The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra

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 Dramatis Personae MARK ANTONY OCTAVIUS CAESAR M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS triumvirs. SEXTUS POMPEIUS DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS VENTIDIUS EROS SCARUS DERCETAS DEMETRIUS PHILO friends to Antony. MECAENAS AGRIPPA DOLABELLA PROCULEIUS THYREUS GALLUS MENAS friends to Caesar. MENECRATES VARRIUS friends to Pompey. 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 MARDIAN, a Eunuch. SELEUCUS DIOMEDES attendants on Cleopatra. A Soothsayer. A Clown. CLEOPATRA, queen of Egypt. OCTAVIA, sister to Caesar and wife to Antony. CHARMIAN IRAS attendants on Cleopatra. Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants. SCENE In several parts of the Roman empire. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA ACT I SCENE I. Alexandria. A room in CLEOPATRA's palace. Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO PHILO Nay, but this dotage of our general's O'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes, That o'er the files and musters of the war Have 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. MARK ANTONY There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd. CLEOPATRA I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved. MARK ANTONY Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth. Enter an Attendant Attendant News, my good lord, from Rome. MARK ANTONY Grates me: the sum. CLEOPATRA Nay, hear them, Antony: Fulvia perchance is angry; or, who knows If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent His powerful mandate to you, 'Do this, or this; Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that; Perform 't, or else we damn thee.' MARK ANTONY How, my love! CLEOPATRA Perchance! nay, and most like: You must not stay here longer, your dismission Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony. Where's Fulvia's process? Caesar's I would say? both? Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt's queen, Thou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine Is Caesar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers! MARK ANTONY Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space. Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair Embracing 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. MARK 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 tonight? CLEOPATRA Hear the ambassadors. MARK ANTONY Fie, wrangling queen! Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh, To weep; whose every passion fully strives To make itself, in thee, fair and admired! No messenger, but thine; and all alone 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 MARK ANTONY and CLEOPATRA with their train DEMETRIUS Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight? PHILO Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony, He comes too short of that great property Which still should go with Antony. DEMETRIUS I am full sorry That he approves the common liar, who Thus speaks of him at Rome: but I will hope Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy! Exeunt SCENE II. The same. Another room. Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer CHARMIAN Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you praised so to the 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 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough Cleopatra's health to drink. CHARMIAN Good sir, give me good fortune. Soothsayer I make not, but foresee. CHARMIAN Pray, then, foresee me one. Soothsayer You shall be yet far fairer than you are. CHARMIAN He means in flesh. IRAS No, you shall paint when you are old. CHARMIAN Wrinkles forbid! ALEXAS Vex not his prescience; be attentive. CHARMIAN Hush! Soothsayer You shall be more beloving than beloved. CHARMIAN I had rather heat my liver with drinking. ALEXAS Nay, hear him. CHARMIAN Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married to three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all: let me have a child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage: find me to marry me with Octavius Caesar, and companion me with my mistress. Soothsayer You shall outlive the lady whom you serve. CHARMIAN O excellent! I love long life better than figs. Soothsayer You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune Than that which is to approach. CHARMIAN Then belike my children shall have no names: prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have? Soothsayer If every of your wishes had a womb. And fertile every wish, a million. CHARMIAN Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch. ALEXAS You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes. CHARMIAN Nay, come, tell Iras hers. ALEXAS We'll know all our fortunes. DOMITIUS 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 a 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 worst follow worse, till the worst of all follow him laughing to his grave, fifty-fold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee! IRAS Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! for, as it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome man loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded: therefore, dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly! CHARMIAN Amen. ALEXAS Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but they'ld do't! DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Hush! here comes Antony. CHARMIAN Not he; the queen. Enter CLEOPATRA CLEOPATRA Saw you my lord? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS No, lady. CLEOPATRA Was he not here? CHARMIAN No, madam. CLEOPATRA He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus! DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Madam? CLEOPATRA Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alexas? ALEXAS Here, at your service. My lord approaches. CLEOPATRA We will not look upon him: go with us. Exeunt Enter MARK ANTONY with a Messenger and Attendants Messenger Fulvia thy wife first came into the field. MARK ANTONY Against my brother Lucius? Messenger Ay: But soon that war had end, and the time's state Made friends of them, joining their force 'gainst Caesar; Whose better issue in the war, from Italy, Upon the first encounter, drave them. MARK ANTONY Well, what worst? Messenger The nature of bad news infects the teller. MARK 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-- MARK ANTONY Antony, thou wouldst say,-- Messenger O, my lord! MARK 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 MARK 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. MARK ANTONY Let him appear. These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, Or lose myself in dotage. Enter another Messenger What are you? Second Messenger Fulvia thy wife is dead. MARK ANTONY Where died she? Second Messenger In Sicyon: Her length of sickness, with what else more serious Importeth thee to know, this bears. Gives a letter MARK ANTONY Forbear me. Exit Second Messenger There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it: What our contempt doth often hurl from us, We wish it ours again; the present pleasure, By revolution lowering, does become The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone; The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on. I must from this enchanting queen break off: Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know, My idleness doth hatch. How now! Enobarbus! Re-enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS What's your pleasure, sir? MARK ANTONY I must with haste from hence. DOMITIUS 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. MARK ANTONY I must be gone. DOMITIUS 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. MARK ANTONY She is cunning past man's thought. Exit ALEXAS DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love: we cannot call her winds and waters sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report: this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove. MARK ANTONY Would I had never seen her. DOMITIUS 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. MARK ANTONY Fulvia is dead. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Sir? MARK ANTONY Fulvia is dead. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Fulvia! MARK ANTONY Dead. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, that when old robes are worn out, there are members to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut, and the case to be lamented: this grief is crowned with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new petticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow. MARK ANTONY The business she hath broached in the state Cannot endure my absence. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS And the business you have broached here cannot be without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends on your abode. MARK ANTONY No more light answers. Let our officers Have notice what we purpose. I shall break The cause of our expedience to the queen, And get her leave to part. For not alone The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches, Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too Of many our contriving friends in Rome Petition us at home: Sextus Pompeius Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands The empire of the sea: our slippery people, Whose love is never 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' the 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I shall do't. Exeunt SCENE III. The same. Another room. 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 nothing. CLEOPATRA Thou teachest like a fool; the way to lose him. CHARMIAN Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear: In time we hate that which we often fear. But here comes Antony. Enter MARK ANTONY CLEOPATRA I am sick and sullen. MARK 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. MARK ANTONY Now, my dearest queen,-- CLEOPATRA Pray you, stand further from me. MARK 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. MARK ANTONY The gods best know,-- CLEOPATRA O, never was there queen So mightily betray'd! yet at the first I saw the treasons planted. MARK 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! MARK 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. MARK ANTONY How now, lady! CLEOPATRA I would I had thy inches; thou shouldst know There were a heart in Egypt. MARK 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? MARK ANTONY She's dead, my queen: Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read The garboils she awaked; at the last, best: See when and where she died. CLEOPATRA O most false love! Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see, In Fulvia's death, how mine received shall be. MARK ANTONY Quarrel no more, but be prepared to know The purposes I bear; which are, or cease, As you shall give the advice. By the fire That quickens Nilus' slime, I go from hence Thy soldier, servant; making peace or war As thou affect'st. CLEOPATRA Cut my lace, Charmian, come; But let it be: I am quickly ill, and well, So Antony loves. MARK 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 Life perfect honour. MARK ANTONY You'll heat my blood: no more. CLEOPATRA You can do better yet; but this is meetly. MARK 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. MARK ANTONY I'll leave you, lady. CLEOPATRA Courteous lord, one word. Sir, you and I must part, but that's not it: Sir, you and I have loved, but there's not it; That you know well: something it is I would, O, my oblivion is a very Antony, And I am all forgotten. MARK 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! MARK ANTONY Let us go. Come; Our separation so abides, and flies, That thou, residing here, go'st yet with me, And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee. Away! Exeunt SCENE IV. Rome. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, reading a letter, LEPIDUS, and their Train OCTAVIUS 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 man-like Than Cleopatra; nor the queen of Ptolemy More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or Vouchsafed to think he had partners: you shall find there A man who is the abstract of all faults That all men follow. LEPIDUS I must not think there are Evils 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 purchased; what he cannot change, Than what he chooses. OCTAVIUS CAESAR You are too indulgent. Let us 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 soils, 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 beloved of those That only have fear'd Caesar: to the ports The discontents repair, and men's reports Give him much wrong'd. OCTAVIUS 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 loved 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Antony, Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against, Though daintily brought up, with patience more Than savages could suffer: thou didst drink The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign The roughest berry on the rudest hedge; Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets, The barks of trees thou browsed'st; 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Let his shames quickly Drive him to Rome: 'tis time we twain Did show ourselves i' the 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. OCTAVIUS 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. OCTAVIUS 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 movest? 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, from OCTAVIUS CAESAR ALEXAS Sovereign of Egypt, hail! CLEOPATRA How much unlike art thou Mark Antony! Yet, coming from him, that great medicine hath With his tinct gilded thee. How goes it with my brave Mark Antony? ALEXAS Last thing he did, dear queen, He 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' the 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 choked with such another emphasis! Say, the brave Antony. CHARMIAN The valiant Caesar! CLEOPATRA By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth, If thou with Caesar paragon again My man of men. CHARMIAN By your most gracious pardon, I sing but after you. CLEOPATRA My salad days, When I was green in judgment: cold in blood, To say as I said then! But, come, away; Get me ink and paper: He shall have every day a several greeting, Or I'll unpeople Egypt. Exeunt 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 powers 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 the 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 waned 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 dulness! 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 further 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 moved 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 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS LEPIDUS Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed, And shall become you well, to entreat your captain To soft and gentle speech. DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Every time Serves for the matter that is then born in't. LEPIDUS But small to greater matters must give way. DOMITIUS 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 MARK ANTONY and VENTIDIUS DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS And yonder, Caesar. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MECAENAS, and AGRIPPA MARK ANTONY If we compose well here, to Parthia: Hark, Ventidius. OCTAVIUS CAESAR I do not know, Mecaenas; ask Agrippa. LEPIDUS Noble friends, That which combined 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 the matter. MARK ANTONY 'Tis spoken well. Were we before our armies, and to fight. I should do thus. Flourish OCTAVIUS CAESAR Welcome to Rome. MARK ANTONY Thank you. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Sit. MARK ANTONY Sit, sir. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Nay, then. MARK ANTONY I learn, you take things ill which are not so, Or being, concern you not. OCTAVIUS CAESAR I must be laugh'd at, If, or for nothing or a little, I 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. MARK ANTONY My being in Egypt, Caesar, What was't to you? OCTAVIUS 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. MARK ANTONY How intend you, practised? OCTAVIUS CAESAR You may be pleased to catch at mine intent By what did here befal me. Your wife and brother Made wars upon me; and their contestation Was theme for you, you were the word of war. MARK 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR You praise yourself By laying defects of judgment to me; but You patch'd up your excuses. MARK 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' the world is yours; which with a snaffle You may pace easy, but not such a wife. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to wars with the women! MARK 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. OCTAVIUS 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. MARK ANTONY Sir, He fell upon me ere admitted: then Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want Of what I was i' the 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR You have broken The article of your oath; which you shall never Have tongue to charge me with. LEPIDUS Soft, Caesar! MARK 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR To lend me arms and aid when I required them; The which you both denied. MARK ANTONY Neglected, rather; And then when poison'd 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. MECAENAS 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, Mecaenas. DOMITIUS 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. MARK ANTONY Thou art a soldier only: speak no more. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS That truth should be silent I had almost forgot. MARK ANTONY You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Go to, then; your considerate stone. OCTAVIUS 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 differing in their acts. Yet if I knew What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge O' the world I would pursue it. AGRIPPA Give me leave, Caesar,-- OCTAVIUS CAESAR Speak, Agrippa. AGRIPPA Thou hast a sister by the mother's side, Admired Octavia: great Mark Antony Is now a widower. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Say not so, Agrippa: If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof Were well deserved of rashness. MARK 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. MARK ANTONY Will Caesar speak? OCTAVIUS CAESAR Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd With what is spoke already. MARK ANTONY What power is in Agrippa, If I would say, 'Agrippa, be it so,' To make this good? OCTAVIUS CAESAR The power of Caesar, and His power unto Octavia. MARK 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! OCTAVIUS 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! MARK 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. MARK ANTONY Where lies he? OCTAVIUS CAESAR About the mount Misenum. MARK ANTONY What is his strength by land? OCTAVIUS CAESAR Great and increasing: but by sea He is an absolute master. MARK 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR With most gladness: And do invite you to my sister's view, Whither straight I'll lead you. MARK ANTONY Let us, Lepidus, Not lack your company. LEPIDUS Noble Antony, Not sickness should detain me. Flourish. Exeunt OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY, and LEPIDUS MECAENAS Welcome from Egypt, sir. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Mecaenas! My honourable friend, Agrippa! AGRIPPA Good Enobarbus! MECAENAS We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You stayed well by 't in Egypt. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance, and made the night light with drinking. MECAENAS Eight wild-boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve persons there; is this true? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS This was but as a fly by an eagle: we had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting. MECAENAS She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus. AGRIPPA There she appeared indeed; or my reporter devised well for her. DOMITIUS 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'er-picturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork 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! DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i' the 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, Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone, Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy, Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, And made a gap in nature. AGRIPPA Rare Egyptian! DOMITIUS 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 plough'd her, and she cropp'd. DOMITIUS 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, power breathe forth. MECAENAS Now Antony must leave her utterly. DOMITIUS 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. MECAENAS 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Humbly, sir, I thank you. Exeunt SCENE III. The same. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house. Enter MARK ANTONY, OCTAVIUS CAESAR, OCTAVIA between them, and Attendants MARK 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. MARK 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 the rule. Good night, dear lady. Good night, sir. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Good night. Exeunt OCTAVIUS CAESAR and OCTAVIA Enter Soothsayer MARK ANTONY Now, sirrah; you do wish yourself in Egypt? Soothsayer Would I had never come from thence, nor you Thither! MARK 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. MARK 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 demon, that's 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'erpower'd: therefore Make space enough between you. MARK 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. MARK 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' the 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. The same. A street. Enter LEPIDUS, MECAENAS, 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. MECAENAS We shall, As I conceive the journey, be at the Mount Before you, Lepidus. LEPIDUS Your way is shorter; My purposes do draw me much about: You'll win two days upon me. MECAENAS AGRIPPA 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. Attendants The music, ho! Enter MARDIAN 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 the 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! you're 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 laugh'd 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 Antonius 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,--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 Thou'rt 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' the 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 again 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 lingering 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 lived 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 afeard to come. CLEOPATRA I will not hurt him. Exit CHARMIAN These hands do lack nobility, that they strike A meaner than myself; since I myself Have given myself the cause. Re-enter CHARMIAN and Messenger 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 submerged and made A cistern for scaled 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 thou'rt 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 dispraised 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. Bid you Alexas To MARDIAN 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, OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY, LEPIDUS, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, MECAENAS, with Soldiers marching POMPEY Your hostages I have, so have you mine; And we shall talk before we fight. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Most meet That first we come to words; and therefore have we Our written purposes before us sent; Which, if thou hast consider'd, 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 moved pale Cassius to conspire; and what Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus, With the arm'd rest, courtiers and 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 burthen The anger'd ocean foams; with which I meant To scourge the ingratitude that despiteful Rome Cast on my noble father. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Take your time. MARK 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 pleased to tell us-- For this is from the present--how you take The offers we have sent you. OCTAVIUS CAESAR There's the point. MARK ANTONY Which do not be entreated to, but weigh What it is worth embraced. OCTAVIUS 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR MARK ANTONY LEPIDUS That's our offer. POMPEY Know, then, I came before you here a man prepared 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. MARK 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. MARK ANTONY The beds i' the east are soft; and thanks to you, That call'd me timelier than my purpose hither; For I have gain'd by 't. OCTAVIUS 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR That's the next to do. POMPEY We'll feast each other ere we part; and let's Draw lots who shall begin. MARK 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. MARK ANTONY You have heard much. POMPEY I have fair meanings, sir. MARK ANTONY And fair words to them. POMPEY Then so much have I heard: And I have heard, Apollodorus carried-- DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS No more of that: he did so. POMPEY What, I pray you? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS A certain queen to Caesar in a mattress. POMPEY I know thee now: how farest thou, soldier? DOMITIUS 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 behavior. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Sir, I never loved you much; but I ha' praised ye, When you have well deserved 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? OCTAVIUS CAESAR MARK ANTONY LEPIDUS Show us the way, sir. POMPEY Come. Exeunt all but MENAS and ENOBARBUS MENAS Aside Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have made this treaty.--You and I have known, sir. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS At sea, I think. MENAS We have, sir. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS You have done well by water. MENAS And you by land. DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Yes, something you can deny for your own safety: you have been a great thief by sea. MENAS And you by land. DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS But there is never a fair woman has a true face. MENAS No slander; they steal hearts. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS We came hither to fight with you. MENAS For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking. Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS If he do, sure, he cannot weep't back again. MENAS You've said, sir. We looked not for Mark Antony here: pray you, is he married to Cleopatra? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Caesar's sister is called Octavia. MENAS True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius. MENAS Pray ye, sir? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS 'Tis true. MENAS Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together. DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS 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? DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I shall take it, sir: we have used our throats in Egypt. MENAS Come, let's away. Exeunt 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' the world will blow them down. Second Servant Lepidus is high-coloured. 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 the drink. First Servant But it raises the greater war between him and his discretion. Second Servant Why, this 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 partisan I could not heave. First Servant To be called 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 OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY, LEPIDUS, POMPEY, AGRIPPA, MECAENAS, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, MENAS, with other captains MARK ANTONY To OCTAVIUS CAESAR Thus do they, sir: they take the flow o' the Nile By certain scales i' the pyramid; they know, By the 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 You've strange serpents there. MARK ANTONY Ay, Lepidus. LEPIDUS Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun: so is your crocodile. MARK 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. DOMITIUS 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 Aside to MENAS Forbear me till anon. This wine for Lepidus! LEPIDUS What manner o' thing is your crocodile? MARK ANTONY It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad as it hath breadth: it is just so high as it is, and moves with its own organs: it lives by that which nourisheth it; and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates. LEPIDUS What colour is it of? MARK ANTONY Of it own colour too. LEPIDUS 'Tis a strange serpent. MARK ANTONY 'Tis so. And the tears of it are wet. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Will this description satisfy him? MARK 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 thou'rt mad. The matter? Rises, and walks aside MENAS I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes. POMPEY Thou hast served me with much faith. What's else to say? Be jolly, lords. MARK ANTONY These quick-sands, 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 thou think me poor, I am the man Will give thee all the world. POMPEY Hast thou drunk well? MENAS Now, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup. Thou art, if thou darest 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 villany; 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! MARK ANTONY Bear him ashore. I'll pledge it for him, Pompey. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Here's to thee, Menas! MENAS Enobarbus, welcome! POMPEY Fill till the cup be hid. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS There's a strong fellow, Menas. Pointing to the Attendant who carries off LEPIDUS MENAS Why? DOMITIUS 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! DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Drink thou; increase the reels. MENAS Come. POMPEY This is not yet an Alexandrian feast. MARK ANTONY It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels, ho? Here is to Caesar! OCTAVIUS CAESAR I could well forbear't. It's monstrous labour, when I wash my brain, And it grows fouler. MARK ANTONY Be a child o' the time. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Possess it, I'll make answer: But I had rather fast from all four days Than drink so much in one. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Ha, my brave emperor! To MARK ANTONY Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals, And celebrate our drink? POMPEY Let's ha't, good soldier. MARK ANTONY Come, let's all take hands, Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense In soft and delicate Lethe. DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS 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! OCTAVIUS 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. MARK 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Take heed you fall not. Exeunt all but DOMITIUS 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 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Ho! says a' There's my cap. MENAS Ho! Noble captain, come. Exeunt 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 Pleased 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 achieved by the minute, lost his favour. Who does i' the 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' the 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 SCENE II. Rome. An ante-chamber in OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house. Enter AGRIPPA at one door, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS at another AGRIPPA What, are the brothers parted? DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS A very fine one: O, how he loves Caesar! AGRIPPA Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony! DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Caesar? Why, he's the Jupiter of men. AGRIPPA What's Antony? The god of Jupiter. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Spake you of Caesar? How! the non-pareil! AGRIPPA O Antony! O thou Arabian bird! DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Would you praise Caesar, say 'Caesar:' go no further. AGRIPPA Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS But he loves Caesar best; yet he loves Antony: Ho! hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, bards, poets, cannot Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number, ho! His love to Antony. But as for Caesar, Kneel down, kneel down, and wonder. AGRIPPA Both he loves. DOMITIUS 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 OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY, LEPIDUS, and OCTAVIA MARK ANTONY No further, sir. OCTAVIUS 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 loved without this mean, if on both parts This be not cherish'd. MARK ANTONY Make me not offended In your distrust. OCTAVIUS CAESAR I have said. MARK 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. OCTAVIUS 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! MARK 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-- OCTAVIUS CAESAR What, Octavia? OCTAVIA I'll tell you in your ear. MARK 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 full of tide, And neither way inclines. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Aside to AGRIPPA Will Caesar weep? AGRIPPA Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS He has a cloud in 's face. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Aside to AGRIPPA He were the worse for that, were he a horse; So is he, being a man. AGRIPPA Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Why, Enobarbus, When Antony found Julius Caesar dead, He cried almost to roaring; and he wept When at Philippi he found Brutus slain. DOMITIUS 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 wept too. OCTAVIUS CAESAR No, sweet Octavia, You shall hear from me still; the time shall not Out-go my thinking on you. MARK 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Adieu; be happy! LEPIDUS Let all the number of the stars give light To thy fair way! OCTAVIUS CAESAR Farewell, farewell! Kisses OCTAVIA MARK ANTONY Farewell! Trumpets sound. Exeunt 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 pleased. 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-tongued or low? Messenger Madam, I heard her speak; she is low-voiced. 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 prepared. Exit 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 SCENE IV. Athens. A room in MARK ANTONY's house. Enter MARK ANTONY and OCTAVIA MARK ANTONY Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that,-- That were excusable, that, and thousands more Of semblable import,--but he hath waged New wars 'gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it To public ear: Spoke scantly 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 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 midway 'Twixt these extremes at all. MARK 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 mean time, 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. MARK 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 SCENE V. The same. Another room. Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS How now, friend Eros! EROS There's strange news come, sir. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS What, man? EROS Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey. DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS 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 murder'd Pompey. DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS 'Twill be naught: But let it be. Bring me to Antony. EROS Come, sir. Exeunt SCENE VI. Rome. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MECAENAS OCTAVIUS CAESAR Contemning Rome, he has done all this, and more, In Alexandria: here's the manner of 't: I' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd, Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold Were publicly enthroned: 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. MECAENAS This in the public eye? OCTAVIUS CAESAR I' the 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 the habiliments of the goddess Isis That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience, As 'tis reported, so. MECAENAS Let Rome be thus Inform'd. AGRIPPA Who, queasy with his insolence Already, will their good thoughts call from him. OCTAVIUS CAESAR The people know it; and have now received His accusations. AGRIPPA Who does he accuse? OCTAVIUS CAESAR Caesar: and that, having in Sicily Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him His part o' the isle: then does he say, he lent me Some shipping unrestored: lastly, he frets That Lepidus of the triumvirate Should be deposed; and, being, that we detain All his revenue. AGRIPPA Sir, this should be answer'd. OCTAVIUS CAESAR 'Tis done already, and the messenger gone. I have told him, Lepidus was grown too cruel; That he his high authority abused, 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, I Demand the like. MECAENAS He'll never yield to that. OCTAVIUS 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! OCTAVIUS CAESAR That ever I should call thee castaway! OCTAVIA You have not call'd me so, nor have you cause. OCTAVIUS 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 the 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, Raised 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 unloved; 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 On my free will. My lord, Mark Antony, Hearing that you prepared for war, acquainted My grieved ear withal; whereon, I begg'd His pardon for return. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Which soon he granted, Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him. OCTAVIA Do not say so, my lord. OCTAVIUS CAESAR I have eyes upon him, And his affairs come to me on the wind. Where is he now? OCTAVIA My lord, in Athens. OCTAVIUS 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' the earth for war; he hath assembled Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus, Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas; King Malchus of Arabia; King of Pont; Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king Of Comagene; Polemon and Amyntas, The kings of Mede and Lycaonia, With a more larger list of sceptres. OCTAVIA Ay me, most wretched, That have my heart parted betwixt two friends That do afflict each other! OCTAVIUS CAESAR Welcome hither: Your letters did withhold our breaking forth; Till we perceived, 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 determined things to destiny Hold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome; Nothing more dear to me. You are abused Beyond the mark of thought: and the high gods, To do you justice, make them ministers Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort; And ever welcome to us. AGRIPPA Welcome, lady. MECAENAS Welcome, dear madam. Each heart in Rome does love and pity you: Only the 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? OCTAVIUS CAESAR Most certain. Sister, welcome: pray you, Be ever known to patience: my dear'st sister! Exeunt SCENE VII. Near Actium. MARK ANTONY's camp. Enter CLEOPATRA and DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS CLEOPATRA I will be even with thee, doubt it not. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS But why, why, why? CLEOPATRA Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars, And say'st it is not fit. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Well, is it, is it? CLEOPATRA If not denounced against us, why should not we Be there in person? DOMITIUS 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? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Your presence needs must puzzle Antony; Take from his heart, take from his brain, from's time, What should not then be spared. He is already Traduced 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' the war, And, as the president of my kingdom, will Appear there for a man. Speak not against it: I will not stay behind. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Nay, I have done. Here comes the emperor. Enter MARK ANTONY and CANIDIUS MARK 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 admired Than by the negligent. MARK ANTONY A good rebuke, Which might have well becomed 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? MARK ANTONY For that he dares us to't. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS So hath my lord dared 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, be shakes off; And so should you. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Your ships are not well mann'd; Your mariners are muleters, 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 prepared for land. MARK ANTONY By sea, by sea. DOMITIUS 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 forego The way which promises assurance; and Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard, From firm security. MARK ANTONY I'll fight at sea. CLEOPATRA I have sixty sails, Caesar none better. MARK ANTONY Our overplus of shipping will we burn; And, with the rest full-mann'd, from the head of Actium Beat the 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. MARK ANTONY Can he be there in person? 'tis impossible; Strange that 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 the Egyptians And the Phoenicians go a-ducking; we Have used to conquer, standing on the earth, And fighting foot to foot. MARK ANTONY Well, well: away! Exeunt MARK ANTONY, QUEEN CLEOPATRA, and DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Soldier By Hercules, I think I am i' the 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 Beguiled 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 SCENE VIII. A plain near Actium. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, and TAURUS, with his army, marching OCTAVIUS CAESAR Taurus! TAURUS My lord? OCTAVIUS 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 SCENE IX. Another part of the plain. Enter MARK ANTONY and DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS MARK ANTONY Set we our squadrons on yond side o' the hill, In eye of Caesar's battle; from which place We may the number of the ships behold, And so proceed accordingly. Exeunt SCENE X. Another part of the plain. CANIDIUS marcheth with his land army one way over the stage; and TAURUS, the lieutenant of OCTAVIUS CAESAR, the other way. After their going in, is heard the noise of a sea-fight Alarum. Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Naught, naught all, naught! I can behold no longer: The 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! DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS 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' the midst o' the 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. DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS 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! DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I'll yet follow The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason Sits in the wind against me. Exeunt SCENE XI. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace. Enter MARK ANTONY with Attendants MARK ANTONY Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon't; It is ashamed 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. MARK ANTONY I have fled myself; and have instructed cowards To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone; I have myself resolved 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 straightway: 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! MARK ANTONY No, no, no, no, no. EROS See you here, sir? MARK ANTONY O fie, fie, fie! CHARMIAN Madam! IRAS Madam, O good empress! EROS Sir, sir,-- MARK 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 practise 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 him: O! EROS Most noble sir, arise; the queen approaches: Her head's declined, and death will seize her, but Your comfort makes the rescue. MARK ANTONY I have offended reputation, A most unnoble swerving. EROS Sir, the queen. MARK 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 follow'd. MARK ANTONY Egypt, thou knew'st too well My heart was to thy rudder tied by the 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! MARK 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' the world play'd as I pleased, 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! MARK 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 he 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 SCENE XII. Egypt. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, DOLABELLA, THYREUS, with others OCTAVIUS 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 off his wing, Which had superfluous kings for messengers Not many moons gone by. Enter EUPHRONIUS, ambassador from MARK ANTONY OCTAVIUS 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. OCTAVIUS 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. OCTAVIUS 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! OCTAVIUS CAESAR Bring him through the bands. Exit EUPHRONIUS To THYREUS To try 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. OCTAVIUS 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 SCENE XIII. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace. Enter CLEOPATRA, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, and IRAS CLEOPATRA What shall we do, Enobarbus? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Think, and die. CLEOPATRA Is Antony or we in fault for this? DOMITIUS 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 opposed, he being The meered question: 'twas a shame no less Than was his loss, to course your flying flags, And leave his navy gazing. CLEOPATRA Prithee, peace. Enter MARK ANTONY with EUPHRONIUS, the Ambassador MARK ANTONY Is that his answer? EUPHRONIUS Ay, my lord. MARK ANTONY The queen shall then have courtesy, so she Will yield us up. EUPHRONIUS He says so. MARK 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? MARK 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' the command of Caesar: I dare him therefore To lay his gay comparisons apart, And answer me declined, sword against sword, Ourselves alone. I'll write it: follow me. Exeunt MARK ANTONY and EUPHRONIUS DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Aside Yes, like enough, high-battled Caesar will Unstate his happiness, and be staged to the 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 subdued His judgment too. Enter an Attendant Attendant 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 Attendant DOMITIUS 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' the 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. DOMITIUS 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 deserved. CLEOPATRA He is a god, and knows What is most right: mine honour was not yielded, But conquer'd merely. DOMITIUS 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 desired 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 shrowd, 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 conquering 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 mused of taking kingdoms in, Bestow'd his lips on that unworthy place, As it rain'd kisses. Re-enter MARK ANTONY and DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS MARK 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Aside You will be whipp'd. MARK 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 Attendants Take hence this Jack, and whip him. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Aside 'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp Than with an old one dying. MARK 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. THYREUS Mark Antony! MARK ANTONY Tug him away: being whipp'd, Bring him again: this Jack of Caesar's shall Bear us an errand to him. Exeunt Attendants 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 abused By one that looks on feeders? CLEOPATRA Good my lord,-- MARK 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? MARK 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, Unregister'd 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? MARK 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 Attendants with THYREUS Is he whipp'd? First Attendant Soundly, my lord. MARK ANTONY Cried he? and begg'd a' pardon? First Attendant He did ask favour. MARK 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 whipp'd 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 the 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, begone! Exit THYREUS CLEOPATRA Have you done yet? MARK ANTONY Alack, our terrene moon Is now eclipsed; and it portends alone The fall of Antony! CLEOPATRA I must stay his time. MARK ANTONY To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes With one that ties his points? CLEOPATRA Not know me yet? MARK 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! MARK 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 too Have knit again, and fleet, threatening 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! MARK ANTONY I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breathed, 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 birth-day: I had thought to have held it poor: but, since my lord Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra. MARK ANTONY We will yet do well. CLEOPATRA Call all his noble captains to my lord. MARK 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 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS DOMITIUS 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 IV SCENE I. Before Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MECAENAS, with his Army; OCTAVIUS CAESAR reading a letter OCTAVIUS CAESAR He calls me boy; and chides, as he had power To beat me out of Egypt; my messenger He hath whipp'd 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. MECAENAS 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. OCTAVIUS 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 served 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 SCENE II. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace. Enter MARK ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, with others MARK ANTONY He will not fight with me, Domitius. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS No. MARK ANTONY Why should he not? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune, He is twenty men to one. MARK 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? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I'll strike, and cry 'Take all.' MARK 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 hast been rightly honest;--so hast thou;-- Thou,--and thou,--and thou:--you have served me well, And kings have been your fellows. CLEOPATRA Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS What means this? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Aside to CLEOPATRA 'Tis one of those odd tricks which sorrow shoots Out of the mind. MARK 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. All The gods forbid! MARK 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 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS What does he mean? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Aside to CLEOPATRA To make his followers weep. MARK 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! DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS What mean you, sir, To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep; And I, an ass, am onion-eyed: for shame, Transform us not to women. MARK 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 SCENE III. The same. Before the palace. Enter two Soldiers to their guard 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. Enter two other Soldiers Second Soldier Soldiers, have careful watch. Third Soldier And you. Good night, good night. They place themselves in every corner of the stage Fourth 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 as under the stage Fourth Soldier Peace! what noise? First Soldier List, list! Second Soldier Hark! First Soldier Music i' the air. Third Soldier Under the earth. Fourth Soldier It signs well, does it not? Third Soldier No. First Soldier Peace, I say! What should this mean? Second Soldier 'Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved, Now leaves him. First Soldier Walk; let's see if other watchmen Do hear what we do? They advance to another post Second Soldier How now, masters! All 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. All Content. 'Tis strange. Exeunt SCENE IV. The same. A room in the palace. Enter MARK ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, and others attending MARK ANTONY Eros! mine armour, Eros! CLEOPATRA Sleep a little. MARK 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? MARK 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. MARK 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? MARK 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. Trumpets flourish Enter Captains and Soldiers Captain The morn is fair. Good morrow, general. All Good morrow, general. MARK 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 Kisses her And worthy shameful cheque 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 MARK 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 SCENE V. Alexandria. MARK ANTONY's camp. Trumpets sound. Enter MARK ANTONY and EROS; a Soldier meeting them Soldier The gods make this a happy day to Antony! MARK 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 Follow'd thy heels. MARK 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.' MARK ANTONY What say'st thou? Soldier Sir, He is with Caesar. EROS Sir, his chests and treasure He has not with him. MARK ANTONY Is he gone? Soldier Most certain. MARK 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 SCENE VI. Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp. Flourish. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, with DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, and others OCTAVIUS CAESAR Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight: Our will is Antony be took alive; Make it so known. AGRIPPA Caesar, I shall. Exit OCTAVIUS CAESAR The time of universal peace is near: Prove this a prosperous day, the three-nook'd world Shall bear the olive freely. Enter a Messenger Messenger Antony Is come into the field. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Go charge Agrippa Plant those that have revolted in the van, That Antony may seem to spend his fury Upon himself. Exeunt all but DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Alexas did revolt; and went to Jewry on Affairs of Antony; there did persuade Great Herod to incline himself to Caesar, And leave his master Antony: for this pains Caesar 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I give it you. Soldier Mock not, Enobarbus. I tell you true: best you safed the bringer Out of the host; I must attend mine office, Or would have done't myself. Your emperor Continues still a Jove. Exit DOMITIUS 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 SCENE VII. Field of battle between the camps. Alarum. Drums and trumpets. Enter AGRIPPA and others AGRIPPA Retire, we have engaged ourselves too far: Caesar himself has work, and our oppression Exceeds what we expected. Exeunt Alarums. Enter MARK 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. MARK ANTONY Thou bleed'st apace. SCARUS I had a wound here that was like a T, But now 'tis made an H. MARK 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. MARK ANTONY I will reward thee Once for thy spritely comfort, and ten-fold For thy good valour. Come thee on. SCARUS I'll halt after. Exeunt SCENE VIII. Under the walls of Alexandria. Alarum. Enter MARK ANTONY, in a march; SCARUS, with others MARK 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 escaped. I thank you all; For doughty-handed are you, and have fought Not as you served 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. To SCARUS Give me thy hand Enter CLEOPATRA, attended To this great fairy I'll commend thy acts, Make her thanks bless thee. To CLEOPATRA O thou day o' the 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, comest thou smiling from The world's great snare uncaught? MARK ANTONY My 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 Destroy'd in such a shape. CLEOPATRA I'll give thee, friend, An armour all of gold; it was a king's. MARK ANTONY He has deserved 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 rattling tabourines; That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together, Applauding our approach. Exeunt SCENE IX. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp. Sentinels at their post First Soldier If we be not relieved within this hour, We must return to the court of guard: the night Is shiny; and they say we shall embattle By the second hour i' the morn. Second Soldier This last day was A shrewd one to's. Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS O, bear me witness, night,-- Third Soldier What man is this? Second Soldier Stand close, and list him. DOMITIUS 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! First Soldier Enobarbus! Third Soldier Peace! Hark further. DOMITIUS 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 Second Soldier Let's speak To him. First Soldier Let's hear him, for the things he speaks May concern Caesar. Third Soldier Let's do so. But he sleeps. First Soldier Swoons rather; for so bad a prayer as his Was never yet for sleep. Second Soldier Go we to him. Third Soldier Awake, sir, awake; speak to us. Second Soldier Hear you, sir? First Soldier The hand of death hath raught him. Drums afar off Hark! the drums Demurely wake the sleepers. Let us bear him To the court of guard; he is of note: our hour Is fully out. Third Soldier Come on, then; He may recover yet. Exeunt with the body SCENE X. Between the two camps. Enter MARK ANTONY and SCARUS, with their Army MARK ANTONY Their preparation is to-day by sea; We please them not by land. SCARUS For both, my lord. MARK ANTONY I would they'ld fight i' the fire or i' the air; We'ld 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 SCENE XI. Another part of the same. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, and his Army OCTAVIUS CAESAR But being charged, 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 SCENE XII. Another part of the same. Enter MARK ANTONY and SCARUS MARK 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 MARK ANTONY MARK 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 revenged 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 gipsy, hath, at fast and loose, Beguiled me to the very heart of loss. What, Eros, Eros! Enter CLEOPATRA Ah, thou spell! Avaunt! CLEOPATRA Why is my lord enraged against his love? MARK 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 thou'rt 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' the 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 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 the 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 the 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 the monument! Exeunt SCENE XIV. The same. Another room. Enter MARK ANTONY and EROS MARK ANTONY Eros, thou yet behold'st me? EROS Ay, noble lord. MARK ANTONY Sometimes 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, MARK 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. MARK 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 more, 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 loved thee, and her fortunes mingled With thine entirely. MARK 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 discharged: 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 render'd life, Thy name so buried in her. MARK ANTONY Dead, then? MARDIAN Dead. MARK ANTONY Unarm, Eros; the long day's task is done, And we must sleep. To MARDIAN That thou depart'st hence safe, Does pay thy labour richly; go. Exit MARDIAN Off, pluck off: The seven-fold 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? MARK ANTONY Since Cleopatra died, I have lived 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 The inevitable prosecution of Disgrace and horror, that, on my command, Thou then wouldst kill me: do't; the time is come: Thou strikest 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? MARK 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 subdued 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. MARK ANTONY Come, then; for with a wound I must be cured. Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn Most useful for thy country. EROS O, sir, pardon me! MARK ANTONY When I did make thee free, sworest thou not then To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once; Or thy precedent services are all But accidents unpurposed. Draw, and come. EROS Turn from me, then, that noble countenance, Wherein the worship of the whole world lies. MARK ANTONY Lo thee! Turning from him EROS My sword is drawn. MARK 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. MARK ANTONY 'Tis said, man; and farewell. EROS Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now? MARK ANTONY Now, Eros. EROS Why, there then: thus I do escape the sorrow Of Antony's death. Kills himself MARK 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 Guard First Guard What's the noise? MARK ANTONY I have done my work in, 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! MARK 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 MARK 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. MARK ANTONY When did she send thee? DIOMEDES Now, my lord. MARK 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 disposed with Caesar, and that your rage Would not be purged, 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. MARK 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 MARK ANTONY MARK 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! MARK 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, bearing MARK ANTONY SCENE XV. The same. 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, below, DIOMEDES How now! is he dead? DIOMEDES His death's upon him, but not dead. Look out o' the other side your monument; His guard have brought him thither. Enter, below, MARK ANTONY, borne by the Guard CLEOPATRA O sun, Burn the great sphere thou movest in! darkling stand The varying shore o' the world. O Antony, Antony, Antony! Help, Charmian, help, Iras, help; Help, friends below; let's draw him hither. MARK 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! MARK ANTONY I am dying, Egypt, dying; only I here importune death awhile, until Of many thousand kisses the poor last I lay up thy lips. CLEOPATRA I dare not, dear,-- Dear my lord, pardon,--I dare not, Lest I be taken: not the imperious show Of the full-fortuned 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. MARK 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,-- Wishes were ever fools,--O, come, come, come; They heave MARK ANTONY aloft to CLEOPATRA And welcome, welcome! die where thou hast lived: Quicken with kissing: had my lips that power, Thus would I wear them out. All A heavy sight! MARK 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 housewife Fortune break her wheel, Provoked by my offence. MARK ANTONY One word, sweet queen: Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. O! CLEOPATRA They do not go together. MARK ANTONY Gentle, hear me: None about Caesar trust but Proculeius. CLEOPATRA My resolution and my hands I'll trust; None about Caesar. MARK 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 lived, the greatest prince o' the 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, MARK ANTONY dies The crown o' the 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. Faints CHARMIAN O, quietness, lady! IRAS She is 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 naught; Patience is scottish, 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 bearing off MARK ANTONY's body ACT V SCENE I. Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, MECAENAS, GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, and others, his council of war OCTAVIUS 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 MARK ANTONY OCTAVIUS CAESAR Wherefore is that? and what art thou that darest Appear thus to us? DERCETAS I am call'd Dercetas; Mark Antony I served, who best was worthy Best to be served: 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR What is't thou say'st? DERCETAS I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead. OCTAVIUS 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. OCTAVIUS 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. MECAENAS His taints and honours Waged 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. MECAENAS When such a spacious mirror's set before him, He needs must see himself. OCTAVIUS 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-- But I will tell you at some meeter season: Enter an Egyptian 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, Confined in all she has, her monument, Of thy intents desires instruction, That she preparedly may frame herself To the way she's forced to. OCTAVIUS 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 live To be ungentle. Egyptian So the gods preserve thee! Exit OCTAVIUS 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 of her. PROCULEIUS Caesar, I shall. Exit OCTAVIUS CAESAR Gallus, go you along. Exit GALLUS Where's Dolabella, To second Proculeius? All Dolabella! OCTAVIUS 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 SCENE II. Alexandria. A room in the monument. Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, and IRAS 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 greeting 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 deceived, 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; You're 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' the face. PROCULEIUS This I'll report, dear lady. Have comfort, for I know your plight is pitied Of him that caused it. GALLUS You see how easily she may be surprised: Here PROCULEIUS and two of the Guard ascend the monument by a ladder placed against a window, and, having descended, come behind CLEOPATRA. Some of the Guard unbar and open the gates To PROCULEIUS and the Guard 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: Seizes and disarms her Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this Relieved, 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 The 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 Worthy 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 chastised 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 naked, 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 dream'd 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 heavens; 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 lived 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 dream'd of? DOLABELLA Gentle madam, no. CLEOPATRA You lie, up to the hearing of the gods. But, if there be, or ever were, one such, It's past the size of dreaming: nature wants stuff To vie strange forms with fancy; yet, to imagine And 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 pursued 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, and shout within, 'Make way there: Octavius Caesar!' Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, MECAENAS, SELEUCUS, and others of his Train OCTAVIUS CAESAR Which is the Queen of Egypt? DOLABELLA It is the emperor, madam. CLEOPATRA kneels OCTAVIUS 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. OCTAVIUS 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' the 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 shamed our sex. OCTAVIUS 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. OCTAVIUS 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 reserved 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Nay, blush not, Cleopatra; I approve Your wisdom in the deed. CLEOPATRA See, Caesar! O, behold, How pomp is follow'd! 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 hired! 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! OCTAVIUS 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 reserved, 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 the ashes of my chance: wert thou a man, Thou wouldst have mercy on me. OCTAVIUS 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Cleopatra, Not what you have reserved, nor what acknowledged, Put we i' the 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! OCTAVIUS CAESAR Not so. Adieu. Flourish. Exeunt OCTAVIUS 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 is 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, shalt 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 be enclouded, And forced 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' the posture of a whore. IRAS O the good gods! CLEOPATRA Nay, that's certain. IRAS I'll never see 't; for, I am sure, my nails Are stronger than mine eyes. CLEOPATRA Why, that's the way To fool their preparation, and to conquer Their most absurd intents. Re-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. Wherefore's this noise? Exit IRAS. A noise within Enter a Guardsman Guard 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 placed, 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, with Clown bringing in a basket Guard 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 Rememberest 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' the worm; but he that will believe all that they say, shall never be saved by half that they do: but this is most fallible, the worm's an odd worm. CLEOPATRA Get thee hence; farewell. Clown I wish you all joy of the worm. Setting down his 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 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' the 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 thou and nature can so gently part, The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, Which hurts, and is desired. Dost thou lie still? If thus 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 is 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 beguiled. 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 princess Descended of so many royal kings. Ah, soldier! 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 OCTAVIUS CAESAR and all his train marching DOLABELLA O sir, you are too sure an augurer; That you did fear is done. OCTAVIUS 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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Poison'd, then. First Guard O Caesar, This Charmian lived 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. OCTAVIUS 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 the aspic leaves Upon the caves of Nile. OCTAVIUS CAESAR Most probable That so she died; for her physician tells me She hath pursued 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 All's Well That Ends Well

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 Dramatis Personae KING OF FRANCE DUKE OF FLORENCE BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon. LAFEU, an old lord. PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram. Steward Clown servants to the Countess of Rousillon. A Page. COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, mother to Bertram. HELENA, a gentlewoman protected by the Countess. An old Widow of Florence. DIANA, daughter to the Widow. VIOLENTA MARIANA neighbours and friends to the Widow. Lords, Officers, Soldiers, c., French and Florentine. SCENE Rousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT I SCENE I. 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 abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose practises 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 stretched 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 called 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 lived 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 have it. 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 cheque'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 To HELENA The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be servants to you! 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. The ambition in my love thus plagues itself: The hind that would be mated by the lion Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though 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 reliques. 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 fixed evils sit so fit in him, That they take place, when virtue's steely bones Look bleak i' the 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, sitting 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 loose 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 tooth-pick, 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 withered pears, it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a withered 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 Return us thanks. Enter Page Page Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. Exit 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 Mars? HELENA The wars have 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 businesses, 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 So 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 SCENE II. 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 the ears; Have fought with equal fortune and continue A braving war. First Lord So 'tis reported, sir. KING Nay, 'tis most credible; we here received 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, Approved 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 composed 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 awaked 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 used 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, follow'd 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 are 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 famed. 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 SCENE III. 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 damned: 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 barnes 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 You're 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 severed in religion, their heads are both one; they may jowl horns together, like any deer i' the herd. COUNTESS Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed 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 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' the song: would God would serve the world so all the year! we'ld 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 but one 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 bequeathed 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 wished me: alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touched 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; Dian no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surprised, without rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward. This she delivered 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 discharged this honestly; keep it to yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tottering 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 distemper'd 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 honour'd 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 mystery of your loneliness, and find Your salt tears' head: now to all sense 'tis gross You love my son; invention is ashamed, 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 behaviors 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, 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 loved 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 proved 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, approved, 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 left off The danger to itself? HELENA There's something in't, More than my father's skill, which was the greatest Of his profession, that his good receipt Shall for my legacy be sanctified By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour But give me leave to try success, I'ld 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 I. Paris. The KING's palace. Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING, attended with divers young Lords taking leave for the Florentine war; BERTRAM, and PAROLLES KING Farewell, young lords; these warlike 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 received, And is enough for both. First Lord 'Tis our hope, sir, After well enter'd 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 loud: 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. Come hither to me. Exit, 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 'the 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 tortured 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 entrenched it: say to him, I live; and observe his reports for me. First Lord We shall, noble captain. Exeunt Lords PAROLLES Mars dote on you for his novices! what will ye do? BERTRAM Stay: the king. Re-enter KING. BERTRAM and PAROLLES retire PAROLLES To BERTRAM Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have restrained 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 received 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 cured 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 arrived, 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 amazed 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 thee May spend our wonder too, or take off thine By wondering how thou took'st it. LAFEU Nay, I'll fit you, And not be all day neither. Exit 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 practise, And of his old experience the oily 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 inaidible 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 a 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 used 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 Are thou so confident? within what space Hopest thou my cure? HELENA The great'st 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 darest thou venture? HELENA Tax of impudence, A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame Traduced by odious ballads: my maiden's name Sear'd otherwise; nay, worse--if worse--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 deserved: 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 observed, Thy will by my performance shall be served: So make the choice of thy own time, for I, Thy resolved 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 camest, 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 meed. Flourish. Exeunt SCENE II. 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 taffeta punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen 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 whipped, 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 things may serve long, but not serve ever. COUNTESS I play the noble housewife with the time To entertain't 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 severally SCENE III. 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. LAFEU Both of Galen and Paracelsus. PAROLLES So I say. 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 helped,-- PAROLLES Right; as 'twere, a man assured 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 you call there? LAFEU 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-- pausing and debile minister, great power, great transcendence: which should, indeed, give us a further use to be made than alone the recovery of the king, as to be-- pausing generally thankful. PAROLLES I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king. Enter KING, HELENA, and Attendants. LAFEU and PAROLLES retire 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. Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side; And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense Thou hast repeal'd, a second time receive The confirmation of my promised 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'ld 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 restored 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 threateningly 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 whipped; or I would send them to the 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 raised 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 dislikest, A poor physician's daughter, thou dislikest 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 foregoers: the mere word's a slave Debosh'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 restored, 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. Cheque 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 lovest her, Thy love's to me religious; else, does err. Exeunt all but LAFEU and PAROLLES LAFEU Advancing 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 burthen. 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't 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, deserved it. LAFEU Yes, good faith, every dram of it; and I will not bate thee a scruple. PAROLLES Well, I shall be wiser. LAFEU Even as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack o' the 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 of--I'll beat him, an 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 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'ld beat thee: methinks, 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'ld call you knave. I leave you. Exit PAROLLES Good, very good; it is so then: good, very good; let it be concealed awhile. Re-enter BERTRAM BERTRAM Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever! PAROLLES What's the matter, sweet-heart? BERTRAM Although before the solemn priest I have sworn, I will not bed her. PAROLLES What, what, sweet-heart? 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 the wars! BERTRAM There's letters from my mother: what the import is, I know not yet. PAROLLES Ay, that would be known. To the wars, my boy, to the 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 the 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 SCENE IV. 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', the 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! thou'rt a knave. Clown You should have said, sir, before a knave thou'rt a knave; that's, before me thou'rt 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 will else? PAROLLES That you will take your instant leave o' the king And make this haste as your own good proceeding, Strengthen'd 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 every thing I wait upon his will. PAROLLES I shall report it so. HELENA I pray you. Exit PAROLLES Come, sirrah. Exeunt SCENE V. 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 sinned against his experience and transgressed 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, I, 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 leaped 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 kernel 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 procured 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. Prepared I was not For such a business; therefore am I found So much unsettled: this drives me to entreat you That presently you take our 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 I. Florence. The DUKE's palace. Flourish. Enter the DUKE of Florence attended; the two Frenchmen, with a troop of soldiers. DUKE So that from point to point now have you heard 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 the field. Flourish. Exeunt SCENE II. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. Enter COUNTESS and Clown COUNTESS It hath happened 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' the country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o' the court: the brains of my Cupid's knocked 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 misprising 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 killed so soon as I thought he would. COUNTESS Why should he be killed? 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 two Gentlemen First Gentleman Save you, good madam. HELENA Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone. Second 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? Second 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 his 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 pain. 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? Second Gentleman Ay, madam. COUNTESS And to be a soldier? Second 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? First 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. First 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? First Gentleman A servant only, and a gentleman Which I have sometime known. COUNTESS Parolles, was it not? First 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. First Gentleman Indeed, good lady, The fellow has a deal of that too much, Which holds him much to have. COUNTESS You're 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. Second 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 I That chase thee from thy country and expose Those tender limbs of thine to the event Of the none-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-peering 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 officed 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 SCENE III. 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 the 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 SCENE IV. 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 fervor 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'erta'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 SCENE V. Florence. Without the walls. A tucket afar off. Enter an old Widow of Florence, 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 greatest 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 threaten 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. Widow I hope so. Enter HELENA, disguised like a Pilgrim 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 you 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? Widow Ay, marry, is't. A march afar 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 lodged; 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 Whatsome'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 examined. DIANA Alas, poor lady! 'Tis a hard bondage to become the wife Of a detesting lord. Widow I warrant, good creature, wheresoe'er she is, Her heart weighs sadly: this young maid might do her A shrewd turn, if she pleased. 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. MARIANA The gods forbid else! Widow So, now they come: Drum and Colours Enter BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and the whole army 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 loved 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' the battle. PAROLLES Lose our drum! well. MARIANA He's shrewdly vexed 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 SCENE VI. 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 hilding, 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 any thing. 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 Aside to BERTRAM 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 blamed 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 your 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 thou'rt valiant; and, to the possibility 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 damned 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 embossed 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 smoked 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' the 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 SCENE VII. 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 fallen, 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 You're 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 wooes your daughter, Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty, Resolved 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 passed 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 composed 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 I. 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 the 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 hast 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' the 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 knocked too 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 butter-woman'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 stripped. Second Lord Hardly serve. PAROLLES Though I swore I leaped 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 recovered it. Second Lord You shall hear one anon. PAROLLES A drum now of the enemy's,-- Alarum within Second Lord Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo. All Cargo, cargo, cargo, villiando par corbo, cargo. PAROLLES O, ransom, ransom! do not hide mine eyes. They seize and 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, with 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 SCENE II. 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 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 stem; 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 thee 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 God's great attributes, I loved 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 recover: 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' the 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' the 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 SCENE III. The Florentine camp. Enter the two French Lords and some two or three Soldiers First Lord You have not given him his mother's letter? Second Lord I have delivered it an hour since: there is something in't that stings his nature; for on the reading it he changed almost into another man. First Lord He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking off so good a wife and so sweet a lady. Second Lord Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure of the king, who had even tuned his bounty to sing happiness to him. I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly with you. First Lord When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave of it. Second 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. First Lord Now, God delay our rebellion! as we are ourselves, what things are we! Second 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 abhorred ends, so he that in this action contrives against his own nobility, in his proper stream o'erflows himself. First Lord Is it not meant damnable in us, to be trumpeters of our unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company to-night? Second Lord Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour. First Lord That approaches apace; I would gladly have him see his company anatomized, that he might take a measure of his own judgments, wherein so curiously he had set this counterfeit. Second Lord We will not meddle with him till he come; for his presence must be the whip of the other. First Lord In the mean time, what hear you of these wars? Second Lord I hear there is an overture of peace. First Lord Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded. Second Lord What will Count Rousillon do then? will he travel higher, or return again into France? First Lord I perceive, by this demand, you are not altogether of his council. Second Lord Let it be forbid, sir; so should I be a great deal of his act. First 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 accomplished; 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. Second Lord How is this justified? First 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 confirmed by the rector of the place. Second Lord Hath the count all this intelligence? First Lord Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from point, so to the full arming of the verity. Second Lord I am heartily sorry that he'll be glad of this. First Lord How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our losses! Second Lord And how mightily some other times we drown our gain in tears! The great dignity that his valour hath here acquired for him shall at home be encountered with a shame as ample. First Lord The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished 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 dispatched sixteen businesses, a month's length a-piece, by an abstract of success: I have congied with the duke, done my adieu with his nearest; buried a wife, mourned for her; writ to my lady mother I am returning; entertained 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, he has deceived me, like a double-meaning prophesier. Second Lord Bring him forth: has sat i' the stocks all night, poor gallant knave. BERTRAM No matter: his heels have deserved 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 confessed 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' the stocks: and what think you he hath confessed? 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 BERTRAM A plague upon him! muffled! he can say nothing of me: hush, hush! First Lord Hoodman comes! Portotartarosa 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. First 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 Reads '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! First Lord You're deceived, 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 practise in the chape of his dagger. Second Lord I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword clean. nor believe he can have every thing 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. First 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 Reads '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 and fifty each; mine own company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred and 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 snow from off their cassocks, lest they shake themselves to pieces. BERTRAM What shall be done to him? First 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. Reads 'You shall demand of him, whether one Captain Dumain be i' the camp, a Frenchman; what his reputation is with the duke; what his valour, honesty, and expertness in wars; or whether he thinks it were not possible, with well-weighing sums of gold, to corrupt him to 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 whipped 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. First 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' the 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. First 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 vowed to thee in thine ear, PAROLLES.' BERTRAM He shall be whipped through the army with this rhyme in's forehead. Second Lord This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist and the armipotent soldier. BERTRAM I could endure any thing before but a cat, and now he's a cat to me. First Soldier I perceive, sir, by the 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' the stocks, or any where, 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 answered 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 bed-clothes 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 every thing that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should have, he has nothing. First 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, he has led the drum before the English tragedians; to belie him, I will not, and more of his soldiership 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. First Lord He hath out-villained villany 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 quart d'ecu he will sell the fee-simple of his salvation, the inheritance of it; and cut the entail from all remainders, and a perpetual succession for it perpetually. First Soldier What's his brother, the other Captain Dumain? Second Lord Why does be ask him of me? First Soldier What's he? PAROLLES E'en a crow o' the 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 discovered 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, off with his head. PAROLLES O Lord, sir, let me live, or let me see my death! First Lord That shall you, and take your leave of all your friends. Unblinding him So, look about you: know you any here? BERTRAM Good morrow, noble captain. Second Lord God bless you, Captain Parolles. First Lord God save you, noble captain. Second Lord Captain, what greeting will you to my Lord Lafeu? I am for France. First 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'ld 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 crushed 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 foolery thrive! There's place and means for every man alive. I'll after them. Exit SCENE IV. Florence. 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 wagon is prepared, 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 SCENE V. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. Enter COUNTESS, LAFEU, and Clown LAFEU No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow there, whose villanous saffron would have made all the unbaked 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 advanced by the king than by that red-tailed 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 salads ere we light on such another herb. Clown Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the salad, or rather, the herb of grace. LAFEU They are not 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 talkest 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 flowery 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 looked 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 he 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 promised 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 numbered thirty: he will be here to-morrow, or I am deceived by him that in such intelligence hath seldom failed. 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 till 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 livery of honour; so belike is that. Clown But it is your carbonadoed 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 I. 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. In happy time; Enter a Gentleman 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 fallen From the report that goes upon your goodness; An 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 removed 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 SCENE II. Rousillon. Before the COUNT's palace. Enter Clown, and PAROLLES, following 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 speakest of: I will henceforth eat no fish of fortune's buttering. 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 purr of fortune's, sir, or of fortune's cat,--but not a musk-cat,--that has fallen 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 scratched. 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 quart d'ecu 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 thee 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 SCENE III. 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' the 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 reconciled, 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 we do bury The 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 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 set 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 The 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 a 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 stolen; Extended or contracted all proportions To a most hideous object: thence it came That she whom all men praised and whom myself, Since I have lost, have loved, was in mine eye The dust that did offend it. KING Well excused: 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 shame full late 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 every 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 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 deceived, 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 engaged: but when I had subscribed 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 ceased In heavy satisfaction and would never Receive the ring again. KING Plutus himself, That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine, 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 makest 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 yet she 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 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 discovery. Seek these suitors: Go speedily and bring again the count. I am afeard the life of Helen, lady, Was foully snatch'd. COUNTESS Now, justice on the doers! Re-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 Your reputation comes too short for my daughter; you are no husband for her. BERTRAM My lord, this is a fond and desperate 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' the camp, If I be one. COUNTESS He blushes, and 'tis it: Of six preceding ancestors, that gem, Conferr'd by testament to the sequent issue, Hath it been owed 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' the world tax'd and debosh'd; Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth. Am I or that or this for what he'll utter, That will speak any thing? KING She hath that ring of yours. BERTRAM I think she has: certain it is I liked her, And boarded her i' the 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, Subdued 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 stars 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 the 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 loved her, sir, and loved 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 promised me marriage? PAROLLES Faith, I know more than I'll speak. KING But wilt thou not speak all thou knowest? 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 talked 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 off 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 accused 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. 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 abused me, as he knows himself, Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him: He knows himself my bed he hath defiled; 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,' c. 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 courtesies 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 be'st 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 keep'st a wife herself, thyself a maid. Of that and all the progress, more or 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 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 As You Like It

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 Dramatis Personae DUKE SENIOR, living in banishment. DUKE FREDERICK, his brother, an usurper of his dominions. AMIENS JAQUES lords attending on the banished duke. LE BEAU, a courtier attending upon Frederick. CHARLES, wrestler to Frederick. OLIVER JAQUES ORLANDO sons of Sir Rowland de Boys. ADAM DENNIS servants to Oliver. TOUCHSTONE, a clown. SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a vicar. CORIN SILVIUS shepherds. WILLIAM, a country fellow in love with Audrey. A person representing HYMEN. ROSALIND, daughter to the banished duke. CELIA, daughter to Frederick. PHEBE, a shepherdess. AUDREY, a country wench. Lords, pages, and attendants, c. SCENE Oliver's house; Duke Frederick's court; and the Forest of Arden. AS YOU LIKE IT 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 sayest, 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 hired: 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. ADAM Yonder comes my master, your brother. ORLANDO Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up. Enter OLIVER 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 naught 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 your 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! 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 pulled out thy tongue for saying so: thou hast railed on thyself. ADAM 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 charged you in his will to give me good education: you have trained 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 will 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 Was 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 disguised 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 a 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 villanous 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 villanous 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! OLIVER Farewell, good Charles. Exit 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 schooled 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. Lawn before the Duke's palace. Enter CELIA and ROSALIND 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 lovest 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 tempered 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 dulness 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 is 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 pancakes or that mustard. CELIA Prithee, who is't that thou meanest? 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 whipped 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. 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-crammed. CELIA All the better; we shall be the more marketable. Enter LE BEAU 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 decree. 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 You 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 served 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 DUKE 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. DUKE FREDERICK How now, daughter and cousin! are you crept hither to see the wrestling? ROSALIND Ay, my liege, so please you give us leave. DUKE 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. DUKE FREDERICK Do so: I'll not be by. LE BEAU Monsieur the challenger, the princesses call for you. ORLANDO I attend them with all respect and duty. ROSALIND Young man, have you challenged 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 foiled, there is but one shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that was 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 deceived 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. DUKE 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 An you mean to mock me after, you should not have mocked 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. Shout. CHARLES is thrown DUKE FREDERICK No more, no more. ORLANDO Yes, I beseech your grace: I am not yet well breathed. DUKE FREDERICK How dost thou, Charles? LE BEAU He cannot speak, my lord. DUKE FREDERICK Bear him away. What is thy name, young man? ORLANDO Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys. DUKE 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 pleased 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 FREDERICK, 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 loved 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 ventured. 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 deserved: 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 urged 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 deserved 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 lesser 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. A room in the 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 lamed 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 loved 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? 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. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords DUKE FREDERICK Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste And get you from our court. ROSALIND Me, uncle? DUKE FREDERICK You, cousin Within these ten days if that thou be'st 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. DUKE 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. DUKE 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. DUKE FREDERICK Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake, Else had she with her father ranged 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 wheresoever we went, like Juno's swans, Still we went coupled and inseparable. DUKE 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. DUKE 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 FREDERICK 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 grieved 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 sunder'd? 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 change 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 but 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 every thing. 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 gored. 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 sequester'd stag, That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord, The wretched animal heaved forth such groans That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat Almost to bursting, and the big round tears Coursed one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, Stood on the 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 makest a testament As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more To that which had too much:' then, being there alone, Left and abandon'd 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. A room in the palace. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords DUKE 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 untreasured 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. DUKE 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 priser 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 practises. 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 boisterous 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 saved 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; And 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 prunest a rotten tree, That cannot so much as a blossom yield In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry But come thy ways; well 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 thee, To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. From seventeen years till now almost fourscore 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 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. ROSALIND Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Enter CORIN and SILVIUS 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 loved 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 ne'er love so heartily! If thou remember'st not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not loved: Or if thou hast not sat as I do now, Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise, Thou hast not loved: Or if thou hast not broke from company Abruptly, as my passion now makes me, Thou hast not loved. O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe! Exit 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 batlet and the cow's dugs that her pretty chopt hands had milked; and I remember the wooing of a 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 speakest 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 kinsman. 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 succor. 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. 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 the encounter of two dog-apes, and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks I 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 too 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. Who doth ambition shun All together here And loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats And pleased 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 prepared. 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 any thing 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 thee 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 lookest 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 any thing 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 no where 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' the 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 anatomized Even by the squandering 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 the 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 the embossed sores and headed evils, That thou with licence 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 weary 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 of 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 served. 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 am 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 answered 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 wiped 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 wiped our eyes Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd: And therefore sit you down in gentleness And take upon command what help we have That to your wanting may be minister'd. 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 sufficed, 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. And 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 lined, 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 saved, 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 everything. Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM DUKE SENIOR Welcome. Set down your venerable burthen, 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. AMIENS 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 remember'd 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 loved 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. A room in the palace. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, and OLIVER DUKE 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 brothers mouth Of what we think against thee. OLIVER O that your highness knew my heart in this! I never loved my brother in my life. DUKE 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 naught. 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 is it 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 damned. CORIN Nay, I hope. TOUCHSTONE Truly, thou art damned 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 sawest good manners; if thou never sawest 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 behavior 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 tarred over with the surgery of our sheep: and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier's hands are perfumed with civet. TOUCHSTONE Most shallow man! thou worms-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 damned? 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 a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not damned 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, with a paper, reading ROSALIND From the east to western Ind, No jewel is like Rosalind. Her worth, being mounted on the wind, Through all the world bears Rosalind. All the pictures fairest lined Are but black to Rosalind. Let no fair be kept in mind But the fair of Rosalind. 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 Rosalind. If the cat will after kind, So be sure will Rosalind. Winter garments must be lined, So must slender Rosalind. They that reap must sheaf and bind; Then to cart with Rosalind. Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, Such a nut is Rosalind. He that sweetest rose will find Must find love's prick and Rosalind. 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' the 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 Reads 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 stretching 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 charged That one body should be fill'd With all graces wide-enlarged: Nature presently distill'd Helen's cheek, but not her heart, Cleopatra's majesty, Atalanta's better part, Sad Lucretia's modesty. Thus Rosalind of many parts By heavenly synod was devised, Of many faces, eyes and hearts, To have the touches dearest prized. 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 hanged 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 be-rhymed 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 removed 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, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all hooping! ROSALIND Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am caparisoned 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 couldst stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow- mouthed bottle, either too much at once, or none at all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth that 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 tripped 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 sawest him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes him 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 dropped acorn. ROSALIND It may well be called Jove's tree, when it drops forth such fruit. CELIA Give me audience, good madam. ROSALIND Proceed. CELIA There lay he, stretched 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 furnished like a hunter. ROSALIND O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart. CELIA I would sing my song without a burden: thou bringest 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 be wi' 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 christened. 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 conned 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 drowned 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 solemnized: 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 cony 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 touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed 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 half-pence 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-shaked: 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 ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, 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 punished 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 any thing, 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 cured 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 thatched 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 swearest 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-favoured; 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 promised 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 walled 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 a 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? SIR OLIVER MARTEXT Is there none here to give the woman? TOUCHSTONE I will not take her on gift of any man. SIR OLIVER MARTEXT Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful. JAQUES Advancing Proceed, proceed I'll give her. TOUCHSTONE Good even, good Master What-ye-call't: how do you, sir? You are very well met: God 'ild you for your last company: I am very glad to see you: even a toy in hand here, sir: nay, pray be covered. 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 SIR OLIVER 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 a 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 laughed 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 puisny 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 inquired 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 the 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, behind 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 but 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 no 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 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 fallen 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 abused 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 loved that loved not at first sight?' SILVIUS Sweet Phebe,-- PHEBE Ha, what say'st thou, Silvius? SILVIUS Sweet Phebe, pity me. PHEBE Why, I am 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 extermined. 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 scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon. PHEBE Know'st now 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 Between 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 remember'd, 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's contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me m 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 gained my experience. 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! Enter ORLANDO ORLANDO Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind! JAQUES Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse. Exit 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. 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 thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped him o' the 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 wooed 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 gravelled 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, videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dashed 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 lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned 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 drowned and the foolish coroners 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 winged. ROSALIND Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed 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 disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art inclined 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 cheque 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 misused our sex in your love-prate: we must have your doublet and hose plucked 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, conceived 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, Lords, and Foresters JAQUES Which is he that killed the deer? A 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? Forester Yes, sir. JAQUES Sing it: 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough. SONG. Forester What shall he have that kill'd the deer? His leather skin and horns to wear. Then sing him home; The rest shall bear this burden 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 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 tenor: 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 Reads 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 thee 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 endured! Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee a 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 fenced 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 wreathed 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 lived 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 purposed 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 awaked. CELIA Are you his brother? ROSALIND Wast you he rescued? 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 bathed, 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 Dyed 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. 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. Enter WILLIAM WILLIAM Good even, Audrey. AUDREY God ye good even, William. WILLIAM And good even to you, sir. TOUCHSTONE Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, prithee, be covered. 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' the 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 sayest 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 poured out of a 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; I will o'errun 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 showed me your handkerchief? 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 looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason, no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a 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, conversed 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 tomorrow human as she is and without any danger. ORLANDO Speakest 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 followed 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 observance; 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 Who do you speak to, '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, Audrey; 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 comes two of the banished 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' the 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 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 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 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 deceived, 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 be wi' 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 urged: 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 promised 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 called 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 flattered 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-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that no 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 called 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 called the Quip Modest. If again 'it was not well cut,' he disabled my judgment: this is called the Reply Churlish. If again 'it was not well cut,' he would answer, I spake not true: this is called the Reproof Valiant. If again 'it was not well cut,' he would say I lied: this is called the Counter-cheque 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 measured 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 Countercheque 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 peacemaker; 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 SENIOR 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 restored to them again That were with him exiled. 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 endured 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 the 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 SENIOR 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 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 furnished 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 simpering, 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 pleased me, complexions that liked 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. Exeunt The Comedy of Errors

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 Dramatis Personae SOLINUS, Duke of Ephesus. AEGEON, a merchant of Syracuse. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE twin brothers, and sons to Aegeon and Aemilia. DROMIO OF EPHESUS DROMIO OF SYRACUSE twin brothers, and attendants on 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, and other Attendants SCENE Ephesus. THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT I SCENE I. A hall in DUKE SOLINUS'S palace. Enter DUKE SOLINUS, AEGEON, Gaoler, Officers, and other Attendants AEGEON Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall And by the doom of death end woes and all. DUKE SOLINUS 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 threatening 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 condemned to die. AEGEON Yet this my comfort: when your words are done, My woes end likewise with the evening sun. DUKE SOLINUS Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause Why thou departed'st from thy native home And for what cause thou camest to Ephesus. AEGEON A heavier task could not have been imposed 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 sorrows give me leave. In Syracusa was I born, and wed Unto a woman, happy but for me, And by me, had not our hap been bad. With her I lived in joy; our wealth increased 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 distinguish'd but by names. That very hour, and in the self-same inn, A meaner 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 embraced, 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, Forced 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 fasten'd him unto a small spare mast, Such as seafaring 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 disposed, my wife and I, Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd, Fasten'd 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, Dispersed 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 SOLINUS 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 encounterd 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 seized on us; And, knowing whom it was their hap to save, Gave healthful welcome to their shipwreck'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 SOLINUS And for the sake of them thou sorrowest for, Do me the favour to dilate at full What hath 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 importuned 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 labour'd of a love to see, I hazarded the loss of whom I loved. Five summers have I spent in furthest 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 SOLINUS 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 would 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 I will favour thee in what I can. Therefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day To seek thy life by beneficial help: 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 II. 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 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 o' 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 darest thou trust So great a charge from thine own custody? DROMIO OF EPHESUS I pray you, air, 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 disposed 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 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 undisposed: 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. DROMIO OF EPHESUS What mean you, sir? for God's sake, hold your hands! Nay, and 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'er-raught 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 I. The house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus. Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA 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: Men, more divine, the masters of all these, Lords of the wide world and wild watery seas, Indued with intellectual sense and souls, Of more preeminence 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 unmoved! no marvel though she pause; They can be meek that have no other cause. A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burdened with like weight of pain, As much or more would we ourselves complain: So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee, With urging helpless patience wouldst 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 couldst not feel his meaning? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, he struck so plainly, I could too 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 desired 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 the 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 promised me a chain; Would that alone, alone 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 Wear 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 II. A public place. 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 wander'd 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 received 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 displeased. 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 demeanor 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 ensconce 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 dinner-time? 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 trimming; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE You would all this time have proved 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 'twould 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 unurged 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-savor'd in thy taste, Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carved to thee. How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it, That thou art thus 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 mayest thou fall A drop of water in the breaking gulf, And take unmingled that same drop again, Without addition or diminishing, As take from me thyself and not me too. How dearly would it touch me to the quick, Shouldst 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 too be one and thou play false, I do digest the poison of thy flesh, Being strumpeted by thy contagion. Keep then far league and truce with thy true bed; I live unstain'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, Want wit in all one word to understand. LUCIANA Fie, brother! how the world is changed 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 a 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 pratest thou to thyself and answer'st not? Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot! DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I am transformed, master, am I not? 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 changed 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 laugh 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-advised? Known unto these, and to myself disguised! 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 I. Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus. Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of Ephesus, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR 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 charged 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 You're 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 make 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, Cicel, 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 tell me wherefore. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Wherefore? for my dinner: I have not dined 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 keepest 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 stolen 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 changed thy face for a name or thy name for an ass. 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 call'd Luce--Luce, thou hast answered him well. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Do you hear, you minion? you'll let us in, I hope? LUCE Within I thought to have asked 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 I beat the door down. LUCE Within What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town? 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 there 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!' I 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 The 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 ruled 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 housed where it gets possession. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS You have prevailed: 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 II. The same. Enter LUCIANA and 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, be 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 are 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, Smother'd 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 power 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 lie, 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, air! hold you still: I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will. Exit Enter DROMIO of Syracuse ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Why, how now, Dromio! where runn'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. 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 a Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday, she'll burn a 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 half 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, 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; armed and reverted, making war against her heir. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where England? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I looked 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 Oh, sir, upon her nose all 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 Oh, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me Dromio; swore I was assured 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 amazed 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' the 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, I 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 I. 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 importuned 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 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 discharged, 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 me by some token. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Fie, now you run this humour out of breath, where's the chain? I pray you, let me see it. Second Merchant My business cannot brook this dalliance. Good sir, say whether 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 darest. 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 will have law in Ephesus, To your notorious shame; I doubt it not. Enter DROMIO of Syracuse, from the bay DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, there is 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-vitae. The ship is in her trim; the merry wind Blows fair from land: they stay for nought at all 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 thee 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 Second Merchant, Angelo, Officer, and Antipholus of Ephesus DROMIO OF SYRACUSE To Adriana! that is where we dined, 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 II. The house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus. Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA ADRIANA Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so? Mightst 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 madest 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-faced, 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 fury, 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 dryfoot well; One that before the judgement 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, That he, unknown to me, should be in debt. Tell me, was he arrested on a band? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Not 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 Time 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 III. A public place. 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-apparelled? 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 killed 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 'rests them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed men and gives 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 meanest an officer? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band, he that brings any man to answer it that breaks his band; one 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 DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Why, sir, I brought you word an hour since that the bark Expedition put forth to-night; and then were you hindered by the sergeant, to tarry for the hoy 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 promised 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 promised, 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 promised 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 IV. A street. Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus and 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 ears. 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 a 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 returned. 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. 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 waked with it when I sleep; raised with it when I sit; driven out of doors with it when I go from home; welcomed home with it when I return; nay, I bear it on my shoulders, as a beggar wont her brat; and, I think when he hath lamed me, I shall beg with it from door to door. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Come, go along; my wife is coming yonder. Enter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the Courtezan, and PINCH DROMIO OF EPHESUS Mistress, 'respice finem,' respect your end; or rather, the prophecy 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, housed 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 dined at home; Where would you had remain'd until this time, Free from these slanders and this open shame! ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Dined 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 reviled 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 a 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 received 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. Enter three or four, and offer to bind him. He strives ADRIANA O, bind him, bind him! let him not come near me. PINCH More company! The fiend is strong within him. 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 offer to bind Dromio of Ephesus 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 required 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 entered in bond for you. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Out on thee, villain! 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, Officer 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 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, I 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 I. A street before a Priory. Enter Second Merchant and ANGELO ANGELO I am sorry, sir, that I have hinder'd you; But, I protest, he had the chain of me, Though most dishonestly he doth deny it. Second Merchant How is the man esteemed here in the city? ANGELO Of very reverend reputation, sir, Of credit infinite, highly beloved, 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 Antipholus, 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 livest To walk where any honest man 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 darest 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, AEMILIA AEMELIA 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. AEMELIA 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. AEMELIA 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. AEMELIA You should for that have reprehended him. ADRIANA Why, so I did. AEMELIA Ay, but not rough enough. ADRIANA As roughly as my modesty would let me. AEMELIA Haply, in private. ADRIANA And in assemblies too. AEMELIA 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. AEMELIA 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 hinder'd by thy railing, And therefore comes it that his head is light. Thou say'st his meat was sauced 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 hinderd 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 Have scared 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. AEMELIA No, not a creature enters in my house. ADRIANA Then let your servants bring my husband forth. AEMELIA 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. AEMELIA Be patient; for I will not let him stir Till I have used 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. AEMELIA 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 DUKE SOLINUS, attended; AEGEON bareheaded; with the Headsman and other Officers DUKE SOLINUS 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 SOLINUS 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, Whom 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 desperately 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, any thing 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, Chased us away; till, raising of more aid, We came again to bind them. Then they fled Into this abbey, whither we pursued 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 SOLINUS Long since thy husband served me in my wars, And I to thee engaged 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 Servant Servant 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 singed off with brands of fire; And ever, as it blazed, 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. Servant Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true; I have not breathed 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 SOLINUS 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 housed him in the abbey here; And now he's there, past thought of human reason. Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus and DROMIO of Ephesus ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS 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 OF EPHESUS Justice, sweet prince, against that woman there! She whom thou gavest to me to be my wife, That hath abused and dishonour'd me Even in the strength and height of injury! Beyond imagination is the wrong That she this day hath shameless thrown on me. DUKE SOLINUS Discover how, and thou shalt find me just. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS This day, great duke, she shut the doors upon me, While she with harlots feasted in my house. DUKE SOLINUS 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 perjured 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, provoked 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 perjured goldsmith swear me down That I this day of him received 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 the way we met My wife, her sister, and a rabble more Of vile confederates. Along with them They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain, A mere anatomy, a mountebank, A threadbare juggler and a fortune-teller, A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch, A dead-looking 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 dined not at home, but was lock'd out. DUKE SOLINUS 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 SOLINUS Why, what an intricate impeach is this! I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup. If here you housed him, here he would have been; If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly: You say he dined at home; the goldsmith here Denies that saying. Sirrah, what say you? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Sir, he dined 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 SOLINUS Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here? Courtezan As sure, my liege, as I do see your grace. DUKE SOLINUS Why, this is strange. Go call the abbess hither. I think you are all mated or stark mad. Exit one to 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 SOLINUS 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. AEGEON O, grief hath changed 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 untuned 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 Syracusa, boy, Thou know'st we parted: but perhaps, my son, Thou shamest 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 Syracusa in my life. DUKE SOLINUS I tell thee, Syracusian, twenty years Have I been patron to Antipholus, During which time he ne'er saw Syracusa: I see thy age and dangers make thee dote. Re-enter AEMILIA, with ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse and DROMIO of Syracuse AEMELIA 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 SOLINUS 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 ghost? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE O, my old master! who hath bound him here? AEMELIA 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? AEMELIA 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 SOLINUS Why, here begins his morning story right; These two Antipholuses, 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 camest from Corinth first? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse. DUKE SOLINUS 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 received 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 SOLINUS 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. AEMELIA 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 festivity! DUKE SOLINUS 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-faced 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 Tragedy of Coriolanus

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 Dramatis Personae CAIUS MARCIUS, Afterwards CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS. TITUS LARTIUS COMINIUS generals against the Volscians. MENENIUS AGRIPPA, friend to Coriolanus. SICINIUS VELUTUS JUNIUS BRUTUS tribunes of the people. Young MARCUS, son to Coriolanus. A Roman Herald. TULLUS AUFIDIUS, general of the Volscians. Lieutenant to Aufidius. Conspirators with Aufidius. 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. CORIOLANUS 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 resolved rather to die than to famish? All Resolved. resolved. 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 particularise 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? All 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 fort, 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-conscienced 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 till 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' the city is risen: why stay we prating here? to the Capitol! All Come, come. First Citizen Soft! who comes here? Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA Second Citizen Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved 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 the 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' the state, who care for you like fathers, When you curse them as enemies. First Citizen Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed 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 accused 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 accused it: That only like a gulf it did remain I' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive, Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing Like labour with the rest, where the 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 the 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 In 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' the 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'll hear the belly's answer. First Citizen Ye're long about it. MENENIUS Note me this, good friend; Your most grave belly was deliberate, Not rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd: '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 store-house 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 the seat o' the 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' the 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' the lowest, basest, poorest, Of this most wise rebellion, thou go'st 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 stored. MARCIUS Hang 'em! They say! They'll sit by the fire, and presume to know What's done i' the 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'll 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 dissolved: 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' the 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, and 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 any thing but what I am, I would wish me only he. COMINIUS You have fought together. MARCIUS Were half to half the world by the ears and he. Upon my party, I'ld 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? TITUS 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 the Capitol; where, I know, Our greatest friends attend us. TITUS 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 mutiners, Your valour puts well forth: pray, follow. Citizens 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 moved, he will not spare to gird the gods. SICINIUS Be-mock 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's well graced, can not 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 the 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 earned 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 Lets along. Exeunt SCENE II. Corioli. The Senate-house. Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS and certain Senators First Senator So, your opinion is, Aufidius, That they of Rome are entered 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 shorten'd 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 your army; but, I think, you'll find They've not prepared 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. A room in Marcius' house. Enter VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA 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 plucked 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 the wall, if renown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him; from whence he returned, 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 the 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. Enter VALERIA, with an Usher and Gentlewoman 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 house-keepers. 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 school-master. VALERIA O' my word, the father's son: I'll swear,'tis a very pretty boy. O' my troth, I looked upon him o' Wednesday half an hour together: has such a confirmed 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 again; catched it again; or whether his fall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his teeth and tear it; O, I warrant it, how he mammocked 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 husewife 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 every thing 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, with drum and colours, MARCIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, 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 Tutus Aufidius, is he within your walls? First Senator No, nor a man that fears you less than he, That's lesser than a little. Drums 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 afar 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 Further 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 followed. 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. Enters the gates First Soldier Fool-hardiness; not I. Second Soldier Nor I. MARCIUS is shut in First Soldier See, they have shut him in. All To the 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, stands 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 madst 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. 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 trumpet MARCIUS See here these movers that do prize their hours At a crack'd drachm! 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! 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' the 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 charged again. Whiles we have struck, By interims and conveying gusts we have heard The charges of our friends. Ye Roman gods! Lead their successes as we wish our own, That both our powers, with smiling fronts encountering, 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 forced to wheel Three or four miles about, else had I, sir, Half an hour since brought my report. 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 Within Come I too late? COMINIUS The shepherd knows not thunder from a tabour More than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue From every meaner man. Enter MARCIUS 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 it with Titus Lartius? MARCIUS As with a man busied about decrees: Condemning some to death, and some to exile; Ransoming him, or pitying, threatening the 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' the 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 placed their men of trust? COMINIUS As I guess, Marcius, Their bands i' the 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 the blood we have shed together, by the 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 advanced 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 inclined. 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 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 the Roman camp conduct us. Exeunt SCENE VIII. A field of battle. Alarum as in battle. Enter, from opposite sides, MARCIUS and AUFIDIUS 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, Holloa me like a hare. MARCIUS Within these three hours, Tullus, Alone I fought in your Corioli walls, And made what work I pleased: 'tis not my blood Wherein thou seest me mask'd; for thy revenge Wrench up thy power to the highest. AUFIDIUS Wert thou the Hector That was the whip of your bragg'd progeny, Thou shouldst not scape me here. They fight, and certain Volsces come to the aid of AUFIDIUS. MARCIUS fights till they be driven in breathless Officious, and not valiant, you have shamed me In your condemned seconds. Exeunt SCENE IX. The Roman camp. Flourish. Alarum. A retreat is sounded. Flourish. Enter, from one side, COMINIUS with the Romans; from the other side, MARCIUS, with his arm in a scarf COMINIUS If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work, Thou'ldst not believe thy deeds: but I'll report it Where senators shall mingle tears with smiles, Where great patricians shall attend and shrug, I' the end admire, where ladies shall be frighted, And, gladly quaked, 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 camest thou to a morsel of this feast, Having fully dined 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; induced 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 remember'd. 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 achieved 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 MARCIUS May these same instruments, which you profane, Never sound more! when drums and trumpets shall I' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be Made all of false-faced soothing! When steel grows soft as the parasite's silk, Let him be made a coverture for the 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 loved my little should be dieted In praises sauced 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 incensed, 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, call him, With all the applause and clamour of the host, CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS! Bear The 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 the 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 Refused 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 used 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 tired. 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' the 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 the 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 suffering 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 the 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 to-night. 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 like a lamb. You two are old men: tell me one thing that I shall ask you. Both 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 stored 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' the right-hand file? do you? Both Why, how are we censured? MENENIUS Because you talk of pride now,--will you not be angry? Both 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! BRUTUS 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 can't say your worships have delivered 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 barm 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 three pence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinched 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 entombed in an ass's pack- saddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud; who in a cheap estimation, is worth 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 tonight: 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 disciplined 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 stayed by him, I would not have been so fidiused for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold that's in them. Is the senate possessed 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, wow. 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' the shoulder and i' the 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' the body. MENENIUS One i' the neck, and two i' the 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 advanced, declines, and then men die. A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter COMINIUS the general, and TITUS LARTIUS; between them, CORIOLANUS, crowned 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 named,-- What is it?--Coriolanus must I call 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? Ay, 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 ye're 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 VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA Your hand, and yours: Ere in our own house I do shade my head, The good patricians must be visited; From whom I have received 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, Clambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows, Are smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges horsed 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: or veil'd dames Commit the war of white and damask in Their nicely-gawded cheeks to the 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 temperately 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' the market-place nor on him put The napless vesture of humility; Nor showing, as the manner is, his wounds To the 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, silenced 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 the 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 bear 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 the time, But hearts for the event. SICINIUS Have with you. Exeunt SCENE II. The same. The Capitol. Enter two Officers, to lay cushions 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 had been many great men that have flattered 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 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 an 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 ear that heard it. First Officer No more of him; he is a worthy man: make way, they are coming. A sennet. Enter, with actors before them, COMINIUS the consul, MENENIUS, CORIOLANUS, Senators, SICINIUS and BRUTUS. The Senators take their places; the Tribunes take their Places by themselves. CORIOLANUS stands MENENIUS Having determined 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. 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. To the Tribunes Masters o' the 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 blest to do, if he remember A kinder value of the people than He hath hereto prized 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 offers to go away Nay, keep your place. First Senator Sit, Coriolanus; never shame to hear What you have nobly done. CORIOLANUS Your horror's 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 soothed 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' the 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 counterpoised. 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: be bestrid An o'er-press'd Roman and i' the 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 proved best man i' the field, and for his meed Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age Man-enter'd 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 timed with dying cries: alone he enter'd The mortal gate of the city, which he painted With shunless destiny; aidless came off, And with a sudden reinforcement 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-quicken'd 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 pleased 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 apart 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 the unaching scars which I should hide, As if I had received 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 of cornets. 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 the marketplace, I know, they do attend us. Exeunt SCENE III. The same. 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 called so of many; not that our heads are some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald, but that our wits are so diversely coloured: 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' the 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 wedged 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 resolved 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 behavior. 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 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 the 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 CORIOLANUS Bid them wash their faces And keep their teeth clean. Re-enter two of the Citizens So, here comes a brace. Re-enter a third Citizen You know the cause, air, 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, but 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 any thing, we hope to gain by you. CORIOLANUS Well then, I pray, your price o' the 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 begged. 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 further. Both Citizens The gods give you joy, sir, heartily! Exeunt CORIOLANUS Most sweet voices! Better it is to die, better to starve, Than crave the hire which first we do deserve. Why in this woolvish 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 heapt For truth to o'er-peer. 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 suffer'd, the other will I do. Re-enter three Citizens more Here come more 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 Citizens Amen, amen. God save thee, noble consul! Exeunt 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 the official marks invested, you Anon do meet the senate. CORIOLANUS Is this done? SICINIUS The custom of request you have discharged: 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 the 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 methink '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 used us scornfully: he should have show'd us His marks of merit, wounds received for's country. SICINIUS Why, so he did, I am sure. Citizens 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' the body of the weal; and now, arriving A place of potency and sway o' the state, If he should still malignantly remain Fast foe to the 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-advised, 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 the 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 sued-for tongues? Third Citizen He's not confirm'd; we may deny him yet. Second Citizen 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 The 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 laboured, 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, Preoccupied 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' the 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 beat 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 the Capitol. All We will so: almost all Repent in their election. Exeunt Citizens 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 the Capitol, come: We will be there before the stream o' the 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 caused 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 safe-guard he came to me; and did curse Against the Volsces, for they had so vilely Yielded the town: he is retired 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' the 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 the market-place. BRUTUS The people are incensed 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 purposed 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 ruled. BRUTUS Call't not a plot: The people cry you mock'd them, and of late, When corn was given them gratis, you repined; 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! CORIOLANUS 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 inquire 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 abused; set on. This paltering Becomes not Rome, nor has Coriolanus Deserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely I' the 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 many, 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 tatter us, yet sought The very way to catch them. BRUTUS You speak o' the 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' the 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 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 the other. COMINIUS Well, on to the market-place. CORIOLANUS Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth The corn o' the storehouse gratis, as 'twas used Sometime in Greece,-- MENENIUS Well, well, no more of that. CORIOLANUS Though there the people had more absolute power, 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 assured That ne'er did service for't: being press'd to the 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' the war Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd Most valour, spoke not for them: the accusation Which they have often made against the senate, All cause unborn, could never be the motive Of our so frank donation. Well, what then? How shall this bisson multitude 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' the 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 the in 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' the 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 the public weal: obey, I charge thee, And follow to thine answer. CORIOLANUS Hence, old goat! Senators, C We'll surety him. COMINIUS Aged 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 Citizens (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! Citizens Down with him! down with him! Senators, C Weapons, weapons, weapons! They all bustle about CORIOLANUS, crying 'Tribunes!' 'Patricians!' 'Citizens!' 'What, ho!' 'Sicinius!' 'Brutus!' 'Coriolanus!' 'Citizens!' '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 the people! Coriolanus, patience! Speak, good Sicinius. SICINIUS Hear me, people; peace! Citizens 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 named 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? Citizens True, The people are the city. BRUTUS By the consent of all, we were establish'd The people's magistrates. Citizens 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' the people, in whose power We were elected theirs, Marcius is worthy Of present death. SICINIUS Therefore lay hold of him; Bear him to the rock Tarpeian, and from thence Into destruction cast him. BRUTUS AEdiles, seize him! Citizens Yield, Marcius, yield! MENENIUS Hear me one word; Beseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word. AEdile Peace, peace! MENENIUS To BRUTUS Be that you seem, truly your country's friend, And temperately 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 No, I'll die here. Drawing his sword 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. COMINIUS Help Marcius, help, You that be noble; help him, young and old! Citizens 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 naught else. Second Senator Get you gone. COMINIUS Stand fast; We have as many friends as enemies. MENENIUS Sham 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' the porch o' the 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. COMINIUS I could myself Take up a brace o' the best of them; yea, the two tribunes: 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 used 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, COMINIUS, and others A Patrician 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! Second Patrician I would they were abed! MENENIUS I would they were in Tiber! What the vengeance! Could he not speak 'em fair? Re-enter BRUTUS and SICINIUS, with the rabble 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. Citizens 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! Citizens 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 dropp'd 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 the end o' the world. SICINIUS This is clean kam. BRUTUS Merely awry: when he did love his country, It honour'd him. MENENIUS The service of the foot Being once gangrened, 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 beloved, 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' the wars Since he 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. A room in CORIOLANUS'S house. Enter CORIOLANUS with Patricians CORIOLANUS Let them puff 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. A 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 disposed Ere they lack'd power to cross you. CORIOLANUS Let them hang. A Patrician Ay, and burn too. Enter MENENIUS and 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 the herd, but that The violent fit o' the 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 the 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' the war do grow together: grant that, and tell me, In peace what each of them by the 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 the people; not by your own instruction, Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you, But with such words that are but rooted 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 required 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 loss 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 business Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the 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 ruled: although I know thou hadst rather Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf Than flatter him in a bower. Here is Cominius. Enter COMINIUS COMINIUS I have been i' the 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 unbarbed sconce? Must I with base tongue give 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 the market-place! You have put me now to such a part which never I shall discharge to the 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 quired 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 received 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 beloved 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' the way of flattery further. VOLUMNIA Do your will. Exit COMINIUS Away! the tribunes do attend you: arm yourself To answer mildly; for they are prepared 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. The same. 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 procured Set down by the poll? AEdile I have; 'tis ready. SICINIUS Have you collected them by tribes? AEdile I have. SICINIUS Assemble presently the people hither; And when they bear me say 'It shall be so I' the right and strength o' the 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' the truth o' the cause. AEdile I shall inform them. BRUTUS And when such time they have begun to cry, Let them not cease, but with a din confused 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 used Ever to conquer, and to have his worth Of contradiction: being once chafed, 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. SICINIUS Well, here he comes. Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, and COMINIUS, with Senators and Patricians MENENIUS Calmly, I do beseech you. CORIOLANUS Ay, as an ostler, that for the poorest piece Will bear the knave by the volume. The 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 AEdile, with Citizens 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 charged 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 proved 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' the 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 contrived 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' the lowest hell fold-in the people! Call me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune! Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths, In thy hand 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? Citizens To the rock, to the 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 the extremest death. BRUTUS But since he hath Served 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 know no further: Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death, Vagabond exile, raying, pent to linger But with a grain a day, I would not buy Their mercy at the price of one fair word; Nor cheque 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' the people And in the power of us the tribunes, we, Even from this instant, banish him our city, In peril of precipitation From off the rock Tarpeian never more To enter our Rome gates: i' the people's name, I say it shall be so. Citizens 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 sentenced; 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. Citizens It shall be so, it shall be so. CORIOLANUS You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate As reek o' the 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 not 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, Senators, and Patricians AEdile The people's enemy is gone, is gone! Citizens Our enemy is banish'd! he is gone! Hoo! hoo! Shouting, and throwing up their caps SICINIUS Go, see him out at gates, and follow him, As he hath followed you, with all despite; Give him deserved vexation. Let a guard Attend us through the city. Citizens 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 used To say extremity 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 used to load me With precepts that would make invincible The heart that conn'd them. VIRGILIA O heavens! O heavens! CORIOLANUS Nay! prithee, woman,-- VOLUMNIA Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome, And occupations perish! CORIOLANUS What, what, what! I shall be loved 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'ld have done, and saved 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 stem, and thou hast oft beheld Heart-hardening 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 practise. 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' the way before thee. CORIOLANUS O the gods! COMINIUS I'll follow thee a month, devise with thee 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' the 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 unbruised: 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'ld with thee every foot. CORIOLANUS Give me thy hand: Come. Exeunt SCENE II. The same. A street near the gate. Enter SICINIUS, BRUTUS, and an 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. 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. Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and MENENIUS VOLUMNIA O, ye're well met: the hoarded plague o' the 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 More 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'ld 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 incensed 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 us 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 all. BRUTUS Well, well, we'll leave you. SICINIUS Why stay we to be baited With one that wants her wits? VOLUMNIA Take my prayers with you. Exeunt Tribunes 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. MENENIUS Fie, fie, fie! Exeunt 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 approved 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 banished! Roman Banished, 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 fallen 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 the 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. Exeunt SCENE IV. Antium. Before Aufidius's house. Enter CORIOLANUS in mean apparel, disguised 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 seem to wear one heart, Whose house, 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 birth-place 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. Exit SCENE V. The same. A hall in Aufidius's house. Music within. Enter a Servingman First Servingman Wine, wine, wine! What service is here! I think our fellows are asleep. Exit Enter a second Servingman Second Servingman 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 Servingman What would you have, friend? whence are you? Here's no place for you: pray, go to the door. Exit CORIOLANUS I have deserved no better entertainment, In being Coriolanus. Re-enter second Servingman Second Servingman 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 Servingman Away! get you away. CORIOLANUS Now thou'rt troublesome. Second Servingman Are you so brave? I'll have you talked with anon. Enter a third Servingman. The first meets him Third Servingman What fellow's this? First Servingman A strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him out of the house: prithee, call my master to him. Retires Third Servingman What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid the house. CORIOLANUS Let me but stand; I will not hurt your hearth. Third Servingman What are you? CORIOLANUS A gentleman. Third Servingman A marvellous poor one. CORIOLANUS True, so I am. Third Servingman 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 Third Servingman What, you will not? Prithee, tell my master what a strange guest he has here. Second Servingman And I shall. Exit Third Servingman Where dwellest thou? CORIOLANUS Under the canopy. Third Servingman Under the canopy! CORIOLANUS Ay. Third Servingman Where's that? CORIOLANUS I' the city of kites and crows. Third Servingman I' the city of kites and crows! What an ass it is! Then thou dwellest with daws too? CORIOLANUS No, I serve not thy master. Third Servingman How, sir! do you meddle with my master? CORIOLANUS Ay; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy mistress. Thou pratest, and pratest; serve with thy trencher, hence! Beats him away. Exit third Servingman Enter AUFIDIUS with the second Servingman AUFIDIUS Where is this fellow? Second Servingman Here, sir: I'ld have beaten him like a dog, but for disturbing the lords within. Retires AUFIDIUS Whence comest thou? what wouldst thou? thy name? Why speak'st not? speak, man: what's thy name? CORIOLANUS If, Tullus, Unmuffling Not yet thou knowest 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 hast 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; And suffer'd me by the 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' the 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 canker'd country with the spleen Of all the under fiends. But if so be Thou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes Thou'rt tired, 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 follow'd 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'ld 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 loved 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 thee, We have a power on foot; and I had purpose Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn, Or lose mine arm fort: 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 waked half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius, Had we no 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'er-bear. O, come, go in, And take our friendly senators by the hands; Who now are here, taking their leaves of me, Who am prepared 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 The one half of my commission; and set down-- As best thou art experienced, 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 Servingman Here's a strange alteration! Second Servingman 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 Servingman What an arm he has! he turned me about with his finger and his thumb, as one would set up a top. Second Servingman 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 Servingman He had so; looking as it were--would I were hanged, but I thought there was more in him than I could think. Second Servingman So did I, I'll be sworn: he is simply the rarest man i' the world. First Servingman I think he is: but a greater soldier than he you wot on. Second Servingman Who, my master? First Servingman Nay, it's no matter for that. Second Servingman Worth six on him. First Servingman Nay, not so neither: but I take him to be the greater soldier. Second Servingman Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that: for the defence of a town, our general is excellent. First Servingman Ay, and for an assault too. Re-enter third Servingman Third Servingman O slaves, I can tell you news,-- news, you rascals! First Servingman Second Servingman What, what, what? let's partake. Third Servingman I would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as lieve be a condemned man. First Servingman Second Servingman Wherefore? wherefore? Third Servingman Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general, Caius Marcius. First Servingman Why do you say 'thwack our general '? Third Servingman I do not say 'thwack our general;' but he was always good enough for him. Second Servingman Come, we are fellows and friends: he was ever too hard for him; I have heard him say so himself. First Servingman He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth on't: before Corioli he scotched him and notched him like a carbon ado. Second Servingman An he had been cannibally given, he might have broiled and eaten him too. First Servingman But, more of thy news? Third Servingman Why, he is so made on here within, as if he were son and heir to Mars; set at upper end o' the 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' the eye to his discourse. But the bottom of the news is that our general is cut i' the 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 the ears: he will mow all down before him, and leave his passage polled. Second Servingman And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine. Third Servingman 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 Servingman Directitude! what's that? Third Servingman 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 all with him. First Servingman But when goes this forward? Third Servingman To-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the drum struck up this afternoon: 'tis, as it were, a parcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips. Second Servingman Why, then we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is nothing, but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers. First Servingman 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; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war's a destroyer of men. Second Servingman '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 Servingman Ay, and it makes men hate one another. Third Servingman 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. All In, in, in, in! Exeunt SCENE VI. Rome. A public place. Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS SICINIUS We hear not of him, neither need we fear him; His remedies are tame i' the present peace And quietness of the people, which before Were in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends Blush that the world goes well, who rather had, Though they themselves did suffer by't, behold Dissentious numbers pestering streets than see Our tradesmen with in their shops and going About their functions friendly. BRUTUS We stood to't in good time. Enter MENENIUS Is this Menenius? SICINIUS 'Tis he,'tis he: O, he is grown most kind of late. Both Tribunes 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, if He could have temporized. 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 all. 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 loved 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 two several powers Are enter'd 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 have 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 Raised 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 violentest 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, consumed 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, confined 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 with 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 up much on the voice of occupation and The breath of garlic-eaters! COMINIUS He will 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 resist 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 charged him even As those should do that had deserved his hate, And therein show'd like 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 So incapable of help. Both Tribunes Say not we brought it. MENENIUS How! Was it we? we loved him but, like beasts And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters, Who did hoot him out o' the 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 come 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 deserved it. Citizens 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 Ye re 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 home; 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' the wrong when we banished 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 us go. Exeunt SCENE VII. A camp, at a small distance from Rome. Enter AUFIDIUS and his Lieutenant AUFIDIUS Do they still fly to the 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 darken'd 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 the 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 the casque to the 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 utterance. So our virtues Lie in the interpretation of the time: And power, unto itself most commendable, Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair To 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, BRUTUS, and others MENENIUS No, I'll not go: you hear what he hath said Which was sometime his general; who loved 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 urged our old acquaintance, and the drops That we have bled together. Coriolanus He would not answer to: forbad all names; He was a kind of nothing, titleless, Till he had forged himself a name o' the fire Of burning Rome. MENENIUS Why, so: you have made good work! A pair of tribunes that have rack'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 the 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 dined: 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 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. Entrance of the Volscian camp before Rome. Two Sentinels on guard. Enter to them, MENENIUS First Senator Stay: whence are you? Second Senator 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 Senator From whence? MENENIUS From Rome. First Senator You may not pass, you must return: our general Will no more hear from thence. Second Senator You'll see your Rome embraced 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 Senator Be it so; go back: the virtue of your name Is not here passable. MENENIUS I tell thee, fellow, The general is my lover: I have been The book of his good acts, whence men have read His name 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 Senator 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 Senator 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 dined, canst thou tell? for I would not speak with him till after dinner. First Senator You are a Roman, are you? MENENIUS I am, as thy general is. First Senator Then you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you, when you have pushed 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 decayed 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 deceived; therefore, back to Rome, and prepare for your execution: you are condemned, 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. Second Senator Come, my captain knows you not. MENENIUS I mean, thy general. First Senator 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 and 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 standest not i' the 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. To CORIOLANUS 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 loved thee, Take this along; I writ it for thy sake Gives a letter And would have rent it. Another word, Menenius, I will not hear thee speak. This man, Aufidius, Was my beloved in Rome: yet thou behold'st! AUFIDIUS You keep a constant temper. Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS First Senator Now, sir, is your name Menenius? Second Senator 'Tis a spell, you see, of much power: you know the way home again. First Senator Do you hear how we are shent for keeping your greatness back? Second Senator What cause, do you think, I have to swoon? MENENIUS I neither care for the world nor your general: for such things as you, I can scarce think there's any, ye're 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 Senator A noble fellow, I warrant him. Second Senator 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 tomorrow Set down our host. My partner in this action, You must report to the 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 a crack'd heart I have sent to Rome, Loved 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. Ha! what shout is this? Shout within Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow In the same time 'tis made? I will not. Enter in mourning habits, VIRGILIA, VOLUMNIA, leading young MARCIUS, VALERIA, and Attendants My wife comes foremost; then the honour'd mould Wherein this trunk was framed, 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 curt'sy 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 changed 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' the 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 is 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; Murdering 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 the 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' the 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'ld 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 To ally 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 barr'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 thorough 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 cannot 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. Young MARCIUS 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 received;' 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 wiped it out; Destroy'd his country, and his name remains To the 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' the 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' the 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 be 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 bands 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 a-fire, 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 moved 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'll 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. The Ladies make signs to CORIOLANUS CORIOLANUS Ay, by and by; To VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, c 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' the Capitol, yond corner-stone? 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 sentenced 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 loved 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 finished 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 banished him, we respected not them; and, he returning to break our necks, they respect not us. Enter a Messenger Messenger Sir, if you'ld 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 a second Messenger SICINIUS What's the news? Second Messenger Good news, good news; the ladies have prevail'd, The Volscians are dislodged, and Marcius gone: A merrier day did never yet greet Rome, No, not the expulsion of the Tarquins. SICINIUS Friend, Art thou certain this is true? is it 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 the gates. Why, hark you! Trumpets; hautboys; drums beat; all together The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries and fifes, Tabours 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! Music still, with 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? Second Messenger Almost at point to enter. SICINIUS We will meet them, And help the joy. Exeunt SCENE V. The same. A street near the gate. Enter two Senators with VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, VALERIA, c. passing over the stage, followed by Patricians and others 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; Cry 'Welcome, ladies, welcome!' All Welcome, ladies, Welcome! A flourish with drums and trumpets. Exeunt SCENE VI. Antium. A public place. Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS, with Attendants AUFIDIUS Go tell the lords o' the city I am here: Deliver them this paper: having read it, Bid them repair to the 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 to appear before the people, hoping To purge herself 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 raised him, and I pawn'd Mine honour for his truth: who being so heighten'd, He water'd 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 spoke 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; served 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 waged 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 pronounced shall bury His reasons with his body. AUFIDIUS Say no more: Here come the lords. Enter the Lords of the city All The Lords You are most welcome home. AUFIDIUS I have not deserved 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; 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 Do 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 the Romans: and we here deliver, Subscribed by the consuls and patricians, Together with the seal o' the senate, what We have compounded on. AUFIDIUS Read it not, noble lords; But tell the traitor, in the high'st degree He hath abused 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' the 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' the war, but at his nurse's tears He whined and roar'd away your victory, That pages blush'd at him and men of heart Look'd wondering each at other. 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 forced 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? All Conspirators Let him die for't. All The People 'Tear him to pieces.' 'Do it presently.' 'He kill'd my son.' 'My daughter.' 'He killed my cousin Marcus.' 'He killed my father.' Second Lord Peace, ho! no outrage: peace! The man is noble and his fame folds-in This orb o' the 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! All Conspirators Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him! The Conspirators draw, and kill CORIOLANUS: AUFIDIUS stands on his body 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, Provoked 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 urn. 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' the chiefest soldiers; I'll be one. Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully: Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he Hath widow'd 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 Cymbeline

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 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 ARVIRAGUS sons to Cymbeline, disguised under the names of Polydote and Cadwal, supposed sons to Morgan. PHILARIO, friend to Posthumus IACHIMO, friend to Philario Italians. CAIUS LUCIUS, general of the Roman forces. PISANIO, servant to Posthumus. CORNELIUS, a physician. A Roman Captain. Two British Captains. A Frenchman, friend to Philario. 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. Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators, Tribunes, a Soothsayer, a Dutchman, a Spaniard, Musicians, Officers, Captains, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants. Apparitions. SCENE Britain; Rome. CYMBELINE ACT I SCENE I. Britain. The garden of Cymbeline's palace. Enter two Gentlemen 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. Second Gentleman But what's the matter? First Gentleman His daughter, and the heir of's kingdom, whom He purposed 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 desired the match; but not a courtier, Although they wear their faces to the bent Of the king's look's, 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 served with glory and admired success, So gain'd the sur-addition Leonatus; And had, besides this gentleman in question, Two other sons, who in the wars o' the 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, deceased 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 minister'd, And in's spring became a harvest, lived in court-- Which rare it is to do--most praised, most loved, A sample to the youngest, to the 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 the 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' the 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 LEONATUS, and IMOGEN QUEEN No, be assured you shall not find me, daughter, After the slander of most stepmothers, Evil-eyed 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 the 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 LEONATUS 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 charged 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 reserved 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 LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS How, how! another? You gentle gods, give me but this I have, And sear up my embracements from a next With bonds of death! Putting on the ring Remain, remain thou here 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. Putting a bracelet upon her arm IMOGEN O the gods! When shall we see again? Enter CYMBELINE and Lords POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS 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 blest, 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 loved 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! CYMBELINE Thou foolish thing! Re-enter 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! Exeunt CYMBELINE and Lords QUEEN Fie! you must give way. Enter PISANIO 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 pleased 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, I pray you, speak with me: you shall at least Go see my lord aboard: for this time leave me. Exeunt SCENE II. The same. 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 thoroughfare for steel, if it be not hurt. Second Lord Aside His steel was in debt; it went o' the backside 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 measured 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 damned. 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. A room in Cymbeline's palace. Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO IMOGEN I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' the haven, And question'dst every sail: if he should write And 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 waved 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 this eye or ear 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 eye-strings; crack'd them, but To look upon him, till the diminution Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle, Nay, follow'd 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 assured, 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 charged him, At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight, To 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 looked 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 furnished 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. Here comes the Briton: let him be so entertained amongst you as suits, with gentlemen of your knowing, to a stranger of his quality. Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS 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'er-rate 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 LEONATUS By your pardon, sir, I was then a young traveller; rather shunned 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 fallen 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 LEONATUS She holds her virtue still and I my mind. IACHIMO You must not so far prefer her 'fore ours of Italy. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Being so far provoked 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 LEONATUS I praised her as I rated her: so do I my stone. IACHIMO What do you esteem it at? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS More than the world enjoys. IACHIMO Either your unparagoned mistress is dead, or she's outprized by a trifle. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS 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 stolen too: so your brace of unprizable estimations; the one is but frail and the other casual; a cunning thief, or a that way accomplished courtier, would hazard the winning both of first and last. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Your Italy contains none so accomplished 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 LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS You are a great deal abused in too bold a persuasion; and I doubt not you sustain what you're worthy of by your attempt. IACHIMO What's that? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 the approbation of what I have spoke! POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 reserved. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS I will wage against your gold, gold to it: my ring I hold dear as my finger; 'tis part of it. IACHIMO You are afraid, 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 LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS 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 enjoyed 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 LEONATUS 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 prevailed, I am no further your enemy; she is not worth our debate: if she remain unseduced, you not making it appear otherwise, for your ill opinion and the 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 LEONATUS Agreed. Exeunt POSTHUMUS LEONATUS and IACHIMO Frenchman Will this hold, think you? PHILARIO Signior Iachimo will not from it. Pray, let us follow 'em. Exeunt SCENE V. Britain. A room in 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? First 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 small box But I beseech your grace, without offence,-- My conscience bids me ask--wherefore you have Commanded of me those 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 practise 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 lingering 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 to decay 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 takest 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 prethee, 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 shaked; 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 liegers for her sweet, and which she after, Except she bend her humour, shall be assured 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. The same. Another room in the palace. Enter IMOGEN 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: blest 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 the 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 the 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' the eye, for apes and monkeys 'Twixt two such shes would chatter this way and Contemn with mows the other; nor i' the judgment, For idiots in this case of favour would Be wisely definite; nor i' the appetite; Sluttery to such neat excellence opposed Should make desire vomit emptiness, Not so allured 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. To PISANIO Beseech you, sir, desire My man's abode where I did leave him: he Is 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 disposed to mirth? I hope he is. IACHIMO Exceeding pleasant; none a stranger there So merry and so gamesome: he is call'd The Briton 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 his 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 used 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' the 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 doubling 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 the 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 unlustrous 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, Inclined to this intelligence, pronounce The beggary of his change; but 'tis your graces That from pay 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 hired with that self-exhibition Which your own coffers yield! with diseased ventures That play with all infirmities for gold Which rottenness can lend nature! such boil'd stuff As well might poison poison! Be revenged; Or she that bore you was no queen, and you Recoil from your great stock. IMOGEN Revenged! How should I be revenged? 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 revenged? 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 Solicit'st 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 assured 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 off, More than a mortal seeming. Be not angry, Most mighty princess, that I have adventured To try your taking 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 power i' the court for yours. IACHIMO My humble thanks. I had almost forgot To entreat your grace but in a small request, And yet of moment to, 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 lengthening 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 the 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 two Lords CLOTEN Was there ever man had such luck! when I kissed 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 disposed 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 smelt like a fool. CLOTEN I am not vexed more at any thing in the 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 Jack-slave 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 know 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 banished 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 endurest, 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'ld make! The heavens hold firm The walls of thy dear honour, keep unshaked That temple, thy fair mind, that thou mayst stand, To enjoy thy banish'd lord and this great land! Exit SCENE II. Imogen's bedchamber in Cymbeline's palace: a trunk in one corner of it. IMOGEN in bed, reading; 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' the clock, I prithee, call me. Sleep hath seized 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 becomest 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' the taper Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids, To see the enclosed lights, now canopied Under these windows, white and azure laced 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 The adornment of her bed; the arras; figures, Why, such and such; and the contents o' the story. Ah, but some natural notes about her body, Above ten thousand meaner moveables Would testify, to 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 the madding of her lord. On her left breast A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops I' the 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 the 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! Goes into the trunk. The scene closes Scene III 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 turned 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 o' 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 chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes: With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet, arise: Arise, arise. CLOTEN 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 horse-hairs and calves'-guts, nor the voice of unpaved eunuch to boot, can never amend. Exeunt Musicians 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. Enter CYMBELINE and QUEEN 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 assailed her with music, 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 the 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 inspired 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 To 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. Knocks By your leave, ho! 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 the stand o' the 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. Knocks By your leave. 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 the 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' the court, it is no contract, none: And though it be allow'd 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-figured knot; Yet you are curb'd from that enlargement by The consequence o' the crown, and must not soil 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 styled The under-hangman of his kingdom, and hated For being preferred so well. CLOTEN The south-fog rot him! IMOGEN He never can meet more mischance than come To be but named of thee. His meanest 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 garment!' Now the devil-- IMOGEN To Dorothy my woman hie thee presently-- CLOTEN 'His garment!' IMOGEN I am sprited with a fool. Frighted, and anger'd 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 abused 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 the worst of discontent. Exit CLOTEN I'll be revenged: 'His meanest garment!' Well. Exit SCENE IV. Rome. Philario's house. Enter POSTHUMUS and PHILARIO POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS Not any, but abide the change of time, Quake in the present winter's state and wish That warmer days would come: in these sear'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 the arrearages, Or look upon our Romans, whose remembrance Is yet fresh in their grief. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 Smiled 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 LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS Their tenor 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 LEONATUS All is well yet. Sparkles this stone as it was wont? or is't not Too dull for your good wearing? IACHIMO If I had lost it, I should have lost the worth of it in gold. I'll make a journey twice as far, to enjoy A second night of such sweet shortness which Was mine in Britain, for the ring is won. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS The stone's too hard to come by. IACHIMO Not a whit, Your lady being so easy. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 further: 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 LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS Proceed. IACHIMO First, her bedchamber,-- Where, I confess, I slept not, but profess Had that was well worth watching--it was hang'd With tapesty 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 LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS So they must, Or do your honour injury. IACHIMO The chimney Is south the chamber, and the chimney-piece 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 LEONATUS This is a thing Which you might from relation likewise reap, Being, as it is, much spoke of. IACHIMO The roof o' the 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 LEONATUS 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, Showing 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 LEONATUS 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 prized it once. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS May be she pluck'd it off To send it me. IACHIMO She writes so to you, doth she? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 of her women, being corrupted, Hath stol'n it from her? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 stolen. IACHIMO By Jupiter, I had it from her arm. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 induced to steal it! And by a stranger!--No, he hath enjoyed 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 believed Of one persuaded well of-- POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS Spare your arithmetic: never count the turns; Once, and a million! IACHIMO I'll be sworn-- POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS O, that I had her here, to tear her limb-meal! I will go there and do't, i' the 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 an my heart. Exeunt SCENE V. Another room in Philario's house. Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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,--wast 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 may be named, 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? CAIUS 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, ribbed and paled in With rocks unscalable and roaring waters, With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats, But suck them up to the topmast. A kind of conquest Caesar made here; but made not here his brag Of 'Came' and 'saw' and 'overcame: ' with shame-- That first that ever touch'd him--he was carried From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping-- Poor ignorant baubles!-- upon our terrible seas, Like egg-shells moved upon their surges, crack'd As easily 'gainst our rocks: for joy whereof The famed 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' the world, against all colour here Did put the yoke upon 's; which to shake off Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon Ourselves to be. CLOTEN Lords 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. CAIUS LUCIUS I am sorry, Cymbeline, That I am to pronounce Augustus Caesar-- Caesar, that hath more 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. CAIUS 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. CAIUS LUCIUS So, sir. CYMBELINE I know your master's pleasure and he mine: All the remain is 'Welcome!' Exeunt SCENE II. Another room in the palace. Enter PISANIO, with a letter PISANIO How? of adultery? Wherefore write you not What monster's her accuser? Leonatus, O master! what a strange infection Is fall'n into thy ear! What false Italian, As poisonous-tongued 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? Reading '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 feodary for this act, and look'st So virgin-like without? Lo, here she comes. I am ignorant in what I am commanded. Enter IMOGEN 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'ld 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,-- 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 the smothering of the sense--how far it is To this same blessed Milford: and by the way Tell me how Wales was made so happy as To 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 e'er 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: Aside 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' the clock's behalf. But this is foolery: 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 housewife. 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 following BELARIUS A goodly day not to keep house, with such Whose roof's as low as ours! Stoop, boys; this gate Instructs you how to 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' the 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 cheque, Richer than doing nothing for a bauble, Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk: Such gain the cap of him that makes 'em fine, Yet keeps his book uncross'd: no life to ours. GUIDERIUS Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledged, Have never wing'd from view o' the 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 a-bed; 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 quire, 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' the court As hard to leave as keep; whose top to climb Is certain falling, or so slippery that The fear's as bad as falling; the toil o' the war, A pain that only seems to seek out danger I' the name of fame and honour; which dies i' the search, And hath as oft a slanderous epitaph As record of fair act; nay, many times, Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse, Must court'sy 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 loved 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 lived at honest freedom, paid More pious debts to heaven than in all The fore-end of my time. But up to the mountains! This is not hunters' language: he that strikes The venison first shall be the lord o' the 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 the king; Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive. They think they are mine; and though train'd up thus meanly I' the 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 roused! 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 reft'st 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. Country 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 the inward of thee? One, but painted thus, Would be interpreted a thing perplex'd Beyond self-explication: put thyself Into a havior 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 countenance 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 played 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 pandar 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 the 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 villany; 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 perjured From thy great fall. Come, fellow, be thou honest: Do thou thy master's bidding: when thou see'st 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, thou 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 disedged by her That now thou tirest on, how thy memory Will then be pang'd by me. Prithee, dispatch: The lamb 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 received command to do this business I have not slept one wink. IMOGEN Do't, and to bed then. PISANIO I'll wake mine eye-balls blind first. IMOGEN Wherefore then Didst undertake it? Why hast thou abused 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, The 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 abused: 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 where? where bide? how live? Or in my life what comfort, when I am Dead to my husband? PISANIO If you'll back to the 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' the 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. The 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, to appear itself, must not yet be But by self-danger, you should tread a course Pretty and full of view; yea, haply, 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 its 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 you'll 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. A room in Cymbeline's palace. Enter CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, LUCIUS, Lords, and Attendants CYMBELINE Thus far; and so farewell. CAIUS 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. CAIUS LUCIUS So, sir: I desire of you A conduct over-land to Milford-Haven. Madam, all joy befal your grace! QUEEN And you! CYMBELINE My lords, you are appointed for that office; The due of honour in no point omit. So farewell, noble Lucius. CAIUS LUCIUS Your hand, my lord. CLOTEN Receive it friendly; but from this time forth I wear it as your enemy. CAIUS 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 powers 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 an Attendant QUEEN Royal sir, Since the exile of Posthumus, most retired 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 Attendant CYMBELINE Where is she, sir? How Can her contempt be answer'd? Attendant Please you, sir, Her chambers are all lock'd; and there's no answer That will be given to the loudest 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, 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 seized her, Or, wing'd with fervor of her love, she's flown To her desired 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 Aside 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 choked; and in that point I will conclude to hate her, nay, indeed, To be revenged 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 missed? He is in Rome. CLOTEN Where is she, sir? Come nearer; No further 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 Hum! 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 villany 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 lint 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 praised,--to the court I'll knock her back, foot her home again. She hath despised 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, in boy's clothes IMOGEN I see a man's life is a tedious one: I have tired 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 relieved. 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' the 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 to 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 any thing 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, to the cave Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS BELARIUS You, Polydote, have proved 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' the 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' the 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 prayers 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. God's! BELARIUS Hark, boys. Whispering IMOGEN 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's 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 the owl and morn to the lark less welcome. IMOGEN Thanks, sir. ARVIRAGUS I pray, draw near. Exeunt SCENE VII. Rome. A public place. Enter two Senators and Tribunes First Senator This is the tenor 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 preconsul: and to you the tribunes, For this immediate levy, he commends His absolute commission. Long live Caesar! First Tribune Is Lucius general of the forces? Second Senator Ay. First 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. First Tribune We will discharge our duty. Exeunt ACT IV SCENE I. Wales: near the cave of Belarius. Enter CLOTEN CLOTEN I am near to the place where they should meet, if Pisanio have mapped 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 thy 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. 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, 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, loved before me. 'Tis the ninth hour o' the morn. ARVIRAGUS Brother, farewell. IMOGEN I wish ye sport. ARVIRAGUS You health. 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 disprovest report! The 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 the field, to the 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 housewife. IMOGEN Well or ill, I am bound to you. BELARIUS And shalt be ever. Exit IMOGEN, to the cave This youth, how'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 sauced 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' the 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 the queen. GUIDERIUS I am 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 companies 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 Of roaring terrors; for the effect of judgment Is oft the cause of fear. But, see, thy brother. Re-enter GUIDERIUS, with CLOTEN'S head 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'ld 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 all 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 raved 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'ld 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 revenged: Would, Polydote, thou hadst not done't! though valour Becomes thee well enough. ARVIRAGUS Would I had done't So the revenge alone pursued 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 Polydote return, and bring him To dinner presently. ARVIRAGUS Poor sick Fidele! I'll weringly to him: to gain his colour I'ld let a parish of such Clotens' blood, And praise myself for charity. Exit BELARIUS O thou goddess, Thou divine Nature, how 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 enchafed, as the rudest wind, That by the top doth take the mountain pine, And make him stoop to the 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? BELARIUS Look, here he comes, And brings the dire occasion in his arms Of what we blame him for. Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, with IMOGEN, as dead, bearing her in his arms 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 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 hid tickled slumber, Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at; his right cheek Reposing on a cushion. GUIDERIUS Where? ARVIRAGUS O' the floor; His arms thus leagued: 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 azured harebell, like thy veins, no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Out-sweeten'd 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 flowers 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 the 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 the ground, As once 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, medicine 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 the 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' the 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' the 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 the all-dreaded thunder-stone; GUIDERIUS Fear not slander, censure rash; ARVIRAGUS Thou hast finish'd joy and moan: GUIDERIUS ARVIRAGUS 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! GUIDERIUS ARVIRAGUS 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' the night Are strewings fitt'st for graves. Upon their faces. You were as flowers, 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 BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS 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 of CLOTEN These flowers 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 stiff 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 imagined, 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, Conspired with that irregulous devil, Cloten, Hast 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 Murderous to the senses? That confirms it home: This is Pisanio's deed, and Cloten's: 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 on the body Enter LUCIUS, a Captain and other Officers, and a Soothsayer Captain To them the legions garrison'd in Gailia, After your will, have cross'd the sea, attending You here at Milford-Haven with your ships: They are in readiness. CAIUS 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, Syenna's brother. CAIUS LUCIUS When expect you them? Captain With the next benefit o' the wind. CAIUS 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 the Roman host. CAIUS 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. CAIUS 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 makest 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 it? Who is it? 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. CAIUS LUCIUS 'Lack, good youth! Thou movest 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? CAIUS LUCIUS Thy name? IMOGEN Fidele, sir. CAIUS 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 beloved. 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. CAIUS 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. A room in 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. First 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. First 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 amazed with matter. First 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 powers 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 I 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' the 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 lived, 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 deserved 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 promised, But to be still hot summer's tamings and The shrinking slaves of winter. GUIDERIUS Than be so Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to the army: I and my brother are not known; yourself So out of thought, and thereto so o'ergrown, Cannot be question'd. ARVIRAGUS By this sun that shines, I'll thither: what thing is it 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 ashamed 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, an 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, with a bloody handkerchief POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 lived 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 doers' thrift. But Imogen is your own: do your best wills, And make me blest to obey! I am brought hither Among the 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 Briton 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' the Leonati in me! To shame the guise o' the world, I will begin The fashion, less without and more within. Exit SCENE II. Field of battle between the British and Roman camps. Enter, from one side, LUCIUS, IACHIMO, and the Roman Army: from the other side, the British Army; POSTHUMUS LEONATUS following, like a poor soldier. They march over and go out. Then enter again, in skirmish, IACHIMO and POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 subdued 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 the advantage of the ground; The lane is guarded: nothing routs us but The villany of our fears. GUIDERIUS ARVIRAGUS Stand, stand, and fight! Re-enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, and seconds the Britons: they rescue CYMBELINE, and exeunt. Then re-enter LUCIUS, and IACHIMO, with IMOGEN CAIUS 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. CAIUS 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 LEONATUS and a British Lord Lord Camest thou from where they made the stand? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS I did. Though you, it seems, come from the fliers. Lord I did. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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, all flying Through a straight lane; the enemy full-hearted, Lolling the tongue with slaughtering, having work More plentiful than tools to do't, struck down Some mortally, some slightly touch'd, some falling Merely through fear; that the straight pass was damm'd With dead men hurt behind, and cowards living To die with lengthen'd shame. Lord Where was this lane? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Close by the battle, ditch'd, and wall'd with turf; Which gave advantage to an ancient soldier, An honest one, I warrant; who deserved 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 cased, 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' the hunters. Then began A stop i' the 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' the need: having found the backdoor open Of the unguarded hearts, heavens, how they wound! Some slain before; some dying; some their friends O'er borne i' the former wave: ten, chased by one, Are now each one the slaughter-man of twenty: Those that would die or ere resist are grown The mortal bugs o' the field. Lord This was strange chance A narrow lane, an old man, and two boys. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 mockery? Here is one: 'Two boys, an old man twice a boy, a lane, Preserved the Britons, was the Romans' bane.' Lord Nay, be not angry, sir. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS '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. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Still going? Exit Lord This is a lord! O noble misery, To be i' the field, and ask 'what news?' of me! To-day how many would have given their honours To have saved 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 more ministers than we That draw his knives i' the war. Well, I will find him For being now a favourer to the Briton, No more a Briton, I have resumed 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 the 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 praised! 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 the affront with them. First Captain So 'tis reported: But none of 'em can be found. Stand! who's there? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 the king. Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, Soldiers, Attendants, and Roman Captives. The Captains present POSTHUMUS LEONATUS to CYMBELINE, who delivers him over to a Gaoler: then exeunt omnes SCENE IV. A British prison. Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS Most welcome, bondage! for thou art away, think, to liberty: yet am I better Than one that's sick o' the gout; since he had rather Groan so in perpetuity than be cured By the sure physician, death, who is the key To 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, Desired 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 powers, 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 Leonatus, an old man, attired like a warrior; leading in his hand an ancient matron, his wife, and mother to Posthumus Leonatus, with music before them: then, after other music, follow the two young Leonati, brothers to Posthumus Leonatus, with wounds as they died in the wars. They circle Posthumus Leonatus round, as he lies sleeping Sicilius Leonatus 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 ript, Came crying 'mongst his foes, A thing of pity! Sicilius Leonatus Great nature, like his ancestry, Moulded the stuff so fair, That he deserved the praise o' the 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 exiled, and thrown From Leonati seat, and cast From her his dearest one, Sweet Imogen? Sicilius Leonatus Why did you suffer Iachimo, Slight thing of Italy, To taint his nobler heart and brain With needless jealosy; And to become the geck and scorn O' th' other's villany? 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 Leonatus 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 Leonatus Peep through thy marble mansion; help; Or we poor ghosts will cry To the shining synod of the rest Against thy deity. First Brother Second Brother 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 Apparitions 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 flowers: 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 further with your din Express impatience, lest you stir up mine. Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline. Ascends Sicilius Leonatus He came in thunder; his celestial breath Was sulphurous 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 pleased. All Thanks, Jupiter! Sicilius Leonatus The marble pavement closes, he is enter'd His radiant root. Away! and, to be blest, Let us with care perform his great behest. The Apparitions vanish Posthumus Leonatus Waking Sleep, thou hast 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 embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped 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 First Gaoler First Gaoler Come, sir, are you ready for death? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Over-roasted rather; ready long ago. First Gaoler Hanging is the word, sir: if you be ready for that, you are well cooked. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS So, if I prove a good repast to the spectators, the dish pays the shot. First 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 flint 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: 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 LEONATUS I am merrier to die than thou art to live. First Gaoler Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the tooth-ache: 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 LEONATUS Yes, indeed do I, fellow. First Gaoler Your death has eyes in 's head then; I have not seen him so pictured: you must either be directed by some that take upon them to know, or do 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 LEONATUS 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. First 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 LEONATUS Thou bring'st good news; I am called to be made free. First Gaoler I'll be hang'd then. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Thou shalt be then freer than a gaoler; no bolts for the dead. Exeunt POSTHUMUS LEONATUS and Messenger First 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. Exeunt SCENE V. 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 shamed gilded arms, whose naked breast Stepp'd before larges 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 promises 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' the 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' the 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 medicine 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 loved 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 lingering By inches waste you: in which time she purposed, 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 the 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? First 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 LEONATUS behind, and IMOGEN Thou comest not, Caius, now for tribute that The Britons have razed out, though with the loss Of many a bold one; whose kinsmen have made suit That their good souls may be appeased with slaughter Of you their captives, which ourself have granted: So think of your estate. CAIUS 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 make bold your highness Cannot deny; he hath done no Briton harm, Though he have served 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. CAIUS 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. CAIUS 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 eyest 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 revived 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 come forward 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 LEONATUS 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 villany 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 lived '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!--it was in Rome,--accursed The mansion where!--'twas at a feast,--O, would Our viands had been poison'd, or at least Those which I heaved 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 rarest 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 praised,--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-trolls, or his description Proved us unspeaking sots. CYMBELINE Nay, nay, to the 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 villanous. 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 practise 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; averting 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 LEONATUS Advancing Ay, so thou dost, Italian fiend! Ay me, most credulous fool, Egregious murderer, thief, any thing 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 the abhorred things o' the earth amend By being worse than they. I am Posthumus, That kill'd thy daughter:--villain-like, I lie-- That caused 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' the street to bay me: every villain Be call'd Posthumus Leonitus; and Be villany less than 'twas! O Imogen! My queen, my life, my wife! O Imogen, Imogen, Imogen! IMOGEN Peace, my lord; hear, hear-- POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Shall's have a play of this? Thou scornful page, There lie thy part. Striking her: she falls PISANIO O, gentlemen, help! Mine and your mistress! O, my lord Posthumus! You ne'er kill'd Imogen til now. Help, help! Mine honour'd lady! CYMBELINE Does the world go round? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS How come 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 thy mistress? IMOGEN O, get thee from my sight; Thou gavest 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 served As I would serve a rat.' CYMBELINE What's this, Comelius? CORNELIUS The queen, sir, very oft importuned 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 power 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 LEONATUS Hang there like a fruit, my soul, Till the tree die! CYMBELINE How now, my flesh, my child! What, makest 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 nought; 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, 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 enforced 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 bard 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 Assumed 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 received 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 I 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 moved her to't, Having received 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 shaped 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 pleased 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 the 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 Rejoiced deliverance more. Blest pray you be, That, after this strange starting from your orbs, 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 ye were so indeed. CYMBELINE Did you e'er meet? ARVIRAGUS Ay, my good lord. GUIDERIUS And at first meeting loved; Continued 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 abridgement Hath to it circumstantial branches, which Distinction should be rich in. Where? how lived 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-dependencies, From chance to chance: but nor the time nor place Will serve our long inter'gatories. See, Posthumus anchors upon Imogen, And she, like harmless lightning, throws her eye On him, her brother, 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. CAIUS LUCIUS Happy be you! CYMBELINE The forlorn soldier, that so nobly fought, He would have well becomed this place, and graced The thankings of a king. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 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 LEONATUS Kneel not to me: The power 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 LEONATUS 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 waked, 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. CAIUS LUCIUS Philarmonus! Soothsayer Here, my good lord. CAIUS LUCIUS Read, and declare the meaning. Soothsayer Reads 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped 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 Leonatus, 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 revived, 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 powers above do tune The harmony of this peace. The vision Which I made known to Lucius, ere the stroke Of this yet 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' the sun So vanish'd: which foreshow'd our princely eagle, The imperial 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 blest 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 A Midsummer Night's Dream

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 Dramatis Personae THESEUS, Duke of Athens. EGEUS, father to Hermia. LYSANDER 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, betrothed 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 COBWEB MOTH MUSTARDSEED fairies. Other fairies attending their King and Queen. Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta. SCENE Athens, and a wood near it. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 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 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, 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 interchanged love-tokens with my child: Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, With feigning voice verses of feigning love, And stolen the impression of her fantasy With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers Of strong prevailment in unharden'd 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 advised fair maid: To you your father should be as a god; One that composed 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 in 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 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 nest 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 derived 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 beloved 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 engaged 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 momentany 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 been 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 watery glass, Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal, Through Athens' gates have we devised 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, folding 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 judgement taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, So the boy Love is perjured every where: 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 dissolved, and showers 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 wandering knight? QUINCE It is the lady that Pyramus must love. FLUTE Nay, faith, let me not 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;' 'Ah, Pyramus, 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 that 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-faced 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-faced. 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 dogged 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, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and PUCK 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 everywhere, 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 our 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 speak'st 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 wither'd 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, from one side, OBERON, with his train; from the other, TITANIA, 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 Steppe 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 thou not lead him through the glimmering night From Perigenia, whom he ravished? And make him with fair AEgle 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 Have 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 Far 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 votaress 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 the 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 rememberest 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 loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness. Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once: The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids 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 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 stolen unto this wood; And here am I, and wode 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 changed: 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 wood 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 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 You spotted snakes with double tongue, Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong, Come not near our fairy queen. 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. Weaving spiders, come not here; Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence! Beetles black, approach not near; Worm nor snail, do no offence. Philomel, with melody, c. Fairy Hence, away! now all is well: One aloof stand sentinel. Exeunt Fairies. TITANIA sleeps 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 wakest, it is thy dear: Wake when some vile thing is near. Exit Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA LYSANDER Fair love, you faint with wandering 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 wakest, 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 oftener 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 Awaking 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 refused. Should of another therefore be abused! 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 tie 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 Awaking 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 pray. Lysander! what, removed? 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 all 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 killed 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 yourselves: 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 almanac; 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 lanthorn, 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 home-spuns have we swaggering 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 Odours, odours. 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 yet 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 yet 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 QUINCE, SNUG, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING 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 changed! what do I see on thee? BOTTOM What do you see? you see an asshead 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 I 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 Awaking What angel wakes me from my flowery bed? BOTTOM Sings The finch, the sparrow and the lark, The plain-song cuckoo gray, 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 lie, though he cry 'cuckoo' never so? TITANIA I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: Mine ear is much enamour'd 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 worship's 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 devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise you your kindred had made my eyes water ere now. I desire your more acquaintance, good Master Mustardseed. TITANIA Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower. The moon methinks looks with a watery 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 awaked; 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 thick-skin of that barren sort, Who Pyramus presented, in their sport Forsook his scene and enter'd in a brake When I did him at this advantage take, An ass's nole I fixed on his head: Anon his Thisbe 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 waked and straightway loved 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 waked, of force she must be eyed. Enter HERMIA and DEMETRIUS 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 bored and that the moon May through the centre creep and so displease Her brother's noontide with Antipodes. It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him; So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim. DEMETRIUS So should the murder'd look, and so should I, Pierced 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 drivest me past the bounds Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then? Henceforth be never number'd 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 misprised 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 and sleeps 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 wakest, 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 befal preposterously. 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 had 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 Helena, 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 we re 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 loved 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. Re-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 you fiery oes and eyes of light. Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know, The hate I bear 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 conspired, have you with these contrived To bait me with this foul derision? Is all the counsel that we two have shared, The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time For parting us,--O, is it 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 grow together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition; Two lovely berries moulded on one stem; 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 thought I be not so in grace as you, So hung upon with love, so fortunate, But miserable most, to love unloved? This you should pity rather than despise. HERNIA 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'll 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 medicine! 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 loved 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 canker-blossom! You thief of love! what, have you come by night And stolen 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 urged 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 follow'd you; for love I follow'd him; But he hath chid me hence and threaten'd 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's 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 hindering 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 darest, to try whose right, Of thine or mine, is most in Helena. DEMETRIUS Follow! nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jole. 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 amazed, and know not what to say. Exit OBERON This is thy negligence: still thou mistakest, 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 garment be 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 see'st 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, wandering here and there, Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all, That in crossways and floods have burial, Already to their wormy beds are gone; For fear lest day should look their shames upon, They willfully themselves exile 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 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. Re-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 Re-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 defiled 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 follow'd 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 comest thou not? DEMETRIUS Abide me, if thou darest; for well I wot Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place, And darest 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 Re-enter HELENA HELENA O weary night, O long and tedious night, Abate thy hour! 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. Lies down and sleeps PUCK Yet but three? Come one more; Two of both kinds make up four. Here she comes, curst and sad: Cupid is a knavish lad, Thus to make poor females mad. Re-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 wakest, Thou takest 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 same. 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 flowery 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-hipped 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 courtesy, good mounsieur. MUSTARDSEED What's your Will? BOTTOM Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; 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, begone, 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. See'st thou this sweet sight? Her dotage now I do begin to pity: For, meeting her of late behind the wood, Seeking sweet favours from this hateful fool, I did upbraid her and fall out with her; For she his hairy temples then had rounded With a 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. Be as thou wast wont to be; See as thou wast 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! Music, still PUCK Now, when thou wakest, with thine own fool's eyes peep. OBERON Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me, 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, all in jollity. PUCK Fairy king, attend, and mark: I do hear the morning lark. OBERON Then, my queen, in silence sad, Trip we after the night's shade: We the globe can compass soon, Swifter than the wandering 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 Horns winded within 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 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. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA wake and start up 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 do I 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 stolen 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 follow'd 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 in 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 purposed 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, 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, stolen 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 patched 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 called 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 marred: 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 no true Athenian. I will tell you every thing, 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 preferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion pair 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 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 supposed a bear! HIPPOLYTA But all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigured so together, More witnesseth than fancy's images And grows to something of great constancy; But, howsoever, strange and admirable. THESEUS Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA 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 abridgement 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 Reads '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. Reads '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. Reads 'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.' That is some satire, keen and critical, Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony. Reads 'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus And his love Thisbe; 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 rehearsed, 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 practised 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 for 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 contest you, Our true intent is. All for your delight We are not here. That you should here repent you, The actors are at hand 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 played on his prologue like a child on a recorder; a sound, but not in government. THESEUS His speech, was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all disordered. Who is next? Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, 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 Wall's 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 is 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, Thisbe, 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 I? No Thisby do I see. O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss! Cursed be 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 Thisbe Thisbe O wall, full often hast thou heard 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! Thisbe 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. Thisbe And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill. Pyramus Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true. Thisbe As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you. Pyramus O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall! Thisbe I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all. Pyramus Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway? Thisbe 'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay. Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe Wall Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so; And, being done, thus Wall away doth go. Exit THESEUS Now is the mural down 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, one 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, 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' the moon do seem to be. THESEUS This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the man i' the 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. Moonshine All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog. DEMETRIUS Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe. Enter Thisbe Thisbe This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love? Lion Roaring Oh-- Thisbe runs off DEMETRIUS Well roared, Lion. THESEUS Well run, Thisbe. HIPPOLYTA Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good grace. The Lion shakes Thisbe's mantle, and exit THESEUS Well moused, Lion. LYSANDER And so the lion vanished. DEMETRIUS And then came Pyramus. Enter Pyramus 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 be? 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 lived, that loved, that liked, 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 prove an ass. HIPPOLYTA How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back and finds her lover? THESEUS She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and her passion ends the play. Re-enter Thisbe 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 Thisbe, 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 means, videlicet:-- Thisbe Asleep, my love? What, dead, my dove? O Pyramus, arise! Speak, speak. Quite dumb? Dead, dead? A tomb Must cover thy sweet eyes. These My 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 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 needs none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself in Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine tragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably discharged. 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 beguiled The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed. A fortnight hold we this solemnity, In nightly revels and new jollity. Exeunt Enter PUCK 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 hallow'd house: I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door. Enter OBERON and TITANIA with their train OBERON Through the house give gathering 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. Song 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 OBERON, TITANIA, and train PUCK If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd 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. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

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 Dramatis Personae CLAUDIUS, king of Denmark. HAMLET, son to the late, and nephew to the present king. POLONIUS, lord chamberlain. HORATIO, friend to Hamlet. LAERTES, son to Polonius. LUCIANUS, nephew to the king. VOLTIMAND CORNELIUS ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN OSRIC courtiers. A Gentleman A Priest. MARCELLUS BERNARDO officers. FRANCISCO, a soldier. REYNALDO, servant to Polonius. Players. Two Clowns, grave-diggers. FORTINBRAS, prince of Norway. A Captain. English Ambassadors. GERTRUDE, queen of Denmark, and mother to Hamlet. OPHELIA, daughter to Polonius. Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants. Ghost of Hamlet's Father. SCENE Denmark. HAMLET ACT I SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle. FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO BERNARDO Who's there? FRANCISCO Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself. BERNARDO Long live the king! FRANCISCO Bernardo? BERNARDO He. FRANCISCO You come most carefully upon your hour. BERNARDO 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco. FRANCISCO For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart. BERNARDO Have you had quiet guard? FRANCISCO Not a mouse stirring. BERNARDO Well, good night. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. FRANCISCO I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there? Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS HORATIO Friends to this ground. MARCELLUS And liegemen to the Dane. FRANCISCO Give you good night. MARCELLUS O, farewell, honest soldier: Who hath relieved you? FRANCISCO Bernardo has my place. Give you good night. Exit MARCELLUS Holla! Bernardo! BERNARDO Say, What, is Horatio there? HORATIO A piece of him. BERNARDO Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus. MARCELLUS What, has this thing appear'd again to-night? BERNARDO 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. BERNARDO Sit down awhile; And let us once again assail your ears, That are so fortified against our story What we have two nights seen. HORATIO Well, sit we down, And let us hear Bernardo speak of this. BERNARDO Last night of all, When yond same star that's westward from the pole Had made his course to illume that part of heaven Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, The bell then beating one,-- Enter Ghost MARCELLUS Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again! BERNARDO In the same figure, like the king that's dead. MARCELLUS Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio. BERNARDO Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio. HORATIO Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder. BERNARDO 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. BERNARDO See, it stalks away! HORATIO Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak! Exit Ghost MARCELLUS 'Tis gone, and will not answer. BERNARDO 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 the 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, Dared 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 seized 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 covenant, 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 romage in the land. BERNARDO 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.-- But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again! Re-enter Ghost 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: Cock crows 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! Stop it, Marcellus. MARCELLUS Shall I strike at it with my partisan? HORATIO Do, if it will not stand. BERNARDO 'Tis here! HORATIO 'Tis here! MARCELLUS 'Tis gone! Exit Ghost 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. BERNARDO 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, The 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 dares 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 to-night 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. A room of state in the castle. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants KING CLAUDIUS 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, The imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,-- With an auspicious and a 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 the 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, Voltimand, 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 delated articles allow. Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty. CORNELIUS VOLTIMAND In that and all things will we show our duty. KING CLAUDIUS We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell. Exeunt VOLTIMAND 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 loose 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 My dread 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 CLAUDIUS Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius? LORD 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 CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS How is it that the clouds still hang on you? HAMLET Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun. QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE 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 forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes 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 CLAUDIUS '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 persever 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 to-day, '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 GERTRUDE 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 CLAUDIUS Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply: Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come; This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof, No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day, But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell, And the king's rouse the heavens all 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! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! ah 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 follow'd 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 my 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 BERNARDO 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 mine 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 pray thee, 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 baked 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 awhile 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 Bernardo, on their watch, In the dead vast and middle of the night, Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father, Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe, 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, distilled 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'd. HAMLET Did you not speak to it? HORATIO My lord, I did; But answer made it none: yet once methought It lifted up its 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 to-night? MARCELLUS BERNARDO We do, my lord. HAMLET Arm'd, say you? MARCELLUS BERNARDO Arm'd, my lord. HAMLET From top to toe? MARCELLUS BERNARDO 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 amazed you. HAMLET Very like, very like. Stay'd it long? HORATIO While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred. MARCELLUS BERNARDO 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 to-night; Perchance 'twill walk again. HORATIO I warrant 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 to-night, Give it an understanding, but no tongue: I will requite your loves. So, fare you 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 all but HAMLET 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' 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 unvalued persons do, Carve for himself; for on his choice depends The safety and health of this whole state; And therefore must his choice be circumscribed 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 'scapes not calumnious strokes: The canker galls the infants of the spring, Too oft before their buttons be disclosed, 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 the 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; Whiles, 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. LORD 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 thee! And these few precepts in thy memory See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy 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 ownself 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. 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 LORD POLONIUS What is't, Ophelia, be hath said to you? OPHELIA So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet. LORD 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. LORD 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. LORD 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, Running it thus--you'll tender me a fool. OPHELIA My lord, he hath importuned me with love In honourable fashion. LORD 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. LORD 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 somewhat 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. HAMLET No, it is struck. HORATIO Indeed? I heard it not: then it 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 to-night and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring 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: But 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 traduced 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 the o'ergrowth of some complexion, Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens The form of plausive manners, that these men, Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,-- Their 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 eale Doth all the noble substance of a 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 comest 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 canonized bones, hearsed in death, Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre, Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, Hath oped 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 I will follow it. HORATIO Do not, my lord. HAMLET Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life in 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 fathoms 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 ruled; 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. Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen. 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. Another part of the platform. Enter GHOST and HAMLET HAMLET Where 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 sulphurous 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 confined to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged 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 porpentine: 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 roots 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 abused: but know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father's life Now wears his crown. HAMLET O my prophetic soul! My 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 moved, 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 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, Unhousel'd, 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 pursuest 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! Hamlet, remember me. Exit HAMLET O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else? And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, 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'm 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. MARCELLUS HORATIO Within My lord, my lord,-- MARCELLUS Within Lord Hamlet,-- HORATIO Within Heaven secure him! HAMLET So be it! HORATIO Within Hillo, 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 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 desire shall point you; For every man has business and desire, Such as it is; and for mine 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 to-night. HORATIO 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 Beneath Swear. HAMLET Ah, 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' the 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 headshake, Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,' Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an 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! They swear So, gentlemen, With all my love I do commend me to you: And what so poor a man as Hamlet is May do, to 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' house. Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO LORD POLONIUS Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo. REYNALDO I will, my lord. LORD POLONIUS You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo, Before you visit him, to make inquire Of his behavior. REYNALDO My lord, I did intend it. LORD POLONIUS Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir, Inquire 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. 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. LORD POLONIUS Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling, Drabbing: you may go so far. REYNALDO My lord, that would dishonour him. LORD 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,-- LORD POLONIUS Wherefore should you do this? REYNALDO Ay, my lord, I would know that. LORD POLONIUS Marry, sir, here's my drift; And I believe, it is a fetch of wit: You laying these slight sullies on my son, As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i' the 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 assured 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. 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.' LORD POLONIUS At 'closes in the consequence,' ay, marry; He closes thus: 'I know the gentleman; I saw him yesterday, or t' other day, Or then, or then; with such, or such; and, as you say, There was a' 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. LORD POLONIUS God be wi' you; fare you well. REYNALDO Good my lord! LORD POLONIUS Observe his inclination in yourself. REYNALDO I shall, my lord. LORD POLONIUS And let him ply his music. REYNALDO Well, my lord. LORD POLONIUS Farewell! Exit REYNALDO Enter OPHELIA How now, Ophelia! what's the matter? OPHELIA O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted! LORD POLONIUS With what, i' the name of God? OPHELIA My lord, as I was sewing in my closet, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced; No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd, Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle; 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. LORD POLONIUS Mad for thy love? OPHELIA My lord, I do not know; But truly, I do fear it. LORD 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 raised 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 helps, And, to the last, bended their light on me. LORD 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 fetters and denied His access to me. LORD 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! By heaven, 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 CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and Attendants KING CLAUDIUS 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 call it, Sith nor the 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 the understanding of himself, I cannot dream of: I entreat you both, That, being of so young days brought up with him, And sith so neighbour'd to his youth and havior, 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 GERTRUDE 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 But we both obey, And here give up ourselves, in the full bent To lay our service freely at your feet, To be commanded. KING CLAUDIUS Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern. QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 practises Pleasant and helpful to him! QUEEN GERTRUDE Ay, amen! Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and some Attendants Enter POLONIUS LORD POLONIUS The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, Are joyfully return'd. KING CLAUDIUS Thou still hast been the father of good news. LORD POLONIUS Have I, my lord? I assure 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 used to do, that I have found The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy. KING CLAUDIUS O, speak of that; that do I long to hear. LORD POLONIUS Give first admittance to the ambassadors; My news shall be the fruit to that great feast. KING CLAUDIUS Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in. Exit POLONIUS He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found The head and source of all your son's distemper. QUEEN GERTRUDE I doubt it is no other but the main; His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage. KING CLAUDIUS Well, we shall sift him. Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS Welcome, my good friends! Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway? VOLTIMAND 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 grieved, 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 the 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, Giving 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 CLAUDIUS It likes us well; And at our more consider'd time well 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 VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS LORD 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 GERTRUDE More matter, with less art. LORD 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 while 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. Thus: Reads 'In her excellent white bosom, these, c.' QUEEN GERTRUDE Came this from Hamlet to her? LORD 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 shown me, And more above, hath his solicitings, As they fell out by time, by means and place, All given to mine ear. KING CLAUDIUS But how hath she Received his love? LORD POLONIUS What do you think of me? KING CLAUDIUS As of a man faithful and honourable. LORD POLONIUS I would fain prove so. But what might you think, When I had seen this hot love on the wing-- As I perceived 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 mourn for. KING CLAUDIUS Do you think 'tis this? QUEEN GERTRUDE It may be, very likely. LORD POLONIUS Hath there been such a time--I'd fain know that-- That I have positively said 'Tis so,' When it proved otherwise? KING CLAUDIUS Not that I know. LORD POLONIUS Pointing to his head and shoulder Take this from this, if this be otherwise: If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed Within the centre. KING CLAUDIUS How may we try it further? LORD POLONIUS You know, sometimes he walks four hours together Here in the lobby. QUEEN GERTRUDE So he does indeed. LORD 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 CLAUDIUS We will try it. QUEEN GERTRUDE But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading. LORD POLONIUS Away, I do beseech you, both away: I'll board him presently. Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, and Attendants Enter HAMLET, reading O, give me leave: How does my good Lord Hamlet? HAMLET Well, God-a-mercy. LORD POLONIUS Do you know me, my lord? HAMLET Excellent well; you are a fishmonger. LORD POLONIUS Not I, my lord. HAMLET Then I would you were so honest a man. LORD POLONIUS Honest, my lord! HAMLET Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. LORD POLONIUS That's very true, my lord. HAMLET For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion,--Have you a daughter? LORD POLONIUS I have, my lord. HAMLET Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to 't. LORD POLONIUS Aside How say you by that? 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. LORD POLONIUS What is the matter, my lord? HAMLET Between who? LORD POLONIUS I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. HAMLET Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue 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 yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. LORD POLONIUS Aside Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord? HAMLET Into my grave. LORD 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 any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life. LORD POLONIUS Fare you well, my lord. HAMLET These tedious old fools! Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN LORD 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' the 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 nut shell 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 outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. ROSENCRANTZ 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, any thing, 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 Aside 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 a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! 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 humourous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the 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 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, are they not. HAMLET How comes it? do they grow rusty? ROSENCRANTZ Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but there is, sir, an aery 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 mine uncle is king of Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece 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 then: 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 LORD 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: o' Monday morning; 'twas so indeed. LORD 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,-- LORD POLONIUS The actors are come hither, my lord. HAMLET Buz, buz! LORD POLONIUS Upon mine honour,-- HAMLET Then came each actor on his ass,-- LORD 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! LORD POLONIUS What a treasure had he, my lord? HAMLET Why, 'One fair daughter and no more, The which he loved passing well.' LORD POLONIUS Aside Still on my daughter. HAMLET Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah? LORD POLONIUS If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well. HAMLET Nay, that follows not. LORD 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 valenced since I saw thee last: comest 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 apiece 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 any thing 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 indict 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 the 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, Baked and impasted with the parching streets, That lend a tyrannous and damned light To their lord's murder: roasted in wrath and fire, And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore, With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus Old grandsire Priam seeks.' So, proceed you. LORD 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 The 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' the 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 forged 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!' LORD POLONIUS This is too long. HAMLET It shall to the barber's, with your beard. Prithee, 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?' LORD POLONIUS That's good; 'mobled queen' is good. First Player 'Run barefoot up and down, threatening 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'er-teemed loins, A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up; Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd, 'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounced: 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.' LORD POLONIUS Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has tears in's eyes. Pray you, no more. HAMLET 'Tis well: I'll have thee speak out the rest soon. Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time: after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live. LORD POLONIUS My lord, I will use them according to their desert. HAMLET God's bodykins, man, much 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. LORD POLONIUS Come, sirs. HAMLET Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow. Exit 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 to-morrow 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 My good friends, I'll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinore. ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord! HAMLET Ay, so, God be wi' ye; Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN 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 wann'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' the 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! O, 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 To 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 CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN KING CLAUDIUS 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 GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE 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. LORD POLONIUS 'Tis most true: And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties To hear and see the matter. KING CLAUDIUS With all my heart; and it doth much content me To hear him so inclined. 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 CLAUDIUS 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 behaved, If 't be the affliction of his love or no That thus he suffers for. QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE LORD 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 proved--that with devotion's visage And pious action we do sugar o'er The devil himself. KING CLAUDIUS 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 burthen! LORD POLONIUS I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord. Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS 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 despised 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 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 composed 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 no where 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 has given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name 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; The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed 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, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS KING CLAUDIUS 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? LORD 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 placed, 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 CLAUDIUS It shall be so: Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. Exeunt SCENE II. A hall in the castle. Enter HAMLET and 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, the 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 dumbshows 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 o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing 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 reformed 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 mean time, 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! I will the king hear this piece of work? LORD POLONIUS And the queen too, and that presently. HAMLET Bid the players make haste. Exit POLONIUS Will you two help to hasten them? ROSENCRANTZ 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 coped 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 blest are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, 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 to-night before the king; One scene of it comes near the circumstance Which I have told thee of my father's death: I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, 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 CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others KING CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine. HAMLET No, nor mine now. To POLONIUS My lord, you played once i' the university, you say? LORD POLONIUS That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor. HAMLET What did you enact? LORD POLONIUS I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the 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 GERTRUDE Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. HAMLET No, good mother, here's metal more attractive. LORD POLONIUS To KING CLAUDIUS 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 these 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.' Hautboys play. 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, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love Exeunt OPHELIA What means this, my lord? HAMLET Marry, this is miching mallecho; 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 he 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. Exit HAMLET Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? OPHELIA 'Tis brief, my lord. HAMLET As woman's love. Enter two Players, King and 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 sized, 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, beloved; 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 advanced 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 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 GERTRUDE The lady protests too much, methinks. HAMLET O, but she'll keep her word. KING CLAUDIUS Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't? HAMLET No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' the world. KING CLAUDIUS What do you call the play? HAMLET The Mouse-trap. 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 galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. Enter LUCIANUS This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king. OPHELIA You are as good as a 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 must take 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' the garden for's estate. His name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in 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 GERTRUDE How fares my lord? LORD POLONIUS Give o'er the play. KING CLAUDIUS Give me some light: away! All Lights, lights, lights! Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO HAMLET Why, let the stricken 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, perdy. Come, some music! Re-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 his doctor; for, 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 behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration. HAMLET O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? Impart. 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 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, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb is something musty. Re-enter 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 lingers 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, yet you cannot play upon me. Enter POLONIUS God bless you, sir! LORD 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? LORD POLONIUS By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel. LORD POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel. HAMLET Or like a whale? LORD POLONIUS Very like a whale. HAMLET Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by. LORD POLONIUS I will say so. HAMLET By and by is easily said. Exit POLONIUS 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 soever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent! Exit SCENE III. A room in the castle. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN KING CLAUDIUS 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 dangerous 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 mortised and adjoin'd; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone Did the king sigh, but with a general groan. KING CLAUDIUS Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage; For we will fetters put upon this fear, Which now goes too free-footed. ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN We will haste us. Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN Enter POLONIUS LORD POLONIUS My lord, he's going to his mother's closet: Behind the arras I'll convey myself, To hear the process; and 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 CLAUDIUS 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 two-fold 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 the 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 can not repent? O wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay! Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel, Be soft as sinews of the newborn 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 revenged. 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 revenged, 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 the 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 KING CLAUDIUS Rising My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go. Exit SCENE IV. The Queen's closet. Enter QUEEN MARGARET and POLONIUS LORD 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 sconce me even here. Pray you, be round with him. HAMLET Within Mother, mother, mother! QUEEN GERTRUDE I'll warrant you, Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming. POLONIUS hides behind the arras Enter HAMLET HAMLET Now, mother, what's the matter? QUEEN GERTRUDE Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. HAMLET Mother, you have my father much offended. QUEEN GERTRUDE Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. HAMLET Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. QUEEN GERTRUDE Why, how now, Hamlet! HAMLET What's the matter now? QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me? Help, help, ho! LORD POLONIUS Behind What, ho! help, help, help! HAMLET Drawing How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead! Makes a pass through the arras LORD POLONIUS Behind O, I am slain! Falls and dies QUEEN GERTRUDE O me, what hast thou done? HAMLET Nay, I know not: Is it the king? QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE As kill a king! HAMLET Ay, lady, 'twas my word. Lifts up the array and discovers 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 brass'd it so That it is proof and bulwark against sense. QUEEN GERTRUDE What have I done, that thou darest 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 GERTRUDE 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 ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd But it reserved 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 GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE Alas, he's mad! HAMLET Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, lapsed 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 GERTRUDE 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 hair, like life in excrements, Starts up, and stands on 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 GERTRUDE To whom do you speak this? HAMLET Do you see nothing there? QUEEN GERTRUDE Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. HAMLET Nor did you nothing hear? QUEEN GERTRUDE No, nothing but ourselves. HAMLET Why, look you there! look, how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he lived! Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal! Exit Ghost QUEEN GERTRUDE This 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 mattering 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 GERTRUDE 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 devil, 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 to-night, 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 ... the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency. Once more, good night: And when you are desirous to be bless'd, I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord, Pointing to POLONIUS I do repent: but heaven hath pleased 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 GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE Be thou assured, 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 GERTRUDE 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 engineer 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 prating knave. Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you. Good night, mother. Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS ACT IV SCENE I. A room in the castle. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN KING CLAUDIUS There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves: You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them. Where is your son? QUEEN GERTRUDE Bestow this place on us a little while. Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night! KING CLAUDIUS What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet? QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 CLAUDIUS 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 every one. 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 GERTRUDE 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 CLAUDIUS 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... 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 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 CLAUDIUS, attended KING CLAUDIUS 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 loved of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes; And where tis so, the 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 relieved, 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 CLAUDIUS But where is he? ROSENCRANTZ Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure. KING CLAUDIUS Bring him before us. ROSENCRANTZ Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord. Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN KING CLAUDIUS Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius? HAMLET At supper. KING CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS Alas, alas! HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. KING CLAUDIUS What dost you mean by this? HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. KING CLAUDIUS Where is Polonius? HAMLET In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the 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 CLAUDIUS Go seek him there. To some Attendants HAMLET He will stay till ye come. Exeunt Attendants KING CLAUDIUS 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, The associates tend, and every thing is bent For England. HAMLET For England! KING CLAUDIUS Ay, Hamlet. HAMLET Good. KING CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard; Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night: Away! for every thing is seal'd and done That else leans on the 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 congruing 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, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching PRINCE FORTINBRAS Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king; Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras Craves the conveyance of a promised 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. PRINCE FORTINBRAS Go softly on. Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others HAMLET Good sir, whose powers are these? Captain They are of Norway, sir. HAMLET How purposed, sir, I pray you? Captain Against some part of Poland. HAMLET Who commands them, sir? Captain The nephews 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 the 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 be wi' you, sir. Exit ROSENCRANTZ Wilt please you go, my lord? HAMLET I'll be with you straight go a little before. Exeunt all except 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 god-like reason To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the 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 egg-shell. 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 GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman QUEEN GERTRUDE I will not speak with her. Gentleman She is importunate, indeed distract: Her mood will needs be pitied. QUEEN GERTRUDE What would she have? Gentleman She speaks much of her father; says she hears There's tricks i' the 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. HORATIO 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds. QUEEN GERTRUDE Let her come in. Exit HORATIO 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. Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA OPHELIA Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark? QUEEN GERTRUDE How now, Ophelia! OPHELIA Sings How should I your true love know From another one? By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandal shoon. QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE Nay, but, Ophelia,-- OPHELIA Pray you, mark. Sings White his shroud as the mountain snow,-- Enter KING CLAUDIUS QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, look here, my lord. OPHELIA Sings Larded with sweet flowers Which bewept to the grave did go With true-love showers. KING CLAUDIUS How do you, pretty lady? OPHELIA Well, God 'ild 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 CLAUDIUS 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 To-morrow 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 CLAUDIUS 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 promised me to wed. So would I ha' done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed. KING CLAUDIUS 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 should lay him i' the 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 CLAUDIUS 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 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 GERTRUDE Alack, what noise is this? KING CLAUDIUS Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door. Enter another 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 officers. 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 GERTRUDE How cheerfully on the false trail they cry! O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs! KING CLAUDIUS The doors are broke. Noise within 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 GERTRUDE 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 CLAUDIUS 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 incensed. Let him go, Gertrude. Speak, man. LAERTES Where is my father? KING CLAUDIUS Dead. QUEEN GERTRUDE But not by him. KING CLAUDIUS 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 revenged Most thoroughly for my father. KING CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS Good Laertes, If you desire to know the certainty Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge, That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe, Winner and loser? LAERTES None but his enemies. KING CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS Why, now you speak Like a good child and a true gentleman. That I am guiltless of your father's death, And am most sensible in grief for it, It shall as level to your judgment pierce As day does to your eye. Danes Within Let her come in. LAERTES How now! what noise is that? Re-enter OPHELIA 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 moral 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 barefaced on the bier; Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny; And in 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 Sings You must sing a-down a-down, An 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-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered 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 be wi' ye. Exit LAERTES Do you see this, O God? KING CLAUDIUS 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 can 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 funeral-- 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 CLAUDIUS So you shall; And where the 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, an't please him. There's a letter for you, sir; it comes from the 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 speed 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 make 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 CLAUDIUS and LAERTES KING CLAUDIUS Now must your conscience my acquaintance 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 Pursued 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 CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS 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 loved 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 CLAUDIUS From Hamlet! who brought them? Messenger Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not: They were given me by Claudio; he received them Of him that brought them. KING CLAUDIUS Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us. Exit Messenger Reads 'High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasion 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 CLAUDIUS 'Tis Hamlets character. 'Naked! And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.' Can you advise me? LAERTES I'm 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 didest thou.' KING CLAUDIUS If it be so, Laertes-- As how should it be so? how otherwise?-- Will you be ruled by me? LAERTES Ay, my lord; So you will not o'errule me to a peace. KING CLAUDIUS 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 an exploit, now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but fall: And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe, But even his mother shall uncharge the practise And call it accident. LAERTES My lord, I will be ruled; The rather, if you could devise it so That I might be the organ. KING CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS 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 served 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 he had been incorpsed and demi-natured 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 CLAUDIUS A Norman. LAERTES Upon my life, Lamond. KING CLAUDIUS The very same. LAERTES I know him well: he is the brooch indeed And gem of all the nation. KING CLAUDIUS 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 had neither motion, guard, nor eye, If you opposed 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 CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS 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 plurisy, 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' the 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' the church. KING CLAUDIUS 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 practise 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 That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, It may be death. KING CLAUDIUS 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 should 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 prepared 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 GERTRUDE How now, sweet queen! QUEEN GERTRUDE One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes. LAERTES Drown'd! O, where? QUEEN GERTRUDE There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come 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 pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering 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 chanted 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 GERTRUDE 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 CLAUDIUS 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 that 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, 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 gentleman 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 digged:' 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 in: 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 that he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a stoup of liquor. Exit Second Clown He digs and sings In youth, when I did love, did love, Methought it was very sweet, To contract, O, the time, for, ah, 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 shipped me intil 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 the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; 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 mazzard 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 loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't. First Clown Sings A pick-axe, 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 quiddities 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 hardly 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 sheepskins? 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, sirrah? 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 it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and 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; 'twill away gain, 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 a note of it; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he gaffs his kibe. How long hast thou been a grave-maker? First Clown Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame 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, a 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' the earth ere he rot? First Clown I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die--as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, 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 tanned 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 has 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' poured 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 rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed 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 chap-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. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing. HORATIO What's that, my lord? HAMLET Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the earth? HORATIO E'en so. HAMLET And smelt so? pah! Puts 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 to expel the winter flaw! But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king. Enter Priest, c. in procession; the Corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES and Mourners following; KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, their trains, c The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow? And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken The corse they follow did with desperate hand Fordo its 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? First Priest Her obsequies have been as far enlarged As we have warrantise: her death was doubtful; And, but that great command o'ersways the order, She should in ground unsanctified have lodged Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers, Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her; Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants, Her maiden strewments and the bringing home Of bell and burial. LAERTES Must there no more be done? First Priest No more be done: We should profane the service of the dead To sing a requiem and such rest to her As to peace-parted souls. LAERTES Lay her i' the earth: And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be, When thou liest howling. HAMLET What, the fair Ophelia! QUEEN GERTRUDE Sweets to the sweet: farewell! Scattering flowers I hoped 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 Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile, 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 wandering stars, and makes them stand Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, Hamlet the Dane. Leaps into the grave LAERTES The devil take thy soul! Grappling with him HAMLET Thou pray'st not well. I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat; For, though I am not splenitive and rash, Yet have I something in me dangerous, Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand. KING CLAUDIUS Pluck them asunder. QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE O my son, what theme? HAMLET I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her? KING CLAUDIUS O, he is mad, Laertes. QUEEN GERTRUDE For love of God, forbear him. HAMLET 'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do: Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself? Woo'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 GERTRUDE 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 disclosed, His silence will sit drooping. HAMLET Hear you, sir; What is the reason that you use me thus? I loved 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 CLAUDIUS I pray you, 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 shall you 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 mutines in the bilboes. Rashly, And praised be rashness for it, let us know, Our indiscretion sometimes 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 Groped 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,-- O 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 be-netted round with villanies,-- Ere I could make a prologue to my brains, They had begun the play--I sat me down, Devised 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 stiff 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 knowing 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 form of the other, Subscribed it, gave't the impression, placed 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, think'st thee, stand me now upon-- He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother, Popp'd in between the 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 towering 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 water-fly? 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, sir, with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; 'tis for the head. OSRIC I thank your lordship, it is very hot. HAMLET No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is northerly. OSRIC It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed. HAMLET But yet 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, good my lord; 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 the 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 wagered 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 margent 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 'imponed,' as you call it? OSRIC The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes between yourself 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, 'tis 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 an 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 sucked it. Thus has he--and many more of the same bevy that I know the dressy age dotes on--only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of yesty collection, which carries them through and through the most fond 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 purpose; 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 practise: 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 any thing, 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 CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES, Lords, OSRIC, and Attendants with foils, c KING CLAUDIUS Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me. KING CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET's HAMLET Give me your pardon, sir: I've 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 purposed evil Free me so far in your most generous thoughts, That I have shot mine 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 ungored. 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' the darkest night, Stick fiery off indeed. LAERTES You mock me, sir. HAMLET No, by this hand. KING CLAUDIUS Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet, You know the wager? HAMLET Very well, my lord Your grace hath laid the odds o' the weaker side. KING CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS Set me the stoops 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 dunks 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 CLAUDIUS 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. Come. They play Another hit; what say you? LAERTES A touch, a touch, I do confess. KING CLAUDIUS Our son shall win. QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 CLAUDIUS Gertrude, do not drink. QUEEN GERTRUDE I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me. KING CLAUDIUS Aside It is the poison'd cup: it is too late. HAMLET I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by. QUEEN GERTRUDE Come, let me wipe thy face. LAERTES My lord, I'll hit him now. KING CLAUDIUS I do not think't. LAERTES Aside And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience. HAMLET Come, for the third, Laertes: you 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 CLAUDIUS Part them; they are incensed. HAMLET Nay, come, again. QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 mine own springe, Osric; I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery. HAMLET How does the queen? KING CLAUDIUS She swounds to see them bleed. QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 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 practise 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 KING CLAUDIUS All Treason! treason! KING CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS dies LAERTES He is justly served; 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 livest; 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 thou'rt 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 the 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 PRINCE FORTINBRAS Where is this sight? HORATIO What is it ye would see? If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search. PRINCE 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 the 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 arrived give order that these bodies High on a stage be placed to the view; And let me speak to the 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 forced cause, And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall'n on the inventors' reads: all this can I Truly deliver. PRINCE 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. PRINCE FORTINBRAS Let four captains Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage; For he was likely, had he been put on, To have proved 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 dead bodies; after which a peal of ordnance is shot off The First Part of Henry the Fourth

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 Dramatis Personae KING HENRY, the Fourth. HENRY, Prince of Wales JOHN of Lancaster sons of the King 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. RICHARD SCROOP, Archbishop of York. ARCHIBALD, Earl of Douglas. OWEN GLENDOWER SIR RICHARD VERNON SIR JOHN FALSTAFF SIR MICHAEL, a friend to the Archbishop of York. POINS GADSHILL PETO BARDOLPH FRANCIS, a waiter. LADY PERCY, wife to Hotspur, and sister to Mortimer. LADY MORTIMER, daughter to Glendower, and wife to Mortimer. MISTRESS QUICKLY, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap. Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, two Carriers, Travellers, Attendants, and an Ostler. SCENE England. 1 KING HENRY IV ACT I SCENE I. London. The palace. Enter KING HENRY, LORD JOHN OF LANCASTER, the EARL of WESTMORELAND, SIR WALTER BLUNT, and others KING HENRY IV 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; Nor 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; Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' womb 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 twelve month 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 the 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 retold or spoken of. KING HENRY IV 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 HENRY IV Here is a dear, a 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 Earl of Athol, Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith: And is not this an honourable spoil? A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not? WESTMORELAND In faith, It is a conquest for a prince to boast of. KING HENRY IV 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 HENRY IV 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. London. An apartment of the Prince's. Enter the PRINCE OF WALES and FALSTAFF FALSTAFF Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad? PRINCE HENRY 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 clocks the tongues of bawds and dials the signs of leaping-houses 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 prithee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as, God save thy grace,--majesty I should say, for grace thou wilt have none,-- PRINCE HENRY What, none? FALSTAFF No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to prologue to an egg and butter. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY Thou sayest 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 snatched on Monday night and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing 'Lay by' and spent with crying 'Bring in;' now in 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 sayest true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench? PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern? FALSTAFF Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a time and oft. PRINCE HENRY Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part? FALSTAFF No; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there. PRINCE HENRY 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 prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief. PRINCE HENRY No; thou shalt. FALSTAFF Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I'll be a brave judge. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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 lugged bear. PRINCE HENRY Or an old lion, or a lover's lute. FALSTAFF Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe. PRINCE HENRY What sayest 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 prithee, 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 marked him not; and yet he talked very wisely, but I regarded him not; and yet he talked wisely, and in the street too. PRINCE HENRY 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, and I do not, I am a villain: I'll be damned for never a king's son in Christendom. PRINCE HENRY Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack? FALSTAFF 'Zounds, where thou wilt, lad; I'll make one; an I do not, call me villain and baffle me. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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 HENRY 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 damned for keeping thy word with the devil. PRINCE HENRY Else he had been damned for cozening the devil. POINS But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four o'clock, early at Gadshill! there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses: I have vizards 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 hanged. 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 HENRY 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 HENRY Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap. FALSTAFF Why, that's well said. PRINCE HENRY Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home. FALSTAFF By the Lord, I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king. PRINCE HENRY I care not. POINS Sir John, I prithee, 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 HENRY 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 HENRY 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 HENRY Yea, 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 vizards we will change after we leave them: and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments. PRINCE HENRY Yea, 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 turned 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 HENRY Well, I'll go with thee: provide us all things necessary and meet me to-morrow night in Eastcheap; there I'll sup. Farewell. POINS Farewell, my lord. Exit Poins PRINCE HENRY I know you all, and will awhile uphold The unyoked 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 behavior 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. London. The palace. Enter the KING, NORTHUMBERLAND, WORCESTER, HOTSPUR, SIR WALTER BLUNT, with others KING HENRY IV 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. EARL OF 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 lord.-- KING HENRY IV 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 You were about to speak. To North 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 misprison 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, and 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, To be so pester'd with a popinjay, Out of my grief and my impatience, Answer'd neglectingly I know not what, He should or he should not; for he 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 villanous 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 answer'd indirectly, as I said; And I beseech you, let not his report Come current for an accusation Betwixt my love and your high majesty. SIR WALTER BLUNT The circumstance consider'd, good my lord, Whate'er Lord Harry Percy then had said To such a person and in such a place, At such a time, with all the rest retold, May reasonably die and never rise To do him wrong or any way impeach What then he said, so he unsay it now. KING HENRY IV 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 but 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, Bloodstained with these valiant combatants. Never did base and rotten policy Colour her working with such deadly wounds; Nor could the noble Mortimer Receive so many, and all willingly: Then let not him be slander'd with revolt. KING HENRY IV 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 thou 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 licence your departure with your son. Send us your prisoners, or you will 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 ease my heart, Albeit I make a 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 in the dust, But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer As high in the air as this unthankful king, As this ingrate and canker'd Bolingbroke. NORTHUMBERLAND Brother, the king hath made your nephew mad. EARL OF 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. EARL OF 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. EARL OF 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 wished 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, An 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-- EARL OF WORCESTER Peace, cousin, say no more: And now I will unclasp a secret book, And to your quick-conceiving discontents 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 he 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! EARL OF 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. EARL OF 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. EARL OF 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; Forbad 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. EARL OF 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 would have him poison'd with a pot of ale. EARL OF WORCESTER Farewell, kinsman: I'll 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 it, it is in Gloucestershire; '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,-- 'Sblood!-- When you and he came back from Ravenspurgh. NORTHUMBERLAND At Berkley 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; I have done. EARL OF WORCESTER Nay, if you have not, to it again; We will stay your leisure. HOTSPUR I have done, i' faith. EARL OF 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. You, my lord, To Northumberland Your son in Scotland being thus employ'd, Shall secretly into the bosom creep Of that same noble prelate, well beloved, The archbishop. HOTSPUR Of York, is it not? EARL OF 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 it: upon my life, it will do well. NORTHUMBERLAND Before the game is afoot, thou still let'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? EARL OF WORCESTER And so they shall. HOTSPUR In faith, it is exceedingly well aim'd. EARL OF 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. EARL OF 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 it be not four by the day, I'll be hanged: Charles' wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not packed. What, ostler! Ostler Within Anon, anon. First Carrier I prithee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the point; 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 villanous 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 christen could be better bit than I have been since the first cock. Second Carrier Why, they will allow us ne'er a jordan, and then we leak in your chimney; and your chamber-lie breeds fleas like a loach. First Carrier What, ostler! come away and be hanged! Second Carrier I have a gammon of bacon and two razors of ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing-cross. First Carrier God's body! 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 deed as drink, to break the pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hanged! hast thou 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 pray thee lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable. First Carrier Nay, by God, soft; I know a trick worth two of that, i' faith. GADSHILL I pray thee, lend me thine. Second Carrier Ay, when? can'st tell? Lend me thy lantern, quoth he? marry, I'll see thee hanged 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 Mugs, we'll call up the gentleman: 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 layest 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 pray thee keep that for the hangman; for I know thou worshippest St. 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 knowest 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 looked 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, zounds, 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 liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cocksure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, 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 highway, near Gadshill. Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS POINS Come, shelter, shelter: I have removed Falstaff's horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet. PRINCE HENRY Stand close. Enter FALSTAFF FALSTAFF Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins! PRINCE HENRY Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal! what a brawling dost thou keep! FALSTAFF Where's Poins, Hal? PRINCE HENRY He is walked up to the top of the hill: I'll go seek him. 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 squier further afoot, 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 years, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal hath not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; 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 afoot with me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough: a plague upon it 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 hanged! PRINCE HENRY Peace, ye fat-guts! 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 afoot again for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus? PRINCE HENRY Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted. FALSTAFF I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king's son. PRINCE HENRY 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 afoot too! I hate it. Enter GADSHILL, BARDOLPH and PETO GADSHILL Stand. FALSTAFF So I do, against my will. POINS O, 'tis our setter: I know his voice. Bardolph, what news? BARDOLPH Case ye, case ye; on with your vizards: 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 hanged. PRINCE HENRY 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 'Zounds, will they not rob us? PRINCE HENRY What, a coward, Sir John Paunch? FALSTAFF Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no coward, Hal. PRINCE HENRY Well, we leave that to the proof. POINS Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge: when thou needest him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast. FALSTAFF Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged. PRINCE HENRY Ned, where are our disguises? POINS Here, hard by: stand close. Exeunt PRINCE HENRY and POINS FALSTAFF Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I: every man to his business. Enter the Travellers First Traveller Come, neighbour: the boy shall lead our horses down the hill; we'll walk afoot awhile, and ease our legs. Thieves Stand! Travellers Jesus 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. Travellers O, we are 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, 'faith. Here they rob them and bind them. Exeunt Re-enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS PRINCE HENRY 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. Enter the Thieves again 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. PRINCE HENRY Your money! POINS Villains! As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon them; they all run away; and Falstaff, after a blow or two, runs away too, leaving the booty behind them PRINCE HENRY Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse: The thieves are all 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. 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 castle Enter HOTSPUR, solus, 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 action. 'Zounds, 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 skim 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 sit'st alone? Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks; And given my treasures and my rights of thee To thick-eyed musing and cursed 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' ransom and of soldiers slain, And all the currents of a heady fight. Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war And thus hath so 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 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 by 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 afoot, I shall be weary, love. LADY PERCY Come, come, you paraquito, answer me Directly unto this question that I ask: In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry, An if thou wilt not tell me all things 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. God's me, my horse! What say'st thou, Kate? what would'st 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 on 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 farther 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. The Boar's-Head Tavern, Eastcheap. Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS PRINCE HENRY Ned, prithee, come out of that fat room, and lend me thy hand to laugh a little. POINS Where hast been, Hal? PRINCE HENRY With three or four loggerheads amongst three or four score 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 christen names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that though I be but the prince of Wales, yet I am 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, dyeing 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 sweet action. But, sweet Ned,--to sweeten which name of Ned, I give thee this pennyworth of sugar, clapped 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 prithee, 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. POINS Francis! PRINCE HENRY Thou art perfect. POINS Francis! Exit POINS Enter FRANCIS FRANCIS Anon, anon, sir. Look down into the Pomgarnet, Ralph. PRINCE HENRY Come hither, Francis. FRANCIS My lord? PRINCE HENRY How long hast thou to serve, Francis? FRANCIS Forsooth, five years, and as much as to-- POINS Within Francis! FRANCIS Anon, anon, sir. PRINCE HENRY 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, sir. PRINCE HENRY How old art thou, Francis? FRANCIS Let me see--about Michaelmas next I shall be-- POINS Within Francis! FRANCIS Anon, sir. Pray stay a little, my lord. PRINCE HENRY Nay, but hark you, Francis: for the sugar thou gavest me,'twas a pennyworth, wast't not? FRANCIS O Lord, I would it had been two! PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY Anon, Francis? No, Francis; but to-morrow, Francis; or, Francis, o' Thursday; or indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But, Francis! FRANCIS My lord? PRINCE HENRY Wilt thou rob this leathern jerkin, crystal-button, not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch,-- FRANCIS O Lord, sir, who do you mean? PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY Away, you rogue! dost thou not hear them call? Here they both call him; the drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go Enter Vintner Vintner What, standest thou still, and hearest 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 HENRY Let them alone awhile, and then open the door. Exit Vintner Poins! Re-enter POINS POINS Anon, anon, sir. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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. Re-enter FRANCIS What's o'clock, Francis? FRANCIS Anon, anon, sir. Exit PRINCE HENRY That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His industry is upstairs and downstairs; 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 killed to-day?' 'Give my roan horse a drench,' says he; and answers 'Some fourteen,' an hour after; 'a trifle, a trifle.' I prithee, call in Falstaff: I'll play Percy, and that damned brawn shall play Dame Mortimer his wife. 'Rivo!' says the drunkard. Call in ribs, call in tallow. Enter FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO; FRANCIS following 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? He drinks PRINCE HENRY Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter? pitiful-hearted Titan, that melted at the sweet tale of the sun's! 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 villanous 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 unhanged 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 HENRY 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 HENRY Why, you whoreson round man, what's the matter? FALSTAFF Are not you a coward? answer me to that: and Poins there? POINS 'Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the Lord, I'll stab thee. FALSTAFF I call thee coward! I'll see thee damned 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 HENRY O villain! thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunkest last. FALSTAFF All's one for that. He drinks A plague of all cowards, still say I. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY Where is it, Jack? where is it? FALSTAFF Where is it! taken from us it is: a hundred upon poor four of us. PRINCE HENRY 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 hacked 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 HENRY 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 set upon us-- FALSTAFF And unbound the rest, and then come in the other. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY Pray God you have not murdered some of them. FALSTAFF Nay, that's past praying for: I have peppered 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 HENRY 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 HENRY 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 HENRY Prithee, let him alone; we shall have more anon. FALSTAFF Dost thou hear me, Hal? PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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 HENRY 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 HENRY These lies are like their father that begets them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, grease tallow-catch,-- FALSTAFF What, art thou mad? art thou mad? is not the truth the truth? PRINCE HENRY 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? 'Zounds, an I were 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 HENRY I'll be no longer guilty of this sin; this sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh,-- FALSTAFF 'Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat's tongue, you bull's pizzle, you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! you tailor's-yard, you sheath, you bowcase; you vile standing-tuck,-- PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY We two saw you four set on four and 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, out-faced you from your prize, and have it; yea, and can show it you here in the house: and, Falstaff, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy and still run and roared, 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 you, 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. 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 HENRY Content; and the argument shall be thy running away. FALSTAFF Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me! Enter Hostess Hostess O Jesu, my lord the prince! PRINCE HENRY How now, my lady the hostess! what sayest 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 HENRY 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 HENRY Prithee, do, Jack. FALSTAFF 'Faith, and I'll send him packing. Exit FALSTAFF PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 'Faith, tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff's sword so hacked? PETO Why, he hacked 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 blushed to hear his monstrous devices. PRINCE HENRY O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blushed extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou rannest away: what instinct hadst thou for it? BARDOLPH My lord, do you see these meteors? do you behold these exhalations? PRINCE HENRY I do. BARDOLPH What think you they portend? PRINCE HENRY Hot livers and cold purses. BARDOLPH Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. PRINCE HENRY No, if rightly taken, halter. Re-enter FALSTAFF Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet creature of bombast! How long is't ago, Jack, since thou sawest 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 Amamon the bastinado and made Lucifer cuckold 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 HENRY He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying. FALSTAFF You have hit it. PRINCE HENRY So did he never the sparrow. FALSTAFF Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him; he will not run. PRINCE HENRY Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for running! FALSTAFF O' horseback, ye cuckoo; but afoot he will not budge a foot. PRINCE HENRY 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 turned white with the news: you may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel. PRINCE HENRY Why, then, it is like, if there come a hot June and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy hob-nails, by the hundreds. FALSTAFF By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like we shall have good trading that way. 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 HENRY Not a whit, i' faith; I lack some of thy instinct. FALSTAFF Well, thou wert be horribly chid tomorrow when thou comest to thy father: if thou love me, practise an answer. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY Thy state is taken for a joined-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 HENRY 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 flood-gates 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 villanous 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 asked. Shall the sun of England prove a thief and take purses? a question to be asked. 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 HENRY 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 three score; 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 HENRY 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 HENRY Well, here I am set. FALSTAFF And here I stand: judge, my masters. PRINCE HENRY Now, Harry, whence come you? FALSTAFF My noble lord, from Eastcheap. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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 stuffed cloak-bag of guts, 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 villanous, but in all things? wherein worthy, but in nothing? FALSTAFF I would your grace would take me with you: whom means your grace? PRINCE HENRY That villanous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan. FALSTAFF My lord, the man I know. PRINCE HENRY 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; but that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. 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 damned: 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 HENRY I do, I will. A knocking heard Exeunt Hostess, FRANCIS, and BARDOLPH Re-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 Hostess O Jesu, my lord, my lord! PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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 HENRY 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 HENRY Call in the sheriff. Exeunt all except PRINCE HENRY and PETO Enter Sheriff and the Carrier Now, master sheriff, what is your will with me? Sheriff First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry Hath follow'd certain men unto this house. PRINCE HENRY What men? Sheriff One of them is well known, my gracious lord, A gross fat man. Carrier As fat as butter. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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 HENRY I think it is good morrow, is it not? Sheriff Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o'clock. Exeunt Sheriff and Carrier PRINCE HENRY This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's. Go, call him forth. PETO Falstaff!--Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a horse. PRINCE HENRY Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets. He searcheth his pockets, and findeth certain papers What hast thou found? PETO Nothing but papers, my lord. PRINCE HENRY Let's see what they be: read them. PETO 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 HENRY O monstrous! but one half-penny-worth 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, Peto. Exeunt PETO Good morrow, good my lord. ACT III SCENE I. Bangor. 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; 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 kittened, 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 the 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's 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 have 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 'scapes 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 The 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, Not shall we need his help these fourteen days. 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 damm'd up; And here the smug and silver 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 the opposed continent as much As on the other side it takes from you. EARL OF WORCESTER Yea, but a little charge will trench him here And on this north side win this cape of land; And then he runs straight and even. HOTSPUR I'll have it so: a little charge will do it. GLENDOWER I'll 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 ballad-mongers; I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd, Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree; 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? GLENDOWER The moon shines fair; you may away by night: I'll 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 GLENDOWER MORTIMER Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father! HOTSPUR I cannot choose: sometime he angers me With telling me of the mouldwarp 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 least nine hours In reckoning up the several devils' names That were his lackeys: I cried 'hum,' and 'well, go to,' But mark'd him not a word. O, he is 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 as 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 come '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. EARL OF WORCESTER In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame; 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 the ladies 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 her in Welsh, and she answers him in the same GLENDOWER She is desperate here; a peevish self-wind harlotry, one that no persuasion can do good upon. The lady speaks 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. The lady speaks 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 learned 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. The lady speaks 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 'twixt 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; And 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 is so humorous. By'r lady, he is 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 To the Welsh lady's bed. LADY PERCY What's that? HOTSPUR Peace! she sings. Here the lady sings a Welsh song HOTSPUR 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 you, 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 never walk'st 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 red-breast 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 is drawn; we'll but seal, And then to horse immediately. MORTIMER With all my heart. Exeunt SCENE II. London. The palace. Enter KING HENRY IV, PRINCE HENRY, and others KING HENRY IV 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 bare, 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 HENRY 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, which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear, By smiling pick-thanks and base news-mongers, I may, for some things true, wherein my youth Hath faulty wander'd and irregular, Find pardon on my true submission. KING HENRY IV 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 doth 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 daily 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 drowzed 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, standest thou; For thou has 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 HENRY I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord, Be more myself. KING HENRY IV For all the world As thou art to this hour was Richard then When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh, 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 swathling 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, The Archbishop's grace of York, Douglas, 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 HENRY 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 favours 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, To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf; And I will call him 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 He be pleased I shall perform, 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 HENRY IV A hundred thousand rebels die in this: Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein. Enter BLUNT How now, good Blunt? thy looks are full of speed. SIR WALTER BLUNT So hath the business that I come to speak of. Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word That Douglas and the English rebels met The 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 the state. KING HENRY IV 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, Harry, you shall set forward; On Thursday we ourselves will march: our meeting Is Bridgenorth: and, Harry, you shall march Through Gloucestershire; 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. 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 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, villanous 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 bawdy 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; went to a bawdy-house once in a quarter--of an hour; paid money that I borrowed, three of 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 rannest up Gadshill 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 maintained 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 belly! FALSTAFF God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burned. Enter Hostess How now, Dame Partlet the hen! have you inquired yet who picked my pocket? Hostess Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, 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 picked. Go to, you are a woman, go. Hostess Who, I? no; I defy thee: God's light, I was never called 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: Ill not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? shall I not take mine case in mine inn but I shall have my pocket picked? 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 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 PETO, marching, and FALSTAFF meets them playing on his truncheon like a life 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 HENRY What sayest thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him well; he is an honest man. Hostess Good my lord, hear me. FALSTAFF Prithee, let her alone, and list to me. PRINCE HENRY What sayest thou, Jack? FALSTAFF The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras and had my pocket picked: this house is turned bawdy-house; they pick pockets. PRINCE HENRY What didst thou lose, Jack? FALSTAFF Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound apiece, and a seal-ring of my grandfather's. PRINCE HENRY 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-mouthed man as he is; and said he would cudgel you. PRINCE HENRY 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 stewed prune; nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and for womanhood, Maid Marian may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go Hostess Say, what thing? what thing? FALSTAFF What thing! why, a thing to thank God on. Hostess I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know it; 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 HENRY 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 HENRY Thou sayest 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 HENRY Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound? FALSTAFF A thousand pound, Ha! a million: thy love is worth a million: thou owest me thy love. Hostess Nay, my lord, he called 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 HENRY I say 'tis copper: darest thou be as good as thy word now? FALSTAFF Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare: but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of a lion's whelp. PRINCE HENRY And why not as the lion? FALSTAFF The king 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 HENRY O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all filled up with guts and midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket! why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed rascal, if there were anything in thy pocket but tavern-reckonings, memorandums of bawdy-houses, and one poor penny-worth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded, if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain: and yet you will stand to if; you will not pocket up wrong: art thou not ashamed? FALSTAFF Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villany? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty. You confess then, you picked my pocket? PRINCE HENRY 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 seest I am pacified still. Nay, prithee, be gone. Exit Hostess Now Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad, how is that answered? PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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 unwashed hands too. BARDOLPH Do, my lord. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY Bardolph! BARDOLPH My lord? PRINCE HENRY Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, to my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland. Exit Bardolph Go, Peto, to horse, to horse; for thou and I have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time. Exit Peto Jack, meet me to-morrow in the temple hall at two o'clock in the 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 we or they must lower lie. Exit PRINCE HENRY 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 do 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. EARL OF 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 is grievous sick. HOTSPUR 'Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick In such a rustling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along? Messenger His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord. EARL OF WORCESTER I prithee, 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. EARL OF 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, nor 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? EARL OF WORCESTER Your father's sickness is a maim to us. HOTSPUR A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off: And yet, in faith, it is 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. EARL OF DOUGLAS 'Faith, and so we should; Where now remains a sweet reversion: 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. EARL OF 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 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 a kingdom, with his help We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down. Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole. EARL OF DOUGLAS As heart can think: there is not such a word Spoke of 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'd the world aside, And bid it pass? VERNON All furnish'd, all in arms; All plumed like estridges that with the wind Baited 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 vaulted 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 to 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. EARL OF 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. EARL OF 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' tonight. 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; and if it make twenty, take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at 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 me none but good house-holders, yeoman's sons; inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lieve 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 pressed me none but such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies 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 pressed 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 tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like an 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 the PRINCE and WESTMORELAND PRINCE HENRY 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 night. FALSTAFF Tut, never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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 learned that of me. PRINCE HENRY No I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is already in the field. FALSTAFF What, is the king encamped? WESTMORELAND He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long. FALSTAFF Well, To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest. Exeunt SCENE III. The rebel camp near Shrewsbury. Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, DOUGLAS, and VERNON HOTSPUR We'll fight with him to-night. EARL OF WORCESTER It may not be. EARL OF DOUGLAS You give him then the 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. EARL OF WORCESTER Good cousin, be advised; stir not tonight. VERNON Do not, my lord. EARL OF 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. EARL OF DOUGLAS Yea, or to-night. VERNON Content. HOTSPUR To-night, say I. VERNON Come, come it nay 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 today; And now their pride and mettle is asleep, Their courage with hard labour tame and dull, That not a horse is half the half of 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. EARL OF 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 SIR WALTER 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. SIR WALTER 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 innocency and terms of zeal, My father, in kind heart and pity moved, Swore him assistance and perform'd 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, Gave 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 Ravenspurgh; 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. SIR WALTER 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 mine 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 we find Too indirect for long continuance. SIR WALTER 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. SIR WALTER BLUNT I would you would accept of grace and love. HOTSPUR And may be so we shall. SIR WALTER BLUNT Pray God you do. Exeunt SCENE IV. York. The ARCHBISHOP'S palace. Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK and SIR MICHAEL ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 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 to import, you would make haste. SIR MICHAEL My good lord, I guess their tenor. ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 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-ruled 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 is Douglas and Lord Mortimer. ARCHBISHOP OF YORK No, Mortimer is not there. SIR MICHAEL But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy, And there is my Lord of Worcester and a head Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen. ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 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 moe corrivals and dear men Of estimation and command in arms. SIR MICHAEL Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well opposed. ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 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. KING HENRY IV's camp near Shrewsbury. Enter KING HENRY, PRINCE HENRY, Lord John of LANCASTER, EARL OF WESTMORELAND, SIR WALTER BLUNT, and FALSTAFF KING HENRY IV How bloodily the sun begins to peer Above yon busky hill! the day looks pale At his distemperature. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY IV 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 it? will you again unknit This curlish 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? EARL OF 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 HENRY IV You have not sought it! how comes it, then? FALSTAFF Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it. PRINCE HENRY Peace, chewet, peace! EARL OF 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; Forget your oath to us at Doncaster; And being fed by us you used us so As that ungentle hull, the cuckoo's bird, Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest; Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk That even our love durst not come near your sight For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing We were enforced, for safety sake, to fly Out of 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 us in your younger enterprise. KING HENRY IV 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 HENRY In both your 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 HENRY IV 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, every man Shall be my friend again and I'll be his: So tell your cousin, and 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. Exeunt WORCESTER and VERNON PRINCE HENRY It will not be accepted, on my life: The Douglas and the Hotspur both together Are confident against the world in arms. KING HENRY IV 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 all but PRINCE HENRY and FALSTAFF FALSTAFF Hal, if thou see me down in the battle and bestride me, so; 'tis a point of friendship. PRINCE HENRY Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship. Say thy prayers, and farewell. FALSTAFF I would 'twere bed-time, Hal, and all well. PRINCE HENRY Why, thou owest God a death. Exit PRINCE HENRY FALSTAFF 'Tis not due yet; I would be loath 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 honour 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 in that word honour? what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. 'Tis 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 EARL OF WORCESTER O, no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard, The liberal and kind offer of the king. VERNON 'Twere best he did. EARL OF 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 the excuse of youth and heat of blood, And an adopted name of privilege, A hair-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 HOTSPUR My uncle is return'd: Deliver up my Lord of Westmoreland. Uncle, what news? EARL OF WORCESTER The king will bid you battle presently. EARL OF DOUGLAS Defy him by the Lord of Westmoreland. HOTSPUR Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so. EARL OF DOUGLAS Marry, and shall, and very willingly. Exit EARL OF WORCESTER There is no seeming mercy in the king. HOTSPUR Did you beg any? God forbid! EARL OF WORCESTER I told him gently of our grievances, Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus, By now forswearing that he is forsworn: He calls us rebels, traitors; and will scourge With haughty arms this hateful name in us. Re-enter the EARL OF DOUGLAS EARL OF 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. EARL OF 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 today 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 to your deservings like a chronicle, Making you ever better than his praise By still dispraising praise valued in 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 On his follies: never did I hear Of any prince so wild a libertine. 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 the 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. KING HENRY enters with his power. Alarum to the battle. Then enter DOUGLAS and SIR WALTER BLUNT SIR WALTER BLUNT What is thy name, that in the battle thus Thou crossest me? what honour dost thou seek Upon my head? EARL OF 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. SIR WALTER BLUNT They tell thee true. EARL OF 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. SIR WALTER 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. DOUGLAS kills SIR WALTER BLUNT. Enter HOTSPUR HOTSPUR O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus, never had triumph'd upon a Scot. EARL OF DOUGLAS All's done, all's won; here breathless lies the king. HOTSPUR Where? EARL OF 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. EARL OF DOUGLAS A fool go with thy soul, whither 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. EARL OF 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 Alarum. Enter FALSTAFF, solus 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 moulten 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 HENRY 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 prithee, lend me thy sword. FALSTAFF O Hal, I prithee, 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 HENRY He is, indeed; and living to kill thee. I prithee, lend me thy sword. FALSTAFF Nay, before God, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou get'st not my sword; but take my pistol, if thou wilt. PRINCE HENRY Give it to me: what, is it in the case? FALSTAFF Ay, Hal; 'tis hot, 'tis hot; there's that will sack a city. PRINCE HENRY draws it out, and finds it to be a bottle of sack PRINCE HENRY What, is it a time to jest and dally now? He throws the bottle at him. 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 FALSTAFF SCENE IV. Another part of the field. Alarum. Excursions. Enter PRINCE HENRY, LORD JOHN OF LANCASTER, and EARL OF WESTMORELAND KING HENRY IV I prithee, Harry, withdraw thyself; thou bleed'st too much. Lord John of Lancaster, go you with him. LANCASTER Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too. PRINCE HENRY I beseech your majesty, make up, Lest your retirement do amaze your friends. KING HENRY IV 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 HENRY 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 HENRY By God, 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 HENRY IV I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point With lustier maintenance than I did look for Of such an ungrown warrior. PRINCE HENRY O, this boy Lends mettle to us all! Exit Enter DOUGLAS EARL OF 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 HENRY IV 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. EARL OF DOUGLAS I fear thou art another counterfeit; And yet, in faith, thou bear'st thee like a king: But mine I am sure thou art, whoe'er thou be, And thus I win thee. They fight. KING HENRY being in danger, PRINCE HENRY enters PRINCE HENRY 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 succor sent, And so hath Clifton: I'll to Clifton straight. KING HENRY IV 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 HENRY 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 The 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 HENRY IV Make up to Clifton: I'll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey. Exit Enter HOTSPUR HOTSPUR If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth. PRINCE HENRY Thou speak'st as if I would deny my name. HOTSPUR My name is Harry Percy. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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. HOTSPUR 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 sword my flesh: But thought's 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 HENRY 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! He spieth 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 PRINCE HENRY FALSTAFF Rising up Embowelled! 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.'Zounds, 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 killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, Stabbing him with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me. Takes up HOTSPUR on his back Re-enter PRINCE HENRY and LORD JOHN OF LANCASTER PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY I did; I saw him dead, Breathless and bleeding on the ground. Art thou alive? Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight? I prithee, 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 HENRY Why, Percy I killed 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, 'zounds, I would make him eat a piece of my sword. LANCASTER This is the strangest tale that ever I heard. PRINCE HENRY 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 us to the 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 SCENE V. Another part of the field. The trumpets sound. Enter KING HENRY IV, PRINCE HENRY, LORD JOHN LANCASTER, EARL OF WESTMORELAND, with WORCESTER and VERNON prisoners KING HENRY IV 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 tenor 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. EARL OF WORCESTER What I have done my safety urged me to; And I embrace this fortune patiently, Since not to be avoided it falls on me. KING HENRY IV Bear Worcester to the death and Vernon too: Other offenders we will pause upon. Exeunt WORCESTER and VERNON, guarded How goes the field? PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY IV With all my heart. PRINCE HENRY 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. LANCASTER I thank your grace for this high courtesy, Which I shall give away immediately. KING HENRY IV 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 cheque 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 Henry the Fourth

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 Dramatis Personae RUMOUR, the Presenter. KING HENRY, the Fourth. PRINCE HENRY OF WALES afterwards KING HENRY V. THOMAS, DUKE OF, CLARENCE PRINCE HUMPHREY, OF GLOUCESTER sons of King Henry. EARL OF WARWICK EARL OF WESTMORELAND EARL OF SURREY GOWER HARCOURT BLUNT Lord Chief-Justice of the King's Bench A Servant of the Chief-Justice. EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND SCROOP, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK LORD MOWBRAY LORD HASTINGS LORD BARDOLPH SIR JOHN COLEVILE TRAVERS MORTON retainers of Northumberland. SIR JOHN FALSTAFF His Page. BARDOLPH PISTOL POINS PETO SHALLOW SILENCE country justices. DAVY, servant to Shallow. MOULDY SHADOW WART FEEBLE BULLCALF recruits. FANG SNARE sheriff's officers. LADY NORTHUMBERLAND LADY PERCY MISTRESS QUICKLY, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap. DOLL TEARSHEET Lords and Attendants; Porter, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, c. A Dancer, speaker of the epilogue. SCENE England. 2 KING HENRY IV INDUCTION Warkworth. Before the 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 enmity Under the smile of safety wounds the world: And who but Rumour, who but only I, Make fearful musters and prepared 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 wavering 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 rebel's 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 learn'd of me: from Rumour's tongues They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs. Exit ACT I SCENE I. The same. Enter LORD BARDOLPH LORD BARDOLPH Who keeps the gate here, ho? The Porter opens the gate Where is the earl? Porter What shall I say you are? LORD BARDOLPH Tell thou the earl That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here. Porter His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard; Please it your honour, knock but at the gate, And he himself wilt answer. Enter NORTHUMBERLAND LORD BARDOLPH Here comes the earl. Exit Porter NORTHUMBERLAND What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now Should be the father of some stratagem: The times are wild: contention, like a horse Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose And bears down all before him. LORD BARDOLPH Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. NORTHUMBERLAND Good, an God will! LORD BARDOLPH As good as heart can wish: The king is almost wounded to the death; And, in the fortune of my lord your son, Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field; And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John, Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day, So fought, so follow'd and so fairly won, Came not till now to dignify the times, Since Caesar's fortunes! NORTHUMBERLAND How is this derived? Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury? LORD BARDOLPH I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence, A gentleman well bred and of good name, That freely render'd me these news for true. NORTHUMBERLAND Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent On Tuesday last to listen after news. Enter TRAVERS LORD BARDOLPH My lord, I over-rode him on the way; And he is furnish'd with no certainties More than he haply may retail from me. NORTHUMBERLAND Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you? TRAVERS My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back With joyful tidings; and, being better horsed, Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard A gentleman, almost forspent with speed, That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse. He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him I did demand what news from Shrewsbury: He told me that rebellion had bad luck And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold. With that, he gave his able horse the head, And bending forward struck his armed heels Against the panting sides of his poor jade Up to the rowel-head, and starting so He seem'd in running to devour the way, Staying no longer question. NORTHUMBERLAND Ha! Again: Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold? Of Hotspur Coldspur? that rebellion Had met ill luck? LORD BARDOLPH My lord, I'll tell you what; If my young lord your son have not the day, Upon mine honour, for a silken point I'll give my barony: never talk of it. NORTHUMBERLAND Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers Give then such instances of loss? LORD BARDOLPH Who, he? He was some hilding fellow that had stolen The horse he rode on, and, upon my life, Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news. Enter MORTON NORTHUMBERLAND Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragic volume: So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood Hath left a witness'd usurpation. Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury? MORTON I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord; Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask To fright our party. NORTHUMBERLAND How doth my son and brother? Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand. Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone, Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night, And would have told him half his Troy was burnt; But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue, And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it. This thou wouldst say, 'Your son did thus and thus; Your brother thus: so fought the noble Douglas:' Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds: But in the end, to stop my ear indeed, Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise, Ending with 'Brother, son, and all are dead.' MORTON Douglas is living, and your brother, yet; But, for my lord your son-- NORTHUMBERLAND Why, he is dead. See what a ready tongue suspicion hath! He that but fears the thing he would not know Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton; Tell thou an earl his divination lies, And I will take it as a sweet disgrace And make thee rich for doing me such wrong. MORTON You are too great to be by me gainsaid: Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain. NORTHUMBERLAND Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead. I see a strange confession in thine eye: Thou shakest thy head and hold'st it fear or sin To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so; The tongue offends not that reports his death: And he doth sin that doth belie the dead, Not he which says the dead is not alive. Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office, and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell, Remember'd tolling a departing friend. LORD BARDOLPH I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead. MORTON I am sorry I should force you to believe That which I would to God I had not seen; But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state, Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed, To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down The never-daunted Percy to the earth, From whence with life he never more sprung up. In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire Even to the dullest peasant in his camp, Being bruited once, took fire and heat away From the best temper'd courage in his troops; For from his metal was his party steel'd; Which once in him abated, all the rest Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead: And as the thing that's heavy in itself, Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed, So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss, Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety, Fly from the field. Then was the noble Worcester Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot, The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword Had three times slain the appearance of the king, 'Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame Of those that turn'd their backs, and in his flight, Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all Is that the king hath won, and hath sent out A speedy power to encounter you, my lord, Under the conduct of young Lancaster And Westmoreland. This is the news at full. NORTHUMBERLAND For this I shall have time enough to mourn. In poison there is physic; and these news, Having been well, that would have made me sick, Being sick, have in some measure made me well: And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints, Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life, Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs, Weaken'd with grief, being now enraged with grief, Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch! A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif! 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 the enraged Northumberland! Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature's hand Keep the wild flood confined! let order die! And let this world no longer be a stage To feed contention in a lingering act; But let one spirit of the first-born Cain Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set On bloody courses, the rude scene may end, And darkness be the burier of the dead! TRAVERS This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord. LORD BARDOLPH Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour. MORTON 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 the event of war, my noble lord, And summ'd the account of chance, before you said 'Let us make head.' It was your presurmise, That, in the dole of blows, your son might drop: You knew he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge, More likely to fall in than to get o'er; You were advised his flesh was capable Of wounds and scars and that his forward spirit Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged: Yet did you say 'Go forth;' and none of this, Though strongly apprehended, could restrain The stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen, 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 our life 'twas ten to one; And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed Choked the respect of likely peril fear'd; And since we are o'erset, venture again. Come, we will all put forth, body and goods. MORTON 'Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord, I hear for certain, and do speak the truth, The gentle Archbishop of York is up With well-appointed powers: he is a man Who with a double surety binds his followers. My lord your son had only but the corpse, But shadows and the shows of men, to fight; For that same word, rebellion, did divide The action of their bodies from their souls; And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd, As men drink potions, that their weapons only Seem'd on our side; but, for their spirits and souls, This word, rebellion, it had froze them up, As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop Turns insurrection to religion: Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts, He's followed both with body and with mind; And doth enlarge his rising with the blood Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones; Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause; Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land, Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke; And more and less do flock to follow him. NORTHUMBERLAND I knew of this before; but, to speak truth, This present grief had wiped it from my mind. Go in with me; and counsel every man The aptest way for safety and revenge: Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed: Never so few, and never yet more need. Exeunt SCENE II. London. A street. Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler FALSTAFF Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water? Page He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for. FALSTAFF Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now: but I will inset you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel,-- the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one on 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 Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak and my slops? Page He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his band and yours; he liked not the security. FALSTAFF Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security! The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is through with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security. I looked 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 a horse. FALSTAFF I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived. Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant Page Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the Prince for striking him about Bardolph. FALSTAFF Wait, close; I will not see him. Lord Chief-Justice What's he that goes there? Servant Falstaff, an't please your lordship. Lord Chief-Justice He that was in question for the robbery? Servant He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster. Lord 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. Lord Chief-Justice I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing 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 our soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man. FALSTAFF I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! if thou gettest any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter: hence! avaunt! Servant Sir, my lord would speak with you. Lord 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 must humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care of your health. Lord Chief-Justice Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. FALSTAFF An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. Lord Chief-Justice I talk not of his majesty: you would not come when I sent for you. FALSTAFF And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy. Lord Chief-Justice Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with you. FALSTAFF This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. Lord Chief-Justice What tell you me of it? be it as it is. FALSTAFF It hath its 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. Lord Chief-Justice I think you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you. FALSTAFF Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal. Lord 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 should I be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself. Lord Chief-Justice I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me. FALSTAFF As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. Lord Chief-Justice Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. FALSTAFF He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less. Lord 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. Lord 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. Lord Chief-Justice Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gad's-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that action. FALSTAFF My lord? 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 to smell a fox. Lord 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. Lord Chief-Justice There is not a white hair on your face but should have his effect of gravity. FALSTAFF His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Lord Chief-Justice You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel. FALSTAFF Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope he that looks upon me will take me without weighing: and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go: I cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these costermonger times that true valour is turned bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities of us that are young; you do measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too. Lord Chief-Justice Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John! FALSTAFF My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head and something a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in 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 chequed him for it, and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack. Lord 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. Lord Chief-Justice Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry: I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland. FALSTAFF Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, and I brandish any thing 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. Lord 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? Lord 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 perceived the first white hair on 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 any thing: I will turn diseases to commodity. Exit SCENE III. York. The Archbishop's palace. Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Thus have you heard our cause and known our means; And, my most noble friends, I pray you all, Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes: And first, lord marshal, what say you to it? MOWBRAY I well allow the occasion of our arms; But gladly would be better satisfied How in our means we should advance ourselves To look with forehead bold and big enough Upon the power and puissance of the king. HASTINGS Our present musters grow upon the file To five and twenty thousand men of choice; And our supplies live largely in the hope Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns With an incensed fire of injuries. LORD BARDOLPH The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus; Whether our present five and twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland? HASTINGS With him, we may. LORD BARDOLPH Yea, marry, there's the point: But if without him we be thought too feeble, My judgment is, we should not step too far Till we had his assistance by the hand; For in a theme so bloody-faced as this Conjecture, expectation, and surmise Of aids incertain should not be admitted. ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. LORD BARDOLPH It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope, Eating the air on promise of supply, Flattering himself in project of a power Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts: And so, with great imagination Proper to madmen, led his powers to death And winking leap'd into destruction. HASTINGS But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. LORD BARDOLPH Yes, if this present quality of war, Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot Lives so in hope as in an early spring We see the 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 must we 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 last desist To build at all? Much more, in this great work, Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down And set another up, should we survey The plot of situation and the model, Consent upon a sure foundation, Question surveyors, know our own estate, How able such a work to undergo, To weigh against his opposite; or else We fortify in paper and in figures, Using the names of men instead of men: Like one that draws the model of a house Beyond his power to build it; who, half through, Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost A naked subject to the weeping clouds And waste for churlish winter's tyranny. HASTINGS Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth, Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd The utmost man of expectation, I think we are a body strong enough, Even as we are, to equal with the king. LORD BARDOLPH What, is the king but five and twenty thousand? HASTINGS To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph. For his divisions, as the times do brawl, Are in three heads: one power against the French, And one against Glendower; perforce a third Must take up us: so is the unfirm king In three divided; and his coffers sound With hollow poverty and emptiness. ARCHBISHOP OF YORK That he should draw his several strengths together And come against us in full puissance, Need not be dreaded. HASTINGS If he should do so, He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh Baying him at the heels: never fear that. LORD BARDOLPH Who is it like should lead his forces hither? HASTINGS The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland; Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth: But who is substituted 'gainst the French, I have no certain notice. ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 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 provokest thyself to cast him up. So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard; And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up, And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times? They that, when Richard lived, would have him die, Are now become enamour'd on his grave: Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head When through proud London he came sighing on After the admired heels of Bolingbroke, Criest now 'O earth, yield us that king again, And take thou this!' O thoughts of men accursed! Past and to come seems best; things present worst. MOWBRAY Shall we go draw our numbers and set on? HASTINGS We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone. Exeunt ACT II SCENE I. London. A street. Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, FANG and his Boy with her, and SNARE following. MISTRESS QUICKLY Master Fang, have you entered the action? FANG It is entered. MISTRESS QUICKLY Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? Will a' stand to 't? FANG Sirrah, where's Snare? MISTRESS QUICKLY O Lord, ay! good Master Snare. SNARE Here, here. FANG Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff. MISTRESS QUICKLY Yea, good Master Snare; I have entered him and all. SNARE It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab. MISTRESS QUICKLY Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly: in good faith, he 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. MISTRESS QUICKLY No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. FANG An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice,-- MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 ye, since my exion is entered 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 fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed 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. Yonder he comes; and that errant 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. [Enter FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH] 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 villain's head: throw the quean in the channel. MISTRESS QUICKLY 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! MISTRESS QUICKLY Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo't, wo't thou? Thou wo't, wo't ta? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed! FALSTAFF Away, you scullion! you rampallion! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe. Enter the Lord Chief-Justice, and his men Lord Chief-Justice What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho! MISTRESS QUICKLY Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me. Lord 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 upon him? MISTRESS QUICKLY O most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit. Lord Chief-Justice For what sum? MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 o' nights like the mare. FALSTAFF I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up. Lord 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? MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 a 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 a 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 thee 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 the 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. Lord 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, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and in person. MISTRESS QUICKLY Yea, in truth, my lord. Lord Chief-Justice Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villany you have done 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 courtesy and say nothing, he is virtuous: no, my lord, my humble duty remembered, 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. Lord Chief-Justice You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy this poor woman. FALSTAFF Come hither, hostess. Enter GOWER Lord 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. FALSTAFF As I am a gentleman. MISTRESS QUICKLY Faith, you said so before. FALSTAFF As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it. MISTRESS QUICKLY 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-hangings and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an '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. MISTRESS QUICKLY 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. MISTRESS QUICKLY 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. MISTRESS QUICKLY Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper? FALSTAFF No more words; let's have her. Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY, BARDOLPH, Officers and Boy Lord Chief-Justice I have heard better news. FALSTAFF What's the news, my lord? Lord Chief-Justice Where lay the king last night? GOWER At Basingstoke, my lord. FALSTAFF I hope, my lord, all's well: what is the news, my lord? Lord Chief-Justice Come all his forces back? GOWER No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse, Are marched up to my lord of Lancaster, Against Northumberland and the Archbishop. FALSTAFF Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord? Lord Chief-Justice You shall have letters of me presently: Come, go along with me, good Master Gower. FALSTAFF My lord! 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. Lord 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? Lord 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. Lord Chief-Justice Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool. Exeunt SCENE II. London. Another street. Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS PRINCE HENRY Before God, I am exceeding weary. POINS Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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-coloured 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 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 HENRY Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? POINS Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell 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 HENRY 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 HENRY What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep? POINS I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY And to thee. POINS By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with my 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 HENRY And the boy that I gave Falstaff: a' had him from me Christian; and look, if the fat villain have not transformed him ape. BARDOLPH God save your grace! PRINCE HENRY And yours, most noble Bardolph! BARDOLPH 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 ale-wife's new petticoat and so peeped through. PRINCE HENRY Has not the boy profited? BARDOLPH Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away! Page Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away! PRINCE HENRY Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy? Page Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamed she was delivered of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream. PRINCE HENRY A crown's worth of good interpretation: there 'tis, boy. POINS O, that this good blossom could be kept from cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee. BARDOLPH An you do not make him hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong. PRINCE HENRY 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 Delivered 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 HENRY I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog; and he holds his place; for look you how be 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 HENRY Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But to the letter. POINS Reads 'Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting.' Why, this is a certificate. PRINCE HENRY Peace! POINS Reads 'I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity:' he sure means brevity in breath, short-winded. '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 mayest; 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.' My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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 HENRY Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank? BARDOLPH At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap. PRINCE HENRY What company? Page Ephesians, my lord, of the old church. PRINCE HENRY Sup any women with him? Page None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet. PRINCE HENRY What pagan may that be? Page A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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 HENRY 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 Alban's and London. PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY From a God to a bull? a heavy decension! it was Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low transformation! that shall be mine; for in every thing 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 endeared 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 practised not his gait; And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant; For those that 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 suffer'd: 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 two Drawers First Drawer What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-johns? thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john. Second Drawer Mass, thou sayest 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 angered him to the heart: but he hath forgot that. First Drawer Why, then, cover, and set them down: and see if thou canst find out Sneak's noise; Mistress Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch: the room where they supped is too hot; they'll come in straight. Second Drawer 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. First Drawer By the mass, here will be old Utis: it will be an excellent stratagem. Second Drawer I'll see if I can find out Sneak. Exit Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 TEARSHEET Better than I was: hem! MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 First Drawer Singing --'And was a worthy king.' How now, Mistress Doll! MISTRESS QUICKLY Sick of a calm; yea, good faith. FALSTAFF So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick. DOLL TEARSHEET You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me? FALSTAFF You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll. DOLL TEARSHEET 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 TEARSHEET Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels. FALSTAFF 'Your broaches, 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 charged chambers bravely,-- DOLL TEARSHEET Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself! MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 they say, the emptier vessel. DOLL TEARSHEET Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogshead? there's a whole merchant's venture of Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk better stuffed 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 First Drawer First Drawer Sir, Ancient Pistol's below, and would speak with you. DOLL TEARSHEET Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come hither: it is the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England. MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 lived all this while, to have swaggering now: shut the door, I pray you. FALSTAFF Dost thou hear, hostess? MISTRESS QUICKLY Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John: there comes no swaggerers here. FALSTAFF Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient. MISTRESS QUICKLY Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me: your ancient swaggerer 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 swaggerers. FALSTAFF He's no swaggerer, 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 First Drawer MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 TEARSHEET So you do, hostess. MISTRESS QUICKLY Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers. 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 hardly offend her. MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 TEARSHEET 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 TEARSHEET 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. MISTRESS QUICKLY No, Good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain. DOLL TEARSHEET Captain! thou abominable damned 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 earned 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 stewed 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 revenged of her. Page Pray thee, go down. PISTOL I'll see her damned first; to Pluto's damned lake, by this hand, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not Hiren here? MISTRESS QUICKLY Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i' faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler. PISTOL These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack-horses And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia, Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day, Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals, And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar. Shall we fall foul for toys? MISTRESS QUICKLY By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words. BARDOLPH Be gone, good ancient: this will grow to abrawl anon. PISTOL Die men like dogs! give crowns like pins! Have we not Heren here? MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 nothing? FALSTAFF Pistol, I would be quiet. PISTOL Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf: what! we have seen the seven stars. DOLL TEARSHEET 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! MISTRESS QUICKLY Here's goodly stuff toward! FALSTAFF Give me my rapier, boy. DOLL TEARSHEET I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw. FALSTAFF Get you down stairs. Drawing, and driving PISTOL out MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 TEARSHEET I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you! MISTRESS QUICKLY He you not hurt i' the groin? methought a' made a shrewd thrust at your belly. Re-enter BARDOLPH FALSTAFF Have you turned him out o' doors? BARDOLPH Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him, sir, i' the shoulder. FALSTAFF A rascal! to brave me! DOLL TEARSHEET Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! alas, poor ape, how thou sweatest! 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 TEARSHEET Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost, I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets. Enter Music Page The music is come, sir. FALSTAFF Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me like quicksilver. DOLL TEARSHEET I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven? Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS, disguised FALSTAFF Peac