENGER. So please you, it is true; our Thane is coming.
    One of my fellows had the speed of him,
    Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
    Than would make up his message.
  LADY MACBETH. Give him tending;
    He brings great news.                        Exit Messenger.
    The raven himself is hoarse
    That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
    Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
    That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here
    And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
    Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
    Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
    That no compunctious visitings of nature
    Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between
    The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
    And take my milk for gall, your murthering ministers,
    Wherever in your sightless substances
    You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
    And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell
    That my keen knife see not the wound it makes
    Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
    To cry, "Hold, hold!"

                    Enter Macbeth.

    Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor!
    Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
    Thy letters have transported me beyond
    This ignorant present, and I feel now
    The future in the instant.
  MACBETH. My dearest love,
    Duncan comes here tonight.
  LADY MACBETH. And when goes hence?
  MACBETH. Tomorrow, as he purposes.
  LADY MACBETH. O, never
    Shall sun that morrow see!
    Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men
    May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
    Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
    Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower,
    But be the serpent under it. He that's coming
    Must be provided for; and you shall put
    This night's great business into my dispatch,
    Which shall to all our nights and days to come
    Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
  MACBETH. We will speak further.
  LADY MACBETH. Only look up clear;
    To alter favor ever is to fear.
    Leave all the rest to me.                            Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Before Macbeth's castle.  Hautboys and torches.

Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus,
and Attendants.

  DUNCAN. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
    Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
    Unto our gentle senses.
  BANQUO. This guest of summer,
    The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
    By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath
    Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,
    Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
    Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle;
    Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed
    The air is delicate.

                     Enter Lady Macbeth.

  DUNCAN. See, see, our honor'd hostess!
    The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
    Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you
    How you shall bid God 'ield us for your pains,
    And thank us for your trouble.
  LADY MACBETH. All our service
    In every point twice done, and then done double,
    Were poor and single business to contend
    Against those honors deep and broad wherewith
    Your Majesty loads our house. For those of old,
    And the late dignities heap'd up to them,
    We rest your hermits.
  DUNCAN. Where's the Thane of Cawdor?
    We coursed him at the heels and had a purpose
    To be his purveyor; but he rides well,
    And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him
    To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
    We are your guest tonight.
  LADY MACBETH. Your servants ever
    Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,
    To make their audit at your Highness' pleasure,
    Still to return your own.
  DUNCAN. Give me your hand;
    Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly,
    And shall continue our graces towards him.
    By your leave, hostess.                              Exeunt.

SCENE VII Macbeth's castle.  Hautboys and torches.

Enter a Sewer and divers Servants with dishes and service, who pass
over the stage.  Then enter Macbeth.

  MACBETH. If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
    It were done quickly. If the assassination
    Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
    With his surcease, success; that but this blow
    Might be the be-all and the end-all -here,
    But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
    We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
    We still have judgement here, that we but teach
    Bloody instructions, which being taught return
    To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice
    Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
    To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
    First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
    Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
    Who should against his murtherer shut the door,
    Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
    Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
    So clear in his great office, that his virtues
    Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against
    The deep damnation of his taking-off,
    And pity, like a naked new-born babe
    Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin horsed
    Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
    Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
    That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
    To prick the sides of my intent, but only
    Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
    And falls on the other.

                 Enter Lady Macbeth.

    How now, what news?
  LADY MACBETH. He has almost supp'd. Why have you left the chamber?
  MACBETH. Hath he ask'd for me?
  LADY MACBETH. Know you not he has?
  MACBETH. We will proceed no further in this business:
    He hath honor'd me of late, and I have bought
    Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
    Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
    Not cast aside so soon.
  LADY MACBETH. Was the hope drunk
    Wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since?
    And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
    At what it did so freely? From this time
    Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
    To be the same in thine own act and valor
    As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
    Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life
    And live a coward in thine own esteem,
    Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would"
    Like the poor cat i' the adage?
  MACBETH. Prithee, peace!
    I dare do all that may become a man;
    Who dares do more is none.
  LADY MACBETH. What beast wast then
    That made you break this enterprise to me?
    When you durst do it, then you were a man,
    And, to be more than what you were, you would
    Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
    Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.
    They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
    Does unmake you. I have given suck and know
    How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me-
    I would, while it was smiling in my face,
    Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums
    And dash'd the brains out had I so sworn as you
    Have done to this.
  MACBETH. If we should fail?
  LADY MACBETH. We fail?
    But screw your courage to the sticking-place
    And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep-
    Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
    Soundly invite him- his two chamberlains
    Will I with wine and wassail so convince
    That memory, the warder of the brain,
    Shall be a fume and the receipt of reason
    A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep
    Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
    What cannot you and I perform upon
    The unguarded Duncan? What not put upon
    His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt
    Of our great quell?
  MACBETH. Bring forth men-children only,
    For thy undaunted mettle should compose
    Nothing but males. Will it not be received,
    When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
    Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,
    That they have done't?
  LADY MACBETH. Who dares receive it other,
    As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar
    Upon his death?
  MACBETH. I am settled and bend up
    Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
    Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
    False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
                                                         Exeunt.

ACT II. SCENE I. Inverness. Court of Macbeth's castle.

Enter Banquo and Fleance, bearing a torch before him.

  BANQUO. How goes the night, boy?
  FLEANCE. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
  BANQUO. And she goes down at twelve.
  FLEANCE. I take't 'tis later, sir.
  BANQUO. Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heaven,
    Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.
    A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
    And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers,
    Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
    Gives way to in repose!

           Enter Macbeth and a Servant with a torch.

    Give me my sword.
    Who's there?
  MACBETH. A friend.
  BANQUO. What, sir, not yet at rest? The King's abed.
    He hath been in unusual pleasure and
    Sent forth great largess to your offices.
    This diamond he greets your wife withal,
    By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up
    In measureless content.
  MACBETH. Being unprepared,
    Our will became the servant to defect,
    Which else should free have wrought.
  BANQUO. All's well.
    I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
    To you they have show'd some truth.
  MACBETH. I think not of them;
    Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,
    We would spend it in some words upon that business,
    If you would grant the time.
  BANQUO. At your kind'st leisure.
  MACBETH. If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,
    It shall make honor for you.
  BANQUO. So I lose none
    In seeking to augment it, but still keep
    My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,
    I shall be counsel'd.
  MACBETH. Good repose the while.
  BANQUO. Thanks, sir, the like to you.
                                     Exeunt Banquo. and Fleance.
  MACBETH. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
    She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.     Exit Servant.
    Is this a dagger which I see before me,
    The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
    I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
    Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
    To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
    A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
    Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
    I see thee yet, in form as palpable
    As this which now I draw.
    Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going,
    And such an instrument I was to use.
    Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
    Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,
    And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
    Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
    It is the bloody business which informs
    Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one half-world
    Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
    The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
    Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd Murther,
    Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
    Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
    With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
    Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
    Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
    Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
    And take the present horror from the time,
    Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives;
    Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
                                                   A bell rings.
    I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
    Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
    That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.               Exit.

SCENE II. The same.

Enter Lady Macbeth.

  LADY MACBETH. That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;
    What hath quench'd them hath given me fire. Hark! Peace!
    It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
    Which gives the stern'st good night. He is about it:
    The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms
    Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg'd their possets
    That death and nature do contend about them,
    Whether they live or die.
  MACBETH. [Within.] Who's there' what, ho!
  LADY MACBETH. Alack, I am afraid they have awaked
    And 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed
    Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready;
    He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled
    My father as he slept, I had done't.

                      Enter Macbeth,

    My husband!
  MACBETH. I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
  LADY MACBETH. I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
    Did not you speak?
  MACBETH. When?
  LADY MACBETH. Now.
  MACBETH. As I descended?
  LADY MACBETH. Ay.
  MACBETH. Hark!
    Who lies i' the second chamber?
  LADY MACBETH. Donalbain.
  MACBETH. This is a sorry sight.           [Looks on his hands.
  LADY MACBETH. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
  MACBETH. There's one did laugh in 's sleep, and one cried,
      "Murther!"
    That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them,
    But they did say their prayers and address'd them
    Again to sleep.
  LADY MACBETH. There are two lodged together.
  MACBETH. One cried, "God bless us!" and "Amen" the other,
    As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
    Listening their fear, I could not say "Amen,"
    When they did say, "God bless us!"
  LADY MACBETH. Consider it not so deeply.
  MACBETH. But wherefore could not I pronounce "Amen"?
    I had most need of blessing, and "Amen"
    Stuck in my throat.
  LADY MACBETH. These deeds must not be thought
    After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
  MACBETH. I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more!
    Macbeth does murther sleep" -the innocent sleep,
    Sleep that knits up the ravel'd sleave of care,
    The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
    Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
    Chief nourisher in life's feast-
  LADY MACBETH. What do you mean?
  MACBETH. Still it cried, "Sleep no more!" to all the house;
    "Glamis hath murther'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
    Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more."
  LADY MACBETH. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy Thane,
    You do unbend your noble strength, to think
    So brainsickly of things. Go, get some water
    And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
    Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
    They must lie there. Go carry them, and smear
    The sleepy grooms with blood.
  MACBETH. I'll go no more.
    I am afraid to think what I have done;
    Look on't again I dare not.
  LADY MACBETH. Infirm of purpose!
    Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead
    Are but as pictures; 'tis the eye of childhood
    That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
    I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
    For it must seem their guilt.         Exit. Knocking within.
  MACBETH. Whence is that knocking?
    How is't with me, when every noise appals me?
    What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes!
    Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
    Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
    The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
    Making the green one red.

                   Re-enter Lady Macbeth.

  LADY MACBETH. My hands are of your color, but I shame
    To wear a heart so white. [Knocking within.] I hear knocking
    At the south entry. Retire we to our chamber.
    A little water clears us of this deed.
    How easy is it then! Your constancy
    Hath left you unattended. [Knocking within.] Hark, more knocking.
    Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us
    And show us to be watchers. Be not lost
    So poorly in your thoughts.
  MACBETH. To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.
                                                Knocking within.
    Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE III. The same.

Enter a Porter. Knocking within.

  PORTER. Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of Hell
    Gate, he should have old turning the key. [Knocking within.]
    Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of Belzebub? Here's
    a farmer that hanged himself on th' expectation of plenty. Come
    in time! Have napkins enow about you; here you'll sweat fort.
    [Knocking within.] Knock, knock! Who's there, in th' other
    devil's name? Faith, here's an equivocator that could swear in
    both the scales against either scale, who committed treason
    enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O,
    come in, equivocator. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock, knock!
    Who's there? Faith, here's an English tailor come hither, for
    stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor; here you may
    roast your goose. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock! Never at
    quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell. I'll
    devil-porter it no further. I had thought to have let in some of
    all professions, that go the primrose way to the everlasting
    bonfire. [Knocking within.] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the
    porter.
                                                 Opens the gate.

                       Enter Macduff and Lennox.

  MACDUFF. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
    That you do lie so late?
  PORTER. Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock; and
    drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.
  MACDUFF. What three things does drink especially provoke?
  PORTER. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir,
    it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes
    away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an
    equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets
    him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him and disheartens
    him; makes him stand to and not stand to; in conclusion,
    equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie, leaves him.
  MACDUFF. I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
  PORTER. That it did, sir, i' the very throat on me; but requited
    him for his lie, and, I think, being too strong for him, though
    he took up my legs sometime, yet I made shift to cast him.
  MACDUFF. Is thy master stirring?

                             Enter Macbeth.

    Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.
  LENNOX. Good morrow, noble sir.
  MACBETH. morrow, both.
  MACDUFF. Is the King stirring, worthy Thane?
  MACBETH. Not yet.
  MACDUFF. He did command me to call timely on him;
    I have almost slipp'd the hour.
  MACBETH. I'll bring you to him.
  MACDUFF. I know this is a joyful trouble to you,
    But yet 'tis one.
  MACBETH. The labor we delight in physics pain.
    This is the door.
  MACDUFF I'll make so bold to call,
    For 'tis my limited service.                           Exit.
  LENNOX. Goes the King hence today?
  MACBETH. He does; he did appoint so.
  LENNOX. The night has been unruly. Where we lay,
    Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,
    Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death,
    And prophesying with accents terrible
    Of dire combustion and confused events
    New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird
    Clamor'd the livelong night. Some say the earth
    Was feverous and did shake.
  MACBETH. 'Twas a rough fight.
  LENNOX. My young remembrance cannot parallel
    A fellow to it.

                      Re-enter Macduff.

  MACDUFF. O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
    Cannot conceive nor name thee.
  MACBETH. LENNOX. What's the matter?
  MACDUFF. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.
    Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope
    The Lord's anointed temple and stole thence
    The life o' the building.
  MACBETH. What is't you say? the life?
  LENNOX. Mean you his Majesty?
  MACDUFF. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
    With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak;
    See, and then speak yourselves.
                                      Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.
    Awake, awake!
    Ring the alarum bell. Murther and treason!
    Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake!
    Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
    And look on death itself! Up, up, and see
    The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
    As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites
    To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.       Bell rings.

                     Enter Lady Macbeth.

  LADY MACBETH. What's the business,
    That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
    The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak!
  MACDUFF. O gentle lady,
    'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
    The repetition in a woman's ear
    Would murther as it fell.

                     Enter Banquo.

    O Banquo, Banquo!
    Our royal master's murther'd.
  LADY MACBETH. Woe, alas!
    What, in our house?
  BANQUO. Too cruel anywhere.
    Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself,
    And say it is not so.

          Re-enter Macbeth and Lennox, with Ross.

  MACBETH. Had I but died an hour before this chance,
    I had lived a blessed time, for from this instant
    There's nothing serious in mortality.
    All is but toys; renown and grace is dead,
    The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
    Is left this vault to brag of.

                Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.

  DONALBAIN. What is amiss?
  MACBETH. You are, and do not know't.
    The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
    Is stopped, the very source of it is stopp'd.
  MACDUFF. Your royal father's murther'd.
   MALCOLM. O, by whom?
  LENNOX. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done't.
    Their hands and faces were all badged with blood;
    So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
    Upon their pillows.
    They stared, and were distracted; no man's life
    Was to be trusted with them.
  MACBETH. O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
    That I did kill them.
  MACDUFF. Wherefore did you so?
  MACBETH. Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
    Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.
    The expedition of my violent love
    Outrun the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan,
    His silver skin laced with his golden blood,
    And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
    For ruin's wasteful entrance; there, the murtherers,
    Steep'd in the colors of their trade, their daggers
    Unmannerly breech'd with gore. Who could refrain,
    That had a heart to love, and in that heart
    Courage to make 's love known?
  LADY MACBETH. Help me hence, ho!
  MACDUFF. Look to the lady.
  MALCOLM. [Aside to Donalbain.] Why do we hold our tongues,
    That most may claim this argument for ours?
  DONALBAIN. [Aside to Malcolm.] What should be spoken here, where
      our fate,
    Hid in an auger hole, may rush and seize us?
    Let's away,
    Our tears are not yet brew'd.
  MALCOLM. [Aside to Donalbain.] Nor our strong sorrow
    Upon the foot of motion.
  BANQUO. Look to the lady.
                                    Lady Macbeth is carried out.
    And when we have our naked frailties hid,
    That suffer in exposure, let us meet
    And question this most bloody piece of work
    To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us.
    In the great hand of God I stand, and thence
    Against the undivulged pretense I fight
    Of treasonous malice.
  MACDUFF. And so do I.
  ALL. So all.
  MACBETH. Let's briefly put on manly readiness
    And meet i' the hall together.
  ALL. Well contented.
                           Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.
  MALCOLM. What will you do? Let's not consort with them.
    To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
    Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.
  DONALBAIN. To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
    Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are
    There's daggers in men's smiles; the near in blood,
    The nearer bloody.
  MALCOLM. This murtherous shaft that's shot
    Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
    Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse;
    And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
    But shift away. There's warrant in that theft
    Which steals itself when there's no mercy left.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Outside Macbeth's castle.

Enter Ross with an Old Man.

  OLD MAN. Threescore and ten I can remember well,
    Within the volume of which time I have seen
    Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night
    Hath trifled former knowings.
  ROSS. Ah, good father,
    Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
    Threaten his bloody stage. By the clock 'tis day,
    And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp.
    Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,
    That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
    When living light should kiss it?
  OLD MAN. 'Tis unnatural,
    Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last
    A falcon towering in her pride of place
    Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.
  ROSS. And Duncan's horses-a thing most strange and certain-
    Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
    Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
    Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
    War with mankind.
  OLD MAN. 'Tis said they eat each other.
  ROSS. They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes
    That look'd upon't.

                     Enter Macduff.

    Here comes the good Macduff.
    How goes the world, sir, now?
  MACDUFF. Why, see you not?
  ROSS. Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?
  MACDUFF. Those that Macbeth hath slain.
  ROSS. Alas, the day!
    What good could they pretend?
  MACDUFF. They were suborn'd:
    Malcolm and Donalbain, the King's two sons,
    Are stol'n away and fled, which puts upon them
    Suspicion of the deed.
  ROSS. 'Gainst nature still!
    Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up
    Thine own life's means! Then 'tis most like
    The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.
  MACDUFF. He is already named, and gone to Scone
    To be invested.
  ROSS. Where is Duncan's body?
  MACDUFF. Carried to Colmekill,
    The sacred storehouse of his predecessors
    And guardian of their bones.
  ROSS. Will you to Scone?
  MACDUFF. No, cousin, I'll to Fife.
  ROSS. Well, I will thither.
  MACDUFF. Well, may you see things well done there.
    Adieu,
    Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!
  ROSS. Farewell, father.
  OLD MAN. God's benison go with you and with those
    That would make good of bad and friends of foes!
                                                         Exeunt.

ACT III. SCENE I. Forres. The palace.

Enter Banquo.

  BANQUO. Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
    As the weird women promised, and I fear
    Thou play'dst most foully for't; yet it was said
    It should not stand in thy posterity,
    But that myself should be the root and father
    Of many kings. If there come truth from them
    (As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine)
    Why, by the verities on thee made good,
    May they not be my oracles as well
    And set me up in hope? But hush, no more.

      Sennet sounds. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady Macbeth
    as Queen, Lennox, Ross, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants.

  MACBETH. Here's our chief guest.
  LADY MACBETH. If he had been forgotten,
    It had been as a gap in our great feast
    And all thing unbecoming.
  MACBETH. Tonight we hold a solemn supper, sir,
    And I'll request your presence.
  BANQUO. Let your Highness
    Command upon me, to the which my duties
    Are with a most indissoluble tie
    Forever knit.
  MACBETH. Ride you this afternoon?
  BANQUO. Ay, my good lord.
  MACBETH. We should have else desired your good advice,
    Which still hath been both grave and prosperous
    In this day's council; but we'll take tomorrow.
    Is't far you ride'!
  BANQUO. As far, my lord, as will fill up the time
    'Twixt this and supper. Go not my horse the better,
    I must become a borrower of the night
    For a dark hour or twain.
  MACBETH. Fail not our feast.
  BANQUO. My lord, I will not.
  MACBETH. We hear our bloody cousins are bestow'd
    In England and in Ireland, not confessing
    Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers
    With strange invention. But of that tomorrow,
    When therewithal we shall have cause of state
    Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse; adieu,
    Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?
  BANQUO. Ay, my good lord. Our time does call upon 's.
  MACBETH. I wish your horses swift and sure of foot,
    And so I do commend you to their backs.
    Farewell.                                       Exit Banquo.
    Let every man be master of his time
    Till seven at night; to make society
    The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself
    Till supper time alone. While then, God be with you!
                        Exeunt all but Macbeth and an Attendant.
    Sirrah, a word with you. Attend those men
    Our pleasure?
  ATTENDANT. They are, my lord, without the palace gate.
  MACBETH. Bring them before us.                 Exit Attendant.
    To be thus is nothing,
    But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo.
    Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
    Reigns that which would be fear'd. 'Tis much he dares,
    And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
    He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor
    To act in safety. There is none but he
    Whose being I do fear; and under him
    My genius is rebuked, as it is said
    Mark Antony's was by Caesar. He chid the sisters
    When first they put the name of King upon me
    And bade them speak to him; then prophet-like
    They hail'd him father to a line of kings.
    Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown
    And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
    Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
    No son of mine succeeding. If't be so,
    For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind,
    For them the gracious Duncan have I murther'd,
    Put rancors in the vessel of my peace
    Only for them, and mine eternal jewel
    Given to the common enemy of man,
    To make them kings -the seed of Banquo kings!
    Rather than so, come, Fate, into the list,
    And champion me to the utterance! Who's there?

        Re-enter Attendant, with two Murtherers.

    Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.
                                                 Exit Attendant.
    Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
  FIRST MURTHERER. It was, so please your Highness.
  MACBETH. Well then, now
    Have you consider'd of my speeches? Know
    That it was he in the times past which held you
    So under fortune, which you thought had been
    Our innocent self? This I made good to you
    In our last conference, pass'd in probation with you:
    How you were borne in hand, how cross'd, the instruments,
    Who wrought with them, and all things else that might
    To half a soul and to a notion crazed
    Say, "Thus did Banquo."
  FIRST MURTHERER. You made it known to us.
  MACBETH. I did so, and went further, which is now
    Our point of second meeting. Do you find
    Your patience so predominant in your nature,
    That you can let this go? Are you so gospel'd,
    To pray for this good man and for his issue,
    Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave
    And beggar'd yours forever?
  FIRST MURTHERER. We are men, my liege.
  MACBETH. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men,
    As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
    Shoughs, waterrugs, and demi-wolves are clept
    All by the name of dogs. The valued file
    Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
    The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
    According to the gift which bounteous nature
    Hath in him closed, whereby he does receive
    Particular addition, from the bill
    That writes them all alike; and so of men.
    Now if you have a station in the file,
    Not i' the worst rank of manhood, say it,
    And I will put that business in your bosoms
    Whose execution takes your enemy off,
    Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
    Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
    Which in his death were perfect.
  SECOND MURTHERER. I am one, my liege,
    Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
    Have so incensed that I am reckless what
    I do to spite the world.
  FIRST MURTHERER. And I another
    So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
    That I would set my life on any chance,
    To mend it or be rid on't.
  MACBETH. Both of you
    Know Banquo was your enemy.
  BOTH MURTHERERS. True, my lord.
  MACBETH. So is he mine, and in such bloody distance
    That every minute of his being thrusts
    Against my near'st of life; and though I could
    With barefaced power sweep him from my sight
    And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,
    For certain friends that are both his and mine,
    Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall
    Who I myself struck down. And thence it is
    That I to your assistance do make love,
    Masking the business from the common eye
    For sundry weighty reasons.
  SECOND MURTHERER. We shall, my lord,
    Perform what you command us.
  FIRST MURTHERER. Though our lives-
  MACBETH. Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most
    I will advise you where to plant yourselves,
    Acquaint you with the perfect spy o' the time,
    The moment on't; fort must be done tonight
    And something from the palace (always thought
    That I require a clearness); and with him-
    To leave no rubs nor botches in the work-
    Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
    Whose absence is no less material to me
    Than is his father's, must embrace the fate
    Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart;
    I'll come to you anon.
  BOTH MURTHERERS. We are resolved, my lord.
  MACBETH. I'll call upon you straight. Abide within.
                                              Exeunt Murtherers.
    It is concluded: Banquo, thy soul's flight,
    If it find heaven, must find it out tonight.           Exit.

SCENE II. The palace.

Enter Lady Macbeth and a Servant.

  LADY MACBETH. Is Banquo gone from court?
  SERVANT. Ay, madam, but returns again tonight.
  LADY MACBETH. Say to the King I would attend his leisure
    For a few words.
  SERVANT. Madam, I will.                                  Exit.
  LADY MACBETH. Nought's had, all's spent,
    Where our desire is got without content.
    'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
    Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

                    Enter Macbeth.

    How now, my lord? Why do you keep alone,
    Of sorriest fancies your companions making,
    Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
    With them they think on? Things without all remedy
    Should be without regard. What's done is done.
  MACBETH. We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it.
    She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
    Remains in danger of her former tooth.
    But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
    Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep
    In the affliction of these terrible dreams
    That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead,
    Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
    Than on the torture of the mind to lie
    In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
    After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.
    Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
    Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
    Can touch him further.
  LADY MACBETH. Come on,
    Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;
    Be bright and jovial among your guests tonight.
  MACBETH. So shall I, love, and so, I pray, be you.
    Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;
    Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:
    Unsafe the while, that we
    Must lave our honors in these flattering streams,
    And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
    Disguising what they are.
  LADY MACBETH. You must leave this.
  MACBETH. O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
    Thou know'st that Banquo and his Fleance lives.
  LADY MACBETH. But in them nature's copy's not eterne.
  MACBETH. There's comfort yet; they are assailable.
    Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown
    His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons
    The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
    Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done
    A deed of dreadful note.
  LADY MACBETH. What's to be done?
  MACBETH. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
    Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,
    Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,
    And with thy bloody and invisible hand
    Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
    Which keeps me pale! Light thickens, and the crow
    Makes wing to the rooky wood;
    Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
    Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
    Thou marvel'st at my words, but hold thee still:
    Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
    So, prithee, go with me.                             Exeunt.

SCENE III. A park near the palace.

Enter three Murtherers.

  FIRST MURTHERER. But who did bid thee join with us?
  THIRD MURTHERER. Macbeth.
  SECOND MURTHERER. He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers
    Our offices and what we have to do
    To the direction just.
  FIRST MURTHERER. Then stand with us.
    The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day;
    Now spurs the lated traveler apace
    To gain the timely inn, and near approaches
    The subject of our watch.
  THIRD MURTHERER. Hark! I hear horses.
  BANQUO. [Within.] Give us a light there, ho!
  SECOND MURTHERER. Then 'tis he; the rest
    That are within the note of expectation
    Already are i' the court.
  FIRST MURTHERER. His horses go about.
  THIRD MURTHERER. Almost a mile, but he does usually-
    So all men do -from hence to the palace gate
    Make it their walk.
  SECOND MURTHERER. A light, a light!

              Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch.

  THIRD MURTHERER. 'Tis he.
  FIRST MURTHERER. Stand to't.
  BANQUO. It will be rain tonight.
  FIRST MURTHERER. Let it come down.
                                           They set upon Banquo.
  BANQUO. O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!
    Thou mayst revenge. O slave!          Dies. Fleance escapes.
  THIRD MURTHERER. Who did strike out the light?
  FIRST MURTHERER. Wast not the way?
  THIRD MURTHERER. There's but one down; the son is fled.
  SECOND MURTHERER. We have lost
    Best half of our affair.
  FIRST MURTHERER. Well, let's away and say how much is done.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Hall in the palace. A banquet prepared.

Enter Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants.

  MACBETH. You know your own degrees; sit down. At first
    And last the hearty welcome.
  LORDS. Thanks to your Majesty.
  MACBETH. Ourself will mingle with society
    And play the humble host.
    Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time
    We will require her welcome.
  LADY MACBETH. Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends,
    For my heart speaks they are welcome.

                Enter first Murtherer to the door.

  MACBETH. See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.
    Both sides are even; here I'll sit i' the midst.
    Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure
    The table round. [Approaches the door.] There's blood upon thy
      face.
  MURTHERER. 'Tis Banquo's then.
  MACBETH. 'Tis better thee without than he within.
    Is he dispatch'd?
  MURTHERER. My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
  MACBETH. Thou art the best o' the cut-throats! Yet he's good
    That did the like for Fleance. If thou didst it,
    Thou art the nonpareil.
  MURTHERER. Most royal sir,
    Fleance is 'scaped.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] Then comes my fit again. I had else been perfect,
    Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,
    As broad and general as the casing air;
    But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in
    To saucy doubts and fears -But Banquo's safe?
  MURTHERER. Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides,
    With twenty trenched gashes on his head,
    The least a death to nature.
  MACBETH. Thanks for that.
    There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled
    Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
    No teeth for the present. Get thee gone. Tomorrow
    We'll hear ourselves again.
                                                 Exit Murtherer.
  LADY MACBETH. My royal lord,
    You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold
    That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis amaking,
    'Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home;
    From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;
    Meeting were bare without it.
  MACBETH. Sweet remembrancer!
    Now good digestion wait on appetite,
    And health on both!
  LENNOX. May't please your Highness sit.

      The Ghost of Banquo enters and sits in Macbeth's place.

  MACBETH. Here had we now our country's honor roof'd,
    Were the graced person of our Banquo present,
    Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
    Than pity for mischance!
  ROSS. His absence, sir,
    Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your Highness
    To grace us with your royal company?
  MACBETH. The table's full.
  LENNOX. Here is a place reserved, sir.
  MACBETH. Where?
  LENNOX. Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your Highness?
  MACBETH. Which of you have done this?
  LORDS. What, my good lord?
  MACBETH. Thou canst not say I did it; never shake
    Thy gory locks at me.
  ROSS. Gentlemen, rise; his Highness is well.
  LADY MACBETH. Sit, worthy friends; my lord is often thus,
    And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat.
    The fit is momentary; upon a thought
    He will again be well. If much you note him,
    You shall offend him and extend his passion.
    Feed, and regard him not-Are you a man?
  MACBETH. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
    Which might appal the devil.
  LADY MACBETH. O proper stuff!
    This is the very painting of your fear;
    This is the air-drawn dagger which you said
    Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
    Impostors to true fear, would well become
    A woman's story at a winter's fire,
    Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
    Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
    You look but on a stool.
  MACBETH. Prithee, see there! Behold! Look! Lo! How say you?
    Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.
    If charnel houses and our graves must send
    Those that we bury back, our monuments
    Shall be the maws of kites.                      Exit Ghost.
  LADY MACBETH. What, quite unmann'd in folly?
  MACBETH. If I stand here, I saw him.
  LADY MACBETH. Fie, for shame!
  MACBETH. Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,
    Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal;
    Ay, and since too, murthers have been perform'd
    Too terrible for the ear. The time has been,
    That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
    And there an end; but now they rise again,
    With twenty mortal murthers on their crowns,
    And push us from our stools. This is more strange
    Than such a murther is.
  LADY MACBETH. My worthy lord,
    Your noble friends do lack you.
  MACBETH. I do forget.
    Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends.
    I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing
    To those that know me. Come, love and health to all;
    Then I'll sit down. Give me some wine, fill full.
    I drink to the general joy o' the whole table,
    And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss.
    Would he were here! To all and him we thirst,
    And all to all.
  LORDS. Our duties and the pledge.

                     Re-enter Ghost.

  MACBETH. Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!
    Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
    Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
    Which thou dost glare with.
  LADY MACBETH. Think of this, good peers,
    But as a thing of custom. 'Tis no other,
    Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
  MACBETH. What man dare, I dare.
    Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
    The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
    Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
    Shall never tremble. Or be alive again,
    And dare me to the desert with thy sword.
    If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
    The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
    Unreal mockery, hence!                           Exit Ghost.
    Why, so, being gone,
    I am a man again. Pray you sit still.
  LADY MACBETH. You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,
    With most admired disorder.
  MACBETH. Can such things be,
    And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
    Without our special wonder? You make me strange
    Even to the disposition that I owe
    When now I think you can behold such sights
    And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks
    When mine is blanch'd with fear.
  ROSS. What sights, my lord?
  LADY MACBETH. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;
    Question enrages him. At once, good night.
    Stand not upon the order of your going,
    But go at once.
  LENNOX. Good night, and better health
    Attend his Majesty!
  LADY MACBETH. A kind good night to all!
                        Exeunt all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
  MACBETH. will have blood; they say blood will have blood.
    Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;
    Augures and understood relations have
    By maggot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
    The secret'st man of blood. What is the night?
  LADY MACBETH. Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
  MACBETH. How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person
    At our great bidding?
  LADY MACBETH. Did you send to him, sir?
  MACBETH. I hear it by the way, but I will send.
    There's not a one of them but in his house
    I keep a servant feed. I will tomorrow,
    And betimes I will, to the weird sisters.
    More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
    By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good
    All causes shall give way. I am in blood
    Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
    Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
    Strange things I have in head that will to hand,
    Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.
  LADY MACBETH. You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
  MACBETH. Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
    Is the initiate fear that wants hard use.
    We are yet but young in deed.                       Exeunt.

SCENE V. A heath. Thunder.

Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecate.

  FIRST WITCH. Why, how now, Hecate? You look angerly.
  HECATE. Have I not reason, beldams as you are,
    Saucy and overbold? How did you dare
    To trade and traffic with Macbeth
    In riddles and affairs of death,
    And I, the mistress of your charms,
    The close contriver of all harms,
    Was never call'd to bear my part,
    Or show the glory of our art?
    And, which is worse, all you have done
    Hath been but for a wayward son,
    Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,
    Loves for his own ends, not for you.
    But make amends now. Get you gone,
    And at the pit of Acheron
    Meet me i' the morning. Thither he
    Will come to know his destiny.
    Your vessels and your spells provide,
    Your charms and everything beside.
    I am for the air; this night I'll spend
    Unto a dismal and a fatal end.
    Great business must be wrought ere noon:
    Upon the corner of the moon
    There hangs a vaporous drop profound;
    I'll catch it ere it come to ground.
    And that distill'd by magic sleights
    Shall raise such artificial sprites
    As by the strength of their illusion
    Shall draw him on to his confusion.
    He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
    His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear.
    And you all know security
    Is mortals' chiefest enemy.
                                        Music and a song within,
                                         "Come away, come away."
    Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see,
    Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me.                Exit.
  FIRST WITCH. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Forres. The palace.

Enter Lennox and another Lord.

  LENNOX. My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,
    Which can interpret farther; only I say
    Thing's have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan
    Was pitied of Macbeth; marry, he was dead.
    And the right valiant Banquo walk'd too late,
    Whom, you may say, if't please you, Fleance kill'd,
    For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.
    Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous
    It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
    To kill their gracious father? Damned fact!
    How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he not straight,
    In pious rage, the two delinquents tear
    That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?
    Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too,
    For 'twould have anger'd any heart alive
    To hear the men deny't. So that, I say,
    He has borne all things well; and I do think
    That, had he Duncan's sons under his key-
    As, an't please heaven, he shall not -they should find
    What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.
    But, peace! For from broad words, and 'cause he fail'd
    His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear,
    Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell
    Where he bestows himself?
  LORD. The son of Duncan,
    From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth,
    Lives in the English court and is received
    Of the most pious Edward with such grace
    That the malevolence of fortune nothing
    Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff
    Is gone to pray the holy King, upon his aid
    To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward;
    That by the help of these, with Him above
    To ratify the work, we may again
    Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,
    Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,
    Do faithful homage, and receive free honors-
    All which we pine for now. And this report
    Hath so exasperate the King that he
    Prepares for some attempt of war.
  LENNOX. Sent he to Macduff?
  LORD. He did, and with an absolute "Sir, not I,"
    The cloudy messenger turns me his back,
    And hums, as who should say, "You'll rue the time
    That clogs me with this answer."
  LENNOX. And that well might
    Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
    His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel
    Fly to the court of England and unfold
    His message ere he come, that a swift blessing
    May soon return to this our suffering country
    Under a hand accursed!
  LORD. I'll send my prayers with him.
                                                         Exeunt.

ACT IV. SCENE I. A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron. Thunder.

Enter the three Witches.
  FIRST WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
  SECOND WITCH. Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
  THIRD WITCH. Harpier cries, "'Tis time, 'tis time."
  FIRST WITCH. Round about the cauldron go;
    In the poison'd entrails throw.
    Toad, that under cold stone
    Days and nights has thirty-one
    Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
    Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;
    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
  SECOND WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake,
    In the cauldron boil and bake;
    Eye of newt and toe of frog,
    Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
    Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
    Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
    For a charm of powerful trouble,
    Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;
    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
  THIRD WITCH. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
    Witch's mummy, maw and gulf
    Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
    Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
    Liver of blaspheming Jew,
    Gall of goat and slips of yew
    Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,
    Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
    Finger of birth-strangled babe
    Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
    Make the gruel thick and slab.
    Add thereto a tiger's chawdron,
    For the ingredients of our cawdron.
  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;
    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
  SECOND WITCH. Cool it with a baboon's blood,
    Then the charm is firm and good.

            Enter Hecate to the other three Witches.

  HECATE. O, well done! I commend your pains,
    And everyone shall share i' the gains.
    And now about the cauldron sing,
    Like elves and fairies in a ring,
    Enchanting all that you put in.
                              Music and a song, "Black spirits."
                                                 Hecate retires.
  SECOND WITCH. By the pricking of my thumbs,
    Something wicked this way comes.
    Open, locks,
    Whoever knocks!

                      Enter Macbeth.

  MACBETH. How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?
    What is't you do?
  ALL. A deed without a name.
  MACBETH. I conjure you, by that which you profess
    (Howeer you come to know it) answer me:
    Though you untie the winds and let them fight
    Against the churches, though the yesty waves
    Confound and swallow navigation up,
    Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down,
    Though castles topple on their warders' heads,
    Though palaces and pyramids do slope
    Their heads to their foundations, though the treasure
    Of nature's germaines tumble all together
    Even till destruction sicken, answer me
    To what I ask you.
  FIRST WITCH. Speak.
  SECOND WITCH. Demand.
  THIRD WITCH. We'll answer.
  FIRST WITCH. Say, if thou'dst rather hear it from our mouths,
    Or from our masters'?
  MACBETH. Call 'em, let me see 'em.
  FIRST WITCH. Pour in sow's blood that hath eaten
    Her nine farrow; grease that's sweaten
    From the murtherer's gibbet throw
    Into the flame.
  ALL. Come, high or low;
    Thyself and office deftly show!

            Thunder. First Apparition: an armed Head.

  MACBETH. Tell me, thou unknown power-
  FIRST WITCH. He knows thy thought:
    Hear his speech, but say thou nought.
  FIRST APPARITION. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff,
    Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.
                                                       Descends.
  MACBETH. Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks;
    Thou hast harp'd my fear aright. But one word more-
  FIRST WITCH. He will not be commanded. Here's another,
    More potent than the first.

          Thunder. Second Apparition: a bloody Child.

  SECOND APPARITION. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!
  MACBETH. Had I three ears, I'd hear thee.
  SECOND APPARITION. Be bloody, bold, and resolute: laugh to scorn
    The power of man, for none of woman born
    Shall harm Macbeth.                                Descends.
  MACBETH. Then live, Macduff. What need I fear of thee?
    But yet I'll make assurance double sure,
    And take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live,
    That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,
    And sleep in spite of thunder.

       Thunder. Third Apparition: a Child crowned,
               with a tree in his hand.

    What is this,
    That rises like the issue of a king,
    And wears upon his baby brow the round
    And top of sovereignty?
  ALL. Listen, but speak not to't.
  THIRD APPARITION. Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care
    Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.
    Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
    Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
    Shall come against him.                            Descends.
  MACBETH. That will never be.
    Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
    Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements, good!
    Rebellion's head, rise never till the Wood
    Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth
    Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
    To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart
    Throbs to know one thing: tell me, if your art
    Can tell so much, shall Banquo's issue ever
    Reign in this kingdom?
  ALL. Seek to know no more.
  MACBETH. I will be satisfied! Deny me this,
    And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know.
    Why sinks that cauldron, and what noise is this?
                                                       Hautboys.
  FIRST WITCH. Show!
  SECOND WITCH. Show!
  THIRD. WITCH. Show!
  ALL. Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
    Come like shadows, so depart!

    A show of eight Kings, the last with a glass in his hand;
                   Banquo's Ghost following.

  MACBETH. Thou are too like the spirit of Banquo Down!
    Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair,
    Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.
    A third is like the former. Filthy hags!
    Why do you show me this? A fourth! Start, eyes!
    What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?
    Another yet! A seventh! I'll see no more!
    And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass
    Which shows me many more; and some I see
    That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry.
    Horrible sight! Now I see 'tis true;
    For the blood-bolter'd Banquo smiles upon me,
    And points at them for his. What, is this so?
  FIRST WITCH. Ay, sir, all this is so. But why
    Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?
    Come,sisters, cheer we up his sprites,
    And show the best of our delights.
    I'll charm the air to give a sound,
    While you perform your antic round,
    That this great King may kindly say
    Our duties did his welcome pay.
                                    Music. The Witches dance and
                                        then vanish with Hecate.
  MACBETH. are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour
    Stand ay accursed in the calendar!
    Come in, without there!

                    Enter Lennox.

  LENNOX. What's your Grace's will?
  MACBETH. Saw you the weird sisters?
  LENNOX. No, my lord.
  MACBETH. Came they not by you?
  LENNOX. No indeed, my lord.
  MACBETH. Infected be the 'air whereon they ride,
    And damn'd all those that trust them! I did hear
    The galloping of horse. Who wast came by?
  LENNOX. 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word
    Macduff is fled to England.
  MACBETH. Fled to England?
  LENNOX. Ay, my good lord.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits.
    The flighty purpose never is o'ertook
    Unless the deed go with it. From this moment
    The very firstlings of my heart shall be
    The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
    To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:
    The castle of Macduff I will surprise,
    Seize upon Fife, give to the edge o' the sword
    His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
    That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;
    This deed I'll do before this purpose cool.
    But no more sights! -Where are these gentlemen?
    Come, bring me where they are.                       Exeunt.

SCENE II. Fife. Macduff's castle.

Enter Lady Macduff, her Son, and Ross.

  LADY MACDUFF. What had he done, to make him fly the land?
  ROSS. You must have patience, madam.
  LADY MACDUFF. He had none;
    His flight was madness. When our actions do not,
    Our fears do make us traitors.
  ROSS. You know not
    Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.
  LADY MACDUFF. Wisdom? To leave his wife, to leave his babes,
    His mansion, and his titles, in a place
    From whence himself does fly? He loves us not;
    He wants the natural touch; for the poor wren,
    The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
    Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
    All is the fear and nothing is the love;
    As little is the wisdom, where the flight
    So runs against all reason.
  ROSS. My dearest coz,
    I pray you, school yourself. But for your husband,
    He is noble, wise, Judicious, and best knows
    The fits o' the season. I dare not speak much further;
    But cruel are the times when we are traitors
    And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumor
    From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,
    But float upon a wild and violent sea
    Each way and move. I take my leave of you;
    Shall not be long but I'll be here again.
    Things at the worst will cease or else climb upward
    To what they were before. My pretty cousin,
    Blessing upon you!
  LADY MACDUFF. Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless.
  ROSS. I am so much a fool, should I stay longer,
    It would be my disgrace and your discomfort.
    I take my leave at once.                               Exit.
  LADY MACDUFF. Sirrah, your father's dead.
    And what will you do now? How will you live?
  SON. As birds do, Mother.
  LADY MACDUFF. What, with worms and flies?
  SON. With what I get, I mean; and so do they.
  LADY MACDUFF. Poor bird! Thou'ldst never fear the net nor lime,
    The pitfall nor the gin.
  SON. Why should I, Mother? Poor birds they are not set for.
    My father is not dead, for all your saying.
  LADY MACDUFF. Yes, he is dead. How wilt thou do for father?
  SON. Nay, how will you do for a husband?
  LADY MACDUFF. Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
  SON. Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.
  LADY MACDUFF. Thou speak'st with all thy wit, and yet, i' faith,
    With wit enough for thee.
  SON. Was my father a traitor, Mother?
  LADY MACDUFF. Ay, that he was.
  SON. What is a traitor?
  LADY MACDUFF. Why one that swears and lies.
  SON. And be all traitors that do so?
  LADY MACDUFF. Everyone that does so is a traitor and must be
     hanged.
  SON. And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?
  LADY MACDUFF. Everyone.
  SON. Who must hang them?
  LADY MACDUFF. Why, the honest men.
  SON. Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and
    swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.
  LADY MACDUFF. Now, God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do
    for a father?
  SON. If he were dead, you'ld weep for him; if you would not, it
    were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.
  LADY MACDUFF. Poor prattler, how thou talk'st!

                    Enter a Messenger.

  MESSENGER. Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known,
    Though in your state of honor I am perfect.
    I doubt some danger does approach you nearly.
    If you will take a homely man's advice,
    Be not found here; hence, with your little ones.
    To fright you thus, methinks I am too savage;
    To do worse to you were fell cruelty,
    Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you!
    I dare abide no longer.                                Exit.
  LADY MACDUFF. Whither should I fly?
    I have done no harm. But I remember now
    I am in this earthly world, where to do harm
    Is often laudable, to do good sometime
    Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,
    Do I put up that womanly defense,
    To say I have done no harm -What are these faces?

                      Enter Murtherers.

  FIRST MURTHERER. Where is your husband?
  LADY MACDUFF. I hope, in no place so unsanctified
    Where such as thou mayst find him.
  FIRST MURTHERER. He's a traitor.
  SON. Thou liest, thou shag-ear'd villain!
  FIRST MURTHERER. What, you egg!
                                                      Stabs him.
    Young fry of treachery!
  SON. He has kill'd me, Mother.
    Run away, I pray you!                                  Dies.
                            Exit Lady Macduff, crying "Murther!"
                               Exeunt Murtherers, following her.

SCENE III. England. Before the King's palace.

Enter Malcolm and Macduff.

  MALCOLM. Let us seek out some desolate shade and there
    Weep our sad bosoms empty.
  MACDUFF. Let us rather
    Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men
    Bestride our downfall'n birthdom. Each new morn
    New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
    Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
    As if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out
    Like syllable of dolor.
  MALCOLM. What I believe, I'll wall;
    What know, believe; and what I can redress,
    As I shall find the time to friend, I will.
    What you have spoke, it may be so perchance.
    This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
    Was once thought honest. You have loved him well;
    He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young, but something
    You may deserve of him through me, and wisdom
    To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb
    To appease an angry god.
  MACDUFF. I am not treacherous.
  MALCOLM. But Macbeth is.
    A good and virtuous nature may recoil
    In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon;
    That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose.
    Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
    Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
    Yet grace must still look so.
  MACDUFF. I have lost my hopes.
  MALCOLM. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.
    Why in that rawness left you wife and child,
    Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
    Without leave-taking? I pray you,
    Let not my jealousies be your dishonors,
    But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,
    Whatever I shall think.
  MACDUFF. Bleed, bleed, poor country!
    Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
    For goodness dare not check thee. Wear thou thy wrongs;
    The title is affeer'd. Fare thee well, lord.
    I would not be the villain that thou think'st
    For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp
    And the rich East to boot.
  MALCOLM. Be not offended;
    I speak not as in absolute fear of you.
    I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
    It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
    Is added to her wounds. I think withal
    There would be hands uplifted in my right;
    And here from gracious England have I offer
    Of goodly thousands. But for all this,
    When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head,
    Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
    Shall have more vices than it had before,
    More suffer and more sundry ways than ever,
    By him that shall succeed.
  MACDUFF. What should he be?
  MALCOLM. It is myself I mean, in whom I know
    All the particulars of vice so grafted
    That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth
    Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state
    Esteem him as a lamb, being compared
    With my confineless harms.
  MACDUFF. Not in the legions
    Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd
    In evils to top Macbeth.
  MALCOLM. I grant him bloody,
    Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
    Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
    That has a name. But there's no bottom, none,
    In my voluptuousness. Your wives, your daughters,
    Your matrons, and your maids could not fill up
    The cestern of my lust, and my desire
    All continent impediments would o'erbear
    That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth
    Than such an one to reign.
  MACDUFF. Boundless intemperance
    In nature is a tyranny; it hath been
    The untimely emptying of the happy throne,
    And fall of many kings. But fear not yet
    To take upon you what is yours. You may
    Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty
    And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink.
    We have willing dames enough; there cannot be
    That vulture in you to devour so many
    As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
    Finding it so inclined.
  MALCOLM. With this there grows
    In my most ill-composed affection such
    A stanchless avarice that, were I King,
    I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
    Desire his jewels and this other's house,
    And my more-having would be as a sauce
    To make me hunger more, that I should forge
    Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,
    Destroying them for wealth.
  MACDUFF. This avarice
    Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root
    Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been
    The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear;
    Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will
    Of your mere own. All these are portable,
    With other graces weigh'd.
  MALCOLM. But I have none. The king-becoming graces,
    As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
    Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
    Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
    I have no relish of them, but abound
    In the division of each several crime,
    Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should
    Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
    Uproar the universal peace, confound
    All unity on earth.
  MACDUFF. O Scotland, Scotland!
  MALCOLM. If such a one be fit to govern, speak.
    I am as I have spoken.
  MACDUFF. Fit to govern?
    No, not to live. O nation miserable!
    With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,
    When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,
    Since that the truest issue of thy throne
    By his own interdiction stands accursed
    And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father
    Was a most sainted king; the queen that bore thee,
    Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,
    Died every day she lived. Fare thee well!
    These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself
    Have banish'd me from Scotland. O my breast,
    Thy hope ends here!
  MALCOLM. Macduff, this noble passion,
    Child of integrity, hath from my soul
    Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts
    To thy good truth and honor. Devilish Macbeth
    By many of these trains hath sought to win me
    Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me
    From over-credulous haste. But God above
    Deal between thee and me! For even now
    I put myself to thy direction and
    Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure
    The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
    For strangers to my nature. I am yet
    Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,
    Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,
    At no time broke my faith, would not betray
    The devil to his fellow, and delight
    No less in truth than life. My first false speaking
    Was this upon myself. What I am truly
    Is thine and my poor country's to command.
    Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,
    Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men
    Already at a point, was setting forth.
    Now we'll together, and the chance of goodness
    Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?
  MACDUFF. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
    'Tis hard to reconcile.

                     Enter a Doctor.

  MALCOLM. Well, more anon. Comes the King forth, I pray you?
  DOCTOR. Ay, sir, there are a crew of wretched souls
    That stay his cure. Their malady convinces
    The great assay of art, but at his touch,
    Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
    They presently amend.
  MALCOLM. I thank you, Doctor.                     Exit Doctor.
  MACDUFF. What's the disease he means?
  MALCOLM. 'Tis call'd the evil:
    A most miraculous work in this good King,
    Which often, since my here-remain in England,
    I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
    Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people,
    All swol'n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
    The mere despair of surgery, he cures,
    Hanging a golden stamp about their necks
    Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken,
    To the succeeding royalty he leaves
    The healing benediction. With this strange virtue
    He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
    And sundry blessings hang about his throne
    That speak him full of grace.

                    Enter Ross.

  MACDUFF. See, who comes here?
  MALCOLM. My countryman, but yet I know him not.
  MACDUFF. My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.
  MALCOLM. I know him now. Good God, betimes remove
    The means that makes us strangers!
  ROSS. Sir, amen.
  MACDUFF. Stands Scotland where it did?
  ROSS. Alas, poor country,
    Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
    Be call'd our mother, but our grave. Where nothing,
    But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
    Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air,
    Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
    A modern ecstasy. The dead man's knell
    Is there scarce ask'd for who, and good men's lives
    Expire before the flowers in their caps,
    Dying or ere they sicken.
  MACDUFF. O, relation
    Too nice, and yet too true!
  MALCOLM. What's the newest grief?
  ROSS. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker;
    Each minute teems a new one.
  MACDUFF. How does my wife?
  ROSS. Why, well.
  MACDUFF. And all my children?
  ROSS. Well too.
  MACDUFF. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
  ROSS. No, they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
  MACDUFF. Be not a niggard of your speech. How goest?
  ROSS. When I came hither to transport the tidings,
    Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumor
    Of many worthy fellows that were out,
    Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,
    For that I saw the tyrant's power afoot.
    Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
    Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
    To doff their dire distresses.
  MALCOLM. Be't their comfort
    We are coming thither. Gracious England hath
    Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;
    An older and a better soldier none
    That Christendom gives out.
  ROSS. Would I could answer
    This comfort with the like! But I have words
    That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
    Where hearing should not latch them.
  MACDUFF. What concern they?
    The general cause? Or is it a fee-grief
    Due to some single breast?
  ROSS. No mind that's honest
    But in it shares some woe, though the main part
    Pertains to you alone.
  MACDUFF. If it be mine,
    Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.
  ROSS. Let not your ears despise my tongue forever,
    Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
    That ever yet they heard.
  MACDUFF. Humh! I guess at it.
  ROSS. Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes
    Savagely slaughter'd. To relate the manner
    Were, on the quarry of these murther'd deer,
    To add the death of you.
  MALCOLM. Merciful heaven!
    What, man! Neer pull your hat upon your brows;
    Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak
    Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.
  MACDUFF. My children too?
  ROSS. Wife, children, servants, all
    That could be found.
  MACDUFF. And I must be from thence!
    My wife kill'd too?
  ROSS. I have said.
  MALCOLM. Be comforted.
    Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
    To cure this deadly grief.
  MACDUFF. He has no children. All my pretty ones?
    Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
    What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
    At one fell swoop?
  MALCOLM. Dispute it like a man.
  MACDUFF. I shall do so,
    But I must also feel it as a man.
    I cannot but remember such things were
    That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
    And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
    They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am,
    Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
    Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!
  MALCOLM. Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief
    Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
  MACDUFF. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
    And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
    Cut short all intermission; front to front
    Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
    Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
    Heaven forgive him too!
  MALCOLM. This tune goes manly.
    Come, go we to the King; our power is ready,
    Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth
    Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
    Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may,
    The night is long that never finds the day.          Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I. Dunsinane. Anteroom in the castle.

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting Gentlewoman.

  DOCTOR. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no
    truth in your report. When was it she last walked?
  GENTLEWOMAN. Since his Majesty went into the field, have seen her
    rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her
    closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it,
    afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while
    in a most fast sleep.
  DOCTOR. A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the
    benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching! In this slumbery
    agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances,
    what, at any time, have you heard her say?
  GENTLEWOMAN. That, sir, which I will not report after her.
  DOCTOR. You may to me, and 'tis most meet you should.
  GENTLEWOMAN. Neither to you nor anyone, having no witness to
    confirm my speech.

                Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper.

    Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise, and, upon my
    life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.
  DOCTOR. How came she by that light?
  GENTLEWOMAN. Why, it stood by her. She has light by her
     continually; 'tis her command.
  DOCTOR. You see, her eyes are open.
  GENTLEWOMAN. Ay, but their sense is shut.
  DOCTOR. What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.
  GENTLEWOMAN. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus
    washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of
    an hour.
  LADY MACBETH. Yet here's a spot.
  DOCTOR. Hark, she speaks! I will set down what comes from her, to
    satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
  LADY MACBETH. Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One- two -why then 'tis
    time to do't. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and
    afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
    power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have
    had so much blood in him?
  DOCTOR. Do you mark that?
  LADY MACBETH. The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What,
    will these hands neer be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no more
    o' that. You mar all with this starting.
  DOCTOR. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
  GENTLEWOMAN. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that.
    Heaven knows what she has known.
  LADY MACBETH. Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes
    of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!
  DOCTOR. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
  GENTLEWOMAN. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the
    dignity of the whole body.
  DOCTOR. Well, well, well-
  GENTLEWOMAN. Pray God it be, sir.
  DOCTOR. This disease is beyond my practice. Yet I have known those
    which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their
    beds.
  LADY MACBETH. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown, look not so
    pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out
    on's grave.
  DOCTOR. Even so?
  LADY MACBETH. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come,
    come, come, come, give me your hand.What's done cannot be undone.
    To bed, to bed, to bed.
Exit.
  DOCTOR. Will she go now to bed?
  GENTLEWOMAN. Directly.
  DOCTOR. Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds
    Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds
    To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
    More needs she the divine than the physician.
    God, God, forgive us all! Look after her;
    Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
    And still keep eyes upon her. So good night.
    My mind she has mated and amazed my sight.
    I think, but dare not speak.
  GENTLEWOMAN. Good night, good doctor.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE II. The country near Dunsinane. Drum and colors.

Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, and Soldiers.

  MENTEITH. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
    His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.
    Revenges burn in them, for their dear causes
    Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
    Excite the mortified man.
  ANGUS. Near Birnam Wood
    Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.
  CAITHNESS. Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
  LENNOX. For certain, sir, he is not; I have a file
    Of all the gentry. There is Seward's son
    And many unrough youths that even now
    Protest their first of manhood.
  MENTEITH. What does the tyrant?
  CAITHNESS. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies.
    Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him,
    Do call it valiant fury; but, for certain,
    He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
    Within the belt of rule.
  ANGUS. Now does he feel
    His secret murthers sticking on his hands,
    Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
    Those he commands move only in command,
    Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
    Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
    Upon a dwarfish thief.
  MENTEITH. Who then shall blame
    His pester'd senses to recoil and start,
    When all that is within him does condemn
    Itself for being there?
  CAITHNESS. Well, march we on
    To give obedience where 'tis truly owed.
    Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,
    And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
    Each drop of us.
  LENNOX. Or so much as it needs
    To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.
    Make we our march towards Birnam.           Exeunt marching.

SCENE III. Dunsinane. A room in the castle.

Enter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants.

  MACBETH. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all!
    Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane
    I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
    Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
    All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:
    "Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
    Shall e'er have power upon thee." Then fly, false Thanes,
    And mingle with the English epicures!
    The mind I sway by and the heart I bear
    Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.

                       Enter a Servant.

    The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
    Where got'st thou that goose look?
  SERVANT. There is ten thousand-
  MACBETH. Geese, villain?
  SERVANT. Soldiers, sir.
  MACBETH. Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear,
    Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?
    Death of thy soul! Those linen cheeks of thine
    Are counselors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?
  SERVANT. The English force, so please you.
  MACBETH. Take thy face hence.                    Exit Servant.
    Seyton-I am sick at heart,
    When I behold- Seyton, I say!- This push
    Will cheer me ever or disseat me now.
    I have lived long enough. My way of life
    Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf,
    And that which should accompany old age,
    As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
    I must not look to have; but in their stead,
    Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath,
    Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.
    Seyton!

                       Enter Seyton.

  SEYTON. What's your gracious pleasure?
  MACBETH. What news more?
  SEYTON. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.
  MACBETH. I'll fight, 'til from my bones my flesh be hack'd.
    Give me my armor.
  SEYTON. 'Tis not needed yet.
  MACBETH. I'll put it on.
    Send out more horses, skirr the country round,
    Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armor.
    How does your patient, doctor?
  DOCTOR. Not so sick, my lord,
    As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
    That keep her from her rest.
  MACBETH. Cure her of that.
    Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
    Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
    Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
    And with some sweet oblivious antidote
    Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
    Which weighs upon the heart?
  DOCTOR. Therein the patient
    Must minister to himself.
  MACBETH. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.
    Come, put mine armor on; give me my staff.
    Seyton, send out. Doctor, the Thanes fly from me.
    Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast
    The water of my land, find her disease
    And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
    I would applaud thee to the very echo,
    That should applaud again. Pull't off, I say.
    What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug
    Would scour these English hence? Hearst thou of them?
  DOCTOR. Ay, my good lord, your royal preparation
    Makes us hear something.
  MACBETH. Bring it after me.
    I will not be afraid of death and bane
    Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane.
  DOCTOR. [Aside.] Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
    Profit again should hardly draw me here.             Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Country near Birnam Wood. Drum and colors.

Enter Malcolm, old Seward and his Son, Macduff, Menteith, Caithness,
Angus, Lennox, Ross, and Soldiers, marching.

  MALCOLM. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
    That chambers will be safe.
  MENTEITH. We doubt it nothing.
  SIWARD. What wood is this before us?
  MENTEITH. The Wood of Birnam.
  MALCOLM. Let every soldier hew him down a bough,
    And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow
    The numbers of our host, and make discovery
    Err in report of us.
  SOLDIERS. It shall be done.
  SIWARD. We learn no other but the confident tyrant
    Keeps still in Dunsinane and will endure
    Our setting down before't.
  MALCOLM. 'Tis his main hope;
    For where there is advantage to be given,
    Both more and less have given him the revolt,
    And none serve with him but constrained things
    Whose hearts are absent too.
  MACDUFF. Let our just censures
    Attend the true event, and put we on
    Industrious soldiership.
  SIWARD. The time approaches
    That will with due decision make us know
    What we shall say we have and what we owe.
    Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
    But certain issue strokes must arbitrate.
    Towards which advance the war.
                                                Exeunt Marching.

SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle.

Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with drum and colors.

  MACBETH. Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
    The cry is still, "They come!" Our castle's strength
    Will laugh a siege to scorn. Here let them lie
    Till famine and the ague eat them up.
    Were they not forced with those that should be ours,
    We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
    And beat them backward home.
                                          A cry of women within.
    What is that noise?
  SEYTON. It is the cry of women, my good lord.            Exit.
  MACBETH. I have almost forgot the taste of fears:
    The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
    To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair
    Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
    As life were in't. I have supp'd full with horrors;
    Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
    Cannot once start me.

                  Re-enter Seyton.
     Wherefore was that cry?
  SEYTON. The Queen, my lord, is dead.
  MACBETH. She should have died hereafter;
    There would have been a time for such a word.
    Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
    To the last syllable of recorded time;
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more. It is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.

                 Enter a Messenger.

    Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
  MESSENGER. Gracious my lord,
    I should report that which I say I saw,
    But know not how to do it.
  MACBETH. Well, say, sir.
  MESSENGER. As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
    I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
    The Wood began to move.
  MACBETH. Liar and slave!
  MESSENGER. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so.
    Within this three mile may you see it coming;
    I say, a moving grove.
  MACBETH. If thou speak'st false,
    Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
    Till famine cling thee; if thy speech be sooth,
    I care not if thou dost for me as much.
    I pull in resolution and begin
    To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
    That lies like truth. "Fear not, till Birnam Wood
    Do come to Dunsinane," and now a wood
    Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
    If this which he avouches does appear,
    There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
    I 'gin to be aweary of the sun
    And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
    Ring the alarum bell! Blow, wind! Come, wrack!
    At least we'll die with harness on our back.         Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Dunsinane.  Before the castle.

Enter Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff, and their Army, with boughs.
Drum and colors.

  MALCOLM. Now near enough; your leavy screens throw down,
    And show like those you are. You, worthy uncle,
    Shall with my cousin, your right noble son,
    Lead our first battle. Worthy Macduff and we
    Shall take upon 's what else remains to do,
    According to our order.
  SIWARD. Fare you well.
    Do we but find the tyrant's power tonight,
    Let us be beaten if we cannot fight.
  MACDUFF. Make all our trumpets speak, give them all breath,
    Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE VII. Dunsinane.  Before the castle.  Alarums.

Enter Macbeth.

  MACBETH. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
    But bear-like I must fight the course. What's he
    That was not born of woman? Such a one
    Am I to fear, or none.

                     Enter young Siward.

  YOUNG SIWARD. What is thy name?
  MACBETH. Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.
  YOUNG SIWARD. No, though thou call'st thyself a hotter name
    Than any is in hell.
  MACBETH. My name's Macbeth.
  YOUNG SIWARD. The devil himself could not pronounce a title
    More hateful to mine ear.
  MACBETH. No, nor more fearful.
  YOUNG SIWARD O Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword
    I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.
                          They fight, and young Seward is slain.
  MACBETH. Thou wast born of woman.
    But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
    Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.              Exit.

                Alarums. Enter Macduff.

  MACDUFF. That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face!
    If thou best slain and with no stroke of mine,
    My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.
    I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms
    Are hired to bear their staves. Either thou, Macbeth,
    Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,
    I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;
    By this great clatter, one of greatest note
    Seems bruited. Let me find him, Fortune!
    And more I beg not.                           Exit. Alarums.

                Enter Malcolm and old Siward.

  SIWARD. This way, my lord; the castle's gently render'd.
    The tyrant's people on both sides do fight,
    The noble Thanes do bravely in the war,
    The day almost itself professes yours,
    And little is to do.
  MALCOLM. We have met with foes
    That strike beside us.
  SIWARD. Enter, sir, the castle.
                                                 Exeunt. Alarum.

SCENE VIII. Another part of the field.

Enter Macbeth.

  MACBETH. Why should I play the Roman fool and die
    On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes
    Do better upon them.

                      Enter Macduff.

  MACDUFF. Turn, hell hound, turn!
  MACBETH. Of all men else I have avoided thee.
    But get thee back, my soul is too much charged
    With blood of thine already.
  MACDUFF. I have no words.
    My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain
    Than terms can give thee out!                    They fight.
  MACBETH. Thou losest labor.
    As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
    With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed.
    Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
    I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
    To one of woman born.
  MACDUFF. Despair thy charm,
    And let the angel whom thou still hast served
    Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
    Untimely ripp'd.
  MACBETH. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
    For it hath cow'd my better part of man!
    And be these juggling fiends no more believed
    That patter with us in a double sense,
    That keep the word of promise to our ear
    And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.
  MACDUFF. Then yield thee, coward,
    And live to be the show and gaze o' the time.
    We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
    Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,
    "Here may you see the tyrant."
  MACBETH. I will not yield,
    To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
    And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
    Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,
    And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
    Yet I will try the last. Before my body
    I throw my warlike shield! Lay on, Macduff,
    And damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"
                                       Exeunt fighting. Alarums.

SCENE IX.

Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colors, Malcolm, old Siward,
Ross, the other Thanes, and Soldiers.

  MALCOLM. I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.
  SIWARD. Some must go off, and yet, by these I see,
    So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
  MALCOLM. Macduff is missing, and your noble son.
  ROSS. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt.
    He only lived but till he was a man,
    The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
    In the unshrinking station where he fought,
    But like a man he died.
  SIWARD. Then he is dead?
  ROSS. Ay, and brought off the field. Your cause of sorrow
    Must not be measured by his worth, for then
    It hath no end.
  SIWARD. Had he his hurts before?
  ROSS. Ay, on the front.
  SIWARD. Why then, God's soldier be he!
    Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
    I would not wish them to a fairer death.
    And so his knell is knoll'd.
  MALCOLM. He's worth more sorrow,
    And that I'll spend for him.
  SIWARD. He's worth no more:
    They say he parted well and paid his score,
    And so God be with him! Here comes newer comfort.

             Re-enter Macduff, with Macbeth's head.

  MACDUFF. Hail, King, for so thou art. Behold where stands
    The usurper's cursed head. The time is free.
    I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl
    That speak my salutation in their minds,
    Whose voices I desire aloud with mine-
    Hail, King of Scotland!
  ALL. Hail, King of Scotland!                         Flourish.
  MALCOLM. We shall not spend a large expense of time
    Before we reckon with your several loves
    And make us even with you. My Thanes and kinsmen,
    Henceforth be Earls, the first that ever Scotland
    In such an honor named. What's more to do,
    Which would be planted newly with the time,
    As calling home our exiled friends abroad
    That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,
    Producing forth the cruel ministers
    Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,
    Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
    Took off her life; this, and what needful else
    That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace
    We will perform in measure, time, and place.
    So thanks to all at once and to each one,
    Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
                                               Flourish. Exeunt.
                 -THE END-

1605



MEASURE FOR MEASURE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  VINCENTIO, the Duke
  ANGELO, the Deputy
  ESCALUS, an ancient Lord
  CLAUDIO, a young gentleman
  LUCIO, a fantastic
  Two other like Gentlemen
  VARRIUS, a gentleman, servant to the Duke
  PROVOST
  THOMAS, friar
  PETER, friar
  A JUSTICE
  ELBOW, a simple constable
  FROTH, a foolish gentleman
  POMPEY, a clown and servant to Mistress Overdone
  ABHORSON, an executioner
  BARNARDINE, a dissolute prisoner

  ISABELLA, sister to Claudio
  MARIANA, betrothed to Angelo
  JULIET, beloved of Claudio
  FRANCISCA, a nun
  MISTRESS OVERDONE, a bawd

  Lords, Officers, Citizens, Boy, and Attendants

SCENE: Vienna

ACT I. SCENE I. The DUKE'S palace

Enter DUKE, ESCALUS, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS

  DUKE. Escalus!
  ESCALUS. My lord.
  DUKE. Of government the properties to unfold
    Would seem in me t' affect speech and discourse,
    Since I am put to know that your own science
    Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice
    My strength can give you; then no more remains
    But that to your sufficiency- as your worth is able-
    And let them work. The nature of our people,
    Our city's institutions, and the terms
    For common justice, y'are as pregnant in
    As art and practice hath enriched any
    That we remember. There is our commission,
    From which we would not have you warp. Call hither,
    I say, bid come before us, Angelo.         Exit an ATTENDANT
    What figure of us think you he will bear?
    For you must know we have with special soul
    Elected him our absence to supply;
    Lent him our terror, dress'd him with our love,
    And given his deputation all the organs
    Of our own power. What think you of it?
  ESCALUS. If any in Vienna be of worth
    To undergo such ample grace and honour,
    It is Lord Angelo.

                          Enter ANGELO

  DUKE. Look where he comes.
  ANGELO. Always obedient to your Grace's will,
    I come to know your pleasure.
  DUKE. Angelo,
    There is a kind of character in thy life
    That to th' observer doth thy history
    Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings
    Are not thine own so proper as to waste
    Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
    Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
    Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
    Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
    As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd
    But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends
    The smallest scruple of her excellence
    But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
    Herself the glory of a creditor,
    Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech
    To one that can my part in him advertise.
    Hold, therefore, Angelo-
    In our remove be thou at full ourself;
    Mortality and mercy in Vienna
    Live in thy tongue and heart. Old Escalus,
    Though first in question, is thy secondary.
    Take thy commission.
  ANGELO. Now, good my lord,
    Let there be some more test made of my metal,
    Before so noble and so great a figure
    Be stamp'd upon it.
  DUKE. No more evasion!
    We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice
    Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.
    Our haste from hence is of so quick condition
    That it prefers itself, and leaves unquestion'd
    Matters of needful value. We shall write to you,
    As time and our concernings shall importune,
    How it goes with us, and do look to know
    What doth befall you here. So, fare you well.
    To th' hopeful execution do I leave you
    Of your commissions.
  ANGELO. Yet give leave, my lord,
    That we may bring you something on the way.
  DUKE. My haste may not admit it;
    Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do
    With any scruple: your scope is as mine own,
    So to enforce or qualify the laws
    As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand;
    I'll privily away. I love the people,
    But do not like to stage me to their eyes;
    Though it do well, I do not relish well
    Their loud applause and Aves vehement;
    Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
    That does affect it. Once more, fare you well.
  ANGELO. The heavens give safety to your purposes!
  ESCALUS. Lead forth and bring you back in happiness!
  DUKE. I thank you. Fare you well.                         Exit
  ESCALUS. I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave
    To have free speech with you; and it concerns me
    To look into the bottom of my place:
    A pow'r I have, but of what strength and nature
    I am not yet instructed.
  ANGELO. 'Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,
    And we may soon our satisfaction have
    Touching that point.
  ESCALUS. I'll wait upon your honour.                    Exeunt

SCENE II. A street

Enter Lucio and two other GENTLEMEN

  LUCIO. If the Duke, with the other dukes, come not to composition
    with the King of Hungary, why then all the dukes fall upon the
    King.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of
    Hungary's!
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Amen.
  LUCIO. Thou conclud'st like the sanctimonious pirate that went to
    sea with the Ten Commandments, but scrap'd one out of the table.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Thou shalt not steal'?
  LUCIO. Ay, that he raz'd.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Why, 'twas a commandment to command the captain
    and all the rest from their functions: they put forth to steal.
    There's not a soldier of us all that, in the thanksgiving before
    meat, do relish the petition well that prays for peace.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I never heard any soldier dislike it.
  LUCIO. I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was
    said.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. No? A dozen times at least.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What, in metre?
  LUCIO. In any proportion or in any language.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I think, or in any religion.
  LUCIO. Ay, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy; as,
    for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all
    grace.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Well, there went but a pair of shears between us.
  LUCIO. I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet.
    Thou art the list.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. And thou the velvet; thou art good velvet; thou'rt
    a three-pil'd piece, I warrant thee. I had as lief be a list of
    an English kersey as be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French
    velvet. Do I speak feelingly now?
  LUCIO. I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of
    thy speech. I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin
    thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I think I have done myself wrong, have I not?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or
    free.

                        Enter MISTRESS OVERDONE

  LUCIO. Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation comes! I have
    purchas'd as many diseases under her roof as come to-
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. To what, I pray?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Judge.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. To three thousand dolours a year.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, and more.
  LUCIO. A French crown more.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Thou art always figuring diseases in me, but thou
    art full of error; I am sound.
  LUCIO. Nay, not, as one would say, healthy; but so sound as things
    that are hollow: thy bones are hollow; impiety has made a feast
    of thee.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. How now! which of your hips has the most profound
    sciatica?
  MRS. OVERDONE. Well, well! there's one yonder arrested and carried
    to prison was worth five thousand of you all.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Who's that, I pray thee?
  MRS. OVERDONE. Marry, sir, that's Claudio, Signior Claudio.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Claudio to prison? 'Tis not so.
  MRS. OVERDONE. Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested; saw him
    carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his
    head to be chopp'd off.
  LUCIO. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art
    thou sure of this?
  MRS. OVERDONE. I am too sure of it; and it is for getting Madam
    Julietta with child.
  LUCIO. Believe me, this may be; he promis'd to meet me two hours
    since, and he was ever precise in promise-keeping.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Besides, you know, it draws something near to the
    speech we had to such a purpose.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. But most of all agreeing with the proclamation.
  LUCIO. Away; let's go learn the truth of it.
                                      Exeunt Lucio and GENTLEMEN
  MRS. OVERDONE. Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what
    with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.

                               Enter POMPEY

    How now! what's the news with you?
  POMPEY. Yonder man is carried to prison.
  MRS. OVERDONE. Well, what has he done?
  POMPEY. A woman.
  MRS. OVERDONE. But what's his offence?
  POMPEY. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.
  MRS. OVERDONE. What! is there a maid with child by him?
  POMPEY. No; but there's a woman with maid by him. You have not
   heard of the proclamation, have you?
  MRS. OVERDONE. What proclamation, man?
  POMPEY. All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be pluck'd down.
  MRS. OVERDONE. And what shall become of those in the city?
  POMPEY. They shall stand for seed; they had gone down too, but that
    a wise burgher put in for them.
  MRS. OVERDONE. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be
    pull'd down?
  POMPEY. To the ground, mistress.
  MRS. OVERDONE. Why, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth!
    What shall become of me?
  POMPEY. Come, fear not you: good counsellors lack no clients.
    Though you change your place you need not change your trade; I'll
    be your tapster still. Courage, there will be pity taken on you;
    you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will
    be considered.
  MRS. OVERDONE. What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw.
  POMPEY. Here comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison;
    and there's Madam Juliet.                             Exeunt

            Enter PROVOST, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and OFFICERS;
                            LUCIO following

  CLAUDIO. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to th' world?
    Bear me to prison, where I am committed.
  PROVOST. I do it not in evil disposition,
    But from Lord Angelo by special charge.
  CLAUDIO. Thus can the demigod Authority
    Make us pay down for our offence by weight
    The words of heaven: on whom it will, it will;
    On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.
  LUCIO. Why, how now, Claudio, whence comes this restraint?
  CLAUDIO. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty;
    As surfeit is the father of much fast,
    So every scope by the immoderate use
    Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,
    Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,
    A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.
  LUCIO. If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for
    certain of my creditors; and yet, to say the truth, I had as lief
    have the foppery of freedom as the morality of imprisonment.
    What's thy offence, Claudio?
  CLAUDIO. What but to speak of would offend again.
  LUCIO. What, is't murder?
  CLAUDIO. No.
  LUCIO. Lechery?
  CLAUDIO. Call it so.
  PROVOST. Away, sir; you must go.
  CLAUDIO. One word, good friend. Lucio, a word with you.
  LUCIO. A hundred, if they'll do you any good. Is lechery so look'd
    after?
  CLAUDIO. Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract
    I got possession of Julietta's bed.
    You know the lady; she is fast my wife,
    Save that we do the denunciation lack
    Of outward order; this we came not to,
    Only for propagation of a dow'r
    Remaining in the coffer of her friends.
    From whom we thought it meet to hide our love
    Till time had made them for us. But it chances
    The stealth of our most mutual entertainment,
    With character too gross, is writ on Juliet.
  LUCIO. With child, perhaps?
  CLAUDIO. Unhappily, even so.
    And the new deputy now for the Duke-
    Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,
    Or whether that the body public be
    A horse whereon the governor doth ride,
    Who, newly in the seat, that it may know
    He can command, lets it straight feel the spur;
    Whether the tyranny be in his place,
    Or in his eminence that fills it up,
    I stagger in. But this new governor
    Awakes me all the enrolled penalties
    Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by th' wall
    So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round
    And none of them been worn; and, for a name,
    Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
    Freshly on me. 'Tis surely for a name.
  LUCIO. I warrant it is; and thy head stands so tickle on thy
    shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off.
    Send after the Duke, and appeal to him.
  CLAUDIO. I have done so, but he's not to be found.
    I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:
    This day my sister should the cloister enter,
    And there receive her approbation;
    Acquaint her with the danger of my state;
    Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends
    To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him.
    I have great hope in that; for in her youth
    There is a prone and speechless dialect
    Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art
    When she will play with reason and discourse,
    And well she can persuade.
  LUCIO. I pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the like,
    which else would stand under grievous imposition, as for the
    enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus
    foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack. I'll to her.
  CLAUDIO. I thank you, good friend Lucio.
  LUCIO. Within two hours.
  CLAUDIO. Come, officer, away.                           Exeunt

SCENE III. A monastery

Enter DUKE and FRIAR THOMAS

  DUKE. No, holy father; throw away that thought;
    Believe not that the dribbling dart of love
    Can pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee
    To give me secret harbour hath a purpose
    More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends
    Of burning youth.
  FRIAR. May your Grace speak of it?
  DUKE. My holy sir, none better knows than you
    How I have ever lov'd the life removed,
    And held in idle price to haunt assemblies
    Where youth, and cost, a witless bravery keeps.
    I have deliver'd to Lord Angelo,
    A man of stricture and firm abstinence,
    My absolute power and place here in Vienna,
    And he supposes me travell'd to Poland;
    For so I have strew'd it in the common ear,
    And so it is received. Now, pious sir,
    You will demand of me why I do this.
  FRIAR. Gladly, my lord.
  DUKE. We have strict statutes and most biting laws,
    The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds,
    Which for this fourteen years we have let slip;
    Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave,
    That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,
    Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch,
    Only to stick it in their children's sight
    For terror, not to use, in time the rod
    Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees,
    Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;
    And liberty plucks justice by the nose;
    The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
    Goes all decorum.
  FRIAR. It rested in your Grace
    To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleas'd;
    And it in you more dreadful would have seem'd
    Than in Lord Angelo.
  DUKE. I do fear, too dreadful.
    Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope,
    'Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them
    For what I bid them do; for we bid this be done,
    When evil deeds have their permissive pass
    And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,
    I have on Angelo impos'd the office;
    Who may, in th' ambush of my name, strike home,
    And yet my nature never in the fight
    To do in slander. And to behold his sway,
    I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,
    Visit both prince and people. Therefore, I prithee,
    Supply me with the habit, and instruct me
    How I may formally in person bear me
    Like a true friar. Moe reasons for this action
    At our more leisure shall I render you.
    Only, this one: Lord Angelo is precise;
    Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses
    That his blood flows, or that his appetite
    Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see,
    If power change purpose, what our seemers be.         Exeunt

SCENE IV. A nunnery

Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA

  ISABELLA. And have you nuns no farther privileges?
  FRANCISCA. Are not these large enough?
  ISABELLA. Yes, truly; I speak not as desiring more,
    But rather wishing a more strict restraint
    Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.
  LUCIO. [ Within] Ho! Peace be in this place!
  ISABELLA. Who's that which calls?
  FRANCISCA. It is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella,
    Turn you the key, and know his business of him:
    You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn;
    When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men
    But in the presence of the prioress;
    Then, if you speak, you must not show your face,
    Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.
    He calls again; I pray you answer him.        Exit FRANCISCA
  ISABELLA. Peace and prosperity! Who is't that calls?

                           Enter LUCIO

  LUCIO. Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses
    Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead me
    As bring me to the sight of Isabella,
    A novice of this place, and the fair sister
    To her unhappy brother Claudio?
  ISABELLA. Why her 'unhappy brother'? Let me ask
    The rather, for I now must make you know
    I am that Isabella, and his sister.
  LUCIO. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.
    Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.
  ISABELLA. Woe me! For what?
  LUCIO. For that which, if myself might be his judge,
    He should receive his punishment in thanks:
    He hath got his friend with child.
  ISABELLA. Sir, make me not your story.
  LUCIO. It is true.
    I would not- though 'tis my familiar sin
    With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,
    Tongue far from heart- play with all virgins so:
    I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted,
    By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
    And to be talk'd with in sincerity,
    As with a saint.
  ISABELLA. You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.
  LUCIO. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:
    Your brother and his lover have embrac'd.
    As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
    That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
    To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb
    Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.
  ISABELLA. Some one with child by him? My cousin Juliet?
  LUCIO. Is she your cousin?
  ISABELLA. Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names
    By vain though apt affection.
  LUCIO. She it is.
  ISABELLA. O, let him marry her!
  LUCIO. This is the point.
    The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;
    Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
    In hand, and hope of action; but we do learn,
    By those that know the very nerves of state,
    His givings-out were of an infinite distance
    From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
    And with full line of his authority,
    Governs Lord Angelo, a man whose blood
    Is very snow-broth, one who never feels
    The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
    But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
    With profits of the mind, study and fast.
    He- to give fear to use and liberty,
    Which have for long run by the hideous law,
    As mice by lions- hath pick'd out an act
    Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
    Falls into forfeit; he arrests him on it,
    And follows close the rigour of the statute
    To make him an example. All hope is gone,
    Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
    To soften Angelo. And that's my pith of business
    'Twixt you and your poor brother.
  ISABELLA. Doth he so seek his life?
  LUCIO. Has censur'd him
    Already, and, as I hear, the Provost hath
    A warrant for his execution.
  ISABELLA. Alas! what poor ability's in me
    To do him good?
  LUCIO. Assay the pow'r you have.
  ISABELLA. My power, alas, I doubt!
  LUCIO. Our doubts are traitors,
    And make us lose the good we oft might win
    By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,
    And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
    Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
    All their petitions are as freely theirs
    As they themselves would owe them.
  ISABELLA. I'll see what I can do.
  LUCIO. But speedily.
  ISABELLA. I will about it straight;
    No longer staying but to give the Mother
    Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.
    Commend me to my brother; soon at night
    I'll send him certain word of my success.
  LUCIO. I take my leave of you.
  ISABELLA. Good sir, adieu.                              Exeunt

ACT II. Scene I. A hall in ANGELO'S house

Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a JUSTICE, PROVOST, OFFICERS, and other
ATTENDANTS

  ANGELO. We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
    Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
    And let it keep one shape till custom make it
    Their perch, and not their terror.
  ESCALUS. Ay, but yet
    Let us be keen, and rather cut a little
    Than fall and bruise to death. Alas! this gentleman,
    Whom I would save, had a most noble father.
    Let but your honour know,
    Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,
    That, in the working of your own affections,
    Had time coher'd with place, or place with wishing,
    Or that the resolute acting of our blood
    Could have attain'd th' effect of your own purpose
    Whether you had not sometime in your life
    Err'd in this point which now you censure him,
    And pull'd the law upon you.
  ANGELO. 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
    Another thing to fall. I not deny
    The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,
    May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
    Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice,
    That justice seizes. What knows the laws
    That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,
    The jewel that we find, we stoop and take't,
    Because we see it; but what we do not see
    We tread upon, and never think of it.
    You may not so extenuate his offence
    For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
    When I, that censure him, do so offend,
    Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
    And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.
  ESCALUS. Be it as your wisdom will.
  ANGELO. Where is the Provost?
  PROVOST. Here, if it like your honour.
  ANGELO. See that Claudio
    Be executed by nine to-morrow morning;
    Bring him his confessor; let him be prepar'd;
    For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.        Exit PROVOST
  ESCALUS. [Aside] Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!
    Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall;
    Some run from breaks of ice, and answer none,
    And some condemned for a fault alone.

         Enter ELBOW and OFFICERS with FROTH and POMPEY

  ELBOW. Come, bring them away; if these be good people in a
    commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses,
    I know no law; bring them away.
  ANGELO. How now, sir! What's your name, and what's the matter?
  ELBOW. If it please your honour, I am the poor Duke's constable,
    and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring
    in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.
  ANGELO. Benefactors! Well- what benefactors are they? Are they not
    malefactors?
  ELBOW. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are; but
    precise villains they are, that I am sure of, and void of all
    profanation in the world that good Christians ought to have.
  ESCALUS. This comes off well; here's a wise officer.
  ANGELO. Go to; what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why
    dost thou not speak, Elbow?
  POMPEY. He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.
  ANGELO. What are you, sir?
  ELBOW. He, sir? A tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad
    woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, pluck'd down in the
    suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a
    very ill house too.
  ESCALUS. How know you that?
  ELBOW. My Wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour-
  ESCALUS. How! thy wife!
  ELBOW. Ay, sir; whom I thank heaven, is an honest woman-
  ESCALUS. Dost thou detest her therefore?
  ELBOW. I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that
    this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life,
    for it is a naughty house.
  ESCALUS. How dost thou know that, constable?
  ELBOW. Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman
    cardinally given, might have been accus'd in fornication,
    adultery, and all uncleanliness there.
  ESCALUS. By the woman's means?
  ELBOW. Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means; but as she spit in
    his face, so she defied him.
  POMPEY. Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.
  ELBOW. Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man,
    prove it.
  ESCALUS. Do you hear how he misplaces?
  POMPEY. Sir, she came in great with child; and longing, saving your
    honour's reverence, for stew'd prunes. Sir, we had but two in the
    house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were, in a
    fruit dish, a dish of some three pence; your honours have seen
    such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes.
  ESCALUS. Go to, go to; no matter for the dish, sir.
  POMPEY. No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the
    right; but to the point. As I say, this Mistress Elbow, being, as
    I say, with child, and being great-bellied, and longing, as I
    said, for prunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said,
    Master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the rest, as I
    said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly; for, as you
    know, Master Froth, I could not give you three pence again-
  FROTH. No, indeed.
  POMPEY. Very well; you being then, if you be rememb'red, cracking
    the stones of the foresaid prunes-
  FROTH. Ay, so I did indeed.
  POMPEY. Why, very well; I telling you then, if you be rememb'red,
    that such a one and such a one were past cure of the thing you
    wot of, unless they kept very good diet, as I told you-
  FROTH. All this is true.
  POMPEY. Why, very well then-
  ESCALUS. Come, you are a tedious fool. To the purpose: what was
    done to Elbow's wife that he hath cause to complain of? Come me
    to what was done to her.
  POMPEY. Sir, your honour cannot come to that yet.
  ESCALUS. No, sir, nor I mean it not.
  POMPEY. Sir, but you shall come to it, by your honour's leave. And,
    I beseech you, look into Master Froth here, sir, a man of
    fourscore pound a year; whose father died at Hallowmas- was't not
    at Hallowmas, Master Froth?
  FROTH. All-hallond eve.
  POMPEY. Why, very well; I hope here be truths. He, sir, sitting, as
    I say, in a lower chair, sir; 'twas in the Bunch of Grapes,
    where, indeed, you have a delight to sit, have you not?
  FROTH. I have so; because it is an open room, and good for winter.
  POMPEY. Why, very well then; I hope here be truths.
  ANGELO. This will last out a night in Russia,
    When nights are longest there; I'll take my leave,
    And leave you to the hearing of the cause,
    Hoping you'll find good cause to whip them all.
  ESCALUS. I think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.
    [Exit ANGELO] Now, sir, come on; what was done to Elbow's wife,
    once more?
  POMPEY. Once?- sir. There was nothing done to her once.
  ELBOW. I beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.
  POMPEY. I beseech your honour, ask me.
  ESCALUS. Well, sir, what did this gentleman to her?
  POMPEY. I beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman's face. Good
    Master Froth, look upon his honour; 'tis for a good purpose. Doth
    your honour mark his face?
  ESCALUS. Ay, sir, very well.
  POMPEY. Nay, I beseech you, mark it well.
  ESCALUS. Well, I do so.
  POMPEY. Doth your honour see any harm in his face?
  ESCALUS. Why, no.
  POMPEY. I'll be suppos'd upon a book his face is the worst thing
    about him. Good then; if his face be the worst thing about him,
    how could Master Froth do the constable's wife any harm? I would
    know that of your honour.
  ESCALUS. He's in the right, constable; what say you to it?
  ELBOW. First, an it like you, the house is a respected house; next,
    this is a respected fellow; and his mistress is a respected
    woman.
  POMPEY. By this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected person than
    any of us all.
  ELBOW. Varlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicket varlet; the time is
    yet to come that she was ever respected with man, woman, or
    child.
  POMPEY. Sir, she was respected with him before he married with her.
  ESCALUS. Which is the wiser here, Justice or Iniquity? Is this
    true?
  ELBOW. O thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked Hannibal! I
    respected with her before I was married to her! If ever I was
    respected with her, or she with me, let not your worship think me
    the poor Duke's officer. Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or
    I'll have mine action of batt'ry on thee.
  ESCALUS. If he took you a box o' th' ear, you might have your
    action of slander too.
  ELBOW. Marry, I thank your good worship for it. What is't your
    worship's pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff?
  ESCALUS. Truly, officer, because he hath some offences in him that
    thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him continue in his
    courses till thou know'st what they are.
  ELBOW. Marry, I thank your worship for it. Thou seest, thou wicked
    varlet, now, what's come upon thee: thou art to continue now,
    thou varlet; thou art to continue.
  ESCALUS. Where were you born, friend?
  FROTH. Here in Vienna, sir.
  ESCALUS. Are you of fourscore pounds a year?
  FROTH. Yes, an't please you, sir.
  ESCALUS. So. What trade are you of, sir?
  POMPEY. A tapster, a poor widow's tapster.
  ESCALUS. Your mistress' name?
  POMPEY. Mistress Overdone.
  ESCALUS. Hath she had any more than one husband?
  POMPEY. Nine, sir; Overdone by the last.
  ESCALUS. Nine! Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master Froth, I
    would not have you acquainted with tapsters: they will draw you,
    Master Froth, and you will hang them. Get you gone, and let me
    hear no more of you.
  FROTH. I thank your worship. For mine own part, I never come into
    any room in a taphouse but I am drawn in.
  ESCALUS. Well, no more of it, Master Froth; farewell. [Exit FROTH]
    Come you hither to me, Master Tapster; what's your name, Master
    Tapster?
  POMPEY. Pompey.
  ESCALUS. What else?
  POMPEY. Bum, sir.
  ESCALUS. Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so
    that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the Great. Pompey,
    you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a
    tapster. Are you not? Come, tell me true; it shall be the better
    for you.
  POMPEY. Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.
  ESCALUS. How would you live, Pompey- by being a bawd? What do you
    think of the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?
  POMPEY. If the law would allow it, sir.
  ESCALUS. But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be
    allowed in Vienna.
  POMPEY. Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of
    the city?
  ESCALUS. No, Pompey.
  POMPEY. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then. If
    your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you
    need not to fear the bawds.
  ESCALUS. There is pretty orders beginning, I can tell you: but it
    is but heading and hanging.
  POMPEY. If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten
    year together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more
    heads; if this law hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest
    house in it, after threepence a bay. If you live to see this come
    to pass, say Pompey told you so.
  ESCALUS. Thank you, good Pompey; and, in requital of your prophecy,
    hark you: I advise you, let me not find you before me again upon
    any complaint whatsoever- no, not for dwelling where you do; if I
    do, Pompey, I shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd
    Caesar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you whipt.
    So for this time, Pompey, fare you well.
  POMPEY. I thank your worship for your good counsel; [Aside] but I
    shall follow it as the flesh and fortune shall better determine.
    Whip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade;
    The valiant heart's not whipt out of his trade.         Exit
  ESCALUS. Come hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, Master
    Constable. How long have you been in this place of constable?
  ELBOW. Seven year and a half, sir.
  ESCALUS. I thought, by the readiness in the office, you had
    continued in it some time. You say seven years together?
  ELBOW. And a half, sir.
  ESCALUS. Alas, it hath been great pains to you! They do you wrong
    to put you so oft upon't. Are there not men in your ward
    sufficient to serve it?
  ELBOW. Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters; as they are
    chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I do it for some
    piece of money, and go through with all.
  ESCALUS. Look you, bring me in the names of some six or seven, the
    most sufficient of your parish.
  ELBOW. To your worship's house, sir?
  ESCALUS. To my house. Fare you well.              [Exit ELBOW]
    What's o'clock, think you?
  JUSTICE. Eleven, sir.
  ESCALUS. I pray you home to dinner with me.
  JUSTICE. I humbly thank you.
  ESCALUS. It grieves me for the death of Claudio;
    But there's no remedy.
  JUSTICE. Lord Angelo is severe.
  ESCALUS. It is but needful:
    Mercy is not itself that oft looks so;
    Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.
    But yet, poor Claudio! There is no remedy.
    Come, sir.                                            Exeunt

SCENE II. Another room in ANGELO'S house

Enter PROVOST and a SERVANT

  SERVANT. He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight.
    I'll tell him of you.
  PROVOST. Pray you do. [Exit SERVANT] I'll know
    His pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas,
    He hath but as offended in a dream!
    All sects, all ages, smack of this vice; and he
    To die for 't!

                            Enter ANGELO

  ANGELO. Now, what's the matter, Provost?
  PROVOST. Is it your will Claudio shall die to-morrow?
  ANGELO. Did not I tell thee yea? Hadst thou not order?
    Why dost thou ask again?
  PROVOST. Lest I might be too rash;
    Under your good correction, I have seen
    When, after execution, judgment hath
    Repented o'er his doom.
  ANGELO. Go to; let that be mine.
    Do you your office, or give up your place,
    And you shall well be spar'd.
  PROVOST. I crave your honour's pardon.
    What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?
    She's very near her hour.
  ANGELO. Dispose of her
    To some more fitter place, and that with speed.

                           Re-enter SERVANT

  SERVANT. Here is the sister of the man condemn'd
    Desires access to you.
  ANGELO. Hath he a sister?
  PROVOST. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,
    And to be shortly of a sisterhood,
    If not already.
  ANGELO. Well, let her be admitted.                Exit SERVANT
    See you the fornicatress be remov'd;
    Let her have needful but not lavish means;
    There shall be order for't.

                         Enter Lucio and ISABELLA

  PROVOST. [Going] Save your honour!
  ANGELO. Stay a little while. [To ISABELLA] Y'are welcome; what's
    your will?
  ISABELLA. I am a woeful suitor to your honour,
    Please but your honour hear me.
  ANGELO. Well; what's your suit?
  ISABELLA. There is a vice that most I do abhor,
    And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
    For which I would not plead, but that I must;
    For which I must not plead, but that I am
    At war 'twixt will and will not.
  ANGELO. Well; the matter?
  ISABELLA. I have a brother is condemn'd to die;
    I do beseech you, let it be his fault,
    And not my brother.
  PROVOST. [Aside] Heaven give thee moving graces.
  ANGELO. Condemn the fault and not the actor of it!
    Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done;
    Mine were the very cipher of a function,
    To fine the faults whose fine stands in record,
    And let go by the actor.
  ISABELLA. O just but severe law!
    I had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour!
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Give't not o'er so; to him again, entreat him,
    Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown;
    You are too cold: if you should need a pin,
    You could not with more tame a tongue desire it.
    To him, I say.
  ISABELLA. Must he needs die?
  ANGELO. Maiden, no remedy.
  ISABELLA. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him.
    And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.
  ANGELO. I will not do't.
  ISABELLA. But can you, if you would?
  ANGELO. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.
  ISABELLA. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong,
    If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse
    As mine is to him?
  ANGELO. He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] You are too cold.
  ISABELLA. Too late? Why, no; I, that do speak a word,
    May call it back again. Well, believe this:
    No ceremony that to great ones longs,
    Not the king's crown nor the deputed sword,
    The marshal's truncheon nor the judge's robe,
    Become them with one half so good a grace
    As mercy does.
    If he had been as you, and you as he,
    You would have slipp'd like him; but he, like you,
    Would not have been so stern.
  ANGELO. Pray you be gone.
  ISABELLA. I would to heaven I had your potency,
    And you were Isabel! Should it then be thus?
    No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge
    And what a prisoner.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Ay, touch him; there's the vein.
  ANGELO. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
    And you but waste your words.
  ISABELLA. Alas! Alas!
    Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;
    And He that might the vantage best have took
    Found out the remedy. How would you be
    If He, which is the top of judgment, should
    But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
    And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
    Like man new made.
  ANGELO. Be you content, fair maid.
    It is the law, not I condemn your brother.
    Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,
    It should be thus with him. He must die to-morrow.
  ISABELLA. To-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him.
    He's not prepar'd for death. Even for our kitchens
    We kill the fowl of season; shall we serve heaven
    With less respect than we do minister
    To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you.
    Who is it that hath died for this offence?
    There's many have committed it.
  LUCIO. [Aside] Ay, well said.
  ANGELO. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
    Those many had not dar'd to do that evil
    If the first that did th' edict infringe
    Had answer'd for his deed. Now 'tis awake,
    Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet,
    Looks in a glass that shows what future evils-
    Either now or by remissness new conceiv'd,
    And so in progress to be hatch'd and born-
    Are now to have no successive degrees,
    But here they live to end.
  ISABELLA. Yet show some pity.
  ANGELO. I show it most of all when I show justice;
    For then I pity those I do not know,
    Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall,
    And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
    Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;
    Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.
  ISABELLA. So you must be the first that gives this sentence,
    And he that suffers. O, it is excellent
    To have a giant's strength! But it is tyrannous
    To use it like a giant.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] That's well said.
  ISABELLA. Could great men thunder
    As Jove himself does, Jove would never be quiet,
    For every pelting petty officer
    Would use his heaven for thunder,
    Nothing but thunder. Merciful Heaven,
    Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
    Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
    Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,
    Dress'd in a little brief authority,
    Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
    His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
    Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
    As makes the angels weep; who, with our speens,
    Would all themselves laugh mortal.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent;
    He's coming; I perceive 't.
  PROVOST. [Aside] Pray heaven she win him.
  ISABELLA. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.
    Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them;
    But in the less foul profanation.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Thou'rt i' th' right, girl; more o' that.
  ISABELLA. That in the captain's but a choleric word
    Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Art avis'd o' that? More on't.
  ANGELO. Why do you put these sayings upon me?
  ISABELLA. Because authority, though it err like others,
    Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself
    That skins the vice o' th' top. Go to your bosom,
    Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
    That's like my brother's fault. If it confess
    A natural guiltiness such as is his,
    Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
    Against my brother's life.
  ANGELO. [Aside] She speaks, and 'tis
    Such sense that my sense breeds with it.- Fare you well.
  ISABELLA. Gentle my lord, turn back.
  ANGELO. I will bethink me. Come again to-morrow.
  ISABELLA. Hark how I'll bribe you; good my lord, turn back.
  ANGELO. How, bribe me?
  ISABELLA. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA) You had marr'd all else.
  ISABELLA. Not with fond sicles of the tested gold,
    Or stones, whose rate are either rich or poor
    As fancy values them; but with true prayers
    That shall be up at heaven and enter there
    Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,
    From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
    To nothing temporal.
  ANGELO. Well; come to me to-morrow.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Go to; 'tis well; away.
  ISABELLA. Heaven keep your honour safe!
  ANGELO. [Aside] Amen; for I
    Am that way going to temptation
    Where prayers cross.
  ISABELLA. At what hour to-morrow
    Shall I attend your lordship?
  ANGELO. At any time 'fore noon.
  ISABELLA. Save your honour!              Exeunt all but ANGELO
  ANGELO. From thee; even from thy virtue!
    What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?
    The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
    Ha!
    Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I
    That, lying by the violet in the sun,
    Do as the carrion does, not as the flow'r,
    Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
    That modesty may more betray our sense
    Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
    Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,
    And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!
    What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?
    Dost thou desire her foully for those things
    That make her good? O, let her brother live!
    Thieves for their robbery have authority
    When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,
    That I desire to hear her speak again,
    And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?
    O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
    With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
    Is that temptation that doth goad us on
    To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet,
    With all her double vigour, art and nature,
    Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
    Subdues me quite. Ever till now,
    When men were fond, I smil'd and wond'red how.          Exit

SCENE III. A prison

Enter, severally, DUKE, disguised as a FRIAR, and PROVOST

  DUKE. Hail to you, Provost! so I think you are.
  PROVOST. I am the Provost. What's your will, good friar?
  DUKE. Bound by my charity and my blest order,
    I come to visit the afflicted spirits
    Here in the prison. Do me the common right
    To let me see them, and to make me know
    The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
    To them accordingly.
  PROVOST. I would do more than that, if more were needful.

                          Enter JULIET

    Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,
    Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,
    Hath blister'd her report. She is with child;
    And he that got it, sentenc'd- a young man
    More fit to do another such offence
    Than die for this.
  DUKE. When must he die?
  PROVOST. As I do think, to-morrow.
    [To JULIET] I have provided for you; stay awhile
    And you shall be conducted.
  DUKE. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?
  JULIET. I do; and bear the shame most patiently.
  DUKE. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,
    And try your penitence, if it be sound
    Or hollowly put on.
  JULIET. I'll gladly learn.
  DUKE. Love you the man that wrong'd you?
  JULIET. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.
  DUKE. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act
    Was mutually committed.
  JULIET. Mutually.
  DUKE. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
  JULIET. I do confess it, and repent it, father.
  DUKE. 'Tis meet so, daughter; but lest you do repent
    As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,
    Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven,
    Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,
    But as we stand in fear-
  JULIET. I do repent me as it is an evil,
    And take the shame with joy.
  DUKE. There rest.
    Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
    And I am going with instruction to him.
    Grace go with you! Benedicite!                          Exit
  JULIET. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious law,
    That respites me a life whose very comfort
    Is still a dying horror!
  PROVOST. 'Tis pity of him.                              Exeunt

SCENE IV. ANGELO'S house

Enter ANGELO

  ANGELO. When I would pray and think, I think and pray
    To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words,
    Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
    Anchors on Isabel. Heaven in my mouth,
    As if I did but only chew his name,
    And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
    Of my conception. The state whereon I studied
    Is, like a good thing being often read,
    Grown sere and tedious; yea, my gravity,
    Wherein- let no man hear me- I take pride,
    Could I with boot change for an idle plume
    Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,
    How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
    Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
    To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood.
    Let's write 'good angel' on the devil's horn;
    'Tis not the devil's crest.

                           Enter SERVANT

    How now, who's there?
  SERVANT. One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.
  ANGELO. Teach her the way. [Exit SERVANT] O heavens!
    Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
    Making both it unable for itself
    And dispossessing all my other parts
    Of necessary fitness?
    So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
    Come all to help him, and so stop the air
    By which he should revive; and even so
    The general subject to a well-wish'd king
    Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
    Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
    Must needs appear offence.

                            Enter ISABELLA

    How now, fair maid?
  ISABELLA. I am come to know your pleasure.
  ANGELO. That you might know it would much better please me
    Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.
  ISABELLA. Even so! Heaven keep your honour!
  ANGELO. Yet may he live awhile, and, it may be,
    As long as you or I; yet he must die.
  ISABELLA. Under your sentence?
  ANGELO. Yea.
  ISABELLA. When? I beseech you; that in his reprieve,
    Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted
    That his soul sicken not.
  ANGELO. Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good
    To pardon him that hath from nature stol'n
    A man already made, as to remit
    Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image
    In stamps that are forbid; 'tis all as easy
    Falsely to take away a life true made
    As to put metal in restrained means
    To make a false one.
  ISABELLA. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
  ANGELO. Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly.
    Which had you rather- that the most just law
    Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,
    Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
    As she that he hath stain'd?
  ISABELLA. Sir, believe this:
    I had rather give my body than my soul.
  ANGELO. I talk not of your soul; our compell'd sins
    Stand more for number than for accompt.
  ISABELLA. How say you?
  ANGELO. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak
    Against the thing I say. Answer to this:
    I, now the voice of the recorded law,
    Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life;
    Might there not be a charity in sin
    To save this brother's life?
  ISABELLA. Please you to do't,
    I'll take it as a peril to my soul
    It is no sin at all, but charity.
  ANGELO. Pleas'd you to do't at peril of your soul,
    Were equal poise of sin and charity.
  ISABELLA. That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
    Heaven let me bear it! You granting of my suit,
    If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
    To have it added to the faults of mine,
    And nothing of your answer.
  ANGELO. Nay, but hear me;
    Your sense pursues not mine; either you are ignorant
    Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good.
  ISABELLA. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good
    But graciously to know I am no better.
  ANGELO. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
    When it doth tax itself; as these black masks
    Proclaim an enshielded beauty ten times louder
    Than beauty could, display'd. But mark me:
    To be received plain, I'll speak more gross-
    Your brother is to die.
  ISABELLA. So.
  ANGELO. And his offence is so, as it appears,
    Accountant to the law upon that pain.
  ISABELLA. True.
  ANGELO. Admit no other way to save his life,
    As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
    But, in the loss of question, that you, his sister,
    Finding yourself desir'd of such a person
    Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
    Could fetch your brother from the manacles
    Of the all-binding law; and that there were
    No earthly mean to save him but that either
    You must lay down the treasures of your body
    To this supposed, or else to let him suffer-
    What would you do?
  ISABELLA. As much for my poor brother as myself;
    That is, were I under the terms of death,
    Th' impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
    And strip myself to death as to a bed
    That longing have been sick for, ere I'd yield
    My body up to shame.
  ANGELO. Then must your brother die.
  ISABELLA. And 'twere the cheaper way:
    Better it were a brother died at once
    Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
    Should die for ever.
  ANGELO. Were not you, then, as cruel as the sentence
    That you have slander'd so?
  ISABELLA. Ignominy in ransom and free pardon
    Are of two houses: lawful mercy
    Is nothing kin to foul redemption.
  ANGELO. You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;
    And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother
    A merriment than a vice.
  ISABELLA. O, pardon me, my lord! It oft falls out,
    To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:
    I something do excuse the thing I hate
    For his advantage that I dearly love.
  ANGELO. We are all frail.
  ISABELLA. Else let my brother die,
    If not a fedary but only he
    Owe and succeed thy weakness.
  ANGELO. Nay, women are frail too.
  ISABELLA. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,
    Which are as easy broke as they make forms.
    Women, help heaven! Men their creation mar
    In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail;
    For we are soft as our complexions are,
    And credulous to false prints.
  ANGELO. I think it well;
    And from this testimony of your own sex,
    Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger
    Than faults may shake our frames, let me be bold.
    I do arrest your words. Be that you are,
    That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;
    If you be one, as you are well express'd
    By all external warrants, show it now
    By putting on the destin'd livery.
  ISABELLA. I have no tongue but one; gentle, my lord,
    Let me intreat you speak the former language.
  ANGELO. Plainly conceive, I love you.
  ISABELLA. My brother did love Juliet,
    And you tell me that he shall die for't.
  ANGELO. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.
  ISABELLA. I know your virtue hath a license in't,
    Which seems a little fouler than it is,
    To pluck on others.
  ANGELO. Believe me, on mine honour,
    My words express my purpose.
  ISABELLA. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd,
    And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!
    I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for't.
    Sign me a present pardon for my brother
    Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world aloud
    What man thou art.
  ANGELO. Who will believe thee, Isabel?
    My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life,
    My vouch against you, and my place i' th' state,
    Will so your accusation overweigh
    That you shall stifle in your own report,
    And smell of calumny. I have begun,
    And now I give my sensual race the rein:
    Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
    Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes
    That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother
    By yielding up thy body to my will;
    Or else he must not only die the death,
    But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
    To ling'ring sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,
    Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
    I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
    Say what you can: my false o'erweighs your true.        Exit
  ISABELLA. To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
    Who would believe me? O perilous mouths
    That bear in them one and the self-same tongue
    Either of condemnation or approof,
    Bidding the law make curtsy to their will;
    Hooking both right and wrong to th' appetite,
    To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother.
    Though he hath fall'n by prompture of the blood,
    Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour
    That, had he twenty heads to tender down
    On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up
    Before his sister should her body stoop
    To such abhorr'd pollution.
    Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
    More than our brother is our chastity.
    I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,
    And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.         Exit

ACT III. SCENE I. The prison

Enter DUKE, disguised as before, CLAUDIO, and PROVOST

  DUKE. So, then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?
  CLAUDIO. The miserable have no other medicine
    But only hope:
    I have hope to Eve, and am prepar'd to die.
  DUKE. Be absolute for death; either death or life
    Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life.
    If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
    That none but fools would keep. A breath thou art,
    Servile to all the skyey influences,
    That dost this habitation where thou keep'st
    Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art Death's fool;
    For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun
    And yet run'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;
    For all th' accommodations that thou bear'st
    Are nurs'd by baseness. Thou 'rt by no means valiant;
    For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
    Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
    And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
    Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
    For thou exists on many a thousand grains
    That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
    For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get,
    And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;
    For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
    After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
    For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
    Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
    And Death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;
    For thine own bowels which do call thee sire,
    The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
    Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
    For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,
    But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
    Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
    Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
    Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
    Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
    To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
    That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
    Lie hid moe thousand deaths; yet death we fear,
    That makes these odds all even.
  CLAUDIO. I humbly thank you.
    To sue to live, I find I seek to die;
    And, seeking death, find life. Let it come on.
  ISABELLA. [Within] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company!
  PROVOST. Who's there? Come in; the wish deserves a welcome.
  DUKE. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.
  CLAUDIO. Most holy sir, I thank you.

                        Enter ISABELLA

  ISABELLA. My business is a word or two with Claudio.
  PROVOST. And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.
  DUKE. Provost, a word with you.
  PROVOST. As many as you please.
  DUKE. Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be conceal'd.
                                         Exeunt DUKE and PROVOST
  CLAUDIO. Now, sister, what's the comfort?
  ISABELLA. Why,
    As all comforts are; most good, most good, indeed.
    Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,
    Intends you for his swift ambassador,
    Where you shall be an everlasting leiger.
    Therefore, your best appointment make with speed;
    To-morrow you set on.
  CLAUDIO. Is there no remedy?
  ISABELLA. None, but such remedy as, to save a head,
    To cleave a heart in twain.
  CLAUDIO. But is there any?
  ISABELLA. Yes, brother, you may live:
    There is a devilish mercy in the judge,
    If you'll implore it, that will free your life,
    But fetter you till death.
  CLAUDIO. Perpetual durance?
  ISABELLA. Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,
    Though all the world's vastidity you had,
    To a determin'd scope.
  CLAUDIO. But in what nature?
  ISABELLA. In such a one as, you consenting to't,
    Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,
    And leave you naked.
  CLAUDIO. Let me know the point.
  ISABELLA. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,
    Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,
    And six or seven winters more respect
    Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?
    The sense of death is most in apprehension;
    And the poor beetle that we tread upon
    In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
    As when a giant dies.
  CLAUDIO. Why give you me this shame?
    Think you I can a resolution fetch
    From flow'ry tenderness? If I must die,
    I will encounter darkness as a bride
    And hug it in mine arms.
  ISABELLA. There spake my brother; there my father's grave
    Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:
    Thou art too noble to conserve a life
    In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,
    Whose settled visage and deliberate word
    Nips youth i' th' head, and follies doth enew
    As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil;
    His filth within being cast, he would appear
    A pond as deep as hell.
  CLAUDIO. The precise Angelo!
  ISABELLA. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell
    The damned'st body to invest and cover
    In precise guards! Dost thou think, Claudio,
    If I would yield him my virginity
    Thou mightst be freed?
  CLAUDIO. O heavens! it cannot be.
  ISABELLA. Yes, he would give't thee, from this rank offence,
    So to offend him still. This night's the time
    That I should do what I abhor to name,
    Or else thou diest to-morrow.
  CLAUDIO. Thou shalt not do't.
  ISABELLA. O, were it but my life!
    I'd throw it down for your deliverance
    As frankly as a pin.
  CLAUDIO. Thanks, dear Isabel.
  ISABELLA. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow.
  CLAUDIO. Yes. Has he affections in him
    That thus can make him bite the law by th' nose
    When he would force it? Sure it is no sin;
    Or of the deadly seven it is the least.
  ISABELLA. Which is the least?
  CLAUDIO. If it were damnable, he being so wise,
    Why would he for the momentary trick
    Be perdurably fin'd?- O Isabel!
  ISABELLA. What says my brother?
  CLAUDIO. Death is a fearful thing.
  ISABELLA. And shamed life a hateful.
  CLAUDIO. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
    To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
    This sensible warm motion to become
    A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
    To bathe in fiery floods or to reside
    In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
    To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
    And blown with restless violence round about
    The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
    Of those that lawless and incertain thought
    Imagine howling- 'tis too horrible.
    The weariest and most loathed worldly life
    That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment,
    Can lay on nature is a paradise
    To what we fear of death.
  ISABELLA. Alas, alas!
  CLAUDIO. Sweet sister, let me live.
    What sin you do to save a brother's life,
    Nature dispenses with the deed so far
    That it becomes a virtue.
  ISABELLA. O you beast!
    O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!
    Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?
    Is't not a kind of incest to take life
    From thine own sister's shame? What should I think?
    Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!
    For such a warped slip of wilderness
    Ne'er issu'd from his blood. Take my defiance;
    Die; perish. Might but my bending down
    Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.
    I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
    No word to save thee.
  CLAUDIO. Nay, hear me, Isabel.
  ISABELLA. O fie, fie, fie!
    Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade.
    Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd;
    'Tis best that thou diest quickly.
  CLAUDIO. O, hear me, Isabella.

                            Re-enter DUKE

  DUKE. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.
  ISABELLA. What is your will?
  DUKE. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have
    some speech with you; the satisfaction I would require is
    likewise your own benefit.
  ISABELLA. I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out
    of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.
                                                   [Walks apart]
  DUKE. Son, I have overheard what hath pass'd between you and your
    sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath
    made an assay of her virtue to practise his judgment with the
    disposition of natures. She, having the truth of honour in her,
    hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to
    receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true;
    therefore prepare yourself to death. Do not satisfy your
    resolution with hopes that are fallible; to-morrow you must die;
    go to your knees and make ready.
  CLAUDIO. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life
    that I will sue to be rid of it.
  DUKE. Hold you there. Farewell. [Exit CLAUDIO] Provost, a word with
    you.

                          Re-enter PROVOST

  PROVOST. What's your will, father?
  DUKE. That, now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a while
    with the maid; my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch
    her by my company.
  PROVOST. In good time.                            Exit PROVOST
  DUKE. The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good; the
    goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness;
    but grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body
    of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you,
    fortune hath convey'd to my understanding; and, but that frailty
    hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How
    will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?
  ISABELLA. I am now going to resolve him; I had rather my brother
    die by the law than my son should be unlawfully born. But, O, how
    much is the good Duke deceiv'd in Angelo! If ever he return, and
    I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his
    government.
  DUKE. That shall not be much amiss; yet, as the matter now stands,
    he will avoid your accusation: he made trial of you only.
    Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings; to the love I have in
    doing good a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe
    that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited
    benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to
    your own gracious person; and much please the absent Duke, if
    peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of this
    business.
  ISABELLA. Let me hear you speak farther; I have spirit to do
    anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.
  DUKE. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not
    heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great
    soldier who miscarried at sea?
  ISABELLA. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her
    name.
  DUKE. She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by
    oath, and the nuptial appointed; between which time of the
    contract and limit of the solemnity her brother Frederick was
    wreck'd at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his
    sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman:
    there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward
    her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of
    her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate
    husband, this well-seeming Angelo.
  ISABELLA. Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?
  DUKE. Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his
    comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries
    of dishonour; in few, bestow'd her on her own lamentation, which
    she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is
    washed with them, but relents not.
  ISABELLA. What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from
    the world! What corruption in this life that it will let this man
    live! But how out of this can she avail?
  DUKE. It is a rupture that you may easily heal; and the cure of it
    not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in
    doing it.
  ISABELLA. Show me how, good father.
  DUKE. This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her
    first affection; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should
    have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current,
    made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his
    requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to
    the point; only refer yourself to this advantage: first, that
    your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all
    shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience.
    This being granted in course- and now follows all: we shall
    advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your
    place. If the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may
    compel him to her recompense; and here, by this, is your brother
    saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and
    the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame and make fit for
    his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the
    doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What
    think you of it?
  ISABELLA. The image of it gives me content already; and I trust it
    will grow to a most prosperous perfection.
  DUKE. It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to
    Angelo; if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him
    promise of satisfaction. I will presently to Saint Luke's; there,
    at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that
    place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that it may be
    quickly.
  ISABELLA. I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.
                                                Exeunt severally

Scene II. The street before the prison

Enter, on one side, DUKE disguised as before; on the other, ELBOW, and
OFFICERS with POMPEY

  ELBOW. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs
    buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the
    world drink brown and white bastard.
  DUKE. O heavens! what stuff is here?
  POMPEY. 'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest
    was put down, and the worser allow'd by order of law a furr'd
    gown to keep him warm; and furr'd with fox on lamb-skins too, to
    signify that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the
    facing.
  ELBOW. Come your way, sir. Bless you, good father friar.
  DUKE. And you, good brother father. What offence hath this man made
    you, sir?
  ELBOW. Marry, sir, he hath offended the law; and, sir, we take him
    to be a thief too, sir, for we have found upon him, sir, a
    strange picklock, which we have sent to the deputy.
  DUKE. Fie, sirrah, a bawd, a wicked bawd!
    The evil that thou causest to be done,
    That is thy means to live. Do thou but think
    What 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back
    From such a filthy vice; say to thyself
    'From their abominable and beastly touches
    I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.'
    Canst thou believe thy living is a life,
    So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.
  POMPEY. Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir,
    I would prove-
  DUKE. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,
    Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer;
    Correction and instruction must both work
    Ere this rude beast will profit.
  ELBOW. He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning.
    The deputy cannot abide a whoremaster; if he be a whoremonger,
    and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.
  DUKE. That we were all, as some would seem to be,
    From our faults, as his faults from seeming, free.
  ELBOW. His neck will come to your waist- a cord, sir.

                          Enter LUCIO

  POMPEY. I spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman, and a friend
    of mine.
  LUCIO. How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Caesar? Art
    thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images,
    newly made woman, to be had now for putting the hand in the
    pocket and extracting it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What say'st
    thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is't not drown'd i' th'
    last rain, ha? What say'st thou, trot? Is the world as it was,
    man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The
    trick of it?
  DUKE. Still thus, and thus; still worse!
  LUCIO. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still,
    ha?
  POMPEY. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is
    herself in the tub.
  LUCIO. Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be so; ever
    your fresh whore and your powder'd bawd- an unshunn'd
    consequence; it must be so. Art going to prison, Pompey?
  POMPEY. Yes, faith, sir.
  LUCIO. Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell; go, say I sent thee
    thither. For debt, Pompey- or how?
  ELBOW. For being a bawd, for being a bawd.
  LUCIO. Well, then, imprison him. If imprisonment be the due of a
    bawd, why, 'tis his right. Bawd is he doubtless, and of
    antiquity, too; bawd-born. Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to
    the prison, Pompey. You will turn good husband now, Pompey; you
    will keep the house.
  POMPEY. I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.
  LUCIO. No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will
    pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage. If you take it not
    patiently, why, your mettle is the more. Adieu trusty Pompey.
    Bless you, friar.
  DUKE. And you.
  LUCIO. Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?
  ELBOW. Come your ways, sir; come.
  POMPEY. You will not bail me then, sir?
  LUCIO. Then, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar? what news?
  ELBOW. Come your ways, sir; come.
  LUCIO. Go to kennel, Pompey, go.

                               Exeunt ELBOW, POMPEY and OFFICERS

    What news, friar, of the Duke?
  DUKE. I know none. Can you tell me of any?
  LUCIO. Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is
    in Rome; but where is he, think you?
  DUKE. I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.
  LUCIO. It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the
    state and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo
    dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to't.
  DUKE. He does well in't.
  LUCIO. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him;
    something too crabbed that way, friar.
  DUKE. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.
  LUCIO. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is
    well allied; but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till
    eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not
    made by man and woman after this downright way of creation. Is it
    true, think you?
  DUKE. How should he be made, then?
  LUCIO. Some report a sea-maid spawn'd him; some, that he was begot
    between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes
    water his urine is congeal'd ice; that I know to be true. And he
    is a motion generative; that's infallible.
  DUKE. You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.
  LUCIO. Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion
    of a codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the Duke that
    is absent have done this? Ere he would have hang'd a man for the
    getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a
    thousand. He had some feeling of the sport; he knew the service,
    and that instructed him to mercy.
  DUKE. I never heard the absent Duke much detected for women; he was
    not inclin'd that way.
  LUCIO. O, sir, you are deceiv'd.
  DUKE. 'Tis not possible.
  LUCIO. Who- not the Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use
    was to put a ducat in her clack-dish. The Duke had crotchets in
    him. He would be drunk too; that let me inform you.
  DUKE. You do him wrong, surely.
  LUCIO. Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the Duke; and
    I believe I know the cause of his withdrawing.
  DUKE. What, I prithee, might be the cause?
  LUCIO. No, pardon; 'tis a secret must be lock'd within the teeth
    and the lips; but this I can let you understand: the greater file
    of the subject held the Duke to be wise.
  DUKE. Wise? Why, no question but he was.
  LUCIO. A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.
  DUKE. Either this is envy in you, folly, or mistaking; the very
    stream of his life, and the business he hath helmed, must, upon a
    warranted need, give him a better proclamation. Let him be but
    testimonied in his own bringings-forth, and he shall appear to
    the envious a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier. Therefore you
    speak unskilfully; or, if your knowledge be more, it is much
    dark'ned in your malice.
  LUCIO. Sir, I know him, and I love him.
  DUKE. Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer
    love.
  LUCIO. Come, sir, I know what I know.
  DUKE. I can hardly believe that, since you know not what you speak.
    But, if ever the Duke return, as our prayers are he may, let me
    desire you to make your answer before him. If it be honest you
    have spoke, you have courage to maintain it; I am bound to call
    upon you; and I pray you your name?
  LUCIO. Sir, my name is Lucio, well known to the Duke.
  DUKE. He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.
  LUCIO. I fear you not.
  DUKE. O, you hope the Duke will return no more; or you imagine me
    too unhurtful an opposite. But, indeed, I can do you little harm:
    you'll forswear this again.
  LUCIO. I'll be hang'd first. Thou art deceiv'd in me, friar. But no
    more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio die to-morrow or no?
  DUKE. Why should he die, sir?
  LUCIO. Why? For filling a bottle with a tun-dish. I would the Duke
    we talk of were return'd again. This ungenitur'd agent will
    unpeople the province with continency; sparrows must not build in
    his house-eaves because they are lecherous. The Duke yet would
    have dark deeds darkly answered; he would never bring them to
    light. Would he were return'd! Marry, this Claudio is condemned
    for untrussing. Farewell, good friar; I prithee pray for me. The
    Duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He's not
    past it yet; and, I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar
    though she smelt brown bread and garlic. Say that I said so.
    Farewell.                                               Exit
  DUKE. No might nor greatness in mortality
    Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny
    The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
    Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
    But who comes here?

             Enter ESCALUS, PROVOST, and OFFICERS with
                           MISTRESS OVERDONE

  ESCALUS. Go, away with her to prison.
  MRS. OVERDONE. Good my lord, be good to me; your honour is
    accounted a merciful man; good my lord.
  ESCALUS. Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in the
    same kind! This would make mercy swear and play the tyrant.
  PROVOST. A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please your
    honour.
  MRS. OVERDONE. My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me.
    Mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the Duke's time;
    he promis'd her marriage. His child is a year and a quarter old
    come Philip and Jacob; I have kept it myself; and see how he goes
    about to abuse me.
  ESCALUS. That fellow is a fellow of much license. Let him be call'd
    before us. Away with her to prison. Go to; no more words. [Exeunt
    OFFICERS with MISTRESS OVERDONE]  Provost, my brother Angelo will
    not be alter'd: Claudio must die to-morrow. Let him be furnish'd
    with divines, and have all charitable preparation. If my brother
    wrought by my pity, it should not be so with him.
  PROVOST. So please you, this friar hath been with him, and advis'd
    him for th' entertainment of death.
  ESCALUS. Good even, good father.
  DUKE. Bliss and goodness on you!
  ESCALUS. Of whence are you?
  DUKE. Not of this country, though my chance is now
    To use it for my time. I am a brother
    Of gracious order, late come from the See
    In special business from his Holiness.
  ESCALUS. What news abroad i' th' world?
  DUKE. None, but that there is so great a fever on goodness that the
    dissolution of it must cure it. Novelty is only in request; and,
    as it is, as dangerous to be aged in any kind of course as it is
    virtuous to be constant in any undertakeing. There is scarce
    truth enough alive to make societies secure; but security enough
    to make fellowships accurst. Much upon this riddle runs the
    wisdom of the world. This news is old enough, yet it is every
    day's news. I pray you, sir, of what disposition was the Duke?
  ESCALUS. One that, above all other strifes, contended especially to
    know himself.
  DUKE. What pleasure was he given to?
  ESCALUS. Rather rejoicing to see another merry than merry at
    anything which profess'd to make him rejoice; a gentleman of all
    temperance. But leave we him to his events, with a prayer they
    may prove prosperous; and let me desire to know how you find
    Claudio prepar'd. I am made to understand that you have lent him
    visitation.
  DUKE. He professes to have received no sinister measure from his
    judge, but most willingly humbles himself to the determination of
    justice. Yet had he framed to himself, by the instruction of his
    frailty, many deceiving promises of life; which I, by my good
    leisure, have discredited to him, and now he is resolv'd to die.
  ESCALUS. You have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner
    the very debt of your calling. I have labour'd for the poor
    gentleman to the extremest shore of my modesty; but my brother
    justice have I found so severe that he hath forc'd me to tell him
    he is indeed Justice.
  DUKE. If his own life answer the straitness of his proceeding, it
    shall become him well; wherein if he chance to fail, he hath
    sentenc'd himself.
  ESCALUS. I am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.
  DUKE. Peace be with you!            Exeunt ESCALUS and PROVOST

         He who the sword of heaven will bear
         Should be as holy as severe;
         Pattern in himself to know,
         Grace to stand, and virtue go;
         More nor less to others paying
         Than by self-offences weighing.
         Shame to him whose cruel striking
         Kills for faults of his own liking!
         Twice treble shame on Angelo,
         To weed my vice and let his grow!
         O, what may man within him hide,
         Though angel on the outward side!
         How may likeness, made in crimes,
         Make a practice on the times,
         To draw with idle spiders' strings
         Most ponderous and substantial things!
         Craft against vice I must apply.
         With Angelo to-night shall lie
         His old betrothed but despised;
         So disguise shall, by th' disguised,
         Pay with falsehood false exacting,
         And perform an old contracting.                    Exit

ACT IV. Scene I. The moated grange at Saint Duke's

Enter MARIANA; and BOY singing

                             SONG

           Take, O, take those lips away,
             That so sweetly were forsworn;
           And those eyes, the break of day,
             Lights that do mislead the morn;
           But my kisses bring again, bring again;
           Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain.

                  Enter DUKE, disguised as before

  MARIANA. Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away;
    Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice
    Hath often still'd my brawling discontent.          Exit BOY
    I cry you mercy, sir, and well could wish
    You had not found me here so musical.
    Let me excuse me, and believe me so,
    My mirth it much displeas'd, but pleas'd my woe.
  DUKE. 'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm
    To make bad good and good provoke to harm.
    I pray you tell me hath anybody inquir'd for me here to-day. Much
    upon this time have I promis'd here to meet.
  MARIANA. You have not been inquir'd after; I have sat here all day.

                         Enter ISABELLA

  DUKE. I do constantly believe you. The time is come even now. I
    shall crave your forbearance a little. May be I will call upon
    you anon, for some advantage to yourself.
  MARIANA. I am always bound to you.                        Exit
  DUKE. Very well met, and well come.
    What is the news from this good deputy?
  ISABELLA. He hath a garden circummur'd with brick,
    Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd;
    And to that vineyard is a planched gate
    That makes his opening with this bigger key;
    This other doth command a little door
    Which from the vineyard to the garden leads.
    There have I made my promise
    Upon the heavy middle of the night
    To call upon him.
  DUKE. But shall you on your knowledge find this way?
  ISABELLA. I have ta'en a due and wary note upon't;
    With whispering and most guilty diligence,
    In action all of precept, he did show me
    The way twice o'er.
  DUKE. Are there no other tokens
    Between you 'greed concerning her observance?
  ISABELLA. No, none, but only a repair i' th' dark;
    And that I have possess'd him my most stay
    Can be but brief; for I have made him know
    I have a servant comes with me along,
    That stays upon me; whose persuasion is
    I come about my brother.
  DUKE. 'Tis well borne up.
    I have not yet made known to Mariana
    A word of this. What ho, within! come forth.

                       Re-enter MARIANA

    I pray you be acquainted with this maid;
    She comes to do you good.
  ISABELLA. I do desire the like.
  DUKE. Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?
  MARIANA. Good friar, I know you do, and have found it.
  DUKE. Take, then, this your companion by the hand,
    Who hath a story ready for your ear.
    I shall attend your leisure; but make haste;
    The vaporous night approaches.
  MARIANA. Will't please you walk aside?
                                     Exeunt MARIANA and ISABELLA
  DUKE. O place and greatness! Millions of false eyes
    Are stuck upon thee. Volumes of report
    Run with these false, and most contrarious quest
    Upon thy doings. Thousand escapes of wit
    Make thee the father of their idle dream,
    And rack thee in their fancies.

                 Re-enter MARIANA and ISABELLA

    Welcome, how agreed?
  ISABELLA. She'll take the enterprise upon her, father,
    If you advise it.
  DUKE. It is not my consent,
    But my entreaty too.
  ISABELLA. Little have you to say,
    When you depart from him, but, soft and low,
    'Remember now my brother.'
  MARIANA. Fear me not.
  DUKE. Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.
    He is your husband on a pre-contract.
    To bring you thus together 'tis no sin,
    Sith that the justice of your title to him
    Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go;
    Our corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.       Exeunt

SCENE II. The prison

Enter PROVOST and POMPEY

  PROVOST. Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?
  POMPEY. If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a
    married man, he's his wife's head, and I can never cut of a
    woman's head.
  PROVOST. Come, sir, leave me your snatches and yield me a direct
    answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine. Here
    is in our prison a common executioner, who in his office lacks a
    helper; if you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem
    you from your gyves; if not, you shall have your full time of
    imprisonment, and your deliverance with an unpitied whipping, for
    you have been a notorious bawd.
  POMPEY. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind; but yet
    I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to
    receive some instructions from my fellow partner.
  PROVOST. What ho, Abhorson! Where's Abhorson there?

                          Enter ABHORSON

  ABHORSON. Do you call, sir?
  PROVOST. Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in your
    execution. If you think it meet, compound with him by the year,
    and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present,
    and dismiss him. He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath
    been a bawd.
  ABHORSON. A bawd, sir? Fie upon him! He will discredit our mystery.
  PROVOST. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the
    scale.                                                  Exit
  POMPEY. Pray, sir, by your good favour- for surely, sir, a good
    favour you have but that you have a hanging look- do you call,
    sir, your occupation a mystery?
  ABHORSON. Ay, sir; a mystery.
  POMPEY. Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your
    whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do
    prove my occupation a mystery; but what mystery there should be
    in hanging, if I should be hang'd, I cannot imagine.
  ABHORSON. Sir, it is a mystery.
  POMPEY. Proof?
  ABHORSON. Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be too
    little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it
    be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough; so
    every true man's apparel fits your thief.

                          Re-enter PROVOST

  PROVOST. Are you agreed?
  POMPEY. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more
    penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness.
  PROVOST. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe to-morrow
    four o'clock.
  ABHORSON. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.
  POMPEY. I do desire to learn, sir; and I hope, if you have occasion
    to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare; for truly,
    sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn.
  PROVOST. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio.
                                      Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY
    Th' one has my pity; not a jot the other,
    Being a murderer, though he were my brother.

                           Enter CLAUDIO

    Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death;
    'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow
    Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?
  CLAUDIO. As fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour
    When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones.
    He will not wake.
  PROVOST. Who can do good on him?
    Well, go, prepare yourself. [Knocking within] But hark, what
      noise?
    Heaven give your spirits comfort!               Exit CLAUDIO
    [Knocking continues] By and by.
    I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
    For the most gentle Claudio.

                 Enter DUKE, disguised as before

    Welcome, father.
  DUKE. The best and wholesom'st spirits of the night
    Envelop you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?
  PROVOST. None, since the curfew rung.
  DUKE. Not Isabel?
  PROVOST. No.
  DUKE. They will then, ere't be long.
  PROVOST. What comfort is for Claudio?
  DUKE. There's some in hope.
  PROVOST. It is a bitter deputy.
  DUKE. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd
    Even with the stroke and line of his great justice;
    He doth with holy abstinence subdue
    That in himself which he spurs on his pow'r
    To qualify in others. Were he meal'd with that
    Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
    But this being so, he's just. [Knocking within] Now are they
      come.                                         Exit PROVOST
    This is a gentle provost; seldom when
    The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. [Knocking within]
    How now, what noise! That spirit's possess'd with haste
    That wounds th' unsisting postern with these strokes.

                        Re-enter PROVOST

  PROVOST. There he must stay until the officer
    Arise to let him in; he is call'd up.
  DUKE. Have you no countermand for Claudio yet
    But he must die to-morrow?
  PROVOST. None, sir, none.
  DUKE. As near the dawning, Provost, as it is,
    You shall hear more ere morning.
  PROVOST. Happily
    You something know; yet I believe there comes
    No countermand; no such example have we.
    Besides, upon the very siege of justice,
    Lord Angelo hath to the public ear
    Profess'd the contrary.

                         Enter a MESSENGER
    This is his lordship's man.
  DUKE. And here comes Claudio's pardon.
  MESSENGER. My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this further
    charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it,
    neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow; for
    as I take it, it is almost day.
  PROVOST. I shall obey him.                      Exit MESSENGER
  DUKE. [Aside] This is his pardon, purchas'd by such sin
    For which the pardoner himself is in;
    Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
    When it is borne in high authority.
    When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended
    That for the fault's love is th' offender friended.
    Now, sir, what news?
  PROVOST. I told you: Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine
    office, awakens me with this unwonted putting-on; methinks
    strangely, for he hath not us'd it before.
  DUKE. Pray you, let's hear.
  PROVOST. [Reads] 'Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let
    Claudio be executed by four of the clock, and, in the afternoon,
    Barnardine. For my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio's
    head sent me by five. Let this be duly performed, with a thought
    that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not
    to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.'
    What say you to this, sir?
  DUKE. What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in th'
    afternoon?
  PROVOST. A Bohemian born; but here nurs'd up and bred.
    One that is a prisoner nine years old.
  DUKE. How came it that the absent Duke had not either deliver'd him
    to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his
    manner to do so.
  PROVOST. His friends still wrought reprieves for him; and, indeed,
    his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to
    an undoubted proof.
  DUKE. It is now apparent?
  PROVOST. Most manifest, and not denied by himself.
  DUKE. Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to
    be touch'd?
  PROVOST. A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a
    drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless, of what's past,
    present, or to come; insensible of mortality and desperately
    mortal.
  DUKE. He wants advice.
  PROVOST. He will hear none. He hath evermore had the liberty of the
    prison; give him leave to escape hence, he would not; drunk many
    times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very oft
    awak'd him, as if to carry him to execution, and show'd him a
    seeming warrant for it; it hath not moved him at all.
  DUKE. More of him anon. There is written in your brow, Provost,
    honesty and constancy. If I read it not truly, my ancient skill
    beguiles me; but in the boldness of my cunning I will lay myself
    in hazard. Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is no
    greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenc'd him. To
    make you understand this in a manifested effect, I crave but four
    days' respite; for the which you are to do me both a present and
    a dangerous courtesy.
  PROVOST. Pray, sir, in what?
  DUKE. In the delaying death.
  PROVOST. Alack! How may I do it, having the hour limited, and an
    express command, under penalty, to deliver his head in the view
    of Angelo? I may make my case as Claudio's, to cross this in the
    smallest.
  DUKE. By the vow of mine order, I warrant you, if my instructions
    may be your guide. Let this Barnardine be this morning executed,
    and his head borne to Angelo.
  PROVOST. Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.
  DUKE. O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it. Shave
    the head and tie the beard; and say it was the desire of the
    penitent to be so bar'd before his death. You know the course is
    common. If anything fall to you upon this more than thanks and
    good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead against
    it with my life.
  PROVOST. Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.
  DUKE. Were you sworn to the Duke, or to the deputy?
  PROVOST. To him and to his substitutes.
  DUKE. You will think you have made no offence if the Duke avouch
    the justice of your dealing?
  PROVOST. But what likelihood is in that?
  DUKE. Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see you
    fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor persuasion, can
    with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck
    all fears out of you. Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of
    the Duke. You know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is
    not strange to you.
  PROVOST. I know them both.
  DUKE. The contents of this is the return of the Duke; you shall
    anon over-read it at your pleasure, where you shall find within
    these two days he will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows
    not; for he this very day receives letters of strange tenour,
    perchance of the Duke's death, perchance entering into some
    monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ. Look, th'
    unfolding star calls up the shepherd. Put not yourself into
    amazement how these things should be: all difficulties are but
    easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with
    Barnardine's head. I will give him a present shrift, and advise
    him for a better place. Yet you are amaz'd, but this shall
    absolutely resolve you. Come away; it is almost clear dawn.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE III. The prison

Enter POMPEY

  POMPEY. I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of
  profession; one would think it were Mistress Overdone's own house,
  for here be many of her old customers. First, here's young Master
  Rash; he's in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger, nine
  score and seventeen pounds, of which he made five marks ready money.
  Marry, then ginger was not much in request, for the old women were
  all dead. Then is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of Master
  Threepile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-colour'd satin,
  which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and
  young Master Deepvow, and Master Copperspur, and Master Starvelackey,
  the rapier and dagger man, and young Dropheir that kill'd lusty
  Pudding, and Master Forthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shootie
  the great traveller, and wild Halfcan that stabb'd Pots, and, I
  think, forty more- all great doers in our trade, and are now 'for the
  Lord's sake.'

                            Enter ABHORSON

  ABHORSON. Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.
  POMPEY. Master Barnardine! You must rise and be hang'd, Master
    Barnardine!
  ABHORSON. What ho, Barnardine!
  BARNARDINE. [Within] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise
    there? What are you?
  POMPEY. Your friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so good, sir,
    to rise and be put to death.
  BARNARDINE. [ Within ] Away, you rogue, away; I am sleepy.
  ABHORSON. Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too.
  POMPEY. Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and
    sleep afterwards.
  ABHORSON. Go in to him, and fetch him out.
  POMPEY. He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.

                             Enter BARNARDINE

  ABHORSON. Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?
  POMPEY. Very ready, sir.
  BARNARDINE. How now, Abhorson, what's the news with you?
  ABHORSON. Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers;
    for, look you, the warrant's come.
  BARNARDINE. You rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not
    fitted for't.
  POMPEY. O, the better, sir! For he that drinks all night and is
    hanged betimes in the morning may sleep the sounder all the next
    day.

                  Enter DUKE, disguised as before

  ABHORSON. Look you, sir, here comes your ghostly father.
    Do we jest now, think you?
  DUKE. Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are
    to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with
    you.
  BARNARDINE. Friar, not I; I have been drinking hard all night, and
    I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my
    brains with billets. I will not consent to die this day, that's
    certain.
  DUKE. O, Sir, you must; and therefore I beseech you
    Look forward on the journey you shall go.
  BARNARDINE. I swear I will not die to-day for any man's persuasion.
  DUKE. But hear you-
  BARNARDINE. Not a word; if you have anything to say to me, come to
    my ward; for thence will not I to-day.                  Exit
  DUKE. Unfit to live or die. O gravel heart!
    After him, fellows; bring him to the block.
                                      Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY

                            Enter PROVOST

  PROVOST. Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?
  DUKE. A creature unprepar'd, unmeet for death;
    And to transport him in the mind he is
    Were damnable.
  PROVOST. Here in the prison, father,
    There died this morning of a cruel fever
    One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,
    A man of Claudio's years; his beard and head
    Just of his colour. What if we do omit
    This reprobate till he were well inclin'd,
    And satisfy the deputy with the visage
    Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?
  DUKE. O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!
    Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on
    Prefix'd by Angelo. See this be done,
    And sent according to command; whiles I
    Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.
  PROVOST. This shall be done, good father, presently.
    But Barnardine must die this afternoon;
    And how shall we continue Claudio,
    To save me from the danger that might come
    If he were known alive?
  DUKE. Let this be done:
    Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio.
    Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
    To the under generation, you shall find
    Your safety manifested.
  PROVOST. I am your free dependant.
  DUKE. Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.
                                                    Exit PROVOST
    Now will I write letters to Angelo-
    The Provost, he shall bear them- whose contents
    Shall witness to him I am near at home,
    And that, by great injunctions, I am bound
    To enter publicly. Him I'll desire
    To meet me at the consecrated fount,
    A league below the city; and from thence,
    By cold gradation and well-balanc'd form.
    We shall proceed with Angelo.

                         Re-enter PROVOST

  PROVOST. Here is the head; I'll carry it myself.
  DUKE. Convenient is it. Make a swift return;
    For I would commune with you of such things
    That want no ear but yours.
  PROVOST. I'll make all speed.                             Exit
  ISABELLA. [ Within ] Peace, ho, be here!
  DUKE. The tongue of Isabel. She's come to know
    If yet her brother's pardon be come hither;
    But I will keep her ignorant of her good,
    To make her heavenly comforts of despair
    When it is least expected.

                           Enter ISABELLA

  ISABELLA. Ho, by your leave!
  DUKE. Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.
  ISABELLA. The better, given me by so holy a man.
    Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon?
  DUKE. He hath releas'd him, Isabel, from the world.
    His head is off and sent to Angelo.
  ISABELLA. Nay, but it is not so.
  DUKE. It is no other.
    Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close patience,
  ISABELLA. O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!
  DUKE. You shall not be admitted to his sight.
  ISABELLA. Unhappy Claudio! Wretched Isabel!
    Injurious world! Most damned Angelo!
  DUKE. This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot;
    Forbear it, therefore; give your cause to heaven.
    Mark what I say, which you shall find
    By every syllable a faithful verity.
    The Duke comes home to-morrow. Nay, dry your eyes.
    One of our covent, and his confessor,
    Gives me this instance. Already he hath carried
    Notice to Escalus and Angelo,
    Who do prepare to meet him at the gates,
    There to give up their pow'r. If you can, pace your wisdom
    In that good path that I would wish it go,
    And you shall have your bosom on this wretch,
    Grace of the Duke, revenges to your heart,
    And general honour.
  ISABELLA. I am directed by you.
  DUKE. This letter, then, to Friar Peter give;
    'Tis that he sent me of the Duke's return.
    Say, by this token, I desire his company
    At Mariana's house to-night. Her cause and yours
    I'll perfect him withal; and he shall bring you
    Before the Duke; and to the head of Angelo
    Accuse him home and home. For my poor self,
    I am combined by a sacred vow,
    And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter.
    Command these fretting waters from your eyes
    With a light heart; trust not my holy order,
    If I pervert your course. Who's here?

                           Enter LUCIO

  LUCIO. Good even. Friar, where's the Provost?
  DUKE. Not within, sir.
  LUCIO. O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see thine eyes
    so red. Thou must be patient. I am fain to dine and sup with
    water and bran; I dare not for my head fill my belly; one
    fruitful meal would set me to't. But they say the Duke will be
    here to-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I lov'd thy brother. If the
    old fantastical Duke of dark corners had been at home, he had
    lived.                                         Exit ISABELLA
  DUKE. Sir, the Duke is marvellous little beholding to your reports;
    but the best is, he lives not in them.
  LUCIO. Friar, thou knowest not the Duke so well as I do; he's a
    better woodman than thou tak'st him for.
  DUKE. Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well.
  LUCIO. Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee; I can tell thee pretty
    tales of the Duke.
  DUKE. You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be
    true; if not true, none were enough.
  LUCIO. I was once before him for getting a wench with child.
  DUKE. Did you such a thing?
  LUCIO. Yes, marry, did I; but I was fain to forswear it: they would
    else have married me to the rotten medlar.
  DUKE. Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.
  LUCIO. By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end. If bawdy
    talk offend you, we'll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am a
    kind of burr; I shall stick.                          Exeunt

SCENE IV. ANGELO'S house

Enter ANGELO and ESCALUS

  ESCALUS. Every letter he hath writ hath disvouch'd other.
  ANGELO. In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much
    like to madness; pray heaven his wisdom be not tainted! And why
    meet him at the gates, and redeliver our authorities there?
  ESCALUS. I guess not.
  ANGELO. And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his
    ent'ring that, if any crave redress of injustice, they should
    exhibit their petitions in the street?
  ESCALUS. He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of
     complaints; and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which
    shall then have no power to stand against us.
  ANGELO. Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim'd;
    Betimes i' th' morn I'll call you at your house;
    Give notice to such men of sort and suit
    As are to meet him.
  ESCALUS. I shall, sir; fare you well.
  ANGELO. Good night.                               Exit ESCALUS
    This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
    And dull to all proceedings. A deflow'red maid!
    And by an eminent body that enforc'd
    The law against it! But that her tender shame
    Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,
    How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;
    For my authority bears a so credent bulk
    That no particular scandal once can touch
    But it confounds the breather. He should have liv'd,
    Save that his riotous youth, with dangerous sense,
    Might in the times to come have ta'en revenge,
    By so receiving a dishonour'd life
    With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had liv'd!
    Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,
    Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not.         Exit

SCENE V. Fields without the town

Enter DUKE in his own habit, and Friar PETER

  DUKE. These letters at fit time deliver me.   [Giving letters]
    The Provost knows our purpose and our plot.
    The matter being afoot, keep your instruction
    And hold you ever to our special drift;
    Though sometimes you do blench from this to that
    As cause doth minister. Go, call at Flavius' house,
    And tell him where I stay; give the like notice
    To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,
    And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;
    But send me Flavius first.
    PETER. It shall be speeded well.                  Exit FRIAR

                             Enter VARRIUS

  DUKE. I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste.
    Come, we will walk. There's other of our friends
    Will greet us here anon. My gentle Varrius!           Exeunt

SCENE VI. A street near the city gate

Enter ISABELLA and MARIANA

  ISABELLA. To speak so indirectly I am loath;
    I would say the truth; but to accuse him so,
    That is your part. Yet I am advis'd to do it;
    He says, to veil full purpose.
  MARIANA. Be rul'd by him.
  ISABELLA. Besides, he tells me that, if peradventure
    He speak against me on the adverse side,
    I should not think it strange; for 'tis a physic
    That's bitter to sweet end.
  MARIANA. I would Friar Peter-

                         Enter FRIAR PETER

  ISABELLA. O, peace! the friar is come.
  PETER. Come, I have found you out a stand most fit,
    Where you may have such vantage on the Duke
    He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;
    The generous and gravest citizens
    Have hent the gates, and very near upon
    The Duke is ent'ring; therefore, hence, away.         Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. The city gate

Enter at several doors DUKE, VARRIUS, LORDS; ANGELO, ESCALUS, Lucio,
PROVOST, OFFICERS, and CITIZENS

  DUKE. My very worthy cousin, fairly met!
    Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.
  ANGELO, ESCALUS. Happy return be to your royal Grace!
  DUKE. Many and hearty thankings to you both.
    We have made inquiry of you, and we hear
    Such goodness of your justice that our soul
    Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,
    Forerunning more requital.
  ANGELO. You make my bonds still greater.
  DUKE. O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it
    To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
    When it deserves, with characters of brass,
    A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time
    And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand.
    And let the subject see, to make them know
    That outward courtesies would fain proclaim
    Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus,
    You must walk by us on our other hand,
    And good supporters are you.

                 Enter FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA

  PETER. Now is your time; speak loud, and kneel before him.
  ISABELLA. Justice, O royal Duke! Vail your regard
    Upon a wrong'd- I would fain have said a maid!
    O worthy Prince, dishonour not your eye
    By throwing it on any other object
    Till you have heard me in my true complaint,
    And given me justice, justice, justice, justice.
  DUKE. Relate your wrongs. In what? By whom? Be brief.
    Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice;
    Reveal yourself to him.
  ISABELLA. O worthy Duke,
    You bid me seek redemption of the devil!
    Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak
    Must either punish me, not being believ'd,
    Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O, hear me, here!
  ANGELO. My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm;
    She hath been a suitor to me for her brother,
    Cut off by course of justice-
  ISABELLA. By course of justice!
  ANGELO. And she will speak most bitterly and strange.
  ISABELLA. Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak.
    That Angelo's forsworn, is it not strange?
    That Angelo's a murderer, is't not strange?
    That Angelo is an adulterous thief,
    An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,
    Is it not strange and strange?
  DUKE. Nay, it is ten times strange.
  ISABELLA. It is not truer he is Angelo
    Than this is all as true as it is strange;
    Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth
    To th' end of reck'ning.
  DUKE. Away with her. Poor soul,
    She speaks this in th' infirmity of sense.
  ISABELLA. O Prince! I conjure thee, as thou believ'st
    There is another comfort than this world,
    That thou neglect me not with that opinion
    That I am touch'd with madness. Make not impossible
    That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible
    But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,
    May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute,
    As Angelo; even so may Angelo,
    In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,
    Be an arch-villain. Believe it, royal Prince,
    If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,
    Had I more name for badness.
  DUKE. By mine honesty,
    If she be mad, as I believe no other,
    Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,
    Such a dependency of thing on thing,
    As e'er I heard in madness.
  ISABELLA. O gracious Duke,
    Harp not on that; nor do not banish reason
    For inequality; but let your reason serve
    To make the truth appear where it seems hid,
    And hide the false seems true.
  DUKE. Many that are not mad
    Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?
  ISABELLA. I am the sister of one Claudio,
    Condemn'd upon the act of fornication
    To lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo.
    I, in probation of a sisterhood,
    Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio
    As then the messenger-
  LUCIO. That's I, an't like your Grace.
    I came to her from Claudio, and desir'd her
    To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo
    For her poor brother's pardon.
  ISABELLA. That's he, indeed.
  DUKE. You were not bid to speak.
  LUCIO. No, my good lord;
    Nor wish'd to hold my peace.
  DUKE. I wish you now, then;
    Pray you take note of it; and when you have
    A business for yourself, pray heaven you then
    Be perfect.
  LUCIO. I warrant your honour.
  DUKE. The warrant's for yourself; take heed to't.
  ISABELLA. This gentleman told somewhat of my tale.
  LUCIO. Right.
  DUKE. It may be right; but you are i' the wrong
    To speak before your time. Proceed.
  ISABELLA. I went
    To this pernicious caitiff deputy.
  DUKE. That's somewhat madly spoken.
  ISABELLA. Pardon it;
    The phrase is to the matter.
  DUKE. Mended again. The matter- proceed.
  ISABELLA. In brief- to set the needless process by,
    How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,
    How he refell'd me, and how I replied,
    For this was of much length- the vile conclusion
    I now begin with grief and shame to utter:
    He would not, but by gift of my chaste body
    To his concupiscible intemperate lust,
    Release my brother; and, after much debatement,
    My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,
    And I did yield to him. But the next morn betimes,
    His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant
    For my poor brother's head.
  DUKE. This is most likely!
  ISABELLA. O that it were as like as it is true!
  DUKE. By heaven, fond wretch, thou know'st not what thou speak'st,
    Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour
    In hateful practice. First, his integrity
    Stands without blemish; next, it imports no reason
    That with such vehemency he should pursue
    Faults proper to himself. If he had so offended,
    He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself,
    And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on;
    Confess the truth, and say by whose advice
    Thou cam'st here to complain.
  ISABELLA. And is this all?
    Then, O you blessed ministers above,
    Keep me in patience; and, with ripened time,
    Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
    In countenance! Heaven shield your Grace from woe,
    As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!
  DUKE. I know you'd fain be gone. An officer!
    To prison with her! Shall we thus permit
    A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall
    On him so near us? This needs must be a practice.
    Who knew of your intent and coming hither?
  ISABELLA. One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.
  DUKE. A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?
  LUCIO. My lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar.
    I do not like the man; had he been lay, my lord,
    For certain words he spake against your Grace
    In your retirement, I had swing'd him soundly.
  DUKE. Words against me? This's a good friar, belike!
    And to set on this wretched woman here
    Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.
  LUCIO. But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,
    I saw them at the prison; a saucy friar,
    A very scurvy fellow.
  PETER. Blessed be your royal Grace!
    I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard
    Your royal ear abus'd. First, hath this woman
    Most wrongfully accus'd your substitute;
    Who is as free from touch or soil with her
    As she from one ungot.
  DUKE. We did believe no less.
    Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?
  PETER. I know him for a man divine and holy;
    Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,
    As he's reported by this gentleman;
    And, on my trust, a man that never yet
    Did, as he vouches, misreport your Grace.
  LUCIO. My lord, most villainously; believe it.
  PETER. Well, he in time may come to clear himself;
    But at this instant he is sick, my lord,
    Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request-
    Being come to knowledge that there was complaint
    Intended 'gainst Lord Angelo- came I hither
    To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know
    Is true and false; and what he, with his oath
    And all probation, will make up full clear,
    Whensoever he's convented. First, for this woman-
    To justify this worthy nobleman,
    So vulgarly and personally accus'd-
    Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
    Till she herself confess it.
  DUKE. Good friar, let's hear it.         Exit ISABELLA guarded
    Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?
    O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!
    Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;
    In this I'll be impartial; be you judge
    Of your own cause.

                     Enter MARIANA veiled

    Is this the witness, friar?
  FIRST let her show her face, and after speak.
  MARIANA. Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face
    Until my husband bid me.
  DUKE. What, are you married?
  MARIANA. No, my lord.
  DUKE. Are you a maid?
  MARIANA. No, my lord.
  DUKE. A widow, then?
  MARIANA. Neither, my lord.
  DUKE. Why, you are nothing then; neither maid, widow, nor wife.
  LUCIO. My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are neither
    maid, widow, nor wife.
  DUKE. Silence that fellow. I would he had some cause
    To prattle for himself.
  LUCIO. Well, my lord.
  MARIANA. My lord, I do confess I ne'er was married,
    And I confess, besides, I am no maid.
    I have known my husband; yet my husband
    Knows not that ever he knew me.
  LUCIO. He was drunk, then, my lord; it can be no better.
  DUKE. For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!
  LUCIO. Well, my lord.
  DUKE. This is no witness for Lord Angelo.
  MARIANA. Now I come to't, my lord:
    She that accuses him of fornication,
    In self-same manner doth accuse my husband;
    And charges him, my lord, with such a time
    When I'll depose I had him in mine arms,
    With all th' effect of love.
  ANGELO. Charges she moe than me?
  MARIANA. Not that I know.
  DUKE. No? You say your husband.
  MARIANA. Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,
    Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,
    But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.
  ANGELO. This is a strange abuse. Let's see thy face.
  MARIANA. My husband bids me; now I will unmask.
                                                     [Unveiling]
    This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
    Which once thou swor'st was worth the looking on;
    This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,
    Was fast belock'd in thine; this is the body
    That took away the match from Isabel,
    And did supply thee at thy garden-house
    In her imagin'd person.
  DUKE. Know you this woman?
  LUCIO. Carnally, she says.
  DUKE. Sirrah, no more.
  LUCIO. Enough, my lord.
  ANGELO. My lord, I must confess I know this woman;
    And five years since there was some speech of marriage
    Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off,
    Partly for that her promised proportions
    Came short of composition; but in chief
    For that her reputation was disvalued
    In levity. Since which time of five years
    I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,
    Upon my faith and honour.
  MARIANA. Noble Prince,
    As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,
    As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,
    I am affianc'd this man's wife as strongly
    As words could make up vows. And, my good lord,
    But Tuesday night last gone, in's garden-house,
    He knew me as a wife. As this is true,
    Let me in safety raise me from my knees,
    Or else for ever be confixed here,
    A marble monument!
  ANGELO. I did but smile till now.
    Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice;
    My patience here is touch'd. I do perceive
    These poor informal women are no more
    But instruments of some more mightier member
    That sets them on. Let me have way, my lord,
    To find this practice out.
  DUKE. Ay, with my heart;
    And punish them to your height of pleasure.
    Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,
    Compact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,
    Though they would swear down each particular saint,
    Were testimonies against his worth and credit,
    That's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,
    Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains
    To find out this abuse, whence 'tis deriv'd.
    There is another friar that set them on;
    Let him be sent for.
  PETER. Would lie were here, my lord! For he indeed
    Hath set the women on to this complaint.
    Your provost knows the place where he abides,
    And he may fetch him.
  DUKE. Go, do it instantly.                        Exit PROVOST
    And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,
    Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,
    Do with your injuries as seems you best
    In any chastisement. I for a while will leave you;
    But stir not you till you have well determin'd
    Upon these slanderers.
  ESCALUS. My lord, we'll do it throughly.             Exit DUKE
    Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that Friar Lodowick to be
    a dishonest person?
  LUCIO. 'Cucullus non facit monachum': honest in nothing but in his
    clothes; and one that hath spoke most villainous speeches of the
    Duke.
  ESCALUS. We shall entreat you to abide here till he come and
    enforce them against him. We shall find this friar a notable
    fellow.
  LUCIO. As any in Vienna, on my word.
  ESCALUS. Call that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with
    her. [Exit an ATTENDANT] Pray you, my lord, give me leave to
    question; you shall see how I'll handle her.
  LUCIO. Not better than he, by her own report.
  ESCALUS. Say you?
  LUCIO. Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately, she would
    sooner confess; perchance, publicly, she'll be asham'd.

       Re-enter OFFICERS with ISABELLA; and PROVOST with the
                    DUKE in his friar's habit

  ESCALUS. I will go darkly to work with her.
  LUCIO. That's the way; for women are light at midnight.
  ESCALUS. Come on, mistress; here's a gentlewoman denies all that
    you have said.
  LUCIO. My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of, here with the
    Provost.
  ESCALUS. In very good time. Speak not you to him till we call upon
    you.
  LUCIO. Mum.
  ESCALUS. Come, sir; did you set these women on to slander Lord
    Angelo? They have confess'd you did.
  DUKE. 'Tis false.
  ESCALUS. How! Know you where you are?
  DUKE. Respect to your great place! and let the devil
    Be sometime honour'd for his burning throne!
    Where is the Duke? 'Tis he should hear me speak.
  ESCALUS. The Duke's in us; and we will hear you speak;
    Look you speak justly.
  DUKE. Boldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,
    Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox,
    Good night to your redress! Is the Duke gone?
    Then is your cause gone too. The Duke's unjust
    Thus to retort your manifest appeal,
    And put your trial in the villain's mouth
    Which here you come to accuse.
  LUCIO. This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.
  ESCALUS. Why, thou unreverend and unhallowed friar,
    Is't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women
    To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth,
    And in the witness of his proper ear,
    To call him villain; and then to glance from him
    To th' Duke himself, to tax him with injustice?
    Take him hence; to th' rack with him! We'll touze you
    Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.
    What, 'unjust'!
  DUKE. Be not so hot; the Duke
    Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he
    Dare rack his own; his subject am I not,
    Nor here provincial. My business in this state
    Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,
    Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble
    Till it o'errun the stew: laws for all faults,
    But faults so countenanc'd that the strong statutes
    Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,
    As much in mock as mark.
  ESCALUS. Slander to th' state! Away with him to prison!
  ANGELO. What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?
    Is this the man that you did tell us of?
  LUCIO. 'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, good-man bald-pate.
    Do you know me?
  DUKE. I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice. I met you at
    the prison, in the absence of the Duke.
  LUCIO. O did you so? And do you remember what you said of the Duke?
  DUKE. Most notedly, sir.
  LUCIO. Do you so, sir? And was the Duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and
    a coward, as you then reported him to be?
  DUKE. You must, sir, change persons with me ere you make that my
    report; you, indeed, spoke so of him; and much more, much worse.
  LUCIO. O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the nose for
    thy speeches?
  DUKE. I protest I love the Duke as I love myself.
  ANGELO. Hark how the villain would close now, after his treasonable
    abuses!
  ESCALUS. Such a fellow is not to be talk'd withal. Away with him to
    prison! Where is the Provost? Away with him to prison! Lay bolts
    enough upon him; let him speak no more. Away with those giglets
    too, and with the other confederate companion!
                            [The PROVOST lays bands on the DUKE]
  DUKE. Stay, sir; stay awhile.
  ANGELO. What, resists he? Help him, Lucio.
  LUCIO. Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you
    bald-pated lying rascal, you must be hooded, must you? Show your
    knave's visage, with a pox to you! Show your sheep-biting face,
    and be hang'd an hour! Will't not off?
             [Pulls off the FRIAR'S bood and discovers the DUKE]
  DUKE. Thou art the first knave that e'er mad'st a duke.
    First, Provost, let me bail these gentle three.
    [To Lucio] Sneak not away, sir, for the friar and you
    Must have a word anon. Lay hold on him.
  LUCIO. This may prove worse than hanging.
  DUKE. [To ESCALUS] What you have spoke I pardon; sit you down.
    We'll borrow place of him. [To ANGELO] Sir, by your leave.
    Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence,
    That yet can do thee office? If thou hast,
    Rely upon it till my tale be heard,
    And hold no longer out.
  ANGELO. O my dread lord,
    I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,
    To think I can be undiscernible,
    When I perceive your Grace, like pow'r divine,
    Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good Prince,
    No longer session hold upon my shame,
    But let my trial be mine own confession;
    Immediate sentence then, and sequent death,
    Is all the grace I beg.
  DUKE. Come hither, Mariana.
    Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?
  ANGELO. I was, my lord.
  DUKE. Go, take her hence and marry her instantly.
    Do you the office, friar; which consummate,
    Return him here again. Go with him, Provost.
                Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and PROVOST
  ESCALUS. My lord, I am more amaz'd at his dishonour
    Than at the strangeness of it.
  DUKE. Come hither, Isabel.
    Your friar is now your prince. As I was then
    Advertising and holy to your business,
    Not changing heart with habit, I am still
    Attorney'd at your service.
  ISABELLA. O, give me pardon,
    That I, your vassal have employ'd and pain'd
    Your unknown sovereignty.
  DUKE. You are pardon'd, Isabel.
    And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.
    Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;
    And you may marvel why I obscur'd myself,
    Labouring to save his life, and would not rather
    Make rash remonstrance of my hidden pow'r
    Than let him so be lost. O most kind maid,
    It was the swift celerity of his death,
    Which I did think with slower foot came on,
    That brain'd my purpose. But peace be with him!
    That life is better life, past fearing death,
    Than that which lives to fear. Make it your comfort,
    So happy is your brother.
  ISABELLA. I do, my lord.

       Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and PROVOST

  DUKE. For this new-married man approaching here,
    Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd
    Your well-defended honour, you must pardon
    For Mariana's sake; but as he adjudg'd your brother-
    Being criminal in double violation
    Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach,
    Thereon dependent, for your brother's life-
    The very mercy of the law cries out
    Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
    'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'
    Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
    Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.
    Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested,
    Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.
    We do condemn thee to the very block
    Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.
    Away with him!
  MARIANA. O my most gracious lord,
    I hope you will not mock me with a husband.
  DUKE. It is your husband mock'd you with a husband.
    Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,
    I thought your marriage fit; else imputation,
    For that he knew you, might reproach your life,
    And choke your good to come. For his possessions,
    Although by confiscation they are ours,
    We do instate and widow you withal
    To buy you a better husband.
  MARIANA. O my dear lord,
    I crave no other, nor no better man.
  DUKE. Never crave him; we are definitive.
  MARIANA. Gentle my liege-                           [Kneeling]
  DUKE. You do but lose your labour.
    Away with him to death! [To LUCIO] Now, sir, to you.
  MARIANA. O my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part;
    Lend me your knees, and all my life to come
    I'll lend you all my life to do you service.
  DUKE. Against all sense you do importune her.
    Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,
    Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,
    And take her hence in horror.
  MARIANA. Isabel,
    Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;
    Hold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all.
    They say best men moulded out of faults;
    And, for the most, become much more the better
    For being a little bad; so may my husband.
    O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?
  DUKE. He dies for Claudio's death.
  ISABELLA. [Kneeling] Most bounteous sir,
    Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,
    As if my brother liv'd. I partly think
    A due sincerity govern'd his deeds
    Till he did look on me; since it is so,
    Let him not die. My brother had but justice,
    In that he did the thing for which he died;
    For Angelo,
    His act did not o'ertake his bad intent,
    And must be buried but as an intent
    That perish'd by the way. Thoughts are no subjects;
    Intents but merely thoughts.
  MARIANA. Merely, my lord.
  DUKE. Your suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.
    I have bethought me of another fault.
    Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded
    At an unusual hour?
  PROVOST. It was commanded so.
  DUKE. Had you a special warrant for the deed?
  PROVOST. No, my good lord; it was by private message.
  DUKE. For which I do discharge you of your office;
    Give up your keys.
  PROVOST. Pardon me, noble lord;
    I thought it was a fault, but knew it not;
    Yet did repent me, after more advice;
    For testimony whereof, one in the prison,
    That should by private order else have died,
    I have reserv'd alive.
  DUKE. What's he?
  PROVOST. His name is Barnardine.
  DUKE. I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.
    Go fetch him hither; let me look upon him.      Exit PROVOST
  ESCALUS. I am sorry one so learned and so wise
    As you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,
    Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood
    And lack of temper'd judgment afterward.
  ANGELO. I am sorry that such sorrow I procure;
    And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart
    That I crave death more willingly than mercy;
    'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.

       Re-enter PROVOST, with BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO (muffled)
                            and JULIET

  DUKE. Which is that Barnardine?
  PROVOST. This, my lord.
  DUKE. There was a friar told me of this man.
    Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul,
    That apprehends no further than this world,
    And squar'st thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd;
    But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all,
    And pray thee take this mercy to provide
    For better times to come. Friar, advise him;
    I leave him to your hand. What muffl'd fellow's that?
  PROVOST. This is another prisoner that I sav'd,
    Who should have died when Claudio lost his head;
    As like almost to Claudio as himself.    [Unmuffles CLAUDIO]
  DUKE. [To ISABELLA] If he be like your brother, for his sake
    Is he pardon'd; and for your lovely sake,
    Give me your hand and say you will be mine,
    He is my brother too. But fitter time for that.
    By this Lord Angelo perceives he's safe;
    Methinks I see a quick'ning in his eye.
    Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well.
    Look that you love your wife; her worth worth yours.
    I find an apt remission in myself;
    And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon.
    To Lucio] You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward,
    One all of luxury, an ass, a madman!
    Wherein have I so deserv'd of you
    That you extol me thus?
  LUCIO. Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the trick.
    If you will hang me for it, you may; but I had rather it would
    please you I might be whipt.
  DUKE. Whipt first, sir, and hang'd after.
    Proclaim it, Provost, round about the city,
    If any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow-
    As I have heard him swear himself there's one
    Whom he begot with child, let her appear,
    And he shall marry her. The nuptial finish'd,
    Let him be whipt and hang'd.
  LUCIO. I beseech your Highness, do not marry me to a whore. Your
    Highness said even now I made you a duke; good my lord, do not
    recompense me in making me a cuckold.
  DUKE. Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.
    Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal
    Remit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison;
    And see our pleasure herein executed.
  LUCIO. Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping,
    and hanging.
  DUKE. Slandering a prince deserves it.
                                      Exeunt OFFICERS with LUCIO
    She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.
    Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo;
    I have confess'd her, and I know her virtue.
    Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness;
    There's more behind that is more gratulate.
    Thanks, Provost, for thy care and secrecy;
    We shall employ thee in a worthier place.
    Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
    The head of Ragozine for Claudio's:
    Th' offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,
    I have a motion much imports your good;
    Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
    What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
    So, bring us to our palace, where we'll show
    What's yet behind that's meet you all should know.
                                                          Exeunt

THE END

1597



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THE DUKE OF VENICE
  THE PRINCE OF MOROCCO, suitor to Portia
  THE PRINCE OF ARRAGON,    "    "    "
  ANTONIO, a merchant of Venice
  BASSANIO, his friend, suitor to Portia
  SOLANIO,   friend to Antonio and Bassanio
  SALERIO,      "    "    "     "     "
  GRATIANO,     "    "    "     "     "
  LORENZO, in love with Jessica
  SHYLOCK, a rich Jew
  TUBAL, a Jew, his friend
  LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a clown, servant to Shylock
  OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot
  LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio
  BALTHASAR, servant to Portia
  STEPHANO,     "     "    "

  PORTIA, a rich heiress
  NERISSA, her waiting-maid
  JESSICA, daughter to Shylock

  Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice,
    Gaoler, Servants, and other Attendants

SCENE: Venice, and PORTIA'S house at Belmont

ACT I. SCENE I. Venice. A street

Enter ANTONIO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO

  ANTONIO. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
    It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
    But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
    What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
    I am to learn;
    And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
    That I have much ado to know myself.
  SALERIO. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
    There where your argosies, with portly sail-
    Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
    Or as it were the pageants of the sea-
    Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
    That curtsy to them, do them reverence,
    As they fly by them with their woven wings.
  SOLANIO. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
    The better part of my affections would
    Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
    Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind,
    Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;
    And every object that might make me fear
    Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,
    Would make me sad.
  SALERIO. My wind, cooling my broth,
    Would blow me to an ague when I thought
    What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
    I should not see the sandy hour-glass run
    But I should think of shallows and of flats,
    And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
    Vailing her high top lower than her ribs
    To kiss her burial. Should I go to church
    And see the holy edifice of stone,
    And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
    Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side,
    Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
    Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,
    And, in a word, but even now worth this,
    And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
    To think on this, and shall I lack the thought
    That such a thing bechanc'd would make me sad?
    But tell not me; I know Antonio
    Is sad to think upon his merchandise.
  ANTONIO. Believe me, no; I thank my fortune for it,
    My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
    Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
    Upon the fortune of this present year;
    Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.
  SOLANIO. Why then you are in love.
  ANTONIO. Fie, fie!
  SOLANIO. Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad
    Because you are not merry; and 'twere as easy
    For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,
    Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,
    Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:
    Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
    And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;
    And other of such vinegar aspect
    That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile
    Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

               Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO

    Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
    Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well;
    We leave you now with better company.
  SALERIO. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,
    If worthier friends had not prevented me.
  ANTONIO. Your worth is very dear in my regard.
    I take it your own business calls on you,
    And you embrace th' occasion to depart.
  SALERIO. Good morrow, my good lords.
  BASSANIO. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say when.
    You grow exceeding strange; must it be so?
  SALERIO. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.
                                      Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO
  LORENZO. My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,
    We two will leave you; but at dinner-time,
    I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.
  BASSANIO. I will not fail you.
  GRATIANO. You look not well, Signior Antonio;
    You have too much respect upon the world;
    They lose it that do buy it with much care.
    Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.
  ANTONIO. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano-
    A stage, where every man must play a part,
    And mine a sad one.
  GRATIANO. Let me play the fool.
    With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
    And let my liver rather heat with wine
    Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
    Why should a man whose blood is warm within
    Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster,
    Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice
    By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio-
    I love thee, and 'tis my love that speaks-
    There are a sort of men whose visages
    Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
    And do a wilful stillness entertain,
    With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
    Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
    As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle,
    And when I ope my lips let no dog bark.'
    O my Antonio, I do know of these
    That therefore only are reputed wise
    For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,
    If they should speak, would almost damn those ears
    Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.
    I'll tell thee more of this another time.
    But fish not with this melancholy bait
    For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
    Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile;
    I'll end my exhortation after dinner.
  LORENZO. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time.
    I must be one of these same dumb wise men,
    For Gratiano never lets me speak.
  GRATIANO. Well, keep me company but two years moe,
    Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.
  ANTONIO. Fare you well; I'll grow a talker for this gear.
  GRATIANO. Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable
    In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.
                                     Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO
  ANTONIO. Is that anything now?
  BASSANIO. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than
    any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid
    in, two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find
    them, and when you have them they are not worth the search.
  ANTONIO. Well; tell me now what lady is the same
    To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
    That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?
  BASSANIO. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
    How much I have disabled mine estate
    By something showing a more swelling port
    Than my faint means would grant continuance;
    Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd
    From such a noble rate; but my chief care
    Is to come fairly off from the great debts
    Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
    Hath left me gag'd. To you, Antonio,
    I owe the most, in money and in love;
    And from your love I have a warranty
    To unburden all my plots and purposes
    How to get clear of all the debts I owe.
  ANTONIO. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
    And if it stand, as you yourself still do,
    Within the eye of honour, be assur'd
    My purse, my person, my extremest means,
    Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.
  BASSANIO. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
    I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
    The self-same way, with more advised watch,
    To find the other forth; and by adventuring both
    I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,
    Because what follows is pure innocence.
    I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,
    That which I owe is lost; but if you please
    To shoot another arrow that self way
    Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
    As I will watch the aim, or to find both,
    Or bring your latter hazard back again
    And thankfully rest debtor for the first.
  ANTONIO. You know me well, and herein spend but time
    To wind about my love with circumstance;
    And out of doubt you do me now more wrong
    In making question of my uttermost
    Than if you had made waste of all I have.
    Then do but say to me what I should do
    That in your knowledge may by me be done,
    And I am prest unto it; therefore, speak.
  BASSANIO. In Belmont is a lady richly left,
    And she is fair and, fairer than that word,
    Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes
    I did receive fair speechless messages.
    Her name is Portia- nothing undervalu'd
    To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.
    Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;
    For the four winds blow in from every coast
    Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks
    Hang on her temples like a golden fleece,
    Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strond,
    And many Jasons come in quest of her.
    O my Antonio, had I but the means
    To hold a rival place with one of them,
    I have a mind presages me such thrift
    That I should questionless be fortunate.
  ANTONIO. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;
    Neither have I money nor commodity
    To raise a present sum; therefore go forth,
    Try what my credit can in Venice do;
    That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,
    To furnish thee to Belmont to fair Portia.
    Go presently inquire, and so will I,
    Where money is; and I no question make
    To have it of my trust or for my sake.                Exeunt

SCENE II. Belmont. PORTIA'S house

Enter PORTIA with her waiting-woman, NERISSA

  PORTIA. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great
  world. NERISSA. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in
  the same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I
  see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve
  with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the
  mean: superfluity come sooner by white hairs, but competency lives
  longer. PORTIA. Good sentences, and well pronounc'd. NERISSA. They
  would be better, if well followed. PORTIA. If to do were as easy as
  to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor
  men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his
  own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done
  than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain
  may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold
  decree; such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of
  good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to
  choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose'! I may neither choose
  who I would nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living
  daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard,
  Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none? NERISSA. Your
  father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good
  inspirations; therefore the lott'ry that he hath devised in these
  three chests, of gold, silver, and lead- whereof who chooses his
  meaning chooses you- will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly but
  one who you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your
  affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already
  come? PORTIA. I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I
  will describe them; and according to my description, level at my
  affection. NERISSA. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. PORTIA.
  Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse;
  and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts that he
  can shoe him himself; I am much afear'd my lady his mother play'd
  false with a smith. NERISSA. Then is there the County Palatine.
  PORTIA. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'An you will not
  have me, choose.' He hears merry tales and smiles not. I fear he will
  prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of
  unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a
  death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of these. God
  defend me from these two! NERISSA. How say you by the French lord,
  Monsieur Le Bon? PORTIA. God made him, and therefore let him pass for
  a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he- why, he
  hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of
  frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man. If a
  throstle sing he falls straight a-cap'ring; he will fence with his
  own shadow; if I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If
  he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he love me to
  madness, I shall never requite him. NERISSA. What say you then to
  Falconbridge, the young baron of England? PORTIA. You know I say
  nothing to him, for he understands not me, nor I him: he hath neither
  Latin, French, nor Italian, and you will come into the court and
  swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a proper
  man's picture; but alas, who can converse with a dumb-show? How oddly
  he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose
  in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.
  NERISSA. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour? PORTIA.
  That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he borrowed a box of
  the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he
  was able; I think the Frenchman became his surety, and seal'd under
  for another. NERISSA. How like you the young German, the Duke of
  Saxony's nephew? PORTIA. Very vilely in the morning when he is sober;
  and most vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk. When he is best,
  he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little
  better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall
  make shift to go without him. NERISSA. If he should offer to choose,
  and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your
  father's will, if you should refuse to accept him. PORTIA. Therefore,
  for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of Rhenish wine
  on the contrary casket; for if the devil be within and that
  temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do anything,
  Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge. NERISSA. You need not
  fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted me
  with their determinations, which is indeed to return to their home,
  and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won by some
  other sort than your father's imposition, depending on the caskets.
  PORTIA. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as
  Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I am
  glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not one
  among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God grant them
  a fair departure. NERISSA. Do you not remember, lady, in your
  father's time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither
  in company of the Marquis of Montferrat? PORTIA. Yes, yes, it was
  Bassanio; as I think, so was he call'd. NERISSA. True, madam; he, of
  all the men that ever my foolish eyes look'd upon, was the best
  deserving a fair lady. PORTIA. I remember him well, and I remember
  him worthy of thy praise.

                         Enter a SERVINGMAN

    How now! what news?
  SERVINGMAN. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their
    leave; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of
    Morocco, who brings word the Prince his master will be here
    to-night.
  PORTIA. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I
    can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his
    approach; if he have the condition of a saint and the complexion
    of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me.
    Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.
    Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the
      door.                                               Exeunt

SCENE III. Venice. A public place

Enter BASSANIO With SHYLOCK the Jew

  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- well.
  BASSANIO. Ay, sir, for three months.
  SHYLOCK. For three months- well.
  BASSANIO. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.
  SHYLOCK. Antonio shall become bound- well.
  BASSANIO. May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? Shall I know your
    answer?
  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio bound.
  BASSANIO. Your answer to that.
  SHYLOCK. Antonio is a good man.
  BASSANIO. Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?
  SHYLOCK. Ho, no, no, no, no; my meaning in saying he is a good man
    is to have you understand me that he is sufficient; yet his means
    are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another
    to the Indies; I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a
    third at Mexico, a fourth for England- and other ventures he
    hath, squand'red abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but
    men; there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and
    land-thieves- I mean pirates; and then there is the peril of
    waters, winds, and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding,
    sufficient. Three thousand ducats- I think I may take his bond.
  BASSANIO. Be assur'd you may.
  SHYLOCK. I will be assur'd I may; and, that I may be assured, I
    will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio?
  BASSANIO. If it please you to dine with us.
  SHYLOCK. Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which your
    prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into! I will buy with
    you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so
    following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray
    with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is he comes here?

                            Enter ANTONIO

  BASSANIO. This is Signior Antonio.
  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  How like a fawning publican he looks!
    I hate him for he is a Christian;
    But more for that in low simplicity
    He lends out money gratis, and brings down
    The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
    If I can catch him once upon the hip,
    I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
    He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,
    Even there where merchants most do congregate,
    On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
    Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe
    If I forgive him!
  BASSANIO. Shylock, do you hear?
  SHYLOCK. I am debating of my present store,
    And, by the near guess of my memory,
    I cannot instantly raise up the gross
    Of full three thousand ducats. What of that?
    Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe,
    Will furnish me. But soft! how many months
    Do you desire?  [To ANTONIO]  Rest you fair, good signior;
    Your worship was the last man in our mouths.
  ANTONIO. Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow
    By taking nor by giving of excess,
    Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend,
    I'll break a custom.  [To BASSANIO]  Is he yet possess'd
    How much ye would?
  SHYLOCK. Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.
  ANTONIO. And for three months.
  SHYLOCK. I had forgot- three months; you told me so.
    Well then, your bond; and, let me see- but hear you,
    Methoughts you said you neither lend nor borrow
    Upon advantage.
  ANTONIO. I do never use it.
  SHYLOCK. When Jacob graz'd his uncle Laban's sheep-
    This Jacob from our holy Abram was,
    As his wise mother wrought in his behalf,
    The third possessor; ay, he was the third-
  ANTONIO. And what of him? Did he take interest?
  SHYLOCK. No, not take interest; not, as you would say,
    Directly int'rest; mark what Jacob did:
    When Laban and himself were compromis'd
    That all the eanlings which were streak'd and pied
    Should fall as Jacob's hire, the ewes, being rank,
    In end of autumn turned to the rams;
    And when the work of generation was
    Between these woolly breeders in the act,
    The skilful shepherd pill'd me certain wands,
    And, in the doing of the deed of kind,
    He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes,
    Who, then conceiving, did in eaning time
    Fall parti-colour'd lambs, and those were Jacob's.
    This was a way to thrive, and he was blest;
    And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not.
  ANTONIO. This was a venture, sir, that Jacob serv'd for;
    A thing not in his power to bring to pass,
    But sway'd and fashion'd by the hand of heaven.
    Was this inserted to make interest good?
    Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?
  SHYLOCK. I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.
    But note me, signior.
  ANTONIO.  [Aside]  Mark you this, Bassanio,
    The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
    An evil soul producing holy witness
    Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
    A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
    O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- 'tis a good round sum.
    Three months from twelve; then let me see, the rate-
  ANTONIO. Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you?
  SHYLOCK. Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
    In the Rialto you have rated me
    About my moneys and my usances;
    Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
    For suff'rance is the badge of all our tribe;
    You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
    And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
    And all for use of that which is mine own.
    Well then, it now appears you need my help;
    Go to, then; you come to me, and you say
    'Shylock, we would have moneys.' You say so-
    You that did void your rheum upon my beard
    And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
    Over your threshold; moneys is your suit.
    What should I say to you? Should I not say
    'Hath a dog money? Is it possible
    A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or
    Shall I bend low and, in a bondman's key,
    With bated breath and whisp'ring humbleness,
    Say this:
    'Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last,
    You spurn'd me such a day; another time
    You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies
    I'll lend you thus much moneys'?
  ANTONIO. I am as like to call thee so again,
    To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.
    If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
    As to thy friends- for when did friendship take
    A breed for barren metal of his friend?-
    But lend it rather to thine enemy,
    Who if he break thou mayst with better face
    Exact the penalty.
  SHYLOCK. Why, look you, how you storm!
    I would be friends with you, and have your love,
    Forget the shames that you have stain'd me with,
    Supply your present wants, and take no doit
    Of usance for my moneys, and you'll not hear me.
    This is kind I offer.
  BASSANIO. This were kindness.
  SHYLOCK. This kindness will I show.
    Go with me to a notary, seal me there
    Your single bond, and, in a merry sport,
    If you repay me not on such a day,
    In such a place, such sum or sums as are
    Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit
    Be nominated for an equal pound
    Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
    In what part of your body pleaseth me.
  ANTONIO. Content, in faith; I'll seal to such a bond,
    And say there is much kindness in the Jew.
  BASSANIO. You shall not seal to such a bond for me;
    I'll rather dwell in my necessity.
  ANTONIO. Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it;
    Within these two months- that's a month before
    This bond expires- I do expect return
    Of thrice three times the value of this bond.
  SHYLOCK. O father Abram, what these Christians are,
    Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect
    The thoughts of others! Pray you, tell me this:
    If he should break his day, what should I gain
    By the exaction of the forfeiture?
    A pound of man's flesh taken from a man
    Is not so estimable, profitable neither,
    As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say,
    To buy his favour, I extend this friendship;
    If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;
    And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.
  ANTONIO. Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond.
  SHYLOCK. Then meet me forthwith at the notary's;
    Give him direction for this merry bond,
    And I will go and purse the ducats straight,
    See to my house, left in the fearful guard
    Of an unthrifty knave, and presently
    I'll be with you.
  ANTONIO. Hie thee, gentle Jew.                    Exit SHYLOCK
    The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind.
  BASSANIO. I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.
  ANTONIO. Come on; in this there can be no dismay;
    My ships come home a month before the day.            Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Belmont. PORTIA'S house

Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE of MOROCCO, a tawny Moor all in
white, and three or four FOLLOWERS accordingly, with PORTIA, NERISSA,
and train

  PRINCE OF Morocco. Mislike me not for my complexion,
    The shadowed livery of the burnish'd sun,
    To whom I am a neighbour, and near bred.
    Bring me the fairest creature northward born,
    Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles,
    And let us make incision for your love
    To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.
    I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine
    Hath fear'd the valiant; by my love, I swear
    The best-regarded virgins of our clime
    Have lov'd it too. I would not change this hue,
    Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen.
  PORTIA. In terms of choice I am not solely led
    By nice direction of a maiden's eyes;
    Besides, the lott'ry of my destiny
    Bars me the right of voluntary choosing.
    But, if my father had not scanted me,
    And hedg'd me by his wit to yield myself
    His wife who wins me by that means I told you,
    Yourself, renowned Prince, then stood as fair
    As any comer I have look'd on yet
    For my affection.
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Even for that I thank you.
    Therefore, I pray you, lead me to the caskets
    To try my fortune. By this scimitar,
    That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince,
    That won three fields of Sultan Solyman,
    I would o'erstare the sternest eyes that look,
    Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth,
    Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear,
    Yea, mock the lion when 'a roars for prey,
    To win thee, lady. But, alas the while!
    If Hercules and Lichas play at dice
    Which is the better man, the greater throw
    May turn by fortune from the weaker band.
    So is Alcides beaten by his page;
    And so may I, blind Fortune leading me,
    Miss that which one unworthier may attain,
    And die with grieving.
  PORTIA. You must take your chance,
    And either not attempt to choose at all,
    Or swear before you choose, if you choose wrong,
    Never to speak to lady afterward
    In way of marriage; therefore be advis'd.
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Nor will not; come, bring me unto my chance.
  PORTIA. First, forward to the temple. After dinner
    Your hazard shall be made.
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Good fortune then,
    To make me blest or cursed'st among men!
                                           [Cornets, and exeunt]

SCENE II. Venice. A street

Enter LAUNCELOT GOBBO

  LAUNCELOT. Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from this Jew
  my master. The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me, saying to me
  'Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot' or 'good Gobbo' or 'good
  Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away.' My
  conscience says 'No; take heed, honest Launcelot, take heed, honest
  Gobbo' or, as aforesaid, 'honest Launcelot Gobbo, do not run; scorn
  running with thy heels.' Well, the most courageous fiend bids me
  pack. 'Via!' says the fiend; 'away!' says the fiend. 'For the
  heavens, rouse up a brave mind' says the fiend 'and run.' Well, my
  conscience, hanging about the neck of my heart, says very wisely to
  me 'My honest friend Launcelot, being an honest man's son' or rather
  'an honest woman's son'; for indeed my father did something smack,
  something grow to, he had a kind of taste- well, my conscience says
  'Launcelot, budge not.' 'Budge,' says the fiend. 'Budge not,' says my
  conscience. 'Conscience,' say I, (you counsel well.' 'Fiend,' say I,
  'you counsel well.' To be rul'd by my conscience, I should stay with
  the Jew my master, who- God bless the mark!- is a kind of devil; and,
  to run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the fiend, who- saving
  your reverence!- is the devil himself. Certainly the Jew is the very
  devil incarnation; and, in my conscience, my conscience is but a kind
  of hard conscience to offer to counsel me to stay with the Jew. The
  fiend gives the more friendly counsel. I will run, fiend; my heels
  are at your commandment; I will run.

                     Enter OLD GOBBO, with a basket

  GOBBO. Master young man, you, I pray you, which is the way to
    master Jew's?
  LAUNCELOT.  [Aside]  O heavens! This is my true-begotten father,
    who, being more than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me not.
    I will try confusions with him.
  GOBBO. Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to
    master Jew's?
  LAUNCELOT. Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but, at
    the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very next
    turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew's
    house.
  GOBBO. Be God's sonties, 'twill be a hard way to hit! Can you tell
    me whether one Launcelot, that dwells with him, dwell with him or
    no?
  LAUNCELOT. Talk you of young Master Launcelot?  [Aside]  Mark me
    now; now will I raise the waters.- Talk you of young Master
    Launcelot?
  GOBBO. No master, sir, but a poor man's son; his father, though I
    say't, is an honest exceeding poor man, and, God be thanked, well
    to live.
  LAUNCELOT. Well, let his father be what 'a will, we talk of young
    Master Launcelot.
  GOBBO. Your worship's friend, and Launcelot, sir.
  LAUNCELOT. But I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you, talk
    you of young Master Launcelot?
  GOBBO. Of Launcelot, an't please your mastership.
  LAUNCELOT. Ergo, Master Launcelot. Talk not of Master Launcelot,
    father; for the young gentleman, according to Fates and Destinies
    and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of
    learning, is indeed deceased; or, as you would say in plain
    terms, gone to heaven.
  GOBBO. Marry, God forbid! The boy was the very staff of my age, my
    very prop.
  LAUNCELOT. Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff or a
    prop? Do you know me, father?
  GOBBO. Alack the day, I know you not, young gentleman; but I pray
    you tell me, is my boy- God rest his soul!- alive or dead?
  LAUNCELOT. Do you not know me, father?
  GOBBO. Alack, sir, I am sand-blind; I know you not.
  LAUNCELOT. Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the
    knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well,
    old man, I will tell you news of your son. Give me your blessing;
    truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son
    may, but in the end truth will out.
  GOBBO. Pray you, sir, stand up; I am sure you are not Launcelot my
    boy.
  LAUNCELOT. Pray you, let's have no more fooling about it, but give
    me your blessing; I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son
    that is, your child that shall be.
  GOBBO. I cannot think you are my son.
  LAUNCELOT. I know not what I shall think of that; but I am
    Launcelot, the Jew's man, and I am sure Margery your wife is my
    mother.
  GOBBO. Her name is Margery, indeed. I'll be sworn, if thou be
    Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipp'd
    might he be, what a beard hast thou got! Thou hast got more hair
    on thy chin than Dobbin my fill-horse has on his tail.
  LAUNCELOT. It should seem, then, that Dobbin's tail grows backward;
    I am sure he had more hair of his tail than I have of my face
    when I last saw him.
  GOBBO. Lord, how art thou chang'd! How dost thou and thy master
    agree? I have brought him a present. How 'gree you now?
  LAUNCELOT. Well, well; but, for mine own part, as I have set up my
    rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have run some ground.
    My master's a very Jew. Give him a present! Give him a halter. I
    am famish'd in his service; you may tell every finger I have with
    my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come; give me your present to
    one Master Bassanio, who indeed gives rare new liveries; if I
    serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground. O rare
    fortune! Here comes the man. To him, father, for I am a Jew, if I
    serve the Jew any longer.

         Enter BASSANIO, with LEONARDO, with a FOLLOWER or two

  BASSANIO. You may do so; but let it be so hasted that supper be
    ready at the farthest by five of the clock. See these letters
    delivered, put the liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to
    come anon to my lodging.                      Exit a SERVANT
  LAUNCELOT. To him, father.
  GOBBO. God bless your worship!
  BASSANIO. Gramercy; wouldst thou aught with me?
  GOBBO. Here's my son, sir, a poor boy-
  LAUNCELOT. Not a poor boy, sir, but the rich Jew's man, that would,
    sir, as my father shall specify-
  GOBBO. He hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to serve-
  LAUNCELOT. Indeed the short and the long is, I serve the Jew, and
    have a desire, as my father shall specify-
  GOBBO. His master and he, saving your worship's reverence, are
    scarce cater-cousins-
  LAUNCELOT. To be brief, the very truth is that the Jew, having done
    me wrong, doth cause me, as my father, being I hope an old man,
    shall frutify unto you-
  GOBBO. I have here a dish of doves that I would bestow upon your
    worship; and my suit is-
  LAUNCELOT. In very brief, the suit is impertinent to myself, as
    your worship shall know by this honest old man; and, though I say
    it, though old man, yet poor man, my father.
  BASSANIO. One speak for both. What would you?
  LAUNCELOT. Serve you, sir.
  GOBBO. That is the very defect of the matter, sir.
  BASSANIO. I know thee well; thou hast obtain'd thy suit.
    Shylock thy master spoke with me this day,
    And hath preferr'd thee, if it be preferment
    To leave a rich Jew's service to become
    The follower of so poor a gentleman.
  LAUNCELOT. The old proverb is very well parted between my master
    Shylock and you, sir: you have the grace of God, sir, and he hath
    enough.
  BASSANIO. Thou speak'st it well. Go, father, with thy son.
    Take leave of thy old master, and inquire
    My lodging out.  [To a SERVANT]  Give him a livery
    More guarded than his fellows'; see it done.
  LAUNCELOT. Father, in. I cannot get a service, no! I have ne'er a
    tongue in my head!  [Looking on his palm]  Well; if any man in
    Italy have a fairer table which doth offer to swear upon a book- I
    shall have good fortune. Go to, here's a simple line of life;
    here's a small trifle of wives; alas, fifteen wives is nothing;
    a'leven widows and nine maids is a simple coming-in for one man.
    And then to scape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my life
    with the edge of a feather-bed-here are simple scapes. Well, if
    Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear. Father,
    come; I'll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling.
                                  Exeunt LAUNCELOT and OLD GOBBO
  BASSANIO. I pray thee, good Leonardo, think on this.
    These things being bought and orderly bestowed,
    Return in haste, for I do feast to-night
    My best esteem'd acquaintance; hie thee, go.
  LEONARDO. My best endeavours shall be done herein.

                          Enter GRATIANO

  GRATIANO. Where's your master?
  LEONARDO. Yonder, sir, he walks.                          Exit
  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio!
  BASSANIO. Gratiano!
  GRATIANO. I have suit to you.
  BASSANIO. You have obtain'd it.
  GRATIANO. You must not deny me: I must go with you to Belmont.
  BASSANIO. Why, then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano:
    Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice-
    Parts that become thee happily enough,
    And in such eyes as ours appear not faults;
    But where thou art not known, why there they show
    Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain
    To allay with some cold drops of modesty
    Thy skipping spirit; lest through thy wild behaviour
    I be misconst'red in the place I go to
    And lose my hopes.
  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio, hear me:
    If I do not put on a sober habit,
    Talk with respect, and swear but now and then,
    Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely,
    Nay more, while grace is saying hood mine eyes
    Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say amen,
    Use all the observance of civility
    Like one well studied in a sad ostent
    To please his grandam, never trust me more.
  BASSANIO. Well, we shall see your bearing.
  GRATIANO. Nay, but I bar to-night; you shall not gauge me
    By what we do to-night.
  BASSANIO. No, that were pity;
    I would entreat you rather to put on
    Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends
    That purpose merriment. But fare you well;
    I have some business.
  GRATIANO. And I must to Lorenzo and the rest;
    But we will visit you at supper-time.                 Exeunt

SCENE III. Venice. SHYLOCK'S house

Enter JESSICA and LAUNCELOT

  JESSICA. I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so.
    Our house is hell; and thou, a merry devil,
    Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.
    But fare thee well; there is a ducat for thee;
    And, Launcelot, soon at supper shalt thou see
    Lorenzo, who is thy new master's guest.
    Give him this letter; do it secretly.
    And so farewell. I would not have my father
    See me in talk with thee.
  LAUNCELOT. Adieu! tears exhibit my tongue. Most beautiful pagan,
    most sweet Jew! If a Christian do not play the knave and get
    thee, I am much deceived. But, adieu! these foolish drops do
    something drown my manly spirit; adieu!
  JESSICA. Farewell, good Launcelot.              Exit LAUNCELOT
    Alack, what heinous sin is it in me
    To be asham'd to be my father's child!
    But though I am a daughter to his blood,
    I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo,
    If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,
    Become a Christian and thy loving wife.                 Exit

SCENE IV. Venice. A street

Enter GRATIANO, LORENZO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO

  LORENZO. Nay, we will slink away in suppertime,
    Disguise us at my lodging, and return
    All in an hour.
  GRATIANO. We have not made good preparation.
  SALERIO. We have not spoke us yet of torch-bearers.
  SOLANIO. 'Tis vile, unless it may be quaintly ordered;
    And better in my mind not undertook.
  LORENZO. 'Tis now but four o'clock; we have two hours
    To furnish us.

                 Enter LAUNCELOT, With a letter

    Friend Launcelot, what's the news?
  LAUNCELOT. An it shall please you to break up this, it shall seem
    to signify.
  LORENZO. I know the hand; in faith, 'tis a fair hand,
    And whiter than the paper it writ on
    Is the fair hand that writ.
  GRATIANO. Love-news, in faith!
  LAUNCELOT. By your leave, sir.
  LORENZO. Whither goest thou?
  LAUNCELOT. Marry, sir, to bid my old master, the Jew, to sup
    to-night with my new master, the Christian.
  LORENZO. Hold, here, take this. Tell gentle Jessica
    I will not fail her; speak it privately.
    Go, gentlemen,                                Exit LAUNCELOT
    Will you prepare you for this masque to-night?
    I am provided of a torch-bearer.
  SALERIO. Ay, marry, I'll be gone about it straight.
  SOLANIO. And so will I.
  LORENZO. Meet me and Gratiano
    At Gratiano's lodging some hour hence.
  SALERIO. 'Tis good we do so.        Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO
  GRATIANO. Was not that letter from fair Jessica?
  LORENZO. I must needs tell thee all. She hath directed
    How I shall take her from her father's house;
    What gold and jewels she is furnish'd with;
    What page's suit she hath in readiness.
    If e'er the Jew her father come to heaven,
    It will be for his gentle daughter's sake;
    And never dare misfortune cross her foot,
    Unless she do it under this excuse,
    That she is issue to a faithless Jew.
    Come, go with me, peruse this as thou goest;
    Fair Jessica shall be my torch-bearer.                Exeunt

SCENE V. Venice. Before SHYLOCK'S house

Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT

  SHYLOCK. Well, thou shalt see; thy eyes shall be thy judge,
    The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio.-
    What, Jessica!- Thou shalt not gormandize
    As thou hast done with me- What, Jessica!-
    And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out-
    Why, Jessica, I say!
  LAUNCELOT. Why, Jessica!
  SHYLOCK. Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.
  LAUNCELOT. Your worship was wont to tell me I could do nothing
    without bidding.

                          Enter JESSICA

  JESSICA. Call you? What is your will?
  SHYLOCK. I am bid forth to supper, Jessica;
    There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?
    I am not bid for love; they flatter me;
    But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon
    The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,
    Look to my house. I am right loath to go;
    There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
    For I did dream of money-bags to-night.
  LAUNCELOT. I beseech you, sir, go; my young master doth expect your
    reproach.
  SHYLOCK. So do I his.
  LAUNCELOT. And they have conspired together; I will not say you
    shall see a masque, but if you do, then it was not for nothing
    that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six o'clock
    i' th' morning, falling out that year on Ash Wednesday was four
    year, in th' afternoon.
  SHYLOCK. What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:
    Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum,
    And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife,
    Clamber not you up to the casements then,
    Nor thrust your head into the public street
    To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces;
    But stop my house's ears- I mean my casements;
    Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter
    My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear
    I have no mind of feasting forth to-night;
    But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah;
    Say I will come.
  LAUNCELOT. I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at window for
    all this.
        There will come a Christian by
        Will be worth a Jewess' eye.                        Exit
  SHYLOCK. What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?
  JESSICA. His words were 'Farewell, mistress'; nothing else.
  SHYLOCK. The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder,
    Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day
    More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me,
    Therefore I part with him; and part with him
    To one that I would have him help to waste
    His borrowed purse. Well, Jessica, go in;
    Perhaps I will return immediately.
    Do as I bid you, shut doors after you.
    Fast bind, fast find-
    A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.                  Exit
  JESSICA. Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost,
    I have a father, you a daughter, lost.                  Exit

SCENE VI. Venice. Before SHYLOCK'S house

Enter the maskers, GRATIANO and SALERIO

  GRATIANO. This is the pent-house under which Lorenzo
    Desired us to make stand.
  SALERIO. His hour is almost past.
  GRATIANO. And it is marvel he out-dwells his hour,
    For lovers ever run before the clock.
  SALERIO. O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly
    To seal love's bonds new made than they are wont
    To keep obliged faith unforfeited!
  GRATIANO. That ever holds: who riseth from a feast
    With that keen appetite that he sits down?
    Where is the horse that doth untread again
    His tedious measures with the unbated fire
    That he did pace them first? All things that are
    Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed.
    How like a younker or a prodigal
    The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
    Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind;
    How like the prodigal doth she return,
    With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails,
    Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!

                       Enter LORENZO

  SALERIO. Here comes Lorenzo; more of this hereafter.
  LORENZO. Sweet friends, your patience for my long abode!
    Not I, but my affairs, have made you wait.
    When you shall please to play the thieves for wives,
    I'll watch as long for you then. Approach;
    Here dwells my father Jew. Ho! who's within?

           Enter JESSICA, above, in boy's clothes

  JESSICA. Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty,
    Albeit I'll swear that I do know your tongue.
  LORENZO. Lorenzo, and thy love.
  JESSICA. Lorenzo, certain; and my love indeed;
    For who love I so much? And now who knows
    But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours?
  LORENZO. Heaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art.
  JESSICA. Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains.
    I am glad 'tis night, you do not look on me,
    For I am much asham'd of my exchange;
    But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
    The pretty follies that themselves commit,
    For, if they could, Cupid himself would blush
    To see me thus transformed to a boy.
  LORENZO. Descend, for you must be my torch-bearer.
  JESSICA. What! must I hold a candle to my shames?
    They in themselves, good sooth, are too too light.
    Why, 'tis an office of discovery, love,
    And I should be obscur'd.
  LORENZO. So are you, sweet,
    Even in the lovely garnish of a boy.
    But come at once,
    For the close night doth play the runaway,
    And we are stay'd for at Bassanio's feast.
  JESSICA. I will make fast the doors, and gild myself
    With some moe ducats, and be with you straight.
                                                      Exit above

  GRATIANO. Now, by my hood, a gentle, and no Jew.
  LORENZO. Beshrew me, but I love her heartily,
    For she is wise, if I can judge of her,
    And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,
    And true she is, as she hath prov'd herself;
    And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true,
    Shall she be placed in my constant soul.

                     Enter JESSICA, below

    What, art thou come? On, gentlemen, away;
    Our masquing mates by this time for us stay.
                                   Exit with JESSICA and SALERIO

                        Enter ANTONIO

  ANTONIO. Who's there?
  GRATIANO. Signior Antonio?
  ANTONIO. Fie, fie, Gratiano, where are all the rest?
    'Tis nine o'clock; our friends all stay for you;
    No masque to-night; the wind is come about;
    Bassanio presently will go aboard;
    I have sent twenty out to seek for you.
  GRATIANO. I am glad on't; I desire no more delight
    Than to be under sail and gone to-night.              Exeunt

SCENE VII. Belmont. PORTIA's house

Flourish of cornets. Enter PORTIA, with the PRINCE OF MOROCCO, and
their trains

  PORTIA. Go draw aside the curtains and discover
    The several caskets to this noble Prince.
    Now make your choice.
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. The first, of gold, who this inscription bears:
    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'
    The second, silver, which this promise carries:
    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'
    This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt:
    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'
    How shall I know if I do choose the right?
  PORTIA. The one of them contains my picture, Prince;
    If you choose that, then I am yours withal.
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Some god direct my judgment! Let me see;
    I will survey th' inscriptions back again.
    What says this leaden casket?
    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'
    Must give- for what? For lead? Hazard for lead!
    This casket threatens; men that hazard all
    Do it in hope of fair advantages.
    A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross;
    I'll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead.
    What says the silver with her virgin hue?
    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'
    As much as he deserves! Pause there, Morocco,
    And weigh thy value with an even hand.
    If thou beest rated by thy estimation,
    Thou dost deserve enough, and yet enough
    May not extend so far as to the lady;
    And yet to be afeard of my deserving
    Were but a weak disabling of myself.
    As much as I deserve? Why, that's the lady!
    I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,
    In graces, and in qualities of breeding;
    But more than these, in love I do deserve.
    What if I stray'd no farther, but chose here?
    Let's see once more this saying grav'd in gold:
    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'
    Why, that's the lady! All the world desires her;
    From the four corners of the earth they come
    To kiss this shrine, this mortal-breathing saint.
    The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds
    Of wide Arabia are as throughfares now
    For princes to come view fair Portia.
    The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head
    Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar
    To stop the foreign spirits, but they come
    As o'er a brook to see fair Portia.
    One of these three contains her heavenly picture.
    Is't like that lead contains her? 'Twere damnation
    To think so base a thought; it were too gross
    To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.
    Or shall I think in silver she's immur'd,
    Being ten times undervalued to tried gold?
    O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem
    Was set in worse than gold. They have in England
    A coin that bears the figure of an angel
    Stamp'd in gold; but that's insculp'd upon.
    But here an angel in a golden bed
    Lies all within. Deliver me the key;
    Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may!
  PORTIA. There, take it, Prince, and if my form lie there,
    Then I am yours.                [He opens the golden casket]
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. O hell! what have we here?
    A carrion Death, within whose empty eye
    There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.
         'All that glisters is not gold,
         Often have you heard that told;
         Many a man his life hath sold
         But my outside to behold.
         Gilded tombs do worms infold.
         Had you been as wise as bold,
         Young in limbs, in judgment old,
         Your answer had not been inscroll'd.
         Fare you well, your suit is cold.'
      Cold indeed, and labour lost,
      Then farewell, heat, and welcome, frost.
    Portia, adieu! I have too griev'd a heart
    To take a tedious leave; thus losers part.
                        Exit with his train. Flourish of cornets
  PORTIA. A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go.
    Let all of his complexion choose me so.               Exeunt

SCENE VIII. Venice. A street

Enter SALERIO and SOLANIO

  SALERIO. Why, man, I saw Bassanio under sail;
    With him is Gratiano gone along;
    And in their ship I am sure Lorenzo is not.
  SOLANIO. The villain Jew with outcries rais'd the Duke,
    Who went with him to search Bassanio's ship.
  SALERIO. He came too late, the ship was under sail;
    But there the Duke was given to understand
    That in a gondola were seen together
    Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica;
    Besides, Antonio certified the Duke
    They were not with Bassanio in his ship.
  SOLANIO. I never heard a passion so confus'd,
    So strange, outrageous, and so variable,
    As the dog Jew did utter in the streets.
    'My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!
    Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!
    Justice! the law! My ducats and my daughter!
    A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,
    Of double ducats, stol'n from me by my daughter!
    And jewels- two stones, two rich and precious stones,
    Stol'n by my daughter! Justice! Find the girl;
    She hath the stones upon her and the ducats.'
  SALERIO. Why, all the boys in Venice follow him,
    Crying, his stones, his daughter, and his ducats.
  SOLANIO. Let good Antonio look he keep his day,
    Or he shall pay for this.
  SALERIO. Marry, well rememb'red;
    I reason'd with a Frenchman yesterday,
    Who told me, in the narrow seas that part
    The French and English, there miscarried
    A vessel of our country richly fraught.
    I thought upon Antonio when he told me,
    And wish'd in silence that it were not his.
  SOLANIO. You were best to tell Antonio what you hear;
    Yet do not suddenly, for it may grieve him.
  SALERIO. A kinder gentleman treads not the earth.
    I saw Bassanio and Antonio part.
    Bassanio told him he would make some speed
    Of his return. He answered 'Do not so;
    Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,
    But stay the very riping of the time;
    And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me,
    Let it not enter in your mind of love;
    Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts
    To courtship, and such fair ostents of love
    As shall conveniently become you there.'
    And even there, his eye being big with tears,
    Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
    And with affection wondrous sensible
    He wrung Bassanio's hand; and so they parted.
  SOLANIO. I think he only loves the world for him.
    I pray thee, let us go and find him out,
    And quicken his embraced heaviness
    With some delight or other.
  SALERIO. Do we so.                                      Exeunt

SCENE IX. Belmont. PORTIA'S house

Enter NERISSA, and a SERVITOR

  NERISSA. Quick, quick, I pray thee, draw the curtain straight;
    The Prince of Arragon hath ta'en his oath,
    And comes to his election presently.

       Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF ARRAGON,
                    PORTIA, and their trains

  PORTIA. Behold, there stand the caskets, noble Prince.
    If you choose that wherein I am contain'd,
    Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemniz'd;
    But if you fail, without more speech, my lord,
    You must be gone from hence immediately.
  ARRAGON. I am enjoin'd by oath to observe three things:
    First, never to unfold to any one
    Which casket 'twas I chose; next, if I fail
    Of the right casket, never in my life
    To woo a maid in way of marriage;
    Lastly,
    If I do fail in fortune of my choice,
    Immediately to leave you and be gone.
  PORTIA. To these injunctions every one doth swear
    That comes to hazard for my worthless self.
  ARRAGON. And so have I address'd me. Fortune now
    To my heart's hope! Gold, silver, and base lead.
    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'
    You shall look fairer ere I give or hazard.
    What says the golden chest? Ha! let me see:
    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'
    What many men desire- that 'many' may be meant
    By the fool multitude, that choose by show,
    Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach;
    Which pries not to th' interior, but, like the martlet,
    Builds in the weather on the outward wall,
    Even in the force and road of casualty.
    I will not choose what many men desire,
    Because I will not jump with common spirits
    And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.
    Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house!
    Tell me once more what title thou dost bear.
    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'
    And well said too; for who shall go about
    To cozen fortune, and be honourable
    Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume
    To wear an undeserved dignity.
    O that estates, degrees, and offices,
    Were not deriv'd corruptly, and that clear honour
    Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer!
    How many then should cover that stand bare!
    How many be commanded that command!
    How much low peasantry would then be gleaned
    From the true seed of honour! and how much honour
    Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,
    To be new varnish'd! Well, but to my choice.
    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'
    I will assume desert. Give me a key for this,
    And instantly unlock my fortunes here.
                                    [He opens the silver casket]
  PORTIA.  [Aside]  Too long a pause for that which you find there.
  ARRAGON. What's here? The portrait of a blinking idiot
    Presenting me a schedule! I will read it.
    How much unlike art thou to Portia!
    How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!
    'Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.'
    Did I deserve no more than a fool's head?
    Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?
  PORTIA. To offend and judge are distinct offices
    And of opposed natures.
  ARRAGON. What is here?  [Reads]

         'The fire seven times tried this;
         Seven times tried that judgment is
         That did never choose amiss.
         Some there be that shadows kiss,
         Such have but a shadow's bliss.
         There be fools alive iwis
         Silver'd o'er, and so was this.
         Take what wife you will to bed,
         I will ever be your head.
         So be gone; you are sped.'

         Still more fool I shall appear
         By the time I linger here.
         With one fool's head I came to woo,
         But I go away with two.
         Sweet, adieu! I'll keep my oath,
         Patiently to bear my wroth.         Exit with his train

  PORTIA. Thus hath the candle sing'd the moth.
    O, these deliberate fools! When they do choose,
    They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.
  NERISSA. The ancient saying is no heresy:
    Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.
  PORTIA. Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa.

                       Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. Where is my lady?
  PORTIA. Here; what would my lord?
  SERVANT. Madam, there is alighted at your gate
    A young Venetian, one that comes before
    To signify th' approaching of his lord,
    From whom he bringeth sensible regreets;
    To wit, besides commends and courteous breath,
    Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen
    So likely an ambassador of love.
    A day in April never came so sweet
    To show how costly summer was at hand
    As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.
  PORTIA. No more, I pray thee; I am half afeard
    Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee,
    Thou spend'st such high-day wit in praising him.
    Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see
    Quick Cupid's post that comes so mannerly.
  NERISSA. Bassanio, Lord Love, if thy will it be!        Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Venice. A street

Enter SOLANIO and SALERIO

  SOLANIO. Now, what news on the Rialto?
  SALERIO. Why, yet it lives there uncheck'd that Antonio hath a ship
    of rich lading wreck'd on the narrow seas; the Goodwins I think
    they call the place, a very dangerous flat and fatal, where the
    carcases of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my
    gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.
  SOLANIO. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapp'd
    ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a
    third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity or
    crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the
    honest Antonio- O that I had a title good enough to keep his name
    company!-
  SALERIO. Come, the full stop.
  SOLANIO. Ha! What sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a
    ship.
  SALERIO. I would it might prove the end of his losses.
  SOLANIO. Let me say amen betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer,
    for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.

                             Enter SHYLOCK

    How now, Shylock? What news among the merchants?
  SHYLOCK. You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my
    daughter's flight.
  SALERIO. That's certain; I, for my part, knew the tailor that made
    the wings she flew withal.
  SOLANIO. And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was flidge;
    and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.
  SHYLOCK. She is damn'd for it.
  SALERIO. That's certain, if the devil may be her judge.
  SHYLOCK. My own flesh and blood to rebel!
  SOLANIO. Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?
  SHYLOCK. I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood.
  SALERIO. There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than
    between jet and ivory; more between your bloods than there is
    between red wine and Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether
    Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?
  SHYLOCK. There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a prodigal,
    who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that was
    us'd to come so smug upon the mart. Let him look to his bond. He
    was wont to call me usurer; let him look to his bond. He was wont
    to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him look to his bond.
  SALERIO. Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his
    flesh. What's that good for?
  SHYLOCK. To bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it will
    feed my revenge. He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a
    million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorned my
    nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
    enemies. And what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
    Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,
    passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
    subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed
    and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If
    you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
    If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we
    not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you
    in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?
    Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance
    be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me
    I will execute; and itshall go hard but I will better the
    instruction.

                    Enter a MAN from ANTONIO

  MAN. Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to
    speak with you both.
  SALERIO. We have been up and down to seek him.

                          Enter TUBAL

  SOLANIO. Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be
    match'd, unless the devil himself turn Jew.
                                Exeunt SOLANIO, SALERIO, and MAN
  SHYLOCK. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? Hast thou found my
    daughter?
  TUBAL. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.
  SHYLOCK. Why there, there, there, there! A diamond gone, cost me
    two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our
    nation till now; I never felt it till now. Two thousand ducats in
    that, and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter
    were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear; would she were
    hears'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of
    them? Why, so- and I know not what's spent in the search. Why,
    thou- loss upon loss! The thief gone with so much, and so much to
    find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge; nor no ill luck
    stirring but what lights o' my shoulders; no sighs but o' my
    breathing; no tears but o' my shedding!
  TUBAL. Yes, other men have ill luck too: Antonio, as I heard in
    Genoa-
  SHYLOCK. What, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck?
  TUBAL. Hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis.
  SHYLOCK. I thank God, I thank God. Is it true, is it true?
  TUBAL. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.
  SHYLOCK. I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news- ha, ha!-
    heard in Genoa.
  TUBAL. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night,
    fourscore ducats.
  SHYLOCK. Thou stick'st a dagger in me- I shall never see my gold
    again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting! Fourscore ducats!
  TUBAL. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company to
    Venice that swear he cannot choose but break.
  SHYLOCK. I am very glad of it; I'll plague him, I'll torture him; I
    am glad of it.
  TUBAL. One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter
    for a monkey.
  SHYLOCK. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my
    turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor; I would not
    have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.
  TUBAL. But Antonio is certainly undone.
  SHYLOCK. Nay, that's true; that's very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an
    officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of
    him, if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make what
    merchandise I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go,
    good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.                  Exeunt

SCENE II. Belmont. PORTIA'S house

Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and all their trains

  PORTIA. I pray you tarry; pause a day or two
    Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong,
    I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.
    There's something tells me- but it is not love-
    I would not lose you; and you know yourself
    Hate counsels not in such a quality.
    But lest you should not understand me well-
    And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought-
    I would detain you here some month or two
    Before you venture for me. I could teach you
    How to choose right, but then I am forsworn;
    So will I never be; so may you miss me;
    But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin,
    That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes!
    They have o'erlook'd me and divided me;
    One half of me is yours, the other half yours-
    Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
    And so all yours. O! these naughty times
    Puts bars between the owners and their rights;
    And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,
    Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.
    I speak too long, but 'tis to peize the time,
    To eke it, and to draw it out in length,
    To stay you from election.
  BASSANIO. Let me choose;
    For as I am, I live upon the rack.
  PORTIA. Upon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess
    What treason there is mingled with your love.
  BASSANIO. None but that ugly treason of mistrust
    Which makes me fear th' enjoying of my love;
    There may as well be amity and life
    'Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.
  PORTIA. Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,
    Where men enforced do speak anything.
  BASSANIO. Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.
  PORTIA. Well then, confess and live.
  BASSANIO. 'Confess' and 'love'
    Had been the very sum of my confession.
    O happy torment, when my torturer
    Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
    But let me to my fortune and the caskets.
  PORTIA. Away, then; I am lock'd in one of them.
    If you do love me, you will find me out.
    Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof;
    Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
    Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
    Fading in music. That the comparison
    May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
    And wat'ry death-bed for him. He may win;
    And what is music then? Then music is
    Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
    To a new-crowned monarch; such it is
    As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
    That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear
    And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,
    With no less presence, but with much more love,
    Than young Alcides when he did redeem
    The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
    To the sea-monster. I stand for sacrifice;
    The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
    With bleared visages come forth to view
    The issue of th' exploit. Go, Hercules!
    Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay
    I view the fight than thou that mak'st the fray.

                            A SONG

      the whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself

                 Tell me where is fancy bred,
                 Or in the heart or in the head,
                 How begot, how nourished?
                   Reply, reply.
                 It is engend'red in the eyes,
                 With gazing fed; and fancy dies
                 In the cradle where it lies.
                   Let us all ring fancy's knell:
                   I'll begin it- Ding, dong, bell.
  ALL.           Ding, dong, bell.

  BASSANIO. So may the outward shows be least themselves;
    The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.
    In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
    But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
    Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
    What damned error but some sober brow
    Will bless it, and approve it with a text,
    Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
    There is no vice so simple but assumes
    Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
    How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
    As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
    The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;
    Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk!
    And these assume but valour's excrement
    To render them redoubted. Look on beauty
    And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weight,
    Which therein works a miracle in nature,
    Making them lightest that wear most of it;
    So are those crisped snaky golden locks
    Which make such wanton gambols with the wind
    Upon supposed fairness often known
    To be the dowry of a second head-
    The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.
    Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
    To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
    Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
    The seeming truth which cunning times put on
    To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,
    Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee;
    Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
    'Tween man and man; but thou, thou meagre lead,
    Which rather threaten'st than dost promise aught,
    Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,
    And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!
  PORTIA.  [Aside]  How all the other passions fleet to air,
    As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac'd despair,
    And shudd'ring fear, and green-ey'd jealousy!
    O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,
    In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!
    I feel too much thy blessing. Make it less,
    For fear I surfeit.
  BASSANIO.  [Opening the leaden casket]  What find I here?
    Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god
    Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
    Or whether riding on the balls of mine
    Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips,
    Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar
    Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
    The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
    A golden mesh t' entrap the hearts of men
    Faster than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes-
    How could he see to do them? Having made one,
    Methinks it should have power to steal both his,
    And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look how far
    The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
    In underprizing it, so far this shadow
    Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll,
    The continent and summary of my fortune.
         'You that choose not by the view,
         Chance as fair and choose as true!
         Since this fortune falls to you,
         Be content and seek no new.
         If you be well pleas'd with this,
         And hold your fortune for your bliss,
         Turn to where your lady is
         And claim her with a loving kiss.'
    A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave;
    I come by note, to give and to receive.
    Like one of two contending in a prize,
    That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes,
    Hearing applause and universal shout,
    Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt
    Whether those peals of praise be his or no;
    So, thrice-fair lady, stand I even so,
    As doubtful whether what I see be true,
    Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you.
  PORTIA. You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
    Such as I am. Though for myself alone
    I would not be ambitious in my wish
    To wish myself much better, yet for you
    I would be trebled twenty times myself,
    A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,
    That only to stand high in your account
    I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
    Exceed account. But the full sum of me
    Is sum of something which, to term in gross,
    Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd;
    Happy in this, she is not yet so old
    But she may learn; happier than this,
    She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
    Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit
    Commits itself to yours to be directed,
    As from her lord, her governor, her king.
    Myself and what is mine to you and yours
    Is now converted. But now I was the lord
    Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
    Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,
    This house, these servants, and this same myself,
    Are yours- my lord's. I give them with this ring,
    Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
    Let it presage the ruin of your love,
    And be my vantage to exclaim on you.
  BASSANIO. Madam, you have bereft me of all words;
    Only my blood speaks to you in my veins;
    And there is such confusion in my powers
    As, after some oration fairly spoke
    By a beloved prince, there doth appear
    Among the buzzing pleased multitude,
    Where every something, being blent together,
    Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy
    Express'd and not express'd. But when this ring
    Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence;
    O, then be bold to say Bassanio's dead!
  NERISSA. My lord and lady, it is now our time
    That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper
    To cry 'Good joy.' Good joy, my lord and lady!
  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,
    I wish you all the joy that you can wish,
    For I am sure you can wish none from me;
    And, when your honours mean to solemnize
    The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you
    Even at that time I may be married too.
  BASSANIO. With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.
  GRATIANO. I thank your lordship, you have got me one.
    My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:
    You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid;
    You lov'd, I lov'd; for intermission
    No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.
    Your fortune stood upon the caskets there,
    And so did mine too, as the matter falls;
    For wooing here until I sweat again,
    And swearing till my very roof was dry
    With oaths of love, at last- if promise last-
    I got a promise of this fair one here
    To have her love, provided that your fortune
    Achiev'd her mistress.
  PORTIA. Is this true, Nerissa?
  NERISSA. Madam, it is, so you stand pleas'd withal.
  BASSANIO. And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?
  GRATIANO. Yes, faith, my lord.
  BASSANIO. Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.
  GRATIANO. We'll play with them: the first boy for a thousand
    ducats.
  NERISSA. What, and stake down?
  GRATIANO. No; we shall ne'er win at that sport, and stake down-
    But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?
    What, and my old Venetian friend, Salerio!

          Enter LORENZO, JESSICA, and SALERIO, a messenger
                           from Venice

  BASSANIO. Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither,
    If that the youth of my new int'rest here
    Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,
    I bid my very friends and countrymen,
    Sweet Portia, welcome.
  PORTIA. So do I, my lord;
    They are entirely welcome.
  LORENZO. I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,
    My purpose was not to have seen you here;
    But meeting with Salerio by the way,
    He did entreat me, past all saying nay,
    To come with him along.
  SALERIO. I did, my lord,
    And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio
    Commends him to you.               [Gives BASSANIO a letter]
  BASSANIO. Ere I ope his letter,
    I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.
  SALERIO. Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind;
    Nor well, unless in mind; his letter there
    Will show you his estate.        [BASSANIO opens the letter]
  GRATIANO. Nerissa, cheer yond stranger; bid her welcome.
    Your hand, Salerio. What's the news from Venice?
    How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?
    I know he will be glad of our success:
    We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.
  SALERIO. I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.
  PORTIA. There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper
    That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek:
    Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world
    Could turn so much the constitution
    Of any constant man. What, worse and worse!
    With leave, Bassanio: I am half yourself,
    And I must freely have the half of anything
    That this same paper brings you.
  BASSANIO. O sweet Portia,
    Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words
    That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady,
    When I did first impart my love to you,
    I freely told you all the wealth I had
    Ran in my veins- I was a gentleman;
    And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady,
    Rating myself at nothing, you shall see
    How much I was a braggart. When I told you
    My state was nothing, I should then have told you
    That I was worse than nothing; for indeed
    I have engag'd myself to a dear friend,
    Engag'd my friend to his mere enemy,
    To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,
    The paper as the body of my friend,
    And every word in it a gaping wound
    Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio?
    Hath all his ventures fail'd? What, not one hit?
    From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,
    From Lisbon, Barbary, and India,
    And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch
    Of merchant-marring rocks?
  SALERIO. Not one, my lord.
    Besides, it should appear that, if he had
    The present money to discharge the Jew,
    He would not take it. Never did I know
    A creature that did bear the shape of man
    So keen and greedy to confound a man.
    He plies the Duke at morning and at night,
    And doth impeach the freedom of the state,
    If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,
    The Duke himself, and the magnificoes
    Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him;
    But none can drive him from the envious plea
    Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.
  JESSICA. When I was with him, I have heard him swear
    To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,
    That he would rather have Antonio's flesh
    Than twenty times the value of the sum
    That he did owe him; and I know, my lord,
    If law, authority, and power, deny not,
    It will go hard with poor Antonio.
  PORTIA. Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?
  BASSANIO. The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
    The best condition'd and unwearied spirit
    In doing courtesies; and one in whom
    The ancient Roman honour more appears
    Than any that draws breath in Italy.
  PORTIA. What sum owes he the Jew?
  BASSANIO. For me, three thousand ducats.
  PORTIA. What! no more?
    Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond;
    Double six thousand, and then treble that,
    Before a friend of this description
    Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.
    First go with me to church and call me wife,
    And then away to Venice to your friend;
    For never shall you lie by Portia's side
    With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold
    To pay the petty debt twenty times over.
    When it is paid, bring your true friend along.
    My maid Nerissa and myself meantime
    Will live as maids and widows. Come, away;
    For you shall hence upon your wedding day.
    Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer;
    Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.
    But let me hear the letter of your friend.
  BASSANIO.  [Reads]  'Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried,
    my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to the
    Jew is forfeit; and since, in paying it, it is impossible I
    should live, all debts are clear'd between you and I, if I might
    but see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure; if
    your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.'
  PORTIA. O love, dispatch all business and be gone!
  BASSANIO. Since I have your good leave to go away,
    I will make haste; but, till I come again,
    No bed shall e'er be guilty of my stay,
    Nor rest be interposer 'twixt us twain.               Exeunt

SCENE III. Venice. A street

Enter SHYLOCK, SOLANIO, ANTONIO, and GAOLER

  SHYLOCK. Gaoler, look to him. Tell not me of mercy-
    This is the fool that lent out money gratis.
    Gaoler, look to him.
  ANTONIO. Hear me yet, good Shylock.
  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond; speak not against my bond.
    I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.
    Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,
    But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs;
    The Duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder,
    Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond
    To come abroad with him at his request.
  ANTONIO. I pray thee hear me speak.
  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak;
    I'll have my bond; and therefore speak no more.
    I'll not be made a soft and dull-ey'd fool,
    To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield,
    To Christian intercessors. Follow not;
    I'll have no speaking; I will have my bond.             Exit
  SOLANIO. It is the most impenetrable cur
    That ever kept with men.
  ANTONIO. Let him alone;
    I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers.
    He seeks my life; his reason well I know:
    I oft deliver'd from his forfeitures
    Many that have at times made moan to me;
    Therefore he hates me.
  SOLANIO. I am sure the Duke
    Will never grant this forfeiture to hold.
  ANTONIO. The Duke cannot deny the course of law;
    For the commodity that strangers have
    With us in Venice, if it be denied,
    Will much impeach the justice of the state,
    Since that the trade and profit of the city
    Consisteth of all nations. Therefore, go;
    These griefs and losses have so bated me
    That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh
    To-morrow to my bloody creditor.
    Well, gaoler, on; pray God Bassanio come
    To see me pay his debt, and then I care not.          Exeunt

SCENE IV. Belmont. PORTIA'S house

Enter PORTIA, NERISSA, LORENZO, JESSICA, and BALTHASAR

  LORENZO. Madam, although I speak it in your presence,
    You have a noble and a true conceit
    Of godlike amity, which appears most strongly
    In bearing thus the absence of your lord.
    But if you knew to whom you show this honour,
    How true a gentleman you send relief,
    How dear a lover of my lord your husband,
    I know you would be prouder of the work
    Than customary bounty can enforce you.
  PORTIA. I never did repent for doing good,
    Nor shall not now; for in companions
    That do converse and waste the time together,
    Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
    There must be needs a like proportion
    Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit,
    Which makes me think that this Antonio,
    Being the bosom lover of my lord,
    Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,
    How little is the cost I have bestowed
    In purchasing the semblance of my soul
    From out the state of hellish cruelty!
    This comes too near the praising of myself;
    Therefore, no more of it; hear other things.
    Lorenzo, I commit into your hands
    The husbandry and manage of my house
    Until my lord's return; for mine own part,
    I have toward heaven breath'd a secret vow
    To live in prayer and contemplation,
    Only attended by Nerissa here,
    Until her husband and my lord's return.
    There is a monastery two miles off,
    And there we will abide. I do desire you
    Not to deny this imposition,
    The which my love and some necessity
    Now lays upon you.
  LORENZO. Madam, with all my heart
    I shall obey you in an fair commands.
  PORTIA. My people do already know my mind,
    And will acknowledge you and Jessica
    In place of Lord Bassanio and myself.
    So fare you well till we shall meet again.
  LORENZO. Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you!
  JESSICA. I wish your ladyship all heart's content.
  PORTIA. I thank you for your wish, and am well pleas'd
    To wish it back on you. Fare you well, Jessica.
                                      Exeunt JESSICA and LORENZO
    Now, Balthasar,
    As I have ever found thee honest-true,
    So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,
    And use thou all th' endeavour of a man
    In speed to Padua; see thou render this
    Into my cousin's hands, Doctor Bellario;
    And look what notes and garments he doth give thee,
    Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin'd speed
    Unto the traject, to the common ferry
    Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words,
    But get thee gone; I shall be there before thee.
  BALTHASAR. Madam, I go with all convenient speed.         Exit
  PORTIA. Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand
    That you yet know not of; we'll see our husbands
    Before they think of us.
  NERISSA. Shall they see us?
  PORTIA. They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit
    That they shall think we are accomplished
    With that we lack. I'll hold thee any wager,
    When we are both accoutred like young men,
    I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
    And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
    And speak between the change of man and boy
    With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps
    Into a manly stride; and speak of frays
    Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies,
    How honourable ladies sought my love,
    Which I denying, they fell sick and died-
    I could not do withal. Then I'll repent,
    And wish for all that, that I had not kill'd them.
    And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,
    That men shall swear I have discontinued school
    About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind
    A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,
    Which I will practise.
  NERISSA. Why, shall we turn to men?
  PORTIA. Fie, what a question's that,
    If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!
    But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device
    When I am in my coach, which stays for us
    At the park gate; and therefore haste away,
    For we must measure twenty miles to-day.              Exeunt

SCENE V. Belmont. The garden

Enter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA

  LAUNCELOT. Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father are to
    be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear you.
    I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of
    the matter; therefore be o' good cheer, for truly I think you are
    damn'd. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good, and
    that is but a kind of bastard hope, neither.
  JESSICA. And what hope is that, I pray thee?
  LAUNCELOT. Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not-
   that you are not the Jew's daughter.
  JESSICA. That were a kind of bastard hope indeed; so the sins of my
    mother should be visited upon me.
  LAUNCELOT. Truly then I fear you are damn'd both by father and
    mother; thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into
    Charybdis, your mother; well, you are gone both ways.
  JESSICA. I shall be sav'd by my husband; he hath made me a
    Christian.
  LAUNCELOT. Truly, the more to blame he; we were Christians enow
    before, e'en as many as could well live one by another. This
    making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we grow all
    to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the
    coals for money.

                             Enter LORENZO

  JESSICA. I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say; here he
    comes.
  LORENZO. I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you
    thus get my wife into corners.
  JESSICA. Nay, you need nor fear us, Lorenzo; Launcelot and I are
    out; he tells me flatly there's no mercy for me in heaven,
    because I am a Jew's daughter; and he says you are no good member
    of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians you
    raise the price of pork.
  LORENZO. I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you
    can the getting up of the negro's belly; the Moor is with child
    by you, Launcelot.
  LAUNCELOT. It is much that the Moor should be more than reason; but
    if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I
    took her for.
  LORENZO. How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best
    grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow
    commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them
    prepare for dinner.
  LAUNCELOT. That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.
  LORENZO. Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! Then bid them
    prepare dinner.
  LAUNCELOT. That is done too, sir, only 'cover' is the word.
  LORENZO. Will you cover, then, sir?
  LAUNCELOT. Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty.
  LORENZO. Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the
    whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee understand a
    plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows, bid them cover
    the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.
  LAUNCELOT. For the table, sir, it shall be serv'd in; for the meat,
    sir, it shall be cover'd; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why,
    let it be as humours and conceits shall govern.
 Exit
  LORENZO. O dear discretion, how his words are suited!
    The fool hath planted in his memory
    An army of good words; and I do know
    A many fools that stand in better place,
    Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word
    Defy the matter. How cheer'st thou, Jessica?
    And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,
    How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio's wife?
  JESSICA. Past all expressing. It is very meet
    The Lord Bassanio live an upright life,
    For, having such a blessing in his lady,
    He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;
    And if on earth he do not merit it,
    In reason he should never come to heaven.
    Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,
    And on the wager lay two earthly women,
    And Portia one, there must be something else
    Pawn'd with the other; for the poor rude world
    Hath not her fellow.
  LORENZO. Even such a husband
    Hast thou of me as she is for a wife.
  JESSICA. Nay, but ask my opinion too of that.
  LORENZO. I will anon; first let us go to dinner.
  JESSICA. Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach.
  LORENZO. No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;
    Then howsome'er thou speak'st, 'mong other things
    I shall digest it.
  JESSICA. Well, I'll set you forth.                      Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Venice. The court of justice

Enter the DUKE, the MAGNIFICOES, ANTONIO, BASSANIO, GRATIANO, SALERIO,
and OTHERS

  DUKE OF VENICE. What, is Antonio here?
  ANTONIO. Ready, so please your Grace.
  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer
    A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,
    Uncapable of pity, void and empty
    From any dram of mercy.
  ANTONIO. I have heard
    Your Grace hath ta'en great pains to qualify
    His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate,
    And that no lawful means can carry me
    Out of his envy's reach, I do oppose
    My patience to his fury, and am arm'd
    To suffer with a quietness of spirit
    The very tyranny and rage of his.
  DUKE OF VENICE. Go one, and call the Jew into the court.
  SALERIO. He is ready at the door; he comes, my lord.

                          Enter SHYLOCK

  DUKE OF VENICE. Make room, and let him stand before our face.
    Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,
    That thou but leadest this fashion of thy malice
    To the last hour of act; and then, 'tis thought,
    Thou'lt show thy mercy and remorse, more strange
    Than is thy strange apparent cruelty;
    And where thou now exacts the penalty,
    Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh,
    Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture,
    But, touch'd with human gentleness and love,
    Forgive a moiety of the principal,
    Glancing an eye of pity on his losses,
    That have of late so huddled on his back-
    Enow to press a royal merchant down,
    And pluck commiseration of his state
    From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint,
    From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd
    To offices of tender courtesy.
    We all expect a gentle answer, Jew.
  SHYLOCK. I have possess'd your Grace of what I purpose,
    And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn
    To have the due and forfeit of my bond.
    If you deny it, let the danger light
    Upon your charter and your city's freedom.
    You'll ask me why I rather choose to have
    A weight of carrion flesh than to receive
    Three thousand ducats. I'll not answer that,
    But say it is my humour- is it answer'd?
    What if my house be troubled with a rat,
    And I be pleas'd to give ten thousand ducats
    To have it ban'd? What, are you answer'd yet?
    Some men there are love not a gaping pig;
    Some that are mad if they behold a cat;
    And others, when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose,
    Cannot contain their urine; for affection,
    Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood
    Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer:
    As there is no firm reason to be rend'red
    Why he cannot abide a gaping pig;
    Why he, a harmless necessary cat;
    Why he, a woollen bagpipe, but of force
    Must yield to such inevitable shame
    As to offend, himself being offended;
    So can I give no reason, nor I will not,
    More than a lodg'd hate and a certain loathing
    I bear Antonio, that I follow thus
    A losing suit against him. Are you answered?
  BASSANIO. This is no answer, thou unfeeling man,
    To excuse the current of thy cruelty.
  SHYLOCK. I am not bound to please thee with my answers.
  BASSANIO. Do all men kill the things they do not love?
  SHYLOCK. Hates any man the thing he would not kill?
  BASSANIO. Every offence is not a hate at first.
  SHYLOCK. What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
  ANTONIO. I pray you, think you question with the Jew.
    You may as well go stand upon the beach
    And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
    You may as well use question with the wolf,
    Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
    You may as well forbid the mountain pines
    To wag their high tops and to make no noise
    When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;
    You may as well do anything most hard
    As seek to soften that- than which what's harder?-
    His jewish heart. Therefore, I do beseech you,
    Make no moe offers, use no farther means,
    But with all brief and plain conveniency
    Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.
  BASSANIO. For thy three thousand ducats here is six.
  SHYLOCK. If every ducat in six thousand ducats
    Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,
    I would not draw them; I would have my bond.
  DUKE OF VENICE. How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend'ring none?
  SHYLOCK. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
    You have among you many a purchas'd slave,
    Which, fike your asses and your dogs and mules,
    You use in abject and in slavish parts,
    Because you bought them; shall I say to you
    'Let them be free, marry them to your heirs-
    Why sweat they under burdens?- let their beds
    Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates
    Be season'd with such viands'? You will answer
    'The slaves are ours.' So do I answer you:
    The pound of flesh which I demand of him
    Is dearly bought, 'tis mine, and I will have it.
    If you deny me, fie upon your law!
    There is no force in the decrees of Venice.
    I stand for judgment; answer; shall I have it?
  DUKE OF VENICE. Upon my power I may dismiss this court,
    Unless Bellario, a learned doctor,
    Whom I have sent for to determine this,
    Come here to-day.
  SALERIO. My lord, here stays without
    A messenger with letters from the doctor,
    New come from Padua.
  DUKE OF VENICE. Bring us the letters; call the messenger.
  BASSANIO. Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet!
    The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all,
    Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.
  ANTONIO. I am a tainted wether of the flock,
    Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit
    Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.
    You cannot better be employ'd, Bassanio,
    Than to live still, and write mine epitaph.

           Enter NERISSA dressed like a lawyer's clerk

  DUKE OF VENICE. Came you from Padua, from Bellario?
  NERISSA. From both, my lord. Bellario greets your Grace.
                                             [Presents a letter]
  BASSANIO. Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?
  SHYLOCK. To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.
  GRATIANO. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,
    Thou mak'st thy knife keen; but no metal can,
    No, not the hangman's axe, bear half the keenness
    Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?
  SHYLOCK. No, none that thou hast wit enough to make.
  GRATIANO. O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!
    And for thy life let justice be accus'd.
    Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith,
    To hold opinion with Pythagoras
    That souls of animals infuse themselves
    Into the trunks of men. Thy currish spirit
    Govern'd a wolf who, hang'd for human slaughter,
    Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
    And, whilst thou layest in thy unhallowed dam,
    Infus'd itself in thee; for thy desires
    Are wolfish, bloody, starv'd and ravenous.
  SHYLOCK. Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,
    Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud;
    Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall
    To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.
  DUKE OF VENICE. This letter from Bellario doth commend
    A young and learned doctor to our court.
    Where is he?
  NERISSA. He attendeth here hard by
    To know your answer, whether you'll admit him.
  DUKE OF VENICE. With all my heart. Some three or four of you
    Go give him courteous conduct to this place.
    Meantime, the court shall hear Bellario's letter.
  CLERK.  [Reads]  'Your Grace shall understand that at the receipt
    of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your
    messenger came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor
    of Rome- his name is Balthazar. I acquainted him with the cause
    in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant; we
    turn'd o'er many books together; he is furnished with my opinion
    which, bettered with his own learning-the greatness whereof I
    cannot enough commend- comes with him at my importunity to fill
    up your Grace's request in my stead. I beseech you let his lack
    of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation,
    for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him
    to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his
    commendation.'

      Enter PORTIA for BALTHAZAR, dressed like a Doctor of Laws

  DUKE OF VENICE. YOU hear the learn'd Bellario, what he writes;
    And here, I take it, is the doctor come.
    Give me your hand; come you from old Bellario?
  PORTIA. I did, my lord.
  DUKE OF VENICE. You are welcome; take your place.
    Are you acquainted with the difference
    That holds this present question in the court?
  PORTIA. I am informed throughly of the cause.
    Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?
  DUKE OF VENICE. Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth.
  PORTIA. Is your name Shylock?
  SHYLOCK. Shylock is my name.
  PORTIA. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow;
    Yet in such rule that the Venetian law
    Cannot impugn you as you do proceed.
    You stand within his danger, do you not?
  ANTONIO. Ay, so he says.
  PORTIA. Do you confess the bond?
  ANTONIO. I do.
  PORTIA. Then must the Jew be merciful.
  SHYLOCK. On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.
  PORTIA. The quality of mercy is not strain'd;
    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
    Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
    'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
    The throned monarch better than his crown;
    His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
    The attribute to awe and majesty,
    Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
    But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
    It is an attribute to God himself;
    And earthly power doth then show likest God's
    When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
    Though justice be thy plea, consider this-
    That in the course of justice none of us
    Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,
    And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
    The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
    To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
    Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
    Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.
  SHYLOCK. My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,
    The penalty and forfeit of my bond.
  BASSANIO. Yes; here I tender it for him in the court;
    Yea, twice the sum; if that will not suffice,
    I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er
    On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart;
    If this will not suffice, it must appear
    That malice bears down truth. And, I beseech you,
    Wrest once the law to your authority;
    To do a great right do a little wrong,
    And curb this cruel devil of his will.
  PORTIA. It must not be; there is no power in Venice
    Can alter a decree established;
    'Twill be recorded for a precedent,
    And many an error, by the same example,
    Will rush into the state; it cannot be.
  SHYLOCK. A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!
    O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!
  PORTIA. I pray you, let me look upon the bond.
  SHYLOCK. Here 'tis, most reverend Doctor; here it is.
  PORTIA. Shylock, there's thrice thy money off'red thee.
  SHYLOCK. An oath, an oath! I have an oath in heaven.
    Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?
    No, not for Venice.
  PORTIA. Why, this bond is forfeit;
    And lawfully by this the Jew may claim
    A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off
    Nearest the merchant's heart. Be merciful.
    Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond.
  SHYLOCK. When it is paid according to the tenour.
    It doth appear you are a worthy judge;
    You know the law; your exposition
    Hath been most sound; I charge you by the law,
    Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,
    Proceed to judgment. By my soul I swear
    There is no power in the tongue of man
    To alter me. I stay here on my bond.
  ANTONIO. Most heartily I do beseech the court
    To give the judgment.
  PORTIA. Why then, thus it is:
    You must prepare your bosom for his knife.
  SHYLOCK. O noble judge! O excellent young man!
  PORTIA. For the intent and purpose of the law
    Hath full relation to the penalty,
    Which here appeareth due upon the bond.
  SHYLOCK. 'Tis very true. O wise and upright judge,
    How much more elder art thou than thy looks!
  PORTIA. Therefore, lay bare your bosom.
  SHYLOCK. Ay, his breast-
    So says the bond; doth it not, noble judge?
    'Nearest his heart,' those are the very words.
  PORTIA. It is so. Are there balance here to weigh
    The flesh?
  SHYLOCK. I have them ready.
  PORTIA. Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge,
    To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death.
  SHYLOCK. Is it so nominated in the bond?
  PORTIA. It is not so express'd, but what of that?
    'Twere good you do so much for charity.
  SHYLOCK. I cannot find it; 'tis not in the bond.
  PORTIA. You, merchant, have you anything to say?
  ANTONIO. But little: I am arm'd and well prepar'd.
    Give me your hand, Bassanio; fare you well.
    Grieve not that I am fall'n to this for you,
    For herein Fortune shows herself more kind
    Than is her custom. It is still her use
    To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,
    To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow
    An age of poverty; from which ling'ring penance
    Of such misery doth she cut me off.
    Commend me to your honourable wife;
    Tell her the process of Antonio's end;
    Say how I lov'd you; speak me fair in death;
    And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge
    Whether Bassanio had not once a love.
    Repent but you that you shall lose your friend,
    And he repents not that he pays your debt;
    For if the Jew do cut but deep enough,
    I'll pay it instantly with all my heart.
  BASSANIO. Antonio, I am married to a wife
    Which is as dear to me as life itself;
    But life itself, my wife, and all the world,
    Are not with me esteem'd above thy life;
    I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all
    Here to this devil, to deliver you.
  PORTIA. Your wife would give you little thanks for that,
    If she were by to hear you make the offer.
  GRATIANO. I have a wife who I protest I love;
    I would she were in heaven, so she could
    Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.
  NERISSA. 'Tis well you offer it behind her back;
    The wish would make else an unquiet house.
  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  These be the Christian husbands! I have a
    daughter-
    Would any of the stock of Barrabas
    Had been her husband, rather than a Christian!-
    We trifle time; I pray thee pursue sentence.
  PORTIA. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine.
    The court awards it and the law doth give it.
  SHYLOCK. Most rightful judge!
  PORTIA. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast.
    The law allows it and the court awards it.
  SHYLOCK. Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare.
  PORTIA. Tarry a little; there is something else.
    This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood:
    The words expressly are 'a pound of flesh.'
    Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
    But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
    One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
    Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
    Unto the state of Venice.
  GRATIANO. O upright judge! Mark, Jew. O learned judge!
  SHYLOCK. Is that the law?
  PORTIA. Thyself shalt see the act;
    For, as thou urgest justice, be assur'd
    Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir'st.
  GRATIANO. O learned judge! Mark, Jew. A learned judge!
  SHYLOCK. I take this offer then: pay the bond thrice,
    And let the Christian go.
  BASSANIO. Here is the money.
  PORTIA. Soft!
    The Jew shall have all justice. Soft! No haste.
    He shall have nothing but the penalty.
  GRATIANO. O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge!
  PORTIA. Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh.
    Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more
    But just a pound of flesh; if thou tak'st more
    Or less than a just pound- be it but so much
    As makes it light or heavy in the substance,
    Or the division of the twentieth part
    Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn
    But in the estimation of a hair-
    Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.
  GRATIANO. A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!
    Now, infidel, I have you on the hip.
  PORTIA. Why doth the Jew pause? Take thy forfeiture.
  SHYLOCK. Give me my principal, and let me go.
  BASSANIO. I have it ready for thee; here it is.
  PORTIA. He hath refus'd it in the open court;
    He shall have merely justice, and his bond.
  GRATIANO. A Daniel still say I, a second Daniel!
    I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.
  SHYLOCK. Shall I not have barely my principal?
  PORTIA. Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture
    To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.
  SHYLOCK. Why, then the devil give him good of it!
    I'll stay no longer question.
  PORTIA. Tarry, Jew.
    The law hath yet another hold on you.
    It is enacted in the laws of Venice,
    If it be proved against an alien
    That by direct or indirect attempts
    He seek the life of any citizen,
    The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive
    Shall seize one half his goods; the other half
    Comes to the privy coffer of the state;
    And the offender's life lies in the mercy
    Of the Duke only, 'gainst all other voice.
    In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st;
    For it appears by manifest proceeding
    That indirectly, and directly too,
    Thou hast contrived against the very life
    Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr'd
    The danger formerly by me rehears'd.
    Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke.
  GRATIANO. Beg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself;
    And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,
    Thou hast not left the value of a cord;
    Therefore thou must be hang'd at the state's charge.
  DUKE OF VENICE. That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit,
    I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.
    For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's;
    The other half comes to the general state,
    Which humbleness may drive unto a fine.
  PORTIA. Ay, for the state; not for Antonio.
  SHYLOCK. Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that.
    You take my house when you do take the prop
    That doth sustain my house; you take my life
    When you do take the means whereby I live.
  PORTIA. What mercy can you render him, Antonio?
  GRATIANO. A halter gratis; nothing else, for God's sake!
  ANTONIO. So please my lord the Duke and all the court
    To quit the fine for one half of his goods;
    I am content, so he will let me have
    The other half in use, to render it
    Upon his death unto the gentleman
    That lately stole his daughter-
    Two things provided more; that, for this favour,
    He presently become a Christian;
    The other, that he do record a gift,
    Here in the court, of all he dies possess'd
    Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter.
  DUKE OF VENICE. He shall do this, or else I do recant
    The pardon that I late pronounced here.
  PORTIA. Art thou contented, Jew? What dost thou say?
  SHYLOCK. I am content.
  PORTIA. Clerk, draw a deed of gift.
  SHYLOCK. I pray you, give me leave to go from hence;
    I am not well; send the deed after me
    And I will sign it.
  DUKE OF VENICE. Get thee gone, but do it.
  GRATIANO. In christ'ning shalt thou have two god-fathers;
    Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more,
    To bring thee to the gallows, not to the font.
                                                    Exit SHYLOCK
  DUKE OF VENICE. Sir, I entreat you home with me to dinner.
  PORTIA. I humbly do desire your Grace of pardon;
    I must away this night toward Padua,
    And it is meet I presently set forth.
  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry that your leisure serves you not.
    Antonio, gratify this gentleman,
    For in my mind you are much bound to him.
                             Exeunt DUKE, MAGNIFICOES, and train
  BASSANIO. Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend
    Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted
    Of grievous penalties; in lieu whereof
    Three thousand ducats, due unto the Jew,
    We freely cope your courteous pains withal.
  ANTONIO. And stand indebted, over and above,
    In love and service to you evermore.
  PORTIA. He is well paid that is well satisfied,
    And I, delivering you, am satisfied,
    And therein do account myself well paid.
    My mind was never yet more mercenary.
    I pray you, know me when we meet again;
    I wish you well, and so I take my leave.
  BASSANIO. Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further;
    Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute,
    Not as fee. Grant me two things, I pray you,
    Not to deny me, and to pardon me.
  PORTIA. You press me far, and therefore I will yield.
    [To ANTONIO]  Give me your gloves, I'll wear them for your sake.
    [To BASSANIO]  And, for your love, I'll take this ring from you.
    Do not draw back your hand; I'll take no more,
    And you in love shall not deny me this.
  BASSANIO. This ring, good sir- alas, it is a trifle;
    I will not shame myself to give you this.
  PORTIA. I will have nothing else but only this;
    And now, methinks, I have a mind to it.
  BASSANIO.. There's more depends on this than on the value.
    The dearest ring in Venice will I give you,
    And find it out by proclamation;
    Only for this, I pray you, pardon me.
  PORTIA. I see, sir, you are liberal in offers;
    You taught me first to beg, and now, methinks,
    You teach me how a beggar should be answer'd.
  BASSANIO. Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife;
    And, when she put it on, she made me vow
    That I should neither sell, nor give, nor lose it.
  PORTIA. That 'scuse serves many men to save their gifts.
    And if your wife be not a mad woman,
    And know how well I have deserv'd this ring,
    She would not hold out enemy for ever
    For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you!
                                       Exeunt PORTIA and NERISSA
  ANTONIO. My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring.
    Let his deservings, and my love withal,
    Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandment.
  BASSANIO. Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him;
    Give him the ring, and bring him, if thou canst,
    Unto Antonio's house. Away, make haste.        Exit GRATIANO
    Come, you and I will thither presently;
    And in the morning early will we both
    Fly toward Belmont. Come, Antonio.                    Exeunt

SCENE II. Venice. A street

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA

  PORTIA. Inquire the Jew's house out, give him this deed,
    And let him sign it; we'll away tonight,
    And be a day before our husbands home.
    This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo.

                          Enter GRATIANO

  GRATIANO. Fair sir, you are well o'erta'en.
    My Lord Bassanio, upon more advice,
    Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat
    Your company at dinner.
  PORTIA. That cannot be.
    His ring I do accept most thankfully,
    And so, I pray you, tell him. Furthermore,
    I pray you show my youth old Shylock's house.
  GRATIANO. That will I do.
  NERISSA. Sir, I would speak with you.
    [Aside to PORTIA]  I'll See if I can get my husband's ring,
    Which I did make him swear to keep for ever.
  PORTIA.  [To NERISSA]  Thou Mayst, I warrant. We shall have old
      swearing
    That they did give the rings away to men;
    But we'll outface them, and outswear them too.
    [Aloud]  Away, make haste, thou know'st where I will tarry.
  NERISSA. Come, good sir, will you show me to this house?
                                                          Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Belmont. The garden before PORTIA'S house

Enter LORENZO and JESSICA

  LORENZO. The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,
    When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
    And they did make no noise- in such a night,
    Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls,
    And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,
    Where Cressid lay that night.
  JESSICA. In such a night
    Did Thisby fearfully o'ertrip the dew,
    And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,
    And ran dismayed away.
  LORENZO. In such a night
    Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
    Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love
    To come again to Carthage.
  JESSICA. In such a night
    Medea gathered the enchanted herbs
    That did renew old AEson.
 LORENZO. In such a night
    Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,
    And with an unthrift love did run from Venice
    As far as Belmont.
  JESSICA. In such a night
    Did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well,
    Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,
    And ne'er a true one.
  LORENZO. In such a night
    Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,
    Slander her love, and he forgave it her.
  JESSICA. I would out-night you, did no body come;
    But, hark, I hear the footing of a man.

                       Enter STEPHANO

  LORENZO. Who comes so fast in silence of the night?
  STEPHANO. A friend.
  LORENZO. A friend! What friend? Your name, I pray you, friend?
  STEPHANO. Stephano is my name, and I bring word
    My mistress will before the break of day
    Be here at Belmont; she doth stray about
    By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays
    For happy wedlock hours.
  LORENZO. Who comes with her?
  STEPHANO. None but a holy hermit and her maid.
    I pray you, is my master yet return'd?
  LORENZO. He is not, nor we have not heard from him.
    But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica,
    And ceremoniously let us prepare
    Some welcome for the mistress of the house.

                         Enter LAUNCELOT

  LAUNCELOT. Sola, sola! wo ha, ho! sola, sola!
  LORENZO. Who calls?
  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Did you see Master Lorenzo? Master Lorenzo! Sola,
    sola!
  LORENZO. Leave holloaing, man. Here!
  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Where, where?
  LORENZO. Here!
  LAUNCELOT. Tell him there's a post come from my master with his
    horn full of good news; my master will be here ere morning.
 Exit
  LORENZO. Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming.
    And yet no matter- why should we go in?
    My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you,
    Within the house, your mistress is at hand;
    And bring your music forth into the air.       Exit STEPHANO
    How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
    Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
    Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
    Become the touches of sweet harmony.
    Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
    Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
    There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
    But in his motion like an angel sings,
    Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins;
    Such harmony is in immortal souls,
    But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
    Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

                          Enter MUSICIANS

    Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;
    With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear.
    And draw her home with music.                        [Music]
  JESSICA. I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
  LORENZO. The reason is your spirits are attentive;
    For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
    Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
    Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
    Which is the hot condition of their blood-
    If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
    Or any air of music touch their ears,
    You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
    Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze
    By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet
    Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
    Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
    But music for the time doth change his nature.
    The man that hath no music in himself,
    Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
    Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
    The motions of his spirit are dull:as night,
    And his affections dark as Erebus.
    Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

                    Enter PORTIA and NERISSA

  PORTIA. That light we see is burning in my hall.
    How far that little candle throws his beams!
    So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
  NERISSA. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.
  PORTIA. So doth the greater glory dim the less:
    A substitute shines brightly as a king
    Until a king be by, and then his state
    Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
    Into the main of waters. Music! hark!
  NERISSA. It is your music, madam, of the house.
  PORTIA. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;
    Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
  NERISSA. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
  PORTIA. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
    When neither is attended; and I think
    ne nightingale, if she should sing by day,
    When every goose is cackling, would be thought
    No better a musician than the wren.
    How many things by season season'd are
    To their right praise and true perfection!
    Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion,
    And would not be awak'd.                      [Music ceases]
  LORENZO. That is the voice,
    Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.
  PORTIA. He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo,
    By the bad voice.
  LORENZO. Dear lady, welcome home.
  PORTIA. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare,
    Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.
    Are they return'd?
  LORENZO. Madam, they are not yet;
    But there is come a messenger before,
    To signify their coming.
  PORTIA.. Go in, Nerissa;
    Give order to my servants that they take
    No note at all of our being absent hence;
    Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you.        [A tucket sounds]
  LORENZO. Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet.
    We are no tell-tales, madam, fear you not.
  PORTIA. This night methinks is but the daylight sick;
    It looks a little paler; 'tis a day
    Such as the day is when the sun is hid.

       Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their followers

  BASSANIO. We should hold day with the Antipodes,
    If you would walk in absence of the sun.
  PORTIA. Let me give light, but let me not be light,
    For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,
    And never be Bassanio so for me;
    But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord.
  BASSANIO. I thank you, madam; give welcome to my friend.
    This is the man, this is Antonio,
    To whom I am so infinitely bound.
  PORTIA. You should in all sense be much bound to him,
    For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.
  ANTONIO. No more than I am well acquitted of.
  PORTIA. Sir, you are very welcome to our house.
    It must appear in other ways than words,
    Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.
  GRATIANO.  [To NERISSA]  By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong;
    In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk.
    Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,
    Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.
  PORTIA. A quarrel, ho, already! What's the matter?
  GRATIANO. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
    That she did give me, whose posy was
    For all the world like cutler's poetry
    Upon a knife, 'Love me, and leave me not.'
  NERISSA. What talk you of the posy or the value?
    You swore to me, when I did give it you,
    That you would wear it till your hour of death,
    And that it should lie with you in your grave;
    Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,
    You should have been respective and have kept it.
    Gave it a judge's clerk! No, God's my judge,
    The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it.
  GRATIANO. He will, an if he live to be a man.
  NERISSA. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.
  GRATIANO. Now by this hand I gave it to a youth,
    A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy
    No higher than thyself, the judge's clerk;
    A prating boy that begg'd it as a fee;
    I could not for my heart deny it him.
  PORTIA. You were to blame, I must be plain with you,
    To part so slightly with your wife's first gift,
    A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger
    And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.
    I gave my love a ring, and made him swear
    Never to part with it, and here he stands;
    I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it
    Nor pluck it from his finger for the wealth
    That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,
    You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;
    An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.
  BASSANIO.  [Aside]  Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,
    And swear I lost the ring defending it.
  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away
    Unto the judge that begg'd it, and indeed
    Deserv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk,
    That took some pains in writing, he begg'd mine;
    And neither man nor master would take aught
    But the two rings.
  PORTIA. What ring gave you, my lord?
    Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.
  BASSANIO. If I could add a lie unto a fault,
    I would deny it; but you see my finger
    Hath not the ring upon it; it is gone.
  PORTIA. Even so void is your false heart of truth;
    By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed
    Until I see the ring.
  NERISSA. Nor I in yours
    Till I again see mine.
  BASSANIO. Sweet Portia,
    If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
    If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
    And would conceive for what I gave the ring,
    And how unwillingly I left the ring,
    When nought would be accepted but the ring,
    You would abate the strength of your displeasure.
  PORTIA. If you had known the virtue of the ring,
    Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
    Or your own honour to contain the ring,
    You would not then have parted with the ring.
    What man is there so much unreasonable,
    If you had pleas'd to have defended it
    With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
    To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
    Nerissa teaches me what to believe:
    I'll die for't but some woman had the ring.
  BASSANIO. No, by my honour, madam, by my soul,
    No woman had it, but a civil doctor,
    Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me,
    And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him,
    And suffer'd him to go displeas'd away-
    Even he that had held up the very life
    Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?
    I was enforc'd to send it after him;
    I was beset with shame and courtesy;
    My honour would not let ingratitude
    So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;
    For by these blessed candles of the night,
    Had you been there, I think you would have begg'd
    The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.
  PORTIA. Let not that doctor e'er come near my house;
    Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,
    And that which you did swear to keep for me,
    I will become as liberal as you;
    I'll not deny him anything I have,
    No, not my body, nor my husband's bed.
    Know him I shall, I am well sure of it.
    Lie not a night from home; watch me like Argus;
    If you do not, if I be left alone,
    Now, by mine honour which is yet mine own,
    I'll have that doctor for mine bedfellow.
  NERISSA. And I his clerk; therefore be well advis'd
    How you do leave me to mine own protection.
  GRATIANO. Well, do you so, let not me take him then;
    For, if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen.
  ANTONIO. I am th' unhappy subject of these quarrels.
  PORTIA. Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome not withstanding.
  BASSANIO. Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong;
    And in the hearing of these many friends
    I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,
    Wherein I see myself-
  PORTIA. Mark you but that!
    In both my eyes he doubly sees himself,
    In each eye one; swear by your double self,
    And there's an oath of credit.
  BASSANIO. Nay, but hear me.
    Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear
    I never more will break an oath with thee.
  ANTONIO. I once did lend my body for his wealth,
    Which, but for him that had your husband's ring,
    Had quite miscarried; I dare be bound again,
    My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord
    Will never more break faith advisedly.
  PORTIA. Then you shall be his surety. Give him this,
    And bid him keep it better than the other.
  ANTONIO. Here, Lord Bassanio, swear to keep this ring.
  BASSANIO. By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!
  PORTIA. I had it of him. Pardon me, Bassanio,
    For, by this ring, the doctor lay with me.
  NERISSA. And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano,
    For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor's clerk,
    In lieu of this, last night did lie with me.
  GRATIANO. Why, this is like the mending of highways
    In summer, where the ways are fair enough.
    What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserv'd it?
  PORTIA. Speak not so grossly. You are all amaz'd.
    Here is a letter; read it at your leisure;
    It comes from Padua, from Bellario;
    There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,
    Nerissa there her clerk. Lorenzo here
    Shall witness I set forth as soon as you,
    And even but now return'd; I have not yet
    Enter'd my house. Antonio, you are welcome;
    And I have better news in store for you
    Than you expect. Unseal this letter soon;
    There you shall find three of your argosies
    Are richly come to harbour suddenly.
    You shall not know by what strange accident
    I chanced on this letter.
  ANTONIO. I am dumb.
  BASSANIO. Were you the doctor, and I knew you not?
  GRATIANO. Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?
  NERISSA. Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it,
    Unless he live until he be a man.
  BASSANIO. Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow;
    When I am absent, then lie with my wife.
  ANTONIO. Sweet lady, you have given me life and living;
    For here I read for certain that my ships
    Are safely come to road.
  PORTIA. How now, Lorenzo!
    My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.
  NERISSA. Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee.
    There do I give to you and Jessica,
    From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,
    After his death, of all he dies possess'd of.
  LORENZO. Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
    Of starved people.
  PORTIA. It is almost morning,
    And yet I am sure you are not satisfied
    Of these events at full. Let us go in,
    And charge us there upon inter'gatories,
    And we will answer all things faithfully.
  GRATIANO. Let it be so. The first inter'gatory
    That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is,
    Whether till the next night she had rather stay,
    Or go to bed now, being two hours to day.
    But were the day come, I should wish it dark,
    Till I were couching with the doctor's clerk.
    Well, while I live, I'll fear no other thing
    So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.               Exeunt

THE END

1601



THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

Dramatis Personae

  SIR JOHN FALSTAFF
  FENTON, a young gentleman
  SHALLOW, a country justice
  SLENDER, cousin to Shallow

    Gentlemen of Windsor
  FORD
  PAGE
  WILLIAM PAGE, a boy, son to Page
  SIR HUGH EVANS, a Welsh parson
  DOCTOR CAIUS, a French physician
  HOST of the Garter Inn

    Followers of Falstaff
  BARDOLPH
  PISTOL
  NYM
  ROBIN, page to Falstaff
  SIMPLE, servant to Slender
  RUGBY, servant to Doctor Caius

  MISTRESS FORD
  MISTRESS PAGE
  MISTRESS ANNE PAGE, her daughter
  MISTRESS QUICKLY, servant to Doctor Caius
  SERVANTS to Page, Ford, etc.

SCENE: Windsor, and the neighbourhood

ACT I. SCENE 1.

Windsor. Before PAGE'S house

Enter JUSTICE SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS

  SHALLOW. Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star
    Chamber matter of it; if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs,
    he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.
  SLENDER. In the county of Gloucester, Justice of Peace, and
    Coram.
  SHALLOW. Ay, cousin Slender, and Custalorum.
  SLENDER. Ay, and Ratolorum too; and a gentleman born,
    Master Parson, who writes himself 'Armigero' in any bill,
    warrant, quittance, or obligation-'Armigero.'
  SHALLOW. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three
    hundred years.
  SLENDER. All his successors, gone before him, hath done't;
    and all his ancestors, that come after him, may: they may
    give the dozen white luces in their coat.
  SHALLOW. It is an old coat.
  EVANS. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well;
    it agrees well, passant; it is a familiar beast to man, and
    signifies love.
  SHALLOW. The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old
    coat.
  SLENDER. I may quarter, coz.
  SHALLOW. You may, by marrying.
  EVANS. It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.
  SHALLOW. Not a whit.
  EVANS. Yes, py'r lady! If he has a quarter of your coat, there
    is but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures;
    but that is all one. If Sir John Falstaff have committed
    disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be
    glad to do my benevolence, to make atonements and
    compremises between you.
  SHALLOW. The Council shall hear it; it is a riot.
  EVANS. It is not meet the Council hear a riot; there is no
    fear of Got in a riot; the Council, look you, shall desire
    to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your
    vizaments in that.
  SHALLOW. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword
    should end it.
  EVANS. It is petter that friends is the sword and end it;
    and there is also another device in my prain, which
    peradventure prings goot discretions with it. There is Anne
    Page, which is daughter to Master George Page, which is
    pretty virginity.
  SLENDER. Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and
    speaks small like a woman.
  EVANS. It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as you
    will desire; and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and
    gold, and silver, is her grandsire upon his death's-bed-Got
    deliver to a joyful resurrections!-give, when she is able to
    overtake seventeen years old. It were a goot motion if we
    leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage
    between Master Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.
  SHALLOW. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?
  EVANS. Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.
  SHALLOW. I know the young gentlewoman; she has good
    gifts.
  EVANS. Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities, is goot gifts.
  SHALLOW. Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff
    there?
  EVANS. Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do
    despise one that is false; or as I despise one that is not
    true. The knight Sir John is there; and, I beseech you, be
    ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door for Master
    Page.
    [Knocks]  What, hoa! Got pless your house here!
  PAGE.  [Within]  Who's there?

                            Enter PAGE

  EVANS. Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and Justice
  Shallow; and here young Master Slender, that peradventures
    shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your
    likings.
  PAGE. I am glad to see your worships well. I thank you for
    my venison, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. Master Page, I am glad to see you; much good do
    it your good heart! I wish'd your venison better; it was ill
    kill'd. How doth good Mistress Page?-and I thank you
    always with my heart, la! with my heart.
  PAGE. Sir, I thank you.
  SHALLOW. Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.
  PAGE. I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.
  SLENDER. How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say
    he was outrun on Cotsall.
  PAGE. It could not be judg'd, sir.
  SLENDER. You'll not confess, you'll not confess.
  SHALLOW. That he will not. 'Tis your fault; 'tis your fault;
    'tis a good dog.
  PAGE. A cur, sir.
  SHALLOW. Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog. Can there be
    more said? He is good, and fair. Is Sir John Falstaff here?
  PAGE. Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office
    between you.
  EVANS. It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.
  SHALLOW. He hath wrong'd me, Master Page.
  PAGE. Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.
  SHALLOW. If it be confessed, it is not redressed; is not that
    so, Master Page? He hath wrong'd me; indeed he hath; at a
    word, he hath, believe me; Robert Shallow, esquire, saith
    he is wronged.
  PAGE. Here comes Sir John.

      Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, NYM, and PISTOL

  FALSTAFF. Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to
    the King?
  SHALLOW. Knight, you have beaten my men, kill'd my deer,
    and broke open my lodge.
  FALSTAFF. But not kiss'd your keeper's daughter.
  SHALLOW. Tut, a pin! this shall be answer'd.
  FALSTAFF. I will answer it straight: I have done all this.
    That is now answer'd.
  SHALLOW. The Council shall know this.
  FALSTAFF. 'Twere better for you if it were known in counsel:
    you'll be laugh'd at.
  EVANS. Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.
  FALSTAFF. Good worts! good cabbage! Slender, I broke your
    head; what matter have you against me?
  SLENDER. Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you;
    and against your cony-catching rascals, Bardolph, Nym,
    and Pistol. They carried me to the tavern, and made me
    drunk, and afterwards pick'd my pocket.
  BARDOLPH. You Banbury cheese!
  SLENDER. Ay, it is no matter.
  PISTOL. How now, Mephostophilus!
  SLENDER. Ay, it is no matter.
  NYM. Slice, I say! pauca, pauca; slice! That's my humour.
  SLENDER. Where's Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?
  EVANS. Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand. There is
    three umpires in this matter, as I understand: that is,
    Master Page, fidelicet Master Page; and there is myself,
    fidelicet myself; and the three party is, lastly and
    finally, mine host of the Garter.
  PAGE. We three to hear it and end it between them.
  EVANS. Fery goot. I will make a prief of it in my note-book;
    and we will afterwards ork upon the cause with as great
    discreetly as we can.
  FALSTAFF. Pistol!
  PISTOL. He hears with ears.
  EVANS. The tevil and his tam! What phrase is this, 'He hears
    with ear'? Why, it is affectations.
  FALSTAFF. Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse?
  SLENDER. Ay, by these gloves, did he-or I would I might
    never come in mine own great chamber again else!-of
    seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward
    shovel-boards that cost me two shilling and two pence apiece
    of Yead Miller, by these gloves.
  FALSTAFF. Is this true, Pistol?
  EVANS. No, it is false, if it is a pick-purse.
  PISTOL. Ha, thou mountain-foreigner! Sir John and master
    mine,
    I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.
    Word of denial in thy labras here!
    Word of denial! Froth and scum, thou liest.
  SLENDER. By these gloves, then, 'twas he.
  NYM. Be avis'd, sir, and pass good humours; I will say
    'marry trap' with you, if you run the nuthook's humour on
    me; that is the very note of it.
  SLENDER. By this hat, then, he in the red face had it; for
    though I cannot remember what I did when you made me
    drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.
  FALSTAFF. What say you, Scarlet and John?
  BARDOLPH. Why, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had
    drunk himself out of his five sentences.
  EVANS. It is his five senses; fie, what the ignorance is!
  BARDOLPH. And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashier'd;
    and so conclusions pass'd the careers.
  SLENDER. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter;
    I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest,
    civil, godly company, for this trick. If I be drunk, I'll be
    drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with
    drunken knaves.
  EVANS. So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.
  FALSTAFF. You hear all these matters deni'd, gentlemen; you
    hear it.

          Enter MISTRESS ANNE PAGE with wine; MISTRESS
               FORD and MISTRESS PAGE, following

  PAGE. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.
                                                  Exit ANNE PAGE
  SLENDER. O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.
  PAGE. How now, Mistress Ford!
  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well
    met; by your leave, good mistress.              [Kisses her]
  PAGE. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a
    hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we
    shall drink down all unkindness.
                      Exeunt all but SHALLOW, SLENDER, and EVANS
  SLENDER. I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of
    Songs and Sonnets here.

                          Enter SIMPLE

    How, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on
    myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles about you,
    have you?
  SIMPLE. Book of Riddles! Why, did you not lend it to Alice
    Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore
    Michaelmas?
  SHALLOW. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word
    with you, coz; marry, this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a
    tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here. Do
    you understand me?
  SLENDER. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I
    shall do that that is reason.
  SHALLOW. Nay, but understand me.
  SLENDER. So I do, sir.
  EVANS. Give ear to his motions: Master Slender, I will
    description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.
  SLENDER. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says; I pray
    you pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country,
    simple though I stand here.
  EVANS. But that is not the question. The question is
    concerning your marriage.
  SHALLOW. Ay, there's the point, sir.
  EVANS. Marry is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne
    Page.
  SLENDER. Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any
    reasonable demands.
  EVANS. But can you affection the oman? Let us command to
    know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers
    hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. Therefore,
    precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?
  SHALLOW. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?
  SLENDER. I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that
    would do reason.
  EVANS. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable,
    if you can carry her your desires towards her.
  SHALLOW. That you must. Will you, upon good dowry,
    marry her?
  SLENDER. I will do a greater thing than that upon your request,
    cousin, in any reason.
  SHALLOW. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what
    I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?
  SLENDER. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there
    be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease
    it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and
    have more occasion to know one another. I hope upon
    familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say
    'marry her,' I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved,
    and dissolutely.
  EVANS. It is a fery discretion answer, save the fall is in the
    ord 'dissolutely': the ort is, according to our meaning,
    'resolutely'; his meaning is good.
  SHALLOW. Ay, I think my cousin meant well.
  SLENDER. Ay, or else I would I might be hang'd, la!

                       Re-enter ANNE PAGE

  SHALLOW. Here comes fair Mistress Anne. Would I were
    young for your sake, Mistress Anne!
  ANNE. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your
    worships' company.
  SHALLOW. I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne!
  EVANS. Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.
                                        Exeunt SHALLOW and EVANS
  ANNE. Will't please your worship to come in, sir?
  SLENDER. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very
    well.
  ANNE. The dinner attends you, sir.
  SLENDER. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,
    sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin
  Shallow.  [Exit SIMPLE]  A justice of peace sometime may
    be beholding to his friend for a man. I keep but three men
    and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what though?
    Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.
  ANNE. I may not go in without your worship; they will not
    sit till you come.
  SLENDER. I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as
    though I did.
  ANNE. I pray you, sir, walk in.
  SLENDER. I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruis'd my
    shin th' other day with playing at sword and dagger with
    a master of fence-three veneys for a dish of stew'd prunes
    -and, I with my ward defending my head, he hot my shin,
    and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat
    since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i' th'
    town?
  ANNE. I think there are, sir; I heard them talk'd of.
  SLENDER. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at
    it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see the
    bear loose, are you not?
  ANNE. Ay, indeed, sir.
  SLENDER. That's meat and drink to me now. I have seen
    Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the
    chain; but I warrant you, the women have so cried and
    shriek'd at it that it pass'd; but women, indeed, cannot
    abide 'em; they are very ill-favour'd rough things.

                         Re-enter PAGE

  PAGE. Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.
  SLENDER. I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.
  PAGE. By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! Come,
    come.
  SLENDER. Nay, pray you lead the way.
  PAGE. Come on, sir.
  SLENDER. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.
  ANNE. Not I, sir; pray you keep on.
  SLENDER. Truly, I will not go first; truly, la! I will not do
    you that wrong.
  ANNE. I pray you, sir.
  SLENDER. I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You
    do yourself wrong indeed, la!                         Exeunt

SCENE 2.

Before PAGE'S house

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE

  EVANS. Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which
    is the way; and there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which
    is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook,
    or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer.
  SIMPLE. Well, sir.
  EVANS. Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it is a
    oman that altogether's acquaintance with Mistress Anne
    Page; and the letter is to desire and require her to solicit
    your master's desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray you
    be gone. I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins
    and cheese to come.                                   Exeunt

SCENE 3.

The Garter Inn

Enter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN

  FALSTAFF. Mine host of the Garter!
  HOST. What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and
    wisely.
  FALSTAFF. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my
    followers.
  HOST. Discard, bully Hercules; cashier; let them wag; trot,
    trot.
  FALSTAFF. I sit at ten pounds a week.
  HOST. Thou'rt an emperor-Caesar, Keiser, and Pheazar. I
    will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap; said I
    well, bully Hector?
  FALSTAFF. Do so, good mine host.
  HOST. I have spoke; let him follow.  [To BARDOLPH]  Let me
    see thee froth and lime. I am at a word; follow.   Exit HOST
  FALSTAFF. Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade;
    an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a wither'd serving-man a
    fresh tapster. Go; adieu.
  BARDOLPH. It is a life that I have desir'd; I will thrive.
  PISTOL. O base Hungarian wight! Wilt thou the spigot
    wield?                                         Exit BARDOLPH
  NYM. He was gotten in drink. Is not the humour conceited?
  FALSTAFF. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box: his
    thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful
    singer-he kept not time.
  NYM. The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest.
  PISTOL. 'Convey' the wise it call. 'Steal' foh! A fico for the
    phrase!
  FALSTAFF. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.
  PISTOL. Why, then, let kibes ensue.
  FALSTAFF. There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must
    shift.
  PISTOL. Young ravens must have food.
  FALSTAFF. Which of you know Ford of this town?
  PISTOL. I ken the wight; he is of substance good.
  FALSTAFF. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.
  PISTOL. Two yards, and more.
  FALSTAFF. No quips now, Pistol. Indeed, I am in the waist
    two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about
    thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife; I
    spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she
    gives the leer of invitation; I can construe the action of her
    familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be
    English'd rightly, is 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.'
    PISTOL. He hath studied her well, and translated her will out
    of honesty into English.
  NYM. The anchor is deep; will that humour pass?
  FALSTAFF. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her
    husband's purse; he hath a legion of angels.
  PISTOL. As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I.
  NYM. The humour rises; it is good; humour me the angels.
  FALSTAFF. I have writ me here a letter to her; and here
    another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good eyes
    too, examin'd my parts with most judicious oeillades;
    sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my
    portly belly.
  PISTOL. Then did the sun on dunghill shine.
  NYM. I thank thee for that humour.
  FALSTAFF. O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such
    a greedy intention that the appetite of her eye did seem to
    scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here's another letter to
    her. She bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all
    gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and they
    shall be exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West
    Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go, bear thou this
    letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to Mistress Ford. We
    will thrive, lads, we will thrive.
  PISTOL. Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,
    And by my side wear steel? Then Lucifer take all!
  NYM. I will run no base humour. Here, take the
    humour-letter; I will keep the haviour of reputation.
  FALSTAFF.  [To ROBIN]  Hold, sirrah; bear you these letters
    tightly;
    Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.
    Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go;
    Trudge, plod away i' th' hoof; seek shelter, pack!
    Falstaff will learn the humour of the age;
    French thrift, you rogues; myself, and skirted page.
                                       Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN
  PISTOL. Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam
    holds,
    And high and low beguiles the rich and poor;
    Tester I'll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,
    Base Phrygian Turk!
  NYM. I have operations in my head which be humours of
    revenge.
  PISTOL. Wilt thou revenge?
  NYM. By welkin and her star!
  PISTOL. With wit or steel?
  NYM. With both the humours, I.
    I will discuss the humour of this love to Page.
  PISTOL. And I to Ford shall eke unfold
    How Falstaff, varlet vile,
    His dove will prove, his gold will hold,
    And his soft couch defile.
  NYM. My humour shall not cool; I will incense Page to deal
    with poison; I will possess him with yellowness; for the
    revolt of mine is dangerous. That is my true humour.
  PISTOL. Thou art the Mars of malcontents; I second thee;
    troop on.                                             Exeunt

SCENE 4.

DOCTOR CAIUS'S house

Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, SIMPLE, and RUGBY

  QUICKLY. What, John Rugby! I pray thee go to the casement
    and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor
    Caius, coming. If he do, i' faith, and find anybody in the
    house, here will be an old abusing of God's patience and
    the King's English.
  RUGBY. I'll go watch.
  QUICKLY. Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in
    faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.  [Exit RUGBY]  An
    honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in
    house withal; and, I warrant you, no tell-tale nor no
    breed-bate; his worst fault is that he is given to prayer; he is
    something peevish that way; but nobody but has his fault;
    but let that pass. Peter Simple you say your name is?
  SIMPLE. Ay, for fault of a better.
  QUICKLY. And Master Slender's your master?
  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth.
  QUICKLY. Does he not wear a great round beard, like a
    glover's paring-knife?
  SIMPLE. No, forsooth; he hath but a little whey face, with a
    little yellow beard, a Cain-colour'd beard.
  QUICKLY. A softly-sprighted man, is he not?
  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth; but he is as tall a man of his hands as
    any is between this and his head; he hath fought with a
    warrener.
  QUICKLY. How say you? O, I should remember him. Does
    he not hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?
  SIMPLE. Yes, indeed, does he.
  QUICKLY. Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune!
    Tell Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your
    master. Anne is a good girl, and I wish-

                         Re-enter RUGBY

  RUGBY. Out, alas! here comes my master.
  QUICKLY. We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young
    man; go into this closet.  [Shuts SIMPLE in the closet]  He
    will not stay long. What, John Rugby! John! what, John,
    I say! Go, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt he be
    not well that he comes not home.  [Singing]
    And down, down, adown-a, etc.

                       Enter DOCTOR CAIUS

  CAIUS. Vat is you sing? I do not like des toys. Pray you, go
    and vetch me in my closet un boitier vert-a box, a green-a
    box. Do intend vat I speak? A green-a box.
  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth, I'll fetch it you.  [Aside]  I am glad
    he went not in himself; if he had found the young man,
    he would have been horn-mad.
  CAIUS. Fe, fe, fe fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je m'en vais a
    la cour-la grande affaire.
  QUICKLY. Is it this, sir?
  CAIUS. Oui; mette le au mon pocket: depeche, quickly. Vere
    is dat knave, Rugby?
  QUICKLY. What, John Rugby? John!
  RUGBY. Here, sir.
  CAIUS. You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby.
    Come, take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the
    court.
  RUGBY. 'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.
    CAIUS. By my trot, I tarry too long. Od's me! Qu'ai j'oublie?
    Dere is some simples in my closet dat I vill not for the
    varld I shall leave behind.
  QUICKLY. Ay me, he'll find the young man there, and be
    mad!
  CAIUS. O diable, diable! vat is in my closet? Villainy! larron!
    [Pulling SIMPLE out]  Rugby, my rapier!
  QUICKLY. Good master, be content.
  CAIUS. Wherefore shall I be content-a?
  QUICKLY. The young man is an honest man.
  CAIUS. What shall de honest man do in my closet? Dere is
    no honest man dat shall come in my closet.
  QUICKLY. I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic; hear the
    truth of it. He came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.
  CAIUS. Vell?
  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth, to desire her to-
  QUICKLY. Peace, I pray you.
  CAIUS. Peace-a your tongue. Speak-a your tale.
  SIMPLE. To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to
    speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my master,
    in the way of marriage.
  QUICKLY. This is all, indeed, la! but I'll ne'er put my finger
    in the fire, and need not.
  CAIUS. Sir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, baillez me some paper.
    Tarry you a little-a-while.                        [Writes]
  QUICKLY.  [Aside to SIMPLE]  I am glad he is so quiet; if he
    had been throughly moved, you should have heard him
    so loud and so melancholy. But notwithstanding, man, I'll
    do you your master what good I can; and the very yea and
    the no is, the French doctor, my master-I may call him
    my master, look you, for I keep his house; and I wash,
    wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and drink, make the
    beds, and do all myself-
  SIMPLE.  [Aside to QUICKLY]  'Tis a great charge to come
    under one body's hand.
  QUICKLY.  [Aside to SIMPLE]  Are you avis'd o' that? You
    shall find it a great charge; and to be up early and down
    late; but notwithstanding-to tell you in your ear, I would
    have no words of it-my master himself is in love with
    Mistress Anne Page; but notwithstanding that, I know
    Anne's mind-that's neither here nor there.
  CAIUS. You jack'nape; give-a this letter to Sir Hugh; by gar,
    it is a shallenge; I will cut his troat in de park; and I will
    teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest to meddle or make. You
    may be gone; it is not good you tarry here. By gar, I will
    cut all his two stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone
    to throw at his dog.                             Exit SIMPLE
  QUICKLY. Alas, he speaks but for his friend.
  CAIUS. It is no matter-a ver dat. Do not you tell-a me dat I
    shall have Anne Page for myself? By gar, I vill kill de Jack
    priest; and I have appointed mine host of de Jarteer to
    measure our weapon. By gar, I will myself have Anne
    Page.
  QUICKLY. Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We
    must give folks leave to prate. What the good-year!
  CAIUS. Rugby, come to the court with me. By gar, if I have
    not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my door.
    Follow my heels, Rugby.               Exeunt CAIUS and RUGBY
  QUICKLY. You shall have-An fool's-head of your own. No,
    I know Anne's mind for that; never a woman in Windsor
    knows more of Anne's mind than I do; nor can do more
    than I do with her, I thank heaven.
  FENTON.  [Within]  Who's within there? ho!
  QUICKLY. Who's there, I trow? Come near the house, I pray
    you.

                          Enter FENTON

  FENTON. How now, good woman, how dost thou?
  QUICKLY. The better that it pleases your good worship to
    ask.
  FENTON. What news? How does pretty Mistress Anne?
  QUICKLY. In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and
    gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you that by
    the way; I praise heaven for it.
  FENTON. Shall I do any good, think'st thou? Shall I not lose
    my suit?
  QUICKLY. Troth, sir, all is in His hands above; but
    notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I'll be sworn on a book
    she loves you. Have not your worship a wart above your eye?
  FENTON. Yes, marry, have I; what of that?
  QUICKLY. Well, thereby hangs a tale; good faith, it is such
    another Nan; but, I detest, an honest maid as ever broke
    bread. We had an hour's talk of that wart; I shall never
    laugh but in that maid's company! But, indeed, she is
    given too much to allicholy and musing; but for you-well,
    go to.
  FENTON. Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there's money
    for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf. If thou seest
    her before me, commend me.
  QUICKLY. Will I? I' faith, that we will; and I will tell your
    worship more of the wart the next time we have confidence;
    and of other wooers.
  FENTON. Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.
  QUICKLY. Farewell to your worship.  [Exit FENTON]  Truly,
    an honest gentleman; but Anne loves him not; for I know
    Anne's mind as well as another does. Out upon 't, what
    have I forgot?                                          Exit

ACT II. SCENE 1.

Before PAGE'S house

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter

  MRS. PAGE. What! have I scap'd love-letters in the holiday-time
    of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let
    me see.                                              [Reads]
    'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use
    Reason for his precisian, he admits him not for his counsellor.
    You are not young, no more am I; go to, then, there's
    sympathy. You are merry, so am I; ha! ha! then there's
    more sympathy. You love sack, and so do I; would you
    desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page
    at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice-that I love
    thee. I will not say, Pity me: 'tis not a soldier-like phrase;
    but I say, Love me. By me,
    Thine own true knight,
    By day or night,
    Or any kind of light,
    With all his might,
    For thee to fight,
    JOHN FALSTAFF.'
    What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked, wicked world!
    One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age to show
    himself a young gallant! What an unweighed behaviour
    hath this Flemish drunkard pick'd-with the devil's name!
    -out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner
    assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company!
    What should I say to him? I was then frugal of my mirth.
    Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament
    for the putting down of men. How shall I be
    reveng'd on him? for reveng'd I will be, as sure as his guts
    are made of puddings.

                       Enter MISTRESS FORD

  MRS. FORD. Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your
    house.
  MRS. PAGE. And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look
    very ill.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to
    the contrary.
  MRS. PAGE. Faith, but you do, in my mind.
  MRS. FORD. Well, I do, then; yet, I say, I could show you to
    the contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel.
  MRS. PAGE. What's the matter, woman?
  MRS. FORD. O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect,
    I could come to such honour!
  MRS. PAGE. Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour. What
    is it? Dispense with trifles; what is it?
  MRS. FORD. If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment
    or so, I could be knighted.
  MRS. PAGE. What? Thou liest. Sir Alice Ford! These knights
    will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy
    gentry.
  MRS. FORD. We burn daylight. Here, read, read; perceive
    how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat
    men as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's
    liking. And yet he would not swear; prais'd women's
    modesty, and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof
    to all uncomeliness that I would have sworn his disposition
    would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no
    more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth
    Psalm to the tune of 'Greensleeves.' What tempest, I trow,
    threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly,
    ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I
    think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till
    the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease.
    Did you ever hear the like?
  MRS. PAGE. Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and
    Ford differs. To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill
    opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter; but let thine
    inherit first, for, I protest, mine never shall. I warrant he
    hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for
    different names-sure, more!-and these are of the second
    edition. He will print them, out of doubt; for he cares not
    what he puts into the press when he would put us two. I
    had rather be a giantess and lie under Mount Pelion. Well,
    I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste
    man.
  MRS. FORD. Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the
    very words. What doth he think of us?
  MRS. PAGE. Nay, I know not; it makes me almost ready to
    wrangle with mine own honesty. I'll entertain myself like
    one that I am not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he
    know some strain in me that I know not myself, he would
    never have boarded me in this fury.
  MRS. FORD. 'Boarding' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him
    above deck.
  MRS. PAGE. So will I; if he come under my hatches, I'll never
    to sea again. Let's be reveng'd on him; let's appoint him a
    meeting, give him a show of comfort in his suit, and lead
    him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawn'd his
    horses to mine host of the Garter.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, I will consent to act any villainy against
    him that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O
    that my husband saw this letter! It would give eternal food
    to his jealousy.
  MRS. PAGE. Why, look where he comes; and my good man
    too; he's as far from jealousy as I am from giving him
    cause; and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance.
  MRS. FORD. You are the happier woman.
  MRS. PAGE. Let's consult together against this greasy knight.
    Come hither.                                   [They retire]

           Enter FORD with PISTOL, and PAGE with Nym

  FORD. Well, I hope it be not so.
  PISTOL. Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs.
    Sir John affects thy wife.
  FORD. Why, sir, my wife is not young.
  PISTOL. He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,
    Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
    He loves the gallimaufry. Ford, perpend.
  FORD. Love my wife!
  PISTOL. With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,
    Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels.
    O, odious is the name!
  FORD. What name, sir?
  PISTOL. The horn, I say. Farewell.
    Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night;
    Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing.
    Away, Sir Corporal Nym.
    Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.               Exit PISTOL
  FORD.  [Aside]  I will be patient; I will find out this.
  NYM.  [To PAGE]  And this is true; I like not the humour of
    lying. He hath wronged me in some humours; I should
    have borne the humour'd letter to her; but I have a sword,
    and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife;
    there's the short and the long.
    My name is Corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch;
    'Tis true. My name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife.
    Adieu! I love not the humour of bread and cheese; and
    there's the humour of it. Adieu.                    Exit Nym
  PAGE. 'The humour of it,' quoth 'a! Here's a fellow frights
    English out of his wits.
  FORD. I will seek out Falstaff.
  PAGE. I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.
  FORD. If I do find it-well.
  PAGE. I will not believe such a Cataian though the priest o'
    th' town commended him for a true man.
  FORD. 'Twas a good sensible fellow. Well.

             MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward

  PAGE. How now, Meg!
  MRS. PAGE. Whither go you, George? Hark you.
  MRS. FORD. How now, sweet Frank, why art thou melancholy?
  FORD. I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home;
    go.
  MRS. FORD. Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.
    Will you go, Mistress Page?

                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

  MRS. PAGE. Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George?
    [Aside to MRS. FORD]  Look who comes yonder; she shall
    be our messenger to this paltry knight.
  MRS. FORD.  [Aside to MRS. PAGE]  Trust me, I thought on
    her; she'll fit it.
  MRS. PAGE. You are come to see my daughter Anne?
  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?
  MRS. PAGE. Go in with us and see; we have an hour's talk
    with you.           Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and
                                                MISTRESS QUICKLY
  PAGE. How now, Master Ford!
  FORD. You heard what this knave told me, did you not?
  PAGE. Yes; and you heard what the other told me?
  FORD. Do you think there is truth in them?
  PAGE. Hang 'em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer it;
    but these that accuse him in his intent towards our
    wives are a yoke of his discarded men; very rogues, now
    they be out of service.
  FORD. Were they his men?
  PAGE. Marry, were they.
  FORD. I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the
    Garter?
  PAGE. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage
    toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what
    he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head.
  FORD. I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to
    turn them together. A man may be too confident. I would
    have nothing lie on my head. I cannot be thus satisfied.

                           Enter HOST

  PAGE. Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes.
    There is either liquor in his pate or money in his purse
    when he looks so merrily. How now, mine host!
  HOST. How now, bully rook! Thou'rt a gentleman.  [To
    SHALLOW following]  Cavaleiro Justice, I say.

                         Enter SHALLOW

  SHALLOW. I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and
    twenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go with
    us? We have sport in hand.
  HOST. Tell him, Cavaleiro Justice; tell him, bully rook.
  SHALLOW. Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh
    the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.
  FORD. Good mine host o' th' Garter, a word with you.
  HOST. What say'st thou, my bully rook?         [They go aside]
  SHALLOW.  [To PAGE] Will you go with us to behold it? My
    merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons; and,
    I think, hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe
    me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you
    what our sport shall be.               [They converse apart]
  HOST. Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest-cavaleiro.
  FORD. None, I protest; but I'll give you a pottle of burnt
    sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is
    Brook-only for a jest.
  HOST. My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress-
    said I well?-and thy name shall be Brook. It is a merry
    knight. Will you go, Mynheers?
  SHALLOW. Have with you, mine host.
  PAGE. I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his
    rapier.
  SHALLOW. Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these
    times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and
    I know not what. 'Tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis here,
    'tis here. I have seen the time with my long sword I would
    have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.
  HOST. Here, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?
  PAGE. Have with you. I had rather hear them scold than
    fight.                                   Exeunt all but FORD
  FORD. Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on
    his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so
    easily. She was in his company at Page's house, and what
    they made there I know not. Well, I will look further into
    't, and I have a disguise to sound Falstaff. If I find her
    honest, I lose not my labour; if she be otherwise, 'tis labour
    well bestowed.                                          Exit

SCENE 2.

A room in the Garter Inn

Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL

  FALSTAFF. I will not lend thee a penny.
  PISTOL. I will retort the sum in equipage.
  FALSTAFF. Not a penny.
  PISTOL. Why, then the world's mine oyster. Which I with
    sword will open.
  FALSTAFF. Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should
    lay my countenance to pawn. I have grated upon my good
    friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow,
    Nym; or else you had look'd through the grate, like a
    geminy of baboons. I am damn'd in hell for swearing to
    gentlemen my friends you were good soldiers and tall fellows;
    and when Mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan,
    I took 't upon mine honour thou hadst it not.
  PISTOL. Didst not thou share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence?
  FALSTAFF. Reason, you rogue, reason. Think'st thou I'll
    endanger my soul gratis? At a word, hang no more about me,
    I am no gibbet for you. Go-a short knife and a throng!-
    to your manor of Pickt-hatch; go. You'll not bear a letter
    for me, you rogue! You stand upon your honour! Why,
    thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to
    keep the terms of my honour precise. I, I, I myself
    sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand, and hiding
    mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge,
    and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags,
    your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and
    your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour!
    You will not do it, you!
  PISTOL. I do relent; what would thou more of man?

                          Enter ROBIN

  ROBIN. Sir, here's a woman would speak with you.
  FALSTAFF. Let her approach.

                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

  QUICKLY. Give your worship good morrow.
  FALSTAFF. Good morrow, good wife.
  QUICKLY. Not so, an't please your worship.
  FALSTAFF. Good maid, then.
  QUICKLY. I'll be sworn;
    As my mother was, the first hour I was born.
  FALSTAFF. I do believe the swearer. What with me?
  QUICKLY. Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?
  FALSTAFF. Two thousand, fair woman; and I'll vouchsafe
    thee the hearing.
  QUICKLY. There is one Mistress Ford, sir-I pray, come a little
    nearer this ways. I myself dwell with Master Doctor
    Caius.
  FALSTAFF. Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say-
  QUICKLY. Your worship says very true. I pray your worship
    come a little nearer this ways.
  FALSTAFF. I warrant thee nobody hears-mine own people,
    mine own people.
  QUICKLY. Are they so? God bless them, and make them his
    servants!
  FALSTAFF. Well; Mistress Ford, what of her?
  QUICKLY. Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord, Lord, your
    worship's a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you, and all of
    us, I pray.
  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford-
  QUICKLY. Marry, this is the short and the long of it: you
    have brought her into such a canaries as 'tis wonderful.
    The best courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor,
    could never have brought her to such a canary. Yet
    there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with
    their coaches; I warrant you, coach after coach, letter after
    letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so
    rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in such alligant
    terms; and in such wine and sugar of the best and the
    fairest, that would have won any woman's heart; and I
    warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of her.
    I had myself twenty angels given me this morning; but I
    defy all angels, in any such sort, as they say, but in the
    way of honesty; and, I warrant you, they could never get
    her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all;
    and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more,
    pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her.
  FALSTAFF. But what says she to me? Be brief, my good she-
    Mercury.
  QUICKLY. Marry, she hath receiv'd your letter; for the
    which she thanks you a thousand times; and she gives you
    to notify that her husband will be absence from his house
    between ten and eleven.
  FALSTAFF. Ten and eleven?
  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see
    the picture, she says, that you wot of. Master Ford, her
    husband, will be from home. Alas, the sweet woman leads
    an ill life with him! He's a very jealousy man; she leads a
    very frampold life with him, good heart.
  FALSTAFF. Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; I
    will not fail her.
  QUICKLY. Why, you say well. But I have another messenger
    to your worship. Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations
    to you too; and let me tell you in your ear, she's as
    fartuous a civil modest wife, and one, I tell you, that will
    not miss you morning nor evening prayer, as any is in
    Windsor, whoe'er be the other; and she bade me tell your
    worship that her husband is seldom from home, but she
    hopes there will come a time. I never knew a woman so
    dote upon a man: surely I think you have charms, la! Yes,
    in truth.
  FALSTAFF. Not I, I assure thee; setting the attraction of my
    good parts aside, I have no other charms.
  QUICKLY. Blessing on your heart for 't!
  FALSTAFF. But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and
    Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me?
  QUICKLY. That were a jest indeed! They have not so little
    grace, I hope-that were a trick indeed! But Mistress Page
    would desire you to send her your little page of all loves.
    Her husband has a marvellous infection to the little page;
    and truly Master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in
    Windsor leads a better life than she does; do what she will,
    say what she will, take all, pay all, go to bed when she
    list, rise when she list, all is as she will; and truly she
    deserves it; for if there be a kind woman in Windsor, she
    is one. You must send her your page; no remedy.
  FALSTAFF. Why, I will.
  QUICKLY. Nay, but do so then; and, look you, he may come
    and go between you both; and in any case have a
    nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and the boy
    never need to understand any thing; for 'tis not good that
    children should know any wickedness. Old folks, you
    know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world.
  FALSTAFF. Fare thee well; commend me to them both.
    There's my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with
    this woman.  [Exeunt QUICKLY and ROBIN]  This news
    distracts me.
  PISTOL.  [Aside]  This punk is one of Cupid's carriers;
    Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights;
    Give fire; she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!    Exit
  FALSTAFF. Say'st thou so, old Jack; go thy ways; I'll make
    more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet look
    after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense of so much money,
    be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee. Let them say
    'tis grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter.

                         Enter BARDOLPH

  BARDOLPH. Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would
    fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath
    sent your worship a moming's draught of sack.
  FALSTAFF. Brook is his name?
  BARDOLPH. Ay, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Call him in.  [Exit BARDOLPH]  Such Brooks are
    welcome to me, that o'erflows such liquor. Ah, ha! Mistress
    Ford and Mistress Page, have I encompass'd you? Go to;
    via!

              Re-enter BARDOLPH, with FORD disguised

  FORD. Bless you, sir! FALSTAFF. And you, sir! Would you speak with
  me? FORD. I make bold to press with so little preparation upon you.
  FALSTAFF. You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave, drawer.   
                                      Exit BARDOLPH FORD. Sir, I am a
  gentleman that have spent much; my name is Brook. FALSTAFF. Good
  Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance of you. FORD. Good Sir John,
  I sue for yours-not to charge you; for I must let you understand I
  think myself in better plight for a lender than you are; the which
  hath something embold'ned me to this unseason'd intrusion; for they
  say, if money go before, all ways do lie open. FALSTAFF. Money is a
  good soldier, sir, and will on. FORD. Troth, and I have a bag of
  money here troubles me; if you will help to bear it, Sir John, take
  all, or half, for easing me of the carriage. FALSTAFF. Sir, I know
  not how I may deserve to be your porter. FORD. I will tell you, sir,
  if you will give me the hearing. FALSTAFF. Speak, good Master Brook;
  I shall be glad to be your servant. FORD. Sir, I hear you are a
  scholar-I will be brief with you -and you have been a man long known
  to me, though I had never so good means as desire to make myself
  acquainted with you. I shall discover a thing to you, wherein I must
  very much lay open mine own imperfection; but, good Sir John, as you
  have one eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded, turn another
  into the register of your own, that I may pass with a reproof the
  easier, sith you yourself know how easy is it to be such an offender.
  FALSTAFF. Very well, sir; proceed. FORD. There is a gentlewoman in
  this town, her husband's name is Ford. FALSTAFF. Well, sir. FORD. I
  have long lov'd her, and, I protest to you, bestowed much on her;
  followed her with a doting observance; engross'd opportunities to
  meet her; fee'd every slight occasion that could but niggardly give
  me sight of her; not only bought many presents to give her, but have
  given largely to many to know what she would have given; briefly, I
  have pursu'd her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the wing
  of all occasions. But whatsoever I have merited, either in my mind or
  in my means, meed, I am sure, I have received none, unless experience
  be a jewel; that I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath
  taught me to say this: 'Love like a shadow flies when substance love
  pursues; Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.'
  FALSTAFF. Have you receiv'd no promise of satisfaction at her hands?
  FORD. Never. FALSTAFF. Have you importun'd her to such a purpose?
  FORD. Never. FALSTAFF. Of what quality was your love, then? FORD.
  Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so that I have lost
  my edifice by mistaking the place where erected it. FALSTAFF. To what
  purpose have you unfolded this to me? FORD. When I have told you
  that, I have told you all. Some say that though she appear honest to
  me, yet in other places she enlargeth her mirth so far that there is
  shrewd construction made of her. Now, Sir John, here is the heart of
  my purpose: you are a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable
  discourse, of great admittance, authentic in your place and person,
  generally allow'd for your many war-like, courtlike, and learned
  preparations. FALSTAFF. O, sir! FORD. Believe it, for you know it.
  There is money; spend it, spend it; spend more; spend all I have;
  only give me so much of your time in exchange of it as to lay an
  amiable siege to the honesty of this Ford's wife; use your art of
  wooing, win her to consent to you; if any man may, you may as soon as
  any. FALSTAFF. Would it apply well to the vehemency of your
  affection, that I should win what you would enjoy? Methinks you
  prescribe to yourself very preposterously. FORD. O, understand my
  drift. She dwells so securely on the excellency of her honour that
  the folly of my soul dares not present itself; she is too bright to
  be look'd against. Now, could I come to her with any detection in my
  hand, my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves; I
  could drive her then from the ward of her purity, her reputation, her
  marriage vow, and a thousand other her defences, which now are too
  too strongly embattl'd against me. What say you to't, Sir John?
  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will first make bold with your money; next,
  give me your hand; and last, as I am a gentleman, you shall, if you
  will, enjoy Ford's wife. FORD. O good sir! FALSTAFF. I say you shall.
  FORD. Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none. FALSTAFF. Want no
  Mistress Ford, Master Brook; you shall want none. I shall be with
  her, I may tell you, by her own appointment; even as you came in to
  me her assistant, or go-between, parted from me; I say I shall be
  with her between ten and eleven; for at that time the jealous
  rascally knave, her husband, will be forth. Come you to me at night;
  you shall know how I speed. FORD. I am blest in your acquaintance. Do
  you know Ford, Sir? FALSTAFF. Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know
  him not; yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the jealous
  wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the which his wife seems to
  me well-favour'd. I will use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's
  coffer; and there's my harvest-home. FORD. I would you knew Ford,
  sir, that you might avoid him if you saw him. FALSTAFF. Hang him,
  mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will stare him out of his wits; I
  will awe him with my cudgel; it shall hang like a meteor o'er the
  cuckold's horns. Master Brook, thou shalt know I will predominate
  over the peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife. Come to me soon
  at night. Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his style; thou,
  Master Brook, shalt know him for knave and cuckold. Come to me soon
  at night.                               Exit FORD. What a damn'd
  Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is ready to crack with impatience.
  Who says this is improvident jealousy? My wife hath sent to him; the
  hour is fix'd; the match is made. Would any man have thought this?
  See the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abus'd, my
  coffers ransack'd, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not only
  receive this villainous wrong, but stand under the adoption of
  abominable terms, and by him that does me this wrong. Terms! names!
  Amaimon sounds well; Lucifer, well; Barbason, well; yet they are
  devils' additions, the names of fiends. But cuckold! Wittol! Cuckold!
  the devil himself hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass;
  he will trust his wife; he will not be jealous; I will rather trust a
  Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an
  Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling
  gelding, than my wife with herself. Then she plots, then she
  ruminates, then she devises; and what they think in their hearts they
  may effect, they will break their hearts but they will effect. God be
  prais'd for my jealousy! Eleven o'clock the hour. I will prevent
  this, detect my wife, be reveng'd on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I
  will about it; better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
  Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold!     Exit

SCENE 3.

A field near Windsor

Enter CAIUS and RUGBY

  CAIUS. Jack Rugby!
  RUGBY. Sir?
  CAIUS. Vat is de clock, Jack?
  RUGBY. 'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promis'd to
    meet.
  CAIUS. By gar, he has save his soul dat he is no come; he has
    pray his Pible well dat he is no come; by gar, Jack Rugby,
    he is dead already, if he be come.
  RUGBY. He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill
    him if he came.
  CAIUS. By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him. Take
    your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him.
  RUGBY. Alas, sir, I cannot fence!
  CAIUS. Villainy, take your rapier.
  RUGBY. Forbear; here's company.

            Enter HOST, SHALLOW, SLENDER, and PAGE

  HOST. Bless thee, bully doctor!
  SHALLOW. Save you, Master Doctor Caius!
  PAGE. Now, good Master Doctor!
  SLENDER. Give you good morrow, sir.
  CAIUS. Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?
  HOST. To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse;
    to see thee here, to see thee there; to see thee pass thy
    punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy montant.
    Is he dead, my Ethiopian? Is he dead, my Francisco? Ha,
    bully! What says my Aesculapius? my Galen? my heart
    of elder? Ha! is he dead, bully stale? Is he dead?
  CAIUS. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de world; he is
    not show his face.
  HOST. Thou art a Castalion-King-Urinal. Hector of Greece,
    my boy!
  CAIUS. I pray you, bear witness that me have stay six or
    seven, two tree hours for him, and he is no come.
  SHALLOW. He is the wiser man, Master Doctor: he is a curer
    of souls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight,
    you go against the hair of your professions. Is it not true,
    Master Page?
  PAGE. Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter,
    though now a man of peace.
  SHALLOW. Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old, and
    of the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to make
    one. Though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen,
    Master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us; we are
    the sons of women, Master Page.
  PAGE. 'Tis true, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. It will be found so, Master Page. Master Doctor
  CAIUS, I come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace;
    you have show'd yourself a wise physician, and Sir Hugh
    hath shown himself a wise and patient churchman. You
    must go with me, Master Doctor.
  HOST. Pardon, Guest Justice. A word, Mounseur Mockwater.
  CAIUS. Mock-vater! Vat is dat?
  HOST. Mockwater, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.
  CAIUS. By gar, then I have as much mockvater as de Englishman.
    Scurvy jack-dog priest! By gar, me vill cut his ears.
  HOST. He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.
  CAIUS. Clapper-de-claw! Vat is dat?
  HOST. That is, he will make thee amends.
  CAIUS. By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me; for,
    by gar, me vill have it.
  HOST. And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag.
  CAIUS. Me tank you for dat.
  HOST. And, moreover, bully-but first:  [Aside to the others]
    Master Guest, and Master Page, and eke Cavaleiro Slender,
    go you through the town to Frogmore.
  PAGE.  [Aside]  Sir Hugh is there, is he?
  HOST.  [Aside]  He is there. See what humour he is in; and
    I will bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?
  SHALLOW.  [Aside]  We will do it.
  PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. Adieu, good Master Doctor.
                               Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER
  CAIUS. By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a jack-
    an-ape to Anne Page.
  HOST. Let him die. Sheathe thy impatience; throw cold water
    on thy choler; go about the fields with me through Frogmore;
    I will bring thee where Mistress Anne Page is, at a a
    farm-house, a-feasting; and thou shalt woo her. Cried
    game! Said I well?
  CAIUS. By gar, me dank you vor dat; by gar, I love you; and
    I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl, de knight, de
    lords, de gentlemen, my patients.
  HOST. For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne
    Page. Said I well?
  CAIUS. By gar, 'tis good; vell said.
  HOST. Let us wag, then.
  CAIUS. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.                    Exeunt

ACT III SCENE 1.

A field near Frogmore

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE

  EVANS. I pray you now, good Master Slender's serving-man,
    and friend Simple by your name, which way have you
    look'd for Master Caius, that calls himself Doctor of
    Physic?
  SIMPLE. Marry, sir, the pittie-ward, the park-ward; every
    way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town way.
  EVANS. I most fehemently desire you you will also look that
    way.
  SIMPLE. I will, Sir.                                      Exit
  EVANS. Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and trempling
    of mind! I shall be glad if he have deceived me. How
    melancholies I am! I will knog his urinals about his knave's
    costard when I have goot opportunities for the ork. Pless
    my soul!                                             [Sings]
    To shallow rivers, to whose falls
    Melodious birds sings madrigals;
    There will we make our peds of roses,
    And a thousand fragrant posies.
    To shallow-
    Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.     [Sings]
    Melodious birds sing madrigals-
    Whenas I sat in Pabylon-
    And a thousand vagram posies.
    To shallow, etc.

                       Re-enter SIMPLE

  SIMPLE. Yonder he is, coming this way, Sir Hugh.
  EVANS. He's welcome.                                   [Sings]
    To shallow rivers, to whose falls-
    Heaven prosper the right! What weapons is he?
  SIMPLE. No weapons, sir. There comes my master, Master
    Shallow, and another gentleman, from Frogmore, over the
    stile, this way.
  EVANS. Pray you give me my gown; or else keep it in your
    arms.                                     [Takes out a book]

               Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER

  SHALLOW. How now, Master Parson! Good morrow, good
    Sir Hugh. Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student
     from his book, and it is wonderful.
  SLENDER.  [Aside]  Ah, sweet Anne Page!
  PAGE. Save you, good Sir Hugh!
  EVANS. Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!
  SHALLOW. What, the sword and the word! Do you study
    them both, Master Parson?
  PAGE. And youthful still, in your doublet and hose, this raw
    rheumatic day!
  EVANS. There is reasons and causes for it.
  PAGE. We are come to you to do a good office, Master
    Parson.
  EVANS. Fery well; what is it?
  PAGE. Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike having
    received wrong by some person, is at most odds with
    his own gravity and patience that ever you saw.
  SHALLOW. I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never
    heard a man of his place, gravity, and learning, so wide of
    his own respect.
  EVANS. What is he?
  PAGE. I think you know him: Master Doctor Caius, the
    renowned French physician.
  EVANS. Got's will and his passion of my heart! I had as lief
    you would tell me of a mess of porridge.
  PAGE. Why?
  EVANS. He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and
    Galen, and he is a knave besides-a cowardly knave as you
    would desires to be acquainted withal.
  PAGE. I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him.
  SLENDER.  [Aside]  O sweet Anne Page!
  SHALLOW. It appears so, by his weapons. Keep them asunder;
    here comes Doctor Caius.

                 Enter HOST, CAIUS, and RUGBY

  PAGE. Nay, good Master Parson, keep in your weapon.
  SHALLOW. So do you, good Master Doctor.
  HOST. Disarm them, and let them question; let them keep
    their limbs whole and hack our English.
  CAIUS. I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear.
    Verefore will you not meet-a me?
  EVANS.  [Aside to CAIUS]  Pray you use your patience; in
    good time.
  CAIUS. By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape.
  EVANS.  [Aside to CAIUS]  Pray you, let us not be
    laughing-stocks to other men's humours; I desire you in
    friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.
    [Aloud]  I will knog your urinals about your knave's cogscomb
    for missing your meetings and appointments.
  CAIUS. Diable! Jack Rugby-mine Host de Jarteer-have I
    not stay for him to kill him? Have I not, at de place I did
    appoint?
  EVANS. As I am a Christians soul, now, look you, this is the
    place appointed. I'll be judgment by mine host of the
    Garter.
  HOST. Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaul, French and Welsh,
    soul-curer and body-curer.
  CAIUS. Ay, dat is very good! excellent!
  HOST. Peace, I say. Hear mine host of the Garter. Am I
    politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel? Shall I lose my
    doctor? No; he gives me the potions and the motions. Shall I
    lose my parson, my priest, my Sir Hugh? No; he gives me
    the proverbs and the noverbs. Give me thy hand, terrestrial;
    so. Give me thy hand, celestial; so. Boys of art, I have
    deceiv'd you both; I have directed you to wrong places;
    your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole, and let burnt
    sack be the issue. Come, lay their swords to pawn. Follow
    me, lads of peace; follow, follow, follow.
  SHALLOW. Trust me, a mad host. Follow, gentlemen, follow.
  SLENDER.  [Aside]  O sweet Anne Page!
                                  Exeunt all but CAIUS and EVANS
  CAIUS. Ha, do I perceive dat? Have you make-a de sot of us,
    ha, ha?
  EVANS. This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog. I
    desire you that we may be friends; and let us knog our prains
    together to be revenge on this same scall, scurvy, cogging
    companion, the host of the Garter.
  CAIUS. By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me
    where is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.
  EVANS. Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you follow.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 2.

The street in Windsor

Enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN

  MRS. PAGE. Nay, keep your way, little gallant; you were
    wont to be a follower, but now you are a leader. Whether
    had you rather lead mine eyes, or eye your master's heels?
  ROBIN. I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man than
    follow him like a dwarf.
  MRS. PAGE. O, you are a flattering boy; now I see you'll be a
    courtier.

                          Enter FORD

  FORD. Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?
  MRS. PAGE. Truly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home?
  FORD. Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want of
    company. I think, if your husbands were dead, you two
    would marry.
  MRS. PAGE. Be sure of that-two other husbands.
  FORD. Where had you this pretty weathercock?
  MRS. PAGE. I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my
    husband had him of. What do you call your knight's
    name, sirrah?
  ROBIN. Sir John Falstaff.
  FORD. Sir John Falstaff!
  MRS. PAGE. He, he; I can never hit on's name. There is such
    a league between my good man and he! Is your wife at
    home indeed?
  FORD. Indeed she is.
  MRS. PAGE. By your leave, sir. I am sick till I see her.
                                      Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ROBIN
  FORD. Has Page any brains? Hath he any eyes? Hath he any
    thinking? Sure, they sleep; he hath no use of them. Why,
    this boy will carry a letter twenty mile as easy as a cannon
    will shoot pointblank twelve score. He pieces out his wife's
    inclination; he gives her folly motion and advantage; and
    now she's going to my wife, and Falstaff's boy with her. A
    man may hear this show'r sing in the wind. And Falstaff's
    boy with her! Good plots! They are laid; and our revolted
    wives share damnation together. Well; I will take him,
    then torture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modesty
    from the so seeming Mistress Page, divulge Page himself
    for a secure and wilful Actaeon; and to these violent proceedings
    all my neighbours shall cry aim.  [Clock strikes]
    The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me
    search; there I shall find Falstaff. I shall be rather prais'd
    for this than mock'd; for it is as positive as the earth is firm
    that Falstaff is there. I will go.

     Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, HOST, SIR HUGH EVANS,
                              CAIUS, and RUGBY

  SHALLOW, PAGE, &C. Well met, Master Ford.
  FORD. Trust me, a good knot; I have good cheer at home,
    and I pray you all go with me.
  SHALLOW. I must excuse myself, Master Ford.
  SLENDER. And so must I, sir; we have appointed to dine with
    Mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more
    money than I'll speak of.
  SHALLOW. We have linger'd about a match between Anne
    Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have
    our answer.
  SLENDER. I hope I have your good will, father Page.
  PAGE. You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you. But
    my wife, Master Doctor, is for you altogether.
  CAIUS. Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me; my nursh-a
    Quickly tell me so mush.
  HOST. What say you to young Master Fenton? He capers,
    he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks
    holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry 't, he will
    carry 't; 'tis in his buttons; he will carry 't.
  PAGE. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is
    of no having: he kept company with the wild Prince and
    Poins; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No,
    he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of
    my substance; if he take her, let him take her simply; the
    wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes
    not that way.
  FORD. I beseech you, heartily, some of you go home with me
    to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have sport; I will
    show you a monster. Master Doctor, you shall go; so shall
    you, Master Page; and you, Sir Hugh.
  SHALLOW. Well, fare you well; we shall have the freer
    wooing at Master Page's.          Exeunt SHALLOW and SLENDER
  CAIUS. Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.            Exit RUGBY
  HOST. Farewell, my hearts; I will to my honest knight
    Falstaff, and drink canary with him.               Exit HOST
  FORD.  [Aside]  I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with
    him. I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?
  ALL. Have with you to see this monster.                 Exeunt

SCENE 3.

FORD'S house

Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE

  MRS. FORD. What, John! what, Robert!
  MRS. PAGE. Quickly, quickly! Is the buck-basket-
  MRS. FORD. I warrant. What, Robin, I say!

                 Enter SERVANTS with a basket

  MRS. PAGE. Come, come, come.
  MRS. FORD. Here, set it down.
  MRS. PAGE. Give your men the charge; we must be brief.
  MRS. FORD. Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be
    ready here hard by in the brew-house; and when I suddenly
    call you, come forth, and, without any pause or
    staggering, take this basket on your shoulders. That done,
    trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters
    in Datchet Mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch
    close by the Thames side.
  Mrs. PAGE. You will do it?
  MRS. FORD. I ha' told them over and over; they lack no
    direction. Be gone, and come when you are call'd.
                                               Exeunt SERVANTS
  MRS. PAGE. Here comes little Robin.

                         Enter ROBIN

  MRS. FORD. How now, my eyas-musket, what news with
    you?
  ROBIN. My Master Sir John is come in at your back-door,
    Mistress Ford, and requests your company.
  MRS. PAGE. You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?
  ROBIN. Ay, I'll be sworn. My master knows not of your
    being here, and hath threat'ned to put me into everlasting
    liberty, if I tell you of it; for he swears he'll turn me away.
  MRS. PAGE. Thou 'rt a good boy; this secrecy of thine shall
    be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and
    hose. I'll go hide me.
  MRS. FORD. Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone.  [Exit
  ROBIN]  Mistress Page, remember you your cue.
  MRS. PAGE. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.
                                                Exit MRS. PAGE
  MRS. FORD. Go to, then; we'll use this unwholesome
    humidity, this gross wat'ry pumpion; we'll teach him to
    know turtles from jays.

                      Enter FALSTAFF

  FALSTAFF. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel?
    Why, now let me die, for I have liv'd long enough; this is
    the period of my ambition. O this blessed hour!
  MRS. FORD. O sweet Sir John!
  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate,
    Mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish; I would thy
    husband were dead; I'll speak it before the best lord, I
    would make thee my lady.
  MRS. FORD. I your lady, Sir John? Alas, I should be a pitiful
    lady.
  FALSTAFF. Let the court of France show me such another. I
    see how thine eye would emulate the diamond; thou hast
    the right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the
    ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.
  MRS. FORD. A plain kerchief, Sir John; my brows become
    nothing else, nor that well neither.
  FALSTAFF. By the Lord, thou art a tyrant to say so; thou
    wouldst make an absolute courtier, and the firm fixture of
    thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait in a
    semi-circled farthingale. I see what thou wert, if Fortune
    thy foe were, not Nature, thy friend. Come, thou canst not
    hide it.
  MRS. FORD. Believe me, there's no such thing in me.
  FALSTAFF. What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee
    there's something extra-ordinary in thee. Come, I cannot
    cog, and say thou art this and that, like a many of these
    lisping hawthorn-buds that come like women in men's
    apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time; I
    cannot; but I love thee, none but thee; and thou deserv'st it.
  MRS. FORD. Do not betray me, sir; I fear you love Mistress
    Page.
  FALSTAFF. Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the
    Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a
    lime-kiln.
  MRS. FORD. Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you
    shall one day find it.
  FALSTAFF. Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could
    not be in that mind.
  ROBIN.  [Within]  Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here's
    Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and looking
    wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.
  FALSTAFF. She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind
    the arras.
  MRS. FORD. Pray you, do so; she's a very tattling woman.
                                      [FALSTAFF hides himself]

               Re-enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN

    What's the matter? How now!
  MRS. PAGE. O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're
    sham'd, y'are overthrown, y'are undone for ever.
  MRS. FORD. What's the matter, good Mistress Page?
  MRS. PAGE. O well-a-day, Mistress Ford, having an honest
    man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!
  MRS. FORD. What cause of suspicion?
  MRS. PAGE. What cause of suspicion? Out upon you, how
    am I mistook in you!
  MRS. FORD. Why, alas, what's the matter?
  MRS. PAGE. Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all
    the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he
    says is here now in the house, by your consent, to take an
    ill advantage of his absence. You are undone.
  MRS. FORD. 'Tis not so, I hope.
  MRS. PAGE. Pray heaven it be not so that you have such a
    man here; but 'tis most certain your husband's coming,
    with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I
    come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why,
    I am glad of it; but if you have a friend here, convey,
    convey him out. Be not amaz'd; call all your senses to you;
    defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life
    for ever.
  MRS. FORD. What shall I do? There is a gentleman, my dear
    friend; and I fear not mine own shame as much as his peril.
    I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the
    house.
  MRS. PAGE. For shame, never stand 'you had rather' and 'you
    had rather'! Your husband's here at hand; bethink you of
    some conveyance; in the house you cannot hide him. O,
    how have you deceiv'd me! Look, here is a basket; if he be
    of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw
    foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking, or-it is
    whiting-time-send him by your two men to Datchet
    Mead.
  MRS. FORD. He's too big to go in there. What shall I do?
  FALSTAFF.  [Coming forward]  Let me see 't, let me see 't. O,
    let me see 't! I'll in, I'll in; follow your friend's counsel;
    I'll in.
  MRS. PAGE. What, Sir John Falstaff!      [Aside to FALSTAFF]
    Are these your letters, knight?
  FALSTAFF.  [Aside to MRS. PAGE]  I love thee and none but
    thee; help me away.-Let me creep in here; I'll never-
    [Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen]
  MRS. PAGE. Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men,
    Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight!
  MRS. FORD. What, John! Robert! John!                Exit ROBIN

                 Re-enter SERVANTS

    Go, take up these clothes here, quickly; where's the cowl-staff?
    Look how you drumble. Carry them to the laundress in Datchet Mead;
    quickly, come.

         Enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS

  FORD. Pray you come near. If I suspect without cause, why
    then make sport at me, then let me be your jest; I deserve
    it. How now, whither bear you this?
  SERVANT. To the laundress, forsooth.
  MRS. FORD. Why, what have you to do whither they bear it?
    You were best meddle with buck-washing.
  FORD. Buck? I would I could wash myself of the buck!
    Buck, buck, buck! ay, buck! I warrant you, buck; and of
    the season too, it shall appear.  [Exeunt SERVANTS with
    basket]  Gentlemen, I have dream'd to-night; I'll tell you my
    dream. Here, here, here be my keys; ascend my chambers,
    search, seek, find out. I'll warrant we'll unkennel the fox.
    Let me stop this way first.  [Locking the door]  So, now
    uncape.
  PAGE. Good Master Ford, be contented; you wrong yourself
    too much.
  FORD. True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen, you shall see sport
    anon; follow me, gentlemen.                             Exit
  EVANS. This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.
  CAIUS. By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous
    in France.
  PAGE. Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his
    search.                        Exeunt EVANS, PAGE, and CAIUS
  MRS. PAGE. Is there not a double excellency in this?
  MRS. FORD. I know not which pleases me better, that my
    husband is deceived, or Sir John.
  MRS. PAGE. What a taking was he in when your husband
    ask'd who was in the basket!
  MRS. FORD. I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so
    throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.
  MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the
    same strain were in the same distress.
  MRS. FORD. I think my husband hath some special suspicion
    of Falstaff's being here, for I never saw him so gross in his
    jealousy till now.
  MRS. PAGE. I Will lay a plot to try that, and we will yet have
    more tricks with Falstaff. His dissolute disease will scarce
    obey this medicine.
  MRS. FORD. Shall we send that foolish carrion, Mistress
    Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water,
    and give him another hope, to betray him to another
    punishment?
  MRS. PAGE. We will do it; let him be sent for to-morrow
    eight o'clock, to have amends.

       Re-enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS

  FORD. I cannot find him; may be the knave bragg'd of that
    he could not compass.
  MRS. PAGE.  [Aside to MRS. FORD]  Heard you that?
  MRS. FORD. You use me well, Master Ford, do you?
  FORD. Ay, I do so.
  MRS. FORD. Heaven make you better than your thoughts!
  FORD. Amen.
  MRS. PAGE. You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.
  FORD. Ay, ay; I must bear it.
  EVANS. If there be any pody in the house, and in the
    chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive
    my sins at the day of judgment!
  CAIUS. Be gar, nor I too; there is no bodies.
  PAGE. Fie, fie, Master Ford, are you not asham'd? What
    spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha'
    your distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor
    Castle.
  FORD. 'Tis my fault, Master Page; I suffer for it.
  EVANS. You suffer for a pad conscience. Your wife is as
    honest a omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five
    hundred too.
  CAIUS. By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman.
  FORD. Well, I promis'd you a dinner. Come, come, walk in
    the Park. I pray you pardon me; I will hereafter make
    known to you why I have done this. Come, wife, come,
    Mistress Page; I pray you pardon me; pray heartly,
    pardon me.
  PAGE. Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock him.
    I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast;
    after, we'll a-birding together; I have a fine hawk for
    the bush. Shall it be so?
  FORD. Any thing.
  EVANS. If there is one, I shall make two in the company.
  CAIUS. If there be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.
  FORD. Pray you go, Master Page.
  EVANS. I pray you now, remembrance to-morrow on the
    lousy knave, mine host.
  CAIUS. Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart.
  EVANS. A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries!
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 4.

Before PAGE'S house

Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE

  FENTON. I see I cannot get thy father's love;
    Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
  ANNE. Alas, how then?
  FENTON. Why, thou must be thyself.
    He doth object I am too great of birth;
    And that, my state being gall'd with my expense,
    I seek to heal it only by his wealth.
    Besides these, other bars he lays before me,
    My riots past, my wild societies;
    And tells me 'tis a thing impossible
    I should love thee but as a property.
  ANNE.. May be he tells you true.
  FENTON. No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!
    Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth
    Was the first motive that I woo'd thee, Anne;
    Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value
    Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags;
    And 'tis the very riches of thyself
    That now I aim at.
  ANNE. Gentle Master Fenton,
    Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir.
    If opportunity and humblest suit
    Cannot attain it, why then-hark you hither.
                                           [They converse apart]

        Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY

  SHALLOW. Break their talk, Mistress Quickly; my kinsman
    shall speak for himself.
  SLENDER. I'll make a shaft or a bolt on 't; 'slid, 'tis but
    venturing.
  SHALLOW. Be not dismay'd.
  SLENDER. No, she shall not dismay me. I care not for that,
    but that I am afeard.
  QUICKLY. Hark ye, Master Slender would speak a word
    with you.
  ANNE. I come to him.  [Aside]  This is my father's choice.
    O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults
    Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
  QUICKLY. And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a
    word with you.
  SHALLOW. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a
    father!
  SLENDER. I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell
    you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne
    the jest how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good
    uncle.
  SHALLOW. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.
  SLENDER. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in
    Gloucestershire.
  SHALLOW. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.
  SLENDER. Ay, that I will come cut and longtail, under the
    degree of a squire.
  SHALLOW. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds
    jointure.
  ANNE. Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
  SHALLOW. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that
    good comfort. She calls you, coz; I'll leave you.
  ANNE. Now, Master Slender-
  SLENDER. Now, good Mistress Anne-
  ANNE. What is your will?
  SLENDER. My Will! 'Od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest
    indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not
    such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.
  ANNE. I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?
  SLENDER. Truly, for mine own part I would little or nothing
    with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions;
    if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They
    can tell you how things go better than I can. You may ask
    your father; here he comes.

            Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE

  PAGE. Now, Master Slender! Love him, daughter Anne-
    Why, how now, what does Master Fenton here?
    You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house.
    I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of.
  FENTON. Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.
  MRS. PAGE. Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.
  PAGE. She is no match for you.
  FENTON. Sir, will you hear me?
  PAGE. No, good Master Fenton.
    Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender; in.
    Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.
                               Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER
  QUICKLY. Speak to Mistress Page.
  FENTON. Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
    In such a righteous fashion as I do,
    Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners,
    I must advance the colours of my love,
    And not retire. Let me have your good will.
  ANNE. Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.
  MRS. PAGE. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.
  QUICKLY. That's my master, Master Doctor.
  ANNE. Alas, I had rather be set quick i' th' earth.
    And bowl'd to death with turnips.
  MRS. PAGE. Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master
    Fenton,
    I will not be your friend, nor enemy;
    My daughter will I question how she loves you,
    And as I find her, so am I affected;
    Till then, farewell, sir; she must needs go in;
    Her father will be angry.
  FENTON. Farewell, gentle mistress; farewell, Nan.
                                       Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE
  QUICKLY. This is my doing now: 'Nay,' said I 'will you cast
    away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on
    Master Fenton.' This is my doing.
  FENTON. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night
    Give my sweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains.
  QUICKLY. Now Heaven send thee good fortune!  [Exit
    FENTON]  A kind heart he hath; a woman would run through
    fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my
    master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master Slender had
    her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her; I will
    do what I can for them all three, for so I have promis'd,
    and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master
    Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff
    from my two mistresses. What a beast am I to slack it!
 Exit

SCENE 5.

The Garter Inn

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH

  FALSTAFF. Bardolph, I say!
  BARDOLPH. Here, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in 't.
                                                   Exit BARDOLPH
    Have I liv'd to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of
    butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if
    I be serv'd such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out
    and butter'd, and give them to a dog for a new-year's gift.
    The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse
    as they would have drown'd a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen
    i' th' litter; and you may know by my size that I have
    a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as
    hell I should down. I had been drown'd but that the shore
    was shelvy and shallow-a death that I abhor; for the water
    swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when
    had been swell'd! I should have been a mountain of
    mummy.

                  Re-enter BARDOLPH, with sack

  BARDOLPH. Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you
  FALSTAFF. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames
    water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallow'd
    snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.
  BARDOLPH. Come in, woman.

                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

  QUICKLY. By your leave; I cry you mercy. Give your
    worship good morrow.
  FALSTAFF. Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle
    of sack finely.
  BARDOLPH. With eggs, sir?
  FALSTAFF. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my
    brewage.  [Exit BARDOLPH]  How now!
  QUICKLY. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress
    Ford.
  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was
    thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.
  QUICKLY. Alas the day, good heart, that was not her fault!
    She does so take on with her men; they mistook their
    erection.
  FALSTAFF. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's
    promise.
  QUICKLY. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn
    your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning
    a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her between
    eight and nine; I must carry her word quickly. She'll make
    you amends, I warrant you.
  FALSTAFF. Well, I Will visit her. Tell her so; and bid her
    think what a man is. Let her consider his frailty, and then
    judge of my merit.
  QUICKLY. I will tell her.
  FALSTAFF. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou?
  QUICKLY. Eight and nine, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Well, be gone; I will not miss her.
  QUICKLY. Peace be with you, sir.                          Exit
  FALSTAFF. I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me
    word to stay within. I like his money well. O, here he
    comes.

                       Enter FORD disguised

  FORD. Bless you, sir!
  FALSTAFF. Now, Master Brook, you come to know what
    hath pass'd between me and Ford's wife?
  FORD. That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.
  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her
    house the hour she appointed me.
  FORD. And sped you, sir?
  FALSTAFF. Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.
  FORD. How so, sir; did she change her determination?
  FALSTAFF. No. Master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her
    husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of
    jealousy, comes me in the instant of our, encounter, after
    we had embrac'd, kiss'd, protested, and, as it were, spoke
    the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his
    companions, thither provoked and instigated by his
    distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's
    love.
  FORD. What, while you were there?
  FALSTAFF. While I was there.
  FORD. And did he search for you, and could not find you?
  FALSTAFF. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes
    in one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford's approach;
    and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they
    convey'd me into a buck-basket.
  FORD. A buck-basket!
  FALSTAFF. By the Lord, a buck-basket! Ramm'd me in with
    foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy
    napkins, that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound
    of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.
  FORD. And how long lay you there?
  FALSTAFF. Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have
    suffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being
    thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his
    hinds, were call'd forth by their mistress to carry me in
    the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane; they took me on
    their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the
    door; who ask'd them once or twice what they had in their
    basket. I quak'd for fear lest the lunatic knave would have
    search'd it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold,
    held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away
    went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master
    Brook-I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first,
    an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten
    bell-wether; next, to be compass'd like a good bilbo in the
    circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and
    then, to be stopp'd in, like a strong distillation, with
    stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that
    -a man of my kidney. Think of that-that am as subject to
    heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw. It
    was a miracle to scape suffocation. And in the height of
    this bath, when I was more than half-stew'd in grease, like
    a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cool'd,
    glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that
    -hissing hot. Think of that, Master Brook.
  FORD. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you
    have suffer'd all this. My suit, then, is desperate;
    you'll undertake her no more.
  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I
    have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her
    husband is this morning gone a-birding; I have received from
    her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is
    the hour, Master Brook.
  FORD. 'Tis past eight already, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Is it? I Will then address me to my appointment.
    Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall
    know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned
    with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master
    Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.            Exit
  FORD. Hum! ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep?
    Master Ford, awake; awake, Master Ford. There's a hole
    made in your best coat, Master Ford. This 'tis to be
    married; this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will
    proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the lecher; he
    is at my house. He cannot scape me; 'tis impossible he
    should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse nor into
    a pepper box. But, lest the devil that guides him should aid
    him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I
    cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make
    me tame. If I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb
    go with me-I'll be horn mad.                            Exit

ACT IV. SCENE I.

Windsor. A street

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM

  MRS. PAGE. Is he at Master Ford's already, think'st thou?
  QUICKLY. Sure he is by this; or will be presently; but truly
    he is very courageous mad about his throwing into the
    water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.
  MRS. PAGE. I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring my
    young man here to school. Look where his master comes;
    'tis a playing day, I see.

                     Enter SIR HUGH EVANS

    How now, Sir Hugh, no school to-day?
  EVANS. No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.
  QUICKLY. Blessing of his heart!
  MRS. PAGE. Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits
    nothing in the world at his book; I pray you ask him some
    questions in his accidence.
  EVANS. Come hither, William; hold up your head; come.
  MRS. PAGE. Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your
    master; be not afraid.
  EVANS. William, how many numbers is in nouns?
  WILLIAM. Two.
  QUICKLY. Truly, I thought there had been one number
    more, because they say 'Od's nouns.'
  EVANS. Peace your tattlings. What is 'fair,' William?
  WILLIAM. Pulcher.
  QUICKLY. Polecats! There are fairer things than polecats,
    sure.
  EVANS. You are a very simplicity oman; I pray you, peace.
    What is 'lapis,' William?
  WILLIAM. A stone.
  EVANS. And what is 'a stone,' William?
  WILLIAM. A pebble.
  EVANS. No, it is 'lapis'; I pray you remember in your prain.
  WILLIAM. Lapis.
  EVANS. That is a good William. What is he, William, that
    does lend articles?
  WILLIAM. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be
    thus declined: Singulariter, nominativo; hic, haec, hoc.
  EVANS. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark: genitivo,
    hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?
  WILLIAM. Accusativo, hinc.
  EVANS. I pray you, have your remembrance, child.
    Accusativo, hung, hang, hog.
  QUICKLY. 'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
  EVANS. Leave your prabbles, oman. What is the focative
    case, William?
  WILLIAM. O-vocativo, O.
  EVANS. Remember, William: focative is caret.
  QUICKLY. And that's a good root.
  EVANS. Oman, forbear.
  MRS. PAGE. Peace.
  EVANS. What is your genitive case plural, William?
  WILLIAM. Genitive case?
  EVANS. Ay.
  WILLIAM. Genitive: horum, harum, horum.
  QUICKLY. Vengeance of Jenny's case; fie on her! Never
    name her, child, if she be a whore.
  EVANS. For shame, oman.
  QUICKLY. YOU do ill to teach the child such words. He
    teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast
    enough of themselves; and to call 'horum'; fie upon you!
  EVANS. Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings
    for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou
    art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.
  MRS. PAGE. Prithee hold thy peace.
  EVANS. Show me now, William, some declensions of your
    pronouns.
  WILLIAM. Forsooth, I have forgot.
  EVANS. It is qui, quae, quod; if you forget your qui's, your
    quae's, and your quod's, you must be preeches. Go your
    ways and play; go.
  MRS. PAGE. He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
  EVANS. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.
  MRS. PAGE. Adieu, good Sir Hugh.                 Exit SIR HUGH
    Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.            Exeunt

SCENE 2.

FORD'S house

Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD

  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my
    sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I
    profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in
    the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement,
    complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your
    husband now?
  MRS. FORD. He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.
  MRS. PAGE.  [Within]  What hoa, gossip Ford, what hoa!
  MRS. FORD. Step into th' chamber, Sir John.      Exit FALSTAFF

                      Enter MISTRESS PAGE

  MRS. PAGE. How now, sweetheart, who's at home besides
    yourself?
  MRS. FORD. Why, none but mine own people.
  MRS. PAGE. Indeed?
  MRS. FORD. No, certainly.  [Aside to her]  Speak louder.
  MRS. PAGE. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.
  MRS. FORD. Why?
  MRS. PAGE. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes
    again. He so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails
    against all married mankind; so curses an Eve's daughters,
    of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the
    forehead, crying 'Peer-out, peer-out!' that any madness I
    ever yet beheld seem'd but tameness, civility, and patience,
    to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight
    is not here.
  MRS. FORD. Why, does he talk of him?
  MRS. PAGE. Of none but him; and swears he was carried out,
    the last time he search'd for him, in a basket; protests to
    my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the
    rest of their company from their sport, to make another
    experiment of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not
    here; now he shall see his own foolery.
  MRS. FORD. How near is he, Mistress Page?
  MRS. PAGE. Hard by, at street end; he will be here anon.
  MRS. FORD. I am undone: the knight is here.
  MRS. PAGE. Why, then, you are utterly sham'd, and he's but
    a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him,
    away with him; better shame than murder.
  MRS. FORD. Which way should he go? How should I bestow
    him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

                  Re-enter FALSTAFF

  FALSTAFF. No, I'll come no more i' th' basket. May I not go
    out ere he come?
  MRS. PAGE. Alas, three of Master Ford's brothers watch the
    door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you
    might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?
  FALSTAFF. What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.
  MRS. FORD. There they always use to discharge their
    birding-pieces.
  MRS. PAGE. Creep into the kiln-hole.
  FALSTAFF. Where is it?
  MRS. FORD. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press,
    coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for
    the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his
    note. There is no hiding you in the house.
  FALSTAFF. I'll go out then.
  MRS. PAGE. If you go out in your own semblance, you die,
    Sir John. Unless you go out disguis'd.
  MRS. FORD. How might we disguise him?
  MRS. PAGE. Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman's
    gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put on a
    hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.
  FALSTAFF. Good hearts, devise something; any extremity
    rather than a mischief.
  MRS. FORD. My Maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brainford, has
    a gown above.
  MRS. PAGE. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he
    is; and there's her thrumm'd hat, and her muffler too. Run
    up, Sir John.
  MRS. FORD. Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and I will
    look some linen for your head.
  MRS. PAGE. Quick, quick; we'll come dress you straight. Put
    on the gown the while.                         Exit FALSTAFF
  MRS. FORD. I would my husband would meet him in this
    shape; he cannot abide the old woman of Brainford; he
    swears she's a witch, forbade her my house, and hath
    threat'ned to beat her.
  MRS. PAGE. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel; and
    the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!
  MRS. FORD. But is my husband coming?
  MRS. PAGE. Ay, in good sadness is he; and talks of the basket
    too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.
  MRS. FORD. We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry
    the basket again, to meet him at the door with it as they
    did last time.
  MRS. PAGE. Nay, but he'll be here presently; let's go dress
    him like the witch of Brainford.
  MRS. FORD. I'll first direct my men what they shall do with
    the basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.   Exit
  MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse
    him enough.
    We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do,
    Wives may be merry and yet honest too.
    We do not act that often jest and laugh;
    'Tis old but true: Still swine eats all the draff.      Exit

            Re-enter MISTRESS FORD, with two SERVANTS

  MRS. FORD. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders;
    your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey
    him; quickly, dispatch.                                 Exit
  FIRST SERVANT. Come, come, take it up.
  SECOND SERVANT. Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.
  FIRST SERVANT. I hope not; I had lief as bear so much lead.

    Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS

  FORD. Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any
    way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket, villain!
    Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O you panderly
    rascals, there's a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy
    against me. Now shall the devil be sham'd. What, wife, I
    say! Come, come forth; behold what honest clothes you
    send forth to bleaching.
  PAGE. Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go loose
    any longer; you must be pinion'd.
  EVANS. Why, this is lunatics. This is mad as a mad dog.
  SHALLOW. Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.
  FORD. So say I too, sir.

                     Re-enter MISTRESS FORD

    Come hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford, the honest
    woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath
    the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause,
    Mistress, do I?
  MRS. FORD. Heaven be my witness, you do, if you suspect
    me in any dishonesty.
  FORD. Well said, brazen-face; hold it out. Come forth, sirrah.
                           [Pulling clothes out of the basket]
  PAGE. This passes!
  MRS. FORD. Are you not asham'd? Let the clothes alone.
  FORD. I shall find you anon.
  EVANS. 'Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife's
    clothes? Come away.
  FORD. Empty the basket, I say.
  MRS. FORD. Why, man, why?
  FORD. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one convey'd
    out of my house yesterday in this basket. Why may not
    he be there again? In my house I am sure he is; my
    intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable.
    Pluck me out all the linen.
  MRS. FORD. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's
    death.
  PAGE. Here's no man.
  SHALLOW. By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this
    wrongs you.
  EVANS. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the
    imaginations of your own heart; this is jealousies.
  FORD. Well, he's not here I seek for.
  PAGE. No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.
  FORD. Help to search my house this one time. If I find not
    what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for
    ever be your table sport; let them say of me 'As jealous as
    Ford, that search'd a hollow walnut for his wife's leman.'
    Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.
  MRS. FORD. What, hoa, Mistress Page! Come you and the old
    woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.
  FORD. Old woman? what old woman's that?
  MRS. FORD. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brainford.
  FORD. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not
    forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We
    are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass
    under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by
    charms, by spells, by th' figure, and such daub'ry as this
    is, beyond our element. We know nothing. Come down, you
    witch, you hag you; come down, I say.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, good sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let
    him not strike the old woman.

   Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, and MISTRESS PAGE

  MRS. PAGE. Come, Mother Prat; come. give me your hand.
  FORD. I'll prat her.  [Beating him]  Out of my door, you
    witch, you hag, you. baggage, you polecat, you ronyon!
    Out, out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you.
                                                   Exit FALSTAFF
  MRS. PAGE. Are you not asham'd? I think you have kill'd the
    poor woman.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you.
  FORD. Hang her, witch!
  EVANS. By yea and no, I think the oman is a witch indeed; I
    like not when a oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard
    under his muffler.
  FORD. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you follow;
    see but the issue of my jealousy; if I cry out thus upon no
    trail, never trust me when I open again.
  PAGE. Let's obey his humour a little further. Come,
    gentlemen.            Exeunt all but MRS. FORD and MRS. PAGE
  MRS. PAGE. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, by th' mass, that he did not; he beat him
    most unpitifully methought.
  MRS. PAGE. I'll have the cudgel hallow'd and hung o'er the
    altar; it hath done meritorious service.
  MRS. FORD. What think you? May we, with the warrant of
    womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue
    him with any further revenge?
  MRS. PAGE. The spirit of wantonness is sure scar'd out of
    him; if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and
    recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste,
    attempt us again.
  MRS. FORD. Shall we tell our husbands how we have serv'd
    him?
  MRS. PAGE. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the
    figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their
    hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further
    afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.
  MRS. FORD. I'll warrant they'll have him publicly sham'd;
    and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should
    he not be publicly sham'd.
  MRS. PAGE. Come, to the forge with it then; shape it. I
    would not have things cool.                           Exeunt

SCENE 3.

The Garter Inn

Enter HOST and BARDOLPH

  BARDOLPH. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your
    horses; the Duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and
    they are going to meet him.
  HOST. What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear
    not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen;
    they speak English?
  BARDOLPH. Ay, sir; I'll call them to you.
  HOST. They shall have my horses, but I'll make them pay;
    I'll sauce them; they have had my house a week at
    command; I have turn'd away my other guests. They must
    come off; I'll sauce them. Come.                      Exeunt

SCENE 4

FORD'S house

Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS

  EVANS. 'Tis one of the best discretions of a oman as ever
    did look upon.
  PAGE. And did he send you both these letters at an instant?
  MRS. PAGE. Within a quarter of an hour.
  FORD. Pardon me, wife. Henceforth, do what thou wilt;
    I rather will suspect the sun with cold
    Than thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honour stand,
    In him that was of late an heretic,
    As firm as faith.
  PAGE. 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more.
    Be not as extreme in submission as in offence;
    But let our plot go forward. Let our wives
    Yet once again, to make us public sport,
    Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
    Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.
  FORD. There is no better way than that they spoke of.
  PAGE. How? To send him word they'll meet him in the Park
    at midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come!
  EVANS. You say he has been thrown in the rivers; and has
    been grievously peaten as an old oman; methinks there
    should be terrors in him, that he should not come;
    methinks his flesh is punish'd; he shall have no desires.
  PAGE. So think I too.
  MRS. FORD. Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,
    And let us two devise to bring him thither.
  MRS. PAGE. There is an old tale goes that Heme the Hunter,
    Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
    Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
    Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
    And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
    And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
    In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
    You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
    The superstitious idle-headed eld
    Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,
    This tale of Heme the Hunter for a truth.
  PAGE. Why yet there want not many that do fear
    In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak.
    But what of this?
  MRS. FORD. Marry, this is our device-
    That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,
    Disguis'd, like Heme, with huge horns on his head.
  PAGE. Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come,
    And in this shape. When you have brought him thither,
    What shall be done with him? What is your plot?
  MRS. PAGE. That likewise have we thought upon, and
    thus:
    Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,
    And three or four more of their growth, we'll dress
    Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,
    With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
    And rattles in their hands; upon a sudden,
    As Falstaff, she, and I, are newly met,
    Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
    With some diffused song; upon their sight
    We two in great amazedness will fly.
    Then let them all encircle him about,
    And fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight;
    And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
    In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
    In shape profane.
  MRS. FORD. And till he tell the truth,
    Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,
    And burn him with their tapers.
  MRS. PAGE. The truth being known,
    We'll all present ourselves; dis-horn the spirit,
    And mock him home to Windsor.
  FORD. The children must
    Be practis'd well to this or they'll nev'r do 't.
  EVANS. I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will
    be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my
    taber.
  FORD. That will be excellent. I'll go buy them vizards.
  MRS. PAGE. My Nan shall be the Queen of all the Fairies,
    Finely attired in a robe of white.
  PAGE. That silk will I go buy.  [Aside]  And in that time
    Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,
    And marry her at Eton.-Go, send to Falstaff straight.
  FORD. Nay, I'll to him again, in name of Brook;
    He'll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he'll come.
  MRS. PAGE. Fear not you that. Go get us properties
    And tricking for our fairies.
  EVANS. Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery
    honest knaveries.               Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS
  MRS. PAGE. Go, Mistress Ford.
    Send Quickly to Sir John to know his mind.
                                                  Exit MRS. FORD
    I'll to the Doctor; he hath my good will,
    And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
    That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;
    And he my husband best of all affects.
    The Doctor is well money'd, and his friends
    Potent at court; he, none but he, shall have her,
    Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.      Exit

SCENE 5.

The Garter Inn

Enter HOST and SIMPLE

  HOST. What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thick-skin?
    Speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.
  SIMPLE. Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff
    from Master Slender.
  HOST. There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his
    standing-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about with the
    story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go, knock and can; he'll
    speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee. Knock, I say.
  SIMPLE. There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into
    his chamber; I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down;
    I come to speak with her, indeed.
  HOST. Ha! a fat woman? The knight may be robb'd. I'll call.
    Bully knight! Bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs
    military. Art thou there? It is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.
  FALSTAFF.  [Above]  How now, mine host?
  HOST. Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of
    thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend;
    my chambers are honourible. Fie, privacy, fie!

                    Enter FALSTAFF

  FALSTAFF. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even
    now with, me; but she's gone.
  SIMPLE. Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of
    Brainford?
  FALSTAFF. Ay, marry was it, mussel-shell. What would you
    with her?
  SIMPLE. My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her,
    seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one
    Nym, sir, that beguil'd him of a chain, had the chain or no.
  FALSTAFF. I spake with the old woman about it.
  SIMPLE. And what says she, I pray, sir?
  FALSTAFF Marry, she says that the very same man that
    beguil'd Master Slender of his chain cozen'd him of it.
  SIMPLE. I would I could have spoken with the woman
    herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too,
    from him.
  FALSTAFF. What are they? Let us know.
  HOST. Ay, come; quick.
  SIMPLE. I may not conceal them, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Conceal them, or thou diest.
    SIMPLE.. Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress
    Anne Page: to know if it were my master's fortune to
    have her or no.
  FALSTAFF. 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.
  SIMPLE. What sir?
  FALSTAFF. To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me
    so.
  SIMPLE. May I be bold to say so, sir?
  FALSTAFF. Ay, sir, like who more bold?
  SIMPLE., I thank your worship; I shall make my master glad
    with these tidings.                              Exit SIMPLE
  HOST. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was
    there a wise woman with thee?
  FALSTAFF. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath
    taught me more wit than ever I learn'd before in my life;
    and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my
    learning.

                    Enter BARDOLPH

  BARDOLPH. Out, alas, sir, cozenage, mere cozenage!
  HOST. Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.
  BARDOLPH. Run away with the cozeners; for so soon as I
    came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of
    them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like
    three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.
  HOST. They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain; do not
    say they be fled. Germans are honest men.

                 Enter SIR HUGH EVANS

  EVANS. Where is mine host?
  HOST. What is the matter, sir?
  EVANS. Have a care of your entertainments. There is a friend
    of mine come to town tells me there is three
    cozen-germans that has cozen'd all the hosts of Readins,
    of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for
    good will, look you; you are wise, and full of gibes and
    vlouting-stogs, and 'tis not convenient you should be
    cozened. Fare you well.                                 Exit

                  Enter DOCTOR CAIUS

  CAIUS. Vere is mine host de Jarteer?
  HOST. Here, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful
    dilemma.
  CAIUS. I cannot tell vat is dat; but it is tell-a me dat you
    make grand preparation for a Duke de Jamany. By my
    trot, dere is no duke that the court is know to come; I
    tell you for good will. Adieu.                          Exit
  HOST. Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight; I am
    undone. Fly, run, hue and cry, villain; I am undone.
                                        Exeunt HOST and BARDOLPH
  FALSTAFF. I would all the world might be cozen'd, for I have
    been cozen'd and beaten too. If it should come to the car
    of the court how I have been transformed, and how my
    transformation hath been wash'd and cudgell'd, they
    would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor
    fishermen's boots with me; I warrant they would whip me
    with their fine wits till I were as crestfall'n as a dried pear.
    I never prosper'd since I forswore myself at primero. Well,
    if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers,
    would repent.

                Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

    Now! whence come you?
  QUICKLY. From the two parties, forsooth.
  FALSTAFF. The devil take one party and his dam the other!
    And so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffer'd more
    for their sakes, more than the villainous inconstancy of
    man's disposition is able to bear.
  QUICKLY. And have not they suffer'd? Yes, I warrant;
    speciously one of them; Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten
    black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.
  FALSTAFF. What tell'st thou me of black and blue? I was
    beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and
    was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brainford. But
    that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the
    action of an old woman, deliver'd me, the knave constable
    had set me i' th' stocks, i' th' common stocks, for a witch.
  QUICKLY. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber; you
    shall hear how things go, and, I warrant, to your content.
    Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado
    here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not
    serve heaven well, that you are so cross'd.
  FALSTAFF. Come up into my chamber.                      Exeunt

SCENE 6.

The Garter Inn

Enter FENTON and HOST

  HOST. Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy; I
    will give over all.
  FENTON. Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose,
    And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give the
    A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.
  HOST. I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will, at the least,
    keep your counsel.
  FENTON. From time to time I have acquainted you
    With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page;
    Who, mutually, hath answer'd my affection,
    So far forth as herself might be her chooser,
    Even to my wish. I have a letter from her
    Of such contents as you will wonder at;
    The mirth whereof so larded with my matter
    That neither, singly, can be manifested
    Without the show of both. Fat Falstaff
    Hath a great scene. The image of the jest
    I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host:
    To-night at Heme's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,
    Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen-
    The purpose why is here-in which disguise,
    While other jests are something rank on foot,
    Her father hath commanded her to slip
    Away with Slender, and with him at Eton
    Immediately to marry; she hath consented.
    Now, sir,
    Her mother, even strong against that match
    And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed
    That he shall likewise shuffle her away
    While other sports are tasking of their minds,
    And at the dean'ry, where a priest attends,
    Straight marry her. To this her mother's plot
    She seemingly obedient likewise hath
    Made promise to the doctor. Now thus it rests:
    Her father means she shall be all in white;
    And in that habit, when Slender sees his time
    To take her by the hand and bid her go,
    She shall go with him; her mother hath intended
    The better to denote her to the doctor-
    For they must all be mask'd and vizarded-
    That quaint in green she shall be loose enrob'd,
    With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head;
    And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe,
    To pinch her by the hand, and, on that token,
    The maid hath given consent to go with him.
  HOST. Which means she to deceive, father or mother?
  FENTON. Both, my good host, to go along with me.
    And here it rests-that you'll procure the vicar
    To stay for me at church, 'twixt twelve and one,
    And in the lawful name of marrying,
    To give our hearts united ceremony.
  HOST. Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar.
    Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.
  FENTON. So shall I evermore be bound to thee;
    Besides, I'll make a present recompense.              Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1.

The Garter Inn

Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY

  FALSTAFF. Prithee, no more prattling; go. I'll, hold. This is
    the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.
    Away, go; they say there is divinity in odd numbers, either
    in nativity, chance, or death. Away.
  QUICKLY. I'll provide you a chain, and I'll do what I can to
    get you a pair of horns.
  FALSTAFF. Away, I say; time wears; hold up your head, and
    mince.                                     Exit MRS. QUICKLY

                 Enter FORD disguised

    How now, Master Brook. Master Brook, the matter will
    be known tonight or never. Be you in the Park about
    midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall see wonders.
  FORD. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me
    you had appointed?
  FALSTAFF. I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a
    poor old man; but I came from her, Master Brook, like a
    poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath
    the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that
    ever govern'd frenzy. I will tell you-he beat me grievously
    in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master
    Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because
    I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with
    me; I'll. tell you all, Master Brook. Since I pluck'd geese,
    play'd truant, and whipp'd top, I knew not what 'twas to
    be beaten till lately. Follow me. I'll tell you strange things
    of this knave-Ford, on whom to-night I will be revenged,
    and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange
    things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.                 Exeunt

SCENE 2.

Windsor Park

Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER

  PAGE. Come, come; we'll couch i' th' Castle ditch till we
    see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter.
  SLENDER. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have
    a nay-word how to know one another. I come to her in
    white and cry 'mum'; she cries 'budget,' and by that we
    know one another.
  SHALLOW. That's good too; but what needs either your mum
    or her budget? The white will decipher her well enough.
    It hath struck ten o'clock.
  PAGE. The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well.
    Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the
    devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let's away;
    follow me.                                            Exeunt

SCENE 3.

A street leading to the Park

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS

  MRS. PAGE. Master Doctor, my daughter is in green; when
    you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to
    the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the
    Park; we two must go together.
  CAIUS. I know vat I have to do; adieu.
  MRS. PAGE. Fare you well, sir.  [Exit CAIUS]  My husband
    will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will
    chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter; but 'tis no
    matter; better a little chiding than a great deal of
    heartbreak.
  MRS. FORD. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and
    the Welsh devil, Hugh?
  MRS. PAGE. They are all couch'd in a pit hard by Heme's
    oak, with obscur'd lights; which, at the very instant of
    Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the
    night.
  MRS. FORD. That cannot choose but amaze him.
  MRS. PAGE. If he be not amaz'd, he will be mock'd; if he be
    amaz'd, he will every way be mock'd.
  MRS. FORD. We'll betray him finely.
  MRS. PAGE. Against such lewdsters and their lechery,
    Those that betray them do no treachery.
  MRS. FORD. The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 4.

Windsor Park

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS like a satyr, with OTHERS as fairies

  EVANS. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts. Be pold, I
  pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-ords, do
  as I pid you. Come, come; trib, trib.                                
                  Exeunt

SCENE 5.

Another part of the Park

Enter FALSTAFF disguised as HERNE

  FALSTAFF. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on.
  Now the hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull
  for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love! that in some
  respects makes a beast a man; in some other a man a beast. You were
  also, Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda. O omnipotent love! how
  near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in
  the form of a beast-O Jove, a beastly fault!-and then another fault
  in the semblance of a fowl- think on't, Jove, a foul fault! When gods
  have hot backs what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor
  stag; and the fattest, I think, i' th' forest. Send me a cool
  rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes
  here? my doe?

        Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE

  MRS. FORD. Sir John! Art thou there, my deer, my male deer.
  FALSTAFF. My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain
    potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves, hail
    kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest
    of provocation, I will shelter me here.      [Embracing her]
  MRS. FORD. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
  FALSTAFF. Divide me like a brib'd buck, each a haunch; I
    will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow
    of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am
    I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Heme the Hunter? Why,
    now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution.
    As I am a true spirit, welcome!           [A noise of horns]
  MRS. PAGE. Alas, what noise?
  MRS. FORD. Heaven forgive our sins!
  FALSTAFF. What should this be?
  MRS. FORD. } Away, away.
  MRS. PAGE. } Away, away.                        [They run off]
  FALSTAFF. I think the devil will not have me damn'd, lest the
    oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would never else
    cross me thus.

        Enter SIR HUGH EVANS like a satyr, ANNE PAGE as
      a fairy, and OTHERS as the Fairy Queen, fairies, and
               Hobgoblin; all with tapers

  FAIRY QUEEN. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
    You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,
    You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,
    Attend your office and your quality.
    Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.
  PUCK. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.
    Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap;
    Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,
    There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry;
    Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.
  FALSTAFF. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die.
    I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.
                                       [Lies down upon his face]
  EVANS. Where's Pede? Go you, and where you find a maid
    That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
    Raise up the organs of her fantasy
    Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;
    But those as sleep and think not on their sins,
    Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.
  FAIRY QUEEN. About, about;
    Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out;
    Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room,
    That it may stand till the perpetual doom
    In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,
    Worthy the owner and the owner it.
    The several chairs of order look you scour
    With juice of balm and every precious flower;
    Each fair instalment, coat, and sev'ral crest,
    With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
    And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
    Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring;
    Th' expressure that it bears, green let it be,
    More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
    And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write
    In em'rald tufts, flow'rs purple, blue and white;
    Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
    Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee.
    Fairies use flow'rs for their charactery.
    Away, disperse; but till 'tis one o'clock,
    Our dance of custom round about the oak
    Of Herne the Hunter let us not forget.
  EVANS. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;
    And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
    To guide our measure round about the tree.
    But, stay. I smell a man of middle earth.
  FALSTAFF. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he
    transform me to a piece of cheese!
  PUCK. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.
  FAIRY QUEEN. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end;
    If he be chaste, the flame will back descend,
    And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
    It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
  PUCK. A trial, come.
  EVANS. Come, will this wood take fire?
             [They put the tapers to his fingers, and he starts]
  FALSTAFF. Oh, oh, oh!
  FAIRY QUEEN. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
    About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
    And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
  THE SONG.
    Fie on sinful fantasy!
    Fie on lust and luxury!
    Lust is but a bloody fire,
    Kindled with unchaste desire,
    Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,
    As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
    Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
    Pinch him for his villainy;
    Pinch him and burn him and turn him about,
    Till candles and star-light and moonshine be out.

        During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR
        CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a fairy in
        green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a fairy in
        white; and FENTON steals away ANNE PAGE. A noise
        of hunting is heard within. All the fairies run away.
        FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises

       Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and
                        SIR HUGH EVANS

  PAGE. Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now.
    Will none but Heme the Hunter serve your turn?
  MRS. PAGE. I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher.
    Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
    See you these, husband? Do not these fair yokes
    Become the forest better than the town?
  FORD. Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook,
    Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns,
    Master Brook; and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of
    Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds
    of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses
    are arrested for it, Master Brook.
  MRS. FORD. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never
    meet. I will never take you for my love again; but I will
    always count you my deer.
  FALSTAFF. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
  FORD. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.
  FALSTAFF. And these are not fairies? I was three or four
    times in the thought they were not fairies; and yet the
    guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers,
    drove the grossness of the foppery into a receiv'd belief,
    in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they
    were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent
    when 'tis upon ill employment.
  EVANS. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires,
    and fairies will not pinse you.
  FORD. Well said, fairy Hugh.
  EVANS. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.
  FORD. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able
    to woo her in good English.
  FALSTAFF. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that
    it wants matter to prevent so gross, o'er-reaching as this?
    Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a cox-comb
    of frieze? 'Tis time I were chok'd with a piece of
    toasted cheese.
  EVANS. Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all
    putter.
  FALSTAFF. 'Seese' and 'putter'! Have I liv'd to stand at the
    taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough
    to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.
  MRS. PAGE. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would
    have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and
    shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell,
    that ever the devil could have made you our delight?
  FORD. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
  MRS. PAGE. A puff'd man?
  PAGE. Old, cold, wither'd, and of intolerable entrails?
  FORD. And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
  PAGE. And as poor as Job?
  FORD. And as wicked as his wife?
  EVANS. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack,
    and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings,
    and starings, pribbles and prabbles?
  FALSTAFF. Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me;
    I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel;
    ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me; use me as you will.
  FORD. Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master
    Brook, that you have cozen'd of money, to whom you
    should have been a pander. Over and above that you have
    suffer'd, I think to repay that money will be a biting
    affliction.
  PAGE. Yet be cheerful, knight; thou shalt eat a posset
    tonight at my house, where I will desire thee to laugh at my
    wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her Master Slender hath
    married her daughter.
  MRS. PAGE.  [Aside]  Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be
    my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.

                        Enter SLENDER

  SLENDER. Whoa, ho, ho, father Page!
  PAGE. Son, how now! how now, son! Have you dispatch'd'?
  SLENDER. Dispatch'd! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire
    know on't; would I were hang'd, la, else!
  PAGE. Of what, son?
  SLENDER. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne
    Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i'
    th' church, I would have swing'd him, or he should have
    swing'd me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page,
    would I might never stir!-and 'tis a postmaster's boy.
  PAGE. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
  SLENDER. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I
    took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all
    he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him.
  PAGE. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how
    you should know my daughter by her garments?
  SLENDER. I went to her in white and cried 'mum' and she
    cried 'budget' as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was
    not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.
  MRS. PAGE. Good George, be not angry. I knew of your
    purpose; turn'd my daughter into green; and, indeed, she
    is now with the Doctor at the dean'ry, and there married.

                         Enter CAIUS

  CAIUS. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha'
    married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is
    not Anne Page; by gar, I am cozened.
  MRS. PAGE. Why, did you take her in green?
  CAIUS. Ay, be gar, and 'tis a boy; be gar, I'll raise all
    Windsor.                                          Exit CAIUS
  FORD. This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?
  PAGE. My heart misgives me; here comes Master Fenton.

                  Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE

    How now, Master Fenton!
  ANNE. Pardon, good father. Good my mother, pardon.
  PAGE. Now, Mistress, how chance you went not with Master
    Slender?
  MRS. PAGE. Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?
  FENTON. You do amaze her. Hear the truth of it.
    You would have married her most shamefully,
    Where there was no proportion held in love.
    The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
    Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
    Th' offence is holy that she hath committed;
    And this deceit loses the name of craft,
    Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
    Since therein she doth evitate and shun
    A thousand irreligious cursed hours,
    Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.
  FORD. Stand not amaz'd; here is no remedy.
    In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state;
    Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
  FALSTAFF. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand
    to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanc'd.
  PAGE. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
    What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd.
  FALSTAFF. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd.
  MRS. PAGE. Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,
    Heaven give you many, many merry days!
    Good husband, let us every one go home,
    And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;
    Sir John and all.
  FORD. Let it be so. Sir John,
    To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word;
    For he, to-night, shall lie with Mistress Ford.       Exeunt

THE END

1596



A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THESEUS, Duke of Athens
  EGEUS, father to Hermia
  LYSANDER, in love with Hermia
  DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia
  PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus
  QUINCE, a carpenter
  SNUG, a joiner
  BOTTOM, a weaver
  FLUTE, a bellows-mender
  SNOUT, a tinker
  STARVELING, a tailor

  HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, bethrothed to Theseus
  HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander
  HELENA, in love with Demetrius

  OBERON, King of the Fairies
  TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies
  PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW
  PEASEBLOSSOM, fairy
  COBWEB, fairy
  MOTH, fairy
  MUSTARDSEED, fairy

  PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION are presented by:
    QUINCE, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, STARVELING, AND SNUG

  Other Fairies attending their King and Queen
  Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta

SCENE: Athens and a wood near it

ACT I. SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and ATTENDANTS

  THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
    Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
    Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow
    This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,
    Like to a step-dame or a dowager,
    Long withering out a young man's revenue.
  HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
    Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
    And then the moon, like to a silver bow
    New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
    Of our solemnities.
  THESEUS. Go, Philostrate,
    Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
    Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
    Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
    The pale companion is not for our pomp.     Exit PHILOSTRATE
    Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
    And won thy love doing thee injuries;
    But I will wed thee in another key,
    With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

          Enter EGEUS, and his daughter HERMIA, LYSANDER,
                           and DEMETRIUS

  EGEUS. Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke!
  THESEUS. Thanks, good Egeus; what's the news with thee?
  EGEUS. Full of vexation come I, with complaint
    Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
    Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
    This man hath my consent to marry her.
    Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,
    This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child.
    Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
    And interchang'd love-tokens with my child;
    Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
    With feigning voice, verses of feigning love,
    And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
    With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
    Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats- messengers
    Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth;
    With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;
    Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
    To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,
    Be it so she will not here before your Grace
    Consent to marry with Demetrius,
    I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:
    As she is mine I may dispose of her;
    Which shall be either to this gentleman
    Or to her death, according to our law
    Immediately provided in that case.
  THESEUS. What say you, Hermia? Be advis'd, fair maid.
    To you your father should be as a god;
    One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one
    To whom you are but as a form in wax,
    By him imprinted, and within his power
    To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
    Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
  HERMIA. So is Lysander.
  THESEUS. In himself he is;
    But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
    The other must be held the worthier.
  HERMIA. I would my father look'd but with my eyes.
  THESEUS. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
  HERMIA. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.
    I know not by what power I am made bold,
    Nor how it may concern my modesty
    In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;
    But I beseech your Grace that I may know
    The worst that may befall me in this case,
    If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
  THESEUS. Either to die the death, or to abjure
    For ever the society of men.
    Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
    Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
    Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
    You can endure the livery of a nun,
    For aye to be shady cloister mew'd,
    To live a barren sister all your life,
    Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
    Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood
    To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
    But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd
    Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
    Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
  HERMIA. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
    Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
    Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke
    My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
  THESEUS. Take time to pause; and by the next new moon-
    The sealing-day betwixt my love and me
    For everlasting bond of fellowship-
    Upon that day either prepare to die
    For disobedience to your father's will,
    Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,
    Or on Diana's altar to protest
    For aye austerity and single life.
  DEMETRIUS. Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield
    Thy crazed title to my certain right.
  LYSANDER. You have her father's love, Demetrius;
    Let me have Hermia's; do you marry him.
  EGEUS. Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;
    And what is mine my love shall render him;
    And she is mine; and all my right of her
    I do estate unto Demetrius.
  LYSANDER. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,
    As well possess'd; my love is more than his;
    My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,
    If not with vantage, as Demetrius';
    And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
    I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia.
    Why should not I then prosecute my right?
    Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
    Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
    And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
    Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
    Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
  THESEUS. I must confess that I have heard so much,
    And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
    But, being over-full of self-affairs,
    My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
    And come, Egeus; you shall go with me;
    I have some private schooling for you both.
    For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
    To fit your fancies to your father's will,
    Or else the law of Athens yields you up-
    Which by no means we may extenuate-
    To death, or to a vow of single life.
    Come, my Hippolyta; what cheer, my love?
    Demetrius, and Egeus, go along;
    I must employ you in some business
    Against our nuptial, and confer with you
    Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
  EGEUS. With duty and desire we follow you.
                              Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA
  LYSANDER. How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?
    How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
  HERMIA. Belike for want of rain, which I could well
    Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
  LYSANDER. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
    Could ever hear by tale or history,
    The course of true love never did run smooth;
    But either it was different in blood-
  HERMIA. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.
  LYSANDER. Or else misgraffed in respect of years-
  HERMIA. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young.
  LYSANDER. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends-
  HERMIA. O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
  LYSANDER. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
    War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,
    Making it momentary as a sound,
    Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
    Brief as the lightning in the collied night
    That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
    And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
    The jaws of darkness do devour it up;
    So quick bright things come to confusion.
  HERMIA. If then true lovers have ever cross'd,
    It stands as an edict in destiny.
    Then let us teach our trial patience,
    Because it is a customary cross,
    As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
    Wishes and tears, poor Fancy's followers.
  LYSANDER. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.
    I have a widow aunt, a dowager
    Of great revenue, and she hath no child-
    From Athens is her house remote seven leagues-
    And she respects me as her only son.
    There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
    And to that place the sharp Athenian law
    Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
    Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
    And in the wood, a league without the town,
    Where I did meet thee once with Helena
    To do observance to a morn of May,
    There will I stay for thee.
  HERMIA. My good Lysander!
    I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,
    By his best arrow, with the golden head,
    By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
    By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
    And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage Queen,
    When the false Troyan under sail was seen,
    By all the vows that ever men have broke,
    In number more than ever women spoke,
    In that same place thou hast appointed me,
    To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
  LYSANDER. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.

                         Enter HELENA

  HERMIA. God speed fair Helena! Whither away?
  HELENA. Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.
    Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!
    Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue's sweet air
    More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
    When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
    Sickness is catching; O, were favour so,
    Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go!
    My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
    My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
    Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
    The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
    O, teach me how you look, and with what art
    You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart!
  HERMIA. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
  HELENA. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
  HERMIA. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
  HELENA. O that my prayers could such affection move!
  HERMIA. The more I hate, the more he follows me.
  HELENA. The more I love, the more he hateth me.
  HERMIA. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
  HELENA. None, but your beauty; would that fault were mine!
  HERMIA. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
    Lysander and myself will fly this place.
    Before the time I did Lysander see,
    Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me.
    O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
    That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
  LYSANDER. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
    To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
    Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,
    Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
    A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,
    Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
  HERMIA. And in the wood where often you and I
    Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
    Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
    There my Lysander and myself shall meet;
    And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
    To seek new friends and stranger companies.
    Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,
    And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
    Keep word, Lysander; we must starve our sight
    From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.
  LYSANDER. I will, my Hermia. [Exit HERMIA] Helena, adieu;
    As you on him, Demetrius dote on you.                   Exit
  HELENA. How happy some o'er other some can be!
    Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
    But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
    He will not know what all but he do know.
    And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
    So I, admiring of his qualities.
    Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
    Love can transpose to form and dignity.
    Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
    And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
    Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;
    Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste;
    And therefore is Love said to be a child,
    Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.
    As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
    So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere;
    For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
    He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
    And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
    So he dissolv'd, and show'rs of oaths did melt.
    I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight;
    Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
    Pursue her; and for this intelligence
    If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
    But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
    To have his sight thither and back again.               Exit

SCENE II. Athens. QUINCE'S house

Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING

  QUINCE. Is all our company here?
  BOTTOM. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according
    to the scrip.
  QUINCE. Here is the scroll of every man's name which is thought
    fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke
    and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.
  BOTTOM. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then
    read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.
  QUINCE. Marry, our play is 'The most Lamentable Comedy and most
    Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.'
  BOTTOM. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now,
    good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters,
    spread yourselves.
  QUINCE. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
  BOTTOM. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
  QUINCE. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
  BOTTOM. What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?
  QUINCE. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.
  BOTTOM. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I
    do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms; I
    will condole in some measure. To the rest- yet my chief humour is
    for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat
    in, to make all split.

                 'The raging rocks
                 And shivering shocks
                 Shall break the locks
                   Of prison gates;

                 And Phibbus' car
                 Shall shine from far,
                 And make and mar
                   The foolish Fates.'

    This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is
    Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein: a lover is more condoling.
  QUINCE. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
  FLUTE. Here, Peter Quince.
  QUINCE. Flute, you must take Thisby on you.
  FLUTE. What is Thisby? A wand'ring knight?
  QUINCE. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
  FLUTE. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming.
  QUINCE. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may
    speak as small as you will.
  BOTTOM. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too.
    I'll speak in a monstrous little voice: 'Thisne, Thisne!'
    [Then speaking small] 'Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy
    Thisby dear, and lady dear!'
  QUINCE. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby.
  BOTTOM. Well, proceed.
  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, the tailor.
  STARVELING. Here, Peter Quince.
  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.
    Tom Snout, the tinker.
  SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.
  QUINCE. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug, the
    joiner, you, the lion's part. And, I hope, here is a play fitted.
  SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it
    me, for I am slow of study.
  QUINCE. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
  BOTTOM. Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any
    man's heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the
    Duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.'
  QUINCE. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the
    Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were
    enough to hang us all.
  ALL. That would hang us, every mother's son.
  BOTTOM. I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out
    of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us;
    but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently
    as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale.
  QUINCE. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a
    sweet-fac'd man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's
    day; a most lovely gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs
    play Pyramus.
  BOTTOM. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play
    it in?
  QUINCE. Why, what you will.
  BOTTOM. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your
    orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your
    French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.
  QUINCE. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then
    you will play bare-fac'd. But, masters, here are your parts; and
    I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by
    to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without
    the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse; for if we meet in
    the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices known.
    In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our
    play wants. I pray you, fail me not.
  BOTTOM. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and
    courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.
  QUINCE. At the Duke's oak we meet.
  BOTTOM. Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings.               Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. A wood near Athens

Enter a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another

  PUCK. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
  FAIRY.      Over hill, over dale,
                Thorough bush, thorough brier,
              Over park, over pale,
                Thorough flood, thorough fire,
              I do wander every where,
              Swifter than the moon's sphere;
              And I serve the Fairy Queen,
              To dew her orbs upon the green.
              The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
              In their gold coats spots you see;
              Those be rubies, fairy favours,
              In those freckles live their savours.

    I must go seek some dewdrops here,
    And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
    Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone.
    Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.
  PUCK. The King doth keep his revels here to-night;
    Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;
    For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
    Because that she as her attendant hath
    A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king.
    She never had so sweet a changeling;
    And jealous Oberon would have the child
    Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
    But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
    Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.
    And now they never meet in grove or green,
    By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
    But they do square, that all their elves for fear
    Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.
  FAIRY. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
    Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
    Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he
    That frights the maidens of the villagery,
    Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,
    And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,
    And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,
    Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
    Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
    You do their work, and they shall have good luck.
    Are not you he?
  PUCK. Thou speakest aright:
    I am that merry wanderer of the night.
    I jest to Oberon, and make him smile
    When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
    Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;
    And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl
    In very likeness of a roasted crab,
    And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
    And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
    The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
    Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
    Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
    And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
    And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
    And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
    A merrier hour was never wasted there.
    But room, fairy, here comes Oberon.
  FAIRY. 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 stolen away from fairy land,
    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 Perigouna, 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 paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
    Or in the beached 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 drowned 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 fairy land buys not the child of me.
    His mother was a vot'ress of my order;
    And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
    Full often hath she gossip'd by my side;
    And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
    Marking th' embarked 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, throned 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 wat'ry moon;
    And the imperial vot'ress 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 flow'r, 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 unto this wood,
    And here am I, and wood within this wood,
    Because I cannot meet my 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 used 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.

                            Re-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

SCENE II. Another part of the wood

Enter TITANIA, with her train

  TITANIA. Come now, a roundel and a fairy song;
    Then, for the third part of a minute, hence:
    Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;
    Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
    To make my small elves coats; and some keep back
    The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders
    At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
    Then to your offices, and let me rest.

                          The FAIRIES Sing

  FIRST FAIRY. You spotted snakes with double tongue,
               Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
               Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
               Come not near our fairy Queen.
  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody
               Sing in our sweet lullaby.
               Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.
               Never harm
               Nor spell nor charm
               Come our lovely lady nigh.
               So good night, with lullaby.
  SECOND FAIRY.  Weaving spiders, come not here;
                 Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence.
                 Beetles black, approach not near;
                 Worm nor snail do no offence.
  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody, etc.       [TITANIA Sleeps]
  FIRST FAIRY. Hence away; now all is well.
               One aloof stand sentinel.          Exeunt FAIRIES

      Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA'S eyelids

  OBERON. What thou seest when thou dost wake,
    Do it for thy true-love take;
    Love and languish for his sake.
    Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
    Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
    In thy eye that shall appear
    When thou wak'st, it is thy dear.
    Wake when some vile thing is near.                      Exit

                     Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA

  LYSANDER. Fair love, you faint with wand'ring in the wood;
    And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way;
    We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
    And tarry for the comfort of the day.
  HERMIA. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed,
    For I upon this bank will rest my head.
  LYSANDER. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
    One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
  HERMIA. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
    Lie further off yet; do not lie so near.
  LYSANDER. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
    Love takes the meaning in love's conference.
    I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,
    So that but one heart we can make of it;
    Two bosoms interchained with an oath,
    So then two bosoms and a single troth.
    Then by your side no bed-room me deny,
    For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
  HERMIA. Lysander riddles very prettily.
    Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
    If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied!
    But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
    Lie further off, in human modesty;
    Such separation as may well be said
    Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
    So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.
    Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!
  LYSANDER. Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I;
    And then end life when I end loyalty!
    Here is my bed; sleep give thee all his rest!
  HERMIA. With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!
                                                    [They sleep]

                          Enter PUCK

  PUCK.      Through the forest have I gone,
             But Athenian found I none
             On whose eyes I might approve
             This flower's force in stirring love.
             Night and silence- Who is here?
             Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
             This is he, my master said,
             Despised the Athenian maid;
             And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
             On the dank and dirty ground.
             Pretty soul! she durst not lie
             Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
             Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
             All the power this charm doth owe:
             When thou wak'st let love forbid
             Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.
             So awake when I am gone;
             For I must now to Oberon.                      Exit

               Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running

  HELENA. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
  DEMETRIUS. I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
  HELENA. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.
  DEMETRIUS. Stay on thy peril; I alone will go.            Exit
  HELENA. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
    The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
    Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies,
    For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
    How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears;
    If so, my eyes are oft'ner wash'd than hers.
    No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,
    For beasts that meet me run away for fear;
    Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
    Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.
    What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
    Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?
    But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!
    Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
    Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.
  LYSANDER. [Waking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
    Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
    That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
    Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
    Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
  HELENA. Do not say so, Lysander; say not so.
    What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
    Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.
  LYSANDER. Content with Hermia! No: I do repent
    The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
    Not Hermia but Helena I love:
    Who will not change a raven for a dove?
    The will of man is by his reason sway'd,
    And reason says you are the worthier maid.
    Things growing are not ripe until their season;
    So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;
    And touching now the point of human skill,
    Reason becomes the marshal to my will,
    And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook
    Love's stories, written in Love's richest book.
  HELENA. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
    When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
    Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,
    That I did never, no, nor never can,
    Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,
    But you must flout my insufficiency?
    Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
    In such disdainful manner me to woo.
    But fare you well; perforce I must confess
    I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
    O, that a lady of one man refus'd
    Should of another therefore be abus'd!                  Exit
  LYSANDER. She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there;
    And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
    For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things
    The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
    Or as the heresies that men do leave
    Are hated most of those they did deceive,
    So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
    Of all be hated, but the most of me!
    And, all my powers, address your love and might
    To honour Helen, and to be her knight!                  Exit
  HERMIA. [Starting] Help me, Lysander, help me; do thy best
    To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.
    Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
    Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.
    Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
    And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.
    Lysander! What, remov'd? Lysander! lord!
    What, out of hearing gone? No sound, no word?
    Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear;
    Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
    No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.
    Either death or you I'll find immediately.              Exit

ACT III. SCENE I. The wood. TITANIA lying asleep

Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING

  BOTTOM. Are we all met?
  QUINCE. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for our
    rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn
    brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will
    do it before the Duke.
  BOTTOM. Peter Quince!
  QUINCE. What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
  BOTTOM. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that
    will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill
    himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?
  SNOUT. By'r lakin, a parlous fear.
  STARVELING. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is
    done.
  BOTTOM. Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me a
    prologue; and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm
    with our swords, and that Pyramus is not kill'd indeed; and for
    the more better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not
    Pyramus but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of fear.
  QUINCE. Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written
    in eight and six.
  BOTTOM. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.
  SNOUT. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
  STARVELING. I fear it, I promise you.
  BOTTOM. Masters, you ought to consider with yourself to bring in-
    God shield us!- a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing; for
    there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living; and
    we ought to look to't.
  SNOUT. Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
  BOTTOM. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen
    through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through,
    saying thus, or to the same defect: 'Ladies,' or 'Fair ladies, I
    would wish you' or 'I would request you' or 'I would entreat you
    not to fear, not to tremble. My life for yours! If you think I
    come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no such
    thing; I am a man as other men are.' And there, indeed, let him
    name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.
  QUINCE. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things- that
    is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for, you know, Pyramus
    and Thisby meet by moonlight.
  SNOUT. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?
  BOTTOM. A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanack; find out
    moonshine, find out moonshine.
  QUINCE. Yes, it doth shine that night.
  BOTTOM. Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber
    window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the
    casement.
  QUINCE. Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a
    lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or to present the person
    of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in
    the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did
    talk through the chink of a wall.
  SNOUT. You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?
  BOTTOM. Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have some
    plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify
    wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny
    shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.
  QUINCE. If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every
    mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin; when
    you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so every
    one according to his cue.

                          Enter PUCK behind

  PUCK. What hempen homespuns have we swagg'ring here,
    So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?
    What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;
    An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.
  QUINCE. Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.
  BOTTOM. Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet-
  QUINCE. 'Odious'- odorous!
  BOTTOM. -odours savours sweet;
    So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.
    But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,
    And by and by I will to thee appear.                    Exit
  PUCK. A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here!           Exit
  FLUTE. Must I speak now?
  QUINCE. Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes but to
    see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.
  FLUTE. Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
    Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
    Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,
    As true as truest horse, that would never tire,
    I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.
  QUINCE. 'Ninus' tomb,' man! Why, you must not speak that yet; that
    you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues, and
    all. Pyramus enter: your cue is past; it is 'never tire.'
  FLUTE. O- As true as truest horse, that y et would never tire.

            Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head

  BOTTOM. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.
  QUINCE. O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters! fly,
    masters! Help!
                                  Exeunt all but BOTTOM and PUCK
  PUCK. I'll follow you; I'll lead you about a round,
    Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier;
    Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,
    A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;
    And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
    Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
Exit
  BOTTOM. Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me
    afeard.

                          Re-enter SNOUT

  SNOUT. O Bottom, thou art chang'd! What do I see on thee?
  BOTTOM. What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own, do you?
                                                      Exit SNOUT

                          Re-enter QUINCE

  QUINCE. Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated.
 Exit
  BOTTOM. I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to
    fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do
    what they can; I will walk up and down here, and will sing, that
    they shall hear I am not afraid.                     [Sings]

          The ousel cock, so black of hue,
            With orange-tawny bill,
          The throstle with his note so true,
            The wren with little quill.

  TITANIA. What angel wakes me from my flow'ry bed?
  BOTTOM. [Sings]
          The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
            The plain-song cuckoo grey,
          Whose note full many a man doth mark,
            And dares not answer nay-
    for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird?
    Who would give a bird the he, though he cry 'cuckoo' never so?
  TITANIA. I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.
    Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note;
    So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
    And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me,
    On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.
  BOTTOM. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that.
    And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company
    together now-a-days. The more the pity that some honest
    neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon
    occasion.
  TITANIA. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
  BOTTOM. Not so, neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of this
    wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.
  TITANIA. Out of this wood do not desire to go;
    Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.
    I am a spirit of no common rate;
    The summer still doth tend upon my state;
    And I do love thee; therefore, go with me.
    I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee;
    And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
    And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;
    And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
    That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.
    Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!

       Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED

  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.
  COBWEB. And I.
  MOTH. And I.
  MUSTARDSEED. And I.
  ALL. Where shall we go?
  TITANIA. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
    Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;
    Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
    With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
    The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,
    And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,
    And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
    To have my love to bed and to arise;
    And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
    To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.
    Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
  PEASEBLOSSOM. Hail, mortal!
  COBWEB. Hail!
  MOTH. Hail!
  MUSTARDSEED. Hail!
  BOTTOM. I cry your worships mercy, heartily; I beseech your
    worship's name.
  COBWEB. Cobweb.
  BOTTOM. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master
    Cobweb. If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. Your
    name, honest gentleman?
  PEASEBLOSSOM. Peaseblossom.
  BOTTOM. I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother, and
    to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peaseblossom, I shall
    desire you of more acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you,
    sir?
  MUSTARDSEED. Mustardseed.
  BOTTOM. Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well. That
    same cowardly giant-like ox-beef hath devour'd many a gentleman
    of your house. I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes water
    ere now. I desire you of more acquaintance, good Master
    Mustardseed.
  TITANIA. Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
    The moon, methinks, looks with a wat'ry eye;
    And when she weeps, weeps every little flower;
    Lamenting some enforced chastity.
    Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently.          Exeunt

SCENE II. Another part of the wood

Enter OBERON

  OBERON. I wonder if Titania be awak'd;
    Then, what it was that next came in her eye,
    Which she must dote on in extremity.

                          Enter PUCK

    Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit!
    What night-rule now about this haunted grove?
  PUCK. My mistress with a monster is in love.
    Near to her close and consecrated bower,
    While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
    A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
    That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
    Were met together to rehearse a play
    Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.
    The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort,
    Who Pyramus presented, in their sport
    Forsook his scene and ent'red in a brake;
    When I did him at this advantage take,
    An ass's nole I fixed on his head.
    Anon his Thisby must be answered,
    And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
    As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
    Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
    Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
    Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,
    So at his sight away his fellows fly;
    And at our stamp here, o'er and o'er one falls;
    He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.
    Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong,
    Made senseless things begin to do them wrong,
    For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
    Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch.
    I led them on in this distracted fear,
    And left sweet Pyramus translated there;
    When in that moment, so it came to pass,
    Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass.
  OBERON. This falls out better than I could devise.
    But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes
    With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?
  PUCK. I took him sleeping- that is finish'd too-
    And the Athenian woman by his side;
    That, when he wak'd, of force she must be ey'd.

                 Enter DEMETRIUS and HERMIA

  OBERON. Stand close; this is the same Athenian.
  PUCK. This is the woman, but not this the man.
  DEMETRIUS. O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?
    Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.
  HERMIA. Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse,
    For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.
    If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
    Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,
    And kill me too.
    The sun was not so true unto the day
    As he to me. Would he have stolen away
    From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon
    This whole earth may be bor'd, and that the moon
    May through the centre creep and so displease
    Her brother's noontide with th' Antipodes.
    It cannot be but thou hast murd'red him;
    So should a murderer look- so dead, so grim.
  DEMETRIUS. So should the murdered look; and so should I,
    Pierc'd through the heart with your stern cruelty;
    Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
    As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.
  HERMIA. What's this to my Lysander? Where is he?
    Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?
  DEMETRIUS. I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.
  HERMIA. Out, dog! out, cur! Thou driv'st me past the bounds
    Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?
    Henceforth be never numb'red among men!
    O, once tell true; tell true, even for my sake!
    Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,
    And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!
    Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
    An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
    Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.
  DEMETRIUS. You spend your passion on a mispris'd mood:
    I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;
    Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.
  HERMIA. I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.
  DEMETRIUS. An if I could, what should I get therefore?
  HERMIA. A privilege never to see me more.
    And from thy hated presence part I so;
    See me no more whether he be dead or no.                Exit
  DEMETRIUS. There is no following her in this fierce vein;
    Here, therefore, for a while I will remain.
    So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow
    For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe;
    Which now in some slight measure it will pay,
    If for his tender here I make some stay.         [Lies down]
  OBERON. What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite,
    And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight.
    Of thy misprision must perforce ensue
    Some true love turn'd, and not a false turn'd true.
  PUCK. Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,
    A million fail, confounding oath on oath.
  OBERON. About the wood go swifter than the wind,
    And Helena of Athens look thou find;
    All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,
    With sighs of love that costs the fresh blood dear.
    By some illusion see thou bring her here;
    I'll charm his eyes against she do appear.
  PUCK. I go, I go; look how I go,
    Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.               Exit
  OBERON.       Flower of this purple dye,
                Hit with Cupid's archery,
                Sink in apple of his eye.
                When his love he doth espy,
                Let her shine as gloriously
                As the Venus of the sky.
                When thou wak'st, if she be by,
                Beg of her for remedy.

                       Re-enter PUCK

  PUCK.         Captain of our fairy band,
                Helena is here at hand,
                And the youth mistook by me
                Pleading for a lover's fee;
                Shall we their fond pageant see?
                Lord, what fools these mortals be!
  OBERON.       Stand aside. The noise they make
                Will cause Demetrius to awake.
  PUCK.         Then will two at once woo one.
                That must needs be sport alone;
                And those things do best please me
                That befall prepost'rously.

                   Enter LYSANDER and HELENA

  LYSANDER. Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?
    Scorn and derision never come in tears.
    Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,
    In their nativity all truth appears.
    How can these things in me seem scorn to you,
    Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?
  HELENA. You do advance your cunning more and more.
    When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!
    These vows are Hermia's. Will you give her o'er?
    Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:
    Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,
    Will even weigh; and both as light as tales.
  LYSANDER. I hod no judgment when to her I swore.
  HELENA. Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.
  LYSANDER. Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.
  DEMETRIUS. [Awaking] O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
    To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
    Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
    Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
    That pure congealed white, high Taurus' snow,
    Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow
    When thou hold'st up thy hand. O, let me kiss
    This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!
  HELENA. O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
    To set against me for your merriment.
    If you were civil and knew courtesy,
    You would not do me thus much injury.
    Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
    But you must join in souls to mock me too?
    If you were men, as men you are in show,
    You would not use a gentle lady so:
    To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,
    When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.
    You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
    And now both rivals, to mock Helena.
    A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
    To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes
    With your derision! None of noble sort
    Would so offend a virgin, and extort
    A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.
  LYSANDER. You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;
    For you love Hermia. This you know I know;
    And here, with all good will, with all my heart,
    In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;
    And yours of Helena to me bequeath,
    Whom I do love and will do till my death.
  HELENA. Never did mockers waste more idle breath.
  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none.
    If e'er I lov'd her, all that love is gone.
    My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,
    And now to Helen is it home return'd,
    There to remain.
  LYSANDER. Helen, it is not so.
  DEMETRIUS. Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,
    Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.
    Look where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.

                       Enter HERMIA

  HERMIA. Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,
    The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
    Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
    It pays the hearing double recompense.
    Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
    Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.
    But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?
  LYSANDER. Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?
  HERMIA. What love could press Lysander from my side?
  LYSANDER. Lysander's love, that would not let him bide-
    Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
    Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.
    Why seek'st thou me? Could not this make thee know
    The hate I bare thee made me leave thee so?
  HERMIA. You speak not as you think; it cannot be.
  HELENA. Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
    Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three
    To fashion this false sport in spite of me.
    Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!
    Have you conspir'd, have you with these contriv'd,
    To bait me with this foul derision?
    Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,
    The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
    When we have chid the hasty-footed time
    For parting us- O, is all forgot?
    All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?
    We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
    Have with our needles created both one flower,
    Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
    Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
    As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
    Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
    Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
    But yet an union in partition,
    Two lovely berries moulded on one stern;
    So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
    Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
    Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.
    And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
    To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
    It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly;
    Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
    Though I alone do feel the injury.
  HERMIA. I am amazed at your passionate words;
    I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me.
  HELENA. Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
    To follow me and praise my eyes and face?
    And made your other love, Demetrius,
    Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,
    To call me goddess, nymph, divine, and rare,
    Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
    To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander
    Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
    And tender me, forsooth, affection,
    But by your setting on, by your consent?
    What though I be not so in grace as you,
    So hung upon with love, so fortunate,
    But miserable most, to love unlov'd?
    This you should pity rather than despise.
  HERMIA. I understand not what you mean by this.
  HELENA. Ay, do- persever, counterfeit sad looks,
    Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,
    Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up;
    This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
    If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
    You would not make me such an argument.
    But fare ye well; 'tis partly my own fault,
    Which death, or absence, soon shall remedy.
  LYSANDER. Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse;
    My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!
  HELENA. O excellent!
  HERMIA. Sweet, do not scorn her so.
  DEMETRIUS. If she cannot entreat, I can compel.
  LYSANDER. Thou canst compel no more than she entreat;
    Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers
    Helen, I love thee, by my life I do;
    I swear by that which I will lose for thee
    To prove him false that says I love thee not.
  DEMETRIUS. I say I love thee more than he can do.
  LYSANDER. If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.
  DEMETRIUS. Quick, come.
  HERMIA. Lysander, whereto tends all this?
  LYSANDER. Away, you Ethiope!
  DEMETRIUS. No, no, he will
    Seem to break loose- take on as you would follow,
    But yet come not. You are a tame man; go!
  LYSANDER. Hang off, thou cat, thou burr; vile thing, let loose,
    Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.
  HERMIA. Why are you grown so rude? What change is this,
    Sweet love?
  LYSANDER. Thy love! Out, tawny Tartar, out!
    Out, loathed med'cine! O hated potion, hence!
  HERMIA. Do you not jest?
  HELENA. Yes, sooth; and so do you.
  LYSANDER. Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.
  DEMETRIUS. I would I had your bond; for I perceive
    A weak bond holds you; I'll not trust your word.
  LYSANDER. What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?
    Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.
  HERMIA. What! Can you do me greater harm than hate?
    Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love?
    Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?
    I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
    Since night you lov'd me; yet since night you left me.
    Why then, you left me- O, the gods forbid!-
    In earnest, shall I say?
  LYSANDER. Ay, by my life!
    And never did desire to see thee more.
    Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;
    Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest
    That I do hate thee and love Helena.
  HERMIA. O me! you juggler! you cankerblossom!
    You thief of love! What! Have you come by night,
    And stol'n my love's heart from him?
  HELENA. Fine, i' faith!
    Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
    No touch of bashfulness? What! Will you tear
    Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
    Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet you!
  HERMIA. 'Puppet!' why so? Ay, that way goes the game.
    Now I perceive that she hath made compare
    Between our statures; she hath urg'd her height;
    And with her personage, her tall personage,
    Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.
    And are you grown so high in his esteem
    Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
    How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak.
    How low am I? I am not yet so low
    But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
  HELENA. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
    Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;
    I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
    I am a right maid for my cowardice;
    Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
    Because she is something lower than myself,
    That I can match her.
  HERMIA. 'Lower' hark, again.
  HELENA. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
    I evermore did love you, Hermia,
    Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;
    Save that, in love unto Demetrius,
    I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
    He followed you; for love I followed him;
    But he hath chid me hence, and threat'ned me
    To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too;
    And now, so you will let me quiet go,
    To Athens will I bear my folly back,
    And follow you no further. Let me go.
    You see how simple and how fond I am.
  HERMIA. Why, get you gone! Who is't that hinders you?
  HELENA. A foolish heart that I leave here behind.
  HERMIA. What! with Lysander?
  HELENA. With Demetrius.
  LYSANDER. Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.
  DEMETRIUS. No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.
  HELENA. O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd;
    She was a vixen when she went to school;
    And, though she be but little, she is fierce.
  HERMIA. 'Little' again! Nothing but 'low' and 'little'!
    Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
    Let me come to her.
  LYSANDER. Get you gone, you dwarf;
    You minimus, of hind'ring knot-grass made;
    You bead, you acorn.
  DEMETRIUS. You are too officious
    In her behalf that scorns your services.
    Let her alone; speak not of Helena;
    Take not her part; for if thou dost intend
    Never so little show of love to her,
    Thou shalt aby it.
  LYSANDER. Now she holds me not.
    Now follow, if thou dar'st, to try whose right,
    Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.
  DEMETRIUS. Follow! Nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jowl.
                                   Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS
  HERMIA. You, mistress, all this coil is long of you.
    Nay, go not back.
  HELENA. I will not trust you, I;
    Nor longer stay in your curst company.
    Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray;
    My legs are longer though, to run away.                 Exit
  HERMIA. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say.            Exit
  OBERON. This is thy negligence. Still thou mistak'st,
    Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.
  PUCK. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
    Did not you tell me I should know the man
    By the Athenian garments he had on?
    And so far blameless proves my enterprise
    That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;
    And so far am I glad it so did sort,
    As this their jangling I esteem a sport.
  OBERON. Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.
    Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;
    The starry welkin cover thou anon
    With drooping fog as black as Acheron,
    And lead these testy rivals so astray
    As one come not within another's way.
    Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
    Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
    And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;
    And from each other look thou lead them thus,
    Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
    With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.
    Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
    Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
    To take from thence all error with his might
    And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
    When they next wake, all this derision
    Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision;
    And back to Athens shall the lovers wend
    With league whose date till death shall never end.
    Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,
    I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy;
    And then I will her charmed eye release
    From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.
  PUCK. My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
    For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast;
    And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger,
    At whose approach ghosts, wand'ring here and there,
    Troop home to churchyards. Damned spirits all
    That in cross-ways and floods have burial,
    Already to their wormy beds are gone,
    For fear lest day should look their shames upon;
    They wilfully themselves exil'd from light,
    And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.
  OBERON. But we are spirits of another sort:
    I with the Morning's love have oft made sport;
    And, like a forester, the groves may tread
    Even till the eastern gate, all fiery red,
    Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
    Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.
    But, notwithstanding, haste, make no delay;
    We may effect this business yet ere day.         Exit OBERON
  PUCK.      Up and down, up and down,
             I will lead them up and down.
             I am fear'd in field and town.
             Goblin, lead them up and down.
    Here comes one.

                      Enter LYSANDER

  LYSANDER. Where art thou, proud Demetrius? Speak thou now.
  PUCK. Here, villain, drawn and ready. Where art thou?
  LYSANDER. I will be with thee straight.
  PUCK. Follow me, then,
    To plainer ground.      Exit LYSANDER as following the voice

                      Enter DEMETRIUS

  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, speak again.
    Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?
    Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?
  PUCK. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,
    Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,
    And wilt not come? Come, recreant, come, thou child;
    I'll whip thee with a rod. He is defil'd
    That draws a sword on thee.
  DEMETRIUS. Yea, art thou there?
  PUCK. Follow my voice; we'll try no manhood here.       Exeunt

                      Re-enter LYSANDER

  LYSANDER. He goes before me, and still dares me on;
    When I come where he calls, then he is gone.
    The villain is much lighter heel'd than I.
    I followed fast, but faster he did fly,
    That fallen am I in dark uneven way,
    And here will rest me. [Lies down] Come, thou gentle day.
    For if but once thou show me thy grey light,
    I'll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite.        [Sleeps]

                 Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS

  PUCK. Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why com'st thou not?
  DEMETRIUS. Abide me, if thou dar'st; for well I wot
    Thou run'st before me, shifting every place,
    And dar'st not stand, nor look me in the face.
    Where art thou now?
  PUCK. Come hither; I am here.
  DEMETRIUS. Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear,
    If ever I thy face by daylight see;
    Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me
    To measure out my length on this cold bed.
    By day's approach look to be visited.
                                          [Lies down and sleeps]

                       Enter HELENA

  HELENA. O weary night, O long and tedious night,
    Abate thy hours! Shine comforts from the east,
    That I may back to Athens by daylight,
    From these that my poor company detest.
    And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,
    Steal me awhile from mine own company.              [Sleeps]
  PUCK.       Yet but three? Come one more;
              Two of both kinds makes up four.
              Here she comes, curst and sad.
              Cupid is a knavish lad,
              Thus to make poor females mad.

                     Enter HERMIA

  HERMIA. Never so weary, never so in woe,
    Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers,
    I can no further crawl, no further go;
    My legs can keep no pace with my desires.
    Here will I rest me till the break of day.
    Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!
                                          [Lies down and sleeps]
  PUCK.          On the ground
                 Sleep sound;
                 I'll apply
                 To your eye,
          Gentle lover, remedy.
                        [Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER'S eyes]
                 When thou wak'st,
                 Thou tak'st
                 True delight
                 In the sight
          Of thy former lady's eye;
          And the country proverb known,
          That every man should take his own,
          In your waking shall be shown:
                 Jack shall have Jill;
                 Nought shall go ill;
    The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.
 Exit

ACT IV. SCENE I. The wood. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA,
lying asleep

Enter TITANIA and Bottom; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARDSEED, and
other FAIRIES attending; OBERON behind, unseen

  TITANIA. Come, sit thee down upon this flow'ry bed,
    While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
    And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
    And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
  BOTTOM. Where's Peaseblossom?
  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.
  BOTTOM. Scratch my head, Peaseblossom.
    Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?
  COBWEB. Ready.
  BOTTOM. Mounsieur Cobweb; good mounsieur, get you your weapons in
    your hand and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the top of a
    thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret
    yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and, good mounsieur,
    have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have you
    overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur
    Mustardseed?
  MUSTARDSEED. Ready.
  BOTTOM. Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave
    your curtsy, good mounsieur.
  MUSTARDSEED. What's your will?
  BOTTOM. Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to
    scratch. I must to the barber's, mounsieur; for methinks I am
    marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if
    my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.
  TITANIA. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?
  BOTTOM. I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the tongs
    and the bones.
  TITANIA. Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
  BOTTOM. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry
    oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good
    hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.
  TITANIA. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
    The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
  BOTTOM. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I
    pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an exposition
    of sleep come upon me.
  TITANIA. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
    Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.       Exeunt FAIRIES
    So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
    Gently entwist; the female ivy so
    Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
    O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!         [They sleep]

                         Enter PUCK

  OBERON. [Advancing] Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet
      sight?
    Her dotage now I do begin to pity;
    For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
    Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,
    I did upbraid her and fall out with her.
    For she his hairy temples then had rounded
    With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
    And that same dew which sometime on the buds
    Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls
    Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes,
    Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
    When I had at my pleasure taunted her,
    And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,
    I then did ask of her her changeling child;
    Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
    To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
    And now I have the boy, I will undo
    This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
    And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
    From off the head of this Athenian swain,
    That he awaking when the other do
    May all to Athens back again repair,
    And think no more of this night's accidents
    But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
    But first I will release the Fairy Queen.
                                             [Touching her eyes]
           Be as thou wast wont to be;
           See as thou was wont to see.
           Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
           Hath such force and blessed power.
    Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.
  TITANIA. My Oberon! What visions have I seen!
    Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.
  OBERON. There lies your love.
  TITANIA. How came these things to pass?
    O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!
  OBERON. Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.
    Titania, music call; and strike more dead
    Than common sleep of all these five the sense.
  TITANIA. Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!
  PUCK. Now when thou wak'st with thine own fool's eyes peep.
  OBERON. Sound, music. Come, my Queen, take hands with me,
                                                         [Music]
    And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
    Now thou and I are new in amity,
    And will to-morrow midnight solemnly
    Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,
    And bless it to all fair prosperity.
    There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
    Wedded, with Theseus, an in jollity.
  PUCK.       Fairy King, attend and mark;
              I do hear the morning lark.
  OBERON.     Then, my Queen, in silence sad,
              Trip we after night's shade.
              We the globe can compass soon,
              Swifter than the wand'ring moon.
  TITANIA.    Come, my lord; and in our flight,
              Tell me how it came this night
              That I sleeping here was found
              With these mortals on the ground.           Exeunt

        To the winding of horns, enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA,
                      EGEUS, and train

  THESEUS. Go, one of you, find out the forester;
    For now our observation is perform'd,
    And since we have the vaward of the day,
    My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
    Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.
    Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.    Exit an ATTENDANT
    We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top,
    And mark the musical confusion
    Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
  HIPPOLYTA. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once
    When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
    With hounds of Sparta; never did I hear
    Such gallant chiding, for, besides the groves,
    The skies, the fountains, every region near
    Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard
    So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
  THESEUS. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
    So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung
    With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
    Crook-knee'd and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
    Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
    Each under each. A cry more tuneable
    Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
    In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.
    Judge when you hear. But, soft, what nymphs are these?
  EGEUS. My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,
    And this Lysander, this Demetrius is,
    This Helena, old Nedar's Helena.
    I wonder of their being here together.
  THESEUS. No doubt they rose up early to observe
    The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,
    Came here in grace of our solemnity.
    But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
    That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
  EGEUS. It is, my lord.
  THESEUS. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
                           [Horns and shout within. The sleepers
                                     awake and kneel to THESEUS]
    Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;
    Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
  LYSANDER. Pardon, my lord.
  THESEUS. I pray you all, stand up.
    I know you two are rival enemies;
    How comes this gentle concord in the world
    That hatred is so far from jealousy
    To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
  LYSANDER. My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
    Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,
    I cannot truly say how I came here,
    But, as I think- for truly would I speak,
    And now I do bethink me, so it is-
    I came with Hermia hither. Our intent
    Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,
    Without the peril of the Athenian law-
  EGEUS. Enough, enough, my Lord; you have enough;
    I beg the law, the law upon his head.
    They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius,
    Thereby to have defeated you and me:
    You of your wife, and me of my consent,
    Of my consent that she should be your wife.
  DEMETRIUS. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
    Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
    And I in fury hither followed them,
    Fair Helena in fancy following me.
    But, my good lord, I wot not by what power-
    But by some power it is- my love to Hermia,
    Melted as the snow, seems to me now
    As the remembrance of an idle gaud
    Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
    And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
    The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
    Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
    Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia.
    But, like a sickness, did I loathe this food;
    But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
    Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
    And will for evermore be true to it.
  THESEUS. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met;
    Of this discourse we more will hear anon.
    Egeus, I will overbear your will;
    For in the temple, by and by, with us
    These couples shall eternally be knit.
    And, for the morning now is something worn,
    Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.
    Away with us to Athens, three and three;
    We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
    Come, Hippolyta.
                     Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train
  DEMETRIUS. These things seem small and undistinguishable,
    Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
  HERMIA. Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
    When every thing seems double.
  HELENA. So methinks;
    And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
    Mine own, and not mine own.
  DEMETRIUS. Are you sure
    That we are awake? It seems to me
    That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think
    The Duke was here, and bid us follow him?
  HERMIA. Yea, and my father.
  HELENA. And Hippolyta.
  LYSANDER. And he did bid us follow to the temple.
  DEMETRIUS. Why, then, we are awake; let's follow him;
    And by the way let us recount our dreams.             Exeunt
  BOTTOM. [Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My
    next is 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute, the
    bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life,
    stol'n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision.
    I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.
    Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought
    I was- there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and
    methought I had, but man is but a patch'd fool, if he will offer
    to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the
    ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his
    tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I
    will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall
    be call'd 'Bottom's Dream,' because it hath no bottom; and I will
    sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.
    Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at
    her death.                                              Exit

SCENE II. Athens. QUINCE'S house

Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING

  QUINCE. Have you sent to Bottom's house? Is he come home yet?
  STARVELING. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.
  FLUTE. If he come not, then the play is marr'd; it goes not
    forward, doth it?
  QUINCE. It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens able
    to discharge Pyramus but he.
  FLUTE. No; he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in
    Athens.
  QUINCE. Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for
    a sweet voice.
  FLUTE. You must say 'paragon.' A paramour is- God bless us!- A
    thing of naught.

                           Enter SNUG

  SNUG. Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple; and there is two
    or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone
    forward, we had all been made men.
  FLUTE. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day
    during his life; he could not have scaped sixpence a day. An the
    Duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll
    be hanged. He would have deserved it: sixpence a day in Pyramus,
    or nothing.

                           Enter BOTTOM

  BOTTOM. Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?
  QUINCE. Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!
  BOTTOM. Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not what;
    for if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you
    everything, right as it fell out.
  QUINCE. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.
  BOTTOM. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the
    Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together; good strings to your
    beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace;
    every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our
    play is preferr'd. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and
    let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall
    hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no
    onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not
    doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more words.
    Away, go, away!                                       Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS

  HIPPOLYTA. 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.
  THESEUS. More strange than true. I never may believe
    These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
    Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
    Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
    More than cool reason ever comprehends.
    The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
    Are of imagination all compact.
    One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
    That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
    Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.
    The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
    Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
    And as imagination bodies forth
    The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
    Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
    A local habitation and a name.
    Such tricks hath strong imagination
    That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
    It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
    Or in the night, imagining some fear,
    How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear?
  HIPPOLYTA. But all the story of the night told over,
    And all their minds transfigur'd so together,
    More witnesseth than fancy's images,
    And grows to something of great constancy,
    But howsoever strange and admirable.

          Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA

  THESEUS. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
    Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love
    Accompany your hearts!
  LYSANDER. More than to us
    Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
  THESEUS. Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
    To wear away this long age of three hours
    Between our after-supper and bed-time?
    Where is our usual manager of mirth?
    What revels are in hand? Is there no play
    To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
    Call Philostrate.
  PHILOSTRATE. Here, mighty Theseus.
  THESEUS. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?
    What masque? what music? How shall we beguile
    The lazy time, if not with some delight?
  PHILOSTRATE. There is a brief how many sports are ripe;
    Make choice of which your Highness will see first.
                                                [Giving a paper]
  THESEUS. 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
    By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'
    We'll none of that: that have I told my love,
    In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
    'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
    Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'
    That is an old device, and it was play'd
    When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
    'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
    Of Learning, late deceas'd in beggary.'
    That is some satire, keen and critical,
    Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
    'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
    And his love Thisby; very tragical mirth.'
    Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
    That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
    How shall we find the concord of this discord?
  PHILOSTRATE. A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
    Which is as brief as I have known a play;
    But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
    Which makes it tedious; for in all the play
    There is not one word apt, one player fitted.
    And tragical, my noble lord, it is;
    For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
    Which when I saw rehears'd, I must confess,
    Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
    The passion of loud laughter never shed.
  THESEUS. What are they that do play it?
  PHILOSTRATE. Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,
    Which never labour'd in their minds till now;
    And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories
    With this same play against your nuptial.
  THESEUS. And we will hear it.
  PHILOSTRATE. No, my noble lord,
    It is not for you. I have heard it over,
    And it is nothing, nothing in the world;
    Unless you can find sport in their intents,
    Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,
    To do you service.
  THESEUS. I will hear that play;
    For never anything can be amiss
    When simpleness and duty tender it.
    Go, bring them in; and take your places, ladies.
                                                Exit PHILOSTRATE
  HIPPOLYTA. I love not to see wretchedness o'er-charged,
    And duty in his service perishing.
  THESEUS. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
  HIPPOLYTA. He says they can do nothing in this kind.
  THESEUS. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
    Our sport shall be to take what they mistake;
    And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
    Takes it in might, not merit.
    Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
    To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
    Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
    Make periods in the midst of sentences,
    Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,
    And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,
    Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
    Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;
    And in the modesty of fearful duty
    I read as much as from the rattling tongue
    Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
    Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
    In least speak most to my capacity.

                       Re-enter PHILOSTRATE

  PHILOSTRATE. SO please your Grace, the Prologue is address'd.
  THESEUS. Let him approach.              [Flourish of trumpets]

                 Enter QUINCE as the PROLOGUE

  PROLOGUE. If we offend, it is with our good will.
    That you should think, we come not to offend,
    But with good will. To show our simple skill,
    That is the true beginning of our end.
    Consider then, we come but in despite.
    We do not come, as minding to content you,
    Our true intent is. All for your delight
    We are not here. That you should here repent you,
    The actors are at band; and, by their show,
    You shall know all, that you are like to know,
  THESEUS. This fellow doth not stand upon points.
  LYSANDER. He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows not
    the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but
    to speak true.
  HIPPOLYTA. Indeed he hath play'd on this prologue like a child on a
    recorder- a sound, but not in government.
  THESEUS. His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing im paired,
    but all disordered. Who is next?

          Enter, with a trumpet before them, as in dumb show,
            PYRAMUS and THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, and LION

  PROLOGUE. Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;
    But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
    This man is Pyramus, if you would know;
    This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.
    This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present
    Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;
    And through Walls chink, poor souls, they are content
    To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.
    This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,
    Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,
    By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn
    To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.
    This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,
    The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,
    Did scare away, or rather did affright;
    And as she fled, her mantle she did fall;
    Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
    Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,
    And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain;
    Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
    He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast;
    And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,
    His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,
    Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain,
    At large discourse while here they do remain.
                               Exeunt PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY,
                                             LION, and MOONSHINE
  THESEUS. I wonder if the lion be to speak.
  DEMETRIUS. No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.
  WALL. In this same interlude it doth befall
    That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
    And such a wall as I would have you think
    That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
    Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,
    Did whisper often very secretly.
    This loam, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show
    That I am that same wall; the truth is so;
    And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
    Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
  THESEUS. Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
  DEMETRIUS. It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard
    discourse, my lord.

                       Enter PYRAMUS

  THESEUS. Pyramus draws near the wall; silence.
  PYRAMUS. O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!
    O night, which ever art when day is not!
    O night, O night, alack, alack, alack,
    I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!
    And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,
    That stand'st between her father's ground and mine;
    Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
    Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.
                                     [WALL holds up his fingers]
    Thanks, courteous wall. Jove shield thee well for this!
    But what see what see I? No Thisby do I see.
    O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss,
    Curs'd he thy stones for thus deceiving me!
  THESEUS. The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.
  PYRAMUS. No, in truth, sir, he should not. Deceiving me is Thisby's
    cue. She is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall.
    You shall see it will fall pat as I told you; yonder she comes.

                          Enter THISBY

  THISBY. O wall, full often hast thou beard my moans,
    For parting my fair Pyramus and me!
    My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,
    Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
  PYRAMUS. I see a voice; now will I to the chink,
    To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face.
    Thisby!
  THISBY. My love! thou art my love, I think.
  PYRAMUS. Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;
    And like Limander am I trusty still.
  THISBY. And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.
  PYRAMUS. Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
  THISBY. As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
  PYRAMUS. O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.
  THISBY. I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.
  PYRAMUS. Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?
  THISBY. Tide life, tide death, I come without delay.
                                       Exeunt PYRAMUS and THISBY
  WALL. Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
    And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.           Exit WALL
  THESEUS. Now is the moon used between the two neighbours.
  DEMETRIUS. No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear
    without warning.
  HIPPOLYTA. This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
  THESEUS. The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are
    no worse, if imagination amend them.
  HIPPOLYTA. It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.
  THESEUS. If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves,
    they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in, a
    man and a lion.

                   Enter LION and MOONSHINE

  LION. You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear
    The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
    May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here,
    When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
    Then know that I as Snug the joiner am
    A lion fell, nor else no lion's dam;
    For, if I should as lion come in strife
    Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.
  THESEUS. A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.
  DEMETRIUS. The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.
  LYSANDER. This lion is a very fox for his valour.
  THESEUS. True; and a goose for his discretion.
  DEMETRIUS. Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his
    discretion, and the fox carries the goose.
  THESEUS. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; for
    the goose carries not the fox. It is well. Leave it to his
    discretion, and let us listen to the Moon.
  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present-
  DEMETRIUS. He should have worn the horns on his head.
  THESEUS. He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the
    circumference.
  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;
    Myself the Man i' th' Moon do seem to be.
  THESEUS. This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should
    be put into the lantern. How is it else the man i' th' moon?
  DEMETRIUS. He dares not come there for the candle; for, you see, it
    is already in snuff.
  HIPPOLYTA. I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change!
  THESEUS. It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is
    in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay
    the time.
  LYSANDER. Proceed, Moon.
  MOON. All that I have to say is to tell you that the lanthorn is
    the moon; I, the Man i' th' Moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush;
    and this dog, my dog.
  DEMETRIUS. Why, all these should be in the lantern; for all these
    are in the moon. But silence; here comes Thisby.

                        Re-enter THISBY

  THISBY. This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?
  LION. [Roaring] O-                           [THISBY runs off]
  DEMETRIUS. Well roar'd, Lion.
  THESEUS. Well run, Thisby.
  HIPPOLYTA. Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good
    grace.            [The LION tears THISBY'S Mantle, and exit]
  THESEUS. Well mous'd, Lion.

                        Re-enter PYRAMUS

  DEMETRIUS. And then came Pyramus.
  LYSANDER. And so the lion vanish'd.
  PYRAMUS. Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
    I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;
    For, by thy gracious golden, glittering gleams,
    I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.
             But stay, O spite!
             But mark, poor knight,
           What dreadful dole is here!
             Eyes, do you see?
             How can it he?
           O dainty duck! O dear!
             Thy mantle good,
             What! stain'd with blood?
           Approach, ye Furies fell.
             O Fates! come, come;
             Cut thread and thrum;
           Quail, crush, conclude, and quell.
  THESEUS. This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go
    near to make a man look sad.
  HIPPOLYTA. Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
  PYRAMUS. O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
    Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear;
    Which is- no, no- which was the fairest dame
    That liv'd, that lov'd, that lik'd, that look'd with cheer.
             Come, tears, confound;
             Out, sword, and wound
           The pap of Pyramus;
             Ay, that left pap,
             Where heart doth hop.               [Stabs himself]
           Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
             Now am I dead,
             Now am I fled;
           My soul is in the sky.
             Tongue, lose thy light;
             Moon, take thy flight.             [Exit MOONSHINE]
           Now die, die, die, die, die.                   [Dies]
  DEMETRIUS. No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.
  LYSANDER. Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.
  THESEUS. With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and yet
    prove an ass.
  HIPPOLYTA. How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisby comes back
    and finds her lover?

                       Re-enter THISBY

  THESEUS. She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and her
    passion ends the play.
  HIPPOLYTA. Methinks she should not use a long one for such a
    Pyramus; I hope she will be brief.
  DEMETRIUS. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which
    Thisby, is the better- he for a man, God warrant us: She for a
    woman, God bless us!
  LYSANDER. She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.
  DEMETRIUS. And thus she moans, videlicet:-
  THISBY.      Asleep, my love?
               What, dead, my dove?
             O Pyramus, arise,
               Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
               Dead, dead? A tomb
             Must cover thy sweet eyes.
               These lily lips,
               This cherry nose,
             These yellow cowslip cheeks,
               Are gone, are gone;
               Lovers, make moan;
             His eyes were green as leeks.
               O Sisters Three,
               Come, come to me,
             With hands as pale as milk;
               Lay them in gore,
               Since you have shore
             With shears his thread of silk.
               Tongue, not a word.
               Come, trusty sword;
             Come, blade, my breast imbrue.      [Stabs herself]
               And farewell, friends;
               Thus Thisby ends;
             Adieu, adieu, adieu.                         [Dies]
  THESEUS. Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
  DEMETRIUS. Ay, and Wall too.
  BOTTOM. [Starting up] No, I assure you; the wall is down that
    parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the Epilogue, or
    to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?
  THESEUS. No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse.
    Never excuse; for when the players are all dead there need none
    to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus, and
    hang'd himself in Thisby's garter, it would have been a fine
    tragedy. And so it is, truly; and very notably discharg'd. But
    come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone.     [A dance]
    The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
    Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.
    I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn,
    As much as we this night have overwatch'd.
    This palpable-gross play hath well beguil'd
    The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.
    A fortnight hold we this solemnity,
    In nightly revels and new jollity.                    Exeunt

                     Enter PUCK with a broom

  PUCK.      Now the hungry lion roars,
             And the wolf behowls the moon;
             Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
             All with weary task fordone.
             Now the wasted brands do glow,
             Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
             Puts the wretch that lies in woe
             In remembrance of a shroud.
             Now it is the time of night
             That the graves, all gaping wide,
             Every one lets forth his sprite,
             In the church-way paths to glide.
             And we fairies, that do run
             By the triple Hecate's team
             From the presence of the sun,
             Following darkness like a dream,
             Now are frolic. Not a mouse
             Shall disturb this hallowed house.
             I am sent with broom before,
             To sweep the dust behind the door.

         Enter OBERON and TITANIA, with all their train

  OBERON.    Through the house give glimmering light,
             By the dead and drowsy fire;
             Every elf and fairy sprite
             Hop as light as bird from brier;
             And this ditty, after me,
             Sing and dance it trippingly.
  TITANIA.      First, rehearse your song by rote,
                To each word a warbling note;
                Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
                Will we sing, and bless this place.

           [OBERON leading, the FAIRIES sing and dance]

  OBERON.    Now, until the break of day,
             Through this house each fairy stray.
             To the best bride-bed will we,
             Which by us shall blessed be;
             And the issue there create
             Ever shall be fortunate.
             So shall all the couples three
             Ever true in loving be;
             And the blots of Nature's hand
             Shall not in their issue stand;
             Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
             Nor mark prodigious, such as are
             Despised in nativity,
             Shall upon their children be.
             With this field-dew consecrate,
             Every fairy take his gait,
             And each several chamber bless,
             Through this palace, with sweet peace;
             And the owner of it blest
             Ever shall in safety rest.
             Trip away; make no stay;
             Meet me all by break of day.    Exeunt all but PUCK
  PUCK.      If we shadows have offended,
             Think but this, and all is mended,
             That you have but slumb'red here
             While these visions did appear.
             And this weak and idle theme,
             No more yielding but a dream,
             Gentles, do not reprehend.
             If you pardon, we will mend.
             And, as I am an honest Puck,
             If we have unearned luck
             Now to scape the serpent's tongue,
             We will make amends ere long;
             Else the Puck a liar call.
             So, good night unto you all.
             Give me your hands, if we be friends,
             And Robin shall restore amends.                Exit

THE END




 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING






      by William Shakespeare








Contents

ACT I
Scene I. Before LEONATO’S House.
Scene II. A room in LEONATO’S house.
Scene III. Another room in LEONATO’S house.

ACT II
Scene I. A hall in LEONATO’S house.
Scene II. Another room in LEONATO’S house.
Scene III. LEONATO’S Garden.

ACT III
Scene I. LEONATO’S Garden.
Scene II. A Room in LEONATO’S House.
Scene III. A Street.
Scene IV. A Room in LEONATO’S House.
Scene V. Another Room in LEONATO’S House.

ACT IV
Scene I. The Inside of a Church.
Scene II. A Prison.

ACT V
Scene I. Before LEONATO’S House.
Scene II. LEONATO’S Garden.
Scene III. The Inside of a Church.
Scene IV. A Room in LEONATO’S House.





      Dramatis Personæ


      DON PEDRO, Prince of Arragon.
      DON JOHN, his bastard Brother.
      CLAUDIO, a young Lord of Florence.
      BENEDICK, a young Lord of Padua.
      LEONATO, Governor of Messina.
      ANTONIO, his Brother.
      BALTHASAR, Servant to Don Pedro.
      BORACHIO, follower of Don John.
      CONRADE, follower of Don John.
      DOGBERRY, a Constable.
      VERGES, a Headborough.
      FRIAR FRANCIS.
      A Sexton.
      A Boy.


      HERO, Daughter to Leonato.
      BEATRICE, Niece to Leonato.
      MARGARET, Waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero.
      URSULA, Waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero.


      Messengers, Watch, Attendants, &c.


      SCENE. Messina.





ACT I

SCENE I. Before LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Leonato, Hero, Beatrice and others, with a Messenger.


      LEONATO.
      I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this night
      to Messina.


      MESSENGER.
      He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left
      him.


      LEONATO.
      How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?


      MESSENGER.
      But few of any sort, and none of name.


      LEONATO.
      A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full
      numbers. I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on
      a young Florentine called Claudio.


      MESSENGER.
      Much deserved on his part, and equally remembered by Don Pedro.
      He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the
      figure of a lamb the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better
      bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how.


      LEONATO.
      He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.


      MESSENGER.
      I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy
      in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough
      without a badge of bitterness.


      LEONATO.
      Did he break out into tears?


      MESSENGER.
      In great measure.


      LEONATO.
      A kind overflow of kindness. There are no faces truer than those
      that are so washed; how much better is it to weep at joy than to
      joy at weeping!


      BEATRICE.
      I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?


      MESSENGER.
      I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army
      of any sort.


      LEONATO.
      What is he that you ask for, niece?


      HERO.
      My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.


      MESSENGER.
      O! he is returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.


      BEATRICE.
      He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the
      flight; and my uncle’s fool, reading the challenge, subscribed
      for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how
      many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he
      killed? for, indeed, I promised to eat all of his killing.


      LEONATO.
      Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he’ll be
      meet with you, I doubt it not.


      MESSENGER.
      He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.


      BEATRICE.
      You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it; he is a very
      valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach.


      MESSENGER.
      And a good soldier too, lady.


      BEATRICE.
      And a good soldier to a lady; but what is he to a lord?


      MESSENGER.
      A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable
      virtues.


      BEATRICE.
      It is so indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man; but for the
      stuffing,—well, we are all mortal.


      LEONATO.
      You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war
      betwixt Signior Benedick and her; they never meet but there’s a
      skirmish of wit between them.


      BEATRICE.
      Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his
      five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed
      with one! so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let
      him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for
      it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable
      creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new
      sworn brother.


      MESSENGER.
      Is’t possible?


      BEATRICE.
      Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of
      his hat; it ever changes with the next block.


      MESSENGER.
      I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.


      BEATRICE.
      No; and he were, I would burn my study. But I pray you, who is
      his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a
      voyage with him to the devil?


      MESSENGER.
      He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.


      BEATRICE.
      O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught
      than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help
      the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost
      him a thousand pound ere he be cured.


      MESSENGER.
      I will hold friends with you, lady.


      BEATRICE.
      Do, good friend.


      LEONATO.
      You will never run mad, niece.


      BEATRICE.
      No, not till a hot January.


      MESSENGER.
      Don Pedro is approached.


      Enter Don Pedro, Don John, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar and
      Others.


      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.


      LEONATO.
      Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace, for
      trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart
      from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.


      DON PEDRO.
      You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your
      daughter.


      LEONATO.
      Her mother hath many times told me so.


      BENEDICK.
      Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?


      LEONATO.
      Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.


      DON PEDRO.
      You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are,
      being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady, for
      you are like an honourable father.


      BENEDICK.
      If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on
      her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.


      BEATRICE.
      I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody
      marks you.


      BENEDICK.
      What! my dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?


      BEATRICE.
      Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet food
      to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to
      disdain if you come in her presence.


      BENEDICK.
      Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all
      ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my heart
      that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.


      BEATRICE.
      A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled
      with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of
      your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow
      than a man swear he loves me.


      BENEDICK.
      God keep your Ladyship still in that mind; so some gentleman or
      other shall scape a predestinate scratched face.


      BEATRICE.
      Scratching could not make it worse, and ’twere such a face as
      yours were.


      BENEDICK.
      Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.


      BEATRICE.
      A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.


      BENEDICK.
      I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a
      continuer. But keep your way, i’ God’s name; I have done.


      BEATRICE.
      You always end with a jade’s trick: I know you of old.


      DON PEDRO.
      That is the sum of all, Leonato: Signior Claudio, and Signior
      Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him
      we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartly prays
      some occasion may detain us longer: I dare swear he is no
      hypocrite, but prays from his heart.


      LEONATO.
      If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [_To Don John_]
      Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the Prince
      your brother, I owe you all duty.


      DON JOHN.
      I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.


      LEONATO.
      Please it your Grace lead on?


      DON PEDRO.
      Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.


      [_Exeunt all but Benedick and Claudio._]


      CLAUDIO.
      Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?


      BENEDICK.
      I noted her not; but I looked on her.


      CLAUDIO.
      Is she not a modest young lady?


      BENEDICK.
      Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple
      true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as
      being a professed tyrant to their sex?


      CLAUDIO.
      No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.


      BENEDICK.
      Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for a high praise, too
      brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise; only
      this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she
      is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do
      not like her.


      CLAUDIO.
      Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou
      likest her.


      BENEDICK.
      Would you buy her, that you enquire after her?


      CLAUDIO.
      Can the world buy such a jewel?


      BENEDICK.
      Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad
      brow, or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a
      good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key
      shall a man take you, to go in the song?


      CLAUDIO.
      In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.


      BENEDICK.
      I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter:
      there’s her cousin and she were not possessed with a fury,
      exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last
      of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have
      you?


      CLAUDIO.
      I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn to the contrary,
      if Hero would be my wife.


      BENEDICK.
      Is’t come to this, in faith? Hath not the world one man but he
      will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of
      threescore again? Go to, i’ faith; and thou wilt needs thrust thy
      neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays.


      Re-enter Don Pedro.


      Look! Don Pedro is returned to seek you.


      DON PEDRO.
      What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to
      Leonato’s?


      BENEDICK.
      I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.


      DON PEDRO.
      I charge thee on thy allegiance.


      BENEDICK.
      You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man; I would
      have you think so; but on my allegiance mark you this, on my
      allegiance: he is in love. With who? now that is your Grace’s
      part. Mark how short his answer is: with Hero, Leonato’s short
      daughter.


      CLAUDIO.
      If this were so, so were it uttered.


      BENEDICK.
      Like the old tale, my lord: ‘it is not so, nor ’twas not so; but
      indeed, God forbid it should be so.’


      CLAUDIO.
      If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be
      otherwise.


      DON PEDRO.
      Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.


      CLAUDIO.
      You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      By my troth, I speak my thought.


      CLAUDIO.
      And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.


      BENEDICK.
      And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.


      CLAUDIO.
      That I love her, I feel.


      DON PEDRO.
      That she is worthy, I know.


      BENEDICK.
      That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she
      should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me:
      I will die in it at the stake.


      DON PEDRO.
      Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.


      CLAUDIO.
      And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.


      BENEDICK.
      That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I
      likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a
      recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible
      baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them
      the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust
      none; and the fine is,—for the which I may go the finer,—I will
      live a bachelor.


      DON PEDRO.
      I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.


      BENEDICK.
      With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with
      love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get
      again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker’s pen
      and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of
      blind Cupid.


      DON PEDRO.
      Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a
      notable argument.


      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.


      DON PEDRO.
      Well, as time shall try: ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the
      yoke.’


      BENEDICK.
      The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it,
      pluck off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead; and let
      me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write,
      ‘Here is good horse to hire,’ let them signify under my sign
      ‘Here you may see Benedick the married man.’


      CLAUDIO.
      If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.


      DON PEDRO.
      Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt
      quake for this shortly.


      BENEDICK.
      I look for an earthquake too then.


      DON PEDRO.
      Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good
      Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato’s: commend me to him and tell
      him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great
      preparation.


      BENEDICK.
      I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I
      commit you—


      CLAUDIO.
      To the tuition of God: from my house, if I had it,—


      DON PEDRO.
      The sixth of July: your loving friend, Benedick.


      BENEDICK.
      Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime
      guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on
      neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your
      conscience: and so I leave you.


      [_Exit._]


      CLAUDIO.
      My liege, your Highness now may do me good.


      DON PEDRO.
      My love is thine to teach: teach it but how,
      And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn
      Any hard lesson that may do thee good.


      CLAUDIO.
      Hath Leonato any son, my lord?


      DON PEDRO.
      No child but Hero; she’s his only heir.
      Dost thou affect her, Claudio?


      CLAUDIO.
      O! my lord,
      When you went onward on this ended action,
      I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye,
      That lik’d, but had a rougher task in hand
      Than to drive liking to the name of love;
      But now I am return’d, and that war-thoughts
      Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
      Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
      All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
      Saying, I lik’d her ere I went to wars.


      DON PEDRO.
      Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
      And tire the hearer with a book of words.
      If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
      And I will break with her, and with her father,
      And thou shalt have her. Was’t not to this end
      That thou began’st to twist so fine a story?


      CLAUDIO.
      How sweetly you do minister to love,
      That know love’s grief by his complexion!
      But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
      I would have salv’d it with a longer treatise.


      DON PEDRO.
      What need the bridge much broader than the flood?
      The fairest grant is the necessity.
      Look, what will serve is fit: ’tis once, thou lov’st,
      And I will fit thee with the remedy.
      I know we shall have revelling tonight:
      I will assume thy part in some disguise,
      And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;
      And in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart,
      And take her hearing prisoner with the force
      And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
      Then after to her father will I break;
      And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
      In practice let us put it presently.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE II. A room in LEONATO’S house.

      Enter Leonato and Antonio, meeting.


      LEONATO.
      How now, brother? Where is my cousin your son? Hath he provided
      this music?


      ANTONIO.
      He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange
      news that you yet dreamt not of.


      LEONATO.
      Are they good?


      ANTONIO.
      As the event stamps them: but they have a good cover; they show
      well outward. The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a
      thick-pleached alley in my orchard, were thus much overheard by a
      man of mine: the Prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my
      niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a
      dance; and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the
      present time by the top and instantly break with you of it.


      LEONATO. Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?


      ANTONIO.
      A good sharp fellow: I will send for him; and question him
      yourself.


      LEONATO.
      No, no; we will hold it as a dream till it appear itself: but I
      will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better
      prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you and
      tell her of it.


      [_Several persons cross the stage._]


      Cousins, you know what you have to do. O! I cry you mercy,
      friend; go you with me, and I will use your skill. Good cousin,
      have a care this busy time.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE III. Another room in LEONATO’S house.

      Enter Don John and Conrade.


      CONRADE.
      What the good-year, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad?


      DON JOHN.
      There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the
      sadness is without limit.


      CONRADE.
      You should hear reason.


      DON JOHN.
      And when I have heard it, what blessings brings it?


      CONRADE.
      If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance.


      DON JOHN.
      I wonder that thou (being as thou say’st thou art, born under
      Saturn) goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying
      mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have
      cause, and smile at no man’s jests; eat when I have stomach, and
      wait for no man’s leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no
      man’s business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his
      humour.


      CONRADE.
      Yea; but you must not make the full show of this till you may do
      it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your
      brother, and he hath ta’en you newly into his grace; where it is
      impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that
      you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for
      your own harvest.


      DON JOHN.
      I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace; and
      it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a
      carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said
      to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a
      plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and
      enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in
      my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I
      would do my liking: in the meantime, let me be that I am, and
      seek not to alter me.


      CONRADE. Can you make no use of your discontent?


      DON JOHN. I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes
      here?


      Enter Borachio.


      What news, Borachio?


      BORACHIO.
      I came yonder from a great supper: the Prince your brother is
      royally entertained by Leonato; and I can give you intelligence
      of an intended marriage.


      DON JOHN.
      Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for
      a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?


      BORACHIO.
      Marry, it is your brother’s right hand.


      DON JOHN.
      Who? the most exquisite Claudio?


      BORACHIO.
      Even he.


      DON JOHN.
      A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he?


      BORACHIO.
      Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.


      DON JOHN.
      A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?


      BORACHIO.
      Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room,
      comes me the Prince and Claudio, hand in hand, in sad conference:
      I whipt me behind the arras, and there heard it agreed upon that
      the Prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her,
      give her to Count Claudio.


      DON JOHN.
      Come, come; let us thither: this may prove food to my
      displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my
      overthrow: if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way.
      You are both sure, and will assist me?


      CONRADE. To the death, my lord.


      DON JOHN.
      Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am
      subdued. Would the cook were of my mind! Shall we go to prove
      what’s to be done?


      BORACHIO.
      We’ll wait upon your Lordship.


      [_Exeunt._]





ACT II

SCENE I. A hall in LEONATO’S house.

      Enter Leonato, Antonio, Hero, Beatrice and others.


      LEONATO.
      Was not Count John here at supper?


      ANTONIO.
      I saw him not.


      BEATRICE.
      How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am
      heart-burned an hour after.


      HERO.
      He is of a very melancholy disposition.


      BEATRICE.
      He were an excellent man that were made just in the mid-way
      between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and says
      nothing; and the other too like my lady’s eldest son, evermore
      tattling.


      LEONATO.
      Then half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s mouth, and
      half Count John’s melancholy in Signior Benedick’s face—


      BEATRICE.
      With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his
      purse, such a man would win any woman in the world if a’ could
      get her good will.


      LEONATO.
      By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou
      be so shrewd of thy tongue.


      ANTONIO.
      In faith, she’s too curst.


      BEATRICE.
      Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God’s sending that
      way; for it is said, ‘God sends a curst cow short horns;’ but to
      a cow too curst he sends none.


      LEONATO.
      So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns?


      BEATRICE.
      Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at
      him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord! I could not
      endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in
      the woollen.


      LEONATO.
      You may light on a husband that hath no beard.


      BEATRICE.
      What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him
      my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a
      youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that
      is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a
      man, I am not for him: therefore I will even take sixpence in
      earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell.


      LEONATO.
      Well then, go you into hell?


      BEATRICE.
      No; but to the gate; and there will the Devil meet me, like an
      old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, ‘Get you to heaven,
      Beatrice, get you to heaven; here’s no place for you maids.’ So
      deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens: he
      shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as
      the day is long.


      ANTONIO.
      [_To Hero_.] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your
      father.


      BEATRICE.
      Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy, and say,
      ‘Father, as it please you:’— but yet for all that, cousin, let
      him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy, and say,
      ‘Father, as it please me.’


      LEONATO.
      Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.


      BEATRICE.
      Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it
      not grieve a woman to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant
      dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?
      No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’s sons are my brethren; and truly, I
      hold it a sin to match in my kindred.


      LEONATO.
      Daughter, remember what I told you: if the Prince do solicit you
      in that kind, you know your answer.


      BEATRICE.
      The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in
      good time: if the Prince be too important, tell him there is
      measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me,
      Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a
      measure, and a cinquepace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like
      a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly
      modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes
      Repentance, and with his bad legs, falls into the cinquepace
      faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.


      LEONATO.
      Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.


      BEATRICE.
      I have a good eye, uncle: I can see a church by daylight.


      LEONATO.
      The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.


      Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, Don John,
      Borachio, Margaret, Ursula and Others, masked.


      DON PEDRO.
      Lady, will you walk about with your friend?


      HERO.
      So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours
      for the walk; and especially when I walk away.


      DON PEDRO.
      With me in your company?


      HERO.
      I may say so, when I please.


      DON PEDRO.
      And when please you to say so?


      HERO.
      When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like
      the case!


      DON PEDRO.
      My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.


      HERO.
      Why, then, your visor should be thatch’d.


      DON PEDRO.
      Speak low, if you speak love.


      [_Takes her aside._]


      BALTHASAR.
      Well, I would you did like me.


      MARGARET.
      So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities.


      BALTHASAR.
      Which is one?


      MARGARET.
      I say my prayers aloud.


      BALTHASAR.
      I love you the better; the hearers may cry Amen.


      MARGARET.
      God match me with a good dancer!


      BALTHASAR.
      Amen.


      MARGARET.
      And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer,
      clerk.


      BALTHASAR.
      No more words: the clerk is answered.


      URSULA.
      I know you well enough: you are Signior Antonio.


      ANTONIO.
      At a word, I am not.


      URSULA.
      I know you by the waggling of your head.


      ANTONIO.
      To tell you true, I counterfeit him.


      URSULA.
      You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very man.
      Here’s his dry hand up and down: you are he, you are he.


      ANTONIO.
      At a word, I am not.


      URSULA.
      Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit?
      Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will
      appear, and there’s an end.


      BEATRICE.
      Will you not tell me who told you so?


      BENEDICK.
      No, you shall pardon me.


      BEATRICE.
      Nor will you not tell me who you are?


      BENEDICK.
      Not now.


      BEATRICE.
      That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the
      ‘Hundred Merry Tales.’ Well, this was Signior Benedick that said
      so.


      BENEDICK.
      What’s he?


      BEATRICE.
      I am sure you know him well enough.


      BENEDICK.
      Not I, believe me.


      BEATRICE.
      Did he never make you laugh?


      BENEDICK.
      I pray you, what is he?


      BEATRICE.
      Why, he is the Prince’s jester: a very dull fool; only his gift
      is in devising impossible slanders: none but libertines delight
      in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his
      villainy; for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they
      laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet: I would
      he had boarded me!


      BENEDICK.
      When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.


      BEATRICE.
      Do, do: he’ll but break a comparison or two on me; which,
      peradventure not marked or not laughed at, strikes him into
      melancholy; and then there’s a partridge wing saved, for the fool
      will eat no supper that night. [_Music within_.] We must follow
      the leaders.


      BENEDICK.
      In every good thing.


      BEATRICE.
      Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next
      turning.


      [_Dance. Then exeunt all but Don John, Borachio and Claudio._]


      DON JOHN.
      Sure my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father
      to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one
      visor remains.


      BORACHIO.
      And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.


      DON JOHN.
      Are you not Signior Benedick?


      CLAUDIO.
      You know me well; I am he.


      DON JOHN.
      Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is
      enamoured on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him from her; she is no
      equal for his birth: you may do the part of an honest man in it.


      CLAUDIO.
      How know you he loves her?


      DON JOHN.
      I heard him swear his affection.


      BORACHIO.
      So did I too; and he swore he would marry her tonight.


      DON JOHN.
      Come, let us to the banquet.


      [_Exeunt Don John and Borachio._]


      CLAUDIO.
      Thus answer I in name of Benedick,
      But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
      ’Tis certain so; the Prince wooes for himself.
      Friendship is constant in all other things
      Save in the office and affairs of love:
      Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
      Let every eye negotiate for itself
      And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
      Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
      This is an accident of hourly proof,
      Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!


      Re-enter Benedick.


      BENEDICK.
      Count Claudio?


      CLAUDIO.
      Yea, the same.


      BENEDICK.
      Come, will you go with me?


      CLAUDIO.
      Whither?


      BENEDICK.
      Even to the next willow, about your own business, Count. What
      fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like a
      usurer’s chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf? You
      must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero.


      CLAUDIO.
      I wish him joy of her.


      BENEDICK.
      Why, that’s spoken like an honest drovier: so they sell bullocks.
      But did you think the Prince would have served you thus?


      CLAUDIO.
      I pray you, leave me.


      BENEDICK.
      Ho! now you strike like the blind man: ’twas the boy that stole
      your meat, and you’ll beat the post.


      CLAUDIO.
      If it will not be, I’ll leave you.


      [_Exit._]


      BENEDICK.
      Alas! poor hurt fowl. Now will he creep into sedges. But, that my
      Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince’s fool!
      Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but
      so I am apt to do myself wrong; I am not so reputed: it is the
      base though bitter disposition of Beatrice that puts the world
      into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I’ll be revenged as I
      may.


      Re-enter Don Pedro.


      DON PEDRO.
      Now, signior, where’s the Count? Did you see him?


      BENEDICK.
      Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. I found him
      here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I
      think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of
      this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree,
      either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him
      up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.


      DON PEDRO.
      To be whipped! What’s his fault?


      BENEDICK.
      The flat transgression of a school-boy, who, being overjoy’d with
      finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.


      DON PEDRO.
      Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in
      the stealer.


      BENEDICK.
      Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland
      too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he
      might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his
      bird’s nest.


      DON PEDRO.
      I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.


      BENEDICK.
      If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say
      honestly.


      DON PEDRO.
      The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the gentleman that
      danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.


      BENEDICK.
      O! she misused me past the endurance of a block: an oak but with
      one green leaf on it would have answered her: my very visor began
      to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I
      had been myself, that I was the Prince’s jester, that I was
      duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such
      impossible conveyance upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark,
      with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every
      word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations,
      there were no living near her; she would infect to the north
      star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all
      that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she would have
      made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to
      make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the
      infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would
      conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as
      quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose
      because they would go thither; so indeed, all disquiet, horror
      and perturbation follow her.


      Re-enter Claudio, Beatrice, Hero and Leonato.


      DON PEDRO.
      Look! here she comes.


      BENEDICK.
      Will your Grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will
      go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can
      devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the
      furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s
      foot; fetch you a hair off the Great Cham’s beard; do you any
      embassage to the Pygmies, rather than hold three words’
      conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?


      DON PEDRO.
      None, but to desire your good company.


      BENEDICK.
      O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady
      Tongue.


      [_Exit._]


      DON PEDRO.
      Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.


      BEATRICE.
      Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it,
      a double heart for a single one: marry, once before he won it of
      me with false dice, therefore your Grace may well say I have lost
      it.


      DON PEDRO.
      You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.


      BEATRICE.
      So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the
      mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me
      to seek.


      DON PEDRO.
      Why, how now, Count! wherefore are you sad?


      CLAUDIO.
      Not sad, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      How then? Sick?


      CLAUDIO.
      Neither, my lord.


      BEATRICE.
      The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but
      civil Count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous
      complexion.


      DON PEDRO.
      I’ faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I’ll be
      sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have
      wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won; I have broke with her
      father, and, his good will obtained; name the day of marriage,
      and God give thee joy!


      LEONATO.
      Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his
      Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!


      BEATRICE.
      Speak, Count, ’tis your cue.


      CLAUDIO.
      Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy,
      if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I
      give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.


      BEATRICE.
      Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and
      let not him speak neither.


      DON PEDRO.
      In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.


      BEATRICE.
      Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side
      of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.


      CLAUDIO.
      And so she doth, cousin.


      BEATRICE.
      Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes everyone to the world but I,
      and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a
      husband!


      DON PEDRO.
      Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.


      BEATRICE.
      I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath your Grace
      ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if
      a maid could come by them.


      DON PEDRO.
      Will you have me, lady?


      BEATRICE.
      No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your
      Grace is too costly to wear every day. But, I beseech your Grace,
      pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.


      DON PEDRO.
      Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you;
      for out of question, you were born in a merry hour.


      BEATRICE.
      No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star
      danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!


      LEONATO.
      Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?


      BEATRICE.
      I cry you mercy, uncle. By your Grace’s pardon.


      [_Exit._]


      DON PEDRO.
      By my troth, a pleasant spirited lady.


      LEONATO.
      There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is
      never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then, for I have
      heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and
      waked herself with laughing.


      DON PEDRO.
      She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.


      LEONATO.
      O! by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.


      DON PEDRO.
      She were an excellent wife for Benedick.


      LEONATO.
      O Lord! my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk
      themselves mad.


      DON PEDRO.
      Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?


      CLAUDIO.
      Tomorrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his
      rites.


      LEONATO.
      Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night;
      and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind.


      DON PEDRO.
      Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but, I warrant
      thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the
      interim undertake one of Hercules’ labours, which is, to bring
      Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of
      affection the one with the other. I would fain have it a match;
      and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minister
      such assistance as I shall give you direction.


      LEONATO.
      My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights’ watchings.


      CLAUDIO.
      And I, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      And you too, gentle Hero?


      HERO.
      I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good
      husband.


      DON PEDRO.
      And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus
      far can I praise him; he is of a noble strain, of approved
      valour, and confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour
      your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I,
      with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in
      despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in
      love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an
      archer: his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods.
      Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE II. Another room in LEONATO’S house.

      Enter Don John and Borachio.


      DON JOHN.
      It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.


      BORACHIO.
      Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.


      DON JOHN.
      Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I
      am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his
      affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this
      marriage?


      BORACHIO.
      Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall
      appear in me.


      DON JOHN.
      Show me briefly how.


      BORACHIO.
      I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the
      favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.


      DON JOHN.
      I remember.


      BORACHIO.
      I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to
      look out at her lady’s chamber window.


      DON JOHN. What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?


      BORACHIO.
      The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince
      your brother; spare not to tell him, that he hath wronged his
      honour in marrying the renowned Claudio,—whose estimation do you
      mightily hold up,—to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.


      DON JOHN.
      What proof shall I make of that?


      BORACHIO.
      Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero,
      and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?


      DON JOHN.
      Only to despite them, I will endeavour anything.


      BORACHIO.
      Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count
      Claudio alone: tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend
      a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as—in love of your
      brother’s honour, who hath made this match, and his friend’s
      reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the semblance of
      a maid,—that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe
      this without trial: offer them instances, which shall bear no
      less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me
      call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them
      to see this the very night before the intended wedding: for in
      the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be
      absent; and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’s
      disloyalty, that jealousy shall be called assurance, and all the
      preparation overthrown.


      DON JOHN.
      Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in
      practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a
      thousand ducats.


      BORACHIO.
      Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame
      me.


      DON JOHN.
      I will presently go learn their day of marriage.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE III. LEONATO’S Garden.

      Enter Benedick.


      BENEDICK.
      Boy!


      Enter a Boy.


      BOY.
      Signior?


      BENEDICK.
      In my chamber window lies a book; bring it hither to me in the
      orchard.


      BOY.
      I am here already, sir.


      BENEDICK.
      I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again.


      [_Exit Boy._]


      I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a
      fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he
      hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the
      argument of his own scorn by falling in love: and such a man is
      Claudio. I have known, when there was no music with him but the
      drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the
      pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten mile afoot to
      see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving
      the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to
      the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he
      turned orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet,
      just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted, and see with
      these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not be sworn but
      love may transform me to an oyster; but I’ll take my oath on it,
      till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a
      fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am
      well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in
      one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall
      be, that’s certain; wise, or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never
      cheapen her; fair, or I’ll never look on her; mild, or come not
      near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an
      excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it
      please God. Ha! the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in
      the arbour.


      [_Withdraws._]


      Enter Don Pedro, Leonato and Claudio, followed by Balthasar and
      Musicians.


      DON PEDRO.
      Come, shall we hear this music?


      CLAUDIO.
      Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,
      As hush’d on purpose to grace harmony!


      DON PEDRO.
      See you where Benedick hath hid himself?


      CLAUDIO.
      O! very well, my lord: the music ended,
      We’ll fit the kid-fox with a penny-worth.


      DON PEDRO.
      Come, Balthasar, we’ll hear that song again.


      BALTHASAR.
      O! good my lord, tax not so bad a voice
      To slander music any more than once.


      DON PEDRO.
      It is the witness still of excellency,
      To put a strange face on his own perfection.
      I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.


      BALTHASAR.
      Because you talk of wooing, I will sing;
      Since many a wooer doth commence his suit
      To her he thinks not worthy; yet he wooes;
      Yet will he swear he loves.


      DON PEDRO.
      Nay, pray thee come;
      Or if thou wilt hold longer argument,
      Do it in notes.


      BALTHASAR.
      Note this before my notes;
      There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.


      DON PEDRO.
      Why these are very crotchets that he speaks;
      Notes, notes, forsooth, and nothing!


      [_Music._]


      BENEDICK.
      Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that
      sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies? Well, a horn
      for my money, when all’s done.


      BALTHASAR [_sings_.]
          Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
           Men were deceivers ever;
          One foot in sea, and one on shore,
           To one thing constant never.
              Then sigh not so, but let them go,
             And be you blithe and bonny,
         Converting all your sounds of woe
            Into Hey nonny, nonny.


         Sing no more ditties, sing no mo
            Of dumps so dull and heavy;
         The fraud of men was ever so,
            Since summer first was leavy.
             Then sigh not so, but let them go,
            And be you blithe and bonny,
           Converting all your sounds of woe
              Into Hey nonny, nonny.


      DON PEDRO.
      By my troth, a good song.


      BALTHASAR.
      And an ill singer, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift.


      BENEDICK.
      [_Aside_] And he had been a dog that should have howled thus,
      they would have hanged him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no
      mischief. I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what
      plague could have come after it.


      DON PEDRO. Yea, marry; dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee,
      get us some excellent music, for tomorrow night we would have it
      at the Lady Hero’s chamber window.


      BALTHASAR. The best I can, my lord.


      DON PEDRO. Do so: farewell.


      [_Exeunt Balthasar and Musicians._]


      Come hither, Leonato: what was it you told me of today, that your
      niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?


      CLAUDIO.
      O! ay:—[_Aside to Don Pedro_] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits.
      I did never think that lady would have loved any man.


      LEONATO.
      No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on
      Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed
      ever to abhor.


      BENEDICK.
      [_Aside_] Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?


      LEONATO.
      By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it but that
      she loves him with an enraged affection: it is past the infinite
      of thought.


      DON PEDRO.
      Maybe she doth but counterfeit.


      CLAUDIO.
      Faith, like enough.


      LEONATO.
      O God! counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came
      so near the life of passion as she discovers it.


      DON PEDRO.
      Why, what effects of passion shows she?


      CLAUDIO. [_Aside_] Bait the hook well: this fish will bite.


      LEONATO.
      What effects, my lord? She will sit you; [_To Claudio_] You heard
      my daughter tell you how.


      CLAUDIO.
      She did, indeed.


      DON PEDRO.
      How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her
      spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.


      LEONATO.
      I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick.


      BENEDICK.
      [_Aside_] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded
      fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide itself in such
      reverence.


      CLAUDIO.
      [_Aside_] He hath ta’en the infection: hold it up.


      DON PEDRO.
      Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?


      LEONATO.
      No; and swears she never will: that’s her torment.


      CLAUDIO.
      ’Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: ‘Shall I,’ says she,
      ‘that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I
      love him?’


      LEONATO.
      This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for
      she’ll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her
      smock till she have writ a sheet of paper: my daughter tells us
      all.


      CLAUDIO.
      Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your
      daughter told us of.


      LEONATO.
      O! when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found
      Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?


      CLAUDIO.
      That.


      LEONATO.
      O! she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at
      herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she
      knew would flout her: ‘I measure him,’ says she, ‘by my own
      spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I
      love him, I should.’


      CLAUDIO.
      Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart,
      tears her hair, prays, curses; ‘O sweet Benedick! God give me
      patience!’


      LEONATO.
      She doth indeed; my daughter says so; and the ecstasy hath so
      much overborne her, that my daughter is sometimes afeard she will
      do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true.


      DON PEDRO.
      It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will
      not discover it.


      CLAUDIO.
      To what end? he would make but a sport of it and torment the poor
      lady worse.


      DON PEDRO.
      And he should, it were an alms to hang him. She’s an excellent
      sweet lady, and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous.


      CLAUDIO.
      And she is exceeding wise.


      DON PEDRO.
      In everything but in loving Benedick.


      LEONATO.
      O! my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we
      have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry
      for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian.


      DON PEDRO.
      I would she had bestowed this dotage on me; I would have daffed
      all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you, tell
      Benedick of it, and hear what he will say.


      LEONATO.
      Were it good, think you?


      CLAUDIO.
      Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he
      love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and
      she will die if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath
      of her accustomed crossness.


      DON PEDRO.
      She doth well: if she should make tender of her love, ’tis very
      possible he’ll scorn it; for the man,—as you know all,—hath a
      contemptible spirit.


      CLAUDIO.
      He is a very proper man.


      DON PEDRO.
      He hath indeed a good outward happiness.


      CLAUDIO.
      ’Fore God, and in my mind, very wise.


      DON PEDRO.
      He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.


      CLAUDIO.
      And I take him to be valiant.


      DON PEDRO.
      As Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of quarrels you may
      say he is wise; for either he avoids them with great discretion,
      or undertakes them with a most Christian-like fear.


      LEONATO.
      If he do fear God, a’ must necessarily keep peace: if he break
      the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and
      trembling.


      DON PEDRO.
      And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems
      not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for
      your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love?


      CLAUDIO.
      Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with good counsel.


      LEONATO.
      Nay, that’s impossible: she may wear her heart out first.


      DON PEDRO.
      Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter: let it cool
      the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would
      modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy so good
      a lady.


      LEONATO.
      My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.


      CLAUDIO.
      [_Aside_] If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust
      my expectation.


      DON PEDRO.
      [_Aside_] Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must
      your daughter and her gentlewoman carry. The sport will be, when
      they hold one an opinion of another’s dotage, and no such matter:
      that’s the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb
      show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner.


      [_Exeunt Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato._]


      BENEDICK.
      [_Advancing from the arbour._] This can be no trick: the
      conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from
      Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have
      their full bent. Love me? why, it must be requited. I hear how I
      am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive
      the love come from her; they say too that she will rather die
      than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry: I
      must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions,
      and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair: ’tis a
      truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous: ’tis so, I cannot
      reprove it; and wise, but for loving me: by my troth, it is no
      addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I
      will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd
      quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so
      long against marriage; but doth not the appetite alter? A man
      loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
      Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain
      awe a man from the career of his humour? No; the world must be
      peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I
      should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this
      day! she’s a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her.


      Enter Beatrice.


      BEATRICE.
      Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.


      BENEDICK.
      Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.


      BEATRICE.
      I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to
      thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come.


      BENEDICK.
      You take pleasure then in the message?


      BEATRICE.
      Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife’s point, and choke
      a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior: fare you well.


      [_Exit._]


      BENEDICK.
      Ha! ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner,’
      there’s a double meaning in that. ‘I took no more pains for those
      thanks than you took pains to thank me,’ that’s as much as to
      say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do
      not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am
      a Jew. I will go get her picture.


      [_Exit._]





ACT III

SCENE I. LEONATO’S Garden.

      Enter Hero, Margaret and Ursula.


      HERO.
      Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour;
      There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice
      Proposing with the Prince and Claudio:
      Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursala
      Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse
      Is all of her; say that thou overheard’st us,
      And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
      Where honey-suckles, ripen’d by the sun,
      Forbid the sun to enter; like favourites,
      Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
      Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her,
      To listen our propose. This is thy office;
      Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.


      MARGARET.
      I’ll make her come, I warrant you, presently.


      [_Exit._]


      HERO.
      Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
      As we do trace this alley up and down,
      Our talk must only be of Benedick:
      When I do name him, let it be thy part
      To praise him more than ever man did merit.
      My talk to thee must be how Benedick
      Is sick in love with Beatrice: of this matter
      Is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made,
      That only wounds by hearsay.


      Enter Beatrice behind.


      Now begin;
      For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
      Close by the ground, to hear our conference.


      URSULA.
      The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish
      Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
      And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
      So angle we for Beatrice; who even now
      Is couched in the woodbine coverture.
      Fear you not my part of the dialogue.


      HERO.
      Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing
      Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.


      [_They advance to the bower._]


      No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;
      I know her spirits are as coy and wild
      As haggards of the rock.


      URSULA.
      But are you sure
      That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?


      HERO.
      So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord.


      URSULA.
      And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?


      HERO.
      They did entreat me to acquaint her of it;
      But I persuaded them, if they lov’d Benedick,
      To wish him wrestle with affection,
      And never to let Beatrice know of it.


      URSULA.
      Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman
      Deserve as full as fortunate a bed
      As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?


      HERO.
      O god of love! I know he doth deserve
      As much as may be yielded to a man;
      But Nature never fram’d a woman’s heart
      Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice;
      Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
      Misprising what they look on, and her wit
      Values itself so highly, that to her
      All matter else seems weak. She cannot love,
      Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
      She is so self-endear’d.


      URSULA.
      Sure I think so;
      And therefore certainly it were not good
      She knew his love, lest she make sport at it.


      HERO.
      Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,
      How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur’d,
      But she would spell him backward: if fair-fac’d,
      She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;
      If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antick,
      Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;
      If low, an agate very vilely cut;
      If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;
      If silent, why, a block moved with none.
      So turns she every man the wrong side out,
      And never gives to truth and virtue that
      Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.


      URSULA.
      Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.


      HERO.
      No; not to be so odd, and from all fashions,
      As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable.
      But who dare tell her so? If I should speak,
      She would mock me into air: O! she would laugh me
      Out of myself, press me to death with wit.
      Therefore let Benedick, like cover’d fire,
      Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly:
      It were a better death than die with mocks,
      Which is as bad as die with tickling.


      URSULA.
      Yet tell her of it: hear what she will say.


      HERO.
      No; rather I will go to Benedick,
      And counsel him to fight against his passion.
      And, truly, I’ll devise some honest slanders
      To stain my cousin with. One doth not know
      How much an ill word may empoison liking.


      URSULA.
      O! do not do your cousin such a wrong.
      She cannot be so much without true judgment,—
      Having so swift and excellent a wit
      As she is priz’d to have,—as to refuse
      So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick.


      HERO.
      He is the only man of Italy,
      Always excepted my dear Claudio.


      URSULA.
      I pray you, be not angry with me, madam,
      Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick,
      For shape, for bearing, argument and valour,
      Goes foremost in report through Italy.


      HERO.
      Indeed, he hath an excellent good name.


      URSULA.
      His excellence did earn it, ere he had it.
      When are you married, madam?


      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.


      URSULA.
      She’s lim’d, I warrant you,
      We have caught her, madam.


      HERO.
      If it prove so, then loving goes by haps:
      Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.


      [_Exeunt Hero and Ursula._]


      BEATRICE.
      [_Advancing._] What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
      Stand I condemn’d for pride and scorn so much?
      Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!
      No glory lives behind the back of such.
      And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
      Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand:
      If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
      To bind our loves up in a holy band;
      For others say thou dost deserve, and I
      Believe it better than reportingly.


      [_Exit._]


SCENE II. A Room in LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick and Leonato.


      DON PEDRO.
      I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go I
      toward Arragon.


      CLAUDIO.
      I’ll bring you thither, my lord, if you’ll vouchsafe me.


      DON PEDRO.
      Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your
      marriage, as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear
      it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from
      the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth;
      he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid’s bowstring, and the little
      hangman dare not shoot at him. He hath a heart as sound as a
      bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks,
      his tongue speaks.


      BENEDICK.
      Gallants, I am not as I have been.


      LEONATO.
      So say I: methinks you are sadder.


      CLAUDIO.
      I hope he be in love.


      DON PEDRO.
      Hang him, truant! there’s no true drop of blood in him to be
      truly touched with love. If he be sad, he wants money.


      BENEDICK.
      I have the tooth-ache.


      DON PEDRO.
      Draw it.


      BENEDICK.
      Hang it.


      CLAUDIO.
      You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.


      DON PEDRO.
      What! sigh for the tooth-ache?


      LEONATO.
      Where is but a humour or a worm?


      BENEDICK.
      Well, everyone can master a grief but he that has it.


      CLAUDIO.
      Yet say I, he is in love.


      DON PEDRO.
      There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that
      he hath to strange disguises; as to be a Dutchman today, a
      Frenchman tomorrow; or in the shape of two countries at once, as
      a German from the waist downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from
      the hip upward, no doublet. Unless he have a fancy to this
      foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you
      would have it appear he is.


      CLAUDIO.
      If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old
      signs: a’ brushes his hat a mornings; what should that bode?


      DON PEDRO.
      Hath any man seen him at the barber’s?


      CLAUDIO.
      No, but the barber’s man hath been seen with him; and the old
      ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis balls.


      LEONATO.
      Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.


      DON PEDRO.
      Nay, a’ rubs himself with civet: can you smell him out by that?


      CLAUDIO.
      That’s as much as to say the sweet youth’s in love.


      DON PEDRO.
      The greatest note of it is his melancholy.


      CLAUDIO.
      And when was he wont to wash his face?


      DON PEDRO.
      Yea, or to paint himself? for the which, I hear what they say of
      him.


      CLAUDIO.
      Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into a
      lute-string, and now governed by stops.


      DON PEDRO.
      Indeed, that tells a heavy tale for him. Conclude, conclude he is
      in love.


      CLAUDIO.
      Nay, but I know who loves him.


      DON PEDRO.
      That would I know too: I warrant, one that knows him not.


      CLAUDIO.
      Yes, and his ill conditions; and in despite of all, dies for him.


      DON PEDRO.
      She shall be buried with her face upwards.


      BENEDICK.
      Yet is this no charm for the tooth-ache. Old signior, walk aside
      with me: I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak to you,
      which these hobby-horses must not hear.


      [_Exeunt Benedick and Leonato._]


      DON PEDRO.
      For my life, to break with him about Beatrice.


      CLAUDIO.
      ’Tis even so. Hero and Margaret have by this played their parts
      with Beatrice, and then the two bears will not bite one another
      when they meet.


      Enter Don John.


      DON JOHN.
      My lord and brother, God save you!


      DON PEDRO.
      Good den, brother.


      DON JOHN.
      If your leisure served, I would speak with you.


      DON PEDRO.
      In private?


      DON JOHN.
      If it please you; yet Count Claudio may hear, for what I would
      speak of concerns him.


      DON PEDRO.
      What’s the matter?


      DON JOHN.
      [_To Claudio._] Means your lordship to be married tomorrow?


      DON PEDRO.
      You know he does.


      DON JOHN.
      I know not that, when he knows what I know.


      CLAUDIO.
      If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it.


      DON JOHN.
      You may think I love you not: let that appear hereafter, and aim
      better at me by that I now will manifest. For my brother, I think
      he holds you well, and in dearness of heart hath holp to effect
      your ensuing marriage; surely suit ill-spent and labour ill
      bestowed!


      DON PEDRO.
      Why, what’s the matter?


      DON JOHN.
      I came hither to tell you; and circumstances shortened,—for she
      has been too long a talking of,—the lady is disloyal.


      CLAUDIO.
      Who, Hero?


      DON JOHN.
      Even she: Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero.


      CLAUDIO.
      Disloyal?


      DON JOHN.
      The word’s too good to paint out her wickedness; I could say, she
      were worse: think you of a worse title, and I will fit her to it.
      Wonder not till further warrant: go but with me tonight, you
      shall see her chamber window entered, even the night before her
      wedding-day: if you love her then, tomorrow wed her; but it would
      better fit your honour to change your mind.


      CLAUDIO.
      May this be so?


      DON PEDRO.
      I will not think it.


      DON JOHN.
      If you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you know. If
      you will follow me, I will show you enough; and when you have
      seen more and heard more, proceed accordingly.


      CLAUDIO.
      If I see anything tonight why I should not marry her tomorrow, in
      the congregation, where I should wed, there will I shame her.


      DON PEDRO.
      And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with thee to
      disgrace her.


      DON JOHN.
      I will disparage her no farther till you are my witnesses: bear
      it coldly but till midnight, and let the issue show itself.


      DON PEDRO.
      O day untowardly turned!


      CLAUDIO.
      O mischief strangely thwarting!


      DON JOHN.
      O plague right well prevented! So will you say when you have seen
      the sequel.


      [_Exeunt._]


Scene III. A Street.

      Enter Dogberry and Verges, with the Watch.


      DOGBERRY.
      Are you good men and true?


      VERGES.
      Yea, or else it were pity but they should suffer salvation, body
      and soul.


      DOGBERRY.
      Nay, that were a punishment too good for them, if they should
      have any allegiance in them, being chosen for the Prince’s watch.


      VERGES.
      Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry.


      DOGBERRY.
      First, who think you the most desartless man to be constable?


      FIRST WATCH.
      Hugh Oatcake, sir, or George Seacoal; for they can write and
      read.


      DOGBERRY.
      Come hither, neighbour Seacoal. God hath blessed you with a good
      name: to be a well-favoured man is the gift of Fortune; but to
      write and read comes by Nature.


      SECOND WATCH.
      Both which, Master Constable,—


      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.


      SECOND WATCH.
      How, if a’ will not stand?


      DOGBERRY.
      Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently
      call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of
      a knave.


      VERGES.
      If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the
      Prince’s subjects.


      DOGBERRY.
      True, and they are to meddle with none but the Prince’s subjects.
      You shall also make no noise in the streets: for, for the watch
      to babble and to talk is most tolerable and not to be endured.


      SECOND WATCH.
      We will rather sleep than talk: we know what belongs to a watch.


      DOGBERRY.
      Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman, for I
      cannot see how sleeping should offend; only have a care that your
      bills be not stolen. Well, you are to call at all the alehouses,
      and bid those that are drunk get them to bed.


      SECOND WATCH.
      How if they will not?


      DOGBERRY.
      Why then, let them alone till they are sober: if they make you
      not then the better answer, you may say they are not the men you
      took them for.


      SECOND WATCH.
      Well, sir.


      DOGBERRY.
      If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your
      office, to be no true man; and, for such kind of men, the less
      you meddle or make with them, why, the more is for your honesty.


      SECOND WATCH.
      If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on him?


      DOGBERRY.
      Truly, by your office, you may; but I think they that touch pitch
      will be defiled. The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a
      thief, is to let him show himself what he is and steal out of
      your company.


      VERGES.
      You have been always called a merciful man, partner.


      DOGBERRY.
      Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who
      hath any honesty in him.


      VERGES.
      If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse
      and bid her still it.


      SECOND WATCH.
      How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us?


      DOGBERRY.
      Why then, depart in peace, and let the child wake her with
      crying; for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes,
      will never answer a calf when he bleats.


      VERGES.
      ’Tis very true.


      DOGBERRY.
      This is the end of the charge. You constable, are to present the
      Prince’s own person: if you meet the Prince in the night, you may
      stay him.


      VERGES.
      Nay, by’r lady, that I think, a’ cannot.


      DOGBERRY.
      Five shillings to one on’t, with any man that knows the statutes,
      he may stay him: marry, not without the Prince be willing; for,
      indeed, the watch ought to offend no man, and it is an offence to
      stay a man against his will.


      VERGES.
      By’r lady, I think it be so.


      DOGBERRY.
      Ha, ah, ha! Well, masters, good night: an there be any matter of
      weight chances, call up me: keep your fellows’ counsels and your
      own, and good night. Come, neighbour.


      SECOND WATCH.
      Well, masters, we hear our charge: let us go sit here upon the
      church bench till two, and then all to bed.


      DOGBERRY.
      One word more, honest neighbours. I pray you, watch about Signior
      Leonato’s door; for the wedding being there tomorrow, there is a
      great coil tonight. Adieu; be vigitant, I beseech you.


      [_Exeunt Dogberry and Verges._]


      Enter Borachio and Conrade.


      BORACHIO.
      What, Conrade!


      WATCH.
      [_Aside_] Peace! stir not.


      BORACHIO.
      Conrade, I say!


      CONRADE.
      Here, man. I am at thy elbow.


      BORACHIO.
      Mass, and my elbow itched; I thought there would a scab follow.


      CONRADE.
      I will owe thee an answer for that; and now forward with thy
      tale.


      BORACHIO.
      Stand thee close then under this penthouse, for it drizzles rain,
      and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.


      WATCH.
      [_Aside_] Some treason, masters; yet stand close.


      BORACHIO.
      Therefore know, I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.


      CONRADE.
      Is it possible that any villainy should be so dear?


      BORACHIO.
      Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villainy should
      be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor
      ones may make what price they will.


      CONRADE.
      I wonder at it.


      BORACHIO.
      That shows thou art unconfirmed. Thou knowest that the fashion of
      a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man.


      CONRADE.
      Yes, it is apparel.


      BORACHIO.
      I mean, the fashion.


      CONRADE.
      Yes, the fashion is the fashion.


      BORACHIO.
      Tush! I may as well say the fool’s the fool. But seest thou not
      what a deformed thief this fashion is?


      WATCH.
      [_Aside_] I know that Deformed; a’ has been a vile thief this
      seven years; a’ goes up and down like a gentleman: I remember his
      name.


      BORACHIO.
      Didst thou not hear somebody?


      CONRADE.
      No: ’twas the vane on the house.


      BORACHIO.
      Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how
      giddily he turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and
      five-and-thirty? sometime fashioning them like Pharaoh’s soldiers
      in the reechy painting; sometime like god Bel’s priests in the
      old church window; sometime like the shaven Hercules in the
      smirched worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy
      as his club?


      CONRADE.
      All this I see, and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel
      than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion
      too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of
      the fashion?


      BORACHIO.
      Not so neither; but know, that I have tonight wooed Margaret, the
      Lady Hero’s gentlewoman, by the name of Hero: she leans me out at
      her mistress’ chamber window, bids me a thousand times good
      night,—I tell this tale vilely:—I should first tell thee how the
      Prince, Claudio, and my master, planted and placed and possessed
      by my master Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable
      encounter.


      CONRADE.
      And thought they Margaret was Hero?


      BORACHIO.
      Two of them did, the Prince and Claudio; but the devil my master,
      knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which first
      possessed them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive them,
      but chiefly by my villainy, which did confirm any slander that
      Don John had made, away went Claudio enraged; swore he would meet
      her, as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and there,
      before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw o’er
      night, and send her home again without a husband.


      FIRST WATCH.
      We charge you in the Prince’s name, stand!


      SECOND WATCH.
      Call up the right Master Constable. We have here recovered the
      most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the
      commonwealth.


      FIRST WATCH.
      And one Deformed is one of them: I know him, a’ wears a lock.


      CONRADE.
      Masters, masters!


      SECOND WATCH.
      You’ll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you.


      CONRADE.
      Masters,—


      FIRST WATCH.
      Never speak: we charge you let us obey you to go with us.


      BORACHIO. We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken up
      of these men’s bills.


      CONRADE.
      A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we’ll obey you.


      [_Exeunt._]


Scene IV. A Room in LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Hero, Margaret and Ursula.


      HERO.
      Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice, and desire her to rise.


      URSULA.
      I will, lady.


      HERO.
      And bid her come hither.


      URSULA.
      Well.


      [_Exit._]


      MARGARET.
      Troth, I think your other rebato were better.


      HERO.
      No, pray thee, good Meg, I’ll wear this.


      MARGARET.
      By my troth’s not so good; and I warrant your cousin will say so.


      HERO.
      My cousin ’s a fool, and thou art another: I’ll wear none but
      this.


      MARGARET.
      I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a
      thought browner; and your gown ’s a most rare fashion, i’ faith.
      I saw the Duchess of Milan’s gown that they praise so.


      HERO.
      O! that exceeds, they say.


      MARGARET.
      By my troth ’s but a night-gown in respect of yours: cloth o’
      gold, and cuts, and laced with silver, set with pearls, down
      sleeves, side sleeves, and skirts round, underborne with a bluish
      tinsel; but for a fine, quaint, graceful, and excellent fashion,
      yours is worth ten on’t.


      HERO.
      God give me joy to wear it! for my heart is exceeding heavy.


      MARGARET.
      ’Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.


      HERO.
      Fie upon thee! art not ashamed?


      MARGARET.
      Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not marriage honourable
      in a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without marriage? I
      think you would have me say, saving your reverence, ‘a husband:’
      an bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I’ll offend nobody.
      Is there any harm in ‘the heavier for a husband’? None, I think,
      and it be the right husband and the right wife; otherwise ’tis
      light, and not heavy: ask my Lady Beatrice else; here she comes.


      Enter Beatrice.


      HERO.
      Good morrow, coz.


      BEATRICE.
      Good morrow, sweet Hero.


      HERO.
      Why, how now? do you speak in the sick tune?


      BEATRICE.
      I am out of all other tune, methinks.


      MARGARET.
      Clap’s into ‘Light o’ love’; that goes without a burden: do you
      sing it, and I’ll dance it.


      BEATRICE.
      Ye, light o’ love with your heels! then, if your husband have
      stables enough, you’ll see he shall lack no barnes.


      MARGARET.
      O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels.


      BEATRICE.
      ’Tis almost five o’clock, cousin; ’tis time you were ready. By my
      troth, I am exceeding ill. Heigh-ho!


      MARGARET.
      For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?


      BEATRICE.
      For the letter that begins them all, H.


      MARGARET.
      Well, and you be not turned Turk, there’s no more sailing by the
      star.


      BEATRICE.
      What means the fool, trow?


      MARGARET.
      Nothing I; but God send everyone their heart’s desire!


      HERO.
      These gloves the Count sent me; they are an excellent perfume.


      BEATRICE.
      I am stuffed, cousin, I cannot smell.


      MARGARET.
      A maid, and stuffed! there’s goodly catching of cold.


      BEATRICE.
      O, God help me! God help me! how long have you professed
      apprehension?


      MARGARET.
      Ever since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely!


      BEATRICE.
      It is not seen enough, you should wear it in your cap. By my
      troth, I am sick.


      MARGARET.
      Get you some of this distilled _Carduus benedictus_, and lay it
      to your heart: it is the only thing for a qualm.


      HERO.
      There thou prick’st her with a thistle.


      BEATRICE.
      _Benedictus!_ why _benedictus?_ you have some moral in this
      _benedictus_.


      MARGARET.
      Moral! no, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I meant, plain
      holy thistle. You may think, perchance, that I think you are in
      love: nay, by’r Lady, I am not such a fool to think what I list;
      nor I list not to think what I can; nor, indeed, I cannot think,
      if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you are in love,
      or that you will be in love, or that you can be in love. Yet
      Benedick was such another, and now is he become a man: he swore
      he would never marry; and yet now, in despite of his heart, he
      eats his meat without grudging: and how you may be converted, I
      know not; but methinks you look with your eyes as other women do.


      BEATRICE.
      What pace is this that thy tongue keeps?


      MARGARET.
      Not a false gallop.


      Re-enter Ursula.


      URSULA.
      Madam, withdraw: the Prince, the Count, Signior Benedick, Don
      John, and all the gallants of the town are come to fetch you to
      church.


      HERO.
      Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula.


      [_Exeunt._]


Scene V. Another Room in LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Leonato and Dogberry and Verges.


      LEONATO.
      What would you with me, honest neighbour?


      DOGBERRY.
      Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you, that decerns
      you nearly.


      LEONATO.
      Brief, I pray you; for you see it is a busy time with me.


      DOGBERRY.
      Marry, this it is, sir.


      VERGES.
      Yes, in truth it is, sir.


      LEONATO.
      What is it, my good friends?


      DOGBERRY.
      Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter: an old man,
      sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, God help, I would desire
      they were; but, in faith, honest as the skin between his brows.


      VERGES.
      Yes, I thank God, I am as honest as any man living, that is an
      old man and no honester than I.


      DOGBERRY.
      Comparisons are odorous: palabras, neighbour Verges.


      LEONATO.
      Neighbours, you are tedious.


      DOGBERRY.
      It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor Duke’s
      officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a
      king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.


      LEONATO.
      All thy tediousness on me! ah?


      DOGBERRY.
      Yea, and ’twere a thousand pound more than ’tis; for I hear as
      good exclamation on your worship, as of any man in the city, and
      though I be but a poor man, I am glad to hear it.


      VERGES.
      And so am I.


      LEONATO.
      I would fain know what you have to say.


      VERGES.
      Marry, sir, our watch tonight, excepting your worship’s presence,
      ha’ ta’en a couple of as arrant knaves as any in Messina.


      DOGBERRY.
      A good old man, sir; he will be talking; as they say, ‘when the
      age is in, the wit is out.’ God help us! it is a world to see!
      Well said, i’ faith, neighbour Verges: well, God’s a good man;
      and two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest
      soul, i’ faith, sir; by my troth he is, as ever broke bread; but
      God is to be worshipped: all men are not alike; alas! good
      neighbour.


      LEONATO.
      Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.


      DOGBERRY.
      Gifts that God gives.


      LEONATO.
      I must leave you.


      DOGBERRY.
      One word, sir: our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two
      aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined
      before your worship.


      LEONATO.
      Take their examination yourself, and bring it me: I am now in
      great haste, as may appear unto you.


      DOGBERRY.
      It shall be suffigance.


      LEONATO.
      Drink some wine ere you go: fare you well.


      Enter a Messenger.


      MESSENGER.
      My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to her husband.


      LEONATO.
      I’ll wait upon them: I am ready.


      [_Exeunt Leonato and Messenger._]


      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.


      VERGES.
      And we must do it wisely.


      DOGBERRY.
      We will spare for no wit, I warrant you; here’s that shall drive
      some of them to a non-come: only get the learned writer to set
      down our excommunication, and meet me at the gaol.


      [_Exeunt._]





ACT IV

SCENE I. The Inside of a Church.

      Enter Don Pedro, Don John, Leonato, Friar Francis, Claudio,
      Benedick, Hero, Beatrice &c.


      LEONATO.
      Come, Friar Francis, be brief: only to the plain form of
      marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties
      afterwards.


      FRIAR.
      You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?


      CLAUDIO.
      No.


      LEONATO.
      To be married to her, friar; you come to marry her.


      FRIAR.
      Lady, you come hither to be married to this Count?


      HERO.
      I do.


      FRIAR.
      If either of you know any inward impediment, why you should not
      be conjoined, I charge you, on your souls, to utter it.


      CLAUDIO.
      Know you any, Hero?


      HERO.
      None, my lord.


      FRIAR.
      Know you any, Count?


      LEONATO.
      I dare make his answer; none.


      CLAUDIO.
      O! what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not
      knowing what they do!


      BENEDICK.
      How now! Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as ah! ha!
      he!


      CLAUDIO.
      Stand thee by, Friar. Father, by your leave:
      Will you with free and unconstrained soul
      Give me this maid, your daughter?


      LEONATO.
      As freely, son, as God did give her me.


      CLAUDIO.
      And what have I to give you back whose worth
      May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?


      DON PEDRO.
      Nothing, unless you render her again.


      CLAUDIO.
      Sweet Prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.
      There, Leonato, take her back again:
      Give not this rotten orange to your friend;
      She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour.
      Behold! how like a maid she blushes here.
      O! what authority and show of truth
      Can cunning sin cover itself withal.
      Comes not that blood as modest evidence
      To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,
      All you that see her, that she were a maid,
      By these exterior shows? But she is none:
      She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;
      Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.


      LEONATO.
      What do you mean, my lord?


      CLAUDIO.
      Not to be married,
      Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.


      LEONATO.
      Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,
      Have vanquish’d the resistance of her youth,
      And made defeat of her virginity,—


      CLAUDIO.
      I know what you would say: if I have known her,
      You will say she did embrace me as a husband,
      And so extenuate the forehand sin: No, Leonato,
      I never tempted her with word too large;
      But as a brother to his sister show’d
      Bashful sincerity and comely love.


      HERO.
      And seem’d I ever otherwise to you?


      CLAUDIO.
      Out on thee! Seeming! I will write against it:
      You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
      As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;
      But you are more intemperate in your blood
      Than Venus, or those pamper’d animals
      That rage in savage sensuality.


      HERO.
      Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?


      LEONATO.
      Sweet Prince, why speak not you?


      DON PEDRO.
      What should I speak?
      I stand dishonour’d, that have gone about
      To link my dear friend to a common stale.


      LEONATO.
      Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?


      DON JOHN.
      Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.


      BENEDICK.
      This looks not like a nuptial.


      HERO.
      True! O God!


      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?


      LEONATO.
      All this is so; but what of this, my lord?


      CLAUDIO.
      Let me but move one question to your daughter,
      And by that fatherly and kindly power
      That you have in her, bid her answer truly.


      LEONATO.
      I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.


      HERO.
      O, God defend me! how am I beset!
      What kind of catechizing call you this?


      CLAUDIO.
      To make you answer truly to your name.


      HERO.
      Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name
      With any just reproach?


      CLAUDIO.
      Marry, that can Hero:
      Hero itself can blot out Hero’s virtue.
      What man was he talk’d with you yesternight
      Out at your window, betwixt twelve and one?
      Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.


      HERO.
      I talk’d with no man at that hour, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      Why, then are you no maiden.
      Leonato, I am sorry you must hear: upon my honour,
      Myself, my brother, and this grieved Count,
      Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night,
      Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window;
      Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,
      Confess’d the vile encounters they have had
      A thousand times in secret.


      DON JOHN.
      Fie, fie! they are not to be nam’d, my lord,
      Not to be spoke of;
      There is not chastity enough in language
      Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,
      I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.


      CLAUDIO.
      O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been,
      If half thy outward graces had been plac’d
      About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!
      But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell,
      Thou pure impiety, and impious purity!
      For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love,
      And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
      To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
      And never shall it more be gracious.


      LEONATO.
      Hath no man’s dagger here a point for me?


      [_Hero swoons._]


      BEATRICE.
      Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down?


      DON JOHN.
      Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light,
      Smother her spirits up.


      [_Exeunt Don Pedro, Don John and Claudio._]


      BENEDICK.
      How doth the lady?


      BEATRICE.
      Dead, I think! Help, uncle! Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior
      Benedick! Friar!


      LEONATO.
      O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand:
      Death is the fairest cover for her shame
      That may be wish’d for.


      BEATRICE.
      How now, cousin Hero?


      FRIAR.
      Have comfort, lady.


      LEONATO.
      Dost thou look up?


      FRIAR.
      Yea; wherefore should she not?


      LEONATO.
      Wherefore! Why, doth not every earthly thing
      Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny
      The story that is printed in her blood?
      Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes;
      For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,
      Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,
      Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,
      Strike at thy life. Griev’d I, I had but one?
      Chid I for that at frugal Nature’s frame?
      O! one too much by thee. Why had I one?
      Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes?
      Why had I not with charitable hand
      Took up a beggar’s issue at my gates,
      Who smirched thus, and mir’d with infamy,
      I might have said, ‘No part of it is mine;
      This shame derives itself from unknown loins?’
      But mine, and mine I lov’d, and mine I prais’d,
      And mine that I was proud on, mine so much
      That I myself was to myself not mine,
      Valuing of her; why, she—O! she is fallen
      Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea
      Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,
      And salt too little which may season give
      To her foul tainted flesh.


      BENEDICK.
      Sir, sir, be patient.
      For my part, I am so attir’d in wonder,
      I know not what to say.


      BEATRICE.
      O! on my soul, my cousin is belied!


      BENEDICK.
      Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?


      BEATRICE.
      No, truly, not; although, until last night,
      I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow.


      LEONATO.
      Confirm’d, confirm’d! O! that is stronger made,
      Which was before barr’d up with ribs of iron.
      Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie,
      Who lov’d her so, that, speaking of her foulness,
      Wash’d it with tears? Hence from her! let her die.


      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.


      LEONATO.
      Friar, it cannot be.
      Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left
      Is that she will not add to her damnation
      A sin of perjury: she not denies it.
      Why seek’st thou then to cover with excuse
      That which appears in proper nakedness?


      FRIAR.
      Lady, what man is he you are accus’d of?


      HERO.
      They know that do accuse me, I know none;
      If I know more of any man alive
      Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,
      Let all my sins lack mercy! O, my father!
      Prove you that any man with me convers’d
      At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight
      Maintain’d the change of words with any creature,
      Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.


      FRIAR.
      There is some strange misprision in the princes.


      BENEDICK.
      Two of them have the very bent of honour;
      And if their wisdoms be misled in this,
      The practice of it lives in John the bastard,
      Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies.


      LEONATO.
      I know not. If they speak but truth of her,
      These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour,
      The proudest of them shall well hear of it.
      Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,
      Nor age so eat up my invention,
      Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,
      Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,
      But they shall find, awak’d in such a kind,
      Both strength of limb and policy of mind,
      Ability in means and choice of friends,
      To quit me of them throughly.


      FRIAR.
      Pause awhile,
      And let my counsel sway you in this case.
      Your daughter here the princes left for dead;
      Let her awhile be secretly kept in,
      And publish it that she is dead indeed:
      Maintain a mourning ostentation;
      And on your family’s old monument
      Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites
      That appertain unto a burial.


      LEONATO.
      What shall become of this? What will this do?


      FRIAR.
      Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf
      Change slander to remorse; that is some good.
      But not for that dream I on this strange course,
      But on this travail look for greater birth.
      She dying, as it must be so maintain’d,
      Upon the instant that she was accus’d,
      Shall be lamented, pitied and excus’d
      Of every hearer; for it so falls out
      That what we have we prize not to the worth
      Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost,
      Why, then we rack the value, then we find
      The virtue that possession would not show us
      Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:
      When he shall hear she died upon his words,
      The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
      Into his study of imagination,
      And every lovely organ of her life
      Shall come apparell’d in more precious habit,
      More moving, delicate, and full of life
      Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
      Than when she liv’d indeed: then shall he mourn,—
      If ever love had interest in his liver,—
      And wish he had not so accused her,
      No, though he thought his accusation true.
      Let this be so, and doubt not but success
      Will fashion the event in better shape
      Than I can lay it down in likelihood.
      But if all aim but this be levell’d false,
      The supposition of the lady’s death
      Will quench the wonder of her infamy:
      And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,—
      As best befits her wounded reputation,—
      In some reclusive and religious life,
      Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.


      BENEDICK.
      Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you:
      And though you know my inwardness and love
      Is very much unto the Prince and Claudio,
      Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this
      As secretly and justly as your soul
      Should with your body.


      LEONATO.
      Being that I flow in grief,
      The smallest twine may lead me.


      FRIAR.
      ’Tis well consented: presently away;
      For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.
      Come, lady, die to live: this wedding day
      Perhaps is but prolong’d: have patience and endure.


      [_Exeunt Friar, Hero and Leonato._]


      BENEDICK.
      Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?


      BEATRICE.
      Yea, and I will weep a while longer.


      BENEDICK.
      I will not desire that.


      BEATRICE.
      You have no reason; I do it freely.


      BENEDICK.
      Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.


      BEATRICE.
      Ah! how much might the man deserve of me that would right her.


      BENEDICK.
      Is there any way to show such friendship?


      BEATRICE.
      A very even way, but no such friend.


      BENEDICK.
      May a man do it?


      BEATRICE.
      It is a man’s office, but not yours.


      BENEDICK.
      I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that
      strange?


      BEATRICE.
      As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to
      say I loved nothing so well as you; but believe me not, and yet I
      lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my
      cousin.


      BENEDICK.
      By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.


      BEATRICE.
      Do not swear by it, and eat it.


      BENEDICK.
      I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it
      that says I love not you.


      BEATRICE.
      Will you not eat your word?


      BENEDICK.
      With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee.


      BEATRICE.
      Why then, God forgive me!


      BENEDICK.
      What offence, sweet Beatrice?


      BEATRICE.
      You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I
      loved you.


      BENEDICK.
      And do it with all thy heart.


      BEATRICE.
      I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.


      BENEDICK.
      Come, bid me do anything for thee.


      BEATRICE.
      Kill Claudio.


      BENEDICK.
      Ha! not for the wide world.


      BEATRICE.
      You kill me to deny it. Farewell.


      BENEDICK.
      Tarry, sweet Beatrice.


      BEATRICE.
      I am gone, though I am here: there is no love in you: nay, I pray
      you, let me go.


      BENEDICK.
      Beatrice,—


      BEATRICE.
      In faith, I will go.


      BENEDICK.
      We’ll be friends first.


      BEATRICE.
      You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.


      BENEDICK.
      Is Claudio thine enemy?


      BEATRICE.
      Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered,
      scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O! that I were a man. What!
      bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then, with
      public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,—O God,
      that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.


      BENEDICK.
      Hear me, Beatrice,—


      BEATRICE.
      Talk with a man out at a window! a proper saying!


      BENEDICK.
      Nay, but Beatrice,—


      BEATRICE.
      Sweet Hero! she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.


      BENEDICK.
      Beat—


      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.


      BENEDICK.
      Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.


      BEATRICE.
      Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.


      BENEDICK.
      Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?


      BEATRICE.
      Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.


      BENEDICK.
      Enough! I am engaged, I will challenge him. I will kiss your
      hand, and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a
      dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your
      cousin: I must say she is dead; and so, farewell.


      [_Exeunt._]


Scene II. A Prison.

      Enter Dogberry, Verges, and Sexton, in gowns; and the Watch, with
      Conrade and Borachio.


      DOGBERRY.
      Is our whole dissembly appeared?


      VERGES.
      O! a stool and a cushion for the sexton.


      SEXTON.
      Which be the malefactors?


      DOGBERRY.
      Marry, that am I and my partner.


      VERGES.
      Nay, that’s certain: we have the exhibition to examine.


      SEXTON.
      But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them
      come before Master Constable.


      DOGBERRY.
      Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your name, friend?


      BORACHIO.
      Borachio.


      DOGBERRY.
      Pray write down Borachio. Yours, sirrah?


      CONRADE.
      I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.


      DOGBERRY.
      Write down Master gentleman Conrade. Masters, do you serve God?


      BOTH.
      Yea, sir, we hope.


      DOGBERRY.
      Write down that they hope they serve God: and write God first;
      for God defend but God should go before such villains! Masters,
      it is proved already that you are little better than false
      knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer
      you for yourselves?


      CONRADE.
      Marry, sir, we say we are none.


      DOGBERRY.
      A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with
      him. Come you hither, sirrah; a word in your ear: sir, I say to
      you, it is thought you are false knaves.


      BORACHIO.
      Sir, I say to you we are none.


      DOGBERRY.
      Well, stand aside. Fore God, they are both in a tale. Have you
      writ down, that they are none?


      SEXTON.
      Master Constable, you go not the way to examine: you must call
      forth the watch that are their accusers.


      DOGBERRY.
      Yea, marry, that’s the eftest way. Let the watch come forth.
      Masters, I charge you, in the Prince’s name, accuse these men.


      FIRST WATCH.
      This man said, sir, that Don John, the Prince’s brother, was a
      villain.


      DOGBERRY.
      Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat perjury, to
      call a Prince’s brother villain.


      BORACHIO.
      Master Constable,—


      DOGBERRY.
      Pray thee, fellow, peace: I do not like thy look, I promise thee.


      SEXTON.
      What heard you him say else?


      SECOND WATCH.
      Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for
      accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.


      DOGBERRY.
      Flat burglary as ever was committed.


      VERGES.
      Yea, by the mass, that it is.


      SEXTON.
      What else, fellow?


      FIRST WATCH.
      And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero
      before the whole assembly, and not marry her.


      DOGBERRY.
      O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for
      this.


      SEXTON.
      What else?


      SECOND WATCH.
      This is all.


      SEXTON.
      And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this
      morning secretly stolen away: Hero was in this manner accused, in
      this manner refused, and, upon the grief of this, suddenly died.
      Master Constable, let these men be bound, and brought to
      Leonato’s: I will go before and show him their examination.


      [_Exit._]


      DOGBERRY.
      Come, let them be opinioned.


      VERGES.
      Let them be in the hands—


      CONRADE.
      Off, coxcomb!


      DOGBERRY.
      God’s my life! where’s the sexton? let him write down the
      Prince’s officer coxcomb. Come, bind them. Thou naughty varlet!


      CONRADE.
      Away! you are an ass; you are an ass.


      DOGBERRY.
      Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O
      that he were here to write me down an ass! but, masters, remember
      that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not
      that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as
      shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow;
      and, which is more, an officer; and, which is more, a
      householder; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as
      any in Messina; and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich
      fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses; and one
      that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him. Bring him
      away. O that I had been writ down an ass!


      [_Exeunt._]





ACT V

SCENE I. Before LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Leonato and Antonio.


      ANTONIO.
      If you go on thus, you will kill yourself
      And ’tis not wisdom thus to second grief
      Against yourself.


      LEONATO.
      I pray thee, cease thy counsel,
      Which falls into mine ears as profitless
      As water in a sieve: give not me counsel;
      Nor let no comforter delight mine ear
      But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine:
      Bring me a father that so lov’d his child,
      Whose joy of her is overwhelm’d like mine,
      And bid him speak of patience;
      Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,
      And let it answer every strain for strain,
      As thus for thus and such a grief for such,
      In every lineament, branch, shape, and form:
      If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard;
      Bid sorrow wag, cry ‘hem’ when he should groan,
      Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
      With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me,
      And I of him will gather patience.
      But there is no such man; for, brother, men
      Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
      Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
      Their counsel turns to passion, which before
      Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
      Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
      Charm ache with air and agony with words.
      No, no; ’tis all men’s office to speak patience
      To those that wring under the load of sorrow,
      But no man’s virtue nor sufficiency
      To be so moral when he shall endure
      The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel:
      My griefs cry louder than advertisement.


      ANTONIO.
      Therein do men from children nothing differ.


      LEONATO.
      I pray thee peace! I will be flesh and blood;
      For there was never yet philosopher
      That could endure the toothache patiently,
      However they have writ the style of gods
      And made a push at chance and sufferance.


      ANTONIO.
      Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself;
      Make those that do offend you suffer too.


      LEONATO.
      There thou speak’st reason: nay, I will do so.
      My soul doth tell me Hero is belied;
      And that shall Claudio know; so shall the Prince,
      And all of them that thus dishonour her.


      ANTONIO.
      Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily.


      Enter Don Pedro and Claudio.


      DON PEDRO.
      Good den, good den.


      CLAUDIO.
      Good day to both of you.


      LEONATO.
      Hear you, my lords,—


      DON PEDRO.
      We have some haste, Leonato.


      LEONATO.
      Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord:
      Are you so hasty now?—well, all is one.


      DON PEDRO.
      Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.


      ANTONIO.
      If he could right himself with quarrelling,
      Some of us would lie low.


      CLAUDIO.
      Who wrongs him?


      LEONATO.
      Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou.
      Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword;
      I fear thee not.


      CLAUDIO.
      Marry, beshrew my hand,
      If it should give your age such cause of fear.
      In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.


      LEONATO.
      Tush, tush, man! never fleer and jest at me:
      I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,
      As, under privilege of age, to brag
      What I have done being young, or what would do,
      Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,
      Thou hast so wrong’d mine innocent child and me
      That I am forc’d to lay my reverence by,
      And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days,
      Do challenge thee to trial of a man.
      I say thou hast belied mine innocent child:
      Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
      And she lies buried with her ancestors;
      O! in a tomb where never scandal slept,
      Save this of hers, fram’d by thy villainy!


      CLAUDIO.
      My villainy?


      LEONATO.
      Thine, Claudio; thine, I say.


      DON PEDRO.
      You say not right, old man,


      LEONATO.
      My lord, my lord, I’ll prove it on his body, if he dare,
      Despite his nice fence and his active practice,
      His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.


      CLAUDIO.
      Away! I will not have to do with you.


      LEONATO.
      Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill’d my child;
      If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.


      ANTONIO.
      He shall kill two of us, and men indeed:
      But that’s no matter; let him kill one first:
      Win me and wear me; let him answer me.
      Come, follow me, boy; come, sir boy, come, follow me.
      Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence;
      Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.


      LEONATO.
      Brother,—


      ANTONIO.
      Content yourself. God knows I lov’d my niece;
      And she is dead, slander’d to death by villains,
      That dare as well answer a man indeed
      As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.
      Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!


      LEONATO.
      Brother Anthony,—


      ANTONIO.
      Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,
      And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,
      Scambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys,
      That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,
      Go antickly, show outward hideousness,
      And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,
      How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;
      And this is all!


      LEONATO.
      But, brother Anthony,—


      ANTONIO.
      Come, ’tis no matter:
      Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.


      DON PEDRO.
      Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.
      My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death;
      But, on my honour, she was charg’d with nothing
      But what was true and very full of proof.


      LEONATO.
      My lord, my lord—


      DON PEDRO.
      I will not hear you.


      LEONATO.
      No? Come, brother, away. I will be heard.—


      ANTONIO.
      And shall, or some of us will smart for it.


      [_Exeunt Leonato and Antonio._]


      Enter Benedick.


      DON PEDRO.
      See, see; here comes the man we went to seek.


      CLAUDIO.
      Now, signior, what news?


      BENEDICK.
      Good day, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      Welcome, signior: you are almost come to part almost a fray.


      CLAUDIO.
      We had like to have had our two noses snapped off with two old
      men without teeth.


      DON PEDRO.
      Leonato and his brother. What think’st thou? Had we fought, I
      doubt we should have been too young for them.


      BENEDICK.
      In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you
      both.


      CLAUDIO.
      We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high-proof
      melancholy, and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy
      wit?


      BENEDICK.
      It is in my scabbard; shall I draw it?


      DON PEDRO.
      Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?


      CLAUDIO.
      Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I
      will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrels; draw, to pleasure us.


      DON PEDRO.
      As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick, or angry?


      CLAUDIO.
      What, courage, man! What though care killed a cat, thou hast
      mettle enough in thee to kill care.


      BENEDICK.
      Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, and you charge it
      against me. I pray you choose another subject.


      CLAUDIO.
      Nay then, give him another staff: this last was broke cross.


      DON PEDRO.
      By this light, he changes more and more: I think he be angry
      indeed.


      CLAUDIO.
      If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.


      BENEDICK.
      Shall I speak a word in your ear?


      CLAUDIO.
      God bless me from a challenge!


      BENEDICK.
      [_Aside to Claudio._] You are a villain, I jest not: I will make
      it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do
      me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a
      sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear
      from you.


      CLAUDIO.
      Well I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.


      DON PEDRO.
      What, a feast, a feast?


      CLAUDIO.
      I’ faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calf’s-head and a
      capon, the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife’s
      naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too?


      BENEDICK.
      Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.


      DON PEDRO.
      I’ll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day. I
      said, thou hadst a fine wit. ‘True,’ says she, ‘a fine little
      one.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘a great wit.’ ‘Right,’ said she, ‘a great
      gross one.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘a good wit.’ ‘Just,’ said she, ‘it
      hurts nobody.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘the gentleman is wise.’ ‘Certain,’
      said she, ‘a wise gentleman.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘he hath the
      tongues.’ ‘That I believe’ said she, ‘for he swore a thing to me
      on Monday night, which he forswore on Tuesday morning: there’s a
      double tongue; there’s two tongues.’ Thus did she, an hour
      together, trans-shape thy particular virtues; yet at last she
      concluded with a sigh, thou wast the properest man in Italy.


      CLAUDIO.
      For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not.


      DON PEDRO.
      Yea, that she did; but yet, for all that, an if she did not hate
      him deadly, she would love him dearly. The old man’s daughter
      told us all.


      CLAUDIO.
      All, all; and moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the
      garden.


      DON PEDRO.
      But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensible
      Benedick’s head?


      CLAUDIO.
      Yea, and text underneath, ‘Here dwells Benedick the married man!’


      BENEDICK.
      Fare you well, boy: you know my mind. I will leave you now to
      your gossip-like humour; you break jests as braggarts do their
      blades, which, God be thanked, hurt not. My lord, for your many
      courtesies I thank you: I must discontinue your company. Your
      brother the bastard is fled from Messina: you have, among you,
      killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lack-beard there,
      he and I shall meet; and till then, peace be with him.


      [_Exit._]


      DON PEDRO.
      He is in earnest.


      CLAUDIO.
      In most profound earnest; and, I’ll warrant you, for the love of
      Beatrice.


      DON PEDRO.
      And hath challenged thee?


      CLAUDIO.
      Most sincerely.


      DON PEDRO.
      What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose
      and leaves off his wit!


      CLAUDIO.
      He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a doctor to such
      a man.


      DON PEDRO.
      But, soft you; let me be: pluck up, my heart, and be sad! Did he
      not say my brother was fled?


      Enter Dogberry, Verges,  and the Watch, with Conrade and
      Borachio.


      DOGBERRY.
      Come you, sir: if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne’er weigh
      more reasons in her balance. Nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite
      once, you must be looked to.


      DON PEDRO.
      How now! two of my brother’s men bound! Borachio, one!


      CLAUDIO.
      Hearken after their offence, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      Officers, what offence have these men done?


      DOGBERRY.
      Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have
      spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and
      lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified
      unjust things; and to conclude, they are lying knaves.


      DON PEDRO.
      First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what’s
      their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and, to
      conclude, what you lay to their charge?


      CLAUDIO.
      Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and, by my troth,
      there’s one meaning well suited.


      DON PEDRO.
      Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your
      answer? This learned constable is too cunning to be understood.
      What’s your offence?


      BORACHIO.
      Sweet Prince, let me go no farther to mine answer: do you hear
      me, and let this Count kill me. I have deceived even your very
      eyes: what your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools
      have brought to light; who, in the night overheard me confessing
      to this man how Don John your brother incensed me to slander the
      Lady Hero; how you were brought into the orchard and saw me court
      Margaret in Hero’s garments; how you disgraced her, when you
      should marry her. My villainy they have upon record; which I had
      rather seal with my death than repeat over to my shame. The lady
      is dead upon mine and my master’s false accusation; and, briefly,
      I desire nothing but the reward of a villain.


      DON PEDRO.
      Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?


      CLAUDIO.
      I have drunk poison whiles he utter’d it.


      DON PEDRO.
      But did my brother set thee on to this?


      BORACHIO.
      Yea; and paid me richly for the practice of it.


      DON PEDRO.
      He is compos’d and fram’d of treachery: And fled he is upon this
      villainy.


      CLAUDIO.
      Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear
      In the rare semblance that I lov’d it first.


      DOGBERRY.
      Come, bring away the plaintiffs: by this time our sexton hath
      reformed Signior Leonato of the matter. And masters, do not
      forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an
      ass.


      VERGES.
      Here, here comes Master Signior Leonato, and the sexton too.


      Re-enter Leonato, Antonio and the Sexton.


      LEONATO.
      Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes,
      That, when I note another man like him,
      I may avoid him. Which of these is he?


      BORACHIO.
      If you would know your wronger, look on me.


      LEONATO.
      Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill’d
      Mine innocent child?


      BORACHIO.
      Yea, even I alone.


      LEONATO.
      No, not so, villain; thou beliest thyself:
      Here stand a pair of honourable men;
      A third is fled, that had a hand in it.
      I thank you, princes, for my daughter’s death:
      Record it with your high and worthy deeds.
      ’Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.


      CLAUDIO.
      I know not how to pray your patience;
      Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;
      Impose me to what penance your invention
      Can lay upon my sin: yet sinn’d I not
      But in mistaking.


      DON PEDRO.
      By my soul, nor I:
      And yet, to satisfy this good old man,
      I would bend under any heavy weight
      That he’ll enjoin me to.


      LEONATO.
      I cannot bid you bid my daughter live;
      That were impossible; but, I pray you both,
      Possess the people in Messina here
      How innocent she died; and if your love
      Can labour aught in sad invention,
      Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,
      And sing it to her bones: sing it tonight.
      Tomorrow morning come you to my house,
      And since you could not be my son-in-law,
      Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter,
      Almost the copy of my child that’s dead,
      And she alone is heir to both of us:
      Give her the right you should have given her cousin,
      And so dies my revenge.


      CLAUDIO.
      O noble sir,
      Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!
      I do embrace your offer; and dispose
      For henceforth of poor Claudio.


      LEONATO.
      Tomorrow then I will expect your coming;
      Tonight I take my leave. This naughty man
      Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,
      Who, I believe, was pack’d in all this wrong,
      Hir’d to it by your brother.


      BORACHIO.
      No, by my soul she was not;
      Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me;
      But always hath been just and virtuous
      In anything that I do know by her.


      DOGBERRY.
      Moreover, sir,—which, indeed, is not under white and black,— this
      plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass: I beseech you, let
      it be remembered in his punishment. And also, the watch heard
      them talk of one Deformed: they say he wears a key in his ear and
      a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God’s name, the which
      he hath used so long and never paid, that now men grow
      hard-hearted, and will lend nothing for God’s sake. Pray you,
      examine him upon that point.


      LEONATO.
      I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.


      DOGBERRY.
      Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth, and
      I praise God for you.


      LEONATO.
      There’s for thy pains.


      DOGBERRY.
      God save the foundation!


      LEONATO.
      Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.


      DOGBERRY.
      I leave an arrant knave with your worship; which I beseech your
      worship to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep
      your worship! I wish your worship well; God restore you to
      health! I humbly give you leave to depart, and if a merry meeting
      may be wished, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour.


      [_Exeunt Dogberry and Verges._]


      LEONATO.
      Until tomorrow morning, lords, farewell.


      ANTONIO.
      Farewell, my lords: we look for you tomorrow.


      DON PEDRO.
      We will not fail.


      CLAUDIO.
      Tonight I’ll mourn with Hero.


      [_Exeunt Don Pedro and Claudio._]


      LEONATO.
      [_To the Watch._] Bring you these fellows on. We’ll talk with
      Margaret,
      How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE II. LEONATO’S Garden.

      Enter Benedick and Margaret, meeting.


      BENEDICK.
      Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by
      helping me to the speech of Beatrice.


      MARGARET.
      Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?


      BENEDICK.
      In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over
      it; for, in most comely truth, thou deservest it.


      MARGARET.
      To have no man come over me! why, shall I always keep below
      stairs?


      BENEDICK.
      Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound’s mouth; it catches.


      MARGARET.
      And yours as blunt as the fencer’s foils, which hit, but hurt
      not.


      BENEDICK.
      A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a woman: and so, I
      pray thee, call Beatrice. I give thee the bucklers.


      MARGARET.
      Give us the swords, we have bucklers of our own.


      BENEDICK.
      If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice;
      and they are dangerous weapons for maids.


      MARGARET.
      Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.


      BENEDICK.
      And therefore will come.


      [_Exit Margaret._]


          The god of love,
           That sits above,
         And knows me, and knows me,
            How pitiful I deserve,—


      I mean, in singing: but in loving, Leander the good swimmer,
      Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of
      these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the
      even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned
      over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in
      rime; I have tried: I can find out no rime to ‘lady’ but ‘baby’,
      an innocent rime; for ‘scorn,’ ‘horn’, a hard rime; for ‘school’,
      ‘fool’, a babbling rime; very ominous endings: no, I was not born
      under a riming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.


      Enter Beatrice.


      Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?


      BEATRICE.
      Yea, signior; and depart when you bid me.


      BENEDICK.
      O, stay but till then!


      BEATRICE.
      ‘Then’ is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere I go, let me go
      with that I came for; which is, with knowing what hath passed
      between you and Claudio.


      BENEDICK.
      Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.


      BEATRICE.
      Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath,
      and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.


      BENEDICK.
      Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible
      is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my
      challenge, and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will
      subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me, for which
      of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?


      BEATRICE.
      For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of
      evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with
      them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love
      for me?


      BENEDICK.
      ‘Suffer love,’ a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I
      love thee against my will.


      BEATRICE.
      In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart! If you spite
      it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love
      that which my friend hates.


      BENEDICK.
      Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.


      BEATRICE.
      It appears not in this confession: there’s not one wise man among
      twenty that will praise himself.


      BENEDICK.
      An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good
      neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he
      dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and
      the widow weeps.


      BEATRICE. And how long is that think you?


      BENEDICK.
      Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum:
      therefore is it most expedient for the wise,—if Don Worm, his
      conscience, find no impediment to the contrary,—to be the trumpet
      of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising
      myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy. And now
      tell me, how doth your cousin?


      BEATRICE.
      Very ill.


      BENEDICK.
      And how do you?


      BEATRICE.
      Very ill too.


      BENEDICK.
      Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you too, for
      here comes one in haste.


      Enter Ursula.


      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?


      BEATRICE.
      Will you go hear this news, signior?


      BENEDICK.
      I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy
      eyes; and moreover I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE III. The Inside of a Church.

      Enter Don Pedro, Claudio and Attendants, with music and tapers.


      CLAUDIO.
      Is this the monument of Leonato?


      A LORD.
      It is, my lord.


      CLAUDIO.
      [_Reads from a scroll._]


      Epitaph.


        Done to death by slanderous tongues
           Was the Hero that here lies:
          Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,
             Gives her fame which never dies.
            So the life that died with shame
             Lives in death with glorious fame.


      Hang thou there upon the tomb,


      Praising her when I am dumb.
      Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.


      Song.


       Pardon, goddess of the night,
         Those that slew thy virgin knight;
          For the which, with songs of woe,
           Round about her tomb they go.
               Midnight, assist our moan;
                Help us to sigh and groan,
                    Heavily, heavily:
                  Graves, yawn and yield your dead,
                   Till death be uttered,
              Heavily, heavily.


      CLAUDIO.
      Now, unto thy bones good night!
      Yearly will I do this rite.


      DON PEDRO.
      Good morrow, masters: put your torches out.
      The wolves have prey’d; and look, the gentle day,
      Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
      Dapples the drowsy East with spots of grey.
      Thanks to you all, and leave us: fare you well.


      CLAUDIO.
      Good morrow, masters: each his several way.


      DON PEDRO.
      Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds;
      And then to Leonato’s we will go.


      CLAUDIO.
      And Hymen now with luckier issue speed’s,
      Than this for whom we rend’red up this woe!


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE IV. A Room in LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Leonato, Antonio, Benedick, Beatrice, Margaret, Ursula,
      Friar Francis and Hero.


      FRIAR.
      Did I not tell you she was innocent?


      LEONATO.
      So are the Prince and Claudio, who accus’d her
      Upon the error that you heard debated:
      But Margaret was in some fault for this,
      Although against her will, as it appears
      In the true course of all the question.


      ANTONIO.
      Well, I am glad that all things sort so well.


      BENEDICK.
      And so am I, being else by faith enforc’d
      To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.


      LEONATO.
      Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,
      Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,
      And when I send for you, come hither mask’d:
      The Prince and Claudio promis’d by this hour
      To visit me.


      [_Exeunt Ladies._]


      You know your office, brother;
      You must be father to your brother’s daughter,
      And give her to young Claudio.


      ANTONIO.
      Which I will do with confirm’d countenance.


      BENEDICK.
      Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think.


      FRIAR.
      To do what, signior?


      BENEDICK.
      To bind me, or undo me; one of them.
      Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior,
      Your niece regards me with an eye of favour.


      LEONATO.
      That eye my daughter lent her. ’Tis most true.


      BENEDICK.
      And I do with an eye of love requite her.


      LEONATO.
      The sight whereof I think, you had from me,
      From Claudio, and the Prince. But what’s your will?


      BENEDICK.
      Your answer, sir, is enigmatical:
      But, for my will, my will is your good will
      May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin’d
      In the state of honourable marriage:
      In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.


      LEONATO.
      My heart is with your liking.


      FRIAR.
      And my help. Here comes the Prince and Claudio.


      Enter Don Pedro and Claudio, with Attendants.


      DON PEDRO.
      Good morrow to this fair assembly.


      LEONATO.
      Good morrow, Prince; good morrow, Claudio:
      We here attend you. Are you yet determin’d
      Today to marry with my brother’s daughter?


      CLAUDIO.
      I’ll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope.


      LEONATO.
      Call her forth, brother: here’s the friar ready.


      [_Exit Antonio._]


      DON PEDRO.
      Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what’s the matter,
      That you have such a February face,
      So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?


      CLAUDIO.
      I think he thinks upon the savage bull.
      Tush! fear not, man, we’ll tip thy horns with gold,
      And all Europa shall rejoice at thee,
      As once Europa did at lusty Jove,
      When he would play the noble beast in love.


      BENEDICK.
      Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low:
      And some such strange bull leap’d your father’s cow,
      And got a calf in that same noble feat,
      Much like to you, for you have just his bleat.


      CLAUDIO.
      For this I owe you: here comes other reckonings.


      Re-enter Antonio, with the ladies masked.


      Which is the lady I must seize upon?


      ANTONIO.
      This same is she, and I do give you her.


      CLAUDIO.
      Why then, she’s mine. Sweet, let me see your face.


      LEONATO.
      No, that you shall not, till you take her hand
      Before this friar, and swear to marry her.


      CLAUDIO.
      Give me your hand: before this holy friar,
      I am your husband, if you like of me.


      HERO.
      And when I liv’d, I was your other wife:
      [_Unmasking._] And when you lov’d, you were my other husband.


      CLAUDIO.
      Another Hero!


      HERO.
      Nothing certainer:
      One Hero died defil’d, but I do live,
      And surely as I live, I am a maid.


      DON PEDRO.
      The former Hero! Hero that is dead!


      LEONATO.
      She died, my lord, but whiles her slander liv’d.


      FRIAR.
      All this amazement can I qualify:
      When after that the holy rites are ended,
      I’ll tell you largely of fair Hero’s death:
      Meantime, let wonder seem familiar,
      And to the chapel let us presently.


      BENEDICK.
      Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice?


      BEATRICE.
      [_Unmasking._] I answer to that name. What is your will?


      BENEDICK.
      Do not you love me?


      BEATRICE.
      Why, no; no more than reason.


      BENEDICK.
      Why, then, your uncle and the Prince and Claudio
      Have been deceived; for they swore you did.


      BEATRICE.
      Do not you love me?


      BENEDICK.
      Troth, no; no more than reason.


      BEATRICE.
      Why, then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula,
      Are much deceiv’d; for they did swear you did.


      BENEDICK.
      They swore that you were almost sick for me.


      BEATRICE.
      They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.


      BENEDICK.
      ’Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?


      BEATRICE.
      No, truly, but in friendly recompense.


      LEONATO.
      Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.


      CLAUDIO.
      And I’ll be sworn upon ’t that he loves her;
      For here’s a paper written in his hand,
      A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,
      Fashion’d to Beatrice.


      HERO.
      And here’s another,
      Writ in my cousin’s hand, stolen from her pocket,
      Containing her affection unto Benedick.


      BENEDICK.
      A miracle! here’s our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will
      have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity.


      BEATRICE.
      I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great
      persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were
      in a consumption.


      BENEDICK.
      Peace! I will stop your mouth. [_Kisses her._]


      DON PEDRO.
      How dost thou, Benedick, the married man?


      BENEDICK.
      I’ll tell thee what, Prince; a college of witcrackers cannout
      flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think I care for a satire or
      an epigram? No; if man will be beaten with brains, a’ shall wear
      nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to
      marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say
      against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said
      against it, for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.
      For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but, in
      that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised, and love my
      cousin.


      CLAUDIO.
      I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might
      have cudgelled thee out of thy single life, to make thee a
      double-dealer; which, out of question, thou wilt be, if my cousin
      do not look exceeding narrowly to thee.


      BENEDICK.
      Come, come, we are friends. Let’s have a dance ere we are
      married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives’ heels.


      LEONATO.
      We’ll have dancing afterward.


      BENEDICK.
      First, of my word; therefore play, music! Prince, thou art sad;
      get thee a wife, get thee a wife: there is no staff more reverent
      than one tipped with horn.


      Enter Messenger.


      MESSENGER.
      My lord, your brother John is ta’en in flight,
      And brought with armed men back to Messina.


      BENEDICK.
      Think not on him till tomorrow: I’ll devise thee brave
      punishments for him. Strike up, pipers!


      [_Dance. Exeunt._]



THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, MOOR OF VENICE

Dramatis Personae

  OTHELLO, the Moor, general of the Venetian forces
  DESDEMONA, his wife
  IAGO, ensign to Othello
  EMILIA, his wife, lady-in-waiting to Desdemona
  CASSIO, lieutenant to Othello
  THE DUKE OF VENICE
  BRABANTIO, Venetian Senator, father of Desdemona
  GRATIANO, nobleman of Venice, brother of Brabantio
  LODOVICO, nobleman of Venice, kinsman of Brabantio
  RODERIGO, rejected suitor of Desdemona
  BIANCA, mistress of Cassio
  MONTANO, a Cypriot official
  A Clown in service to Othello
  Senators, Sailors, Messengers, Officers, Gentlemen, Musicians, and
    Attendants

SCENE: Venice and Cyprus

ACT I. 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 bumbast 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 affined
    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 lined 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! 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 lock'd?
  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 charged 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 covered 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 are 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 above.
  IAGO.                  Farewell, for I must leave you.
    It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,
    To be produced- 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 stands 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, below, Brabantio, in his nightgown, and
                        Servants with torches.

  BRABANTIO. It is too true an evil: gone she is,
    And what's to come of my despised time
    Is nought 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'll deserve your pains.               Exeunt.

SCENE II. 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 contrived murther. 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 honor
    That, with the little godliness I have,
    I did full hard forbear him. But I pray you, sir,
    Are you fast married? Be assured of this,
    That the magnifico is much beloved,
    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 honor,
    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 certain 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, raised 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 carack;
    If it prove lawful prize, he's made forever.
  CASSIO. I do not understand.
  IAGO.                        He's married.
  CASSIO.                                    To who?

                          Re-enter Othello.

  IAGO. Marry, to- Come, captain, will you go?
  OTHELLO.                                     Have with you.
  CASSIO. Here comes another troop to seek for you.
  IAGO. It is Brabantio. General, be advised,
    He comes to bad intent.

         Enter Brabantio, Roderigo, and Officers with torches
                             and weapons.

  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 practiced on her with foul charms,
    Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
    That weaken 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 practicer
    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?
  FIRST 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. 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.
  SECOND SENATOR.                      And mine, two hundred.
    But though they jump not on a just account-
    As in these cases, where the aim reports,
    'Tis oft with difference- yet do they all confirm
    A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.
  DUKE. Nay, it is possible enough to judgement.
    I do not so secure me in the error,
    But the main article I do approve
    In fearful sense.
  SAILOR. [Within.] What, ho! What, ho! What, ho!
  FIRST OFFICER. A messenger from the galleys.

                            Enter Sailor.

  DUKE.                                Now, what's the business?
  SAILOR. The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes,
    So was I bid report here to the state
    By Signior Angelo.
  DUKE. How say you by this change?
  FIRST SENATOR.                    This cannot be,
    By no assay of reason; 'tis a pageant
    To keep us in false gaze. When we consider
    The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk,
    And let ourselves again but understand
    That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes,
    So may he with more facile question bear it,
    For that it stands not in such warlike brace,
    But altogether lacks the abilities
    That Rhodes is dress'd in. If we make thought of this,
    We must not think the Turk is so unskillful
    To leave that latest which concerns him first,
    Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain,
    To wake and wage a danger profitless.
  DUKE. Nay, in all confidence, he's not for Rhodes.
  FIRST OFFICER. Here is more news.

                          Enter a Messenger.

  MESSENGER. The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,
    Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes,
    Have there injointed them with an after fleet.
  FIRST SENATOR. Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?
  MESSENGER. Of thirty sail; and now they do re-stem
    Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
    Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano,
    Your trusty and most valiant servitor,
    With his free duty recommends you thus,
    And prays you to believe him.
  DUKE. 'Tis certain then for Cyprus.
    Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?
  FIRST SENATOR. He's now in Florence.
  DUKE. Write from us to him, post-post-haste dispatch.
  FIRST SENATOR. Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.

       Enter Brabantio, Othello, Iago, Roderigo, and Officers.

  DUKE. Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you
    Against the general enemy Ottoman.
    [To Brabantio.] I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior;
    We lack'd your counsel and your help tonight.
  BRABANTIO. So did I yours. Good your Grace, pardon me:
    Neither my place nor aught I heard of business
    Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care
    Take hold on me; for my particular grief
    Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature
    That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,
    And it is still itself.
  DUKE.                     Why, what's the matter?
  BRABANTIO. My daughter! O, my daughter!
  ALL.                                    Dead?
  BRABANTIO.                                    Ay, to me.
    She is abused, stol'n from me and corrupted
    By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
    For nature so preposterously to err,
    Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,
    Sans witchcraft could not.
  DUKE. Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding
    Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself
    And you of her, the bloody book of law
    You shall yourself read in the bitter letter
    After your own sense, yea, though our proper son
    Stood in your action.
  BRABANTIO.              Humbly I thank your Grace.
    Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems,
    Your special mandate for the state affairs
    Hath hither brought.
  ALL.                   We are very sorry for't.
  DUKE. [To Othello.] What in your own part can you say to this?
  BRABANTIO. Nothing, but this is so.
  OTHELLO. Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
    My very noble and approved good masters,
    That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
    It is most true; true, I have married her;
    The very head and front of my offending
    Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
    And little blest with the soft phrase of peace;
    For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
    Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
    Their dearest action in the tented field,
    And little of this great world can I speak,
    More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;
    And therefore little shall I grace my cause
    In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
    I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver
    Of my whole course of love: what drugs, what charms,
    What conjuration, and what mighty magic-
    For such proceeding I am charged withal-
    I won his daughter.
  BRABANTIO.            A maiden never bold,
    Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion
    Blush'd at herself; and she- in spite of nature,
    Of years, of country, credit, everything-
    To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!
    It is judgement maim'd and most imperfect,
    That will confess perfection so could err
    Against all rules of nature, and must be driven
    To find out practices of cunning hell
    Why this should be. I therefore vouch again
    That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
    Or with some dram conjured to this effect,
    He wrought upon her.
  DUKE.                  To vouch this is no proof,
    Without more certain and more overt test
    Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
    Of modern seeming do prefer against him.
  FIRST SENATOR. But, Othello, speak.
    Did you by indirect and forced courses
    Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
    Or came it by request, and such fair question
    As soul to soul affordeth?
  OTHELLO.                     I do beseech you,
    Send for the lady to the Sagittary,
    And let her speak of me before her father.
    If you do find me foul in her report,
    The trust, the office I do hold of you,
    Not only take away, but let your sentence
    Even fall upon my life.
  DUKE.                     Fetch Desdemona hither.
  OTHELLO. Ancient, conduct them; you best know the place.
                                          Exeunt Iago and Attendants.
    And till she come, as truly as to heaven
    I do confess the vices of my blood,
    So justly to your grave ears I'll present
    How I did thrive in this fair lady's love
    And she in mine.
  DUKE. Say it, Othello.
  OTHELLO. Her father loved me, oft invited me,
    Still question'd me the story of my life
    From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
    That I have pass'd.
    I ran it through, even from my boyish days
    To the very moment that he bade me tell it:
    Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
    Of moving accidents by flood and field,
    Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
    Of being taken by the insolent foe
    And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
    And portance in my travels' history;
    Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
    Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,
    It was my hint to speak- such was the process-
    And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
    The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
    Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
    Would Desdemona seriously incline;
    But still the house affairs would draw her thence,
    Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
    She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear
    Devour up my discourse; which I observing,
    Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
    To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
    That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
    Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
    But not intentively. I did consent,
    And often did beguile her of her tears
    When I did speak of some distressful stroke
    That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
    She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;
    She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;
    'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful.
    She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
    That heaven had made her such a man; she thank'd me,
    And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
    I should but teach him how to tell my story,
    And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
    She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,
    And I loved her that she did pity them.
    This only is the witchcraft I have used.
    Here comes the lady; let her witness it.

                Enter Desdemona, Iago, and Attendants.

  DUKE. I think this tale would win my daughter too.
    Good Brabantio,
    Take up this mangled matter at the best:
    Men do their broken weapons rather use
    Than their bare hands.
  BRABANTIO.               I pray you, hear her speak.
    If she confess that she was half the wooer,
    Destruction on my head, if my bad blame
    Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress.
    Do you perceive in all this noble company
    Where most you owe obedience?
  DESDEMONA.                      My noble father,
    I do perceive here a divided duty.
    To you I am bound for life and education;
    My life and education both do learn me
    How to respect you; you are the lord of duty,
    I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband,
    And so much duty as my mother show'd
    To you, preferring you before her father,
    So much I challenge that I may profess
    Due to the Moor, my lord.
  BRABANTIO.                  God be with you! I have done.
    Please it your Grace, on to the state affairs;
    I had rather to adopt a child than get it.
    Come hither, Moor.
    I here do give thee that with all my heart
    Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart
    I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,
    I am glad at soul I have no other child;
    For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
    To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.
  DUKE. Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence
    Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers
    Into your favor.
    When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
    By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
    To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
    Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
    What cannot be preserved when Fortune takes,
    Patience her injury a mockery makes.
    The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief;
    He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
  BRABANTIO. So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;
    We lose it not so long as we can smile.
    He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears
    But the free comfort which from thence he hears;
    But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow
    That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
    These sentences, to sugar or to gall,
    Being strong on both sides, are equivocal.
    But words are words; I never yet did hear
    That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
    I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.
  DUKE. The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus.
    Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you; and
    though we have there a substitute of most allowed sufficiency,
    yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer
    voice on you. You must therefore be content to slubber the gloss
    of your new fortunes with this more stubborn and boisterous
    expedition.
  OTHELLO. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
    Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
    My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize
    A natural and prompt alacrity
    I find in hardness and do undertake
    These present wars against the Ottomites.
    Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
    I crave fit disposition for my wife,
    Due reference of place and exhibition,
    With such accommodation and besort
    As levels with her breeding.
  DUKE.                          If you please,
    Be't at her father's.
  BRABANTIO.              I'll not have it so.
  OTHELLO. Nor I.
  DESDEMONA.      Nor I. I would not there reside
    To put my father in impatient thoughts
    By being in his eye. Most gracious Duke,
    To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear,
    And let me find a charter in your voice
    To assist my simpleness.
  DUKE. What would you, Desdemona?
  DESDEMONA. That I did love the Moor to live with him,
    My downright violence and storm of fortunes
    May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdued
    Even to the very quality of my lord.
    I saw Othello's visage in his mind,
    And to his honors and his valiant parts
    Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
    So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
    A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
    The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
    And I a heavy interim shall support
    By his dear absence. Let me go with him.
  OTHELLO. Let her have your voices.
    Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not
    To please the palate of my appetite,
    Nor to comply with heat- the young affects
    In me defunct- and proper satisfaction;
    But to be free and bounteous to her mind.
    And heaven defend your good souls, that you think
    I will your serious and great business scant
    For she is with me. No, when light-wing'd toys
    Of feather'd Cupid seel with wanton dullness
    My speculative and officed instruments,
    That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
    Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
    And all indign and base adversities
    Make head against my estimation!
  DUKE. Be it as you shall privately determine,
    Either for her stay or going. The affair cries haste,
    And speed must answer't: you must hence tonight.
  DESDEMONA. Tonight, my lord?
  DUKE.                        This night.
  OTHELLO.                                 With all my heart.
  DUKE. At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again.
    Othello, leave some officer behind,
    And he shall our commission bring to you,
    With such things else of quality and respect
    As doth import you.
  OTHELLO.              So please your Grace, my ancient;
    A man he is of honesty and trust.
    To his conveyance I assign my wife,
    With what else needful your good Grace shall think
    To be sent after me.
  DUKE.                  Let it be so.
    Good night to everyone. [To Brabantio.] And, noble signior,
    If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
    Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.
  FIRST SENATOR. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.
  BRABANTIO. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see;
    She has deceived her father, and may thee.
                                 Exeunt Duke, Senators, and Officers.
  OTHELLO. My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,
    My Desdemona must I leave to thee.
    I prithee, let thy wife attend on her,
    And bring them after in the best advantage.
    Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour
    Of love, of worldly matters and direction,
    To spend with thee. We must obey the time.
                                        Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.
  RODERIGO. Iago!
  IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart?
  RODERIGO. What will I do, thinkest thou?
  IAGO. Why, go to bed and sleep.
  RODERIGO. I will incontinently drown myself.
  IAGO. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after.
    Why, thou silly gentleman!
  RODERIGO. It is silliness to live when to live is torment, and then
    have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.
  IAGO. O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times
    seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and
    an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I
    would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen, I
    would change my humanity with a baboon.
  RODERIGO. What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond,
    but it is not in my virtue to amend it.
  IAGO. Virtue? a fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.
    Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so
    that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed
    up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with
    many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with
    industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in
    our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of
    reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of
    our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions.
    But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings,
    our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to
    be a sect or scion.
  RODERIGO. It cannot be.
  IAGO. It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the
    will. Come, be a man! Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind
    puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to
    thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never
    better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou
    the wars; defeat thy favor with an usurped beard. I say, put
    money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long
    continue her love to the Moor- put money in thy purse- nor he his
    to her. It was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an
    answerable sequestration- put but money in thy purse. These Moors
    are changeable in their wills- fill thy purse with money. The
    food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him
    shortly as acerb as the coloquintida. She must change for youth;
    when she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her
    choice. She must have change, she must; therefore put money in
    thy purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate
    way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst. If sanctimony
    and a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a supersubtle
    Venetian be not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell,
    thou shalt enjoy her- therefore make money. A pox of drowning
    thyself! It is clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be
    hanged in compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go without
    her.
  RODERIGO. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?
  IAGO. Thou art sure of me- go, make money. I have told thee often,
    and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor. My cause is
    hearted; thine hath no less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our
    revenge against him. If thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself
    a pleasure, me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time
    which will be delivered. Traverse, go, provide thy money. We will
    have more of this tomorrow. Adieu.
  RODERIGO. Where shall we meet i' the morning?
  IAGO. At my lodging.
  RODERIGO. I'll be with thee betimes.
  IAGO. Go to, farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?
  RODERIGO. What say you?
  IAGO. No more of drowning, do you hear?
  RODERIGO. I am changed; I'll go sell all my land.             Exit.
  IAGO. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
    For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane
    If I would time expend with such a snipe
    But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor,
    And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets
    He has done my office. I know not if't be true,
    But I for mere suspicion in that kind
    Will do as if for surety. He holds me well,
    The better shall my purpose work on him.
    Cassio's a proper man. Let me see now-
    To get his place, and to plume up my will
    In double knavery- How, how?- Let's see-
    After some time, to abuse Othello's ear
    That he is too familiar with his wife.
    He hath a person and a smooth dispose
    To be suspected- framed to make women false.
    The Moor is of a free and open nature,
    That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
    And will as tenderly be led by the nose
    As asses are.
    I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night
    Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.
     Exit.

ACT II. SCENE I. A seaport in Cyprus. An open place near the quay.

Enter Montano and two Gentlemen.

  MONTANO. What from the cape can you discern at sea?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Nothing at all. It is a high-wrought flood;
    I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main,
    Descry a sail.
  MONTANO. Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;
    A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements.
    If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,
    What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,
    Can hold the mortise? What shall we hear of this?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A segregation of the Turkish fleet.
    For do but stand upon the foaming shore,
    The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;
    The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,
    Seems to cast water on the burning bear,
    And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole.
    I never did like molestation view
    On the enchafed flood.
  MONTANO.                 If that the Turkish fleet
    Be not enshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd;
    It is impossible to bear it out.

                       Enter a third Gentleman.

  THIRD GENTLEMAN. News, lads! Our wars are done.
    The desperate tempest hath so bang'd the Turks,
    That their designment halts. A noble ship of Venice
    Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance
    On most part of their fleet.
  MONTANO. How? Is this true?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN.            The ship is here put in,
    A Veronesa. Michael Cassio,
    Lieutenant to the warlike Moor, Othello,
    Is come on shore; the Moor himself at sea,
    And is in full commission here for Cyprus.
  MONTANO. I am glad on't; 'tis a worthy governor.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. But this same Cassio, though he speak of comfort
    Touching the Turkish loss, yet he looks sadly
    And prays the Moor be safe; for they were parted
    With foul and violent tempest.
  MONTANO.                         Pray heavens he be,
    For I have served him, and the man commands
    Like a full soldier. Let's to the seaside, ho!
    As well to see the vessel that's come in
    As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello,
    Even till we make the main and the aerial blue
    An indistinct regard.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Come, let's do so,
    For every minute is expectancy
    Of more arrivance.

                            Enter Cassio.

  CASSIO. Thanks, you the valiant of this warlike isle,
    That so approve the Moor! O, let the heavens
    Give him defense against the elements,
    For I have lost him on a dangerous sea.
  MONTANO. I she well shipp'd?
  CASSIO. His bark is stoutly timber'd, and his pilot
    Of very expert and approved allowance;
    Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death,
    Stand in bold cure.
                              A cry within, "A sail, a sail, a sail!"

                      Enter a fourth Gentleman.

                        What noise?
  FOURTH GENTLEMAN. The town is empty; on the brow o' the sea
    Stand ranks of people, and they cry, "A sail!"
  CASSIO. My hopes do shape him for the governor.
                                                          Guns heard.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. They do discharge their shot of courtesy-
    Our friends at least.
  CASSIO.                 I pray you, sir, go forth,
    And give us truth who 'tis that is arrived.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I shall.                                    Exit.
  MONTANO. But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?
  CASSIO. Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid
    That paragons description and wild fame,
    One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,
    And in the essential vesture of creation
    Does tire the ingener.

                      Re-enter second Gentleman.

                           How now! who has put in?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.
  CASSIO. He has had most favorable and happy speed:
    Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,
    The gutter'd rocks, and congregated sands,
    Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel,
    As having sense of beauty, do omit
    Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
    The divine Desdemona.
  MONTANO.                What is she?
  CASSIO. She that I spake of, our great captain's captain,
    Left in the conduct of the bold Iago,
    Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts
    A se'nnight's speed. Great Jove, Othello guard,
    And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath,
    That he may bless this bay with his tall ship,
    Make love's quick pants in Desdemona's arms,
    Give renew'd fire to our extincted spirits,
    And bring all Cyprus comfort.

       Enter Desdemona, Emilia Iago, Roderigo, and Attendants.

                                  O, behold,
    The riches of the ship is come on shore!
    Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees.
    Hall to thee, lady! And the grace of heaven,
    Before, behind thee, and on every hand,
    Enwheel thee round!
  DESDEMONA.            I thank you, valiant Cassio.
    What tidings can you tell me of my lord?
  CASSIO. He is not yet arrived, nor know I aught
    But that he's well and will be shortly here.
  DESDEMONA. O, but I fear- How lost you company?
  CASSIO. The great contention of the sea and skies
    Parted our fellowship- But, hark! a sail.
                          A cry within, "A sail, a sail!" Guns heard.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. They give their greeting to the citadel;
    This likewise is a friend.
  CASSIO.                      See for the news.
                                                      Exit Gentleman.
    Good ancient, you are welcome. [To Emilia.] Welcome, mistress.
    Let it not gall your patience, good Iago,
    That I extend my manners; 'tis my breeding
    That gives me this bold show of courtesy.             Kisses her.
  IAGO. Sir, would she give you so much of her lips
    As of her tongue she oft bestows on me,
    You'ld have enough.
  DESDEMONA.            Alas, she has no speech.
  IAGO. In faith, too much;
    I find it still when I have list to sleep.
    Marry, before your ladyship I grant,
    She puts her tongue a little in her heart
    And chides with thinking.
  EMILIA. You have little cause to say so.
  IAGO. Come on, come on. You are pictures out of doors,
    Bells in your parlors, wildcats in your kitchens,
    Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,
    Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds.
  DESDEMONA. O, fie upon thee, slanderer!
  IAGO. Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:
    You rise to play, and go to bed to work.
  EMILIA. You shall not write my praise.
  IAGO.                                  No, let me not.
  DESDEMONA. What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst
    praise me?
  IAGO. O gentle lady, do not put me to't,
    For I am nothing if not critical.
  DESDEMONA. Come on, assay- There's one gone to the harbor?
  IAGO. Ay, madam.
  DESDEMONA. I am not merry, but I do beguile
    The thing I am by seeming otherwise.
    Come, how wouldst thou praise me?
  IAGO. I am about it, but indeed my invention
    Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze;
    It plucks out brains and all. But my Muse labors,
    And thus she is deliver'd.
    If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
    The one's for use, the other useth it.
  DESDEMONA. Well praised! How if she be black and witty?
  IAGO. If she be black, and thereto have a wit,
    She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit.
  DESDEMONA. Worse and worse.
  EMILIA. How if fair and foolish?
  IAGO. She never yet was foolish that was fair,
    For even her folly help'd her to an heir.
  DESDEMONA. These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh i' the
    alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for her that's foul and
    foolish?
  IAGO. There's none so foul and foolish thereunto,
    But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.
  DESDEMONA. O heavy ignorance! Thou praisest the worst best. But what
    praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed, one that
    in the authority of her merit did justly put on the vouch of very
    malice itself?
  IAGO. She that was ever fair and never proud,
    Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,
    Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay,
    Fled from her wish and yet said, "Now I may";
    She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,
    Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly;
    She that in wisdom never was so frail
    To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;
    She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind,
    See suitors following and not look behind;
    She was a wight, if ever such wight were-
  DESDEMONA. To do what?
  IAGO. To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
  DESDEMONA. O most lame and impotent conclusion! Do not learn of him,
    Emilia, though he be thy husband. How say you, Cassio? Is he not
    a most profane and liberal counselor?
  CASSIO. He speaks home, madam. You may relish him more in the
    soldier than in the scholar.
  IAGO. [Aside.] He takes her by the palm; ay, well said, whisper.
    With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as
    Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do; I will gyve thee in thine own
    courtship. You say true; 'tis so, indeed. If such tricks as these
    strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better you had
    not kissed your three fingers so oft, which now again you are
    most apt to play the sir in. Very good. Well kissed! an excellent
    courtesy! 'tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers to your lips?
    Would they were clyster-pipes for your sake! [Trumpet within.]
    The Moor! I know his trumpet.
  CASSIO. 'Tis truly so.
  DESDEMONA. Let's meet him and receive him.
  CASSIO. Lo, where he comes!

                    Enter Othello and Attendants.

  OTHELLO. O my fair warrior!
  DESDEMONA.                  My dear Othello!
  OTHELLO. It gives me wonder great as my content
    To see you here before me. O my soul's joy!
    If after every tempest come such calms,
    May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
    And let the laboring bark climb hills of seas
    Olympus-high, and duck again as low
    As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die,
    'Twere now to be most happy; for I fear
    My soul hath her content so absolute
    That not another comfort like to this
    Succeeds in unknown fate.
  DESDEMONA.                  The heavens forbid
    But that our loves and comforts should increase,
    Even as our days do grow!
  OTHELLO.                    Amen to that, sweet powers!
    I cannot speak enough of this content;
    It stops me here; it is too much of joy.
    And this, and this, the greatest discords be          Kisses her.
    That e'er our hearts shall make!
  IAGO.                     [Aside.] O, you are well tuned now!
    But I'll set down the pegs that make this music,
    As honest as I am.
  OTHELLO.             Come, let us to the castle.
    News, friends: our wars are done, the Turks are drown'd.
    How does my old acquaintance of this isle?
    Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus;
    I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,
    I prattle out of fashion, and I dote
    In mine own comforts. I prithee, good Iago,
    Go to the bay and disembark my coffers.
    Bring thou the master to the citadel;
    He is a good one, and his worthiness
    Does challenge much respect. Come, Desdemona,
    Once more well met at Cyprus.
                                    Exeunt all but Iago and Roderigo.
  IAGO. Do thou meet me presently at the harbor. Come hither. If thou
    be'st valiant- as they say base men being in love have then a
    nobility in their natures more than is native to them- list me.
    The lieutenant tonight watches on the court of guard. First, I
    must tell thee this: Desdemona is directly in love with him.
  RODERIGO. With him? Why, 'tis not possible.
  IAGO. Lay thy finger thus, and let thy soul be instructed. Mark me
    with what violence she first loved the Moor, but for bragging and
    telling her fantastical lies. And will she love him still for
    prating? Let not thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be
    fed; and what delight shall she have to look on the devil? When
    the blood is made dull with the act of sport, there should be,
    again to inflame it and to give satiety a fresh appetite,
    loveliness in favor, sympathy in years, manners, and beauties-
    all which the Moor is defective in. Now, for want of these
    required conveniences, her delicate tenderness will find itself
    abused, begin to heave the gorge, disrelish and abhor the Moor;
    very nature will instruct her in it and compel her to some second
    choice. Now sir, this granted- as it is a most pregnant and
    unforced position- who stands so eminently in the degree of this
    fortune as Cassio does? A knave very voluble; no further
    conscionable than in putting on the mere form of civil and humane
    seeming, for the better compass of his salt and most hidden loose
    affection? Why, none, why, none- a slipper and subtle knave, a
    finder out of occasions, that has an eye can stamp and
    counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never present
    itself- a devilish knave! Besides, the knave is handsome, young,
    and hath all those requisites in him that folly and green minds
    look after- a pestilent complete knave, and the woman hath found
    him already.
  RODERIGO. I cannot believe that in her; she's full of most blest
    condition.
  IAGO. Blest fig's-end! The wine she drinks is made of grapes. If
    she had been blest, she would never have loved the Moor. Blest
    pudding! Didst thou not see her paddle with the palm of his hand?
    Didst not mark that?
  RODERIGO. Yes, that I did; but that was but courtesy.
  IAGO. Lechery, by this hand; an index and obscure prologue to the
    history of lust and foul thoughts. They met so near with their
    lips that their breaths embraced together. Villainous thoughts,
    Roderigo! When these mutualities so marshal the way, hard at hand
    comes the master and main exercise, the incorporate conclusion.
    Pish! But, sir, be you ruled by me. I have brought you from
    Venice. Watch you tonight; for the command, I'll lay't upon you.
    Cassio knows you not. I'll not be far from you. Do you find some
    occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking too loud, or
    tainting his discipline, or from what other course you please,
    which the time shall more favorably minister.
  RODERIGO. Well.
  IAGO. Sir, he is rash and very sudden in choler, and haply may
    strike at you. Provoke him, that he may; for even out of that
    will I cause these of Cyprus to mutiny, whose qualification shall
    come into no true taste again but by the displanting of Cassio.
    So shall you have a shorter journey to your desires by the means
    I shall then have to prefer them, and the impediment most
    profitably removed, without the which there were no expectation
    of our prosperity.
  RODERIGO. I will do this, if I can bring it to any opportunity.
  IAGO. I warrant thee. Meet me by and by at the citadel. I must
    fetch his necessaries ashore. Farewell.
  RODERIGO. Adieu.                                              Exit.
  IAGO. That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it;
    That she loves him, 'tis apt and of great credit.
    The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,
    Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,
    And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona
    A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too,
    Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure
    I stand accountant for as great a sin,
    But partly led to diet my revenge,
    For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
    Hath leap'd into my seat; the thought whereof
    Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards,
    And nothing can or shall content my soul
    Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife.
    Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor
    At least into a jealousy so strong
    That judgement cannot cure. Which thing to do,
    If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trace
    For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,
    I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,
    Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb
    (For I fear Cassio with my nightcap too),
    Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me
    For making him egregiously an ass
    And practicing upon his peace and quiet
    Even to madness. 'Tis here, but yet confused:
    Knavery's plain face is never seen till used.               Exit.

SCENE II. A street.

Enter a Herald with a proclamation; people following.

  HERALD. It is Othello's pleasure, our noble and valiant general, that
  upon certain tidings now arrived, importing the mere perdition of the
  Turkish fleet, every man put himself into triumph; some to dance,
  some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and revels his
  addiction leads him; for besides these beneficial news, it is the
  celebration of his nuptial. So much was his pleasure should be
  proclaimed. All offices are open, and there is full liberty of
  feasting from this present hour of five till the bell have told
  eleven. Heaven bless the isle of Cyprus and our noble general
  Othello!                            Exeunt.

SCENE III. A hall in the castle.

Enter Othello, Desdemona, Cassio, and Attendants.

  OTHELLO. Good Michael, look you to the guard tonight.
    Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop,
    Not to outsport discretion.
  CASSIO. Iago hath direction what to do;
    But notwithstanding with my personal eye
    Will I look to't.
  OTHELLO.            Iago is most honest.
    Michael, good night. Tomorrow with your earliest
    Let me have speech with you. Come, my dear love,
    The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue;
    That profit's yet to come 'tween me and you.
    Good night.
                           Exeunt Othello, Desdemona, and Attendants.

                             Enter Iago.

  CASSIO. Welcome, Iago; we must to the watch.
  IAGO. Not this hour, lieutenant; 'tis not yet ten o' the clock. Our
    general cast us thus early for the love of his Desdemona; who let
    us not therefore blame. He hath not yet made wanton the night
    with her, and she is sport for Jove.
  CASSIO. She's a most exquisite lady.
  IAGO. And, I'll warrant her, full of game.
  CASSIO. Indeed she's a most fresh and delicate creature.
  IAGO. What an eye she has! Methinks it sounds a parley to
    provocation.
  CASSIO. An inviting eye; and yet methinks right modest.
  IAGO. And when she speaks, is it not an alarum to love?
  CASSIO. She is indeed perfection.
  IAGO. Well, happiness to their sheets! Come, lieutenant, I have a
    stope of wine, and here without are a brace of Cyprus gallants
    that would fain have a measure to the health of black Othello.
  CASSIO. Not tonight, good Iago. I have very poor and unhappy brains
    for drinking. I could well wish courtesy would invent some other
    custom of entertainment.
  IAGO. O, they are our friends! But one cup; I'll drink for you.
  CASSIO. I have drunk but one cup tonight, and that was craftily
    qualified too, and behold what innovation it makes here. I am
    unfortunate in the infirmity, and dare not task my weakness with
    any more.
  IAGO. What, man! 'Tis a night of revels, the gallants desire it.
  CASSIO. Where are they?
  IAGO. Here at the door; I pray you, call them in.
  CASSIO. I'll do't, but it dislikes me.                        Exit.
  IAGO. If I can fasten but one cup upon him,
    With that which he hath drunk tonight already,
    He'll be as full of quarrel and offense
    As my young mistress' dog. Now my sick fool Roderigo,
    Whom love hath turn'd almost the wrong side out,
    To Desdemona hath tonight caroused
    Potations pottle-deep; and he's to watch.
    Three lads of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits,
    That hold their honors in a wary distance,
    The very elements of this warlike isle,
    Have I tonight fluster'd with flowing cups,
    And they watch too. Now, 'mongst this flock of drunkards,
    Am I to put our Cassio in some action
    That may offend the isle. But here they come.
    If consequence do but approve my dream,
    My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream.

           Re-enter Cassio; with him Montano and Gentlemen;
                    Servants following with wine.

  CASSIO. 'Fore God, they have given me a rouse already.
  MONTANO. Good faith, a little one; not past a pint, as I am a
    soldier.
  IAGO. Some wine, ho!

    [Sings.]   "And let me the canakin clink, clink;
               And let me the canakin clink.
                 A soldier's a man;
                 O, man's life's but a span;
               Why then let a soldier drink."

    Some wine, boys!
  CASSIO. 'Fore God, an excellent song.
  IAGO. I learned it in England, where indeed they are most potent in
    potting. Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander-
    Drink, ho!- are nothing to your English.
  CASSIO. Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?
  IAGO. Why, he drinks you with facility your Dane dead drunk; he
    sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he gives your Hollander a
    vomit ere the next pottle can be filled.
  CASSIO. To the health of our general!
  MONTANO. I am for it, lieutenant, and I'll do you justice.
  IAGO. O sweet England!

    [Sings.]   "King Stephen was and-a worthy peer,
                 His breeches cost him but a crown;
               He held them sixpence all too dear,
                 With that he call'd the tailor lown.

               "He was a wight of high renown,
                 And thou art but of low degree.
               'Tis pride that pulls the country down;
                 Then take thine auld cloak about thee."

    Some wine, ho!
  CASSIO. Why, this is a more exquisite song than the other.
  IAGO. Will you hear't again?
  CASSIO. No, for I hold him to be unworthy of his place that does
    those things. Well, God's above all, and there be souls must be
    saved, and there be souls must not be saved.
  IAGO. It's true, good lieutenant.
  CASSIO. For mine own part- no offense to the general, nor any man
    of quality- I hope to be saved.
  IAGO. And so do I too, lieutenant.
  CASSIO. Ay, but, by your leave, not before me; the lieutenant is to
    be saved before the ancient. Let's have no more of this; let's to
    our affairs. God forgive us our sins! Gentlemen, let's look to
    our business. Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk: this is my
    ancient, this is my right hand, and this is my left. I am not
    drunk now; I can stand well enough, and I speak well enough.
  ALL. Excellent well.
  CASSIO. Why, very well then; you must not think then that I am
    drunk.                                                      Exit.
  MONTANO. To the platform, masters; come, let's set the watch.
  IAGO. You see this fellow that is gone before;
    He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar
    And give direction. And do but see his vice;
    'Tis to his virtue a just equinox,
    The one as long as the other. 'Tis pity of him.
    I fear the trust Othello puts him in
    On some odd time of his infirmity
    Will shake this island.
  MONTANO.                  But is he often thus?
  IAGO. 'Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep.
    He'll watch the horologe a double set,
    If drink rock not his cradle.
  MONTANO.                        It were well
    The general were put in mind of it.
    Perhaps he sees it not, or his good nature
    Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio
    And looks not on his evils. Is not this true?

                           Enter Roderigo.

  IAGO. [Aside to him.] How now, Roderigo!
    I pray you, after the lieutenant; go.              Exit Roderigo.
  MONTANO. And 'tis great pity that the noble Moor
    Should hazard such a place as his own second
    With one of an ingraft infirmity.
    It were an honest action to say
    So to the Moor.
  IAGO.             Not I, for this fair island.
    I do love Cassio well, and would do much
    To cure him of this evil- But, hark! What noise?
                                          A cry within, "Help, help!"

                Re-enter Cassio, driving in Roderigo.

  CASSIO. 'Zounds! You rogue! You rascal!
  MONTANO. What's the matter, lieutenant?
  CASSIO. A knave teach me my duty! But I'll beat the knave into a
    twiggen bottle.
  RODERIGO. Beat me!
  CASSIO. Dost thou prate, rogue?                   Strikes Roderigo.
  MONTANO. Nay, good lieutenant; I pray you, sir, hold your hand.
  CASSIO. Let me go, sir, or I'll knock you o'er the mazzard.
  MONTANO. Come, come, you're drunk.
  CASSIO. Drunk?                                          They fight.
  IAGO. [Aside to Roderigo.] Away, I say; go out and cry a mutiny.
                                                       Exit Roderigo.
    Nay, good lieutenant! God's will, gentlemen!
    Help, ho!- Lieutenant- sir- Montano- sir-
    Help, masters!- Here's a goodly watch indeed!
                                                        A bell rings.
    Who's that that rings the bell?- Diablo, ho!
    The town will rise. God's will, lieutenant, hold!
    You will be shamed forever.

                   Re-enter Othello and Attendants.

  OTHELLO.                      What is the matter here?
  MONTANO. 'Zounds, I bleed still; I am hurt to the death.
   Faints.
  OTHELLO. Hold, for your lives!
  IAGO. Hold, ho! Lieutenant- sir- Montano- gentlemen-
    Have you forgot all place of sense and duty?
    Hold! the general speaks to you! Hold, hold, for shame!
  OTHELLO. Why, how now, ho! from whence ariseth this?
    Are we turn'd Turks, and to ourselves do that
    Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?
    For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl.
    He that stirs next to carve for his own rage
    Holds his soul light; he dies upon his motion.
    Silence that dreadful bell; it frights the isle
    From her propriety. What is the matter, masters?
    Honest Iago, that look'st dead with grieving,
    Speak: who began this? On thy love, I charge thee.
  IAGO. I do not know. Friends all but now, even now,
    In quarter, and in terms like bride and groom
    Devesting them for bed; and then, but now
    (As if some planet had unwitted men),
    Swords out, and tilting one at other's breast,
    In opposition bloody. I cannot speak
    Any beginning to this peevish odds;
    And would in action glorious I had lost
    Those legs that brought me to a part of it!
  OTHELLO. How comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot?
  CASSIO. I pray you, pardon me; I cannot speak.
  OTHELLO. Worthy Montano, you were wont be civil;
    The gravity and stillness of your youth
    The world hath noted, and your name is great
    In mouths of wisest censure. What's the matter,
    That you unlace your reputation thus,
    And spend your rich opinion for the name
    Of a night-brawler? Give me answer to it.
  MONTANO. Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger.
    Your officer, Iago, can inform you-
    While I spare speech, which something now offends me-
    Of all that I do know. Nor know I aught
    By me that's said or done amiss this night,
    Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice,
    And to defend ourselves it be a sin
    When violence assails us.
  OTHELLO.                    Now, by heaven,
    My blood begins my safer guides to rule,
    And passion, having my best judgement collied,
    Assays to lead the way. If I once stir,
    Or do but lift this arm, the best of you
    Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know
    How this foul rout began, who set it on,
    And he that is approved in this offense,
    Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth,
    Shall lose me. What! in a town of war,
    Yet wild, the people's hearts brimful of fear,
    To manage private and domestic quarrel,
    In night, and on the court and guard of safety!
    'Tis monstrous. Iago, who began't?
  MONTANO. If partially affined, or leagued in office,
    Thou dost deliver more or less than truth,
    Thou art no soldier.
  IAGO.                  Touch me not so near:
    I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth
    Than it should do offense to Michael Cassio;
    Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth
    Shall nothing wrong him. Thus it is, general.
    Montano and myself being in speech,
    There comes a fellow crying out for help,
    And Cassio following him with determined sword,
    To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman
    Steps in to Cassio and entreats his pause.
    Myself the crying fellow did pursue,
    Lest by his clamor- as it so fell out-
    The town might fall in fright. He, swift of foot,
    Outran my purpose; and I return'd the rather
    For that I heard the clink and fall of swords,
    And Cassio high in oath, which till tonight
    I ne'er might say before. When I came back-
    For this was brief- I found them close together,
    At blow and thrust, even as again they were
    When you yourself did part them.
    More of this matter cannot I report.
    But men are men; the best sometimes forget.
    Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,
    As men in rage strike those that wish them best,
    Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received
    From him that fled some strange indignity,
    Which patience could not pass.
  OTHELLO.                         I know, Iago,
    Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,
    Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee,
    But never more be officer of mine.

                    Re-enter Desdemona, attended.

    Look, if my gentle love be not raised up!
    I'll make thee an example.
  DESDEMONA.                   What's the matter?
  OTHELLO. All's well now, sweeting; come away to bed.
    Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon.
    Lead him off.                             Exit Montano, attended.
    Iago, look with care about the town,
    And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.
    Come, Desdemona, 'tis the soldiers' life.
    To have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.
                                      Exeunt all but Iago and Cassio.
  IAGO. What, are you hurt, lieutenant?
  CASSIO. Ay, past all surgery.
  IAGO. Marry, heaven forbid!
  CASSIO. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my
    reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what
    remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!
  IAGO. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily
    wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation
    is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and
    lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all,
    unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man! there are
    ways to recover the general again. You are but now cast in his
    mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice; even so as one
    would beat his offenseless dog to affright an imperious lion. Sue
    to him again, and he's yours.
  CASSIO. I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a
    commander with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an
    officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear?
    and discourse fustian with one's own shadow? O thou invisible
    spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call
    thee devil!
  IAGO. What was he that you followed with your sword?
    What had he done to you?
  CASSIO. I know not.
  IAGO. Is't possible?
  CASSIO. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a
    quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that men should put an
    enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should,
    with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves
    into beasts!
  IAGO. Why, but you are now well enough. How came you thus
     recovered?
  CASSIO. It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the
    devil wrath: one unperfectness shows me another, to make me
    frankly despise myself.
  IAGO. Come, you are too severe a moraler. As the time, the place,
    and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish
    this had not befallen; but since it is as it is, mend it for your
    own good.
  CASSIO. I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me I am a
    drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would
    stop them all. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and
    presently a beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is unblest,
    and the ingredient is a devil.
  IAGO. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be
    well used. Exclaim no more against it. And, good lieutenant, I
    think you think I love you.
  CASSIO. I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!
  IAGO. You or any man living may be drunk at some time, man. I'll
    tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife is now the
    general. I may say so in this respect, for that he hath devoted
    and given up himself to the contemplation, mark, and denotement
    of her parts and graces. Confess yourself freely to her;
    importune her help to put you in your place again. She is of so
    free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a
    vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested. This
    broken joint between you and her husband entreat her to splinter;
    and, my fortunes against any lay worth naming, this crack of your
    love shall grow stronger than it was before.
  CASSIO. You advise me well.
  IAGO. I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.
  CASSIO. I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will beseech
    the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me. I am desperate of my
    fortunes if they check me here.
  IAGO. You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant, I must to the
    watch.
  CASSIO. Good night, honest Iago.                              Exit.
  IAGO. And what's he then that says I play the villain?
    When this advice is free I give and honest,
    Probal to thinking, and indeed the course
    To win the Moor again? For 'tis most easy
    The inclining Desdemona to subdue
    In any honest suit. She's framed as fruitful
    As the free elements. And then for her
    To win the Moor, were't to renounce his baptism,
    All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,
    His soul is so enfetter'd to her love,
    That she may make, unmake, do what she list,
    Even as her appetite shall play the god
    With his weak function. How am I then a villain
    To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,
    Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!
    When devils will the blackest sins put on,
    They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,
    As I do now. For whiles this honest fool
    Plies Desdemona to repair his fortune,
    And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,
    I'll pour this pestilence into his ear,
    That she repeals him for her body's lust;
    And by how much she strives to do him good,
    She shall undo her credit with the Moor.
    So will I turn her virtue into pitch,
    And out of her own goodness make the net
    That shall enmesh them all.

                           Enter Roderigo.

                                How now, Roderigo!
  RODERIGO. I do follow here in the chase, not like a hound that
    hunts, but one that fills up the cry. My money is almost spent; I
    have been tonight exceedingly well cudgeled; and I think the
    issue will be, I shall have so much experience for my pains; and
    so, with no money at all and a little more wit, return again to
    Venice.
  IAGO. How poor are they that have not patience!
    What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
    Thou know'st we work by wit and not by witchcraft,
    And wit depends on dilatory time.
    Does't not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee,
    And thou by that small hurt hast cashier'd Cassio.
    Though other things grow fair against the sun,
    Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe.
    Content thyself awhile. By the mass, 'tis morning;
    Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.
    Retire thee; go where thou art billeted.
    Away, I say. Thou shalt know more hereafter.
    Nay, get thee gone. [Exit Roderigo.] Two things are to be done:
    My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress-
    I'll set her on;
    Myself the while to draw the Moor apart,
    And bring him jump when he may Cassio find
    Soliciting his wife. Ay, that's the way;
    Dull not device by coldness and delay.                      Exit.

ACT III. SCENE I. Before the castle.

Enter Cassio and some Musicians.

  CASSIO. Masters, play here, I will content your pains; Something
  that's brief; and bid "Good morrow, general." Music.

                             Enter Clown.

  CLOWN. Why, masters, have your instruments been in Naples, that
    they speak i' the nose thus?
  FIRST MUSICIAN. How, sir, how?
  CLOWN. Are these, I pray you, wind instruments?
  FIRST MUSICIAN. Ay, marry, are they, sir.
  CLOWN. O, thereby hangs a tail.
  FIRST MUSICIAN. Whereby hangs a tale, sir?
  CLOWN. Marry, sir, by many a wind instrument that I know. But,
    masters, here's money for you; and the general so likes your
    music, that he desires you, for love's sake, to make no more
    noise with it.
  FIRST MUSICIAN. Well, sir, we will not.
  CLOWN. If you have any music that may not be heard, to't again;
    but, as they say, to hear music the general does not greatly
    care.
  FIRST MUSICIAN. We have none such, sir.
  CLOWN. Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'll away.
    Go, vanish into air, away!                      Exeunt Musicians.
  CASSIO. Dost thou hear, my honest friend?
  CLOWN. No, I hear not your honest friend; I hear you.
  CASSIO. Prithee, keep up thy quillets. There's a poor piece of gold
    for thee. If the gentlewoman that attends the general's wife be
    stirring, tell her there's one Cassio entreats her a little favor
    of speech. Wilt thou do this?
  CLOWN. She is stirring, sir. If she will stir hither, I shall seem
    to notify unto her.
  CASSIO. Do, good my friend.                             Exit Clown.

                             Enter Iago.

                              In happy time, Iago.
  IAGO. You have not been abed, then?
  CASSIO. Why, no; the day had broke
    Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago,
    To send in to your wife. My suit to her
    Is that she will to virtuous Desdemona
    Procure me some access.
  IAGO.                     I'll send her to you presently;
    And I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor
    Out of the way, that your converse and business
    May be more free.
  CASSIO. I humbly thank you for't. [Exit Iago.] I never knew
    A Florentine more kind and honest.

                            Enter Emilia.

  EMILIA. Good morrow, good lieutenant. I am sorry
    For your displeasure, but all will sure be well.
    The general and his wife are talking of it,
    And she speaks for you stoutly. The Moor replies
    That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus
    And great affinity and that in wholesome wisdom
    He might not but refuse you; but he protests he loves you
    And needs no other suitor but his likings
    To take the safest occasion by the front
    To bring you in again.
  CASSIO.                  Yet, I beseech you,
    If you think fit, or that it may be done,
    Give me advantage of some brief discourse
    With Desdemona alone.
  EMILIA.                 Pray you, come in.
    I will bestow you where you shall have time
    To speak your bosom freely.
  CASSIO.                       I am much bound to you.
   Exeunt.

SCENE II. A room in the castle.

Enter Othello, Iago, and Gentlemen.

  OTHELLO. These letters give, Iago, to the pilot,
    And by him do my duties to the Senate.
    That done, I will be walking on the works;
    Repair there to me.
  IAGO.                 Well, my good lord, I'll do't.
  OTHELLO. This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see't?
  GENTLEMEN. We'll wait upon your lordship.                   Exeunt.

SCENE III. The garden of the castle.

Enter Desdemona, Cassio, and Emilia.

  DESDEMONA. Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do
    All my abilities in thy behalf.
  EMILIA. Good madam, do. I warrant it grieves my husband
    As if the cause were his.
  DESDEMONA. O, that's an honest fellow. Do not doubt, Cassio,
    But I will have my lord and you again
    As friendly as you were.
  CASSIO.                    Bounteous madam,
    Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio,
    He's never anything but your true servant.
  DESDEMONA. I know't: I thank you. You do love my lord:
    You have known him long; and be you well assured
    He shall in strangeness stand no farther off
    Than in a politic distance.
  CASSIO.                       Ay, but, lady,
    That policy may either last so long,
    Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet,
    Or breed itself so out of circumstances,
    That I being absent and my place supplied,
    My general will forget my love and service.
  DESDEMONA. Do not doubt that. Before Emilia here
    I give thee warrant of thy place, assure thee,
    If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it
    To the last article. My lord shall never rest;
    I'll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;
    His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;
    I'll intermingle everything he does
    With Cassio's suit. Therefore be merry, Cassio,
    For thy solicitor shall rather die
    Than give thy cause away.

                Enter Othello and Iago, at a distance.

  EMILIA. Madam, here comes my lord.
  CASSIO. Madam, I'll take my leave.
  DESDEMONA. Nay, stay and hear me speak.
  CASSIO. Madam, not now. I am very ill at ease,
    Unfit for mine own purposes.
  DESDEMONA. Well, do your discretion.                   Exit Cassio.
  IAGO. Ha! I like not that.
  OTHELLO. What dost thou say?
  IAGO. Nothing, my lord; or if- I know not what.
  OTHELLO. Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?
  IAGO. Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it,
    That he would steal away so guilty-like,
    Seeing you coming.
  OTHELLO.             I do believe 'twas he.
  DESDEMONA. How now, my lord!
    I have been talking with a suitor here,
    A man that languishes in your displeasure.
  OTHELLO. Who is't you mean?
  DESDEMONA. Why, your lieutenant, Cassio. Good my lord,
    If I have any grace or power to move you,
    His present reconciliation take;
    For if he be not one that truly loves you,
    That errs in ignorance and not in cunning,
    I have no judgement in an honest face.
    I prithee, call him back.
  OTHELLO.                    Went he hence now?
  DESDEMONA. Ay, sooth; so humbled
    That he hath left part of his grief with me
    To suffer with him. Good love, call him back.
  OTHELLO. Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other time.
  DESDEMONA. But shall't be shortly?
  OTHELLO.                           The sooner, sweet, for you.
  DESDEMONA. Shall't be tonight at supper?
  OTHELLO.                                 No, not tonight.
  DESDEMONA. Tomorrow dinner then?
  OTHELLO.                         I shall not dine at home;
    I meet the captains at the citadel.
  DESDEMONA. Why then tomorrow night, or Tuesday morn,
    On Tuesday noon, or night, on Wednesday morn.
    I prithee, name the time, but let it not
    Exceed three days. In faith, he's penitent;
    And yet his trespass, in our common reason-
    Save that, they say, the wars must make example
    Out of their best- is not almost a fault
    To incur a private check. When shall he come?
    Tell me, Othello. I wonder in my soul,
    What you would ask me, that I should deny,
    Or stand so mammering on. What? Michael Cassio,
    That came awooing with you, and so many a time
    When I have spoke of you dispraisingly
    Hath ta'en your part- to have so much to do
    To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much-
  OTHELLO. Prithee, no more. Let him come when he will;
    I will deny thee nothing.
  DESDEMONA.                  Why, this is not a boon;
    'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,
    Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,
    Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit
    To your own person. Nay, when I have a suit
    Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,
    It shall be full of poise and difficult weight,
    And fearful to be granted.
  OTHELLO.                     I will deny thee nothing,
    Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this,
    To leave me but a little to myself.
  DESDEMONA. Shall I deny you? No. Farewell, my lord.
  OTHELLO. Farewell, my Desdemona; I'll come to thee straight.
  DESDEMONA. Emilia, come. Be as your fancies teach you;
    Whate'er you be, I am obedient.
                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.
  OTHELLO. Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,
    But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
    Chaos is come again.
  IAGO. My noble lord-
  OTHELLO.             What dost thou say, Iago?
  IAGO. Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady,
    Know of your love?
  OTHELLO. He did, from first to last. Why dost thou ask?
  IAGO. But for a satisfaction of my thought;
    No further harm.
  OTHELLO.           Why of thy thought, Iago?
  IAGO. I did not think he had been acquainted with her.
  OTHELLO. O, yes, and went between us very oft.
  IAGO. Indeed!
  OTHELLO. Indeed? ay, indeed. Discern'st thou aught in that?
    Is he not honest?
  IAGO. Honest, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Honest? Ay, honest.
  IAGO. My lord, for aught I know.
  OTHELLO. What dost thou think?
  IAGO. Think, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Think, my lord? By heaven, he echoes me,
    As if there were some monster in his thought
    Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something.
    I heard thee say even now, thou like'st not that,
    When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like?
    And when I told thee he was of my counsel
    In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst, "Indeed!"
    And didst contract and purse thy brow together,
    As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain
    Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me,
    Show me thy thought.
  IAGO. My lord, you know I love you.
  OTHELLO.                            I think thou dost;
    And for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty
    And weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath,
    Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more;
    For such things in a false disloyal knave
    Are tricks of custom; but in a man that's just
    They're close dilations, working from the heart,
    That passion cannot rule.
  IAGO.                       For Michael Cassio,
    I dare be sworn I think that he is honest.
  OTHELLO. I think so too.
  IAGO.                    Men should be what they seem;
    Or those that be not, would they might seem none!
  OTHELLO. Certain, men should be what they seem.
  IAGO. Why then I think Cassio's an honest man.
  OTHELLO. Nay, yet there's more in this.
    I prithee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,
    As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts
    The worst of words.
  IAGO.                 Good my lord, pardon me;
    Though I am bound to every act of duty,
    I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.
    Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false;
    As where's that palace whereinto foul things
    Sometimes intrude not? Who has a breast so pure,
    But some uncleanly apprehensions
    Keep leets and law-days, and in session sit
    With meditations lawful?
  OTHELLO. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
    If thou but think'st him wrong'd and makest his ear
    A stranger to thy thoughts.
  IAGO.                         I do beseech you-
    Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,
    As, I confess, it is my nature's plague
    To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
    Shapes faults that are not- that your wisdom yet,
    From one that so imperfectly conceits,
    Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble
    Out of his scattering and unsure observance.
    It were not for your quiet nor your good,
    Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,
    To let you know my thoughts.
  OTHELLO.                       What dost thou mean?
  IAGO. Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
    Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
    Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
    'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
    But he that filches from me my good name
    Robs me of that which not enriches him
    And makes me poor indeed.
  OTHELLO. By heaven, I'll know thy thoughts.
  IAGO. You cannot, if my heart were in your hand;
    Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody.
  OTHELLO. Ha!
  IAGO.        O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
    It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock
    The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss
    Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
    But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
    Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!
  OTHELLO. O misery!
  IAGO. Poor and content is rich, and rich enough;
    But riches fineless is as poor as winter
    To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
    Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend
    From jealousy!
  OTHELLO.         Why, why is this?
    Think'st thou I'ld make a life of jealousy,
    To follow still the changes of the moon
    With fresh suspicions? No! To be once in doubt
    Is once to be resolved. Exchange me for a goat
    When I shall turn the business of my soul
    To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,
    Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous
    To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
    Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well;
    Where virtue is, these are more virtuous.
    Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
    The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;
    For she had eyes and chose me. No, Iago,
    I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
    And on the proof, there is no more but this-
    Away at once with love or jealousy!
  IAGO. I am glad of it, for now I shall have reason
    To show the love and duty that I bear you
    With franker spirit. Therefore, as I am bound,
    Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof.
    Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;
    Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure.
    I would not have your free and noble nature
    Out of self-bounty be abused. Look to't.
    I know our country disposition well;
    In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks
    They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience
    Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown.
  OTHELLO. Dost thou say so?
  IAGO. She did deceive her father, marrying you;
    And when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks,
    She loved them most.
  OTHELLO.               And so she did.
  IAGO.                                  Why, go to then.
    She that so young could give out such a seeming,
    To seel her father's eyes up close as oak-
    He thought 'twas witchcraft- but I am much to blame;
    I humbly do beseech you of your pardon
    For too much loving you.
  OTHELLO.                   I am bound to thee forever.
  IAGO. I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits.
  OTHELLO. Not a jot, not a jot.
  IAGO.                          I'faith, I fear it has.
    I hope you will consider what is spoke
    Comes from my love. But I do see you're moved;
    I am to pray you not to strain my speech
    To grosser issues nor to larger reach
    Than to suspicion.
  OTHELLO. I will not.
  IAGO.                Should you do so, my lord,
    My speech should fall into such vile success
    Which my thoughts aim not at. Cassio's my worthy friend-
    My lord, I see you're moved.
  OTHELLO.                       No, not much moved.
    I do not think but Desdemona's honest.
  IAGO. Long live she so! and long live you to think so!
  OTHELLO. And yet, how nature erring from itself-
  IAGO. Ay, there's the point, as- to be bold with you-
    Not to affect many proposed matches
    Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,
    Whereto we see in all things nature tends-
    Foh, one may smell in such a will most rank,
    Foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural.
    But pardon me. I do not in position
    Distinctly speak of her; though I may fear,
    Her will, recoiling to her better judgement,
    May fall to match you with her country forms,
    And happily repent.
  OTHELLO.              Farewell, farewell.
    If more thou dost perceive, let me know more;
    Set on thy wife to observe. Leave me, Iago.
  IAGO. [Going.] My lord, I take my leave.
  OTHELLO. Why did I marry? This honest creature doubtless
    Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.
  IAGO. [Returning.] My lord, I would I might entreat your honor
    To scan this thing no further; leave it to time.
    Though it be fit that Cassio have his place,
    For sure he fills it up with great ability,
    Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile,
    You shall by that perceive him and his means.
    Note if your lady strain his entertainment
    With any strong or vehement importunity;
    Much will be seen in that. In the meantime,
    Let me be thought too busy in my fears-
    As worthy cause I have to fear I am-
    And hold her free, I do beseech your honor.
  OTHELLO. Fear not my government.
  IAGO. I once more take my leave.                              Exit.
  OTHELLO. This fellow's of exceeding honesty,
    And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit,
    Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard,
    Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings,
    I'ld whistle her off and let her down the wind
    To prey at fortune. Haply, for I am black
    And have not those soft parts of conversation
    That chamberers have, or for I am declined
    Into the vale of years- yet that's not much-
    She's gone. I am abused, and my relief
    Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,
    That we can call these delicate creatures ours,
    And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad,
    And live upon the vapor of a dungeon,
    Than keep a corner in the thing I love
    For others' uses. Yet, 'tis the plague of great ones:
    Prerogatived are they less than the base;
    'Tis destiny unshunnable, like death.
    Even then this forked plague is fated to us
    When we do quicken. Desdemona comes:

                    Re-enter Desdemona and Emilia.

    If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself!
    I'll not believe't.
  DESDEMONA.            How now, my dear Othello!
    Your dinner, and the generous islanders
    By you invited, do attend your presence.
  OTHELLO. I am to blame.
  DESDEMONA.              Why do you speak so faintly?
    Are you not well?
  OTHELLO. I have a pain upon my forehead here.
  DESDEMONA. Faith, that's with watching; 'twill away again.
    Let me but bind it hard, within this hour
    It will be well.
  OTHELLO.           Your napkin is too little;
            He puts the handkerchief from him, and she drops it.
    Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you.
  DESDEMONA. I am very sorry that you are not well.
                                        Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.
  EMILIA. I am glad I have found this napkin;
    This was her first remembrance from the Moor.
    My wayward husband hath a hundred times
    Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token,
    For he conjured her she should ever keep it,
    That she reserves it evermore about her
    To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out,
    And give't Iago. What he will do with it
    Heaven knows, not I;
    I nothing but to please his fantasy.

                            Re-enter Iago.

  IAGO. How now, what do you here alone?
  EMILIA. Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.
  IAGO. A thing for me? It is a common thing-
  EMILIA. Ha!
  IAGO. To have a foolish wife.
  EMILIA. O, is that all? What will you give me now
    For that same handkerchief?
  IAGO.                         What handkerchief?
  EMILIA. What handkerchief?
    Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona,
    That which so often you did bid me steal.
  IAGO. Hast stol'n it from her?
  EMILIA. No, faith; she let it drop by negligence,
    And, to the advantage, I being here took't up.
    Look, here it is.
  IAGO.               A good wench; give it me.
  EMILIA. What will you do with't, that you have been so earnest
    To have me filch it?
  IAGO. [Snatching it.] Why, what is that to you?
  EMILIA. If't be not for some purpose of import,
    Give't me again. Poor lady, she'll run mad
    When she shall lack it.
  IAGO. Be not acknown on't; I have use for it.
    Go, leave me.                                        Exit Emilia.
    I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin,
    And let him find it. Trifles light as air
    Are to the jealous confirmations strong
    As proofs of holy writ; this may do something.
    The Moor already changes with my poison:
    Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons,
    Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
    But with a little act upon the blood
    Burn like the mines of sulphur. I did say so.
    Look, where he comes!

                          Re-enter Othello.

                          Not poppy, nor mandragora,
    Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
    Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
    Which thou owedst yesterday.
  OTHELLO.                       Ha, ha, false to me?
  IAGO. Why, how now, general! No more of that.
  OTHELLO. Avaunt! be gone! Thou hast set me on the rack.
    I swear 'tis better to be much abused
    Than but to know't a little.
  IAGO.                          How now, my lord?
  OTHELLO. What sense had I of her stol'n hours of lust?
    I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me;
    I slept the next night well, was free and merry;
    I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips.
    He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n,
    Let him not know't and he's not robb'd at all.
  IAGO. I am sorry to hear this.
  OTHELLO. I had been happy if the general camp,
    Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,
    So I had nothing known. O, now forever
    Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content!
    Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars
    That make ambition virtue! O, farewell,
    Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
    The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
    The royal banner, and all quality,
    Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
    And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
    The immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit,
    Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!
  IAGO. Is't possible, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore;
    Be sure of it. Give me the ocular proof;
    Or, by the worth of man's eternal soul,
    Thou hadst been better have been born a dog
    Than answer my waked wrath!
  IAGO.                         Is't come to this?
  OTHELLO. Make me to see't; or at the least so prove it,
    That the probation bear no hinge nor loop
    To hang a doubt on; or woe upon thy life!
  IAGO. My noble lord-
  OTHELLO. If thou dost slander her and torture me,
    Never pray more; abandon all remorse;
    On horror's head horrors accumulate;
    Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed;
    For nothing canst thou to damnation add
    Greater than that.
  IAGO.                O grace! O heaven defend me!
    Are you a man? have you a soul or sense?
    God be wi' you; take mine office. O wretched fool,
    That livest to make thine honesty a vice!
    O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world,
    To be direct and honest is not safe.
    I thank you for this profit, and from hence
    I'll love no friend sith love breeds such offense.
  OTHELLO. Nay, stay; thou shouldst be honest.
  IAGO. I should be wise; for honesty's a fool,
    And loses that it works for.
  OTHELLO.                       By the world,
    I think my wife be honest, and think she is not;
    I think that thou art just, and think thou art not.
    I'll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh
    As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black
    As mine own face. If there be cords or knives,
    Poison or fire, or suffocating streams,
    I'll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!
  IAGO. I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion;
    I do repent me that I put it to you.
    You would be satisfied?
  OTHELLO.                  Would? Nay, I will.
  IAGO. And may. But, how? how satisfied, my lord?
    Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on?
    Behold her topp'd?
  OTHELLO.             Death and damnation! O!
  IAGO. It were a tedious difficulty, I think,
    To bring them to that prospect. Damn them then,
    If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster
    More than their own! What then? how then?
    What shall I say? Where's satisfaction?
    It is impossible you should see this
    Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,
    As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross
    As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,
    If imputation and strong circumstances,
    Which lead directly to the door of truth,
    Will give you satisfaction, you may have't.
  OTHELLO. Give me a living reason she's disloyal.
  IAGO. I do not like the office;
    But sith I am enter'd in this cause so far,
    Prick'd to't by foolish honesty and love,
    I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately
    And, being troubled with a raging tooth,
    I could not sleep.
    There are a kind of men so loose of soul,
    That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs;
    One of this kind is Cassio.
    In sleep I heard him say, "Sweet Desdemona,
    Let us be wary, let us hide our loves";
    And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand,
    Cry, "O sweet creature!" and then kiss me hard,
    As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots,
    That grew upon my lips; then laid his leg
    Over my thigh, and sigh'd and kiss'd; and then
    Cried, "Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor!"
  OTHELLO. O monstrous! monstrous!
  IAGO.                            Nay, this was but his dream.
  OTHELLO. But this denoted a foregone conclusion.
    'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.
  IAGO. And this may help to thicken other proofs
    That do demonstrate thinly.
  OTHELLO.                      I'll tear her all to pieces.
  IAGO. Nay, but be wise; yet we see nothing done;
    She may be honest yet. Tell me but this;
    Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief
    Spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand?
  OTHELLO. I gave her such a one; 'twas my first gift.
  IAGO. I know not that; but such a handkerchief-
    I am sure it was your wife's- did I today
    See Cassio wipe his beard with.
  OTHELLO.                          If it be that-
  IAGO. If it be that, or any that was hers,
    It speaks against her with the other proofs.
  OTHELLO. O, that the slave had forty thousand lives!
    One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.
    Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, Iago,
    All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.
    'Tis gone.
    Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow hell!
    Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne
    To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,
    For 'tis of aspics' tongues!
  IAGO.                          Yet be content.
  OTHELLO. O, blood, blood, blood!
  IAGO. Patience, I say; your mind perhaps may change.
  OTHELLO. Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic Sea,
    Whose icy current and compulsive course
    Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
    To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
    Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
    Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
    Till that a capable and wide revenge
    Swallow them up. Now, by yond marble heaven,
    In the due reverence of a sacred vow                      Kneels.
    I here engage my words.
  IAGO.                     Do not rise yet.                  Kneels.
    Witness, you ever-burning lights above,
    You elements that clip us round about,
    Witness that here Iago doth give up
    The execution of his wit, hands, heart,
    To wrong'd Othello's service! Let him command,
    And to obey shall be in me remorse,
    What bloody business ever.                             They rise.
  OTHELLO.                     I greet thy love,
    Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous,
    And will upon the instant put thee to't:
    Within these three days let me hear thee say
    That Cassio's not alive.
  IAGO. My friend is dead, 'tis done at your request;
    But let her live.
  OTHELLO.            Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!
    Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw,
    To furnish me with some swift means of death
    For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.
  IAGO. I am your own forever.                                Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Before the castle.

Enter Desdemona, Emilia, and Clown.

  DESDEMONA. Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?
  CLOWN. I dare not say he lies anywhere.
  DESDEMONA. Why, man?
  CLOWN. He's a soldier; and for one to say a soldier lies, is
    stabbing.
  DESDEMONA. Go to! Where lodges he?
  CLOWN. To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you where I lie.
  DESDEMONA. Can anything be made of this?
  CLOWN. I know not where he lodges, and for me to devise a lodging,
    and say he lies here or he lies there, were to lie in mine own
    throat.
  DESDEMONA. Can you inquire him out and be edified by report?
  CLOWN. I will catechize the world for him; that is, make questions
    and by them answer.
  DESDEMONA. Seek him, bid him come hither. Tell him I have moved my
    lord on his behalf and hope all will be well.
  CLOWN. To do this is within the compass of man's wit, and therefore
    I will attempt the doing it.                                Exit.
  DESDEMONA. Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia?
  EMILIA. I know not, madam.
  DESDEMONA. Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse
    Full of crusadoes; and, but my noble Moor
    Is true of mind and made of no such baseness
    As jealous creatures are, it were enough
    To put him to ill thinking.
  EMILIA.                       Is he not jealous?
  DESDEMONA. Who, he? I think the sun where he was born
    Drew all such humors from him.
  EMILIA.                          Look, where he comes.
  DESDEMONA. I will not leave him now till Cassio
    Be call'd to him.

                            Enter Othello.

                      How is't with you, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Well, my good lady. [Aside.] O, hardness to dissemble!
    How do you, Desdemona?
  DESDEMONA.               Well, my good lord.
  OTHELLO. Give me your hand. This hand is moist, my lady.
  DESDEMONA. It yet has felt no age nor known no sorrow.
  OTHELLO. This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart;
    Hot, hot, and moist. This hand of yours requires
    A sequester from liberty, fasting, and prayer,
    Much castigation, exercise devout,
    For here's a young and sweating devil here
    That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand,
    A frank one.
  DESDEMONA. You may, indeed, say so;
    For 'twas that hand that gave away my heart.
  OTHELLO. A liberal hand. The hearts of old gave hands;
    But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.
  DESDEMONA. I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.
  OTHELLO. What promise, chuck?
  DESDEMONA. I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.
  OTHELLO. I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me;
    Lend me thy handkerchief.
  DESDEMONA. Here, my lord.
  OTHELLO. That which I gave you.
  DESDEMONA. I have it not about me.
  OTHELLO. Not?
  DESDEMONA. No, faith, my lord.
  OTHELLO. That's a fault. That handkerchief
    Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
    She was a charmer, and could almost read
    The thoughts of people. She told her, while she kept it,
    'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
    Entirely to her love, but if she lost it
    Or made a gift of it, my father's eye
    Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt
    After new fancies. She dying gave it me,
    And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,
    To give it her. I did so, and take heed on't;
    Make it a darling like your precious eye;
    To lose't or give't away were such perdition
    As nothing else could match.
  DESDEMONA.                     Is't possible?
  OTHELLO. 'Tis true; there's magic in the web of it.
    A sibyl, that had number'd in the world
    The sun to course two hundred compasses,
    In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;
    The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk,
    And it was dyed in mummy which the skillful
    Conserved of maiden's hearts.
  DESDEMONA.                      Indeed! is't true?
  OTHELLO. Most veritable; therefore look to't well.
  DESDEMONA. Then would to God that I had never seen't!
  OTHELLO. Ha! wherefore?
  DESDEMONA. Why do you speak so startingly and rash?
  OTHELLO. Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out o' the way?
  DESDEMONA. Heaven bless us!
  OTHELLO. Say you?
  DESDEMONA. It is not lost; but what an if it were?
  OTHELLO. How?
  DESDEMONA. I say, it is not lost.
  OTHELLO. Fetch't, let me see it.
  DESDEMONA. Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.
    This is a trick to put me from my suit.
    Pray you, let Cassio be received again.
  OTHELLO. Fetch me the handkerchief, my mind misgives.
  DESDEMONA. Come, come,
    You'll never meet a more sufficient man.
  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!
  DESDEMONA.                 I pray, talk me of Cassio.
  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!
  DESDEMONA.                 A man that all his time
    Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,
    Shared dangers with you-
  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!
  DESDEMONA. In sooth, you are to blame.
  OTHELLO. Away!                                                Exit.
  EMILIA. Is not this man jealous?
  DESDEMONA. I ne'er saw this before.
    Sure there's some wonder in this handkerchief;
    I am most unhappy in the loss of it.
  EMILIA. 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man.
    They are all but stomachs and we all but food;
    They eat us hungerly, and when they are full
    They belch us. Look you! Cassio and my husband.

                        Enter Cassio and Iago.

  IAGO. There is no other way; 'tis she must do't.
    And, lo, the happiness! Go and importune her.
  DESDEMONA. How now, good Cassio! What's the news with you?
  CASSIO. Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you
    That by your virtuous means I may again
    Exist and be a member of his love
    Whom I with all the office of my heart
    Entirely honor. I would not be delay'd.
    If my offense be of such mortal kind
    That nor my service past nor present sorrows
    Nor purposed merit in futurity
    Can ransom me into his love again,
    But to know so must be my benefit;
    So shall I clothe me in a forced content
    And shut myself up in some other course
    To Fortune's alms.
  DESDEMONA.           Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio!
    My advocation is not now in tune;
    My lord is not my lord, nor should I know him
    Were he in favor as in humor alter'd.
    So help me every spirit sanctified,
    As I have spoken for you all my best
    And stood within the blank of his displeasure
    For my free speech! You must awhile be patient.
    What I can do I will; and more I will
    Than for myself I dare. Let that suffice you.
  IAGO. Is my lord angry?
  EMILIA.                 He went hence but now,
    And certainly in strange unquietness.
  IAGO. Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon,
    When it hath blown his ranks into the air
    And, like the devil, from his very arm
    Puff'd his own brother. And can he be angry?
    Something of moment then. I will go meet him.
    There's matter in't indeed if he be angry.
  DESDEMONA. I prithee, do so.                             Exit Iago.
                               Something sure of state,
    Either from Venice or some unhatch'd practice
    Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,
    Hath puddled his clear spirit; and in such cases
    Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,
    Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so;
    For let our finger ache, and it indues
    Our other healthful members even to that sense
    Of pain. Nay, we must think men are not gods,
    Nor of them look for such observancy
    As fits the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia,
    I was, unhandsome warrior as I am,
    Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;
    But now I find I had suborn'd the witness,
    And he's indicted falsely.
  EMILIA. Pray heaven it be state matters, as you think,
    And no conception nor no jealous toy
    Concerning you.
  DESDEMONA. Alas the day, I never gave him cause!
  EMILIA. But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;
    They are not ever jealous for the cause,
    But jealous for they are jealous. 'Tis a monster
    Begot upon itself, born on itself.
  DESDEMONA. Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind!
  EMILIA. Lady, amen.
  DESDEMONA. I will go seek him. Cassio, walk hereabout.
    If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit,
    And seek to effect it to my uttermost.
  CASSIO. I humbly thank your ladyship.
                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.

                            Enter Bianca.

  BIANCA. Save you, friend Cassio!
  CASSIO.                          What make you from home?
    How is it with you, my most fair Bianca?
    I'faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house.
  BIANCA. And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.
    What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?
    Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,
    More tedious than the dial eight score times?
    O weary reckoning!
  CASSIO.              Pardon me, Bianca.
    I have this while with leaden thoughts been press'd;
    But I shall in a more continuate time
    Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca,
                                  Gives her Desdemona's handkerchief.
    Take me this work out.
  BIANCA.                  O Cassio, whence came this?
    This is some token from a newer friend.
    To the felt absence now I feel a cause.
    Is't come to this? Well, well.
  CASSIO.                          Go to, woman!
    Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth,
    From whence you have them. You are jealous now
    That this is from some mistress, some remembrance.
    No, by my faith, Bianca.
  BIANCA.                    Why, whose is it?
  CASSIO. I know not, sweet. I found it in my chamber.
    I like the work well. Ere it be demanded-
    As like enough it will- I'ld have it copied.
    Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time.
  BIANCA. Leave you! wherefore?
  CASSIO. I do attend here on the general;
    And think it no addition, nor my wish,
    To have him see me woman'd.
  BIANCA.                       Why, I pray you?
  CASSIO. Not that I love you not.
  BIANCA.                          But that you do not love me.
    I pray you, bring me on the way a little,
    And say if I shall see you soon at night.
  CASSIO. 'Tis but a little way that I can bring you,
    For I attend here, but I'll see you soon.
  BIANCA. 'Tis very good; I must be circumstanced.            Exeunt.

ACT IV. SCENE I. Cyprus. Before the castle.

Enter Othello and Iago.

  IAGO. Will you think so?
  OTHELLO.                 Think so, Iago?
  IAGO.                                    What,
    To kiss in private?
  OTHELLO.              An unauthorized kiss.
  IAGO. Or to be naked with her friend in bed
    An hour or more, not meaning any harm?
  OTHELLO. Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!
    It is hypocrisy against the devil.
    They that mean virtuously and yet do so,
    The devil their virtue tempts and they tempt heaven.
  IAGO. So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip.
    But if I give my wife a handkerchief-
  OTHELLO. What then?
  IAGO. Why, then, 'tis hers, my lord, and being hers,
    She may, I think, bestow't on any man.
  OTHELLO. She is protectress of her honor too.
    May she give that?
  IAGO. Her honor is an essence that's not seen;
    They have it very oft that have it not.
    But for the handkerchief-
  OTHELLO. By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.
    Thou said'st- O, it comes o'er my memory,
    As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
    Boding to all- he had my handkerchief.
  IAGO. Ay, what of that?
  OTHELLO.                That's not so good now.
  IAGO.                                           What,
    If I had said I had seen him do you wrong?
    Or heard him say- as knaves be such abroad,
    Who having, by their own importunate suit,
    Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,
    Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose
    But they must blab-
  OTHELLO.              Hath he said anything?
  IAGO. He hath, my lord; but be you well assured,
    No more than he'll unswear.
  OTHELLO.                      What hath he said?
  IAGO. Faith, that he did- I know not what he did.
  OTHELLO. What? what?
  IAGO. Lie-
  OTHELLO. With her?
  IAGO.              With her, on her, what you will.
  OTHELLO. Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when they
    belie her. Lie with her! 'Zounds, that's fulsome! Handkerchief-
    confessions- handkerchief! To confess and be hanged for his labor-
    first, to be hanged, and then to confess. I tremble at it.
    Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without
    some instruction. It is not words that shakes me thus. Pish!
    Noses, ears, and lips. Is't possible? Confess? Handkerchief? O
    devil!
                                                   Falls in a trance.
  IAGO. Work on,
    My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught,
    And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,
    All guiltless, meet reproach. What, ho! My lord!
    My lord, I say! Othello!

                            Enter Cassio.

                             How now, Cassio!
  CASSIO. What's the matter?
  IAGO. My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy.
    This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.
  CASSIO. Rub him about the temples.
  IAGO.                              No, forbear;
    The lethargy must have his quiet course.
    If not, he foams at mouth, and by and by
    Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs.
    Do you withdraw yourself a little while,
    He will recover straight. When he is gone,
    I would on great occasion speak with you.            Exit Cassio.
    How is it, general? Have you not hurt your head?
  OTHELLO. Dost thou mock me?
  IAGO.                       I mock you? No, by heaven.
    Would you would bear your fortune like a man!
  OTHELLO. A horned man's a monster and a beast.
  IAGO. There's many a beast then in a populous city,
    And many a civil monster.
  OTHELLO. Did he confess it?
  IAGO.                       Good sir, be a man;
    Think every bearded fellow that's but yoked
    May draw with you. There's millions now alive
    That nightly lie in those unproper beds
    Which they dare swear peculiar. Your case is better.
    O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,
    To lip a wanton in a secure couch,
    And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know,
    And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.
  OTHELLO. O, thou art wise; 'tis certain.
  IAGO.                                    Stand you awhile apart,
    Confine yourself but in a patient list.
    Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief-
    A passion most unsuiting such a man-
    Cassio came hither. I shifted him away,
    And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy;
    Bade him anon return and here speak with me
    The which he promised. Do but encave yourself
    And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,
    That dwell in every region of his face;
    For I will make him tell the tale anew,
    Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when
    He hath and is again to cope your wife.
    I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience,
    Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen,
    And nothing of a man.
  OTHELLO.                Dost thou hear, Iago?
    I will be found most cunning in my patience;
    But (dost thou hear?) most bloody.
  IAGO.                                That's not amiss;
    But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?
                                                     Othello retires.
    Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,
    A housewife that by selling her desires
    Buys herself bread and clothes. It is a creature
    That dotes on Cassio, as 'tis the strumpet's plague
    To beguile many and be beguiled by one.
    He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain
    From the excess of laughter. Here he comes.

                           Re-enter Cassio.

    As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;
    And his unbookish jealousy must construe
    Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures, and light behavior
    Quite in the wrong. How do you now, lieutenant?
  CASSIO. The worser that you give me the addition
    Whose want even kills me.
  IAGO. Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't.
    Now, if this suit lay in Bianco's power,
    How quickly should you speed!
  CASSIO.                         Alas, poor caitiff!
  OTHELLO. Look, how he laughs already!
  IAGO. I never knew a woman love man so.
  CASSIO. Alas, poor rogue! I think, i'faith, she loves me.
  OTHELLO. Now he denies it faintly and laughs it out.
  IAGO. Do you hear, Cassio?
  OTHELLO.                   Now he importunes him
    To tell it o'er. Go to; well said, well said.
  IAGO. She gives it out that you shall marry her.
    Do you intend it?
  CASSIO. Ha, ha, ha!
  OTHELLO. Do you triumph, Roman? Do you triumph?
  CASSIO. I marry her! What? A customer! I prithee, bear some charity
    to my wit; do not think it so unwholesome. Ha, ha, ha!
  OTHELLO. So, so, so, so. They laugh that win.
  IAGO. Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.
  CASSIO. Prithee, say true.
  IAGO. I am a very villain else.
  OTHELLO. Have you scored me? Well.
  CASSIO. This is the monkey's own giving out. She is persuaded I
    will marry her, out of her own love and flattery, not out of my
    promise.
  OTHELLO. Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.
  CASSIO. She was here even now; she haunts me in every place. I was
    the other day talking on the sea bank with certain Venetians, and
    thither comes the bauble, and, by this hand, she falls me thus
    about my neck-
  OTHELLO. Crying, "O dear Cassio!" as it were; his gesture imports
    it.
  CASSIO. So hangs and lolls and weeps upon me; so hales and pulls
    me. Ha, ha, ha!
  OTHELLO. Now he tells how she plucked him to my chamber. O, I see
    that nose of yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to.
  CASSIO. Well, I must leave her company.
  IAGO. Before me! look where she comes.
  CASSIO. 'Tis such another fitchew! marry, a perfumed one.

                            Enter Bianca.

    What do you mean by this haunting of me?
  BIANCA. Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you mean by
    that same handkerchief you gave me even now? I was a fine fool to
    take it. I must take out the work? A likely piece of work that
    you should find it in your chamber and not know who left it
    there! This is some minx's token, and I must take out the work?
    There, give it your hobbyhorse. Wheresoever you had it, I'll take
    out no work on't.
  CASSIO. How now, my sweet Bianca! how now! how now!
  OTHELLO. By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!
  BIANCA. An you'll come to supper tonight, you may; an you will not,
    come when you are next prepared for.                        Exit.
  IAGO. After her, after her.
  CASSIO. Faith, I must; she'll rail i' the street else.
  IAGO. Will you sup there?
  CASSIO. Faith, I intend so.
  IAGO. Well, I may chance to see you, for I would very fain speak
    with you.
  CASSIO. Prithee, come; will you?
  IAGO. Go to; say no more.                              Exit Cassio.
  OTHELLO. [Advancing.] How shall I murther him, Iago?
  IAGO. Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice?
  OTHELLO. O Iago!
  IAGO. And did you see the handkerchief?
  OTHELLO. Was that mine?
  IAGO. Yours, by this hand. And to see how he prizes the foolish
    woman your wife! She gave it him, and he hath given it his whore.
  OTHELLO. I would have him nine years akilling. A fine woman! a fair
    woman! a sweet woman!
  IAGO. Nay, you must forget that.
  OTHELLO. Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned tonight, for
    she shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it,
    and it hurts my hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature.
    She might lie by an emperor's side, and command him tasks.
  IAGO. Nay, that's not your way.
  OTHELLO. Hang her! I do but say what she is. So delicate with her
    needle, an admirable musician. O, she will sing the savageness
    out of a bear. Of so high and plenteous wit and invention-
  IAGO. She's the worse for all this.
  OTHELLO. O, a thousand, a thousand times. And then, of so gentle a
    condition!
  IAGO. Ay, too gentle.
  OTHELLO. Nay, that's certain. But yet the pity of it, Iago!
    O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!
  IAGO. If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to
    offend, for, if it touch not you, it comes near nobody.
  OTHELLO. I will chop her into messes. Cuckold me!
  IAGO. O, 'tis foul in her.
  OTHELLO. With mine officer!
  IAGO. That's fouler.
  OTHELLO. Get me some poison, Iago, this night. I'll not expostulate
    with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again. This
    night, Iago.
  IAGO. Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed
    she hath contaminated.
  OTHELLO. Good, good, the justice of it pleases, very good.
  IAGO. And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker. You shall hear more
    by midnight.
  OTHELLO. Excellent good. [A trumpet within.] What trumpet is that
    same?
  IAGO. Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lodovico
    Come from the Duke. And, see your wife is with him.

              Enter Lodovico, Desdemona, and Attendants.

  LODOVICO. God save the worthy general!
  OTHELLO.                               With all my heart, sir.
  LODOVICO. The Duke and Senators of Venice greet you.
                                                  Gives him a letter.
  OTHELLO. I kiss the instrument of their pleasures.
                                         Opens the letter, and reads.
  DESDEMONA. And what's the news, good cousin Lodovico?
  IAGO. I am very glad to see you, signior;
    Welcome to Cyprus.
  LODOVICO. I thank you. How does Lieutenant Cassio?
  IAGO. Lives, sir.
  DESDEMONA. Cousin, there's fall'n between him and my lord
    An unkind breech; but you shall make all well.
  OTHELLO. Are you sure of that?
  DESDEMONA. My lord?
  OTHELLO. [Reads.] "This fail you not to do, as you will-"
  LODOVICO. He did not call; he's busy in the paper.
    Is there division 'twixt my lord and Cassio?
  DESDEMONA. A most unhappy one. I would do much
    To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.
  OTHELLO. Fire and brimstone!
  DESDEMONA. My lord?
  OTHELLO. Are you wise?
  DESDEMONA. What, is he angry?
  LODOVICO.                     May be the letter moved him;
    For, as I think, they do command him home,
    Deputing Cassio in his government.
  DESDEMONA. By my troth, I am glad on't.
  OTHELLO.                                Indeed!
  DESDEMONA.                                      My lord?
  OTHELLO. I am glad to see you mad.
  DESDEMONA.                         Why, sweet Othello?
  OTHELLO. Devil!                                        Strikes her.
  DESDEMONA. I have not deserved this.
  LODOVICO. My lord, this would not be believed in Venice,
    Though I should swear I saw't. 'Tis very much.
    Make her amends; she weeps.
  OTHELLO.                      O devil, devil!
    If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
    Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
    Out of my sight!
  DESDEMONA. [Going.] I will not stay to offend you.
  LODOVICO. Truly, an obedient lady.
    I do beseech your lordship, call her back.
  OTHELLO. Mistress!
  DESDEMONA. My lord?
  OTHELLO. What would you with her, sir?
  LODOVICO.                              Who, I, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Ay, you did wish that I would make her turn.
    Sir, she can turn and turn, and yet go on,
    And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep;
    And she's obedient, as you say, obedient,
    Very obedient. Proceed you in your tears.
    Concerning this, sir- O well-painted passion!-
    I am commanded home. Get you away;
    I'll send for you anon. Sir, I obey the mandate,
    And will return to Venice. Hence, avaunt!
                                                      Exit Desdemona.
    Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, tonight,
    I do entreat that we may sup together.
    You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus. Goats and monkeys!
     Exit.
  LODOVICO. Is this the noble Moor whom our full Senate
    Call all in all sufficient? This the nature
    Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue
    The shot of accident nor dart of chance
    Could neither graze nor pierce?
  IAGO.                             He is much changed.
  LODOVICO. Are his wits safe? Is he not light of brain?
  IAGO. He's that he is. I may not breathe my censure
    What he might be: if what he might he is not,
    I would to heaven he were!
  LODOVICO.                    What, strike his wife!
  IAGO. Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew
    That stroke would prove the worst!
  LODOVICO.                            Is it his use?
    Or did the letters work upon his blood,
    And new create this fault?
  IAGO.                        Alas, alas!
    It is not honesty in me to speak
    What I have seen and known. You shall observe him,
    And his own courses will denote him so
    That I may save my speech. Do but go after,
    And mark how he continues.
  LODOVICO. I am sorry that I am deceived in him.             Exeunt.

SCENE II. A room in the castle.

Enter Othello and Emilia.

  OTHELLO. You have seen nothing, then?
  EMILIA. Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.
  OTHELLO. Yes, you have seen Cassio and she together.
  EMILIA. But then I saw no harm, and then I heard
    Each syllable that breath made up between them.
  OTHELLO. What, did they never whisper?
  EMILIA.                                Never, my lord.
  OTHELLO. Nor send you out o' the way?
  EMILIA. Never.
  OTHELLO. To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing?
  EMILIA. Never, my lord.
  OTHELLO. That's strange.
  EMILIA. I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,
    Lay down my soul at stake. If you think other,
    Remove your thought; it doth abuse your bosom.
    If any wretch have put this in your head,
    Let heaven requite it with the serpent's curse!
    For if she be not honest, chaste, and true,
    There's no man happy; the purest of their wives
    Is foul as slander.
  OTHELLO.              Bid her come hither; go.         Exit Emilia.
    She says enough; yet she's a simple bawd
    That cannot say as much. This is a subtle whore,
    A closet lock and key of villainous secrets.
    And yet she'll kneel and pray; I have seen her do't.

                     Enter Desdemona with Emilia.

  DESDEMONA. My lord, what is your will?
  OTHELLO.                               Pray, chuck, come hither.
  DESDEMONA. What is your pleasure?
  OTHELLO.                          Let me see your eyes;
    Look in my face.
  DESDEMONA.         What horrible fancy's this?
  OTHELLO. [To Emilia.] Some of your function, mistress,
    Leave procreants alone and shut the door;
    Cough, or cry "hem," if anybody come.
    Your mystery, your mystery; nay, dispatch.           Exit Emilia.
  DESDEMONA. Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?
    I understand a fury in your words,
    But not the words.
  OTHELLO. Why, what art thou?
  DESDEMONA. Your wife, my lord, your true and loyal wife.
  OTHELLO. Come, swear it, damn thyself;
    Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves
    Should fear to seize thee. Therefore be double-damn'd;
    Swear thou art honest.
  DESDEMONA.               Heaven doth truly know it.
  OTHELLO. Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.
  DESDEMONA. To whom, my lord? with whom? how am I false?
  OTHELLO. O Desdemona! Away! away! away!
  DESDEMONA. Alas the heavy day! Why do you weep?
    Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?
    If haply you my father do suspect
    An instrument of this your calling back,
    Lay not your blame on me. If you have lost him,
    Why, I have lost him too.
  OTHELLO.                    Had it pleased heaven
    To try me with affliction, had they rain'd
    All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head,
    Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,
    Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
    I should have found in some place of my soul
    A drop of patience; but, alas, to make me
    A fixed figure for the time of scorn
    To point his slow unmoving finger at!
    Yet could I bear that too, well, very well;
    But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,
    Where either I must live or bear no life;
    The fountain from the which my current runs,
    Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
    Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
    To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,
    Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,
    Ay, there, look grim as hell!
  DESDEMONA. I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.
  OTHELLO. O, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles,
    That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,
    Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet
    That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born!
  DESDEMONA. Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?
  OTHELLO. Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
    Made to write "whore" upon? What committed?
    Committed? O thou public commoner!
    I should make very forges of my cheeks,
    That would to cinders burn up modesty,
    Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!
    Heaven stops the nose at it, and the moon winks;
    The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets,
    Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth,
    And will not hear it. What committed?
    Impudent strumpet!
  DESDEMONA.           By heaven, you do me wrong.
  OTHELLO. Are not you a strumpet?
  DESDEMONA.                       No, as I am a Christian.
    If to preserve this vessel for my lord
    From any other foul unlawful touch
    Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.
  OTHELLO. What, not a whore?
  DESDEMONA.                  No, as I shall be saved.
  OTHELLO. Is't possible?
  DESDEMONA. O, heaven forgive us!
  OTHELLO.                         I cry you mercy then;
    I took you for that cunning whore of Venice
    That married with Othello. [Raises his voice.] You, mistress,
    That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,
    And keep the gate of hell!

                           Re-enter Emilia.

                               You, you, ay, you!
    We have done our course; there's money for your pains.
    I pray you, turn the key, and keep our counsel.             Exit.
  EMILIA. Alas, what does this gentleman conceive?
    How do you, madam? How do you, my good lady?
  DESDEMONA. Faith, half asleep.
  EMILIA. Good madam, what's the matter with my lord?
  DESDEMONA. With who?
  EMILIA. Why, with my lord, madam.
  DESDEMONA. Who is thy lord?
  EMILIA.                     He that is yours, sweet lady.
  DESDEMONA. I have none. Do not talk to me, Emilia;
    I cannot weep, nor answer have I none
    But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight
    Lay on my bed my wedding sheets. Remember,
    And call thy husband hither.
  EMILIA.                        Here's a change indeed!
     Exit.
  DESDEMONA. 'Tis meet I should be used so, very meet.
    How have I been behaved, that he might stick
    The small'st opinion on my least misuse?

                      Re-enter Emilia with Iago.

  IAGO. What is your pleasure, madam? How is't with you?
  DESDEMONA. I cannot tell. Those that do teach young babes
    Do it with gentle means and easy tasks.
    He might have chid me so, for in good faith,
    I am a child to chiding.
  IAGO.                      What's the matter, lady?
  EMILIA. Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her,
    Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her,
    As true hearts cannot bear.
  DESDEMONA. Am I that name, Iago?
  IAGO.                            What name, fair lady?
  DESDEMONA. Such as she says my lord did say I was.
  EMILIA. He call'd her whore; a beggar in his drink
    Could not have laid such terms upon his callet.
  IAGO. Why did he so?
  DESDEMONA. I do not know; I am sure I am none such.
  IAGO. Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!
  EMILIA. Hath she forsook so many noble matches,
    Her father and her country and her friends,
    To be call'd whore? Would it not make one weep?
  DESDEMONA. It is my wretched fortune.
  IAGO.                                 Beshrew him for't!
    How comes this trick upon him?
  DESDEMONA.                       Nay, heaven doth know.
  EMILIA. I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain,
    Some busy and insinuating rogue,
    Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,
    Have not devised this slander; I'll be hang'd else.
  IAGO. Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.
  DESDEMONA. If any such there be, heaven pardon him!
  EMILIA. A halter pardon him! And hell gnaw his bones!
    Why should he call her whore? Who keeps her company?
    What place? What time? What form? What likelihood?
    The Moor's abused by some most villainous knave,
    Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow.
    O heaven, that such companions thou'ldst unfold,
    And put in every honest hand a whip
    To lash the rascals naked through the world
    Even from the east to the west!
  IAGO.                             Speak within door.
  EMILIA. O, fie upon them! Some such squire he was
    That turn'd your wit the seamy side without,
    And made you to suspect me with the Moor.
  IAGO. You are a fool; go to.
  DESDEMONA.                   O good Iago,
    What shall I do to win my lord again?
    Good friend, go to him, for by this light of heaven,
    I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:
    If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love
    Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,
    Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
    Delighted them in any other form,
    Or that I do not yet, and ever did,
    And ever will, though he do shake me off
    To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly,
    Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much,
    And his unkindness may defeat my life,
    But never taint my love. I cannot say "whore."
    It doth abhor me now I speak the word;
    To do the act that might the addition earn
    Not the world's mass of vanity could make me.
  IAGO. I pray you, be content; 'tis but his humor:
    The business of the state does him offense,
    And he does chide with you.
  DESDEMONA. If 'twere no other-
  IAGO. 'Tis but so, I warrant.                      Trumpets within.
    Hark, how these instruments summon to supper!
    The messengers of Venice stay the meat.
    Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well.
                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.

                           Enter Roderigo.

    How now, Roderigo!
  RODERIGO. I do not find that thou dealest justly with me.
  IAGO. What in the contrary?
  RODERIGO. Every day thou daffest me with some device, Iago; and
    rather, as it seems to me now, keepest from me all conveniency
    than suppliest me with the least advantage of hope. I will indeed
    no longer endure it; nor am I yet persuaded to put up in peace
    what already I have foolishly suffered.
  IAGO. Will you hear me, Roderigo?
  RODERIGO. Faith, I have heard too much, for your words and
    performances are no kin together.
  IAGO. You charge me most unjustly.
  RODERIGO. With nought but truth. I have wasted myself out of my
    means. The jewels you have had from me to deliver to Desdemona
    would half have corrupted a votarist. You have told me she hath
    received them and returned me expectations and comforts of sudden
    respect and acquaintance; but I find none.
  IAGO. Well, go to, very well.
  RODERIGO. Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; nor 'tis not very
    well. By this hand, I say 'tis very scurvy, and begin to find
    myself fopped in it.
  IAGO. Very well.
  RODERIGO. I tell you 'tis not very well. I will make myself known
    to Desdemona. If she will return me my jewels, I will give over
    my suit and repent my unlawful solicitation; if not, assure
    yourself I will seek satisfaction of you.
  IAGO. You have said now.
  RODERIGO. Ay, and said nothing but what I protest intendment of
    doing.
  IAGO. Why, now I see there's mettle in thee; and even from this
    instant do build on thee a better opinion than ever before. Give
    me thy hand, Roderigo. Thou hast taken against me a most just
    exception; but yet, I protest, have dealt most directly in thy
    affair.
  RODERIGO. It hath not appeared.
  IAGO. I grant indeed it hath not appeared, and your suspicion is
    not without wit and judgement. But, Roderigo, if thou hast that
    in thee indeed, which I have greater reason to believe now than
    ever, I mean purpose, courage, and valor, this night show it; if
    thou the next night following enjoy not Desdemona, take me from
    this world with treachery and devise engines for my life.
  RODERIGO. Well, what is it? Is it within reason and compass?
  IAGO. Sir, there is especial commission come from Venice to depute
    Cassio in Othello's place.
  RODERIGO. Is that true? Why then Othello and Desdemona return again
    to Venice.
  IAGO. O, no; he goes into Mauritania, and takes away with him the
    fair Desdemona, unless his abode be lingered here by some
    accident; wherein none can be so determinate as the removing of
    Cassio.
  RODERIGO. How do you mean, removing of him?
  IAGO. Why, by making him uncapable of Othello's place; knocking out
    his brains.
  RODERIGO. And that you would have me to do?
  IAGO. Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right. He sups
    tonight with a harlotry, and thither will I go to him. He knows
    not yet of his honorable fortune. If you will watch his going
    thence, which his will fashion to fall out between twelve and
    one, you may take him at your pleasure; I will be near to second
    your attempt, and he shall fall between us. Come, stand not
    amazed at it, but go along with me; I will show you such a
    necessity in his death that you shall think yourself bound to put
    it on him. It is now high supper-time, and the night grows to
    waste. About it.
  RODERIGO. I will hear further reason for this.
  IAGO. And you shall be satisfied.                           Exeunt.

SCENE III. Another room in the castle.

Enter Othello, Lodovico, Desdemona, Emilia, and Attendants.

  LODOVICO. I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.
  OTHELLO. O, pardon me; 'twill do me good to walk.
  LODOVICO. Madam, good night; I humbly thank your ladyship.
  DESDEMONA. Your honor is most welcome.
  OTHELLO.                               Will you walk, sir?
    O- Desdemona-
  DESDEMONA. My lord?
  OTHELLO. Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned
    forthwith. Dismiss your attendant there; look it be done.
  DESDEMONA. I will, my lord.
                            Exeunt Othello, Lodovico, and Attendants.
  EMILIA. How goes it now? He looks gentler than he did.
  DESDEMONA. He says he will return incontinent.
    He hath commanded me to go to bed,
    And bade me to dismiss you.
  EMILIA.                       Dismiss me?
  DESDEMONA. It was his bidding; therefore, good Emilia,
    Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu.
    We must not now displease him.
  EMILIA. I would you had never seen him!
  DESDEMONA. So would not I. My love doth so approve him,
    That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns-
    Prithee, unpin me- have grace and favor in them.
  EMILIA. I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.
  DESDEMONA. All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!
    If I do die before thee, prithee shroud me
    In one of those same sheets.
  EMILIA.                        Come, come, you talk.
  DESDEMONA. My mother had a maid call'd Barbary;
    She was in love, and he she loved proved mad
    And did forsake her. She had a song of "willow";
    An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,
    And she died singing it. That song tonight
    Will not go from my mind; I have much to do
    But to go hang my head all at one side
    And sing it like poor Barbary. Prithee, dispatch.
  EMILIA. Shall I go fetch your nightgown?
  DESDEMONA.                               No, unpin me here.
    This Lodovico is a proper man.
  EMILIA. A very handsome man.
  DESDEMONA. He speaks well.
  EMILIA. I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to
    Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.
  DESDEMONA. [Sings.]

        "The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
          Sing all a green willow;
        Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
          Sing willow, willow, willow.
        The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans,
          Sing willow, willow, willow;
        Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones-"

    Lay be these-

    [Sings.]   "Sing willow, willow, willow-"

    Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon-
    [Sings.]   "Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
               Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve-"

    Nay, that's not next. Hark, who is't that knocks?
  EMILIA. It's the wind.
  DESDEMONA. [Sings.]

        "I call'd my love false love; but what said he then?
          Sing willow, willow, willow.
        If I court moe women, you'll couch with moe men-"

    So get thee gone; good night. Mine eyes do itch;
    Doth that bode weeping?
  EMILIA.                   'Tis neither here nor there.
  DESDEMONA. I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!
    Dost thou in conscience think- tell me, Emilia-
    That there be women do abuse their husbands
    In such gross kind?
  EMILIA.               There be some such, no question.
  DESDEMONA. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
  EMILIA. Why, would not you?
  DESDEMONA.                  No, by this heavenly light!
  EMILIA. Nor I neither by this heavenly light; I might do't as well
    i' the dark.
  DESDEMONA. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
  EMILIA. The world's a huge thing; it is a great price
    For a small vice.
  DESDEMONA.          In troth, I think thou wouldst not.
  EMILIA. In troth, I think I should, and undo't when I had done.
    Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor for
    measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any
    petty exhibition; but, for the whole world- why, who would not
    make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should
    venture purgatory for't.
  DESDEMONA. Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong
    For the whole world.
  EMILIA. Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and having the
    world for your labor, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you
    might quickly make it right.
  DESDEMONA. I do not think there is any such woman.
  EMILIA. Yes, a dozen, and as many to the vantage as would store the
      world they played for.
    But I do think it is their husbands' faults
    If wives do fall; say that they slack their duties
    And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
    Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
    Throwing restraint upon us, or say they strike us,
    Or scant our former having in despite,
    Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
    Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
    Their wives have sense like them; they see and smell
    And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
    As husbands have. What is it that they do
    When they change us for others? Is it sport?
    I think it is. And doth affection breed it?
    I think it doth. Is't frailty that thus errs?
    It is so too. And have not we affections,
    Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
    Then let them use us well; else let them know,
    The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
  DESDEMONA. Good night, good night. Heaven me such uses send,
    Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!                Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I. Cyprus. A street.

Enter Iago and Roderigo:

  IAGO. Here, stand behind this bulk; straight will he come.
    Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home.
    Quick, quick; fear nothing; I'll be at thy elbow.
    It makes us, or it mars us; think on that,
    And fix most firm thy resolution.
  RODERIGO. Be near at hand; I may miscarry in't.
  IAGO. Here, at thy hand, be bold, and take thy stand.
  Retires.
  RODERIGO. I have no great devotion to the deed;
    And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons.
    'Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword; he dies.
  IAGO. I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense,
    And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio,
    Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,
    Every way makes my gain. Live Roderigo,
    He calls me to a restitution large
    Of gold and jewels that I bobb'd from him,
    As gifts to Desdemona;
    It must not be. If Cassio do remain,
    He hath a daily beauty in his life
    That makes me ugly; and besides, the Moor
    May unfold me to him; there stand I in much peril.
    No, he must die. Be't so. I hear him coming.

                            Enter Cassio.

  RODERIGO. I know his gait; 'tis he. Villain, thou diest!
                                              Makes a pass at Cassio.
  CASSIO. That thrust had been mine enemy indeed,
    But that my coat is better than thou know'st;
    I will make proof of thine.           Draws, and wounds Roderigo.
  RODERIGO.                     O, I am slain!
            Iago from behind wounds Cassio in the leg, and exit.
  CASSIO. I am maim'd forever. Help, ho! Murther! Murther!
    Falls.

                            Enter Othello.

  OTHELLO. The voice of Cassio; Iago keeps his word.
  RODERIGO. O, villain that I am!
  OTHELLO.                        It is even so.
  CASSIO. O, help, ho! Light! A surgeon!
  OTHELLO. 'Tis he. O brave Iago, honest and just,
    That hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong!
    Thou teachest me. Minion, your dear lies dead,
    And your unblest fate hies. Strumpet, I come!
    Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted;
    Thy bed lust-stain'd shall with lust's blood be spotted.
     Exit.

                     Enter Lodovico and Gratiano.

  CASSIO. What, ho! No watch? No passage? Murther! Murther!
  GRATIANO. 'Tis some mischance; the cry is very direful.
  CASSIO. O, help!
  LODOVICO. Hark!
  RODERIGO. O wretched villain!
  LODOVICO. Two or three groan; it is a heavy night.
    These may be counterfeits; let's think't unsafe
    To come in to the cry without more help.
  RODERIGO. Nobody come? Then shall I bleed to death.
  LODOVICO. Hark!

                     Re-enter Iago, with a light.

  GRATIANO. Here's one comes in his shirt, with light and weapons.
  IAGO. Who's there? Whose noise is this that cries on murther?
  LODOVICO. We do not know.
  IAGO.                     Did not you hear a cry?
  CASSIO. Here, here! for heaven's sake, help me!
  IAGO.                                       What's the matter?
  GRATIANO. This is Othello's ancient, as I take it.
  LODOVICO. The same indeed; a very valiant fellow.
  IAGO. What are you here that cry so grievously?
  CASSIO. Iago? O, I am spoil'd, undone by villains!
    Give me some help.
  IAGO. O me, lieutenant! What villains have done this?
  CASSIO. I think that one of them is hereabout,
    And cannot make away.
  IAGO.                   O treacherous villains!
    [To Lodovico and Gratiano.] What are you there?
    Come in and give some help.
  RODERIGO. O, help me here!
  CASSIO. That's one of them.
  IAGO.                       O murtherous slave! O villain!
                                                      Stabs Roderigo.
  RODERIGO. O damn'd Iago! O inhuman dog!
  IAGO. Kill men i' the dark! Where be these bloody thieves?
    How silent is this town! Ho! Murther! Murther!
    What may you be? Are you of good or evil?
  LODOVICO. As you shall prove us, praise us.
  IAGO. Signior Lodovico?
  LODOVICO. He, sir.
  IAGO. I cry you mercy. Here's Cassio hurt by villains.
  GRATIANO. Cassio?
  IAGO. How is't, brother?
  CASSIO. My leg is cut in two.
  IAGO.                         Marry, heaven forbid!
    Light, gentlemen; I'll bind it with my shirt.

                            Enter Bianca.

  BIANCA. What is the matter, ho? Who is't that cried?
  IAGO. Who is't that cried?
  BIANCA. O my dear Cassio, my sweet Cassio! O Cassio, Cassio,
     Cassio!
  IAGO. O notable strumpet! Cassio, may you suspect
    Who they should be that have thus mangled you?
  CASSIO. No.
  GRATIANO. I am sorry to find you thus; I have been to seek you.
  IAGO. Lend me a garter. So. O, for a chair,
    To bear him easily hence!
  BIANCA. Alas, he faints! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio!
  IAGO. Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash
    To be a party in this injury.
    Patience awhile, good Cassio. Come, come;
    Lend me a light. Know we this face or no?
    Alas, my friend and my dear countryman
    Roderigo? No- yes, sure. O heaven! Roderigo.
  GRATIANO. What, of Venice?
  IAGO. Even he, sir. Did you know him?
  GRATIANO.                             Know him! ay.
  IAGO. Signior Gratiano? I cry you gentle pardon;
    These bloody accidents must excuse my manners,
    That so neglected you.
  GRATIANO.                I am glad to see you.
  IAGO. How do you, Cassio? O, a chair, a chair!
  GRATIANO. Roderigo!
  IAGO. He, he, 'tis he. [A chair brought in.] O, that's well said:
      the chair.
    Some good man bear him carefully from hence;
    I'll fetch the general's surgeon. [To Bianca.] For you, mistress,
    Save you your labor. He that lies slain here, Cassio,
    Was my dear friend; what malice was between you?
  CASSIO. None in the world; nor do I know the man.
  IAGO. [To Bianca.] What, look you pale? O, bear him out o' the air.
                                   Cassio and Roderigo are borne off.
    Stay you, good gentlemen. Look you pale, mistress?
    Do you perceive the gastness of her eye?
    Nay, if you stare, we shall hear more anon.
    Behold her well; I pray you, look upon her.
    Do you see, gentlemen? Nay, guiltiness will speak,
    Though tongues were out of use.

                            Enter Emilia.

  EMILIA. 'Las, what's the matter? What's the matter, husband?
  IAGO. Cassio hath here been set on in the dark
    By Roderigo, and fellows that are 'scaped;
    He's almost slain, and Roderigo dead.
  EMILIA. Alas, good gentleman! alas, good Cassio!
  IAGO. This is the fruit of whoring. Prithee, Emilia,
    Go know of Cassio where he supp'd tonight.
    What, do you shake at that?
  BIANCA. He supp'd at my house; but I therefore shake not.
  IAGO. O, did he so? I charge you, go with me.
  EMILIA. Fie, fie upon thee, strumpet!
  BIANCA. I am no strumpet, but of life as honest
    As you that thus abuse me.
  EMILIA.                      As I! foh! fie upon thee!
  IAGO. Kind gentlemen, let's go see poor Cassio dress'd.
    Come, mistress, you must tell's another tale.
    Emilia, run you to the citadel,
    And tell my lord and lady what hath happ'd!
    Will you go on? [Aside.] This is the night
    That either makes me or fordoes me quite.                 Exeunt.

SCENE II. A bedchamber in the castle. Desdemona in bed asleep; a light
burning.

Enter Othello.

  OTHELLO. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.
    Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!
    It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood,
    Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow
    And smooth as monumental alabaster.
    Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
    Put out the light, and then put out the light.
    If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
    I can again thy former light restore,
    Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,
    Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
    I know not where is that Promethean heat
    That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose,
    I cannot give it vital growth again,
    It must needs wither; I'll smell it on the tree.      Kisses her.
    O, balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
    Justice to break her sword! One more, one more;
    Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
    And love thee after. One more, and this the last;
    So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
    But they are cruel tears; this sorrow's heavenly,
    It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.
  DESDEMONA. Who's there? Othello?
  OTHELLO.                         Ay, Desdemona.
  DESDEMONA. Will you come to bed, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Have you pray'd tonight, Desdemona?
  DESDEMONA. Ay, my lord.
  OTHELLO. If you bethink yourself of any crime
    Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,
    Solicit for it straight.
  DESDEMONA. Alas, my lord, what may you mean by that?
  OTHELLO. Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by.
    I would not kill thy unprepared spirit.
    No, heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul.
  DESDEMONA. Talk you of killing?
  OTHELLO. Ay, I do.
  DESDEMONA. Then heaven have mercy on me!
  OTHELLO. Amen, with all my heart!
  DESDEMONA. If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.
  OTHELLO. Hum!
  DESDEMONA. And yet I fear you, for you are fatal then
    When your eyes roll so. Why I should fear I know not,
    Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I fear.
  OTHELLO. Think on thy sins.
  DESDEMONA.                  They are loves I bear to you.
  OTHELLO. Ay, and for that thou diest.
  DESDEMONA. That death's unnatural that kills for loving.
    Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
    Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.
    These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,
    They do not point on me.
  OTHELLO.                   Peace, and be still!
  DESDEMONA. I will so. What's the matter?
  OTHELLO. That handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee
    Thou gavest to Cassio.
  DESDEMONA.               No, by my life and soul!
    Send for the man, and ask him.
  OTHELLO.                         Sweet soul, take heed,
    Take heed of perjury; thou are on thy deathbed.
  DESDEMONA. Ay, but not yet to die.
  OTHELLO.                           Yes, presently:
    Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin,
    For to deny each article with oath
    Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception
    That I do groan withal. Thou art to die.
  DESDEMONA. Then Lord have mercy on me!
  OTHELLO.                               I say, amen.
  DESDEMONA. And have you mercy too! I never did
    Offend you in my life; never loved Cassio
    But with such general warranty of heaven
    As I might love. I never gave him token.
  OTHELLO. By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in 's hand.
    O perjured woman! Thou dost stone my heart,
    And makest me call what I intend to do
    A murther, which I thought a sacrifice.
    I saw the handkerchief.
  DESDEMONA.                He found it then;
    I never gave it him. Send for him hither;
    Let him confess a truth.
  OTHELLO.                   He hath confess'd.
  DESDEMONA. What, my lord?
  OTHELLO. That he hath used thee.
  DESDEMONA.                       How? unlawfully?
  OTHELLO. Ay.
  DESDEMONA. He will not say so.
  OTHELLO.                       No, his mouth is stopp'd;
    Honest Iago hath ta'en order for't.
  DESDEMONA. O, my fear interprets! What, is he dead?
  OTHELLO. Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge
    Had stomach for them all.
  DESDEMONA. Alas, he is betray'd, and I undone!
  OTHELLO. Out, strumpet! Weep'st thou for him to my face?
  DESDEMONA. O, banish me, my lord, but kill me not!
  OTHELLO. Down, strumpet!
  DESDEMONA. Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight!
  OTHELLO. Nay, if you strive-
  DESDEMONA. But half an hour!
  OTHELLO.                     Being done, there is no pause.
  DESDEMONA. But while I say one prayer!
  OTHELLO.                        It is too late.     He stifles her.
  EMILIA. [Within.] My lord, my lord! What, ho! my lord, my lord!
  OTHELLO. What noise is this? Not dead? not yet quite dead?
    I that am cruel am yet merciful;
    I would not have thee linger in thy pain.
    So, so.
  EMILIA. [Within.] What, ho! my lord, my lord!
  OTHELLO.                                      Who's there?
  EMILIA. [Within.] O, good my lord, I would speak a word with you!
  OTHELLO. Yes, 'tis Emilia. By and by. She's dead.
    'Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio's death.
    The noise was here. Ha! no more moving?
    Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were't good?
    I think she stirs again. No. What's best to do?
    If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife.
    My wife! My wife! What wife? I have no wife.
    O, insupportable! O heavy hour!
    Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
    Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe
    Should yawn at alteration.
  EMILIA. [Within.] I do beseech you
    That I may speak with you, O, good my lord!
  OTHELLO. I had forgot thee. O, come in, Emilia.
    Soft, by and by. Let me the curtains draw.
    Where art thou?                                 Unlocks the door.

                            Enter Emilia.

                    What's the matter with thee now?
  EMILIA. O, my good lord, yonder's foul murthers done!
  OTHELLO. What, now?
  EMILIA. But now, my lord.
  OTHELLO. It is the very error of the moon;
    She comes more nearer earth than she was wont
    And makes men mad.
  EMILIA. Cassio, my lord, hath kill'd a young Venetian
    Call'd Roderigo.
  OTHELLO.           Roderigo kill'd?
    And Cassio kill'd?
  EMILIA.              No, Cassio is not kill'd.
  OTHELLO. Not Cassio kill'd! Then murther's out of tune,
    And sweet revenge grows harsh.
  DESDEMONA. O, falsely, falsely murther'd!
  EMILIA.                                   Alas, what cry is that?
  OTHELLO. That? what?
  EMILIA. Out, and alas! That was my lady's voice.
    Help! help, ho! help! O lady, speak again!
    Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak!
  DESDEMONA. A guiltless death I die.
  EMILIA. O, who hath done this deed?
  DESDEMONA. Nobody; I myself. Farewell;
    Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell!                    Dies.
  OTHELLO. Why, how should she be murther'd?
  EMILIA.                                    Alas, who knows?
  OTHELLO. You heard her say herself, it was not I.
  EMILIA. She said so; I must needs report the truth.
  OTHELLO. She's like a liar gone to burning hell;
    'Twas I that kill'd her.
  EMILIA.                    O, the more angel she,
    And you the blacker devil!
  OTHELLO. She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore.
  EMILIA. Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil.
  OTHELLO. She was false as water.
  EMILIA.                          Thou art rash as fire, to say
    That she was false. O, she was heavenly true!
  OTHELLO. Cassio did top her; ask thy husband else.
    O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell,
    But that I did proceed upon just grounds
    To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all.
  EMILIA. My husband?
  OTHELLO. Thy husband.
  EMILIA. That she was false to wedlock?
  OTHELLO. Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true,
    If heaven would make me such another world
    Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,
    I'ld not have sold her for it.
  EMILIA.                          My husband?
  OTHELLO. Ay, 'twas he that told me first.
    An honest man he is, and hates the slime
    That sticks on filthy deeds.
  EMILIA.                        My husband?
  OTHELLO. What needs this iteration, woman? I say thy husband.
  EMILIA. O mistress, villainy hath made mocks with love!
    My husband say that she was false!
  OTHELLO.                             He, woman;
    I say thy husband. Dost understand the word?
    My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago.
  EMILIA. If he say so, may his pernicious soul
    Rot half a grain a day! He lies to the heart.
    She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.
  OTHELLO. Ha!
  EMILIA. Do thy worst;
    This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven
    Than thou wast worthy her.
  OTHELLO.                     Peace, you were best.
  EMILIA. Thou hast not half that power to do me harm
    As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt!
    As ignorant as dirt! Thou hast done a deed-
    I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known,
    Though I lost twenty lives. Help! help, ho! help!
    The Moor hath kill'd my mistress! Murther, murther!

              Enter Montano, Gratiano, Iago, and others.

  MONTANO. What is the matter? How now, general?
  EMILIA. O, are you come, Iago? You have done well,
    That men must lay their murthers on your neck.
  GRATIANO. What is the matter?
  EMILIA. Disprove this villain, if thou be'st a man.
    He says thou told'st him that his wife was false;
    I know thou didst not, thou'rt not such a villain.
    Speak, for my heart is full.
  IAGO. I told him what I thought, and told no more
    Than what he found himself was apt and true.
  EMILIA. But did you ever tell him she was false?
  IAGO. I did.
  EMILIA. You told a lie, an odious, damned lie;
    Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie!
    She false with Cassio? Did you say with Cassio?
  IAGO. With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm your tongue.
  EMILIA. I will not charm my tongue; I am bound to speak.
    My mistress here lies murther'd in her bed-
  ALL. O heavens forfend!
  EMILIA. And your reports have set the murther on.
  OTHELLO. Nay, stare not, masters; it is true indeed.
  GRATIANO. 'Tis a strange truth.
  MONTANO. O monstrous act!
  EMILIA.                   Villainy, villainy, villainy!
    I think upon't, I think, I smell't, O villainy!
    I thought so then. I'll kill myself for grief.
    O villainy, villainy!
  IAGO. What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home.
  EMILIA. Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak;
    'Tis proper I obey him, but not now.
    Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home.
  OTHELLO. O! O! O!                                 Falls on the bed.
  EMILIA.           Nay, lay thee down and roar;
    For thou hast kill'd the sweetest innocent
    That e'er did lift up eye.
  OTHELLO.            [Rises.] O, she was foul!
    I scarce did know you, uncle; there lies your niece,
    Whose breath indeed these hands have newly stopp'd.
    I know this act shows horrible and grim.
  GRATIANO. Poor Desdemon! I am glad thy father's dead.
    Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief
    Shore his old thread in twain; did he live now,
    This sight would make him do a desperate turn,
    Yea, curse his better angel from his side,
    And fall to reprobation.
  OTHELLO. 'Tis pitiful, but yet Iago knows
    That she with Cassio hath the act of shame
    A thousand times committed. Cassio confess'd it,
    And she did gratify his amorous works
    With that recognizance and pledge of love
    Which I first gave her. I saw it in his hand,
    It was a handkerchief, an antique token
    My father gave my mother.
  EMILIA. O heaven! O heavenly powers!
  IAGO. 'Zounds! Hold your peace.
  EMILIA.                         'Twill out, 'twill. I peace?
    No, I will speak as liberal as the north;
    Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,
    All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak.
  IAGO. Be wise, and get you home.
  EMILIA.                          I will not.
                                          Iago offers to stab Emilia.
  GRATIANO.                                    Fie!
    Your sword upon a woman?
  EMILIA. O thou dull Moor! That handkerchief thou speak'st of
    I found by fortune and did give my husband,
    For often with a solemn earnestness,
    More than indeed belong'd to such a trifle,
    He begg'd of me to steal it.
  IAGO.                          Villainous whore!
  EMILIA. She give it Cassio? No, alas, I found it,
    And I did give't my husband.
  IAGO.                          Filth, thou liest!
  EMILIA. By heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen.
    O murtherous coxcomb! What should such a fool
    Do with so good a wife?
  OTHELLO.                  Are there not stones in heaven
    But what serve for thunder? Precious villain!
                                         He runs at Iago, but Montano
                                      disarms him. Iago stabs Emilia.
  GRATIANO. The woman falls; sure, he hath kill'd his wife.
  EMILIA. Ay, ay! O, lay me by my mistress' side.          Exit Iago.
  GRATIANO. He's gone, but his wife's kill'd.
  MONTANO. 'Tis a notorious villain. Take you this weapon,
    Which I have here recover'd from the Moor.
    Come, guard the door without; let him not pass,
    But kill him rather. I'll after that same villain,
    For 'tis a damned slave.       Exeunt all but Othello and Emilia.
  OTHELLO.                   I am not valiant neither,
    But every puny whipster gets my sword.
    But why should honor outlive honesty?
    Let it go all.
  EMILIA.          What did thy song bode, lady?
    Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan,
    And die in music. [Sings.] "Willow, willow, willow."
    Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor;
    So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true;
    So speaking as I think, I die, I die.                       Dies.
  OTHELLO. I have another weapon in this chamber;
    It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper-
    O, here it is. Uncle, I must come forth.
  GRATIANO. [Within.] If thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear.
    Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer.
  OTHELLO. Look in upon me then, and speak with me,
    Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee.

                          Re-enter Gratiano.

  GRATIANO. What is the matter?
  OTHELLO.                      Behold, I have a weapon;
    A better never did itself sustain
    Upon a soldier's thigh. I have seen the day
    That with this little arm and this good sword
    I have made my way through more impediments
    Than twenty times your stop. But, O vain boast!
    Who can control his fate? 'Tis not so now.
    Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd;
    Here is my journey's end, here is my butt
    And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
    Do you go back dismay'd? 'Tis a lost fear.
    Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
    And he retires. Where should Othello go?
    Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wench!
    Pale as thy smock! When we shall meet at compt,
    This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
    And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl?
    Even like thy chastity. O cursed, cursed slave!
    Whip me, ye devils,
    From the possession of this heavenly sight!
    Blow me about in winds! Roast me in sulphur!
    Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
    O Desdemon! dead, Desdemon! dead!
    O! O! O!

         Enter Lodovico, Montano, Cassio carried in a chair,
                  and Officers with Iago, prisoner.

  LODOVICO. Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?
  OTHELLO. That's he that was Othello. Here I am.
  LODOVICO. Where is that viper? Bring the villain forth.
  OTHELLO. I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable.
    If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.      Wounds Iago.
  LODOVICO. Wrench his sword from him.
  IAGO.                                I bleed, sir, but not kill'd.
  OTHELLO. I am not sorry neither. I'ld have thee live,
    For, in my sense, 'tis happiness to die.
  LODOVICO. O thou Othello, that wert once so good,
    Fall'n in the practice of a damned slave,
    What shall be said to thee?
  OTHELLO.                      Why, anything;
    An honorable murtherer, if you will,
    For nought did I in hate, but all in honor.
  LODOVICO. This wretch hath part confess'd his villainy.
    Did you and he consent in Cassio's death?
  OTHELLO. Ay.
  CASSIO. Dear general, I never gave you cause.
  OTHELLO. I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.
    Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil
    Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?
  IAGO. Demand me nothing; what you know, you know.
    From this time forth I never will speak word.
  LODOVICO. What, not to pray?
  GRATIANO.                    Torments will ope your lips.
  OTHELLO. Well, thou dost best.
  LODOVICO. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n,
    Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter
    Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo,
    And here another. The one of them imports
    The death of Cassio to be undertook
    By Roderigo.
  OTHELLO. O villain!
  CASSIO.             Most heathenish and most gross!
  LODOVICO. Now here's another discontented paper,
    Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems,
    Roderigo meant to have sent this damned villain;
    But that, belike, Iago in the interim
    Came in and satisfied him.
  OTHELLO.                     O the pernicious caitiff!
    How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief
    That was my wife's?
  CASSIO.               I found it in my chamber;
    And he himself confess'd but even now
    That there he dropp'd it for a special purpose
    Which wrought to his desire.
  OTHELLO.                       O fool! fool! fool!
  CASSIO. There is besides in Roderigo's letter,
    How he upbraids Iago, that he made him
    Brave me upon the watch, whereon it came
    That I was cast. And even but now he spake
    After long seeming dead, Iago hurt him,
    Iago set him on.
  LODOVICO. You must forsake this room, and go with us.
    Your power and your command is taken off,
    And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,
    If there be any cunning cruelty
    That can torment him much and hold him long,
    It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest,
    Till that the nature of your fault be known
    To the Venetian state. Come, bring away.
  OTHELLO. Soft you; a word or two before you go.
    I have done the state some service, and they know't.
    No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
    When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
    Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
    Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
    Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
    Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
    Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,
    Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
    Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
    Albeit unused to the melting mood,
    Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
    Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
    And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
    Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
    Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
    I took by the throat the circumcised dog
    And smote him, thus.                               Stabs himself.
  LODOVICO. O bloody period!
  GRATIANO.                  All that's spoke is marr'd.
  OTHELLO. I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee. No way but this,
    Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.
                                          Falls on the bed, and dies.
  CASSIO. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon;
    For he was great of heart.
  LODOVICO.         [To Iago.] O Spartan dog,
    More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!
    Look on the tragic loading of this bed;
    This is thy work. The object poisons sight;
    Let it be hid. Gratiano, keep the house,
    And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor,
    For they succeed on you. To you, Lord Governor,
    Remains the censure of this hellish villain,
    The time, the place, the torture. O, enforce it!
    Myself will straight aboard, and to the state
    This heavy act with heavy heart relate.                   Exeunt.

THE END



PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE




by William Shakespeare





Contents

ACT I
Chorus. Before the palace of Antioch.
Scene I. Antioch. A room in the palace.
Scene II. Tyre. A room in the palace.
Scene III. Tyre. An ante-chamber in the Palace.
Scene IV. Tarsus. A room in the Governor’s house.

ACT II
Chorus. Chorus.
Scene I. Pentapolis. An open place by the seaside.
Scene II. The same. A public way, or platform leading to the lists.
Scene III. The same. A hall of state: a banquet prepared.
Scene IV. Tyre. A room in the Governor’s house.
Scene V. Pentapolis. A room in the palace.

ACT III
Chorus. Chorus.
Scene I. On shipboard.
Scene II. Ephesus. A room in Cerimon’s house.
Scene III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.
Scene IV. Ephesus. A room in Cerimon’s house.

ACT IV
Chorus. Chorus.
Scene I. Tarsus. An open place near the seashore.
Scene II. Mytilene. A room in a brothel.
Scene III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.
Scene IV. Before the monument of Marina at Tarsus.
Scene V. Mytilene. A street before the brothel.
Scene VI. The same. A room in the brothel.

ACT V
Chorus. Chorus.
Scene I. On board Pericles’ ship, off Mytilene.
Scene II. Before the temple of Diana at Ephesus.
Scene III. The temple of Diana at Ephesus.



 Dramatis Personæ

ANTIOCHUS, king of Antioch.
PERICLES, prince of Tyre.
HELICANUS, ESCANES,  two lords of Tyre.
SIMONIDES, king of Pentapolis.
CLEON, governor of Tarsus.
LYSIMACHUS, governor of Mytilene.
CERIMON, a lord of Ephesus.
THALIARD, a lord of Antioch.
PHILEMON, servant to Cerimon.
LEONINE, servant to Dionyza.
Marshal.
A Pandar.
BOULT, his servant.
The Daughter of Antiochus.
DIONYZA, wife to Cleon.
THAISA, daughter to Simonides.
MARINA, daughter to Pericles and Thaisa.
LYCHORIDA, nurse to Marina.
A Bawd.
Lords, Knights, Gentlemen, Sailors, Pirates, Fishermen, and Messengers.
DIANA.
GOWER, as Chorus.

SCENE: Dispersedly in various countries.



ACT I

 Enter Gower.

 Before the palace of Antioch.

To sing a song that old was sung,
From ashes ancient Gower is come;
Assuming man’s infirmities,
To glad your ear, and please your eyes.
It hath been sung at festivals,
On ember-eves and holy-ales;
And lords and ladies in their lives
Have read it for restoratives:
The purchase is to make men glorious,
_Et bonum quo antiquius eo melius._
If you, born in these latter times,
When wit’s more ripe, accept my rhymes,
And that to hear an old man sing
May to your wishes pleasure bring,
I life would wish, and that I might
Waste it for you, like taper-light.
This Antioch, then, Antiochus the Great
Built up, this city, for his chiefest seat;
The fairest in all Syria.
I tell you what mine authors say:
This king unto him took a fere,
Who died and left a female heir,
So buxom, blithe, and full of face,
As heaven had lent her all his grace;
With whom the father liking took,
And her to incest did provoke.
Bad child; worse father! to entice his own
To evil should be done by none:
But custom what they did begin
Was with long use account’d no sin.
The beauty of this sinful dame
Made many princes thither frame,
To seek her as a bedfellow,
In marriage pleasures playfellow:
Which to prevent he made a law,
To keep her still, and men in awe,
That whoso ask’d her for his wife,
His riddle told not, lost his life:
So for her many a wight did die,
As yon grim looks do testify.
What now ensues, to the judgement your eye
I give, my cause who best can justify.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE I. Antioch. A room in the palace.

 Enter Antiochus, Prince Pericles and followers.

ANTIOCHUS.
Young prince of Tyre, you have at large received
The danger of the task you undertake.

PERICLES.
I have, Antiochus, and, with a soul
Emboldened with the glory of her praise,
Think death no hazard in this enterprise.

ANTIOCHUS.
Music! Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride,
For the embracements even of Jove himself;
At whose conception, till Lucina reigned,
Nature this dowry gave, to glad her presence,
The senate house of planets all did sit,
To knit in her their best perfections.

 Music. Enter the Daughter of Antiochus.

PERICLES.
See where she comes, apparell’d like the spring,
Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king
Of every virtue gives renown to men!
Her face the book of praises, where is read
Nothing but curious pleasures, as from thence
Sorrow were ever razed, and testy wrath
Could never be her mild companion.
You gods that made me man, and sway in love,
That have inflamed desire in my breast
To taste the fruit of yon celestial tree,
Or die in the adventure, be my helps,
As I am son and servant to your will,
To compass such a boundless happiness!

ANTIOCHUS.
Prince Pericles, —

PERICLES.
That would be son to great Antiochus.

ANTIOCHUS.
Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,
With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch’d;
For death-like dragons here affright thee hard:
Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view
Her countless glory, which desert must gain;
And which, without desert, because thine eye
Presumes to reach, all the whole heap must die.
Yon sometimes famous princes, like thyself,
Drawn by report, adventurous by desire,
Tell thee, with speechless tongues and semblance pale,
That without covering, save yon field of stars,
Here they stand Martyrs, slain in Cupid’s wars;
And with dead cheeks advise thee to desist
For going on death’s net, whom none resist.

PERICLES.
Antiochus, I thank thee, who hath taught
My frail mortality to know itself,
And by those fearful objects to prepare
This body, like to them, to what I must;
For death remember’d should be like a mirror,
Who tells us life’s but breath, to trust it error.
I’ll make my will then, and, as sick men do
Who know the world, see heaven, but, feeling woe,
Gripe not at earthly joys as erst they did;
So I bequeath a happy peace to you
And all good men, as every prince should do;
My riches to the earth from whence they came;
[_To the daughter of Antiochus._] But my unspotted fire of love to you.
Thus ready for the way of life or death,
I wait the sharpest blow, Antiochus.

ANTIOCHUS.
Scorning advice, read the conclusion, then:
Which read and not expounded, ’tis decreed,
As these before thee thou thyself shalt bleed.

DAUGHTER.
Of all ’ssayed yet, mayst thou prove prosperous!
Of all ’ssayed yet, I wish thee happiness!

PERICLES
Like a bold champion, I assume the lists,
Nor ask advice of any other thought
But faithfulness and courage.

 [_He reads the riddle._]

     _I am no viper, yet I feed
     On mother’s flesh which did me breed.
     I sought a husband, in which labour
     I found that kindness in a father:
     He’s father, son, and husband mild;
     I mother, wife, and yet his child.
     How they may be, and yet in two,
     As you will live resolve it you._


Sharp physic is the last: but, O you powers
That give heaven countless eyes to view men’s acts,
Why cloud they not their sights perpetually,
If this be true, which makes me pale to read it?
Fair glass of light, I loved you, and could still,

 [_Takes hold of the hand of the Princess._]

Were not this glorious casket stored with ill:
But I must tell you, now my thoughts revolt;
For he’s no man on whom perfections wait
That, knowing sin within, will touch the gate,
You are a fair viol, and your sense the strings;
Who, finger’d to make man his lawful music,
Would draw heaven down, and all the gods to hearken;
But being play’d upon before your time,
Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime.
Good sooth, I care not for you.

ANTIOCHUS.
Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life,
For that’s an article within our law,
As dangerous as the rest. Your time’s expired:
Either expound now, or receive your sentence.

PERICLES.
Great king,
Few love to hear the sins they love to act;
’Twould braid yourself too near for me to tell it.
Who has a book of all that monarchs do,
He’s more secure to keep it shut than shown:
For vice repeated is like the wandering wind,
Blows dust in others’ eyes, to spread itself;
And yet the end of all is bought thus dear,
The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear.
To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole casts
Copp’d hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is throng’d
By man’s oppression; and the poor worm doth die for’t.
Kind are earth’s gods; in vice their law’s their will;
And if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill?
It is enough you know; and it is fit,
What being more known grows worse, to smother it.
All love the womb that their first bred,
Then give my tongue like leave to love my head.

ANTIOCHUS.
[_Aside_] Heaven, that I had thy head! He has found the meaning:
But I will gloze with him. — Young prince of Tyre.
Though by the tenour of our strict edict,
Your exposition misinterpreting,
We might proceed to cancel of your days;
Yet hope, succeeding from so fair a tree
As your fair self, doth tune us otherwise:
Forty days longer we do respite you;
If by which time our secret be undone,
This mercy shows we’ll joy in such a son:
And until then your entertain shall be
As doth befit our honour and your worth.

 [_Exeunt all but Pericles._]

PERICLES.
How courtesy would seem to cover sin,
When what is done is like an hypocrite,
The which is good in nothing but in sight!
If it be true that I interpret false,
Then were it certain you were not so bad
As with foul incest to abuse your soul;
Where now you’re both a father and a son,
By your untimely claspings with your child,
Which pleasures fits a husband, not a father;
And she an eater of her mother’s flesh,
By the defiling of her parent’s bed;
And both like serpents are, who though they feed
On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed.
Antioch, farewell! for wisdom sees, those men
Blush not in actions blacker than the night,
Will ’schew no course to keep them from the light.
One sin, I know, another doth provoke;
Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke:
Poison and treason are the hands of sin,
Ay, and the targets, to put off the shame:
Then, lest my life be cropp’d to keep you clear,
By flight I’ll shun the danger which I fear.

 [_Exit._]

 Re-enter Antiochus.

ANTIOCHUS.
He hath found the meaning,
For which we mean to have his head.
He must not live to trumpet forth my infamy,
Nor tell the world Antiochus doth sin
In such a loathed manner;
And therefore instantly this prince must die;
For by his fall my honour must keep high.
Who attends us there?

 Enter Thaliard.

THALIARD.
Doth your highness call?

ANTIOCHUS.
Thaliard, you are of our chamber,
And our mind partakes her private actions
To your secrecy; and for your faithfulness
We will advance you. Thaliard,
Behold, here’s poison, and here’s gold;
We hate the prince of Tyre, and thou must kill him:
It fits thee not to ask the reason why,
Because we bid it. Say, is it done?

THALIARD.
My lord, ’tis done.

ANTIOCHUS.
Enough.

 Enter a Messenger.

Let your breath cool yourself, telling your haste.

MESSENGER.
My lord, Prince Pericles is fled.

 [_Exit._]

ANTIOCHUS.
As thou wilt live, fly after: and like an arrow shot
From a well-experienced archer hits the mark
His eye doth level at, so thou ne’er return
Unless thou say ‘Prince Pericles is dead.’

THALIARD.
My lord, if I can get him within my pistol’s length, I’ll make him sure
enough: so, farewell to your highness.

ANTIOCHUS.
Thaliard! adieu!

 [_Exit Thaliard._]

Till Pericles be dead,
My heart can lend no succour to my head.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE II. Tyre. A room in the palace.

 Enter Pericles with his Lords.

PERICLES.
[_To Lords without._] Let none disturb us. — Why should this change of
thoughts,
The sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy,
Be my so used a guest as not an hour
In the day’s glorious walk or peaceful night,
The tomb where grief should sleep, can breed me quiet?
Here pleasures court mine eyes, and mine eyes shun them,
And danger, which I fear’d, is at Antioch,
Whose arm seems far too short to hit me here:
Yet neither pleasure’s art can joy my spirits,
Nor yet the other’s distance comfort me.
Then it is thus: the passions of the mind,
That have their first conception by misdread,
Have after-nourishment and life by care;
And what was first but fear what might be done,
Grows elder now and cares it be not done.
And so with me: the great Antiochus,
’Gainst whom I am too little to contend,
Since he’s so great can make his will his act,
Will think me speaking, though I swear to silence;
Nor boots it me to say I honour him.
If he suspect I may dishonour him:
And what may make him blush in being known,
He’ll stop the course by which it might be known;
With hostile forces he’ll o’erspread the land,
And with the ostent of war will look so huge,
Amazement shall drive courage from the state;
Our men be vanquish’d ere they do resist,
And subjects punish’d that ne’er thought offence:
Which care of them, not pity of myself,
Who am no more but as the tops of trees,
Which fence the roots they grow by and defend them,
Makes both my body pine and soul to languish,
And punish that before that he would punish.

 Enter Helicanus with other Lords.

FIRST LORD.
Joy and all comfort in your sacred breast!

SECOND LORD.
And keep your mind, till you return to us,
Peaceful and comfortable!

HELICANUS.
Peace, peace, and give experience tongue.
They do abuse the king that flatter him:
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;
The thing the which is flatter’d, but a spark,
To which that spark gives heat and stronger glowing:
Whereas reproof, obedient and in order,
Fits kings, as they are men, for they may err.
When Signior Sooth here does proclaim peace,
He flatters you, makes war upon your life.
Prince, pardon me, or strike me, if you please;
I cannot be much lower than my knees.

PERICLES.
All leave us else, but let your cares o’erlook
What shipping and what lading’s in our haven,
And then return to us.

 [_Exeunt Lords._]

Helicanus, thou
Hast moved us: what seest thou in our looks?

HELICANUS.
An angry brow, dread lord.

PERICLES.
If there be such a dart in princes’ frowns,
How durst thy tongue move anger to our face?

HELICANUS.
How dares the plants look up to heaven, from whence
They have their nourishment?

PERICLES.
Thou know’st I have power
To take thy life from thee.

HELICANUS. [_Kneeling._]
I have ground the axe myself;
Do but you strike the blow.

PERICLES.
Rise, prithee, rise.
Sit down: thou art no flatterer:
I thank thee for it; and heaven forbid
That kings should let their ears hear their faults hid!
Fit counsellor and servant for a prince,
Who by thy wisdom makest a prince thy servant,
What wouldst thou have me do?

HELICANUS.
To bear with patience
Such griefs as you yourself do lay upon yourself.

PERICLES.
Thou speak’st like a physician, Helicanus,
That ministers a potion unto me
That thou wouldst tremble to receive thyself.
Attend me, then: I went to Antioch,
Where, as thou know’st, against the face of death,
I sought the purchase of a glorious beauty,
From whence an issue I might propagate,
Are arms to princes, and bring joys to subjects.
Her face was to mine eye beyond all wonder;
The rest — hark in thine ear — as black as incest,
Which by my knowledge found, the sinful father
Seem’d not to strike, but smooth: but thou know’st this,
’Tis time to fear when tyrants seems to kiss.
Which fear so grew in me I hither fled,
Under the covering of a careful night,
Who seem’d my good protector; and, being here,
Bethought me what was past, what might succeed.
I knew him tyrannous; and tyrants’ fears
Decrease not, but grow faster than the years:
And should he doubt, as no doubt he doth,
That I should open to the listening air
How many worthy princes’ bloods were shed,
To keep his bed of blackness unlaid ope,
To lop that doubt, he’ll fill this land with arms,
And make pretence of wrong that I have done him;
When all, for mine, if I may call offence,
Must feel war’s blow, who spares not innocence:
Which love to all, of which thyself art one,
Who now reprovest me for it, —

HELICANUS.
Alas, sir!

PERICLES.
Drew sleep out of mine eyes, blood from my cheeks,
Musings into my mind, with thousand doubts
How I might stop this tempest ere it came;
And finding little comfort to relieve them,
I thought it princely charity to grieve them.

HELICANUS.
Well, my lord, since you have given me leave to speak,
Freely will I speak. Antiochus you fear,
And justly too, I think, you fear the tyrant,
Who either by public war or private treason
Will take away your life.
Therefore, my lord, go travel for a while,
Till that his rage and anger be forgot,
Or till the Destinies do cut his thread of life.
Your rule direct to any; if to me,
Day serves not light more faithful than I’ll be.

PERICLES.
I do not doubt thy faith;
But should he wrong my liberties in my absence?

HELCANUS.
We’ll mingle our bloods together in the earth,
From whence we had our being and our birth.

PERICLES.
Tyre, I now look from thee then, and to Tarsus
Intend my travel, where I’ll hear from thee;
And by whose letters I’ll dispose myself.
The care I had and have of subjects’ good
On thee I lay, whose wisdom’s strength can bear it.
I’ll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath:
Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both:
But in our orbs we’ll live so round and safe,
That time of both this truth shall ne’er convince,
Thou show’dst a subject’s shine, I a true prince.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE III. Tyre. An ante-chamber in the Palace.

 Enter Thaliard.

THALIARD.
So, this is Tyre, and this the court. Here must I kill King Pericles;
and if I do it not, I am sure to be hanged at home: ’tis dangerous. 
Well, I perceive he was a wise fellow, and had good discretion, that,
being bid to ask what he would of the king, desired he might know none
of his secrets: now do I see he had some reason for’t; for if a king
bid a man be a villain, he’s bound by the indenture of his oath to be
one. Husht, here come the lords of Tyre.

 Enter Helicanus and Escanes with other Lords of Tyre.

HELICANUS.
You shall not need, my fellow peers of Tyre,
Further to question me of your king’s departure:
His seal’d commission, left in trust with me,
Doth speak sufficiently he’s gone to travel.

THALIARD.
[_Aside._] How? the king gone?

HELICANUS.
If further yet you will be satisfied,
Why, as it were unlicensed of your loves,
He would depart, I’ll give some light unto you.
Being at Antioch —

THALIARD.
[_Aside._] What from Antioch?

HELICANUS.
Royal Antiochus — on what cause I know not
Took some displeasure at him; at least he judged so:
And doubting lest that he had err’d or sinn’d,
To show his sorrow, he’d correct himself;
So puts himself unto the shipman’s toil,
With whom each minute threatens life or death.

THALIARD.
[_Aside._] Well, I perceive
I shall not be hang’d now, although I would;
But since he’s gone, the king’s seas must please
He  ’scaped the land, to perish at the sea.
I’ll present myself.  Peace to the lords of Tyre!

HELICANUS.
Lord Thaliard from Antiochus is welcome.

THALIARD.
From him I come
With message unto princely Pericles;
But since my landing I have understood
Your lord has betook himself to unknown travels,
My message must return from whence it came.

HELICANUS.
We have no reason to desire it,
Commended to our master, not to us:
Yet, ere you shall depart, this we desire,
As friends to Antioch, we may feast in Tyre.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE IV. Tarsus. A room in the Governor’s house.

 Enter Cleon, the governor of Tarsus, with Dionyza and others.

CLEON.
My Dionyza, shall we rest us here,
And by relating tales of others’ griefs,
See if ’twill teach us to forget our own?

DIONYZA.
That were to blow at fire in hope to quench it;
For who digs hills because they do aspire
Throws down one mountain to cast up a higher.
O my distressed lord, even such our griefs are;
Here they’re but felt, and seen with mischief’s eyes,
But like to groves, being topp’d, they higher rise.

CLEON.
O Dionyza,
Who wanteth food, and will not say he wants it,
Or can conceal his hunger till he famish?
Our tongues and sorrows do sound deep
Our woes into the air; our eyes do weep,
Till tongues fetch breath that may proclaim them louder;
That, if heaven slumber while their creatures want,
They may awake their helps to comfort them.
I’ll then discourse our woes, felt several years,
And wanting breath to speak, help me with tears.

DIONYZA.
I’ll do my best, sir.

CLEON.
This Tarsus, o’er which I have the government,
A city on whom plenty held full hand,
For riches strew’d herself even in the streets;
Whose towers bore heads so high they kiss’d the clouds,
And strangers ne’er beheld but wonder’d at;
Whose men and dames so jetted and adorn’d,
Like one another’s glass to trim them by:
Their tables were stored full to glad the sight,
And not so much to feed on as delight;
All poverty was scorn’d, and pride so great,
The name of help grew odious to repeat.

DIONYZA.
O, ’tis too true.

CLEON.
But see what heaven can do!  By this our change,
These mouths, who but of late, earth, sea, and air,
Were all too little to content and please,
Although they gave their creatures in abundance,
As houses are defiled for want of use,
They are now starved for want of exercise:
Those palates who, not yet two summers younger,
Must have inventions to delight the taste,
Would now be glad of bread and beg for it:
Those mothers who, to nousle up their babes,
Thought nought too curious, are ready now
To eat those little darlings whom they loved.
So sharp are hunger’s teeth, that man and wife
Draw lots who first shall die to lengthen life:
Here stands a lord, and there a lady weeping;
Here many sink, yet those which see them fall
Have scarce strength left to give them burial.
Is not this true?

DIONYZA.
Our cheeks and hollow eyes do witness it.

CLEON.
O, let those cities that of plenty’s cup
And her prosperities so largely taste,
With their superflous riots, hear these tears!
The misery of Tarsus may be theirs.

 Enter a Lord.

LORD.
Where’s the lord governor?

CLEON.
Here.
Speak out thy sorrows which thou bring’st in haste,
For comfort is too far for us to expect.

LORD.
We have descried, upon our neighbouring shore,
A portly sail of ships make hitherward.

CLEON.
I thought as much.
One sorrow never comes but brings an heir,
That may succeed as his inheritor;
And so in ours: some neighbouring nation,
Taking advantage of our misery,
That stuff’d the hollow vessels with their power,
To beat us down, the which are down already;
And make a conquest of unhappy me,
Whereas no glory’s got to overcome.

LORD.
That’s the least fear; for, by the semblance
Of their white flags display’d, they bring us peace,
And come to us as favourers, not as foes.

CLEON.
Thou speak’st like him’s untutor’d to repeat:
Who makes the fairest show means most deceit.
But bring they what they will and what they can,
What need we fear?
The ground’s the lowest, and we are half way there.
Go tell their general we attend him here,
To know for what he comes, and whence he comes,
And what he craves.

LORD.
I go, my lord.

 [_Exit._]

CLEON.
Welcome is peace, if he on peace consist;
If wars, we are unable to resist.

 Enter Pericles with Attendants.

PERICLES.
Lord governor, for so we hear you are,
Let not our ships and number of our men
Be like a beacon fired to amaze your eyes.
We have heard your miseries as far as Tyre,
And seen the desolation of your streets:
Nor come we to add sorrow to your tears,
But to relieve them of their heavy load;
And these our ships, you happily may think
Are like the Trojan horse was stuff’d within
With bloody veins, expecting overthrow,
Are stored with corn to make your needy bread,
And give them life whom hunger starved half dead.

ALL.
The gods of Greece protect you!
And we’ll pray for you.

PERICLES.
Arise, I pray you, rise:
We do not look for reverence, but for love,
And harbourage for ourself, our ships and men.

CLEON.
The which when any shall not gratify,
Or pay you with unthankfulness in thought,
Be it our wives, our children, or ourselves,
The curse of heaven and men succeed their evils!
Till when, — the which I hope shall ne’er be seen, —
Your grace is welcome to our town and us.

PERICLES.
Which welcome we’ll accept; feast here awhile,
Until our stars that frown lend us a smile.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT II

 Enter Gower.

GOWER.
Here have you seen a mighty king
His child, iwis, to incest bring;
A better prince and benign lord,
That will prove awful both in deed word.
Be quiet then as men should be,
Till he hath pass’d necessity.
I’ll show you those in troubles reign,
Losing a mite, a mountain gain.
The good in conversation,
To whom I give my benison,
Is still at Tarsus, where each man
Thinks all is writ he speken can;
And to remember what he does,
Build his statue to make him glorious:
But tidings to the contrary
Are brought your eyes; what need speak I?

 Dumb-show. Enter at one door Pericles talking with Cleon; all the
 train with them. Enter at another door a Gentleman with a letter to
 Pericles; Pericles shows the letter to Cleon; gives the Messenger a
 reward, and knights him.  Exit Pericles at one door, and Cleon at
 another.

Good Helicane, that stay’d at home.
Not to eat honey like a drone
From others’ labours; for though he strive
To killen bad, keep good alive;
And to fulfil his prince’ desire,
Sends word of all that haps in Tyre:
How Thaliard came full bent with sin
And had intent to murder him;
And that in Tarsus was not best
Longer for him to make his rest.
He, doing so, put forth to seas,
Where when men been, there’s seldom ease;
For now the wind begins to blow;
Thunder above and deeps below
Make such unquiet, that the ship
Should house him safe is wreck’d and split;
And he, good prince, having all lost,
By waves from coast to coast is tost:
All perishen of man, of pelf,
Ne aught escapen but himself;
Till Fortune, tired with doing bad,
Threw him ashore, to give him glad:
And here he comes. What shall be next,
Pardon old Gower, — this longs the text.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE I. Pentapolis. An open place by the seaside.

 Enter Pericles, wet.

PERICLES.
Yet cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven!
Wind, rain, and thunder, remember earthly man
Is but a substance that must yield to you;
And I, as fits my nature, do obey you:
Alas, the sea hath cast me on the rocks,
Wash’d me from shore to shore, and left me breath
Nothing to think on but ensuing death:
Let it suffice the greatness of your powers
To have bereft a prince of all his fortunes;
And having thrown him  from your watery grave,
Here to have death in peace is all he’ll crave.

 Enter three Fishermen.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
What, ho, Pilch!

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Ha, come and bring away the nets!

FIRST FISHERMAN.
What, Patch-breech, I say!

THIRD FISHERMAN.
What say you, master?

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Look how thou stirrest now! Come away, or I’ll fetch thee with a
wanion.

THIRD FISHERMAN.
Faith, master, I am thinking of the poor men that were cast away before
us even now.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Alas, poor souls, it grieved my heart to hear what pitiful cries they
made to us to help them, when, well-a-day, we could scarce help
ourselves.

THIRD FISHERMAN.
Nay, master, said not I as much when I saw the porpus how he bounced
and tumbled? They say they’re half fish, half flesh: a plague on them,
they ne’er come but I look to be washed. Master, I marvel how the
fishes live in the sea.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones: I can
compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale; a’ plays and
tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all
at a mouthful. Such whales have I heard on o’ the land, who never leave
gaping till they swallowed the whole parish, church, steeple, bells and
all.

PERICLES.
[_Aside._] A pretty moral.

THIRD FISHERMAN.
But, master, if I had been the sexton, I would have been that day in
the belfry.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Why, man?

THIRD FISHERMAN.
Because he should have swallowed me too; and when I had been in his
belly, I would have kept such a jangling of the bells, that he should
never have left, till he cast bells, steeple, church and parish up
again.  But if the good King Simonides were of my mind, —

PERICLES.
[_Aside._] Simonides?

THIRD FISHERMAN.
We would purge the land of these drones, that rob the bee of her honey.

PERICLES.
[_Aside._] How from the finny subject of the sea
These fishers tell the infirmities of men;
And from their watery empire recollect
All that may men approve or men detect!
Peace be at your labour, honest fishermen.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Honest! good fellow, what’s that? If it be a day fits you, search out
of the calendar, and nobody look after it.

PERICLES.
May see the sea hath cast upon your coast.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
What a drunken knave was the sea to cast thee in our way!

PERICLES.
A man whom both the waters and the wind,
In that vast tennis-court, have made the ball
For them to play upon, entreats you pity him;
He asks of you, that never used to beg.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
No, friend, cannot you beg? Here’s them in our country of Greece gets
more with begging than we can do with working.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Canst thou catch any fishes, then?

PERICLES.
I never practised it.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Nay, then thou wilt starve, sure; for here’s nothing to be got
now-a-days, unless thou canst fish for’t.

PERICLES.
What I have been I have forgot to know;
But what I am, want teaches me to think on:
A man throng’d up with cold: my veins are chill,
And have no more of life than may suffice
To give my tongue that heat to ask your help;
Which if you shall refuse, when I am dead,
For that I am a man, pray see me buried.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Die quoth-a?  Now gods forbid’t, and I have a gown here; come, put it
on; keep thee warm. Now, afore me, a handsome fellow!  Come, thou shalt
go home, and we’ll have flesh for holidays, fish for fasting-days, and
moreo’er puddings and flap-jacks, and thou shalt be welcome.

PERICLES.
I thank you, sir.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Hark you, my friend; you said you could not beg?

PERICLES.
I did but crave.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
But crave!  Then I’ll turn craver too, and so I shall ’scape whipping.

PERICLES.
Why, are your beggars whipped, then?

SECOND FISHERMAN.
O, not all, my friend, not all; for if all your beggars were whipped, I
would wish no better office than to be beadle. But, master, I’ll go
draw up the net.

 [_Exit with Third Fisherman._]

PERICLES.
[_Aside._] How well this honest mirth becomes their labour!

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Hark you, sir, do you know where ye are?

PERICLES.
Not well.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Why, I’ll tell you: this is called Pentapolis, and our King, the good
Simonides.

PERICLES.
The good Simonides, do you call him?

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Ay, sir; and he deserves so to be called for his peaceable reign and
good government.

PERICLES.
He is a happy king, since he gains from his subjects the name of good
government. How far is his court distant from this shore?

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Marry sir, half a day’s journey: and I’ll tell you, he hath a fair
daughter, and tomorrow is her birth-day; and there are princes and
knights come from all parts of the world to joust and tourney for her
love.

PERICLES.
Were my fortunes equal to my desires, I could wish to make one there.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
O, sir, things must be as they may; and what a man cannot get, he may
lawfully deal for — his wife’s soul.

 Re-enter Second and Third Fishermen, drawing up a net.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Help, master, help! here’s a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man’s
right in the law; ’twill hardly come out.  Ha! bots on’t, ’tis come at
last, and ’tis turned to a rusty armour.

PERICLES.
An armour, friends! I pray you, let me see it.
Thanks, Fortune, yet, that, after all my crosses,
Thou givest me somewhat to repair myself,
And though it was mine own, part of my heritage,
Which my dead father did bequeath to me,
With this strict charge, even as he left his life.
‘Keep it, my Pericles; it hath been a shield
’Twixt me and death;’ — and pointed to this brace;—
‘For that it saved me, keep it; in like necessity —
The which the gods protect thee from! — may defend thee.’
It kept where I kept, I so dearly loved it;
Till the rough seas, that spares not any man,
Took it in rage, though calm’d have given’t again:
I thank thee for’t: my shipwreck now’s no ill,
Since I have here my father gave in his will.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
What mean you sir?

PERICLES.
To beg of you, kind friends, this coat of worth,
For it was sometime target to a king;
I know it by this mark. He loved me dearly,
And for his sake I wish the having of it;
And that you’d guide me to your sovereign court,
Where with it I may appear a gentleman;
And if that ever my low fortune’s better,
I’ll pay your bounties; till then rest your debtor.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Why, wilt thou tourney for the lady?

PERICLES.
I’ll show the virtue I have borne in arms.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Why, d’ye take it, and the gods give thee good on’t!

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Ay, but hark you, my friend; ’twas we that made up this garment through
the rough seams of the waters: there are certain condolements, certain
vails.  I hope, sir, if you thrive, you’ll remember from whence you had
them.

PERICLES.
Believe’t I will.
By your furtherance I am clothed in steel;
And spite of all the rapture of the sea,
This jewel holds his building on my arm:
Unto thy value I will mount myself
Upon a courser, whose delightful steps
Shall make the gazer joy to see him tread.
Only, my friend, I yet am unprovided
Of a pair of bases.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
We’ll sure provide: thou shalt have my best gown to make thee a pair;
and I’ll bring thee to the court myself.

PERICLES.
Then honour be but a goal to my will,
This day I’ll rise, or else add ill to ill.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE II. The same. A public way, or platform leading to the lists. A
pavilion by the side of it for the reception of the King, Princess,
Lords, etc.

 Enter Simonides, Thaisa, Lords and Attendants.

SIMONIDES.
Are the knights ready to begin the triumph?

FIRST LORD.
They are, my liege;
And stay your coming to present themselves.

SIMONIDES.
Return them, we are ready; and our daughter,
In honour of whose birth these triumphs are,
Sits here, like beauty’s child, whom Nature gat
For men to see, and seeing wonder at.

 [_Exit a Lord._]

THAISA.
It pleaseth you, my royal father, to express
My commendations great, whose merit’s less.

SIMONIDES.
It’s fit it should be so; for princes are
A model, which heaven makes like to itself:
As jewels lose their glory if neglected,
So princes their renowns if not respected.
’Tis now your honour, daughter, to entertain
The labour of each knight in his device.

THAISA.
Which, to preserve mine honour, I’ll perform.

 The first Knight passes by, and his Squire presents his shield to
 Thaisa.

SIMONIDES.
Who is the first that doth prefer himself?

THAISA.
A knight of Sparta, my renowned father;
And the device he bears upon his shield
Is a black Ethiope reaching at the sun:
The word, _Lux tua vita mihi._

SIMONIDES.
He loves you well that holds his life of you.

 The second Knight passes by, and his Squire presents his shield to
 Thaisa.

Who is the second that presents himself?

THAISA.
A prince of Macedon, my royal father;
And the device he bears upon his shield
Is an arm’d knight that’s conquer’d by a lady;
The motto thus, in Spanish, _Piu por dulzura que por forza._

 The third Knight passes by, and his Squire presents his shield to
 Thaisa.

SIMONIDES.
And what’s the third?

THAISA.
The third of Antioch;
And his device, a wreath of chivalry;
The word, _Me pompae provexit apex._

 The fourth Knight passes by, and his Squire presents his shield to
 Thaisa.

SIMONIDES.
What is the fourth?

THAISA.
A burning torch that’s turned upside down;
The word, _Quod me alit me extinguit._

SIMONIDES.
Which shows that beauty hath his power and will,
Which can as well inflame as it can kill.

 The fifth Knight passes by, and his Squire presents his shield to
 Thaisa.

THAISA.
The fifth, an hand environed with clouds,
Holding out gold that’s by the touchstone tried;
The motto thus, _Sic spectanda fides._

 The sixth Knight, Pericles, passes in rusty armour with bases, and
 unaccompanied. He presents his device directly to Thaisa.

SIMONIDES.
And what’s the sixth and last, the which the knight himself
With such a graceful courtesy deliver’d?

THAISA.
He seems to be a stranger; but his present is
A wither’d branch, that’s only green at top;
The motto, _In hac spe vivo._

SIMONIDES.
A pretty moral;
From the dejected state wherein he is,
He hopes by you his fortunes yet may flourish.

FIRST LORD.
He had need mean better than his outward show
Can any way speak in his just commend;
For by his rusty outside he appears
To have practised more the whipstock than the lance.

SECOND LORD.
He well may be a stranger, for he comes
To an honour’d triumph strangely furnished.

THIRD LORD.
And on set purpose let his armour rust
Until this day, to scour it in the dust.

SIMONIDES.
Opinion’s but a fool, that makes us scan
The outward habit by the inward man.
But stay, the knights are coming.
We will withdraw into the gallery.

 [_Exeunt. Great shouts within, and all cry_ ‘The mean Knight!’]



SCENE III. The same. A hall of state: a banquet prepared.

 Enter Simonides, Thaisa, Lords, Attendants and Knights, from tilting.

SIMONIDES.
Knights,
To say you’re welcome were superfluous.
To place upon the volume of your deeds,
As in a title-page, your worth in arms,
Were more than you expect, or more than’s fit,
Since every worth in show commends itself.
Prepare for mirth, for mirth becomes a feast:
You are princes and my guests.

THAISA.
But you, my knight and guest;
To whom this wreath of victory I give,
And crown you king of this day’s happiness.

PERICLES.
’Tis more by fortune, lady, than by merit.

SIMONIDES.
Call it by what you will, the day is yours;
And here, I hope, is none that envies it.
In framing an artist, art hath thus decreed,
To make some good, but others to exceed;
And you are her labour’d scholar. Come queen of the feast, —
For, daughter, so you are, — here take your place:
Marshal the rest, as they deserve their grace.

KNIGHTS.
We are honour’d much by good Simonides.

SIMONIDES.
Your presence glads our days; honour we love;
For who hates honour hates the gods above.

MARSHALL.
Sir, yonder is your place.

PERICLES.
Some other is more fit.

FIRST KNIGHT.
Contend not, sir; for we are gentlemen
Have neither in our hearts nor outward eyes
Envied the great, nor shall the low despise.

PERICLES.
You are right courteous knights.

SIMONIDES.
Sit, sir, sit.
By Jove, I wonder, that is king of thoughts,
These cates resist me, he but thought upon.

THAISA.
By Juno, that is queen of marriage,
All viands that I eat do seem unsavoury,
Wishing him my meat. Sure, he’s a gallant gentleman.

SIMONIDES.
He’s but a country gentleman;
Has done no more than other knights have done;
Has broken a staff or so; so let it pass.

THAISA.
To me he seems like diamond to glass.

PERICLES.
Yon king’s to me like to my father’s picture,
Which tells me in that glory once he was;
Had princes sit, like stars, about his throne,
And he the sun, for them to reverence;
None that beheld him, but, like lesser lights,
Did vail their crowns to his supremacy:
Where now his son’s like a glow-worm in the night,
The which hath fire in darkness, none in light:
Whereby I see that time’s the king of men,
He’s both their parent, and he is their grave,
And gives them what he will, not what they crave.

SIMONIDES.
What, are you merry, knights?

KNIGHTS.
Who can be other in this royal presence?

SIMONIDES.
Here, with a cup that’s stored unto the brim, —
As you do love, fill to your mistress’ lips, —
We drink this health to you.

KNIGHTS.
We thank your grace.

SIMONIDES.
Yet pause awhile. Yon knight doth sit too melancholy,
As if the entertainment in our court
Had not a show might countervail his worth.
Note it not you, Thaisa?

THAISA.
What is’t to me, my father?

SIMONIDES.
O attend, my daughter:
Princes in this should live like god’s above,
Who freely give to everyone that comes to honour them:
And princes not doing so are like to gnats,
Which make a sound, but kill’d are wonder’d at.
Therefore to make his entrance more sweet,
Here, say we drink this standing-bowl of wine to him.

THAISA.
Alas, my father, it befits not me
Unto a stranger knight to be so bold:
He may my proffer take for an offence,
Since men take women’s gifts for impudence.

SIMONIDES.
How? Do as I bid you, or you’ll move me else.

THAISA.
[_Aside._] Now, by the gods, he could not please me better.

SIMONIDES.
And furthermore tell him, we desire to know of him,
Of whence he is, his name and parentage.

THAISA.
The king my father, sir, has drunk to you.

PERICLES.
I thank him.

THAISA.
Wishing it so much blood unto your life.

PERICLES.
I thank both him and you, and pledge him freely.

THAISA.
And further he desires to know of you,
Of whence you are, your name and parentage.

PERICLES.
A gentleman of Tyre; my name, Pericles;
My education been in arts and arms;
Who, looking for adventures in the world,
Was by the rough seas reft of ships and men,
And after shipwreck driven upon this shore.

THAISA.
He thanks your grace; names himself Pericles,
A gentleman of Tyre,
Who only by misfortune of the seas
Bereft of ships and men, cast on this shore.

SIMONIDES.
Now, by the gods, I pity his misfortune,
And will awake him from his melancholy.
Come, gentlemen, we sit too long on trifles,
And waste the time, which looks for other revels.
Even in your armours, as you are address’d,
Will well become a soldier’s dance.
I will not have excuse, with saying this,
‘Loud music is too harsh for ladies’ heads’
Since they love men in arms as well as beds.

 [_The Knights dance._]

So, this was well ask’d, ’twas so well perform’d.
Come, sir; here is a lady which wants breathing too:
And I have heard you knights of Tyre
Are excellent in making ladies trip;
And that their measures are as excellent.

PERICLES.
In those that practise them they are, my lord.

SIMONIDES.
O, that’s as much as you would be denied
Of your fair courtesy.

 [_The Knights and Ladies dance._]

Unclasp, unclasp:
Thanks gentlemen, to all; all have done well.
[_To Pericles._] But you the best. Pages and lights to conduct
These knights unto their several lodgings.
[_To Pericles._] Yours, sir, we have given order to be next our own.

PERICLES.
I am at your grace’s pleasure.

SIMONIDES.
Princes, it is too late to talk of love;
And that’s the mark I know you level at:
Therefore each one betake him to his rest;
Tomorrow all for speeding do their best.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE IV. Tyre. A room in the Governor’s house.

 Enter Helicanus and Escanes.

HELICANUS.
No, Escanes, know this of me,
Antiochus from incest lived not free:
For which the most high gods not minding longer
To withhold the vengeance that they had in store
Due to this heinous capital offence,
Even in the height and pride of all his glory,
When he was seated in a chariot
Of an inestimable value, and his daughter with him,
A fire from heaven came and shrivell’d up
Their bodies, even to loathing, for they so stunk,
That all those eyes adored them ere their fall
Scorn now their hand should give them burial.

ESCANES.
’Twas very strange

HELICANUS.
And yet but justice; for though this king were great;
His greatness was no guard to bar heaven’s shaft,
But sin had his reward.

ESCANES.
’Tis very true.

 Enter two or three Lords.

FIRST LORD.
See, not a man in private conference
Or council has respect with him but he.

SECOND LORD.
It shall no longer grieve without reproof.

THIRD LORD.
And cursed be he that will not second it.

FIRST LORD.
Follow me, then.  Lord Helicane, a word.

HELICANUS.
With me? and welcome: happy day, my lords.

FIRST LORD.
Know that our griefs are risen to the top,
And now at length they overflow their banks.

HELICANUS.
Your griefs! for what? Wrong not your prince you love.

FIRST LORD.
Wrong not yourself, then, noble Helicane;
But if the prince do live, let us salute him.
Or know what ground’s made happy by his breath.
If in the world he live, we’ll seek him out;
If in his grave he rest, we’ll find him there.
We’ll be resolved he lives to govern us,
Or dead, give’s cause to mourn his funeral,
And leave us to our free election.

SECOND LORD.
Whose death’s indeed the strongest in our censure:
And knowing this kingdom is without a head, —
Like goodly buildings left without a roof
Soon fall to ruin, — your noble self,
That best know how to rule and how to reign,
We thus submit unto, — our sovereign.

ALL.
Live, noble Helicane!

HELICANUS.
For honour’s cause, forbear your suffrages:
If that you love Prince Pericles, forbear.
Take I your wish, I leap into the seas,
Where’s hourly trouble for a minute’s ease.
A twelvemonth longer, let me entreat you
To forbear the absence of your king;
If in which time expired, he not return,
I shall with aged patience bear your yoke.
But if I cannot win you to this love,
Go search like nobles, like noble subjects,
And in your search spend your adventurous worth;
Whom if you find, and win unto return,
You shall like diamonds sit about his crown.

FIRST LORD.
To wisdom he’s a fool that will not yield;
And since Lord Helicane enjoineth us,
We with our travels will endeavour us.

HELICANUS.
Then you love us, we you, and we’ll clasp hands:
When peers thus knit, a kingdom ever stands.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE V. Pentapolis. A room in the palace.

 Enter Simonides reading a letter at one door; the Knights meet him.

FIRST KNIGHT.
Good morrow to the good Simonides.

SIMONIDES.
Knights, from my daughter this I let you know,
That for this twelvemonth she’ll not undertake
A married life.
Her reason to herself is only known,
Which yet from her by no means can I get.

SECOND KNIGHT.
May we not get access to her, my lord?

SIMONIDES.
Faith, by no means; she hath so strictly tied
Her to her chamber, that ’tis impossible.
One twelve moons more she’ll wear Diana’s livery;
This by the eye of Cynthia hath she vow’d,
And on her virgin honour will not break it.

THIRD KNIGHT.
Loath to bid farewell, we take our leaves.

 [_Exeunt Knights._]

SIMONIDES.
So, they are well dispatch’d; now to my daughter’s letter:
She tells me here, she’ll wed the stranger knight,
Or never more to view nor day nor light.
’Tis well, mistress; your choice agrees with mine;
I like that well: nay, how absolute she’s in’t,
Not minding whether I dislike or no!
Well, I do commend her choice;
And will no longer have it be delay’d.
Soft! here he comes: I must dissemble it.

 Enter Pericles.

PERICLES.
All fortune to the good Simonides!

SIMONIDES.
To you as much. Sir, I am beholding to you
For your sweet music this last night: I do
Protest my ears were never better fed
With such delightful pleasing harmony.

PERICLES.
It is your grace’s pleasure to commend;
Not my desert.

SIMONIDES.
Sir, you are music’s master.

PERICLES.
The worst of all her scholars, my good lord.

SIMONIDES.
Let me ask you one thing:
What do you think of my daughter, sir?

PERICLES.
A most virtuous princess.

SIMONIDES.
And she is fair too, is she not?

PERICLES.
As a fair day in summer, wondrous fair.

SIMONIDES.
Sir, my daughter thinks very well of you;
Ay, so well, that you must be her master,
And she will be your scholar: therefore look to it.

PERICLES.
I am unworthy for her schoolmaster.

SIMONIDES.
She thinks not so; peruse this writing else.

PERICLES.
[_Aside._] What’s here? A letter, that she loves the knight of Tyre!
’Tis the king’s subtlety to have my life.
O, seek not to entrap me, gracious lord,
A stranger and distressed gentleman,
That never aim’d so high to love your daughter,
But bent all offices to honour her.

SIMONIDES.
Thou hast bewitch’d my daughter,
And thou art a villain.

PERICLES.
By the gods, I have not:
Never did thought of mine levy offence;
Nor never did my actions yet commence
A deed might gain her love or your displeasure.

SIMONIDES.
Traitor, thou liest.

PERICLES.
Traitor?

SIMONIDES.
Ay, traitor.

PERICLES.
Even in his throat — unless it be the king —
That calls me traitor, I return the lie.

SIMONIDES.
[_Aside._] Now, by the gods, I do applaud his courage.

PERICLES.
My actions are  as noble as my thoughts,
That never relish’d of a base descent.
I came unto your court for honour’s cause,
And not to be a rebel to her state;
And he that otherwise accounts of me,
This sword shall prove he’s honour’s enemy.

SIMONIDES.
No?
Here comes my daughter, she can witness it.

 Enter Thaisa.

PERICLES.
Then, as you are as virtuous as fair,
Resolve your angry father, if my tongue
Did e’er solicit, or my hand subscribe
To any syllable that made love to you.

THAISA.
Why, sir, say if you had,
Who takes offence at that would make me glad?

SIMONIDES.
Yea, mistress, are you so peremptory?
[_Aside._] I am glad on’t with all my heart. —
I’ll tame you; I’ll bring you in subjection.
Will you, not having my consent,
Bestow your love and your affections
Upon a stranger? [_Aside._] Who, for aught I know
May be, nor can I think the contrary,
As great in blood as I myself. —
Therefore hear you, mistress; either frame
Your will to mine, and you, sir, hear you,
Either be ruled by me, or I will make you —
Man and wife. Nay, come, your hands,
And lips must seal it too: and being join’d,
I’ll thus your hopes destroy; and for further grief,
God give you joy! What, are you both pleased?

THAISA.
Yes, if you love me, sir.

PERICLES.
Even as my life my blood that fosters it.

SIMONIDES.
What, are you both agreed?

BOTH.
Yes, if’t please your majesty.

SIMONIDES.
It pleaseth me so well, that I will see you wed;
And then with what haste you can, get you to bed.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT III

 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._]



SCENE I.

 Enter Pericles, on shipboard.

PERICLES.
Thou god of this great vast, rebuke these surges,
Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou that hast
Upon the winds command, bind them in brass,
Having call’d them from the deep! O, still
Thy deafening, dreadful thunders; gently quench
Thy nimble, sulphurous flashes! O, how, Lychorida,
How does my queen? Thou stormest venomously;
Wilt thou spit all thyself?  The seaman’s whistle
Is as a whisper in the ears of death,
Unheard.  Lychorida! - Lucina, O!
Divinest patroness, and midwife gentle
To those that cry by night, convey thy deity
Aboard our dancing boat; make swift the pangs
Of my queen’s travails! Now, Lychorida!

 Enter Lychorida with an infant.

LYCHORIDA.
Here is a thing too young for such a place,
Who, if it had conceit, would die, as I
Am like to do: take in your arms this piece
Of your dead queen.

PERICLES.
How? how, Lychorida?

LYCHORIDA.
Patience, good sir; do not assist the storm.
Here’s all that is left living of your queen,
A little daughter: for the sake of it,
Be manly, and take comfort.

PERICLES.
O you gods!
Why do you make us love your goodly gifts,
And snatch them straight away? We here below
Recall not what we give, and therein may
Vie honour with you.

LYCHORIDA.
Patience, good sir.
Even for this charge.

PERICLES.
Now, mild may be thy life!
For a more blustrous birth had never babe:
Quiet and gentle thy conditions! for
Thou art the rudeliest welcome to this world
That ever was prince’s child.  Happy what follows!
Thou hast as chiding a nativity
As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make,
To herald thee from the womb.
Even at the first thy loss is more than can
Thy portage quit, with all thou canst find here,
Now, the good gods throw their best eyes upon’t!

 Enter two Sailors

FIRST SAILOR.
What courage, sir?  God save you!

PERICLES.
Courage enough: I do not fear the flaw;
It hath done to me the worst.  Yet, for the love
Of this poor infant, this fresh new sea-farer,
I would it would be quiet.

FIRST SAILOR.
Slack the bolins there!  Thou wilt not, wilt thou?  Blow, and split
thyself.

SECOND SAILOR.
But sea-room, and the brine and cloudy billow kiss the moon, I care
not.

FIRST SAILOR.
Sir, your queen must overboard: the sea works high, the wind is loud
and will not lie till the ship be cleared of the dead.

PERICLES.
That’s your superstition.

FIRST SAILOR.
Pardon us, sir; with us at sea it has been still observed; and we are
strong in custom.  Therefore briefly yield her; for she must overboard
straight.

PERICLES.
As you think meet.  Most wretched queen!

LYCHORIDA.
Here she lies, sir.

PERICLES.
A terrible childbed hast thou had, my dear;
No light, no fire: th’unfriendly elements
Forgot thee utterly; nor have I time
To give thee hallow’d to thy grave, but straight
Must cast thee, scarcely coffin’d, in the ooze;
Where, for a monument upon thy bones,
And e’er-remaining lamps, the belching whale
And humming water must o’erwhelm thy corpse,
Lying with simple shells.  O Lychorida.
Bid Nestor bring me spices, ink and paper,
My casket and my jewels; and bid Nicander
Bring me the satin coffer: lay the babe
Upon the pillow: hie thee, whiles I say
A priestly farewell to her: suddenly, woman.

 [_Exit Lychorida._]

SECOND SAILOR.
Sir, we have a chest beneath the hatches, caulked and bitumed ready.

PERICLES.
I thank thee.  Mariner, say what coast is this?

SECOND SAILOR.
We are near Tarsus.

PERICLES.
Thither, gentle mariner,
Alter thy course for Tyre.  When, canst thou reach it?

SECOND SAILOR.
By break of day, if the wind cease.

PERICLES.
O, make for Tarsus!
There will I visit Cleon, for the babe
Cannot hold out to Tyrus. There I’ll leave it
At careful nursing. Go thy ways, good mariner:
I’ll bring the body presently.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE II. Ephesus. A room in Cerimon’s house.

 Enter Cerimon, with a Servant, and some Persons who have been
 shipwrecked.

CERIMON.
Philemon, ho!

 Enter Philemon.

PHILEMON.
Doth my lord call?

CERIMON.
Get fire and meat for these poor men:
’T has been a turbulent and stormy night.

SERVANT.
I have been in many; but such a night as this,
Till now, I ne’er endured.

CERIMON.
Your master will be dead ere you return;
There’s nothing can be minister’d to nature
That can recover him. [_To Philemon._] Give this to the ’pothecary,
And tell me how it works.

 [_Exeunt all but Cerimon._]

 Enter two Gentlemen.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Good morrow.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Good morrow to your lordship.

CERIMON.
Gentlemen, why do you stir so early?

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Sir, our lodgings, standing bleak upon the sea,
Shook as the earth did quake;
The very principals did seem to rend,
And all to topple: pure surprise and fear
Made me to quit the house.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
That is the cause we trouble you so early;
’Tis not our husbandry.

CERIMON.
O, you say well.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
But I much marvel that your lordship, having
Rich tire about you, should at these early hours
Shake off the golden slumber of repose.
’Tis most strange,
Nature should be so conversant with pain.
Being thereto not compell’d.

CERIMON.
I hold it ever,
Virtue and cunning were endowments greater
Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs
May the two latter darken and expend;
But immortality attends the former,
Making a man a god. ’Tis known, I ever
Have studied physic, through which secret art,
By turning o’er authorities, I have,
Together with my practice, made familiar
To me and to my aid the blest infusions
That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones;
And I can speak of the disturbances
That nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me
A more content in course of true delight
Than to be thirsty after tottering honour,
Or tie my pleasure up in silken bags,
To please the fool and death.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Your  honour has through Ephesus pour’d forth
Your charity, and hundreds call themselves
Your creatures, who by you have been restored:
And not your knowledge, your personal pain, but even
Your purse, still open, hath built Lord Cerimon
Such strong renown as time shall never—

 Enter two or three Servants with a chest.

FIRST SERVANT.
So, lift there.

CERIMON.
What’s that?

FIRST SERVANT.
Sir, even now
Did the sea toss upon our shore this chest:
’Tis of some wreck.

CERIMON.
Set’t down, let’s look upon’t.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
’Tis like a coffin, sir.

CERIMON.
Whate’er it be,
’Tis  wondrous  heavy. Wrench it open straight:
If the sea’s stomach be o’ercharged with gold,
’Tis a good constraint of fortune it belches upon us.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
’Tis so, my lord.

CERIMON.
How close ’tis caulk’d and bitumed!
Did the sea cast it up?

FIRST SERVANT.
I never saw so huge a billow, sir,
As toss’d it upon shore.

CERIMON.
Wrench it open;
Soft! it smells most sweetly in my sense.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
A delicate odour.

CERIMON.
As ever hit my nostril. So up with it.
O you most potent gods! what’s here? a corpse!

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Most strange!

CERIMON.
Shrouded in cloth of state; balm’d and entreasured
With full bags of spices! A passport too!
Apollo, perfect me in the characters!

 [_Reads from a scroll._]

     _Here I give to understand,
     If e’er this coffin drives a-land,
     I, King Pericles, have lost
     This queen, worth all our mundane cost.
     Who finds her, give her burying;
     She was the daughter of a king:
     Besides this treasure for a fee,
     The gods requite his charity._
If thou livest, Pericles, thou hast a heart
That even cracks for woe!  This chanced tonight.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Most likely, sir.

CERIMON.
Nay, certainly tonight;
For look how fresh she looks! They were too rough
That threw her in the sea. Make a fire within
Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet.

 [_Exit a Servant._]

Death may usurp on nature many hours,
And yet the fire of life kindle again
The o’erpress’d spirits. I heard of an Egyptian
That had nine hours lain dead,
Who was by good appliance recovered.

 Re-enter a Servant with napkins and fire.

Well said, well said; the fire and cloths.
The rough and woeful music that we have,
Cause it to sound, beseech you
The viol once more: how thou stirr’st, thou block!
The music there! — I pray you, give her air.
Gentlemen, this queen will live.
Nature awakes; a warmth breathes out of her.
She hath not been entranced above five hours.
See how she ’gins to blow into life’s flower again!

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
The heavens, through you, increase our wonder
And sets up your fame for ever.

CERIMON.
She is alive; behold, her eyelids,
Cases to those heavenly jewels which Pericles hath lost,
Begin to part their fringes of bright gold;
The diamonds of a most praised water doth appear,
To make the world twice rich. Live, and make us weep
To hear your fate, fair creature, rare as you seem to be.

 [_She moves._]

THAISA.
O dear Diana,
Where am I? Where’s my lord? What world is this?

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Is not this strange?

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Most rare.

CERIMON.
Hush, my gentle neighbours!
Lend me your hands; to the next chamber bear her.
Get linen: now this matter must be look’d to,
For her relapse is mortal.  Come, come;
And Aesculapius guide us!

 [_Exeunt, carrying her away._]



SCENE III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.

 Enter Pericles, Cleon, Dionyza and Lychorida with Marina in her arms.

PERICLES.
Most honour’d Cleon, I must needs be gone;
My twelve months are expired, and Tyrus stands
In a litigious peace.  You and your lady,
Take from my heart all thankfulness!  The gods
Make up the rest upon you!

CLEON.
Your shafts of fortune, though they hurt you mortally,
Yet glance full wanderingly on us.

DIONYZA.
O, your sweet queen!
That the strict fates had pleased you had brought her hither,
To have bless’d mine eyes with her!

PERICLES.
We cannot but obey
The powers above us. Could I rage and roar
As doth the sea she lies in, yet the end
Must be as ’tis. My gentle babe Marina,
Whom, for she was born at sea, I have named so,
Here I charge your charity withal,
Leaving her the infant of your care;
Beseeching you to give her princely training,
That she may be manner’d as she is born.

CLEON.
Fear not, my lord, but think
Your grace, that fed my country with your corn,
For which the people’s prayers still fall upon you,
Must in your child be thought on.  If neglection
Should therein make me vile, the common body,
By you relieved, would force me to my duty:
But if to that my nature need a spur,
The gods revenge it upon me and mine,
To the end of generation!

PERICLES.
I believe you;
Your honour and your goodness teach me to’t,
Without your vows. Till she be married, madam,
By bright Diana, whom we honour, all
Unscissored shall this hair of mine remain,
Though I show ill in’t.  So I take my leave.
Good madam, make me blessed in your care
In bringing up my child.

DIONYZA.
I have one myself,
Who shall not be more dear to my respect
Than yours, my lord.

PERICLES.
Madam, my thanks and prayers.

CLEON.
We’ll bring your grace e’en to the edge o’the shore,
Then give you up to the mask’d Neptune and
The gentlest winds of heaven.

PERICLES.
I will embrace your offer. Come, dearest madam.
O, no tears, Lychorida, no tears.
Look to your little mistress, on whose grace
You may depend hereafter. Come, my lord.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE IV. Ephesus. A room in Cerimon’s house.

 Enter Cerimon and Thaisa.

CERIMON.
Madam, this letter, and some certain jewels,
Lay with you in your coffer, which are
At your command.  Know you the character?

THAISA.
It is my lord’s.
That I was shipp’d at sea, I well remember,
Even on my groaning time; but whether there
Deliver’d, by the holy gods,
I cannot rightly say.  But since King Pericles,
My wedded lord, I ne’er shall see again,
A vestal livery will I take me to,
And never more have joy.

CERIMON.
Madam, if this you purpose as ye speak,
Diana’s temple is not distant far,
Where you may abide till your date expire.
Moreover, if you please, a niece of mine
Shall there attend you.

THAISA.
My recompense is thanks, that’s all;
Yet my good will is great, though the gift small.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT IV

 Enter Gower.

GOWER.
Imagine Pericles arrived at Tyre,
Welcomed and settled to his own desire.
His woeful queen we leave at Ephesus,
Unto Diana there a votaress.
Now to Marina bend your mind,
Whom our fast-growing scene must find
At Tarsus, and by Cleon train’d
In music’s letters; who hath gain’d
Of education all the grace,
Which makes her both the heart and place
Of general wonder. But, alack,
That monster envy, oft the wrack
Of earned praise, Marina’s life
Seeks to take off by treason’s knife,
And in this kind our Cleon hath
One daughter, and a full grown wench
Even ripe for marriage-rite; this maid
Hight Philoten: and it is said
For certain in our story, she
Would ever with Marina be.
Be’t when she weaved the sleided silk
With fingers long, small, white as milk;
Or when she would with sharp needle wound,
The cambric, which she made more sound
By hurting it; or when to th’ lute
She sung, and made the night-bird mute
That still records with moan; or when
She would with rich and constant pen
Vail to her mistress Dian; still
This Philoten contends in skill
With absolute Marina: so
The dove of Paphos might with the crow
Vie feathers white.  Marina gets
All praises, which are paid as debts,
And not as given. This so darks
In Philoten all graceful marks,
That Cleon’s wife, with envy rare,
A present murderer does prepare
For good Marina, that her daughter
Might stand peerless by this slaughter.
The sooner her vile thoughts to stead,
Lychorida, our nurse, is dead:
And cursed Dionyza hath
The pregnant instrument of wrath
Prest for this blow. The unborn event
I do commend to your content:
Only I carry winged time
Post on the lame feet of my rhyme;
Which never could I so convey,
Unless your thoughts went on my way.
Dionyza does appear,
With Leonine, a murderer.

 [_Exit._]



Scene I. Tarsus. An open place near the seashore.

 Enter Dionyza with Leonine.

DIONYZA.
Thy  oath  remember;  thou hast sworn to do’t:
’Tis but a blow, which never shall be known.
Thou canst not do a thing in the world so soon,
To yield thee so much profit.  Let not conscience,
Which is but cold, inflaming love i’ thy bosom,
Inflame too nicely; nor let pity, which
Even women have cast off, melt thee, but be
A soldier to thy purpose.

LEONINE.
I will do’t; but yet she is a goodly creature.

DIONYZA.
The fitter, then, the gods should have her. Here she comes weeping for
her only mistress’ death.  Thou art resolved?

LEONINE.
I am resolved.

 Enter Marina with a basket of flowers.

MARINA.
No, I will rob Tellus of her weed
To strew thy green with flowers: the yellows, blues,
The purple violets, and marigolds,
Shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave,
While summer days do last. Ay me! poor maid,
Born in a tempest, when my mother died,
This world to me is like a lasting storm,
Whirring me from my friends.

DIONYZA.
How now, Marina! why do you keep alone?
How chance my daughter is not with you?
Do not consume your blood with sorrowing;
Have you a nurse of me? Lord, how your favour’s
Changed with this unprofitable woe!
Come, give me your flowers, ere the sea mar it.
Walk with Leonine; the air is quick there,
And it pierces and sharpens the stomach.
Come, Leonine, take her by the arm, walk with her.

MARINA.
No, I pray you;
I’ll not bereave you of your servant.

DIONYZA.
Come, come;
I love the king your father, and yourself,
With more than foreign heart. We every day
Expect him here: when he shall come and find
Our paragon to all reports thus blasted,
He will repent the breadth of his great voyage;
Blame both my lord and me, that we have taken
No care to your best courses. Go, I pray you,
Walk, and be cheerful once again; reserve
That excellent complexion, which did steal
The eyes of young and old. Care not for me;
I can go home alone.

MARINA.
Well, I will go;
But yet I have no desire to it.

DIONYZA.
Come, come, I know ’tis good for you.
Walk half an hour, Leonine, at the least:
Remember what I have said.

LEONINE.
I warrant you, madam.

DIONYZA.
I’ll leave you, my sweet lady, for a while:
Pray, walk softly, do not heat your blood:
What! I must have a care of you.

MARINA.
My thanks, sweet madam.

 [_Exit Dionyza._]

Is this wind westerly that blows?

LEONINE.
South-west.

MARINA.
When I was born the wind was north.

LEONINE.
Was’t so?

MARINA.
My father, as nurse said, did never fear,
But cried ‘Good seamen!’ to the sailors,
Galling his kingly hands, haling ropes;
And clasping to the mast, endured a sea
That almost burst the deck.

LEONINE.
When was this?

MARINA.
When I was born:
Never was waves nor wind more violent;
And from the ladder tackle washes off
A canvas-climber. ‘Ha!’ says one, ‘wolt out?’
And with a dropping industry they skip
From stem to stern: the boatswain whistles, and
The master calls and trebles their confusion.

LEONINE.
Come, say your prayers.

MARINA.
What mean you?

LEONINE.
If you require a little space for prayer,
I grant it: pray; but be not tedious,
For the gods are quick of ear, and I am sworn
To do my work with haste.

MARINA.
Why will you kill me?

LEONINE.
To satisfy my lady.

MARINA.
Why would she have me kill’d now?
As I can remember, by my troth,
I never did her hurt in all my life:
I never spake bad word, nor did ill turn
To any living creature: believe me, la,
I never kill’d a mouse, nor hurt a fly:
I trod upon a worm against my will,
But I wept for it.  How have I offended,
Wherein my death might yield her any profit,
Or my life imply her any danger?

LEONINE.
My commission
Is not to reason of the deed, but do it.

MARINA.
You will not do’t for all the world, I hope.
You are well favour’d, and your looks foreshow
You have a gentle heart.  I saw you lately,
When you caught hurt in parting two that fought:
Good sooth, it show’d well in you: do so now:
Your lady seeks my life; come you between,
And save poor me, the weaker.

LEONINE.
I am sworn,
And will dispatch.

 [_He seizes her._]

 Enter Pirates.

FIRST PIRATE.
Hold, villain!

 [_Leonine runs away._]

SECOND PIRATE.
A prize! a prize!

THIRD PIRATE.
Half part, mates, half part,
Come, let’s have her aboard suddenly.

 [_Exeunt Pirates with Marina._]

 Re-enter Leonine.

LEONINE.
These roguing thieves serve the great pirate Valdes;
And they have seized Marina. Let her go:
There’s no hope she will return. I’ll swear she’s dead
And thrown into the sea. But I’ll see further:
Perhaps they will but please themselves upon her,
Not carry her aboard.  If she remain,
Whom they have ravish’d must by me be slain.

 [_Exit._]



Scene II. Mytilene. A room in a brothel.

 Enter Pandar, Bawd and  Boult.

PANDAR.
Boult!

BOULT.
Sir?

PANDAR.
Search the market narrowly; Mytilene is full of gallants. We lost too
much money this mart by being too wenchless.

BAWD.
We were never so much out of creatures. We have but poor three, and
they can do no more than they can do; and they with continual action
are even as good as rotten.

PANDAR.
Therefore let’s have fresh ones, whate’er we pay for them. If there be
not a conscience to be used in every trade, we shall never prosper.

BAWD.
Thou sayest true: ’tis not our bringing up of poor bastards, — as, I
think, I have brought up some eleven —

BOULT.
Ay, to eleven; and brought them down again. But shall I search the
market?

BAWD.
What else, man?  The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow it to
pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.

PANDAR.
Thou sayest true; they’re too unwholesome, o’ conscience. The poor
Transylvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage.

BOULT.
Ay, she quickly pooped him; she made him roast-meat for worms. But I’ll
go search the market.

 [_Exit._]

PANDAR.
Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a proportion to live
quietly, and so give over.

BAWD.
Why to give over, I pray you? Is it a shame to get when we are old?

PANDAR.
O, our credit comes not in like the commodity, nor the commodity wages
not with the danger: therefore, if in our youths we could pick up some
pretty estate, ’twere not amiss to keep our door hatched.  Besides, the
sore terms we stand upon with the gods will be strong with us for
giving over.

BAWD.
Come, others sorts offend as well as we.

PANDAR.
As well as we! ay, and better too; we offend worse. Neither is our
profession any trade; it’s no calling.  But here comes Boult.

 Re-enter Boult, with the Pirates and Marina.

BOULT
[_To Pirates._] Come your ways. My masters, you say she’s a virgin?

FIRST PIRATE.
O sir, we doubt it not.

BOULT.
Master, I have gone through for this piece, you see: if you like her,
so; if not, I have lost my earnest.

BAWD.
Boult, has she any qualities?

BOULT.
She has a good face, speaks well and has excellent good clothes:
there’s no farther necessity of qualities can make her be refused.

BAWD.
What is her price, Boult?

BOULT.
I cannot be baited one doit of a thousand pieces.

PANDAR.
Well, follow me, my masters, you shall have your money presently. Wife,
take her in; instruct her what she has to do, that she may not be raw
in her entertainment.

 [_Exeunt Pandar and Pirates._]

BAWD.
Boult, take you the marks of her, the colour of her hair, complexion,
height, her age, with warrant of her virginity; and cry ‘He that will
give most shall have her first.’ Such a maidenhead were no cheap thing,
if men were as they have been. Get this done as I command you.

BOULT.
Performance shall follow.

 [_Exit._]

MARINA.
Alack that Leonine was so slack, so slow!
He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates,
Not enough barbarous, had not o’erboard thrown me
For to seek my mother!

BAWD.
Why lament you, pretty one?

MARINA.
That I am pretty.

BAWD.
Come, the gods have done their part in you.

MARINA.
I accuse them not.

BAWD.
You are light into my hands, where you are like to live.

MARINA.
The more my fault
To scape his hands where I was like to die.

BAWD.
Ay, and you shall live in pleasure.

MARINA.
No.

BAWD.
Yes, indeed shall you, and taste gentlemen of all fashions: you shall
fare well; you shall have the difference of all complexions. What! do
you stop your ears?

MARINA.
Are you a woman?

BAWD.
What would you have me be, an I be not a woman?

MARINA.
An honest woman, or not a woman.

BAWD.
Marry, whip the gosling: I think I shall have something to do with you.
Come, you’re a young foolish sapling, and must be bowed as I would have
you.

MARINA.
The gods defend me!

BAWD.
If it please the gods to defend you by men, then men must comfort you,
men must feed you, men stir you up. Boult’s returned.

 Re-enter Boult.

Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market?

BOULT.
I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs; I have drawn her
picture with my voice.

BAWD.
And I prithee tell me, how dost thou find the inclination of the
people, especially of the younger sort?

BOULT.
Faith, they listened to me as they would have hearkened to their
father’s testament.  There was a Spaniard’s mouth so watered, that he
went to bed to her very description.

BAWD.
We shall have him here tomorrow with his best ruff on.

BOULT.
Tonight, tonight. But, mistress, do you know the French knight that
cowers i’ the hams?

BAWD.
Who, Monsieur Veroles?

BOULT.
Ay, he: he offered to cut a caper at the proclamation; but he made a
groan at it, and swore he would see her tomorrow.

BAWD.
Well, well, as for him, he brought his disease hither: here he does but
repair it. I know he will come in our shadow, to scatter his crowns in
the sun.

BOULT.
Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we should lodge them with
this sign.

[_To Marina._] Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming
upon you. Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully which you commit
willingly, despise profit where you have most gain. To weep that you
live as ye do makes pity in your lovers: seldom but that pity begets
you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit.

MARINA.
I understand you not.

BOULT.
O, take her home, mistress, take her home: these blushes of hers must
be quenched with some present practice.

BAWD.
Thou sayest true, i’faith so they must; for your bride goes to that
with shame which is her way to go with warrant.

BOULT.
Faith, some do and some do not. But, mistress, if I have bargained for
the joint, —

BAWD.
Thou mayst cut a morsel off the spit.

BOULT.
I may so.

BAWD. Who should deny it? Come young one, I like the manner of your
garments well.

BOULT.
Ay, by my faith, they shall not be changed yet.

BAWD.
Boult, spend thou that in the town: report what a sojourner we have;
you’ll lose nothing by custom. When nature framed this piece, she meant
thee a good turn; therefore say what a paragon she is, and thou hast
the harvest out of thine own report.

BOULT.
I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so awake the beds of eels as
my giving out her beauty stirs up the lewdly inclined. I’ll bring home
some tonight.

BAWD.
Come your ways; follow me.

MARINA.
If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep,
Untied I still my virgin knot will keep.
Diana, aid my purpose!

BAWD.
What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will you go with us?

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.

 Enter Cleon and Dionyza.

DIONYZA.
Why, are you foolish?  Can it be undone?

CLEON.
O, Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
The sun and moon ne’er look’d upon!

DIONYZA.
I think you’ll turn a child again.

CLEON.
Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
I’d give it to undo the deed. A lady,
Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
To equal any single crown o’ the earth
I’ the justice of compare!  O villain Leonine!
Whom thou hast poison’d too:
If thou hadst drunk to him, ’t had been a kindness
Becoming well thy face. What canst thou say
When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

DIONYZA.
That she is dead.  Nurses are not the fates,
To foster it, nor ever to preserve.
She died at night; I’ll say so. Who can cross it?
Unless you play the pious innocent,
And for an honest attribute cry out
‘She died by foul play.’

CLEON.
O, go to.  Well, well,
Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
Do like this worst.

DIONYZA.
Be one of those that thinks
The petty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence,
And open this to Pericles. I do shame
To think of what a noble strain you are,
And of how coward a spirit.

CLEON.
To such proceeding
Whoever but his approbation added,
Though not his prime consent, he did not flow
From honourable sources,

DIONYZA.
Be it so, then:
Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead,
Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.
She did distain my child, and stood between
Her and her fortunes: none would look on her,
But cast their gazes on Marina’s face;
Whilst ours was blurted at and held a malkin
Not worth the time of day.  It pierced me through;
And though you call my course unnatural,
You not your child well loving, yet I find
It greets me as an enterprise of kindness
Perform’d to your sole daughter.

CLEON.
Heavens forgive it!

DIONYZA.
And as for Pericles, what should he say?
We wept after her hearse, and yet we mourn.
Her monument is almost finish’d, and her epitaphs
In glittering golden characters express
A general praise to her, and care in us
At whose expense ’tis done.

CLEON.
Thou art like the harpy,
Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel’s face,
Seize with thine eagle’s talons.

DIONYZA.
You are like one that superstitiously
Doth swear to the gods that winter kills the flies:
But yet I know you’ll do as I advise.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE IV.

 Enter Gower, before the monument of Marina at Tarsus.

GOWER.
Thus time we waste, and long leagues make short;
Sail seas in cockles, have and wish but for’t;
Making, to take your imagination,
From bourn to bourn, region to region.
By you  being pardon’d, we commit no crime
To use one language in each several clime
Where our scenes seem to live. I do beseech you
To learn of me, who stand i’the gaps to teach you,
The stages of our story.  Pericles
Is now again thwarting the wayward seas
Attended on by many a lord and knight,
To see his daughter, all his life’s delight.
Old Helicanus goes along. Behind
Is left to govern, if you bear in mind,
Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late
Advanced in time to great and high estate.
Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought
This king to Tarsus, — think his pilot thought;
So with his steerage shall your thoughts go on, —
To fetch his daughter home, who first is gone.
Like motes and shadows see them move awhile;
Your ears unto your eyes I’ll reconcile.

 Dumb-show. Enter Pericles at one door with all his train; Cleon and
 Dionyza at the other. Cleon shows Pericles the tomb; whereat Pericles
 makes lamentation, puts on sackcloth and in a mighty passion departs.
 Then exeunt Cleon and Dionyza.

See how belief may suffer by foul show;
This borrow’d passion stands for true old woe;
And Pericles, in sorrow all devour’d,
With sighs shot through; and biggest tears o’ershower’d,
Leaves Tarsus and again embarks. He swears
Never to wash his face, nor cut his hairs:
He puts on sackcloth, and to sea he bears
A tempest, which his mortal vessel tears,
And yet he rides it out. Now please you wit
The epitaph is for Marina writ
By wicked Dionyza.

 [_Reads the inscription on Marina’s monument._]

     _The fairest, sweet’st, and best lies here,
     Who wither’d in her spring of year.
     She was of Tyrus the King’s daughter,
     On whom foul death hath made this slaughter;
     Marina was she call’d; and at her birth,
     Thetis, being proud, swallow’d some part o’ the earth:
     Therefore the earth, fearing to be o’erflow’d,
     Hath Thetis’ birth-child on the heavens bestow’d:
     Wherefore she does, and swears she’ll never stint,
     Make raging battery upon shores of flint._

No visor does become black villany
So well as soft and tender flattery.
Let Pericles believe his daughter’s dead,
And bear his courses to be ordered
By Lady Fortune; while our scene must play
His daughter’s woe and heavy well-a-day
In her unholy service. Patience, then,
And think you now are all in Mytilene.

 [_Exit._]



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._]



SCENE VI. The same. A room in the brothel.

 Enter Pandar, Bawd and Boult.

PANDAR.
Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her she had ne’er come here.

BAWD.
Fie, fie upon her! She’s able to freeze the god Priapus, and undo a
whole generation. We must either get her ravished, or be rid of her.
When she should do for clients her fitment, and do me the kindness of
our profession, she has me her quirks, her reasons, her master reasons,
her prayers, her knees; that she would make a puritan of the devil, if
he should cheapen a kiss of her.

BOULT.
Faith, I must ravish her, or she’ll disfurnish us of all our cavaliers,
and make our swearers priests.

PANDAR.
Now, the pox upon her green sickness for me!

BAWD.
Faith, there’s no way to be rid on’t but by the way to the pox.
Here comes the Lord Lysimachus disguised.

BOULT.
We should have both lord and lown, if the peevish baggage would but
give way to customers.

 Enter Lysimachus.

LYSIMACHUS.
How now!  How a dozen of virginities?

BAWD.
Now, the gods to bless your honour!

BOULT.
I am glad to see your honour in good health.

LYSIMACHUS.
You may so; ’tis the better for you that your resorters stand upon
sound legs. How now? Wholesome iniquity have you that a man may deal
withal, and defy the surgeon?

BAWD.
We have here one, sir, if she would — but there never came her like in
Mytilene.

LYSIMACHUS.
If she’d do the deed of darkness, thou wouldst say.

BAWD.
Your honour knows what ’tis to say well enough.

LYSIMACHUS.
Well, call forth, call forth.

BOULT.
For flesh and blood, sir, white and red, you shall see a rose; and she
were a rose indeed, if she had but —

LYSIMACHUS.
What, prithee?

BOULT.
O, sir, I can be modest.

LYSIMACHUS.
That dignifies the renown of a bawd no less than it gives a good report
to a number to be chaste.

 [_Exit Boult._]

BAWD.
Here comes that which grows to the stalk; never plucked yet, I can
assure you.

 Re-enter Boult with Marina.

Is she not a fair creature?

LYSIMACHUS.
Faith, she would serve after a long voyage at sea. Well, there’s for
you:  leave us.

BAWD.
I beseech your honour, give me leave: a word, and I’ll have done
presently.

LYSIMACHUS.
I beseech you, do.

BAWD.
[_To Marina._] First, I would have you note, this is an honourable man.

MARINA.
I desire to find him so, that I may worthily note him.

BAWD.
Next, he’s the governor of this country, and a man whom I am bound to.

MARINA.
If he govern the country, you are bound to him indeed; but how
honourable he is in that, I know not.

BAWD. Pray you, without any more virginal fencing, will you use him
kindly? He will line your apron with gold.

MARINA.
What he will do graciously, I will thankfully receive.

LYSIMACHUS.
Ha’ you done?

BAWD.
My lord, she’s not paced yet: you must take some pains to work her to
your manage. Come, we will leave his honour and her together.  Go thy
ways.

 [_Exeunt Bawd, Pandar and Boult._]

LYSIMACHUS.
Now, pretty one, how long have you been at this trade?

MARINA.
What trade, sir?

LYSIMACHUS.
Why, I cannot name’t but I shall offend.

MARINA.
I cannot be offended with my trade. Please you to name it.

LYSIMACHUS.
How long have you been of this profession?

MARINA.
E’er since I can remember.

LYSIMACHUS. Did you go to’t so young? Were you a gamester at five or at
seven?

MARINA.
Earlier, too, sir, if now I be one.

LYSIMACHUS.
Why, the house you dwell in proclaims you to be a creature of sale.

MARINA.
Do you know this house to be a place of such resort, and will come
into’t? I hear say you are of honourable parts, and are the governor of
this place.

LYSIMACHUS.
Why, hath your principal made known unto you who I am?

MARINA.
Who is my principal?

LYSIMACHUS.
Why, your herb-woman;  she that sets seeds and roots of shame and
iniquity. O, you have heard something of my power, and so stand aloof
for more serious wooing. But I protest to thee, pretty one, my
authority shall not see thee, or else look friendly upon thee. Come,
bring me to some private place: come, come.

MARINA.
If you were born to honour, show it now;
If put upon you, make the judgement good
That thought you worthy of it.

LYSIMACHUS.
How’s  this?  how’s this? Some more; be sage.

MARINA.
For me,
That am a maid, though most ungentle Fortune
Have placed me in this sty, where, since I came,
Diseases have been sold dearer than physic,
O, that the gods
Would set me free from this unhallow’d place,
Though they did change me to the meanest bird
That flies i’ the purer air!

LYSIMACHUS.
I did not think
Thou couldst have spoke so well; ne’er dream’d thou couldst.
Had I brought hither a corrupted mind,
Thy speech had alter’d it. Hold, here’s gold for thee:
Persever in that clear way thou goest,
And the gods strengthen thee!

MARINA.
The good gods preserve you!

LYSIMACHUS.
For me, be you thoughten
That I came with no ill intent; for to me
The very doors and windows savour vilely.
Fare thee well. Thou art a piece of virtue, and
I doubt not but thy training hath been noble.
Hold, here’s more gold for thee.
A curse upon him, die he like a thief,
That robs thee of thy goodness! If thou dost
Hear from me, it shall be for thy good.

 Re-enter Boult.

BOULT.
I beseech your honour, one piece for me.

LYSIMACHUS.
Avaunt, thou damned door-keeper!
Your house but for this virgin that doth prop it,
Would sink and overwhelm you. Away!

 [_Exit._]

BOULT.
How’s this? We must take another course with you. If your peevish
chastity, which is not worth a breakfast in the cheapest country under
the cope, shall undo a whole household, let me be gelded like a
spaniel. Come your ways.

MARINA.
Whither would you have me?

BOULT.
I must have your maidenhead taken off, or the common hangman shall
execute it.  Come your ways.  We’ll have no more gentlemen driven away.
Come your ways, I say.

 Re-enter Bawd.

BAWD.
How now! what’s the matter?

BOULT.
Worse and worse, mistress; she has here spoken holy words to the Lord
Lysimachus.

BAWD.
O, abominable!

BOULT.
She makes our profession as it were to stink afore the face of the
gods.

BAWD.
Marry, hang her up for ever!

BOULT.
The nobleman would have dealt with her like a nobleman, and she sent
him away as cold as a snowball; saying his prayers too.

BAWD.
Boult, take her away; use her at thy pleasure: crack the glass of her
virginity, and make the rest malleable.

BOULT.
An if she were a thornier piece of ground than she is, she shall be
ploughed.

MARINA.
Hark, hark, you gods!

BAWD.
She conjures: away with her! Would she had never come within my doors!
Marry, hang you! She’s born to undo us. Will you not go the way of
womankind? Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with rosemary and bays!

 [_Exit._]

BOULT.
Come, mistress; come your way with me.

MARINA.
Whither wilt thou have me?

BOULT.
To take from you the jewel you hold so dear.

MARINA.
Prithee, tell me one thing first.

BOULT.
Come now, your one thing?

MARINA.
What canst thou wish thine enemy to be?

BOULT.
Why, I could wish him to be my master, or rather, my mistress.

MARINA.
Neither of these are so bad as thou art,
Since they do better thee in their command.
Thou hold’st a place, for which the pained’st fiend
Of hell would not in reputation change:
Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every
Coistrel that comes inquiring for his Tib.
To the choleric fisting of every rogue
Thy ear is liable, thy food is such
As hath been belch’d on by infected lungs.

BOULT.
What would you have me do? Go to the wars, would you? where a man may
serve seven years for the loss of a leg, and have not money enough in
the end to buy him a wooden one?

MARINA.
Do anything but this thou doest. Empty
Old receptacles, or common shores, of filth;
Serve by indenture to the common hangman:
Any of these ways are yet better than this;
For what thou professest, a baboon, could he speak,
Would own a name too dear. O, that the gods
Would safely deliver me from this place!
Here, here’s gold for thee.
If that thy master would gain by me,
Proclaim that I can sing, weave, sew, and dance,
With other virtues, which I’ll keep from boast;
And I will undertake all these to teach.
I doubt not but this populous city will
Yield many scholars.

BOULT.
But can you teach all this you speak of?

MARINA.
Prove that I cannot, take me home again,
And prostitute me to the basest groom
That doth frequent your house.

BOULT.
Well, I will see what I can do for thee: if I can place thee, I will.

MARINA.
But amongst honest women.

BOULT.
Faith, my acquaintance lies little amongst them. But since my master
and mistress have bought you, there’s no going but by their consent: 
therefore I will make them acquainted with your purpose, and I doubt
not but I shall find them tractable enough. Come, I’ll do for thee what
I can; come your ways.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT V

 Enter Gower.

GOWER.
Marina thus the brothel ’scapes, and chances
Into an honest house, our story says.
She sings like one immortal, and she dances
As goddess-like to her admired lays;
Deep clerks she dumbs; and with her nee’le composes
Nature’s own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry,
That even her art sisters the natural roses;
Her inkle, silk, twin with the rubied cherry:
That pupils lacks she none of noble race,
Who pour their bounty on her; and her gain
She gives the cursed bawd. Here we her place;
And to her father turn our thoughts again,
Where we left him, on the sea. We there him lost;
Whence, driven before the winds, he is arrived
Here where his daughter dwells; and on this coast
Suppose him now at anchor. The city strived
God Neptune’s annual feast to keep: from whence
Lysimachus our Tyrian ship espies,
His banners sable, trimm’d with rich expense;
And to him in his barge with fervour hies.
In your supposing once more put your sight
Of heavy Pericles; think this his bark:
Where what is done in action, more, if might,
Shall be discover’d; please you, sit and hark.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE I. On board Pericles’ ship, off Mytilene. A close pavilion on
deck, with a curtain before it; Pericles within it, reclined on a
couch.  A barge lying beside the Tyrian vessel.

 Enter two Sailors, one belonging to the Tyrian vessel, the other to
 the barge; to them Helicanus.

TYRIAN SAILOR.
[_To the Sailor of Mytilene._]
Where is lord Helicanus? He can resolve you.
O, here he is.
Sir, there’s a barge put off from Mytilene,
And in it is Lysimachus the governor,
Who craves to come aboard. What is your will?

HELICANUS.
That he have his. Call up some gentlemen.

TYRIAN SAILOR.
Ho, gentlemen! my lord calls.

 Enter two or three Gentlemen.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Doth your lordship call?

HELICANUS.
Gentlemen, there is some of worth would come aboard;
I pray ye, greet them fairly.

 [_The Gentlemen and the two Sailors descend and go on board the
 barge._]

 Enter, from thence, Lysimachus and Lords; with the Gentlemen and the
 two Sailors.

TYRIAN SAILOR.
Sir,
This is the man that can, in aught you would,
Resolve you.

LYSIMACHUS.
Hail, reverend sir! the gods preserve you!

HELICANUS.
And you, sir, to outlive the age I am,
And die as I would do.

LYSIMACHUS.
You wish me well.
Being on shore, honouring of Neptune’s triumphs,
Seeing this goodly vessel ride before us,
I made to it, to know of whence you are.

HELICANUS.
First, what is your place?

LYSIMACHUS.
I am the governor of this place you lie before.

HELICANUS.
Sir, our vessel is of Tyre, in it the king;
A man who for this three months hath not spoken
To anyone, nor taken sustenance
But to prorogue his grief.

LYSIMACHUS.
Upon what ground is his distemperature?

HELICANUS.
’Twould be too tedious to repeat;
But the main grief springs from the loss
Of a beloved daughter and a wife.

LYSIMACHUS.
May we not see him?

HELICANUS.
You may;
But bootless is your sight: he will not speak
To any.

LYSIMACHUS.
Yet let me obtain my wish.

HELICANUS.
Behold him.
[_Pericles discovered._]
This was a goodly person.
Till the disaster that, one mortal night,
Drove him to this.

LYSIMACHUS.
Sir king, all hail! The gods preserve you!
Hail, royal sir!

HELICANUS.
It is in vain; he will not speak to you.

FIRST LORD.
Sir, we have a maid in Mytilene, I durst wager,
Would win some words of him.

LYSIMACHUS.
’Tis well bethought.
She questionless with her sweet harmony
And other chosen attractions, would allure,
And make a battery through his deafen’d parts,
Which now are midway stopp’d:
She is all happy as the fairest of all,
And, with her fellow maids, is now upon
The leafy shelter that abuts against
The island’s side.

 [_Whispers a Lord who goes off in the barge of Lysimachus._]

HELICANUS.
Sure, all’s effectless; yet nothing we’ll omit
That bears recovery’s name. But, since your kindness
We have stretch’d thus far, let us beseech you
That for our gold we may provision have,
Wherein we are not destitute for want,
But weary for the staleness.

LYSIMACHUS.
O, sir, a courtesy
Which if we should deny, the most just gods
For every graff would send a caterpillar,
And so inflict our province. Yet once more
Let me entreat to know at large the cause
Of your king’s sorrow.

HELICANUS.
Sit, sir, I will recount it to you:
But, see, I am prevented.

 Re-enter from the barge, Lord with Marina and a young Lady.

LYSIMACHUS.
O, here is the lady that I sent for. Welcome, fair one!
Is’t not a goodly presence?

HELICANUS.
She’s a gallant lady.

LYSIMACHUS.
She’s such a one, that, were I well assured
Came of a gentle kind and noble stock,
I’d wish no better choice, and think me rarely wed.
Fair one, all goodness that consists in bounty
Expect even here, where is a kingly patient:
If that thy prosperous and artificial feat
Can draw him but to answer thee in aught,
Thy sacred physic shall receive such pay
As thy desires can wish.

MARINA.
Sir, I will use
My utmost skill in his recovery, provided
That none but I and my companion maid
Be suffer’d to come near him.

LYSIMACHUS.
Come, let us leave her,
And the gods make her prosperous!

 [_Marina sings._]

LYSIMACHUS.
Mark’d he your music?

MARINA.
No, nor look’d on us,

LYSIMACHUS.
See, she will speak to him.

MARINA.
Hail, sir! My lord, lend ear.

PERICLES.
Hum, ha!

MARINA.
I am a maid,
My lord, that ne’er before invited eyes,
But have been gazed on like a comet: she speaks,
My lord, that, may be, hath endured a grief
Might equal yours, if both were justly weigh’d.
Though wayward Fortune did malign my state,
My derivation was from ancestors
Who stood equivalent with mighty kings:
But time hath rooted out my parentage,
And to the world and awkward casualties
Bound me in servitude.
[_Aside._] I will desist;
But there is something glows upon my cheek,
And whispers in mine ear ‘Go not till he speak.’

PERICLES.
My fortunes — parentage — good parentage —
To equal mine! — was it not thus? what say you?

MARINA.
I said, my lord, if you did know my parentage.
You would not do me violence.

PERICLES.
I do think so. Pray you, turn your eyes upon me.
You are like something that — what country-woman?
Here of these shores?

MARINA.
No, nor of any shores:
Yet I was mortally brought forth, and am
No other than I appear.

PERICLES.
I am great with woe, and shall deliver weeping.
My dearest wife was like this maid, and such a one
My daughter might have been: my queen’s square brows;
Her stature to an inch; as wand-like straight;
As silver-voiced; her eyes as jewel-like
And cased as richly; in pace another Juno;
Who starves the ears she feeds, and makes them hungry,
The more she gives them speech. Where do you live?

MARINA.
Where I am but a stranger: from the deck
You may discern the place.

PERICLES.
Where were you bred?
And how achieved you these endowments, which
You make more rich to owe?

MARINA.
If I should tell my history, it would seem
Like lies disdain’d in the reporting.

PERICLES.
Prithee, speak:
Falseness cannot come from thee; for thou look’st
Modest as Justice, and thou seem’st a palace
For the crown’d Truth to dwell in: I will believe thee,
And make my senses credit thy relation
To points that seem impossible;  for thou look’st
Like one I loved indeed. What were thy friends?
Didst thou not say, when I did push thee back —
Which was when I perceived thee — that thou cam’st
From good descending?

MARINA.
So indeed I did.

PERICLES.
Report thy parentage.  I think thou said’st
Thou hadst been toss’d from wrong to injury,
And that thou thought’st thy griefs might equal mine,
If both were open’d.

MARINA.
Some such thing,
I said, and said no more but what my thoughts
Did warrant me was likely.

PERICLES.
Tell thy story;
If thine consider’d prove the thousand part
Of my endurance, thou art a man, and I
Have suffer’d like a girl: yet thou dost look
Like Patience gazing on kings’ graves, and smiling
Extremity out of act. What were thy friends?
How lost thou them? Thy name, my most kind virgin?
Recount, I do beseech thee: come, sit by me.

MARINA.
My name is Marina.

PERICLES.
O, I am mock’d,
And thou by some incensed god sent hither
To make the world to laugh at me.

MARINA.
Patience, good sir,
Or here I’ll cease.

PERICLES.
Nay, I’ll be patient.
Thou little know’st how thou dost startle me,
To call thyself Marina.

MARINA.
The name
Was given me by one that had some power,
My father, and a king.

PERICLES.
How! a king’s daughter?
And call’d Marina?

MARINA.
You said you would believe me;
But, not to be a troubler of your peace,
I will end here.

PERICLES.
But are you flesh and blood?
Have you a working pulse? and are no fairy?
Motion! Well; speak on. Where were you born?
And wherefore call’d Marina?

MARINA.
Call’d Marina
For I was born at sea.

PERICLES.
At sea! What mother?

MARINA.
My mother was the daughter of a king;
Who died the minute I was born,
As my good nurse Lychorida hath oft
Deliver’d weeping.

PERICLES.
O, stop there a little! [_Aside._] This is the rarest dream that e’er
dull sleep
Did mock sad fools withal: this cannot be:
My daughter, buried. Well, where were you bred?
I’ll hear you more, to the bottom of your story,
And never interrupt you.

MARINA.
You scorn: believe me, ’twere best I did give o’er.

PERICLES.
I will believe you by the syllable
Of what you shall deliver. Yet, give me leave:
How came you in these parts? Where were you bred?

MARINA.
The king my father did in Tarsus leave me;
Till cruel Cleon, with his wicked wife,
Did seek to murder me: and having woo’d
A villain to attempt it, who having drawn to do’t,
A crew of pirates came and rescued me;
Brought me to Mytilene.  But, good sir.
Whither will you have me?  Why do you weep? It may be,
You think me an impostor: no, good faith;
I am the daughter to King Pericles,
If good King Pericles be.

PERICLES.
Ho, Helicanus!

 Enter Helicanus and Lysimachus.

HELICANUS.
Calls my lord?

PERICLES.
Thou art a grave and noble counsellor,
Most wise in general: tell me, if thou canst,
What this maid is, or what is like to be,
That thus hath made me weep.

HELICANUS.
I know not,
But here is the regent, sir, of Mytilene
Speaks nobly of her.

LYSIMACHUS.
She would never tell
Her parentage; being demanded that,
She would sit still and weep.

PERICLES.
O Helicanus, strike me, honour’d sir;
Give me a gash, put me to present pain;
Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me
O’erbear the shores of my mortality,
And drown me with their sweetness.
[_To Marina_] O, come hither,
Thou that beget’st him that did thee beget;
Thou that wast born at sea, buried at Tarsus,
And found at sea again! O Helicanus,
Down on thy knees, thank the holy gods as loud
As thunder threatens us: this is Marina.
What was thy mother’s name? tell me but that,
For truth can never be confirm’d enough,
Though doubts did ever sleep.

MARINA.
First, sir, I pray, what is your title?

PERICLES.
I am Pericles of Tyre: but tell me now
My drown’d queen’s name, as in the rest you said
Thou hast been godlike perfect,
The heir of kingdoms and another life
To Pericles thy father.

MARINA.
Is it no more to be your daughter than
To say my mother’s name was Thaisa?
Thaisa was my mother, who did end
The minute I began.

PERICLES.
Now, blessing on thee! rise; thou art my child.
Give me fresh garments. Mine own, Helicanus;
She is not dead at Tarsus, as she should have been,
By savage Cleon: she shall tell thee all;
When thou shalt kneel, and justify in knowledge
She is thy very princess. Who is this?

HELICANUS.
Sir, ’tis the governor of Mytilene,
Who, hearing of your melancholy state,
Did come to see you.

PERICLES.
I embrace you.
Give me my robes. I am wild in my beholding.
O heavens bless my girl! But, hark, what music?
Tell Helicanus, my Marina, tell him
O’er, point by point, for yet he seems to doubt,
How sure you are my daughter. But, what music?

HELICANUS.
My lord, I hear none.

PERICLES.
None!
The music of the spheres! List, my Marina.

LYSIMACHUS.
It is not good to cross him; give him way.

PERICLES.
Rarest sounds! Do ye not hear?

LYSIMACHUS.
Music, my lord? I hear.

 [_Music._]

PERICLES.
Most heavenly music!
It nips me unto listening, and thick slumber
Hangs upon mine eyes: let me rest.

 [_Sleeps._]

LYSIMACHUS.
A pillow for his head:
So, leave him all. Well, my companion friends,
If this but answer to my just belief,
I’ll well remember you.

 [_Exeunt all but Pericles._]

 Diana appears to Pericles as in a vision.

DIANA.
My temple stands in Ephesus: hie thee thither,
And do upon mine altar sacrifice.
There, when my maiden priests are met together,
Before the people all,
Reveal how thou at sea didst lose thy wife:
To mourn thy crosses, with thy daughter’s, call
And give them repetition to the life.
Or perform my bidding, or thou livest in woe:
Do it, and happy; by my silver bow!
Awake and tell thy dream.

 [_Disappears._]

PERICLES.
Celestial Dian, goddess argentine,
I will obey thee.  Helicanus!

 Re-enter Helicanus, Lysimachus and Marina.

HELICANUS.
Sir?

PERICLES.
My purpose was for Tarsus, there to strike
The inhospitable Cleon; but I am
For other service first: toward Ephesus
Turn our blown sails; eftsoons I’ll tell thee why.
[_To Lysimachus._] Shall we refresh us, sir, upon your shore,
And give you gold for such provision
As our intents will need?

LYSIMACHUS.
Sir, with all my heart,
And when you come ashore I have another suit.

PERICLES.
You shall prevail, were it to woo my daughter;
For it seems you have been noble towards her.

LYSIMACHUS.
Sir, lend me your arm.

PERICLES.
Come, my Marina.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE II.

 Enter Gower before the temple of Diana at Ephesus.

GOWER.
Now our sands are almost run;
More a little, and then dumb.
This, my last boon, give me,
For such kindness must relieve me,
That you aptly will suppose
What pageantry, what feats, what shows,
What minstrelsy, and pretty din,
The regent made in Mytilene
To greet the king. So he thrived,
That he is promised to be wived
To fair Marina; but in no wise
Till he had done his sacrifice,
As Dian bade: whereto being bound,
The interim, pray you, all confound.
In feather’d briefness sails are fill’d,
And wishes fall out as they’re will’d.
At Ephesus, the temple see,
Our king and all his company.
That he can hither come so soon,
Is by your fancy’s thankful doom.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE III. The temple of Diana at Ephesus; Thaisa standing near the
altar, as high priestess; a number of Virgins on each side; Cerimon and
other inhabitants of Ephesus attending.

 Enter Pericles with his train; Lysimachus, Helicanus, Marina and a
 Lady.

PERICLES.
Hail, Dian! to perform thy just command,
I here confess myself the King of Tyre;
Who, frighted from my country, did wed
At Pentapolis the fair Thaisa.
At sea in childbed died she, but brought forth
A maid child call’d Marina; whom, O goddess,
Wears yet thy silver livery. She at Tarsus
Was nursed with Cleon; who at fourteen years
He sought to murder: but her better stars
Brought her to Mytilene; ’gainst whose shore
Riding, her fortunes brought the maid aboard us,
Where by her own most clear remembrance, she
Made known herself my daughter.

THAISA.
Voice and favour!
You are, you are — O royal Pericles!

 [_Faints._]

PERICLES.
What means the nun? She dies! help, gentlemen!

CERIMON.
Noble sir,
If you have told Diana’s altar true,
This is your wife.

PERICLES.
Reverend appearer, no;
I threw her overboard with these very arms.

CERIMON.
Upon this coast, I warrant you.

PERICLES.
’Tis most certain.

CERIMON.
Look to the lady; O, she’s but o’er-joy’d.
Early in blustering morn this lady was
Thrown upon this shore. I oped the coffin,
Found there rich jewels; recover’d her, and placed her
Here in Diana’s temple.

PERICLES.
May we see them?

CERIMON.
Great sir, they shall be brought you to my house,
Whither I invite you. Look, Thaisa is
Recovered.

THAISA.
O, let me look!
If he be none of mine, my sanctity
Will to my sense bend no licentious ear,
But curb it, spite of seeing. O, my lord,
Are you not Pericles? Like him you spake,
Like him you are: did you not name a tempest,
A birth, and death?

PERICLES.
The voice of dead Thaisa!

THAISA.
That Thaisa am I, supposed dead
And drown’d.

PERICLES.
Immortal Dian!

THAISA.
Now I know you better,
When we with tears parted Pentapolis,
The king my father gave you such a ring.

 [_Shows a ring._]

PERICLES.
This, this: no more, you gods! your present kindness
Makes my past miseries sports: you shall do well,
That on the touching of her lips I may
Melt and no more be seen. O, come, be buried
A second time within these arms.

MARINA.
My heart
Leaps to be gone into my mother’s bosom.

 [_Kneels to Thaisa._]

PERICLES.
Look, who kneels here! Flesh of thy flesh, Thaisa;
Thy burden at the sea, and call’d Marina
For she was yielded there.

THAISA.
Blest, and mine own!

HELICANUS.
Hail, madam, and my queen!

THAISA.
I know you not.

PERICLES.
You have heard me say, when I did fly from Tyre,
I left behind an ancient substitute:
Can you remember what I call’d the man
I have named him oft.

THAISA.
’Twas Helicanus then.

PERICLES.
Still confirmation:
Embrace him, dear Thaisa; this is he.
Now do I long to hear how you were found:
How possibly preserved; and who to thank,
Besides the gods, for this great miracle.

THAISA.
Lord Cerimon, my lord; this man,
Through whom the gods have shown their power; that can
From first to last resolve you.

PERICLES.
Reverend sir,
The gods can have no mortal officer
More like a god than you. Will you deliver
How this dead queen relives?

CERIMON.
I will, my lord.
Beseech you, first go with me to my house,
Where shall be shown you all was found with her;
How she came placed here in the temple;
No needful thing omitted.

PERICLES.
Pure Dian, bless thee for thy vision! I
Will offer night-oblations to thee.  Thaisa,
This prince, the fair betrothed of your daughter,
Shall marry her at Pentapolis.
And now this ornament
Makes me look dismal will I clip to form;
And what this fourteen years no razor touch’d
To grace thy marriage-day, I’ll beautify.

THAISA.
Lord Cerimon hath letters of good credit, sir,
My father’s dead.

PERICLES.
Heavens make a star of him! Yet there, my queen,
We’ll celebrate their nuptials, and ourselves
Will in that kingdom spend our following days:
Our son and daughter shall in Tyrus reign.
Lord Cerimon, we do our longing stay
To hear the rest untold. Sir, lead’s the way.

 [_Exeunt._]

 Enter Gower.

GOWER.
In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard
Of monstrous lust the due and just reward:
In Pericles, his queen and daughter seen,
Although assail’d with Fortune fierce and keen,
Virtue preserved from fell destruction’s blast,
Led on by heaven, and crown’d with joy at last.
In Helicanus may you well descry
A figure of truth, of faith, of loyalty:
In reverend Cerimon there well appears
The worth that learned charity aye wears:
For wicked Cleon and his wife, when fame
Had spread their cursed deed, the honour’d name
Of Pericles, to rage the city turn,
That him and his they in his palace burn.
The gods for murder seemed so content
To punish, although not done, but meant.
So on your patience evermore attending,
New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending.

 [_Exit._]



KING RICHARD THE SECOND

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  KING RICHARD THE SECOND
  JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster - uncle to the King
  EDMUND LANGLEY, Duke of York - uncle to the King
  HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son of
    John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV
  DUKE OF AUMERLE, son of the Duke of York
  THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk
  DUKE OF SURREY
  EARL OF SALISBURY
  EARL BERKELEY
  BUSHY - favourites of King Richard
  BAGOT -     "      "   "     "
  GREEN -     "      "   "     "
  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND
  HENRY PERCY, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son
  LORD Ross                             LORD WILLOUGHBY
  LORD FITZWATER                        BISHOP OF CARLISLE
  ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER                  LORD MARSHAL
  SIR STEPHEN SCROOP                    SIR PIERCE OF EXTON
  CAPTAIN of a band of Welshmen         TWO GARDENERS

  QUEEN to King Richard
  DUCHESS OF YORK
  DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, widow of Thomas of Woodstock,
    Duke of Gloucester
  LADY attending on the Queen

  Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Keeper, Messenger,
    Groom, and other Attendants

SCENE: England and Wales

ACT I. SCENE I. London. The palace

Enter RICHARD, JOHN OF GAUNT, with other NOBLES and attendants

  KING RICHARD. Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,
    Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,
    Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son,
    Here to make good the boist'rous late appeal,
    Which then our leisure would not let us hear,
    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
  GAUNT. I have, my liege.
  KING RICHARD. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him
    If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice,
    Or worthily, as a good subject should,
    On some known ground of treachery in him?
  GAUNT. As near as I could sift him on that argument,
    On some apparent danger seen in him
    Aim'd at your Highness-no inveterate malice.
  KING RICHARD. Then call them to our presence: face to face
    And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
    The accuser and the accused freely speak.
    High-stomach'd are they both and full of ire,
    In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

         Enter BOLINGBROKE and MOWBRAY

  BOLINGBROKE. Many years of happy days befall
    My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!
  MOWBRAY. Each day still better other's happiness
    Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,
    Add an immortal title to your crown!
  KING RICHARD. We thank you both; yet one but flatters us,
    As well appeareth by the cause you come;
    Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.
    Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object
    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
  BOLINGBROKE. First-heaven be the record to my speech!
    In the devotion of a subject's love,
    Tend'ring the precious safety of my prince,
    And free from other misbegotten hate,
    Come I appellant to this princely presence.
    Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,
    And mark my greeting well; for what I speak
    My body shall make good upon this earth,
    Or my divine soul answer it in heaven-
    Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,
    Too good to be so, and too bad to live,
    Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,
    The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
    Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
    With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;
    And wish-so please my sovereign-ere I move,
    What my tongue speaks, my right drawn sword may prove.
  MOWBRAY. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal.
    'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,
    The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,
    Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;
    The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this.
    Yet can I not of such tame patience boast
    As to be hush'd and nought at an to say.
    First, the fair reverence of your Highness curbs me
    From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;
    Which else would post until it had return'd
    These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
    Setting aside his high blood's royalty,
    And let him be no kinsman to my liege,
    I do defy him, and I spit at him,
    Call him a slanderous coward and a villain;
    Which to maintain, I would allow him odds
    And meet him, were I tied to run afoot
    Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
    Or any other ground inhabitable
    Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.
    Meantime let this defend my loyalty-
    By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie
  BOLINGBROKE. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,
    Disclaiming here the kindred of the King;
    And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
    Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.
    If guilty dread have left thee so much strength
    As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop.
    By that and all the rites of knighthood else
    Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
    What I have spoke or thou canst worst devise.
  MOWBRAY. I take it up; and by that sword I swear
    Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder
    I'll answer thee in any fair degree
    Or chivalrous design of knightly trial;
    And when I mount, alive may I not light
    If I be traitor or unjustly fight!
  KING RICHARD. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?
    It must be great that can inherit us
    So much as of a thought of ill in him.
  BOLINGBROKE. Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true-
    That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles
    In name of lendings for your Highness' soldiers,
    The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments
    Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
    Besides, I say and will in battle prove-
    Or here, or elsewhere to the furthest verge
    That ever was survey'd by English eye-
    That all the treasons for these eighteen years
    Complotted and contrived in this land
    Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.
    Further I say, and further will maintain
    Upon his bad life to make all this good,
    That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,
    Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
    And consequently, like a traitor coward,
    Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood;
    Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
    Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
    To me for justice and rough chastisement;
    And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
    This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.
  KING RICHARD. How high a pitch his resolution soars!
    Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?
  MOWBRAY. O, let my sovereign turn away his face
    And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
    Till I have told this slander of his blood
    How God and good men hate so foul a liar.
  KING RICHARD. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and cars.
    Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
    As he is but my father's brother's son,
    Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,
    Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
    Should nothing privilege him nor partialize
    The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
    He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:
    Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
  MOWBRAY. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
    Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.
    Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais
    Disburs'd I duly to his Highness' soldiers;
    The other part reserv'd I by consent,
    For that my sovereign liege was in my debt
    Upon remainder of a dear account
    Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:
    Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death-
    I slew him not, but to my own disgrace
    Neglected my sworn duty in that case.
    For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,
    The honourable father to my foe,
    Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
    A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul;
    But ere I last receiv'd the sacrament
    I did confess it, and exactly begg'd
    Your Grace's pardon; and I hope I had it.
    This is my fault. As for the rest appeal'd,
    It issues from the rancour of a villain,
    A recreant and most degenerate traitor;
    Which in myself I boldly will defend,
    And interchangeably hurl down my gage
    Upon this overweening traitor's foot
    To prove myself a loyal gentleman
    Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.
    In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
    Your Highness to assign our trial day.
  KING RICHARD. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me;
    Let's purge this choler without letting blood-
    This we prescribe, though no physician;
    Deep malice makes too deep incision.
    Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed:
    Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.
    Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
    We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.
  GAUNT. To be a make-peace shall become my age.
    Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.
  KING RICHARD. And, Norfolk, throw down his.
  GAUNT. When, Harry, when?
    Obedience bids I should not bid again.
  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, throw down; we bid.
    There is no boot.
  MOWBRAY. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot;
    My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:
    The one my duty owes; but my fair name,
    Despite of death, that lives upon my grave
    To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.
    I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffl'd here;
    Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,
    The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood
    Which breath'd this poison.
  KING RICHARD. Rage must be withstood:
    Give me his gage-lions make leopards tame.
  MOWBRAY. Yea, but not change his spots. Take but my shame,
    And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,
    The purest treasure mortal times afford
    Is spotless reputation; that away,
    Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
    A jewel in a ten-times barr'd-up chest
    Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
    Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;
    Take honour from me, and my life is done:
    Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
    In that I live, and for that will I die.
  KING RICHARD. Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.
  BOLINGBROKE. O, God defend my soul from such deep sin!
    Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight?
    Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height
    Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue
    Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong
    Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear
    The slavish motive of recanting fear,
    And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,
    Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.
                                                      Exit GAUNT
  KING RICHARD. We were not born to sue, but to command;
    Which since we cannot do to make you friends,
    Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,
    At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day.
    There shall your swords and lances arbitrate
    The swelling difference of your settled hate;
    Since we can not atone you, we shall see
    Justice design the victor's chivalry.
    Lord Marshal, command our officers-at-arms
    Be ready to direct these home alarms.                 Exeunt

SCENE 2. London. The DUKE OF LANCASTER'S palace

Enter JOHN OF GAUNT with the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER

  GAUNT. Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood
    Doth more solicit me than your exclaims
    To stir against the butchers of his life!
    But since correction lieth in those hands
    Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
    Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;
    Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,
    Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.
  DUCHESS. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?
    Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
    Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
    Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,
    Or seven fair branches springing from one root.
    Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
    Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;
    But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,
    One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,
    One flourishing branch of his most royal root,
    Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;
    Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,
    By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.
    Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,
    That mettle, that self mould, that fashion'd thee,
    Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,
    Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent
    In some large measure to thy father's death
    In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
    Who was the model of thy father's life.
    Call it not patience, Gaunt-it is despair;
    In suff'ring thus thy brother to be slaught'red,
    Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,
    Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.
    That which in mean men we entitle patience
    Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
    What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life
    The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.
  GAUNT. God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,
    His deputy anointed in His sight,
    Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,
    Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift
    An angry arm against His minister.
  DUCHESS. Where then, alas, may I complain myself?
  GAUNT. To God, the widow's champion and defence.
  DUCHESS. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.
    Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold
    Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight.
    O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
    That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!
    Or, if misfortune miss the first career,
    Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom
    That they may break his foaming courser's back
    And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
    A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
    Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometimes brother's wife,
    With her companion, Grief, must end her life.
  GAUNT. Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry.
    As much good stay with thee as go with me!
  DUCHESS. Yet one word more- grief boundeth where it falls,
    Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.
    I take my leave before I have begun,
    For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
    Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.
    Lo, this is all- nay, yet depart not so;
    Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
    I shall remember more. Bid him- ah, what?-
    With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
    Alack, and what shall good old York there see
    But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,
    Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?
    And what hear there for welcome but my groans?
    Therefore commend me; let him not come there
    To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.
    Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die;
    The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.          Exeunt

SCENE 3. The lists at Coventry

Enter the LORD MARSHAL and the DUKE OF AUMERLE

  MARSHAL. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?
  AUMERLE. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.
  MARSHAL. The Duke of Norfolk, spightfully and bold,
    Stays but the summons of the appelant's trumpet.
  AUMERLE. Why then, the champions are prepar'd, and stay
    For nothing but his Majesty's approach.

     The trumpets sound, and the KING enters with his nobles,
     GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and others. When they are set,
     enter MOWBRAY, Duke of Nor folk, in arms, defendant, and
     a HERALD

  KING RICHARD. Marshal, demand of yonder champion
    The cause of his arrival here in arms;
    Ask him his name; and orderly proceed
    To swear him in the justice of his cause.
  MARSHAL. In God's name and the King's, say who thou art,
    And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms;
    Against what man thou com'st, and what thy quarrel.
    Speak truly on thy knighthood and thy oath;
    As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!
  MOWBRAY. My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;
    Who hither come engaged by my oath-
    Which God defend a knight should violate!-
    Both to defend my loyalty and truth
    To God, my King, and my succeeding issue,
    Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me;
    And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,
    To prove him, in defending of myself,
    A traitor to my God, my King, and me.
    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

   The trumpets sound. Enter BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford,
            appellant, in armour, and a HERALD

  KING RICHARD. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,
    Both who he is and why he cometh hither
    Thus plated in habiliments of war;
    And formally, according to our law,
    Depose him in the justice of his cause.
  MARSHAL. What is thy name? and wherefore com'st thou hither
    Before King Richard in his royal lists?
    Against whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?
    Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!
  BOLINGBROKE. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
    Am I; who ready here do stand in arms
    To prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,
    In lists on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
    That he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,
    To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me.
    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!
  MARSHAL. On pain of death, no person be so bold
    Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,
    Except the Marshal and such officers
    Appointed to direct these fair designs.
  BOLINGBROKE. Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,
    And bow my knee before his Majesty;
    For Mowbray and myself are like two men
    That vow a long and weary pilgrimage.
    Then let us take a ceremonious leave
    And loving farewell of our several friends.
  MARSHAL. The appellant in all duty greets your Highness,
    And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.
  KING RICHARD. We will descend and fold him in our arms.
    Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,
    So be thy fortune in this royal fight!
    Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,
    Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
  BOLINGBROKE. O, let no noble eye profane a tear
    For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear.
    As confident as is the falcon's flight
    Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.
    My loving lord, I take my leave of you;
    Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;
    Not sick, although I have to do with death,
    But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.
    Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet
    The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.
    O thou, the earthly author of my blood,
    Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,
    Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up
    To reach at victory above my head,
    Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers,
    And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,
    That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat
    And furbish new the name of John o' Gaunt,
    Even in the lusty haviour of his son.
  GAUNT. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!
    Be swift like lightning in the execution,
    And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
    Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
    Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.
    Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.
  BOLINGBROKE. Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!
  MOWBRAY. However God or fortune cast my lot,
    There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,
    A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.
    Never did captive with a freer heart
    Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace
    His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,
    More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
    This feast of battle with mine adversary.
    Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,
    Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.
    As gentle and as jocund as to jest
    Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.
  KING RICHARD. Farewell, my lord, securely I espy
    Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.
    Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.
  MARSHAL. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
    Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!
  BOLINGBROKE. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.
  MARSHAL. [To an officer] Go bear this lance to Thomas,
      Duke of Norfolk.
  FIRST HERALD. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
    Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,
    On pain to be found false and recreant,
    To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
    A traitor to his God, his King, and him;
    And dares him to set forward to the fight.
  SECOND HERALD. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
    On pain to be found false and recreant,
    Both to defend himself, and to approve
    Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
    To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal,
    Courageously and with a free desire
    Attending but the signal to begin.
  MARSHAL. Sound trumpets; and set forward, combatants.
                                           [A charge sounded]
    Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.
  KING RICHARD. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,
    And both return back to their chairs again.
    Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets sound
    While we return these dukes what we decree.

    A long flourish, while the KING consults his Council

    Draw near,
    And list what with our council we have done.
    For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd
    With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
    And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
    Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;
    And for we think the eagle-winged pride
    Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
    With rival-hating envy, set on you
    To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
    Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;
    Which so rous'd up with boist'rous untun'd drums,
    With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
    And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
    Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace
    And make us wade even in our kindred's blood-
    Therefore we banish you our territories.
    You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,
    Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields
    Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
    But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
  BOLINGBROKE. Your will be done. This must my comfort be-
    That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,
    And those his golden beams to you here lent
    Shall point on me and gild my banishment.
  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
    Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:
    The sly slow hours shall not determinate
    The dateless limit of thy dear exile;
    The hopeless word of 'never to return'
    Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.
  MOWBRAY. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
    And all unlook'd for from your Highness' mouth.
    A dearer merit, not so deep a maim
    As to be cast forth in the common air,
    Have I deserved at your Highness' hands.
    The language I have learnt these forty years,
    My native English, now I must forgo;
    And now my tongue's use is to me no more
    Than an unstringed viol or a harp;
    Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up
    Or, being open, put into his hands
    That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
    Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
    Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;
    And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance
    Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
    I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
    Too far in years to be a pupil now.
    What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,
    Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
  KING RICHARD. It boots thee not to be compassionate;
    After our sentence plaining comes too late.
  MOWBRAY. Then thus I turn me from my countrv's light,
    To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.
  KING RICHARD. Return again, and take an oath with thee.
    Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
    Swear by the duty that you owe to God,
    Our part therein we banish with yourselves,
    To keep the oath that we administer:
    You never shall, so help you truth and God,
    Embrace each other's love in banishment;
    Nor never look upon each other's face;
    Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile
    This louring tempest of your home-bred hate;
    Nor never by advised purpose meet
    To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,
    'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
  BOLINGBROKE. I swear.
  MOWBRAY. And I, to keep all this.
  BOLINGBROKE. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy.
    By this time, had the King permitted us,
    One of our souls had wand'red in the air,
    Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
    As now our flesh is banish'd from this land-
    Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;
    Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
    The clogging burden of a guilty soul.
  MOWBRAY. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,
    My name be blotted from the book of life,
    And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!
    But what thou art, God, thou, and I, do know;
    And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.
    Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray:
    Save back to England, an the world's my way.            Exit
  KING RICHARD. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
    I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect
    Hath from the number of his banish'd years
    Pluck'd four away. [To BOLINGBROKE] Six frozen winters spent,
    Return with welcome home from banishment.
  BOLINGBROKE. How long a time lies in one little word!
    Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
    End in a word: such is the breath of Kings.
  GAUNT. I thank my liege that in regard of me
    He shortens four years of my son's exile;
    But little vantage shall I reap thereby,
    For ere the six years that he hath to spend
    Can change their moons and bring their times about,
    My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
    Shall be extinct with age and endless night;
    My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
    And blindfold death not let me see my son.
  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
  GAUNT. But not a minute, King, that thou canst give:
    Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow
    And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;
    Thou can'st help time to furrow me with age,
    But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;
    Thy word is current with him for my death,
    But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
  KING RICHARD. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,
    Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.
    Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?
  GAUNT. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
    You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather
    You would have bid me argue like a father.
    O, had it been a stranger, not my child,
    To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.
    A partial slander sought I to avoid,
    And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.
    Alas, I look'd when some of you should say
    I was too strict to make mine own away;
    But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue
    Against my will to do myself this wrong.
  KING RICHARD. Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so.
    Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
                                  Flourish. Exit KING with train
  AUMERLE. Cousin, farewell; what presence must not know,
    From where you do remain let paper show.
  MARSHAL. My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride
    As far as land will let me by your side.
  GAUNT. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
    That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?
  BOLINGBROKE. I have too few to take my leave of you,
    When the tongue's office should be prodigal
    To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.
  GAUNT. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
  BOLINGBROKE. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
  GAUNT. What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
  BOLINGBROKE. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.
  GAUNT. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.
  BOLINGBROKE. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
    Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.
  GAUNT. The sullen passage of thy weary steps
    Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
    The precious jewel of thy home return.
  BOLINGBROKE. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make
    Will but remember me what a deal of world
    I wander from the jewels that I love.
    Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
    To foreign passages; and in the end,
    Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
    But that I was a journeyman to grief?
  GAUNT. All places that the eye of heaven visits
    Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
    Teach thy necessity to reason thus:
    There is no virtue like necessity.
    Think not the King did banish thee,
    But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit
    Where it perceives it is but faintly home.
    Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
    And not the King exil'd thee; or suppose
    Devouring pestilence hangs in our air
    And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
    Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
    To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com'st.
    Suppose the singing birds musicians,
    The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,
    The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
    Than a delightful measure or a dance;
    For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
    The man that mocks at it and sets it light.
  BOLINGBROKE. O, who can hold a fire in his hand
    By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
    Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
    By bare imagination of a feast?
    Or wallow naked in December snow
    By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
    O, no! the apprehension of the good
    Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
    Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more
    Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.
  GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way.
    Had I thy youtli and cause, I would not stay.
  BOLINGBROKE. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;
    My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
    Where'er I wander, boast of this I can:
    Though banish'd, yet a trueborn English man.          Exeunt

SCENE 4. London. The court

Enter the KING, with BAGOT and GREEN, at one door; and the DUKE OF
AUMERLE at another

  KING RICHARD. We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,
    How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
  AUMERLE. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,
    But to the next high way, and there I left him.
  KING RICHARD. And say, what store of parting tears were shed?
  AUMERLE. Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,
    Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
    Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so by chance
    Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.
  KING RICHARD. What said our cousin when you parted with him?
  AUMERLE. 'Farewell.'
    And, for my heart disdained that my tongue
    Should so profane the word, that taught me craft
    To counterfeit oppression of such grief
    That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.
    Marry, would the word 'farewell' have length'ned hours
    And added years to his short banishment,
    He should have had a volume of farewells;
    But since it would not, he had none of me.
  KING RICHARD. He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,
    When time shall call him home from banishment,
    Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
    Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,
    Observ'd his courtship to the common people;
    How he did seem to dive into their hearts
    With humble and familiar courtesy;
    What reverence he did throw away on slaves,
    Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles
    And patient underbearing of his fortune,
    As 'twere to banish their affects with him.
    Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;
    A brace of draymen bid God speed him well
    And had the tribute of his supple knee,
    With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends';
    As were our England in reversion his,
    And he our subjects' next degree in hope.
  GREEN. Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts!
    Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,
    Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
    Ere further leisure yicld them further means
    For their advantage and your Highness' loss.
  KING RICHARD. We will ourself in person to this war;
    And, for our coffers, with too great a court
    And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,
    We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;
    The revenue whereof shall furnish us
    For our affairs in hand. If that come short,
    Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;
    Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
    They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,
    And send them after to supply our wants;
    For we will make for Ireland presently.

                     Enter BUSHY

    Bushy, what news?
  BUSHY. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
    Suddenly taken; and hath sent poste-haste
    To entreat your Majesty to visit him.
  KING RICHARD. Where lies he?
  BUSHY. At Ely House.
  KING RICHARD. Now put it, God, in the physician's mind
    To help him to his grave immediately!
    The lining of his coffers shall make coats
    To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
    Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him.
    Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!
  ALL. Amen.                                              Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. London. Ely House

Enter JOHN OF GAUNT, sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, etc.

  GAUNT. Will the King come, that I may breathe my last
    In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?
  YORK. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;
    For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.
  GAUNT. O, but they say the tongues of dying men
    Enforce attention like deep harmony.
    Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain;
    For they breathe truth that breathe their words -in pain.
    He that no more must say is listen'd more
    Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
    More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before.
    The setting sun, and music at the close,
    As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
    Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
    Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
    My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
  YORK. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,
    As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,
    Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
    The open ear of youth doth always listen;
    Report of fashions in proud Italy,
    Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
    Limps after in base imitation.
    Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity-
    So it be new, there's no respect how vile-
    That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?
    Then all too late comes counsel to be heard
    Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.
    Direct not him whose way himself will choose.
    'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.
  GAUNT. Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd,
    And thus expiring do foretell of him:
    His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
    For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
    Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
    He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
    With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;
    Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
    Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
    This royal throne of kings, this scept'red isle,
    This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
    This other Eden, demi-paradise,
    This fortress built by Nature for herself
    Against infection and the hand of war,
    This happy breed of men, this little world,
    This precious stone set in the silver sea,
    Which serves it in the office of a wall,
    Or as a moat defensive to a house,
    Against the envy of less happier lands;
    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
    This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
    Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,
    Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
    For Christian service and true chivalry,
    As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
    Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son;
    This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
    Dear for her reputation through the world,
    Is now leas'd out-I die pronouncing it-
    Like to a tenement or pelting farm.
    England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
    Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
    Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
    With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds;
    That England, that was wont to conquer others,
    Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
    Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
    How happy then were my ensuing death!

    Enter KING and QUEEN, AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT,
                Ross, and WILLOUGHBY

  YORK. The King is come; deal mildly with his youth,
    For young hot colts being rag'd do rage the more.
  QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?
  KING RICHARD. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?
  GAUNT. O, how that name befits my composition!
    Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old.
    Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;
    And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
    For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
    Watching breeds leanness, leanness is an gaunt.
    The pleasure that some fathers feed upon
    Is my strict fast-I mean my children's looks;
    And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.
    Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
    Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.
  KING RICHARD. Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
  GAUNT. No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
    Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
    I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.
  KING RICHARD. Should dying men flatter with those that live?
  GAUNT. No, no; men living flatter those that die.
  KING RICHARD. Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.
  GAUNT. O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.
  KING RICHARD. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.
  GAUNT. Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;
    Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.
    Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land
    Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;
    And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
    Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure
    Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
    A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
    Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
    And yet, incaged in so small a verge,
    The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
    O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye
    Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,
    From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
    Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,
    Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.
    Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
    It were a shame to let this land by lease;
    But for thy world enjoying but this land,
    Is it not more than shame to shame it so?
    Landlord of England art thou now, not King.
    Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;
    And thou-
  KING RICHARD. A lunatic lean-witted fool,
    Presuming on an ague's privilege,
    Darest with thy frozen admonition
    Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood
    With fury from his native residence.
    Now by my seat's right royal majesty,
    Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,
    This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
    Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.
  GAUNT. O, Spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
    For that I was his father Edward's son;
    That blood already, like the pelican,
    Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd.
    My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul-
    Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!-
    May be a precedent and witness good
    That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood.
    Join with the present sickness that I have;
    And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
    To crop at once a too long withered flower.
    Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
    These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
    Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.
    Love they to live that love and honour have.
                               Exit, borne out by his attendants
  KING RICHARD. And let them die that age and sullens have;
    For both hast thou, and both become the grave.
  YORK. I do beseech your Majesty impute his words
    To wayward sickliness and age in him.
    He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
    As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.
  KING RICHARD. Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;
    As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

                Enter NORTHUMBERLAND

  NORTHUMBERLAND. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your Majesty.
  KING RICHARD. What says he?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, nothing; all is said.
    His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
    Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.
  YORK. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
    Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.
  KING RICHARD. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;
    His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.
    So much for that. Now for our Irish wars.
    We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,
    Which live like venom where no venom else
    But only they have privilege to live.
    And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
    Towards our assistance we do seize to us
    The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
    Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.
  YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long
    Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
    Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
    Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
    Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
    About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
    Have ever made me sour my patient cheek
    Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.
    I am the last of noble Edward's sons,
    Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.
    In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,
    In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
    Than was that young and princely gentleman.
    His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
    Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
    But when he frown'd, it was against the French
    And not against his friends. His noble hand
    Did win what he did spend, and spent not that
    Which his triumphant father's hand had won.
    His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,
    But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
    O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
    Or else he never would compare between-
  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
  YORK. O my liege,
    Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd
    Not to be pardoned, am content withal.
    Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
    The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
    Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
    Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?
    Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
    Is not his heir a well-deserving son?
    Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time
    His charters and his customary rights;
    Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;
    Be not thyself-for how art thou a king
    But by fair sequence and succession?
    Now, afore God-God forbid I say true!-
    If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
    Call in the letters patents that he hath
    By his attorneys-general to sue
    His livery, and deny his off'red homage,
    You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
    You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,
    And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
    Which honour and allegiance cannot think.
  KING RICHARD. Think what you will, we seize into our hands
    His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.
  YORK. I'll not be by the while. My liege, farewell.
    What will ensue hereof there's none can tell;
    But by bad courses may be understood
    That their events can never fall out good.              Exit
  KING RICHARD. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight;
    Bid him repair to us to Ely House
    To see this business. To-morrow next
    We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow.
    And we create, in absence of ourself,
    Our Uncle York Lord Governor of England;
    For he is just, and always lov'd us well.
    Come on, our queen; to-morrow must we part;
    Be merry, for our time of stay is short.
                   Flourish. Exeunt KING, QUEEN, BUSHY, AUMERLE,
                                                GREEN, and BAGOT
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.
    Ross. And living too; for now his son is Duke.
  WILLOUGHBY. Barely in title, not in revenues.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Richly in both, if justice had her right.
  ROSS. My heart is great; but it must break with silence,
    Ere't be disburdened with a liberal tongue.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more
    That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!
  WILLOUGHBY. Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?
    If it be so, out with it boldly, man;
    Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.
  ROSS. No good at all that I can do for him;
    Unless you call it good to pity him,
    Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne
    In him, a royal prince, and many moe
    Of noble blood in this declining land.
    The King is not himself, but basely led
    By flatterers; and what they will inform,
    Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us an,
    That will the King severely prosecute
    'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.
  ROSS. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes;
    And quite lost their hearts; the nobles hath he find
    For ancient quarrels and quite lost their hearts.
  WILLOUGHBY. And daily new exactions are devis'd,
    As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what;
    But what, a God's name, doth become of this?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Wars hath not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,
    But basely yielded upon compromise
    That which his noble ancestors achiev'd with blows.
    More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.
  ROSS. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
  WILLOUGHBY. The King's grown bankrupt like a broken man.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.
  ROSS. He hath not money for these Irish wars,
    His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,
    But by the robbing of the banish'd Duke.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. His noble kinsman-most degenerate king!
    But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
    Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;
    We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
    And yet we strike not, but securely perish.
  ROSS. We see the very wreck that we must suffer;
    And unavoided is the danger now
    For suffering so the causes of our wreck.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death
    I spy life peering; but I dare not say
    How near the tidings of our comfort is.
  WILLOUGHBY. Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours.
  ROSS. Be confident to speak, Northumberland.
    We three are but thyself, and, speaking so,
    Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore be bold.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc, a bay
    In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence
    That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,
    That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,
    His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,
    Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,
    Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Quoint-
    All these, well furnish'd by the Duke of Britaine,
    With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
    Are making hither with all due expedience,
    And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.
    Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay
    The first departing of the King for Ireland.
    If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
    Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,
    Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,
    Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,
    And make high majesty look like itself,
    Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;
    But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
    Stay and be secret, and myself will go.
  ROSS. To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.
  WILLOUGHBY. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 2. Windsor Castle

Enter QUEEN, BUSHY, and BAGOT

  BUSHY. Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.
    You promis'd, when you parted with the King,
    To lay aside life-harming heaviness
    And entertain a cheerful disposition.
  QUEEN. To please the King, I did; to please myself
    I cannot do it; yet I know no cause
    Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,
    Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest
    As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks
    Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,
    Is coming towards me, and my inward soul
    With nothing trembles. At some thing it grieves
    More than with parting from my lord the King.
  BUSHY. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
    Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;
    For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
    Divides one thing entire to many objects,
    Like perspectives which, rightly gaz'd upon,
    Show nothing but confusion-ey'd awry,
    Distinguish form. So your sweet Majesty,
    Looking awry upon your lord's departure,
    Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail;
    Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows
    Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen,
    More than your lord's departure weep not-more is not seen;
    Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,
    Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
  QUEEN. It may be so; but yet my inward soul
    Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe'er it be,
    I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad
    As-though, on thinking, on no thought I think-
    Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.
  BUSHY. 'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.
  QUEEN. 'Tis nothing less: conceit is still deriv'd
    From some forefather grief; mine is not so,
    For nothing hath begot my something grief,
    Or something hath the nothing that I grieve;
    'Tis in reversion that I do possess-
    But what it is that is not yet known what,
    I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.

                   Enter GREEN

  GREEN. God save your Majesty! and well met, gentlemen.
    I hope the King is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.
  QUEEN. Why hopest thou so? 'Tis better hope he is;
    For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.
    Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?
  GREEN. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his power
    And driven into despair an enemy's hope
    Who strongly hath set footing in this land.
    The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,
    And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd
    At Ravenspurgh.
  QUEEN. Now God in heaven forbid!
  GREEN. Ah, madam, 'tis too true; and that is worse,
    The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,
    The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,
    With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.
  BUSHY. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland
    And all the rest revolted faction traitors?
  GREEN. We have; whereupon the Earl of Worcester
    Hath broken his staff, resign'd his stewardship,
    And all the household servants fled with him
    To Bolingbroke.
  QUEEN. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,
    And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir.
    Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy;
    And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,
    Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.
  BUSHY. Despair not, madam.
  QUEEN. Who shall hinder me?
    I will despair, and be at enmity
    With cozening hope-he is a flatterer,
    A parasite, a keeper-back of death,
    Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
    Which false hope lingers in extremity.

                    Enter YORK

  GREEN. Here comes the Duke of York.
  QUEEN. With signs of war about his aged neck.
    O, full of careful business are his looks!
    Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.
  YORK. Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.
    Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,
    Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief.
    Your husband, he is gone to save far off,
    Whilst others come to make him lose at home.
    Here am I left to underprop his land,
    Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.
    Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;
    Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.

                   Enter a SERVINGMAN

  SERVINGMAN. My lord, your son was gone before I came.
  YORK. He was-why so go all which way it will!
    The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold
    And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.
    Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;
    Bid her send me presently a thousand pound.
    Hold, take my ring.
  SERVINGMAN. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,
    To-day, as I came by, I called there-
    But I shall grieve you to report the rest.
  YORK. What is't, knave?
  SERVINGMAN. An hour before I came, the Duchess died.
  YORK. God for his mercy! what a tide of woes
    Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!
    I know not what to do. I would to God,
    So my untruth had not provok'd him to it,
    The King had cut off my head with my brother's.
    What, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?
    How shall we do for money for these wars?
    Come, sister-cousin, I would say-pray, pardon me.
    Go, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts,
    And bring away the armour that is there.
                                                 Exit SERVINGMAN
    Gentlemen, will you go muster men?
    If I know how or which way to order these affairs
    Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,
    Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen.
    T'one is my sovereign, whom both my oath
    And duty bids defend; t'other again
    Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wrong'd,
    Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.
    Well, somewhat we must do.-Come, cousin,
    I'll dispose of you. Gentlemen, go muster up your men
    And meet me presently at Berkeley.
    I should to Plashy too,
    But time will not permit. All is uneven,
    And everything is left at six and seven.
                                           Exeunt YORK and QUEEN
  BUSHY. The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland.
    But none returns. For us to levy power
    Proportionable to the enemy
    Is all unpossible.
  GREEN. Besides, our nearness to the King in love
    Is near the hate of those love not the King.
  BAGOT. And that is the wavering commons; for their love
    Lies in their purses; and whoso empties them,
    By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
  BUSHY. Wherein the King stands generally condemn'd.
  BAGOT. If judgment lie in them, then so do we,
    Because we ever have been near the King.
  GREEN. Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristow Castle.
    The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.
  BUSHY. Thither will I with you; for little office
    Will the hateful commons perform for us,
    Except Eke curs to tear us all to pieces.
    Will you go along with us?
  BAGOT. No; I will to Ireland to his Majesty.
    Farewell. If heart's presages be not vain,
    We three here part that ne'er shall meet again.
  BUSHY. That's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.
  GREEN. Alas, poor Duke! the task he undertakes
    Is numb'ring sands and drinking oceans dry.
    Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.
    Farewell at once-for once, for all, and ever.
  BUSHY. Well, we may meet again.
  BAGOT. I fear me, never.                                Exeunt

SCENE 3. Gloucestershire

Enter BOLINGBROKE and NORTHUMBERLAND, forces

  BOLINGBROKE. How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Believe me, noble lord,
    I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire.
    These high wild hills and rough uneven ways
    Draws out our miles, and makes them wearisome;
    And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,
    Making the hard way sweet and delectable.
    But I bethink me what a weary way
    From Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found
    In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,
    Which, I protest, hath very much beguil'd
    The tediousness and process of my travel.
    But theirs is sweet'ned with the hope to have
    The present benefit which I possess;
    And hope to joy is little less in joy
    Than hope enjoy'd. By this the weary lords
    Shall make their way seem short, as mine hath done
    By sight of what I have, your noble company.
  BOLINGBROKE. Of much less value is my company
    Than your good words. But who comes here?

                 Enter HARRY PERCY

  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my son, young Harry Percy,
    Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.
    Harry, how fares your uncle?
  PERCY. I had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of you.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, is he not with the Queen?
  PERCY. No, my good lord; he hath forsook the court,
    Broken his staff of office, and dispers'd
    The household of the King.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. What was his reason?
    He was not so resolv'd when last we spake together.
  PERCY. Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor.
    But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,
    To offer service to the Duke of Hereford;
    And sent me over by Berkeley, to discover
    What power the Duke of York had levied there;
    Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?
  PERCY. No, my good lord; for that is not forgot
    Which ne'er I did remember; to my knowledge,
    I never in my life did look on him.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then learn to know him now; this is the Duke.
  PERCY. My gracious lord, I tender you my service,
    Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young;
    Which elder days shall ripen, and confirm
    To more approved service and desert.
  BOLINGBROKE. I thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure
    I count myself in nothing else so happy
    As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends;
    And as my fortune ripens with thy love,
    It shall be still thy true love's recompense.
    My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. How far is it to Berkeley? And what stir
    Keeps good old York there with his men of war?
  PERCY. There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,
    Mann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;
    And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour-
    None else of name and noble estimate.

                  Enter Ross and WILLOUGHBY

  NORTHUMBERLAND. Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,
    Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.
  BOLINGBROKE. Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues
    A banish'd traitor. All my treasury
    Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enrich'd,
    Shall be your love and labour's recompense.
  ROSS. Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.
  WILLOUGHBY. And far surmounts our labour to attain it.
  BOLINGBROKE. Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;
    Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,
    Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?

                     Enter BERKELEY

  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.
  BERKELEY. My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.
  BOLINGBROKE. My lord, my answer is-'to Lancaster';
    And I am come to seek that name in England;
    And I must find that title in your tongue
    Before I make reply to aught you say.
  BERKELEY. Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning
    To raze one title of your honour out.
    To you, my lord, I come-what lord you will-
    From the most gracious regent of this land,
    The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on
    To take advantage of the absent time,
    And fright our native peace with self-borne arms.

                 Enter YORK, attended

  BOLINGBROKE. I shall not need transport my words by you;
    Here comes his Grace in person. My noble uncle!
                                                     [Kneels]
  YORK. Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,
    Whose duty is deceivable and false.
  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious uncle!-
  YORK. Tut, tut!
    Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.
    I am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace'
    In an ungracious mouth is but profane.
    Why have those banish'd and forbidden legs
    Dar'd once to touch a dust of England's ground?
    But then more 'why?'-why have they dar'd to march
    So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,
    Frighting her pale-fac'd villages with war
    And ostentation of despised arms?
    Com'st thou because the anointed King is hence?
    Why, foolish boy, the King is left behind,
    And in my loyal bosom lies his power.
    Were I but now lord of such hot youth
    As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself
    Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,
    From forth the ranks of many thousand French,
    O, then how quickly should this arm of mine,
    Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise the
    And minister correction to thy fault!
  BOLINGBROKE My gracious uncle, let me know my fault;
    On what condition stands it and wherein?
  YORK. Even in condition of the worst degree-
    In gross rebellion and detested treason.
    Thou art a banish'd man, and here art come
    Before the expiration of thy time,
    In braving arms against thy sovereign.
  BOLINGBROKE. As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;
    But as I come, I come for Lancaster.
    And, noble uncle, I beseech your Grace
    Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye.
    You are my father, for methinks in you
    I see old Gaunt alive. O, then, my father,
    Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd
    A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties
    Pluck'd from my arms perforce, and given away
    To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?
    If that my cousin king be King in England,
    It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.
    You have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;
    Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,
    He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father
    To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.
    I am denied to sue my livery here,
    And yet my letters patents give me leave.
    My father's goods are all distrain'd and sold;
    And these and all are all amiss employ'd.
    What would you have me do? I am a subject,
    And I challenge law-attorneys are denied me;
    And therefore personally I lay my claim
    To my inheritance of free descent.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath been too much abused.
  ROSS. It stands your Grace upon to do him right.
  WILLOUGHBY. Base men by his endowments are made great.
  YORK. My lords of England, let me tell you this:
    I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs,
    And labour'd all I could to do him right;
    But in this kind to come, in braving arms,
    Be his own carver and cut out his way,
    To find out right with wrong-it may not be;
    And you that do abet him in this kind
    Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is
    But for his own; and for the right of that
    We all have strongly sworn to give him aid;
    And let him never see joy that breaks that oath!
  YORK. Well, well, I see the issue of these arms.
    I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,
    Because my power is weak and all ill left;
    But if I could, by Him that gave me life,
    I would attach you all and make you stoop
    Unto the sovereign mercy of the King;
    But since I cannot, be it known unto you
    I do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;
    Unless you please to enter in the castle,
    And there repose you for this night.
  BOLINGBROKE. An offer, uncle, that we will accept.
    But we must win your Grace to go with us
    To Bristow Castle, which they say is held
    By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,
    The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
    Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.
  YORK. It may be I will go with you; but yet I'll pause,
    For I am loath to break our country's laws.
    Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.
    Things past redress are now with me past care.        Exeunt

SCENE 4. A camp in Wales

Enter EARL OF SALISBURY and a WELSH CAPTAIN

  CAPTAIN. My Lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days
    And hardly kept our countrymen together,
    And yet we hear no tidings from the King;
    Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.
  SALISBURY. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman;
    The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.
  CAPTAIN. 'Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.
    The bay trees in our country are all wither'd,
    And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
    The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,
    And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;
    Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap-
    The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
    The other to enjoy by rage and war.
    These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
    Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled,
    As well assur'd Richard their King is dead.             Exit
  SALISBURY. Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind,
    I see thy glory like a shooting star
    Fall to the base earth from the firmament!
    The sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
    Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest;
    Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes;
    And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.               Exit

ACT III. SCENE I. BOLINGBROKE'S camp at Bristol

Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, ROSS, WILLOUGHBY,
BUSHY and GREEN, prisoners

  BOLINGBROKE. Bring forth these men.
    Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls-
    Since presently your souls must part your bodies-
    With too much urging your pernicious lives,
    For 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood
    From off my hands, here in the view of men
    I will unfold some causes of your deaths:
    You have misled a prince, a royal king,
    A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,
    By you unhappied and disfigured clean;
    You have in manner with your sinful hours
    Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him;
    Broke the possession of a royal bed,
    And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks
    With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs;
    Myself-a prince by fortune of my birth,
    Near to the King in blood, and near in love
    Till you did make him misinterpret me-
    Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries
    And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,
    Eating the bitter bread of banishment,
    Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
    Dispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,
    From my own windows torn my household coat,
    Raz'd out my imprese, leaving me no sign
    Save men's opinions and my living blood
    To show the world I am a gentleman.
    This and much more, much more than twice all this,
    Condemns you to the death. See them delivered over
    To execution and the hand of death.
  BUSHY. More welcome is the stroke of death to me
    Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.
  GREEN. My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,
    And plague injustice with the pains of hell.
  BOLINGBROKE. My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.
           Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, and others, with the prisoners
    Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house;
    For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated.
    Tell her I send to her my kind commends;
    Take special care my greetings be delivered.
  YORK. A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd
    With letters of your love to her at large.
  BOLINGBROKE. Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,
    To fight with Glendower and his complices.
    Awhile to work, and after holiday.                    Exeunt

SCENE 2. The coast of Wales. A castle in view

Drums. Flourish and colours. Enter the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,
AUMERLE, and soldiers

  KING RICHARD. Barkloughly Castle can they this at hand?
  AUMERLE. Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the air
    After your late tossing on the breaking seas?
  KING RICHARD. Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy
    To stand upon my kingdom once again.
    Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
    Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs.
    As a long-parted mother with her child
    Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,
    So weeping-smiling greet I thee, my earth,
    And do thee favours with my royal hands.
    Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,
    Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;
    But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,
    And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way,
    Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet
    Which with usurping steps do trample thee;
    Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;
    And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
    Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,
    Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
    Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.
    Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords.
    This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones
    Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
    Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.
  CARLISLE. Fear not, my lord; that Power that made you king
    Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
    The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd
    And not neglected; else, if heaven would,
    And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,
    The proffered means of succour and redress.
  AUMERLE. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;
    Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,
    Grows strong and great in substance and in power.
  KING RICHARD. Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not
    That when the searching eye of heaven is hid,
    Behind the globe, that lights the lower world,
    Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen
    In murders and in outrage boldly here;
    But when from under this terrestrial ball
    He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines
    And darts his light through every guilty hole,
    Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
    The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,
    Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
    So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
    Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,
    Whilst we were wand'ring with the Antipodes,
    Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
    His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
    Not able to endure the sight of day,
    But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.
    Not all the water in the rough rude sea
    Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
    The breath of worldly men cannot depose
    The deputy elected by the Lord.
    For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd
    To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
    God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
    A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,
    Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right.

                 Enter SALISBURY

    Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?
  SALISBURY. Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,
    Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue,
    And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
    One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,
    Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.
    O, call back yesterday, bid time return,
    And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!
    To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,
    O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;
    For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
    Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.
  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege, why looks your Grace so pale?
  KING RICHARD. But now the blood of twenty thousand men
    Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;
    And, till so much blood thither come again,
    Have I not reason to look pale and dead?
    All souls that will be safe, fly from my side;
    For time hath set a blot upon my pride.
  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege; remember who you are.
  KING RICHARD. I had forgot myself; am I not King?
    Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.
    Is not the King's name twenty thousand names?
    Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes
    At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,
    Ye favourites of a king; are we not high?
    High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York
    Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?

                   Enter SCROOP

  SCROOP. More health and happiness betide my liege
    Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him.
  KING RICHARD. Mine ear is open and my heart prepar'd.
    The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
    Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, 'twas my care,
    And what loss is it to be rid of care?
    Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
    Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,
    We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so.
    Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend;
    They break their faith to God as well as us.
    Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay-
    The worst is death, and death will have his day.
  SCROOP. Glad am I that your Highness is so arm'd
    To bear the tidings of calamity.
    Like an unseasonable stormy day
    Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
    As if the world were all dissolv'd to tears,
    So high above his limits swells the rage
    Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
    With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.
    White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps
    Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,
    Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints
    In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;
    Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
    Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
    Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
    Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,
    And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
  KING RICHARD. Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so in.
    Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?
    What is become of Bushy? Where is Green?
    That they have let the dangerous enemy
    Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
    If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.
    I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
  SCROOP. Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!
    Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!
    Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!
    Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
    Would they make peace? Terrible hell make war
    Upon their spotted souls for this offence!
  SCROOP. Sweet love, I see, changing his property,
    Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.
    Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made
    With heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse
    Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound
    And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.
  AUMERLE. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
  SCROOP. Ay, all of them at Bristow lost their heads.
  AUMERLE. Where is the Duke my father with his power?
  KING RICHARD. No matter where-of comfort no man speak.
    Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
    Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
    Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
    Let's choose executors and talk of wills;
    And yet not so-for what can we bequeath
    Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
    Our lands, our lives, and an, are Bolingbroke's.
    And nothing can we can our own but death
    And that small model of the barren earth
    Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
    For God's sake let us sit upon the ground
    And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
    How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,
    Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,
    Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd,
    All murder'd-for within the hollow crown
    That rounds the mortal temples of a king
    Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,
    Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;
    Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
    To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
    Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
    As if this flesh which walls about our life
    Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,
    Comes at the last, and with a little pin
    Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!
    Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
    With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
    Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;
    For you have but mistook me all this while.
    I live with bread like you, feel want,
    Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
    How can you say to me I am a king?
  CARLISLE. My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,
    But presently prevent the ways to wail.
    To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
    Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,
    And so your follies fight against yourself.
    Fear and be slain-no worse can come to fight;
    And fight and die is death destroying death,
    Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.
  AUMERLE. My father hath a power; inquire of him,
    And learn to make a body of a limb.
  KING RICHARD. Thou chid'st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come
    To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
    This ague fit of fear is over-blown;
    An easy task it is to win our own.
    Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
    Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
  SCROOP. Men judge by the complexion of the sky
    The state in inclination of the day;
    So may you by my dull and heavy eye,
    My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
    I play the torturer, by small and small
    To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:
    Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke;
    And all your northern castles yielded up,
    And all your southern gentlemen in arms
    Upon his party.
  KING RICHARD. Thou hast said enough.
      [To AUMERLE] Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth
    Of that sweet way I was in to despair!
    What say you now? What comfort have we now?
    By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly
    That bids me be of comfort any more.
    Go to Flint Castle; there I'll pine away;
    A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.
    That power I have, discharge; and let them go
    To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
    For I have none. Let no man speak again
    To alter this, for counsel is but vain.
  AUMERLE. My liege, one word.
  KING RICHARD. He does me double wrong
    That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
    Discharge my followers; let them hence away,
    From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.       Exeunt

SCENE 3. Wales. Before Flint Castle

Enter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, and
forces

  BOLINGBROKE. So that by this intelligence we learn
    The Welshmen are dispers'd; and Salisbury
    Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed
    With some few private friends upon this coast.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. The news is very fair and good, my lord.
    Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
  YORK. It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
    To say 'King Richard.' Alack the heavy day
    When such a sacred king should hide his head!
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief,
    Left I his title out.
  YORK. The time hath been,
    Would you have been so brief with him, he would
    Have been so brief with you to shorten you,
    For taking so the head, your whole head's length.
  BOLINGBROKE. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.
  YORK. Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
    Lest you mistake. The heavens are over our heads.
  BOLINGBROKE. I know it, uncle; and oppose not myself
    Against their will. But who comes here?

                    Enter PERCY

    Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?
  PIERCY. The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,
    Against thy entrance.
  BOLINGBROKE. Royally!
    Why, it contains no king?
  PERCY. Yes, my good lord,
    It doth contain a king; King Richard lies
    Within the limits of yon lime and stone;
    And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,
    Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman
    Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.
  BOLINGBROKE. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] Noble lord,
    Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;
    Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
    Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:
    Henry Bolingbroke
    On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand,
    And sends allegiance and true faith of heart
    To his most royal person; hither come
    Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,
    Provided that my banishment repeal'd
    And lands restor'd again be freely granted;
    If not, I'll use the advantage of my power
    And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood
    Rain'd from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen;
    The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke
    It is such crimson tempest should bedrench
    The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,
    My stooping duty tenderly shall show.
    Go, signify as much, while here we march
    Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.
           [NORTHUMBERLAND advances to the Castle, with a trumpet]
    Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum,
    That from this castle's tottered battlements
    Our fair appointments may be well perus'd.
    Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
    With no less terror than the elements
    Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock
    At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
    Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water;
    The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain
    My waters-on the earth, and not on him.
    March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.

      Parle without, and answer within; then a flourish.
      Enter on the walls, the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,
      AUMERLE, SCROOP, and SALISBURY

    See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
    As doth the blushing discontented sun
    From out the fiery portal of the east,
    When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
    To dim his glory and to stain the track
    Of his bright passage to the occident.
  YORK. Yet he looks like a king. Behold, his eye,
    As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth
    Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe,
    That any harm should stain so fair a show!
  KING RICHARD. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] We are amaz'd; and thus long
      have we stood
    To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,
    Because we thought ourself thy lawful King;
    And if we be, how dare thy joints forget
    To pay their awful duty to our presence?
    If we be not, show us the hand of God
    That hath dismiss'd us from our stewardship;
    For well we know no hand of blood and bone
    Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
    Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
    And though you think that all, as you have done,
    Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
    And we are barren and bereft of friends,
    Yet know-my master, God omnipotent,
    Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf
    Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike
    Your children yet unborn and unbegot,
    That lift your vassal hands against my head
    And threat the glory of my precious crown.
    Tell Bolingbroke, for yon methinks he stands,
    That every stride he makes upon my land
    Is dangerous treason; he is come to open
    The purple testament of bleeding war;
    But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
    Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons
    Shall ill become the flower of England's face,
    Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
    To scarlet indignation, and bedew
    Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. The King of Heaven forbid our lord the King
    Should so with civil and uncivil arms
    Be rush'd upon! Thy thrice noble cousin,
    Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand;
    And by the honourable tomb he swears
    That stands upon your royal grandsire's bones,
    And by the royalties of both your bloods,
    Currents that spring from one most gracious head,
    And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,
    And by the worth and honour of himself,
    Comprising all that may be sworn or said,
    His coming hither hath no further scope
    Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg
    Enfranchisement immediate on his knees;
    Which on thy royal party granted once,
    His glittering arms he will commend to rust,
    His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart
    To faithful service of your Majesty.
    This swears he, as he is a prince, is just;
    And as I am a gentleman I credit him.
  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, say thus the King returns:
    His noble cousin is right welcome hither;
    And all the number of his fair demands
    Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction.
    With all the gracious utterance thou hast
    Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.
    [To AUMERLE] We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,
    To look so poorly and to speak so fair?
    Shall we call back Northumberland, and send
    Defiance to the traitor, and so die?
  AUMERLE. No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words
    Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.
  KING RICHARD. O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine
    That laid the sentence of dread banishment
    On yon proud man should take it off again
    With words of sooth! O that I were as great
    As is my grief, or lesser than my name!
    Or that I could forget what I have been!
    Or not remember what I must be now!
    Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,
    Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.
  AUMERLE. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
  KING RICHARD. What must the King do now? Must he submit?
    The King shall do it. Must he be depos'd?
    The King shall be contented. Must he lose
    The name of king? A God's name, let it go.
    I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,
    My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
    My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,
    My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood,
    My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,
    My subjects for a pair of carved saints,
    And my large kingdom for a little grave,
    A little little grave, an obscure grave-
    Or I'll be buried in the king's high way,
    Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet
    May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;
    For on my heart they tread now whilst I live,
    And buried once, why not upon my head?
    Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!
    We'll make foul weather with despised tears;
    Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn
    And make a dearth in this revolting land.
    Or shall we play the wantons with our woes
    And make some pretty match with shedding tears?
    As thus: to drop them still upon one place
    Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
    Within the earth; and, therein laid-there lies
    Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.
    Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see
    I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.
    Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,
    What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty
    Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
    You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, in the base court he doth attend
    To speak with you; may it please you to come down?
  KING RICHARD. Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaethon,
    Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
    In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,
    To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace.
    In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!
    For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.
                                               Exeunt from above
  BOLINGBROKE. What says his Majesty?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Sorrow and grief of heart
    Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man;
    Yet he is come.

          Enter the KING, and his attendants, below

  BOLINGBROKE. Stand all apart,
    And show fair duty to his Majesty.   [He kneels down]
    My gracious lord-
  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee
    To make the base earth proud with kissing it.
    Me rather had my heart might feel your love
    Than my unpleas'd eye see your courtesy.
    Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,
    [Touching his own head] Thus high at least, although your
      knee be low.
  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
  KING RICHARD. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
  BOLINGBROKE. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
    As my true service shall deserve your love.
  KING RICHARD. Well you deserve. They well deserve to have
    That know the strong'st and surest way to get.
    Uncle, give me your hands; nay, dry your eyes:
    Tears show their love, but want their remedies.
    Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
    Though you are old enough to be my heir.
    What you will have, I'll give, and willing too;
    For do we must what force will have us do.
    Set on towards London. Cousin, is it so?
  BOLINGBROKE. Yea, my good lord.
  KING RICHARD. Then I must not say no.         Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE 4. The DUKE OF YORK's garden

Enter the QUEEN and two LADIES

  QUEEN. What sport shall we devise here in this garden
    To drive away the heavy thought of care?
  LADY. Madam, we'll play at bowls.
  QUEEN. 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs
    And that my fortune runs against the bias.
  LADY. Madam, we'll dance.
  QUEEN. My legs can keep no measure in delight,
    When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief;
    Therefore no dancing, girl; some other sport.
  LADY. Madam, we'll tell tales.
  QUEEN. Of sorrow or of joy?
  LADY. Of either, madam.
  QUEEN. Of neither, girl;
    For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
    It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
    Or if of grief, being altogether had,
    It adds more sorrow to my want of joy;
    For what I have I need not to repeat,
    And what I want it boots not to complain.
  LADY. Madam, I'll sing.
  QUEEN. 'Tis well' that thou hast cause;
    But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.
  LADY. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
  QUEEN. And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
    And never borrow any tear of thee.

           Enter a GARDENER and two SERVANTS

    But stay, here come the gardeners.
    Let's step into the shadow of these trees.
    My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
    They will talk of state, for every one doth so
    Against a change: woe is forerun with woe.
                                       [QUEEN and LADIES retire]
  GARDENER. Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,
    Which, like unruly children, make their sire
    Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight;
    Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
    Go thou, and Eke an executioner
    Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays
    That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
    All must be even in our government.
    You thus employ'd, I will go root away
    The noisome weeds which without profit suck
    The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.
  SERVANT. Why should we, in the compass of a pale,
    Keep law and form and due proportion,
    Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,
    When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
    Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,
    Her fruit trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
    Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
    Swarming with caterpillars?
  GARDENER. Hold thy peace.
    He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring
    Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf;
    The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
    That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,
    Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke-
    I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
  SERVANT. What, are they dead?
  GARDENER. They are; and Bolingbroke
    Hath seiz'd the wasteful King. O, what pity is it
    That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land
    As we this garden! We at time of year
    Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,
    Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
    With too much riches it confound itself;
    Had he done so to great and growing men,
    They might have Ev'd to bear, and he to taste
    Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
    We lop away, that bearing boughs may live;
    Had he done so, himself had home the crown,
    Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
  SERVANT. What, think you the King shall be deposed?
  GARDENER. Depress'd he is already, and depos'd
    'Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night
    To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's
    That tell black tidings.
  QUEEN. O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!
                                                [Coming forward]
    Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,
    How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?
    What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested the
    To make a second fall of cursed man?
    Why dost thou say King Richard is depos'd?
    Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
    Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,
    Cam'st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.
  GARDENER. Pardon me, madam; little joy have
    To breathe this news; yet what I say is true.
    King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
    Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weigh'd.
    In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,
    And some few vanities that make him light;
    But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
    Besides himself, are all the English peers,
    And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
    Post you to London, and you will find it so;
    I speak no more than every one doth know.
  QUEEN. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
    Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
    And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest
    To serve me last, that I may longest keep
    Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go
    To meet at London London's King in woe.
    What, was I born to this, that my sad look
    Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
    Gard'ner, for telling me these news of woe,
    Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow!
                                         Exeunt QUEEN and LADIES
  GARDENER. Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse,
    I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
    Here did she fall a tear; here in this place
    I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.
    Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
    In the remembrance of a weeping queen.                Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1. Westminster Hall

Enter, as to the Parliament, BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE, NORTHUMBERLAND,
PERCY, FITZWATER, SURREY, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF
WESTMINSTER, and others; HERALD, OFFICERS, and BAGOT

  BOLINGBROKE. Call forth Bagot.
    Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind-
    What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death;
    Who wrought it with the King, and who perform'd
    The bloody office of his timeless end.
  BAGOT. Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.
  BOLINGBROKE. Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.
  BAGOT. My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
    Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.
    In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted
    I heard you say 'Is not my arm of length,
    That reacheth from the restful English Court
    As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'
    Amongst much other talk that very time
    I heard you say that you had rather refuse
    The offer of an hundred thousand crowns
    Than Bolingbroke's return to England;
    Adding withal, how blest this land would be
    In this your cousin's death.
  AUMERLE. Princes, and noble lords,
    What answer shall I make to this base man?
    Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars
    On equal terms to give him chastisement?
    Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd
    With the attainder of his slanderous lips.
    There is my gage, the manual seal of death
    That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest,
    And will maintain what thou hast said is false
    In thy heart-blood, through being all too base
    To stain the temper of my knightly sword.
  BOLINGBROKE. Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.
  AUMERLE. Excepting one, I would he were the best
    In all this presence that hath mov'd me so.
  FITZWATER. If that thy valour stand on sympathy,
    There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine.
    By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,
    I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,
    That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.
    If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest;
    And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
    Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.
  AUMERLE. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see that day.
  FITZWATER. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.
  AUMERLE. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.
  PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true
    In this appeal as thou art an unjust;
    And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,
    To prove it on thee to the extremest point
    Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st.
  AUMERLE. An if I do not, may my hands rot of
    And never brandish more revengeful steel
    Over the glittering helmet of my foe!
  ANOTHER LORD. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;
    And spur thee on with fun as many lies
    As may be halloa'd in thy treacherous ear
    From sun to sun. There is my honour's pawn;
    Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.
  AUMERLE. Who sets me else? By heaven, I'll throw at all!
    I have a thousand spirits in one breast
    To answer twenty thousand such as you.
  SURREY. My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well
    The very time Aumerle and you did talk.
  FITZWATER. 'Tis very true; you were in presence then,
    And you can witness with me this is true.
  SURREY. As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.
  FITZWATER. Surrey, thou liest.
  SURREY. Dishonourable boy!
    That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword
    That it shall render vengeance and revenge
    Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do he
    In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.
    In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;
    Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.
  FITZWATER. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!
    If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,
    I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,
    And spit upon him whilst I say he lies,
    And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith,
    To tie thee to my strong correction.
    As I intend to thrive in this new world,
    Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.
    Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say
    That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men
    To execute the noble Duke at Calais.
  AUMERLE. Some honest Christian trust me with a gage
    That Norfolk lies. Here do I throw down this,
    If he may be repeal'd to try his honour.
  BOLINGBROKE. These differences shall all rest under gage
    Till Norfolk be repeal'd-repeal'd he shall be
    And, though mine enemy, restor'd again
    To all his lands and signories. When he is return'd,
    Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.
  CARLISLE. That honourable day shall never be seen.
    Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought
    For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,
    Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross
    Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;
    And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself
    To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave
    His body to that pleasant country's earth,
    And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
    Under whose colours he had fought so long.
  BOLINGBROKE. Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?
  CARLISLE. As surely as I live, my lord.
  BOLINGBROKE. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
    Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,
    Your differences shall all rest under gage
    Till we assign you to your days of trial

                 Enter YORK, attended

  YORK. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to the
    From plume-pluck'd Richard, who with willing soul
    Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields
    To the possession of thy royal hand.
    Ascend his throne, descending now from him-
    And long live Henry, fourth of that name!
  BOLINGBROKE. In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.
  CARLISLE. Marry, God forbid!
    Worst in this royal presence may I speak,
    Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.
    Would God that any in this noble presence
    Were enough noble to be upright judge
    Of noble Richard! Then true noblesse would
    Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.
    What subject can give sentence on his king?
    And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?
    Thieves are not judg'd but they are by to hear,
    Although apparent guilt be seen in them;
    And shall the figure of God's majesty,
    His captain, steward, deputy elect,
    Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
    Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath,
    And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,
    That in a Christian climate souls refin'd
    Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!
    I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,
    Stirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king.
    My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,
    Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king;
    And if you crown him, let me prophesy-
    The blood of English shall manure the ground,
    And future ages groan for this foul act;
    Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
    And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars
    Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;
    Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,
    Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd
    The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.
    O, if you raise this house against this house,
    It will the woefullest division prove
    That ever fell upon this cursed earth.
    Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
    Lest child, child's children, cry against you woe.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,
    Of capital treason we arrest you here.
    My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge
    To keep him safely till his day of trial.
    May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit?
  BOLINGBROKE. Fetch hither Richard, that in common view
    He may surrender; so we shall proceed
    Without suspicion.
  YORK. I will be his conduct.                              Exit
  BOLINGBROKE. Lords, you that here are under our arrest,
    Procure your sureties for your days of answer.
    Little are we beholding to your love,
    And little look'd for at your helping hands.

      Re-enter YORK, with KING RICHARD, and OFFICERS
                bearing the regalia

  KING RICHARD. Alack, why am I sent for to a king,
    Before I have shook off the regal thoughts
    Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd
    To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.
    Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me
    To this submission. Yet I well remember
    The favours of these men. Were they not mine?
    Did they not sometime cry 'All hail!' to me?
    So Judas did to Christ; but he, in twelve,
    Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.
    God save the King! Will no man say amen?
    Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.
    God save the King! although I be not he;
    And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.
    To do what service am I sent for hither?
  YORK. To do that office of thine own good will
    Which tired majesty did make thee offer-
    The resignation of thy state and crown
    To Henry Bolingbroke.
  KING RICHARD. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.
    Here, cousin,
    On this side my hand, and on that side thine.
    Now is this golden crown like a deep well
    That owes two buckets, filling one another;
    The emptier ever dancing in the air,
    The other down, unseen, and full of water.
    That bucket down and fun of tears am I,
    Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
  BOLINGBROKE. I thought you had been willing to resign.
  KING RICHARD. My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine.
    You may my glories and my state depose,
    But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
  BOLINGBROKE. Part of your cares you give me with your crown.
  KING RICHARD. Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.
    My care is loss of care, by old care done;
    Your care is gain of care, by new care won.
    The cares I give I have, though given away;
    They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.
  BOLINGBROKE. Are you contented to resign the crown?
  KING RICHARD. Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;
    Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.
    Now mark me how I will undo myself:
    I give this heavy weight from off my head,
    And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
    The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;
    With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
    With mine own hands I give away my crown,
    With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
    With mine own breath release all duteous oaths;
    All pomp and majesty I do forswear;
    My manors, rents, revenues, I forgo;
    My acts, decrees, and statutes, I deny.
    God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!
    God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!
    Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev'd,
    And thou with all pleas'd, that hast an achiev'd.
    Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,
    And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit.
    God save King Henry, unking'd Richard says,
    And send him many years of sunshine days!
    What more remains?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. No more; but that you read
    These accusations, and these grievous crimes
    Committed by your person and your followers
    Against the state and profit of this land;
    That, by confessing them, the souls of men
    May deem that you are worthily depos'd.
  KING RICHARD. Must I do so? And must I ravel out
    My weav'd-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,
    If thy offences were upon record,
    Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop
    To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,
    There shouldst thou find one heinous article,
    Containing the deposing of a king
    And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,
    Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven.
    Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me
    Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,
    Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,
    Showing an outward pity-yet you Pilates
    Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross,
    And water cannot wash away your sin.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, dispatch; read o'er these
    articles.
  KING RICHARD. Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see.
    And yet salt water blinds them not so much
    But they can see a sort of traitors here.
    Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,
    I find myself a traitor with the rest;
    For I have given here my soul's consent
    T'undeck the pompous body of a king;
    Made glory base, and sovereignty a slave,
    Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord-
  KING RICHARD. No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,
    Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no tide-
    No, not that name was given me at the font-
    But 'tis usurp'd. Alack the heavy day,
    That I have worn so many winters out,
    And know not now what name to call myself!
    O that I were a mockery king of snow,
    Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke
    To melt myself away in water drops!
    Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,
    An if my word be sterling yet in England,
    Let it command a mirror hither straight,
    That it may show me what a face I have
    Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.
  BOLINGBROKE. Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.
                                               Exit an attendant
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.
  KING RICHARD. Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell.
  BOLINGBROKE. Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. The Commons will not, then, be satisfied.
  KING RICHARD. They shall be satisfied. I'll read enough,
    When I do see the very book indeed
    Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.

                Re-enter attendant with glass

    Give me that glass, and therein will I read.
    No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
    So many blows upon this face of mine
    And made no deeper wounds? O flatt'ring glass,
    Like to my followers in prosperity,
    Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face
    That every day under his household roof
    Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face
    That like the sun did make beholders wink?
    Is this the face which fac'd so many follies
    That was at last out-fac'd by Bolingbroke?
    A brittle glory shineth in this face;
    As brittle as the glory is the face;
                        [Dashes the glass against the ground]
    For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.
    Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport-
    How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.
  BOLINGBROKE. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd
    The shadow of your face.
  KING RICHARD. Say that again.
    The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let's see.
    'Tis very true: my grief lies all within;
    And these external manner of laments
    Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
    That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul.
    There lies the substance; and I thank thee, king,
    For thy great bounty, that not only giv'st
    Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way
    How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,
    And then be gone and trouble you no more.
    Shall I obtain it?
  BOLINGBROKE. Name it, fair cousin.
  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin! I am greater than a king;
    For when I was a king, my flatterers
    Were then but subjects; being now a subject,
    I have a king here to my flatterer.
    Being so great, I have no need to beg.
  BOLINGBROKE. Yet ask.
  KING RICHARD. And shall I have?
  BOLINGBROKE. You shall.
  KING RICHARD. Then give me leave to go.
  BOLINGBROKE. Whither?
  KING RICHARD. Whither you will, so I were from your sights.
  BOLINGBROKE. Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.
  KING RICHARD. O, good! Convey! Conveyers are you all,
    That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.
                     Exeunt KING RICHARD, some Lords and a Guard
  BOLINGBROKE. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down
    Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.
                    Exeunt all but the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, the
                                 BISHOP OF CARLISLE, and AUMERLE
  ABBOT. A woeful pageant have we here beheld.
  CARLISLE. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn
    Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
  AUMERLE. You holy clergymen, is there no plot
    To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?
  ABBOT. My lord,
    Before I freely speak my mind herein,
    You shall not only take the sacrament
    To bury mine intents, but also to effect
    Whatever I shall happen to devise.
    I see your brows are full of discontent,
    Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.
    Come home with me to supper; I will lay
    A plot shall show us all a merry day.                 Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1. London. A street leading to the Tower

Enter the QUEEN, with her attendants

  QUEEN. This way the King will come; this is the way
    To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,
    To whose flint bosom my condemned lord
    Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.
    Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
    Have any resting for her true King's queen.

            Enter KING RICHARD and Guard

    But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
    My fair rose wither. Yet look up, behold,
    That you in pity may dissolve to dew,
    And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.
    Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;
    Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,
    And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,
    Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,
    When triumph is become an alehouse guest?
  KING RICHARD. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
    To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,
    To think our former state a happy dream;
    From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
    Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,
    To grim Necessity; and he and
    Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
    And cloister thee in some religious house.
    Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
    Which our profane hours here have thrown down.
  QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
    Transform'd and weak'ned? Hath Bolingbroke depos'd
    Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?
    The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw
    And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
    To be o'erpow'r'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
    Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod,
    And fawn on rage with base humility,
    Which art a lion and the king of beasts?
  KING RICHARD. A king of beasts, indeed! If aught but beasts,
    I had been still a happy king of men.
    Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.
    Think I am dead, and that even here thou takest,
    As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.
    In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire
    With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
    Of woeful ages long ago betid;
    And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs
    Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,
    And send the hearers weeping to their beds;
    For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
    The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
    And in compassion weep the fire out;
    And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,
    For the deposing of a rightful king.

             Enter NORTHUMBERLAND attended

  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;
    You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.
    And, madam, there is order ta'en for you:
    With all swift speed you must away to France.
  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal
    The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,
    The time shall not be many hours of age
    More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head
    Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think
    Though he divide the realm and give thee half
    It is too little, helping him to all;
    And he shall think that thou, which knowest the way
    To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
    Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way
    To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
    The love of wicked men converts to fear;
    That fear to hate; and hate turns one or both
    To worthy danger and deserved death.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. My guilt be on my head, and there an end.
    Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.
  KING RICHARD. Doubly divorc'd! Bad men, you violate
    A twofold marriage-'twixt my crown and me,
    And then betwixt me and my married wife.
    Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;
    And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.
    Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north,
    Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;
    My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp,
    She came adorned hither like sweet May,
    Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.
  QUEEN. And must we be divided? Must we part?
  KING RICHARD. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.
  QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the King with me.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. That were some love, but little policy.
  QUEEN. Then whither he goes thither let me go.
  KING RICHARD. So two, together weeping, make one woe.
    Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;
    Better far off than near, be ne'er the near.
    Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.
  QUEEN. So longest way shall have the longest moans.
  KING RICHARD. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,
    And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
    Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,
    Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.
    One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;
    Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.
  QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part
    To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.
    So, now I have mine own again, be gone.
    That I may strive to kill it with a groan.
  KING RICHARD. We make woe wanton with this fond delay.
    Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.            Exeunt

SCENE 2. The DUKE OF YORK's palace

Enter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUCHESS

  DUCHESS. My Lord, you told me you would tell the rest,
    When weeping made you break the story off,
    Of our two cousins' coming into London.
  YORK. Where did I leave?
  DUCHESS. At that sad stop, my lord,
    Where rude misgoverned hands from windows' tops
    Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.
  YORK. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,
    Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed
    Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,
    With slow but stately pace kept on his course,
    Whilst all tongues cried 'God save thee, Bolingbroke!'
    You would have thought the very windows spake,
    So many greedy looks of young and old
    Through casements darted their desiring eyes
    Upon his visage; and that all the walls
    With painted imagery had said at once
    'Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!'
    Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning,
    Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,
    Bespake them thus, 'I thank you, countrymen.'
    And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.
  DUCHESS. Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?
  YORK. As in a theatre the eyes of men
    After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage
    Are idly bent on him that enters next,
    Thinking his prattle to be tedious;
    Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
    Did scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'
    No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;
    But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;
    Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,
    His face still combating with tears and smiles,
    The badges of his grief and patience,
    That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd
    The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
    And barbarism itself have pitied him.
    But heaven hath a hand in these events,
    To whose high will we bound our calm contents.
    To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,
    Whose state and honour I for aye allow.
  DUCHESS. Here comes my son Aumerle.
  YORK. Aumerle that was
    But that is lost for being Richard's friend,
    And madam, you must call him Rudand now.
    I am in Parliament pledge for his truth
    And lasting fealty to the new-made king.

                  Enter AUMERLE

  DUCHESS. Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now
    That strew the green lap of the new come spring?
  AUMERLE. Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not.
    God knows I had as lief be none as one.
  YORK. Well, bear you well in this new spring of time,
    Lest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.
    What news from Oxford? Do these justs and triumphs hold?
  AUMERLE. For aught I know, my lord, they do.
  YORK. You will be there, I know.
  AUMERLE. If God prevent not, I purpose so.
  YORK. What seal is that that without thy bosom?
    Yea, look'st thou pale? Let me see the writing.
  AUMERLE. My lord, 'tis nothing.
  YORK. No matter, then, who see it.
    I will be satisfied; let me see the writing.
  AUMERLE. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me;
    It is a matter of small consequence
    Which for some reasons I would not have seen.
  YORK. Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.
    I fear, I fear-
  DUCHESS. What should you fear?
    'Tis nothing but some bond that he is ent'red into
    For gay apparel 'gainst the triumph-day.
  YORK. Bound to himself! What doth he with a bond
    That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.
    Boy, let me see the writing.
  AUMERLE. I do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.
  YORK. I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.
                [He plucks it out of his bosom, and reads it]
    Treason, foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!
  DUCHESS. What is the matter, my lord?
  YORK. Ho! who is within there?

                    Enter a servant

    Saddle my horse.
    God for his mercy, what treachery is here!
  DUCHESS. Why, York, what is it, my lord?
  YORK. Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.
                                                    Exit servant
    Now, by mine honour, by my life, my troth,
    I will appeach the villain.
  DUCHESS. What is the matter?
  YORK. Peace, foolish woman.
  DUCHESS. I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?
  AUMERLE. Good mother, be content; it is no more
    Than my poor life must answer.
  DUCHESS. Thy life answer!
  YORK. Bring me my boots. I will unto the King.

              His man enters with his boots

  DUCHESS. Strike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amaz'd.
    Hence, villain! never more come in my sight.
  YORK. Give me my boots, I say.
  DUCHESS. Why, York, what wilt thou do?
    Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?
    Have we more sons? or are we like to have?
    Is not my teeming date drunk up with time?
    And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age
    And rob me of a happy mother's name?
    Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?
  YORK. Thou fond mad woman,
    Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?
    A dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,
    And interchangeably set down their hands
    To kill the King at Oxford.
  DUCHESS. He shall be none;
    We'll keep him here. Then what is that to him?
  YORK. Away, fond woman! were he twenty times my son
    I would appeach him.
  DUCHESS. Hadst thou groan'd for him
    As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.
    But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect
    That I have been disloyal to thy bed
    And that he is a bastard, not thy son.
    Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind.
    He is as like thee as a man may be
    Not like to me, or any of my kin,
    And yet I love him.
  YORK. Make way, unruly woman!                             Exit
  DUCHESS. After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse;
    Spur post, and get before him to the King,
    And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.
    I'll not be long behind; though I be old,
    I doubt not but to ride as fast as York;
    And never will I rise up from the ground
    Till Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, be gone.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 3. Windsor Castle

Enter BOLINGBROKE as King, PERCY, and other LORDS

  BOLINGBROKE. Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?
    'Tis full three months since I did see him last.
    If any plague hang over us, 'tis he.
    I would to God, my lords, he might be found.
    Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,
    For there, they say, he daily doth frequent
    With unrestrained loose companions,
    Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes
    And beat our watch and rob our passengers,
    Which he, young wanton and effeminate boy,
    Takes on the point of honour to support
    So dissolute a crew.
  PERCY. My lord, some two days since I saw the Prince,
    And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.
  BOLINGBROKE. And what said the gallant?
  PERCY. His answer was, he would unto the stews,
    And from the common'st creature pluck a glove
    And wear it as a favour; and with that
    He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.
  BOLINGBROKE. As dissolute as desperate; yet through both
    I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years
    May happily bring forth. But who comes here?

                Enter AUMERLE amazed

  AUMERLE. Where is the King?
  BOLINGBROKE. What means our cousin that he stares and looks
    So wildly?
  AUMERLE. God save your Grace! I do beseech your Majesty,
    To have some conference with your Grace alone.
  BOLINGBROKE. Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.
                                          Exeunt PERCY and LORDS
    What is the matter with our cousin now?
  AUMERLE. For ever may my knees grow to the earth,
                                                    [Kneels]
    My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth,
    Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.
  BOLINGBROKE. Intended or committed was this fault?
    If on the first, how heinous e'er it be,
    To win thy after-love I pardon thee.
  AUMERLE. Then give me leave that I may turn the key,
    That no man enter till my tale be done.
  BOLINGBROKE. Have thy desire.
            [The DUKE OF YORK knocks at the door and crieth]
  YORK. [Within] My liege, beware; look to thyself;
    Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.
  BOLINGBROKE. [Drawing] Villain, I'll make thee safe.
  AUMERLE. Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.
  YORK. [Within] Open the door, secure, foolhardy King.
    Shall I, for love, speak treason to thy face?
    Open the door, or I will break it open.

                    Enter YORK

  BOLINGBROKE. What is the matter, uncle? Speak;
    Recover breath; tell us how near is danger,
    That we may arm us to encounter it.
  YORK. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know
    The treason that my haste forbids me show.
  AUMERLE. Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd.
    I do repent me; read not my name there;
    My heart is not confederate with my hand.
  YORK. It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.
    I tore it from the traitor's bosom, King;
    Fear, and not love, begets his penitence.
    Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove
    A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.
  BOLINGBROKE. O heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy!
    O loyal father of a treacherous son!
    Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain,
    From whence this stream through muddy passages
    Hath held his current and defil'd himself!
    Thy overflow of good converts to bad;
    And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
    This deadly blot in thy digressing son.
  YORK. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;
    And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,
    As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.
    Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,
    Or my sham'd life in his dishonour lies.
    Thou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,
    The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.
  DUCHESS. [Within] I What ho, my liege, for God's sake, let me in.
  BOLINGBROKE. What shrill-voic'd suppliant makes this eager cry?
  DUCHESS. [Within] A woman, and thine aunt, great King; 'tis I.
    Speak with me, pity me, open the door.
    A beggar begs that never begg'd before.
  BOLINGBROKE. Our scene is alt'red from a serious thing,
    And now chang'd to 'The Beggar and the King.'
    My dangerous cousin, let your mother in.
    I know she is come to pray for your foul sin.
  YORK. If thou do pardon whosoever pray,
    More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.
    This fest'red joint cut off, the rest rest sound;
    This let alone will all the rest confound.

                 Enter DUCHESS

  DUCHESS. O King, believe not this hard-hearted man!
    Love loving not itself, none other can.
  YORK. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?
    Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?
  DUCHESS. Sweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.
                                                     [Kneels]
  BOLINGBROKE. Rise up, good aunt.
  DUCHESS. Not yet, I thee beseech.
    For ever will I walk upon my knees,
    And never see day that the happy sees
    Till thou give joy; until thou bid me joy
    By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.
  AUMERLE. Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.
                                                     [Kneels]
  YORK. Against them both, my true joints bended be.
                                                     [Kneels]
    Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!
  DUCHESS. Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face;
    His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;
    His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast.
    He prays but faintly and would be denied;
    We pray with heart and soul, and all beside.
    His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;
    Our knees still kneel till to the ground they grow.
    His prayers are full of false hypocrisy;
    Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.
    Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have
    That mercy which true prayer ought to have.
  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.
  DUCHESS. do not say 'stand up';
    Say 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'
    An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,
    'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.
    I never long'd to hear a word till now;
    Say 'pardon,' King; let pity teach thee how.
    The word is short, but not so short as sweet;
    No word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.
  YORK. Speak it in French, King, say 'pardonne moy.'
  DUCHESS. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?
    Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
    That sets the word itself against the word!
    Speak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;
    The chopping French we do not understand.
    Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there;
    Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,
    That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,
    Pity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.
  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.
  DUCHESS. I do not sue to stand;
    Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
  BOLINGBROKE. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.
  DUCHESS. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!
    Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again.
    Twice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,
    But makes one pardon strong.
  BOLINGBROKE. With all my heart
    I pardon him.
  DUCHESS. A god on earth thou art.
  BOLINGBROKE. But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot,
    With all the rest of that consorted crew,
    Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.
    Good uncle, help to order several powers
    To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are.
    They shall not live within this world, I swear,
    But I will have them, if I once know where.
    Uncle, farewell; and, cousin, adieu;
    Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.
  DUCHESS. Come, my old son; I pray God make thee new.      Exeunt

SCENE 4. Windsor Castle

Enter SIR PIERCE OF EXTON and a servant

  EXTON. Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?
    'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'
    Was it not so?
  SERVANT. These were his very words.
  EXTON. 'Have I no friend?' quoth he. He spake it twice
    And urg'd it twice together, did he not?
  SERVANT. He did.
  EXTON. And, speaking it, he wishtly look'd on me,
    As who should say 'I would thou wert the man
    That would divorce this terror from my heart';
    Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let's go.
    I am the King's friend, and will rid his foe.         Exeunt

SCENE 5. Pomfret Castle. The dungeon of the Castle

Enter KING RICHARD

  KING RICHARD. I have been studying how I may compare
    This prison where I live unto the world
    And, for because the world is populous
    And here is not a creature but myself,
    I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.
    My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,
    My soul the father; and these two beget
    A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
    And these same thoughts people this little world,
    In humours like the people of this world,
    For no thought is contented. The better sort,
    As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd
    With scruples, and do set the word itself
    Against the word,
    As thus: 'Come, little ones'; and then again,
    'It is as hard to come as for a camel
    To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'
    Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
    Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails
    May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
    Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;
    And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
    Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
    That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
    Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars
    Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,
    That many have and others must sit there;
    And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
    Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
    Of such as have before endur'd the like.
    Thus play I in one person many people,
    And none contented. Sometimes am I king;
    Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
    And so I am. Then crushing penury
    Persuades me I was better when a king;
    Then am I king'd again; and by and by
    Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
    And straight am nothing. But whate'er I be,
    Nor I, nor any man that but man is,
    With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd
    With being nothing.                    [The music plays]
    Music do I hear?
    Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is
    When time is broke and no proportion kept!
    So is it in the music of men's lives.
    And here have I the daintiness of ear
    To check time broke in a disorder'd string;
    But, for the concord of my state and time,
    Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
    I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
    For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:
    My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
    Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
    Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
    Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
    Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
    Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,
    Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans,
    Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time
    Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
    While I stand fooling here, his Jack of the clock.
    This music mads me. Let it sound no more;
    For though it have holp madmen to their wits,
    In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
    Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!
    For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
    Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.

              Enter a GROOM of the stable

  GROOM. Hail, royal Prince!
  KING RICHARD. Thanks, noble peer!
    The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
    What art thou? and how comest thou hither,
    Where no man never comes but that sad dog
    That brings me food to make misfortune live?
  GROOM. I was a poor groom of thy stable, King,
    When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,
    With much ado at length have gotten leave
    To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.
    O, how it ern'd my heart, when I beheld,
    In London streets, that coronation-day,
    When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary-
    That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
    That horse that I so carefully have dress'd!
  KING RICHARD. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
    How went he under him?
  GROOM. So proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.
  KING RICHARD. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
    That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
    This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
    Would he not stumble? would he not fall down,
    Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck
    Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
    Forgiveness, horse! Why do I rail on thee,
    Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,
    Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;
    And yet I bear a burden like an ass,
    Spurr'd, gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.

              Enter KEEPER with meat

  KEEPER. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.
  KING RICHARD. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.
  GROOM. my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.
 Exit
  KEEPER. My lord, will't please you to fall to?
  KING RICHARD. Taste of it first as thou art wont to do.
  KEEPER. My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton,
    Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.
  KING RICHARD. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!
    Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
                                           [Beats the KEEPER]
  KEEPER. Help, help, help!
    The murderers, EXTON and servants, rush in, armed
  KING RICHARD. How now! What means death in this rude assault?
    Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.
                         [Snatching a weapon and killing one]
    Go thou and fill another room in hell.
              [He kills another, then EXTON strikes him down]
    That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire
    That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
    Hath with the King's blood stain'd the King's own land.
    Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;
    Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.
                                                       [Dies]
  EXTON. As full of valour as of royal blood.
    Both have I spill'd. O, would the deed were good!
    For now the devil, that told me I did well,
    Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
    This dead King to the living King I'll bear.
    Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.       Exeunt

SCENE 6. Windsor Castle

Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, the DUKE OF YORK, With other LORDS and
attendants

  BOLINGBROKE. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear
    Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire
    Our town of Ciceter in Gloucestershire;
    But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.

              Enter NORTHUMBERLAND

    Welcome, my lord. What is the news?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.
    The next news is, I have to London sent
    The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent.
    The manner of their taking may appear
    At large discoursed in this paper here.
  BOLINGBROKE. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;
    And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.

                  Enter FITZWATER

  FITZWATER. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London
    The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely;
    Two of the dangerous consorted traitors
    That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.
  BOLINGBROKE. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;
    Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.

         Enter PERCY, With the BISHOP OF CARLISLE

  PERCY. The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,
    With clog of conscience and sour melancholy,
    Hath yielded up his body to the grave;
    But here is Carlisle living, to abide
    Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.
  BOLINGBROKE. Carlisle, this is your doom:
    Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,
    More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;
    So as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife;
    For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
    High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.

      Enter EXTON, with attendants, hearing a coffin

  EXTON. Great King, within this coffin I present
    Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies
    The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
    Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.
  BOLINGBROKE. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought
    A deed of slander with thy fatal hand
    Upon my head and all this famous land.
  EXTON. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.
  BOLINGBROKE. They love not poison that do poison need,
    Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead,
    I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
    The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
    But neither my good word nor princely favour;
    With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,
    And never show thy head by day nor light.
    Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe
    That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.
    Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,
    And put on sullen black incontinent.
    I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,
    To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.
    March sadly after; grace my mournings here
    In weeping after this untimely bier.                  Exeunt

THE END

1593



KING RICHARD THE THIRD

Dramatis Personae

  EDWARD THE FOURTH

    Sons to the King
  EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES afterwards KING EDWARD V
  RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK,

    Brothers to the King
  GEORGE, DUKE OF CLARENCE,
  RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, afterwards KING RICHARD III

  A YOUNG SON OF CLARENCE (Edward, Earl of Warwick)
  HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, afterwards KING HENRY VII
  CARDINAL BOURCHIER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
  THOMAS ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
  JOHN MORTON, BISHOP OF ELY
  DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
  DUKE OF NORFOLK
  EARL OF SURREY, his son
  EARL RIVERS, brother to King Edward's Queen
  MARQUIS OF DORSET and LORD GREY, her sons
  EARL OF OXFORD
  LORD HASTINGS
  LORD LOVEL
  LORD STANLEY, called also EARL OF DERBY
  SIR THOMAS VAUGHAN
  SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF
  SIR WILLIAM CATESBY
  SIR JAMES TYRREL
  SIR JAMES BLOUNT
  SIR WALTER HERBERT
  SIR WILLIAM BRANDON
  SIR ROBERT BRAKENBURY, Lieutenant of the Tower
  CHRISTOPHER URSWICK, a priest
  LORD MAYOR OF LONDON
  SHERIFF OF WILTSHIRE
  HASTINGS, a pursuivant
  TRESSEL and BERKELEY, gentlemen attending on Lady Anne
  ELIZABETH, Queen to King Edward IV
  MARGARET, widow of King Henry VI
  DUCHESS OF YORK, mother to King Edward IV
  LADY ANNE, widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, son to King
    Henry VI; afterwards married to the Duke of Gloucester
  A YOUNG DAUGHTER OF CLARENCE (Margaret Plantagenet,
    Countess of Salisbury)
  Ghosts, of Richard's victims
  Lords, Gentlemen, and Attendants; Priest, Scrivener, Page, Bishops,
    Aldermen, Citizens, Soldiers, Messengers, Murderers, Keeper

SCENE: England

King Richard the Third

ACT I. SCENE 1.

London. A street

Enter RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, solus

  GLOUCESTER. Now is the winter of our discontent
    Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
    And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
    In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
    Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
    Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
    Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
    Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
    Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front,
    And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
    To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
    He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
    To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
    But I-that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
    Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass-
    I-that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
    To strut before a wanton ambling nymph-
    I-that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
    Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
    Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
    Into this breathing world scarce half made up,
    And that so lamely and unfashionable
    That dogs bark at me as I halt by them-
    Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
    Have no delight to pass away the time,
    Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
    And descant on mine own deformity.
    And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
    To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
    I am determined to prove a villain
    And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
    Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
    By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
    To set my brother Clarence and the King
    In deadly hate the one against the other;
    And if King Edward be as true and just
    As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
    This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up-
    About a prophecy which says that G
    Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
    Dive, thoughts, down to my soul. Here Clarence comes.

             Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY

    Brother, good day. What means this armed guard
    That waits upon your Grace?
  CLARENCE. His Majesty,
    Tend'ring my person's safety, hath appointed
    This conduct to convey me to th' Tower.
  GLOUCESTER. Upon what cause?
  CLARENCE. Because my name is George.
  GLOUCESTER. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours:
    He should, for that, commit your godfathers.
    O, belike his Majesty hath some intent
    That you should be new-christ'ned in the Tower.
    But what's the matter, Clarence? May I know?
  CLARENCE. Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest
    As yet I do not; but, as I can learn,
    He hearkens after prophecies and dreams,
    And from the cross-row plucks the letter G,
    And says a wizard told him that by G
    His issue disinherited should be;
    And, for my name of George begins with G,
    It follows in his thought that I am he.
    These, as I learn, and such like toys as these
    Hath mov'd his Highness to commit me now.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, this it is when men are rul'd by women:
    'Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower;
    My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she
    That tempers him to this extremity.
    Was it not she and that good man of worship,
    Antony Woodville, her brother there,
    That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,
    From whence this present day he is delivered?
    We are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.
  CLARENCE. By heaven, I think there is no man is secure
    But the Queen's kindred, and night-walking heralds
    That trudge betwixt the King and Mistress Shore.
    Heard you not what an humble suppliant
    Lord Hastings was, for her delivery?
  GLOUCESTER. Humbly complaining to her deity
    Got my Lord Chamberlain his liberty.
    I'll tell you what-I think it is our way,
    If we will keep in favour with the King,
    To be her men and wear her livery:
    The jealous o'er-worn widow, and herself,
    Since that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen,
    Are mighty gossips in our monarchy.
  BRAKENBURY. I beseech your Graces both to pardon me:
    His Majesty hath straitly given in charge
    That no man shall have private conference,
    Of what degree soever, with your brother.
  GLOUCESTER. Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,
    You may partake of any thing we say:
    We speak no treason, man; we say the King
    Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen
    Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous;
    We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,
    A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;
    And that the Queen's kindred are made gentlefolks.
    How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?
  BRAKENBURY. With this, my lord, myself have naught to do.
  GLOUCESTER. Naught to do with Mistress Shore! I tell thee,
    fellow,
    He that doth naught with her, excepting one,
    Were best to do it secretly alone.
  BRAKENBURY. What one, my lord?
  GLOUCESTER. Her husband, knave! Wouldst thou betray me?
  BRAKENBURY. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me, and
    withal
    Forbear your conference with the noble Duke.
  CLARENCE. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will
    obey.
  GLOUCESTER. We are the Queen's abjects and must obey.
    Brother, farewell; I will unto the King;
    And whatsoe'er you will employ me in-
    Were it to call King Edward's widow sister-
    I will perform it to enfranchise you.
    Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood
    Touches me deeper than you can imagine.
  CLARENCE. I know it pleaseth neither of us well.
  GLOUCESTER. Well, your imprisonment shall not be long;
    I will deliver or else lie for you.
    Meantime, have patience.
  CLARENCE. I must perforce. Farewell.
                          Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and guard
  GLOUCESTER. Go tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.
    Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so
    That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,
    If heaven will take the present at our hands.
    But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?

                       Enter LORD HASTINGS

  HASTINGS. Good time of day unto my gracious lord!
  GLOUCESTER. As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain!
    Well are you welcome to the open air.
    How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?
  HASTINGS. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must;
    But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks
    That were the cause of my imprisonment.
  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;
    For they that were your enemies are his,
    And have prevail'd as much on him as you.
  HASTINGS. More pity that the eagles should be mew'd
    Whiles kites and buzzards prey at liberty.
  GLOUCESTER. What news abroad?
  HASTINGS. No news so bad abroad as this at home:
    The King is sickly, weak, and melancholy,
    And his physicians fear him mightily.
  GLOUCESTER. Now, by Saint John, that news is bad indeed.
    O, he hath kept an evil diet long
    And overmuch consum'd his royal person!
    'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.
    Where is he? In his bed?
  HASTINGS. He is.
  GLOUCESTER. Go you before, and I will follow you.
                                                   Exit HASTINGS
    He cannot live, I hope, and must not die
    Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven.
    I'll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence
    With lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;
    And, if I fail not in my deep intent,
    Clarence hath not another day to live;
    Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy,
    And leave the world for me to bustle in!
    For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.
    What though I kill'd her husband and her father?
    The readiest way to make the wench amends
    Is to become her husband and her father;
    The which will I-not all so much for love
    As for another secret close intent
    By marrying her which I must reach unto.
    But yet I run before my horse to market.
    Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns;
    When they are gone, then must I count my gains.         Exit

SCENE 2.

London. Another street

Enter corpse of KING HENRY THE SIXTH, with halberds to guard it;
LADY ANNE being the mourner, attended by TRESSEL and BERKELEY

  ANNE. Set down, set down your honourable load-
    If honour may be shrouded in a hearse;
    Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament
    Th' untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
    Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!
    Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!
    Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!
    Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost
    To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
    Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,
    Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these wounds.
    Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life
    I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.
    O, cursed be the hand that made these holes!
    Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it!
    Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!
    More direful hap betide that hated wretch
    That makes us wretched by the death of thee
    Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,
    Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!
    If ever he have child, abortive be it,
    Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
    Whose ugly and unnatural aspect
    May fright the hopeful mother at the view,
    And that be heir to his unhappiness!
    If ever he have wife, let her be made
    More miserable by the death of him
    Than I am made by my young lord and thee!
    Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,
    Taken from Paul's to be interred there;
    And still as you are weary of this weight
    Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.
                                [The bearers take up the coffin]

                      Enter GLOUCESTER

  GLOUCESTER. Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.
  ANNE. What black magician conjures up this fiend
    To stop devoted charitable deeds?
  GLOUCESTER. Villains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,
    I'll make a corse of him that disobeys!
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My lord, stand back, and let the coffin
    pass.
  GLOUCESTER. Unmannerd dog! Stand thou, when I command.
    Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,
    Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot
    And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
                               [The bearers set down the coffin]
  ANNE. What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?
    Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,
    And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.
    Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!
    Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,
    His soul thou canst not have; therefore, be gone.
  GLOUCESTER. Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.
  ANNE. Foul devil, for God's sake, hence and trouble us not;
    For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell
    Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.
    If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
    Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.
    O, gentlemen, see, see! Dead Henry's wounds
    Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh.
    Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,
    For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood
    From cold and empty veins where no blood dwells;
    Thy deeds inhuman and unnatural
    Provokes this deluge most unnatural.
    O God, which this blood mad'st, revenge his death!
    O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his death!
    Either, heav'n, with lightning strike the murd'rer dead;
    Or, earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,
    As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood,
    Which his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered.
  GLOUCESTER. Lady, you know no rules of charity,
    Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
  ANNE. Villain, thou knowest nor law of God nor man:
    No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
  GLOUCESTER. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
  ANNE. O wonderful, when devils tell the truth!
  GLOUCESTER. More wonderful when angels are so angry.
    Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
    Of these supposed crimes to give me leave
    By circumstance but to acquit myself.
  ANNE. Vouchsafe, diffus'd infection of a man,
    Of these known evils but to give me leave
    By circumstance to accuse thy cursed self.
  GLOUCESTER. Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have
    Some patient leisure to excuse myself.
  ANNE. Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make
    No excuse current but to hang thyself.
  GLOUCESTER. By such despair I should accuse myself.
  ANNE. And by despairing shalt thou stand excused
    For doing worthy vengeance on thyself
    That didst unworthy slaughter upon others.
  GLOUCESTER. Say that I slew them not?
  ANNE. Then say they were not slain.
    But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.
  GLOUCESTER. I did not kill your husband.
  ANNE. Why, then he is alive.
  GLOUCESTER. Nay, he is dead, and slain by Edward's hands.
  ANNE. In thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw
    Thy murd'rous falchion smoking in his blood;
    The which thou once didst bend against her breast,
    But that thy brothers beat aside the point.
  GLOUCESTER. I was provoked by her sland'rous tongue
    That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.
  ANNE. Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind,
    That never dream'st on aught but butcheries.
    Didst thou not kill this king?
  GLOUCESTER. I grant ye.
  ANNE. Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then, God grant me to
    Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!
    O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!
  GLOUCESTER. The better for the King of Heaven, that hath
    him.
  ANNE. He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.
  GLOUCESTER. Let him thank me that holp to send him
    thither,
    For he was fitter for that place than earth.
  ANNE. And thou unfit for any place but hell.
  GLOUCESTER. Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.
  ANNE. Some dungeon.
  GLOUCESTER. Your bed-chamber.
  ANNE. Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!
  GLOUCESTER. So will it, madam, till I lie with you.
  ANNE. I hope so.
  GLOUCESTER. I know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,
    To leave this keen encounter of our wits,
    And fall something into a slower method-
    Is not the causer of the timeless deaths
    Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,
    As blameful as the executioner?
  ANNE. Thou wast the cause and most accurs'd effect.
  GLOUCESTER. Your beauty was the cause of that effect-
    Your beauty that did haunt me in my sleep
    To undertake the death of all the world
    So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.
  ANNE. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,
    These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.
  GLOUCESTER. These eyes could not endure that beauty's
    wreck;
    You should not blemish it if I stood by.
    As all the world is cheered by the sun,
    So I by that; it is my day, my life.
  ANNE. Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!
  GLOUCESTER. Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.
  ANNE. I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee.
  GLOUCESTER. It is a quarrel most unnatural,
    To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.
  ANNE. It is a quarrel just and reasonable,
    To be reveng'd on him that kill'd my husband.
  GLOUCESTER. He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband
    Did it to help thee to a better husband.
  ANNE. His better doth not breathe upon the earth.
  GLOUCESTER. He lives that loves thee better than he could.
  ANNE. Name him.
  GLOUCESTER. Plantagenet.
  ANNE. Why, that was he.
  GLOUCESTER. The self-same name, but one of better nature.
  ANNE. Where is he?
  GLOUCESTER. Here.  [She spits at him]  Why dost thou spit
    at me?
  ANNE. Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!
  GLOUCESTER. Never came poison from so sweet a place.
  ANNE. Never hung poison on a fouler toad.
    Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.
  GLOUCESTER. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.
  ANNE. Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead!
  GLOUCESTER. I would they were, that I might die at once;
    For now they kill me with a living death.
    Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,
    Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops-
    These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,
    No, when my father York and Edward wept
    To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made
    When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him;
    Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,
    Told the sad story of my father's death,
    And twenty times made pause to sob and weep
    That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks
    Like trees bedash'd with rain-in that sad time
    My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;
    And what these sorrows could not thence exhale
    Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.
    I never sued to friend nor enemy;
    My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;
    But, now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,
    My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.
                                   [She looks scornfully at him]
    Teach not thy lip such scorn; for it was made
    For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
    If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,
    Lo here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;
    Which if thou please to hide in this true breast
    And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
    I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,
    And humbly beg the death upon my knee.
      [He lays his breast open; she offers at it with his sword]
    Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry-
    But 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.
    Nay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward-
    But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.
                                           [She falls the sword]
    Take up the sword again, or take up me.
  ANNE. Arise, dissembler; though I wish thy death,
    I will not be thy executioner.
  GLOUCESTER. Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it;
  ANNE. I have already.
  GLOUCESTER. That was in thy rage.
    Speak it again, and even with the word
    This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,
    Shall for thy love kill a far truer love;
    To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary.
  ANNE. I would I knew thy heart.
  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis figur'd in my tongue.
  ANNE. I fear me both are false.
  GLOUCESTER. Then never was man true.
  ANNE. well put up your sword.
  GLOUCESTER. Say, then, my peace is made.
  ANNE. That shalt thou know hereafter.
  GLOUCESTER. But shall I live in hope?
  ANNE. All men, I hope, live so.
  GLOUCESTER. Vouchsafe to wear this ring.
  ANNE. To take is not to give.               [Puts on the ring]
  GLOUCESTER. Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger,
    Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;
    Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.
    And if thy poor devoted servant may
    But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,
    Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.
  ANNE. What is it?
  GLOUCESTER. That it may please you leave these sad designs
    To him that hath most cause to be a mourner,
    And presently repair to Crosby House;
    Where-after I have solemnly interr'd
    At Chertsey monast'ry this noble king,
    And wet his grave with my repentant tears-
    I will with all expedient duty see you.
    For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you,
    Grant me this boon.
  ANNE. With all my heart; and much it joys me too
    To see you are become so penitent.
    Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.
  GLOUCESTER. Bid me farewell.
  ANNE. 'Tis more than you deserve;
    But since you teach me how to flatter you,
    Imagine I have said farewell already.
                             Exeunt two GENTLEMEN With LADY ANNE
  GLOUCESTER. Sirs, take up the corse.
  GENTLEMEN. Towards Chertsey, noble lord?
  GLOUCESTER. No, to White Friars; there attend my coming.
                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
    Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
    Was ever woman in this humour won?
    I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.
    What! I that kill'd her husband and his father-
    To take her in her heart's extremest hate,
    With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
    The bleeding witness of my hatred by;
    Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
    And I no friends to back my suit at all
    But the plain devil and dissembling looks,
    And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!
    Ha!
    Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
    Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
    Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
    A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman-
    Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,
    Young, valiant, wise, and no doubt right royal-
    The spacious world cannot again afford;
    And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
    That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince
    And made her widow to a woeful bed?
    On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
    On me, that halts and am misshapen thus?
    My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
    I do mistake my person all this while.
    Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
    Myself to be a marv'llous proper man.
    I'll be at charges for a looking-glass,
    And entertain a score or two of tailors
    To study fashions to adorn my body.
    Since I am crept in favour with myself,
    I will maintain it with some little cost.
    But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave,
    And then return lamenting to my love.
    Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
    That I may see my shadow as I pass.                     Exit

SCENE 3.

London. The palace

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, LORD RIVERS, and LORD GREY

  RIVERS. Have patience, madam; there's no doubt his Majesty
    Will soon recover his accustom'd health.
  GREY. In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse;
    Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,
    And cheer his Grace with quick and merry eyes.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. If he were dead, what would betide on
    me?
  GREY. No other harm but loss of such a lord.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The loss of such a lord includes all
    harms.
  GREY. The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son
    To be your comforter when he is gone.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, he is young; and his minority
    Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,
    A man that loves not me, nor none of you.
  RIVER. Is it concluded he shall be Protector?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. It is determin'd, not concluded yet;
    But so it must be, if the King miscarry.

                     Enter BUCKINGHAM and DERBY

  GREY. Here come the Lords of Buckingham and Derby.
  BUCKINGHAM. Good time of day unto your royal Grace!
  DERBY. God make your Majesty joyful as you have been.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Countess Richmond, good my Lord
    of Derby,
    To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.
    Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife
    And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur'd
    I hate not you for her proud arrogance.
  DERBY. I do beseech you, either not believe
    The envious slanders of her false accusers;
    Or, if she be accus'd on true report,
    Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds
    From wayward sickness and no grounded malice.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Saw you the King to-day, my Lord of
    Derby?
  DERBY. But now the Duke of Buckingham and I
    Are come from visiting his Majesty.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What likelihood of his amendment,
    Lords?
  BUCKINGHAM. Madam, good hope; his Grace speaks
    cheerfully.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God grant him health! Did you confer
    with him?
  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, madam; he desires to make atonement
    Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,
    And between them and my Lord Chamberlain;
    And sent to warn them to his royal presence.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Would all were well! But that will
    never be.
    I fear our happiness is at the height.

              Enter GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET

  GLOUCESTER. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.
    Who is it that complains unto the King
    That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not?
    By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly
    That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
    Because I cannot flatter and look fair,
    Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
    Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
    I must be held a rancorous enemy.
    Cannot a plain man live and think no harm
    But thus his simple truth must be abus'd
    With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?
  GREY. To who in all this presence speaks your Grace?
  GLOUCESTER. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.
    When have I injur'd thee? when done thee wrong,
    Or thee, or thee, or any of your faction?
    A plague upon you all! His royal Grace-
    Whom God preserve better than you would wish!-
    Cannot be quiet searce a breathing while
    But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the
    matter.
    The King, on his own royal disposition
    And not provok'd by any suitor else-
    Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred
    That in your outward action shows itself
    Against my children, brothers, and myself-
    Makes him to send that he may learn the ground.
  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell; the world is grown so bad
    That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.
    Since every Jack became a gentleman,
    There's many a gentle person made a Jack.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, we know your meaning,
    brother Gloucester:
    You envy my advancement and my friends';
    God grant we never may have need of you!
  GLOUCESTER. Meantime, God grants that I have need of you.
    Our brother is imprison'd by your means,
    Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility
    Held in contempt; while great promotions
    Are daily given to ennoble those
    That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By Him that rais'd me to this careful
    height
    From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,
    I never did incense his Majesty
    Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been
    An earnest advocate to plead for him.
    My lord, you do me shameful injury
    Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.
  GLOUCESTER. You may deny that you were not the mean
    Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.
  RIVERS. She may, my lord; for-
  GLOUCESTER. She may, Lord Rivers? Why, who knows
    not so?
    She may do more, sir, than denying that:
    She may help you to many fair preferments
    And then deny her aiding hand therein,
    And lay those honours on your high desert.
    What may she not? She may-ay, marry, may she-
  RIVERS. What, marry, may she?
  GLOUCESTER. What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,
    A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too.
    Iwis your grandam had a worser match.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long
    borne
    Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.
    By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty
    Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur'd.
    I had rather be a country servant-maid
    Than a great queen with this condition-
    To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at.

                Enter old QUEEN MARGARET, behind

    Small joy have I in being England's Queen.
  QUEEN MARGARET. And less'ned be that small, God, I
    beseech Him!
    Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.
  GLOUCESTER. What! Threat you me with telling of the
    King?
    Tell him and spare not. Look what I have said
    I will avouch't in presence of the King.
    I dare adventure to be sent to th' Tow'r.
    'Tis time to speak-my pains are quite forgot.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Out, devil! I do remember them to
    well:
    Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,
    And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.
  GLOUCESTER. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband
    King,
    I was a pack-horse in his great affairs,
    A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
    A liberal rewarder of his friends;
    To royalize his blood I spent mine own.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, and much better blood than his or
    thine.
  GLOUCESTER. In all which time you and your husband Grey
    Were factious for the house of Lancaster;
    And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband
    In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain?
    Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
    What you have been ere this, and what you are;
    Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
  QUEEN MARGARET. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art.
  GLOUCESTER. Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick,
    Ay, and forswore himself-which Jesu pardon!-
  QUEEN MARGARET. Which God revenge!
  GLOUCESTER. To fight on Edward's party for the crown;
    And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.
    I would to God my heart were flint like Edward's,
    Or Edward's soft and pitiful like mine.
    I am too childish-foolish for this world.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Hie thee to hell for shame and leave this
    world,
    Thou cacodemon; there thy kingdom is.
  RIVERS. My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days
    Which here you urge to prove us enemies,
    We follow'd then our lord, our sovereign king.
    So should we you, if you should be our king.
  GLOUCESTER. If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar.
    Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
    You should enjoy were you this country's king,
    As little joy you may suppose in me
    That I enjoy, being the Queen thereof.
  QUEEN MARGARET. As little joy enjoys the Queen thereof;
    For I am she, and altogether joyless.
    I can no longer hold me patient.                 [Advancing]
    Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
    In sharing that which you have pill'd from me.
    Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
    If not that, I am Queen, you bow like subjects,
    Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels?
    Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!
  GLOUCESTER. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my
    sight?
  QUEEN MARGARET. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd,
    That will I make before I let thee go.
  GLOUCESTER. Wert thou not banished on pain of death?
  QUEEN MARGARET. I was; but I do find more pain in
    banishment
    Than death can yield me here by my abode.
    A husband and a son thou ow'st to me;
    And thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance.
    This sorrow that I have by right is yours;
    And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.
  GLOUCESTER. The curse my noble father laid on thee,
    When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper
    And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,
    And then to dry them gav'st the Duke a clout
    Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland-
    His curses then from bitterness of soul
    Denounc'd against thee are all fall'n upon thee;
    And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. So just is God to right the innocent.
  HASTINGS. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
    And the most merciless that e'er was heard of!
  RIVERS. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
  DORSET. No man but prophesied revenge for it.
  BUCKINGHAM. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.
  QUEEN MARGARET. What, were you snarling all before I came,
    Ready to catch each other by the throat,
    And turn you all your hatred now on me?
    Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven
    That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,
    Their kingdom's loss, my woeful banishment,
    Should all but answer for that peevish brat?
    Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?
    Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!
    Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,
    As ours by murder, to make him a king!
    Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,
    For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,
    Die in his youth by like untimely violence!
    Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
    Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!
    Long mayest thou live to wail thy children's death,
    And see another, as I see thee now,
    Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!
    Long die thy happy days before thy death;
    And, after many length'ned hours of grief,
    Die neither mother, wife, nor England's Queen!
    Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by,
    And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son
    Was stabb'd with bloody daggers. God, I pray him,
    That none of you may live his natural age,
    But by some unlook'd accident cut off!
  GLOUCESTER. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd
    hag.
  QUEEN MARGARET. And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou
    shalt hear me.
    If heaven have any grievous plague in store
    Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
    O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
    And then hurl down their indignation
    On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!
    The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul!
    Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,
    And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
    No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
    Unless it be while some tormenting dream
    Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
    Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog,
    Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity
    The slave of nature and the son of hell,
    Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb,
    Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins,
    Thou rag of honour, thou detested-
  GLOUCESTER. Margaret!
  QUEEN MARGARET. Richard!
  GLOUCESTER. Ha?
  QUEEN MARGARET. I call thee not.
  GLOUCESTER. I cry thee mercy then, for I did think
    That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, so I did, but look'd for no reply.
    O, let me make the period to my curse!
  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis done by me, and ends in-Margaret.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thus have you breath'd your curse
    against yourself.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my
    fortune!
    Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider
    Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?
    Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.
    The day will come that thou shalt wish for me
    To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-back'd toad.
  HASTINGS. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
    Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Foul shame upon you! you have all
    mov'd mine.
  RIVERS. Were you well serv'd, you would be taught your
      duty.
  QUEEN MARGARET. To serve me well you all should do me
    duty,
    Teach me to be your queen and you my subjects.
    O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!
  DORSET. Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, Master Marquis, you are malapert;
    Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
    O, that your young nobility could judge
    What 'twere to lose it and be miserable!
    They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,
    And if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.
  GLOUCESTER. Good counsel, marry; learn it, learn it, Marquis.
  DORSET. It touches you, my lord, as much as me.
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, and much more; but I was born so high,
    Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,
    And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.
  QUEEN MARGARET. And turns the sun to shade-alas! alas!
    Witness my son, now in the shade of death,
    Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
    Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
    Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest.
    O God that seest it, do not suffer it;
    As it is won with blood, lost be it so!
  BUCKINGHAM. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity!
  QUEEN MARGARET. Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
    Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
    And shamefully my hopes by you are butcher'd.
    My charity is outrage, life my shame;
    And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage!
  BUCKINGHAM. Have done, have done.
  QUEEN MARGARET. O princely Buckingham, I'll kiss thy
    hand
    In sign of league and amity with thee.
    Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!
    Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
    Nor thou within the compass of my curse.
  BUCKINGHAM. Nor no one here; for curses never pass
    The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
  QUEEN MARGARET. I will not think but they ascend the sky
    And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.
    O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!
    Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
    His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
    Have not to do with him, beware of him;
    Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him,
    And all their ministers attend on him.
  GLOUCESTER. What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?
  BUCKINGHAM. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
  QUEEN MARGARET. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle
    counsel,
    And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
    O, but remember this another day,
    When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,
    And say poor Margaret was a prophetess!
    Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
    And he to yours, and all of you to God's!               Exit
  BUCKINGHAM. My hair doth stand an end to hear her curses.
  RIVERS. And so doth mine. I muse why she's at liberty.
  GLOUCESTER. I cannot blame her; by God's holy Mother,
    She hath had too much wrong; and I repent
    My part thereof that I have done to her.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I never did her any to my knowledge.
  GLOUCESTER. Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.
    I was too hot to do somebody good
    That is too cold in thinking of it now.
    Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;
    He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains;
    God pardon them that are the cause thereof!
  RIVERS. A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
    To pray for them that have done scathe to us!
  GLOUCESTER. So do I ever-  [Aside]  being well advis'd;
    For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself.

                         Enter CATESBY

  CATESBY. Madam, his Majesty doth can for you,
    And for your Grace, and you, my gracious lords.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go
    with me?
  RIVERS. We wait upon your Grace.
                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
  GLOUCESTER. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
    The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
    I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
    Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,
    I do beweep to many simple gulls;
    Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham;
    And tell them 'tis the Queen and her allies
    That stir the King against the Duke my brother.
    Now they believe it, and withal whet me
    To be reveng'd on Rivers, Dorset, Grey;
    But then I sigh and, with a piece of Scripture,
    Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.
    And thus I clothe my naked villainy
    With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ,
    And seem a saint when most I play the devil.

                       Enter two MURDERERS

    But, soft, here come my executioners.
    How now, my hardy stout resolved mates!
    Are you now going to dispatch this thing?
  FIRST MURDERER. We are, my lord, and come to have the
    warrant,
    That we may be admitted where he is.
  GLOUCESTER. Well thought upon; I have it here about me.
                                             [Gives the warrant]
    When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.
    But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
    Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;
    For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps
    May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.
  FIRST MURDERER. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to
    prate;
    Talkers are no good doers. Be assur'd
    We go to use our hands and not our tongues.
  GLOUCESTER. Your eyes drop millstones when fools' eyes fall
    tears.
    I like you, lads; about your business straight;
    Go, go, dispatch.
  FIRST MURDERER. We will, my noble lord.                 Exeunt

SCENE 4.

London. The Tower

Enter CLARENCE and KEEPER

  KEEPER. Why looks your Grace so heavily to-day?
  CLARENCE. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,
    So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
    That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
    I would not spend another such a night
    Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days-
    So full of dismal terror was the time!
  KEEPER. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you
    tell me.
  CLARENCE. Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower
    And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;
    And in my company my brother Gloucester,
    Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
    Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd toward England,
    And cited up a thousand heavy times,
    During the wars of York and Lancaster,
    That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along
    Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
    Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling
    Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard
    Into the tumbling billows of the main.
    O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown,
    What dreadful noise of waters in my ears,
    What sights of ugly death within my eyes!
    Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,
    A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon,
    Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
    Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
    All scatt'red in the bottom of the sea;
    Some lay in dead men's skulls, and in the holes
    Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,
    As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
    That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep
    And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatt'red by.
  KEEPER. Had you such leisure in the time of death
    To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?
  CLARENCE. Methought I had; and often did I strive
    To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood
    Stopp'd in my soul and would not let it forth
    To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;
    But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
    Who almost burst to belch it in the sea.
  KEEPER. Awak'd you not in this sore agony?
  CLARENCE. No, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life.
    O, then began the tempest to my soul!
    I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood
    With that sour ferryman which poets write of,
    Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
    The first that there did greet my stranger soul
    Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,
    Who spake aloud 'What scourge for perjury
    Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'
    And so he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by
    A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
    Dabbled in blood, and he shriek'd out aloud
    'Clarence is come-false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence,
    That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury.
    Seize on him, Furies, take him unto torment!'
    With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends
    Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears
    Such hideous cries that, with the very noise,
    I trembling wak'd, and for a season after
    Could not believe but that I was in hell,
    Such terrible impression made my dream.
  KEEPER. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you;
    I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.
  CLARENCE. Ah, Keeper, Keeper, I have done these things
    That now give evidence against my soul
    For Edward's sake, and see how he requites me!
    O God! If my deep prayers cannot appease Thee,
    But Thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,
    Yet execute Thy wrath in me alone;
    O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!
  KEEPER, I prithee sit by me awhile;
    My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.
  KEEPER. I will, my lord. God give your Grace good rest.
                                               [CLARENCE sleeps]

                  Enter BRAKENBURY the Lieutenant

  BRAKENBURY. Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,
    Makes the night morning and the noontide night.
    Princes have but their titles for their glories,
    An outward honour for an inward toil;
    And for unfelt imaginations
    They often feel a world of restless cares,
    So that between their tides and low name
    There's nothing differs but the outward fame.

                      Enter the two MURDERERS

  FIRST MURDERER. Ho! who's here?
  BRAKENBURY. What wouldst thou, fellow, and how cam'st
    thou hither?
  FIRST MURDERER. I would speak with Clarence, and I came
    hither on my legs.
  BRAKENBURY. What, so brief?
  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis better, sir, than to be tedious. Let
    him see our commission and talk no more.
                                           [BRAKENBURY reads it]
  BRAKENBURY. I am, in this, commanded to deliver
    The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands.
    I will not reason what is meant hereby,
    Because I will be guiltless from the meaning.
    There lies the Duke asleep; and there the keys.
    I'll to the King and signify to him
    That thus I have resign'd to you my charge.
  FIRST MURDERER. You may, sir; 'tis a point of wisdom. Fare
    you well.                       Exeunt BRAKENBURY and KEEPER
  SECOND MURDERER. What, shall I stab him as he sleeps?
  FIRST MURDERER. No; he'll say 'twas done cowardly, when
    he wakes.
  SECOND MURDERER. Why, he shall never wake until the great
    judgment-day.
  FIRST MURDERER. Why, then he'll say we stabb'd him
    sleeping.
  SECOND MURDERER. The urging of that word judgment hath
    bred a kind of remorse in me.
  FIRST MURDERER. What, art thou afraid?
  SECOND MURDERER. Not to kill him, having a warrant; but to
    be damn'd for killing him, from the which no warrant can
    defend me.
  FIRST MURDERER. I thought thou hadst been resolute.
  SECOND MURDERER. So I am, to let him live.
  FIRST MURDERER. I'll back to the Duke of Gloucester and
    tell him so.
  SECOND MURDERER. Nay, I prithee, stay a little. I hope this
    passionate humour of mine will change; it was wont to
    hold me but while one tells twenty.
  FIRST MURDERER. How dost thou feel thyself now?
    SECOND MURDERER. Faith, some certain dregs of conscience
    are yet within me.
  FIRST MURDERER. Remember our reward, when the deed's
    done.
  SECOND MURDERER. Zounds, he dies; I had forgot the reward.
  FIRST MURDERER. Where's thy conscience now?
  SECOND MURDERER. O, in the Duke of Gloucester's purse!
  FIRST MURDERER. When he opens his purse to give us our
    reward, thy conscience flies out.
  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis no matter; let it go; there's few or
    none will entertain it.
  FIRST MURDERER. What if it come to thee again?
  SECOND MURDERER. I'll not meddle with it-it makes a man
    coward: a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man
    cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his
    neighbour's wife, but it detects him. 'Tis a blushing shame-
    fac'd spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills a man
    full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold
    that-by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it.
    It is turn'd out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing;
    and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust
    to himself and live without it.
  FIRST MURDERER. Zounds, 'tis even now at my elbow,
    persuading me not to kill the Duke.
  SECOND MURDERER. Take the devil in thy mind and believe
    him not; he would insinuate with thee but to make the
    sigh.
  FIRST MURDERER. I am strong-fram'd; he cannot prevail with
    me.
  SECOND MURDERER. Spoke like a tall man that respects thy
    reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?
  FIRST MURDERER. Take him on the costard with the hilts of
    thy sword, and then chop him in the malmsey-butt in the
    next room.
  SECOND MURDERER. O excellent device! and make a sop of
    him.
  FIRST MURDERER. Soft! he wakes.
  SECOND MURDERER. Strike!
  FIRST MURDERER. No, we'll reason with him.
  CLARENCE. Where art thou, Keeper? Give me a cup of wine.
  SECOND MURDERER. You shall have wine enough, my lord,
    anon.
  CLARENCE. In God's name, what art thou?
  FIRST MURDERER. A man, as you are.
  CLARENCE. But not as I am, royal.
  SECOND MURDERER. Nor you as we are, loyal.
  CLARENCE. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.
  FIRST MURDERER. My voice is now the King's, my looks
    mine own.
  CLARENCE. How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!
    Your eyes do menace me. Why look you pale?
    Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?
  SECOND MURDERER. To, to, to-
  CLARENCE. To murder me?
  BOTH MURDERERS. Ay, ay.
  CLARENCE. You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,
    And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.
    Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?
  FIRST MURDERER. Offended us you have not, but the King.
  CLARENCE. I shall be reconcil'd to him again.
  SECOND MURDERER. Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.
  CLARENCE. Are you drawn forth among a world of men
    To slay the innocent? What is my offence?
    Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?
    What lawful quest have given their verdict up
    Unto the frowning judge, or who pronounc'd
    The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?
    Before I be convict by course of law,
    To threaten me with death is most unlawful.
    I charge you, as you hope to have redemption
    By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,
    That you depart and lay no hands on me.
    The deed you undertake is damnable.
  FIRST MURDERER. What we will do, we do upon command.
  SECOND MURDERER. And he that hath commanded is our
    King.
  CLARENCE. Erroneous vassals! the great King of kings
    Hath in the tables of his law commanded
    That thou shalt do no murder. Will you then
    Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man's?
    Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand
    To hurl upon their heads that break his law.
  SECOND MURDERER. And that same vengeance doth he hurl
    on thee
    For false forswearing, and for murder too;
    Thou didst receive the sacrament to fight
    In quarrel of the house of Lancaster.
  FIRST MURDERER. And like a traitor to the name of God
    Didst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade
    Unripp'dst the bowels of thy sov'reign's son.
  SECOND MURDERER. Whom thou wast sworn to cherish and
    defend.
  FIRST MURDERER. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law
    to us,
    When thou hast broke it in such dear degree?
  CLARENCE. Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?
    For Edward, for my brother, for his sake.
    He sends you not to murder me for this,
    For in that sin he is as deep as I.
    If God will be avenged for the deed,
    O, know you yet He doth it publicly.
    Take not the quarrel from His pow'rful arm;
    He needs no indirect or lawless course
    To cut off those that have offended Him.
  FIRST MURDERER. Who made thee then a bloody minister
    When gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,
    That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?
  CLARENCE. My brother's love, the devil, and my rage.
  FIRST MURDERER. Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy
    faults,
    Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.
  CLARENCE. If you do love my brother, hate not me;
    I am his brother, and I love him well.
    If you are hir'd for meed, go back again,
    And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,
    Who shall reward you better for my life
    Than Edward will for tidings of my death.
  SECOND MURDERER. You are deceiv'd: your brother Gloucester
    hates you.
  CLARENCE. O, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear.
    Go you to him from me.
  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, so we will.
  CLARENCE. Tell him when that our princely father York
    Bless'd his three sons with his victorious arm
    And charg'd us from his soul to love each other,
    He little thought of this divided friendship.
    Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.
  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, millstones; as he lesson'd us to weep.
  CLARENCE. O, do not slander him, for he is kind.
  FIRST MURDERER. Right, as snow in harvest. Come, you
    deceive yourself:
    'Tis he that sends us to destroy you here.
    CLARENCE. It cannot be; for he bewept my fortune
    And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore with sobs
    That he would labour my delivery.
  FIRST MURDERER. Why, so he doth, when he delivers you
    From this earth's thraldom to the joys of heaven.
  SECOND MURDERER. Make peace with God, for you must die,
    my lord.
  CLARENCE. Have you that holy feeling in your souls
    To counsel me to make my peace with God,
    And are you yet to your own souls so blind
    That you will war with God by murd'ring me?
    O, sirs, consider: they that set you on
    To do this deed will hate you for the deed.
  SECOND MURDERER. What shall we do?
  CLARENCE. Relent, and save your souls.
  FIRST MURDERER. Relent! No, 'tis cowardly and womanish.
  CLARENCE. Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.
    Which of you, if you were a prince's son,
    Being pent from liberty as I am now,
    If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,
    Would not entreat for life?
    My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks;
    O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
    Come thou on my side and entreat for me-
    As you would beg were you in my distress.
    A begging prince what beggar pities not?
  SECOND MURDERER. Look behind you, my lord.
  FIRST MURDERER.  [Stabbing him]  Take that, and that. If all
    this will not do,
    I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.
                                              Exit with the body
  SECOND MURDERER. A bloody deed, and desperately
    dispatch'd!
    How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
    Of this most grievous murder!

                       Re-enter FIRST MURDERER

  FIRST MURDERER-How now, what mean'st thou that thou
    help'st me not?
    By heavens, the Duke shall know how slack you have
    been!
  SECOND MURDERER. I would he knew that I had sav'd his
    brother!
    Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say;
    For I repent me that the Duke is slain.                 Exit
  FIRST MURDERER. So do not I. Go, coward as thou art.
    Well, I'll go hide the body in some hole,
    Till that the Duke give order for his burial;
    And when I have my meed, I will away;
    For this will out, and then I must not stay.            Exit

ACT II. SCENE 1.

London. The palace

Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD sick, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DORSET, RIVERS,
HASTINGS, BUCKINGHAM, GREY, and others

  KING EDWARD. Why, so. Now have I done a good day's
    work.
    You peers, continue this united league.
    I every day expect an embassage
    From my Redeemer to redeem me hence;
    And more at peace my soul shall part to heaven,
    Since I have made my friends at peace on earth.
    Hastings and Rivers, take each other's hand;
    Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love.
  RIVERS. By heaven, my soul is purg'd from grudging hate;
    And with my hand I seal my true heart's love.
  HASTINGS. So thrive I, as I truly swear the like!
  KING EDWARD. Take heed you dally not before your king;
    Lest He that is the supreme King of kings
    Confound your hidden falsehood and award
    Either of you to be the other's end.
  HASTINGS. So prosper I, as I swear perfect love!
  RIVERS. And I, as I love Hastings with my heart!
  KING EDWARD. Madam, yourself is not exempt from this;
    Nor you, son Dorset; Buckingham, nor you:
    You have been factious one against the other.
    Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;
    And what you do, do it unfeignedly.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There, Hastings; I will never more
    remember
    Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine!
  KING EDWARD. Dorset, embrace him; Hastings, love Lord
    Marquis.
  DORSET. This interchange of love, I here protest,
    Upon my part shall be inviolable.
  HASTINGS. And so swear I.                       [They embrace]
  KING EDWARD. Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this
    league
    With thy embracements to my wife's allies,
    And make me happy in your unity.
  BUCKINGHAM.  [To the QUEEN]  Whenever Buckingham
    doth turn his hate
    Upon your Grace, but with all duteous love
    Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me
    With hate in those where I expect most love!
    When I have most need to employ a friend
    And most assured that he is a friend,
    Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,
    Be he unto me! This do I beg of God
    When I am cold in love to you or yours.
                                                  [They embrace]
  KING EDWARD. A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,
    Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.
    There wanteth now our brother Gloucester here
    To make the blessed period of this peace.
  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time,
    Here comes Sir Richard Ratcliff and the Duke.

                      Enter GLOUCESTER, and RATCLIFF

  GLOUCESTER. Good morrow to my sovereign king and
    Queen;
    And, princely peers, a happy time of day!
  KING EDWARD. Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.
    Gloucester, we have done deeds of charity,
    Made peace of enmity, fair love of hate,
    Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.
  GLOUCESTER. A blessed labour, my most sovereign lord.
    Among this princely heap, if any here,
    By false intelligence or wrong surmise,
    Hold me a foe-
    If I unwittingly, or in my rage,
    Have aught committed that is hardly borne
    To any in this presence, I desire
    To reconcile me to his friendly peace:
    'Tis death to me to be at enmity;
    I hate it, and desire all good men's love.
    First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,
    Which I will purchase with my duteous service;
    Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,
    If ever any grudge were lodg'd between us;
    Of you, and you, Lord Rivers, and of Dorset,
    That all without desert have frown'd on me;
    Of you, Lord Woodville, and, Lord Scales, of you;
    Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen-indeed, of all.
    I do not know that Englishman alive
    With whom my soul is any jot at odds
    More than the infant that is born to-night.
    I thank my God for my humility.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A holy day shall this be kept hereafter.
    I would to God all strifes were well compounded.
    My sovereign lord, I do beseech your Highness
    To take our brother Clarence to your grace.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, madam, have I off'red love for this,
    To be so flouted in this royal presence?
    Who knows not that the gentle Duke is dead?
                                                [They all start]
    You do him injury to scorn his corse.
  KING EDWARD. Who knows not he is dead! Who knows
    he is?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. All-seeing heaven, what a world is this!
  BUCKINGHAM. Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?
  DORSET. Ay, my good lord; and no man in the presence
    But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.
  KING EDWARD. Is Clarence dead? The order was revers'd.
  GLOUCESTER. But he, poor man, by your first order died,
    And that a winged Mercury did bear;
    Some tardy cripple bare the countermand
    That came too lag to see him buried.
    God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,
    Nearer in bloody thoughts, an not in blood,
    Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,
    And yet go current from suspicion!

                           Enter DERBY

  DERBY. A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!
  KING EDWARD. I prithee, peace; my soul is full of sorrow.
  DERBY. I Will not rise unless your Highness hear me.
  KING EDWARD. Then say at once what is it thou requests.
  DERBY. The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;
    Who slew to-day a riotous gentleman
    Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.
  KING EDWARD. Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death,
    And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?
    My brother killed no man-his fault was thought,
    And yet his punishment was bitter death.
    Who sued to me for him? Who, in my wrath,
    Kneel'd at my feet, and bid me be advis'd?
    Who spoke of brotherhood? Who spoke of love?
    Who told me how the poor soul did forsake
    The mighty Warwick and did fight for me?
    Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury
    When Oxford had me down, he rescued me
    And said 'Dear Brother, live, and be a king'?
    Who told me, when we both lay in the field
    Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me
    Even in his garments, and did give himself,
    All thin and naked, to the numb cold night?
    All this from my remembrance brutish wrath
    Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you
    Had so much race to put it in my mind.
    But when your carters or your waiting-vassals
    Have done a drunken slaughter and defac'd
    The precious image of our dear Redeemer,
    You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;
    And I, unjustly too, must grant it you.        [DERBY rises]
    But for my brother not a man would speak;
    Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself
    For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all
    Have been beholding to him in his life;
    Yet none of you would once beg for his life.
    O God, I fear thy justice will take hold
    On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this!
    Come, Hastings, help me to my closet. Ah, poor Clarence!
                                 Exeunt some with KING and QUEEN
  GLOUCESTER. This is the fruits of rashness. Mark'd you not
    How that the guilty kindred of the Queen
    Look'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?
    O, they did urge it still unto the King!
    God will revenge it. Come, lords, will you go
    To comfort Edward with our company?
  BUCKINGHAM. We wait upon your Grace.                    Exeunt

SCENE 2.

London. The palace

Enter the old DUCHESS OF YORK, with the SON and DAUGHTER of CLARENCE

  SON. Good grandam, tell us, is our father dead?
  DUCHESS. No, boy.
  DAUGHTER. Why do you weep so oft, and beat your breast,
    And cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'?
  SON. Why do you look on us, and shake your head,
    And call us orphans, wretches, castaways,
    If that our noble father were alive?
  DUCHESS. My pretty cousins, you mistake me both;
    I do lament the sickness of the King,
    As loath to lose him, not your father's death;
    It were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.
  SON. Then you conclude, my grandam, he is dead.
    The King mine uncle is to blame for it.
    God will revenge it; whom I will importune
    With earnest prayers all to that effect.
  DAUGHTER. And so will I.
  DUCHESS. Peace, children, peace! The King doth love you
    well.
    Incapable and shallow innocents,
    You cannot guess who caus'd your father's death.
  SON. Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester
    Told me the King, provok'd to it by the Queen,
    Devis'd impeachments to imprison him.
    And when my uncle told me so, he wept,
    And pitied me, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;
    Bade me rely on him as on my father,
    And he would love me dearly as a child.
  DUCHESS. Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shape,
    And with a virtuous vizor hide deep vice!
    He is my son; ay, and therein my shame;
    Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.
  SON. Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?
  DUCHESS. Ay, boy.
  SON. I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?

            Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, with her hair about her
                ears; RIVERS and DORSET after her

  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and
    weep,
    To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
    I'll join with black despair against my soul
    And to myself become an enemy.
  DUCHESS. What means this scene of rude impatience?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To make an act of tragic violence.
  EDWARD, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.
    Why grow the branches when the root is gone?
    Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?
    If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,
    That our swift-winged souls may catch the King's,
    Or like obedient subjects follow him
    To his new kingdom of ne'er-changing night.
  DUCHESS. Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow
    As I had title in thy noble husband!
    I have bewept a worthy husband's death,
    And liv'd with looking on his images;
    But now two mirrors of his princely semblance
    Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death,
    And I for comfort have but one false glass,
    That grieves me when I see my shame in him.
    Thou art a widow, yet thou art a mother
    And hast the comfort of thy children left;
    But death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms
    And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble hands-
    Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I-
    Thine being but a moiety of my moan-
    To overgo thy woes and drown thy cries?
  SON. Ah, aunt, you wept not for our father's death!
    How can we aid you with our kindred tears?
  DAUGHTER. Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;
    Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Give me no help in lamentation;
    I am not barren to bring forth complaints.
    All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes
    That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,
    May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!
    Ah for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward!
  CHILDREN. Ah for our father, for our dear Lord Clarence!
  DUCHESS. Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What stay had I but Edward? and he's
    gone.
  CHILDREN. What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.
  DUCHESS. What stays had I but they? and they are gone.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Was never widow had so dear a loss.
  CHILDREN. Were never orphans had so dear a loss.
  DUCHESS. Was never mother had so dear a loss.
    Alas, I am the mother of these griefs!
    Their woes are parcell'd, mine is general.
    She for an Edward weeps, and so do I:
    I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she.
    These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I:
    I for an Edward weep, so do not they.
    Alas, you three on me, threefold distress'd,
    Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,
    And I will pamper it with lamentation.
  DORSET. Comfort, dear mother. God is much displeas'd
    That you take with unthankfulness his doing.
    In common worldly things 'tis called ungrateful
    With dull unwillingness to repay a debt
    Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
    Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,
    For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
  RIVERS. Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,
    Of the young prince your son. Send straight for him;
    Let him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives.
    Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,
    And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.

               Enter GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, DERBY,
                      HASTINGS, and RATCLIFF

  GLOUCESTER. Sister, have comfort. All of us have cause
    To wail the dimming of our shining star;
    But none can help our harms by wailing them.
    Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;
    I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee
    I crave your blessing.
  DUCHESS. God bless thee; and put meekness in thy breast,
    Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!
  GLOUCESTER. Amen!  [Aside]  And make me die a good old
    man!
    That is the butt end of a mother's blessing;
    I marvel that her Grace did leave it out.
  BUCKINGHAM. You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing
    peers,
    That bear this heavy mutual load of moan,
    Now cheer each other in each other's love.
    Though we have spent our harvest of this king,
    We are to reap the harvest of his son.
    The broken rancour of your high-swol'n hearts,
    But lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,
    Must gently be preserv'd, cherish'd, and kept.
    Me seemeth good that, with some little train,
    Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fet
    Hither to London, to be crown'd our King.

 RIVERS. Why with some little train, my Lord of
    Buckingham?
  BUCKINGHAM. Marry, my lord, lest by a multitude
    The new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,
    Which would be so much the more dangerous
    By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd;
    Where every horse bears his commanding rein
    And may direct his course as please himself,
    As well the fear of harm as harm apparent,
    In my opinion, ought to be prevented.
  GLOUCESTER. I hope the King made peace with all of us;
    And the compact is firm and true in me.
  RIVERS. And so in me; and so, I think, in an.
    Yet, since it is but green, it should be put
    To no apparent likelihood of breach,
    Which haply by much company might be urg'd;
    Therefore I say with noble Buckingham
    That it is meet so few should fetch the Prince.
  HASTINGS. And so say I.
  GLOUCESTER. Then be it so; and go we to determine
    Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.
    Madam, and you, my sister, will you go
    To give your censures in this business?
                        Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM and GLOUCESTER
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,
    For God sake, let not us two stay at home;
    For by the way I'll sort occasion,
    As index to the story we late talk'd of,
    To part the Queen's proud kindred from the Prince.
  GLOUCESTER. My other self, my counsel's consistory,
    My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin,
    I, as a child, will go by thy direction.
    Toward Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.        Exeunt

SCENE 3.

London. A street

Enter one CITIZEN at one door, and another at the other

  FIRST CITIZEN. Good morrow, neighbour. Whither away so
    fast?
  SECOND CITIZEN. I promise you, I scarcely know myself.
    Hear you the news abroad?
  FIRST CITIZEN. Yes, that the King is dead.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Ill news, by'r lady; seldom comes the
    better.
    I fear, I fear 'twill prove a giddy world.

                        Enter another CITIZEN

  THIRD CITIZEN. Neighbours, God speed!
  FIRST CITIZEN. Give you good morrow, sir.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Doth the news hold of good King Edward's
    death?
  SECOND CITIZEN. Ay, sir, it is too true; God help the while!
  THIRD CITIZEN. Then, masters, look to see a troublous
    world.
  FIRST CITIZEN. No, no; by God's good grace, his son shall
    reign.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Woe to that land that's govern'd by a child.
  SECOND CITIZEN. In him there is a hope of government,
    Which, in his nonage, council under him,
    And, in his full and ripened years, himself,
    No doubt, shall then, and till then, govern well.
  FIRST CITIZEN. So stood the state when Henry the Sixth
    Was crown'd in Paris but at nine months old.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Stood the state so? No, no, good friends,
    God wot;
    For then this land was famously enrich'd
    With politic grave counsel; then the King
    Had virtuous uncles to protect his Grace.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Why, so hath this, both by his father and
    mother.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Better it were they all came by his father,
    Or by his father there were none at all;
    For emulation who shall now be nearest
    Will touch us all too near, if God prevent not.
    O, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!
    And the Queen's sons and brothers haught and proud;
    And were they to be rul'd, and not to rule,
    This sickly land might solace as before.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Come, come, we fear the worst; all will be
    well.
  THIRD CITIZEN. When clouds are seen, wise men put on
    their cloaks;
    When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;
    When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
    Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.
    All may be well; but, if God sort it so,
    'Tis more than we deserve or I expect.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Truly, the hearts of men are fun of fear.
    You cannot reason almost with a man
    That looks not heavily and fun of dread.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Before the days of change, still is it so;
    By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust
    Ensuing danger; as by proof we see
    The water swell before a boist'rous storm.
    But leave it all to God. Whither away?
  SECOND CITIZEN. Marry, we were sent for to the justices.
  THIRD CITIZEN. And so was I; I'll bear you company.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 4.

London. The palace

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the young DUKE OF YORK, QUEEN ELIZABETH,
and the DUCHESS OF YORK

  ARCHBISHOP. Last night, I hear, they lay at Stony Stratford,
    And at Northampton they do rest to-night;
    To-morrow or next day they will be here.
  DUCHESS. I long with all my heart to see the Prince.
    I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But I hear no; they say my son of York
    Has almost overta'en him in his growth.
  YORK. Ay, mother; but I would not have it so.
  DUCHESS. Why, my good cousin, it is good to grow.
  YORK. Grandam, one night as we did sit at supper,
    My uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow
    More than my brother. 'Ay,' quoth my uncle Gloucester
    'Small herbs have grace: great weeds do grow apace.'
    And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,
    Because sweet flow'rs are slow and weeds make haste.
  DUCHESS. Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold
    In him that did object the same to thee.
    He was the wretched'st thing when he was young,
    So long a-growing and so leisurely
    That, if his rule were true, he should be gracious.
  ARCHBISHOP. And so no doubt he is, my gracious madam.
  DUCHESS. I hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.
  YORK. Now, by my troth, if I had been rememb'red,
    I could have given my uncle's Grace a flout
    To touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.
  DUCHESS. How, my young York? I prithee let me hear it.
  YORK. Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast
    That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old.
    'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.
    Grandam, this would have been a biting jest.
  DUCHESS. I prithee, pretty York, who told thee this?
  YORK. Grandam, his nurse.
  DUCHESS. His nurse! Why she was dead ere thou wast
    born.
  YORK. If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A parlous boy! Go to, you are too
    shrewd.
  ARCHBISHOP. Good madam, be not angry with the child.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Pitchers have ears.

                        Enter a MESSENGER

  ARCHBISHOP. Here comes a messenger. What news?
  MESSENGER. Such news, my lord, as grieves me to report.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How doth the Prince?
  MESSENGER. Well, madam, and in health.
  DUCHESS. What is thy news?
  MESSENGER. Lord Rivers and Lord Grey
    Are sent to Pomfret, and with them
    Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.
  DUCHESS. Who hath committed them?
  MESSENGER. The mighty Dukes, Gloucester and Buckingham.
  ARCHBISHOP. For what offence?
  MESSENGER. The sum of all I can, I have disclos'd.
    Why or for what the nobles were committed
    Is all unknown to me, my gracious lord.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay me, I see the ruin of my house!
    The tiger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind;
    Insulting tyranny begins to jet
    Upon the innocent and aweless throne.
    Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre!
    I see, as in a map, the end of all.
  DUCHESS. Accursed and unquiet wrangling days,
    How many of you have mine eyes beheld!
    My husband lost his life to get the crown;
    And often up and down my sons were toss'd
    For me to joy and weep their gain and loss;
    And being seated, and domestic broils
    Clean over-blown, themselves the conquerors
    Make war upon themselves-brother to brother,
    Blood to blood, self against self. O, preposterous
    And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen,
    Or let me die, to look on death no more!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, my boy; we will to
    sanctuary.
    Madam, farewell.
  DUCHESS. Stay, I will go with you.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. You have no cause.
  ARCHBISHOP.  [To the QUEEN]  My gracious lady, go.
    And thither bear your treasure and your goods.
    For my part, I'll resign unto your Grace
    The seal I keep; and so betide to me
    As well I tender you and all of yours!
    Go, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.                Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 1.

London. A street

The trumpets sound. Enter the PRINCE OF WALES, GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM,
CATESBY, CARDINAL BOURCHIER, and others

  BUCKINGHAM. Welcome, sweet Prince, to London, to your
    chamber.
  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign.
    The weary way hath made you melancholy.
  PRINCE. No, uncle; but our crosses on the way
    Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy.
    I want more uncles here to welcome me.
  GLOUCESTER. Sweet Prince, the untainted virtue of your
    years
    Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit;
    Nor more can you distinguish of a man
    Than of his outward show; which, God He knows,
    Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.
    Those uncles which you want were dangerous;
    Your Grace attended to their sug'red words
    But look'd not on the poison of their hearts.
    God keep you from them and from such false friends!
  PRINCE. God keep me from false friends! but they were
    none.
  GLOUCESTER. My lord, the Mayor of London comes to greet
    you.

                Enter the LORD MAYOR and his train

  MAYOR. God bless your Grace with health and happy days!
  PRINCE. I thank you, good my lord, and thank you all.
    I thought my mother and my brother York
    Would long ere this have met us on the way.
    Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not
    To tell us whether they will come or no!

                        Enter LORD HASTINGS

  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time, here comes the sweating
    Lord.
  PRINCE. Welcome, my lord. What, will our mother come?
  HASTINGS. On what occasion, God He knows, not I,
    The Queen your mother and your brother York
    Have taken sanctuary. The tender Prince
    Would fain have come with me to meet your Grace,
    But by his mother was perforce withheld.
  BUCKINGHAM. Fie, what an indirect and peevish course
    Is this of hers? Lord Cardinal, will your Grace
    Persuade the Queen to send the Duke of York
    Unto his princely brother presently?
    If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him
    And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.
  CARDINAL. My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory
    Can from his mother win the Duke of York,
    Anon expect him here; but if she be obdurate
    To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid
    We should infringe the holy privilege
    Of blessed sanctuary! Not for all this land
    Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.
  BUCKINGHAM. You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord,
    Too ceremonious and traditional.
    Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,
    You break not sanctuary in seizing him.
    The benefit thereof is always granted
    To those whose dealings have deserv'd the place
    And those who have the wit to claim the place.
    This Prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserv'd it,
    And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it.
    Then, taking him from thence that is not there,
    You break no privilege nor charter there.
    Oft have I heard of sanctuary men;
    But sanctuary children never till now.
  CARDINAL. My lord, you shall o'errule my mind for once.
    Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?
  HASTINGS. I go, my lord.
  PRINCE. Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may.
                                    Exeunt CARDINAL and HASTINGS
    Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,
    Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?
  GLOUCESTER. Where it seems best unto your royal self.
    If I may counsel you, some day or two
    Your Highness shall repose you at the Tower,
    Then where you please and shall be thought most fit
    For your best health and recreation.
  PRINCE. I do not like the Tower, of any place.
    Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?
  BUCKINGHAM. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place,
    Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.
  PRINCE. Is it upon record, or else reported
    Successively from age to age, he built it?
  BUCKINGHAM. Upon record, my gracious lord.
  PRINCE. But say, my lord, it were not regist'red,
    Methinks the truth should Eve from age to age,
    As 'twere retail'd to all posterity,
    Even to the general all-ending day.
  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  So wise so young, they say, do never
    live long.
  PRINCE. What say you, uncle?
  GLOUCESTER. I say, without characters, fame lives long.
    [Aside]  Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,
    I moralize two meanings in one word.
  PRINCE. That Julius Caesar was a famous man;
    With what his valour did enrich his wit,
    His wit set down to make his valour live.
    Death makes no conquest of this conqueror;
    For now he lives in fame, though not in life.
    I'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham-
  BUCKINGHAM. What, my gracious lord?
  PRINCE. An if I live until I be a man,
    I'll win our ancient right in France again,
    Or die a soldier as I liv'd a king.
  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  Short summers lightly have a forward
    spring.

              Enter HASTINGS, young YORK, and the CARDINAL

  BUCKINGHAM. Now, in good time, here comes the Duke of
    York.
  PRINCE. Richard of York, how fares our loving brother?
  YORK. Well, my dread lord; so must I can you now.
  PRINCE. Ay brother, to our grief, as it is yours.
    Too late he died that might have kept that title,
    Which by his death hath lost much majesty.
  GLOUCESTER. How fares our cousin, noble Lord of York?
  YORK. I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,
    You said that idle weeds are fast in growth.
    The Prince my brother hath outgrown me far.
  GLOUCESTER. He hath, my lord.
  YORK. And therefore is he idle?
  GLOUCESTER. O, my fair cousin, I must not say so.
  YORK. Then he is more beholding to you than I.
  GLOUCESTER. He may command me as my sovereign;
    But you have power in me as in a kinsman.
  YORK. I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.
  GLOUCESTER. My dagger, little cousin? With all my heart!
  PRINCE. A beggar, brother?
  YORK. Of my kind uncle, that I know will give,
    And being but a toy, which is no grief to give.
  GLOUCESTER. A greater gift than that I'll give my cousin.
  YORK. A greater gift! O, that's the sword to it!
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, gentle cousin, were it light enough.
  YORK. O, then, I see you will part but with light gifts:
    In weightier things you'll say a beggar nay.
  GLOUCESTER. It is too heavy for your Grace to wear.
  YORK. I weigh it lightly, were it heavier.
  GLOUCESTER. What, would you have my weapon, little
    Lord?
  YORK. I would, that I might thank you as you call me.
  GLOUCESTER. How?
  YORK. Little.
  PRINCE. My Lord of York will still be cross in talk.
    Uncle, your Grace knows how to bear with him.
  YORK. You mean, to bear me, not to bear with me.
    Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me;
    Because that I am little, like an ape,
    He thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.
  BUCKINGHAM. With what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!
    To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle
    He prettily and aptly taunts himself.
    So cunning and so young is wonderful.
  GLOUCESTER. My lord, will't please you pass along?
    Myself and my good cousin Buckingham
    Will to your mother, to entreat of her
    To meet you at the Tower and welcome you.
  YORK. What, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?
  PRINCE. My Lord Protector needs will have it so.
  YORK. I shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, what should you fear?
  YORK. Marry, my uncle Clarence' angry ghost.
    My grandam told me he was murder'd there.
  PRINCE. I fear no uncles dead.
  GLOUCESTER. Nor none that live, I hope.
  PRINCE. An if they live, I hope I need not fear.
    But come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,
    Thinking on them, go I unto the Tower.
    A sennet.
              Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, and CATESBY
  BUCKINGHAM. Think you, my lord, this little prating York
    Was not incensed by his subtle mother
    To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?
  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt. O, 'tis a perilous boy;
    Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable.
    He is all the mother's, from the top to toe.
  BUCKINGHAM. Well, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.
    Thou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend
    As closely to conceal what we impart.
    Thou know'st our reasons urg'd upon the way.
    What think'st thou? Is it not an easy matter
    To make William Lord Hastings of our mind,
    For the instalment of this noble Duke
    In the seat royal of this famous isle?
  CATESBY. He for his father's sake so loves the Prince
    That he will not be won to aught against him.
  BUCKINGHAM. What think'st thou then of Stanley? Will
    not he?
  CATESBY. He will do all in all as Hastings doth.
  BUCKINGHAM. Well then, no more but this: go, gentle
    Catesby,
    And, as it were far off, sound thou Lord Hastings
    How he doth stand affected to our purpose;
    And summon him to-morrow to the Tower,
    To sit about the coronation.
    If thou dost find him tractable to us,
    Encourage him, and tell him all our reasons;
    If he be leaden, icy, cold, unwilling,
    Be thou so too, and so break off the talk,
    And give us notice of his inclination;
    For we to-morrow hold divided councils,
    Wherein thyself shalt highly be employ'd.
  GLOUCESTER. Commend me to Lord William. Tell him,
    Catesby,
    His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries
    To-morrow are let blood at Pomfret Castle;
    And bid my lord, for joy of this good news,
    Give Mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.
  BUCKINGHAM. Good Catesby, go effect this business soundly.
  CATESBY. My good lords both, with all the heed I can.
  GLOUCESTER. Shall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?
  CATESBY. You shall, my lord.
  GLOUCESTER. At Crosby House, there shall you find us both.
                                                    Exit CATESBY
  BUCKINGHAM. Now, my lord, what shall we do if we
    perceive
    Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots?
  GLOUCESTER. Chop off his head-something we will
    determine.
    And, look when I am King, claim thou of me
    The earldom of Hereford and all the movables
    Whereof the King my brother was possess'd.
  BUCKINGHAM. I'll claim that promise at your Grace's hand.
  GLOUCESTER. And look to have it yielded with all kindness.
    Come, let us sup betimes, that afterwards
    We may digest our complots in some form.              Exeunt

SCENE 2.

Before LORD HASTING'S house

Enter a MESSENGER to the door of HASTINGS

  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord!                        [Knocking]
  HASTINGS.  [Within]  Who knocks?
  MESSENGER. One from the Lord Stanley.
  HASTINGS.  [Within]  What is't o'clock?
  MESSENGER. Upon the stroke of four.

                        Enter LORD HASTINGS

  HASTINGS. Cannot my Lord Stanley sleep these tedious
    nights?
  MESSENGER. So it appears by that I have to say.
    First, he commends him to your noble self.
  HASTINGS. What then?
  MESSENGER. Then certifies your lordship that this night
    He dreamt the boar had razed off his helm.
    Besides, he says there are two councils kept,
    And that may be determin'd at the one
    Which may make you and him to rue at th' other.
    Therefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure-
    If you will presently take horse with him
    And with all speed post with him toward the north
    To shun the danger that his soul divines.
  HASTINGS. Go, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;
    Bid him not fear the separated council:
    His honour and myself are at the one,
    And at the other is my good friend Catesby;
    Where nothing can proceed that toucheth us
    Whereof I shall not have intelligence.
    Tell him his fears are shallow, without instance;
    And for his dreams, I wonder he's so simple
    To trust the mock'ry of unquiet slumbers.
    To fly the boar before the boar pursues
    Were to incense the boar to follow us
    And make pursuit where he did mean no chase.
    Go, bid thy master rise and come to me;
    And we will both together to the Tower,
    Where, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.
  MESSENGER. I'll go, my lord, and tell him what you say.
 Exit

                         Enter CATESBY

  CATESBY. Many good morrows to my noble lord!
  HASTINGS. Good morrow, Catesby; you are early stirring.
    What news, what news, in this our tott'ring state?
  CATESBY. It is a reeling world indeed, my lord;
    And I believe will never stand upright
    Till Richard wear the garland of the realm.
  HASTINGS. How, wear the garland! Dost thou mean the
    crown?
  CATESBY. Ay, my good lord.
  HASTINGS. I'll have this crown of mine cut from my
    shoulders
    Before I'll see the crown so foul misplac'd.
    But canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?
  CATESBY. Ay, on my life; and hopes to find you forward
    Upon his party for the gain thereof;
    And thereupon he sends you this good news,
    That this same very day your enemies,
    The kindred of the Queen, must die at Pomfret.
  HASTINGS. Indeed, I am no mourner for that news,
    Because they have been still my adversaries;
    But that I'll give my voice on Richard's side
    To bar my master's heirs in true descent,
    God knows I will not do it to the death.
  CATESBY. God keep your lordship in that gracious mind!
  HASTINGS. But I shall laugh at this a twelve month hence,
    That they which brought me in my master's hate,
    I live to look upon their tragedy.
    Well, Catesby, ere a fortnight make me older,
    I'll send some packing that yet think not on't.
  CATESBY. 'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,
    When men are unprepar'd and look not for it.
  HASTINGS. O monstrous, monstrous! And so falls it out
    With Rivers, Vaughan, Grey; and so 'twill do
    With some men else that think themselves as safe
    As thou and I, who, as thou knowest, are dear
    To princely Richard and to Buckingham.
  CATESBY. The Princes both make high account of you-
    [Aside]  For they account his head upon the bridge.
  HASTINGS. I know they do, and I have well deserv'd it.

                      Enter LORD STANLEY

    Come on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?
    Fear you the boar, and go so unprovided?
  STANLEY. My lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby.
    You may jest on, but, by the holy rood,
    I do not like these several councils, I.
  HASTINGS. My lord, I hold my life as dear as yours,
    And never in my days, I do protest,
    Was it so precious to me as 'tis now.
    Think you, but that I know our state secure,
    I would be so triumphant as I am?
  STANLEY. The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from
    London,
    Were jocund and suppos'd their states were sure,
    And they indeed had no cause to mistrust;
    But yet you see how soon the day o'ercast.
    This sudden stab of rancour I misdoubt;
    Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward.
    What, shall we toward the Tower? The day is spent.
  HASTINGS. Come, come, have with you. Wot you what, my
    Lord?
    To-day the lords you talk'd of are beheaded.
  STANLEY. They, for their truth, might better wear their
    heads
    Than some that have accus'd them wear their hats.
    But come, my lord, let's away.

                 Enter HASTINGS, a pursuivant

  HASTINGS. Go on before; I'll talk with this good fellow.
                                      Exeunt STANLEY and CATESBY
    How now, Hastings! How goes the world with thee?
  PURSUIVANT. The better that your lordship please to ask.
  HASTINGS. I tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now
    Than when thou met'st me last where now we meet:
    Then was I going prisoner to the Tower
    By the suggestion of the Queen's allies;
    But now, I tell thee-keep it to thyself-
    This day those enernies are put to death,
    And I in better state than e'er I was.
  PURSUIVANT. God hold it, to your honour's good content!
  HASTINGS. Gramercy, Hastings; there, drink that for me.
                                          [Throws him his purse]
  PURSUIVANT. I thank your honour.                          Exit

                            Enter a PRIEST

  PRIEST. Well met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.
  HASTINGS. I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.
    I am in your debt for your last exercise;
    Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.
                                        [He whispers in his ear]
  PRIEST. I'll wait upon your lordship.

                            Enter BUCKINGHAM

  BUCKINGHAM. What, talking with a priest, Lord
    Chamberlain!
    Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest:
    Your honour hath no shriving work in hand.
  HASTINGS. Good faith, and when I met this holy man,
    The men you talk of came into my mind.
    What, go you toward the Tower?
  BUCKINGHAM. I do, my lord, but long I cannot stay there;
    I shall return before your lordship thence.
  HASTINGS. Nay, like enough, for I stay dinner there.
  BUCKINGHAM.  [Aside]  And supper too, although thou
    knowest it not.-
    Come, will you go?
  HASTINGS. I'll wait upon your lordship.                 Exeunt

SCENE 3.

Pomfret Castle

Enter SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF, with halberds, carrying the Nobles,
RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN, to death

  RIVERS. Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:
    To-day shalt thou behold a subject die
    For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.
  GREY. God bless the Prince from all the pack of you!
    A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.
  VAUGHAN. You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter.
  RATCLIFF. Dispatch; the limit of your lives is out.
  RIVERS. O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,
    Fatal and ominous to noble peers!
    Within the guilty closure of thy walls
  RICHARD the Second here was hack'd to death;
    And for more slander to thy dismal seat,
    We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.
  GREY. Now Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,
    When she exclaim'd on Hastings, you, and I,
    For standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.
  RIVERS. Then curs'd she Richard, then curs'd she
    Buckingham,
    Then curs'd she Hastings. O, remember, God,
    To hear her prayer for them, as now for us!
    And for my sister, and her princely sons,
    Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,
    Which, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.
  RATCLIFF. Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.
  RIVERS. Come, Grey; come, Vaughan; let us here embrace.
    Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.              Exeunt

SCENE 4

London. The Tower

Enter BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP of ELY, RATCLIFF, LOVEL,
with others and seat themselves at a table

  HASTINGS. Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met
    Is to determine of the coronation.
    In God's name speak-when is the royal day?
  BUCKINGHAM. Is all things ready for the royal time?
  DERBY. It is, and wants but nomination.
  BISHOP OF ELY. To-morrow then I judge a happy day.
  BUCKINGHAM. Who knows the Lord Protector's mind
    herein?
    Who is most inward with the noble Duke?
  BISHOP OF ELY. Your Grace, we think, should soonest know
    his mind.
  BUCKINGHAM. We know each other's faces; for our hearts,
    He knows no more of mine than I of yours;
    Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.
    Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.
  HASTINGS. I thank his Grace, I know he loves me well;
    But for his purpose in the coronation
    I have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd
    His gracious pleasure any way therein.
    But you, my honourable lords, may name the time;
    And in the Duke's behalf I'll give my voice,
    Which, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.

                       Enter GLOUCESTER

  BISHOP OF ELY. In happy time, here comes the Duke himself.
  GLOUCESTER. My noble lords and cousins an, good morrow.
    I have been long a sleeper, but I trust
    My absence doth neglect no great design
    Which by my presence might have been concluded.
  BUCKINGHAM. Had you not come upon your cue, my lord,
  WILLIAM Lord Hastings had pronounc'd your part-
    I mean, your voice for crowning of the King.
  GLOUCESTER. Than my Lord Hastings no man might be
    bolder;
    His lordship knows me well and loves me well.
    My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn
    I saw good strawberries in your garden there.
    I do beseech you send for some of them.
  BISHOP of ELY. Marry and will, my lord, with all my heart.
 Exit
  GLOUCESTER. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.
                                               [Takes him aside]
    Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,
    And finds the testy gentleman so hot
    That he will lose his head ere give consent
    His master's child, as worshipfully he terms it,
    Shall lose the royalty of England's throne.
  BUCKINGHAM. Withdraw yourself awhile; I'll go with you.
                                Exeunt GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM
  DERBY. We have not yet set down this day of triumph.
    To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden;
    For I myself am not so well provided
    As else I would be, were the day prolong'd.

                    Re-enter the BISHOP OF ELY

  BISHOP OF ELY. Where is my lord the Duke of Gloucester?
    I have sent for these strawberries.
  HASTINGS. His Grace looks cheerfully and smooth this
    morning;
    There's some conceit or other likes him well
    When that he bids good morrow with such spirit.
    I think there's never a man in Christendom
    Can lesser hide his love or hate than he;
    For by his face straight shall you know his heart.
  DERBY. What of his heart perceive you in his face
    By any livelihood he show'd to-day?
  HASTINGS. Marry, that with no man here he is offended;
    For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.

               Re-enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM

  GLOUCESTER. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve
    That do conspire my death with devilish plots
    Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd
    Upon my body with their hellish charms?
  HASTINGS. The tender love I bear your Grace, my lord,
    Makes me most forward in this princely presence
    To doom th' offenders, whosoe'er they be.
    I say, my lord, they have deserved death.
  GLOUCESTER. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil.
    Look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm
    Is like a blasted sapling wither'd up.
    And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,
    Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,
    That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.
  HASTINGS. If they have done this deed, my noble lord-
  GLOUCESTER. If?-thou protector of this damned strumpet,
    Talk'st thou to me of ifs? Thou art a traitor.
    Off with his head! Now by Saint Paul I swear
    I will not dine until I see the same.
    Lovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done.
    The rest that love me, rise and follow me.
                    Exeunt all but HASTINGS, LOVEL, and RATCLIFF
  HASTINGS. Woe, woe, for England! not a whit for me;
    For I, too fond, might have prevented this.
  STANLEY did dream the boar did raze our helms,
    And I did scorn it and disdain to fly.
    Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,
    And started when he look'd upon the Tower,
    As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.
    O, now I need the priest that spake to me!
    I now repent I told the pursuivant,
    As too triumphing, how mine enemies
    To-day at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,
    And I myself secure in grace and favour.
    O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse
    Is lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!
  RATCLIFF. Come, come, dispatch; the Duke would be at
    dinner.
    Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.
  HASTINGS. O momentary grace of mortal men,
    Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!
    Who builds his hope in air of your good looks
    Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,
    Ready with every nod to tumble down
    Into the fatal bowels of the deep.
  LOVEL. Come, come, dispatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim.
  HASTINGS. O bloody Richard! Miserable England!
    I prophesy the fearfull'st time to thee
    That ever wretched age hath look'd upon.
    Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head.
    They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.           Exeunt

SCENE 5.

London. The Tower-walls

Enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM in rotten armour, marvellous
ill-favoured

  GLOUCESTER. Come, cousin, canst thou quake and change
    thy colour,
    Murder thy breath in middle of a word,
    And then again begin, and stop again,
    As if thou were distraught and mad with terror?
  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;
    Speak and look back, and pry on every side,
    Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,
    Intending deep suspicion. Ghastly looks
    Are at my service, like enforced smiles;
    And both are ready in their offices
    At any time to grace my stratagems.
    But what, is Catesby gone?
  GLOUCESTER. He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.

                 Enter the LORD MAYOR and CATESBY

  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor-
  GLOUCESTER. Look to the drawbridge there!
  BUCKINGHAM. Hark! a drum.
  GLOUCESTER. Catesby, o'erlook the walls.
  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor, the reason we have sent-
  GLOUCESTER. Look back, defend thee; here are enemies.
  BUCKINGHAM. God and our innocence defend and guard us!

           Enter LOVEL and RATCLIFF, with HASTINGS' head

  GLOUCESTER. Be patient; they are friends-Ratcliff and Lovel.
  LOVEL. Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,
    The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.
  GLOUCESTER. So dear I lov'd the man that I must weep.
    I took him for the plainest harmless creature
    That breath'd upon the earth a Christian;
    Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded
    The history of all her secret thoughts.
    So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue
    That, his apparent open guilt omitted,
    I mean his conversation with Shore's wife-
    He liv'd from all attainder of suspects.
  BUCKINGHAM. Well, well, he was the covert'st shelt'red
    traitor
    That ever liv'd.
    Would you imagine, or almost believe-
    Were't not that by great preservation
    We live to tell it-that the subtle traitor
    This day had plotted, in the council-house,
    To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester.
  MAYOR. Had he done so?
  GLOUCESTER. What! think you we are Turks or Infidels?
    Or that we would, against the form of law,
    Proceed thus rashly in the villain's death
    But that the extreme peril of the case,
    The peace of England and our persons' safety,
    Enforc'd us to this execution?
  MAYOR. Now, fair befall you! He deserv'd his death;
    And your good Graces both have well proceeded
    To warn false traitors from the like attempts.
    I never look'd for better at his hands
    After he once fell in with Mistress Shore.
  BUCKINGHAM. Yet had we not determin'd he should die
    Until your lordship came to see his end-
    Which now the loving haste of these our friends,
    Something against our meanings, have prevented-
    Because, my lord, I would have had you heard
    The traitor speak, and timorously confess
    The manner and the purpose of his treasons:
    That you might well have signified the same
    Unto the citizens, who haply may
    Misconster us in him and wail his death.
  MAYOR. But, my good lord, your Grace's words shall serve
    As well as I had seen and heard him speak;
    And do not doubt, right noble Princes both,
    But I'll acquaint our duteous citizens
    With all your just proceedings in this cause.
  GLOUCESTER. And to that end we wish'd your lordship here,
    T' avoid the the the censures of the carping world.
  BUCKINGHAM. Which since you come too late of our intent,
    Yet witness what you hear we did intend.
    And so, my good Lord Mayor, we bid farewell.
                                                 Exit LORD MAYOR
  GLOUCESTER. Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.
    The Mayor towards Guildhall hies him in an post.
    There, at your meet'st advantage of the time,
    Infer the bastardy of Edward's children.
    Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen
    Only for saying he would make his son
    Heir to the crown-meaning indeed his house,
    Which by the sign thereof was termed so.
    Moreover, urge his hateful luxury
    And bestial appetite in change of lust,
    Which stretch'd unto their servants, daughters, wives,
    Even where his raging eye or savage heart
    Without control lusted to make a prey.
    Nay, for a need, thus far come near my person:
    Tell them, when that my mother went with child
    Of that insatiate Edward, noble York
    My princely father then had wars in France
    And, by true computation of the time,
    Found that the issue was not his begot;
    Which well appeared in his lineaments,
    Being nothing like the noble Duke my father.
    Yet touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off;
    Because, my lord, you know my mother lives.
  BUCKINGHAM. Doubt not, my lord, I'll play the orator
    As if the golden fee for which I plead
    Were for myself; and so, my lord, adieu.
  GLOUCESTER. If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's
    Castle;
    Where you shall find me well accompanied
    With reverend fathers and well learned bishops.
  BUCKINGHAM. I go; and towards three or four o'clock
    Look for the news that the Guildhall affords.           Exit
  GLOUCESTER. Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw.
    [To CATESBY]  Go thou to Friar Penker. Bid them both
    Meet me within this hour at Baynard's Castle.
                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
    Now will I go to take some privy order
    To draw the brats of Clarence out of sight,
    And to give order that no manner person
    Have any time recourse unto the Princes.                Exit

SCENE 6.

London. A street

Enter a SCRIVENER

  SCRIVENER. Here is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;
    Which in a set hand fairly is engross'd
    That it may be to-day read o'er in Paul's.
    And mark how well the sequel hangs together:
    Eleven hours I have spent to write it over,
    For yesternight by Catesby was it sent me;
    The precedent was full as long a-doing;
    And yet within these five hours Hastings liv'd,
    Untainted, unexamin'd, free, at liberty.
    Here's a good world the while! Who is so gros
    That cannot see this palpable device?
    Yet who's so bold but says he sees it not?
    Bad is the world; and all will come to nought,
    When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.          Exit

SCENE 7.

London. Baynard's Castle

Enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, at several doors

  GLOUCESTER. How now, how now! What say the citizens?
  BUCKINGHAM. Now, by the holy Mother of our Lord,
    The citizens are mum, say not a word.
  GLOUCESTER. Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's
    children?
  BUCKINGHAM. I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,
    And his contract by deputy in France;
    Th' insatiate greediness of his desire,
    And his enforcement of the city wives;
    His tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,
    As being got, your father then in France,
    And his resemblance, being not like the Duke.
    Withal I did infer your lineaments,
    Being the right idea of your father,
    Both in your form and nobleness of mind;
    Laid open all your victories in Scotland,
    Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,
    Your bounty, virtue, fair humility;
    Indeed, left nothing fitting for your purpose
    Untouch'd or slightly handled in discourse.
    And when mine oratory drew toward end
    I bid them that did love their country's good
    Cry 'God save Richard, England's royal King!'
  GLOUCESTER. And did they so?
  BUCKINGHAM. No, so God help me, they spake not a word;
    But, like dumb statues or breathing stones,
    Star'd each on other, and look'd deadly pale.
    Which when I saw, I reprehended them,
    And ask'd the Mayor what meant this wilfull silence.
    His answer was, the people were not used
    To be spoke to but by the Recorder.
    Then he was urg'd to tell my tale again.
    'Thus saith the Duke, thus hath the Duke inferr'd'-
    But nothing spoke in warrant from himself.
    When he had done, some followers of mine own
    At lower end of the hall hurl'd up their caps,
    And some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'
    And thus I took the vantage of those few-
    'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I
    'This general applause and cheerful shout
    Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard.'
    And even here brake off and came away.
  GLOUCESTER. What, tongueless blocks were they? Would
    they not speak?
    Will not the Mayor then and his brethren come?
  BUCKINGHAM. The Mayor is here at hand. Intend some fear;
    Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit;
    And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,
    And stand between two churchmen, good my lord;
    For on that ground I'll make a holy descant;
    And be not easily won to our requests.
    Play the maid's part: still answer nay, and take it.
  GLOUCESTER. I go; and if you plead as well for them
    As I can say nay to thee for myself,
    No doubt we bring it to a happy issue.
  BUCKINGHAM. Go, go, up to the leads; the Lord Mayor
    knocks.                                      Exit GLOUCESTER

           Enter the LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN, and citizens

    Welcome, my lord. I dance attendance here;
    I think the Duke will not be spoke withal.

                         Enter CATESBY

    Now, Catesby, what says your lord to my request?
  CATESBY. He doth entreat your Grace, my noble lord,
    To visit him to-morrow or next day.
    He is within, with two right reverend fathers,
    Divinely bent to meditation;
    And in no worldly suits would he be mov'd,
    To draw him from his holy exercise.
  BUCKINGHAM. Return, good Catesby, to the gracious Duke;
    Tell him, myself, the Mayor and Aldermen,
    In deep designs, in matter of great moment,
    No less importing than our general good,
    Are come to have some conference with his Grace.
  CATESBY. I'll signify so much unto him straight.          Exit
  BUCKINGHAM. Ah ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!
    He is not lolling on a lewd love-bed,
    But on his knees at meditation;
    Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,
    But meditating with two deep divines;
    Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,
    But praying, to enrich his watchful soul.
    Happy were England would this virtuous prince
    Take on his Grace the sovereignty thereof;
    But, sure, I fear we shall not win him to it.
  MAYOR. Marry, God defend his Grace should say us nay!
  BUCKINGHAM. I fear he will. Here Catesby comes again.

                          Re-enter CATESBY

    Now, Catesby, what says his Grace?
  CATESBY. My lord,
    He wonders to what end you have assembled
    Such troops of citizens to come to him.
    His Grace not being warn'd thereof before,
    He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.
  BUCKINGHAM. Sorry I am my noble cousin should
    Suspect me that I mean no good to him.
    By heaven, we come to him in perfect love;
    And so once more return and tell his Grace.
                                                    Exit CATESBY
    When holy and devout religious men
    Are at their beads, 'tis much to draw them thence,
    So sweet is zealous contemplation.

           Enter GLOUCESTER aloft, between two BISHOPS.
                      CATESBY returns

  MAYOR. See where his Grace stands 'tween two clergymen!
  BUCKINGHAM. Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,
    To stay him from the fall of vanity;
    And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,
    True ornaments to know a holy man.
    Famous Plantagenet, most gracious Prince,
    Lend favourable ear to our requests,
    And pardon us the interruption
    Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.
  GLOUCESTER. My lord, there needs no such apology:
    I do beseech your Grace to pardon me,
    Who, earnest in the service of my God,
    Deferr'd the visitation of my friends.
    But, leaving this, what is your Grace's pleasure?
  BUCKINGHAM. Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,
    And all good men of this ungovern'd isle.
  GLOUCESTER. I do suspect I have done some offence
    That seems disgracious in the city's eye,
    And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.
  BUCKINGHAM. You have, my lord. Would it might please
    your Grace,
    On our entreaties, to amend your fault!
  GLOUCESTER. Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?
  BUCKINGHAM. Know then, it is your fault that you resign
    The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
    The scept'red office of your ancestors,
    Your state of fortune and your due of birth,
    The lineal glory of your royal house,
    To the corruption of a blemish'd stock;
    Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,
    Which here we waken to our country's good,
    The noble isle doth want her proper limbs;
    Her face defac'd with scars of infamy,
    Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,
    And almost should'red in the swallowing gulf
    Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.
    Which to recure, we heartily solicit
    Your gracious self to take on you the charge
    And kingly government of this your land-
    Not as protector, steward, substitute,
    Or lowly factor for another's gain;
    But as successively, from blood to blood,
    Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
    For this, consorted with the citizens,
    Your very worshipful and loving friends,
    And by their vehement instigation,
    In this just cause come I to move your Grace.
  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell if to depart in silence
    Or bitterly to speak in your reproof
    Best fitteth my degree or your condition.
    If not to answer, you might haply think
    Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
    To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
    Which fondly you would here impose on me;
    If to reprove you for this suit of yours,
    So season'd with your faithful love to me,
    Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.
    Therefore-to speak, and to avoid the first,
    And then, in speaking, not to incur the last-
    Definitively thus I answer you:
    Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert
    Unmeritable shuns your high request.
    First, if all obstacles were cut away,
    And that my path were even to the crown,
    As the ripe revenue and due of birth,
    Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
    So mighty and so many my defects,
    That I would rather hide me from my greatness-
    Being a bark to brook no mighty sea-
    Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
    And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.
    But, God be thank'd, there is no need of me-
    And much I need to help you, were there need.
    The royal tree hath left us royal fruit
    Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,
    Will well become the seat of majesty
    And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
    On him I lay that you would lay on me-
    The right and fortune of his happy stars,
    Which God defend that I should wring from him.
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, this argues conscience in your
    Grace;
    But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
    All circumstances well considered.
    You say that Edward is your brother's son.
    So say we too, but not by Edward's wife;
    For first was he contract to Lady Lucy-
    Your mother lives a witness to his vow-
    And afterward by substitute betroth'd
    To Bona, sister to the King of France.
    These both put off, a poor petitioner,
    A care-craz'd mother to a many sons,
    A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
    Even in the afternoon of her best days,
    Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
    Seduc'd the pitch and height of his degree
    To base declension and loath'd bigamy.
    By her, in his unlawful bed, he got
    This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince.
    More bitterly could I expostulate,
    Save that, for reverence to some alive,
    I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
    Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
    This proffer'd benefit of dignity;
    If not to bless us and the land withal,
    Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
    From the corruption of abusing times
    Unto a lineal true-derived course.
  MAYOR. Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you.
  BUCKINGHAM. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.
  CATESBY. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!
  GLOUCESTER. Alas, why would you heap this care on me?
    I am unfit for state and majesty.
    I do beseech you, take it not amiss:
    I cannot nor I will not yield to you.
  BUCKINGHAM. If you refuse it-as, in love and zeal,
    Loath to depose the child, your brother's son;
    As well we know your tenderness of heart
    And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
    Which we have noted in you to your kindred
    And egally indeed to all estates-
    Yet know, whe'er you accept our suit or no,
    Your brother's son shall never reign our king;
    But we will plant some other in the throne
    To the disgrace and downfall of your house;
    And in this resolution here we leave you.
    Come, citizens. Zounds, I'll entreat no more.
  GLOUCESTER. O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.
                          Exeunt BUCKINGHAM, MAYOR, and citizens
  CATESBY. Call him again, sweet Prince, accept their suit.
    If you deny them, all the land will rue it.
  GLOUCESTER. Will you enforce me to a world of cares?
    Call them again. I am not made of stones,
    But penetrable to your kind entreaties,
    Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

                  Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest

    Cousin of Buckingham, and sage grave men,
    Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
    To bear her burden, whe'er I will or no,
    I must have patience to endure the load;
    But if black scandal or foul-fac'd reproach
    Attend the sequel of your imposition,
    Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
    From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
    For God doth know, and you may partly see,
    How far I am from the desire of this.
  MAYOR. God bless your Grace! We see it, and will say it.
  GLOUCESTER. In saying so, you shall but say the truth.
  BUCKINGHAM. Then I salute you with this royal title-
    Long live King Richard, England's worthy King!
  ALL. Amen.
  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow may it please you to be crown'd?
  GLOUCESTER. Even when you please, for you will have it so.
  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow, then, we will attend your Grace;
    And so, most joyfully, we take our leave.
  GLOUCESTER.  [To the BISHOPS]  Come, let us to our holy
    work again.
    Farewell, my cousin; farewell, gentle friends.        Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

London. Before the Tower

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS of YORK, and MARQUIS of DORSET, at one
door;
ANNE, DUCHESS of GLOUCESTER, leading LADY MARGARET PLANTAGENET,
CLARENCE's young daughter, at another door

  DUCHESS. Who meets us here? My niece Plantagenet,
    Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?
    Now, for my life, she's wand'ring to the Tower,
    On pure heart's love, to greet the tender Princes.
    Daughter, well met.
  ANNE. God give your Graces both
    A happy and a joyful time of day!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As much to you, good sister! Whither
    away?
  ANNE. No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,
    Upon the like devotion as yourselves,
    To gratulate the gentle Princes there.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Kind sister, thanks; we'll enter
    all together.

                       Enter BRAKENBURY

    And in good time, here the lieutenant comes.
    Master Lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,
    How doth the Prince, and my young son of York?
  BRAKENBURY. Right well, dear madam. By your patience,
    I may not suffer you to visit them.
    The King hath strictly charg'd the contrary.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The King! Who's that?
  BRAKENBURY. I mean the Lord Protector.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Lord protect him from that kingly
    title!
    Hath he set bounds between their love and me?
    I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?
  DUCHESS. I am their father's mother; I will see them.
  ANNE. Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother.
    Then bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame,
    And take thy office from thee on my peril.
  BRAKENBURY. No, madam, no. I may not leave it so;
    I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.            Exit

                         Enter STANLEY

  STANLEY. Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,
    And I'll salute your Grace of York as mother
    And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.
    [To ANNE]  Come, madam, you must straight to
    Westminster,
    There to be crowned Richard's royal queen.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, cut my lace asunder
    That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,
    Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news!
  ANNE. Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!
  DORSET. Be of good cheer; mother, how fares your Grace?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee
    gone!
    Death and destruction dogs thee at thy heels;
    Thy mother's name is ominous to children.
    If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,
    And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell.
    Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,
    Lest thou increase the number of the dead,
    And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,
    Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.
  STANLEY. Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.
    Take all the swift advantage of the hours;
    You shall have letters from me to my son
    In your behalf, to meet you on the way.
    Be not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.
  DUCHESS. O ill-dispersing wind of misery!
    O my accursed womb, the bed of death!
    A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,
    Whose unavoided eye is murderous.
  STANLEY. Come, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.
  ANNE. And I with all unwillingness will go.
    O, would to God that the inclusive verge
    Of golden metal that must round my brow
    Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brains!
    Anointed let me be with deadly venom,
    And die ere men can say 'God save the Queen!'
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Go, go, poor soul; I envy not thy glory.
    To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.
  ANNE. No, why? When he that is my husband now
    Came to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse;
    When scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands
    Which issued from my other angel husband,
    And that dear saint which then I weeping follow'd-
    O, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,
    This was my wish: 'Be thou' quoth I 'accurs'd
    For making me, so young, so old a widow;
    And when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;
    And be thy wife, if any be so mad,
    More miserable by the life of thee
    Than thou hast made me by my dear lord's death.'
    Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,
    Within so small a time, my woman's heart
    Grossly grew captive to his honey words
    And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse,
    Which hitherto hath held my eyes from rest;
    For never yet one hour in his bed
    Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,
    But with his timorous dreams was still awak'd.
    Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick;
    And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Poor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.
  ANNE. No more than with my soul I mourn for yours.
  DORSET. Farewell, thou woeful welcomer of glory!
  ANNE. Adieu, poor soul, that tak'st thy leave of it!
  DUCHESS.  [To DORSET]  Go thou to Richmond, and good
    fortune guide thee!
    [To ANNE]  Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend
    thee!  [To QUEEN ELIZABETH]  Go thou to sanctuary, and good
    thoughts possess thee!
    I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me!
    Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,
    And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Stay, yet look back with me unto the
    Tower.
    Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes
    Whom envy hath immur'd within your walls,
    Rough cradle for such little pretty ones.
    Rude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow
    For tender princes, use my babies well.
    So foolish sorrows bids your stones farewell.         Exeunt

SCENE 2.

London. The palace

Sound a sennet. Enter RICHARD, in pomp, as KING; BUCKINGHAM, CATESBY,
RATCLIFF, LOVEL, a PAGE, and others

  KING RICHARD. Stand all apart. Cousin of Buckingham!
  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious sovereign?
  KING RICHARD. Give me thy hand.
                           [Here he ascendeth the throne. Sound]
    Thus high, by thy advice
    And thy assistance, is King Richard seated.
    But shall we wear these glories for a day;
    Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?
  BUCKINGHAM. Still live they, and for ever let them last!
  KING RICHARD. Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,
    To try if thou be current gold indeed.
    Young Edward lives-think now what I would speak.
  BUCKINGHAM. Say on, my loving lord.
  KING RICHARD. Why, Buckingham, I say I would be King.
  BUCKINGHAM. Why, so you are, my thrice-renowned lord.
  KING RICHARD. Ha! am I King? 'Tis so; but Edward lives.
  BUCKINGHAM. True, noble Prince.
  KING RICHARD. O bitter consequence:
    That Edward still should live-true noble Prince!
    Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull.
    Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead.
    And I would have it suddenly perform'd.
    What say'st thou now? Speak suddenly, be brief.
  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace may do your pleasure.
  KING RICHARD. Tut, tut, thou art all ice; thy kindness freezes.
    Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?
  BUCKINGHAM. Give me some little breath, some pause,
    dear Lord,
    Before I positively speak in this.
    I will resolve you herein presently.                    Exit
  CATESBY.  [Aside to another]  The King is angry; see, he
    gnaws his lip.
  KING RICHARD. I will converse with iron-witted fools
                                      [Descends from the throne]
    And unrespective boys; none are for me
    That look into me with considerate eyes.
    High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.
    Boy!
  PAGE. My lord?
  KING RICHARD. Know'st thou not any whom corrupting
    gold
    Will tempt unto a close exploit of death?
  PAGE. I know a discontented gentleman
    Whose humble means match not his haughty spirit.
    Gold were as good as twenty orators,
    And will, no doubt, tempt him to anything.
  KING RICHARD. What is his name?
  PAGE. His name, my lord, is Tyrrel.
  KING RICHARD. I partly know the man. Go, call him hither,
    boy.                                               Exit PAGE
    The deep-revolving witty Buckingham
    No more shall be the neighbour to my counsels.
    Hath he so long held out with me, untir'd,
    And stops he now for breath? Well, be it so.

                            Enter STANLEY

    How now, Lord Stanley! What's the news?
  STANLEY. Know, my loving lord,
    The Marquis Dorset, as I hear, is fled
    To Richmond, in the parts where he abides.    [Stands apart]
  KING RICHARD. Come hither, Catesby. Rumour it abroad
    That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick;
    I will take order for her keeping close.
    Inquire me out some mean poor gentleman,
    Whom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter-
    The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.
    Look how thou dream'st! I say again, give out
    That Anne, my queen, is sick and like to die.
    About it; for it stands me much upon
    To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.
                                                    Exit CATESBY
    I must be married to my brother's daughter,
    Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.
    Murder her brothers, and then marry her!
    Uncertain way of gain! But I am in
    So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.
    Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.

                     Re-enter PAGE, with TYRREL

    Is thy name Tyrrel?
  TYRREL. James Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.
  KING RICHARD. Art thou, indeed?
  TYRREL. Prove me, my gracious lord.
  KING RICHARD. Dar'st'thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?
  TYRREL. Please you;
    But I had rather kill two enemies.
  KING RICHARD. Why, then thou hast it. Two deep enemies,
    Foes to my rest, and my sweet sleep's disturbers,
    Are they that I would have thee deal upon.
  TYRREL, I mean those bastards in the Tower.
  TYRREL. Let me have open means to come to them,
    And soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.
  KING RICHARD. Thou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come
    hither, Tyrrel.
    Go, by this token. Rise, and lend thine ear.      [Whispers]
    There is no more but so: say it is done,
    And I will love thee and prefer thee for it.
  TYRREL. I will dispatch it straight.                      Exit

                    Re-enter BUCKINGHAM

    BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I have consider'd in my mind
    The late request that you did sound me in.
  KING RICHARD. Well, let that rest. Dorset is fled to
    Richmond.
  BUCKINGHAM. I hear the news, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. Stanley, he is your wife's son: well, look
    unto it.
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I claim the gift, my due by promise,
    For which your honour and your faith is pawn'd:
    Th' earldom of Hereford and the movables
    Which you have promised I shall possess.
  KING RICHARD. Stanley, look to your wife; if she convey
    Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it.
  BUCKINGHAM. What says your Highness to my just request?
  KING RICHARD. I do remember me: Henry the Sixth
    Did prophesy that Richmond should be King,
    When Richmond was a little peevish boy.
    A king!-perhaps-
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-
  KING RICHARD. How chance the prophet could not at that
    time
    Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him?
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, your promise for the earldom-
  KING RICHARD. Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,
    The mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle
    And call'd it Rugemount, at which name I started,
    Because a bard of Ireland told me once
    I should not live long after I saw Richmond.
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-
  KING RICHARD. Ay, what's o'clock?
  BUCKINGHAM. I am thus bold to put your Grace in mind
    Of what you promis'd me.
  KING RICHARD. Well, but o'clock?
  BUCKINGHAM. Upon the stroke of ten.
  KING RICHARD. Well, let it strike.
  BUCKINGHAM. Why let it strike?
  KING RICHARD. Because that like a Jack thou keep'st the
    stroke
    Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.
    I am not in the giving vein to-day.
  BUCKINGHAM. May it please you to resolve me in my suit.
  KING RICHARD. Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.
                                       Exeunt all but Buckingham
  BUCKINGHAM. And is it thus? Repays he my deep service
    With such contempt? Made I him King for this?
    O, let me think on Hastings, and be gone
    To Brecknock while my fearful head is on!               Exit

SCENE 3.

London. The palace

Enter TYRREL

  TYRREL. The tyrannous and bloody act is done,
    The most arch deed of piteous massacre
    That ever yet this land was guilty of.
    Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn
    To do this piece of ruthless butchery,
    Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,
    Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,
    Wept like two children in their deaths' sad story.
    'O, thus' quoth Dighton 'lay the gentle babes'-
    'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest 'girdling one another
    Within their alabaster innocent arms.
    Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
    And in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.
    A book of prayers on their pillow lay;
    Which once,' quoth Forrest 'almost chang'd my mind;
    But, O, the devil'-there the villain stopp'd;
    When Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered
    The most replenished sweet work of nature
    That from the prime creation e'er she framed.'
    Hence both are gone with conscience and remorse
    They could not speak; and so I left them both,
    To bear this tidings to the bloody King.

                        Enter KING RICHARD

    And here he comes. All health, my sovereign lord!
  KING RICHARD. Kind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?
  TYRREL. If to have done the thing you gave in charge
    Beget your happiness, be happy then,
    For it is done.
  KING RICHARD. But didst thou see them dead?
  TYRREL. I did, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. And buried, gentle Tyrrel?
  TYRREL. The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;
    But where, to say the truth, I do not know.
  KING RICHARD. Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,
    When thou shalt tell the process of their death.
    Meantime, but think how I may do thee good
    And be inheritor of thy desire.
    Farewell till then.
  TYRREL. I humbly take my leave.                           Exit
  KING RICHARD. The son of Clarence have I pent up close;
    His daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;
    The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,
    And Anne my wife hath bid this world good night.
    Now, for I know the Britaine Richmond aims
    At young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,
    And by that knot looks proudly on the crown,
    To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.

                           Enter RATCLIFF

  RATCLIFF. My lord!
  KING RICHARD. Good or bad news, that thou com'st in so
    bluntly?
  RATCLIFF. Bad news, my lord: Morton is fled to Richmond;
    And Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen,
    Is in the field, and still his power increaseth.
  KING RICHARD. Ely with Richmond troubles me more near
    Than Buckingham and his rash-levied strength.
    Come, I have learn'd that fearful commenting
    Is leaden servitor to dull delay;
    Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary.
    Then fiery expedition be my wing,
    Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king!
    Go, muster men. My counsel is my shield.
    We must be brief when traitors brave the field.       Exeunt

SCENE 4.

London. Before the palace

Enter old QUEEN MARGARET

  QUEEN MARGARET. So now prosperity begins to mellow
    And drop into the rotten mouth of death.
    Here in these confines slily have I lurk'd
    To watch the waning of mine enemies.
    A dire induction am I witness to,
    And will to France, hoping the consequence
    Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.
    Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret. Who comes here?
                                                       [Retires]

           Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and the DUCHESS OF YORK

  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, my poor princes! ah, my tender
    babes!
    My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!
    If yet your gentle souls fly in the air
    And be not fix'd in doom perpetual,
    Hover about me with your airy wings
    And hear your mother's lamentation.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Hover about her; say that right for right
    Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.
  DUCHESS. So many miseries have craz'd my voice
    That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.
    Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet,
    Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle
    lambs
    And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?
    When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?
  QUEEN MARGARET. When holy Harry died, and my sweet
    son.
  DUCHESS. Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,
    Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,
    Brief abstract and record of tedious days,
    Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,    [Sitting down]
    Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, that thou wouldst as soon afford a
    grave
    As thou canst yield a melancholy seat!
    Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.
    Ah, who hath any cause to mourn but we?
                                           [Sitting down by her]
  QUEEN MARGARET.  [Coming forward]  If ancient sorrow be
    most reverend,
    Give mine the benefit of seniory,
    And let my griefs frown on the upper hand.
    If sorrow can admit society,        [Sitting down with them]
    Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine.
    I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;
    I had a husband, till a Richard kill'd him:
    Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;
    Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard kill'd him.
  DUCHESS. I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;
    I had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard
    kill'd him.
    From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept
    A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death.
    That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes
    To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,
    That foul defacer of God's handiwork,
    That excellent grand tyrant of the earth
    That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,
    Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.
    O upright, just, and true-disposing God,
    How do I thank thee that this carnal cur
    Preys on the issue of his mother's body
    And makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!
  DUCHESS. O Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes!
    God witness with me, I have wept for thine.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,
    And now I cloy me with beholding it.
    Thy Edward he is dead, that kill'd my Edward;
    The other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;
    Young York he is but boot, because both they
    Match'd not the high perfection of my loss.
    Thy Clarence he is dead that stabb'd my Edward;
    And the beholders of this frantic play,
    Th' adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,
    Untimely smother'd in their dusky graves.
    Richard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer;
    Only reserv'd their factor to buy souls
    And send them thither. But at hand, at hand,
    Ensues his piteous and unpitied end.
    Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,
    To have him suddenly convey'd from hence.
    Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,
    That I may live and say 'The dog is dead.'
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, thou didst prophesy the time would
      come
    That I should wish for thee to help me curse
    That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!
  QUEEN MARGARET. I Call'd thee then vain flourish of my
      fortune;
    I call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen,
    The presentation of but what I was,
    The flattering index of a direful pageant,
    One heav'd a-high to be hurl'd down below,
    A mother only mock'd with two fair babes,
    A dream of what thou wast, a garish flag
    To be the aim of every dangerous shot,
    A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble,
    A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.
    Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?
    Where be thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?
    Who sues, and kneels, and says 'God save the Queen'?
    Where be the bending peers that flattered thee?
    Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?
    Decline an this, and see what now thou art:
    For happy wife, a most distressed widow;
    For joyful mother, one that wails the name;
    For one being su'd to, one that humbly sues;
    For Queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;
    For she that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;
    For she being fear'd of all, now fearing one;
    For she commanding all, obey'd of none.
    Thus hath the course of justice whirl'd about
    And left thee but a very prey to time,
    Having no more but thought of what thou wast
    To torture thee the more, being what thou art.
    Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not
    Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?
    Now thy proud neck bears half my burden'd yoke,
    From which even here I slip my weary head
    And leave the burden of it all on thee.
    Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance;
    These English woes shall make me smile in France.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile
    And teach me how to curse mine enemies!
  QUEEN MARGARET. Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the
      days;
    Compare dead happiness with living woe;
    Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,
    And he that slew them fouler than he is.
    Bett'ring thy loss makes the bad-causer worse;
    Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My words are dull; O, quicken them
    with thine!
  QUEEN MARGARET. Thy woes will make them sharp and
    pierce like mine.                                       Exit
  DUCHESS. Why should calamity be fun of words?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Windy attorneys to their client woes,
    Airy succeeders of intestate joys,
    Poor breathing orators of miseries,
    Let them have scope; though what they will impart
    Help nothing else, yet do they case the heart.
  DUCHESS. If so, then be not tongue-tied. Go with me,
    And in the breath of bitter words let's smother
    My damned son that thy two sweet sons smother'd.
    The trumpet sounds; be copious in exclaims.

         Enter KING RICHARD and his train, marching with
                     drums and trumpets

  KING RICHARD. Who intercepts me in my expedition?
  DUCHESS. O, she that might have intercepted thee,
    By strangling thee in her accursed womb,
    From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Hidest thou that forehead with a golden
    crown
    Where't should be branded, if that right were right,
    The slaughter of the Prince that ow'd that crown,
    And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?
    Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?
  DUCHESS. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother
    Clarence?
    And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan,
    Grey?
  DUCHESS. Where is kind Hastings?
  KING RICHARD. A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!
    Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
    Rail on the Lord's anointed. Strike, I say!
                                             [Flourish. Alarums]
    Either be patient and entreat me fair,
    Or with the clamorous report of war
    Thus will I drown your exclamations.
  DUCHESS. Art thou my son?
  KING RICHARD. Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.
  DUCHESS. Then patiently hear my impatience.
  KING RICHARD. Madam, I have a touch of your condition
    That cannot brook the accent of reproof.
  DUCHESS. O, let me speak!
  KING RICHARD. Do, then; but I'll not hear.
  DUCHESS. I will be mild and gentle in my words.
  KING RICHARD. And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.
  DUCHESS. Art thou so hasty? I have stay'd for thee,
    God knows, in torment and in agony.
  KING RICHARD. And came I not at last to comfort you?
  DUCHESS. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well
    Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell.
    A grievous burden was thy birth to me;
    Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;
    Thy school-days frightful, desp'rate, wild, and furious;
    Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous;
    Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody,
    More mild, but yet more harmful-kind in hatred.
    What comfortable hour canst thou name
    That ever grac'd me with thy company?
  KING RICHARD. Faith, none but Humphrey Hour, that call'd
    your Grace
    To breakfast once forth of my company.
    If I be so disgracious in your eye,
    Let me march on and not offend you, madam.
    Strike up the drum.
  DUCHESS. I prithee hear me speak.
  KING RICHARD. You speak too bitterly.
  DUCHESS. Hear me a word;
    For I shall never speak to thee again.
  KING RICHARD. So.
  DUCHESS. Either thou wilt die by God's just ordinance
    Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror;
    Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish
    And never more behold thy face again.
    Therefore take with thee my most grievous curse,
    Which in the day of battle tire thee more
    Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st!
    My prayers on the adverse party fight;
    And there the little souls of Edward's children
    Whisper the spirits of thine enemies
    And promise them success and victory.
    Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.
    Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.        Exit
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Though far more cause, yet much less
      spirit to curse
    Abides in me; I say amen to her.
  KING RICHARD. Stay, madam, I must talk a word with you.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I have no moe sons of the royal blood
    For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
    They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;
    And therefore level not to hit their lives.
  KING RICHARD. You have a daughter call'd Elizabeth.
    Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And must she die for this? O, let her
      live,
    And I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty,
    Slander myself as false to Edward's bed,
    Throw over her the veil of infamy;
    So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,
    I will confess she was not Edward's daughter.
  KING RICHARD. Wrong not her birth; she is a royal
    Princess.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To save her life I'll say she is not so.
  KING RICHARD. Her life is safest only in her birth.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And only in that safety died her
      brothers.
  KING RICHARD. Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, to their lives ill friends were
      contrary.
  KING RICHARD. All unavoided is the doom of destiny.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
    My babes were destin'd to a fairer death,
    If grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.
  KING RICHARD. You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle
      cozen'd
    Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
    Whose hand soever lanc'd their tender hearts,
    Thy head, an indirectly, gave direction.
    No doubt the murd'rous knife was dull and blunt
    Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart
    To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
    But that stiff use of grief makes wild grief tame,
    My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
    Till that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;
    And I, in such a desp'rate bay of death,
    Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,
    Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.
  KING RICHARD. Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise
    And dangerous success of bloody wars,
    As I intend more good to you and yours
    Than ever you or yours by me were harm'd!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What good is cover'd with the face of
      heaven,
    To be discover'd, that can do me good?
  KING RICHARD. advancement of your children, gentle
    lady.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their
    heads?
  KING RICHARD. Unto the dignity and height of Fortune,
    The high imperial type of this earth's glory.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Flatter my sorrow with report of it;
    Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
    Canst thou demise to any child of mine?
  KING RICHARD. Even all I have-ay, and myself and all
    Will I withal endow a child of thine;
    So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
    Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
    Which thou supposest I have done to thee.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Be brief, lest that the process of thy
      kindness
    Last longer telling than thy kindness' date.
  KING RICHARD. Then know, that from my soul I love thy
    daughter.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My daughter's mother thinks it with her
    soul.
  KING RICHARD. What do you think?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou dost love my daughter from
      thy soul.
    So from thy soul's love didst thou love her brothers,
    And from my heart's love I do thank thee for it.
  KING RICHARD. Be not so hasty to confound my meaning.
    I mean that with my soul I love thy daughter
    And do intend to make her Queen of England.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Well, then, who dost thou mean shall be
    her king?
  KING RICHARD. Even he that makes her Queen. Who else
    should be?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What, thou?
  KING RICHARD. Even so. How think you of it?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How canst thou woo her?
  KING RICHARD. That would I learn of you,
    As one being best acquainted with her humour.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And wilt thou learn of me?
  KING RICHARD. Madam, with all my heart.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Send to her, by the man that slew her
    brothers,
    A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave
    'Edward' and 'York.' Then haply will she weep;
    Therefore present to her-as sometimes Margaret
    Did to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood-
    A handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain
    The purple sap from her sweet brother's body,
    And bid her wipe her weeping eyes withal.
    If this inducement move her not to love,
    Send her a letter of thy noble deeds;
    Tell her thou mad'st away her uncle Clarence,
    Her uncle Rivers; ay, and for her sake
    Mad'st quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.
  KING RICHARD. You mock me, madam; this is not the way
    To win your daughter.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There is no other way;
    Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
    And not be Richard that hath done all this.
  KING RICHARD. Say that I did all this for love of her.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but
      hate thee,
    Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.
  KING RICHARD. Look what is done cannot be now amended.
    Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
    Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
    If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
    To make amends I'll give it to your daughter.
    If I have kill'd the issue of your womb,
    To quicken your increase I will beget
    Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
    A grandam's name is little less in love
    Than is the doating title of a mother;
    They are as children but one step below,
    Even of your metal, of your very blood;
    Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
    Endur'd of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.
    Your children were vexation to your youth;
    But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
    The loss you have is but a son being King,
    And by that loss your daughter is made Queen.
    I cannot make you what amends I would,
    Therefore accept such kindness as I can.
    Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
    Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
    This fair alliance quickly shall can home
    To high promotions and great dignity.
    The King, that calls your beauteous daughter wife,
    Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother;
    Again shall you be mother to a king,
    And all the ruins of distressful times
    Repair'd with double riches of content.
    What! we have many goodly days to see.
    The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
    Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,
    Advantaging their loan with interest
    Of ten times double gain of happiness.
    Go, then, my mother, to thy daughter go;
    Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
    Prepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale;
    Put in her tender heart th' aspiring flame
    Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the Princes
    With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys.
    And when this arm of mine hath chastised
    The petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,
    Bound with triumphant garlands will I come,
    And lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;
    To whom I will retail my conquest won,
    And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar's Caesar.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What were I best to say? Her father's
      brother
    Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
    Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
    Under what title shall I woo for thee
    That God, the law, my honour, and her love
    Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?
  KING RICHARD. Infer fair England's peace by this alliance.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Which she shall purchase with
    still-lasting war.
  KING RICHARD. Tell her the King, that may command,
    entreats.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That at her hands which the King's
    King forbids.
  KING RICHARD. Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To wail the title, as her mother doth.
  KING RICHARD. Say I will love her everlastingly.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long shall that title 'ever' last?
  KING RICHARD. Sweetly in force unto her fair life's end.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long fairly shall her sweet life
    last?
  KING RICHARD. As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As long as hell and Richard likes of it.
  KING RICHARD. Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But she, your subject, loathes such
    sovereignty.
  KING RICHARD. Be eloquent in my behalf to her.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. An honest tale speeds best being plainly
    told.
  KING RICHARD. Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.
  KING RICHARD. Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, no, my reasons are too deep and
      dead-
    Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.
  KING RICHARD. Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Harp on it still shall I till heartstrings
    break.
  KING RICHARD. Now, by my George, my garter, and my
    crown-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Profan'd, dishonour'd, and the third
    usurp'd.
  KING RICHARD. I swear-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By nothing; for this is no oath:
    Thy George, profan'd, hath lost his lordly honour;
    Thy garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;
    Thy crown, usurp'd, disgrac'd his kingly glory.
    If something thou wouldst swear to be believ'd,
    Swear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.
  KING RICHARD. Then, by my self-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy self is self-misus'd.
  KING RICHARD. Now, by the world-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. 'Tis full of thy foul wrongs.
  KING RICHARD. My father's death-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy life hath it dishonour'd.
  KING RICHARD. Why, then, by God-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God's wrong is most of all.
    If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
    The unity the King my husband made
    Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.
    If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,
    Th' imperial metal, circling now thy head,
    Had grac'd the tender temples of my child;
    And both the Princes had been breathing here,
    Which now, two tender bedfellows for dust,
    Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
    What canst thou swear by now?
  KING RICHARD. The time to come.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou hast wronged in the time
    o'erpast;
    For I myself have many tears to wash
    Hereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.
    The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughter'd,
    Ungovern'd youth, to wail it in their age;
    The parents live whose children thou hast butcheed,
    Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
    Swear not by time to come; for that thou hast
    Misus'd ere us'd, by times ill-us'd o'erpast.
  KING RICHARD. As I intend to prosper and repent,
    So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
    Of hostile arms! Myself myself confound!
    Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours!
    Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!
    Be opposite all planets of good luck
    To my proceeding!-if, with dear heart's love,
    Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
    I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter.
    In her consists my happiness and thine;
    Without her, follows to myself and thee,
    Herself, the land, and many a Christian soul,
    Death, desolation, ruin, and decay.
    It cannot be avoided but by this;
    It will not be avoided but by this.
    Therefore, dear mother-I must call you so-
    Be the attorney of my love to her;
    Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
    Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.
    Urge the necessity and state of times,
    And be not peevish-fond in great designs.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?
  KING RICHARD. Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I forget myself to be myself?
  KING RICHARD. Ay, if your self's remembrance wrong
    yourself.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Yet thou didst kill my children.
  KING RICHARD. But in your daughter's womb I bury them;
    Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
    Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?
  KING RICHARD. And be a happy mother by the deed.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I go. Write to me very shortly,
    And you shall understand from me her mind.
  KING RICHARD. Bear her my true love's kiss; and so, farewell.
                               Kissing her. Exit QUEEN ELIZABETH
    Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!

                 Enter RATCLIFF; CATESBY following

    How now! what news?
  RATCLIFF. Most mighty sovereign, on the western coast
    Rideth a puissant navy; to our shores
    Throng many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,
    Unarm'd, and unresolv'd to beat them back.
    'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;
    And there they hull, expecting but the aid
    Of Buckingham to welcome them ashore.
  KING RICHARD. Some light-foot friend post to the Duke of
    Norfolk.
    Ratcliff, thyself-or Catesby; where is he?
  CATESBY. Here, my good lord.
  KING RICHARD. Catesby, fly to the Duke.
  CATESBY. I will my lord, with all convenient haste.
  KING RICHARD. Ratcliff, come hither. Post to Salisbury;
    When thou com'st thither-  [To CATESBY]  Dull,
    unmindfull villain,
    Why stay'st thou here, and go'st not to the Duke?
  CATESBY. First, mighty liege, tell me your Highness' pleasure,
    What from your Grace I shall deliver to him.
  KING RICHARD. O, true, good Catesby. Bid him levy straight
    The greatest strength and power that he can make
    And meet me suddenly at Salisbury.
  CATESBY. I go.                                            Exit
  RATCLIFF. What, may it please you, shall I do at Salisbury?
  KING RICHARD. Why, what wouldst thou do there before I
    go?
  RATCLIFF. Your Highness told me I should post before.
  KING RICHARD. My mind is chang'd.

                           Enter LORD STANLEY

  STANLEY, what news with you?
  STANLEY. None good, my liege, to please you with
    the hearing;
    Nor none so bad but well may be reported.
  KING RICHARD. Hoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!
    What need'st thou run so many miles about,
    When thou mayest tell thy tale the nearest way?
    Once more, what news?
  STANLEY. Richmond is on the seas.
  KING RICHARD. There let him sink, and be the seas on him!
    White-liver'd runagate, what doth he there?
  STANLEY. I know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.
  KING RICHARD. Well, as you guess?
  STANLEY. Stirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Morton,
    He makes for England here to claim the crown.
  KING RICHARD. Is the chair empty? Is the sword unsway'd?
    Is the King dead, the empire unpossess'd?
    What heir of York is there alive but we?
    And who is England's King but great York's heir?
    Then tell me what makes he upon the seas.
  STANLEY. Unless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.
  KING RICHARD. Unless for that he comes to be your liege,
    You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.
    Thou wilt revolt and fly to him, I fear.
  STANLEY. No, my good lord; therefore mistrust me not.
  KING RICHARD. Where is thy power then, to beat him back?
    Where be thy tenants and thy followers?
    Are they not now upon the western shore,
    Safe-conducting the rebels from their ships?
  STANLEY. No, my good lord, my friends are in the north.
  KING RICHARD. Cold friends to me. What do they in the
    north,
    When they should serve their sovereign in the west?
  STANLEY. They have not been commanded, mighty King.
    Pleaseth your Majesty to give me leave,
    I'll muster up my friends and meet your Grace
    Where and what time your Majesty shall please.
  KING RICHARD. Ay, ay, thou wouldst be gone to join with
    Richmond;
    But I'll not trust thee.
  STANLEY. Most mighty sovereign,
    You have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful.
    I never was nor never will be false.
  KING RICHARD. Go, then, and muster men. But leave behind
    Your son, George Stanley. Look your heart be firm,
    Or else his head's assurance is but frail.
  STANLEY. So deal with him as I prove true to you.         Exit

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,
    As I by friends am well advertised,
    Sir Edward Courtney and the haughty prelate,
    Bishop of Exeter, his elder brother,
    With many moe confederates, are in arms.

                         Enter another MESSENGER

  SECOND MESSENGER. In Kent, my liege, the Guilfords are in
    arms;
    And every hour more competitors
    Flock to the rebels, and their power grows strong.

                         Enter another MESSENGER

  THIRD MESSENGER. My lord, the army of great Buckingham-
  KING RICHARD. Out on you, owls! Nothing but songs of
    death?                                      [He strikes him]
    There, take thou that till thou bring better news.
  THIRD MESSENGER. The news I have to tell your Majesty
    Is that by sudden floods and fall of waters
    Buckingham's army is dispers'd and scatter'd;
    And he himself wand'red away alone,
    No man knows whither.
  KING RICHARD. I cry thee mercy.
    There is my purse to cure that blow of thine.
    Hath any well-advised friend proclaim'd
    Reward to him that brings the traitor in?
  THIRD MESSENGER. Such proclamation hath been made,
    my Lord.

                      Enter another MESSENGER

  FOURTH MESSENGER. Sir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis
    Dorset,
    'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.
    But this good comfort bring I to your Highness-
    The Britaine navy is dispers'd by tempest.
    Richmond in Dorsetshire sent out a boat
    Unto the shore, to ask those on the banks
    If they were his assistants, yea or no;
    Who answer'd him they came from Buckingham
    Upon his party. He, mistrusting them,
    Hois'd sail, and made his course again for Britaine.
  KING RICHARD. March on, march on, since we are up in
    arms;
    If not to fight with foreign enemies,
    Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.

                          Re-enter CATESBY

  CATESBY. My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken-
    That is the best news. That the Earl of Richmond
    Is with a mighty power landed at Milford
    Is colder tidings, yet they must be told.
  KING RICHARD. Away towards Salisbury! While we reason
    here
    A royal battle might be won and lost.
    Some one take order Buckingham be brought
    To Salisbury; the rest march on with me.
    Flourish.                                             Exeunt

SCENE 5.

LORD DERBY'S house

Enter STANLEY and SIR CHRISTOPHER URSWICK

  STANLEY. Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:
    That in the sty of the most deadly boar
    My son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold;
    If I revolt, off goes young George's head;
    The fear of that holds off my present aid.
    So, get thee gone; commend me to thy lord.
    Withal say that the Queen hath heartily consented
    He should espouse Elizabeth her daughter.
    But tell me, where is princely Richmond now?
  CHRISTOPHER. At Pembroke, or at Ha'rford west in Wales.
  STANLEY. What men of name resort to him?
  CHRISTOPHER. Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;
  SIR Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley,
  OXFORD, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,
    And Rice ap Thomas, with a valiant crew;
    And many other of great name and worth;
    And towards London do they bend their power,
    If by the way they be not fought withal.
  STANLEY. Well, hie thee to thy lord; I kiss his hand;
    My letter will resolve him of my mind.
    Farewell.                                             Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1.

Salisbury. An open place

Enter the SHERIFF and guard, with BUCKINGHAM, led to execution

  BUCKINGHAM. Will not King Richard let me speak with
    him?
  SHERIFF. No, my good lord; therefore be patient.
  BUCKINGHAM. Hastings, and Edward's children, Grey, and
    Rivers,
    Holy King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,
    Vaughan, and all that have miscarried
    By underhand corrupted foul injustice,
    If that your moody discontented souls
    Do through the clouds behold this present hour,
    Even for revenge mock my destruction!
    This is All-Souls' day, fellow, is it not?
  SHERIFF. It is, my lord.
  BUCKINGHAM. Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's
    doomsday.
    This is the day which in King Edward's time
    I wish'd might fall on me when I was found
    False to his children and his wife's allies;
    This is the day wherein I wish'd to fall
    By the false faith of him whom most I trusted;
    This, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul
    Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs;
    That high All-Seer which I dallied with
    Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head
    And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.
    Thus doth He force the swords of wicked men
    To turn their own points in their masters' bosoms.
    Thus Margaret's curse falls heavy on my neck.
    'When he' quoth she 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,
    Remember Margaret was a prophetess.'
    Come lead me, officers, to the block of shame;
    Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.          Exeunt

SCENE 2.

Camp near Tamworth

Enter RICHMOND, OXFORD, SIR JAMES BLUNT, SIR WALTER HERBERT, and
others, with drum and colours

  RICHMOND. Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,
    Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny,
    Thus far into the bowels of the land
    Have we march'd on without impediment;
    And here receive we from our father Stanley
    Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.
    The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,
    That spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,
    Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough
    In your embowell'd bosoms-this foul swine
    Is now even in the centre of this isle,
    Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn.
    From Tamworth thither is but one day's march.
    In God's name cheerly on, courageous friends,
    To reap the harvest of perpetual peace
    By this one bloody trial of sharp war.
  OXFORD. Every man's conscience is a thousand men,
    To fight against this guilty homicide.
  HERBERT. I doubt not but his friends will turn to us.
  BLUNT. He hath no friends but what are friends for fear,
    Which in his dearest need will fly from him.
  RICHMOND. All for our vantage. Then in God's name march.
    True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings;
    Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.      Exeunt

SCENE 3.

Bosworth Field

Enter KING RICHARD in arms, with NORFOLK, RATCLIFF, the EARL of SURREYS
and others

  KING RICHARD. Here pitch our tent, even here in Bosworth
    field.
    My Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?
  SURREY. My heart is ten times lighter than my looks.
  KING RICHARD. My Lord of Norfolk!
  NORFOLK. Here, most gracious liege.
  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we
    not?
  NORFOLK. We must both give and take, my loving lord.
  KING RICHARD. Up With my tent! Here will I lie to-night;
                      [Soldiers begin to set up the KING'S tent]
    But where to-morrow? Well, all's one for that.
    Who hath descried the number of the traitors?
  NORFOLK. Six or seven thousand is their utmost power.
  KING RICHARD. Why, our battalia trebles that account;
    Besides, the King's name is a tower of strength,
    Which they upon the adverse faction want.
    Up with the tent! Come, noble gentlemen,
    Let us survey the vantage of the ground.
    Call for some men of sound direction.
    Let's lack no discipline, make no delay;
    For, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.                  Exeunt

             Enter, on the other side of the field,
          RICHMOND, SIR WILLIAM BRANDON, OXFORD, DORSET,
              and others. Some pitch RICHMOND'S tent

  RICHMOND. The weary sun hath made a golden set,
    And by the bright tract of his fiery car
    Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.
    Sir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.
    Give me some ink and paper in my tent.
    I'll draw the form and model of our battle,
    Limit each leader to his several charge,
    And part in just proportion our small power.
    My Lord of Oxford-you, Sir William Brandon-
    And you, Sir Walter Herbert-stay with me.
    The Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment;
    Good Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him,
    And by the second hour in the morning
    Desire the Earl to see me in my tent.
    Yet one thing more, good Captain, do for me-
    Where is Lord Stanley quarter'd, do you know?
  BLUNT. Unless I have mista'en his colours much-
    Which well I am assur'd I have not done-
    His regiment lies half a mile at least
    South from the mighty power of the King.
  RICHMOND. If without peril it be possible,
    Sweet Blunt, make some good means to speak with him
    And give him from me this most needful note.
  BLUNT. Upon my life, my lord, I'll undertake it;
    And so, God give you quiet rest to-night!
  RICHMOND. Good night, good Captain Blunt. Come,
    gentlemen,
    Let us consult upon to-morrow's business.
    In to my tent; the dew is raw and cold.
                                   [They withdraw into the tent]

            Enter, to his-tent, KING RICHARD, NORFOLK,
                       RATCLIFF, and CATESBY

  KING RICHARD. What is't o'clock?
  CATESBY. It's supper-time, my lord;
    It's nine o'clock.
  KING RICHARD. I will not sup to-night.
    Give me some ink and paper.
    What, is my beaver easier than it was?
    And all my armour laid into my tent?
  CATESBY. It is, my liege; and all things are in readiness.
  KING RICHARD. Good Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;
    Use careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.
  NORFOLK. I go, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. Stir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk.
  NORFOLK. I warrant you, my lord.                          Exit
  KING RICHARD. Catesby!
  CATESBY. My lord?
  KING RICHARD. Send out a pursuivant-at-arms
    To Stanley's regiment; bid him bring his power
    Before sunrising, lest his son George fall
    Into the blind cave of eternal night.           Exit CATESBY
    Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.
    Saddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.
    Look that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.
    Ratcliff!
  RATCLIFF. My lord?
  KING RICHARD. Saw'st thou the melancholy Lord
    Northumberland?
  RATCLIFF. Thomas the Earl of Surrey and himself,
    Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop
    Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers.
  KING RICHARD. So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine.
    I have not that alacrity of spirit
    Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have.
    Set it down. Is ink and paper ready?
  RATCLIFF. It is, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. Bid my guard watch; leave me.
  RATCLIFF, about the mid of night come to my tent
    And help to arm me. Leave me, I say.
                                   Exit RATCLIFF. RICHARD sleeps

               Enter DERBY to RICHMOND in his tent;
                        LORDS attending

  DERBY. Fortune and victory sit on thy helm!
  RICHMOND. All comfort that the dark night can afford
    Be to thy person, noble father-in-law!
    Tell me, how fares our loving mother?
  DERBY. I, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother,
    Who prays continually for Richmond's good.
    So much for that. The silent hours steal on,
    And flaky darkness breaks within the east.
    In brief, for so the season bids us be,
    Prepare thy battle early in the morning,
    And put thy fortune to the arbitrement
    Of bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.
    I, as I may-that which I would I cannot-
    With best advantage will deceive the time
    And aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms;
    But on thy side I may not be too forward,
    Lest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,
    Be executed in his father's sight.
    Farewell; the leisure and the fearful time
    Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love
    And ample interchange of sweet discourse
    Which so-long-sund'red friends should dwell upon.
    God give us leisure for these rites of love!
    Once more, adieu; be valiant, and speed well!
  RICHMOND. Good lords, conduct him to his regiment.
    I'll strive with troubled thoughts to take a nap,
    Lest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow
    When I should mount with wings of victory.
    Once more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.
                                         Exeunt all but RICHMOND
    O Thou, whose captain I account myself,
    Look on my forces with a gracious eye;
    Put in their hands Thy bruising irons of wrath,
    That they may crush down with a heavy fall
    The usurping helmets of our adversaries!
    Make us Thy ministers of chastisement,
    That we may praise Thee in the victory!
    To Thee I do commend my watchful soul
    Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes.
    Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still!            [Sleeps]

            Enter the GHOST Of YOUNG PRINCE EDWARD,
                    son to HENRY THE SIXTH

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy on thy soul
    to-morrow!
    Think how thou stabb'dst me in my prime of youth
    At Tewksbury; despair, therefore, and die!
    [To RICHMOND]  Be cheerful, Richmond; for the wronged
    souls
    Of butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf.
    King Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee.

              Enter the GHOST of HENRY THE SIXTH

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  When I was mortal, my anointed
    body
    By thee was punched full of deadly holes.
    Think on the Tower and me. Despair, and die.
    Harry the Sixth bids thee despair and die.
    [To RICHMOND]  Virtuous and holy, be thou conqueror!
    Harry, that prophesied thou shouldst be King,
    Doth comfort thee in thy sleep. Live and flourish!

                   Enter the GHOST of CLARENCE

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy soul
    to-morrow! I that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine,
    Poor Clarence, by thy guile betray'd to death!
    To-morrow in the battle think on me,
    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die!
    [To RICHMOND]  Thou offspring of the house of Lancaster,
    The wronged heirs of York do pray for thee.
    Good angels guard thy battle! Live and flourish!

           Enter the GHOSTS of RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN

  GHOST OF RIVERS.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy
    soul to-morrow,
    Rivers that died at Pomfret! Despair and die!
  GHOST OF GREY.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Grey, and let
    thy soul despair!
  GHOST OF VAUGHAN.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Vaughan,
    and with guilty fear
    Let fall thy lance. Despair and die!
  ALL.  [To RICHMOND]  Awake, and think our wrongs in
    Richard's bosom
    Will conquer him. Awake and win the day.

                Enter the GHOST of HASTINGS

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Bloody and guilty, guiltily awake,
    And in a bloody battle end thy days!
    Think on Lord Hastings. Despair and die.
    [To RICHMOND]   Quiet untroubled soul, awake, awake!
    Arm, fight, and conquer, for fair England's sake!

         Enter the GHOSTS of the two young PRINCES

  GHOSTS.  [To RICHARD]  Dream on thy cousins smothered in
    the Tower.
    Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard,
    And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death!
    Thy nephews' souls bid thee despair and die.
    [To RICHMOND]  Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and
    wake in joy;
    Good angels guard thee from the boar's annoy!
    Live, and beget a happy race of kings!
    Edward's unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.

          Enter the GHOST of LADY ANNE, his wife

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Richard, thy wife, that wretched
    Anne thy wife
    That never slept a quiet hour with thee
    Now fills thy sleep with perturbations.
    To-morrow in the battle think on me,
    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die.
    [To RICHMOND]  Thou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep;
    Dream of success and happy victory.
    Thy adversary's wife doth pray for thee.

                   Enter the GHOST of BUCKINGHAM

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  The first was I that help'd thee
    to the crown;
    The last was I that felt thy tyranny.
    O, in the battle think on Buckingham,
    And die in terror of thy guiltiness!
    Dream on, dream on of bloody deeds and death;
    Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath!
    [To RICHMOND]  I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid;
    But cheer thy heart and be thou not dismay'd:
    God and good angels fight on Richmond's side;
    And Richard falls in height of all his pride.
            [The GHOSTS vanish. RICHARD starts out of his dream]
  KING RICHARD. Give me another horse. Bind up my wounds.
    Have mercy, Jesu! Soft! I did but dream.
    O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
    The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
    Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
    What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by.
    Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
    Is there a murderer here? No-yes, I am.
    Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why-
    Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself!
    Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good
    That I myself have done unto myself?
    O, no! Alas, I rather hate myself
    For hateful deeds committed by myself!
    I am a villain; yet I lie, I am not.
    Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter.
    My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
    And every tongue brings in a several tale,
    And every tale condemns me for a villain.
    Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree;
    Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree;
    All several sins, all us'd in each degree,
    Throng to the bar, crying all 'Guilty! guilty!'
    I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
    And if I die no soul will pity me:
    And wherefore should they, since that I myself
    Find in myself no pity to myself?
    Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd
    Came to my tent, and every one did threat
    To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.

                            Enter RATCLIFF

  RATCLIFF. My lord!
  KING RICHARD. Zounds, who is there?
  RATCLIFF. Ratcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village-cock
    Hath twice done salutation to the morn;
    Your friends are up and buckle on their armour.
  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream!
    What think'st thou-will our friends prove all true?
  RATCLIFF. No doubt, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I fear, I fear.
  RATCLIFF. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.
  KING RICHARD By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
    Have stuck more terror to the soul of Richard
    Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers
    Armed in proof and led by shallow Richmond.
    'Tis not yet near day. Come, go with me;
    Under our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,
    To see if any mean to shrink from me.                 Exeunt

          Enter the LORDS to RICHMOND sitting in his tent

  LORDS. Good morrow, Richmond!
  RICHMOND. Cry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,
    That you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here.
  LORDS. How have you slept, my lord?
  RICHMOND. The sweetest sleep and fairest-boding dreams
    That ever ent'red in a drowsy head
    Have I since your departure had, my lords.
    Methought their souls whose bodies Richard murder'd
    Came to my tent and cried on victory.
    I promise you my soul is very jocund
    In the remembrance of so fair a dream.
    How far into the morning is it, lords?
  LORDS. Upon the stroke of four.
  RICHMOND. Why, then 'tis time to arm and give direction.

                 His ORATION to his SOLDIERS

    More than I have said, loving countrymen,
    The leisure and enforcement of the time
    Forbids to dwell upon; yet remember this:
    God and our good cause fight upon our side;
    The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,
    Like high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces;
    Richard except, those whom we fight against
    Had rather have us win than him they follow.
    For what is he they follow? Truly, gentlemen,
    A bloody tyrant and a homicide;
    One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'd;
    One that made means to come by what he hath,
    And slaughtered those that were the means to help him;
    A base foul stone, made precious by the foil
    Of England's chair, where he is falsely set;
    One that hath ever been God's enemy.
    Then if you fight against God's enemy,
    God will in justice ward you as his soldiers;
    If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,
    You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;
    If you do fight against your country's foes,
    Your country's foes shall pay your pains the hire;
    If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,
    Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors;
    If you do free your children from the sword,
    Your children's children quits it in your age.
    Then, in the name of God and all these rights,
    Advance your standards, draw your willing swords.
    For me, the ransom of my bold attempt
    Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;
    But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt
    The least of you shall share his part thereof.
    Sound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;
    God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!           Exeunt

           Re-enter KING RICHARD, RATCLIFF, attendants,
                         and forces

  KING RICHARD. What said Northumberland as touching
    Richmond?
  RATCLIFF. That he was never trained up in arms.
  KING RICHARD. He said the truth; and what said Surrey
    then?
  RATCLIFF. He smil'd, and said 'The better for our purpose.'
  KING He was in the right; and so indeed it is.
                                                 [Clock strikes]
    Tell the clock there. Give me a calendar.
    Who saw the sun to-day?
  RATCLIFF. Not I, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. Then he disdains to shine; for by the book
    He should have brav'd the east an hour ago.
    A black day will it be to somebody.
    Ratcliff!
  RATCLIFF. My lord?
  KING RICHARD. The sun will not be seen to-day;
    The sky doth frown and lour upon our army.
    I would these dewy tears were from the ground.
    Not shine to-day! Why, what is that to me
    More than to Richmond? For the selfsame heaven
    That frowns on me looks sadly upon him.

                       Enter NORFOLK

  NORFOLK. Arm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.
  KING RICHARD. Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse;
    Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power.
    I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,
    And thus my battle shall be ordered:
    My foreward shall be drawn out all in length,
    Consisting equally of horse and foot;
    Our archers shall be placed in the midst.
    John Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,
    Shall have the leading of this foot and horse.
    They thus directed, we will follow
    In the main battle, whose puissance on either side
    Shall be well winged with our chiefest horse.
    This, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou,
    Norfolk?
  NORFOLK. A good direction, warlike sovereign.
    This found I on my tent this morning.
                                        [He sheweth him a paper]
  KING RICHARD.                                          [Reads]
    'Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold,
    For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.'
    A thing devised by the enemy.
    Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge.
    Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls;
    Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
    Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe.
    Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
    March on, join bravely, let us to it pell-mell;
    If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.

                      His ORATION to his ARMY

    What shall I say more than I have inferr'd?
    Remember whom you are to cope withal-
    A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,
    A scum of Britaines, and base lackey peasants,
    Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth
    To desperate adventures and assur'd destruction.
    You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;
    You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives,
    They would restrain the one, distain the other.
    And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,
    Long kept in Britaine at our mother's cost?
    A milk-sop, one that never in his life
    Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow?
    Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again;
    Lash hence these over-weening rags of France,
    These famish'd beggars, weary of their lives;
    Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,
    For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves.
    If we be conquered, let men conquer us,
    And not these bastard Britaines, whom our fathers
    Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd,
    And, in record, left them the heirs of shame.
    Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives,
    Ravish our daughters?  [Drum afar off]  Hark! I hear their
    drum.
    Fight, gentlemen of England! Fight, bold yeomen!
    Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!
    Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;
    Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!

                        Enter a MESSENGER

    What says Lord Stanley? Will he bring his power?
  MESSENGER. My lord, he doth deny to come.
  KING RICHARD. Off with his son George's head!
  NORFOLK. My lord, the enemy is pass'd the marsh.
    After the battle let George Stanley die.
  KING RICHARD. A thousand hearts are great within my
    bosom.
    Advance our standards, set upon our foes;
    Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,
    Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!
    Upon them! Victory sits on our helms.                 Exeunt

SCENE 4.

Another part of the field

Alarum; excursions. Enter NORFOLK and forces; to him CATESBY

  CATESBY. Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!
    The King enacts more wonders than a man,
    Daring an opposite to every danger.
    His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,
    Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.
    Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost.

                     Alarums. Enter KING RICHARD

  KING RICHARD. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
  CATESBY. Withdraw, my lord! I'll help you to a horse.
  KING RICHARD. Slave, I have set my life upon a cast
    And I Will stand the hazard of the die.
    I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
    Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
    A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!             Exeunt

SCENE 5.

Another part of the field

Alarum. Enter RICHARD and RICHMOND; they fight; RICHARD is slain.
Retreat and flourish. Enter RICHMOND, DERBY bearing the crown, with
other LORDS

  RICHMOND. God and your arms be prais'd, victorious friends;
    The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.
  DERBY. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee!
    Lo, here, this long-usurped royalty
    From the dead temples of this bloody wretch
    Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal.
    Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.
  RICHMOND. Great God of heaven, say Amen to all!
    But, teLL me is young George Stanley living.
  DERBY. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town,
    Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.
  RICHMOND. What men of name are slain on either side?
  DERBY. John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,
    Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.
  RICHMOND. Inter their bodies as becomes their births.
    Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled
    That in submission will return to us.
    And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,
    We will unite the white rose and the red.
    Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,
    That long have frown'd upon their emnity!
    What traitor hears me, and says not Amen?
    England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;
    The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,
    The father rashly slaughter'd his own son,
    The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire;
    All this divided York and Lancaster,
    Divided in their dire division,
    O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth,
    The true succeeders of each royal house,
    By God's fair ordinance conjoin together!
    And let their heirs, God, if thy will be so,
    Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,
    With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!
    Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
    That would reduce these bloody days again
    And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
    Let them not live to taste this land's increase
    That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!
    Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again-
    That she may long live here, God say Amen!            Exeunt

THE END

1595



THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET



by William Shakespeare






Contents

THE PROLOGUE.

ACT I
Scene I. A public place.
Scene II. A Street.
Scene III. Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene IV. A Street.
Scene V. A Hall in Capulet’s House.


ACT II
CHORUS.
Scene I. An open place adjoining Capulet’s Garden.
Scene II. Capulet’s Garden.
Scene III. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene IV. A Street.
Scene V. Capulet’s Garden.
Scene VI. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.


ACT III
Scene I. A public Place.
Scene II. A Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene III. Friar Lawrence’s cell.
Scene IV. A Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene V. An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden.


ACT IV
Scene I. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene II. Hall in Capulet’s House.
Scene III. Juliet’s Chamber.
Scene IV. Hall in Capulet’s House.
Scene V. Juliet’s Chamber; Juliet on the bed.


ACT V
Scene I. Mantua. A Street.
Scene II. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene III. A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets.




 Dramatis Personæ

ESCALUS, Prince of Verona.
MERCUTIO, kinsman to the Prince, and friend to Romeo.
PARIS, a young Nobleman, kinsman to the Prince.
Page to Paris.

MONTAGUE, head of a Veronese family at feud with the Capulets.
LADY MONTAGUE, wife to Montague.
ROMEO, son to Montague.
BENVOLIO, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo.
ABRAM, servant to Montague.
BALTHASAR, servant to Romeo.

CAPULET, head of a Veronese family at feud with the Montagues.
LADY CAPULET, wife to Capulet.
JULIET, daughter to Capulet.
TYBALT, nephew to Lady Capulet.
CAPULET’S COUSIN, an old man.
NURSE to Juliet.
PETER, servant to Juliet’s Nurse.
SAMPSON, servant to Capulet.
GREGORY, servant to Capulet.
Servants.

FRIAR LAWRENCE, a Franciscan.
FRIAR JOHN, of the same Order.
An Apothecary.
CHORUS.
Three Musicians.
An Officer.
Citizens of Verona; several Men and Women, relations to both houses;
Maskers, Guards, Watchmen and Attendants.

SCENE. During the greater part of the Play in Verona; once, in the
Fifth Act, at Mantua.


THE PROLOGUE

 Enter Chorus.

CHORUS.
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

 [_Exit._]



ACT I

SCENE I. A public place.

 Enter Sampson and Gregory armed with swords and bucklers.

SAMPSON.
Gregory, on my word, we’ll not carry coals.

GREGORY.
No, for then we should be colliers.

SAMPSON.
I mean, if we be in choler, we’ll draw.

GREGORY.
Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o’ the collar.

SAMPSON.
I strike quickly, being moved.

GREGORY.
But thou art not quickly moved to strike.

SAMPSON.
A dog of the house of Montague moves me.

GREGORY.
To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand: therefore, if thou
art moved, thou runn’st away.

SAMPSON.
A dog of that house shall move me to stand.
I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s.

GREGORY.
That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest goes to the wall.

SAMPSON.
True, and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to
the wall: therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and
thrust his maids to the wall.

GREGORY.
The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.

SAMPSON.
’Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the
men I will be civil with the maids, I will cut off their heads.

GREGORY.
The heads of the maids?

SAMPSON.
Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense
thou wilt.

GREGORY.
They must take it in sense that feel it.

SAMPSON.
Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and ’tis known I am a
pretty piece of flesh.

GREGORY.
’Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor John.
Draw thy tool; here comes of the house of Montagues.

 Enter Abram and Balthasar.

SAMPSON.
My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.

GREGORY.
How? Turn thy back and run?

SAMPSON.
Fear me not.

GREGORY.
No, marry; I fear thee!

SAMPSON.
Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.

GREGORY.
I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.

SAMPSON.
Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to
them if they bear it.

ABRAM.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON.
I do bite my thumb, sir.

ABRAM.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON.
Is the law of our side if I say ay?

GREGORY.
No.

SAMPSON.
No sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my thumb, sir.

GREGORY.
Do you quarrel, sir?

ABRAM.
Quarrel, sir? No, sir.

SAMPSON.
But if you do, sir, am for you. I serve as good a man as you.

ABRAM.
No better.

SAMPSON.
Well, sir.

 Enter Benvolio.

GREGORY.
Say better; here comes one of my master’s kinsmen.

SAMPSON.
Yes, better, sir.

ABRAM.
You lie.

SAMPSON.
Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy washing blow.

 [_They fight._]

BENVOLIO.
Part, fools! put up your swords, you know not what you do.

 [_Beats down their swords._]

 Enter Tybalt.

TYBALT.
What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
Turn thee Benvolio, look upon thy death.

BENVOLIO.
I do but keep the peace, put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.

TYBALT.
What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:
Have at thee, coward.

 [_They fight._]

 Enter three or four Citizens with clubs.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Clubs, bills and partisans! Strike! Beat them down!
Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!

 Enter Capulet in his gown, and Lady Capulet.

CAPULET.
What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!

LADY CAPULET.
A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?

CAPULET.
My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
And flourishes his blade in spite of me.

 Enter Montague and his Lady Montague.

MONTAGUE.
Thou villain Capulet! Hold me not, let me go.

LADY MONTAGUE.
Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.

 Enter Prince Escalus, with Attendants.

PRINCE.
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,—
Will they not hear? What, ho! You men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets,
And made Verona’s ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker’d with peace, to part your canker’d hate.
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time all the rest depart away:
You, Capulet, shall go along with me,
And Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our farther pleasure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common judgement-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

 [_Exeunt Prince and Attendants; Capulet, Lady Capulet, Tybalt,
 Citizens and Servants._]

MONTAGUE.
Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?
Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?

BENVOLIO.
Here were the servants of your adversary
And yours, close fighting ere I did approach.
I drew to part them, in the instant came
The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar’d,
Which, as he breath’d defiance to my ears,
He swung about his head, and cut the winds,
Who nothing hurt withal, hiss’d him in scorn.
While we were interchanging thrusts and blows
Came more and more, and fought on part and part,
Till the Prince came, who parted either part.

LADY MONTAGUE.
O where is Romeo, saw you him today?
Right glad I am he was not at this fray.

BENVOLIO.
Madam, an hour before the worshipp’d sun
Peer’d forth the golden window of the east,
A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad,
Where underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from this city side,
So early walking did I see your son.
Towards him I made, but he was ware of me,
And stole into the covert of the wood.
I, measuring his affections by my own,
Which then most sought where most might not be found,
Being one too many by my weary self,
Pursu’d my humour, not pursuing his,
And gladly shunn’d who gladly fled from me.

MONTAGUE.
Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Should in the farthest east begin to draw
The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,
Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And private in his chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out
And makes himself an artificial night.
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

BENVOLIO.
My noble uncle, do you know the cause?

MONTAGUE.
I neither know it nor can learn of him.

BENVOLIO.
Have you importun’d him by any means?

MONTAGUE.
Both by myself and many other friends;
But he, his own affections’ counsellor,
Is to himself—I will not say how true—
But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious worm
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,
We would as willingly give cure as know.

 Enter Romeo.

BENVOLIO.
See, where he comes. So please you step aside;
I’ll know his grievance or be much denied.

MONTAGUE.
I would thou wert so happy by thy stay
To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let’s away,

 [_Exeunt Montague and Lady Montague._]

BENVOLIO.
Good morrow, cousin.

ROMEO.
Is the day so young?

BENVOLIO.
But new struck nine.

ROMEO.
Ay me, sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast?

BENVOLIO.
It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?

ROMEO.
Not having that which, having, makes them short.

BENVOLIO.
In love?

ROMEO.
Out.

BENVOLIO.
Of love?

ROMEO.
Out of her favour where I am in love.

BENVOLIO.
Alas that love so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.

ROMEO.
Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love:
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O anything, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?

BENVOLIO.
No coz, I rather weep.

ROMEO.
Good heart, at what?

BENVOLIO.
At thy good heart’s oppression.

ROMEO.
Why such is love’s transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate to have it prest
With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.

 [_Going._]

BENVOLIO.
Soft! I will go along:
And if you leave me so, you do me wrong.

ROMEO.
Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here.
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.

BENVOLIO.
Tell me in sadness who is that you love?

ROMEO.
What, shall I groan and tell thee?

BENVOLIO.
Groan! Why, no; but sadly tell me who.

ROMEO.
Bid a sick man in sadness make his will,
A word ill urg’d to one that is so ill.
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

BENVOLIO.
I aim’d so near when I suppos’d you lov’d.

ROMEO.
A right good markman, and she’s fair I love.

BENVOLIO.
A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.

ROMEO.
Well, in that hit you miss: she’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow, she hath Dian’s wit;
And in strong proof of chastity well arm’d,
From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharm’d.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms
Nor bide th’encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
O she’s rich in beauty, only poor
That when she dies, with beauty dies her store.

BENVOLIO.
Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

ROMEO.
She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty starv’d with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair.
She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.

BENVOLIO.
Be rul’d by me, forget to think of her.

ROMEO.
O teach me how I should forget to think.

BENVOLIO.
By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
Examine other beauties.

ROMEO.
’Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more.
These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows,
Being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair;
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
What doth her beauty serve but as a note
Where I may read who pass’d that passing fair?
Farewell, thou canst not teach me to forget.

BENVOLIO.
I’ll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A Street.

 Enter Capulet, Paris and Servant.

CAPULET.
But Montague is bound as well as I,
In penalty alike; and ’tis not hard, I think,
For men so old as we to keep the peace.

PARIS.
Of honourable reckoning are you both,
And pity ’tis you liv’d at odds so long.
But now my lord, what say you to my suit?

CAPULET.
But saying o’er what I have said before.
My child is yet a stranger in the world,
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
Let two more summers wither in their pride
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

PARIS.
Younger than she are happy mothers made.

CAPULET.
And too soon marr’d are those so early made.
The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth:
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
My will to her consent is but a part;
And she agree, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
This night I hold an old accustom’d feast,
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love, and you among the store,
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
At my poor house look to behold this night
Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well apparell’d April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house. Hear all, all see,
And like her most whose merit most shall be:
Which, on more view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
Come, go with me. Go, sirrah, trudge about
Through fair Verona; find those persons out
Whose names are written there, [_gives a paper_] and to them say,
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.

 [_Exeunt Capulet and Paris._]

SERVANT.
Find them out whose names are written here! It is written that the
shoemaker should meddle with his yard and the tailor with his last, the
fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am sent to
find those persons whose names are here writ, and can never find what
names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned. In good
time!

 Enter Benvolio and Romeo.

BENVOLIO.
Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s burning,
One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish;
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
One desperate grief cures with another’s languish:
Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.

ROMEO.
Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.

BENVOLIO.
For what, I pray thee?

ROMEO.
For your broken shin.

BENVOLIO.
Why, Romeo, art thou mad?

ROMEO.
Not mad, but bound more than a madman is:
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipp’d and tormented and—God-den, good fellow.

SERVANT.
God gi’ go-den. I pray, sir, can you read?

ROMEO.
Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.

SERVANT.
Perhaps you have learned it without book.
But I pray, can you read anything you see?

ROMEO.
Ay, If I know the letters and the language.

SERVANT.
Ye say honestly, rest you merry!

ROMEO.
Stay, fellow; I can read.

 [_He reads the letter._]

_Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters;
The lady widow of Utruvio;
Signior Placentio and his lovely nieces;
Mercutio and his brother Valentine;
Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters;
My fair niece Rosaline and Livia;
Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt;
Lucio and the lively Helena. _


A fair assembly. [_Gives back the paper_] Whither should they come?

SERVANT.
Up.

ROMEO.
Whither to supper?

SERVANT.
To our house.

ROMEO.
Whose house?

SERVANT.
My master’s.

ROMEO.
Indeed I should have ask’d you that before.

SERVANT.
Now I’ll tell you without asking. My master is the great rich Capulet,
and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray come and crush a
cup of wine. Rest you merry.

 [_Exit._]

BENVOLIO.
At this same ancient feast of Capulet’s
Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lov’st;
With all the admired beauties of Verona.
Go thither and with unattainted eye,
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

ROMEO.
When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fire;
And these who, often drown’d, could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars.
One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.

BENVOLIO.
Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself pois’d with herself in either eye:
But in that crystal scales let there be weigh’d
Your lady’s love against some other maid
That I will show you shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well that now shows best.

ROMEO.
I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of my own.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Room in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.

LADY CAPULET.
Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.

NURSE.
Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
I bade her come. What, lamb! What ladybird!
God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!

 Enter Juliet.

JULIET.
How now, who calls?

NURSE.
Your mother.

JULIET.
Madam, I am here. What is your will?

LADY CAPULET.
This is the matter. Nurse, give leave awhile,
We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again,
I have remember’d me, thou’s hear our counsel.
Thou knowest my daughter’s of a pretty age.

NURSE.
Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

LADY CAPULET.
She’s not fourteen.

NURSE.
I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth,
And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,
She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?

LADY CAPULET.
A fortnight and odd days.

NURSE.
Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she,—God rest all Christian souls!—
Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God;
She was too good for me. But as I said,
On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen;
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
And she was wean’d,—I never shall forget it—,
Of all the days of the year, upon that day:
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall;
My lord and you were then at Mantua:
Nay, I do bear a brain. But as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug!
Shake, quoth the dovehouse: ’twas no need, I trow,
To bid me trudge.
And since that time it is eleven years;
For then she could stand alone; nay, by th’rood
She could have run and waddled all about;
For even the day before she broke her brow,
And then my husband,—God be with his soul!
A was a merry man,—took up the child:
‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ and, by my holidame,
The pretty wretch left crying, and said ‘Ay’.
To see now how a jest shall come about.
I warrant, and I should live a thousand years,
I never should forget it. ‘Wilt thou not, Jule?’ quoth he;
And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said ‘Ay.’

LADY CAPULET.
Enough of this; I pray thee hold thy peace.

NURSE.
Yes, madam, yet I cannot choose but laugh,
To think it should leave crying, and say ‘Ay’;
And yet I warrant it had upon it brow
A bump as big as a young cockerel’s stone;
A perilous knock, and it cried bitterly.
‘Yea,’ quoth my husband, ‘fall’st upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ it stinted, and said ‘Ay’.

JULIET.
And stint thou too, I pray thee, Nurse, say I.

NURSE.
Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nurs’d:
And I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish.

LADY CAPULET.
Marry, that marry is the very theme
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?

JULIET.
It is an honour that I dream not of.

NURSE.
An honour! Were not I thine only nurse,
I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat.

LADY CAPULET.
Well, think of marriage now: younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers. By my count
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus, then, in brief;
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

NURSE.
A man, young lady! Lady, such a man
As all the world—why he’s a man of wax.

LADY CAPULET.
Verona’s summer hath not such a flower.

NURSE.
Nay, he’s a flower, in faith a very flower.

LADY CAPULET.
What say you, can you love the gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at our feast;
Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face,
And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen.
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content;
And what obscur’d in this fair volume lies,
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
The fish lives in the sea; and ’tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide.
That book in many’s eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.

NURSE.
No less, nay bigger. Women grow by men.

LADY CAPULET.
Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love?

JULIET.
I’ll look to like, if looking liking move:
But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

 Enter a Servant.

SERVANT.
Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady
asked for, the Nurse cursed in the pantry, and everything in extremity.
I must hence to wait, I beseech you follow straight.

LADY CAPULET.
We follow thee.

 [_Exit Servant._]

Juliet, the County stays.

NURSE.
Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A Street.

 Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six Maskers;
 Torch-bearers and others.

ROMEO.
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without apology?

BENVOLIO.
The date is out of such prolixity:
We’ll have no Cupid hoodwink’d with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance:
But let them measure us by what they will,
We’ll measure them a measure, and be gone.

ROMEO.
Give me a torch, I am not for this ambling;
Being but heavy I will bear the light.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

ROMEO.
Not I, believe me, you have dancing shoes,
With nimble soles, I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.

MERCUTIO.
You are a lover, borrow Cupid’s wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.

ROMEO.
I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.

MERCUTIO.
And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.

ROMEO.
Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn.

MERCUTIO.
If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Give me a case to put my visage in: [_Putting on a mask._]
A visor for a visor. What care I
What curious eye doth quote deformities?
Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.

BENVOLIO.
Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in
But every man betake him to his legs.

ROMEO.
A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart,
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;
For I am proverb’d with a grandsire phrase,
I’ll be a candle-holder and look on,
The game was ne’er so fair, and I am done.

MERCUTIO.
Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own word:
If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire
Or save your reverence love, wherein thou stickest
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho.

ROMEO.
Nay, that’s not so.

MERCUTIO.
I mean sir, in delay
We waste our lights in vain, light lights by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
Five times in that ere once in our five wits.

ROMEO.
And we mean well in going to this mask;
But ’tis no wit to go.

MERCUTIO.
Why, may one ask?

ROMEO.
I dreamt a dream tonight.

MERCUTIO.
And so did I.

ROMEO.
Well what was yours?

MERCUTIO.
That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO.
In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

MERCUTIO.
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider’s web;
The collars, of the moonshine’s watery beams;
Her whip of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film;
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail,
Tickling a parson’s nose as a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscados, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she,—

ROMEO.
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace,
Thou talk’st of nothing.

MERCUTIO.
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence,
Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

BENVOLIO.
This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves:
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

ROMEO.
I fear too early: for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels; and expire the term
Of a despised life, clos’d in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But he that hath the steerage of my course
Direct my suit. On, lusty gentlemen!

BENVOLIO.
Strike, drum.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. A Hall in Capulet’s House.

 Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.

FIRST SERVANT.
Where’s Potpan, that he helps not to take away?
He shift a trencher! He scrape a trencher!

SECOND SERVANT.
When good manners shall lie all in one or two men’s hands, and they
unwash’d too, ’tis a foul thing.

FIRST SERVANT.
Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the
plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and as thou loves me,
let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell. Antony and Potpan!

SECOND SERVANT.
Ay, boy, ready.

FIRST SERVANT.
You are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for, in the
great chamber.

SECOND SERVANT.
We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys. Be brisk awhile, and
the longer liver take all.

 [_Exeunt._]

 Enter Capulet, &c. with the Guests and Gentlewomen to the Maskers.

CAPULET.
Welcome, gentlemen, ladies that have their toes
Unplagu’d with corns will have a bout with you.
Ah my mistresses, which of you all
Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty,
She I’ll swear hath corns. Am I come near ye now?
Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day
That I have worn a visor, and could tell
A whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,
Such as would please; ’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone,
You are welcome, gentlemen! Come, musicians, play.
A hall, a hall, give room! And foot it, girls.

 [_Music plays, and they dance._]

More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,
And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
Ah sirrah, this unlook’d-for sport comes well.
Nay sit, nay sit, good cousin Capulet,
For you and I are past our dancing days;
How long is’t now since last yourself and I
Were in a mask?

CAPULET’S COUSIN.
By’r Lady, thirty years.

CAPULET.
What, man, ’tis not so much, ’tis not so much:
’Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,
Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,
Some five and twenty years; and then we mask’d.

CAPULET’S COUSIN.
’Tis more, ’tis more, his son is elder, sir;
His son is thirty.

CAPULET.
Will you tell me that?
His son was but a ward two years ago.

ROMEO.
What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand
Of yonder knight?

SERVANT.
I know not, sir.

ROMEO.
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
And touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

TYBALT.
This by his voice, should be a Montague.
Fetch me my rapier, boy. What, dares the slave
Come hither, cover’d with an antic face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.

CAPULET.
Why how now, kinsman!
Wherefore storm you so?

TYBALT.
Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;
A villain that is hither come in spite,
To scorn at our solemnity this night.

CAPULET.
Young Romeo, is it?

TYBALT.
’Tis he, that villain Romeo.

CAPULET.
Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone,
A bears him like a portly gentleman;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth.
I would not for the wealth of all the town
Here in my house do him disparagement.
Therefore be patient, take no note of him,
It is my will; the which if thou respect,
Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.

TYBALT.
It fits when such a villain is a guest:
I’ll not endure him.

CAPULET.
He shall be endur’d.
What, goodman boy! I say he shall, go to;
Am I the master here, or you? Go to.
You’ll not endure him! God shall mend my soul,
You’ll make a mutiny among my guests!
You will set cock-a-hoop, you’ll be the man!

TYBALT.
Why, uncle, ’tis a shame.

CAPULET.
Go to, go to!
You are a saucy boy. Is’t so, indeed?
This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what.
You must contrary me! Marry, ’tis time.
Well said, my hearts!—You are a princox; go:
Be quiet, or—More light, more light!—For shame!
I’ll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts.

TYBALT.
Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
[_To Juliet._] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET.
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

ROMEO.
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET.
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO.
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do:
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET.
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

ROMEO.
Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purg’d.
[_Kissing her._]

JULIET.
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

ROMEO.
Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d!
Give me my sin again.

JULIET.
You kiss by the book.

NURSE.
Madam, your mother craves a word with you.

ROMEO.
What is her mother?

NURSE.
Marry, bachelor,
Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous.
I nurs’d her daughter that you talk’d withal.
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
Shall have the chinks.

ROMEO.
Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt.

BENVOLIO.
Away, be gone; the sport is at the best.

ROMEO.
Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.

CAPULET.
Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone,
We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.
Is it e’en so? Why then, I thank you all;
I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.
More torches here! Come on then, let’s to bed.
Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late,
I’ll to my rest.

 [_Exeunt all but Juliet and Nurse._]

JULIET.
Come hither, Nurse. What is yond gentleman?

NURSE.
The son and heir of old Tiberio.

JULIET.
What’s he that now is going out of door?

NURSE.
Marry, that I think be young Petruchio.

JULIET.
What’s he that follows here, that would not dance?

NURSE.
I know not.

JULIET.
Go ask his name. If he be married,
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

NURSE.
His name is Romeo, and a Montague,
The only son of your great enemy.

JULIET.
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.

NURSE.
What’s this? What’s this?

JULIET.
A rhyme I learn’d even now
Of one I danc’d withal.

 [_One calls within, ‘Juliet’._]

NURSE.
Anon, anon!
Come let’s away, the strangers all are gone.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT II

 Enter Chorus.

CHORUS.
Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair for which love groan’d for and would die,
With tender Juliet match’d, is now not fair.
Now Romeo is belov’d, and loves again,
Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;
But to his foe suppos’d he must complain,
And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks:
Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new beloved anywhere.
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE I. An open place adjoining Capulet’s Garden.

 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.

 [_He climbs the wall and leaps down within it._]

 Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.

BENVOLIO.
Romeo! My cousin Romeo! Romeo!

MERCUTIO.
He is wise,
And on my life hath stol’n him home to bed.

BENVOLIO.
He ran this way, and leap’d this orchard wall:
Call, good Mercutio.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, I’ll conjure too.
Romeo! Humours! Madman! Passion! Lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh,
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but ‘Ah me!’ Pronounce but Love and dove;
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and heir,
Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim
When King Cophetua lov’d the beggar-maid.
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.
I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us.

BENVOLIO.
An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

MERCUTIO.
This cannot anger him. ’Twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle,
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it, and conjur’d it down;
That were some spite. My invocation
Is fair and honest, and, in his mistress’ name,
I conjure only but to raise up him.

BENVOLIO.
Come, he hath hid himself among these trees
To be consorted with the humorous night.
Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.

MERCUTIO.
If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.
O Romeo, that she were, O that she were
An open-arse and thou a poperin pear!
Romeo, good night. I’ll to my truckle-bed.
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.
Come, shall we go?

BENVOLIO.
Go then; for ’tis in vain
To seek him here that means not to be found.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Capulet’s Garden.

 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

 Juliet appears above at a window.

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.
I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek.

JULIET.
Ay me.

ROMEO.
She speaks.
O speak again bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

JULIET.
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

ROMEO.
[_Aside._] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

JULIET.
’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

ROMEO.
I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptis’d;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

JULIET.
What man art thou that, thus bescreen’d in night
So stumblest on my counsel?

ROMEO.
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.

JULIET.
My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of thy tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound.
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?

ROMEO.
Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.

JULIET.
How cam’st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

ROMEO.
With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls,
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do, that dares love attempt:
Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

JULIET.
If they do see thee, they will murder thee.

ROMEO.
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.

JULIET.
I would not for the world they saw thee here.

ROMEO.
I have night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes,
And but thou love me, let them find me here.
My life were better ended by their hate
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

JULIET.
By whose direction found’st thou out this place?

ROMEO.
By love, that first did prompt me to enquire;
He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot; yet wert thou as far
As that vast shore wash’d with the farthest sea,
I should adventure for such merchandise.

JULIET.
Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
For that which thou hast heard me speak tonight.
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
What I have spoke; but farewell compliment.
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say Ay,
And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear’st,
Thou mayst prove false. At lovers’ perjuries,
They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.
Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won,
I’ll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo. But else, not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond;
And therefore thou mayst think my ’haviour light:
But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more true
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
I should have been more strange, I must confess,
But that thou overheard’st, ere I was ’ware,
My true-love passion; therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.

ROMEO.
Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow,
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops,—

JULIET.
O swear not by the moon, th’inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

ROMEO.
What shall I swear by?

JULIET.
Do not swear at all.
Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I’ll believe thee.

ROMEO.
If my heart’s dear love,—

JULIET.
Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract tonight;
It is too rash, too unadvis’d, too sudden,
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say It lightens. Sweet, good night.
This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Good night, good night. As sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast.

ROMEO.
O wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?

JULIET.
What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?

ROMEO.
Th’exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.

JULIET.
I gave thee mine before thou didst request it;
And yet I would it were to give again.

ROMEO.
Would’st thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?

JULIET.
But to be frank and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have;
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu.
[_Nurse calls within._]
Anon, good Nurse!—Sweet Montague be true.
Stay but a little, I will come again.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
O blessed, blessed night. I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering sweet to be substantial.

 Enter Juliet above.

JULIET.
Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.
If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow,
By one that I’ll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite,
And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay
And follow thee my lord throughout the world.

NURSE.
[_Within._] Madam.

JULIET.
I come, anon.— But if thou meanest not well,
I do beseech thee,—

NURSE.
[_Within._] Madam.

JULIET.
By and by I come—
To cease thy strife and leave me to my grief.
Tomorrow will I send.

ROMEO.
So thrive my soul,—

JULIET.
A thousand times good night.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.
Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books,
But love from love, towards school with heavy looks.

 [_Retiring slowly._]

 Re-enter Juliet, above.

JULIET.
Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falconer’s voice
To lure this tassel-gentle back again.
Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud,
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine
With repetition of my Romeo’s name.

ROMEO.
It is my soul that calls upon my name.
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears.

JULIET.
Romeo.

ROMEO.
My nyas?

JULIET.
What o’clock tomorrow
Shall I send to thee?

ROMEO.
By the hour of nine.

JULIET.
I will not fail. ’Tis twenty years till then.
I have forgot why I did call thee back.

ROMEO.
Let me stand here till thou remember it.

JULIET.
I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
Remembering how I love thy company.

ROMEO.
And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget,
Forgetting any other home but this.

JULIET.
’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone,
And yet no farther than a wanton’s bird,
That lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.

ROMEO.
I would I were thy bird.

JULIET.
Sweet, so would I:
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast.
Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest.
The grey-ey’d morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And darkness fleckled like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s pathway, made by Titan’s wheels
Hence will I to my ghostly Sire’s cell,
His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

 Enter Friar Lawrence with a basket.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer, and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must upfill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
The earth that’s nature’s mother, is her tomb;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb:
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find.
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some, and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.
For naught so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good but, strain’d from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.
Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied,
And vice sometime’s by action dignified.

 Enter Romeo.

Within the infant rind of this weak flower
Poison hath residence, and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs,—grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

ROMEO.
Good morrow, father.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distemper’d head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.
Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye,
And where care lodges sleep will never lie;
But where unbruised youth with unstuff’d brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art uprous’d with some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight.

ROMEO.
That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
God pardon sin. Wast thou with Rosaline?

ROMEO.
With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.
I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
That’s my good son. But where hast thou been then?

ROMEO.
I’ll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me
That’s by me wounded. Both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies.
I bear no hatred, blessed man; for lo,
My intercession likewise steads my foe.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

ROMEO.
Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet.
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combin’d, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage. When, and where, and how
We met, we woo’d, and made exchange of vow,
I’ll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us today.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!
Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste.
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans yet ring in mine ancient ears.
Lo here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not wash’d off yet.
If ere thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline,
And art thou chang’d? Pronounce this sentence then,
Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men.

ROMEO.
Thou chidd’st me oft for loving Rosaline.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

ROMEO.
And bad’st me bury love.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Not in a grave
To lay one in, another out to have.

ROMEO.
I pray thee chide me not, her I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.
The other did not so.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.
But come young waverer, come go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.

ROMEO.
O let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A Street.

 Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.

MERCUTIO.
Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home tonight?

BENVOLIO.
Not to his father’s; I spoke with his man.

MERCUTIO.
Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, torments him so
that he will sure run mad.

BENVOLIO.
Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, hath sent a letter to his father’s
house.

MERCUTIO.
A challenge, on my life.

BENVOLIO.
Romeo will answer it.

MERCUTIO.
Any man that can write may answer a letter.

BENVOLIO.
Nay, he will answer the letter’s master, how he dares, being dared.

MERCUTIO.
Alas poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabbed with a white wench’s black
eye; run through the ear with a love song, the very pin of his heart
cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft. And is he a man to encounter
Tybalt?

BENVOLIO.
Why, what is Tybalt?

MERCUTIO.
More than Prince of cats. O, he’s the courageous captain of
compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance,
and proportion. He rests his minim rest, one, two, and the third in
your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist;
a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah,
the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hay.

BENVOLIO.
The what?

MERCUTIO.
The pox of such antic lisping, affecting phantasies; these new tuners
of accent. By Jesu, a very good blade, a very tall man, a very good
whore. Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should
be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers,
these pardon-me’s, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot
sit at ease on the old bench? O their bones, their bones!

 Enter Romeo.

BENVOLIO.
Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!

MERCUTIO.
Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou
fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura, to
his lady, was but a kitchen wench,—marry, she had a better love to
berhyme her: Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gypsy; Helen and Hero hildings
and harlots; Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior
Romeo, bonjour! There’s a French salutation to your French slop. You
gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.

ROMEO.
Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?

MERCUTIO.
The slip sir, the slip; can you not conceive?

ROMEO.
Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great, and in such a case as
mine a man may strain courtesy.

MERCUTIO.
That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow
in the hams.

ROMEO.
Meaning, to curtsy.

MERCUTIO.
Thou hast most kindly hit it.

ROMEO.
A most courteous exposition.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.

ROMEO.
Pink for flower.

MERCUTIO.
Right.

ROMEO.
Why, then is my pump well flowered.

MERCUTIO.
Sure wit, follow me this jest now, till thou hast worn out thy pump,
that when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain after the
wearing, solely singular.

ROMEO.
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness!

MERCUTIO.
Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.

ROMEO.
Swits and spurs, swits and spurs; or I’ll cry a match.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done. For thou hast
more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits, than I am sure, I have in my
whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?

ROMEO.
Thou wast never with me for anything, when thou wast not there for the
goose.

MERCUTIO.
I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.

ROMEO.
Nay, good goose, bite not.

MERCUTIO.
Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting, it is a most sharp sauce.

ROMEO.
And is it not then well served in to a sweet goose?

MERCUTIO.
O here’s a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an
ell broad.

ROMEO.
I stretch it out for that word broad, which added to the goose, proves
thee far and wide a broad goose.

MERCUTIO.
Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou
sociable, now art thou Romeo; not art thou what thou art, by art as
well as by nature. For this drivelling love is like a great natural,
that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

BENVOLIO.
Stop there, stop there.

MERCUTIO.
Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.

BENVOLIO.
Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.

MERCUTIO.
O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short, for I was come to the
whole depth of my tale, and meant indeed to occupy the argument no
longer.

 Enter Nurse and Peter.

ROMEO.
Here’s goodly gear!
A sail, a sail!

MERCUTIO.
Two, two; a shirt and a smock.

NURSE.
Peter!

PETER.
Anon.

NURSE.
My fan, Peter.

MERCUTIO.
Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan’s the fairer face.

NURSE.
God ye good morrow, gentlemen.

MERCUTIO.
God ye good-den, fair gentlewoman.

NURSE.
Is it good-den?

MERCUTIO.
’Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the
prick of noon.

NURSE.
Out upon you! What a man are you?

ROMEO.
One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.

NURSE.
By my troth, it is well said; for himself to mar, quoth a? Gentlemen,
can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo?

ROMEO.
I can tell you: but young Romeo will be older when you have found him
than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for
fault of a worse.

NURSE.
You say well.

MERCUTIO.
Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i’faith; wisely, wisely.

NURSE.
If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.

BENVOLIO.
She will endite him to some supper.

MERCUTIO.
A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!

ROMEO.
What hast thou found?

MERCUTIO.
No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something
stale and hoar ere it be spent.
[_Sings._]
    An old hare hoar,
    And an old hare hoar,
  Is very good meat in Lent;
    But a hare that is hoar
    Is too much for a score
  When it hoars ere it be spent.
Romeo, will you come to your father’s? We’ll to dinner thither.

ROMEO.
I will follow you.

MERCUTIO.
Farewell, ancient lady; farewell, lady, lady, lady.

 [_Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio._]

NURSE.
I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this that was so full of his
ropery?

ROMEO.
A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak
more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.

NURSE.
And a speak anything against me, I’ll take him down, and a were lustier
than he is, and twenty such Jacks. And if I cannot, I’ll find those
that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am none of
his skains-mates.—And thou must stand by too and suffer every knave to
use me at his pleasure!

PETER.
I saw no man use you at his pleasure; if I had, my weapon should
quickly have been out. I warrant you, I dare draw as soon as another
man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side.

NURSE.
Now, afore God, I am so vexed that every part about me quivers. Scurvy
knave. Pray you, sir, a word: and as I told you, my young lady bid me
enquire you out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself. But first
let me tell ye, if ye should lead her in a fool’s paradise, as they
say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they say; for the
gentlewoman is young. And therefore, if you should deal double with
her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and
very weak dealing.

ROMEO. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto
thee,—

NURSE.
Good heart, and i’faith I will tell her as much. Lord, Lord, she will
be a joyful woman.

ROMEO.
What wilt thou tell her, Nurse? Thou dost not mark me.

NURSE.
I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take it, is a
gentlemanlike offer.

ROMEO.
Bid her devise
Some means to come to shrift this afternoon,
And there she shall at Friar Lawrence’ cell
Be shriv’d and married. Here is for thy pains.

NURSE.
No truly, sir; not a penny.

ROMEO.
Go to; I say you shall.

NURSE.
This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.

ROMEO.
And stay, good Nurse, behind the abbey wall.
Within this hour my man shall be with thee,
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,
Which to the high topgallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.
Farewell, be trusty, and I’ll quit thy pains;
Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.

NURSE.
Now God in heaven bless thee. Hark you, sir.

ROMEO.
What say’st thou, my dear Nurse?

NURSE.
Is your man secret? Did you ne’er hear say,
Two may keep counsel, putting one away?

ROMEO.
I warrant thee my man’s as true as steel.

NURSE.
Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord! When ’twas a
little prating thing,—O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that
would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief see a
toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that
Paris is the properer man, but I’ll warrant you, when I say so, she
looks as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and
Romeo begin both with a letter?

ROMEO.
Ay, Nurse; what of that? Both with an R.

NURSE.
Ah, mocker! That’s the dog’s name. R is for the—no, I know it begins
with some other letter, and she hath the prettiest sententious of it,
of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.

ROMEO.
Commend me to thy lady.

NURSE.
Ay, a thousand times. Peter!

 [_Exit Romeo._]

PETER.
Anon.

NURSE.
Before and apace.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Capulet’s Garden.

 Enter Juliet.

JULIET.
The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse,
In half an hour she promised to return.
Perchance she cannot meet him. That’s not so.
O, she is lame. Love’s heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glides than the sun’s beams,
Driving back shadows over lowering hills:
Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve
Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She’d be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me.
But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.

 Enter Nurse and Peter.

O God, she comes. O honey Nurse, what news?
Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.

NURSE.
Peter, stay at the gate.

 [_Exit Peter._]

JULIET.
Now, good sweet Nurse,—O Lord, why look’st thou sad?
Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
If good, thou sham’st the music of sweet news
By playing it to me with so sour a face.

NURSE.
I am aweary, give me leave awhile;
Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunt have I had!

JULIET.
I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:
Nay come, I pray thee speak; good, good Nurse, speak.

NURSE.
Jesu, what haste? Can you not stay a while? Do you not see that I am
out of breath?

JULIET.
How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath?
The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
Is thy news good or bad? Answer to that;
Say either, and I’ll stay the circumstance.
Let me be satisfied, is’t good or bad?

NURSE.
Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to choose a man.
Romeo? No, not he. Though his face be better than any man’s, yet his
leg excels all men’s, and for a hand and a foot, and a body, though
they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare. He is not the
flower of courtesy, but I’ll warrant him as gentle as a lamb. Go thy
ways, wench, serve God. What, have you dined at home?

JULIET.
No, no. But all this did I know before.
What says he of our marriage? What of that?

NURSE.
Lord, how my head aches! What a head have I!
It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.
My back o’ t’other side,—O my back, my back!
Beshrew your heart for sending me about
To catch my death with jauncing up and down.

JULIET.
I’faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.
Sweet, sweet, sweet Nurse, tell me, what says my love?

NURSE.
Your love says like an honest gentleman,
And a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome,
And I warrant a virtuous,—Where is your mother?

JULIET.
Where is my mother? Why, she is within.
Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest.
‘Your love says, like an honest gentleman,
‘Where is your mother?’

NURSE.
O God’s lady dear,
Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow.
Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
Henceforward do your messages yourself.

JULIET.
Here’s such a coil. Come, what says Romeo?

NURSE.
Have you got leave to go to shrift today?

JULIET.
I have.

NURSE.
Then hie you hence to Friar Lawrence’ cell;
There stays a husband to make you a wife.
Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news.
Hie you to church. I must another way,
To fetch a ladder by the which your love
Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark.
I am the drudge, and toil in your delight;
But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
Go. I’ll to dinner; hie you to the cell.

JULIET.
Hie to high fortune! Honest Nurse, farewell.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

 Enter Friar Lawrence and Romeo.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
So smile the heavens upon this holy act
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not.

ROMEO.
Amen, amen, but come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight.
Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare,
It is enough I may but call her mine.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

 Enter Juliet.

Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot
Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint.
A lover may bestride the gossamers
That idles in the wanton summer air
And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

JULIET.
Good even to my ghostly confessor.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.

JULIET.
As much to him, else is his thanks too much.

ROMEO.
Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
Be heap’d like mine, and that thy skill be more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
This neighbour air, and let rich music’s tongue
Unfold the imagin’d happiness that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.

JULIET.
Conceit more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament.
They are but beggars that can count their worth;
But my true love is grown to such excess,
I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Come, come with me, and we will make short work,
For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone
Till holy church incorporate two in one.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT III

SCENE I. A public Place.

 Enter Mercutio, Benvolio, Page and Servants.

BENVOLIO.
I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire:
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl,
For now these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

MERCUTIO.
Thou art like one of these fellows that, when he enters the confines of
a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table, and says ‘God send me no
need of thee!’ and by the operation of the second cup draws him on the
drawer, when indeed there is no need.

BENVOLIO.
Am I like such a fellow?

MERCUTIO.
Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy; and as
soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.

BENVOLIO.
And what to?

MERCUTIO.
Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would
kill the other. Thou? Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a
hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel
with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou
hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?
Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy
head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast
quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath
wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall
out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with
another for tying his new shoes with an old riband? And yet thou wilt
tutor me from quarrelling!

BENVOLIO.
And I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee
simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.

MERCUTIO.
The fee simple! O simple!

 Enter Tybalt and others.

BENVOLIO.
By my head, here comes the Capulets.

MERCUTIO.
By my heel, I care not.

TYBALT.
Follow me close, for I will speak to them.
Gentlemen, good-den: a word with one of you.

MERCUTIO.
And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a
word and a blow.

TYBALT.
You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, and you will give me
occasion.

MERCUTIO.
Could you not take some occasion without giving?

TYBALT.
Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.

MERCUTIO.
Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? And thou make minstrels of
us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s
that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!

BENVOLIO.
We talk here in the public haunt of men.
Either withdraw unto some private place,
And reason coldly of your grievances,
Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.

MERCUTIO.
Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.
I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.

 Enter Romeo.

TYBALT.
Well, peace be with you, sir, here comes my man.

MERCUTIO.
But I’ll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery.
Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower;
Your worship in that sense may call him man.

TYBALT.
Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford
No better term than this: Thou art a villain.

ROMEO.
Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting. Villain am I none;
Therefore farewell; I see thou know’st me not.

TYBALT.
Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me, therefore turn and draw.

ROMEO.
I do protest I never injur’d thee,
But love thee better than thou canst devise
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love.
And so good Capulet, which name I tender
As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.

MERCUTIO.
O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
[_Draws._] Alla stoccata carries it away.
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?

TYBALT.
What wouldst thou have with me?

MERCUTIO.
Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives; that I mean to
make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest
of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears?
Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.

TYBALT.
[_Drawing._] I am for you.

ROMEO.
Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

MERCUTIO.
Come, sir, your passado.

 [_They fight._]

ROMEO.
Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.
Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage,
Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath
Forbid this bandying in Verona streets.
Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!

 [_Exeunt Tybalt with his Partizans._]

MERCUTIO.
I am hurt.
A plague o’ both your houses. I am sped.
Is he gone, and hath nothing?

BENVOLIO.
What, art thou hurt?

MERCUTIO.
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, ’tis enough.
Where is my page? Go villain, fetch a surgeon.

 [_Exit Page._]

ROMEO.
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

MERCUTIO.
No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ’tis
enough, ’twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a
grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’ both
your houses. Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to
death. A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of
arithmetic!—Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your
arm.

ROMEO.
I thought all for the best.

MERCUTIO.
Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses.
They have made worms’ meat of me.
I have it, and soundly too. Your houses!

 [_Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio._]

ROMEO.
This gentleman, the Prince’s near ally,
My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt
In my behalf; my reputation stain’d
With Tybalt’s slander,—Tybalt, that an hour
Hath been my cousin. O sweet Juliet,
Thy beauty hath made me effeminate
And in my temper soften’d valour’s steel.

 Re-enter Benvolio.

BENVOLIO.
O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio’s dead,
That gallant spirit hath aspir’d the clouds,
Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.

ROMEO.
This day’s black fate on mo days doth depend;
This but begins the woe others must end.

 Re-enter Tybalt.

BENVOLIO.
Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.

ROMEO.
Again in triumph, and Mercutio slain?
Away to heaven respective lenity,
And fire-ey’d fury be my conduct now!
Now, Tybalt, take the ‘villain’ back again
That late thou gav’st me, for Mercutio’s soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company.
Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.

TYBALT.
Thou wretched boy, that didst consort him here,
Shalt with him hence.

ROMEO.
This shall determine that.

 [_They fight; Tybalt falls._]

BENVOLIO.
Romeo, away, be gone!
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.
Stand not amaz’d. The Prince will doom thee death
If thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!

ROMEO.
O, I am fortune’s fool!

BENVOLIO.
Why dost thou stay?

 [_Exit Romeo._]

 Enter Citizens.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Which way ran he that kill’d Mercutio?
Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?

BENVOLIO.
There lies that Tybalt.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Up, sir, go with me.
I charge thee in the Prince’s name obey.

 Enter Prince, attended; Montague, Capulet, their Wives and others.

PRINCE.
Where are the vile beginners of this fray?

BENVOLIO.
O noble Prince, I can discover all
The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl.
There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,
That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.

LADY CAPULET.
Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother’s child!
O Prince! O husband! O, the blood is spill’d
Of my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,
For blood of ours shed blood of Montague.
O cousin, cousin.

PRINCE.
Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?

BENVOLIO.
Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay;
Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink
How nice the quarrel was, and urg’d withal
Your high displeasure. All this uttered
With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow’d
Could not take truce with the unruly spleen
Of Tybalt, deaf to peace, but that he tilts
With piercing steel at bold Mercutio’s breast,
Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,
And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
Cold death aside, and with the other sends
It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity
Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud,
‘Hold, friends! Friends, part!’ and swifter than his tongue,
His agile arm beats down their fatal points,
And ’twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm
An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life
Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled.
But by and by comes back to Romeo,
Who had but newly entertain’d revenge,
And to’t they go like lightning; for, ere I
Could draw to part them was stout Tybalt slain;
And as he fell did Romeo turn and fly.
This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.

LADY CAPULET.
He is a kinsman to the Montague.
Affection makes him false, he speaks not true.
Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,
And all those twenty could but kill one life.
I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give;
Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.

PRINCE.
Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio.
Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?

MONTAGUE.
Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio’s friend;
His fault concludes but what the law should end,
The life of Tybalt.

PRINCE.
And for that offence
Immediately we do exile him hence.
I have an interest in your hate’s proceeding,
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding.
But I’ll amerce you with so strong a fine
That you shall all repent the loss of mine.
I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.
Therefore use none. Let Romeo hence in haste,
Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.
Bear hence this body, and attend our will.
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A Room in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Juliet.

JULIET.
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus’ lodging. Such a waggoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway’s eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties: or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.
Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle, till strange love, grow bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.
Come, night, come Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back.
Come gentle night, come loving black-brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess’d it; and though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy’d. So tedious is this day
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child that hath new robes
And may not wear them. O, here comes my Nurse,
And she brings news, and every tongue that speaks
But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.

 Enter Nurse, with cords.

Now, Nurse, what news? What hast thou there?
The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch?

NURSE.
Ay, ay, the cords.

 [_Throws them down._]

JULIET.
Ay me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands?

NURSE.
Ah, well-a-day, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!
We are undone, lady, we are undone.
Alack the day, he’s gone, he’s kill’d, he’s dead.

JULIET.
Can heaven be so envious?

NURSE.
Romeo can,
Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo.
Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!

JULIET.
What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
This torture should be roar’d in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but Ay,
And that bare vowel I shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
I am not I if there be such an I;
Or those eyes shut that make thee answer Ay.
If he be slain, say Ay; or if not, No.
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.

NURSE.
I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,
God save the mark!—here on his manly breast.
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood,
All in gore-blood. I swounded at the sight.

JULIET.
O, break, my heart. Poor bankrout, break at once.
To prison, eyes; ne’er look on liberty.
Vile earth to earth resign; end motion here,
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier.

NURSE.
O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had.
O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman!
That ever I should live to see thee dead.

JULIET.
What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter’d and is Tybalt dead?
My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?
Then dreadful trumpet sound the general doom,
For who is living, if those two are gone?

NURSE.
Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished,
Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.

JULIET.
O God! Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?

NURSE.
It did, it did; alas the day, it did.

JULIET.
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical,
Dove-feather’d raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain!
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace.

NURSE.
There’s no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men. All perjur’d,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo.

JULIET.
Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! He was not born to shame.
Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit;
For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’d
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

NURSE.
Will you speak well of him that kill’d your cousin?

JULIET.
Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I thy three-hours’ wife have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring,
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you mistaking offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain,
And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband.
All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,
That murder’d me. I would forget it fain,
But O, it presses to my memory
Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds.
Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished.
That ‘banished,’ that one word ‘banished,’
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there.
Or if sour woe delights in fellowship,
And needly will be rank’d with other griefs,
Why follow’d not, when she said Tybalt’s dead,
Thy father or thy mother, nay or both,
Which modern lamentation might have mov’d?
But with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death,
‘Romeo is banished’—to speak that word
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. Romeo is banished,
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word’s death, no words can that woe sound.
Where is my father and my mother, Nurse?

NURSE.
Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corse.
Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

JULIET.
Wash they his wounds with tears. Mine shall be spent,
When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.
Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil’d,
Both you and I; for Romeo is exil’d.
He made you for a highway to my bed,
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
Come cords, come Nurse, I’ll to my wedding bed,
And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead.

NURSE.
Hie to your chamber. I’ll find Romeo
To comfort you. I wot well where he is.
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.
I’ll to him, he is hid at Lawrence’ cell.

JULIET.
O find him, give this ring to my true knight,
And bid him come to take his last farewell.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s cell.

 Enter Friar Lawrence.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.
Affliction is enanmour’d of thy parts
And thou art wedded to calamity.

 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
Father, what news? What is the Prince’s doom?
What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Too familiar
Is my dear son with such sour company.
I bring thee tidings of the Prince’s doom.

ROMEO.
What less than doomsday is the Prince’s doom?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
A gentler judgment vanish’d from his lips,
Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.

ROMEO.
Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say death;
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death. Do not say banishment.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hence from Verona art thou banished.
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

ROMEO.
There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence banished is banish’d from the world,
And world’s exile is death. Then banished
Is death misterm’d. Calling death banished,
Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe,
And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O deadly sin, O rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind Prince,
Taking thy part, hath brush’d aside the law,
And turn’d that black word death to banishment.
This is dear mercy, and thou see’st it not.

ROMEO.
’Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog,
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand,
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
This may flies do, when I from this must fly.
They are free men but I am banished.
And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
But banished to kill me? Banished?
O Friar, the damned use that word in hell.
Howlings attends it. How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d,
To mangle me with that word banished?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Thou fond mad man, hear me speak a little,

ROMEO.
O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word,
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.

ROMEO.
Yet banished? Hang up philosophy.
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a Prince’s doom,
It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O, then I see that mad men have no ears.

ROMEO.
How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.

ROMEO.
Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
And fall upon the ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

 [_Knocking within._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Arise; one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.

ROMEO.
Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans
Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.

 [_Knocking._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hark, how they knock!—Who’s there?—Romeo, arise,
Thou wilt be taken.—Stay awhile.—Stand up.

 [_Knocking._]

Run to my study.—By-and-by.—God’s will,
What simpleness is this.—I come, I come.

 [_Knocking._]

Who knocks so hard? Whence come you, what’s your will?

NURSE.
[_Within._] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.
I come from Lady Juliet.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Welcome then.

 Enter Nurse.

NURSE.
O holy Friar, O, tell me, holy Friar,
Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.

NURSE.
O, he is even in my mistress’ case.
Just in her case! O woeful sympathy!
Piteous predicament. Even so lies she,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man.
For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand.
Why should you fall into so deep an O?

ROMEO.
Nurse.

NURSE.
Ah sir, ah sir, death’s the end of all.

ROMEO.
Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?
Doth not she think me an old murderer,
Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy
With blood remov’d but little from her own?
Where is she? And how doth she? And what says
My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love?

NURSE.
O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;
And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.

ROMEO.
As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her, as that name’s cursed hand
Murder’d her kinsman. O, tell me, Friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.

 [_Drawing his sword._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold thy desperate hand.
Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art.
Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast.
Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amaz’d me. By my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper’d.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady, that in thy life lives,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven and earth?
Since birth, and heaven and earth, all three do meet
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
Fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit,
Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask,
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man. Thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew’st Tybalt; there art thou happy.
The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy.
A pack of blessings light upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But like a misshaped and sullen wench,
Thou putt’st up thy Fortune and thy love.
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her.
But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.
Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady,
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.
Romeo is coming.

NURSE.
O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night
To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!
My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.

ROMEO.
Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

NURSE.
Here sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir.
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
How well my comfort is reviv’d by this.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Go hence, good night, and here stands all your state:
Either be gone before the watch be set,
Or by the break of day disguis’d from hence.
Sojourn in Mantua. I’ll find out your man,
And he shall signify from time to time
Every good hap to you that chances here.
Give me thy hand; ’tis late; farewell; good night.

ROMEO.
But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
Farewell.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A Room in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet and Paris.

CAPULET.
Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily
That we have had no time to move our daughter.
Look you, she lov’d her kinsman Tybalt dearly,
And so did I. Well, we were born to die.
’Tis very late; she’ll not come down tonight.
I promise you, but for your company,
I would have been abed an hour ago.

PARIS.
These times of woe afford no tune to woo.
Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.

LADY CAPULET.
I will, and know her mind early tomorrow;
Tonight she’s mew’d up to her heaviness.

CAPULET.
Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender
Of my child’s love. I think she will be rul’d
In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not.
Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed,
Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love,
And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next,
But, soft, what day is this?

PARIS.
Monday, my lord.

CAPULET.
Monday! Ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,
A Thursday let it be; a Thursday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl.
Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?
We’ll keep no great ado,—a friend or two,
For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
It may be thought we held him carelessly,
Being our kinsman, if we revel much.
Therefore we’ll have some half a dozen friends,
And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?

PARIS.
My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow.

CAPULET.
Well, get you gone. A Thursday be it then.
Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed,
Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.
Farewell, my lord.—Light to my chamber, ho!
Afore me, it is so very very late that we
May call it early by and by. Good night.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden.

 Enter Romeo and Juliet.

JULIET.
Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

ROMEO.
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

JULIET.
Yond light is not daylight, I know it, I.
It is some meteor that the sun exhales
To be to thee this night a torchbearer
And light thee on thy way to Mantua.
Therefore stay yet, thou need’st not to be gone.

ROMEO.
Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death,
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,
’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.
Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.
I have more care to stay than will to go.
Come, death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so.
How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day.

JULIET.
It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away.
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us.
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes.
O, now I would they had chang’d voices too,
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day.
O now be gone, more light and light it grows.

ROMEO.
More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.

 Enter Nurse.

NURSE.
Madam.

JULIET.
Nurse?

NURSE.
Your lady mother is coming to your chamber.
The day is broke, be wary, look about.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

ROMEO.
Farewell, farewell, one kiss, and I’ll descend.

 [_Descends._]

JULIET.
Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay husband, friend,
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days.
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Romeo.

ROMEO.
Farewell!
I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

JULIET.
O thinkest thou we shall ever meet again?

ROMEO.
I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.

JULIET.
O God! I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

ROMEO.
And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu.

 [_Exit below._]

JULIET.
O Fortune, Fortune! All men call thee fickle,
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
That is renown’d for faith? Be fickle, Fortune;
For then, I hope thou wilt not keep him long
But send him back.

LADY CAPULET.
[_Within._] Ho, daughter, are you up?

JULIET.
Who is’t that calls? Is it my lady mother?
Is she not down so late, or up so early?
What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?

 Enter Lady Capulet.

LADY CAPULET.
Why, how now, Juliet?

JULIET.
Madam, I am not well.

LADY CAPULET.
Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?
What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
And if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live.
Therefore have done: some grief shows much of love,
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

JULIET.
Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

LADY CAPULET.
So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you weep for.

JULIET.
Feeling so the loss,
I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

LADY CAPULET.
Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death
As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.

JULIET.
What villain, madam?

LADY CAPULET.
That same villain Romeo.

JULIET.
Villain and he be many miles asunder.
God pardon him. I do, with all my heart.
And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.

LADY CAPULET.
That is because the traitor murderer lives.

JULIET.
Ay madam, from the reach of these my hands.
Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death.

LADY CAPULET.
We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not.
Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,
Where that same banish’d runagate doth live,
Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:
And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.

JULIET.
Indeed I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo till I behold him—dead—
Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex’d.
Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it,
That Romeo should upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
To hear him nam’d, and cannot come to him,
To wreak the love I bore my cousin
Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him.

LADY CAPULET.
Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.
But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

JULIET.
And joy comes well in such a needy time.
What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

LADY CAPULET.
Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;
One who to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
That thou expects not, nor I look’d not for.

JULIET.
Madam, in happy time, what day is that?

LADY CAPULET.
Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn
The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,
The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

JULIET.
Now by Saint Peter’s Church, and Peter too,
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste, that I must wed
Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.
I pray you tell my lord and father, madam,
I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris. These are news indeed.

LADY CAPULET.
Here comes your father, tell him so yourself,
And see how he will take it at your hands.

 Enter Capulet and Nurse.

CAPULET.
When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother’s son
It rains downright.
How now? A conduit, girl? What, still in tears?
Evermore showering? In one little body
Thou counterfeits a bark, a sea, a wind.
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
Sailing in this salt flood, the winds, thy sighs,
Who raging with thy tears and they with them,
Without a sudden calm will overset
Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife?
Have you deliver’d to her our decree?

LADY CAPULET.
Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave.

CAPULET.
Soft. Take me with you, take me with you, wife.
How, will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?
Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest,
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?

JULIET.
Not proud you have, but thankful that you have.
Proud can I never be of what I hate;
But thankful even for hate that is meant love.

CAPULET.
How now, how now, chopp’d logic? What is this?
Proud, and, I thank you, and I thank you not;
And yet not proud. Mistress minion you,
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next
To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage!
You tallow-face!

LADY CAPULET.
Fie, fie! What, are you mad?

JULIET.
Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

CAPULET.
Hang thee young baggage, disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what,—get thee to church a Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face.
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me.
My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
That God had lent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her.
Out on her, hilding.

NURSE.
God in heaven bless her.
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

CAPULET.
And why, my lady wisdom? Hold your tongue,
Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.

NURSE.
I speak no treason.

CAPULET.
O God ye good-en!

NURSE.
May not one speak?

CAPULET.
Peace, you mumbling fool!
Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl,
For here we need it not.

LADY CAPULET.
You are too hot.

CAPULET.
God’s bread, it makes me mad!
Day, night, hour, ride, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match’d, and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly allied,
Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts,
Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man,
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender,
To answer, ‘I’ll not wed, I cannot love,
I am too young, I pray you pardon me.’
But, and you will not wed, I’ll pardon you.
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.
Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise.
And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;
And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
For by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.
Trust to’t, bethink you, I’ll not be forsworn.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O sweet my mother, cast me not away,
Delay this marriage for a month, a week,
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

LADY CAPULET.
Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word.
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
O God! O Nurse, how shall this be prevented?
My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.
How shall that faith return again to earth,
Unless that husband send it me from heaven
By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.
Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
Upon so soft a subject as myself.
What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, Nurse.

NURSE.
Faith, here it is.
Romeo is banished; and all the world to nothing
That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you.
Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the County.
O, he’s a lovely gentleman.
Romeo’s a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first: or if it did not,
Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were,
As living here and you no use of him.

JULIET.
Speakest thou from thy heart?

NURSE.
And from my soul too,
Or else beshrew them both.

JULIET.
Amen.

NURSE.
What?

JULIET.
Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
Go in, and tell my lady I am gone,
Having displeas’d my father, to Lawrence’ cell,
To make confession and to be absolv’d.

NURSE.
Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath prais’d him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go, counsellor.
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy.
If all else fail, myself have power to die.

 [_Exit._]



ACT IV

SCENE I. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

 Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.

PARIS.
My father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
You say you do not know the lady’s mind.
Uneven is the course; I like it not.

PARIS.
Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,
And therefore have I little talk’d of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she do give her sorrow so much sway;
And in his wisdom, hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears,
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society.
Now do you know the reason of this haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
[_Aside._] I would I knew not why it should be slow’d.—
Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.

 Enter Juliet.

PARIS.
Happily met, my lady and my wife!

JULIET.
That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

PARIS.
That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.

JULIET.
What must be shall be.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
That’s a certain text.

PARIS.
Come you to make confession to this father?

JULIET.
To answer that, I should confess to you.

PARIS.
Do not deny to him that you love me.

JULIET.
I will confess to you that I love him.

PARIS.
So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.

JULIET.
If I do so, it will be of more price,
Being spoke behind your back than to your face.

PARIS.
Poor soul, thy face is much abus’d with tears.

JULIET.
The tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough before their spite.

PARIS.
Thou wrong’st it more than tears with that report.

JULIET.
That is no slander, sir, which is a truth,
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.

PARIS.
Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander’d it.

JULIET.
It may be so, for it is not mine own.
Are you at leisure, holy father, now,
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.—
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

PARIS.
God shield I should disturb devotion!—
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye,
Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
O shut the door, and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help!

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits.
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
On Thursday next be married to this County.

JULIET.
Tell me not, Friar, that thou hear’st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.
If in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I’ll help it presently.
God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s seal’d,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc’d time,
Give me some present counsel, or behold
’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the empire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak. I long to die,
If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop’st with death himself to scape from it.
And if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.

JULIET.
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower,
Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk
Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring bears;
Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,
O’er-cover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls.
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble,
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold then. Go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow;
Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy Nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off,
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.
No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest,
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes; thy eyes’ windows fall,
Like death when he shuts up the day of life.
Each part depriv’d of supple government,
Shall stiff and stark and cold appear like death.
And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.
Then as the manner of our country is,
In thy best robes, uncover’d, on the bier,
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the meantime, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And hither shall he come, and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame,
If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear
Abate thy valour in the acting it.

JULIET.
Give me, give me! O tell not me of fear!

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
In this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.

JULIET.
Love give me strength, and strength shall help afford.
Farewell, dear father.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Hall in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, Nurse and Servants.

CAPULET.
So many guests invite as here are writ.

 [_Exit first Servant._]

Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.

SECOND SERVANT.
You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try if they can lick their
fingers.

CAPULET.
How canst thou try them so?

SECOND SERVANT.
Marry, sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers;
therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me.

CAPULET.
Go, begone.

 [_Exit second Servant._]

We shall be much unfurnish’d for this time.
What, is my daughter gone to Friar Lawrence?

NURSE.
Ay, forsooth.

CAPULET.
Well, he may chance to do some good on her.
A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is.

 Enter Juliet.

NURSE.
See where she comes from shrift with merry look.

CAPULET.
How now, my headstrong. Where have you been gadding?

JULIET.
Where I have learnt me to repent the sin
Of disobedient opposition
To you and your behests; and am enjoin’d
By holy Lawrence to fall prostrate here,
To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you.
Henceforward I am ever rul’d by you.

CAPULET.
Send for the County, go tell him of this.
I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning.

JULIET.
I met the youthful lord at Lawrence’ cell,
And gave him what becomed love I might,
Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty.

CAPULET.
Why, I am glad on’t. This is well. Stand up.
This is as’t should be. Let me see the County.
Ay, marry. Go, I say, and fetch him hither.
Now afore God, this reverend holy Friar,
All our whole city is much bound to him.

JULIET.
Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,
To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow?

LADY CAPULET.
No, not till Thursday. There is time enough.

CAPULET.
Go, Nurse, go with her. We’ll to church tomorrow.

 [_Exeunt Juliet and Nurse._]

LADY CAPULET.
We shall be short in our provision,
’Tis now near night.

CAPULET.
Tush, I will stir about,
And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.
I’ll not to bed tonight, let me alone.
I’ll play the housewife for this once.—What, ho!—
They are all forth: well, I will walk myself
To County Paris, to prepare him up
Against tomorrow. My heart is wondrous light
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim’d.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Juliet’s Chamber.

 Enter Juliet and Nurse.

JULIET.
Ay, those attires are best. But, gentle Nurse,
I pray thee leave me to myself tonight;
For I have need of many orisons
To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou know’st, is cross and full of sin.

 Enter Lady Capulet.

LADY CAPULET.
What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?

JULIET.
No, madam; we have cull’d such necessaries
As are behoveful for our state tomorrow.
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the nurse this night sit up with you,
For I am sure you have your hands full all
In this so sudden business.

LADY CAPULET.
Good night.
Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.

 [_Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse._]

JULIET.
Farewell. God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
I’ll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse!—What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
No, No! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.

 [_Laying down her dagger._]

What if it be a poison, which the Friar
Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is. And yet methinks it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man.
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where for this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d,
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort—
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad.
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefathers’ joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O look, methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body
Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here’s drink! I drink to thee.

 [_Throws herself on the bed._]

SCENE IV. Hall in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.

LADY CAPULET.
Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, Nurse.

NURSE.
They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.

 Enter Capulet.

CAPULET.
Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crow’d,
The curfew bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock.
Look to the bak’d meats, good Angelica;
Spare not for cost.

NURSE.
Go, you cot-quean, go,
Get you to bed; faith, you’ll be sick tomorrow
For this night’s watching.

CAPULET.
No, not a whit. What! I have watch’d ere now
All night for lesser cause, and ne’er been sick.

LADY CAPULET.
Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;
But I will watch you from such watching now.

 [_Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse._]

CAPULET.
A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!

 Enter Servants, with spits, logs and baskets.

Now, fellow, what’s there?

FIRST SERVANT.
Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.

CAPULET.
Make haste, make haste.

 [_Exit First Servant._]

—Sirrah, fetch drier logs.
Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

SECOND SERVANT.
I have a head, sir, that will find out logs
And never trouble Peter for the matter.

 [_Exit._]

CAPULET.
Mass and well said; a merry whoreson, ha.
Thou shalt be loggerhead.—Good faith, ’tis day.
The County will be here with music straight,
For so he said he would. I hear him near.

 [_Play music._]

Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, Nurse, I say!

 Re-enter Nurse.

Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up.
I’ll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste,
Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already.
Make haste I say.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Juliet’s Chamber; Juliet on the bed.

 Enter Nurse.

NURSE.
Mistress! What, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.
Why, lamb, why, lady, fie, you slug-abed!
Why, love, I say! Madam! Sweetheart! Why, bride!
What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now.
Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
The County Paris hath set up his rest
That you shall rest but little. God forgive me!
Marry and amen. How sound is she asleep!
I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam!
Ay, let the County take you in your bed,
He’ll fright you up, i’faith. Will it not be?
What, dress’d, and in your clothes, and down again?
I must needs wake you. Lady! Lady! Lady!
Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady’s dead!
O, well-a-day that ever I was born.
Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! My lady!

 Enter Lady Capulet.

LADY CAPULET.
What noise is here?

NURSE.
O lamentable day!

LADY CAPULET.
What is the matter?

NURSE.
Look, look! O heavy day!

LADY CAPULET.
O me, O me! My child, my only life.
Revive, look up, or I will die with thee.
Help, help! Call help.

 Enter Capulet.

CAPULET.
For shame, bring Juliet forth, her lord is come.

NURSE.
She’s dead, deceas’d, she’s dead; alack the day!

LADY CAPULET.
Alack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!

CAPULET.
Ha! Let me see her. Out alas! She’s cold,
Her blood is settled and her joints are stiff.
Life and these lips have long been separated.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

NURSE.
O lamentable day!

LADY CAPULET.
O woful time!

CAPULET.
Death, that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail,
Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.

 Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris with Musicians.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Come, is the bride ready to go to church?

CAPULET.
Ready to go, but never to return.
O son, the night before thy wedding day
Hath death lain with thy bride. There she lies,
Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir;
My daughter he hath wedded. I will die.
And leave him all; life, living, all is death’s.

PARIS.
Have I thought long to see this morning’s face,
And doth it give me such a sight as this?

LADY CAPULET.
Accurs’d, unhappy, wretched, hateful day.
Most miserable hour that e’er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage.
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch’d it from my sight.

NURSE.
O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day.
Most lamentable day, most woeful day
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
O day, O day, O day, O hateful day.
Never was seen so black a day as this.
O woeful day, O woeful day.

PARIS.
Beguil’d, divorced, wronged, spited, slain.
Most detestable death, by thee beguil’d,
By cruel, cruel thee quite overthrown.
O love! O life! Not life, but love in death!

CAPULET.
Despis’d, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d.
Uncomfortable time, why cam’st thou now
To murder, murder our solemnity?
O child! O child! My soul, and not my child,
Dead art thou. Alack, my child is dead,
And with my child my joys are buried.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Peace, ho, for shame. Confusion’s cure lives not
In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid.
Your part in her you could not keep from death,
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was her promotion,
For ’twas your heaven she should be advanc’d,
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc’d
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O, in this love, you love your child so ill
That you run mad, seeing that she is well.
She’s not well married that lives married long,
But she’s best married that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse, and, as the custom is,
And in her best array bear her to church;
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment.

CAPULET.
All things that we ordained festival
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Sir, go you in, and, madam, go with him,
And go, Sir Paris, everyone prepare
To follow this fair corse unto her grave.
The heavens do lower upon you for some ill;
Move them no more by crossing their high will.

 [_Exeunt Capulet, Lady Capulet, Paris and Friar._]

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.

NURSE.
Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up,
For well you know this is a pitiful case.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.

 [_Exit Nurse._]

 Enter Peter.

PETER.
Musicians, O, musicians, ‘Heart’s ease,’ ‘Heart’s ease’, O, and you
will have me live, play ‘Heart’s ease.’

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Why ‘Heart’s ease’?

PETER.
O musicians, because my heart itself plays ‘My heart is full’. O play
me some merry dump to comfort me.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Not a dump we, ’tis no time to play now.

PETER.
You will not then?

FIRST MUSICIAN.
No.

PETER.
I will then give it you soundly.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
What will you give us?

PETER.
No money, on my faith, but the gleek! I will give you the minstrel.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Then will I give you the serving-creature.

PETER.
Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate. I will
carry no crotchets. I’ll re you, I’ll fa you. Do you note me?

FIRST MUSICIAN.
And you re us and fa us, you note us.

SECOND MUSICIAN.
Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.

PETER.
Then have at you with my wit. I will dry-beat you with an iron wit, and
put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men.
    ‘When griping griefs the heart doth wound,
      And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
    Then music with her silver sound’—
Why ‘silver sound’? Why ‘music with her silver sound’? What say you,
Simon Catling?

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.

PETER.
Prates. What say you, Hugh Rebeck?

SECOND MUSICIAN.
I say ‘silver sound’ because musicians sound for silver.

PETER.
Prates too! What say you, James Soundpost?

THIRD MUSICIAN.
Faith, I know not what to say.

PETER.
O, I cry you mercy, you are the singer. I will say for you. It is
‘music with her silver sound’ because musicians have no gold for
sounding.
      ‘Then music with her silver sound
      With speedy help doth lend redress.’

 [_Exit._]

FIRST MUSICIAN.
What a pestilent knave is this same!

SECOND MUSICIAN.
Hang him, Jack. Come, we’ll in here, tarry for the mourners, and stay
dinner.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT V

SCENE I. Mantua. A Street.

 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne;
And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead,—
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!—
And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips,
That I reviv’d, and was an emperor.
Ah me, how sweet is love itself possess’d,
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy.

 Enter Balthasar.

News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the Friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? That I ask again;
For nothing can be ill if she be well.

BALTHASAR.
Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.
Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
And presently took post to tell it you.
O pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

ROMEO.
Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!
Thou know’st my lodging. Get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses. I will hence tonight.

BALTHASAR.
I do beseech you sir, have patience.
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

ROMEO.
Tush, thou art deceiv’d.
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Hast thou no letters to me from the Friar?

BALTHASAR.
No, my good lord.

ROMEO.
No matter. Get thee gone,
And hire those horses. I’ll be with thee straight.

 [_Exit Balthasar._]

Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight.
Let’s see for means. O mischief thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men.
I do remember an apothecary,—
And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted
In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples, meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff’d, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
Were thinly scatter’d, to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said,
And if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
O, this same thought did but forerun my need,
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house.
Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut.
What, ho! Apothecary!

 Enter Apothecary.

APOTHECARY.
Who calls so loud?

ROMEO.
Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor.
Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead,
And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath
As violently as hasty powder fir’d
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.

APOTHECARY.
Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s law
Is death to any he that utters them.

ROMEO.
Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear’st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back.
The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law;
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it and take this.

APOTHECARY.
My poverty, but not my will consents.

ROMEO.
I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.

APOTHECARY.
Put this in any liquid thing you will
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.

ROMEO.
There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
Doing more murder in this loathsome world
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Farewell, buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

 Enter Friar John.

FRIAR JOHN.
Holy Franciscan Friar! Brother, ho!

 Enter Friar Lawrence.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
This same should be the voice of Friar John.
Welcome from Mantua. What says Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

FRIAR JOHN.
Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal’d up the doors, and would not let us forth,
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay’d.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Who bare my letter then to Romeo?

FRIAR JOHN.
I could not send it,—here it is again,—
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice, but full of charge,
Of dear import, and the neglecting it
May do much danger. Friar John, go hence,
Get me an iron crow and bring it straight
Unto my cell.

FRIAR JOHN.
Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee.

 [_Exit._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Now must I to the monument alone.
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.
She will beshrew me much that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents;
But I will write again to Mantua,
And keep her at my cell till Romeo come.
Poor living corse, clos’d in a dead man’s tomb.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets.

 Enter Paris, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch.

PARIS.
Give me thy torch, boy. Hence and stand aloof.
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yond yew tree lay thee all along,
Holding thy ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear’st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.

PAGE.
[_Aside._] I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.

 [_Retires._]

PARIS.
Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew.
O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones,
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans.
The obsequies that I for thee will keep,
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.

 [_The Page whistles._]

The boy gives warning something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way tonight,
To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite?
What, with a torch! Muffle me, night, awhile.

 [_Retires._]

 Enter Romeo and Balthasar with a torch, mattock, &c.

ROMEO.
Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light; upon thy life I charge thee,
Whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death
Is partly to behold my lady’s face,
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.
But if thou jealous dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.
The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce and more inexorable far
Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

BALTHASAR.
I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.

ROMEO.
So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.
Live, and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow.

BALTHASAR.
For all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout.
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.

 [_Retires_]

ROMEO.
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

 [_Breaking open the door of the monument._]

And in despite, I’ll cram thee with more food.

PARIS.
This is that banish’d haughty Montague
That murder’d my love’s cousin,—with which grief,
It is supposed, the fair creature died,—
And here is come to do some villanous shame
To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.

 [_Advances._]

Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague.
Can vengeance be pursu’d further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.
Obey, and go with me, for thou must die.

ROMEO.
I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man.
Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head
By urging me to fury. O be gone.
By heaven I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither arm’d against myself.
Stay not, be gone, live, and hereafter say,
A madman’s mercy bid thee run away.

PARIS.
I do defy thy conjuration,
And apprehend thee for a felon here.

ROMEO.
Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!

 [_They fight._]

PAGE.
O lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.

 [_Exit._]

PARIS.
O, I am slain! [_Falls._] If thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

 [_Dies._]

ROMEO.
In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris!
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode? I think
He told me Paris should have married Juliet.
Said he not so? Or did I dream it so?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book.
I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave.
A grave? O no, a lantern, slaught’red youth,
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr’d.

 [_Laying Paris in the monument._]

How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! Which their keepers call
A lightning before death. O, how may I
Call this a lightning? O my love, my wife,
Death that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquer’d. Beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin. Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous;
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that I still will stay with thee,
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again. Here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest;
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last.
Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death.
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide.
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.
Here’s to my love! [_Drinks._] O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

 [_Dies._]

 Enter, at the other end of the Churchyard, Friar Lawrence, with a
 lantern, crow, and spade.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Saint Francis be my speed. How oft tonight
Have my old feet stumbled at graves? Who’s there?
Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead?

BALTHASAR.
Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Bliss be upon you. Tell me, good my friend,
What torch is yond that vainly lends his light
To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,
It burneth in the Capels’ monument.

BALTHASAR.
It doth so, holy sir, and there’s my master,
One that you love.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Who is it?

BALTHASAR.
Romeo.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
How long hath he been there?

BALTHASAR.
Full half an hour.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Go with me to the vault.

BALTHASAR.
I dare not, sir;
My master knows not but I am gone hence,
And fearfully did menace me with death
If I did stay to look on his intents.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Stay then, I’ll go alone. Fear comes upon me.
O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

BALTHASAR.
As I did sleep under this yew tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo! [_Advances._]
Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour’d by this place of peace?

 [_Enters the monument._]

Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?
And steep’d in blood? Ah what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance?
The lady stirs.

 [_Juliet wakes and stirs._]

JULIET.
O comfortable Friar, where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am. Where is my Romeo?

 [_Noise within._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
And Paris too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.
Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay.

JULIET.
Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.

 [_Exit Friar Lawrence._]

What’s here? A cup clos’d in my true love’s hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.
O churl. Drink all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me die with a restorative.

 [_Kisses him._]

Thy lips are warm!

FIRST WATCH.
[_Within._] Lead, boy. Which way?

JULIET.
Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger.

 [_Snatching Romeo’s dagger._]

This is thy sheath. [_stabs herself_] There rest, and let me die.

 [_Falls on Romeo’s body and dies._]

 Enter Watch with the Page of Paris.

PAGE.
This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn.

FIRST WATCH.
The ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard.
Go, some of you, whoe’er you find attach.

 [_Exeunt some of the Watch._]

Pitiful sight! Here lies the County slain,
And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,
Who here hath lain this two days buried.
Go tell the Prince; run to the Capulets.
Raise up the Montagues, some others search.

 [_Exeunt others of the Watch._]

We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry.

 Re-enter some of the Watch with Balthasar.

SECOND WATCH.
Here’s Romeo’s man. We found him in the churchyard.

FIRST WATCH.
Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither.

 Re-enter others of the Watch with Friar Lawrence.

THIRD WATCH. Here is a Friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.
We took this mattock and this spade from him
As he was coming from this churchyard side.

FIRST WATCH.
A great suspicion. Stay the Friar too.

 Enter the Prince and Attendants.

PRINCE.
What misadventure is so early up,
That calls our person from our morning’s rest?

 Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet and others.

CAPULET.
What should it be that they so shriek abroad?

LADY CAPULET.
O the people in the street cry Romeo,
Some Juliet, and some Paris, and all run
With open outcry toward our monument.

PRINCE.
What fear is this which startles in our ears?

FIRST WATCH.
Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain,
And Romeo dead, and Juliet, dead before,
Warm and new kill’d.

PRINCE.
Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

FIRST WATCH.
Here is a Friar, and slaughter’d Romeo’s man,
With instruments upon them fit to open
These dead men’s tombs.

CAPULET.
O heaven! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!
This dagger hath mista’en, for lo, his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,
And it mis-sheathed in my daughter’s bosom.

LADY CAPULET.
O me! This sight of death is as a bell
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.

 Enter Montague and others.

PRINCE.
Come, Montague, for thou art early up,
To see thy son and heir more early down.

MONTAGUE.
Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight.
Grief of my son’s exile hath stopp’d her breath.
What further woe conspires against mine age?

PRINCE.
Look, and thou shalt see.

MONTAGUE.
O thou untaught! What manners is in this,
To press before thy father to a grave?

PRINCE.
Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
Till we can clear these ambiguities,
And know their spring, their head, their true descent,
And then will I be general of your woes,
And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me, of this direful murder.
And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned and myself excus’d.

PRINCE.
Then say at once what thou dost know in this.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I will be brief, for my short date of breath
Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet,
And she, there dead, that Romeo’s faithful wife.
I married them; and their stol’n marriage day
Was Tybalt’s doomsday, whose untimely death
Banish’d the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin’d.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth’d, and would have married her perforce
To County Paris. Then comes she to me,
And with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutored by my art,
A sleeping potion, which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her
The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo
That he should hither come as this dire night
To help to take her from her borrow’d grave,
Being the time the potion’s force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
Was stay’d by accident; and yesternight
Return’d my letter back. Then all alone
At the prefixed hour of her waking
Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault,
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.
But when I came, some minute ere the time
Of her awaking, here untimely lay
The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth
And bear this work of heaven with patience.
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
All this I know; and to the marriage
Her Nurse is privy. And if ought in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific’d, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.

PRINCE.
We still have known thee for a holy man.
Where’s Romeo’s man? What can he say to this?

BALTHASAR.
I brought my master news of Juliet’s death,
And then in post he came from Mantua
To this same place, to this same monument.
This letter he early bid me give his father,
And threaten’d me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.

PRINCE.
Give me the letter, I will look on it.
Where is the County’s Page that rais’d the watch?
Sirrah, what made your master in this place?

PAGE.
He came with flowers to strew his lady’s grave,
And bid me stand aloof, and so I did.
Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb,
And by and by my master drew on him,
And then I ran away to call the watch.

PRINCE.
This letter doth make good the Friar’s words,
Their course of love, the tidings of her death.
And here he writes that he did buy a poison
Of a poor ’pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague,
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish’d.

CAPULET.
O brother Montague, give me thy hand.
This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

MONTAGUE.
But I can give thee more,
For I will raise her statue in pure gold,
That whiles Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

CAPULET.
As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie,
Poor sacrifices of our enmity.

PRINCE.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished,
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

 [_Exeunt._]



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW




by William Shakespeare






Contents

INDUCTION
Scene I. Before an alehouse on a heath.
Scene II. A bedchamber in the LORD’S house.

ACT I
Scene I. Padua. A public place.
Scene II. Padua. Before HORTENSIO’S house.

ACT II
Scene I. Padua. A room in BAPTISTA’S house.

ACT III
Scene I. Padua. A room in BAPTISTA’S house.
Scene II. The same. Before BAPTISTA’S house.

ACT IV
Scene I. A hall in PETRUCHIO’S country house.
Scene II. Padua. Before BAPTISTA’S house.
Scene III. A room in PETRUCHIO’S house.
Scene IV. Before BAPTISTA’S house.
Scene V. A public road.

ACT V
Scene I. Padua. Before LUCENTIO’S house.
Scene II. A room in LUCENTIO’S house.





Dramatis Personæ

Persons in the Induction
A LORD
CHRISTOPHER SLY, a tinker
HOSTESS
PAGE
PLAYERS
HUNTSMEN
SERVANTS

BAPTISTA MINOLA, a rich gentleman of Padua
VINCENTIO, an old gentleman of Pisa
LUCENTIO, son to Vincentio; in love with Bianca
PETRUCHIO, a gentleman of Verona; suitor to Katherina

Suitors to Bianca
GREMIO
HORTENSIO

Servants to Lucentio
TRANIO
BIONDELLO

Servants to Petruchio
GRUMIO
CURTIS

PEDANT, set up to personate Vincentio

Daughters to Baptista
KATHERINA, the shrew
BIANCA

WIDOW

Tailor, Haberdasher, and Servants attending on Baptista and Petruchio

SCENE: Sometimes in Padua, and sometimes in PETRUCHIO’S house in the
country.




INDUCTION

SCENE I. Before an alehouse on a heath.

Enter Hostess and Sly

SLY.
I’ll pheeze you, in faith.

HOSTESS.
A pair of stocks, you rogue!

SLY.
Y’are a baggage; the Slys are no rogues; look in the chronicles: we
came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore, _paucas pallabris_; let the
world slide. Sessa!

HOSTESS.
You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?

SLY.
No, not a denier. Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy cold bed and warm
thee.

HOSTESS.
I know my remedy; I must go fetch the third-borough.

[_Exit_]

SLY.
Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I’ll answer him by law. I’ll not
budge an inch, boy: let him come, and kindly.

[_Lies down on the ground, and falls asleep._]

Horns winded. Enter a Lord from hunting, with Huntsmen and Servants.

LORD.
Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds;
Brach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss’d,
And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth’d brach.
Saw’st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.

FIRST HUNTSMAN.
Why, Bellman is as good as he, my lord;
He cried upon it at the merest loss,
And twice today pick’d out the dullest scent;
Trust me, I take him for the better dog.

LORD.
Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,
I would esteem him worth a dozen such.
But sup them well, and look unto them all;
Tomorrow I intend to hunt again.

FIRST HUNTSMAN.
I will, my lord.

LORD.
[ _Sees Sly_.] What’s here? One dead, or drunk?
See, doth he breathe?

SECOND HUNTSMAN.
He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm’d with ale,
This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.

LORD.
O monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies!
Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!
Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.
What think you, if he were convey’d to bed,
Wrapp’d in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes,
Would not the beggar then forget himself?

FIRST HUNTSMAN.
Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.

SECOND HUNTSMAN.
It would seem strange unto him when he wak’d.

LORD.
Even as a flattering dream or worthless fancy.
Then take him up, and manage well the jest.
Carry him gently to my fairest chamber,
And hang it round with all my wanton pictures;
Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters,
And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet.
Procure me music ready when he wakes,
To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;
And if he chance to speak, be ready straight,
And with a low submissive reverence
Say ‘What is it your honour will command?’
Let one attend him with a silver basin
Full of rose-water and bestrew’d with flowers;
Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,
And say ‘Will’t please your lordship cool your hands?’
Someone be ready with a costly suit,
And ask him what apparel he will wear;
Another tell him of his hounds and horse,
And that his lady mourns at his disease.
Persuade him that he hath been lunatic;
And, when he says he is—say that he dreams,
For he is nothing but a mighty lord.
This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs;
It will be pastime passing excellent,
If it be husbanded with modesty.

FIRST HUNTSMAN.
My lord, I warrant you we will play our part,
As he shall think by our true diligence,
He is no less than what we say he is.

LORD.
Take him up gently, and to bed with him,
And each one to his office when he wakes.

[Sly _is bourne out. A trumpet sounds._]

Sirrah, go see what trumpet ’tis that sounds:

[_Exit_ Servant.]

Belike some noble gentleman that means,
Travelling some journey, to repose him here.


Re-enter Servant.

How now! who is it?

SERVANT.
An it please your honour, players
That offer service to your lordship.

LORD.
Bid them come near.


Enter Players.

Now, fellows, you are welcome.

PLAYERS.
We thank your honour.

LORD.
Do you intend to stay with me tonight?

PLAYER.
So please your lordship to accept our duty.

LORD.
With all my heart. This fellow I remember
Since once he play’d a farmer’s eldest son;
’Twas where you woo’d the gentlewoman so well.
I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part
Was aptly fitted and naturally perform’d.

PLAYER.
I think ’twas Soto that your honour means.

LORD.
’Tis very true; thou didst it excellent.
Well, you are come to me in happy time,
The rather for I have some sport in hand
Wherein your cunning can assist me much.
There is a lord will hear you play tonight;
But I am doubtful of your modesties,
Lest, over-eying of his odd behaviour,—
For yet his honour never heard a play,—
You break into some merry passion
And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,
If you should smile, he grows impatient.

PLAYER.
Fear not, my lord; we can contain ourselves,
Were he the veriest antick in the world.

LORD.
Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,
And give them friendly welcome everyone:
Let them want nothing that my house affords.

[_Exit one with the Players._]

Sirrah, go you to Barthol’mew my page,
And see him dress’d in all suits like a lady;
That done, conduct him to the drunkard’s chamber,
And call him ‘madam,’ do him obeisance.
Tell him from me—as he will win my love,—
He bear himself with honourable action,
Such as he hath observ’d in noble ladies
Unto their lords, by them accomplished;
Such duty to the drunkard let him do,
With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
And say ‘What is’t your honour will command,
Wherein your lady and your humble wife
May show her duty and make known her love?’
And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,
And with declining head into his bosom,
Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy’d
To see her noble lord restor’d to health,
Who for this seven years hath esteemed him
No better than a poor and loathsome beggar.
And if the boy have not a woman’s gift
To rain a shower of commanded tears,
An onion will do well for such a shift,
Which, in a napkin being close convey’d,
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
See this dispatch’d with all the haste thou canst;
Anon I’ll give thee more instructions.

[_Exit Servant._]

I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
Voice, gait, and action of a gentlewoman;
I long to hear him call the drunkard husband;
And how my men will stay themselves from laughter
When they do homage to this simple peasant.
I’ll in to counsel them; haply my presence
May well abate the over-merry spleen,
Which otherwise would grow into extremes.

[_Exeunt._]




SCENE II. A bedchamber in the LORD’S house.

Sly is discovered in a rich nightgown, with Attendants: some with
apparel, basin, ewer, and other appurtenances; and Lord, dressed like a
servant.

SLY.
For God’s sake! a pot of small ale.

FIRST SERVANT.
Will’t please your lordship drink a cup of sack?

SECOND SERVANT.
Will’t please your honour taste of these conserves?

THIRD SERVANT.
What raiment will your honour wear today?

SLY.
I am Christophero Sly; call not me honour nor lordship. I ne’er drank
sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of
beef. Ne’er ask me what raiment I’ll wear, for I have no more doublets
than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet:
nay, sometime more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look
through the over-leather.

LORD.
Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!
O, that a mighty man of such descent,
Of such possessions, and so high esteem,
Should be infused with so foul a spirit!

SLY.
What! would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly’s son of
Burton-heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by
transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker? Ask
Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she
say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for
the lyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not bestraught. Here’s—

THIRD SERVANT.
O! this it is that makes your lady mourn.

SECOND SERVANT.
O! this is it that makes your servants droop.

LORD.
Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,
As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,
Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,
And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.
Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck:
Wilt thou have music? Hark! Apollo plays,

[_Music._]

And twenty caged nightingales do sing:
Or wilt thou sleep? We’ll have thee to a couch
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
On purpose trimm’d up for Semiramis.
Say thou wilt walk: we will bestrew the ground:
Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapp’d,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark: or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.

FIRST SERVANT.
Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathed stags; ay, fleeter than the roe.

SECOND SERVANT.
Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook,
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.

LORD.
We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid
And how she was beguiled and surpris’d,
As lively painted as the deed was done.

THIRD SERVANT.
Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs, that one shall swear she bleeds
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.

LORD.
Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord:
Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.

FIRST SERVANT.
And, till the tears that she hath shed for thee
Like envious floods o’er-run her lovely face,
She was the fairest creature in the world;
And yet she is inferior to none.

SLY.
Am I a lord? and have I such a lady?
Or do I dream? Or have I dream’d till now?
I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;
I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things:
Upon my life, I am a lord indeed;
And not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;
And once again, a pot o’ the smallest ale.

SECOND SERVANT.
Will’t please your mightiness to wash your hands?

[_Servants present a ewer, basin and napkin._]

O, how we joy to see your wit restor’d!
O, that once more you knew but what you are!
These fifteen years you have been in a dream,
Or, when you wak’d, so wak’d as if you slept.

SLY.
These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.
But did I never speak of all that time?

FIRST SERVANT.
O! yes, my lord, but very idle words;
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door,
And rail upon the hostess of the house,
And say you would present her at the leet,
Because she brought stone jugs and no seal’d quarts.
Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.

SLY.
Ay, the woman’s maid of the house.

THIRD SERVANT.
Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,
Nor no such men as you have reckon’d up,
As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece,
And Peter Turph, and Henry Pimpernell;
And twenty more such names and men as these,
Which never were, nor no man ever saw.

SLY.
Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!

ALL.
Amen.


Enter the Page, as a lady, with Attendants.

SLY.
I thank thee; thou shalt not lose by it.

PAGE.
How fares my noble lord?

SLY.
Marry, I fare well; for here is cheer enough.
Where is my wife?

PAGE.
Here, noble lord: what is thy will with her?

SLY.
Are you my wife, and will not call me husband?
My men should call me lord: I am your goodman.

PAGE.
My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;
I am your wife in all obedience.

SLY.
I know it well. What must I call her?

LORD.
Madam.

SLY.
Alice madam, or Joan madam?

LORD.
Madam, and nothing else; so lords call ladies.

SLY.
Madam wife, they say that I have dream’d
And slept above some fifteen year or more.

PAGE.
Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandon’d from your bed.

SLY.
’Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.
Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.

PAGE.
Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you
To pardon me yet for a night or two;
Or, if not so, until the sun be set:
For your physicians have expressly charg’d,
In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed:
I hope this reason stands for my excuse.

SLY.
Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long; but I would be loath
to fall into my dreams again: I will therefore tarry in despite of the
flesh and the blood.

Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER.
Your honour’s players, hearing your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play,
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.

SLY.
Marry, I will; let them play it. Is not a commonty a Christmas gambold
or a tumbling-trick?

PAGE.
No, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.

SLY.
What! household stuff?

PAGE.
It is a kind of history.

SLY.
Well, we’ll see’t. Come, madam wife, sit by my side and let the world
slip: we shall ne’er be younger.




ACT I

SCENE I. Padua. A public place.

Flourish. Enter Lucentio and Tranio.

LUCENTIO.
Tranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arriv’d for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy,
And by my father’s love and leave am arm’d
With his good will and thy good company,
My trusty servant well approv’d in all,
Here let us breathe, and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa, renowned for grave citizens,
Gave me my being and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincentio, come of the Bentivolii.
Vincentio’s son, brought up in Florence,
It shall become to serve all hopes conceiv’d,
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,
Virtue and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achiev’d.
Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep,
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.

TRANIO.
_Mi perdonato_, gentle master mine;
I am in all affected as yourself;
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle’s checks
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur’d.
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you:
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en;
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

LUCENTIO.
Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.
If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,
We could at once put us in readiness,
And take a lodging fit to entertain
Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.
But stay awhile; what company is this?

TRANIO.
Master, some show to welcome us to town.

[_Lucentio and Tranio stand aside._]

Enter Baptista, Katherina, Bianca, Gremio and Hortensio.

BAPTISTA.
Gentlemen, importune me no farther,
For how I firmly am resolv’d you know;
That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter
Before I have a husband for the elder.
If either of you both love Katherina,
Because I know you well and love you well,
Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.

GREMIO.
To cart her rather: she’s too rough for me.
There, there, Hortensio, will you any wife?

KATHERINA.
[_To Baptista_] I pray you, sir, is it your will
To make a stale of me amongst these mates?

HORTENSIO.
Mates, maid! How mean you that? No mates for you,
Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.

KATHERINA.
I’ faith, sir, you shall never need to fear;
I wis it is not half way to her heart;
But if it were, doubt not her care should be
To comb your noddle with a three-legg’d stool,
And paint your face, and use you like a fool.

HORTENSIO.
From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!

GREMIO.
And me, too, good Lord!

TRANIO.
Husht, master! Here’s some good pastime toward:
That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.

LUCENTIO.
But in the other’s silence do I see
Maid’s mild behaviour and sobriety.
Peace, Tranio!

TRANIO.
Well said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.

BAPTISTA.
Gentlemen, that I may soon make good
What I have said,—Bianca, get you in:
And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,
For I will love thee ne’er the less, my girl.

KATHERINA.
A pretty peat! it is best put finger in the eye, and she knew why.

BIANCA.
Sister, content you in my discontent.
Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe:
My books and instruments shall be my company,
On them to look, and practise by myself.

LUCENTIO.
Hark, Tranio! thou mayst hear Minerva speak.

HORTENSIO.
Signior Baptista, will you be so strange?
Sorry am I that our good will effects
Bianca’s grief.

GREMIO.
Why will you mew her up,
Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,
And make her bear the penance of her tongue?

BAPTISTA.
Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolv’d.
Go in, Bianca.

[_Exit Bianca._]

And for I know she taketh most delight
In music, instruments, and poetry,
Schoolmasters will I keep within my house
Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,
Or, Signior Gremio, you, know any such,
Prefer them hither; for to cunning men
I will be very kind, and liberal
To mine own children in good bringing up;
And so, farewell. Katherina, you may stay;
For I have more to commune with Bianca.

[_Exit._]

KATHERINA.
Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What! shall I be appointed
hours, as though, belike, I knew not what to take and what to leave?
Ha!

[_Exit._]

GREMIO.
You may go to the devil’s dam: your gifts are so good here’s none will
hold you. Their love is not so great, Hortensio, but we may blow our
nails together, and fast it fairly out; our cake’s dough on both sides.
Farewell: yet, for the love I bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any
means light on a fit man to teach her that wherein she delights, I will
wish him to her father.

HORTENSIO.
So will I, Signior Gremio: but a word, I pray. Though the nature of our
quarrel yet never brooked parle, know now, upon advice, it toucheth us
both,—that we may yet again have access to our fair mistress, and be
happy rivals in Bianca’s love,—to labour and effect one thing
specially.

GREMIO.
What’s that, I pray?

HORTENSIO.
Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.

GREMIO.
A husband! a devil.

HORTENSIO.
I say, a husband.

GREMIO.
I say, a devil. Thinkest thou, Hortensio, though her father be very
rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell?

HORTENSIO.
Tush, Gremio! Though it pass your patience and mine to endure her loud
alarums, why, man, there be good fellows in the world, and a man could
light on them, would take her with all faults, and money enough.

GREMIO.
I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with this condition: to
be whipp’d at the high cross every morning.

HORTENSIO.
Faith, as you say, there’s small choice in rotten apples. But come;
since this bar in law makes us friends, it shall be so far forth
friendly maintained, till by helping Baptista’s eldest daughter to a
husband, we set his youngest free for a husband, and then have to’t
afresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy man be his dole! He that runs fastest gets
the ring. How say you, Signior Gremio?

GREMIO.
I am agreed; and would I had given him the best horse in Padua to begin
his wooing, that would thoroughly woo her, wed her, and bed her, and
rid the house of her. Come on.

[_Exeunt Gremio and Hortensio._]

TRANIO.
I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible
That love should of a sudden take such hold?

LUCENTIO.
O Tranio! till I found it to be true,
I never thought it possible or likely;
But see, while idly I stood looking on,
I found the effect of love in idleness;
And now in plainness do confess to thee,
That art to me as secret and as dear
As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was,
Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,
If I achieve not this young modest girl.
Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst:
Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.

TRANIO.
Master, it is no time to chide you now;
Affection is not rated from the heart:
If love have touch’d you, nought remains but so:
_Redime te captum quam queas minimo._

LUCENTIO.
Gramercies, lad; go forward; this contents;
The rest will comfort, for thy counsel’s sound.

TRANIO.
Master, you look’d so longly on the maid.
Perhaps you mark’d not what’s the pith of all.

LUCENTIO.
O, yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,
Such as the daughter of Agenor had,
That made great Jove to humble him to her hand,
When with his knees he kiss’d the Cretan strand.

TRANIO.
Saw you no more? mark’d you not how her sister
Began to scold and raise up such a storm
That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?

LUCENTIO.
Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,
And with her breath she did perfume the air;
Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.

TRANIO.
Nay, then, ’tis time to stir him from his trance.
I pray, awake, sir: if you love the maid,
Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:
Her elder sister is so curst and shrewd,
That till the father rid his hands of her,
Master, your love must live a maid at home;
And therefore has he closely mew’d her up,
Because she will not be annoy’d with suitors.

LUCENTIO.
Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father’s he!
But art thou not advis’d he took some care
To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?

TRANIO.
Ay, marry, am I, sir, and now ’tis plotted.

LUCENTIO.
I have it, Tranio.

TRANIO.
Master, for my hand,
Both our inventions meet and jump in one.

LUCENTIO.
Tell me thine first.

TRANIO.
You will be schoolmaster,
And undertake the teaching of the maid:
That’s your device.

LUCENTIO.
It is: may it be done?

TRANIO.
Not possible; for who shall bear your part
And be in Padua here Vincentio’s son;
Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends;
Visit his countrymen, and banquet them?

LUCENTIO.
_Basta_, content thee, for I have it full.
We have not yet been seen in any house,
Nor can we be distinguish’d by our faces
For man or master: then it follows thus:
Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,
Keep house and port and servants, as I should;
I will some other be; some Florentine,
Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.
’Tis hatch’d, and shall be so: Tranio, at once
Uncase thee; take my colour’d hat and cloak.
When Biondello comes, he waits on thee;
But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.

[_They exchange habits_]

TRANIO.
So had you need.
In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,
And I am tied to be obedient;
For so your father charg’d me at our parting,
‘Be serviceable to my son,’ quoth he,
Although I think ’twas in another sense:
I am content to be Lucentio,
Because so well I love Lucentio.

LUCENTIO.
Tranio, be so, because Lucentio loves;
And let me be a slave, to achieve that maid
Whose sudden sight hath thrall’d my wounded eye.


Enter Biondello.

Here comes the rogue. Sirrah, where have you been?

BIONDELLO.
Where have I been? Nay, how now! where are you?
Master, has my fellow Tranio stol’n your clothes?
Or you stol’n his? or both? Pray, what’s the news?

LUCENTIO.
Sirrah, come hither: ’tis no time to jest,
And therefore frame your manners to the time.
Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,
Puts my apparel and my count’nance on,
And I for my escape have put on his;
For in a quarrel since I came ashore
I kill’d a man, and fear I was descried.
Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,
While I make way from hence to save my life.
You understand me?

BIONDELLO.
I, sir! Ne’er a whit.

LUCENTIO.
And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:
Tranio is changed to Lucentio.

BIONDELLO.
The better for him: would I were so too!

TRANIO.
So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,
That Lucentio indeed had Baptista’s youngest daughter.
But, sirrah, not for my sake but your master’s, I advise
You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies:
When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;
But in all places else your master, Lucentio.

LUCENTIO.
Tranio, let’s go.
One thing more rests, that thyself execute,
To make one among these wooers: if thou ask me why,
Sufficeth my reasons are both good and weighty.

[_Exeunt._]

[_The Presenters above speak._]

FIRST SERVANT.
My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.

SLY.
Yes, by Saint Anne, I do. A good matter, surely: comes there any more
of it?

PAGE.
My lord, ’tis but begun.

SLY.
’Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady: would ’twere done!

[_They sit and mark._]




SCENE II. Padua. Before HORTENSIO’S house.

Enter Petruchio and his man Grumio.

PETRUCHIO.
Verona, for a while I take my leave,
To see my friends in Padua; but of all
My best beloved and approved friend,
Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.
Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.

GRUMIO.
Knock, sir? Whom should I knock? Is there any man has rebused your
worship?

PETRUCHIO.
Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.

GRUMIO.
Knock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I should knock you
here, sir?

PETRUCHIO.
Villain, I say, knock me at this gate;
And rap me well, or I’ll knock your knave’s pate.

GRUMIO.
My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you first,
And then I know after who comes by the worst.

PETRUCHIO.
Will it not be?
Faith, sirrah, and you’ll not knock, I’ll ring it;
I’ll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.

[_He wrings Grumio by the ears._]

GRUMIO.
Help, masters, help! my master is mad.

PETRUCHIO.
Now, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!


Enter Hortensio.

HORTENSIO.
How now! what’s the matter? My old friend Grumio! and my good friend
Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?

PETRUCHIO.
Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?
_Con tutto il cuore ben trovato_, may I say.

HORTENSIO.
_Alla nostra casa ben venuto; molto honorato signor mio Petruchio._
Rise, Grumio, rise: we will compound this quarrel.

GRUMIO.
Nay, ’tis no matter, sir, what he ’leges in Latin. If this be not a
lawful cause for me to leave his service, look you, sir, he bid me
knock him and rap him soundly, sir: well, was it fit for a servant to
use his master so; being, perhaps, for aught I see, two-and-thirty, a
pip out? Whom would to God I had well knock’d at first, then had not
Grumio come by the worst.

PETRUCHIO.
A senseless villain! Good Hortensio,
I bade the rascal knock upon your gate,
And could not get him for my heart to do it.

GRUMIO.
Knock at the gate! O heavens! Spake you not these words plain: ‘Sirrah
knock me here, rap me here, knock me well, and knock me soundly’? And
come you now with ‘knocking at the gate’?

PETRUCHIO.
Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.

HORTENSIO.
Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio’s pledge;
Why, this’s a heavy chance ’twixt him and you,
Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.
And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale
Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?

PETRUCHIO.
Such wind as scatters young men through the world
To seek their fortunes farther than at home,
Where small experience grows. But in a few,
Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:
Antonio, my father, is deceas’d,
And I have thrust myself into this maze,
Haply to wive and thrive as best I may;
Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home,
And so am come abroad to see the world.

HORTENSIO.
Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee
And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour’d wife?
Thou’dst thank me but a little for my counsel;
And yet I’ll promise thee she shall be rich,
And very rich: but th’art too much my friend,
And I’ll not wish thee to her.

PETRUCHIO.
Signior Hortensio, ’twixt such friends as we
Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know
One rich enough to be Petruchio’s wife,
As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,
Be she as foul as was Florentius’ love,
As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates’ Xanthippe or a worse,
She moves me not, or not removes, at least,
Affection’s edge in me, were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas:
I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;
If wealthily, then happily in Padua.

GRUMIO.
Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind is: why, give him
gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby; or an old trot
with ne’er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as
two-and-fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.

HORTENSIO.
Petruchio, since we are stepp’d thus far in,
I will continue that I broach’d in jest.
I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife
With wealth enough, and young and beauteous;
Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman:
Her only fault,—and that is faults enough,—
Is, that she is intolerable curst,
And shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure,
That, were my state far worser than it is,
I would not wed her for a mine of gold.

PETRUCHIO.
Hortensio, peace! thou know’st not gold’s effect:
Tell me her father’s name, and ’tis enough;
For I will board her, though she chide as loud
As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.

HORTENSIO.
Her father is Baptista Minola,
An affable and courteous gentleman;
Her name is Katherina Minola,
Renown’d in Padua for her scolding tongue.

PETRUCHIO.
I know her father, though I know not her;
And he knew my deceased father well.
I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;
And therefore let me be thus bold with you,
To give you over at this first encounter,
Unless you will accompany me thither.

GRUMIO.
I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts. O’ my word, and she
knew him as well as I do, she would think scolding would do little good
upon him. She may perhaps call him half a score knaves or so; why,
that’s nothing; and he begin once, he’ll rail in his rope-tricks. I’ll
tell you what, sir, and she stand him but a little, he will throw a
figure in her face, and so disfigure her with it that she shall have no
more eyes to see withal than a cat. You know him not, sir.

HORTENSIO.
Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,
For in Baptista’s keep my treasure is:
He hath the jewel of my life in hold,
His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca,
And her withholds from me and other more,
Suitors to her and rivals in my love;
Supposing it a thing impossible,
For those defects I have before rehears’d,
That ever Katherina will be woo’d:
Therefore this order hath Baptista ta’en,
That none shall have access unto Bianca
Till Katherine the curst have got a husband.

GRUMIO.
Katherine the curst!
A title for a maid of all titles the worst.

HORTENSIO.
Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,
And offer me disguis’d in sober robes,
To old Baptista as a schoolmaster
Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca;
That so I may, by this device at least
Have leave and leisure to make love to her,
And unsuspected court her by herself.

GRUMIO.
Here’s no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks, how the young folks
lay their heads together!

Enter Gremio and Lucentio disguised, with books under his arm.

Master, master, look about you: who goes there, ha?

HORTENSIO.
Peace, Grumio! It is the rival of my love. Petruchio, stand by awhile.

GRUMIO.
A proper stripling, and an amorous!

GREMIO.
O! very well; I have perus’d the note.
Hark you, sir; I’ll have them very fairly bound:
All books of love, see that at any hand,
And see you read no other lectures to her.
You understand me. Over and beside
Signior Baptista’s liberality,
I’ll mend it with a largess. Take your papers too,
And let me have them very well perfum’d;
For she is sweeter than perfume itself
To whom they go to. What will you read to her?

LUCENTIO.
Whate’er I read to her, I’ll plead for you,
As for my patron, stand you so assur’d,
As firmly as yourself were still in place;
Yea, and perhaps with more successful words
Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.

GREMIO.
O! this learning, what a thing it is.

GRUMIO.
O! this woodcock, what an ass it is.

PETRUCHIO.
Peace, sirrah!

HORTENSIO.
Grumio, mum! God save you, Signior Gremio!

GREMIO.
And you are well met, Signior Hortensio.
Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.
I promis’d to enquire carefully
About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca;
And by good fortune I have lighted well
On this young man; for learning and behaviour
Fit for her turn, well read in poetry
And other books, good ones, I warrant ye.

HORTENSIO.
’Tis well; and I have met a gentleman
Hath promis’d me to help me to another,
A fine musician to instruct our mistress:
So shall I no whit be behind in duty
To fair Bianca, so belov’d of me.

GREMIO.
Belov’d of me, and that my deeds shall prove.

GRUMIO.
[_Aside._] And that his bags shall prove.

HORTENSIO.
Gremio, ’tis now no time to vent our love:
Listen to me, and if you speak me fair,
I’ll tell you news indifferent good for either.
Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,
Upon agreement from us to his liking,
Will undertake to woo curst Katherine;
Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.

GREMIO.
So said, so done, is well.
Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?

PETRUCHIO.
I know she is an irksome brawling scold;
If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.

GREMIO.
No, say’st me so, friend? What countryman?

PETRUCHIO.
Born in Verona, old Antonio’s son.
My father dead, my fortune lives for me;
And I do hope good days and long to see.

GREMIO.
O sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange!
But if you have a stomach, to’t a God’s name;
You shall have me assisting you in all.
But will you woo this wild-cat?

PETRUCHIO.
Will I live?

GRUMIO.
Will he woo her? Ay, or I’ll hang her.

PETRUCHIO.
Why came I hither but to that intent?
Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puff’d up with winds,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard
Loud ’larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets’ clang?
And do you tell me of a woman’s tongue,
That gives not half so great a blow to hear
As will a chestnut in a farmer’s fire?
Tush, tush! fear boys with bugs.

GRUMIO.
[_Aside_] For he fears none.

GREMIO.
Hortensio, hark:
This gentleman is happily arriv’d,
My mind presumes, for his own good and yours.

HORTENSIO.
I promis’d we would be contributors,
And bear his charge of wooing, whatsoe’er.

GREMIO.
And so we will, provided that he win her.

GRUMIO.
I would I were as sure of a good dinner.


Enter Tranio brave, and Biondello.

TRANIO.
Gentlemen, God save you! If I may be bold,
Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way
To the house of Signior Baptista Minola?

BIONDELLO.
He that has the two fair daughters; is’t he you mean?

TRANIO.
Even he, Biondello!

GREMIO.
Hark you, sir, you mean not her to—

TRANIO.
Perhaps him and her, sir; what have you to do?

PETRUCHIO.
Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.

TRANIO.
I love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let’s away.

LUCENTIO.
[_Aside_]  Well begun, Tranio.

HORTENSIO.
Sir, a word ere you go.
Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?

TRANIO.
And if I be, sir, is it any offence?

GREMIO.
No; if without more words you will get you hence.

TRANIO.
Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free
For me as for you?

GREMIO.
But so is not she.

TRANIO.
For what reason, I beseech you?

GREMIO.
For this reason, if you’ll know,
That she’s the choice love of Signior Gremio.

HORTENSIO.
That she’s the chosen of Signior Hortensio.

TRANIO.
Softly, my masters! If you be gentlemen,
Do me this right; hear me with patience.
Baptista is a noble gentleman,
To whom my father is not all unknown;
And were his daughter fairer than she is,
She may more suitors have, and me for one.
Fair Leda’s daughter had a thousand wooers;
Then well one more may fair Bianca have;
And so she shall: Lucentio shall make one,
Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.

GREMIO.
What, this gentleman will out-talk us all.

LUCENTIO.
Sir, give him head; I know he’ll prove a jade.

PETRUCHIO.
Hortensio, to what end are all these words?

HORTENSIO.
Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,
Did you yet ever see Baptista’s daughter?

TRANIO.
No, sir, but hear I do that he hath two,
The one as famous for a scolding tongue
As is the other for beauteous modesty.

PETRUCHIO.
Sir, sir, the first’s for me; let her go by.

GREMIO.
Yea, leave that labour to great Hercules,
And let it be more than Alcides’ twelve.

PETRUCHIO.
Sir, understand you this of me, in sooth:
The youngest daughter, whom you hearken for,
Her father keeps from all access of suitors,
And will not promise her to any man
Until the elder sister first be wed;
The younger then is free, and not before.

TRANIO.
If it be so, sir, that you are the man
Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest;
And if you break the ice, and do this feat,
Achieve the elder, set the younger free
For our access, whose hap shall be to have her
Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.

HORTENSIO.
Sir, you say well, and well you do conceive;
And since you do profess to be a suitor,
You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,
To whom we all rest generally beholding.

TRANIO.
Sir, I shall not be slack; in sign whereof,
Please ye we may contrive this afternoon,
And quaff carouses to our mistress’ health;
And do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

GRUMIO, BIONDELLO.
O excellent motion! Fellows, let’s be gone.

HORTENSIO.
The motion’s good indeed, and be it so:—
Petruchio, I shall be your _ben venuto_.

[_Exeunt._]




ACT II

SCENE I. Padua. A room in BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter Katherina and Bianca.

BIANCA.
Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,
To make a bondmaid and a slave of me;
That I disdain; but for these other gawds,
Unbind my hands, I’ll pull them off myself,
Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;
Or what you will command me will I do,
So well I know my duty to my elders.

KATHERINA.
Of all thy suitors here I charge thee tell
Whom thou lov’st best: see thou dissemble not.

BIANCA.
Believe me, sister, of all the men alive
I never yet beheld that special face
Which I could fancy more than any other.

KATHERINA.
Minion, thou liest. Is’t not Hortensio?

BIANCA.
If you affect him, sister, here I swear
I’ll plead for you myself but you shall have him.

KATHERINA.
O! then, belike, you fancy riches more:
You will have Gremio to keep you fair.

BIANCA.
Is it for him you do envy me so?
Nay, then you jest; and now I well perceive
You have but jested with me all this while:
I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.

KATHERINA.
If that be jest, then all the rest was so.

[_Strikes her._]

Enter Baptista.

BAPTISTA.
Why, how now, dame! Whence grows this insolence?
Bianca, stand aside. Poor girl! she weeps.
Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her.
For shame, thou hilding of a devilish spirit,
Why dost thou wrong her that did ne’er wrong thee?
When did she cross thee with a bitter word?

KATHERINA.
Her silence flouts me, and I’ll be reveng’d.

[_Flies after Bianca._]

BAPTISTA.
What! in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.

[_Exit Bianca._]

KATHERINA.
What! will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see
She is your treasure, she must have a husband;
I must dance bare-foot on her wedding-day,
And, for your love to her, lead apes in hell.
Talk not to me: I will go sit and weep
Till I can find occasion of revenge.

[_Exit._]

BAPTISTA.
 Was ever gentleman thus griev’d as I?
But who comes here?


Enter Gremio, with Lucentio in the habit of a mean man; Petruchio, with
Hortensio as a musician; and Tranio, with Biondello bearing a lute and
books.

GREMIO.
Good morrow, neighbour Baptista.

BAPTISTA.
Good morrow, neighbour Gremio. God save you, gentlemen!

PETRUCHIO.
And you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter
Call’d Katherina, fair and virtuous?

BAPTISTA.
I have a daughter, sir, call’d Katherina.

GREMIO.
You are too blunt: go to it orderly.

PETRUCHIO.
You wrong me, Signior Gremio: give me leave.
I am a gentleman of Verona, sir,
That, hearing of her beauty and her wit,
Her affability and bashful modesty,
Her wondrous qualities and mild behaviour,
Am bold to show myself a forward guest
Within your house, to make mine eye the witness
Of that report which I so oft have heard.
And, for an entrance to my entertainment,
I do present you with a man of mine,

[_Presenting Hortensio._]

Cunning in music and the mathematics,
To instruct her fully in those sciences,
Whereof I know she is not ignorant.
Accept of him, or else you do me wrong:
His name is Licio, born in Mantua.

BAPTISTA.
Y’are welcome, sir, and he for your good sake;
But for my daughter Katherine, this I know,
She is not for your turn, the more my grief.

PETRUCHIO.
I see you do not mean to part with her;
Or else you like not of my company.

BAPTISTA.
Mistake me not; I speak but as I find.
Whence are you, sir? What may I call your name?

PETRUCHIO.
Petruchio is my name, Antonio’s son;
A man well known throughout all Italy.

BAPTISTA.
I know him well: you are welcome for his sake.

GREMIO.
Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,
Let us, that are poor petitioners, speak too.
Backare! you are marvellous forward.

PETRUCHIO.
O, pardon me, Signior Gremio; I would fain be doing.

GREMIO.
I doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your wooing. Neighbour, this is
a gift very grateful, I am sure of it. To express the like kindness,
myself, that have been more kindly beholding to you than any, freely
give unto you this young scholar,

[_Presenting Lucentio._]

that has been long studying at Rheims; as cunning in Greek, Latin, and
other languages, as the other in music and mathematics. His name is
Cambio; pray accept his service.

BAPTISTA.
A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio; welcome, good Cambio. [_To Tranio._]
But, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger. May I be so bold to
know the cause of your coming?

TRANIO.
Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own,
That, being a stranger in this city here,
Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,
Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.
Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me,
In the preferment of the eldest sister.
This liberty is all that I request,
That, upon knowledge of my parentage,
I may have welcome ’mongst the rest that woo,
And free access and favour as the rest:
And, toward the education of your daughters,
I here bestow a simple instrument,
And this small packet of Greek and Latin books:
If you accept them, then their worth is great.

BAPTISTA.
Lucentio is your name, of whence, I pray?

TRANIO.
Of Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.

BAPTISTA.
A mighty man of Pisa: by report
I know him well: you are very welcome, sir.
[_To Hortensio_.] Take you the lute,
[_To Lucentio_.] and you the set of books;
You shall go see your pupils presently.
Holla, within!


Enter a Servant.

Sirrah, lead these gentlemen
To my daughters, and tell them both
These are their tutors: bid them use them well.

[_Exeunt Servant with Hortensio, Lucentio and Biondello._]

We will go walk a little in the orchard,
And then to dinner. You are passing welcome,
And so I pray you all to think yourselves.

PETRUCHIO.
Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,
And every day I cannot come to woo.
You knew my father well, and in him me,
Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,
Which I have bettered rather than decreas’d:
Then tell me, if I get your daughter’s love,
What dowry shall I have with her to wife?

BAPTISTA.
After my death, the one half of my lands,
And in possession twenty thousand crowns.

PETRUCHIO.
And, for that dowry, I’ll assure her of
Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,
In all my lands and leases whatsoever.
Let specialities be therefore drawn between us,
That covenants may be kept on either hand.

BAPTISTA.
Ay, when the special thing is well obtain’d,
That is, her love; for that is all in all.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, that is nothing; for I tell you, father,
I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;
And where two raging fires meet together,
They do consume the thing that feeds their fury:
Though little fire grows great with little wind,
Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all;
So I to her, and so she yields to me;
For I am rough and woo not like a babe.

BAPTISTA.
Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed!
But be thou arm’d for some unhappy words.

PETRUCHIO.
Ay, to the proof, as mountains are for winds,
That shake not though they blow perpetually.


Re-enter Hortensio, with his head broke.

BAPTISTA.
How now, my friend! Why dost thou look so pale?

HORTENSIO.
For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.

BAPTISTA.
What, will my daughter prove a good musician?

HORTENSIO.
I think she’ll sooner prove a soldier:
Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.

BAPTISTA.
Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?

HORTENSIO.
Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.
I did but tell her she mistook her frets,
And bow’d her hand to teach her fingering;
When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,
’Frets, call you these?’ quoth she ‘I’ll fume with them’;
And with that word she struck me on the head,
And through the instrument my pate made way;
And there I stood amazed for a while,
As on a pillory, looking through the lute;
While she did call me rascal fiddler,
And twangling Jack, with twenty such vile terms,
As had she studied to misuse me so.

PETRUCHIO.
Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench!
I love her ten times more than e’er I did:
O! how I long to have some chat with her!

BAPTISTA.
[_To Hortensio_.] Well, go with me, and be not so discomfited;
Proceed in practice with my younger daughter;
She’s apt to learn, and thankful for good turns.
Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,
Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?

PETRUCHIO.
I pray you do.

[_Exeunt Baptista, Gremio, Tranio and Hortensio._]

I will attend her here,
And woo her with some spirit when she comes.
Say that she rail; why, then I’ll tell her plain
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale:
Say that she frown; I’ll say she looks as clear
As morning roses newly wash’d with dew:
Say she be mute, and will not speak a word;
Then I’ll commend her volubility,
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence:
If she do bid me pack, I’ll give her thanks,
As though she bid me stay by her a week:
If she deny to wed, I’ll crave the day
When I shall ask the banns, and when be married.
But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak.


Enter Katherina.

Good morrow, Kate; for that’s your name, I hear.

KATHERINA.
Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:
They call me Katherine that do talk of me.

PETRUCHIO.
You lie, in faith, for you are call’d plain Kate,
And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst;
But, Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness prais’d in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,—
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,—
Myself am mov’d to woo thee for my wife.

KATHERINA.
Mov’d! in good time: let him that mov’d you hither
Remove you hence. I knew you at the first,
You were a moveable.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, what’s a moveable?

KATHERINA.
A joint-stool.

PETRUCHIO.
Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me.

KATHERINA.
Asses are made to bear, and so are you.

PETRUCHIO.
Women are made to bear, and so are you.

KATHERINA.
No such jade as bear you, if me you mean.

PETRUCHIO.
Alas! good Kate, I will not burden thee;
For, knowing thee to be but young and light,—

KATHERINA.
Too light for such a swain as you to catch;
And yet as heavy as my weight should be.

PETRUCHIO.
Should be! should buz!

KATHERINA.
Well ta’en, and like a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO.
O, slow-wing’d turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?

KATHERINA.
Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO.
Come, come, you wasp; i’ faith, you are too angry.

KATHERINA.
If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

PETRUCHIO.
My remedy is then to pluck it out.

KATHERINA.
Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.

PETRUCHIO.
Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?
In his tail.

KATHERINA.
In his tongue.

PETRUCHIO.
Whose tongue?

KATHERINA.
Yours, if you talk of tales; and so farewell.

PETRUCHIO.
What! with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again,
Good Kate; I am a gentleman.

KATHERINA.
That I’ll try.

[_Striking him._]

PETRUCHIO.
I swear I’ll cuff you if you strike again.

KATHERINA.
So may you lose your arms:
If you strike me, you are no gentleman;
And if no gentleman, why then no arms.

PETRUCHIO.
A herald, Kate? O! put me in thy books.

KATHERINA.
What is your crest? a coxcomb?

PETRUCHIO.
A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.

KATHERINA.
No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.

KATHERINA.
It is my fashion when I see a crab.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, here’s no crab, and therefore look not sour.

KATHERINA.
There is, there is.

PETRUCHIO.
Then show it me.

KATHERINA.
Had I a glass I would.

PETRUCHIO.
What, you mean my face?

KATHERINA.
Well aim’d of such a young one.

PETRUCHIO.
Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.

KATHERINA.
Yet you are wither’d.

PETRUCHIO.
’Tis with cares.

KATHERINA.
I care not.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, hear you, Kate: in sooth, you ’scape not so.

KATHERINA.
I chafe you, if I tarry; let me go.

PETRUCHIO.
No, not a whit; I find you passing gentle.
’Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,
And now I find report a very liar;
For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,
But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers.
Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,
Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,
Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk;
But thou with mildness entertain’st thy wooers;
With gentle conference, soft and affable.
Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?
O sland’rous world! Kate like the hazel-twig
Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue
As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels.
O! let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt.

KATHERINA.
Go, fool, and whom thou keep’st command.

PETRUCHIO.
Did ever Dian so become a grove
As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?
O! be thou Dian, and let her be Kate,
And then let Kate be chaste, and Dian sportful!

KATHERINA.
Where did you study all this goodly speech?

PETRUCHIO.
It is extempore, from my mother-wit.

KATHERINA.
A witty mother! witless else her son.

PETRUCHIO.
Am I not wise?

KATHERINA.
Yes; keep you warm.

PETRUCHIO.
Marry, so I mean, sweet Katherine, in thy bed;
And therefore, setting all this chat aside,
Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife your dowry ’greed on;
And will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;
For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,—
Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well,—
Thou must be married to no man but me;
For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,
And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates.


Re-enter Baptista, Gremio and Tranio.

Here comes your father. Never make denial;
I must and will have Katherine to my wife.

BAPTISTA.
Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter?

PETRUCHIO.
How but well, sir? how but well?
It were impossible I should speed amiss.

BAPTISTA.
Why, how now, daughter Katherine, in your dumps?

KATHERINA.
Call you me daughter? Now I promise you
You have show’d a tender fatherly regard
To wish me wed to one half lunatic,
A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.

PETRUCHIO.
Father, ’tis thus: yourself and all the world
That talk’d of her have talk’d amiss of her:
If she be curst, it is for policy,
For she’s not froward, but modest as the dove;
She is not hot, but temperate as the morn;
For patience she will prove a second Grissel,
And Roman Lucrece for her chastity;
And to conclude, we have ’greed so well together
That upon Sunday is the wedding-day.

KATHERINA.
I’ll see thee hang’d on Sunday first.

GREMIO.
Hark, Petruchio; she says she’ll see thee hang’d first.

TRANIO.
Is this your speeding? Nay, then good-night our part!

PETRUCHIO.
Be patient, gentlemen. I choose her for myself;
If she and I be pleas’d, what’s that to you?
’Tis bargain’d ’twixt us twain, being alone,
That she shall still be curst in company.
I tell you, ’tis incredible to believe
How much she loves me: O! the kindest Kate
She hung about my neck, and kiss on kiss
She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,
That in a twink she won me to her love.
O! you are novices: ’tis a world to see,
How tame, when men and women are alone,
A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.
Give me thy hand, Kate; I will unto Venice,
To buy apparel ’gainst the wedding-day.
Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests;
I will be sure my Katherine shall be fine.

BAPTISTA.
I know not what to say; but give me your hands.
God send you joy, Petruchio! ’Tis a match.

GREMIO, TRANIO.
Amen, say we; we will be witnesses.

PETRUCHIO.
Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu.
I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace;
We will have rings and things, and fine array;
And kiss me, Kate; we will be married o’ Sunday.

[_Exeunt Petruchio and Katherina, severally._]

GREMIO.
Was ever match clapp’d up so suddenly?

BAPTISTA.
Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant’s part,
And venture madly on a desperate mart.

TRANIO.
’Twas a commodity lay fretting by you;
’Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.

BAPTISTA.
The gain I seek is, quiet in the match.

GREMIO.
No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.
But now, Baptista, to your younger daughter:
Now is the day we long have looked for;
I am your neighbour, and was suitor first.

TRANIO.
And I am one that love Bianca more
Than words can witness or your thoughts can guess.

GREMIO.
Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I.

TRANIO.
Greybeard, thy love doth freeze.

GREMIO.
But thine doth fry.
Skipper, stand back; ’tis age that nourisheth.

TRANIO.
But youth in ladies’ eyes that flourisheth.

BAPTISTA.
Content you, gentlemen; I’ll compound this strife:
’Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both
That can assure my daughter greatest dower
Shall have my Bianca’s love.
Say, Signior Gremio, what can you assure her?

GREMIO.
First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnished with plate and gold:
Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
In ivory coffers I have stuff’d my crowns;
In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss’d with pearl,
Valance of Venice gold in needlework;
Pewter and brass, and all things that belong
To house or housekeeping: then, at my farm
I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,
Six score fat oxen standing in my stalls,
And all things answerable to this portion.
Myself am struck in years, I must confess;
And if I die tomorrow this is hers,
If whilst I live she will be only mine.

TRANIO.
That ‘only’ came well in. Sir, list to me:
I am my father’s heir and only son;
If I may have your daughter to my wife,
I’ll leave her houses three or four as good
Within rich Pisa’s walls as anyone
Old Signior Gremio has in Padua;
Besides two thousand ducats by the year
Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.
What, have I pinch’d you, Signior Gremio?

GREMIO.
Two thousand ducats by the year of land!
My land amounts not to so much in all:
That she shall have, besides an argosy
That now is lying in Marseilles’ road.
What, have I chok’d you with an argosy?

TRANIO.
Gremio, ’tis known my father hath no less
Than three great argosies, besides two galliasses,
And twelve tight galleys; these I will assure her,
And twice as much, whate’er thou offer’st next.

GREMIO.
Nay, I have offer’d all; I have no more;
And she can have no more than all I have;
If you like me, she shall have me and mine.

TRANIO.
Why, then the maid is mine from all the world,
By your firm promise; Gremio is out-vied.

BAPTISTA.
I must confess your offer is the best;
And let your father make her the assurance,
She is your own; else, you must pardon me;
If you should die before him, where’s her dower?

TRANIO.
That’s but a cavil; he is old, I young.

GREMIO.
And may not young men die as well as old?

BAPTISTA.
Well, gentlemen,
I am thus resolv’d. On Sunday next, you know,
My daughter Katherine is to be married;
Now, on the Sunday following, shall Bianca
Be bride to you, if you make this assurance;
If not, to Signior Gremio.
And so I take my leave, and thank you both.

GREMIO.
Adieu, good neighbour.

[_Exit Baptista._]

Now, I fear thee not:
Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool
To give thee all, and in his waning age
Set foot under thy table. Tut! a toy!
An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.

[_Exit._]

TRANIO.
A vengeance on your crafty wither’d hide!
Yet I have fac’d it with a card of ten.
’Tis in my head to do my master good:
I see no reason but suppos’d Lucentio
Must get a father, call’d suppos’d Vincentio;
And that’s a wonder: fathers commonly
Do get their children; but in this case of wooing
A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.

[_Exit._]




ACT III

SCENE I. Padua. A room in BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter Lucentio, Hortensio and Bianca.

LUCENTIO.
Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir.
Have you so soon forgot the entertainment
Her sister Katherine welcome’d you withal?

HORTENSIO.
But, wrangling pedant, this is
The patroness of heavenly harmony:
Then give me leave to have prerogative;
And when in music we have spent an hour,
Your lecture shall have leisure for as much.

LUCENTIO.
Preposterous ass, that never read so far
To know the cause why music was ordain’d!
Was it not to refresh the mind of man
After his studies or his usual pain?
Then give me leave to read philosophy,
And while I pause serve in your harmony.

HORTENSIO.
Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.

BIANCA.
Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong,
To strive for that which resteth in my choice.
I am no breeching scholar in the schools,
I’ll not be tied to hours nor ’pointed times,
But learn my lessons as I please myself.
And, to cut off all strife, here sit we down;
Take you your instrument, play you the whiles;
His lecture will be done ere you have tun’d.

HORTENSIO.
You’ll leave his lecture when I am in tune?

[_Retires._]

LUCENTIO.
That will be never: tune your instrument.

BIANCA.
Where left we last?

LUCENTIO.
Here, madam:—
_Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus;
Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis._

BIANCA.
Construe them.

LUCENTIO.
_Hic ibat_, as I told you before, _Simois_, I am Lucentio, _hic est_,
son unto Vincentio of Pisa, _Sigeia tellus_, disguised thus to get your
love, _Hic steterat_, and that Lucentio that comes a-wooing, _Priami_,
is my man Tranio, _regia_, bearing my port, _celsa senis_, that we
might beguile the old pantaloon.

HORTENSIO. [_Returning._]
Madam, my instrument’s in tune.

BIANCA.
Let’s hear.—

[Hortensio _plays._]

O fie! the treble jars.

LUCENTIO.
Spit in the hole, man, and tune again.

BIANCA.
Now let me see if I can construe it: _Hic ibat Simois_, I know you not;
_hic est Sigeia tellus_, I trust you not; _Hic steterat Priami_, take
heed he hear us not; _regia_, presume not; _celsa senis_, despair not.

HORTENSIO.
Madam, ’tis now in tune.

LUCENTIO.
All but the base.

HORTENSIO.
The base is right; ’tis the base knave that jars.
[_Aside_] How fiery and forward our pedant is!
Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love:
Pedascule, I’ll watch you better yet.

BIANCA.
In time I may believe, yet I mistrust.

LUCENTIO.
Mistrust it not; for sure, Æacides
Was Ajax, call’d so from his grandfather.

BIANCA.
I must believe my master; else, I promise you,
I should be arguing still upon that doubt;
But let it rest. Now, Licio, to you.
Good master, take it not unkindly, pray,
That I have been thus pleasant with you both.

HORTENSIO.
[_To Lucentio_] You may go walk and give me leave a while;
My lessons make no music in three parts.

LUCENTIO.
Are you so formal, sir? Well, I must wait,
[_Aside_] And watch withal; for, but I be deceiv’d,
Our fine musician groweth amorous.

HORTENSIO.
Madam, before you touch the instrument,
To learn the order of my fingering,
I must begin with rudiments of art;
To teach you gamut in a briefer sort,
More pleasant, pithy, and effectual,
Than hath been taught by any of my trade:
And there it is in writing, fairly drawn.

BIANCA.
Why, I am past my gamut long ago.

HORTENSIO.
Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.

BIANCA.
   _Gamut_ I am, the ground of all accord,
     _A re_, to plead Hortensio’s passion;
   _B mi_, Bianca, take him for thy lord,
     _C fa ut_, that loves with all affection:
   _D sol re_, one clef, two notes have I
   _E la mi_, show pity or I die.
Call you this gamut? Tut, I like it not:
Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice,
To change true rules for odd inventions.


Enter a Servant.

SERVANT.
Mistress, your father prays you leave your books,
And help to dress your sister’s chamber up:
You know tomorrow is the wedding-day.

BIANCA.
Farewell, sweet masters, both: I must be gone.

[_Exeunt Bianca and Servant._]

LUCENTIO.
Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.

[_Exit._]

HORTENSIO.
But I have cause to pry into this pedant:
Methinks he looks as though he were in love.
Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble
To cast thy wand’ring eyes on every stale,
Seize thee that list: if once I find thee ranging,
Hortensio will be quit with thee by changing.

[_Exit._]




SCENE II. The same. Before BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter Baptista, Gremio, Tranio, Katherina, Bianca, Lucentio and
Attendants.

BAPTISTA.  [_To Tranio_.]
Signior Lucentio, this is the ’pointed day
That Katherine and Petruchio should be married,
And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.
What will be said? What mockery will it be
To want the bridegroom when the priest attends
To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage!
What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?

KATHERINA.
No shame but mine; I must, forsooth, be forc’d
To give my hand, oppos’d against my heart,
Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen;
Who woo’d in haste and means to wed at leisure.
I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,
Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour;
And to be noted for a merry man,
He’ll woo a thousand, ’point the day of marriage,
Make friends, invite, and proclaim the banns;
Yet never means to wed where he hath woo’d.
Now must the world point at poor Katherine,
And say ‘Lo! there is mad Petruchio’s wife,
If it would please him come and marry her.’

TRANIO.
Patience, good Katherine, and Baptista too.
Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,
Whatever fortune stays him from his word:
Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;
Though he be merry, yet withal he’s honest.

KATHERINA.
Would Katherine had never seen him though!

[_Exit weeping, followed by Bianca and others._]

BAPTISTA.
Go, girl, I cannot blame thee now to weep,
For such an injury would vex a very saint;
Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.


Enter Biondello.

Master, master! News! old news, and such news as you never heard of!

BAPTISTA.
Is it new and old too? How may that be?

BIONDELLO.
Why, is it not news to hear of Petruchio’s coming?

BAPTISTA.
Is he come?

BIONDELLO.
Why, no, sir.

BAPTISTA.
What then?

BIONDELLO.
He is coming.

BAPTISTA.
When will he be here?

BIONDELLO.
When he stands where I am and sees you there.

TRANIO.
But say, what to thine old news?

BIONDELLO.
Why, Petruchio is coming, in a new hat and an old jerkin; a pair of old
breeches thrice turned; a pair of boots that have been candle-cases,
one buckled, another laced; an old rusty sword ta’en out of the town
armoury, with a broken hilt, and chapeless; with two broken points: his
horse hipped with an old mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred;
besides, possessed with the glanders and like to mose in the chine;
troubled with the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of
windgalls, sped with spavins, rayed with the yellows, past cure of the
fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, swayed
in the back and shoulder-shotten; near-legged before, and with a
half-checked bit, and a head-stall of sheep’s leather, which, being
restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst, and now
repaired with knots; one girth six times pieced, and a woman’s crupper
of velure, which hath two letters for her name fairly set down in
studs, and here and there pieced with pack-thread.

BAPTISTA.
Who comes with him?

BIONDELLO.
O, sir! his lackey, for all the world caparisoned like the horse; with
a linen stock on one leg and a kersey boot-hose on the other, gartered
with a red and blue list; an old hat, and the humour of forty fancies
prick’d in’t for a feather: a monster, a very monster in apparel, and
not like a Christian footboy or a gentleman’s lackey.

TRANIO.
’Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;
Yet oftentimes lie goes but mean-apparell’d.

BAPTISTA.
I am glad he’s come, howsoe’er he comes.

BIONDELLO.
Why, sir, he comes not.

BAPTISTA.
Didst thou not say he comes?

BIONDELLO.
Who? that Petruchio came?

BAPTISTA.
Ay, that Petruchio came.

BIONDELLO.
No, sir; I say his horse comes, with him on his back.

BAPTISTA.
Why, that’s all one.

BIONDELLO.
     Nay, by Saint Jamy,
     I hold you a penny,
     A horse and a man
     Is more than one,
     And yet not many.


Enter Petruchio and Grumio.

PETRUCHIO.
Come, where be these gallants? Who is at home?

BAPTISTA.
You are welcome, sir.

PETRUCHIO.
And yet I come not well.

BAPTISTA.
And yet you halt not.

TRANIO.
Not so well apparell’d as I wish you were.

PETRUCHIO.
Were it better, I should rush in thus.
But where is Kate? Where is my lovely bride?
How does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown;
And wherefore gaze this goodly company,
As if they saw some wondrous monument,
Some comet or unusual prodigy?

BAPTISTA.
Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day:
First were we sad, fearing you would not come;
Now sadder, that you come so unprovided.
Fie! doff this habit, shame to your estate,
An eye-sore to our solemn festival.

TRANIO.
And tell us what occasion of import
Hath all so long detain’d you from your wife,
And sent you hither so unlike yourself?

PETRUCHIO.
Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear;
Sufficeth I am come to keep my word,
Though in some part enforced to digress;
Which at more leisure I will so excuse
As you shall well be satisfied withal.
But where is Kate? I stay too long from her;
The morning wears, ’tis time we were at church.

TRANIO.
See not your bride in these unreverent robes;
Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine.

PETRUCHIO.
Not I, believe me: thus I’ll visit her.

BAPTISTA.
But thus, I trust, you will not marry her.

PETRUCHIO.
Good sooth, even thus; therefore ha’ done with words;
To me she’s married, not unto my clothes.
Could I repair what she will wear in me
As I can change these poor accoutrements,
’Twere well for Kate and better for myself.
But what a fool am I to chat with you
When I should bid good morrow to my bride,
And seal the title with a lovely kiss!

[_Exeunt Petruchio, Grumio and Biondello._]

TRANIO.
He hath some meaning in his mad attire.
We will persuade him, be it possible,
To put on better ere he go to church.

BAPTISTA.
I’ll after him and see the event of this.

[_Exeunt Baptista, Gremio and Attendants._]

TRANIO.
But, sir, to love concerneth us to add
Her father’s liking; which to bring to pass,
As I before imparted to your worship,
I am to get a man,—whate’er he be
It skills not much; we’ll fit him to our turn,—
And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa,
And make assurance here in Padua,
Of greater sums than I have promised.
So shall you quietly enjoy your hope,
And marry sweet Bianca with consent.

LUCENTIO.
Were it not that my fellow schoolmaster
Doth watch Bianca’s steps so narrowly,
’Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;
Which once perform’d, let all the world say no,
I’ll keep mine own despite of all the world.

TRANIO.
That by degrees we mean to look into,
And watch our vantage in this business.
We’ll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,
The narrow-prying father, Minola,
The quaint musician, amorous Licio;
All for my master’s sake, Lucentio.


Re-enter Gremio.

Signior Gremio, came you from the church?

GREMIO.
As willingly as e’er I came from school.

TRANIO.
And is the bride and bridegroom coming home?

GREMIO.
A bridegroom, say you? ’Tis a groom indeed,
A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.

TRANIO.
Curster than she? Why, ’tis impossible.

GREMIO.
Why, he’s a devil, a devil, a very fiend.

TRANIO.
Why, she’s a devil, a devil, the devil’s dam.

GREMIO.
Tut! she’s a lamb, a dove, a fool, to him.
I’ll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest
Should ask if Katherine should be his wife,
’Ay, by gogs-wouns’ quoth he, and swore so loud
That, all amaz’d, the priest let fall the book;
And as he stoop’d again to take it up,
The mad-brain’d bridegroom took him such a cuff
That down fell priest and book, and book and priest:
‘Now take them up,’ quoth he ‘if any list.’

TRANIO.
What said the wench, when he rose again?

GREMIO.
Trembled and shook, for why, he stamp’d and swore
As if the vicar meant to cozen him.
But after many ceremonies done,
He calls for wine: ‘A health!’ quoth he, as if
He had been abroad, carousing to his mates
After a storm; quaff’d off the muscadel,
And threw the sops all in the sexton’s face,
Having no other reason
But that his beard grew thin and hungerly
And seem’d to ask him sops as he was drinking.
This done, he took the bride about the neck,
And kiss’d her lips with such a clamorous smack
That at the parting all the church did echo.
And I, seeing this, came thence for very shame;
And after me, I know, the rout is coming.
Such a mad marriage never was before.
Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.

[_Music plays._]

Enter Petrucio, Katherina, Bianca, Baptista, Hortensio, Grumio and
Train.

PETRUCHIO.
Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains:
I know you think to dine with me today,
And have prepar’d great store of wedding cheer
But so it is, my haste doth call me hence,
And therefore here I mean to take my leave.

BAPTISTA.
Is’t possible you will away tonight?

PETRUCHIO.
I must away today before night come.
Make it no wonder: if you knew my business,
You would entreat me rather go than stay.
And, honest company, I thank you all,
That have beheld me give away myself
To this most patient, sweet, and virtuous wife.
Dine with my father, drink a health to me.
For I must hence; and farewell to you all.

TRANIO.
Let us entreat you stay till after dinner.

PETRUCHIO.
It may not be.

GREMIO.
Let me entreat you.

PETRUCHIO.
It cannot be.

KATHERINA.
Let me entreat you.

PETRUCHIO.
I am content.

KATHERINA.
Are you content to stay?

PETRUCHIO.
I am content you shall entreat me stay;
But yet not stay, entreat me how you can.

KATHERINA.
Now, if you love me, stay.

PETRUCHIO.
Grumio, my horse!

GRUMIO.
Ay, sir, they be ready; the oats have eaten the horses.

KATHERINA.
Nay, then,
Do what thou canst, I will not go today;
No, nor tomorrow, not till I please myself.
The door is open, sir; there lies your way;
You may be jogging whiles your boots are green;
For me, I’ll not be gone till I please myself.
’Tis like you’ll prove a jolly surly groom
That take it on you at the first so roundly.

PETRUCHIO.
O Kate! content thee: prithee be not angry.

KATHERINA.
I will be angry: what hast thou to do?
Father, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.

GREMIO.
Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.

KATHERINA.
Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner:
I see a woman may be made a fool,
If she had not a spirit to resist.

PETRUCHIO.
They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.
Obey the bride, you that attend on her;
Go to the feast, revel and domineer,
Carouse full measure to her maidenhead,
Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves:
But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.
Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;
I will be master of what is mine own.
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything;
And here she stands, touch her whoever dare;
I’ll bring mine action on the proudest he
That stops my way in Padua. Grumio,
Draw forth thy weapon; we are beset with thieves;
Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.
Fear not, sweet wench; they shall not touch thee, Kate;
I’ll buckler thee against a million.

[_Exeunt Petrucio, Katherina and Grumio._]

BAPTISTA.
Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.

GREMIO.
Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.

TRANIO.
Of all mad matches, never was the like.

LUCENTIO.
Mistress, what’s your opinion of your sister?

BIANCA.
That, being mad herself, she’s madly mated.

GREMIO.
I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.

BAPTISTA.
Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom wants
For to supply the places at the table,
You know there wants no junkets at the feast.
Lucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom’s place;
And let Bianca take her sister’s room.

TRANIO.
Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?

BAPTISTA.
She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let’s go.

[_Exeunt._]




ACT IV

SCENE I. A hall in PETRUCHIO’S country house.

Enter Grumio.

GRUMIO.
Fie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and all foul ways! Was
ever man so beaten? Was ever man so ray’d? Was ever man so weary? I am
sent before to make a fire, and they are coming after to warm them.
Now, were not I a little pot and soon hot, my very lips might freeze to
my teeth, my tongue to the roof of my mouth, my heart in my belly, ere
I should come by a fire to thaw me. But I with blowing the fire shall
warm myself; for, considering the weather, a taller man than I will
take cold. Holla, ho! Curtis!

Enter Curtis.

CURTIS.
Who is that calls so coldly?

GRUMIO.
A piece of ice: if thou doubt it, thou mayst slide from my shoulder to
my heel with no greater a run but my head and my neck. A fire, good
Curtis.

CURTIS.
Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio?

GRUMIO.
O, ay! Curtis, ay; and therefore fire, fire; cast on no water.

CURTIS.
Is she so hot a shrew as she’s reported?

GRUMIO.
She was, good Curtis, before this frost; but thou knowest winter tames
man, woman, and beast; for it hath tamed my old master, and my new
mistress, and myself, fellow Curtis.

CURTIS.
Away, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.

GRUMIO.
Am I but three inches? Why, thy horn is a foot; and so long am I at the
least. But wilt thou make a fire, or shall I complain on thee to our
mistress, whose hand,—she being now at hand,— thou shalt soon feel, to
thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?

CURTIS.
I prithee, good Grumio, tell me, how goes the world?

GRUMIO.
A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and therefore fire. Do
thy duty, and have thy duty, for my master and mistress are almost
frozen to death.

CURTIS.
There’s fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the news.

GRUMIO.
Why, ‘Jack boy! ho, boy!’ and as much news as wilt thou.

CURTIS.
Come, you are so full of cony-catching.

GRUMIO.
Why, therefore, fire; for I have caught extreme cold. Where’s the cook?
Is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept, the
servingmen in their new fustian, their white stockings, and every
officer his wedding-garment on? Be the Jacks fair within, the Jills
fair without, and carpets laid, and everything in order?

CURTIS.
All ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news.

GRUMIO.
First, know my horse is tired; my master and mistress fallen out.

CURTIS.
How?

GRUMIO.
Out of their saddles into the dirt; and thereby hangs a tale.

CURTIS.
Let’s ha’t, good Grumio.

GRUMIO.
Lend thine ear.

CURTIS.
Here.

GRUMIO.
[_Striking him._] There.

CURTIS.
This ’tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.

GRUMIO.
And therefore ’tis called a sensible tale; and this cuff was but to
knock at your ear and beseech listening. Now I begin: _Imprimis_, we
came down a foul hill, my master riding behind my mistress,—

CURTIS.
Both of one horse?

GRUMIO.
What’s that to thee?

CURTIS.
Why, a horse.

GRUMIO.
Tell thou the tale: but hadst thou not crossed me, thou shouldst have
heard how her horse fell, and she under her horse; thou shouldst have
heard in how miry a place, how she was bemoiled; how he left her with
the horse upon her; how he beat me because her horse stumbled; how she
waded through the dirt to pluck him off me: how he swore; how she
prayed, that never prayed before; how I cried; how the horses ran away;
how her bridle was burst; how I lost my crupper; with many things of
worthy memory, which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return
unexperienced to thy grave.

CURTIS.
By this reckoning he is more shrew than she.

GRUMIO.
Ay; and that thou and the proudest of you all shall find when he comes
home. But what talk I of this? Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas,
Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the rest; let their heads be sleekly
combed, their blue coats brush’d and their garters of an indifferent
knit; let them curtsy with their left legs, and not presume to touch a
hair of my master’s horse-tail till they kiss their hands. Are they all
ready?

CURTIS.
They are.

GRUMIO.
Call them forth.

CURTIS.
Do you hear? ho! You must meet my master to countenance my mistress.

GRUMIO.
Why, she hath a face of her own.

CURTIS.
Who knows not that?

GRUMIO.
Thou, it seems, that calls for company to countenance her.

CURTIS.
I call them forth to credit her.

GRUMIO.
Why, she comes to borrow nothing of them.


Enter four or five Servants.

NATHANIEL.
Welcome home, Grumio!

PHILIP.
How now, Grumio!

JOSEPH.
What, Grumio!

NICHOLAS.
Fellow Grumio!

NATHANIEL.
How now, old lad!

GRUMIO.
Welcome, you; how now, you; what, you; fellow, you; and thus much for
greeting. Now, my spruce companions, is all ready, and all things neat?

NATHANIEL.
All things is ready. How near is our master?

GRUMIO.
E’en at hand, alighted by this; and therefore be not,—
Cock’s passion, silence! I hear my master.


Enter Petrucio and Katherina.

PETRUCHIO.
Where be these knaves? What! no man at door
To hold my stirrup nor to take my horse?
Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?—

ALL SERVANTS.
Here, here, sir; here, sir.

PETRUCHIO.
Here, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir!
You logger-headed and unpolish’d grooms!
What, no attendance? no regard? no duty?
Where is the foolish knave I sent before?

GRUMIO.
Here, sir; as foolish as I was before.

PETRUCHIO.
You peasant swain! you whoreson malt-horse drudge!
Did I not bid thee meet me in the park,
And bring along these rascal knaves with thee?

GRUMIO.
Nathaniel’s coat, sir, was not fully made,
And Gabriel’s pumps were all unpink’d i’ the heel;
There was no link to colour Peter’s hat,
And Walter’s dagger was not come from sheathing;
There was none fine but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory;
The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly;
Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.

PETRUCHIO.
Go, rascals, go and fetch my supper in.

[_Exeunt some of the Servants._]

Where is the life that late I led?
   Where are those—?  Sit down, Kate, and welcome.
Food, food, food, food!


Re-enter Servants with supper.

Why, when, I say?—Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.—
Off with my boots, you rogues! you villains! when?
   It was the friar of orders grey,
   As he forth walked on his way:
Out, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry:

[_Strikes him._]

Take that, and mend the plucking off the other.
Be merry, Kate. Some water, here; what, ho!
Where’s my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence
And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither:

[_Exit Servant._]

One, Kate, that you must kiss and be acquainted with.
Where are my slippers? Shall I have some water?
Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.—

[_Servant lets the ewer fall. Petruchio strikes him._]

You whoreson villain! will you let it fall?

KATHERINA.
Patience, I pray you; ’twas a fault unwilling.

PETRUCHIO.
A whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-ear’d knave!
Come, Kate, sit down; I know you have a stomach.
Will you give thanks, sweet Kate, or else shall I?—
What’s this? Mutton?

FIRST SERVANT.
Ay.

PETRUCHIO.
Who brought it?

PETER.
I.

PETRUCHIO.
’Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.
What dogs are these! Where is the rascal cook?
How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser,
And serve it thus to me that love it not?

[_Throws the meat, etc., at them._]

There, take it to you, trenchers, cups, and all.
You heedless joltheads and unmanner’d slaves!
What! do you grumble? I’ll be with you straight.

KATHERINA.
I pray you, husband, be not so disquiet;
The meat was well, if you were so contented.

PETRUCHIO.
I tell thee, Kate, ’twas burnt and dried away,
And I expressly am forbid to touch it;
For it engenders choler, planteth anger;
And better ’twere that both of us did fast,
Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,
Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.
Be patient; tomorrow ’t shall be mended.
And for this night we’ll fast for company:
Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.

[_Exeunt Petruchio, Katherina and Curtis._]

NATHANIEL.
Peter, didst ever see the like?

PETER.
He kills her in her own humour.


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._]




SCENE II. Padua. Before BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter Tranio and Hortensio.

TRANIO.
Is ’t possible, friend Licio, that Mistress Bianca
Doth fancy any other but Lucentio?
I tell you, sir, she bears me fair in hand.

HORTENSIO.
Sir, to satisfy you in what I have said,
Stand by and mark the manner of his teaching.

[_They stand aside._]

Enter Bianca and Lucentio.

LUCENTIO.
Now, mistress, profit you in what you read?

BIANCA.
What, master, read you? First resolve me that.

LUCENTIO.
I read that I profess, _The Art to Love_.

BIANCA.
And may you prove, sir, master of your art!

LUCENTIO.
While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart.

[_They retire._]

HORTENSIO.
Quick proceeders, marry! Now tell me, I pray,
You that durst swear that your Mistress Bianca
Lov’d none in the world so well as Lucentio.

TRANIO.
O despiteful love! unconstant womankind!
I tell thee, Licio, this is wonderful.

HORTENSIO.
Mistake no more; I am not Licio.
Nor a musician as I seem to be;
But one that scorn to live in this disguise
For such a one as leaves a gentleman
And makes a god of such a cullion:
Know, sir, that I am call’d Hortensio.

TRANIO.
Signior Hortensio, I have often heard
Of your entire affection to Bianca;
And since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,
I will with you, if you be so contented,
Forswear Bianca and her love for ever.

HORTENSIO.
See, how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,
Here is my hand, and here I firmly vow
Never to woo her more, but do forswear her,
As one unworthy all the former favours
That I have fondly flatter’d her withal.

TRANIO.
And here I take the like unfeigned oath,
Never to marry with her though she would entreat;
Fie on her! See how beastly she doth court him!

HORTENSIO.
Would all the world but he had quite forsworn!
For me, that I may surely keep mine oath,
I will be married to a wealthy widow
Ere three days pass, which hath as long lov’d me
As I have lov’d this proud disdainful haggard.
And so farewell, Signior Lucentio.
Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
Shall win my love; and so I take my leave,
In resolution as I swore before.

[_Exit Hortensio. Lucentio and Bianca advance._]

TRANIO.
Mistress Bianca, bless you with such grace
As ’longeth to a lover’s blessed case!
Nay, I have ta’en you napping, gentle love,
And have forsworn you with Hortensio.

BIANCA.
Tranio, you jest; but have you both forsworn me?

TRANIO.
Mistress, we have.

LUCENTIO.
Then we are rid of Licio.

TRANIO.
I’ faith, he’ll have a lusty widow now,
That shall be woo’d and wedded in a day.

BIANCA.
God give him joy!

TRANIO.
Ay, and he’ll tame her.

BIANCA.
He says so, Tranio.

TRANIO.
Faith, he is gone unto the taming-school.

BIANCA.
The taming-school! What, is there such a place?

TRANIO.
Ay, mistress; and Petruchio is the master,
That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long,
To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue.


Enter Biondello, running.

BIONDELLO.
O master, master! I have watch’d so long
That I am dog-weary; but at last I spied
An ancient angel coming down the hill
Will serve the turn.

TRANIO.
What is he, Biondello?

BIONDELLO.
Master, a mercatante or a pedant,
I know not what; but formal in apparel,
In gait and countenance surely like a father.

LUCENTIO.
And what of him, Tranio?

TRANIO.
If he be credulous and trust my tale,
I’ll make him glad to seem Vincentio,
And give assurance to Baptista Minola,
As if he were the right Vincentio.
Take in your love, and then let me alone.

[_Exeunt Lucentio and Bianca._]

Enter a Pedant.

PEDANT.
God save you, sir!

TRANIO.
And you, sir! you are welcome.
Travel you far on, or are you at the farthest?

PEDANT.
Sir, at the farthest for a week or two;
But then up farther, and as far as Rome;
And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.

TRANIO.
What countryman, I pray?

PEDANT.
Of Mantua.

TRANIO.
Of Mantua, sir?  Marry, God forbid,
And come to Padua, careless of your life!

PEDANT.
My life, sir! How, I pray? for that goes hard.

TRANIO.
’Tis death for anyone in Mantua
To come to Padua. Know you not the cause?
Your ships are stay’d at Venice; and the Duke,—
For private quarrel ’twixt your Duke and him,—
Hath publish’d and proclaim’d it openly.
’Tis marvel, but that you are but newly come
You might have heard it else proclaim’d about.

PEDANT.
Alas, sir! it is worse for me than so;
For I have bills for money by exchange
From Florence, and must here deliver them.

TRANIO.
Well, sir, to do you courtesy,
This will I do, and this I will advise you:
First, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?

PEDANT.
Ay, sir, in Pisa have I often been,
Pisa renowned for grave citizens.

TRANIO.
Among them know you one Vincentio?

PEDANT.
I know him not, but I have heard of him,
A merchant of incomparable wealth.

TRANIO.
He is my father, sir; and, sooth to say,
In countenance somewhat doth resemble you.

BIONDELLO.
[_Aside._]  As much as an apple doth an oyster, and all one.

TRANIO.
To save your life in this extremity,
This favour will I do you for his sake;
And think it not the worst of all your fortunes
That you are like to Sir Vincentio.
His name and credit shall you undertake,
And in my house you shall be friendly lodg’d;
Look that you take upon you as you should!
You understand me, sir; so shall you stay
Till you have done your business in the city.
If this be courtesy, sir, accept of it.

PEDANT.
O, sir, I do; and will repute you ever
The patron of my life and liberty.

TRANIO.
Then go with me to make the matter good.
This, by the way, I let you understand:
My father is here look’d for every day
To pass assurance of a dower in marriage
’Twixt me and one Baptista’s daughter here:
In all these circumstances I’ll instruct you.
Go with me to clothe you as becomes you.

[_Exeunt._]




SCENE III. A room in PETRUCHIO’S house.

Enter Katherina and Grumio.

GRUMIO.
No, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.

KATHERINA.
The more my wrong, the more his spite appears.
What, did he marry me to famish me?
Beggars that come unto my father’s door
Upon entreaty have a present alms;
If not, elsewhere they meet with charity;
But I, who never knew how to entreat,
Nor never needed that I should entreat,
Am starv’d for meat, giddy for lack of sleep;
With oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed.
And that which spites me more than all these wants,
He does it under name of perfect love;
As who should say, if I should sleep or eat
’Twere deadly sickness, or else present death.
I prithee go and get me some repast;
I care not what, so it be wholesome food.

GRUMIO.
What say you to a neat’s foot?

KATHERINA.
’Tis passing good; I prithee let me have it.

GRUMIO.
I fear it is too choleric a meat.
How say you to a fat tripe finely broil’d?

KATHERINA.
I like it well; good Grumio, fetch it me.

GRUMIO.
I cannot tell; I fear ’tis choleric.
What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?

KATHERINA.
A dish that I do love to feed upon.

GRUMIO.
Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.

KATHERINA.
Why then the beef, and let the mustard rest.

GRUMIO.
Nay, then I will not: you shall have the mustard,
Or else you get no beef of Grumio.

KATHERINA.
Then both, or one, or anything thou wilt.

GRUMIO.
Why then the mustard without the beef.

KATHERINA.
Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,

[_Beats him._]

That feed’st me with the very name of meat.
Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you
That triumph thus upon my misery!
Go, get thee gone, I say.


Enter Petruchio with a dish of meat; and Hortensio.

PETRUCHIO.
How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?

HORTENSIO.
Mistress, what cheer?

KATHERINA.
Faith, as cold as can be.

PETRUCHIO.
Pluck up thy spirits; look cheerfully upon me.
Here, love; thou seest how diligent I am,
To dress thy meat myself, and bring it thee:

[_Sets the dish on a table._]

I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.
What! not a word? Nay, then thou lov’st it not,
And all my pains is sorted to no proof.
Here, take away this dish.

KATHERINA.
I pray you, let it stand.

PETRUCHIO.
The poorest service is repaid with thanks;
And so shall mine, before you touch the meat.

KATHERINA.
I thank you, sir.

HORTENSIO.
Signior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame.
Come, Mistress Kate, I’ll bear you company.

PETRUCHIO.
[_Aside._]  Eat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lovest me.
Much good do it unto thy gentle heart!
Kate, eat apace: and now, my honey love,
Will we return unto thy father’s house
And revel it as bravely as the best,
With silken coats and caps, and golden rings,
With ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things;
With scarfs and fans and double change of bravery,
With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knavery.
What! hast thou din’d? The tailor stays thy leisure,
To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.


Enter Tailor.

Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;
Lay forth the gown.—


Enter Haberdasher.

What news with you, sir?

HABERDASHER.
Here is the cap your worship did bespeak.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, this was moulded on a porringer;
A velvet dish: fie, fie! ’tis lewd and filthy:
Why, ’tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,
A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby’s cap:
Away with it! come, let me have a bigger.

KATHERINA.
I’ll have no bigger; this doth fit the time,
And gentlewomen wear such caps as these.

PETRUCHIO.
When you are gentle, you shall have one too,
And not till then.

HORTENSIO.
[_Aside_] That will not be in haste.

KATHERINA.
Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;
And speak I will. I am no child, no babe.
Your betters have endur’d me say my mind,
And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
Or else my heart, concealing it, will break;
And rather than it shall, I will be free
Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, thou say’st true; it is a paltry cap,
A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie;
I love thee well in that thou lik’st it not.

KATHERINA.
Love me or love me not, I like the cap;
And it I will have, or I will have none.

[_Exit Haberdasher._]

PETRUCHIO.
Thy gown? Why, ay: come, tailor, let us see’t.
O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?
What’s this? A sleeve? ’Tis like a demi-cannon.
What, up and down, carv’d like an apple tart?
Here’s snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,
Like to a censer in a barber’s shop.
Why, what i’ devil’s name, tailor, call’st thou this?

HORTENSIO.
[_Aside_] I see she’s like to have neither cap nor gown.

TAILOR.
You bid me make it orderly and well,
According to the fashion and the time.

PETRUCHIO.
Marry, and did; but if you be remember’d,
I did not bid you mar it to the time.
Go, hop me over every kennel home,
For you shall hop without my custom, sir.
I’ll none of it: hence! make your best of it.

KATHERINA.
I never saw a better fashion’d gown,
More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable;
Belike you mean to make a puppet of me.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.

TAILOR.
She says your worship means to make a puppet of her.

PETRUCHIO.
O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread,
Thou thimble,
Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail!
Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!
Brav’d in mine own house with a skein of thread!
Away! thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant,
Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard
As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv’st!
I tell thee, I, that thou hast marr’d her gown.

TAILOR.
Your worship is deceiv’d: the gown is made
Just as my master had direction.
Grumio gave order how it should be done.

GRUMIO.
I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.

TAILOR.
But how did you desire it should be made?

GRUMIO.
Marry, sir, with needle and thread.

TAILOR.
But did you not request to have it cut?

GRUMIO.
Thou hast faced many things.

TAILOR.
I have.

GRUMIO.
Face not me. Thou hast braved many men; brave not me: I will neither be
fac’d nor brav’d. I say unto thee, I bid thy master cut out the gown;
but I did not bid him cut it to pieces: ergo, thou liest.

TAILOR.
Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify.

PETRUCHIO.
Read it.

GRUMIO.
The note lies in ’s throat, if he say I said so.

TAILOR.
’Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown.’

GRUMIO.
Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the skirts of it
and beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread; I said, a gown.

PETRUCHIO.
Proceed.

TAILOR.
’With a small compassed cape.’

GRUMIO.
I confess the cape.

TAILOR.
’With a trunk sleeve.’

GRUMIO.
I confess two sleeves.

TAILOR.
’The sleeves curiously cut.’

PETRUCHIO.
Ay, there’s the villainy.

GRUMIO.
Error i’ the bill, sir; error i’ the bill. I commanded the sleeves
should be cut out, and sew’d up again; and that I’ll prove upon thee,
though thy little finger be armed in a thimble.

TAILOR.
This is true that I say; and I had thee in place where thou shouldst
know it.

GRUMIO.
I am for thee straight; take thou the bill, give me thy mete-yard, and
spare not me.

HORTENSIO.
God-a-mercy, Grumio! Then he shall have no odds.

PETRUCHIO.
Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.

GRUMIO.
You are i’ the right, sir; ’tis for my mistress.

PETRUCHIO.
Go, take it up unto thy master’s use.

GRUMIO.
Villain, not for thy life! Take up my mistress’ gown for thy master’s
use!

PETRUCHIO.
Why, sir, what’s your conceit in that?

GRUMIO.
O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for.
Take up my mistress’ gown to his master’s use!
O fie, fie, fie!

PETRUCHIO.
[_Aside_]  Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid.
[_To Tailor._] Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more.

HORTENSIO.
[_Aside to Tailor._] Tailor, I’ll pay thee for thy gown tomorrow;
Take no unkindness of his hasty words.
Away, I say! commend me to thy master.

[_Exit Tailor._]

PETRUCHIO.
Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father’s
Even in these honest mean habiliments.
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor
For ’tis the mind that makes the body rich;
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.
What, is the jay more precious than the lark
Because his feathers are more beautiful?
Or is the adder better than the eel
Because his painted skin contents the eye?
O no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse
For this poor furniture and mean array.
If thou account’st it shame, lay it on me;
And therefore frolic; we will hence forthwith,
To feast and sport us at thy father’s house.
Go call my men, and let us straight to him;
And bring our horses unto Long-lane end;
There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.
Let’s see; I think ’tis now some seven o’clock,
And well we may come there by dinner-time.

KATHERINA.
I dare assure you, sir, ’tis almost two,
And ’twill be supper-time ere you come there.

PETRUCHIO.
It shall be seven ere I go to horse.
Look what I speak, or do, or think to do,
You are still crossing it. Sirs, let ’t alone:
I will not go today; and ere I do,
It shall be what o’clock I say it is.

HORTENSIO.
Why, so this gallant will command the sun.

[_Exeunt._]




SCENE IV. Padua. Before BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter Tranio and the Pedant dressed like Vincentio

TRANIO.
Sir, this is the house; please it you that I call?

PEDANT.
Ay, what else? and, but I be deceived,
Signior Baptista may remember me,
Near twenty years ago in Genoa,
Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.

TRANIO.
’Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,
With such austerity as ’longeth to a father.

PEDANT.
I warrant you. But, sir, here comes your boy;
’Twere good he were school’d.


Enter Biondello.

TRANIO.
Fear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,
Now do your duty throughly, I advise you.
Imagine ’twere the right Vincentio.

BIONDELLO.
Tut! fear not me.

TRANIO.
But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?

BIONDELLO.
I told him that your father was at Venice,
And that you look’d for him this day in Padua.

TRANIO.
Th’art a tall fellow; hold thee that to drink.
Here comes Baptista. Set your countenance, sir.


Enter Baptista and Lucentio.

Signior Baptista, you are happily met.
[_To the Pedant_] Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of;
I pray you stand good father to me now;
Give me Bianca for my patrimony.

PEDANT.
Soft, son!
Sir, by your leave: having come to Padua
To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio
Made me acquainted with a weighty cause
Of love between your daughter and himself:
And,—for the good report I hear of you,
And for the love he beareth to your daughter,
And she to him,—to stay him not too long,
I am content, in a good father’s care,
To have him match’d; and, if you please to like
No worse than I, upon some agreement
Me shall you find ready and willing
With one consent to have her so bestow’d;
For curious I cannot be with you,
Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.

BAPTISTA.
Sir, pardon me in what I have to say.
Your plainness and your shortness please me well.
Right true it is your son Lucentio here
Doth love my daughter, and she loveth him,
Or both dissemble deeply their affections;
And therefore, if you say no more than this,
That like a father you will deal with him,
And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,
The match is made, and all is done:
Your son shall have my daughter with consent.

TRANIO.
I thank you, sir. Where then do you know best
We be affied, and such assurance ta’en
As shall with either part’s agreement stand?

BAPTISTA.
Not in my house, Lucentio, for you know
Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants;
Besides, old Gremio is hearkening still,
And happily we might be interrupted.

TRANIO.
Then at my lodging, and it like you:
There doth my father lie; and there this night
We’ll pass the business privately and well.
Send for your daughter by your servant here;
My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.
The worst is this, that at so slender warning
You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.

BAPTISTA.
It likes me well. Cambio, hie you home,
And bid Bianca make her ready straight;
And, if you will, tell what hath happened:
Lucentio’s father is arriv’d in Padua,
And how she’s like to be Lucentio’s wife.

LUCENTIO.
I pray the gods she may, with all my heart!

TRANIO.
Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.
Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way?
Welcome! One mess is like to be your cheer;
Come, sir; we will better it in Pisa.

BAPTISTA.
I follow you.

[_Exeunt Tranio, Pedant and Baptista._]

BIONDELLO.
Cambio!

LUCENTIO.
What say’st thou, Biondello?

BIONDELLO.
You saw my master wink and laugh upon you?

LUCENTIO.
Biondello, what of that?

BIONDELLO.
Faith, nothing; but has left me here behind to expound the meaning or
moral of his signs and tokens.

LUCENTIO.
I pray thee moralize them.

BIONDELLO.
Then thus: Baptista is safe, talking with the deceiving father of a
deceitful son.

LUCENTIO.
And what of him?

BIONDELLO.
His daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.

LUCENTIO.
And then?

BIONDELLO.
The old priest at Saint Luke’s church is at your command at all hours.

LUCENTIO.
And what of all this?

BIONDELLO.
I cannot tell, except they are busied about a counterfeit assurance.
Take your assurance of her, _cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum_; to
the church! take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient honest
witnesses.
If this be not that you look for, I have more to say,
But bid Bianca farewell for ever and a day.

[_Going._]

LUCENTIO.
Hear’st thou, Biondello?

BIONDELLO.
I cannot tarry: I knew a wench married in an afternoon as she went to
the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit; and so may you, sir; and so
adieu, sir. My master hath appointed me to go to Saint Luke’s to bid
the priest be ready to come against you come with your appendix.

[_Exit._]

LUCENTIO.
I may, and will, if she be so contented.
She will be pleas’d; then wherefore should I doubt?
Hap what hap may, I’ll roundly go about her;
It shall go hard if Cambio go without her:

[_Exit._]




SCENE V. A public road.

Enter Petruchio, Katherina, Hortensio and Servants.

PETRUCHIO.
Come on, i’ God’s name; once more toward our father’s.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!

KATHERINA.
The moon! The sun; it is not moonlight now.

PETRUCHIO.
I say it is the moon that shines so bright.

KATHERINA.
I know it is the sun that shines so bright.

PETRUCHIO.
Now by my mother’s son, and that’s myself,
It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
Or ere I journey to your father’s house.
Go on and fetch our horses back again.
Evermore cross’d and cross’d; nothing but cross’d!

HORTENSIO.
Say as he says, or we shall never go.

KATHERINA.
Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please;
And if you please to call it a rush-candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

PETRUCHIO.
I say it is the moon.

KATHERINA.
I know it is the moon.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.

KATHERINA.
Then, God be bless’d, it is the blessed sun;
But sun it is not when you say it is not,
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it nam’d, even that it is,
And so it shall be so for Katherine.

HORTENSIO.
Petruchio, go thy ways; the field is won.

PETRUCHIO.
Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,
And not unluckily against the bias.
But, soft! Company is coming here.


Enter Vincentio, in a travelling dress.

[_To Vincentio_] Good morrow, gentle mistress; where away?
Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,
Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?
Such war of white and red within her cheeks!
What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty
As those two eyes become that heavenly face?
Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.
Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty’s sake.

HORTENSIO.
A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.

KATHERINA.
Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,
Whither away, or where is thy abode?
Happy the parents of so fair a child;
Happier the man whom favourable stars
Allot thee for his lovely bedfellow.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad:
This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither’d,
And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.

KATHERINA.
Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,
That have been so bedazzled with the sun
That everything I look on seemeth green:
Now I perceive thou art a reverend father;
Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.

PETRUCHIO.
Do, good old grandsire, and withal make known
Which way thou travellest: if along with us,
We shall be joyful of thy company.

VINCENTIO.
Fair sir, and you my merry mistress,
That with your strange encounter much amaz’d me,
My name is called Vincentio; my dwelling Pisa;
And bound I am to Padua, there to visit
A son of mine, which long I have not seen.

PETRUCHIO.
What is his name?

VINCENTIO.
Lucentio, gentle sir.

PETRUCHIO.
Happily met; the happier for thy son.
And now by law, as well as reverend age,
I may entitle thee my loving father:
The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,
Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not,
Nor be not griev’d: she is of good esteem,
Her dowry wealthy, and of worthy birth;
Beside, so qualified as may beseem
The spouse of any noble gentleman.
Let me embrace with old Vincentio;
And wander we to see thy honest son,
Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.

VINCENTIO.
But is this true? or is it else your pleasure,
Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest
Upon the company you overtake?

HORTENSIO.
I do assure thee, father, so it is.

PETRUCHIO.
Come, go along, and see the truth hereof;
For our first merriment hath made thee jealous.

[_Exeunt all but Hortensio._]

HORTENSIO.
Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.
Have to my widow! and if she be froward,
Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.

[_Exit._]




ACT V

SCENE I. Padua. Before LUCENTIO’S house.

Enter on one side Biondello, Lucentio and Bianca; Gremio walking on
other side.

BIONDELLO.
Softly and swiftly, sir, for the priest is ready.

LUCENTIO.
I fly, Biondello; but they may chance to need thee at home, therefore
leave us.

BIONDELLO.
Nay, faith, I’ll see the church o’ your back; and then come back to my
master’s as soon as I can.

[_Exeunt Lucentio, Bianca and Biondello._]

GREMIO.
I marvel Cambio comes not all this while.


Enter Petruchio, Katherina, Vincentio and Attendants.

PETRUCHIO.
Sir, here’s the door; this is Lucentio’s house:
My father’s bears more toward the market-place;
Thither must I, and here I leave you, sir.

VINCENTIO.
You shall not choose but drink before you go.
I think I shall command your welcome here,
And by all likelihood some cheer is toward.

[_Knocks._]

GREMIO.
They’re busy within; you were best knock louder.


Enter Pedant above, at a window.

PEDANT.
What’s he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?

VINCENTIO.
Is Signior Lucentio within, sir?

PEDANT.
He’s within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.

VINCENTIO.
What if a man bring him a hundred pound or two to make merry withal?

PEDANT.
Keep your hundred pounds to yourself: he shall need none so long as I
live.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua. Do you hear, sir?
To leave frivolous circumstances, I pray you tell Signior Lucentio that
his father is come from Pisa, and is here at the door to speak with
him.

PEDANT.
Thou liest: his father is come from Padua, and here looking out at the
window.

VINCENTIO.
Art thou his father?

PEDANT.
Ay, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.

PETRUCHIO.
[_To Vincentio_]  Why, how now, gentleman! why, this is flat knavery to
take upon you another man’s name.

PEDANT.
Lay hands on the villain: I believe a means to cozen somebody in this
city under my countenance.

Re-enter Biondello.

BIONDELLO.
I have seen them in the church together: God send ’em good shipping!
But who is here? Mine old master, Vincentio! Now we are undone and
brought to nothing.

VINCENTIO.
[_Seeing Biondello._] Come hither, crack-hemp.

BIONDELLO.
I hope I may choose, sir.

VINCENTIO.
Come hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?

BIONDELLO.
Forgot you! No, sir: I could not forget you, for I never saw you before
in all my life.

VINCENTIO.
What, you notorious villain! didst thou never see thy master’s father,
Vincentio?

BIONDELLO.
What, my old worshipful old master? Yes, marry, sir; see where he looks
out of the window.

VINCENTIO.
Is’t so, indeed?

[_He beats Biondello._]

BIONDELLO.
Help, help, help! here’s a madman will murder me.

[_Exit._]

PEDANT.
Help, son! help, Signior Baptista!

[_Exit from the window._]

PETRUCHIO.
Prithee, Kate, let’s stand aside and see the end of this controversy.

[_They retire._]

Re-enter Pedant, below; Baptista, Tranio and Servants.

TRANIO.
Sir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?

VINCENTIO.
What am I, sir! nay, what are you, sir? O immortal gods! O fine
villain! A silken doublet, a velvet hose, a scarlet cloak, and a
copatain hat! O, I am undone! I am undone! While I play the good
husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at the university.

TRANIO.
How now! what’s the matter?

BAPTISTA.
What, is the man lunatic?

TRANIO.
Sir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your habit, but your words
show you a madman. Why, sir, what ’cerns it you if I wear pearl and
gold? I thank my good father, I am able to maintain it.

VINCENTIO.
Thy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.

BAPTISTA.
You mistake, sir; you mistake, sir. Pray, what do you think is his
name?

VINCENTIO.
His name! As if I knew not his name! I have brought him up ever since
he was three years old, and his name is Tranio.

PEDANT.
Away, away, mad ass! His name is Lucentio; and he is mine only son, and
heir to the lands of me, Signior Vincentio.

VINCENTIO.
Lucentio! O, he hath murdered his master! Lay hold on him, I charge
you, in the Duke’s name. O, my son, my son! Tell me, thou villain,
where is my son, Lucentio?

TRANIO.
Call forth an officer.


Enter one with an Officer.

Carry this mad knave to the gaol. Father Baptista, I charge you see
that he be forthcoming.

VINCENTIO.
Carry me to the gaol!

GREMIO.
Stay, officer; he shall not go to prison.

BAPTISTA.
Talk not, Signior Gremio; I say he shall go to prison.

GREMIO.
Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catched in this business;
I dare swear this is the right Vincentio.

PEDANT.
Swear if thou darest.

GREMIO.
Nay, I dare not swear it.

TRANIO.
Then thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio.

GREMIO.
Yes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.

BAPTISTA.
Away with the dotard! to the gaol with him!

VINCENTIO.
Thus strangers may be haled and abus’d: O monstrous villain!

Re-enter Biondello, with Lucentio and Bianca.

BIONDELLO.
O! we are spoiled; and yonder he is: deny him, forswear him, or else we
are all undone.

LUCENTIO.
[_Kneeling._] Pardon, sweet father.

VINCENTIO.
Lives my sweetest son?

[_Biondello, Tranio and Pedant run out._]

BIANCA.
[_Kneeling._] Pardon, dear father.

BAPTISTA.
How hast thou offended?
Where is Lucentio?

LUCENTIO.
Here’s Lucentio,
Right son to the right Vincentio;
That have by marriage made thy daughter mine,
While counterfeit supposes blear’d thine eyne.

GREMIO.
Here ’s packing, with a witness, to deceive us all!

VINCENTIO.
Where is that damned villain, Tranio,
That fac’d and brav’d me in this matter so?

BAPTISTA.
Why, tell me, is not this my Cambio?

BIANCA.
Cambio is chang’d into Lucentio.

LUCENTIO.
Love wrought these miracles. Bianca’s love
Made me exchange my state with Tranio,
While he did bear my countenance in the town;
And happily I have arriv’d at the last
Unto the wished haven of my bliss.
What Tranio did, myself enforc’d him to;
Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.

VINCENTIO.
I’ll slit the villain’s nose that would have sent me to the gaol.

BAPTISTA.
[_To Lucentio._] But do you hear, sir? Have you married my daughter
without asking my good will?

VINCENTIO.
Fear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to: but I will in, to be
revenged for this villainy.

[_Exit._]

BAPTISTA.
And I to sound the depth of this knavery.

[_Exit._]

LUCENTIO.
Look not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown.

[_Exeunt Lucentio and Bianca._]

GREMIO.
My cake is dough, but I’ll in among the rest;
Out of hope of all but my share of the feast.

[_Exit._]

Petruchio and Katherina advance.

KATHERINA.
Husband, let’s follow to see the end of this ado.

PETRUCHIO.
First kiss me, Kate, and we will.

KATHERINA.
What! in the midst of the street?

PETRUCHIO.
What! art thou ashamed of me?

KATHERINA.
No, sir; God forbid; but ashamed to kiss.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, then, let’s home again. Come, sirrah, let’s away.

KATHERINA.
Nay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay.

PETRUCHIO.
Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:
Better once than never, for never too late.

[_Exeunt._]




SCENE II. A room in LUCENTIO’S house.

Enter Baptista, Vincentio, Gremio, the Pedant, Lucentio, Bianca,
Petruchio, Katherina, Hortensio and Widow. Tranio, Biondello and Grumio
and Others, attending.

LUCENTIO.
At last, though long, our jarring notes agree:
And time it is when raging war is done,
To smile at ’scapes and perils overblown.
My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,
While I with self-same kindness welcome thine.
Brother Petruchio, sister Katherina,
And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,
Feast with the best, and welcome to my house:
My banquet is to close our stomachs up,
After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;
For now we sit to chat as well as eat.

[_They sit at table._]

PETRUCHIO.
Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!

BAPTISTA.
Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.

PETRUCHIO.
Padua affords nothing but what is kind.

HORTENSIO.
For both our sakes I would that word were true.

PETRUCHIO.
Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.

WIDOW.
Then never trust me if I be afeard.

PETRUCHIO.
You are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:
I mean Hortensio is afeard of you.

WIDOW.
He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

PETRUCHIO.
Roundly replied.

KATHERINA.
Mistress, how mean you that?

WIDOW.
Thus I conceive by him.

PETRUCHIO.
Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?

HORTENSIO.
My widow says thus she conceives her tale.

PETRUCHIO.
Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.

KATHERINA.
’He that is giddy thinks the world turns round’:
I pray you tell me what you meant by that.

WIDOW.
Your husband, being troubled with a shrew,
Measures my husband’s sorrow by his woe;
And now you know my meaning.

KATHERINA.
A very mean meaning.

WIDOW.
Right, I mean you.

KATHERINA.
And I am mean, indeed, respecting you.

PETRUCHIO.
To her, Kate!

HORTENSIO.
To her, widow!

PETRUCHIO.
A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.

HORTENSIO.
That’s my office.

PETRUCHIO.
Spoke like an officer: ha’ to thee, lad.

[_Drinks to Hortensio._]

BAPTISTA.
How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?

GREMIO.
Believe me, sir, they butt together well.

BIANCA.
Head and butt! An hasty-witted body
Would say your head and butt were head and horn.

VINCENTIO.
Ay, mistress bride, hath that awaken’d you?

BIANCA.
Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I’ll sleep again.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, that you shall not; since you have begun,
Have at you for a bitter jest or two.

BIANCA.
Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush,
And then pursue me as you draw your bow.
You are welcome all.

[_Exeunt Bianca, Katherina and Widow._]

PETRUCHIO.
She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio;
This bird you aim’d at, though you hit her not:
Therefore a health to all that shot and miss’d.

TRANIO.
O, sir! Lucentio slipp’d me like his greyhound,
Which runs himself, and catches for his master.

PETRUCHIO.
A good swift simile, but something currish.

TRANIO.
’Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:
’Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.

BAPTISTA.
O ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.

LUCENTIO.
I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.

HORTENSIO.
Confess, confess; hath he not hit you here?

PETRUCHIO.
A has a little gall’d me, I confess;
And as the jest did glance away from me,
’Tis ten to one it maim’d you two outright.

BAPTISTA.
Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,
I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.

PETRUCHIO.
Well, I say no; and therefore, for assurance,
Let’s each one send unto his wife,
And he whose wife is most obedient,
To come at first when he doth send for her,
Shall win the wager which we will propose.

HORTENSIO.
Content. What’s the wager?

LUCENTIO.
Twenty crowns.

PETRUCHIO.
Twenty crowns!
I’ll venture so much of my hawk or hound,
But twenty times so much upon my wife.

LUCENTIO.
A hundred then.

HORTENSIO.
Content.

PETRUCHIO.
A match! ’tis done.

HORTENSIO.
Who shall begin?

LUCENTIO.
That will I.
Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.

BIONDELLO.
I go.

[_Exit._]

BAPTISTA.
Son, I’ll be your half, Bianca comes.

LUCENTIO.
I’ll have no halves; I’ll bear it all myself.


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.


Re-enter Biondello.

Now, where’s my wife?

BIONDELLO.
She says you have some goodly jest in hand:
She will not come; she bids you come to her.

PETRUCHIO.
Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,
Intolerable, not to be endur’d!
Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress,
Say I command her come to me.

[_Exit Grumio._]

HORTENSIO.
I know her answer.

PETRUCHIO.
What?

HORTENSIO.
She will not.

PETRUCHIO.
The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.


Re-enter Katherina.

BAPTISTA.
Now, by my holidame, here comes Katherina!

KATHERINA.
What is your will sir, that you send for me?

PETRUCHIO.
Where is your sister, and Hortensio’s wife?

KATHERINA.
They sit conferring by the parlour fire.

PETRUCHIO.
Go fetch them hither; if they deny to come,
Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands.
Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.

[_Exit Katherina._]

LUCENTIO.
Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.

HORTENSIO.
And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.

PETRUCHIO.
Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,
An awful rule, and right supremacy;
And, to be short, what not that’s sweet and happy.

BAPTISTA.
Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio!
The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is chang’d, as she had never been.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, I will win my wager better yet,
And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience.
See where she comes, and brings your froward wives
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.


Re-enter Katherina with Bianca and Widow.

Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not:
Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot.

[_Katherina pulls off her cap and throws it down._]

WIDOW.
Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh
Till I be brought to such a silly pass!

BIANCA.
Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?

LUCENTIO.
I would your duty were as foolish too;
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Hath cost me a hundred crowns since supper-time!

BIANCA.
The more fool you for laying on my duty.

PETRUCHIO.
Katherine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women
What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.

WIDOW.
Come, come, you’re mocking; we will have no telling.

PETRUCHIO.
Come on, I say; and first begin with her.

WIDOW.
She shall not.

PETRUCHIO.
I say she shall: and first begin with her.

KATHERINA.
Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman mov’d is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?—
I am asham’d that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace,
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.

LUCENTIO.
Well, go thy ways, old lad, for thou shalt ha’t.

VINCENTIO.
’Tis a good hearing when children are toward.

LUCENTIO.
But a harsh hearing when women are froward.

PETRUCHIO.
Come, Kate, we’ll to bed.
We three are married, but you two are sped.
’Twas I won the wager,
[_To Lucentio._] though you hit the white;
And being a winner, God give you good night!

[_Exeunt Petrucio and Katherina._]

HORTENSIO.
Now go thy ways; thou hast tam’d a curst shrew.

LUCENTIO.
’Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam’d so.

[_Exeunt._]



THE TEMPEST

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  ALONSO, King of Naples
  SEBASTIAN, his brother
  PROSPERO, the right Duke of Milan
  ANTONIO, his brother, the usurping Duke of Milan
  FERDINAND, son to the King of Naples
  GONZALO, an honest old counsellor

    Lords
  ADRIAN
  FRANCISCO
  CALIBAN, a savage and deformed slave
  TRINCULO, a jester
  STEPHANO, a drunken butler
  MASTER OF A SHIP
  BOATSWAIN
  MARINERS

  MIRANDA, daughter to Prospero

  ARIEL, an airy spirit

    Spirits
  IRIS
  CERES
  JUNO
  NYMPHS
  REAPERS
  Other Spirits attending on Prospero

SCENE: A ship at sea; afterwards an uninhabited island

THE TEMPEST ACT I. SCENE 1

On a ship at sea; a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard

Enter a SHIPMASTER and a BOATSWAIN

  MASTER. Boatswain!
  BOATSWAIN. Here, master; what cheer?
  MASTER. Good! Speak to th' mariners; fall to't yarely, or
    we run ourselves aground; bestir, bestir.               Exit

                       Enter MARINERS

  BOATSWAIN. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare!
  Take in the topsail. Tend to th' master's whistle. Blow till thou
  burst thy wind, if room enough.

          Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND
                     GONZALO, and OTHERS

  ALONSO. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master?
    Play the men.
  BOATSWAIN. I pray now, keep below.
  ANTONIO. Where is the master, boson?
  BOATSWAIN. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour;
    keep your cabins; you do assist the storm.
  GONZALO. Nay, good, be patient.
  BOATSWAIN. When the sea is. Hence! What cares these
    roarers for the name of king? To cabin! silence! Trouble
    us not.
  GONZALO. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.
  BOATSWAIN. None that I more love than myself. You are
    counsellor; if you can command these elements to
    silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not
    hand a rope more. Use your authority; if you cannot, give
    thanks you have liv'd so long, and make yourself ready
    in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so
    hap.-Cheerly, good hearts!-Out of our way, I say.
 Exit
  GONZALO. I have great comfort from this fellow. Methinks
    he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is
    perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging;
    make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth
    little advantage. If he be not born to be hang'd, our
    case is miserable.                                    Exeunt

                     Re-enter BOATSWAIN

  BOATSWAIN. Down with the topmast. Yare, lower, lower! Bring her to
  try wi' th' maincourse.  [A cry within]  A plague upon this howling!
  They are louder than the weather or our office.

           Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO

    Yet again! What do you here? Shall we give o'er, and
    drown? Have you a mind to sink?
  SEBASTIAN. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,
    incharitable dog!
  BOATSWAIN. Work you, then.
  ANTONIO. Hang, cur; hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker;
    we are less afraid to be drown'd than thou art.
  GONZALO. I'll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were
    no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched
    wench.
  BOATSWAIN. Lay her a-hold, a-hold; set her two courses; off
    to sea again; lay her off.

                    Enter MARINERS, Wet
  MARINERS. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!
                                                          Exeunt
  BOATSWAIN. What, must our mouths be cold?
  GONZALO. The King and Prince at prayers!
    Let's assist them,
    For our case is as theirs.
  SEBASTIAN. I am out of patience.
  ANTONIO. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.
    This wide-chopp'd rascal-would thou mightst lie drowning
    The washing of ten tides!
  GONZALO. He'll be hang'd yet,
    Though every drop of water swear against it,
    And gape at wid'st to glut him.
    [A confused noise within: Mercy on us!
    We split, we split! Farewell, my wife and children!
    Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we split!]
  ANTONIO. Let's all sink wi' th' King.
  SEBASTIAN. Let's take leave of him.
                                    Exeunt ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN
  GONZALO. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for
    an acre of barren ground-long heath, brown furze, any
    thing. The wills above be done, but I would fain die
    dry death.                                            Exeunt

SCENE 2

The Island. Before PROSPERO'S cell

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA

  MIRANDA. If by your art, my dearest father, you have
    Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
    The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
    But that the sea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek,
    Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered
    With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel,
    Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,
    Dash'd all to pieces! O, the cry did knock
    Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perish'd.
    Had I been any god of power, I would
    Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
    It should the good ship so have swallow'd and
    The fraughting souls within her.
  PROSPERO. Be conected;
    No more amazement; tell your piteous heart
    There's no harm done.
  MIRANDA. O, woe the day!
  PROSPERO. No harm.
    I have done nothing but in care of thee,
    Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who
    Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
    Of whence I am, nor that I am more better
    Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
    And thy no greater father.
  MIRANDA. More to know
    Did never meddle with my thoughts.
  PROSPERO. 'Tis time
    I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,
    And pluck my magic garment from me. So,
                                          [Lays down his mantle]
    Lie there my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.
    The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
    The very virtue of compassion in thee,
    I have with such provision in mine art
    So safely ordered that there is no soul-
    No, not so much perdition as an hair
    Betid to any creature in the vessel
    Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink.
    Sit down, for thou must now know farther.
  MIRANDA. You have often
    Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd,
    And left me to a bootless inquisition,
    Concluding 'Stay; not yet.'
  PROSPERO. The hour's now come;
    The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.
    Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember
    A time before we came unto this cell?
    I do not think thou canst; for then thou wast not
    Out three years old.
  MIRANDA. Certainly, sir, I can.
  PROSPERO. By what? By any other house, or person?
    Of any thing the image, tell me, that
    Hath kept with thy remembrance?
  MIRANDA. 'Tis far off,
    And rather like a dream than an assurance
    That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
    Four, or five, women once, that tended me?
  PROSPERO. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it
    That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
    In the dark backward and abysm of time?
    If thou rememb'rest aught, ere thou cam'st here,
    How thou cam'st here thou mayst.
  MIRANDA. But that I do not.
  PROSPERO. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
    Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and
    A prince of power.
  MIRANDA. Sir, are not you my father?
  PROSPERO. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
    She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
    Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir
    And princess no worse issued.
  MIRANDA. O, the heavens!
    What foul play had we that we came from thence?
    Or blessed was't we did?
  PROSPERO. Both, both, my girl.
    By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heav'd thence;
    But blessedly holp hither.
  MIRANDA. O, my heart bleeds
    To think o' th' teen that I have turn'd you to,
    Which is from my remembrance. Please you, farther.
  PROSPERO. My brother and thy uncle, call'd Antonio-
    I pray thee, mark me that a brother should
    Be so perfidious. He, whom next thyself
    Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put
    The manage of my state; as at that time
    Through all the signories it was the first,
    And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed
    In dignity, and for the liberal arts
    Without a parallel, those being all my study-
    The government I cast upon my brother
    And to my state grew stranger, being transported
    And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-
    Dost thou attend me?
  MIRANDA. Sir, most heedfully.
  PROSPERO. Being once perfected how to grant suits,
    How to deny them, who t' advance, and who
    To trash for over-topping, new created
    The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd 'em,
    Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key
    Of officer and office, set all hearts i' th' state
    To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was
    The ivy which had hid my princely trunk
    And suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not.
  MIRANDA. O, good sir, I do!
  PROSPERO. I pray thee, mark me.
    I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
    To closeness and the bettering of my mind
    With that which, but by being so retir'd,
    O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother
    Awak'd an evil nature; and my trust,
    Like a good parent, did beget of him
    A falsehood, in its contrary as great
    As my trust was; which had indeed no limit,
    A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,
    Not only with what my revenue yielded,
    But what my power might else exact, like one
    Who having into truth, by telling of it,
    Made such a sinner of his memory,
    To credit his own lie-he did believe
    He was indeed the Duke; out o' th' substitution,
    And executing th' outward face of royalty
    With all prerogative. Hence his ambition growing-
    Dost thou hear?
  MIRANDA. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
  PROSPERO. To have no screen between this part he play'd
    And him he play'd it for, he needs will be
    Absolute Milan. Me, poor man-my library
    Was dukedom large enough-of temporal royalties
    He thinks me now incapable; confederates,
    So dry he was for sway, wi' th' King of Naples,
    To give him annual tribute, do him homage,
    Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend
    The dukedom, yet unbow'd-alas, poor Milan!-
    To most ignoble stooping.
  MIRANDA. O the heavens!
  PROSPERO. Mark his condition, and th' event, then tell me
    If this might be a brother.
  MIRANDA. I should sin
    To think but nobly of my grandmother:
    Good wombs have borne bad sons.
  PROSPERO. Now the condition:
    This King of Naples, being an enemy
    To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;
    Which was, that he, in lieu o' th' premises,
    Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,
    Should presently extirpate me and mine
    Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan
    With all the honours on my brother. Whereon,
    A treacherous army levied, one midnight
    Fated to th' purpose, did Antonio open
    The gates of Milan; and, i' th' dead of darkness,
    The ministers for th' purpose hurried thence
    Me and thy crying self.
  MIRANDA. Alack, for pity!
    I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then,
    Will cry it o'er again; it is a hint
    That wrings mine eyes to't.
  PROSPERO. Hear a little further,
    And then I'll bring thee to the present busines
    Which now's upon 's; without the which this story
    Were most impertinent.
  MIRANDA. Wherefore did they not
    That hour destroy us?
  PROSPERO. Well demanded, wench!
    My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,
    So dear the love my people bore me; nor set
    A mark so bloody on the business; but
    With colours fairer painted their foul ends.
    In few, they hurried us aboard a bark;
    Bore us some leagues to sea, where they prepared
    A rotten carcass of a butt, not rigg'd,
    Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
    Instinctively have quit it. There they hoist us,
    To cry to th' sea, that roar'd to us; to sigh
    To th' winds, whose pity, sighing back again,
    Did us but loving wrong.
  MIRANDA. Alack, what trouble
    Was I then to you!
  PROSPERO. O, a cherubin
    Thou wast that did preserve me! Thou didst smile,
    Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
    When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt,
    Under my burden groan'd; which rais'd in me
    An undergoing stomach, to bear up
    Against what should ensue.
  MIRANDA. How came we ashore?
  PROSPERO. By Providence divine.
    Some food we had and some fresh water that
    A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,
    Out of his charity, who being then appointed
    Master of this design, did give us, with
    Rich garments, linens, stuffs, and necessaries,
    Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness,
    Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me
    From mine own library with volumes that
    I prize above my dukedom.
  MIRANDA. Would I might
    But ever see that man!
  PROSPERO. Now I arise.                    [Puts on his mantle]
    Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
    Here in this island we arriv'd; and here
    Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit
    Than other princess' can, that have more time
    For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful.
  MIRANDA. Heavens thank you for't! And now, I pray you,
      sir,
    For still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason
    For raising this sea-storm?
  PROSPERO. Know thus far forth:
    By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,
    Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
    Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
    I find my zenith doth depend upon
    A most auspicious star, whose influence
    If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
    Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions;
    Thou art inclin'd to sleep; 'tis a good dullness,
    And give it way. I know thou canst not choose.
                                                [MIRANDA sleeps]
    Come away, servant; come; I am ready now.
    Approach, my Ariel. Come.

                        Enter ARIEL

  ARIEL. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
    To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,
    To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
    On the curl'd clouds. To thy strong bidding task
    Ariel and all his quality.
  PROSPERO. Hast thou, spirit,
    Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?
  ARIEL. To every article.
    I boarded the King's ship; now on the beak,
    Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
    I flam'd amazement. Sometime I'd divide,
    And burn in many places; on the topmast,
    The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
    Then meet and join Jove's lightning, the precursors
    O' th' dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
    And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks
    Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune
    Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,
    Yea, his dread trident shake.
  PROSPERO. My brave spirit!
    Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
    Would not infect his reason?
  ARIEL. Not a soul
    But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd
    Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
    Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,
    Then all afire with me; the King's son, Ferdinand,
    With hair up-staring-then like reeds, not hair-
    Was the first man that leapt; cried 'Hell is empty,
    And all the devils are here.'
  PROSPERO. Why, that's my spirit!
    But was not this nigh shore?
  ARIEL. Close by, my master.
  PROSPERO. But are they, Ariel, safe?
  ARIEL. Not a hair perish'd;
    On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
    But fresher than before; and, as thou bad'st me,
    In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle.
    The King's son have I landed by himself,
    Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs
    In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,
    His arms in this sad knot.
  PROSPERO. Of the King's ship,
    The mariners, say how thou hast dispos'd,
    And all the rest o' th' fleet?
  ARIEL. Safely in harbour
    Is the King's ship; in the deep nook, where once
    Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
    From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid;
    The mariners all under hatches stowed,
    Who, with a charm join'd to their suff'red labour,
    I have left asleep; and for the rest o' th' fleet,
    Which I dispers'd, they all have met again,
    And are upon the Mediterranean flote
    Bound sadly home for Naples,
    Supposing that they saw the King's ship wreck'd,
    And his great person perish.
  PROSPERO. Ariel, thy charge
    Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work.
    What is the time o' th' day?
  ARIEL. Past the mid season.
  PROSPERO. At least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now
    Must by us both be spent most preciously.
  ARIEL. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,
    Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd,
    Which is not yet perform'd me.
  PROSPERO. How now, moody?
    What is't thou canst demand?
  ARIEL. My liberty.
  PROSPERO. Before the time be out? No more!
  ARIEL. I prithee,
    Remember I have done thee worthy service,
    Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, serv'd
    Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou didst promise
    To bate me a full year.
  PROSPERO. Dost thou forget
    From what a torment I did free thee?
  ARIEL. No.
  PROSPERO. Thou dost; and think'st it much to tread the ooze
    Of the salt deep,
    To run upon the sharp wind of the north,
    To do me business in the veins o' th' earth
    When it is bak'd with frost.
  ARIEL. I do not, sir.
  PROSPERO. Thou liest, malignant thing. Hast thou forgot
    The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy
    Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?
  ARIEL. No, sir.
  PROSPERO. Thou hast. Where was she born?
    Speak; tell me.
  ARIEL. Sir, in Argier.
  PROSPERO. O, was she so? I must
    Once in a month recount what thou hast been,
    Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax,
    For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible
    To enter human hearing, from Argier
    Thou know'st was banish'd; for one thing she did
    They would not take her life. Is not this true?
  ARIEL. Ay, sir.
  PROSPERO. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child,
    And here was left by th'sailors. Thou, my slave,
    As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;
    And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
    To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,
    Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
    By help of her more potent ministers,
    And in her most unmitigable rage,
    Into a cloven pine; within which rift
    Imprison'd thou didst painfully remain
    A dozen years; within which space she died,
    And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans
    As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island-
    Save for the son that she did litter here,
    A freckl'd whelp, hag-born-not honour'd with
    A human shape.
  ARIEL. Yes, Caliban her son.
  PROSPERO. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban
    Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st
    What torment I did find thee in; thy groans
    Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
    Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment
    To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax
    Could not again undo. It was mine art,
    When I arriv'd and heard thee, that made gape
    The pine, and let thee out.
  ARIEL. I thank thee, master.
  PROSPERO. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak
    And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till
    Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.
  ARIEL. Pardon, master;
    I will be correspondent to command,
    And do my spriting gently.
  PROSPERO. Do so; and after two days
    I will discharge thee.
  ARIEL. That's my noble master!
    What shall I do? Say what. What shall I do?
  PROSPERO. Go make thyself like a nymph o' th' sea; be subject
    To no sight but thine and mine, invisible
    To every eyeball else. Go take this shape,
    And hither come in 't. Go, hence with diligence!
                                                      Exit ARIEL
    Awake, dear heart, awake; thou hast slept well;
    Awake.
  MIRANDA. The strangeness of your story put
    Heaviness in me.
  PROSPERO. Shake it off. Come on,
    We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never
    Yields us kind answer.
  MIRANDA. 'Tis a villain, sir,
    I do not love to look on.
  PROSPERO. But as 'tis,
    We cannot miss him: he does make our fire,
    Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
    That profit us. What ho! slave! Caliban!
    Thou earth, thou! Speak.
  CALIBAN.   [ Within]  There's wood enough within.
  PROSPERO. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee.
    Come, thou tortoise! when?

             Re-enter ARIEL like a water-nymph

    Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,
    Hark in thine ear.
  ARIEL. My lord, it shall be done.                         Exit
  PROSPERO. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
    Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

                       Enter CALIBAN

  CALIBAN. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd
    With raven's feather from unwholesome fen
    Drop on you both! A south-west blow on ye
    And blister you all o'er!
  PROSPERO. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
    Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins
    Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
    All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd
    As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
    Than bees that made 'em.
  CALIBAN. I must eat my dinner.
    This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,
    Which thou tak'st from me. When thou cam'st first,
    Thou strok'st me and made much of me, wouldst give me
    Water with berries in't, and teach me how
    To name the bigger light, and how the less,
    That burn by day and night; and then I lov'd thee,
    And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle,
    The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile.
    Curs'd be I that did so! All the charms
    Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
    For I am all the subjects that you have,
    Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me
    In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
    The rest o' th' island.
  PROSPERO. Thou most lying slave,
    Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have us'd thee,
    Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodg'd thee
    In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
    The honour of my child.
  CALIBAN. O ho, O ho! Would't had been done.
    Thou didst prevent me; I had peopl'd else
    This isle with Calibans.
  MIRANDA. Abhorred slave,
    Which any print of goodness wilt not take,
    Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,
    Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
    One thing or other. When thou didst not, savage,
    Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
    A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes
    With words that made them known. But thy vile race,
    Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures
    Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou
    Deservedly confin'd into this rock, who hadst
    Deserv'd more than a prison.
  CALIBAN. You taught me language, and my profit on't
    Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
    For learning me your language!
  PROSPERO. Hag-seed, hence!
    Fetch us in fuel. And be quick, thou 'rt best,
    To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice?
    If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly
    What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps,
    Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar,
    That beasts shall tremble at thy din.
  CALIBAN. No, pray thee.
    [Aside]  I must obey. His art is of such pow'r,
    It would control my dam's god, Setebos,
    And make a vassal of him.
  PROSPERO. So, slave; hence!                       Exit CALIBAN

         Re-enter ARIEL invisible, playing ad singing;
                     FERDINAND following

                          ARIEL'S SONG.
            Come unto these yellow sands,
              And then take hands;
            Curtsied when you have and kiss'd,
              The wild waves whist,
            Foot it featly here and there,
            And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
              Hark, hark!
            [Burden dispersedly: Bow-wow.]
              The watch dogs bark.
            [Burden dispersedly: Bow-wow.]
              Hark, hark! I hear
            The strain of strutting chanticleer
              Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.
  FERDINAND. Where should this music be? I' th' air or th'
    earth?
    It sounds no more; and sure it waits upon
    Some god o' th' island. Sitting on a bank,
    Weeping again the King my father's wreck,
    This music crept by me upon the waters,
    Allaying both their fury and my passion
    With its sweet air; thence I have follow'd it,
    Or it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone.
    No, it begins again.

                   ARIEL'S SONG
         Full fathom five thy father lies;
           Of his bones are coral made;
         Those are pearls that were his eyes;
           Nothing of him that doth fade
         But doth suffer a sea-change
         Into something rich and strange.
         Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
           [Burden: Ding-dong.]
         Hark! now I hear them-Ding-dong bell.

  FERDINAND. The ditty does remember my drown'd father.
    This is no mortal business, nor no sound
    That the earth owes. I hear it now above me.
  PROSPERO. The fringed curtains of thine eye advance,
    And say what thou seest yond.
  MIRANDA. What is't? a spirit?
    Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,
    It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit.
  PROSPERO. No, wench; it eats and sleeps and hath such senses
    As we have, such. This gallant which thou seest
    Was in the wreck; and but he's something stain'd
    With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou mightst call him
    A goodly person. He hath lost his fellows,
    And strays about to find 'em.
  MIRANDA. I might call him
    A thing divine; for nothing natural
    I ever saw so noble.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  It goes on, I see,
    As my soul prompts it. Spirit, fine spirit! I'll free thee
    Within two days for this.
  FERDINAND. Most sure, the goddess
    On whom these airs attend! Vouchsafe my pray'r
    May know if you remain upon this island;
    And that you will some good instruction give
    How I may bear me here. My prime request,
    Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!
    If you be maid or no?
  MIRANDA. No wonder, sir;
    But certainly a maid.
  FERDINAND. My language? Heavens!
    I am the best of them that speak this speech,
    Were I but where 'tis spoken.
  PROSPERO. How? the best?
    What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?
  FERDINAND. A single thing, as I am now, that wonders
    To hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me;
    And that he does I weep. Myself am Naples,
    Who with mine eyes, never since at ebb, beheld
    The King my father wreck'd.
  MIRANDA. Alack, for mercy!
  FERDINAND. Yes, faith, and all his lords, the Duke of Milan
    And his brave son being twain.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  The Duke of Milan
    And his more braver daughter could control thee,
    If now 'twere fit to do't. At the first sight
    They have chang'd eyes. Delicate Ariel,
    I'll set thee free for this.  [To FERDINAND]  A word, good
    sir;
    I fear you have done yourself some wrong; a word.
  MIRANDA. Why speaks my father so ungently? This
    Is the third man that e'er I saw; the first
    That e'er I sigh'd for. Pity move my father
    To be inclin'd my way!
  FERDINAND. O, if a virgin,
    And your affection not gone forth, I'll make you
    The Queen of Naples.
  PROSPERO. Soft, Sir! one word more.
    [Aside]  They are both in either's pow'rs; but this swift
    busines
    I must uneasy make, lest too light winning
    Make the prize light.  [To FERDINAND]  One word more; I
    charge thee
    That thou attend me; thou dost here usurp
    The name thou ow'st not; and hast put thyself
    Upon this island as a spy, to win it
    From me, the lord on't.
  FERDINAND. No, as I am a man.
  MIRANDA. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.
    If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
    Good things will strive to dwell with't.
  PROSPERO. Follow me.
    Speak not you for him; he's a traitor. Come;
    I'll manacle thy neck and feet together.
    Sea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be
    The fresh-brook mussels, wither'd roots, and husks
    Wherein the acorn cradled. Follow.
  FERDINAND. No;
    I will resist such entertainment till
    Mine enemy has more power.
                          [He draws, and is charmed from moving]
  MIRANDA. O dear father,
    Make not too rash a trial of him, for
    He's gentle, and not fearful.
  PROSPERO. What, I say,
    My foot my tutor? Put thy sword up, traitor;
    Who mak'st a show but dar'st not strike, thy conscience
    Is so possess'd with guilt. Come from thy ward;
    For I can here disarm thee with this stick
    And make thy weapon drop.
  MIRANDA. Beseech you, father!
  PROSPERO. Hence! Hang not on my garments.
  MIRANDA. Sir, have pity;
    I'll be his surety.
  PROSPERO. Silence! One word more
    Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What!
    An advocate for an impostor! hush!
    Thou think'st there is no more such shapes as he,
    Having seen but him and Caliban. Foolish wench!
    To th' most of men this is a Caliban,
    And they to him are angels.
  MIRANDA. My affections
    Are then most humble; I have no ambition
    To see a goodlier man.
  PROSPERO. Come on; obey.
    Thy nerves are in their infancy again,
    And have no vigour in them.
  FERDINAND. So they are;
    My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.
    My father's loss, the weakness which I feel,
    The wreck of all my friends, nor this man's threats
    To whom I am subdu'd, are but light to me,
    Might I but through my prison once a day
    Behold this maid. All corners else o' th' earth
    Let liberty make use of; space enough
    Have I in such a prison.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  It works.  [To FERDINAND]  Come on.-
    Thou hast done well, fine Ariel!  [To FERDINAND]  Follow
    me.
    [To ARIEL]  Hark what thou else shalt do me.
  MIRANDA. Be of comfort;
    My father's of a better nature, sir,
    Than he appears by speech; this is unwonted
    Which now came from him.
  PROSPERO.  [To ARIEL]  Thou shalt be as free
    As mountain winds; but then exactly do
    All points of my command.
  ARIEL. To th' syllable.
  PROSPERO.  [To FERDINAND]  Come, follow.  [To MIRANDA]
    Speak not for him.                                    Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 1

Another part of the island

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and
OTHERS

  GONZALO. Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause,
    So have we all, of joy; for our escape
    Is much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe
    Is common; every day, some sailor's wife,
    The masters of some merchant, and the merchant,
    Have just our theme of woe; but for the miracle,
    I mean our preservation, few in millions
    Can speak like us. Then wisely, good sir, weigh
    Our sorrow with our comfort.
  ALONSO. Prithee, peace.
  SEBASTIAN. He receives comfort like cold porridge.
  ANTONIO. The visitor will not give him o'er so.
  SEBASTIAN. Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by
    and by it will strike.
  GONZALO. Sir-
  SEBASTIAN. One-Tell.
  GONZALO. When every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd,
    Comes to th' entertainer-
  SEBASTIAN. A dollar.
  GONZALO. Dolour comes to him, indeed; you have spoken
    truer than you purpos'd.
  SEBASTIAN. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you
    should.
  GONZALO. Therefore, my lord-
  ANTONIO. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!
  ALONSO. I prithee, spare.
  GONZALO. Well, I have done; but yet-
  SEBASTIAN. He will be talking.
  ANTONIO. Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first
    begins to crow?
  SEBASTIAN. The old cock.
  ANTONIO. The cock'rel.
  SEBASTIAN. Done. The wager?
  ANTONIO. A laughter.
  SEBASTIAN. A match!
  ADRIAN. Though this island seem to be desert-
  ANTONIO. Ha, ha, ha!
  SEBASTIAN. So, you're paid.
  ADRIAN. Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible-
  SEBASTIAN. Yet-
  ADRIAN. Yet-
  ANTONIO. He could not miss't.
  ADRIAN. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate
    temperance.
  ANTONIO. Temperance was a delicate wench.
  SEBASTIAN. Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly
    deliver'd.
  ADRIAN. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
  SEBASTIAN. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.
  ANTONIO. Or, as 'twere perfum'd by a fen.
  GONZALO. Here is everything advantageous to life.
  ANTONIO. True; save means to live.
  SEBASTIAN. Of that there's none, or little.
  GONZALO. How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!
  ANTONIO. The ground indeed is tawny.
  SEBASTIAN. With an eye of green in't.
  ANTONIO. He misses not much.
  SEBASTIAN. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally.
  GONZALO. But the rarity of it is, which is indeed almost
    beyond credit-
  SEBASTIAN. As many vouch'd rarities are.
  GONZALO. That our garments, being, as they were, drench'd
    in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness and
    glosses, being rather new-dy'd, than stain'd with salt
    water.
  ANTONIO. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it
    not say he lies?
  SEBASTIAN. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.
  GONZALO. Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when
    we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the
    King's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.
  SEBASTIAN. 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in
    our return.
  ADRIAN. Tunis was never grac'd before with such a paragon
    to their queen.
  GONZALO. Not since widow Dido's time.
  ANTONIO. Widow! a pox o' that! How came that 'widow'
    in? Widow Dido!
  SEBASTIAN. What if he had said 'widower Aeneas' too?
    Good Lord, how you take it!
  ADRIAN. 'Widow Dido' said you? You make me study of
    that. She was of Carthage, not of Tunis.
  GONZALO. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.
  ADRIAN. Carthage?
  GONZALO. I assure you, Carthage.
  ANTONIO. His word is more than the miraculous harp.
  SEBASTIAN. He hath rais'd the wall, and houses too.
  ANTONIO. What impossible matter will he make easy next?
  SEBASTIAN. I think he will carry this island home in his
    pocket, and give it his son for an apple.
  ANTONIO. And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring
    forth more islands.
  GONZALO. Ay.
  ANTONIO. Why, in good time.
  GONZALO. Sir, we were talking that our garments seem now
    as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of
    your daughter, who is now Queen.
  ANTONIO. And the rarest that e'er came there.
  SEBASTIAN. Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido.
  ANTONIO. O, widow Dido! Ay, widow Dido.
  GONZALO. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I
    wore it? I mean, in a sort.
  ANTONIO. That 'sort' was well fish'd for.
  GONZALO. When I wore it at your daughter's marriage?
  ALONSO. You cram these words into mine ears against
    The stomach of my sense. Would I had never
    Married my daughter there; for, coming thence,
    My son is lost; and, in my rate, she too,
    Who is so far from Italy removed
    I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir
    Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish
    Hath made his meal on thee?
  FRANCISCO. Sir, he may live;
    I saw him beat the surges under him,
    And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,
    Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
    The surge most swoln that met him; his bold head
    'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared
    Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke
    To th' shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bowed,
    As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt
    He came alive to land.
  ALONSO. No, no, he's gone.
  SEBASTIAN. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,
    That would not bless our Europe with your daughter,
    But rather lose her to an African;
    Where she, at least, is banish'd from your eye,
    Who hath cause to wet the grief on't.
  ALONSO. Prithee, peace.
  SEBASTIAN. You were kneel'd to, and importun'd otherwise
    By all of us; and the fair soul herself
    Weigh'd between loathness and obedience at
    Which end o' th' beam should bow. We have lost your son,
    I fear, for ever. Milan and Naples have
    Moe widows in them of this business' making,
    Than we bring men to comfort them;
    The fault's your own.
  ALONSO. So is the dear'st o' th' loss.
  GONZALO. My lord Sebastian,
    The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness,
    And time to speak it in; you rub the sore,
    When you should bring the plaster.
  SEBASTIAN. Very well.
  ANTONIO. And most chirurgeonly.
  GONZALO. It is foul weather in us all, good sir,
    When you are cloudy.
  SEBASTIAN. Foul weather?
  ANTONIO. Very foul.
  GONZALO. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord-
  ANTONIO. He'd sow 't with nettle-seed.
  SEBASTIAN. Or docks, or mallows.
  GONZALO. And were the king on't, what would I do?
  SEBASTIAN. Scape being drunk for want of wine.
  GONZALO. I' th' commonwealth I would by contraries
    Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
    Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
    Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
    And use of service, none; contract, succession,
    Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
    No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
    No occupation; all men idle, all;
    And women too, but innocent and pure;
    No sovereignty-
  SEBASTIAN. Yet he would be king on't.
  ANTONIO. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the
    beginning.
  GONZALO. All things in common nature should produce
    Without sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony,
    Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
    Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
    Of it own kind, all foison, all abundance,
    To feed my innocent people.
  SEBASTIAN. No marrying 'mong his subjects?
  ANTONIO. None, man; all idle; whores and knaves.
  GONZALO. I would with such perfection govern, sir,
    T' excel the golden age.
  SEBASTIAN. Save his Majesty!
  ANTONIO. Long live Gonzalo!
  GONZALO. And-do you mark me, sir?
  ALONSO. Prithee, no more; thou dost talk nothing to me.
  GONZALO. I do well believe your Highness; and did it to
    minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such
    sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh
    at nothing.
  ANTONIO. 'Twas you we laugh'd at.
  GONZALO. Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to
    you; so you may continue, and laugh at nothing still.
  ANTONIO. What a blow was there given!
  SEBASTIAN. An it had not fall'n flat-long.
  GONZALO. You are gentlemen of brave mettle; you would
    lift the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue
    in it five weeks without changing.

          Enter ARIEL, invisible, playing solemn music

  SEBASTIAN. We would so, and then go a-bat-fowling.
  ANTONIO. Nay, good my lord, be not angry.
  GONZALO. No, I warrant you; I will not adventure my
    discretion so weakly. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am
    very heavy?
  ANTONIO. Go sleep, and hear us.
                   [All sleep but ALONSO, SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO]
  ALONSO. What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes
    Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts; I find
    They are inclin'd to do so.
  SEBASTIAN. Please you, sir,
    Do not omit the heavy offer of it:
    It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,
    It is a comforter.
  ANTONIO. We two, my lord,
    Will guard your person while you take your rest,
    And watch your safety.
  ALONSO. Thank you-wondrous heavy!
                                     [ALONSO sleeps. Exit ARIEL]
  SEBASTIAN. What a strange drowsiness possesses them!
  ANTONIO. It is the quality o' th' climate.
  SEBASTIAN. Why
    Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not
    Myself dispos'd to sleep.
  ANTONIO. Nor I; my spirits are nimble.
    They fell together all, as by consent;
    They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,
    Worthy Sebastian? O, what might! No more!
    And yet methinks I see it in thy face,
    What thou shouldst be; th' occasion speaks thee; and
    My strong imagination sees a crown
    Dropping upon thy head.
  SEBASTIAN. What, art thou waking?
  ANTONIO. Do you not hear me speak?
  SEBASTIAN. I do; and surely
    It is a sleepy language, and thou speak'st
    Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?
    This is a strange repose, to be asleep
    With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,
    And yet so fast asleep.
  ANTONIO. Noble Sebastian,
    Thou let'st thy fortune sleep-die rather; wink'st
    Whiles thou art waking.
  SEBASTIAN. Thou dost snore distinctly;
    There's meaning in thy snores.
  ANTONIO. I am more serious than my custom; you
    Must be so too, if heed me; which to do
    Trebles thee o'er.
  SEBASTIAN. Well, I am standing water.
  ANTONIO. I'll teach you how to flow.
  SEBASTIAN. Do so: to ebb,
    Hereditary sloth instructs me.
  ANTONIO. O,
    If you but knew how you the purpose cherish,
    Whiles thus you mock it! how, in stripping it,
    You more invest it! Ebbing men indeed,
    Most often, do so near the bottom run
    By their own fear or sloth.
  SEBASTIAN. Prithee say on.
    The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim
    A matter from thee; and a birth, indeed,
    Which throes thee much to yield.
  ANTONIO. Thus, sir:
    Although this lord of weak remembrance, this
    Who shall be of as little memory
    When he is earth'd, hath here almost persuaded-
    For he's a spirit of persuasion, only
    Professes to persuade-the King his son's alive,
    'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd
    As he that sleeps here swims.
  SEBASTIAN. I have no hope
    That he's undrown'd.
  ANTONIO. O, out of that 'no hope'
    What great hope have you! No hope that way is
    Another way so high a hope, that even
    Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,
    But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me
    That Ferdinand is drown'd?
  SEBASTIAN. He's gone.
  ANTONIO. Then tell me,
    Who's the next heir of Naples?
  SEBASTIAN. Claribel.
  ANTONIO. She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells
    Ten leagues beyond man's life; she that from Naples
    Can have no note, unless the sun were post,
    The Man i' th' Moon's too slow, till newborn chins
    Be rough and razorable; she that from whom
    We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again,
    And by that destiny, to perform an act
    Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
    In yours and my discharge.
  SEBASTIAN. What stuff is this! How say you?
    'Tis true, my brother's daughter's Queen of Tunis;
    So is she heir of Naples; 'twixt which regions
    There is some space.
  ANTONIO. A space whose ev'ry cubit
    Seems to cry out 'How shall that Claribel
    Measure us back to Naples? Keep in Tunis,
    And let Sebastian wake.' Say this were death
    That now hath seiz'd them; why, they were no worse
    Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples
    As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate
    As amply and unnecessarily
    As this Gonzalo; I myself could make
    A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore
    The mind that I do! What a sleep were this
    For your advancement! Do you understand me?
  SEBASTIAN. Methinks I do.
  ANTONIO. And how does your content
    Tender your own good fortune?
  SEBASTIAN. I remember
    You did supplant your brother Prospero.
  ANTONIO. True.
    And look how well my garments sit upon me,
    Much feater than before. My brother's servants
    Were then my fellows; now they are my men.
  SEBASTIAN. But, for your conscience-
  ANTONIO. Ay, sir; where lies that? If 'twere a kibe,
    'Twould put me to my slipper; but I feel not
    This deity in my bosom; twenty consciences
    That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they
    And melt, ere they molest! Here lies your brother,
    No better than the earth he lies upon,
    If he were that which now he's like-that's dead;
    Whom I with this obedient steel, three inches of it,
    Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus,
    To the perpetual wink for aye might put
    This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who
    Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest,
    They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk;
    They'll tell the clock to any business that
    We say befits the hour.
  SEBASTIAN. Thy case, dear friend,
    Shall be my precedent; as thou got'st Milan,
    I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword. One stroke
    Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest;
    And I the King shall love thee.
  ANTONIO. Draw together;
    And when I rear my hand, do you the like,
    To fall it on Gonzalo.
  SEBASTIAN. O, but one word.                  [They talk apart]

          Re-enter ARIEL, invisible, with music and song

  ARIEL. My master through his art foresees the danger
    That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth-
    For else his project dies-to keep them living.
                                        [Sings in GONZALO'S ear]
    While you here do snoring lie,
    Open-ey'd conspiracy
    His time doth take.
    If of life you keep a care,
    Shake off slumber, and beware.
    Awake, awake!

  ANTONIO. Then let us both be sudden.
  GONZALO. Now, good angels
    Preserve the King!                               [They wake]
  ALONSO. Why, how now?-Ho, awake!-Why are you drawn?
    Wherefore this ghastly looking?
  GONZALO. What's the matter?
  SEBASTIAN. Whiles we stood here securing your repose,
    Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing
    Like bulls, or rather lions; did't not wake you?
    It struck mine ear most terribly.
  ALONSO. I heard nothing.
  ANTONIO. O, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear,
    To make an earthquake! Sure it was the roar
    Of a whole herd of lions.
  ALONSO. Heard you this, Gonzalo?
  GONZALO. Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming,
    And that a strange one too, which did awake me;
    I shak'd you, sir, and cried; as mine eyes open'd,
    I saw their weapons drawn-there was a noise,
    That's verily. 'Tis best we stand upon our guard,
    Or that we quit this place. Let's draw our weapons.
  ALONSO. Lead off this ground; and let's make further
    search
    For my poor son.
  GONZALO. Heavens keep him from these beasts!
    For he is, sure, i' th' island.
  ALONSO. Lead away.
  ARIEL. Prospero my lord shall know what I have done;
    So, King, go safely on to seek thy son.               Exeunt

SCENE 2

Another part of the island

Enter CALIBAN, with a burden of wood. A noise of thunder heard

  CALIBAN. All the infections that the sun sucks up
    From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him
    By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me,
    And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch,
    Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i' th' mire,
    Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark
    Out of my way, unless he bid 'em; but
    For every trifle are they set upon me;
    Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me,
    And after bite me; then like hedgehogs which
    Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount
    Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I
    All wound with adders, who with cloven tongues
    Do hiss me into madness.

                         Enter TRINCULO

    Lo, now, lo!
    Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me
    For bringing wood in slowly. I'll fall flat;
    Perchance he will not mind me.
  TRINCULO. Here's neither bush nor shrub to bear off any
    weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it
    sing i' th' wind. Yond same black cloud, yond huge one,
    looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. If
    it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to
    hide my head. Yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by
    pailfuls. What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or
    alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and
    fish-like smell; kind of not-of-the-newest Poor-John. A
    strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and
    had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but
    would give a piece of silver. There would this monster
    make a man; any strange beast there makes a man; when
    they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they
    will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. Legg'd like a
    man, and his fins like arms! Warm, o' my troth! I do now
    let loose my opinion; hold it no longer: this is no
    fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by
    thunderbolt.  [Thunder]  Alas, the storm is come again! My
    best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no
    other shelter hereabout. Misery acquaints a man with
    strange bed-fellows. I will here shroud till the dregs
    of the storm be past.

            Enter STEPHANO singing; a bottle in his hand

  STEPHANO. I shall no more to sea, to sea,
    Here shall I die ashore-
    This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man's funeral;
    well, here's my comfort.                            [Drinks]

    The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I,
    The gunner, and his mate,
    Lov'd Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery,
    But none of us car'd for Kate;
    For she had a tongue with a tang,
    Would cry to a sailor 'Go hang!'
    She lov'd not the savour of tar nor of pitch,
    Yet a tailor might scratch her where'er she did itch.
    Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!

    This is a scurvy tune too; but here's my comfort.
                                                        [Drinks]
  CALIBAN. Do not torment me. O!
  STEPHANO. What's the matter? Have we devils here? Do you
    put tricks upon 's with savages and men of Ind? Ha! I
    have not scap'd drowning to be afeard now of your four
    legs; for it hath been said: As proper a man as ever
    went on four legs cannot make him give ground; and it
    shall be said so again, while Stephano breathes at
    nostrils.
  CALIBAN. The spirit torments me. O!
  STEPHANO. This is some monster of the isle with four legs,
    who hath got, as I take it, an ague. Where the devil
    should he learn our language? I will give him some
    relief, if it be but for that. If I can recover him, and
    keep him tame, and get to Naples with him, he's a
    present for any emperor that ever trod on neat's
    leather.
  CALIBAN. Do not torment me, prithee; I'll bring my wood
    home faster.
  STEPHANO. He's in his fit now, and does not talk after the
    wisest. He shall taste of my bottle; if he have never
    drunk wine afore, it will go near to remove his fit. If
    I can recover him, and keep him tame, I will not take
    too much for him; he shall pay for him that hath him,
    and that soundly.
  CALIBAN. Thou dost me yet but little hurt; thou wilt anon,
    I know it by thy trembling; now Prosper works upon thee.
  STEPHANO. Come on your ways; open your mouth; here is
    that which will give language to you, cat. Open your
    mouth; this will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and
    that soundly; you cannot tell who's your friend. Open
    your chaps again.
  TRINCULO. I should know that voice; it should be-but he is
    drown'd; and these are devils. O, defend me!
  STEPHANO. Four legs and two voices; a most delicate monster!
    His forward voice, now, is to speak well of his
    friend; his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and
    to detract. If all the wine in my bottle will recover
    him, I will help his ague. Come-Amen! I will pour some
    in thy other mouth.
  TRINCULO. Stephano!
  STEPHANO. Doth thy other mouth call me? Mercy, mercy!
    This is a devil, and no monster; I will leave him; I
    have no long spoon.
  TRINCULO. Stephano! If thou beest Stephano, touch me, and
    speak to me; for I am Trinculo-be not afeard-thy good
    friend Trinculo.
  STEPHANO. If thou beest Trinculo, come forth; I'll pull
    the by the lesser legs; if any be Trinculo's legs, these
    are they. Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How cam'st thou
    to be the siege of this moon-calf? Can he vent
    Trinculos?
  TRINCULO. I took him to be kill'd with a thunderstroke.
    But art thou not drown'd, Stephano? I hope now thou are
    not drown'd. Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the
    dead moon-calf's gaberdine for fear of the storm. And
    art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans
    scap'd!
  STEPHANO. Prithee, do not turn me about; my stomach is not
    constant.
  CALIBAN.  [Aside]  These be fine things, an if they be not
    sprites.
    That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor.
    I will kneel to him.
  STEPHANO. How didst thou scape? How cam'st thou hither?
    Swear by this bottle how thou cam'st hither-I escap'd
    upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved o'erboard-
    by this bottle, which I made of the bark of a tree, with
    mine own hands, since I was cast ashore.
  CALIBAN. I'll swear upon that bottle to be thy true
    subject, for the liquor is not earthly.
  STEPHANO. Here; swear then how thou escap'dst.
  TRINCULO. Swum ashore, man, like a duck; I can swim like
    a duck, I'll be sworn.
  STEPHANO.  [Passing the bottle]  Here, kiss the book. Though
    thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a
    goose.
  TRINCULO. O Stephano, hast any more of this?
  STEPHANO. The whole butt, man; my cellar is in a rock by
    th' seaside, where my wine is hid. How now, moon-calf!
    How does thine ague?
  CALIBAN. Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven?
  STEPHANO. Out o' th' moon, I do assure thee; I was the Man
    i' th' Moon, when time was.
  CALIBAN. I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee. My
    mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog and thy bush.
  STEPHANO. Come, swear to that; kiss the book. I will
    furnish it anon with new contents. Swear.
                                                [CALIBAN drinks]
  TRINCULO. By this good light, this is a very shallow
    monster!
    I afeard of him! A very weak monster! The Man i' th'
    Moon! A most poor credulous monster! Well drawn,
    monster, in good sooth!
  CALIBAN. I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island;
    and will kiss thy foot. I prithee be my god.
  TRINCULO. By this light, a most perfidious and drunken
    monster! When's god's asleep he'll rob his bottle.
  CALIBAN. I'll kiss thy foot; I'll swear myself thy
    subject.
  STEPHANO. Come on, then; down, and swear.
  TRINCULO. I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-
    headed monster. A most scurvy monster! I could find in
    my heart to beat him-
  STEPHANO. Come, kiss.
  TRINCULO. But that the poor monster's in drink. An
    abominable monster!
  CALIBAN. I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee
    berries;
    I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.
    A plague upon the tyrant that I serve!
    I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee,
    Thou wondrous man.
  TRINCULO. A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of
    a poor drunkard!
  CALIBAN. I prithee let me bring thee where crabs grow;
    And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts;
    Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how
    To snare the nimble marmoset; I'll bring thee
    To clust'ring filberts, and sometimes I'll get thee
    Young scamels from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?
  STEPHANO. I prithee now, lead the way without any more
    talking. Trinculo, the King and all our company else
    being drown'd, we will inherit here. Here, bear my bottle.
    Fellow Trinculo, we'll fill him by and by again.
  CALIBAN.  [Sings drunkenly]  Farewell, master; farewell,
    farewell!
  TRINCULO. A howling monster; a drunken monster!
  CALIBAN. No more dams I'll make for fish;
    Nor fetch in firing
    At requiring,
    Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish.
    'Ban 'Ban, Ca-Caliban,
    Has a new master-Get a new man.
    Freedom, high-day! high-day, freedom! freedom, high-
    day, freedom!
  STEPHANO. O brave monster! Lead the way.                Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 1

Before PROSPERO'S cell

Enter FERDINAND, hearing a log

  FERDINAND. There be some sports are painful, and their
    labour
    Delight in them sets off; some kinds of baseness
    Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters
    Point to rich ends. This my mean task
    Would be as heavy to me as odious, but
    The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead,
    And makes my labours pleasures. O, she is
    Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed;
    And he's compos'd of harshness. I must remove
    Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up,
    Upon a sore injunction; my sweet mistress
    Weeps when she sees me work, and says such baseness
    Had never like executor. I forget;
    But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours,
    Most busy, least when I do it.

        Enter MIRANDA; and PROSPERO at a distance, unseen

  MIRANDA. Alas, now; pray you,
    Work not so hard; I would the lightning had
    Burnt up those logs that you are enjoin'd to pile.
    Pray, set it down and rest you; when this burns,
    'Twill weep for having wearied you. My father
    Is hard at study; pray, now, rest yourself;
    He's safe for these three hours.
  FERDINAND. O most dear mistress,
    The sun will set before I shall discharge
    What I must strive to do.
  MIRANDA. If you'll sit down,
    I'll bear your logs the while; pray give me that;
    I'll carry it to the pile.
  FERDINAND. No, precious creature;
    I had rather crack my sinews, break my back,
    Than you should such dishonour undergo,
    While I sit lazy by.
  MIRANDA. It would become me
    As well as it does you; and I should do it
    With much more ease; for my good will is to it,
    And yours it is against.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Poor worm, thou art infected!
    This visitation shows it.
  MIRANDA. You look wearily.
  FERDINAND. No, noble mistress; 'tis fresh morning with me
    When you are by at night. I do beseech you,
    Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers,
    What is your name?
  MIRANDA. Miranda-O my father,
    I have broke your hest to say so!
  FERDINAND. Admir'd Miranda!
    What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady
    I have ey'd with best regard; and many a time
    Th' harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
    Brought my too diligent ear; for several virtues
    Have I lik'd several women, never any
    With so full soul, but some defect in her
    Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd,
    And put it to the foil; but you, O you,
    So perfect and so peerless, are created
    Of every creature's best!
  MIRANDA. I do not know
    One of my sex; no woman's face remember,
    Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen
    More that I may call men than you, good friend,
    And my dear father. How features are abroad,
    I am skilless of; but, by my modesty,
    The jewel in my dower, I would not wish
    Any companion in the world but you;
    Nor can imagination form a shape,
    Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle
    Something too wildly, and my father's precepts
    I therein do forget.
  FERDINAND. I am, in my condition,
    A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king-
    I would not so!-and would no more endure
    This wooden slavery than to suffer
    The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak:
    The very instant that I saw you, did
    My heart fly to your service; there resides
    To make me slave to it; and for your sake
    Am I this patient log-man.
  MIRANDA. Do you love me?
  FERDINAND. O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound,
    And crown what I profess with kind event,
    If I speak true! If hollowly, invert
    What best is boded me to mischief! I,
    Beyond all limit of what else i' th' world,
    Do love, prize, honour you.
  MIRANDA. I am a fool
    To weep at what I am glad of.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Fair encounter
    Of two most rare affections! Heavens rain grace
    On that which breeds between 'em!
  FERDINAND. Wherefore weep you?
  MIRANDA. At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer
    What I desire to give, and much less take
    What I shall die to want. But this is trifling;
    And all the more it seeks to hide itself,
    The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning!
    And prompt me, plain and holy innocence!
    I am your wife, if you will marry me;
    If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow
    You may deny me; but I'll be your servant,
    Whether you will or no.
  FERDINAND. My mistress, dearest;
    And I thus humble ever.
  MIRANDA. My husband, then?
  FERDINAND. Ay, with a heart as willing
    As bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand.
  MIRANDA. And mine, with my heart in't. And now farewell
    Till half an hour hence.
  FERDINAND. A thousand thousand!
                          Exeunt FERDINAND and MIRANDA severally
  PROSPERO. So glad of this as they I cannot be,
    Who are surpris'd withal; but my rejoicing
    At nothing can be more. I'll to my book;
    For yet ere supper time must I perform
    Much business appertaining.                             Exit

SCENE 2

Another part of the island

Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO

  STEPHANO. Tell not me-when the butt is out we will drink
    water, not a drop before; therefore bear up, and board
    'em. Servant-monster, drink to me.
  TRINCULO. Servant-monster! The folly of this island! They
    say there's but five upon this isle: we are three of
    them; if th' other two be brain'd like us, the state
    totters.
  STEPHANO. Drink, servant-monster, when I bid thee; thy
    eyes are almost set in thy head.
  TRINCULO. Where should they be set else? He were a brave
    monster indeed, if they were set in his tail.
  STEPHANO. My man-monster hath drown'd his tongue in
    sack. For my part, the sea cannot drown me; I swam, ere
    I could recover the shore, five and thirty leagues, off
    and on. By this light, thou shalt be my lieutenant,
    monster, or my standard.
  TRINCULO. Your lieutenant, if you list; he's no standard.
  STEPHANO. We'll not run, Monsieur Monster.
  TRINCULO. Nor go neither; but you'll lie like dogs, and
    yet say nothing neither.
  STEPHANO. Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest
    a good moon-calf.
  CALIBAN. How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe.
    I'll not serve him; he is not valiant.
  TRINCULO. Thou liest, most ignorant monster: I am in case
    to justle a constable. Why, thou debosh'd fish, thou,
    was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack
    as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but
    half fish and half a monster?
  CALIBAN. Lo, how he mocks me! Wilt thou let him, my
    lord?
  TRINCULO. 'Lord' quoth he! That a monster should be such
    a natural!
  CALIBAN. Lo, lo again! Bite him to death, I prithee.
  STEPHANO. Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head; if
    you prove a mutineer-the next tree! The poor monster's
    my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity.
  CALIBAN. I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleas'd to
    hearken once again to the suit I made to thee?
  STEPHANO. Marry will I; kneel and repeat it; I will stand,
    and so shall Trinculo.

                     Enter ARIEL, invisible

  CALIBAN. As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant,
    sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the
    island.
  ARIEL. Thou liest.
  CALIBAN. Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou;
    I would my valiant master would destroy thee.
    I do not lie.
  STEPHANO. Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in's tale,
    by this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth.
  TRINCULO. Why, I said nothing.
  STEPHANO. Mum, then, and no more. Proceed.
  CALIBAN. I say, by sorcery he got this isle;
    From me he got it. If thy greatness will
    Revenge it on him-for I know thou dar'st,
    But this thing dare not-
  STEPHANO. That's most certain.
  CALIBAN. Thou shalt be lord of it, and I'll serve thee.
  STEPHANO. How now shall this be compass'd? Canst thou
    bring me to the party?
  CALIBAN. Yea, yea, my lord; I'll yield him thee asleep,
    Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head.
  ARIEL. Thou liest; thou canst not.
  CALIBAN. What a pied ninny's this! Thou scurvy patch!
    I do beseech thy greatness, give him blows,
    And take his bottle from him. When that's gone
    He shall drink nought but brine; for I'll not show him
    Where the quick freshes are.
  STEPHANO. Trinculo, run into no further danger; interrupt
    the monster one word further and, by this hand, I'll turn
    my mercy out o' doors, and make a stock-fish of thee.
  TRINCULO. Why, what did I? I did nothing. I'll go farther
    off.
  STEPHANO. Didst thou not say he lied?
  ARIEL. Thou liest.
  STEPHANO. Do I so? Take thou that.  [Beats him]  As you like
    this, give me the lie another time.
  TRINCULO. I did not give the lie. Out o' your wits and
    hearing too? A pox o' your bottle! This can sack and
    drinking do. A murrain on your monster, and the devil
    take your fingers!
  CALIBAN. Ha, ha, ha!
  STEPHANO. Now, forward with your tale.-Prithee stand
    further off.
  CALIBAN. Beat him enough; after a little time, I'll beat
    him too.
  STEPHANO. Stand farther. Come, proceed.
  CALIBAN. Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him
    I' th' afternoon to sleep; there thou mayst brain him,
    Having first seiz'd his books; or with a log
    Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,
    Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember
    First to possess his books; for without them
    He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not
    One spirit to command; they all do hate him
    As rootedly as I. Burn but his books.
    He has brave utensils-for so he calls them-
    Which, when he has a house, he'll deck withal.
    And that most deeply to consider is
    The beauty of his daughter; he himself
    Calls her a nonpareil. I never saw a woman
    But only Sycorax my dam and she;
    But she as far surpasseth Sycorax
    As great'st does least.
  STEPHANO. Is it so brave a lass?
  CALIBAN. Ay, lord; she will become thy bed, I warrant,
    And bring thee forth brave brood.
  STEPHANO. Monster, I will kill this man; his daughter and I
    will be King and Queen-save our Graces!-and Trinculo
    and thyself shall be viceroys. Dost thou like the plot,
    Trinculo?
  TRINCULO. Excellent.
  STEPHANO. Give me thy hand; I am sorry I beat thee; but
    while thou liv'st, keep a good tongue in thy head.
  CALIBAN. Within this half hour will he be asleep.
    Wilt thou destroy him then?
  STEPHANO. Ay, on mine honour.
  ARIEL. This will I tell my master.
  CALIBAN. Thou mak'st me merry; I am full of pleasure.
    Let us be jocund; will you troll the catch
    You taught me but while-ere?
  STEPHANO. At thy request, monster, I will do reason, any
    reason. Come on, Trinculo, let us sing.              [Sings]

    Flout 'em and scout 'em,
    And scout 'em and flout 'em;
    Thought is free.

  CALIBAN. That's not the tune.
                      [ARIEL plays the tune on a tabor and pipe]
  STEPHANO. What is this same?
  TRINCULO. This is the tune of our catch, play'd by the
    picture of Nobody.
  STEPHANO. If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy
    likeness; if thou beest a devil, take't as thou list.
  TRINCULO. O, forgive me my sins!
  STEPHANO. He that dies pays all debts. I defy thee. Mercy
    upon us!
  CALIBAN. Art thou afeard?
  STEPHANO. No, monster, not I.
  CALIBAN. Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
    Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
    Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
    Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
    That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
    Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
    The clouds methought would open and show riches
    Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd,
    I cried to dream again.
  STEPHANO. This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I
    shall have my music for nothing.
  CALIBAN. When Prospero is destroy'd.
  STEPHANO. That shall be by and by; I remember the story.
  TRINCULO. The sound is going away; let's follow it, and
    after do our work.
  STEPHANO. Lead, monster; we'll follow. I would I could see
    this taborer; he lays it on.
  TRINCULO. Wilt come? I'll follow, Stephano.             Exeunt

SCENE 3

Another part of the island

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and
OTHERS

  GONZALO. By'r lakin, I can go no further, sir;
    My old bones ache. Here's a maze trod, indeed,
    Through forth-rights and meanders! By your patience,
    I needs must rest me.
  ALONSO. Old lord, I cannot blame thee,
    Who am myself attach'd with weariness
    To th' dulling of my spirits; sit down and rest.
    Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it
    No longer for my flatterer; he is drown'd
    Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks
    Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.
  ANTONIO.  [Aside to SEBASTIAN]  I am right glad that he's
    so out of hope.
    Do not, for one repulse, forgo the purpose
    That you resolv'd t' effect.
  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside to ANTONIO]  The next advantage
    Will we take throughly.
  ANTONIO.  [Aside to SEBASTIAN]  Let it be to-night;
    For, now they are oppress'd with travel, they
    Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance
    As when they are fresh.
  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside to ANTONIO]  I say, to-night; no more.

           Solemn and strange music; and PROSPERO on the
           top, invisible. Enter several strange SHAPES,
           bringing in a banquet; and dance about it with
           gentle actions of salutations; and inviting the
           KING, etc., to eat, they depart

  ALONSO. What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!
  GONZALO. Marvellous sweet music!
  ALONSO. Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?
  SEBASTIAN. A living drollery. Now I will believe
    That there are unicorns; that in Arabia
    There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix
    At this hour reigning-there.
  ANTONIO. I'll believe both;
    And what does else want credit, come to me,
    And I'll be sworn 'tis true; travellers ne'er did lie,
    Though fools at home condemn 'em.
  GONZALO. If in Naples
    I should report this now, would they believe me?
    If I should say, I saw such islanders,
    For certes these are people of the island,
    Who though they are of monstrous shape yet, note,
    Their manners are more gentle-kind than of
    Our human generation you shall find
    Many, nay, almost any.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Honest lord,
    Thou hast said well; for some of you there present
    Are worse than devils.
  ALONSO. I cannot too much muse
    Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing,
    Although they want the use of tongue, a kind
    Of excellent dumb discourse.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Praise in departing.
  FRANCISCO. They vanish'd strangely.
  SEBASTIAN. No matter, since
    They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs.
    Will't please you taste of what is here?
  ALONSO. Not I.
  GONZALO. Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,
    Who would believe that there were mountaineers,
    Dewlapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em
    Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men
    Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find
    Each putter-out of five for one will bring us
    Good warrant of.
  ALONSO. I will stand to, and feed,
    Although my last; no matter, since I feel
    The best is past. Brother, my lord the Duke,
    Stand to, and do as we.

       Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a harpy;
       claps his wings upon the table; and, with a quaint
                device, the banquet vanishes

  ARIEL. You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
    That hath to instrument this lower world
    And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea
    Hath caus'd to belch up you; and on this island
    Where man doth not inhabit-you 'mongst men
    Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;
    And even with such-like valour men hang and drown
    Their proper selves.
                     [ALONSO, SEBASTIAN etc., draw their swords]
    You fools! I and my fellows
    Are ministers of Fate; the elements
    Of whom your swords are temper'd may as well
    Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs
    Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
    One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow-ministers
    Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,
    Your swords are now too massy for your strengths
    And will not be uplifted. But remember-
    For that's my business to you-that you three
    From Milan did supplant good Prospero;
    Expos'd unto the sea, which hath requit it,
    Him, and his innocent child; for which foul deed
    The pow'rs, delaying, not forgetting, have
    Incens'd the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,
    Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,
    They have bereft; and do pronounce by me
    Ling'ring perdition, worse than any death
    Can be at once, shall step by step attend
    You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from-
    Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls
    Upon your heads-is nothing but heart's sorrow,
    And a clear life ensuing.

        He vanishes in thunder; then, to soft music, enter
        the SHAPES again, and dance, with mocks and mows,
                and carrying out the table

  PROSPERO. Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou
    Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring.
    Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated
    In what thou hadst to say; so, with good life
    And observation strange, my meaner ministers
    Their several kinds have done. My high charms work,
    And these mine enemies are all knit up
    In their distractions. They now are in my pow'r;
    And in these fits I leave them, while I visit
    Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose is drown'd,
    And his and mine lov'd darling.                   Exit above
  GONZALO. I' th' name of something holy, sir, why stand you
    In this strange stare?
  ALONSO. O, it is monstrous, monstrous!
    Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it;
    The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder,
    That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd
    The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass.
    Therefore my son i' th' ooze is bedded; and
    I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded,
    And with him there lie mudded.                          Exit
  SEBASTIAN. But one fiend at a time,
    I'll fight their legions o'er.
  ANTONIO. I'll be thy second.      Exeunt SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO
  GONZALO. All three of them are desperate; their great guilt,
    Like poison given to work a great time after,
    Now gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you,
    That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly,
    And hinder them from what this ecstasy
    May now provoke them to.
  ADRIAN. Follow, I pray you.                             Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1

Before PROSPERO'S cell

Enter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA

  PROSPERO. If I have too austerely punish'd you,
    Your compensation makes amends; for
    Have given you here a third of mine own life,
    Or that for which I live; who once again
    I tender to thy hand. All thy vexations
    Were but my trials of thy love, and thou
    Hast strangely stood the test; here, afore heaven,
    I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand!
    Do not smile at me that I boast her off,
    For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise,
    And make it halt behind her.
  FERDINAND. I do believe it
    Against an oracle.
  PROSPERO. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition
    Wort'hily purchas'd, take my daughter. But
    If thou dost break her virgin-knot before
    All sanctimonious ceremonies may
    With full and holy rite be minist'red,
    No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall
    To make this contract grow; but barren hate,
    Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew
    The union of your bed with weeds so loathly
    That you shall hate it both. Therefore take heed,
    As Hymen's lamps shall light you.
  FERDINAND. As I hope
    For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,
    With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest den,
    The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion
    Our worser genius can, shall never melt
    Mine honour into lust, to take away
    The edge of that day's celebration,
    When I shall think or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd
    Or Night kept chain'd below.
  PROSPERO. Fairly spoke.
    Sit, then, and talk with her; she is thine own.
    What, Ariel! my industrious servant, Ariel!

                           Enter ARIEL

  ARIEL. What would my potent master? Here I am.
  PROSPERO. Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service
    Did worthily perform; and I must use you
    In such another trick. Go bring the rabble,
    O'er whom I give thee pow'r, here to this place.
    Incite them to quick motion; for I must
    Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple
    Some vanity of mine art; it is my promise,
    And they expect it from me.
  ARIEL. Presently?
  PROSPERO. Ay, with a twink.
  ARIEL. Before you can say 'come' and 'go,'
    And breathe twice, and cry 'so, so,'
    Each one, tripping on his toe,
    Will be here with mop and mow.
    Do you love me, master? No?
  PROSPERO. Dearly, my delicate Ariel. Do not approach
    Till thou dost hear me call.
  ARIEL. Well! I conceive.                                  Exit
  PROSPERO. Look thou be true; do not give dalliance
    Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw
    To th' fire i' th' blood. Be more abstemious,
    Or else good night your vow!
  FERDINAND. I warrant you, sir,
    The white cold virgin snow upon my heart
    Abates the ardour of my liver.
  PROSPERO. Well!
    Now come, my Ariel, bring a corollary,
    Rather than want a spirit; appear, and pertly.
    No tongue! All eyes! Be silent.                 [Soft music]

                         Enter IRIS

  IRIS. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
    Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and pease;
    Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
    And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep;
    Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims,
    Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,
    To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom groves,
    Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,
    Being lass-lorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard;
    And thy sea-marge, sterile and rocky hard,
    Where thou thyself dost air-the Queen o' th' sky,
    Whose wat'ry arch and messenger am I,
    Bids thee leave these; and with her sovereign grace,
    Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,
    To come and sport. Her peacocks fly amain.
                                      [JUNO descends in her car]
    Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.

                        Enter CERES

  CERES. Hail, many-coloured messenger, that ne'er
    Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;
    Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flow'rs
    Diffusest honey drops, refreshing show'rs;
    And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown
    My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down,
    Rich scarf to my proud earth-why hath thy Queen
    Summon'd me hither to this short-grass'd green?
  IRIS. A contract of true love to celebrate,
    And some donation freely to estate
    On the blest lovers.
  CERES. Tell me, heavenly bow,
    If Venus or her son, as thou dost know,
    Do now attend the Queen? Since they did plot
    The means that dusky Dis my daughter got,
    Her and her blind boy's scandal'd company
    I have forsworn.
  IRIS. Of her society
    Be not afraid. I met her Deity
    Cutting the clouds towards Paphos, and her son
    Dove-drawn with her. Here thought they to have done
    Some wanton charm upon this man and maid,
    Whose vows are that no bed-rite shall be paid
    Till Hymen's torch be lighted; but in vain.
    Mars's hot minion is return'd again;
    Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows,
    Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows,
    And be a boy right out.                       [JUNO alights]
  CERES. Highest Queen of State,
    Great Juno, comes; I know her by her gait.
  JUNO. How does my bounteous sister? Go with me
    To bless this twain, that they may prosperous be,
    And honour'd in their issue.                     [They sing]
  JUNO. Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
    Long continuance, and increasing,
    Hourly joys be still upon you!
    Juno sings her blessings on you.
  CERES. Earth's increase, foison plenty,
    Barns and gamers never empty;
    Vines with clust'ring bunches growing,
    Plants with goodly burden bowing;
    Spring come to you at the farthest,
    In the very end of harvest!
    Scarcity and want shall shun you,
    Ceres' blessing so is on you.
  FERDINAND. This is a most majestic vision, and
    Harmonious charmingly. May I be bold
    To think these spirits?
  PROSPERO. Spirits, which by mine art
    I have from their confines call'd to enact
    My present fancies.
  FERDINAND. Let me live here ever;
    So rare a wond'red father and a wise
    Makes this place Paradise.
           [JUNO and CERES whisper, and send IRIS on employment]
  PROSPERO. Sweet now, silence;
    Juno and Ceres whisper seriously.
    There's something else to do; hush, and be mute,
    Or else our spell is marr'd.
  IRIS. You nymphs, call'd Naiads, of the wind'ring brooks,
    With your sedg'd crowns and ever harmless looks,
    Leave your crisp channels, and on this green land
    Answer your summons; Juno does command.
    Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate
    A contract of true love; be not too late.

                      Enter certain NYMPHS

    You sun-burnt sicklemen, of August weary,
    Come hither from the furrow, and be merry;
    Make holiday; your rye-straw hats put on,
    And these fresh nymphs encounter every one
    In country footing.

        Enter certain REAPERS, properly habited; they join
         with the NYMPHS in a graceful dance; towards the
         end whereof PROSPERO starts suddenly, and speaks,
          after which, to a strange, hollow, and confused
                  noise, they heavily vanish

  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  I had forgot that foul conspiracy
    Of the beast Caliban and his confederates
    Against my life; the minute of their plot
    Is almost come.  [To the SPIRITS]  Well done; avoid; no
    more!
  FERDINAND. This is strange; your father's in some passion
    That works him strongly.
  MIRANDA. Never till this day
    Saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd.
  PROSPERO. You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort,
    As if you were dismay'd; be cheerful, sir.
    Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
    Are melted into air, into thin air;
    And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
    The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
    And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
    As dreams are made on; and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd;
    Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled;
    Be not disturb'd with my infirmity.
    If you be pleas'd, retire into my cell
    And there repose; a turn or two I'll walk
    To still my beating mind.
  FERDINAND, MIRANDA. We wish your peace.                 Exeunt
  PROSPERO. Come, with a thought. I thank thee, Ariel; come.

                       Enter ARIEL

  ARIEL. Thy thoughts I cleave to. What's thy pleasure?
  PROSPERO. Spirit,
    We must prepare to meet with Caliban.
  ARIEL. Ay, my commander. When I presented 'Ceres.'
    I thought to have told thee of it; but I fear'd
    Lest I might anger thee.
  PROSPERO. Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets?
  ARIEL. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;
    So full of valour that they smote the air
    For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
    For kissing of their feet; yet always bending
    Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor,
    At which like unback'd colts they prick'd their ears,
    Advanc'd their eyelids, lifted up their noses
    As they smelt music; so I charm'd their cars,
    That calf-like they my lowing follow'd through
    Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns,
    Which ent'red their frail shins. At last I left them
    I' th' filthy mantled pool beyond your cell,
    There dancing up to th' chins, that the foul lake
    O'erstunk their feet.
  PROSPERO. This was well done, my bird.
    Thy shape invisible retain thou still.
    The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither
    For stale to catch these thieves.
  ARIEL. I go, I go.                                        Exit
  PROSPERO. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
    Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
    Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;
    And as with age his body uglier grows,
    So his mind cankers. I will plague them all,
    Even to roaring.

       Re-enter ARIEL, loaden with glistering apparel, &c.

    Come, hang them on this line.
                          [PROSPERO and ARIEL remain, invisible]

         Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, all wet

  CALIBAN. Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not
    Hear a foot fall; we now are near his cell.
  STEPHANO. Monster, your fairy, which you say is a harmless
    fairy, has done little better than play'd the Jack with us.
  TRINCULO. Monster, I do smell all horse-piss at which my
    nose is in great indignation.
  STEPHANO. So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I should
    take a displeasure against you, look you-
  TRINCULO. Thou wert but a lost monster.
  CALIBAN. Good my lord, give me thy favour still.
    Be patient, for the prize I'll bring thee to
    Shall hoodwink this mischance; therefore speak softly.
    All's hush'd as midnight yet.
  TRINCULO. Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool!
  STEPHANO. There is not only disgrace and dishonour in
    that, monster, but an infinite loss.
  TRINCULO. That's more to me than my wetting; yet this is
    your harmless fairy, monster.
  STEPHANO. I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er
    ears for my labour.
  CALIBAN. Prithee, my king, be quiet. Seest thou here,
    This is the mouth o' th' cell; no noise, and enter.
    Do that good mischief which may make this island
    Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban,
    For aye thy foot-licker.
  STEPHANO. Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody
    thoughts.
  TRINCULO. O King Stephano! O peer! O worthy Stephano!
    Look what a wardrobe here is for thee!
  CALIBAN. Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash.
  TRINCULO. O, ho, monster; we know what belongs to a
    frippery. O King Stephano!
  STEPHANO. Put off that gown, Trinculo; by this hand, I'll
    have that gown.
  TRINCULO. Thy Grace shall have it.
  CALIBAN. The dropsy drown this fool! What do you mean
    To dote thus on such luggage? Let 't alone,
    And do the murder first. If he awake,
    From toe to crown he'll fill our skins with pinches;
    Make us strange stuff.
  STEPHANO. Be you quiet, monster. Mistress line, is not
    this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line; now,
    jerkin, you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald
    jerkin.
  TRINCULO. Do, do. We steal by line and level, an't like
    your Grace.
  STEPHANO. I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment
    for't. Wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of
    this country. 'Steal by line and level' is an excellent
    pass of pate; there's another garmet for't.
  TRINCULO. Monster, come, put some lime upon your fingers,
    and away with the rest.
  CALIBAN. I will have none on't. We shall lose our time,
    And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes
    With foreheads villainous low.
  STEPHANO. Monster, lay-to your fingers; help to bear this
    away where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out
    of my kingdom. Go to, carry this.
  TRINCULO. And this.
  STEPHANO. Ay, and this.

          A noise of hunters beard. Enter divers SPIRITS, in
             shape of dogs and hounds, bunting them about;
                   PROSPERO and ARIEL setting them on

  PROSPERO. Hey, Mountain, hey!
  ARIEL. Silver! there it goes, Silver!
  PROSPERO. Fury, Fury! There, Tyrant, there! Hark, hark!
                [CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO are driven out]
    Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints
    With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews
    With aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them
    Than pard or cat o' mountain.
  ARIEL. Hark, they roar.
  PROSPERO. Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour
    Lies at my mercy all mine enemies.
    Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou
    Shalt have the air at freedom; for a little
    Follow, and do me service.                            Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1

Before PROSPERO'S cell

Enter PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL

  PROSPERO. Now does my project gather to a head;
    My charms crack not, my spirits obey; and time
    Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day?
  ARIEL. On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord,
    You said our work should cease.
  PROSPERO. I did say so,
    When first I rais'd the tempest. Say, my spirit,
    How fares the King and 's followers?
  ARIEL. Confin'd together
    In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
    Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,
    In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell;
    They cannot budge till your release. The King,
    His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted,
    And the remainder mourning over them,
    Brim full of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly
    Him you term'd, sir, 'the good old lord, Gonzalo';
    His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
    From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em
    That if you now beheld them your affections
    Would become tender.
  PROSPERO. Dost thou think so, spirit?
  ARIEL. Mine would, sir, were I human.
  PROSPERO. And mine shall.
    Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
    Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
    One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
    Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art?
    Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th' quick,
    Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury
    Do I take part; the rarer action is
    In virtue than in vengeance; they being penitent,
    The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
    Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel;
    My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,
    And they shall be themselves.
  ARIEL. I'll fetch them, sir.                              Exit
  PROSPERO. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and
    groves;
    And ye that on the sands with printless foot
    Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
    When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
    By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
    Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
    Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
    To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid-
    Weak masters though ye be-I have be-dimm'd
    The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
    And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
    Set roaring war. To the dread rattling thunder
    Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
    With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory
    Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up
    The pine and cedar. Graves at my command
    Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth,
    By my so potent art. But this rough magic
    I here abjure; and, when I have requir'd
    Some heavenly music-which even now I do-
    To work mine end upon their senses that
    This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
    Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
    And deeper than did ever plummet sound
    I'll drown my book.                            [Solem music]

            Here enters ARIEL before; then ALONSO, with
          frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN
           and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN
           and FRANCISCO. They all enter the circle which
          PROSPERO had made, and there stand charm'd; which
                    PROSPERO observing, speaks

    A solemn air, and the best comforter
    To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,
    Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! There stand,
    For you are spell-stopp'd.
    Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,
    Mine eyes, ev'n sociable to the show of thine,
    Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace,
    And as the morning steals upon the night,
    Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
    Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
    Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo,
    My true preserver, and a loyal sir
    To him thou follow'st! I will pay thy graces
    Home both in word and deed. Most cruelly
    Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter;
    Thy brother was a furtherer in the act.
    Thou art pinch'd for't now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood,
    You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,
    Expell'd remorse and nature, who, with Sebastian-
    Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong-
    Would here have kill'd your king, I do forgive thee,
    Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding
    Begins to swell, and the approaching tide
    Will shortly fill the reasonable shore
    That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them
    That yet looks on me, or would know me. Ariel,
    Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell;           Exit ARIEL
    I will discase me, and myself present
    As I was sometime Milan. Quickly, spirit
    Thou shalt ere long be free.

        ARIEL, on returning, sings and helps to attire him

    Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
    In a cowslip's bell I lie;
    There I couch when owls do cry.
    On the bat's back I do fly
    After summer merrily.
    Merrily, merrily shall I live now
    Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

  PROSPERO. Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee;
    But yet thou shalt have freedom. So, so, so.
    To the King's ship, invisible as thou art;
    There shalt thou find the mariners asleep
    Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain
    Being awake, enforce them to this place;
    And presently, I prithee.
  ARIEL. I drink the air before me, and return
    Or ere your pulse twice beat.                           Exit
  GONZALO. All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement,
    Inhabits here. Some heavenly power guide us
    Out of this fearful country!
  PROSPERO. Behold, Sir King,
    The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero.
    For more assurance that a living prince
    Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body;
    And to thee and thy company I bid
    A hearty welcome.
  ALONSO. Whe'er thou be'st he or no,
    Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me,
    As late I have been, I not know. Thy pulse
    Beats, as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee,
    Th' affliction of my mind amends, with which,
    I fear, a madness held me. This must crave-
    An if this be at all-a most strange story.
    Thy dukedom I resign, and do entreat
    Thou pardon me my wrongs. But how should Prospero
    Be living and be here?
  PROSPERO. First, noble friend,
    Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot
    Be measur'd or confin'd.
  GONZALO. Whether this be
    Or be not, I'll not swear.
  PROSPERO. You do yet taste
    Some subtleties o' th' isle, that will not let you
    Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all!
    [Aside to SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO]  But you, my brace of
      lords, were I so minded,
    I here could pluck his Highness' frown upon you,
    And justify you traitors; at this time
    I will tell no tales.
  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside]  The devil speaks in him.
  PROSPERO. No.
    For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother
    Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive
    Thy rankest fault-all of them; and require
    My dukedom of thee, which perforce I know
    Thou must restore.
  ALONSO. If thou beest Prospero,
    Give us particulars of thy preservation;
    How thou hast met us here, whom three hours since
    Were wreck'd upon this shore; where I have lost-
    How sharp the point of this remembrance is!-
    My dear son Ferdinand.
  PROSPERO. I am woe for't, sir.
  ALONSO. Irreparable is the loss; and patience
    Says it is past her cure.
  PROSPERO. I rather think
    You have not sought her help, of whose soft grace
    For the like loss I have her sovereign aid,
    And rest myself content.
  ALONSO. You the like loss!
  PROSPERO. As great to me as late; and, supportable
    To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker
    Than you may call to comfort you, for I
    Have lost my daughter.
  ALONSO. A daughter!
    O heavens, that they were living both in Naples,
    The King and Queen there! That they were, I wish
    Myself were mudded in that oozy bed
    Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter?
  PROSPERO. In this last tempest. I perceive these lords
    At this encounter do so much admire
    That they devour their reason, and scarce think
    Their eyes do offices of truth, their words
    Are natural breath; but, howsoe'er you have
    Been justled from your senses, know for certain
    That I am Prospero, and that very duke
    Which was thrust forth of Milan; who most strangely
    Upon this shore, where you were wrecked, was landed
    To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;
    For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,
    Not a relation for a breakfast, nor
    Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir;
    This cell's my court; here have I few attendants,
    And subjects none abroad; pray you, look in.
    My dukedom since you have given me again,
    I will requite you with as good a thing;
    At least bring forth a wonder, to content ye
    As much as me my dukedom.

          Here PROSPERO discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA,
                      playing at chess

  MIRANDA. Sweet lord, you play me false.
  FERDINAND. No, my dearest love,
    I would not for the world.
  MIRANDA. Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle
    And I would call it fair play.
  ALONSO. If this prove
    A vision of the island, one dear son
    Shall I twice lose.
  SEBASTIAN. A most high miracle!
  FERDINAND. Though the seas threaten, they are merciful;
    I have curs'd them without cause.                   [Kneels]
  ALONSO. Now all the blessings
    Of a glad father compass thee about!
    Arise, and say how thou cam'st here.
  MIRANDA. O, wonder!
    How many goodly creatures are there here!
    How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
    That has such people in't!
  PROSPERO. 'Tis new to thee.
  ALONSO. What is this maid with whom thou wast at play?
    Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours;
    Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us,
    And brought us thus together?
  FERDINAND. Sir, she is mortal;
    But by immortal Providence she's mine.
    I chose her when I could not ask my father
    For his advice, nor thought I had one. She
    Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,
    Of whom so often I have heard renown
    But never saw before; of whom I have
    Receiv'd a second life; and second father
    This lady makes him to me.
  ALONSO. I am hers.
    But, O, how oddly will it sound that I
    Must ask my child forgiveness!
  PROSPERO. There, sir, stop;
    Let us not burden our remembrances with
    A heaviness that's gone.
  GONZALO. I have inly wept,
    Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods,
    And on this couple drop a blessed crown;
    For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way
    Which brought us hither.
  ALONSO. I say, Amen, Gonzalo!
  GONZALO. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue
    Should become Kings of Naples? O, rejoice
    Beyond a common joy, and set it down
    With gold on lasting pillars: in one voyage
    Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis;
    And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
    Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom
    In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves
    When no man was his own.
  ALONSO.  [To FERDINAND and MIRANDA]  Give me your
    hands.
    Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
    That doth not wish you joy.
  GONZALO. Be it so. Amen!

           Re-enter ARIEL, with the MASTER and BOATSWAIN
                     amazedly following

    O look, sir; look, sir! Here is more of us!
    I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,
    This fellow could not drown. Now, blasphemy,
    That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore?
    Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news?
  BOATSWAIN. The best news is that we have safely found
    Our King and company; the next, our ship-
    Which but three glasses since we gave out split-
    Is tight and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when
    We first put out to sea.
  ARIEL.  [Aside to PROSPERO]  Sir, all this service
    Have I done since I went.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside to ARIEL]  My tricksy spirit!
  ALONSO. These are not natural events; they strengthen
    From strange to stranger. Say, how came you hither?
  BOATSWAIN. If I did think, sir, I were well awake,
    I'd strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep,
    And-how, we know not-all clapp'd under hatches;
    Where, but even now, with strange and several noises
    Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains,
    And moe diversity of sounds, all horrible,
    We were awak'd; straightway at liberty;
    Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld
    Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master
    Cap'ring to eye her. On a trice, so please you,
    Even in a dream, were we divided from them,
    And were brought moping hither.
  ARIEL.  [Aside to PROSPERO]  Was't well done?
  PROSPERO.  [Aside to ARIEL]  Bravely, my diligence. Thou
    shalt be free.
  ALONSO. This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod;
    And there is in this business more than nature
    Was ever conduct of. Some oracle
    Must rectify our knowledge.
  PROSPERO. Sir, my liege,
    Do not infest your mind with beating on
    The strangeness of this business; at pick'd leisure,
    Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you,
    Which to you shall seem probable, of every
    These happen'd accidents; till when, be cheerful
    And think of each thing well.  [Aside to ARIEL]  Come
    hither, spirit;
    Set Caliban and his companions free;
    Untie the spell.  [Exit ARIEL]  How fares my gracious sir?
    There are yet missing of your company
    Some few odd lads that you remember not.

         Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and

  TRINCULO, in their stolen apparel
  STEPHANO. Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man
    take care for himself; for all is but fortune. Coragio,
    bully-monster, coragio!
  TRINCULO. If these be true spies which I wear in my head,
    here's a goodly sight.
  CALIBAN. O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed!
    How fine my master is! I am afraid
    He will chastise me.
  SEBASTIAN. Ha, ha!
    What things are these, my lord Antonio?
    Will money buy'em?
  ANTONIO. Very like; one of them
    Is a plain fish, and no doubt marketable.
  PROSPERO. Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,
    Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave-
    His mother was a witch, and one so strong
    That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,
    And deal in her command without her power.
    These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil-
    For he's a bastard one-had plotted with them
    To take my life. Two of these fellows you
    Must know and own; this thing of darkness I
    Acknowledge mine.
  CALIBAN. I shall be pinch'd to death.
  ALONSO. Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?
  SEBASTIAN. He is drunk now; where had he wine?
  ALONSO. And Trinculo is reeling ripe; where should they
    Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em?
    How cam'st thou in this pickle?
  TRINCULO. I have been in such a pickle since I saw you
    last that, I fear me, will never out of my bones. I
    shall not fear fly-blowing.
  SEBASTIAN. Why, how now, Stephano!
  STEPHANO. O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a
    cramp.
  PROSPERO. You'd be king o' the isle, sirrah?
  STEPHANO. I should have been a sore one, then.
  ALONSO.  [Pointing to CALIBAN]  This is as strange a thing
    as e'er I look'd on.
  PROSPERO. He is as disproportioned in his manners
    As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell;
    Take with you your companions; as you look
    To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.
  CALIBAN. Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter,
    And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass
    Was I to take this drunkard for a god,
    And worship this dull fool!
  PROSPERO. Go to; away!
  ALONSO. Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it.
  SEBASTIAN. Or stole it, rather.
                          Exeunt CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO
  PROSPERO. Sir, I invite your Highness and your train
    To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest
    For this one night; which, part of it, I'll waste
    With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it
    Go quick away-the story of my life,
    And the particular accidents gone by
    Since I came to this isle. And in the morn
    I'll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples,
    Where I have hope to see the nuptial
    Of these our dear-belov'd solemnized,
    And thence retire me to my Milan, where
    Every third thought shall be my grave.
  ALONSO. I long
    To hear the story of your life, which must
    Take the ear strangely.
  PROSPERO. I'll deliver all;
    And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales,
    And sail so expeditious that shall catch
    Your royal fleet far off.  [Aside to ARIEL]  My Ariel,
      chick,
    That is thy charge. Then to the elements
    Be free, and fare thou well!-Please you, draw near.
                                                          Exeunt

EPILOGUE
                             EPILOGUE
                        Spoken by PROSPERO

          Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
          And what strength I have's mine own,
          Which is most faint. Now 'tis true,
          I must be here confin'd by you,
          Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
          Since I have my dukedom got,
          And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
          In this bare island by your spell;
          But release me from my bands
          With the help of your good hands.
          Gentle breath of yours my sails
          Must fill, or else my project fails,
          Which was to please. Now I want
          Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
          And my ending is despair
          Unless I be reliev'd by prayer,
          Which pierces so that it assaults
          Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
          As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
          Let your indulgence set me free.

THE END

1608



THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

    TIMON of Athens

    LUCIUS
    LUCULLUS
    SEMPRONIUS
       flattering lords

    VENTIDIUS, one of Timon's false friends
    ALCIBIADES, an Athenian captain
    APEMANTUS, a churlish philosopher
    FLAVIUS, steward to Timon

    FLAMINIUS
    LUCILIUS
    SERVILIUS
       Timon's servants

    CAPHIS
    PHILOTUS
    TITUS
    HORTENSIUS
       servants to Timon's creditors

    POET PAINTER JEWELLER MERCHANT MERCER AN OLD ATHENIAN THREE
    STRANGERS A PAGE A FOOL

    PHRYNIA
    TIMANDRA
       mistresses to Alcibiades

    CUPID
    AMAZONS
      in the Masque

    Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, Servants, Thieves, and
      Attendants

SCENE: Athens and the neighbouring woods

ACT I. SCENE I. Athens. TIMON'S house

Enter POET, PAINTER, JEWELLER, MERCHANT, and MERCER, at several doors

  POET. Good day, sir.
  PAINTER. I am glad y'are well.
  POET. I have not seen you long; how goes the world?
  PAINTER. It wears, sir, as it grows.
  POET. Ay, that's well known.
    But what particular rarity? What strange,
    Which manifold record not matches? See,
    Magic of bounty, all these spirits thy power
    Hath conjur'd to attend! I know the merchant.
  PAINTER. I know them both; th' other's a jeweller.
  MERCHANT. O, 'tis a worthy lord!
  JEWELLER. Nay, that's most fix'd.
  MERCHANT. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it were,
    To an untirable and continuate goodness.
    He passes.
  JEWELLER. I have a jewel here-
  MERCHANT. O, pray let's see't. For the Lord Timon, sir?
  JEWELLER. If he will touch the estimate. But for that-
  POET. When we for recompense have prais'd the vile,
    It stains the glory in that happy verse
    Which aptly sings the good.
  MERCHANT. [Looking at the jewel] 'Tis a good form.
  JEWELLER. And rich. Here is a water, look ye.
  PAINTER. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication
    To the great lord.
  POET. A thing slipp'd idly from me.
    Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes
    From whence 'tis nourish'd. The fire i' th' flint
    Shows not till it be struck: our gentle flame
    Provokes itself, and like the current flies
    Each bound it chafes. What have you there?
  PAINTER. A picture, sir. When comes your book forth?
  POET. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.
    Let's see your piece.
  PAINTER. 'Tis a good piece.
  POET. So 'tis; this comes off well and excellent.
  PAINTER. Indifferent.
  POET. Admirable. How this grace
    Speaks his own standing! What a mental power
    This eye shoots forth! How big imagination
    Moves in this lip! To th' dumbness of the gesture
    One might interpret.
  PAINTER. It is a pretty mocking of the life.
    Here is a touch; is't good?
  POET. I will say of it
    It tutors nature. Artificial strife
    Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

              Enter certain SENATORS, and pass over

  PAINTER. How this lord is followed!
  POET. The senators of Athens- happy man!
  PAINTER. Look, moe!
  POET. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.
    I have in this rough work shap'd out a man
    Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug
    With amplest entertainment. My free drift
    Halts not particularly, but moves itself
    In a wide sea of tax. No levell'd malice
    Infects one comma in the course I hold,
    But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,
    Leaving no tract behind.
  PAINTER. How shall I understand you?
  POET. I will unbolt to you.
    You see how all conditions, how all minds-
    As well of glib and slipp'ry creatures as
    Of grave and austere quality, tender down
    Their services to Lord Timon. His large fortune,
    Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,
    Subdues and properties to his love and tendance
    All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flatterer
    To Apemantus, that few things loves better
    Than to abhor himself; even he drops down
    The knee before him, and returns in peace
    Most rich in Timon's nod.
  PAINTER. I saw them speak together.
  POET. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill
    Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd. The base o' th' mount
    Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures
    That labour on the bosom of this sphere
    To propagate their states. Amongst them all
    Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd
    One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame,
    Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her;
    Whose present grace to present slaves and servants
    Translates his rivals.
  PAINTER. 'Tis conceiv'd to scope.
    This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,
    With one man beckon'd from the rest below,
    Bowing his head against the steepy mount
    To climb his happiness, would be well express'd
    In our condition.
  POET. Nay, sir, but hear me on.
    All those which were his fellows but of late-
    Some better than his value- on the moment
    Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,
    Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,
    Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him
    Drink the free air.
  PAINTER. Ay, marry, what of these?
  POET. When Fortune in her shift and change of mood
    Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants,
    Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top
    Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down,
    Not one accompanying his declining foot.
  PAINTER. 'Tis common.
    A thousand moral paintings I can show
    That shall demonstrate these quick blows of Fortune's
    More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well
    To show Lord Timon that mean eyes have seen
    The foot above the head.

         Trumpets sound. Enter TIMON, addressing himself
          courteously to every suitor, a MESSENGER from
         VENTIDIUS talking with him; LUCILIUS and other
                       servants following

  TIMON. Imprison'd is he, say you?
  MESSENGER. Ay, my good lord. Five talents is his debt;
    His means most short, his creditors most strait.
    Your honourable letter he desires
    To those have shut him up; which failing,
    Periods his comfort.
  TIMON. Noble Ventidius! Well.
    I am not of that feather to shake of
    My friend when he must need me. I do know him
    A gentleman that well deserves a help,
    Which he shall have. I'll pay the debt, and free him.
  MESSENGER. Your lordship ever binds him.
  TIMON. Commend me to him; I will send his ransom;
    And being enfranchis'd, bid him come to me.
    'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
    But to support him after. Fare you well.
  MESSENGER. All happiness to your honour!                  Exit

                      Enter an OLD ATHENIAN

  OLD ATHENIAN. Lord Timon, hear me speak.
  TIMON. Freely, good father.
  OLD ATHENIAN. Thou hast a servant nam'd Lucilius.
  TIMON. I have so; what of him?
  OLD ATHENIAN. Most noble Timon, call the man before thee.
  TIMON. Attends he here, or no? Lucilius!
  LUCILIUS. Here, at your lordship's service.
  OLD ATHENIAN. This fellow here, Lord Timon, this thy creature,
    By night frequents my house. I am a man
    That from my first have been inclin'd to thrift,
    And my estate deserves an heir more rais'd
    Than one which holds a trencher.
  TIMON. Well; what further?
  OLD ATHENIAN. One only daughter have I, no kin else,
    On whom I may confer what I have got.
    The maid is fair, o' th' youngest for a bride,
    And I have bred her at my dearest cost
    In qualities of the best. This man of thine
    Attempts her love; I prithee, noble lord,
    Join with me to forbid him her resort;
    Myself have spoke in vain.
  TIMON. The man is honest.
  OLD ATHENIAN. Therefore he will be, Timon.
    His honesty rewards him in itself;
    It must not bear my daughter.
  TIMON. Does she love him?
  OLD ATHENIAN. She is young and apt:
    Our own precedent passions do instruct us
    What levity's in youth.
  TIMON. Love you the maid?
  LUCILIUS. Ay, my good lord, and she accepts of it.
  OLD ATHENIAN. If in her marriage my consent be missing,
    I call the gods to witness I will choose
    Mine heir from forth the beggars of the world,
    And dispossess her all.
  TIMON. How shall she be endow'd,
    If she be mated with an equal husband?
  OLD ATHENIAN. Three talents on the present; in future, all.
  TIMON. This gentleman of mine hath serv'd me long;.
    To build his fortune I will strain a little,
    For 'tis a bond in men. Give him thy daughter:
    What you bestow, in him I'll counterpoise,
    And make him weigh with her.
  OLD ATHENIAN. Most noble lord,
    Pawn me to this your honour, she is his.
  TIMON. My hand to thee; mine honour on my promise.
  LUCILIUS. Humbly I thank your lordship. Never may
    That state or fortune fall into my keeping
    Which is not owed to you!
                                Exeunt LUCILIUS and OLD ATHENIAN
  POET. [Presenting his poem] Vouchsafe my labour, and long live your
    lordship!
  TIMON. I thank you; you shall hear from me anon;
    Go not away. What have you there, my friend?
  PAINTER. A piece of painting, which I do beseech
    Your lordship to accept.
  TIMON. Painting is welcome.
    The painting is almost the natural man;
    For since dishonour traffics with man's nature,
    He is but outside; these pencill'd figures are
    Even such as they give out. I like your work,
    And you shall find I like it; wait attendance
    Till you hear further from me.
  PAINTER. The gods preserve ye!
  TIMON. Well fare you, gentleman. Give me your hand;
    We must needs dine together. Sir, your jewel
    Hath suffered under praise.
  JEWELLER. What, my lord! Dispraise?
  TIMON. A mere satiety of commendations;
    If I should pay you for't as 'tis extoll'd,
    It would unclew me quite.
  JEWELLER. My lord, 'tis rated
    As those which sell would give; but you well know
    Things of like value, differing in the owners,
    Are prized by their masters. Believe't, dear lord,
    You mend the jewel by the wearing it.
  TIMON. Well mock'd.

                      Enter APEMANTUS

  MERCHANT. No, my good lord; he speaks the common tongue,
    Which all men speak with him.
  TIMON. Look who comes here; will you be chid?
  JEWELLER. We'll bear, with your lordship.
  MERCHANT. He'll spare none.
  TIMON. Good morrow to thee, gentle Apemantus!
  APEMANTUS. Till I be gentle, stay thou for thy good morrow;
    When thou art Timon's dog, and these knaves honest.
  TIMON. Why dost thou call them knaves? Thou know'st them not.
  APEMANTUS. Are they not Athenians?
  TIMON. Yes.
  APEMANTUS. Then I repent not.
  JEWELLER. You know me, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Thou know'st I do; I call'd thee by thy name.
  TIMON. Thou art proud, Apemantus.
  APEMANTUS. Of nothing so much as that I am not like Timon.
  TIMON. Whither art going?
  APEMANTUS. To knock out an honest Athenian's brains.
  TIMON. That's a deed thou't die for.
  APEMANTUS. Right, if doing nothing be death by th' law.
  TIMON. How lik'st thou this picture, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. The best, for the innocence.
  TIMON. Wrought he not well that painted it?
  APEMANTUS. He wrought better that made the painter; and yet he's
    but a filthy piece of work.
  PAINTER. Y'are a dog.
  APEMANTUS. Thy mother's of my generation; what's she, if I be a dog?
  TIMON. Wilt dine with me, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. No; I eat not lords.
  TIMON. An thou shouldst, thou'dst anger ladies.
  APEMANTUS. O, they eat lords; so they come by great bellies.
  TIMON. That's a lascivious apprehension.
  APEMANTUS. So thou apprehend'st it take it for thy labour.
  TIMON. How dost thou like this jewel, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Not so well as plain dealing, which will not cost a man
    a doit.
  TIMON. What dost thou think 'tis worth?
  APEMANTUS. Not worth my thinking. How now, poet!
  POET. How now, philosopher!
  APEMANTUS. Thou liest.
  POET. Art not one?
  APEMANTUS. Yes.
  POET. Then I lie not.
  APEMANTUS. Art not a poet?
  POET. Yes.
  APEMANTUS. Then thou liest. Look in thy last work, where thou hast
    feign'd him a worthy fellow.
  POET. That's not feign'd- he is so.
  APEMANTUS. Yes, he is worthy of thee, and to pay thee for thy
    labour. He that loves to be flattered is worthy o' th' flatterer.
    Heavens, that I were a lord!
  TIMON. What wouldst do then, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. E'en as Apemantus does now: hate a lord with my heart.
  TIMON. What, thyself?
  APEMANTUS. Ay.
  TIMON. Wherefore?
  APEMANTUS. That I had no angry wit to be a lord.- Art not thou a
    merchant?
  MERCHANT. Ay, Apemantus.
  APEMANTUS. Traffic confound thee, if the gods will not!
  MERCHANT. If traffic do it, the gods do it.
  APEMANTUS. Traffic's thy god, and thy god confound thee!

                Trumpet sounds. Enter a MESSENGER

  TIMON. What trumpet's that?
  MESSENGER. 'Tis Alcibiades, and some twenty horse,
    All of companionship.
  TIMON. Pray entertain them; give them guide to us.
                                          Exeunt some attendants
    You must needs dine with me. Go not you hence
    Till I have thank'd you. When dinner's done
    Show me this piece. I am joyful of your sights.

                Enter ALCIBIADES, with the rest

    Most welcome, sir!                             [They salute]
  APEMANTUS. So, so, there!
    Aches contract and starve your supple joints!
    That there should be small love amongst these sweet knaves,
    And all this courtesy! The strain of man's bred out
    Into baboon and monkey.
  ALCIBIADES. Sir, you have sav'd my longing, and I feed
    Most hungerly on your sight.
  TIMON. Right welcome, sir!
    Ere we depart we'll share a bounteous time
    In different pleasures. Pray you, let us in.
                                        Exeunt all but APEMANTUS

                        Enter two LORDS

  FIRST LORD. What time o' day is't, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Time to be honest.
  FIRST LORD. That time serves still.
  APEMANTUS. The more accursed thou that still omit'st it.
  SECOND LORD. Thou art going to Lord Timon's feast.
  APEMANTUS. Ay; to see meat fill knaves and wine heat fools.
  SECOND LORD. Fare thee well, fare thee well.
  APEMANTUS. Thou art a fool to bid me farewell twice.
  SECOND LORD. Why, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Shouldst have kept one to thyself, for I mean to give
    thee none.
  FIRST LORD. Hang thyself.
  APEMANTUS. No, I will do nothing at thy bidding; make thy requests
    to thy friend.
  SECOND LORD. Away, unpeaceable dog, or I'll spurn thee hence.
  APEMANTUS. I will fly, like a dog, the heels o' th' ass.  Exit
  FIRST LORD. He's opposite to humanity. Come, shall we in
    And taste Lord Timon's bounty? He outgoes
    The very heart of kindness.
  SECOND LORD. He pours it out: Plutus, the god of gold,
    Is but his steward; no meed but he repays
    Sevenfold above itself; no gift to him
    But breeds the giver a return exceeding
    All use of quittance.
  FIRST LORD. The noblest mind he carries
    That ever govern'd man.
  SECOND LORD. Long may he live in fortunes! shall we in?
  FIRST LORD. I'll keep you company.                      Exeunt

SCENE II. A room of state in TIMON'S house

Hautboys playing loud music. A great banquet serv'd in;
FLAVIUS and others attending; and then enter LORD TIMON, the states,
the ATHENIAN LORDS, VENTIDIUS, which TIMON redeem'd from prison.
Then comes, dropping after all, APEMANTUS, discontentedly, like himself

  VENTIDIUS. Most honoured Timon,
    It hath pleas'd the gods to remember my father's age,
    And call him to long peace.
    He is gone happy, and has left me rich.
    Then, as in grateful virtue I am bound
    To your free heart, I do return those talents,
    Doubled with thanks and service, from whose help
    I deriv'd liberty.
  TIMON. O, by no means,
    Honest Ventidius! You mistake my love;
    I gave it freely ever; and there's none
    Can truly say he gives, if he receives.
    If our betters play at that game, we must not dare
    To imitate them: faults that are rich are fair.
  VENTIDIUS. A noble spirit!
  TIMON. Nay, my lords, ceremony was but devis'd at first
    To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,
    Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown;
    But where there is true friendship there needs none.
    Pray, sit; more welcome are ye to my fortunes
    Than my fortunes to me.                           [They sit]
  FIRST LORD. My lord, we always have confess'd it.
  APEMANTUS. Ho, ho, confess'd it! Hang'd it, have you not?
  TIMON. O, Apemantus, you are welcome.
  APEMANTUS. No;
    You shall not make me welcome.
    I come to have thee thrust me out of doors.
  TIMON. Fie, th'art a churl; ye have got a humour there
    Does not become a man; 'tis much to blame.
    They say, my lords, Ira furor brevis est; but yond man is ever
    angry. Go, let him have a table by himself; for he does neither
    affect company nor is he fit for't indeed.
  APEMANTUS. Let me stay at thine apperil, Timon.
    I come to observe; I give thee warning on't.
  TIMON. I take no heed of thee. Th'art an Athenian, therefore
    welcome. I myself would have no power; prithee let my meat make
    thee silent.
  APEMANTUS. I scorn thy meat; 't'would choke me, for I should ne'er
    flatter thee. O you gods, what a number of men eats Timon, and he
    sees 'em not! It grieves me to see so many dip their meat in one
    man's blood; and all the madness is, he cheers them up too.
    I wonder men dare trust themselves with men.
    Methinks they should invite them without knives:
    Good for their meat and safer for their lives.
    There's much example for't; the fellow that sits next him now,
    parts bread with him, pledges the breath of him in a divided
    draught, is the readiest man to kill him. 'T has been proved. If
    I were a huge man I should fear to drink at meals.
    Lest they should spy my windpipe's dangerous notes:
    Great men should drink with harness on their throats.
  TIMON. My lord, in heart! and let the health go round.
  SECOND LORD. Let it flow this way, my good lord.
  APEMANTUS. Flow this way! A brave fellow! He keeps his tides well.
    Those healths will make thee and thy state look ill, Timon.
    Here's that which is too weak to be a sinner, honest water, which
    ne'er left man i' th' mire.
    This and my food are equals; there's no odds.'
    Feasts are too proud to give thanks to the gods.

                  APEMANTUS' Grace

           Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;
           I pray for no man but myself.
           Grant I may never prove so fond
           To trust man on his oath or bond,
           Or a harlot for her weeping,
           Or a dog that seems a-sleeping,
           Or a keeper with my freedom,
           Or my friends, if I should need 'em.
           Amen. So fall to't.
           Rich men sin, and I eat root.       [Eats and drinks]

    Much good dich thy good heart, Apemantus!
  TIMON. Captain Alcibiades, your heart's in the field now.
  ALCIBIADES. My heart is ever at your service, my lord.
  TIMON. You had rather be at a breakfast of enemies than dinner of
    friends.
  ALCIBIADES. So they were bleeding new, my lord, there's no meat
    like 'em; I could wish my best friend at such a feast.
  APEMANTUS. Would all those flatterers were thine enemies then, that
    then thou mightst kill 'em, and bid me to 'em.
  FIRST LORD. Might we but have that happiness, my lord, that you
    would once use our hearts, whereby we might express some part of
    our zeals, we should think ourselves for ever perfect.
  TIMON. O, no doubt, my good friends, but the gods themselves have
    provided that I shall have much help from you. How had you been
    my friends else? Why have you that charitable title from
    thousands, did not you chiefly belong to my heart? I have told
    more of you to myself than you can with modesty speak in your own
    behalf; and thus far I confirm you. O you gods, think I, what
    need we have any friends if we should ne'er have need of 'em?
    They were the most needless creatures living, should we ne'er
    have use for 'em; and would most resemble sweet instruments hung
    up in cases, that keep their sounds to themselves. Why, I have
    often wish'd myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you. We
    are born to do benefits; and what better or properer can we call
    our own than the riches of our friends? O, what a precious
    comfort 'tis to have so many like brothers commanding one
    another's fortunes! O, joy's e'en made away ere't can be born!
    Mine eyes cannot hold out water, methinks. To forget their
    faults, I drink to you.
  APEMANTUS. Thou weep'st to make them drink, Timon.
  SECOND LORD. Joy had the like conception in our eyes,
    And at that instant like a babe sprung up.
  APEMANTUS. Ho, ho! I laugh to think that babe a bastard.
  THIRD LORD. I promise you, my lord, you mov'd me much.
  APEMANTUS. Much!                                [Sound tucket]
  TIMON. What means that trump?

                        Enter a SERVANT

    How now?
  SERVANT. Please you, my lord, there are certain ladies most
    desirous of admittance.
  TIMON. Ladies! What are their wills?
  SERVANT. There comes with them a forerunner, my lord, which bears
    that office to signify their pleasures.
  TIMON. I pray let them be admitted.

                          Enter CUPID
  CUPID. Hail to thee, worthy Timon, and to all
    That of his bounties taste! The five best Senses
    Acknowledge thee their patron, and come freely
    To gratulate thy plenteous bosom. Th' Ear,
    Taste, Touch, Smell, pleas'd from thy table rise;
    They only now come but to feast thine eyes.
  TIMON. They're welcome all; let 'em have kind admittance.
    Music, make their welcome.                        Exit CUPID
  FIRST LORD. You see, my lord, how ample y'are belov'd.

      Music. Re-enter CUPID, witb a Masque of LADIES as Amazons,
          with lutes in their hands, dancing and playing

  APEMANTUS. Hoy-day, what a sweep of vanity comes this way!
    They dance? They are mad women.
    Like madness is the glory of this life,
    As this pomp shows to a little oil and root.
    We make ourselves fools to disport ourselves,
    And spend our flatteries to drink those men
    Upon whose age we void it up again
    With poisonous spite and envy.
    Who lives that's not depraved or depraves?
    Who dies that bears not one spurn to their graves
    Of their friends' gift?
    I should fear those that dance before me now
    Would one day stamp upon me. 'T has been done:
    Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

         The LORDS rise from table, with much adoring of
        TIMON; and to show their loves, each single out an
          Amazon, and all dance, men witb women, a lofty
            strain or two to the hautboys, and cease

  TIMON. You have done our pleasures much grace, fair ladies,
    Set a fair fashion on our entertainment,
    Which was not half so beautiful and kind;
    You have added worth unto't and lustre,
    And entertain'd me with mine own device;
    I am to thank you for't.
  FIRST LADY. My lord, you take us even at the best.
  APEMANTUS. Faith, for the worst is filthy, and would not hold
    taking, I doubt me.
  TIMON. Ladies, there is an idle banquet attends you;
    Please you to dispose yourselves.
  ALL LADIES. Most thankfully, my lord.
                                         Exeunt CUPID and LADIES
  TIMON. Flavius!
  FLAVIUS. My lord?
  TIMON. The little casket bring me hither.
  FLAVIUS. Yes, my lord. [Aside] More jewels yet!
    There is no crossing him in's humour,
    Else I should tell him- well i' faith, I should-
    When all's spent, he'd be cross'd then, an he could.
    'Tis pity bounty had not eyes behind,
    That man might ne'er be wretched for his mind.          Exit
  FIRST LORD. Where be our men?
  SERVANT. Here, my lord, in readiness.
  SECOND LORD. Our horses!

               Re-enter FLAVIUS, with the casket

  TIMON. O my friends,
    I have one word to say to you. Look you, my good lord,
    I must entreat you honour me so much
    As to advance this jewel; accept it and wear it,
    Kind my lord.
  FIRST LORD. I am so far already in your gifts-
  ALL. So are we all.

                       Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. My lord, there are certain nobles of the Senate newly
    alighted and come to visit you.
  TIMON. They are fairly welcome.                   Exit SERVANT
  FLAVIUS. I beseech your honour, vouchsafe me a word; it does
    concern you near.
  TIMON. Near! Why then, another time I'll hear thee. I prithee let's
    be provided to show them entertainment.
  FLAVIUS. [Aside] I scarce know how.

                     Enter another SERVANT

  SECOND SERVANT. May it please vour honour, Lord Lucius, out of his
    free love, hath presented to you four milk-white horses, trapp'd
    in silver.
  TIMON. I shall accept them fairly. Let the presents
    Be worthily entertain'd.                        Exit SERVANT

                      Enter a third SERVANT

    How now! What news?
  THIRD SERVANT. Please you, my lord, that honourable gentleman, Lord
    Lucullus, entreats your company to-morrow to hunt with him and
    has sent your honour two brace of greyhounds.
  TIMON. I'll hunt with him; and let them be receiv'd,
    Not without fair reward.                        Exit SERVANT
  FLAVIUS. [Aside] What will this come to?
    He commands us to provide and give great gifts,
    And all out of an empty coffer;
    Nor will he know his purse, or yield me this,
    To show him what a beggar his heart is,
    Being of no power to make his wishes good.
    His promises fly so beyond his state
    That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes
    For ev'ry word. He is so kind that he now
    Pays interest for't; his land's put to their books.
    Well, would I were gently put out of office
    Before I were forc'd out!
    Happier is he that has no friend to feed
    Than such that do e'en enemies exceed.
    I bleed inwardly for my lord.                           Exit
  TIMON. You do yourselves much wrong;
    You bate too much of your own merits.
    Here, my lord, a trifle of our love.
  SECOND LORD. With more than common thanks I will receive it.
  THIRD LORD. O, he's the very soul of bounty!
  TIMON. And now I remember, my lord, you gave good words the other
    day of a bay courser I rode on. 'Tis yours because you lik'd it.
  THIRD LORD. O, I beseech you pardon me, my lord, in that.
  TIMON. You may take my word, my lord: I know no man
    Can justly praise but what he does affect.
    I weigh my friend's affection with mine own.
    I'll tell you true; I'll call to you.
  ALL LORDS. O, none so welcome!
  TIMON. I take all and your several visitations
    So kind to heart 'tis not enough to give;
    Methinks I could deal kingdoms to my friends
    And ne'er be weary. Alcibiades,
    Thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich.
    It comes in charity to thee; for all thy living
    Is 'mongst the dead, and all the lands thou hast
    Lie in a pitch'd field.
  ALCIBIADES. Ay, defil'd land, my lord.
  FIRST LORD. We are so virtuously bound-
  TIMON. And so am I to you.
  SECOND LORD. So infinitely endear'd-
  TIMON. All to you. Lights, more lights!
  FIRST LORD. The best of happiness, honour, and fortunes, keep with
    you, Lord Timon!
  TIMON. Ready for his friends.
                              Exeunt all but APEMANTUS and TIMON
  APEMANTUS. What a coil's here!
    Serving of becks and jutting-out of bums!
    I doubt whether their legs be worth the sums
    That are given for 'em. Friendship's full of dregs:
    Methinks false hearts should never have sound legs.
    Thus honest fools lay out their wealth on curtsies.
  TIMON. Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not sullen
    I would be good to thee.
  APEMANTUS. No, I'll nothing; for if I should be brib'd too, there
    would be none left to rail upon thee, and then thou wouldst sin
    the faster. Thou giv'st so long, Timon, I fear me thou wilt give
    away thyself in paper shortly. What needs these feasts, pomps,
    and vain-glories?
  TIMON. Nay, an you begin to rail on society once, I am sworn not to
    give regard to you. Farewell; and come with better music.
 Exit
  APEMANTUS. So. Thou wilt not hear me now: thou shalt not then. I'll
    lock thy heaven from thee.
    O that men's ears should be
    To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!                   Exit

ACT II. SCENE I. A SENATOR'S house

Enter A SENATOR, with papers in his hand

  SENATOR. And late, five thousand. To Varro and to Isidore
    He owes nine thousand; besides my former sum,
    Which makes it five and twenty. Still in motion
    Of raging waste? It cannot hold; it will not.
    If I want gold, steal but a beggar's dog
    And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold.
    If I would sell my horse and buy twenty moe
    Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon,
    Ask nothing, give it him, it foals me straight,
    And able horses. No porter at his gate,
    But rather one that smiles and still invites
    All that pass by. It cannot hold; no reason
    Can sound his state in safety. Caphis, ho!
    Caphis, I say!

                         Enter CAPHIS

  CAPHIS. Here, sir; what is your pleasure?
  SENATOR. Get on your cloak and haste you to Lord Timon;
    Importune him for my moneys; be not ceas'd
    With slight denial, nor then silenc'd when
    'Commend me to your master' and the cap
    Plays in the right hand, thus; but tell him
    My uses cry to me, I must serve my turn
    Out of mine own; his days and times are past,
    And my reliances on his fracted dates
    Have smit my credit. I love and honour him,
    But must not break my back to heal his finger.
    Immediate are my needs, and my relief
    Must not be toss'd and turn'd to me in words,
    But find supply immediate. Get you gone;
    Put on a most importunate aspect,
    A visage of demand; for I do fear,
    When every feather sticks in his own wing,
    Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,
    Which flashes now a phoenix. Get you gone.
  CAPHIS. I go, sir.
  SENATOR. Take the bonds along with you,
    And have the dates in compt.
  CAPHIS. I will, sir.
  SENATOR. Go.                                            Exeunt

SCENE II. Before TIMON'S house

Enter FLAVIUS, TIMON'S Steward, with many bills in his hand

  FLAVIUS. No care, no stop! So senseless of expense
    That he will neither know how to maintain it
    Nor cease his flow of riot; takes no account
    How things go from him, nor resumes no care
    Of what is to continue. Never mind
    Was to be so unwise to be so kind.
    What shall be done? He will not hear till feel.
    I must be round with him. Now he comes from hunting.
    Fie, fie, fie, fie!

       Enter CAPHIS, and the SERVANTS Of ISIDORE and VARRO

  CAPHIS. Good even, Varro. What, you come for money?
  VARRO'S SERVANT. Is't not your business too?
  CAPHIS. It is. And yours too, Isidore?
  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. It is so.
  CAPHIS. Would we were all discharg'd!
  VARRO'S SERVANT. I fear it.
  CAPHIS. Here comes the lord.

            Enter TIMON and his train, with ALCIBIADES

  TIMON. So soon as dinner's done we'll forth again,
    My Alcibiades.- With me? What is your will?
  CAPHIS. My lord, here is a note of certain dues.
  TIMON. Dues! Whence are you?
  CAPHIS. Of Athens here, my lord.
  TIMON. Go to my steward.
  CAPHIS. Please it your lordship, he hath put me off
    To the succession of new days this month.
    My master is awak'd by great occasion
    To call upon his own, and humbly prays you
    That with your other noble parts you'll suit
    In giving him his right.
  TIMON. Mine honest friend,
    I prithee but repair to me next morning.
  CAPHIS. Nay, good my lord-
  TIMON. Contain thyself, good friend.
  VARRO'S SERVANT. One Varro's servant, my good lord-
  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. From Isidore: he humbly prays your speedy
    payment-
  CAPHIS. If you did know, my lord, my master's wants-
  VARRO'S SERVANT. 'Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks and
    past.
  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. Your steward puts me off, my lord; and
    I am sent expressly to your lordship.
  TIMON. Give me breath.
    I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on;
    I'll wait upon you instantly.
                                     Exeunt ALCIBIADES and LORDS
    [To FLAVIUS] Come hither. Pray you,
    How goes the world that I am thus encount'red
    With clamorous demands of date-broke bonds
    And the detention of long-since-due debts,
    Against my honour?
  FLAVIUS. Please you, gentlemen,
    The time is unagreeable to this business.
    Your importunacy cease till after dinner,
    That I may make his lordship understand
    Wherefore you are not paid.
  TIMON. Do so, my friends.
    See them well entertain'd.                              Exit
  FLAVIUS. Pray draw near.                                  Exit

                      Enter APEMANTUS and FOOL

  CAPHIS. Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus.
    Let's ha' some sport with 'em.
  VARRO'S SERVANT. Hang him, he'll abuse us!
  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. A plague upon him, dog!
  VARRO'S SERVANT. How dost, fool?
  APEMANTUS. Dost dialogue with thy shadow?
  VARRO'S SERVANT. I speak not to thee.
  APEMANTUS. No, 'tis to thyself. [To the FOOL] Come away.
  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. [To VARRO'S SERVANT] There's the fool hangs on
    your back already.
  APEMANTUS. No, thou stand'st single; th'art not on him yet.
  CAPHIS. Where's the fool now?
  APEMANTUS. He last ask'd the question. Poor rogues and usurers'
    men! Bawds between gold and want!
  ALL SERVANTS. What are we, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Asses.
  ALL SERVANTS. Why?
  APEMANTUS. That you ask me what you are, and do not know
    yourselves. Speak to 'em, fool.
  FOOL. How do you, gentlemen?
  ALL SERVANTS. Gramercies, good fool. How does your mistress?
  FOOL. She's e'en setting on water to scald such chickens as you
    are. Would we could see you at Corinth!
  APEMANTUS. Good! gramercy.

                           Enter PAGE

  FOOL. Look you, here comes my mistress' page.
  PAGE. [To the FOOL] Why, how now, Captain? What do you in this wise
    company? How dost thou, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer thee
    profitably!
  PAGE. Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of these
    letters; I know not which is which.
  APEMANTUS. Canst not read?
  PAGE. No.
  APEMANTUS. There will little learning die, then, that day thou art
    hang'd. This is to Lord Timon; this to Alcibiades. Go; thou wast
    born a bastard, and thou't die a bawd.
  PAGE. Thou wast whelp'd a dog, and thou shalt famish dog's death.
    Answer not: I am gone.                             Exit PAGE
  APEMANTUS. E'en so thou outrun'st grace.
    Fool, I will go with you to Lord Timon's.
  FOOL. Will you leave me there?
  APEMANTUS. If Timon stay at home. You three serve three usurers?
  ALL SERVANTS. Ay; would they serv'd us!
  APEMANTUS. So would I- as good a trick as ever hangman serv'd
    thief.
  FOOL. Are you three usurers' men?
  ALL SERVANTS. Ay, fool.
  FOOL. I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant. My mistress
    is one, and I am her fool. When men come to borrow of your
    masters, they approach sadly and go away merry; but they enter my
    mistress' house merrily and go away sadly. The reason of this?
  VARRO'S SERVANT. I could render one.
  APEMANTUS. Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster and a
    knave; which notwithstanding, thou shalt be no less esteemed.
  VARRO'S SERVANT. What is a whoremaster, fool?
  FOOL. A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis a
    spirit. Sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a lawyer;
    sometime like a philosopher, with two stones moe than's
    artificial one. He is very often like a knight; and, generally,
    in all shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore to
    thirteen, this spirit walks in.
  VARRO'S SERVANT. Thou art not altogether a fool.
  FOOL. Nor thou altogether a wise man.
    As much foolery as I have, so much wit thou lack'st.
  APEMANTUS. That answer might have become Apemantus.
  VARRO'S SERVANT. Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon.

                    Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS

  APEMANTUS. Come with me, fool, come.
  FOOL. I do not always follow lover, elder brother, and woman;
    sometime the philosopher.
                                       Exeunt APEMANTUS and FOOL
  FLAVIUS. Pray you walk near; I'll speak with you anon.
                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS
  TIMON. You make me marvel wherefore ere this time
    Had you not fully laid my state before me,
    That I might so have rated my expense
    As I had leave of means.
  FLAVIUS. You would not hear me
    At many leisures I propos'd.
  TIMON. Go to;
    Perchance some single vantages you took
    When my indisposition put you back,
    And that unaptness made your minister
    Thus to excuse yourself.
  FLAVIUS. O my good lord,
    At many times I brought in my accounts,
    Laid them before you; you would throw them off
    And say you found them in mine honesty.
    When, for some trifling present, you have bid me
    Return so much, I have shook my head and wept;
    Yea, 'gainst th' authority of manners, pray'd you
    To hold your hand more close. I did endure
    Not seldom, nor no slight checks, when I have
    Prompted you in the ebb of your estate
    And your great flow of debts. My lov'd lord,
    Though you hear now- too late!- yet now's a time:
    The greatest of your having lacks a half
    To pay your present debts.
  TIMON. Let all my land be sold.
  FLAVIUS. 'Tis all engag'd, some forfeited and gone;
    And what remains will hardly stop the mouth
    Of present dues. The future comes apace;
    What shall defend the interim? And at length
    How goes our reck'ning?
  TIMON. To Lacedaemon did my land extend.
  FLAVIUS. O my good lord, the world is but a word;
    Were it all yours to give it in a breath,
    How quickly were it gone!
  TIMON. You tell me true.
  FLAVIUS. If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood,
    Call me before th' exactest auditors
    And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,
    When all our offices have been oppress'd
    With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept
    With drunken spilth of wine, when every room
    Hath blaz'd with lights and bray'd with minstrelsy,
    I have retir'd me to a wasteful cock
    And set mine eyes at flow.
  TIMON. Prithee no more.
  FLAVIUS. 'Heavens,' have I said 'the bounty of this lord!
    How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants
    This night englutted! Who is not Lord Timon's?
    What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is Lord Timon's?
    Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!'
    Ah! when the means are gone that buy this praise,
    The breath is gone whereof this praise is made.
    Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter show'rs,
    These flies are couch'd.
  TIMON. Come, sermon me no further.
    No villainous bounty yet hath pass'd my heart;
    Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.
    Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience lack
    To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart:
    If I would broach the vessels of my love,
    And try the argument of hearts by borrowing,
    Men and men's fortunes could I frankly use
    As I can bid thee speak.
  FLAVIUS. Assurance bless your thoughts!
  TIMON. And, in some sort, these wants of mine are crown'd
    That I account them blessings; for by these
    Shall I try friends. You shall perceive how you
    Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.
    Within there! Flaminius! Servilius!

           Enter FLAMINIUS, SERVILIUS, and another SERVANT

  SERVANTS. My lord! my lord!
  TIMON. I will dispatch you severally- you to Lord Lucius; to Lord
    Lucullus you; I hunted with his honour to-day. You to Sempronius.
    Commend me to their loves; and I am proud, say, that my occasions
    have found time to use 'em toward a supply of money. Let the
    request be fifty talents.
  FLAMINIUS. As you have said, my lord.          Exeunt SERVANTS
  FLAVIUS. [Aside] Lord Lucius and Lucullus? Humh!
  TIMON. Go you, sir, to the senators,
    Of whom, even to the state's best health, I have
    Deserv'd this hearing. Bid 'em send o' th' instant
    A thousand talents to me.
  FLAVIUS. I have been bold,
    For that I knew it the most general way,
    To them to use your signet and your name;
    But they do shake their heads, and I am here
    No richer in return.
  TIMON. Is't true? Can't be?
  FLAVIUS. They answer, in a joint and corporate voice,
    That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot
    Do what they would, are sorry- you are honourable-
    But yet they could have wish'd- they know not-
    Something hath been amiss- a noble nature
    May catch a wrench- would all were well!- 'tis pity-
    And so, intending other serious matters,
    After distasteful looks, and these hard fractions,
    With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods,
    They froze me into silence.
  TIMON. You gods, reward them!
    Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old fellows
    Have their ingratitude in them hereditary.
    Their blood is cak'd, 'tis cold, it seldom flows;
    'Tis lack of kindly warmth they are not kind;
    And nature, as it grows again toward earth,
    Is fashion'd for the journey dull and heavy.
    Go to Ventidius. Prithee be not sad,
    Thou art true and honest; ingeniously I speak,
    No blame belongs to thee. Ventidius lately
    Buried his father, by whose death he's stepp'd
    Into a great estate. When he was poor,
    Imprison'd, and in scarcity of friends,
    I clear'd him with five talents. Greet him from me,
    Bid him suppose some good necessity
    Touches his friend, which craves to be rememb'red
    With those five talents. That had, give't these fellows
    To whom 'tis instant due. Nev'r speak or think
    That Timon's fortunes 'mong his friends can sink.
  FLAVIUS. I would I could not think it.
    That thought is bounty's foe;
    Being free itself, it thinks all others so.           Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. LUCULLUS' house

FLAMINIUS waiting to speak with LUCULLUS. Enter SERVANT to him

  SERVANT. I have told my lord of you; he is coming down to you.
  FLAMINIUS. I thank you, sir.

                           Enter LUCULLUS

  SERVANT. Here's my lord.
  LUCULLUS. [Aside] One of Lord Timon's men? A gift, I warrant. Why,
    this hits right; I dreamt of a silver basin and ewer to-night-
    Flaminius, honest Flaminius, you are very respectively welcome,
    sir. Fill me some wine. [Exit SERVANT] And how does that
    honourable, complete, freehearted gentleman of Athens, thy very
    bountiful good lord and master?
  FLAMINIUS. His health is well, sir.
  LUCULLUS. I am right glad that his health is well, sir. And what
    hast thou there under thy cloak, pretty Flaminius?
  FLAMINIUS. Faith, nothing but an empty box, sir, which in my lord's
    behalf I come to entreat your honour to supply;  who, having
    great and instant occasion to use fifty talents, hath sent to
    your lordship to furnish him, nothing doubting your present
    assistance therein.
  LUCULLIUS. La, la, la, la! 'Nothing doubting' says he? Alas, good
    lord! a noble gentleman 'tis, if he would not keep so good a
    house. Many a time and often I ha' din'd with him and told him
    on't; and come again to supper to him of purpose to have him
    spend less; and yet he would embrace no counsel, take no warning
    by my coming. Every man has his fault, and honesty is his. I ha'
    told him on't, but I could ne'er get him from't.

                    Re-enter SERVANT, with wine

  SERVANT. Please your lordship, here is the wine.
  LUCULLUS. Flaminius, I have noted thee always wise. Here's to thee.
  FLAMINIUS. Your lordship speaks your pleasure.
  LUCULLUS. I have observed thee always for a towardly prompt spirit,
    give thee thy due, and one that knows what belongs to reason, and
    canst use the time well, if the time use thee well. Good parts in
    thee. [To SERVANT] Get you gone, sirrah. [Exit SERVANT] Draw
    nearer, honest Flaminius. Thy lord's a bountiful gentleman; but
    thou art wise, and thou know'st well enough, although thou com'st
    to me, that this is no time to lend money, especially upon bare
    friendship without security. Here's three solidares for thee.
    Good boy, wink at me, and say thou saw'st me not. Fare thee well.
  FLAMINIUS. Is't possible the world should so much differ,
    And we alive that liv'd? Fly, damned baseness,
    To him that worships thee.         [Throwing the money back]
  LUCULLUS. Ha! Now I see thou art a fool, and fit for thy master.
 Exit
  FLAMINIUS. May these add to the number that may scald thee!
    Let molten coin be thy damnation,
    Thou disease of a friend and not himself!
    Has friendship such a faint and milky heart
    It turns in less than two nights? O you gods,
    I feel my master's passion! This slave
    Unto his honour has my lord's meat in him;
    Why should it thrive and turn to nutriment
    When he is turn'd to poison?
    O, may diseases only work upon't!
    And when he's sick to death, let not that part of nature
    Which my lord paid for be of any power
    To expel sickness, but prolong his hour!                Exit

SCENE II. A public place

Enter Lucius, with three STRANGERS

  LUCIUS. Who, the Lord Timon? He is my very good friend, and an
    honourable gentleman.
  FIRST STRANGER. We know him for no less, though we are but
    strangers to him. But I can tell you one thing, my lord, and
    which I hear from common rumours: now Lord Timon's happy hours
    are done and past, and his estate shrinks from him.
  LUCIUS. Fie, no: do not believe it; he cannot want for money.
  SECOND STRANGER. But believe you this, my lord, that not long ago
     one of his men was with the Lord Lucullus to borrow so many
    talents; nay, urg'd extremely for't, and showed what necessity
    belong'd to't, and yet was denied.
  LUCIUS. How?
  SECOND STRANGER. I tell you, denied, my lord.
  LUCIUS. What a strange case was that! Now, before the gods, I am
    asham'd on't. Denied that honourable man! There was very little
    honour show'd in't. For my own part, I must needs confess I have
    received some small kindnesses from him, as money, plate, jewels,
    and such-like trifles, nothing comparing to his; yet, had he
    mistook him and sent to me, I should ne'er have denied his
    occasion so many talents.

                             Enter SERVILIUS

  SERVILIUS. See, by good hap, yonder's my lord; I have sweat to see
    his honour.- My honour'd lord!
  LUCIUS. Servilius? You are kindly met, sir. Fare thee well; commend
    me to thy honourable virtuous lord, my very exquisite friend.
  SERVILIUS. May it please your honour, my lord hath sent-
  LUCIUS. Ha! What has he sent? I am so much endeared to that lord:
    he's ever sending. How shall I thank him, think'st thou? And what
    has he sent now?
  SERVILIUS. Has only sent his present occasion now, my lord,
    requesting your lordship to supply his instant use with so many
    talents.
  LUCIUS. I know his lordship is but merry with me;
    He cannot want fifty-five hundred talents.
  SERVILIUS. But in the mean time he wants less, my lord.
    If his occasion were not virtuous
    I should not urge it half so faithfully.
  LUCIUS. Dost thou speak seriously, Servilius?
  SERVILIUS. Upon my soul, 'tis true, sir.
  LUCIUS. What a wicked beast was I to disfurnish myself against such
    a good time, when I might ha' shown myself honourable! How
    unluckily it happ'ned that I should purchase the day before for a
    little part and undo a great deal of honour! Servilius, now
    before the gods, I am not able to do- the more beast, I say! I
    was sending to use Lord Timon myself, these gentlemen can
    witness; but I would not for the wealth of Athens I had done't
    now. Commend me bountifully to his good lordship, and I hope his
    honour will conceive the fairest of me, because I have no power
    to be kind. And tell him this from me: I count it one of my
    greatest afflictions, say, that I cannot pleasure such an
    honourable gentleman. Good Servilius, will you befriend me so far
    as to use mine own words to him?
  SERVILIUS. Yes, sir, I shall.
  LUCIUS. I'll look you out a good turn, Servilius.
                                                  Exit SERVILIUS
    True, as you said, Timon is shrunk indeed;
    And he that's once denied will hardly speed.            Exit
  FIRST STRANGER. Do you observe this, Hostilius?
  SECOND STRANGER. Ay, too well.
  FIRST STRANGER. Why, this is the world's soul; and just of the same
      piece
    Is every flatterer's spirit. Who can call him his friend
    That dips in the same dish? For, in my knowing,
    Timon has been this lord's father,
    And kept his credit with his purse;
    Supported his estate; nay, Timon's money
    Has paid his men their wages. He ne'er drinks
    But Timon's silver treads upon his lip;
    And yet- O, see the monstrousness of man
    When he looks out in an ungrateful shape!-
    He does deny him, in respect of his,
    What charitable men afford to beggars.
  THIRD STRANGER. Religion groans at it.
  FIRST STRANGER. For mine own part,
    I never tasted Timon in my life,
    Nor came any of his bounties over me
    To mark me for his friend; yet I protest,
    For his right noble mind, illustrious virtue,
    And honourable carriage,
    Had his necessity made use of me,
    I would have put my wealth into donation,
    And the best half should have return'd to him,
    So much I love his heart. But I perceive
    Men must learn now with pity to dispense;
    For policy sits above conscience.                     Exeunt

SCENE III. SEMPRONIUS' house

Enter SEMPRONIUS and a SERVANT of TIMON'S

  SEMPRONIUS. Must he needs trouble me in't? Hum! 'Bove all others?
    He might have tried Lord Lucius or Lucullus;
    And now Ventidius is wealthy too,
    Whom he redeem'd from prison. All these
    Owe their estates unto him.
  SERVANT. My lord,
    They have all been touch'd and found base metal, for
    They have all denied him.
  SEMPRONIUS. How! Have they denied him?
    Has Ventidius and Lucullus denied him?
    And does he send to me? Three? Humh!
    It shows but little love or judgment in him.
    Must I be his last refuge? His friends, like physicians,
    Thrice give him over. Must I take th' cure upon me?
    Has much disgrac'd me in't; I'm angry at him,
    That might have known my place. I see no sense for't,
    But his occasions might have woo'd me first;
    For, in my conscience, I was the first man
    That e'er received gift from him.
    And does he think so backwardly of me now
    That I'll requite it last? No;
    So it may prove an argument of laughter
    To th' rest, and I 'mongst lords be thought a fool.
    I'd rather than the worth of thrice the sum
    Had sent to me first, but for my mind's sake;
    I'd such a courage to do him good. But now return,
    And with their faint reply this answer join:
    Who bates mine honour shall not know my coin.           Exit
  SERVANT. Excellent! Your lordship's a goodly villain. The devil
    knew not what he did when he made man politic- he cross'd himself
    by't; and I cannot think but, in the end, the villainies of man
    will set him clear. How fairly this lord strives to appear foul!
    Takes virtuous copies to be wicked, like those that under hot
    ardent zeal would set whole realms on fire.
    Of such a nature is his politic love.
    This was my lord's best hope; now all are fled,
    Save only the gods. Now his friends are dead,
    Doors that were ne'er acquainted with their wards
    Many a bounteous year must be employ'd
    Now to guard sure their master.
    And this is all a liberal course allows:
    Who cannot keep his wealth must keep his house.         Exit

SCENE IV. A hall in TIMON'S house

Enter two Of VARRO'S MEN, meeting LUCIUS' SERVANT, and others, all
being servants of TIMON's creditors, to wait for his coming out. Then
enter TITUS and HORTENSIUS

  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. Well met; good morrow, Titus and Hortensius.
  TITUS. The like to you, kind Varro.
  HORTENSIUS. Lucius! What, do we meet together?
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, and I think one business does command us all;
    for mine is money.
  TITUS. So is theirs and ours.

                          Enter PHILOTUS

  LUCIUS' SERVANT. And Sir Philotus too!
  PHILOTUS. Good day at once.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. welcome, good brother, what do you think the hour?
  PHILOTUS. Labouring for nine.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. So much?
  PHILOTUS. Is not my lord seen yet?
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Not yet.
  PHILOTUS. I wonder on't; he was wont to shine at seven.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, but the days are wax'd shorter with him;
    You must consider that a prodigal course
    Is like the sun's, but not like his recoverable.
    I fear
    'Tis deepest winter in Lord Timon's purse;
    That is, one may reach deep enough and yet
    Find little.
  PHILOTUS. I am of your fear for that.
  TITUS. I'll show you how t' observe a strange event.
    Your lord sends now for money.
  HORTENSIUS. Most true, he does.
  TITUS. And he wears jewels now of Timon's gift,
    For which I wait for money.
  HORTENSIUS. It is against my heart.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Mark how strange it shows
    Timon in this should pay more than he owes;
    And e'en as if your lord should wear rich jewels
    And send for money for 'em.
  HORTENSIUS. I'm weary of this charge, the gods can witness;
    I know my lord hath spent of Timon's wealth,
    And now ingratitude makes it worse than stealth.
  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. Yes, mine's three thousand crowns; what's
    yours?
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Five thousand mine.
  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. 'Tis much deep; and it should seem by th'
      sum
    Your master's confidence was above mine,
    Else surely his had equall'd.

                           Enter FLAMINIUS

  TITUS. One of Lord Timon's men.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Flaminius! Sir, a word. Pray, is my lord ready to
    come forth?
  FLAMINIUS. No, indeed, he is not.
  TITUS. We attend his lordship; pray signify so much.
  FLAMINIUS. I need not tell him that; he knows you are to diligent.
 Exit

                 Enter FLAVIUS, in a cloak, muffled

  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ha! Is not that his steward muffled so?
    He goes away in a cloud. Call him, call him.
  TITUS. Do you hear, sir?
  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. By your leave, sir.
  FLAVIUS. What do ye ask of me, my friend?
  TITUS. We wait for certain money here, sir.
  FLAVIUS. Ay,
    If money were as certain as your waiting,
    'Twere sure enough.
    Why then preferr'd you not your sums and bills
    When your false masters eat of my lord's meat?
    Then they could smile, and fawn upon his debts,
    And take down th' int'rest into their glutt'nous maws.
    You do yourselves but wrong to stir me up;
    Let me pass quietly.
    Believe't, my lord and I have made an end:
    I have no more to reckon, he to spend.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, but this answer will not serve.
  FLAVIUS. If 'twill not serve, 'tis not so base as you,
    For you serve knaves.                                   Exit
  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. How! What does his cashier'd worship mutter?
  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. No matter what; he's poor, and that's
    revenge enough. Who can speak broader than he that has no house
    to put his head in? Such may rail against great buildings.

                          Enter SERVILIUS

  TITUS. O, here's Servilius; now we shall know some answer.
  SERVILIUS. If I might beseech you, gentlemen, to repair some other
    hour, I should derive much from't; for take't of my soul, my lord
    leans wondrously to discontent. His comfortable temper has
    forsook him; he's much out of health and keeps his chamber.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Many do keep their chambers are not sick;
    And if it be so far beyond his health,
    Methinks he should the sooner pay his debts,
    And make a clear way to the gods.
  SERVILIUS. Good gods!
  TITUS. We cannot take this for answer, sir.
  FLAMINIUS. [Within] Servilius, help! My lord! my lord!

           Enter TIMON, in a rage, FLAMINIUS following

  TIMON. What, are my doors oppos'd against my passage?
    Have I been ever free, and must my house
    Be my retentive enemy, my gaol?
    The place which I have feasted, does it now,
    Like all mankind, show me an iron heart?
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Put in now, Titus.
  TITUS. My lord, here is my bill.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Here's mine.
  HORTENSIUS. And mine, my lord.
  BOTH VARRO'S SERVANTS. And ours, my lord.
  PHILOTUS. All our bills.
  TIMON. Knock me down with 'em; cleave me to the girdle.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Alas, my lord-
  TIMON. Cut my heart in sums.
  TITUS. Mine, fifty talents.
  TIMON. Tell out my blood.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Five thousand crowns, my lord.
  TIMON. Five thousand drops pays that. What yours? and yours?
  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. My lord-
  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. My lord-
  TIMON. Tear me, take me, and the gods fall upon you!      Exit
  HORTENSIUS. Faith, I perceive our masters may throw their caps at
    their money. These debts may well be call'd desperate ones, for a
    madman owes 'em.                                      Exeunt

                    Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS

  TIMON. They have e'en put my breath from me, the slaves.
    Creditors? Devils!
  FLAVIUS. My dear lord-
  TIMON. What if it should be so?
  FLAMINIUS. My lord-
  TIMON. I'll have it so. My steward!
  FLAVIUS. Here, my lord.
  TIMON. So fitly? Go, bid all my friends again:
    Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius- all.
    I'll once more feast the rascals.
  FLAVIUS. O my lord,
    You only speak from your distracted soul;
    There is not so much left to furnish out
    A moderate table.
  TIMON. Be it not in thy care.
    Go, I charge thee, invite them all; let in the tide
    Of knaves once more; my cook and I'll provide.        Exeunt

SCENE V. The Senate House

Enter three SENATORS at one door, ALCIBIADES meeting them, with
attendants

  FIRST SENATOR. My lord, you have my voice to't: the fault's bloody.
    'Tis necessary he should die:
    Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
  SECOND SENATOR. Most true; the law shall bruise him.
  ALCIBIADES. Honour, health, and compassion, to the Senate!
  FIRST SENATOR. Now, Captain?
  ALCIBIADES. I am an humble suitor to your virtues;
    For pity is the virtue of the law,
    And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
    It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy
    Upon a friend of mine, who in hot blood
    Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth
    To those that without heed do plunge into't.
    He is a man, setting his fate aside,
    Of comely virtues;
    Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice-
    An honour in him which buys out his fault-
    But with a noble fury and fair spirit,
    Seeing his reputation touch'd to death,
    He did oppose his foe;
    And with such sober and unnoted passion
    He did behove his anger ere 'twas spent,
    As if he had but prov'd an argument.
  FIRST SENATOR. You undergo too strict a paradox,
    Striving to make an ugly deed look fair;
    Your words have took such pains as if they labour'd
    To bring manslaughter into form and set
    Quarrelling upon the head of valour; which, indeed,
    Is valour misbegot, and came into the world
    When sects and factions were newly born.
    He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer
    The worst that man can breathe,
    And make his wrongs his outsides,
    To wear them like his raiment, carelessly,
    And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
    To bring it into danger.
    If wrongs be evils, and enforce us kill,
    What folly 'tis to hazard life for ill!
  ALCIBIADES. My lord-
  FIRST SENATOR. You cannot make gross sins look clear:
    To revenge is no valour, but to bear.
  ALCIBIADES. My lords, then, under favour, pardon me
    If I speak like a captain:
    Why do fond men expose themselves to battle,
    And not endure all threats? Sleep upon't,
    And let the foes quietly cut their throats,
    Without repugnancy? If there be
    Such valour in the bearing, what make we
    Abroad? Why, then, women are more valiant,
    That stay at home, if bearing carry it;
    And the ass more captain than the lion; the fellow
    Loaden with irons wiser than the judge,
    If wisdom be in suffering. O my lords,
    As you are great, be pitifully good.
    Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?
    To kill, I grant, is sin's extremest gust;
    But, in defence, by mercy, 'tis most just.
    To be in anger is impiety;
    But who is man that is not angry?
    Weigh but the crime with this.
  SECOND SENATOR. You breathe in vain.
  ALCIBIADES. In vain! His service done
    At Lacedaemon and Byzantium
    Were a sufficient briber for his life.
  FIRST SENATOR. What's that?
  ALCIBIADES. Why, I say, my lords, has done fair service,
    And slain in fight many of your enemies;
    How full of valour did he bear himself
    In the last conflict, and made plenteous wounds!
  SECOND SENATOR. He has made too much plenty with 'em.
    He's a sworn rioter; he has a sin that often
    Drowns him and takes his valour prisoner.
    If there were no foes, that were enough
    To overcome him. In that beastly fury
    He has been known to commit outrages
    And cherish factions. 'Tis inferr'd to us
    His days are foul and his drink dangerous.
  FIRST SENATOR. He dies.
  ALCIBIADES. Hard fate! He might have died in war.
    My lords, if not for any parts in him-
    Though his right arm might purchase his own time,
    And be in debt to none- yet, more to move you,
    Take my deserts to his, and join 'em both;
    And, for I know your reverend ages love
    Security, I'll pawn my victories, all
    My honours to you, upon his good returns.
    If by this crime he owes the law his life,
    Why, let the war receive't in valiant gore;
    For law is strict, and war is nothing more.
  FIRST SENATOR. We are for law: he dies. Urge it no more
    On height of our displeasure. Friend or brother,
    He forfeits his own blood that spills another.
  ALCIBIADES. Must it be so? It must not be. My lords,
    I do beseech you, know me.
  SECOND SENATOR. How!
  ALCIBIADES. Call me to your remembrances.
  THIRD SENATOR. What!
  ALCIBIADES. I cannot think but your age has forgot me;
    It could not else be I should prove so base
    To sue, and be denied such common grace.
    My wounds ache at you.
  FIRST SENATOR. Do you dare our anger?
    'Tis in few words, but spacious in effect:
    We banish thee for ever.
  ALCIBIADES. Banish me!
    Banish your dotage! Banish usury
    That makes the Senate ugly.
  FIRST SENATOR. If after two days' shine Athens contain thee,
    Attend our weightier judgment. And, not to swell our spirit,
    He shall be executed presently.              Exeunt SENATORS
  ALCIBIADES. Now the gods keep you old enough that you may live
    Only in bone, that none may look on you!
    I'm worse than mad; I have kept back their foes,
    While they have told their money and let out
    Their coin upon large interest, I myself
    Rich only in large hurts. All those for this?
    Is this the balsam that the usuring Senate
    Pours into captains' wounds? Banishment!
    It comes not ill; I hate not to be banish'd;
    It is a cause worthy my spleen and fury,
    That I may strike at Athens. I'll cheer up
    My discontented troops, and lay for hearts.
    'Tis honour with most lands to be at odds;
    Soldiers should brook as little wrongs as gods.         Exit

SCENE VI. A banqueting hall in TIMON'S house

Music. Tables set out; servants attending. Enter divers LORDS, friends
of TIMON, at several doors

  FIRST LORD. The good time of day to you, sir.
  SECOND LORD. I also wish it to you. I think this honourable lord
    did but try us this other day.
  FIRST LORD. Upon that were my thoughts tiring when we encount'red.
    I hope it is not so low with him as he made it seem in the trial
    of his several friends.
  SECOND LORD. It should not be, by the persuasion of his new
    feasting.
  FIRST LORD. I should think so. He hath sent me an earnest inviting,
    which many my near occasions did urge me to put off; but he hath
    conjur'd me beyond them, and I must needs appear.
  SECOND LORD. In like manner was I in debt to my importunate
    business, but he would not hear my excuse. I am sorry, when he
    sent to borrow of me, that my provision was out.
  FIRST LORD. I am sick of that grief too, as I understand how all
    things go.
  SECOND LORD. Every man here's so. What would he have borrowed of
    you?
  FIRST LORD. A thousand pieces.
  SECOND LORD. A thousand pieces!
  FIRST LORD. What of you?
  SECOND LORD. He sent to me, sir- here he comes.

                   Enter TIMON and attendants

  TIMON. With all my heart, gentlemen both! And how fare you?
  FIRST LORD. Ever at the best, hearing well of your lordship.
  SECOND LORD. The swallow follows not summer more willing than we
    your lordship.
  TIMON. [Aside] Nor more willingly leaves winter; such summer-birds
    are men- Gentlemen, our dinner will not recompense this long
    stay; feast your ears with the music awhile, if they will fare so
    harshly o' th' trumpet's sound; we shall to't presently.
  FIRST LORD. I hope it remains not unkindly with your lordship that
    I return'd you an empty messenger.
  TIMON. O sir, let it not trouble you.
  SECOND LORD. My noble lord-
  TIMON. Ah, my good friend, what cheer?
  SECOND LORD. My most honourable lord, I am e'en sick of shame that,
    when your lordship this other day sent to me, I was so
    unfortunate a beggar.
  TIMON. Think not on't, sir.
  SECOND LORD. If you had sent but two hours before-
  TIMON. Let it not cumber your better remembrance. [The banquet
    brought in] Come, bring in all together.
  SECOND LORD. All cover'd dishes!
  FIRST LORD. Royal cheer, I warrant you.
  THIRD LORD. Doubt not that, if money and the season can yield it.
  FIRST LORD. How do you? What's the news?
  THIRD LORD. Alcibiades is banish'd. Hear you of it?
  FIRST AND SECOND LORDS. Alcibiades banish'd!
  THIRD LORD. 'Tis so, be sure of it.
  FIRST LORD. How? how?
  SECOND LORD. I pray you, upon what?
  TIMON. My worthy friends, will you draw near?
  THIRD LORD. I'll tell you more anon. Here's a noble feast toward.
  SECOND LORD. This is the old man still.
  THIRD LORD. Will't hold? Will't hold?
  SECOND LORD. It does; but time will- and so-
  THIRD LORD. I do conceive.
  TIMON. Each man to his stool with that spur as he would to the lip
    of his mistress; your diet shall be in all places alike. Make not
    a city feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon
    the first place. Sit, sit. The gods require our thanks:

    You great benefactors, sprinkle our society with thankfulness. For
    your own gifts make yourselves prais'd; but reserve still to give,
    lest your deities be despised. Lend to each man enough, that one
    need not lend to another; for were your god-heads to borrow of men,
    men would forsake the gods. Make the meat be beloved more than the
    man that gives it. Let no assembly of twenty be without a score of
    villains. If there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of
    them be- as they are. The rest of your foes, O gods, the senators
    of Athens, together with the common lag of people, what is amiss in
    them, you gods, make suitable for destruction. For these my present
    friends, as they are to me nothing, so in nothing bless them, and
    to nothing are they welcome.

    Uncover, dogs, and lap.        [The dishes are uncovered and
                                  seen to he full of warm water]
  SOME SPEAK. What does his lordship mean?
  SOME OTHER. I know not.
  TIMON. May you a better feast never behold,
    You knot of mouth-friends! Smoke and lukewarm water
    Is your perfection. This is Timon's last;
    Who, stuck and spangled with your flatteries,
    Washes it off, and sprinkles in your faces
                             [Throwing the water in their faces]
    Your reeking villainy. Live loath'd and long,
    Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,
    Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,
    You fools of fortune, trencher friends, time's flies,
    Cap and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-lacks!
    Of man and beast the infinite malady
    Crust you quite o'er! What, dost thou go?
    Soft, take thy physic first; thou too, and thou.
    Stay, I will lend thee money, borrow none.       [Throws the
                            dishes at them, and drives them out]
    What, all in motion? Henceforth be no feast
    Whereat a villain's not a welcome guest.
    Burn house! Sink Athens! Henceforth hated be
    Of Timon man and all humanity!                          Exit

                           Re-enter the LORDS

  FIRST LORD. How now, my lords!
  SECOND LORD. Know you the quality of Lord Timon's fury?
  THIRD LORD. Push! Did you see my cap?
  FOURTH LORD. I have lost my gown.
  FIRST LORD. He's but a mad lord, and nought but humours sways him.
    He gave me a jewel th' other day, and now he has beat it out of
    my hat. Did you see my jewel?
  THIRD LORD. Did you see my cap?
  SECOND LORD. Here 'tis.
  FOURTH LORD. Here lies my gown.
  FIRST LORD. Let's make no stay.
  SECOND LORD. Lord Timon's mad.
  THIRD LORD. I feel't upon my bones.
  FOURTH LORD. One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Without the walls of Athens

Enter TIMON

  TIMON. Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall
    That girdles in those wolves, dive in the earth
    And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent.
    Obedience, fail in children! Slaves and fools,
    Pluck the grave wrinkled Senate from the bench
    And minister in their steads. To general filths
    Convert, o' th' instant, green virginity.
    Do't in your parents' eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast;
    Rather than render back, out with your knives
    And cut your trusters' throats. Bound servants, steal:
    Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
    And pill by law. Maid, to thy master's bed:
    Thy mistress is o' th' brothel. Son of sixteen,
    Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping sire,
    With it beat out his brains. Piety and fear,
    Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
    Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,
    Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
    Degrees, observances, customs and laws,
    Decline to your confounding contraries
    And let confusion live. Plagues incident to men,
    Your potent and infectious fevers heap
    On Athens, ripe for stroke. Thou cold sciatica,
    Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt
    As lamely as their manners. Lust and liberty,
    Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
    That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive
    And drown themselves in riot. Itches, blains,
    Sow all th' Athenian bosoms, and their crop
    Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,
    That their society, as their friendship, may
    Be merely poison! Nothing I'll bear from thee
    But nakedness, thou detestable town!
    Take thou that too, with multiplying bans.
    Timon will to the woods, where he shall find
    Th' unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.
    The gods confound- hear me, you good gods all-
    The Athenians both within and out that wall!
    And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow
    To the whole race of mankind, high and low!
    Amen.                                                   Exit

SCENE II. Athens. TIMON's house

Enter FLAVIUS, with two or three SERVANTS

  FIRST SERVANT. Hear you, Master Steward, where's our master?
    Are we undone, cast off, nothing remaining?
  FLAVIUS. Alack, my fellows, what should I say to you?
    Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,
    I am as poor as you.
  FIRST SERVANT. Such a house broke!
    So noble a master fall'n! All gone, and not
    One friend to take his fortune by the arm
    And go along with him?
  SECOND SERVANT. As we do turn our backs
    From our companion, thrown into his grave,
    So his familiars to his buried fortunes
    Slink all away; leave their false vows with him,
    Like empty purses pick'd; and his poor self,
    A dedicated beggar to the air,
    With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,
    Walks, like contempt, alone. More of our fellows.

                     Enter other SERVANTS

  FLAVIUS. All broken implements of a ruin'd house.
  THIRD SERVANT. Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery;
    That see I by our faces. We are fellows still,
    Serving alike in sorrow. Leak'd is our bark;
    And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck,
    Hearing the surges threat. We must all part
    Into this sea of air.
  FLAVIUS. Good fellows all,
    The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you.
    Wherever we shall meet, for Timon's sake,
    Let's yet be fellows; let's shake our heads and say,
    As 'twere a knell unto our master's fortune,
    'We have seen better days.' Let each take some.
                                             [Giving them money]
    Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more!
    Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor.
                                [Embrace, and part several ways]
    O the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us!
    Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,
    Since riches point to misery and contempt?
    Who would be so mock'd with glory, or to live
    But in a dream of friendship,
    To have his pomp, and all what state compounds,
    But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?
    Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart,
    Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood,
    When man's worst sin is he does too much good!
    Who then dares to be half so kind again?
    For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar men.
    My dearest lord- blest to be most accurst,
    Rich only to be wretched- thy great fortunes
    Are made thy chief afflictions. Alas, kind lord!
    He's flung in rage from this ingrateful seat
    Of monstrous friends; nor has he with him to
    Supply his life, or that which can command it.
    I'll follow and enquire him out.
    I'll ever serve his mind with my best will;
    Whilst I have gold, I'll be his steward still.          Exit

SCENE III. The woods near the sea-shore. Before TIMON'S cave

Enter TIMON in the woods

  TIMON. O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth
    Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb
    Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb-
    Whose procreation, residence, and birth,
    Scarce is dividant- touch them with several fortunes:
    The greater scorns the lesser. Not nature,
    To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune
    But by contempt of nature.
    Raise me this beggar and deny't that lord:
    The senator shall bear contempt hereditary,
    The beggar native honour.
    It is the pasture lards the rother's sides,
    The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares,
    In purity of manhood stand upright,
    And say 'This man's a flatterer'? If one be,
    So are they all; for every grise of fortune
    Is smooth'd by that below. The learned pate
    Ducks to the golden fool. All's oblique;
    There's nothing level in our cursed natures
    But direct villainy. Therefore be abhorr'd
    All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
    His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains.
    Destruction fang mankind! Earth, yield me roots.
                                                       [Digging]
    Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate
    With thy most operant poison. What is here?
    Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,
    I am no idle votarist. Roots, you clear heavens!
    Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,
    Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.
    Ha, you gods! why this? What, this, you gods? Why, this
    Will lug your priests and servants from your sides,
    Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads-
    This yellow slave
    Will knit and break religions, bless th' accurs'd,
    Make the hoar leprosy ador'd, place thieves
    And give them title, knee, and approbation,
    With senators on the bench. This is it
    That makes the wappen'd widow wed again-
    She whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
    Would cast the gorge at this embalms and spices
    To th 'April day again. Come, damn'd earth,
    Thou common whore of mankind, that puts odds
    Among the rout of nations, I will make thee
    Do thy right nature.                        [March afar off]
    Ha! a drum? Th'art quick,
    But yet I'll bury thee. Thou't go, strong thief,
    When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand.
    Nay, stay thou out for earnest.          [Keeping some gold]

          Enter ALCIBIADES, with drum and fife, in warlike
                  manner; and PHRYNIA and TIMANDRA

  ALCIBIADES. What art thou there? Speak.
  TIMON. A beast, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart
    For showing me again the eyes of man!
  ALCIBIADES. What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee
    That art thyself a man?
  TIMON. I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.
    For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
    That I might love thee something.
  ALCIBIADES. I know thee well;
    But in thy fortunes am unlearn'd and strange.
  TIMON. I know thee too; and more than that I know thee
    I not desire to know. Follow thy drum;
    With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules.
    Religious canons, civil laws, are cruel;
    Then what should war be? This fell whore of thine
    Hath in her more destruction than thy sword
    For all her cherubin look.
  PHRYNIA. Thy lips rot off!
  TIMON. I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns
    To thine own lips again.
  ALCIBIADES. How came the noble Timon to this change?
  TIMON. As the moon does, by wanting light to give.
    But then renew I could not, like the moon;
    There were no suns to borrow of.
  ALCIBIADES. Noble Timon,
    What friendship may I do thee?
  TIMON. None, but to
    Maintain my opinion.
  ALCIBIADES. What is it, Timon?
  TIMON. Promise me friendship, but perform none. If thou wilt not
    promise, the gods plague thee, for thou art man! If thou dost
    perform, confound thee, for thou art a man!
  ALCIBIADES. I have heard in some sort of thy miseries.
  TIMON. Thou saw'st them when I had prosperity.
  ALCIBIADES. I see them now; then was a blessed time.
  TIMON. As thine is now, held with a brace of harlots.
  TIMANDRA. Is this th' Athenian minion whom the world
    Voic'd so regardfully?
  TIMON. Art thou Timandra?
  TIMANDRA. Yes.
  TIMON. Be a whore still; they love thee not that use thee.
    Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust.
    Make use of thy salt hours. Season the slaves
    For tubs and baths; bring down rose-cheek'd youth
    To the tub-fast and the diet.
  TIMANDRA. Hang thee, monster!
  ALCIBIADES. Pardon him, sweet Timandra, for his wits
    Are drown'd and lost in his calamities.
    I have but little gold of late, brave Timon,
    The want whereof doth daily make revolt
    In my penurious band. I have heard, and griev'd,
    How cursed Athens, mindless of thy worth,
    Forgetting thy great deeds, when neighbour states,
    But for thy sword and fortune, trod upon them-
  TIMON. I prithee beat thy drum and get thee gone.
  ALCIBIADES. I am thy friend, and pity thee, dear Timon.
  TIMON. How dost thou pity him whom thou dost trouble?
    I had rather be alone.
  ALCIBIADES. Why, fare thee well;
    Here is some gold for thee.
  TIMON. Keep it: I cannot eat it.
  ALCIBIADES. When I have laid proud Athens on a heap-
  TIMON. War'st thou 'gainst Athens?
  ALCIBIADES. Ay, Timon, and have cause.
  TIMON. The gods confound them all in thy conquest;
    And thee after, when thou hast conquer'd!
  ALCIBIADES. Why me, Timon?
  TIMON. That by killing of villains
    Thou wast born to conquer my country.
    Put up thy gold. Go on. Here's gold. Go on.
    Be as a planetary plague, when Jove
    Will o'er some high-vic'd city hang his poison
    In the sick air; let not thy sword skip one.
    Pity not honour'd age for his white beard:
    He is an usurer. Strike me the counterfeit matron:
    It is her habit only that is honest,
    Herself's a bawd. Let not the virgin's cheek
    Make soft thy trenchant sword; for those milk paps
    That through the window bars bore at men's eyes
    Are not within the leaf of pity writ,
    But set them down horrible traitors. Spare not the babe
    Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy;
    Think it a bastard whom the oracle
    Hath doubtfully pronounc'd thy throat shall cut,
    And mince it sans remorse. Swear against abjects;
    Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes,
    Whose proof nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes,
    Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding,
    Shall pierce a jot. There's gold to pay thy soldiers.
    Make large confusion; and, thy fury spent,
    Confounded be thyself! Speak not, be gone.
  ALCIBIADES. Hast thou gold yet? I'll take the gold thou givest me,
    Not all thy counsel.
  TIMON. Dost thou, or dost thou not, heaven's curse upon thee!
  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. Give us some gold, good Timon.
    Hast thou more?
  TIMON. Enough to make a whore forswear her trade,
    And to make whores a bawd. Hold up, you sluts,
    Your aprons mountant; you are not oathable,
    Although I know you'll swear, terribly swear,
    Into strong shudders and to heavenly agues,
    Th' immortal gods that hear you. Spare your oaths;
    I'll trust to your conditions. Be whores still;
    And he whose pious breath seeks to convert you-
    Be strong in whore, allure him, burn him up;
    Let your close fire predominate his smoke,
    And be no turncoats. Yet may your pains six months
    Be quite contrary! And thatch your poor thin roofs
    With burdens of the dead- some that were hang'd,
    No matter. Wear them, betray with them. Whore still;
    Paint till a horse may mire upon your face.
    A pox of wrinkles!
  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. Well, more gold. What then?
    Believe't that we'll do anything for gold.
  TIMON. Consumptions sow
    In hollow bones of man; strike their sharp shins,
    And mar men's spurring. Crack the lawyer's voice,
    That he may never more false title plead,
    Nor sound his quillets shrilly. Hoar the flamen,
    That scolds against the quality of flesh
    And not believes himself. Down with the nose,
    Down with it flat, take the bridge quite away
    Of him that, his particular to foresee,
    Smells from the general weal. Make curl'd-pate ruffians bald,
    And let the unscarr'd braggarts of the war
    Derive some pain from you. Plague all,
    That your activity may defeat and quell
    The source of all erection. There's more gold.
    Do you damn others, and let this damn you,
    And ditches grave you all!
  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. More counsel with more money, bounteous
    Timon.
  TIMON. More whore, more mischief first; I have given you earnest.
  ALCIBIADES. Strike up the drum towards Athens. Farewell, Timon;
    If I thrive well, I'll visit thee again.
  TIMON. If I hope well, I'll never see thee more.
  ALCIBIADES. I never did thee harm.
  TIMON. Yes, thou spok'st well of me.
  ALCIBIADES. Call'st thou that harm?
  TIMON. Men daily find it. Get thee away, and take
    Thy beagles with thee.
  ALCIBIADES. We but offend him. Strike.
                                Drum beats. Exeunt all but TIMON
  TIMON. That nature, being sick of man's unkindness,
    Should yet be hungry! Common mother, thou,         [Digging]
    Whose womb unmeasurable and infinite breast
    Teems and feeds all; whose self-same mettle,
    Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puff'd,
    Engenders the black toad and adder blue,
    The gilded newt and eyeless venom'd worm,
    With all th' abhorred births below crisp heaven
    Whereon Hyperion's quick'ning fire doth shine-
    Yield him, who all thy human sons doth hate,
    From forth thy plenteous bosom, one poor root!
    Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb,
    Let it no more bring out ingrateful man!
    Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears;
    Teem with new monsters whom thy upward face
    Hath to the marbled mansion all above
    Never presented!- O, a root! Dear thanks!-
    Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas,
    Whereof ingrateful man, with liquorish draughts
    And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind,
    That from it all consideration slips-

                        Enter APEMANTUS

    More man? Plague, plague!
  APEMANTUS. I was directed hither. Men report
    Thou dost affect my manners and dost use them.
  TIMON. 'Tis, then, because thou dost not keep a dog,
    Whom I would imitate. Consumption catch thee!
  APEMANTUS. This is in thee a nature but infected,
    A poor unmanly melancholy sprung
    From change of fortune. Why this spade, this place?
    This slave-like habit and these looks of care?
    Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft,
    Hug their diseas'd perfumes, and have forgot
    That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods
    By putting on the cunning of a carper.
    Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive
    By that which has undone thee: hinge thy knee,
    And let his very breath whom thou'lt observe
    Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious strain,
    And call it excellent. Thou wast told thus;
    Thou gav'st thine ears, like tapsters that bade welcome,
    To knaves and all approachers. 'Tis most just
    That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth again
    Rascals should have't. Do not assume my likeness.
  TIMON. Were I like thee, I'd throw away myself.
  APEMANTUS. Thou hast cast away thyself, being like thyself;
    A madman so long, now a fool. What, think'st
    That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain,
    Will put thy shirt on warm? Will these moist trees,
    That have outliv'd the eagle, page thy heels
    And skip when thou point'st out? Will the cold brook,
    Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste
    To cure thy o'ernight's surfeit? Call the creatures
    Whose naked natures live in all the spite
    Of wreakful heaven, whose bare unhoused trunks,
    To the conflicting elements expos'd,
    Answer mere nature- bid them flatter thee.
    O, thou shalt find-
  TIMON. A fool of thee. Depart.
  APEMANTUS. I love thee better now than e'er I did.
  TIMON. I hate thee worse.
  APEMANTUS. Why?
  TIMON. Thou flatter'st misery.
  APEMANTUS. I flatter not, but say thou art a caitiff.
  TIMON. Why dost thou seek me out?
  APEMANTUS. To vex thee.
  TIMON. Always a villain's office or a fool's.
    Dost please thyself in't?
  APEMANTUS. Ay.
  TIMON. What, a knave too?
  APEMANTUS. If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on
    To castigate thy pride, 'twere well; but thou
    Dost it enforcedly. Thou'dst courtier be again
    Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery
    Outlives incertain pomp, is crown'd before.
    The one is filling still, never complete;
    The other, at high wish. Best state, contentless,
    Hath a distracted and most wretched being,
    Worse than the worst, content.
    Thou should'st desire to die, being miserable.
  TIMON. Not by his breath that is more miserable.
    Thou art a slave whom Fortune's tender arm
    With favour never clasp'd, but bred a dog.
    Hadst thou, like us from our first swath, proceeded
    The sweet degrees that this brief world affords
    To such as may the passive drugs of it
    Freely command, thou wouldst have plung'd thyself
    In general riot, melted down thy youth
    In different beds of lust, and never learn'd
    The icy precepts of respect, but followed
    The sug'red game before thee. But myself,
    Who had the world as my confectionary;
    The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts of men
    At duty, more than I could frame employment;
    That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves
    Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush
    Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare
    For every storm that blows- I to bear this,
    That never knew but better, is some burden.
    Thy nature did commence in sufferance; time
    Hath made thee hard in't. Why shouldst thou hate men?
    They never flatter'd thee. What hast thou given?
    If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,
    Must be thy subject; who, in spite, put stuff
    To some she-beggar and compounded thee
    Poor rogue hereditary. Hence, be gone.
    If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,
    Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.
  APEMANTUS. Art thou proud yet?
  TIMON. Ay, that I am not thee.
  APEMANTUS. I, that I was
    No prodigal.
  TIMON. I, that I am one now.
    Were all the wealth I have shut up in thee,
    I'd give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone.
    That the whole life of Athens were in this!
    Thus would I eat it.                         [Eating a root]
  APEMANTUS. Here! I will mend thy feast.
                                             [Offering him food]
  TIMON. First mend my company: take away thyself.
  APEMANTUS. So I shall mend mine own by th' lack of thine.
  TIMON. 'Tis not well mended so; it is but botch'd.
    If not, I would it were.
  APEMANTUS. What wouldst thou have to Athens?
  TIMON. Thee thither in a whirlwind. If thou wilt,
    Tell them there I have gold; look, so I have.
  APEMANTUS. Here is no use for gold.
  TIMON. The best and truest;
    For here it sleeps and does no hired harm.
  APEMANTUS. Where liest a nights, Timon?
  TIMON. Under that's above me.
    Where feed'st thou a days, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Where my stomach. finds meat; or rather, where I eat it.
  TIMON. Would poison were obedient, and knew my mind!
  APEMANTUS. Where wouldst thou send it?
  TIMON. To sauce thy dishes.
  APEMANTUS. The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the
    extremity of both ends. When thou wast in thy gilt and thy
    perfume, they mock'd thee for too much curiosity; in thy rags
    thou know'st none, but art despis'd for the contrary. There's a
    medlar for thee; eat it.
  TIMON. On what I hate I feed not.
  APEMANTUS. Dost hate a medlar?
  TIMON. Ay, though it look like thee.
  APEMANTUS. An th' hadst hated medlars sooner, thou shouldst have
    loved thyself better now. What man didst thou ever know unthrift
    that was beloved after his means?
  TIMON. Who, without those means thou talk'st of, didst thou ever
    know belov'd?
  APEMANTUS. Myself.
  TIMON. I understand thee: thou hadst some means to keep a dog.
  APEMANTUS. What things in the world canst thou nearest compare to
    thy flatterers?
  TIMON. Women nearest; but men, men are the things themselves. What
    wouldst thou do with the world, Apemantus, if it lay in thy
    power?
  APEMANTUS. Give it the beasts, to be rid of the men.
  TIMON. Wouldst thou have thyself fall in the confusion of men, and
    remain a beast with the beasts?
  APEMANTUS. Ay, Timon.
  TIMON. A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee t' attain to!
    If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile thee; if thou wert
    the lamb, the fox would eat thee; if thou wert the fox, the lion
    would suspect thee, when, peradventure, thou wert accus'd by the
    ass. If thou wert the ass, thy dulness would torment thee; and
    still thou liv'dst but as a breakfast to the wolf. If thou wert
    the wolf, thy greediness would afflict thee, and oft thou
    shouldst hazard thy life for thy dinner. Wert thou the unicorn,
    pride and wrath would confound thee, and make thine own self the
    conquest of thy fury. Wert thou bear, thou wouldst be kill'd by
    the horse; wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seiz'd by the
    leopard; wert thou a leopard, thou wert german to the lion, and
    the spots of thy kindred were jurors on thy life. All thy safety
    were remotion, and thy defence absence. What beast couldst thou
    be that were not subject to a beast? And what beast art thou
    already, that seest not thy loss in transformation!
  APEMANTUS. If thou couldst please me with speaking to me, thou
    mightst have hit upon it here. The commonwealth of Athens is
    become a forest of beasts.
  TIMON. How has the ass broke the wall, that thou art out of the
    city?
  APEMANTUS. Yonder comes a poet and a painter. The plague of company
    light upon thee! I will fear to catch it, and give way. When I
    know not what else to do, I'll see thee again.
  TIMON. When there is nothing living but thee, thou shalt be
    welcome. I had rather be a beggar's dog than Apemantus.
  APEMANTUS. Thou art the cap of all the fools alive.
  TIMON. Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!
  APEMANTUS. A plague on thee! thou art too bad to curse.
  TIMON. All villains that do stand by thee are pure.
  APEMANTUS. There is no leprosy but what thou speak'st.
  TIMON. If I name thee.
    I'll beat thee- but I should infect my hands.
  APEMANTUS. I would my tongue could rot them off!
  TIMON. Away, thou issue of a mangy dog!
    Choler does kill me that thou art alive;
    I swoon to see thee.
  APEMANTUS. Would thou wouldst burst!
  TIMON. Away,
    Thou tedious rogue! I am sorry I shall lose
    A stone by thee.                     [Throws a stone at him]
  APEMANTUS. Beast!
  TIMON. Slave!
  APEMANTUS. Toad!
  TIMON. Rogue, rogue, rogue!
    I am sick of this false world, and will love nought
    But even the mere necessities upon't.
    Then, Timon, presently prepare thy grave;
    Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat
    Thy gravestone daily; make thine epitaph,
    That death in me at others' lives may laugh.
    [Looks at the gold] O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
    'Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler
    Of Hymen's purest bed! thou valiant Mars!
    Thou ever young, fresh, lov'd, and delicate wooer,
    Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
    That lies on Dian's lap! thou visible god,
    That sold'rest close impossibilities,
    And mak'st them kiss! that speak'st with every tongue
    To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!
    Think thy slave man rebels, and by thy virtue
    Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
    May have the world in empire!
  APEMANTUS. Would 'twere so!
    But not till I am dead. I'll say th' hast gold.
    Thou wilt be throng'd to shortly.
  TIMON. Throng'd to?
  APEMANTUS. Ay.
  TIMON. Thy back, I prithee.
  APEMANTUS. Live, and love thy misery!
  TIMON. Long live so, and so die! [Exit APEMANTUS] I am quit. More
    things like men? Eat, Timon, and abhor them.

                       Enter the BANDITTI

  FIRST BANDIT. Where should he have this gold? It is some poor
    fragment, some slender ort of his remainder. The mere want of
    gold and the falling-from of his friends drove him into this
    melancholy.
  SECOND BANDIT. It is nois'd he hath a mass of treasure.
  THIRD BANDIT. Let us make the assay upon him; if he care not for't,
    he will supply us easily; if he covetously reserve it, how
    shall's get it?
  SECOND BANDIT. True; for he bears it not about him. 'Tis hid.
  FIRST BANDIT. Is not this he?
  BANDITTI. Where?
  SECOND BANDIT. 'Tis his description.
  THIRD BANDIT. He; I know him.
  BANDITTI. Save thee, Timon!
  TIMON. Now, thieves?
  BANDITTI. Soldiers, not thieves.
  TIMON. Both too, and women's sons.
  BANDITTI. We are not thieves, but men that much do want.
  TIMON. Your greatest want is, you want much of meat.
    Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots;
    Within this mile break forth a hundred springs;
    The oaks bear mast, the briars scarlet hips;
    The bounteous housewife Nature on each bush
    Lays her full mess before you. Want! Why want?
  FIRST BANDIT. We cannot live on grass, on berries, water,
    As beasts and birds and fishes.
  TIMON. Nor on the beasts themselves, the birds, and fishes;
    You must eat men. Yet thanks I must you con
    That you are thieves profess'd, that you work not
    In holier shapes; for there is boundless theft
    In limited professions. Rascal thieves,
    Here's gold. Go, suck the subtle blood o' th' grape
    Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth,
    And so scape hanging. Trust not the physician;
    His antidotes are poison, and he slays
    Moe than you rob. Take wealth and lives together;
    Do villainy, do, since you protest to do't,
    Like workmen. I'll example you with thievery:
    The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
    Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,
    And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
    The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
    The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief,
    That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n
    From gen'ral excrement- each thing's a thief.
    The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
    Has uncheck'd theft. Love not yourselves; away,
    Rob one another. There's more gold. Cut throats;
    All that you meet are thieves. To Athens go,
    Break open shops; nothing can you steal
    But thieves do lose it. Steal not less for this
    I give you; and gold confound you howsoe'er!
    Amen.
  THIRD BANDIT. Has almost charm'd me from my profession by
    persuading me to it.
  FIRST BANDIT. 'Tis in the malice of mankind that he thus advises
    us; not to have us thrive in our mystery.
  SECOND BANDIT. I'll believe him as an enemy, and give over my
    trade.
  FIRST BANDIT. Let us first see peace in Athens. There is no time so
    miserable but a man may be true.              Exeunt THIEVES

                         Enter FLAVIUS, to TIMON

  FLAVIUS. O you gods!
    Is yond despis'd and ruinous man my lord?
    Full of decay and failing? O monument
    And wonder of good deeds evilly bestow'd!
    What an alteration of honour
    Has desp'rate want made!
    What viler thing upon the earth than friends,
    Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!
    How rarely does it meet with this time's guise,
    When man was wish'd to love his enemies!
    Grant I may ever love, and rather woo
    Those that would mischief me than those that do!
    Has caught me in his eye; I will present
    My honest grief unto him, and as my lord
    Still serve him with my life. My dearest master!
  TIMON. Away! What art thou?
  FLAVIUS. Have you forgot me, sir?
  TIMON. Why dost ask that? I have forgot all men;
    Then, if thou grant'st th'art a man, I have forgot thee.
  FLAVIUS. An honest poor servant of yours.
  TIMON. Then I know thee not.
    I never had honest man about me, I.
    All I kept were knaves, to serve in meat to villains.
  FLAVIUS. The gods are witness,
    Nev'r did poor steward wear a truer grief
    For his undone lord than mine eyes for you.
  TIMON. What, dost thou weep? Come nearer. Then I love thee
    Because thou art a woman and disclaim'st
    Flinty mankind, whose eyes do never give
    But thorough lust and laughter. Pity's sleeping.
    Strange times, that weep with laughing, not with weeping!
  FLAVIUS. I beg of you to know me, good my lord,
    T' accept my grief, and whilst this poor wealth lasts
    To entertain me as your steward still.
  TIMON. Had I a steward
    So true, so just, and now so comfortable?
    It almost turns my dangerous nature mild.
    Let me behold thy face. Surely, this man
    Was born of woman.
    Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,
    You perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim
    One honest man- mistake me not, but one;
    No more, I pray- and he's a steward.
    How fain would I have hated all mankind!
    And thou redeem'st thyself. But all, save thee,
    I fell with curses.
    Methinks thou art more honest now than wise;
    For by oppressing and betraying me
    Thou mightst have sooner got another service;
    For many so arrive at second masters
    Upon their first lord's neck. But tell me true,
    For I must ever doubt though ne'er so sure,
    Is not thy kindness subtle, covetous,
    If not a usuring kindness, and as rich men deal gifts,
    Expecting in return twenty for one?
  FLAVIUS. No, my most worthy master, in whose breast
    Doubt and suspect, alas, are plac'd too late!
    You should have fear'd false times when you did feast:
    Suspect still comes where an estate is least.
    That which I show, heaven knows, is merely love,
    Duty, and zeal, to your unmatched mind,
    Care of your food and living; and believe it,
    My most honour'd lord,
    For any benefit that points to me,
    Either in hope or present, I'd exchange
    For this one wish, that you had power and wealth
    To requite me by making rich yourself.
  TIMON. Look thee, 'tis so! Thou singly honest man,
    Here, take. The gods, out of my misery,
    Have sent thee treasure. Go, live rich and happy,
    But thus condition'd; thou shalt build from men;
    Hate all, curse all, show charity to none,
    But let the famish'd flesh slide from the bone
    Ere thou relieve the beggar. Give to dogs
    What thou deniest to men; let prisons swallow 'em,
    Debts wither 'em to nothing. Be men like blasted woods,
    And may diseases lick up their false bloods!
    And so, farewell and thrive.
  FLAVIUS. O, let me stay
    And comfort you, my master.
  TIMON. If thou hat'st curses,
    Stay not; fly whilst thou art blest and free.
    Ne'er see thou man, and let me ne'er see thee.
                                                Exeunt severally

ACT V. SCENE I. The woods. Before TIMON's cave

Enter POET and PAINTER

  PAINTER. As I took note of the place, it cannot be far where he
    abides.
  POET. to be thought of him? Does the rumour hold for true that he's
    so full of gold?
  PAINTER. Certain. Alcibiades reports it; Phrynia and Timandra had
    gold of him. He likewise enrich'd poor straggling soldiers with
    great quantity. 'Tis said he gave unto his steward a mighty sum.
  POET. Then this breaking of his has been but a try for his friends?
  PAINTER. Nothing else. You shall see him a palm in Athens again,
    and flourish with the highest. Therefore 'tis not amiss we tender
    our loves to him in this suppos'd distress of his; it will show
    honestly in us, and is very likely to load our purposes with what
    they travail for, if it be just and true report that goes of his
    having.
  POET. What have you now to present unto him?
  PAINTER. Nothing at this time but my visitation; only I will
    promise him an excellent piece.
  POET. I must serve him so too, tell him of an intent that's coming
    toward him.
  PAINTER. Good as the best. Promising is the very air o' th' time;
    it opens the eyes of expectation. Performance is ever the duller
    for his act, and but in the plainer and simpler kind of people
    the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most
    courtly and fashionable; performance is a kind of will or
    testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that
    makes it.

                    Enter TIMON from his cave

  TIMON. [Aside] Excellent workman! Thou canst not paint a man so bad
    as is thyself.
  POET. I am thinking what I shall say I have provided for him. It
    must be a personating of himself; a satire against the softness
    of prosperity, with a discovery of the infinite flatteries that
    follow youth and opulency.
  TIMON. [Aside] Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own
    work? Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? Do so, I have
    gold for thee.
  POET. Nay, let's seek him;
    Then do we sin against our own estate
    When we may profit meet and come too late.
  PAINTER. True;
    When the day serves, before black-corner'd night,
    Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light.
    Come.
  TIMON. [Aside] I'll meet you at the turn. What a god's gold,
    That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple
    Than where swine feed!
    'Tis thou that rig'st the bark and plough'st the foam,
    Settlest admired reverence in a slave.
    To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye
    Be crown'd with plagues, that thee alone obey!
    Fit I meet them.                   [Advancing from his cave]
  POET. Hail, worthy Timon!
  PAINTER. Our late noble master!
  TIMON. Have I once liv'd to see two honest men?
  POET. Sir,
    Having often of your open bounty tasted,
    Hearing you were retir'd, your friends fall'n off,
    Whose thankless natures- O abhorred spirits!-
    Not all the whips of heaven are large enough-
    What! to you,
    Whose star-like nobleness gave life and influence
    To their whole being! I am rapt, and cannot cover
    The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude
    With any size of words.
  TIMON. Let it go naked: men may see't the better.
    You that are honest, by being what you are,
    Make them best seen and known.
  PAINTER. He and myself
    Have travail'd in the great show'r of your gifts,
    And sweetly felt it.
  TIMON. Ay, you are honest men.
  PAINTER. We are hither come to offer you our service.
  TIMON. Most honest men! Why, how shall I requite you?
    Can you eat roots, and drink cold water- No?
  BOTH. What we can do, we'll do, to do you service.
  TIMON. Y'are honest men. Y'have heard that I have gold;
    I am sure you have. Speak truth; y'are honest men.
  PAINTER. So it is said, my noble lord; but therefore
    Came not my friend nor I.
  TIMON. Good honest men! Thou draw'st a counterfeit
    Best in all Athens. Th'art indeed the best;
    Thou counterfeit'st most lively.
  PAINTER. So, so, my lord.
  TIMON. E'en so, sir, as I say. [To To POET] And for thy fiction,
    Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth
    That thou art even natural in thine art.
    But for all this, my honest-natur'd friends,
    I must needs say you have a little fault.
    Marry, 'tis not monstrous in you; neither wish I
    You take much pains to mend.
  BOTH. Beseech your honour
    To make it known to us.
  TIMON. You'll take it ill.
  BOTH. Most thankfully, my lord.
  TIMON. Will you indeed?
  BOTH. Doubt it not, worthy lord.
  TIMON. There's never a one of you but trusts a knave
    That mightily deceives you.
  BOTH. Do we, my lord?
  TIMON. Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble,
    Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him,
    Keep in your bosom; yet remain assur'd
    That he's a made-up villain.
  PAINTER. I know not such, my lord.
  POET. Nor I.
  TIMON. Look you, I love you well; I'll give you gold,
    Rid me these villains from your companies.
    Hang them or stab them, drown them in a draught,
    Confound them by some course, and come to me,
    I'll give you gold enough.
  BOTH. Name them, my lord; let's know them.
  TIMON. You that way, and you this- but two in company;
    Each man apart, all single and alone,
    Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.
    [To the PAINTER] If, where thou art, two villians shall not be,
    Come not near him. [To the POET] If thou wouldst not reside
    But where one villain is, then him abandon.-
    Hence, pack! there's gold; you came for gold, ye slaves.
    [To the PAINTER] You have work for me; there's payment; hence!
    [To the POET] You are an alchemist; make gold of that.-
    Out, rascal dogs!                [Beats and drives them out]

                    Enter FLAVIUS and two SENATORS

  FLAVIUS. It is vain that you would speak with Timon;
    For he is set so only to himself
    That nothing but himself which looks like man
    Is friendly with him.
  FIRST SENATOR. Bring us to his cave.
    It is our part and promise to th' Athenians
    To speak with Timon.
  SECOND SENATOR. At all times alike
    Men are not still the same; 'twas time and griefs
    That fram'd him thus. Time, with his fairer hand,
    Offering the fortunes of his former days,
    The former man may make him. Bring us to him,
    And chance it as it may.
  FLAVIUS. Here is his cave.
    Peace and content be here! Lord Timon! Timon!
    Look out, and speak to friends. Th' Athenians
    By two of their most reverend Senate greet thee.
    Speak to them, noble Timon.

                   Enter TIMON out of his cave

  TIMON. Thou sun that comforts, burn. Speak and be hang'd!
    For each true word a blister, and each false
    Be as a cauterizing to the root o' th' tongue,
    Consuming it with speaking!
  FIRST SENATOR. Worthy Timon-
  TIMON. Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.
  FIRST SENATOR. The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.
  TIMON. I thank them; and would send them back the plague,
    Could I but catch it for them.
  FIRST SENATOR. O, forget
    What we are sorry for ourselves in thee.
    The senators with one consent of love
    Entreat thee back to Athens, who have thought
    On special dignities, which vacant lie
    For thy best use and wearing.
  SECOND SENATOR. They confess
    Toward thee forgetfulness too general, gross;
    Which now the public body, which doth seldom
    Play the recanter, feeling in itself
    A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal
    Of it own fail, restraining aid to Timon,
    And send forth us to make their sorrowed render,
    Together with a recompense more fruitful
    Than their offence can weigh down by the dram;
    Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth
    As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs
    And write in thee the figures of their love,
    Ever to read them thine.
  TIMON. You witch me in it;
    Surprise me to the very brink of tears.
    Lend me a fool's heart and a woman's eyes,
    And I'll beweep these comforts, worthy senators.
  FIRST SENATOR. Therefore so please thee to return with us,
    And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take
    The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,
    Allow'd with absolute power, and thy good name
    Live with authority. So soon we shall drive back
    Of Alcibiades th' approaches wild,
    Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up
    His country's peace.
  SECOND SENATOR. And shakes his threat'ning sword
    Against the walls of Athens.
  FIRST SENATOR. Therefore, Timon-
  TIMON. Well, sir, I will. Therefore I will, sir, thus:
    If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,
    Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,
    That Timon cares not. But if he sack fair Athens,
    And take our goodly aged men by th' beards,
    Giving our holy virgins to the stain
    Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brain'd war,
    Then let him know- and tell him Timon speaks it
    In pity of our aged and our youth-
    I cannot choose but tell him that I care not,
    And let him take't at worst; for their knives care not,
    While you have throats to answer. For myself,
    There's not a whittle in th' unruly camp
    But I do prize it at my love before
    The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you
    To the protection of the prosperous gods,
    As thieves to keepers.
  FLAVIUS. Stay not, all's in vain.
  TIMON. Why, I was writing of my epitaph;
    It will be seen to-morrow. My long sickness
    Of health and living now begins to mend,
    And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still;
    Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,
    And last so long enough!
  FIRST SENATOR. We speak in vain.
  TIMON. But yet I love my country, and am not
    One that rejoices in the common wreck,
    As common bruit doth put it.
  FIRST SENATOR. That's well spoke.
  TIMON. Commend me to my loving countrymen-
  FIRST SENATOR. These words become your lips as they pass through
    them.
  SECOND SENATOR. And enter in our ears like great triumphers
    In their applauding gates.
  TIMON. Commend me to them,
    And tell them that, to ease them of their griefs,
    Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses,
    Their pangs of love, with other incident throes
    That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain
    In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them-
    I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath.
  FIRST SENATOR. I like this well; he will return again.
  TIMON. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,
    That mine own use invites me to cut down,
    And shortly must I fell it. Tell my friends,
    Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree
    From high to low throughout, that whoso please
    To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
    Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
    And hang himself. I pray you do my greeting.
  FLAVIUS. Trouble him no further; thus you still shall find him.
  TIMON. Come not to me again; but say to Athens
    Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
    Upon the beached verge of the salt flood,
    Who once a day with his embossed froth
    The turbulent surge shall cover. Thither come,
    And let my gravestone be your oracle.
    Lips, let sour words go by and language end:
    What is amiss, plague and infection mend!
    Graves only be men's works and death their gain!
    Sun, hide thy beams. Timon hath done his reign.
                                        Exit TIMON into his cave
  FIRST SENATOR. His discontents are unremovably
    Coupled to nature.
  SECOND SENATOR. Our hope in him is dead. Let us return
    And strain what other means is left unto us
    In our dear peril.
  FIRST SENATOR. It requires swift foot.                  Exeunt

SCENE II. Before the walls of Athens

Enter two other SENATORS with a MESSENGER

  FIRST SENATOR. Thou hast painfully discover'd; are his files
    As full as thy report?
  MESSENGER. I have spoke the least.
    Besides, his expedition promises
    Present approach.
  SECOND SENATOR. We stand much hazard if they bring not Timon.
  MESSENGER. I met a courier, one mine ancient friend,
    Whom, though in general part we were oppos'd,
    Yet our old love had a particular force,
    And made us speak like friends. This man was riding
    From Alcibiades to Timon's cave
    With letters of entreaty, which imported
    His fellowship i' th' cause against your city,
    In part for his sake mov'd.

               Enter the other SENATORS, from TIMON

  FIRST SENATOR. Here come our brothers.
  THIRD SENATOR. No talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.
    The enemies' drum is heard, and fearful scouring
    Doth choke the air with dust. In, and prepare.
    Ours is the fall, I fear; our foes the snare.         Exeunt

SCENE III. The TIMON's cave, and a rude tomb seen

Enter a SOLDIER in the woods, seeking TIMON

  SOLDIER. By all description this should be the place.
    Who's here? Speak, ho! No answer? What is this?
    Timon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span.
    Some beast rear'd this; here does not live a man.
    Dead, sure; and this his grave. What's on this tomb
    I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax.
    Our captain hath in every figure skill,
    An ag'd interpreter, though young in days;
    Before proud Athens he's set down by this,
    Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.                 Exit

SCENE IV. Before the walls of Athens

Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES with his powers before Athens

  ALCIBIADES. Sound to this coward and lascivious town
    Our terrible approach.

       Sound a parley. The SENATORS appear upon the walls

    Till now you have gone on and fill'd the time
    With all licentious measure, making your wills
    The scope of justice; till now, myself, and such
    As slept within the shadow of your power,
    Have wander'd with our travers'd arms, and breath'd
    Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,
    When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
    Cries of itself 'No more!' Now breathless wrong
    Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,
    And pursy insolence shall break his wind
    With fear and horrid flight.
  FIRST SENATOR. Noble and young,
    When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
    Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,
    We sent to thee, to give thy rages balm,
    To wipe out our ingratitude with loves
    Above their quantity.
  SECOND SENATOR. So did we woo
    Transformed Timon to our city's love
    By humble message and by promis'd means.
    We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
    The common stroke of war.
  FIRST SENATOR. These walls of ours
    Were not erected by their hands from whom
    You have receiv'd your griefs; nor are they such
    That these great tow'rs, trophies, and schools, should fall
    For private faults in them.
  SECOND SENATOR. Nor are they living
    Who were the motives that you first went out;
    Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess
    Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,
    Into our city with thy banners spread.
    By decimation and a tithed death-
    If thy revenges hunger for that food
    Which nature loathes- take thou the destin'd tenth,
    And by the hazard of the spotted die
    Let die the spotted.
  FIRST SENATOR. All have not offended;
    For those that were, it is not square to take,
    On those that are, revenge: crimes, like lands,
    Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
    Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage;
    Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin
    Which, in the bluster of thy wrath, must fall
    With those that have offended. Like a shepherd
    Approach the fold and cull th' infected forth,
    But kill not all together.
  SECOND SENATOR. What thou wilt,
    Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile
    Than hew to't with thy sword.
  FIRST SENATOR. Set but thy foot
    Against our rampir'd gates and they shall ope,
    So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before
    To say thou't enter friendly.
  SECOND SENATOR. Throw thy glove,
    Or any token of thine honour else,
    That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress
    And not as our confusion, all thy powers
    Shall make their harbour in our town till we
    Have seal'd thy full desire.
  ALCIBIADES. Then there's my glove;
    Descend, and open your uncharged ports.
    Those enemies of Timon's and mine own,
    Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof,
    Fall, and no more. And, to atone your fears
    With my more noble meaning, not a man
    Shall pass his quarter or offend the stream
    Of regular justice in your city's bounds,
    But shall be render'd to your public laws
    At heaviest answer.
  BOTH. 'Tis most nobly spoken.
  ALCIBIADES. Descend, and keep your words.
                       [The SENATORS descend and open the gates]

                 Enter a SOLDIER as a Messenger

  SOLDIER. My noble General, Timon is dead;
    Entomb'd upon the very hem o' th' sea;
    And on his grave-stone this insculpture, which
    With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
    Interprets for my poor ignorance.

                  ALCIBIADES reads the Epitaph

    'Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft;
    Seek not my name. A plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!
    Here lie I, Timon, who alive all living men did hate.
    Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here thy
      gait.'
    These well express in thee thy latter spirits.
    Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,
    Scorn'dst our brain's flow, and those our droplets which
    From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
    Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
    On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
    Is noble Timon, of whose memory
    Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,
    And I will use the olive, with my sword;
    Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each
    Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.
    Let our drums strike.                                 Exeunt

THE END

1594



THE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS

Dramatis Personae

  SATURNINUS, son to the late Emperor of Rome, afterwards Emperor
  BASSIANUS, brother to Saturninus
  TITUS ANDRONICUS, a noble Roman
  MARCUS ANDRONICUS, Tribune of the People, and brother to Titus

    Sons to Titus Andronicus:
  LUCIUS
  QUINTUS
  MARTIUS
  MUTIUS

  YOUNG LUCIUS, a boy, son to Lucius
  PUBLIUS, son to Marcus Andronicus

    Kinsmen to Titus:
  SEMPRONIUS
  CAIUS
  VALENTINE

  AEMILIUS, a noble Roman

    Sons to Tamora:
  ALARBUS
  DEMETRIUS
  CHIRON

  AARON, a Moor, beloved by Tamora
  A CAPTAIN
  A MESSENGER
  A CLOWN

  TAMORA, Queen of the Goths
  LAVINIA, daughter to Titus Andronicus
  A NURSE, and a black CHILD

  Romans and Goths, Senators, Tribunes, Officers, Soldiers, and
    Attendants

                          SCENE: Rome and the neighbourhood

ACT 1. SCENE I. Rome. Before the Capitol

Flourish. Enter the TRIBUNES and SENATORS aloft; and then enter below
SATURNINUS and his followers at one door, and BASSIANUS and his
followers at the other, with drums and trumpets

  SATURNINUS. Noble patricians, patrons of my right,
    Defend the justice of my cause with arms;
    And, countrymen, my loving followers,
    Plead my successive title with your swords.
    I am his first born son that was the last
    That ware the imperial diadem of Rome;
    Then let my father's honours live in me,
    Nor wrong mine age with this indignity.
  BASSIANUS. Romans, friends, followers, favourers of my right,
    If ever Bassianus, Caesar's son,
    Were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome,
    Keep then this passage to the Capitol;
    And suffer not dishonour to approach
    The imperial seat, to virtue consecrate,
    To justice, continence, and nobility;
    But let desert in pure election shine;
    And, Romans, fight for freedom in your choice.

        Enter MARCUS ANDRONICUS aloft, with the crown

  MARCUS. Princes, that strive by factions and by friends
    Ambitiously for rule and empery,
    Know that the people of Rome, for whom we stand
    A special party, have by common voice
    In election for the Roman empery
    Chosen Andronicus, surnamed Pius
    For many good and great deserts to Rome.
    A nobler man, a braver warrior,
    Lives not this day within the city walls.
    He by the Senate is accited home,
    From weary wars against the barbarous Goths,
    That with his sons, a terror to our foes,
    Hath yok'd a nation strong, train'd up in arms.
    Ten years are spent since first he undertook
    This cause of Rome, and chastised with arms
    Our enemies' pride; five times he hath return'd
    Bleeding to Rome, bearing his valiant sons
    In coffins from the field; and at this day
    To the monument of that Andronici
    Done sacrifice of expiation,
    And slain the noblest prisoner of the Goths.
    And now at last, laden with honour's spoils,
    Returns the good Andronicus to Rome,
    Renowned Titus, flourishing in arms.
    Let us entreat, by honour of his name
    Whom worthily you would have now succeed,
    And in the Capitol and Senate's right,
    Whom you pretend to honour and adore,
    That you withdraw you and abate your strength,
    Dismiss your followers, and, as suitors should,
    Plead your deserts in peace and humbleness.
  SATURNINUS. How fair the Tribune speaks to calm my thoughts.
  BASSIANUS. Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy
    In thy uprightness and integrity,
    And so I love and honour thee and thine,
    Thy noble brother Titus and his sons,
    And her to whom my thoughts are humbled all,
    Gracious Lavinia, Rome's rich ornament,
    That I will here dismiss my loving friends,
    And to my fortunes and the people's favour
    Commit my cause in balance to be weigh'd.
                                Exeunt the soldiers of BASSIANUS
  SATURNINUS. Friends, that have been thus forward in my right,
    I thank you all and here dismiss you all,
    And to the love and favour of my country
    Commit myself, my person, and the cause.
                               Exeunt the soldiers of SATURNINUS
    Rome, be as just and gracious unto me
    As I am confident and kind to thee.
    Open the gates and let me in.
  BASSIANUS. Tribunes, and me, a poor competitor.
                    [Flourish. They go up into the Senate House]

                      Enter a CAPTAIN

  CAPTAIN. Romans, make way. The good Andronicus,
    Patron of virtue, Rome's best champion,
    Successful in the battles that he fights,
    With honour and with fortune is return'd
    From where he circumscribed with his sword
    And brought to yoke the enemies of Rome.

        Sound drums and trumpets, and then enter MARTIUS and MUTIUS,
        two of TITUS' sons; and then two men bearing a coffin covered
        with black; then LUCIUS and QUINTUS, two other sons; then TITUS
        ANDRONICUS; and then TAMORA the Queen of Goths, with her three
        sons, ALARBUS, DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON, with AARON the Moor, and
        others,  as many as can be. Then set down the coffin and TITUS
        speaks

  TITUS. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds!
    Lo, as the bark that hath discharg'd her fraught
    Returns with precious lading to the bay
    From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage,
    Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,
    To re-salute his country with his tears,
    Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.
    Thou great defender of this Capitol,
    Stand gracious to the rites that we intend!
    Romans, of five and twenty valiant sons,
    Half of the number that King Priam had,
    Behold the poor remains, alive and dead!
    These that survive let Rome reward with love;
    These that I bring unto their latest home,
    With burial amongst their ancestors.
    Here Goths have given me leave to sheathe my sword.
    Titus, unkind, and careless of thine own,
    Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet,
    To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?
    Make way to lay them by their brethren.
                                            [They open the tomb]
    There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,
    And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars.
    O sacred receptacle of my joys,
    Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,
    How many sons hast thou of mine in store
    That thou wilt never render to me more!
  LUCIUS. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,
    That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile
    Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh
    Before this earthy prison of their bones,
    That so the shadows be not unappeas'd,
    Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth.
  TITUS. I give him you- the noblest that survives,
    The eldest son of this distressed queen.
  TAMORA. Stay, Roman brethen! Gracious conqueror,
    Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,
    A mother's tears in passion for her son;
    And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,
    O, think my son to be as dear to me!
    Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome
    To beautify thy triumphs, and return
    Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke;
    But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets
    For valiant doings in their country's cause?
    O, if to fight for king and commonweal
    Were piety in thine, it is in these.
    Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.
    Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
    Draw near them then in being merciful.
    Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
    Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son.
  TITUS. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.
    These are their brethren, whom your Goths beheld
    Alive and dead; and for their brethren slain
    Religiously they ask a sacrifice.
    To this your son is mark'd, and die he must
    T' appease their groaning shadows that are gone.
  LUCIUS. Away with him, and make a fire straight;
    And with our swords, upon a pile of wood,
    Let's hew his limbs till they be clean consum'd.
                                Exeunt TITUS' SONS, with ALARBUS
  TAMORA. O cruel, irreligious piety!
  CHIRON. Was never Scythia half so barbarous!
  DEMETRIUS. Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome.
    Alarbus goes to rest, and we survive
    To tremble under Titus' threat'ning look.
    Then, madam, stand resolv'd, but hope withal
    The self-same gods that arm'd the Queen of Troy
    With opportunity of sharp revenge
    Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent
    May favour Tamora, the Queen of Goths-
    When Goths were Goths and Tamora was queen-
    To quit the bloody wrongs upon her foes.

            Re-enter LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and
   MUTIUS, the sons of ANDRONICUS, with their swords bloody

  LUCIUS. See, lord and father, how we have perform'd
    Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd,
    And entrails feed the sacrificing fire,
    Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky.
    Remaineth nought but to inter our brethren,
    And with loud 'larums welcome them to Rome.
  TITUS. Let it be so, and let Andronicus
    Make this his latest farewell to their souls.
                 [Sound trumpets and lay the coffin in the tomb]
    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons;
    Rome's readiest champions, repose you here in rest,
    Secure from worldly chances and mishaps!
    Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
    Here grow no damned drugs, here are no storms,
    No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.
    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons!

                       Enter LAVINIA

  LAVINIA. In peace and honour live Lord Titus long;
    My noble lord and father, live in fame!
    Lo, at this tomb my tributary tears
    I render for my brethren's obsequies;
    And at thy feet I kneel, with tears of joy
    Shed on this earth for thy return to Rome.
    O, bless me here with thy victorious hand,
    Whose fortunes Rome's best citizens applaud!
  TITUS. Kind Rome, that hast thus lovingly reserv'd
    The cordial of mine age to glad my heart!
    Lavinia, live; outlive thy father's days,
    And fame's eternal date, for virtue's praise!

          Enter, above, MARCUS ANDRONICUS and TRIBUNES;
          re-enter SATURNINUS, BASSIANUS, and attendants

  MARCUS. Long live Lord Titus, my beloved brother,
    Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome!
  TITUS. Thanks, gentle Tribune, noble brother Marcus.
  MARCUS. And welcome, nephews, from successful wars,
    You that survive and you that sleep in fame.
    Fair lords, your fortunes are alike in all
    That in your country's service drew your swords;
    But safer triumph is this funeral pomp
    That hath aspir'd to Solon's happiness
    And triumphs over chance in honour's bed.
    Titus Andronicus, the people of Rome,
    Whose friend in justice thou hast ever been,
    Send thee by me, their Tribune and their trust,
    This par]iament of white and spotless hue;
    And name thee in election for the empire
    With these our late-deceased Emperor's sons:
    Be candidatus then, and put it on,
    And help to set a head on headless Rome.
  TITUS. A better head her glorious body fits
    Than his that shakes for age and feebleness.
    What should I don this robe and trouble you?
    Be chosen with proclamations to-day,
    To-morrow yield up rule, resign my life,
    And set abroad new business for you all?
    Rome, I have been thy soldier forty years,
    And led my country's strength successfully,
    And buried one and twenty valiant sons,
    Knighted in field, slain manfully in arms,
    In right and service of their noble country.
    Give me a staff of honour for mine age,
    But not a sceptre to control the world.
    Upright he held it, lords, that held it last.
  MARCUS. Titus, thou shalt obtain and ask the empery.
  SATURNINUS. Proud and ambitious Tribune, canst thou tell?
  TITUS. Patience, Prince Saturninus.
  SATURNINUS. Romans, do me right.
    Patricians, draw your swords, and sheathe them not
    Till Saturninus be Rome's Emperor.
    Andronicus, would thou were shipp'd to hell
    Rather than rob me of the people's hearts!
  LUCIUS. Proud Saturnine, interrupter of the good
    That noble-minded Titus means to thee!
  TITUS. Content thee, Prince; I will restore to thee
    The people's hearts, and wean them from themselves.
  BASSIANUS. Andronicus, I do not flatter thee,
    But honour thee, and will do till I die.
    My faction if thou strengthen with thy friends,
    I will most thankful be; and thanks to men
    Of noble minds is honourable meed.
  TITUS. People of Rome, and people's Tribunes here,
    I ask your voices and your suffrages:
    Will ye bestow them friendly on Andronicus?
  TRIBUNES. To gratify the good Andronicus,
    And gratulate his safe return to Rome,
    The people will accept whom he admits.
  TITUS. Tribunes, I thank you; and this suit I make,
    That you create our Emperor's eldest son,
    Lord Saturnine; whose virtues will, I hope,
    Reflect on Rome as Titan's rays on earth,
    And ripen justice in this commonweal.
    Then, if you will elect by my advice,
    Crown him, and say 'Long live our Emperor!'
  MARCUS. With voices and applause of every sort,
    Patricians and plebeians, we create
    Lord Saturninus Rome's great Emperor;
    And say 'Long live our Emperor Saturnine!'
                           [A long flourish till they come down]
  SATURNINUS. Titus Andronicus, for thy favours done
    To us in our election this day
    I give thee thanks in part of thy deserts,
    And will with deeds requite thy gentleness;
    And for an onset, Titus, to advance
    Thy name and honourable family,
    Lavinia will I make my emperess,
    Rome's royal mistress, mistress of my heart,
    And in the sacred Pantheon her espouse.
    Tell me, Andronicus, doth this motion please thee?
  TITUS. It doth, my worthy lord, and in this match
    I hold me highly honoured of your Grace,
    And here in sight of Rome, to Saturnine,
    King and commander of our commonweal,
    The wide world's Emperor, do I consecrate
    My sword, my chariot, and my prisoners,
    Presents well worthy Rome's imperious lord;
    Receive them then, the tribute that I owe,
    Mine honour's ensigns humbled at thy feet.
  SATURNINUS. Thanks, noble Titus, father of my life.
    How proud I am of thee and of thy gifts
    Rome shall record; and when I do forget
    The least of these unspeakable deserts,
    Romans, forget your fealty to me.
  TITUS.  [To TAMORA]  Now, madam, are you prisoner to an emperor;
    To him that for your honour and your state
    Will use you nobly and your followers.
  SATURNINUS.  [Aside]  A goodly lady, trust me; of the hue
    That I would choose, were I to choose anew.-
    Clear up, fair Queen, that cloudy countenance;
    Though chance of war hath wrought this change of cheer,
    Thou com'st not to be made a scorn in Rome-
    Princely shall be thy usage every way.
    Rest on my word, and let not discontent
    Daunt all your hopes. Madam, he comforts you
    Can make you greater than the Queen of Goths.
    Lavinia, you are not displeas'd with this?
  LAVINIA. Not I, my lord, sith true nobility
    Warrants these words in princely courtesy.
  SATURNINUS. Thanks, sweet Lavinia. Romans, let us go.
    Ransomless here we set our prisoners free.
    Proclaim our honours, lords, with trump and drum.
                                                      [Flourish]
  BASSIANUS. Lord Titus, by your leave, this maid is mine.
                                               [Seizing LAVINIA]
  TITUS. How, sir! Are you in earnest then, my lord?
  BASSIANUS. Ay, noble Titus, and resolv'd withal
    To do myself this reason and this right.
  MARCUS. Suum cuique is our Roman justice:
    This prince in justice seizeth but his own.
  LUCIUS. And that he will and shall, if Lucius live.
  TITUS. Traitors, avaunt! Where is the Emperor's guard?
    Treason, my lord- Lavinia is surpris'd!
  SATURNINUS. Surpris'd! By whom?
  BASSIANUS. By him that justly may
    Bear his betroth'd from all the world away.
                        Exeunt BASSIANUS and MARCUS with LAVINIA
  MUTIUS. Brothers, help to convey her hence away,
    And with my sword I'll keep this door safe.
                             Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS
  TITUS. Follow, my lord, and I'll soon bring her back.
  MUTIUS. My lord, you pass not here.
  TITUS. What, villain boy!
    Bar'st me my way in Rome?
  MUTIUS. Help, Lucius, help!
            TITUS kills him. During the fray, exeunt SATURNINUS,
                            TAMORA, DEMETRIUS, CHIRON, and AARON

                      Re-enter Lucius

  LUCIUS. My lord, you are unjust, and more than so:
    In wrongful quarrel you have slain your son.
  TITUS. Nor thou nor he are any sons of mine;
    My sons would never so dishonour me.

                 Re-enter aloft the EMPEROR
      with TAMORA and her two Sons, and AARON the Moor

    Traitor, restore Lavinia to the Emperor.
  LUCIUS. Dead, if you will; but not to be his wife,
    That is another's lawful promis'd love.                 Exit
  SATURNINUS. No, Titus, no; the Emperor needs her not,
    Nor her, nor thee, nor any of thy stock.
    I'll trust by leisure him that mocks me once;
    Thee never, nor thy traitorous haughty sons,
    Confederates all thus to dishonour me.
    Was there none else in Rome to make a stale
    But Saturnine? Full well, Andronicus,
    Agree these deeds with that proud brag of thine
    That saidst I begg'd the empire at thy hands.
  TITUS. O monstrous! What reproachful words are these?
  SATURNINUS. But go thy ways; go, give that changing piece
    To him that flourish'd for her with his sword.
    A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy;
    One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons,
    To ruffle in the commonwealth of Rome.
  TITUS. These words are razors to my wounded heart.
  SATURNINUS. And therefore, lovely Tamora, Queen of Goths,
    That, like the stately Phoebe 'mongst her nymphs,
    Dost overshine the gallant'st dames of Rome,
    If thou be pleas'd with this my sudden choice,
    Behold, I choose thee, Tamora, for my bride
    And will create thee Emperess of Rome.
    Speak, Queen of Goths, dost thou applaud my choice?
    And here I swear by all the Roman gods-
    Sith priest and holy water are so near,
    And tapers burn so bright, and everything
    In readiness for Hymenaeus stand-
    I will not re-salute the streets of Rome,
    Or climb my palace, till from forth this place
    I lead espous'd my bride along with me.
  TAMORA. And here in sight of heaven to Rome I swear,
    If Saturnine advance the Queen of Goths,
    She will a handmaid be to his desires,
    A loving nurse, a mother to his youth.
  SATURNINUS. Ascend, fair Queen, Pantheon. Lords, accompany
    Your noble Emperor and his lovely bride,
    Sent by the heavens for Prince Saturnine,
    Whose wisdom hath her fortune conquered;
    There shall we consummate our spousal rites.
                                            Exeunt all but TITUS
  TITUS. I am not bid to wait upon this bride.
  TITUS, when wert thou wont to walk alone,
    Dishonoured thus, and challenged of wrongs?

                      Re-enter MARCUS,
        and TITUS' SONS, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS

  MARCUS. O Titus, see, O, see what thou hast done!
    In a bad quarrel slain a virtuous son.
  TITUS. No, foolish Tribune, no; no son of mine-
    Nor thou, nor these, confederates in the deed
    That hath dishonoured all our family;
    Unworthy brother and unworthy sons!
  LUCIUS. But let us give him burial, as becomes;
    Give Mutius burial with our bretheren.
  TITUS. Traitors, away! He rests not in this tomb.
    This monument five hundred years hath stood,
    Which I have sumptuously re-edified;
    Here none but soldiers and Rome's servitors
    Repose in fame; none basely slain in brawls.
    Bury him where you can, he comes not here.
  MARCUS. My lord, this is impiety in you.
    My nephew Mutius' deeds do plead for him;
    He must be buried with his bretheren.
  QUINTUS & MARTIUS. And shall, or him we will accompany.
  TITUS. 'And shall!' What villain was it spake that word?
  QUINTUS. He that would vouch it in any place but here.
  TITUS. What, would you bury him in my despite?
  MARCUS. No, noble Titus, but entreat of thee
    To pardon Mutius and to bury him.
  TITUS. Marcus, even thou hast struck upon my crest,
    And with these boys mine honour thou hast wounded.
    My foes I do repute you every one;
    So trouble me no more, but get you gone.
  MARTIUS. He is not with himself; let us withdraw.
  QUINTUS. Not I, till Mutius' bones be buried.
                                [The BROTHER and the SONS kneel]
  MARCUS. Brother, for in that name doth nature plead-
  QUINTUS. Father, and in that name doth nature speak-
  TITUS. Speak thou no more, if all the rest will speed.
  MARCUS. Renowned Titus, more than half my soul-
  LUCIUS. Dear father, soul and substance of us all-
  MARCUS. Suffer thy brother Marcus to inter
    His noble nephew here in virtue's nest,
    That died in honour and Lavinia's cause.
    Thou art a Roman- be not barbarous.
    The Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax,
    That slew himself; and wise Laertes' son
    Did graciously plead for his funerals.
    Let not young Mutius, then, that was thy joy,
    Be barr'd his entrance here.
  TITUS. Rise, Marcus, rise;
    The dismal'st day is this that e'er I saw,
    To be dishonoured by my sons in Rome!
    Well, bury him, and bury me the next.
                                   [They put MUTIUS in the tomb]
  LUCIUS. There lie thy bones, sweet Mutius, with thy friends,
    Till we with trophies do adorn thy tomb.
  ALL.  [Kneeling]  No man shed tears for noble Mutius;
    He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.
  MARCUS. My lord- to step out of these dreary dumps-
    How comes it that the subtle Queen of Goths
    Is of a sudden thus advanc'd in Rome?
  TITUS. I know not, Marcus, but I know it is-
    Whether by device or no, the heavens can tell.
    Is she not, then, beholding to the man
    That brought her for this high good turn so far?
  MARCUS. Yes, and will nobly him remunerate.

           Flourish. Re-enter the EMPEROR, TAMORA
        and her two SONS, with the MOOR, at one door;
    at the other door, BASSIANUS and LAVINIA, with others

  SATURNINUS. So, Bassianus, you have play'd your prize:
    God give you joy, sir, of your gallant bride!
  BASSIANUS. And you of yours, my lord! I say no more,
    Nor wish no less; and so I take my leave.
  SATURNINUS. Traitor, if Rome have law or we have power,
    Thou and thy faction shall repent this rape.
  BASSIANUS. Rape, call you it, my lord, to seize my own,
    My true betrothed love, and now my wife?
    But let the laws of Rome determine all;
    Meanwhile am I possess'd of that is mine.
  SATURNINUS. 'Tis good, sir. You are very short with us;
    But if we live we'll be as sharp with you.
  BASSIANUS. My lord, what I have done, as best I may,
    Answer I must, and shall do with my life.
    Only thus much I give your Grace to know:
    By all the duties that I owe to Rome,
    This noble gentleman, Lord Titus here,
    Is in opinion and in honour wrong'd,
    That, in the rescue of Lavinia,
    With his own hand did slay his youngest son,
    In zeal to you, and highly mov'd to wrath
    To be controll'd in that he frankly gave.
    Receive him then to favour, Saturnine,
    That hath express'd himself in all his deeds
    A father and a friend to thee and Rome.
  TITUS. Prince Bassianus, leave to plead my deeds.
    'Tis thou and those that have dishonoured me.
    Rome and the righteous heavens be my judge
    How I have lov'd and honoured Saturnine!
  TAMORA. My worthy lord, if ever Tamora
    Were gracious in those princely eyes of thine,
    Then hear me speak indifferently for all;
    And at my suit, sweet, pardon what is past.
  SATURNINUS. What, madam! be dishonoured openly,
    And basely put it up without revenge?
  TAMORA. Not so, my lord; the gods of Rome forfend
    I should be author to dishonour you!
    But on mine honour dare I undertake
    For good Lord Titus' innocence in all,
    Whose fury not dissembled speaks his griefs.
    Then at my suit look graciously on him;
    Lose not so noble a friend on vain suppose,
    Nor with sour looks afflict his gentle heart.
    [Aside to SATURNINUS]  My lord, be rul'd by me,
      be won at last;
    Dissemble all your griefs and discontents.
    You are but newly planted in your throne;
    Lest, then, the people, and patricians too,
    Upon a just survey take Titus' part,
    And so supplant you for ingratitude,
    Which Rome reputes to be a heinous sin,
    Yield at entreats, and then let me alone:
    I'll find a day to massacre them all,
    And raze their faction and their family,
    The cruel father and his traitorous sons,
    To whom I sued for my dear son's life;
    And make them know what 'tis to let a queen
    Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.-
    Come, come, sweet Emperor; come, Andronicus.
    Take up this good old man, and cheer the heart
    That dies in tempest of thy angry frown.
  SATURNINUS. Rise, Titus, rise; my Empress hath prevail'd.
  TITUS. I thank your Majesty and her, my lord;
    These words, these looks, infuse new life in me.
  TAMORA. Titus, I am incorporate in Rome,
    A Roman now adopted happily,
    And must advise the Emperor for his good.
    This day all quarrels die, Andronicus;
    And let it be mine honour, good my lord,
    That I have reconcil'd your friends and you.
    For you, Prince Bassianus, I have pass'd
    My word and promise to the Emperor
    That you will be more mild and tractable.
    And fear not, lords- and you, Lavinia.
    By my advice, all humbled on your knees,
    You shall ask pardon of his Majesty.
  LUCIUS. We do, and vow to heaven and to his Highness
    That what we did was mildly as we might,
    Tend'ring our sister's honour and our own.
  MARCUS. That on mine honour here do I protest.
  SATURNINUS. Away, and talk not; trouble us no more.
  TAMORA. Nay, nay, sweet Emperor, we must all be friends.
    The Tribune and his nephews kneel for grace.
    I will not be denied. Sweet heart, look back.
  SATURNINUS. Marcus, for thy sake, and thy brother's here,
    And at my lovely Tamora's entreats,
    I do remit these young men's heinous faults.
    Stand up.
    Lavinia, though you left me like a churl,
    I found a friend; and sure as death I swore
    I would not part a bachelor from the priest.
    Come, if the Emperor's court can feast two brides,
    You are my guest, Lavinia, and your friends.
    This day shall be a love-day, Tamora.
  TITUS. To-morrow, and it please your Majesty
    To hunt the panther and the hart with me,
    With horn and hound we'll give your Grace bonjour.
  SATURNINUS. Be it so, Titus, and gramercy too.
                                          Exeunt. Sound trumpets

ACT II. SCENE I. Rome. Before the palace

Enter AARON

  AARON. Now climbeth Tamora Olympus' top,
    Safe out of Fortune's shot, and sits aloft,
    Secure of thunder's crack or lightning flash,
    Advanc'd above pale envy's threat'ning reach.
    As when the golden sun salutes the morn,
    And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,
    Gallops the zodiac in his glistening coach
    And overlooks the highest-peering hills,
    So Tamora.
    Upon her wit doth earthly honour wait,
    And virtue stoops and trembles at her frown.
    Then, Aaron, arm thy heart and fit thy thoughts
    To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress,
    And mount her pitch whom thou in triumph long.
    Hast prisoner held, fett'red in amorous chains,
    And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes
    Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.
    Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts!
    I will be bright and shine in pearl and gold,
    To wait upon this new-made emperess.
    To wait, said I? To wanton with this queen,
    This goddess, this Semiramis, this nymph,
    This siren that will charm Rome's Saturnine,
    And see his shipwreck and his commonweal's.
    Hullo! what storm is this?

            Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS, braving

  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, thy years wants wit, thy wits wants edge
    And manners, to intrude where I am grac'd,
    And may, for aught thou knowest, affected be.
  CHIRON. Demetrius, thou dost over-ween in all;
    And so in this, to bear me down with braves.
    'Tis not the difference of a year or two
    Makes me less gracious or thee more fortunate:
    I am as able and as fit as thou
    To serve and to deserve my mistress' grace;
    And that my sword upon thee shall approve,
    And plead my passions for Lavinia's love.
  AARON.  [Aside]  Clubs, clubs! These lovers will not keep the
    peace.
  DEMETRIUS. Why, boy, although our mother, unadvis'd,
    Gave you a dancing rapier by your side,
    Are you so desperate grown to threat your friends?
    Go to; have your lath glued within your sheath
    Till you know better how to handle it.
  CHIRON. Meanwhile, sir, with the little skill I have,
    Full well shalt thou perceive how much I dare.
  DEMETRIUS. Ay, boy, grow ye so brave?              [They draw]
  AARON.  [Coming forward]  Why, how now, lords!
    So near the Emperor's palace dare ye draw
    And maintain such a quarrel openly?
    Full well I wot the ground of all this grudge:
    I would not for a million of gold
    The cause were known to them it most concerns;
    Nor would your noble mother for much more
    Be so dishonoured in the court of Rome.
    For shame, put up.
  DEMETRIUS. Not I, till I have sheath'd
    My rapier in his bosom, and withal
    Thrust those reproachful speeches down his throat
    That he hath breath'd in my dishonour here.
  CHIRON. For that I am prepar'd and full resolv'd,
    Foul-spoken coward, that thund'rest with thy tongue,
    And with thy weapon nothing dar'st perform.
  AARON. Away, I say!
    Now, by the gods that warlike Goths adore,
    This pretty brabble will undo us all.
    Why, lords, and think you not how dangerous
    It is to jet upon a prince's right?
    What, is Lavinia then become so loose,
    Or Bassianus so degenerate,
    That for her love such quarrels may be broach'd
    Without controlment, justice, or revenge?
    Young lords, beware; an should the Empress know
    This discord's ground, the music would not please.
  CHIRON. I care not, I, knew she and all the world:
    I love Lavinia more than all the world.
  DEMETRIUS. Youngling, learn thou to make some meaner choice:
    Lavina is thine elder brother's hope.
  AARON. Why, are ye mad, or know ye not in Rome
    How furious and impatient they be,
    And cannot brook competitors in love?
    I tell you, lords, you do but plot your deaths
    By this device.
  CHIRON. Aaron, a thousand deaths
    Would I propose to achieve her whom I love.
  AARON. To achieve her- how?
  DEMETRIUS. Why mak'st thou it so strange?
    She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;
    She is a woman, therefore may be won;
    She is Lavinia, therefore must be lov'd.
    What, man! more water glideth by the mill
    Than wots the miller of; and easy it is
    Of a cut loaf to steal a shive, we know.
    Though Bassianus be the Emperor's brother,
    Better than he have worn Vulcan's badge.
  AARON.  [Aside]  Ay, and as good as Saturninus may.
  DEMETRIUS. Then why should he despair that knows to court it
    With words, fair looks, and liberality?
    What, hast not thou full often struck a doe,
    And borne her cleanly by the keeper's nose?
  AARON. Why, then, it seems some certain snatch or so
    Would serve your turns.
  CHIRON. Ay, so the turn were served.
  DEMETRIUS. Aaron, thou hast hit it.
  AARON. Would you had hit it too!
    Then should not we be tir'd with this ado.
    Why, hark ye, hark ye! and are you such fools
    To square for this? Would it offend you, then,
    That both should speed?
  CHIRON. Faith, not me.
  DEMETRIUS. Nor me, so I were one.
  AARON. For shame, be friends, and join for that you jar.
    'Tis policy and stratagem must do
    That you affect; and so must you resolve
    That what you cannot as you would achieve,
    You must perforce accomplish as you may.
    Take this of me: Lucrece was not more chaste
    Than this Lavinia, Bassianus' love.
    A speedier course than ling'ring languishment
    Must we pursue, and I have found the path.
    My lords, a solemn hunting is in hand;
    There will the lovely Roman ladies troop;
    The forest walks are wide and spacious,
    And many unfrequented plots there are
    Fitted by kind for rape and villainy.
    Single you thither then this dainty doe,
    And strike her home by force if not by words.
    This way, or not at all, stand you in hope.
    Come, come, our Empress, with her sacred wit
    To villainy and vengeance consecrate,
    Will we acquaint with all what we intend;
    And she shall file our engines with advice
    That will not suffer you to square yourselves,
    But to your wishes' height advance you both.
    The Emperor's court is like the house of Fame,
    The palace full of tongues, of eyes, and ears;
    The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull.
    There speak and strike, brave boys, and take your turns;
    There serve your lust, shadowed from heaven's eye,
    And revel in Lavinia's treasury.
  CHIRON. Thy counsel, lad, smells of no cowardice.
  DEMETRIUS. Sit fas aut nefas, till I find the stream
    To cool this heat, a charm to calm these fits,
    Per Styga, per manes vehor.                           Exeunt

SCENE II. A forest near Rome

Enter TITUS ANDRONICUS, and his three sons, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS,
making a noise with hounds and horns; and MARCUS

  TITUS. The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey,
    The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green.
    Uncouple here, and let us make a bay,
    And wake the Emperor and his lovely bride,
    And rouse the Prince, and ring a hunter's peal,
    That all the court may echo with the noise.
    Sons, let it be your charge, as it is ours,
    To attend the Emperor's person carefully.
    I have been troubled in my sleep this night,
    But dawning day new comfort hath inspir'd.

         Here a cry of hounds, and wind horns in a peal.
       Then enter SATURNINUS, TAMORA, BASSIANUS LAVINIA,
            CHIRON, DEMETRIUS, and their attendants
    Many good morrows to your Majesty!
    Madam, to you as many and as good!
    I promised your Grace a hunter's peal.
  SATURNINUS. And you have rung it lustily, my lords-
    Somewhat too early for new-married ladies.
  BASSIANUS. Lavinia, how say you?
  LAVINIA. I say no;
    I have been broad awake two hours and more.
  SATURNINUS. Come on then, horse and chariots let us have,
    And to our sport.  [To TAMORA]  Madam, now shall ye see
    Our Roman hunting.
  MARCUS. I have dogs, my lord,
    Will rouse the proudest panther in the chase,
    And climb the highest promontory top.
  TITUS. And I have horse will follow where the game
    Makes way, and run like swallows o'er the plain.
  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, we hunt not, we, with horse nor hound,
    But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground.             Exeunt

SCENE III. A lonely part of the forest

Enter AARON alone, with a bag of gold

  AARON. He that had wit would think that I had none,
    To bury so much gold under a tree
    And never after to inherit it.
    Let him that thinks of me so abjectly
    Know that this gold must coin a stratagem,
    Which, cunningly effected, will beget
    A very excellent piece of villainy.
    And so repose, sweet gold, for their unrest
                                                [Hides the gold]
    That have their alms out of the Empress' chest.

               Enter TAMORA alone, to the Moor

  TAMORA. My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou sad
    When everything does make a gleeful boast?
    The birds chant melody on every bush;
    The snakes lie rolled in the cheerful sun;
    The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind
    And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground;
    Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,
    And while the babbling echo mocks the hounds,
    Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns,
    As if a double hunt were heard at once,
    Let us sit down and mark their yellowing noise;
    And- after conflict such as was suppos'd
    The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoyed,
    When with a happy storm they were surpris'd,
    And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave-
    We may, each wreathed in the other's arms,
    Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber,
    Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds
    Be unto us as is a nurse's song
    Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep.
  AARON. Madam, though Venus govern your desires,
    Saturn is dominator over mine.
    What signifies my deadly-standing eye,
    My silence and my cloudy melancholy,
    My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls
    Even as an adder when she doth unroll
    To do some fatal execution?
    No, madam, these are no venereal signs.
    Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,
    Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.
    Hark, Tamora, the empress of my soul,
    Which never hopes more heaven than rests in thee-
    This is the day of doom for Bassianus;
    His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day,
    Thy sons make pillage of her chastity,
    And wash their hands in Bassianus' blood.
    Seest thou this letter? Take it up, I pray thee,
    And give the King this fatal-plotted scroll.
    Now question me no more; we are espied.
    Here comes a parcel of our hopeful booty,
    Which dreads not yet their lives' destruction.

                Enter BASSIANUS and LAVINIA

  TAMORA. Ah, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life!
  AARON. No more, great Empress: Bassianus comes.
    Be cross with him; and I'll go fetch thy sons
    To back thy quarrels, whatsoe'er they be.               Exit
  BASSIANUS. Who have we here? Rome's royal Emperess,
    Unfurnish'd of her well-beseeming troop?
    Or is it Dian, habited like her,
    Who hath abandoned her holy groves
    To see the general hunting in this forest?
  TAMORA. Saucy controller of my private steps!
    Had I the pow'r that some say Dian had,
    Thy temples should be planted presently
    With horns, as was Actaeon's; and the hounds
    Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,
    Unmannerly intruder as thou art!
  LAVINIA. Under your patience, gentle Emperess,
    'Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning,
    And to be doubted that your Moor and you
    Are singled forth to try thy experiments.
    Jove shield your husband from his hounds to-day!
    'Tis pity they should take him for a stag.
  BASSIANUS. Believe me, Queen, your swarth Cimmerian
    Doth make your honour of his body's hue,
    Spotted, detested, and abominable.
    Why are you sequest'red from all your train,
    Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed,
    And wand'red hither to an obscure plot,
    Accompanied but with a barbarous Moor,
    If foul desire had not conducted you?
  LAVINIA. And, being intercepted in your sport,
    Great reason that my noble lord be rated
    For sauciness. I pray you let us hence,
    And let her joy her raven-coloured love;
    This valley fits the purpose passing well.
  BASSIANUS. The King my brother shall have notice of this.
  LAVINIA. Ay, for these slips have made him noted long.
    Good king, to be so mightily abused!
  TAMORA. Why, I have patience to endure all this.

                  Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS

  DEMETRIUS. How now, dear sovereign, and our gracious mother!
    Why doth your Highness look so pale and wan?
  TAMORA. Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?
    These two have 'ticed me hither to this place.
    A barren detested vale you see it is:
    The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
    Overcome with moss and baleful mistletoe;
    Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,
    Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven.
    And when they show'd me this abhorred pit,
    They told me, here, at dead time of the night,
    A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,
    Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,
    Would make such fearful and confused cries
    As any mortal body hearing it
    Should straight fall mad or else die suddenly.
    No sooner had they told this hellish tale
    But straight they told me they would bind me here
    Unto the body of a dismal yew,
    And leave me to this miserable death.
    And then they call'd me foul adulteress,
    Lascivious Goth, and all the bitterest terms
    That ever ear did hear to such effect;
    And had you not by wondrous fortune come,
    This vengeance on me had they executed.
    Revenge it, as you love your mother's life,
    Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children.
  DEMETRIUS. This is a witness that I am thy son.
                                               [Stabs BASSIANUS]
  CHIRON. And this for me, struck home to show my strength.
                                                    [Also stabs]
  LAVINIA. Ay, come, Semiramis- nay, barbarous Tamora,
    For no name fits thy nature but thy own!
  TAMORA. Give me the poniard; you shall know, my boys,
    Your mother's hand shall right your mother's wrong.
  DEMETRIUS. Stay, madam, here is more belongs to her;
    First thrash the corn, then after burn the straw.
    This minion stood upon her chastity,
    Upon her nuptial vow, her loyalty,
    And with that painted hope braves your mightiness;
    And shall she carry this unto her grave?
  CHIRON. An if she do, I would I were an eunuch.
    Drag hence her husband to some secret hole,
    And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust.
  TAMORA. But when ye have the honey we desire,
    Let not this wasp outlive, us both to sting.
  CHIRON. I warrant you, madam, we will make that sure.
    Come, mistress, now perforce we will enjoy
    That nice-preserved honesty of yours.
  LAVINIA. O Tamora! thou bearest a woman's face-
  TAMORA. I will not hear her speak; away with her!
  LAVINIA. Sweet lords, entreat her hear me but a word.
  DEMETRIUS. Listen, fair madam: let it be your glory
    To see her tears; but be your heart to them
    As unrelenting flint to drops of rain.
  LAVINIA. When did the tiger's young ones teach the dam?
    O, do not learn her wrath- she taught it thee;
    The milk thou suck'dst from her did turn to marble,
    Even at thy teat thou hadst thy tyranny.
    Yet every mother breeds not sons alike:
    [To CHIRON]  Do thou entreat her show a woman's pity.
  CHIRON. What, wouldst thou have me prove myself a bastard?
  LAVINIA. 'Tis true, the raven doth not hatch a lark.
    Yet have I heard- O, could I find it now!-
    The lion, mov'd with pity, did endure
    To have his princely paws par'd all away.
    Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,
    The whilst their own birds famish in their nests;
    O, be to me, though thy hard heart say no,
    Nothing so kind, but something pitiful!
  TAMORA. I know not what it means; away with her!
  LAVINIA. O, let me teach thee! For my father's sake,
    That gave thee life when well he might have slain thee,
    Be not obdurate, open thy deaf ears.
  TAMORA. Hadst thou in person ne'er offended me,
    Even for his sake am I pitiless.
    Remember, boys, I pour'd forth tears in vain
    To save your brother from the sacrifice;
    But fierce Andronicus would not relent.
    Therefore away with her, and use her as you will;
    The worse to her the better lov'd of me.
  LAVINIA. O Tamora, be call'd a gentle queen,
    And with thine own hands kill me in this place!
    For 'tis not life that I have begg'd so long;
    Poor I was slain when Bassianus died.
  TAMORA. What beg'st thou, then? Fond woman, let me go.
  LAVINIA. 'Tis present death I beg; and one thing more,
    That womanhood denies my tongue to tell:
    O, keep me from their worse than killing lust,
    And tumble me into some loathsome pit,
    Where never man's eye may behold my body;
    Do this, and be a charitable murderer.
  TAMORA. So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee;
    No, let them satisfy their lust on thee.
  DEMETRIUS. Away! for thou hast stay'd us here too long.
  LAVINIA. No grace? no womanhood? Ah, beastly creature,
    The blot and enemy to our general name!
    Confusion fall-
  CHIRON. Nay, then I'll stop your mouth. Bring thou her husband.
    This is the hole where Aaron bid us hide him.

                 DEMETRIUS throws the body
           of BASSIANUS into the pit; then exeunt
         DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, dragging off LAVINIA

  TAMORA. Farewell, my sons; see that you make her sure.
    Ne'er let my heart know merry cheer indeed
    Till all the Andronici be made away.
    Now will I hence to seek my lovely Moor,
    And let my spleenful sons this trull deflower.          Exit

                  Re-enter AARON, with two
             of TITUS' sons, QUINTUS and MARTIUS

  AARON. Come on, my lords, the better foot before;
    Straight will I bring you to the loathsome pit
    Where I espied the panther fast asleep.
  QUINTUS. My sight is very dull, whate'er it bodes.
  MARTIUS. And mine, I promise you; were it not for shame,
    Well could I leave our sport to sleep awhile.
                                            [Falls into the pit]
  QUINTUS. What, art thou fallen? What subtle hole is this,
    Whose mouth is covered with rude-growing briers,
    Upon whose leaves are drops of new-shed blood
    As fresh as morning dew distill'd on flowers?
    A very fatal place it seems to me.
    Speak, brother, hast thou hurt thee with the fall?
  MARTIUS. O brother, with the dismal'st object hurt
    That ever eye with sight made heart lament!
  AARON.  [Aside]  Now will I fetch the King to find them here,
    That he thereby may have a likely guess
    How these were they that made away his brother.         Exit
  MARTIUS. Why dost not comfort me, and help me out
    From this unhallow'd and blood-stained hole?
  QUINTUS. I am surprised with an uncouth fear;
    A chilling sweat o'er-runs my trembling joints;
    My heart suspects more than mine eye can see.
  MARTIUS. To prove thou hast a true divining heart,
    Aaron and thou look down into this den,
    And see a fearful sight of blood and death.
  QUINTUS. Aaron is gone, and my compassionate heart
    Will not permit mine eyes once to behold
    The thing whereat it trembles by surmise;
    O, tell me who it is, for ne'er till now
    Was I a child to fear I know not what.
  MARTIUS. Lord Bassianus lies beray'd in blood,
    All on a heap, like to a slaughtered lamb,
    In this detested, dark, blood-drinking pit.
  QUINTUS. If it be dark, how dost thou know 'tis he?
  MARTIUS. Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
    A precious ring that lightens all this hole,
    Which, like a taper in some monument,
    Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,
    And shows the ragged entrails of this pit;
    So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus
    When he by night lay bath'd in maiden blood.
    O brother, help me with thy fainting hand-
    If fear hath made thee faint, as me it hath-
    Out of this fell devouring receptacle,
    As hateful as Cocytus' misty mouth.
  QUINTUS. Reach me thy hand, that I may help thee out,
    Or, wanting strength to do thee so much good,
    I may be pluck'd into the swallowing womb
    Of this deep pit, poor Bassianus' grave.
    I have no strength to pluck thee to the brink.
  MARTIUS. Nor I no strength to climb without thy help.
  QUINTUS. Thy hand once more; I will not loose again,
    Till thou art here aloft, or I below.
    Thou canst not come to me- I come to thee.        [Falls in]

            Enter the EMPEROR and AARON the Moor

  SATURNINUS. Along with me! I'll see what hole is here,
    And what he is that now is leapt into it.
    Say, who art thou that lately didst descend
    Into this gaping hollow of the earth?
  MARTIUS. The unhappy sons of old Andronicus,
    Brought hither in a most unlucky hour,
    To find thy brother Bassianus dead.
  SATURNINUS. My brother dead! I know thou dost but jest:
    He and his lady both are at the lodge
    Upon the north side of this pleasant chase;
    'Tis not an hour since I left them there.
  MARTIUS. We know not where you left them all alive;
    But, out alas! here have we found him dead.

                   Re-enter TAMORA, with
         attendants; TITUS ANDRONICUS and Lucius

  TAMORA. Where is my lord the King?
  SATURNINUS. Here, Tamora; though griev'd with killing grief.
  TAMORA. Where is thy brother Bassianus?
  SATURNINUS. Now to the bottom dost thou search my wound;
    Poor Bassianus here lies murdered.
  TAMORA. Then all too late I bring this fatal writ,
    The complot of this timeless tragedy;
    And wonder greatly that man's face can fold
    In pleasing smiles such murderous tyranny.
                                 [She giveth SATURNINE a letter]
    SATURNINUS.  [Reads]  'An if we miss to meet him handsomely,
    Sweet huntsman- Bassianus 'tis we mean-
    Do thou so much as dig the grave for him.
    Thou know'st our meaning. Look for thy reward
    Among the nettles at the elder-tree
    Which overshades the mouth of that same pit
    Where we decreed to bury Bassianus.
    Do this, and purchase us thy lasting friends.'
    O Tamora! was ever heard the like?
    This is the pit and this the elder-tree.
    Look, sirs, if you can find the huntsman out
    That should have murdered Bassianus here.
  AARON. My gracious lord, here is the bag of gold.
  SATURNINUS.  [To TITUS]  Two of thy whelps, fell curs of bloody
      kind,
    Have here bereft my brother of his life.
    Sirs, drag them from the pit unto the prison;
    There let them bide until we have devis'd
    Some never-heard-of torturing pain for them.
  TAMORA. What, are they in this pit? O wondrous thing!
    How easily murder is discovered!
  TITUS. High Emperor, upon my feeble knee
    I beg this boon, with tears not lightly shed,
    That this fell fault of my accursed sons-
    Accursed if the fault be prov'd in them-
  SATURNINUS. If it be prov'd! You see it is apparent.
    Who found this letter? Tamora, was it you?
  TAMORA. Andronicus himself did take it up.
  TITUS. I did, my lord, yet let me be their bail;
    For, by my fathers' reverend tomb, I vow
    They shall be ready at your Highness' will
    To answer their suspicion with their lives.
  SATURNINUS. Thou shalt not bail them; see thou follow me.
    Some bring the murdered body, some the murderers;
    Let them not speak a word- the guilt is plain;
    For, by my soul, were there worse end than death,
    That end upon them should be executed.
  TAMORA. Andronicus, I will entreat the King.
    Fear not thy sons; they shall do well enough.
  TITUS. Come, Lucius, come; stay not to talk with them.     Exeunt

SCENE IV. Another part of the forest

Enter the Empress' sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, with LAVINIA, her hands
cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravish'd

  DEMETRIUS. So, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak,
    Who 'twas that cut thy tongue and ravish'd thee.
  CHIRON. Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,
    An if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.
  DEMETRIUS. See how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.
  CHIRON. Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.
  DEMETRIUS. She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash;
    And so let's leave her to her silent walks.
  CHIRON. An 'twere my cause, I should go hang myself.
  DEMETRIUS. If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord.
                                     Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON

           Wind horns. Enter MARCUS, from hunting

  MARCUS. Who is this?- my niece, that flies away so fast?
    Cousin, a word: where is your husband?
    If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me!
    If I do wake, some planet strike me down,
    That I may slumber an eternal sleep!
    Speak, gentle niece. What stern ungentle hands
    Hath lopp'd, and hew'd, and made thy body bare
    Of her two branches- those sweet ornaments
    Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in,
    And might not gain so great a happiness
    As half thy love? Why dost not speak to me?
    Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,
    Like to a bubbling fountain stirr'd with wind,
    Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips,
    Coming and going with thy honey breath.
    But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee,
    And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue.
    Ah, now thou turn'st away thy face for shame!
    And notwithstanding all this loss of blood-
    As from a conduit with three issuing spouts-
    Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan's face
    Blushing to be encount'red with a cloud.
    Shall I speak for thee? Shall I say 'tis so?
    O, that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,
    That I might rail at him to ease my mind!
    Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd,
    Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.
    Fair Philomel, why she but lost her tongue,
    And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind;
    But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee.
    A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,
    And he hath cut those pretty fingers off
    That could have better sew'd than Philomel.
    O, had the monster seen those lily hands
    Tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute
    And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,
    He would not then have touch'd them for his life!
    Or had he heard the heavenly harmony
    Which that sweet tongue hath made,
    He would have dropp'd his knife, and fell asleep,
    As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.
    Come, let us go, and make thy father blind,
    For such a sight will blind a father's eye;
    One hour's storm will drown the fragrant meads,
    What will whole months of tears thy father's eyes?
    Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee;
    O, could our mourning case thy misery!                Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Rome. A street

Enter the JUDGES, TRIBUNES, and SENATORS, with TITUS' two sons MARTIUS
and QUINTUS bound, passing on the stage to the place of execution, and
TITUS going before, pleading

  TITUS. Hear me, grave fathers; noble Tribunes, stay!
    For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent
    In dangerous wars whilst you securely slept;
    For all my blood in Rome's great quarrel shed,
    For all the frosty nights that I have watch'd,
    And for these bitter tears, which now you see
    Filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks,
    Be pitiful to my condemned sons,
    Whose souls are not corrupted as 'tis thought.
    For two and twenty sons I never wept,
    Because they died in honour's lofty bed.
                          [ANDRONICUS lieth down, and the judges
                     pass by him with the prisoners, and exeunt]
    For these, Tribunes, in the dust I write
    My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears.
    Let my tears stanch the earth's dry appetite;
    My sons' sweet blood will make it shame and blush.
    O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain
    That shall distil from these two ancient urns,
    Than youthful April shall with all his show'rs.
    In summer's drought I'll drop upon thee still;
    In winter with warm tears I'll melt the snow
    And keep eternal spring-time on thy face,
    So thou refuse to drink my dear sons' blood.

             Enter Lucius with his weapon drawn

    O reverend Tribunes! O gentle aged men!
    Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death,
    And let me say, that never wept before,
    My tears are now prevailing orators.
  LUCIUS. O noble father, you lament in vain;
    The Tribunes hear you not, no man is by,
    And you recount your sorrows to a stone.
  TITUS. Ah, Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead!
    Grave Tribunes, once more I entreat of you.
  LUCIUS. My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.
  TITUS. Why, 'tis no matter, man: if they did hear,
    They would not mark me; if they did mark,
    They would not pity me; yet plead I must,
    And bootless unto them.
    Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;
    Who though they cannot answer my distress,
    Yet in some sort they are better than the Tribunes,
    For that they will not intercept my tale.
    When I do weep, they humbly at my feet
    Receive my tears, and seem to weep with me;
    And were they but attired in grave weeds,
    Rome could afford no tribunes like to these.
    A stone is soft as wax: tribunes more hard than stones.
    A stone is silent and offendeth not,
    And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.
                                                         [Rises]
    But wherefore stand'st thou with thy weapon drawn?
  LUCIUS. To rescue my two brothers from their death;
    For which attempt the judges have pronounc'd
    My everlasting doom of banishment.
  TITUS. O happy man! they have befriended thee.
    Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive
    That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?
    Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey
    But me and mine; how happy art thou then
    From these devourers to be banished!
    But who comes with our brother Marcus here?

                 Enter MARCUS with LAVINIA

  MARCUS. Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep,
    Or if not so, thy noble heart to break.
    I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.
  TITUS. Will it consume me? Let me see it then.
  MARCUS. This was thy daughter.
  TITUS. Why, Marcus, so she is.
  LUCIUS. Ay me! this object kills me.
  TITUS. Faint-hearted boy, arise, and look upon her.
    Speak, Lavinia, what accursed hand
    Hath made thee handless in thy father's sight?
    What fool hath added water to the sea,
    Or brought a fagot to bright-burning Troy?
    My grief was at the height before thou cam'st,
    And now like Nilus it disdaineth bounds.
    Give me a sword, I'll chop off my hands too,
    For they have fought for Rome, and all in vain;
    And they have nurs'd this woe in feeding life;
    In bootless prayer have they been held up,
    And they have serv'd me to effectless use.
    Now all the service I require of them
    Is that the one will help to cut the other.
    'Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands;
    For hands to do Rome service is but vain.
  LUCIUS. Speak, gentle sister, who hath martyr'd thee?
  MARCUS. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts
    That blabb'd them with such pleasing eloquence
    Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage,
    Where like a sweet melodious bird it sung
    Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!
  LUCIUS. O, say thou for her, who hath done this deed?
  MARCUS. O, thus I found her straying in the park,
    Seeking to hide herself as doth the deer
    That hath receiv'd some unrecuring wound.
  TITUS. It was my dear, and he that wounded her
    Hath hurt me more than had he kill'd me dead;
    For now I stand as one upon a rock,
    Environ'd with a wilderness of sea,
    Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
    Expecting ever when some envious surge
    Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.
    This way to death my wretched sons are gone;
    Here stands my other son, a banish'd man,
    And here my brother, weeping at my woes.
    But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn
    Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.
    Had I but seen thy picture in this plight,
    It would have madded me; what shall I do
    Now I behold thy lively body so?
    Thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears,
    Nor tongue to tell me who hath martyr'd thee;
    Thy husband he is dead, and for his death
    Thy brothers are condemn'd, and dead by this.
    Look, Marcus! Ah, son Lucius, look on her!
    When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears
    Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey dew
    Upon a gath'red lily almost withered.
  MARCUS. Perchance she weeps because they kill'd her husband;
    Perchance because she knows them innocent.
  TITUS. If they did kill thy husband, then be joyful,
    Because the law hath ta'en revenge on them.
    No, no, they would not do so foul a deed;
    Witness the sorrow that their sister makes.
    Gentle Lavinia, let me kiss thy lips,
    Or make some sign how I may do thee ease.
    Shall thy good uncle and thy brother Lucius
    And thou and I sit round about some fountain,
    Looking all downwards to behold our cheeks
    How they are stain'd, like meadows yet not dry
    With miry slime left on them by a flood?
    And in the fountain shall we gaze so long,
    Till the fresh taste be taken from that clearness,
    And made a brine-pit with our bitter tears?
    Or shall we cut away our hands like thine?
    Or shall we bite our tongues, and in dumb shows
    Pass the remainder of our hateful days?
    What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues
    Plot some device of further misery
    To make us wonder'd at in time to come.
  LUCIUS. Sweet father, cease your tears; for at your grief
    See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.
  MARCUS. Patience, dear niece. Good Titus, dry thine eyes.
  TITUS. Ah, Marcus, Marcus! Brother, well I wot
    Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,
    For thou, poor man, hast drown'd it with thine own.
  LUCIUS. Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.
  TITUS. Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her signs.
    Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say
    That to her brother which I said to thee:
    His napkin, with his true tears all bewet,
    Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.
    O, what a sympathy of woe is this
    As far from help as Limbo is from bliss!

                   Enter AARON the Moor

  AARON. Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor
    Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons,
    Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,
    Or any one of you, chop off your hand
    And send it to the King: he for the same
    Will send thee hither both thy sons alive,
    And that shall be the ransom for their fault.
  TITUS. O gracious Emperor! O gentle Aaron!
    Did ever raven sing so like a lark
    That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?
    With all my heart I'll send the Emperor my hand.
    Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?
  LUCIUS. Stay, father! for that noble hand of thine,
    That hath thrown down so many enemies,
    Shall not be sent. My hand will serve the turn,
    My youth can better spare my blood than you,
    And therefore mine shall save my brothers' lives.
  MARCUS. Which of your hands hath not defended Rome
    And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe,
    Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?
    O, none of both but are of high desert!
    My hand hath been but idle; let it serve
    To ransom my two nephews from their death;
    Then have I kept it to a worthy end.
  AARON. Nay, come, agree whose hand shall go along,
    For fear they die before their pardon come.
  MARCUS. My hand shall go.
  LUCIUS. By heaven, it shall not go!
  TITUS. Sirs, strive no more; such with'red herbs as these
    Are meet for plucking up, and therefore mine.
  LUCIUS. Sweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,
    Let me redeem my brothers both from death.
  MARCUS. And for our father's sake and mother's care,
    Now let me show a brother's love to thee.
  TITUS. Agree between you; I will spare my hand.
  LUCIUS. Then I'll go fetch an axe.
  MARCUS. But I will use the axe.
                                        Exeunt LUCIUS and MARCUS
  TITUS. Come hither, Aaron, I'll deceive them both;
    Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.
  AARON.  [Aside]  If that be call'd deceit, I will be honest,
    And never whilst I live deceive men so;
    But I'll deceive you in another sort,
    And that you'll say ere half an hour pass.
                                       [He cuts off TITUS' hand]

                 Re-enter LUCIUS and MARCUS

 TITUS. Now stay your strife. What shall be is dispatch'd.
    Good Aaron, give his Majesty my hand;
    Tell him it was a hand that warded him
    From thousand dangers; bid him bury it.
    More hath it merited- that let it have.
    As for my sons, say I account of them
    As jewels purchas'd at an easy price;
    And yet dear too, because I bought mine own.
  AARON. I go, Andronicus; and for thy hand
    Look by and by to have thy sons with thee.
    [Aside]  Their heads I mean. O, how this villainy
    Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!
    Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace:
    Aaron will have his soul black like his face.           Exit
  TITUS. O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven,
    And bow this feeble ruin to the earth;
    If any power pities wretched tears,
    To that I call!  [To LAVINIA]  What, would'st thou kneel with me?
    Do, then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers,
    Or with our sighs we'll breathe the welkin dim
    And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds
    When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.
  MARCUS. O brother, speak with possibility,
    And do not break into these deep extremes.
  TITUS. Is not my sorrow deep, having no bottom?
    Then be my passions bottomless with them.
  MARCUS. But yet let reason govern thy lament.
  TITUS. If there were reason for these miseries,
    Then into limits could I bind my woes.
    When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o'erflow?
    If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,
    Threat'ning the welkin with his big-swol'n face?
    And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?
    I am the sea; hark how her sighs do blow.
    She is the weeping welkin, I the earth;
    Then must my sea be moved with her sighs;
    Then must my earth with her continual tears
    Become a deluge, overflow'd and drown'd;
    For why my bowels cannot hide her woes,
    But like a drunkard must I vomit them.
    Then give me leave; for losers will have leave
    To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.

        Enter a MESSENGER, with two heads and a hand

  MESSENGER. Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid
    For that good hand thou sent'st the Emperor.
    Here are the heads of thy two noble sons;
    And here's thy hand, in scorn to thee sent back-
    Thy grief their sports, thy resolution mock'd,
    That woe is me to think upon thy woes,
    More than remembrance of my father's death.             Exit
  MARCUS. Now let hot Aetna cool in Sicily,
    And be my heart an ever-burning hell!
    These miseries are more than may be borne.
    To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal,
    But sorrow flouted at is double death.
  LUCIUS. Ah, that this sight should make so deep a wound,
    And yet detested life not shrink thereat!
    That ever death should let life bear his name,
    Where life hath no more interest but to breathe!
                                          [LAVINIA kisses TITUS]
  MARCUS. Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless
    As frozen water to a starved snake.
  TITUS. When will this fearful slumber have an end?
  MARCUS. Now farewell, flatt'ry; die, Andronicus.
    Thou dost not slumber: see thy two sons' heads,
    Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here;
    Thy other banish'd son with this dear sight
    Struck pale and bloodless; and thy brother, I,
    Even like a stony image, cold and numb.
    Ah! now no more will I control thy griefs.
    Rent off thy silver hair, thy other hand
    Gnawing with thy teeth; and be this dismal sight
    The closing up of our most wretched eyes.
    Now is a time to storm; why art thou still?
  TITUS. Ha, ha, ha!
  MARCUS. Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.
  TITUS. Why, I have not another tear to shed;
    Besides, this sorrow is an enemy,
    And would usurp upon my wat'ry eyes
    And make them blind with tributary tears.
    Then which way shall I find Revenge's cave?
    For these two heads do seem to speak to me,
    And threat me I shall never come to bliss
    Till all these mischiefs be return'd again
    Even in their throats that have committed them.
    Come, let me see what task I have to do.
    You heavy people, circle me about,
    That I may turn me to each one of you
    And swear unto my soul to right your wrongs.
    The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head,
    And in this hand the other will I bear.
    And, Lavinia, thou shalt be employ'd in this;
    Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth.
    As for thee, boy, go, get thee from my sight;
    Thou art an exile, and thou must not stay.
    Hie to the Goths and raise an army there;
    And if ye love me, as I think you do,
    Let's kiss and part, for we have much to do.
                                           Exeunt all but Lucius
  LUCIUS. Farewell, Andronicus, my noble father,
    The woefull'st man that ever liv'd in Rome.
    Farewell, proud Rome; till Lucius come again,
    He leaves his pledges dearer than his life.
    Farewell, Lavinia, my noble sister;
    O, would thou wert as thou tofore hast been!
    But now nor Lucius nor Lavinia lives
    But in oblivion and hateful griefs.
    If Lucius live, he will requite your wrongs
    And make proud Saturnine and his emperess
    Beg at the gates like Tarquin and his queen.
    Now will I to the Goths, and raise a pow'r
    To be reveng'd on Rome and Saturnine.                   Exit

SCENE II. Rome. TITUS' house

A banquet.

Enter TITUS, MARCUS, LAVINIA, and the boy YOUNG LUCIUS

  TITUS. So so, now sit; and look you eat no more
    Than will preserve just so much strength in us
    As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.
    Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot;
    Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,
    And cannot passionate our tenfold grief
    With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine
    Is left to tyrannize upon my breast;
    Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,
    Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,
    Then thus I thump it down.
    [To LAVINIA]  Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!
    When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,
    Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.
    Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;
    Or get some little knife between thy teeth
    And just against thy heart make thou a hole,
    That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall
    May run into that sink and, soaking in,
    Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.
  MARCUS. Fie, brother, fie! Teach her not thus to lay
    Such violent hands upon her tender life.
  TITUS. How now! Has sorrow made thee dote already?
    Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.
    What violent hands can she lay on her life?
    Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands?
    To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o'er
    How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?
    O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,
    Lest we remember still that we have none.
    Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,
    As if we should forget we had no hands,
    If Marcus did not name the word of hands!
    Come, let's fall to; and, gentle girl, eat this:
    Here is no drink. Hark, Marcus, what she says-
    I can interpret all her martyr'd signs;
    She says she drinks no other drink but tears,
    Brew'd with her sorrow, mesh'd upon her cheeks.
    Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought;
    In thy dumb action will I be as perfect
    As begging hermits in their holy prayers.
    Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,
    Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,
    But I of these will wrest an alphabet,
    And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.
  BOY. Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments;
    Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.
  MARCUS. Alas, the tender boy, in passion mov'd,
    Doth weep to see his grandsire's heaviness.
  TITUS. Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears,
    And tears will quickly melt thy life away.
                          [MARCUS strikes the dish with a knife]
    What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?
  MARCUS. At that that I have kill'd, my lord- a fly.
  TITUS. Out on thee, murderer, thou kill'st my heart!
    Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny;
    A deed of death done on the innocent
    Becomes not Titus' brother. Get thee gone;
    I see thou art not for my company.
  MARCUS. Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.
  TITUS. 'But!' How if that fly had a father and mother?
    How would he hang his slender gilded wings
    And buzz lamenting doings in the air!
    Poor harmless fly,
    That with his pretty buzzing melody
    Came here to make us merry! And thou hast kill'd him.
  MARCUS. Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favour'd fly,
    Like to the Empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him.
  TITUS. O, O, O!
    Then pardon me for reprehending thee,
    For thou hast done a charitable deed.
    Give me thy knife, I will insult on him,
    Flattering myself as if it were the Moor
    Come hither purposely to poison me.
    There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.
    Ah, sirrah!
    Yet, I think, we are not brought so low
    But that between us we can kill a fly
    That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.
  MARCUS. Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him,
    He takes false shadows for true substances.
  TITUS. Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me;
    I'll to thy closet, and go read with thee
    Sad stories chanced in the times of old.
    Come, boy, and go with me; thy sight is young,
    And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.        Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Rome. TITUS' garden

Enter YOUNG LUCIUS and LAVINIA running after him, and the boy flies
from her with his books under his arm.

Enter TITUS and MARCUS

  BOY. Help, grandsire, help! my aunt Lavinia
    Follows me everywhere, I know not why.
    Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes!
    Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.
  MARCUS. Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt.
  TITUS. She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.
  BOY. Ay, when my father was in Rome she did.
  MARCUS. What means my niece Lavinia by these signs?
  TITUS. Fear her not, Lucius; somewhat doth she mean.
    See, Lucius, see how much she makes of thee.
    Somewhither would she have thee go with her.
    Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care
    Read to her sons than she hath read to thee
    Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator.
  MARCUS. Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies thee thus?
  BOY. My lord, I know not, I, nor can I guess,
    Unless some fit or frenzy do possess her;
    For I have heard my grandsire say full oft
    Extremity of griefs would make men mad;
    And I have read that Hecuba of Troy
    Ran mad for sorrow. That made me to fear;
    Although, my lord, I know my noble aunt
    Loves me as dear as e'er my mother did,
    And would not, but in fury, fright my youth;
    Which made me down to throw my books, and fly-
    Causeless, perhaps. But pardon me, sweet aunt;
    And, madam, if my uncle Marcus go,
    I will most willingly attend your ladyship.
  MARCUS. Lucius, I will.           [LAVINIA turns over with her
                     stumps the books which Lucius has let fall]
  TITUS. How now, Lavinia! Marcus, what means this?
    Some book there is that she desires to see.
    Which is it, girl, of these?- Open them, boy.-
    But thou art deeper read and better skill'd;
    Come and take choice of all my library,
    And so beguile thy sorrow, till the heavens
    Reveal the damn'd contriver of this deed.
    Why lifts she up her arms in sequence thus?
  MARCUS. I think she means that there were more than one
    Confederate in the fact; ay, more there was,
    Or else to heaven she heaves them for revenge.
  TITUS. Lucius, what book is that she tosseth so?
  BOY. Grandsire, 'tis Ovid's Metamorphoses;
    My mother gave it me.
  MARCUS. For love of her that's gone,
    Perhaps she cull'd it from among the rest.
  TITUS. Soft! So busily she turns the leaves! Help her.
    What would she find? Lavinia, shall I read?
    This is the tragic tale of Philomel
    And treats of Tereus' treason and his rape;
    And rape, I fear, was root of thy annoy.
  MARCUS. See, brother, see! Note how she quotes the leaves.
  TITUS. Lavinia, wert thou thus surpris'd, sweet girl,
    Ravish'd and wrong'd as Philomela was,
    Forc'd in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods?
    See, see!
    Ay, such a place there is where we did hunt-
    O, had we never, never hunted there!-
    Pattern'd by that the poet here describes,
    By nature made for murders and for rapes.
  MARCUS. O, why should nature build so foul a den,
    Unless the gods delight in tragedies?
  TITUS. Give signs, sweet girl, for here are none but friends,
    What Roman lord it was durst do the deed.
    Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst,
    That left the camp to sin in Lucrece' bed?
  MARCUS. Sit down, sweet niece; brother, sit down by me.
    Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury,
    Inspire me, that I may this treason find!
    My lord, look here! Look here, Lavinia!
                                    [He writes his name with his
                       staff, and guides it with feet and mouth]
    This sandy plot is plain; guide, if thou canst,
    This after me. I have writ my name
    Without the help of any hand at all.
    Curs'd be that heart that forc'd us to this shift!
    Write thou, good niece, and here display at last
    What God will have discovered for revenge.
    Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain,
    That we may know the traitors and the truth!
                               [She takes the staff in her mouth
                          and guides it with stumps, and writes]
    O, do ye read, my lord, what she hath writ?
  TITUS. 'Stuprum- Chiron- Demetrius.'
  MARCUS. What, what! the lustful sons of Tamora
    Performers of this heinous bloody deed?
  TITUS. Magni Dominator poli,
    Tam lentus audis scelera? tam lentus vides?
  MARCUS. O, calm thee, gentle lord! although I know
    There is enough written upon this earth
    To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts,
    And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.
    My lord, kneel down with me; Lavinia, kneel;
    And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector's hope;
    And swear with me- as, with the woeful fere
    And father of that chaste dishonoured dame,
    Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece' rape-
    That we will prosecute, by good advice,
    Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths,
    And see their blood or die with this reproach.
  TITUS. 'Tis sure enough, an you knew how;
    But if you hunt these bear-whelps, then beware:
    The dam will wake; and if she wind ye once,
    She's with the lion deeply still in league,
    And lulls him whilst she playeth on her back,
    And when he sleeps will she do what she list.
    You are a young huntsman, Marcus; let alone;
    And come, I will go get a leaf of brass,
    And with a gad of steel will write these words,
    And lay it by. The angry northern wind
    Will blow these sands like Sibyl's leaves abroad,
    And where's our lesson, then? Boy, what say you?
  BOY. I say, my lord, that if I were a man
    Their mother's bedchamber should not be safe
    For these base bondmen to the yoke of Rome.
  MARCUS. Ay, that's my boy! Thy father hath full oft
    For his ungrateful country done the like.
  BOY. And, uncle, so will I, an if I live.
  TITUS. Come, go with me into mine armoury.
    Lucius, I'll fit thee; and withal my boy
    Shall carry from me to the Empress' sons
    Presents that I intend to send them both.
    Come, come; thou'lt do my message, wilt thou not?
  BOY. Ay, with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire.
  TITUS. No, boy, not so; I'll teach thee another course.
    Lavinia, come. Marcus, look to my house.
    Lucius and I'll go brave it at the court;
    Ay, marry, will we, sir! and we'll be waited on.
                         Exeunt TITUS, LAVINIA, and YOUNG LUCIUS
  MARCUS. O heavens, can you hear a good man groan
    And not relent, or not compassion him?
    Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy,
    That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart
    Than foemen's marks upon his batt'red shield,
    But yet so just that he will not revenge.
    Revenge the heavens for old Andronicus!                 Exit

SCENE II. Rome. The palace

Enter AARON, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, at one door; and at the other door,
YOUNG LUCIUS and another with a bundle of weapons, and verses writ upon
them

  CHIRON. Demetrius, here's the son of Lucius;
    He hath some message to deliver us.
  AARON. Ay, some mad message from his mad grandfather.
  BOY. My lords, with all the humbleness I may,
    I greet your honours from Andronicus-
    [Aside]  And pray the Roman gods confound you both!
  DEMETRIUS. Gramercy, lovely Lucius. What's the news?
  BOY.  [Aside]  That you are both decipher'd, that's the news,
    For villains mark'd with rape.- May it please you,
    My grandsire, well advis'd, hath sent by me
    The goodliest weapons of his armoury
    To gratify your honourable youth,
    The hope of Rome; for so he bid me say;
    And so I do, and with his gifts present
    Your lordships, that, whenever you have need,
    You may be armed and appointed well.
    And so I leave you both-  [Aside]  like bloody villains.
                               Exeunt YOUNG LUCIUS and attendant
  DEMETRIUS. What's here? A scroll, and written round about.
    Let's see:
    [Reads]  'Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,
    Non eget Mauri iaculis, nec arcu.'
  CHIRON. O, 'tis a verse in Horace, I know it well;
    I read it in the grammar long ago.
  AARON. Ay, just- a verse in Horace. Right, you have it.
    [Aside]  Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!
    Here's no sound jest! The old man hath found their guilt,
    And sends them weapons wrapp'd about with lines
    That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick.
    But were our witty Empress well afoot,
    She would applaud Andronicus' conceit.
    But let her rest in her unrest awhile-
    And now, young lords, was't not a happy star
    Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so,
    Captives, to be advanced to this height?
    It did me good before the palace gate
    To brave the Tribune in his brother's hearing.
  DEMETRIUS. But me more good to see so great a lord
    Basely insinuate and send us gifts.
  AARON. Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius?
    Did you not use his daughter very friendly?
  DEMETRIUS. I would we had a thousand Roman dames
    At such a bay, by turn to serve our lust.
  CHIRON. A charitable wish and full of love.
  AARON. Here lacks but your mother for to say amen.
  CHIRON. And that would she for twenty thousand more.
  DEMETRIUS. Come, let us go and pray to all the gods
    For our beloved mother in her pains.
  AARON.  [Aside]  Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over.
                                                [Trumpets sound]
  DEMETRIUS. Why do the Emperor's trumpets flourish thus?
  CHIRON. Belike, for joy the Emperor hath a son.
  DEMETRIUS. Soft! who comes here?

            Enter NURSE, with a blackamoor CHILD

  NURSE. Good morrow, lords.
    O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?
  AARON. Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all,
    Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now?
  NURSE. O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!
    Now help, or woe betide thee evermore!
  AARON. Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep!
    What dost thou wrap and fumble in thy arms?
  NURSE. O, that which I would hide from heaven's eye:
    Our Empress' shame and stately Rome's disgrace!
    She is delivered, lord; she is delivered.
  AARON. To whom?
  NURSE. I mean she is brought a-bed.
  AARON. Well, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her?
  NURSE. A devil.
  AARON. Why, then she is the devil's dam;
    A joyful issue.
  NURSE. A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue!
    Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad
    Amongst the fair-fac'd breeders of our clime;
    The Empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal,
    And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.
  AARON. Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue?
    Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.
  DEMETRIUS. Villain, what hast thou done?
  AARON. That which thou canst not undo.
  CHIRON. Thou hast undone our mother.
  AARON. Villain, I have done thy mother.
  DEMETRIUS. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone her.
    Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice!
    Accurs'd the offspring of so foul a fiend!
  CHIRON. It shall not live.
  AARON. It shall not die.
  NURSE. Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so.
  AARON. What, must it, nurse? Then let no man but I
    Do execution on my flesh and blood.
  DEMETRIUS. I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point.
    Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it.
  AARON. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.
                     [Takes the CHILD from the NURSE, and draws]
    Stay, murderous villains, will you kill your brother!
    Now, by the burning tapers of the sky
    That shone so brightly when this boy was got,
    He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point
    That touches this my first-born son and heir.
    I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,
    With all his threat'ning band of Typhon's brood,
    Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,
    Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.
    What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!
    Ye white-lim'd walls! ye alehouse painted signs!
    Coal-black is better than another hue
    In that it scorns to bear another hue;
    For all the water in the ocean
    Can never turn the swan's black legs to white,
    Although she lave them hourly in the flood.
    Tell the Empress from me I am of age
    To keep mine own- excuse it how she can.
  DEMETRIUS. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?
  AARON. My mistress is my mistress: this my self,
    The vigour and the picture of my youth.
    This before all the world do I prefer;
    This maugre all the world will I keep safe,
    Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.
  DEMETRIUS. By this our mother is for ever sham'd.
  CHIRON. Rome will despise her for this foul escape.
  NURSE. The Emperor in his rage will doom her death.
  CHIRON. I blush to think upon this ignomy.
  AARON. Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears:
    Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing
    The close enacts and counsels of thy heart!
    Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer.
    Look how the black slave smiles upon the father,
    As who should say 'Old lad, I am thine own.'
    He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed
    Of that self-blood that first gave life to you;
    And from your womb where you imprisoned were
    He is enfranchised and come to light.
    Nay, he is your brother by the surer side,
    Although my seal be stamped in his face.
  NURSE. Aaron, what shall I say unto the Empress?
  DEMETRIUS. Advise thee, Aaron, what is to be done,
    And we will all subscribe to thy advice.
    Save thou the child, so we may all be safe.
  AARON. Then sit we down and let us all consult.
    My son and I will have the wind of you:
    Keep there; now talk at pleasure of your safety.
                                                      [They sit]
  DEMETRIUS. How many women saw this child of his?
  AARON. Why, so, brave lords! When we join in league
    I am a lamb; but if you brave the Moor,
    The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,
    The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.
    But say, again, how many saw the child?
  NURSE. Cornelia the midwife and myself;
    And no one else but the delivered Empress.
  AARON. The Emperess, the midwife, and yourself.
    Two may keep counsel when the third's away:
    Go to the Empress, tell her this I said.      [He kills her]
    Weeke weeke!
    So cries a pig prepared to the spit.
  DEMETRIUS. What mean'st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou this?
  AARON. O Lord, sir, 'tis a deed of policy.
    Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours-
    A long-tongu'd babbling gossip? No, lords, no.
    And now be it known to you my full intent:
    Not far, one Muliteus, my countryman-
    His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;
    His child is like to her, fair as you are.
    Go pack with him, and give the mother gold,
    And tell them both the circumstance of all,
    And how by this their child shall be advanc'd,
    And be received for the Emperor's heir
    And substituted in the place of mine,
    To calm this tempest whirling in the court;
    And let the Emperor dandle him for his own.
    Hark ye, lords. You see I have given her physic,
                                         [Pointing to the NURSE]
    And you must needs bestow her funeral;
    The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms.
    This done, see that you take no longer days,
    But send the midwife presently to me.
    The midwife and the nurse well made away,
    Then let the ladies tattle what they please.
  CHIRON. Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air
    With secrets.
  DEMETRIUS. For this care of Tamora,
    Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.

         Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, bearing off the dead NURSE

  AARON. Now to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies,
    There to dispose this treasure in mine arms,
    And secretly to greet the Empress' friends.
    Come on, you thick-lipp'd slave, I'll bear you hence;
    For it is you that puts us to our shifts.
    I'll make you feed on berries and on roots,
    And feed on curds and whey, and suck the goat,
    And cabin in a cave, and bring you up
    To be a warrior and command a camp.
                                             Exit with the CHILD

SCENE III. Rome. A public place

Enter TITUS, bearing arrows with letters on the ends of them; with him
MARCUS, YOUNG LUCIUS, and other gentlemen, PUBLIUS, SEMPRONIUS, and
CAIUS, with bows

  TITUS. Come, Marcus, come; kinsmen, this is the way.
    Sir boy, let me see your archery;
    Look ye draw home enough, and 'tis there straight.
    Terras Astrea reliquit,
    Be you rememb'red, Marcus; she's gone, she's fled.
    Sirs, take you to your tools. You, cousins, shall
    Go sound the ocean and cast your nets;
    Happily you may catch her in the sea;
    Yet there's as little justice as at land.
    No; Publius and Sempronius, you must do it;
    'Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade,
    And pierce the inmost centre of the earth;
    Then, when you come to Pluto's region,
    I pray you deliver him this petition.
    Tell him it is for justice and for aid,
    And that it comes from old Andronicus,
    Shaken with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.
    Ah, Rome! Well, well, I made thee miserable
    What time I threw the people's suffrages
    On him that thus doth tyrannize o'er me.
    Go get you gone; and pray be careful all,
    And leave you not a man-of-war unsearch'd.
    This wicked Emperor may have shipp'd her hence;
    And, kinsmen, then we may go pipe for justice.
  MARCUS. O Publius, is not this a heavy case,
    To see thy noble uncle thus distract?
  PUBLIUS. Therefore, my lords, it highly us concerns
    By day and night t' attend him carefully,
    And feed his humour kindly as we may
    Till time beget some careful remedy.
  MARCUS. Kinsmen, his sorrows are past remedy.
    Join with the Goths, and with revengeful war
    Take wreak on Rome for this ingratitude,
    And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine.
  TITUS. Publius, how now? How now, my masters?
    What, have you met with her?
  PUBLIUS. No, my good lord; but Pluto sends you word,
    If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall.
    Marry, for Justice, she is so employ'd,
    He thinks, with Jove in heaven, or somewhere else,
    So that perforce you must needs stay a time.
  TITUS. He doth me wrong to feed me with delays.
    I'll dive into the burning lake below
    And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.
    Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we,
    No big-bon'd men fram'd of the Cyclops' size;
    But metal, Marcus, steel to the very back,
    Yet wrung with wrongs more than our backs can bear;
    And, sith there's no justice in earth nor hell,
    We will solicit heaven, and move the gods
    To send down justice for to wreak our wrongs.
    Come, to this gear. You are a good archer, Marcus.
                                      [He gives them the arrows]
    'Ad Jovem' that's for you; here 'Ad Apollinem.'
    'Ad Martem' that's for myself.
    Here, boy, 'To Pallas'; here 'To Mercury.'
    'To Saturn,' Caius- not to Saturnine:
    You were as good to shoot against the wind.
    To it, boy. Marcus, loose when I bid.
    Of my word, I have written to effect;
    There's not a god left unsolicited.
  MARCUS. Kinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court;
    We will afflict the Emperor in his pride.
  TITUS. Now, masters, draw.  [They shoot]  O, well said, Lucius!
    Good boy, in Virgo's lap! Give it Pallas.
  MARCUS. My lord, I aim a mile beyond the moon;
    Your letter is with Jupiter by this.
  TITUS. Ha! ha!
    Publius, Publius, hast thou done?
    See, see, thou hast shot off one of Taurus' horns.
  MARCUS. This was the sport, my lord: when Publius shot,
    The Bull, being gall'd, gave Aries such a knock
    That down fell both the Ram's horns in the court;
    And who should find them but the Empress' villain?
    She laugh'd, and told the Moor he should not choose
    But give them to his master for a present.
  TITUS. Why, there it goes! God give his lordship joy!

    Enter the CLOWN, with a basket and two pigeons in it

    News, news from heaven! Marcus, the post is come.
    Sirrah, what tidings? Have you any letters?
    Shall I have justice? What says Jupiter?
  CLOWN. Ho, the gibbet-maker? He says that he hath taken them down
    again, for the man must not be hang'd till the next week.
  TITUS. But what says Jupiter, I ask thee?
  CLOWN. Alas, sir, I know not Jupiter; I never drank with him in all
    my life.
  TITUS. Why, villain, art not thou the carrier?
  CLOWN. Ay, of my pigeons, sir; nothing else.
  TITUS. Why, didst thou not come from heaven?
  CLOWN. From heaven! Alas, sir, I never came there. God forbid I
    should be so bold to press to heaven in my young days. Why, I am
    going with my pigeons to the Tribunal Plebs, to take up a matter
    of brawl betwixt my uncle and one of the Emperal's men.
  MARCUS. Why, sir, that is as fit as can be to serve for your
    oration; and let him deliver the pigeons to the Emperor from you.
  TITUS. Tell me, can you deliver an oration to the Emperor with a
    grace?
  CLOWN. Nay, truly, sir, I could never say grace in all my life.
  TITUS. Sirrah, come hither. Make no more ado,
    But give your pigeons to the Emperor;
    By me thou shalt have justice at his hands.
    Hold, hold! Meanwhile here's money for thy charges.
    Give me pen and ink. Sirrah, can you with a grace deliver up a
    supplication?
  CLOWN. Ay, sir.
  TITUS. Then here is a supplication for you. And when you come to
    him, at the first approach you must kneel; then kiss his foot;
    then deliver up your pigeons; and then look for your reward. I'll
    be at hand, sir; see you do it bravely.
  CLOWN. I warrant you, sir; let me alone.
  TITUS. Sirrah, hast thou a knife? Come let me see it.
    Here, Marcus, fold it in the oration;
    For thou hast made it like a humble suppliant.
    And when thou hast given it to the Emperor,
    Knock at my door, and tell me what he says.
  CLOWN. God be with you, sir; I will.
  TITUS. Come, Marcus, let us go. Publius, follow me.     Exeunt

SCENE IV. Rome. Before the palace

Enter the EMPEROR, and the EMPRESS and her two sons, DEMETRIUS and
CHIRON; LORDS and others. The EMPEROR brings the arrows in his hand
that TITUS shot at him

  SATURNINUS. Why, lords, what wrongs are these! Was ever seen
    An emperor in Rome thus overborne,
    Troubled, confronted thus; and, for the extent
    Of egal justice, us'd in such contempt?
    My lords, you know, as know the mightful gods,
    However these disturbers of our peace
    Buzz in the people's ears, there nought hath pass'd
    But even with law against the wilful sons
    Of old Andronicus. And what an if
    His sorrows have so overwhelm'd his wits,
    Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,
    His fits, his frenzy, and his bitterness?
    And now he writes to heaven for his redress.
    See, here's 'To Jove' and this 'To Mercury';
    This 'To Apollo'; this 'To the God of War'-
    Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome!
    What's this but libelling against the Senate,
    And blazoning our unjustice every where?
    A goodly humour, is it not, my lords?
    As who would say in Rome no justice were.
    But if I live, his feigned ecstasies
    Shall be no shelter to these outrages;
    But he and his shall know that justice lives
    In Saturninus' health; whom, if she sleep,
    He'll so awake as he in fury shall
    Cut off the proud'st conspirator that lives.
  TAMORA. My gracious lord, my lovely Saturnine,
    Lord of my life, commander of my thoughts,
    Calm thee, and bear the faults of Titus' age,
    Th' effects of sorrow for his valiant sons
    Whose loss hath pierc'd him deep and scarr'd his heart;
    And rather comfort his distressed plight
    Than prosecute the meanest or the best
    For these contempts.  [Aside]  Why, thus it shall become
    High-witted Tamora to gloze with all.
    But, Titus, I have touch'd thee to the quick,
    Thy life-blood out; if Aaron now be wise,
    Then is all safe, the anchor in the port.

                       Enter CLOWN

    How now, good fellow! Wouldst thou speak with us?
  CLOWN. Yes, forsooth, an your mistriship be Emperial.
  TAMORA. Empress I am, but yonder sits the Emperor.
  CLOWN. 'Tis he.- God and Saint Stephen give you godden. I have
    brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here.
                                   [SATURNINUS reads the letter]
  SATURNINUS. Go take him away, and hang him presently.
  CLOWN. How much money must I have?
  TAMORA. Come, sirrah, you must be hang'd.
  CLOWN. Hang'd! by'r lady, then I have brought up a neck to a fair
    end.                                          [Exit guarded]
  SATURNINUS. Despiteful and intolerable wrongs!
    Shall I endure this monstrous villainy?
    I know from whence this same device proceeds.
    May this be borne- as if his traitorous sons
    That died by law for murder of our brother
    Have by my means been butchered wrongfully?
    Go drag the villain hither by the hair;
    Nor age nor honour shall shape privilege.
    For this proud mock I'll be thy slaughterman,
    Sly frantic wretch, that holp'st to make me great,
    In hope thyself should govern Rome and me.

                   Enter NUNTIUS AEMILIUS

    What news with thee, Aemilius?
  AEMILIUS. Arm, my lords! Rome never had more cause.
    The Goths have gathered head; and with a power
    Of high resolved men, bent to the spoil,
    They hither march amain, under conduct
    Of Lucius, son to old Andronicus;
    Who threats in course of this revenge to do
    As much as ever Coriolanus did.
  SATURNINUS. Is warlike Lucius general of the Goths?
    These tidings nip me, and I hang the head
    As flowers with frost, or grass beat down with storms.
    Ay, now begins our sorrows to approach.
    'Tis he the common people love so much;
    Myself hath often heard them say-
    When I have walked like a private man-
    That Lucius' banishment was wrongfully,
    And they have wish'd that Lucius were their emperor.
  TAMORA. Why should you fear? Is not your city strong?
  SATURNINUS. Ay, but the citizens favour Lucius,
    And will revolt from me to succour him.
  TAMORA. King, be thy thoughts imperious like thy name!
    Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it?
    The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
    And is not careful what they mean thereby,
    Knowing that with the shadow of his wings
    He can at pleasure stint their melody;
    Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome.
    Then cheer thy spirit; for know thou, Emperor,
    I will enchant the old Andronicus
    With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,
    Than baits to fish or honey-stalks to sheep,
    When as the one is wounded with the bait,
    The other rotted with delicious feed.
  SATURNINUS. But he will not entreat his son for us.
  TAMORA. If Tamora entreat him, then he will;
    For I can smooth and fill his aged ears
    With golden promises, that, were his heart
    Almost impregnable, his old ears deaf,
    Yet should both ear and heart obey my tongue.
    [To AEMILIUS]  Go thou before to be our ambassador;
    Say that the Emperor requests a parley
    Of warlike Lucius, and appoint the meeting
    Even at his father's house, the old Andronicus.
  SATURNINUS. Aemilius, do this message honourably;
    And if he stand on hostage for his safety,
    Bid him demand what pledge will please him best.
  AEMILIUS. Your bidding shall I do effectually.            Exit
  TAMORA. Now will I to that old Andronicus,
    And temper him with all the art I have,
    To pluck proud Lucius from the warlike Goths.
    And now, sweet Emperor, be blithe again,
    And bury all thy fear in my devices.
  SATURNINUS. Then go successantly, and plead to him.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Plains near Rome

Enter LUCIUS with an army of GOTHS with drums and colours

  LUCIUS. Approved warriors and my faithful friends,
    I have received letters from great Rome
    Which signifies what hate they bear their Emperor
    And how desirous of our sight they are.
    Therefore, great lords, be, as your titles witness,
    Imperious and impatient of your wrongs;
    And wherein Rome hath done you any scath,
    Let him make treble satisfaction.
  FIRST GOTH. Brave slip, sprung from the great Andronicus,
    Whose name was once our terror, now our comfort,
    Whose high exploits and honourable deeds
    Ingrateful Rome requites with foul contempt,
    Be bold in us: we'll follow where thou lead'st,
    Like stinging bees in hottest summer's day,
    Led by their master to the flow'red fields,
    And be aveng'd on cursed Tamora.
  ALL THE GOTHS. And as he saith, so say we all with him.
  LUCIUS. I humbly thank him, and I thank you all.
    But who comes here, led by a lusty Goth?

     Enter a GOTH, leading AARON with his CHILD in his arms

  SECOND GOTH. Renowned Lucius, from our troops I stray'd
    To gaze upon a ruinous monastery;
    And as I earnestly did fix mine eye
    Upon the wasted building, suddenly
    I heard a child cry underneath a wall.
    I made unto the noise, when soon I heard
    The crying babe controll'd with this discourse:
    'Peace, tawny slave, half me and half thy dam!
    Did not thy hue bewray whose brat thou art,
    Had nature lent thee but thy mother's look,
    Villain, thou mightst have been an emperor;
    But where the bull and cow are both milk-white,
    They never do beget a coal-black calf.
    Peace, villain, peace!'- even thus he rates the babe-
    'For I must bear thee to a trusty Goth,
    Who, when he knows thou art the Empress' babe,
    Will hold thee dearly for thy mother's sake.'
    With this, my weapon drawn, I rush'd upon him,
    Surpris'd him suddenly, and brought him hither
    To use as you think needful of the man.
  LUCIUS. O worthy Goth, this is the incarnate devil
    That robb'd Andronicus of his good hand;
    This is the pearl that pleas'd your Empress' eye;
    And here's the base fruit of her burning lust.
    Say, wall-ey'd slave, whither wouldst thou convey
    This growing image of thy fiend-like face?
    Why dost not speak? What, deaf? Not a word?
    A halter, soldiers! Hang him on this tree,
    And by his side his fruit of bastardy.
  AARON. Touch not the boy, he is of royal blood.
  LUCIUS. Too like the sire for ever being good.
    First hang the child, that he may see it sprawl-
    A sight to vex the father's soul withal.
    Get me a ladder.
                [A ladder brought, which AARON is made to climb]
  AARON. Lucius, save the child,
    And bear it from me to the Emperess.
    If thou do this, I'll show thee wondrous things
    That highly may advantage thee to hear;
    If thou wilt not, befall what may befall,
    I'll speak no more but 'Vengeance rot you all!'
  LUCIUS. Say on; an if it please me which thou speak'st,
    Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourish'd.
  AARON. An if it please thee! Why, assure thee, Lucius,
    'Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak;
    For I must talk of murders, rapes, and massacres,
    Acts of black night, abominable deeds,
    Complots of mischief, treason, villainies,
    Ruthful to hear, yet piteously perform'd;
    And this shall all be buried in my death,
    Unless thou swear to me my child shall live.
  LUCIUS. Tell on thy mind; I say thy child shall live.
  AARON. Swear that he shall, and then I will begin.
  LUCIUS. Who should I swear by? Thou believest no god;
    That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?
  AARON. What if I do not? as indeed I do not;
    Yet, for I know thou art religious
    And hast a thing within thee called conscience,
    With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies
    Which I have seen thee careful to observe,
    Therefore I urge thy oath. For that I know
    An idiot holds his bauble for a god,
    And keeps the oath which by that god he swears,
    To that I'll urge him. Therefore thou shalt vow
    By that same god- what god soe'er it be
    That thou adorest and hast in reverence-
    To save my boy, to nourish and bring him up;
    Or else I will discover nought to thee.
  LUCIUS. Even by my god I swear to thee I will.
  AARON. First know thou, I begot him on the Empress.
  LUCIUS. O most insatiate and luxurious woman!
  AARON. Tut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity
    To that which thou shalt hear of me anon.
    'Twas her two sons that murdered Bassianus;
    They cut thy sister's tongue, and ravish'd her,
    And cut her hands, and trimm'd her as thou sawest.
  LUCIUS. O detestable villain! Call'st thou that trimming?
  AARON. Why, she was wash'd, and cut, and trimm'd, and 'twas
    Trim sport for them which had the doing of it.
  LUCIUS. O barbarous beastly villains like thyself!
  AARON. Indeed, I was their tutor to instruct them.
    That codding spirit had they from their mother,
    As sure a card as ever won the set;
    That bloody mind, I think, they learn'd of me,
    As true a dog as ever fought at head.
    Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth.
    I train'd thy brethren to that guileful hole
    Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay;
    I wrote the letter that thy father found,
    And hid the gold within that letter mention'd,
    Confederate with the Queen and her two sons;
    And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue,
    Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it?
    I play'd the cheater for thy father's hand,
    And, when I had it, drew myself apart
    And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter.
    I pried me through the crevice of a wall,
    When, for his hand, he had his two sons' heads;
    Beheld his tears, and laugh'd so heartily
    That both mine eyes were rainy like to his;
    And when I told the Empress of this sport,
    She swooned almost at my pleasing tale,
    And for my tidings gave me twenty kisses.
  GOTH. What, canst thou say all this and never blush?
  AARON. Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.
  LUCIUS. Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?
  AARON. Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
    Even now I curse the day- and yet, I think,
    Few come within the compass of my curse-
    Wherein I did not some notorious ill;
    As kill a man, or else devise his death;
    Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;
    Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;
    Set deadly enmity between two friends;
    Make poor men's cattle break their necks;
    Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
    And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
    Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,
    And set them upright at their dear friends' door
    Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,
    And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
    Have with my knife carved in Roman letters
    'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'
    Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
    As willingly as one would kill a fly;
    And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
    But that I cannot do ten thousand more.
  LUCIUS. Bring down the devil, for he must not die
    So sweet a death as hanging presently.
  AARON. If there be devils, would I were a devil,
    To live and burn in everlasting fire,
    So I might have your company in hell
    But to torment you with my bitter tongue!
  LUCIUS. Sirs, stop his mouth, and let him speak no more.

                       Enter AEMILIUS

  GOTH. My lord, there is a messenger from Rome
    Desires to be admitted to your presence.
  LUCIUS. Let him come near.
    Welcome, Aemilius. What's the news from Rome?
  AEMILIUS. Lord Lucius, and you Princes of the Goths,
    The Roman Emperor greets you all by me;
    And, for he understands you are in arms,
    He craves a parley at your father's house,
    Willing you to demand your hostages,
    And they shall be immediately deliver'd.
  FIRST GOTH. What says our general?
  LUCIUS. Aemilius, let the Emperor give his pledges
    Unto my father and my uncle Marcus.
    And we will come. March away.                         Exeunt

SCENE II. Rome. Before TITUS' house

Enter TAMORA, and her two sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, disguised

  TAMORA. Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,
    I will encounter with Andronicus,
    And say I am Revenge, sent from below
    To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.
    Knock at his study, where they say he keeps
    To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;
    Tell him Revenge is come to join with him,
    And work confusion on his enemies.

         They knock and TITUS opens his study door, above

  TITUS. Who doth molest my contemplation?
    Is it your trick to make me ope the door,
    That so my sad decrees may fly away
    And all my study be to no effect?
    You are deceiv'd; for what I mean to do
    See here in bloody lines I have set down;
    And what is written shall be executed.
  TAMORA. Titus, I am come to talk with thee.
  TITUS. No, not a word. How can I grace my talk,
    Wanting a hand to give it that accord?
    Thou hast the odds of me; therefore no more.
  TAMORA. If thou didst know me, thou wouldst talk with me.
  TITUS. I am not mad, I know thee well enough:
    Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines;
    Witness these trenches made by grief and care;
    Witness the tiring day and heavy night;
    Witness all sorrow that I know thee well
    For our proud Empress, mighty Tamora.
    Is not thy coming for my other hand?
  TAMORA. Know thou, sad man, I am not Tamora:
    She is thy enemy and I thy friend.
    I am Revenge, sent from th' infernal kingdom
    To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind
    By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.
    Come down and welcome me to this world's light;
    Confer with me of murder and of death;
    There's not a hollow cave or lurking-place,
    No vast obscurity or misty vale,
    Where bloody murder or detested rape
    Can couch for fear but I will find them out;
    And in their ears tell them my dreadful name-
    Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.
  TITUS. Art thou Revenge? and art thou sent to me
    To be a torment to mine enemies?
  TAMORA. I am; therefore come down and welcome me.
  TITUS. Do me some service ere I come to thee.
    Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands;
    Now give some surance that thou art Revenge-
    Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels;
    And then I'll come and be thy waggoner
    And whirl along with thee about the globes.
    Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet,
    To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,
    And find out murderers in their guilty caves;
    And when thy car is loaden with their heads,
    I will dismount, and by thy waggon wheel
    Trot, like a servile footman, all day long,
    Even from Hyperion's rising in the east
    Until his very downfall in the sea.
    And day by day I'll do this heavy task,
    So thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.
  TAMORA. These are my ministers, and come with me.
  TITUS. Are they thy ministers? What are they call'd?
  TAMORA. Rape and Murder; therefore called so
    'Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.
  TITUS. Good Lord, how like the Empress' sons they are!
    And you the Empress! But we worldly men
    Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.
    O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee;
    And, if one arm's embracement will content thee,
    I will embrace thee in it by and by.
  TAMORA. This closing with him fits his lunacy.
    Whate'er I forge to feed his brain-sick humours,
    Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,
    For now he firmly takes me for Revenge;
    And, being credulous in this mad thought,
    I'll make him send for Lucius his son,
    And whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,
    I'll find some cunning practice out of hand
    To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths,
    Or, at the least, make them his enemies.
    See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.

                 Enter TITUS, below

  TITUS. Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee.
    Welcome, dread Fury, to my woeful house.
    Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.
    How like the Empress and her sons you are!
    Well are you fitted, had you but a Moor.
    Could not all hell afford you such a devil?
    For well I wot the Empress never wags
    But in her company there is a Moor;
    And, would you represent our queen aright,
    It were convenient you had such a devil.
    But welcome as you are. What shall we do?
  TAMORA. What wouldst thou have us do, Andronicus?
  DEMETRIUS. Show me a murderer, I'll deal with him.
  CHIRON. Show me a villain that hath done a rape,
    And I am sent to be reveng'd on him.
  TAMORA. Show me a thousand that hath done thee wrong,
    And I will be revenged on them all.
  TITUS. Look round about the wicked streets of Rome,
    And when thou find'st a man that's like thyself,
    Good Murder, stab him; he's a murderer.
    Go thou with him, and when it is thy hap
    To find another that is like to thee,
    Good Rapine, stab him; he is a ravisher.
    Go thou with them; and in the Emperor's court
    There is a queen, attended by a Moor;
    Well shalt thou know her by thine own proportion,
    For up and down she doth resemble thee.
    I pray thee, do on them some violent death;
    They have been violent to me and mine.
  TAMORA. Well hast thou lesson'd us; this shall we do.
    But would it please thee, good Andronicus,
    To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,
    Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,
    And bid him come and banquet at thy house;
    When he is here, even at thy solemn feast,
    I will bring in the Empress and her sons,
    The Emperor himself, and all thy foes;
    And at thy mercy shall they stoop and kneel,
    And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.
    What says Andronicus to this device?
  TITUS. Marcus, my brother! 'Tis sad Titus calls.

                  Enter MARCUS

    Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius;
    Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths.
    Bid him repair to me, and bring with him
    Some of the chiefest princes of the Goths;
    Bid him encamp his soldiers where they are.
    Tell him the Emperor and the Empress too
    Feast at my house, and he shall feast with them.
    This do thou for my love; and so let him,
    As he regards his aged father's life.
  MARCUS. This will I do, and soon return again.            Exit
  TAMORA. Now will I hence about thy business,
    And take my ministers along with me.
  TITUS. Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me,
    Or else I'll call my brother back again,
    And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.
  TAMORA.  [Aside to her sons]  What say you, boys? Will you abide
      with him,
    Whiles I go tell my lord the Emperor
    How I have govern'd our determin'd jest?
    Yield to his humour, smooth and speak him fair,
    And tarry with him till I turn again.
  TITUS.  [Aside]  I knew them all, though they suppos'd me mad,
    And will o'er reach them in their own devices,
    A pair of cursed hell-hounds and their dam.
  DEMETRIUS. Madam, depart at pleasure; leave us here.
  TAMORA. Farewell, Andronicus, Revenge now goes
    To lay a complot to betray thy foes.
  TITUS. I know thou dost; and, sweet Revenge, farewell.
                                                     Exit TAMORA
  CHIRON. Tell us, old man, how shall we be employ'd?
  TITUS. Tut, I have work enough for you to do.
    Publius, come hither, Caius, and Valentine.

          Enter PUBLIUS, CAIUS, and VALENTINE

  PUBLIUS. What is your will?
  TITUS. Know you these two?
  PUBLIUS. The Empress' sons, I take them: Chiron, Demetrius.
  TITUS. Fie, Publius, fie! thou art too much deceiv'd.
    The one is Murder, and Rape is the other's name;
    And therefore bind them, gentle Publius-
    Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.
    Oft have you heard me wish for such an hour,
    And now I find it; therefore bind them sure,
    And stop their mouths if they begin to cry.             Exit
                         [They lay hold on CHIRON and DEMETRIUS]
  CHIRON. Villains, forbear! we are the Empress' sons.
  PUBLIUS. And therefore do we what we are commanded.
    Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word.
    Is he sure bound? Look that you bind them fast.

               Re-enter TITUS ANDRONICUS
        with a knife, and LAVINIA, with a basin

  TITUS. Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound.
    Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me;
    But let them hear what fearful words I utter.
    O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!
    Here stands the spring whom you have stain'd with mud;
    This goodly summer with your winter mix'd.
    You kill'd her husband; and for that vile fault
    Two of her brothers were condemn'd to death,
    My hand cut off and made a merry jest;
    Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear
    Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,
    Inhuman traitors, you constrain'd and forc'd.
    What would you say, if I should let you speak?
    Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.
    Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr you.
    This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,
    Whiles that Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold
    The basin that receives your guilty blood.
    You know your mother means to feast with me,
    And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.
    Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust,
    And with your blood and it I'll make a paste;
    And of the paste a coffin I will rear,
    And make two pasties of your shameful heads;
    And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam,
    Like to the earth, swallow her own increase.
    This is the feast that I have bid her to,
    And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;
    For worse than Philomel you us'd my daughter,
    And worse than Progne I will be reveng'd.
    And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come,
    Receive the blood; and when that they are dead,
    Let me go grind their bones to powder small,
    And with this hateful liquor temper it;
    And in that paste let their vile heads be bak'd.
    Come, come, be every one officious
    To make this banquet, which I wish may prove
    More stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast.
                                         [He cuts their throats]
    So.
    Now bring them in, for I will play the cook,
    And see them ready against their mother comes.
                                 Exeunt, bearing the dead bodies

SCENE III. The court of TITUS' house

Enter Lucius, MARCUS, and the GOTHS, with AARON prisoner, and his CHILD
in the arms of an attendant

  LUCIUS. Uncle Marcus, since 'tis my father's mind
    That I repair to Rome, I am content.
    FIRST GOTH. And ours with thine, befall what fortune will.
  LUCIUS. Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor,
    This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil;
    Let him receive no sust'nance, fetter him,
    Till he be brought unto the Empress' face
    For testimony of her foul proceedings.
    And see the ambush of our friends be strong;
    I fear the Emperor means no good to us.
  AARON. Some devil whisper curses in my ear,
    And prompt me that my tongue may utter forth
    The venomous malice of my swelling heart!
  LUCIUS. Away, inhuman dog, unhallowed slave!
    Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in.
                        Exeunt GOTHS with AARON. Flourish within
    The trumpets show the Emperor is at hand.

            Sound trumpets. Enter SATURNINUS and
    TAMORA, with AEMILIUS, TRIBUNES, SENATORS, and others

  SATURNINUS. What, hath the firmament more suns than one?
  LUCIUS. What boots it thee to can thyself a sun?
  MARCUS. Rome's Emperor, and nephew, break the parle;
    These quarrels must be quietly debated.
    The feast is ready which the careful Titus
    Hath ordain'd to an honourable end,
    For peace, for love, for league, and good to Rome.
    Please you, therefore, draw nigh and take your places.
  SATURNINUS. Marcus, we will.
                      [A table brought in. The company sit down]

               Trumpets sounding, enter TITUS
         like a cook, placing the dishes, and LAVINIA
   with a veil over her face; also YOUNG LUCIUS, and others

  TITUS. Welcome, my lord; welcome, dread Queen;
    Welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius;
    And welcome all. Although the cheer be poor,
    'Twill fill your stomachs; please you eat of it.
  SATURNINUS. Why art thou thus attir'd, Andronicus?
  TITUS. Because I would be sure to have all well
    To entertain your Highness and your Empress.
  TAMORA. We are beholding to you, good Andronicus.
  TITUS. An if your Highness knew my heart, you were.
    My lord the Emperor, resolve me this:
    Was it well done of rash Virginius
    To slay his daughter with his own right hand,
    Because she was enforc'd, stain'd, and deflower'd?
  SATURNINUS. It was, Andronicus.
  TITUS. Your reason, mighty lord.
  SATURNINUS. Because the girl should not survive her shame,
    And by her presence still renew his sorrows.
  TITUS. A reason mighty, strong, and effectual;
    A pattern, precedent, and lively warrant
    For me, most wretched, to perform the like.
    Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee;   [He kills her]
    And with thy shame thy father's sorrow die!
  SATURNINUS. What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind?
  TITUS. Kill'd her for whom my tears have made me blind.
    I am as woeful as Virginius was,
    And have a thousand times more cause than he
    To do this outrage; and it now is done.
  SATURNINUS. What, was she ravish'd? Tell who did the deed.
  TITUS. Will't please you eat?  Will't please your Highness feed?
  TAMORA. Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?
  TITUS. Not I; 'twas Chiron and Demetrius.
    They ravish'd her, and cut away her tongue;
    And they, 'twas they, that did her all this wrong.
  SATURNINUS. Go, fetch them hither to us presently.
  TITUS. Why, there they are, both baked in this pie,
    Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
    Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.
    'Tis true, 'tis true: witness my knife's sharp point.
                                          [He stabs the EMPRESS]
  SATURNINUS. Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed!
                                                [He stabs TITUS]
  LUCIUS. Can the son's eye behold his father bleed?
    There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed.
                   [He stabs SATURNINUS. A great tumult. LUCIUS,
               MARCUS, and their friends go up into the balcony]
  MARCUS. You sad-fac'd men, people and sons of Rome,
    By uproars sever'd, as a flight of fowl
    Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts?
    O, let me teach you how to knit again
    This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,
    These broken limbs again into one body;
    Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself,
    And she whom mighty kingdoms curtsy to,
    Like a forlorn and desperate castaway,
    Do shameful execution on herself.
    But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,
    Grave witnesses of true experience,
    Cannot induce you to attend my words,
    [To Lucius]  Speak, Rome's dear friend, as erst our ancestor,
    When with his solemn tongue he did discourse
    To love-sick Dido's sad attending ear
    The story of that baleful burning night,
    When subtle Greeks surpris'd King Priam's Troy.
    Tell us what Sinon hath bewitch'd our ears,
    Or who hath brought the fatal engine in
    That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.
    My heart is not compact of flint nor steel;
    Nor can I utter all our bitter grief,
    But floods of tears will drown my oratory
    And break my utt'rance, even in the time
    When it should move ye to attend me most,
    And force you to commiseration.
    Here's Rome's young Captain, let him tell the tale;
    While I stand by and weep to hear him speak.
  LUCIUS. Then, gracious auditory, be it known to you
    That Chiron and the damn'd Demetrius
    Were they that murd'red our Emperor's brother;
    And they it were that ravished our sister.
    For their fell faults our brothers were beheaded,
    Our father's tears despis'd, and basely cozen'd
    Of that true hand that fought Rome's quarrel out
    And sent her enemies unto the grave.
    Lastly, myself unkindly banished,
    The gates shut on me, and turn'd weeping out,
    To beg relief among Rome's enemies;
    Who drown'd their enmity in my true tears,
    And op'd their arms to embrace me as a friend.
    I am the turned forth, be it known to you,
    That have preserv'd her welfare in my blood
    And from her bosom took the enemy's point,
    Sheathing the steel in my advent'rous body.
    Alas! you know I am no vaunter, I;
    My scars can witness, dumb although they are,
    That my report is just and full of truth.
    But, soft! methinks I do digress too much,
    Citing my worthless praise. O, pardon me!
    For when no friends are by, men praise themselves.
  MARCUS. Now is my turn to speak. Behold the child.
                  [Pointing to the CHILD in an attendant's arms]
    Of this was Tamora delivered,
    The issue of an irreligious Moor,
    Chief architect and plotter of these woes.
    The villain is alive in Titus' house,
    Damn'd as he is, to witness this is true.
    Now judge what cause had Titus to revenge
    These wrongs unspeakable, past patience,
    Or more than any living man could bear.
    Now have you heard the truth: what say you, Romans?
    Have we done aught amiss, show us wherein,
    And, from the place where you behold us pleading,
    The poor remainder of Andronici
    Will, hand in hand, all headlong hurl ourselves,
    And on the ragged stones beat forth our souls,
    And make a mutual closure of our house.
    Speak, Romans, speak; and if you say we shall,
    Lo, hand in hand, Lucius and I will fall.
  AEMILIUS. Come, come, thou reverend man of Rome,
    And bring our Emperor gently in thy hand,
    Lucius our Emperor; for well I know
    The common voice do cry it shall be so.
  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal Emperor!
  MARCUS. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house,
    And hither hale that misbelieving Moor
    To be adjudg'd some direful slaught'ring death,
    As punishment for his most wicked life.          Exeunt some
              attendants. LUCIUS, MARCUS, and the others descend
  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!
  LUCIUS. Thanks, gentle Romans! May I govern so
    To heal Rome's harms and wipe away her woe!
    But, gentle people, give me aim awhile,
    For nature puts me to a heavy task.
    Stand all aloof; but, uncle, draw you near
    To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.
    O, take this warm kiss on thy pale cold lips.  [Kisses TITUS]
    These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stain'd face,
    The last true duties of thy noble son!
  MARCUS. Tear for tear and loving kiss for kiss
    Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips.
    O, were the sum of these that I should pay
    Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them!
  LUCIUS. Come hither, boy; come, come, come, and learn of us
    To melt in showers. Thy grandsire lov'd thee well;
    Many a time he danc'd thee on his knee,
    Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow;
    Many a story hath he told to thee,
    And bid thee bear his pretty tales in mind
    And talk of them when he was dead and gone.
  MARCUS. How many thousand times hath these poor lips,
    When they were living, warm'd themselves on thine!
    O, now, sweet boy, give them their latest kiss!
    Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave;
    Do them that kindness, and take leave of them.
  BOY. O grandsire, grandsire! ev'n with all my heart
    Would I were dead, so you did live again!
    O Lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping;
    My tears will choke me, if I ope my mouth.

            Re-enter attendants with AARON

  A ROMAN. You sad Andronici, have done with woes;
    Give sentence on the execrable wretch
    That hath been breeder of these dire events.
  LUCIUS. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him;
    There let him stand and rave and cry for food.
    If any one relieves or pities him,
    For the offence he dies. This is our doom.
    Some stay to see him fast'ned in the earth.
  AARON. Ah, why should wrath be mute and fury dumb?
    I am no baby, I, that with base prayers
    I should repent the evils I have done;
    Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did
    Would I perform, if I might have my will.
    If one good deed in all my life I did,
    I do repent it from my very soul.
  LUCIUS. Some loving friends convey the Emperor hence,
    And give him burial in his father's grave.
    My father and Lavinia shall forthwith
    Be closed in our household's monument.
    As for that ravenous tiger, Tamora,
    No funeral rite, nor man in mourning weed,
    No mournful bell shall ring her burial;
    But throw her forth to beasts and birds to prey.
    Her life was beastly and devoid of pity,
    And being dead, let birds on her take pity.           Exeunt

THE END

1602



THE HISTORY OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDA




by William Shakespeare





Contents

ACT I
Prologue.
Scene I. Troy. Before PRIAM’S palace.
Scene II. Troy. A street.
Scene III. The Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON’S tent.

ACT II
Scene I. The Grecian camp.
Scene II. Troy. PRIAM’S palace.
Scene III. The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES.

ACT III
Scene I. Troy. PRIAM’S palace.
Scene II. Troy. PANDARUS’ orchard.
Scene III. The Greek camp.

ACT IV
Scene I. Troy. A street.
Scene II. Troy. The court of PANDARUS’ house.
Scene III. Troy. A street before PANDARUS’ house.
Scene IV. Troy. PANDARUS’ house.
Scene V. The Grecian camp. Lists set out.

ACT V
Scene I. The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES.
Scene II. The Grecian camp. Before CALCHAS’ tent.
Scene III. Troy. Before PRIAM’S palace.
Scene IV. The plain between Troy and the Grecian camp.
Scene V. Another part of the plain.
Scene VI. Another part of the plain.
Scene VII. Another part of the plain.
Scene VIII. Another part of the plain.
Scene IX. Another part of the plain.
Scene X. Another part of the plain.




 Dramatis Personæ

PRIAM, King of Troy

His sons:
HECTOR
TROILUS
PARIS
DEIPHOBUS
HELENUS
MARGARELON, a bastard son of Priam

Trojan commanders:
AENEAS
ANTENOR

CALCHAS, a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks
PANDARUS, uncle to Cressida
AGAMEMNON, the Greek general
MENELAUS, his brother

Greek commanders:
ACHILLES
AJAX
ULYSSES
NESTOR
DIOMEDES
PATROCLUS

THERSITES, a deformed and scurrilous Greek
ALEXANDER, servant to Cressida
SERVANT to Troilus
SERVANT to Paris
SERVANT to Diomedes
HELEN, wife to Menelaus
ANDROMACHE, wife to Hector
CASSANDRA, daughter to Priam, a prophetess
CRESSIDA, daughter to Calchas

Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants

SCENE: Troy and the Greek camp before it

PROLOGUE

In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf’d,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war. Sixty and nine that wore
Their crownets regal from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish’d Helen, Menelaus’ queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps—and that’s the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come,
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their war-like fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam’s six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Troien,
And Antenorides, with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Stir up the sons of Troy.
Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come
A prologue arm’d, but not in confidence
Of author’s pen or actor’s voice, but suited
In like conditions as our argument,
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away,
To what may be digested in a play.
Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are;
Now good or bad, ’tis but the chance of war.



ACT I

SCENE I. Troy. Before PRIAM’S palace.

 Enter Troilus armed, and Pandarus.

TROILUS.
Call here my varlet; I’ll unarm again.
Why should I war without the walls of Troy
That find such cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.

PANDARUS.
Will this gear ne’er be mended?

TROILUS.
The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength,
Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;
But I am weaker than a woman’s tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skilless as unpractis’d infancy.

PANDARUS.
Well, I have told you enough of this; for my part, I’ll not meddle nor
make no farther. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry
the grinding.

TROILUS.
Have I not tarried?

PANDARUS.
Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.

TROILUS.
Have I not tarried?

PANDARUS.
Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.

TROILUS.
Still have I tarried.

PANDARUS.
Ay, to the leavening; but here’s yet in the word ‘hereafter’ the
kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the
baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance burn your
lips.

TROILUS.
Patience herself, what goddess e’er she be,
Doth lesser blench at suff’rance than I do.
At Priam’s royal table do I sit;
And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,
So, traitor! ‘when she comes’! when she is thence?

PANDARUS.
Well, she look’d yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any
woman else.

TROILUS.
I was about to tell thee: when my heart,
As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile.
But sorrow that is couch’d in seeming gladness
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

PANDARUS.
An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen’s, well, go to, there
were no more comparison between the women. But, for my part, she is my
kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her, but I would
somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise
your sister Cassandra’s wit; but—

TROILUS.
O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,
When I do tell thee there my hopes lie drown’d,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench’d. I tell thee I am mad
In Cressid’s love. Thou answer’st ‘She is fair’;
Pour’st in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
Handlest in thy discourse. O! that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink
Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure
The cygnet’s down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman! This thou tell’st me,
As true thou tell’st me, when I say I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.

PANDARUS.
I speak no more than truth.

TROILUS.
Thou dost not speak so much.

PANDARUS.
Faith, I’ll not meddle in’t. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, ’tis
the better for her; and she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.

TROILUS.
Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus!

PANDARUS.
I have had my labour for my travail, ill thought on of her and ill
thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my
labour.

TROILUS.
What! art thou angry, Pandarus? What! with me?

PANDARUS.
Because she’s kin to me, therefore she’s not so fair as Helen. And she
were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on
Sunday. But what care I? I care not and she were a blackamoor; ’tis all
one to me.

TROILUS.
Say I she is not fair?

PANDARUS.
I do not care whether you do or no. She’s a fool to stay behind her
father. Let her to the Greeks; and so I’ll tell her the next time I see
her. For my part, I’ll meddle nor make no more i’ the matter.

TROILUS.
Pandarus—

PANDARUS.
Not I.

TROILUS.
Sweet Pandarus—

PANDARUS.
Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and
there an end.

 [_Exit Pandarus. An alarum._]

TROILUS.
Peace, you ungracious clamours! Peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starv’d a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus, O gods! how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he’s as tetchy to be woo’d to woo
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne’s love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl;
Between our Ilium and where she resides
Let it be call’d the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.

 Alarum. Enter Aeneas.

AENEAS.
How now, Prince Troilus! Wherefore not afield?

TROILUS.
Because not there. This woman’s answer sorts,
For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, Aeneas, from the field today?

AENEAS.
That Paris is returned home, and hurt.

TROILUS.
By whom, Aeneas?

AENEAS.
Troilus, by Menelaus.

TROILUS.
Let Paris bleed: ’tis but a scar to scorn;
Paris is gor’d with Menelaus’ horn.

 [_Alarum._]

AENEAS.
Hark what good sport is out of town today!

TROILUS.
Better at home, if ‘would I might’ were ‘may.’
But to the sport abroad. Are you bound thither?

AENEAS.
In all swift haste.

TROILUS.
Come, go we then together.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Troy. A street.

 Enter Cressida and her man Alexander.

CRESSIDA.
Who were those went by?

ALEXANDER.
Queen Hecuba and Helen.

CRESSIDA.
And whither go they?

ALEXANDER.
Up to the eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is as a virtue fix’d, today was mov’d.
He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness’d light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw
In Hector’s wrath.

CRESSIDA.
What was his cause of anger?

ALEXANDER.
The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks
A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.

CRESSIDA.
Good; and what of him?

ALEXANDER.
They say he is a very man _per se_
And stands alone.

CRESSIDA.
So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

ALEXANDER.
This man, lady, hath robb’d many beasts of their particular additions:
he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the
elephant—a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour
is crush’d into folly, his folly sauced with discretion. There is no
man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint
but he carries some stain of it; he is melancholy without cause and
merry against the hair; he hath the joints of everything; but
everything so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and
no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

CRESSIDA.
But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?

ALEXANDER.
They say he yesterday cop’d Hector in the battle and struck him down,
the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and
waking.

 Enter Pandarus.

CRESSIDA.
Who comes here?

ALEXANDER.
Madam, your uncle Pandarus.

CRESSIDA.
Hector’s a gallant man.

ALEXANDER.
As may be in the world, lady.

PANDARUS.
What’s that? What’s that?

CRESSIDA.
Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
Good morrow, cousin Cressid. What do you talk of?—Good morrow,
Alexander.—How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?

CRESSIDA.
This morning, uncle.

PANDARUS.
What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector arm’d and gone ere you
came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?

CRESSIDA.
Hector was gone; but Helen was not up.

PANDARUS.
E’en so. Hector was stirring early.

CRESSIDA.
That were we talking of, and of his anger.

PANDARUS.
Was he angry?

CRESSIDA.
So he says here.

PANDARUS.
True, he was so; I know the cause too; he’ll lay about him today, I can
tell them that. And there’s Troilus will not come far behind him; let
them take heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too.

CRESSIDA.
What, is he angry too?

PANDARUS.
Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.

CRESSIDA.
O Jupiter! there’s no comparison.

PANDARUS.
What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man if you see him?

CRESSIDA.
Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.

PANDARUS.
Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.

CRESSIDA.
Then you say as I say, for I am sure he is not Hector.

PANDARUS.
No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.

CRESSIDA.
’Tis just to each of them: he is himself.

PANDARUS.
Himself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would he were!

CRESSIDA.
So he is.

PANDARUS.
Condition I had gone barefoot to India.

CRESSIDA.
He is not Hector.

PANDARUS.
Himself! no, he’s not himself. Would a’ were himself! Well, the gods
are above; time must friend or end. Well, Troilus, well! I would my
heart were in her body! No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus.

CRESSIDA.
Excuse me.

PANDARUS.
He is elder.

CRESSIDA.
Pardon me, pardon me.

PANDARUS.
Th’other’s not come to’t; you shall tell me another tale when
th’other’s come to’t. Hector shall not have his wit this year.

CRESSIDA.
He shall not need it if he have his own.

ANDARUS.
Nor his qualities.

CRESSIDA.
No matter.

PANDARUS.
Nor his beauty.

CRESSIDA.
’Twould not become him: his own’s better.

PANDARUS.
You have no judgement, niece. Helen herself swore th’other day that
Troilus, for a brown favour, for so ’tis, I must confess—not brown
neither—

CRESSIDA.
No, but brown.

PANDARUS.
Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.

CRESSIDA.
To say the truth, true and not true.

PANDARUS.
She prais’d his complexion above Paris.

CRESSIDA.
Why, Paris hath colour enough.

PANDARUS.
So he has.

CRESSIDA.
Then Troilus should have too much. If she prais’d him above, his
complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other
higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief
Helen’s golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.

PANDARUS.
I swear to you I think Helen loves him better than Paris.

CRESSIDA.
Then she’s a merry Greek indeed.

PANDARUS.
Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th’other day into the
compass’d window—and you know he has not past three or four hairs on
his chin—

CRESSIDA.
Indeed a tapster’s arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to
a total.

PANDARUS.
Why, he is very young, and yet will he within three pound lift as much
as his brother Hector.

CRESSIDA.
Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?

PANDARUS.
But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and puts me her
white hand to his cloven chin—

CRESSIDA.
Juno have mercy! How came it cloven?

PANDARUS.
Why, you know, ’tis dimpled. I think his smiling becomes him better
than any man in all Phrygia.

CRESSIDA.
O, he smiles valiantly!

PANDARUS.
Does he not?

CRESSIDA.
O yes, an ’twere a cloud in autumn!

PANDARUS.
Why, go to, then! But to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus—

CRESSIDA.
Troilus will stand to the proof, if you’ll prove it so.

PANDARUS.
Troilus! Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg.

CRESSIDA.
If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would
eat chickens i’ th’ shell.

PANDARUS.
I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his chin. Indeed,
she has a marvell’s white hand, I must needs confess.

CRESSIDA.
Without the rack.

PANDARUS.
And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.

CRESSIDA.
Alas, poor chin! Many a wart is richer.

PANDARUS.
But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laugh’d that her eyes ran
o’er.

CRESSIDA.
With millstones.

PANDARUS.
And Cassandra laugh’d.

CRESSIDA.
But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes. Did her
eyes run o’er too?

PANDARUS.
And Hector laugh’d.

CRESSIDA.
At what was all this laughing?

PANDARUS.
Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus’ chin.

CRESSIDA.
And’t had been a green hair I should have laugh’d too.

PANDARUS.
They laugh’d not so much at the hair as at his pretty answer.

CRESSIDA.
What was his answer?

PANDARUS.
Quoth she ‘Here’s but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them
is white.’

CRESSIDA.
This is her question.

PANDARUS.
That’s true; make no question of that. ‘Two and fifty hairs,’ quoth he
‘and one white. That white hair is my father, and all the rest are his
sons.’ ‘Jupiter!’ quoth she ‘which of these hairs is Paris my husband?’
‘The forked one,’ quoth he, ’pluck’t out and give it him.’ But there
was such laughing! and Helen so blush’d, and Paris so chaf’d; and all
the rest so laugh’d that it pass’d.

CRESSIDA.
So let it now; for it has been a great while going by.

PANDARUS.
Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on’t.

CRESSIDA.
So I do.

PANDARUS.
I’ll be sworn ’tis true; he will weep you, and ’twere a man born in
April.

CRESSIDA.
And I’ll spring up in his tears, an ’twere a nettle against May.

 [_Sound a retreat._]

PANDARUS.
Hark! they are coming from the field. Shall we stand up here and see
them as they pass toward Ilium? Good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida.

CRESSIDA.
At your pleasure.

PANDARUS.
Here, here, here’s an excellent place; here we may see most bravely.
I’ll tell you them all by their names as they pass by; but mark Troilus
above the rest.

 [Aeneas _passes_.]

CRESSIDA.
Speak not so loud.

PANDARUS.
That’s Aeneas. Is not that a brave man? He’s one of the flowers of
Troy, I can tell you. But mark Troilus; you shall see anon.

 [Antenor _passes_.]

CRESSIDA.
Who’s that?

PANDARUS.
That’s Antenor. He has a shrewd wit, I can tell you; and he’s a man
good enough; he’s one o’ th’ soundest judgements in Troy, whosoever,
and a proper man of person. When comes Troilus? I’ll show you Troilus
anon. If he see me, you shall see him nod at me.

CRESSIDA.
Will he give you the nod?

PANDARUS.
You shall see.

CRESSIDA.
If he do, the rich shall have more.

 [Hector _passes_.]

PANDARUS.
That’s Hector, that, that, look you, that; there’s a fellow! Go thy
way, Hector! There’s a brave man, niece. O brave Hector! Look how he
looks. There’s a countenance! Is’t not a brave man?

CRESSIDA.
O, a brave man!

PANDARUS.
Is a’ not? It does a man’s heart good. Look you what hacks are on his
helmet! Look you yonder, do you see? Look you there. There’s no
jesting; there’s laying on; take’t off who will, as they say. There be
hacks.

CRESSIDA.
Be those with swords?

PANDARUS.
Swords! anything, he cares not; and the devil come to him, it’s all
one. By God’s lid, it does one’s heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder
comes Paris.

 [Paris _passes_.]

Look ye yonder, niece; is’t not a gallant man too, is’t not? Why, this
is brave now. Who said he came hurt home today? He’s not hurt. Why,
this will do Helen’s heart good now, ha! Would I could see Troilus now!
You shall see Troilus anon.

 [Helenus _passes_.]

CRESSIDA.
Who’s that?

PANDARUS.
That’s Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That’s
Helenus. I think he went not forth today. That’s Helenus.

CRESSIDA.
Can Helenus fight, uncle?

PANDARUS.
Helenus! no. Yes, he’ll fight indifferent well. I marvel where Troilus
is. Hark! do you not hear the people cry ‘Troilus’?—Helenus is a
priest.

CRESSIDA.
What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

 [Troilus _passes_.]

PANDARUS.
Where? yonder? That’s Deiphobus. ’Tis Troilus. There’s a man, niece.
Hem! Brave Troilus, the prince of chivalry!

CRESSIDA.
Peace, for shame, peace!

PANDARUS.
Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece; look
you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hack’d than Hector’s;
and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable youth! he never saw
three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way. Had I a sister were
a grace or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable
man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change,
would give an eye to boot.

CRESSIDA.
Here comes more.

 [_Common soldiers pass_.]

PANDARUS.
Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after
meat! I could live and die in the eyes of Troilus. Ne’er look, ne’er
look; the eagles are gone. Crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather
be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece.

CRESSIDA.
There is amongst the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus.

PANDARUS.
Achilles? A drayman, a porter, a very camel!

CRESSIDA.
Well, well.

PANDARUS.
Well, well! Why, have you any discretion? Have you any eyes? Do you
know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse,
manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such
like, the spice and salt that season a man?

CRESSIDA.
Ay, a minc’d man; and then to be bak’d with no date in the pie, for
then the man’s date is out.

PANDARUS.
You are such a woman! A man knows not at what ward you lie.

CRESSIDA.
Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon
my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and
you, to defend all these; and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand
watches.

PANDARUS.
Say one of your watches.

CRESSIDA.
Nay, I’ll watch you for that; and that’s one of the chiefest of them
too. If I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for
telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it’s
past watching.

PANDARUS.
You are such another!

 Enter Troilus' Boy.

BOY.
Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.

PANDARUS.
Where?

BOY.
At your own house; there he unarms him.

PANDARUS.
Good boy, tell him I come. [_Exit_ Boy.] I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye
well, good niece.

CRESSIDA.
Adieu, uncle.

PANDARUS.
I will be with you, niece, by and by.

CRESSIDA.
To bring, uncle.

PANDARUS.
Ay, a token from Troilus.

 [_Exit_ Pandarus.]

CRESSIDA.
By the same token, you are a bawd.
Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice,
He offers in another’s enterprise;
But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be,
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
That she belov’d knows naught that knows not this:
Men prize the thing ungain’d more than it is.
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue;
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
‘Achievement is command; ungain’d, beseech.’
Then though my heart’s content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON’S tent.

 Sennet. Enter Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses, Diomedes, Menelaus and
 others.

AGAMEMNON.
Princes,
What grief hath set these jaundies o’er your cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below
Fails in the promis’d largeness; checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear’d,
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infects the sound pine, and diverts his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
That we come short of our suppose so far
That after seven years’ siege yet Troy walls stand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave’t surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abash’d behold our works
And call them shames, which are, indeed, naught else
But the protractive trials of great Jove
To find persistive constancy in men;
The fineness of which metal is not found
In fortune’s love? For then the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affin’d and kin.
But in the wind and tempest of her frown
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass or matter by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.

NESTOR.
With due observance of thy godlike seat,
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply
Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk!
But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon behold
The strong-ribb’d bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements
Like Perseus’ horse. Where’s then the saucy boat,
Whose weak untimber’d sides but even now
Co-rivall’d greatness? Either to harbour fled
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
Doth valour’s show and valour’s worth divide
In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness
The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade—why, then the thing of courage,
As rous’d with rage, with rage doth sympathise,
And with an accent tun’d in self-same key
Retorts to chiding fortune.

ULYSSES.
Agamemnon,
Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,
Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit
In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be shut up—hear what Ulysses speaks.
Besides th’applause and approbation
The which, [_To Agamemnon_] most mighty, for thy place and sway,
[_To Nestor_] And, thou most reverend, for thy stretch’d-out life,
I give to both your speeches—which were such
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass; and such again
As venerable Nestor, hatch’d in silver,
Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree
On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears
To his experienc’d tongue—yet let it please both,
Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.

AGAMEMNON.
Speak, Prince of Ithaca; and be’t of less expect
That matter needless, of importless burden,
Divide thy lips than we are confident,
When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws,
We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

ULYSSES.
Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector’s sword had lack’d a master,
But for these instances:
The specialty of rule hath been neglected;
And look how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive,
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
Th’unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthron’d and spher’d
Amidst the other, whose med’cinable eye
Corrects the influence of evil planets,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,
Commotion in the winds! Frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate,
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shak’d,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,
The enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenity and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows! Each thing melts
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe;
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead;
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong—
Between whose endless jar justice resides—
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then everything includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general’s disdain’d
By him one step below, he by the next,
That next by him beneath; so every step,
Exampl’d by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation.
And ’tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.

NESTOR.
Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover’d
The fever whereof all our power is sick.

AGAMEMNON.
The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses,
What is the remedy?

ULYSSES.
The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns
The sinew and the forehand of our host,
Having his ear full of his airy fame,
Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent
Lies mocking our designs; with him Patroclus
Upon a lazy bed the livelong day
Breaks scurril jests;
And with ridiculous and awkward action—
Which, slanderer, he imitation calls—
He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,
Thy topless deputation he puts on;
And like a strutting player whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
’Twixt his stretch’d footing and the scaffoldage—
Such to-be-pitied and o’er-wrested seeming
He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks
’Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquar’d,
Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp’d,
Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff
The large Achilles, on his press’d bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;
Cries ‘Excellent! ’Tis Agamemnon right!
Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,
As he being drest to some oration.’
That’s done—as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels, as like as Vulcan and his wife;
Yet god Achilles still cries ‘Excellent!
’Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,
Arming to answer in a night alarm.’
And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age
Must be the scene of mirth: to cough and spit
And, with a palsy fumbling on his gorget,
Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport
Sir Valour dies; cries ‘O, enough, Patroclus;
Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all
In pleasure of my spleen.’ And in this fashion
All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,
Severals and generals of grace exact,
Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,
Excitements to the field or speech for truce,
Success or loss, what is or is not, serves
As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.

NESTOR.
And in the imitation of these twain—
Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns
With an imperial voice—many are infect.
Ajax is grown self-will’d and bears his head
In such a rein, in full as proud a place
As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him;
Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war
Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites,
A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint,
To match us in comparisons with dirt,
To weaken and discredit our exposure,
How rank soever rounded in with danger.

ULYSSES.
They tax our policy and call it cowardice,
Count wisdom as no member of the war,
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand. The still and mental parts
That do contrive how many hands shall strike
When fitness calls them on, and know, by measure
Of their observant toil, the enemies’ weight—
Why, this hath not a finger’s dignity:
They call this bed-work, mapp’ry, closet-war;
So that the ram that batters down the wall,
For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise,
They place before his hand that made the engine,
Or those that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.

NESTOR.
Let this be granted, and Achilles’ horse
Makes many Thetis’ sons.

 [_Tucket_.]

AGAMEMNON.
What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.

MENELAUS.
From Troy.

 Enter Aeneas.

AGAMEMNON.
What would you fore our tent?

AENEAS.
Is this great Agamemnon’s tent, I pray you?

AGAMEMNON.
Even this.

AENEAS.
May one that is a herald and a prince
Do a fair message to his kingly eyes?

AGAMEMNON.
With surety stronger than Achilles’ arm
Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice
Call Agamemnon head and general.

AENEAS.
Fair leave and large security. How may
A stranger to those most imperial looks
Know them from eyes of other mortals?

AGAMEMNON.
How?

AENEAS.
Ay;
I ask, that I might waken reverence,
And bid the cheek be ready with a blush
Modest as morning when she coldly eyes
The youthful Phoebus.
Which is that god in office, guiding men?
Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?

AGAMEMNON.
This Trojan scorns us, or the men of Troy
Are ceremonious courtiers.

AENEAS.
Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm’d,
As bending angels; that’s their fame in peace.
But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,
Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove’s accord,
Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,
Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips.
The worthiness of praise distains his worth,
If that the prais’d himself bring the praise forth;
But what the repining enemy commends,
That breath fame blows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.

AGAMEMNON.
Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?

AENEAS.
Ay, Greek, that is my name.

AGAMEMNON.
What’s your affairs, I pray you?

AENEAS.
Sir, pardon; ’tis for Agamemnon’s ears.

AGAMEMNON
He hears naught privately that comes from Troy.

AENEAS.
Nor I from Troy come not to whisper with him;
I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,
To set his sense on the attentive bent,
And then to speak.

AGAMEMNON.
Speak frankly as the wind;
It is not Agamemnon’s sleeping hour.
That thou shalt know, Trojan, he is awake,
He tells thee so himself.

AENEAS.
Trumpet, blow loud,
Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;
And every Greek of mettle, let him know
What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud.

 [_Sound trumpet_.]

We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy
A prince called Hector—Priam is his father—
Who in this dull and long-continued truce
Is resty grown; he bade me take a trumpet
And to this purpose speak: Kings, princes, lords!
If there be one among the fair’st of Greece
That holds his honour higher than his ease,
That feeds his praise more than he fears his peril,
That knows his valour and knows not his fear,
That loves his mistress more than in confession
With truant vows to her own lips he loves,
And dare avow her beauty and her worth
In other arms than hers—to him this challenge.
Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks,
Shall make it good or do his best to do it:
He hath a lady wiser, fairer, truer,
Than ever Greek did couple in his arms;
And will tomorrow with his trumpet call
Mid-way between your tents and walls of Troy
To rouse a Grecian that is true in love.
If any come, Hector shall honour him;
If none, he’ll say in Troy, when he retires,
The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth
The splinter of a lance. Even so much.

AGAMEMNON.
This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas.
If none of them have soul in such a kind,
We left them all at home. But we are soldiers;
And may that soldier a mere recreant prove
That means not, hath not, or is not in love.
If then one is, or hath, or means to be,
That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.

NESTOR.
Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man
When Hector’s grandsire suck’d. He is old now;
But if there be not in our Grecian host
A noble man that hath one spark of fire
To answer for his love, tell him from me
I’ll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,
And in my vambrace put this wither’d brawns,
And meeting him, will tell him that my lady
Was fairer than his grandam, and as chaste
As may be in the world. His youth in flood,
I’ll prove this troth with my three drops of blood.

AENEAS.
Now heavens forfend such scarcity of youth!

ULYSSES.
Amen.

AGAMEMNON.
Fair Lord Aeneas, let me touch your hand;
To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir.
Achilles shall have word of this intent;
So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent.
Yourself shall feast with us before you go,
And find the welcome of a noble foe.

 [_Exeunt all but Ulysses and Nestor_.]

ULYSSES.
Nestor!

NESTOR.
What says Ulysses?

ULYSSES.
I have a young conception in my brain;
Be you my time to bring it to some shape.

NESTOR.
What is’t?

ULYSSES.
This ’tis:
Blunt wedges rive hard knots. The seeded pride
That hath to this maturity blown up
In rank Achilles must or now be cropp’d
Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil
To overbulk us all.

NESTOR.
Well, and how?

ULYSSES.
This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,
However it is spread in general name,
Relates in purpose only to Achilles.

NESTOR.
True. The purpose is perspicuous even as substance
Whose grossness little characters sum up;
And, in the publication, make no strain
But that Achilles, were his brain as barren
As banks of Libya—though, Apollo knows,
’Tis dry enough—will with great speed of judgement,
Ay, with celerity, find Hector’s purpose
Pointing on him.

ULYSSES.
And wake him to the answer, think you?

NESTOR.
Why, ’tis most meet. Who may you else oppose
That can from Hector bring those honours off,
If not Achilles? Though ’t be a sportful combat,
Yet in this trial much opinion dwells
For here the Trojans taste our dear’st repute
With their fin’st palate; and trust to me, Ulysses,
Our imputation shall be oddly pois’d
In this vile action; for the success,
Although particular, shall give a scantling
Of good or bad unto the general;
And in such indexes, although small pricks
To their subsequent volumes, there is seen
The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come at large. It is suppos’d
He that meets Hector issues from our choice;
And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,
Makes merit her election, and doth boil,
As ’twere from forth us all, a man distill’d
Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,
What heart receives from hence a conquering part,
To steel a strong opinion to themselves?
Which entertain’d, limbs are his instruments,
In no less working than are swords and bows
Directive by the limbs.

ULYSSES.
Give pardon to my speech. Therefore ’tis meet
Achilles meet not Hector. Let us, like merchants,
First show foul wares, and think perchance they’ll sell;
If not, the lustre of the better shall exceed
By showing the worse first. Do not consent
That ever Hector and Achilles meet;
For both our honour and our shame in this
Are dogg’d with two strange followers.

NESTOR.
I see them not with my old eyes. What are they?

ULYSSES.
What glory our Achilles shares from Hector,
Were he not proud, we all should share with him;
But he already is too insolent;
And it were better parch in Afric sun
Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes,
Should he scape Hector fair. If he were foil’d,
Why, then we do our main opinion crush
In taint of our best man. No, make a lott’ry;
And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with Hector. Among ourselves
Give him allowance for the better man;
For that will physic the great Myrmidon,
Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall
His crest, that prouder than blue Iris bends.
If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off,
We’ll dress him up in voices; if he fail,
Yet go we under our opinion still
That we have better men. But, hit or miss,
Our project’s life this shape of sense assumes—
Ajax employ’d plucks down Achilles’ plumes.

NESTOR.
Now, Ulysses, I begin to relish thy advice;
And I will give a taste thereof forthwith
To Agamemnon. Go we to him straight.
Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone
Must tarre the mastiffs on, as ’twere their bone.

 [_Exeunt_.]



ACT II

SCENE I. The Grecian camp.

 Enter Ajax and Thersites.

AJAX.
Thersites!

THERSITES.
Agamemnon—how if he had boils, full, all over, generally?

AJAX.
Thersites!

THERSITES.
And those boils did run—say so. Did not the general run then? Were not
that a botchy core?

AJAX.
Dog!

THERSITES.
Then there would come some matter from him;
I see none now.

AJAX.
Thou bitch-wolf’s son, canst thou not hear? Feel, then.

 [_Strikes him_.]

THERSITES.
The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!

AJAX.
Speak, then, thou unsalted leaven, speak. I will beat thee into
handsomeness.

THERSITES.
I shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness; but I think thy horse
will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without book. Thou
canst strike, canst thou? A red murrain o’ thy jade’s tricks!

AJAX.
Toadstool, learn me the proclamation.

THERSITES.
Dost thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus?

AJAX.
The proclamation!

THERSITES.
Thou art proclaim’d fool, I think.

AJAX.
Do not, porpentine, do not; my fingers itch.

THERSITES.
I would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had the scratching of
thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece. When thou art
forth in the incursions, thou strikest as slow as another.

AJAX.
I say, the proclamation.

THERSITES.
Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles; and thou art as full
of envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at Proserpina’s beauty—ay, that
thou bark’st at him.

AJAX.
Mistress Thersites!

THERSITES.
Thou shouldst strike him.

AJAX.
Cobloaf!

THERSITES.
He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a sailor breaks a
biscuit.

AJAX.
You whoreson cur!

 [_Strikes him_.]

THERSITES.
Do, do.

AJAX.
Thou stool for a witch!

THERSITES.
Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! Thou hast no more brain than I
have in mine elbows; an asinico may tutor thee. You scurvy valiant ass!
Thou art here but to thrash Trojans, and thou art bought and sold among
those of any wit like a barbarian slave. If thou use to beat me, I will
begin at thy heel and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no
bowels, thou!

AJAX.
You dog!

THERSITES.
You scurvy lord!

AJAX.
You cur!

 [_Strikes him_.]

THERSITES.
Mars his idiot! Do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do.

 Enter Achilles and Patroclus.

ACHILLES.
Why, how now, Ajax! Wherefore do ye thus?
How now, Thersites! What’s the matter, man?

THERSITES.
You see him there, do you?

ACHILLES.
Ay; what’s the matter?

THERSITES.
Nay, look upon him.

ACHILLES.
So I do. What’s the matter?

THERSITES.
Nay, but regard him well.

ACHILLES.
Well! why, so I do.

THERSITES.
But yet you look not well upon him; for whosomever you take him to be,
he is Ajax.

ACHILLES.
I know that, fool.

THERSITES.
Ay, but that fool knows not himself.

AJAX.
Therefore I beat thee.

THERSITES.
Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! His evasions have ears
thus long. I have bobb’d his brain more than he has beat my bones. I
will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the
ninth part of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles—Ajax, who wears his wit in
his belly and his guts in his head—I’ll tell you what I say of him.

ACHILLES.
What?

THERSITES.
I say this Ajax—

 [_Ajax offers to strike him_.]

ACHILLES.
Nay, good Ajax.

THERSITES.
Has not so much wit—

ACHILLES.
Nay, I must hold you.

THERSITES.
As will stop the eye of Helen’s needle, for whom he comes to fight.

ACHILLES.
Peace, fool.

THERSITES.
I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not— he there; that
he; look you there.

AJAX.
O thou damned cur! I shall—

ACHILLES.
Will you set your wit to a fool’s?

THERSITES.
No, I warrant you, the fool’s will shame it.

PATROCLUS.
Good words, Thersites.

ACHILLES.
What’s the quarrel?

AJAX.
I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenour of the proclamation, and he
rails upon me.

THERSITES.
I serve thee not.

AJAX.
Well, go to, go to.

THERSITES.
I serve here voluntary.

ACHILLES.
Your last service was suff’rance; ’twas not voluntary. No man is beaten
voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.

THERSITES.
E’en so; a great deal of your wit too lies in your sinews, or else
there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch and knock out either of
your brains: a’ were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.

ACHILLES.
What, with me too, Thersites?

THERSITES.
There’s Ulysses and old Nestor—whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires
had nails on their toes—yoke you like draught oxen, and make you plough
up the wars.

ACHILLES.
What, what?

THERSITES.
Yes, good sooth. To Achilles, to Ajax, to—

AJAX.
I shall cut out your tongue.

THERSITES.
’Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou afterwards.

PATROCLUS.
No more words, Thersites; peace!

THERSITES.
I will hold my peace when Achilles’ brach bids me, shall I?

ACHILLES.
There’s for you, Patroclus.

THERSITES.
I will see you hang’d like clotpoles ere I come any more to your tents.
I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of
fools.

 [_Exit_.]

PATROCLUS.
A good riddance.

ACHILLES.
Marry, this, sir, is proclaim’d through all our host,
That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun,
Will with a trumpet ’twixt our tents and Troy,
Tomorrow morning, call some knight to arms
That hath a stomach; and such a one that dare
Maintain I know not what; ’tis trash. Farewell.

AJAX.
Farewell. Who shall answer him?

ACHILLES.
I know not; ’tis put to lott’ry, otherwise,
He knew his man.

AJAX.
O, meaning you? I will go learn more of it.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE II. Troy. PRIAM’S palace.

 Enter Priam, Hector, Troilus, Paris and Helenus.

PRIAM.
After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,
Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:
‘Deliver Helen, and all damage else—
As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,
Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum’d
In hot digestion of this cormorant war—
Shall be struck off.’ Hector, what say you to’t?

HECTOR.
Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I,
As far as toucheth my particular,
Yet, dread Priam,
There is no lady of more softer bowels,
More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,
More ready to cry out ‘Who knows what follows?’
Than Hector is. The wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure; but modest doubt is call’d
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To th’ bottom of the worst. Let Helen go.
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe soul ’mongst many thousand dismes
Hath been as dear as Helen—I mean, of ours.
If we have lost so many tenths of ours
To guard a thing not ours, nor worth to us,
Had it our name, the value of one ten,
What merit’s in that reason which denies
The yielding of her up?

TROILUS.
Fie, fie, my brother!
Weigh you the worth and honour of a king,
So great as our dread father’s, in a scale
Of common ounces? Will you with counters sum
The past-proportion of his infinite,
And buckle in a waist most fathomless
With spans and inches so diminutive
As fears and reasons? Fie, for godly shame!

HELENUS.
No marvel though you bite so sharp of reasons,
You are so empty of them. Should not our father
Bear the great sway of his affairs with reason,
Because your speech hath none that tells him so?

TROILUS.
You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;
You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons:
You know an enemy intends you harm;
You know a sword employ’d is perilous,
And reason flies the object of all harm.
Who marvels, then, when Helenus beholds
A Grecian and his sword, if he do set
The very wings of reason to his heels
And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,
Or like a star disorb’d? Nay, if we talk of reason,
Let’s shut our gates and sleep. Manhood and honour
Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their thoughts
With this cramm’d reason. Reason and respect
Make livers pale and lustihood deject.

HECTOR.
Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost the keeping.

TROILUS.
What’s aught but as ’tis valued?

HECTOR.
But value dwells not in particular will:
It holds his estimate and dignity
As well wherein ’tis precious of itself
As in the prizer. ’Tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god,
And the will dotes that is attributive
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of th’affected merit.

TROILUS.
I take today a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots ’twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgement: how may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose? There can be no evasion
To blench from this and to stand firm by honour.
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant
When we have soil’d them; nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in unrespective sieve,
Because we now are full. It was thought meet
Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks;
Your breath with full consent bellied his sails;
The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce,
And did him service. He touch’d the ports desir’d;
And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo’s, and makes stale the morning.
Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt.
Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl
Whose price hath launch’d above a thousand ships,
And turn’d crown’d kings to merchants.
If you’ll avouch ’twas wisdom Paris went—
As you must needs, for you all cried ‘Go, go’—
If you’ll confess he brought home worthy prize—
As you must needs, for you all clapp’d your hands,
And cried ‘Inestimable!’—why do you now
The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,
And do a deed that never Fortune did—
Beggar the estimation which you priz’d
Richer than sea and land? O theft most base,
That we have stol’n what we do fear to keep!
But thieves unworthy of a thing so stol’n
That in their country did them that disgrace
We fear to warrant in our native place!

CASSANDRA.
[_Within_.] Cry, Trojans, cry.

PRIAM.
What noise, what shriek is this?

TROILUS.
’Tis our mad sister; I do know her voice.

CASSANDRA.
[_Within_.] Cry, Trojans.

HECTOR.
It is Cassandra.

 Enter Cassandra, raving.

CASSANDRA.
Cry, Trojans, cry. Lend me ten thousand eyes,
And I will fill them with prophetic tears.

HECTOR.
Peace, sister, peace.

CASSANDRA.
Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,
Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,
Add to my clamours. Let us pay betimes
A moiety of that mass of moan to come.
Cry, Trojans, cry. Practise your eyes with tears.
Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;
Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry, A Helen and a woe!
Cry, cry. Troy burns, or else let Helen go.

 [_Exit_.]

HECTOR.
Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains
Of divination in our sister work
Some touches of remorse? Or is your blood
So madly hot, that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,
Can qualify the same?

TROILUS.
Why, brother Hector,
We may not think the justness of each act
Such and no other than event doth form it;
Nor once deject the courage of our minds
Because Cassandra’s mad. Her brain-sick raptures
Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel
Which hath our several honours all engag’d
To make it gracious. For my private part,
I am no more touch’d than all Priam’s sons;
And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us
Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
To fight for and maintain.

PARIS.
Else might the world convince of levity
As well my undertakings as your counsels;
But I attest the gods, your full consent
Gave wings to my propension, and cut off
All fears attending on so dire a project.
For what, alas, can these my single arms?
What propugnation is in one man’s valour
To stand the push and enmity of those
This quarrel would excite? Yet I protest,
Were I alone to pass the difficulties,
And had as ample power as I have will,
Paris should ne’er retract what he hath done,
Nor faint in the pursuit.

PRIAM.
Paris, you speak
Like one besotted on your sweet delights.
You have the honey still, but these the gall;
So to be valiant is no praise at all.

PARIS.
Sir, I propose not merely to myself
The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;
But I would have the soil of her fair rape
Wip’d off in honourable keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransack’d queen,
Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,
Now to deliver her possession up
On terms of base compulsion! Can it be,
That so degenerate a strain as this
Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?
There’s not the meanest spirit on our party
Without a heart to dare or sword to draw
When Helen is defended; nor none so noble
Whose life were ill bestow’d or death unfam’d,
Where Helen is the subject. Then, I say,
Well may we fight for her whom we know well
The world’s large spaces cannot parallel.

HECTOR.
Paris and Troilus, you have both said well;
And on the cause and question now in hand
Have gloz’d, but superficially; not much
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distemp’red blood
Than to make up a free determination
’Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decision. Nature craves
All dues be rend’red to their owners. Now,
What nearer debt in all humanity
Than wife is to the husband? If this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection;
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benumbed wills, resist the same;
There is a law in each well-order’d nation
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.
If Helen, then, be wife to Sparta’s king—
As it is known she is—these moral laws
Of nature and of nations speak aloud
To have her back return’d. Thus to persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy. Hector’s opinion
Is this, in way of truth. Yet, ne’ertheless,
My spritely brethren, I propend to you
In resolution to keep Helen still;
For ’tis a cause that hath no mean dependence
Upon our joint and several dignities.

TROILUS.
Why, there you touch’d the life of our design.
Were it not glory that we more affected
Than the performance of our heaving spleens,
I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood
Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,
She is a theme of honour and renown,
A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
Whose present courage may beat down our foes,
And fame in time to come canonize us;
For I presume brave Hector would not lose
So rich advantage of a promis’d glory
As smiles upon the forehead of this action
For the wide world’s revenue.

HECTOR.
I am yours,
You valiant offspring of great Priamus.
I have a roisting challenge sent amongst
The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks
Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits.
I was advertis’d their great general slept,
Whilst emulation in the army crept.
This, I presume, will wake him.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES.

 Enter Thersites, solus.

THERSITES.
How now, Thersites! What, lost in the labyrinth of thy fury? Shall the
elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me, and I rail at him. O worthy
satisfaction! Would it were otherwise: that I could beat him, whilst he
rail’d at me! ‘Sfoot, I’ll learn to conjure and raise devils, but I’ll
see some issue of my spiteful execrations. Then there’s Achilles, a
rare engineer! If Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the
walls will stand till they fall of themselves. O thou great
thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods,
and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take
not that little little less than little wit from them that they have!
which short-arm’d ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will
not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider without drawing their
massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the whole
camp! or, rather, the Neapolitan bone-ache! for that, methinks, is the
curse depending on those that war for a placket. I have said my
prayers; and devil Envy say ‘Amen.’ What ho! my Lord Achilles!

 Enter Patroclus.

PATROCLUS.
Who’s there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail.

THERSITES.
If I could a’ rememb’red a gilt counterfeit, thou wouldst not have
slipp’d out of my contemplation; but it is no matter; thyself upon
thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in
great revenue! Heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not
near thee! Let thy blood be thy direction till thy death. Then if she
that lays thee out says thou art a fair corse, I’ll be sworn and sworn
upon’t she never shrouded any but lazars. Amen. Where’s Achilles?

PATROCLUS.
What, art thou devout? Wast thou in prayer?

THERSITES.
Ay, the heavens hear me!

PATROCLUS.
Amen.

 Enter Achilles.

ACHILLES.
Who’s there?

PATROCLUS.
Thersites, my lord.

ACHILLES.
Where, where? O, where? Art thou come? Why, my cheese, my digestion,
why hast thou not served thyself in to my table so many meals? Come,
what’s Agamemnon?

THERSITES.
Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what’s Achilles?

PATROCLUS.
Thy lord, Thersites. Then tell me, I pray thee, what’s Thersites?

THERSITES.
Thy knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou?

PATROCLUS.
Thou must tell that knowest.

ACHILLES.
O, tell, tell,

THERSITES.
I’ll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles; Achilles
is my lord; I am Patroclus’ knower; and Patroclus is a fool.

PATROCLUS.
You rascal!

THERSITES.
Peace, fool! I have not done.

ACHILLES.
He is a privileg’d man. Proceed, Thersites.

THERSITES.
Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a fool; and, as
aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.

ACHILLES.
Derive this; come.

THERSITES.
Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to
be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool;
and this Patroclus is a fool positive.

PATROCLUS.
Why am I a fool?

THERSITES.
Make that demand of the Creator. It suffices me thou art. Look you, who
comes here?

 Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes, Ajax and Calchas.

ACHILLES.
Come, Patroclus, I’ll speak with nobody. Come in with me, Thersites.

 [_Exit_.]

THERSITES.
Here is such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery. All the
argument is a whore and a cuckold—a good quarrel to draw emulous
factions and bleed to death upon. Now the dry serpigo on the subject,
and war and lechery confound all!

 [_Exit_.]

AGAMEMNON.
Where is Achilles?

PATROCLUS.
Within his tent; but ill-dispos’d, my lord.

AGAMEMNON.
Let it be known to him that we are here.
He sate our messengers; and we lay by
Our appertainings, visiting of him.
Let him be told so; lest, perchance, he think
We dare not move the question of our place
Or know not what we are.

PATROCLUS.
I shall say so to him.

 [_Exit_.]

ULYSSES.
We saw him at the opening of his tent.
He is not sick.

AJAX.
Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart. You may call it melancholy, if you
will favour the man; but, by my head, ’tis pride. But why, why? Let him
show us a cause. A word, my lord.

 [_Takes Agamemnon aside_.]

NESTOR.
What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?

ULYSSES.
Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.

NESTOR.
Who, Thersites?

ULYSSES.
He.

NESTOR.
Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument.

ULYSSES.
No; you see he is his argument that has his argument, Achilles.

NESTOR.
All the better; their fraction is more our wish than their faction. But
it was a strong composure a fool could disunite!

ULYSSES.
The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.

 Re-enter Patroclus.

Here comes Patroclus.

NESTOR.
No Achilles with him.

ULYSSES.
The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for
necessity, not for flexure.

PATROCLUS.
Achilles bids me say he is much sorry
If any thing more than your sport and pleasure
Did move your greatness and this noble state
To call upon him; he hopes it is no other
But for your health and your digestion sake,
An after-dinner’s breath.

AGAMEMNON.
Hear you, Patroclus.
We are too well acquainted with these answers;
But his evasion, wing’d thus swift with scorn,
Cannot outfly our apprehensions.
Much attribute he hath, and much the reason
Why we ascribe it to him. Yet all his virtues,
Not virtuously on his own part beheld,
Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss;
Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish,
Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him
We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin
If you do say we think him over-proud
And under-honest, in self-assumption greater
Than in the note of judgement; and worthier than himself
Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,
Disguise the holy strength of their command,
And underwrite in an observing kind
His humorous predominance; yea, watch
His course and time, his ebbs and flows, as if
The passage and whole stream of this commencement
Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add
That if he overhold his price so much
We’ll none of him, but let him, like an engine
Not portable, lie under this report:
Bring action hither; this cannot go to war.
A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
Before a sleeping giant. Tell him so.

PATROCLUS.
I shall, and bring his answer presently.

 [_Exit_.]

AGAMEMNON.
In second voice we’ll not be satisfied;
We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.

 [_Exit_ Ulysses.]

AJAX.
What is he more than another?

AGAMEMNON.
No more than what he thinks he is.

AJAX.
Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I
am?

AGAMEMNON.
No question.

AJAX.
Will you subscribe his thought and say he is?

AGAMEMNON.
No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble,
much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.

AJAX.
Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what pride
is.

AGAMEMNON.
Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is
proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own
chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed devours the deed
in the praise.

 Re-enter Ulysses.

AJAX.
I do hate a proud man as I do hate the engend’ring of toads.

NESTOR.
[_Aside._] And yet he loves himself: is’t not strange?

ULYSSES.
Achilles will not to the field tomorrow.

AGAMEMNON.
What’s his excuse?

ULYSSES.
He doth rely on none;
But carries on the stream of his dispose,
Without observance or respect of any,
In will peculiar and in self-admission.

AGAMEMNON.
Why will he not, upon our fair request,
Untent his person and share th’air with us?

ULYSSES.
Things small as nothing, for request’s sake only,
He makes important; possess’d he is with greatness,
And speaks not to himself but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath. Imagin’d worth
Holds in his blood such swol’n and hot discourse
That ’twixt his mental and his active parts
Kingdom’d Achilles in commotion rages,
And batters down himself. What should I say?
He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it
Cry ‘No recovery.’

AGAMEMNON.
Let Ajax go to him.
Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent.
’Tis said he holds you well; and will be led
At your request a little from himself.

ULYSSES.
O Agamemnon, let it not be so!
We’ll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
When they go from Achilles. Shall the proud lord
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts, save such as doth revolve
And ruminate himself—shall he be worshipp’d
Of that we hold an idol more than he?
No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
Shall not so stale his palm, nobly acquir’d,
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is,
By going to Achilles.
That were to enlard his fat-already pride,
And add more coals to Cancer when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion.
This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid,
And say in thunder ‘Achilles go to him.’

NESTOR.
[_Aside_.] O, this is well! He rubs the vein of him.

DIOMEDES.
[_Aside_.] And how his silence drinks up this applause!

AJAX.
If I go to him, with my armed fist I’ll pash him o’er the face.

AGAMEMNON.
O, no, you shall not go.

AJAX.
An a’ be proud with me I’ll pheeze his pride.
Let me go to him.

ULYSSES.
Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

AJAX.
A paltry, insolent fellow!

NESTOR.
[_Aside_.] How he describes himself!

AJAX.
Can he not be sociable?

ULYSSES.
[_Aside_.] The raven chides blackness.

AJAX.
I’ll let his humours blood.

AGAMEMNON.
[_Aside_.] He will be the physician that should be the patient.

AJAX.
And all men were o’ my mind—

ULYSSES.
[_Aside_.] Wit would be out of fashion.

AJAX.
A’ should not bear it so, a’ should eat’s words first.
Shall pride carry it?

NESTOR.
[_Aside_.] And ’twould, you’d carry half.

ULYSSES.
[_Aside_.] A’ would have ten shares.

AJAX.
I will knead him, I’ll make him supple.

NESTOR.
[_Aside_.] He’s not yet through warm. Force him with praises; pour in,
pour in; his ambition is dry.

ULYSSES.
[_To Agamemnon_.] My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.

NESTOR.
Our noble general, do not do so.

DIOMEDES.
You must prepare to fight without Achilles.

ULYSSES.
Why ’tis this naming of him does him harm.
Here is a man—but ’tis before his face;
I will be silent.

NESTOR.
Wherefore should you so?
He is not emulous, as Achilles is.

ULYSSES.
Know the whole world, he is as valiant.

AJAX.
A whoreson dog, that shall palter with us thus!
Would he were a Trojan!

NESTOR.
What a vice were it in Ajax now—

ULYSSES.
If he were proud.

DIOMEDES.
Or covetous of praise.

ULYSSES.
Ay, or surly borne.

DIOMEDES.
Or strange, or self-affected.

ULYSSES.
Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure
Praise him that gat thee, she that gave thee suck;
Fam’d be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice fam’d beyond, beyond all erudition;
But he that disciplin’d thine arms to fight—
Let Mars divide eternity in twain
And give him half; and, for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines
Thy spacious and dilated parts. Here’s Nestor,
Instructed by the antiquary times—
He must, he is, he cannot but be wise;
But pardon, father Nestor, were your days
As green as Ajax’ and your brain so temper’d,
You should not have the eminence of him,
But be as Ajax.

AJAX.
Shall I call you father?

NESTOR.
Ay, my good son.

DIOMEDES.
Be rul’d by him, Lord Ajax.

ULYSSES.
There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles
Keeps thicket. Please it our great general
To call together all his state of war;
Fresh kings are come to Troy. Tomorrow
We must with all our main of power stand fast;
And here’s a lord—come knights from east to west
And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.

AGAMEMNON.
Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep.
Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.

 [_Exeunt_.]



ACT III

SCENE I. Troy. PRIAM’S palace.

 Music sounds within. Enter Pandarus and a Servant.

PANDARUS.
Friend, you—pray you, a word. Do you not follow the young Lord Paris?

SERVANT.
Ay, sir, when he goes before me.

PANDARUS.
You depend upon him, I mean?

SERVANT.
Sir, I do depend upon the Lord.

PANDARUS.
You depend upon a notable gentleman; I must needs praise him.

SERVANT.
The Lord be praised!

PANDARUS.
You know me, do you not?

SERVANT.
Faith, sir, superficially.

PANDARUS.
Friend, know me better: I am the Lord Pandarus.

SERVANT.
I hope I shall know your honour better.

PANDARUS.
I do desire it.

SERVANT.
You are in the state of grace?

PANDARUS.
Grace? Not so, friend; honour and lordship are my titles. What music is
this?

SERVANT.
I do but partly know, sir; it is music in parts.

PANDARUS.
Know you the musicians?

SERVANT.
Wholly, sir.

PANDARUS.
Who play they to?

SERVANT.
To the hearers, sir.

PANDARUS.
At whose pleasure, friend?

SERVANT.
At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.

PANDARUS.
Command, I mean, friend.

SERVANT.
Who shall I command, sir?

PANDARUS.
Friend, we understand not one another: I am too courtly, and thou art
too cunning. At whose request do these men play?

SERVANT.
That’s to’t, indeed, sir. Marry, sir, at the request of Paris my lord,
who is there in person; with him the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of
beauty, love’s invisible soul—

PANDARUS.
Who, my cousin, Cressida?

SERVANT.
No, sir, Helen. Could not you find out that by her attributes?

PANDARUS.
It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady Cressida. I
come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus; I will make a
complimental assault upon him, for my business seethes.

SERVANT.
Sodden business! There’s a stew’d phrase indeed!

 Enter Paris and Helen, attended.

PANDARUS.
Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! Fair desires, in
all fair measure, fairly guide them—especially to you, fair queen! Fair
thoughts be your fair pillow.

HELEN.
Dear lord, you are full of fair words.

PANDARUS.
You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince, here is good
broken music.

PARIS.
You have broke it, cousin; and by my life, you shall make it whole
again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance.

HELEN.
He is full of harmony.

PANDARUS.
Truly, lady, no.

HELEN.
O, sir—

PANDARUS.
Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.

PARIS.
Well said, my lord. Well, you say so in fits.

PANDARUS.
I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you vouchsafe me
a word?

HELEN.
Nay, this shall not hedge us out. We’ll hear you sing, certainly—

PANDARUS.
Well sweet queen, you are pleasant with me. But, marry, thus, my lord:
my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus—

HELEN.
My Lord Pandarus, honey-sweet lord—

PANDARUS.
Go to, sweet queen, go to—commends himself most affectionately to you—

HELEN.
You shall not bob us out of our melody. If you do, our melancholy upon
your head!

PANDARUS.
Sweet queen, sweet queen; that’s a sweet queen, i’ faith.

HELEN.
And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.

PANDARUS.
Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not, in truth, la.
Nay, I care not for such words; no, no.—And, my lord, he desires you
that, if the King call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.

HELEN.
My Lord Pandarus!

PANDARUS.
What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?

PARIS.
What exploit’s in hand? Where sups he tonight?

HELEN.
Nay, but, my lord—

PANDARUS.
What says my sweet queen?—My cousin will fall out with you.

HELEN.
You must not know where he sups.

PARIS.
I’ll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida.

PANDARUS.
No, no, no such matter; you are wide. Come, your disposer is sick.

PARIS.
Well, I’ll make’s excuse.

PANDARUS.
Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida?
No, your poor disposer’s sick.

PARIS.
I spy.

PANDARUS.
You spy! What do you spy?—Come, give me an instrument. Now, sweet
queen.

HELEN.
Why, this is kindly done.

PANDARUS.
My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen.

HELEN.
She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my Lord Paris.

PANDARUS.
He? No, she’ll none of him; they two are twain.

HELEN.
Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.

PANDARUS.
Come, come. I’ll hear no more of this; I’ll sing you a song now.

HELEN.
Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine
forehead.

PANDARUS.
Ay, you may, you may.

HELEN.
Let thy song be love. This love will undo us all. O Cupid, Cupid,
Cupid!

PANDARUS.
Love! Ay, that it shall, i’ faith.

PARIS.
Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.

PANDARUS.
In good troth, it begins so.

 [_Sings_.]


          _Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more!
           For, oh, love’s bow
            Shoots buck and doe;
            The shaft confounds
              Not that it wounds,
             But tickles still the sore.
         These lovers cry, O ho, they die!
               Yet that which seems the wound to kill
         Doth turn O ho! to ha! ha! he!
                So dying love lives still.
         O ho! a while, but ha! ha! ha!
         O ho! groans out for ha! ha! ha!—hey ho!_

HELEN.
In love, i’ faith, to the very tip of the nose.

PARIS.
He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood, and hot
blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot
deeds is love.

PANDARUS.
Is this the generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds?
Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who’s
a-field today?

PARIS.
Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I
would fain have arm’d today, but my Nell would not have it so. How
chance my brother Troilus went not?

HELEN.
He hangs the lip at something. You know all, Lord Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they spend today. You’ll
remember your brother’s excuse?

PARIS.
To a hair.

PANDARUS.
Farewell, sweet queen.

HELEN.
Commend me to your niece.

PANDARUS.
I will, sweet queen.

 [_Exit. Sound a retreat_.]

PARIS.
They’re come from the field. Let us to Priam’s hall
To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you
To help unarm our Hector. His stubborn buckles,
With these your white enchanting fingers touch’d,
Shall more obey than to the edge of steel
Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more
Than all the island kings—disarm great Hector.

HELEN.
’Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris;
Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty
Gives us more palm in beauty than we have,
Yea, overshines ourself.

PARIS.
Sweet, above thought I love thee.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE II. Troy. PANDARUS’ orchard.

 Enter Pandarus and Troilus’ Boy, meeting.

PANDARUS.
How now! Where’s thy master? At my cousin Cressida’s?

BOY.
No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.

 Enter Troilus.

PANDARUS.
O, here he comes. How now, how now?

TROILUS.
Sirrah, walk off.

 [_Exit_ Boy.]

PANDARUS.
Have you seen my cousin?

TROILUS.
No, Pandarus. I stalk about her door
Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
And give me swift transportance to these fields
Where I may wallow in the lily beds
Propos’d for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,
from Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings,
and fly with me to Cressid!

PANDARUS.
Walk here i’ th’ orchard, I’ll bring her straight.

 [_Exit_.]

TROILUS.
I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
Th’imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense; what will it be
When that the wat’ry palate tastes indeed
Love’s thrice-repured nectar? Death, I fear me;
Sounding destruction; or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, tun’d too sharp in sweetness,
For the capacity of my ruder powers.
I fear it much; and I do fear besides
That I shall lose distinction in my joys;
As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
The enemy flying.

 Re-enter Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
She’s making her ready, she’ll come straight; you must be witty now.
She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as if she were fray’d
with a sprite. I’ll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain; she fetches
her breath as short as a new-ta’en sparrow.

 [_Exit_.]

TROILUS.
Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom.
My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse,
And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
Like vassalage at unawares encount’ring
The eye of majesty.

 Re-enter Pandarus with Cressida.

PANDARUS.
Come, come, what need you blush? Shame’s a baby. Here she is now; swear
the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me.—What, are you gone
again? You must be watch’d ere you be made tame, must you? Come your
ways, come your ways; and you draw backward, we’ll put you i’ th’
fills. Why do you not speak to her? Come, draw this curtain and let’s
see your picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight!
And ’twere dark, you’d close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the
mistress. How now, a kiss in fee-farm! Build there, carpenter; the air
is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The
falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i’ th’ river. Go to, go to.

TROILUS.
You have bereft me of all words, lady.

PANDARUS.
Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she’ll bereave you o’ th’ deeds
too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here’s
‘In witness whereof the parties interchangeably.’ Come in, come in;
I’ll go get a fire.

 [_Exit_.]

CRESSIDA.
Will you walk in, my lord?

TROILUS.
O Cressid, how often have I wish’d me thus!

CRESSIDA.
Wish’d, my lord! The gods grant—O my lord!

TROILUS.
What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption? What too
curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

CRESSIDA.
More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.

TROILUS.
Fears make devils of cherubins; they never see truly.

CRESSIDA.
Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind
reason stumbling without fear. To fear the worst oft cures the worse.

TROILUS.
O, let my lady apprehend no fear! In all Cupid’s pageant there is
presented no monster.

CRESSIDA.
Nor nothing monstrous neither?

TROILUS.
Nothing, but our undertakings when we vow to weep seas, live in fire,
eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devise
imposition enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed. This
is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will is infinite, and the
execution confin’d; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave
to limit.

CRESSIDA.
They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet
reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the
perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one.
They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not
monsters?

TROILUS.
Are there such? Such are not we. Praise us as we are tasted, allow us
as we prove; our head shall go bare till merit crown it. No perfection
in reversion shall have a praise in present. We will not name desert
before his birth; and, being born, his addition shall be humble. Few
words to fair faith: Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can
say worst shall be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak
truest not truer than Troilus.

CRESSIDA.
Will you walk in, my lord?

 Re-enter Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?

CRESSIDA.
Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.

PANDARUS.
I thank you for that; if my lord get a boy of you, you’ll give him me.
Be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me for it.

TROILUS.
You know now your hostages: your uncle’s word and my firm faith.

PANDARUS.
Nay, I’ll give my word for her too: our kindred, though they be long
ere they are wooed, they are constant being won; they are burs, I can
tell you; they’ll stick where they are thrown.

CRESSIDA.
Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.
Prince Troilus, I have lov’d you night and day
For many weary months.

TROILUS.
Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?

CRESSIDA.
Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,
With the first glance that ever—pardon me.
If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.
I love you now; but till now not so much
But I might master it. In faith, I lie;
My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
Why have I blabb’d? Who shall be true to us,
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But, though I lov’d you well, I woo’d you not;
And yet, good faith, I wish’d myself a man,
Or that we women had men’s privilege
Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,
For in this rapture I shall surely speak
The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,
Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws
My very soul of counsel. Stop my mouth.

TROILUS.
And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.

PANDARUS.
Pretty, i’ faith.

CRESSIDA.
My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me;
’Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.
I am asham’d. O heavens! what have I done?
For this time will I take my leave, my lord.

TROILUS.
Your leave, sweet Cressid!

PANDARUS.
Leave! And you take leave till tomorrow morning—

CRESSIDA.
Pray you, content you.

TROILUS.
What offends you, lady?

CRESSIDA.
Sir, mine own company.

TROILUS.
You cannot shun yourself.

CRESSIDA.
Let me go and try.
I have a kind of self resides with you;
But an unkind self, that itself will leave
To be another’s fool. I would be gone.
Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.

TROILUS.
Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.

CRESSIDA.
Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;
And fell so roundly to a large confession
To angle for your thoughts; but you are wise—
Or else you love not; for to be wise and love
Exceeds man’s might; that dwells with gods above.

TROILUS.
O that I thought it could be in a woman—
As, if it can, I will presume in you—
To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;
To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
Outliving beauty’s outward, with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
Or that persuasion could but thus convince me
That my integrity and truth to you
Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of such a winnowed purity in love.
How were I then uplifted! But, alas,
I am as true as truth’s simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth.

CRESSIDA.
In that I’ll war with you.

TROILUS.
O virtuous fight,
When right with right wars who shall be most right!
True swains in love shall in the world to come
Approve their truth by Troilus, when their rhymes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,
Want similes, truth tir’d with iteration—
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to th’ centre—
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
As truth’s authentic author to be cited,
‘As true as Troilus’ shall crown up the verse
And sanctify the numbers.

CRESSIDA.
Prophet may you be!
If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself,
When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallow’d cities up,
And mighty states characterless are grated
To dusty nothing—yet let memory
From false to false, among false maids in love,
Upbraid my falsehood when th’ have said ‘As false
As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,
As fox to lamb, or wolf to heifer’s calf,
Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son’—
Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
‘As false as Cressid.’

PANDARUS.
Go to, a bargain made; seal it, seal it; I’ll be the witness. Here I
hold your hand; here my cousin’s. If ever you prove false one to
another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all
pitiful goers-between be call’d to the world’s end after my name—call
them all Pandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women
Cressids, and all brokers between Pandars. Say ‘Amen.’

TROILUS.
Amen.

CRESSIDA.
Amen.

PANDARUS.
Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and a bed; which bed, because
it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death. Away!

 [_Exeunt Troilus and Cressida_.]

And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,
Bed, chamber, pander, to provide this gear!

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE III. The Greek camp.

 Flourish. Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Ajax, Menelaus
 and Calchas.

CALCHAS.
Now, Princes, for the service I have done,
Th’advantage of the time prompts me aloud
To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind
That, through the sight I bear in things to come,
I have abandon’d Troy, left my possession,
Incurr’d a traitor’s name, expos’d myself
From certain and possess’d conveniences
To doubtful fortunes, sequest’ring from me all
That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,
Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
And here, to do you service, am become
As new into the world, strange, unacquainted—
I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
To give me now a little benefit
Out of those many regist’red in promise,
Which you say live to come in my behalf.

AGAMEMNON.
What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? Make demand.

CALCHAS.
You have a Trojan prisoner call’d Antenor,
Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you—often have you thanks therefore—
Desir’d my Cressid in right great exchange,
Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor,
I know, is such a wrest in their affairs
That their negotiations all must slack
Wanting his manage; and they will almost
Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,
In change of him. Let him be sent, great Princes,
And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite strike off all service I have done
In most accepted pain.

AGAMEMNON.
Let Diomedes bear him,
And bring us Cressid hither. Calchas shall have
What he requests of us. Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this interchange;
Withal, bring word if Hector will tomorrow
Be answer’d in his challenge. Ajax is ready.

DIOMEDES.
This shall I undertake; and ’tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.

 [_Exeunt Diomedes and Calchas_.]

 [_Achilles and Patroclus stand in their tent_.]

ULYSSES.
Achilles stands i’ th’entrance of his tent.
Please it our general pass strangely by him,
As if he were forgot; and, Princes all,
Lay negligent and loose regard upon him.
I will come last. ’Tis like he’ll question me
Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn’d on him.
If so, I have derision med’cinable
To use between your strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink.
It may do good. Pride hath no other glass
To show itself but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.

AGAMEMNON.
We’ll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along.
So do each lord; and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look’d on. I will lead the way.

ACHILLES.
What comes the general to speak with me?
You know my mind. I’ll fight no more ’gainst Troy.

AGAMEMNON.
What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?

NESTOR.
Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

ACHILLES.
No.

NESTOR.
Nothing, my lord.

AGAMEMNON.
The better.

 [_Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor_.]

ACHILLES.
Good day, good day.

MENELAUS.
How do you? How do you?

 [_Exit_.]

ACHILLES.
What, does the cuckold scorn me?

AJAX.
How now, Patroclus?

ACHILLES.
Good morrow, Ajax.

AJAX.
Ha?

ACHILLES.
Good morrow.

AJAX.
Ay, and good next day too.

 [_Exit_.]

ACHILLES.
What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

PATROCLUS.
They pass by strangely. They were us’d to bend,
To send their smiles before them to Achilles,
To come as humbly as they us’d to creep
To holy altars.

ACHILLES.
What, am I poor of late?
’Tis certain, greatness, once fall’n out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too. What the declin’d is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;
And not a man for being simply man
Hath any honour, but honour for those honours
That are without him, as place, riches, and favour,
Prizes of accident, as oft as merit;
Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that lean’d on them as slippery too,
Doth one pluck down another, and together
Die in the fall. But ’tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy
At ample point all that I did possess
Save these men’s looks; who do, methinks, find out
Something not worth in me such rich beholding
As they have often given. Here is Ulysses.
I’ll interrupt his reading.
How now, Ulysses!

ULYSSES.
Now, great Thetis’ son!

ACHILLES.
What are you reading?

ULYSSES.
A strange fellow here
Writes me that man—how dearly ever parted,
How much in having, or without or in—
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

ACHILLES.
This is not strange, Ulysses.
The beauty that is borne here in the face
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others’ eyes; nor doth the eye itself—
That most pure spirit of sense—behold itself,
Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed
Salutes each other with each other’s form;
For speculation turns not to itself
Till it hath travell’d, and is mirror’d there
Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.

ULYSSES.
I do not strain at the position—
It is familiar—but at the author’s drift;
Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves
That no man is the lord of anything,
Though in and of him there be much consisting,
Till he communicate his parts to others;
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
Till he behold them formed in the applause
Where th’are extended; who, like an arch, reverb’rate
The voice again; or, like a gate of steel
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this;
And apprehended here immediately
Th’unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there!
A very horse that has he knows not what!
Nature, what things there are
Most abject in regard and dear in use!
What things again most dear in the esteem
And poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow—
An act that very chance doth throw upon him—
Ajax renown’d. O heavens, what some men do,
While some men leave to do!
How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another’s pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords!—why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,
As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast,
And great Troy shrieking.

ACHILLES.
I do believe it; for they pass’d by me
As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me
Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?

ULYSSES.
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-siz’d monster of ingratitudes.
Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’d
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mock’ry. Take the instant way;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow—
Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,
For emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue; if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an ent’red tide they all rush by
And leave you hindmost;
Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O’er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours;
For Time is like a fashionable host,
That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’hand;
And with his arms out-stretch’d, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer. The welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating Time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin—
That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’er-dusted.
The present eye praises the present object.
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
Than what stirs not. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might, and yet it may again,
If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive
And case thy reputation in thy tent,
Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late
Made emulous missions ’mongst the gods themselves,
And drave great Mars to faction.

ACHILLES.
Of this my privacy
I have strong reasons.

ULYSSES.
But ’gainst your privacy
The reasons are more potent and heroical.
’Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love
With one of Priam’s daughters.

ACHILLES.
Ha! known!

ULYSSES.
Is that a wonder?
The providence that’s in a watchful state
Knows almost every grain of Plutus’ gold;
Finds bottom in th’uncomprehensive deeps;
Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,
Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery—with whom relation
Durst never meddle—in the soul of state,
Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressure to.
All the commerce that you have had with Troy
As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;
And better would it fit Achilles much
To throw down Hector than Polyxena.
But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
When fame shall in our island sound her trump,
And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing
‘Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win;
But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.’
Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak.
The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.

 [_Exit_.]

PATROCLUS.
To this effect, Achilles, have I mov’d you.
A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loath’d than an effeminate man
In time of action. I stand condemn’d for this;
They think my little stomach to the war
And your great love to me restrains you thus.
Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dew-drop from the lion’s mane,
Be shook to air.

ACHILLES.
Shall Ajax fight with Hector?

PATROCLUS.
Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.

ACHILLES.
I see my reputation is at stake;
My fame is shrewdly gor’d.

PATROCLUS.
O, then, beware:
Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves;
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when they sit idly in the sun.

ACHILLES.
Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.
I’ll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him
T’invite the Trojan lords, after the combat,
To see us here unarm’d. I have a woman’s longing,
An appetite that I am sick withal,
To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;
To talk with him, and to behold his visage,
Even to my full of view.

 Enter Thersites.

A labour sav’d!

THERSITES.
A wonder!

ACHILLES.
What?

THERSITES.
Ajax goes up and down the field asking for himself.

ACHILLES.
How so?

THERSITES.
He must fight singly tomorrow with Hector, and is so prophetically
proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in saying nothing.

ACHILLES.
How can that be?

THERSITES.
Why, a’ stalks up and down like a peacock—a stride and a stand;
ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set
down her reckoning, bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should
say ‘There were wit in this head, and ’twould out’; and so there is;
but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show
without knocking. The man’s undone for ever; for if Hector break not
his neck i’ th’ combat, he’ll break’t himself in vainglory. He knows
not me. I said ‘Good morrow, Ajax’; and he replies ‘Thanks, Agamemnon.’
What think you of this man that takes me for the general? He’s grown a
very land fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may
wear it on both sides, like leather jerkin.

ACHILLES.
Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

THERSITES.
Who, I? Why, he’ll answer nobody; he professes not answering. Speaking
is for beggars: he wears his tongue in’s arms. I will put on his
presence. Let Patroclus make his demands to me, you shall see the
pageant of Ajax.

ACHILLES.
To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite
the most valorous Hector to come unarm’d to my tent; and to procure
safe conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious
six-or-seven-times-honour’d Captain General of the Grecian army,
Agamemnon. Do this.

PATROCLUS.
Jove bless great Ajax!

THERSITES.
Hum!

PATROCLUS.
I come from the worthy Achilles—

THERSITES.
Ha!

PATROCLUS.
Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent—

THERSITES.
Hum!

PATROCLUS.
And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.

THERSITES.
Agamemnon?

PATROCLUS.
Ay, my lord.

THERSITES.
Ha!

PATROCLUS.
What you say to’t?

THERSITES.
God buy you, with all my heart.

PATROCLUS.
Your answer, sir.

THERSITES.
If tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven of the clock it will go one way or
other. Howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.

PATROCLUS.
Your answer, sir.

THERSITES.
Fare ye well, with all my heart.

ACHILLES.
Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?

THERSITES.
No, but out of tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has
knock’d out his brains, I know not; but, I am sure, none; unless the
fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.

ACHILLES.
Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

THERSITES.
Let me bear another to his horse; for that’s the more capable creature.

ACHILLES.
My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr’d;
And I myself see not the bottom of it.

 [_Exeunt Achilles and Patroclus_.]

THERSITES.
Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an
ass at it. I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant
ignorance.

 [_Exit_.]



ACT IV

SCENE I. Troy. A street.

 Enter, at one side, Aeneas and servant with a torch; at another Paris,
 Deiphobus, Antenor, Diomedes the Grecian, and others, with torches.

PARIS.
See, ho! Who is that there?

DEIPHOBUS.
It is the Lord Aeneas.

AENEAS.
Is the Prince there in person?
Had I so good occasion to lie long
As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business
Should rob my bed-mate of my company.

DIOMEDES.
That’s my mind too. Good morrow, Lord Aeneas.

PARIS.
A valiant Greek, Aeneas—take his hand:
Witness the process of your speech, wherein
You told how Diomed, a whole week by days,
Did haunt you in the field.

AENEAS.
Health to you, valiant sir,
During all question of the gentle truce;
But when I meet you arm’d, as black defiance
As heart can think or courage execute.

DIOMEDES.
The one and other Diomed embraces.
Our bloods are now in calm; and so long health!
But when contention and occasion meet,
By Jove, I’ll play the hunter for thy life
With all my force, pursuit, and policy.

AENEAS.
And thou shalt hunt a lion that will fly
With his face backward. In humane gentleness,
Welcome to Troy! Now, by Anchises’ life,
Welcome indeed! By Venus’ hand I swear
No man alive can love in such a sort
The thing he means to kill, more excellently.

DIOMEDES.
We sympathise. Jove let Aeneas live,
If to my sword his fate be not the glory,
A thousand complete courses of the sun!
But in mine emulous honour let him die
With every joint a wound, and that tomorrow!

AENEAS.
We know each other well.

DIOMEDES.
We do; and long to know each other worse.

PARIS.
This is the most despiteful gentle greeting
The noblest hateful love, that e’er I heard of.
What business, lord, so early?

AENEAS.
I was sent for to the King; but why, I know not.

PARIS.
His purpose meets you: ’twas to bring this Greek
To Calchas’ house, and there to render him,
For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid.
Let’s have your company; or, if you please,
Haste there before us. I constantly believe—
Or rather call my thought a certain knowledge—
My brother Troilus lodges there tonight.
Rouse him and give him note of our approach,
With the whole quality wherefore; I fear
We shall be much unwelcome.

AENEAS.
That I assure you:
Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece
Than Cressid borne from Troy.

PARIS.
There is no help;
The bitter disposition of the time
Will have it so. On, lord; we’ll follow you.

AENEAS.
Good morrow, all.

 [_Exit with servant_.]

PARIS.
And tell me, noble Diomed, faith, tell me true,
Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship,
Who in your thoughts deserves fair Helen best,
Myself, or Menelaus?

DIOMEDES.
Both alike:
He merits well to have her that doth seek her,
Not making any scruple of her soilure,
With such a hell of pain and world of charge;
And you as well to keep her that defend her,
Not palating the taste of her dishonour,
With such a costly loss of wealth and friends.
He like a puling cuckold would drink up
The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece;
You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins
Are pleas’d to breed out your inheritors.
Both merits pois’d, each weighs nor less nor more,
But he as he, the heavier for a whore.

PARIS.
You are too bitter to your country-woman.

DIOMEDES.
She’s bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris:
For every false drop in her bawdy veins
A Grecian’s life hath sunk; for every scruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight
A Trojan hath been slain. Since she could speak,
She hath not given so many good words breath
As for her Greeks and Trojans suff’red death.

PARIS.
Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do,
Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy;
But we in silence hold this virtue well,
We’ll not commend what we intend to sell.
Here lies our way.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE II. Troy. The court of PANDARUS’ house.

 Enter Troilus and Cressida.

TROILUS.
Dear, trouble not yourself; the morn is cold.

CRESSIDA.
Then, sweet my lord, I’ll call mine uncle down;
He shall unbolt the gates.

TROILUS.
Trouble him not;
To bed, to bed! Sleep kill those pretty eyes,
And give as soft attachment to thy senses
As infants empty of all thought!

CRESSIDA.
Good morrow, then.

TROILUS.
I prithee now, to bed.

CRESSIDA.
Are you aweary of me?

TROILUS.
O Cressida! but that the busy day,
Wak’d by the lark, hath rous’d the ribald crows,
And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer,
I would not from thee.

CRESSIDA.
Night hath been too brief.

TROILUS.
Beshrew the witch! with venomous wights she stays
As tediously as hell, but flies the grasps of love
With wings more momentary-swift than thought.
You will catch cold, and curse me.

CRESSIDA.
Prithee tarry.
You men will never tarry.
O foolish Cressid! I might have still held off,
And then you would have tarried. Hark! there’s one up.

PANDARUS.
[_Within._] What’s all the doors open here?

TROILUS.
It is your uncle.

 Enter Pandarus.

CRESSIDA.
A pestilence on him! Now will he be mocking.
I shall have such a life!

PANDARUS.
How now, how now! How go maidenheads?
Here, you maid! Where’s my cousin Cressid?

CRESSIDA.
Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle.
You bring me to do, and then you flout me too.

PANDARUS.
To do what? to do what? Let her say what.
What have I brought you to do?

CRESSIDA.
Come, come, beshrew your heart! You’ll ne’er be good, nor suffer
others.

PANDARUS.
Ha, ha! Alas, poor wretch! Ah, poor capocchia! Hast not slept tonight?
Would he not, a naughty man, let it sleep? A bugbear take him!

CRESSIDA.
Did not I tell you? Would he were knock’d i’ th’ head!

 [_One knocks_.]

Who’s that at door? Good uncle, go and see.
My lord, come you again into my chamber.
You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.

TROILUS.
Ha! ha!

CRESSIDA.
Come, you are deceiv’d, I think of no such thing.

 [_Knock_.]

How earnestly they knock! Pray you come in:
I would not for half Troy have you seen here.

 [_Exeunt Troilus and Cressida_.]

PANDARUS.
Who’s there? What’s the matter? Will you beat down the door? How now?
What’s the matter?

 Enter Aeneas.

AENEAS.
Good morrow, lord, good morrow.

PANDARUS.
Who’s there? My lord Aeneas? By my troth,
I knew you not. What news with you so early?

AENEAS.
Is not Prince Troilus here?

PANDARUS.
Here! What should he do here?

AENEAS.
Come, he is here, my lord; do not deny him.
It doth import him much to speak with me.

PANDARUS.
Is he here, say you? It’s more than I know, I’ll be sworn. For my own
part, I came in late. What should he do here?

AENEAS.
Who, nay then! Come, come, you’ll do him wrong ere you are ware; you’ll
be so true to him to be false to him. Do not you know of him, but yet
go fetch him hither; go.

 Re-enter Troilus.

TROILUS.
How now! What’s the matter?

AENEAS.
My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you,
My matter is so rash. There is at hand
Paris your brother, and Deiphobus,
The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor
Deliver’d to us; and for him forthwith,
Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour,
We must give up to Diomedes’ hand
The Lady Cressida.

TROILUS.
Is it so concluded?

AENEAS.
By Priam and the general state of Troy.
They are at hand, and ready to effect it.

TROILUS.
How my achievements mock me!
I will go meet them; and, my Lord Aeneas,
We met by chance; you did not find me here.

AENEAS.
Good, good, my lord, the secrets of neighbour Pandar
Have not more gift in taciturnity.

 [_Exeunt Troilus and Aeneas_.]

PANDARUS.
Is’t possible? No sooner got but lost? The devil take Antenor! The
young prince will go mad. A plague upon Antenor! I would they had
broke’s neck.

 Re-enter Cressida.

CRESSIDA.
How now! What’s the matter? Who was here?

PANDARUS.
Ah, ah!

CRESSIDA.
Why sigh you so profoundly? Where’s my lord? Gone? Tell me, sweet
uncle, what’s the matter?

PANDARUS.
Would I were as deep under the earth as I am above!

CRESSIDA.
O the gods! What’s the matter?

PANDARUS.
Pray thee get thee in. Would thou hadst ne’er been born! I knew thou
wouldst be his death! O, poor gentleman! A plague upon Antenor!

CRESSIDA.
Good uncle, I beseech you, on my knees I beseech you, what’s the
matter?

PANDARUS.
Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone; thou art chang’d for
Antenor; thou must to thy father, and be gone from Troilus. ’Twill be
his death; ’twill be his bane; he cannot bear it.

CRESSIDA.
O you immortal gods! I will not go.

PANDARUS.
Thou must.

CRESSIDA.
I will not, uncle. I have forgot my father;
I know no touch of consanguinity,
No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me
As the sweet Troilus. O you gods divine,
Make Cressid’s name the very crown of falsehood,
If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,
Do to this body what extremes you can,
But the strong base and building of my love
Is as the very centre of the earth,
Drawing all things to it. I’ll go in and weep—

PANDARUS.
Do, do.

CRESSIDA.
Tear my bright hair, and scratch my praised cheeks,
Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart,
With sounding ‘Troilus.’ I will not go from Troy.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE III. Troy. A street before PANDARUS’ house.

 Enter Paris, Troilus, Aeneas, Deiphobus, Antenor and Diomedes.

PARIS.
It is great morning; and the hour prefix’d
For her delivery to this valiant Greek
Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus,
Tell you the lady what she is to do
And haste her to the purpose.

TROILUS.
Walk into her house.
I’ll bring her to the Grecian presently;
And to his hand when I deliver her,
Think it an altar, and thy brother Troilus
A priest, there off’ring to it his own heart.

 [_Exit_.]

PARIS.
I know what ’tis to love,
And would, as I shall pity, I could help!
Please you walk in, my lords?

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE IV. Troy. PANDARUS’ house.

 Enter Pandarus and Cressida.

PANDARUS.
Be moderate, be moderate.

CRESSIDA.
Why tell you me of moderation?
The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,
And violenteth in a sense as strong
As that which causeth it. How can I moderate it?
If I could temporize with my affections
Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,
The like allayment could I give my grief.
My love admits no qualifying dross;
No more my grief, in such a precious loss.

 Enter Troilus.

PANDARUS.
Here, here, here he comes. Ah, sweet ducks!

CRESSIDA.
[_Embracing him_.] O Troilus! Troilus!

PANDARUS.
What a pair of spectacles is here! Let me embrace too. ‘O heart,’ as
the goodly saying is,—

  O heart, heavy heart,
  Why sigh’st thou without breaking?

where he answers again

  Because thou canst not ease thy smart
  By friendship nor by speaking.

There was never a truer rhyme. Let us cast away nothing, for we may
live to have need of such a verse. We see it, we see it. How now,
lambs!

TROILUS.
Cressid, I love thee in so strain’d a purity
That the bless’d gods, as angry with my fancy,
More bright in zeal than the devotion which
Cold lips blow to their deities, take thee from me.

CRESSIDA.
Have the gods envy?

PANDARUS.
Ay, ay, ay, ay; ’tis too plain a case.

CRESSIDA.
And is it true that I must go from Troy?

TROILUS.
A hateful truth.

CRESSIDA.
What! and from Troilus too?

TROILUS.
From Troy and Troilus.

CRESSIDA.
Is’t possible?

TROILUS.
And suddenly; where injury of chance
Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by
All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips
Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents
Our lock’d embrasures, strangles our dear vows
Even in the birth of our own labouring breath.
We two, that with so many thousand sighs
Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves
With the rude brevity and discharge of one.
Injurious time now with a robber’s haste
Crams his rich thiev’ry up, he knows not how.
As many farewells as be stars in heaven,
With distinct breath and consign’d kisses to them,
He fumbles up into a loose adieu,
And scants us with a single famish’d kiss,
Distasted with the salt of broken tears.

AENEAS.
[_Within_.] My lord, is the lady ready?

TROILUS.
Hark! you are call’d. Some say the Genius
Cries so to him that instantly must die.
Bid them have patience; she shall come anon.

PANDARUS.
Where are my tears? Rain, to lay this wind, or my heart will be blown
up by my throat!

 [_Exit_.]

CRESSIDA.
I must then to the Grecians?

TROILUS.
No remedy.

CRESSIDA.
A woeful Cressid ’mongst the merry Greeks!
When shall we see again?

TROILUS.
Hear me, my love. Be thou but true of heart.

CRESSIDA.
I true? How now! What wicked deem is this?

TROILUS.
Nay, we must use expostulation kindly,
For it is parting from us.
I speak not ‘Be thou true’ as fearing thee,
For I will throw my glove to Death himself
That there’s no maculation in thy heart;
But ‘Be thou true’ say I to fashion in
My sequent protestation: be thou true,
And I will see thee.

CRESSIDA.
O! you shall be expos’d, my lord, to dangers
As infinite as imminent! But I’ll be true.

TROILUS.
And I’ll grow friend with danger. Wear this sleeve.

CRESSIDA.
And you this glove. When shall I see you?

TROILUS.
I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels
To give thee nightly visitation.
But yet be true.

CRESSIDA.
O heavens! ‘Be true’ again!

TROILUS.
Hear why I speak it, love.
The Grecian youths are full of quality;
They’re loving, well compos’d, with gifts of nature,
Flowing and swelling o’er with arts and exercise.
How novelty may move, and parts with person,
Alas, a kind of godly jealousy,
Which, I beseech you, call a virtuous sin,
Makes me afear’d.

CRESSIDA.
O heavens! you love me not!

TROILUS.
Die I a villain then!
In this I do not call your faith in question
So mainly as my merit. I cannot sing,
Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk,
Nor play at subtle games; fair virtues all,
To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant;
But I can tell that in each grace of these
There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil
That tempts most cunningly. But be not tempted.

CRESSIDA.
Do you think I will?

TROILUS.
No.
But something may be done that we will not;
And sometimes we are devils to ourselves,
When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,
Presuming on their changeful potency.

AENEAS.
[_Within_.] Nay, good my lord!

TROILUS.
Come, kiss; and let us part.

PARIS.
[_Within_.] Brother Troilus!

TROILUS.
Good brother, come you hither;
And bring Aeneas and the Grecian with you.

CRESSIDA.
My lord, will you be true?

TROILUS.
Who, I? Alas, it is my vice, my fault!
Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,
I with great truth catch mere simplicity;
Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,
With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.
Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit
Is plain and true; there’s all the reach of it.

 Enter Aeneas, Paris, Antenor, Deiphobus and Diomedes.

Welcome, Sir Diomed! Here is the lady
Which for Antenor we deliver you;
At the port, lord, I’ll give her to thy hand,
And by the way possess thee what she is.
Entreat her fair; and, by my soul, fair Greek,
If e’er thou stand at mercy of my sword,
Name Cressid, and thy life shall be as safe
As Priam is in Ilion.

DIOMEDES.
Fair Lady Cressid,
So please you, save the thanks this prince expects.
The lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek,
Pleads your fair usage; and to Diomed
You shall be mistress, and command him wholly.

TROILUS.
Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously
To shame the zeal of my petition to thee
In praising her. I tell thee, lord of Greece,
She is as far high-soaring o’er thy praises
As thou unworthy to be call’d her servant.
I charge thee use her well, even for my charge;
For, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not,
Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard,
I’ll cut thy throat.

DIOMEDES.
O, be not mov’d, Prince Troilus.
Let me be privileg’d by my place and message
To be a speaker free: when I am hence
I’ll answer to my lust. And know you, lord,
I’ll nothing do on charge: to her own worth
She shall be priz’d. But that you say ‘Be’t so,’
I speak it in my spirit and honour, ‘No.’

TROILUS.
Come, to the port. I’ll tell thee, Diomed,
This brave shall oft make thee to hide thy head.
Lady, give me your hand; and, as we walk,
To our own selves bend we our needful talk.

 [_Exeunt Troilus, Cressida and Diomedes_.]

 [_Sound trumpet_.]

PARIS.
Hark! Hector’s trumpet.

AENEAS.
How have we spent this morning!
The Prince must think me tardy and remiss,
That swore to ride before him to the field.

PARIS.
’Tis Troilus’ fault. Come, come to field with him.

DEIPHOBUS.
Let us make ready straight.

AENEAS.
Yea, with a bridegroom’s fresh alacrity
Let us address to tend on Hector’s heels.
The glory of our Troy doth this day lie
On his fair worth and single chivalry.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE V. The Grecian camp. Lists set out.

 Enter Ajax, armed; Agamemnon, Achilles, Patroclus, Menelaus, Ulysses,
 Nestor and others.

AGAMEMNON.
Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair,
Anticipating time with starting courage.
Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy,
Thou dreadful Ajax, that the appalled air
May pierce the head of the great combatant,
And hale him hither.

AJAX.
Thou, trumpet, there’s my purse.
Now crack thy lungs and split thy brazen pipe;
Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek
Out-swell the colic of puff’d Aquilon.
Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood:
Thou blowest for Hector.

 [_Trumpet sounds_.]

ULYSSES.
No trumpet answers.

ACHILLES.
’Tis but early days.

AGAMEMNON.
Is not yond Diomed, with Calchas’ daughter?

ULYSSES.
’Tis he, I ken the manner of his gait:
He rises on the toe. That spirit of his
In aspiration lifts him from the earth.

 Enter Diomedes and Cressida.

AGAMEMNON.
Is this the Lady Cressid?

DIOMEDES.
Even she.

AGAMEMNON.
Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady.

NESTOR.
Our general doth salute you with a kiss.

ULYSSES.
Yet is the kindness but particular;
’Twere better she were kiss’d in general.

NESTOR.
And very courtly counsel: I’ll begin.
So much for Nestor.

ACHILLES.
I’ll take that winter from your lips, fair lady.
Achilles bids you welcome.

MENELAUS.
I had good argument for kissing once.

PATROCLUS.
But that’s no argument for kissing now;
For thus popp’d Paris in his hardiment,
And parted thus you and your argument.

ULYSSES.
O deadly gall, and theme of all our scorns!
For which we lose our heads to gild his horns.

PATROCLUS.
The first was Menelaus’ kiss; this, mine:
Patroclus kisses you.

MENELAUS.
O, this is trim!

PATROCLUS.
Paris and I kiss evermore for him.

MENELAUS.
I’ll have my kiss, sir. Lady, by your leave.

CRESSIDA.
In kissing, do you render or receive?

PATROCLUS.
Both take and give.

CRESSIDA.
I’ll make my match to live,
The kiss you take is better than you give;
Therefore no kiss.

MENELAUS.
I’ll give you boot; I’ll give you three for one.

CRESSIDA.
You are an odd man; give even or give none.

MENELAUS.
An odd man, lady! Every man is odd.

CRESSIDA.
No, Paris is not; for you know ’tis true
That you are odd, and he is even with you.

MENELAUS.
You fillip me o’ th’head.

CRESSIDA.
No, I’ll be sworn.

ULYSSES.
It were no match, your nail against his horn.
May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?

CRESSIDA.
You may.

ULYSSES.
I do desire it.

CRESSIDA.
Why, beg then.

ULYSSES.
Why then, for Venus’ sake give me a kiss
When Helen is a maid again, and his.

CRESSIDA.
I am your debtor; claim it when ’tis due.

ULYSSES.
Never’s my day, and then a kiss of you.

DIOMEDES.
Lady, a word. I’ll bring you to your father.

 [_Exit with_ Cressida.]

NESTOR.
A woman of quick sense.

ULYSSES.
Fie, fie upon her!
There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.
O! these encounterers so glib of tongue
That give a coasting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
To every tickling reader! Set them down
For sluttish spoils of opportunity,
And daughters of the game.

 [_Trumpet within_.]

ALL.
The Trojans’ trumpet.

AGAMEMNON.
Yonder comes the troop.

 Enter Hector, armed; Aeneas, Troilus, Paris, Deiphobus and other
Trojans, with attendants.

AENEAS.
Hail, all you state of Greece! What shall be done
To him that victory commands? Or do you purpose
A victor shall be known? Will you the knights
Shall to the edge of all extremity
Pursue each other, or shall be divided
By any voice or order of the field?
Hector bade ask.

AGAMEMNON.
Which way would Hector have it?

AENEAS.
He cares not; he’ll obey conditions.

AGAMEMNON.
’Tis done like Hector.

ACHILLES.
But securely done,
A little proudly, and great deal misprising
The knight oppos’d.

AENEAS.
If not Achilles, sir,
What is your name?

ACHILLES.
If not Achilles, nothing.

AENEAS.
Therefore Achilles. But whate’er, know this:
In the extremity of great and little
Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector;
The one almost as infinite as all,
The other blank as nothing. Weigh him well,
And that which looks like pride is courtesy.
This Ajax is half made of Hector’s blood;
In love whereof half Hector stays at home;
Half heart, half hand, half Hector comes to seek
This blended knight, half Trojan and half Greek.

ACHILLES.
A maiden battle then? O! I perceive you.

 Re-enter Diomedes.

AGAMEMNON.
Here is Sir Diomed. Go, gentle knight,
Stand by our Ajax. As you and Lord Aeneas
Consent upon the order of their fight,
So be it; either to the uttermost,
Or else a breath. The combatants being kin
Half stints their strife before their strokes begin.

Ajax and Hector enter the lists.

ULYSSES.
They are oppos’d already.

AGAMEMNON.
What Trojan is that same that looks so heavy?

ULYSSES.
The youngest son of Priam, a true knight;
Not yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word;
Speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue;
Not soon provok’d, nor being provok’d soon calm’d;
His heart and hand both open and both free;
For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows,
Yet gives he not till judgement guide his bounty,
Nor dignifies an impure thought with breath;
Manly as Hector, but more dangerous;
For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes
To tender objects, but he in heat of action
Is more vindicative than jealous love.
They call him Troilus, and on him erect
A second hope as fairly built as Hector.
Thus says Aeneas, one that knows the youth
Even to his inches, and, with private soul,
Did in great Ilion thus translate him to me.

 [_Alarum. Hector and Ajax fight._]

AGAMEMNON.
They are in action.

NESTOR.
Now, Ajax, hold thine own!

TROILUS.
Hector, thou sleep’st; awake thee!

AGAMEMNON.
His blows are well dispos’d. There, Ajax!

 [_Trumpets cease_.]

DIOMEDES.
You must no more.

AENEAS.
Princes, enough, so please you.

AJAX.
I am not warm yet; let us fight again.

DIOMEDES.
As Hector pleases.

HECTOR.
Why, then will I no more.
Thou art, great lord, my father’s sister’s son,
A cousin-german to great Priam’s seed;
The obligation of our blood forbids
A gory emulation ’twixt us twain:
Were thy commixtion Greek and Trojan so
That thou could’st say ‘This hand is Grecian all,
And this is Trojan; the sinews of this leg
All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother’s blood
Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister
Bounds in my father’s; by Jove multipotent,
Thou shouldst not bear from me a Greekish member
Wherein my sword had not impressure made
Of our rank feud; but the just gods gainsay
That any drop thou borrow’dst from thy mother,
My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword
Be drained! Let me embrace thee, Ajax.
By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms;
Hector would have them fall upon him thus.
Cousin, all honour to thee!

AJAX.
I thank thee, Hector.
Thou art too gentle and too free a man.
I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence
A great addition earned in thy death.

HECTOR.
Not Neoptolemus so mirable,
On whose bright crest Fame with her loud’st Oyes
Cries ‘This is he!’ could promise to himself
A thought of added honour torn from Hector.

AENEAS.
There is expectance here from both the sides
What further you will do.

HECTOR.
We’ll answer it:
The issue is embracement. Ajax, farewell.

AJAX.
If I might in entreaties find success,
As seld’ I have the chance, I would desire
My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.

DIOMEDES.
’Tis Agamemnon’s wish; and great Achilles
Doth long to see unarm’d the valiant Hector.

HECTOR.
Aeneas, call my brother Troilus to me,
And signify this loving interview
To the expecters of our Trojan part;
Desire them home. Give me thy hand, my cousin;
I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.

Agamemnon and the rest of the Greeks come forward.

AJAX.
Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.

HECTOR.
The worthiest of them tell me name by name;
But for Achilles, my own searching eyes
Shall find him by his large and portly size.

AGAMEMNON.
Worthy all arms! as welcome as to one
That would be rid of such an enemy.
But that’s no welcome. Understand more clear,
What’s past and what’s to come is strew’d with husks
And formless ruin of oblivion;
But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
Strain’d purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
Bids thee with most divine integrity,
From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.

HECTOR.
I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.

AGAMEMNON.
[_To Troilus._] My well-fam’d lord of Troy, no less to you.

MENELAUS.
Let me confirm my princely brother’s greeting.
You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.

HECTOR.
Who must we answer?

AENEAS.
The noble Menelaus.

HECTOR.
O you, my lord? By Mars his gauntlet, thanks!
Mock not that I affect the untraded oath;
Your quondam wife swears still by Venus’ glove.
She’s well, but bade me not commend her to you.

MENELAUS.
Name her not now, sir; she’s a deadly theme.

HECTOR.
O, pardon; I offend.

NESTOR.
I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft,
Labouring for destiny, make cruel way
Through ranks of Greekish youth; and I have seen thee,
As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,
Despising many forfeits and subduements,
When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i’ th’air,
Not letting it decline on the declined;
That I have said to some my standers-by
‘Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!’
And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath,
When that a ring of Greeks have shrap’d thee in,
Like an Olympian wrestling. This have I seen;
But this thy countenance, still lock’d in steel,
I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire,
And once fought with him. He was a soldier good,
But, by great Mars, the captain of us all,
Never like thee. O, let an old man embrace thee;
And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.

AENEAS.
’Tis the old Nestor.

HECTOR.
Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle,
That hast so long walk’d hand in hand with time.
Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.

NESTOR.
I would my arms could match thee in contention
As they contend with thee in courtesy.

HECTOR.
I would they could.

NESTOR.
Ha!
By this white beard, I’d fight with thee tomorrow.
Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time.

ULYSSES.
I wonder now how yonder city stands,
When we have here her base and pillar by us.

HECTOR.
I know your favour, Lord Ulysses, well.
Ah, sir, there’s many a Greek and Trojan dead,
Since first I saw yourself and Diomed
In Ilion on your Greekish embassy.

ULYSSES.
Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.
My prophecy is but half his journey yet;
For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,
Yon towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,
Must kiss their own feet.

HECTOR.
I must not believe you.
There they stand yet; and modestly I think
The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost
A drop of Grecian blood. The end crowns all;
And that old common arbitrator, Time,
Will one day end it.

ULYSSES.
So to him we leave it.
Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome.
After the General, I beseech you next
To feast with me and see me at my tent.

ACHILLES.
I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, thou!
Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;
I have with exact view perus’d thee, Hector,
And quoted joint by joint.

HECTOR.
Is this Achilles?

ACHILLES.
I am Achilles.

HECTOR.
Stand fair, I pray thee; let me look on thee.

ACHILLES.
Behold thy fill.

HECTOR.
Nay, I have done already.

ACHILLES.
Thou art too brief. I will the second time,
As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.

HECTOR.
O, like a book of sport thou’lt read me o’er;
But there’s more in me than thou understand’st.
Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?

ACHILLES.
Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body
Shall I destroy him? Whether there, or there, or there?
That I may give the local wound a name,
And make distinct the very breach whereout
Hector’s great spirit flew. Answer me, heavens.

HECTOR.
It would discredit the blest gods, proud man,
To answer such a question. Stand again.
Think’st thou to catch my life so pleasantly
As to prenominate in nice conjecture
Where thou wilt hit me dead?

ACHILLES.
I tell thee yea.

HECTOR.
Wert thou an oracle to tell me so,
I’d not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well;
For I’ll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there;
But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm,
I’ll kill thee everywhere, yea, o’er and o’er.
You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag.
His insolence draws folly from my lips;
But I’ll endeavour deeds to match these words,
Or may I never—

AJAX.
Do not chafe thee, cousin;
And you, Achilles, let these threats alone
Till accident or purpose bring you to’t.
You may have every day enough of Hector,
If you have stomach. The general state, I fear,
Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.

HECTOR.
I pray you let us see you in the field;
We have had pelting wars since you refus’d
The Grecians’ cause.

ACHILLES.
Dost thou entreat me, Hector?
Tomorrow do I meet thee, fell as death;
Tonight all friends.

HECTOR.
Thy hand upon that match.

AGAMEMNON.
First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent;
There in the full convive we; afterwards,
As Hector’s leisure and your bounties shall
Concur together, severally entreat him.
Beat loud the tambourines, let the trumpets blow,
That this great soldier may his welcome know.

 [_Exeunt all but Troilus and Ulysses_.]

TROILUS.
My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,
In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?

ULYSSES.
At Menelaus’ tent, most princely Troilus.
There Diomed doth feast with him tonight,
Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.

TROILUS.
Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much,
After we part from Agamemnon’s tent,
To bring me thither?

ULYSSES.
You shall command me, sir.
As gentle tell me of what honour was
This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there
That wails her absence?

TROILUS.
O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?
She was belov’d, she lov’d; she is, and doth;
But still sweet love is food for fortune’s tooth.

 [_Exeunt_.]



ACT V

SCENE I. The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES.

 Enter Achilles and Patroclus.

ACHILLES.
I’ll heat his blood with Greekish wine tonight,
Which with my scimitar I’ll cool tomorrow.
Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.

PATROCLUS.
Here comes Thersites.

 Enter Thersites.

ACHILLES.
How now, thou core of envy!
Thou crusty batch of nature, what’s the news?

THERSITES.
Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiot worshippers,
here’s a letter for thee.

ACHILLES.
From whence, fragment?

THERSITES.
Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.

PATROCLUS.
Who keeps the tent now?

THERSITES.
The surgeon’s box or the patient’s wound.

PATROCLUS.
Well said, adversity! And what needs these tricks?

THERSITES.
Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk; thou art said to be
Achilles’ male varlet.

PATROCLUS.
Male varlet, you rogue! What’s that?

THERSITES.
Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases of the south, the
guts-griping ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel in the back,
lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs,
bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, lime-kilns i’ th’ palm,
incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take
and take again such preposterous discoveries!

PATROCLUS.
Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus?

THERSITES.
Do I curse thee?

PATROCLUS.
Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.

THERSITES.
No! Why art thou, then, exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of
sleave silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a
prodigal’s purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is  pestered with such
water-flies, diminutives of nature!

PATROCLUS.
Out, gall!

THERSITES.
Finch egg!

ACHILLES.
My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
From my great purpose in tomorrow’s battle.
Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,
A token from her daughter, my fair love,
Both taxing me and gaging me to keep
An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it.
Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay;
My major vow lies here, this I’ll obey.
Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent;
This night in banqueting must all be spent.
Away, Patroclus!

 [_Exit with_ Patroclus.]

THERSITES.
With too much blood and too little brain these two may run mad; but, if
with too much brain and too little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of
madmen. Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves
quails, but he has not so much brain as ear-wax; and the goodly
transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull, the primitive
statue and oblique memorial of cuckolds, a thrifty shoeing-horn in a
chain at his brother’s leg, to what form but that he is, should wit
larded with malice, and malice forced with wit, turn him to? To an ass,
were nothing: he is both ass and ox. To an ox, were nothing: he is both
ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchook, a toad, a lizard,
an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to
be Menelaus, I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would
be, if I were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse of a lazar,
so I were not Menelaus. Hey-day! sprites and fires!

 Enter Hector, Troilus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Menelaus and
 Diomedes with lights.

AGAMEMNON.
We go wrong, we go wrong.

AJAX.
No, yonder ’tis;
There, where we see the lights.

HECTOR.
I trouble you.

AJAX.
No, not a whit.

ULYSSES.
Here comes himself to guide you.

 Re-enter Achilles.

ACHILLES.
Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, Princes all.

AGAMEMNON.
So now, fair Prince of Troy, I bid good night;
Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.

HECTOR.
Thanks, and good night to the Greeks’ general.

MENELAUS.
Good night, my lord.

HECTOR.
Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus.

THERSITES.
Sweet draught! ‘Sweet’ quoth a’!
Sweet sink, sweet sewer!

ACHILLES.
Good night and welcome, both at once, to those
That go or tarry.

AGAMEMNON.
Good night.

 [_Exeunt Agamemnon and Menelaus_.]

ACHILLES.
Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,
Keep Hector company an hour or two.

DIOMEDES.
I cannot, lord; I have important business,
The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.

HECTOR.
Give me your hand.

ULYSSES.
[_Aside to Troilus._] Follow his torch; he goes to
Calchas’ tent; I’ll keep you company.

TROILUS.
Sweet sir, you honour me.

HECTOR.
And so, good night.

 [_Exit Diomedes, Ulysses and Troilus following._]

ACHILLES.
Come, come, enter my tent.

 [_Exeunt all but_ Thersites.]

THERSITES.
That same Diomed’s a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will
no more trust him when he leers than I will a serpent when he hisses.
He will spend his mouth and promise, like Brabbler the hound; but when
he performs, astronomers foretell it: it is prodigious, there will come
some change; the sun borrows of the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I
will rather leave to see Hector than not to dog him. They say he keeps
a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas’ tent. I’ll after. Nothing
but lechery! All incontinent varlets!

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE II. The Grecian camp. Before CALCHAS’ tent.

 Enter Diomedes.

DIOMEDES.
What, are you up here, ho! Speak.

CALCHAS.
[_Within_.] Who calls?

DIOMEDES.
Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where’s your daughter?

CALCHAS.
[_Within_.] She comes to you.

 Enter Troilus and Ulysses, at a distance; after them Thersites.

ULYSSES.
Stand where the torch may not discover us.

 Enter Cressida.

TROILUS.
Cressid comes forth to him.

DIOMEDES.
How now, my charge!

CRESSIDA.
Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.

 [_Whispers_.]

TROILUS.
Yea, so familiar?

ULYSSES.
She will sing any man at first sight.

THERSITES.
And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she’s noted.

DIOMEDES.
Will you remember?

CRESSIDA.
Remember! Yes.

DIOMEDES.
Nay, but do, then;
And let your mind be coupled with your words.

TROILUS.
What should she remember?

ULYSSES.
List!

CRESSIDA.
Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.

THERSITES.
Roguery!

DIOMEDES.
Nay, then—

CRESSIDA.
I’ll tell you what—

DIOMEDES.
Fo, fo! come, tell a pin; you are a forsworn.

CRESSIDA.
In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?

THERSITES.
A juggling trick, to be secretly open.

DIOMEDES.
What did you swear you would bestow on me?

CRESSIDA.
I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath;
Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.

DIOMEDES.
Good night.

TROILUS.
Hold, patience!

ULYSSES.
How now, Trojan!

CRESSIDA.
Diomed!

DIOMEDES.
No, no, good night; I’ll be your fool no more.

TROILUS.
Thy better must.

CRESSIDA.
Hark! a word in your ear.

TROILUS.
O plague and madness!

ULYSSES.
You are moved, Prince; let us depart, I pray,
Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous;
The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.

TROILUS.
Behold, I pray you.

ULYSSES.
Nay, good my lord, go off;
You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.

TROILUS.
I pray thee stay.

ULYSSES.
You have not patience; come.

TROILUS.
I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell’s torments,
I will not speak a word.

DIOMEDES.
And so, good night.

CRESSIDA.
Nay, but you part in anger.

TROILUS.
Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth!

ULYSSES.
How now, my lord?

TROILUS.
By Jove, I will be patient.

CRESSIDA.
Guardian! Why, Greek!

DIOMEDES.
Fo, fo! adieu! you palter.

CRESSIDA.
In faith, I do not. Come hither once again.

ULYSSES.
You shake, my lord, at something; will you go?
You will break out.

TROILUS.
She strokes his cheek.

ULYSSES.
Come, come.

TROILUS.
Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word:
There is between my will and all offences
A guard of patience. Stay a little while.

THERSITES.
How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger, tickles
these together! Fry, lechery, fry!

DIOMEDES.
But will you, then?

CRESSIDA.
In faith, I will, la; never trust me else.

DIOMEDES.
Give me some token for the surety of it.

CRESSIDA.
I’ll fetch you one.

 [_Exit_.]

ULYSSES.
You have sworn patience.

TROILUS.
Fear me not, my lord;
I will not be myself, nor have cognition
Of what I feel. I am all patience.

 Re-enter Cressida.

THERSITES.
Now the pledge; now, now, now!

CRESSIDA.
Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.

TROILUS.
O beauty! where is thy faith?

ULYSSES.
My lord!

TROILUS.
I will be patient; outwardly I will.

CRESSIDA.
You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.
He lov’d me—O false wench!—Give’t me again.

DIOMEDES.
Whose was’t?

CRESSIDA.
It is no matter, now I have’t again.
I will not meet with you tomorrow night.
I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.

THERSITES.
Now she sharpens. Well said, whetstone.

DIOMEDES.
I shall have it.

CRESSIDA.
What, this?

DIOMEDES.
Ay, that.

CRESSIDA.
O all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge!
Thy master now lies thinking on his bed
Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,
And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,
As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me;
He that takes that doth take my heart withal.

DIOMEDES.
I had your heart before; this follows it.

TROILUS.
I did swear patience.

CRESSIDA.
You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not;
I’ll give you something else.

DIOMEDES.
I will have this. Whose was it?

CRESSIDA.
It is no matter.

DIOMEDES.
Come, tell me whose it was.

CRESSIDA.
’Twas one’s that lov’d me better than you will.
But, now you have it, take it.

DIOMEDES.
Whose was it?

CRESSIDA.
By all Diana’s waiting women yond,
And by herself, I will not tell you whose.

DIOMEDES.
Tomorrow will I wear it on my helm,
And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.

TROILUS.
Wert thou the devil and wor’st it on thy horn,
It should be challeng’d.

CRESSIDA.
Well, well, ’tis done, ’tis past; and yet it is not;
I will not keep my word.

DIOMEDES.
Why, then farewell;
Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.

CRESSIDA.
You shall not go. One cannot speak a word
But it straight starts you.

DIOMEDES.
I do not like this fooling.

THERSITES.
Nor I, by Pluto; but that that likes not you
Pleases me best.

DIOMEDES.
What, shall I come? The hour?

CRESSIDA.
Ay, come; O Jove! Do come. I shall be plagu’d.

DIOMEDES.
Farewell till then.

CRESSIDA.
Good night. I prithee come.

 [_Exit_ Diomedes.]

Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee;
But with my heart the other eye doth see.
Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find,
The error of our eye directs our mind.
What error leads must err; O, then conclude,
Minds sway’d by eyes are full of turpitude.

 [_Exit_.]

THERSITES.
A proof of strength she could not publish more,
Unless she said ‘My mind is now turn’d whore.’

ULYSSES.
All’s done, my lord.

TROILUS.
It is.

ULYSSES.
Why stay we, then?

TROILUS.
To make a recordation to my soul
Of every syllable that here was spoke.
But if I tell how these two did co-act,
Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,
An esperance so obstinately strong,
That doth invert th’attest of eyes and ears;
As if those organs had deceptious functions
Created only to calumniate.
Was Cressid here?

ULYSSES.
I cannot conjure, Trojan.

TROILUS.
She was not, sure.

ULYSSES.
Most sure she was.

TROILUS.
Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.

ULYSSES.
Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now.

TROILUS.
Let it not be believ’d for womanhood.
Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage
To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme,
For depravation, to square the general sex
By Cressid’s rule. Rather think this not Cressid.

ULYSSES.
What hath she done, Prince, that can soil our mothers?

TROILUS.
Nothing at all, unless that this were she.

THERSITES.
Will he swagger himself out on’s own eyes?

TROILUS.
This she? No; this is Diomed’s Cressida.
If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,
If sanctimony be the god’s delight,
If there be rule in unity itself,
This was not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against itself!
Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid.
Within my soul there doth conduce a fight
Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate
Divides more wider than the sky and earth;
And yet the spacious breadth of this division
Admits no orifice for a point as subtle
As Ariachne’s broken woof to enter.
Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto’s gates:
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven.
Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself:
The bonds of heaven are slipp’d, dissolv’d, and loos’d;
And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy relics
Of her o’er-eaten faith, are given to Diomed.

ULYSSES.
May worthy Troilus be half attach’d
With that which here his passion doth express?

TROILUS.
Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well
In characters as red as Mars his heart
Inflam’d with Venus. Never did young man fancy
With so eternal and so fix’d a soul.
Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,
So much by weight hate I her Diomed.
That sleeve is mine that he’ll bear on his helm;
Were it a casque compos’d by Vulcan’s skill
My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout
Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
Constring’d in mass by the almighty sun,
Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune’s ear
In his descent than shall my prompted sword
Falling on Diomed.

THERSITES.
He’ll tickle it for his concupy.

TROILUS.
O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!
Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,
And they’ll seem glorious.

ULYSSES.
O, contain yourself;
Your passion draws ears hither.

 Enter Aeneas.

AENEAS.
I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.
Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;
Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.

TROILUS.
Have with you, Prince. My courteous lord, adieu.
Fairwell, revolted fair! and, Diomed,
Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head.

ULYSSES.
I’ll bring you to the gates.

TROILUS.
Accept distracted thanks.

 [_Exeunt Troilus, Aeneas and Ulysses_.]

THERSITES. Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a
raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for
the intelligence of this whore; the parrot will not do more for an
almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery! Still wars and
lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them!

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE III. Troy. Before PRIAM’S palace.

 Enter Hector and Andromache.

ANDROMACHE.
When was my lord so much ungently temper’d
To stop his ears against admonishment?
Unarm, unarm, and do not fight today.

HECTOR.
You train me to offend you; get you in.
By all the everlasting gods, I’ll go.

ANDROMACHE.
My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day.

HECTOR.
No more, I say.

 Enter Cassandra.

CASSANDRA.
Where is my brother Hector?

ANDROMACHE.
Here, sister, arm’d, and bloody in intent.
Consort with me in loud and dear petition,
Pursue we him on knees; for I have dreamt
Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night
Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.

CASSANDRA.
O, ’tis true!

HECTOR.
Ho! bid my trumpet sound.

CASSANDRA.
No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother!

HECTOR.
Be gone, I say. The gods have heard me swear.

CASSANDRA.
The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;
They are polluted off’rings, more abhorr’d
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

ANDROMACHE.
O, be persuaded! Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just. It is as lawful,
For we would give much, to use violent thefts
And rob in the behalf of charity.

CASSANDRA.
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;
But vows to every purpose must not hold.
Unarm, sweet Hector.

HECTOR.
Hold you still, I say.
Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate.
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man
Holds honour far more precious dear than life.

 Enter Troilus.

How now, young man! Mean’st thou to fight today?

ANDROMACHE.
Cassandra, call my father to persuade.

 [_Exit_ Cassandra.]

HECTOR.
No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth;
I am today i’ th’vein of chivalry.
Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,
And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.
Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy,
I’ll stand today for thee and me and Troy.

TROILUS.
Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man.

HECTOR.
What vice is that? Good Troilus, chide me for it.

TROILUS.
When many times the captive Grecian falls,
Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
You bid them rise and live.

HECTOR.
O, ’tis fair play!

TROILUS.
Fool’s play, by heaven, Hector.

HECTOR.
How now? how now?

TROILUS.
For th’ love of all the gods,
Let’s leave the hermit Pity with our mother;
And when we have our armours buckled on,
The venom’d vengeance ride upon our swords,
Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth!

HECTOR.
Fie, savage, fie!

TROILUS.
Hector, then ’tis wars.

HECTOR.
Troilus, I would not have you fight today.

TROILUS.
Who should withhold me?
Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars
Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire;
Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,
Their eyes o’er-galled with recourse of tears;
Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,
Oppos’d to hinder me, should stop my way,
But by my ruin.

 Re-enter Cassandra with Priam.

CASSANDRA.
Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast;
He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,
Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,
Fall all together.

PRIAM.
Come, Hector, come, go back.
Thy wife hath dreamt; thy mother hath had visions;
Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself
Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt
To tell thee that this day is ominous.
Therefore, come back.

HECTOR.
Aeneas is a-field;
And I do stand engag’d to many Greeks,
Even in the faith of valour, to appear
This morning to them.

PRIAM.
Ay, but thou shalt not go.

HECTOR.
I must not break my faith.
You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,
Let me not shame respect; but give me leave
To take that course by your consent and voice
Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.

CASSANDRA.
O Priam, yield not to him!

ANDROMACHE.
Do not, dear father.

HECTOR.
Andromache, I am offended with you.
Upon the love you bear me, get you in.

 [_Exit_ Andromache.]

TROILUS.
This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl
Makes all these bodements.

CASSANDRA.
O, farewell, dear Hector!
Look how thou diest. Look how thy eye turns pale.
Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents.
Hark how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out;
How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth;
Behold distraction, frenzy, and amazement,
Like witless antics, one another meet,
And all cry, ‘Hector! Hector’s dead! O Hector!’

TROILUS.
Away, away!

CASSANDRA.
Farewell! yet, soft! Hector, I take my leave.
Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.

 [_Exit_.]

HECTOR.
You are amaz’d, my liege, at her exclaim.
Go in, and cheer the town; we’ll forth, and fight,
Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night.

PRIAM.
Farewell. The gods with safety stand about thee!

 [_Exeunt severally Priam and Hector. Alarums._]

TROILUS.
They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,
I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.

 Enter Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear?

TROILUS.
What now?

PANDARUS.
Here’s a letter come from yond poor girl.

TROILUS.
Let me read.

PANDARUS.
A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick, so troubles me, and the
foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing, what another, that I
shall leave you one o’ these days; and I have a rheum in mine eyes too,
and such an ache in my bones that unless a man were curs’d I cannot
tell what to think on’t. What says she there?

TROILUS.
Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart;
Th’effect doth operate another way.

 [_Tearing the letter_.]

Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.
My love with words and errors still she feeds,
But edifies another with her deeds.

 [_Exeunt severally_.]

SCENE IV. The plain between Troy and the Grecian camp.

 Alarums. Excursions. Enter Thersites.

THERSITES.
Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I’ll go look on. That
dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting
foolish young knave’s sleeve of Troy there in his helm. I would fain
see them meet, that that same young Trojan ass that loves the whore
there might send that Greekish whoremasterly villain with the sleeve
back to the dissembling luxurious drab of a sleeve-less errand. O’ the
other side, the policy of those crafty swearing rascals that stale old
mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses, is not
prov’d worth a blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur,
Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is the cur,
Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm today; whereupon
the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill
opinion.

 Enter Diomedes, Troilus following.

Soft! here comes sleeve, and t’other.

TROILUS.
Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx, I would swim after.

DIOMEDES.
Thou dost miscall retire.
I do not fly; but advantageous care
Withdrew me from the odds of multitude.
Have at thee!

THERSITES.
Hold thy whore, Grecian; now for thy whore,
Trojan! now the sleeve, now the sleeve!

 [_Exeunt Troilus and Diomedes fighting_.]

 Enter Hector.

HECTOR.
What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector’s match?
Art thou of blood and honour?

THERSITES.
No, no I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue.

HECTOR.
I do believe thee. Live.

 [_Exit_.]

THERSITES.
God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck for
frighting me! What’s become of the wenching rogues? I think they have
swallowed one another. I would laugh at that miracle. Yet, in a sort,
lechery eats itself. I’ll seek them.

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE V. Another part of the plain.

 Enter Diomedes and a Servant.

DIOMEDES.
Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus’ horse;
Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid.
Fellow, commend my service to her beauty;
Tell her I have chastis’d the amorous Trojan,
And am her knight by proof.

SERVANT.
I go, my lord.

 [_Exit_.]

 Enter Agamemnon.

AGAMEMNON.
Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas
Hath beat down Menon; bastard Margarelon
Hath Doreus prisoner,
And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam,
Upon the pashed corses of the kings
Epistrophus and Cedius. Polixenes is slain;
Amphimacus and Thoas deadly hurt;
Patroclus ta’en, or slain; and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruis’d. The dreadful Sagittary
Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,
To reinforcement, or we perish all.

 Enter Nestor.

NESTOR.
Go, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles,
And bid the snail-pac’d Ajax arm for shame.
There is a thousand Hectors in the field;
Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,
And there lacks work; anon he’s there afoot,
And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls
Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,
And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,
Fall down before him like the mower’s swath.
Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes;
Dexterity so obeying appetite
That what he will he does, and does so much
That proof is call’d impossibility.

 Enter Ulysses.

ULYSSES.
O, courage, courage, courage, Princes! Great Achilles
Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance.
Patroclus’ wounds have rous’d his drowsy blood,
Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
That noseless, handless, hack’d and chipp’d, come to him,
Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend
And foams at mouth, and he is arm’d and at it,
Roaring for Troilus; who hath done today
Mad and fantastic execution,
Engaging and redeeming of himself
With such a careless force and forceless care
As if that lust, in very spite of cunning,
Bade him win all.

 Enter Ajax.

AJAX.
Troilus! thou coward Troilus!

 [_Exit_.]

DIOMEDES.
Ay, there, there.

NESTOR.
So, so, we draw together.

 [_Exit_.]

 Enter Achilles.

ACHILLES.
Where is this Hector?
Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face;
Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.
Hector! where’s Hector? I will none but Hector.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE VI. Another part of the plain.

 Enter Ajax.

AJAX.
Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head.

 Enter Diomedes.

DIOMEDES.
Troilus, I say! Where’s Troilus?

AJAX.
What wouldst thou?

DIOMEDES.
I would correct him.

AJAX.
Were I the general, thou shouldst have my office
Ere that correction. Troilus, I say! What, Troilus!

 Enter Troilus.

TROILUS.
O traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor,
And pay thy life thou owest me for my horse.

DIOMEDES.
Ha! art thou there?

AJAX.
I’ll fight with him alone. Stand, Diomed.

DIOMEDES.
He is my prize. I will not look upon.

TROILUS.
Come, both, you cogging Greeks; have at you both!

 [_Exeunt fighting_.]

 Enter Hector.

HECTOR.
Yea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!

 Enter Achilles.

ACHILLES.
Now do I see thee. Ha! have at thee, Hector!

HECTOR.
Pause, if thou wilt.

ACHILLES.
I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Trojan.
Be happy that my arms are out of use;
My rest and negligence befriend thee now,
But thou anon shalt hear of me again;
Till when, go seek thy fortune.

 [_Exit_.]

HECTOR.
Fare thee well.
I would have been much more a fresher man,
Had I expected thee.

 Re-enter Troilus.

How now, my brother!

TROILUS.
Ajax hath ta’en Aeneas. Shall it be?
No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven,
He shall not carry him; I’ll be ta’en too,
Or bring him off. Fate, hear me what I say:
I reck not though thou end my life today.

 [_Exit_.]

 Enter one in armour.

HECTOR.
Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark.
No? wilt thou not? I like thy armour well;
I’ll frush it and unlock the rivets all
But I’ll be master of it. Wilt thou not, beast, abide?
Why then, fly on; I’ll hunt thee for thy hide.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE VII. Another part of the plain.

 Enter Achilles with Myrmidons.

ACHILLES.
Come here about me, you my Myrmidons;
Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel;
Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath;
And when I have the bloody Hector found,
Empale him with your weapons round about;
In fellest manner execute your arms.
Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye.
It is decreed Hector the great must die.

 [_Exeunt_.]

 Enter Menelaus and Paris, fighting; then Thersites.

THERSITES.
The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! Now, dog! ’Loo,
Paris, ’loo! now my double-hen’d Spartan! ’loo, Paris, ’loo! The bull
has the game. ’Ware horns, ho!

 [_Exeunt Paris and Menelaus_.]

 Enter Margarelon.

MARGARELON.
Turn, slave, and fight.

THERSITES.
What art thou?

MARGARELON.
A bastard son of Priam’s.

THERSITES.
I am a bastard too; I love bastards. I am a bastard begot, bastard
instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in everything
illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one
bastard? Take heed, the quarrel’s most ominous to us: if the son of a
whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgement. Farewell, bastard.

 [_Exit_.]

MARGARELON.
The devil take thee, coward!

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE VIII. Another part of the plain.

 Enter Hector.

HECTOR.
Most putrified core so fair without,
Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life.
Now is my day’s work done; I’ll take my breath:
Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death!

 [_Disarms_.]

 Enter Achilles and Myrmidons.

ACHILLES.
Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set,
How ugly night comes breathing at his heels;
Even with the vail and dark’ning of the sun,
To close the day up, Hector’s life is done.

HECTOR.
I am unarm’d; forego this vantage, Greek.

ACHILLES.
Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.

 [_Hector falls_.]

So, Ilion, fall thou next! Now, Troy, sink down;
Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.
On, Myrmidons, and cry you all amain
‘Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.’

 [_A retreat sounded_.]

Hark! a retire upon our Grecian part.

MYRMIDON.
The Trojan trumpets sound the like, my lord.

ACHILLES.
The dragon wing of night o’erspreads the earth
And, stickler-like, the armies separates.
My half-supp’d sword, that frankly would have fed,
Pleas’d with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed.

 [_Sheathes his sword_.]

Come, tie his body to my horse’s tail;
Along the field I will the Trojan trail.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE IX. Another part of the plain.

 Sound retreat. Shout. Enter Agamemnon, Ajax, Menelaus, Nestor,
 Diomedes and the rest, marching.

AGAMEMNON.
Hark! hark! what shout is this?

NESTOR.
Peace, drums!

SOLDIERS.
[_Within_.] Achilles! Achilles! Hector’s slain. Achilles!

DIOMEDES.
The bruit is, Hector’s slain, and by Achilles.

AJAX.
If it be so, yet bragless let it be;
Great Hector was as good a man as he.

AGAMEMNON.
March patiently along. Let one be sent
To pray Achilles see us at our tent.
If in his death the gods have us befriended;
Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE X. Another part of the plain.

 Enter Aeneas, Paris, Antenor and Deiphobus.

AENEAS.
Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field.
Never go home; here starve we out the night.

 Enter Troilus.

TROILUS.
Hector is slain.

ALL.
Hector! The gods forbid!

TROILUS.
He’s dead, and at the murderer’s horse’s tail,
In beastly sort, dragg’d through the shameful field.
Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed.
Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy.
I say at once let your brief plagues be mercy,
And linger not our sure destructions on.

AENEAS.
My lord, you do discomfort all the host.

TROILUS.
You understand me not that tell me so.
I do not speak of flight, of fear of death,
But dare all imminence that gods and men
Address their dangers in. Hector is gone.
Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?
Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call’d
Go in to Troy, and say there ‘Hector’s dead.’
There is a word will Priam turn to stone;
Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,
Cold statues of the youth; and, in a word,
Scare Troy out of itself. But, march away;
Hector is dead; there is no more to say.
Stay yet. You vile abominable tents,
Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,
Let Titan rise as early as he dare,
I’ll through and through you. And, thou great-siz’d coward,
No space of earth shall sunder our two hates;
I’ll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,
That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy’s thoughts.
Strike a free march to Troy. With comfort go;
Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.

 Enter Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
But hear you, hear you!

TROILUS.
Hence, broker-lackey. Ignominy and shame
Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name!

 [_Exeunt all but_ Pandarus.]

PANDARUS.
A goodly medicine for my aching bones! O world! world! Thus is the poor
agent despis’d! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work,
and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be so lov’d, and the
performance so loathed? What verse for it? What instance for it? Let me
see—

  Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing
  Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;
  And being once subdu’d in armed trail,
  Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.

Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths.
As many as be here of Pandar’s hall,
Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar’s fall;
Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,
Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.
Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,
Some two months hence my will shall here be made.
It should be now, but that my fear is this,
Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.
Till then I’ll sweat and seek about for eases,
And at that time bequeath you my diseases.

 [_Exit_.]



TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  ORSINO, Duke of Illyria
  SEBASTIAN, brother of Viola
  ANTONIO, a sea captain, friend of Sebastian
  A SEA CAPTAIN, friend of Viola
  VALENTINE, gentleman attending on the Duke
  CURIO, gentleman attending on the Duke
  SIR TOBY BELCH, uncle of Olivia
  SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK
  MALVOLIO, steward to Olivia
  FABIAN, servant to Olivia
  FESTE, a clown, servant to Olivia

  OLIVIA, a rich countess
  VIOLA, sister of Sebastian
  MARIA, Olivia's waiting woman

  Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and Attendants

SCENE: A city in Illyria; and the sea-coast near it

ACT I. SCENE I. The DUKE'S palace

Enter ORSINO, Duke of Illyria, CURIO, and other LORDS; MUSICIANS
attending

  DUKE. If music be the food of love, play on,
    Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
    The appetite may sicken and so die.
    That strain again! It had a dying fall;
    O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
    That breathes upon a bank of violets,
    Stealing and giving odour! Enough, no more;
    'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
    O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!
    That, notwithstanding thy capacity
    Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
    Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
    But falls into abatement and low price
    Even in a minute. So full of shapes is fancy,
    That it alone is high fantastical.
  CURIO. Will you go hunt, my lord?
  DUKE. What, Curio?
  CURIO. The hart.
  DUKE. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have.
    O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
    Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence!
    That instant was I turn'd into a hart,
    And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
    E'er since pursue me.

                     Enter VALENTINE

    How now! what news from her?
  VALENTINE. So please my lord, I might not be admitted,
    But from her handmaid do return this answer:
    The element itself, till seven years' heat,
    Shall not behold her face at ample view;
    But like a cloistress she will veiled walk,
    And water once a day her chamber round
    With eye-offending brine; all this to season
    A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh
    And lasting in her sad remembrance.
  DUKE. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame
    To pay this debt of love but to a brother,
    How will she love when the rich golden shaft
    Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else
    That live in her; when liver, brain, and heart,
    These sovereign thrones, are all supplied and fill'd,
    Her sweet perfections, with one self king!
    Away before me to sweet beds of flow'rs:
    Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bow'rs.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. The sea-coast

Enter VIOLA, a CAPTAIN, and SAILORS

  VIOLA. What country, friends, is this?
  CAPTAIN. This is Illyria, lady.
  VIOLA. And what should I do in Illyria?
    My brother he is in Elysium.
    Perchance he is not drown'd- what think you, sailors?
  CAPTAIN. It is perchance that you yourself were saved.
  VIOLA. O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be.
  CAPTAIN. True, madam, and, to comfort you with chance,
    Assure yourself, after our ship did split,
    When you, and those poor number saved with you,
    Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
    Most provident in peril, bind himself-
    Courage and hope both teaching him the practice-
    To a strong mast that liv'd upon the sea;
    Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
    I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves
    So long as I could see.
  VIOLA. For saying so, there's gold.
    Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,
    Whereto thy speech serves for authority,
    The like of him. Know'st thou this country?
  CAPTAIN. Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born
    Not three hours' travel from this very place.
  VIOLA. Who governs here?
  CAPTAIN. A noble duke, in nature as in name.
  VIOLA. What is his name?
  CAPTAIN. Orsino.
  VIOLA. Orsino! I have heard my father name him.
    He was a bachelor then.
  CAPTAIN. And so is now, or was so very late;
    For but a month ago I went from hence,
    And then 'twas fresh in murmur- as, you know,
    What great ones do the less will prattle of-
    That he did seek the love of fair Olivia.
  VIOLA. What's she?
  CAPTAIN. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count
    That died some twelvemonth since, then leaving her
    In the protection of his son, her brother,
    Who shortly also died; for whose dear love,
    They say, she hath abjur'd the company
    And sight of men.
  VIOLA. O that I serv'd that lady,
    And might not be delivered to the world,
    Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,
    What my estate is!
  CAPTAIN. That were hard to compass,
    Because she will admit no kind of suit-
    No, not the Duke's.
  VIOLA. There is a fair behaviour in thee, Captain;
    And though that nature with a beauteous wall
    Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee
    I will believe thou hast a mind that suits
    With this thy fair and outward character.
    I prithee, and I'll pay thee bounteously,
    Conceal me what I am, and be my aid
    For such disguise as haply shall become
    The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke:
    Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him;
    It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing
    And speak to him in many sorts of music,
    That will allow me very worth his service.
    What else may hap to time I will commit;
    Only shape thou silence to my wit.
  CAPTAIN. Be you his eunuch and your mute I'll be;
    When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see.
  VIOLA. I thank thee. Lead me on.                        Exeunt

SCENE III. OLIVIA'S house

Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA

  SIR TOBY. What a plague means my niece to take the death of her
    brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life.
  MARIA. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights;
    your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.
  SIR TOBY. Why, let her except before excepted.
  MARIA. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits
    of order.
  SIR TOBY. Confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am. These
    clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too;
    an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.
  MARIA. That quaffing and drinking will undo you; I heard my lady
    talk of it yesterday, and of a foolish knight that you brought in
    one night here to be her wooer.
  SIR TOBY. Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek?
  MARIA. Ay, he.
  SIR TOBY. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.
  MARIA. What's that to th' purpose?
  SIR TOBY. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.
  MARIA. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a
    very fool and a prodigal.
  SIR TOBY. Fie that you'll say so! He plays o' th' viol-de-gamboys,
    and speaks three or four languages word for word without book,
    and hath all the good gifts of nature.
  MARIA. He hath indeed, almost natural; for, besides that he's a
    fool, he's a great quarreller; and but that he hath the gift of a
    coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought
    among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.
  SIR TOBY. By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors that
    say so of him. Who are they?
  MARIA. They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.
  SIR TOBY. With drinking healths to my niece; I'll drink to her as
    long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria.
    He's a coward and a coystrill that will not drink to my niece
    till his brains turn o' th' toe like a parish-top. What, wench!
    Castiliano vulgo! for here comes Sir Andrew Agueface.

                    Enter SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK

  AGUECHEEK. Sir Toby Belch! How now, Sir Toby Belch!
  SIR TOBY. Sweet Sir Andrew!
  AGUECHEEK. Bless you, fair shrew.
  MARIA. And you too, sir.
  SIR TOBY. Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.
  AGUECHEEK. What's that?
  SIR TOBY. My niece's chambermaid.
  AGUECHEEK. Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.
  MARIA. My name is Mary, sir.
  AGUECHEEK. Good Mistress Mary Accost-
  SIR Toby. You mistake, knight. 'Accost' is front her, board her,
    woo her, assail her.
  AGUECHEEK. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company.
    Is that the meaning of 'accost'?
  MARIA. Fare you well, gentlemen.
  SIR TOBY. An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never
    draw sword again!
  AGUECHEEK. An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw
    sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?
  MARIA. Sir, I have not you by th' hand.
  AGUECHEEK. Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.
  MARIA. Now, sir, thought is free. I pray you, bring your hand to
    th' buttry-bar and let it drink.
  AGUECHEEK. Wherefore, sweetheart? What's your metaphor?
  MARIA. It's dry, sir.
  AGUECHEEK. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my
    hand dry. But what's your jest?
  MARIA. A dry jest, sir.
  AGUECHEEK. Are you full of them?
  MARIA. Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends; marry, now I let
    go your hand, I am barren.                        Exit MARIA
  SIR TOBY. O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary! When did I see
    thee so put down?
  AGUECHEEK. Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put
    me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian
    or an ordinary man has; but I am great eater of beef, and I
    believe that does harm to my wit.
  SIR TOBY. No question.
  AGUECHEEK. An I thought that, I'd forswear it. I'll ride home
    to-morrow, Sir Toby.
  SIR TOBY. Pourquoi, my dear knight?
  AGUECHEEK. What is 'pourquoi'- do or not do? I would I had bestowed
    that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and
    bear-baiting. Oh, had I but followed the arts!
  SIR TOBY. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.
  AGUECHEEK. Why, would that have mended my hair?
  SIR TOBY. Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature.
  AGUECHEEK. But it becomes me well enough, does't not?
  SIR TOBY. Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff, and I hope to
    see a huswife take thee between her legs and spin it off.
  AGUECHEEK. Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby. Your niece will
    not be seen, or if she be, it's four to one she'll none of me;
    the Count himself here hard by woos her.
  SIR TOBY. She'll none o' th' Count; she'll not match above her
    degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her
    swear't. Tut, there's life in't, man.
  AGUECHEEK. I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' th' strangest
    mind i' th' world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes
    altogether.
  SIR TOBY. Art thou good at these kickshawses, knight?
  AGUECHEEK. As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the
    degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man.
  SIR TOBY. What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?
  AGUECHEEK. Faith, I can cut a caper.
  SIR TOBY. And I can cut the mutton to't.
  AGUECHEEK. And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as
    any man in Illyria.
  SIR TOBY. Wherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these
    gifts a curtain before 'em? Are they like to take dust, like
    Mistress Mall's picture? Why dost thou not go to church in a
    galliard and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a
    jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What
    dost thou mean? Is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by
    the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was form'd under the
    star of a galliard.
  AGUECHEEK. Ay, 'tis strong, and it does indifferent well in
    flame-colour'd stock. Shall we set about some revels?
  SIR TOBY. What shall we do else? Were we not born under Taurus?
  AGUECHEEK. Taurus? That's sides and heart.
  SIR TOBY. No, sir; it is legs and thighs. Let me see the caper. Ha,
    higher! Ha, ha, excellent!                            Exeunt

SCENE IV. The DUKE'S palace

Enter VALENTINE, and VIOLA in man's attire

  VALENTINE. If the Duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario,
    you are like to be much advanc'd; he hath known you but three
    days, and already you are no stranger.
  VIOLA. You either fear his humour or my negligence, that you call
    in question the continuance of his love. Is he inconstant, sir,
    in his favours?
  VALENTINE. No, believe me.

                  Enter DUKE, CURIO, and ATTENDANTS

  VIOLA. I thank you. Here comes the Count.
  DUKE. Who saw Cesario, ho?
  VIOLA. On your attendance, my lord, here.
  DUKE. Stand you awhile aloof. Cesario,
    Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd
    To thee the book even of my secret soul.
    Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her;
    Be not denied access, stand at her doors,
    And tell them there thy fixed foot shall grow
    Till thou have audience.
  VIOLA. Sure, my noble lord,
    If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow
    As it is spoke, she never will admit me.
  DUKE. Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds,
    Rather than make unprofited return.
  VIOLA. Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then?
  DUKE. O, then unfold the passion of my love,
    Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith!
    It shall become thee well to act my woes:
    She will attend it better in thy youth
    Than in a nuncio's of more grave aspect.
  VIOLA. I think not so, my lord.
  DUKE. Dear lad, believe it,
    For they shall yet belie thy happy years
    That say thou art a man: Diana's lip
    Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe
    Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,
    And all is semblative a woman's part.
    I know thy constellation is right apt
    For this affair. Some four or five attend him-
    All, if you will, for I myself am best
    When least in company. Prosper well in this,
    And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord
    To call his fortunes thine.
  VIOLA. I'll do my best
    To woo your lady. [Aside] Yet, a barful strife!
    Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.

SCENE V. OLIVIA'S house

Enter MARIA and CLOWN

  MARIA. Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open
    my lips so wide as a bristle may enter in way of thy excuse; my
    lady will hang thee for thy absence.
  CLOWN. Let her hang me. He that is well hang'd in this world needs
    to fear no colours.
  MARIA. Make that good.
  CLOWN. He shall see none to fear.
  MARIA. A good lenten answer. I can tell thee where that saying was
    born, of 'I fear no colours.'
  CLOWN. Where, good Mistress Mary?
  MARIA. In the wars; and that may you be bold to say in your
    foolery.
  CLOWN. Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are
    fools, let them use their talents.
  MARIA. Yet you will be hang'd for being so long absent; or to be
    turn'd away- is not that as good as a hanging to you?
  CLOWN. Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and for turning
    away, let summer bear it out.
  MARIA. You are resolute, then?
  CLOWN. Not so, neither; but I am resolv'd on two points.
  MARIA. That if one break, the other will hold; or if both break,
    your gaskins fall.
  CLOWN. Apt, in good faith, very apt! Well, go thy way; if Sir Toby
    would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve's flesh
    as any in Illyria.
  MARIA. Peace, you rogue, no more o' that. Here comes my lady. Make
    your excuse wisely, you were best.                      Exit

                     Enter OLIVIA and MALVOLIO

  CLOWN. Wit, an't be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits
    that think they have thee do very oft prove fools; and I that am
    sure I lack thee may pass for a wise man. For what says
    Quinapalus? 'Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.' God bless
    thee, lady!
  OLIVIA. Take the fool away.
  CLOWN. Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.
  OLIVIA. Go to, y'are a dry fool; I'll no more of you. Besides, you
    grow dishonest.
  CLOWN. Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend;
    for give the dry fool drink, then is the fool not dry. Bid the
    dishonest man mend himself: if he mend, he is no longer
    dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything
    that's mended is but patch'd; virtue that transgresses is but
    patch'd with sin, and sin that amends is but patch'd with virtue.
    If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not,
    what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so
    beauty's a flower. The lady bade take away the fool; therefore, I
    say again, take her away.
  OLIVIA. Sir, I bade them take away you.
  CLOWN. Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, 'Cucullus non facit
    monachum'; that's as much to say as I wear not motley in my
    brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.
  OLIVIA. Can you do it?
  CLOWN. Dexteriously, good madonna.
  OLIVIA. Make your proof.
  CLOWN. I must catechize you for it, madonna.
    Good my mouse of virtue, answer me.
  OLIVIA. Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll bide your
    proof.
  CLOWN. Good madonna, why mourn'st thou?
  OLIVIA. Good fool, for my brother's death.
  CLOWN. I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
  OLIVIA. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
  CLOWN. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul
    being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.
  OLIVIA. What think you of this fool, Malvolio? Doth he not mend?
  MALVOLIO. Yes, and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him.
    Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.
  CLOWN. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better
    increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox;
    but he will not pass his word for twopence that you are no fool.
  OLIVIA. How say you to that, Malvolio?
  MALVOLIO. I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren
    rascal; I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool
    that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he's out of
    his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him,
    he is gagg'd. I protest I take these wise men that crow so at
    these set kind of fools no better than the fools' zanies.
  OLIVIA. O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a
    distemper'd appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free
    disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem
    cannon bullets. There is no slander in an allow'd fool, though he
    do nothing but rail; nor no railing in known discreet man, though
    he do nothing but reprove.
  CLOWN. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speak'st well
    of fools!

                             Re-enter MARIA

  MARIA. Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires
    to speak with you.
  OLIVIA. From the Count Orsino, is it?
  MARIA. I know not, madam; 'tis a fair young man, and well attended.
  OLIVIA. Who of my people hold him in delay?
  MARIA. Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.
  OLIVIA. Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but madman.
    Fie on him! [Exit MARIA] Go you, Malvolio: if it be a suit from
    the Count, I am sick, or not at home- what you will to dismiss
    it. [Exit MALVOLIO] Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old,
    and people dislike it.
  CLOWN. Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should
    be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with brains! For- here he comes-
    one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater.

                         Enter SIR TOBY

  OLIVIA. By mine honour, half drunk! What is he at the gate, cousin?
  SIR TOBY. A gentleman.
  OLIVIA. A gentleman! What gentleman?
  SIR TOBY. 'Tis a gentleman here. [Hiccups] A plague o' these
    pickle-herring! How now, sot!
  CLOWN. Good Sir Toby!
  OLIVIA. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this
    lethargy?
  SIR TOBY. Lechery! I defy lechery. There's one at the gate.
  OLIVIA. Ay, marry; what is he?
  SIR TOBY. Let him be the devil an he will, I care not; give me
    faith, say I. Well, it's all one.                       Exit
  OLIVIA. What's a drunken man like, fool?
  CLOWN. Like a drown'd man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above
    heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns
    him.
  OLIVIA. Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o' my coz;
    for he's in the third degree of drink, he's drown'd; go look
    after him.
  CLOWN. He is but mad yet, madonna, and the fool shall look to the
    madman.                                                 Exit

                           Re-enter MALVOLIO

  MALVOLIO. Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I
    told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much,
     and therefore comes to speak with you. I told him you were
    asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too, and
    therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him,
    lady? He's fortified against any denial.
  OLIVIA. Tell him he shall not speak with me.
  MALVOLIO. Has been told so; and he says he'll stand at your door
    like a sheriff's post, and be the supporter to a bench, but he'll
    speak with you.
  OLIVIA. What kind o' man is he?
  MALVOLIO. Why, of mankind.
  OLIVIA. What manner of man?
  MALVOLIO. Of very ill manner; he'll speak with you, will you or no.
  OLIVIA. Of what personage and years is he?
  MALVOLIO. Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy;
    as a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling when 'tis
    almost an apple; 'tis with him in standing water, between boy and
    man. He is very well-favour'd, and he speaks very shrewishly; one
    would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him.
  OLIVIA. Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman.
  MALVOLIO. Gentlewoman, my lady calls.                     Exit

                          Re-enter MARIA

  OLIVIA. Give me my veil; come, throw it o'er my face;
    We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy.

                             Enter VIOLA

  VIOLA. The honourable lady of the house, which is she?
  OLIVIA. Speak to me; I shall answer for her. Your will?
  VIOLA. Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty- I pray you
    tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her. I
    would be loath to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is
    excellently well penn'd, I have taken great pains to con it. Good
    beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to
    the least sinister usage.
  OLIVIA. Whence came you, sir?
  VIOLA. I can say little more than I have studied, and that
    question's out of my part. Good gentle one, give me modest
    assurance if you be the lady of the house, that I may proceed in
    my speech.
  OLIVIA. Are you a comedian?
  VIOLA. No, my profound heart; and yet, by the very fangs of malice
    I swear, I am not that I play. Are you the lady of the house?
  OLIVIA. If I do not usurp myself, I am.
  VIOLA. Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp yourself; for
    what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is from
    my commission. I will on with my speech in your praise, and then
    show you the heart of my message.
  OLIVIA. Come to what is important in't. I forgive you the praise.
  VIOLA. Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 'tis poetical.
  OLIVIA. It is the more like to be feigned; I pray you keep it in. I
    heard you were saucy at my gates, and allow'd your approach
    rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be
    gone; if you have reason, be brief; 'tis not that time of moon
    with me to make one in so skipping dialogue.
  MARIA. Will you hoist sail, sir? Here lies your way.
  VIOLA. No, good swabber, I am to hull here a little longer.
    Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady.
  OLIVIA. Tell me your mind.
  VIOLA. I am a messenger.
  OLIVIA. Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the
    courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office.
  VIOLA. It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture of war, no
    taxation of homage: I hold the olive in my hand; my words are as
    full of peace as matter.
  OLIVIA. Yet you began rudely. What are you? What would you?
  VIOLA. The rudeness that hath appear'd in me have I learn'd from my
    entertainment. What I am and what I would are as secret as
    maidenhead- to your cars, divinity; to any other's, profanation.
  OLIVIA. Give us the place alone; we will hear this divinity.
    [Exeunt MARIA and ATTENDANTS] Now, sir, what is your text?
  VIOLA. Most sweet lady-
  OLIVIA. A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it.
    Where lies your text?
  VIOLA. In Orsino's bosom.
  OLIVIA. In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom?
  VIOLA. To answer by the method: in the first of his heart.
  OLIVIA. O, I have read it; it is heresy. Have you no more to say?
  VIOLA. Good madam, let me see your face.
  OLIVIA. Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my
    face? You are now out of your text; but we will draw the curtain
    and show you the picture. [Unveiling] Look you, sir, such a one I
    was this present. Is't not well done?
  VIOLA. Excellently done, if God did all.
  OLIVIA. 'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.
  VIOLA. 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
    Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.
    Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive,
    If you will lead these graces to the grave,
    And leave the world no copy.
  OLIVIA. O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out
    divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried, and every
    particle and utensil labell'd to my will: as- item, two lips
    indifferent red; item, two grey eyes with lids to them; item, one
    neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise me?
  VIOLA. I see you what you are: you are too proud;
    But, if you were the devil, you are fair.
    My lord and master loves you- O, such love
    Could be but recompens'd though you were crown'd
    The nonpareil of beauty!
  OLIVIA. How does he love me?
  VIOLA. With adorations, fertile tears,
    With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.
  OLIVIA. Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him.
    Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,
    Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;
    In voices well divulg'd, free, learn'd, and valiant,
    And in dimension and the shape of nature
    A gracious person; but yet I cannot love him.
    He might have took his answer long ago.
  VIOLA. If I did love you in my master's flame,
    With such a suff'ring, such a deadly life,
    In your denial I would find no sense;
    I would not understand it.
  OLIVIA. Why, what would you?
  VIOLA. Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
    And call upon my soul within the house;
    Write loyal cantons of contemned love
    And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
    Halloo your name to the reverberate hals,
    And make the babbling gossip of the air
    Cry out 'Olivia!' O, you should not rest
    Between the elements of air and earth
    But you should pity me!
  OLIVIA. You might do much.
    What is your parentage?
  VIOLA. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
    I am a gentleman.
  OLIVIA. Get you to your lord.
    I cannot love him; let him send no more-
    Unless perchance you come to me again
    To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well.
    I thank you for your pains; spend this for me.
  VIOLA. I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse;
    My master, not myself, lacks recompense.
    Love make his heart of flint that you shall love;
    And let your fervour, like my master's, be
    Plac'd in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.             Exit
  OLIVIA. 'What is your parentage?'
    'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
    I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art;
    Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit,
    Do give thee five-fold blazon. Not too fast! Soft, soft!
    Unless the master were the man. How now!
    Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
    Methinks I feel this youth's perfections
    With an invisible and subtle stealth
    To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.
    What ho, Malvolio!

                        Re-enter MALVOLIO

  MALVOLIO. Here, madam, at your service.
  OLIVIA. Run after that same peevish messenger,
    The County's man. He left this ring behind him,
    Would I or not. Tell him I'll none of it.
    Desire him not to flatter with his lord,
    Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him.
    If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,
    I'll give him reasons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio.
  MALVOLIO. Madam, I will.                                  Exit
  OLIVIA. I do I know not what, and fear to find
    Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.
    Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;
    What is decreed must be; and be this so!                Exit

ACT II. SCENE I. The sea-coast

Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN

  ANTONIO. Will you stay no longer; nor will you not that I go with
    you?
  SEBASTIAN. By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me; the
    malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I
    shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It
    were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.
  ANTONIO. Let me know of you whither you are bound.
  SEBASTIAN. No, sooth, sir; my determinate voyage is mere
    extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of
    modesty that you will not extort from me what I am willing to
    keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express
    myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian,
    which I call'd Roderigo; my father was that Sebastian of
    Messaline whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him
    myself and a sister, both born in an hour; if the heavens had
    been pleas'd, would we had so ended! But you, sir, alter'd that;
    for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was
    my sister drown'd.
  ANTONIO. Alas the day!
  SEBASTIAN. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me,
    was yet of many accounted beautiful; but though I could not with
    such estimable wonder overfar believe that, yet thus far I will
    boldly publish her: she bore mind that envy could not but call
    fair. She is drown'd already, sir, with salt water, though I seem
    to drown her remembrance again with more.
  ANTONIO. Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.
  SEBASTIAN. O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble.
  ANTONIO. If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your
    servant.
  SEBASTIAN. If you will not undo what you have done- that is, kill
    him whom you have recover'd-desire it not. Fare ye well at once;
    my bosom is full of kindness, and I am yet so near the manners of
    my mother that, upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell
    tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino's court. Farewell.
 Exit
  ANTONIO. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee!
    I have many cnemies in Orsino's court,
    Else would I very shortly see thee there.
    But come what may, I do adore thee so
    That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.            Exit

SCENE II. A street

Enter VIOLA and MALVOLIO at several doors

  MALVOLIO. Were you not ev'n now with the Countess Olivia?
  VIOLA. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arriv'd but
    hither.
  MALVOLIO. She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have saved
    me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover,
    that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will
    none of him. And one thing more: that you be never so hardy to
    come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's
    taking of this. Receive it so.
  VIOLA. She took the ring of me; I'll none of it.
  MALVOLIO. Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is
    it should be so return'd. If it be worth stooping for, there it
    lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.
 Exit
  VIOLA. I left no ring with her; what means this lady?
    Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her!
    She made good view of me; indeed, so much
    That methought her eyes had lost her tongue,
    For she did speak in starts distractedly.
    She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion
    Invites me in this churlish messenger.
    None of my lord's ring! Why, he sent her none.
    I am the man. If it be so- as 'tis-
    Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
    Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness
    Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
    How easy is it for the proper-false
    In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!
    Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we!
    For such as we are made of, such we be.
    How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly,
    And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
    And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.
    What will become of this? As I am man,
    My state is desperate for my master's love;
    As I am woman- now alas the day!-
    What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!
    O Time, thou must untangle this, not I;
    It is too hard a knot for me t' untie!                  Exit

SCENE III. OLIVIA'S house

Enter SIR TOBY and SIR ANDREW

  SIR TOBY. Approach, Sir Andrew. Not to be abed after midnight is to
    be up betimes; and 'diluculo surgere' thou know'st-
  AGUECHEEK. Nay, by my troth, I know not; but I know to be up late
    is to be up late.
  SIR TOBY. A false conclusion! I hate it as an unfill'd can. To be
    up after midnight and to go to bed then is early; so that to go
    to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Does not our lives
    consist of the four elements?
  AGUECHEEK. Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of
    eating and drinking.
  SIR TOBY. Th'art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.
    Marian, I say! a stoup of wine.

                          Enter CLOWN

  AGUECHEEK. Here comes the fool, i' faith.
  CLOWN. How now, my hearts! Did you never see the picture of 'we
    three'?
  SIR TOBY. Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch.
  AGUECHEEK. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had
    rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a
    breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou wast in very
    gracious fooling last night, when thou spok'st of Pigrogromitus,
    of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus; 'twas very
    good, i' faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman; hadst it?
  CLOWN. I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose is no
    whipstock. My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no
    bottle-ale houses.
  AGUECHEEK. Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is
    done. Now, a song.
  SIR TOBY. Come on, there is sixpence for you. Let's have a song.
  AGUECHEEK. There's a testril of me too; if one knight give a-
CLOWN. Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?
  SIR TOBY. A love-song, a love-song.
  AGUECHEEK. Ay, ay; I care not for good life.

                         CLOWN sings

         O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
         O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
           That can sing both high and low.
           Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
           Journeys end in lovers meeting,
           Every wise man's son doth know.

  AGUECHEEK. Excellent good, i' faith!
  SIR TOBY. Good, good!

                         CLOWN sings

           What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;
           Present mirth hath present laughter;
             What's to come is still unsure.
           In delay there lies no plenty,
           Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty;
             Youth's a stuff will not endure.

  AGUECHEEK. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.
  SIR TOBY. A contagious breath.
  AGUECHEEK. Very sweet and contagious, i' faith.
  SIR TOBY. To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall
    we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse the night-owl in
    a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver? Shall we do
    that?
  AGUECHEEK. An you love me, let's do't. I am dog at a catch.
  CLOWN. By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.
  AGUECHEEK. Most certain. Let our catch be 'Thou knave.'
  CLOWN. 'Hold thy peace, thou knave' knight? I shall be constrain'd
    in't to call thee knave, knight.
  AGUECHEEK. 'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call
    me knave. Begin, fool: it begins 'Hold thy peace.'
  CLOWN. I shall never begin if I hold my peace.
  AGUECHEEK. Good, i' faith! Come, begin.           [Catch sung]

                         Enter MARIA

  MARIA. What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not
    call'd up her steward Malvolio, and bid him turn you out of
    doors, never trust me.
  SIR TOBY. My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio's a
    Peg-a-Ramsey, and                                    [Sings]
                  Three merry men be we.
    Am not I consanguineous? Am I not of her blood? Tilly-vally,
    lady.                                                [Sings]
              There dwelt a man in Babylon,
              Lady, lady.
  CLOWN. Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling.
  AGUECHEEK. Ay, he does well enough if he be dispos'd, and so do I
    too; he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.
  SIR TOBY. [Sings] O' the twelfth day of December-
  MARIA. For the love o' God, peace!

                       Enter MALVOLIO

  MALVOLIO. My masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no
    wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this
    time of night? Do ye make an ale-house of my lady's house, that
    ye squeak out your coziers' catches without any mitigation or
    remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor
    time, in you?
  SIR TOBY. We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!
  MALVOLIO. Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell
    you that, though she harbours you as her kins-man, she's nothing
    allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your
    misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house; if not, and it would
    please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you
    farewell.
  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.
  MARIA. Nay, good Sir Toby.
  CLOWN. [Sings] His eyes do show his days are almost done.
  MALVOLIO. Is't even so?
  SIR TOBY. [Sings] But I will never die.           [Falls down]
  CLOWN. [Sings] Sir Toby, there you lie.
  MALVOLIO. This is much credit to you.
  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Shall I bid him go?
  CLOWN. [Sings] What an if you do?
  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Shall I bid him go, and spare not?
  CLOWN. [Sings] O, no, no, no, no, you dare not.
  SIR TOBY. [Rising] Out o' tune, sir! Ye lie. Art any more than a
    steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall
    be no more cakes and ale?
  CLOWN. Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' th' mouth
    too.
 SIR TOBY. Th' art i' th' right. Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs.
    A stoup of wine, Maria!
  MALVOLIO. Mistress Mary, if you priz'd my lady's favour at anything
    more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil
    rule; she shall know of it, by this hand.
 Exit
  MARIA. Go shake your ears.
  AGUECHEEK. 'Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man's ahungry,
    to challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him
    and make a fool of him.
  SIR TOBY. Do't, knight. I'll write thee a challenge; or I'll
    deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.
  MARIA. Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for to-night; since the youth of
    the Count's was to-day with my lady, she is much out of quiet.
    For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him; if I do not gull
    him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not
    think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed. I know I can
    do it.
  SIR TOBY. Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him.
  MARIA. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan.
  AGUECHEEK. O, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog.
  SIR TOBY. What, for being a Puritan? Thy exquisite reason, dear
    knight?
  AGUECHEEK. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good
    enough.
  MARIA. The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a
    time-pleaser; an affection'd ass that cons state without book and
     utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of himself, so
    cramm'd, as he thinks, with excellencies that it is his grounds
    of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in
    him will my revenge find notable cause to work.
  SIR TOBY. What wilt thou do?
  MARIA. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love;
    wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the
    manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and
    complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I
    can write very like my lady, your niece; on forgotten matter we
    can hardly make distinction of our hands.
  SIR TOBY. Excellent! I smell a device.
  AGUECHEEK. I have't in my nose too.
  SIR TOBY. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that
    they come from my niece, and that she's in love with him.
  MARIA. My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.
  AGUECHEEK. And your horse now would make him an ass.
  MARIA. Ass, I doubt not.
  AGUECHEEK. O, 'twill be admirable!
  MARIA. Sport royal, I warrant you. I know my physic will work with
    him. I will plant you two, and let the fool make a third, where
    he shall find the letter; observe his construction of it. For
    this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell.
 Exit
  SIR TOBY. Good night, Penthesilea.
  AGUECHEEK. Before me, she's a good wench.
  SIR TOBY. She's a beagle true-bred, and one that adores me.
    What o' that?
  AGUECHEEK. I was ador'd once too.
  SIR TOBY. Let's to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for more
    money.
  AGUECHEEK. If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out.
  SIR TOBY. Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i' th' end,
    call me Cut.
  AGUECHEEK. If I do not, never trust me; take it how you will.
  SIR TOBY. Come, come, I'll go burn some sack; 'tis too late to go
    to bed now. Come, knight; come, knight.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE IV. The DUKE'S palace

Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and OTHERS

  DUKE. Give me some music. Now, good morrow, friends.
    Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,
    That old and antique song we heard last night;
    Methought it did relieve my passion much,
    More than light airs and recollected terms
    Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times.
    Come, but one verse.
  CURIO. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing
    it.
  DUKE. Who was it?
  CURIO. Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the Lady Olivia's
    father took much delight in. He is about the house.
  DUKE. Seek him out, and play the tune the while.
                                       Exit CURIO. [Music plays]
    Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love,
    In the sweet pangs of it remember me;
    For such as I am all true lovers are,
    Unstaid and skittish in all motions else
    Save in the constant image of the creature
    That is belov'd. How dost thou like this tune?
  VIOLA. It gives a very echo to the seat
    Where Love is thron'd.
  DUKE. Thou dost speak masterly.
    My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye
    Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves;
    Hath it not, boy?
  VIOLA. A little, by your favour.
  DUKE. What kind of woman is't?
  VIOLA. Of your complexion.
  DUKE. She is not worth thee, then. What years, i' faith?
  VIOLA. About your years, my lord.
  DUKE. Too old, by heaven! Let still the woman take
    An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
    So sways she level in her husband's heart.
    For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
    Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
    More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,
    Than women's are.
  VIOLA. I think it well, my lord.
  DUKE. Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
    Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;
    For women are as roses, whose fair flow'r
    Being once display'd doth fall that very hour.
  VIOLA. And so they are; alas, that they are so!
    To die, even when they to perfection grow!

                  Re-enter CURIO and CLOWN

  DUKE. O, fellow, come, the song we had last night.
    Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain;
    The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
    And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
    Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,
    And dallies with the innocence of love,
    Like the old age.
  CLOWN. Are you ready, sir?
  DUKE. Ay; prithee, sing.                               [Music]

                     FESTE'S SONG

            Come away, come away, death;
          And in sad cypress let me be laid;
            Fly away, fly away, breath,
          I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
          My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
                 O, prepare it!
          My part of death no one so true
                 Did share it.

            Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
          On my black coffin let there be strown;
            Not a friend, not a friend greet
          My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown;
          A thousand thousand to save,
                 Lay me, O, where
          Sad true lover never find my grave,
                 To weep there!

  DUKE. There's for thy pains.
  CLOWN. No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir.
  DUKE. I'll pay thy pleasure, then.
  CLOWN. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid one time or another.
  DUKE. Give me now leave to leave thee.
  CLOWN. Now the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy
    doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. I
    would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business
    might be everything, and their intent everywhere: for that's it
    that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell.
                                                      Exit CLOWN
  DUKE. Let all the rest give place.
                                     Exeunt CURIO and ATTENDANTS
    Once more, Cesario,
    Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty.
    Tell her my love, more noble than the world,
    Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
    The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her,
    Tell her I hold as giddily as Fortune;
    But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems
    That Nature pranks her in attracts my soul.
  VIOLA. But if she cannot love you, sir?
  DUKE. I cannot be so answer'd.
  VIOLA. Sooth, but you must.
    Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,
    Hath for your love as great a pang of heart
    As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her;
    You tell her so. Must she not then be answer'd?
  DUKE. There is no woman's sides
    Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
    As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart
    So big to hold so much; they lack retention.
    Alas, their love may be call'd appetite-
    No motion of the liver, but the palate-
    That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;
    But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
    And can digest as much. Make no compare
    Between that love a woman can bear me
    And that I owe Olivia.
  VIOLA. Ay, but I know-
  DUKE. What dost thou know?
  VIOLA. Too well what love women to men may owe.
    In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
    My father had a daughter lov'd a man,
    As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,
    I should your lordship.
  DUKE. And what's her history?
  VIOLA. A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
    But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,
    Feed on her damask cheek. She pin'd in thought;
    And with a green and yellow melancholy
    She sat like Patience on a monument,
    Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
    We men may say more, swear more, but indeed
    Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
    Much in our vows, but little in our love.
  DUKE. But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
  VIOLA. I am all the daughters of my father's house,
    And all the brothers too- and yet I know not.
    Sir, shall I to this lady?
  DUKE. Ay, that's the theme.
    To her in haste. Give her this jewel; say
    My love can give no place, bide no denay.             Exeunt

SCENE V. OLIVIA'S garden

Enter SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN

  SIR TOBY. Come thy ways, Signior Fabian.
  FABIAN. Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport let me be
    boil'd to death with melancholy.
  SIR TOBY. Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally
    sheep-biter come by some notable shame?
  FABIAN. I would exult, man; you know he brought me out o' favour
    with my lady about a bear-baiting here.
  SIR TOBY. To anger him we'll have the bear again; and we will fool
    him black and blue- shall we not, Sir Andrew?
  AGUECHEEK. And we do not, it is pity of our lives.

                       Enter MARIA

  SIR TOBY. Here comes the little villain.
    How now, my metal of India!
  MARIA. Get ye all three into the box-tree. Malvolio's coming down
    this walk. He has been yonder i' the sun practising behaviour to
    his own shadow this half hour. Observe him, for the love of
    mockery, for I know this letter will make a contemplative idiot
    of him. Close, in the name of jesting! [As the men hide she drops
    a letter] Lie thou there; for here comes the trout that must be
    caught with tickling.
 Exit

                      Enter MALVOLIO

  MALVOLIO. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me she
    did affect me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that,
    should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she
    uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that
    follows her. What should I think on't?
  SIR TOBY. Here's an overweening rogue!
  FABIAN. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him;
    how he jets under his advanc'd plumes!
  AGUECHEEK. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue-
  SIR TOBY. Peace, I say.
  MALVOLIO. To be Count Malvolio!
  SIR TOBY. Ah, rogue!
  AGUECHEEK. Pistol him, pistol him.
  SIR TOBY. Peace, peace!
  MALVOLIO. There is example for't: the Lady of the Strachy married
    the yeoman of the wardrobe.
  AGUECHEEK. Fie on him, Jezebel!
  FABIAN. O, peace! Now he's deeply in; look how imagination blows
    him.
  MALVOLIO. Having been three months married to her, sitting in my
    state-
  SIR TOBY. O, for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye!
  MALVOLIO. Calling my officers about me, in my branch'd velvet gown,
    having come from a day-bed- where I have left Olivia sleeping-
  SIR TOBY. Fire and brimstone!
  FABIAN. O, peace, peace!
  MALVOLIO. And then to have the humour of state; and after a demure
    travel of regard, telling them I know my place as I would they
    should do theirs, to ask for my kinsman Toby-
  SIR TOBY. Bolts and shackles!
  FABIAN. O, peace, peace, peace! Now, now.
  MALVOLIO. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for
    him. I frown the while, and perchance wind up my watch, or play
    with my- some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies there to me-
  SIR TOBY. Shall this fellow live?
  FABIAN. Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace.
  MALVOLIO. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile
   with an austere regard of control-
  SIR TOBY. And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then?
  MALVOLIO. Saying 'Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your
    niece give me this prerogative of speech'-
  SIR TOBY. What, what?
  MALVOLIO. 'You must amend your drunkenness'-
  SIR TOBY. Out, scab!
  FABIAN. Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot.
  MALVOLIO. 'Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a
    foolish knight'-
  AGUECHEEK. That's me, I warrant you.
  MALVOLIO. 'One Sir Andrew.'
  AGUECHEEK. I knew 'twas I; for many do call me fool.
  MALVOLIO. What employment have we here?
                                          [Taking up the letter]
  FABIAN. Now is the woodcock near the gin.
  SIR TOBY. O, peace! And the spirit of humours intimate reading
    aloud to him!
  MALVOLIO. By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very
    C's, her U's, and her T's; and thus makes she her great P's. It
    is, in contempt of question, her hand.
  AGUECHEEK. Her C's, her U's, and her T's. Why that?
  MALVOLIO. [Reads] 'To the unknown belov'd, this, and my good
    wishes.' Her very phrases! By your leave, wax. Soft! And the
    impressure her Lucrece with which she uses to seal; 'tis my lady.
    To whom should this be?
  FABIAN. This wins him, liver and all.
  MALVOLIO. [Reads]

                    Jove knows I love,
                      But who?
                    Lips, do not move;
                    No man must know.'

    'No man must know.' What follows? The numbers alter'd!
    'No man must know.' If this should be thee, Malvolio?
  SIR TOBY. Marry, hang thee, brock!
  MALVOLIO. [Reads]

             'I may command where I adore;
               But silence, like a Lucrece knife,
             With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore;
               M. O. A. I. doth sway my life.'

  FABIAN. A fustian riddle!
  SIR TOBY. Excellent wench, say I.
  MALVOLIO. 'M. O. A. I. doth sway my life.'
    Nay, but first let me see, let me see, let me see.
  FABIAN. What dish o' poison has she dress'd him!
  SIR TOBY. And with what wing the staniel checks at it!
  MALVOLIO. 'I may command where I adore.' Why, she may command me: I
    serve her; she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal
    capacity; there is no obstruction in this. And the end- what
    should that alphabetical position portend? If I could make that
    resemble something in me. Softly! M. O. A. I.-
  SIR TOBY. O, ay, make up that! He is now at a cold scent.
  FABIAN. Sowter will cry upon't for all this, though it be as rank
    as a fox.
  MALVOLIO. M- Malvolio; M- why, that begins my name.
  FABIAN. Did not I say he would work it out?
    The cur is excellent at faults.
  MALVOLIO. M- But then there is no consonancy in the sequel; that
    suffers under probation: A should follow, but O does.
  FABIAN. And O shall end, I hope.
  SIR TOBY. Ay, or I'll cudgel him, and make him cry 'O!'
  MALVOLIO. And then I comes behind.
  FABIAN. Ay, an you had any eye behind you, you might see more
    detraction at your heels than fortunes before you.
  MALVOLIO. M. O. A. I. This simulation is not as the former; and
    yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of
    these letters are in my name. Soft! here follows prose.
                                                         [Reads]
      'If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above
    thee; but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some
    achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. Thy
    Fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them;
    and, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy
    humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly
    with servants; let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put
    thyself into the trick of singularity. She thus advises thee that
    sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and
    wish'd to see thee ever cross-garter'd. I say, remember, Go to,
    thou art made, if thou desir'st to be so; if not, let me see thee
    a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch
    Fortune's fingers. Farewell. She that would alter services with
    thee,
                                         THE FORTUNATE-UNHAPPY.'

    Daylight and champain discovers not more. This is open. I will be
    proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will
    wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-devise the very man. I
    do not now fool myself to let imagination jade me; for every reason
    excites to this, that my lady loves me. She did commend my yellow
    stockings of late, she did praise my leg being cross-garter'd; and
    in this she manifests herself to my love, and with a kind of
    injunction drives me to these habits of her liking. I thank my
    stars I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings,
    and cross-garter'd, even with the swiftness of putting on. Jove and
    my stars be praised! Here is yet a postscript.

    [Reads] 'Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou
    entertain'st my love, let it appear in thy smiling; thy smiles
    become thee well. Therefore in my presence still smile, dear my
    sweet, I prithee.'

    Jove, I thank thee. I will smile; I will do everything that thou
    wilt have me.                                           Exit
  FABIAN. I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of
    thousands to be paid from the Sophy.
  SIR TOBY. I could marry this wench for this device.
  AGUECHEEK. So could I too.
  SIR TOBY. And ask no other dowry with her but such another jest.

                          Enter MARIA

  AGUECHEEK. Nor I neither.
  FABIAN. Here comes my noble gull-catcher.
  SIR TOBY. Wilt thou set thy foot o' my neck?
  AGUECHEEK. Or o' mine either?
  SIR TOBY. Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy
    bond-slave?
  AGUECHEEK. I' faith, or I either?
  SIR TOBY. Why, thou hast put him in such a dream that when the
    image of it leaves him he must run mad.
  MARIA. Nay, but say true; does it work upon him?
  SIR TOBY. Like aqua-vita! with a midwife.
  AIARIA. If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his
    first approach before my lady. He will come to her in yellow
    stockings, and 'tis a colour she abhors, and cross-garter'd, a
    fashion she detests; and he will smile upon her, which will now
    be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a
    melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable
    contempt. If you will see it, follow me.
  SIR TOBY. To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit!
  AGUECHEEK. I'll make one too.                           Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. OLIVIA'S garden

Enter VIOLA, and CLOWN with a tabor

  VIOLA. Save thee, friend, and thy music!
    Dost thou live by thy tabor?
  CLOWN. No, sir, I live by the church.
  VIOLA. Art thou a churchman?
  CLOWN. No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for I do live
    at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.
  VIOLA. So thou mayst say the king lies by a beggar, if a beggar
    dwell near him; or the church stands by thy tabor, if thy tabor
    stand by the church.
  CLOWN. You have said, sir. To see this age! A sentence is but a
    chev'ril glove to a good wit. How quickly the wrong side may be
    turn'd outward!
  VIOLA. Nay, that's certain; they that dally nicely with words may
    quickly make them wanton.
  CLOWN. I would, therefore, my sister had had name, sir.
  VIOLA. Why, man?
  CLOWN. Why, sir, her name's a word; and to dally with that word
    might make my sister wanton. But indeed words are very rascals
    since bonds disgrac'd them.
  VIOLA. Thy reason, man?
  CLOWN. Troth, sir, I can yield you none without words, and words
    are grown so false I am loath to prove reason with them.
  VIOLA. I warrant thou art a merry fellow and car'st for nothing.
  CLOWN. Not so, sir; I do care for something; but in my conscience,
    sir, I do not care for you. If that be to care for nothing, sir,
    I would it would make you invisible.
  VIOLA. Art not thou the Lady Olivia's fool?
  CLOWN. No, indeed, sir; the Lady Olivia has no folly; she will keep
    no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands
    as pilchers are to herrings- the husband's the bigger. I am
    indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words.
  VIOLA. I saw thee late at the Count Orsino's.
  CLOWN. Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun- it
    shines everywhere. I would be sorry, sir, but the fool should be
    as oft with your master as with my mistress: think I saw your
    wisdom there.
  VIOLA. Nay, an thou pass upon me, I'll no more with thee.
    Hold, there's expenses for thee.             [Giving a coin]
  CLOWN. Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send the a beard!
  VIOLA. By my troth, I'll tell thee, I am almost sick for one;
    [Aside] though I would not have it grow on my chin.- Is thy lady
    within?
  CLOWN. Would not a pair of these have bred, sir?
  VIOLA. Yes, being kept together and put to use.
  CLOWN. I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring a
    Cressida to this Troilus.
  VIOLA. I understand you, sir; 'tis well begg'd.
                                           [Giving another coin]
  CLOWN. The matter, I hope, is not great, sir, begging but a beggar:
    Cressida was a beggar. My lady is within, sir. I will construe to
    them whence you come; who you are and what you would are out of
    my welkin- I might say 'element' but the word is overworn.
                                                      Exit CLOWN
  VIOLA. This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
    And to do that well craves a kind of wit.
    He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
    The quality of persons, and the time;
    And, like the haggard, check at every feather
    That comes before his eye. This is a practice
    As full of labour as a wise man's art;
    For folly that he wisely shows is fit;
    But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.

                Enter SIR TOBY and SIR ANDREW

  SIR TOBY. Save you, gentleman!
  VIOLA. And you, sir.
  AGUECHEEK. Dieu vous garde, monsieur.
  VIOLA. Et vous aussi; votre serviteur.
  AGUECHEEK. I hope, sir, you are; and I am yours.
  SIR TOBY. Will you encounter the house? My niece is desirous you
    should enter, if your trade be to her.
  VIOLA. I am bound to your niece, sir; I mean, she is the list of my
    voyage.
  SIR TOBY. Taste your legs, sir; put them to motion.
  VIOLA. My legs do better understand me, sir, than I understand what
    you mean by bidding me taste my legs.
  SIR TOBY. I mean, to go, sir, to enter.
  VIOLA. I will answer you with gait and entrance. But we are
    prevented.

                  Enter OLIVIA and MARIA

    Most excellent accomplish'd lady, the heavens rain odours on you!
  AGUECHEEK. That youth's a rare courtier- 'Rain odours' well!
  VIOLA. My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most pregnant
    and vouchsafed car.
  AGUECHEEK. 'Odours,' 'pregnant,' and 'vouchsafed'- I'll get 'em all
    three all ready.
  OLIVIA. Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing.
    [Exeunt all but OLIVIA and VIOLA] Give me your hand, sir.
  VIOLA. My duty, madam, and most humble service.
  OLIVIA. What is your name?
  VIOLA. Cesario is your servant's name, fair Princess.
  OLIVIA. My servant, sir! 'Twas never merry world
    Since lowly feigning was call'd compliment.
    Y'are servant to the Count Orsino, youth.
  VIOLA. And he is yours, and his must needs be yours:
    Your servant's servant is your servant, madam.
  OLIVIA. For him, I think not on him; for his thoughts,
    Would they were blanks rather than fill'd with me!
  VIOLA. Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts
    On his behalf.
  OLIVIA. O, by your leave, I pray you:
    I bade you never speak again of him;
    But, would you undertake another suit,
    I had rather hear you to solicit that
    Than music from the spheres.
  VIOLA. Dear lady-
  OLIVIA. Give me leave, beseech you. I did send,
    After the last enchantment you did here,
    A ring in chase of you; so did I abuse
    Myself, my servant, and, I fear me, you.
    Under your hard construction must I sit,
    To force that on you in a shameful cunning
    Which you knew none of yours. What might you think?
    Have you not set mine honour at the stake,
    And baited it with all th' unmuzzled thoughts
    That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving
    Enough is shown: a cypress, not a bosom,
    Hides my heart. So, let me hear you speak.
  VIOLA. I Pity YOU.
  OLIVIA. That's a degree to love.
  VIOLA. No, not a grize; for 'tis a vulgar proof
    That very oft we pity enemies.
  OLIVIA. Why, then, methinks 'tis time to smile again.
    O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!
    If one should be a prey, how much the better
    To fall before the lion than the wolf!       [Clock strikes]
    The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.
    Be not afraid, good youth; I will not have you;
    And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,
    Your wife is like to reap a proper man.
    There lies your way, due west.
  VIOLA. Then westward-ho!
    Grace and good disposition attend your ladyship!
    You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?
  OLIVIA. Stay.
    I prithee tell me what thou think'st of me.
  VIOLA. That you do think you are not what you are.
  OLIVIA. If I think so, I think the same of you.
  VIOLA. Then think you right: I am not what I am.
  OLIVIA. I would you were as I would have you be!
  VIOLA. Would it be better, madam, than I am?
    I wish it might, for now I am your fool.
  OLIVIA. O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
    In the contempt and anger of his lip!
    A murd'rous guilt shows not itself more soon
    Than love that would seem hid: love's night is noon.
    Cesario, by the roses of the spring,
    By maidhood, honour, truth, and every thing,
    I love thee so that, maugre all thy pride,
    Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.
    Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,
    For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause;
    But rather reason thus with reason fetter:
    Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
  VIOLA. By innocence I swear, and by my youth,
    I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth,
    And that no woman has; nor never none
    Shall mistress be of it, save I alone.
    And so adieu, good madam; never more
    Will I my master's tears to you deplore.
  OLIVIA. Yet come again; for thou perhaps mayst move
    That heart which now abhors to like his love.         Exeunt

SCENE II. OLIVIA'S house

Enter SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW and FABIAN

  AGUECHEEK. No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.
  SIR TOBY. Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason.
  FABIAN. You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.
  AGUECHEEK. Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the Count's
    servingman than ever she bestow'd upon me; I saw't i' th'
    orchard.
  SIR TOBY. Did she see thee the while, old boy? Tell me that.
  AGUECHEEK. As plain as I see you now.
  FABIAN. This was a great argument of love in her toward you.
  AGUECHEEK. 'Slight! will you make an ass o' me?
  FABIAN. I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment
    and reason.
  SIR TOBY. And they have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a
    sailor.
  FABIAN. She did show favour to the youth in your sight only to
    exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in
    your heart and brimstone in your liver. You should then have
    accosted her; and with some excellent jests, fire-new from the
    mint, you should have bang'd the youth into dumbness. This was
    look'd for at your hand, and this was baulk'd. The double gilt of
    this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now sail'd
    into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an
    icicle on Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by some
    laudable attempt either of valour or policy.
  AGUECHEEK. An't be any way, it must be with valour, for policy I
    hate; I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician.
  SIR TOBY. Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of
    valour. Challenge me the Count's youth to fight with him; hurt
    him in eleven places. My niece shall take note of it; and assure
    thyself there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in
    man's commendation with woman than report of valour.
  FABIAN. There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.
  AGUECHEEK. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?
  SIR TOBY. Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is
    no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention.
    Taunt him with the license of ink; if thou thou'st him some
    thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in
    thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the
    bed of Ware in England, set 'em down; go about it. Let there be
    gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, no
    matter. About it.
  AGUECHEEK. Where shall I find you?
  SIR TOBY. We'll call thee at the cubiculo. Go.
                                                 Exit SIR ANDREW
  FABIAN. This is a dear manakin to you, Sir Toby.
  SIR TOBY. I have been dear to him, lad- some two thousand strong,
    or so.
  FABIAN. We shall have a rare letter from him; but you'll not
    deliver't?
  SIR TOBY. Never trust me then; and by all means stir on the youth
    to an answer. I think oxen and wainropes cannot hale them
    together. For Andrew, if he were open'd and you find so much
    blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the
    rest of th' anatomy.
  FABIAN. And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great
    presage of cruelty.

                         Enter MARIA

  SIR TOBY. Look where the youngest wren of nine comes.
  MARIA. If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into
    stitches, follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very
    renegado; for there is no Christian that means to be saved by
    believing rightly can ever believe such impossible passages of
    grossness. He's in yellow stockings.
  SIR TOBY. And cross-garter'd?
  MARIA. Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i' th'
    church. I have dogg'd him like his murderer. He does obey every
    point of the letter that I dropp'd to betray him. He does smile
    his face into more lines than is in the new map with the
    augmentation of the Indies. You have not seen such a thing as
    'tis; I  can hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know my lady
    will strike him; if she do, he'll smile and take't for a great
    favour.
  SIR TOBY. Come, bring us, bring us where he is.         Exeunt

SCENE III. A street

Enter SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO

  SEBASTIAN. I would not by my will have troubled you;
    But since you make your pleasure of your pains,
    I will no further chide you.
  ANTONIO. I could not stay behind you: my desire,
    More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth;
    And not all love to see you- though so much
    As might have drawn one to a longer voyage-
    But jealousy what might befall your travel,
    Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger,
    Unguided and unfriended, often prove
    Rough and unhospitable. My willing love,
    The rather by these arguments of fear,
    Set forth in your pursuit.
  SEBASTIAN. My kind Antonio,
    I can no other answer make but thanks,
    And thanks, and ever thanks; and oft good turns
    Are shuffl'd off with such uncurrent pay;
    But were my worth as is my conscience firm,
    You should find better dealing. What's to do?
    Shall we go see the reliques of this town?
  ANTONIO. To-morrow, sir; best first go see your lodging.
  SEBASTIAN. I am not weary, and 'tis long to night;
    I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes
    With the memorials and the things of fame
    That do renown this city.
  ANTONIO. Would you'd pardon me.
    I do not without danger walk these streets:
    Once in a sea-fight 'gainst the Count his galleys
    I did some service; of such note, indeed,
    That, were I ta'en here, it would scarce be answer'd.
  SEBASTIAN. Belike you slew great number of his people.
  ANTONIO.Th' offence is not of such a bloody nature;
    Albeit the quality of the time and quarrel
    Might well have given us bloody argument.
    It might have since been answer'd in repaying
    What we took from them; which, for traffic's sake,
    Most of our city did. Only myself stood out;
    For which, if I be lapsed in this place,
    I shall pay dear.
  SEBASTIAN. Do not then walk too open.
  ANTONIO. It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here's my purse;
    In the south suburbs, at the Elephant,
    Is best to lodge. I will bespeak our diet,
    Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge
    With viewing of the town; there shall you have me.
  SEBASTIAN. Why I your purse?
  ANTONIO. Haply your eye shall light upon some toy
    You have desire to purchase; and your store,
    I think, is not for idle markets, sir.
  SEBASTIAN. I'll be your purse-bearer, and leave you for
    An hour.
  ANTONIO. To th' Elephant.
  SEBASTIAN. I do remember.                               Exeunt

SCENE IV. OLIVIA'S garden

Enter OLIVIA and MARIA

  OLIVIA. I have sent after him; he says he'll come.
    How shall I feast him? What bestow of him?
    For youth is bought more oft than begg'd or borrow'd.
    I speak too loud.
    Where's Malvolio? He is sad and civil,
    And suits well for a servant with my fortunes.
    Where is Malvolio?
  MARIA. He's coming, madam; but in very strange manner.
    He is sure possess'd, madam.
  OLIVIA. Why, what's the matter? Does he rave?
  MARIA. No, madam, he does nothing but smile. Your ladyship were
    best to have some guard about you if he come; for sure the man is
    tainted in's wits.
  OLIVIA. Go call him hither.                         Exit MARIA
    I am as mad as he,
    If sad and merry madness equal be.

               Re-enter MARIA with MALVOLIO

    How now, Malvolio!
  MALVOLIO. Sweet lady, ho, ho.
  OLIVIA. Smil'st thou?
    I sent for thee upon a sad occasion.
  MALVOLIO. Sad, lady? I could be sad. This does make some
    obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering; but what of that?
    If it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very true
    sonnet is: 'Please one and please all.'
  OLIVIA. Why, how dost thou, man? What is the matter with thee?
  MALVOLIO. Not black in my mind, though yellow in my legs.
    It did come to his hands, and commands shall be executed.
    I think we do know the sweet Roman hand.
  OLIVIA. Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio?
  MALVOLIO. To bed? Ay, sweetheart, and I'll come to thee.
  OLIVIA. God comfort thee! Why dost thou smile so, and kiss thy hand
    so oft?
  MARIA. How do you, Malvolio?
  MALVOLIO. At your request? Yes, nightingales answer daws!
  MARIA. Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness before my lady?
  MALVOLIO. 'Be not afraid of greatness.' 'Twas well writ.
  OLIVIA. What mean'st thou by that, Malvolio?
  AIALVOLIO. 'Some are born great,'-
  OLIVIA. Ha?
  MALVOLIO. 'Some achieve greatness,'-
  OLIVIA. What say'st thou?
  MALVOLIO. 'And some have greatness thrust upon them.'
  OLIVIA. Heaven restore thee!
  MALVOLIO. 'Remember who commended thy yellow stockings,'-
  OLIVIA. 'Thy yellow stockings?'
  MALVOLIO. 'And wish'd to see thee cross-garterd.'
  OLIVIA. 'Cross-garter'd?'
  MALVOLIO. 'Go to, thou an made, if thou desir'st to be so';-
  OLIVIA. Am I made?
  MALVOLIO. 'If not, let me see thee a servant still.'
  OLIVIA. Why, this is very midsummer madness.

                     Enter SERVANT

  SERVANT. Madam, the young gentleman of the Count Orsino's is
    return'd; I could hardly entreat him back; he attends your
    ladyship's pleasure.
  OLIVIA. I'll come to him. [Exit SERVANT] Good Maria, let this
    fellow be look'd to. Where's my cousin Toby? Let some of my
    people have a special care of him; I would not have him miscarry
    for the half of my dowry.
                                         Exeunt OLIVIA and MARIA
  MALVOLIO. O, ho! do you come near me now? No worse man than Sir
    Toby to look to me! This concurs directly with the letter: she
    sends him on purpose, that I may appear stubborn to him; for she
    incites me to that in the letter. 'Cast thy humble slough,' says
    she. 'Be opposite with kinsman, surly with servants; let thy
    tongue tang with arguments of state; put thyself into the trick
    of singularity' and consequently sets down the manner how, as: a
    sad face, a reverend carriage, a slow tongue, in the habit of
    some sir of note, and so forth. I have lim'd her; but it is
    Jove's doing, and Jove make me thankful! And when she went away
    now- 'Let this fellow be look'd to.' 'Fellow,' not 'Malvolio' nor
    after my degree, but 'fellow.' Why, everything adheres together,
    that no dram of a scruple, no scruple of a scruple, no obstacle,
    no incredulous or unsafe circumstance- What can be said? Nothing
    that can be can come between me and the full prospect of my
    hopes. Well, Jove, not I, is the doer of this, and he is to be
    thanked.

             Re-enter MARIA, with SIR TOBY and FABIAN

  SIR TOBY. Which way is he, in the name of sanctity? If all the
    devils of hell be drawn in little, and Legion himself possess'd
    him, yet I'll speak to him.
  FABIAN. Here he is, here he is. How is't with you, sir?
  SIR TOBY. How is't with you, man?
  MALVOLIO. Go off; I discard you. Let me enjoy my private; go off.
  MARIA. Lo, how hollow the fiend speaks within him! Did not I tell
    you? Sir Toby, my lady prays you to have a care of him.
  MALVOLIO. Ah, ha! does she so?
  SIR TOBY. Go to, go to; peace, peace; we must deal gently with him.
    Let me alone. How do you, Malvolio? How is't with you? What, man,
    defy the devil; consider, he's an enemy to mankind.
  MALVOLIO. Do you know what you say?
  MARIA. La you, an you speak ill of the devil, how he takes it at
    heart! Pray God he be not bewitched.
  FABIAN. Carry his water to th' wise woman.
  MARIA. Marry, and it shall be done to-morrow morning, if I live. My
    lady would not lose him for more than I'll say.
  MALVOLIO. How now, mistress!
  MARIA. O Lord!
  SIR TOBY. Prithee hold thy peace; this is not the way. Do you not
    see you move him? Let me alone with him.
  FABIAN. No way but gentleness- gently, gently. The fiend is rough,
    and will not be roughly us'd.
  SIR TOBY. Why, how now, my bawcock!
    How dost thou, chuck?
  MALVOLIO. Sir!
  SIR TOBY. Ay, Biddy, come with me. What, man, 'tis not for gravity
    to play at cherrypit with Satan. Hang him, foul collier!
  MARIA. Get him to say his prayers, good Sir Toby, get him to pray.
  MALVOLIO. My prayers, minx!
  MARIA. No, I warrant you, he will not hear of godliness.
  MALVOLIO. Go, hang yourselves all! You are idle shallow things; I
    am not of your element; you shall know more hereafter.
 Exit
  SIR TOBY. Is't possible?
  FABIAN. If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as
    an improbable fiction.
  SIR TOBY. His very genius hath taken the infection of the device,
    man.
  MARIA. Nay, pursue him now, lest the device take air and taint.
  FABIAN. Why, we shall make him mad indeed.
  MARIA. The house will be the quieter.
  SIR TOBY. Come, we'll have him in a dark room and bound. My niece
    is already in the belief that he's mad. We may carry it thus, for
    our pleasure and his penance, till our very pastime, tired out of
    breath, prompt us to have mercy on him; at which time we will
    bring the device to the bar and crown thee for a finder of
    madmen. But see, but see.

                     Enter SIR ANDREW

  FABIAN. More matter for a May morning.
  AGUECHEEK. Here's the challenge; read it. I warrant there's vinegar
    and pepper in't.
  FABIAN. Is't so saucy?
  AGUECHEEK. Ay, is't, I warrant him; do but read.
  SIR TOBY. Give me. [Reads] 'Youth, whatsoever thou art, thou art
    but a scurvy fellow.'
  FABIAN. Good and valiant.
  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Wonder not, nor admire not in thy mind, why I do
    call thee so, for I will show thee no reason for't.'
  FABIAN. A good note; that keeps you from the blow of the law.
  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Thou com'st to the Lady Olivia, and in my sight
    she uses thee kindly; but thou liest in thy throat; that is not
    the matter I challenge thee for.'
  FABIAN. Very brief, and to exceeding good sense- less.
  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'I will waylay thee going home; where if it be
    thy chance to kill me'-
  FABIAN. Good.
  SIR TOBY. 'Thou kill'st me like a rogue and a villain.'
  FABIAN. Still you keep o' th' windy side of the law. Good!
  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Fare thee well; and God have mercy upon one of
    our souls! He may have mercy upon mine; but my hope is better,
    and so look to thyself. Thy friend, as thou usest him, and thy
    sworn enemy,
                                              ANDREW AGUECHEEK.'

    If this letter move him not, his legs cannot. I'll give't him.
  MARIA. You may have very fit occasion for't; he is now in some
    commerce with my lady, and will by and by depart.
  SIR TOBY. Go, Sir Andrew; scout me for him at the corner of the
    orchard, like a bum-baily; so soon as ever thou seest him, draw;
    and as thou draw'st, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft
    that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twang'd
    off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would
    have earn'd him. Away.
  AGUECHEEK. Nay, let me alone for swearing.                Exit
  SIR TOBY. Now will not I deliver his letter; for the behaviour of
    the young gentleman gives him out to be of good capacity and
    breeding; his employment between his lord and my niece confirms
    no less. Therefore this letter, being so excellently ignorant,
    will breed no terror in the youth: he will find it comes from a
    clodpole. But, sir, I will deliver his challenge by word of
    mouth, set upon Aguecheek notable report of valour, and drive the
    gentleman- as know his youth will aptly receive it- into a most
    hideous opinion of his rage, skill, fury, and impetuosity. This
    will so fright them both that they will kill one another by the
    look, like cockatrices.

                Re-enter OLIVIA. With VIOLA

  FABIAN. Here he comes with your niece; give them way till he take
    leave, and presently after him.
  SIR TOBY. I will meditate the while upon some horrid message for a
    challenge.
                              Exeunt SIR TOBY, FABIAN, and MARIA
  OLIVIA. I have said too much unto a heart of stone,
    And laid mine honour too unchary out;
    There's something in me that reproves my fault;
    But such a headstrong potent fault it is
    That it but mocks reproof.
  VIOLA. With the same haviour that your passion bears
    Goes on my master's griefs.
  OLIVIA. Here, wear this jewel for me; 'tis my picture.
    Refuse it not; it hath no tongue to vex you.
    And I beseech you come again to-morrow.
    What shall you ask of me that I'll deny,
    That honour sav'd may upon asking give?
  VIOLA. Nothing but this- your true love for my master.
  OLIVIA. How with mine honour may I give him that
    Which I have given to you?
  VIOLA. I will acquit you.
  OLIVIA. Well, come again to-morrow. Fare thee well;
    A fiend like thee might bear my soul to hell.           Exit

              Re-enter SIR TOBY and SIR FABIAN

  SIR TOBY. Gentleman, God save thee.
  VIOLA. And you, sir.
  SIR TOBY. That defence thou hast, betake thee tot. Of what nature
    the wrongs are thou hast done him, I know not; but thy
    intercepter, full of despite, bloody as the hunter, attends
    thee at the orchard end. Dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy
    preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful, and deadly.
  VIOLA. You mistake, sir; I am sure no man hath any quarrel to me;
    my remembrance is very free and clear from any image of offence
    done to any man.
  SIR TOBY. You'll find it otherwise, I assure you; therefore, if you
    hold your life at any price, betake you to your guard; for your
    opposite hath in him what youth, strength, skill, and wrath, can
    furnish man withal.
  VIOLA. I pray you, sir, what is he?
  SIR TOBY. He is knight, dubb'd with unhatch'd rapier and on carpet
    consideration; but he is a devil in private brawl. Souls and
    bodies hath he divorc'd three; and his incensement at this moment
    is so implacable that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of
    death and sepulchre. Hob-nob is his word- give't or take't.
  VIOLA. I will return again into the house and desire some conduct
    of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men
    that put quarrels purposely on others to taste their valour;
    belike this is a man of that quirk.
  SIR TOBY. Sir, no; his indignation derives itself out of a very
    competent injury; therefore, get you on and give him his desire.
    Back you shall not to the house, unless you undertake that with
    me which with as much safety you might answer him; therefore on,
    or strip your sword stark naked; for meddle you must, that's
    certain, or forswear to wear iron about you.
  VIOLA. This is as uncivil as strange. I beseech you do me this
    courteous office as to know of the knight what my offence to him
    is: it is something of my negligence, nothing of my purpose.
  SIR TOBY. I Will do so. Signior Fabian, stay you by this gentleman
    till my return.                                Exit SIR TOBY
  VIOLA. Pray you, sir, do you know of this matter?
  FABIAN. I know the knight is incens'd against you, even to a mortal
    arbitrement; but nothing of the circumstance more.
  VIOLA. I beseech you, what manner of man is he?
  FABIAN. Nothing of that wonderful promise, to read him by his form,
    as you are like to find him in the proof of his valour. He is
    indeed, sir, the most skilful, bloody, and fatal opposite that
    you could possibly have found in any part of Illyria. Will you
    walk towards him? I will make your peace with him if I can.
  VIOLA. I shall be much bound to you for't. I am one that would
    rather go with sir priest than sir knight. I care not who knows
    so much of my mettle.                                 Exeunt

                Re-enter SIR TOBY With SIR ANDREW

  SIR TOBY. Why, man, he's a very devil; I have not seen such a
    firago. I had a pass with him, rapier, scabbard, and all, and he
    gives me the stuck in with such a mortal motion that it is
    inevitable; and on the answer, he pays you as surely as your feet
    hit the ground they step on. They say he has been fencer to the
    Sophy.
  AGUECHEEK. Pox on't, I'll not meddle with him.
  SIR TOBY. Ay, but he will not now be pacified; Fabian can scarce
    hold him yonder.
  AGUECHEEK. Plague on't; an I thought he had been valiant, and so
    cunning in fence, I'd have seen him damn'd ere I'd have
    challeng'd him. Let him let the matter slip, and I'll give him
    my horse, grey Capilet.
  SIR TOBY. I'll make the motion. Stand here, make a good show on't;
    this shall end without the perdition of souls. [Aside] Marry,
    I'll ride your horse as well as I ride you.

              Re-enter FABIAN and VIOLA

    [To FABIAN] I have his horse to take up the quarrel; I have
    persuaded him the youth's a devil.
  FABIAN. [To SIR TOBY] He is as horribly conceited of him; and pants
   and looks pale, as if a bear were at his heels.
  SIR TOBY. [To VIOLA] There's no remedy, sir: he will fight with you
    for's oath sake. Marry, he hath better bethought him of his
    quarrel, and he finds that now scarce to be worth talking of.
    Therefore draw for the supportance of his vow; he protests he
    will not hurt you.
  VIOLA. [Aside] Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me
    tell them how much I lack of a man.
  FABIAN. Give ground if you see him furious.
  SIR TOBY. Come, Sir Andrew, there's no remedy; the gentleman will,
    for his honour's sake, have one bout with you; he cannot by the
    duello avoid it; but he has promis'd me, as he is a gentleman and
    a soldier, he will not hurt you. Come on; to't.
  AGUECHEEK. Pray God he keep his oath!                [They draw]

                      Enter ANTONIO

  VIOLA. I do assure you 'tis against my will.
  ANTONIO. Put up your sword. If this young gentleman
    Have done offence, I take the fault on me:
    If you offend him, I for him defy you.
  SIR TOBY. You, sir! Why, what are you?
  ANTONIO. One, sir, that for his love dares yet do more
    Than you have heard him brag to you he will.
  SIR TOBY. Nay, if you be an undertaker, I am for you.
                                                     [They draw]

                         Enter OFFICERS

  FABIAN. O good Sir Toby, hold! Here come the officers.
  SIR TOBY. [To ANTONIO] I'll be with you anon.
  VIOLA. Pray, sir, put your sword up, if you please.
  AGUECHEEK. Marry, will I, sir; and for that I promis'd you, I'll be
    as good as my word. He will bear you easily and reins well.
  FIRST OFFICER. This is the man; do thy office.
  SECOND OFFICER. Antonio, I arrest thee at the suit
    Of Count Orsino.
  ANTONIO. You do mistake me, sir.
  FIRST OFFICER. No, sir, no jot; I know your favour well,
    Though now you have no sea-cap on your head.
    Take him away; he knows I know him well.
  ANTONIO. I Must obey. [To VIOLA] This comes with seeking you;
    But there's no remedy; I shall answer it.
    What will you do, now my necessity
    Makes me to ask you for my purse? It grieves me
    Much more for what I cannot do for you
    Than what befalls myself. You stand amaz'd;
    But be of comfort.
  SECOND OFFICER. Come, sir, away.
  ANTONIO. I must entreat of you some of that money.
  VIOLA. What money, sir?
    For the fair kindness you have show'd me here,
    And part being prompted by your present trouble,
    Out of my lean and low ability
    I'll lend you something. My having is not much;
    I'll make division of my present with you;
    Hold, there's half my coffer.
  ANTONIO. Will you deny me now?
    Is't possible that my deserts to you
    Can lack persuasion? Do not tempt my misery,
    Lest that it make me so unsound a man
    As to upbraid you with those kindnesses
    That I have done for you.
  VIOLA. I know of none,
    Nor know I you by voice or any feature.
    I hate ingratitude more in a man
    Than lying, vainness, babbling drunkenness,
    Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption
    Inhabits our frail blood.
  ANTONIO. O heavens themselves!
  SECOND OFFICER. Come, sir, I pray you go.
  ANTONIO. Let me speak a little. This youth that you see here
    I snatch'd one half out of the jaws of death,
    Reliev'd him with such sanctity of love,
    And to his image, which methought did promise
    Most venerable worth, did I devotion.
  FIRST OFFICER. What's that to us? The time goes by; away.
  ANTONIO. But, O, how vile an idol proves this god!
    Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame.
    In nature there's no blemish but the mind:
    None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind.
    Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous evil
    Are empty trunks, o'erflourish'd by the devil.
  FIRST OFFICER. The man grows mad. Away with him.
    Come, come, sir.
  ANTONIO. Lead me on.                        Exit with OFFICERS
  VIOLA. Methinks his words do from such passion fly
    That he believes himself; so do not I.
    Prove true, imagination, O, prove true,
    That I, dear brother, be now ta'en for you!
  SIR TOBY. Come hither, knight; come hither, Fabian; we'll whisper
    o'er a couplet or two of most sage saws.
  VIOLA. He nam'd Sebastian. I my brother know
    Yet living in my glass; even such and so
    In favour was my brother; and he went
    Still in this fashion, colour, ornament,
    For him I imitate. O, if it prove,
    Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh in love!        Exit
  SIR TOBY. A very dishonest paltry boy, and more a coward than a
    hare. His dishonesty appears in leaving his friend here in
    necessity and denying him; and for his cowardship, ask Fabian.
  FABIAN. A coward, a most devout coward, religious in it.
  AGUECHEEK. 'Slid, I'll after him again and beat him.
  SIR TOBY. Do; cuff him soundly, but never draw thy sword.
  AGUECHEEK. And I do not-                                  Exit
  FABIAN. Come, let's see the event.
  SIR TOBY. I dare lay any money 'twill be nothing yet.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Before OLIVIA'S house

Enter SEBASTIAN and CLOWN

  CLOWN. Will you make me believe that I am not sent for you?
  SEBASTIAN. Go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow; let me be clear
    of thee.
  CLOWN. Well held out, i' faith! No, I do not know you; nor I am not
    sent to you by my lady, to bid you come speak with her; nor your
    name is not Master Cesario; nor this is not my nose neither.
    Nothing that is so is so.
  SEBASTIAN. I prithee vent thy folly somewhere else.
    Thou know'st not me.
  CLOWN. Vent my folly! He has heard that word of some great man, and
    now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am afraid this great
    lubber, the world, will prove a cockney. I prithee now, ungird
    thy strangeness, and tell me what I shall vent to my lady. Shall
    I vent to her that thou art coming?
  SEBASTIAN. I prithee, foolish Greek, depart from me;
    There's money for thee; if you tarry longer
    I shall give worse payment.
  CLOWN. By my troth, thou hast an open hand. These wise men that
    give fools money get themselves a good report after fourteen
    years' purchase.

             Enter SIR ANDREW, SIR TOBY, and FABIAN

  AGUECHEEK. Now, sir, have I met you again?
    [Striking SEBASTIAN] There's for you.
  SEBASTIAN. Why, there's for thee, and there, and there.
    Are all the people mad?
  SIR TOBY. Hold, sir, or I'll throw your dagger o'er the house.
                                             [Holding SEBASTIAN]
  CLOWN. This will I tell my lady straight. I would not be in some of
    your coats for two-pence.                               Exit
  SIR TOBY. Come on, sir; hold.
  AGUECHEEK. Nay, let him alone. I'll go another way to work with
    him; I'll have an action of battery against him, if there be any
    law in Illyria; though I struck him first, yet it's no matter for
    that.
  SEBASTIAN. Let go thy hand.
  SIR TOBY. Come, sir, I will not let you go. Come, my young soldier,
    put up your iron; you are well flesh'd. Come on.
  SEBASTIAN. I will be free from thee. What wouldst thou now?
    If thou dar'st tempt me further, draw thy sword.     [Draws]
  SIR TOBY. What, what? Nay, then I must have an ounce or two of this
    malapert blood from you. [Draws]

                        Enter OLIVIA

  OLIVIA. Hold, Toby; on thy life, I charge thee hold.
  SIR TOBY. Madam!
  OLIVIA. Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch,
    Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,
    Where manners ne'er were preach'd! Out of my sight!
    Be not offended, dear Cesario-
    Rudesby, be gone!
                         Exeunt SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN
    I prithee, gentle friend,
    Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway
    In this uncivil and unjust extent
    Against thy peace. Go with me to my house,
    And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks
    This ruffian hath botch'd up, that thou thereby
    Mayst smile at this. Thou shalt not choose but go;
    Do not deny. Beshrew his soul for me!
    He started one poor heart of mine in thee.
  SEBASTIAN. What relish is in this? How runs the stream?
    Or I am mad, or else this is a dream.
    Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep;
    If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!
  OLIVIA. Nay, come, I prithee. Would thou'dst be rul'd by me!
  SEBASTIAN. Madam, I will.
  OLIVIA. O, say so, and so be!                           Exeunt

SCENE II. OLIVIA'S house

Enter MARIA and CLOWN

  MARIA. Nay, I prithee, put on this gown and this beard; make him
    believe thou art Sir Topas the curate; do it quickly. I'll call
    Sir Toby the whilst.                                    Exit
  CLOWN. Well, I'll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in't; and
    I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown. I
    am not tall enough to become the function well nor lean enough to
    be thought a good student; but to be said an honest man and a
    good housekeeper goes as fairly as to say a careful man and a
    great scholar. The competitors enter.

                 Enter SIR TOBY and MARIA

  SIR TOBY. Jove bless thee, Master Parson.
  CLOWN. Bonos dies, Sir Toby; for as the old hermit of Prague, that
    never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to niece of King
    Gorboduc 'That that is is'; so I, being Master Parson, am Master
    Parson; for what is 'that' but that, and 'is' but is?
  SIR TOBY. To him, Sir Topas.
  CLOWN. What ho, I say! Peace in this prison!
  SIR TOBY. The knave counterfeits well; a good knave.
  MALVOLIO. [Within] Who calls there?
  CLOWN. Sir Topas the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio the
    lunatic.
  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, Sir Topas, good Sir Topas, go to my lady.
  CLOWN. Out, hyperbolical fiend! How vexest thou this man!
    Talkest thou nothing but of ladies?
  SIR TOBY. Well said, Master Parson.
  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged. Good Sir Topas, do
    not think I am mad; they have laid me here in hideous darkness.
  CLOWN. Fie, thou dishonest Satan! I call thee by the most modest
    terms, for I am one of those gentle ones that will use the devil
    himself with courtesy. Say'st thou that house is dark?
  MALVOLIO. As hell, Sir Topas.
  CLOWN. Why, it hath bay windows transparent as barricadoes, and the
    clerestories toward the south north are as lustrous as ebony; and
    yet complainest thou of obstruction?
  MALVOLIO. I am not mad, Sir Topas. I say to you this house is dark.
  CLOWN. Madman, thou errest. I say there is no darkness but
    ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in
    their fog.
  MALVOLIO. I say this house is as dark as ignorance, though
    ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say there was never man
    thus abus'd. I am no more mad than you are; make the trial of it
    in any constant question.
  CLOWN. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?
  MALVOLIO. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
  CLOWN. What think'st thou of his opinion?
  MALVOLIO. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his
    opinion.
  CLOWN. Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt
   hold th' opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits; and
    fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy
    grandam. Fare thee well.
  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, Sir Topas!
  SIR TOBY. My most exquisite Sir Topas!
  CLOWN. Nay, I am for all waters.
  MARIA. Thou mightst have done this without thy beard and gown: he
    sees thee not.
  SIR TOBY. To him in thine own voice, and bring me word how thou
    find'st him. I would we were well rid of this knavery. If he may
    be conveniently deliver'd, I would he were; for I am now so far
    in offence with my niece that I cannot pursue with any safety
    this sport to the upshot. Come by and by to my chamber.
                                                 Exit with MARIA
  CLOWN. [Sings] Hey, Robin, jolly Robin,
    Tell me how thy lady does.
  MALVOLIO. Fool!
  CLOWN. [Sings] My lady is unkind, perdy.
  MALVOLIO. Fool!
  CLOWN. [Sings] Alas, why is she so?
  MALVOLIO. Fool I say!
  CLOWN. [Sings] She loves another- Who calls, ha?
  MALVOLIO. Good fool, as ever thou wilt deserve well at my hand,
    help me to a candle, and pen, ink, and paper; as I am a
    gentleman, I will live to be thankful to thee for't.
  CLOWN. Master Malvolio?
  MALVOLIO. Ay, good fool.
  CLOWN. Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits?
  MALVOLIO. Fool, there was never man so notoriously abus'd;
    I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art.
  CLOWN. But as well? Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in
    your wits than a fool.
  MALVOLIO. They have here propertied me; keep me in darkness, send
    ministers to me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my
    wits.
  CLOWN. Advise you what. you say: the minister is here.
    [Speaking as SIR TOPAS] Malvolio, thy wits the heavens restore!
    Endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble-babble.
  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas!
  CLOWN. Maintain no words with him, good fellow.- Who, I, sir? Not
    I, sir. God buy you, good Sir Topas.- Marry, amen.- I will sir, I
    will.
  MALVOLIO. Fool, fool, fool, I say!
  CLOWN. Alas, sir, be patient. What say you, sir? I am shent for
    speaking to you.
  MALVOLIO. Good fool, help me to some light and some paper.
    I tell thee I am as well in my wits as any man in Illyria.
  CLOWN. Well-a-day that you were, sir!
  MALVOLIO. By this hand, I am. Good fool, some ink, paper, and
    light; and convey what I will set down to my lady. It shall
    advantage thee more than ever the bearing of letter did.
  CLOWN. I will help you to't. But tell me true, are you not mad
    indeed, or do you but counterfeit?
  MALVOLIO. Believe me, I am not; I tell thee true.
  CLOWN. Nay, I'll ne'er believe a madman till I see his brains.
    I will fetch you light and paper and ink.
  MALVOLIO. Fool, I'll requite it in the highest degree; I prithe be
    gone.
  CLOWN. [Singing]
                   I am gone, sir,
                   And anon, sir,
                 I'll be with you again,
                   In a trice,
                   Like to the old Vice,
                 Your need to sustain;

                 Who with dagger of lath,
                 In his rage and his wrath,
                   Cries, Ah, ha! to the devil,
                 Like a mad lad,
                 Pare thy nails, dad.
                   Adieu, goodman devil.                    Exit

SCENE III. OLIVIA'S garden

Enter SEBASTIAN

  SEBASTIAN. This is the air; that is the glorious sun;
    This pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see't;
    And though 'tis wonder that enwraps me thus,
    Yet 'tis not madness. Where's Antonio, then?
    I could not find him at the Elephant;
    Yet there he was; and there I found this credit,
    That he did range the town to seek me out.
    His counsel now might do me golden service;
    For though my soul disputes well with my sense
    That this may be some error, but no madness,
    Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune
    So far exceed all instance, all discourse,
    That I am ready to distrust mine eyes
    And wrangle with my reason, that persuades me
    To any other trust but that I am mad,
    Or else the lady's mad; yet if 'twere so,
    She could not sway her house, command her followers,
    Take and give back affairs and their dispatch
    With such a smooth, discreet, and stable bearing,
    As I perceive she does. There's something in't
    That is deceivable. But here the lady comes.

                Enter OLIVIA and PRIEST

  OLIVIA. Blame not this haste of mine. If you mean well,
    Now go with me and with this holy man
    Into the chantry by; there, before him
    And underneath that consecrated roof,
    Plight me the fun assurance of your faith,
    That my most jealous and too doubtful soul
    May live at peace. He shall conceal it
    Whiles you are willing it shall come to note,
    What time we will our celebration keep
    According to my birth. What do you say?
  SEBASTIAN. I'll follow this good man, and go with you;
    And, having sworn truth, ever will be true.
  OLIVIA. Then lead the way, good father; and heavens so shine
    That they may fairly note this act of mine!           Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Before OLIVIA's house

Enter CLOWN and FABIAN

  FABIAN. Now, as thou lov'st me, let me see his letter.
  CLOWN. Good Master Fabian, grant me another request.
  FABIAN. Anything.
  CLOWN. Do not desire to see this letter.
  FABIAN. This is to give a dog, and in recompense desire my dog
    again.

             Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and LORDS

  DUKE. Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friends?
  CLOWN. Ay, sir, we are some of her trappings.
  DUKE. I know thee well. How dost thou, my good fellow?
  CLOWN. Truly, sir, the better for my foes and the worse for my
    friends.
  DUKE. Just the contrary: the better for thy friends.
  CLOWN. No, sir, the worse.
  DUKE. How can that be?
  CLOWN. Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me. Now my
    foes tell me plainly I am an ass; so that by my foes, sir, I
    profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends I am abused;
    so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make
    your two affirmatives, why then, the worse for my friends, and
    the better for my foes.
  DUKE. Why, this is excellent.
  CLOWN. By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my
    friends.
  DUKE. Thou shalt not be the worse for me. There's gold.
  CLOWN. But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could
    make it another.
  DUKE. O, you give me ill counsel.
  CLOWN. Put your grace in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let
    your flesh and blood obey it.
  DUKE. Well, I will be so much a sinner to be a double-dealer.
    There's another.
  CLOWN. Primo, secundo, tertio, is a good play; and the old saying
    is 'The third pays for all.' The triplex, sir, is a good tripping
    measure; or the bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put you in mind-
    one, two, three.
  DUKE. You can fool no more money out of me at this throw; if you
    will let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring
    her along with you, it may awake my bounty further.
  CLOWN. Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come again. I go,
    sir; but I would not have you to think that my desire of having
    is the sin of covetousness. But, as you say, sir, let your bounty
    take a nap; I will awake it anon.                       Exit

                 Enter ANTONIO and OFFICERS

  VIOLA. Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me.
  DUKE. That face of his I do remember well;
    Yet when I saw it last it was besmear'd
    As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war.
    A baubling vessel was he captain of,
    For shallow draught and bulk unprizable,
    With which such scathful grapple did he make
    With the most noble bottom of our fleet
    That very envy and the tongue of los
    Cried fame and honour on him. What's the matter?
  FIRST OFFICER. Orsino, this is that Antonio
    That took the Phoenix and her fraught from Candy;
    And this is he that did the Tiger board
    When your young nephew Titus lost his leg.
    Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state,
    In private brabble did we apprehend him.
  VIOLA. He did me kindness, sir; drew on my side;
    But in conclusion put strange speech upon me.
    I know not what 'twas but distraction.
  DUKE. Notable pirate, thou salt-water thief!
    What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies
    Whom thou, in terms so bloody and so dear,
    Hast made thine enemies?
  ANTONIO. Orsino, noble sir,
    Be pleas'd that I shake off these names you give me:
    Antonio never yet was thief or pirate,
    Though I confess, on base and ground enough,
    Orsino's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither:
    That most ingrateful boy there by your side
    From the rude sea's enrag'd and foamy mouth
    Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was.
    His life I gave him, and did thereto ad
    My love without retention or restraint,
    All his in dedication; for his sake,
    Did I expose myself, pure for his love,
    Into the danger of this adverse town;
    Drew to defend him when he was beset;
    Where being apprehended, his false cunning,
    Not meaning to partake with me in danger,
    Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,
    And grew a twenty years removed thing
    While one would wink; denied me mine own purse,
    Which I had recommended to his use
    Not half an hour before.
  VIOLA. How can this be?
  DUKE. When came he to this town?
  ANTONIO. To-day, my lord; and for three months before,
    No int'rim, not a minute's vacancy,
    Both day and night did we keep company.

              Enter OLIVIA and ATTENDANTS

  DUKE. Here comes the Countess; now heaven walks on earth.
    But for thee, fellow- fellow, thy words are madness.
    Three months this youth hath tended upon me-
    But more of that anon. Take him aside.
  OLIVIA. What would my lord, but that he may not have,
    Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?
    Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.
  VIOLA. Madam?
  DUKE. Gracious Olivia-
  OLIVIA. What do you say, Cesario? Good my lord-
  VIOLA. My lord would speak; my duty hushes me.
  OLIVIA. If it be aught to the old tune, my lord,
    It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear
    As howling after music.
  DUKE. Still so cruel?
  OLIVIA. Still so constant, lord.
  DUKE. What, to perverseness? You uncivil lady,
    To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars
    My soul the faithfull'st off'rings hath breath'd out
    That e'er devotion tender'd! What shall I do?
  OLIVIA. Even what it please my lord, that shall become him.
  DUKE. Why should I not, had I the heart to do it,
    Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death,
    Kill what I love?- a savage jealousy
    That sometime savours nobly. But hear me this:
    Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,
    And that I partly know the instrument
    That screws me from my true place in your favour,
    Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still;
    But this your minion, whom I know you love,
    And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly,
    Him will I tear out of that cruel eye
    Where he sits crowned in his master's spite.
    Come, boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief:
    I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love
    To spite a raven's heart within a dove.
  VIOLA. And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly,
    To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.
  OLIVIA. Where goes Cesario?
  VIOLA. After him I love
    More than I love these eyes, more than my life,
    More, by all mores, than e'er I shall love wife.
    If I do feign, you witnesses above
    Punish my life for tainting of my love!
  OLIVIA. Ay me, detested! How am I beguil'd!
  VIOLA. Who does beguile you? Who does do you wrong?
  OLIVIA. Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long?
    Call forth the holy father.                Exit an ATTENDANT
  DUKE. Come, away!
  OLIVIA. Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay.
  DUKE. Husband?
  OLIVIA. Ay, husband; can he that deny?
  DUKE. Her husband, sirrah?
  VIOLA. No, my lord, not I.
  OLIVIA. Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear
    That makes thee strangle thy propriety.
    Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up;
    Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art
    As great as that thou fear'st.

                   Enter PRIEST

    O, welcome, father!
    Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence,
    Here to unfold- though lately we intended
    To keep in darkness what occasion now
    Reveals before 'tis ripe- what thou dost know
    Hath newly pass'd between this youth and me.
  PRIEST. A contract of eternal bond of love,
    Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,
    Attested by the holy close of lips,
    Strength'ned by interchangement of your rings;
    And all the ceremony of this compact
    Seal'd in my function, by my testimony;
    Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave,
    I have travell'd but two hours.
  DUKE. O thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou be,
    When time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy case?
    Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow
    That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?
    Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet
    Where thou and I henceforth may never meet.
  VIOLA. My lord, I do protest-
  OLIVIA. O, do not swear!
    Hold little faith, though thou has too much fear.

                  Enter SIR ANDREW

  AGUECHEEK. For the love of God, a surgeon!
    Send one presently to Sir Toby.
  OLIVIA. What's the matter?
  AGUECHEEK. Has broke my head across, and has given Sir Toby a
    bloody coxcomb too. For the love of God, your help! I had rather
    than forty pound I were at home.
  OLIVIA. Who has done this, Sir Andrew?
  AGUECHEEK. The Count's gentleman, one Cesario. We took him for a
    coward, but he's the very devil incardinate.
  DUKE. My gentleman, Cesario?
  AGUECHEEK. Od's lifelings, here he is! You broke my head for
    nothing; and that that did, I was set on to do't by Sir Toby.
  VIOLA. Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you.
    You drew your sword upon me without cause;
    But I bespake you fair and hurt you not.

                Enter SIR TOBY and CLOWN

  AGUECHEEK. If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me; I think
    you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. Here comes Sir Toby halting;
    you shall hear more; but if he had not been in drink, he would
    have tickl'd you othergates than he did.
  DUKE. How now, gentleman? How is't with you?
  SIR TOBY. That's all one; has hurt me, and there's th' end on't.
    Sot, didst see Dick Surgeon, sot?
  CLOWN. O, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at
    eight i' th' morning.
  SIR TOBY. Then he's a rogue and a passy measures pavin. I hate a
    drunken rogue.
  OLIVIA. Away with him. Who hath made this havoc with them?
  AGUECHEEK. I'll help you, Sir Toby, because we'll be dress'd
    together.
  SIR TOBY. Will you help- an ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave, a
    thin fac'd knave, a gull?
  OLIVIA. Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look'd to.
                  Exeunt CLOWN, FABIAN, SIR TOBY, and SIR ANDREW

                      Enter SEBASTIAN

  SEBASTIAN. I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman;
    But, had it been the brother of my blood,
    I must have done no less with wit and safety.
    You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that
    I do perceive it hath offended you.
    Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows
    We made each other but so late ago.
  DUKE. One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!
    A natural perspective, that is and is not.
  SEBASTIAN. Antonio, O my dear Antonio!
    How have the hours rack'd and tortur'd me
    Since I have lost thee!
  ANTONIO. Sebastian are you?
  SEBASTIAN. Fear'st thou that, Antonio?
  ANTONIO. How have you made division of yourself?
    An apple cleft in two is not more twin
    Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?
  OLIVIA. Most wonderful!
  SEBASTIAN. Do I stand there? I never had a brother;
    Nor can there be that deity in my nature
    Of here and everywhere. I had a sister
    Whom the blind waves and surges have devour'd.
    Of charity, what kin are you to me?
    What countryman, what name, what parentage?
  VIOLA. Of Messaline; Sebastian was my father.
    Such a Sebastian was my brother too;
    So went he suited to his watery tomb;
    If spirits can assume both form and suit,
    You come to fright us.
  SEBASTIAN. A spirit I am indeed,
    But am in that dimension grossly clad
    Which from the womb I did participate.
    Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,
    I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,
    And say 'Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!'
  VIOLA. My father had a mole upon his brow.
  SEBASTIAN. And so had mine.
  VIOLA. And died that day when Viola from her birth
    Had numb'red thirteen years.
  SEBASTIAN. O, that record is lively in my soul!
    He finished indeed his mortal act
    That day that made my sister thirteen years.
  VIOLA. If nothing lets to make us happy both
    But this my masculine usurp'd attire,
    Do not embrace me till each circumstance
    Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump
    That I am Viola; which to confirm,
    I'll bring you to a captain in this town,
    Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help
    I was preserv'd to serve this noble Count.
    All the occurrence of my fortune since
    Hath been between this lady and this lord.
  SEBASTIAN. [To OLIVIA] So Comes it, lady, you have been mistook;
    But nature to her bias drew in that.
    You would have been contracted to a maid;
    Nor are you therein, by my life, deceiv'd;
    You are betroth'd both to a maid and man.
  DUKE. Be not amaz'd; right noble is his blood.
    If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,
    I shall have share in this most happy wreck.
    [To VIOLA] Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times
    Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.
  VIOLA. And all those sayings will I overswear;
    And all those swearings keep as true in soul
    As doth that orbed continent the fire
    That severs day from night.
  DUKE. Give me thy hand;
    And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds.
  VIOLA. The captain that did bring me first on shore
    Hath my maid's garments. He, upon some action,
    Is now in durance, at Malvolio's suit,
    A gentleman and follower of my lady's.
  OLIVIA. He shall enlarge him. Fetch Malvolio hither;
    And yet, alas, now I remember me,
    They say, poor gentleman, he's much distract.

        Re-enter CLOWN, with a letter, and FABIAN

    A most extracting frenzy of mine own
    From my remembrance clearly banish'd his.
    How does he, sirrah?
  CLOWN. Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the stave's end as well
    as a man in his case may do. Has here writ a letter to you; I
    should have given 't you to-day morning, but as a madman's
    epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are
    deliver'd.
  OLIVIA. Open't, and read it.
  CLOWN. Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers the
    madman. [Reads madly ] 'By the Lord, madam-'
  OLIVIA. How now! Art thou mad?
  CLOWN. No, madam, I do but read madness. An your ladyship will have
    it as it ought to be, you must allow vox.
  OLIVIA. Prithee read i' thy right wits.
  CLOWN. So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits is to read
    thus; therefore perpend, my Princess, and give ear.
  OLIVIA. [To FABIAN] Read it you, sirrah.
  FABIAN. [Reads] 'By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world
    shall know it. Though you have put me into darkness and given
    your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my
    senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that
    induced me to the semblance I put on, with the which I doubt not
    but to do myself much right or you much shame. Think of me as you
    please. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of
    my injury.
                                        THE MADLY-US'D MALVOLIO'

  OLIVIA. Did he write this?
  CLOWN. Ay, Madam.
  DUKE. This savours not much of distraction.
  OLIVIA. See him deliver'd, Fabian; bring him hither.
                                                     Exit FABIAN
    My lord, so please you, these things further thought on,
    To think me as well a sister as a wife,
    One day shall crown th' alliance on't, so please you,
    Here at my house, and at my proper cost.
  DUKE. Madam, I am most apt t' embrace your offer.
    [To VIOLA] Your master quits you; and, for your service done
      him,
    So much against the mettle of your sex,
    So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,
    And since you call'd me master for so long,
    Here is my hand; you shall from this time be
    You master's mistress.
  OLIVIA. A sister! You are she.

                Re-enter FABIAN, with MALVOLIO

  DUKE. Is this the madman?
  OLIVIA. Ay, my lord, this same.
    How now, Malvolio!
  MALVOLIO. Madam, you have done me wrong,
    Notorious wrong.
  OLIVIA. Have I, Malvolio? No.
  MALVOLIO. Lady, you have. Pray you peruse that letter.
    You must not now deny it is your hand;
    Write from it if you can, in hand or phrase;
    Or say 'tis not your seal, not your invention;
    You can say none of this. Well, grant it then,
    And tell me, in the modesty of honour,
    Why you have given me such clear lights of favour,
    Bade me come smiling and cross-garter'd to you,
    To put on yellow stockings, and to frown
    Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people;
    And, acting this in an obedient hope,
    Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,
    Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
    And made the most notorious geck and gul
    That e'er invention play'd on? Tell me why.
  OLIVIA. Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,
    Though, I confess, much like the character;
    But out of question 'tis Maria's hand.
    And now I do bethink me, it was she
    First told me thou wast mad; then cam'st in smiling,
    And in such forms which here were presuppos'd
    Upon thee in the letter. Prithee, be content;
    This practice hath most shrewdly pass'd upon thee,
    But, when we know the grounds and authors of it,
    Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge
    Of thine own cause.
  FABIAN. Good madam, hear me speak,
    And let no quarrel nor no brawl to come
    Taint the condition of this present hour,
    Which I have wond'red at. In hope it shall not,
    Most freely I confess myself and Toby
    Set this device against Malvolio here,
    Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts
    We had conceiv'd against him. Maria writ
    The letter, at Sir Toby's great importance,
    In recompense whereof he hath married her.
    How with a sportful malice it was follow'd
    May rather pluck on laughter than revenge,
    If that the injuries be justly weigh'd
    That have on both sides pass'd.
  OLIVIA. Alas, poor fool, how have they baffl'd thee!
  CLOWN. Why, 'Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
    have greatness thrown upon them.' I was one, sir, in this
    interlude- one Sir Topas, sir; but that's all one. 'By the Lord,
    fool, I am not mad!' But do you remember- 'Madam, why laugh you
    at such a barren rascal? An you smile not, he's gagg'd'? And thus
    the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
  MALVOLIO. I'll be reveng'd on the whole pack of you.
 Exit
  OLIVIA. He hath been most notoriously abus'd.
  DUKE. Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace;
    He hath not told us of the captain yet.
    When that is known, and golden time convents,
    A solemn combination shall be made
    Of our dear souls. Meantime, sweet sister,
    We will not part from hence. Cesario, come;
    For so you shall be while you are a man;
    But when in other habits you are seen,
    Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen.
                                        Exeunt all but the CLOWN

                        CLOWN sings

           When that I was and a little tiny boy,
             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
           A foolish thing was but a toy,
             For the rain it raineth every day.

           But when I came to man's estate,
             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
           'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
             For the rain it raineth every day.

           But when I came, alas! to wive,
             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
           By swaggering could I never thrive,
             For the rain it raineth every day.

           But when I came unto my beds,
             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
           With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
             For the rain it raineth every day.

           A great while ago the world begun,
             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
           But that's all one, our play is done,
           And we'll strive to please you every day.
 Exit

THE END

1595



THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  DUKE OF MILAN, father to Silvia
  VALENTINE, one of the two gentlemen
  PROTEUS,    "  "   "   "     "
  ANTONIO, father to Proteus
  THURIO, a foolish rival to Valentine
  EGLAMOUR, agent for Silvia in her escape
  SPEED, a clownish servant to Valentine
  LAUNCE, the like to Proteus
  PANTHINO, servant to Antonio
  HOST, where Julia lodges in Milan
  OUTLAWS, with Valentine

  JULIA, a lady of Verona, beloved of Proteus
  SILVIA, the Duke's daughter, beloved of Valentine
  LUCETTA, waiting-woman to Julia

  SERVANTS MUSICIANS

SCENE: Verona; Milan; the frontiers of Mantua

ACT I. SCENE I. Verona. An open place

Enter VALENTINE and PROTEUS

  VALENTINE. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:
    Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.
    Were't not affection chains thy tender days
    To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,
    I rather would entreat thy company
    To see the wonders of the world abroad,
    Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home,
    Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.
    But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein,
    Even as I would, when I to love begin.
  PROTEUS. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu!
    Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest
    Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel.
    Wish me partaker in thy happiness
    When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger,
    If ever danger do environ thee,
    Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,
    For I will be thy headsman, Valentine.
  VALENTINE. And on a love-book pray for my success?
  PROTEUS. Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee.
  VALENTINE. That's on some shallow story of deep love:
    How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.
  PROTEUS. That's a deep story of a deeper love;
    For he was more than over shoes in love.
  VALENTINE. 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love,
    And yet you never swum the Hellespont.
  PROTEUS. Over the boots! Nay, give me not the boots.
  VALENTINE. No, I will not, for it boots thee not.
  PROTEUS. What?
  VALENTINE. To be in love- where scorn is bought with groans,
    Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment's mirth
    With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights;
    If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;
    If lost, why then a grievous labour won;
    However, but a folly bought with wit,
    Or else a wit by folly vanquished.
  PROTEUS. So, by your circumstance, you call me fool.
  VALENTINE. So, by your circumstance, I fear you'll prove.
  PROTEUS. 'Tis love you cavil at; I am not Love.
  VALENTINE. Love is your master, for he masters you;
    And he that is so yoked by a fool,
    Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise.
  PROTEUS. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud
    The eating canker dwells, so eating love
    Inhabits in the finest wits of all.
  VALENTINE. And writers say, as the most forward bud
    Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
    Even so by love the young and tender wit
    Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,
    Losing his verdure even in the prime,
    And all the fair effects of future hopes.
    But wherefore waste I time to counsel the
    That art a votary to fond desire?
    Once more adieu. My father at the road
    Expects my coming, there to see me shipp'd.
  PROTEUS. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.
  VALENTINE. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave.
    To Milan let me hear from thee by letters
    Of thy success in love, and what news else
    Betideth here in absence of thy friend;
    And I likewise will visit thee with mine.
  PROTEUS. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan!
  VALENTINE. As much to you at home; and so farewell!
                                                  Exit VALENTINE
  PROTEUS. He after honour hunts, I after love;
    He leaves his friends to dignify them more:
    I leave myself, my friends, and all for love.
    Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphis'd me,
    Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
    War with good counsel, set the world at nought;
    Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought.

                         Enter SPEED

  SPEED. Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my master?
  PROTEUS. But now he parted hence to embark for Milan.
  SPEED. Twenty to one then he is shipp'd already,
    And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.
  PROTEUS. Indeed a sheep doth very often stray,
    An if the shepherd be awhile away.
  SPEED. You conclude that my master is a shepherd then, and
    I a sheep?
  PROTEUS. I do.
  SPEED. Why then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep.
  PROTEUS. A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.
  SPEED. This proves me still a sheep.
  PROTEUS. True; and thy master a shepherd.
  SPEED. Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.
  PROTEUS. It shall go hard but I'll prove it by another.
  SPEED. The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the
    shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks not me;
    therefore, I am no sheep.
  PROTEUS. The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd; the shepherd for
    food follows not the sheep: thou for wages followest thy master;
    thy master for wages follows not thee. Therefore, thou art a
    sheep.
  SPEED. Such another proof will make me cry 'baa.'
  PROTEUS. But dost thou hear? Gav'st thou my letter to Julia?
  SPEED. Ay, sir; I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a lac'd
    mutton; and she, a lac'd mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing
    for my labour.
  PROTEUS. Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons.
  SPEED. If the ground be overcharg'd, you were best stick her.
  PROTEUS. Nay, in that you are astray: 'twere best pound you.
  SPEED. Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for carrying your
    letter.
  PROTEUS. You mistake; I mean the pound- a pinfold.
  SPEED. From a pound to a pin? Fold it over and over,
    'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your lover.
  PROTEUS. But what said she?
  SPEED.  [Nodding]  Ay.
  PROTEUS. Nod- ay. Why, that's 'noddy.'
  SPEED. You mistook, sir; I say she did nod; and you ask me if she
    did nod; and I say 'Ay.'
  PROTEUS. And that set together is 'noddy.'
  SPEED. Now you have taken the pains to set it together, take it for
    your pains.
  PROTEUS. No, no; you shall have it for bearing the letter.
  SPEED. Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you.
  PROTEUS. Why, sir, how do you bear with me?
  SPEED. Marry, sir, the letter, very orderly; having nothing but the
    word 'noddy' for my pains.
  PROTEUS. Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.
  SPEED. And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.
  PROTEUS. Come, come, open the matter; in brief, what said she?
  SPEED. Open your purse, that the money and the matter may be both
    at once delivered.
  PROTEUS. Well, sir, here is for your pains. What said she?
  SPEED. Truly, sir, I think you'll hardly win her.
  PROTEUS. Why, couldst thou perceive so much from her?
  SPEED. Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her; no, not so
    much as a ducat for delivering your letter; and being so hard to
    me that brought your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you in
    telling your mind. Give her no token but stones, for she's as
    hard as steel.
  PROTEUS. What said she? Nothing?
  SPEED. No, not so much as 'Take this for thy pains.' To testify
    your bounty, I thank you, you have testern'd me; in requital
    whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself; and so, sir,
    I'll commend you to my master.
  PROTEUS. Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,
    Which cannot perish, having thee aboard,
    Being destin'd to a drier death on shore.         Exit SPEED
    I must go send some better messenger.
    I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,
    Receiving them from such a worthless post.              Exit

SCENE II. Verona. The garden Of JULIA'S house

Enter JULIA and LUCETTA

  JULIA. But say, Lucetta, now we are alone,
    Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love?
  LUCETTA. Ay, madam; so you stumble not unheedfully.
  JULIA. Of all the fair resort of gentlemen
    That every day with parle encounter me,
    In thy opinion which is worthiest love?
  LUCETTA. Please you, repeat their names; I'll show my mind
    According to my shallow simple skill.
  JULIA. What think'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?
  LUCETTA. As of a knight well-spoken, neat, and fine;
    But, were I you, he never should be mine.
  JULIA. What think'st thou of the rich Mercatio?
  LUCETTA. Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so.
  JULIA. What think'st thou of the gentle Proteus?
  LUCETTA. Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us!
  JULIA. How now! what means this passion at his name?
  LUCETTA. Pardon, dear madam; 'tis a passing shame
    That I, unworthy body as I am,
    Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.
  JULIA. Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest?
  LUCETTA. Then thus: of many good I think him best.
  JULIA. Your reason?
  LUCETTA. I have no other but a woman's reason:
    I think him so, because I think him so.
  JULIA. And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?
  LUCETTA. Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.
  JULIA. Why, he, of all the rest, hath never mov'd me.
  LUCETTA. Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.
  JULIA. His little speaking shows his love but small.
  LUCETTA. Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.
  JULIA. They do not love that do not show their love.
  LUCETTA. O, they love least that let men know their love.
  JULIA. I would I knew his mind.
  LUCETTA. Peruse this paper, madam.
  JULIA. 'To Julia'- Say, from whom?
  LUCETTA. That the contents will show.
  JULIA. Say, say, who gave it thee?
  LUCETTA. Sir Valentine's page; and sent, I think, from Proteus.
    He would have given it you; but I, being in the way,
    Did in your name receive it; pardon the fault, I pray.
  JULIA. Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker!
    Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines?
    To whisper and conspire against my youth?
    Now, trust me, 'tis an office of great worth,
    And you an officer fit for the place.
    There, take the paper; see it be return'd;
    Or else return no more into my sight.
  LUCETTA. To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.
  JULIA. Will ye be gone?
  LUCETTA. That you may ruminate.                           Exit
  JULIA. And yet, I would I had o'erlook'd the letter.
    It were a shame to call her back again,
    And pray her to a fault for which I chid her.
    What fool is she, that knows I am a maid
    And would not force the letter to my view!
    Since maids, in modesty, say 'No' to that
    Which they would have the profferer construe 'Ay.'
    Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love,
    That like a testy babe will scratch the nurse,
    And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod!
    How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence,
    When willingly I would have had her here!
    How angerly I taught my brow to frown,
    When inward joy enforc'd my heart to smile!
    My penance is to call Lucetta back
    And ask remission for my folly past.
    What ho! Lucetta!

                     Re-enter LUCETTA

  LUCETTA. What would your ladyship?
  JULIA. Is't near dinner time?
  LUCETTA. I would it were,
    That you might kill your stomach on your meat
    And not upon your maid.
  JULIA. What is't that you took up so gingerly?
  LUCETTA. Nothing.
  JULIA. Why didst thou stoop then?
  LUCETTA. To take a paper up that I let fall.
  JULIA. And is that paper nothing?
  LUCETTA. Nothing concerning me.
  JULIA. Then let it lie for those that it concerns.
  LUCETTA. Madam, it will not lie where it concerns,
    Unless it have a false interpreter.
  JULIA. Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.
  LUCETTA. That I might sing it, madam, to a tune.
    Give me a note; your ladyship can set.
  JULIA. As little by such toys as may be possible.
    Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' Love.'
  LUCETTA. It is too heavy for so light a tune.
  JULIA. Heavy! belike it hath some burden then.
  LUCETTA. Ay; and melodious were it, would you sing it.
  JULIA. And why not you?
  LUCETTA. I cannot reach so high.
  JULIA. Let's see your song.     [LUCETTA withholds the letter]
    How now, minion!
  LUCETTA. Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out.
    And yet methinks I do not like this tune.
  JULIA. You do not!
  LUCETTA. No, madam; 'tis too sharp.
  JULIA. You, minion, are too saucy.
  LUCETTA. Nay, now you are too flat
    And mar the concord with too harsh a descant;
    There wanteth but a mean to fill your song.
  JULIA. The mean is drown'd with your unruly bass.
  LUCETTA. Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.
  JULIA. This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.
    Here is a coil with protestation!         [Tears the letter]
    Go, get you gone; and let the papers lie.
    You would be fing'ring them, to anger me.
  LUCETTA. She makes it strange; but she would be best pleas'd
    To be so ang'red with another letter.                   Exit
  JULIA. Nay, would I were so ang'red with the same!
    O hateful hands, to tear such loving words!
    Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey
    And kill the bees that yield it with your stings!
    I'll kiss each several paper for amends.
    Look, here is writ 'kind Julia.' Unkind Julia,
    As in revenge of thy ingratitude,
    I throw thy name against the bruising stones,
    Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain.
    And here is writ 'love-wounded Proteus.'
    Poor wounded name! my bosom,,as a bed,
    Shall lodge thee till thy wound be throughly heal'd;
    And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss.
    But twice or thrice was 'Proteus' written down.
    Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away
    Till I have found each letter in the letter-
    Except mine own name; that some whirlwind bear
    Unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock,
    And throw it thence into the raging sea.
    Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ:
    'Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,
    To the sweet Julia.' That I'll tear away;
    And yet I will not, sith so prettily
    He couples it to his complaining names.
    Thus will I fold them one upon another;
    Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.

                        Re-enter LUCETTA

  LUCETTA. Madam,
    Dinner is ready, and your father stays.
  JULIA. Well, let us go.
  LUCETTA. What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here?
  JULIA. If you respect them, best to take them up.
  LUCETTA. Nay, I was taken up for laying them down;
    Yet here they shall not lie for catching cold.
  JULIA. I see you have a month's mind to them.
  LUCETTA. Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see;
    I see things too, although you judge I wink.
  JULIA. Come, come; will't please you go?                Exeunt

SCENE III. Verona. ANTONIO'S house

Enter ANTONIO and PANTHINO

  ANTONIO. Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that
    Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?
  PANTHINO. 'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.
  ANTONIO. Why, what of him?
  PANTHINO. He wond'red that your lordship
    Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,
    While other men, of slender reputation,
    Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:
    Some to the wars, to try their fortune there;
    Some to discover islands far away;
    Some to the studious universities.
    For any, or for all these exercises,
    He said that Proteus, your son, was meet;
    And did request me to importune you
    To let him spend his time no more at home,
    Which would be great impeachment to his age,
    In having known no travel in his youth.
  ANTONIO. Nor need'st thou much importune me to that
    Whereon this month I have been hammering.
    I have consider'd well his loss of time,
    And how he cannot be a perfect man,
    Not being tried and tutor'd in the world:
    Experience is by industry achiev'd,
    And perfected by the swift course of time.
    Then tell me whither were I best to send him.
  PANTHINO. I think your lordship is not ignorant
    How his companion, youthful Valentine,
    Attends the Emperor in his royal court.
  ANTONIO. I know it well.
  PANTHINO. 'Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither:
    There shall he practise tilts and tournaments,
    Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen,
    And be in eye of every exercise
    Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.
  ANTONIO. I like thy counsel; well hast thou advis'd;
    And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it,
    The execution of it shall make known:
    Even with the speediest expedition
    I will dispatch him to the Emperor's court.
  PANTHINO. To-morrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso
    With other gentlemen of good esteem
    Are journeying to salute the Emperor,
    And to commend their service to his will.
  ANTONIO. Good company; with them shall Proteus go.

                        Enter PROTEUS

    And- in good time!- now will we break with him.
  PROTEUS. Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!
    Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;
    Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn.
    O that our fathers would applaud our loves,
    To seal our happiness with their consents!
    O heavenly Julia!
  ANTONIO. How now! What letter are you reading there?
  PROTEUS. May't please your lordship, 'tis a word or two
    Of commendations sent from Valentine,
    Deliver'd by a friend that came from him.
  ANTONIO. Lend me the letter; let me see what news.
  PROTEUS. There is no news, my lord; but that he writes
    How happily he lives, how well-belov'd
    And daily graced by the Emperor;
    Wishing me with him, partner of his fortune.
  ANTONIO. And how stand you affected to his wish?
  PROTEUS. As one relying on your lordship's will,
    And not depending on his friendly wish.
  ANTONIO. My will is something sorted with his wish.
    Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed;
    For what I will, I will, and there an end.
    I am resolv'd that thou shalt spend some time
    With Valentinus in the Emperor's court;
    What maintenance he from his friends receives,
    Like exhibition thou shalt have from me.
    To-morrow be in readiness to go-
    Excuse it not, for I am peremptory.
  PROTEUS. My lord, I cannot be so soon provided;
    Please you, deliberate a day or two.
  ANTONIO. Look what thou want'st shall be sent after thee.
    No more of stay; to-morrow thou must go.
    Come on, Panthino; you shall be employ'd
    To hasten on his expedition.
                                     Exeunt ANTONIO and PANTHINO
  PROTEUS. Thus have I shunn'd the fire for fear of burning,
    And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd.
    I fear'd to show my father Julia's letter,
    Lest he should take exceptions to my love;
    And with the vantage of mine own excuse
    Hath he excepted most against my love.
    O, how this spring of love resembleth
    The uncertain glory of an April day,
    Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
    And by an by a cloud takes all away!

                       Re-enter PANTHINO

  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, your father calls for you;
    He is in haste; therefore, I pray you, go.
  PROTEUS. Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto;
    And yet a thousand times it answers 'No.'             Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Milan. The DUKE'S palace

Enter VALENTINE and SPEED

  SPEED. Sir, your glove.
  VALENTINE. Not mine: my gloves are on.
  SPEED. Why, then, this may be yours; for this is but one.
  VALENTINE. Ha! let me see; ay, give it me, it's mine;
    Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!
    Ah, Silvia! Silvia!
  SPEED.  [Calling]  Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia!
  VALENTINE. How now, sirrah?
  SPEED. She is not within hearing, sir.
  VALENTINE. Why, sir, who bade you call her?
  SPEED. Your worship, sir; or else I mistook.
  VALENTINE. Well, you'll still be too forward.
  SPEED. And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.
  VALENTINE. Go to, sir; tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?
  SPEED. She that your worship loves?
  VALENTINE. Why, how know you that I am in love?
  SPEED. Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learn'd, like
    Sir Proteus, to wreath your arms like a malcontent; to relish a
    love-song, like a robin redbreast; to walk alone, like one that
    had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost his
    A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam;
    to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch, like one that fears
    robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were
    wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walk'd, to
    walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently
    after dinner; when you look'd sadly, it was for want of money.
    And now you are metamorphis'd with a mistress, that, when I look
    on you, I can hardly think you my master.
  VALENTINE. Are all these things perceiv'd in me?
  SPEED. They are all perceiv'd without ye.
  VALENTINE. Without me? They cannot.
  SPEED. Without you! Nay, that's certain; for, without you were so
    simple, none else would; but you are so without these follies
    that these follies are within you, and shine through you like the
    water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a
    physician to comment on your malady.
  VALENTINE. But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?
  SPEED. She that you gaze on so, as she sits at supper?
  VALENTINE. Hast thou observ'd that? Even she, I mean.
  SPEED. Why, sir, I know her not.
  VALENTINE. Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet know'st
    her not?
  SPEED. Is she not hard-favour'd, sir?
  VALENTINE. Not so fair, boy, as well-favour'd.
  SPEED. Sir, I know that well enough.
  VALENTINE. What dost thou know?
  SPEED. That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favour'd.
  VALENTINE. I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour
    infinite.
  SPEED. That's because the one is painted, and the other out of all
    count.
  VALENTINE. How painted? and how out of count?
  SPEED. Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no man counts
    of her beauty.
  VALENTINE. How esteem'st thou me? I account of her beauty.
  SPEED. You never saw her since she was deform'd.
  VALENTINE. How long hath she been deform'd?
  SPEED. Ever since you lov'd her.
  VALENTINE. I have lov'd her ever since I saw her, and still
    I see her beautiful.
  SPEED. If you love her, you cannot see her.
  VALENTINE. Why?
  SPEED. Because Love is blind. O that you had mine eyes; or your own
    eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at Sir
    Proteus for going ungarter'd!
  VALENTINE. What should I see then?
  SPEED. Your own present folly and her passing deformity; for he,
    being in love, could not see to garter his hose; and you, being
    in love, cannot see to put on your hose.
  VALENTINE. Belike, boy, then you are in love; for last morning you
    could not see to wipe my shoes.
  SPEED. True, sir; I was in love with my bed. I thank you, you
    swing'd me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide you
    for yours.
  VALENTINE. In conclusion, I stand affected to her.
  SPEED. I would you were set, so your affection would cease.
  VALENTINE. Last night she enjoin'd me to write some lines to one
    she loves.
  SPEED. And have you?
  VALENTINE. I have.
  SPEED. Are they not lamely writ?
  VALENTINE. No, boy, but as well as I can do them.

                           Enter SILVIA

    Peace! here she comes.
  SPEED.  [Aside]  O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!
    Now will he interpret to her.
  VALENTINE. Madam and mistress, a thousand good morrows.
  SPEED.  [Aside]  O, give ye good ev'n!
    Here's a million of manners.
  SILVIA. Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.
  SPEED.  [Aside]  He should give her interest, and she gives it him.
  VALENTINE. As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter
    Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;
    Which I was much unwilling to proceed in,
    But for my duty to your ladyship.
  SILVIA. I thank you, gentle servant. 'Tis very clerkly done.
  VALENTINE. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;
    For, being ignorant to whom it goes,
    I writ at random, very doubtfully.
  SILVIA. Perchance you think too much of so much pains?
  VALENTINE. No, madam; so it stead you, I will write,
    Please you command, a thousand times as much;
    And yet-
  SILVIA. A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;
    And yet I will not name it- and yet I care not.
    And yet take this again- and yet I thank you-
    Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.
  SPEED.  [Aside]  And yet you will; and yet another' yet.'
  VALENTINE. What means your ladyship? Do you not like it?
  SILVIA. Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ;
    But, since unwillingly, take them again.
    Nay, take them.                      [Gives hack the letter]
  VALENTINE. Madam, they are for you.
  SILVIA. Ay, ay, you writ them, sir, at my request;
    But I will none of them; they are for you:
    I would have had them writ more movingly.
  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.
  SILVIA. And when it's writ, for my sake read it over;
    And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.
  VALENTINE. If it please me, madam, what then?
  SILVIA. Why, if it please you, take it for your labour.
    And so good morrow, servant.                     Exit SILVIA
  SPEED. O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,
    As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!
    My master sues to her; and she hath taught her suitor,
    He being her pupil, to become her tutor.
    O excellent device! Was there ever heard a better,
    That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter?
  VALENTINE. How now, sir! What are you reasoning with yourself?
  SPEED. Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason.
  VALENTINE. To do what?
  SPEED. To be a spokesman from Madam Silvia?
  VALENTINE. To whom?
  SPEED. To yourself; why, she woos you by a figure.
  VALENTINE. What figure?
  SPEED. By a letter, I should say.
  VALENTINE. Why, she hath not writ to me.
  SPEED. What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself?
    Why, do you not perceive the jest?
  VALENTINE. No, believe me.
  SPEED. No believing you indeed, sir. But did you perceive her
    earnest?
  VALENTINE. She gave me none except an angry word.
  SPEED. Why, she hath given you a letter.
  VALENTINE. That's the letter I writ to her friend.
  SPEED. And that letter hath she deliver'd, and there an end.
  VALENTINE. I would it were no worse.
  SPEED. I'll warrant you 'tis as well.
    'For often have you writ to her; and she, in modesty,
    Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;
    Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover,
    Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.'
    All this I speak in print, for in print I found it. Why muse you,
    sir? 'Tis dinner time.
  VALENTINE. I have din'd.
  SPEED. Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on
    the air, I am one that am nourish'd by my victuals, and would
    fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress! Be moved, be moved.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Verona. JULIA'S house

Enter PROTEUS and JULIA

  PROTEUS. Have patience, gentle Julia.
  JULIA. I must, where is no remedy.
  PROTEUS. When possibly I can, I will return.
  JULIA. If you turn not, you will return the sooner.
    Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.
                                                 [Giving a ring]
  PROTEUS. Why, then, we'll make exchange. Here, take you this.
  JULIA. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.
  PROTEUS. Here is my hand for my true constancy;
    And when that hour o'erslips me in the day
    Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
    The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
    Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!
    My father stays my coming; answer not;
    The tide is now- nay, not thy tide of tears:
    That tide will stay me longer than I should.
    Julia, farewell!                                  Exit JULIA
    What, gone without a word?
    Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
    For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.

                          Enter PANTHINO

  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.
  PROTEUS. Go; I come, I come.
    Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.          Exeunt

SCENE III. Verona. A street

Enter LAUNCE, leading a dog

  LAUNCE. Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the
  kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have receiv'd my
  proportion, like the Prodigious Son, and am going with Sir Proteus to
  the Imperial's court. I think Crab my dog be the sourest-natured dog
  that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying,
  our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a
  great perplexity; yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear.
  He is a stone, a very pebble stone, and has no more pity in him than
  a dog. A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting; why, my
  grandam having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting.
  Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father; no, this
  left shoe is my father; no, no, left shoe is my mother; nay, that
  cannot be so neither; yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser
  sole. This shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father.
  A vengeance on 't! There 'tis. Now, sir, this staff is my sister,
  for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand; this
  hat is Nan our maid; I am the dog; no, the dog is himself, and I am
  the dog- O, the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so. Now come I to
  my father: 'Father, your blessing.' Now should not the shoe speak a
  word for weeping; now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on. Now
  come I to my mother. O that she could speak now like a wood woman!
  Well, I kiss her- why there 'tis; here's my mother's breath up and
  down. Now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes. Now the dog
  all this while sheds not a tear, nor speaks a word; but see how I lay
  the dust with my tears.

                            Enter PANTHINO

  PANTHINO. Launce, away, away, aboard! Thy master is shipp'd, and
    thou art to post after with oars. What's the matter? Why weep'st
    thou, man? Away, ass! You'll lose the tide if you tarry any
    longer.
  LAUNCE. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the
    unkindest tied that ever any man tied.
  PANTHINO. What's the unkindest tide?
  LAUNCE. Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog.
  PANTHINO. Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood, and, in losing
    the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing thy voyage, lose thy
    master, and, in losing thy master, lose thy service, and, in
    losing thy service- Why dost thou stop my mouth?
  LAUNCE. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.
  PANTHINO. Where should I lose my tongue?
  LAUNCE. In thy tale.
  PANTHINO. In thy tail!
  LAUNCE. Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the
    service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able
    to fill it with my tears; if the wind were down, I could drive
    the boat with my sighs.
  PANTHINO. Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.
  LAUNCE. Sir, call me what thou dar'st.
  PANTHINO. Will thou go?
  LAUNCE. Well, I will go.                                Exeunt

SCENE IV. Milan. The DUKE'S palace

Enter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED

  SILVIA. Servant!
  VALENTINE. Mistress?
  SPEED. Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.
  VALENTINE. Ay, boy, it's for love.
  SPEED. Not of you.
  VALENTINE. Of my mistress, then.
  SPEED. 'Twere good you knock'd him.                       Exit
  SILVIA. Servant, you are sad.
  VALENTINE. Indeed, madam, I seem so.
  THURIO. Seem you that you are not?
  VALENTINE. Haply I do.
  THURIO. So do counterfeits.
  VALENTINE. So do you.
  THURIO. What seem I that I am not?
  VALENTINE. Wise.
  THURIO. What instance of the contrary?
  VALENTINE. Your folly.
  THURIO. And how quote you my folly?
  VALENTINE. I quote it in your jerkin.
  THURIO. My jerkin is a doublet.
  VALENTINE. Well, then, I'll double your folly.
  THURIO. How?
  SILVIA. What, angry, Sir Thurio! Do you change colour?
  VALENTINE. Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.
  THURIO. That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in your
    air.
  VALENTINE. You have said, sir.
  THURIO. Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.
  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.
  SILVIA. A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.
  VALENTINE. 'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.
  SILVIA. Who is that, servant?
  VALENTINE. Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir Thurio
    borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks, and spends what he
    borrows kindly in your company.
  THURIO. Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your
    wit bankrupt.
  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words,
    and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers; for it
    appears by their bare liveries that they live by your bare words.

                             Enter DUKE

  SILVIA. No more, gentlemen, no more. Here comes my father.
  DUKE. Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.
    Sir Valentine, your father is in good health.
    What say you to a letter from your friends
    Of much good news?
  VALENTINE. My lord, I will be thankful
    To any happy messenger from thence.
  DUKE. Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?
  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman
    To be of worth and worthy estimation,
    And not without desert so well reputed.
  DUKE. Hath he not a son?
  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves
    The honour and regard of such a father.
  DUKE. You know him well?
  VALENTINE. I knew him as myself; for from our infancy
    We have convers'd and spent our hours together;
    And though myself have been an idle truant,
    Omitting the sweet benefit of time
    To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,
    Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name,
    Made use and fair advantage of his days:
    His years but young, but his experience old;
    His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe;
    And, in a word, for far behind his worth
    Comes all the praises that I now bestow,
    He is complete in feature and in mind,
    With all good grace to grace a gentleman.
  DUKE. Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,
    He is as worthy for an empress' love
    As meet to be an emperor's counsellor.
    Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me
    With commendation from great potentates,
    And here he means to spend his time awhile.
    I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you.
  VALENTINE. Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he.
  DUKE. Welcome him, then, according to his worth-
    Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;
    For Valentine, I need not cite him to it.
    I will send him hither to you presently.           Exit DUKE
  VALENTINE. This is the gentleman I told your ladyship
    Had come along with me but that his mistresss
    Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.
  SILVIA. Belike that now she hath enfranchis'd them
    Upon some other pawn for fealty.
  VALENTINE. Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.
  SILVIA. Nay, then, he should be blind; and, being blind,
    How could he see his way to seek out you?
  VALENTINE. Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.
  THURIO. They say that Love hath not an eye at all.
  VALENTINE. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself;
    Upon a homely object Love can wink.              Exit THURIO

                         Enter PROTEUS

  SILVIA. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.
  VALENTINE. Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you
    Confirm his welcome with some special favour.
  SILVIA. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,
    If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.
  VALENTINE. Mistress, it is; sweet lady, entertain him
    To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.
  SILVIA. Too low a mistress for so high a servant.
  PROTEUS. Not so, sweet lady; but too mean a servant
    To have a look of such a worthy mistress.
  VALENTINE. Leave off discourse of disability;
    Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.
  PROTEUS. My duty will I boast of, nothing else.
  SILVIA. And duty never yet did want his meed.
    Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.
  PROTEUS. I'll die on him that says so but yourself.
  SILVIA. That you are welcome?
  PROTEUS. That you are worthless.

                          Re-enter THURIO

  THURIO. Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.
  SILVIA. I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,
    Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome.
    I'll leave you to confer of home affairs;
    When you have done we look to hear from you.
  PROTEUS. We'll both attend upon your ladyship.
                                        Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO
  VALENTINE. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?
  PROTEUS. Your friends are well, and have them much commended.
  VALENTINE. And how do yours?
  PROTEUS. I left them all in health.
  VALENTINE. How does your lady, and how thrives your love?
  PROTEUS. My tales of love were wont to weary you;
    I know you joy not in a love-discourse.
  VALENTINE. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now;
    I have done penance for contemning Love,
    Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me
    With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
    With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs;
    For, in revenge of my contempt of love,
    Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes
    And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.
    O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord,
    And hath so humbled me as I confess
    There is no woe to his correction,
    Nor to his service no such joy on earth.
    Now no discourse, except it be of love;
    Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,
    Upon the very naked name of love.
  PROTEUS. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.
    Was this the idol that you worship so?
  VALENTINE. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?
  PROTEUS. No; but she is an earthly paragon.
  VALENTINE. Call her divine.
  PROTEUS. I will not flatter her.
  VALENTINE. O, flatter me; for love delights in praises!
  PROTEUS. When I was sick you gave me bitter pills,
    And I must minister the like to you.
  VALENTINE. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,
    Yet let her be a principality,
    Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.
  PROTEUS. Except my mistress.
  VALENTINE. Sweet, except not any;
    Except thou wilt except against my love.
  PROTEUS. Have I not reason to prefer mine own?
  VALENTINE. And I will help thee to prefer her too:
    She shall be dignified with this high honour-
    To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth
    Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss
    And, of so great a favour growing proud,
    Disdain to root the summer-swelling flow'r
    And make rough winter everlastingly.
  PROTEUS. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?
  VALENTINE. Pardon me, Proteus; all I can is nothing
    To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;
    She is alone.
  PROTEUS. Then let her alone.
  VALENTINE. Not for the world! Why, man, she is mine own;
    And I as rich in having such a jewel
    As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
    The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
    Forgive me that I do not dream on thee,
    Because thou seest me dote upon my love.
    My foolish rival, that her father likes
    Only for his possessions are so huge,
    Is gone with her along; and I must after,
    For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy.
  PROTEUS. But she loves you?
  VALENTINE. Ay, and we are betroth'd; nay more, our marriage-hour,
    With all the cunning manner of our flight,
    Determin'd of- how I must climb her window,
    The ladder made of cords, and all the means
    Plotted and 'greed on for my happiness.
    Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,
    In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.
  PROTEUS. Go on before; I shall enquire you forth;
    I must unto the road to disembark
    Some necessaries that I needs must use;
    And then I'll presently attend you.
  VALENTINE. Will you make haste?
  PROTEUS. I will.                                Exit VALENTINE
    Even as one heat another heat expels
    Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
    So the remembrance of my former love
    Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
    Is it my mind, or Valentinus' praise,
    Her true perfection, or my false transgression,
    That makes me reasonless to reason thus?
    She is fair; and so is Julia that I love-
    That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd;
    Which like a waxen image 'gainst a fire
    Bears no impression of the thing it was.
    Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,
    And that I love him not as I was wont.
    O! but I love his lady too too much,
    And that's the reason I love him so little.
    How shall I dote on her with more advice
    That thus without advice begin to love her!
    'Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,
    And that hath dazzled my reason's light;
    But when I look on her perfections,
    There is no reason but I shall be blind.
    If I can check my erring love, I will;
    If not, to compass her I'll use my skill.               Exit

SCENE V. Milan. A street

Enter SPEED and LAUNCE severally

  SPEED. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Padua.
  LAUNCE. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I
    reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hang'd,
    nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid, and
    the hostess say 'Welcome!'
  SPEED. Come on, you madcap; I'll to the alehouse with you
    presently; where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have
    five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part with
    Madam Julia?
  LAUNCE. Marry, after they clos'd in earnest, they parted very
    fairly in jest.
  SPEED. But shall she marry him?
  LAUNCE. No.
  SPEED. How then? Shall he marry her?
  LAUNCE. No, neither.
  SPEED. What, are they broken?
  LAUNCE. No, they are both as whole as a fish.
  SPEED. Why then, how stands the matter with them?
  LAUNCE. Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it stands well
    with her.
  SPEED. What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.
  LAUNCE. What a block art thou that thou canst not! My staff
    understands me.
  SPEED. What thou say'st?
  LAUNCE. Ay, and what I do too; look thee, I'll but lean, and my
    staff understands me.
  SPEED. It stands under thee, indeed.
  LAUNCE. Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.
  SPEED. But tell me true, will't be a match?
  LAUNCE. Ask my dog. If he say ay, it will; if he say no, it will;
    if he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.
  SPEED. The conclusion is, then, that it will.
  LAUNCE. Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a
    parable.
  SPEED. 'Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how say'st thou
    that my master is become a notable lover?
  LAUNCE. I never knew him otherwise.
  SPEED. Than how?
  LAUNCE. A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.
  SPEED. Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistak'st me.
  LAUNCE. Why, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.
  SPEED. I tell thee my master is become a hot lover.
  LAUNCE. Why, I tell thee I care not though he burn himself in love.
    If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse; if not, thou art an
    Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.
  SPEED. Why?
  LAUNCE. Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to
    the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?
  SPEED. At thy service.                                  Exeunt

SCENE VI. Milan. The DUKE's palace

Enter PROTEUS

  PROTEUS. To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;
    To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
    To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
    And ev'n that pow'r which gave me first my oath
    Provokes me to this threefold perjury:
    Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.
    O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn'd,
    Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!
    At first I did adore a twinkling star,
    But now I worship a celestial sun.
    Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;
    And he wants wit that wants resolved will
    To learn his wit t' exchange the bad for better.
    Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad
    Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr'd
    With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths!
    I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;
    But there I leave to love where I should love.
    Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose;
    If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;
    If I lose them, thus find I by their loss:
    For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.
    I to myself am dearer than a friend;
    For love is still most precious in itself;
    And Silvia- witness heaven, that made her fair!-
    Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
    I will forget that Julia is alive,
    Rememb'ring that my love to her is dead;
    And Valentine I'll hold an enemy,
    Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
    I cannot now prove constant to myself
    Without some treachery us'd to Valentine.
    This night he meaneth with a corded ladder
    To climb celestial Silvia's chamber window,
    Myself in counsel, his competitor.
    Now presently I'll give her father notice
    Of their disguising and pretended flight,
    Who, all enrag'd, will banish Valentine,
    For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;
    But, Valentine being gone, I'll quickly cross
    By some sly trick blunt Thurio's dull proceeding.
    Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
    As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift.            Exit

SCENE VII. Verona. JULIA'S house

Enter JULIA and LUCETTA

  JULIA. Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me;
    And, ev'n in kind love, I do conjure thee,
    Who art the table wherein all my thoughts
    Are visibly character'd and engrav'd,
    To lesson me and tell me some good mean
    How, with my honour, I may undertake
    A journey to my loving Proteus.
  LUCETTA. Alas, the way is wearisome and long!
  JULIA. A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary
    To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;
    Much less shall she that hath Love's wings to fly,
    And when the flight is made to one so dear,
    Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus.
  LUCETTA. Better forbear till Proteus make return.
  JULIA. O, know'st thou not his looks are my soul's food?
    Pity the dearth that I have pined in
    By longing for that food so long a time.
    Didst thou but know the inly touch of love.
    Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow
    As seek to quench the fire of love with words.
  LUCETTA. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,
    But qualify the fire's extreme rage,
    Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.
  JULIA. The more thou dam'st it up, the more it burns.
    The current that with gentle murmur glides,
    Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
    But when his fair course is not hindered,
    He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,
    Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
    He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;
    And so by many winding nooks he strays,
    With willing sport, to the wild ocean.
    Then let me go, and hinder not my course.
    I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,
    And make a pastime of each weary step,
    Till the last step have brought me to my love;
    And there I'll rest as, after much turmoil,
    A blessed soul doth in Elysium.
  LUCETTA. But in what habit will you go along?
  JULIA. Not like a woman, for I would prevent
    The loose encounters of lascivious men;
    Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds
    As may beseem some well-reputed page.
  LUCETTA. Why then, your ladyship must cut your hair.
  JULIA. No, girl; I'll knit it up in silken strings
    With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots-
    To be fantastic may become a youth
    Of greater time than I shall show to be.
  LUCETTA. What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?
  JULIA. That fits as well as 'Tell me, good my lord,
    What compass will you wear your farthingale.'
    Why ev'n what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.
  LUCETTA. You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.
  JULIA. Out, out, Lucetta, that will be ill-favour'd.
  LUCETTA. A round hose, madam, now's not worth a pin,
    Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.
  JULIA. Lucetta, as thou lov'st me, let me have
    What thou think'st meet, and is most mannerly.
    But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me
    For undertaking so unstaid a journey?
    I fear me it will make me scandaliz'd.
  LUCETTA. If you think so, then stay at home and go not.
  JULIA. Nay, that I will not.
  LUCETTA. Then never dream on infamy, but go.
    If Proteus like your journey when you come,
    No matter who's displeas'd when you are gone.
    I fear me he will scarce be pleas'd withal.
  JULIA. That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:
    A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,
    And instances of infinite of love,
    Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.
  LUCETTA. All these are servants to deceitful men.
  JULIA. Base men that use them to so base effect!
    But truer stars did govern Proteus' birth;
    His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,
    His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,
    His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,
    His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.
  LUCETTA. Pray heav'n he prove so when you come to him.
  JULIA. Now, as thou lov'st me, do him not that wrong
    To bear a hard opinion of his truth;
    Only deserve my love by loving him.
    And presently go with me to my chamber,
    To take a note of what I stand in need of
    To furnish me upon my longing journey.
    All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,
    My goods, my lands, my reputation;
    Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.
    Come, answer not, but to it presently;
    I am impatient of my tarriance.                       Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Milan. The DUKE'S palace

Enter DUKE, THURIO, and PROTEUS

  DUKE. Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;
    We have some secrets to confer about.            Exit THURIO
    Now tell me, Proteus, what's your will with me?
  PROTEUS. My gracious lord, that which I would discover
    The law of friendship bids me to conceal;
    But, when I call to mind your gracious favours
    Done to me, undeserving as I am,
    My duty pricks me on to utter that
    Which else no worldly good should draw from me.
    Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend,
    This night intends to steal away your daughter;
    Myself am one made privy to the plot.
    I know you have determin'd to bestow her
    On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates;
    And should she thus be stol'n away from you,
    It would be much vexation to your age.
    Thus, for my duty's sake, I rather chose
    To cross my friend in his intended drift
    Than, by concealing it, heap on your head
    A pack of sorrows which would press you down,
    Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.
  DUKE. Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care,
    Which to requite, command me while I live.
    This love of theirs myself have often seen,
    Haply when they have judg'd me fast asleep,
    And oftentimes have purpos'd to forbid
    Sir Valentine her company and my court;
    But, fearing lest my jealous aim might err
    And so, unworthily, disgrace the man,
    A rashness that I ever yet have shunn'd,
    I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find
    That which thyself hast now disclos'd to me.
    And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,
    Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,
    I nightly lodge her in an upper tow'r,
    The key whereof myself have ever kept;
    And thence she cannot be convey'd away.
  PROTEUS. Know, noble lord, they have devis'd a mean
    How he her chamber window will ascend
    And with a corded ladder fetch her down;
    For which the youthful lover now is gone,
    And this way comes he with it presently;
    Where, if it please you, you may intercept him.
    But, good my lord, do it so cunningly
    That my discovery be not aimed at;
    For love of you, not hate unto my friend,
    Hath made me publisher of this pretence.
  DUKE. Upon mine honour, he shall never know
    That I had any light from thee of this.
  PROTEUS. Adieu, my lord; Sir Valentine is coming.         Exit

                        Enter VALENTINE

  DUKE. Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?
  VALENTINE. Please it your Grace, there is a messenger
    That stays to bear my letters to my friends,
    And I am going to deliver them.
  DUKE. Be they of much import?
  VALENTINE. The tenour of them doth but signify
    My health and happy being at your court.
  DUKE. Nay then, no matter; stay with me awhile;
    I am to break with thee of some affairs
    That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret.
    'Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought
    To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter.
  VALENTINE. I know it well, my lord; and, sure, the match
    Were rich and honourable; besides, the gentleman
    Is full of virtue, bounty, worth, and qualities
    Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter.
    Cannot your grace win her to fancy him?
  DUKE. No, trust me; she is peevish, sullen, froward,
    Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty;
    Neither regarding that she is my child
    Nor fearing me as if I were her father;
    And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers,
    Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her;
    And, where I thought the remnant of mine age
    Should have been cherish'd by her childlike duty,
    I now am full resolv'd to take a wife
    And turn her out to who will take her in.
    Then let her beauty be her wedding-dow'r;
    For me and my possessions she esteems not.
  VALENTINE. What would your Grace have me to do in this?
  DUKE. There is a lady, in Verona here,
    Whom I affect; but she is nice, and coy,
    And nought esteems my aged eloquence.
    Now, therefore, would I have thee to my tutor-
    For long agone I have forgot to court;
    Besides, the fashion of the time is chang'd-
    How and which way I may bestow myself
    To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.
  VALENTINE. Win her with gifts, if she respect not words:
    Dumb jewels often in their silent kind
    More than quick words do move a woman's mind.
  DUKE. But she did scorn a present that I sent her.
  VALENTINE. A woman sometime scorns what best contents her.
    Send her another; never give her o'er,
    For scorn at first makes after-love the more.
    If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you,
    But rather to beget more love in you;
    If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone,
    For why, the fools are mad if left alone.
    Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;
    For 'Get you gone' she doth not mean 'Away!'
    Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;
    Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.
    That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
    If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.
  DUKE. But she I mean is promis'd by her friends
    Unto a youthful gentleman of worth;
    And kept severely from resort of men,
    That no man hath access by day to her.
  VALENTINE. Why then I would resort to her by night.
  DUKE. Ay, but the doors be lock'd and keys kept safe,
    That no man hath recourse to her by night.
  VALENTINE. What lets but one may enter at her window?
  DUKE. Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground,
    And built so shelving that one cannot climb it
    Without apparent hazard of his life.
  VALENTINE. Why then a ladder, quaintly made of cords,
    To cast up with a pair of anchoring hooks,
    Would serve to scale another Hero's tow'r,
    So bold Leander would adventure it.
  DUKE. Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood,
    Advise me where I may have such a ladder.
  VALENTINE. When would you use it? Pray, sir, tell me that.
  DUKE. This very night; for Love is like a child,
    That longs for everything that he can come by.
  VALENTINE. By seven o'clock I'll get you such a ladder.
  DUKE. But, hark thee; I will go to her alone;
    How shall I best convey the ladder thither?
  VALENTINE. It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it
    Under a cloak that is of any length.
  DUKE. A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?
  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord.
  DUKE. Then let me see thy cloak.
    I'll get me one of such another length.
  VALENTINE. Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.
  DUKE. How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak?
    I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me.
    What letter is this same? What's here? 'To Silvia'!
    And here an engine fit for my proceeding!
    I'll be so bold to break the seal for once.          [Reads]
      'My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly,
        And slaves they are to me, that send them flying.
      O, could their master come and go as lightly,
        Himself would lodge where, senseless, they are lying!
      My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them,
        While I, their king, that thither them importune,
      Do curse the grace that with such grace hath blest them,
        Because myself do want my servants' fortune.
      I curse myself, for they are sent by me,
        That they should harbour where their lord should be.'
    What's here?
      'Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee.'
    'Tis so; and here's the ladder for the purpose.
    Why, Phaethon- for thou art Merops' son-
    Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,
    And with thy daring folly burn the world?
    Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?
    Go, base intruder, over-weening slave,
    Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates;
    And think my patience, more than thy desert,
    Is privilege for thy departure hence.
    Thank me for this more than for all the favours
    Which, all too much, I have bestow'd on thee.
    But if thou linger in my territories
    Longer than swiftest expedition
    Will give thee time to leave our royal court,
    By heaven! my wrath shall far exceed the love
    I ever bore my daughter or thyself.
    Be gone; I will not hear thy vain excuse,
    But, as thou lov'st thy life, make speed from hence.    Exit
  VALENTINE. And why not death rather than living torment?
    To die is to be banish'd from myself,
    And Silvia is myself; banish'd from her
    Is self from self, a deadly banishment.
    What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
    What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
    Unless it be to think that she is by,
    And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
    Except I be by Silvia in the night,
    There is no music in the nightingale;
    Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
    There is no day for me to look upon.
    She is my essence, and I leave to be
    If I be not by her fair influence
    Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.
    I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:
    Tarry I here, I but attend on death;
    But fly I hence, I fly away from life.

                      Enter PROTEUS and LAUNCE

  PROTEUS. Run, boy, run, run, seek him out.
  LAUNCE. So-ho, so-ho!
  PROTEUS. What seest thou?
  LAUNCE. Him we go to find: there's not a hair on 's head but 'tis a
    Valentine.
  PROTEUS. Valentine?
  VALENTINE. No.
  PROTEUS. Who then? his spirit?
  VALENTINE. Neither.
  PROTEUS. What then?
  VALENTINE. Nothing.
  LAUNCE. Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike?
  PROTEUS. Who wouldst thou strike?
  LAUNCE. Nothing.
  PROTEUS. Villain, forbear.
  LAUNCE. Why, sir, I'll strike nothing. I pray you-
  PROTEUS. Sirrah, I say, forbear. Friend Valentine, a word.
  VALENTINE. My ears are stopp'd and cannot hear good news,
    So much of bad already hath possess'd them.
  PROTEUS. Then in dumb silence will I bury mine,
    For they are harsh, untuneable, and bad.
  VALENTINE. Is Silvia dead?
  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.
  VALENTINE. No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia.
    Hath she forsworn me?
  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.
  VALENTINE. No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me.
    What is your news?
  LAUNCE. Sir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished.
  PROTEUS. That thou art banished- O, that's the news!-
    From hence, from Silvia, and from me thy friend.
  VALENTINE. O, I have fed upon this woe already,
    And now excess of it will make me surfeit.
    Doth Silvia know that I am banished?
  PROTEUS. Ay, ay; and she hath offered to the doom-
    Which, unrevers'd, stands in effectual force-
    A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears;
    Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd;
    With them, upon her knees, her humble self,
    Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them
    As if but now they waxed pale for woe.
    But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,
    Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears,
    Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire-
    But Valentine, if he be ta'en, must die.
    Besides, her intercession chaf'd him so,
    When she for thy repeal was suppliant,
    That to close prison he commanded her,
    With many bitter threats of biding there.
  VALENTINE. No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st
    Have some malignant power upon my life:
    If so, I pray thee breathe it in mine ear,
    As ending anthem of my endless dolour.
  PROTEUS. Cease to lament for that thou canst not help,
    And study help for that which thou lament'st.
    Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.
    Here if thou stay thou canst not see thy love;
    Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life.
    Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,
    And manage it against despairing thoughts.
    Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence,
    Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd
    Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.
    The time now serves not to expostulate.
    Come, I'll convey thee through the city gate;
    And, ere I part with thee, confer at large
    Of all that may concern thy love affairs.
    As thou lov'st Silvia, though not for thyself,
    Regard thy danger, and along with me.
  VALENTINE. I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy,
    Bid him make haste and meet me at the Northgate.
  PROTEUS. Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.
  VALENTINE. O my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine!
                                    Exeunt VALENTINE and PROTEUS
  LAUNCE. I am but a fool, look you, and yet I have the wit to think
    my master is a kind of a knave; but that's all one if he be but
    one knave. He lives not now that knows me to be in love; yet I am
    in love; but a team of horse shall not pluck that from me; nor
    who 'tis I love; and yet 'tis a woman; but what woman I will not
    tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet 'tis not a maid, for
    she hath had gossips; yet 'tis a maid, for she is her master's
    maid and serves for wages. She hath more qualities than a
    water-spaniel- which is much in a bare Christian. Here is the
    cate-log  [Pulling out a paper]  of her condition. 'Inprimis: She
    can fetch and carry.' Why, a horse can do no more; nay, a horse
    cannot fetch, but only carry; therefore is she better than a
    jade. 'Item: She can milk.' Look you, a sweet virtue in a maid
    with clean hands.

                             Enter SPEED

  SPEED. How now, Signior Launce! What news with your mastership?
  LAUNCE. With my master's ship? Why, it is at sea.
  SPEED. Well, your old vice still: mistake the word. What news,
    then, in your paper?
  LAUNCE. The black'st news that ever thou heard'st.
  SPEED. Why, man? how black?
  LAUNCE. Why, as black as ink.
  SPEED. Let me read them.
  LAUNCE. Fie on thee, jolt-head; thou canst not read.
  SPEED. Thou liest; I can.
  LAUNCE. I will try thee. Tell me this: Who begot thee?
  SPEED. Marry, the son of my grandfather.
  LAUNCE. O illiterate loiterer. It was the son of thy grandmother.
    This proves that thou canst not read.
  SPEED. Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper.
  LAUNCE.  [Handing over the paper]  There; and Saint Nicholas be thy
    speed.
  SPEED.  [Reads]  'Inprimis: She can milk.'
  LAUNCE. Ay, that she can.
  SPEED. 'Item: She brews good ale.'
  LAUNCE. And thereof comes the proverb: Blessing of your heart, you
    brew good ale.
  SPEED. 'Item: She can sew.'
  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'Can she so?'
  SPEED. 'Item: She can knit.'
  LAUNCE. What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when she can
    knit him a stock.
  SPEED. 'Item: She can wash and scour.'
  LAUNCE. A special virtue; for then she need not be wash'd and
    scour'd.
  SPEED. 'Item: She can spin.'
  LAUNCE. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for
    her living.
  SPEED. 'Item: She hath many nameless virtues.'
  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'bastard virtues'; that indeed
    know not their fathers, and therefore have no names.
  SPEED. 'Here follow her vices.'
  LAUNCE. Close at the heels of her virtues.
  SPEED. 'Item: She is not to be kiss'd fasting, in respect of her
    breath.'
  LAUNCE. Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast.
    Read on.
  SPEED. 'Item: She hath a sweet mouth.'
  LAUNCE. That makes amends for her sour breath.
  SPEED. 'Item: She doth talk in her sleep.'
  LAUNCE. It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.
  SPEED. 'Item: She is slow in words.'
  LAUNCE. O villain, that set this down among her vices! To be slow
    in words is a woman's only virtue. I pray thee, out with't; and
    place it for her chief virtue.
  SPEED. 'Item: She is proud.'
  LAUNCE. Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be ta'en
    from her.
  SPEED. 'Item: She hath no teeth.'
  LAUNCE. I care not for that neither, because I love crusts.
  SPEED. 'Item: She is curst.'
  LAUNCE. Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.
  SPEED. 'Item: She will often praise her liquor.'
  LAUNCE. If her liquor be good, she shall; if she will not, I will;
    for good things should be praised.
  SPEED. 'Item: She is too liberal.'
  LAUNCE. Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ down she is slow
    of; of her purse she shall not, for that I'll keep shut. Now of
    another thing she may, and that cannot I help. Well, proceed.
  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults
    than hairs, and more wealth than faults.'
  LAUNCE. Stop there; I'll have her; she was mine, and not mine,
    twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse that once more.
  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit'-
  LAUNCE. More hair than wit. It may be; I'll prove it: the cover of
    the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt;
    the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the
    greater hides the less. What's next?
  SPEED. 'And more faults than hairs'-
  LAUNCE. That's monstrous. O that that were out!
  SPEED. 'And more wealth than faults.'
  LAUNCE. Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well, I'll have
    her; an if it be a match, as nothing is impossible-
  SPEED. What then?
  LAUNCE. Why, then will I tell thee- that thy master stays for thee
    at the Northgate.
  SPEED. For me?
  LAUNCE. For thee! ay, who art thou? He hath stay'd for a better man
    than thee.
  SPEED. And must I go to him?
  LAUNCE. Thou must run to him, for thou hast stay'd so long that
    going will scarce serve the turn.
  SPEED. Why didst not tell me sooner? Pox of your love letters!
 Exit
  LAUNCE. Now will he be swing'd for reading my letter. An unmannerly
    slave that will thrust himself into secrets! I'll after, to
    rejoice in the boy's correction.                        Exit

SCENE II. Milan. The DUKE'S palace

Enter DUKE and THURIO

  DUKE. Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you
    Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight.
  THURIO. Since his exile she hath despis'd me most,
    Forsworn my company and rail'd at me,
    That I am desperate of obtaining her.
  DUKE. This weak impress of love is as a figure
    Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat
    Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.
    A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,
    And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.

                          Enter PROTEUS

    How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman,
    According to our proclamation, gone?
  PROTEUS. Gone, my good lord.
  DUKE. My daughter takes his going grievously.
  PROTEUS. A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.
  DUKE. So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.
    Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee-
    For thou hast shown some sign of good desert-
    Makes me the better to confer with thee.
  PROTEUS. Longer than I prove loyal to your Grace
    Let me not live to look upon your Grace.
  DUKE. Thou know'st how willingly I would effect
    The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.
  PROTEUS. I do, my lord.
  DUKE. And also, I think, thou art not ignorant
    How she opposes her against my will.
  PROTEUS. She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.
  DUKE. Ay, and perversely she persevers so.
    What might we do to make the girl forget
    The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?
  PROTEUS. The best way is to slander Valentine
    With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent-
    Three things that women highly hold in hate.
  DUKE. Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate.
  PROTEUS. Ay, if his enemy deliver it;
    Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken
    By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.
  DUKE. Then you must undertake to slander him.
  PROTEUS. And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:
    'Tis an ill office for a gentleman,
    Especially against his very friend.
  DUKE. Where your good word cannot advantage him,
    Your slander never can endamage him;
    Therefore the office is indifferent,
    Being entreated to it by your friend.
  PROTEUS. You have prevail'd, my lord; if I can do it
    By aught that I can speak in his dispraise,
    She shall not long continue love to him.
    But say this weed her love from Valentine,
    It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.
  THURIO. Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,
    Lest it should ravel and be good to none,
    You must provide to bottom it on me;
    Which must be done by praising me as much
    As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.
  DUKE. And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind,
    Because we know, on Valentine's report,
    You are already Love's firm votary
    And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.
    Upon this warrant shall you have access
    Where you with Silvia may confer at large-
    For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,
    And, for your friend's sake, will be glad of you-
    Where you may temper her by your persuasion
    To hate young Valentine and love my friend.
  PROTEUS. As much as I can do I will effect.
    But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;
    You must lay lime to tangle her desires
    By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes
    Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.
  DUKE. Ay,
    Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.
  PROTEUS. Say that upon the altar of her beauty
    You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart;
    Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
    Moist it again, and frame some feeling line
    That may discover such integrity;
    For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,
    Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
    Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
    Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
    After your dire-lamenting elegies,
    Visit by night your lady's chamber window
    With some sweet consort; to their instruments
    Tune a deploring dump- the night's dead silence
    Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.
    This, or else nothing, will inherit her.
  DUKE. This discipline shows thou hast been in love.
  THURIO. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice;
    Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
    Let us into the city presently
    To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in music.
    I have a sonnet that will serve the turn
    To give the onset to thy good advice.
  DUKE. About it, gentlemen!
  PROTEUS. We'll wait upon your Grace till after supper,
    And afterward determine our proceedings.
  DUKE. Even now about it! I will pardon you.             Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. The frontiers of Mantua. A forest

Enter certain OUTLAWS

  FIRST OUTLAW. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.
  SECOND OUTLAW. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.

                  Enter VALENTINE and SPEED

  THIRD OUTLAW. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye;
    If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.
  SPEED. Sir, we are undone; these are the villains
    That all the travellers do fear so much.
  VALENTINE. My friends-
  FIRST OUTLAW. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies.
  SECOND OUTLAW. Peace! we'll hear him.
  THIRD OUTLAW. Ay, by my beard, will we; for he is a proper man.
  VALENTINE. Then know that I have little wealth to lose;
    A man I am cross'd with adversity;
    My riches are these poor habiliments,
    Of which if you should here disfurnish me,
    You take the sum and substance that I have.
  SECOND OUTLAW. Whither travel you?
  VALENTINE. To Verona.
  FIRST OUTLAW. Whence came you?
  VALENTINE. From Milan.
  THIRD OUTLAW. Have you long sojourn'd there?
  VALENTINE. Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,
    If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.
  FIRST OUTLAW. What, were you banish'd thence?
  VALENTINE. I was.
  SECOND OUTLAW. For what offence?
  VALENTINE. For that which now torments me to rehearse:
    I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent;
    But yet I slew him manfully in fight,
    Without false vantage or base treachery.
  FIRST OUTLAW. Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so.
    But were you banish'd for so small a fault?
  VALENTINE. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.
  SECOND OUTLAW. Have you the tongues?
  VALENTINE. My youthful travel therein made me happy,
    Or else I often had been miserable.
  THIRD OUTLAW. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,
    This fellow were a king for our wild faction!
  FIRST OUTLAW. We'll have him. Sirs, a word.
  SPEED. Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of thievery.
  VALENTINE. Peace, villain!
  SECOND OUTLAW. Tell us this: have you anything to take to?
  VALENTINE. Nothing but my fortune.
  THIRD OUTLAW. Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,
    Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth
    Thrust from the company of awful men;
    Myself was from Verona banished
    For practising to steal away a lady,
    An heir, and near allied unto the Duke.
  SECOND OUTLAW. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman
    Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.
  FIRST OUTLAW. And I for such-like petty crimes as these.
    But to the purpose- for we cite our faults
    That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives;
    And, partly, seeing you are beautified
    With goodly shape, and by your own report
    A linguist, and a man of such perfection
    As we do in our quality much want-
  SECOND OUTLAW. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,
    Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you.
    Are you content to be our general-
    To make a virtue of necessity,
    And live as we do in this wilderness?
  THIRD OUTLAW. What say'st thou? Wilt thou be of our consort?
    Say 'ay' and be the captain of us all.
    We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,
    Love thee as our commander and our king.
  FIRST OUTLAW. But if thou scorn our courtesy thou diest.
  SECOND OUTLAW. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd.
  VALENTINE. I take your offer, and will live with you,
    Provided that you do no outrages
    On silly women or poor passengers.
  THIRD OUTLAW. No, we detest such vile base practices.
    Come, go with us; we'll bring thee to our crews,
    And show thee all the treasure we have got;
    Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.       Exeunt

SCENE II. Milan. Outside the DUKE'S palace, under SILVIA'S window

Enter PROTEUS

  PROTEUS. Already have I been false to Valentine,
    And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.
    Under the colour of commending him
    I have access my own love to prefer;
    But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
    To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
    When I protest true loyalty to her,
    She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;
    When to her beauty I commend my vows,
    She bids me think how I have been forsworn
    In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd;
    And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,
    The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,
    Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love
    The more it grows and fawneth on her still.

                 Enter THURIO and MUSICIANS

    But here comes Thurio. Now must we to her window,
    And give some evening music to her ear.
  THURIO. How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us?
  PROTEUS. Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that love
    Will creep in service where it cannot go.
  THURIO. Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.
  PROTEUS. Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.
  THURIO. Who? Silvia?
  PROTEUS. Ay, Silvia- for your sake.
  THURIO. I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,
    Let's tune, and to it lustily awhile.

    Enter at a distance, HOST, and JULIA in boy's clothes

  HOST. Now, my young guest, methinks you're allycholly; I pray you,
    why is it?
  JULIA. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.
  HOST. Come, we'll have you merry; I'll bring you where you shall
    hear music, and see the gentleman that you ask'd for.
  JULIA. But shall I hear him speak?
  HOST. Ay, that you shall.                        [Music plays]
  JULIA. That will be music.
  HOST. Hark, hark!
  JULIA. Is he among these?
  HOST. Ay; but peace! let's hear 'em.

                   SONG
         Who is Silvia? What is she,
           That all our swains commend her?
         Holy, fair, and wise is she;
           The heaven such grace did lend her,
         That she might admired be.

         Is she kind as she is fair?
           For beauty lives with kindness.
         Love doth to her eyes repair,
           To help him of his blindness;
         And, being help'd, inhabits there.

         Then to Silvia let us sing
           That Silvia is excelling;
         She excels each mortal thing
           Upon the dull earth dwelling.
         'To her let us garlands bring.

  HOST. How now, are you sadder than you were before?
    How do you, man? The music likes you not.
  JULIA. You mistake; the musician likes me not.
  HOST. Why, my pretty youth?
  JULIA. He plays false, father.
  HOST. How, out of tune on the strings?
  JULIA. Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very
    heart-strings.
  HOST. You have a quick ear.
  JULIA. Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart.
  HOST. I perceive you delight not in music.
  JULIA. Not a whit, when it jars so.
  HOST. Hark, what fine change is in the music!
  JULIA. Ay, that change is the spite.
  HOST. You would have them always play but one thing?
  JULIA. I would always have one play but one thing.
    But, Host, doth this Sir Proteus, that we talk on,
    Often resort unto this gentlewoman?
  HOST. I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he lov'd her out of
    all nick.
  JULIA. Where is Launce?
  HOST. Gone to seek his dog, which to-morrow, by his master's
    command, he must carry for a present to his lady.
  JULIA. Peace, stand aside; the company parts.
  PROTEUS. Sir Thurio, fear not you; I will so plead
    That you shall say my cunning drift excels.
  THURIO. Where meet we?
  PROTEUS. At Saint Gregory's well.
  THURIO. Farewell.                  Exeunt THURIO and MUSICIANS

                  Enter SILVIA above, at her window

  PROTEUS. Madam, good ev'n to your ladyship.
  SILVIA. I thank you for your music, gentlemen.
    Who is that that spake?
  PROTEUS. One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth,
    You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.
  SILVIA. Sir Proteus, as I take it.
  PROTEUS. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.
  SILVIA. What's your will?
  PROTEUS. That I may compass yours.
  SILVIA. You have your wish; my will is even this,
    That presently you hie you home to bed.
    Thou subtle, perjur'd, false, disloyal man,
    Think'st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,
    To be seduced by thy flattery
    That hast deceiv'd so many with thy vows?
    Return, return, and make thy love amends.
    For me, by this pale queen of night I swear,
    I am so far from granting thy request
    That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,
    And by and by intend to chide myself
    Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.
  PROTEUS. I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;
    But she is dead.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Twere false, if I should speak it;
    For I am sure she is not buried.
  SILVIA. Say that she be; yet Valentine, thy friend,
    Survives, to whom, thyself art witness,
    I am betroth'd; and art thou not asham'd
    To wrong him with thy importunacy?
  PROTEUS. I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.
  SILVIA. And so suppose am I; for in his grave
    Assure thyself my love is buried.
  PROTEUS. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.
  SILVIA. Go to thy lady's grave, and call hers thence;
    Or, at the least, in hers sepulchre thine.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  He heard not that.
  PROTEUS. Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,
    Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,
    The picture that is hanging in your chamber;
    To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep;
    For, since the substance of your perfect self
    Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;
    And to your shadow will I make true love.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  If 'twere a substance, you would, sure, deceive it
    And make it but a shadow, as I am.
  SILVIA. I am very loath to be your idol, sir;
    But since your falsehood shall become you well
    To worship shadows and adore false shapes,
    Send to me in the morning, and I'll send it;
    And so, good rest.
  PROTEUS. As wretches have o'ernight
    That wait for execution in the morn.
                                       Exeunt PROTEUS and SILVIA
  JULIA. Host, will you go?
  HOST. By my halidom, I was fast asleep.
  JULIA. Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?
  HOST. Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think 'tis almost day.
  JULIA. Not so; but it hath been the longest night
    That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest.           Exeunt

SCENE III. Under SILVIA'S window

Enter EGLAMOUR

  EGLAMOUR. This is the hour that Madam Silvia
    Entreated me to call and know her mind;
    There's some great matter she'd employ me in.
    Madam, madam!

             Enter SILVIA above, at her window

  SILVIA. Who calls?
  EGLAMOUR. Your servant and your friend;
    One that attends your ladyship's command.
  SILVIA. Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow!
  EGLAMOUR. As many, worthy lady, to yourself!
    According to your ladyship's impose,
    I am thus early come to know what service
    It is your pleasure to command me in.
  SILVIA. O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman-
    Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not-
    Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish'd.
    Thou art not ignorant what dear good will
    I bear unto the banish'd Valentine;
    Nor how my father would enforce me marry
    Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors.
    Thyself hast lov'd; and I have heard thee say
    No grief did ever come so near thy heart
    As when thy lady and thy true love died,
    Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity.
    Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,
    To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;
    And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,
    I do desire thy worthy company,
    Upon whose faith and honour I repose.
    Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,
    But think upon my grief, a lady's grief,
    And on the justice of my flying hence
    To keep me from a most unholy match,
    Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues.
    I do desire thee, even from a heart
    As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,
    To bear me company and go with me;
    If not, to hide what I have said to thee,
    That I may venture to depart alone.
  EGLAMOUR. Madam, I pity much your grievances;
    Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd,
    I give consent to go along with you,
    Recking as little what betideth me
    As much I wish all good befortune you.
    When will you go?
  SILVIA. This evening coming.
  EGLAMOUR. Where shall I meet you?
  SILVIA. At Friar Patrick's cell,
    Where I intend holy confession.
  EGLAMOUR. I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow, gentle lady.
  SILVIA. Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.                 Exeunt

SCENE IV. Under SILVIA'S Window

Enter LAUNCE with his dog

  LAUNCE. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look you,
  it goes hard- one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I sav'd from
  drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went
  to it. I have taught him, even as one would say precisely 'Thus I
  would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver him as a present to
  Mistress Silvia from my master; and I came no sooner into the
  dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher and steals her
  capon's leg. O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself in
  all companies! I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon
  him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I
  had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I
  think verily he had been hang'd for't; sure as I live, he had
  suffer'd for't. You shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the
  company of three or four gentleman-like dogs under the Duke's table;
  he had not been there, bless the mark, a pissing while but all the
  chamber smelt him. 'Out with the dog' says one; 'What cur is that?'
  says another; 'Whip him out' says the third; 'Hang him up' says the
  Duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was
  Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs. 'Friend,' quoth
  I 'you mean to whip the dog.' 'Ay, marry do I' quoth he. 'You do him
  the more wrong,' quoth I; "twas I did the thing you wot of.' He makes
  me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters
  would do this for his servant? Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the
  stock for puddings he hath stol'n, otherwise he had been executed; I
  have stood on the pillory for geese he hath kill'd, otherwise he had
  suffer'd for't. Thou think'st not of this now. Nay, I remember the
  trick you serv'd me when I took my leave of Madam Silvia. Did not I
  bid thee still mark me and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave
  up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale? Didst
  thou ever see me do such a trick?

               Enter PROTEUS, and JULIA in boy's clothes

  PROTEUS. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well,
    And will employ thee in some service presently.
  JULIA. In what you please; I'll do what I can.
  PROTEUS..I hope thou wilt.  [To LAUNCE]  How now, you whoreson
      peasant!
    Where have you been these two days loitering?
  LAUNCE. Marry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade me.
  PROTEUS. And what says she to my little jewel?
  LAUNCE. Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and tells you currish
    thanks is good enough for such a present.
  PROTEUS. But she receiv'd my dog?
  LAUNCE. No, indeed, did she not; here have I brought him back
    again.
  PROTEUS. What, didst thou offer her this from me?
  LAUNCE. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stol'n from me by the
    hangman's boys in the market-place; and then I offer'd her mine
    own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift
    the greater.
  PROTEUS. Go, get thee hence and find my dog again,
    Or ne'er return again into my sight.
    Away, I say. Stayest thou to vex me here?        Exit LAUNCE
    A slave that still an end turns me to shame!
    Sebastian, I have entertained thee
    Partly that I have need of such a youth
    That can with some discretion do my business,
    For 'tis no trusting to yond foolish lout,
    But chiefly for thy face and thy behaviour,
    Which, if my augury deceive me not,
    Witness good bringing up, fortune, and truth;
    Therefore, know thou, for this I entertain thee.
    Go presently, and take this ring with thee,
    Deliver it to Madam Silvia-
    She lov'd me well deliver'd it to me.
  JULIA. It seems you lov'd not her, to leave her token.
    She is dead, belike?
  PROTEUS. Not so; I think she lives.
  JULIA. Alas!
  PROTEUS. Why dost thou cry 'Alas'?
  JULIA. I cannot choose
    But pity her.
  PROTEUS. Wherefore shouldst thou pity her?
  JULIA. Because methinks that she lov'd you as well
    As you do love your lady Silvia.
    She dreams on him that has forgot her love:
    You dote on her that cares not for your love.
    'Tis pity love should be so contrary;
    And thinking on it makes me cry 'Alas!'
  PROTEUS. Well, give her that ring, and therewithal
    This letter. That's her chamber. Tell my lady
    I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.
    Your message done, hie home unto my chamber,
    Where thou shalt find me sad and solitary.      Exit PROTEUS
  JULIA. How many women would do such a message?
    Alas, poor Proteus, thou hast entertain'd
    A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs.
    Alas, poor fool, why do I pity him
    That with his very heart despiseth me?
    Because he loves her, he despiseth me;
    Because I love him, I must pity him.
    This ring I gave him, when he parted from me,
    To bind him to remember my good will;
    And now am I, unhappy messenger,
    To plead for that which I would not obtain,
    To carry that which I would have refus'd,
    To praise his faith, which I would have disprais'd.
    I am my master's true confirmed love,
    But cannot be true servant to my master
    Unless I prove false traitor to myself.
    Yet will I woo for him, but yet so coldly
    As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.

                     Enter SILVIA, attended

    Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you be my mean
    To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia.
  SILVIA. What would you with her, if that I be she?
  JULIA. If you be she, I do entreat your patience
    To hear me speak the message I am sent on.
  SILVIA. From whom?
  JULIA. From my master, Sir Proteus, madam.
  SILVIA. O, he sends you for a picture?
  JULIA. Ay, madam.
  SILVIA. Ursula, bring my picture there.
    Go, give your master this. Tell him from me,
    One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,
    Would better fit his chamber than this shadow.
  JULIA. Madam, please you peruse this letter.
    Pardon me, madam; I have unadvis'd
    Deliver'd you a paper that I should not.
    This is the letter to your ladyship.
  SILVIA. I pray thee let me look on that again.
  JULIA. It may not be; good madam, pardon me.
  SILVIA. There, hold!
    I will not look upon your master's lines.
    I know they are stuff'd with protestations,
    And full of new-found oaths, which he wul break
    As easily as I do tear his paper.
  JULIA. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring.
  SILVIA. The more shame for him that he sends it me;
    For I have heard him say a thousand times
    His Julia gave it him at his departure.
    Though his false finger have profan'd the ring,
    Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong.
  JULIA. She thanks you.
  SILVIA. What say'st thou?
  JULIA. I thank you, madam, that you tender her.
    Poor gentlewoman, my master wrongs her much.
  SILVIA. Dost thou know her?
  JULIA. Almost as well as I do know myself.
    To think upon her woes, I do protest
    That I have wept a hundred several times.
  SILVIA. Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her.
  JULIA. I think she doth, and that's her cause of sorrow.
  SILVIA. Is she not passing fair?
  JULIA. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is.
    When she did think my master lov'd her well,
    She, in my judgment, was as fair as you;
    But since she did neglect her looking-glass
    And threw her sun-expelling mask away,
    The air hath starv'd the roses in her cheeks
    And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face,
    That now she is become as black as I.
  SILVIA. How tall was she?
  JULIA. About my stature; for at Pentecost,
    When all our pageants of delight were play'd,
    Our youth got me to play the woman's part,
    And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown;
    Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments,
    As if the garment had been made for me;
    Therefore I know she is about my height.
    And at that time I made her weep a good,
    For I did play a lamentable part.
    Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning
    For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight;
    Which I so lively acted with my tears
    That my poor mistress, moved therewithal,
    Wept bitterly; and would I might be dead
    If I in thought felt not her very sorrow.
  SILVIA. She is beholding to thee, gentle youth.
    Alas, poor lady, desolate and left!
    I weep myself, to think upon thy words.
    Here, youth, there is my purse; I give thee this
    For thy sweet mistress' sake, because thou lov'st her.
    Farewell.                        Exit SILVIA with ATTENDANTS
  JULIA. And she shall thank you for't, if e'er you know her.
    A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful!
    I hope my master's suit will be but cold,
    Since she respects my mistress' love so much.
    Alas, how love can trifle with itself!
    Here is her picture; let me see. I think,
    If I had such a tire, this face of mine
    Were full as lovely as is this of hers;
    And yet the painter flatter'd her a little,
    Unless I flatter with myself too much.
    Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow;
    If that be all the difference in his love,
    I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.
    Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine;
    Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high.
    What should it be that he respects in her
    But I can make respective in myself,
    If this fond Love were not a blinded god?
    Come, shadow, come, and take this shadow up,
    For 'tis thy rival. O thou senseless form,
    Thou shalt be worshipp'd, kiss'd, lov'd, and ador'd!
    And were there sense in his idolatry
    My substance should be statue in thy stead.
    I'll use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake,
    That us'd me so; or else, by Jove I vow,
    I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes,
    To make my master out of love with thee.                Exit

ACT V. SCENE I. Milan. An abbey

Enter EGLAMOUR

  EGLAMOUR. The sun begins to gild the western sky,
    And now it is about the very hour
    That Silvia at Friar Patrick's cell should meet me.
    She will not fail, for lovers break not hours
    Unless it be to come before their time,
    So much they spur their expedition.

                         Enter SILVIA

    See where she comes. Lady, a happy evening!
  SILVIA. Amen, amen! Go on, good Eglamour,
    Out at the postern by the abbey wall;
    I fear I am attended by some spies.
  EGLAMOUR. Fear not. The forest is not three leagues off;
    If we recover that, we are sure enough.               Exeunt

SCENE II. Milan. The DUKE'S palace

Enter THURIO, PROTEUS, and JULIA as SEBASTIAN

  THURIO. Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit?
  PROTEUS. O, sir, I find her milder than she was;
    And yet she takes exceptions at your person.
  THURIO. What, that my leg is too long?
  PROTEUS. No; that it is too little.
  THURIO. I'll wear a boot to make it somewhat rounder.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  But love will not be spurr'd to what it loathes.
  THURIO. What says she to my face?
  PROTEUS. She says it is a fair one.
  THURIO. Nay, then, the wanton lies; my face is black.
  PROTEUS. But pearls are fair; and the old saying is:
    Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Tis true, such pearls as put out ladies' eyes;
    For I had rather wink than look on them.
  THURIO. How likes she my discourse?
  PROTEUS. Ill, when you talk of war.
  THURIO. But well when I discourse of love and peace?
  JULIA.  [Aside]  But better, indeed, when you hold your peace.
  THURIO. What says she to my valour?
  PROTEUS. O, sir, she makes no doubt of that.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  She needs not, when she knows it cowardice.
  THURIO. What says she to my birth?
  PROTEUS. That you are well deriv'd.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  True; from a gentleman to a fool.
  THURIO. Considers she my possessions?
  PROTEUS. O, ay; and pities them.
  THURIO. Wherefore?
  JULIA.  [Aside]  That such an ass should owe them.
  PROTEUS. That they are out by lease.
  JULIA. Here comes the Duke.

                          Enter DUKE

  DUKE. How now, Sir Proteus! how now, Thurio!
    Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late?
  THURIO. Not I.
  PROTEUS. Nor I.
  DUKE. Saw you my daughter?
  PROTEUS. Neither.
  DUKE. Why then,
    She's fled unto that peasant Valentine;
    And Eglamour is in her company.
    'Tis true; for Friar Lawrence met them both
    As he in penance wander'd through the forest;
    Him he knew well, and guess'd that it was she,
    But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it;
    Besides, she did intend confession
    At Patrick's cell this even; and there she was not.
    These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence;
    Therefore, I pray you, stand not to discourse,
    But mount you presently, and meet with me
    Upon the rising of the mountain foot
    That leads toward Mantua, whither they are fled.
    Dispatch, sweet gentlemen, and follow me.               Exit
  THURIO. Why, this it is to be a peevish girl
    That flies her fortune when it follows her.
    I'll after, more to be reveng'd on Eglamour
    Than for the love of reckless Silvia.                   Exit
  PROTEUS. And I will follow, more for Silvia's love
    Than hate of Eglamour, that goes with her.              Exit
  JULIA. And I will follow, more to cross that love
    Than hate for Silvia, that is gone for love.            Exit

SCENE III. The frontiers of Mantua. The forest

Enter OUTLAWS with SILVA

  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, come.
    Be patient; we must bring you to our captain.
  SILVIA. A thousand more mischances than this one
    Have learn'd me how to brook this patiently.
  SECOND OUTLAW. Come, bring her away.
  FIRST OUTLAW. Where is the gentleman that was with her?
  SECOND OUTLAW. Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us,
    But Moyses and Valerius follow him.
    Go thou with her to the west end of the wood;
    There is our captain; we'll follow him that's fled.
    The thicket is beset; he cannot 'scape.
  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, I must bring you to our captain's cave;
    Fear not; he bears an honourable mind,
    And will not use a woman lawlessly.
  SILVIA. O Valentine, this I endure for thee!            Exeunt

SCENE IV. Another part of the forest

Enter VALENTINE

  VALENTINE. How use doth breed a habit in a man!
    This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
    I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.
    Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
    And to the nightingale's complaining notes
    Tune my distresses and record my woes.
    O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
    Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,
    Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall
    And leave no memory of what it was!
    Repair me with thy presence, Silvia:
    Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.
    What halloing and what stir is this to-day?
    These are my mates, that make their wills their law,
    Have some unhappy passenger in chase.
    They love me well; yet I have much to do
    To keep them from uncivil outrages.
    Withdraw thee, Valentine. Who's this comes here?
                                                   [Steps aside]

          Enter PROTEUS, SILVIA, and JULIA as Sebastian

  PROTEUS. Madam, this service I have done for you,
    Though you respect not aught your servant doth,
    To hazard life, and rescue you from him
    That would have forc'd your honour and your love.
    Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look;
    A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,
    And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give.
  VALENTINE.  [Aside]  How like a dream is this I see and hear!
    Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.
  SILVIA. O miserable, unhappy that I am!
  PROTEUS. Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;
    But by my coming I have made you happy.
  SILVIA. By thy approach thou mak'st me most unhappy.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  And me, when he approacheth to your presence.
  SILVIA. Had I been seized by a hungry lion,
    I would have been a breakfast to the beast
    Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.
    O, heaven be judge how I love Valentine,
    Whose life's as tender to me as my soul!
    And full as much, for more there cannot be,
    I do detest false, perjur'd Proteus.
    Therefore be gone; solicit me no more.
  PROTEUS. What dangerous action, stood it next to death,
    Would I not undergo for one calm look?
    O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approv'd,
    When women cannot love where they're belov'd!
  SILVIA. When Proteus cannot love where he's belov'd!
    Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love,
    For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith
    Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths
    Descended into perjury, to love me.
    Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou'dst two,
    And that's far worse than none; better have none
    Than plural faith, which is too much by one.
    Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!
  PROTEUS. In love,
    Who respects friend?
  SILVIA. All men but Proteus.
  PROTEUS. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words
    Can no way change you to a milder form,
    I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end,
    And love you 'gainst the nature of love- force ye.
  SILVIA. O heaven!
  PROTEUS. I'll force thee yield to my desire.
  VALENTINE. Ruffian! let go that rude uncivil touch;
    Thou friend of an ill fashion!
  PROTEUS. Valentine!
  VALENTINE. Thou common friend, that's without faith or love-
    For such is a friend now; treacherous man,
    Thou hast beguil'd my hopes; nought but mine eye
    Could have persuaded me. Now I dare not say
    I have one friend alive: thou wouldst disprove me.
    Who should be trusted, when one's own right hand
    Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,
    I am sorry I must never trust thee more,
    But count the world a stranger for thy sake.
    The private wound is deepest. O time most accurst!
    'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!
  PROTEUS. My shame and guilt confounds me.
    Forgive me, Valentine; if hearty sorrow
    Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
    I tender 't here; I do as truly suffer
    As e'er I did commit.
  VALENTINE. Then I am paid;
    And once again I do receive thee honest.
    Who by repentance is not satisfied
    Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleas'd;
    By penitence th' Eternal's wrath's appeas'd.
    And, that my love may appear plain and free,
    All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.
  JULIA. O me unhappy!                                  [Swoons]
  PROTEUS. Look to the boy.
  VALENTINE. Why, boy! why, wag! how now!
    What's the matter? Look up; speak.
  JULIA. O good sir, my master charg'd me to deliver a ring to Madam
    Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never done.
  PROTEUS. Where is that ring, boy?
  JULIA. Here 'tis; this is it.
  PROTEUS. How! let me see. Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.
  JULIA. O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook;
    This is the ring you sent to Silvia.
  PROTEUS. But how cam'st thou by this ring?
    At my depart I gave this unto Julia.
  JULIA. And Julia herself did give it me;
    And Julia herself have brought it hither.
  PROTEUS. How! Julia!
  JULIA. Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,
    And entertain'd 'em deeply in her heart.
    How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root!
    O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!
    Be thou asham'd that I have took upon me
    Such an immodest raiment- if shame live
    In a disguise of love.
    It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,
    Women to change their shapes than men their minds.
  PROTEUS. Than men their minds! 'tis true. O heaven, were man
    But constant, he were perfect! That one error
    Fills him with faults; makes him run through all th' sins:
    Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.
    What is in Silvia's face but I may spy
    More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye?
  VALENTINE. Come, come, a hand from either.
    Let me be blest to make this happy close;
    'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.
  PROTEUS. Bear witness, heaven, I have my wish for ever.
  JULIA. And I mine.

                Enter OUTLAWS, with DUKE and THURIO

  OUTLAW. A prize, a prize, a prize!
  VALENTINE. Forbear, forbear, I say; it is my lord the Duke.
    Your Grace is welcome to a man disgrac'd,
    Banished Valentine.
  DUKE. Sir Valentine!
  THURIO. Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.
  VALENTINE. Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;
    Come not within the measure of my wrath;
    Do not name Silvia thine; if once again,
    Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands
    Take but possession of her with a touch-
    I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.
  THURIO. Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I;
    I hold him but a fool that will endanger
    His body for a girl that loves him not.
    I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.
  DUKE. The more degenerate and base art thou
    To make such means for her as thou hast done
    And leave her on such slight conditions.
    Now, by the honour of my ancestry,
    I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,
    And think thee worthy of an empress' love.
    Know then, I here forget all former griefs,
    Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again,
    Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit,
    To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine,
    Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd;
    Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserv'd her.
  VALENTINE. I thank your Grace; the gift hath made me happy.
    I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake,
    To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.
  DUKE. I grant it for thine own, whate'er it be.
  VALENTINE. These banish'd men, that I have kept withal,
    Are men endu'd with worthy qualities;
    Forgive them what they have committed here,
    And let them be recall'd from their exile:
    They are reformed, civil, full of good,
    And fit for great employment, worthy lord.
  DUKE. Thou hast prevail'd; I pardon them, and thee;
    Dispose of them as thou know'st their deserts.
    Come, let us go; we will include all jars
    With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.
  VALENTINE. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold
    With our discourse to make your Grace to smile.
    What think you of this page, my lord?
  DUKE. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.
  VALENTINE. I warrant you, my lord- more grace than boy.
  DUKE. What mean you by that saying?
  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along,
    That you will wonder what hath fortuned.
    Come, Proteus, 'tis your penance but to hear
    The story of your loves discovered.
    That done, our day of marriage shall be yours;
    One feast, one house, one mutual happiness!     Exeunt

THE END



THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN:

Presented at the Blackfriers by the Kings Maiesties servants, with
great applause:

Written by the memorable Worthies of their time;

Mr John Fletcher, Gent., and
Mr William Shakspeare, Gent.

Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, for John Waterson: and are to be sold
at the signe of the Crowne in Pauls Church-yard. 1634.

(The Persons represented in the Play.

Hymen,
Theseus,
Hippolita, Bride to Theseus
Emelia, Sister to Theseus
[Emelia's Woman],
Nymphs,
Three Queens,
Three valiant Knights,
Palamon, and
Arcite, The two Noble Kinsmen, in love with fair Emelia
[Valerius],
Perithous,
[A Herald],
[A Gentleman],
[A Messenger],
[A Servant],
[Wooer],
[Keeper],
Jaylor,
His Daughter, in love with Palamon
[His brother],
[A Doctor],
[4] Countreymen,
[2 Friends of the Jaylor],
[3 Knights],
[Nel, and other]
Wenches,
A Taborer,
Gerrold, A Schoolmaster.)

PROLOGUE.

[Florish.]

New Playes, and Maydenheads, are neare a kin,
Much follow'd both, for both much mony g'yn,
If they stand sound, and well: And a good Play
(Whose modest Sceanes blush on his marriage day,
And shake to loose his honour) is like hir
That after holy Tye and first nights stir
Yet still is Modestie, and still retaines
More of the maid to sight, than Husbands paines;
We pray our Play may be so; For I am sure
It has a noble Breeder, and a pure,
A learned, and a Poet never went
More famous yet twixt Po and silver Trent:
Chaucer (of all admir'd) the Story gives,
There constant to Eternity it lives.
If we let fall the Noblenesse of this,
And the first sound this child heare, be a hisse,
How will it shake the bones of that good man,
And make him cry from under ground, 'O fan
From me the witles chaffe of such a wrighter
That blastes my Bayes, and my fam'd workes makes lighter
Then Robin Hood!'  This is the feare we bring;
For to say Truth, it were an endlesse thing,
And too ambitious, to aspire to him,
Weake as we are, and almost breathlesse swim
In this deepe water.  Do but you hold out
Your helping hands, and we shall take about,
And something doe to save us: You shall heare
Sceanes, though below his Art, may yet appeare
Worth two houres travell.  To his bones sweet sleepe:
Content to you.  If this play doe not keepe
A little dull time from us, we perceave
Our losses fall so thicke, we must needs leave.  [Florish.]

ACT I

SCENE 1. (Athens.  Before a temple.)

[Enter Hymen with a Torch burning: a Boy, in a white Robe before
 singing, and strewing Flowres: After Hymen, a Nimph, encompast
in
 her Tresses, bearing a wheaten Garland.  Then Theseus betweene
 two other Nimphs with wheaten Chaplets on their heades.  Then
 Hipolita the Bride, lead by Pirithous, and another holding a
 Garland over her head (her Tresses likewise hanging.)  After
 her Emilia holding up her Traine.  (Artesius and Attendants.)]

The Song,  [Musike.]

Roses their sharpe spines being gon,
Not royall in their smels alone,
But in their hew.
Maiden Pinckes, of odour faint,
Dazies smel-lesse, yet most quaint
And sweet Time true.

Prim-rose first borne child of Ver,
Merry Spring times Herbinger,
With her bels dimme.
Oxlips, in their Cradles growing,
Mary-golds, on death beds blowing,
Larkes-heeles trymme.

All deere natures children sweete,
Ly fore Bride and Bridegroomes feete,  [Strew Flowers.]
Blessing their sence.
Not an angle of the aire,
Bird melodious, or bird faire,
Is absent hence.

The Crow, the slaundrous Cuckoe, nor
The boding Raven, nor Chough hore
Nor chattring Pie,
May on our Bridehouse pearch or sing,
Or with them any discord bring,
But from it fly.

[Enter 3. Queenes in Blacke, with vailes staind, with imperiall
 Crownes.  The 1. Queene fals downe at the foote of Theseus; The
 2. fals downe at the foote of Hypolita.  The 3. before Emilia.]

1. QUEEN.
For pitties sake and true gentilities,
Heare, and respect me.

2. QUEEN.
For your Mothers sake,
And as you wish your womb may thrive with faire ones,
Heare and respect me.

3. QUEEN
Now for the love of him whom Iove hath markd
The honour of your Bed, and for the sake
Of cleere virginity, be Advocate
For us, and our distresses.  This good deede
Shall raze you out o'th Booke of Trespasses
All you are set downe there.

THESEUS.
Sad Lady, rise.

HIPPOLITA.
Stand up.

EMILIA.
No knees to me.
What woman I may steed that is distrest,
Does bind me to her.

THESEUS.
What's your request?  Deliver you for all.

1. QUEEN.
We are 3. Queenes, whose Soveraignes fel before
The wrath of cruell Creon; who endured
The Beakes of Ravens, Tallents of the Kights,
And pecks of Crowes, in the fowle feilds of Thebs.
He will not suffer us to burne their bones,
To urne their ashes, nor to take th' offence
Of mortall loathsomenes from the blest eye
Of holy Phoebus, but infects the windes
With stench of our slaine Lords.  O pitty, Duke:
Thou purger of the earth, draw thy feard Sword
That does good turnes to'th world; give us the Bones
Of our dead Kings, that we may Chappell them;
And of thy boundles goodnes take some note
That for our crowned heades we have no roofe,
Save this which is the Lyons, and the Beares,
And vault to every thing.

THESEUS.
Pray you, kneele not:
I was transported with your Speech, and suffer'd
Your knees to wrong themselves; I have heard the fortunes
Of your dead Lords, which gives me such lamenting
As wakes my vengeance, and revenge for'em,
King Capaneus was your Lord: the day
That he should marry you, at such a season,
As now it is with me, I met your Groome,
By Marsis Altar; you were that time faire,
Not Iunos Mantle fairer then your Tresses,
Nor in more bounty spread her.  Your wheaten wreathe
Was then nor threashd, nor blasted; Fortune at you
Dimpled her Cheeke with smiles: Hercules our kinesman
(Then weaker than your eies) laide by his Club,
He tumbled downe upon his Nemean hide
And swore his sinews thawd: O greife, and time,
Fearefull consumers, you will all devoure.

1. QUEEN.
O, I hope some God,
Some God hath put his mercy in your manhood
Whereto heel infuse powre, and presse you forth
Our undertaker.

THESEUS.
O no knees, none, Widdow,
Vnto the Helmeted Belona use them,
And pray for me your Souldier.
Troubled I am.  [turnes away.]

2. QUEEN.
Honoured Hypolita,
Most dreaded Amazonian, that hast slaine
The Sith-tuskd Bore; that with thy Arme as strong
As it is white, wast neere to make the male
To thy Sex captive, but that this thy Lord,
Borne to uphold Creation in that honour
First nature stilde it in, shrunke thee into
The bownd thou wast ore-flowing, at once subduing
Thy force, and thy affection: Soldiresse
That equally canst poize sternenes with pitty,
Whom now I know hast much more power on him
Then ever he had on thee, who ow'st his strength
And his Love too, who is a Servant for
The Tenour of thy Speech: Deere Glasse of Ladies,
Bid him that we, whom flaming war doth scortch,
Vnder the shaddow of his Sword may coole us:
Require him he advance it ore our heades;
Speak't in a womans key: like such a woman
As any of us three; weepe ere you faile;
Lend us a knee;
But touch the ground for us no longer time
Then a Doves motion, when the head's pluckt off:
Tell him if he i'th blood cizd field lay swolne,
Showing the Sun his Teeth, grinning at the Moone,
What you would doe.

HIPPOLITA.
Poore Lady, say no more:
I had as leife trace this good action with you
As that whereto I am going, and never yet
Went I so willing way.  My Lord is taken
Hart deepe with your distresse: Let him consider:
Ile speake anon.

3. QUEEN.
O my petition was  [kneele to Emilia.]
Set downe in yce, which by hot greefe uncandied
Melts into drops, so sorrow, wanting forme,
Is prest with deeper matter.

EMILIA.
Pray stand up,
Your greefe is written in your cheeke.

3. QUEEN.
O woe,
You cannot reade it there, there through my teares—
Like wrinckled peobles in a glassie streame
You may behold 'em.  Lady, Lady, alacke,
He that will all the Treasure know o'th earth
Must know the Center too; he that will fish
For my least minnow, let him lead his line
To catch one at my heart.  O pardon me:
Extremity, that sharpens sundry wits,
Makes me a Foole.

EMILIA.
Pray you say nothing, pray you:
Who cannot feele nor see the raine, being in't,
Knowes neither wet nor dry: if that you were
The ground-peece of some Painter, I would buy you
T'instruct me gainst a Capitall greefe indeed—
Such heart peirc'd demonstration; but, alas,
Being a naturall Sifter of our Sex
Your sorrow beates so ardently upon me,
That it shall make a counter reflect gainst
My Brothers heart, and warme it to some pitty,
Though it were made of stone: pray, have good comfort.

THESEUS.
Forward to'th Temple, leave not out a Iot
O'th sacred Ceremony.

1. QUEEN.
O, This Celebration
Will long last, and be more costly then
Your Suppliants war: Remember that your Fame
Knowles in the eare o'th world: what you doe quickly
Is not done rashly; your first thought is more
Then others laboured meditance: your premeditating
More then their actions: But, oh Iove! your actions,
Soone as they mooves, as Asprayes doe the fish,
Subdue before they touch: thinke, deere Duke, thinke
What beds our slaine Kings have.

2. QUEEN.
What greifes our beds,
That our deere Lords have none.

3. QUEEN.
None fit for 'th dead:
Those that with Cordes, Knives, drams precipitance,
Weary of this worlds light, have to themselves
Beene deathes most horrid Agents, humaine grace
Affords them dust and shaddow.

1. QUEEN.
But our Lords
Ly blistring fore the visitating Sunne,
And were good Kings, when living.

THESEUS.
It is true, and I will give you comfort,
To give your dead Lords graves: the which to doe,
Must make some worke with Creon.

1. QUEEN.
And that worke presents it selfe to'th doing:
Now twill take forme, the heates are gone to morrow.
Then, booteles toyle must recompence it selfe
With it's owne sweat; Now he's secure,
Not dreames we stand before your puissance
Wrinching our holy begging in our eyes
To make petition cleere.

2. QUEEN.
Now you may take him, drunke with his victory.

3. QUEEN.
And his Army full of Bread, and sloth.

THESEUS.
Artesius, that best knowest
How to draw out fit to this enterprise
The prim'st for this proceeding, and the number
To carry such a businesse, forth and levy
Our worthiest Instruments, whilst we despatch
This grand act of our life, this daring deede
Of Fate in wedlocke.

1. QUEEN.
Dowagers, take hands;
Let us be Widdowes to our woes: delay
Commends us to a famishing hope.

ALL.
Farewell.

2. QUEEN.
We come unseasonably: But when could greefe
Cull forth, as unpanged judgement can, fit'st time
For best solicitation.

THESEUS.
Why, good Ladies,
This is a service, whereto I am going,
Greater then any was; it more imports me
Then all the actions that I have foregone,
Or futurely can cope.

1. QUEEN.
The more proclaiming
Our suit shall be neglected: when her Armes
Able to locke Iove from a Synod, shall
By warranting Moone-light corslet thee, oh, when
Her twyning Cherries shall their sweetnes fall
Vpon thy tastefull lips, what wilt thou thinke
Of rotten Kings or blubberd Queenes, what care
For what thou feelst not? what thou feelst being able
To make Mars spurne his Drom.  O, if thou couch
But one night with her, every howre in't will
Take hostage of thee for a hundred, and
Thou shalt remember nothing more then what
That Banket bids thee too.

HIPPOLITA.
Though much unlike  [Kneeling.]
You should be so transported, as much sorry
I should be such a Suitour; yet I thinke,
Did I not by th'abstayning of my joy,
Which breeds a deeper longing, cure their surfeit
That craves a present medcine, I should plucke
All Ladies scandall on me.  Therefore, Sir,
As I shall here make tryall of my prayres,
Either presuming them to have some force,
Or sentencing for ay their vigour dombe:
Prorogue this busines we are going about, and hang
Your Sheild afore your Heart, about that necke
Which is my ffee, and which I freely lend
To doe these poore Queenes service.

ALL QUEENS.
Oh helpe now,
Our Cause cries for your knee.

EMILIA.
If you grant not  [Kneeling.]
My Sister her petition in that force,
With that Celerity and nature, which
Shee makes it in, from henceforth ile not dare
To aske you any thing, nor be so hardy
Ever to take a Husband.

THESEUS.
Pray stand up.
I am entreating of my selfe to doe
That which you kneele to have me.  Pyrithous,
Leade on the Bride; get you and pray the Gods
For successe, and returne; omit not any thing
In the pretended Celebration.  Queenes,
Follow your Soldier.  As before, hence you  [to Artesius]
And at the banckes of Aulis meete us with
The forces you can raise, where we shall finde
The moytie of a number, for a busines
More bigger look't.  Since that our Theame is haste,
I stamp this kisse upon thy currant lippe;
Sweete, keepe it as my Token.  Set you forward,
For I will see you gone.  [Exeunt towards the Temple.]
Farewell, my beauteous Sister: Pyrithous,
Keepe the feast full, bate not an howre on't.

PERITHOUS.
Sir,
Ile follow you at heeles; The Feasts solempnity
Shall want till your returne.

THESEUS.
Cosen, I charge you
Boudge not from Athens; We shall be returning
Ere you can end this Feast, of which, I pray you,
Make no abatement; once more, farewell all.

1. QUEEN.
Thus do'st thou still make good the tongue o'th world.

2. QUEEN.
And earnst a Deity equal with Mars.

3. QUEEN.
If not above him, for
Thou being but mortall makest affections bend
To Godlike honours; they themselves, some say,
Grone under such a Mastry.

THESEUS.
As we are men,
Thus should we doe; being sensually subdude,
We loose our humane tytle.  Good cheere, Ladies.  [Florish.]
Now turne we towards your Comforts.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 2.  (Thebs).

[Enter Palamon, and Arcite.]

ARCITE.
Deere Palamon, deerer in love then Blood
And our prime Cosen, yet unhardned in
The Crimes of nature; Let us leave the Citty
Thebs, and the temptings in't, before we further
Sully our glosse of youth:
And here to keepe in abstinence we shame
As in Incontinence; for not to swim
I'th aide o'th Current were almost to sincke,
At least to frustrate striving, and to follow
The common Streame, twold bring us to an Edy
Where we should turne or drowne; if labour through,
Our gaine but life, and weakenes.

PALAMON.
Your advice
Is cride up with example: what strange ruins
Since first we went to Schoole, may we perceive
Walking in Thebs?  Skars, and bare weedes
The gaine o'th Martialist, who did propound
To his bold ends honour, and golden Ingots,
Which though he won, he had not, and now flurted
By peace for whom he fought: who then shall offer
To Marsis so scornd Altar? I doe bleede
When such I meete, and wish great Iuno would
Resume her ancient fit of Ielouzie
To get the Soldier worke, that peace might purge
For her repletion, and retaine anew
Her charitable heart now hard, and harsher
Then strife or war could be.

ARCITE.
Are you not out?
Meete you no ruine but the Soldier in
The Cranckes and turnes of Thebs? you did begin
As if you met decaies of many kindes:
Perceive you none, that doe arowse your pitty
But th'un-considerd Soldier?

PALAMON.
Yes, I pitty
Decaies where ere I finde them, but such most
That, sweating in an honourable Toyle,
Are paide with yce to coole 'em.

ARCITE.
Tis not this
I did begin to speake of: This is vertue
Of no respect in Thebs; I spake of Thebs
How dangerous if we will keepe our Honours,
It is for our resyding, where every evill
Hath a good cullor; where eve'ry seeming good's
A certaine evill, where not to be ev'n Iumpe
As they are, here were to be strangers, and
Such things to be, meere Monsters.

PALAMON.
Tis in our power,
(Vnlesse we feare that Apes can Tutor's) to
Be Masters of our manners: what neede I
Affect anothers gate, which is not catching
Where there is faith, or to be fond upon
Anothers way of speech, when by mine owne
I may be reasonably conceiv'd; sav'd too,
Speaking it truly? why am I bound
By any generous bond to follow him
Followes his Taylor, haply so long untill
The follow'd make pursuit? or let me know,
Why mine owne Barber is unblest, with him
My poore Chinne too, for tis not Cizard iust
To such a Favorites glasse: What Cannon is there
That does command my Rapier from my hip
To dangle't in my hand, or to go tip toe
Before the streete be foule?  Either I am
The fore-horse in the Teame, or I am none
That draw i'th sequent trace: these poore sleight sores
Neede not a plantin; That which rips my bosome
Almost to'th heart's—

ARCITE.
Our Vncle Creon.

PALAMON.
He,
A most unbounded Tyrant, whose successes
Makes heaven unfeard, and villany assured
Beyond its power there's nothing, almost puts
Faith in a feavour, and deifies alone
Voluble chance; who onely attributes
The faculties of other Instruments
To his owne Nerves and act; Commands men service,
And what they winne in't, boot and glory; on(e)
That feares not to do harm; good, dares not; Let
The blood of mine that's sibbe to him be suckt
From me with Leeches; Let them breake and fall
Off me with that corruption.

ARCITE.
Cleere spirited Cozen,
Lets leave his Court, that we may nothing share
Of his lowd infamy: for our milke
Will relish of the pasture, and we must
Be vile or disobedient, not his kinesmen
In blood, unlesse in quality.

PALAMON.
Nothing truer:
I thinke the Ecchoes of his shames have dea'ft
The eares of heav'nly Iustice: widdows cryes
Descend againe into their throates, and have not

[enter Valerius.]

Due audience of the Gods.—Valerius!

VALERIUS.
The King cals for you; yet be leaden footed,
Till his great rage be off him.  Phebus, when
He broke his whipstocke and exclaimd against
The Horses of the Sun, but whisperd too
The lowdenesse of his Fury.

PALAMON.
Small windes shake him:
But whats the matter?

VALERIUS.
Theseus (who where he threates appals,) hath sent
Deadly defyance to him, and pronounces
Ruine to Thebs; who is at hand to seale
The promise of his wrath.

ARCITE.
Let him approach;
But that we feare the Gods in him, he brings not
A jot of terrour to us; Yet what man
Thirds his owne worth (the case is each of ours)
When that his actions dregd with minde assurd
Tis bad he goes about?

PALAMON.
Leave that unreasond.
Our services stand now for Thebs, not Creon,
Yet to be neutrall to him were dishonour;
Rebellious to oppose: therefore we must
With him stand to the mercy of our Fate,
Who hath bounded our last minute.

ARCITE.
So we must.
Ist sed this warres a foote? or it shall be,
On faile of some condition?

VALERIUS.
Tis in motion
The intelligence of state came in the instant
With the defier.

PALAMON.
Lets to the king, who, were he
A quarter carrier of that honour which
His Enemy come in, the blood we venture
Should be as for our health, which were not spent,
Rather laide out for purchase: but, alas,
Our hands advanc'd before our hearts, what will
The fall o'th stroke doe damage?

ARCITE.
Let th'event,
That never erring Arbitratour, tell us
When we know all our selves, and let us follow
The becking of our chance.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 3.  (Before the gates of Athens.)

[Enter Pirithous, Hipolita, Emilia.]

PERITHOUS.
No further.

HIPPOLITA.
Sir, farewell; repeat my wishes
To our great Lord, of whose succes I dare not
Make any timerous question; yet I wish him
Exces and overflow of power, and't might be,
To dure ill-dealing fortune: speede to him,
Store never hurtes good Gouernours.

PERITHOUS.
Though I know
His Ocean needes not my poore drops, yet they
Must yeild their tribute there.  My precious Maide,
Those best affections, that the heavens infuse
In their best temperd peices, keepe enthroand
In your deare heart.

EMILIA.
Thanckes, Sir.  Remember me
To our all royall Brother, for whose speede
The great Bellona ile sollicite; and
Since in our terrene State petitions are not
Without giftes understood, Ile offer to her
What I shall be advised she likes: our hearts
Are in his Army, in his Tent.

HIPPOLITA.
In's bosome:
We have bin Soldiers, and wee cannot weepe
When our Friends don their helmes, or put to sea,
Or tell of Babes broachd on the Launce, or women
That have sod their Infants in (and after eate them)
The brine, they wept at killing 'em; Then if
You stay to see of us such Spincsters, we
Should hold you here for ever.

PERITHOUS.
Peace be to you,
As I pursue this war, which shall be then
Beyond further requiring.  [Exit Pir.]

EMILIA.
How his longing
Followes his Friend! since his depart, his sportes
Though craving seriousnes, and skill, past slightly
His careles execution, where nor gaine
Made him regard, or losse consider; but
Playing one busines in his hand, another
Directing in his head, his minde, nurse equall
To these so diffring Twyns—have you observ'd him,
Since our great Lord departed?

HIPPOLITA.
With much labour,
And I did love him fort: they two have Cabind
In many as dangerous, as poore a Corner,
Perill and want contending; they have skift
Torrents whose roring tyranny and power
I'th least of these was dreadfull, and they have
Fought out together, where Deaths-selfe was lodgd,
Yet fate hath brought them off: Their knot of love,
Tide, weau'd, intangled, with so true, so long,
And with a finger of so deepe a cunning,
May be outworne, never undone.  I thinke
Theseus cannot be umpire to himselfe,
Cleaving his conscience into twaine and doing
Each side like Iustice, which he loves best.

EMILIA.
Doubtlesse
There is a best, and reason has no manners
To say it is not you: I was acquainted
Once with a time, when I enjoyd a Play-fellow;
You were at wars, when she the grave enrichd,
Who made too proud the Bed, tooke leave o th Moone
(Which then lookt pale at parting) when our count
Was each eleven.

HIPPOLITA.
Twas Flaui(n)a.

EMILIA.
Yes.
You talke of Pirithous and Theseus love;
Theirs has more ground, is more maturely seasond,
More buckled with strong Iudgement and their needes
The one of th'other may be said to water  [2. Hearses ready
 with Palamon: and Arcite: the 3. Queenes.  Theseus: and his
 Lordes ready.]
Their intertangled rootes of love; but I
And shee I sigh and spoke of were things innocent,
Lou'd for we did, and like the Elements
That know not what, nor why, yet doe effect
Rare issues by their operance, our soules
Did so to one another; what she lik'd,
Was then of me approov'd, what not, condemd,
No more arraignment; the flowre that I would plucke
And put betweene my breasts (then but beginning
To swell about the blossome) oh, she would long
Till shee had such another, and commit it
To the like innocent Cradle, where Phenix like
They dide in perfume: on my head no toy
But was her patterne; her affections (pretty,
Though, happely, her careles were) I followed
For my most serious decking; had mine eare
Stolne some new aire, or at adventure humd on
From musicall Coynadge, why it was a note
Whereon her spirits would sojourne (rather dwell on)
And sing it in her slumbers.  This rehearsall
(Which ev'ry innocent wots well comes in
Like old importments bastard) has this end,
That the true love tweene Mayde, and mayde, may be
More then in sex idividuall.

HIPPOLITA.
Y'are out of breath
And this high speeded pace, is but to say
That you shall never like the Maide Flavina
Love any that's calld Man.

EMILIA.
I am sure I shall not.

HIPPOLITA.
Now, alacke, weake Sister,
I must no more beleeve thee in this point
(Though in't I know thou dost beleeve thy selfe,)
Then I will trust a sickely appetite,
That loathes even as it longs; but, sure, my Sister,
If I were ripe for your perswasion, you
Have saide enough to shake me from the Arme
Of the all noble Theseus, for whose fortunes
I will now in, and kneele with great assurance,
That we, more then his Pirothous, possesse
The high throne in his heart.

EMILIA.
I am not
Against your faith; yet I continew mine.  [Exeunt. Cornets.]

SCENE 4.  (A field before Thebes.  Dead bodies lying on the ground.)

[A Battaile strooke within: Then a Retrait: Florish.  Then
 Enter Theseus (victor), (Herald and Attendants:) the three
 Queenes meete him, and fall on their faces before him.]

1. QUEEN.
To thee no starre be darke.

2. QUEEN.
Both heaven and earth
Friend thee for ever.

3. QUEEN.
All the good that may
Be wishd upon thy head, I cry Amen too't.

THESEUS.
Th'imparciall Gods, who from the mounted heavens
View us their mortall Heard, behold who erre,
And in their time chastice: goe and finde out
The bones of your dead Lords, and honour them
With treble Ceremonie; rather then a gap
Should be in their deere rights, we would supply't.
But those we will depute, which shall invest
You in your dignities, and even each thing
Our hast does leave imperfect: So, adiew,
And heavens good eyes looke on you.  What are those?  [Exeunt
Queenes.]

HERALD.
Men of great quality, as may be judgd
By their appointment; Sone of Thebs have told's
They are Sisters children, Nephewes to the King.

THESEUS.
By'th Helme of Mars, I saw them in the war,
Like to a paire of Lions, smeard with prey,
Make lanes in troopes agast.  I fixt my note
Constantly on them; for they were a marke
Worth a god's view: what prisoner was't that told me
When I enquired their names?

HERALD.
Wi'leave, they'r called Arcite and Palamon.

THESEUS.
Tis right: those, those.  They are not dead?

HERALD.
Nor in a state of life: had they bin taken,
When their last hurts were given, twas possible  [3. Hearses
ready.]
They might have bin recovered; Yet they breathe
And haue the name of men.

THESEUS.
Then like men use 'em.
The very lees of such (millions of rates)
Exceede the wine of others: all our Surgions
Convent in their behoofe; our richest balmes
Rather then niggard, waft: their lives concerne us
Much more then Thebs is worth: rather then have 'em
Freed of this plight, and in their morning state
(Sound and at liberty) I would 'em dead;
But forty thousand fold we had rather have 'em
Prisoners to us then death.  Beare 'em speedily
From our kinde aire, to them unkinde, and minister
What man to man may doe—for our sake more,
Since I have knowne frights, fury, friends beheastes,
Loves provocations, zeale, a mistris Taske,
Desire of liberty, a feavour, madnes,
Hath set a marke which nature could not reach too
Without some imposition: sicknes in will
Or wrastling strength in reason.  For our Love
And great Appollos mercy, all our best
Their best skill tender.  Leade into the Citty,
Where having bound things scatterd, we will post  [Florish.]
To Athens for(e) our Army  [Exeunt.  Musicke.]

SCENE 5.  (Another part of the same.)

[Enter the Queenes with the Hearses of their Knightes, in a
 Funerall Solempnity, &c.]

Vrnes and odours bring away,
Vapours, sighes, darken the day;
Our dole more deadly lookes than dying;
Balmes, and Gummes, and heavy cheeres,
Sacred vials fill'd with teares,
And clamors through the wild ayre flying.

Come all sad and solempne Showes,
That are quick-eyd pleasures foes;
We convent nought else but woes.
We convent, &c.

3. QUEEN.
This funeral path brings to your housholds grave:
Ioy ceaze on you againe: peace sleepe with him.

2. QUEEN.
And this to yours.

1. QUEEN.
Yours this way: Heavens lend
A thousand differing waies to one sure end.

3. QUEEN.
This world's a Citty full of straying Streetes, And Death's the market
place, where each one meetes.  [Exeunt severally.]

ACT II

SCENE 1.  (Athens.  A garden, with a prison in the background.)

[Enter Iailor, and Wooer.]

IAILOR.
I may depart with little, while I live; some thing I may cast to you,
not much: Alas, the Prison I keepe, though it be for great ones, yet
they seldome come; Before one Salmon, you shall take a number of
Minnowes.  I am given out to be better lyn'd then it can appeare to me
report is a true Speaker: I would I were really that I am deliverd to
be.  Marry, what I have (be it what it will) I will assure upon my
daughter at the day of my death.

WOOER.
Sir, I demaund no more then your owne offer, and I will estate
your
Daughter in what I have promised.

IAILOR.
Wel, we will talke more of this, when the solemnity is past.  But have
you a full promise of her?  When that shall be seene, I tender my
consent.

[Enter Daughter.]

WOOER.
I have Sir; here shee comes.

IAILOR.
Your Friend and I have chanced to name you here, upon the old busines:
But no more of that now; so soone as the Court hurry is over, we will
have an end of it: I'th meane time looke tenderly to the two Prisoners.
 I can tell you they are princes.

DAUGHTER.
These strewings are for their Chamber; tis pitty they are in prison,
and twer pitty they should be out: I doe thinke they have patience to
make any adversity asham'd; the prison it selfe is proud of 'em; and
they have all the world in their Chamber.

IAILOR.
They are fam'd to be a paire of absolute men.

DAUGHTER.
By my troth, I think Fame but stammers 'em; they stand a greise above
the reach of report.

IAILOR.
I heard them reported in the Battaile to be the only doers.

DAUGHTER.
Nay, most likely, for they are noble suffrers; I mervaile how they
would have lookd had they beene Victors, that with such a constant
Nobility enforce a freedome out of Bondage, making misery their Mirth,
and affliction a toy to jest at.

IAILOR.
Doe they so?

DAUGHTER.
It seemes to me they have no more sence of their Captivity, then I of
ruling Athens: they eate well, looke merrily, discourse of many things,
but nothing of their owne restraint, and disasters: yet sometime a
devided sigh, martyrd as 'twer i'th deliverance, will breake from one
of them; when the other presently gives it so sweete a rebuke, that I
could wish my selfe a Sigh to be so chid, or at least a Sigher to be
comforted.

WOOER.
I never saw 'em.

IAILOR.
The Duke himselfe came privately in the night,

[Enter Palamon, and Arcite, above.]

and so did they: what the reason of it is, I know not: Looke, yonder
they are! that's Arcite lookes out.

DAUGHTER.
No, Sir, no, that's Palamon: Arcite is the lower of the twaine; you may
perceive a part of him.

IAILOR.
Goe too, leave your pointing; they would not make us their object; out
of their sight.

DAUGHTER.
It is a holliday to looke on them: Lord, the diffrence of men!
 [Exeunt.]

SCENE 2.  (The prison)

[Enter Palamon, and Arcite in prison.]

PALAMON.
How doe you, Noble Cosen?

ARCITE.
How doe you, Sir?

PALAMON.
Why strong inough to laugh at misery,
And beare the chance of warre, yet we are prisoners,
I feare, for ever, Cosen.

ARCITE.
I beleeve it,
And to that destiny have patiently
Laide up my houre to come.

PALAMON.
O Cosen Arcite,
Where is Thebs now? where is our noble Country?
Where are our friends, and kindreds? never more
Must we behold those comforts, never see
The hardy youthes strive for the Games of honour
(Hung with the painted favours of their Ladies,
Like tall Ships under saile) then start among'st 'em
And as an Eastwind leave 'en all behinde us,
Like lazy Clowdes, whilst Palamon and Arcite,
Even in the wagging of a wanton leg
Out-stript the peoples praises, won the Garlands,
Ere they have time to wish 'em ours.  O never
Shall we two exercise, like Twyns of honour,
Our Armes againe, and feele our fyry horses
Like proud Seas under us: our good Swords now
(Better the red-eyd god of war nev'r wore)
Ravishd our sides, like age must run to rust,
And decke the Temples of those gods that hate us:
These hands shall never draw'em out like lightning,
To blast whole Armies more.

ARCITE.
No, Palamon,
Those hopes are Prisoners with us; here we are
And here the graces of our youthes must wither
Like a too-timely Spring; here age must finde us,
And, which is heaviest, Palamon, unmarried;
The sweete embraces of a loving wife,
Loden with kisses, armd with thousand Cupids
Shall never claspe our neckes, no issue know us,
No figures of our selves shall we ev'r see,
To glad our age, and like young Eagles teach 'em
Boldly to gaze against bright armes, and say:
'Remember what your fathers were, and conquer.'
The faire-eyd Maides, shall weepe our Banishments,
And in their Songs, curse ever-blinded fortune,
Till shee for shame see what a wrong she has done
To youth and nature.  This is all our world;
We shall know nothing here but one another,
Heare nothing but the Clocke that tels our woes.
The Vine shall grow, but we shall never see it:
Sommer shall come, and with her all delights;
But dead-cold winter must inhabite here still.

PALAMON.
Tis too true, Arcite.  To our Theban houndes,
That shooke the aged Forrest with their ecchoes,
No more now must we halloa, no more shake
Our pointed Iavelyns, whilst the angry Swine
Flyes like a parthian quiver from our rages,
Strucke with our well-steeld Darts: All valiant uses
(The foode, and nourishment of noble mindes,)
In us two here shall perish; we shall die
(Which is the curse of honour) lastly
Children of greife, and Ignorance.

ARCITE.
Yet, Cosen,
Even from the bottom of these miseries,
From all that fortune can inflict upon us,
I see two comforts rysing, two meere blessings,
If the gods please: to hold here a brave patience,
And the enjoying of our greefes together.
Whilst Palamon is with me, let me perish
If I thinke this our prison.

PALAMON.
Certeinly,
Tis a maine goodnes, Cosen, that our fortunes
Were twyn'd together; tis most true, two soules
Put in two noble Bodies—let 'em suffer
The gaule of hazard, so they grow together—
Will never sincke; they must not, say they could:
A willing man dies sleeping, and all's done.

ARCITE.
Shall we make worthy uses of this place
That all men hate so much?

PALAMON.
How, gentle Cosen?

ARCITE.
Let's thinke this prison holy sanctuary,
To keepe us from corruption of worse men.
We are young and yet desire the waies of honour,
That liberty and common Conversation,
The poyson of pure spirits, might like women
Wooe us to wander from.  What worthy blessing
Can be but our Imaginations
May make it ours?  And heere being thus together,
We are an endles mine to one another;
We are one anothers wife, ever begetting
New birthes of love; we are father, friends, acquaintance;
We are, in one another, Families,
I am your heire, and you are mine: This place
Is our Inheritance, no hard Oppressour
Dare take this from us; here, with a little patience,
We shall live long, and loving: No surfeits seeke us:
The hand of war hurts none here, nor the Seas
Swallow their youth: were we at liberty,
A wife might part us lawfully, or busines;
Quarrels consume us, Envy of ill men
Grave our acquaintance; I might sicken, Cosen,
Where you should never know it, and so perish
Without your noble hand to close mine eies,
Or praiers to the gods: a thousand chaunces,
Were we from hence, would seaver us.

PALAMON.
You have made me
(I thanke you, Cosen Arcite) almost wanton
With my Captivity: what a misery
It is to live abroade, and every where!
Tis like a Beast, me thinkes: I finde the Court here—
I am sure, a more content; and all those pleasures
That wooe the wils of men to vanity,
I see through now, and am sufficient
To tell the world, tis but a gaudy shaddow,
That old Time, as he passes by, takes with him.
What had we bin, old in the Court of Creon,
Where sin is Iustice, lust and ignorance
The vertues of the great ones! Cosen Arcite,
Had not the loving gods found this place for us,
We had died as they doe, ill old men, unwept,
And had their Epitaphes, the peoples Curses:
Shall I say more?

ARCITE.
I would heare you still.

PALAMON.
Ye shall.
Is there record of any two that lov'd
Better then we doe, Arcite?

ARCITE.
Sure, there cannot.

PALAMON.
I doe not thinke it possible our friendship
Should ever leave us.

ARCITE.
Till our deathes it cannot;

[Enter Emilia and her woman (below).]

And after death our spirits shall be led
To those that love eternally.  Speake on, Sir.

EMILIA.
This garden has a world of pleasures in't.
What Flowre is this?

WOMAN.
Tis calld Narcissus, Madam.

EMILIA.
That was a faire Boy, certaine, but a foole,
To love himselfe; were there not maides enough?

ARCITE.
Pray forward.

PALAMON.
Yes.

EMILIA.
Or were they all hard hearted?

WOMAN.
They could not be to one so faire.

EMILIA.
Thou wouldst not.

WOMAN.
I thinke I should not, Madam.

EMILIA.
That's a good wench:
But take heede to your kindnes though.

WOMAN.
Why, Madam?

EMILIA.
Men are mad things.

ARCITE.
Will ye goe forward, Cosen?

EMILIA.
Canst not thou worke such flowers in silke, wench?

WOMAN.
Yes.

EMILIA.
Ile have a gowne full of 'em, and of these;
This is a pretty colour, wilt not doe
Rarely upon a Skirt, wench?

WOMAN.
Deinty, Madam.

ARCITE.
Cosen, Cosen, how doe you, Sir?  Why, Palamon?

PALAMON.
Never till now I was in prison, Arcite.

ARCITE.
Why whats the matter, Man?

PALAMON.
Behold, and wonder.
By heaven, shee is a Goddesse.

ARCITE.
Ha.

PALAMON.
Doe reverence.  She is a Goddesse, Arcite.

EMILIA.
Of all Flowres, me thinkes a Rose is best.

WOMAN.
Why, gentle Madam?

EMILIA.
It is the very Embleme of a Maide.
For when the west wind courts her gently,
How modestly she blowes, and paints the Sun,
With her chaste blushes!  When the North comes neere her,
Rude and impatient, then, like Chastity,
Shee lockes her beauties in her bud againe,
And leaves him to base briers.

WOMAN.
Yet, good Madam,
Sometimes her modesty will blow so far
She fals for't: a Mayde,
If shee have any honour, would be loth
To take example by her.

EMILIA.
Thou art wanton.

ARCITE.
She is wondrous faire.

PALAMON.
She is beauty extant.

EMILIA.
The Sun grows high, lets walk in: keep these flowers;
Weele see how neere Art can come neere their colours.
I am wondrous merry hearted, I could laugh now.

WOMAN.
I could lie downe, I am sure.

EMILIA.
And take one with you?

WOMAN.
That's as we bargaine, Madam.

EMILIA.
Well, agree then.  [Exeunt Emilia and woman.]

PALAMON.
What thinke you of this beauty?

ARCITE.
Tis a rare one.

PALAMON.
Is't but a rare one?

ARCITE.
Yes, a matchles beauty.

PALAMON.
Might not a man well lose himselfe and love her?

ARCITE.
I cannot tell what you have done, I have;
Beshrew mine eyes for't: now I feele my Shackles.

PALAMON.
You love her, then?

ARCITE.
Who would not?

PALAMON.
And desire her?

ARCITE.
Before my liberty.

PALAMON.
I saw her first.

ARCITE.
That's nothing.

PALAMON.
But it shall be.

ARCITE.
I saw her too.

PALAMON.
Yes, but you must not love her.

ARCITE.
I will not as you doe, to worship her,
As she is heavenly, and a blessed Goddes;
I love her as a woman, to enjoy her:
So both may love.

PALAMON.
You shall not love at all.

ARCITE.
Not love at all!
Who shall deny me?

PALAMON.
I, that first saw her; I, that tooke possession
First with mine eyes of all those beauties
In her reveald to mankinde: if thou lou'st her,
Or entertain'st a hope to blast my wishes,
Thou art a Traytour, Arcite, and a fellow
False as thy Title to her: friendship, blood,
And all the tyes betweene us I disclaime,
If thou once thinke upon her.

ARCITE.
Yes, I love her,
And if the lives of all my name lay on it,
I must doe so; I love her with my soule:
If that will lose ye, farewell, Palamon;
I say againe, I love, and in loving her maintaine
I am as worthy and as free a lover,
And have as just a title to her beauty
As any Palamon or any living
That is a mans Sonne.

PALAMON.
Have I cald thee friend?

ARCITE.
Yes, and have found me so; why are you mov'd thus?
Let me deale coldly with you: am not I
Part of your blood, part of your soule? you have told me
That I was Palamon, and you were Arcite.

PALAMON.
Yes.

ARCITE.
Am not I liable to those affections,
Those joyes, greifes, angers, feares, my friend shall suffer?

PALAMON.
Ye may be.

ARCITE.
Why, then, would you deale so cunningly,
So strangely, so vnlike a noble kinesman,
To love alone? speake truely: doe you thinke me
Vnworthy of her sight?

PALAMON.
No; but unjust,
If thou pursue that sight.

ARCITE.
Because an other
First sees the Enemy, shall I stand still
And let mine honour downe, and never charge?

PALAMON.
Yes, if he be but one.

ARCITE.
But say that one
Had rather combat me?

PALAMON.
Let that one say so,
And use thy freedome; els if thou pursuest her,
Be as that cursed man that hates his Country,
A branded villaine.

ARCITE.
You are mad.

PALAMON.
I must be,
Till thou art worthy, Arcite; it concernes me,
And in this madnes, if I hazard thee
And take thy life, I deale but truely.

ARCITE.
Fie, Sir,
You play the Childe extreamely: I will love her,
I must, I ought to doe so, and I dare;
And all this justly.

PALAMON.
O that now, that now
Thy false-selfe and thy friend had but this fortune,
To be one howre at liberty, and graspe
Our good Swords in our hands! I would quickly teach thee
What 'twer to filch affection from another:
Thou art baser in it then a Cutpurse;
Put but thy head out of this window more,
And as I have a soule, Ile naile thy life too't.

ARCITE.
Thou dar'st not, foole, thou canst not, thou art feeble.
Put my head out?  Ile throw my Body out,
And leape the garden, when I see her next

[Enter Keeper.]

And pitch between her armes to anger thee.

PALAMON.
No more; the keeper's comming; I shall live
To knocke thy braines out with my Shackles.

ARCITE.
Doe.

KEEPER.
By your leave, Gentlemen—

PALAMON.
Now, honest keeper?

KEEPER.
Lord Arcite, you must presently to'th Duke;
The cause I know not yet.

ARCITE.
I am ready, keeper.

KEEPER.
Prince Palamon, I must awhile bereave you
Of your faire Cosens Company.  [Exeunt Arcite, and Keeper.]

PALAMON.
And me too,
Even when you please, of life.  Why is he sent for?
It may be he shall marry her; he's goodly,
And like enough the Duke hath taken notice
Both of his blood and body: But his falsehood!
Why should a friend be treacherous?  If that
Get him a wife so noble, and so faire,
Let honest men ne're love againe.  Once more
I would but see this faire One.  Blessed Garden,
And fruite, and flowers more blessed, that still blossom
As her bright eies shine on ye! would I were,
For all the fortune of my life hereafter,
Yon little Tree, yon blooming Apricocke;
How I would spread, and fling my wanton armes
In at her window; I would bring her fruite
Fit for the Gods to feed on: youth and pleasure
Still as she tasted should be doubled on her,
And if she be not heavenly, I would make her
So neere the Gods in nature, they should feare her,

[Enter Keeper.]

And then I am sure she would love me.  How now, keeper.
Wher's Arcite?

KEEPER.
Banishd: Prince Pirithous
Obtained his liberty; but never more
Vpon his oth and life must he set foote
Vpon this Kingdome.

PALAMON.
Hees a blessed man!
He shall see Thebs againe, and call to Armes
The bold yong men, that, when he bids 'em charge,
Fall on like fire: Arcite shall have a Fortune,
If he dare make himselfe a worthy Lover,
Yet in the Feild to strike a battle for her;
And if he lose her then, he's a cold Coward;
How bravely may he beare himselfe to win her
If he be noble Arcite—thousand waies.
Were I at liberty, I would doe things
Of such a vertuous greatnes, that this Lady,
This blushing virgine, should take manhood to her
And seeke to ravish me.

KEEPER.
My Lord for you
I have this charge too—

PALAMON.
To discharge my life?

KEEPER.
No, but from this place to remoove your Lordship:
The windowes are too open.

PALAMON.
Devils take 'em,
That are so envious to me! pre'thee kill me.

KEEPER.
And hang for't afterward.

PALAMON.
By this good light,
Had I a sword I would kill thee.

KEEPER.
Why, my Lord?

PALAMON.
Thou bringst such pelting scuruy news continually
Thou art not worthy life.  I will not goe.

KEEPER.
Indeede, you must, my Lord.

PALAMON.
May I see the garden?

KEEPER.
Noe.

PALAMON.
Then I am resolud, I will not goe.

KEEPER.
I must constraine you then: and for you are dangerous,
Ile clap more yrons on you.

PALAMON.
Doe, good keeper.
Ile shake 'em so, ye shall not sleepe;
Ile make ye a new Morrisse: must I goe?

KEEPER.
There is no remedy.

PALAMON.
Farewell, kinde window.
May rude winde never hurt thee.  O, my Lady,
If ever thou hast felt what sorrow was,
Dreame how I suffer.  Come; now bury me.  [Exeunt Palamon, and
Keeper.]

SCENE 3.  (The country near Athens.

[Enter Arcite.]

ARCITE.
Banishd the kingdome? tis a benefit,
A mercy I must thanke 'em for, but banishd
The free enjoying of that face I die for,
Oh twas a studdied punishment, a death
Beyond Imagination: Such a vengeance
That, were I old and wicked, all my sins
Could never plucke upon me.  Palamon,
Thou ha'st the Start now, thou shalt stay and see
Her bright eyes breake each morning gainst thy window,
And let in life into thee; thou shalt feede
Vpon the sweetenes of a noble beauty,
That nature nev'r exceeded, nor nev'r shall:
Good gods! what happines has Palamon!
Twenty to one, hee'le come to speake to her,
And if she be as gentle as she's faire,
I know she's his; he has a Tongue will tame
Tempests, and make the wild Rockes wanton.
Come what can come,
The worst is death; I will not leave the Kingdome.
I know mine owne is but a heape of ruins,
And no redresse there; if I goe, he has her.
I am resolu'd an other shape shall make me,
Or end my fortunes.  Either way, I am happy:
Ile see her, and be neere her, or no more.

[Enter 4. Country people, & one with a garlond before them.]

1. COUNTREYMAN
My Masters, ile be there, that's certaine

2. COUNTREYMAN
And Ile be there.

3. COUNTREYMAN
And I.

4. COUNTREYMAN
Why, then, have with ye, Boyes; Tis but a chiding.
Let the plough play to day, ile tick'lt out
Of the Iades tailes to morrow.

1. COUNTREYMAN
I am sure
To have my wife as jealous as a Turkey:
But that's all one; ile goe through, let her mumble.

2. COUNTREYMAN
Clap her aboard to morrow night, and stoa her,
And all's made up againe.

3. COUNTREYMAN
I, doe but put a feskue in her fist, and you shall see her
Take a new lesson out, and be a good wench.
Doe we all hold against the Maying?

4. COUNTREYMAN
Hold? what should aile us?

3. COUNTREYMAN
Arcas will be there.

2. COUNTREYMAN
And Sennois.
And Rycas, and 3. better lads nev'r dancd
Under green Tree.  And yee know what wenches: ha?
But will the dainty Domine, the Schoolemaster,
Keep touch, doe you thinke? for he do's all, ye know.

3. COUNTREYMAN
Hee'l eate a hornebooke ere he faile: goe too, the matter's too farre
driven betweene him and the Tanners daughter, to let slip now, and she
must see the Duke, and she must daunce too.

4. COUNTREYMAN
Shall we be lusty?

2. COUNTREYMAN
All the Boyes in Athens blow wind i'th breech on's, and heere ile be
and there ile be, for our Towne, and here againe, and there againe: ha,
Boyes, heigh for the weavers.

1. COUNTREYMAN
This must be done i'th woods.

4. COUNTREYMAN
O, pardon me.

2. COUNTREYMAN
By any meanes, our thing of learning saies so:
Where he himselfe will edifie the Duke
Most parlously in our behalfes: hees excellent i'th woods;
Bring him to'th plaines, his learning makes no cry.

3. COUNTREYMAN
Weele see the sports, then; every man to's Tackle:
And, Sweete Companions, lets rehearse by any meanes,
Before the Ladies see us, and doe sweetly,
And God knows what May come on't.

4. COUNTREYMAN
Content; the sports once ended, wee'l performe.
Away, Boyes and hold.

ARCITE.
By your leaves, honest friends: pray you, whither goe you?

4. COUNTREYMAN
Whither? why, what a question's that?

ARCITE.
Yes, tis a question, to me that know not.

3. COUNTREYMAN
To the Games, my Friend.

2. COUNTREYMAN
Where were you bred, you know it not?

ARCITE.
Not farre, Sir,
Are there such Games to day?

1. COUNTREYMAN
Yes, marry, are there:
And such as you neuer saw; The Duke himselfe
Will be in person there.

ARCITE.
What pastimes are they?

2. COUNTREYMAN
Wrastling, and Running.—Tis a pretty Fellow.

3. COUNTREYMAN
Thou wilt not goe along?

ARCITE.
Not yet, Sir.

4. COUNTREYMAN
Well, Sir,
Take your owne time: come, Boyes.

1. COUNTREYMAN
My minde misgives me;
This fellow has a veng'ance tricke o'th hip:
Marke how his Bodi's made for't

2. COUNTREYMAN
Ile be hangd, though,
If he dare venture; hang him, plumb porredge,
He wrastle? he rost eggs! Come, lets be gon, Lads.  [Exeunt.]

ARCITE.
This is an offerd oportunity
I durst not wish for.  Well I could have wrestled,
The best men calld it excellent, and run—
Swifter the winde upon a feild of Corne
(Curling the wealthy eares) never flew: Ile venture,
And in some poore disguize be there; who knowes
Whether my browes may not be girt with garlands?
And happines preferre me to a place,
Where I may ever dwell in sight of her.  [Exit Arcite.]

SCENE 4.  (Athens.  A room in the prison.)

[Enter Iailors Daughter alone.]

DAUGHTER.
Why should I love this Gentleman?  Tis odds
He never will affect me; I am base,
My Father the meane Keeper of his Prison,
And he a prince: To marry him is hopelesse;
To be his whore is witles.  Out upon't,
What pushes are we wenches driven to,
When fifteene once has found us!  First, I saw him;
I (seeing) thought he was a goodly man;
He has as much to please a woman in him,
(If he please to bestow it so) as ever
These eyes yet lookt on.  Next, I pittied him,
And so would any young wench, o' my Conscience,
That ever dream'd, or vow'd her Maydenhead
To a yong hansom Man; Then I lov'd him,
Extreamely lov'd him, infinitely lov'd him;
And yet he had a Cosen, faire as he too.
But in my heart was Palamon, and there,
Lord, what a coyle he keepes!  To heare him
Sing in an evening, what a heaven it is!
And yet his Songs are sad ones.  Fairer spoken
Was never Gentleman.  When I come in
To bring him water in a morning, first
He bowes his noble body, then salutes me, thus:
'Faire, gentle Mayde, good morrow; may thy goodnes
Get thee a happy husband.'  Once he kist me.
I lov'd my lips the better ten daies after.
Would he would doe so ev'ry day!  He greives much,
And me as much to see his misery.
What should I doe, to make him know I love him?
For I would faine enjoy him.  Say I ventur'd
To set him free? what saies the law then?  Thus much
For Law, or kindred!  I will doe it,
And this night, or to morrow, he shall love me.  [Exit.]

SCENE 5.  (An open place in Athens.)

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Pirithous, Emilia: Arcite with a
Garland, &c.]

[This short florish of Cornets and Showtes within.]

THESEUS.
You have done worthily; I have not seene,
Since Hercules, a man of tougher synewes;
What ere you are, you run the best, and wrastle,
That these times can allow.

ARCITE.
I am proud to please you.

THESEUS.
What Countrie bred you?

ARCITE.
This; but far off, Prince.

THESEUS.
Are you a Gentleman?

ARCITE.
My father said so;
And to those gentle uses gave me life.

THESEUS.
Are you his heire?

ARCITE.
His yongest, Sir.

THESEUS.
Your Father
Sure is a happy Sire then: what prooves you?

ARCITE.
A little of all noble Quallities:
I could have kept a Hawke, and well have holloa'd
To a deepe crie of Dogges; I dare not praise
My feat in horsemanship, yet they that knew me
Would say it was my best peece: last, and greatest,
I would be thought a Souldier.

THESEUS.
You are perfect.

PERITHOUS.
Vpon my soule, a proper man.

EMILIA.
He is so.

PERITHOUS.
How doe you like him, Ladie?

HIPPOLITA.
I admire him;
I have not seene so yong a man so noble
(If he say true,) of his sort.

EMILIA.
Beleeve,
His mother was a wondrous handsome woman;
His face, me thinkes, goes that way.

HIPPOLITA.
But his Body
And firie minde illustrate a brave Father.

PERITHOUS.
Marke how his vertue, like a hidden Sun,
Breakes through his baser garments.

HIPPOLITA.
Hee's well got, sure.

THESEUS.
What made you seeke this place, Sir?

ARCITE.
Noble Theseus,
To purchase name, and doe my ablest service
To such a well-found wonder as thy worth,
For onely in thy Court, of all the world,
Dwells faire-eyd honor.

PERITHOUS.
All his words are worthy.

THESEUS.
Sir, we are much endebted to your travell,
Nor shall you loose your wish: Perithous,
Dispose of this faire Gentleman.

PERITHOUS.
Thankes, Theseus.
What ere you are y'ar mine, and I shall give you
To a most noble service, to this Lady,
This bright yong Virgin; pray, observe her goodnesse;
You have honourd hir faire birth-day with your vertues,
And as your due y'ar hirs: kisse her faire hand, Sir.

ARCITE.
Sir, y'ar a noble Giver: dearest Bewtie,
Thus let me seale my vowd faith: when your Servant
(Your most unworthie Creature) but offends you,
Command him die, he shall.

EMILIA.
That were too cruell.
If you deserve well, Sir, I shall soone see't:
Y'ar mine, and somewhat better than your rancke
Ile use you.

PERITHOUS.
Ile see you furnish'd, and because you say
You are a horseman, I must needs intreat you
This after noone to ride, but tis a rough one.

ARCITE.
I like him better, Prince, I shall not then
Freeze in my Saddle.

THESEUS.
Sweet, you must be readie,
And you, Emilia, and you, Friend, and all,
To morrow by the Sun, to doe observance
To flowry May, in Dians wood: waite well, Sir,
Vpon your Mistris.  Emely, I hope
He shall not goe a foote.

EMILIA.
That were a shame, Sir,
While I have horses: take your choice, and what
You want at any time, let me but know it;
If you serve faithfully, I dare assure you
You'l finde a loving Mistris.

ARCITE.
If I doe not,
Let me finde that my Father ever hated,
Disgrace and blowes.

THESEUS.
Go, leade the way; you have won it:
It shall be so; you shall receave all dues
Fit for the honour you have won; Twer wrong else.
Sister, beshrew my heart, you have a Servant,
That, if I were a woman, would be Master,
But you are wise.  [Florish.]

EMILIA.
I hope too wise for that, Sir.  [Exeunt omnes.]

SCENE 6.  (Before the prison.)

[Enter Iaylors Daughter alone.]

DAUGHTER.
Let all the Dukes, and all the divells rore,
He is at liberty: I have venturd for him,
And out I have brought him to a little wood
A mile hence.  I have sent him, where a Cedar,
Higher than all the rest, spreads like a plane
Fast by a Brooke, and there he shall keepe close,
Till I provide him Fyles and foode, for yet
His yron bracelets are not off.  O Love,
What a stout hearted child thou art!  My Father
Durst better have indur'd cold yron, than done it:
I love him beyond love and beyond reason,
Or wit, or safetie: I have made him know it.
I care not, I am desperate; If the law
Finde me, and then condemne me for't, some wenches,
Some honest harted Maides, will sing my Dirge,
And tell to memory my death was noble,
Dying almost a Martyr: That way he takes,
I purpose is my way too: Sure he cannot
Be so unmanly, as to leave me here;
If he doe, Maides will not so easily
Trust men againe: And yet he has not thank'd me
For what I have done: no not so much as kist me,
And that (me thinkes) is not so well; nor scarcely
Could I perswade him to become a Freeman,
He made such scruples of the wrong he did
To me, and to my Father.  Yet I hope,
When he considers more, this love of mine
Will take more root within him: Let him doe
What he will with me, so he use me kindly;
For use me so he shall, or ile proclaime him,
And to his face, no man.  Ile presently
Provide him necessaries, and packe my cloathes up,
And where there is a patch of ground Ile venture,
So hee be with me; By him, like a shadow,
Ile ever dwell; within this houre the whoobub
Will be all ore the prison: I am then
Kissing the man they looke for: farewell, Father;
Get many more such prisoners and such daughters,
And shortly you may keepe your selfe.  Now to him!

ACT III

SCENE 1.  (A forest near Athens.)

[Cornets in sundry places.  Noise and hallowing as people a
Maying.]

[Enter Arcite alone.]

ARCITE.
The Duke has lost Hypolita; each tooke
A severall land.  This is a solemne Right
They owe bloomd May, and the Athenians pay it
To'th heart of Ceremony.  O Queene Emilia,
Fresher then May, sweeter
Then hir gold Buttons on the bowes, or all
Th'enamelld knackes o'th Meade or garden: yea,
We challenge too the bancke of any Nymph
That makes the streame seeme flowers; thou, o Iewell
O'th wood, o'th world, hast likewise blest a place
With thy sole presence: in thy rumination
That I, poore man, might eftsoones come betweene
And chop on some cold thought! thrice blessed chance,
To drop on such a Mistris, expectation
Most giltlesse on't! tell me, O Lady Fortune,
(Next after Emely my Soveraigne) how far
I may be prowd.  She takes strong note of me,
Hath made me neere her; and this beuteous Morne
(The prim'st of all the yeare) presents me with
A brace of horses: two such Steeds might well
Be by a paire of Kings backt, in a Field
That their crownes titles tride.  Alas, alas,
Poore Cosen Palamon, poore prisoner, thou
So little dream'st upon my fortune, that
Thou thinkst thy selfe the happier thing, to be
So neare Emilia; me thou deem'st at Thebs,
And therein wretched, although free.  But if
Thou knew'st my Mistris breathd on me, and that
I ear'd her language, livde in her eye, O Coz,
What passion would enclose thee!

[Enter Palamon as out of a Bush, with his Shackles: bends his fist at
Arcite.]

PALAMON.
Traytor kinesman,
Thou shouldst perceive my passion, if these signes
Of prisonment were off me, and this hand
But owner of a Sword: By all othes in one,
I and the iustice of my love would make thee
A confest Traytor.  O thou most perfidious
That ever gently lookd; the voydest of honour,
That eu'r bore gentle Token; falsest Cosen
That ever blood made kin, call'st thou hir thine?
Ile prove it in my Shackles, with these hands,
Void of appointment, that thou ly'st, and art
A very theefe in love, a Chaffy Lord,
Nor worth the name of villaine: had I a Sword
And these house clogges away—

ARCITE.
Deere Cosin Palamon—

PALAMON.
Cosoner Arcite, give me language such
As thou hast shewd me feate.

ARCITE.
Not finding in
The circuit of my breast any grosse stuffe
To forme me like your blazon, holds me to
This gentlenesse of answer; tis your passion
That thus mistakes, the which to you being enemy,
Cannot to me be kind: honor, and honestie
I cherish, and depend on, how so ev'r
You skip them in me, and with them, faire Coz,
Ile maintaine my proceedings; pray, be pleas'd
To shew in generous termes your griefes, since that
Your question's with your equall, who professes
To cleare his owne way with the minde and Sword
Of a true Gentleman.

PALAMON.
That thou durst, Arcite!

ARCITE.
My Coz, my Coz, you have beene well advertis'd
How much I dare, y'ave seene me use my Sword
Against th'advice of feare: sure, of another
You would not heare me doubted, but your silence
Should breake out, though i'th Sanctuary.

PALAMON.
Sir,
I have seene you move in such a place, which well
Might justifie your manhood; you were calld
A good knight and a bold; But the whole weeke's not faire,
If any day it rayne: Their valiant temper
Men loose when they encline to trecherie,
And then they fight like coupelld Beares, would fly
Were they not tyde.

ARCITE.
Kinsman, you might as well
Speake this and act it in your Glasse, as to
His eare which now disdaines you.

PALAMON.
Come up to me,
Quit me of these cold Gyves, give me a Sword,
Though it be rustie, and the charity
Of one meale lend me; Come before me then,
A good Sword in thy hand, and doe but say
That Emily is thine: I will forgive
The trespasse thou hast done me, yea, my life,
If then thou carry't, and brave soules in shades
That have dyde manly, which will seeke of me
Some newes from earth, they shall get none but this,
That thou art brave and noble.

ARCITE.
Be content:
Againe betake you to your hawthorne house;
With counsaile of the night, I will be here
With wholesome viands; these impediments
Will I file off; you shall have garments and
Perfumes to kill the smell o'th prison; after,
When you shall stretch your selfe and say but, 'Arcite,
I am in plight,' there shall be at your choyce
Both Sword and Armour.

PALAMON.
Oh you heavens, dares any
So noble beare a guilty busines! none
But onely Arcite, therefore none but Arcite
In this kinde is so bold.

ARCITE.
Sweete Palamon.

PALAMON.
I doe embrace you and your offer,—for
Your offer doo't I onely, Sir; your person,
Without hipocrisy I may not wish  [Winde hornes of Cornets.]
More then my Swords edge ont.

ARCITE.
You heare the Hornes;
Enter your Musite least this match between's
Be crost, er met: give me your hand; farewell.
Ile bring you every needfull thing: I pray you,
Take comfort and be strong.

PALAMON.
Pray hold your promise;
And doe the deede with a bent brow: most certaine
You love me not, be rough with me, and powre
This oile out of your language; by this ayre,
I could for each word give a Cuffe, my stomach
Not reconcild by reason.

ARCITE.
Plainely spoken,
Yet pardon me hard language: when I spur  [Winde hornes.]
My horse, I chide him not; content and anger
In me have but one face.  Harke, Sir, they call
The scatterd to the Banket; you must guesse
I have an office there.

PALAMON.
Sir, your attendance
Cannot please heaven, and I know your office
Vnjustly is atcheev'd.

ARCITE.
If a good title,
I am perswaded this question sicke between's
By bleeding must be cur'd.  I am a Suitour,
That to your Sword you will bequeath this plea
And talke of it no more.

PALAMON.
But this one word:
You are going now to gaze upon my Mistris,
For note you, mine she is—

ARCITE.
Nay, then.

PALAMON.
Nay, pray you,
You talke of feeding me to breed me strength:
You are going now to looke upon a Sun
That strengthens what it lookes on; there
You have a vantage ore me, but enjoy't till
I may enforce my remedy.  Farewell.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 2.  (Another Part of the forest.)

[Enter Iaylors daughter alone.]

DAUGHTER.
He has mistooke the Brake I meant, is gone
After his fancy.  Tis now welnigh morning;
No matter, would it were perpetuall night,
And darkenes Lord o'th world.  Harke, tis a woolfe:
In me hath greife slaine feare, and but for one thing
I care for nothing, and that's Palamon.
I wreake not if the wolves would jaw me, so
He had this File: what if I hallowd for him?
I cannot hallow: if I whoop'd, what then?
If he not answeard, I should call a wolfe,
And doe him but that service.  I have heard
Strange howles this live-long night, why may't not be
They have made prey of him? he has no weapons,
He cannot run, the Iengling of his Gives
Might call fell things to listen, who have in them
A sence to know a man unarmd, and can
Smell where resistance is.  Ile set it downe
He's torne to peeces; they howld many together
And then they fed on him: So much for that,
Be bold to ring the Bell; how stand I then?
All's char'd when he is gone.  No, no, I lye,
My Father's to be hang'd for his escape;
My selfe to beg, if I prizd life so much
As to deny my act, but that I would not,
Should I try death by dussons.—I am mop't,
Food tooke I none these two daies,
Sipt some water.  I have not closd mine eyes
Save when my lids scowrd off their brine; alas,
Dissolue my life, Let not my sence unsettle,
Least I should drowne, or stab or hang my selfe.
O state of Nature, faile together in me,
Since thy best props are warpt! So, which way now?
The best way is the next way to a grave:
Each errant step beside is torment.  Loe,
The Moone is down, the Cryckets chirpe, the Schreichowle
Calls in the dawne; all offices are done
Save what I faile in: But the point is this,
An end, and that is all.  [Exit.]

SCENE 3.  (Same as Scene I.)

[Enter Arcite, with Meate, Wine, and Files.]

ARCITE.
I should be neere the place: hoa, Cosen Palamon.  [Enter
Palamon.]

PALAMON.
Arcite?

ARCITE.
The same: I have brought you foode and files.
Come forth and feare not, here's no Theseus.

PALAMON.
Nor none so honest, Arcite.

ARCITE.
That's no matter,
Wee'l argue that hereafter: Come, take courage;
You shall not dye thus beastly: here, Sir, drinke;
I know you are faint: then ile talke further with you.

PALAMON.
Arcite, thou mightst now poyson me.

ARCITE.
I might,
But I must feare you first: Sit downe, and, good, now
No more of these vaine parlies; let us not,
Having our ancient reputation with us,
Make talke for Fooles and Cowards.  To your health, &c.

PALAMON.
Doe.

ARCITE.
Pray, sit downe then; and let me entreate you,
By all the honesty and honour in you,
No mention of this woman: t'will disturbe us;
We shall have time enough.

PALAMON.
Well, Sir, Ile pledge you.

ARCITE.
Drinke a good hearty draught; it breeds good blood, man.
Doe not you feele it thaw you?

PALAMON.
Stay, Ile tell you after a draught or two more.

ARCITE.
Spare it not, the Duke has more, Cuz: Eate now.

PALAMON.
Yes.

ARCITE.
I am glad you have so good a stomach.

PALAMON.
I am gladder I have so good meate too't.

ARCITE.
Is't not mad lodging here in the wild woods, Cosen?

PALAMON.
Yes, for them that have wilde Consciences.

ARCITE.
How tasts your vittails? your hunger needs no sawce, I see.

PALAMON.
Not much;
But if it did, yours is too tart, sweete Cosen: what is this?

ARCITE.
Venison.

PALAMON.
Tis a lusty meate:
Giue me more wine; here, Arcite, to the wenches
We have known in our daies.  The Lord Stewards daughter,
Doe you remember her?

ARCITE.
After you, Cuz.

PALAMON.
She lov'd a black-haird man.

ARCITE.
She did so; well, Sir.

PALAMON.
And I have heard some call him Arcite, and—

ARCITE.
Out with't, faith.

PALAMON.
She met him in an Arbour:
What did she there, Cuz? play o'th virginals?

ARCITE.
Something she did, Sir.

PALAMON.
Made her groane a moneth for't, or 2. or 3. or 10.

ARCITE.
The Marshals Sister
Had her share too, as I remember, Cosen,
Else there be tales abroade; you'l pledge her?

PALAMON.
Yes.

ARCITE.
A pretty broune wench t'is.  There was a time
When yong men went a hunting, and a wood,
And a broade Beech: and thereby hangs a tale:—heigh ho!

PALAMON.
For Emily, upon my life!  Foole,
Away with this straind mirth; I say againe,
That sigh was breathd for Emily; base Cosen,
Dar'st thou breake first?

ARCITE.
You are wide.

PALAMON.
By heaven and earth, ther's nothing in thee honest.

ARCITE.
Then Ile leave you: you are a Beast now.

PALAMON.
As thou makst me, Traytour.

ARCITE.
Ther's all things needfull, files and shirts, and perfumes:
Ile come againe some two howres hence, and bring
That that shall quiet all,

PALAMON.
A Sword and Armour?

ARCITE.
Feare me not; you are now too fowle; farewell.
Get off your Trinkets; you shall want nought.

PALAMON.
Sir, ha—

ARCITE.
Ile heare no more.  [Exit.]

PALAMON.
If he keepe touch, he dies for't.  [Exit.]

SCENE 4.  (Another part of the forest.)

[Enter Iaylors daughter.]

DAUGHTER.
I am very cold, and all the Stars are out too,
The little Stars, and all, that looke like aglets:
The Sun has seene my Folly.  Palamon!
Alas no; hees in heaven.  Where am I now?
Yonder's the sea, and ther's a Ship; how't tumbles!
And ther's a Rocke lies watching under water;
Now, now, it beates upon it; now, now, now,
Ther's a leak sprung, a sound one, how they cry!
Spoon her before the winde, you'l loose all els:
Vp with a course or two, and take about, Boyes.
Good night, good night, y'ar gone.—I am very hungry.
Would I could finde a fine Frog; he would tell me
Newes from all parts o'th world, then would I make
A Carecke of a Cockle shell, and sayle
By east and North East to the King of Pigmes,
For he tels fortunes rarely.  Now my Father,
Twenty to one, is trust up in a trice
To morrow morning; Ile say never a word.

[Sing.]

For ile cut my greene coat a foote above my knee, And ile clip my
yellow lockes an inch below mine eie. hey, nonny, nonny, nonny, He's
buy me a white Cut, forth for to ride And ile goe seeke him, throw the
world that is so wide hey nonny, nonny, nonny.

O for a pricke now like a Nightingale,
To put my breast against.  I shall sleepe like a Top else.
[Exit.]

SCENE 5.  (Another part of the forest.)

[Enter a Schoole master, 4. Countrymen, and Bavian. 2. or 3. wenches,
with a Taborer.]

SCHOOLMASTER.
Fy, fy, what tediosity, & disensanity is here among ye? have my
Rudiments bin labourd so long with ye? milkd unto ye, and by a figure
even the very plumbroth & marrow of my understanding laid upon ye? and
do you still cry: where, and how, & wherfore? you most course freeze
capacities, ye jane Iudgements, have I saide: thus let be, and there
let be, and then let be, and no man understand mee?  Proh deum, medius
fidius, ye are all dunces!  For why, here stand I, Here the Duke comes,
there are you close in the Thicket; the Duke appeares, I meete him and
unto him I utter learned things and many figures; he heares, and nods,
and hums, and then cries: rare, and I goe forward; at length I fling my
Cap up; marke there; then do you, as once did Meleager and the Bore,
break comly out before him: like true lovers, cast your selves in a
Body decently, and sweetly, by a figure trace and turne, Boyes.

1. COUNTREYMAN.
And sweetly we will doe it Master Gerrold.

2. COUNTREYMAN.
Draw up the Company.  Where's the Taborour?

3. COUNTREYMAN.
Why, Timothy!

TABORER.
Here, my mad boyes, have at ye.

SCHOOLMASTER.
But I say, where's their women?

4. COUNTREYMAN.
Here's Friz and Maudline.

2. COUNTREYMAN.
And little Luce with the white legs, and bouncing Barbery.

1. COUNTREYMAN.
And freckeled Nel, that never faild her Master.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Wher be your Ribands, maids? swym with your Bodies
And carry it sweetly, and deliverly
And now and then a fauour, and a friske.

NEL.
Let us alone, Sir.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Wher's the rest o'th Musicke?

3. COUNTREYMAN.
Dispersd as you commanded.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Couple, then,
And see what's wanting; wher's the Bavian?
My friend, carry your taile without offence
Or scandall to the Ladies; and be sure
You tumble with audacity and manhood;
And when you barke, doe it with judgement.

BAVIAN.
Yes, Sir.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Quo usque tandem?  Here is a woman wanting.

4. COUNTREYMAN.
We may goe whistle: all the fat's i'th fire.

SCHOOLMASTER.
We have,
As learned Authours utter, washd a Tile,
We have beene FATUUS, and laboured vainely.

2. COUNTREYMAN.
This is that scornefull peece, that scurvy hilding,
That gave her promise faithfully, she would be here,
Cicely the Sempsters daughter:
The next gloves that I give her shall be dog skin;
Nay and she faile me once—you can tell, Arcas,
She swore by wine and bread, she would not breake.

SCHOOLMASTER.
An Eele and woman,
A learned Poet sayes, unles by'th taile
And with thy teeth thou hold, will either faile.
In manners this was false position

1. COUNTREYMAN.
A fire ill take her; do's she flinch now?

3. COUNTREYMAN.
What
Shall we determine, Sir?

SCHOOLMASTER.
Nothing.
Our busines is become a nullity;
Yea, and a woefull, and a pittious nullity.

4. COUNTREYMAN.
Now when the credite of our Towne lay on it,
Now to be frampall, now to pisse o'th nettle!
Goe thy waies; ile remember thee, ile fit thee.

[Enter Iaylors daughter.]

DAUGHTER.
[Sings.]

The George alow came from the South,
From the coast of Barbary a.
And there he met with brave gallants of war
By one, by two, by three, a.

Well haild, well haild, you jolly gallants,
And whither now are you bound a?
O let me have your company  [Chaire and stooles out.]
Till (I) come to the sound a.

There was three fooles, fell out about an howlet:
The one sed it was an owle,
The other he sed nay,
The third he sed it was a hawke,
And her bels wer cut away.

3. COUNTREYMAN.
Ther's a dainty mad woman M(aiste)r
Comes i'th Nick, as mad as a march hare:
If wee can get her daunce, wee are made againe:
I warrant her, shee'l doe the rarest gambols.

1. COUNTREYMAN.
A mad woman? we are made, Boyes.

SCHOOLMASTER.
And are you mad, good woman?

DAUGHTER.
I would be sorry else;
Give me your hand.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Why?

DAUGHTER.
I can tell your fortune.
You are a foole: tell ten.  I have pozd him: Buz!
Friend you must eate no whitebread; if you doe,
Your teeth will bleede extreamely.  Shall we dance, ho?
I know you, y'ar a Tinker: Sirha Tinker,
Stop no more holes, but what you should.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Dij boni.  A Tinker, Damzell?

DAUGHTER.
Or a Conjurer:
Raise me a devill now, and let him play
Quipassa o'th bels and bones.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Goe, take her,
And fluently perswade her to a peace:
Et opus exegi, quod nec Iouis ira, nec ignis.
Strike up, and leade her in.

2. COUNTREYMAN.
Come, Lasse, lets trip it.

DAUGHTER.
Ile leade.  [Winde Hornes.]

3. COUNTREYMAN.
Doe, doe.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Perswasively, and cunningly: away, boyes,  [Ex. all but
Schoolemaster.]
I heare the hornes: give me some meditation,
And marke your Cue.—Pallas inspire me.

[Enter Thes. Pir. Hip. Emil. Arcite, and traine.]

THESEUS.
This way the Stag tooke.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Stay, and edifie.

THESEUS.
What have we here?

PERITHOUS.
Some Countrey sport, upon my life, Sir.

THESEUS.
Well, Sir, goe forward, we will edifie.
Ladies, sit downe, wee'l stay it.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Thou, doughtie Duke, all haile: all haile, sweet Ladies.

THESEUS.
This is a cold beginning.

SCHOOLMASTER.
If you but favour, our Country pastime made is.
We are a few of those collected here,
That ruder Tongues distinguish villager;
And to say veritie, and not to fable,
We are a merry rout, or else a rable,
Or company, or, by a figure, Choris,
That fore thy dignitie will dance a Morris.
And I, that am the rectifier of all,
By title Pedagogus, that let fall
The Birch upon the breeches of the small ones,
And humble with a Ferula the tall ones,
Doe here present this Machine, or this frame:
And daintie Duke, whose doughtie dismall fame
From Dis to Dedalus, from post to pillar,
Is blowne abroad, helpe me thy poore well willer,
And with thy twinckling eyes looke right and straight
Vpon this mighty MORR—of mickle waight;
IS now comes in, which being glewd together,
Makes MORRIS, and the cause that we came hether.
The body of our sport, of no small study,
I first appeare, though rude, and raw, and muddy,
To speake before thy noble grace this tenner:
At whose great feete I offer up my penner.
The next the Lord of May and Lady bright,
The Chambermaid and Servingman by night
That seeke out silent hanging: Then mine Host
And his fat Spowse, that welcomes to their cost
The gauled Traveller, and with a beckning
Informes the Tapster to inflame the reckning:
Then the beast eating Clowne, and next the foole,
The Bavian, with long tayle and eke long toole,
Cum multis alijs that make a dance:
Say 'I,' and all shall presently advance.

THESEUS.
I, I, by any meanes, deere Domine.

PERITHOUS.
Produce.

(SCHOOLMASTER.)
Intrate, filij; Come forth, and foot it.—

[Musicke, Dance.  Knocke for Schoole.]

[Enter the Dance.]

Ladies, if we have beene merry,
And have pleasd yee with a derry,
And a derry, and a downe,
Say the Schoolemaster's no Clowne:
Duke, if we have pleasd thee too,
And have done as good Boyes should doe,
Give us but a tree or twaine
For a Maypole, and againe,
Ere another yeare run out,
Wee'l make thee laugh and all this rout.

THESEUS.
Take 20., Domine; how does my sweet heart?

HIPPOLITA.
Never so pleasd, Sir.

EMILIA.
Twas an excellent dance, and for a preface
I never heard a better.

THESEUS.
Schoolemaster, I thanke you.—One see'em all rewarded.

PERITHOUS.
And heer's something to paint your Pole withall.

THESEUS.
Now to our sports againe.

SCHOOLMASTER.
May the Stag thou huntst stand long,
And thy dogs be swift and strong:
May they kill him without lets,
And the Ladies eate his dowsets!
Come, we are all made.  [Winde Hornes.]
Dij Deoeq(ue) omnes, ye have danc'd rarely, wenches.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 6.  (Same as Scene III.)

[Enter Palamon from the Bush.]

PALAMON.
About this houre my Cosen gave his faith
To visit me againe, and with him bring
Two Swords, and two good Armors; if he faile,
He's neither man nor Souldier.  When he left me,
I did not thinke a weeke could have restord
My lost strength to me, I was growne so low,
And Crest-falne with my wants: I thanke thee, Arcite,
Thou art yet a faire Foe; and I feele my selfe
With this refreshing, able once againe
To out dure danger: To delay it longer
Would make the world think, when it comes to hearing,
That I lay fatting like a Swine to fight,
And not a Souldier: Therefore, this blest morning
Shall be the last; and that Sword he refuses,
If it but hold, I kill him with; tis Iustice:
So love, and Fortune for me!—O, good morrow.

[Enter Arcite with Armors and Swords.]

ARCITE.
Good morrow, noble kinesman.

PALAMON.
I have put you to too much paines, Sir.

ARCITE.
That too much, faire Cosen,
Is but a debt to honour, and my duty.

PALAMON.
Would you were so in all, Sir; I could wish ye
As kinde a kinsman, as you force me finde
A beneficiall foe, that my embraces
Might thanke ye, not my blowes.

ARCITE.
I shall thinke either, well done,
A noble recompence.

PALAMON.
Then I shall quit you.

ARCITE.
Defy me in these faire termes, and you show
More then a Mistris to me, no more anger
As you love any thing that's honourable:
We were not bred to talke, man; when we are arm'd
And both upon our guards, then let our fury,
Like meeting of two tides, fly strongly from us,
And then to whom the birthright of this Beauty
Truely pertaines (without obbraidings, scornes,
Dispisings of our persons, and such powtings,
Fitter for Girles and Schooleboyes) will be seene
And quickly, yours, or mine: wilt please you arme, Sir,
Or if you feele your selfe not fitting yet
And furnishd with your old strength, ile stay, Cosen,
And ev'ry day discourse you into health,
As I am spard: your person I am friends with,
And I could wish I had not saide I lov'd her,
Though I had dide; But loving such a Lady
And justifying my Love, I must not fly from't.

PALAMON.
Arcite, thou art so brave an enemy,
That no man but thy Cosen's fit to kill thee:
I am well and lusty, choose your Armes.

ARCITE.
Choose you, Sir.

PALAMON.
Wilt thou exceede in all, or do'st thou doe it
To make me spare thee?

ARCITE.
If you thinke so, Cosen,
You are deceived, for as I am a Soldier,
I will not spare you.

PALAMON.
That's well said.

ARCITE.
You'l finde it.

PALAMON.
Then, as I am an honest man and love
With all the justice of affection,
Ile pay thee soundly.  This ile take.

ARCITE.
That's mine, then;
Ile arme you first.

PALAMON.
Do: pray thee, tell me, Cosen,
Where gotst thou this good Armour?

ARCITE.
Tis the Dukes,
And to say true, I stole it; doe I pinch you?

PALAMON.
Noe.

ARCITE.
Is't not too heavie?

PALAMON.
I have worne a lighter,
But I shall make it serve.

ARCITE.
Ile buckl't close.

PALAMON.
By any meanes.

ARCITE.
You care not for a Grand guard?

PALAMON.
No, no; wee'l use no horses: I perceave
You would faine be at that Fight.

ARCITE.
I am indifferent.

PALAMON.
Faith, so am I: good Cosen, thrust the buckle
Through far enough.

ARCITE.
I warrant you.

PALAMON.
My Caske now.

ARCITE.
Will you fight bare-armd?

PALAMON.
We shall be the nimbler.

ARCITE.
But use your Gauntlets though; those are o'th least,
Prethee take mine, good Cosen.

PALAMON.
Thanke you, Arcite.
How doe I looke? am I falne much away?

ARCITE.
Faith, very little; love has usd you kindly.

PALAMON.
Ile warrant thee, Ile strike home.

ARCITE.
Doe, and spare not;
Ile give you cause, sweet Cosen.

PALAMON.
Now to you, Sir:
Me thinkes this Armor's very like that, Arcite,
Thou wor'st the day the 3. Kings fell, but lighter.

ARCITE.
That was a very good one; and that day,
I well remember, you outdid me, Cosen.
I never saw such valour: when you chargd
Vpon the left wing of the Enemie,
I spurd hard to come up, and under me
I had a right good horse.

PALAMON.
You had indeede; a bright Bay, I remember.

ARCITE.
Yes, but all
Was vainely labour'd in me; you outwent me,
Nor could my wishes reach you; yet a little
I did by imitation.

PALAMON.
More by vertue;
You are modest, Cosen.

ARCITE.
When I saw you charge first,
Me thought I heard a dreadfull clap of Thunder
Breake from the Troope.

PALAMON.
But still before that flew
The lightning of your valour.  Stay a little,
Is not this peece too streight?

ARCITE.
No, no, tis well.

PALAMON.
I would have nothing hurt thee but my Sword,
A bruise would be dishonour.

ARCITE.
Now I am perfect.

PALAMON.
Stand off, then.

ARCITE.
Take my Sword, I hold it better.

PALAMON.
I thanke ye: No, keepe it; your life lyes on it.
Here's one; if it but hold, I aske no more
For all my hopes: My Cause and honour guard me!  [They bow
 severall wayes: then advance and stand.]

ARCITE.
And me my love!  Is there ought else to say?

PALAMON.
This onely, and no more: Thou art mine Aunts Son,
And that blood we desire to shed is mutuall;
In me, thine, and in thee, mine.  My Sword
Is in my hand, and if thou killst me,
The gods and I forgive thee; If there be
A place prepar'd for those that sleepe in honour,
I wish his wearie soule that falls may win it:
Fight bravely, Cosen; give me thy noble hand.

ARCITE.
Here, Palamon: This hand shall never more
Come neare thee with such friendship.

PALAMON.
I commend thee.

ARCITE.
If I fall, curse me, and say I was a coward,
For none but such dare die in these just Tryalls.
Once more farewell, my Cosen.

PALAMON.
Farewell, Arcite.  [Fight.]

[Hornes within: they stand.]

ARCITE.
Loe, Cosen, loe, our Folly has undon us.

PALAMON.
Why?

ARCITE.
This is the Duke, a hunting as I told you.
If we be found, we are wretched.  O retire
For honours sake, and safety presently
Into your Bush agen; Sir, we shall finde
Too many howres to dye in: gentle Cosen,
If you be seene you perish instantly
For breaking prison, and I, if you reveale me,
For my contempt.  Then all the world will scorne us,
And say we had a noble difference,
But base disposers of it.

PALAMON.
No, no, Cosen,
I will no more be hidden, nor put off
This great adventure to a second Tryall:
I know your cunning, and I know your cause;
He that faints now, shame take him: put thy selfe
Vpon thy present guard—

ARCITE.
You are not mad?

PALAMON.
Or I will make th'advantage of this howre
Mine owne, and what to come shall threaten me,
I feare lesse then my fortune: know, weake Cosen,
I love Emilia, and in that ile bury
Thee, and all crosses else.

ARCITE.
Then, come what can come,
Thou shalt know, Palamon, I dare as well
Die, as discourse, or sleepe: Onely this feares me,
The law will have the honour of our ends.
Have at thy life.

PALAMON.
Looke to thine owne well, Arcite.  [Fight againe.  Hornes.]

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Emilia, Perithous and traine.]

THESEUS.
What ignorant and mad malicious Traitors,
Are you, That gainst the tenor of my Lawes
Are making Battaile, thus like Knights appointed,
Without my leave, and Officers of Armes?
By Castor, both shall dye.

PALAMON.
Hold thy word, Theseus.
We are certainly both Traitors, both despisers
Of thee and of thy goodnesse: I am Palamon,
That cannot love thee, he that broke thy Prison;
Thinke well what that deserves: and this is Arcite,
A bolder Traytor never trod thy ground,
A Falser neu'r seem'd friend: This is the man
Was begd and banish'd; this is he contemnes thee
And what thou dar'st doe, and in this disguise
Against thy owne Edict followes thy Sister,
That fortunate bright Star, the faire Emilia,
Whose servant, (if there be a right in seeing,
And first bequeathing of the soule to) justly
I am, and, which is more, dares thinke her his.
This treacherie, like a most trusty Lover,
I call'd him now to answer; if thou bee'st,
As thou art spoken, great and vertuous,
The true descider of all injuries,
Say, 'Fight againe,' and thou shalt see me, Theseus,
Doe such a Iustice, thou thy selfe wilt envie.
Then take my life; Ile wooe thee too't.

PERITHOUS.
O heaven,
What more then man is this!

THESEUS.
I have sworne.

ARCITE.
We seeke not
Thy breath of mercy, Theseus.  Tis to me
A thing as soone to dye, as thee to say it,
And no more mov'd: where this man calls me Traitor,
Let me say thus much: if in love be Treason,
In service of so excellent a Beutie,
As I love most, and in that faith will perish,
As I have brought my life here to confirme it,
As I have serv'd her truest, worthiest,
As I dare kill this Cosen, that denies it,
So let me be most Traitor, and ye please me.
For scorning thy Edict, Duke, aske that Lady
Why she is faire, and why her eyes command me
Stay here to love her; and if she say 'Traytor,'
I am a villaine fit to lye unburied.

PALAMON.
Thou shalt have pitty of us both, o Theseus,
If unto neither thou shew mercy; stop
(As thou art just) thy noble eare against us.
As thou art valiant, for thy Cosens soule
Whose 12. strong labours crowne his memory,
Lets die together, at one instant, Duke,
Onely a little let him fall before me,
That I may tell my Soule he shall not have her.

THESEUS.
I grant your wish, for, to say true, your Cosen
Has ten times more offended; for I gave him
More mercy then you found, Sir, your offenses
Being no more then his.  None here speake for 'em,
For, ere the Sun set, both shall sleepe for ever.

HIPPOLITA.
Alas the pitty! now or never, Sister,
Speake, not to be denide; That face of yours
Will beare the curses else of after ages
For these lost Cosens.

EMILIA.
In my face, deare Sister,
I finde no anger to 'em, nor no ruyn;
The misadventure of their owne eyes kill 'em;
Yet that I will be woman, and have pitty,
My knees shall grow to'th ground but Ile get mercie.
Helpe me, deare Sister; in a deede so vertuous
The powers of all women will be with us.
Most royall Brother—

HIPPOLITA.
Sir, by our tye of Marriage—

EMILIA.
By your owne spotlesse honour—

HIPPOLITA.
By that faith,
That faire hand, and that honest heart you gave me.

EMILIA.
By that you would have pitty in another,
By your owne vertues infinite.

HIPPOLITA.
By valour,
By all the chaste nights I have ever pleasd you.

THESEUS.
These are strange Conjurings.

PERITHOUS.
Nay, then, Ile in too:
By all our friendship, Sir, by all our dangers,
By all you love most: warres and this sweet Lady.

EMILIA.
By that you would have trembled to deny,
A blushing Maide.

HIPPOLITA.
By your owne eyes: By strength,
In which you swore I went beyond all women,
Almost all men, and yet I yeelded, Theseus.

PERITHOUS.
To crowne all this: By your most noble soule,
Which cannot want due mercie, I beg first.

HIPPOLITA.
Next, heare my prayers.

EMILIA.
Last, let me intreate, Sir.

PERITHOUS.
For mercy.

HIPPOLITA.
Mercy.

EMILIA.
Mercy on these Princes.

THESEUS.
Ye make my faith reele: Say I felt
Compassion to'em both, how would you place it?

EMILIA.
Vpon their lives: But with their banishments.

THESEUS.
You are a right woman, Sister; you have pitty,
But want the vnderstanding where to use it.
If you desire their lives, invent a way
Safer then banishment: Can these two live
And have the agony of love about 'em,
And not kill one another?  Every day
They'ld fight about you; howrely bring your honour
In publique question with their Swords.  Be wise, then,
And here forget 'em; it concernes your credit
And my oth equally: I have said they die;
Better they fall by'th law, then one another.
Bow not my honor.

EMILIA.
O my noble Brother,
That oth was rashly made, and in your anger,
Your reason will not hold it; if such vowes
Stand for expresse will, all the world must perish.
Beside, I have another oth gainst yours,
Of more authority, I am sure more love,
Not made in passion neither, but good heede.

THESEUS.
What is it, Sister?

PERITHOUS.
Vrge it home, brave Lady.

EMILIA.
That you would nev'r deny me any thing
Fit for my modest suit, and your free granting:
I tye you to your word now; if ye fall in't,
Thinke how you maime your honour,
(For now I am set a begging, Sir, I am deafe
To all but your compassion.)  How, their lives
Might breed the ruine of my name, Opinion!
Shall any thing that loves me perish for me?
That were a cruell wisedome; doe men proyne
The straight yong Bowes that blush with thousand Blossoms,
Because they may be rotten?  O Duke Theseus,
The goodly Mothers that have groand for these,
And all the longing Maides that ever lov'd,
If your vow stand, shall curse me and my Beauty,
And in their funerall songs for these two Cosens
Despise my crueltie, and cry woe worth me,
Till I am nothing but the scorne of women;
For heavens sake save their lives, and banish 'em.

THESEUS.
On what conditions?

EMILIA.
Sweare'em never more
To make me their Contention, or to know me,
To tread upon thy Dukedome; and to be,
Where ever they shall travel, ever strangers
To one another.

PALAMON.
Ile be cut a peeces
Before I take this oth: forget I love her?
O all ye gods dispise me, then!  Thy Banishment
I not mislike, so we may fairely carry
Our Swords and cause along: else, never trifle,
But take our lives, Duke: I must love and will,
And for that love must and dare kill this Cosen
On any peece the earth has.

THESEUS.
Will you, Arcite,
Take these conditions?

PALAMON.
He's a villaine, then.

PERITHOUS.
These are men.

ARCITE.
No, never, Duke: Tis worse to me than begging
To take my life so basely; though I thinke
I never shall enjoy her, yet ile preserve
The honour of affection, and dye for her,
Make death a Devill.

THESEUS.
What may be done? for now I feele compassion.

PERITHOUS.
Let it not fall agen, Sir.

THESEUS.
Say, Emilia,
If one of them were dead, as one must, are you
Content to take th'other to your husband?
They cannot both enjoy you; They are Princes
As goodly as your owne eyes, and as noble
As ever fame yet spoke of; looke upon 'em,
And if you can love, end this difference.
I give consent; are you content too, Princes?

BOTH.
With all our soules.

THESEUS.
He that she refuses
Must dye, then.

BOTH.
Any death thou canst invent, Duke.

PALAMON.
If I fall from that mouth, I fall with favour,
And Lovers yet unborne shall blesse my ashes.

ARCITE.
If she refuse me, yet my grave will wed me,
And Souldiers sing my Epitaph.

THESEUS.
Make choice, then.

EMILIA.
I cannot, Sir, they are both too excellent:
For me, a hayre shall never fall of these men.

HIPPOLITA.
What will become of 'em?

THESEUS.
Thus I ordaine it;
And by mine honor, once againe, it stands,
Or both shall dye:—You shall both to your Countrey,
And each within this moneth, accompanied
With three faire Knights, appeare againe in this place,
In which Ile plant a Pyramid; and whether,
Before us that are here, can force his Cosen
By fayre and knightly strength to touch the Pillar,
He shall enjoy her: the other loose his head,
And all his friends; Nor shall he grudge to fall,
Nor thinke he dies with interest in this Lady:
Will this content yee?

PALAMON.
Yes: here, Cosen Arcite,
I am friends againe, till that howre.

ARCITE.
I embrace ye.

THESEUS.
Are you content, Sister?

EMILIA.
Yes, I must, Sir,
Els both miscarry.

THESEUS.
Come, shake hands againe, then;
And take heede, as you are Gentlemen, this Quarrell
Sleepe till the howre prefixt; and hold your course.

PALAMON.
We dare not faile thee, Theseus.

THESEUS.
Come, Ile give ye
Now usage like to Princes, and to Friends:
When ye returne, who wins, Ile settle heere;
Who looses, yet Ile weepe upon his Beere.  [Exeunt.]

ACT IV

SCENE 1.  (Athens.  A room in the prison.)

[Enter Iailor and his friend.]

IAILOR.
Heare you no more? was nothing saide of me
Concerning the escape of Palamon?
Good Sir, remember.

1. FRIEND.
Nothing that I heard,
For I came home before the busines
Was fully ended: Yet I might perceive,
Ere I departed, a great likelihood
Of both their pardons: For Hipolita,
And faire-eyd Emilie, upon their knees
Begd with such hansom pitty, that the Duke
Me thought stood staggering, whether he should follow
His rash oth, or the sweet compassion
Of those two Ladies; and to second them,
That truely noble Prince Perithous,
Halfe his owne heart, set in too, that I hope
All shall be well: Neither heard I one question
Of your name or his scape.

[Enter 2. Friend.]

IAILOR.
Pray heaven it hold so.

2. FRIEND.
Be of good comfort, man; I bring you newes,
Good newes.

IAILOR.
They are welcome,

2. FRIEND.
Palamon has cleerd you,
And got your pardon, and discoverd how
And by whose meanes he escapt, which was your Daughters,
Whose pardon is procurd too; and the Prisoner,
Not to be held ungratefull to her goodnes,
Has given a summe of money to her Marriage,
A large one, ile assure you.

IAILOR.
Ye are a good man
And ever bring good newes.

1. FRIEND.
How was it ended?

2. FRIEND.
Why, as it should be; they that nev'r begd
But they prevaild, had their suites fairely granted,
The prisoners have their lives.

1. FRIEND.
I knew t'would be so.

2. FRIEND.
But there be new conditions, which you'l heare of
At better time.

IAILOR.
I hope they are good.

2. FRIEND.
They are honourable,
How good they'l prove, I know not.

[Enter Wooer.]

1. FRIEND.
T'will be knowne.

WOOER.
Alas, Sir, wher's your Daughter?

IAILOR.
Why doe you aske?

WOOER.
O, Sir, when did you see her?

2. FRIEND.
How he lookes?

IAILOR.
This morning.

WOOER.
Was she well? was she in health, Sir?
When did she sleepe?

1. FRIEND.
These are strange Questions.

IAILOR.
I doe not thinke she was very well, for now
You make me minde her, but this very day
I ask'd her questions, and she answered me
So farre from what she was, so childishly,
So sillily, as if she were a foole,
An Inocent, and I was very angry.
But what of her, Sir?

WOOER.
Nothing but my pitty;
But you must know it, and as good by me
As by an other that lesse loves her—

IAILOR.
Well, Sir.

1. FRIEND.
Not right?

2. FRIEND.
Not well?

WOOER.
No, Sir, not well.
Tis too true, she is mad.

1. FRIEND.
It cannot be.

WOOER.
Beleeve, you'l finde it so.

IAILOR.
I halfe suspected
What you (have) told me: the gods comfort her:
Either this was her love to Palamon,
Or feare of my miscarrying on his scape,
Or both.

WOOER.
Tis likely.

IAILOR.
But why all this haste, Sir?

WOOER.
Ile tell you quickly.  As I late was angling
In the great Lake that lies behind the Pallace,
From the far shore, thicke set with reedes and Sedges,
As patiently I was attending sport,
I heard a voyce, a shrill one, and attentive
I gave my eare, when I might well perceive
T'was one that sung, and by the smallnesse of it
A boy or woman.  I then left my angle
To his owne skill, came neere, but yet perceivd not
Who made the sound, the rushes and the Reeds
Had so encompast it: I laide me downe
And listned to the words she sung, for then,
Through a small glade cut by the Fisher men,
I saw it was your Daughter.

IAILOR.
Pray, goe on, Sir?

WOOER.
She sung much, but no sence; onely I heard her
Repeat this often: 'Palamon is gone,
Is gone to'th wood to gather Mulberies;
Ile finde him out to morrow.'

1. FRIEND.
Pretty soule.

WOOER.
'His shackles will betray him, hee'l be taken,
And what shall I doe then?  Ile bring a beavy,
A hundred blacke eyd Maides, that love as I doe,
With Chaplets on their heads of Daffadillies,
With cherry-lips, and cheekes of Damaske Roses,
And all wee'l daunce an Antique fore the Duke,
And beg his pardon.'  Then she talk'd of you, Sir;
That you must loose your head to morrow morning,
And she must gather flowers to bury you,
And see the house made handsome: then she sung
Nothing but 'Willow, willow, willow,' and betweene
Ever was, 'Palamon, faire Palamon,'
And 'Palamon was a tall yong man.'  The place
Was knee deepe where she sat; her careles Tresses
A wreathe of bull-rush rounded; about her stucke
Thousand fresh water flowers of severall cullors,
That me thought she appeard like the faire Nimph
That feedes the lake with waters, or as Iris
Newly dropt downe from heaven; Rings she made
Of rushes that grew by, and to 'em spoke
The prettiest posies: 'Thus our true love's tide,'
'This you may loose, not me,' and many a one:
And then she wept, and sung againe, and sigh'd,
And with the same breath smil'd, and kist her hand.

2. FRIEND.
Alas, what pitty it is!

WOOER.
I made in to her.
She saw me, and straight sought the flood; I sav'd her,
And set her safe to land: when presently
She slipt away, and to the Citty made,
With such a cry and swiftnes, that, beleeve me,
Shee left me farre behinde her; three or foure
I saw from farre off crosse her, one of 'em
I knew to be your brother; where she staid,
And fell, scarce to be got away: I left them with her,  [Enter
 Brother, Daughter, and others.]
And hether came to tell you.  Here they are.

DAUGHTER.  [sings.]

May you never more enjoy the light, &c.

Is not this a fine Song?

BROTHER.
O, a very fine one.

DAUGHTER.
I can sing twenty more.

BROTHER.
I thinke you can.

DAUGHTER.
Yes, truely, can I; I can sing the Broome,
And Bony Robin.  Are not you a tailour?

BROTHER.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
Wher's my wedding Gowne?

BROTHER.
Ile bring it to morrow.

DAUGHTER.
Doe, very rarely; I must be abroad else
To call the Maides, and pay the Minstrels,
For I must loose my Maydenhead by cock-light;
Twill never thrive else.
[Singes.]  O faire, oh sweete, &c.

BROTHER.
You must ev'n take it patiently.

IAILOR.
Tis true.

DAUGHTER.
Good ev'n, good men; pray, did you ever heare
Of one yong Palamon?

IAILOR.
Yes, wench, we know him.

DAUGHTER.
Is't not a fine yong Gentleman?

IAILOR.
Tis Love.

BROTHER.
By no meane crosse her; she is then distemperd
Far worse then now she showes.

1. FRIEND.
Yes, he's a fine man.

DAUGHTER.
O, is he so? you have a Sister?

1. FRIEND.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
But she shall never have him, tell her so,
For a tricke that I know; y'had best looke to her,
For if she see him once, she's gone, she's done,
And undon in an howre.  All the young Maydes
Of our Towne are in love with him, but I laugh at 'em
And let 'em all alone; Is't not a wise course?

1. FRIEND.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
There is at least two hundred now with child by him—
There must be fowre; yet I keepe close for all this,
Close as a Cockle; and all these must be Boyes,
He has the tricke on't, and at ten yeares old
They must be all gelt for Musitians,
And sing the wars of Theseus.

2. FRIEND.
This is strange.

DAUGHTER.
As ever you heard, but say nothing.

1. FRIEND.
No.

DAUGHTER.
They come from all parts of the Dukedome to him;
Ile warrant ye, he had not so few last night
As twenty to dispatch: hee'l tickl't up
In two howres, if his hand be in.

IAILOR.
She's lost
Past all cure.

BROTHER.
Heaven forbid, man.

DAUGHTER.
Come hither, you are a wise man.

1. FRIEND.
Do's she know him?

2. FRIEND.
No, would she did.

DAUGHTER.
You are master of a Ship?

IAILOR.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
Wher's your Compasse?

IAILOR.
Heere.

DAUGHTER.
Set it too'th North.
And now direct your course to'th wood, wher Palamon
Lyes longing for me; For the Tackling
Let me alone; Come, waygh, my hearts, cheerely!

ALL.
Owgh, owgh, owgh, tis up, the wind's faire,
Top the Bowling, out with the maine saile;
Wher's your Whistle, Master?

BROTHER.
Lets get her in.

IAILOR.
Vp to the top, Boy.

BROTHER.
Wher's the Pilot?

1. FRIEND.
Heere.

DAUGHTER.
What ken'st thou?

2. FRIEND.
A faire wood.

DAUGHTER.
Beare for it, master: take about!  [Singes.]
When Cinthia with her borrowed light, &c.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 2.  (A Room in the Palace.)

[Enter Emilia alone, with 2. Pictures.]

EMILIA.
Yet I may binde those wounds up, that must open
And bleed to death for my sake else; Ile choose,
And end their strife: Two such yong hansom men
Shall never fall for me, their weeping Mothers,
Following the dead cold ashes of their Sonnes,
Shall never curse my cruelty.  Good heaven,
What a sweet face has Arcite! if wise nature,
With all her best endowments, all those beuties
She sowes into the birthes of noble bodies,
Were here a mortall woman, and had in her
The coy denialls of yong Maydes, yet doubtles,
She would run mad for this man: what an eye,
Of what a fyry sparkle, and quick sweetnes,
Has this yong Prince!  Here Love himselfe sits smyling,
Iust such another wanton Ganimead
Set Jove a fire with, and enforcd the god
Snatch up the goodly Boy, and set him by him
A shining constellation: What a brow,
Of what a spacious Majesty, he carries!
Arch'd like the great eyd Iuno's, but far sweeter,
Smoother then Pelops Shoulder!  Fame and honour,
Me thinks, from hence, as from a Promontory
Pointed in heaven, should clap their wings, and sing
To all the under world the Loves and Fights
Of gods, and such men neere 'em.  Palamon
Is but his foyle, to him a meere dull shadow:
Hee's swarth and meagre, of an eye as heavy
As if he had lost his mother; a still temper,
No stirring in him, no alacrity,
Of all this sprightly sharpenes not a smile;
Yet these that we count errours may become him:
Narcissus was a sad Boy, but a heavenly:—
Oh who can finde the bent of womans fancy?
I am a Foole, my reason is lost in me;
I have no choice, and I have ly'd so lewdly
That women ought to beate me.  On my knees
I aske thy pardon, Palamon; thou art alone,
And only beutifull, and these the eyes,
These the bright lamps of beauty, that command
And threaten Love, and what yong Mayd dare crosse 'em?
What a bold gravity, and yet inviting,
Has this browne manly face!  O Love, this only
From this howre is Complexion: Lye there, Arcite,
Thou art a changling to him, a meere Gipsey,
And this the noble Bodie.  I am sotted,
Vtterly lost: My Virgins faith has fled me;
For if my brother but even now had ask'd me
Whether I lov'd, I had run mad for Arcite;
Now, if my Sister, More for Palamon.
Stand both together: Now, come aske me, Brother.—
Alas, I know not!  Aske me now, sweet Sister;—
I may goe looke.  What a meere child is Fancie,
That, having two faire gawdes of equall sweetnesse,
Cannot distinguish, but must crie for both.

[Enter (a) Gent(leman.)]

EMILIA.
How now, Sir?

GENTLEMAN.
From the Noble Duke your Brother,
Madam, I bring you newes: The Knights are come.

EMILIA.
To end the quarrell?

GENTLEMAN.
Yes.

EMILIA.
Would I might end first:
What sinnes have I committed, chast Diana,
That my unspotted youth must now be soyld
With blood of Princes? and my Chastitie
Be made the Altar, where the lives of Lovers
(Two greater and two better never yet
Made mothers joy) must be the sacrifice
To my unhappy Beautie?

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Perithous and attendants.]

THESEUS.
Bring 'em in
Quickly, By any meanes; I long to see 'em.—
Your two contending Lovers are return'd,
And with them their faire Knights: Now, my faire Sister,
You must love one of them.

EMILIA.
I had rather both,
So neither for my sake should fall untimely.

[Enter Messenger.  (Curtis.)]

THESEUS.
Who saw 'em?

PERITHOUS.
I, a while.

GENTLEMAN.
And I.

THESEUS.
From whence come you, Sir?

MESSENGER.
From the Knights.

THESEUS.
Pray, speake,
You that have seene them, what they are.

MESSENGER.
I will, Sir,
And truly what I thinke: Six braver spirits
Then these they have brought, (if we judge by the outside)
I never saw, nor read of.  He that stands
In the first place with Arcite, by his seeming,
Should be a stout man, by his face a Prince,
(His very lookes so say him) his complexion,
Nearer a browne, than blacke, sterne, and yet noble,
Which shewes him hardy, fearelesse, proud of dangers:
The circles of his eyes show fire within him,
And as a heated Lyon, so he lookes;
His haire hangs long behind him, blacke and shining
Like Ravens wings: his shoulders broad and strong,
Armd long and round, and on his Thigh a Sword
Hung by a curious Bauldricke, when he frownes
To seale his will with: better, o'my conscience
Was never Souldiers friend.

THESEUS.
Thou ha'st well describde him.

PERITHOUS.
Yet a great deale short,
Me thinkes, of him that's first with Palamon.

THESEUS.
Pray, speake him, friend.

PERITHOUS.
I ghesse he is a Prince too,
And, if it may be, greater; for his show
Has all the ornament of honour in't:
Hee's somewhat bigger, then the Knight he spoke of,
But of a face far sweeter; His complexion
Is (as a ripe grape) ruddy: he has felt,
Without doubt, what he fights for, and so apter
To make this cause his owne: In's face appeares
All the faire hopes of what he undertakes,
And when he's angry, then a setled valour
(Not tainted with extreames) runs through his body,
And guides his arme to brave things: Feare he cannot,
He shewes no such soft temper; his head's yellow,
Hard hayr'd, and curld, thicke twind like Ivy tods,
Not to undoe with thunder; In his face
The liverie of the warlike Maide appeares,
Pure red, and white, for yet no beard has blest him.
And in his rowling eyes sits victory,
As if she ever ment to court his valour:
His Nose stands high, a Character of honour.
His red lips, after fights, are fit for Ladies.

EMILIA.
Must these men die too?

PERITHOUS.
When he speakes, his tongue
Sounds like a Trumpet; All his lyneaments
Are as a man would wish 'em, strong and cleane,
He weares a well-steeld Axe, the staffe of gold;
His age some five and twenty.

MESSENGER.
Ther's another,
A little man, but of a tough soule, seeming
As great as any: fairer promises
In such a Body yet I never look'd on.

PERITHOUS.
O, he that's freckle fac'd?

MESSENGER.
The same, my Lord;
Are they not sweet ones?

PERITHOUS.
Yes, they are well.

MESSENGER.
Me thinkes,
Being so few, and well disposd, they show
Great, and fine art in nature: he's white hair'd,
Not wanton white, but such a manly colour
Next to an aborne; tough, and nimble set,
Which showes an active soule; his armes are brawny,
Linde with strong sinewes: To the shoulder peece
Gently they swell, like women new conceav'd,
Which speakes him prone to labour, never fainting
Vnder the waight of Armes; stout harted, still,
But when he stirs, a Tiger; he's gray eyd,
Which yeelds compassion where he conquers: sharpe
To spy advantages, and where he finds 'em,
He's swift to make 'em his: He do's no wrongs,
Nor takes none; he's round fac'd, and when he smiles
He showes a Lover, when he frownes, a Souldier:
About his head he weares the winners oke,
And in it stucke the favour of his Lady:
His age, some six and thirtie.  In his hand
He beares a charging Staffe, embost with silver.

THESEUS.
Are they all thus?

PERITHOUS.
They are all the sonnes of honour.

THESEUS.
Now, as I have a soule, I long to see'em.
Lady, you shall see men fight now.

HIPPOLITA.
I wish it,
But not the cause, my Lord; They would show
Bravely about the Titles of two Kingdomes;
Tis pitty Love should be so tyrannous:
O my soft harted Sister, what thinke you?
Weepe not, till they weepe blood, Wench; it must be.

THESEUS.
You have steel'd 'em with your Beautie.—Honord Friend,
To you I give the Feild; pray, order it
Fitting the persons that must use it.

PERITHOUS.
Yes, Sir.

THESEUS.
Come, Ile goe visit 'em: I cannot stay,
Their fame has fir'd me so; Till they appeare.
Good Friend, be royall.

PERITHOUS.
There shall want no bravery.

EMILIA.
Poore wench, goe weepe, for whosoever wins,
Looses a noble Cosen for thy sins.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 3.  (A room in the prison.)

[Enter Iailor, Wooer, Doctor.]

DOCTOR.
Her distraction is more at some time of the Moone, then at other some,
is it not?

IAILOR.
She is continually in a harmelesse distemper, sleepes little,
altogether without appetite, save often drinking, dreaming of another
world, and a better; and what broken peece of matter so'ere she's
about, the name Palamon lardes it, that she farces ev'ry busines
withall, fyts it to every question.—

[Enter Daughter.]

Looke where shee comes, you shall perceive her behaviour.

DAUGHTER.
I have forgot it quite; The burden on't, was DOWNE A, DOWNE A, and pend
by no worse man, then Giraldo, Emilias Schoolemaster; he's as
Fantasticall too, as ever he may goe upon's legs,—for in the next world
will Dido see Palamon, and then will she be out of love with Eneas.

DOCTOR.
What stuff's here? pore soule!

IAILOR.
Ev'n thus all day long.

DAUGHTER.
Now for this Charme, that I told you of: you must bring a peece of
silver on the tip of your tongue, or no ferry: then, if it be your
chance to come where the blessed spirits, as ther's a sight now—we
maids that have our Lyvers perish'd, crakt to peeces with Love, we
shall come there, and doe nothing all day long but picke flowers with
Proserpine; then will I make Palamon a Nosegay; then let him marke
me,—then—

DOCTOR.
How prettily she's amisse? note her a little further.

DAUGHTER.
Faith, ile tell you, sometime we goe to Barly breake, we of the
blessed; alas, tis a sore life they have i'th other place, such
burning, frying, boyling, hissing, howling, chattring, cursing, oh they
have shrowd measure! take heede; if one be mad, or hang or drowne
themselves, thither they goe, Iupiter blesse vs, and there shall we be
put in a Caldron of lead, and Vsurers grease, amongst a whole million
of cutpurses, and there boyle like a Gamon of Bacon that will never be
enough.  [Exit.]

DOCTOR.
How her braine coynes!

DAUGHTER.
Lords and Courtiers, that have got maids with Child, they are in this
place: they shall stand in fire up to the Nav'le, and in yce up to'th
hart, and there th'offending part burnes, and the deceaving part
freezes; in troth, a very greevous punishment, as one would thinke, for
such a Trifle; beleve me, one would marry a leaprous witch, to be rid
on't, Ile assure you.

DOCTOR.
How she continues this fancie!  Tis not an engraffed Madnesse, but a
most thicke, and profound mellencholly.

DAUGHTER.
To heare there a proud Lady, and a proud Citty wiffe, howle together! I
were a beast and il'd call it good sport: one cries, 'O this smoake!'
another, 'this fire!'  One cries, 'O, that ever I did it behind the
arras!' and then howles; th'other curses a suing fellow and her garden
house.  [Sings]  I will be true, my stars, my fate, &c.  [Exit Daugh.]

IAILOR.
What thinke you of her, Sir?

DOCTOR.
I thinke she has a perturbed minde, which I cannot minister to.

IAILOR.
Alas, what then?

DOCTOR.
Vnderstand you, she ever affected any man, ere she beheld
Palamon?

IAILOR.
I was once, Sir, in great hope she had fixd her liking on this
gentleman, my friend.

WOOER.
I did thinke so too, and would account I had a great pen-worth on't, to
give halfe my state, that both she and I at this present stood
unfainedly on the same tearmes.

DOCTOR.
That intemprat surfeit of her eye hath distemperd the other sences:
they may returne and settle againe to execute their preordaind
faculties, but they are now in a most extravagant vagary.  This you
must doe: Confine her to a place, where the light may rather seeme to
steale in, then be permitted; take vpon you (yong Sir, her friend) the
name of Palamon; say you come to eate with her, and to commune of Love;
this will catch her attention, for this her minde beates upon; other
objects that are inserted tweene her minde and eye become the prankes
and friskins of her madnes; Sing to her such greene songs of Love, as
she sayes Palamon hath sung in prison; Come to her, stucke in as sweet
flowers as the season is mistres of, and thereto make an addition of
som other compounded odours, which are grateful to the sence: all this
shall become Palamon, for Palamon can sing, and Palamon is sweet, and
ev'ry good thing: desire to eate with her, carve her, drinke to her,
and still among, intermingle your petition of grace and acceptance into
her favour: Learne what Maides have beene her companions and
play-pheeres, and let them repaire to her with Palamon in their
mouthes, and appeare with tokens, as if they suggested for him. It is a
falsehood she is in, which is with falsehood to be combated. This may
bring her to eate, to sleepe, and reduce what's now out of square in
her, into their former law, and regiment; I have seene it approved, how
many times I know not, but to make the number more, I have great hope
in this.  I will, betweene the passages of this project, come in with
my applyance: Let us put it in execution, and hasten the successe,
which, doubt not, will bring forth comfort.  [Florish.  Exeunt.]

ACT V

SCENE 1.  (Before the Temples of Mars, Venus, and Diana.)

[Enter Thesius, Perithous, Hipolita, attendants.]

THESEUS.
Now let'em enter, and before the gods
Tender their holy prayers: Let the Temples
Burne bright with sacred fires, and the Altars
In hallowed clouds commend their swelling Incense
To those above us: Let no due be wanting;  [Florish of Cornets.]
They have a noble worke in hand, will honour
The very powers that love 'em.

[Enter Palamon and Arcite, and their Knights.]

PERITHOUS.
Sir, they enter.

THESEUS.
You valiant and strong harted Enemies,
You royall German foes, that this day come
To blow that furnesse out that flames betweene ye:
Lay by your anger for an houre, and dove-like,
Before the holy Altars of your helpers,
(The all feard gods) bow downe your stubborne bodies.
Your ire is more than mortall; So your helpe be,
And as the gods regard ye, fight with Iustice;
Ile leave you to your prayers, and betwixt ye
I part my wishes.

PERITHOUS.
Honour crowne the worthiest.  [Exit Theseus, and his traine.]

PALAMON.
The glasse is running now that cannot finish
Till one of us expire: Thinke you but thus,
That were there ought in me which strove to show
Mine enemy in this businesse, wer't one eye
Against another, Arme opprest by Arme,
I would destroy th'offender, Coz, I would,
Though parcell of my selfe: Then from this gather
How I should tender you.

ARCITE.
I am in labour
To push your name, your auncient love, our kindred
Out of my memory; and i'th selfe same place
To seate something I would confound: So hoyst we
The sayles, that must these vessells port even where
The heavenly Lymiter pleases.

PALAMON.
You speake well;
Before I turne, Let me embrace thee, Cosen:
This I shall never doe agen.

ARCITE.
One farewell.

PALAMON.
Why, let it be so: Farewell, Coz.  [Exeunt Palamon and his
Knights.]

ARCITE.
Farewell, Sir.—
Knights, Kinsemen, Lovers, yea, my Sacrifices,
True worshippers of Mars, whose spirit in you
Expells the seedes of feare, and th'apprehension
Which still is farther off it, Goe with me
Before the god of our profession: There
Require of him the hearts of Lyons, and
The breath of Tigers, yea, the fearcenesse too,
Yea, the speed also,—to goe on, I meane,
Else wish we to be Snayles: you know my prize
Must be drag'd out of blood; force and great feate
Must put my Garland on, where she stickes
The Queene of Flowers: our intercession then
Must be to him that makes the Campe a Cestron
Brymd with the blood of men: give me your aide
And bend your spirits towards him.  [They kneele.]
Thou mighty one, that with thy power hast turnd
Greene Neptune into purple, (whose Approach)
Comets prewarne, whose havocke in vaste Feild
Vnearthed skulls proclaime, whose breath blowes downe,
The teeming Ceres foyzon, who doth plucke
With hand armypotent from forth blew clowdes
The masond Turrets, that both mak'st and break'st
The stony girthes of Citties: me thy puple,
Yongest follower of thy Drom, instruct this day
With military skill, that to thy lawde
I may advance my Streamer, and by thee,
Be stil'd the Lord o'th day: give me, great Mars,
Some token of thy pleasure.

[Here they fall on their faces as formerly, and there is heard
 clanging of Armor, with a short Thunder as the burst of a
Battaile,
 whereupon they all rise and bow to the Altar.]

O Great Corrector of enormous times,
Shaker of ore-rank States, thou grand decider
Of dustie and old tytles, that healst with blood
The earth when it is sicke, and curst the world
O'th pluresie of people; I doe take
Thy signes auspiciously, and in thy name
To my designe march boldly.  Let us goe.  [Exeunt.]

[Enter Palamon and his Knights, with the former observance.]

PALAMON.
Our stars must glister with new fire, or be
To daie extinct; our argument is love,
Which if the goddesse of it grant, she gives
Victory too: then blend your spirits with mine,
You, whose free noblenesse doe make my cause
Your personall hazard; to the goddesse Venus
Commend we our proceeding, and implore
Her power unto our partie.  [Here they kneele as formerly.]
Haile, Soveraigne Queene of secrets, who hast power
To call the feircest Tyrant from his rage,
And weepe unto a Girle; that ha'st the might,
Even with an ey-glance, to choke Marsis Drom
And turne th'allarme to whispers; that canst make
A Criple florish with his Crutch, and cure him
Before Apollo; that may'st force the King
To be his subjects vassaile, and induce
Stale gravitie to daunce; the pould Bachelour—
Whose youth, like wonton Boyes through Bonfyres,
Have skipt thy flame—at seaventy thou canst catch
And make him, to the scorne of his hoarse throate,
Abuse yong laies of love: what godlike power
Hast thou not power upon?  To Phoebus thou
Add'st flames hotter then his; the heavenly fyres
Did scortch his mortall Son, thine him; the huntresse
All moyst and cold, some say, began to throw
Her Bow away, and sigh.  Take to thy grace
Me, thy vowd Souldier, who doe beare thy yoke
As t'wer a wreath of Roses, yet is heavier
Then Lead it selfe, stings more than Nettles.
I have never beene foule mouthd against thy law,
Nev'r reveald secret, for I knew none—would not,
Had I kend all that were; I never practised
Vpon mans wife, nor would the Libells reade
Of liberall wits; I never at great feastes
Sought to betray a Beautie, but have blush'd
At simpring Sirs that did; I have beene harsh
To large Confessors, and have hotly ask'd them
If they had Mothers: I had one, a woman,
And women t'wer they wrong'd.  I knew a man
Of eightie winters, this I told them, who
A Lasse of foureteene brided; twas thy power
To put life into dust; the aged Crampe
Had screw'd his square foote round,
The Gout had knit his fingers into knots,
Torturing Convulsions from his globie eyes,
Had almost drawne their spheeres, that what was life
In him seem'd torture: this Anatomie
Had by his yong faire pheare a Boy, and I
Beleev'd it was him, for she swore it was,
And who would not beleeve her? briefe, I am
To those that prate and have done no Companion;
To those that boast and have not a defyer;
To those that would and cannot a Rejoycer.
Yea, him I doe not love, that tells close offices
The fowlest way, nor names concealements in
The boldest language: such a one I am,
And vow that lover never yet made sigh
Truer then I.  O, then, most soft, sweet goddesse,
Give me the victory of this question, which
Is true loves merit, and blesse me with a signe
Of thy great pleasure.

[Here Musicke is heard, Doves are seene to flutter; they fall
 againe upon their faces, then on their knees.]

PALAMON.
O thou, that from eleven to ninetie raign'st
In mortall bosomes, whose chase is this world,
And we in heards thy game: I give thee thankes
For this faire Token, which, being layd unto
Mine innocent true heart, armes in assurance  [They bow.]
My body to this businesse.  Let us rise
And bow before the goddesse: Time comes on.  [Exeunt.]

[Still Musicke of Records.]

[Enter Emilia in white, her haire about her shoulders, (wearing) a
wheaten wreath: One in white holding up her traine, her haire stucke
with flowers: One before her carrying a silver Hynde, in which is
conveyd Incense and sweet odours, which being set upon the Altar (of
Diana) her maides standing a loofe, she sets fire to it; then they
curtsey and kneele.]

EMILIA.
O sacred, shadowie, cold and constant Queene,
Abandoner of Revells, mute, contemplative,
Sweet, solitary, white as chaste, and pure
As windefand Snow, who to thy femall knights
Alow'st no more blood than will make a blush,
Which is their orders robe: I heere, thy Priest,
Am humbled fore thine Altar; O vouchsafe,
With that thy rare greene eye, which never yet
Beheld thing maculate, looke on thy virgin;
And, sacred silver Mistris, lend thine eare
(Which nev'r heard scurrill terme, into whose port
Ne're entred wanton found,) to my petition
Seasond with holy feare: This is my last
Of vestall office; I am bride habited,
But mayden harted, a husband I have pointed,
But doe not know him; out of two I should
Choose one and pray for his successe, but I
Am guiltlesse of election: of mine eyes,
Were I to loose one, they are equall precious,
I could doombe neither, that which perish'd should
Goe too't unsentenc'd: Therefore, most modest Queene,
He of the two Pretenders, that best loves me
And has the truest title in't, Let him
Take off my wheaten Gerland, or else grant
The fyle and qualitie I hold, I may
Continue in thy Band.

[Here the Hynde vanishes under the Altar: and in the place ascends
 a Rose Tree, having one Rose upon it.]

See what our Generall of Ebbs and Flowes
Out from the bowells of her holy Altar
With sacred act advances!  But one Rose:
If well inspird, this Battaile shal confound
Both these brave Knights, and I, a virgin flowre
Must grow alone unpluck'd.

[Here is heard a sodaine twang of Instruments, and the Rose fals\
 from the Tree (which vanishes under the altar.)]

The flowre is falne, the Tree descends: O, Mistris,
Thou here dischargest me; I shall be gather'd:
I thinke so, but I know not thine owne will;
Vnclaspe thy Misterie.—I hope she's pleas'd,
Her Signes were gratious.  [They curtsey and Exeunt.]

SCENE 2.  (A darkened Room in the Prison.)

[Enter Doctor, Iaylor and Wooer, in habite of Palamon.]

DOCTOR.
Has this advice I told you, done any good upon her?

WOOER.
O very much; The maids that kept her company
Have halfe perswaded her that I am Palamon;
Within this halfe houre she came smiling to me,
And asked me what I would eate, and when I would kisse her:
I told her presently, and kist her twice.

DOCTOR.
Twas well done; twentie times had bin far better,
For there the cure lies mainely.

WOOER.
Then she told me
She would watch with me to night, for well she knew
What houre my fit would take me.

DOCTOR.
Let her doe so,
And when your fit comes, fit her home,
And presently.

WOOER.
She would have me sing.

DOCTOR.
You did so?

WOOER.
No.

DOCTOR.
Twas very ill done, then;
You should observe her ev'ry way.

WOOER.
Alas,
I have no voice, Sir, to confirme her that way.

DOCTOR.
That's all one, if yee make a noyse;
If she intreate againe, doe any thing,—
Lye with her, if she aske you.

IAILOR.
Hoa, there, Doctor!

DOCTOR.
Yes, in the waie of cure.

IAILOR.
But first, by your leave,
I'th way of honestie.

DOCTOR.
That's but a nicenesse,
Nev'r cast your child away for honestie;
Cure her first this way, then if shee will be honest,
She has the path before her.

IAILOR.
Thanke yee, Doctor.

DOCTOR.
Pray, bring her in,
And let's see how shee is.

IAILOR.
I will, and tell her
Her Palamon staies for her: But, Doctor,
Me thinkes you are i'th wrong still.  [Exit Iaylor.]

DOCTOR.
Goe, goe:
You Fathers are fine Fooles: her honesty?
And we should give her physicke till we finde that—

WOOER.
Why, doe you thinke she is not honest, Sir?

DOCTOR.
How old is she?

WOOER.
She's eighteene.

DOCTOR.
She may be,
But that's all one; tis nothing to our purpose.
What ere her Father saies, if you perceave
Her moode inclining that way that I spoke of,
Videlicet, the way of flesh—you have me?

WOOER.
Yet, very well, Sir.

DOCTOR.
Please her appetite,
And doe it home; it cures her, ipso facto,
The mellencholly humour that infects her.

WOOER.
I am of your minde, Doctor.

[Enter Iaylor, Daughter, Maide.]

DOCTOR.
You'l finde it so; she comes, pray humour her.

IAILOR.
Come, your Love Palamon staies for you, childe,
And has done this long houre, to visite you.

DAUGHTER.
I thanke him for his gentle patience;
He's a kind Gentleman, and I am much bound to him.
Did you nev'r see the horse he gave me?

IAILOR.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
How doe you like him?

IAILOR.
He's a very faire one.

DAUGHTER.
You never saw him dance?

IAILOR.
No.

DAUGHTER.
I have often.
He daunces very finely, very comely,
And for a Iigge, come cut and long taile to him,
He turnes ye like a Top.

IAILOR.
That's fine, indeede.

DAUGHTER.
Hee'l dance the Morris twenty mile an houre,
And that will founder the best hobby-horse
(If I have any skill) in all the parish,
And gallops to the turne of LIGHT A' LOVE:
What thinke you of this horse?

IAILOR.
Having these vertues,
I thinke he might be broght to play at Tennis.

DAUGHTER.
Alas, that's nothing.

IAILOR.
Can he write and reade too?

DAUGHTER.
A very faire hand, and casts himselfe th'accounts
Of all his hay and provender: That Hostler
Must rise betime that cozens him.  You know
The Chestnut Mare the Duke has?

IAILOR.
Very well.

DAUGHTER.
She is horribly in love with him, poore beast,
But he is like his master, coy and scornefull.

IAILOR.
What dowry has she?

DAUGHTER.
Some two hundred Bottles,
And twenty strike of Oates; but hee'l ne're have her;
He lispes in's neighing, able to entice
A Millars Mare: Hee'l be the death of her.

DOCTOR.
What stuffe she utters!

IAILOR.
Make curtsie; here your love comes.

WOOER.
Pretty soule,
How doe ye? that's a fine maide, ther's a curtsie!

DAUGHTER.
Yours to command ith way of honestie.
How far is't now to'th end o'th world, my Masters?

DOCTOR.
Why, a daies Iorney, wench.

DAUGHTER.
Will you goe with me?

WOOER.
What shall we doe there, wench?

DAUGHTER.
Why, play at stoole ball:
What is there else to doe?

WOOER.
I am content,
If we shall keepe our wedding there.

DAUGHTER.
Tis true:
For there, I will assure you, we shall finde
Some blind Priest for the purpose, that will venture
To marry us, for here they are nice, and foolish;
Besides, my father must be hang'd to morrow
And that would be a blot i'th businesse.
Are not you Palamon?

WOOER.
Doe not you know me?

DAUGHTER.
Yes, but you care not for me; I have nothing
But this pore petticoate, and too corse Smockes.

WOOER.
That's all one; I will have you.

DAUGHTER.
Will you surely?

WOOER.
Yes, by this faire hand, will I.

DAUGHTER.
Wee'l to bed, then.

WOOER.
Ev'n when you will.  [Kisses her.]

DAUGHTER.
O Sir, you would faine be nibling.

WOOER.
Why doe you rub my kisse off?

DAUGHTER.
Tis a sweet one,
And will perfume me finely against the wedding.
Is not this your Cosen Arcite?

DOCTOR.
Yes, sweet heart,
And I am glad my Cosen Palamon
Has made so faire a choice.

DAUGHTER.
Doe you thinke hee'l have me?

DOCTOR.
Yes, without doubt.

DAUGHTER.
Doe you thinke so too?

IAILOR.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
We shall have many children:—Lord, how y'ar growne!
My Palamon, I hope, will grow, too, finely,
Now he's at liberty: Alas, poore Chicken,
He was kept downe with hard meate and ill lodging,
But ile kisse him up againe.

[Emter a Messenger.]

MESSENGER.
What doe you here? you'l loose the noblest sight
That ev'r was seene.

IAILOR.
Are they i'th Field?

MESSENGER.
They are.
You beare a charge there too.

IAILOR.
Ile away straight.
I must ev'n leave you here.

DOCTOR.
Nay, wee'l goe with you;
I will not loose the Fight.

IAILOR.
How did you like her?

DOCTOR.
Ile warrant you, within these 3. or 4. daies
Ile make her right againe.  You must not from her,
But still preserve her in this way.

WOOER.
I will.

DOCTOR.
Lets get her in.

WOOER.
Come, sweete, wee'l goe to dinner;
And then weele play at Cardes.

DAUGHTER.
And shall we kisse too?

WOOER.
A hundred times.

DAUGHTER.
And twenty.

WOOER.
I, and twenty.

DAUGHTER.
And then wee'l sleepe together.

DOCTOR.
Take her offer.

WOOER.
Yes, marry, will we.

DAUGHTER.
But you shall not hurt me.

WOOER.
I will not, sweete.

DAUGHTER.
If you doe, Love, ile cry.  [Florish.  Exeunt]

SCENE 3.  (A Place near the Lists.)

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Emilia, Perithous: and some Attendants,
 (T. Tucke: Curtis.)]

EMILIA.
Ile no step further.

PERITHOUS.
Will you loose this sight?

EMILIA.
I had rather see a wren hawke at a fly
Then this decision; ev'ry blow that falls
Threats a brave life, each stroake laments
The place whereon it fals, and sounds more like
A Bell then blade: I will stay here;
It is enough my hearing shall be punishd
With what shall happen—gainst the which there is
No deaffing, but to heare—not taint mine eye
With dread sights, it may shun.

PERITHOUS.
Sir, my good Lord,
Your Sister will no further.

THESEUS.
Oh, she must.
She shall see deeds of honour in their kinde,
Which sometime show well, pencild.  Nature now
Shall make and act the Story, the beleife
Both seald with eye and eare; you must be present,
You are the victours meede, the price, and garlond
To crowne the Questions title.

EMILIA.
Pardon me;
If I were there, I'ld winke.

THESEUS.
You must be there;
This Tryall is as t'wer i'th night, and you
The onely star to shine.

EMILIA.
I am extinct;
There is but envy in that light, which showes
The one the other: darkenes, which ever was
The dam of horrour, who do's stand accurst
Of many mortall Millions, may even now,
By casting her blacke mantle over both,
That neither coulde finde other, get her selfe
Some part of a good name, and many a murther
Set off wherto she's guilty.

HIPPOLITA.
You must goe.

EMILIA.
In faith, I will not.

THESEUS.
Why, the knights must kindle
Their valour at your eye: know, of this war
You are the Treasure, and must needes be by
To give the Service pay.

EMILIA.
Sir, pardon me;
The tytle of a kingdome may be tride
Out of it selfe.

THESEUS.
Well, well, then, at your pleasure;
Those that remaine with you could wish their office
To any of their Enemies.

HIPPOLITA.
Farewell, Sister;
I am like to know your husband fore your selfe
By some small start of time: he whom the gods
Doe of the two know best, I pray them he
Be made your Lot.

[Exeunt Theseus, Hipolita, Perithous, &c.]

EMILIA.
Arcite is gently visagd; yet his eye
Is like an Engyn bent, or a sharpe weapon
In a soft sheath; mercy and manly courage
Are bedfellowes in his visage.  Palamon
Has a most menacing aspect: his brow
Is grav'd, and seemes to bury what it frownes on;
Yet sometime tis not so, but alters to
The quallity of his thoughts; long time his eye
Will dwell upon his object.  Mellencholly
Becomes him nobly; So do's Arcites mirth,
But Palamons sadnes is a kinde of mirth,
So mingled, as if mirth did make him sad,
And sadnes, merry; those darker humours that
Sticke misbecomingly on others, on them
Live in faire dwelling.  [Cornets.  Trompets sound as to a
charge.]
Harke, how yon spurs to spirit doe incite
The Princes to their proofe! Arcite may win me,
And yet may Palamon wound Arcite to
The spoyling of his figure.  O, what pitty
Enough for such a chance; if I were by,
I might doe hurt, for they would glance their eies
Toward my Seat, and in that motion might
Omit a ward, or forfeit an offence
Which crav'd that very time: it is much better
I am not there; oh better never borne
Then minister to such harme.  [Cornets.  A great cry and noice within,
 crying 'a Palamon'.]  What is the chance?

[Enter Servant.]

SERVANT.
The Crie's 'a Palamon'.

EMILIA.
Then he has won!  Twas ever likely;
He lookd all grace and successe, and he is
Doubtlesse the prim'st of men: I pre'thee, run
And tell me how it goes.  [Showt, and Cornets: Crying, 'a
Palamon.']

SERVANT.
Still Palamon.

EMILIA.
Run and enquire.  Poore Servant, thou hast lost;
Vpon my right side still I wore thy picture,
Palamons on the left: why so, I know not;
I had no end in't else, chance would have it so.
On the sinister side the heart lyes; Palamon
Had the best boding chance.  [Another cry, and showt within, and
 Cornets.]  This burst of clamour
Is sure th'end o'th Combat.

[Enter Servant.]

SERVANT.
They saide that Palamon had Arcites body
Within an inch o'th Pyramid, that the cry
Was generall 'a Palamon': But, anon,
Th'Assistants made a brave redemption, and
The two bold Tytlers, at this instant are
Hand to hand at it.

EMILIA.
Were they metamorphisd
Both into one! oh why? there were no woman
Worth so composd a Man: their single share,
Their noblenes peculier to them, gives
The prejudice of disparity, values shortnes,  [Cornets.  Cry within,
 Arcite, Arcite.]
To any Lady breathing—More exulting?
Palamon still?

SERVANT.
Nay, now the sound is Arcite.

EMILIA.
I pre'thee, lay attention to the Cry,  [Cornets.  A great showt and
cry, 'Arcite, victory!'] Set both thine eares to'th busines.

SERVANT.
The cry is
'Arcite', and 'victory', harke: 'Arcite, victory!'
The Combats consummation is proclaim'd
By the wind Instruments.

EMILIA.
Halfe sights saw
That Arcite was no babe; god's lyd, his richnes
And costlines of spirit look't through him, it could
No more be hid in him then fire in flax,
Then humble banckes can goe to law with waters,
That drift windes force to raging: I did thinke
Good Palamon would miscarry; yet I knew not
Why I did thinke so; Our reasons are not prophets,
When oft our fancies are.  They are comming off:
Alas, poore Palamon!  [Cornets.]

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Pirithous, Arcite as victor, and
 attendants, &c.]

THESEUS.
Lo, where our Sister is in expectation,
Yet quaking, and unsetled.—Fairest Emily,
The gods by their divine arbitrament
Have given you this Knight; he is a good one
As ever strooke at head.  Give me your hands;
Receive you her, you him; be plighted with
A love that growes, as you decay.

ARCITE.
Emily,
To buy you, I have lost what's deerest to me,
Save what is bought, and yet I purchase cheapely,
As I doe rate your value.

THESEUS.
O loved Sister,
He speakes now of as brave a Knight as ere
Did spur a noble Steed: Surely, the gods
Would have him die a Batchelour, least his race
Should shew i'th world too godlike: His behaviour
So charmed me, that me thought Alcides was
To him a sow of lead: if I could praise
Each part of him to'th all I have spoke, your Arcite
Did not loose by't; For he that was thus good
Encountred yet his Better.  I have heard
Two emulous Philomels beate the eare o'th night
With their contentious throates, now one the higher,
Anon the other, then againe the first,
And by and by out breasted, that the sence
Could not be judge betweene 'em: So it far'd
Good space betweene these kinesmen; till heavens did
Make hardly one the winner.  Weare the Girlond
With joy that you have won: For the subdude,
Give them our present Iustice, since I know
Their lives but pinch 'em; Let it here be done.
The Sceane's not for our seeing, goe we hence,
Right joyfull, with some sorrow.—Arme your prize,
I know you will not loose her.—Hipolita,
I see one eye of yours conceives a teare
The which it will deliver.  [Florish.]

EMILIA.
Is this wynning?
Oh all you heavenly powers, where is your mercy?
But that your wils have saide it must be so,
And charge me live to comfort this unfriended,
This miserable Prince, that cuts away
A life more worthy from him then all women,
I should, and would, die too.

HIPPOLITA.
Infinite pitty,
That fowre such eies should be so fixd on one
That two must needes be blinde fort.

THESEUS.
So it is.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 4.  (The same; a Block prepared.)

[Enter Palamon and his Knightes pyniond: Iaylor, Executioner, &c. 
Gard.]

(PALAMON.)
Ther's many a man alive that hath out liv'd
The love o'th people; yea, i'th selfesame state
Stands many a Father with his childe; some comfort
We have by so considering: we expire
And not without mens pitty.  To live still,
Have their good wishes; we prevent
The loathsome misery of age, beguile
The Gowt and Rheume, that in lag howres attend
For grey approachers; we come towards the gods
Yong and unwapper'd, not halting under Crymes
Many and stale: that sure shall please the gods,
Sooner than such, to give us Nectar with 'em,
For we are more cleare Spirits.  My deare kinesmen,
Whose lives (for this poore comfort) are laid downe,
You have sould 'em too too cheape.

1. KNIGHT.
What ending could be
Of more content? ore us the victors have
Fortune, whose title is as momentary,
As to us death is certaine: A graine of honour
They not ore'-weigh us.

2. KNIGHT.
Let us bid farewell;
And with our patience anger tottring Fortune,
Who at her certain'st reeles.

3. KNIGHT.
Come; who begins?

PALAMON.
Ev'n he that led you to this Banket shall
Taste to you all.—Ah ha, my Friend, my Friend,
Your gentle daughter gave me freedome once;
You'l see't done now for ever: pray, how do'es she?
I heard she was not well; her kind of ill
Gave me some sorrow.

IAILOR.
Sir, she's well restor'd,
And to be marryed shortly.

PALAMON.
By my short life,
I am most glad on't; Tis the latest thing
I shall be glad of; pre'thee tell her so:
Commend me to her, and to peece her portion,
Tender her this.  [Gives purse.]

1. KNIGHT.
Nay lets be offerers all.

2. KNIGHT.
Is it a maide?

PALAMON.
Verily, I thinke so,
A right good creature, more to me deserving
Then I can quight or speake of.

ALL KNIGHTS.
Commend us to her.  [They give their purses.]

IAILOR.
The gods requight you all,
And make her thankefull.

PALAMON.
Adiew; and let my life be now as short,
As my leave taking.  [Lies on the Blocke.]

1. KNIGHT.
Leade, couragious Cosin.

2. KNIGHT.
Wee'l follow cheerefully.  [A great noise within crying, 'run, save,
hold!']

[Enter in hast a Messenger.]

MESSENGER.
Hold, hold!  O hold, hold, hold!

[Enter Pirithous in haste.]

PERITHOUS.
Hold! hoa!  It is a cursed hast you made,
If you have done so quickly.  Noble Palamon,
The gods will shew their glory in a life,
That thou art yet to leade.

PALAMON.
Can that be,
When Venus, I have said, is false?  How doe things fare?

PERITHOUS.
Arise, great Sir, and give the tydings eare
That are most dearly sweet and bitter.

PALAMON.
What
Hath wakt us from our dreame?

PERITHOUS.
List then: your Cosen,
Mounted upon a Steed that Emily
Did first bestow on him, a blacke one, owing
Not a hayre worth of white—which some will say
Weakens his price, and many will not buy
His goodnesse with this note: Which superstition
Heere findes allowance—On this horse is Arcite
Trotting the stones of Athens, which the Calkins
Did rather tell then trample; for the horse
Would make his length a mile, if't pleas'd his Rider
To put pride in him: as he thus went counting
The flinty pavement, dancing, as t'wer, to'th Musicke
His owne hoofes made; (for as they say from iron
Came Musickes origen) what envious Flint,
Cold as old Saturne, and like him possest
With fire malevolent, darted a Sparke,
Or what feirce sulphur else, to this end made,
I comment not;—the hot horse, hot as fire,
Tooke Toy at this, and fell to what disorder
His power could give his will; bounds, comes on end,
Forgets schoole dooing, being therein traind,
And of kind mannadge; pig-like he whines
At the sharpe Rowell, which he freats at rather
Then any jot obaies; seekes all foule meanes
Of boystrous and rough Iadrie, to dis-seate
His Lord, that kept it bravely: when nought serv'd,
When neither Curb would cracke, girth breake nor diffring plunges
Dis-roote his Rider whence he grew, but that
He kept him tweene his legges, on his hind hoofes on end he stands,
That Arcites leggs, being higher then his head,
Seem'd with strange art to hand: His victors wreath
Even then fell off his head: and presently
Backeward the Iade comes ore, and his full poyze
Becomes the Riders loade: yet is he living,
But such a vessell tis, that floates but for
The surge that next approaches: he much desires
To have some speech with you: Loe he appeares.

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Emilia, Arcite in a chaire.]

PALAMON.
O miserable end of our alliance!
The gods are mightie, Arcite: if thy heart,
Thy worthie, manly heart, be yet unbroken,
Give me thy last words; I am Palamon,
One that yet loves thee dying.

ARCITE.
Take Emilia
And with her all the worlds joy: Reach thy hand:
Farewell: I have told my last houre.  I was false,
Yet never treacherous: Forgive me, Cosen:—
One kisse from faire Emilia: Tis done:
Take her: I die.

PALAMON.
Thy brave soule seeke Elizium.

EMILIA.
Ile close thine eyes, Prince; blessed soules be with thee!
Thou art a right good man, and while I live,
This day I give to teares.

PALAMON.
And I to honour.

THESEUS.
In this place first you fought: ev'n very here
I sundred you: acknowledge to the gods
Our thankes that you are living.
His part is playd, and though it were too short,
He did it well: your day is lengthned, and
The blissefull dew of heaven do's arowze you.
The powerfull Venus well hath grac'd her Altar,
And given you your love: Our Master Mars
Hath vouch'd his Oracle, and to Arcite gave
The grace of the Contention: So the Deities
Have shewd due justice: Beare this hence.

PALAMON.
O Cosen,
That we should things desire, which doe cost us
The losse of our desire!  That nought could buy
Deare love, but losse of deare love!

THESEUS.
Never Fortune
Did play a subtler Game: The conquerd triumphes,
The victor has the Losse: yet in the passage
The gods have beene most equall: Palamon,
Your kinseman hath confest the right o'th Lady
Did lye in you, for you first saw her, and
Even then proclaimd your fancie: He restord her
As your stolne Iewell, and desir'd your spirit
To send him hence forgiven; The gods my justice
Take from my hand, and they themselves become
The Executioners: Leade your Lady off;
And call your Lovers from the stage of death,
Whom I adopt my Frinds.  A day or two
Let us looke sadly, and give grace unto
The Funerall of Arcite; in whose end
The visages of Bridegroomes weele put on
And smile with Palamon; for whom an houre,
But one houre, since, I was as dearely sorry,
As glad of Arcite: and am now as glad,
As for him sorry.  O you heavenly Charmers,
What things you make of us!  For what we lacke
We laugh, for what we have, are sorry: still
Are children in some kind.  Let us be thankefull
For that which is, and with you leave dispute
That are above our question.  Let's goe off,
And beare us like the time.  [Florish.  Exeunt.]

EPILOGUE

I would now aske ye how ye like the Play,
But, as it is with Schoole Boyes, cannot say,
I am cruell fearefull: pray, yet stay a while,
And let me looke upon ye: No man smile?
Then it goes hard, I see; He that has
Lov'd a yong hansome wench, then, show his face—
Tis strange if none be heere—and if he will
Against his Conscience, let him hisse, and kill
Our Market: Tis in vaine, I see, to stay yee;
Have at the worst can come, then!  Now what say ye?
And yet mistake me not: I am not bold;
We have no such cause.  If the tale we have told
(For tis no other) any way content ye
(For to that honest purpose it was ment ye)
We have our end; and ye shall have ere long,
I dare say, many a better, to prolong
Your old loves to us: we, and all our might
Rest at your service.  Gentlemen, good night.  [Florish.]

FINIS



THE WINTER’S TALE

Dramatis Personae

  LEONTES, King of Sicilia
  MAMILLIUS, his son, the young Prince of Sicilia
  CAMILLO,    lord of Sicilia
  ANTIGONUS,    "   "     "
  CLEOMENES,    "   "     "
  DION,         "   "     "
  POLIXENES, King of Bohemia
  FLORIZEL, his son, Prince of Bohemia
  ARCHIDAMUS, a lord of Bohemia
  OLD SHEPHERD, reputed father of Perdita
  CLOWN, his son
  AUTOLYCUS, a rogue
  A MARINER
  A GAOLER
  TIME, as Chorus

  HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes
  PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Hermione
  PAULINA, wife to Antigonus
  EMILIA, a lady attending on the Queen
  MOPSA,   shepherdess
  DORCAS,        "

  Other Lords, Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, Servants, Shepherds,
    Shepherdesses

                              SCENE: Sicilia and Bohemia

ACT I. SCENE I. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS

  ARCHIDAMUS. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the
    like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see,
    as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your
    Sicilia.
  CAMILLO. I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to
    pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.
  ARCHIDAMUS. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be
    justified in our loves; for indeed-
  CAMILLO. Beseech you-
  ARCHIDAMUS. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we
    cannot with such magnificence, in so rare- I know not what to
    say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses,
    unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot
    praise us, as little accuse us.
  CAMILLO. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.
  ARCHIDAMUS. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me
    and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.
  CAMILLO. Sicilia cannot show himself overkind to Bohemia. They were
    train'd together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt
    them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now.
    Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made
    separation of their society, their encounters, though not
    personal, have been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts,
    letters, loving embassies; that they have seem'd to be together,
    though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embrac'd as it
    were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their
    loves!
  ARCHIDAMUS. I think there is not in the world either malice or
    matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young
    Prince Mamillius; it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that
    ever came into my note.
  CAMILLO. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a
    gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject, makes old
    hearts fresh; they that went on crutches ere he was born desire
    yet their life to see him a man.
  ARCHIDAMUS. Would they else be content to die?
  CAMILLO. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire
    to live.
  ARCHIDAMUS. If the King had no son, they would desire to live on
    crutches till he had one.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and ATTENDANTS

  POLIXENES. Nine changes of the wat'ry star hath been
    The shepherd's note since we have left our throne
    Without a burden. Time as long again
    Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks;
    And yet we should for perpetuity
    Go hence in debt. And therefore, like a cipher,
    Yet standing in rich place, I multiply
    With one 'We thank you' many thousands moe
    That go before it.
  LEONTES. Stay your thanks a while,
    And pay them when you part.
  POLIXENES. Sir, that's to-morrow.
    I am question'd by my fears of what may chance
    Or breed upon our absence, that may blow
    No sneaping winds at home, to make us say
    'This is put forth too truly.' Besides, I have stay'd
    To tire your royalty.
  LEONTES. We are tougher, brother,
    Than you can put us to't.
  POLIXENES. No longer stay.
  LEONTES. One sev'night longer.
  POLIXENES. Very sooth, to-morrow.
  LEONTES. We'll part the time between's then; and in that
    I'll no gainsaying.
  POLIXENES. Press me not, beseech you, so.
    There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' th' world,
    So soon as yours could win me. So it should now,
    Were there necessity in your request, although
    'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs
    Do even drag me homeward; which to hinder
    Were in your love a whip to me; my stay
    To you a charge and trouble. To save both,
    Farewell, our brother.
  LEONTES. Tongue-tied, our Queen? Speak you.
  HERMIONE. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until
    You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,
    Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure
    All in Bohemia's well- this satisfaction
    The by-gone day proclaim'd. Say this to him,
    He's beat from his best ward.
  LEONTES. Well said, Hermione.
  HERMIONE. To tell he longs to see his son were strong;
    But let him say so then, and let him go;
    But let him swear so, and he shall not stay;
    We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.
    [To POLIXENES]  Yet of your royal presence I'll
    adventure the borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
    You take my lord, I'll give him my commission
    To let him there a month behind the gest
    Prefix'd for's parting.- Yet, good deed, Leontes,
    I love thee not a jar o' th' clock behind
    What lady she her lord.- You'll stay?
  POLIXENES. No, madam.
  HERMIONE. Nay, but you will?
  POLIXENES. I may not, verily.
  HERMIONE. Verily!
    You put me off with limber vows; but I,
    Though you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths,
    Should yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily,
    You shall not go; a lady's 'verily' is
    As potent as a lord's. Will go yet?
    Force me to keep you as a prisoner,
    Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees
    When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?
    My prisoner or my guest? By your dread 'verily,'
    One of them you shall be.
  POLIXENES. Your guest, then, madam:
    To be your prisoner should import offending;
    Which is for me less easy to commit
    Than you to punish.
  HERMIONE. Not your gaoler then,
    But your kind. hostess. Come, I'll question you
    Of my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys.
    You were pretty lordings then!
  POLIXENES. We were, fair Queen,
    Two lads that thought there was no more behind
    But such a day to-morrow as to-day,
    And to be boy eternal.
  HERMIONE. Was not my lord
    The verier wag o' th' two?
  POLIXENES. We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' th' sun
    And bleat the one at th' other. What we chang'd
    Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
    The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd
    That any did. Had we pursu'd that life,
    And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd
    With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven
    Boldly 'Not guilty,' the imposition clear'd
    Hereditary ours.
  HERMIONE. By this we gather
    You have tripp'd since.
  POLIXENES. O my most sacred lady,
    Temptations have since then been born to 's, for
    In those unfledg'd days was my wife a girl;
    Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes
    Of my young playfellow.
  HERMIONE. Grace to boot!
    Of this make no conclusion, lest you say
    Your queen and I are devils. Yet, go on;
    Th' offences we have made you do we'll answer,
    If you first sinn'd with us, and that with us
    You did continue fault, and that you slipp'd not
    With any but with us.
  LEONTES. Is he won yet?
  HERMIONE. He'll stay, my lord.
  LEONTES. At my request he would not.
    Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok'st
    To better purpose.
  HERMIONE. Never?
  LEONTES. Never but once.
  HERMIONE. What! Have I twice said well? When was't before?
    I prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's
    As fat as tame things. One good deed dying tongueless
    Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.
    Our praises are our wages; you may ride's
    With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere
    With spur we heat an acre. But to th' goal:
    My last good deed was to entreat his stay;
    What was my first? It has an elder sister,
    Or I mistake you. O, would her name were Grace!
    But once before I spoke to th' purpose- When?
    Nay, let me have't; I long.
  LEONTES. Why, that was when
    Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death,
    Ere I could make thee open thy white hand
    And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter
    'I am yours for ever.'
  HERMIONE. 'Tis Grace indeed.
    Why, lo you now, I have spoke to th' purpose twice:
    The one for ever earn'd a royal husband;
    Th' other for some while a friend.
                                  [Giving her hand to POLIXENES]
  LEONTES.  [Aside]  Too hot, too hot!
    To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.
    I have tremor cordis on me; my heart dances,
    But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment
    May a free face put on; derive a liberty
    From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,
    And well become the agent. 'T may, I grant;
    But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,
    As now they are, and making practis'd smiles
    As in a looking-glass; and then to sigh, as 'twere
    The mort o' th' deer. O, that is entertainment
    My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius,
    Art thou my boy?
  MAMILLIUS. Ay, my good lord.
  LEONTES. I' fecks!
    Why, that's my bawcock. What! hast smutch'd thy nose?
    They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, Captain,
    We must be neat- not neat, but cleanly, Captain.
    And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf,
    Are all call'd neat.- Still virginalling
    Upon his palm?- How now, you wanton calf,
    Art thou my calf?
  MAMILLIUS. Yes, if you will, my lord.
  LEONTES. Thou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,
    To be full like me; yet they say we are
    Almost as like as eggs. Women say so,
    That will say anything. But were they false
    As o'er-dy'd blacks, as wind, as waters- false
    As dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes
    No bourn 'twixt his and mine; yet were it true
    To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,
    Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain!
    Most dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?- may't be?
    Affection! thy intention stabs the centre.
    Thou dost make possible things not so held,
    Communicat'st with dreams- how can this be?-
    With what's unreal thou coactive art,
    And fellow'st nothing. Then 'tis very credent
    Thou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost-
    And that beyond commission; and I find it,
    And that to the infection of my brains
    And hard'ning of my brows.
  POLIXENES. What means Sicilia?
  HERMIONE. He something seems unsettled.
  POLIXENES. How, my lord!
    What cheer? How is't with you, best brother?
  HERMIONE. You look
    As if you held a brow of much distraction.
    Are you mov'd, my lord?
  LEONTES. No, in good earnest.
    How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
    Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
    To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines
    Of my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil
    Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd,
    In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzl'd,
    Lest it should bite its master and so prove,
    As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.
    How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,
    This squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend,
    Will you take eggs for money?
  MAMILLIUS. No, my lord, I'll fight.
  LEONTES. You will? Why, happy man be's dole! My brother,
    Are you so fond of your young prince as we
    Do seem to be of ours?
  POLIXENES. If at home, sir,
    He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter;
    Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;
    My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.
    He makes a July's day short as December,
    And with his varying childness cures in me
    Thoughts that would thick my blood.
  LEONTES. So stands this squire
    Offic'd with me. We two will walk, my lord,
    And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione,
    How thou lov'st us show in our brother's welcome;
    Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap;
    Next to thyself and my young rover, he's
    Apparent to my heart.
  HERMIONE. If you would seek us,
    We are yours i' th' garden. Shall's attend you there?
  LEONTES. To your own bents dispose you; you'll be found,
    Be you beneath the sky.  [Aside]  I am angling now,
    Though you perceive me not how I give line.
    Go to, go to!
    How she holds up the neb, the bill to him!
    And arms her with the boldness of a wife
    To her allowing husband!

                      Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and ATTENDANTS

    Gone already!
    Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd one!
    Go, play, boy, play; thy mother plays, and I
    Play too; but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue
    Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamour
    Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play. There have been,
    Or I am much deceiv'd, cuckolds ere now;
    And many a man there is, even at this present,
    Now while I speak this, holds his wife by th' arm
    That little thinks she has been sluic'd in's absence,
    And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by
    Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there's comfort in't,
    Whiles other men have gates and those gates open'd,
    As mine, against their will. Should all despair
    That hath revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
    Would hang themselves. Physic for't there's none;
    It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
    Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis pow'rfull, think it,
    From east, west, north, and south. Be it concluded,
    No barricado for a belly. Know't,
    It will let in and out the enemy
    With bag and baggage. Many thousand on's
    Have the disease, and feel't not. How now, boy!
  MAMILLIUS. I am like you, they say.
  LEONTES. Why, that's some comfort.
    What! Camillo there?
  CAMILLO. Ay, my good lord.
  LEONTES. Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man.
                                                  Exit MAMILLIUS
    Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.
  CAMILLO. You had much ado to make his anchor hold;
    When you cast out, it still came home.
  LEONTES. Didst note it?
  CAMILLO. He would not stay at your petitions; made
    His business more material.
  LEONTES. Didst perceive it?
    [Aside]  They're here with me already; whisp'ring, rounding,
    'Sicilia is a so-forth.' 'Tis far gone
    When I shall gust it last.- How came't, Camillo,
    That he did stay?
  CAMILLO. At the good Queen's entreaty.
  LEONTES. 'At the Queen's' be't. 'Good' should be pertinent;
    But so it is, it is not. Was this taken
    By any understanding pate but thine?
    For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in
    More than the common blocks. Not noted, is't,
    But of the finer natures, by some severals
    Of head-piece extraordinary? Lower messes
    Perchance are to this business purblind? Say.
  CAMILLO. Business, my lord? I think most understand
    Bohemia stays here longer.
  LEONTES. Ha?
  CAMILLO. Stays here longer.
  LEONTES. Ay, but why?
  CAMILLO. To satisfy your Highness, and the entreaties
    Of our most gracious mistress.
  LEONTES. Satisfy
    Th' entreaties of your mistress! Satisfy!
    Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,
    With all the nearest things to my heart, as well
    My chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou
    Hast cleans'd my bosom- I from thee departed
    Thy penitent reform'd; but we have been
    Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd
    In that which seems so.
  CAMILLO. Be it forbid, my lord!
  LEONTES. To bide upon't: thou art not honest; or,
    If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward,
    Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining
    From course requir'd; or else thou must be counted
    A servant grafted in my serious trust,
    And therein negligent; or else a fool
    That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,
    And tak'st it all for jest.
  CAMILLO. My gracious lord,
    I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful:
    In every one of these no man is free
    But that his negligence, his folly, fear,
    Among the infinite doings of the world,
    Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,
    If ever I were wilfull-negligent,
    It was my folly; if industriously
    I play'd the fool, it was my negligence,
    Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful
    To do a thing where I the issue doubted,
    Whereof the execution did cry out
    Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear
    Which oft infects the wisest. These, my lord,
    Are such allow'd infirmities that honesty
    Is never free of. But, beseech your Grace,
    Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass
    By its own visage; if I then deny it,
    'Tis none of mine.
  LEONTES. Ha' not you seen, Camillo-
    But that's past doubt; you have, or your eye-glass
    Is thicker than a cuckold's horn- or heard-
    For to a vision so apparent rumour
    Cannot be mute- or thought- for cogitation
    Resides not in that man that does not think-
    My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess-
    Or else be impudently negative,
    To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought- then say
    My wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name
    As rank as any flax-wench that puts to
    Before her troth-plight. Say't and justify't.
  CAMILLO. I would not be a stander-by to hear
    My sovereign mistress clouded so, without
    My present vengeance taken. Shrew my heart!
    You never spoke what did become you less
    Than this; which to reiterate were sin
    As deep as that, though true.
  LEONTES. Is whispering nothing?
    Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?
    Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career
    Of laughter with a sigh?- a note infallible
    Of breaking honesty. Horsing foot on foot?
    Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift;
    Hours, minutes; noon, midnight? And all eyes
    Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
    That would unseen be wicked- is this nothing?
    Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;
    The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;
    My is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,
    If this be nothing.
  CAMILLO. Good my lord, be cur'd
    Of this diseas'd opinion, and betimes;
    For 'tis most dangerous.
  LEONTES. Say it be, 'tis true.
  CAMILLO. No, no, my lord.
  LEONTES. It is; you lie, you lie.
    I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee;
    Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,
    Or else a hovering temporizer that
    Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,
    Inclining to them both. Were my wife's liver
    Infected as her life, she would not live
    The running of one glass.
  CAMILLO. Who does her?
  LEONTES. Why, he that wears her like her medal, hanging
    About his neck, Bohemia; who- if I
    Had servants true about me that bare eyes
    To see alike mine honour as their profits,
    Their own particular thrifts, they would do that
    Which should undo more doing. Ay, and thou,
    His cupbearer- whom I from meaner form
    Have bench'd and rear'd to worship; who mayst see,
    Plainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven,
    How I am gall'd- mightst bespice a cup
    To give mine enemy a lasting wink;
    Which draught to me were cordial.
  CAMILLO. Sir, my lord,
    I could do this; and that with no rash potion,
    But with a ling'ring dram that should not work
    Maliciously like poison. But I cannot
    Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress,
    So sovereignly being honourable.
    I have lov'd thee-
  LEONTES. Make that thy question, and go rot!
    Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,
    To appoint myself in this vexation; sully
    The purity and whiteness of my sheets-
    Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted
    Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps;
    Give scandal to the blood o' th' Prince, my son-
    Who I do think is mine, and love as mine-
    Without ripe moving to 't? Would I do this?
    Could man so blench?
  CAMILLO. I must believe you, sir.
    I do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't;
    Provided that, when he's remov'd, your Highness
    Will take again your queen as yours at first,
    Even for your son's sake; and thereby for sealing
    The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms
    Known and allied to yours.
  LEONTES. Thou dost advise me
    Even so as I mine own course have set down.
    I'll give no blemish to her honour, none.
  CAMILLO. My lord,
    Go then; and with a countenance as clear
    As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia
    And with your queen. I am his cupbearer;
    If from me he have wholesome beverage,
    Account me not your servant.
  LEONTES. This is all:
    Do't, and thou hast the one half of my heart;
    Do't not, thou split'st thine own.
  CAMILLO. I'll do't, my lord.
  LEONTES. I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis'd me.   Exit
  CAMILLO. O miserable lady! But, for me,
    What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner
    Of good Polixenes; and my ground to do't
    Is the obedience to a master; one
    Who, in rebellion with himself, will have
    All that are his so too. To do this deed,
    Promotion follows. If I could find example
    Of thousands that had struck anointed kings
    And flourish'd after, I'd not do't; but since
    Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,
    Let villainy itself forswear't. I must
    Forsake the court. To do't, or no, is certain
    To me a break-neck. Happy star reign now!
    Here comes Bohemia.

                     Enter POLIXENES

  POLIXENES. This is strange. Methinks
    My favour here begins to warp. Not speak?
    Good day, Camillo.
  CAMILLO. Hail, most royal sir!
  POLIXENES. What is the news i' th' court?
  CAMILLO. None rare, my lord.
  POLIXENES. The King hath on him such a countenance
    As he had lost some province, and a region
    Lov'd as he loves himself; even now I met him
    With customary compliment, when he,
    Wafting his eyes to th' contrary and falling
    A lip of much contempt, speeds from me;
    So leaves me to consider what is breeding
    That changes thus his manners.
  CAMILLO. I dare not know, my lord.
  POLIXENES. How, dare not! Do not. Do you know, and dare not
    Be intelligent to me? 'Tis thereabouts;
    For, to yourself, what you do know, you must,
    And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,
    Your chang'd complexions are to me a mirror
    Which shows me mine chang'd too; for I must be
    A party in this alteration, finding
    Myself thus alter'd with't.
  CAMILLO. There is a sickness
    Which puts some of us in distemper; but
    I cannot name the disease; and it is caught
    Of you that yet are well.
  POLIXENES. How! caught of me?
    Make me not sighted like the basilisk;
    I have look'd on thousands who have sped the better
    By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo-
    As you are certainly a gentleman; thereto
    Clerk-like experienc'd, which no less adorns
    Our gentry than our parents' noble names,
    In whose success we are gentle- I beseech you,
    If you know aught which does behove my knowledge
    Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not
    In ignorant concealment.
  CAMILLO. I may not answer.
  POLIXENES. A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?
    I must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo?
    I conjure thee, by all the parts of man
    Which honour does acknowledge, whereof the least
    Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare
    What incidency thou dost guess of harm
    Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;
    Which way to be prevented, if to be;
    If not, how best to bear it.
  CAMILLO. Sir, I will tell you;
    Since I am charg'd in honour, and by him
    That I think honourable. Therefore mark my counsel,
    Which must be ev'n as swiftly followed as
    I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me
    Cry lost, and so goodnight.
  POLIXENES. On, good Camillo.
  CAMILLO. I am appointed him to murder you.
  POLIXENES. By whom, Camillo?
  CAMILLO. By the King.
  POLIXENES. For what?
  CAMILLO. He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,
    As he had seen 't or been an instrument
    To vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen
    Forbiddenly.
  POLIXENES. O, then my best blood turn
    To an infected jelly, and my name
    Be yok'd with his that did betray the Best!
    Turn then my freshest reputation to
    A savour that may strike the dullest nostril
    Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd,
    Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection
    That e'er was heard or read!
  CAMILLO. Swear his thought over
    By each particular star in heaven and
    By all their influences, you may as well
    Forbid the sea for to obey the moon
    As or by oath remove or counsel shake
    The fabric of his folly, whose foundation
    Is pil'd upon his faith and will continue
    The standing of his body.
  POLIXENES. How should this grow?
  CAMILLO. I know not; but I am sure 'tis safer to
    Avoid what's grown than question how 'tis born.
    If therefore you dare trust my honesty,
    That lies enclosed in this trunk which you
    Shall bear along impawn'd, away to-night.
    Your followers I will whisper to the business;
    And will, by twos and threes, at several posterns,
    Clear them o' th' city. For myself, I'll put
    My fortunes to your service, which are here
    By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain,
    For, by the honour of my parents, I
    Have utt'red truth; which if you seek to prove,
    I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer
    Than one condemn'd by the King's own mouth, thereon
    His execution sworn.
  POLIXENES. I do believe thee:
    I saw his heart in's face. Give me thy hand;
    Be pilot to me, and thy places shall
    Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready, and
    My people did expect my hence departure
    Two days ago. This jealousy
    Is for a precious creature; as she's rare,
    Must it be great; and, as his person's mighty,
    Must it be violent; and as he does conceive
    He is dishonour'd by a man which ever
    Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must
    In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me.
    Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
    The gracious Queen, part of this theme, but nothing
    Of his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo;
    I will respect thee as a father, if
    Thou bear'st my life off hence. Let us avoid.
  CAMILLO. It is in mine authority to command
    The keys of all the posterns. Please your Highness
    To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.             Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and LADIES

  HERMIONE. Take the boy to you; he so troubles me,
    'Tis past enduring.
  FIRST LADY. Come, my gracious lord,
    Shall I be your playfellow?
  MAMILLIUS. No, I'll none of you.
  FIRST LADY. Why, my sweet lord?
  MAMILLIUS. You'll kiss me hard, and speak to me as if
    I were a baby still. I love you better.
  SECOND LADY. And why so, my lord?
  MAMILLIUS. Not for because
    Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,
    Become some women best; so that there be not
    Too much hair there, but in a semicircle
    Or a half-moon made with a pen.
  SECOND LADY. Who taught't this?
  MAMILLIUS. I learn'd it out of women's faces. Pray now,
    What colour are your eyebrows?
  FIRST LADY. Blue, my lord.
  MAMILLIUS. Nay, that's a mock. I have seen a lady's nose
    That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.
  FIRST LADY. Hark ye:
    The Queen your mother rounds apace. We shall
    Present our services to a fine new prince
    One of these days; and then you'd wanton with us,
    If we would have you.
  SECOND LADY. She is spread of late
    Into a goodly bulk. Good time encounter her!
  HERMIONE. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now
    I am for you again. Pray you sit by us,
    And tell's a tale.
  MAMILLIUS. Merry or sad shall't be?
  HERMIONE. As merry as you will.
  MAMILLIUS. A sad tale's best for winter. I have one
    Of sprites and goblins.
  HERMIONE. Let's have that, good sir.
    Come on, sit down; come on, and do your best
    To fright me with your sprites; you're pow'rfull at it.
  MAMILLIUS. There was a man-
  HERMIONE. Nay, come, sit down; then on.
  MAMILLIUS. Dwelt by a churchyard- I will tell it softly;
    Yond crickets shall not hear it.
  HERMIONE. Come on then,
    And give't me in mine ear.

             Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, LORDS, and OTHERS

  LEONTES. he met there? his train? Camillo with him?
  FIRST LORD. Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never
    Saw I men scour so on their way. I ey'd them
    Even to their ships.
  LEONTES. How blest am I
    In my just censure, in my true opinion!
    Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accurs'd
    In being so blest! There may be in the cup
    A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,
    And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge
    Is not infected; but if one present
    Th' abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known
    How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
    With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider.
    Camillo was his help in this, his pander.
    There is a plot against my life, my crown;
    All's true that is mistrusted. That false villain
    Whom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him;
    He has discover'd my design, and I
    Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick
    For them to play at will. How came the posterns
    So easily open?
  FIRST LORD. By his great authority;
    Which often hath no less prevail'd than so
    On your command.
  LEONTES. I know't too well.
    Give me the boy. I am glad you did not nurse him;
    Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you
    Have too much blood in him.
  HERMIONE. What is this? Sport?
  LEONTES. Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her;
    Away with him; and let her sport herself
                                          [MAMILLIUS is led out]
    With that she's big with- for 'tis Polixenes
    Has made thee swell thus.
  HERMIONE. But I'd say he had not,
    And I'll be sworn you would believe my saying,
    Howe'er you lean to th' nayward.
  LEONTES. You, my lords,
    Look on her, mark her well; be but about
    To say 'She is a goodly lady' and
    The justice of your hearts will thereto ad
    'Tis pity she's not honest- honourable.'
    Praise her but for this her without-door form,
    Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight
    The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands
    That calumny doth use- O, I am out!-
    That mercy does, for calumny will sear
    Virtue itself- these shrugs, these hum's and ha's,
    When you have said she's goodly, come between,
    Ere you can say she's honest. But be't known,
    From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,
    She's an adultress.
  HERMIONE. Should a villain say so,
    The most replenish'd villain in the world,
    He were as much more villain: you, my lord,
    Do but mistake.
  LEONTES. You have mistook, my lady,
    Polixenes for Leontes. O thou thing!
    Which I'll not call a creature of thy place,
    Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
    Should a like language use to all degrees
    And mannerly distinguishment leave out
    Betwixt the prince and beggar. I have said
    She's an adultress; I have said with whom.
    More, she's a traitor; and Camillo is
    A federary with her, and one that knows
    What she should shame to know herself
    But with her most vile principal- that she's
    A bed-swerver, even as bad as those
    That vulgars give bold'st titles; ay, and privy
    To this their late escape.
  HERMIONE. No, by my life,
    Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you,
    When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
    You thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,
    You scarce can right me throughly then to say
    You did mistake.
  LEONTES. No; if I mistake
    In those foundations which I build upon,
    The centre is not big enough to bear
    A school-boy's top. Away with her to prison.
    He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty
    But that he speaks.
  HERMIONE. There's some ill planet reigns.
    I must be patient till the heavens look
    With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
    I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
    Commonly are- the want of which vain dew
    Perchance shall dry your pities- but I have
    That honourable grief lodg'd here which burns
    Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords,
    With thoughts so qualified as your charities
    Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so
    The King's will be perform'd!
  LEONTES.  [To the GUARD]  Shall I be heard?
  HERMIONE. Who is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness
    My women may be with me, for you see
    My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;
    There is no cause; when you shall know your mistress
    Has deserv'd prison, then abound in tears
    As I come out: this action I now go on
    Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord.
    I never wish'd to see you sorry; now
    I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.
  LEONTES. Go, do our bidding; hence!
                            Exeunt HERMIONE, guarded, and LADIES
  FIRST LORD. Beseech your Highness, call the Queen again.
  ANTIGONUS. Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice
    Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer,
    Yourself, your queen, your son.
  FIRST LORD. For her, my lord,
    I dare my life lay down- and will do't, sir,
    Please you t' accept it- that the Queen is spotless
    I' th' eyes of heaven and to you- I mean
    In this which you accuse her.
  ANTIGONUS. If it prove
    She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where
    I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;
    Than when I feel and see her no farther trust her;
    For every inch of woman in the world,
    Ay, every dram of woman's flesh is false,
    If she be.
  LEONTES. Hold your peaces.
  FIRST LORD. Good my lord-
  ANTIGONUS. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves.
    You are abus'd, and by some putter-on
    That will be damn'd for't. Would I knew the villain!
    I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd-
    I have three daughters: the eldest is eleven;
    The second and the third, nine and some five;
    If this prove true, they'll pay for 't. By mine honour,
    I'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see
    To bring false generations. They are co-heirs;
    And I had rather glib myself than they
    Should not produce fair issue.
  LEONTES. Cease; no more.
    You smell this business with a sense as cold
    As is a dead man's nose; but I do see't and feel't
    As you feel doing thus; and see withal
    The instruments that feel.
  ANTIGONUS. If it be so,
    We need no grave to bury honesty;
    There's not a grain of it the face to sweeten
    Of the whole dungy earth.
  LEONTES. What! Lack I credit?
  FIRST LORD. I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,
    Upon this ground; and more it would content me
    To have her honour true than your suspicion,
    Be blam'd for't how you might.
  LEONTES. Why, what need we
    Commune with you of this, but rather follow
    Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative
    Calls not your counsels; but our natural goodness
    Imparts this; which, if you- or stupified
    Or seeming so in skill- cannot or will not
    Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves
    We need no more of your advice. The matter,
    The loss, the gain, the ord'ring on't, is all
    Properly ours.
  ANTIGONUS. And I wish, my liege,
    You had only in your silent judgment tried it,
    Without more overture.
  LEONTES. How could that be?
    Either thou art most ignorant by age,
    Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight,
    Added to their familiarity-
    Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture,
    That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation
    But only seeing, all other circumstances
    Made up to th' deed- doth push on this proceeding.
    Yet, for a greater confirmation-
    For, in an act of this importance, 'twere
    Most piteous to be wild- I have dispatch'd in post
    To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,
    Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know
    Of stuff'd sufficiency. Now, from the oracle
    They will bring all, whose spiritual counsel had,
    Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well?
  FIRST LORD. Well done, my lord.
  LEONTES. Though I am satisfied, and need no more
    Than what I know, yet shall the oracle
    Give rest to th' minds of others such as he
    Whose ignorant credulity will not
    Come up to th' truth. So have we thought it good
    From our free person she should be confin'd,
    Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence
    Be left her to perform. Come, follow us;
    We are to speak in public; for this business
    Will raise us all.
  ANTIGONUS.  [Aside]  To laughter, as I take it,
    If the good truth were known.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Sicilia. A prison

Enter PAULINA, a GENTLEMAN, and ATTENDANTS

  PAULINA. The keeper of the prison- call to him;
    Let him have knowledge who I am.              Exit GENTLEMAN
    Good lady!
    No court in Europe is too good for thee;
    What dost thou then in prison?

                 Re-enter GENTLEMAN with the GAOLER

    Now, good sir,
    You know me, do you not?
  GAOLER. For a worthy lady,
    And one who much I honour.
  PAULINA. Pray you, then,
    Conduct me to the Queen.
  GAOLER. I may not, madam;
    To the contrary I have express commandment.
  PAULINA. Here's ado, to lock up honesty and honour from
    Th' access of gentle visitors! Is't lawful, pray you,
    To see her women- any of them? Emilia?
  GAOLER. So please you, madam,
    To put apart these your attendants,
    Shall bring Emilia forth.
  PAULINA. I pray now, call her.
    Withdraw yourselves.                       Exeunt ATTENDANTS
  GAOLER. And, madam,
    I must be present at your conference.
  PAULINA. Well, be't so, prithee.                   Exit GAOLER
    Here's such ado to make no stain a stain
    As passes colouring.

                 Re-enter GAOLER, with EMILIA

    Dear gentlewoman,
    How fares our gracious lady?
  EMILIA. As well as one so great and so forlorn
    May hold together. On her frights and griefs,
    Which never tender lady hath borne greater,
    She is, something before her time, deliver'd.
  PAULINA. A boy?
  EMILIA. A daughter, and a goodly babe,
    Lusty, and like to live. The Queen receives
    Much comfort in't; says 'My poor prisoner,
    I am as innocent as you.'
  PAULINA. I dare be sworn.
    These dangerous unsafe lunes i' th' King, beshrew them!
    He must be told on't, and he shall. The office
    Becomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me;
    If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister,
    And never to my red-look'd anger be
    The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia,
    Commend my best obedience to the Queen;
    If she dares trust me with her little babe,
    I'll show't the King, and undertake to be
    Her advocate to th' loud'st. We do not know
    How he may soften at the sight o' th' child:
    The silence often of pure innocence
    Persuades when speaking fails.
  EMILIA. Most worthy madam,
    Your honour and your goodness is so evident
    That your free undertaking cannot miss
    A thriving issue; there is no lady living
    So meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship
    To visit the next room, I'll presently
    Acquaint the Queen of your most noble offer
    Who but to-day hammer'd of this design,
    But durst not tempt a minister of honour,
    Lest she should be denied.
  PAULINA. Tell her, Emilia,
    I'll use that tongue I have; if wit flow from't
    As boldness from my bosom, let't not be doubted
    I shall do good.
  EMILIA. Now be you blest for it!
    I'll to the Queen. Please you come something nearer.
  GAOLER. Madam, if't please the Queen to send the babe,
    I know not what I shall incur to pass it,
    Having no warrant.
  PAULINA. You need not fear it, sir.
    This child was prisoner to the womb, and is
    By law and process of great Nature thence
    Freed and enfranchis'd- not a party to
    The anger of the King, nor guilty of,
    If any be, the trespass of the Queen.
  GAOLER. I do believe it.
  PAULINA. Do not you fear. Upon mine honour, I
    Will stand betwixt you and danger.                    Exeunt

SCENE III. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, LORDS, and SERVANTS

  LEONTES. Nor night nor day no rest! It is but weakness
    To bear the matter thus- mere weakness. If
    The cause were not in being- part o' th' cause,
    She, th' adultress; for the harlot king
    Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank
    And level of my brain, plot-proof; but she
    I can hook to me- say that she were gone,
    Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest
    Might come to me again. Who's there?
  FIRST SERVANT. My lord?
  LEONTES. How does the boy?
  FIRST SERVANT. He took good rest to-night;
    'Tis hop'd his sickness is discharg'd.
  LEONTES. To see his nobleness!
    Conceiving the dishonour of his mother,
    He straight declin'd, droop'd, took it deeply,
    Fasten'd and fix'd the shame on't in himself,
    Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,
    And downright languish'd. Leave me solely. Go,
    See how he fares.  [Exit SERVANT]  Fie, fie! no thought of him!
    The very thought of my revenges that way
    Recoil upon me- in himself too mighty,
    And in his parties, his alliance. Let him be,
    Until a time may serve; for present vengeance,
    Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes
    Laugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow.
    They should not laugh if I could reach them; nor
    Shall she, within my pow'r.

                 Enter PAULINA, with a CHILD

  FIRST LORD. You must not enter.
  PAULINA. Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me.
    Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,
    Than the Queen's life? A gracious innocent soul,
    More free than he is jealous.
  ANTIGONUS. That's enough.
  SECOND SERVANT. Madam, he hath not slept to-night; commanded
    None should come at him.
  PAULINA. Not so hot, good sir;
    I come to bring him sleep. 'Tis such as you,
    That creep like shadows by him, and do sigh
    At each his needless heavings- such as you
    Nourish the cause of his awaking: I
    Do come with words as medicinal as true,
    Honest as either, to purge him of that humour
    That presses him from sleep.
  LEONTES. What noise there, ho?
  PAULINA. No noise, my lord; but needful conference
    About some gossips for your Highness.
  LEONTES. How!
    Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus,
    I charg'd thee that she should not come about me;
    I knew she would.
  ANTIGONUS. I told her so, my lord,
    On your displeasure's peril, and on mine,
    She should not visit you.
  LEONTES. What, canst not rule her?
  PAULINA. From all dishonesty he can: in this,
    Unless he take the course that you have done-
    Commit me for committing honour- trust it,
    He shall not rule me.
  ANTIGONUS. La you now, you hear!
    When she will take the rein, I let her run;
    But she'll not stumble.
  PAULINA. Good my liege, I come-
    And I beseech you hear me, who professes
    Myself your loyal servant, your physician,
    Your most obedient counsellor; yet that dares
    Less appear so, in comforting your evils,
    Than such as most seem yours- I say I come
    From your good Queen.
  LEONTES. Good Queen!
  PAULINA. Good Queen, my lord, good Queen- I say good Queen;
    And would by combat make her good, so were I
    A man, the worst about you.
  LEONTES. Force her hence.
  PAULINA. Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes
    First hand me. On mine own accord I'll off;
    But first I'll do my errand. The good Queen,
    For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;
    Here 'tis; commends it to your blessing.
                                         [Laying down the child]
  LEONTES. Out!
    A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door!
    A most intelligencing bawd!
  PAULINA. Not so.
    I am as ignorant in that as you
    In so entitling me; and no less honest
    Than you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant,
    As this world goes, to pass for honest.
  LEONTES. Traitors!
    Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard.
    [To ANTIGONUS]  Thou dotard, thou art woman-tir'd, unroosted
    By thy Dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard;
    Take't up, I say; give't to thy crone.
  PAULINA. For ever
    Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou
    Tak'st up the Princess by that forced baseness
    Which he has put upon't!
  LEONTES. He dreads his wife.
  PAULINA. So I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt
    You'd call your children yours.
  LEONTES. A nest of traitors!
  ANTIGONUS. I am none, by this good light.
  PAULINA. Nor I; nor any
    But one that's here; and that's himself; for he
    The sacred honour of himself, his Queen's,
    His hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander,
    Whose sting is sharper than the sword's; and will not-
    For, as the case now stands, it is a curse
    He cannot be compell'd to 't- once remove
    The root of his opinion, which is rotten
    As ever oak or stone was sound.
  LEONTES. A callat
    Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband,
    And now baits me! This brat is none of mine;
    It is the issue of Polixenes.
    Hence with it, and together with the dam
    Commit them to the fire.
  PAULINA. It is yours.
    And, might we lay th' old proverb to your charge,
    So like you 'tis the worse. Behold, my lords,
    Although the print be little, the whole matter
    And copy of the father- eye, nose, lip,
    The trick of's frown, his forehead; nay, the valley,
    The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles;
    The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.
    And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it
    So like to him that got it, if thou hast
    The ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours
    No yellow in't, lest she suspect, as he does,
    Her children not her husband's!
  LEONTES. A gross hag!
    And, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd
    That wilt not stay her tongue.
  ANTIGONUS. Hang all the husbands
    That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself
    Hardly one subject.
  LEONTES. Once more, take her hence.
  PAULINA. A most unworthy and unnatural lord
    Can do no more.
  LEONTES. I'll ha' thee burnt.
  PAULINA. I care not.
    It is an heretic that makes the fire,
    Not she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant
    But this most cruel usage of your Queen-
    Not able to produce more accusation
    Than your own weak-hing'd fancy- something savours
    Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you,
    Yea, scandalous to the world.
  LEONTES. On your allegiance,
    Out of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,
    Where were her life? She durst not call me so,
    If she did know me one. Away with her!
  PAULINA. I pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone.
    Look to your babe, my lord; 'tis yours. Jove send her
    A better guiding spirit! What needs these hands?
    You that are thus so tender o'er his follies
    Will never do him good, not one of you.
    So, so. Farewell; we are gone.                          Exit
  LEONTES. Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this.
    My child! Away with't. Even thou, that hast
    A heart so tender o'er it, take it hence,
    And see it instantly consum'd with fire;
    Even thou, and none but thou. Take it up straight.
    Within this hour bring me word 'tis done,
    And by good testimony, or I'll seize thy life,
    With that thou else call'st thine. If thou refuse,
    And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so;
    The bastard brains with these my proper hands
    Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire;
    For thou set'st on thy wife.
  ANTIGONUS. I did not, sir.
    These lords, my noble fellows, if they please,
    Can clear me in't.
  LORDS. We can. My royal liege,
    He is not guilty of her coming hither.
  LEONTES. You're liars all.
  FIRST LORD. Beseech your Highness, give us better credit.
    We have always truly serv'd you; and beseech
    So to esteem of us; and on our knees we beg,
    As recompense of our dear services
    Past and to come, that you do change this purpose,
    Which being so horrible, so bloody, must
    Lead on to some foul issue. We all kneel.
  LEONTES. I am a feather for each wind that blows.
    Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel
    And call me father? Better burn it now
    Than curse it then. But be it; let it live.
    It shall not neither.  [To ANTIGONUS]  You, Sir, come you hither.
    You that have been so tenderly officious
    With Lady Margery, your midwife there,
    To save this bastard's life- for 'tis a bastard,
    So sure as this beard's grey- what will you adventure
    To save this brat's life?
  ANTIGONUS. Anything, my lord,
    That my ability may undergo,
    And nobleness impose. At least, thus much:
    I'll pawn the little blood which I have left
    To save the innocent- anything possible.
  LEONTES. It shall be possible. Swear by this sword
    Thou wilt perform my bidding.
  ANTIGONUS. I will, my lord.
  LEONTES. Mark, and perform it- seest thou? For the fail
    Of any point in't shall not only be
    Death to thyself, but to thy lewd-tongu'd wife,
    Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,
    As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry
    This female bastard hence; and that thou bear it
    To some remote and desert place, quite out
    Of our dominions; and that there thou leave it,
    Without more mercy, to it own protection
    And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune
    It came to us, I do in justice charge thee,
    On thy soul's peril and thy body's torture,
    That thou commend it strangely to some place
    Where chance may nurse or end it. Take it up.
  ANTIGONUS. I swear to do this, though a present death
    Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe.
    Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
    To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say,
    Casting their savageness aside, have done
    Like offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous
    In more than this deed does require! And blessing
    Against this cruelty fight on thy side,
    Poor thing, condemn'd to loss!           Exit with the child
  LEONTES. No, I'll not rear
    Another's issue.

                         Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. Please your Highness, posts
    From those you sent to th' oracle are come
    An hour since. Cleomenes and Dion,
    Being well arriv'd from Delphos, are both landed,
    Hasting to th' court.
  FIRST LORD. So please you, sir, their speed
    Hath been beyond account.
  LEONTES. Twenty-three days
    They have been absent; 'tis good speed; foretells
    The great Apollo suddenly will have
    The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords;
    Summon a session, that we may arraign
    Our most disloyal lady; for, as she hath
    Been publicly accus'd, so shall she have
    A just and open trial. While she lives,
    My heart will be a burden to me. Leave me;
    And think upon my bidding.                            Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Sicilia. On the road to the Capital

Enter CLEOMENES and DION

  CLEOMENES. The climate's delicate, the air most sweet,
    Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing
    The common praise it bears.
  DION. I shall report,
    For most it caught me, the celestial habits-
    Methinks I so should term them- and the reverence
    Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!
    How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly,
    It was i' th' off'ring!
  CLEOMENES. But of all, the burst
    And the ear-deaf'ning voice o' th' oracle,
    Kin to Jove's thunder, so surpris'd my sense
    That I was nothing.
  DION. If th' event o' th' journey
    Prove as successful to the Queen- O, be't so!-
    As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,
    The time is worth the use on't.
  CLEOMENES. Great Apollo
    Turn all to th' best! These proclamations,
    So forcing faults upon Hermione,
    I little like.
  DION. The violent carriage of it
    Will clear or end the business. When the oracle-
    Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up-
    Shall the contents discover, something rare
    Even then will rush to knowledge. Go; fresh horses.
    And gracious be the issue!                            Exeunt

SCENE II. Sicilia. A court of justice

Enter LEONTES, LORDS, and OFFICERS

  LEONTES. This sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,
    Even pushes 'gainst our heart- the party tried,
    The daughter of a king, our wife, and one
    Of us too much belov'd. Let us be clear'd
    Of being tyrannous, since we so openly
    Proceed in justice, which shall have due course,
    Even to the guilt or the purgation.
    Produce the prisoner.
  OFFICER. It is his Highness' pleasure that the Queen
    Appear in person here in court.

         Enter HERMIONE, as to her trial, PAULINA, and LADIES

    Silence!
  LEONTES. Read the indictment.
  OFFICER.  [Reads]  'Hermione, Queen to the worthy Leontes, King of
    Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in
    committing adultery with Polixenes, King of Bohemia; and
    conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign
    lord the King, thy royal husband: the pretence whereof being by
    circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the
    faith and allegiance of true subject, didst counsel and aid them,
    for their better safety, to fly away by night.'
  HERMIONE. Since what I am to say must be but that
    Which contradicts my accusation, and
    The testimony on my part no other
    But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me
    To say 'Not guilty.' Mine integrity
    Being counted falsehood shall, as I express it,
    Be so receiv'd. But thus- if pow'rs divine
    Behold our human actions, as they do,
    I doubt not then but innocence shall make
    False accusation blush, and tyranny
    Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know-
    Who least will seem to do so- my past life
    Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,
    As I am now unhappy; which is more
    Than history can pattern, though devis'd
    And play'd to take spectators; for behold me-
    A fellow of the royal bed, which owe
    A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter,
    The mother to a hopeful prince- here standing
    To prate and talk for life and honour fore
    Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it
    As I weigh grief, which I would spare; for honour,
    'Tis a derivative from me to mine,
    And only that I stand for. I appeal
    To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes
    Came to your court, how I was in your grace,
    How merited to be so; since he came,
    With what encounter so uncurrent I
    Have strain'd t' appear thus; if one jot beyond
    The bound of honour, or in act or will
    That way inclining, hard'ned be the hearts
    Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin
    Cry fie upon my grave!
  LEONTES. I ne'er heard yet
    That any of these bolder vices wanted
    Less impudence to gainsay what they did
    Than to perform it first.
  HERMIONE. That's true enough;
    Though 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.
  LEONTES. You will not own it.
  HERMIONE. More than mistress of
    Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not
    At all acknowledge. For Polixenes,
    With whom I am accus'd, I do confess
    I lov'd him as in honour he requir'd;
    With such a kind of love as might become
    A lady like me; with a love even such,
    So and no other, as yourself commanded;
    Which not to have done, I think had been in me
    Both disobedience and ingratitude
    To you and toward your friend; whose love had spoke,
    Ever since it could speak, from an infant, freely,
    That it was yours. Now for conspiracy:
    I know not how it tastes, though it be dish'd
    For me to try how; all I know of it
    Is that Camillo was an honest man;
    And why he left your court, the gods themselves,
    Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.
  LEONTES. You knew of his departure, as you know
    What you have underta'en to do in's absence.
  HERMIONE. Sir,
    You speak a language that I understand not.
    My life stands in the level of your dreams,
    Which I'll lay down.
  LEONTES. Your actions are my dreams.
    You had a bastard by Polixenes,
    And I but dream'd it. As you were past all shame-
    Those of your fact are so- so past all truth;
    Which to deny concerns more than avails; for as
    Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,
    No father owning it- which is indeed
    More criminal in thee than it- so thou
    Shalt feel our justice; in whose easiest passage
    Look for no less than death.
  HERMIONE. Sir, spare your threats.
    The bug which you would fright me with I seek.
    To me can life be no commodity.
    The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,
    I do give lost, for I do feel it gone,
    But know not how it went; my second joy
    And first fruits of my body, from his presence
    I am barr'd, like one infectious; my third comfort,
    Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast-
    The innocent milk in it most innocent mouth-
    Hal'd out to murder; myself on every post
    Proclaim'd a strumpet; with immodest hatred
    The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs
    To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried
    Here to this place, i' th' open air, before
    I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,
    Tell me what blessings I have here alive
    That I should fear to die. Therefore proceed.
    But yet hear this- mistake me not: no life,
    I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour
    Which I would free- if I shall be condemn'd
    Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
    But what your jealousies awake, I tell you
    'Tis rigour, and not law. Your honours all,
    I do refer me to the oracle:
    Apollo be my judge!
  FIRST LORD. This your request
    Is altogether just. Therefore, bring forth,
    And in Apollo's name, his oracle.
                                         Exeunt certain OFFICERS
  HERMIONE. The Emperor of Russia was my father;
    O that he were alive, and here beholding
    His daughter's trial! that he did but see
    The flatness of my misery; yet with eyes
    Of pity, not revenge!

           Re-enter OFFICERS, with CLEOMENES and DION

  OFFICER. You here shall swear upon this sword of justice
    That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have
    Been both at Delphos, and from thence have brought
    This seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd
    Of great Apollo's priest; and that since then
    You have not dar'd to break the holy seal
    Nor read the secrets in't.
  CLEOMENES, DION. All this we swear.
  LEONTES. Break up the seals and read.
  OFFICER.  [Reads]  'Hermione is chaste; Polixenes blameless;
    Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; his innocent
    babe truly begotten; and the King shall live without an heir, if
    that which is lost be not found.'
  LORDS. Now blessed be the great Apollo!
  HERMIONE. Praised!
  LEONTES. Hast thou read truth?
  OFFICER. Ay, my lord; even so
    As it is here set down.
  LEONTES. There is no truth at all i' th' oracle.
    The sessions shall proceed. This is mere falsehood.

                        Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. My lord the King, the King!
  LEONTES. What is the business?
  SERVANT. O sir, I shall be hated to report it:
    The Prince your son, with mere conceit and fear
    Of the Queen's speed, is gone.
  LEONTES. How! Gone?
  SERVANT. Is dead.
  LEONTES. Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves
    Do strike at my injustice.                 [HERMIONE swoons]
    How now, there!
  PAULINA. This news is mortal to the Queen. Look down
    And see what death is doing.
  LEONTES. Take her hence.
    Her heart is but o'ercharg'd; she will recover.
    I have too much believ'd mine own suspicion.
    Beseech you tenderly apply to her
    Some remedies for life.
                         Exeunt PAULINA and LADIES with HERMIONE
    Apollo, pardon
    My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle.
    I'll reconcile me to Polixenes,
    New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo-
    Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy.
    For, being transported by my jealousies
    To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose
    Camillo for the minister to poison
    My friend Polixenes; which had been done
    But that the good mind of Camillo tardied
    My swift command, though I with death and with
    Reward did threaten and encourage him,
    Not doing it and being done. He, most humane
    And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest
    Unclasp'd my practice, quit his fortunes here,
    Which you knew great, and to the certain hazard
    Of all incertainties himself commended,
    No richer than his honour. How he glisters
    Thorough my rust! And how his piety
    Does my deeds make the blacker!

                      Re-enter PAULINA

  PAULINA. Woe the while!
    O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,
    Break too!
  FIRST LORD. What fit is this, good lady?
  PAULINA. What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?
    What wheels, racks, fires? what flaying, boiling
    In leads or oils? What old or newer torture
    Must I receive, whose every word deserves
    To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny
    Together working with thy jealousies,
    Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle
    For girls of nine- O, think what they have done,
    And then run mad indeed, stark mad; for all
    Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.
    That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 'twas nothing;
    That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant,
    And damnable ingrateful. Nor was't much
    Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour,
    To have him kill a king- poor trespasses,
    More monstrous standing by; whereof I reckon
    The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter
    To be or none or little, though a devil
    Would have shed water out of fire ere done't;
    Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death
    Of the young Prince, whose honourable thoughts-
    Thoughts high for one so tender- cleft the heart
    That could conceive a gross and foolish sire
    Blemish'd his gracious dam. This is not, no,
    Laid to thy answer; but the last- O lords,
    When I have said, cry 'Woe!'- the Queen, the Queen,
    The sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead; and vengeance
    For't not dropp'd down yet.
  FIRST LORD. The higher pow'rs forbid!
  PAULINA. I say she's dead; I'll swear't. If word nor oath
    Prevail not, go and see. If you can bring
    Tincture or lustre in her lip, her eye,
    Heat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you
    As I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant!
    Do not repent these things, for they are heavier
    Than all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee
    To nothing but despair. A thousand knees
    Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,
    Upon a barren mountain, and still winter
    In storm perpetual, could not move the gods
    To look that way thou wert.
  LEONTES. Go on, go on.
    Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserv'd
    All tongues to talk their bitt'rest.
  FIRST LORD. Say no more;
    Howe'er the business goes, you have made fault
    I' th' boldness of your speech.
  PAULINA. I am sorry for't.
    All faults I make, when I shall come to know them.
    I do repent. Alas, I have show'd too much
    The rashness of a woman! He is touch'd
    To th' noble heart. What's gone and what's past help
    Should be past grief. Do not receive affliction
    At my petition; I beseech you, rather
    Let me be punish'd that have minded you
    Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege,
    Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman.
    The love I bore your queen- lo, fool again!
    I'll speak of her no more, nor of your children;
    I'll not remember you of my own lord,
    Who is lost too. Take your patience to you,
    And I'll say nothing.
  LEONTES. Thou didst speak but well
    When most the truth; which I receive much better
    Than to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me
    To the dead bodies of my queen and son.
    One grave shall be for both. Upon them shall
    The causes of their death appear, unto
    Our shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit
    The chapel where they lie; and tears shed there
    Shall be my recreation. So long as nature
    Will bear up with this exercise, so long
    I daily vow to use it. Come, and lead me
    To these sorrows.                                     Exeunt

SCENE III. Bohemia. The sea-coast

Enter ANTIGONUS with the CHILD, and a MARINER

  ANTIGONUS. Thou art perfect then our ship hath touch'd upon
    The deserts of Bohemia?
  MARINER. Ay, my lord, and fear
    We have landed in ill time; the skies look grimly
    And threaten present blusters. In my conscience,
    The heavens with that we have in hand are angry
    And frown upon 's.
  ANTIGONUS. Their sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard;
    Look to thy bark. I'll not be long before
    I call upon thee.
  MARINER. Make your best haste; and go not
    Too far i' th' land; 'tis like to be loud weather;
    Besides, this place is famous for the creatures
    Of prey that keep upon't.
  ANTIGONUS. Go thou away;
    I'll follow instantly.
  MARINER. I am glad at heart
    To be so rid o' th' business.                           Exit
  ANTIGONUS. Come, poor babe.
    I have heard, but not believ'd, the spirits o' th' dead
    May walk again. If such thing be, thy mother
    Appear'd to me last night; for ne'er was dream
    So like a waking. To me comes a creature,
    Sometimes her head on one side some another-
    I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,
    So fill'd and so becoming; in pure white robes,
    Like very sanctity, she did approach
    My cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me;
    And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes
    Became two spouts; the fury spent, anon
    Did this break from her: 'Good Antigonus,
    Since fate, against thy better disposition,
    Hath made thy person for the thrower-out
    Of my poor babe, according to thine oath,
    Places remote enough are in Bohemia,
    There weep, and leave it crying; and, for the babe
    Is counted lost for ever, Perdita
    I prithee call't. For this ungentle business,
    Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see
    Thy wife Paulina more.' so, with shrieks,
    She melted into air. Affrighted much,
    I did in time collect myself, and thought
    This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys;
    Yet, for this once, yea, superstitiously,
    I will be squar'd by this. I do believe
    Hermione hath suffer'd death, and that
    Apollo would, this being indeed the issue
    Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid,
    Either for life or death, upon the earth
    Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!
                                         [Laying down the child]
    There lie, and there thy character; there these
                                          [Laying down a bundle]
    Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,
    And still rest thine. The storm begins. Poor wretch,
    That for thy mother's fault art thus expos'd
    To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,
    But my heart bleeds; and most accurs'd am I
    To be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell!
    The day frowns more and more. Thou'rt like to have
    A lullaby too rough; I never saw
    The heavens so dim by day.  [Noise of hunt within]  A savage
      clamour!
    Well may I get aboard! This is the chase;
    I am gone for ever.                  Exit, pursued by a bear

                      Enter an old SHEPHERD

  SHEPHERD. I would there were no age between ten and three and twenty,
  or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the
  between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry,
  stealing, fighting-  [Horns]  Hark you now! Would any but these
  boil'd brains of nineteen and two and twenty hunt this weather? They
  have scar'd away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will
  sooner find than the master. If any where I have them, 'tis by the
  sea-side, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an't be thy will! What have we
  here?  [Taking up the child]  Mercy on's, a barne! A very pretty
  barne. A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty one-
  sure, some scape. Though I am not bookish, yet I can read
  waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work, some
  trunk-work, some behind-door-work; they were warmer that got this
  than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity; yet I'll tarry
  till my son come; he halloo'd but even now. Whoa-ho-hoa!

                          Enter CLOWN

  CLOWN. Hilloa, loa!
  SHEPHERD. What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk on when
    thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ail'st thou, man?
  CLOWN. I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land! But I am
    not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the
    firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.
  SHEPHERD. Why, boy, how is it?
  CLOWN. I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it
    takes up the shore! But that's not to the point. O, the most
    piteous cry of the poor souls! Sometimes to see 'em, and not to
    see 'em; now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast, and anon
    swallowed with yeast and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a
    hogshead. And then for the land service- to see how the bear tore
    out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said his
    name was Antigonus, a nobleman! But to make an end of the ship-
    to see how the sea flap-dragon'd it; but first, how the poor
    souls roared, and the sea mock'd them; and how the poor gentleman
    roared, and the bear mock'd him, both roaring louder than the sea
    or weather.
  SHEPHERD. Name of mercy, when was this, boy?
  CLOWN. Now, now; I have not wink'd since I saw these sights; the
    men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half din'd on the
    gentleman; he's at it now.
  SHEPHERD. Would I had been by to have help'd the old man!
  CLOWN. I would you had been by the ship-side, to have help'd her;
    there your charity would have lack'd footing.
  SHEPHERD. Heavy matters, heavy matters! But look thee here, boy.
    Now bless thyself; thou met'st with things dying, I with things
    new-born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for
    a squire's child! Look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open't.
    So, let's see- it was told me I should be rich by the fairies.
    This is some changeling. Open't. What's within, boy?
  CLOWN. You're a made old man; if the sins of your youth are
    forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!
  SHEPHERD. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so. Up with't,
    keep it close. Home, home, the next way! We are lucky, boy; and
    to be so still requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go.
    Come, good boy, the next way home.
  CLOWN. Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the
    bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten. They
    are never curst but when they are hungry. If there be any of him
    left, I'll bury it.
  SHEPHERD. That's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that which
    is left of him what he is, fetch me to th' sight of him.
  CLOWN. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' th' ground.
  SHEPHERD. 'Tis a lucky day, boy; and we'll do good deeds on't.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I.

Enter TIME, the CHORUS

  TIME. I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror
    Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,
    Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
    To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
    To me or my swift passage that I slide
    O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried
    Of that wide gap, since it is in my pow'r
    To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour
    To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass
    The same I am, ere ancient'st order was
    Or what is now receiv'd. I witness to
    The times that brought them in; so shall I do
    To th' freshest things now reigning, and make stale
    The glistering of this present, as my tale
    Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,
    I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing
    As you had slept between. Leontes leaving-
    Th' effects of his fond jealousies so grieving
    That he shuts up himself- imagine me,
    Gentle spectators, that I now may be
    In fair Bohemia; and remember well
    I mention'd a son o' th' King's, which Florizel
    I now name to you; and with speed so pace
    To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace
    Equal with wond'ring. What of her ensues
    I list not prophesy; but let Time's news
    Be known when 'tis brought forth. A shepherd's daughter,
    And what to her adheres, which follows after,
    Is th' argument of Time. Of this allow,
    If ever you have spent time worse ere now;
    If never, yet that Time himself doth say
    He wishes earnestly you never may.                      Exit

SCENE II. Bohemia. The palace of POLIXENES

Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO

  POLIXENES. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 'tis
    a sickness denying thee anything; a death to grant this.
  CAMILLO. It is fifteen years since I saw my country; though I have
    for the most part been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones
    there. Besides, the penitent King, my master, hath sent for me;
    to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to
    think so, which is another spur to my departure.
  POLIXENES. As thou lov'st me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy
    services by leaving me now. The need I have of thee thine own
    goodness hath made. Better not to have had thee than thus to want
    thee; thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can
    sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or
    take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I
    have not enough considered- as too much I cannot- to be more
    thankful to thee shall be my study; and my profit therein the
    heaping friendships. Of that fatal country Sicilia, prithee,
    speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance
    of that penitent, as thou call'st him, and reconciled king, my
    brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are
    even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when saw'st thou the
    Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue
    not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have
    approved their virtues.
  CAMILLO. Sir, it is three days since I saw the Prince. What his
    happier affairs may be are to me unknown; but I have missingly
    noted he is of late much retired from court, and is less frequent
    to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.
  POLIXENES. I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care,
    so far that I have eyes under my service which look upon his
    removedness; from whom I have this intelligence, that he is
    seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd- a man, they say,
    that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his
    neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.
  CAMILLO. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of
    most rare note. The report of her is extended more than can be
    thought to begin from such a cottage.
  POLIXENES. That's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I fear, the
    angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the
    place; where we will, not appearing what we are, have some
    question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not
    uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Prithee be my
    present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of
    Sicilia.
  CAMILLO. I willingly obey your command.
  POLIXENES. My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE III. Bohemia. A road near the SHEPHERD'S cottage

Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing

      When daffodils begin to peer,
        With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
      Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year,
        For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

      The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
        With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
      Doth set my pugging tooth on edge,
        For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

      The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,
        With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
      Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
        While we lie tumbling in the hay.

    I have serv'd Prince Florizel, and in my time wore three-pile;
    but now I am out of service.

      But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
        The pale moon shines by night;
      And when I wander here and there,
        I then do most go right.

      If tinkers may have leave to live,
        And bear the sow-skin budget,
      Then my account I well may give
        And in the stocks avouch it.

    My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen.
    My father nam'd me Autolycus; who, being, I as am, litter'd under
    Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With
    die and drab I purchas'd this caparison; and my revenue is the
    silly-cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway;
    beating and hanging are terrors to me; for the life to come, I
    sleep out the thought of it. A prize! a prize!

                            Enter CLOWN

  CLOWN. Let me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod yields pound
    and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  If the springe hold, the cock's mine.
  CLOWN. I cannot do 't without counters. Let me see: what am I to
    buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar, five
    pound of currants, rice- what will this sister of mine do with
    rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she
    lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty nosegays for the
    shearers- three-man song-men all, and very good ones; but they
    are most of them means and bases; but one Puritan amongst them,
    and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron to colour
    the warden pies; mace; dates- none, that's out of my note;
    nutmegs, seven; race or two of ginger, but that I may beg; four
    pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' th' sun.
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Grovelling on the ground]  O that ever I was born!
  CLOWN. I' th' name of me!
  AUTOLYCUS. O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these rags; and then,
    death, death!
  CLOWN. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on
    thee, rather than have these off.
  AUTOLYCUS. O sir, the loathsomeness of them offend me more than the
    stripes I have received, which are mighty ones and millions.
  CLOWN. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great
    matter.
  AUTOLYCUS. I am robb'd, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en
    from me, and these detestable things put upon me.
  CLOWN. What, by a horseman or a footman?
  AUTOLYCUS. A footman, sweet sir, a footman.
  CLOWN. Indeed, he should be a footman, by the garments he has left
    with thee; if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot
    service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee. Come, lend me thy
    hand.                                       [Helping him up]
  AUTOLYCUS. O, good sir, tenderly, O!
  CLOWN. Alas, poor soul!
  AUTOLYCUS. O, good sir, softly, good sir; I fear, sir, my shoulder
    blade is out.
  CLOWN. How now! Canst stand?
  AUTOLYCUS. Softly, dear sir  [Picks his pocket];  good sir, softly.
    You ha' done me a charitable office.
  CLOWN. Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.
  AUTOLYCUS. No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir. I have a
    kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was
    going; I shall there have money or anything I want. Offer me no
    money, I pray you; that kills my heart.
  CLOWN. What manner of fellow was he that robb'd you?
  AUTOLYCUS. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with
    troll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the Prince. I cannot
    tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was
    certainly whipt out of the court.
  CLOWN. His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipt out of the
    court. They cherish it to make it stay there; and yet it will no
    more but abide.
  AUTOLYCUS. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well; he hath
    been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then
    he compass'd a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's
    wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having
    flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue.
    Some call him Autolycus.
  CLOWN. Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig! He haunts wakes,
    fairs, and bear-baitings.
  AUTOLYCUS. Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that put
    me into this apparel.
  CLOWN. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but
    look'd big and spit at him, he'd have run.
  AUTOLYCUS. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter; I am false
    of heart that way, and that he knew, I warrant him.
  CLOWN. How do you now?
  AUTOLYCUS. Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and walk.
    I will even take my leave of you and pace softly towards my
    kinsman's.
  CLOWN. Shall I bring thee on the way?
  AUTOLYCUS. No, good-fac'd sir; no, sweet sir.
  CLOWN. Then fare thee well. I must go buy spices for our
    sheep-shearing.
  AUTOLYCUS. Prosper you, sweet sir!                  Exit CLOWN
    Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with
    you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat bring
    out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unroll'd,
    and my name put in the book of virtue!
                                                         [Sings]
            Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
              And merrily hent the stile-a;
            A merry heart goes all the day,
              Your sad tires in a mile-a.                   Exit

SCENE IV. Bohemia. The SHEPHERD'S cottage

Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA

  FLORIZEL. These your unusual weeds to each part of you
    Do give a life- no shepherdess, but Flora
    Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing
    Is as a meeting of the petty gods,
    And you the Queen on't.
  PERDITA. Sir, my gracious lord,
    To chide at your extremes it not becomes me-
    O, pardon that I name them! Your high self,
    The gracious mark o' th' land, you have obscur'd
    With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid,
    Most goddess-like prank'd up. But that our feasts
    In every mess have folly, and the feeders
    Digest it with a custom, I should blush
    To see you so attir'd; swoon, I think,
    To show myself a glass.
  FLORIZEL. I bless the time
    When my good falcon made her flight across
    Thy father's ground.
  PERDITA. Now Jove afford you cause!
    To me the difference forges dread; your greatness
    Hath not been us'd to fear. Even now I tremble
    To think your father, by some accident,
    Should pass this way, as you did. O, the Fates!
    How would he look to see his work, so noble,
    Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how
    Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts, behold
    The sternness of his presence?
  FLORIZEL. Apprehend
    Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,
    Humbling their deities to love, have taken
    The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter
    Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune
    A ram and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god,
    Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
    As I seem now. Their transformations
    Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,
    Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires
    Run not before mine honour, nor my lusts
    Burn hotter than my faith.
  PERDITA. O, but, sir,
    Your resolution cannot hold when 'tis
    Oppos'd, as it must be, by th' pow'r of the King.
    One of these two must be necessities,
    Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,
    Or I my life.
  FLORIZEL. Thou dearest Perdita,
    With these forc'd thoughts, I prithee, darken not
    The mirth o' th' feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,
    Or not my father's; for I cannot be
    Mine own, nor anything to any, if
    I be not thine. To this I am most constant,
    Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle;
    Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing
    That you behold the while. Your guests are coming.
    Lift up your countenance, as it were the day
    Of celebration of that nuptial which
    We two have sworn shall come.
  PERDITA. O Lady Fortune,
    Stand you auspicious!
  FLORIZEL. See, your guests approach.
    Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,
    And let's be red with mirth.

        Enter SHEPHERD, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised;
                 CLOWN, MOPSA, DORCAS, with OTHERS

  SHEPHERD. Fie, daughter! When my old wife liv'd, upon
    This day she was both pantler, butler, cook;
    Both dame and servant; welcom'd all; serv'd all;
    Would sing her song and dance her turn; now here
    At upper end o' th' table, now i' th' middle;
    On his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire
    With labour, and the thing she took to quench it
    She would to each one sip. You are retired,
    As if you were a feasted one, and not
    The hostess of the meeting. Pray you bid
    These unknown friends to's welcome, for it is
    A way to make us better friends, more known.
    Come, quench your blushes, and present yourself
    That which you are, Mistress o' th' Feast. Come on,
    And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,
    As your good flock shall prosper.
  PERDITA.  [To POLIXENES]  Sir, welcome.
    It is my father's will I should take on me
    The hostess-ship o' th' day.  [To CAMILLO]
    You're welcome, sir.
    Give me those flow'rs there, Dorcas. Reverend sirs,
    For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
    Seeming and savour all the winter long.
    Grace and remembrance be to you both!
    And welcome to our shearing.
  POLIXENES. Shepherdess-
    A fair one are you- well you fit our ages
    With flow'rs of winter.
  PERDITA. Sir, the year growing ancient,
    Not yet on summer's death nor on the birth
    Of trembling winter, the fairest flow'rs o' th' season
    Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,
    Which some call nature's bastards. Of that kind
    Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not
    To get slips of them.
  POLIXENES. Wherefore, gentle maiden,
    Do you neglect them?
  PERDITA. For I have heard it said
    There is an art which in their piedness shares
    With great creating nature.
  POLIXENES. Say there be;
    Yet nature is made better by no mean
    But nature makes that mean; so over that art
    Which you say adds to nature, is an art
    That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
    A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
    And make conceive a bark of baser kind
    By bud of nobler race. This is an art
    Which does mend nature- change it rather; but
    The art itself is nature.
  PERDITA. So it is.
  POLIXENES. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,
    And do not call them bastards.
  PERDITA. I'll not put
    The dibble in earth to set one slip of them;
    No more than were I painted I would wish
    This youth should say 'twere well, and only therefore
    Desire to breed by me. Here's flow'rs for you:
    Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;
    The marigold, that goes to bed wi' th' sun,
    And with him rises weeping; these are flow'rs
    Of middle summer, and I think they are given
    To men of middle age. Y'are very welcome.
  CAMILLO. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,
    And only live by gazing.
  PERDITA. Out, alas!
    You'd be so lean that blasts of January
    Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend,
    I would I had some flow'rs o' th' spring that might
    Become your time of day- and yours, and yours,
    That wear upon your virgin branches yet
    Your maidenheads growing. O Proserpina,
    From the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall
    From Dis's waggon!- daffodils,
    That come before the swallow dares, and take
    The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim
    But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
    Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
    That die unmarried ere they can behold
    Bright Phoebus in his strength- a malady
    Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and
    The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,
    The flow'r-de-luce being one. O, these I lack
    To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend
    To strew him o'er and o'er!
  FLORIZEL. What, like a corse?
  PERDITA. No; like a bank for love to lie and play on;
    Not like a corse; or if- not to be buried,
    But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flow'rs.
    Methinks I play as I have seen them do
    In Whitsun pastorals. Sure, this robe of mine
    Does change my disposition.
  FLORIZEL. What you do
    Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
    I'd have you do it ever. When you sing,
    I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms;
    Pray so; and, for the ord'ring your affairs,
    To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you
    A wave o' th' sea, that you might ever do
    Nothing but that; move still, still so,
    And own no other function. Each your doing,
    So singular in each particular,
    Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
    That all your acts are queens.
  PERDITA. O Doricles,
    Your praises are too large. But that your youth,
    And the true blood which peeps fairly through't,
    Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd,
    With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,
    You woo'd me the false way.
  FLORIZEL. I think you have
    As little skill to fear as I have purpose
    To put you to't. But, come; our dance, I pray.
    Your hand, my Perdita; so turtles pair
    That never mean to part.
  PERDITA. I'll swear for 'em.
  POLIXENES. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever
    Ran on the green-sward; nothing she does or seems
    But smacks of something greater than herself,
    Too noble for this place.
  CAMILLO. He tells her something
    That makes her blood look out. Good sooth, she is
    The queen of curds and cream.
  CLOWN. Come on, strike up.
  DORCAS. Mopsa must be your mistress; marry, garlic,
    To mend her kissing with!
  MOPSA. Now, in good time!
  CLOWN. Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.
    Come, strike up.                                     [Music]

          Here a dance Of SHEPHERDS and SHEPHERDESSES

  POLIXENES. Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this
    Which dances with your daughter?
  SHEPHERD. They call him Doricles, and boasts himself
    To have a worthy feeding; but I have it
    Upon his own report, and I believe it:
    He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter;
    I think so too; for never gaz'd the moon
    Upon the water as he'll stand and read,
    As 'twere my daughter's eyes; and, to be plain,
    I think there is not half a kiss to choose
    Who loves another best.
  POLIXENES. She dances featly.
  SHEPHERD. So she does any thing; though I report it
    That should be silent. If young Doricles
    Do light upon her, she shall bring him that
    Which he not dreams of.

                      Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you
    would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe
    could not move you. He sings several tunes faster than you'll
    tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's
    ears grew to his tunes.
  CLOWN. He could never come better; he shall come in. I love a
    ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set
    down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.
  SERVANT. He hath songs for man or woman of all sizes; no milliner
    can so fit his customers with gloves. He has the prettiest
    love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with
    such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump
    her'; and where some stretch-mouth'd rascal would, as it were,
    mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the
    maid to answer 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man'- puts him off,
    slights him, with 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'
  POLIXENES. This is a brave fellow.
  CLOWN. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow.
    Has he any unbraided wares?
  SERVANT. He hath ribbons of all the colours i' th' rainbow; points,
    more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though
    they come to him by th' gross; inkles, caddisses, cambrics,
    lawns. Why he sings 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you
    would think a smock were she-angel, he so chants to the
    sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.
  CLOWN. Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.
  PERDITA. Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in's tunes.
                                                    Exit SERVANT
  CLOWN. You have of these pedlars that have more in them than you'd
    think, sister.
  PERDITA. Ay, good brother, or go about to think.

                   Enter AUTOLYCUS, Singing

           Lawn as white as driven snow;
           Cypress black as e'er was crow;
           Gloves as sweet as damask roses;
           Masks for faces and for noses;
           Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,
           Perfume for a lady's chamber;
           Golden quoifs and stomachers,
           For my lads to give their dears;
           Pins and poking-sticks of steel-
           What maids lack from head to heel.
           Come, buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;
           Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry.
           Come, buy.

  CLOWN. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no
    money of me; but being enthrall'd as I am, it will also be the
    bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.
  MOPSA. I was promis'd them against the feast; but they come not too
    late now.
  DORCAS. He hath promis'd you more than that, or there be liars.
  MOPSA. He hath paid you all he promis'd you. May be he has paid you
    more, which will shame you to give him again.
  CLOWN. Is there no manners left among maids? Will they wear their
    plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not
    milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle
    off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our
    guests? 'Tis well they are whisp'ring. Clammer your tongues, and
    not a word more.
  MOPSA. I have done. Come, you promis'd me a tawdry-lace, and a pair
    of sweet gloves.
  CLOWN. Have I not told thee how I was cozen'd by the way, and lost
    all my money?
  AUTOLYCUS. And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it
    behoves men to be wary.
  CLOWN. Fear not thou, man; thou shalt lose nothing here.
  AUTOLYCUS. I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of
    charge.
  CLOWN. What hast here? Ballads?
  MOPSA. Pray now, buy some. I love a ballad in print a-life, for
    then we are sure they are true.
  AUTOLYCUS. Here's one to a very doleful tune: how a usurer's wife
    was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, and how she
    long'd to eat adders' heads and toads carbonado'd.
  MOPSA. Is it true, think you?
  AUTOLYCUS. Very true, and but a month old.
  DORCAS. Bless me from marrying a usurer!
  AUTOLYCUS. Here's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress Taleporter,
    and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I
    carry lies abroad?
  MOPSA. Pray you now, buy it.
  CLOWN. Come on, lay it by; and let's first see moe ballads; we'll
    buy the other things anon.
  AUTOLYCUS. Here's another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the
    coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom
    above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of
    maids. It was thought she was a woman, and was turn'd into a cold
    fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that lov'd her.
    The ballad is very pitiful, and as true.
  DORCAS. Is it true too, think you?
  AUTOLYCUS. Five justices' hands at it; and witnesses more than my
    pack will hold.
  CLOWN. Lay it by too. Another.
  AUTOLYCUS. This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.
  MOPSA. Let's have some merry ones.
  AUTOLYCUS. Why, this is a passing merry one, and goes to the tune
    of 'Two maids wooing a man.' There's scarce a maid westward but
    she sings it; 'tis in request, I can tell you.
  MOPSA. can both sing it. If thou'lt bear a part, thou shalt hear;
    'tis in three parts.
  DORCAS. We had the tune on't a month ago.
  AUTOLYCUS. I can bear my part; you must know 'tis my occupation.
    Have at it with you.

                        SONG

  AUTOLYCUS. Get you hence, for I must go
             Where it fits not you to know.
  DORCAS.    Whither?
  MOPSA.       O, whither?
  DORCAS.        Whither?
  MOPSA.     It becomes thy oath full well
             Thou to me thy secrets tell.
  DORCAS.    Me too! Let me go thither
  MOPSA.     Or thou goest to th' grange or mill.
  DORCAS.    If to either, thou dost ill.
  AUTOLYCUS. Neither.
  DORCAS.    What, neither?
  AUTOLYCUS. Neither.
  DORCAS.    Thou hast sworn my love to be.
  MOPSA.     Thou hast sworn it more to me.
             Then whither goest? Say, whither?

  CLOWN. We'll have this song out anon by ourselves; my father and
    the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll not trouble them. Come,
    bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I'll buy for you both.
    Pedlar, let's have the first choice. Follow me, girls.
                                      Exit with DORCAS and MOPSA
  AUTOLYCUS. And you shall pay well for 'em.
                                         Exit AUTOLYCUS, Singing

             Will you buy any tape,
             Or lace for your cape,
           My dainty duck, my dear-a?
             Any silk, any thread,
             Any toys for your head,
           Of the new'st and fin'st, fin'st wear-a?
             Come to the pedlar;
             Money's a meddler
           That doth utter all men's ware-a.

                   Re-enter SERVANT

  SERVANT. Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three
    neat-herds, three swineherds, that have made themselves all men
    of hair; they call themselves Saltiers, and they have dance which
    the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not
    in't; but they themselves are o' th' mind, if it be not too rough
    for some that know little but bowling, it will please
    plentifully.
  SHEPHERD. Away! We'll none on't; here has been too much homely
    foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.
  POLIXENES. You weary those that refresh us. Pray, let's see these
    four threes of herdsmen.
  SERVANT. One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danc'd
    before the King; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve
    foot and a half by th' squier.
  SHEPHERD. Leave your prating; since these good men are pleas'd, let
    them come in; but quickly now.
  SERVANT. Why, they stay at door, sir.                     Exit

                    Here a dance of twelve SATYRS

  POLIXENES.  [To SHEPHERD]  O, father, you'll know more of that
      hereafter.
    [To CAMILLO]  Is it not too far gone? 'Tis time to part them.
    He's simple and tells much.  [To FLORIZEL]  How now, fair
      shepherd!
    Your heart is full of something that does take
    Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young
    And handed love as you do, I was wont
    To load my she with knacks; I would have ransack'd
    The pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it
    To her acceptance: you have let him go
    And nothing marted with him. If your lass
    Interpretation should abuse and call this
    Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited
    For a reply, at least if you make a care
    Of happy holding her.
  FLORIZEL. Old sir, I know
    She prizes not such trifles as these are.
    The gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd
    Up in my heart, which I have given already,
    But not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life
    Before this ancient sir, whom, it should seem,
    Hath sometime lov'd. I take thy hand- this hand,
    As soft as dove's down and as white as it,
    Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow that's bolted
    By th' northern blasts twice o'er.
  POLIXENES. What follows this?
    How prettily the young swain seems to wash
    The hand was fair before! I have put you out.
    But to your protestation; let me hear
    What you profess.
  FLORIZEL. Do, and be witness to't.
  POLIXENES. And this my neighbour too?
  FLORIZEL. And he, and more
    Than he, and men- the earth, the heavens, and all:
    That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,
    Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth
    That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge
    More than was ever man's, I would not prize them
    Without her love; for her employ them all;
    Commend them and condemn them to her service
    Or to their own perdition.
  POLIXENES. Fairly offer'd.
  CAMILLO. This shows a sound affection.
  SHEPHERD. But, my daughter,
    Say you the like to him?
  PERDITA. I cannot speak
    So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better.
    By th' pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out
    The purity of his.
  SHEPHERD. Take hands, a bargain!
    And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to't:
    I give my daughter to him, and will make
    Her portion equal his.
  FLORIZEL. O, that must be
    I' th' virtue of your daughter. One being dead,
    I shall have more than you can dream of yet;
    Enough then for your wonder. But come on,
    Contract us fore these witnesses.
  SHEPHERD. Come, your hand;
    And, daughter, yours.
  POLIXENES. Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you;
    Have you a father?
  FLORIZEL. I have, but what of him?
  POLIXENES. Knows he of this?
  FLORIZEL. He neither does nor shall.
  POLIXENES. Methinks a father
    Is at the nuptial of his son a guest
    That best becomes the table. Pray you, once more,
    Is not your father grown incapable
    Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid
    With age and alt'ring rheums? Can he speak, hear,
    Know man from man, dispute his own estate?
    Lies he not bed-rid, and again does nothing
    But what he did being childish?
  FLORIZEL. No, good sir;
    He has his health, and ampler strength indeed
    Than most have of his age.
  POLIXENES. By my white beard,
    You offer him, if this be so, a wrong
    Something unfilial. Reason my son
    Should choose himself a wife; but as good reason
    The father- all whose joy is nothing else
    But fair posterity- should hold some counsel
    In such a business.
  FLORIZEL. I yield all this;
    But, for some other reasons, my grave sir,
    Which 'tis not fit you know, I not acquaint
    My father of this business.
  POLIXENES. Let him know't.
  FLORIZEL. He shall not.
  POLIXENES. Prithee let him.
  FLORIZEL. No, he must not.
  SHEPHERD. Let him, my son; he shall not need to grieve
    At knowing of thy choice.
  FLORIZEL. Come, come, he must not.
    Mark our contract.
  POLIXENES.  [Discovering himself]  Mark your divorce, young sir,
    Whom son I dare not call; thou art too base
    To be acknowledg'd- thou a sceptre's heir,
    That thus affects a sheep-hook! Thou, old traitor,
    I am sorry that by hanging thee I can but
    Shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece
    Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know
    The royal fool thou cop'st with-
  SHEPHERD. O, my heart!
  POLIXENES. I'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers and made
    More homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,
    If I may ever know thou dost but sigh
    That thou no more shalt see this knack- as never
    I mean thou shalt- we'll bar thee from succession;
    Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,
    Farre than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words.
    Follow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time,
    Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee
    From the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment,
    Worthy enough a herdsman- yea, him too
    That makes himself, but for our honour therein,
    Unworthy thee- if ever henceforth thou
    These rural latches to his entrance open,
    Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,
    I will devise a death as cruel for thee
    As thou art tender to't.                                Exit
  PERDITA. Even here undone!
    I was not much afeard; for once or twice
    I was about to speak and tell him plainly
    The self-same sun that shines upon his court
    Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
    Looks on alike.  [To FLORIZEL]  Will't please you, sir, be gone?
    I told you what would come of this. Beseech you,
    Of your own state take care. This dream of mine-
    Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther,
    But milk my ewes and weep.
  CAMILLO. Why, how now, father!
    Speak ere thou diest.
  SHEPHERD. I cannot speak nor think,
    Nor dare to know that which I know.  [To FLORIZEL]  O sir,
    You have undone a man of fourscore-three
    That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,
    To die upon the bed my father died,
    To lie close by his honest bones; but now
    Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay me
    Where no priest shovels in dust. [To PERDITA] O cursed wretch,
    That knew'st this was the Prince, and wouldst adventure
    To mingle faith with him!- Undone, undone!
    If I might die within this hour, I have liv'd
    To die when I desire.                                   Exit
  FLORIZEL. Why look you so upon me?
    I am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,
    But nothing alt'red. What I was, I am:
    More straining on for plucking back; not following
    My leash unwillingly.
  CAMILLO. Gracious, my lord,
    You know your father's temper. At this time
    He will allow no speech- which I do guess
    You do not purpose to him- and as hardly
    Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear;
    Then, till the fury of his Highness settle,
    Come not before him.
  FLORIZEL. I not purpose it.
    I think Camillo?
  CAMILLO. Even he, my lord.
  PERDITA. How often have I told you 'twould be thus!
    How often said my dignity would last
    But till 'twere known!
  FLORIZEL. It cannot fail but by
    The violation of my faith; and then
    Let nature crush the sides o' th' earth together
    And mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks.
    From my succession wipe me, father; I
    Am heir to my affection.
  CAMILLO. Be advis'd.
  FLORIZEL. I am- and by my fancy; if my reason
    Will thereto be obedient, I have reason;
    If not, my senses, better pleas'd with madness,
    Do bid it welcome.
  CAMILLO. This is desperate, sir.
  FLORIZEL. So call it; but it does fulfil my vow:
    I needs must think it honesty. Camillo,
    Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may
    Be thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or
    The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hides
    In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
    To this my fair belov'd. Therefore, I pray you,
    As you have ever been my father's honour'd friend,
    When he shall miss me- as, in faith, I mean not
    To see him any more- cast your good counsels
    Upon his passion. Let myself and Fortune
    Tug for the time to come. This you may know,
    And so deliver: I am put to sea
    With her who here I cannot hold on shore.
    And most opportune to her need I have
    A vessel rides fast by, but not prepar'd
    For this design. What course I mean to hold
    Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor
    Concern me the reporting.
  CAMILLO. O my lord,
    I would your spirit were easier for advice.
    Or stronger for your need.
  FLORIZEL. Hark, Perdita.                     [Takes her aside]
    [To CAMILLO]  I'll hear you by and by.
  CAMILLO. He's irremovable,
    Resolv'd for flight. Now were I happy if
    His going I could frame to serve my turn,
    Save him from danger, do him love and honour,
    Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia
    And that unhappy king, my master, whom
    I so much thirst to see.
  FLORIZEL. Now, good Camillo,
    I am so fraught with curious business that
    I leave out ceremony.
  CAMILLO. Sir, I think
    You have heard of my poor services i' th' love
    That I have borne your father?
  FLORIZEL. Very nobly
    Have you deserv'd. It is my father's music
    To speak your deeds; not little of his care
    To have them recompens'd as thought on.
  CAMILLO. Well, my lord,
    If you may please to think I love the King,
    And through him what's nearest to him, which is
    Your gracious self, embrace but my direction.
    If your more ponderous and settled project
    May suffer alteration, on mine honour,
    I'll point you where you shall have such receiving
    As shall become your Highness; where you may
    Enjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see,
    There's no disjunction to be made but by,
    As heavens forfend! your ruin- marry her;
    And with my best endeavours in your absence
    Your discontenting father strive to qualify,
    And bring him up to liking.
  FLORIZEL. How, Camillo,
    May this, almost a miracle, be done?
    That I may call thee something more than man,
    And after that trust to thee.
  CAMILLO. Have you thought on
    A place whereto you'll go?
  FLORIZEL. Not any yet;
    But as th' unthought-on accident is guilty
    To what we wildly do, so we profess
    Ourselves to be the slaves of chance and flies
    Of every wind that blows.
  CAMILLO. Then list to me.
    This follows, if you will not change your purpose
    But undergo this flight: make for Sicilia,
    And there present yourself and your fair princess-
    For so, I see, she must be- fore Leontes.
    She shall be habited as it becomes
    The partner of your bed. Methinks I see
    Leontes opening his free arms and weeping
    His welcomes forth; asks thee there 'Son, forgiveness!'
    As 'twere i' th' father's person; kisses the hands
    Of your fresh princess; o'er and o'er divides him
    'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness- th' one
    He chides to hell, and bids the other grow
    Faster than thought or time.
  FLORIZEL. Worthy Camillo,
    What colour for my visitation shall I
    Hold up before him?
  CAMILLO. Sent by the King your father
    To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,
    The manner of your bearing towards him, with
    What you as from your father shall deliver,
    Things known betwixt us three, I'll write you down;
    The which shall point you forth at every sitting
    What you must say, that he shall not perceive
    But that you have your father's bosom there
    And speak his very heart.
  FLORIZEL. I am bound to you.
    There is some sap in this.
  CAMILLO. A course more promising
    Than a wild dedication of yourselves
    To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain
    To miseries enough; no hope to help you,
    But as you shake off one to take another;
    Nothing so certain as your anchors, who
    Do their best office if they can but stay you
    Where you'll be loath to be. Besides, you know
    Prosperity's the very bond of love,
    Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together
    Affliction alters.
  PERDITA. One of these is true:
    I think affliction may subdue the cheek,
    But not take in the mind.
  CAMILLO. Yea, say you so?
    There shall not at your father's house these seven years
    Be born another such.
  FLORIZEL. My good Camillo,
    She is as forward of her breeding as
    She is i' th' rear o' our birth.
  CAMILLO. I cannot say 'tis pity
    She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress
    To most that teach.
  PERDITA. Your pardon, sir; for this
    I'll blush you thanks.
  FLORIZEL. My prettiest Perdita!
    But, O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo-
    Preserver of my father, now of me;
    The medicine of our house- how shall we do?
    We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son;
    Nor shall appear in Sicilia.
  CAMILLO. My lord,
    Fear none of this. I think you know my fortunes
    Do all lie there. It shall be so my care
    To have you royally appointed as if
    The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,
    That you may know you shall not want- one word.
                                               [They talk aside]

                     Re-enter AUTOLYCUS

  AUTOLYCUS. Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn
  brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery; not a
  counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book,
  ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my
  pack from fasting. They throng who should buy first, as if my
  trinkets had been hallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer; by
  which means I saw whose purse was best in picture; and what I saw, to
  my good use I rememb'red. My clown, who wants but something to be a
  reasonable man, grew so in love with the wenches' song that he would
  not stir his pettitoes till he had both tune and words, which so drew
  the rest of the herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears.
  You might have pinch'd a placket, it was senseless; 'twas nothing to
  geld a codpiece of a purse; I would have fil'd keys off that hung in
  chains. No hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and admiring the
  nothing of it. So that in this time of lethargy I pick'd and cut most
  of their festival purses; and had not the old man come in with
  whoobub against his daughter and the King's son and scar'd my choughs
  from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army.

              CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA come forward

  CAMILLO. Nay, but my letters, by this means being there
    So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.
  FLORIZEL. And those that you'll procure from King Leontes?
  CAMILLO. Shall satisfy your father.
  PERDITA. Happy be you!
    All that you speak shows fair.
  CAMILLO.  [seeing AUTOLYCUS]  Who have we here?
    We'll make an instrument of this; omit
    Nothing may give us aid.
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  If they have overheard me now- why, hanging.
  CAMILLO. How now, good fellow! Why shak'st thou so?
    Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee.
  AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir.
  CAMILLO. Why, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from thee.
    Yet for the outside of thy poverty we must make an exchange;
    therefore discase thee instantly- thou must think there's a
    necessity in't- and change garments with this gentleman. Though
    the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, there's
    some boot.  [Giving money]
  AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir.  [Aside]  I know ye well
    enough.
  CAMILLO. Nay, prithee dispatch. The gentleman is half flay'd
    already.
  AUTOLYCUS. Are you in camest, sir?  [Aside]  I smell the trick
    on't.
  FLORIZEL. Dispatch, I prithee.
  AUTOLYCUS. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience
    take it.
  CAMILLO. Unbuckle, unbuckle.

             FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS exchange garments

    Fortunate mistress- let my prophecy
    Come home to ye!- you must retire yourself
    Into some covert; take your sweetheart's hat
    And pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face,
    Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken
    The truth of your own seeming, that you may-
    For I do fear eyes over- to shipboard
    Get undescried.
  PERDITA. I see the play so lies
    That I must bear a part.
  CAMILLO. No remedy.
    Have you done there?
  FLORIZEL. Should I now meet my father,
    He would not call me son.
  CAMILLO. Nay, you shall have no hat.
                                          [Giving it to PERDITA]
    Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.
  AUTOLYCUS. Adieu, sir.
  FLORIZEL. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!
    Pray you a word.                       [They converse apart]
  CAMILLO.  [Aside]  What I do next shall be to tell the King
    Of this escape, and whither they are bound;
    Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail
    To force him after; in whose company
    I shall re-view Sicilia, for whose sight
    I have a woman's longing.
  FLORIZEL. Fortune speed us!
    Thus we set on, Camillo, to th' sea-side.
  CAMILLO. The swifter speed the better.
                           Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO
  AUTOLYCUS. I understand the business, I hear it. To have an open
    ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a
    cut-purse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for
    th' other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth
    thrive. What an exchange had this been without boot! What a boot
    is here with this exchange! Sure, the gods do this year connive
    at us, and we may do anything extempore. The Prince himself is
    about a piece of iniquity- stealing away from his father with his
    clog at his heels. If I thought it were a piece of honesty to
    acquaint the King withal, I would not do't. I hold it the more
    knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my
    profession.

                   Re-enter CLOWN and SHEPHERD

    Aside, aside- here is more matter for a hot brain. Every lane's
    end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man
    work.
  CLOWN. See, see; what a man you are now! There is no other way but to
  tell the King she's a changeling and none of your flesh and blood.
  SHEPHERD. Nay, but hear me.
  CLOWN. Nay- but hear me.
  SHEPHERD. Go to, then.
  CLOWN. She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood
  has not offended the King; and so your flesh and blood is not to be
  punish'd by him. Show those things you found about her, those secret
  things- all but what she has with her. This being done, let the law
  go whistle; I warrant you.
  SHEPHERD. I will tell the King all, every word- yea, and his son's
  pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man, neither to his father
  nor to me, to go about to make me the King's brother-in-law.
  CLOWN. Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have
  been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer by I know how
  much an ounce.
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  Very wisely, puppies!
  SHEPHERD. Well, let us to the King. There is that in this fardel will
  make him scratch his beard.
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  I know not what impediment this complaint may be
  to the flight of my master.
  CLOWN. Pray heartily he be at palace.
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  Though I am not naturally honest, I am so
  sometimes by chance. Let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement. [Takes
  off his false beard]  How now, rustics! Whither are you bound?
  SHEPHERD. To th' palace, an it like your worship.
  AUTOLYCUS. Your affairs there, what, with whom, the condition of that
  fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages, of what
  having, breeding, and anything that is fitting to be known- discover.
  CLOWN. We are but plain fellows, sir.
  AUTOLYCUS. A lie: you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying; it
  becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie;
  but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel;
  therefore they do not give us the lie.
  CLOWN. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not
  taken yourself with the manner.
  SHEPHERD. Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir?
  AUTOLYCUS. Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest thou not
  the air of the court in these enfoldings? Hath not my gait in it the
  measure of the court? Receives not thy nose court-odour from me?
  Reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Think'st thou, for that
  I insinuate, that toaze from thee thy business, I am therefore no
  courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pe, and one that will either push on or
  pluck back thy business there; whereupon I command the to open thy
  affair.
  SHEPHERD. My business, sir, is to the King.
  AUTOLYCUS. What advocate hast thou to him?
  SHEPHERD. I know not, an't like you.
  CLOWN. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say you have none.
  SHEPHERD. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.
  AUTOLYCUS. How blessed are we that are not simple men! Yet nature
  might have made me as these are, Therefore I will not disdain.
  CLOWN. This cannot be but a great courtier.
  SHEPHERD. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.
  CLOWN. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical. A great
  man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth.
  AUTOLYCUS. The fardel there? What's i' th' fardel? Wherefore that
  box?
  SHEPHERD. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box which
  none must know but the King; and which he shall know within this
  hour, if I may come to th' speech of him.
  AUTOLYCUS. Age, thou hast lost thy labour.
  SHEPHERD. Why, Sir?
  AUTOLYCUS. The King is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new
  ship to purge melancholy and air himself; for, if thou be'st capable
  of things serious, thou must know the King is full of grief.
  SHEPHERD. So 'tis said, sir- about his son, that should have married
  a shepherd's daughter.
  AUTOLYCUS. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the
  curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back
  of man, the heart of monster.
  CLOWN. Think you so, sir?
  AUTOLYCUS. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and
  vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though remov'd
  fifty times, shall all come under the hangman- which, though it be
  great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue, a
  ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some say
  he shall be ston'd; but that death is too soft for him, say I. Draw
  our throne into a sheep-cote!- all deaths are too few, the sharpest
  too easy.
  CLOWN. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an't like you,
    sir?
  AUTOLYCUS. He has a son- who shall be flay'd alive; then 'nointed
  over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand till he
  be three quarters and a dram dead; then recover'd again with
  aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is, and in the
  hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set against a
  brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he
  is to behold him with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these
  traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smil'd at, their offences
  being so capital? Tell me, for you seem to be honest plain men, what
  you have to the King. Being something gently consider'd, I'll bring
  you where he is aboard, tender your persons to his presence, whisper
  him in your behalfs; and if it be in man besides the King to effect
  your suits, here is man shall do it.
  CLOWN. He seems to be of great authority. Close with him, give him
  gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by
  the nose with gold. Show the inside of your purse to the outside of
  his hand, and no more ado. Remember- ston'd and flay'd alive.
  SHEPHERD. An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us,
  here is that gold I have. I'll make it as much more, and leave this
  young man in pawn till I bring it you.
  AUTOLYCUS. After I have done what I promised?
  SHEPHERD. Ay, sir.
  AUTOLYCUS. Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this
  business?
  CLOWN. In some sort, sir; but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope
  I shall not be flay'd out of it.
  AUTOLYCUS. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son! Hang him, he'll
  be made an example.
  CLOWN. Comfort, good comfort! We must to the King and show our
  strange sights. He must know 'tis none of your daughter nor my
  sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old
  man does, when the business is performed; and remain, as he says,
  your pawn till it be brought you.
  AUTOLYCUS. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on
  the right-hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.
  CLOWN. We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.
  SHEPHERD. Let's before, as he bids us. He was provided to do us good.
  Exeunt SHEPHERD and CLOWN
  AUTOLYCUS. If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would not
  suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a
  double occasion- gold, and a means to do the Prince my master good;
  which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will
  bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him. If he think it
  fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they have to the King
  concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far
  officious; for I am proof against that title, and what shame else
  belongs to't. To him will I present them. There may be matter in it.
  Exit

ACT V. SCENE I. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and OTHERS

  CLEOMENES. Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd
    A saint-like sorrow. No fault could you make
    Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down
    More penitence than done trespass. At the last,
    Do as the heavens have done: forget your evil;
    With them forgive yourself.
  LEONTES. Whilst I remember
    Her and her virtues, I cannot forget
    My blemishes in them, and so still think of
    The wrong I did myself; which was so much
    That heirless it hath made my kingdom, and
    Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man
    Bred his hopes out of.
  PAULINA. True, too true, my lord.
    If, one by one, you wedded all the world,
    Or from the all that are took something good
    To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd
    Would be unparallel'd.
  LEONTES. I think so. Kill'd!
    She I kill'd! I did so; but thou strik'st me
    Sorely, to say I did. It is as bitter
    Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,
    Say so but seldom.
  CLEOMENES. Not at all, good lady.
    You might have spoken a thousand things that would
    Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd
    Your kindness better.
  PAULINA. You are one of those
    Would have him wed again.
  DION. If you would not so,
    You pity not the state, nor the remembrance
    Of his most sovereign name; consider little
    What dangers, by his Highness' fail of issue,
    May drop upon his kingdom and devour
    Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy
    Than to rejoice the former queen is well?
    What holier than, for royalty's repair,
    For present comfort, and for future good,
    To bless the bed of majesty again
    With a sweet fellow to't?
  PAULINA. There is none worthy,
    Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods
    Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes;
    For has not the divine Apollo said,
    Is't not the tenour of his oracle,
    That King Leontes shall not have an heir
    Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall,
    Is all as monstrous to our human reason
    As my Antigonus to break his grave
    And come again to me; who, on my life,
    Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel
    My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
    Oppose against their wills.  [To LEONTES]  Care not for issue;
    The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander
    Left his to th' worthiest; so his successor
    Was like to be the best.
  LEONTES. Good Paulina,
    Who hast the memory of Hermione,
    I know, in honour, O that ever I
    Had squar'd me to thy counsel! Then, even now,
    I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes,
    Have taken treasure from her lips-
  PAULINA. And left them
    More rich for what they yielded.
  LEONTES. Thou speak'st truth.
    No more such wives; therefore, no wife. One worse,
    And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit
    Again possess her corpse, and on this stage,
    Where we offend her now, appear soul-vex'd,
    And begin 'Why to me'-
  PAULINA. Had she such power,
    She had just cause.
  LEONTES. She had; and would incense me
    To murder her I married.
  PAULINA. I should so.
    Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark
    Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't
    You chose her; then I'd shriek, that even your ears
    Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd
    Should be 'Remember mine.'
  LEONTES. Stars, stars,
    And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;
    I'll have no wife, Paulina.
  PAULINA. Will you swear
    Never to marry but by my free leave?
  LEONTES. Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!
  PAULINA. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.
  CLEOMENES. You tempt him over-much.
  PAULINA. Unless another,
    As like Hermione as is her picture,
    Affront his eye.
  CLEOMENES. Good madam-
  PAULINA. I have done.
    Yet, if my lord will marry- if you will, sir,
    No remedy but you will- give me the office
    To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young
    As was your former; but she shall be such
    As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy
    To see her in your arms.
  LEONTES. My true Paulina,
    We shall not marry till thou bid'st us.
  PAULINA. That
    Shall be when your first queen's again in breath;
    Never till then.

                       Enter a GENTLEMAN

  GENTLEMAN. One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,
    Son of Polixenes, with his princess- she
    The fairest I have yet beheld- desires access
    To your high presence.
  LEONTES. What with him? He comes not
    Like to his father's greatness. His approach,
    So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
    'Tis not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd
    By need and accident. What train?
  GENTLEMAN. But few,
    And those but mean.
  LEONTES. His princess, say you, with him?
  GENTLEMAN. Ay; the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
    That e'er the sun shone bright on.
  PAULINA. O Hermione,
    As every present time doth boast itself
    Above a better gone, so must thy grave
    Give way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself
    Have said and writ so, but your writing now
    Is colder than that theme: 'She had not been,
    Nor was not to be equall'd.' Thus your verse
    Flow'd with her beauty once; 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,
    To say you have seen a better.
  GENTLEMAN. Pardon, madam.
    The one I have almost forgot- your pardon;
    The other, when she has obtain'd your eye,
    Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,
    Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
    Of all professors else, make proselytes
    Of who she but bid follow.
  PAULINA. How! not women?
  GENTLEMAN. Women will love her that she is a woman
    More worth than any man; men, that she is
    The rarest of all women.
  LEONTES. Go, Cleomenes;
    Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,
    Bring them to our embracement.                        Exeunt
    Still, 'tis strange
    He thus should steal upon us.
  PAULINA. Had our prince,
    Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd
    Well with this lord; there was not full a month
    Between their births.
  LEONTES. Prithee no more; cease. Thou know'st
    He dies to me again when talk'd of. Sure,
    When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
    Will bring me to consider that which may
    Unfurnish me of reason.

         Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and
                            ATTENDANTS

    They are come.
    Your mother was most true to wedlock, Prince;
    For she did print your royal father off,
    Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,
    Your father's image is so hit in you
    His very air, that I should call you brother,
    As I did him, and speak of something wildly
    By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!
    And your fair princess- goddess! O, alas!
    I lost a couple that 'twixt heaven and earth
    Might thus have stood begetting wonder as
    You, gracious couple, do. And then I lost-
    All mine own folly- the society,
    Amity too, of your brave father, whom,
    Though bearing misery, I desire my life
    Once more to look on him.
  FLORIZEL. By his command
    Have I here touch'd Sicilia, and from him
    Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,
    Can send his brother; and, but infirmity,
    Which waits upon worn times, hath something seiz'd
    His wish'd ability, he had himself
    The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
    Measur'd, to look upon you; whom he loves,
    He bade me say so, more than all the sceptres
    And those that bear them living.
  LEONTES. O my brother-
    Good gentleman!- the wrongs I have done thee stir
    Afresh within me; and these thy offices,
    So rarely kind, are as interpreters
    Of my behind-hand slackness! Welcome hither,
    As is the spring to th' earth. And hath he too
    Expos'd this paragon to th' fearful usage,
    At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,
    To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
    Th' adventure of her person?
  FLORIZEL. Good, my lord,
    She came from Libya.
  LEONTES. Where the warlike Smalus,
    That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and lov'd?
  FLORIZEL. Most royal sir, from thence; from him whose daughter
    His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her; thence,
    A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,
    To execute the charge my father gave me
    For visiting your Highness. My best train
    I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;
    Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
    Not only my success in Libya, sir,
    But my arrival and my wife's in safety
    Here where we are.
  LEONTES. The blessed gods
    Purge all infection from our air whilst you
    Do climate here! You have a holy father,
    A graceful gentleman, against whose person,
    So sacred as it is, I have done sin,
    For which the heavens, taking angry note,
    Have left me issueless; and your father's blest,
    As he from heaven merits it, with you,
    Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
    Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,
    Such goodly things as you!

                      Enter a LORD

  LORD. Most noble sir,
    That which I shall report will bear no credit,
    Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,
    Bohemia greets you from himself by me;
    Desires you to attach his son, who has-
    His dignity and duty both cast off-
    Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with
    A shepherd's daughter.
  LEONTES. Where's Bohemia? Speak.
  LORD. Here in your city; I now came from him.
    I speak amazedly; and it becomes
    My marvel and my message. To your court
    Whiles he was hast'ning- in the chase, it seems,
    Of this fair couple- meets he on the way
    The father of this seeming lady and
    Her brother, having both their country quitted
    With this young prince.
  FLORIZEL. Camillo has betray'd me;
    Whose honour and whose honesty till now
    Endur'd all weathers.
  LORD. Lay't so to his charge;
    He's with the King your father.
  LEONTES. Who? Camillo?
  LORD. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now
    Has these poor men in question. Never saw I
    Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth;
    Forswear themselves as often as they speak.
    Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them
    With divers deaths in death.
  PERDITA. O my poor father!
    The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
    Our contract celebrated.
  LEONTES. You are married?
  FLORIZEL. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be;
    The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first.
    The odds for high and low's alike.
  LEONTES. My lord,
    Is this the daughter of a king?
  FLORIZEL. She is,
    When once she is my wife.
  LEONTES. That 'once,' I see by your good father's speed,
    Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,
    Most sorry, you have broken from his liking
    Where you were tied in duty; and as sorry
    Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,
    That you might well enjoy her.
  FLORIZEL. Dear, look up.
    Though Fortune, visible an enemy,
    Should chase us with my father, pow'r no jot
    Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,
    Remember since you ow'd no more to time
    Than I do now. With thought of such affections,
    Step forth mine advocate; at your request
    My father will grant precious things as trifles.
  LEONTES. Would he do so, I'd beg your precious mistress,
    Which he counts but a trifle.
  PAULINA. Sir, my liege,
    Your eye hath too much youth in't. Not a month
    Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes
    Than what you look on now.
  LEONTES. I thought of her
    Even in these looks I made.  [To FLORIZEL]  But your petition
    Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father.
    Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires,
    I am friend to them and you. Upon which errand
    I now go toward him; therefore, follow me,
    And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord.         Exeunt

SCENE II. Sicilia. Before the palace of LEONTES

Enter AUTOLYCUS and a GENTLEMAN

  AUTOLYCUS. Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the
    old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it; whereupon, after
    a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber;
    only this, methought I heard the shepherd say he found the child.
  AUTOLYCUS. I would most gladly know the issue of it.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I make a broken delivery of the business; but the
    changes I perceived in the King and Camillo were very notes of
    admiration. They seem'd almost, with staring on one another, to
    tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness,
    language in their very gesture; they look'd as they had heard of
    a world ransom'd, or one destroyed. A notable passion of wonder
    appeared in them; but the wisest beholder that knew no more but
    seeing could not say if th' importance were joy or sorrow- but in
    the extremity of the one it must needs be.

                    Enter another GENTLEMAN

    Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more. The news, Rogero?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Nothing but bonfires. The oracle is fulfill'd:
    the King's daughter is found. Such a deal of wonder is broken out
    within this hour that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it.

                    Enter another GENTLEMAN

    Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward; he can deliver you more. How
    goes it now, sir? This news, which is call'd true, is so like an
    old tale that the verity of it is in strong suspicion. Has the King
    found his heir?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by
  circumstance. That which you hear you'll swear you see, there is such
  unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione's; her jewel about
  the neck of it; the letters of Antigonus found with it, which they
  know to be his character; the majesty of the creature in resemblance
  of the mother; the affection of nobleness which nature shows above
  her breeding; and many other evidences- proclaim her with all
  certainty to be the King's daughter. Did you see the meeting of the
  two kings?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. No.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Then you have lost a sight which was to be seen,
  cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown
  another, so and in such manner that it seem'd sorrow wept to take
  leave of them; for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of
  eyes, holding up of hands, with countenance of such distraction that
  they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being
  ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if
  that joy were now become a loss, cries 'O, thy mother, thy mother!'
  then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-in-law; then
  again worries he his daughter with clipping her. Now he thanks the
  old shepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten conduit of many
  kings' reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames
  report to follow it and undoes description to do it.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried
  hence the child?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Like an old tale still, which will have matter to
  rehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear open: he was torn to
  pieces with a bear. This avouches the shepherd's son, who has not
  only his innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a
  handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What became of his bark and his followers?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Wreck'd the same instant of their master's death,
  and in the view of the shepherd; so that all the instruments which
  aided to expose the child were even then lost when it was found. But,
  O, the noble combat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in Paulina!
  She had one eye declin'd for the loss of her husband, another
  elevated that the oracle was fulfill'd. She lifted the Princess from
  the earth, and so locks her in embracing as if she would pin her to
  her heart, that she might no more be in danger of losing.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of
  kings and princes; for by such was it acted.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which
  angl'd for mine eyes- caught the water, though not the fish- was,
  when at the relation of the Queen's death, with the manner how she
  came to't bravely confess'd and lamented by the King, how
  attentivenes wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dolour to
  another, she did with an 'Alas!'- I would fain say- bleed tears; for
  I am sure my heart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed
  colour; some swooned, all sorrowed. If all the world could have
  seen't, the woe had been universal.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Are they returned to the court?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. No. The Princess hearing of her mother's statue,
  which is in the keeping of Paulina- a piece many years in doing and
  now newly perform'd by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano, who,
  had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would
  beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape. He so near
  to Hermione hath done Hermione that they say one would speak to her
  and stand in hope of answer- thither with all greediness of affection
  are they gone, and there they intend to sup.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I thought she had some great matter there in hand;
  for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever since the death of
  Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we thither, and with our
  company piece the rejoicing?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Who would be thence that has the benefit of access?
  Every wink of an eye some new grace will be born. Our absence makes
  us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along.
                                                Exeunt GENTLEMEN
  AUTOLYCUS. Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would
  preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son aboard
  the Prince; told him I heard them talk of a fardel and I know not
  what; but he at that time over-fond of the shepherd's daughter- so he
  then took her to be- who began to be much sea-sick, and himself
  little better, extremity of weather continuing, this mystery remained
  undiscover'd. But 'tis all one to me; for had I been the finder-out
  of this secret, it would not have relish'd among my other discredits.

                    Enter SHEPHERD and CLOWN

    Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already
    appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.
  SHEPHERD. Come, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and
    daughters will be all gentlemen born.
  CLOWN. You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me this
    other day, because I was no gentleman born. See you these
    clothes? Say you see them not and think me still no gentleman
    born. You were best say these robes are not gentlemen born. Give
    me the lie, do; and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.
  AUTOLYCUS. I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.
  CLOWN. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.
  SHEPHERD. And so have I, boy.
  CLOWN. So you have; but I was a gentleman born before my father;
    for the King's son took me by the hand and call'd me brother; and
    then the two kings call'd my father brother; and then the Prince,
    my brother, and the Princess, my sister, call'd my father father.
    And so we wept; and there was the first gentleman-like tears that
    ever we shed.
  SHEPHERD. We may live, son, to shed many more.
  CLOWN. Ay; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so preposterous
    estate as we are.
  AUTOLYCUS. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I
    have committed to your worship, and to give me your good report
    to the Prince my master.
  SHEPHERD. Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are
    gentlemen.
  CLOWN. Thou wilt amend thy life?
  AUTOLYCUS. Ay, an it like your good worship.
  CLOWN. Give me thy hand. I will swear to the Prince thou art as
    honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.
  SHEPHERD. You may say it, but not swear it.
  CLOWN. Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins
    say it: I'll swear it.
  SHEPHERD. How if it be false, son?
  CLOWN. If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it in
    the behalf of his friend. And I'll swear to the Prince thou art a
    tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I
    know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be
    drunk. But I'll swear it; and I would thou wouldst be a tall
    fellow of thy hands.
  AUTOLYCUS. I will prove so, sir, to my power.
  CLOWN. Ay, by any means, prove a tall fellow. If I do not wonder
    how thou dar'st venture to be drunk not being a tall fellow,
    trust me not. Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are
    going to see the Queen's picture. Come, follow us; we'll be thy
    good masters.                                         Exeunt

SCENE III. Sicilia. A chapel in PAULINA's house

Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, FLORIZEL, PERDITA, CAMILLO, PAULINA,
LORDS and ATTENDANTS

  LEONTES. O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort
    That I have had of thee!
  PAULINA. What, sovereign sir,
    I did not well, I meant well. All my services
    You have paid home; but that you have vouchsaf'd,
    With your crown'd brother and these your contracted
    Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,
    It is a surplus of your grace, which never
    My life may last to answer.
  LEONTES. O Paulina,
    We honour you with trouble; but we came
    To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery
    Have we pass'd through, not without much content
    In many singularities; but we saw not
    That which my daughter came to look upon,
    The statue of her mother.
  PAULINA. As she liv'd peerless,
    So her dead likeness, I do well believe,
    Excels whatever yet you look'd upon
    Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it
    Lonely, apart. But here it is. Prepare
    To see the life as lively mock'd as ever
    Still sleep mock'd death. Behold; and say 'tis well.
                [PAULINA draws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE
                                         standing like a statue]
    I like your silence; it the more shows off
    Your wonder; but yet speak. First, you, my liege.
    Comes it not something near?
  LEONTES. Her natural posture!
    Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed
    Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she
    In thy not chiding; for she was as tender
    As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,
    Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing
    So aged as this seems.
  POLIXENES. O, not by much!
  PAULINA. So much the more our carver's excellence,
    Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her
    As she liv'd now.
  LEONTES. As now she might have done,
    So much to my good comfort as it is
    Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,
    Even with such life of majesty- warm life,
    As now it coldly stands- when first I woo'd her!
    I am asham'd. Does not the stone rebuke me
    For being more stone than it? O royal piece,
    There's magic in thy majesty, which has
    My evils conjur'd to remembrance, and
    From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,
    Standing like stone with thee!
  PERDITA. And give me leave,
    And do not say 'tis superstition that
    I kneel, and then implore her blessing. Lady,
    Dear queen, that ended when I but began,
    Give me that hand of yours to kiss.
  PAULINA. O, patience!
    The statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's
    Not dry.
  CAMILLO. My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,
    Which sixteen winters cannot blow away,
    So many summers dry. Scarce any joy
    Did ever so long live; no sorrow
    But kill'd itself much sooner.
  POLIXENES. Dear my brother,
    Let him that was the cause of this have pow'r
    To take off so much grief from you as he
    Will piece up in himself.
  PAULINA. Indeed, my lord,
    If I had thought the sight of my poor image
    Would thus have wrought you- for the stone is mine-
    I'd not have show'd it.
  LEONTES. Do not draw the curtain.
  PAULINA. No longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy
    May think anon it moves.
  LEONTES. Let be, let be.
    Would I were dead, but that methinks already-
    What was he that did make it? See, my lord,
    Would you not deem it breath'd, and that those veins
    Did verily bear blood?
  POLIXENES. Masterly done!
    The very life seems warm upon her lip.
  LEONTES. The fixture of her eye has motion in't,
    As we are mock'd with art.
  PAULINA. I'll draw the curtain.
    My lord's almost so far transported that
    He'll think anon it lives.
  LEONTES. O sweet Paulina,
    Make me to think so twenty years together!
    No settled senses of the world can match
    The pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone.
  PAULINA. I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you; but
    I could afflict you farther.
  LEONTES. Do, Paulina;
    For this affliction has a taste as sweet
    As any cordial comfort. Still, methinks,
    There is an air comes from her. What fine chisel
    Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,
    For I will kiss her.
  PAULINA. Good my lord, forbear.
    The ruddiness upon her lip is wet;
    You'll mar it if you kiss it; stain your own
    With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?
  LEONTES. No, not these twenty years.
  PERDITA. So long could I
    Stand by, a looker-on.
  PAULINA. Either forbear,
    Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you
    For more amazement. If you can behold it,
    I'll make the statue move indeed, descend,
    And take you by the hand, but then you'll think-
    Which I protest against- I am assisted
    By wicked powers.
  LEONTES. What you can make her do
    I am content to look on; what to speak
    I am content to hear; for 'tis as easy
    To make her speak as move.
  PAULINA. It is requir'd
    You do awake your faith. Then all stand still;
    Or those that think it is unlawful business
    I am about, let them depart.
  LEONTES. Proceed.
    No foot shall stir.
  PAULINA. Music, awake her: strike.                     [Music]
    'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;
    Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come;
    I'll fill your grave up. Stir; nay, come away.
    Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him
    Dear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs.
                         [HERMIONE comes down from the pedestal]
    Start not; her actions shall be holy as
    You hear my spell is lawful. Do not shun her
    Until you see her die again; for then
    You kill her double. Nay, present your hand.
    When she was young you woo'd her; now in age
    Is she become the suitor?
  LEONTES. O, she's warm!
    If this be magic, let it be an art
    Lawful as eating.
  POLIXENES. She embraces him.
  CAMILLO. She hangs about his neck.
    If she pertain to life, let her speak too.
  POLIXENES. Ay, and make it manifest where she has liv'd,
    Or how stol'n from the dead.
  PAULINA. That she is living,
    Were it but told you, should be hooted at
    Like an old tale; but it appears she lives
    Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.
    Please you to interpose, fair madam. Kneel,
    And pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady;
    Our Perdita is found.
  HERMIONE. You gods, look down,
    And from your sacred vials pour your graces
    Upon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own,
    Where hast thou been preserv'd? Where liv'd? How found
    Thy father's court? For thou shalt hear that I,
    Knowing by Paulina that the oracle
    Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserv'd
    Myself to see the issue.
  PAULINA. There's time enough for that,
    Lest they desire upon this push to trouble
    Your joys with like relation. Go together,
    You precious winners all; your exultation
    Partake to every one. I, an old turtle,
    Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there
    My mate, that's never to be found again,
    Lament till I am lost.
  LEONTES. O peace, Paulina!
    Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,
    As I by thine a wife. This is a match,
    And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine;
    But how, is to be question'd; for I saw her,
    As I thought, dead; and have, in vain, said many
    A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far-
    For him, I partly know his mind- to find thee
    An honourable husband. Come, Camillo,
    And take her by the hand whose worth and honesty
    Is richly noted, and here justified
    By us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place.
    What! look upon my brother. Both your pardons,
    That e'er I put between your holy looks
    My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law,
    And son unto the King, whom heavens directing,
    Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,
    Lead us from hence where we may leisurely
    Each one demand and answer to his part
    Perform'd in this wide gap of time since first
    We were dissever'd. Hastily lead away.                Exeunt

THE END

1609



A LOVER’S COMPLAINT

 From off a hill whose concave womb reworded
  A plaintful story from a sist'ring vale,
  My spirits t'attend this double voice accorded,
  And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale,
  Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
  Tearing of papers, breaking rings atwain,
  Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

  Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
  Which fortified her visage from the sun,
  Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
  The carcase of a beauty spent and done.
  Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
  Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven's fell rage
  Some beauty peeped through lattice of seared age.

  Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
  Which on it had conceited characters,
  Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine
  That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears,
  And often reading what contents it bears;
  As often shrieking undistinguished woe,
  In clamours of all size, both high and low.

  Sometimes her levelled eyes their carriage ride,
  As they did batt'ry to the spheres intend;
  Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied
  To th' orbed earth; sometimes they do extend
  Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
  To every place at once, and nowhere fixed,
  The mind and sight distractedly commixed.

  Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,
  Proclaimed in her a careless hand of pride;
  For some, untucked, descended her sheaved hat,
  Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;
  Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,
  And, true to bondage, would not break from thence,
  Though slackly braided in loose negligence.

  A thousand favours from a maund she drew
  Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,
  Which one by one she in a river threw,
  Upon whose weeping margent she was set;
  Like usury applying wet to wet,
  Or monarchs' hands that lets not bounty fall
  Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.

  Of folded schedules had she many a one,
  Which she perused, sighed, tore, and gave the flood;
  Cracked many a ring of posied gold and bone,
  Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;
  Found yet moe letters sadly penned in blood,
  With sleided silk feat and affectedly
  Enswathed and sealed to curious secrecy.

  These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes,
  And often kissed, and often 'gan to tear;
  Cried, 'O false blood, thou register of lies,
  What unapproved witness dost thou bear!
  Ink would have seemed more black and damned here!
  This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,
  Big discontents so breaking their contents.

  A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh,
  Sometime a blusterer that the ruffle knew
  Of court, of city, and had let go by
  The swiftest hours observed as they flew,
  Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew;
  And, privileged by age, desires to know
  In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.

  So slides he down upon his grained bat,
  And comely distant sits he by her side;
  When he again desires her, being sat,
  Her grievance with his hearing to divide.
  If that from him there may be aught applied
  Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,
  'Tis promised in the charity of age.

  'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold
  The injury of many a blasting hour,
  Let it not tell your judgement I am old:
  Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power.
  I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
  Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied
  Love to myself, and to no love beside.

  'But woe is me! too early I attended
  A youthful suit- it was to gain my grace-
  O, one by nature's outwards so commended
  That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face.
  Love lacked a dwelling and made him her place;
  And when in his fair parts she did abide,
  She was new lodged and newly deified.

  'His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;
  And every light occasion of the wind
  Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.
  What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:
  Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind;
  For on his visage was in little drawn
  What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.

  'Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
  His phoenix down began but to appear,
  Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin,
  Whose bare out-bragged the web it seemed to wear:
  Yet showed his visage by that cost more dear;
  And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
  If best were as it was, or best without.

  'His qualities were beauteous as his form,
  For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
  Yet if men moved him, was he such a storm
  As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,
  When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.
  His rudeness so with his authorized youth
  Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.

  'Well could he ride, and often men would say,
  "That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
  Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
  What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!"
  And controversy hence a question takes
  Whether the horse by him became his deed,
  Or he his manage by th' well-doing steed.

  'But quickly on this side the verdict went:
  His real habitude gave life and grace
  To appertainings and to ornament,
  Accomplished in himself, not in his case,
  All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,
  Came for additions; yet their purposed trim
  Pierced not his grace, but were all graced by him.

  'So on the tip of his subduing tongue
  All kind of arguments and question deep,
  All replication prompt, and reason strong,
  For his advantage still did wake and sleep.
  To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
  He had the dialect and different skill,
  Catching all passions in his craft of will,

  'That he did in the general bosom reign
  Of young, of old, and sexes both enchanted,
  To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain
  In personal duty, following where he haunted.
  Consents bewitched, ere he desire, have granted,
  And dialogued for him what he would say,
  Asked their own wills, and made their wills obey.

  'Many there were that did his picture get,
  To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;
  Like fools that in th' imagination set
  The goodly objects which abroad they find
  Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assigned;
  And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them
  Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them.

  'So many have, that never touched his hand,
  Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.
  My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
  And was my own fee-simple, not in part,
  What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
  Threw my affections in his charmed power
  Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.

  'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
  Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;
  Finding myself in honour so forbid,
  With safest distance I mine honour shielded.
  Experience for me many bulwarks builded
  Of proofs new-bleeding, which remained the foil
  Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.

  'But ah, who ever shunned by precedent
  The destined ill she must herself assay?
  Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content,
  To put the by-past perils in her way?
  Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;
  For when we rage, advice is often seen
  By blunting us to make our wills more keen.

  'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood
  That we must curb it upon others' proof,
  To be forbod the sweets that seems so good
  For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.
  O appetite, from judgement stand aloof!
  The one a palate hath that needs will taste,
  Though Reason weep, and cry it is thy last.

  'For further I could say this man's untrue,
  And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;
  Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew;
  Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;
  Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;
  Thought characters and words merely but art,
  And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.

  'And long upon these terms I held my city,
  Till thus he 'gan besiege me: "Gentle maid,
  Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,
  And be not of my holy vows afraid.
  That's to ye sworn to none was ever said;
  For feasts of love I have been called unto,
  Till now did ne'er invite nor never woo.

  '"All my offences that abroad you see
  Are errors of the blood, none of the mind;
  Love made them not; with acture they may be,
  Where neither party is nor true nor kind.
  They sought their shame that so their shame did find;
  And so much less of shame in me remains
  By how much of me their reproach contains.

  '"Among the many that mine eyes have seen,
  Not one whose flame my heart so much as warmed,
  Or my affection put to th' smallest teen,
  Or any of my leisures ever charmed.
  Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harmed;
  Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,
  And reigned commanding in his monarchy.

  '"Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me,
  Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood;
  Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me
  Of grief and blushes, aptly understood
  In bloodless white and the encrimsoned mood-
  Effects of terror and dear modesty,
  Encamped in hearts, but fighting outwardly.

  '"And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,
  With twisted metal amorously empleached,
  I have receiv'd from many a several fair,
  Their kind acceptance weepingly beseeched,
  With the annexions of fair gems enriched,
  And deep-brained sonnets that did amplify
  Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.

  '"The diamond? why, 'twas beautiful and hard,
  Whereto his invised properties did tend;
  The deep-green em'rald, in whose fresh regard
  Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;
  The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend
  With objects manifold; each several stone,
  With wit well blazoned, smiled, or made some moan.

  '"Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,
  Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,
  Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,
  But yield them up where I myself must render-
  That is, to you, my origin and ender;
  For these, of force, must your oblations be,
  Since I their altar, you enpatron me.

  '"O then advance of yours that phraseless hand
  Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;
  Take all these similes to your own command,
  Hallowed with sighs that burning lungs did raise;
  What me your minister for you obeys
  Works under you; and to your audit comes
  Their distract parcels in combined sums.

  '"Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,
  Or sister sanctified, of holiest note,
  Which late her noble suit in court did shun,
  Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;
  For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,
  But kept cold distance, and did thence remove
  To spend her living in eternal love.

  '"But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave
  The thing we have not, mast'ring what not strives,
  Playing the place which did no form receive,
  Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves!
  She that her fame so to herself contrives,
  The scars of battle scapeth by the flight,
  And makes her absence valiant, not her might.

  '"O pardon me in that my boast is true!
  The accident which brought me to her eye
  Upon the moment did her force subdue,
  And now she would the caged cloister fly.
  Religious love put out religion's eye.
  Not to be tempted, would she be immured,
  And now to tempt all liberty procured.

  '"How mighty then you are, O hear me tell!
  The broken bosoms that to me belong
  Have emptied all their fountains in my well,
  And mine I pour your ocean all among.
  I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,
  Must for your victory us all congest,
  As compound love to physic your cold breast.

  '"My parts had pow'r to charm a sacred nun,
  Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,
  Believed her eyes when they t'assail begun,
  All vows and consecrations giving place,
  O most potential love, vow, bond, nor space,
  In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,
  For thou art all, and all things else are thine.

  '"When thou impressest, what are precepts worth
  Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,
  How coldly those impediments stand forth,
  Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!
  Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense, 'gainst shame.
  And sweetens, in the suff'ring pangs it bears,
  The aloes of all forces, shocks and fears.

  '"Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,
  Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine,
  And supplicant their sighs to your extend,
  To leave the batt'ry that you make 'gainst mine,
  Lending soft audience to my sweet design,
  And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath,
  That shall prefer and undertake my troth."

  'This said, his wat'ry eyes he did dismount,
  Whose sights till then were levelled on my face;
  Each cheek a river running from a fount
  With brinish current downward flowed apace.
  O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!
  Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses
  That flame through water which their hue encloses.

  'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
  In the small orb of one particular tear!
  But with the inundation of the eyes
  What rocky heart to water will not wear?
  What breast so cold that is not warmed here?
  O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,
  Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.

  'For lo, his passion, but an art of craft,
  Even there resolved my reason into tears;
  There my white stole of chastity I daffed,
  Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;
  Appear to him as he to me appears,
  All melting; though our drops this diff'rence bore:
  His poisoned me, and mine did him restore.

  'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
  Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
  Of burning blushes or of weeping water,
  Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
  In either's aptness, as it best deceives,
  To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,
  Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows;

  'That not a heart which in his level came
  Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,
  Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;
  And, veiled in them, did win whom he would maim.
  Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
  When he most burned in heart-wished luxury,
  He preached pure maid and praised cold chastity.

  'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace
  The naked and concealed fiend he covered,
  That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,
  Which, like a cherubin, above them hovered.
  Who, young and simple, would not be so lovered?
  Ay me, I fell, and yet do question make
  What I should do again for such a sake.

  'O, that infected moisture of his eye,
  O, that false fire which in his cheek so glowed,
  O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,
  O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed,
  O, all that borrowed motion, seeming owed,
  Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed,
  And new pervert a reconciled maid.'

THE END



THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM

by William Shakespeare

I.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
'Gainst whom the world could not hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore; but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.
My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is;
Then, thou fair sun, that on this earth doth shine,
Exhale this vapour vow; in thee it is:
If broken, then it is no fault of mine.
  If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
  To break an oath, to win a paradise?

II.

Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook
With young Adonis, lovely, fresh, and green,
Did court the lad with many a lovely look,
Such looks as none could look but beauty's queen.
She told him stories to delight his ear;
She show'd him favours to allure his eye;
To win his heart, she touch'd him here and there:
Touches so soft still conquer chastity.
But whether unripe years did want conceit,
Or he refus'd to take her figur'd proffer,
The tender nibbler would not touch the bait,
But smile and jest at every gentle offer:
  Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and toward;
  He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward!

III.

If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd:
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant prove;
Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd.
Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,
Where all those pleasures live that art can comprehend.
If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;
Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;
All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;
Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire:
Thy eye Jove's lightning seems, thy voice his dreadful thunder,
Which (not to anger bent) is music and sweet fire.
  Celestial as thou art, O do not love that wrong,
  To sing heavens' praise with such an earthly tongue.

IV.

Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn,
And scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade,
When Cytherea, all in love forlorn,
A longing tarriance for Adonis made,
Under an osier growing by a brook,
A brook where Adon used to cool his spleen.
Hot was the day; she hotter that did look
For his approach, that often there had been.
Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by,
And stood stark naked on the brook's green brim;
The sun look'd on the world with glorious eye,
Yet not so wistly as this queen on him:
  He, spying her, bounc'd in, whereas he stood;
  O Jove, quoth she, why was not I a flood?

V.

Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle;
Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty;
Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle;
Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty:
  A lily pale, with damask die to grace her,
  None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.

Her lips to mine how often hath she join'd,
Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!
How many tales to please me hath she coin'd,
Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing!
  Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,
  Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings.

She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth;
She burn'd out love, as soon as straw outburneth;
She fram'd the love, and yet she foil'd the framing;
She bade love last, and yet she fell a turning.
  Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?
  Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.

VI.

If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lovest the one, and I the other.
Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such
As, passing all conceit, needs no defence.
Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd
Whenas himself to singing he betakes.
  One god is god of both, as poets feign;
  One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

VII.

Fair was the morn when the fair queen of love,
    *     *     *     *     *     *
Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove,
For Adon's sake, a youngster proud and wild;
Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill:
Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds;
She, silly queen, with more than love's good will,
Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds;
Once, quoth she, did I see a fair sweet youth
Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar,
Deep in the thigh, a spectacle of ruth!
See, in my thigh, quoth she, here was the sore.
  She showed hers: he saw more wounds than one,
  And blushing fled, and left her all alone.

VIII.

Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon vaded,
Pluck'd in the bud, and vaded in the spring!
Bright orient pearl, alack! too timely shaded!
Fair creature, kill'd too soon by death's sharp sting!
  Like a green plum that hangs upon a tree,
  And falls, through wind, before the fall should be.

I weep for thee, and yet no cause I have;
For why? thou left'st me nothing in thy will:
And yet thou left'st me more than I did crave;
For why? I craved nothing of thee still:
  O yes, dear friend, I pardon crave of thee,
  Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me.

IX.

Venus, with young Adonis sitting by her,
Under a myrtle shade, began to woo him:
She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,
And as he fell to her, so fell she to him.
Even thus, quoth she, the warlike god embrac'd me,
And then she clipp'd Adonis in her arms;
Even thus, quoth she, the warlike god unlaced me;
As if the boy should use like loving charms;
Even thus, quoth she, he seized on my lips,
And with her lips on his did act the seizure;
And as she fetched breath, away he skips,
And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure.
  Ah! that I had my lady at this bay,
  To kiss and clip me till I run away!

X.

   Crabbed age and youth
     Cannot live together
   Youth is full of pleasance,
     Age is full of care;
   Youth like summer morn,
     Age like winter weather;
   Youth like summer brave,
     Age like winter bare;
   Youth is full of sport,
   Age's breath is short;
     Youth is nimble, age is lame;
   Youth is hot and bold,
   Age is weak and cold;
     Youth is wild, and age is tame.
   Age, I do abhor thee;
   Youth, I do adore thee;
     O, my love, my love is young!
   Age, I do defy thee;
   O, sweet shepherd, hie thee,
   For methinks thou stay'st too long.

XI.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle glass, that's broken presently:
  A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
  Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.

And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,
  So beauty blemish'd once, for ever's lost,
  In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.

XII.

Good night, good rest.  Ah! neither be my share:
She bade good night that kept my rest away;
And daff'd me to a cabin hang'd with care,
To descant on the doubts of my decay.
 Farewell, quoth she, and come again tomorrow:
 Fare well I could not, for I supp'd with sorrow;

Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile,
In scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether:
'T may be, she joy'd to jest at my exile,
'T may be, again to make me wander thither:
  'Wander,' a word for shadows like myself,
  As take the pain, but cannot pluck the pelf.

XIII.

Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east!
My heart doth charge the watch; the morning rise
Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest.
Not daring trust the office of mine eyes,
  While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,
  And wish her lays were tuned like the lark;

For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty,
And drives away dark dismal-dreaming night:
The night so pack'd, I post unto my pretty;
Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight;
  Sorrow chang'd to solace, solace mix'd with sorrow;
  For why, she sigh'd and bade me come tomorrow.

Were I with her, the night would post too soon;
But now are minutes added to the hours;
To spite me now, each minute seems a moon;
Yet not for me, shine sun to succour flowers!
  Pack night, peep day; good day, of night now borrow:
  Short, night, to-night, and length thyself to-morrow.



THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE




by William Shakespeare






Let the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever’s end,
To this troop come thou not near.

From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather’d king;
Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak’st
With the breath thou giv’st and tak’st,
’Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.

So they lov’d, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance and no space was seen
’Twixt this turtle and his queen;
But in them it were a wonder.

So between them love did shine,
That the turtle saw his right
Flaming in the phoenix’ sight;
Either was the other’s mine.

Property was thus appalled,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was called.

Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded.

That it cried, How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.

Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene.


       THRENOS

Beauty, truth, and rarity.
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos’d in cinders lie.

Death is now the phoenix’ nest;
And the turtle’s loyal breast
To eternity doth rest.

Leaving no posterity:—
’Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.

Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but ’tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.

To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.



THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

by William Shakespeare

                THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

                      TO THE

          RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,

        EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TITCHFIELD.

THE love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end; whereof this
pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety.  The warrant
I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored
lines, makes it assured of acceptance.  What I have done is yours; what
I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours.  Were
my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is
bound to your Lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with
all happiness.

                         Your Lordship's in all duty,
                              WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

                        THE ARGUMENT.

LUCIUS TARQUINIUS (for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus), after he
had caused his own father-in-law, Servius Tullius, to be cruelly
murdered, and, contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or
staying for the people's suffrages, had possessed himself of the
kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to
besiege Ardea.  During which siege the principal men of the army
meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son,
in their discourses after supper, every one commended the virtues of
his own wife; among whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity
of his wife Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they all posted to Rome;
and intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of
that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds his
wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her maids: the
other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or in several
disports.  Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus the victory, and
his wife the fame.  At that time Sextus Tarquinius being inflamed with
Lucrece's beauty, yet smothering his passions for the present, departed
with the rest back to the camp; from whence he shortly after privily
withdrew himself, and was (according to his estate) royally entertained
and lodged by Lucrece at Collatium.  The same night he treacherously
stealeth into her chamber, violently ravished her, and early in the
morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in this lamentable plight, hastily
dispatched messengers, one to Rome for her father, another to the camp
for Collatine.  They came, the one accompanied with Junius Brutus, the
other with Publius Valerius; and finding Lucrece attired in mourning
habit, demanded the cause of her sorrow.  She, first taking an oath of
them for her revenge, revealed the actor, and whole manner of his
dealing, and withal suddenly stabbed herself.  Which done, with one
consent they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the
Tarquins; and bearing the dead body to Rome, Brutus acquainted the
people with the doer and manner of the vile deed, with a bitter
invective against the tyranny of the king; wherewith the people were so
moved, that with one consent and a general acclamation the Tarquins
were all exiled, and the state government changed from kings to
consuls.

_______________________________________________________________

From the besieged Ardea all in post,
Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,
Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,
And to Collatium bears the lightless fire
Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire
  And girdle with embracing flames the waist
  Of Collatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste.

Haply that name of chaste unhapp'ly set
This bateless edge on his keen appetite;
When Collatine unwisely did not let
To praise the clear unmatched red and white
Which triumph'd in that sky of his delight,
  Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven's beauties,
  With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.

For he the night before, in Tarquin's tent,
Unlock'd the treasure of his happy state;
What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent
In the possession of his beauteous mate;
Reckoning his fortune at such high-proud rate,
  That kings might be espoused to more fame,
  But king nor peer to such a peerless dame.

O happiness enjoy'd but of a few!
And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done
As is the morning's silver-melting dew
Against the golden splendour of the sun!
An expir'd date, cancell'd ere well begun:
  Honour and beauty, in the owner's arms,
  Are weakly fortress'd from a world of harms.

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator;
What needeth then apologies be made,
To set forth that which is so singular?
Or why is Collatine the publisher
  Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown
  From thievish ears, because it is his own?

Perchance his boast of Lucrece' sovereignty
Suggested this proud issue of a king;
For by our ears our hearts oft tainted be:
Perchance that envy of so rich a thing,
Braving compare, disdainfully did sting
  His high-pitch'd thoughts, that meaner men should vaunt
  That golden hap which their superiors want.

But some untimely thought did instigate
His all-too-timeless speed, if none of those;
His honour, his affairs, his friends, his state,
Neglected all, with swift intent he goes
To quench the coal which in his liver glows.
  O rash false heat, wrapp'd in repentant cold,
  Thy hasty spring still blasts, and ne'er grows old!

When at Collatium this false lord arriv'd,
Well was he welcom'd by the Roman dame,
Within whose face beauty and virtue striv'd
Which of them both should underprop her fame:
When virtue bragg'd, beauty would blush for shame;
  When beauty boasted blushes, in despite
  Virtue would stain that or with silver white.

But beauty, in that white intituled,
From Venus' doves doth challenge that fair field:
Then virtue claims from beauty beauty's red,
Which virtue gave the golden age, to gild
Their silver cheeks, and call'd it then their shield;
  Teaching them thus to use it in the fight,—
  When shame assail'd, the red should fence the white.

This heraldry in Lucrece' face was seen,
Argued by beauty's red, and virtue's white:
Of either's colour was the other queen,
Proving from world's minority their right:
Yet their ambition makes them still to fight;
  The sovereignty of either being so great,
  That oft they interchange each other's seat.

Their silent war of lilies and of roses,
Which Tarquin view'd in her fair face's field,
In their pure ranks his traitor eye encloses;
Where, lest between them both it should be kill'd,
The coward captive vanquish'd doth yield
  To those two armies that would let him go,
  Rather than triumph in so false a foe.

Now thinks he that her husband's shallow tongue,
(The niggard prodigal that prais'd her so)
In that high task hath done her beauty wrong,
Which far exceeds his barren skill to show:
Therefore that praise which Collatine doth owe
  Enchanted Tarquin answers with surmise,
  In silent wonder of still-gazing eyes.

This earthly saint, adored by this devil,
Little suspecteth the false worshipper;
For unstain'd thoughts do seldom dream on evil;
Birds never lim'd no secret bushes fear:
So guiltless she securely gives good cheer
  And reverend welcome to her princely guest,
  Whose inward ill no outward harm express'd:

For that he colour'd with his high estate,
Hiding base sin in plaits of majesty;
That nothing in him seem'd inordinate,
Save sometime too much wonder of his eye,
Which, having all, all could not satisfy;
  But, poorly rich, so wanteth in his store,
  That, cloy'd with much, he pineth still for more.

But she, that never cop'd with stranger eyes,
Could pick no meaning from their parling looks,
Nor read the subtle-shining secrecies
Writ in the glassy margents of such books;
She touch'd no unknown baits, nor fear'd no hooks;
  Nor could she moralize his wanton sight,
  More than his eyes were open'd to the light.

He stories to her ears her husband's fame,
Won in the fields of fruitful Italy;
And decks with praises Collatine's high name,
Made glorious by his manly chivalry
With bruised arms and wreaths of victory:
  Her joy with heav'd-up hand she doth express,
  And, wordless, so greets heaven for his success.

Far from the purpose of his coming hither,
He makes excuses for his being there.
No cloudy show of stormy blustering weather
Doth yet in his fair welkin once appear;
Till sable Night, mother of Dread and Fear,
  Upon the world dim darkness doth display,
  And in her vaulty prison stows the day.

For then is Tarquin brought unto his bed,
Intending weariness with heavy spright;
For, after supper, long he questioned
With modest Lucrece, and wore out the night:
Now leaden slumber with life's strength doth fight;
  And every one to rest themselves betake,
  Save thieves, and cares, and troubled minds, that wake.

As one of which doth Tarquin lie revolving
The sundry dangers of his will's obtaining;
Yet ever to obtain his will resolving,
Though weak-built hopes persuade him to abstaining:
Despair to gain doth traffic oft for gaining;
  And when great treasure is the meed propos'd,
  Though death be adjunct, there's no death suppos'd.

Those that much covet are with gain so fond,
For what they have not, that which they possess
They scatter and unloose it from their bond,
And so, by hoping more, they have but less;
Or, gaining more, the profit of excess
  Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
  That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.

The aim of all is but to nurse the life
With honour, wealth, and ease, in waning age;
And in this aim there is such thwarting strife,
That one for all, or all for one we gage;
As life for honour in fell battles' rage;
  Honour for wealth; and oft that wealth doth cost
  The death of all, and all together lost.

So that in vent'ring ill we leave to be
The things we are, for that which we expect;
And this ambitious foul infirmity,
In having much, torments us with defect
Of that we have: so then we do neglect
  The thing we have; and, all for want of wit,
  Make something nothing, by augmenting it.

Such hazard now must doting Tarquin make,
Pawning his honour to obtain his lust;
And for himself himself he must forsake:
Then where is truth, if there be no self-trust?
When shall he think to find a stranger just,
  When he himself himself confounds, betrays
  To slanderous tongues and wretched hateful days?

Now stole upon the time the dead of night,
When heavy sleep had closed up mortal eyes:
No comfortable star did lend his light,
No noise but owls' and wolves' death-boding cries;
Now serves the season that they may surprise
  The silly lambs; pure thoughts are dead and still,
  While lust and murder wake to stain and kill.

And now this lustful lord leap'd from his bed,
Throwing his mantle rudely o'er his arm;
Is madly toss'd between desire and dread;
Th' one sweetly flatters, th' other feareth harm;
But honest Fear, bewitch'd with lust's foul charm,
  Doth too too oft betake him to retire,
  Beaten away by brain-sick rude Desire.

His falchion on a flint he softly smiteth,
That from the cold stone sparks of fire do fly;
Whereat a waxen torch forthwith he lighteth,
Which must be lode-star to his lustful eye;
And to the flame thus speaks advisedly:
  'As from this cold flint I enforced this fire,
  So Lucrece must I force to my desire.'

Here pale with fear he doth premeditate
The dangers of his loathsome enterprise,
And in his inward mind he doth debate
What following sorrow may on this arise;
Then looking scornfully, he doth despise
  His naked armour of still-slaughter'd lust,
  And justly thus controls his thoughts unjust:

'Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not
To darken her whose light excelleth thine:
And die, unhallow'd thoughts, before you blot
With your uncleanness that which is divine!
Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine:
  Let fair humanity abhor the deed
  That spots and stains love's modest snow-white weed.

'O shame to knighthood and to shining arms!
O foul dishonour to my household's grave!
O impious act, including all foul harms!
A martial man to be soft fancy's slave!
True valour still a true respect should have;
  Then my digression is so vile, so base,
  That it will live engraven in my face.

'Yea, though I die, the scandal will survive,
And be an eye-sore in my golden coat;
Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive,
To cipher me how fondly I did dote;
That my posterity, sham'd with the note,
  Shall curse my bones, and hold it for no sin
  To wish that I their father had not been.

'What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy:
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
  Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
  Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?

'If Collatinus dream of my intent,
Will he not wake, and in a desperate rage
Post hither, this vile purpose to prevent?
This siege that hath engirt his marriage,
This blur to youth, this sorrow to the sage,
  This dying virtue, this surviving shame,
  Whose crime will bear an ever-during blame?

'O, what excuse can my invention make
When thou shalt charge me with so black a deed?
Will not my tongue be mute, my frail joints shake?
Mine eyes forego their light, my false heart bleed?
The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed;
  And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly,
  But, coward-like, with trembling terror die.

'Had Collatinus kill'd my son or sire,
Or lain in ambush to betray my life,
Or were he not my dear friend, this desire
Might have excuse to work upon his wife;
As in revenge or quittal of such strife:
  But as he is my kinsman, my dear friend,
  The shame and fault finds no excuse nor end.

'Shameful it is;—ay, if the fact be known:
Hateful it is:— there is no hate in loving;
I'll beg her love;—but she is not her own;
The worst is but denial and reproving:
My will is strong, past reason's weak removing.
  Who fears a sentence or an old man's saw
  Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe.'

Thus, graceless, holds he disputation
'Tween frozen conscience and hot-burning will,
And with good thoughts makes dispensation,
Urging the worser sense for vantage still;
Which in a moment doth confound and kill
  All pure effects, and doth so far proceed,
  That what is vile shows like a virtuous deed.

Quoth he, 'She took me kindly by the hand,
And gaz'd for tidings in my eager eyes,
Fearing some hard news from the warlike band,
Where her beloved Collatinus lies.
O how her fear did make her colour rise!
  First red as roses that on lawn we lay,
  Then white as lawn, the roses took away.

'And how her hand, in my hand being lock'd,
Forc'd it to tremble with her loyal fear;
Which struck her sad, and then it faster rock'd,
Until her husband's welfare she did hear;
Whereat she smiled with so sweet a cheer,
  That had Narcissus seen her as she stood,
  Self-love had never drown'd him in the flood.

'Why hunt I then for colour or excuses?
All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth;
Poor wretches have remorse in poor abuses;
Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth:
Affection is my captain, and he leadeth;
  And when his gaudy banner is display'd,
  The coward fights and will not be dismay'd.

'Then, childish fear, avaunt! debating, die!
Respect and reason wait on wrinkled age!
My heart shall never countermand mine eye;
Sad pause and deep regard beseem the sage;
My part is youth, and beats these from the stage:
  Desire my pilot is, beauty my prize;
  Then who fears sinking where such treasure lies?'

As corn o'ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear
Is almost chok'd by unresisted lust.
Away he steals with opening, listening ear,
Full of foul hope, and full of fond mistrust;
Both which, as servitors to the unjust,
  So cross him with their opposite persuasion,
  That now he vows a league, and now invasion.

Within his thought her heavenly image sits,
And in the self-same seat sits Collatine:
That eye which looks on her confounds his wits;
That eye which him beholds, as more divine,
Unto a view so false will not incline;
  But with a pure appeal seeks to the heart,
  Which once corrupted takes the worser part;

And therein heartens up his servile powers,
Who, flatter'd by their leader's jocund show,
Stuff up his lust, as minutes fill up hours;
And as their captain, so their pride doth grow.
Paying more slavish tribute than they owe.
  By reprobate desire thus madly led,
  The Roman lord marcheth to Lucrece' bed.

The locks between her chamber and his will,
Each one by him enforc'd retires his ward;
But, as they open they all rate his ill,
Which drives the creeping thief to some regard,
The threshold grates the door to have him heard;
  Night-wand'ring weasels shriek to see him there;
  They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear.

As each unwilling portal yields him way,
Through little vents and crannies of the place
The wind wars with his torch, to make him stay,
And blows the smoke of it into his face,
Extinguishing his conduct in this case;
  But his hot heart, which fond desire doth scorch,
  Puffs forth another wind that fires the torch:

And being lighted, by the light he spies
Lucretia's glove, wherein her needle sticks;
He takes it from the rushes where it lies,
And griping it, the neeld his finger pricks:
As who should say this glove to wanton tricks
  Is not inur'd: return again in haste;
  Thou see'st our mistress' ornaments are chaste.

But all these poor forbiddings could not stay him;
He in the worst sense construes their denial:
The doors, the wind, the glove that did delay him,
He takes for accidental things of trial;
Or as those bars which stop the hourly dial,
  Who with a lingering stay his course doth let,
  Till every minute pays the hour his debt.

'So, so,' quoth he, 'these lets attend the time,
Like little frosts that sometime threat the spring.
To add a more rejoicing to the prime,
And give the sneaped birds more cause to sing.
Pain pays the income of each precious thing;
  Huge rocks, high winds, strong pirates, shelves and sands,
  The merchant fears, ere rich at home he lands.'

Now is he come unto the chamber door,
That shuts him from the heaven of his thought,
Which with a yielding latch, and with no more,
Hath barr'd him from the blessed thing he sought.
So from himself impiety hath wrought,
  That for his prey to pray he doth begin,
  As if the heavens should countenance his sin.

But in the midst of his unfruitful prayer,
Having solicited the eternal power,
That his foul thoughts might compass his fair fair,
And they would stand auspicious to the hour,
Even there he starts:—quoth he, 'I must de-flower;
  The powers to whom I pray abhor this fact,
  How can they then assist me in the act?

'Then Love and Fortune be my gods, my guide!
My will is back'd with resolution:
Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried,
The blackest sin is clear'd with absolution;
Against love's fire fear's frost hath dissolution.
  The eye of heaven is out, and misty night
  Covers the shame that follows sweet delight.'

This said, his guilty hand pluck'd up the latch,
And with his knee the door he opens wide:
The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch;
Thus treason works ere traitors be espied.
Who sees the lurking serpent steps aside;
  But she, sound sleeping, fearing no such thing,
  Lies at the mercy of his mortal sting.

Into the chamber wickedly he stalks,
And gazeth on her yet unstained bed.
The curtains being close, about he walks,
Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head:
By their high treason is his heart misled;
  Which gives the watch-word to his hand full soon
  To draw the cloud that hides the silver moon.

Look, as the fair and fiery-pointed sun,
Rushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight;
Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun
To wink, being blinded with a greater light:
Whether it is that she reflects so bright,
  That dazzleth them, or else some shame supposed;
  But blind they are, and keep themselves enclosed.

O, had they in that darksome prison died,
Then had they seen the period of their ill!
Then Collatine again by Lucrece' side
In his clear bed might have reposed still:
But they must ope, this blessed league to kill;
  And holy-thoughted Lucrece to their sight
  Must sell her joy, her life, her world's delight.

Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under,
Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss;
Who, therefore angry, seems to part in sunder,
Swelling on either side to want his bliss;
Between whose hills her head entombed is:
  Where, like a virtuous monument, she lies,
  To be admir'd of lewd unhallow'd eyes.

Without the bed her other fair hand was,
On the green coverlet; whose perfect white
Show'd like an April daisy on the grass,
With pearly sweat, resembling dew of night,
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheath'd their light,
  And canopied in darkness sweetly lay,
  Till they might open to adorn the day.

Her hair, like golden threads, play'd with her breath;
O modest wantons! wanton modesty!
Showing life's triumph in the map of death,
And death's dim look in life's mortality:
Each in her sleep themselves so beautify,
  As if between them twain there were no strife,
  But that life liv'd in death, and death in life.

Her breasts, like ivory globes circled with blue,
A pair of maiden worlds unconquered,
Save of their lord no bearing yoke they knew,
And him by oath they truly honoured.
These worlds in Tarquin new ambition bred:
  Who, like a foul usurper, went about
  From this fair throne to heave the owner out.

What could he see but mightily he noted?
What did he note but strongly he desir'd?
What he beheld, on that he firmly doted,
And in his will his wilful eye he tir'd.
With more than admiration he admir'd
  Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,
  Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.

As the grim lion fawneth o'er his prey,
Sharp hunger by the conquest satisfied,
So o'er this sleeping soul doth Tarquin stay,
His rage of lust by grazing qualified;
Slack'd, not suppress'd; for standing by her side,
  His eye, which late this mutiny restrains,
  Unto a greater uproar tempts his veins:

And they, like straggling slaves for pillage fighting,
Obdurate vassals. fell exploits effecting,
In bloody death and ravishment delighting,
Nor children's tears nor mothers' groans respecting,
Swell in their pride, the onset still expecting:
  Anon his beating heart, alarum striking,
  Gives the hot charge and bids them do their liking.

His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye,
His eye commends the leading to his hand;
His hand, as proud of such a dignity,
Smoking with pride, march'd on to make his stand
On her bare breast, the heart of all her land;
  Whose ranks of blue veins, as his hand did scale,
  Left their round turrets destitute and pale.

They, mustering to the quiet cabinet
Where their dear governess and lady lies,
Do tell her she is dreadfully beset,
And fright her with confusion of their cries:
She, much amaz'd, breaks ope her lock'd-up eyes,
  Who, peeping forth this tumult to behold,
  Are by his flaming torch dimm'd and controll'd.

Imagine her as one in dead of night
From forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking,
That thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite,
Whose grim aspect sets every joint a shaking:
What terror 'tis! but she, in worser taking,
  From sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view
  The sight which makes supposed terror true.

Wrapp'd and confounded in a thousand fears,
Like to a new-kill'd bird she trembling lies;
She dares not look; yet, winking, there appears
Quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes:
Such shadows are the weak brain's forgeries:
  Who, angry that the eyes fly from their lights,
  In darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights.

His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,
(Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall!)
May feel her heart, poor citizen, distress'd,
Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall,
Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.
  This moves in him more rage, and lesser pity,
  To make the breach, and enter this sweet city.

First, like a trumpet, doth his tongue begin
To sound a parley to his heartless foe,
Who o'er the white sheet peers her whiter chin,
The reason of this rash alarm to know,
Which he by dumb demeanour seeks to show;
  But she with vehement prayers urgeth still
  Under what colour he commits this ill.

Thus he replies: 'The colour in thy face,
(That even for anger makes the lily pale,
And the red rose blush at her own disgrace)
Shall plead for me and tell my loving tale:
Under that colour am I come to scale
  Thy never-conquer'd fort: the fault is thine,
  For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine.

'Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide:
Thy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night,
Where thou with patience must my will abide,
My will that marks thee for my earth's delight,
Which I to conquer sought with all my might;
  But as reproof and reason beat it dead,
  By thy bright beauty was it newly bred.

'I see what crosses my attempt will bring;
I know what thorns the growing rose defends;
I think the honey guarded with a sting;
All this, beforehand, counsel comprehends:
But will is deaf, and hears no heedful friends;
  Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty,
  And dotes on what he looks, 'gainst law or duty.

'I have debated, even in my soul,
What wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall breed;
But nothing can Affection's course control,
Or stop the headlong fury of his speed.
I know repentant tears ensue the deed,
  Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity;
  Yet strike I to embrace mine infamy.'

This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,
Which, like a falcon towering in the skies,
Coucheth the fowl below with his wings' shade,
Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies:
So under his insulting falchion lies
  Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells
  With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon's bells.

'Lucrece,' quoth he, 'this night I must enjoy thee:
If thou deny, then force must work my way,
For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee;
That done, some worthless slave of thine I'll slay.
To kill thine honour with thy life's decay;
  And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him,
  Swearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him.

'So thy surviving husband shall remain
The scornful mark of every open eye;
Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain,
Thy issue blurr'd with nameless bastardy:
And thou, the author of their obloquy,
  Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rhymes,
   And sung by children in succeeding times.

'But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend:
The fault unknown is as a thought unacted;
A little harm, done to a great good end,
For lawful policy remains enacted.
The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted
  In a pure compound; being so applied,
  His venom in effect is purified.

'Then, for thy husband and thy children's sake,
Tender my suit: bequeath not to their lot
The shame that from them no device can take,
The blemish that will never be forgot;
Worse than a slavish wipe, or birth-hour's blot:
  For marks descried in men's nativity
  Are nature's faults, not their own infamy.'

Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye
He rouseth up himself and makes a pause;
While she, the picture of pure piety,
Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws,
Pleads in a wilderness where are no laws,
  To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,
  Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.

But when a black-fac'd cloud the world doth threat,
In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding,
From earth's dark womb some gentle gust doth get,
Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding,
Hindering their present fall by this dividing;
  So his unhallow'd haste her words delays,
  And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.

Yet, foul night-working cat, he doth but dally,
While in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth;
Her sad behaviour feeds his vulture folly,
A swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth:
His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth
  No penetrable entrance to her plaining:
  Tears harden lust, though marble wear with raining.

Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fix'd
In the remorseless wrinkles of his face;
Her modest eloquence with sighs is mix'd,
Which to her oratory adds more grace.
She puts the period often from his place,
  And midst the sentence so her accent breaks,
  That twice she doth begin ere once she speaks.

She conjures him by high almighty Jove,
By knighthood, gentry, and sweet friendship's oath,
By her untimely tears, her husband's love,
By holy human law, and common troth,
By heaven and earth, and all the power of both,
  That to his borrow'd bed he make retire,
  And stoop to honour, not to foul desire.

Quoth she, 'Reward not hospitality
With such black payment as thou hast pretended;
Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee;
Mar not the thing that cannot be amended;
End thy ill aim before the shoot be ended:
  He is no woodman that doth bend his bow
  To strike a poor unseasonable doe.

'My husband is thy friend; for his sake spare me;
Thyself art mighty; for thine own sake leave me;
Myself a weakling, do not then ensnare me;
Thou look'st not like deceit; do not deceive me;
My sighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to heave thee.
  If ever man were mov'd with woman's moans,
  Be moved with my tears, my sighs, my groans:

'All which together, like a troubled ocean,
Beat at thy rocky and wreck-threatening heart;
To soften it with their continual motion;
For stones dissolv'd to water do convert.
O, if no harder than a stone thou art,
  Melt at my tears, and be compassionate!
  Soft pity enters at an iron gate.

'In Tarquin's likeness I did entertain thee;
Hast thou put on his shape to do him shame?
To all the host of heaven I complain me,
Thou wrong'st his honour, wound'st his princely name.
Thou art not what thou seem'st; and if the same,
  Thou seem'st not what thou art, a god, a king;
  For kings like gods should govern every thing.

'How will thy shame be seeded in thine age,
When thus thy vices bud before thy spring!
If in thy hope thou dar'st do such outrage,
What dar'st thou not when once thou art a king!
O, be remember'd, no outrageous thing
  From vassal actors can he wip'd away;
  Then kings' misdeeds cannot be hid in clay.

'This deed will make thee only lov'd for fear,
But happy monarchs still are fear'd for love:
With foul offenders thou perforce must bear,
When they in thee the like offences prove:
If but for fear of this, thy will remove;
  For princes are the glass, the school, the book,
  Where subjects eyes do learn, do read, do look.

'And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn?
Must he in thee read lectures of such shame:
Wilt thou be glass, wherein it shall discern
Authority for sin, warrant for blame,
To privilege dishonour in thy name?
  Thou back'st reproach against long-living laud,
  And mak'st fair reputation but a bawd.

'Hast thou command? by him that gave it thee,
From a pure heart command thy rebel will:
Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity,
For it was lent thee all that brood to kill.
Thy princely office how canst thou fulfill,
  When, pattern'd by thy fault, foul Sin may say
  He learn'd to sin, and thou didst teach the way?

'Think but how vile a spectacle it were
To view thy present trespass in another.
Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear;
Their own transgressions partially they smother:
This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother.
  O how are they wrapp'd in with infamies
  That from their own misdeeds askaunce their eyes!

'To thee, to thee, my heav'd-up hands appeal,
Not to seducing lust, thy rash relier;
I sue for exil'd majesty's repeal;
Let him return, and flattering thoughts retire:
His true respect will 'prison false desire,
  And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne,
  That thou shalt see thy state, and pity mine.'

'Have done,' quoth he: 'my uncontrolled tide
Turns not, but swells the higher by this let.
Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide,
And with the wind in greater fury fret:
The petty streams that pay a daily debt
  To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls' haste,
  Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.'

'Thou art,' quoth she, 'a sea, a sovereign king;
And, lo, there falls into thy boundless flood
Black lust, dishonour, shame, misgoverning,
Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood.
If all these petty ills shall change thy good,
  Thy sea within a puddle's womb is hears'd,
  And not the puddle in thy sea dispers'd.

'So shall these slaves be king, and thou their slave;
Thou nobly base, they basely dignified;
Thou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave;
Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride:
The lesser thing should not the greater hide;
  The cedar stoops not to the base shrub's foot,
  But low shrubs whither at the cedar's root.

'So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state'—
'No more,' quoth he; 'by heaven, I will not hear thee:
Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate,
Instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee;
That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee
  Unto the base bed of some rascal groom,
  To be thy partner in this shameful doom.'

This said, he sets his foot upon the light,
For light and lust are deadly enemies;
Shame folded up in blind concealing night,
When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.
The wolf hath seiz'd his prey, the poor lamb cries;
  Till with her own white fleece her voice controll'd
  Entombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold:

For with the nightly linen that she wears
He pens her piteous clamours in her head;
Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears
That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed.
O, that prone lust should stain so pure a bed!
  The spots whereof could weeping purify,
  Her tears should drop on them perpetually.

But she hath lost a dearer thing than life,
And he hath won what he would lose again.
This forced league doth force a further strife;
This momentary joy breeds months of pain,
This hot desire converts to cold disdain:
  Pure Chastity is rifled of her store,
  And Lust, the thief, far poorer than before.

Look, as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk,
Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight,
Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk
The prey wherein by nature they delight;
So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night:
  His taste delicious, in digestion souring,
  Devours his will, that liv'd by foul devouring.

O deeper sin than bottomless conceit
Can comprehend in still imagination!
Drunken desire must vomit his receipt,
Ere he can see his own abomination.
While lust is in his pride no exclamation
  Can curb his heat, or rein his rash desire,
  Till, like a jade, self-will himself doth tire.

And then with lank and lean discolour'd cheek,
With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace,
Feeble desire, all recreant, poor, and meek,
Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case:
The flesh being proud, desire doth fight with Grace,
  For there it revels; and when that decays,
  The guilty rebel for remission prays.

So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome,
Who this accomplishment so hotly chas'd;
For now against himself he sounds this doom,
That through the length of times he stands disgrac'd:
Besides, his soul's fair temple is defac'd;
  To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,
  To ask the spotted princess how she fares.

She says, her subjects with foul insurrection
Have batter'd down her consecrated wall,
And by their mortal fault brought in subjection
Her immortality, and made her thrall
To living death, and pain perpetual;
  Which in her prescience she controlled still,
  But her foresight could not forestall their will.

Even in this thought through the dark night he stealeth,
A captive victor that hath lost in gain;
Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth,
The scar that will, despite of cure, remain;
Leaving his spoil perplex'd in greater pain.
  She hears the load of lust he left behind,
  And he the burthen of a guilty mind.

He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence;
She like a wearied lamb lies panting there;
He scowls, and hates himself for his offence;
She, desperate, with her nails her flesh doth tear;
He faintly flies, sweating with guilty fear;
  She stays, exclaiming on the direful night;
  He runs, and chides his vanish'd, loath'd delight.

He thence departs a heavy convertite;
She there remains a hopeless castaway:
He in his speed looks for the morning light;
She prays she never may behold the day;
'For day,' quoth she, 'night's scapes doth open lay;
  And my true eyes have never practis'd how
  To cloak offences with a cunning brow.

'They think not but that every eye can see
The same disgrace which they themselves behold;
And therefore would they still in darkness be,
To have their unseen sin remain untold;
For they their guilt with weeping will unfold,
  And grave, like water that doth eat in steel,
  Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.'

Here she exclaims against repose and rest,
And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind.
She wakes her heart by beating on her breast,
And bids it leap from thence, where it may find
Some purer chest, to close so pure a mind.
  Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite
  Against the unseen secrecy of night:

'O comfort-killing night, image of hell!
Dim register and notary of shame!
Black stage for tragedies and murders fell!
Vast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame!
Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame!
  Grim cave of death, whispering conspirator
  With close-tongued treason and the ravisher!

'O hateful, vaporous, and foggy night!
Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,
Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,
Make war against proportion'd course of time!
Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb
  His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,
  Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.

'With rotten damps ravish the morning air;
Let their exhal'd unwholesome breaths make sick
The life of purity, the supreme fair,
Ere he arrive his weary noontide prick;
And let thy misty vapours march so thick,
  That in their smoky ranks his smother'd light
  May set at noon and make perpetual night.

'Were Tarquin night (as he is but night's child),
The silver-shining queen he would distain;
Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defil'd,
Through  Night's  black  bosom  should not peep again:
So should I have co-partners in my pain:
  And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,
  As palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage.

'Where now I have no one to blush with me,
To cross their arms and hang their heads with mine,
To mask their brows, and hide their infamy;
But I alone alone must sit and pine,
Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine,
  Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans,
  Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans.

'O night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke,
Let not the jealous day behold that face
Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak
Immodesty lies martyr'd with disgrace!
Keep still possession of thy gloomy place,
  That all the faults which in thy reign are made,
  May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade!

'Make me not object to the tell-tale day!
The light will show, character'd in my brow,
The story of sweet chastity's decay,
The impious breach of holy wedlock vow:
Yea, the illiterate, that know not how
  To cipher what is writ in learned books,
  Will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks.

'The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story
And fright her crying babe with Tarquin's name;
The orator, to deck his oratory,
Will couple my reproach to Tarquin's shame:
Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame,
  Will tie the hearers to attend each line,
  How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.

'Let my good name, that senseless reputation,
For Collatine's dear love be kept unspotted:
If that be made a theme for disputation,
The branches of another root are rotted,
And undeserved reproach to him allotted,
  That is as clear from this attaint of mine
  As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.

'O unseen shame! invisible disgrace!
O unfelt sore! crest-wounding, private scar!
Reproach is stamp'd in Collatinus' face,
And Tarquin's eye may read the mot afar,
How he in peace is wounded, not in war.
  Alas, how many bear such shameful blows,
  Which not themselves, but he that gives them knows!

'If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me,
From me by strong assault it is bereft.
My honey lost, and I, a drone-like bee,
Have no perfection of my summer left,
But robb'd and ransack'd by injurious theft:
  In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept,
  And suck'd the honey which thy chaste bee kept.

'Yet am I guilty of thy honour's wrack;—
Yet for thy honour did I entertain him;
Coming from thee, I could not put him back,
For it had been dishonour to disdain him:
Besides, of weariness he did complain him,
  And talk'd of virtue:—O unlook'd-for evil,
  When virtue is profan'd in such a devil!

'Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?
Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?
Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud?
Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?
Or kings be breakers of their own behests?
  But no perfection is so absolute,
  That some impurity doth not pollute.

'The aged man that coffers up his gold
Is plagued with cramps, and gouts, and painful fits;
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,
But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless barns the harvest of his wits;
  Having no other pleasure of his gain
  But torment that it cannot cure his pain.

'So then he hath it when he cannot use it,
And leaves it to be master'd by his young;
Who in their pride do presently abuse it:
Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.
  The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours,
  Even in the moment that we call them ours.

'Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring;
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;
The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing;
What virtue breeds iniquity devours:
We have no good that we can say is ours,
  But ill-annexed Opportunity
  Or kills his life or else his quality.

'O Opportunity, thy guilt is great:
'Tis thou that executest the traitor's treason;
Thou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
Whoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season;
'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason;
  And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
  Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.

'Thou mak'st the vestal violate her oath;
Thou blow'st the fire when temperance is thaw'd;
Thou smother'st honesty, thou murther'st troth;
Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd!
Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud:
  Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,
  Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!

'Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,
Thy private feasting to a public fast;
Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name,
Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste:
Thy violent vanities can never last.
  How comes it then, vile Opportunity,
  Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?

'When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend,
And bring him where his suit may be obtain'd?
When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end?
Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain'd?
Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd?
  The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;
  But they ne'er meet with Opportunity.

'The patient dies while the physician sleeps;
The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps;
Advice is sporting while infection breeds;
Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds:
  Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages,
  Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.

'When truth and virtue have to do with thee,
A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid;
They buy thy help; but Sin ne'er gives a fee,
He gratis comes; and thou art well appay'd
As well to hear as grant what he hath said.
  My Collatine would else have come to me
  When Tarquin did, but he was stay'd by thee.

'Guilty thou art of murder and of theft;
Guilty of perjury and subornation;
Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift;
Guilty of incest, that abomination:
An accessory by thine inclination
  To all sins past, and all that are to come,
  From the creation to the general doom.

'Mis-shapen Time, copesmate of ugly night,
Swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care,
Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,
Base watch of woes, sin's pack-horse, virtue's snare;
Thou nursest all and murtherest all that are:
  O hear me then, injurious, shifting Time!
  Be guilty of my death, since of my crime.

'Why hath thy servant, Opportunity,
Betray'd the hours thou gav'st me to repose?
Cancell'd my fortunes, and enchained me
To endless date of never-ending woes?
Time's office is to fine the hate of foes;
  To eat up errors by opinion bred,
  Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed.

'Time's glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light,
To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn, and sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger till he render right;
  To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,
  And smear with dust their glittering golden towers:

'To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,
To blot old books and alter their contents,
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings,
To dry the old oak's sap and cherish springs;
  To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,
  And turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel;

'To show the beldame daughters of her daughter,
To make the child a man, the man a child,
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,
To tame the unicorn and lion wild,
To mock the subtle, in themselves beguil'd;
  To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,
  And waste huge stones with little water-drops.

'Why work'st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage,
Unless thou couldst return to make amends?
One poor retiring minute in an age
Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends,
Lending him wit that to bad debtors lends:
  O, this dread night, wouldst thou one hour come back,
  I could prevent this storm, and shun thy wrack!

'Thou cease!ess lackey to eternity,
With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight:
Devise extremes beyond extremity,
To make him curse this cursed crimeful night:
Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright;
  And the dire thought of his committed evil
  Shape every bush a hideous shapeless devil.

'Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances,
Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans;
Let there bechance him pitiful mischances,
To make him moan; but pity not his moans:
Stone him with harden'd hearts, harder than stones;
  And let mild women to him lose their mildness,
  Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness.

'Let him have time to tear his curled hair,
Let him have time against himself to rave,
Let him have time of Time's help to despair,
Let him have time to live a loathed slave,
Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave;
  And time to see one that by alms doth live
  Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.

'Let him have time to see his friends his foes,
And merry fools to mock at him resort;
Let him have time to mark how slow time goes
In time of sorrow, and how swift and short
His time of folly and his time of sport:
  And ever let his unrecalling crime
  Have time to wail the abusing of his time.

'O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad,
Teach me to curse him that thou taught'st this ill!
At his own shadow let the thief run mad!
Himself himself seek every hour to kill!
Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill:
  For who so base would such an office have
  As slanderous deathsman to so base a slave?

The baser is he, coming from a king,
To shame his hope with deeds degenerate.
The mightier man, the mightier is the thing
That makes him honour'd, or begets him hate;
For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.
  The moon being clouded presently is miss'd,
  But little stars may hide them when they list.

'The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,
And unperceived fly with the filth away;
But if the like the snow-white swan desire,
The stain upon his silver down will stay.
Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day:
  Gnats are unnoted wheresoe'er they fly,
  But eagles gazed upon with every eye.

'Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools!
Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators!
Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools;
Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters;
To trembling clients be you mediators:
  For me, I force not argument a straw,
  Since that my case is past the help of law.

'In vain I rail at Opportunity,
At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful night;
In vain I cavil with mine infamy,
In vain I spurn at my confirm'd despite:
This helpless smoke of words doth me no right.
  The remedy indeed to do me good
  Is to let forth my foul-defil'd blood.

'Poor hand, why quiver'st thou at this decree?
Honour thyself to rid me of this shame;
For if I die, my honour lives in thee;
But if I live, thou livest in my defame:
Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame,
  And wast afear'd to scratch her wicked foe,
  Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.'

This said, from her be-tumbled couch she starteth,
To find some desperate instrument of death:
But this no slaughter-house no tool imparteth,
To make more vent for passage of her breath;
Which, thronging through her lips, so vanisheth
  As smoke from Aetna, that in air consumes,
  Or that which from discharged cannon fumes.

'In vain,' quoth she, 'I live, and seek in vain
Some happy mean to end a hapless life.
I fear'd by Tarquin's falchion to be slain,
Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife:
But when I fear'd I was a loyal wife:
  So am I now:—O no, that cannot be;
  Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.

'O! that is gone for which I sought to live,
And therefore now I need not fear to die.
To clear this spot by death, at least I give
A badge of fame to slander's livery;
A dying life to living infamy;
  Poor helpless help, the treasure stolen away,
  To burn the guiltless casket where it lay!

'Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know
The stained taste of violated troth;
I will not wrong thy true affection so,
To flatter thee with an infringed oath;
This bastard graff shall never come to growth:
  He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute
  That thou art doting father of his fruit.

Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought,
Nor laugh with his companions at thy state;
But thou shalt know thy interest was not bought
Basely with gold, but stolen from forth thy gate.
For me, I am the mistress of my fate,
  And with my trespass never will dispense,
  Till life to death acquit my forced offence.

'I will not poison thee with my attaint,
Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coin'd excuses;
My sable ground of sin I will not paint,
To hide the truth of this false night's abuses;
My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices,
  As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale,
  Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.'

By this; lamenting Philomel had ended
The well-tun'd warble of her nightly sorrow,
And solemn night with slow-sad gait descended
To ugly hell; when, lo, the blushing morrow
Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow:
  But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see,
  And therefore still in night would cloister'd be.

Revealing day through every cranny spies,
And seems to point her out where she sits weeping,
To whom she sobbing speaks: 'O eye of eyes,
Why pryest thou through my window? leave thy peeping;
Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping:
  Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,
  For day hath nought to do what's done by night.'

Thus cavils she with every thing she sees:
True grief is fond and testy as a child,
Who wayward once, his mood with nought agrees.
Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild;
Continuance tames the one: the other wild,
  Like an unpractis'd swimmer plunging still
  With too much labour drowns for want of skill.

So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care,
Holds disputation with each thing she views,
And to herself all sorrow doth compare;
No object but her passion's strength renews;
And as one shifts, another straight ensues:
  Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words;
  Sometime 'tis mad, and too much talk affords.

The little birds that tune their morning's joy
Make her moans mad with their sweet melody.
For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy;
Sad souls are slain in merry company:
Grief best is pleas'd with grief's society:
  True sorrow then is feelingly suffic'd
  When with like semblance it is sympathiz'd.

'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore;
He ten times pines that pines beholding food;
To see the salve doth make the wound ache more;
Great grief grieves most at that would do it good;
Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood;
  Who, being stopp'd, the bounding banks o'erflows;
  Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows.

'You mocking birds,' quoth she, 'your tunes entomb
Within your hollow-swelling feather'd breasts,
And in my hearing be you mute and dumb!
(My restless discord loves no stops nor rests;
A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests:)
  Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears;
  Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears.

'Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment,
Make thy sad grove in my dishevell'd hair:
As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment,
So I at each sad strain will strain a tear,
And with deep groans the diapason bear:
  For burthen-wise I'll hum on Tarquin still,
  While thou on Tereus descant'st better skill.

'And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part,
To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I,
To imitate thee well, against my heart
Will fix a sharp knife, to affright mine eye;
Who, if it wink, shall thereon fall and die.
  These means, as frets upon an instrument,
  Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment.

'And for, poor bird, thou sing'st not in the day,
As shaming any eye should thee behold,
Some dark deep desert, seated from the way,
That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold,
Will we find out; and there we will unfold
  To creatures stern sad tunes, to change their kinds:
  Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.'

As the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze,
Wildly determining which way to fly,
Or one encompass'd with a winding maze,
That cannot tread the way out readily;
So with herself is she in mutiny,
  To live or die which of the twain were better,
  When life is sham'd, and Death reproach's debtor.

'To kill myself,' quoth she, 'alack! what were it,
But with my body my poor soul's pollution?
They that lose half with greater patience bear it
Than they whose whole is swallow'd in confusion.
That mother tries a merciless conclusion
  Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one,
  Will slay the other, and be nurse to none.

'My body or my soul, which was the dearer,
When the one pure, the other made divine?
Whose love of either to myself was nearer?
When both were kept for heaven and Collatine?
Ah, me! the bark peel'd from the lofty pine,
  His leaves will wither, and his sap decay;
  So must my soul, her bark being peel'd away.

'Her house is sack'd, her quiet interrupted,
Her mansion batter'd by the enemy;
Her sacred temple spotted, spoil'd, corrupted,
Grossly engirt with daring infamy:
Then let it not be call'd impiety,
  If in this blemish'd fort I make some hole
  Through which I may convey this troubled soul.

'Yet die I will not till my Collatine
Have heard the cause of my untimely death;
That he may vow, in that sad hour of mine,
Revenge on him that made me stop my breath.
My stained blood to Tarquin I'll bequeath,
  Which by him tainted shall for him be spent,
  And as his due writ in my testament.

'My honour I'll bequeath unto the knife
That wounds my body so dishonoured.
'Tis honour to deprive dishonour'd life;
The one will live, the other being dead:
So of shame's ashes shall my fame be bred;
  For in my death I murther shameful scorn:
  My shame so dead, mine honour is new-born.

'Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost,
What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?
My resolution, Love, shall be thy boast,
By whose example thou reveng'd mayst be.
How Tarquin must be used, read it in me:
  Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe,
  And, for my sake, serve thou false Tarquin so.

'This brief abridgement of my will I make:
My soul and body to the skies and ground;
My resolution, husband, do thou take;
Mine honour be the knife's that makes my wound;
My shame be his that did my fame confound;
  And all my fame that lives disburs'd be
  To those that live, and think no shame of me.

'Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will;
How was I overseen that thou shalt see it!
My blood shall wash the slander of mine ill;
My life's foul deed my life's fair end shall free it.
Faint not, faint heart, but stoutly say "so be it:"
  Yield to my hand; my hand shall conquer thee;
  Thou dead, both die, and both shall victors be.'

This plot of death when sadly she had laid,
And wip'd the brinish pearl from her bright eyes,
With untun'd tongue she hoarsely call'd her maid,
Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies;
For fleet-wing'd duty with thought's feathers flies.
  Poor Lucrece' cheeks unto her maid seem so
  As winter meads when sun doth melt their snow.

Her mistress she doth give demure good-morrow,
With soft-slow tongue, true mark of modesty,
And sorts a sad look to her lady's sorrow,
(For why her face wore sorrow's livery,)
But durst not ask of her audaciously
  Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsed so,
  Nor why her fair cheeks over-wash'd with woe.

But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set,
Each flower moisten'd like a melting eye;
Even so the maid with swelling drops 'gan wet
Her circled eyne, enforc'd by sympathy
Of those fair suns, set in her mistress' sky,
  Who in a salt-wav'd ocean quench their light,
  Which makes the maid weep like the dewy night.

A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,
Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling:
One justly weeps; the other takes in hand
No cause, but company, of her drops spilling:
Their gentle sex to weep are often willing:
  Grieving themselves to guess at others' smarts,
  And then they drown their eyes or break their hearts.

For men have marble, women waxen minds,
And therefore are they form'd as marble will;
The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds
Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill:
Then call them not the authors of their ill,
  No more than wax shall be accounted evil,
  Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.

Their smoothness, like a goodly champaign plain,
Lays open all the little worms that creep;
In men, as in a rough-grown grove, remain
Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep:
Through crystal walls each little mote will peep:
  Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,
  Poor women's faces are their own faults' books.

No man inveigb against the wither'd flower,
But chide rough winter that the flower hath kill'd!
Not that devour'd, but that which doth devour,
Is worthy blame.  O, let it not be hild
Poor women's faults, that they are so fulfill'd
  With men's abuses! those proud lords, to blame,
  Make weak-made women tenants to their shame.

The precedent whereof in Lucrece view,
Assail'd by night with circumstances strong
Of present death, and shame that might ensue
By that her death, to do her husband wrong:
Such danger to resistance did belong;
  The dying fear through all her body spread;
  And who cannot abuse a body dead?

By this, mild Patience bid fair Lucrece speak
To the poor counterfeit of her complaining:
'My girl,' quoth she, 'on what occasion break
Those tears from thee, that down thy cheeks are raining?
If thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining,
  Know, gentle wench, it small avails my mood:
  If tears could help, mine own would do me good.

'But tell me, girl, when went'—(and there she stay'd
Till after a deep groan) 'Tarquin from, hence?'
'Madam, ere I was up,' replied the maid,
'The more to blame my sluggard negligence:
Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense;
  Myself was stirring ere the break of day,
  And, ere I rose, was Tarquin gone away.

'But, lady, if your maid may be so bold,
She would request to know your heaviness.'
'O peace!' quoth Lucrece: 'if it should be told,
The repetition cannot make it less;
For more it is than I can well express:
  And that deep torture may be call'd a hell,
  When more is felt than one hath power to tell.

'Go, get me hither paper, ink, and pen—
Yet save that labour, for I have them here.
What should I say?—One of my husband's men
Bid thou be ready, by and by, to bear
A letter to my lord, my love, my dear;
  Bid him with speed prepare to carry it;
  The cause craves haste, and it will soon be writ.'

Her maid is gone, and she prepares to write,
First hovering o'er the paper with her quill:
Conceit and grief an eager combat fight;
What wit sets down is blotted straight with will;
This is too curious-good, this blunt and ill:
  Much like a press of people at a door,
  Throng her inventions, which shall go before.

At last she thus begins:—'Thou worthy lord
Of that unworthy wife that greeteth thee,
Health to thy person! next vouchsafe to afford
(If ever, love, thy Lucrece thou wilt see)
Some present speed to come and visit me:
  So, I commend me from our house in grief:
  My woes are tedious, though my words are brief.'

Here folds she up the tenor of her woe,
Her certain sorrow writ uncertainly.
By this short schedule Collatine may know
Her grief, but not her grief's true quality;
She dares not thereof make discovery,
  Lest he should hold it her own gross abuse,
  Ere she with blood had stain'd her stain'd excuse.

Besides, the life and feeling of her passion
She hoards, to spend when he is by to hear her;
When sighs, and groans, and tears may grace the fashion
Of her disgrace, the better so to clear her
From that suspicion which the world my might bear her.
  To shun this blot, she would not blot the letter
  With words, till action might become them better.

To see sad sights moves more than hear them told;
For then the eye interprets to the ear
The heavy motion that it doth behold,
When every part a part of woe doth bear.
'Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear:
  Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,
  And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.

Her letter now is seal'd, and on it writ
'At Ardea to my lord with more than haste;'
The post attends, and she delivers it,
Charging the sour-fac'd groom to hie as fast
As lagging fowls before the northern blast.
  Speed more than speed but dull and slow she deems:
  Extremely still urgeth such extremes.

The homely villain court'sies to her low;
And, blushing on her, with a steadfast eye
Receives the scroll, without or yea or no,
And forth with bashful innocence doth hie.
But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie
  Imagine every eye beholds their blame;
  For Lucrece thought he blush'd to see her shame:

When, silly groom! God wot, it was defect
Of spirit, life, and bold audacity.
Such harmless creatures have a true respect
To talk in deeds, while others saucily
Promise more speed, but do it leisurely:
  Even so this pattern of the worn-out age
  Pawn'd honest looks, but laid no words to gage.

His kindled duty kindled her mistrust,
That two red fires in both their faces blaz'd;
She thought he blush'd, as knowing Tarquin's lust,
And, blushing with him, wistly on him gaz'd;
Her earnest eye did make him more amaz'd:
  The more saw the blood his cheeks replenish,
  The more she thought he spied in her some blemish.

But long she thinks till he return again,
And yet the duteous vassal scarce is gone.
The weary time she cannot entertain,
For now 'tis stale to sigh, to weep, to groan:
So woe hath wearied woe, moan tired moan,
  That she her plaints a little while doth stay,
  Pausing for means to mourn some newer way.

At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece
Of skilful painting, made for Priam's Troy;
Before the which is drawn the power of Greece,
For Helen's rape the city to destroy,
Threat'ning cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy;
  Which the conceited painter drew so proud,
  As heaven (it seem'd) to kiss the turrets bow'd.

A thousand lamentable objects there,
In scorn of Nature, Art gave lifeless life:
Many a dry drop seem'd a weeping tear,
Shed for the slaughter'd husband by the wife:
The red blood reek'd, to show the painter's strife;
  The dying eyes gleam'd forth their ashy lights,
  Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights.

There might you see the labouring pioner
Begrim'd with sweat, and smeared all with dust;
And from the towers of Troy there would appear
The very eyes of men through loopholes thrust,
Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust:
  Such sweet observance in this work was had,
  That one might see those far-off eyes look sad.

In great commanders grace and majesty
You might behold, triumphing in their faces;
In youth, quick bearing and dexterity;
And here and there the painter interlaces
Pale cowards, marching on with trembling paces;
  Which heartless peasants did so well resemble,
  That one would swear he saw them quake and tremble.

In Ajax and Ulysses, O, what art
Of physiognomy might one behold!
The face of either 'cipher'd either's heart;
Their face their manners most expressly told:
In Ajax' eyes blunt rage and rigour roll'd;
  But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent
  Show'd deep regard and smiling government.

There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand,
As't were encouraging the Greeks to fight;
Making such sober action with his hand
That it beguiled attention, charm'd the sight:
In speech, it seem'd, his beard, all silver white,
  Wagg'd up and down, and from his lips did fly
  Thin winding breath, which purl'd up to the sky.

About him were a press of gaping faces,
Which seem'd to swallow up his sound advice;
All jointly listening, but with several graces,
As if some mermaid did their ears entice;
Some high, some low, the painter was so nice:
  The scalps of many, almost hid behind,
  To jump up higher seem'd to mock the mind.

Here one man's hand lean'd on another's head,
His nose being shadow'd by his neighbour's ear;
Here one being throng'd bears back, all boll'n and red;
Another smother'd seems to pelt and swear;
And in their rage such signs of rage they bear,
  As, but for loss of Nestor's golden words,
  It seem'd they would debate with angry swords.

For much imaginary work was there;
Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,
That for Achilles' image stood his spear,
Grip'd in an armed hand; himself, behind,
Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind:
  A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head,
  Stood for the whole to be imagined,

And from the walls of strong-besieged Troy
When their brave hope, bold Hector, march'd to field,
Stood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy
To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield;
And to their hope they such odd action yield,
  That through their light joy seemed to appear,
  (Like bright things stain'd) a kind of heavy fear,

And, from the strond of Dardan, where they fought,
To Simois' reedy banks, the red blood ran,
Whose waves to imitate the battle sought
With swelling ridges; and their ranks began
To break upon the galled shore, and than
  Retire again, till, meeting greater ranks,
  They join, and shoot their foam at Simois' banks.

To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come,
To find a face where all distress is stell'd.
Many she sees where cares have carved some,
But none where all distress and dolour dwell'd,
Till she despairing Hecuba beheld,
  Staring on Priam's wounds with her old eyes,
  Which bleeding under Pyrrhus' proud foot lies.

In her the painter had anatomiz'd
Time's ruin, beauty's wrack, and grim care's reign:
Her cheeks with chops and wrinkles were disguis'd;
Of what she was no semblance did remain:
Her blue blood, chang'd to black in every vein,
  Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed,
  Show'd life imprison'd in a body dead.

On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes,
And shapes her sorrow to the beldame's woes,
Who nothing wants to answer her but cries,
And bitter words to ban her cruel foes:
The painter was no god to lend her those;
  And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong,
  To give her so much grief, and not a tongue.

'Poor instrument,' quoth she, 'without a sound,
I'll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue;
And drop sweet balm in Priam's painted wound,
And rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong,
And with my tears quench Troy that burns so long;
  And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes
  Of all the Greeks that are thine enemies.

'Show me the strumpet that began this stir,
That with my nails her beauty I may tear.
Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur
This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear;
Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here:
  And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye,
  The sire, the son, the dame, and daughter die.

'Why should the private pleasure of some one
Become the public plague of many mo?
Let sin, alone committed, light alone
Upon his head that hath transgressed so.
Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe:
  For one's offence why should so many fall,
  To plague a private sin in general?

'Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,
Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds;
Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies,
And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds,
And one man's lust these many lives confounds:
  Had doting Priam check'd his son's desire,
  Troy had been bright with fame and not with fire.'

Here feelingly she weeps Troy's painted woes:
For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell,
Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes;
Then little strength rings out the doleful knell:
So Lucrece set a-work sad tales doth tell
  To pencill'd pensiveness and colour'd sorrow;
  She lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow.

She throws her eyes about the painting round,
And whom she finds forlorn she doth lament:
At last she sees a wretched image bound,
That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent:
His face, though full of cares, yet show'd content;
  Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes,
  So mild, that Patience seem'd to scorn his woes.

In him the painter labour'd with his skill
To hide deceit, and give the harmless show
An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,
A brow unbent, that seem'd to welcome woe;
Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so
  That blushing red no guilty instance gave,
  Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.

But, like a constant and confirmed devil,
He entertain'd a show so seeming just,
And therein so ensconc'd his secret evil,
That jealousy itself cold not mistrust
False-creeping craft and perjury should thrust
  Into so bright a day such black-fac'd storms,
  Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.

The well-skill'd workman this mild image drew
For perjur'd Sinon, whose enchanting story
The credulous Old Priam after slew;
Whose words, like wildfire, burnt the shining glory
Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry,
  And little stars shot from their fixed places,
  When their glass fell wherein they view'd their faces.

This picture she advisedly perus'd,
And chid the painter for his wondrous skill;
Saying, some shape in Sinon's was abus'd;
So fair a form lodged not a mind so ill:
And still on him she gaz'd; and gazing still,
  Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied,
  That she concludes the picture was belied.

'It cannot be,' quoth she, 'that so much guile'—
(She would have said) 'can lurk in such a look;'
But Tarquin's shape came in her mind the while,
And from her tongue 'can lurk' from 'cannot' took;
'It cannot be' she in that sense forsook,
  And turn'd it thus: 'It cannot be, I find,
  But such a face should bear a wicked mind:

'For even as subtle Sinon here is painted,
So sober-sad, so weary, and so mild,
(As if with grief or travail he had fainted,)
To me came Tarquin armed; so beguil'd
With outward honesty, but yet defil'd
  With inward vice: as Priam him did cherish,
  So did I Tarquin; so my Troy did perish.

'Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes,
To see those borrow'd tears that Sinon sheds.
Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise?
For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds;
His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds;
  Those round clear pearls of his that move thy pity,
  Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city.

'Such devils steal effects from lightless hell;
For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold,
And in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell;
These contraries such unity do hold,
Only to flatter fools, and make them bold;
  So Priam's trust false Sinon's tears doth flatter,
  That he finds means to burn his Troy with water.'

Here, all enrag'd, such passion her assails,
That patience is quite beaten from her breast.
She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails,
Comparing him to that unhappy guest
Whose deed hath made herself herself detest;
  At last she smilingly with this gives o'er;
  'Fool, fool!' quoth she, 'his wounds will not be sore.'

Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow,
And time doth weary time with her complaining.
She looks for night, and then she longs for morrow,
And both she thinks too long with her remaining:
Short time seems long in sorrow's sharp sustaining.
  Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps;
  And they that watch see time how slow it creeps.

Which all this time hath overslipp'd her thought,
That she with painted images hath spent;
Being from the feeling of her own grief brought
By deep surmise of others' detriment:
Losing her woes in shows of discontent.
  It easeth some, though none it ever cur'd,
  To think their dolour others have endur'd.

But now the mindful messenger, come back,
Brings home his lord and other company;
Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black:
And round about her tear-distained eye
Blue circles stream'd, like rainbows in the sky.
  These water-galls in her dim element
  Foretell new storms to those already spent.

Which when her sad-beholding husband saw,
Amazedly in her sad face he stares:
Her eyes, though sod in tears, look'd red and raw,
Her lively colour kill'd with deadly cares.
He hath no power to ask her how she fares,
  Both stood, like old acquaintance in a trance,
  Met far from home, wondering each other's chance.

At last he takes her by the bloodless hand,
And thus begins: 'What uncouth ill event
Hath thee befall'n, that thou dost trembling stand?
Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent?
Why art thou thus attir'd in discontent?
  Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness,
  And tell thy grief, that we may give redress.'

Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire,
Ere once she can discharge one word of woe:
At length address'd to answer his desire,
She modestly prepares to let them know
Her honour is ta'en prisoner by the foe;
  While Collatine and his consorted lords
  With sad attention long to hear her words.

And now this pale swan in her watery nest
Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending:
'Few words,' quoth she, 'shall fit the trespass best,
Where no excuse can give the fault amending:
In me more woes than words are now depending;
  And my laments would be drawn out too long,
  To tell them all with one poor tired tongue.

'Then be this all the task it hath to say:—
Dear husband, in the interest of thy bed
A stranger came, and on that pillow lay
Where thou wast wont to rest thy weary head;
And what wrong else may be imagined
  By foul enforcement might be done to me,
  From that, alas! thy Lucrece is not free.

'For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight,
With shining falchion in my chamber came
A creeping creature, with a flaming light,
And softly cried Awake, thou Roman dame,
And entertain my love; else lasting shame
  On thee and thine this night I will inflict,
  If thou my love's desire do contradict.

'For some hard-favour'd groom of thine, quoth he,
Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will,
I'll murder straight, and then I'll slaughter thee
And swear I found you where you did fulfil
The loathsome act of lust, and so did kill
  The lechers in their deed: this act will be
  My fame and thy perpetual infamy.

'With this, I did begin to start and cry,
And then against my heart he sets his sword,
Swearing, unless I took all patiently,
I should not live to speak another word;
So should my shame still rest upon record,
  And never be forgot in mighty Rome
  The adulterate death of Lucrece and her groom.

'Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,
And far the weaker with so strong a fear:
My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak;
No rightful plea might plead for justice there:
His scarlet lust came evidence to swear
  That my poor beauty had purloin'd his eyes;
  And when the judge is robb'd the prisoner dies.

'O, teach me how to make mine own excuse!
Or at the least this refuge let me find;
Though my gross blood be stain'd with this abuse,
Immaculate and spotless is my mind;
That was not forc'd; that never was inclin'd
  To accessary yieldings, but still pure
  Doth in her poison'd closet yet endure.'

Lo, here, the hopeless merchant of this loss,
With head declin'd, and voice damm'd up with woe,
With sad set eyes, and wretched arms across,
From lips new-waxen pale begins to blow
The grief away that stops his answer so:
  But wretched as he is he strives in vain;
  What he breathes out his breath drinks up again.

As through an arch the violent roaring tide
Outruns the eye that doth behold his haste;
Yet in the eddy boundeth in his pride
Back to the strait that forc'd him on so fast;
In rage sent out, recall'd in rage, being past:
  Even so his sighs, his sorrows make a saw.
  To push grief on, and back the same grief draw.

Which speechless woe of his poor she attendeth,
And his untimely frenzy thus awaketh:
'Dear Lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth
Another power; no flood by raining slaketh.
My woe too sensible thy passion maketh
  More feeling-painful: let it then suffice
  To drown one woe, one pair of weeping eyes.

'And for my sake, when I might charm thee so,
For she that was thy Lucrece,—now attend me;
Be suddenly revenged on my foe,
Thine, mine, his own: suppose thou dost defend me
From what is past: the help that thou shalt lend me
  Comes all too late, yet let the traitor die;
  For sparing justice feeds iniquity.

'But ere I name him, you fair lords,' quoth she,
(Speaking to those that came with Collatine)
'Shall plight your honourable faiths to me,
With swift pursuit to venge this wrong of mine;
For 'tis a meritorious fair design
  To chase injustice with revengeful arms:
  Knights, by their oaths, should right poor ladies' harms.'

At this request, with noble disposition
Each present lord began to promise aid,
As bound in knighthood to her imposition,
Longing to hear the hateful foe bewray'd.
But she, that yet her sad task hath not said,
  The protestation stops. 'O, speak,' quoth she,
 'How may this forced stain be wip'd from me?

'What is the quality of mine offence,
Being constrain'd with dreadful circumstance?
May my pure mind with the foul act dispense,
My low-declined honour to advance?
May any terms acquit me from this chance?
  The poison'd fountain clears itself again;
  And why not I from this compelled stain?

With this, they all at once began to say,
Her body's stain her mind untainted clears;
While with a joyless smile she turns away
The face, that map which deep impression bears
Of hard misfortune, carv'd in it with tears.
  'No, no,' quoth she, 'no dame, hereafter living,
  By my excuse shall claim excuse's giving.

Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break,
She throws forth Tarquin's name: 'He, he,' she says,
But more than 'he' her poor tongue could not speak;
Till after many accents and delays,
Untimely breathings, sick and short assays,
  She utters this: 'He, he, fair lords, 'tis he,
  That guides this hand to give this wound to me.'

Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast
A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheath'd:
That blow did bail it from the deep unrest
Of that polluted prison where it breath'd:
Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeath'd
  Her winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly
  Life's lasting date from cancell'd destiny.

Stone-still, astonish'd with this deadly deed,
Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew;
Till Lucrece' father that beholds her bleed,
Himself on her self-slaughter'd body threw;
And from the purple fountain Brutus drew
  The murderous knife, and, as it left the place,
  Her blood, in poor revenge, held it in chase;

And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide
In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood
Circles her body in on every side,
Who, like a late-sack'd island, vastly stood
Bare and unpeopled, in this fearful flood.
  Some of her blood still pure and red remain'd,
  And some look'd black, and that false Tarquin stain'd.

About the mourning and congealed face
Of that black blood a watery rigol goes,
Which seems to weep upon the tainted place:
And ever since, as pitying Lucrece' woes,
Corrupted blood some watery token shows;
  And blood untainted still doth red abide,
  Blushing at that which is so putrified.

'Daughter, dear daughter,' old Lucretius cries,
'That life was mine which thou hast here depriv'd.
If in the child the father's image lies,
Where shall I live now Lucrece is unliv'd?
Thou wast not to this end from me deriv'd
  If children pre-decease progenitors,
  We are their offspring, and they none of ours.

'Poor broken glass, I often did behold
In thy sweet semblance my old age new born;
But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and old,
Shows me a bare-bon'd death by time outworn;
O, from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn!
  And shiver'd all the beauty of my glass,
  That I no more can see what once I was!

'O time, cease thou thy course and last no longer,
If they surcease to be that should survive.
Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger,
And leave the faltering feeble souls alive?
The old bees die, the young possess their hive:
  Then live, sweet Lucrece, live again, and see
  Thy father die, and not thy father thee!'

By this starts Collatine as from a dream,
And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place;
And then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream
He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face,
And counterfeits to die with her a space;
  Till manly shame bids him possess his breath,
  And live, to be revenged on her death.

The deep vexation of his inward soul
Hath serv'd a dumb arrest upon his tongue;
Who, mad that sorrow should his use control,
Or keep him from heart-easing words so long,
Begins to talk; but through his lips do throng
  Weak words, so thick come in his poor heart's aid,
  That no man could distinguish what he said.

Yet sometime 'Tarquin' was pronounced plain,
But through his teeth, as if the name he tore.
This windy tempest, till it blow up rain,
Held back his sorrow's tide, to make it more;
At last it rains, and busy winds give o'er:
  Then son and father weep with equal strife,
  Who should weep most, for daughter or for wife.

The one doth call her his, the other his,
Yet neither may possess the claim they lay,
The father says 'She's mine,' 'O, mine she is,'
Replies her husband: 'do not take away
My sorrow's interest; let no mourner say
  He weeps for her, for she was only mine,
  And only must be wail'd by Collatine.'

'O,' quoth Lucretius, 'I did give that life
Which she too early and too late hath spill'd.'
'Woe, woe,' quoth Collatine, 'she was my wife,
I owed her, and 'tis mine that she hath kill'd.'
'My daughter' and 'my wife' with clamours fill'd
  The dispers'd air, who, holding Lucrece' life,
  Answer'd their cries, 'My daughter!' and 'My wife!'

Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece' side,
Seeing such emulation in their woe,
Began to clothe his wit in state and pride,
Burying in Lucrece' wound his folly's show.
He with the Romans was esteemed so
  As silly-jeering idiots are with kings,
  For sportive words, and uttering foolish things:

But now he throws that shallow habit by,
Wherein deep policy did him disguise;
And arm'd his long-hid wits advisedly,
To check the tears in Collatinus' eyes.
'Thou wronged lord of Rome,' quoth he, 'arise;
  Let my unsounded self, suppos'd a fool,
  Now set thy long-experienc'd wit to school.

'Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe?
Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds?
Is it revenge to give thyself a blow,
For his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds?
Such childish humour from weak minds proceeds:
  Thy wretched wife mistook the matter so,
  To slay herself, that should have slain her foe.

'Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart
In such relenting dew of lamentations,
But kneel with me, and help to bear thy part,
To rouse our Roman gods with invocations,
That they will suffer these abominations,
 (Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgrac'd,)
  By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chas'd.

'Now, by the Capitol that we adore,
And by this chaste blood so unjustly stain'd,
By heaven's fair sun that breeds the fat earth's store,
By all our country rights in Rome maintain'd,
And by chaste Lucrece' soul that late complain'd
  Her wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife,
  We will revenge the death of this true wife.'

This said, he struck his hand upon his breast,
And kiss'd the fatal knife, to end his vow;
And to his protestation urg'd the rest,
Who, wondering at him, did his words allow;
Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow;
  And that deep vow, which Brutus made before,
  He doth again repeat, and that they swore.

When they had sworn to this advised doom,
They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence;
To show her bleeding body thorough Rome,
And so to publish Tarquin's foul offence:
Which being done with speedy diligence,
  The Romans plausibly did give consent
  To Tarquin's everlasting banishment.






 VENUS AND ADONIS




 by William Shakespeare







            _Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo
            Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua._




TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
HENRY WRIOTHESLEY,  EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON,
and Baron of Titchfield.

Right Honourable, I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my
unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me
for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen: only, if
your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow
to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some
graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I
shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so
barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it
to your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart’s content;
which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful
expectation.

Your honour’s in all duty,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.






 VENUS AND ADONIS

Even as the sun with purple-colour’d face
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek’d Adonis tried him to the chase;
Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn;        4
  Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
  And like a bold-fac’d suitor ’gins to woo him.

“Thrice fairer than myself,” thus she began,
“The field’s chief flower, sweet above compare,        8
Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,
More white and red than doves or roses are:
  Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,
  Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.     12

“Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,
And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;
If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:             16
  Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,
  And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses.

“And yet not cloy thy lips with loath’d satiety,
But rather famish them amid their plenty,             20
Making them red, and pale, with fresh variety:
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:
  A summer’s day will seem an hour but short,
  Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.”         24

With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,
The precedent of pith and livelihood,
And trembling in her passion, calls it balm,
Earth’s sovereign salve to do a goddess good:         28
  Being so enrag’d, desire doth lend her force
  Courageously to pluck him from his horse.

Over one arm the lusty courser’s rein,
Under her other was the tender boy,                   32
Who blush’d and pouted in a dull disdain,
With leaden appetite, unapt to toy;
  She red and hot as coals of glowing fire,
  He red for shame, but frosty in desire.             36

The studded bridle on a ragged bough
Nimbly she fastens;—O! how quick is love!—
The steed is stalled up, and even now
To tie the rider she begins to prove:                 40
  Backward she push’d him, as she would be thrust,
  And govern’d him in strength, though not in lust.

So soon was she along, as he was down,
Each leaning on their elbows and their hips:          44
Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown,
And ’gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips,
  And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken,
  “If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.”    48

He burns with bashful shame, she with her tears
Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks;
Then with her windy sighs and golden hairs
To fan and blow them dry again she seeks.             52
  He saith she is immodest, blames her miss;
  What follows more, she murders with a kiss.

Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,
Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone,      56
Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste,
Till either gorge be stuff’d or prey be gone:
  Even so she kiss’d his brow, his cheek, his chin,
  And where she ends she doth anew begin.             60

Forc’d to content, but never to obey,
Panting he lies, and breatheth in her face.
She feedeth on the steam, as on a prey,
And calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace,         64
  Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers
  So they were dew’d with such distilling showers.

Look how a bird lies tangled in a net,
So fasten’d in her arms Adonis lies;                  68
Pure shame and aw’d resistance made him fret,
Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes:
  Rain added to a river that is rank
  Perforce will force it overflow the bank.           72

Still she entreats, and prettily entreats,
For to a pretty ear she tunes her tale.
Still is he sullen, still he lours and frets,
’Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy pale;             76
  Being red she loves him best, and being white,
  Her best is better’d with a more delight.

Look how he can, she cannot choose but love;
And by her fair immortal hand she swears,             80
From his soft bosom never to remove,
Till he take truce with her contending tears,
  Which long have rain’d, making her cheeks all wet;
  And one sweet kiss shall pay this countless debt.

Upon this promise did he raise his chin,               85
Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave,
Who, being look’d on, ducks as quickly in;
So offers he to give what she did crave,               88
  But when her lips were ready for his pay,
  He winks, and turns his lips another way.

Never did passenger in summer’s heat
More thirst for drink than she for this good turn.    92
Her help she sees, but help she cannot get;
She bathes in water, yet her fire must burn:
  “O! pity,” ’gan she cry, “flint-hearted boy,
  ’Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy?            96

“I have been woo’d as I entreat thee now,
Even by the stern and direful god of war,
Whose sinewy neck in battle ne’er did bow,
Who conquers where he comes in every jar;             100
  Yet hath he been my captive and my slave,
  And begg’d for that which thou unask’d shalt have.

“Over my altars hath he hung his lance,
His batter’d shield, his uncontrolled crest,          104
And for my sake hath learn’d to sport and dance,
To toy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest;
  Scorning his churlish drum and ensign red
  Making my arms his field, his tent my bed.         108

“Thus he that overrul’d I oversway’d,
Leading him prisoner in a red rose chain:
Strong-temper’d steel his stronger strength obey’d,
Yet was he servile to my coy disdain.                112
  Oh be not proud, nor brag not of thy might,
  For mast’ring her that foil’d the god of fight.

“Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine,
Though mine be not so fair, yet are they red,        116
The kiss shall be thine own as well as mine:
What see’st thou in the ground? hold up thy head,
  Look in mine eyeballs, there thy beauty lies;
  Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes?     120

“Art thou asham’d to kiss? then wink again,
And I will wink; so shall the day seem night.
Love keeps his revels where there are but twain;
Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight,          124
  These blue-vein’d violets whereon we lean
  Never can blab, nor know not what we mean.

“The tender spring upon thy tempting lip             127
Shows thee unripe; yet mayst thou well be tasted,
Make use of time, let not advantage slip;
Beauty within itself should not be wasted,
  Fair flowers that are not gather’d in their prime
  Rot, and consume themselves in little time.         132

“Were I hard-favour’d, foul, or wrinkled old,
Ill-nurtur’d, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice,
O’erworn, despised, rheumatic, and cold,
Thick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking juice,      136
  Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee;
  But having no defects, why dost abhor me?

“Thou canst not see one wrinkle in my brow,           139
Mine eyes are grey and bright, and quick in turning;
My beauty as the spring doth yearly grow,
My flesh is soft and plump, my marrow burning,
  My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt,
  Would in thy palm dissolve, or seem to melt.       144

“Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,
Or like a fairy, trip upon the green,
Or like a nymph, with long dishevell’d hair,
Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen.         148
  Love is a spirit all compact of fire,
  Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.

“Witness this primrose bank whereon I lie:           151
These forceless flowers like sturdy trees support me;
Two strengthless doves will draw me through the sky,
From morn till night, even where I list to sport me.
  Is love so light, sweet boy, and may it be
  That thou shouldst think it heavy unto thee?       156

“Is thine own heart to thine own face affected?
Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left?
Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected,
Steal thine own freedom, and complain on theft.      160
  Narcissus so himself himself forsook,
  And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.

“Torches are made to light, jewels to wear,
Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use,         164
Herbs for their smell, and sappy plants to bear;
Things growing to themselves are growth’s abuse,
  Seeds spring from seeds, and beauty breedeth beauty;
  Thou wast begot; to get it is thy duty.            168

“Upon the earth’s increase why shouldst thou feed,
Unless the earth with thy increase be fed?
By law of nature thou art bound to breed,
That thine may live when thou thyself art dead;      172
  And so in spite of death thou dost survive,
  In that thy likeness still is left alive.”

By this the love-sick queen began to sweat,
For where they lay the shadow had forsook them,      176
And Titan, tired in the midday heat,
With burning eye did hotly overlook them,
  Wishing Adonis had his team to guide,
  So he were like him and by Venus’ side.            180

And now Adonis with a lazy spright,
And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye,
His louring brows o’erwhelming his fair sight,
Like misty vapours when they blot the sky,           184
  Souring his cheeks, cries, “Fie, no more of love:
  The sun doth burn my face; I must remove.”

“Ay me,” quoth Venus, “young, and so unkind!
What bare excuses mak’st thou to be gone!            188
I’ll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind
Shall cool the heat of this descending sun:
  I’ll make a shadow for thee of my hairs;
  If they burn too, I’ll quench them with my tears.  192

“The sun that shines from heaven shines but warm,
And lo I lie between that sun and thee:
The heat I have from thence doth little harm,
Thine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me;      196
  And were I not immortal, life were done,
  Between this heavenly and earthly sun.

“Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel?
Nay more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth:    200
Art thou a woman’s son and canst not feel
What ’tis to love, how want of love tormenteth?
  O had thy mother borne so hard a mind,
  She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind.   204

“What am I that thou shouldst contemn me this?
Or what great danger dwells upon my suit?
What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss?
Speak, fair; but speak fair words, or else be mute:  208
  Give me one kiss, I’ll give it thee again,
  And one for int’rest, if thou wilt have twain.

“Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,
Well-painted idol, image dull and dead,              212
Statue contenting but the eye alone,
Thing like a man, but of no woman bred:
  Thou art no man, though of a man’s complexion,
  For men will kiss even by their own direction.”    216

This said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue,
And swelling passion doth provoke a pause;
Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong;
Being judge in love, she cannot right her cause.     220
  And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak,
  And now her sobs do her intendments break.

Sometimes she shakes her head, and then his hand,
Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground;            224
Sometimes her arms infold him like a band:
She would, he will not in her arms be bound;
  And when from thence he struggles to be gone,
  She locks her lily fingers one in one.             228

“Fondling,” she saith, “since I have hemm’d thee here
Within the circuit of this ivory pale,
I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:        232
  Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
  Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.

“Within this limit is relief enough,
Sweet bottom grass and high delightful plain,        236
Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,
To shelter thee from tempest and from rain:
  Then be my deer, since I am such a park,           239
  No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.”

At this Adonis smiles as in disdain,
That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple;
Love made those hollows, if himself were slain,
He might be buried in a tomb so simple;              244
  Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie,
  Why there love liv’d, and there he could not die.

These lovely caves, these round enchanting pits,
Open’d their mouths to swallow Venus’ liking.        248
Being mad before, how doth she now for wits?
Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking?
  Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn,
  To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn!      252

Now which way shall she turn? what shall she say?
Her words are done, her woes the more increasing;
The time is spent, her object will away,
And from her twining arms doth urge releasing:       256
  “Pity,” she cries; “some favour, some remorse!”
  Away he springs, and hasteth to his horse.

But lo from forth a copse that neighbours by,
A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,          260
Adonis’ tramping courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud:
  The strong-neck’d steed, being tied unto a tree,
  Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.    264

Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;
The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,
Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven’s thunder;
  The iron bit he crusheth ’tween his teeth,         269
  Controlling what he was controlled with.

His ears up-prick’d; his braided hanging mane
Upon his compass’d crest now stand on end;           272
His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:
  His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,
  Shows his hot courage and his high desire.         276

Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps,
With gentle majesty and modest pride;
Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,
As who should say, “Lo thus my strength is tried;
  And this I do to captivate the eye                 281
  Of the fair breeder that is standing by.”

What recketh he his rider’s angry stir,
His flattering “Holla”, or his “Stand, I say”?       284
What cares he now for curb or pricking spur?
For rich caparisons or trappings gay?
  He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,
  Nor nothing else with his proud sight agrees.      288

Look when a painter would surpass the life,
In limning out a well-proportion’d steed,
His art with nature’s workmanship at strife,
As if the dead the living should exceed:             292
  So did this horse excel a common one,
  In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone.

Round-hoof’d, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:
  Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,
  Save a proud rider on so proud a back.             300

Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;
Anon he starts at stirring of a feather:
To bid the wind a base he now prepares,
And where he run or fly they know not whether;       304
  For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,
  Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather’d wings.

He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;
She answers him as if she knew his mind,             308
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,
  Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,
  Beating his kind embracements with her heels.      312

Then like a melancholy malcontent,
He vails his tail that like a falling plume,
Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:
He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.     316
  His love, perceiving how he was enrag’d,
  Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag’d.

His testy master goeth about to take him,
When lo the unback’d breeder, full of fear,         320
Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,
With her the horse, and left Adonis there:
  As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,
  Outstripping crows that strive to overfly them.    324

All swoln with chafing, down Adonis sits,
Banning his boisterous and unruly beast;
And now the happy season once more fits
That love-sick love by pleading may be blest;        328
  For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong,
  When it is barr’d the aidance of the tongue.

An oven that is stopp’d, or river stay’d,
Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage:         332
So of concealed sorrow may be said,
Free vent of words love’s fire doth assuage;
  But when the heart’s attorney once is mute,
  The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.       336

He sees her coming, and begins to glow,
Even as a dying coal revives with wind,
And with his bonnet hides his angry brow,
Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,         340
  Taking no notice that she is so nigh,
  For all askance he holds her in his eye.

O what a sight it was, wistly to view
How she came stealing to the wayward boy,            344
To note the fighting conflict of her hue,
How white and red each other did destroy:
  But now her cheek was pale, and by and by
  It flash’d forth fire, as lightning from the sky.  348

Now was she just before him as he sat,
And like a lowly lover down she kneels;
With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,
Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:          352
  His tend’rer cheek receives her soft hand’s print,
  As apt as new-fall’n snow takes any dint.

Oh what a war of looks was then between them,
Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing,              356
His eyes saw her eyes, as they had not seen them,
Her eyes woo’d still, his eyes disdain’d the wooing:
  And all this dumb play had his acts made plain
  With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.

Full gently now she takes him by the hand,           361
A lily prison’d in a gaol of snow,
Or ivory in an alabaster band,
So white a friend engirts so white a foe:            364
  This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,
  Show’d like two silver doves that sit a-billing.

Once more the engine of her thoughts began:
“O fairest mover on this mortal round,               368
Would thou wert as I am, and I a man,
My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound,
  For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,
  Though nothing but my body’s bane would cure thee.”

“Give me my hand,” saith he, “why dost thou feel it?”
“Give me my heart,” saith she, “and thou shalt have it.
O give it me lest thy hard heart do steel it,
And being steel’d, soft sighs can never grave it.    376
  Then love’s deep groans I never shall regard,
  Because Adonis’ heart hath made mine hard.”

“For shame,” he cries, “let go, and let me go,
My day’s delight is past, my horse is gone,          380
And ’tis your fault I am bereft him so,
I pray you hence, and leave me here alone,
  For all my mind, my thought, my busy care,
  Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.”           384

Thus she replies: “Thy palfrey as he should,
Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire,
Affection is a coal that must be cool’d;
Else, suffer’d, it will set the heart on fire,       388
  The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none;
  Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.

“How like a jade he stood tied to the tree,
Servilely master’d with a leathern rein!             392
But when he saw his love, his youth’s fair fee,
He held such petty bondage in disdain;
  Throwing the base thong from his bending crest,
  Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.     396

“Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,
Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,
But when his glutton eye so full hath fed,
His other agents aim at like delight?                400
  Who is so faint that dare not be so bold
  To touch the fire, the weather being cold?

“Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy,
And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,           404
To take advantage on presented joy,
Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.
  O learn to love, the lesson is but plain,
  And once made perfect, never lost again.”          408

“I know not love,” quoth he, “nor will not know it,
Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it;
’Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it;
My love to love is love but to disgrace it;          412
  For I have heard, it is a life in death,
  That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.

“Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish’d?
Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?        416
If springing things be any jot diminish’d,
They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth;
  The colt that’s back’d and burden’d being young,
  Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.         420

“You hurt my hand with wringing. Let us part,
And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat:
Remove your siege from my unyielding heart,
To love’s alarms it will not ope the gate:           424
  Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flatt’ry;
  For where a heart is hard they make no batt’ry.”

“What! canst thou talk?” quoth she, “hast thou a tongue?
O would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing;        428
Thy mermaid’s voice hath done me double wrong;
I had my load before, now press’d with bearing:
  Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh-sounding,
  Ear’s deep sweet music, and heart’s deep sore wounding.

“Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love          433
That inward beauty and invisible;
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move
Each part in me that were but sensible:              436
  Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,
  Yet should I be in love by touching thee.

“Say that the sense of feeling were bereft me,
And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,       440
And nothing but the very smell were left me,
Yet would my love to thee be still as much;
  For from the stillitory of thy face excelling
  Comes breath perfum’d, that breedeth love by smelling.

“But oh what banquet wert thou to the taste,         445
Being nurse and feeder of the other four;
Would they not wish the feast might ever last,
And bid suspicion double-lock the door,
  Lest jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,
  Should by his stealing in disturb the feast?”      448

Once more the ruby-colour’d portal open’d,
Which to his speech did honey passage yield,         452
Like a red morn that ever yet betoken’d
Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,
  Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
  Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.      456

This ill presage advisedly she marketh:
Even as the wind is hush’d before it raineth,
Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,
Or as the berry breaks before it staineth,           460
  Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,
  His meaning struck her ere his words begun.

And at his look she flatly falleth down
For looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth;     464
A smile recures the wounding of a frown;
But blessed bankrout, that by love so thriveth!
  The silly boy, believing she is dead,
  Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red.  468

And all amaz’d brake off his late intent,
For sharply he did think to reprehend her,
Which cunning love did wittily prevent:
Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!       472
  For on the grass she lies as she were slain,
  Till his breath breatheth life in her again.

He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,
He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard,         476
He chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks
To mend the hurt that his unkindness marr’d:
  He kisses her; and she, by her good will,
  Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.        480

The night of sorrow now is turn’d to day:
Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,
Like the fair sun when in his fresh array
He cheers the morn, and all the world relieveth:     484
  And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,
  So is her face illumin’d with her eye.

Whose beams upon his hairless face are fix’d,
As if from thence they borrow’d all their shine.     488
Were never four such lamps together mix’d,
Had not his clouded with his brow’s repine;
  But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light
  Shone like the moon in water seen by night.        492

“O where am I?” quoth she, “in earth or heaven?
Or in the ocean drench’d, or in the fire?
What hour is this? or morn or weary even?
Do I delight to die, or life desire?                 496
  But now I liv’d, and life was death’s annoy;
  But now I died, and death was lively joy.

“O thou didst kill me; kill me once again:
Thy eyes’ shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine,    500
Hath taught them scornful tricks, and such disdain,
That they have murder’d this poor heart of mine;
  And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen,
  But for thy piteous lips no more had seen.         504

“Long may they kiss each other for this cure!
Oh never let their crimson liveries wear,
And as they last, their verdure still endure,
To drive infection from the dangerous year:          508
  That the star-gazers, having writ on death,
  May say, the plague is banish’d by thy breath.

“Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,
What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?       512
To sell myself I can be well contented,
So thou wilt buy, and pay, and use good dealing;
  Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips,
  Set thy seal manual on my wax-red lips.            516

“A thousand kisses buys my heart from me;
And pay them at thy leisure, one by one,
What is ten hundred touches unto thee?
Are they not quickly told and quickly gone?          520
  Say, for non-payment that the debt should double,
  Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?”

“Fair queen,” quoth he, “if any love you owe me,
Measure my strangeness with my unripe years:         524
Before I know myself, seek not to know me;
No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears:
  The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,
  Or being early pluck’d, is sour to taste.          528

“Look the world’s comforter, with weary gait
His day’s hot task hath ended in the west;
The owl, night’s herald, shrieks, ’tis very late;
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,     532
  And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven’s light
  Do summon us to part, and bid good night.

“Now let me say good night, and so say you;
If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.”          536
“Good night,” quoth she; and ere he says adieu,
The honey fee of parting tender’d is:
  Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace;
  Incorporate then they seem, face grows to face.    540

Till breathless he disjoin’d, and backward drew
The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,
Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,
Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth,        544
  He with her plenty press’d, she faint with dearth,
  Their lips together glued, fall to the earth.

Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey,
And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth;       548
Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,
Paying what ransom the insulter willeth;
  Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,
  That she will draw his lips’ rich treasure dry.    552

And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,
With blindfold fury she begins to forage;
Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,
And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage,      556
  Planting oblivion, beating reason back,
  Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honour’s wrack.

Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing,
Like a wild bird being tam’d with too much handling,
Or as the fleet-foot roe that’s tir’d with chasing,  561
Or like the froward infant still’d with dandling:
  He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,
  While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.  564

What wax so frozen but dissolves with temp’ring,
And yields at last to every light impression?
Things out of hope are compass’d oft with vent’ring,
Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission:     568
  Affection faints not like a pale-fac’d coward,
  But then woos best when most his choice is froward.

When he did frown, O had she then gave over,
Such nectar from his lips she had not suck’d.        572
Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover;
What though the rose have prickles, yet ’tis pluck’d.
  Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,
  Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last.

For pity now she can no more detain him;             577
The poor fool prays her that he may depart:
She is resolv’d no longer to restrain him,
Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,       580
  The which by Cupid’s bow she doth protest,
  He carries thence encaged in his breast.

“Sweet boy,” she says, “this night I’ll waste in sorrow,
For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.       584
Tell me, love’s master, shall we meet tomorrow
Say, shall we? shall we? wilt thou make the match?”
  He tells her no, tomorrow he intends
  To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.      588

“The boar!” quoth she; whereat a sudden pale,
Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,
Usurps her cheek, she trembles at his tale,
And on his neck her yoking arms she throws.          592
  She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck,
  He on her belly falls, she on her back.

Now is she in the very lists of love,
Her champion mounted for the hot encounter:          596
All is imaginary she doth prove,
He will not manage her, although he mount her;
  That worse than Tantalus’ is her annoy,
  To clip Elysium and to lack her joy.               600

Even as poor birds, deceiv’d with painted grapes,
Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw:
Even so she languisheth in her mishaps,
As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.       604
  The warm effects which she in him finds missing,
  She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.

But all in vain, good queen, it will not be,
She hath assay’d as much as may be prov’d;           608
Her pleading hath deserv’d a greater fee;
She’s love, she loves, and yet she is not lov’d.
  “Fie, fie,” he says, “you crush me; let me go;
  You have no reason to withhold me so.”             612

“Thou hadst been gone,” quoth she, “sweet boy, ere this,
But that thou told’st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.
Oh be advis’d; thou know’st not what it is,
With javelin’s point a churlish swine to gore,       616
  Whose tushes never sheath’d he whetteth still,
  Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.

“On his bow-back he hath a battle set
Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes;         620
His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret;
His snout digs sepulchres where’er he goes;
  Being mov’d, he strikes whate’er is in his way,
  And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.       624

“His brawny sides, with hairy bristles armed,
Are better proof than thy spear’s point can enter;
His short thick neck cannot be easily harmed;
Being ireful, on the lion he will venture:           628
  The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,
  As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.

“Alas! he naught esteems that face of thine,
To which love’s eyes pay tributary gazes;            632
Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,
Whose full perfection all the world amazes;
  But having thee at vantage, wondrous dread!
  Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.

“Oh let him keep his loathsome cabin still,          637
Beauty hath naught to do with such foul fiends:
Come not within his danger by thy will;
They that thrive well, take counsel of their friends.
  When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,
  I fear’d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.

“Didst thou not mark my face, was it not white?
Saw’st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?      644
Grew I not faint, and fell I not downright?
Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,
  My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,
  But like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.

“For where love reigns, disturbing jealousy          649
Doth call himself affection’s sentinel;
Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,
And in a peaceful hour doth cry “Kill, kill!”        652
  Distemp’ring gentle love in his desire,
  As air and water do abate the fire.

“This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,
This canker that eats up love’s tender spring,       656
This carry-tale, dissentious jealousy,
That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,
  Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear,
  That if I love thee, I thy death should fear.      660

“And more than so, presenteth to mine eye
The picture of an angry chafing boar,
Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie
An image like thyself, all stain’d with gore;        664
  Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed,
  Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.

“What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,
That tremble at th’imagination?                      668
The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,
And fear doth teach it divination:
  I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,
  If thou encounter with the boar tomorrow.          672

“But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul’d by me;
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox which lives by subtilty,
Or at the roe which no encounter dare:               676
  Pursue these fearful creatures o’er the downs,
  And on thy well-breath’d horse keep with thy hounds.

“And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles      680
How he outruns the wind, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
  The many musits through the which he goes
  Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.            684

“Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,             688
  And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;
  Danger deviseth shifts, wit waits on fear.

“For there his smell with others being mingled,      691
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
Ceasing their clamorous cry, till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;
  Then do they spend their mouths: echo replies,
  As if another chase were in the skies.             696

“By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs with list’ning ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still.
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;                700
  And now his grief may be compared well
  To one sore sick that hears the passing bell.

“Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way,            704
Each envious briar his weary legs do scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
  For misery is trodden on by many,
  And being low never reliev’d by any.               708

“Lie quietly, and hear a little more;
Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise:
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,
Unlike myself thou hear’st me moralize,              712
  Applying this to that, and so to so,
  For love can comment upon every woe.

“Where did I leave?” “No matter where,” quoth he
“Leave me, and then the story aptly ends:            716
The night is spent.” “Why, what of that?” quoth she.
“I am,” quoth he, “expected of my friends;
  And now ’tis dark, and going I shall fall.”
  “In night,” quoth she, “desire sees best of all.”  720

But if thou fall, oh then imagine this,
The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,
And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.                723
Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips
  Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,
  Lest she should steal a kiss and die forsworn.

“Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:
Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine          728
Till forging nature be condemn’d of treason,
For stealing moulds from heaven, that were divine;
  Wherein she fram’d thee, in high heaven’s despite,
  To shame the sun by day and her by night.          732

“And therefore hath she brib’d the destinies,
To cross the curious workmanship of nature,
To mingle beauty with infirmities,
And pure perfection with impure defeature,           736
  Making it subject to the tyranny
  Of mad mischances and much misery.

“As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,
Life-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood,         740
The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint
Disorder breeds by heating of the blood;
  Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn’d despair,
  Swear nature’s death, for framing thee so fair.    744

“And not the least of all these maladies
But in one minute’s fight brings beauty under:
Both favour, savour, hue and qualities,
Whereat th’impartial gazer late did wonder,          748
  Are on the sudden wasted, thaw’d and done,
  As mountain snow melts with the midday sun.

“Therefore despite of fruitless chastity,
Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns,           752
That on the earth would breed a scarcity
And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,
  Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night
  Dries up his oil to lend the world his light.      756

“What is thy body but a swallowing grave,
Seeming to bury that posterity,
Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?          760
  If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,
  Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.

“So in thyself thyself art made away;
A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife,        764
Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,
Or butcher sire that reeves his son of life.
  Foul cank’ring rust the hidden treasure frets,
  But gold that’s put to use more gold begets.”      768

“Nay then,” quoth Adon, “you will fall again
Into your idle over-handled theme;
The kiss I gave you is bestow’d in vain,
And all in vain you strive against the stream;       772
  For by this black-fac’d night, desire’s foul nurse,
  Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.

“If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,
And every tongue more moving than your own,          776
Bewitching like the wanton mermaid’s songs,
Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;
  For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,
  And will not let a false sound enter there.        780

“Lest the deceiving harmony should run
Into the quiet closure of my breast,
And then my little heart were quite undone,
In his bedchamber to be barr’d of rest.              784
  No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,
  But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.

“What have you urg’d that I cannot reprove?
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger;        790
I hate not love, but your device in love
That lends embracements unto every stranger.
  You do it for increase: O strange excuse!
  When reason is the bawd to lust’s abuse.           792

“Call it not, love, for love to heaven is fled,
Since sweating lust on earth usurp’d his name;
Under whose simple semblance he hath fed
Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;           796
  Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves,
  As caterpillars do the tender leaves.

“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But lust’s effect is tempest after sun;              800
Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust’s winter comes ere summer half be done.
  Love surfeits not, lust like a glutton dies;
  Love is all truth, lust full of forged lies.       804

“More I could tell, but more I dare not say;
The text is old, the orator too green.
Therefore, in sadness, now I will away;
My face is full of shame, my heart of teen,          808
  Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended
  Do burn themselves for having so offended.”

With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace         811
Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,
And homeward through the dark laund runs apace;
Leaves love upon her back deeply distress’d.
  Look how a bright star shooteth from the sky,
  So glides he in the night from Venus’ eye.         816

Which after him she darts, as one on shore
Gazing upon a late embarked friend,
Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,
Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend:        820
  So did the merciless and pitchy night
  Fold in the object that did feed her sight.

Whereat amaz’d, as one that unaware
Hath dropp’d a precious jewel in the flood,          824
Or ’stonish’d as night-wanderers often are,
Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood;
  Even so confounded in the dark she lay,
  Having lost the fair discovery of her way.         828

And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,
That all the neighbour caves, as seeming troubled,
Make verbal repetition of her moans;
Passion on passion deeply is redoubled:              832
  “Ay me!” she cries, and twenty times, “Woe, woe!”
  And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.

She marking them, begins a wailing note,
And sings extemporally a woeful ditty;               836
How love makes young men thrall, and old men dote,
How love is wise in folly foolish witty:
  Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,
  And still the choir of echoes answer so.           840

Her song was tedious, and outwore the night,
For lovers’ hours are long, though seeming short,
If pleas’d themselves, others they think, delight
In such like circumstance, with such like sport:     844
  Their copious stories oftentimes begun,
  End without audience, and are never done.

For who hath she to spend the night withal,
But idle sounds resembling parasites;                848
Like shrill-tongu’d tapsters answering every call,
Soothing the humour of fantastic wits?
  She says, “’Tis so:” they answer all, “’Tis so;”
  And would say after her, if she said “No.”         852

Lo here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty;                      856
  Who doth the world so gloriously behold,
  That cedar tops and hills seem burnish’d gold.

Venus salutes him with this fair good morrow:
“Oh thou clear god, and patron of all light,         860
From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow
The beauteous influence that makes him bright,
  There lives a son that suck’d an earthly mother,
  May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.”

This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,            865
Musing the morning is so much o’erworn,
And yet she hears no tidings of her love;
She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn.        868
  Anon she hears them chant it lustily,
  And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.

And as she runs, the bushes in the way
Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,      872
Some twine about her thigh to make her stay:
She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,
  Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,
  Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake.        876

By this she hears the hounds are at a bay,
Whereat she starts like one that spies an adder
Wreath’d up in fatal folds just in his way,
The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;    880
  Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds
  Appals her senses, and her spirit confounds.

For now she knows it is no gentle chase,
But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud,       884
Because the cry remaineth in one place,
Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud,
  Finding their enemy to be so curst,
  They all strain court’sy who shall cope him first. 888

This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear,
Through which it enters to surprise her heart;
Who overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,
With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part;     892
  Like soldiers when their captain once doth yield,
  They basely fly and dare not stay the field.

Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy,
Till cheering up her senses sore dismay’d,           896
She tells them ’tis a causeless fantasy,
And childish error, that they are afraid;
  Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more:
  And with that word, she spied the hunted boar.     900

Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red,
Like milk and blood being mingled both together,
A second fear through all her sinews spread,
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither:       904
  This way she runs, and now she will no further,
  But back retires, to rate the boar for murther.

A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways,
She treads the path that she untreads again;         908
Her more than haste is mated with delays,
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,
  Full of respects, yet naught at all respecting,
  In hand with all things, naught at all effecting.

Here kennel’d in a brake she finds a hound,          913
And asks the weary caitiff for his master,
And there another licking of his wound,
’Gainst venom’d sores the only sovereign plaster.    916
  And here she meets another sadly scowling,
  To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.

When he hath ceas’d his ill-resounding noise,
Another flap-mouth’d mourner, black and grim,        920
Against the welkin volleys out his voice;
Another and another answer him,
  Clapping their proud tails to the ground below,
  Shaking their scratch’d ears, bleeding as they go.

Look how the world’s poor people are amazed          925
At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,
Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed,
Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;              928
  So she at these sad sighs draws up her breath,
  And sighing it again, exclaims on death.

“Hard-favour’d tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,           931
Hateful divorce of love,” thus chides she death,
“Grim-grinning ghost, earth’s worm, what dost thou mean?
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,
  Who when he liv’d, his breath and beauty set
  Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet.            936

“If he be dead, O no, it cannot be,
Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it,
O yes, it may, thou hast no eyes to see,
But hatefully at random dost thou hit.               940
  Thy mark is feeble age, but thy false dart
  Mistakes that aim, and cleaves an infant’s heart.

“Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,
And hearing him, thy power had lost his power.       944
The destinies will curse thee for this stroke;
They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck’st a flower.
  Love’s golden arrow at him should have fled,
  And not death’s ebon dart to strike him dead.      948

“Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok’st such weeping?
What may a heavy groan advantage thee?
Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping
Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see?        952
  Now nature cares not for thy mortal vigour,
  Since her best work is ruin’d with thy rigour.”

Here overcome, as one full of despair,
She vail’d her eyelids, who like sluices stopp’d     956
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp’d
  But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,
  And with his strong course opens them again.       960

O how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow;
Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;
Both crystals, where they view’d each other’s sorrow,
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;      964
  But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,
  Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.

Variable passions throng her constant woe,
As striving who should best become her grief;        968
All entertain’d, each passion labours so,
That every present sorrow seemeth chief,
  But none is best, then join they all together,
  Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.      972

By this, far off she hears some huntsman holla;
A nurse’s song ne’er pleas’d her babe so well:
The dire imagination she did follow
This sound of hope doth labour to expel;             976
  For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,
  And flatters her it is Adonis’ voice.

Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,
Being prison’d in her eye, like pearls in glass;     980
Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,
Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass
  To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,
  Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown’d.

O hard-believing love, how strange it seems          985
Not to believe, and yet too credulous;
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;
Despair and hope make thee ridiculous,               988
  The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,
  In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.

Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought,
Adonis lives, and death is not to blame;             992
It was not she that call’d him all to naught;
Now she adds honours to his hateful name.
  She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,
  Imperious supreme of all mortal things.            996

“No, no,” quoth she, “sweet death, I did but jest;
Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear
Whenas I met the boar, that bloody beast,
Which knows no pity, but is still severe;           1000
  Then, gentle shadow,—truth I must confess—
  I rail’d on thee, fearing my love’s decease.

“’Tis not my fault, the boar provok’d my tongue;
Be wreak’d on him, invisible commander;             1004
’Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong;
I did but act, he’s author of my slander.
  Grief hath two tongues, and never woman yet,
  Could rule them both, without ten women’s wit.”

Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,                   1009
Her rash suspect she doth extenuate;
And that his beauty may the better thrive,
With death she humbly doth insinuate;               1012
  Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs and stories
  His victories, his triumphs and his glories.

“O love!” quoth she, “how much a fool was I,
To be of such a weak and silly mind,                1016
To wail his death who lives, and must not die
Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind;
  For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
  And beauty dead, black Chaos comes again.         1020

“Fie, fie, fond love, thou art as full of fear
As one with treasure laden, hemm’d with thieves,
Trifles unwitnessed with eye or ear,
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.”    1024
  Even at this word she hears a merry horn,
  Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn.

As falcon to the lure, away she flies;
The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light,    1028
And in her haste unfortunately spies
The foul boar’s conquest on her fair delight;
  Which seen, her eyes, as murder’d with the view,
  Like stars asham’d of day, themselves withdrew.

Or as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,      1033
Shrinks backwards in his shelly cave with pain,
And there all smother’d up, in shade doth sit,
Long after fearing to creep forth again:            1036
  So at his bloody view her eyes are fled
  Into the deep dark cabins of her head.

Where they resign their office and their light
To the disposing of her troubled brain,             1040
Who bids them still consort with ugly night,
And never wound the heart with looks again;
  Who like a king perplexed in his throne,
  By their suggestion gives a deadly groan.         1044

Whereat each tributary subject quakes,
As when the wind imprison’d in the ground,
Struggling for passage, earth’s foundation shakes,
Which with cold terror doth men’s minds confound.
  This mutiny each part doth so surprise            1049
  That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes.

And being open’d, threw unwilling light
Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench’d
In his soft flank, whose wonted lily white          1053
With purple tears that his wound wept, was drench’d.
  No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf or weed,
  But stole his blood and seem’d with him to bleed.

This solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth,             1057
Over one shoulder doth she hang her head,
Dumbly she passions, franticly she doteth;
She thinks he could not die, he is not dead:        1060
  Her voice is stopp’d, her joints forget to bow,
  Her eyes are mad, that they have wept till now.

Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly,
That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three;
And then she reprehends her mangling eye,           1065
That makes more gashes, where no breach should be:
  His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled,
  For oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled.

“My tongue cannot express my grief for one,         1069
And yet,” quoth she, “behold two Adons dead!
My sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone,
Mine eyes are turn’d to fire, my heart to lead:     1072
  Heavy heart’s lead, melt at mine eyes’ red fire!
  So shall I die by drops of hot desire.

“Alas poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!
What face remains alive that’s worth the viewing?
Whose tongue is music now? what canst thou boast
Of things long since, or anything ensuing?          1078
  The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim,
  But true sweet beauty liv’d and died with him.

“Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear!       1081
Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you:
Having no fair to lose, you need not fear;
The sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you.
  But when Adonis liv’d, sun and sharp air          1085
  Lurk’d like two thieves, to rob him of his fair.

“And therefore would he put his bonnet on,
Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep;          1088
The wind would blow it off, and being gone,
Play with his locks; then would Adonis weep;
  And straight, in pity of his tender years,
  They both would strive who first should dry his tears.

“To see his face the lion walk’d along              1093
Behind some hedge, because he would not fear him;
To recreate himself when he hath sung,
The tiger would be tame and gently hear him.        1096
  If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey,
  And never fright the silly lamb that day.

“When he beheld his shadow in the brook,
The fishes spread on it their golden gills;         1100
When he was by, the birds such pleasure took,
That some would sing, some other in their bills
  Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries,
  He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.

“But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar,      1105
Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,
Ne’er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;
Witness the entertainment that he gave.             1108
  If he did see his face, why then I know
  He thought to kiss him, and hath kill’d him so.

“’Tis true, ’tis true; thus was Adonis slain:
He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear,          1112
Who did not whet his teeth at him again,
But by a kiss thought to persuade him there;
  And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine
  Sheath’d unaware the tusk in his soft groin.      1116

“Had I been tooth’d like him, I must confess,
With kissing him I should have kill’d him first;
But he is dead, and never did he bless
My youth with his; the more am I accurst.”          1120
  With this she falleth in the place she stood,
  And stains her face with his congealed blood.

She looks upon his lips, and they are pale;
She takes him by the hand, and that is cold,        1124
She whispers in his ears a heavy tale,
As if they heard the woeful words she told;
She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,
Where lo, two lamps burnt out in darkness lies.

Two glasses where herself herself beheld            1129
A thousand times, and now no more reflect;
Their virtue lost, wherein they late excell’d,
And every beauty robb’d of his effect.              1132
  “Wonder of time,” quoth she, “this is my spite,
  That thou being dead, the day should yet be light.

“Since thou art dead, lo here I prophesy,
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:              1136
It shall be waited on with jealousy,
Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end;
  Ne’er settled equally, but high or low,
  That all love’s pleasure shall not match his woe.

“It shall be fickle, false and full of fraud,       1141
Bud, and be blasted in a breathing while;
The bottom poison, and the top o’erstraw’d
With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile.    1144
  The strongest body shall it make most weak,
  Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak.

“It shall be sparing, and too full of riot,
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;        1148
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,
Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;
  It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,
  Make the young old, the old become a child.       1152

“It shall suspect where is no cause of fear,
It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;
It shall be merciful, and too severe,
And most deceiving when it seems most just;         1156
  Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,
  Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.

“It shall be cause of war and dire events,
And set dissension ’twixt the son and sire;         1160
Subject and servile to all discontents,
As dry combustious matter is to fire,
  Sith in his prime death doth my love destroy,
  They that love best their love shall not enjoy.”  1164

By this the boy that by her side lay kill’d
Was melted like a vapour from her sight,
And in his blood that on the ground lay spill’d,
A purple flower sprung up, chequer’d with white,    1168
  Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood
  Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.

She bows her head, the new-sprung flower to smell,
Comparing it to her Adonis’ breath;                 1172
And says within her bosom it shall dwell,
Since he himself is reft from her by death;
  She drops the stalk, and in the breach appears
  Green-dropping sap, which she compares to tears.

“Poor flower,” quoth she, “this was thy father’s guise,
Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire,
For every little grief to wet his eyes,
To grow unto himself was his desire,                1180
  And so ’tis thine; but know, it is as good
  To wither in my breast as in his blood.

“Here was thy father’s bed, here in my breast;
Thou art the next of blood, and ’tis thy right:     1184
Lo in this hollow cradle take thy rest,
My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night:
  There shall not be one minute in an hour
  Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love’s flower.”

Thus weary of the world, away she hies,             1189
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid
Their mistress mounted through the empty skies,
In her light chariot quickly is convey’d;           1192
  Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
  Means to immure herself and not be seen.


    

  FINIS
    












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