[
  {
    "path": ".gitignore",
    "content": "*.t7\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "Readme.md",
    "content": "\n# char-rnn\n\nThis code implements **multi-layer Recurrent Neural Network** (RNN, LSTM, and GRU) for training/sampling from character-level language models. In other words the model takes one text file as input and trains a Recurrent Neural Network that learns to predict the next character in a sequence. The RNN can then be used to generate text character by character that will look like the original training data. The context of this code base is described in detail in my [blog post](http://karpathy.github.io/2015/05/21/rnn-effectiveness/).\n\nIf you are new to Torch/Lua/Neural Nets, it might be helpful to know that this code is really just a slightly more fancy version of this [100-line gist](https://gist.github.com/karpathy/d4dee566867f8291f086) that I wrote in Python/numpy. The code in this repo additionally: allows for multiple layers, uses an LSTM instead of a vanilla RNN, has more supporting code for model checkpointing, and is of course much more efficient since it uses mini-batches and can run on a GPU.\n\n## Update: torch-rnn\n\n[Justin Johnson](http://cs.stanford.edu/people/jcjohns/) (@jcjohnson) recently re-implemented char-rnn from scratch with a much nicer/smaller/cleaner/faster Torch code base. It's under the name [torch-rnn](https://github.com/jcjohnson/torch-rnn). It uses Adam for optimization and hard-codes the RNN/LSTM forward/backward passes for space/time efficiency. This also avoids headaches with cloning models in this repo. In other words, torch-rnn should be the default char-rnn implemention to use now instead of the one in this code base.\n\n## Requirements\n\nThis code is written in Lua and requires [Torch](http://torch.ch/). If you're on Ubuntu, installing Torch in your home directory may look something like: \n\n```bash\n$ curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/torch/ezinstall/master/install-deps | bash\n$ git clone https://github.com/torch/distro.git ~/torch --recursive\n$ cd ~/torch; \n$ ./install.sh      # and enter \"yes\" at the end to modify your bashrc\n$ source ~/.bashrc\n```\n\nSee the Torch installation documentation for more details. After Torch is installed we need to get a few more packages using [LuaRocks](https://luarocks.org/) (which already came with the Torch install). In particular:\n\n```bash\n$ luarocks install nngraph \n$ luarocks install optim\n$ luarocks install nn\n```\n\nIf you'd like to train on an NVIDIA GPU using CUDA (this can be to about 15x faster), you'll of course need the GPU, and you will have to install the [CUDA Toolkit](https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-toolkit). Then get the `cutorch` and `cunn` packages:\n\n```bash\n$ luarocks install cutorch\n$ luarocks install cunn\n```\n\nIf you'd like to use OpenCL GPU instead (e.g. ATI cards), you will instead need to install the `cltorch` and `clnn` packages, and then use the option `-opencl 1` during training ([cltorch issues](https://github.com/hughperkins/cltorch/issues)):\n\n```bash\n$ luarocks install cltorch\n$ luarocks install clnn\n```\n\n## Usage\n\n### Data\n\nAll input data is stored inside the `data/` directory. You'll notice that there is an example dataset included in the repo (in folder `data/tinyshakespeare`) which consists of a subset of works of Shakespeare. I'm providing a few more datasets on [this page](http://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/char-rnn/).\n\n**Your own data**: If you'd like to use your own data then create a single file `input.txt` and place it into a folder in the `data/` directory. For example, `data/some_folder/input.txt`. The first time you run the training script it will do some preprocessing and write two more convenience cache files into `data/some_folder`.\n\n**Dataset sizes**: Note that if your data is too small (1MB is already considered very small) the RNN won't learn very effectively. Remember that it has to learn everything completely from scratch. Conversely if your data is large (more than about 2MB), feel confident to increase `rnn_size` and train a bigger model (see details of training below). It will work *significantly better*. For example with 6MB you can easily go up to `rnn_size` 300 or even more. The biggest that fits on my GPU and that I've trained with this code is `rnn_size` 700 with `num_layers` 3 (2 is default).\n\n### Training\n\nStart training the model using `train.lua`. As a sanity check, to run on the included example dataset simply try:\n\n```\n$ th train.lua -gpuid -1\n```\n\nNotice that here we are setting the flag `gpuid` to -1, which tells the code to train using CPU, otherwise it defaults to GPU 0.  There are many other flags for various options. Consult `$ th train.lua -help` for comprehensive settings. Here's another example that trains a bigger network and also shows how you can run on your own custom dataset (this already assumes that `data/some_folder/input.txt` exists):\n\n```\n$ th train.lua -data_dir data/some_folder -rnn_size 512 -num_layers 2 -dropout 0.5\n```\n\n**Checkpoints.** While the model is training it will periodically write checkpoint files to the `cv` folder. The frequency with which these checkpoints are written is controlled with number of iterations, as specified with the `eval_val_every` option (e.g. if this is 1 then a checkpoint is written every iteration). The filename of these checkpoints contains a very important number: the **loss**. For example, a checkpoint with filename `lm_lstm_epoch0.95_2.0681.t7` indicates that at this point the model was on epoch 0.95 (i.e. it has almost done one full pass over the training data), and the loss on validation data was 2.0681. This number is very important because the lower it is, the better the checkpoint works. Once you start to generate data (discussed below), you will want to use the model checkpoint that reports the lowest validation loss. Notice that this might not necessarily be the last checkpoint at the end of training (due to possible overfitting).\n\nAnother important quantities to be aware of are `batch_size` (call it B), `seq_length` (call it S), and the `train_frac` and `val_frac` settings. The batch size specifies how many streams of data are processed in parallel at one time. The sequence length specifies the length of each stream, which is also the limit at which the gradients can propagate backwards in time. For example, if `seq_length` is 20, then the gradient signal will never backpropagate more than 20 time steps, and the model might not *find* dependencies longer than this length in number of characters. Thus, if you have a very difficult dataset where there are a lot of long-term dependencies you will want to increase this setting. Now, if at runtime your input text file has N characters, these first all get split into chunks of size `BxS`. These chunks then get allocated across three splits: train/val/test according to the `frac` settings. By default `train_frac` is 0.95 and `val_frac` is 0.05, which means that 95% of our data chunks will be trained on and 5% of the chunks will be used to estimate the validation loss (and hence the generalization). If your data is small, it's possible that with the default settings you'll only have very few chunks in total (for example 100). This is bad: In these cases you may want to decrease batch size or sequence length.\n\nNote that you can also initialize parameters from a previously saved checkpoint using `init_from`.\n\n### Sampling\n\nGiven a checkpoint file (such as those written to `cv`) we can generate new text. For example:\n\n```\n$ th sample.lua cv/some_checkpoint.t7 -gpuid -1\n```\n\nMake sure that if your checkpoint was trained with GPU it is also sampled from with GPU, or vice versa. Otherwise the code will (currently) complain. As with the train script, see `$ th sample.lua -help` for full options. One important one is (for example) `-length 10000` which would generate 10,000 characters (default = 2000).\n\n**Temperature**. An important parameter you may want to play with is `-temperature`, which takes a number in range \\(0, 1\\] (0 not included), default = 1. The temperature is dividing the predicted log probabilities before the Softmax, so lower temperature will cause the model to make more likely, but also more boring and conservative predictions. Higher temperatures cause the model to take more chances and increase diversity of results, but at a cost of more mistakes.\n\n**Priming**. It's also possible to prime the model with some starting text using `-primetext`. This starts out the RNN with some hardcoded characters to *warm* it up with some context before it starts generating text. E.g. a fun primetext might be `-primetext \"the meaning of life is \"`. \n\n**Training with GPU but sampling on CPU**. Right now the solution is to use the `convert_gpu_cpu_checkpoint.lua` script to convert your GPU checkpoint to a CPU checkpoint. In near future you will not have to do this explicitly. E.g.:\n\n```\n$ th convert_gpu_cpu_checkpoint.lua cv/lm_lstm_epoch30.00_1.3950.t7\n```\n\nwill create a new file `cv/lm_lstm_epoch30.00_1.3950.t7_cpu.t7` that you can use with the sample script and with `-gpuid -1` for CPU mode.\n\nHappy sampling!\n\n## Tips and Tricks\n\n### Monitoring Validation Loss vs. Training Loss\nIf you're somewhat new to Machine Learning or Neural Networks it can take a bit of expertise to get good models. The most important quantity to keep track of is the difference between your training loss (printed during training) and the validation loss (printed once in a while when the RNN is run on the validation data (by default every 1000 iterations)). In particular:\n\n- If your training loss is much lower than validation loss then this means the network might be **overfitting**. Solutions to this are to decrease your network size, or to increase dropout. For example you could try dropout of 0.5 and so on.\n- If your training/validation loss are about equal then your model is **underfitting**. Increase the size of your model (either number of layers or the raw number of neurons per layer)\n\n### Approximate number of parameters\n\nThe two most important parameters that control the model are `rnn_size` and `num_layers`. I would advise that you always use `num_layers` of either 2/3. The `rnn_size` can be adjusted based on how much data you have. The two important quantities to keep track of here are:\n\n- The number of parameters in your model. This is printed when you start training.\n- The size of your dataset. 1MB file is approximately 1 million characters.\n\nThese two should be about the same order of magnitude. It's a little tricky to tell. Here are some examples:\n\n- I have a 100MB dataset and I'm using the default parameter settings (which currently print 150K parameters). My data size is significantly larger (100 mil >> 0.15 mil), so I expect to heavily underfit. I am thinking I can comfortably afford to make `rnn_size` larger.\n- I have a 10MB dataset and running a 10 million parameter model. I'm slightly nervous and I'm carefully monitoring my validation loss. If it's larger than my training loss then I may want to try to increase dropout a bit and see if that heps the validation loss.\n\n### Best models strategy\n\nThe winning strategy to obtaining very good models (if you have the compute time) is to always err on making the network larger (as large as you're willing to wait for it to compute) and then try different dropout values (between 0,1). Whatever model has the best validation performance (the loss, written in the checkpoint filename, low is good) is the one you should use in the end.\n\nIt is very common in deep learning to run many different models with many different hyperparameter settings, and in the end take whatever checkpoint gave the best validation performance.\n\nBy the way, the size of your training and validation splits are also parameters. Make sure you have a decent amount of data in your validation set or otherwise the validation performance will be noisy and not very informative.\n\n## Additional Pointers and Acknowledgements\n\nThis code was originally based on Oxford University Machine Learning class [practical 6](https://github.com/oxford-cs-ml-2015/practical6), which is in turn based on [learning to execute](https://github.com/wojciechz/learning_to_execute) code from Wojciech Zaremba. Chunks of it were also developed in collaboration with my labmate [Justin Johnson](http://cs.stanford.edu/people/jcjohns/).\n\nTo learn more about RNN language models I recommend looking at:\n\n- [My recent talk](https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/6611-visualizing-and-understanding-recurrent-networks) on char-rnn\n- [Generating Sequences With Recurrent Neural Networks](http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.0850) by Alex Graves\n- [Generating Text with Recurrent Neural Networks](http://www.cs.utoronto.ca/~ilya/pubs/2011/LANG-RNN.pdf) by Ilya Sutskever\n- [Tomas Mikolov's Thesis](http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/~imikolov/rnnlm/thesis.pdf)\n\n## License\n\nMIT\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "convert_gpu_cpu_checkpoint.lua",
    "content": "--[[\nA quick patch for converting GPU checkpoints to \nCPU checkpoints until I implement a more long-term\nsolution. Takes the path to the model and creates\na file in the same location and path, but with _cpu.t7\nappended.\n]]--\n\nrequire 'torch'\nrequire 'nn'\nrequire 'nngraph'\nrequire 'lfs'\n\nrequire 'util.OneHot'\nrequire 'util.misc'\n\ncmd = torch.CmdLine()\ncmd:text()\ncmd:text('Sample from a character-level language model')\ncmd:text()\ncmd:text('Options')\ncmd:argument('-model','GPU model checkpoint to convert')\ncmd:option('-gpuid',0,'which gpu to use. -1 = use CPU')\ncmd:option('-opencl',0,'use OpenCL (instead of CUDA)')\ncmd:text()\n\n-- parse input params\nopt = cmd:parse(arg)\n\n-- check that cunn/cutorch are installed if user wants to use the GPU\nif opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 0 then\n    local ok, cunn = pcall(require, 'cunn')\n    local ok2, cutorch = pcall(require, 'cutorch')\n    if not ok then print('package cunn not found!') end\n    if not ok2 then print('package cutorch not found!') end\n    if ok and ok2 then\n        print('using CUDA on GPU ' .. opt.gpuid .. '...')\n        cutorch.setDevice(opt.gpuid + 1) -- note +1 to make it 0 indexed! sigh lua\n    else\n    \tprint('Error, no GPU available?')\n        os.exit()\n    end\nend\n\n-- check that clnn/cltorch are installed if user wants to use OpenCL\nif opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 1 then\n    local ok, cunn = pcall(require, 'clnn')\n    local ok2, cutorch = pcall(require, 'cltorch')\n    if not ok then print('package clnn not found!') end\n    if not ok2 then print('package cltorch not found!') end\n    if ok and ok2 then\n        print('using OpenCL on GPU ' .. opt.gpuid .. '...')\n        cltorch.setDevice(opt.gpuid + 1) -- note +1 to make it 0 indexed! sigh lua\n    else\n        print('Error, no GPU available?')\n        os.exit()\n    end\nend\n\nprint('loading ' .. opt.model)\ncheckpoint = torch.load(opt.model)\nprotos = checkpoint.protos\n\n-- convert the networks to be CPU models\nfor k,v in pairs(protos) do\n\tprint('converting ' .. k .. ' to CPU')\n\tprotos[k]:double()\nend\n\nlocal savefile = opt.model .. '_cpu.t7' -- append \"cpu.t7\" to filename\ntorch.save(savefile, checkpoint)\nprint('saved ' .. savefile)\n\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "data/tinyshakespeare/input.txt",
    "content": "First Citizen:\nBefore we proceed any further, hear me speak.\n\nAll:\nSpeak, speak.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nYou are all resolved rather to die than to famish?\n\nAll:\nResolved. resolved.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nFirst, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people.\n\nAll:\nWe know't, we know't.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nLet us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price.\nIs't a verdict?\n\nAll:\nNo more talking on't; let it be done: away, away!\n\nSecond Citizen:\nOne word, good citizens.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWe are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good.\nWhat authority surfeits on would relieve us: if they\nwould yield us but the superfluity, while it were\nwholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely;\nbut they think we are too dear: the leanness that\nafflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an\ninventory to particularise their abundance; our\nsufferance is a gain to them Let us revenge this with\nour pikes, ere we become rakes: for the gods know I\nspeak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWould you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?\n\nAll:\nAgainst him first: he's a very dog to the commonalty.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nConsider you what services he has done for his country?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nVery well; and could be content to give him good\nreport fort, but that he pays himself with being proud.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nNay, but speak not maliciously.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nI say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did\nit to that end: though soft-conscienced men can be\ncontent to say it was for his country he did it to\nplease his mother and to be partly proud; which he\nis, even till the altitude of his virtue.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWhat he cannot help in his nature, you account a\nvice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nIf I must not, I need not be barren of accusations;\nhe hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.\nWhat shouts are these? The other side o' the city\nis risen: why stay we prating here? to the Capitol!\n\nAll:\nCome, come.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nSoft! who comes here?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWorthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved\nthe people.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nHe's one honest enough: would all the rest were so!\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat work's, my countrymen, in hand? where go you\nWith bats and clubs? The matter? speak, I pray you.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nOur business is not unknown to the senate; they have\nhad inkling this fortnight what we intend to do,\nwhich now we'll show 'em in deeds. They say poor\nsuitors have strong breaths: they shall know we\nhave strong arms too.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,\nWill you undo yourselves?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWe cannot, sir, we are undone already.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI tell you, friends, most charitable care\nHave the patricians of you. For your wants,\nYour suffering in this dearth, you may as well\nStrike at the heaven with your staves as lift them\nAgainst the Roman state, whose course will on\nThe way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs\nOf more strong link asunder than can ever\nAppear in your impediment. For the dearth,\nThe gods, not the patricians, make it, and\nYour knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,\nYou are transported by calamity\nThither where more attends you, and you slander\nThe helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers,\nWhen you curse them as enemies.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nCare for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us\nyet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses\ncrammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to\nsupport usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act\nestablished against the rich, and provide more\npiercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain\nthe poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and\nthere's all the love they bear us.\n\nMENENIUS:\nEither you must\nConfess yourselves wondrous malicious,\nOr be accused of folly. I shall tell you\nA pretty tale: it may be you have heard it;\nBut, since it serves my purpose, I will venture\nTo stale 't a little more.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWell, I'll hear it, sir: yet you must not think to\nfob off our disgrace with a tale: but, an 't please\nyou, deliver.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThere was a time when all the body's members\nRebell'd against the belly, thus accused it:\nThat only like a gulf it did remain\nI' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive,\nStill cupboarding the viand, never bearing\nLike labour with the rest, where the other instruments\nDid see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,\nAnd, mutually participate, did minister\nUnto the appetite and affection common\nOf the whole body. The belly answer'd--\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWell, sir, what answer made the belly?\n\nMENENIUS:\nSir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,\nWhich ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus--\nFor, look you, I may make the belly smile\nAs well as speak--it tauntingly replied\nTo the discontented members, the mutinous parts\nThat envied his receipt; even so most fitly\nAs you malign our senators for that\nThey are not such as you.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nYour belly's answer? What!\nThe kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,\nThe counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,\nOur steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter.\nWith other muniments and petty helps\nIn this our fabric, if that they--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat then?\n'Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? what then?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nShould by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,\nWho is the sink o' the body,--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, what then?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nThe former agents, if they did complain,\nWhat could the belly answer?\n\nMENENIUS:\nI will tell you\nIf you'll bestow a small--of what you have little--\nPatience awhile, you'll hear the belly's answer.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nYe're long about it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNote me this, good friend;\nYour most grave belly was deliberate,\nNot rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd:\n'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he,\n'That I receive the general food at first,\nWhich you do live upon; and fit it is,\nBecause I am the store-house and the shop\nOf the whole body: but, if you do remember,\nI send it through the rivers of your blood,\nEven to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain;\nAnd, through the cranks and offices of man,\nThe strongest nerves and small inferior veins\nFrom me receive that natural competency\nWhereby they live: and though that all at once,\nYou, my good friends,'--this says the belly, mark me,--\n\nFirst Citizen:\nAy, sir; well, well.\n\nMENENIUS:\n'Though all at once cannot\nSee what I do deliver out to each,\nYet I can make my audit up, that all\nFrom me do back receive the flour of all,\nAnd leave me but the bran.' What say you to't?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nIt was an answer: how apply you this?\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe senators of Rome are this good belly,\nAnd you the mutinous members; for examine\nTheir counsels and their cares, digest things rightly\nTouching the weal o' the common, you shall find\nNo public benefit which you receive\nBut it proceeds or comes from them to you\nAnd no way from yourselves. What do you think,\nYou, the great toe of this assembly?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nI the great toe! why the great toe?\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor that, being one o' the lowest, basest, poorest,\nOf this most wise rebellion, thou go'st foremost:\nThou rascal, that art worst in blood to run,\nLead'st first to win some vantage.\nBut make you ready your stiff bats and clubs:\nRome and her rats are at the point of battle;\nThe one side must have bale.\nHail, noble Marcius!\n\nMARCIUS:\nThanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues,\nThat, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,\nMake yourselves scabs?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWe have ever your good word.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHe that will give good words to thee will flatter\nBeneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,\nThat like nor peace nor war? the one affrights you,\nThe other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,\nWhere he should find you lions, finds you hares;\nWhere foxes, geese: you are no surer, no,\nThan is the coal of fire upon the ice,\nOr hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is\nTo make him worthy whose offence subdues him\nAnd curse that justice did it.\nWho deserves greatness\nDeserves your hate; and your affections are\nA sick man's appetite, who desires most that\nWhich would increase his evil. He that depends\nUpon your favours swims with fins of lead\nAnd hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust Ye?\nWith every minute you do change a mind,\nAnd call him noble that was now your hate,\nHim vile that was your garland. What's the matter,\nThat in these several places of the city\nYou cry against the noble senate, who,\nUnder the gods, keep you in awe, which else\nWould feed on one another? What's their seeking?\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor corn at their own rates; whereof, they say,\nThe city is well stored.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHang 'em! They say!\nThey'll sit by the fire, and presume to know\nWhat's done i' the Capitol; who's like to rise,\nWho thrives and who declines; side factions\nand give out\nConjectural marriages; making parties strong\nAnd feebling such as stand not in their liking\nBelow their cobbled shoes. They say there's\ngrain enough!\nWould the nobility lay aside their ruth,\nAnd let me use my sword, I'll make a quarry\nWith thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high\nAs I could pick my lance.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;\nFor though abundantly they lack discretion,\nYet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you,\nWhat says the other troop?\n\nMARCIUS:\nThey are dissolved: hang 'em!\nThey said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs,\nThat hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,\nThat meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not\nCorn for the rich men only: with these shreds\nThey vented their complainings; which being answer'd,\nAnd a petition granted them, a strange one--\nTo break the heart of generosity,\nAnd make bold power look pale--they threw their caps\nAs they would hang them on the horns o' the moon,\nShouting their emulation.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat is granted them?\n\nMARCIUS:\nFive tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms,\nOf their own choice: one's Junius Brutus,\nSicinius Velutus, and I know not--'Sdeath!\nThe rabble should have first unroof'd the city,\nEre so prevail'd with me: it will in time\nWin upon power and throw forth greater themes\nFor insurrection's arguing.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is strange.\n\nMARCIUS:\nGo, get you home, you fragments!\n\nMessenger:\nWhere's Caius Marcius?\n\nMARCIUS:\nHere: what's the matter?\n\nMessenger:\nThe news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI am glad on 't: then we shall ha' means to vent\nOur musty superfluity. See, our best elders.\n\nFirst Senator:\nMarcius, 'tis true that you have lately told us;\nThe Volsces are in arms.\n\nMARCIUS:\nThey have a leader,\nTullus Aufidius, that will put you to 't.\nI sin in envying his nobility,\nAnd were I any thing but what I am,\nI would wish me only he.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou have fought together.\n\nMARCIUS:\nWere half to half the world by the ears and he.\nUpon my party, I'ld revolt to make\nOnly my wars with him: he is a lion\nThat I am proud to hunt.\n\nFirst Senator:\nThen, worthy Marcius,\nAttend upon Cominius to these wars.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nIt is your former promise.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSir, it is;\nAnd I am constant. Titus Lartius, thou\nShalt see me once more strike at Tullus' face.\nWhat, art thou stiff? stand'st out?\n\nTITUS:\nNo, Caius Marcius;\nI'll lean upon one crutch and fight with t'other,\nEre stay behind this business.\n\nMENENIUS:\nO, true-bred!\n\nFirst Senator:\nYour company to the Capitol; where, I know,\nOur greatest friends attend us.\n\nTITUS:\n\nCOMINIUS:\nNoble Marcius!\n\nFirst Senator:\n\nMARCIUS:\nNay, let them follow:\nThe Volsces have much corn; take these rats thither\nTo gnaw their garners. Worshipful mutiners,\nYour valour puts well forth: pray, follow.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWas ever man so proud as is this Marcius?\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe has no equal.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhen we were chosen tribunes for the people,--\n\nBRUTUS:\nMark'd you his lip and eyes?\n\nSICINIUS:\nNay. but his taunts.\n\nBRUTUS:\nBeing moved, he will not spare to gird the gods.\n\nSICINIUS:\nBe-mock the modest moon.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe present wars devour him: he is grown\nToo proud to be so valiant.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSuch a nature,\nTickled with good success, disdains the shadow\nWhich he treads on at noon: but I do wonder\nHis insolence can brook to be commanded\nUnder Cominius.\n\nBRUTUS:\nFame, at the which he aims,\nIn whom already he's well graced, can not\nBetter be held nor more attain'd than by\nA place below the first: for what miscarries\nShall be the general's fault, though he perform\nTo the utmost of a man, and giddy censure\nWill then cry out of Marcius 'O if he\nHad borne the business!'\n\nSICINIUS:\nBesides, if things go well,\nOpinion that so sticks on Marcius shall\nOf his demerits rob Cominius.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome:\nHalf all Cominius' honours are to Marcius.\nThough Marcius earned them not, and all his faults\nTo Marcius shall be honours, though indeed\nIn aught he merit not.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLet's hence, and hear\nHow the dispatch is made, and in what fashion,\nMore than his singularity, he goes\nUpon this present action.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLets along.\n\nFirst Senator:\nSo, your opinion is, Aufidius,\nThat they of Rome are entered in our counsels\nAnd know how we proceed.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nIs it not yours?\nWhat ever have been thought on in this state,\nThat could be brought to bodily act ere Rome\nHad circumvention? 'Tis not four days gone\nSince I heard thence; these are the words: I think\nI have the letter here; yes, here it is.\n'They have press'd a power, but it is not known\nWhether for east or west: the dearth is great;\nThe people mutinous; and it is rumour'd,\nCominius, Marcius your old enemy,\nWho is of Rome worse hated than of you,\nAnd Titus Lartius, a most valiant Roman,\nThese three lead on this preparation\nWhither 'tis bent: most likely 'tis for you:\nConsider of it.'\n\nFirst Senator:\nOur army's in the field\nWe never yet made doubt but Rome was ready\nTo answer us.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nNor did you think it folly\nTo keep your great pretences veil'd till when\nThey needs must show themselves; which\nin the hatching,\nIt seem'd, appear'd to Rome. By the discovery.\nWe shall be shorten'd in our aim, which was\nTo take in many towns ere almost Rome\nShould know we were afoot.\n\nSecond Senator:\nNoble Aufidius,\nTake your commission; hie you to your bands:\nLet us alone to guard Corioli:\nIf they set down before 's, for the remove\nBring your army; but, I think, you'll find\nThey've not prepared for us.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nO, doubt not that;\nI speak from certainties. Nay, more,\nSome parcels of their power are forth already,\nAnd only hitherward. I leave your honours.\nIf we and Caius Marcius chance to meet,\n'Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike\nTill one can do no more.\n\nAll:\nThe gods assist you!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAnd keep your honours safe!\n\nFirst Senator:\nFarewell.\n\nSecond Senator:\nFarewell.\n\nAll:\nFarewell.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI pray you, daughter, sing; or express yourself in a\nmore comfortable sort: if my son were my husband, I\nshould freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he\nwon honour than in the embracements of his bed where\nhe would show most love. When yet he was but\ntender-bodied and the only son of my womb, when\nyouth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way, when\nfor a day of kings' entreaties a mother should not\nsell him an hour from her beholding, I, considering\nhow honour would become such a person. that it was\nno better than picture-like to hang by the wall, if\nrenown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek\ndanger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel\nwar I sent him; from whence he returned, his brows\nbound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not\nmore in joy at first hearing he was a man-child\nthan now in first seeing he had proved himself a\nman.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nBut had he died in the business, madam; how then?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThen his good report should have been my son; I\ntherein would have found issue. Hear me profess\nsincerely: had I a dozen sons, each in my love\nalike and none less dear than thine and my good\nMarcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their\ncountry than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.\n\nGentlewoman:\nMadam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nBeseech you, give me leave to retire myself.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nIndeed, you shall not.\nMethinks I hear hither your husband's drum,\nSee him pluck Aufidius down by the hair,\nAs children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him:\nMethinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus:\n'Come on, you cowards! you were got in fear,\nThough you were born in Rome:' his bloody brow\nWith his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes,\nLike to a harvest-man that's task'd to mow\nOr all or lose his hire.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nHis bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAway, you fool! it more becomes a man\nThan gilt his trophy: the breasts of Hecuba,\nWhen she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier\nThan Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood\nAt Grecian sword, contemning. Tell Valeria,\nWe are fit to bid her welcome.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nHeavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe'll beat Aufidius 'head below his knee\nAnd tread upon his neck.\n\nVALERIA:\nMy ladies both, good day to you.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nSweet madam.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nI am glad to see your ladyship.\n\nVALERIA:\nHow do you both? you are manifest house-keepers.\nWhat are you sewing here? A fine spot, in good\nfaith. How does your little son?\n\nVIRGILIA:\nI thank your ladyship; well, good madam.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe had rather see the swords, and hear a drum, than\nlook upon his school-master.\n\nVALERIA:\nO' my word, the father's son: I'll swear,'tis a\nvery pretty boy. O' my troth, I looked upon him o'\nWednesday half an hour together: has such a\nconfirmed countenance. I saw him run after a gilded\nbutterfly: and when he caught it, he let it go\nagain; and after it again; and over and over he\ncomes, and again; catched it again; or whether his\nfall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his\nteeth and tear it; O, I warrant it, how he mammocked\nit!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nOne on 's father's moods.\n\nVALERIA:\nIndeed, la, 'tis a noble child.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nA crack, madam.\n\nVALERIA:\nCome, lay aside your stitchery; I must have you play\nthe idle husewife with me this afternoon.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nNo, good madam; I will not out of doors.\n\nVALERIA:\nNot out of doors!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nShe shall, she shall.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nIndeed, no, by your patience; I'll not over the\nthreshold till my lord return from the wars.\n\nVALERIA:\nFie, you confine yourself most unreasonably: come,\nyou must go visit the good lady that lies in.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nI will wish her speedy strength, and visit her with\nmy prayers; but I cannot go thither.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nWhy, I pray you?\n\nVIRGILIA:\n'Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love.\n\nVALERIA:\nYou would be another Penelope: yet, they say, all\nthe yarn she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill\nIthaca full of moths. Come; I would your cambric\nwere sensible as your finger, that you might leave\npricking it for pity. Come, you shall go with us.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nNo, good madam, pardon me; indeed, I will not forth.\n\nVALERIA:\nIn truth, la, go with me; and I'll tell you\nexcellent news of your husband.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nO, good madam, there can be none yet.\n\nVALERIA:\nVerily, I do not jest with you; there came news from\nhim last night.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nIndeed, madam?\n\nVALERIA:\nIn earnest, it's true; I heard a senator speak it.\nThus it is: the Volsces have an army forth; against\nwhom Cominius the general is gone, with one part of\nour Roman power: your lord and Titus Lartius are set\ndown before their city Corioli; they nothing doubt\nprevailing and to make it brief wars. This is true,\non mine honour; and so, I pray, go with us.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nGive me excuse, good madam; I will obey you in every\nthing hereafter.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nLet her alone, lady: as she is now, she will but\ndisease our better mirth.\n\nVALERIA:\nIn troth, I think she would. Fare you well, then.\nCome, good sweet lady. Prithee, Virgilia, turn thy\nsolemness out o' door. and go along with us.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nNo, at a word, madam; indeed, I must not. I wish\nyou much mirth.\n\nVALERIA:\nWell, then, farewell.\n\nMARCIUS:\nYonder comes news. A wager they have met.\n\nLARTIUS:\nMy horse to yours, no.\n\nMARCIUS:\n'Tis done.\n\nLARTIUS:\nAgreed.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSay, has our general met the enemy?\n\nMessenger:\nThey lie in view; but have not spoke as yet.\n\nLARTIUS:\nSo, the good horse is mine.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI'll buy him of you.\n\nLARTIUS:\nNo, I'll nor sell nor give him: lend you him I will\nFor half a hundred years. Summon the town.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHow far off lie these armies?\n\nMessenger:\nWithin this mile and half.\n\nMARCIUS:\nThen shall we hear their 'larum, and they ours.\nNow, Mars, I prithee, make us quick in work,\nThat we with smoking swords may march from hence,\nTo help our fielded friends! Come, blow thy blast.\nTutus Aufidius, is he within your walls?\n\nFirst Senator:\nNo, nor a man that fears you less than he,\nThat's lesser than a little.\nHark! our drums\nAre bringing forth our youth. We'll break our walls,\nRather than they shall pound us up: our gates,\nWhich yet seem shut, we, have but pinn'd with rushes;\nThey'll open of themselves.\nHark you. far off!\nThere is Aufidius; list, what work he makes\nAmongst your cloven army.\n\nMARCIUS:\nO, they are at it!\n\nLARTIUS:\nTheir noise be our instruction. Ladders, ho!\n\nMARCIUS:\nThey fear us not, but issue forth their city.\nNow put your shields before your hearts, and fight\nWith hearts more proof than shields. Advance,\nbrave Titus:\nThey do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,\nWhich makes me sweat with wrath. Come on, my fellows:\nHe that retires I'll take him for a Volsce,\nAnd he shall feel mine edge.\n\nMARCIUS:\nAll the contagion of the south light on you,\nYou shames of Rome! you herd of--Boils and plagues\nPlaster you o'er, that you may be abhorr'd\nFurther than seen and one infect another\nAgainst the wind a mile! You souls of geese,\nThat bear the shapes of men, how have you run\nFrom slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell!\nAll hurt behind; backs red, and faces pale\nWith flight and agued fear! Mend and charge home,\nOr, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe\nAnd make my wars on you: look to't: come on;\nIf you'll stand fast, we'll beat them to their wives,\nAs they us to our trenches followed.\nSo, now the gates are ope: now prove good seconds:\n'Tis for the followers fortune widens them,\nNot for the fliers: mark me, and do the like.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nFool-hardiness; not I.\n\nSecond Soldier:\nNor I.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nSee, they have shut him in.\n\nAll:\nTo the pot, I warrant him.\n\nLARTIUS:\nWhat is become of Marcius?\n\nAll:\nSlain, sir, doubtless.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nFollowing the fliers at the very heels,\nWith them he enters; who, upon the sudden,\nClapp'd to their gates: he is himself alone,\nTo answer all the city.\n\nLARTIUS:\nO noble fellow!\nWho sensibly outdares his senseless sword,\nAnd, when it bows, stands up. Thou art left, Marcius:\nA carbuncle entire, as big as thou art,\nWere not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier\nEven to Cato's wish, not fierce and terrible\nOnly in strokes; but, with thy grim looks and\nThe thunder-like percussion of thy sounds,\nThou madst thine enemies shake, as if the world\nWere feverous and did tremble.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nLook, sir.\n\nLARTIUS:\nO,'tis Marcius!\nLet's fetch him off, or make remain alike.\n\nFirst Roman:\nThis will I carry to Rome.\n\nSecond Roman:\nAnd I this.\n\nThird Roman:\nA murrain on't! I took this for silver.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSee here these movers that do prize their hours\nAt a crack'd drachm! Cushions, leaden spoons,\nIrons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would\nBury with those that wore them, these base slaves,\nEre yet the fight be done, pack up: down with them!\nAnd hark, what noise the general makes! To him!\nThere is the man of my soul's hate, Aufidius,\nPiercing our Romans: then, valiant Titus, take\nConvenient numbers to make good the city;\nWhilst I, with those that have the spirit, will haste\nTo help Cominius.\n\nLARTIUS:\nWorthy sir, thou bleed'st;\nThy exercise hath been too violent for\nA second course of fight.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSir, praise me not;\nMy work hath yet not warm'd me: fare you well:\nThe blood I drop is rather physical\nThan dangerous to me: to Aufidius thus\nI will appear, and fight.\n\nLARTIUS:\nNow the fair goddess, Fortune,\nFall deep in love with thee; and her great charms\nMisguide thy opposers' swords! Bold gentleman,\nProsperity be thy page!\n\nMARCIUS:\nThy friend no less\nThan those she placeth highest! So, farewell.\n\nLARTIUS:\nThou worthiest Marcius!\nGo, sound thy trumpet in the market-place;\nCall thither all the officers o' the town,\nWhere they shall know our mind: away!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nBreathe you, my friends: well fought;\nwe are come off\nLike Romans, neither foolish in our stands,\nNor cowardly in retire: believe me, sirs,\nWe shall be charged again. Whiles we have struck,\nBy interims and conveying gusts we have heard\nThe charges of our friends. Ye Roman gods!\nLead their successes as we wish our own,\nThat both our powers, with smiling\nfronts encountering,\nMay give you thankful sacrifice.\nThy news?\n\nMessenger:\nThe citizens of Corioli have issued,\nAnd given to Lartius and to Marcius battle:\nI saw our party to their trenches driven,\nAnd then I came away.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThough thou speak'st truth,\nMethinks thou speak'st not well.\nHow long is't since?\n\nMessenger:\nAbove an hour, my lord.\n\nCOMINIUS:\n'Tis not a mile; briefly we heard their drums:\nHow couldst thou in a mile confound an hour,\nAnd bring thy news so late?\n\nMessenger:\nSpies of the Volsces\nHeld me in chase, that I was forced to wheel\nThree or four miles about, else had I, sir,\nHalf an hour since brought my report.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWho's yonder,\nThat does appear as he were flay'd? O gods\nHe has the stamp of Marcius; and I have\nBefore-time seen him thus.\n\nMARCIUS:\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThe shepherd knows not thunder from a tabour\nMore than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue\nFrom every meaner man.\n\nMARCIUS:\nCome I too late?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAy, if you come not in the blood of others,\nBut mantled in your own.\n\nMARCIUS:\nO, let me clip ye\nIn arms as sound as when I woo'd, in heart\nAs merry as when our nuptial day was done,\nAnd tapers burn'd to bedward!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nFlower of warriors,\nHow is it with Titus Lartius?\n\nMARCIUS:\nAs with a man busied about decrees:\nCondemning some to death, and some to exile;\nRansoming him, or pitying, threatening the other;\nHolding Corioli in the name of Rome,\nEven like a fawning greyhound in the leash,\nTo let him slip at will.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWhere is that slave\nWhich told me they had beat you to your trenches?\nWhere is he? call him hither.\n\nMARCIUS:\nLet him alone;\nHe did inform the truth: but for our gentlemen,\nThe common file--a plague! tribunes for them!--\nThe mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge\nFrom rascals worse than they.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nBut how prevail'd you?\n\nMARCIUS:\nWill the time serve to tell? I do not think.\nWhere is the enemy? are you lords o' the field?\nIf not, why cease you till you are so?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nMarcius,\nWe have at disadvantage fought and did\nRetire to win our purpose.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHow lies their battle? know you on which side\nThey have placed their men of trust?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAs I guess, Marcius,\nTheir bands i' the vaward are the Antiates,\nOf their best trust; o'er them Aufidius,\nTheir very heart of hope.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI do beseech you,\nBy all the battles wherein we have fought,\nBy the blood we have shed together, by the vows\nWe have made to endure friends, that you directly\nSet me against Aufidius and his Antiates;\nAnd that you not delay the present, but,\nFilling the air with swords advanced and darts,\nWe prove this very hour.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThough I could wish\nYou were conducted to a gentle bath\nAnd balms applied to, you, yet dare I never\nDeny your asking: take your choice of those\nThat best can aid your action.\n\nMARCIUS:\nThose are they\nThat most are willing. If any such be here--\nAs it were sin to doubt--that love this painting\nWherein you see me smear'd; if any fear\nLesser his person than an ill report;\nIf any think brave death outweighs bad life\nAnd that his country's dearer than himself;\nLet him alone, or so many so minded,\nWave thus, to express his disposition,\nAnd follow Marcius.\nO, me alone! make you a sword of me?\nIf these shows be not outward, which of you\nBut is four Volsces? none of you but is\nAble to bear against the great Aufidius\nA shield as hard as his. A certain number,\nThough thanks to all, must I select\nfrom all: the rest\nShall bear the business in some other fight,\nAs cause will be obey'd. Please you to march;\nAnd four shall quickly draw out my command,\nWhich men are best inclined.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nMarch on, my fellows:\nMake good this ostentation, and you shall\nDivide in all with us.\n\nLARTIUS:\nSo, let the ports be guarded: keep your duties,\nAs I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch\nThose centuries to our aid: the rest will serve\nFor a short holding: if we lose the field,\nWe cannot keep the town.\n\nLieutenant:\nFear not our care, sir.\n\nLARTIUS:\nHence, and shut your gates upon's.\nOur guider, come; to the Roman camp conduct us.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI'll fight with none but thee; for I do hate thee\nWorse than a promise-breaker.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWe hate alike:\nNot Afric owns a serpent I abhor\nMore than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.\n\nMARCIUS:\nLet the first budger die the other's slave,\nAnd the gods doom him after!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nIf I fly, Marcius,\nHolloa me like a hare.\n\nMARCIUS:\nWithin these three hours, Tullus,\nAlone I fought in your Corioli walls,\nAnd made what work I pleased: 'tis not my blood\nWherein thou seest me mask'd; for thy revenge\nWrench up thy power to the highest.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWert thou the Hector\nThat was the whip of your bragg'd progeny,\nThou shouldst not scape me here.\nOfficious, and not valiant, you have shamed me\nIn your condemned seconds.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nIf I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work,\nThou'ldst not believe thy deeds: but I'll report it\nWhere senators shall mingle tears with smiles,\nWhere great patricians shall attend and shrug,\nI' the end admire, where ladies shall be frighted,\nAnd, gladly quaked, hear more; where the\ndull tribunes,\nThat, with the fusty plebeians, hate thine honours,\nShall say against their hearts 'We thank the gods\nOur Rome hath such a soldier.'\nYet camest thou to a morsel of this feast,\nHaving fully dined before.\n\nLARTIUS:\nO general,\nHere is the steed, we the caparison:\nHadst thou beheld--\n\nMARCIUS:\nPray now, no more: my mother,\nWho has a charter to extol her blood,\nWhen she does praise me grieves me. I have done\nAs you have done; that's what I can; induced\nAs you have been; that's for my country:\nHe that has but effected his good will\nHath overta'en mine act.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou shall not be\nThe grave of your deserving; Rome must know\nThe value of her own: 'twere a concealment\nWorse than a theft, no less than a traducement,\nTo hide your doings; and to silence that,\nWhich, to the spire and top of praises vouch'd,\nWould seem but modest: therefore, I beseech you\nIn sign of what you are, not to reward\nWhat you have done--before our army hear me.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI have some wounds upon me, and they smart\nTo hear themselves remember'd.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nShould they not,\nWell might they fester 'gainst ingratitude,\nAnd tent themselves with death. Of all the horses,\nWhereof we have ta'en good and good store, of all\nThe treasure in this field achieved and city,\nWe render you the tenth, to be ta'en forth,\nBefore the common distribution, at\nYour only choice.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI thank you, general;\nBut cannot make my heart consent to take\nA bribe to pay my sword: I do refuse it;\nAnd stand upon my common part with those\nThat have beheld the doing.\n\nMARCIUS:\nMay these same instruments, which you profane,\nNever sound more! when drums and trumpets shall\nI' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be\nMade all of false-faced soothing!\nWhen steel grows soft as the parasite's silk,\nLet him be made a coverture for the wars!\nNo more, I say! For that I have not wash'd\nMy nose that bled, or foil'd some debile wretch.--\nWhich, without note, here's many else have done,--\nYou shout me forth\nIn acclamations hyperbolical;\nAs if I loved my little should be dieted\nIn praises sauced with lies.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nToo modest are you;\nMore cruel to your good report than grateful\nTo us that give you truly: by your patience,\nIf 'gainst yourself you be incensed, we'll put you,\nLike one that means his proper harm, in manacles,\nThen reason safely with you. Therefore, be it known,\nAs to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius\nWears this war's garland: in token of the which,\nMy noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,\nWith all his trim belonging; and from this time,\nFor what he did before Corioli, call him,\nWith all the applause and clamour of the host,\nCAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS! Bear\nThe addition nobly ever!\n\nAll:\nCaius Marcius Coriolanus!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI will go wash;\nAnd when my face is fair, you shall perceive\nWhether I blush or no: howbeit, I thank you.\nI mean to stride your steed, and at all times\nTo undercrest your good addition\nTo the fairness of my power.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nSo, to our tent;\nWhere, ere we do repose us, we will write\nTo Rome of our success. You, Titus Lartius,\nMust to Corioli back: send us to Rome\nThe best, with whom we may articulate,\nFor their own good and ours.\n\nLARTIUS:\nI shall, my lord.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe gods begin to mock me. I, that now\nRefused most princely gifts, am bound to beg\nOf my lord general.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nTake't; 'tis yours. What is't?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI sometime lay here in Corioli\nAt a poor man's house; he used me kindly:\nHe cried to me; I saw him prisoner;\nBut then Aufidius was within my view,\nAnd wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity: I request you\nTo give my poor host freedom.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nO, well begg'd!\nWere he the butcher of my son, he should\nBe free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.\n\nLARTIUS:\nMarcius, his name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nBy Jupiter! forgot.\nI am weary; yea, my memory is tired.\nHave we no wine here?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nGo we to our tent:\nThe blood upon your visage dries; 'tis time\nIt should be look'd to: come.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nThe town is ta'en!\n\nFirst Soldier:\n'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nCondition!\nI would I were a Roman; for I cannot,\nBeing a Volsce, be that I am. Condition!\nWhat good condition can a treaty find\nI' the part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius,\nI have fought with thee: so often hast thou beat me,\nAnd wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter\nAs often as we eat. By the elements,\nIf e'er again I meet him beard to beard,\nHe's mine, or I am his: mine emulation\nHath not that honour in't it had; for where\nI thought to crush him in an equal force,\nTrue sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way\nOr wrath or craft may get him.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nHe's the devil.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nBolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd\nWith only suffering stain by him; for him\nShall fly out of itself: nor sleep nor sanctuary,\nBeing naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,\nThe prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice,\nEmbarquements all of fury, shall lift up\nTheir rotten privilege and custom 'gainst\nMy hate to Marcius: where I find him, were it\nAt home, upon my brother's guard, even there,\nAgainst the hospitable canon, would I\nWash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to the city;\nLearn how 'tis held; and what they are that must\nBe hostages for Rome.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nWill not you go?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI am attended at the cypress grove: I pray you--\n'Tis south the city mills--bring me word thither\nHow the world goes, that to the pace of it\nI may spur on my journey.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nI shall, sir.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe augurer tells me we shall have news to-night.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGood or bad?\n\nMENENIUS:\nNot according to the prayer of the people, for they\nlove not Marcius.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNature teaches beasts to know their friends.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray you, who does the wolf love?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe lamb.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAy, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would the\nnoble Marcius.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHe's a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two\nare old men: tell me one thing that I shall ask you.\n\nBoth:\nWell, sir.\n\nMENENIUS:\nIn what enormity is Marcius poor in, that you two\nhave not in abundance?\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe's poor in no one fault, but stored with all.\n\nSICINIUS:\nEspecially in pride.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAnd topping all others in boasting.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is strange now: do you two know how you are\ncensured here in the city, I mean of us o' the\nright-hand file? do you?\n\nBoth:\nWhy, how are we censured?\n\nMENENIUS:\nBecause you talk of pride now,--will you not be angry?\n\nBoth:\nWell, well, sir, well.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of\noccasion will rob you of a great deal of patience:\ngive your dispositions the reins, and be angry at\nyour pleasures; at the least if you take it as a\npleasure to you in being so. You blame Marcius for\nbeing proud?\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe do it not alone, sir.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI know you can do very little alone; for your helps\nare many, or else your actions would grow wondrous\nsingle: your abilities are too infant-like for\ndoing much alone. You talk of pride: O that you\ncould turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks,\nand make but an interior survey of your good selves!\nO that you could!\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhat then, sir?\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,\nproud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as\nany in Rome.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMenenius, you are known well enough too.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that\nloves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying\nTiber in't; said to be something imperfect in\nfavouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like\nupon too trivial motion; one that converses more\nwith the buttock of the night than with the forehead\nof the morning: what I think I utter, and spend my\nmalice in my breath. Meeting two such wealsmen as\nyou are--I cannot call you Lycurguses--if the drink\nyou give me touch my palate adversely, I make a\ncrooked face at it. I can't say your worships have\ndelivered the matter well, when I find the ass in\ncompound with the major part of your syllables: and\nthough I must be content to bear with those that say\nyou are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that\ntell you you have good faces. If you see this in\nthe map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known\nwell enough too? what barm can your bisson\nconspectuities glean out of this character, if I be\nknown well enough too?\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome, sir, come, we know you well enough.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou know neither me, yourselves nor any thing. You\nare ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you\nwear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a\ncause between an orange wife and a fosset-seller;\nand then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a\nsecond day of audience. When you are hearing a\nmatter between party and party, if you chance to be\npinched with the colic, you make faces like\nmummers; set up the bloody flag against all\npatience; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot,\ndismiss the controversy bleeding the more entangled\nby your hearing: all the peace you make in their\ncause is, calling both the parties knaves. You are\na pair of strange ones.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome, come, you are well understood to be a\nperfecter giber for the table than a necessary\nbencher in the Capitol.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOur very priests must become mockers, if they shall\nencounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When\nyou speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the\nwagging of your beards; and your beards deserve not\nso honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's\ncushion, or to be entombed in an ass's pack-\nsaddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud;\nwho in a cheap estimation, is worth predecessors\nsince Deucalion, though peradventure some of the\nbest of 'em were hereditary hangmen. God-den to\nyour worships: more of your conversation would\ninfect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly\nplebeians: I will be bold to take my leave of you.\nHow now, my as fair as noble ladies,--and the moon,\nwere she earthly, no nobler,--whither do you follow\nyour eyes so fast?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHonourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for\nthe love of Juno, let's go.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHa! Marcius coming home!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAy, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous\napprobation.\n\nMENENIUS:\nTake my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!\nMarcius coming home!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNay,'tis true.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nLook, here's a letter from him: the state hath\nanother, his wife another; and, I think, there's one\nat home for you.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI will make my very house reel tonight: a letter for\nme!\n\nVIRGILIA:\nYes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nA letter for me! it gives me an estate of seven\nyears' health; in which time I will make a lip at\nthe physician: the most sovereign prescription in\nGalen is but empiricutic, and, to this preservative,\nof no better report than a horse-drench. Is he\nnot wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nO, no, no, no.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, he is wounded; I thank the gods for't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSo do I too, if it be not too much: brings a'\nvictory in his pocket? the wounds become him.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nOn's brows: Menenius, he comes the third time home\nwith the oaken garland.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHas he disciplined Aufidius soundly?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nTitus Lartius writes, they fought together, but\nAufidius got off.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAnd 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that:\nan he had stayed by him, I would not have been so\nfidiused for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold\nthat's in them. Is the senate possessed of this?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nGood ladies, let's go. Yes, yes, yes; the senate\nhas letters from the general, wherein he gives my\nson the whole name of the war: he hath in this\naction outdone his former deeds doubly\n\nVALERIA:\nIn troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWondrous! ay, I warrant you, and not without his\ntrue purchasing.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nThe gods grant them true!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nTrue! pow, wow.\n\nMENENIUS:\nTrue! I'll be sworn they are true.\nWhere is he wounded?\nGod save your good worships! Marcius is coming\nhome: he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI' the shoulder and i' the left arm there will be\nlarge cicatrices to show the people, when he shall\nstand for his place. He received in the repulse of\nTarquin seven hurts i' the body.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOne i' the neck, and two i' the thigh,--there's\nnine that I know.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe had, before this last expedition, twenty-five\nwounds upon him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow it's twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy's grave.\nHark! the trumpets.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThese are the ushers of Marcius: before him he\ncarries noise, and behind him he leaves tears:\nDeath, that dark spirit, in 's nervy arm doth lie;\nWhich, being advanced, declines, and then men die.\n\nHerald:\nKnow, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight\nWithin Corioli gates: where he hath won,\nWith fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these\nIn honour follows Coriolanus.\nWelcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!\n\nAll:\nWelcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo more of this; it does offend my heart:\nPray now, no more.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nLook, sir, your mother!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO,\nYou have, I know, petition'd all the gods\nFor my prosperity!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNay, my good soldier, up;\nMy gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and\nBy deed-achieving honour newly named,--\nWhat is it?--Coriolanus must I call thee?--\nBut O, thy wife!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMy gracious silence, hail!\nWouldst thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home,\nThat weep'st to see me triumph? Ay, my dear,\nSuch eyes the widows in Corioli wear,\nAnd mothers that lack sons.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow, the gods crown thee!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAnd live you yet?\nO my sweet lady, pardon.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI know not where to turn: O, welcome home:\nAnd welcome, general: and ye're welcome all.\n\nMENENIUS:\nA hundred thousand welcomes. I could weep\nAnd I could laugh, I am light and heavy. Welcome.\nA curse begin at very root on's heart,\nThat is not glad to see thee! You are three\nThat Rome should dote on: yet, by the faith of men,\nWe have some old crab-trees here\nat home that will not\nBe grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors:\nWe call a nettle but a nettle and\nThe faults of fools but folly.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nEver right.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMenenius ever, ever.\n\nHerald:\nGive way there, and go on!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI have lived\nTo see inherited my very wishes\nAnd the buildings of my fancy: only\nThere's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but\nOur Rome will cast upon thee.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nKnow, good mother,\nI had rather be their servant in my way,\nThan sway with them in theirs.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nOn, to the Capitol!\n\nBRUTUS:\nAll tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights\nAre spectacled to see him: your prattling nurse\nInto a rapture lets her baby cry\nWhile she chats him: the kitchen malkin pins\nHer richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,\nClambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows,\nAre smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges horsed\nWith variable complexions, all agreeing\nIn earnestness to see him: seld-shown flamens\nDo press among the popular throngs and puff\nTo win a vulgar station: or veil'd dames\nCommit the war of white and damask in\nTheir nicely-gawded cheeks to the wanton spoil\nOf Phoebus' burning kisses: such a pother\nAs if that whatsoever god who leads him\nWere slily crept into his human powers\nAnd gave him graceful posture.\n\nSICINIUS:\nOn the sudden,\nI warrant him consul.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThen our office may,\nDuring his power, go sleep.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe cannot temperately transport his honours\nFrom where he should begin and end, but will\nLose those he hath won.\n\nBRUTUS:\nIn that there's comfort.\n\nSICINIUS:\nDoubt not\nThe commoners, for whom we stand, but they\nUpon their ancient malice will forget\nWith the least cause these his new honours, which\nThat he will give them make I as little question\nAs he is proud to do't.\n\nBRUTUS:\nI heard him swear,\nWere he to stand for consul, never would he\nAppear i' the market-place nor on him put\nThe napless vesture of humility;\nNor showing, as the manner is, his wounds\nTo the people, beg their stinking breaths.\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Tis right.\n\nBRUTUS:\nIt was his word: O, he would miss it rather\nThan carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him,\nAnd the desire of the nobles.\n\nSICINIUS:\nI wish no better\nThan have him hold that purpose and to put it\nIn execution.\n\nBRUTUS:\n'Tis most like he will.\n\nSICINIUS:\nIt shall be to him then as our good wills,\nA sure destruction.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSo it must fall out\nTo him or our authorities. For an end,\nWe must suggest the people in what hatred\nHe still hath held them; that to's power he would\nHave made them mules, silenced their pleaders and\nDispropertied their freedoms, holding them,\nIn human action and capacity,\nOf no more soul nor fitness for the world\nThan camels in the war, who have their provand\nOnly for bearing burdens, and sore blows\nFor sinking under them.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis, as you say, suggested\nAt some time when his soaring insolence\nShall touch the people--which time shall not want,\nIf he be put upon 't; and that's as easy\nAs to set dogs on sheep--will be his fire\nTo kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze\nShall darken him for ever.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhat's the matter?\n\nMessenger:\nYou are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought\nThat Marcius shall be consul:\nI have seen the dumb men throng to see him and\nThe blind to bear him speak: matrons flung gloves,\nLadies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,\nUpon him as he pass'd: the nobles bended,\nAs to Jove's statue, and the commons made\nA shower and thunder with their caps and shouts:\nI never saw the like.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLet's to the Capitol;\nAnd carry with us ears and eyes for the time,\nBut hearts for the event.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave with you.\n\nFirst Officer:\nCome, come, they are almost here. How many stand\nfor consulships?\n\nSecond Officer:\nThree, they say: but 'tis thought of every one\nCoriolanus will carry it.\n\nFirst Officer:\nThat's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud, and\nloves not the common people.\n\nSecond Officer:\nFaith, there had been many great men that have\nflattered the people, who ne'er loved them; and there\nbe many that they have loved, they know not\nwherefore: so that, if they love they know not why,\nthey hate upon no better a ground: therefore, for\nCoriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate\nhim manifests the true knowledge he has in their\ndisposition; and out of his noble carelessness lets\nthem plainly see't.\n\nFirst Officer:\nIf he did not care whether he had their love or no,\nhe waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither\ngood nor harm: but he seeks their hate with greater\ndevotion than can render it him; and leaves\nnothing undone that may fully discover him their\nopposite. Now, to seem to affect the malice and\ndispleasure of the people is as bad as that which he\ndislikes, to flatter them for their love.\n\nSecond Officer:\nHe hath deserved worthily of his country: and his\nascent is not by such easy degrees as those who,\nhaving been supple and courteous to the people,\nbonneted, without any further deed to have them at\nan into their estimation and report: but he hath so\nplanted his honours in their eyes, and his actions\nin their hearts, that for their tongues to be\nsilent, and not confess so much, were a kind of\ningrateful injury; to report otherwise, were a\nmalice, that, giving itself the lie, would pluck\nreproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it.\n\nFirst Officer:\nNo more of him; he is a worthy man: make way, they\nare coming.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHaving determined of the Volsces and\nTo send for Titus Lartius, it remains,\nAs the main point of this our after-meeting,\nTo gratify his noble service that\nHath thus stood for his country: therefore,\nplease you,\nMost reverend and grave elders, to desire\nThe present consul, and last general\nIn our well-found successes, to report\nA little of that worthy work perform'd\nBy Caius Marcius Coriolanus, whom\nWe met here both to thank and to remember\nWith honours like himself.\n\nFirst Senator:\nSpeak, good Cominius:\nLeave nothing out for length, and make us think\nRather our state's defective for requital\nThan we to stretch it out.\nMasters o' the people,\nWe do request your kindest ears, and after,\nYour loving motion toward the common body,\nTo yield what passes here.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe are convented\nUpon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts\nInclinable to honour and advance\nThe theme of our assembly.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhich the rather\nWe shall be blest to do, if he remember\nA kinder value of the people than\nHe hath hereto prized them at.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThat's off, that's off;\nI would you rather had been silent. Please you\nTo hear Cominius speak?\n\nBRUTUS:\nMost willingly;\nBut yet my caution was more pertinent\nThan the rebuke you give it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHe loves your people\nBut tie him not to be their bedfellow.\nWorthy Cominius, speak.\nNay, keep your place.\n\nFirst Senator:\nSit, Coriolanus; never shame to hear\nWhat you have nobly done.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYour horror's pardon:\nI had rather have my wounds to heal again\nThan hear say how I got them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSir, I hope\nMy words disbench'd you not.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, sir: yet oft,\nWhen blows have made me stay, I fled from words.\nYou soothed not, therefore hurt not: but\nyour people,\nI love them as they weigh.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray now, sit down.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI had rather have one scratch my head i' the sun\nWhen the alarum were struck than idly sit\nTo hear my nothings monster'd.\n\nMENENIUS:\nMasters of the people,\nYour multiplying spawn how can he flatter--\nThat's thousand to one good one--when you now see\nHe had rather venture all his limbs for honour\nThan one on's ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI shall lack voice: the deeds of Coriolanus\nShould not be utter'd feebly. It is held\nThat valour is the chiefest virtue, and\nMost dignifies the haver: if it be,\nThe man I speak of cannot in the world\nBe singly counterpoised. At sixteen years,\nWhen Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought\nBeyond the mark of others: our then dictator,\nWhom with all praise I point at, saw him fight,\nWhen with his Amazonian chin he drove\nThe bristled lips before him: be bestrid\nAn o'er-press'd Roman and i' the consul's view\nSlew three opposers: Tarquin's self he met,\nAnd struck him on his knee: in that day's feats,\nWhen he might act the woman in the scene,\nHe proved best man i' the field, and for his meed\nWas brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age\nMan-enter'd thus, he waxed like a sea,\nAnd in the brunt of seventeen battles since\nHe lurch'd all swords of the garland. For this last,\nBefore and in Corioli, let me say,\nI cannot speak him home: he stopp'd the fliers;\nAnd by his rare example made the coward\nTurn terror into sport: as weeds before\nA vessel under sail, so men obey'd\nAnd fell below his stem: his sword, death's stamp,\nWhere it did mark, it took; from face to foot\nHe was a thing of blood, whose every motion\nWas timed with dying cries: alone he enter'd\nThe mortal gate of the city, which he painted\nWith shunless destiny; aidless came off,\nAnd with a sudden reinforcement struck\nCorioli like a planet: now all's his:\nWhen, by and by, the din of war gan pierce\nHis ready sense; then straight his doubled spirit\nRe-quicken'd what in flesh was fatigate,\nAnd to the battle came he; where he did\nRun reeking o'er the lives of men, as if\n'Twere a perpetual spoil: and till we call'd\nBoth field and city ours, he never stood\nTo ease his breast with panting.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWorthy man!\n\nFirst Senator:\nHe cannot but with measure fit the honours\nWhich we devise him.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nOur spoils he kick'd at,\nAnd look'd upon things precious as they were\nThe common muck of the world: he covets less\nThan misery itself would give; rewards\nHis deeds with doing them, and is content\nTo spend the time to end it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHe's right noble:\nLet him be call'd for.\n\nFirst Senator:\nCall Coriolanus.\n\nOfficer:\nHe doth appear.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe senate, Coriolanus, are well pleased\nTo make thee consul.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI do owe them still\nMy life and services.\n\nMENENIUS:\nIt then remains\nThat you do speak to the people.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI do beseech you,\nLet me o'erleap that custom, for I cannot\nPut on the gown, stand naked and entreat them,\nFor my wounds' sake, to give their suffrage: please you\nThat I may pass this doing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSir, the people\nMust have their voices; neither will they bate\nOne jot of ceremony.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPut them not to't:\nPray you, go fit you to the custom and\nTake to you, as your predecessors have,\nYour honour with your form.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIt is apart\nThat I shall blush in acting, and might well\nBe taken from the people.\n\nBRUTUS:\nMark you that?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTo brag unto them, thus I did, and thus;\nShow them the unaching scars which I should hide,\nAs if I had received them for the hire\nOf their breath only!\n\nMENENIUS:\nDo not stand upon't.\nWe recommend to you, tribunes of the people,\nOur purpose to them: and to our noble consul\nWish we all joy and honour.\n\nSenators:\nTo Coriolanus come all joy and honour!\n\nBRUTUS:\nYou see how he intends to use the people.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMay they perceive's intent! He will require them,\nAs if he did contemn what he requested\nShould be in them to give.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome, we'll inform them\nOf our proceedings here: on the marketplace,\nI know, they do attend us.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nOnce, if he do require our voices, we ought not to deny him.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWe may, sir, if we will.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWe have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a\npower that we have no power to do; for if he show us\nhis wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our\ntongues into those wounds and speak for them; so, if\nhe tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him\nour noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is\nmonstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful,\nwere to make a monster of the multitude: of the\nwhich we being members, should bring ourselves to be\nmonstrous members.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nAnd to make us no better thought of, a little help\nwill serve; for once we stood up about the corn, he\nhimself stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWe have been called so of many; not that our heads\nare some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald,\nbut that our wits are so diversely coloured: and\ntruly I think if all our wits were to issue out of\none skull, they would fly east, west, north, south,\nand their consent of one direct way should be at\nonce to all the points o' the compass.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nThink you so? Which way do you judge my wit would\nfly?\n\nThird Citizen:\nNay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's\nwill;'tis strongly wedged up in a block-head, but\nif it were at liberty, 'twould, sure, southward.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWhy that way?\n\nThird Citizen:\nTo lose itself in a fog, where being three parts\nmelted away with rotten dews, the fourth would return\nfor conscience sake, to help to get thee a wife.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nYou are never without your tricks: you may, you may.\n\nThird Citizen:\nAre you all resolved to give your voices? But\nthat's no matter, the greater part carries it. I\nsay, if he would incline to the people, there was\nnever a worthier man.\nHere he comes, and in the gown of humility: mark his\nbehavior. We are not to stay all together, but to\ncome by him where he stands, by ones, by twos, and\nby threes. He's to make his requests by\nparticulars; wherein every one of us has a single\nhonour, in giving him our own voices with our own\ntongues: therefore follow me, and I direct you how\nyou shall go by him.\n\nAll:\nContent, content.\n\nMENENIUS:\nO sir, you are not right: have you not known\nThe worthiest men have done't?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat must I say?\n'I Pray, sir'--Plague upon't! I cannot bring\nMy tongue to such a pace:--'Look, sir, my wounds!\nI got them in my country's service, when\nSome certain of your brethren roar'd and ran\nFrom the noise of our own drums.'\n\nMENENIUS:\nO me, the gods!\nYou must not speak of that: you must desire them\nTo think upon you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThink upon me! hang 'em!\nI would they would forget me, like the virtues\nWhich our divines lose by 'em.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou'll mar all:\nI'll leave you: pray you, speak to 'em, I pray you,\nIn wholesome manner.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nBid them wash their faces\nAnd keep their teeth clean.\nSo, here comes a brace.\nYou know the cause, air, of my standing here.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWe do, sir; tell us what hath brought you to't.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMine own desert.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nYour own desert!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy, but not mine own desire.\n\nThird Citizen:\nHow not your own desire?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, sir,'twas never my desire yet to trouble the\npoor with begging.\n\nThird Citizen:\nYou must think, if we give you any thing, we hope to\ngain by you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell then, I pray, your price o' the consulship?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nThe price is to ask it kindly.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nKindly! Sir, I pray, let me ha't: I have wounds to\nshow you, which shall be yours in private. Your\ngood voice, sir; what say you?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nYou shall ha' it, worthy sir.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA match, sir. There's in all two worthy voices\nbegged. I have your alms: adieu.\n\nThird Citizen:\nBut this is something odd.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAn 'twere to give again,--but 'tis no matter.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nPray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your\nvoices that I may be consul, I have here the\ncustomary gown.\n\nFourth Citizen:\nYou have deserved nobly of your country, and you\nhave not deserved nobly.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYour enigma?\n\nFourth Citizen:\nYou have been a scourge to her enemies, you have\nbeen a rod to her friends; you have not indeed loved\nthe common people.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou should account me the more virtuous that I have\nnot been common in my love. I will, sir, flatter my\nsworn brother, the people, to earn a dearer\nestimation of them; 'tis a condition they account\ngentle: and since the wisdom of their choice is\nrather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise\nthe insinuating nod and be off to them most\ncounterfeitly; that is, sir, I will counterfeit the\nbewitchment of some popular man and give it\nbountiful to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you,\nI may be consul.\n\nFifth Citizen:\nWe hope to find you our friend; and therefore give\nyou our voices heartily.\n\nFourth Citizen:\nYou have received many wounds for your country.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I\nwill make much of your voices, and so trouble you no further.\n\nBoth Citizens:\nThe gods give you joy, sir, heartily!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMost sweet voices!\nBetter it is to die, better to starve,\nThan crave the hire which first we do deserve.\nWhy in this woolvish toge should I stand here,\nTo beg of Hob and Dick, that do appear,\nTheir needless vouches? Custom calls me to't:\nWhat custom wills, in all things should we do't,\nThe dust on antique time would lie unswept,\nAnd mountainous error be too highly heapt\nFor truth to o'er-peer. Rather than fool it so,\nLet the high office and the honour go\nTo one that would do thus. I am half through;\nThe one part suffer'd, the other will I do.\nHere come more voices.\nYour voices: for your voices I have fought;\nWatch'd for your voices; for Your voices bear\nOf wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six\nI have seen and heard of; for your voices have\nDone many things, some less, some more your voices:\nIndeed I would be consul.\n\nSixth Citizen:\nHe has done nobly, and cannot go without any honest\nman's voice.\n\nSeventh Citizen:\nTherefore let him be consul: the gods give him joy,\nand make him good friend to the people!\n\nAll Citizens:\nAmen, amen. God save thee, noble consul!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWorthy voices!\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have stood your limitation; and the tribunes\nEndue you with the people's voice: remains\nThat, in the official marks invested, you\nAnon do meet the senate.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIs this done?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe custom of request you have discharged:\nThe people do admit you, and are summon'd\nTo meet anon, upon your approbation.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhere? at the senate-house?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThere, Coriolanus.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMay I change these garments?\n\nSICINIUS:\nYou may, sir.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThat I'll straight do; and, knowing myself again,\nRepair to the senate-house.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI'll keep you company. Will you along?\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe stay here for the people.\n\nSICINIUS:\nFare you well.\nHe has it now, and by his looks methink\n'Tis warm at 's heart.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWith a proud heart he wore his humble weeds.\nwill you dismiss the people?\n\nSICINIUS:\nHow now, my masters! have you chose this man?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nHe has our voices, sir.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe pray the gods he may deserve your loves.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAmen, sir: to my poor unworthy notice,\nHe mock'd us when he begg'd our voices.\n\nThird Citizen:\nCertainly\nHe flouted us downright.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nNo,'tis his kind of speech: he did not mock us.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nNot one amongst us, save yourself, but says\nHe used us scornfully: he should have show'd us\nHis marks of merit, wounds received for's country.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy, so he did, I am sure.\n\nCitizens:\nNo, no; no man saw 'em.\n\nThird Citizen:\nHe said he had wounds, which he could show\nin private;\nAnd with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,\n'I would be consul,' says he: 'aged custom,\nBut by your voices, will not so permit me;\nYour voices therefore.' When we granted that,\nHere was 'I thank you for your voices: thank you:\nYour most sweet voices: now you have left\nyour voices,\nI have no further with you.' Was not this mockery?\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy either were you ignorant to see't,\nOr, seeing it, of such childish friendliness\nTo yield your voices?\n\nBRUTUS:\nCould you not have told him\nAs you were lesson'd, when he had no power,\nBut was a petty servant to the state,\nHe was your enemy, ever spake against\nYour liberties and the charters that you bear\nI' the body of the weal; and now, arriving\nA place of potency and sway o' the state,\nIf he should still malignantly remain\nFast foe to the plebeii, your voices might\nBe curses to yourselves? You should have said\nThat as his worthy deeds did claim no less\nThan what he stood for, so his gracious nature\nWould think upon you for your voices and\nTranslate his malice towards you into love,\nStanding your friendly lord.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThus to have said,\nAs you were fore-advised, had touch'd his spirit\nAnd tried his inclination; from him pluck'd\nEither his gracious promise, which you might,\nAs cause had call'd you up, have held him to\nOr else it would have gall'd his surly nature,\nWhich easily endures not article\nTying him to aught; so putting him to rage,\nYou should have ta'en the advantage of his choler\nAnd pass'd him unelected.\n\nBRUTUS:\nDid you perceive\nHe did solicit you in free contempt\nWhen he did need your loves, and do you think\nThat his contempt shall not be bruising to you,\nWhen he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies\nNo heart among you? or had you tongues to cry\nAgainst the rectorship of judgment?\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave you\nEre now denied the asker? and now again\nOf him that did not ask, but mock, bestow\nYour sued-for tongues?\n\nThird Citizen:\nHe's not confirm'd; we may deny him yet.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAnd will deny him:\nI'll have five hundred voices of that sound.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nI twice five hundred and their friends to piece 'em.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGet you hence instantly, and tell those friends,\nThey have chose a consul that will from them take\nTheir liberties; make them of no more voice\nThan dogs that are as often beat for barking\nAs therefore kept to do so.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLet them assemble,\nAnd on a safer judgment all revoke\nYour ignorant election; enforce his pride,\nAnd his old hate unto you; besides, forget not\nWith what contempt he wore the humble weed,\nHow in his suit he scorn'd you; but your loves,\nThinking upon his services, took from you\nThe apprehension of his present portance,\nWhich most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion\nAfter the inveterate hate he bears you.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLay\nA fault on us, your tribunes; that we laboured,\nNo impediment between, but that you must\nCast your election on him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSay, you chose him\nMore after our commandment than as guided\nBy your own true affections, and that your minds,\nPreoccupied with what you rather must do\nThan what you should, made you against the grain\nTo voice him consul: lay the fault on us.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAy, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you.\nHow youngly he began to serve his country,\nHow long continued, and what stock he springs of,\nThe noble house o' the Marcians, from whence came\nThat Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's son,\nWho, after great Hostilius, here was king;\nOf the same house Publius and Quintus were,\nThat our beat water brought by conduits hither;\nAnd  \nTwice being  \nWas his great ancestor.\n\nSICINIUS:\nOne thus descended,\nThat hath beside well in his person wrought\nTo be set high in place, we did commend\nTo your remembrances: but you have found,\nScaling his present bearing with his past,\nThat he's your fixed enemy, and revoke\nYour sudden approbation.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSay, you ne'er had done't--\nHarp on that still--but by our putting on;\nAnd presently, when you have drawn your number,\nRepair to the Capitol.\n\nAll:\nWe will so: almost all\nRepent in their election.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLet them go on;\nThis mutiny were better put in hazard,\nThan stay, past doubt, for greater:\nIf, as his nature is, he fall in rage\nWith their refusal, both observe and answer\nThe vantage of his anger.\n\nSICINIUS:\nTo the Capitol, come:\nWe will be there before the stream o' the people;\nAnd this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own,\nWhich we have goaded onward.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTullus Aufidius then had made new head?\n\nLARTIUS:\nHe had, my lord; and that it was which caused\nOur swifter composition.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSo then the Volsces stand but as at first,\nReady, when time shall prompt them, to make road.\nUpon's again.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThey are worn, lord consul, so,\nThat we shall hardly in our ages see\nTheir banners wave again.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSaw you Aufidius?\n\nLARTIUS:\nOn safe-guard he came to me; and did curse\nAgainst the Volsces, for they had so vilely\nYielded the town: he is retired to Antium.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSpoke he of me?\n\nLARTIUS:\nHe did, my lord.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHow? what?\n\nLARTIUS:\nHow often he had met you, sword to sword;\nThat of all things upon the earth he hated\nYour person most, that he would pawn his fortunes\nTo hopeless restitution, so he might\nBe call'd your vanquisher.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAt Antium lives he?\n\nLARTIUS:\nAt Antium.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI wish I had a cause to seek him there,\nTo oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.\nBehold, these are the tribunes of the people,\nThe tongues o' the common mouth: I do despise them;\nFor they do prank them in authority,\nAgainst all noble sufferance.\n\nSICINIUS:\nPass no further.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHa! what is that?\n\nBRUTUS:\nIt will be dangerous to go on: no further.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat makes this change?\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe matter?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHath he not pass'd the noble and the common?\n\nBRUTUS:\nCominius, no.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHave I had children's voices?\n\nFirst Senator:\nTribunes, give way; he shall to the market-place.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe people are incensed against him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nStop,\nOr all will fall in broil.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAre these your herd?\nMust these have voices, that can yield them now\nAnd straight disclaim their tongues? What are\nyour offices?\nYou being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?\nHave you not set them on?\n\nMENENIUS:\nBe calm, be calm.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIt is a purposed thing, and grows by plot,\nTo curb the will of the nobility:\nSuffer't, and live with such as cannot rule\nNor ever will be ruled.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCall't not a plot:\nThe people cry you mock'd them, and of late,\nWhen corn was given them gratis, you repined;\nScandal'd the suppliants for the people, call'd them\nTime-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhy, this was known before.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNot to them all.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHave you inform'd them sithence?\n\nBRUTUS:\nHow! I inform them!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou are like to do such business.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNot unlike,\nEach way, to better yours.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhy then should I be consul? By yond clouds,\nLet me deserve so ill as you, and make me\nYour fellow tribune.\n\nSICINIUS:\nYou show too much of that\nFor which the people stir: if you will pass\nTo where you are bound, you must inquire your way,\nWhich you are out of, with a gentler spirit,\nOr never be so noble as a consul,\nNor yoke with him for tribune.\n\nMENENIUS:\nLet's be calm.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThe people are abused; set on. This paltering\nBecomes not Rome, nor has Coriolanus\nDeserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely\nI' the plain way of his merit.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTell me of corn!\nThis was my speech, and I will speak't again--\n\nMENENIUS:\nNot now, not now.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNot in this heat, sir, now.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNow, as I live, I will. My nobler friends,\nI crave their pardons:\nFor the mutable, rank-scented many, let them\nRegard me as I do not flatter, and\nTherein behold themselves: I say again,\nIn soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate\nThe cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,\nWhich we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd,\nand scatter'd,\nBy mingling them with us, the honour'd number,\nWho lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that\nWhich they have given to beggars.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, no more.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNo more words, we beseech you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHow! no more!\nAs for my country I have shed my blood,\nNot fearing outward force, so shall my lungs\nCoin words till their decay against those measles,\nWhich we disdain should tatter us, yet sought\nThe very way to catch them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nYou speak o' the people,\nAs if you were a god to punish, not\nA man of their infirmity.\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Twere well\nWe let the people know't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat, what? his choler?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nCholer!\nWere I as patient as the midnight sleep,\nBy Jove, 'twould be my mind!\n\nSICINIUS:\nIt is a mind\nThat shall remain a poison where it is,\nNot poison any further.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nShall remain!\nHear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you\nHis absolute 'shall'?\n\nCOMINIUS:\n'Twas from the canon.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\n'Shall'!\nO good but most unwise patricians! why,\nYou grave but reckless senators, have you thus\nGiven Hydra here to choose an officer,\nThat with his peremptory 'shall,' being but\nThe horn and noise o' the monster's, wants not spirit\nTo say he'll turn your current in a ditch,\nAnd make your channel his? If he have power\nThen vail your ignorance; if none, awake\nYour dangerous lenity. If you are learn'd,\nBe not as common fools; if you are not,\nLet them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,\nIf they be senators: and they are no less,\nWhen, both your voices blended, the great'st taste\nMost palates theirs. They choose their magistrate,\nAnd such a one as he, who puts his 'shall,'\nHis popular 'shall' against a graver bench\nThan ever frown in Greece. By Jove himself!\nIt makes the consuls base: and my soul aches\nTo know, when two authorities are up,\nNeither supreme, how soon confusion\nMay enter 'twixt the gap of both and take\nThe one by the other.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWell, on to the market-place.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhoever gave that counsel, to give forth\nThe corn o' the storehouse gratis, as 'twas used\nSometime in Greece,--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, well, no more of that.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThough there the people had more absolute power,\nI say, they nourish'd disobedience, fed\nThe ruin of the state.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhy, shall the people give\nOne that speaks thus their voice?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI'll give my reasons,\nMore worthier than their voices. They know the corn\nWas not our recompense, resting well assured\nThat ne'er did service for't: being press'd to the war,\nEven when the navel of the state was touch'd,\nThey would not thread the gates. This kind of service\nDid not deserve corn gratis. Being i' the war\nTheir mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd\nMost valour, spoke not for them: the accusation\nWhich they have often made against the senate,\nAll cause unborn, could never be the motive\nOf our so frank donation. Well, what then?\nHow shall this bisson multitude digest\nThe senate's courtesy? Let deeds express\nWhat's like to be their words: 'we did request it;\nWe are the greater poll, and in true fear\nThey gave us our demands.' Thus we debase\nThe nature of our seats and make the rabble\nCall our cares fears; which will in time\nBreak ope the locks o' the senate and bring in\nThe crows to peck the eagles.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCome, enough.\n\nBRUTUS:\nEnough, with over-measure.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, take more:\nWhat may be sworn by, both divine and human,\nSeal what I end withal! This double worship,\nWhere one part does disdain with cause, the other\nInsult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom,\nCannot conclude but by the yea and no\nOf general ignorance,--it must omit\nReal necessities, and give way the while\nTo unstable slightness: purpose so barr'd,\nit follows,\nNothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you,--\nYou that will be less fearful than discreet,\nThat love the fundamental part of state\nMore than you doubt the change on't, that prefer\nA noble life before a long, and wish\nTo jump a body with a dangerous physic\nThat's sure of death without it, at once pluck out\nThe multitudinous tongue; let them not lick\nThe sweet which is their poison: your dishonour\nMangles true judgment and bereaves the state\nOf that integrity which should become't,\nNot having the power to do the good it would,\nFor the in which doth control't.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHas said enough.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHas spoken like a traitor, and shall answer\nAs traitors do.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee!\nWhat should the people do with these bald tribunes?\nOn whom depending, their obedience fails\nTo the greater bench: in a rebellion,\nWhen what's not meet, but what must be, was law,\nThen were they chosen: in a better hour,\nLet what is meet be said it must be meet,\nAnd throw their power i' the dust.\n\nBRUTUS:\nManifest treason!\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis a consul? no.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe aediles, ho!\nLet him be apprehended.\n\nSICINIUS:\nGo, call the people:\nin whose name myself\nAttach thee as a traitorous innovator,\nA foe to the public weal: obey, I charge thee,\nAnd follow to thine answer.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHence, old goat!\n\nSenators, &C:\nWe'll surety him.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAged sir, hands off.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHence, rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones\nOut of thy garments.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHelp, ye citizens!\n\nMENENIUS:\nOn both sides more respect.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHere's he that would take from you all your power.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSeize him, AEdiles!\n\nCitizens:\nDown with him! down with him!\n\nSenators, &C:\nWeapons, weapons, weapons!\n'Tribunes!' 'Patricians!' 'Citizens!' 'What, ho!'\n'Sicinius!' 'Brutus!' 'Coriolanus!' 'Citizens!'\n'Peace, peace, peace!' 'Stay, hold, peace!'\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat is about to be? I am out of breath;\nConfusion's near; I cannot speak. You, tribunes\nTo the people! Coriolanus, patience!\nSpeak, good Sicinius.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHear me, people; peace!\n\nCitizens:\nLet's hear our tribune: peace Speak, speak, speak.\n\nSICINIUS:\nYou are at point to lose your liberties:\nMarcius would have all from you; Marcius,\nWhom late you have named for consul.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFie, fie, fie!\nThis is the way to kindle, not to quench.\n\nFirst Senator:\nTo unbuild the city and to lay all flat.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat is the city but the people?\n\nCitizens:\nTrue,\nThe people are the city.\n\nBRUTUS:\nBy the consent of all, we were establish'd\nThe people's magistrates.\n\nCitizens:\nYou so remain.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAnd so are like to do.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThat is the way to lay the city flat;\nTo bring the roof to the foundation,\nAnd bury all, which yet distinctly ranges,\nIn heaps and piles of ruin.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis deserves death.\n\nBRUTUS:\nOr let us stand to our authority,\nOr let us lose it. We do here pronounce,\nUpon the part o' the people, in whose power\nWe were elected theirs, Marcius is worthy\nOf present death.\n\nSICINIUS:\nTherefore lay hold of him;\nBear him to the rock Tarpeian, and from thence\nInto destruction cast him.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAEdiles, seize him!\n\nCitizens:\nYield, Marcius, yield!\n\nMENENIUS:\nHear me one word;\nBeseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word.\n\nAEdile:\nPeace, peace!\n\nMENENIUS:\n\nBRUTUS:\nSir, those cold ways,\nThat seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous\nWhere the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him,\nAnd bear him to the rock.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, I'll die here.\nThere's some among you have beheld me fighting:\nCome, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.\n\nMENENIUS:\nDown with that sword! Tribunes, withdraw awhile.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLay hands upon him.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHelp Marcius, help,\nYou that be noble; help him, young and old!\n\nCitizens:\nDown with him, down with him!\n\nMENENIUS:\nGo, get you to your house; be gone, away!\nAll will be naught else.\n\nSecond Senator:\nGet you gone.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nStand fast;\nWe have as many friends as enemies.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSham it be put to that?\n\nFirst Senator:\nThe gods forbid!\nI prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;\nLeave us to cure this cause.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor 'tis a sore upon us,\nYou cannot tent yourself: be gone, beseech you.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nCome, sir, along with us.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI would they were barbarians--as they are,\nThough in Rome litter'd--not Romans--as they are not,\nThough calved i' the porch o' the Capitol--\n\nMENENIUS:\nBe gone;\nPut not your worthy rage into your tongue;\nOne time will owe another.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nOn fair ground\nI could beat forty of them.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI could myself\nTake up a brace o' the best of them; yea, the\ntwo tribunes:\nBut now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic;\nAnd manhood is call'd foolery, when it stands\nAgainst a falling fabric. Will you hence,\nBefore the tag return? whose rage doth rend\nLike interrupted waters and o'erbear\nWhat they are used to bear.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray you, be gone:\nI'll try whether my old wit be in request\nWith those that have but little: this must be patch'd\nWith cloth of any colour.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nNay, come away.\n\nA Patrician:\nThis man has marr'd his fortune.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHis nature is too noble for the world:\nHe would not flatter Neptune for his trident,\nOr Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth:\nWhat his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;\nAnd, being angry, does forget that ever\nHe heard the name of death.\nHere's goodly work!\n\nSecond Patrician:\nI would they were abed!\n\nMENENIUS:\nI would they were in Tiber! What the vengeance!\nCould he not speak 'em fair?\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhere is this viper\nThat would depopulate the city and\nBe every man himself?\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou worthy tribunes,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock\nWith rigorous hands: he hath resisted law,\nAnd therefore law shall scorn him further trial\nThan the severity of the public power\nWhich he so sets at nought.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nHe shall well know\nThe noble tribunes are the people's mouths,\nAnd we their hands.\n\nCitizens:\nHe shall, sure on't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSir, sir,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nPeace!\n\nMENENIUS:\nDo not cry havoc, where you should but hunt\nWith modest warrant.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSir, how comes't that you\nHave holp to make this rescue?\n\nMENENIUS:\nHear me speak:\nAs I do know the consul's worthiness,\nSo can I name his faults,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nConsul! what consul?\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe consul Coriolanus.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe consul!\n\nCitizens:\nNo, no, no, no, no.\n\nMENENIUS:\nIf, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,\nI may be heard, I would crave a word or two;\nThe which shall turn you to no further harm\nThan so much loss of time.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSpeak briefly then;\nFor we are peremptory to dispatch\nThis viperous traitor: to eject him hence\nWere but one danger, and to keep him here\nOur certain death: therefore it is decreed\nHe dies to-night.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow the good gods forbid\nThat our renowned Rome, whose gratitude\nTowards her deserved children is enroll'd\nIn Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam\nShould now eat up her own!\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe's a disease that must be cut away.\n\nMENENIUS:\nO, he's a limb that has but a disease;\nMortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy.\nWhat has he done to Rome that's worthy death?\nKilling our enemies, the blood he hath lost--\nWhich, I dare vouch, is more than that he hath,\nBy many an ounce--he dropp'd it for his country;\nAnd what is left, to lose it by his country,\nWere to us all, that do't and suffer it,\nA brand to the end o' the world.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis is clean kam.\n\nBRUTUS:\nMerely awry: when he did love his country,\nIt honour'd him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe service of the foot\nBeing once gangrened, is not then respected\nFor what before it was.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe'll hear no more.\nPursue him to his house, and pluck him thence:\nLest his infection, being of catching nature,\nSpread further.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOne word more, one word.\nThis tiger-footed rage, when it shall find\nThe harm of unscann'd swiftness, will too late\nTie leaden pounds to's heels. Proceed by process;\nLest parties, as he is beloved, break out,\nAnd sack great Rome with Romans.\n\nBRUTUS:\nIf it were so,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat do ye talk?\nHave we not had a taste of his obedience?\nOur aediles smote? ourselves resisted? Come.\n\nMENENIUS:\nConsider this: he has been bred i' the wars\nSince he could draw a sword, and is ill school'd\nIn bolted language; meal and bran together\nHe throws without distinction. Give me leave,\nI'll go to him, and undertake to bring him\nWhere he shall answer, by a lawful form,\nIn peace, to his utmost peril.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNoble tribunes,\nIt is the humane way: the other course\nWill prove too bloody, and the end of it\nUnknown to the beginning.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNoble Menenius,\nBe you then as the people's officer.\nMasters, lay down your weapons.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGo not home.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMeet on the market-place. We'll attend you there:\nWhere, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed\nIn our first way.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI'll bring him to you.\nLet me desire your company: he must come,\nOr what is worst will follow.\n\nFirst Senator:\nPray you, let's to him.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet them puff all about mine ears, present me\nDeath on the wheel or at wild horses' heels,\nOr pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,\nThat the precipitation might down stretch\nBelow the beam of sight, yet will I still\nBe thus to them.\n\nA Patrician:\nYou do the nobler.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI muse my mother\nDoes not approve me further, who was wont\nTo call them woollen vassals, things created\nTo buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads\nIn congregations, to yawn, be still and wonder,\nWhen one but of my ordinance stood up\nTo speak of peace or war.\nI talk of you:\nWhy did you wish me milder? would you have me\nFalse to my nature? Rather say I play\nThe man I am.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, sir, sir, sir,\nI would have had you put your power well on,\nBefore you had worn it out.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet go.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nYou might have been enough the man you are,\nWith striving less to be so; lesser had been\nThe thwartings of your dispositions, if\nYou had not show'd them how ye were disposed\nEre they lack'd power to cross you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet them hang.\n\nA Patrician:\nAy, and burn too.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCome, come, you have been too rough, something\ntoo rough;\nYou must return and mend it.\n\nFirst Senator:\nThere's no remedy;\nUnless, by not so doing, our good city\nCleave in the midst, and perish.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nPray, be counsell'd:\nI have a heart as little apt as yours,\nBut yet a brain that leads my use of anger\nTo better vantage.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell said, noble woman?\nBefore he should thus stoop to the herd, but that\nThe violent fit o' the time craves it as physic\nFor the whole state, I would put mine armour on,\nWhich I can scarcely bear.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat must I do?\n\nMENENIUS:\nReturn to the tribunes.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell, what then? what then?\n\nMENENIUS:\nRepent what you have spoke.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFor them! I cannot do it to the gods;\nMust I then do't to them?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nYou are too absolute;\nThough therein you can never be too noble,\nBut when extremities speak. I have heard you say,\nHonour and policy, like unsever'd friends,\nI' the war do grow together: grant that, and tell me,\nIn peace what each of them by the other lose,\nThat they combine not there.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTush, tush!\n\nMENENIUS:\nA good demand.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nIf it be honour in your wars to seem\nThe same you are not, which, for your best ends,\nYou adopt your policy, how is it less or worse,\nThat it shall hold companionship in peace\nWith honour, as in war, since that to both\nIt stands in like request?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhy force you this?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nBecause that now it lies you on to speak\nTo the people; not by your own instruction,\nNor by the matter which your heart prompts you,\nBut with such words that are but rooted in\nYour tongue, though but bastards and syllables\nOf no allowance to your bosom's truth.\nNow, this no more dishonours you at all\nThan to take in a town with gentle words,\nWhich else would put you to your fortune and\nThe hazard of much blood.\nI would dissemble with my nature where\nMy fortunes and my friends at stake required\nI should do so in honour: I am in this,\nYour wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;\nAnd you will rather show our general louts\nHow you can frown than spend a fawn upon 'em,\nFor the inheritance of their loves and safeguard\nOf what that want might ruin.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNoble lady!\nCome, go with us; speak fair: you may salve so,\nNot what is dangerous present, but the loss\nOf what is past.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI prithee now, my son,\nGo to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;\nAnd thus far having stretch'd it--here be with them--\nThy knee bussing the stones--for in such business\nAction is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant\nMore learned than the ears--waving thy head,\nWhich often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,\nNow humble as the ripest mulberry\nThat will not hold the handling: or say to them,\nThou art their soldier, and being bred in broils\nHast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,\nWere fit for thee to use as they to claim,\nIn asking their good loves, but thou wilt frame\nThyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far\nAs thou hast power and person.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis but done,\nEven as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;\nFor they have pardons, being ask'd, as free\nAs words to little purpose.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nPrithee now,\nGo, and be ruled: although I know thou hadst rather\nFollow thine enemy in a fiery gulf\nThan flatter him in a bower. Here is Cominius.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI have been i' the market-place; and, sir,'tis fit\nYou make strong party, or defend yourself\nBy calmness or by absence: all's in anger.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOnly fair speech.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI think 'twill serve, if he\nCan thereto frame his spirit.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe must, and will\nPrithee now, say you will, and go about it.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMust I go show them my unbarbed sconce?\nMust I with base tongue give my noble heart\nA lie that it must bear? Well, I will do't:\nYet, were there but this single plot to lose,\nThis mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it\nAnd throw't against the wind. To the market-place!\nYou have put me now to such a part which never\nI shall discharge to the life.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nCome, come, we'll prompt you.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said\nMy praises made thee first a soldier, so,\nTo have my praise for this, perform a part\nThou hast not done before.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell, I must do't:\nAway, my disposition, and possess me\nSome harlot's spirit! my throat of war be turn'd,\nWhich quired with my drum, into a pipe\nSmall as an eunuch, or the virgin voice\nThat babies lulls asleep! the smiles of knaves\nTent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up\nThe glasses of my sight! a beggar's tongue\nMake motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees,\nWho bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his\nThat hath received an alms! I will not do't,\nLest I surcease to honour mine own truth\nAnd by my body's action teach my mind\nA most inherent baseness.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAt thy choice, then:\nTo beg of thee, it is my more dishonour\nThan thou of them. Come all to ruin; let\nThy mother rather feel thy pride than fear\nThy dangerous stoutness, for I mock at death\nWith as big heart as thou. Do as thou list\nThy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me,\nBut owe thy pride thyself.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nPray, be content:\nMother, I am going to the market-place;\nChide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,\nCog their hearts from them, and come home beloved\nOf all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going:\nCommend me to my wife. I'll return consul;\nOr never trust to what my tongue can do\nI' the way of flattery further.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nDo your will.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAway! the tribunes do attend you: arm yourself\nTo answer mildly; for they are prepared\nWith accusations, as I hear, more strong\nThan are upon you yet.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe word is 'mildly.' Pray you, let us go:\nLet them accuse me by invention, I\nWill answer in mine honour.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAy, but mildly.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell, mildly be it then. Mildly!\n\nBRUTUS:\nIn this point charge him home, that he affects\nTyrannical power: if he evade us there,\nEnforce him with his envy to the people,\nAnd that the spoil got on the Antiates\nWas ne'er distributed.\nWhat, will he come?\n\nAEdile:\nHe's coming.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHow accompanied?\n\nAEdile:\nWith old Menenius, and those senators\nThat always favour'd him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave you a catalogue\nOf all the voices that we have procured\nSet down by the poll?\n\nAEdile:\nI have; 'tis ready.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave you collected them by tribes?\n\nAEdile:\nI have.\n\nSICINIUS:\nAssemble presently the people hither;\nAnd when they bear me say 'It shall be so\nI' the right and strength o' the commons,' be it either\nFor death, for fine, or banishment, then let them\nIf I say fine, cry 'Fine;' if death, cry 'Death.'\nInsisting on the old prerogative\nAnd power i' the truth o' the cause.\n\nAEdile:\nI shall inform them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAnd when such time they have begun to cry,\nLet them not cease, but with a din confused\nEnforce the present execution\nOf what we chance to sentence.\n\nAEdile:\nVery well.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMake them be strong and ready for this hint,\nWhen we shall hap to give 't them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGo about it.\nPut him to choler straight: he hath been used\nEver to conquer, and to have his worth\nOf contradiction: being once chafed, he cannot\nBe rein'd again to temperance; then he speaks\nWhat's in his heart; and that is there which looks\nWith us to break his neck.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWell, here he comes.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCalmly, I do beseech you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy, as an ostler, that for the poorest piece\nWill bear the knave by the volume. The honour'd gods\nKeep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice\nSupplied with worthy men! plant love among 's!\nThrong our large temples with the shows of peace,\nAnd not our streets with war!\n\nFirst Senator:\nAmen, amen.\n\nMENENIUS:\nA noble wish.\n\nSICINIUS:\nDraw near, ye people.\n\nAEdile:\nList to your tribunes. Audience: peace, I say!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFirst, hear me speak.\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nWell, say. Peace, ho!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nShall I be charged no further than this present?\nMust all determine here?\n\nSICINIUS:\nI do demand,\nIf you submit you to the people's voices,\nAllow their officers and are content\nTo suffer lawful censure for such faults\nAs shall be proved upon you?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI am content.\n\nMENENIUS:\nLo, citizens, he says he is content:\nThe warlike service he has done, consider; think\nUpon the wounds his body bears, which show\nLike graves i' the holy churchyard.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nScratches with briers,\nScars to move laughter only.\n\nMENENIUS:\nConsider further,\nThat when he speaks not like a citizen,\nYou find him like a soldier: do not take\nHis rougher accents for malicious sounds,\nBut, as I say, such as become a soldier,\nRather than envy you.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWell, well, no more.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat is the matter\nThat being pass'd for consul with full voice,\nI am so dishonour'd that the very hour\nYou take it off again?\n\nSICINIUS:\nAnswer to us.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSay, then: 'tis true, I ought so.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe charge you, that you have contrived to take\nFrom Rome all season'd office and to wind\nYourself into a power tyrannical;\nFor which you are a traitor to the people.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHow! traitor!\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, temperately; your promise.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe fires i' the lowest hell fold-in the people!\nCall me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune!\nWithin thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,\nIn thy hand clutch'd as many millions, in\nThy lying tongue both numbers, I would say\n'Thou liest' unto thee with a voice as free\nAs I do pray the gods.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMark you this, people?\n\nCitizens:\nTo the rock, to the rock with him!\n\nSICINIUS:\nPeace!\nWe need not put new matter to his charge:\nWhat you have seen him do and heard him speak,\nBeating your officers, cursing yourselves,\nOpposing laws with strokes and here defying\nThose whose great power must try him; even this,\nSo criminal and in such capital kind,\nDeserves the extremest death.\n\nBRUTUS:\nBut since he hath\nServed well for Rome,--\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat do you prate of service?\n\nBRUTUS:\nI talk of that, that know it.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou?\n\nMENENIUS:\nIs this the promise that you made your mother?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nKnow, I pray you,--\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI know no further:\nLet them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,\nVagabond exile, raying, pent to linger\nBut with a grain a day, I would not buy\nTheir mercy at the price of one fair word;\nNor cheque my courage for what they can give,\nTo have't with saying 'Good morrow.'\n\nSICINIUS:\nFor that he has,\nAs much as in him lies, from time to time\nEnvied against the people, seeking means\nTo pluck away their power, as now at last\nGiven hostile strokes, and that not in the presence\nOf dreaded justice, but on the ministers\nThat do distribute it; in the name o' the people\nAnd in the power of us the tribunes, we,\nEven from this instant, banish him our city,\nIn peril of precipitation\nFrom off the rock Tarpeian never more\nTo enter our Rome gates: i' the people's name,\nI say it shall be so.\n\nCitizens:\nIt shall be so, it shall be so; let him away:\nHe's banish'd, and it shall be so.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHear me, my masters, and my common friends,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe's sentenced; no more hearing.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nLet me speak:\nI have been consul, and can show for Rome\nHer enemies' marks upon me. I do love\nMy country's good with a respect more tender,\nMore holy and profound, than mine own life,\nMy dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase,\nAnd treasure of my loins; then if I would\nSpeak that,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe know your drift: speak what?\n\nBRUTUS:\nThere's no more to be said, but he is banish'd,\nAs enemy to the people and his country:\nIt shall be so.\n\nCitizens:\nIt shall be so, it shall be so.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou common cry of curs! whose breath I hate\nAs reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize\nAs the dead carcasses of unburied men\nThat do corrupt my air, I banish you;\nAnd here remain with your uncertainty!\nLet every feeble rumour shake your hearts!\nYour enemies, with nodding of their plumes,\nFan you into despair! Have the power still\nTo banish your defenders; till at length\nYour ignorance, which finds not till it feels,\nMaking not reservation of yourselves,\nStill your own foes, deliver you as most\nAbated captives to some nation\nThat won you without blows! Despising,\nFor you, the city, thus I turn my back:\nThere is a world elsewhere.\n\nAEdile:\nThe people's enemy is gone, is gone!\n\nCitizens:\nOur enemy is banish'd! he is gone! Hoo! hoo!\n\nSICINIUS:\nGo, see him out at gates, and follow him,\nAs he hath followed you, with all despite;\nGive him deserved vexation. Let a guard\nAttend us through the city.\n\nCitizens:\nCome, come; let's see him out at gates; come.\nThe gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nCome, leave your tears: a brief farewell: the beast\nWith many heads butts me away. Nay, mother,\nWhere is your ancient courage? you were used\nTo say extremity was the trier of spirits;\nThat common chances common men could bear;\nThat when the sea was calm all boats alike\nShow'd mastership in floating; fortune's blows,\nWhen most struck home, being gentle wounded, craves\nA noble cunning: you were used to load me\nWith precepts that would make invincible\nThe heart that conn'd them.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nO heavens! O heavens!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNay! prithee, woman,--\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNow the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,\nAnd occupations perish!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat, what, what!\nI shall be loved when I am lack'd. Nay, mother.\nResume that spirit, when you were wont to say,\nIf you had been the wife of Hercules,\nSix of his labours you'ld have done, and saved\nYour husband so much sweat. Cominius,\nDroop not; adieu. Farewell, my wife, my mother:\nI'll do well yet. Thou old and true Menenius,\nThy tears are salter than a younger man's,\nAnd venomous to thine eyes. My sometime general,\nI have seen thee stem, and thou hast oft beheld\nHeart-hardening spectacles; tell these sad women\n'Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes,\nAs 'tis to laugh at 'em. My mother, you wot well\nMy hazards still have been your solace: and\nBelieve't not lightly--though I go alone,\nLike to a lonely dragon, that his fen\nMakes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen--your son\nWill or exceed the common or be caught\nWith cautelous baits and practise.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nMy first son.\nWhither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius\nWith thee awhile: determine on some course,\nMore than a wild exposture to each chance\nThat starts i' the way before thee.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO the gods!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI'll follow thee a month, devise with thee\nWhere thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us\nAnd we of thee: so if the time thrust forth\nA cause for thy repeal, we shall not send\nO'er the vast world to seek a single man,\nAnd lose advantage, which doth ever cool\nI' the absence of the needer.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFare ye well:\nThou hast years upon thee; and thou art too full\nOf the wars' surfeits, to go rove with one\nThat's yet unbruised: bring me but out at gate.\nCome, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and\nMy friends of noble touch, when I am forth,\nBid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come.\nWhile I remain above the ground, you shall\nHear from me still, and never of me aught\nBut what is like me formerly.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThat's worthily\nAs any ear can hear. Come, let's not weep.\nIf I could shake off but one seven years\nFrom these old arms and legs, by the good gods,\nI'ld with thee every foot.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nGive me thy hand: Come.\n\nSICINIUS:\nBid them all home; he's gone, and we'll no further.\nThe nobility are vex'd, whom we see have sided\nIn his behalf.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNow we have shown our power,\nLet us seem humbler after it is done\nThan when it was a-doing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nBid them home:\nSay their great enemy is gone, and they\nStand in their ancient strength.\n\nBRUTUS:\nDismiss them home.\nHere comes his mother.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLet's not meet her.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhy?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThey say she's mad.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThey have ta'en note of us: keep on your way.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, ye're well met: the hoarded plague o' the gods\nRequite your love!\n\nMENENIUS:\nPeace, peace; be not so loud.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nIf that I could for weeping, you should hear,--\nNay, and you shall hear some.\nWill you be gone?\n\nVIRGILIA:\n\nSICINIUS:\nAre you mankind?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAy, fool; is that a shame? Note but this fool.\nWas not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship\nTo banish him that struck more blows for Rome\nThan thou hast spoken words?\n\nSICINIUS:\nO blessed heavens!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nMore noble blows than ever thou wise words;\nAnd for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what; yet go:\nNay, but thou shalt stay too: I would my son\nWere in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,\nHis good sword in his hand.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat then?\n\nVIRGILIA:\nWhat then!\nHe'ld make an end of thy posterity.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nBastards and all.\nGood man, the wounds that he does bear for Rome!\n\nMENENIUS:\nCome, come, peace.\n\nSICINIUS:\nI would he had continued to his country\nAs he began, and not unknit himself\nThe noble knot he made.\n\nBRUTUS:\nI would he had.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\n'I would he had'! 'Twas you incensed the rabble:\nCats, that can judge as fitly of his worth\nAs I can of those mysteries which heaven\nWill not have earth to know.\n\nBRUTUS:\nPray, let us go.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNow, pray, sir, get you gone:\nYou have done a brave deed. Ere you go, hear this:--\nAs far as doth the Capitol exceed\nThe meanest house in Rome, so far my son--\nThis lady's husband here, this, do you see--\nWhom you have banish'd, does exceed you all.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWell, well, we'll leave you.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy stay we to be baited\nWith one that wants her wits?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nTake my prayers with you.\nI would the gods had nothing else to do\nBut to confirm my curses! Could I meet 'em\nBut once a-day, it would unclog my heart\nOf what lies heavy to't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have told them home;\nAnd, by my troth, you have cause. You'll sup with me?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAnger's my meat; I sup upon myself,\nAnd so shall starve with feeding. Come, let's go:\nLeave this faint puling and lament as I do,\nIn anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFie, fie, fie!\n\nRoman:\nI know you well, sir, and you know\nme: your name, I think, is Adrian.\n\nVolsce:\nIt is so, sir: truly, I have forgot you.\n\nRoman:\nI am a Roman; and my services are,\nas you are, against 'em: know you me yet?\n\nVolsce:\nNicanor? no.\n\nRoman:\nThe same, sir.\n\nVolsce:\nYou had more beard when I last saw you; but your\nfavour is well approved by your tongue. What's the\nnews in Rome? I have a note from the Volscian state,\nto find you out there: you have well saved me a\nday's journey.\n\nRoman:\nThere hath been in Rome strange insurrections; the\npeople against the senators, patricians, and nobles.\n\nVolsce:\nHath been! is it ended, then? Our state thinks not\nso: they are in a most warlike preparation, and\nhope to come upon them in the heat of their division.\n\nRoman:\nThe main blaze of it is past, but a small thing\nwould make it flame again: for the nobles receive\nso to heart the banishment of that worthy\nCoriolanus, that they are in a ripe aptness to take\nall power from the people and to pluck from them\ntheir tribunes for ever. This lies glowing, I can\ntell you, and is almost mature for the violent\nbreaking out.\n\nVolsce:\nCoriolanus banished!\n\nRoman:\nBanished, sir.\n\nVolsce:\nYou will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor.\n\nRoman:\nThe day serves well for them now. I have heard it\nsaid, the fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is\nwhen she's fallen out with her husband. Your noble\nTullus Aufidius will appear well in these wars, his\ngreat opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no request\nof his country.\n\nVolsce:\nHe cannot choose. I am most fortunate, thus\naccidentally to encounter you: you have ended my\nbusiness, and I will merrily accompany you home.\n\nRoman:\nI shall, between this and supper, tell you most\nstrange things from Rome; all tending to the good of\ntheir adversaries. Have you an army ready, say you?\n\nVolsce:\nA most royal one; the centurions and their charges,\ndistinctly billeted, already in the entertainment,\nand to be on foot at an hour's warning.\n\nRoman:\nI am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the\nman, I think, that shall set them in present action.\nSo, sir, heartily well met, and most glad of your company.\n\nVolsce:\nYou take my part from me, sir; I have the most cause\nto be glad of yours.\n\nRoman:\nWell, let us go together.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA goodly city is this Antium. City,\n'Tis I that made thy widows: many an heir\nOf these fair edifices 'fore my wars\nHave I heard groan and drop: then know me not,\nLest that thy wives with spits and boys with stones\nIn puny battle slay me.\nSave you, sir.\n\nCitizen:\nAnd you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nDirect me, if it be your will,\nWhere great Aufidius lies: is he in Antium?\n\nCitizen:\nHe is, and feasts the nobles of the state\nAt his house this night.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhich is his house, beseech you?\n\nCitizen:\nThis, here before you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThank you, sir: farewell.\nO world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,\nWhose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,\nWhose house, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise,\nAre still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love\nUnseparable, shall within this hour,\nOn a dissension of a doit, break out\nTo bitterest enmity: so, fellest foes,\nWhose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep,\nTo take the one the other, by some chance,\nSome trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends\nAnd interjoin their issues. So with me:\nMy birth-place hate I, and my love's upon\nThis enemy town. I'll enter: if he slay me,\nHe does fair justice; if he give me way,\nI'll do his country service.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWine, wine, wine! What service\nis here! I think our fellows are asleep.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWhere's Cotus? my master calls\nfor him. Cotus!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA goodly house: the feast smells well; but I\nAppear not like a guest.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhat would you have, friend? whence are you?\nHere's no place for you: pray, go to the door.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI have deserved no better entertainment,\nIn being Coriolanus.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWhence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his\nhead; that he gives entrance to such companions?\nPray, get you out.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAway!\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAway! get you away.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNow thou'rt troublesome.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAre you so brave? I'll have you talked with anon.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat fellow's this?\n\nFirst Servingman:\nA strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him\nout of the house: prithee, call my master to him.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid\nthe house.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet me but stand; I will not hurt your hearth.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat are you?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA gentleman.\n\nThird Servingman:\nA marvellous poor one.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTrue, so I am.\n\nThird Servingman:\nPray you, poor gentleman, take up some other\nstation; here's no place for you; pray you, avoid: come.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFollow your function, go, and batten on cold bits.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat, you will not? Prithee, tell my master what a\nstrange guest he has here.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAnd I shall.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhere dwellest thou?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nUnder the canopy.\n\nThird Servingman:\nUnder the canopy!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhere's that?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI' the city of kites and crows.\n\nThird Servingman:\nI' the city of kites and crows! What an ass it is!\nThen thou dwellest with daws too?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, I serve not thy master.\n\nThird Servingman:\nHow, sir! do you meddle with my master?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy\nmistress. Thou pratest, and pratest; serve with thy\ntrencher, hence!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhere is this fellow?\n\nSecond Servingman:\nHere, sir: I'ld have beaten him like a dog, but for\ndisturbing the lords within.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhence comest thou? what wouldst thou? thy name?\nWhy speak'st not? speak, man: what's thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIf, Tullus,\nNot yet thou knowest me, and, seeing me, dost not\nThink me for the man I am, necessity\nCommands me name myself.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhat is thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,\nAnd harsh in sound to thine.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nSay, what's thy name?\nThou hast a grim appearance, and thy face\nBears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn.\nThou show'st a noble vessel: what's thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nPrepare thy brow to frown: know'st\nthou me yet?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI know thee not: thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMy name is Caius Marcius, who hath done\nTo thee particularly and to all the Volsces\nGreat hurt and mischief; thereto witness may\nMy surname, Coriolanus: the painful service,\nThe extreme dangers and the drops of blood\nShed for my thankless country are requited\nBut with that surname; a good memory,\nAnd witness of the malice and displeasure\nWhich thou shouldst bear me: only that name remains;\nThe cruelty and envy of the people,\nPermitted by our dastard nobles, who\nHave all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest;\nAnd suffer'd me by the voice of slaves to be\nWhoop'd out of Rome. Now this extremity\nHath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope--\nMistake me not--to save my life, for if\nI had fear'd death, of all the men i' the world\nI would have 'voided thee, but in mere spite,\nTo be full quit of those my banishers,\nStand I before thee here. Then if thou hast\nA heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge\nThine own particular wrongs and stop those maims\nOf shame seen through thy country, speed\nthee straight,\nAnd make my misery serve thy turn: so use it\nThat my revengeful services may prove\nAs benefits to thee, for I will fight\nAgainst my canker'd country with the spleen\nOf all the under fiends. But if so be\nThou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes\nThou'rt tired, then, in a word, I also am\nLonger to live most weary, and present\nMy throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;\nWhich not to cut would show thee but a fool,\nSince I have ever follow'd thee with hate,\nDrawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,\nAnd cannot live but to thy shame, unless\nIt be to do thee service.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nO Marcius, Marcius!\nEach word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart\nA root of ancient envy. If Jupiter\nShould from yond cloud speak divine things,\nAnd say 'Tis true,' I'ld not believe them more\nThan thee, all noble Marcius. Let me twine\nMine arms about that body, where against\nMy grained ash an hundred times hath broke\nAnd scarr'd the moon with splinters: here I clip\nThe anvil of my sword, and do contest\nAs hotly and as nobly with thy love\nAs ever in ambitious strength I did\nContend against thy valour. Know thou first,\nI loved the maid I married; never man\nSigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,\nThou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart\nThan when I first my wedded mistress saw\nBestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell thee,\nWe have a power on foot; and I had purpose\nOnce more to hew thy target from thy brawn,\nOr lose mine arm fort: thou hast beat me out\nTwelve several times, and I have nightly since\nDreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me;\nWe have been down together in my sleep,\nUnbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat,\nAnd waked half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius,\nHad we no quarrel else to Rome, but that\nThou art thence banish'd, we would muster all\nFrom twelve to seventy, and pouring war\nInto the bowels of ungrateful Rome,\nLike a bold flood o'er-bear. O, come, go in,\nAnd take our friendly senators by the hands;\nWho now are here, taking their leaves of me,\nWho am prepared against your territories,\nThough not for Rome itself.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou bless me, gods!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nTherefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have\nThe leading of thine own revenges, take\nThe one half of my commission; and set down--\nAs best thou art experienced, since thou know'st\nThy country's strength and weakness,--thine own ways;\nWhether to knock against the gates of Rome,\nOr rudely visit them in parts remote,\nTo fright them, ere destroy. But come in:\nLet me commend thee first to those that shall\nSay yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!\nAnd more a friend than e'er an enemy;\nYet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand: most welcome!\n\nFirst Servingman:\nHere's a strange alteration!\n\nSecond Servingman:\nBy my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with\na cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a\nfalse report of him.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhat an arm he has! he turned me about with his\nfinger and his thumb, as one would set up a top.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nNay, I knew by his face that there was something in\nhim: he had, sir, a kind of face, methought,--I\ncannot tell how to term it.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nHe had so; looking as it were--would I were hanged,\nbut I thought there was more in him than I could think.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nSo did I, I'll be sworn: he is simply the rarest\nman i' the world.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nI think he is: but a greater soldier than he you wot on.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWho, my master?\n\nFirst Servingman:\nNay, it's no matter for that.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWorth six on him.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nNay, not so neither: but I take him to be the\ngreater soldier.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nFaith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that:\nfor the defence of a town, our general is excellent.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nAy, and for an assault too.\n\nThird Servingman:\nO slaves, I can tell you news,-- news, you rascals!\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhat, what, what? let's partake.\n\nThird Servingman:\nI would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as\nlieve be a condemned man.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWherefore? wherefore?\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhy, here's he that was wont to thwack our general,\nCaius Marcius.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhy do you say 'thwack our general '?\n\nThird Servingman:\nI do not say 'thwack our general;' but he was always\ngood enough for him.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nCome, we are fellows and friends: he was ever too\nhard for him; I have heard him say so himself.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nHe was too hard for him directly, to say the troth\non't: before Corioli he scotched him and notched\nhim like a carbon ado.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAn he had been cannibally given, he might have\nbroiled and eaten him too.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nBut, more of thy news?\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhy, he is so made on here within, as if he were son\nand heir to Mars; set at upper end o' the table; no\nquestion asked him by any of the senators, but they\nstand bald before him: our general himself makes a\nmistress of him: sanctifies himself with's hand and\nturns up the white o' the eye to his discourse. But\nthe bottom of the news is that our general is cut i'\nthe middle and but one half of what he was\nyesterday; for the other has half, by the entreaty\nand grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says,\nand sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears: he\nwill mow all down before him, and leave his passage polled.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAnd he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.\n\nThird Servingman:\nDo't! he will do't; for, look you, sir, he has as\nmany friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it\nwere, durst not, look you, sir, show themselves, as\nwe term it, his friends whilst he's in directitude.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nDirectitude! what's that?\n\nThird Servingman:\nBut when they shall see, sir, his crest up again,\nand the man in blood, they will out of their\nburrows, like conies after rain, and revel all with\nhim.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nBut when goes this forward?\n\nThird Servingman:\nTo-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the\ndrum struck up this afternoon: 'tis, as it were, a\nparcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they\nwipe their lips.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWhy, then we shall have a stirring world again.\nThis peace is nothing, but to rust iron, increase\ntailors, and breed ballad-makers.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nLet me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as\nday does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and\nfull of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy;\nmulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more\nbastard children than war's a destroyer of men.\n\nSecond Servingman:\n'Tis so: and as war, in some sort, may be said to\nbe a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a\ngreat maker of cuckolds.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nAy, and it makes men hate one another.\n\nThird Servingman:\nReason; because they then less need one another.\nThe wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap\nas Volscians. They are rising, they are rising.\n\nAll:\nIn, in, in, in!\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe hear not of him, neither need we fear him;\nHis remedies are tame i' the present peace\nAnd quietness of the people, which before\nWere in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends\nBlush that the world goes well, who rather had,\nThough they themselves did suffer by't, behold\nDissentious numbers pestering streets than see\nOur tradesmen with in their shops and going\nAbout their functions friendly.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe stood to't in good time.\nIs this Menenius?\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Tis he,'tis he: O, he is grown most kind of late.\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nHail sir!\n\nMENENIUS:\nHail to you both!\n\nSICINIUS:\nYour Coriolanus\nIs not much miss'd, but with his friends:\nThe commonwealth doth stand, and so would do,\nWere he more angry at it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAll's well; and might have been much better, if\nHe could have temporized.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhere is he, hear you?\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, I hear nothing: his mother and his wife\nHear nothing from him.\n\nCitizens:\nThe gods preserve you both!\n\nSICINIUS:\nGod-den, our neighbours.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGod-den to you all, god-den to you all.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nOurselves, our wives, and children, on our knees,\nAre bound to pray for you both.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLive, and thrive!\n\nBRUTUS:\nFarewell, kind neighbours: we wish'd Coriolanus\nHad loved you as we did.\n\nCitizens:\nNow the gods keep you!\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nFarewell, farewell.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis is a happier and more comely time\nThan when these fellows ran about the streets,\nCrying confusion.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCaius Marcius was\nA worthy officer i' the war; but insolent,\nO'ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,\nSelf-loving,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nAnd affecting one sole throne,\nWithout assistance.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI think not so.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe should by this, to all our lamentation,\nIf he had gone forth consul, found it so.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe gods have well prevented it, and Rome\nSits safe and still without him.\n\nAEdile:\nWorthy tribunes,\nThere is a slave, whom we have put in prison,\nReports, the Volsces with two several powers\nAre enter'd in the Roman territories,\nAnd with the deepest malice of the war\nDestroy what lies before 'em.\n\nMENENIUS:\n'Tis Aufidius,\nWho, hearing of our Marcius' banishment,\nThrusts forth his horns again into the world;\nWhich were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome,\nAnd durst not once peep out.\n\nSICINIUS:\nCome, what talk you\nOf Marcius?\n\nBRUTUS:\nGo see this rumourer whipp'd. It cannot be\nThe Volsces dare break with us.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCannot be!\nWe have record that very well it can,\nAnd three examples of the like have been\nWithin my age. But reason with the fellow,\nBefore you punish him, where he heard this,\nLest you shall chance to whip your information\nAnd beat the messenger who bids beware\nOf what is to be dreaded.\n\nSICINIUS:\nTell not me:\nI know this cannot be.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNot possible.\n\nMessenger:\nThe nobles in great earnestness are going\nAll to the senate-house: some news is come\nThat turns their countenances.\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Tis this slave;--\nGo whip him, 'fore the people's eyes:--his raising;\nNothing but his report.\n\nMessenger:\nYes, worthy sir,\nThe slave's report is seconded; and more,\nMore fearful, is deliver'd.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat more fearful?\n\nMessenger:\nIt is spoke freely out of many mouths--\nHow probable I do not know--that Marcius,\nJoin'd with Aufidius, leads a power 'gainst Rome,\nAnd vows revenge as spacious as between\nThe young'st and oldest thing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis is most likely!\n\nBRUTUS:\nRaised only, that the weaker sort may wish\nGood Marcius home again.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe very trick on't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is unlikely:\nHe and Aufidius can no more atone\nThan violentest contrariety.\n\nSecond Messenger:\nYou are sent for to the senate:\nA fearful army, led by Caius Marcius\nAssociated with Aufidius, rages\nUpon our territories; and have already\nO'erborne their way, consumed with fire, and took\nWhat lay before them.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nO, you have made good work!\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat news? what news?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou have holp to ravish your own daughters and\nTo melt the city leads upon your pates,\nTo see your wives dishonour'd to your noses,--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat's the news? what's the news?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYour temples burned in their cement, and\nYour franchises, whereon you stood, confined\nInto an auger's bore.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray now, your news?\nYou have made fair work, I fear me.--Pray, your news?--\nIf Marcius should be join'd with Volscians,--\n\nCOMINIUS:\nIf!\nHe is their god: he leads them like a thing\nMade by some other deity than nature,\nThat shapes man better; and they follow him,\nAgainst us brats, with no less confidence\nThan boys pursuing summer butterflies,\nOr butchers killing flies.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have made good work,\nYou and your apron-men; you that stood so up much\non the voice of occupation and\nThe breath of garlic-eaters!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHe will shake\nYour Rome about your ears.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAs Hercules\nDid shake down mellow fruit.\nYou have made fair work!\n\nBRUTUS:\nBut is this true, sir?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAy; and you'll look pale\nBefore you find it other. All the regions\nDo smilingly revolt; and who resist\nAre mock'd for valiant ignorance,\nAnd perish constant fools. Who is't can blame him?\nYour enemies and his find something in him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWe are all undone, unless\nThe noble man have mercy.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWho shall ask it?\nThe tribunes cannot do't for shame; the people\nDeserve such pity of him as the wolf\nDoes of the shepherds: for his best friends, if they\nShould say 'Be good to Rome,' they charged him even\nAs those should do that had deserved his hate,\nAnd therein show'd like enemies.\n\nMENENIUS:\n'Tis true:\nIf he were putting to my house the brand\nThat should consume it, I have not the face\nTo say 'Beseech you, cease.' You have made fair hands,\nYou and your crafts! you have crafted fair!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou have brought\nA trembling upon Rome, such as was never\nSo incapable of help.\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nSay not we brought it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHow! Was it we? we loved him but, like beasts\nAnd cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,\nWho did hoot him out o' the city.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nBut I fear\nThey'll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,\nThe second name of men, obeys his points\nAs if he were his officer: desperation\nIs all the policy, strength and defence,\nThat Rome can make against them.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHere come the clusters.\nAnd is Aufidius with him? You are they\nThat made the air unwholesome, when you cast\nYour stinking greasy caps in hooting at\nCoriolanus' exile. Now he's coming;\nAnd not a hair upon a soldier's head\nWhich will not prove a whip: as many coxcombs\nAs you threw caps up will he tumble down,\nAnd pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter;\nif he could burn us all into one coal,\nWe have deserved it.\n\nCitizens:\nFaith, we hear fearful news.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nFor mine own part,\nWhen I said, banish him, I said 'twas pity.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAnd so did I.\n\nThird Citizen:\nAnd so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very\nmany of us: that we did, we did for the best; and\nthough we willingly consented to his banishment, yet\nit was against our will.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYe re goodly things, you voices!\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have made\nGood work, you and your cry! Shall's to the Capitol?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nO, ay, what else?\n\nSICINIUS:\nGo, masters, get you home; be not dismay'd:\nThese are a side that would be glad to have\nThis true which they so seem to fear. Go home,\nAnd show no sign of fear.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nThe gods be good to us! Come, masters, let's home.\nI ever said we were i' the wrong when we banished\nhim.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nSo did we all. But, come, let's home.\n\nBRUTUS:\nI do not like this news.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNor I.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLet's to the Capitol. Would half my wealth\nWould buy this for a lie!\n\nSICINIUS:\nPray, let us go.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nDo they still fly to the Roman?\n\nLieutenant:\nI do not know what witchcraft's in him, but\nYour soldiers use him as the grace 'fore meat,\nTheir talk at table, and their thanks at end;\nAnd you are darken'd in this action, sir,\nEven by your own.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI cannot help it now,\nUnless, by using means, I lame the foot\nOf our design. He bears himself more proudlier,\nEven to my person, than I thought he would\nWhen first I did embrace him: yet his nature\nIn that's no changeling; and I must excuse\nWhat cannot be amended.\n\nLieutenant:\nYet I wish, sir,--\nI mean for your particular,--you had not\nJoin'd in commission with him; but either\nHad borne the action of yourself, or else\nTo him had left it solely.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI understand thee well; and be thou sure,\nwhen he shall come to his account, he knows not\nWhat I can urge against him. Although it seems,\nAnd so he thinks, and is no less apparent\nTo the vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly.\nAnd shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,\nFights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon\nAs draw his sword; yet he hath left undone\nThat which shall break his neck or hazard mine,\nWhene'er we come to our account.\n\nLieutenant:\nSir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAll places yield to him ere he sits down;\nAnd the nobility of Rome are his:\nThe senators and patricians love him too:\nThe tribunes are no soldiers; and their people\nWill be as rash in the repeal, as hasty\nTo expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome\nAs is the osprey to the fish, who takes it\nBy sovereignty of nature. First he was\nA noble servant to them; but he could not\nCarry his honours even: whether 'twas pride,\nWhich out of daily fortune ever taints\nThe happy man; whether defect of judgment,\nTo fail in the disposing of those chances\nWhich he was lord of; or whether nature,\nNot to be other than one thing, not moving\nFrom the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace\nEven with the same austerity and garb\nAs he controll'd the war; but one of these--\nAs he hath spices of them all, not all,\nFor I dare so far free him--made him fear'd,\nSo hated, and so banish'd: but he has a merit,\nTo choke it in the utterance. So our virtues\nLie in the interpretation of the time:\nAnd power, unto itself most commendable,\nHath not a tomb so evident as a chair\nTo extol what it hath done.\nOne fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;\nRights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.\nCome, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,\nThou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNo, I'll not go: you hear what he hath said\nWhich was sometime his general; who loved him\nIn a most dear particular. He call'd me father:\nBut what o' that? Go, you that banish'd him;\nA mile before his tent fall down, and knee\nThe way into his mercy: nay, if he coy'd\nTo hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHe would not seem to know me.\n\nMENENIUS:\nDo you hear?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYet one time he did call me by my name:\nI urged our old acquaintance, and the drops\nThat we have bled together. Coriolanus\nHe would not answer to: forbad all names;\nHe was a kind of nothing, titleless,\nTill he had forged himself a name o' the fire\nOf burning Rome.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, so: you have made good work!\nA pair of tribunes that have rack'd for Rome,\nTo make coals cheap,--a noble memory!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI minded him how royal 'twas to pardon\nWhen it was less expected: he replied,\nIt was a bare petition of a state\nTo one whom they had punish'd.\n\nMENENIUS:\nVery well:\nCould he say less?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI offer'd to awaken his regard\nFor's private friends: his answer to me was,\nHe could not stay to pick them in a pile\nOf noisome musty chaff: he said 'twas folly,\nFor one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt,\nAnd still to nose the offence.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor one poor grain or two!\nI am one of those; his mother, wife, his child,\nAnd this brave fellow too, we are the grains:\nYou are the musty chaff; and you are smelt\nAbove the moon: we must be burnt for you.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNay, pray, be patient: if you refuse your aid\nIn this so never-needed help, yet do not\nUpbraid's with our distress. But, sure, if you\nWould be your country's pleader, your good tongue,\nMore than the instant army we can make,\nMight stop our countryman.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNo, I'll not meddle.\n\nSICINIUS:\nPray you, go to him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat should I do?\n\nBRUTUS:\nOnly make trial what your love can do\nFor Rome, towards Marcius.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, and say that Marcius\nReturn me, as Cominius is return'd,\nUnheard; what then?\nBut as a discontented friend, grief-shot\nWith his unkindness? say't be so?\n\nSICINIUS:\nYet your good will\nmust have that thanks from Rome, after the measure\nAs you intended well.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI'll undertake 't:\nI think he'll hear me. Yet, to bite his lip\nAnd hum at good Cominius, much unhearts me.\nHe was not taken well; he had not dined:\nThe veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then\nWe pout upon the morning, are unapt\nTo give or to forgive; but when we have stuff'd\nThese and these conveyances of our blood\nWith wine and feeding, we have suppler souls\nThan in our priest-like fasts: therefore I'll watch him\nTill he be dieted to my request,\nAnd then I'll set upon him.\n\nBRUTUS:\nYou know the very road into his kindness,\nAnd cannot lose your way.\n\nMENENIUS:\nGood faith, I'll prove him,\nSpeed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge\nOf my success.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHe'll never hear him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNot?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye\nRed as 'twould burn Rome; and his injury\nThe gaoler to his pity. I kneel'd before him;\n'Twas very faintly he said 'Rise;' dismiss'd me\nThus, with his speechless hand: what he would do,\nHe sent in writing after me; what he would not,\nBound with an oath to yield to his conditions:\nSo that all hope is vain.\nUnless his noble mother, and his wife;\nWho, as I hear, mean to solicit him\nFor mercy to his country. Therefore, let's hence,\nAnd with our fair entreaties haste them on.\n\nFirst Senator:\nStay: whence are you?\n\nSecond Senator:\nStand, and go back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou guard like men; 'tis well: but, by your leave,\nI am an officer of state, and come\nTo speak with Coriolanus.\n\nFirst Senator:\nFrom whence?\n\nMENENIUS:\nFrom Rome.\n\nFirst Senator:\nYou may not pass, you must return: our general\nWill no more hear from thence.\n\nSecond Senator:\nYou'll see your Rome embraced with fire before\nYou'll speak with Coriolanus.\n\nMENENIUS:\nGood my friends,\nIf you have heard your general talk of Rome,\nAnd of his friends there, it is lots to blanks,\nMy name hath touch'd your ears it is Menenius.\n\nFirst Senator:\nBe it so; go back: the virtue of your name\nIs not here passable.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI tell thee, fellow,\nThe general is my lover: I have been\nThe book of his good acts, whence men have read\nHis name unparallel'd, haply amplified;\nFor I have ever verified my friends,\nOf whom he's chief, with all the size that verity\nWould without lapsing suffer: nay, sometimes,\nLike to a bowl upon a subtle ground,\nI have tumbled past the throw; and in his praise\nHave almost stamp'd the leasing: therefore, fellow,\nI must have leave to pass.\n\nFirst Senator:\nFaith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his\nbehalf as you have uttered words in your own, you\nshould not pass here; no, though it were as virtuous\nto lie as to live chastely. Therefore, go back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPrithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius,\nalways factionary on the party of your general.\n\nSecond Senator:\nHowsoever you have been his liar, as you say you\nhave, I am one that, telling true under him, must\nsay, you cannot pass. Therefore, go back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHas he dined, canst thou tell? for I would not\nspeak with him till after dinner.\n\nFirst Senator:\nYou are a Roman, are you?\n\nMENENIUS:\nI am, as thy general is.\n\nFirst Senator:\nThen you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you,\nwhen you have pushed out your gates the very\ndefender of them, and, in a violent popular\nignorance, given your enemy your shield, think to\nfront his revenges with the easy groans of old\nwomen, the virginal palms of your daughters, or with\nthe palsied intercession of such a decayed dotant as\nyou seem to be? Can you think to blow out the\nintended fire your city is ready to flame in, with\nsuch weak breath as this? No, you are deceived;\ntherefore, back to Rome, and prepare for your\nexecution: you are condemned, our general has sworn\nyou out of reprieve and pardon.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would\nuse me with estimation.\n\nSecond Senator:\nCome, my captain knows you not.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI mean, thy general.\n\nFirst Senator:\nMy general cares not for you. Back, I say, go; lest\nI let forth your half-pint of blood; back,--that's\nthe utmost of your having: back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, but, fellow, fellow,--\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat's the matter?\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow, you companion, I'll say an errand for you:\nYou shall know now that I am in estimation; you shall\nperceive that a Jack guardant cannot office me from\nmy son Coriolanus: guess, but by my entertainment\nwith him, if thou standest not i' the state of\nhanging, or of some death more long in\nspectatorship, and crueller in suffering; behold now\npresently, and swoon for what's to come upon thee.\nThe glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy\nparticular prosperity, and love thee no worse than\nthy old father Menenius does! O my son, my son!\nthou art preparing fire for us; look thee, here's\nwater to quench it. I was hardly moved to come to\nthee; but being assured none but myself could move\nthee, I have been blown out of your gates with\nsighs; and conjure thee to pardon Rome, and thy\npetitionary countrymen. The good gods assuage thy\nwrath, and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet\nhere,--this, who, like a block, hath denied my\naccess to thee.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAway!\n\nMENENIUS:\nHow! away!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs\nAre servanted to others: though I owe\nMy revenge properly, my remission lies\nIn Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar,\nIngrate forgetfulness shall poison, rather\nThan pity note how much. Therefore, be gone.\nMine ears against your suits are stronger than\nYour gates against my force. Yet, for I loved thee,\nTake this along; I writ it for thy sake\nAnd would have rent it. Another word, Menenius,\nI will not hear thee speak. This man, Aufidius,\nWas my beloved in Rome: yet thou behold'st!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nYou keep a constant temper.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNow, sir, is your name Menenius?\n\nSecond Senator:\n'Tis a spell, you see, of much power: you know the\nway home again.\n\nFirst Senator:\nDo you hear how we are shent for keeping your\ngreatness back?\n\nSecond Senator:\nWhat cause, do you think, I have to swoon?\n\nMENENIUS:\nI neither care for the world nor your general: for\nsuch things as you, I can scarce think there's any,\nye're so slight. He that hath a will to die by\nhimself fears it not from another: let your general\ndo his worst. For you, be that you are, long; and\nyour misery increase with your age! I say to you,\nas I was said to, Away!\n\nFirst Senator:\nA noble fellow, I warrant him.\n\nSecond Senator:\nThe worthy fellow is our general: he's the rock, the\noak not to be wind-shaken.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWe will before the walls of Rome tomorrow\nSet down our host. My partner in this action,\nYou must report to the Volscian lords, how plainly\nI have borne this business.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nOnly their ends\nYou have respected; stopp'd your ears against\nThe general suit of Rome; never admitted\nA private whisper, no, not with such friends\nThat thought them sure of you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThis last old man,\nWhom with a crack'd heart I have sent to Rome,\nLoved me above the measure of a father;\nNay, godded me, indeed. Their latest refuge\nWas to send him; for whose old love I have,\nThough I show'd sourly to him, once more offer'd\nThe first conditions, which they did refuse\nAnd cannot now accept; to grace him only\nThat thought he could do more, a very little\nI have yielded to: fresh embassies and suits,\nNor from the state nor private friends, hereafter\nWill I lend ear to. Ha! what shout is this?\nShall I be tempted to infringe my vow\nIn the same time 'tis made? I will not.\nMy wife comes foremost; then the honour'd mould\nWherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand\nThe grandchild to her blood. But, out, affection!\nAll bond and privilege of nature, break!\nLet it be virtuous to be obstinate.\nWhat is that curt'sy worth? or those doves' eyes,\nWhich can make gods forsworn? I melt, and am not\nOf stronger earth than others. My mother bows;\nAs if Olympus to a molehill should\nIn supplication nod: and my young boy\nHath an aspect of intercession, which\nGreat nature cries 'Deny not.' let the Volsces\nPlough Rome and harrow Italy: I'll never\nBe such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand,\nAs if a man were author of himself\nAnd knew no other kin.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nMy lord and husband!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThese eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nThe sorrow that delivers us thus changed\nMakes you think so.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLike a dull actor now,\nI have forgot my part, and I am out,\nEven to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,\nForgive my tyranny; but do not say\nFor that 'Forgive our Romans.' O, a kiss\nLong as my exile, sweet as my revenge!\nNow, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss\nI carried from thee, dear; and my true lip\nHath virgin'd it e'er since. You gods! I prate,\nAnd the most noble mother of the world\nLeave unsaluted: sink, my knee, i' the earth;\nOf thy deep duty more impression show\nThan that of common sons.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, stand up blest!\nWhilst, with no softer cushion than the flint,\nI kneel before thee; and unproperly\nShow duty, as mistaken all this while\nBetween the child and parent.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat is this?\nYour knees to me? to your corrected son?\nThen let the pebbles on the hungry beach\nFillip the stars; then let the mutinous winds\nStrike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun;\nMurdering impossibility, to make\nWhat cannot be, slight work.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThou art my warrior;\nI holp to frame thee. Do you know this lady?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe noble sister of Publicola,\nThe moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle\nThat's curdied by the frost from purest snow\nAnd hangs on Dian's temple: dear Valeria!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThis is a poor epitome of yours,\nWhich by the interpretation of full time\nMay show like all yourself.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe god of soldiers,\nWith the consent of supreme Jove, inform\nThy thoughts with nobleness; that thou mayst prove\nTo shame unvulnerable, and stick i' the wars\nLike a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,\nAnd saving those that eye thee!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nYour knee, sirrah.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThat's my brave boy!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nEven he, your wife, this lady, and myself,\nAre suitors to you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI beseech you, peace:\nOr, if you'ld ask, remember this before:\nThe thing I have forsworn to grant may never\nBe held by you denials. Do not bid me\nDismiss my soldiers, or capitulate\nAgain with Rome's mechanics: tell me not\nWherein I seem unnatural: desire not\nTo ally my rages and revenges with\nYour colder reasons.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, no more, no more!\nYou have said you will not grant us any thing;\nFor we have nothing else to ask, but that\nWhich you deny already: yet we will ask;\nThat, if you fail in our request, the blame\nMay hang upon your hardness: therefore hear us.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAufidius, and you Volsces, mark; for we'll\nHear nought from Rome in private. Your request?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nShould we be silent and not speak, our raiment\nAnd state of bodies would bewray what life\nWe have led since thy exile. Think with thyself\nHow more unfortunate than all living women\nAre we come hither: since that thy sight,\nwhich should\nMake our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance\nwith comforts,\nConstrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow;\nMaking the mother, wife and child to see\nThe son, the husband and the father tearing\nHis country's bowels out. And to poor we\nThine enmity's most capital: thou barr'st us\nOur prayers to the gods, which is a comfort\nThat all but we enjoy; for how can we,\nAlas, how can we for our country pray.\nWhereto we are bound, together with thy victory,\nWhereto we are bound? alack, or we must lose\nThe country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,\nOur comfort in the country. We must find\nAn evident calamity, though we had\nOur wish, which side should win: for either thou\nMust, as a foreign recreant, be led\nWith manacles thorough our streets, or else\ntriumphantly tread on thy country's ruin,\nAnd bear the palm for having bravely shed\nThy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,\nI purpose not to wait on fortune till\nThese wars determine: if I cannot persuade thee\nRather to show a noble grace to both parts\nThan seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner\nMarch to assault thy country than to tread--\nTrust to't, thou shalt not--on thy mother's womb,\nThat brought thee to this world.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nAy, and mine,\nThat brought you forth this boy, to keep your name\nLiving to time.\n\nYoung MARCIUS:\nA' shall not tread on me;\nI'll run away till I am bigger, but then I'll fight.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNot of a woman's tenderness to be,\nRequires nor child nor woman's face to see.\nI have sat too long.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNay, go not from us thus.\nIf it were so that our request did tend\nTo save the Romans, thereby to destroy\nThe Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us,\nAs poisonous of your honour: no; our suit\nIs that you reconcile them: while the Volsces\nMay say 'This mercy we have show'd;' the Romans,\n'This we received;' and each in either side\nGive the all-hail to thee and cry 'Be blest\nFor making up this peace!' Thou know'st, great son,\nThe end of war's uncertain, but this certain,\nThat, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit\nWhich thou shalt thereby reap is such a name,\nWhose repetition will be dogg'd with curses;\nWhose chronicle thus writ: 'The man was noble,\nBut with his last attempt he wiped it out;\nDestroy'd his country, and his name remains\nTo the ensuing age abhorr'd.' Speak to me, son:\nThou hast affected the fine strains of honour,\nTo imitate the graces of the gods;\nTo tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air,\nAnd yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt\nThat should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?\nThink'st thou it honourable for a noble man\nStill to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you:\nHe cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy:\nPerhaps thy childishness will move him more\nThan can our reasons. There's no man in the world\nMore bound to 's mother; yet here he lets me prate\nLike one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy life\nShow'd thy dear mother any courtesy,\nWhen she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,\nHas cluck'd thee to the wars and safely home,\nLoaden with honour. Say my request's unjust,\nAnd spurn me back: but if it be not so,\nThou art not honest; and the gods will plague thee,\nThat thou restrain'st from me the duty which\nTo a mother's part belongs. He turns away:\nDown, ladies; let us shame him with our knees.\nTo his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride\nThan pity to our prayers. Down: an end;\nThis is the last: so we will home to Rome,\nAnd die among our neighbours. Nay, behold 's:\nThis boy, that cannot tell what he would have\nBut kneels and holds up bands for fellowship,\nDoes reason our petition with more strength\nThan thou hast to deny 't. Come, let us go:\nThis fellow had a Volscian to his mother;\nHis wife is in Corioli and his child\nLike him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch:\nI am hush'd until our city be a-fire,\nAnd then I'll speak a little.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO mother, mother!\nWhat have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,\nThe gods look down, and this unnatural scene\nThey laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!\nYou have won a happy victory to Rome;\nBut, for your son,--believe it, O, believe it,\nMost dangerously you have with him prevail'd,\nIf not most mortal to him. But, let it come.\nAufidius, though I cannot make true wars,\nI'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,\nWere you in my stead, would you have heard\nA mother less? or granted less, Aufidius?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI was moved withal.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI dare be sworn you were:\nAnd, sir, it is no little thing to make\nMine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,\nWhat peace you'll make, advise me: for my part,\nI'll not to Rome, I'll back with you; and pray you,\nStand to me in this cause. O mother! wife!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy, by and by;\nBut we will drink together; and you shall bear\nA better witness back than words, which we,\nOn like conditions, will have counter-seal'd.\nCome, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve\nTo have a temple built you: all the swords\nIn Italy, and her confederate arms,\nCould not have made this peace.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSee you yond coign o' the Capitol, yond\ncorner-stone?\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy, what of that?\n\nMENENIUS:\nIf it be possible for you to displace it with your\nlittle finger, there is some hope the ladies of\nRome, especially his mother, may prevail with him.\nBut I say there is no hope in't: our throats are\nsentenced and stay upon execution.\n\nSICINIUS:\nIs't possible that so short a time can alter the\ncondition of a man!\n\nMENENIUS:\nThere is differency between a grub and a butterfly;\nyet your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown\nfrom man to dragon: he has wings; he's more than a\ncreeping thing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe loved his mother dearly.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSo did he me: and he no more remembers his mother\nnow than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness\nof his face sours ripe grapes: when he walks, he\nmoves like an engine, and the ground shrinks before\nhis treading: he is able to pierce a corslet with\nhis eye; talks like a knell, and his hum is a\nbattery. He sits in his state, as a thing made for\nAlexander. What he bids be done is finished with\nhis bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity\nand a heaven to throne in.\n\nSICINIUS:\nYes, mercy, if you report him truly.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI paint him in the character. Mark what mercy his\nmother shall bring from him: there is no more mercy\nin him than there is milk in a male tiger; that\nshall our poor city find: and all this is long of\nyou.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe gods be good unto us!\n\nMENENIUS:\nNo, in such a case the gods will not be good unto\nus. When we banished him, we respected not them;\nand, he returning to break our necks, they respect not us.\n\nMessenger:\nSir, if you'ld save your life, fly to your house:\nThe plebeians have got your fellow-tribune\nAnd hale him up and down, all swearing, if\nThe Roman ladies bring not comfort home,\nThey'll give him death by inches.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat's the news?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nGood news, good news; the ladies have prevail'd,\nThe Volscians are dislodged, and Marcius gone:\nA merrier day did never yet greet Rome,\nNo, not the expulsion of the Tarquins.\n\nSICINIUS:\nFriend,\nArt thou certain this is true? is it most certain?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nAs certain as I know the sun is fire:\nWhere have you lurk'd, that you make doubt of it?\nNe'er through an arch so hurried the blown tide,\nAs the recomforted through the gates. Why, hark you!\nThe trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries and fifes,\nTabours and cymbals and the shouting Romans,\nMake the sun dance. Hark you!\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is good news:\nI will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia\nIs worth of consuls, senators, patricians,\nA city full; of tribunes, such as you,\nA sea and land full. You have pray'd well to-day:\nThis morning for ten thousand of your throats\nI'd not have given a doit. Hark, how they joy!\n\nSICINIUS:\nFirst, the gods bless you for your tidings; next,\nAccept my thankfulness.\n\nSecond Messenger:\nSir, we have all\nGreat cause to give great thanks.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThey are near the city?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nAlmost at point to enter.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe will meet them,\nAnd help the joy.\n\nFirst Senator:\nBehold our patroness, the life of Rome!\nCall all your tribes together, praise the gods,\nAnd make triumphant fires; strew flowers before them:\nUnshout the noise that banish'd Marcius,\nRepeal him with the welcome of his mother;\nCry 'Welcome, ladies, welcome!'\n\nAll:\nWelcome, ladies, Welcome!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nGo tell the lords o' the city I am here:\nDeliver them this paper: having read it,\nBid them repair to the market place; where I,\nEven in theirs and in the commons' ears,\nWill vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse\nThe city ports by this hath enter'd and\nIntends to appear before the people, hoping\nTo purge herself with words: dispatch.\nMost welcome!\n\nFirst Conspirator:\nHow is it with our general?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nEven so\nAs with a man by his own alms empoison'd,\nAnd with his charity slain.\n\nSecond Conspirator:\nMost noble sir,\nIf you do hold the same intent wherein\nYou wish'd us parties, we'll deliver you\nOf your great danger.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nSir, I cannot tell:\nWe must proceed as we do find the people.\n\nThird Conspirator:\nThe people will remain uncertain whilst\n'Twixt you there's difference; but the fall of either\nMakes the survivor heir of all.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI know it;\nAnd my pretext to strike at him admits\nA good construction. I raised him, and I pawn'd\nMine honour for his truth: who being so heighten'd,\nHe water'd his new plants with dews of flattery,\nSeducing so my friends; and, to this end,\nHe bow'd his nature, never known before\nBut to be rough, unswayable and free.\n\nThird Conspirator:\nSir, his stoutness\nWhen he did stand for consul, which he lost\nBy lack of stooping,--\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nThat I would have spoke of:\nBeing banish'd for't, he came unto my hearth;\nPresented to my knife his throat: I took him;\nMade him joint-servant with me; gave him way\nIn all his own desires; nay, let him choose\nOut of my files, his projects to accomplish,\nMy best and freshest men; served his designments\nIn mine own person; holp to reap the fame\nWhich he did end all his; and took some pride\nTo do myself this wrong: till, at the last,\nI seem'd his follower, not partner, and\nHe waged me with his countenance, as if\nI had been mercenary.\n\nFirst Conspirator:\nSo he did, my lord:\nThe army marvell'd at it, and, in the last,\nWhen he had carried Rome and that we look'd\nFor no less spoil than glory,--\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nThere was it:\nFor which my sinews shall be stretch'd upon him.\nAt a few drops of women's rheum, which are\nAs cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour\nOf our great action: therefore shall he die,\nAnd I'll renew me in his fall. But, hark!\n\nFirst Conspirator:\nYour native town you enter'd like a post,\nAnd had no welcomes home: but he returns,\nSplitting the air with noise.\n\nSecond Conspirator:\nAnd patient fools,\nWhose children he hath slain, their base throats tear\nWith giving him glory.\n\nThird Conspirator:\nTherefore, at your vantage,\nEre he express himself, or move the people\nWith what he would say, let him feel your sword,\nWhich we will second. When he lies along,\nAfter your way his tale pronounced shall bury\nHis reasons with his body.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nSay no more:\nHere come the lords.\n\nAll The Lords:\nYou are most welcome home.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI have not deserved it.\nBut, worthy lords, have you with heed perused\nWhat I have written to you?\n\nLords:\nWe have.\n\nFirst Lord:\nAnd grieve to hear't.\nWhat faults he made before the last, I think\nMight have found easy fines: but there to end\nWhere he was to begin and give away\nThe benefit of our levies, answering us\nWith our own charge, making a treaty where\nThere was a yielding,--this admits no excuse.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nHe approaches: you shall hear him.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHail, lords! I am return'd your soldier,\nNo more infected with my country's love\nThan when I parted hence, but still subsisting\nUnder your great command. You are to know\nThat prosperously I have attempted and\nWith bloody passage led your wars even to\nThe gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home\nDo more than counterpoise a full third part\nThe charges of the action. We have made peace\nWith no less honour to the Antiates\nThan shame to the Romans: and we here deliver,\nSubscribed by the consuls and patricians,\nTogether with the seal o' the senate, what\nWe have compounded on.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nRead it not, noble lords;\nBut tell the traitor, in the high'st degree\nHe hath abused your powers.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTraitor! how now!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAy, traitor, Marcius!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMarcius!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAy, Marcius, Caius Marcius: dost thou think\nI'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name\nCoriolanus in Corioli?\nYou lords and heads o' the state, perfidiously\nHe has betray'd your business, and given up,\nFor certain drops of salt, your city Rome,\nI say 'your city,' to his wife and mother;\nBreaking his oath and resolution like\nA twist of rotten silk, never admitting\nCounsel o' the war, but at his nurse's tears\nHe whined and roar'd away your victory,\nThat pages blush'd at him and men of heart\nLook'd wondering each at other.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHear'st thou, Mars?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nName not the god, thou boy of tears!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHa!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nNo more.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMeasureless liar, thou hast made my heart\nToo great for what contains it. Boy! O slave!\nPardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever\nI was forced to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords,\nMust give this cur the lie: and his own notion--\nWho wears my stripes impress'd upon him; that\nMust bear my beating to his grave--shall join\nTo thrust the lie unto him.\n\nFirst Lord:\nPeace, both, and hear me speak.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nCut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads,\nStain all your edges on me. Boy! false hound!\nIf you have writ your annals true, 'tis there,\nThat, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I\nFlutter'd your Volscians in Corioli:\nAlone I did it. Boy!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhy, noble lords,\nWill you be put in mind of his blind fortune,\nWhich was your shame, by this unholy braggart,\n'Fore your own eyes and ears?\n\nAll Conspirators:\nLet him die for't.\n\nAll The People:\n'Tear him to pieces.' 'Do it presently.' 'He kill'd\nmy son.' 'My daughter.' 'He killed my cousin\nMarcus.' 'He killed my father.'\n\nSecond Lord:\nPeace, ho! no outrage: peace!\nThe man is noble and his fame folds-in\nThis orb o' the earth. His last offences to us\nShall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,\nAnd trouble not the peace.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO that I had him,\nWith six Aufidiuses, or more, his tribe,\nTo use my lawful sword!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nInsolent villain!\n\nAll Conspirators:\nKill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!\n\nLords:\nHold, hold, hold, hold!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nMy noble masters, hear me speak.\n\nFirst Lord:\nO Tullus,--\n\nSecond Lord:\nThou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.\n\nThird Lord:\nTread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet;\nPut up your swords.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nMy lords, when you shall know--as in this rage,\nProvoked by him, you cannot--the great danger\nWhich this man's life did owe you, you'll rejoice\nThat he is thus cut off. Please it your honours\nTo call me to your senate, I'll deliver\nMyself your loyal servant, or endure\nYour heaviest censure.\n\nFirst Lord:\nBear from hence his body;\nAnd mourn you for him: let him be regarded\nAs the most noble corse that ever herald\nDid follow to his urn.\n\nSecond Lord:\nHis own impatience\nTakes from Aufidius a great part of blame.\nLet's make the best of it.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nMy rage is gone;\nAnd I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.\nHelp, three o' the chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.\nBeat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully:\nTrail your steel pikes. Though in this city he\nHath widow'd and unchilded many a one,\nWhich to this hour bewail the injury,\nYet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow is the winter of our discontent\nMade glorious summer by this sun of York;\nAnd all the clouds that lour'd upon our house\nIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried.\nNow are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;\nOur bruised arms hung up for monuments;\nOur stern alarums changed to merry meetings,\nOur dreadful marches to delightful measures.\nGrim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;\nAnd now, instead of mounting barded steeds\nTo fright the souls of fearful adversaries,\nHe capers nimbly in a lady's chamber\nTo the lascivious pleasing of a lute.\nBut I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,\nNor made to court an amorous looking-glass;\nI, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty\nTo strut before a wanton ambling nymph;\nI, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,\nCheated of feature by dissembling nature,\nDeformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time\nInto this breathing world, scarce half made up,\nAnd that so lamely and unfashionable\nThat dogs bark at me as I halt by them;\nWhy, I, in this weak piping time of peace,\nHave no delight to pass away the time,\nUnless to spy my shadow in the sun\nAnd descant on mine own deformity:\nAnd therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,\nTo entertain these fair well-spoken days,\nI am determined to prove a villain\nAnd hate the idle pleasures of these days.\nPlots have I laid, inductions dangerous,\nBy drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,\nTo set my brother Clarence and the king\nIn deadly hate the one against the other:\nAnd if King Edward be as true and just\nAs I am subtle, false and treacherous,\nThis day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,\nAbout a prophecy, which says that 'G'\nOf Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.\nDive, thoughts, down to my soul: here\nClarence comes.\nBrother, good day; what means this armed guard\nThat waits upon your grace?\n\nCLARENCE:\nHis majesty\nTendering my person's safety, hath appointed\nThis conduct to convey me to the Tower.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nUpon what cause?\n\nCLARENCE:\nBecause my name is George.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAlack, my lord, that fault is none of yours;\nHe should, for that, commit your godfathers:\nO, belike his majesty hath some intent\nThat you shall be new-christen'd in the Tower.\nBut what's the matter, Clarence?  may I know?\n\nCLARENCE:\nYea, Richard, when I know; for I protest\nAs yet I do not: but, as I can learn,\nHe hearkens after prophecies and dreams;\nAnd from the cross-row plucks the letter G.\nAnd says a wizard told him that by G\nHis issue disinherited should be;\nAnd, for my name of George begins with G,\nIt follows in his thought that I am he.\nThese, as I learn, and such like toys as these\nHave moved his highness to commit me now.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, this it is, when men are ruled by women:\n'Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower:\nMy Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she\nThat tempers him to this extremity.\nWas it not she and that good man of worship,\nAnthony Woodville, her brother there,\nThat made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,\nFrom whence this present day he is deliver'd?\nWe are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBy heaven, I think there's no man is secure\nBut the queen's kindred and night-walking heralds\nThat trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore.\nHeard ye not what an humble suppliant\nLord hastings was to her for his delivery?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHumbly complaining to her deity\nGot my lord chamberlain his liberty.\nI'll tell you what; I think it is our way,\nIf we will keep in favour with the king,\nTo be her men and wear her livery:\nThe jealous o'erworn widow and herself,\nSince that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen.\nAre mighty gossips in this monarchy.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI beseech your graces both to pardon me;\nHis majesty hath straitly given in charge\nThat no man shall have private conference,\nOf what degree soever, with his brother.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nEven so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,\nYou may partake of any thing we say:\nWe speak no treason, man: we say the king\nIs wise and virtuous, and his noble queen\nWell struck in years, fair, and not jealous;\nWe say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,\nA cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;\nAnd that the queen's kindred are made gentle-folks:\nHow say you sir? Can you deny all this?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWith this, my lord, myself have nought to do.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNaught to do with mistress Shore! I tell thee, fellow,\nHe that doth naught with her, excepting one,\nWere best he do it secretly, alone.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWhat one, my lord?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHer husband, knave: wouldst thou betray me?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI beseech your grace to pardon me, and withal\nForbear your conference with the noble duke.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWe know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWe are the queen's abjects, and must obey.\nBrother, farewell: I will unto the king;\nAnd whatsoever you will employ me in,\nWere it to call King Edward's widow sister,\nI will perform it to enfranchise you.\nMeantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood\nTouches me deeper than you can imagine.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI know it pleaseth neither of us well.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWell, your imprisonment shall not be long;\nMeantime, have patience.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI must perforce. Farewell.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo, tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.\nSimple, plain Clarence! I do love thee so,\nThat I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,\nIf heaven will take the present at our hands.\nBut who comes here? the new-deliver'd Hastings?\n\nHASTINGS:\nGood time of day unto my gracious lord!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAs much unto my good lord chamberlain!\nWell are you welcome to the open air.\nHow hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?\n\nHASTINGS:\nWith patience, noble lord, as prisoners must:\nBut I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks\nThat were the cause of my imprisonment.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNo doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;\nFor they that were your enemies are his,\nAnd have prevail'd as much on him as you.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMore pity that the eagle should be mew'd,\nWhile kites and buzzards prey at liberty.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat news abroad?\n\nHASTINGS:\nNo news so bad abroad as this at home;\nThe King is sickly, weak and melancholy,\nAnd his physicians fear him mightily.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow, by Saint Paul, this news is bad indeed.\nO, he hath kept an evil diet long,\nAnd overmuch consumed his royal person:\n'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.\nWhat, is he in his bed?\n\nHASTINGS:\nHe is.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo you before, and I will follow you.\nHe cannot live, I hope; and must not die\nTill George be pack'd with post-horse up to heaven.\nI'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,\nWith lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;\nAnd, if I fall not in my deep intent,\nClarence hath not another day to live:\nWhich done, God take King Edward to his mercy,\nAnd leave the world for me to bustle in!\nFor then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.\nWhat though I kill'd her husband and her father?\nThe readiest way to make the wench amends\nIs to become her husband and her father:\nThe which will I; not all so much for love\nAs for another secret close intent,\nBy marrying her which I must reach unto.\nBut yet I run before my horse to market:\nClarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns:\nWhen they are gone, then must I count my gains.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nSet down, set down your honourable load,\nIf honour may be shrouded in a hearse,\nWhilst I awhile obsequiously lament\nThe untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.\nPoor key-cold figure of a holy king!\nPale ashes of the house of Lancaster!\nThou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!\nBe it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,\nTo hear the lamentations of Poor Anne,\nWife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter'd son,\nStabb'd by the selfsame hand that made these wounds!\nLo, in these windows that let forth thy life,\nI pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.\nCursed be the hand that made these fatal holes!\nCursed be the heart that had the heart to do it!\nCursed the blood that let this blood from hence!\nMore direful hap betide that hated wretch,\nThat makes us wretched by the death of thee,\nThan I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,\nOr any creeping venom'd thing that lives!\nIf ever he have child, abortive be it,\nProdigious, and untimely brought to light,\nWhose ugly and unnatural aspect\nMay fright the hopeful mother at the view;\nAnd that be heir to his unhappiness!\nIf ever he have wife, let her he made\nA miserable by the death of him\nAs I am made by my poor lord and thee!\nCome, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,\nTaken from Paul's to be interred there;\nAnd still, as you are weary of the weight,\nRest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nStay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhat black magician conjures up this fiend,\nTo stop devoted charitable deeds?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nVillains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,\nI'll make a corse of him that disobeys.\n\nGentleman:\nMy lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nUnmanner'd dog! stand thou, when I command:\nAdvance thy halbert higher than my breast,\nOr, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,\nAnd spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhat, do you tremble? are you all afraid?\nAlas, I blame you not; for you are mortal,\nAnd mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.\nAvaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!\nThou hadst but power over his mortal body,\nHis soul thou canst not have; therefore be gone.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nFoul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not;\nFor thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,\nFill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.\nIf thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,\nBehold this pattern of thy butcheries.\nO, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds\nOpen their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh!\nBlush, Blush, thou lump of foul deformity;\nFor 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood\nFrom cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;\nThy deed, inhuman and unnatural,\nProvokes this deluge most unnatural.\nO God, which this blood madest, revenge his death!\nO earth, which this blood drink'st revenge his death!\nEither heaven with lightning strike the\nmurderer dead,\nOr earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,\nAs thou dost swallow up this good king's blood\nWhich his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLady, you know no rules of charity,\nWhich renders good for bad, blessings for curses.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nVillain, thou know'st no law of God nor man:\nNo beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut I know none, and therefore am no beast.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nO wonderful, when devils tell the truth!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMore wonderful, when angels are so angry.\nVouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,\nOf these supposed-evils, to give me leave,\nBy circumstance, but to acquit myself.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nVouchsafe, defused infection of a man,\nFor these known evils, but to give me leave,\nBy circumstance, to curse thy cursed self.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nFairer than tongue can name thee, let me have\nSome patient leisure to excuse myself.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nFouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make\nNo excuse current, but to hang thyself.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBy such despair, I should accuse myself.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAnd, by despairing, shouldst thou stand excused;\nFor doing worthy vengeance on thyself,\nWhich didst unworthy slaughter upon others.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSay that I slew them not?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhy, then they are not dead:\nBut dead they are, and devilish slave, by thee.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI did not kill your husband.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhy, then he is alive.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNay, he is dead; and slain by Edward's hand.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nIn thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw\nThy murderous falchion smoking in his blood;\nThe which thou once didst bend against her breast,\nBut that thy brothers beat aside the point.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI was provoked by her slanderous tongue,\nwhich laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nThou wast provoked by thy bloody mind.\nWhich never dreamt on aught but butcheries:\nDidst thou not kill this king?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI grant ye.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nDost grant me, hedgehog? then, God grant me too\nThou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!\nO, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe fitter for the King of heaven, that hath him.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nHe is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLet him thank me, that holp to send him thither;\nFor he was fitter for that place than earth.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAnd thou unfit for any place but hell.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nSome dungeon.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour bed-chamber.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI'll rest betide the chamber where thou liest!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSo will it, madam till I lie with you.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI hope so.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,\nTo leave this keen encounter of our wits,\nAnd fall somewhat into a slower method,\nIs not the causer of the timeless deaths\nOf these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,\nAs blameful as the executioner?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nThou art the cause, and most accursed effect.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour beauty was the cause of that effect;\nYour beauty: which did haunt me in my sleep\nTo undertake the death of all the world,\nSo I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nIf I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,\nThese nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThese eyes could never endure sweet beauty's wreck;\nYou should not blemish it, if I stood by:\nAs all the world is cheered by the sun,\nSo I by that; it is my day, my life.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nBlack night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCurse not thyself, fair creature thou art both.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI would I were, to be revenged on thee.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIt is a quarrel most unnatural,\nTo be revenged on him that loveth you.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nIt is a quarrel just and reasonable,\nTo be revenged on him that slew my husband.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,\nDid it to help thee to a better husband.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nHis better doth not breathe upon the earth.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe lives that loves thee better than he could.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nName him.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nPlantagenet.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhy, that was he.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe selfsame name, but one of better nature.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhere is he?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHere.\nWhy dost thou spit at me?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWould it were mortal poison, for thy sake!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNever came poison from so sweet a place.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNever hung poison on a fouler toad.\nOut of my sight! thou dost infect my eyes.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWould they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI would they were, that I might die at once;\nFor now they kill me with a living death.\nThose eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,\nShamed their aspect with store of childish drops:\nThese eyes that never shed remorseful tear,\nNo, when my father York and Edward wept,\nTo hear the piteous moan that Rutland made\nWhen black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him;\nNor when thy warlike father, like a child,\nTold the sad story of my father's death,\nAnd twenty times made pause to sob and weep,\nThat all the standers-by had wet their cheeks\nLike trees bedash'd with rain: in that sad time\nMy manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;\nAnd what these sorrows could not thence exhale,\nThy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.\nI never sued to friend nor enemy;\nMy tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;\nBut now thy beauty is proposed my fee,\nMy proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.\nTeach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made\nFor kissing, lady, not for such contempt.\nIf thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,\nLo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;\nWhich if thou please to hide in this true bosom.\nAnd let the soul forth that adoreth thee,\nI lay it naked to the deadly stroke,\nAnd humbly beg the death upon my knee.\nNay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry,\nBut 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.\nNay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward,\nBut 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.\nTake up the sword again, or take up me.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nArise, dissembler: though I wish thy death,\nI will not be the executioner.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen bid me kill myself, and I will do it.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI have already.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTush, that was in thy rage:\nSpeak it again, and, even with the word,\nThat hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love,\nShall, for thy love, kill a far truer love;\nTo both their deaths thou shalt be accessary.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI would I knew thy heart.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n'Tis figured in my tongue.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI fear me both are false.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen never man was true.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWell, well, put up your sword.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSay, then, my peace is made.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nThat shall you know hereafter.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut shall I live in hope?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAll men, I hope, live so.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nVouchsafe to wear this ring.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nTo take is not to give.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLook, how this ring encompasseth finger.\nEven so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;\nWear both of them, for both of them are thine.\nAnd if thy poor devoted suppliant may\nBut beg one favour at thy gracious hand,\nThou dost confirm his happiness for ever.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhat is it?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThat it would please thee leave these sad designs\nTo him that hath more cause to be a mourner,\nAnd presently repair to Crosby Place;\nWhere, after I have solemnly interr'd\nAt Chertsey monastery this noble king,\nAnd wet his grave with my repentant tears,\nI will with all expedient duty see you:\nFor divers unknown reasons. I beseech you,\nGrant me this boon.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWith all my heart; and much it joys me too,\nTo see you are become so penitent.\nTressel and Berkeley, go along with me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBid me farewell.\n\nLADY ANNE:\n'Tis more than you deserve;\nBut since you teach me how to flatter you,\nImagine I have said farewell already.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSirs, take up the corse.\n\nGENTLEMEN:\nTowards Chertsey, noble lord?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNo, to White-Friars; there attend my coining.\nWas ever woman in this humour woo'd?\nWas ever woman in this humour won?\nI'll have her; but I will not keep her long.\nWhat! I, that kill'd her husband and his father,\nTo take her in her heart's extremest hate,\nWith curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,\nThe bleeding witness of her hatred by;\nHaving God, her conscience, and these bars\nagainst me,\nAnd I nothing to back my suit at all,\nBut the plain devil and dissembling looks,\nAnd yet to win her, all the world to nothing!\nHa!\nHath she forgot already that brave prince,\nEdward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,\nStabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?\nA sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,\nFramed in the prodigality of nature,\nYoung, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,\nThe spacious world cannot again afford\nAnd will she yet debase her eyes on me,\nThat cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,\nAnd made her widow to a woful bed?\nOn me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?\nOn me, that halt and am unshapen thus?\nMy dukedom to a beggarly denier,\nI do mistake my person all this while:\nUpon my life, she finds, although I cannot,\nMyself to be a marvellous proper man.\nI'll be at charges for a looking-glass,\nAnd entertain some score or two of tailors,\nTo study fashions to adorn my body:\nSince I am crept in favour with myself,\nWill maintain it with some little cost.\nBut first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave;\nAnd then return lamenting to my love.\nShine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,\nThat I may see my shadow as I pass.\n\nRIVERS:\nHave patience, madam: there's no doubt his majesty\nWill soon recover his accustom'd health.\n\nGREY:\nIn that you brook it in, it makes him worse:\nTherefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,\nAnd cheer his grace with quick and merry words.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nIf he were dead, what would betide of me?\n\nRIVERS:\nNo other harm but loss of such a lord.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe loss of such a lord includes all harm.\n\nGREY:\nThe heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son,\nTo be your comforter when he is gone.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nOh, he is young and his minority\nIs put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,\nA man that loves not me, nor none of you.\n\nRIVERS:\nIs it concluded that he shall be protector?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nIt is determined, not concluded yet:\nBut so it must be, if the king miscarry.\n\nGREY:\nHere come the lords of Buckingham and Derby.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGood time of day unto your royal grace!\n\nDERBY:\nGod make your majesty joyful as you have been!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby.\nTo your good prayers will scarcely say amen.\nYet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife,\nAnd loves not me, be you, good lord, assured\nI hate not you for her proud arrogance.\n\nDERBY:\nI do beseech you, either not believe\nThe envious slanders of her false accusers;\nOr, if she be accused in true report,\nBear with her weakness, which, I think proceeds\nFrom wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.\n\nRIVERS:\nSaw you the king to-day, my Lord of Derby?\n\nDERBY:\nBut now the Duke of Buckingham and I\nAre come from visiting his majesty.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat likelihood of his amendment, lords?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMadam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGod grant him health! Did you confer with him?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMadam, we did: he desires to make atonement\nBetwixt the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,\nAnd betwixt them and my lord chamberlain;\nAnd sent to warn them to his royal presence.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWould all were well! but that will never be\nI fear our happiness is at the highest.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThey do me wrong, and I will not endure it:\nWho are they that complain unto the king,\nThat I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?\nBy holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly\nThat fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.\nBecause I cannot flatter and speak fair,\nSmile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog,\nDuck with French nods and apish courtesy,\nI must be held a rancorous enemy.\nCannot a plain man live and think no harm,\nBut thus his simple truth must be abused\nBy silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?\n\nRIVERS:\nTo whom in all this presence speaks your grace?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTo thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.\nWhen have I injured thee? when done thee wrong?\nOr thee? or thee? or any of your faction?\nA plague upon you all! His royal person,--\nWhom God preserve better than you would wish!--\nCannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while,\nBut you must trouble him with lewd complaints.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBrother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.\nThe king, of his own royal disposition,\nAnd not provoked by any suitor else;\nAiming, belike, at your interior hatred,\nWhich in your outward actions shows itself\nAgainst my kindred, brothers, and myself,\nMakes him to send; that thereby he may gather\nThe ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI cannot tell: the world is grown so bad,\nThat wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch:\nSince every Jack became a gentleman\nThere's many a gentle person made a Jack.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCome, come, we know your meaning, brother\nGloucester;\nYou envy my advancement and my friends':\nGod grant we never may have need of you!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMeantime, God grants that we have need of you:\nYour brother is imprison'd by your means,\nMyself disgraced, and the nobility\nHeld in contempt; whilst many fair promotions\nAre daily given to ennoble those\nThat scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBy Him that raised me to this careful height\nFrom that contented hap which I enjoy'd,\nI never did incense his majesty\nAgainst the Duke of Clarence, but have been\nAn earnest advocate to plead for him.\nMy lord, you do me shameful injury,\nFalsely to draw me in these vile suspects.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYou may deny that you were not the cause\nOf my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.\n\nRIVERS:\nShe may, my lord, for--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nShe may, Lord Rivers! why, who knows not so?\nShe may do more, sir, than denying that:\nShe may help you to many fair preferments,\nAnd then deny her aiding hand therein,\nAnd lay those honours on your high deserts.\nWhat may she not? She may, yea, marry, may she--\n\nRIVERS:\nWhat, marry, may she?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, marry, may she! marry with a king,\nA bachelor, a handsome stripling too:\nI wis your grandam had a worser match.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy Lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne\nYour blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs:\nBy heaven, I will acquaint his majesty\nWith those gross taunts I often have endured.\nI had rather be a country servant-maid\nThan a great queen, with this condition,\nTo be thus taunted, scorn'd, and baited at:\nSmall joy have I in being England's queen.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech thee!\nThy honour, state and seat is due to me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat! threat you me with telling of the king?\nTell him, and spare not: look, what I have said\nI will avouch in presence of the king:\nI dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.\n'Tis time to speak; my pains are quite forgot.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nOut, devil! I remember them too well:\nThou slewest my husband Henry in the Tower,\nAnd Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nEre you were queen, yea, or your husband king,\nI was a pack-horse in his great affairs;\nA weeder-out of his proud adversaries,\nA liberal rewarder of his friends:\nTo royalize his blood I spilt mine own.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nYea, and much better blood than his or thine.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIn all which time you and your husband Grey\nWere factious for the house of Lancaster;\nAnd, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband\nIn Margaret's battle at Saint Alban's slain?\nLet me put in your minds, if you forget,\nWhat you have been ere now, and what you are;\nWithal, what I have been, and what I am.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nA murderous villain, and so still thou art.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nPoor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick;\nYea, and forswore himself,--which Jesu pardon!--\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhich God revenge!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTo fight on Edward's party for the crown;\nAnd for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up.\nI would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's;\nOr Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine\nI am too childish-foolish for this world.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world,\nThou cacodemon! there thy kingdom is.\n\nRIVERS:\nMy Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days\nWhich here you urge to prove us enemies,\nWe follow'd then our lord, our lawful king:\nSo should we you, if you should be our king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIf I should be! I had rather be a pedlar:\nFar be it from my heart, the thought of it!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAs little joy, my lord, as you suppose\nYou should enjoy, were you this country's king,\nAs little joy may you suppose in me.\nThat I enjoy, being the queen thereof.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nA little joy enjoys the queen thereof;\nFor I am she, and altogether joyless.\nI can no longer hold me patient.\nHear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out\nIn sharing that which you have pill'd from me!\nWhich of you trembles not that looks on me?\nIf not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects,\nYet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels?\nO gentle villain, do not turn away!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nFoul wrinkled witch, what makest thou in my sight?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBut repetition of what thou hast marr'd;\nThat will I make before I let thee go.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWert thou not banished on pain of death?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI was; but I do find more pain in banishment\nThan death can yield me here by my abode.\nA husband and a son thou owest to me;\nAnd thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance:\nThe sorrow that I have, by right is yours,\nAnd all the pleasures you usurp are mine.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe curse my noble father laid on thee,\nWhen thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper\nAnd with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,\nAnd then, to dry them, gavest the duke a clout\nSteep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland--\nHis curses, then from bitterness of soul\nDenounced against thee, are all fall'n upon thee;\nAnd God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSo just is God, to right the innocent.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,\nAnd the most merciless that e'er was heard of!\n\nRIVERS:\nTyrants themselves wept when it was reported.\n\nDORSET:\nNo man but prophesied revenge for it.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNorthumberland, then present, wept to see it.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhat were you snarling all before I came,\nReady to catch each other by the throat,\nAnd turn you all your hatred now on me?\nDid York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven?\nThat Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,\nTheir kingdom's loss, my woful banishment,\nCould all but answer for that peevish brat?\nCan curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?\nWhy, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!\nIf not by war, by surfeit die your king,\nAs ours by murder, to make him a king!\nEdward thy son, which now is Prince of Wales,\nFor Edward my son, which was Prince of Wales,\nDie in his youth by like untimely violence!\nThyself a queen, for me that was a queen,\nOutlive thy glory, like my wretched self!\nLong mayst thou live to wail thy children's loss;\nAnd see another, as I see thee now,\nDeck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!\nLong die thy happy days before thy death;\nAnd, after many lengthen'd hours of grief,\nDie neither mother, wife, nor England's queen!\nRivers and Dorset, you were standers by,\nAnd so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son\nWas stabb'd with bloody daggers: God, I pray him,\nThat none of you may live your natural age,\nBut by some unlook'd accident cut off!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHave done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd leave out thee? stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.\nIf heaven have any grievous plague in store\nExceeding those that I can wish upon thee,\nO, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,\nAnd then hurl down their indignation\nOn thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!\nThe worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!\nThy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest,\nAnd take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!\nNo sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,\nUnless it be whilst some tormenting dream\nAffrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!\nThou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!\nThou that wast seal'd in thy nativity\nThe slave of nature and the son of hell!\nThou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!\nThou loathed issue of thy father's loins!\nThou rag of honour! thou detested--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMargaret.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nRichard!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHa!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI call thee not.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI cry thee mercy then, for I had thought\nThat thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhy, so I did; but look'd for no reply.\nO, let me make the period to my curse!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n'Tis done by me, and ends in 'Margaret.'\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThus have you breathed your curse against yourself.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPoor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!\nWhy strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider,\nWhose deadly web ensnareth thee about?\nFool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.\nThe time will come when thou shalt wish for me\nTo help thee curse that poisonous bunchback'd toad.\n\nHASTINGS:\nFalse-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,\nLest to thy harm thou move our patience.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nFoul shame upon you! you have all moved mine.\n\nRIVERS:\nWere you well served, you would be taught your duty.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nTo serve me well, you all should do me duty,\nTeach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:\nO, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!\n\nDORSET:\nDispute not with her; she is lunatic.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPeace, master marquess, you are malapert:\nYour fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.\nO, that your young nobility could judge\nWhat 'twere to lose it, and be miserable!\nThey that stand high have many blasts to shake them;\nAnd if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGood counsel, marry: learn it, learn it, marquess.\n\nDORSET:\nIt toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYea, and much more: but I was born so high,\nOur aery buildeth in the cedar's top,\nAnd dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd turns the sun to shade; alas! alas!\nWitness my son, now in the shade of death;\nWhose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath\nHath in eternal darkness folded up.\nYour aery buildeth in our aery's nest.\nO God, that seest it, do not suffer it!\nAs it was won with blood, lost be it so!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHave done! for shame, if not for charity.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nUrge neither charity nor shame to me:\nUncharitably with me have you dealt,\nAnd shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.\nMy charity is outrage, life my shame\nAnd in that shame still live my sorrow's rage.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHave done, have done.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO princely Buckingham I'll kiss thy hand,\nIn sign of league and amity with thee:\nNow fair befal thee and thy noble house!\nThy garments are not spotted with our blood,\nNor thou within the compass of my curse.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNor no one here; for curses never pass\nThe lips of those that breathe them in the air.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI'll not believe but they ascend the sky,\nAnd there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.\nO Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!\nLook, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,\nHis venom tooth will rankle to the death:\nHave not to do with him, beware of him;\nSin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,\nAnd all their ministers attend on him.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNothing that I respect, my gracious lord.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhat, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel?\nAnd soothe the devil that I warn thee from?\nO, but remember this another day,\nWhen he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,\nAnd say poor Margaret was a prophetess!\nLive each of you the subjects to his hate,\nAnd he to yours, and all of you to God's!\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.\n\nRIVERS:\nAnd so doth mine: I muse why she's at liberty.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI cannot blame her: by God's holy mother,\nShe hath had too much wrong; and I repent\nMy part thereof that I have done to her.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI never did her any, to my knowledge.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut you have all the vantage of her wrong.\nI was too hot to do somebody good,\nThat is too cold in thinking of it now.\nMarry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid,\nHe is frank'd up to fatting for his pains\nGod pardon them that are the cause of it!\n\nRIVERS:\nA virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,\nTo pray for them that have done scathe to us.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSo do I ever:\nbeing well-advised.\nFor had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.\n\nCATESBY:\nMadam, his majesty doth call for you,\nAnd for your grace; and you, my noble lords.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCatesby, we come. Lords, will you go with us?\n\nRIVERS:\nMadam, we will attend your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.\nThe secret mischiefs that I set abroach\nI lay unto the grievous charge of others.\nClarence, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,\nI do beweep to many simple gulls\nNamely, to Hastings, Derby, Buckingham;\nAnd say it is the queen and her allies\nThat stir the king against the duke my brother.\nNow, they believe it; and withal whet me\nTo be revenged on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey:\nBut then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,\nTell them that God bids us do good for evil:\nAnd thus I clothe my naked villany\nWith old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;\nAnd seem a saint, when most I play the devil.\nBut, soft! here come my executioners.\nHow now, my hardy, stout resolved mates!\nAre you now going to dispatch this deed?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWe are, my lord; and come to have the warrant\nThat we may be admitted where he is.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWell thought upon; I have it here about me.\nWhen you have done, repair to Crosby Place.\nBut, sirs, be sudden in the execution,\nWithal obdurate, do not hear him plead;\nFor Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps\nMay move your hearts to pity if you mark him.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTush!\nFear not, my lord, we will not stand to prate;\nTalkers are no good doers: be assured\nWe come to use our hands and not our tongues.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour eyes drop millstones, when fools' eyes drop tears:\nI like you, lads; about your business straight;\nGo, go, dispatch.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWe will, my noble lord.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWhy looks your grace so heavily today?\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, I have pass'd a miserable night,\nSo full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,\nThat, as I am a Christian faithful man,\nI would not spend another such a night,\nThough 'twere to buy a world of happy days,\nSo full of dismal terror was the time!\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWhat was your dream? I long to hear you tell it.\n\nCLARENCE:\nMethoughts that I had broken from the Tower,\nAnd was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;\nAnd, in my company, my brother Gloucester;\nWho from my cabin tempted me to walk\nUpon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,\nAnd cited up a thousand fearful times,\nDuring the wars of York and Lancaster\nThat had befall'n us. As we paced along\nUpon the giddy footing of the hatches,\nMethought that Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling,\nStruck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,\nInto the tumbling billows of the main.\nLord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!\nWhat dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!\nWhat ugly sights of death within mine eyes!\nMethought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;\nTen thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;\nWedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,\nInestimable stones, unvalued jewels,\nAll scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:\nSome lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes\nWhere eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,\nAs 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,\nWhich woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,\nAnd mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nHad you such leisure in the time of death\nTo gaze upon the secrets of the deep?\n\nCLARENCE:\nMethought I had; and often did I strive\nTo yield the ghost: but still the envious flood\nKept in my soul, and would not let it forth\nTo seek the empty, vast and wandering air;\nBut smother'd it within my panting bulk,\nWhich almost burst to belch it in the sea.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nAwaked you not with this sore agony?\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;\nO, then began the tempest to my soul,\nWho pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,\nWith that grim ferryman which poets write of,\nUnto the kingdom of perpetual night.\nThe first that there did greet my stranger soul,\nWas my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;\nWho cried aloud, 'What scourge for perjury\nCan this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'\nAnd so he vanish'd: then came wandering by\nA shadow like an angel, with bright hair\nDabbled in blood; and he squeak'd out aloud,\n'Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,\nThat stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;\nSeize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!'\nWith that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends\nEnviron'd me about, and howled in mine ears\nSuch hideous cries, that with the very noise\nI trembling waked, and for a season after\nCould not believe but that I was in hell,\nSuch terrible impression made the dream.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nNo marvel, my lord, though it affrighted you;\nI promise, I am afraid to hear you tell it.\n\nCLARENCE:\nO Brakenbury, I have done those things,\nWhich now bear evidence against my soul,\nFor Edward's sake; and see how he requites me!\nO God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,\nBut thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,\nYet execute thy wrath in me alone,\nO, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!\nI pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;\nMy soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI will, my lord: God give your grace good rest!\nSorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,\nMakes the night morning, and the noon-tide night.\nPrinces have but their tides for their glories,\nAn outward honour for an inward toil;\nAnd, for unfelt imagination,\nThey often feel a world of restless cares:\nSo that, betwixt their tides and low names,\nThere's nothing differs but the outward fame.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHo! who's here?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nIn God's name what are you, and how came you hither?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nI would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nYea, are you so brief?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nO sir, it is better to be brief than tedious. Show\nhim our commission; talk no more.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI am, in this, commanded to deliver\nThe noble Duke of Clarence to your hands:\nI will not reason what is meant hereby,\nBecause I will be guiltless of the meaning.\nHere are the keys, there sits the duke asleep:\nI'll to the king; and signify to him\nThat thus I have resign'd my charge to you.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nDo so, it is a point of wisdom: fare you well.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhat, shall we stab him as he sleeps?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nNo; then he will say 'twas done cowardly, when he wakes.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhen he wakes! why, fool, he shall never wake till\nthe judgment-day.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhy, then he will say we stabbed him sleeping.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nThe urging of that word 'judgment' hath bred a kind\nof remorse in me.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhat, art thou afraid?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNot to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be\ndamned for killing him, from which no warrant can defend us.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nI thought thou hadst been resolute.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nSo I am, to let him live.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nBack to the Duke of Gloucester, tell him so.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nI pray thee, stay a while: I hope my holy humour\nwill change; 'twas wont to hold me but while one\nwould tell twenty.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow dost thou feel thyself now?\n\nSecond Murderer:\n'Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet\nwithin me.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nRemember our reward, when the deed is done.\n\nSecond Murderer:\n'Zounds, he dies: I had forgot the reward.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhere is thy conscience now?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nIn the Duke of Gloucester's purse.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nSo when he opens his purse to give us our reward,\nthy conscience flies out.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nLet it go; there's few or none will entertain it.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow if it come to thee again?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nI'll not meddle with it: it is a dangerous thing: it\nmakes a man a coward: a man cannot steal, but it\naccuseth him; he cannot swear, but it cheques him;\nhe cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it\ndetects him: 'tis a blushing shamefast spirit that\nmutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of\nobstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold\nthat I found; it beggars any man that keeps it: it\nis turned out of all towns and cities for a\ndangerous thing; and every man that means to live\nwell endeavours to trust to himself and to live\nwithout it.\n\nFirst Murderer:\n'Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me\nnot to kill the duke.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nTake the devil in thy mind, and relieve him not: he\nwould insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTut, I am strong-framed, he cannot prevail with me,\nI warrant thee.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nSpoke like a tail fellow that respects his\nreputation. Come, shall we to this gear?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTake him over the costard with the hilts of thy\nsword, and then we will chop him in the malmsey-butt\nin the next room.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nO excellent devise! make a sop of him.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHark! he stirs: shall I strike?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNo, first let's reason with him.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhere art thou, keeper? give me a cup of wine.\n\nSecond murderer:\nYou shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIn God's name, what art thou?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nA man, as you are.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBut not, as I am, royal.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNor you, as we are, loyal.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nMy voice is now the king's, my looks mine own.\n\nCLARENCE:\nHow darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!\nYour eyes do menace me: why look you pale?\nWho sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?\n\nBoth:\nTo, to, to--\n\nCLARENCE:\nTo murder me?\n\nBoth:\nAy, ay.\n\nCLARENCE:\nYou scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,\nAnd therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.\nWherein, my friends, have I offended you?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nOffended us you have not, but the king.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI shall be reconciled to him again.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNever, my lord; therefore prepare to die.\n\nCLARENCE:\nAre you call'd forth from out a world of men\nTo slay the innocent? What is my offence?\nWhere are the evidence that do accuse me?\nWhat lawful quest have given their verdict up\nUnto the frowning judge? or who pronounced\nThe bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?\nBefore I be convict by course of law,\nTo threaten me with death is most unlawful.\nI charge you, as you hope to have redemption\nBy Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,\nThat you depart and lay no hands on me\nThe deed you undertake is damnable.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhat we will do, we do upon command.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nAnd he that hath commanded is the king.\n\nCLARENCE:\nErroneous vassal! the great King of kings\nHath in the tables of his law commanded\nThat thou shalt do no murder: and wilt thou, then,\nSpurn at his edict and fulfil a man's?\nTake heed; for he holds vengeance in his hands,\nTo hurl upon their heads that break his law.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nAnd that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee,\nFor false forswearing and for murder too:\nThou didst receive the holy sacrament,\nTo fight in quarrel of the house of Lancaster.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nAnd, like a traitor to the name of God,\nDidst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade\nUnrip'dst the bowels of thy sovereign's son.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhom thou wert sworn to cherish and defend.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow canst thou urge God's dreadful law to us,\nWhen thou hast broke it in so dear degree?\n\nCLARENCE:\nAlas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?\nFor Edward, for my brother, for his sake: Why, sirs,\nHe sends ye not to murder me for this\nFor in this sin he is as deep as I.\nIf God will be revenged for this deed.\nO, know you yet, he doth it publicly,\nTake not the quarrel from his powerful arm;\nHe needs no indirect nor lawless course\nTo cut off those that have offended him.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWho made thee, then, a bloody minister,\nWhen gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,\nThat princely novice, was struck dead by thee?\n\nCLARENCE:\nMy brother's love, the devil, and my rage.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nThy brother's love, our duty, and thy fault,\nProvoke us hither now to slaughter thee.\n\nCLARENCE:\nOh, if you love my brother, hate not me;\nI am his brother, and I love him well.\nIf you be hired for meed, go back again,\nAnd I will send you to my brother Gloucester,\nWho shall reward you better for my life\nThan Edward will for tidings of my death.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nYou are deceived, your brother Gloucester hates you.\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear:\nGo you to him from me.\n\nBoth:\nAy, so we will.\n\nCLARENCE:\nTell him, when that our princely father York\nBless'd his three sons with his victorious arm,\nAnd charged us from his soul to love each other,\nHe little thought of this divided friendship:\nBid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nAy, millstones; as be lesson'd us to weep.\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, do not slander him, for he is kind.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nRight,\nAs snow in harvest. Thou deceivest thyself:\n'Tis he that sent us hither now to slaughter thee.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIt cannot be; for when I parted with him,\nHe hugg'd me in his arms, and swore, with sobs,\nThat he would labour my delivery.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhy, so he doth, now he delivers thee\nFrom this world's thraldom to the joys of heaven.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nMake peace with God, for you must die, my lord.\n\nCLARENCE:\nHast thou that holy feeling in thy soul,\nTo counsel me to make my peace with God,\nAnd art thou yet to thy own soul so blind,\nThat thou wilt war with God by murdering me?\nAh, sirs, consider, he that set you on\nTo do this deed will hate you for the deed.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhat shall we do?\n\nCLARENCE:\nRelent, and save your souls.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nRelent! 'tis cowardly and womanish.\n\nCLARENCE:\nNot to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.\nWhich of you, if you were a prince's son,\nBeing pent from liberty, as I am now,\nif two such murderers as yourselves came to you,\nWould not entreat for life?\nMy friend, I spy some pity in thy looks:\nO, if thine eye be not a flatterer,\nCome thou on my side, and entreat for me,\nAs you would beg, were you in my distress\nA begging prince what beggar pities not?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nLook behind you, my lord.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTake that, and that: if all this will not do,\nI'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nA bloody deed, and desperately dispatch'd!\nHow fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands\nOf this most grievous guilty murder done!\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow now! what mean'st thou, that thou help'st me not?\nBy heavens, the duke shall know how slack thou art!\n\nSecond Murderer:\nI would he knew that I had saved his brother!\nTake thou the fee, and tell him what I say;\nFor I repent me that the duke is slain.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nSo do not I: go, coward as thou art.\nNow must I hide his body in some hole,\nUntil the duke take order for his burial:\nAnd when I have my meed, I must away;\nFor this will out, and here I must not stay.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, so: now have I done a good day's work:\nYou peers, continue this united league:\nI every day expect an embassage\nFrom my Redeemer to redeem me hence;\nAnd now in peace my soul shall part to heaven,\nSince I have set my friends at peace on earth.\nRivers and Hastings, take each other's hand;\nDissemble not your hatred, swear your love.\n\nRIVERS:\nBy heaven, my heart is purged from grudging hate:\nAnd with my hand I seal my true heart's love.\n\nHASTINGS:\nSo thrive I, as I truly swear the like!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTake heed you dally not before your king;\nLest he that is the supreme King of kings\nConfound your hidden falsehood, and award\nEither of you to be the other's end.\n\nHASTINGS:\nSo prosper I, as I swear perfect love!\n\nRIVERS:\nAnd I, as I love Hastings with my heart!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nMadam, yourself are not exempt in this,\nNor your son Dorset, Buckingham, nor you;\nYou have been factious one against the other,\nWife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;\nAnd what you do, do it unfeignedly.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHere, Hastings; I will never more remember\nOur former hatred, so thrive I and mine!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nDorset, embrace him; Hastings, love lord marquess.\n\nDORSET:\nThis interchange of love, I here protest,\nUpon my part shall be unviolable.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd so swear I, my lord\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league\nWith thy embracements to my wife's allies,\nAnd make me happy in your unity.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhenever Buckingham doth turn his hate\nOn you or yours,\nbut with all duteous love\nDoth cherish you and yours, God punish me\nWith hate in those where I expect most love!\nWhen I have most need to employ a friend,\nAnd most assured that he is a friend\nDeep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,\nBe he unto me! this do I beg of God,\nWhen I am cold in zeal to yours.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nA pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,\nis this thy vow unto my sickly heart.\nThere wanteth now our brother Gloucester here,\nTo make the perfect period of this peace.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAnd, in good time, here comes the noble duke.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGood morrow to my sovereign king and queen:\nAnd, princely peers, a happy time of day!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHappy, indeed, as we have spent the day.\nBrother, we done deeds of charity;\nMade peace enmity, fair love of hate,\nBetween these swelling wrong-incensed peers.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA blessed labour, my most sovereign liege:\nAmongst this princely heap, if any here,\nBy false intelligence, or wrong surmise,\nHold me a foe;\nIf I unwittingly, or in my rage,\nHave aught committed that is hardly borne\nBy any in this presence, I desire\nTo reconcile me to his friendly peace:\n'Tis death to me to be at enmity;\nI hate it, and desire all good men's love.\nFirst, madam, I entreat true peace of you,\nWhich I will purchase with my duteous service;\nOf you, my noble cousin Buckingham,\nIf ever any grudge were lodged between us;\nOf you, Lord Rivers, and, Lord Grey, of you;\nThat without desert have frown'd on me;\nDukes, earls, lords, gentlemen; indeed, of all.\nI do not know that Englishman alive\nWith whom my soul is any jot at odds\nMore than the infant that is born to-night\nI thank my God for my humility.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nA holy day shall this be kept hereafter:\nI would to God all strifes were well compounded.\nMy sovereign liege, I do beseech your majesty\nTo take our brother Clarence to your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, madam, have I offer'd love for this\nTo be so bouted in this royal presence?\nWho knows not that the noble duke is dead?\nYou do him injury to scorn his corse.\n\nRIVERS:\nWho knows not he is dead! who knows he is?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAll seeing heaven, what a world is this!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nLook I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?\n\nDORSET:\nAy, my good lord; and no one in this presence\nBut his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIs Clarence dead? the order was reversed.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut he, poor soul, by your first order died,\nAnd that a winged Mercury did bear:\nSome tardy cripple bore the countermand,\nThat came too lag to see him buried.\nGod grant that some, less noble and less loyal,\nNearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,\nDeserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,\nAnd yet go current from suspicion!\n\nDORSET:\nA boon, my sovereign, for my service done!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nI pray thee, peace: my soul is full of sorrow.\n\nDORSET:\nI will not rise, unless your highness grant.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThen speak at once what is it thou demand'st.\n\nDORSET:\nThe forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;\nWho slew to-day a righteous gentleman\nLately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHave a tongue to doom my brother's death,\nAnd shall the same give pardon to a slave?\nMy brother slew no man; his fault was thought,\nAnd yet his punishment was cruel death.\nWho sued to me for him? who, in my rage,\nKneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advised\nWho spake of brotherhood? who spake of love?\nWho told me how the poor soul did forsake\nThe mighty Warwick, and did fight for me?\nWho told me, in the field by Tewksbury\nWhen Oxford had me down, he rescued me,\nAnd said, 'Dear brother, live, and be a king'?\nWho told me, when we both lay in the field\nFrozen almost to death, how he did lap me\nEven in his own garments, and gave himself,\nAll thin and naked, to the numb cold night?\nAll this from my remembrance brutish wrath\nSinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you\nHad so much grace to put it in my mind.\nBut when your carters or your waiting-vassals\nHave done a drunken slaughter, and defaced\nThe precious image of our dear Redeemer,\nYou straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;\nAnd I unjustly too, must grant it you\nBut for my brother not a man would speak,\nNor I, ungracious, speak unto myself\nFor him, poor soul. The proudest of you all\nHave been beholding to him in his life;\nYet none of you would once plead for his life.\nO God, I fear thy justice will take hold\nOn me, and you, and mine, and yours for this!\nCome, Hastings, help me to my closet.\nOh, poor Clarence!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThis is the fruit of rashness! Mark'd you not\nHow that the guilty kindred of the queen\nLook'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?\nO, they did urge it still unto the king!\nGod will revenge it. But come, let us in,\nTo comfort Edward with our company.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWe wait upon your grace.\n\nBoy:\nTell me, good grandam, is our father dead?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNo, boy.\n\nBoy:\nWhy do you wring your hands, and beat your breast,\nAnd cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'\n\nGirl:\nWhy do you look on us, and shake your head,\nAnd call us wretches, orphans, castaways\nIf that our noble father be alive?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nMy pretty cousins, you mistake me much;\nI do lament the sickness of the king.\nAs loath to lose him, not your father's death;\nIt were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.\n\nBoy:\nThen, grandam, you conclude that he is dead.\nThe king my uncle is to blame for this:\nGod will revenge it; whom I will importune\nWith daily prayers all to that effect.\n\nGirl:\nAnd so will I.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nPeace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:\nIncapable and shallow innocents,\nYou cannot guess who caused your father's death.\n\nBoy:\nGrandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester\nTold me, the king, provoked by the queen,\nDevised impeachments to imprison him :\nAnd when my uncle told me so, he wept,\nAnd hugg'd me in his arm, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;\nBade me rely on him as on my father,\nAnd he would love me dearly as his child.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nOh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,\nAnd with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!\nHe is my son; yea, and therein my shame;\nYet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.\n\nBoy:\nThink you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAy, boy.\n\nBoy:\nI cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nOh, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,\nTo chide my fortune, and torment myself?\nI'll join with black despair against my soul,\nAnd to myself become an enemy.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat means this scene of rude impatience?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTo make an act of tragic violence:\nEdward, my lord, your son, our king, is dead.\nWhy grow the branches now the root is wither'd?\nWhy wither not the leaves the sap being gone?\nIf you will live, lament; if die, be brief,\nThat our swift-winged souls may catch the king's;\nOr, like obedient subjects, follow him\nTo his new kingdom of perpetual rest.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAh, so much interest have I in thy sorrow\nAs I had title in thy noble husband!\nI have bewept a worthy husband's death,\nAnd lived by looking on his images:\nBut now two mirrors of his princely semblance\nAre crack'd in pieces by malignant death,\nAnd I for comfort have but one false glass,\nWhich grieves me when I see my shame in him.\nThou art a widow; yet thou art a mother,\nAnd hast the comfort of thy children left thee:\nBut death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms,\nAnd pluck'd two crutches from my feeble limbs,\nEdward and Clarence. O, what cause have I,\nThine being but a moiety of my grief,\nTo overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries!\n\nBoy:\nGood aunt, you wept not for our father's death;\nHow can we aid you with our kindred tears?\n\nGirl:\nOur fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;\nYour widow-dolour likewise be unwept!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGive me no help in lamentation;\nI am not barren to bring forth complaints\nAll springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,\nThat I, being govern'd by the watery moon,\nMay send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!\nOh for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!\n\nChildren:\nOh for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAlas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat stay had I but Edward? and he's gone.\n\nChildren:\nWhat stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat stays had I but they? and they are gone.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWas never widow had so dear a loss!\n\nChildren:\nWere never orphans had so dear a loss!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWas never mother had so dear a loss!\nAlas, I am the mother of these moans!\nTheir woes are parcell'd, mine are general.\nShe for an Edward weeps, and so do I;\nI for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:\nThese babes for Clarence weep and so do I;\nI for an Edward weep, so do not they:\nAlas, you three, on me, threefold distress'd,\nPour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,\nAnd I will pamper it with lamentations.\n\nDORSET:\nComfort, dear mother: God is much displeased\nThat you take with unthankfulness, his doing:\nIn common worldly things, 'tis call'd ungrateful,\nWith dull unwilligness to repay a debt\nWhich with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;\nMuch more to be thus opposite with heaven,\nFor it requires the royal debt it lent you.\n\nRIVERS:\nMadam, bethink you, like a careful mother,\nOf the young prince your son: send straight for him\nLet him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives:\nDrown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,\nAnd plant your joys in living Edward's throne.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMadam, have comfort: all of us have cause\nTo wail the dimming of our shining star;\nBut none can cure their harms by wailing them.\nMadam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;\nI did not see your grace: humbly on my knee\nI crave your blessing.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nGod bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind,\nLove, charity, obedience, and true duty!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYou cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,\nThat bear this mutual heavy load of moan,\nNow cheer each other in each other's love\nThough we have spent our harvest of this king,\nWe are to reap the harvest of his son.\nThe broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts,\nBut lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,\nMust gently be preserved, cherish'd, and kept:\nMe seemeth good, that, with some little train,\nForthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch'd\nHither to London, to be crown'd our king.\n\nRIVERS:\nWhy with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMarry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,\nThe new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,\nWhich would be so much the more dangerous\nBy how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd:\nWhere every horse bears his commanding rein,\nAnd may direct his course as please himself,\nAs well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,\nIn my opinion, ought to be prevented.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI hope the king made peace with all of us\nAnd the compact is firm and true in me.\n\nRIVERS:\nAnd so in me; and so, I think, in all:\nYet, since it is but green, it should be put\nTo no apparent likelihood of breach,\nWhich haply by much company might be urged:\nTherefore I say with noble Buckingham,\nThat it is meet so few should fetch the prince.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd so say I.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen be it so; and go we to determine\nWho they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.\nMadam, and you, my mother, will you go\nTo give your censures in this weighty business?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWith all our harts.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,\nFor God's sake, let not us two be behind;\nFor, by the way, I'll sort occasion,\nAs index to the story we late talk'd of,\nTo part the queen's proud kindred from the king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy other self, my counsel's consistory,\nMy oracle, my prophet! My dear cousin,\nI, like a child, will go by thy direction.\nTowards Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nNeighbour, well met: whither away so fast?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nI promise you, I scarcely know myself:\nHear you the news abroad?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nAy, that the king is dead.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nBad news, by'r lady; seldom comes the better:\nI fear, I fear 'twill prove a troublous world.\n\nThird Citizen:\nNeighbours, God speed!\n\nFirst Citizen:\nGive you good morrow, sir.\n\nThird Citizen:\nDoth this news hold of good King Edward's death?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAy, sir, it is too true; God help the while!\n\nThird Citizen:\nThen, masters, look to see a troublous world.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nNo, no; by God's good grace his son shall reign.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWoe to the land that's govern'd by a child!\n\nSecond Citizen:\nIn him there is a hope of government,\nThat in his nonage council under him,\nAnd in his full and ripen'd years himself,\nNo doubt, shall then and till then govern well.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nSo stood the state when Henry the Sixth\nWas crown'd in Paris but at nine months old.\n\nThird Citizen:\nStood the state so? No, no, good friends, God wot;\nFor then this land was famously enrich'd\nWith politic grave counsel; then the king\nHad virtuous uncles to protect his grace.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWhy, so hath this, both by the father and mother.\n\nThird Citizen:\nBetter it were they all came by the father,\nOr by the father there were none at all;\nFor emulation now, who shall be nearest,\nWill touch us all too near, if God prevent not.\nO, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!\nAnd the queen's sons and brothers haught and proud:\nAnd were they to be ruled, and not to rule,\nThis sickly land might solace as before.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nCome, come, we fear the worst; all shall be well.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWhen clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks;\nWhen great leaves fall, the winter is at hand;\nWhen the sun sets, who doth not look for night?\nUntimely storms make men expect a dearth.\nAll may be well; but, if God sort it so,\n'Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nTruly, the souls of men are full of dread:\nYe cannot reason almost with a man\nThat looks not heavily and full of fear.\n\nThird Citizen:\nBefore the times of change, still is it so:\nBy a divine instinct men's minds mistrust\nEnsuing dangers; as by proof, we see\nThe waters swell before a boisterous storm.\nBut leave it all to God. whither away?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nMarry, we were sent for to the justices.\n\nThird Citizen:\nAnd so was I: I'll bear you company.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nLast night, I hear, they lay at Northampton;\nAt Stony-Stratford will they be to-night:\nTo-morrow, or next day, they will be here.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI long with all my heart to see the prince:\nI hope he is much grown since last I saw him.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut I hear, no; they say my son of York\nHath almost overta'en him in his growth.\n\nYORK:\nAy, mother; but I would not have it so.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy, my young cousin, it is good to grow.\n\nYORK:\nGrandam, one night, as we did sit at supper,\nMy uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow\nMore than my brother: 'Ay,' quoth my uncle\nGloucester,\n'Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace:'\nAnd since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,\nBecause sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nGood faith, good faith, the saying did not hold\nIn him that did object the same to thee;\nHe was the wretched'st thing when he was young,\nSo long a-growing and so leisurely,\nThat, if this rule were true, he should be gracious.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nWhy, madam, so, no doubt, he is.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.\n\nYORK:\nNow, by my troth, if I had been remember'd,\nI could have given my uncle's grace a flout,\nTo touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHow, my pretty York? I pray thee, let me hear it.\n\nYORK:\nMarry, they say my uncle grew so fast\nThat he could gnaw a crust at two hours old\n'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.\nGrandam, this would have been a biting jest.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI pray thee, pretty York, who told thee this?\n\nYORK:\nGrandam, his nurse.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHis nurse! why, she was dead ere thou wert born.\n\nYORK:\nIf 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nA parlous boy: go to, you are too shrewd.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nGood madam, be not angry with the child.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nPitchers have ears.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nHere comes a messenger. What news?\n\nMessenger:\nSuch news, my lord, as grieves me to unfold.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHow fares the prince?\n\nMessenger:\nWell, madam, and in health.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat is thy news then?\n\nMessenger:\nLord Rivers and Lord Grey are sent to Pomfret,\nWith them Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWho hath committed them?\n\nMessenger:\nThe mighty dukes\nGloucester and Buckingham.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nFor what offence?\n\nMessenger:\nThe sum of all I can, I have disclosed;\nWhy or for what these nobles were committed\nIs all unknown to me, my gracious lady.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAy me, I see the downfall of our house!\nThe tiger now hath seized the gentle hind;\nInsulting tyranny begins to jet\nUpon the innocent and aweless throne:\nWelcome, destruction, death, and massacre!\nI see, as in a map, the end of all.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAccursed and unquiet wrangling days,\nHow many of you have mine eyes beheld!\nMy husband lost his life to get the crown;\nAnd often up and down my sons were toss'd,\nFor me to joy and weep their gain and loss:\nAnd being seated, and domestic broils\nClean over-blown, themselves, the conquerors.\nMake war upon themselves; blood against blood,\nSelf against self: O, preposterous\nAnd frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen;\nOr let me die, to look on death no more!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCome, come, my boy; we will to sanctuary.\nMadam, farewell.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI'll go along with you.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nYou have no cause.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nMy gracious lady, go;\nAnd thither bear your treasure and your goods.\nFor my part, I'll resign unto your grace\nThe seal I keep: and so betide to me\nAs well I tender you and all of yours!\nCome, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWelcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWelcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign\nThe weary way hath made you melancholy.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nNo, uncle; but our crosses on the way\nHave made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy\nI want more uncles here to welcome me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years\nHath not yet dived into the world's deceit\nNor more can you distinguish of a man\nThan of his outward show; which, God he knows,\nSeldom or never jumpeth with the heart.\nThose uncles which you want were dangerous;\nYour grace attended to their sugar'd words,\nBut look'd not on the poison of their hearts :\nGod keep you from them, and from such false friends!\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nGod keep me from false friends! but they were none.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord, the mayor of London comes to greet you.\n\nLord Mayor:\nGod bless your grace with health and happy days!\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI thank you, good my lord; and thank you all.\nI thought my mother, and my brother York,\nWould long ere this have met us on the way\nFie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not\nTo tell us whether they will come or no!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAnd, in good time, here comes the sweating lord.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nWelcome, my lord: what, will our mother come?\n\nHASTINGS:\nOn what occasion, God he knows, not I,\nThe queen your mother, and your brother York,\nHave taken sanctuary: the tender prince\nWould fain have come with me to meet your grace,\nBut by his mother was perforce withheld.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nFie, what an indirect and peevish course\nIs this of hers! Lord cardinal, will your grace\nPersuade the queen to send the Duke of York\nUnto his princely brother presently?\nIf she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him,\nAnd from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.\n\nCARDINAL:\nMy Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory\nCan from his mother win the Duke of York,\nAnon expect him here; but if she be obdurate\nTo mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid\nWe should infringe the holy privilege\nOf blessed sanctuary! not for all this land\nWould I be guilty of so deep a sin.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYou are too senseless--obstinate, my lord,\nToo ceremonious and traditional\nWeigh it but with the grossness of this age,\nYou break not sanctuary in seizing him.\nThe benefit thereof is always granted\nTo those whose dealings have deserved the place,\nAnd those who have the wit to claim the place:\nThis prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserved it;\nAnd therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it:\nThen, taking him from thence that is not there,\nYou break no privilege nor charter there.\nOft have I heard of sanctuary men;\nBut sanctuary children ne'er till now.\n\nCARDINAL:\nMy lord, you shall o'er-rule my mind for once.\nCome on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?\n\nHASTINGS:\nI go, my lord.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nGood lords, make all the speedy haste you may.\nSay, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,\nWhere shall we sojourn till our coronation?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhere it seems best unto your royal self.\nIf I may counsel you, some day or two\nYour highness shall repose you at the Tower:\nThen where you please, and shall be thought most fit\nFor your best health and recreation.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI do not like the Tower, of any place.\nDid Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHe did, my gracious lord, begin that place;\nWhich, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nIs it upon record, or else reported\nSuccessively from age to age, he built it?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nUpon record, my gracious lord.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nBut say, my lord, it were not register'd,\nMethinks the truth should live from age to age,\nAs 'twere retail'd to all posterity,\nEven to the general all-ending day.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nWhat say you, uncle?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI say, without characters, fame lives long.\nThus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,\nI moralize two meanings in one word.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nThat Julius Caesar was a famous man;\nWith what his valour did enrich his wit,\nHis wit set down to make his valour live\nDeath makes no conquest of this conqueror;\nFor now he lives in fame, though not in life.\nI'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham,--\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat, my gracious lord?\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAn if I live until I be a man,\nI'll win our ancient right in France again,\nOr die a soldier, as I lived a king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNow, in good time, here comes the Duke of York.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nRichard of York! how fares our loving brother?\n\nYORK:\nWell, my dread lord; so must I call you now.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAy, brother, to our grief, as it is yours:\nToo late he died that might have kept that title,\nWhich by his death hath lost much majesty.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHow fares our cousin, noble Lord of York?\n\nYORK:\nI thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,\nYou said that idle weeds are fast in growth\nThe prince my brother hath outgrown me far.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe hath, my lord.\n\nYORK:\nAnd therefore is he idle?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nO, my fair cousin, I must not say so.\n\nYORK:\nThen is he more beholding to you than I.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe may command me as my sovereign;\nBut you have power in me as in a kinsman.\n\nYORK:\nI pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy dagger, little cousin? with all my heart.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nA beggar, brother?\n\nYORK:\nOf my kind uncle, that I know will give;\nAnd being but a toy, which is no grief to give.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA greater gift than that I'll give my cousin.\n\nYORK:\nA greater gift! O, that's the sword to it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA gentle cousin, were it light enough.\n\nYORK:\nO, then, I see, you will part but with light gifts;\nIn weightier things you'll say a beggar nay.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIt is too heavy for your grace to wear.\n\nYORK:\nI weigh it lightly, were it heavier.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, would you have my weapon, little lord?\n\nYORK:\nI would, that I might thank you as you call me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHow?\n\nYORK:\nLittle.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMy Lord of York will still be cross in talk:\nUncle, your grace knows how to bear with him.\n\nYORK:\nYou mean, to bear me, not to bear with me:\nUncle, my brother mocks both you and me;\nBecause that I am little, like an ape,\nHe thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWith what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!\nTo mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle,\nHe prettily and aptly taunts himself:\nSo cunning and so young is wonderful.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord, will't please you pass along?\nMyself and my good cousin Buckingham\nWill to your mother, to entreat of her\nTo meet you at the Tower and welcome you.\n\nYORK:\nWhat, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMy lord protector needs will have it so.\n\nYORK:\nI shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, what should you fear?\n\nYORK:\nMarry, my uncle Clarence' angry ghost:\nMy grandam told me he was murdered there.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI fear no uncles dead.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNor none that live, I hope.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAn if they live, I hope I need not fear.\nBut come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,\nThinking on them, go I unto the Tower.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThink you, my lord, this little prating York\nWas not incensed by his subtle mother\nTo taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNo doubt, no doubt; O, 'tis a parlous boy;\nBold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable\nHe is all the mother's, from the top to toe.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWell, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.\nThou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend\nAs closely to conceal what we impart:\nThou know'st our reasons urged upon the way;\nWhat think'st thou? is it not an easy matter\nTo make William Lord Hastings of our mind,\nFor the instalment of this noble duke\nIn the seat royal of this famous isle?\n\nCATESBY:\nHe for his father's sake so loves the prince,\nThat he will not be won to aught against him.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat think'st thou, then, of Stanley? what will he?\n\nCATESBY:\nHe will do all in all as Hastings doth.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWell, then, no more but this: go, gentle Catesby,\nAnd, as it were far off sound thou Lord Hastings,\nHow doth he stand affected to our purpose;\nAnd summon him to-morrow to the Tower,\nTo sit about the coronation.\nIf thou dost find him tractable to us,\nEncourage him, and show him all our reasons:\nIf he be leaden, icy-cold, unwilling,\nBe thou so too; and so break off your talk,\nAnd give us notice of his inclination:\nFor we to-morrow hold divided councils,\nWherein thyself shalt highly be employ'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCommend me to Lord William: tell him, Catesby,\nHis ancient knot of dangerous adversaries\nTo-morrow are let blood at Pomfret-castle;\nAnd bid my friend, for joy of this good news,\nGive mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGood Catesby, go, effect this business soundly.\n\nCATESBY:\nMy good lords both, with all the heed I may.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nShall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?\n\nCATESBY:\nYou shall, my lord.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAt Crosby Place, there shall you find us both.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNow, my lord, what shall we do, if we perceive\nLord Hastings will not yield to our complots?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nChop off his head, man; somewhat we will do:\nAnd, look, when I am king, claim thou of me\nThe earldom of Hereford, and the moveables\nWhereof the king my brother stood possess'd.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI'll claim that promise at your grace's hands.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd look to have it yielded with all willingness.\nCome, let us sup betimes, that afterwards\nWe may digest our complots in some form.\n\nMessenger:\nWhat, ho! my lord!\n\nHASTINGS:\n\nMessenger:\nA messenger from the Lord Stanley.\n\nHASTINGS:\nWhat is't o'clock?\n\nMessenger:\nUpon the stroke of four.\n\nHASTINGS:\nCannot thy master sleep these tedious nights?\n\nMessenger:\nSo it should seem by that I have to say.\nFirst, he commends him to your noble lordship.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd then?\n\nMessenger:\nAnd then he sends you word\nHe dreamt to-night the boar had razed his helm:\nBesides, he says there are two councils held;\nAnd that may be determined at the one\nwhich may make you and him to rue at the other.\nTherefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure,\nIf presently you will take horse with him,\nAnd with all speed post with him toward the north,\nTo shun the danger that his soul divines.\n\nHASTINGS:\nGo, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;\nBid him not fear the separated councils\nHis honour and myself are at the one,\nAnd at the other is my servant Catesby\nWhere nothing can proceed that toucheth us\nWhereof I shall not have intelligence.\nTell him his fears are shallow, wanting instance:\nAnd for his dreams, I wonder he is so fond\nTo trust the mockery of unquiet slumbers\nTo fly the boar before the boar pursues,\nWere to incense the boar to follow us\nAnd make pursuit where he did mean no chase.\nGo, bid thy master rise and come to me\nAnd we will both together to the Tower,\nWhere, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.\n\nMessenger:\nMy gracious lord, I'll tell him what you say.\n\nCATESBY:\nMany good morrows to my noble lord!\n\nHASTINGS:\nGood morrow, Catesby; you are early stirring\nWhat news, what news, in this our tottering state?\n\nCATESBY:\nIt is a reeling world, indeed, my lord;\nAnd I believe twill never stand upright\nTim Richard wear the garland of the realm.\n\nHASTINGS:\nHow! wear the garland! dost thou mean the crown?\n\nCATESBY:\nAy, my good lord.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI'll have this crown of mine cut from my shoulders\nEre I will see the crown so foul misplaced.\nBut canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?\n\nCATESBY:\nAy, on my life; and hopes to find forward\nUpon his party for the gain thereof:\nAnd thereupon he sends you this good news,\nThat this same very day your enemies,\nThe kindred of the queen, must die at Pomfret.\n\nHASTINGS:\nIndeed, I am no mourner for that news,\nBecause they have been still mine enemies:\nBut, that I'll give my voice on Richard's side,\nTo bar my master's heirs in true descent,\nGod knows I will not do it, to the death.\n\nCATESBY:\nGod keep your lordship in that gracious mind!\n\nHASTINGS:\nBut I shall laugh at this a twelve-month hence,\nThat they who brought me in my master's hate\nI live to look upon their tragedy.\nI tell thee, Catesby--\n\nCATESBY:\nWhat, my lord?\n\nHASTINGS:\nEre a fortnight make me elder,\nI'll send some packing that yet think not on it.\n\nCATESBY:\n'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,\nWhen men are unprepared and look not for it.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO monstrous, monstrous! and so falls it out\nWith Rivers, Vaughan, Grey: and so 'twill do\nWith some men else, who think themselves as safe\nAs thou and I; who, as thou know'st, are dear\nTo princely Richard and to Buckingham.\n\nCATESBY:\nThe princes both make high account of you;\nFor they account his head upon the bridge.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI know they do; and I have well deserved it.\nCome on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?\nFear you the boar, and go so unprovided?\n\nSTANLEY:\nMy lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby:\nYou may jest on, but, by the holy rood,\nI do not like these several councils, I.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy lord,\nI hold my life as dear as you do yours;\nAnd never in my life, I do protest,\nWas it more precious to me than 'tis now:\nThink you, but that I know our state secure,\nI would be so triumphant as I am?\n\nSTANLEY:\nThe lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London,\nWere jocund, and supposed their state was sure,\nAnd they indeed had no cause to mistrust;\nBut yet, you see how soon the day o'ercast.\nThis sudden stag of rancour I misdoubt:\nPray God, I say, I prove a needless coward!\nWhat, shall we toward the Tower? the day is spent.\n\nHASTINGS:\nCome, come, have with you. Wot you what, my lord?\nTo-day the lords you talk of are beheaded.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nThey, for their truth, might better wear their heads\nThan some that have accused them wear their hats.\nBut come, my lord, let us away.\n\nHASTINGS:\nGo on before; I'll talk with this good fellow.\nHow now, sirrah! how goes the world with thee?\n\nPursuivant:\nThe better that your lordship please to ask.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now\nThan when I met thee last where now we meet:\nThen was I going prisoner to the Tower,\nBy the suggestion of the queen's allies;\nBut now, I tell thee--keep it to thyself--\nThis day those enemies are put to death,\nAnd I in better state than e'er I was.\n\nPursuivant:\nGod hold it, to your honour's good content!\n\nHASTINGS:\nGramercy, fellow: there, drink that for me.\n\nPursuivant:\nGod save your lordship!\n\nPriest:\nWell met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.\nI am in your debt for your last exercise;\nCome the next Sabbath, and I will content you.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat, talking with a priest, lord chamberlain?\nYour friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest;\nYour honour hath no shriving work in hand.\n\nHASTINGS:\nGood faith, and when I met this holy man,\nThose men you talk of came into my mind.\nWhat, go you toward the Tower?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI do, my lord; but long I shall not stay\nI shall return before your lordship thence.\n\nHASTINGS:\n'Tis like enough, for I stay dinner there.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\n\nHASTINGS:\nI'll wait upon your lordship.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nCome, bring forth the prisoners.\n\nRIVERS:\nSir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:\nTo-day shalt thou behold a subject die\nFor truth, for duty, and for loyalty.\n\nGREY:\nGod keep the prince from all the pack of you!\nA knot you are of damned blood-suckers!\n\nVAUGHAN:\nYou live that shall cry woe for this after.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nDispatch; the limit of your lives is out.\n\nRIVERS:\nO Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,\nFatal and ominous to noble peers!\nWithin the guilty closure of thy walls\nRichard the second here was hack'd to death;\nAnd, for more slander to thy dismal seat,\nWe give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.\n\nGREY:\nNow Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,\nFor standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.\n\nRIVERS:\nThen cursed she Hastings, then cursed she Buckingham,\nThen cursed she Richard. O, remember, God\nTo hear her prayers for them, as now for us\nAnd for my sister and her princely sons,\nBe satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,\nWhich, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMake haste; the hour of death is expiate.\n\nRIVERS:\nCome, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us all embrace:\nAnd take our leave, until we meet in heaven.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy lords, at once: the cause why we are met\nIs, to determine of the coronation.\nIn God's name, speak: when is the royal day?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAre all things fitting for that royal time?\n\nDERBY:\nIt is, and wants but nomination.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nTo-morrow, then, I judge a happy day.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWho knows the lord protector's mind herein?\nWho is most inward with the royal duke?\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nYour grace, we think, should soonest know his mind.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWho, I, my lord I we know each other's faces,\nBut for our hearts, he knows no more of mine,\nThan I of yours;\nNor I no more of his, than you of mine.\nLord Hastings, you and he are near in love.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI thank his grace, I know he loves me well;\nBut, for his purpose in the coronation.\nI have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd\nHis gracious pleasure any way therein:\nBut you, my noble lords, may name the time;\nAnd in the duke's behalf I'll give my voice,\nWhich, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nNow in good time, here comes the duke himself.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy noble lords and cousins all, good morrow.\nI have been long a sleeper; but, I hope,\nMy absence doth neglect no great designs,\nWhich by my presence might have been concluded.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHad not you come upon your cue, my lord\nWilliam Lord Hastings had pronounced your part,--\nI mean, your voice,--for crowning of the king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThan my Lord Hastings no man might be bolder;\nHis lordship knows me well, and loves me well.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI thank your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord of Ely!\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nMy lord?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhen I was last in Holborn,\nI saw good strawberries in your garden there\nI do beseech you send for some of them.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nMarry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCousin of Buckingham, a word with you.\nCatesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,\nAnd finds the testy gentleman so hot,\nAs he will lose his head ere give consent\nHis master's son, as worshipful as he terms it,\nShall lose the royalty of England's throne.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWithdraw you hence, my lord, I'll follow you.\n\nDERBY:\nWe have not yet set down this day of triumph.\nTo-morrow, in mine opinion, is too sudden;\nFor I myself am not so well provided\nAs else I would be, were the day prolong'd.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nWhere is my lord protector? I have sent for these\nstrawberries.\n\nHASTINGS:\nHis grace looks cheerfully and smooth to-day;\nThere's some conceit or other likes him well,\nWhen he doth bid good morrow with such a spirit.\nI think there's never a man in Christendom\nThat can less hide his love or hate than he;\nFor by his face straight shall you know his heart.\n\nDERBY:\nWhat of his heart perceive you in his face\nBy any likelihood he show'd to-day?\n\nHASTINGS:\nMarry, that with no man here he is offended;\nFor, were he, he had shown it in his looks.\n\nDERBY:\nI pray God he be not, I say.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI pray you all, tell me what they deserve\nThat do conspire my death with devilish plots\nOf damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd\nUpon my body with their hellish charms?\n\nHASTINGS:\nThe tender love I bear your grace, my lord,\nMakes me most forward in this noble presence\nTo doom the offenders, whatsoever they be\nI say, my lord, they have deserved death.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen be your eyes the witness of this ill:\nSee how I am bewitch'd; behold mine arm\nIs, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up:\nAnd this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,\nConsorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,\nThat by their witchcraft thus have marked me.\n\nHASTINGS:\nIf they have done this thing, my gracious lord--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIf I thou protector of this damned strumpet--\nTellest thou me of 'ifs'?  Thou art a traitor:\nOff with his head! Now, by Saint Paul I swear,\nI will not dine until I see the same.\nLovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done:\nThe rest, that love me, rise and follow me.\n\nHASTINGS:\nWoe, woe for England! not a whit for me;\nFor I, too fond, might have prevented this.\nStanley did dream the boar did raze his helm;\nBut I disdain'd it, and did scorn to fly:\nThree times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,\nAnd startled, when he look'd upon the Tower,\nAs loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.\nO, now I want the priest that spake to me:\nI now repent I told the pursuivant\nAs 'twere triumphing at mine enemies,\nHow they at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,\nAnd I myself secure in grace and favour.\nO Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse\nIs lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!\n\nRATCLIFF:\nDispatch, my lord; the duke would be at dinner:\nMake a short shrift; he longs to see your head.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO momentary grace of mortal men,\nWhich we more hunt for than the grace of God!\nWho builds his hopes in air of your good looks,\nLives like a drunken sailor on a mast,\nReady, with every nod, to tumble down\nInto the fatal bowels of the deep.\n\nLOVEL:\nCome, come, dispatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO bloody Richard! miserable England!\nI prophesy the fearful'st time to thee\nThat ever wretched age hath look'd upon.\nCome, lead me to the block; bear him my head.\nThey smile at me that shortly shall be dead.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome, cousin, canst thou quake, and change thy colour,\nMurder thy breath in the middle of a word,\nAnd then begin again, and stop again,\nAs if thou wert distraught and mad with terror?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;\nSpeak and look back, and pry on every side,\nTremble and start at wagging of a straw,\nIntending deep suspicion: ghastly looks\nAre at my service, like enforced smiles;\nAnd both are ready in their offices,\nAt any time, to grace my stratagems.\nBut what, is Catesby gone?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nLord mayor,--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLook to the drawbridge there!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHark! a drum.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCatesby, o'erlook the walls.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nLord mayor, the reason we have sent--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLook back, defend thee, here are enemies.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGod and our innocency defend and guard us!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBe patient, they are friends, Ratcliff and Lovel.\n\nLOVEL:\nHere is the head of that ignoble traitor,\nThe dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSo dear I loved the man, that I must weep.\nI took him for the plainest harmless creature\nThat breathed upon this earth a Christian;\nMade him my book wherein my soul recorded\nThe history of all her secret thoughts:\nSo smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue,\nThat, his apparent open guilt omitted,\nI mean, his conversation with Shore's wife,\nHe lived from all attainder of suspect.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWell, well, he was the covert'st shelter'd traitor\nThat ever lived.\nWould you imagine, or almost believe,\nWere't not that, by great preservation,\nWe live to tell it you, the subtle traitor\nThis day had plotted, in the council-house\nTo murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester?\n\nLord Mayor:\nWhat, had he so?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, think You we are Turks or infidels?\nOr that we would, against the form of law,\nProceed thus rashly to the villain's death,\nBut that the extreme peril of the case,\nThe peace of England and our persons' safety,\nEnforced us to this execution?\n\nLord Mayor:\nNow, fair befall you! he deserved his death;\nAnd you my good lords, both have well proceeded,\nTo warn false traitors from the like attempts.\nI never look'd for better at his hands,\nAfter he once fell in with Mistress Shore.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYet had not we determined he should die,\nUntil your lordship came to see his death;\nWhich now the loving haste of these our friends,\nSomewhat against our meaning, have prevented:\nBecause, my lord, we would have had you heard\nThe traitor speak, and timorously confess\nThe manner and the purpose of his treason;\nThat you might well have signified the same\nUnto the citizens, who haply may\nMisconstrue us in him and wail his death.\n\nLord Mayor:\nBut, my good lord, your grace's word shall serve,\nAs well as I had seen and heard him speak\nAnd doubt you not, right noble princes both,\nBut I'll acquaint our duteous citizens\nWith all your just proceedings in this cause.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd to that end we wish'd your lord-ship here,\nTo avoid the carping censures of the world.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nBut since you come too late of our intents,\nYet witness what you hear we did intend:\nAnd so, my good lord mayor, we bid farewell.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo, after, after, cousin Buckingham.\nThe mayor towards Guildhall hies him in all post:\nThere, at your meet'st advantage of the time,\nInfer the bastardy of Edward's children:\nTell them how Edward put to death a citizen,\nOnly for saying he would make his son\nHeir to the crown; meaning indeed his house,\nWhich, by the sign thereof was termed so.\nMoreover, urge his hateful luxury\nAnd bestial appetite in change of lust;\nWhich stretched to their servants, daughters, wives,\nEven where his lustful eye or savage heart,\nWithout control, listed to make his prey.\nNay, for a need, thus far come near my person:\nTell them, when that my mother went with child\nOf that unsatiate Edward, noble York\nMy princely father then had wars in France\nAnd, by just computation of the time,\nFound that the issue was not his begot;\nWhich well appeared in his lineaments,\nBeing nothing like the noble duke my father:\nBut touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off,\nBecause you know, my lord, my mother lives.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nFear not, my lord, I'll play the orator\nAs if the golden fee for which I plead\nWere for myself: and so, my lord, adieu.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIf you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's Castle;\nWhere you shall find me well accompanied\nWith reverend fathers and well-learned bishops.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI go: and towards three or four o'clock\nLook for the news that the Guildhall affords.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw;\nGo thou to Friar Penker; bid them both\nMeet me within this hour at Baynard's Castle.\nNow will I in, to take some privy order,\nTo draw the brats of Clarence out of sight;\nAnd to give notice, that no manner of person\nAt any time have recourse unto the princes.\n\nScrivener:\nThis is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;\nWhich in a set hand fairly is engross'd,\nThat it may be this day read over in Paul's.\nAnd mark how well the sequel hangs together:\nEleven hours I spent to write it over,\nFor yesternight by Catesby was it brought me;\nThe precedent was full as long a-doing:\nAnd yet within these five hours lived Lord Hastings,\nUntainted, unexamined, free, at liberty\nHere's a good world the while! Why who's so gross,\nThat seeth not this palpable device?\nYet who's so blind, but says he sees it not?\nBad is the world; and all will come to nought,\nWhen such bad dealings must be seen in thought.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHow now, my lord, what say the citizens?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNow, by the holy mother of our Lord,\nThe citizens are mum and speak not a word.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTouch'd you the bastardy of Edward's children?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,\nAnd his contract by deputy in France;\nThe insatiate greediness of his desires,\nAnd his enforcement of the city wives;\nHis tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,\nAs being got, your father then in France,\nHis resemblance, being not like the duke;\nWithal I did infer your lineaments,\nBeing the right idea of your father,\nBoth in your form and nobleness of mind;\nLaid open all your victories in Scotland,\nYour dicipline in war, wisdom in peace,\nYour bounty, virtue, fair humility:\nIndeed, left nothing fitting for the purpose\nUntouch'd, or slightly handled, in discourse\nAnd when mine oratory grew to an end\nI bid them that did love their country's good\nCry 'God save Richard, England's royal king!'\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAh! and did they so?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNo, so God help me, they spake not a word;\nBut, like dumb statues or breathing stones,\nGazed each on other, and look'd deadly pale.\nWhich when I saw, I reprehended them;\nAnd ask'd the mayor what meant this wilful silence:\nHis answer was, the people were not wont\nTo be spoke to but by the recorder.\nThen he was urged to tell my tale again,\n'Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferr'd;'\nBut nothing spake in warrant from himself.\nWhen he had done, some followers of mine own,\nAt the lower end of the hall, hurl'd up their caps,\nAnd some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'\nAnd thus I took the vantage of those few,\n'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I;\n'This general applause and loving shout\nArgues your wisdoms and your love to Richard:'\nAnd even here brake off, and came away.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat tongueless blocks were they! would not they speak?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNo, by my troth, my lord.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWill not the mayor then and his brethren come?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThe mayor is here at hand: intend some fear;\nBe not you spoke with, but by mighty suit:\nAnd look you get a prayer-book in your hand,\nAnd stand betwixt two churchmen, good my lord;\nFor on that ground I'll build a holy descant:\nAnd be not easily won to our request:\nPlay the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI go; and if you plead as well for them\nAs I can say nay to thee for myself,\nNo doubt well bring it to a happy issue.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGo, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks.\nWelcome my lord; I dance attendance here;\nI think the duke will not be spoke withal.\nHere comes his servant: how now, Catesby,\nWhat says he?\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord: he doth entreat your grace;\nTo visit him to-morrow or next day:\nHe is within, with two right reverend fathers,\nDivinely bent to meditation;\nAnd no worldly suit would he be moved,\nTo draw him from his holy exercise.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nReturn, good Catesby, to thy lord again;\nTell him, myself, the mayor and citizens,\nIn deep designs and matters of great moment,\nNo less importing than our general good,\nAre come to have some conference with his grace.\n\nCATESBY:\nI'll tell him what you say, my lord.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAh, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!\nHe is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,\nBut on his knees at meditation;\nNot dallying with a brace of courtezans,\nBut meditating with two deep divines;\nNot sleeping, to engross his idle body,\nBut praying, to enrich his watchful soul:\nHappy were England, would this gracious prince\nTake on himself the sovereignty thereof:\nBut, sure, I fear, we shall ne'er win him to it.\n\nLord Mayor:\nMarry, God forbid his grace should say us nay!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI fear he will.\nHow now, Catesby, what says your lord?\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord,\nHe wonders to what end you have assembled\nSuch troops of citizens to speak with him,\nHis grace not being warn'd thereof before:\nMy lord, he fears you mean no good to him.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nSorry I am my noble cousin should\nSuspect me, that I mean no good to him:\nBy heaven, I come in perfect love to him;\nAnd so once more return and tell his grace.\nWhen holy and devout religious men\nAre at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence,\nSo sweet is zealous contemplation.\n\nLord Mayor:\nSee, where he stands between two clergymen!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTwo props of virtue for a Christian prince,\nTo stay him from the fall of vanity:\nAnd, see, a book of prayer in his hand,\nTrue ornaments to know a holy man.\nFamous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,\nLend favourable ears to our request;\nAnd pardon us the interruption\nOf thy devotion and right Christian zeal.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord, there needs no such apology:\nI rather do beseech you pardon me,\nWho, earnest in the service of my God,\nNeglect the visitation of my friends.\nBut, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nEven that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,\nAnd all good men of this ungovern'd isle.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI do suspect I have done some offence\nThat seems disgracious in the city's eyes,\nAnd that you come to reprehend my ignorance.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYou have, my lord: would it might please your grace,\nAt our entreaties, to amend that fault!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nElse wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThen know, it is your fault that you resign\nThe supreme seat, the throne majestical,\nThe scepter'd office of your ancestors,\nYour state of fortune and your due of birth,\nThe lineal glory of your royal house,\nTo the corruption of a blemished stock:\nWhilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,\nWhich here we waken to our country's good,\nThis noble isle doth want her proper limbs;\nHer face defaced with scars of infamy,\nHer royal stock graft with ignoble plants,\nAnd almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf\nOf blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion.\nWhich to recure, we heartily solicit\nYour gracious self to take on you the charge\nAnd kingly government of this your land,\nNot as protector, steward, substitute,\nOr lowly factor for another's gain;\nBut as successively from blood to blood,\nYour right of birth, your empery, your own.\nFor this, consorted with the citizens,\nYour very worshipful and loving friends,\nAnd by their vehement instigation,\nIn this just suit come I to move your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI know not whether to depart in silence,\nOr bitterly to speak in your reproof.\nBest fitteth my degree or your condition\nIf not to answer, you might haply think\nTongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded\nTo bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,\nWhich fondly you would here impose on me;\nIf to reprove you for this suit of yours,\nSo season'd with your faithful love to me.\nThen, on the other side, I cheque'd my friends.\nTherefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,\nAnd then, in speaking, not to incur the last,\nDefinitively thus I answer you.\nYour love deserves my thanks; but my desert\nUnmeritable shuns your high request.\nFirst if all obstacles were cut away,\nAnd that my path were even to the crown,\nAs my ripe revenue and due by birth\nYet so much is my poverty of spirit,\nSo mighty and so many my defects,\nAs I had rather hide me from my greatness,\nBeing a bark to brook no mighty sea,\nThan in my greatness covet to be hid,\nAnd in the vapour of my glory smother'd.\nBut, God be thank'd, there's no need of me,\nAnd much I need to help you, if need were;\nThe royal tree hath left us royal fruit,\nWhich, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,\nWill well become the seat of majesty,\nAnd make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.\nOn him I lay what you would lay on me,\nThe right and fortune of his happy stars;\nWhich God defend that I should wring from him!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, this argues conscience in your grace;\nBut the respects thereof are nice and trivial,\nAll circumstances well considered.\nYou say that Edward is your brother's son:\nSo say we too, but not by Edward's wife;\nFor first he was contract to Lady Lucy--\nYour mother lives a witness to that vow--\nAnd afterward by substitute betroth'd\nTo Bona, sister to the King of France.\nThese both put by a poor petitioner,\nA care-crazed mother of a many children,\nA beauty-waning and distressed widow,\nEven in the afternoon of her best days,\nMade prize and purchase of his lustful eye,\nSeduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts\nTo base declension and loathed bigamy\nBy her, in his unlawful bed, he got\nThis Edward, whom our manners term the prince.\nMore bitterly could I expostulate,\nSave that, for reverence to some alive,\nI give a sparing limit to my tongue.\nThen, good my lord, take to your royal self\nThis proffer'd benefit of dignity;\nIf non to bless us and the land withal,\nYet to draw forth your noble ancestry\nFrom the corruption of abusing times,\nUnto a lineal true-derived course.\n\nLord Mayor:\nDo, good my lord, your citizens entreat you.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nRefuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.\n\nCATESBY:\nO, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAlas, why would you heap these cares on me?\nI am unfit for state and majesty;\nI do beseech you, take it not amiss;\nI cannot nor I will not yield to you.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nIf you refuse it,--as, in love and zeal,\nLoath to depose the child, Your brother's son;\nAs well we know your tenderness of heart\nAnd gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,\nWhich we have noted in you to your kin,\nAnd egally indeed to all estates,--\nYet whether you accept our suit or no,\nYour brother's son shall never reign our king;\nBut we will plant some other in the throne,\nTo the disgrace and downfall of your house:\nAnd in this resolution here we leave you.--\nCome, citizens: 'zounds! I'll entreat no more.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nO, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.\n\nCATESBY:\nCall them again, my lord, and accept their suit.\n\nANOTHER:\nDo, good my lord, lest all the land do rue it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWould you enforce me to a world of care?\nWell, call them again. I am not made of stone,\nBut penetrable to your. kind entreats,\nAlbeit against my conscience and my soul.\nCousin of Buckingham, and you sage, grave men,\nSince you will buckle fortune on my back,\nTo bear her burthen, whether I will or no,\nI must have patience to endure the load:\nBut if black scandal or foul-faced reproach\nAttend the sequel of your imposition,\nYour mere enforcement shall acquittance me\nFrom all the impure blots and stains thereof;\nFor God he knows, and you may partly see,\nHow far I am from the desire thereof.\n\nLord Mayor:\nGod bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIn saying so, you shall but say the truth.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThen I salute you with this kingly title:\nLong live Richard, England's royal king!\n\nLord Mayor:\nAmen.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTo-morrow will it please you to be crown'd?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nEven when you please, since you will have it so.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTo-morrow, then, we will attend your grace:\nAnd so most joyfully we take our leave.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome, let us to our holy task again.\nFarewell, good cousin; farewell, gentle friends.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWho meets us here?  my niece Plantagenet\nLed in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?\nNow, for my life, she's wandering to the Tower,\nOn pure heart's love to greet the tender princes.\nDaughter, well met.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nGod give your graces both\nA happy and a joyful time of day!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAs much to you, good sister! Whither away?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNo farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,\nUpon the like devotion as yourselves,\nTo gratulate the gentle princes there.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nKind sister, thanks: we'll enter all together.\nAnd, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.\nMaster lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,\nHow doth the prince, and my young son of York?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nRight well, dear madam. By your patience,\nI may not suffer you to visit them;\nThe king hath straitly charged the contrary.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe king! why, who's that?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI cry you mercy: I mean the lord protector.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe Lord protect him from that kingly title!\nHath he set bounds betwixt their love and me?\nI am their mother; who should keep me from them?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI am their fathers mother; I will see them.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nTheir aunt I am in law, in love their mother:\nThen bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame\nAnd take thy office from thee, on my peril.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nNo, madam, no; I may not leave it so:\nI am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nLet me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,\nAnd I'll salute your grace of York as mother,\nAnd reverend looker on, of two fair queens.\nCome, madam, you must straight to Westminster,\nThere to be crowned Richard's royal queen.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO, cut my lace in sunder, that my pent heart\nMay have some scope to beat, or else I swoon\nWith this dead-killing news!\n\nLADY ANNE:\nDespiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!\n\nDORSET:\nBe of good cheer: mother, how fares your grace?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO Dorset, speak not to me, get thee hence!\nDeath and destruction dog thee at the heels;\nThy mother's name is ominous to children.\nIf thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,\nAnd live with Richmond, from the reach of hell\nGo, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,\nLest thou increase the number of the dead;\nAnd make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,\nNor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nFull of wise care is this your counsel, madam.\nTake all the swift advantage of the hours;\nYou shall have letters from me to my son\nTo meet you on the way, and welcome you.\nBe not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO ill-dispersing wind of misery!\nO my accursed womb, the bed of death!\nA cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,\nWhose unavoided eye is murderous.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nCome, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAnd I in all unwillingness will go.\nI would to God that the inclusive verge\nOf golden metal that must round my brow\nWere red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!\nAnointed let me be with deadly venom,\nAnd die, ere men can say, God save the queen!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGo, go, poor soul, I envy not thy glory\nTo feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNo! why?  When he that is my husband now\nCame to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse,\nWhen scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands\nWhich issued from my other angel husband\nAnd that dead saint which then I weeping follow'd;\nO, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,\nThis was my wish: 'Be thou,' quoth I, ' accursed,\nFor making me, so young, so old a widow!\nAnd, when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;\nAnd be thy wife--if any be so mad--\nAs miserable by the life of thee\nAs thou hast made me by my dear lord's death!\nLo, ere I can repeat this curse again,\nEven in so short a space, my woman's heart\nGrossly grew captive to his honey words\nAnd proved the subject of my own soul's curse,\nWhich ever since hath kept my eyes from rest;\nFor never yet one hour in his bed\nHave I enjoy'd the golden dew of sleep,\nBut have been waked by his timorous dreams.\nBesides, he hates me for my father Warwick;\nAnd will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nPoor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNo more than from my soul I mourn for yours.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nFarewell, thou woful welcomer of glory!\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAdieu, poor soul, that takest thy leave of it!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nStay, yet look back with me unto the Tower.\nPity, you ancient stones, those tender babes\nWhom envy hath immured within your walls!\nRough cradle for such little pretty ones!\nRude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow\nFor tender princes, use my babies well!\nSo foolish sorrow bids your stones farewell.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStand all apart Cousin of Buckingham!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy gracious sovereign?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGive me thy hand.\nThus high, by thy advice\nAnd thy assistance, is King Richard seated;\nBut shall we wear these honours for a day?\nOr shall they last, and we rejoice in them?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nStill live they and for ever may they last!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO Buckingham, now do I play the touch,\nTo try if thou be current gold indeed\nYoung Edward lives: think now what I would say.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nSay on, my loving lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, Buckingham, I say, I would be king,\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy, so you are, my thrice renowned liege.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHa! am I king? 'tis so: but Edward lives.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTrue, noble prince.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO bitter consequence,\nThat Edward still should live! 'True, noble prince!'\nCousin, thou wert not wont to be so dull:\nShall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead;\nAnd I would have it suddenly perform'd.\nWhat sayest thou? speak suddenly; be brief.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYour grace may do your pleasure.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nTut, tut, thou art all ice, thy kindness freezeth:\nSay, have I thy consent that they shall die?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGive me some breath, some little pause, my lord\nBefore I positively herein:\nI will resolve your grace immediately.\n\nCATESBY:\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI will converse with iron-witted fools\nAnd unrespective boys: none are for me\nThat look into me with considerate eyes:\nHigh-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.\nBoy!\n\nPage:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nKnow'st thou not any whom corrupting gold\nWould tempt unto a close exploit of death?\n\nPage:\nMy lord, I know a discontented gentleman,\nWhose humble means match not his haughty mind:\nGold were as good as twenty orators,\nAnd will, no doubt, tempt him to any thing.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat is his name?\n\nPage:\nHis name, my lord, is Tyrrel.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI partly know the man: go, call him hither.\nThe deep-revolving witty Buckingham\nNo more shall be the neighbour to my counsel:\nHath he so long held out with me untired,\nAnd stops he now for breath?\nHow now! what news with you?\n\nSTANLEY:\nMy lord, I hear the Marquis Dorset's fled\nTo Richmond, in those parts beyond the sea\nWhere he abides.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCatesby!\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nRumour it abroad\nThat Anne, my wife, is sick and like to die:\nI will take order for her keeping close.\nInquire me out some mean-born gentleman,\nWhom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter:\nThe boy is foolish, and I fear not him.\nLook, how thou dream'st! I say again, give out\nThat Anne my wife is sick and like to die:\nAbout it; for it stands me much upon,\nTo stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.\nI must be married to my brother's daughter,\nOr else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.\nMurder her brothers, and then marry her!\nUncertain way of gain! But I am in\nSo far in blood that sin will pluck on sin:\nTear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.\nIs thy name Tyrrel?\n\nTYRREL:\nJames Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nArt thou, indeed?\n\nTYRREL:\nProve me, my gracious sovereign.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nDarest thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?\n\nTYRREL:\nAy, my lord;\nBut I had rather kill two enemies.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, there thou hast it: two deep enemies,\nFoes to my rest and my sweet sleep's disturbers\nAre they that I would have thee deal upon:\nTyrrel, I mean those bastards in the Tower.\n\nTYRREL:\nLet me have open means to come to them,\nAnd soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come hither, Tyrrel\nGo, by this token: rise, and lend thine ear:\nThere is no more but so: say it is done,\nAnd I will love thee, and prefer thee too.\n\nTYRREL:\n'Tis done, my gracious lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nShall we hear from thee, Tyrrel, ere we sleep?\n\nTYRREL:\nYe shall, my Lord.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy Lord, I have consider'd in my mind\nThe late demand that you did sound me in.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, let that pass. Dorset is fled to Richmond.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI hear that news, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStanley, he is your wife's son well, look to it.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, I claim your gift, my due by promise,\nFor which your honour and your faith is pawn'd;\nThe earldom of Hereford and the moveables\nThe which you promised I should possess.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStanley, look to your wife; if she convey\nLetters to Richmond, you shall answer it.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat says your highness to my just demand?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAs I remember, Henry the Sixth\nDid prophesy that Richmond should be king,\nWhen Richmond was a little peevish boy.\nA king, perhaps, perhaps,--\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHow chance the prophet could not at that time\nHave told me, I being by, that I should kill him?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, your promise for the earldom,--\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nRichmond! When last I was at Exeter,\nThe mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle,\nAnd call'd it Rougemont: at which name I started,\nBecause a bard of Ireland told me once\nI should not live long after I saw Richmond.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy Lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, what's o'clock?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI am thus bold to put your grace in mind\nOf what you promised me.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, but what's o'clock?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nUpon the stroke of ten.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, let it strike.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy let it strike?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBecause that, like a Jack, thou keep'st the stroke\nBetwixt thy begging and my meditation.\nI am not in the giving vein to-day.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy, then resolve me whether you will or no.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nTut, tut,\nThou troublest me; am not in the vein.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nIs it even so? rewards he my true service\nWith such deep contempt made I him king for this?\nO, let me think on Hastings, and be gone\nTo Brecknock, while my fearful head is on!\n\nTYRREL:\nThe tyrannous and bloody deed is done.\nThe most arch of piteous massacre\nThat ever yet this land was guilty of.\nDighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn\nTo do this ruthless piece of butchery,\nAlthough they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,\nMelting with tenderness and kind compassion\nWept like two children in their deaths' sad stories.\n'Lo, thus' quoth Dighton, 'lay those tender babes:'\n'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest, 'girdling one another\nWithin their innocent alabaster arms:\nTheir lips were four red roses on a stalk,\nWhich in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.\nA book of prayers on their pillow lay;\nWhich once,' quoth Forrest, 'almost changed my mind;\nBut O! the devil'--there the villain stopp'd\nWhilst Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered\nThe most replenished sweet work of nature,\nThat from the prime creation e'er she framed.'\nThus both are gone with conscience and remorse;\nThey could not speak; and so I left them both,\nTo bring this tidings to the bloody king.\nAnd here he comes.\nAll hail, my sovereign liege!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nKind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?\n\nTYRREL:\nIf to have done the thing you gave in charge\nBeget your happiness, be happy then,\nFor it is done, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBut didst thou see them dead?\n\nTYRREL:\nI did, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd buried, gentle Tyrrel?\n\nTYRREL:\nThe chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;\nBut how or in what place I do not know.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCome to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,\nAnd thou shalt tell the process of their death.\nMeantime, but think how I may do thee good,\nAnd be inheritor of thy desire.\nFarewell till soon.\nThe son of Clarence have I pent up close;\nHis daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;\nThe sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,\nAnd Anne my wife hath bid the world good night.\nNow, for I know the Breton Richmond aims\nAt young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,\nAnd, by that knot, looks proudly o'er the crown,\nTo her I go, a jolly thriving wooer.\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGood news or bad, that thou comest in so bluntly?\n\nCATESBY:\nBad news, my lord: Ely is fled to Richmond;\nAnd Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen,\nIs in the field, and still his power increaseth.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nEly with Richmond troubles me more near\nThan Buckingham and his rash-levied army.\nCome, I have heard that fearful commenting\nIs leaden servitor to dull delay;\nDelay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary\nThen fiery expedition be my wing,\nJove's Mercury, and herald for a king!\nCome, muster men: my counsel is my shield;\nWe must be brief when traitors brave the field.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nSo, now prosperity begins to mellow\nAnd drop into the rotten mouth of death.\nHere in these confines slily have I lurk'd,\nTo watch the waning of mine adversaries.\nA dire induction am I witness to,\nAnd will to France, hoping the consequence\nWill prove as bitter, black, and tragical.\nWithdraw thee, wretched Margaret: who comes here?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAh, my young princes! ah, my tender babes!\nMy unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!\nIf yet your gentle souls fly in the air\nAnd be not fix'd in doom perpetual,\nHover about me with your airy wings\nAnd hear your mother's lamentation!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHover about her; say, that right for right\nHath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nSo many miseries have crazed my voice,\nThat my woe-wearied tongue is mute and dumb,\nEdward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPlantagenet doth quit Plantagenet.\nEdward for Edward pays a dying debt.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle lambs,\nAnd throw them in the entrails of the wolf?\nWhen didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhen holy Harry died, and my sweet son.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nBlind sight, dead life, poor mortal living ghost,\nWoe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,\nBrief abstract and record of tedious days,\nRest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,\nUnlawfully made drunk with innocents' blood!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO, that thou wouldst as well afford a grave\nAs thou canst yield a melancholy seat!\nThen would I hide my bones, not rest them here.\nO, who hath any cause to mourn but I?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nIf ancient sorrow be most reverend,\nGive mine the benefit of seniory,\nAnd let my woes frown on the upper hand.\nIf sorrow can admit society,\nTell o'er your woes again by viewing mine:\nI had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\nI had a Harry, till a Richard kill'd him:\nThou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\nThou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him;\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;\nI had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard kill'd him.\nFrom forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept\nA hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:\nThat dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,\nTo worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,\nThat foul defacer of God's handiwork,\nThat excellent grand tyrant of the earth,\nThat reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,\nThy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves.\nO upright, just, and true-disposing God,\nHow do I thank thee, that this carnal cur\nPreys on the issue of his mother's body,\nAnd makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes!\nGod witness with me, I have wept for thine.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBear with me; I am hungry for revenge,\nAnd now I cloy me with beholding it.\nThy Edward he is dead, that stabb'd my Edward:\nThy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;\nYoung York he is but boot, because both they\nMatch not the high perfection of my loss:\nThy Clarence he is dead that kill'd my Edward;\nAnd the beholders of this tragic play,\nThe adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,\nUntimely smother'd in their dusky graves.\nRichard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer,\nOnly reserved their factor, to buy souls\nAnd send them thither: but at hand, at hand,\nEnsues his piteous and unpitied end:\nEarth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray.\nTo have him suddenly convey'd away.\nCancel his bond of life, dear God, I prey,\nThat I may live to say, The dog is dead!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO, thou didst prophesy the time would come\nThat I should wish for thee to help me curse\nThat bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI call'd thee then vain flourish of my fortune;\nI call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen;\nThe presentation of but what I was;\nThe flattering index of a direful pageant;\nOne heaved a-high, to be hurl'd down below;\nA mother only mock'd with two sweet babes;\nA dream of what thou wert, a breath, a bubble,\nA sign of dignity, a garish flag,\nTo be the aim of every dangerous shot,\nA queen in jest, only to fill the scene.\nWhere is thy husband now? where be thy brothers?\nWhere are thy children? wherein dost thou, joy?\nWho sues to thee and cries 'God save the queen'?\nWhere be the bending peers that flatter'd thee?\nWhere be the thronging troops that follow'd thee?\nDecline all this, and see what now thou art:\nFor happy wife, a most distressed widow;\nFor joyful mother, one that wails the name;\nFor queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;\nFor one being sued to, one that humbly sues;\nFor one that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;\nFor one being fear'd of all, now fearing one;\nFor one commanding all, obey'd of none.\nThus hath the course of justice wheel'd about,\nAnd left thee but a very prey to time;\nHaving no more but thought of what thou wert,\nTo torture thee the more, being what thou art.\nThou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not\nUsurp the just proportion of my sorrow?\nNow thy proud neck bears half my burthen'd yoke;\nFrom which even here I slip my weary neck,\nAnd leave the burthen of it all on thee.\nFarewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance:\nThese English woes will make me smile in France.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile,\nAnd teach me how to curse mine enemies!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nForbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days;\nCompare dead happiness with living woe;\nThink that thy babes were fairer than they were,\nAnd he that slew them fouler than he is:\nBettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse:\nRevolving this will teach thee how to curse.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy words are dull; O, quicken them with thine!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThy woes will make them sharp, and pierce like mine.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy should calamity be full of words?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWindy attorneys to their client woes,\nAiry succeeders of intestate joys,\nPoor breathing orators of miseries!\nLet them have scope: though what they do impart\nHelp not all, yet do they ease the heart.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nIf so, then be not tongue-tied: go with me.\nAnd in the breath of bitter words let's smother\nMy damned son, which thy two sweet sons smother'd.\nI hear his drum: be copious in exclaims.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWho intercepts my expedition?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO, she that might have intercepted thee,\nBy strangling thee in her accursed womb\nFrom all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHidest thou that forehead with a golden crown,\nWhere should be graven, if that right were right,\nThe slaughter of the prince that owed that crown,\nAnd the dire death of my two sons and brothers?\nTell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nThou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?\nAnd little Ned Plantagenet, his son?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhere is kind Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nA flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!\nLet not the heavens hear these tell-tale women\nRail on the Lord's enointed: strike, I say!\nEither be patient, and entreat me fair,\nOr with the clamorous report of war\nThus will I drown your exclamations.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nArt thou my son?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, I thank God, my father, and yourself.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nThen patiently hear my impatience.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMadam, I have a touch of your condition,\nWhich cannot brook the accent of reproof.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO, let me speak!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nDo then: but I'll not hear.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI will be mild and gentle in my speech.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd brief, good mother; for I am in haste.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nArt thou so hasty? I have stay'd for thee,\nGod knows, in anguish, pain and agony.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd came I not at last to comfort you?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNo, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well,\nThou camest on earth to make the earth my hell.\nA grievous burthen was thy birth to me;\nTetchy and wayward was thy infancy;\nThy school-days frightful, desperate, wild, and furious,\nThy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous,\nThy age confirm'd, proud, subdued, bloody,\ntreacherous,\nMore mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:\nWhat comfortable hour canst thou name,\nThat ever graced me in thy company?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nFaith, none, but Humphrey Hour, that call'd\nyour grace\nTo breakfast once forth of my company.\nIf I be so disgracious in your sight,\nLet me march on, and not offend your grace.\nStrike the drum.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI prithee, hear me speak.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYou speak too bitterly.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHear me a word;\nFor I shall never speak to thee again.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSo.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nEither thou wilt die, by God's just ordinance,\nEre from this war thou turn a conqueror,\nOr I with grief and extreme age shall perish\nAnd never look upon thy face again.\nTherefore take with thee my most heavy curse;\nWhich, in the day of battle, tire thee more\nThan all the complete armour that thou wear'st!\nMy prayers on the adverse party fight;\nAnd there the little souls of Edward's children\nWhisper the spirits of thine enemies\nAnd promise them success and victory.\nBloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;\nShame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThough far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse\nAbides in me; I say amen to all.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStay, madam; I must speak a word with you.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI have no more sons of the royal blood\nFor thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard,\nThey shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;\nAnd therefore level not to hit their lives.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYou have a daughter call'd Elizabeth,\nVirtuous and fair, royal and gracious.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAnd must she die for this? O, let her live,\nAnd I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty;\nSlander myself as false to Edward's bed;\nThrow over her the veil of infamy:\nSo she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,\nI will confess she was not Edward's daughter.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWrong not her birth, she is of royal blood.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTo save her life, I'll say she is not so.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHer life is only safest in her birth.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAnd only in that safety died her brothers.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nLo, at their births good stars were opposite.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nNo, to their lives bad friends were contrary.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAll unavoided is the doom of destiny.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTrue, when avoided grace makes destiny:\nMy babes were destined to a fairer death,\nIf grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYou speak as if that I had slain my cousins.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen'd\nOf comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.\nWhose hand soever lanced their tender hearts,\nThy head, all indirectly, gave direction:\nNo doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt\nTill it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,\nTo revel in the entrails of my lambs.\nBut that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,\nMy tongue should to thy ears not name my boys\nTill that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;\nAnd I, in such a desperate bay of death,\nLike a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,\nRush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMadam, so thrive I in my enterprise\nAnd dangerous success of bloody wars,\nAs I intend more good to you and yours,\nThan ever you or yours were by me wrong'd!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat good is cover'd with the face of heaven,\nTo be discover'd, that can do me good?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThe advancement of your children, gentle lady.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nUp to some scaffold, there to lose their heads?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNo, to the dignity and height of honour\nThe high imperial type of this earth's glory.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nFlatter my sorrows with report of it;\nTell me what state, what dignity, what honour,\nCanst thou demise to any child of mine?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nEven all I have; yea, and myself and all,\nWill I withal endow a child of thine;\nSo in the Lethe of thy angry soul\nThou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs\nWhich thou supposest I have done to thee.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBe brief, lest that be process of thy kindness\nLast longer telling than thy kindness' date.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen know, that from my soul I love thy daughter.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy daughter's mother thinks it with her soul.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat do you think?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThat thou dost love my daughter from thy soul:\nSo from thy soul's love didst thou love her brothers;\nAnd from my heart's love I do thank thee for it.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBe not so hasty to confound my meaning:\nI mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter,\nAnd mean to make her queen of England.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSay then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nEven he that makes her queen who should be else?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat, thou?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI, even I: what think you of it, madam?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHow canst thou woo her?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThat would I learn of you,\nAs one that are best acquainted with her humour.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAnd wilt thou learn of me?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMadam, with all my heart.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSend to her, by the man that slew her brothers,\nA pair of bleeding-hearts; thereon engrave\nEdward and York; then haply she will weep:\nTherefore present to her--as sometime Margaret\nDid to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood,--\nA handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain\nThe purple sap from her sweet brother's body\nAnd bid her dry her weeping eyes therewith.\nIf this inducement force her not to love,\nSend her a story of thy noble acts;\nTell her thou madest away her uncle Clarence,\nHer uncle Rivers; yea, and, for her sake,\nMadest quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCome, come, you mock me; this is not the way\nTo win our daughter.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThere is no other way\nUnless thou couldst put on some other shape,\nAnd not be Richard that hath done all this.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay that I did all this for love of her.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nNay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,\nHaving bought love with such a bloody spoil.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nLook, what is done cannot be now amended:\nMen shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,\nWhich after hours give leisure to repent.\nIf I did take the kingdom from your sons,\nTo make amends, Ill give it to your daughter.\nIf I have kill'd the issue of your womb,\nTo quicken your increase, I will beget\nMine issue of your blood upon your daughter\nA grandam's name is little less in love\nThan is the doting title of a mother;\nThey are as children but one step below,\nEven of your mettle, of your very blood;\nOf an one pain, save for a night of groans\nEndured of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.\nYour children were vexation to your youth,\nBut mine shall be a comfort to your age.\nThe loss you have is but a son being king,\nAnd by that loss your daughter is made queen.\nI cannot make you what amends I would,\nTherefore accept such kindness as I can.\nDorset your son, that with a fearful soul\nLeads discontented steps in foreign soil,\nThis fair alliance quickly shall call home\nTo high promotions and great dignity:\nThe king, that calls your beauteous daughter wife.\nFamiliarly shall call thy Dorset brother;\nAgain shall you be mother to a king,\nAnd all the ruins of distressful times\nRepair'd with double riches of content.\nWhat! we have many goodly days to see:\nThe liquid drops of tears that you have shed\nShall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,\nAdvantaging their loan with interest\nOf ten times double gain of happiness.\nGo, then my mother, to thy daughter go\nMake bold her bashful years with your experience;\nPrepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale\nPut in her tender heart the aspiring flame\nOf golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess\nWith the sweet silent hours of marriage joys\nAnd when this arm of mine hath chastised\nThe petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,\nBound with triumphant garlands will I come\nAnd lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;\nTo whom I will retail my conquest won,\nAnd she shall be sole victress, Caesar's Caesar.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat were I best to say? her father's brother\nWould be her lord? or shall I say, her uncle?\nOr, he that slew her brothers and her uncles?\nUnder what title shall I woo for thee,\nThat God, the law, my honour and her love,\nCan make seem pleasing to her tender years?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nInfer fair England's peace by this alliance.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhich she shall purchase with still lasting war.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay that the king, which may command, entreats.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThat at her hands which the king's King forbids.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay, she shall be a high and mighty queen.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTo wail the tide, as her mother doth.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay, I will love her everlastingly.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut how long shall that title 'ever' last?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSweetly in force unto her fair life's end.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut how long fairly shall her sweet lie last?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSo long as heaven and nature lengthens it.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSo long as hell and Richard likes of it.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay, I, her sovereign, am her subject love.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBe eloquent in my behalf to her.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAn honest tale speeds best being plainly told.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen in plain terms tell her my loving tale.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nPlain and not honest is too harsh a style.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYour reasons are too shallow and too quick.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO no, my reasons are too deep and dead;\nToo deep and dead, poor infants, in their grave.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHarp not on that string, madam; that is past.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHarp on it still shall I till heart-strings break.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNow, by my George, my garter, and my crown,--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nProfaned, dishonour'd, and the third usurp'd.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI swear--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBy nothing; for this is no oath:\nThe George, profaned, hath lost his holy honour;\nThe garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;\nThe crown, usurp'd, disgraced his kingly glory.\nif something thou wilt swear to be believed,\nSwear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNow, by the world--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\n'Tis full of thy foul wrongs.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMy father's death--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThy life hath that dishonour'd.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen, by myself--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThyself thyself misusest.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy then, by God--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGod's wrong is most of all.\nIf thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\nThe unity the king thy brother made\nHad not been broken, nor my brother slain:\nIf thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\nThe imperial metal, circling now thy brow,\nHad graced the tender temples of my child,\nAnd both the princes had been breathing here,\nWhich now, two tender playfellows to dust,\nThy broken faith hath made a prey for worms.\nWhat canst thou swear by now?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThe time to come.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThat thou hast wronged in the time o'erpast;\nFor I myself have many tears to wash\nHereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.\nThe children live, whose parents thou hast\nslaughter'd,\nUngovern'd youth, to wail it in their age;\nThe parents live, whose children thou hast butcher'd,\nOld wither'd plants, to wail it with their age.\nSwear not by time to come; for that thou hast\nMisused ere used, by time misused o'erpast.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAs I intend to prosper and repent,\nSo thrive I in my dangerous attempt\nOf hostile arms! myself myself confound!\nHeaven and fortune bar me happy hours!\nDay, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!\nBe opposite all planets of good luck\nTo my proceedings, if, with pure heart's love,\nImmaculate devotion, holy thoughts,\nI tender not thy beauteous princely daughter!\nIn her consists my happiness and thine;\nWithout her, follows to this land and me,\nTo thee, herself, and many a Christian soul,\nDeath, desolation, ruin and decay:\nIt cannot be avoided but by this;\nIt will not be avoided but by this.\nTherefore, good mother,--I must can you so--\nBe the attorney of my love to her:\nPlead what I will be, not what I have been;\nNot my deserts, but what I will deserve:\nUrge the necessity and state of times,\nAnd be not peevish-fond in great designs.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nShall I be tempted of the devil thus?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, if the devil tempt thee to do good.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nShall I forget myself to be myself?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, if yourself's remembrance wrong yourself.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut thou didst kill my children.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBut in your daughter's womb I bury them:\nWhere in that nest of spicery they shall breed\nSelves of themselves, to your recomforture.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nShall I go win my daughter to thy will?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd be a happy mother by the deed.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI go. Write to me very shortly.\nAnd you shall understand from me her mind.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBear her my true love's kiss; and so, farewell.\nRelenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!\nHow now! what news?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy gracious sovereign, on the western coast\nRideth a puissant navy; to the shore\nThrong many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,\nUnarm'd, and unresolved to beat them back:\n'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;\nAnd there they hull, expecting but the aid\nOf Buckingham to welcome them ashore.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSome light-foot friend post to the Duke of Norfolk:\nRatcliff, thyself, or Catesby; where is he?\n\nCATESBY:\nHere, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nFly to the duke:\nPost thou to Salisbury\nWhen thou comest thither--\nDull, unmindful villain,\nWhy stand'st thou still, and go'st not to the duke?\n\nCATESBY:\nFirst, mighty sovereign, let me know your mind,\nWhat from your grace I shall deliver to him.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO, true, good Catesby: bid him levy straight\nThe greatest strength and power he can make,\nAnd meet me presently at Salisbury.\n\nCATESBY:\nI go.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nWhat is't your highness' pleasure I shall do at\nSalisbury?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, what wouldst thou do there before I go?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nYour highness told me I should post before.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMy mind is changed, sir, my mind is changed.\nHow now, what news with you?\n\nSTANLEY:\nNone good, my lord, to please you with the hearing;\nNor none so bad, but it may well be told.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!\nWhy dost thou run so many mile about,\nWhen thou mayst tell thy tale a nearer way?\nOnce more, what news?\n\nSTANLEY:\nRichmond is on the seas.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThere let him sink, and be the seas on him!\nWhite-liver'd runagate, what doth he there?\n\nSTANLEY:\nI know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, sir, as you guess, as you guess?\n\nSTANLEY:\nStirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Ely,\nHe makes for England, there to claim the crown.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nIs the chair empty? is the sword unsway'd?\nIs the king dead? the empire unpossess'd?\nWhat heir of York is there alive but we?\nAnd who is England's king but great York's heir?\nThen, tell me, what doth he upon the sea?\n\nSTANLEY:\nUnless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nUnless for that he comes to be your liege,\nYou cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.\nThou wilt revolt, and fly to him, I fear.\n\nSTANLEY:\nNo, mighty liege; therefore mistrust me not.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhere is thy power, then, to beat him back?\nWhere are thy tenants and thy followers?\nAre they not now upon the western shore.\nSafe-conducting the rebels from their ships!\n\nSTANLEY:\nNo, my good lord, my friends are in the north.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCold friends to Richard: what do they in the north,\nWhen they should serve their sovereign in the west?\n\nSTANLEY:\nThey have not been commanded, mighty sovereign:\nPlease it your majesty to give me leave,\nI'll muster up my friends, and meet your grace\nWhere and what time your majesty shall please.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, ay. thou wouldst be gone to join with Richmond:\nI will not trust you, sir.\n\nSTANLEY:\nMost mighty sovereign,\nYou have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful:\nI never was nor never will be false.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell,\nGo muster men; but, hear you, leave behind\nYour son, George Stanley: look your faith be firm.\nOr else his head's assurance is but frail.\n\nSTANLEY:\nSo deal with him as I prove true to you.\n\nMessenger:\nMy gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,\nAs I by friends am well advertised,\nSir Edward Courtney, and the haughty prelate\nBishop of Exeter, his brother there,\nWith many more confederates, are in arms.\n\nSecond Messenger:\nMy liege, in Kent the Guildfords are in arms;\nAnd every hour more competitors\nFlock to their aid, and still their power increaseth.\n\nThird Messenger:\nMy lord, the army of the Duke of Buckingham--\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nOut on you, owls! nothing but songs of death?\nTake that, until thou bring me better news.\n\nThird Messenger:\nThe news I have to tell your majesty\nIs, that by sudden floods and fall of waters,\nBuckingham's army is dispersed and scatter'd;\nAnd he himself wander'd away alone,\nNo man knows whither.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI cry thee mercy:\nThere is my purse to cure that blow of thine.\nHath any well-advised friend proclaim'd\nReward to him that brings the traitor in?\n\nThird Messenger:\nSuch proclamation hath been made, my liege.\n\nFourth Messenger:\nSir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis Dorset,\n'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.\nYet this good comfort bring I to your grace,\nThe Breton navy is dispersed by tempest:\nRichmond, in Yorkshire, sent out a boat\nUnto the shore, to ask those on the banks\nIf they were his assistants, yea or no;\nWho answer'd him, they came from Buckingham.\nUpon his party: he, mistrusting them,\nHoisted sail and made away for Brittany.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMarch on, march on, since we are up in arms;\nIf not to fight with foreign enemies,\nYet to beat down these rebels here at home.\n\nCATESBY:\nMy liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken;\nThat is the best news: that the Earl of Richmond\nIs with a mighty power landed at Milford,\nIs colder tidings, yet they must be told.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAway towards Salisbury! while we reason here,\nA royal battle might be won and lost\nSome one take order Buckingham be brought\nTo Salisbury; the rest march on with me.\n\nDERBY:\nSir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:\nThat in the sty of this most bloody boar\nMy son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold:\nIf I revolt, off goes young George's head;\nThe fear of that withholds my present aid.\nBut, tell me, where is princely Richmond now?\n\nCHRISTOPHER:\nAt Pembroke, or at Harford-west, in Wales.\n\nDERBY:\nWhat men of name resort to him?\n\nCHRISTOPHER:\nSir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;\nSir Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley;\nOxford, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,\nAnd Rice ap Thomas with a valiant crew;\nAnd many more of noble fame and worth:\nAnd towards London they do bend their course,\nIf by the way they be not fought withal.\n\nDERBY:\nReturn unto thy lord; commend me to him:\nTell him the queen hath heartily consented\nHe shall espouse Elizabeth her daughter.\nThese letters will resolve him of my mind. Farewell.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWill not King Richard let me speak with him?\n\nSheriff:\nNo, my good lord; therefore be patient.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHastings, and Edward's children, Rivers, Grey,\nHoly King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,\nVaughan, and all that have miscarried\nBy underhand corrupted foul injustice,\nIf that your moody discontented souls\nDo through the clouds behold this present hour,\nEven for revenge mock my destruction!\nThis is All-Souls' day, fellows, is it not?\n\nSheriff:\nIt is, my lord.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy, then All-Souls' day is my body's doomsday.\nThis is the day that, in King Edward's time,\nI wish't might fall on me, when I was found\nFalse to his children or his wife's allies\nThis is the day wherein I wish'd to fall\nBy the false faith of him I trusted most;\nThis, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul\nIs the determined respite of my wrongs:\nThat high All-Seer that I dallied with\nHath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head\nAnd given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.\nThus doth he force the swords of wicked men\nTo turn their own points on their masters' bosoms:\nNow Margaret's curse is fallen upon my head;\n'When he,' quoth she, 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,\nRemember Margaret was a prophetess.'\nCome, sirs, convey me to the block of shame;\nWrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.\n\nRICHMOND:\nFellows in arms, and my most loving friends,\nBruised underneath the yoke of tyranny,\nThus far into the bowels of the land\nHave we march'd on without impediment;\nAnd here receive we from our father Stanley\nLines of fair comfort and encouragement.\nThe wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,\nThat spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,\nSwills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough\nIn your embowell'd bosoms, this foul swine\nLies now even in the centre of this isle,\nNear to the town of Leicester, as we learn\nFrom Tamworth thither is but one day's march.\nIn God's name, cheerly on, courageous friends,\nTo reap the harvest of perpetual peace\nBy this one bloody trial of sharp war.\n\nOXFORD:\nEvery man's conscience is a thousand swords,\nTo fight against that bloody homicide.\n\nHERBERT:\nI doubt not but his friends will fly to us.\n\nBLUNT:\nHe hath no friends but who are friends for fear.\nWhich in his greatest need will shrink from him.\n\nRICHMOND:\nAll for our vantage. Then, in God's name, march:\nTrue hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings:\nKings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHere pitch our tents, even here in Bosworth field.\nMy Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?\n\nSURREY:\nMy heart is ten times lighter than my looks.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMy Lord of Norfolk,--\n\nNORFOLK:\nHere, most gracious liege.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNorfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we not?\n\nNORFOLK:\nWe must both give and take, my gracious lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nUp with my tent there! here will I lie tonight;\nBut where to-morrow?  Well, all's one for that.\nWho hath descried the number of the foe?\n\nNORFOLK:\nSix or seven thousand is their utmost power.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, our battalion trebles that account:\nBesides, the king's name is a tower of strength,\nWhich they upon the adverse party want.\nUp with my tent there! Valiant gentlemen,\nLet us survey the vantage of the field\nCall for some men of sound direction\nLet's want no discipline, make no delay,\nFor, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.\n\nRICHMOND:\nThe weary sun hath made a golden set,\nAnd by the bright track of his fiery car,\nGives signal, of a goodly day to-morrow.\nSir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.\nGive me some ink and paper in my tent\nI'll draw the form and model of our battle,\nLimit each leader to his several charge,\nAnd part in just proportion our small strength.\nMy Lord of Oxford, you, Sir William Brandon,\nAnd you, Sir Walter Herbert, stay with me.\nThe Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment:\nGood Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him\nAnd by the second hour in the morning\nDesire the earl to see me in my tent:\nYet one thing more, good Blunt, before thou go'st,\nWhere is Lord Stanley quarter'd, dost thou know?\n\nBLUNT:\nUnless I have mista'en his colours much,\nWhich well I am assured I have not done,\nHis regiment lies half a mile at least\nSouth from the mighty power of the king.\n\nRICHMOND:\nIf without peril it be possible,\nGood Captain Blunt, bear my good-night to him,\nAnd give him from me this most needful scroll.\n\nBLUNT:\nUpon my life, my lord, I'll under-take it;\nAnd so, God give you quiet rest to-night!\n\nRICHMOND:\nGood night, good Captain Blunt. Come gentlemen,\nLet us consult upon to-morrow's business\nIn to our tent; the air is raw and cold.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat is't o'clock?\n\nCATESBY:\nIt's supper-time, my lord;\nIt's nine o'clock.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI will not sup to-night.\nGive me some ink and paper.\nWhat, is my beaver easier than it was?\nAnd all my armour laid into my tent?\n\nCATESBY:\nIf is, my liege; and all things are in readiness.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGood Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;\nUse careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.\n\nNORFOLK:\nI go, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk.\n\nNORFOLK:\nI warrant you, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCatesby!\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSend out a pursuivant at arms\nTo Stanley's regiment; bid him bring his power\nBefore sunrising, lest his son George fall\nInto the blind cave of eternal night.\nFill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.\nSaddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.\nLook that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.\nRatcliff!\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSaw'st thou the melancholy Lord Northumberland?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nThomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,\nMuch about cock-shut time, from troop to troop\nWent through the army, cheering up the soldiers.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSo, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine:\nI have not that alacrity of spirit,\nNor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have.\nSet it down. Is ink and paper ready?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nIt is, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBid my guard watch; leave me.\nRatcliff, about the mid of night come to my tent\nAnd help to arm me. Leave me, I say.\n\nDERBY:\nFortune and victory sit on thy helm!\n\nRICHMOND:\nAll comfort that the dark night can afford\nBe to thy person, noble father-in-law!\nTell me, how fares our loving mother?\n\nDERBY:\nI, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother\nWho prays continually for Richmond's good:\nSo much for that. The silent hours steal on,\nAnd flaky darkness breaks within the east.\nIn brief,--for so the season bids us be,--\nPrepare thy battle early in the morning,\nAnd put thy fortune to the arbitrement\nOf bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.\nI, as I may--that which I would I cannot,--\nWith best advantage will deceive the time,\nAnd aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms:\nBut on thy side I may not be too forward\nLest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,\nBe executed in his father's sight.\nFarewell: the leisure and the fearful time\nCuts off the ceremonious vows of love\nAnd ample interchange of sweet discourse,\nWhich so long sunder'd friends should dwell upon:\nGod give us leisure for these rites of love!\nOnce more, adieu: be valiant, and speed well!\n\nRICHMOND:\nGood lords, conduct him to his regiment:\nI'll strive, with troubled thoughts, to take a nap,\nLest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow,\nWhen I should mount with wings of victory:\nOnce more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.\nO Thou, whose captain I account myself,\nLook on my forces with a gracious eye;\nPut in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath,\nThat they may crush down with a heavy fall\nThe usurping helmets of our adversaries!\nMake us thy ministers of chastisement,\nThat we may praise thee in the victory!\nTo thee I do commend my watchful soul,\nEre I let fall the windows of mine eyes:\nSleeping and waking, O, defend me still!\n\nGhost of Prince Edward:\n\nGhost of King Henry VI:\n\nGhost of CLARENCE:\n\nGhost of RIVERS:\n\nGhost of GREY:\n\nGhost of VAUGHAN:\n\nAll:\n\nGhost of HASTINGS:\n\nGhosts of young Princes:\n\nGhost of LADY ANNE:\n\nGhost of BUCKINGHAM:\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGive me another horse: bind up my wounds.\nHave mercy, Jesu!--Soft! I did but dream.\nO coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!\nThe lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.\nCold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.\nWhat do I fear?  myself?  there's none else by:\nRichard loves Richard; that is, I am I.\nIs there a murderer here?  No. Yes, I am:\nThen fly. What, from myself?   Great reason why:\nLest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?\nAlack. I love myself. Wherefore?  for any good\nThat I myself have done unto myself?\nO, no! alas, I rather hate myself\nFor hateful deeds committed by myself!\nI am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.\nFool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.\nMy conscience hath a thousand several tongues,\nAnd every tongue brings in a several tale,\nAnd every tale condemns me for a villain.\nPerjury, perjury, in the high'st degree\nMurder, stem murder, in the direst degree;\nAll several sins, all used in each degree,\nThrong to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!\nI shall despair. There is no creature loves me;\nAnd if I die, no soul shall pity me:\nNay, wherefore should they, since that I myself\nFind in myself no pity to myself?\nMethought the souls of all that I had murder'd\nCame to my tent; and every one did threat\nTo-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\n'Zounds! who is there?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nRatcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village-cock\nHath twice done salutation to the morn;\nYour friends are up, and buckle on their armour.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream!\nWhat thinkest thou, will our friends prove all true?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nNo doubt, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO Ratcliff, I fear, I fear,--\n\nRATCLIFF:\nNay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBy the apostle Paul, shadows to-night\nHave struck more terror to the soul of Richard\nThan can the substance of ten thousand soldiers\nArmed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond.\nIt is not yet near day. Come, go with me;\nUnder our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,\nTo see if any mean to shrink from me.\n\nLORDS:\nGood morrow, Richmond!\n\nRICHMOND:\nCry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,\nThat you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here.\n\nLORDS:\nHow have you slept, my lord?\n\nRICHMOND:\nThe sweetest sleep, and fairest-boding dreams\nThat ever enter'd in a drowsy head,\nHave I since your departure had, my lords.\nMethought their souls, whose bodies Richard murder'd,\nCame to my tent, and cried on victory:\nI promise you, my soul is very jocund\nIn the remembrance of so fair a dream.\nHow far into the morning is it, lords?\n\nLORDS:\nUpon the stroke of four.\n\nRICHMOND:\nWhy, then 'tis time to arm and give direction.\nMore than I have said, loving countrymen,\nThe leisure and enforcement of the time\nForbids to dwell upon: yet remember this,\nGod and our good cause fight upon our side;\nThe prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,\nLike high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces;\nRichard except, those whom we fight against\nHad rather have us win than him they follow:\nFor what is he they follow?  truly, gentlemen,\nA bloody tyrant and a homicide;\nOne raised in blood, and one in blood establish'd;\nOne that made means to come by what he hath,\nAnd slaughter'd those that were the means to help him;\nAbase foul stone, made precious by the foil\nOf England's chair, where he is falsely set;\nOne that hath ever been God's enemy:\nThen, if you fight against God's enemy,\nGod will in justice ward you as his soldiers;\nIf you do sweat to put a tyrant down,\nYou sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;\nIf you do fight against your country's foes,\nYour country's fat shall pay your pains the hire;\nIf you do fight in safeguard of your wives,\nYour wives shall welcome home the conquerors;\nIf you do free your children from the sword,\nYour children's children quit it in your age.\nThen, in the name of God and all these rights,\nAdvance your standards, draw your willing swords.\nFor me, the ransom of my bold attempt\nShall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;\nBut if I thrive, the gain of my attempt\nThe least of you shall share his part thereof.\nSound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;\nGod and Saint George! Richmond and victory!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat said Northumberland as touching Richmond?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nThat he was never trained up in arms.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHe said the truth: and what said Surrey then?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nHe smiled and said 'The better for our purpose.'\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHe was in the right; and so indeed it is.\nTen the clock there. Give me a calendar.\nWho saw the sun to-day?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nNot I, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen he disdains to shine; for by the book\nHe should have braved the east an hour ago\nA black day will it be to somebody. Ratcliff!\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThe sun will not be seen to-day;\nThe sky doth frown and lour upon our army.\nI would these dewy tears were from the ground.\nNot shine to-day! Why, what is that to me\nMore than to Richmond?  for the selfsame heaven\nThat frowns on me looks sadly upon him.\n\nNORFOLK:\nArm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCome, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse.\nCall up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power:\nI will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,\nAnd thus my battle shall be ordered:\nMy foreward shall be drawn out all in length,\nConsisting equally of horse and foot;\nOur archers shall be placed in the midst\nJohn Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,\nShall have the leading of this foot and horse.\nThey thus directed, we will follow\nIn the main battle, whose puissance on either side\nShall be well winged with our chiefest horse.\nThis, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou, Norfolk?\n\nNORFOLK:\nA good direction, warlike sovereign.\nThis found I on my tent this morning.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\n\nMessenger:\nMy lord, he doth deny to come.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nOff with his son George's head!\n\nNORFOLK:\nMy lord, the enemy is past the marsh\nAfter the battle let George Stanley die.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nA thousand hearts are great within my bosom:\nAdvance our standards, set upon our foes\nOur ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,\nInspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!\nUpon them! victory sits on our helms.\n\nCATESBY:\nRescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!\nThe king enacts more wonders than a man,\nDaring an opposite to every danger:\nHis horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,\nSeeking for Richmond in the throat of death.\nRescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nA horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\n\nCATESBY:\nWithdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSlave, I have set my life upon a cast,\nAnd I will stand the hazard of the die:\nI think there be six Richmonds in the field;\nFive have I slain to-day instead of him.\nA horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\n\nRICHMOND:\nGod and your arms be praised, victorious friends,\nThe day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.\n\nDERBY:\nCourageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee.\nLo, here, this long-usurped royalty\nFrom the dead temples of this bloody wretch\nHave I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal:\nWear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.\n\nRICHMOND:\nGreat God of heaven, say Amen to all!\nBut, tell me, is young George Stanley living?\n\nDERBY:\nHe is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town;\nWhither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.\n\nRICHMOND:\nWhat men of name are slain on either side?\n\nDERBY:\nJohn Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,\nSir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.\n\nRICHMOND:\nInter their bodies as becomes their births:\nProclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled\nThat in submission will return to us:\nAnd then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,\nWe will unite the white rose and the red:\nSmile heaven upon this fair conjunction,\nThat long have frown'd upon their enmity!\nWhat traitor hears me, and says not amen?\nEngland hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;\nThe brother blindly shed the brother's blood,\nThe father rashly slaughter'd his own son,\nThe son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire:\nAll this divided York and Lancaster,\nDivided in their dire division,\nO, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,\nThe true succeeders of each royal house,\nBy God's fair ordinance conjoin together!\nAnd let their heirs, God, if thy will be so.\nEnrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace,\nWith smiling plenty and fair prosperous days!\nAbate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,\nThat would reduce these bloody days again,\nAnd make poor England weep in streams of blood!\nLet them not live to taste this land's increase\nThat would with treason wound this fair land's peace!\nNow civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again:\nThat she may long live here, God say amen!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nOld John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster,\nHast thou, according to thy oath and band,\nBrought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son,\nHere to make good the boisterous late appeal,\nWhich then our leisure would not let us hear,\nAgainst the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nI have, my liege.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nTell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him,\nIf he appeal the duke on ancient malice;\nOr worthily, as a good subject should,\nOn some known ground of treachery in him?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nAs near as I could sift him on that argument,\nOn some apparent danger seen in him\nAim'd at your highness, no inveterate malice.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThen call them to our presence; face to face,\nAnd frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear\nThe accuser and the accused freely speak:\nHigh-stomach'd are they both, and full of ire,\nIn rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMany years of happy days befal\nMy gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nEach day still better other's happiness;\nUntil the heavens, envying earth's good hap,\nAdd an immortal title to your crown!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe thank you both: yet one but flatters us,\nAs well appeareth by the cause you come;\nNamely to appeal each other of high treason.\nCousin of Hereford, what dost thou object\nAgainst the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nFirst, heaven be the record to my speech!\nIn the devotion of a subject's love,\nTendering the precious safety of my prince,\nAnd free from other misbegotten hate,\nCome I appellant to this princely presence.\nNow, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,\nAnd mark my greeting well; for what I speak\nMy body shall make good upon this earth,\nOr my divine soul answer it in heaven.\nThou art a traitor and a miscreant,\nToo good to be so and too bad to live,\nSince the more fair and crystal is the sky,\nThe uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.\nOnce more, the more to aggravate the note,\nWith a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;\nAnd wish, so please my sovereign, ere I move,\nWhat my tongue speaks my right drawn sword may prove.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nLet not my cold words here accuse my zeal:\n'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,\nThe bitter clamour of two eager tongues,\nCan arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;\nThe blood is hot that must be cool'd for this:\nYet can I not of such tame patience boast\nAs to be hush'd and nought at all to say:\nFirst, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me\nFrom giving reins and spurs to my free speech;\nWhich else would post until it had return'd\nThese terms of treason doubled down his throat.\nSetting aside his high blood's royalty,\nAnd let him be no kinsman to my liege,\nI do defy him, and I spit at him;\nCall him a slanderous coward and a villain:\nWhich to maintain I would allow him odds,\nAnd meet him, were I tied to run afoot\nEven to the frozen ridges of the Alps,\nOr any other ground inhabitable,\nWhere ever Englishman durst set his foot.\nMean time let this defend my loyalty,\nBy all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nPale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,\nDisclaiming here the kindred of the king,\nAnd lay aside my high blood's royalty,\nWhich fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.\nIf guilty dread have left thee so much strength\nAs to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop:\nBy that and all the rites of knighthood else,\nWill I make good against thee, arm to arm,\nWhat I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nI take it up; and by that sword I swear\nWhich gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,\nI'll answer thee in any fair degree,\nOr chivalrous design of knightly trial:\nAnd when I mount, alive may I not light,\nIf I be traitor or unjustly fight!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?\nIt must be great that can inherit us\nSo much as of a thought of ill in him.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nLook, what I speak, my life shall prove it true;\nThat Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles\nIn name of lendings for your highness' soldiers,\nThe which he hath detain'd for lewd employments,\nLike a false traitor and injurious villain.\nBesides I say and will in battle prove,\nOr here or elsewhere to the furthest verge\nThat ever was survey'd by English eye,\nThat all the treasons for these eighteen years\nComplotted and contrived in this land\nFetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.\nFurther I say and further will maintain\nUpon his bad life to make all this good,\nThat he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,\nSuggest his soon-believing adversaries,\nAnd consequently, like a traitor coward,\nSluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood:\nWhich blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,\nEven from the tongueless caverns of the earth,\nTo me for justice and rough chastisement;\nAnd, by the glorious worth of my descent,\nThis arm shall do it, or this life be spent.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHow high a pitch his resolution soars!\nThomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nO, let my sovereign turn away his face\nAnd bid his ears a little while be deaf,\nTill I have told this slander of his blood,\nHow God and good men hate so foul a liar.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:\nWere he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,\nAs he is but my father's brother's son,\nNow, by my sceptre's awe, I make a vow,\nSuch neighbour nearness to our sacred blood\nShould nothing privilege him, nor partialize\nThe unstooping firmness of my upright soul:\nHe is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:\nFree speech and fearless I to thee allow.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nThen, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,\nThrough the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.\nThree parts of that receipt I had for Calais\nDisbursed I duly to his highness' soldiers;\nThe other part reserved I by consent,\nFor that my sovereign liege was in my debt\nUpon remainder of a dear account,\nSince last I went to France to fetch his queen:\nNow swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death,\nI slew him not; but to my own disgrace\nNeglected my sworn duty in that case.\nFor you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,\nThe honourable father to my foe\nOnce did I lay an ambush for your life,\nA trespass that doth vex my grieved soul\nBut ere I last received the sacrament\nI did confess it, and exactly begg'd\nYour grace's pardon, and I hope I had it.\nThis is my fault: as for the rest appeall'd,\nIt issues from the rancour of a villain,\nA recreant and most degenerate traitor\nWhich in myself I boldly will defend;\nAnd interchangeably hurl down my gage\nUpon this overweening traitor's foot,\nTo prove myself a loyal gentleman\nEven in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.\nIn haste whereof, most heartily I pray\nYour highness to assign our trial day.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me;\nLet's purge this choler without letting blood:\nThis we prescribe, though no physician;\nDeep malice makes too deep incision;\nForget, forgive; conclude and be agreed;\nOur doctors say this is no month to bleed.\nGood uncle, let this end where it begun;\nWe'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nTo be a make-peace shall become my age:\nThrow down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd, Norfolk, throw down his.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nWhen, Harry, when?\nObedience bids I should not bid again.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boot.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nMyself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.\nMy life thou shalt command, but not my shame:\nThe one my duty owes; but my fair name,\nDespite of death that lives upon my grave,\nTo dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.\nI am disgraced, impeach'd and baffled here,\nPierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,\nThe which no balm can cure but his heart-blood\nWhich breathed this poison.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nRage must be withstood:\nGive me his gage: lions make leopards tame.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nYea, but not change his spots: take but my shame.\nAnd I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,\nThe purest treasure mortal times afford\nIs spotless reputation: that away,\nMen are but gilded loam or painted clay.\nA jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest\nIs a bold spirit in a loyal breast.\nMine honour is my life; both grow in one:\nTake honour from me, and my life is done:\nThen, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;\nIn that I live and for that will I die.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nCousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO, God defend my soul from such deep sin!\nShall I seem crest-fall'n in my father's sight?\nOr with pale beggar-fear impeach my height\nBefore this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue\nShall wound my honour with such feeble wrong,\nOr sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear\nThe slavish motive of recanting fear,\nAnd spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,\nWhere shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe were not born to sue, but to command;\nWhich since we cannot do to make you friends,\nBe ready, as your lives shall answer it,\nAt Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day:\nThere shall your swords and lances arbitrate\nThe swelling difference of your settled hate:\nSince we can not atone you, we shall see\nJustice design the victor's chivalry.\nLord marshal, command our officers at arms\nBe ready to direct these home alarms.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nAlas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood\nDoth more solicit me than your exclaims,\nTo stir against the butchers of his life!\nBut since correction lieth in those hands\nWhich made the fault that we cannot correct,\nPut we our quarrel to the will of heaven;\nWho, when they see the hours ripe on earth,\nWill rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.\n\nDUCHESS:\nFinds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?\nHath love in thy old blood no living fire?\nEdward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,\nWere as seven vials of his sacred blood,\nOr seven fair branches springing from one root:\nSome of those seven are dried by nature's course,\nSome of those branches by the Destinies cut;\nBut Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,\nOne vial full of Edward's sacred blood,\nOne flourishing branch of his most royal root,\nIs crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt,\nIs hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,\nBy envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.\nAh, Gaunt, his blood was thine! that bed, that womb,\nThat metal, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee\nMade him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,\nYet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent\nIn some large measure to thy father's death,\nIn that thou seest thy wretched brother die,\nWho was the model of thy father's life.\nCall it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:\nIn suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,\nThou showest the naked pathway to thy life,\nTeaching stern murder how to butcher thee:\nThat which in mean men we intitle patience\nIs pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.\nWhat shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,\nThe best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nGod's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,\nHis deputy anointed in His sight,\nHath caused his death: the which if wrongfully,\nLet heaven revenge; for I may never lift\nAn angry arm against His minister.\n\nDUCHESS:\nWhere then, alas, may I complain myself?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nTo God, the widow's champion and defence.\n\nDUCHESS:\nWhy, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.\nThou goest to Coventry, there to behold\nOur cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:\nO, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,\nThat it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!\nOr, if misfortune miss the first career,\nBe Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom,\nThey may break his foaming courser's back,\nAnd throw the rider headlong in the lists,\nA caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!\nFarewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimes brother's wife\nWith her companion grief must end her life.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nSister, farewell; I must to Coventry:\nAs much good stay with thee as go with me!\n\nDUCHESS:\nYet one word more: grief boundeth where it falls,\nNot with the empty hollowness, but weight:\nI take my leave before I have begun,\nFor sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.\nCommend me to thy brother, Edmund York.\nLo, this is all:--nay, yet depart not so;\nThough this be all, do not so quickly go;\nI shall remember more. Bid him--ah, what?--\nWith all good speed at Plashy visit me.\nAlack, and what shall good old York there see\nBut empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,\nUnpeopled offices, untrodden stones?\nAnd what hear there for welcome but my groans?\nTherefore commend me; let him not come there,\nTo seek out sorrow that dwells every where.\nDesolate, desolate, will I hence and die:\nThe last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.\n\nLord Marshal:\nMy Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nYea, at all points; and longs to enter in.\n\nLord Marshal:\nThe Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,\nStays but the summons of the appellant's trumpet.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWhy, then, the champions are prepared, and stay\nFor nothing but his majesty's approach.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMarshal, demand of yonder champion\nThe cause of his arrival here in arms:\nAsk him his name and orderly proceed\nTo swear him in the justice of his cause.\n\nLord Marshal:\nIn God's name and the king's, say who thou art\nAnd why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,\nAgainst what man thou comest, and what thy quarrel:\nSpeak truly, on thy knighthood and thy oath;\nAs so defend thee heaven and thy valour!\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nMy name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;\nWho hither come engaged by my oath--\nWhich God defend a knight should violate!--\nBoth to defend my loyalty and truth\nTo God, my king and my succeeding issue,\nAgainst the Duke of Hereford that appeals me\nAnd, by the grace of God and this mine arm,\nTo prove him, in defending of myself,\nA traitor to my God, my king, and me:\nAnd as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMarshal, ask yonder knight in arms,\nBoth who he is and why he cometh hither\nThus plated in habiliments of war,\nAnd formally, according to our law,\nDepose him in the justice of his cause.\n\nLord Marshal:\nWhat is thy name? and wherefore comest thou hither,\nBefore King Richard in his royal lists?\nAgainst whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?\nSpeak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby\nAm I; who ready here do stand in arms,\nTo prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,\nIn lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\nThat he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,\nTo God of heaven, King Richard and to me;\nAnd as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n\nLord Marshal:\nOn pain of death, no person be so bold\nOr daring-hardy as to touch the lists,\nExcept the marshal and such officers\nAppointed to direct these fair designs.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nLord marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,\nAnd bow my knee before his majesty:\nFor Mowbray and myself are like two men\nThat vow a long and weary pilgrimage;\nThen let us take a ceremonious leave\nAnd loving farewell of our several friends.\n\nLord Marshal:\nThe appellant in all duty greets your highness,\nAnd craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe will descend and fold him in our arms.\nCousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,\nSo be thy fortune in this royal fight!\nFarewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,\nLament we may, but not revenge thee dead.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO let no noble eye profane a tear\nFor me, if I be gored with Mowbray's spear:\nAs confident as is the falcon's flight\nAgainst a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.\nMy loving lord, I take my leave of you;\nOf you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;\nNot sick, although I have to do with death,\nBut lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.\nLo, as at English feasts, so I regreet\nThe daintiest last, to make the end most sweet:\nO thou, the earthly author of my blood,\nWhose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,\nDoth with a twofold vigour lift me up\nTo reach at victory above my head,\nAdd proof unto mine armour with thy prayers;\nAnd with thy blessings steel my lance's point,\nThat it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat,\nAnd furbish new the name of John a Gaunt,\nEven in the lusty havior of his son.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nGod in thy good cause make thee prosperous!\nBe swift like lightning in the execution;\nAnd let thy blows, doubly redoubled,\nFall like amazing thunder on the casque\nOf thy adverse pernicious enemy:\nRouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMine innocency and Saint George to thrive!\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nHowever God or fortune cast my lot,\nThere lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,\nA loyal, just and upright gentleman:\nNever did captive with a freer heart\nCast off his chains of bondage and embrace\nHis golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,\nMore than my dancing soul doth celebrate\nThis feast of battle with mine adversary.\nMost mighty liege, and my companion peers,\nTake from my mouth the wish of happy years:\nAs gentle and as jocund as to jest\nGo I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nFarewell, my lord: securely I espy\nVirtue with valour couched in thine eye.\nOrder the trial, marshal, and begin.\n\nLord Marshal:\nHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,\nReceive thy lance; and God defend the right!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nStrong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.\n\nLord Marshal:\nGo bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.\n\nFirst Herald:\nHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,\nStands here for God, his sovereign and himself,\nOn pain to be found false and recreant,\nTo prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,\nA traitor to his God, his king and him;\nAnd dares him to set forward to the fight.\n\nSecond Herald:\nHere standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\nOn pain to be found false and recreant,\nBoth to defend himself and to approve\nHenry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\nTo God, his sovereign and to him disloyal;\nCourageously and with a free desire\nAttending but the signal to begin.\n\nLord Marshal:\nSound, trumpets; and set forward, combatants.\nStay, the king hath thrown his warder down.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nLet them lay by their helmets and their spears,\nAnd both return back to their chairs again:\nWithdraw with us: and let the trumpets sound\nWhile we return these dukes what we decree.\nDraw near,\nAnd list what with our council we have done.\nFor that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd\nWith that dear blood which it hath fostered;\nAnd for our eyes do hate the dire aspect\nOf civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;\nAnd for we think the eagle-winged pride\nOf sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,\nWith rival-hating envy, set on you\nTo wake our peace, which in our country's cradle\nDraws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;\nWhich so roused up with boisterous untuned drums,\nWith harsh resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,\nAnd grating shock of wrathful iron arms,\nMight from our quiet confines fright fair peace\nAnd make us wade even in our kindred's blood,\nTherefore, we banish you our territories:\nYou, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,\nTill twice five summers have enrich'd our fields\nShall not regreet our fair dominions,\nBut tread the stranger paths of banishment.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYour will be done: this must my comfort be,\nSun that warms you here shall shine on me;\nAnd those his golden beams to you here lent\nShall point on me and gild my banishment.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,\nWhich I with some unwillingness pronounce:\nThe sly slow hours shall not determinate\nThe dateless limit of thy dear exile;\nThe hopeless word of 'never to return'\nBreathe I against thee, upon pain of life.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nA heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,\nAnd all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:\nA dearer merit, not so deep a maim\nAs to be cast forth in the common air,\nHave I deserved at your highness' hands.\nThe language I have learn'd these forty years,\nMy native English, now I must forego:\nAnd now my tongue's use is to me no more\nThan an unstringed viol or a harp,\nOr like a cunning instrument cased up,\nOr, being open, put into his hands\nThat knows no touch to tune the harmony:\nWithin my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,\nDoubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;\nAnd dull unfeeling barren ignorance\nIs made my gaoler to attend on me.\nI am too old to fawn upon a nurse,\nToo far in years to be a pupil now:\nWhat is thy sentence then but speechless death,\nWhich robs my tongue from breathing native breath?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nIt boots thee not to be compassionate:\nAfter our sentence plaining comes too late.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nThen thus I turn me from my country's light,\nTo dwell in solemn shades of endless night.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nReturn again, and take an oath with thee.\nLay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;\nSwear by the duty that you owe to God--\nOur part therein we banish with yourselves--\nTo keep the oath that we administer:\nYou never shall, so help you truth and God!\nEmbrace each other's love in banishment;\nNor never look upon each other's face;\nNor never write, regreet, nor reconcile\nThis louring tempest of your home-bred hate;\nNor never by advised purpose meet\nTo plot, contrive, or complot any ill\n'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI swear.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nAnd I, to keep all this.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nNorfolk, so far as to mine enemy:--\nBy this time, had the king permitted us,\nOne of our souls had wander'd in the air.\nBanish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,\nAs now our flesh is banish'd from this land:\nConfess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;\nSince thou hast far to go, bear not along\nThe clogging burthen of a guilty soul.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nNo, Bolingbroke: if ever I were traitor,\nMy name be blotted from the book of life,\nAnd I from heaven banish'd as from hence!\nBut what thou art, God, thou, and I do know;\nAnd all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.\nFarewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray;\nSave back to England, all the world's my way.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nUncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes\nI see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspect\nHath from the number of his banish'd years\nPluck'd four away.\nSix frozen winter spent,\nReturn with welcome home from banishment.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHow long a time lies in one little word!\nFour lagging winters and four wanton springs\nEnd in a word: such is the breath of kings.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nI thank my liege, that in regard of me\nHe shortens four years of my son's exile:\nBut little vantage shall I reap thereby;\nFor, ere the six years that he hath to spend\nCan change their moons and bring their times about\nMy oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light\nShall be extinct with age and endless night;\nMy inch of taper will be burnt and done,\nAnd blindfold death not let me see my son.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhy uncle, thou hast many years to live.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nBut not a minute, king, that thou canst give:\nShorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,\nAnd pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;\nThou canst help time to furrow me with age,\nBut stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;\nThy word is current with him for my death,\nBut dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThy son is banish'd upon good advice,\nWhereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave:\nWhy at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nThings sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.\nYou urged me as a judge; but I had rather\nYou would have bid me argue like a father.\nO, had it been a stranger, not my child,\nTo smooth his fault I should have been more mild:\nA partial slander sought I to avoid,\nAnd in the sentence my own life destroy'd.\nAlas, I look'd when some of you should say,\nI was too strict to make mine own away;\nBut you gave leave to my unwilling tongue\nAgainst my will to do myself this wrong.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nCousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so:\nSix years we banish him, and he shall go.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nCousin, farewell: what presence must not know,\nFrom where you do remain let paper show.\n\nLord Marshal:\nMy lord, no leave take I; for I will ride,\nAs far as land will let me, by your side.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,\nThat thou return'st no greeting to thy friends?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI have too few to take my leave of you,\nWhen the tongue's office should be prodigal\nTo breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nThy grief is but thy absence for a time.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nJoy absent, grief is present for that time.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nWhat is six winters? they are quickly gone.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nTo men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nCall it a travel that thou takest for pleasure.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy heart will sigh when I miscall it so,\nWhich finds it an inforced pilgrimage.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nThe sullen passage of thy weary steps\nEsteem as foil wherein thou art to set\nThe precious jewel of thy home return.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nNay, rather, every tedious stride I make\nWill but remember me what a deal of world\nI wander from the jewels that I love.\nMust I not serve a long apprenticehood\nTo foreign passages, and in the end,\nHaving my freedom, boast of nothing else\nBut that I was a journeyman to grief?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nAll places that the eye of heaven visits\nAre to a wise man ports and happy havens.\nTeach thy necessity to reason thus;\nThere is no virtue like necessity.\nThink not the king did banish thee,\nBut thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,\nWhere it perceives it is but faintly borne.\nGo, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour\nAnd not the king exiled thee; or suppose\nDevouring pestilence hangs in our air\nAnd thou art flying to a fresher clime:\nLook, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it\nTo lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou comest:\nSuppose the singing birds musicians,\nThe grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,\nThe flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more\nThan a delightful measure or a dance;\nFor gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite\nThe man that mocks at it and sets it light.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO, who can hold a fire in his hand\nBy thinking on the frosty Caucasus?\nOr cloy the hungry edge of appetite\nBy bare imagination of a feast?\nOr wallow naked in December snow\nBy thinking on fantastic summer's heat?\nO, no! the apprehension of the good\nGives but the greater feeling to the worse:\nFell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more\nThan when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nCome, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way:\nHad I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThen, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;\nMy mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!\nWhere'er I wander, boast of this I can,\nThough banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe did observe. Cousin Aumerle,\nHow far brought you high Hereford on his way?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nI brought high Hereford, if you call him so,\nBut to the next highway, and there I left him.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd say, what store of parting tears were shed?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFaith, none for me; except the north-east wind,\nWhich then blew bitterly against our faces,\nAwaked the sleeping rheum, and so by chance\nDid grace our hollow parting with a tear.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat said our cousin when you parted with him?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\n'Farewell:'\nAnd, for my heart disdained that my tongue\nShould so profane the word, that taught me craft\nTo counterfeit oppression of such grief\nThat words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.\nMarry, would the word 'farewell' have lengthen'd hours\nAnd added years to his short banishment,\nHe should have had a volume of farewells;\nBut since it would not, he had none of me.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHe is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,\nWhen time shall call him home from banishment,\nWhether our kinsman come to see his friends.\nOurself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green\nObserved his courtship to the common people;\nHow he did seem to dive into their hearts\nWith humble and familiar courtesy,\nWhat reverence he did throw away on slaves,\nWooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles\nAnd patient underbearing of his fortune,\nAs 'twere to banish their affects with him.\nOff goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;\nA brace of draymen bid God speed him well\nAnd had the tribute of his supple knee,\nWith 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends;'\nAs were our England in reversion his,\nAnd he our subjects' next degree in hope.\n\nGREEN:\nWell, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.\nNow for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,\nExpedient manage must be made, my liege,\nEre further leisure yield them further means\nFor their advantage and your highness' loss.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe will ourself in person to this war:\nAnd, for our coffers, with too great a court\nAnd liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,\nWe are inforced to farm our royal realm;\nThe revenue whereof shall furnish us\nFor our affairs in hand: if that come short,\nOur substitutes at home shall have blank charters;\nWhereto, when they shall know what men are rich,\nThey shall subscribe them for large sums of gold\nAnd send them after to supply our wants;\nFor we will make for Ireland presently.\nBushy, what news?\n\nBUSHY:\nOld John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,\nSuddenly taken; and hath sent post haste\nTo entreat your majesty to visit him.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhere lies he?\n\nBUSHY:\nAt Ely House.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNow put it, God, in the physician's mind\nTo help him to his grave immediately!\nThe lining of his coffers shall make coats\nTo deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.\nCome, gentlemen, let's all go visit him:\nPray God we may make haste, and come too late!\n\nAll:\nAmen.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nWill the king come, that I may breathe my last\nIn wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nVex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;\nFor all in vain comes counsel to his ear.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, but they say the tongues of dying men\nEnforce attention like deep harmony:\nWhere words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,\nFor they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.\nHe that no more must say is listen'd more\nThan they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;\nMore are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:\nThe setting sun, and music at the close,\nAs the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,\nWrit in remembrance more than things long past:\nThough Richard my life's counsel would not hear,\nMy death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nNo; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,\nAs praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,\nLascivious metres, to whose venom sound\nThe open ear of youth doth always listen;\nReport of fashions in proud Italy,\nWhose manners still our tardy apish nation\nLimps after in base imitation.\nWhere doth the world thrust forth a vanity--\nSo it be new, there's no respect how vile--\nThat is not quickly buzzed into his ears?\nThen all too late comes counsel to be heard,\nWhere will doth mutiny with wit's regard.\nDirect not him whose way himself will choose:\n'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nMethinks I am a prophet new inspired\nAnd thus expiring do foretell of him:\nHis rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,\nFor violent fires soon burn out themselves;\nSmall showers last long, but sudden storms are short;\nHe tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;\nWith eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:\nLight vanity, insatiate cormorant,\nConsuming means, soon preys upon itself.\nThis royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,\nThis earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,\nThis other Eden, demi-paradise,\nThis fortress built by Nature for herself\nAgainst infection and the hand of war,\nThis happy breed of men, this little world,\nThis precious stone set in the silver sea,\nWhich serves it in the office of a wall,\nOr as a moat defensive to a house,\nAgainst the envy of less happier lands,\nThis blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,\nThis nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,\nFear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,\nRenowned for their deeds as far from home,\nFor Christian service and true chivalry,\nAs is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,\nOf the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,\nThis land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,\nDear for her reputation through the world,\nIs now leased out, I die pronouncing it,\nLike to a tenement or pelting farm:\nEngland, bound in with the triumphant sea\nWhose rocky shore beats back the envious siege\nOf watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,\nWith inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:\nThat England, that was wont to conquer others,\nHath made a shameful conquest of itself.\nAh, would the scandal vanish with my life,\nHow happy then were my ensuing death!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThe king is come: deal mildly with his youth;\nFor young hot colts being raged do rage the more.\n\nQUEEN:\nHow fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat comfort, man? how is't with aged Gaunt?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO how that name befits my composition!\nOld Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:\nWithin me grief hath kept a tedious fast;\nAnd who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?\nFor sleeping England long time have I watch'd;\nWatching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:\nThe pleasure that some fathers feed upon,\nIs my strict fast; I mean, my children's looks;\nAnd therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:\nGaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,\nWhose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nCan sick men play so nicely with their names?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nNo, misery makes sport to mock itself:\nSince thou dost seek to kill my name in me,\nI mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nShould dying men flatter with those that live?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nNo, no, men living flatter those that die.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest me.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nI am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nNow He that made me knows I see thee ill;\nIll in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.\nThy death-bed is no lesser than thy land\nWherein thou liest in reputation sick;\nAnd thou, too careless patient as thou art,\nCommit'st thy anointed body to the cure\nOf those physicians that first wounded thee:\nA thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,\nWhose compass is no bigger than thy head;\nAnd yet, incaged in so small a verge,\nThe waste is no whit lesser than thy land.\nO, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye\nSeen how his son's son should destroy his sons,\nFrom forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,\nDeposing thee before thou wert possess'd,\nWhich art possess'd now to depose thyself.\nWhy, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,\nIt were a shame to let this land by lease;\nBut for thy world enjoying but this land,\nIs it not more than shame to shame it so?\nLandlord of England art thou now, not king:\nThy state of law is bondslave to the law; And thou--\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nA lunatic lean-witted fool,\nPresuming on an ague's privilege,\nDarest with thy frozen admonition\nMake pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood\nWith fury from his native residence.\nNow, by my seat's right royal majesty,\nWert thou not brother to great Edward's son,\nThis tongue that runs so roundly in thy head\nShould run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,\nFor that I was his father Edward's son;\nThat blood already, like the pelican,\nHast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:\nMy brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,\nWhom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!\nMay be a precedent and witness good\nThat thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:\nJoin with the present sickness that I have;\nAnd thy unkindness be like crooked age,\nTo crop at once a too long wither'd flower.\nLive in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!\nThese words hereafter thy tormentors be!\nConvey me to my bed, then to my grave:\nLove they to live that love and honour have.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd let them die that age and sullens have;\nFor both hast thou, and both become the grave.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI do beseech your majesty, impute his words\nTo wayward sickliness and age in him:\nHe loves you, on my life, and holds you dear\nAs Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nRight, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;\nAs theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat says he?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNay, nothing; all is said\nHis tongue is now a stringless instrument;\nWords, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nBe York the next that must be bankrupt so!\nThough death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThe ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;\nHis time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.\nSo much for that. Now for our Irish wars:\nWe must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,\nWhich live like venom where no venom else\nBut only they have privilege to live.\nAnd for these great affairs do ask some charge,\nTowards our assistance we do seize to us\nThe plate, corn, revenues and moveables,\nWhereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nHow long shall I be patient? ah, how long\nShall tender duty make me suffer wrong?\nNot Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment\nNot Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,\nNor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke\nAbout his marriage, nor my own disgrace,\nHave ever made me sour my patient cheek,\nOr bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.\nI am the last of noble Edward's sons,\nOf whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first:\nIn war was never lion raged more fierce,\nIn peace was never gentle lamb more mild,\nThan was that young and princely gentleman.\nHis face thou hast, for even so look'd he,\nAccomplish'd with the number of thy hours;\nBut when he frown'd, it was against the French\nAnd not against his friends; his noble hand\nDid will what he did spend and spent not that\nWhich his triumphant father's hand had won;\nHis hands were guilty of no kindred blood,\nBut bloody with the enemies of his kin.\nO Richard! York is too far gone with grief,\nOr else he never would compare between.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhy, uncle, what's the matter?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nO my liege,\nPardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleased\nNot to be pardon'd, am content withal.\nSeek you to seize and gripe into your hands\nThe royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?\nIs not Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live?\nWas not Gaunt just, and is not Harry true?\nDid not the one deserve to have an heir?\nIs not his heir a well-deserving son?\nTake Hereford's rights away, and take from Time\nHis charters and his customary rights;\nLet not to-morrow then ensue to-day;\nBe not thyself; for how art thou a king\nBut by fair sequence and succession?\nNow, afore God--God forbid I say true!--\nIf you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,\nCall in the letters patent that he hath\nBy his attorneys-general to sue\nHis livery, and deny his offer'd homage,\nYou pluck a thousand dangers on your head,\nYou lose a thousand well-disposed hearts\nAnd prick my tender patience, to those thoughts\nWhich honour and allegiance cannot think.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThink what you will, we seize into our hands\nHis plate, his goods, his money and his lands.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI'll not be by the while: my liege, farewell:\nWhat will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;\nBut by bad courses may be understood\nThat their events can never fall out good.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nGo, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight:\nBid him repair to us to Ely House\nTo see this business. To-morrow next\nWe will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow:\nAnd we create, in absence of ourself,\nOur uncle York lord governor of England;\nFor he is just and always loved us well.\nCome on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;\nBe merry, for our time of stay is short\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWell, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nAnd living too; for now his son is duke.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nBarely in title, not in revenue.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nRichly in both, if justice had her right.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nMy heart is great; but it must break with silence,\nEre't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more\nThat speaks thy words again to do thee harm!\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nTends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?\nIf it be so, out with it boldly, man;\nQuick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nNo good at all that I can do for him;\nUnless you call it good to pity him,\nBereft and gelded of his patrimony.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNow, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne\nIn him, a royal prince, and many moe\nOf noble blood in this declining land.\nThe king is not himself, but basely led\nBy flatterers; and what they will inform,\nMerely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,\nThat will the king severely prosecute\n'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nThe commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,\nAnd quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fined\nFor ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nAnd daily new exactions are devised,\nAs blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:\nBut what, o' God's name, doth become of this?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,\nBut basely yielded upon compromise\nThat which his noble ancestors achieved with blows:\nMore hath he spent in peace than they in wars.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nThe Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nThe king's grown bankrupt, like a broken man.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nReproach and dissolution hangeth over him.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nHe hath not money for these Irish wars,\nHis burthenous taxations notwithstanding,\nBut by the robbing of the banish'd duke.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHis noble kinsman: most degenerate king!\nBut, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,\nYet see no shelter to avoid the storm;\nWe see the wind sit sore upon our sails,\nAnd yet we strike not, but securely perish.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nWe see the very wreck that we must suffer;\nAnd unavoided is the danger now,\nFor suffering so the causes of our wreck.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNot so; even through the hollow eyes of death\nI spy life peering; but I dare not say\nHow near the tidings of our comfort is.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nNay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nBe confident to speak, Northumberland:\nWe three are but thyself; and, speaking so,\nThy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThen thus: I have from Port le Blanc, a bay\nIn Brittany, received intelligence\nThat Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,\nThat late broke from the Duke of Exeter,\nHis brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,\nSir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,\nSir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton and Francis Quoint,\nAll these well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne\nWith eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,\nAre making hither with all due expedience\nAnd shortly mean to touch our northern shore:\nPerhaps they had ere this, but that they stay\nThe first departing of the king for Ireland.\nIf then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,\nImp out our drooping country's broken wing,\nRedeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,\nWipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt\nAnd make high majesty look like itself,\nAway with me in post to Ravenspurgh;\nBut if you faint, as fearing to do so,\nStay and be secret, and myself will go.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nTo horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nHold out my horse, and I will first be there.\n\nBUSHY:\nMadam, your majesty is too much sad:\nYou promised, when you parted with the king,\nTo lay aside life-harming heaviness\nAnd entertain a cheerful disposition.\n\nQUEEN:\nTo please the king I did; to please myself\nI cannot do it; yet I know no cause\nWhy I should welcome such a guest as grief,\nSave bidding farewell to so sweet a guest\nAs my sweet Richard: yet again, methinks,\nSome unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,\nIs coming towards me, and my inward soul\nWith nothing trembles: at some thing it grieves,\nMore than with parting from my lord the king.\n\nBUSHY:\nEach substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,\nWhich shows like grief itself, but is not so;\nFor sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,\nDivides one thing entire to many objects;\nLike perspectives, which rightly gazed upon\nShow nothing but confusion, eyed awry\nDistinguish form: so your sweet majesty,\nLooking awry upon your lord's departure,\nFind shapes of grief, more than himself, to wail;\nWhich, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows\nOf what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,\nMore than your lord's departure weep not: more's not seen;\nOr if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,\nWhich for things true weeps things imaginary.\n\nQUEEN:\nIt may be so; but yet my inward soul\nPersuades me it is otherwise: howe'er it be,\nI cannot but be sad; so heavy sad\nAs, though on thinking on no thought I think,\nMakes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.\n\nBUSHY:\n'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.\n\nQUEEN:\n'Tis nothing less: conceit is still derived\nFrom some forefather grief; mine is not so,\nFor nothing had begot my something grief;\nOr something hath the nothing that I grieve:\n'Tis in reversion that I do possess;\nBut what it is, that is not yet known; what\nI cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.\n\nGREEN:\nGod save your majesty! and well met, gentlemen:\nI hope the king is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.\n\nQUEEN:\nWhy hopest thou so? 'tis better hope he is;\nFor his designs crave haste, his haste good hope:\nThen wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?\n\nGREEN:\nThat he, our hope, might have retired his power,\nAnd driven into despair an enemy's hope,\nWho strongly hath set footing in this land:\nThe banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,\nAnd with uplifted arms is safe arrived\nAt Ravenspurgh.\n\nQUEEN:\nNow God in heaven forbid!\n\nGREEN:\nAh, madam, 'tis too true: and that is worse,\nThe Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,\nThe Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,\nWith all their powerful friends, are fled to him.\n\nBUSHY:\nWhy have you not proclaim'd Northumberland\nAnd all the rest revolted faction traitors?\n\nGREEN:\nWe have: whereupon the Earl of Worcester\nHath broke his staff, resign'd his stewardship,\nAnd all the household servants fled with him\nTo Bolingbroke.\n\nQUEEN:\nSo, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,\nAnd Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir:\nNow hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,\nAnd I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,\nHave woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.\n\nBUSHY:\nDespair not, madam.\n\nQUEEN:\nWho shall hinder me?\nI will despair, and be at enmity\nWith cozening hope: he is a flatterer,\nA parasite, a keeper back of death,\nWho gently would dissolve the bands of life,\nWhich false hope lingers in extremity.\n\nGREEN:\nHere comes the Duke of York.\n\nQUEEN:\nWith signs of war about his aged neck:\nO, full of careful business are his looks!\nUncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nShould I do so, I should belie my thoughts:\nComfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,\nWhere nothing lives but crosses, cares and grief.\nYour husband, he is gone to save far off,\nWhilst others come to make him lose at home:\nHere am I left to underprop his land,\nWho, weak with age, cannot support myself:\nNow comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;\nNow shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.\n\nServant:\nMy lord, your son was gone before I came.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nHe was? Why, so! go all which way it will!\nThe nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold,\nAnd will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.\nSirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;\nBid her send me presently a thousand pound:\nHold, take my ring.\n\nServant:\nMy lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,\nTo-day, as I came by, I called there;\nBut I shall grieve you to report the rest.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhat is't, knave?\n\nServant:\nAn hour before I came, the duchess died.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGod for his mercy! what a tide of woes\nComes rushing on this woeful land at once!\nI know not what to do: I would to God,\nSo my untruth had not provoked him to it,\nThe king had cut off my head with my brother's.\nWhat, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?\nHow shall we do for money for these wars?\nCome, sister,--cousin, I would say--pray, pardon me.\nGo, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts\nAnd bring away the armour that is there.\nGentlemen, will you go muster men?\nIf I know how or which way to order these affairs\nThus thrust disorderly into my hands,\nNever believe me. Both are my kinsmen:\nThe one is my sovereign, whom both my oath\nAnd duty bids defend; the other again\nIs my kinsman, whom the king hath wrong'd,\nWhom conscience and my kindred bids to right.\nWell, somewhat we must do. Come, cousin, I'll\nDispose of you.\nGentlemen, go, muster up your men,\nAnd meet me presently at Berkeley.\nI should to Plashy too;\nBut time will not permit: all is uneven,\nAnd every thing is left at six and seven.\n\nBUSHY:\nThe wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland,\nBut none returns. For us to levy power\nProportionable to the enemy\nIs all unpossible.\n\nGREEN:\nBesides, our nearness to the king in love\nIs near the hate of those love not the king.\n\nBAGOT:\nAnd that's the wavering commons: for their love\nLies in their purses, and whoso empties them\nBy so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.\n\nBUSHY:\nWherein the king stands generally condemn'd.\n\nBAGOT:\nIf judgement lie in them, then so do we,\nBecause we ever have been near the king.\n\nGREEN:\nWell, I will for refuge straight to Bristol castle:\nThe Earl of Wiltshire is already there.\n\nBUSHY:\nThither will I with you; for little office\nThe hateful commons will perform for us,\nExcept like curs to tear us all to pieces.\nWill you go along with us?\n\nBAGOT:\nNo; I will to Ireland to his majesty.\nFarewell: if heart's presages be not vain,\nWe three here art that ne'er shall meet again.\n\nBUSHY:\nThat's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.\n\nGREEN:\nAlas, poor duke! the task he undertakes\nIs numbering sands and drinking oceans dry:\nWhere one on his side fights, thousands will fly.\nFarewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.\n\nBUSHY:\nWell, we may meet again.\n\nBAGOT:\nI fear me, never.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHow far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBelieve me, noble lord,\nI am a stranger here in Gloucestershire:\nThese high wild hills and rough uneven ways\nDraws out our miles, and makes them wearisome,\nAnd yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,\nMaking the hard way sweet and delectable.\nBut I bethink me what a weary way\nFrom Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found\nIn Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,\nWhich, I protest, hath very much beguiled\nThe tediousness and process of my travel:\nBut theirs is sweetened with the hope to have\nThe present benefit which I possess;\nAnd hope to joy is little less in joy\nThan hope enjoy'd: by this the weary lords\nShall make their way seem short, as mine hath done\nBy sight of what I have, your noble company.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nOf much less value is my company\nThan your good words. But who comes here?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nIt is my son, young Harry Percy,\nSent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.\nHarry, how fares your uncle?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nI had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of you.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWhy, is he not with the queen?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nNo, my good Lord; he hath forsook the court,\nBroken his staff of office and dispersed\nThe household of the king.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWhat was his reason?\nHe was not so resolved when last we spake together.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nBecause your lordship was proclaimed traitor.\nBut he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,\nTo offer service to the Duke of Hereford,\nAnd sent me over by Berkeley, to discover\nWhat power the Duke of York had levied there;\nThen with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHave you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nNo, my good lord, for that is not forgot\nWhich ne'er I did remember: to my knowledge,\nI never in my life did look on him.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThen learn to know him now; this is the duke.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nMy gracious lord, I tender you my service,\nSuch as it is, being tender, raw and young:\nWhich elder days shall ripen and confirm\nTo more approved service and desert.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure\nI count myself in nothing else so happy\nAs in a soul remembering my good friends;\nAnd, as my fortune ripens with thy love,\nIt shall be still thy true love's recompense:\nMy heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHow far is it to Berkeley? and what stir\nKeeps good old York there with his men of war?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nThere stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,\nMann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;\nAnd in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour;\nNone else of name and noble estimate.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHere come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,\nBloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWelcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues\nA banish'd traitor: all my treasury\nIs yet but unfelt thanks, which more enrich'd\nShall be your love and labour's recompense.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nYour presence makes us rich, most noble lord.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nAnd far surmounts our labour to attain it.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nEvermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;\nWhich, till my infant fortune comes to years,\nStands for my bounty. But who comes here?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nIt is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.\n\nLORD BERKELEY:\nMy Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy lord, my answer is--to Lancaster;\nAnd I am come to seek that name in England;\nAnd I must find that title in your tongue,\nBefore I make reply to aught you say.\n\nLORD BERKELEY:\nMistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning\nTo raze one title of your honour out:\nTo you, my lord, I come, what lord you will,\nFrom the most gracious regent of this land,\nThe Duke of York, to know what pricks you on\nTo take advantage of the absent time\nAnd fright our native peace with self-born arms.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI shall not need transport my words by you;\nHere comes his grace in person. My noble uncle!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nShow me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,\nWhose duty is deceiveable and false.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy gracious uncle--\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nTut, tut!\nGrace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle:\nI am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace.'\nIn an ungracious mouth is but profane.\nWhy have those banish'd and forbidden legs\nDared once to touch a dust of England's ground?\nBut then more 'why?' why have they dared to march\nSo many miles upon her peaceful bosom,\nFrighting her pale-faced villages with war\nAnd ostentation of despised arms?\nComest thou because the anointed king is hence?\nWhy, foolish boy, the king is left behind,\nAnd in my loyal bosom lies his power.\nWere I but now the lord of such hot youth\nAs when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself\nRescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,\nFrom forth the ranks of many thousand French,\nO, then how quickly should this arm of mine.\nNow prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee\nAnd minister correction to thy fault!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy gracious uncle, let me know my fault:\nOn what condition stands it and wherein?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nEven in condition of the worst degree,\nIn gross rebellion and detested treason:\nThou art a banish'd man, and here art come\nBefore the expiration of thy time,\nIn braving arms against thy sovereign.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAs I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;\nBut as I come, I come for Lancaster.\nAnd, noble uncle, I beseech your grace\nLook on my wrongs with an indifferent eye:\nYou are my father, for methinks in you\nI see old Gaunt alive; O, then, my father,\nWill you permit that I shall stand condemn'd\nA wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties\nPluck'd from my arms perforce and given away\nTo upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?\nIf that my cousin king be King of England,\nIt must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.\nYou have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;\nHad you first died, and he been thus trod down,\nHe should have found his uncle Gaunt a father,\nTo rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.\nI am denied to sue my livery here,\nAnd yet my letters-patents give me leave:\nMy father's goods are all distrain'd and sold,\nAnd these and all are all amiss employ'd.\nWhat would you have me do? I am a subject,\nAnd I challenge law: attorneys are denied me;\nAnd therefore, personally I lay my claim\nTo my inheritance of free descent.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe noble duke hath been too much abused.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nIt stands your grace upon to do him right.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nBase men by his endowments are made great.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nMy lords of England, let me tell you this:\nI have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs\nAnd laboured all I could to do him right;\nBut in this kind to come, in braving arms,\nBe his own carver and cut out his way,\nTo find out right with wrong, it may not be;\nAnd you that do abet him in this kind\nCherish rebellion and are rebels all.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe noble duke hath sworn his coming is\nBut for his own; and for the right of that\nWe all have strongly sworn to give him aid;\nAnd let him ne'er see joy that breaks that oath!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWell, well, I see the issue of these arms:\nI cannot mend it, I must needs confess,\nBecause my power is weak and all ill left:\nBut if I could, by Him that gave me life,\nI would attach you all and make you stoop\nUnto the sovereign mercy of the king;\nBut since I cannot, be it known to you\nI do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;\nUnless you please to enter in the castle\nAnd there repose you for this night.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAn offer, uncle, that we will accept:\nBut we must win your grace to go with us\nTo Bristol castle, which they say is held\nBy Bushy, Bagot and their complices,\nThe caterpillars of the commonwealth,\nWhich I have sworn to weed and pluck away.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIt may be I will go with you: but yet I'll pause;\nFor I am loath to break our country's laws.\nNor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are:\nThings past redress are now with me past care.\n\nCaptain:\nMy lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days,\nAnd hardly kept our countrymen together,\nAnd yet we hear no tidings from the king;\nTherefore we will disperse ourselves: farewell.\n\nEARL OF SALISBURY:\nStay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman:\nThe king reposeth all his confidence in thee.\n\nCaptain:\n'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.\nThe bay-trees in our country are all wither'd\nAnd meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;\nThe pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth\nAnd lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;\nRich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,\nThe one in fear to lose what they enjoy,\nThe other to enjoy by rage and war:\nThese signs forerun the death or fall of kings.\nFarewell: our countrymen are gone and fled,\nAs well assured Richard their king is dead.\n\nEARL OF SALISBURY:\nAh, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind\nI see thy glory like a shooting star\nFall to the base earth from the firmament.\nThy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,\nWitnessing storms to come, woe and unrest:\nThy friends are fled to wait upon thy foes,\nAnd crossly to thy good all fortune goes.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nBring forth these men.\nBushy and Green, I will not vex your souls--\nSince presently your souls must part your bodies--\nWith too much urging your pernicious lives,\nFor 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood\nFrom off my hands, here in the view of men\nI will unfold some causes of your deaths.\nYou have misled a prince, a royal king,\nA happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,\nBy you unhappied and disfigured clean:\nYou have in manner with your sinful hours\nMade a divorce betwixt his queen and him,\nBroke the possession of a royal bed\nAnd stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks\nWith tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.\nMyself, a prince by fortune of my birth,\nNear to the king in blood, and near in love\nTill you did make him misinterpret me,\nHave stoop'd my neck under your injuries,\nAnd sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,\nEating the bitter bread of banishment;\nWhilst you have fed upon my signories,\nDispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,\nFrom my own windows torn my household coat,\nRazed out my imprese, leaving me no sign,\nSave men's opinions and my living blood,\nTo show the world I am a gentleman.\nThis and much more, much more than twice all this,\nCondemns you to the death. See them deliver'd over\nTo execution and the hand of death.\n\nBUSHY:\nMore welcome is the stroke of death to me\nThan Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.\n\nGREEN:\nMy comfort is that heaven will take our souls\nAnd plague injustice with the pains of hell.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.\nUncle, you say the queen is at your house;\nFor God's sake, fairly let her be entreated:\nTell her I send to her my kind commends;\nTake special care my greetings be deliver'd.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nA gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd\nWith letters of your love to her at large.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThank, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away.\nTo fight with Glendower and his complices:\nAwhile to work, and after holiday.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nBarkloughly castle call they this at hand?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nYea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air,\nAfter your late tossing on the breaking seas?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNeeds must I like it well: I weep for joy\nTo stand upon my kingdom once again.\nDear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,\nThough rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs:\nAs a long-parted mother with her child\nPlays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,\nSo, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,\nAnd do thee favours with my royal hands.\nFeed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,\nNor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;\nBut let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,\nAnd heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,\nDoing annoyance to the treacherous feet\nWhich with usurping steps do trample thee:\nYield stinging nettles to mine enemies;\nAnd when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,\nGuard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder\nWhose double tongue may with a mortal touch\nThrow death upon thy sovereign's enemies.\nMock not my senseless conjuration, lords:\nThis earth shall have a feeling and these stones\nProve armed soldiers, ere her native king\nShall falter under foul rebellion's arms.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nFear not, my lord: that Power that made you king\nHath power to keep you king in spite of all.\nThe means that heaven yields must be embraced,\nAnd not neglected; else, if heaven would,\nAnd we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,\nThe proffer'd means of succor and redress.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nHe means, my lord, that we are too remiss;\nWhilst Bolingbroke, through our security,\nGrows strong and great in substance and in power.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nDiscomfortable cousin! know'st thou not\nThat when the searching eye of heaven is hid,\nBehind the globe, that lights the lower world,\nThen thieves and robbers range abroad unseen\nIn murders and in outrage, boldly here;\nBut when from under this terrestrial ball\nHe fires the proud tops of the eastern pines\nAnd darts his light through every guilty hole,\nThen murders, treasons and detested sins,\nThe cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,\nStand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?\nSo when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,\nWho all this while hath revell'd in the night\nWhilst we were wandering with the antipodes,\nShall see us rising in our throne, the east,\nHis treasons will sit blushing in his face,\nNot able to endure the sight of day,\nBut self-affrighted tremble at his sin.\nNot all the water in the rough rude sea\nCan wash the balm off from an anointed king;\nThe breath of worldly men cannot depose\nThe deputy elected by the Lord:\nFor every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd\nTo lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,\nGod for his Richard hath in heavenly pay\nA glorious angel: then, if angels fight,\nWeak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.\nWelcome, my lord how far off lies your power?\n\nEARL OF SALISBURY:\nNor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,\nThan this weak arm: discomfort guides my tongue\nAnd bids me speak of nothing but despair.\nOne day too late, I fear me, noble lord,\nHath clouded all thy happy days on earth:\nO, call back yesterday, bid time return,\nAnd thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!\nTo-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,\nO'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state:\nFor all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead.\nAre gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed and fled.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nComfort, my liege; why looks your grace so pale?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nBut now the blood of twenty thousand men\nDid triumph in my face, and they are fled;\nAnd, till so much blood thither come again,\nHave I not reason to look pale and dead?\nAll souls that will be safe fly from my side,\nFor time hath set a blot upon my pride.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nComfort, my liege; remember who you are.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nI had forgot myself; am I not king?\nAwake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.\nIs not the king's name twenty thousand names?\nArm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes\nAt thy great glory. Look not to the ground,\nYe favourites of a king: are we not high?\nHigh be our thoughts: I know my uncle York\nHath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nMore health and happiness betide my liege\nThan can my care-tuned tongue deliver him!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMine ear is open and my heart prepared;\nThe worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.\nSay, is my kingdom lost? why, 'twas my care\nAnd what loss is it to be rid of care?\nStrives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?\nGreater he shall not be; if he serve God,\nWe'll serve Him too and be his fellow so:\nRevolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;\nThey break their faith to God as well as us:\nCry woe, destruction, ruin and decay:\nThe worst is death, and death will have his day.\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nGlad am I that your highness is so arm'd\nTo bear the tidings of calamity.\nLike an unseasonable stormy day,\nWhich makes the silver rivers drown their shores,\nAs if the world were all dissolved to tears,\nSo high above his limits swells the rage\nOf Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land\nWith hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.\nWhite-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps\nAgainst thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,\nStrive to speak big and clap their female joints\nIn stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown:\nThe very beadsmen learn to bend their bows\nOf double-fatal yew against thy state;\nYea, distaff-women manage rusty bills\nAgainst thy seat: both young and old rebel,\nAnd all goes worse than I have power to tell.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nToo well, too well thou tell'st a tale so ill.\nWhere is the Earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?\nWhat is become of Bushy? where is Green?\nThat they have let the dangerous enemy\nMeasure our confines with such peaceful steps?\nIf we prevail, their heads shall pay for it:\nI warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nPeace have they made with him indeed, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nO villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!\nDogs, easily won to fawn on any man!\nSnakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!\nThree Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!\nWould they make peace? terrible hell make war\nUpon their spotted souls for this offence!\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nSweet love, I see, changing his property,\nTurns to the sourest and most deadly hate:\nAgain uncurse their souls; their peace is made\nWith heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse\nHave felt the worst of death's destroying wound\nAnd lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nIs Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nAy, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWhere is the duke my father with his power?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNo matter where; of comfort no man speak:\nLet's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;\nMake dust our paper and with rainy eyes\nWrite sorrow on the bosom of the earth,\nLet's choose executors and talk of wills:\nAnd yet not so, for what can we bequeath\nSave our deposed bodies to the ground?\nOur lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,\nAnd nothing can we call our own but death\nAnd that small model of the barren earth\nWhich serves as paste and cover to our bones.\nFor God's sake, let us sit upon the ground\nAnd tell sad stories of the death of kings;\nHow some have been deposed; some slain in war,\nSome haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;\nSome poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;\nAll murder'd: for within the hollow crown\nThat rounds the mortal temples of a king\nKeeps Death his court and there the antic sits,\nScoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,\nAllowing him a breath, a little scene,\nTo monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,\nInfusing him with self and vain conceit,\nAs if this flesh which walls about our life,\nWere brass impregnable, and humour'd thus\nComes at the last and with a little pin\nBores through his castle wall, and farewell king!\nCover your heads and mock not flesh and blood\nWith solemn reverence: throw away respect,\nTradition, form and ceremonious duty,\nFor you have but mistook me all this while:\nI live with bread like you, feel want,\nTaste grief, need friends: subjected thus,\nHow can you say to me, I am a king?\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nMy lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,\nBut presently prevent the ways to wail.\nTo fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,\nGives in your weakness strength unto your foe,\nAnd so your follies fight against yourself.\nFear and be slain; no worse can come to fight:\nAnd fight and die is death destroying death;\nWhere fearing dying pays death servile breath.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMy father hath a power; inquire of him\nAnd learn to make a body of a limb.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThou chidest me well: proud Bolingbroke, I come\nTo change blows with thee for our day of doom.\nThis ague fit of fear is over-blown;\nAn easy task it is to win our own.\nSay, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?\nSpeak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nMen judge by the complexion of the sky\nThe state and inclination of the day:\nSo may you by my dull and heavy eye,\nMy tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.\nI play the torturer, by small and small\nTo lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:\nYour uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke,\nAnd all your northern castles yielded up,\nAnd all your southern gentlemen in arms\nUpon his party.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThou hast said enough.\nBeshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth\nOf that sweet way I was in to despair!\nWhat say you now? what comfort have we now?\nBy heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly\nThat bids me be of comfort any more.\nGo to Flint castle: there I'll pine away;\nA king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.\nThat power I have, discharge; and let them go\nTo ear the land that hath some hope to grow,\nFor I have none: let no man speak again\nTo alter this, for counsel is but vain.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMy liege, one word.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHe does me double wrong\nThat wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.\nDischarge my followers: let them hence away,\nFrom Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nSo that by this intelligence we learn\nThe Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury\nIs gone to meet the king, who lately landed\nWith some few private friends upon this coast.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe news is very fair and good, my lord:\nRichard not far from hence hath hid his head.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIt would beseem the Lord Northumberland\nTo say 'King Richard:' alack the heavy day\nWhen such a sacred king should hide his head.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nYour grace mistakes; only to be brief\nLeft I his title out.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThe time hath been,\nWould you have been so brief with him, he would\nHave been so brief with you, to shorten you,\nFor taking so the head, your whole head's length.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMistake not, uncle, further than you should.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nTake not, good cousin, further than you should.\nLest you mistake the heavens are o'er our heads.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI know it, uncle, and oppose not myself\nAgainst their will. But who comes here?\nWelcome, Harry: what, will not this castle yield?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nThe castle royally is mann'd, my lord,\nAgainst thy entrance.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nRoyally!\nWhy, it contains no king?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nYes, my good lord,\nIt doth contain a king; King Richard lies\nWithin the limits of yon lime and stone:\nAnd with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,\nSir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman\nOf holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nO, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nNoble lords,\nGo to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;\nThrough brazen trumpet send the breath of parley\nInto his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:\nHenry Bolingbroke\nOn both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand\nAnd sends allegiance and true faith of heart\nTo his most royal person, hither come\nEven at his feet to lay my arms and power,\nProvided that my banishment repeal'd\nAnd lands restored again be freely granted:\nIf not, I'll use the advantage of my power\nAnd lay the summer's dust with showers of blood\nRain'd from the wounds of slaughter'd Englishmen:\nThe which, how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke\nIt is, such crimson tempest should bedrench\nThe fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,\nMy stooping duty tenderly shall show.\nGo, signify as much, while here we march\nUpon the grassy carpet of this plain.\nLet's march without the noise of threatening drum,\nThat from this castle's tatter'd battlements\nOur fair appointments may be well perused.\nMethinks King Richard and myself should meet\nWith no less terror than the elements\nOf fire and water, when their thundering shock\nAt meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.\nBe he the fire, I'll be the yielding water:\nThe rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain\nMy waters; on the earth, and not on him.\nMarch on, and mark King Richard how he looks.\nSee, see, King Richard doth himself appear,\nAs doth the blushing discontented sun\nFrom out the fiery portal of the east,\nWhen he perceives the envious clouds are bent\nTo dim his glory and to stain the track\nOf his bright passage to the occident.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nYet looks he like a king: behold, his eye,\nAs bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth\nControlling majesty: alack, alack, for woe,\nThat any harm should stain so fair a show!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe are amazed; and thus long have we stood\nTo watch the fearful bending of thy knee,\nBecause we thought ourself thy lawful king:\nAnd if we be, how dare thy joints forget\nTo pay their awful duty to our presence?\nIf we be not, show us the hand of God\nThat hath dismissed us from our stewardship;\nFor well we know, no hand of blood and bone\nCan gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,\nUnless he do profane, steal, or usurp.\nAnd though you think that all, as you have done,\nHave torn their souls by turning them from us,\nAnd we are barren and bereft of friends;\nYet know, my master, God omnipotent,\nIs mustering in his clouds on our behalf\nArmies of pestilence; and they shall strike\nYour children yet unborn and unbegot,\nThat lift your vassal hands against my head\nAnd threat the glory of my precious crown.\nTell Bolingbroke--for yond methinks he stands--\nThat every stride he makes upon my land\nIs dangerous treason: he is come to open\nThe purple testament of bleeding war;\nBut ere the crown he looks for live in peace,\nTen thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons\nShall ill become the flower of England's face,\nChange the complexion of her maid-pale peace\nTo scarlet indignation and bedew\nHer pastures' grass with faithful English blood.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe king of heaven forbid our lord the king\nShould so with civil and uncivil arms\nBe rush'd upon! Thy thrice noble cousin\nHarry Bolingbroke doth humbly kiss thy hand;\nAnd by the honourable tomb he swears,\nThat stands upon your royal grandsire's bones,\nAnd by the royalties of both your bloods,\nCurrents that spring from one most gracious head,\nAnd by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,\nAnd by the worth and honour of himself,\nComprising all that may be sworn or said,\nHis coming hither hath no further scope\nThan for his lineal royalties and to beg\nEnfranchisement immediate on his knees:\nWhich on thy royal party granted once,\nHis glittering arms he will commend to rust,\nHis barbed steeds to stables, and his heart\nTo faithful service of your majesty.\nThis swears he, as he is a prince, is just;\nAnd, as I am a gentleman, I credit him.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorthumberland, say thus the king returns:\nHis noble cousin is right welcome hither;\nAnd all the number of his fair demands\nShall be accomplish'd without contradiction:\nWith all the gracious utterance thou hast\nSpeak to his gentle hearing kind commends.\nWe do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,\nTo look so poorly and to speak so fair?\nShall we call back Northumberland, and send\nDefiance to the traitor, and so die?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nNo, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words\nTill time lend friends and friends their helpful swords.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nO God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine,\nThat laid the sentence of dread banishment\nOn yon proud man, should take it off again\nWith words of sooth! O that I were as great\nAs is my grief, or lesser than my name!\nOr that I could forget what I have been,\nOr not remember what I must be now!\nSwell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,\nSince foes have scope to beat both thee and me.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nNorthumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat must the king do now? must he submit?\nThe king shall do it: must he be deposed?\nThe king shall be contented: must he lose\nThe name of king? o' God's name, let it go:\nI'll give my jewels for a set of beads,\nMy gorgeous palace for a hermitage,\nMy gay apparel for an almsman's gown,\nMy figured goblets for a dish of wood,\nMy sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,\nMy subjects for a pair of carved saints\nAnd my large kingdom for a little grave,\nA little little grave, an obscure grave;\nOr I'll be buried in the king's highway,\nSome way of common trade, where subjects' feet\nMay hourly trample on their sovereign's head;\nFor on my heart they tread now whilst I live;\nAnd buried once, why not upon my head?\nAumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!\nWe'll make foul weather with despised tears;\nOur sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,\nAnd make a dearth in this revolting land.\nOr shall we play the wantons with our woes,\nAnd make some pretty match with shedding tears?\nAs thus, to drop them still upon one place,\nTill they have fretted us a pair of graves\nWithin the earth; and, therein laid,--there lies\nTwo kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.\nWould not this ill do well? Well, well, I see\nI talk but idly, and you laugh at me.\nMost mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,\nWhat says King Bolingbroke? will his majesty\nGive Richard leave to live till Richard die?\nYou make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord, in the base court he doth attend\nTo speak with you; may it please you to come down.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nDown, down I come; like glistering Phaethon,\nWanting the manage of unruly jades.\nIn the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,\nTo come at traitors' calls and do them grace.\nIn the base court? Come down? Down, court!\ndown, king!\nFor night-owls shriek where mounting larks\nshould sing.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat says his majesty?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nSorrow and grief of heart\nMakes him speak fondly, like a frantic man\nYet he is come.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nStand all apart,\nAnd show fair duty to his majesty.\nMy gracious lord,--\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nFair cousin, you debase your princely knee\nTo make the base earth proud with kissing it:\nMe rather had my heart might feel your love\nThan my unpleased eye see your courtesy.\nUp, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,\nThus high at least, although your knee be low.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy gracious lord, I come but for mine own.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nYour own is yours, and I am yours, and all.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nSo far be mine, my most redoubted lord,\nAs my true service shall deserve your love.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWell you deserve: they well deserve to have,\nThat know the strong'st and surest way to get.\nUncle, give me your hands: nay, dry your eyes;\nTears show their love, but want their remedies.\nCousin, I am too young to be your father,\nThough you are old enough to be my heir.\nWhat you will have, I'll give, and willing too;\nFor do we must what force will have us do.\nSet on towards London, cousin, is it so?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYea, my good lord.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThen I must not say no.\n\nQUEEN:\nWhat sport shall we devise here in this garden,\nTo drive away the heavy thought of care?\n\nLady:\nMadam, we'll play at bowls.\n\nQUEEN:\n'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs,\nAnd that my fortune rubs against the bias.\n\nLady:\nMadam, we'll dance.\n\nQUEEN:\nMy legs can keep no measure in delight,\nWhen my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:\nTherefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport.\n\nLady:\nMadam, we'll tell tales.\n\nQUEEN:\nOf sorrow or of joy?\n\nLady:\nOf either, madam.\n\nQUEEN:\nOf neither, girl:\nFor of joy, being altogether wanting,\nIt doth remember me the more of sorrow;\nOr if of grief, being altogether had,\nIt adds more sorrow to my want of joy:\nFor what I have I need not to repeat;\nAnd what I want it boots not to complain.\n\nLady:\nMadam, I'll sing.\n\nQUEEN:\n'Tis well that thou hast cause\nBut thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep.\n\nLady:\nI could weep, madam, would it do you good.\n\nQUEEN:\nAnd I could sing, would weeping do me good,\nAnd never borrow any tear of thee.\nBut stay, here come the gardeners:\nLet's step into the shadow of these trees.\nMy wretchedness unto a row of pins,\nThey'll talk of state; for every one doth so\nAgainst a change; woe is forerun with woe.\n\nGardener:\nGo, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,\nWhich, like unruly children, make their sire\nStoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:\nGive some supportance to the bending twigs.\nGo thou, and like an executioner,\nCut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,\nThat look too lofty in our commonwealth:\nAll must be even in our government.\nYou thus employ'd, I will go root away\nThe noisome weeds, which without profit suck\nThe soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.\n\nServant:\nWhy should we in the compass of a pale\nKeep law and form and due proportion,\nShowing, as in a model, our firm estate,\nWhen our sea-walled garden, the whole land,\nIs full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,\nHer fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruin'd,\nHer knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbs\nSwarming with caterpillars?\n\nGardener:\nHold thy peace:\nHe that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring\nHath now himself met with the fall of leaf:\nThe weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,\nThat seem'd in eating him to hold him up,\nAre pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke,\nI mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.\n\nServant:\nWhat, are they dead?\n\nGardener:\nThey are; and Bolingbroke\nHath seized the wasteful king. O, what pity is it\nThat he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land\nAs we this garden! We at time of year\nDo wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,\nLest, being over-proud in sap and blood,\nWith too much riches it confound itself:\nHad he done so to great and growing men,\nThey might have lived to bear and he to taste\nTheir fruits of duty: superfluous branches\nWe lop away, that bearing boughs may live:\nHad he done so, himself had borne the crown,\nWhich waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.\n\nServant:\nWhat, think you then the king shall be deposed?\n\nGardener:\nDepress'd he is already, and deposed\n'Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night\nTo a dear friend of the good Duke of York's,\nThat tell black tidings.\n\nQUEEN:\nO, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!\nThou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,\nHow dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?\nWhat Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee\nTo make a second fall of cursed man?\nWhy dost thou say King Richard is deposed?\nDarest thou, thou little better thing than earth,\nDivine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,\nCamest thou by this ill tidings? speak, thou wretch.\n\nGardener:\nPardon me, madam: little joy have I\nTo breathe this news; yet what I say is true.\nKing Richard, he is in the mighty hold\nOf Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh'd:\nIn your lord's scale is nothing but himself,\nAnd some few vanities that make him light;\nBut in the balance of great Bolingbroke,\nBesides himself, are all the English peers,\nAnd with that odds he weighs King Richard down.\nPost you to London, and you will find it so;\nI speak no more than every one doth know.\n\nQUEEN:\nNimble mischance, that art so light of foot,\nDoth not thy embassage belong to me,\nAnd am I last that knows it? O, thou think'st\nTo serve me last, that I may longest keep\nThy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go,\nTo meet at London London's king in woe.\nWhat, was I born to this, that my sad look\nShould grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?\nGardener, for telling me these news of woe,\nPray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow.\n\nGARDENER:\nPoor queen! so that thy state might be no worse,\nI would my skill were subject to thy curse.\nHere did she fall a tear; here in this place\nI'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:\nRue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,\nIn the remembrance of a weeping queen.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCall forth Bagot.\nNow, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;\nWhat thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death,\nWho wrought it with the king, and who perform'd\nThe bloody office of his timeless end.\n\nBAGOT:\nThen set before my face the Lord Aumerle.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.\n\nBAGOT:\nMy Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue\nScorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.\nIn that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted,\nI heard you say, 'Is not my arm of length,\nThat reacheth from the restful English court\nAs far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'\nAmongst much other talk, that very time,\nI heard you say that you had rather refuse\nThe offer of an hundred thousand crowns\nThan Bolingbroke's return to England;\nAdding withal how blest this land would be\nIn this your cousin's death.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nPrinces and noble lords,\nWhat answer shall I make to this base man?\nShall I so much dishonour my fair stars,\nOn equal terms to give him chastisement?\nEither I must, or have mine honour soil'd\nWith the attainder of his slanderous lips.\nThere is my gage, the manual seal of death,\nThat marks thee out for hell: I say, thou liest,\nAnd will maintain what thou hast said is false\nIn thy heart-blood, though being all too base\nTo stain the temper of my knightly sword.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nBagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nExcepting one, I would he were the best\nIn all this presence that hath moved me so.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nIf that thy valour stand on sympathy,\nThere is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:\nBy that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,\nI heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spakest it\nThat thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.\nIf thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest;\nAnd I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,\nWhere it was forged, with my rapier's point.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nThou darest not, coward, live to see that day.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nNow by my soul, I would it were this hour.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nAumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true\nIn this appeal as thou art all unjust;\nAnd that thou art so, there I throw my gage,\nTo prove it on thee to the extremest point\nOf mortal breathing: seize it, if thou darest.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nAn if I do not, may my hands rot off\nAnd never brandish more revengeful steel\nOver the glittering helmet of my foe!\n\nLord:\nI task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;\nAnd spur thee on with full as many lies\nAs may be holloa'd in thy treacherous ear\nFrom sun to sun: there is my honour's pawn;\nEngage it to the trial, if thou darest.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWho sets me else? by heaven, I'll throw at all:\nI have a thousand spirits in one breast,\nTo answer twenty thousand such as you.\n\nDUKE OF SURREY:\nMy Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well\nThe very time Aumerle and you did talk.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\n'Tis very true: you were in presence then;\nAnd you can witness with me this is true.\n\nDUKE OF SURREY:\nAs false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nSurrey, thou liest.\n\nDUKE OF SURREY:\nDishonourable boy!\nThat lie shall lie so heavy on my sword,\nThat it shall render vengeance and revenge\nTill thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie\nIn earth as quiet as thy father's skull:\nIn proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;\nEngage it to the trial, if thou darest.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nHow fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!\nIf I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,\nI dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,\nAnd spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,\nAnd lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,\nTo tie thee to my strong correction.\nAs I intend to thrive in this new world,\nAumerle is guilty of my true appeal:\nBesides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say\nThat thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men\nTo execute the noble duke at Calais.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nSome honest Christian trust me with a gage\nThat Norfolk lies: here do I throw down this,\nIf he may be repeal'd, to try his honour.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThese differences shall all rest under gage\nTill Norfolk be repeal'd: repeal'd he shall be,\nAnd, though mine enemy, restored again\nTo all his lands and signories: when he's return'd,\nAgainst Aumerle we will enforce his trial.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nThat honourable day shall ne'er be seen.\nMany a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought\nFor Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,\nStreaming the ensign of the Christian cross\nAgainst black pagans, Turks, and Saracens:\nAnd toil'd with works of war, retired himself\nTo Italy; and there at Venice gave\nHis body to that pleasant country's earth,\nAnd his pure soul unto his captain Christ,\nUnder whose colours he had fought so long.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhy, bishop, is Norfolk dead?\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nAs surely as I live, my lord.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nSweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom\nOf good old Abraham! Lords appellants,\nYour differences shall all rest under gage\nTill we assign you to your days of trial.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGreat Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee\nFrom plume-pluck'd Richard; who with willing soul\nAdopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields\nTo the possession of thy royal hand:\nAscend his throne, descending now from him;\nAnd long live Henry, fourth of that name!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nIn God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nMarry. God forbid!\nWorst in this royal presence may I speak,\nYet best beseeming me to speak the truth.\nWould God that any in this noble presence\nWere enough noble to be upright judge\nOf noble Richard! then true noblesse would\nLearn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.\nWhat subject can give sentence on his king?\nAnd who sits here that is not Richard's subject?\nThieves are not judged but they are by to hear,\nAlthough apparent guilt be seen in them;\nAnd shall the figure of God's majesty,\nHis captain, steward, deputy-elect,\nAnointed, crowned, planted many years,\nBe judged by subject and inferior breath,\nAnd he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,\nThat in a Christian climate souls refined\nShould show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!\nI speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,\nStirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king:\nMy Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,\nIs a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king:\nAnd if you crown him, let me prophesy:\nThe blood of English shall manure the ground,\nAnd future ages groan for this foul act;\nPeace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,\nAnd in this seat of peace tumultuous wars\nShall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;\nDisorder, horror, fear and mutiny\nShall here inhabit, and this land be call'd\nThe field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.\nO, if you raise this house against this house,\nIt will the woefullest division prove\nThat ever fell upon this cursed earth.\nPrevent it, resist it, let it not be so,\nLest child, child's children, cry against you woe!\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWell have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,\nOf capital treason we arrest you here.\nMy Lord of Westminster, be it your charge\nTo keep him safely till his day of trial.\nMay it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nFetch hither Richard, that in common view\nHe may surrender; so we shall proceed\nWithout suspicion.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI will be his conduct.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nLords, you that here are under our arrest,\nProcure your sureties for your days of answer.\nLittle are we beholding to your love,\nAnd little look'd for at your helping hands.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAlack, why am I sent for to a king,\nBefore I have shook off the regal thoughts\nWherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd\nTo insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my limbs:\nGive sorrow leave awhile to tutor me\nTo this submission. Yet I well remember\nThe favours of these men: were they not mine?\nDid they not sometime cry, 'all hail!' to me?\nSo Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve,\nFound truth in all but one: I, in twelve thousand, none.\nGod save the king! Will no man say amen?\nAm I both priest and clerk? well then, amen.\nGod save the king! although I be not he;\nAnd yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.\nTo do what service am I sent for hither?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nTo do that office of thine own good will\nWhich tired majesty did make thee offer,\nThe resignation of thy state and crown\nTo Henry Bolingbroke.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nGive me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown;\nHere cousin:\nOn this side my hand, and on that side yours.\nNow is this golden crown like a deep well\nThat owes two buckets, filling one another,\nThe emptier ever dancing in the air,\nThe other down, unseen and full of water:\nThat bucket down and full of tears am I,\nDrinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI thought you had been willing to resign.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMy crown I am; but still my griefs are mine:\nYou may my glories and my state depose,\nBut not my griefs; still am I king of those.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nPart of your cares you give me with your crown.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nYour cares set up do not pluck my cares down.\nMy care is loss of care, by old care done;\nYour care is gain of care, by new care won:\nThe cares I give I have, though given away;\nThey tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAre you contented to resign the crown?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAy, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;\nTherefore no no, for I resign to thee.\nNow mark me, how I will undo myself;\nI give this heavy weight from off my head\nAnd this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,\nThe pride of kingly sway from out my heart;\nWith mine own tears I wash away my balm,\nWith mine own hands I give away my crown,\nWith mine own tongue deny my sacred state,\nWith mine own breath release all duty's rites:\nAll pomp and majesty I do forswear;\nMy manors, rents, revenues I forego;\nMy acts, decrees, and statutes I deny:\nGod pardon all oaths that are broke to me!\nGod keep all vows unbroke that swear to thee!\nMake me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved,\nAnd thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved!\nLong mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,\nAnd soon lie Richard in an earthly pit!\nGod save King Harry, unking'd Richard says,\nAnd send him many years of sunshine days!\nWhat more remains?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNo more, but that you read\nThese accusations and these grievous crimes\nCommitted by your person and your followers\nAgainst the state and profit of this land;\nThat, by confessing them, the souls of men\nMay deem that you are worthily deposed.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMust I do so? and must I ravel out\nMy weaved-up folly? Gentle Northumberland,\nIf thy offences were upon record,\nWould it not shame thee in so fair a troop\nTo read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,\nThere shouldst thou find one heinous article,\nContaining the deposing of a king\nAnd cracking the strong warrant of an oath,\nMark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven:\nNay, all of you that stand and look upon,\nWhilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,\nThough some of you with Pilate wash your hands\nShowing an outward pity; yet you Pilates\nHave here deliver'd me to my sour cross,\nAnd water cannot wash away your sin.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord, dispatch; read o'er these articles.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see:\nAnd yet salt water blinds them not so much\nBut they can see a sort of traitors here.\nNay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,\nI find myself a traitor with the rest;\nFor I have given here my soul's consent\nTo undeck the pompous body of a king;\nMade glory base and sovereignty a slave,\nProud majesty a subject, state a peasant.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord,--\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNo lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,\nNor no man's lord; I have no name, no title,\nNo, not that name was given me at the font,\nBut 'tis usurp'd: alack the heavy day,\nThat I have worn so many winters out,\nAnd know not now what name to call myself!\nO that I were a mockery king of snow,\nStanding before the sun of Bolingbroke,\nTo melt myself away in water-drops!\nGood king, great king, and yet not greatly good,\nAn if my word be sterling yet in England,\nLet it command a mirror hither straight,\nThat it may show me what a face I have,\nSince it is bankrupt of his majesty.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGo some of you and fetch a looking-glass.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nRead o'er this paper while the glass doth come.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nFiend, thou torment'st me ere I come to hell!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nUrge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe commons will not then be satisfied.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThey shall be satisfied: I'll read enough,\nWhen I do see the very book indeed\nWhere all my sins are writ, and that's myself.\nGive me the glass, and therein will I read.\nNo deeper wrinkles yet? hath sorrow struck\nSo many blows upon this face of mine,\nAnd made no deeper wounds? O flattering glass,\nLike to my followers in prosperity,\nThou dost beguile me! Was this face the face\nThat every day under his household roof\nDid keep ten thousand men? was this the face\nThat, like the sun, did make beholders wink?\nWas this the face that faced so many follies,\nAnd was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke?\nA brittle glory shineth in this face:\nAs brittle as the glory is the face;\nFor there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.\nMark, silent king, the moral of this sport,\nHow soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThe shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd\nThe shadow or your face.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nSay that again.\nThe shadow of my sorrow! ha! let's see:\n'Tis very true, my grief lies all within;\nAnd these external manners of laments\nAre merely shadows to the unseen grief\nThat swells with silence in the tortured soul;\nThere lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,\nFor thy great bounty, that not only givest\nMe cause to wail but teachest me the way\nHow to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,\nAnd then be gone and trouble you no more.\nShall I obtain it?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nName it, fair cousin.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\n'Fair cousin'? I am greater than a king:\nFor when I was a king, my flatterers\nWere then but subjects; being now a subject,\nI have a king here to my flatterer.\nBeing so great, I have no need to beg.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYet ask.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd shall I have?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYou shall.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThen give me leave to go.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhither?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhither you will, so I were from your sights.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGo, some of you convey him to the Tower.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nO, good! convey? conveyers are you all,\nThat rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nOn Wednesday next we solemnly set down\nOur coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.\n\nAbbot:\nA woeful pageant have we here beheld.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nThe woe's to come; the children yet unborn.\nShall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nYou holy clergymen, is there no plot\nTo rid the realm of this pernicious blot?\n\nAbbot:\nMy lord,\nBefore I freely speak my mind herein,\nYou shall not only take the sacrament\nTo bury mine intents, but also to effect\nWhatever I shall happen to devise.\nI see your brows are full of discontent,\nYour hearts of sorrow and your eyes of tears:\nCome home with me to supper; and I'll lay\nA plot shall show us all a merry day.\n\nQUEEN:\nThis way the king will come; this is the way\nTo Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,\nTo whose flint bosom my condemned lord\nIs doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke:\nHere let us rest, if this rebellious earth\nHave any resting for her true king's queen.\nBut soft, but see, or rather do not see,\nMy fair rose wither: yet look up, behold,\nThat you in pity may dissolve to dew,\nAnd wash him fresh again with true-love tears.\nAh, thou, the model where old Troy did stand,\nThou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,\nAnd not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,\nWhy should hard-favour'd grief be lodged in thee,\nWhen triumph is become an alehouse guest?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nJoin not with grief, fair woman, do not so,\nTo make my end too sudden: learn, good soul,\nTo think our former state a happy dream;\nFrom which awaked, the truth of what we are\nShows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,\nTo grim Necessity, and he and I\nWill keep a league till death. Hie thee to France\nAnd cloister thee in some religious house:\nOur holy lives must win a new world's crown,\nWhich our profane hours here have stricken down.\n\nQUEEN:\nWhat, is my Richard both in shape and mind\nTransform'd and weaken'd? hath Bolingbroke deposed\nThine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?\nThe lion dying thrusteth forth his paw,\nAnd wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage\nTo be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,\nTake thy correction mildly, kiss the rod,\nAnd fawn on rage with base humility,\nWhich art a lion and a king of beasts?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nA king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,\nI had been still a happy king of men.\nGood sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France:\nThink I am dead and that even here thou takest,\nAs from my death-bed, thy last living leave.\nIn winter's tedious nights sit by the fire\nWith good old folks and let them tell thee tales\nOf woeful ages long ago betid;\nAnd ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs,\nTell thou the lamentable tale of me\nAnd send the hearers weeping to their beds:\nFor why, the senseless brands will sympathize\nThe heavy accent of thy moving tongue\nAnd in compassion weep the fire out;\nAnd some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,\nFor the deposing of a rightful king.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed:\nYou must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.\nAnd, madam, there is order ta'en for you;\nWith all swift speed you must away to France.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorthumberland, thou ladder wherewithal\nThe mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,\nThe time shall not be many hours of age\nMore than it is ere foul sin gathering head\nShalt break into corruption: thou shalt think,\nThough he divide the realm and give thee half,\nIt is too little, helping him to all;\nAnd he shall think that thou, which know'st the way\nTo plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,\nBeing ne'er so little urged, another way\nTo pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.\nThe love of wicked men converts to fear;\nThat fear to hate, and hate turns one or both\nTo worthy danger and deserved death.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy guilt be on my head, and there an end.\nTake leave and part; for you must part forthwith.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nDoubly divorced! Bad men, you violate\nA twofold marriage, 'twixt my crown and me,\nAnd then betwixt me and my married wife.\nLet me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;\nAnd yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.\nPart us, Northumberland; I toward the north,\nWhere shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;\nMy wife to France: from whence, set forth in pomp,\nShe came adorned hither like sweet May,\nSent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.\n\nQUEEN:\nAnd must we be divided? must we part?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAy, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.\n\nQUEEN:\nBanish us both and send the king with me.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThat were some love but little policy.\n\nQUEEN:\nThen whither he goes, thither let me go.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nSo two, together weeping, make one woe.\nWeep thou for me in France, I for thee here;\nBetter far off than near, be ne'er the near.\nGo, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.\n\nQUEEN:\nSo longest way shall have the longest moans.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nTwice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,\nAnd piece the way out with a heavy heart.\nCome, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,\nSince, wedding it, there is such length in grief;\nOne kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;\nThus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.\n\nQUEEN:\nGive me mine own again; 'twere no good part\nTo take on me to keep and kill thy heart.\nSo, now I have mine own again, be gone,\nThat I might strive to kill it with a groan.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe make woe wanton with this fond delay:\nOnce more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nMy lord, you told me you would tell the rest,\nWhen weeping made you break the story off,\nof our two cousins coming into London.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhere did I leave?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAt that sad stop, my lord,\nWhere rude misgovern'd hands from windows' tops\nThrew dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThen, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,\nMounted upon a hot and fiery steed\nWhich his aspiring rider seem'd to know,\nWith slow but stately pace kept on his course,\nWhilst all tongues cried 'God save thee,\nBolingbroke!'\nYou would have thought the very windows spake,\nSo many greedy looks of young and old\nThrough casements darted their desiring eyes\nUpon his visage, and that all the walls\nWith painted imagery had said at once\n'Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke!'\nWhilst he, from the one side to the other turning,\nBareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,\nBespake them thus: 'I thank you, countrymen:'\nAnd thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAlack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAs in a theatre, the eyes of men,\nAfter a well-graced actor leaves the stage,\nAre idly bent on him that enters next,\nThinking his prattle to be tedious;\nEven so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes\nDid scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'\nNo joyful tongue gave him his welcome home:\nBut dust was thrown upon his sacred head:\nWhich with such gentle sorrow he shook off,\nHis face still combating with tears and smiles,\nThe badges of his grief and patience,\nThat had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd\nThe hearts of men, they must perforce have melted\nAnd barbarism itself have pitied him.\nBut heaven hath a hand in these events,\nTo whose high will we bound our calm contents.\nTo Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,\nWhose state and honour I for aye allow.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHere comes my son Aumerle.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAumerle that was;\nBut that is lost for being Richard's friend,\nAnd, madam, you must call him Rutland now:\nI am in parliament pledge for his truth\nAnd lasting fealty to the new-made king.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWelcome, my son: who are the violets now\nThat strew the green lap of the new come spring?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMadam, I know not, nor I greatly care not:\nGod knows I had as lief be none as one.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWell, bear you well in this new spring of time,\nLest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.\nWhat news from Oxford? hold those justs and triumphs?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFor aught I know, my lord, they do.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nYou will be there, I know.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nIf God prevent not, I purpose so.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhat seal is that, that hangs without thy bosom?\nYea, look'st thou pale? let me see the writing.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMy lord, 'tis nothing.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nNo matter, then, who see it;\nI will be satisfied; let me see the writing.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nI do beseech your grace to pardon me:\nIt is a matter of small consequence,\nWhich for some reasons I would not have seen.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhich for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.\nI fear, I fear,--\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat should you fear?\n'Tis nothing but some bond, that he is enter'd into\nFor gay apparel 'gainst the triumph day.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nBound to himself! what doth he with a bond\nThat he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.\nBoy, let me see the writing.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nI do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.\nTreason! foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat is the matter, my lord?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nHo! who is within there?\nSaddle my horse.\nGod for his mercy, what treachery is here!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy, what is it, my lord?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGive me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.\nNow, by mine honour, by my life, by my troth,\nI will appeach the villain.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat is the matter?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nPeace, foolish woman.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nGood mother, be content; it is no more\nThan my poor life must answer.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nThy life answer!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nBring me my boots: I will unto the king.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nStrike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amazed.\nHence, villain! never more come in my sight.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGive me my boots, I say.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy, York, what wilt thou do?\nWilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?\nHave we more sons? or are we like to have?\nIs not my teeming date drunk up with time?\nAnd wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age,\nAnd rob me of a happy mother's name?\nIs he not like thee? is he not thine own?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThou fond mad woman,\nWilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?\nA dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,\nAnd interchangeably set down their hands,\nTo kill the king at Oxford.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHe shall be none;\nWe'll keep him here: then what is that to him?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAway, fond woman! were he twenty times my son,\nI would appeach him.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHadst thou groan'd for him\nAs I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.\nBut now I know thy mind; thou dost suspect\nThat I have been disloyal to thy bed,\nAnd that he is a bastard, not thy son:\nSweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind:\nHe is as like thee as a man may be,\nNot like to me, or any of my kin,\nAnd yet I love him.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nMake way, unruly woman!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAfter, Aumerle! mount thee upon his horse;\nSpur post, and get before him to the king,\nAnd beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.\nI'll not be long behind; though I be old,\nI doubt not but to ride as fast as York:\nAnd never will I rise up from the ground\nTill Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, be gone!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCan no man tell me of my unthrifty son?\n'Tis full three months since I did see him last;\nIf any plague hang over us, 'tis he.\nI would to God, my lords, he might be found:\nInquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,\nFor there, they say, he daily doth frequent,\nWith unrestrained loose companions,\nEven such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes,\nAnd beat our watch, and rob our passengers;\nWhich he, young wanton and effeminate boy,\nTakes on the point of honour to support\nSo dissolute a crew.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nMy lord, some two days since I saw the prince,\nAnd told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAnd what said the gallant?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nHis answer was, he would unto the stews,\nAnd from the common'st creature pluck a glove,\nAnd wear it as a favour; and with that\nHe would unhorse the lustiest challenger.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAs dissolute as desperate; yet through both\nI see some sparks of better hope, which elder years\nMay happily bring forth. But who comes here?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWhere is the king?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat means our cousin, that he stares and looks\nSo wildly?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nGod save your grace! I do beseech your majesty,\nTo have some conference with your grace alone.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWithdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.\nWhat is the matter with our cousin now?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFor ever may my knees grow to the earth,\nMy tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth\nUnless a pardon ere I rise or speak.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nIntended or committed was this fault?\nIf on the first, how heinous e'er it be,\nTo win thy after-love I pardon thee.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nThen give me leave that I may turn the key,\nThat no man enter till my tale be done.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHave thy desire.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nVillain, I'll make thee safe.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nStay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat is the matter, uncle? speak;\nRecover breath; tell us how near is danger,\nThat we may arm us to encounter it.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nPeruse this writing here, and thou shalt know\nThe treason that my haste forbids me show.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nRemember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd:\nI do repent me; read not my name there\nMy heart is not confederate with my hand.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIt was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.\nI tore it from the traitor's bosom, king;\nFear, and not love, begets his penitence:\nForget to pity him, lest thy pity prove\nA serpent that will sting thee to the heart.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO heinous, strong and bold conspiracy!\nO loyal father of a treacherous son!\nThou sheer, immaculate and silver fountain,\nFrom when this stream through muddy passages\nHath held his current and defiled himself!\nThy overflow of good converts to bad,\nAnd thy abundant goodness shall excuse\nThis deadly blot in thy digressing son.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nSo shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;\nAnd he shall spend mine honour with his shame,\nAs thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.\nMine honour lives when his dishonour dies,\nOr my shamed life in his dishonour lies:\nThou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,\nThe traitor lives, the true man's put to death.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nA woman, and thy aunt, great king; 'tis I.\nSpeak with me, pity me, open the door.\nA beggar begs that never begg'd before.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nOur scene is alter'd from a serious thing,\nAnd now changed to 'The Beggar and the King.'\nMy dangerous cousin, let your mother in:\nI know she is come to pray for your foul sin.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIf thou do pardon, whosoever pray,\nMore sins for this forgiveness prosper may.\nThis fester'd joint cut off, the rest rest sound;\nThis let alone will all the rest confound.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO king, believe not this hard-hearted man!\nLove loving not itself none other can.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?\nShall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nSweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nRise up, good aunt.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNot yet, I thee beseech:\nFor ever will I walk upon my knees,\nAnd never see day that the happy sees,\nTill thou give joy; until thou bid me joy,\nBy pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nUnto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAgainst them both my true joints bended be.\nIll mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nPleads he in earnest? look upon his face;\nHis eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;\nHis words come from his mouth, ours from our breast:\nHe prays but faintly and would be denied;\nWe pray with heart and soul and all beside:\nHis weary joints would gladly rise, I know;\nOur knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow:\nHis prayers are full of false hypocrisy;\nOurs of true zeal and deep integrity.\nOur prayers do out-pray his; then let them have\nThat mercy which true prayer ought to have.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGood aunt, stand up.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNay, do not say, 'stand up;'\nSay, 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'\nAnd if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,\n'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.\nI never long'd to hear a word till now;\nSay 'pardon,' king; let pity teach thee how:\nThe word is short, but not so short as sweet;\nNo word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nSpeak it in French, king; say, 'pardonne moi.'\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nDost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?\nAh, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,\nThat set'st the word itself against the word!\nSpeak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;\nThe chopping French we do not understand.\nThine eye begins to speak; set thy tongue there;\nOr in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;\nThat hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,\nPity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGood aunt, stand up.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI do not sue to stand;\nPardon is all the suit I have in hand.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI pardon him, as God shall pardon me.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO happy vantage of a kneeling knee!\nYet am I sick for fear: speak it again;\nTwice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,\nBut makes one pardon strong.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWith all my heart\nI pardon him.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nA god on earth thou art.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nBut for our trusty brother-in-law and the abbot,\nWith all the rest of that consorted crew,\nDestruction straight shall dog them at the heels.\nGood uncle, help to order several powers\nTo Oxford, or where'er these traitors are:\nThey shall not live within this world, I swear,\nBut I will have them, if I once know where.\nUncle, farewell: and, cousin too, adieu:\nYour mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nCome, my old son: I pray God make thee new.\n\nEXTON:\nDidst thou not mark the king, what words he spake,\n'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'\nWas it not so?\n\nServant:\nThese were his very words.\n\nEXTON:\n'Have I no friend?' quoth he: he spake it twice,\nAnd urged it twice together, did he not?\n\nServant:\nHe did.\n\nEXTON:\nAnd speaking it, he wistly look'd on me,\nAnd who should say, 'I would thou wert the man'\nThat would divorce this terror from my heart;'\nMeaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go:\nI am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nI have been studying how I may compare\nThis prison where I live unto the world:\nAnd for because the world is populous\nAnd here is not a creature but myself,\nI cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.\nMy brain I'll prove the female to my soul,\nMy soul the father; and these two beget\nA generation of still-breeding thoughts,\nAnd these same thoughts people this little world,\nIn humours like the people of this world,\nFor no thought is contented. The better sort,\nAs thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd\nWith scruples and do set the word itself\nAgainst the word:\nAs thus, 'Come, little ones,' and then again,\n'It is as hard to come as for a camel\nTo thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'\nThoughts tending to ambition, they do plot\nUnlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails\nMay tear a passage through the flinty ribs\nOf this hard world, my ragged prison walls,\nAnd, for they cannot, die in their own pride.\nThoughts tending to content flatter themselves\nThat they are not the first of fortune's slaves,\nNor shall not be the last; like silly beggars\nWho sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,\nThat many have and others must sit there;\nAnd in this thought they find a kind of ease,\nBearing their own misfortunes on the back\nOf such as have before endured the like.\nThus play I in one person many people,\nAnd none contented: sometimes am I king;\nThen treasons make me wish myself a beggar,\nAnd so I am: then crushing penury\nPersuades me I was better when a king;\nThen am I king'd again: and by and by\nThink that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,\nAnd straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,\nNor I nor any man that but man is\nWith nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased\nWith being nothing. Music do I hear?\nHa, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,\nWhen time is broke and no proportion kept!\nSo is it in the music of men's lives.\nAnd here have I the daintiness of ear\nTo cheque time broke in a disorder'd string;\nBut for the concord of my state and time\nHad not an ear to hear my true time broke.\nI wasted time, and now doth time waste me;\nFor now hath time made me his numbering clock:\nMy thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar\nTheir watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,\nWhereto my finger, like a dial's point,\nIs pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.\nNow sir, the sound that tells what hour it is\nAre clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,\nWhich is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans\nShow minutes, times, and hours: but my time\nRuns posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,\nWhile I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock.\nThis music mads me; let it sound no more;\nFor though it have holp madmen to their wits,\nIn me it seems it will make wise men mad.\nYet blessing on his heart that gives it me!\nFor 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard\nIs a strange brooch in this all-hating world.\n\nGroom:\nHail, royal prince!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThanks, noble peer;\nThe cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.\nWhat art thou? and how comest thou hither,\nWhere no man never comes but that sad dog\nThat brings me food to make misfortune live?\n\nGroom:\nI was a poor groom of thy stable, king,\nWhen thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,\nWith much ado at length have gotten leave\nTo look upon my sometimes royal master's face.\nO, how it yearn'd my heart when I beheld\nIn London streets, that coronation-day,\nWhen Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary,\nThat horse that thou so often hast bestrid,\nThat horse that I so carefully have dress'd!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nRode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,\nHow went he under him?\n\nGroom:\nSo proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nSo proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!\nThat jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;\nThis hand hath made him proud with clapping him.\nWould he not stumble? would he not fall down,\nSince pride must have a fall, and break the neck\nOf that proud man that did usurp his back?\nForgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee,\nSince thou, created to be awed by man,\nWast born to bear? I was not made a horse;\nAnd yet I bear a burthen like an ass,\nSpurr'd, gall'd and tired by jouncing Bolingbroke.\n\nKeeper:\nFellow, give place; here is no longer stay.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nIf thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.\n\nGroom:\nWhat my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.\n\nKeeper:\nMy lord, will't please you to fall to?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nTaste of it first, as thou art wont to do.\n\nKeeper:\nMy lord, I dare not: Sir Pierce of Exton, who\nlately came from the king, commands the contrary.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThe devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!\nPatience is stale, and I am weary of it.\n\nKeeper:\nHelp, help, help!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHow now! what means death in this rude assault?\nVillain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.\nGo thou, and fill another room in hell.\nThat hand shall burn in never-quenching fire\nThat staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand\nHath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land.\nMount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;\nWhilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.\n\nEXTON:\nAs full of valour as of royal blood:\nBoth have I spill'd; O would the deed were good!\nFor now the devil, that told me I did well,\nSays that this deed is chronicled in hell.\nThis dead king to the living king I'll bear\nTake hence the rest, and give them burial here.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nKind uncle York, the latest news we hear\nIs that the rebels have consumed with fire\nOur town of Cicester in Gloucestershire;\nBut whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.\nWelcome, my lord what is the news?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nFirst, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.\nThe next news is, I have to London sent\nThe heads of Oxford, Salisbury, Blunt, and Kent:\nThe manner of their taking may appear\nAt large discoursed in this paper here.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWe thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;\nAnd to thy worth will add right worthy gains.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nMy lord, I have from Oxford sent to London\nThe heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely,\nTwo of the dangerous consorted traitors\nThat sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;\nRight noble is thy merit, well I wot.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nThe grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,\nWith clog of conscience and sour melancholy\nHath yielded up his body to the grave;\nBut here is Carlisle living, to abide\nThy kingly doom and sentence of his pride.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCarlisle, this is your doom:\nChoose out some secret place, some reverend room,\nMore than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;\nSo as thou livest in peace, die free from strife:\nFor though mine enemy thou hast ever been,\nHigh sparks of honour in thee have I seen.\n\nEXTON:\nGreat king, within this coffin I present\nThy buried fear: herein all breathless lies\nThe mightiest of thy greatest enemies,\nRichard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nExton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought\nA deed of slander with thy fatal hand\nUpon my head and all this famous land.\n\nEXTON:\nFrom your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThey love not poison that do poison need,\nNor do I thee: though I did wish him dead,\nI hate the murderer, love him murdered.\nThe guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,\nBut neither my good word nor princely favour:\nWith Cain go wander through shades of night,\nAnd never show thy head by day nor light.\nLords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,\nThat blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:\nCome, mourn with me for that I do lament,\nAnd put on sullen black incontinent:\nI'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,\nTo wash this blood off from my guilty hand:\nMarch sadly after; grace my mournings here;\nIn weeping after this untimely bier.\n\n\nSAMPSON:\nGregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.\n\nGREGORY:\nNo, for then we should be colliers.\n\nSAMPSON:\nI mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.\n\nGREGORY:\nAy, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar.\n\nSAMPSON:\nI strike quickly, being moved.\n\nGREGORY:\nBut thou art not quickly moved to strike.\n\nSAMPSON:\nA dog of the house of Montague moves me.\n\nGREGORY:\nTo move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:\ntherefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.\n\nSAMPSON:\nA dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will\ntake the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.\n\nGREGORY:\nThat shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes\nto the wall.\n\nSAMPSON:\nTrue; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,\nare ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push\nMontague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids\nto the wall.\n\nGREGORY:\nThe quarrel is between our masters and us their men.\n\nSAMPSON:\n'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I\nhave fought with the men, I will be cruel with the\nmaids, and cut off their heads.\n\nGREGORY:\nThe heads of the maids?\n\nSAMPSON:\nAy, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads;\ntake it in what sense thou wilt.\n\nGREGORY:\nThey must take it in sense that feel it.\n\nSAMPSON:\nMe they shall feel while I am able to stand: and\n'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.\n\nGREGORY:\n'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou\nhadst been poor John. Draw thy tool! here comes\ntwo of the house of the Montagues.\n\nSAMPSON:\nMy naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.\n\nGREGORY:\nHow! turn thy back and run?\n\nSAMPSON:\nFear me not.\n\nGREGORY:\nNo, marry; I fear thee!\n\nSAMPSON:\nLet us take the law of our sides; let them begin.\n\nGREGORY:\nI will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as\nthey list.\n\nSAMPSON:\nNay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them;\nwhich is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.\n\nABRAHAM:\nDo you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n\nSAMPSON:\nI do bite my thumb, sir.\n\nABRAHAM:\nDo you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n\nSAMPSON:\n\nGREGORY:\nNo.\n\nSAMPSON:\nNo, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I\nbite my thumb, sir.\n\nGREGORY:\nDo you quarrel, sir?\n\nABRAHAM:\nQuarrel sir! no, sir.\n\nSAMPSON:\nIf you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.\n\nABRAHAM:\nNo better.\n\nSAMPSON:\nWell, sir.\n\nGREGORY:\nSay 'better:' here comes one of my master's kinsmen.\n\nSAMPSON:\nYes, better, sir.\n\nABRAHAM:\nYou lie.\n\nSAMPSON:\nDraw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nPart, fools!\nPut up your swords; you know not what you do.\n\nTYBALT:\nWhat, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?\nTurn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,\nOr manage it to part these men with me.\n\nTYBALT:\nWhat, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,\nAs I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:\nHave at thee, coward!\n\nFirst Citizen:\nClubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat them down!\nDown with the Capulets! down with the Montagues!\n\nCAPULET:\nWhat noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nA crutch, a crutch! why call you for a sword?\n\nCAPULET:\nMy sword, I say! Old Montague is come,\nAnd flourishes his blade in spite of me.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nThou villain Capulet,--Hold me not, let me go.\n\nLADY MONTAGUE:\nThou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe.\n\nPRINCE:\nRebellious subjects, enemies to peace,\nProfaners of this neighbour-stained steel,--\nWill they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,\nThat quench the fire of your pernicious rage\nWith purple fountains issuing from your veins,\nOn pain of torture, from those bloody hands\nThrow your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,\nAnd hear the sentence of your moved prince.\nThree civil brawls, bred of an airy word,\nBy thee, old Capulet, and Montague,\nHave thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,\nAnd made Verona's ancient citizens\nCast by their grave beseeming ornaments,\nTo wield old partisans, in hands as old,\nCanker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate:\nIf ever you disturb our streets again,\nYour lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.\nFor this time, all the rest depart away:\nYou Capulet; shall go along with me:\nAnd, Montague, come you this afternoon,\nTo know our further pleasure in this case,\nTo old Free-town, our common judgment-place.\nOnce more, on pain of death, all men depart.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nWho set this ancient quarrel new abroach?\nSpeak, nephew, were you by when it began?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHere were the servants of your adversary,\nAnd yours, close fighting ere I did approach:\nI drew to part them: in the instant came\nThe fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared,\nWhich, as he breathed defiance to my ears,\nHe swung about his head and cut the winds,\nWho nothing hurt withal hiss'd him in scorn:\nWhile we were interchanging thrusts and blows,\nCame more and more and fought on part and part,\nTill the prince came, who parted either part.\n\nLADY MONTAGUE:\nO, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day?\nRight glad I am he was not at this fray.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nMadam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun\nPeer'd forth the golden window of the east,\nA troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;\nWhere, underneath the grove of sycamore\nThat westward rooteth from the city's side,\nSo early walking did I see your son:\nTowards him I made, but he was ware of me\nAnd stole into the covert of the wood:\nI, measuring his affections by my own,\nThat most are busied when they're most alone,\nPursued my humour not pursuing his,\nAnd gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nMany a morning hath he there been seen,\nWith tears augmenting the fresh morning dew.\nAdding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;\nBut all so soon as the all-cheering sun\nShould in the furthest east begin to draw\nThe shady curtains from Aurora's bed,\nAway from the light steals home my heavy son,\nAnd private in his chamber pens himself,\nShuts up his windows, locks far daylight out\nAnd makes himself an artificial night:\nBlack and portentous must this humour prove,\nUnless good counsel may the cause remove.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nMy noble uncle, do you know the cause?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nI neither know it nor can learn of him.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHave you importuned him by any means?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBoth by myself and many other friends:\nBut he, his own affections' counsellor,\nIs to himself--I will not say how true--\nBut to himself so secret and so close,\nSo far from sounding and discovery,\nAs is the bud bit with an envious worm,\nEre he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,\nOr dedicate his beauty to the sun.\nCould we but learn from whence his sorrows grow.\nWe would as willingly give cure as know.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nSee, where he comes: so please you, step aside;\nI'll know his grievance, or be much denied.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nI would thou wert so happy by thy stay,\nTo hear true shrift. Come, madam, let's away.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nGood-morrow, cousin.\n\nROMEO:\nIs the day so young?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBut new struck nine.\n\nROMEO:\nAy me! sad hours seem long.\nWas that my father that went hence so fast?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nIt was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?\n\nROMEO:\nNot having that, which, having, makes them short.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nIn love?\n\nROMEO:\nOut--\n\nBENVOLIO:\nOf love?\n\nROMEO:\nOut of her favour, where I am in love.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAlas, that love, so gentle in his view,\nShould be so tyrannous and rough in proof!\n\nROMEO:\nAlas, that love, whose view is muffled still,\nShould, without eyes, see pathways to his will!\nWhere shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?\nYet tell me not, for I have heard it all.\nHere's much to do with hate, but more with love.\nWhy, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!\nO any thing, of nothing first create!\nO heavy lightness! serious vanity!\nMis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!\nFeather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,\nsick health!\nStill-waking sleep, that is not what it is!\nThis love feel I, that feel no love in this.\nDost thou not laugh?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nNo, coz, I rather weep.\n\nROMEO:\nGood heart, at what?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAt thy good heart's oppression.\n\nROMEO:\nWhy, such is love's transgression.\nGriefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,\nWhich thou wilt propagate, to have it prest\nWith more of thine: this love that thou hast shown\nDoth add more grief to too much of mine own.\nLove is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;\nBeing purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;\nBeing vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:\nWhat is it else? a madness most discreet,\nA choking gall and a preserving sweet.\nFarewell, my coz.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nSoft! I will go along;\nAn if you leave me so, you do me wrong.\n\nROMEO:\nTut, I have lost myself; I am not here;\nThis is not Romeo, he's some other where.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTell me in sadness, who is that you love.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat, shall I groan and tell thee?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nGroan! why, no.\nBut sadly tell me who.\n\nROMEO:\nBid a sick man in sadness make his will:\nAh, word ill urged to one that is so ill!\nIn sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI aim'd so near, when I supposed you loved.\n\nROMEO:\nA right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nA right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.\n\nROMEO:\nWell, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit\nWith Cupid's arrow; she hath Dian's wit;\nAnd, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,\nFrom love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.\nShe will not stay the siege of loving terms,\nNor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,\nNor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:\nO, she is rich in beauty, only poor,\nThat when she dies with beauty dies her store.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThen she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?\n\nROMEO:\nShe hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,\nFor beauty starved with her severity\nCuts beauty off from all posterity.\nShe is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,\nTo merit bliss by making me despair:\nShe hath forsworn to love, and in that vow\nDo I live dead that live to tell it now.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBe ruled by me, forget to think of her.\n\nROMEO:\nO, teach me how I should forget to think.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBy giving liberty unto thine eyes;\nExamine other beauties.\n\nROMEO:\n'Tis the way\nTo call hers exquisite, in question more:\nThese happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows\nBeing black put us in mind they hide the fair;\nHe that is strucken blind cannot forget\nThe precious treasure of his eyesight lost:\nShow me a mistress that is passing fair,\nWhat doth her beauty serve, but as a note\nWhere I may read who pass'd that passing fair?\nFarewell: thou canst not teach me to forget.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.\n\nCAPULET:\nBut Montague is bound as well as I,\nIn penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,\nFor men so old as we to keep the peace.\n\nPARIS:\nOf honourable reckoning are you both;\nAnd pity 'tis you lived at odds so long.\nBut now, my lord, what say you to my suit?\n\nCAPULET:\nBut saying o'er what I have said before:\nMy child is yet a stranger in the world;\nShe hath not seen the change of fourteen years,\nLet two more summers wither in their pride,\nEre we may think her ripe to be a bride.\n\nPARIS:\nYounger than she are happy mothers made.\n\nCAPULET:\nAnd too soon marr'd are those so early made.\nThe earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,\nShe is the hopeful lady of my earth:\nBut woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,\nMy will to her consent is but a part;\nAn she agree, within her scope of choice\nLies my consent and fair according voice.\nThis night I hold an old accustom'd feast,\nWhereto I have invited many a guest,\nSuch as I love; and you, among the store,\nOne more, most welcome, makes my number more.\nAt my poor house look to behold this night\nEarth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:\nSuch comfort as do lusty young men feel\nWhen well-apparell'd April on the heel\nOf limping winter treads, even such delight\nAmong fresh female buds shall you this night\nInherit at my house; hear all, all see,\nAnd like her most whose merit most shall be:\nWhich on more view, of many mine being one\nMay stand in number, though in reckoning none,\nCome, go with me.\nGo, sirrah, trudge about\nThrough fair Verona; find those persons out\nWhose names are written there, and to them say,\nMy house and welcome on their pleasure stay.\n\nServant:\nFind them out whose names are written here! It is\nwritten, that the shoemaker should meddle with his\nyard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with\nhis pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am\nsent to find those persons whose names are here\nwrit, and can never find what names the writing\nperson hath here writ. I must to the learned.--In good time.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTut, man, one fire burns out another's burning,\nOne pain is lessen'd by another's anguish;\nTurn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;\nOne desperate grief cures with another's languish:\nTake thou some new infection to thy eye,\nAnd the rank poison of the old will die.\n\nROMEO:\nYour plaintain-leaf is excellent for that.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nFor what, I pray thee?\n\nROMEO:\nFor your broken shin.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhy, Romeo, art thou mad?\n\nROMEO:\nNot mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;\nShut up in prison, kept without my food,\nWhipp'd and tormented and--God-den, good fellow.\n\nServant:\nGod gi' god-den. I pray, sir, can you read?\n\nROMEO:\nAy, mine own fortune in my misery.\n\nServant:\nPerhaps you have learned it without book: but, I\npray, can you read any thing you see?\n\nROMEO:\nAy, if I know the letters and the language.\n\nServant:\nYe say honestly: rest you merry!\n\nROMEO:\nStay, fellow; I can read.\n'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;\nCounty Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady\nwidow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely\nnieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine\nuncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece\nRosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin\nTybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.' A fair\nassembly: whither should they come?\n\nServant:\nUp.\n\nROMEO:\nWhither?\n\nServant:\nTo supper; to our house.\n\nROMEO:\nWhose house?\n\nServant:\nMy master's.\n\nROMEO:\nIndeed, I should have ask'd you that before.\n\nServant:\nNow I'll tell you without asking: my master is the\ngreat rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house\nof Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine.\nRest you merry!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAt this same ancient feast of Capulet's\nSups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,\nWith all the admired beauties of Verona:\nGo thither; and, with unattainted eye,\nCompare her face with some that I shall show,\nAnd I will make thee think thy swan a crow.\n\nROMEO:\nWhen the devout religion of mine eye\nMaintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;\nAnd these, who often drown'd could never die,\nTransparent heretics, be burnt for liars!\nOne fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun\nNe'er saw her match since first the world begun.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTut, you saw her fair, none else being by,\nHerself poised with herself in either eye:\nBut in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd\nYour lady's love against some other maid\nThat I will show you shining at this feast,\nAnd she shall scant show well that now shows best.\n\nROMEO:\nI'll go along, no such sight to be shown,\nBut to rejoice in splendor of mine own.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nNurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.\n\nNurse:\nNow, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,\nI bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird!\nGod forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!\n\nJULIET:\nHow now! who calls?\n\nNurse:\nYour mother.\n\nJULIET:\nMadam, I am here.\nWhat is your will?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThis is the matter:--Nurse, give leave awhile,\nWe must talk in secret:--nurse, come back again;\nI have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.\nThou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.\n\nNurse:\nFaith, I can tell her age unto an hour.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nShe's not fourteen.\n\nNurse:\nI'll lay fourteen of my teeth,--\nAnd yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four--\nShe is not fourteen. How long is it now\nTo Lammas-tide?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nA fortnight and odd days.\n\nNurse:\nEven or odd, of all days in the year,\nCome Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.\nSusan and she--God rest all Christian souls!--\nWere of an age: well, Susan is with God;\nShe was too good for me: but, as I said,\nOn Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;\nThat shall she, marry; I remember it well.\n'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;\nAnd she was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,--\nOf all the days of the year, upon that day:\nFor I had then laid wormwood to my dug,\nSitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;\nMy lord and you were then at Mantua:--\nNay, I do bear a brain:--but, as I said,\nWhen it did taste the wormwood on the nipple\nOf my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,\nTo see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!\nShake quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow,\nTo bid me trudge:\nAnd since that time it is eleven years;\nFor then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,\nShe could have run and waddled all about;\nFor even the day before, she broke her brow:\nAnd then my husband--God be with his soul!\nA' was a merry man--took up the child:\n'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?\nThou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;\nWilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,\nThe pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'\nTo see, now, how a jest shall come about!\nI warrant, an I should live a thousand years,\nI never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he;\nAnd, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nEnough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.\n\nNurse:\nYes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,\nTo think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'\nAnd yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow\nA bump as big as a young cockerel's stone;\nA parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:\n'Yea,' quoth my husband,'fall'st upon thy face?\nThou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;\nWilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.'\n\nJULIET:\nAnd stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.\n\nNurse:\nPeace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!\nThou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:\nAn I might live to see thee married once,\nI have my wish.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nMarry, that 'marry' is the very theme\nI came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,\nHow stands your disposition to be married?\n\nJULIET:\nIt is an honour that I dream not of.\n\nNurse:\nAn honour! were not I thine only nurse,\nI would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWell, think of marriage now; younger than you,\nHere in Verona, ladies of esteem,\nAre made already mothers: by my count,\nI was your mother much upon these years\nThat you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:\nThe valiant Paris seeks you for his love.\n\nNurse:\nA man, young lady! lady, such a man\nAs all the world--why, he's a man of wax.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nVerona's summer hath not such a flower.\n\nNurse:\nNay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat say you? can you love the gentleman?\nThis night you shall behold him at our feast;\nRead o'er the volume of young Paris' face,\nAnd find delight writ there with beauty's pen;\nExamine every married lineament,\nAnd see how one another lends content\nAnd what obscured in this fair volume lies\nFind written in the margent of his eyes.\nThis precious book of love, this unbound lover,\nTo beautify him, only lacks a cover:\nThe fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride\nFor fair without the fair within to hide:\nThat book in many's eyes doth share the glory,\nThat in gold clasps locks in the golden story;\nSo shall you share all that he doth possess,\nBy having him, making yourself no less.\n\nNurse:\nNo less! nay, bigger; women grow by men.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nSpeak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?\n\nJULIET:\nI'll look to like, if looking liking move:\nBut no more deep will I endart mine eye\nThan your consent gives strength to make it fly.\n\nServant:\nMadam, the guests are come, supper served up, you\ncalled, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in\nthe pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must\nhence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWe follow thee.\nJuliet, the county stays.\n\nNurse:\nGo, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?\nOr shall we on without a apology?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThe date is out of such prolixity:\nWe'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,\nBearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,\nScaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;\nNor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke\nAfter the prompter, for our entrance:\nBut let them measure us by what they will;\nWe'll measure them a measure, and be gone.\n\nROMEO:\nGive me a torch: I am not for this ambling;\nBeing but heavy, I will bear the light.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.\n\nROMEO:\nNot I, believe me: you have dancing shoes\nWith nimble soles: I have a soul of lead\nSo stakes me to the ground I cannot move.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nYou are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,\nAnd soar with them above a common bound.\n\nROMEO:\nI am too sore enpierced with his shaft\nTo soar with his light feathers, and so bound,\nI cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:\nUnder love's heavy burden do I sink.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAnd, to sink in it, should you burden love;\nToo great oppression for a tender thing.\n\nROMEO:\nIs love a tender thing? it is too rough,\nToo rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nIf love be rough with you, be rough with love;\nPrick love for pricking, and you beat love down.\nGive me a case to put my visage in:\nA visor for a visor! what care I\nWhat curious eye doth quote deformities?\nHere are the beetle brows shall blush for me.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nCome, knock and enter; and no sooner in,\nBut every man betake him to his legs.\n\nROMEO:\nA torch for me: let wantons light of heart\nTickle the senseless rushes with their heels,\nFor I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase;\nI'll be a candle-holder, and look on.\nThe game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nTut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:\nIf thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire\nOf this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st\nUp to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!\n\nROMEO:\nNay, that's not so.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nI mean, sir, in delay\nWe waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.\nTake our good meaning, for our judgment sits\nFive times in that ere once in our five wits.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd we mean well in going to this mask;\nBut 'tis no wit to go.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWhy, may one ask?\n\nROMEO:\nI dream'd a dream to-night.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAnd so did I.\n\nROMEO:\nWell, what was yours?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThat dreamers often lie.\n\nROMEO:\nIn bed asleep, while they do dream things true.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.\nShe is the fairies' midwife, and she comes\nIn shape no bigger than an agate-stone\nOn the fore-finger of an alderman,\nDrawn with a team of little atomies\nAthwart men's noses as they lie asleep;\nHer wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,\nThe cover of the wings of grasshoppers,\nThe traces of the smallest spider's web,\nThe collars of the moonshine's watery beams,\nHer whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,\nHer wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,\nNot so big as a round little worm\nPrick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;\nHer chariot is an empty hazel-nut\nMade by the joiner squirrel or old grub,\nTime out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.\nAnd in this state she gallops night by night\nThrough lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;\nO'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,\nO'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,\nO'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,\nWhich oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,\nBecause their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:\nSometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,\nAnd then dreams he of smelling out a suit;\nAnd sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail\nTickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,\nThen dreams, he of another benefice:\nSometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,\nAnd then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,\nOf breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,\nOf healths five-fathom deep; and then anon\nDrums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,\nAnd being thus frighted swears a prayer or two\nAnd sleeps again. This is that very Mab\nThat plats the manes of horses in the night,\nAnd bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,\nWhich once untangled, much misfortune bodes:\nThis is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,\nThat presses them and learns them first to bear,\nMaking them women of good carriage:\nThis is she--\n\nROMEO:\nPeace, peace, Mercutio, peace!\nThou talk'st of nothing.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nTrue, I talk of dreams,\nWhich are the children of an idle brain,\nBegot of nothing but vain fantasy,\nWhich is as thin of substance as the air\nAnd more inconstant than the wind, who wooes\nEven now the frozen bosom of the north,\nAnd, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,\nTurning his face to the dew-dropping south.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThis wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;\nSupper is done, and we shall come too late.\n\nROMEO:\nI fear, too early: for my mind misgives\nSome consequence yet hanging in the stars\nShall bitterly begin his fearful date\nWith this night's revels and expire the term\nOf a despised life closed in my breast\nBy some vile forfeit of untimely death.\nBut He, that hath the steerage of my course,\nDirect my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nStrike, drum.\n\nFirst Servant:\nWhere's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He\nshift a trencher? he scrape a trencher!\n\nSecond Servant:\nWhen good manners shall lie all in one or two men's\nhands and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.\n\nFirst Servant:\nAway with the joint-stools, remove the\ncourt-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save\nme a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let\nthe porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.\nAntony, and Potpan!\n\nSecond Servant:\nAy, boy, ready.\n\nFirst Servant:\nYou are looked for and called for, asked for and\nsought for, in the great chamber.\n\nSecond Servant:\nWe cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys; be\nbrisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.\n\nCAPULET:\nWelcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes\nUnplagued with corns will have a bout with you.\nAh ha, my mistresses! which of you all\nWill now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,\nShe, I'll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?\nWelcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day\nThat I have worn a visor and could tell\nA whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,\nSuch as would please: 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone:\nYou are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians, play.\nA hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.\nMore light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,\nAnd quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.\nAh, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.\nNay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet;\nFor you and I are past our dancing days:\nHow long is't now since last yourself and I\nWere in a mask?\n\nSecond Capulet:\nBy'r lady, thirty years.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhat, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so much:\n'Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,\nCome pentecost as quickly as it will,\nSome five and twenty years; and then we mask'd.\n\nSecond Capulet:\n'Tis more, 'tis more, his son is elder, sir;\nHis son is thirty.\n\nCAPULET:\nWill you tell me that?\nHis son was but a ward two years ago.\n\nROMEO:\n\nServant:\nI know not, sir.\n\nROMEO:\nO, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!\nIt seems she hangs upon the cheek of night\nLike a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;\nBeauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!\nSo shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,\nAs yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.\nThe measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,\nAnd, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.\nDid my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!\nFor I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.\n\nTYBALT:\nThis, by his voice, should be a Montague.\nFetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave\nCome hither, cover'd with an antic face,\nTo fleer and scorn at our solemnity?\nNow, by the stock and honour of my kin,\nTo strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhy, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm you so?\n\nTYBALT:\nUncle, this is a Montague, our foe,\nA villain that is hither come in spite,\nTo scorn at our solemnity this night.\n\nCAPULET:\nYoung Romeo is it?\n\nTYBALT:\n'Tis he, that villain Romeo.\n\nCAPULET:\nContent thee, gentle coz, let him alone;\nHe bears him like a portly gentleman;\nAnd, to say truth, Verona brags of him\nTo be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth:\nI would not for the wealth of all the town\nHere in my house do him disparagement:\nTherefore be patient, take no note of him:\nIt is my will, the which if thou respect,\nShow a fair presence and put off these frowns,\nAnd ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.\n\nTYBALT:\nIt fits, when such a villain is a guest:\nI'll not endure him.\n\nCAPULET:\nHe shall be endured:\nWhat, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;\nAm I the master here, or you? go to.\nYou'll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!\nYou'll make a mutiny among my guests!\nYou will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!\n\nTYBALT:\nWhy, uncle, 'tis a shame.\n\nCAPULET:\nGo to, go to;\nYou are a saucy boy: is't so, indeed?\nThis trick may chance to scathe you, I know what:\nYou must contrary me! marry, 'tis time.\nWell said, my hearts! You are a princox; go:\nBe quiet, or--More light, more light! For shame!\nI'll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts!\n\nTYBALT:\nPatience perforce with wilful choler meeting\nMakes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.\nI will withdraw: but this intrusion shall\nNow seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.\n\nROMEO:\n\nJULIET:\nGood pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\nWhich mannerly devotion shows in this;\nFor saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\nAnd palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.\n\nROMEO:\nHave not saints lips, and holy palmers too?\n\nJULIET:\nAy, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.\n\nROMEO:\nO, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;\nThey pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.\n\nJULIET:\nSaints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.\n\nROMEO:\nThen move not, while my prayer's effect I take.\nThus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.\n\nJULIET:\nThen have my lips the sin that they have took.\n\nROMEO:\nSin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!\nGive me my sin again.\n\nJULIET:\nYou kiss by the book.\n\nNurse:\nMadam, your mother craves a word with you.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat is her mother?\n\nNurse:\nMarry, bachelor,\nHer mother is the lady of the house,\nAnd a good lady, and a wise and virtuous\nI nursed her daughter, that you talk'd withal;\nI tell you, he that can lay hold of her\nShall have the chinks.\n\nROMEO:\nIs she a Capulet?\nO dear account! my life is my foe's debt.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAway, begone; the sport is at the best.\n\nROMEO:\nAy, so I fear; the more is my unrest.\n\nCAPULET:\nNay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;\nWe have a trifling foolish banquet towards.\nIs it e'en so? why, then, I thank you all\nI thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.\nMore torches here! Come on then, let's to bed.\nAh, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late:\nI'll to my rest.\n\nJULIET:\nCome hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?\n\nNurse:\nThe son and heir of old Tiberio.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat's he that now is going out of door?\n\nNurse:\nMarry, that, I think, be young Petrucio.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat's he that follows there, that would not dance?\n\nNurse:\nI know not.\n\nJULIET:\nGo ask his name: if he be married.\nMy grave is like to be my wedding bed.\n\nNurse:\nHis name is Romeo, and a Montague;\nThe only son of your great enemy.\n\nJULIET:\nMy only love sprung from my only hate!\nToo early seen unknown, and known too late!\nProdigious birth of love it is to me,\nThat I must love a loathed enemy.\n\nNurse:\nWhat's this? what's this?\n\nJULIET:\nA rhyme I learn'd even now\nOf one I danced withal.\n\nNurse:\nAnon, anon!\nCome, let's away; the strangers all are gone.\n\nChorus:\nNow old desire doth in his death-bed lie,\nAnd young affection gapes to be his heir;\nThat fair for which love groan'd for and would die,\nWith tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.\nNow Romeo is beloved and loves again,\nAlike betwitched by the charm of looks,\nBut to his foe supposed he must complain,\nAnd she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:\nBeing held a foe, he may not have access\nTo breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;\nAnd she as much in love, her means much less\nTo meet her new-beloved any where:\nBut passion lends them power, time means, to meet\nTempering extremities with extreme sweet.\n\nROMEO:\nCan I go forward when my heart is here?\nTurn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nRomeo! my cousin Romeo!\n\nMERCUTIO:\nHe is wise;\nAnd, on my lie, hath stol'n him home to bed.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHe ran this way, and leap'd this orchard wall:\nCall, good Mercutio.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, I'll conjure too.\nRomeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!\nAppear thou in the likeness of a sigh:\nSpeak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;\nCry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove;'\nSpeak to my gossip Venus one fair word,\nOne nick-name for her purblind son and heir,\nYoung Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,\nWhen King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!\nHe heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;\nThe ape is dead, and I must conjure him.\nI conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,\nBy her high forehead and her scarlet lip,\nBy her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh\nAnd the demesnes that there adjacent lie,\nThat in thy likeness thou appear to us!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAnd if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThis cannot anger him: 'twould anger him\nTo raise a spirit in his mistress' circle\nOf some strange nature, letting it there stand\nTill she had laid it and conjured it down;\nThat were some spite: my invocation\nIs fair and honest, and in his mistress' name\nI conjure only but to raise up him.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nCome, he hath hid himself among these trees,\nTo be consorted with the humorous night:\nBlind is his love and best befits the dark.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nIf love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.\nNow will he sit under a medlar tree,\nAnd wish his mistress were that kind of fruit\nAs maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.\nRomeo, that she were, O, that she were\nAn open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!\nRomeo, good night: I'll to my truckle-bed;\nThis field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:\nCome, shall we go?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nGo, then; for 'tis in vain\nTo seek him here that means not to be found.\n\nROMEO:\nHe jests at scars that never felt a wound.\nBut, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?\nIt is the east, and Juliet is the sun.\nArise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,\nWho is already sick and pale with grief,\nThat thou her maid art far more fair than she:\nBe not her maid, since she is envious;\nHer vestal livery is but sick and green\nAnd none but fools do wear it; cast it off.\nIt is my lady, O, it is my love!\nO, that she knew she were!\nShe speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?\nHer eye discourses; I will answer it.\nI am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:\nTwo of the fairest stars in all the heaven,\nHaving some business, do entreat her eyes\nTo twinkle in their spheres till they return.\nWhat if her eyes were there, they in her head?\nThe brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,\nAs daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven\nWould through the airy region stream so bright\nThat birds would sing and think it were not night.\nSee, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!\nO, that I were a glove upon that hand,\nThat I might touch that cheek!\n\nJULIET:\nAy me!\n\nROMEO:\nShe speaks:\nO, speak again, bright angel! for thou art\nAs glorious to this night, being o'er my head\nAs is a winged messenger of heaven\nUnto the white-upturned wondering eyes\nOf mortals that fall back to gaze on him\nWhen he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds\nAnd sails upon the bosom of the air.\n\nJULIET:\nO Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?\nDeny thy father and refuse thy name;\nOr, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,\nAnd I'll no longer be a Capulet.\n\nROMEO:\n\nJULIET:\n'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;\nThou art thyself, though not a Montague.\nWhat's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,\nNor arm, nor face, nor any other part\nBelonging to a man. O, be some other name!\nWhat's in a name? that which we call a rose\nBy any other name would smell as sweet;\nSo Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,\nRetain that dear perfection which he owes\nWithout that title. Romeo, doff thy name,\nAnd for that name which is no part of thee\nTake all myself.\n\nROMEO:\nI take thee at thy word:\nCall me but love, and I'll be new baptized;\nHenceforth I never will be Romeo.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night\nSo stumblest on my counsel?\n\nROMEO:\nBy a name\nI know not how to tell thee who I am:\nMy name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,\nBecause it is an enemy to thee;\nHad I it written, I would tear the word.\n\nJULIET:\nMy ears have not yet drunk a hundred words\nOf that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound:\nArt thou not Romeo and a Montague?\n\nROMEO:\nNeither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.\n\nJULIET:\nHow camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?\nThe orchard walls are high and hard to climb,\nAnd the place death, considering who thou art,\nIf any of my kinsmen find thee here.\n\nROMEO:\nWith love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls;\nFor stony limits cannot hold love out,\nAnd what love can do that dares love attempt;\nTherefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.\n\nJULIET:\nIf they do see thee, they will murder thee.\n\nROMEO:\nAlack, there lies more peril in thine eye\nThan twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,\nAnd I am proof against their enmity.\n\nJULIET:\nI would not for the world they saw thee here.\n\nROMEO:\nI have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;\nAnd but thou love me, let them find me here:\nMy life were better ended by their hate,\nThan death prorogued, wanting of thy love.\n\nJULIET:\nBy whose direction found'st thou out this place?\n\nROMEO:\nBy love, who first did prompt me to inquire;\nHe lent me counsel and I lent him eyes.\nI am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far\nAs that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,\nI would adventure for such merchandise.\n\nJULIET:\nThou know'st the mask of night is on my face,\nElse would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\nFor that which thou hast heard me speak to-night\nFain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny\nWhat I have spoke: but farewell compliment!\nDost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,'\nAnd I will take thy word: yet if thou swear'st,\nThou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries\nThen say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,\nIf thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully:\nOr if thou think'st I am too quickly won,\nI'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay,\nSo thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.\nIn truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,\nAnd therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light:\nBut trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true\nThan those that have more cunning to be strange.\nI should have been more strange, I must confess,\nBut that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,\nMy true love's passion: therefore pardon me,\nAnd not impute this yielding to light love,\nWhich the dark night hath so discovered.\n\nROMEO:\nLady, by yonder blessed moon I swear\nThat tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops--\n\nJULIET:\nO, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,\nThat monthly changes in her circled orb,\nLest that thy love prove likewise variable.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat shall I swear by?\n\nJULIET:\nDo not swear at all;\nOr, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,\nWhich is the god of my idolatry,\nAnd I'll believe thee.\n\nROMEO:\nIf my heart's dear love--\n\nJULIET:\nWell, do not swear: although I joy in thee,\nI have no joy of this contract to-night:\nIt is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;\nToo like the lightning, which doth cease to be\nEre one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night!\nThis bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,\nMay prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.\nGood night, good night! as sweet repose and rest\nCome to thy heart as that within my breast!\n\nROMEO:\nO, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?\n\nJULIET:\nWhat satisfaction canst thou have to-night?\n\nROMEO:\nThe exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.\n\nJULIET:\nI gave thee mine before thou didst request it:\nAnd yet I would it were to give again.\n\nROMEO:\nWouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love?\n\nJULIET:\nBut to be frank, and give it thee again.\nAnd yet I wish but for the thing I have:\nMy bounty is as boundless as the sea,\nMy love as deep; the more I give to thee,\nThe more I have, for both are infinite.\nI hear some noise within; dear love, adieu!\nAnon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.\nStay but a little, I will come again.\n\nROMEO:\nO blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.\nBeing in night, all this is but a dream,\nToo flattering-sweet to be substantial.\n\nJULIET:\nThree words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.\nIf that thy bent of love be honourable,\nThy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,\nBy one that I'll procure to come to thee,\nWhere and what time thou wilt perform the rite;\nAnd all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay\nAnd follow thee my lord throughout the world.\n\nNurse:\n\nJULIET:\nI come, anon.--But if thou mean'st not well,\nI do beseech thee--\n\nNurse:\n\nJULIET:\nBy and by, I come:--\nTo cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief:\nTo-morrow will I send.\n\nROMEO:\nSo thrive my soul--\n\nJULIET:\nA thousand times good night!\n\nROMEO:\nA thousand times the worse, to want thy light.\nLove goes toward love, as schoolboys from\ntheir books,\nBut love from love, toward school with heavy looks.\n\nJULIET:\nHist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer's voice,\nTo lure this tassel-gentle back again!\nBondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;\nElse would I tear the cave where Echo lies,\nAnd make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,\nWith repetition of my Romeo's name.\n\nROMEO:\nIt is my soul that calls upon my name:\nHow silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,\nLike softest music to attending ears!\n\nJULIET:\nRomeo!\n\nROMEO:\nMy dear?\n\nJULIET:\nAt what o'clock to-morrow\nShall I send to thee?\n\nROMEO:\nAt the hour of nine.\n\nJULIET:\nI will not fail: 'tis twenty years till then.\nI have forgot why I did call thee back.\n\nROMEO:\nLet me stand here till thou remember it.\n\nJULIET:\nI shall forget, to have thee still stand there,\nRemembering how I love thy company.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,\nForgetting any other home but this.\n\nJULIET:\n'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:\nAnd yet no further than a wanton's bird;\nWho lets it hop a little from her hand,\nLike a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,\nAnd with a silk thread plucks it back again,\nSo loving-jealous of his liberty.\n\nROMEO:\nI would I were thy bird.\n\nJULIET:\nSweet, so would I:\nYet I should kill thee with much cherishing.\nGood night, good night! parting is such\nsweet sorrow,\nThat I shall say good night till it be morrow.\n\nROMEO:\nSleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!\nWould I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!\nHence will I to my ghostly father's cell,\nHis help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThe grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,\nChequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,\nAnd flecked darkness like a drunkard reels\nFrom forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:\nNow, ere the sun advance his burning eye,\nThe day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,\nI must up-fill this osier cage of ours\nWith baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.\nThe earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;\nWhat is her burying grave that is her womb,\nAnd from her womb children of divers kind\nWe sucking on her natural bosom find,\nMany for many virtues excellent,\nNone but for some and yet all different.\nO, mickle is the powerful grace that lies\nIn herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:\nFor nought so vile that on the earth doth live\nBut to the earth some special good doth give,\nNor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use\nRevolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:\nVirtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;\nAnd vice sometimes by action dignified.\nWithin the infant rind of this small flower\nPoison hath residence and medicine power:\nFor this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;\nBeing tasted, slays all senses with the heart.\nTwo such opposed kings encamp them still\nIn man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;\nAnd where the worser is predominant,\nFull soon the canker death eats up that plant.\n\nROMEO:\nGood morrow, father.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nBenedicite!\nWhat early tongue so sweet saluteth me?\nYoung son, it argues a distemper'd head\nSo soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:\nCare keeps his watch in every old man's eye,\nAnd where care lodges, sleep will never lie;\nBut where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain\nDoth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:\nTherefore thy earliness doth me assure\nThou art up-roused by some distemperature;\nOr if not so, then here I hit it right,\nOur Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.\n\nROMEO:\nThat last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nGod pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline?\n\nROMEO:\nWith Rosaline, my ghostly father? no;\nI have forgot that name, and that name's woe.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThat's my good son: but where hast thou been, then?\n\nROMEO:\nI'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.\nI have been feasting with mine enemy,\nWhere on a sudden one hath wounded me,\nThat's by me wounded: both our remedies\nWithin thy help and holy physic lies:\nI bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,\nMy intercession likewise steads my foe.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nBe plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;\nRiddling confession finds but riddling shrift.\n\nROMEO:\nThen plainly know my heart's dear love is set\nOn the fair daughter of rich Capulet:\nAs mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;\nAnd all combined, save what thou must combine\nBy holy marriage: when and where and how\nWe met, we woo'd and made exchange of vow,\nI'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,\nThat thou consent to marry us to-day.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHoly Saint Francis, what a change is here!\nIs Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,\nSo soon forsaken? young men's love then lies\nNot truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.\nJesu Maria, what a deal of brine\nHath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!\nHow much salt water thrown away in waste,\nTo season love, that of it doth not taste!\nThe sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,\nThy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;\nLo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit\nOf an old tear that is not wash'd off yet:\nIf e'er thou wast thyself and these woes thine,\nThou and these woes were all for Rosaline:\nAnd art thou changed? pronounce this sentence then,\nWomen may fall, when there's no strength in men.\n\nROMEO:\nThou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nFor doting, not for loving, pupil mine.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd bad'st me bury love.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nNot in a grave,\nTo lay one in, another out to have.\n\nROMEO:\nI pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now\nDoth grace for grace and love for love allow;\nThe other did not so.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nO, she knew well\nThy love did read by rote and could not spell.\nBut come, young waverer, come, go with me,\nIn one respect I'll thy assistant be;\nFor this alliance may so happy prove,\nTo turn your households' rancour to pure love.\n\nROMEO:\nO, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWhere the devil should this Romeo be?\nCame he not home to-night?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nNot to his father's; I spoke with his man.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAh, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline.\nTorments him so, that he will sure run mad.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,\nHath sent a letter to his father's house.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nA challenge, on my life.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nRomeo will answer it.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAny man that can write may answer a letter.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nNay, he will answer the letter's master, how he\ndares, being dared.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAlas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a\nwhite wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a\nlove-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the\nblind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to\nencounter Tybalt?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhy, what is Tybalt?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nMore than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is\nthe courageous captain of compliments. He fights as\nyou sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and\nproportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and\nthe third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk\nbutton, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the\nvery first house, of the first and second cause:\nah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the\nhai!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThe what?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThe pox of such antic, lisping, affecting\nfantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu,\na very good blade! a very tall man! a very good\nwhore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,\ngrandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with\nthese strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these\nperdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form,\nthat they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their\nbones, their bones!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHere comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWithout his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,\nhow art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers\nthat Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a\nkitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to\nbe-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;\nHelen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey\neye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior\nRomeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation\nto your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit\nfairly last night.\n\nROMEO:\nGood morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThe ship, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?\n\nROMEO:\nPardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in\nsuch a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThat's as much as to say, such a case as yours\nconstrains a man to bow in the hams.\n\nROMEO:\nMeaning, to court'sy.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThou hast most kindly hit it.\n\nROMEO:\nA most courteous exposition.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, I am the very pink of courtesy.\n\nROMEO:\nPink for flower.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nRight.\n\nROMEO:\nWhy, then is my pump well flowered.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWell said: follow me this jest now till thou hast\nworn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it\nis worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular.\n\nROMEO:\nO single-soled jest, solely singular for the\nsingleness.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCome between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.\n\nROMEO:\nSwitch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have\ndone, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of\nthy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five:\nwas I with you there for the goose?\n\nROMEO:\nThou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast\nnot there for the goose.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nI will bite thee by the ear for that jest.\n\nROMEO:\nNay, good goose, bite not.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most\nsharp sauce.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd is it not well served in to a sweet goose?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an\ninch narrow to an ell broad!\n\nROMEO:\nI stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added\nto the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWhy, is not this better now than groaning for love?\nnow art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art\nthou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:\nfor this drivelling love is like a great natural,\nthat runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nStop there, stop there.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThou wouldst else have made thy tale large.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO, thou art deceived; I would have made it short:\nfor I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and\nmeant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.\n\nROMEO:\nHere's goodly gear!\n\nMERCUTIO:\nA sail, a sail!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTwo, two; a shirt and a smock.\n\nNurse:\nPeter!\n\nPETER:\nAnon!\n\nNurse:\nMy fan, Peter.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nGood Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the\nfairer face.\n\nNurse:\nGod ye good morrow, gentlemen.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nGod ye good den, fair gentlewoman.\n\nNurse:\nIs it good den?\n\nMERCUTIO:\n'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the\ndial is now upon the prick of noon.\n\nNurse:\nOut upon you! what a man are you!\n\nROMEO:\nOne, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to\nmar.\n\nNurse:\nBy my troth, it is well said; 'for himself to mar,'\nquoth a'? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I\nmay find the young Romeo?\n\nROMEO:\nI can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when\nyou have found him than he was when you sought him:\nI am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.\n\nNurse:\nYou say well.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nYea, is the worst well? very well took, i' faith;\nwisely, wisely.\n\nNurse:\nif you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with\nyou.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nShe will indite him to some supper.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nA bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho!\n\nROMEO:\nWhat hast thou found?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNo hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie,\nthat is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.\nAn old hare hoar,\nAnd an old hare hoar,\nIs very good meat in lent\nBut a hare that is hoar\nIs too much for a score,\nWhen it hoars ere it be spent.\nRomeo, will you come to your father's? we'll\nto dinner, thither.\n\nROMEO:\nI will follow you.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nFarewell, ancient lady; farewell,\n'lady, lady, lady.'\n\nNurse:\nMarry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy\nmerchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?\n\nROMEO:\nA gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk,\nand will speak more in a minute than he will stand\nto in a month.\n\nNurse:\nAn a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him\ndown, an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty such\nJacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall.\nScurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am\nnone of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by\ntoo, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?\n\nPETER:\nI saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my weapon\nshould quickly have been out, I warrant you: I dare\ndraw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a\ngood quarrel, and the law on my side.\n\nNurse:\nNow, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about\nme quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:\nand as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you\nout; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:\nbut first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into\na fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross\nkind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman\nis young; and, therefore, if you should deal double\nwith her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered\nto any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.\n\nROMEO:\nNurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I\nprotest unto thee--\n\nNurse:\nGood heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much:\nLord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost not mark me.\n\nNurse:\nI will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as\nI take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.\n\nROMEO:\nBid her devise\nSome means to come to shrift this afternoon;\nAnd there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell\nBe shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.\n\nNurse:\nNo truly sir; not a penny.\n\nROMEO:\nGo to; I say you shall.\n\nNurse:\nThis afternoon, sir? well, she shall be there.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall:\nWithin this hour my man shall be with thee\nAnd bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;\nWhich to the high top-gallant of my joy\nMust be my convoy in the secret night.\nFarewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains:\nFarewell; commend me to thy mistress.\n\nNurse:\nNow God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat say'st thou, my dear nurse?\n\nNurse:\nIs your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,\nTwo may keep counsel, putting one away?\n\nROMEO:\nI warrant thee, my man's as true as steel.\n\nNURSE:\nWell, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady--Lord,\nLord! when 'twas a little prating thing:--O, there\nis a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain\nlay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief\nsee a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her\nsometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer\nman; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks\nas pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not\nrosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?\n\nROMEO:\nAy, nurse; what of that? both with an R.\n\nNurse:\nAh. mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for\nthe--No; I know it begins with some other\nletter:--and she hath the prettiest sententious of\nit, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good\nto hear it.\n\nROMEO:\nCommend me to thy lady.\n\nNurse:\nAy, a thousand times.\nPeter!\n\nPETER:\nAnon!\n\nNurse:\nPeter, take my fan, and go before and apace.\n\nJULIET:\nThe clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;\nIn half an hour she promised to return.\nPerchance she cannot meet him: that's not so.\nO, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts,\nWhich ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,\nDriving back shadows over louring hills:\nTherefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,\nAnd therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.\nNow is the sun upon the highmost hill\nOf this day's journey, and from nine till twelve\nIs three long hours, yet she is not come.\nHad she affections and warm youthful blood,\nShe would be as swift in motion as a ball;\nMy words would bandy her to my sweet love,\nAnd his to me:\nBut old folks, many feign as they were dead;\nUnwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.\nO God, she comes!\nO honey nurse, what news?\nHast thou met with him? Send thy man away.\n\nNurse:\nPeter, stay at the gate.\n\nJULIET:\nNow, good sweet nurse,--O Lord, why look'st thou sad?\nThough news be sad, yet tell them merrily;\nIf good, thou shamest the music of sweet news\nBy playing it to me with so sour a face.\n\nNurse:\nI am a-weary, give me leave awhile:\nFie, how my bones ache! what a jaunt have I had!\n\nJULIET:\nI would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:\nNay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak.\n\nNurse:\nJesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile?\nDo you not see that I am out of breath?\n\nJULIET:\nHow art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath\nTo say to me that thou art out of breath?\nThe excuse that thou dost make in this delay\nIs longer than the tale thou dost excuse.\nIs thy news good, or bad? answer to that;\nSay either, and I'll stay the circumstance:\nLet me be satisfied, is't good or bad?\n\nNurse:\nWell, you have made a simple choice; you know not\nhow to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though his\nface be better than any man's, yet his leg excels\nall men's; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body,\nthough they be not to be talked on, yet they are\npast compare: he is not the flower of courtesy,\nbut, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy\nways, wench; serve God. What, have you dined at home?\n\nJULIET:\nNo, no: but all this did I know before.\nWhat says he of our marriage? what of that?\n\nNurse:\nLord, how my head aches! what a head have I!\nIt beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.\nMy back o' t' other side,--O, my back, my back!\nBeshrew your heart for sending me about,\nTo catch my death with jaunting up and down!\n\nJULIET:\nI' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.\nSweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?\n\nNurse:\nYour love says, like an honest gentleman, and a\ncourteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I\nwarrant, a virtuous,--Where is your mother?\n\nJULIET:\nWhere is my mother! why, she is within;\nWhere should she be? How oddly thou repliest!\n'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,\nWhere is your mother?'\n\nNurse:\nO God's lady dear!\nAre you so hot? marry, come up, I trow;\nIs this the poultice for my aching bones?\nHenceforward do your messages yourself.\n\nJULIET:\nHere's such a coil! come, what says Romeo?\n\nNurse:\nHave you got leave to go to shrift to-day?\n\nJULIET:\nI have.\n\nNurse:\nThen hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;\nThere stays a husband to make you a wife:\nNow comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,\nThey'll be in scarlet straight at any news.\nHie you to church; I must another way,\nTo fetch a ladder, by the which your love\nMust climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark:\nI am the drudge and toil in your delight,\nBut you shall bear the burden soon at night.\nGo; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell.\n\nJULIET:\nHie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nSo smile the heavens upon this holy act,\nThat after hours with sorrow chide us not!\n\nROMEO:\nAmen, amen! but come what sorrow can,\nIt cannot countervail the exchange of joy\nThat one short minute gives me in her sight:\nDo thou but close our hands with holy words,\nThen love-devouring death do what he dare;\nIt is enough I may but call her mine.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThese violent delights have violent ends\nAnd in their triumph die, like fire and powder,\nWhich as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey\nIs loathsome in his own deliciousness\nAnd in the taste confounds the appetite:\nTherefore love moderately; long love doth so;\nToo swift arrives as tardy as too slow.\nHere comes the lady: O, so light a foot\nWill ne'er wear out the everlasting flint:\nA lover may bestride the gossamer\nThat idles in the wanton summer air,\nAnd yet not fall; so light is vanity.\n\nJULIET:\nGood even to my ghostly confessor.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nRomeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.\n\nJULIET:\nAs much to him, else is his thanks too much.\n\nROMEO:\nAh, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy\nBe heap'd like mine and that thy skill be more\nTo blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath\nThis neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue\nUnfold the imagined happiness that both\nReceive in either by this dear encounter.\n\nJULIET:\nConceit, more rich in matter than in words,\nBrags of his substance, not of ornament:\nThey are but beggars that can count their worth;\nBut my true love is grown to such excess\nI cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nCome, come with me, and we will make short work;\nFor, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone\nTill holy church incorporate two in one.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire:\nThe day is hot, the Capulets abroad,\nAnd, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl;\nFor now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThou art like one of those fellows that when he\nenters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword\nupon the table and says 'God send me no need of\nthee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws\nit on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAm I like such a fellow?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCome, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as\nany in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as\nsoon moody to be moved.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAnd what to?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, an there were two such, we should have none\nshortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! why,\nthou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more,\nor a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast: thou\nwilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no\nother reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what\neye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?\nThy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of\nmeat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as\nan egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a\nman for coughing in the street, because he hath\nwakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun:\ndidst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing\nhis new doublet before Easter? with another, for\ntying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou\nwilt tutor me from quarrelling!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAn I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man\nshould buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThe fee-simple! O simple!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBy my head, here come the Capulets.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nBy my heel, I care not.\n\nTYBALT:\nFollow me close, for I will speak to them.\nGentlemen, good den: a word with one of you.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAnd but one word with one of us? couple it with\nsomething; make it a word and a blow.\n\nTYBALT:\nYou shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you\nwill give me occasion.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCould you not take some occasion without giving?\n\nTYBALT:\nMercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo,--\n\nMERCUTIO:\nConsort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an\nthou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but\ndiscords: here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall\nmake you dance. 'Zounds, consort!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWe talk here in the public haunt of men:\nEither withdraw unto some private place,\nAnd reason coldly of your grievances,\nOr else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nMen's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;\nI will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.\n\nTYBALT:\nWell, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nBut I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery:\nMarry, go before to field, he'll be your follower;\nYour worship in that sense may call him 'man.'\n\nTYBALT:\nRomeo, the hate I bear thee can afford\nNo better term than this,--thou art a villain.\n\nROMEO:\nTybalt, the reason that I have to love thee\nDoth much excuse the appertaining rage\nTo such a greeting: villain am I none;\nTherefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not.\n\nTYBALT:\nBoy, this shall not excuse the injuries\nThat thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.\n\nROMEO:\nI do protest, I never injured thee,\nBut love thee better than thou canst devise,\nTill thou shalt know the reason of my love:\nAnd so, good Capulet,--which name I tender\nAs dearly as my own,--be satisfied.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO calm, dishonourable, vile submission!\nAlla stoccata carries it away.\nTybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?\n\nTYBALT:\nWhat wouldst thou have with me?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nGood king of cats, nothing but one of your nine\nlives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you\nshall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the\neight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher\nby the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your\nears ere it be out.\n\nTYBALT:\nI am for you.\n\nROMEO:\nGentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCome, sir, your passado.\n\nROMEO:\nDraw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.\nGentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!\nTybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath\nForbidden bandying in Verona streets:\nHold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!\n\nMERCUTIO:\nI am hurt.\nA plague o' both your houses! I am sped.\nIs he gone, and hath nothing?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhat, art thou hurt?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAy, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.\nWhere is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.\n\nROMEO:\nCourage, man; the hurt cannot be much.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNo, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a\nchurch-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for\nme to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I\nam peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o'\nboth your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a\ncat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a\nrogue, a villain, that fights by the book of\narithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I\nwas hurt under your arm.\n\nROMEO:\nI thought all for the best.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nHelp me into some house, Benvolio,\nOr I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!\nThey have made worms' meat of me: I have it,\nAnd soundly too: your houses!\n\nROMEO:\nThis gentleman, the prince's near ally,\nMy very friend, hath got his mortal hurt\nIn my behalf; my reputation stain'd\nWith Tybalt's slander,--Tybalt, that an hour\nHath been my kinsman! O sweet Juliet,\nThy beauty hath made me effeminate\nAnd in my temper soften'd valour's steel!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nO Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!\nThat gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds,\nWhich too untimely here did scorn the earth.\n\nROMEO:\nThis day's black fate on more days doth depend;\nThis but begins the woe, others must end.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHere comes the furious Tybalt back again.\n\nROMEO:\nAlive, in triumph! and Mercutio slain!\nAway to heaven, respective lenity,\nAnd fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!\nNow, Tybalt, take the villain back again,\nThat late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul\nIs but a little way above our heads,\nStaying for thine to keep him company:\nEither thou, or I, or both, must go with him.\n\nTYBALT:\nThou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,\nShalt with him hence.\n\nROMEO:\nThis shall determine that.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nRomeo, away, be gone!\nThe citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.\nStand not amazed: the prince will doom thee death,\nIf thou art taken: hence, be gone, away!\n\nROMEO:\nO, I am fortune's fool!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhy dost thou stay?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWhich way ran he that kill'd Mercutio?\nTybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThere lies that Tybalt.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nUp, sir, go with me;\nI charge thee in the princes name, obey.\n\nPRINCE:\nWhere are the vile beginners of this fray?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nO noble prince, I can discover all\nThe unlucky manage of this fatal brawl:\nThere lies the man, slain by young Romeo,\nThat slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nTybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!\nO prince! O cousin! husband! O, the blood is spilt\nO my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,\nFor blood of ours, shed blood of Montague.\nO cousin, cousin!\n\nPRINCE:\nBenvolio, who began this bloody fray?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did slay;\nRomeo that spoke him fair, bade him bethink\nHow nice the quarrel was, and urged withal\nYour high displeasure: all this uttered\nWith gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd,\nCould not take truce with the unruly spleen\nOf Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts\nWith piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast,\nWho all as hot, turns deadly point to point,\nAnd, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats\nCold death aside, and with the other sends\nIt back to Tybalt, whose dexterity,\nRetorts it: Romeo he cries aloud,\n'Hold, friends! friends, part!' and, swifter than\nhis tongue,\nHis agile arm beats down their fatal points,\nAnd 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm\nAn envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life\nOf stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled;\nBut by and by comes back to Romeo,\nWho had but newly entertain'd revenge,\nAnd to 't they go like lightning, for, ere I\nCould draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain.\nAnd, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.\nThis is the truth, or let Benvolio die.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nHe is a kinsman to the Montague;\nAffection makes him false; he speaks not true:\nSome twenty of them fought in this black strife,\nAnd all those twenty could but kill one life.\nI beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give;\nRomeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.\n\nPRINCE:\nRomeo slew him, he slew Mercutio;\nWho now the price of his dear blood doth owe?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nNot Romeo, prince, he was Mercutio's friend;\nHis fault concludes but what the law should end,\nThe life of Tybalt.\n\nPRINCE:\nAnd for that offence\nImmediately we do exile him hence:\nI have an interest in your hate's proceeding,\nMy blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;\nBut I'll amerce you with so strong a fine\nThat you shall all repent the loss of mine:\nI will be deaf to pleading and excuses;\nNor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:\nTherefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste,\nElse, when he's found, that hour is his last.\nBear hence this body and attend our will:\nMercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.\n\nJULIET:\nGallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,\nTowards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner\nAs Phaethon would whip you to the west,\nAnd bring in cloudy night immediately.\nSpread thy close curtain, love-performing night,\nThat runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo\nLeap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.\nLovers can see to do their amorous rites\nBy their own beauties; or, if love be blind,\nIt best agrees with night. Come, civil night,\nThou sober-suited matron, all in black,\nAnd learn me how to lose a winning match,\nPlay'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:\nHood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,\nWith thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,\nThink true love acted simple modesty.\nCome, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;\nFor thou wilt lie upon the wings of night\nWhiter than new snow on a raven's back.\nCome, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,\nGive me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,\nTake him and cut him out in little stars,\nAnd he will make the face of heaven so fine\nThat all the world will be in love with night\nAnd pay no worship to the garish sun.\nO, I have bought the mansion of a love,\nBut not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,\nNot yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day\nAs is the night before some festival\nTo an impatient child that hath new robes\nAnd may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,\nAnd she brings news; and every tongue that speaks\nBut Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.\nNow, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords\nThat Romeo bid thee fetch?\n\nNurse:\nAy, ay, the cords.\n\nJULIET:\nAy me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?\n\nNurse:\nAh, well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!\nWe are undone, lady, we are undone!\nAlack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!\n\nJULIET:\nCan heaven be so envious?\n\nNurse:\nRomeo can,\nThough heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo!\nWho ever would have thought it? Romeo!\n\nJULIET:\nWhat devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?\nThis torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.\nHath Romeo slain himself? say thou but 'I,'\nAnd that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more\nThan the death-darting eye of cockatrice:\nI am not I, if there be such an I;\nOr those eyes shut, that make thee answer 'I.'\nIf he be slain, say 'I'; or if not, no:\nBrief sounds determine of my weal or woe.\n\nNurse:\nI saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,--\nGod save the mark!--here on his manly breast:\nA piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;\nPale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,\nAll in gore-blood; I swounded at the sight.\n\nJULIET:\nO, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!\nTo prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty!\nVile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;\nAnd thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!\n\nNurse:\nO Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!\nO courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!\nThat ever I should live to see thee dead!\n\nJULIET:\nWhat storm is this that blows so contrary?\nIs Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead?\nMy dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord?\nThen, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!\nFor who is living, if those two are gone?\n\nNurse:\nTybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;\nRomeo that kill'd him, he is banished.\n\nJULIET:\nO God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?\n\nNurse:\nIt did, it did; alas the day, it did!\n\nJULIET:\nO serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!\nDid ever dragon keep so fair a cave?\nBeautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!\nDove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!\nDespised substance of divinest show!\nJust opposite to what thou justly seem'st,\nA damned saint, an honourable villain!\nO nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,\nWhen thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend\nIn moral paradise of such sweet flesh?\nWas ever book containing such vile matter\nSo fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell\nIn such a gorgeous palace!\n\nNurse:\nThere's no trust,\nNo faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,\nAll forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.\nAh, where's my man? give me some aqua vitae:\nThese griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.\nShame come to Romeo!\n\nJULIET:\nBlister'd be thy tongue\nFor such a wish! he was not born to shame:\nUpon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;\nFor 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd\nSole monarch of the universal earth.\nO, what a beast was I to chide at him!\n\nNurse:\nWill you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?\n\nJULIET:\nShall I speak ill of him that is my husband?\nAh, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,\nWhen I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?\nBut, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?\nThat villain cousin would have kill'd my husband:\nBack, foolish tears, back to your native spring;\nYour tributary drops belong to woe,\nWhich you, mistaking, offer up to joy.\nMy husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;\nAnd Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:\nAll this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?\nSome word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,\nThat murder'd me: I would forget it fain;\nBut, O, it presses to my memory,\nLike damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds:\n'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banished;'\nThat 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'\nHath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death\nWas woe enough, if it had ended there:\nOr, if sour woe delights in fellowship\nAnd needly will be rank'd with other griefs,\nWhy follow'd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'\nThy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,\nWhich modern lamentations might have moved?\nBut with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,\n'Romeo is banished,' to speak that word,\nIs father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,\nAll slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!'\nThere is no end, no limit, measure, bound,\nIn that word's death; no words can that woe sound.\nWhere is my father, and my mother, nurse?\n\nNurse:\nWeeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse:\nWill you go to them? I will bring you thither.\n\nJULIET:\nWash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent,\nWhen theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.\nTake up those cords: poor ropes, you are beguiled,\nBoth you and I; for Romeo is exiled:\nHe made you for a highway to my bed;\nBut I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.\nCome, cords, come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed;\nAnd death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!\n\nNurse:\nHie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo\nTo comfort you: I wot well where he is.\nHark ye, your Romeo will be here at night:\nI'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.\n\nJULIET:\nO, find him! give this ring to my true knight,\nAnd bid him come to take his last farewell.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nRomeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:\nAffliction is enamour'd of thy parts,\nAnd thou art wedded to calamity.\n\nROMEO:\nFather, what news? what is the prince's doom?\nWhat sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,\nThat I yet know not?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nToo familiar\nIs my dear son with such sour company:\nI bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat less than dooms-day is the prince's doom?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nA gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips,\nNot body's death, but body's banishment.\n\nROMEO:\nHa, banishment! be merciful, say 'death;'\nFor exile hath more terror in his look,\nMuch more than death: do not say 'banishment.'\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHence from Verona art thou banished:\nBe patient, for the world is broad and wide.\n\nROMEO:\nThere is no world without Verona walls,\nBut purgatory, torture, hell itself.\nHence-banished is banish'd from the world,\nAnd world's exile is death: then banished,\nIs death mis-term'd: calling death banishment,\nThou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe,\nAnd smilest upon the stroke that murders me.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nO deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!\nThy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,\nTaking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,\nAnd turn'd that black word death to banishment:\nThis is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.\n\nROMEO:\n'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,\nWhere Juliet lives; and every cat and dog\nAnd little mouse, every unworthy thing,\nLive here in heaven and may look on her;\nBut Romeo may not: more validity,\nMore honourable state, more courtship lives\nIn carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize\nOn the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand\nAnd steal immortal blessing from her lips,\nWho even in pure and vestal modesty,\nStill blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;\nBut Romeo may not; he is banished:\nFlies may do this, but I from this must fly:\nThey are free men, but I am banished.\nAnd say'st thou yet that exile is not death?\nHadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,\nNo sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,\nBut 'banished' to kill me?--'banished'?\nO friar, the damned use that word in hell;\nHowlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,\nBeing a divine, a ghostly confessor,\nA sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,\nTo mangle me with that word 'banished'?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word.\n\nROMEO:\nO, thou wilt speak again of banishment.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI'll give thee armour to keep off that word:\nAdversity's sweet milk, philosophy,\nTo comfort thee, though thou art banished.\n\nROMEO:\nYet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!\nUnless philosophy can make a Juliet,\nDisplant a town, reverse a prince's doom,\nIt helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nO, then I see that madmen have no ears.\n\nROMEO:\nHow should they, when that wise men have no eyes?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nLet me dispute with thee of thy estate.\n\nROMEO:\nThou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:\nWert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,\nAn hour but married, Tybalt murdered,\nDoting like me and like me banished,\nThen mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,\nAnd fall upon the ground, as I do now,\nTaking the measure of an unmade grave.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nArise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide thyself.\n\nROMEO:\nNot I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,\nMist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise;\nThou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up;\nRun to my study. By and by! God's will,\nWhat simpleness is this! I come, I come!\nWho knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will?\n\nNurse:\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWelcome, then.\n\nNurse:\nO holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,\nWhere is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThere on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.\n\nNurse:\nO, he is even in my mistress' case,\nJust in her case! O woful sympathy!\nPiteous predicament! Even so lies she,\nBlubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.\nStand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man:\nFor Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;\nWhy should you fall into so deep an O?\n\nROMEO:\nNurse!\n\nNurse:\nAh sir! ah sir! Well, death's the end of all.\n\nROMEO:\nSpakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her?\nDoth she not think me an old murderer,\nNow I have stain'd the childhood of our joy\nWith blood removed but little from her own?\nWhere is she? and how doth she? and what says\nMy conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?\n\nNurse:\nO, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;\nAnd now falls on her bed; and then starts up,\nAnd Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,\nAnd then down falls again.\n\nROMEO:\nAs if that name,\nShot from the deadly level of a gun,\nDid murder her; as that name's cursed hand\nMurder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,\nIn what vile part of this anatomy\nDoth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack\nThe hateful mansion.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold thy desperate hand:\nArt thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:\nThy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote\nThe unreasonable fury of a beast:\nUnseemly woman in a seeming man!\nOr ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!\nThou hast amazed me: by my holy order,\nI thought thy disposition better temper'd.\nHast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?\nAnd stay thy lady too that lives in thee,\nBy doing damned hate upon thyself?\nWhy rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?\nSince birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet\nIn thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.\nFie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit;\nWhich, like a usurer, abound'st in all,\nAnd usest none in that true use indeed\nWhich should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:\nThy noble shape is but a form of wax,\nDigressing from the valour of a man;\nThy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,\nKilling that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;\nThy wit, that ornament to shape and love,\nMisshapen in the conduct of them both,\nLike powder in a skitless soldier's flask,\nIs set afire by thine own ignorance,\nAnd thou dismember'd with thine own defence.\nWhat, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,\nFor whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;\nThere art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,\nBut thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:\nThe law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend\nAnd turns it to exile; there art thou happy:\nA pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;\nHappiness courts thee in her best array;\nBut, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,\nThou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:\nTake heed, take heed, for such die miserable.\nGo, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,\nAscend her chamber, hence and comfort her:\nBut look thou stay not till the watch be set,\nFor then thou canst not pass to Mantua;\nWhere thou shalt live, till we can find a time\nTo blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,\nBeg pardon of the prince, and call thee back\nWith twenty hundred thousand times more joy\nThan thou went'st forth in lamentation.\nGo before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;\nAnd bid her hasten all the house to bed,\nWhich heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:\nRomeo is coming.\n\nNurse:\nO Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night\nTo hear good counsel: O, what learning is!\nMy lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.\n\nROMEO:\nDo so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.\n\nNurse:\nHere, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir:\nHie you, make haste, for it grows very late.\n\nROMEO:\nHow well my comfort is revived by this!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nGo hence; good night; and here stands all your state:\nEither be gone before the watch be set,\nOr by the break of day disguised from hence:\nSojourn in Mantua; I'll find out your man,\nAnd he shall signify from time to time\nEvery good hap to you that chances here:\nGive me thy hand; 'tis late: farewell; good night.\n\nROMEO:\nBut that a joy past joy calls out on me,\nIt were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell.\n\nCAPULET:\nThings have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily,\nThat we have had no time to move our daughter:\nLook you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,\nAnd so did I:--Well, we were born to die.\n'Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night:\nI promise you, but for your company,\nI would have been a-bed an hour ago.\n\nPARIS:\nThese times of woe afford no time to woo.\nMadam, good night: commend me to your daughter.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nI will, and know her mind early to-morrow;\nTo-night she is mew'd up to her heaviness.\n\nCAPULET:\nSir Paris, I will make a desperate tender\nOf my child's love: I think she will be ruled\nIn all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.\nWife, go you to her ere you go to bed;\nAcquaint her here of my son Paris' love;\nAnd bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next--\nBut, soft! what day is this?\n\nPARIS:\nMonday, my lord,\n\nCAPULET:\nMonday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,\nO' Thursday let it be: o' Thursday, tell her,\nShe shall be married to this noble earl.\nWill you be ready? do you like this haste?\nWe'll keep no great ado,--a friend or two;\nFor, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,\nIt may be thought we held him carelessly,\nBeing our kinsman, if we revel much:\nTherefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,\nAnd there an end. But what say you to Thursday?\n\nPARIS:\nMy lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.\n\nCAPULET:\nWell get you gone: o' Thursday be it, then.\nGo you to Juliet ere you go to bed,\nPrepare her, wife, against this wedding-day.\nFarewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho!\nAfore me! it is so very very late,\nThat we may call it early by and by.\nGood night.\n\nJULIET:\nWilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:\nIt was the nightingale, and not the lark,\nThat pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;\nNightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:\nBelieve me, love, it was the nightingale.\n\nROMEO:\nIt was the lark, the herald of the morn,\nNo nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks\nDo lace the severing clouds in yonder east:\nNight's candles are burnt out, and jocund day\nStands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.\nI must be gone and live, or stay and die.\n\nJULIET:\nYon light is not day-light, I know it, I:\nIt is some meteor that the sun exhales,\nTo be to thee this night a torch-bearer,\nAnd light thee on thy way to Mantua:\nTherefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.\n\nROMEO:\nLet me be ta'en, let me be put to death;\nI am content, so thou wilt have it so.\nI'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,\n'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;\nNor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat\nThe vaulty heaven so high above our heads:\nI have more care to stay than will to go:\nCome, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.\nHow is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day.\n\nJULIET:\nIt is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!\nIt is the lark that sings so out of tune,\nStraining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.\nSome say the lark makes sweet division;\nThis doth not so, for she divideth us:\nSome say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,\nO, now I would they had changed voices too!\nSince arm from arm that voice doth us affray,\nHunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day,\nO, now be gone; more light and light it grows.\n\nROMEO:\nMore light and light; more dark and dark our woes!\n\nNurse:\nMadam!\n\nJULIET:\nNurse?\n\nNurse:\nYour lady mother is coming to your chamber:\nThe day is broke; be wary, look about.\n\nJULIET:\nThen, window, let day in, and let life out.\n\nROMEO:\nFarewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll descend.\n\nJULIET:\nArt thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend!\nI must hear from thee every day in the hour,\nFor in a minute there are many days:\nO, by this count I shall be much in years\nEre I again behold my Romeo!\n\nROMEO:\nFarewell!\nI will omit no opportunity\nThat may convey my greetings, love, to thee.\n\nJULIET:\nO think'st thou we shall ever meet again?\n\nROMEO:\nI doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve\nFor sweet discourses in our time to come.\n\nJULIET:\nO God, I have an ill-divining soul!\nMethinks I see thee, now thou art below,\nAs one dead in the bottom of a tomb:\nEither my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd trust me, love, in my eye so do you:\nDry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!\n\nJULIET:\nO fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:\nIf thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.\nThat is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;\nFor then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,\nBut send him back.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\n\nJULIET:\nWho is't that calls? is it my lady mother?\nIs she not down so late, or up so early?\nWhat unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhy, how now, Juliet!\n\nJULIET:\nMadam, I am not well.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nEvermore weeping for your cousin's death?\nWhat, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?\nAn if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;\nTherefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;\nBut much of grief shows still some want of wit.\n\nJULIET:\nYet let me weep for such a feeling loss.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nSo shall you feel the loss, but not the friend\nWhich you weep for.\n\nJULIET:\nFeeling so the loss,\nCannot choose but ever weep the friend.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWell, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,\nAs that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat villain madam?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThat same villain, Romeo.\n\nJULIET:\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThat is, because the traitor murderer lives.\n\nJULIET:\nAy, madam, from the reach of these my hands:\nWould none but I might venge my cousin's death!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWe will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:\nThen weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,\nWhere that same banish'd runagate doth live,\nShall give him such an unaccustom'd dram,\nThat he shall soon keep Tybalt company:\nAnd then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.\n\nJULIET:\nIndeed, I never shall be satisfied\nWith Romeo, till I behold him--dead--\nIs my poor heart for a kinsman vex'd.\nMadam, if you could find out but a man\nTo bear a poison, I would temper it;\nThat Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,\nSoon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors\nTo hear him named, and cannot come to him.\nTo wreak the love I bore my cousin\nUpon his body that slaughter'd him!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nFind thou the means, and I'll find such a man.\nBut now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.\n\nJULIET:\nAnd joy comes well in such a needy time:\nWhat are they, I beseech your ladyship?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWell, well, thou hast a careful father, child;\nOne who, to put thee from thy heaviness,\nHath sorted out a sudden day of joy,\nThat thou expect'st not nor I look'd not for.\n\nJULIET:\nMadam, in happy time, what day is that?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nMarry, my child, early next Thursday morn,\nThe gallant, young and noble gentleman,\nThe County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,\nShall happily make thee there a joyful bride.\n\nJULIET:\nNow, by Saint Peter's Church and Peter too,\nHe shall not make me there a joyful bride.\nI wonder at this haste; that I must wed\nEre he, that should be husband, comes to woo.\nI pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,\nI will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,\nIt shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,\nRather than Paris. These are news indeed!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nHere comes your father; tell him so yourself,\nAnd see how he will take it at your hands.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhen the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;\nBut for the sunset of my brother's son\nIt rains downright.\nHow now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?\nEvermore showering? In one little body\nThou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind;\nFor still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,\nDo ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,\nSailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;\nWho, raging with thy tears, and they with them,\nWithout a sudden calm, will overset\nThy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife!\nHave you deliver'd to her our decree?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAy, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.\nI would the fool were married to her grave!\n\nCAPULET:\nSoft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.\nHow! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?\nIs she not proud? doth she not count her blest,\nUnworthy as she is, that we have wrought\nSo worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?\n\nJULIET:\nNot proud, you have; but thankful, that you have:\nProud can I never be of what I hate;\nBut thankful even for hate, that is meant love.\n\nCAPULET:\nHow now, how now, chop-logic! What is this?\n'Proud,' and 'I thank you,' and 'I thank you not;'\nAnd yet 'not proud,' mistress minion, you,\nThank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds,\nBut fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,\nTo go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,\nOr I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.\nOut, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!\nYou tallow-face!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nFie, fie! what, are you mad?\n\nJULIET:\nGood father, I beseech you on my knees,\nHear me with patience but to speak a word.\n\nCAPULET:\nHang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!\nI tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday,\nOr never after look me in the face:\nSpeak not, reply not, do not answer me;\nMy fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest\nThat God had lent us but this only child;\nBut now I see this one is one too much,\nAnd that we have a curse in having her:\nOut on her, hilding!\n\nNurse:\nGod in heaven bless her!\nYou are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.\n\nCAPULET:\nAnd why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,\nGood prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.\n\nNurse:\nI speak no treason.\n\nCAPULET:\nO, God ye god-den.\n\nNurse:\nMay not one speak?\n\nCAPULET:\nPeace, you mumbling fool!\nUtter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl;\nFor here we need it not.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nYou are too hot.\n\nCAPULET:\nGod's bread! it makes me mad:\nDay, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,\nAlone, in company, still my care hath been\nTo have her match'd: and having now provided\nA gentleman of noble parentage,\nOf fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,\nStuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,\nProportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;\nAnd then to have a wretched puling fool,\nA whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,\nTo answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love,\nI am too young; I pray you, pardon me.'\nBut, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you:\nGraze where you will you shall not house with me:\nLook to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.\nThursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:\nAn you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;\nAnd you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in\nthe streets,\nFor, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,\nNor what is mine shall never do thee good:\nTrust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn.\n\nJULIET:\nIs there no pity sitting in the clouds,\nThat sees into the bottom of my grief?\nO, sweet my mother, cast me not away!\nDelay this marriage for a month, a week;\nOr, if you do not, make the bridal bed\nIn that dim monument where Tybalt lies.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nTalk not to me, for I'll not speak a word:\nDo as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.\n\nJULIET:\nO God!--O nurse, how shall this be prevented?\nMy husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;\nHow shall that faith return again to earth,\nUnless that husband send it me from heaven\nBy leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me.\nAlack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems\nUpon so soft a subject as myself!\nWhat say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?\nSome comfort, nurse.\n\nNurse:\nFaith, here it is.\nRomeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing,\nThat he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;\nOr, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.\nThen, since the case so stands as now it doth,\nI think it best you married with the county.\nO, he's a lovely gentleman!\nRomeo's a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,\nHath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye\nAs Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,\nI think you are happy in this second match,\nFor it excels your first: or if it did not,\nYour first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,\nAs living here and you no use of him.\n\nJULIET:\nSpeakest thou from thy heart?\n\nNurse:\nAnd from my soul too;\nOr else beshrew them both.\n\nJULIET:\nAmen!\n\nNurse:\nWhat?\n\nJULIET:\nWell, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.\nGo in: and tell my lady I am gone,\nHaving displeased my father, to Laurence' cell,\nTo make confession and to be absolved.\n\nNurse:\nMarry, I will; and this is wisely done.\n\nJULIET:\nAncient damnation! O most wicked fiend!\nIs it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,\nOr to dispraise my lord with that same tongue\nWhich she hath praised him with above compare\nSo many thousand times? Go, counsellor;\nThou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.\nI'll to the friar, to know his remedy:\nIf all else fail, myself have power to die.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nOn Thursday, sir? the time is very short.\n\nPARIS:\nMy father Capulet will have it so;\nAnd I am nothing slow to slack his haste.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nYou say you do not know the lady's mind:\nUneven is the course, I like it not.\n\nPARIS:\nImmoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,\nAnd therefore have I little talk'd of love;\nFor Venus smiles not in a house of tears.\nNow, sir, her father counts it dangerous\nThat she doth give her sorrow so much sway,\nAnd in his wisdom hastes our marriage,\nTo stop the inundation of her tears;\nWhich, too much minded by herself alone,\nMay be put from her by society:\nNow do you know the reason of this haste.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\n\nPARIS:\nHappily met, my lady and my wife!\n\nJULIET:\nThat may be, sir, when I may be a wife.\n\nPARIS:\nThat may be must be, love, on Thursday next.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat must be shall be.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThat's a certain text.\n\nPARIS:\nCome you to make confession to this father?\n\nJULIET:\nTo answer that, I should confess to you.\n\nPARIS:\nDo not deny to him that you love me.\n\nJULIET:\nI will confess to you that I love him.\n\nPARIS:\nSo will ye, I am sure, that you love me.\n\nJULIET:\nIf I do so, it will be of more price,\nBeing spoke behind your back, than to your face.\n\nPARIS:\nPoor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.\n\nJULIET:\nThe tears have got small victory by that;\nFor it was bad enough before their spite.\n\nPARIS:\nThou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.\n\nJULIET:\nThat is no slander, sir, which is a truth;\nAnd what I spake, I spake it to my face.\n\nPARIS:\nThy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.\n\nJULIET:\nIt may be so, for it is not mine own.\nAre you at leisure, holy father, now;\nOr shall I come to you at evening mass?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nMy leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.\nMy lord, we must entreat the time alone.\n\nPARIS:\nGod shield I should disturb devotion!\nJuliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:\nTill then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.\n\nJULIET:\nO shut the door! and when thou hast done so,\nCome weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nAh, Juliet, I already know thy grief;\nIt strains me past the compass of my wits:\nI hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,\nOn Thursday next be married to this county.\n\nJULIET:\nTell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,\nUnless thou tell me how I may prevent it:\nIf, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,\nDo thou but call my resolution wise,\nAnd with this knife I'll help it presently.\nGod join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;\nAnd ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,\nShall be the label to another deed,\nOr my true heart with treacherous revolt\nTurn to another, this shall slay them both:\nTherefore, out of thy long-experienced time,\nGive me some present counsel, or, behold,\n'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife\nShall play the umpire, arbitrating that\nWhich the commission of thy years and art\nCould to no issue of true honour bring.\nBe not so long to speak; I long to die,\nIf what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,\nWhich craves as desperate an execution.\nAs that is desperate which we would prevent.\nIf, rather than to marry County Paris,\nThou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,\nThen is it likely thou wilt undertake\nA thing like death to chide away this shame,\nThat copest with death himself to scape from it:\nAnd, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.\n\nJULIET:\nO, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,\nFrom off the battlements of yonder tower;\nOr walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk\nWhere serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;\nOr shut me nightly in a charnel-house,\nO'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,\nWith reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;\nOr bid me go into a new-made grave\nAnd hide me with a dead man in his shroud;\nThings that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;\nAnd I will do it without fear or doubt,\nTo live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold, then; go home, be merry, give consent\nTo marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:\nTo-morrow night look that thou lie alone;\nLet not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:\nTake thou this vial, being then in bed,\nAnd this distilled liquor drink thou off;\nWhen presently through all thy veins shall run\nA cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse\nShall keep his native progress, but surcease:\nNo warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;\nThe roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade\nTo paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall,\nLike death, when he shuts up the day of life;\nEach part, deprived of supple government,\nShall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:\nAnd in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death\nThou shalt continue two and forty hours,\nAnd then awake as from a pleasant sleep.\nNow, when the bridegroom in the morning comes\nTo rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:\nThen, as the manner of our country is,\nIn thy best robes uncover'd on the bier\nThou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault\nWhere all the kindred of the Capulets lie.\nIn the mean time, against thou shalt awake,\nShall Romeo by my letters know our drift,\nAnd hither shall he come: and he and I\nWill watch thy waking, and that very night\nShall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.\nAnd this shall free thee from this present shame;\nIf no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,\nAbate thy valour in the acting it.\n\nJULIET:\nGive me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous\nIn this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed\nTo Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.\n\nJULIET:\nLove give me strength! and strength shall help afford.\nFarewell, dear father!\n\nCAPULET:\nSo many guests invite as here are writ.\nSirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.\n\nSecond Servant:\nYou shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they\ncan lick their fingers.\n\nCAPULET:\nHow canst thou try them so?\n\nSecond Servant:\nMarry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his\nown fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his\nfingers goes not with me.\n\nCAPULET:\nGo, be gone.\nWe shall be much unfurnished for this time.\nWhat, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?\n\nNurse:\nAy, forsooth.\n\nCAPULET:\nWell, he may chance to do some good on her:\nA peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.\n\nNurse:\nSee where she comes from shrift with merry look.\n\nCAPULET:\nHow now, my headstrong! where have you been gadding?\n\nJULIET:\nWhere I have learn'd me to repent the sin\nOf disobedient opposition\nTo you and your behests, and am enjoin'd\nBy holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,\nAnd beg your pardon: pardon, I beseech you!\nHenceforward I am ever ruled by you.\n\nCAPULET:\nSend for the county; go tell him of this:\nI'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.\n\nJULIET:\nI met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;\nAnd gave him what becomed love I might,\nNot step o'er the bounds of modesty.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhy, I am glad on't; this is well: stand up:\nThis is as't should be. Let me see the county;\nAy, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.\nNow, afore God! this reverend holy friar,\nOur whole city is much bound to him.\n\nJULIET:\nNurse, will you go with me into my closet,\nTo help me sort such needful ornaments\nAs you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nNo, not till Thursday; there is time enough.\n\nCAPULET:\nGo, nurse, go with her: we'll to church to-morrow.\n\nLADY  CAPULET:\nWe shall be short in our provision:\n'Tis now near night.\n\nCAPULET:\nTush, I will stir about,\nAnd all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife:\nGo thou to Juliet, help to deck up her;\nI'll not to bed to-night; let me alone;\nI'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!\nThey are all forth. Well, I will walk myself\nTo County Paris, to prepare him up\nAgainst to-morrow: my heart is wondrous light,\nSince this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.\n\nJULIET:\nAy, those attires are best: but, gentle nurse,\nI pray thee, leave me to myself to-night,\nFor I have need of many orisons\nTo move the heavens to smile upon my state,\nWhich, well thou know'st, is cross, and full of sin.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat, are you busy, ho? need you my help?\n\nJULIET:\nNo, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries\nAs are behoveful for our state to-morrow:\nSo please you, let me now be left alone,\nAnd let the nurse this night sit up with you;\nFor, I am sure, you have your hands full all,\nIn this so sudden business.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nGood night:\nGet thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.\n\nJULIET:\nFarewell! God knows when we shall meet again.\nI have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,\nThat almost freezes up the heat of life:\nI'll call them back again to comfort me:\nNurse! What should she do here?\nMy dismal scene I needs must act alone.\nCome, vial.\nWhat if this mixture do not work at all?\nShall I be married then to-morrow morning?\nNo, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.\nWhat if it be a poison, which the friar\nSubtly hath minister'd to have me dead,\nLest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,\nBecause he married me before to Romeo?\nI fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not,\nFor he hath still been tried a holy man.\nHow if, when I am laid into the tomb,\nI wake before the time that Romeo\nCome to redeem me? there's a fearful point!\nShall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,\nTo whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,\nAnd there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?\nOr, if I live, is it not very like,\nThe horrible conceit of death and night,\nTogether with the terror of the place,--\nAs in a vault, an ancient receptacle,\nWhere, for these many hundred years, the bones\nOf all my buried ancestors are packed:\nWhere bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,\nLies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,\nAt some hours in the night spirits resort;--\nAlack, alack, is it not like that I,\nSo early waking, what with loathsome smells,\nAnd shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,\nThat living mortals, hearing them, run mad:--\nO, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,\nEnvironed with all these hideous fears?\nAnd madly play with my forefather's joints?\nAnd pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?\nAnd, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,\nAs with a club, dash out my desperate brains?\nO, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost\nSeeking out Romeo, that did spit his body\nUpon a rapier's point: stay, Tybalt, stay!\nRomeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nHold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.\n\nNurse:\nThey call for dates and quinces in the pastry.\n\nCAPULET:\nCome, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd,\nThe curfew-bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock:\nLook to the baked meats, good Angelica:\nSpare not for the cost.\n\nNurse:\nGo, you cot-quean, go,\nGet you to bed; faith, You'll be sick to-morrow\nFor this night's watching.\n\nCAPULET:\nNo, not a whit: what! I have watch'd ere now\nAll night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAy, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;\nBut I will watch you from such watching now.\n\nCAPULET:\nA jealous hood, a jealous hood!\nNow, fellow,\nWhat's there?\n\nFirst Servant:\nThings for the cook, sir; but I know not what.\n\nCAPULET:\nMake haste, make haste.\nSirrah, fetch drier logs:\nCall Peter, he will show thee where they are.\n\nSecond Servant:\nI have a head, sir, that will find out logs,\nAnd never trouble Peter for the matter.\n\nCAPULET:\nMass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!\nThou shalt be logger-head. Good faith, 'tis day:\nThe county will be here with music straight,\nFor so he said he would: I hear him near.\nNurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!\nGo waken Juliet, go and trim her up;\nI'll go and chat with Paris: hie, make haste,\nMake haste; the bridegroom he is come already:\nMake haste, I say.\n\nNurse:\nMistress! what, mistress! Juliet! fast, I warrant her, she:\nWhy, lamb! why, lady! fie, you slug-a-bed!\nWhy, love, I say! madam! sweet-heart! why, bride!\nWhat, not a word? you take your pennyworths now;\nSleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,\nThe County Paris hath set up his rest,\nThat you shall rest but little. God forgive me,\nMarry, and amen, how sound is she asleep!\nI must needs wake her. Madam, madam, madam!\nAy, let the county take you in your bed;\nHe'll fright you up, i' faith. Will it not be?\nWhat, dress'd! and in your clothes! and down again!\nI must needs wake you; Lady! lady! lady!\nAlas, alas! Help, help! my lady's dead!\nO, well-a-day, that ever I was born!\nSome aqua vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat noise is here?\n\nNurse:\nO lamentable day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat is the matter?\n\nNurse:\nLook, look! O heavy day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nO me, O me! My child, my only life,\nRevive, look up, or I will die with thee!\nHelp, help! Call help.\n\nCAPULET:\nFor shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.\n\nNurse:\nShe's dead, deceased, she's dead; alack the day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAlack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!\n\nCAPULET:\nHa! let me see her: out, alas! she's cold:\nHer blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;\nLife and these lips have long been separated:\nDeath lies on her like an untimely frost\nUpon the sweetest flower of all the field.\n\nNurse:\nO lamentable day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nO woful time!\n\nCAPULET:\nDeath, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,\nTies up my tongue, and will not let me speak.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nCome, is the bride ready to go to church?\n\nCAPULET:\nReady to go, but never to return.\nO son! the night before thy wedding-day\nHath Death lain with thy wife. There she lies,\nFlower as she was, deflowered by him.\nDeath is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;\nMy daughter he hath wedded: I will die,\nAnd leave him all; life, living, all is Death's.\n\nPARIS:\nHave I thought long to see this morning's face,\nAnd doth it give me such a sight as this?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAccursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!\nMost miserable hour that e'er time saw\nIn lasting labour of his pilgrimage!\nBut one, poor one, one poor and loving child,\nBut one thing to rejoice and solace in,\nAnd cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight!\n\nNurse:\nO woe! O woful, woful, woful day!\nMost lamentable day, most woful day,\nThat ever, ever, I did yet behold!\nO day! O day! O day! O hateful day!\nNever was seen so black a day as this:\nO woful day, O woful day!\n\nPARIS:\nBeguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!\nMost detestable death, by thee beguil'd,\nBy cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!\nO love! O life! not life, but love in death!\n\nCAPULET:\nDespised, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!\nUncomfortable time, why camest thou now\nTo murder, murder our solemnity?\nO child! O child! my soul, and not my child!\nDead art thou! Alack! my child is dead;\nAnd with my child my joys are buried.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nPeace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not\nIn these confusions. Heaven and yourself\nHad part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,\nAnd all the better is it for the maid:\nYour part in her you could not keep from death,\nBut heaven keeps his part in eternal life.\nThe most you sought was her promotion;\nFor 'twas your heaven she should be advanced:\nAnd weep ye now, seeing she is advanced\nAbove the clouds, as high as heaven itself?\nO, in this love, you love your child so ill,\nThat you run mad, seeing that she is well:\nShe's not well married that lives married long;\nBut she's best married that dies married young.\nDry up your tears, and stick your rosemary\nOn this fair corse; and, as the custom is,\nIn all her best array bear her to church:\nFor though fond nature bids us an lament,\nYet nature's tears are reason's merriment.\n\nCAPULET:\nAll things that we ordained festival,\nTurn from their office to black funeral;\nOur instruments to melancholy bells,\nOur wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,\nOur solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,\nOur bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,\nAnd all things change them to the contrary.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nSir, go you in; and, madam, go with him;\nAnd go, Sir Paris; every one prepare\nTo follow this fair corse unto her grave:\nThe heavens do lour upon you for some ill;\nMove them no more by crossing their high will.\n\nFirst Musician:\nFaith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone.\n\nNurse:\nHonest goodfellows, ah, put up, put up;\nFor, well you know, this is a pitiful case.\n\nFirst Musician:\nAy, by my troth, the case may be amended.\n\nPETER:\nMusicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease, Heart's\nease:' O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'\n\nFirst Musician:\nWhy 'Heart's ease?'\n\nPETER:\nO, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My\nheart is full of woe:' O, play me some merry dump,\nto comfort me.\n\nFirst Musician:\nNot a dump we; 'tis no time to play now.\n\nPETER:\nYou will not, then?\n\nFirst Musician:\nNo.\n\nPETER:\nI will then give it you soundly.\n\nFirst Musician:\nWhat will you give us?\n\nPETER:\nNo money, on my faith, but the gleek;\nI will give you the minstrel.\n\nFirst Musician:\nThen I will give you the serving-creature.\n\nPETER:\nThen will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on\nyour pate. I will carry no crotchets: I'll re you,\nI'll fa you; do you note me?\n\nFirst Musician:\nAn you re us and fa us, you note us.\n\nSecond Musician:\nPray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit.\n\nPETER:\nThen have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you\nwith an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer\nme like men:\n'When griping grief the heart doth wound,\nAnd doleful dumps the mind oppress,\nThen music with her silver sound'--\nwhy 'silver sound'? why 'music with her silver\nsound'? What say you, Simon Catling?\n\nMusician:\nMarry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.\n\nPETER:\nPretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?\n\nSecond Musician:\nI say 'silver sound,' because musicians sound for silver.\n\nPETER:\nPretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?\n\nThird Musician:\nFaith, I know not what to say.\n\nPETER:\nO, I cry you mercy; you are the singer: I will say\nfor you. It is 'music with her silver sound,'\nbecause musicians have no gold for sounding:\n'Then music with her silver sound\nWith speedy help doth lend redress.'\n\nFirst Musician:\nWhat a pestilent knave is this same!\n\nSecond Musician:\nHang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here; tarry for the\nmourners, and stay dinner.\n\nROMEO:\nIf I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,\nMy dreams presage some joyful news at hand:\nMy bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;\nAnd all this day an unaccustom'd spirit\nLifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.\nI dreamt my lady came and found me dead--\nStrange dream, that gives a dead man leave\nto think!--\nAnd breathed such life with kisses in my lips,\nThat I revived, and was an emperor.\nAh me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,\nWhen but love's shadows are so rich in joy!\nNews from Verona!--How now, Balthasar!\nDost thou not bring me letters from the friar?\nHow doth my lady? Is my father well?\nHow fares my Juliet? that I ask again;\nFor nothing can be ill, if she be well.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nThen she is well, and nothing can be ill:\nHer body sleeps in Capel's monument,\nAnd her immortal part with angels lives.\nI saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,\nAnd presently took post to tell it you:\nO, pardon me for bringing these ill news,\nSince you did leave it for my office, sir.\n\nROMEO:\nIs it even so? then I defy you, stars!\nThou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper,\nAnd hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI do beseech you, sir, have patience:\nYour looks are pale and wild, and do import\nSome misadventure.\n\nROMEO:\nTush, thou art deceived:\nLeave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.\nHast thou no letters to me from the friar?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nNo, my good lord.\n\nROMEO:\nNo matter: get thee gone,\nAnd hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight.\nWell, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.\nLet's see for means: O mischief, thou art swift\nTo enter in the thoughts of desperate men!\nI do remember an apothecary,--\nAnd hereabouts he dwells,--which late I noted\nIn tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,\nCulling of simples; meagre were his looks,\nSharp misery had worn him to the bones:\nAnd in his needy shop a tortoise hung,\nAn alligator stuff'd, and other skins\nOf ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves\nA beggarly account of empty boxes,\nGreen earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds,\nRemnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,\nWere thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.\nNoting this penury, to myself I said\n'An if a man did need a poison now,\nWhose sale is present death in Mantua,\nHere lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.'\nO, this same thought did but forerun my need;\nAnd this same needy man must sell it me.\nAs I remember, this should be the house.\nBeing holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.\nWhat, ho! apothecary!\n\nApothecary:\nWho calls so loud?\n\nROMEO:\nCome hither, man. I see that thou art poor:\nHold, there is forty ducats: let me have\nA dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear\nAs will disperse itself through all the veins\nThat the life-weary taker may fall dead\nAnd that the trunk may be discharged of breath\nAs violently as hasty powder fired\nDoth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.\n\nApothecary:\nSuch mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law\nIs death to any he that utters them.\n\nROMEO:\nArt thou so bare and full of wretchedness,\nAnd fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,\nNeed and oppression starveth in thine eyes,\nContempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;\nThe world is not thy friend nor the world's law;\nThe world affords no law to make thee rich;\nThen be not poor, but break it, and take this.\n\nApothecary:\nMy poverty, but not my will, consents.\n\nROMEO:\nI pay thy poverty, and not thy will.\n\nApothecary:\nPut this in any liquid thing you will,\nAnd drink it off; and, if you had the strength\nOf twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.\n\nROMEO:\nThere is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,\nDoing more murders in this loathsome world,\nThan these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.\nI sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.\nFarewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh.\nCome, cordial and not poison, go with me\nTo Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nHoly Franciscan friar! brother, ho!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThis same should be the voice of Friar John.\nWelcome from Mantua: what says Romeo?\nOr, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nGoing to find a bare-foot brother out\nOne of our order, to associate me,\nHere in this city visiting the sick,\nAnd finding him, the searchers of the town,\nSuspecting that we both were in a house\nWhere the infectious pestilence did reign,\nSeal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;\nSo that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWho bare my letter, then, to Romeo?\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nI could not send it,--here it is again,--\nNor get a messenger to bring it thee,\nSo fearful were they of infection.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nUnhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,\nThe letter was not nice but full of charge\nOf dear import, and the neglecting it\nMay do much danger. Friar John, go hence;\nGet me an iron crow, and bring it straight\nUnto my cell.\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nBrother, I'll go and bring it thee.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nNow must I to the monument alone;\nWithin three hours will fair Juliet wake:\nShe will beshrew me much that Romeo\nHath had no notice of these accidents;\nBut I will write again to Mantua,\nAnd keep her at my cell till Romeo come;\nPoor living corse, closed in a dead man's tomb!\n\nPARIS:\nGive me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof:\nYet put it out, for I would not be seen.\nUnder yond yew-trees lay thee all along,\nHolding thine ear close to the hollow ground;\nSo shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,\nBeing loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,\nBut thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,\nAs signal that thou hear'st something approach.\nGive me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.\n\nPAGE:\n\nPARIS:\nSweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,--\nO woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;--\nWhich with sweet water nightly I will dew,\nOr, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans:\nThe obsequies that I for thee will keep\nNightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.\nThe boy gives warning something doth approach.\nWhat cursed foot wanders this way to-night,\nTo cross my obsequies and true love's rite?\nWhat with a torch! muffle me, night, awhile.\n\nROMEO:\nGive me that mattock and the wrenching iron.\nHold, take this letter; early in the morning\nSee thou deliver it to my lord and father.\nGive me the light: upon thy life, I charge thee,\nWhate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,\nAnd do not interrupt me in my course.\nWhy I descend into this bed of death,\nIs partly to behold my lady's face;\nBut chiefly to take thence from her dead finger\nA precious ring, a ring that I must use\nIn dear employment: therefore hence, be gone:\nBut if thou, jealous, dost return to pry\nIn what I further shall intend to do,\nBy heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint\nAnd strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:\nThe time and my intents are savage-wild,\nMore fierce and more inexorable far\nThan empty tigers or the roaring sea.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\n\nROMEO:\nSo shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that:\nLive, and be prosperous: and farewell, good fellow.\n\nBALTHASAR:\n\nROMEO:\nThou detestable maw, thou womb of death,\nGorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,\nThus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,\nAnd, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!\n\nPARIS:\nThis is that banish'd haughty Montague,\nThat murder'd my love's cousin, with which grief,\nIt is supposed, the fair creature died;\nAnd here is come to do some villanous shame\nTo the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.\nStop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague!\nCan vengeance be pursued further than death?\nCondemned villain, I do apprehend thee:\nObey, and go with me; for thou must die.\n\nROMEO:\nI must indeed; and therefore came I hither.\nGood gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;\nFly hence, and leave me: think upon these gone;\nLet them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,\nPut not another sin upon my head,\nBy urging me to fury: O, be gone!\nBy heaven, I love thee better than myself;\nFor I come hither arm'd against myself:\nStay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say,\nA madman's mercy bade thee run away.\n\nPARIS:\nI do defy thy conjurations,\nAnd apprehend thee for a felon here.\n\nROMEO:\nWilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy!\n\nPAGE:\nO Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.\n\nPARIS:\nO, I am slain!\nIf thou be merciful,\nOpen the tomb, lay me with Juliet.\n\nROMEO:\nIn faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.\nMercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!\nWhat said my man, when my betossed soul\nDid not attend him as we rode? I think\nHe told me Paris should have married Juliet:\nSaid he not so? or did I dream it so?\nOr am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,\nTo think it was so? O, give me thy hand,\nOne writ with me in sour misfortune's book!\nI'll bury thee in a triumphant grave;\nA grave? O no! a lantern, slaughter'd youth,\nFor here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes\nThis vault a feasting presence full of light.\nDeath, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.\nHow oft when men are at the point of death\nHave they been merry! which their keepers call\nA lightning before death: O, how may I\nCall this a lightning? O my love! my wife!\nDeath, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,\nHath had no power yet upon thy beauty:\nThou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet\nIs crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,\nAnd death's pale flag is not advanced there.\nTybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?\nO, what more favour can I do to thee,\nThan with that hand that cut thy youth in twain\nTo sunder his that was thine enemy?\nForgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,\nWhy art thou yet so fair? shall I believe\nThat unsubstantial death is amorous,\nAnd that the lean abhorred monster keeps\nThee here in dark to be his paramour?\nFor fear of that, I still will stay with thee;\nAnd never from this palace of dim night\nDepart again: here, here will I remain\nWith worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here\nWill I set up my everlasting rest,\nAnd shake the yoke of inauspicious stars\nFrom this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!\nArms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you\nThe doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss\nA dateless bargain to engrossing death!\nCome, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!\nThou desperate pilot, now at once run on\nThe dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!\nHere's to my love!\nO true apothecary!\nThy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nSaint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night\nHave my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nHere's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nBliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,\nWhat torch is yond, that vainly lends his light\nTo grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern,\nIt burneth in the Capel's monument.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nIt doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,\nOne that you love.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWho is it?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nRomeo.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHow long hath he been there?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nFull half an hour.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nGo with me to the vault.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI dare not, sir\nMy master knows not but I am gone hence;\nAnd fearfully did menace me with death,\nIf I did stay to look on his intents.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nStay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me:\nO, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nAs I did sleep under this yew-tree here,\nI dreamt my master and another fought,\nAnd that my master slew him.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nRomeo!\nAlack, alack, what blood is this, which stains\nThe stony entrance of this sepulchre?\nWhat mean these masterless and gory swords\nTo lie discolour'd by this place of peace?\nRomeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too?\nAnd steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour\nIs guilty of this lamentable chance!\nThe lady stirs.\n\nJULIET:\nO comfortable friar! where is my lord?\nI do remember well where I should be,\nAnd there I am. Where is my Romeo?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest\nOf death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:\nA greater power than we can contradict\nHath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.\nThy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;\nAnd Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee\nAmong a sisterhood of holy nuns:\nStay not to question, for the watch is coming;\nCome, go, good Juliet,\nI dare no longer stay.\n\nJULIET:\nGo, get thee hence, for I will not away.\nWhat's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?\nPoison, I see, hath been his timeless end:\nO churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop\nTo help me after? I will kiss thy lips;\nHaply some poison yet doth hang on them,\nTo make die with a restorative.\nThy lips are warm.\n\nFirst Watchman:\n\nJULIET:\nYea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!\nThis is thy sheath;\nthere rust, and let me die.\n\nPAGE:\nThis is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nThe ground is bloody; search about the churchyard:\nGo, some of you, whoe'er you find attach.\nPitiful sight! here lies the county slain,\nAnd Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,\nWho here hath lain these two days buried.\nGo, tell the prince: run to the Capulets:\nRaise up the Montagues: some others search:\nWe see the ground whereon these woes do lie;\nBut the true ground of all these piteous woes\nWe cannot without circumstance descry.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nHere's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nHold him in safety, till the prince come hither.\n\nThird Watchman:\nHere is a friar, that trembles, sighs and weeps:\nWe took this mattock and this spade from him,\nAs he was coming from this churchyard side.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nA great suspicion: stay the friar too.\n\nPRINCE:\nWhat misadventure is so early up,\nThat calls our person from our morning's rest?\n\nCAPULET:\nWhat should it be, that they so shriek abroad?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThe people in the street cry Romeo,\nSome Juliet, and some Paris; and all run,\nWith open outcry toward our monument.\n\nPRINCE:\nWhat fear is this which startles in our ears?\n\nFirst Watchman:\nSovereign, here lies the County Paris slain;\nAnd Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,\nWarm and new kill'd.\n\nPRINCE:\nSearch, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nHere is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man;\nWith instruments upon them, fit to open\nThese dead men's tombs.\n\nCAPULET:\nO heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!\nThis dagger hath mista'en--for, lo, his house\nIs empty on the back of Montague,--\nAnd it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nO me! this sight of death is as a bell,\nThat warns my old age to a sepulchre.\n\nPRINCE:\nCome, Montague; for thou art early up,\nTo see thy son and heir more early down.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAlas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night;\nGrief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath:\nWhat further woe conspires against mine age?\n\nPRINCE:\nLook, and thou shalt see.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nO thou untaught! what manners is in this?\nTo press before thy father to a grave?\n\nPRINCE:\nSeal up the mouth of outrage for a while,\nTill we can clear these ambiguities,\nAnd know their spring, their head, their\ntrue descent;\nAnd then will I be general of your woes,\nAnd lead you even to death: meantime forbear,\nAnd let mischance be slave to patience.\nBring forth the parties of suspicion.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI am the greatest, able to do least,\nYet most suspected, as the time and place\nDoth make against me of this direful murder;\nAnd here I stand, both to impeach and purge\nMyself condemned and myself excused.\n\nPRINCE:\nThen say at once what thou dost know in this.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI will be brief, for my short date of breath\nIs not so long as is a tedious tale.\nRomeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;\nAnd she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife:\nI married them; and their stol'n marriage-day\nWas Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death\nBanish'd the new-made bridegroom from the city,\nFor whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.\nYou, to remove that siege of grief from her,\nBetroth'd and would have married her perforce\nTo County Paris: then comes she to me,\nAnd, with wild looks, bid me devise some mean\nTo rid her from this second marriage,\nOr in my cell there would she kill herself.\nThen gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,\nA sleeping potion; which so took effect\nAs I intended, for it wrought on her\nThe form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo,\nThat he should hither come as this dire night,\nTo help to take her from her borrow'd grave,\nBeing the time the potion's force should cease.\nBut he which bore my letter, Friar John,\nWas stay'd by accident, and yesternight\nReturn'd my letter back. Then all alone\nAt the prefixed hour of her waking,\nCame I to take her from her kindred's vault;\nMeaning to keep her closely at my cell,\nTill I conveniently could send to Romeo:\nBut when I came, some minute ere the time\nOf her awaking, here untimely lay\nThe noble Paris and true Romeo dead.\nShe wakes; and I entreated her come forth,\nAnd bear this work of heaven with patience:\nBut then a noise did scare me from the tomb;\nAnd she, too desperate, would not go with me,\nBut, as it seems, did violence on herself.\nAll this I know; and to the marriage\nHer nurse is privy: and, if aught in this\nMiscarried by my fault, let my old life\nBe sacrificed, some hour before his time,\nUnto the rigour of severest law.\n\nPRINCE:\nWe still have known thee for a holy man.\nWhere's Romeo's man? what can he say in this?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI brought my master news of Juliet's death;\nAnd then in post he came from Mantua\nTo this same place, to this same monument.\nThis letter he early bid me give his father,\nAnd threatened me with death, going in the vault,\nI departed not and left him there.\n\nPRINCE:\nGive me the letter; I will look on it.\nWhere is the county's page, that raised the watch?\nSirrah, what made your master in this place?\n\nPAGE:\nHe came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;\nAnd bid me stand aloof, and so I did:\nAnon comes one with light to ope the tomb;\nAnd by and by my master drew on him;\nAnd then I ran away to call the watch.\n\nPRINCE:\nThis letter doth make good the friar's words,\nTheir course of love, the tidings of her death:\nAnd here he writes that he did buy a poison\nOf a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal\nCame to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.\nWhere be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!\nSee, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,\nThat heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.\nAnd I for winking at your discords too\nHave lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.\n\nCAPULET:\nO brother Montague, give me thy hand:\nThis is my daughter's jointure, for no more\nCan I demand.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBut I can give thee more:\nFor I will raise her statue in pure gold;\nThat while Verona by that name is known,\nThere shall no figure at such rate be set\nAs that of true and faithful Juliet.\n\nCAPULET:\nAs rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;\nPoor sacrifices of our enmity!\n\nPRINCE:\nA glooming peace this morning with it brings;\nThe sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:\nGo hence, to have more talk of these sad things;\nSome shall be pardon'd, and some punished:\nFor never was a story of more woe\nThan this of Juliet and her Romeo.\n\nWARWICK:\nI wonder how the king escaped our hands.\n\nYORK:\nWhile we pursued the horsemen of the north,\nHe slily stole away and left his men:\nWhereat the great Lord of Northumberland,\nWhose warlike ears could never brook retreat,\nCheer'd up the drooping army; and himself,\nLord Clifford and Lord Stafford, all abreast,\nCharged our main battle's front, and breaking in\nWere by the swords of common soldiers slain.\n\nEDWARD:\nLord Stafford's father, Duke of Buckingham,\nIs either slain or wounded dangerously;\nI cleft his beaver with a downright blow:\nThat this is true, father, behold his blood.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAnd, brother, here's the Earl of Wiltshire's blood,\nWhom I encounter'd as the battles join'd.\n\nRICHARD:\nSpeak thou for me and tell them what I did.\n\nYORK:\nRichard hath best deserved of all my sons.\nBut is your grace dead, my Lord of Somerset?\n\nNORFOLK:\nSuch hope have all the line of John of Gaunt!\n\nRICHARD:\nThus do I hope to shake King Henry's head.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd so do I. Victorious Prince of York,\nBefore I see thee seated in that throne\nWhich now the house of Lancaster usurps,\nI vow by heaven these eyes shall never close.\nThis is the palace of the fearful king,\nAnd this the regal seat: possess it, York;\nFor this is thine and not King Henry's heirs'\n\nYORK:\nAssist me, then, sweet Warwick, and I will;\nFor hither we have broken in by force.\n\nNORFOLK:\nWe'll all assist you; he that flies shall die.\n\nYORK:\nThanks, gentle Norfolk: stay by me, my lords;\nAnd, soldiers, stay and lodge by me this night.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd when the king comes, offer no violence,\nUnless he seek to thrust you out perforce.\n\nYORK:\nThe queen this day here holds her parliament,\nBut little thinks we shall be of her council:\nBy words or blows here let us win our right.\n\nRICHARD:\nArm'd as we are, let's stay within this house.\n\nWARWICK:\nThe bloody parliament shall this be call'd,\nUnless Plantagenet, Duke of York, be king,\nAnd bashful Henry deposed, whose cowardice\nHath made us by-words to our enemies.\n\nYORK:\nThen leave me not, my lords; be resolute;\nI mean to take possession of my right.\n\nWARWICK:\nNeither the king, nor he that loves him best,\nThe proudest he that holds up Lancaster,\nDares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells.\nI'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares:\nResolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits,\nEven in the chair of state: belike he means,\nBack'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,\nTo aspire unto the crown and reign as king.\nEarl of Northumberland, he slew thy father.\nAnd thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have vow'd revenge\nOn him, his sons, his favourites and his friends.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nIf I be not, heavens be revenged on me!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nThe hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nWhat, shall we suffer this? let's pluck him down:\nMy heart for anger burns; I cannot brook it.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBe patient, gentle Earl of Westmoreland.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nPatience is for poltroons, such as he:\nHe durst not sit there, had your father lived.\nMy gracious lord, here in the parliament\nLet us assail the family of York.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWell hast thou spoken, cousin: be it so.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAh, know you not the city favours them,\nAnd they have troops of soldiers at their beck?\n\nEXETER:\nBut when the duke is slain, they'll quickly fly.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFar be the thought of this from Henry's heart,\nTo make a shambles of the parliament-house!\nCousin of Exeter, frowns, words and threats\nShall be the war that Henry means to use.\nThou factious Duke of York, descend my throne,\nand kneel for grace and mercy at my feet;\nI am thy sovereign.\n\nYORK:\nI am thine.\n\nEXETER:\nFor shame, come down: he made thee Duke of York.\n\nYORK:\n'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was.\n\nEXETER:\nThy father was a traitor to the crown.\n\nWARWICK:\nExeter, thou art a traitor to the crown\nIn following this usurping Henry.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nWhom should he follow but his natural king?\n\nWARWICK:\nTrue, Clifford; and that's Richard Duke of York.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAnd shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?\n\nYORK:\nIt must and shall be so: content thyself.\n\nWARWICK:\nBe Duke of Lancaster; let him be king.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nHe is both king and Duke of Lancaster;\nAnd that the Lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd Warwick shall disprove it. You forget\nThat we are those which chased you from the field\nAnd slew your fathers, and with colours spread\nMarch'd through the city to the palace gates.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nYes, Warwick, I remember it to my grief;\nAnd, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nPlantagenet, of thee and these thy sons,\nThy kinsman and thy friends, I'll have more lives\nThan drops of blood were in my father's veins.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nUrge it no more; lest that, instead of words,\nI send thee, Warwick, such a messenger\nAs shall revenge his death before I stir.\n\nWARWICK:\nPoor Clifford! how I scorn his worthless threats!\n\nYORK:\nWill you we show our title to the crown?\nIf not, our swords shall plead it in the field.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhat title hast thou, traitor, to the crown?\nThy father was, as thou art, Duke of York;\nThy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March:\nI am the son of Henry the Fifth,\nWho made the Dauphin and the French to stoop\nAnd seized upon their towns and provinces.\n\nWARWICK:\nTalk not of France, sith thou hast lost it all.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThe lord protector lost it, and not I:\nWhen I was crown'd I was but nine months old.\n\nRICHARD:\nYou are old enough now, and yet, methinks, you lose.\nFather, tear the crown from the usurper's head.\n\nEDWARD:\nSweet father, do so; set it on your head.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nGood brother, as thou lovest and honourest arms,\nLet's fight it out and not stand cavilling thus.\n\nRICHARD:\nSound drums and trumpets, and the king will fly.\n\nYORK:\nSons, peace!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nPeace, thou! and give King Henry leave to speak.\n\nWARWICK:\nPlantagenet shall speak first: hear him, lords;\nAnd be you silent and attentive too,\nFor he that interrupts him shall not live.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThink'st thou that I will leave my kingly throne,\nWherein my grandsire and my father sat?\nNo: first shall war unpeople this my realm;\nAy, and their colours, often borne in France,\nAnd now in England to our heart's great sorrow,\nShall be my winding-sheet. Why faint you, lords?\nMy title's good, and better far than his.\n\nWARWICK:\nProve it, Henry, and thou shalt be king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHenry the Fourth by conquest got the crown.\n\nYORK:\n'Twas by rebellion against his king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\n\nYORK:\nWhat then?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAn if he may, then am I lawful king;\nFor Richard, in the view of many lords,\nResign'd the crown to Henry the Fourth,\nWhose heir my father was, and I am his.\n\nYORK:\nHe rose against him, being his sovereign,\nAnd made him to resign his crown perforce.\n\nWARWICK:\nSuppose, my lords, he did it unconstrain'd,\nThink you 'twere prejudicial to his crown?\n\nEXETER:\nNo; for he could not so resign his crown\nBut that the next heir should succeed and reign.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nArt thou against us, Duke of Exeter?\n\nEXETER:\nHis is the right, and therefore pardon me.\n\nYORK:\nWhy whisper you, my lords, and answer not?\n\nEXETER:\nMy conscience tells me he is lawful king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nPlantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st,\nThink not that Henry shall be so deposed.\n\nWARWICK:\nDeposed he shall be, in despite of all.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThou art deceived: 'tis not thy southern power,\nOf Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,\nWhich makes thee thus presumptuous and proud,\nCan set the duke up in despite of me.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nKing Henry, be thy title right or wrong,\nLord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence:\nMay that ground gape and swallow me alive,\nWhere I shall kneel to him that slew my father!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nO Clifford, how thy words revive my heart!\n\nYORK:\nHenry of Lancaster, resign thy crown.\nWhat mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?\n\nWARWICK:\nDo right unto this princely Duke of York,\nOr I will fill the house with armed men,\nAnd over the chair of state, where now he sits,\nWrite up his title with usurping blood.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy Lord of Warwick, hear me but one word:\nLet me for this my life-time reign as king.\n\nYORK:\nConfirm the crown to me and to mine heirs,\nAnd thou shalt reign in quiet while thou livest.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI am content: Richard Plantagenet,\nEnjoy the kingdom after my decease.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nWhat wrong is this unto the prince your son!\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat good is this to England and himself!\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nBase, fearful and despairing Henry!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHow hast thou injured both thyself and us!\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nI cannot stay to hear these articles.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNor I.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nCome, cousin, let us tell the queen these news.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nFarewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king,\nIn whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBe thou a prey unto the house of York,\nAnd die in bands for this unmanly deed!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nIn dreadful war mayst thou be overcome,\nOr live in peace abandon'd and despised!\n\nWARWICK:\nTurn this way, Henry, and regard them not.\n\nEXETER:\nThey seek revenge and therefore will not yield.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAh, Exeter!\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy should you sigh, my lord?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nNot for myself, Lord Warwick, but my son,\nWhom I unnaturally shall disinherit.\nBut be it as it may: I here entail\nThe crown to thee and to thine heirs for ever;\nConditionally, that here thou take an oath\nTo cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,\nTo honour me as thy king and sovereign,\nAnd neither by treason nor hostility\nTo seek to put me down and reign thyself.\n\nYORK:\nThis oath I willingly take and will perform.\n\nWARWICK:\nLong live King Henry! Plantagenet embrace him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAnd long live thou and these thy forward sons!\n\nYORK:\nNow York and Lancaster are reconciled.\n\nEXETER:\nAccursed be he that seeks to make them foes!\n\nYORK:\nFarewell, my gracious lord; I'll to my castle.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd I'll keep London with my soldiers.\n\nNORFOLK:\nAnd I to Norfolk with my followers.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAnd I unto the sea from whence I came.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAnd I, with grief and sorrow, to the court.\n\nEXETER:\nHere comes the queen, whose looks bewray her anger:\nI'll steal away.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nExeter, so will I.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNay, go not from me; I will follow thee.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBe patient, gentle queen, and I will stay.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWho can be patient in such extremes?\nAh, wretched man! would I had died a maid\nAnd never seen thee, never borne thee son,\nSeeing thou hast proved so unnatural a father\nHath he deserved to lose his birthright thus?\nHadst thou but loved him half so well as I,\nOr felt that pain which I did for him once,\nOr nourish'd him as I did with my blood,\nThou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there,\nRather than have that savage duke thine heir\nAnd disinherited thine only son.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nFather, you cannot disinherit me:\nIf you be king, why should not I succeed?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nPardon me, Margaret; pardon me, sweet son:\nThe Earl of Warwick and the duke enforced me.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nEnforced thee! art thou king, and wilt be forced?\nI shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!\nThou hast undone thyself, thy son and me;\nAnd given unto the house of York such head\nAs thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.\nTo entail him and his heirs unto the crown,\nWhat is it, but to make thy sepulchre\nAnd creep into it far before thy time?\nWarwick is chancellor and the lord of Calais;\nStern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas;\nThe duke is made protector of the realm;\nAnd yet shalt thou be safe? such safety finds\nThe trembling lamb environed with wolves.\nHad I been there, which am a silly woman,\nThe soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes\nBefore I would have granted to that act.\nBut thou preferr'st thy life before thine honour:\nAnd seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself\nBoth from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,\nUntil that act of parliament be repeal'd\nWhereby my son is disinherited.\nThe northern lords that have forsworn thy colours\nWill follow mine, if once they see them spread;\nAnd spread they shall be, to thy foul disgrace\nAnd utter ruin of the house of York.\nThus do I leave thee. Come, son, let's away;\nOur army is ready; come, we'll after them.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nStay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThou hast spoke too much already: get thee gone.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nGentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, to be murder'd by his enemies.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nWhen I return with victory from the field\nI'll see your grace: till then I'll follow her.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nCome, son, away; we may not linger thus.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nPoor queen! how love to me and to her son\nHath made her break out into terms of rage!\nRevenged may she be on that hateful duke,\nWhose haughty spirit, winged with desire,\nWill cost my crown, and like an empty eagle\nTire on the flesh of me and of my son!\nThe loss of those three lords torments my heart:\nI'll write unto them and entreat them fair.\nCome, cousin you shall be the messenger.\n\nEXETER:\nAnd I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRICHARD:\nBrother, though I be youngest, give me leave.\n\nEDWARD:\nNo, I can better play the orator.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBut I have reasons strong and forcible.\n\nYORK:\nWhy, how now, sons and brother! at a strife?\nWhat is your quarrel? how began it first?\n\nEDWARD:\nNo quarrel, but a slight contention.\n\nYORK:\nAbout what?\n\nRICHARD:\nAbout that which concerns your grace and us;\nThe crown of England, father, which is yours.\n\nYORK:\nMine boy? not till King Henry be dead.\n\nRICHARD:\nYour right depends not on his life or death.\n\nEDWARD:\nNow you are heir, therefore enjoy it now:\nBy giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,\nIt will outrun you, father, in the end.\n\nYORK:\nI took an oath that he should quietly reign.\n\nEDWARD:\nBut for a kingdom any oath may be broken:\nI would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.\n\nRICHARD:\nNo; God forbid your grace should be forsworn.\n\nYORK:\nI shall be, if I claim by open war.\n\nRICHARD:\nI'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me speak.\n\nYORK:\nThou canst not, son; it is impossible.\n\nRICHARD:\nAn oath is of no moment, being not took\nBefore a true and lawful magistrate,\nThat hath authority over him that swears:\nHenry had none, but did usurp the place;\nThen, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,\nYour oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.\nTherefore, to arms! And, father, do but think\nHow sweet a thing it is to wear a crown;\nWithin whose circuit is Elysium\nAnd all that poets feign of bliss and joy.\nWhy do we finger thus? I cannot rest\nUntil the white rose that I wear be dyed\nEven in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.\n\nYORK:\nRichard, enough; I will be king, or die.\nBrother, thou shalt to London presently,\nAnd whet on Warwick to this enterprise.\nThou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk,\nAnd tell him privily of our intent.\nYou Edward, shall unto my Lord Cobham,\nWith whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise:\nIn them I trust; for they are soldiers,\nWitty, courteous, liberal, full of spirit.\nWhile you are thus employ'd, what resteth more,\nBut that I seek occasion how to rise,\nAnd yet the king not privy to my drift,\nNor any of the house of Lancaster?\nBut, stay: what news? Why comest thou in such post?\n\nMessenger:\nThe queen with all the northern earls and lords\nIntend here to besiege you in your castle:\nShe is hard by with twenty thousand men;\nAnd therefore fortify your hold, my lord.\n\nYORK:\nAy, with my sword. What! think'st thou that we fear them?\nEdward and Richard, you shall stay with me;\nMy brother Montague shall post to London:\nLet noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,\nWhom we have left protectors of the king,\nWith powerful policy strengthen themselves,\nAnd trust not simple Henry nor his oaths.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBrother, I go; I'll win them, fear it not:\nAnd thus most humbly I do take my leave.\nSir John and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine uncles,\nYou are come to Sandal in a happy hour;\nThe army of the queen mean to besiege us.\n\nJOHN MORTIMER:\nShe shall not need; we'll meet her in the field.\n\nYORK:\nWhat, with five thousand men?\n\nRICHARD:\nAy, with five hundred, father, for a need:\nA woman's general; what should we fear?\n\nEDWARD:\nI hear their drums: let's set our men in order,\nAnd issue forth and bid them battle straight.\n\nYORK:\nFive men to twenty! though the odds be great,\nI doubt not, uncle, of our victory.\nMany a battle have I won in France,\nWhen as the enemy hath been ten to one:\nWhy should I not now have the like success?\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRUTLAND:\nAh, whither shall I fly to 'scape their hands?\nAh, tutor, look where bloody Clifford comes!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nChaplain, away! thy priesthood saves thy life.\nAs for the brat of this accursed duke,\nWhose father slew my father, he shall die.\n\nTutor:\nAnd I, my lord, will bear him company.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nSoldiers, away with him!\n\nTutor:\nAh, Clifford, murder not this innocent child,\nLest thou be hated both of God and man!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHow now! is he dead already? or is it fear\nThat makes him close his eyes? I'll open them.\n\nRUTLAND:\nSo looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch\nThat trembles under his devouring paws;\nAnd so he walks, insulting o'er his prey,\nAnd so he comes, to rend his limbs asunder.\nAh, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,\nAnd not with such a cruel threatening look.\nSweet Clifford, hear me speak before I die.\nI am too mean a subject for thy wrath:\nBe thou revenged on men, and let me live.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nIn vain thou speak'st, poor boy; my father's blood\nHath stopp'd the passage where thy words should enter.\n\nRUTLAND:\nThen let my father's blood open it again:\nHe is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHad thy brethren here, their lives and thine\nWere not revenge sufficient for me;\nNo, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves\nAnd hung their rotten coffins up in chains,\nIt could not slake mine ire, nor ease my heart.\nThe sight of any of the house of York\nIs as a fury to torment my soul;\nAnd till I root out their accursed line\nAnd leave not one alive, I live in hell.\nTherefore--\n\nRUTLAND:\nO, let me pray before I take my death!\nTo thee I pray; sweet Clifford, pity me!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nSuch pity as my rapier's point affords.\n\nRUTLAND:\nI never did thee harm: why wilt thou slay me?\n\nCLIFFORD:\nThy father hath.\n\nRUTLAND:\nBut 'twas ere I was born.\nThou hast one son; for his sake pity me,\nLest in revenge thereof, sith God is just,\nHe be as miserably slain as I.\nAh, let me live in prison all my days;\nAnd when I give occasion of offence,\nThen let me die, for now thou hast no cause.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nNo cause!\nThy father slew my father; therefore, die.\n\nRUTLAND:\nDi faciant laudis summa sit ista tuae!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nPlantagenet! I come, Plantagenet!\nAnd this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade\nShall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,\nCongeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nYORK:\nThe army of the queen hath got the field:\nMy uncles both are slain in rescuing me;\nAnd all my followers to the eager foe\nTurn back and fly, like ships before the wind\nOr lambs pursued by hunger-starved wolves.\nMy sons, God knows what hath bechanced them:\nBut this I know, they have demean'd themselves\nLike men born to renown by life or death.\nThree times did Richard make a lane to me.\nAnd thrice cried 'Courage, father! fight it out!'\nAnd full as oft came Edward to my side,\nWith purple falchion, painted to the hilt\nIn blood of those that had encounter'd him:\nAnd when the hardiest warriors did retire,\nRichard cried 'Charge! and give no foot of ground!'\nAnd cried 'A crown, or else a glorious tomb!\nA sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!'\nWith this, we charged again: but, out, alas!\nWe bodged again; as I have seen a swan\nWith bootless labour swim against the tide\nAnd spend her strength with over-matching waves.\nAh, hark! the fatal followers do pursue;\nAnd I am faint and cannot fly their fury:\nAnd were I strong, I would not shun their fury:\nThe sands are number'd that make up my life;\nHere must I stay, and here my life must end.\nCome, bloody Clifford, rough Northumberland,\nI dare your quenchless fury to more rage:\nI am your butt, and I abide your shot.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nYield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, to such mercy as his ruthless arm,\nWith downright payment, show'd unto my father.\nNow Phaethon hath tumbled from his car,\nAnd made an evening at the noontide prick.\n\nYORK:\nMy ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth\nA bird that will revenge upon you all:\nAnd in that hope I throw mine eyes to heaven,\nScorning whate'er you can afflict me with.\nWhy come you not? what! multitudes, and fear?\n\nCLIFFORD:\nSo cowards fight when they can fly no further;\nSo doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons;\nSo desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,\nBreathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.\n\nYORK:\nO Clifford, but bethink thee once again,\nAnd in thy thought o'er-run my former time;\nAnd, if though canst for blushing, view this face,\nAnd bite thy tongue, that slanders him with cowardice\nWhose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere this!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nI will not bandy with thee word for word,\nBut buckle with thee blows, twice two for one.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHold, valiant Clifford! for a thousand causes\nI would prolong awhile the traitor's life.\nWrath makes him deaf: speak thou, Northumberland.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHold, Clifford! do not honour him so much\nTo prick thy finger, though to wound his heart:\nWhat valour were it, when a cur doth grin,\nFor one to thrust his hand between his teeth,\nWhen he might spurn him with his foot away?\nIt is war's prize to take all vantages;\nAnd ten to one is no impeach of valour.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, ay, so strives the woodcock with the gin.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nSo doth the cony struggle in the net.\n\nYORK:\nSo triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty;\nSo true men yield, with robbers so o'ermatch'd.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWhat would your grace have done unto him now?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBrave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,\nCome, make him stand upon this molehill here,\nThat raught at mountains with outstretched arms,\nYet parted but the shadow with his hand.\nWhat! was it you that would be England's king?\nWas't you that revell'd in our parliament,\nAnd made a preachment of your high descent?\nWhere are your mess of sons to back you now?\nThe wanton Edward, and the lusty George?\nAnd where's that valiant crook-back prodigy,\nDicky your boy, that with his grumbling voice\nWas wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?\nOr, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?\nLook, York: I stain'd this napkin with the blood\nThat valiant Clifford, with his rapier's point,\nMade issue from the bosom of the boy;\nAnd if thine eyes can water for his death,\nI give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.\nAlas poor York! but that I hate thee deadly,\nI should lament thy miserable state.\nI prithee, grieve, to make me merry, York.\nWhat, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails\nThat not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?\nWhy art thou patient, man? thou shouldst be mad;\nAnd I, to make thee mad, do mock thee thus.\nStamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.\nThou wouldst be fee'd, I see, to make me sport:\nYork cannot speak, unless he wear a crown.\nA crown for York! and, lords, bow low to him:\nHold you his hands, whilst I do set it on.\nAy, marry, sir, now looks he like a king!\nAy, this is he that took King Henry's chair,\nAnd this is he was his adopted heir.\nBut how is it that great Plantagenet\nIs crown'd so soon, and broke his solemn oath?\nAs I bethink me, you should not be king\nTill our King Henry had shook hands with death.\nAnd will you pale your head in Henry's glory,\nAnd rob his temples of the diadem,\nNow in his life, against your holy oath?\nO, 'tis a fault too too unpardonable!\nOff with the crown, and with the crown his head;\nAnd, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nThat is my office, for my father's sake.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNay, stay; lets hear the orisons he makes.\n\nYORK:\nShe-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,\nWhose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth!\nHow ill-beseeming is it in thy sex\nTo triumph, like an Amazonian trull,\nUpon their woes whom fortune captivates!\nBut that thy face is, vizard-like, unchanging,\nMade impudent with use of evil deeds,\nI would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush.\nTo tell thee whence thou camest, of whom derived,\nWere shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not shameless.\nThy father bears the type of King of Naples,\nOf both the Sicils and Jerusalem,\nYet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.\nHath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?\nIt needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen,\nUnless the adage must be verified,\nThat beggars mounted run their horse to death.\n'Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud;\nBut, God he knows, thy share thereof is small:\n'Tis virtue that doth make them most admired;\nThe contrary doth make thee wonder'd at:\n'Tis government that makes them seem divine;\nThe want thereof makes thee abominable:\nThou art as opposite to every good\nAs the Antipodes are unto us,\nOr as the south to the septentrion.\nO tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide!\nHow couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,\nTo bid the father wipe his eyes withal,\nAnd yet be seen to bear a woman's face?\nWomen are soft, mild, pitiful and flexible;\nThou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.\nBids't thou me rage? why, now thou hast thy wish:\nWouldst have me weep? why, now thou hast thy will:\nFor raging wind blows up incessant showers,\nAnd when the rage allays, the rain begins.\nThese tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies:\nAnd every drop cries vengeance for his death,\n'Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee, false\nFrenchwoman.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBeshrew me, but his passion moves me so\nThat hardly can I cheque my eyes from tears.\n\nYORK:\nThat face of his the hungry cannibals\nWould not have touch'd, would not have stain'd with blood:\nBut you are more inhuman, more inexorable,\nO, ten times more, than tigers of Hyrcania.\nSee, ruthless queen, a hapless father's tears:\nThis cloth thou dip'dst in blood of my sweet boy,\nAnd I with tears do wash the blood away.\nKeep thou the napkin, and go boast of this:\nAnd if thou tell'st the heavy story right,\nUpon my soul, the hearers will shed tears;\nYea even my foes will shed fast-falling tears,\nAnd say 'Alas, it was a piteous deed!'\nThere, take the crown, and, with the crown, my curse;\nAnd in thy need such comfort come to thee\nAs now I reap at thy too cruel hand!\nHard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world:\nMy soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads!\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHad he been slaughter-man to all my kin,\nI should not for my life but weep with him.\nTo see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhat, weeping-ripe, my Lord Northumberland?\nThink but upon the wrong he did us all,\nAnd that will quickly dry thy melting tears.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHere's for my oath, here's for my father's death.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd here's to right our gentle-hearted king.\n\nYORK:\nOpen Thy gate of mercy, gracious God!\nMy soul flies through these wounds to seek out Thee.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nOff with his head, and set it on York gates;\nSo York may overlook the town of York.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nEDWARD:\nI wonder how our princely father 'scaped,\nOr whether he be 'scaped away or no\nFrom Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit:\nHad he been ta'en, we should have heard the news;\nHad he been slain, we should have heard the news;\nOr had he 'scaped, methinks we should have heard\nThe happy tidings of his good escape.\nHow fares my brother? why is he so sad?\n\nRICHARD:\nI cannot joy, until I be resolved\nWhere our right valiant father is become.\nI saw him in the battle range about;\nAnd watch'd him how he singled Clifford forth.\nMethought he bore him in the thickest troop\nAs doth a lion in a herd of neat;\nOr as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs,\nWho having pinch'd a few and made them cry,\nThe rest stand all aloof, and bark at him.\nSo fared our father with his enemies;\nSo fled his enemies my warlike father:\nMethinks, 'tis prize enough to be his son.\nSee how the morning opes her golden gates,\nAnd takes her farewell of the glorious sun!\nHow well resembles it the prime of youth,\nTrimm'd like a younker prancing to his love!\n\nEDWARD:\nDazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?\n\nRICHARD:\nThree glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;\nNot separated with the racking clouds,\nBut sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.\nSee, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,\nAs if they vow'd some league inviolable:\nNow are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.\nIn this the heaven figures some event.\n\nEDWARD:\n'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.\nI think it cites us, brother, to the field,\nThat we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,\nEach one already blazing by our meeds,\nShould notwithstanding join our lights together\nAnd over-shine the earth as this the world.\nWhate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear\nUpon my target three fair-shining suns.\n\nRICHARD:\nNay, bear three daughters: by your leave I speak it,\nYou love the breeder better than the male.\nBut what art thou, whose heavy looks foretell\nSome dreadful story hanging on thy tongue?\n\nMessenger:\nAh, one that was a woful looker-on\nWhen as the noble Duke of York was slain,\nYour princely father and my loving lord!\n\nEDWARD:\nO, speak no more, for I have heard too much.\n\nRICHARD:\nSay how he died, for I will hear it all.\n\nMessenger:\nEnvironed he was with many foes,\nAnd stood against them, as the hope of Troy\nAgainst the Greeks that would have enter'd Troy.\nBut Hercules himself must yield to odds;\nAnd many strokes, though with a little axe,\nHew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.\nBy many hands your father was subdued;\nBut only slaughter'd by the ireful arm\nOf unrelenting Clifford and the queen,\nWho crown'd the gracious duke in high despite,\nLaugh'd in his face; and when with grief he wept,\nThe ruthless queen gave him to dry his cheeks\nA napkin steeped in the harmless blood\nOf sweet young Rutland, by rough Clifford slain:\nAnd after many scorns, many foul taunts,\nThey took his head, and on the gates of York\nThey set the same; and there it doth remain,\nThe saddest spectacle that e'er I view'd.\n\nEDWARD:\nSweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,\nNow thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.\nO Clifford, boisterous Clifford! thou hast slain\nThe flower of Europe for his chivalry;\nAnd treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him,\nFor hand to hand he would have vanquish'd thee.\nNow my soul's palace is become a prison:\nAh, would she break from hence, that this my body\nMight in the ground be closed up in rest!\nFor never henceforth shall I joy again,\nNever, O never shall I see more joy!\n\nRICHARD:\nI cannot weep; for all my body's moisture\nScarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart:\nNor can my tongue unload my heart's great burthen;\nFor selfsame wind that I should speak withal\nIs kindling coals that fires all my breast,\nAnd burns me up with flames that tears would quench.\nTo weep is to make less the depth of grief:\nTears then for babes; blows and revenge for me\nRichard, I bear thy name; I'll venge thy death,\nOr die renowned by attempting it.\n\nEDWARD:\nHis name that valiant duke hath left with thee;\nHis dukedom and his chair with me is left.\n\nRICHARD:\nNay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,\nShow thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun:\nFor chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom say;\nEither that is thine, or else thou wert not his.\n\nWARWICK:\nHow now, fair lords! What fare? what news abroad?\n\nRICHARD:\nGreat Lord of Warwick, if we should recount\nOur baleful news, and at each word's deliverance\nStab poniards in our flesh till all were told,\nThe words would add more anguish than the wounds.\nO valiant lord, the Duke of York is slain!\n\nEDWARD:\nO Warwick, Warwick! that Plantagenet,\nWhich held three dearly as his soul's redemption,\nIs by the stern Lord Clifford done to death.\n\nWARWICK:\nTen days ago I drown'd these news in tears;\nAnd now, to add more measure to your woes,\nI come to tell you things sith then befall'n.\nAfter the bloody fray at Wakefield fought,\nWhere your brave father breathed his latest gasp,\nTidings, as swiftly as the posts could run,\nWere brought me of your loss and his depart.\nI, then in London keeper of the king,\nMuster'd my soldiers, gather'd flocks of friends,\nAnd very well appointed, as I thought,\nMarch'd toward Saint Alban's to intercept the queen,\nBearing the king in my behalf along;\nFor by my scouts I was advertised\nThat she was coming with a full intent\nTo dash our late decree in parliament\nTouching King Henry's oath and your succession.\nShort tale to make, we at Saint Alban's met\nOur battles join'd, and both sides fiercely fought:\nBut whether 'twas the coldness of the king,\nWho look'd full gently on his warlike queen,\nThat robb'd my soldiers of their heated spleen;\nOr whether 'twas report of her success;\nOr more than common fear of Clifford's rigour,\nWho thunders to his captives blood and death,\nI cannot judge: but to conclude with truth,\nTheir weapons like to lightning came and went;\nOur soldiers', like the night-owl's lazy flight,\nOr like an idle thresher with a flail,\nFell gently down, as if they struck their friends.\nI cheer'd them up with justice of our cause,\nWith promise of high pay and great rewards:\nBut all in vain; they had no heart to fight,\nAnd we in them no hope to win the day;\nSo that we fled; the king unto the queen;\nLord George your brother, Norfolk and myself,\nIn haste, post-haste, are come to join with you:\nFor in the marches here we heard you were,\nMaking another head to fight again.\n\nEDWARD:\nWhere is the Duke of Norfolk, gentle Warwick?\nAnd when came George from Burgundy to England?\n\nWARWICK:\nSome six miles off the duke is with the soldiers;\nAnd for your brother, he was lately sent\nFrom your kind aunt, Duchess of Burgundy,\nWith aid of soldiers to this needful war.\n\nRICHARD:\n'Twas odds, belike, when valiant Warwick fled:\nOft have I heard his praises in pursuit,\nBut ne'er till now his scandal of retire.\n\nWARWICK:\nNor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear;\nFor thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine\nCan pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head,\nAnd wring the awful sceptre from his fist,\nWere he as famous and as bold in war\nAs he is famed for mildness, peace, and prayer.\n\nRICHARD:\nI know it well, Lord Warwick; blame me not:\n'Tis love I bear thy glories makes me speak.\nBut in this troublous time what's to be done?\nShall we go throw away our coats of steel,\nAnd wrap our bodies in black mourning gowns,\nNumbering our Ave-Maries with our beads?\nOr shall we on the helmets of our foes\nTell our devotion with revengeful arms?\nIf for the last, say ay, and to it, lords.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy, therefore Warwick came to seek you out;\nAnd therefore comes my brother Montague.\nAttend me, lords. The proud insulting queen,\nWith Clifford and the haught Northumberland,\nAnd of their feather many more proud birds,\nHave wrought the easy-melting king like wax.\nHe swore consent to your succession,\nHis oath enrolled in the parliament;\nAnd now to London all the crew are gone,\nTo frustrate both his oath and what beside\nMay make against the house of Lancaster.\nTheir power, I think, is thirty thousand strong:\nNow, if the help of Norfolk and myself,\nWith all the friends that thou, brave Earl of March,\nAmongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,\nWill but amount to five and twenty thousand,\nWhy, Via! to London will we march amain,\nAnd once again bestride our foaming steeds,\nAnd once again cry 'Charge upon our foes!'\nBut never once again turn back and fly.\n\nRICHARD:\nAy, now methinks I hear great Warwick speak:\nNe'er may he live to see a sunshine day,\nThat cries 'Retire,' if Warwick bid him stay.\n\nEDWARD:\nLord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I lean;\nAnd when thou fail'st--as God forbid the hour!--\nMust Edward fall, which peril heaven forfend!\n\nWARWICK:\nNo longer Earl of March, but Duke of York:\nThe next degree is England's royal throne;\nFor King of England shalt thou be proclaim'd\nIn every borough as we pass along;\nAnd he that throws not up his cap for joy\nShall for the fault make forfeit of his head.\nKing Edward, valiant Richard, Montague,\nStay we no longer, dreaming of renown,\nBut sound the trumpets, and about our task.\n\nRICHARD:\nThen, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel,\nAs thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,\nI come to pierce it, or to give thee mine.\n\nEDWARD:\nThen strike up drums: God and Saint George for us!\n\nWARWICK:\nHow now! what news?\n\nMessenger:\nThe Duke of Norfolk sends you word by me,\nThe queen is coming with a puissant host;\nAnd craves your company for speedy counsel.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy then it sorts, brave warriors, let's away.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWelcome, my lord, to this brave town of York.\nYonder's the head of that arch-enemy\nThat sought to be encompass'd with your crown:\nDoth not the object cheer your heart, my lord?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAy, as the rocks cheer them that fear their wreck:\nTo see this sight, it irks my very soul.\nWithhold revenge, dear God! 'tis not my fault,\nNor wittingly have I infringed my vow.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nMy gracious liege, this too much lenity\nAnd harmful pity must be laid aside.\nTo whom do lions cast their gentle looks?\nNot to the beast that would usurp their den.\nWhose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?\nNot his that spoils her young before her face.\nWho 'scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?\nNot he that sets his foot upon her back.\nThe smallest worm will turn being trodden on,\nAnd doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.\nAmbitious York doth level at thy crown,\nThou smiling while he knit his angry brows:\nHe, but a duke, would have his son a king,\nAnd raise his issue, like a loving sire;\nThou, being a king, blest with a goodly son,\nDidst yield consent to disinherit him,\nWhich argued thee a most unloving father.\nUnreasonable creatures feed their young;\nAnd though man's face be fearful to their eyes,\nYet, in protection of their tender ones,\nWho hath not seen them, even with those wings\nWhich sometime they have used with fearful flight,\nMake war with him that climb'd unto their nest,\nOffer their own lives in their young's defence?\nFor shame, my liege, make them your precedent!\nWere it not pity that this goodly boy\nShould lose his birthright by his father's fault,\nAnd long hereafter say unto his child,\n'What my great-grandfather and his grandsire got\nMy careless father fondly gave away'?\nAh, what a shame were this! Look on the boy;\nAnd let his manly face, which promiseth\nSuccessful fortune, steel thy melting heart\nTo hold thine own and leave thine own with him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFull well hath Clifford play'd the orator,\nInferring arguments of mighty force.\nBut, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear\nThat things ill-got had ever bad success?\nAnd happy always was it for that son\nWhose father for his hoarding went to hell?\nI'll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind;\nAnd would my father had left me no more!\nFor all the rest is held at such a rate\nAs brings a thousand-fold more care to keep\nThan in possession and jot of pleasure.\nAh, cousin York! would thy best friends did know\nHow it doth grieve me that thy head is here!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nMy lord, cheer up your spirits: our foes are nigh,\nAnd this soft courage makes your followers faint.\nYou promised knighthood to our forward son:\nUnsheathe your sword, and dub him presently.\nEdward, kneel down.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nEdward Plantagenet, arise a knight;\nAnd learn this lesson, draw thy sword in right.\n\nPRINCE:\nMy gracious father, by your kingly leave,\nI'll draw it as apparent to the crown,\nAnd in that quarrel use it to the death.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nWhy, that is spoken like a toward prince.\n\nMessenger:\nRoyal commanders, be in readiness:\nFor with a band of thirty thousand men\nComes Warwick, backing of the Duke of York;\nAnd in the towns, as they do march along,\nProclaims him king, and many fly to him:\nDarraign your battle, for they are at hand.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nI would your highness would depart the field:\nThe queen hath best success when you are absent.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, good my lord, and leave us to our fortune.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhy, that's my fortune too; therefore I'll stay.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBe it with resolution then to fight.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMy royal father, cheer these noble lords\nAnd hearten those that fight in your defence:\nUnsheathe your sword, good father; cry 'Saint George!'\n\nEDWARD:\nNow, perjured Henry! wilt thou kneel for grace,\nAnd set thy diadem upon my head;\nOr bide the mortal fortune of the field?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nGo, rate thy minions, proud insulting boy!\nBecomes it thee to be thus bold in terms\nBefore thy sovereign and thy lawful king?\n\nEDWARD:\nI am his king, and he should bow his knee;\nI was adopted heir by his consent:\nSince when, his oath is broke; for, as I hear,\nYou, that are king, though he do wear the crown,\nHave caused him, by new act of parliament,\nTo blot out me, and put his own son in.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAnd reason too:\nWho should succeed the father but the son?\n\nRICHARD:\nAre you there, butcher? O, I cannot speak!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, crook-back, here I stand to answer thee,\nOr any he the proudest of thy sort.\n\nRICHARD:\n'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was it not?\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, and old York, and yet not satisfied.\n\nRICHARD:\nFor God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat say'st thou, Henry, wilt thou yield the crown?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhy, how now, long-tongued Warwick! dare you speak?\nWhen you and I met at Saint Alban's last,\nYour legs did better service than your hands.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis thine.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nYou said so much before, and yet you fled.\n\nWARWICK:\n'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNo, nor your manhood that durst make you stay.\n\nRICHARD:\nNorthumberland, I hold thee reverently.\nBreak off the parley; for scarce I can refrain\nThe execution of my big-swoln heart\nUpon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nI slew thy father, call'st thou him a child?\n\nRICHARD:\nAy, like a dastard and a treacherous coward,\nAs thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland;\nBut ere sunset I'll make thee curse the deed.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHave done with words, my lords, and hear me speak.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nDefy them then, or else hold close thy lips.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI prithee, give no limits to my tongue:\nI am a king, and privileged to speak.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nMy liege, the wound that bred this meeting here\nCannot be cured by words; therefore be still.\n\nRICHARD:\nThen, executioner, unsheathe thy sword:\nBy him that made us all, I am resolved\nthat Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.\n\nEDWARD:\nSay, Henry, shall I have my right, or no?\nA thousand men have broke their fasts to-day,\nThat ne'er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.\n\nWARWICK:\nIf thou deny, their blood upon thy head;\nFor York in justice puts his armour on.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nIf that be right which Warwick says is right,\nThere is no wrong, but every thing is right.\n\nRICHARD:\nWhoever got thee, there thy mother stands;\nFor, well I wot, thou hast thy mother's tongue.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBut thou art neither like thy sire nor dam;\nBut like a foul mis-shapen stigmatic,\nMark'd by the destinies to be avoided,\nAs venom toads, or lizards' dreadful stings.\n\nRICHARD:\nIron of Naples hid with English gilt,\nWhose father bears the title of a king,--\nAs if a channel should be call'd the sea,--\nShamest thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,\nTo let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?\n\nEDWARD:\nA wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns,\nTo make this shameless callet know herself.\nHelen of Greece was fairer far than thou,\nAlthough thy husband may be Menelaus;\nAnd ne'er was Agamemnon's brother wrong'd\nBy that false woman, as this king by thee.\nHis father revell'd in the heart of France,\nAnd tamed the king, and made the dauphin stoop;\nAnd had he match'd according to his state,\nHe might have kept that glory to this day;\nBut when he took a beggar to his bed,\nAnd graced thy poor sire with his bridal-day,\nEven then that sunshine brew'd a shower for him,\nThat wash'd his father's fortunes forth of France,\nAnd heap'd sedition on his crown at home.\nFor what hath broach'd this tumult but thy pride?\nHadst thou been meek, our title still had slept;\nAnd we, in pity of the gentle king,\nHad slipp'd our claim until another age.\n\nGEORGE:\nBut when we saw our sunshine made thy spring,\nAnd that thy summer bred us no increase,\nWe set the axe to thy usurping root;\nAnd though the edge hath something hit ourselves,\nYet, know thou, since we have begun to strike,\nWe'll never leave till we have hewn thee down,\nOr bathed thy growing with our heated bloods.\n\nEDWARD:\nAnd, in this resolution, I defy thee;\nNot willing any longer conference,\nSince thou deniest the gentle king to speak.\nSound trumpets! let our bloody colours wave!\nAnd either victory, or else a grave.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nStay, Edward.\n\nEDWARD:\nNo, wrangling woman, we'll no longer stay:\nThese words will cost ten thousand lives this day.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nForspent with toil, as runners with a race,\nI lay me down a little while to breathe;\nFor strokes received, and many blows repaid,\nHave robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,\nAnd spite of spite needs must I rest awhile.\n\nEDWARD:\nSmile, gentle heaven! or strike, ungentle death!\nFor this world frowns, and Edward's sun is clouded.\n\nWARWICK:\nHow now, my lord! what hap? what hope of good?\n\nGEORGE:\nOur hap is loss, our hope but sad despair;\nOur ranks are broke, and ruin follows us:\nWhat counsel give you? whither shall we fly?\n\nEDWARD:\nBootless is flight, they follow us with wings;\nAnd weak we are and cannot shun pursuit.\n\nRICHARD:\nAh, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself?\nThy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,\nBroach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance;\nAnd in the very pangs of death he cried,\nLike to a dismal clangour heard from far,\n'Warwick, revenge! brother, revenge my death!'\nSo, underneath the belly of their steeds,\nThat stain'd their fetlocks in his smoking blood,\nThe noble gentleman gave up the ghost.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen let the earth be drunken with our blood:\nI'll kill my horse, because I will not fly.\nWhy stand we like soft-hearted women here,\nWailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage;\nAnd look upon, as if the tragedy\nWere play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors?\nHere on my knee I vow to God above,\nI'll never pause again, never stand still,\nTill either death hath closed these eyes of mine\nOr fortune given me measure of revenge.\n\nEDWARD:\nO Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine;\nAnd in this vow do chain my soul to thine!\nAnd, ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face,\nI throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to thee,\nThou setter up and plucker down of kings,\nBeseeching thee, if with they will it stands\nThat to my foes this body must be prey,\nYet that thy brazen gates of heaven may ope,\nAnd give sweet passage to my sinful soul!\nNow, lords, take leave until we meet again,\nWhere'er it be, in heaven or in earth.\n\nRICHARD:\nBrother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Warwick,\nLet me embrace thee in my weary arms:\nI, that did never weep, now melt with woe\nThat winter should cut off our spring-time so.\n\nWARWICK:\nAway, away! Once more, sweet lords farewell.\n\nGEORGE:\nYet let us all together to our troops,\nAnd give them leave to fly that will not stay;\nAnd call them pillars that will stand to us;\nAnd, if we thrive, promise them such rewards\nAs victors wear at the Olympian games:\nThis may plant courage in their quailing breasts;\nFor yet is hope of life and victory.\nForslow no longer, make we hence amain.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRICHARD:\nNow, Clifford, I have singled thee alone:\nSuppose this arm is for the Duke of York,\nAnd this for Rutland; both bound to revenge,\nWert thou environ'd with a brazen wall.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nNow, Richard, I am with thee here alone:\nThis is the hand that stabb'd thy father York;\nAnd this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland;\nAnd here's the heart that triumphs in their death\nAnd cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother\nTo execute the like upon thyself;\nAnd so, have at thee!\n\nRICHARD:\nNay Warwick, single out some other chase;\nFor I myself will hunt this wolf to death.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThis battle fares like to the morning's war,\nWhen dying clouds contend with growing light,\nWhat time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,\nCan neither call it perfect day nor night.\nNow sways it this way, like a mighty sea\nForced by the tide to combat with the wind;\nNow sways it that way, like the selfsame sea\nForced to retire by fury of the wind:\nSometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;\nNow one the better, then another best;\nBoth tugging to be victors, breast to breast,\nYet neither conqueror nor conquered:\nSo is the equal of this fell war.\nHere on this molehill will I sit me down.\nTo whom God will, there be the victory!\nFor Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,\nHave chid me from the battle; swearing both\nThey prosper best of all when I am thence.\nWould I were dead! if God's good will were so;\nFor what is in this world but grief and woe?\nO God! methinks it were a happy life,\nTo be no better than a homely swain;\nTo sit upon a hill, as I do now,\nTo carve out dials quaintly, point by point,\nThereby to see the minutes how they run,\nHow many make the hour full complete;\nHow many hours bring about the day;\nHow many days will finish up the year;\nHow many years a mortal man may live.\nWhen this is known, then to divide the times:\nSo many hours must I tend my flock;\nSo many hours must I take my rest;\nSo many hours must I contemplate;\nSo many hours must I sport myself;\nSo many days my ewes have been with young;\nSo many weeks ere the poor fools will ean:\nSo many years ere I shall shear the fleece:\nSo minutes, hours, days, months, and years,\nPass'd over to the end they were created,\nWould bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.\nAh, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!\nGives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade\nTo shepherds looking on their silly sheep,\nThan doth a rich embroider'd canopy\nTo kings that fear their subjects' treachery?\nO, yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.\nAnd to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,\nHis cold thin drink out of his leather bottle.\nHis wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,\nAll which secure and sweetly he enjoys,\nIs far beyond a prince's delicates,\nHis viands sparkling in a golden cup,\nHis body couched in a curious bed,\nWhen care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.\n\nSon:\nIll blows the wind that profits nobody.\nThis man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight,\nMay be possessed with some store of crowns;\nAnd I, that haply take them from him now,\nMay yet ere night yield both my life and them\nTo some man else, as this dead man doth me.\nWho's this? O God! it is my father's face,\nWhom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd.\nO heavy times, begetting such events!\nFrom London by the king was I press'd forth;\nMy father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,\nCame on the part of York, press'd by his master;\nAnd I, who at his hands received my life, him\nHave by my hands of life bereaved him.\nPardon me, God, I knew not what I did!\nAnd pardon, father, for I knew not thee!\nMy tears shall wipe away these bloody marks;\nAnd no more words till they have flow'd their fill.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nO piteous spectacle! O bloody times!\nWhiles lions war and battle for their dens,\nPoor harmless lambs abide their enmity.\nWeep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear for tear;\nAnd let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,\nBe blind with tears, and break o'ercharged with grief.\n\nFather:\nThou that so stoutly hast resisted me,\nGive me thy gold, if thou hast any gold:\nFor I have bought it with an hundred blows.\nBut let me see: is this our foeman's face?\nAh, no, no, no, it is mine only son!\nAh, boy, if any life be left in thee,\nThrow up thine eye! see, see what showers arise,\nBlown with the windy tempest of my heart,\nUpon thy words, that kill mine eye and heart!\nO, pity, God, this miserable age!\nWhat stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,\nErroneous, mutinous and unnatural,\nThis deadly quarrel daily doth beget!\nO boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,\nAnd hath bereft thee of thy life too late!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWoe above woe! grief more than common grief!\nO that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!\nO pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!\nThe red rose and the white are on his face,\nThe fatal colours of our striving houses:\nThe one his purple blood right well resembles;\nThe other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth:\nWither one rose, and let the other flourish;\nIf you contend, a thousand lives must wither.\n\nSon:\nHow will my mother for a father's death\nTake on with me and ne'er be satisfied!\n\nFather:\nHow will my wife for slaughter of my son\nShed seas of tears and ne'er be satisfied!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHow will the country for these woful chances\nMisthink the king and not be satisfied!\n\nSon:\nWas ever son so rued a father's death?\n\nFather:\nWas ever father so bemoan'd his son?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWas ever king so grieved for subjects' woe?\nMuch is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.\n\nSon:\nI'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.\n\nFather:\nThese arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;\nMy heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,\nFor from my heart thine image ne'er shall go;\nMy sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;\nAnd so obsequious will thy father be,\nEven for the loss of thee, having no more,\nAs Priam was for all his valiant sons.\nI'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,\nFor I have murdered where I should not kill.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSad-hearted men, much overgone with care,\nHere sits a king more woful than you are.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nFly, father, fly! for all your friends are fled,\nAnd Warwick rages like a chafed bull:\nAway! for death doth hold us in pursuit.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nMount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain:\nEdward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds\nHaving the fearful flying hare in sight,\nWith fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath,\nAnd bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,\nAre at our backs; and therefore hence amain.\n\nEXETER:\nAway! for vengeance comes along with them:\nNay, stay not to expostulate, make speed;\nOr else come after: I'll away before.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nNay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter:\nNot that I fear to stay, but love to go\nWhither the queen intends. Forward; away!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHere burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,\nWhich, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.\nO Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow\nMore than my body's parting with my soul!\nMy love and fear glued many friends to thee;\nAnd, now I fall, thy tough commixture melts.\nImpairing Henry, strengthening misproud York,\nThe common people swarm like summer flies;\nAnd whither fly the gnats but to the sun?\nAnd who shines now but Henry's enemies?\nO Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent\nThat Phaethon should cheque thy fiery steeds,\nThy burning car never had scorch'd the earth!\nAnd, Henry, hadst thou sway'd as kings should do,\nOr as thy father and his father did,\nGiving no ground unto the house of York,\nThey never then had sprung like summer flies;\nI and ten thousand in this luckless realm\nHad left no mourning widows for our death;\nAnd thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.\nFor what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?\nAnd what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?\nBootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds;\nNo way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight:\nThe foe is merciless, and will not pity;\nFor at their hands I have deserved no pity.\nThe air hath got into my deadly wounds,\nAnd much effuse of blood doth make me faint.\nCome, York and Richard, Warwick and the rest;\nI stabb'd your fathers' bosoms, split my breast.\n\nEDWARD:\nNow breathe we, lords: good fortune bids us pause,\nAnd smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.\nSome troops pursue the bloody-minded queen,\nThat led calm Henry, though he were a king,\nAs doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust,\nCommand an argosy to stem the waves.\nBut think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them?\n\nWARWICK:\nNo, 'tis impossible he should escape,\nFor, though before his face I speak the words\nYour brother Richard mark'd him for the grave:\nAnd wheresoe'er he is, he's surely dead.\n\nEDWARD:\nWhose soul is that which takes her heavy leave?\n\nRICHARD:\nA deadly groan, like life and death's departing.\n\nEDWARD:\nSee who it is: and, now the battle's ended,\nIf friend or foe, let him be gently used.\n\nRICHARD:\nRevoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis Clifford;\nWho not contented that he lopp'd the branch\nIn hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth,\nBut set his murdering knife unto the root\nFrom whence that tender spray did sweetly spring,\nI mean our princely father, Duke of York.\n\nWARWICK:\nFrom off the gates of York fetch down the head,\nYour father's head, which Clifford placed there;\nInstead whereof let this supply the room:\nMeasure for measure must be answered.\n\nEDWARD:\nBring forth that fatal screech-owl to our house,\nThat nothing sung but death to us and ours:\nNow death shall stop his dismal threatening sound,\nAnd his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.\n\nWARWICK:\nI think his understanding is bereft.\nSpeak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?\nDark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life,\nAnd he nor sees nor hears us what we say.\n\nRICHARD:\nO, would he did! and so perhaps he doth:\n'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,\nBecause he would avoid such bitter taunts\nWhich in the time of death he gave our father.\n\nGEORGE:\nIf so thou think'st, vex him with eager words.\n\nRICHARD:\nClifford, ask mercy and obtain no grace.\n\nEDWARD:\nClifford, repent in bootless penitence.\n\nWARWICK:\nClifford, devise excuses for thy faults.\n\nGEORGE:\nWhile we devise fell tortures for thy faults.\n\nRICHARD:\nThou didst love York, and I am son to York.\n\nEDWARD:\nThou pitied'st Rutland; I will pity thee.\n\nGEORGE:\nWhere's Captain Margaret, to fence you now?\n\nWARWICK:\nThey mock thee, Clifford: swear as thou wast wont.\n\nRICHARD:\nWhat, not an oath? nay, then the world goes hard\nWhen Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.\nI know by that he's dead; and, by my soul,\nIf this right hand would buy two hour's life,\nThat I in all despite might rail at him,\nThis hand should chop it off, and with the\nissuing blood\nStifle the villain whose unstanched thirst\nYork and young Rutland could not satisfy.\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, but he's dead: off with the traitor's head,\nAnd rear it in the place your father's stands.\nAnd now to London with triumphant march,\nThere to be crowned England's royal king:\nFrom whence shall Warwick cut the sea to France,\nAnd ask the Lady Bona for thy queen:\nSo shalt thou sinew both these lands together;\nAnd, having France thy friend, thou shalt not dread\nThe scatter'd foe that hopes to rise again;\nFor though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,\nYet look to have them buzz to offend thine ears.\nFirst will I see the coronation;\nAnd then to Brittany I'll cross the sea,\nTo effect this marriage, so it please my lord.\n\nEDWARD:\nEven as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it be;\nFor in thy shoulder do I build my seat,\nAnd never will I undertake the thing\nWherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.\nRichard, I will create thee Duke of Gloucester,\nAnd George, of Clarence: Warwick, as ourself,\nShall do and undo as him pleaseth best.\n\nRICHARD:\nLet me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester;\nFor Gloucester's dukedom is too ominous.\n\nWARWICK:\nTut, that's a foolish observation:\nRichard, be Duke of Gloucester. Now to London,\nTo see these honours in possession.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nFirst Keeper:\nUnder this thick-grown brake we'll shroud ourselves;\nFor through this laund anon the deer will come;\nAnd in this covert will we make our stand,\nCulling the principal of all the deer.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nI'll stay above the hill, so both may shoot.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nThat cannot be; the noise of thy cross-bow\nWill scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.\nHere stand we both, and aim we at the best:\nAnd, for the time shall not seem tedious,\nI'll tell thee what befell me on a day\nIn this self-place where now we mean to stand.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nHere comes a man; let's stay till he be past.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFrom Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love,\nTo greet mine own land with my wishful sight.\nNo, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine;\nThy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,\nThy balm wash'd off wherewith thou wast anointed:\nNo bending knee will call thee Caesar now,\nNo humble suitors press to speak for right,\nNo, not a man comes for redress of thee;\nFor how can I help them, and not myself?\n\nFirst Keeper:\nAy, here's a deer whose skin's a keeper's fee:\nThis is the quondam king; let's seize upon him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nLet me embrace thee, sour adversity,\nFor wise men say it is the wisest course.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nWhy linger we? let us lay hands upon him.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nForbear awhile; we'll hear a little more.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy queen and son are gone to France for aid;\nAnd, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick\nIs thither gone, to crave the French king's sister\nTo wife for Edward: if this news be true,\nPoor queen and son, your labour is but lost;\nFor Warwick is a subtle orator,\nAnd Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.\nBy this account then Margaret may win him;\nFor she's a woman to be pitied much:\nHer sighs will make a battery in his breast;\nHer tears will pierce into a marble heart;\nThe tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;\nAnd Nero will be tainted with remorse,\nTo hear and see her plaints, her brinish tears.\nAy, but she's come to beg, Warwick to give;\nShe, on his left side, craving aid for Henry,\nHe, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.\nShe weeps, and says her Henry is deposed;\nHe smiles, and says his Edward is install'd;\nThat she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no more;\nWhiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the wrong,\nInferreth arguments of mighty strength,\nAnd in conclusion wins the king from her,\nWith promise of his sister, and what else,\nTo strengthen and support King Edward's place.\nO Margaret, thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul,\nArt then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn!\n\nSecond Keeper:\nSay, what art thou that talk'st of kings and queens?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMore than I seem, and less than I was born to:\nA man at least, for less I should not be;\nAnd men may talk of kings, and why not I?\n\nSecond Keeper:\nAy, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhy, so I am, in mind; and that's enough.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nBut, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy crown is in my heart, not on my head;\nNot decked with diamonds and Indian stones,\nNor to be seen: my crown is called content:\nA crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nWell, if you be a king crown'd with content,\nYour crown content and you must be contented\nTo go along with us; for as we think,\nYou are the king King Edward hath deposed;\nAnd we his subjects sworn in all allegiance\nWill apprehend you as his enemy.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBut did you never swear, and break an oath?\n\nSecond Keeper:\nNo, never such an oath; nor will not now.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhere did you dwell when I was King of England?\n\nSecond Keeper:\nHere in this country, where we now remain.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI was anointed king at nine months old;\nMy father and my grandfather were kings,\nAnd you were sworn true subjects unto me:\nAnd tell me, then, have you not broke your oaths?\n\nFirst Keeper:\nNo;\nFor we were subjects but while you were king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhy, am I dead? do I not breathe a man?\nAh, simple men, you know not what you swear!\nLook, as I blow this feather from my face,\nAnd as the air blows it to me again,\nObeying with my wind when I do blow,\nAnd yielding to another when it blows,\nCommanded always by the greater gust;\nSuch is the lightness of you common men.\nBut do not break your oaths; for of that sin\nMy mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.\nGo where you will, the king shall be commanded;\nAnd be you kings, command, and I'll obey.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nWe are true subjects to the king, King Edward.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSo would you be again to Henry,\nIf he were seated as King Edward is.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nWe charge you, in God's name, and the king's,\nTo go with us unto the officers.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nIn God's name, lead; your king's name be obey'd:\nAnd what God will, that let your king perform;\nAnd what he will, I humbly yield unto.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBrother of Gloucester, at Saint Alban's field\nThis lady's husband, Sir Richard Grey, was slain,\nHis lands then seized on by the conqueror:\nHer suit is now to repossess those lands;\nWhich we in justice cannot well deny,\nBecause in quarrel of the house of York\nThe worthy gentleman did lose his life.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour highness shall do well to grant her suit;\nIt were dishonour to deny it her.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIt were no less; but yet I'll make a pause.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWidow, we will consider of your suit;\nAnd come some other time to know our mind.\n\nLADY GREY:\nRight gracious lord, I cannot brook delay:\nMay it please your highness to resolve me now;\nAnd what your pleasure is, shall satisfy me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHow many children hast thou, widow? tell me.\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nLADY GREY:\nThree, my most gracious lord.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\n'Twere pity they should lose their father's lands.\n\nLADY GREY:\nBe pitiful, dread lord, and grant it then.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nLords, give us leave: I'll try this widow's wit.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow tell me, madam, do you love your children?\n\nLADY GREY:\nAy, full as dearly as I love myself.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAnd would you not do much to do them good?\n\nLADY GREY:\nTo do them good, I would sustain some harm.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThen get your husband's lands, to do them good.\n\nLADY GREY:\nTherefore I came unto your majesty.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nI'll tell you how these lands are to be got.\n\nLADY GREY:\nSo shall you bind me to your highness' service.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat service wilt thou do me, if I give them?\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhat you command, that rests in me to do.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut you will take exceptions to my boon.\n\nLADY GREY:\nNo, gracious lord, except I cannot do it.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, but thou canst do what I mean to ask.\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy, then I will do what your grace commands.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy stops my lord, shall I not hear my task?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAn easy task; 'tis but to love a king.\n\nLADY GREY:\nThat's soon perform'd, because I am a subject.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, then, thy husband's lands I freely give thee.\n\nLADY GREY:\nI take my leave with many thousand thanks.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut stay thee, 'tis the fruits of love I mean.\n\nLADY GREY:\nThe fruits of love I mean, my loving liege.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, but, I fear me, in another sense.\nWhat love, think'st thou, I sue so much to get?\n\nLADY GREY:\nMy love till death, my humble thanks, my prayers;\nThat love which virtue begs and virtue grants.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNo, by my troth, I did not mean such love.\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy, then you mean not as I thought you did.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut now you partly may perceive my mind.\n\nLADY GREY:\nMy mind will never grant what I perceive\nYour highness aims at, if I aim aright.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTo tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.\n\nLADY GREY:\nTo tell you plain, I had rather lie in prison.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, then thou shalt not have thy husband's lands.\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy, then mine honesty shall be my dower;\nFor by that loss I will not purchase them.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTherein thou wrong'st thy children mightily.\n\nLADY GREY:\nHerein your highness wrongs both them and me.\nBut, mighty lord, this merry inclination\nAccords not with the sadness of my suit:\nPlease you dismiss me either with 'ay' or 'no.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, if thou wilt say 'ay' to my request;\nNo if thou dost say 'no' to my demand.\n\nLADY GREY:\nThen, no, my lord. My suit is at an end.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\n\nLADY GREY:\n'Tis better said than done, my gracious lord:\nI am a subject fit to jest withal,\nBut far unfit to be a sovereign.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSweet widow, by my state I swear to thee\nI speak no more than what my soul intends;\nAnd that is, to enjoy thee for my love.\n\nLADY GREY:\nAnd that is more than I will yield unto:\nI know I am too mean to be your queen,\nAnd yet too good to be your concubine.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYou cavil, widow: I did mean, my queen.\n\nLADY GREY:\n'Twill grieve your grace my sons should call you father.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNo more than when my daughters call thee mother.\nThou art a widow, and thou hast some children;\nAnd, by God's mother, I, being but a bachelor,\nHave other some: why, 'tis a happy thing\nTo be the father unto many sons.\nAnswer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBrothers, you muse what chat we two have had.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe widow likes it not, for she looks very sad.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYou'll think it strange if I should marry her.\n\nCLARENCE:\nTo whom, my lord?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, Clarence, to myself.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThat would be ten days' wonder at the least.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThat's a day longer than a wonder lasts.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBy so much is the wonder in extremes.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWell, jest on, brothers: I can tell you both\nHer suit is granted for her husband's lands.\n\nNobleman:\nMy gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken,\nAnd brought your prisoner to your palace gate.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSee that he be convey'd unto the Tower:\nAnd go we, brothers, to the man that took him,\nTo question of his apprehension.\nWidow, go you along. Lords, use her honourably.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAy, Edward will use women honourably.\nWould he were wasted, marrow, bones and all,\nThat from his loins no hopeful branch may spring,\nTo cross me from the golden time I look for!\nAnd yet, between my soul's desire and me--\nThe lustful Edward's title buried--\nIs Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,\nAnd all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,\nTo take their rooms, ere I can place myself:\nA cold premeditation for my purpose!\nWhy, then, I do but dream on sovereignty;\nLike one that stands upon a promontory,\nAnd spies a far-off shore where he would tread,\nWishing his foot were equal with his eye,\nAnd chides the sea that sunders him from thence,\nSaying, he'll lade it dry to have his way:\nSo do I wish the crown, being so far off;\nAnd so I chide the means that keeps me from it;\nAnd so I say, I'll cut the causes off,\nFlattering me with impossibilities.\nMy eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,\nUnless my hand and strength could equal them.\nWell, say there is no kingdom then for Richard;\nWhat other pleasure can the world afford?\nI'll make my heaven in a lady's lap,\nAnd deck my body in gay ornaments,\nAnd witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.\nO miserable thought! and more unlikely\nThan to accomplish twenty golden crowns!\nWhy, love forswore me in my mother's womb:\nAnd, for I should not deal in her soft laws,\nShe did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,\nTo shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub;\nTo make an envious mountain on my back,\nWhere sits deformity to mock my body;\nTo shape my legs of an unequal size;\nTo disproportion me in every part,\nLike to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp\nThat carries no impression like the dam.\nAnd am I then a man to be beloved?\nO monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought!\nThen, since this earth affords no joy to me,\nBut to command, to cheque, to o'erbear such\nAs are of better person than myself,\nI'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,\nAnd, whiles I live, to account this world but hell,\nUntil my mis-shaped trunk that bears this head\nBe round impaled with a glorious crown.\nAnd yet I know not how to get the crown,\nFor many lives stand between me and home:\nAnd I,--like one lost in a thorny wood,\nThat rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns,\nSeeking a way and straying from the way;\nNot knowing how to find the open air,\nBut toiling desperately to find it out,--\nTorment myself to catch the English crown:\nAnd from that torment I will free myself,\nOr hew my way out with a bloody axe.\nWhy, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,\nAnd cry 'Content' to that which grieves my heart,\nAnd wet my cheeks with artificial tears,\nAnd frame my face to all occasions.\nI'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;\nI'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;\nI'll play the orator as well as Nestor,\nDeceive more slily than Ulysses could,\nAnd, like a Sinon, take another Troy.\nI can add colours to the chameleon,\nChange shapes with Proteus for advantages,\nAnd set the murderous Machiavel to school.\nCan I do this, and cannot get a crown?\nTut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nFair Queen of England, worthy Margaret,\nSit down with us: it ill befits thy state\nAnd birth, that thou shouldst stand while Lewis doth sit.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNo, mighty King of France: now Margaret\nMust strike her sail and learn awhile to serve\nWhere kings command. I was, I must confess,\nGreat Albion's queen in former golden days:\nBut now mischance hath trod my title down,\nAnd with dishonour laid me on the ground;\nWhere I must take like seat unto my fortune,\nAnd to my humble seat conform myself.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhy, say, fair queen, whence springs this deep despair?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nFrom such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears\nAnd stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in cares.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhate'er it be, be thou still like thyself,\nAnd sit thee by our side:\nYield not thy neck\nTo fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind\nStill ride in triumph over all mischance.\nBe plain, Queen Margaret, and tell thy grief;\nIt shall be eased, if France can yield relief.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThose gracious words revive my drooping thoughts\nAnd give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.\nNow, therefore, be it known to noble Lewis,\nThat Henry, sole possessor of my love,\nIs of a king become a banish'd man,\nAnd forced to live in Scotland a forlorn;\nWhile proud ambitious Edward Duke of York\nUsurps the regal title and the seat\nOf England's true-anointed lawful king.\nThis is the cause that I, poor Margaret,\nWith this my son, Prince Edward, Henry's heir,\nAm come to crave thy just and lawful aid;\nAnd if thou fail us, all our hope is done:\nScotland hath will to help, but cannot help;\nOur people and our peers are both misled,\nOur treasures seized, our soldiers put to flight,\nAnd, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nRenowned queen, with patience calm the storm,\nWhile we bethink a means to break it off.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThe more we stay, the stronger grows our foe.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThe more I stay, the more I'll succor thee.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO, but impatience waiteth on true sorrow.\nAnd see where comes the breeder of my sorrow!\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhat's he approacheth boldly to our presence?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nOur Earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest friend.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWelcome, brave Warwick! What brings thee to France?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, now begins a second storm to rise;\nFor this is he that moves both wind and tide.\n\nWARWICK:\nFrom worthy Edward, King of Albion,\nMy lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,\nI come, in kindness and unfeigned love,\nFirst, to do greetings to thy royal person;\nAnd then to crave a league of amity;\nAnd lastly, to confirm that amity\nWith a nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant\nThat virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,\nTo England's king in lawful marriage.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\n\nWARWICK:\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nKing Lewis and Lady Bona, hear me speak,\nBefore you answer Warwick. His demand\nSprings not from Edward's well-meant honest love,\nBut from deceit bred by necessity;\nFor how can tyrants safely govern home,\nUnless abroad they purchase great alliance?\nTo prove him tyrant this reason may suffice,\nThat Henry liveth still: but were he dead,\nYet here Prince Edward stands, King Henry's son.\nLook, therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage\nThou draw not on thy danger and dishonour;\nFor though usurpers sway the rule awhile,\nYet heavens are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.\n\nWARWICK:\nInjurious Margaret!\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAnd why not queen?\n\nWARWICK:\nBecause thy father Henry did usurp;\nAnd thou no more are prince than she is queen.\n\nOXFORD:\nThen Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt,\nWhich did subdue the greatest part of Spain;\nAnd, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth,\nWhose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest;\nAnd, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth,\nWho by his prowess conquered all France:\nFrom these our Henry lineally descends.\n\nWARWICK:\nOxford, how haps it, in this smooth discourse,\nYou told not how Henry the Sixth hath lost\nAll that which Henry Fifth had gotten?\nMethinks these peers of France should smile at that.\nBut for the rest, you tell a pedigree\nOf threescore and two years; a silly time\nTo make prescription for a kingdom's worth.\n\nOXFORD:\nWhy, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,\nWhom thou obeyed'st thirty and six years,\nAnd not bewray thy treason with a blush?\n\nWARWICK:\nCan Oxford, that did ever fence the right,\nNow buckler falsehood with a pedigree?\nFor shame! leave Henry, and call Edward king.\n\nOXFORD:\nCall him my king by whose injurious doom\nMy elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere,\nWas done to death? and more than so, my father,\nEven in the downfall of his mellow'd years,\nWhen nature brought him to the door of death?\nNo, Warwick, no; while life upholds this arm,\nThis arm upholds the house of Lancaster.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd I the house of York.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nQueen Margaret, Prince Edward, and Oxford,\nVouchsafe, at our request, to stand aside,\nWhile I use further conference with Warwick.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHeavens grant that Warwick's words bewitch him not!\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nNow Warwick, tell me, even upon thy conscience,\nIs Edward your true king? for I were loath\nTo link with him that were not lawful chosen.\n\nWARWICK:\nThereon I pawn my credit and mine honour.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nBut is he gracious in the people's eye?\n\nWARWICK:\nThe more that Henry was unfortunate.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThen further, all dissembling set aside,\nTell me for truth the measure of his love\nUnto our sister Bona.\n\nWARWICK:\nSuch it seems\nAs may beseem a monarch like himself.\nMyself have often heard him say and swear\nThat this his love was an eternal plant,\nWhereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,\nThe leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun,\nExempt from envy, but not from disdain,\nUnless the Lady Bona quit his pain.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nNow, sister, let us hear your firm resolve.\n\nBONA:\nYour grant, or your denial, shall be mine:\nYet I confess that often ere this day,\nWhen I have heard your king's desert recounted,\nMine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThen, Warwick, thus: our sister shall be Edward's;\nAnd now forthwith shall articles be drawn\nTouching the jointure that your king must make,\nWhich with her dowry shall be counterpoised.\nDraw near, Queen Margaret, and be a witness\nThat Bona shall be wife to the English king.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nTo Edward, but not to the English king.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nDeceitful Warwick! it was thy device\nBy this alliance to make void my suit:\nBefore thy coming Lewis was Henry's friend.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nAnd still is friend to him and Margaret:\nBut if your title to the crown be weak,\nAs may appear by Edward's good success,\nThen 'tis but reason that I be released\nFrom giving aid which late I promised.\nYet shall you have all kindness at my hand\nThat your estate requires and mine can yield.\n\nWARWICK:\nHenry now lives in Scotland at his ease,\nWhere having nothing, nothing can he lose.\nAnd as for you yourself, our quondam queen,\nYou have a father able to maintain you;\nAnd better 'twere you troubled him than France.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPeace, impudent and shameless Warwick, peace,\nProud setter up and puller down of kings!\nI will not hence, till, with my talk and tears,\nBoth full of truth, I make King Lewis behold\nThy sly conveyance and thy lord's false love;\nFor both of you are birds of selfsame feather.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWarwick, this is some post to us or thee.\n\nPost:\n\nOXFORD:\nI like it well that our fair queen and mistress\nSmiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nNay, mark how Lewis stamps, as he were nettled:\nI hope all's for the best.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWarwick, what are thy news? and yours, fair queen?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nMine, such as fill my heart with unhoped joys.\n\nWARWICK:\nMine, full of sorrow and heart's discontent.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhat! has your king married the Lady Grey!\nAnd now, to soothe your forgery and his,\nSends me a paper to persuade me patience?\nIs this the alliance that he seeks with France?\nDare he presume to scorn us in this manner?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI told your majesty as much before:\nThis proveth Edward's love and Warwick's honesty.\n\nWARWICK:\nKing Lewis, I here protest, in sight of heaven,\nAnd by the hope I have of heavenly bliss,\nThat I am clear from this misdeed of Edward's,\nNo more my king, for he dishonours me,\nBut most himself, if he could see his shame.\nDid I forget that by the house of York\nMy father came untimely to his death?\nDid I let pass the abuse done to my niece?\nDid I impale him with the regal crown?\nDid I put Henry from his native right?\nAnd am I guerdon'd at the last with shame?\nShame on himself! for my desert is honour:\nAnd to repair my honour lost for him,\nI here renounce him and return to Henry.\nMy noble queen, let former grudges pass,\nAnd henceforth I am thy true servitor:\nI will revenge his wrong to Lady Bona,\nAnd replant Henry in his former state.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWarwick, these words have turn'd my hate to love;\nAnd I forgive and quite forget old faults,\nAnd joy that thou becomest King Henry's friend.\n\nWARWICK:\nSo much his friend, ay, his unfeigned friend,\nThat, if King Lewis vouchsafe to furnish us\nWith some few bands of chosen soldiers,\nI'll undertake to land them on our coast\nAnd force the tyrant from his seat by war.\n'Tis not his new-made bride shall succor him:\nAnd as for Clarence, as my letters tell me,\nHe's very likely now to fall from him,\nFor matching more for wanton lust than honour,\nOr than for strength and safety of our country.\n\nBONA:\nDear brother, how shall Bona be revenged\nBut by thy help to this distressed queen?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nRenowned prince, how shall poor Henry live,\nUnless thou rescue him from foul despair?\n\nBONA:\nMy quarrel and this English queen's are one.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd mine, fair lady Bona, joins with yours.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nAnd mine with hers, and thine, and Margaret's.\nTherefore at last I firmly am resolved\nYou shall have aid.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nLet me give humble thanks for all at once.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThen, England's messenger, return in post,\nAnd tell false Edward, thy supposed king,\nThat Lewis of France is sending over masquers\nTo revel it with him and his new bride:\nThou seest what's past, go fear thy king withal.\n\nBONA:\nTell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\nI'll wear the willow garland for his sake.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nTell him, my mourning weeds are laid aside,\nAnd I am ready to put armour on.\n\nWARWICK:\nTell him from me that he hath done me wrong,\nAnd therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.\nThere's thy reward: be gone.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nBut, Warwick,\nThou and Oxford, with five thousand men,\nShall cross the seas, and bid false Edward battle;\nAnd, as occasion serves, this noble queen\nAnd prince shall follow with a fresh supply.\nYet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt,\nWhat pledge have we of thy firm loyalty?\n\nWARWICK:\nThis shall assure my constant loyalty,\nThat if our queen and this young prince agree,\nI'll join mine eldest daughter and my joy\nTo him forthwith in holy wedlock bands.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nYes, I agree, and thank you for your motion.\nSon Edward, she is fair and virtuous,\nTherefore delay not, give thy hand to Warwick;\nAnd, with thy hand, thy faith irrevocable,\nThat only Warwick's daughter shall be thine.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nYes, I accept her, for she well deserves it;\nAnd here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhy stay we now? These soldiers shall be levied,\nAnd thou, Lord Bourbon, our high admiral,\nShalt waft them over with our royal fleet.\nI long till Edward fall by war's mischance,\nFor mocking marriage with a dame of France.\n\nWARWICK:\nI came from Edward as ambassador,\nBut I return his sworn and mortal foe:\nMatter of marriage was the charge he gave me,\nBut dreadful war shall answer his demand.\nHad he none else to make a stale but me?\nThen none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.\nI was the chief that raised him to the crown,\nAnd I'll be chief to bring him down again:\nNot that I pity Henry's misery,\nBut seek revenge on Edward's mockery.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow tell me, brother Clarence, what think you\nOf this new marriage with the Lady Grey?\nHath not our brother made a worthy choice?\n\nCLARENCE:\nAlas, you know, 'tis far from hence to France;\nHow could he stay till Warwick made return?\n\nSOMERSET:\nMy lords, forbear this talk; here comes the king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd his well-chosen bride.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI mind to tell him plainly what I think.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, brother of Clarence, how like you our choice,\nThat you stand pensive, as half malcontent?\n\nCLARENCE:\nAs well as Lewis of France, or the Earl of Warwick,\nWhich are so weak of courage and in judgment\nThat they'll take no offence at our abuse.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSuppose they take offence without a cause,\nThey are but Lewis and Warwick: I am Edward,\nYour king and Warwick's, and must have my will.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd shall have your will, because our king:\nYet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYea, brother Richard, are you offended too?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNot I:\nNo, God forbid that I should wish them sever'd\nWhom God hath join'd together; ay, and 'twere pity\nTo sunder them that yoke so well together.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSetting your scorns and your mislike aside,\nTell me some reason why the Lady Grey\nShould not become my wife and England's queen.\nAnd you too, Somerset and Montague,\nSpeak freely what you think.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThen this is mine opinion: that King Lewis\nBecomes your enemy, for mocking him\nAbout the marriage of the Lady Bona.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd Warwick, doing what you gave in charge,\nIs now dishonoured by this new marriage.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat if both Lewis and Warwick be appeased\nBy such invention as I can devise?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nYet, to have join'd with France in such alliance\nWould more have strengthen'd this our commonwealth\n'Gainst foreign storms than any home-bred marriage.\n\nHASTINGS:\nWhy, knows not Montague that of itself\nEngland is safe, if true within itself?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBut the safer when 'tis back'd with France.\n\nHASTINGS:\n'Tis better using France than trusting France:\nLet us be back'd with God and with the seas\nWhich He hath given for fence impregnable,\nAnd with their helps only defend ourselves;\nIn them and in ourselves our safety lies.\n\nCLARENCE:\nFor this one speech Lord Hastings well deserves\nTo have the heir of the Lord Hungerford.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, what of that? it was my will and grant;\nAnd for this once my will shall stand for law.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd yet methinks your grace hath not done well,\nTo give the heir and daughter of Lord Scales\nUnto the brother of your loving bride;\nShe better would have fitted me or Clarence:\nBut in your bride you bury brotherhood.\n\nCLARENCE:\nOr else you would not have bestow'd the heir\nOf the Lord Bonville on your new wife's son,\nAnd leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAlas, poor Clarence! is it for a wife\nThat thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIn choosing for yourself, you show'd your judgment,\nWhich being shallow, you give me leave\nTo play the broker in mine own behalf;\nAnd to that end I shortly mind to leave you.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nLeave me, or tarry, Edward will be king,\nAnd not be tied unto his brother's will.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy lords, before it pleased his majesty\nTo raise my state to title of a queen,\nDo me but right, and you must all confess\nThat I was not ignoble of descent;\nAnd meaner than myself have had like fortune.\nBut as this title honours me and mine,\nSo your dislike, to whom I would be pleasing,\nDoth cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nMy love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns:\nWhat danger or what sorrow can befall thee,\nSo long as Edward is thy constant friend,\nAnd their true sovereign, whom they must obey?\nNay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,\nUnless they seek for hatred at my hands;\nWhich if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,\nAnd they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, messenger, what letters or what news\nFrom France?\n\nPost:\nMy sovereign liege, no letters; and few words,\nBut such as I, without your special pardon,\nDare not relate.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nGo to, we pardon thee: therefore, in brief,\nTell me their words as near as thou canst guess them.\nWhat answer makes King Lewis unto our letters?\n\nPost:\nAt my depart, these were his very words:\n'Go tell false Edward, thy supposed king,\nThat Lewis of France is sending over masquers\nTo revel it with him and his new bride.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIs Lewis so brave? belike he thinks me Henry.\nBut what said Lady Bona to my marriage?\n\nPost:\nThese were her words, utter'd with mad disdain:\n'Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\nI'll wear the willow garland for his sake.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nI blame not her, she could say little less;\nShe had the wrong. But what said Henry's queen?\nFor I have heard that she was there in place.\n\nPost:\n'Tell him,' quoth she, 'my mourning weeds are done,\nAnd I am ready to put armour on.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBelike she minds to play the Amazon.\nBut what said Warwick to these injuries?\n\nPost:\nHe, more incensed against your majesty\nThan all the rest, discharged me with these words:\n'Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong,\nAnd therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHa! durst the traitor breathe out so proud words?\nWell I will arm me, being thus forewarn'd:\nThey shall have wars and pay for their presumption.\nBut say, is Warwick friends with Margaret?\n\nPost:\nAy, gracious sovereign; they are so link'd in\nfriendship\nThat young Prince Edward marries Warwick's daughter.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBelike the elder; Clarence will have the younger.\nNow, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,\nFor I will hence to Warwick's other daughter;\nThat, though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage\nI may not prove inferior to yourself.\nYou that love me and Warwick, follow me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nClarence and Somerset both gone to Warwick!\nYet am I arm'd against the worst can happen;\nAnd haste is needful in this desperate case.\nPembroke and Stafford, you in our behalf\nGo levy men, and make prepare for war;\nThey are already, or quickly will be landed:\nMyself in person will straight follow you.\nBut, ere I go, Hastings and Montague,\nResolve my doubt. You twain, of all the rest,\nAre near to Warwick by blood and by alliance:\nTell me if you love Warwick more than me?\nIf it be so, then both depart to him;\nI rather wish you foes than hollow friends:\nBut if you mind to hold your true obedience,\nGive me assurance with some friendly vow,\nThat I may never have you in suspect.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nSo God help Montague as he proves true!\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd Hastings as he favours Edward's cause!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, brother Richard, will you stand by us?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAy, in despite of all that shall withstand you.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, so! then am I sure of victory.\nNow therefore let us hence; and lose no hour,\nTill we meet Warwick with his foreign power.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nTrust me, my lord, all hitherto goes well;\nThe common people by numbers swarm to us.\nBut see where Somerset and Clarence come!\nSpeak suddenly, my lords, are we all friends?\n\nCLARENCE:\nFear not that, my lord.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen, gentle Clarence, welcome unto Warwick;\nAnd welcome, Somerset: I hold it cowardice\nTo rest mistrustful where a noble heart\nHath pawn'd an open hand in sign of love;\nElse might I think that Clarence, Edward's brother,\nWere but a feigned friend to our proceedings:\nBut welcome, sweet Clarence; my daughter shall be thine.\nAnd now what rests but, in night's coverture,\nThy brother being carelessly encamp'd,\nHis soldiers lurking in the towns about,\nAnd but attended by a simple guard,\nWe may surprise and take him at our pleasure?\nOur scouts have found the adventure very easy:\nThat as Ulysses and stout Diomede\nWith sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,\nAnd brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds,\nSo we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,\nAt unawares may beat down Edward's guard\nAnd seize himself; I say not, slaughter him,\nFor I intend but only to surprise him.\nYou that will follow me to this attempt,\nApplaud the name of Henry with your leader.\nWhy, then, let's on our way in silent sort:\nFor Warwick and his friends, God and Saint George!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nFirst Watchman:\nCome on, my masters, each man take his stand:\nThe king by this is set him down to sleep.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nWhat, will he not to bed?\n\nFirst Watchman:\nWhy, no; for he hath made a solemn vow\nNever to lie and take his natural rest\nTill Warwick or himself be quite suppress'd.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nTo-morrow then belike shall be the day,\nIf Warwick be so near as men report.\n\nThird Watchman:\nBut say, I pray, what nobleman is that\nThat with the king here resteth in his tent?\n\nFirst Watchman:\n'Tis the Lord Hastings, the king's chiefest friend.\n\nThird Watchman:\nO, is it so? But why commands the king\nThat his chief followers lodge in towns about him,\nWhile he himself keeps in the cold field?\n\nSecond Watchman:\n'Tis the more honour, because more dangerous.\n\nThird Watchman:\nAy, but give me worship and quietness;\nI like it better than a dangerous honour.\nIf Warwick knew in what estate he stands,\n'Tis to be doubted he would waken him.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nUnless our halberds did shut up his passage.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nAy, wherefore else guard we his royal tent,\nBut to defend his person from night-foes?\n\nWARWICK:\nThis is his tent; and see where stand his guard.\nCourage, my masters! honour now or never!\nBut follow me, and Edward shall be ours.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nWho goes there?\n\nSecond Watchman:\nStay, or thou diest!\n\nSOMERSET:\nWhat are they that fly there?\n\nWARWICK:\nRichard and Hastings: let them go; here is The duke.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThe duke! Why, Warwick, when we parted,\nThou call'dst me king.\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, but the case is alter'd:\nWhen you disgraced me in my embassade,\nThen I degraded you from being king,\nAnd come now to create you Duke of York.\nAlas! how should you govern any kingdom,\nThat know not how to use ambassadors,\nNor how to be contented with one wife,\nNor how to use your brothers brotherly,\nNor how to study for the people's welfare,\nNor how to shroud yourself from enemies?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYea, brother of Clarence, are thou here too?\nNay, then I see that Edward needs must down.\nYet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,\nOf thee thyself and all thy complices,\nEdward will always bear himself as king:\nThough fortune's malice overthrow my state,\nMy mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen, for his mind, be Edward England's king:\nBut Henry now shall wear the English crown,\nAnd be true king indeed, thou but the shadow.\nMy Lord of Somerset, at my request,\nSee that forthwith Duke Edward be convey'd\nUnto my brother, Archbishop of York.\nWhen I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows,\nI'll follow you, and tell what answer\nLewis and the Lady Bona send to him.\nNow, for a while farewell, good Duke of York.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat fates impose, that men must needs abide;\nIt boots not to resist both wind and tide.\n\nOXFORD:\nWhat now remains, my lords, for us to do\nBut march to London with our soldiers?\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, that's the first thing that we have to do;\nTo free King Henry from imprisonment\nAnd see him seated in the regal throne.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRIVERS:\nMadam, what makes you in this sudden change?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhy brother Rivers, are you yet to learn\nWhat late misfortune is befall'n King Edward?\n\nRIVERS:\nWhat! loss of some pitch'd battle against Warwick?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nNo, but the loss of his own royal person.\n\nRIVERS:\nThen is my sovereign slain?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAy, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner,\nEither betray'd by falsehood of his guard\nOr by his foe surprised at unawares:\nAnd, as I further have to understand,\nIs new committed to the Bishop of York,\nFell Warwick's brother and by that our foe.\n\nRIVERS:\nThese news I must confess are full of grief;\nYet, gracious madam, bear it as you may:\nWarwick may lose, that now hath won the day.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTill then fair hope must hinder life's decay.\nAnd I the rather wean me from despair\nFor love of Edward's offspring in my womb:\nThis is it that makes me bridle passion\nAnd bear with mildness my misfortune's cross;\nAy, ay, for this I draw in many a tear\nAnd stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,\nLest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown\nKing Edward's fruit, true heir to the English crown.\n\nRIVERS:\nBut, madam, where is Warwick then become?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI am inform'd that he comes towards London,\nTo set the crown once more on Henry's head:\nGuess thou the rest; King Edward's friends must down,\nBut, to prevent the tyrant's violence,--\nFor trust not him that hath once broken faith,--\nI'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary,\nTo save at least the heir of Edward's right:\nThere shall I rest secure from force and fraud.\nCome, therefore, let us fly while we may fly:\nIf Warwick take us we are sure to die.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow, my Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,\nLeave off to wonder why I drew you hither,\nInto this chiefest thicket of the park.\nThus stands the case: you know our king, my brother,\nIs prisoner to the bishop here, at whose hands\nHe hath good usage and great liberty,\nAnd, often but attended with weak guard,\nComes hunting this way to disport himself.\nI have advertised him by secret means\nThat if about this hour he make his way\nUnder the colour of his usual game,\nHe shall here find his friends with horse and men\nTo set him free from his captivity.\n\nHuntsman:\nThis way, my lord; for this way lies the game.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNay, this way, man: see where the huntsmen stand.\nNow, brother of Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\nStand you thus close, to steal the bishop's deer?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBrother, the time and case requireth haste:\nYour horse stands ready at the park-corner.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut whither shall we then?\n\nHASTINGS:\nTo Lynn, my lord,\nAnd ship from thence to Flanders.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWell guess'd, believe me; for that was my meaning.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nStanley, I will requite thy forwardness.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut wherefore stay we? 'tis no time to talk.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHuntsman, what say'st thou? wilt thou go along?\n\nHuntsman:\nBetter do so than tarry and be hang'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome then, away; let's ha' no more ado.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBishop, farewell: shield thee from Warwick's frown;\nAnd pray that I may repossess the crown.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMaster lieutenant, now that God and friends\nHave shaken Edward from the regal seat,\nAnd turn'd my captive state to liberty,\nMy fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,\nAt our enlargement what are thy due fees?\n\nLieutenant:\nSubjects may challenge nothing of their sovereigns;\nBut if an humble prayer may prevail,\nI then crave pardon of your majesty.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFor what, lieutenant? for well using me?\nNay, be thou sure I'll well requite thy kindness,\nFor that it made my imprisonment a pleasure;\nAy, such a pleasure as incaged birds\nConceive when after many moody thoughts\nAt last by notes of household harmony\nThey quite forget their loss of liberty.\nBut, Warwick, after God, thou set'st me free,\nAnd chiefly therefore I thank God and thee;\nHe was the author, thou the instrument.\nTherefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite\nBy living low, where fortune cannot hurt me,\nAnd that the people of this blessed land\nMay not be punish'd with my thwarting stars,\nWarwick, although my head still wear the crown,\nI here resign my government to thee,\nFor thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.\n\nWARWICK:\nYour grace hath still been famed for virtuous;\nAnd now may seem as wise as virtuous,\nBy spying and avoiding fortune's malice,\nFor few men rightly temper with the stars:\nYet in this one thing let me blame your grace,\nFor choosing me when Clarence is in place.\n\nCLARENCE:\nNo, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,\nTo whom the heavens in thy nativity\nAdjudged an olive branch and laurel crown,\nAs likely to be blest in peace and war;\nAnd therefore I yield thee my free consent.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd I choose Clarence only for protector.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWarwick and Clarence give me both your hands:\nNow join your hands, and with your hands your hearts,\nThat no dissension hinder government:\nI make you both protectors of this land,\nWhile I myself will lead a private life\nAnd in devotion spend my latter days,\nTo sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat answers Clarence to his sovereign's will?\n\nCLARENCE:\nThat he consents, if Warwick yield consent;\nFor on thy fortune I repose myself.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy, then, though loath, yet must I be content:\nWe'll yoke together, like a double shadow\nTo Henry's body, and supply his place;\nI mean, in bearing weight of government,\nWhile he enjoys the honour and his ease.\nAnd, Clarence, now then it is more than needful\nForthwith that Edward be pronounced a traitor,\nAnd all his lands and goods be confiscate.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhat else? and that succession be determined.\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, therein Clarence shall not want his part.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBut, with the first of all your chief affairs,\nLet me entreat, for I command no more,\nThat Margaret your queen and my son Edward\nBe sent for, to return from France with speed;\nFor, till I see them here, by doubtful fear\nMy joy of liberty is half eclipsed.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIt shall be done, my sovereign, with all speed.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy Lord of Somerset, what youth is that,\nOf whom you seem to have so tender care?\n\nSOMERSET:\nMy liege, it is young Henry, earl of Richmond.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nCome hither, England's hope.\nIf secret powers\nSuggest but truth to my divining thoughts,\nThis pretty lad will prove our country's bliss.\nHis looks are full of peaceful majesty,\nHis head by nature framed to wear a crown,\nHis hand to wield a sceptre, and himself\nLikely in time to bless a regal throne.\nMake much of him, my lords, for this is he\nMust help you more than you are hurt by me.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat news, my friend?\n\nPost:\nThat Edward is escaped from your brother,\nAnd fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.\n\nWARWICK:\nUnsavoury news! but how made he escape?\n\nPost:\nHe was convey'd by Richard Duke of Gloucester\nAnd the Lord Hastings, who attended him\nIn secret ambush on the forest side\nAnd from the bishop's huntsmen rescued him;\nFor hunting was his daily exercise.\n\nWARWICK:\nMy brother was too careless of his charge.\nBut let us hence, my sovereign, to provide\nA salve for any sore that may betide.\n\nSOMERSET:\nMy lord, I like not of this flight of Edward's;\nFor doubtless Burgundy will yield him help,\nAnd we shall have more wars before 't be long.\nAs Henry's late presaging prophecy\nDid glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,\nSo doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts\nWhat may befall him, to his harm and ours:\nTherefore, Lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,\nForthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany,\nTill storms be past of civil enmity.\n\nOXFORD:\nAy, for if Edward repossess the crown,\n'Tis like that Richmond with the rest shall down.\n\nSOMERSET:\nIt shall be so; he shall to Brittany.\nCome, therefore, let's about it speedily.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, brother Richard, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\nYet thus far fortune maketh us amends,\nAnd says that once more I shall interchange\nMy waned state for Henry's regal crown.\nWell have we pass'd and now repass'd the seas\nAnd brought desired help from Burgundy:\nWhat then remains, we being thus arrived\nFrom Ravenspurgh haven before the gates of York,\nBut that we enter, as into our dukedom?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe gates made fast! Brother, I like not this;\nFor many men that stumble at the threshold\nAre well foretold that danger lurks within.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTush, man, abodements must not now affright us:\nBy fair or foul means we must enter in,\nFor hither will our friends repair to us.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy liege, I'll knock once more to summon them.\n\nMayor:\nMy lords, we were forewarned of your coming,\nAnd shut the gates for safety of ourselves;\nFor now we owe allegiance unto Henry.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut, master mayor, if Henry be your king,\nYet Edward at the least is Duke of York.\n\nMayor:\nTrue, my good lord; I know you for no less.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, and I challenge nothing but my dukedom,\nAs being well content with that alone.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nHASTINGS:\nWhy, master mayor, why stand you in a doubt?\nOpen the gates; we are King Henry's friends.\n\nMayor:\nAy, say you so? the gates shall then be open'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA wise stout captain, and soon persuaded!\n\nHASTINGS:\nThe good old man would fain that all were well,\nSo 'twere not 'long of him; but being enter'd,\nI doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade\nBoth him and all his brothers unto reason.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSo, master mayor: these gates must not be shut\nBut in the night or in the time of war.\nWhat! fear not, man, but yield me up the keys;\nFor Edward will defend the town and thee,\nAnd all those friends that deign to follow me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBrother, this is Sir John Montgomery,\nOur trusty friend, unless I be deceived.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWelcome, Sir John! But why come you in arms?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nTo help King Edward in his time of storm,\nAs every loyal subject ought to do.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThanks, good Montgomery; but we now forget\nOur title to the crown and only claim\nOur dukedom till God please to send the rest.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nThen fare you well, for I will hence again:\nI came to serve a king and not a duke.\nDrummer, strike up, and let us march away.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNay, stay, Sir John, awhile, and we'll debate\nBy what safe means the crown may be recover'd.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nWhat talk you of debating? in few words,\nIf you'll not here proclaim yourself our king,\nI'll leave you to your fortune and be gone\nTo keep them back that come to succor you:\nWhy shall we fight, if you pretend no title?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, brother, wherefore stand you on nice points?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhen we grow stronger, then we'll make our claim:\nTill then, 'tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAway with scrupulous wit! now arms must rule.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.\nBrother, we will proclaim you out of hand:\nThe bruit thereof will bring you many friends.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThen be it as you will; for 'tis my right,\nAnd Henry but usurps the diadem.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAy, now my sovereign speaketh like himself;\nAnd now will I be Edward's champion.\n\nHASTINGS:\nSound trumpet; Edward shall be here proclaim'd:\nCome, fellow-soldier, make thou proclamation.\n\nSoldier:\nEdward the Fourth, by the grace of God, king of\nEngland and France, and lord of Ireland, &c.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAnd whosoe'er gainsays King Edward's right,\nBy this I challenge him to single fight.\n\nAll:\nLong live Edward the Fourth!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThanks, brave Montgomery; and thanks unto you all:\nIf fortune serve me, I'll requite this kindness.\nNow, for this night, let's harbour here in York;\nAnd when the morning sun shall raise his car\nAbove the border of this horizon,\nWe'll forward towards Warwick and his mates;\nFor well I wot that Henry is no soldier.\nAh, froward Clarence! how evil it beseems thee\nTo flatter Henry and forsake thy brother!\nYet, as we may, we'll meet both thee and Warwick.\nCome on, brave soldiers: doubt not of the day,\nAnd, that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat counsel, lords? Edward from Belgia,\nWith hasty Germans and blunt Hollanders,\nHath pass'd in safety through the narrow seas,\nAnd with his troops doth march amain to London;\nAnd many giddy people flock to him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nLet's levy men, and beat him back again.\n\nCLARENCE:\nA little fire is quickly trodden out;\nWhich, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.\n\nWARWICK:\nIn Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,\nNot mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;\nThose will I muster up: and thou, son Clarence,\nShalt stir up in Suffolk, Norfolk, and in Kent,\nThe knights and gentlemen to come with thee:\nThou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,\nNorthampton and in Leicestershire, shalt find\nMen well inclined to hear what thou command'st:\nAnd thou, brave Oxford, wondrous well beloved,\nIn Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends.\nMy sovereign, with the loving citizens,\nLike to his island girt in with the ocean,\nOr modest Dian circled with her nymphs,\nShall rest in London till we come to him.\nFair lords, take leave and stand not to reply.\nFarewell, my sovereign.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFarewell, my Hector, and my Troy's true hope.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIn sign of truth, I kiss your highness' hand.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWell-minded Clarence, be thou fortunate!\n\nMONTAGUE:\nComfort, my lord; and so I take my leave.\n\nOXFORD:\nAnd thus I seal my truth, and bid adieu.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSweet Oxford, and my loving Montague,\nAnd all at once, once more a happy farewell.\n\nWARWICK:\nFarewell, sweet lords: let's meet at Coventry.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHere at the palace I will rest awhile.\nCousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship?\nMethinks the power that Edward hath in field\nShould not be able to encounter mine.\n\nEXETER:\nThe doubt is that he will seduce the rest.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThat's not my fear; my meed hath got me fame:\nI have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands,\nNor posted off their suits with slow delays;\nMy pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,\nMy mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs,\nMy mercy dried their water-flowing tears;\nI have not been desirous of their wealth,\nNor much oppress'd them with great subsidies.\nNor forward of revenge, though they much err'd:\nThen why should they love Edward more than me?\nNo, Exeter, these graces challenge grace:\nAnd when the lion fawns upon the lamb,\nThe lamb will never cease to follow him.\n\nEXETER:\nHark, hark, my lord! what shouts are these?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSeize on the shame-faced Henry, bear him hence;\nAnd once again proclaim us King of England.\nYou are the fount that makes small brooks to flow:\nNow stops thy spring; my sea sha$l suck them dry,\nAnd swell so much the higher by their ebb.\nHence with him to the Tower; let him not speak.\nAnd, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course\nWhere peremptory Warwick now remains:\nThe sun shines hot; and, if we use delay,\nCold biting winter mars our hoped-for hay.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAway betimes, before his forces join,\nAnd take the great-grown traitor unawares:\nBrave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nWhere is the post that came from valiant Oxford?\nHow far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?\n\nFirst Messenger:\nBy this at Dunsmore, marching hitherward.\n\nWARWICK:\nHow far off is our brother Montague?\nWhere is the post that came from Montague?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nBy this at Daintry, with a puissant troop.\n\nWARWICK:\nSay, Somerville, what says my loving son?\nAnd, by thy guess, how nigh is Clarence now?\n\nSOMERSET:\nAt Southam I did leave him with his forces,\nAnd do expect him here some two hours hence.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen Clarence is at hand, I hear his drum.\n\nSOMERSET:\nIt is not his, my lord; here Southam lies:\nThe drum your honour hears marcheth from Warwick.\n\nWARWICK:\nWho should that be? belike, unlook'd-for friends.\n\nSOMERSET:\nThey are at hand, and you shall quickly know.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nGo, trumpet, to the walls, and sound a parle.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSee how the surly Warwick mans the wall!\n\nWARWICK:\nO unbid spite! is sportful Edward come?\nWhere slept our scouts, or how are they seduced,\nThat we could hear no news of his repair?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,\nSpeak gentle words and humbly bend thy knee,\nCall Edward king and at his hands beg mercy?\nAnd he shall pardon thee these outrages.\n\nWARWICK:\nNay, rather, wilt thou draw thy forces hence,\nConfess who set thee up and pluck'd thee own,\nCall Warwick patron and be penitent?\nAnd thou shalt still remain the Duke of York.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI thought, at least, he would have said the king;\nOr did he make the jest against his will?\n\nWARWICK:\nIs not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAy, by my faith, for a poor earl to give:\nI'll do thee service for so good a gift.\n\nWARWICK:\n'Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy then 'tis mine, if but by Warwick's gift.\n\nWARWICK:\nThou art no Atlas for so great a weight:\nAnd weakling, Warwick takes his gift again;\nAnd Henry is my king, Warwick his subject.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut Warwick's king is Edward's prisoner:\nAnd, gallant Warwick, do but answer this:\nWhat is the body when the head is off?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAlas, that Warwick had no more forecast,\nBut, whiles he thought to steal the single ten,\nThe king was slily finger'd from the deck!\nYou left poor Henry at the Bishop's palace,\nAnd, ten to one, you'll meet him in the Tower.\n\nEDWARD:\n'Tis even so; yet you are Warwick still.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome, Warwick, take the time; kneel down, kneel down:\nNay, when? strike now, or else the iron cools.\n\nWARWICK:\nI had rather chop this hand off at a blow,\nAnd with the other fling it at thy face,\nThan bear so low a sail, to strike to thee.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSail how thou canst, have wind and tide thy friend,\nThis hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair\nShall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off,\nWrite in the dust this sentence with thy blood,\n'Wind-changing Warwick now can change no more.'\n\nWARWICK:\nO cheerful colours! see where Oxford comes!\n\nOXFORD:\nOxford, Oxford, for Lancaster!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe gates are open, let us enter too.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSo other foes may set upon our backs.\nStand we in good array; for they no doubt\nWill issue out again and bid us battle:\nIf not, the city being but of small defence,\nWe'll quickly rouse the traitors in the same.\n\nWARWICK:\nO, welcome, Oxford! for we want thy help.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nMontague, Montague, for Lancaster!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThou and thy brother both shall buy this treason\nEven with the dearest blood your bodies bear.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThe harder match'd, the greater victory:\nMy mind presageth happy gain and conquest.\n\nSOMERSET:\nSomerset, Somerset, for Lancaster!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTwo of thy name, both Dukes of Somerset,\nHave sold their lives unto the house of York;\nAnd thou shalt be the third if this sword hold.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd lo, where George of Clarence sweeps along,\nOf force enough to bid his brother battle;\nWith whom an upright zeal to right prevails\nMore than the nature of a brother's love!\nCome, Clarence, come; thou wilt, if Warwick call.\n\nCLARENCE:\nFather of Warwick, know you what this means?\nLook here, I throw my infamy at thee\nI will not ruinate my father's house,\nWho gave his blood to lime the stones together,\nAnd set up Lancaster. Why, trow'st thou, Warwick,\nThat Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,\nTo bend the fatal instruments of war\nAgainst his brother and his lawful king?\nPerhaps thou wilt object my holy oath:\nTo keep that oath were more impiety\nThan Jephthah's, when he sacrificed his daughter.\nI am so sorry for my trespass made\nThat, to deserve well at my brother's hands,\nI here proclaim myself thy mortal foe,\nWith resolution, wheresoe'er I meet thee--\nAs I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad--\nTo plague thee for thy foul misleading me.\nAnd so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee,\nAnd to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.\nPardon me, Edward, I will make amends:\nAnd, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,\nFor I will henceforth be no more unconstant.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow welcome more, and ten times more beloved,\nThan if thou never hadst deserved our hate.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWelcome, good Clarence; this is brotherlike.\n\nWARWICK:\nO passing traitor, perjured and unjust!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat, Warwick, wilt thou leave the town and fight?\nOr shall we beat the stones about thine ears?\n\nWARWICK:\nAlas, I am not coop'd here for defence!\nI will away towards Barnet presently,\nAnd bid thee battle, Edward, if thou darest.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYes, Warwick, Edward dares, and leads the way.\nLords, to the field; Saint George and victory!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSo, lie thou there: die thou, and die our fear;\nFor Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all.\nNow, Montague, sit fast; I seek for thee,\nThat Warwick's bones may keep thine company.\n\nWARWICK:\nAh, who is nigh? come to me, friend or foe,\nAnd tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?\nWhy ask I that? my mangled body shows,\nMy blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows.\nThat I must yield my body to the earth\nAnd, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.\nThus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,\nWhose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,\nUnder whose shade the ramping lion slept,\nWhose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree\nAnd kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind.\nThese eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,\nHave been as piercing as the mid-day sun,\nTo search the secret treasons of the world:\nThe wrinkles in my brows, now filled with blood,\nWere liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres;\nFor who lived king, but I could dig his grave?\nAnd who durst mine when Warwick bent his brow?\nLo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!\nMy parks, my walks, my manors that I had.\nEven now forsake me, and of all my lands\nIs nothing left me but my body's length.\nWhy, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?\nAnd, live we how we can, yet die we must.\n\nSOMERSET:\nAh, Warwick, Warwick! wert thou as we are.\nWe might recover all our loss again;\nThe queen from France hath brought a puissant power:\nEven now we heard the news: ah, could'st thou fly!\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy, then I would not fly. Ah, Montague,\nIf thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand.\nAnd with thy lips keep in my soul awhile!\nThou lovest me not; for, brother, if thou didst,\nThy tears would wash this cold congealed blood\nThat glues my lips and will not let me speak.\nCome quickly, Montague, or I am dead.\n\nSOMERSET:\nAh, Warwick! Montague hath breathed his last;\nAnd to the latest gasp cried out for Warwick,\nAnd said 'Commend me to my valiant brother.'\nAnd more he would have said, and more he spoke,\nWhich sounded like a clamour in a vault,\nThat mought not be distinguished; but at last\nI well might hear, delivered with a groan,\n'O, farewell, Warwick!'\n\nWARWICK:\nSweet rest his soul! Fly, lords, and save yourselves;\nFor Warwick bids you all farewell to meet in heaven.\n\nOXFORD:\nAway, away, to meet the queen's great power!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThus far our fortune keeps an upward course,\nAnd we are graced with wreaths of victory.\nBut, in the midst of this bright-shining day,\nI spy a black, suspicious, threatening cloud,\nThat will encounter with our glorious sun,\nEre he attain his easeful western bed:\nI mean, my lords, those powers that the queen\nHath raised in Gallia have arrived our coast\nAnd, as we hear, march on to fight with us.\n\nCLARENCE:\nA little gale will soon disperse that cloud\nAnd blow it to the source from whence it came:\nThe very beams will dry those vapours up,\nFor every cloud engenders not a storm.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe queen is valued thirty thousand strong,\nAnd Somerset, with Oxford fled to her:\nIf she have time to breathe be well assured\nHer faction will be full as strong as ours.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWe are advertised by our loving friends\nThat they do hold their course toward Tewksbury:\nWe, having now the best at Barnet field,\nWill thither straight, for willingness rids way;\nAnd, as we march, our strength will be augmented\nIn every county as we go along.\nStrike up the drum; cry 'Courage!' and away.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nGreat lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,\nBut cheerly seek how to redress their harms.\nWhat though the mast be now blown overboard,\nThe cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,\nAnd half our sailors swallow'd in the flood?\nYet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he\nShould leave the helm and like a fearful lad\nWith tearful eyes add water to the sea\nAnd give more strength to that which hath too much,\nWhiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,\nWhich industry and courage might have saved?\nAh, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!\nSay Warwick was our anchor; what of that?\nAnd Montague our topmost; what of him?\nOur slaughter'd friends the tackles; what of these?\nWhy, is not Oxford here another anchor?\nAnd Somerset another goodly mast?\nThe friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?\nAnd, though unskilful, why not Ned and I\nFor once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?\nWe will not from the helm to sit and weep,\nBut keep our course, though the rough wind say no,\nFrom shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck.\nAs good to chide the waves as speak them fair.\nAnd what is Edward but ruthless sea?\nWhat Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?\nAnd Richard but a ragged fatal rock?\nAll these the enemies to our poor bark.\nSay you can swim; alas, 'tis but a while!\nTread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink:\nBestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,\nOr else you famish; that's a threefold death.\nThis speak I, lords, to let you understand,\nIf case some one of you would fly from us,\nThat there's no hoped-for mercy with the brothers\nMore than with ruthless waves, with sands and rocks.\nWhy, courage then! what cannot be avoided\n'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMethinks a woman of this valiant spirit\nShould, if a coward heard her speak these words,\nInfuse his breast with magnanimity\nAnd make him, naked, foil a man at arms.\nI speak not this as doubting any here\nFor did I but suspect a fearful man\nHe should have leave to go away betimes,\nLest in our need he might infect another\nAnd make him of like spirit to himself.\nIf any such be here--as God forbid!--\nLet him depart before we need his help.\n\nOXFORD:\nWomen and children of so high a courage,\nAnd warriors faint! why, 'twere perpetual shame.\nO brave young prince! thy famous grandfather\nDoth live again in thee: long mayst thou live\nTo bear his image and renew his glories!\n\nSOMERSET:\nAnd he that will not fight for such a hope.\nGo home to bed, and like the owl by day,\nIf he arise, be mock'd and wonder'd at.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThanks, gentle Somerset; sweet Oxford, thanks.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAnd take his thanks that yet hath nothing else.\n\nMessenger:\nPrepare you, lords, for Edward is at hand.\nReady to fight; therefore be resolute.\n\nOXFORD:\nI thought no less: it is his policy\nTo haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.\n\nSOMERSET:\nBut he's deceived; we are in readiness.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThis cheers my heart, to see your forwardness.\n\nOXFORD:\nHere pitch our battle; hence we will not budge.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBrave followers, yonder stands the thorny wood,\nWhich, by the heavens' assistance and your strength,\nMust by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.\nI need not add more fuel to your fire,\nFor well I wot ye blaze to burn them out\nGive signal to the fight, and to it, lords!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nLords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say\nMy tears gainsay; for every word I speak,\nYe see, I drink the water of mine eyes.\nTherefore, no more but this: Henry, your sovereign,\nIs prisoner to the foe; his state usurp'd,\nHis realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,\nHis statutes cancell'd and his treasure spent;\nAnd yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil.\nYou fight in justice: then, in God's name, lords,\nBe valiant and give signal to the fight.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow here a period of tumultuous broils.\nAway with Oxford to Hames Castle straight:\nFor Somerset, off with his guilty head.\nGo, bear them hence; I will not hear them speak.\n\nOXFORD:\nFor my part, I'll not trouble thee with words.\n\nSOMERSET:\nNor I, but stoop with patience to my fortune.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nSo part we sadly in this troublous world,\nTo meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIs proclamation made, that who finds Edward\nShall have a high reward, and he his life?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIt is: and lo, where youthful Edward comes!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBring forth the gallant, let us hear him speak.\nWhat! can so young a thorn begin to prick?\nEdward, what satisfaction canst thou make\nFor bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,\nAnd all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to?\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nSpeak like a subject, proud ambitious York!\nSuppose that I am now my father's mouth;\nResign thy chair, and where I stand kneel thou,\nWhilst I propose the selfsame words to thee,\nWhich traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAh, that thy father had been so resolved!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThat you might still have worn the petticoat,\nAnd ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nLet AEsop fable in a winter's night;\nHis currish riddles sort not with this place.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBy heaven, brat, I'll plague ye for that word.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, thou wast born to be a plague to men.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nFor God's sake, take away this captive scold.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nNay, take away this scolding crookback rather.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nPeace, wilful boy, or I will charm your tongue.\n\nCLARENCE:\nUntutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI know my duty; you are all undutiful:\nLascivious Edward, and thou perjured George,\nAnd thou mis-shapen Dick, I tell ye all\nI am your better, traitors as ye are:\nAnd thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTake that, thou likeness of this railer here.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSprawl'st thou? take that, to end thy agony.\n\nCLARENCE:\nAnd there's for twitting me with perjury.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO, kill me too!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMarry, and shall.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHold, Richard, hold; for we have done too much.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy should she live, to fill the world with words?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat, doth she swoon? use means for her recovery.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nClarence, excuse me to the king my brother;\nI'll hence to London on a serious matter:\nEre ye come there, be sure to hear some news.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhat? what?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe Tower, the Tower.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO Ned, sweet Ned! speak to thy mother, boy!\nCanst thou not speak? O traitors! murderers!\nThey that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all,\nDid not offend, nor were not worthy blame,\nIf this foul deed were by to equal it:\nHe was a man; this, in respect, a child:\nAnd men ne'er spend their fury on a child.\nWhat's worse than murderer, that I may name it?\nNo, no, my heart will burst, and if I speak:\nAnd I will speak, that so my heart may burst.\nButchers and villains! bloody cannibals!\nHow sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd!\nYou have no children, butchers! if you had,\nThe thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse:\nBut if you ever chance to have a child,\nLook in his youth to have him so cut off\nAs, deathmen, you have rid this sweet young prince!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAway with her; go, bear her hence perforce.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNay, never bear me hence, dispatch me here,\nHere sheathe thy sword, I'll pardon thee my death:\nWhat, wilt thou not? then, Clarence, do it thou.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBy heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nGood Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do it.\n\nCLARENCE:\nDidst thou not hear me swear I would not do it?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, but thou usest to forswear thyself:\n'Twas sin before, but now 'tis charity.\nWhat, wilt thou not? Where is that devil's butcher,\nHard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou?\nThou art not here: murder is thy alms-deed;\nPetitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAway, I say; I charge ye, bear her hence.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nSo come to you and yours, as to this Prince!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhere's Richard gone?\n\nCLARENCE:\nTo London, all in post; and, as I guess,\nTo make a bloody supper in the Tower.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHe's sudden, if a thing comes in his head.\nNow march we hence: discharge the common sort\nWith pay and thanks, and let's away to London\nAnd see our gentle queen how well she fares:\nBy this, I hope, she hath a son for me.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGood day, my lord. What, at your book so hard?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAy, my good lord:--my lord, I should say rather;\n'Tis sin to flatter; 'good' was little better:\n'Good Gloucester' and 'good devil' were alike,\nAnd both preposterous; therefore, not 'good lord.'\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSirrah, leave us to ourselves: we must confer.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSo flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;\nSo first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece\nAnd next his throat unto the butcher's knife.\nWhat scene of death hath Roscius now to act?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSuspicion always haunts the guilty mind;\nThe thief doth fear each bush an officer.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThe bird that hath been limed in a bush,\nWith trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;\nAnd I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,\nHave now the fatal object in my eye\nWhere my poor young was limed, was caught and kill'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, what a peevish fool was that of Crete,\nThat taught his son the office of a fowl!\nAn yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus;\nThy father, Minos, that denied our course;\nThe sun that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy\nThy brother Edward, and thyself the sea\nWhose envious gulf did swallow up his life.\nAh, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!\nMy breast can better brook thy dagger's point\nThan can my ears that tragic history.\nBut wherefore dost thou come? is't for my life?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThink'st thou I am an executioner?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nA persecutor, I am sure, thou art:\nIf murdering innocents be executing,\nWhy, then thou art an executioner.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThy son I kill'd for his presumption.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst presume,\nThou hadst not lived to kill a son of mine.\nAnd thus I prophesy, that many a thousand,\nWhich now mistrust no parcel of my fear,\nAnd many an old man's sigh and many a widow's,\nAnd many an orphan's water-standing eye--\nMen for their sons, wives for their husbands,\nAnd orphans for their parents timeless death--\nShall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.\nThe owl shriek'd at thy birth,--an evil sign;\nThe night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;\nDogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees;\nThe raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,\nAnd chattering pies in dismal discords sung.\nThy mother felt more than a mother's pain,\nAnd, yet brought forth less than a mother's hope,\nTo wit, an indigested and deformed lump,\nNot like the fruit of such a goodly tree.\nTeeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,\nTo signify thou camest to bite the world:\nAnd, if the rest be true which I have heard,\nThou camest--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI'll hear no more: die, prophet in thy speech:\nFor this amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAy, and for much more slaughter after this.\nGod forgive my sins, and pardon thee!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster\nSink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.\nSee how my sword weeps for the poor king's death!\nO, may such purple tears be alway shed\nFrom those that wish the downfall of our house!\nIf any spark of life be yet remaining,\nDown, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither:\nI, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.\nIndeed, 'tis true that Henry told me of;\nFor I have often heard my mother say\nI came into the world with my legs forward:\nHad I not reason, think ye, to make haste,\nAnd seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?\nThe midwife wonder'd and the women cried\n'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'\nAnd so I was; which plainly signified\nThat I should snarl and bite and play the dog.\nThen, since the heavens have shaped my body so,\nLet hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.\nI have no brother, I am like no brother;\nAnd this word 'love,' which graybeards call divine,\nBe resident in men like one another\nAnd not in me: I am myself alone.\nClarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light:\nBut I will sort a pitchy day for thee;\nFor I will buz abroad such prophecies\nThat Edward shall be fearful of his life,\nAnd then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.\nKing Henry and the prince his son are gone:\nClarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest,\nCounting myself but bad till I be best.\nI'll throw thy body in another room\nAnd triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nOnce more we sit in England's royal throne,\nRe-purchased with the blood of enemies.\nWhat valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,\nHave we mow'd down, in tops of all their pride!\nThree Dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd\nFor hardy and undoubted champions;\nTwo Cliffords, as the father and the son,\nAnd two Northumberlands; two braver men\nNe'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound;\nWith them, the two brave bears, Warwick and Montague,\nThat in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion\nAnd made the forest tremble when they roar'd.\nThus have we swept suspicion from our seat\nAnd made our footstool of security.\nCome hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy.\nYoung Ned, for thee, thine uncles and myself\nHave in our armours watch'd the winter's night,\nWent all afoot in summer's scalding heat,\nThat thou mightst repossess the crown in peace;\nAnd of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nClarence and Gloucester, love my lovely queen;\nAnd kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThe duty that I owe unto your majesty\nI seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd, that I love the tree from whence thou sprang'st,\nWitness the loving kiss I give the fruit.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow am I seated as my soul delights,\nHaving my country's peace and brothers' loves.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhat will your grace have done with Margaret?\nReignier, her father, to the king of France\nHath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,\nAnd hither have they sent it for her ransom.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAway with her, and waft her hence to France.\nAnd now what rests but that we spend the time\nWith stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,\nSuch as befits the pleasure of the court?\nSound drums and trumpets! farewell sour annoy!\nFor here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nIf you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on\nthe like occasion whereon my services are now on\nfoot, you shall see, as I have said, great\ndifference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia\nmeans to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nWherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be\njustified in our loves; for indeed--\n\nCAMILLO:\nBeseech you,--\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nVerily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge:\nwe cannot with such magnificence--in so rare--I know\nnot what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks,\nthat your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience,\nmay, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse\nus.\n\nCAMILLO:\nYou pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nBelieve me, I speak as my understanding instructs me\nand as mine honesty puts it to utterance.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia.\nThey were trained together in their childhoods; and\nthere rooted betwixt them then such an affection,\nwhich cannot choose but branch now. Since their\nmore mature dignities and royal necessities made\nseparation of their society, their encounters,\nthough not personal, have been royally attorneyed\nwith interchange of gifts, letters, loving\nembassies; that they have seemed to be together,\nthough absent, shook hands, as over a vast, and\nembraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed\nwinds. The heavens continue their loves!\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nI think there is not in the world either malice or\nmatter to alter it. You have an unspeakable\ncomfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a\ngentleman of the greatest promise that ever came\ninto my note.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it\nis a gallant child; one that indeed physics the\nsubject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on\ncrutches ere he was born desire yet their life to\nsee him a man.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nWould they else be content to die?\n\nCAMILLO:\nYes; if there were no other excuse why they should\ndesire to live.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nIf the king had no son, they would desire to live\non crutches till he had one.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nNine changes of the watery star hath been\nThe shepherd's note since we have left our throne\nWithout a burthen: time as long again\nWould be find up, my brother, with our thanks;\nAnd yet we should, for perpetuity,\nGo hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher,\nYet standing in rich place, I multiply\nWith one 'We thank you' many thousands moe\nThat go before it.\n\nLEONTES:\nStay your thanks a while;\nAnd pay them when you part.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nSir, that's to-morrow.\nI am question'd by my fears, of what may chance\nOr breed upon our absence; that may blow\nNo sneaping winds at home, to make us say\n'This is put forth too truly:' besides, I have stay'd\nTo tire your royalty.\n\nLEONTES:\nWe are tougher, brother,\nThan you can put us to't.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nNo longer stay.\n\nLEONTES:\nOne seven-night longer.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nVery sooth, to-morrow.\n\nLEONTES:\nWe'll part the time between's then; and in that\nI'll no gainsaying.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nPress me not, beseech you, so.\nThere is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world,\nSo soon as yours could win me: so it should now,\nWere there necessity in your request, although\n'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs\nDo even drag me homeward: which to hinder\nWere in your love a whip to me; my stay\nTo you a charge and trouble: to save both,\nFarewell, our brother.\n\nLEONTES:\nTongue-tied, our queen?\nspeak you.\n\nHERMIONE:\nI had thought, sir, to have held my peace until\nYou have drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,\nCharge him too coldly. Tell him, you are sure\nAll in Bohemia's well; this satisfaction\nThe by-gone day proclaim'd: say this to him,\nHe's beat from his best ward.\n\nLEONTES:\nWell said, Hermione.\n\nHERMIONE:\nTo tell, he longs to see his son, were strong:\nBut let him say so then, and let him go;\nBut let him swear so, and he shall not stay,\nWe'll thwack him hence with distaffs.\nYet of your royal presence I'll adventure\nThe borrow of a week. When at Bohemia\nYou take my lord, I'll give him my commission\nTo let him there a month behind the gest\nPrefix'd for's parting: yet, good deed, Leontes,\nI love thee not a jar o' the clock behind\nWhat lady-she her lord. You'll stay?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nNo, madam.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNay, but you will?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI may not, verily.\n\nHERMIONE:\nVerily!\nYou put me off with limber vows; but I,\nThough you would seek to unsphere the\nstars with oaths,\nShould yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily,\nYou shall not go: a lady's 'Verily' 's\nAs potent as a lord's. Will you go yet?\nForce me to keep you as a prisoner,\nNot like a guest; so you shall pay your fees\nWhen you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?\nMy prisoner? or my guest? by your dread 'Verily,'\nOne of them you shall be.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nYour guest, then, madam:\nTo be your prisoner should import offending;\nWhich is for me less easy to commit\nThan you to punish.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNot your gaoler, then,\nBut your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you\nOf my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys:\nYou were pretty lordings then?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWe were, fair queen,\nTwo lads that thought there was no more behind\nBut such a day to-morrow as to-day,\nAnd to be boy eternal.\n\nHERMIONE:\nWas not my lord\nThe verier wag o' the two?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWe were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun,\nAnd bleat the one at the other: what we changed\nWas innocence for innocence; we knew not\nThe doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd\nThat any did. Had we pursued that life,\nAnd our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd\nWith stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven\nBoldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd\nHereditary ours.\n\nHERMIONE:\nBy this we gather\nYou have tripp'd since.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO my most sacred lady!\nTemptations have since then been born to's; for\nIn those unfledged days was my wife a girl;\nYour precious self had then not cross'd the eyes\nOf my young play-fellow.\n\nHERMIONE:\nGrace to boot!\nOf this make no conclusion, lest you say\nYour queen and I are devils: yet go on;\nThe offences we have made you do we'll answer,\nIf you first sinn'd with us and that with us\nYou did continue fault and that you slipp'd not\nWith any but with us.\n\nLEONTES:\nIs he won yet?\n\nHERMIONE:\nHe'll stay my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nAt my request he would not.\nHermione, my dearest, thou never spokest\nTo better purpose.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNever?\n\nLEONTES:\nNever, but once.\n\nHERMIONE:\nWhat! have I twice said well? when was't before?\nI prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's\nAs fat as tame things: one good deed dying tongueless\nSlaughters a thousand waiting upon that.\nOur praises are our wages: you may ride's\nWith one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere\nWith spur we beat an acre. But to the goal:\nMy last good deed was to entreat his stay:\nWhat was my first? it has an elder sister,\nOr I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace!\nBut once before I spoke to the purpose: when?\nNay, let me have't; I long.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy, that was when\nThree crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death,\nEre I could make thee open thy white hand\nAnd clap thyself my love: then didst thou utter\n'I am yours for ever.'\n\nHERMIONE:\n'Tis grace indeed.\nWhy, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice:\nThe one for ever earn'd a royal husband;\nThe other for some while a friend.\n\nLEONTES:\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nAy, my good lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nI' fecks!\nWhy, that's my bawcock. What, hast\nsmutch'd thy nose?\nThey say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain,\nWe must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain:\nAnd yet the steer, the heifer and the calf\nAre all call'd neat.--Still virginalling\nUpon his palm!--How now, you wanton calf!\nArt thou my calf?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nYes, if you will, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,\nTo be full like me: yet they say we are\nAlmost as like as eggs; women say so,\nThat will say anything but were they false\nAs o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false\nAs dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes\nNo bourn 'twixt his and mine, yet were it true\nTo say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,\nLook on me with your welkin eye: sweet villain!\nMost dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?--may't be?--\nAffection! thy intention stabs the centre:\nThou dost make possible things not so held,\nCommunicatest with dreams;--how can this be?--\nWith what's unreal thou coactive art,\nAnd fellow'st nothing: then 'tis very credent\nThou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost,\nAnd that beyond commission, and I find it,\nAnd that to the infection of my brains\nAnd hardening of my brows.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWhat means Sicilia?\n\nHERMIONE:\nHe something seems unsettled.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow, my lord!\nWhat cheer? how is't with you, best brother?\n\nHERMIONE:\nYou look as if you held a brow of much distraction\nAre you moved, my lord?\n\nLEONTES:\nNo, in good earnest.\nHow sometimes nature will betray its folly,\nIts tenderness, and make itself a pastime\nTo harder bosoms! Looking on the lines\nOf my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil\nTwenty-three years, and saw myself unbreech'd,\nIn my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled,\nLest it should bite its master, and so prove,\nAs ornaments oft do, too dangerous:\nHow like, methought, I then was to this kernel,\nThis squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend,\nWill you take eggs for money?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNo, my lord, I'll fight.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou will! why, happy man be's dole! My brother,\nAre you so fond of your young prince as we\nDo seem to be of ours?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nIf at home, sir,\nHe's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter,\nNow my sworn friend and then mine enemy,\nMy parasite, my soldier, statesman, all:\nHe makes a July's day short as December,\nAnd with his varying childness cures in me\nThoughts that would thick my blood.\n\nLEONTES:\nSo stands this squire\nOfficed with me: we two will walk, my lord,\nAnd leave you to your graver steps. Hermione,\nHow thou lovest us, show in our brother's welcome;\nLet what is dear in Sicily be cheap:\nNext to thyself and my young rover, he's\nApparent to my heart.\n\nHERMIONE:\nIf you would seek us,\nWe are yours i' the garden: shall's attend you there?\n\nLEONTES:\nTo your own bents dispose you: you'll be found,\nBe you beneath the sky.\nI am angling now,\nThough you perceive me not how I give line.\nGo to, go to!\nHow she holds up the neb, the bill to him!\nAnd arms her with the boldness of a wife\nTo her allowing husband!\nGone already!\nInch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and\nears a fork'd one!\nGo, play, boy, play: thy mother plays, and I\nPlay too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue\nWill hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour\nWill be my knell. Go, play, boy, play.\nThere have been,\nOr I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now;\nAnd many a man there is, even at this present,\nNow while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm,\nThat little thinks she has been sluiced in's absence\nAnd his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by\nSir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't\nWhiles other men have gates and those gates open'd,\nAs mine, against their will. Should all despair\nThat have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind\nWould hang themselves. Physic for't there is none;\nIt is a bawdy planet, that will strike\nWhere 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it,\nFrom east, west, north and south: be it concluded,\nNo barricado for a belly; know't;\nIt will let in and out the enemy\nWith bag and baggage: many thousand on's\nHave the disease, and feel't not. How now, boy!\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nI am like you, they say.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy that's some comfort. What, Camillo there?\n\nCAMILLO:\nAy, my good lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man.\nCamillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.\n\nCAMILLO:\nYou had much ado to make his anchor hold:\nWhen you cast out, it still came home.\n\nLEONTES:\nDidst note it?\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe would not stay at your petitions: made\nHis business more material.\n\nLEONTES:\nDidst perceive it?\nThey're here with me already, whispering, rounding\n'Sicilia is a so-forth:' 'tis far gone,\nWhen I shall gust it last. How came't, Camillo,\nThat he did stay?\n\nCAMILLO:\nAt the good queen's entreaty.\n\nLEONTES:\nAt the queen's be't: 'good' should be pertinent\nBut, so it is, it is not. Was this taken\nBy any understanding pate but thine?\nFor thy conceit is soaking, will draw in\nMore than the common blocks: not noted, is't,\nBut of the finer natures? by some severals\nOf head-piece extraordinary? lower messes\nPerchance are to this business purblind? say.\n\nCAMILLO:\nBusiness, my lord! I think most understand\nBohemia stays here longer.\n\nLEONTES:\nHa!\n\nCAMILLO:\nStays here longer.\n\nLEONTES:\nAy, but why?\n\nCAMILLO:\nTo satisfy your highness and the entreaties\nOf our most gracious mistress.\n\nLEONTES:\nSatisfy!\nThe entreaties of your mistress! satisfy!\nLet that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,\nWith all the nearest things to my heart, as well\nMy chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou\nHast cleansed my bosom, I from thee departed\nThy penitent reform'd: but we have been\nDeceived in thy integrity, deceived\nIn that which seems so.\n\nCAMILLO:\nBe it forbid, my lord!\n\nLEONTES:\nTo bide upon't, thou art not honest, or,\nIf thou inclinest that way, thou art a coward,\nWhich hoxes honesty behind, restraining\nFrom course required; or else thou must be counted\nA servant grafted in my serious trust\nAnd therein negligent; or else a fool\nThat seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,\nAnd takest it all for jest.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy gracious lord,\nI may be negligent, foolish and fearful;\nIn every one of these no man is free,\nBut that his negligence, his folly, fear,\nAmong the infinite doings of the world,\nSometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,\nIf ever I were wilful-negligent,\nIt was my folly; if industriously\nI play'd the fool, it was my negligence,\nNot weighing well the end; if ever fearful\nTo do a thing, where I the issue doubted,\nWhere of the execution did cry out\nAgainst the non-performance, 'twas a fear\nWhich oft infects the wisest: these, my lord,\nAre such allow'd infirmities that honesty\nIs never free of. But, beseech your grace,\nBe plainer with me; let me know my trespass\nBy its own visage: if I then deny it,\n'Tis none of mine.\n\nLEONTES:\nHa' not you seen, Camillo,--\nBut that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass\nIs thicker than a cuckold's horn,--or heard,--\nFor to a vision so apparent rumour\nCannot be mute,--or thought,--for cogitation\nResides not in that man that does not think,--\nMy wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess,\nOr else be impudently negative,\nTo have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say\nMy wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name\nAs rank as any flax-wench that puts to\nBefore her troth-plight: say't and justify't.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI would not be a stander-by to hear\nMy sovereign mistress clouded so, without\nMy present vengeance taken: 'shrew my heart,\nYou never spoke what did become you less\nThan this; which to reiterate were sin\nAs deep as that, though true.\n\nLEONTES:\nIs whispering nothing?\nIs leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?\nKissing with inside lip? stopping the career\nOf laughing with a sigh?--a note infallible\nOf breaking honesty--horsing foot on foot?\nSkulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?\nHours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes\nBlind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,\nThat would unseen be wicked? is this nothing?\nWhy, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;\nThe covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;\nMy wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,\nIf this be nothing.\n\nCAMILLO:\nGood my lord, be cured\nOf this diseased opinion, and betimes;\nFor 'tis most dangerous.\n\nLEONTES:\nSay it be, 'tis true.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNo, no, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nIt is; you lie, you lie:\nI say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,\nPronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,\nOr else a hovering temporizer, that\nCanst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,\nInclining to them both: were my wife's liver\nInfected as her life, she would not live\nThe running of one glass.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWho does infect her?\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy, he that wears her like a medal, hanging\nAbout his neck, Bohemia: who, if I\nHad servants true about me, that bare eyes\nTo see alike mine honour as their profits,\nTheir own particular thrifts, they would do that\nWhich should undo more doing: ay, and thou,\nHis cupbearer,--whom I from meaner form\nHave benched and reared to worship, who mayst see\nPlainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven,\nHow I am galled,--mightst bespice a cup,\nTo give mine enemy a lasting wink;\nWhich draught to me were cordial.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, my lord,\nI could do this, and that with no rash potion,\nBut with a lingering dram that should not work\nMaliciously like poison: but I cannot\nBelieve this crack to be in my dread mistress,\nSo sovereignly being honourable.\nI have loved thee,--\n\nLEONTES:\nMake that thy question, and go rot!\nDost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,\nTo appoint myself in this vexation, sully\nThe purity and whiteness of my sheets,\nWhich to preserve is sleep, which being spotted\nIs goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps,\nGive scandal to the blood o' the prince my son,\nWho I do think is mine and love as mine,\nWithout ripe moving to't? Would I do this?\nCould man so blench?\n\nCAMILLO:\nI must believe you, sir:\nI do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't;\nProvided that, when he's removed, your highness\nWill take again your queen as yours at first,\nEven for your son's sake; and thereby for sealing\nThe injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms\nKnown and allied to yours.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou dost advise me\nEven so as I mine own course have set down:\nI'll give no blemish to her honour, none.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy lord,\nGo then; and with a countenance as clear\nAs friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia\nAnd with your queen. I am his cupbearer:\nIf from me he have wholesome beverage,\nAccount me not your servant.\n\nLEONTES:\nThis is all:\nDo't and thou hast the one half of my heart;\nDo't not, thou split'st thine own.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI'll do't, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nI will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me.\n\nCAMILLO:\nO miserable lady! But, for me,\nWhat case stand I in? I must be the poisoner\nOf good Polixenes; and my ground to do't\nIs the obedience to a master, one\nWho in rebellion with himself will have\nAll that are his so too. To do this deed,\nPromotion follows. If I could find example\nOf thousands that had struck anointed kings\nAnd flourish'd after, I'ld not do't; but since\nNor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one,\nLet villany itself forswear't. I must\nForsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain\nTo me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now!\nHere comes Bohemia.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThis is strange: methinks\nMy favour here begins to warp. Not speak?\nGood day, Camillo.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHail, most royal sir!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWhat is the news i' the court?\n\nCAMILLO:\nNone rare, my lord.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThe king hath on him such a countenance\nAs he had lost some province and a region\nLoved as he loves himself: even now I met him\nWith customary compliment; when he,\nWafting his eyes to the contrary and falling\nA lip of much contempt, speeds from me and\nSo leaves me to consider what is breeding\nThat changeth thus his manners.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI dare not know, my lord.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow! dare not! do not. Do you know, and dare not?\nBe intelligent to me: 'tis thereabouts;\nFor, to yourself, what you do know, you must.\nAnd cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo,\nYour changed complexions are to me a mirror\nWhich shows me mine changed too; for I must be\nA party in this alteration, finding\nMyself thus alter'd with 't.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThere is a sickness\nWhich puts some of us in distemper, but\nI cannot name the disease; and it is caught\nOf you that yet are well.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow! caught of me!\nMake me not sighted like the basilisk:\nI have look'd on thousands, who have sped the better\nBy my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo,--\nAs you are certainly a gentleman, thereto\nClerk-like experienced, which no less adorns\nOur gentry than our parents' noble names,\nIn whose success we are gentle,--I beseech you,\nIf you know aught which does behove my knowledge\nThereof to be inform'd, imprison't not\nIn ignorant concealment.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI may not answer.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nA sickness caught of me, and yet I well!\nI must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo,\nI conjure thee, by all the parts of man\nWhich honour does acknowledge, whereof the least\nIs not this suit of mine, that thou declare\nWhat incidency thou dost guess of harm\nIs creeping toward me; how far off, how near;\nWhich way to be prevented, if to be;\nIf not, how best to bear it.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, I will tell you;\nSince I am charged in honour and by him\nThat I think honourable: therefore mark my counsel,\nWhich must be even as swiftly follow'd as\nI mean to utter it, or both yourself and me\nCry lost, and so good night!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nOn, good Camillo.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI am appointed him to murder you.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nBy whom, Camillo?\n\nCAMILLO:\nBy the king.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nFor what?\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,\nAs he had seen't or been an instrument\nTo vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen\nForbiddenly.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO, then my best blood turn\nTo an infected jelly and my name\nBe yoked with his that did betray the Best!\nTurn then my freshest reputation to\nA savour that may strike the dullest nostril\nWhere I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd,\nNay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection\nThat e'er was heard or read!\n\nCAMILLO:\nSwear his thought over\nBy each particular star in heaven and\nBy all their influences, you may as well\nForbid the sea for to obey the moon\nAs or by oath remove or counsel shake\nThe fabric of his folly, whose foundation\nIs piled upon his faith and will continue\nThe standing of his body.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow should this grow?\n\nCAMILLO:\nI know not: but I am sure 'tis safer to\nAvoid what's grown than question how 'tis born.\nIf therefore you dare trust my honesty,\nThat lies enclosed in this trunk which you\nShall bear along impawn'd, away to-night!\nYour followers I will whisper to the business,\nAnd will by twos and threes at several posterns\nClear them o' the city. For myself, I'll put\nMy fortunes to your service, which are here\nBy this discovery lost. Be not uncertain;\nFor, by the honour of my parents, I\nHave utter'd truth: which if you seek to prove,\nI dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer\nThan one condemn'd by the king's own mouth, thereon\nHis execution sworn.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI do believe thee:\nI saw his heart in 's face. Give me thy hand:\nBe pilot to me and thy places shall\nStill neighbour mine. My ships are ready and\nMy people did expect my hence departure\nTwo days ago. This jealousy\nIs for a precious creature: as she's rare,\nMust it be great, and as his person's mighty,\nMust it be violent, and as he does conceive\nHe is dishonour'd by a man which ever\nProfess'd to him, why, his revenges must\nIn that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me:\nGood expedition be my friend, and comfort\nThe gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing\nOf his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo;\nI will respect thee as a father if\nThou bear'st my life off hence: let us avoid.\n\nCAMILLO:\nIt is in mine authority to command\nThe keys of all the posterns: please your highness\nTo take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.\n\nHERMIONE:\nTake the boy to you: he so troubles me,\n'Tis past enduring.\n\nFirst Lady:\nCome, my gracious lord,\nShall I be your playfellow?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNo, I'll none of you.\n\nFirst Lady:\nWhy, my sweet lord?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nYou'll kiss me hard and speak to me as if\nI were a baby still. I love you better.\n\nSecond Lady:\nAnd why so, my lord?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNot for because\nYour brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,\nBecome some women best, so that there be not\nToo much hair there, but in a semicircle\nOr a half-moon made with a pen.\n\nSecond Lady:\nWho taught you this?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nI learnt it out of women's faces. Pray now\nWhat colour are your eyebrows?\n\nFirst Lady:\nBlue, my lord.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose\nThat has been blue, but not her eyebrows.\n\nFirst Lady:\nHark ye;\nThe queen your mother rounds apace: we shall\nPresent our services to a fine new prince\nOne of these days; and then you'ld wanton with us,\nIf we would have you.\n\nSecond Lady:\nShe is spread of late\nInto a goodly bulk: good time encounter her!\n\nHERMIONE:\nWhat wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now\nI am for you again: pray you, sit by us,\nAnd tell 's a tale.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nMerry or sad shall't be?\n\nHERMIONE:\nAs merry as you will.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nA sad tale's best for winter: I have one\nOf sprites and goblins.\n\nHERMIONE:\nLet's have that, good sir.\nCome on, sit down: come on, and do your best\nTo fright me with your sprites; you're powerful at it.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nThere was a man--\n\nHERMIONE:\nNay, come, sit down; then on.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nDwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly;\nYond crickets shall not hear it.\n\nHERMIONE:\nCome on, then,\nAnd give't me in mine ear.\n\nLEONTES:\nWas he met there? his train? Camillo with him?\n\nFirst Lord:\nBehind the tuft of pines I met them; never\nSaw I men scour so on their way: I eyed them\nEven to their ships.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow blest am I\nIn my just censure, in my true opinion!\nAlack, for lesser knowledge! how accursed\nIn being so blest! There may be in the cup\nA spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,\nAnd yet partake no venom, for his knowledge\nIs not infected: but if one present\nThe abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known\nHow he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,\nWith violent hefts. I have drunk,\nand seen the spider.\nCamillo was his help in this, his pander:\nThere is a plot against my life, my crown;\nAll's true that is mistrusted: that false villain\nWhom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him:\nHe has discover'd my design, and I\nRemain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick\nFor them to play at will. How came the posterns\nSo easily open?\n\nFirst Lord:\nBy his great authority;\nWhich often hath no less prevail'd than so\nOn your command.\n\nLEONTES:\nI know't too well.\nGive me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse him:\nThough he does bear some signs of me, yet you\nHave too much blood in him.\n\nHERMIONE:\nWhat is this? sport?\n\nLEONTES:\nBear the boy hence; he shall not come about her;\nAway with him! and let her sport herself\nWith that she's big with; for 'tis Polixenes\nHas made thee swell thus.\n\nHERMIONE:\nBut I'ld say he had not,\nAnd I'll be sworn you would believe my saying,\nHowe'er you lean to the nayward.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou, my lords,\nLook on her, mark her well; be but about\nTo say 'she is a goodly lady,' and\nThe justice of your bearts will thereto add\n'Tis pity she's not honest, honourable:'\nPraise her but for this her without-door form,\nWhich on my faith deserves high speech, and straight\nThe shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands\nThat calumny doth use--O, I am out--\nThat mercy does, for calumny will sear\nVirtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha's,\nWhen you have said 'she's goodly,' come between\nEre you can say 'she's honest:' but be 't known,\nFrom him that has most cause to grieve it should be,\nShe's an adulteress.\n\nHERMIONE:\nShould a villain say so,\nThe most replenish'd villain in the world,\nHe were as much more villain: you, my lord,\nDo but mistake.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou have mistook, my lady,\nPolixenes for Leontes: O thou thing!\nWhich I'll not call a creature of thy place,\nLest barbarism, making me the precedent,\nShould a like language use to all degrees\nAnd mannerly distinguishment leave out\nBetwixt the prince and beggar: I have said\nShe's an adulteress; I have said with whom:\nMore, she's a traitor and Camillo is\nA federary with her, and one that knows\nWhat she should shame to know herself\nBut with her most vile principal, that she's\nA bed-swerver, even as bad as those\nThat vulgars give bold'st titles, ay, and privy\nTo this their late escape.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNo, by my life.\nPrivy to none of this. How will this grieve you,\nWhen you shall come to clearer knowledge, that\nYou thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,\nYou scarce can right me throughly then to say\nYou did mistake.\n\nLEONTES:\nNo; if I mistake\nIn those foundations which I build upon,\nThe centre is not big enough to bear\nA school-boy's top. Away with her! to prison!\nHe who shall speak for her is afar off guilty\nBut that he speaks.\n\nHERMIONE:\nThere's some ill planet reigns:\nI must be patient till the heavens look\nWith an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,\nI am not prone to weeping, as our sex\nCommonly are; the want of which vain dew\nPerchance shall dry your pities: but I have\nThat honourable grief lodged here which burns\nWorse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords,\nWith thoughts so qualified as your charities\nShall best instruct you, measure me; and so\nThe king's will be perform'd!\n\nLEONTES:\nShall I be heard?\n\nHERMIONE:\nWho is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness,\nMy women may be with me; for you see\nMy plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;\nThere is no cause: when you shall know your mistress\nHas deserved prison, then abound in tears\nAs I come out: this action I now go on\nIs for my better grace. Adieu, my lord:\nI never wish'd to see you sorry; now\nI trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo, do our bidding; hence!\n\nFirst Lord:\nBeseech your highness, call the queen again.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nBe certain what you do, sir, lest your justice\nProve violence; in the which three great ones suffer,\nYourself, your queen, your son.\n\nFirst Lord:\nFor her, my lord,\nI dare my life lay down and will do't, sir,\nPlease you to accept it, that the queen is spotless\nI' the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean,\nIn this which you accuse her.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nIf it prove\nShe's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where\nI lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;\nThan when I feel and see her no farther trust her;\nFor every inch of woman in the world,\nAy, every dram of woman's flesh is false, If she be.\n\nLEONTES:\nHold your peaces.\n\nFirst Lord:\nGood my lord,--\n\nANTIGONUS:\nIt is for you we speak, not for ourselves:\nYou are abused and by some putter-on\nThat will be damn'd for't; would I knew the villain,\nI would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd,\nI have three daughters; the eldest is eleven\nThe second and the third, nine, and some five;\nIf this prove true, they'll pay for't:\nby mine honour,\nI'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see,\nTo bring false generations: they are co-heirs;\nAnd I had rather glib myself than they\nShould not produce fair issue.\n\nLEONTES:\nCease; no more.\nYou smell this business with a sense as cold\nAs is a dead man's nose: but I do see't and feel't\nAs you feel doing thus; and see withal\nThe instruments that feel.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nIf it be so,\nWe need no grave to bury honesty:\nThere's not a grain of it the face to sweeten\nOf the whole dungy earth.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat! lack I credit?\n\nFirst Lord:\nI had rather you did lack than I, my lord,\nUpon this ground; and more it would content me\nTo have her honour true than your suspicion,\nBe blamed for't how you might.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy, what need we\nCommune with you of this, but rather follow\nOur forceful instigation? Our prerogative\nCalls not your counsels, but our natural goodness\nImparts this; which if you, or stupefied\nOr seeming so in skill, cannot or will not\nRelish a truth like us, inform yourselves\nWe need no more of your advice: the matter,\nThe loss, the gain, the ordering on't, is all\nProperly ours.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nAnd I wish, my liege,\nYou had only in your silent judgment tried it,\nWithout more overture.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow could that be?\nEither thou art most ignorant by age,\nOr thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight,\nAdded to their familiarity,\nWhich was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture,\nThat lack'd sight only, nought for approbation\nBut only seeing, all other circumstances\nMade up to the deed, doth push on this proceeding:\nYet, for a greater confirmation,\nFor in an act of this importance 'twere\nMost piteous to be wild, I have dispatch'd in post\nTo sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,\nCleomenes and Dion, whom you know\nOf stuff'd sufficiency: now from the oracle\nThey will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had,\nShall stop or spur me. Have I done well?\n\nFirst Lord:\nWell done, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nThough I am satisfied and need no more\nThan what I know, yet shall the oracle\nGive rest to the minds of others, such as he\nWhose ignorant credulity will not\nCome up to the truth. So have we thought it good\nFrom our free person she should be confined,\nLest that the treachery of the two fled hence\nBe left her to perform. Come, follow us;\nWe are to speak in public; for this business\nWill raise us all.\n\nANTIGONUS:\n\nPAULINA:\nThe keeper of the prison, call to him;\nlet him have knowledge who I am.\nGood lady,\nNo court in Europe is too good for thee;\nWhat dost thou then in prison?\nNow, good sir,\nYou know me, do you not?\n\nGaoler:\nFor a worthy lady\nAnd one whom much I honour.\n\nPAULINA:\nPray you then,\nConduct me to the queen.\n\nGaoler:\nI may not, madam:\nTo the contrary I have express commandment.\n\nPAULINA:\nHere's ado,\nTo lock up honesty and honour from\nThe access of gentle visitors!\nIs't lawful, pray you,\nTo see her women? any of them? Emilia?\n\nGaoler:\nSo please you, madam,\nTo put apart these your attendants, I\nShall bring Emilia forth.\n\nPAULINA:\nI pray now, call her.\nWithdraw yourselves.\n\nGaoler:\nAnd, madam,\nI must be present at your conference.\n\nPAULINA:\nWell, be't so, prithee.\nHere's such ado to make no stain a stain\nAs passes colouring.\nDear gentlewoman,\nHow fares our gracious lady?\n\nEMILIA:\nAs well as one so great and so forlorn\nMay hold together: on her frights and griefs,\nWhich never tender lady hath born greater,\nShe is something before her time deliver'd.\n\nPAULINA:\nA boy?\n\nEMILIA:\nA daughter, and a goodly babe,\nLusty and like to live: the queen receives\nMuch comfort in't; says 'My poor prisoner,\nI am innocent as you.'\n\nPAULINA:\nI dare be sworn\nThese dangerous unsafe lunes i' the king,\nbeshrew them!\nHe must be told on't, and he shall: the office\nBecomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me:\nIf I prove honey-mouth'd let my tongue blister\nAnd never to my red-look'd anger be\nThe trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia,\nCommend my best obedience to the queen:\nIf she dares trust me with her little babe,\nI'll show't the king and undertake to be\nHer advocate to the loud'st. We do not know\nHow he may soften at the sight o' the child:\nThe silence often of pure innocence\nPersuades when speaking fails.\n\nEMILIA:\nMost worthy madam,\nYour honour and your goodness is so evident\nThat your free undertaking cannot miss\nA thriving issue: there is no lady living\nSo meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship\nTo visit the next room, I'll presently\nAcquaint the queen of your most noble offer;\nWho but to-day hammer'd of this design,\nBut durst not tempt a minister of honour,\nLest she should be denied.\n\nPAULINA:\nTell her, Emilia.\nI'll use that tongue I have: if wit flow from't\nAs boldness from my bosom, let 't not be doubted\nI shall do good.\n\nEMILIA:\nNow be you blest for it!\nI'll to the queen: please you,\ncome something nearer.\n\nGaoler:\nMadam, if't please the queen to send the babe,\nI know not what I shall incur to pass it,\nHaving no warrant.\n\nPAULINA:\nYou need not fear it, sir:\nThis child was prisoner to the womb and is\nBy law and process of great nature thence\nFreed and enfranchised, not a party to\nThe anger of the king nor guilty of,\nIf any be, the trespass of the queen.\n\nGaoler:\nI do believe it.\n\nPAULINA:\nDo not you fear: upon mine honour,\nI will stand betwixt you and danger.\n\nLEONTES:\nNor night nor day no rest: it is but weakness\nTo bear the matter thus; mere weakness. If\nThe cause were not in being,--part o' the cause,\nShe the adulteress; for the harlot king\nIs quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank\nAnd level of my brain, plot-proof; but she\nI can hook to me: say that she were gone,\nGiven to the fire, a moiety of my rest\nMight come to me again. Who's there?\n\nFirst Servant:\nMy lord?\n\nLEONTES:\nHow does the boy?\n\nFirst Servant:\nHe took good rest to-night;\n'Tis hoped his sickness is discharged.\n\nLEONTES:\nTo see his nobleness!\nConceiving the dishonour of his mother,\nHe straight declined, droop'd, took it deeply,\nFasten'd and fix'd the shame on't in himself,\nThrew off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,\nAnd downright languish'd. Leave me solely: go,\nSee how he fares.\nFie, fie! no thought of him:\nThe thought of my revenges that way\nRecoil upon me: in himself too mighty,\nAnd in his parties, his alliance; let him be\nUntil a time may serve: for present vengeance,\nTake it on her. Camillo and Polixenes\nLaugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow:\nThey should not laugh if I could reach them, nor\nShall she within my power.\n\nFirst Lord:\nYou must not enter.\n\nPAULINA:\nNay, rather, good my lords, be second to me:\nFear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,\nThan the queen's life? a gracious innocent soul,\nMore free than he is jealous.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nThat's enough.\n\nSecond Servant:\nMadam, he hath not slept tonight; commanded\nNone should come at him.\n\nPAULINA:\nNot so hot, good sir:\nI come to bring him sleep. 'Tis such as you,\nThat creep like shadows by him and do sigh\nAt each his needless heavings, such as you\nNourish the cause of his awaking: I\nDo come with words as medicinal as true,\nHonest as either, to purge him of that humour\nThat presses him from sleep.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat noise there, ho?\n\nPAULINA:\nNo noise, my lord; but needful conference\nAbout some gossips for your highness.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow!\nAway with that audacious lady! Antigonus,\nI charged thee that she should not come about me:\nI knew she would.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI told her so, my lord,\nOn your displeasure's peril and on mine,\nShe should not visit you.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat, canst not rule her?\n\nPAULINA:\nFrom all dishonesty he can: in this,\nUnless he take the course that you have done,\nCommit me for committing honour, trust it,\nHe shall not rule me.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nLa you now, you hear:\nWhen she will take the rein I let her run;\nBut she'll not stumble.\n\nPAULINA:\nGood my liege, I come;\nAnd, I beseech you, hear me, who profess\nMyself your loyal servant, your physician,\nYour most obedient counsellor, yet that dare\nLess appear so in comforting your evils,\nThan such as most seem yours: I say, I come\nFrom your good queen.\n\nLEONTES:\nGood queen!\n\nPAULINA:\nGood queen, my lord,\nGood queen; I say good queen;\nAnd would by combat make her good, so were I\nA man, the worst about you.\n\nLEONTES:\nForce her hence.\n\nPAULINA:\nLet him that makes but trifles of his eyes\nFirst hand me: on mine own accord I'll off;\nBut first I'll do my errand. The good queen,\nFor she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;\nHere 'tis; commends it to your blessing.\n\nLEONTES:\nOut!\nA mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door:\nA most intelligencing bawd!\n\nPAULINA:\nNot so:\nI am as ignorant in that as you\nIn so entitling me, and no less honest\nThan you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant,\nAs this world goes, to pass for honest.\n\nLEONTES:\nTraitors!\nWill you not push her out? Give her the bastard.\nThou dotard! thou art woman-tired, unroosted\nBy thy dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard;\nTake't up, I say; give't to thy crone.\n\nPAULINA:\nFor ever\nUnvenerable be thy hands, if thou\nTakest up the princess by that forced baseness\nWhich he has put upon't!\n\nLEONTES:\nHe dreads his wife.\n\nPAULINA:\nSo I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt\nYou'ld call your children yours.\n\nLEONTES:\nA nest of traitors!\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI am none, by this good light.\n\nPAULINA:\nNor I, nor any\nBut one that's here, and that's himself, for he\nThe sacred honour of himself, his queen's,\nHis hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander,\nWhose sting is sharper than the sword's;\nand will not--\nFor, as the case now stands, it is a curse\nHe cannot be compell'd to't--once remove\nThe root of his opinion, which is rotten\nAs ever oak or stone was sound.\n\nLEONTES:\nA callat\nOf boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband\nAnd now baits me! This brat is none of mine;\nIt is the issue of Polixenes:\nHence with it, and together with the dam\nCommit them to the fire!\n\nPAULINA:\nIt is yours;\nAnd, might we lay the old proverb to your charge,\nSo like you, 'tis the worse. Behold, my lords,\nAlthough the print be little, the whole matter\nAnd copy of the father, eye, nose, lip,\nThe trick of's frown, his forehead, nay, the valley,\nThe pretty dimples of his chin and cheek,\nHis smiles,\nThe very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger:\nAnd thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it\nSo like to him that got it, if thou hast\nThe ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours\nNo yellow in't, lest she suspect, as he does,\nHer children not her husband's!\n\nLEONTES:\nA gross hag\nAnd, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd,\nThat wilt not stay her tongue.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nHang all the husbands\nThat cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself\nHardly one subject.\n\nLEONTES:\nOnce more, take her hence.\n\nPAULINA:\nA most unworthy and unnatural lord\nCan do no more.\n\nLEONTES:\nI'll ha' thee burnt.\n\nPAULINA:\nI care not:\nIt is an heretic that makes the fire,\nNot she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant;\nBut this most cruel usage of your queen,\nNot able to produce more accusation\nThan your own weak-hinged fancy, something savours\nOf tyranny and will ignoble make you,\nYea, scandalous to the world.\n\nLEONTES:\nOn your allegiance,\nOut of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,\nWhere were her life? she durst not call me so,\nIf she did know me one. Away with her!\n\nPAULINA:\nI pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone.\nLook to your babe, my lord; 'tis yours:\nJove send her\nA better guiding spirit! What needs these hands?\nYou, that are thus so tender o'er his follies,\nWill never do him good, not one of you.\nSo, so: farewell; we are gone.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this.\nMy child? away with't! Even thou, that hast\nA heart so tender o'er it, take it hence\nAnd see it instantly consumed with fire;\nEven thou and none but thou. Take it up straight:\nWithin this hour bring me word 'tis done,\nAnd by good testimony, or I'll seize thy life,\nWith what thou else call'st thine. If thou refuse\nAnd wilt encounter with my wrath, say so;\nThe bastard brains with these my proper hands\nShall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire;\nFor thou set'st on thy wife.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI did not, sir:\nThese lords, my noble fellows, if they please,\nCan clear me in't.\n\nLords:\nWe can: my royal liege,\nHe is not guilty of her coming hither.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou're liars all.\n\nFirst Lord:\nBeseech your highness, give us better credit:\nWe have always truly served you, and beseech you\nSo to esteem of us, and on our knees we beg,\nAs recompense of our dear services\nPast and to come, that you do change this purpose,\nWhich being so horrible, so bloody, must\nLead on to some foul issue: we all kneel.\n\nLEONTES:\nI am a feather for each wind that blows:\nShall I live on to see this bastard kneel\nAnd call me father? better burn it now\nThan curse it then. But be it; let it live.\nIt shall not neither. You, sir, come you hither;\nYou that have been so tenderly officious\nWith Lady Margery, your midwife there,\nTo save this bastard's life,--for 'tis a bastard,\nSo sure as this beard's grey,\n--what will you adventure\nTo save this brat's life?\n\nANTIGONUS:\nAny thing, my lord,\nThat my ability may undergo\nAnd nobleness impose: at least thus much:\nI'll pawn the little blood which I have left\nTo save the innocent: any thing possible.\n\nLEONTES:\nIt shall be possible. Swear by this sword\nThou wilt perform my bidding.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI will, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nMark and perform it, see'st thou! for the fail\nOf any point in't shall not only be\nDeath to thyself but to thy lewd-tongued wife,\nWhom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,\nAs thou art liege-man to us, that thou carry\nThis female bastard hence and that thou bear it\nTo some remote and desert place quite out\nOf our dominions, and that there thou leave it,\nWithout more mercy, to its own protection\nAnd favour of the climate. As by strange fortune\nIt came to us, I do in justice charge thee,\nOn thy soul's peril and thy body's torture,\nThat thou commend it strangely to some place\nWhere chance may nurse or end it. Take it up.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI swear to do this, though a present death\nHad been more merciful. Come on, poor babe:\nSome powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens\nTo be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say\nCasting their savageness aside have done\nLike offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous\nIn more than this deed does require! And blessing\nAgainst this cruelty fight on thy side,\nPoor thing, condemn'd to loss!\n\nLEONTES:\nNo, I'll not rear\nAnother's issue.\n\nServant:\nPlease your highness, posts\nFrom those you sent to the oracle are come\nAn hour since: Cleomenes and Dion,\nBeing well arrived from Delphos, are both landed,\nHasting to the court.\n\nFirst Lord:\nSo please you, sir, their speed\nHath been beyond account.\n\nLEONTES:\nTwenty-three days\nThey have been absent: 'tis good speed; foretells\nThe great Apollo suddenly will have\nThe truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords;\nSummon a session, that we may arraign\nOur most disloyal lady, for, as she hath\nBeen publicly accused, so shall she have\nA just and open trial. While she lives\nMy heart will be a burthen to me. Leave me,\nAnd think upon my bidding.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nThe climate's delicate, the air most sweet,\nFertile the isle, the temple much surpassing\nThe common praise it bears.\n\nDION:\nI shall report,\nFor most it caught me, the celestial habits,\nMethinks I so should term them, and the reverence\nOf the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!\nHow ceremonious, solemn and unearthly\nIt was i' the offering!\n\nCLEOMENES:\nBut of all, the burst\nAnd the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle,\nKin to Jove's thunder, so surprised my sense.\nThat I was nothing.\n\nDION:\nIf the event o' the journey\nProve as successful to the queen,--O be't so!--\nAs it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,\nThe time is worth the use on't.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nGreat Apollo\nTurn all to the best! These proclamations,\nSo forcing faults upon Hermione,\nI little like.\n\nDION:\nThe violent carriage of it\nWill clear or end the business: when the oracle,\nThus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up,\nShall the contents discover, something rare\nEven then will rush to knowledge. Go: fresh horses!\nAnd gracious be the issue!\n\nLEONTES:\nThis sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,\nEven pushes 'gainst our heart: the party tried\nThe daughter of a king, our wife, and one\nOf us too much beloved. Let us be clear'd\nOf being tyrannous, since we so openly\nProceed in justice, which shall have due course,\nEven to the guilt or the purgation.\nProduce the prisoner.\n\nOfficer:\nIt is his highness' pleasure that the queen\nAppear in person here in court. Silence!\n\nLEONTES:\nRead the indictment.\n\nOfficer:\n\nHERMIONE:\nSince what I am to say must be but that\nWhich contradicts my accusation and\nThe testimony on my part no other\nBut what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me\nTo say 'not guilty:' mine integrity\nBeing counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,\nBe so received. But thus: if powers divine\nBehold our human actions, as they do,\nI doubt not then but innocence shall make\nFalse accusation blush and tyranny\nTremble at patience. You, my lord, best know,\nWho least will seem to do so, my past life\nHath been as continent, as chaste, as true,\nAs I am now unhappy; which is more\nThan history can pattern, though devised\nAnd play'd to take spectators. For behold me\nA fellow of the royal bed, which owe\nA moiety of the throne a great king's daughter,\nThe mother to a hopeful prince, here standing\nTo prate and talk for life and honour 'fore\nWho please to come and hear. For life, I prize it\nAs I weigh grief, which I would spare: for honour,\n'Tis a derivative from me to mine,\nAnd only that I stand for. I appeal\nTo your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes\nCame to your court, how I was in your grace,\nHow merited to be so; since he came,\nWith what encounter so uncurrent I\nHave strain'd to appear thus: if one jot beyond\nThe bound of honour, or in act or will\nThat way inclining, harden'd be the hearts\nOf all that hear me, and my near'st of kin\nCry fie upon my grave!\n\nLEONTES:\nI ne'er heard yet\nThat any of these bolder vices wanted\nLess impudence to gainsay what they did\nThan to perform it first.\n\nHERMIONE:\nThat's true enough;\nThrough 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou will not own it.\n\nHERMIONE:\nMore than mistress of\nWhich comes to me in name of fault, I must not\nAt all acknowledge. For Polixenes,\nWith whom I am accused, I do confess\nI loved him as in honour he required,\nWith such a kind of love as might become\nA lady like me, with a love even such,\nSo and no other, as yourself commanded:\nWhich not to have done I think had been in me\nBoth disobedience and ingratitude\nTo you and toward your friend, whose love had spoke,\nEven since it could speak, from an infant, freely\nThat it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,\nI know not how it tastes; though it be dish'd\nFor me to try how: all I know of it\nIs that Camillo was an honest man;\nAnd why he left your court, the gods themselves,\nWotting no more than I, are ignorant.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou knew of his departure, as you know\nWhat you have underta'en to do in's absence.\n\nHERMIONE:\nSir,\nYou speak a language that I understand not:\nMy life stands in the level of your dreams,\nWhich I'll lay down.\n\nLEONTES:\nYour actions are my dreams;\nYou had a bastard by Polixenes,\nAnd I but dream'd it. As you were past all shame,--\nThose of your fact are so--so past all truth:\nWhich to deny concerns more than avails; for as\nThy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,\nNo father owning it,--which is, indeed,\nMore criminal in thee than it,--so thou\nShalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage\nLook for no less than death.\n\nHERMIONE:\nSir, spare your threats:\nThe bug which you would fright me with I seek.\nTo me can life be no commodity:\nThe crown and comfort of my life, your favour,\nI do give lost; for I do feel it gone,\nBut know not how it went. My second joy\nAnd first-fruits of my body, from his presence\nI am barr'd, like one infectious. My third comfort\nStarr'd most unluckily, is from my breast,\nThe innocent milk in its most innocent mouth,\nHaled out to murder: myself on every post\nProclaimed a strumpet: with immodest hatred\nThe child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs\nTo women of all fashion; lastly, hurried\nHere to this place, i' the open air, before\nI have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,\nTell me what blessings I have here alive,\nThat I should fear to die? Therefore proceed.\nBut yet hear this: mistake me not; no life,\nI prize it not a straw, but for mine honour,\nWhich I would free, if I shall be condemn'd\nUpon surmises, all proofs sleeping else\nBut what your jealousies awake, I tell you\n'Tis rigor and not law. Your honours all,\nI do refer me to the oracle:\nApollo be my judge!\n\nFirst Lord:\nThis your request\nIs altogether just: therefore bring forth,\nAnd in Apollos name, his oracle.\n\nHERMIONE:\nThe Emperor of Russia was my father:\nO that he were alive, and here beholding\nHis daughter's trial! that he did but see\nThe flatness of my misery, yet with eyes\nOf pity, not revenge!\n\nOfficer:\nYou here shall swear upon this sword of justice,\nThat you, Cleomenes and Dion, have\nBeen both at Delphos, and from thence have brought\nThe seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd\nOf great Apollo's priest; and that, since then,\nYou have not dared to break the holy seal\nNor read the secrets in't.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nAll this we swear.\n\nLEONTES:\nBreak up the seals and read.\n\nOfficer:\n\nLords:\nNow blessed be the great Apollo!\n\nHERMIONE:\nPraised!\n\nLEONTES:\nHast thou read truth?\n\nOfficer:\nAy, my lord; even so\nAs it is here set down.\n\nLEONTES:\nThere is no truth at all i' the oracle:\nThe sessions shall proceed: this is mere falsehood.\n\nServant:\nMy lord the king, the king!\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat is the business?\n\nServant:\nO sir, I shall be hated to report it!\nThe prince your son, with mere conceit and fear\nOf the queen's speed, is gone.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow! gone!\n\nServant:\nIs dead.\n\nLEONTES:\nApollo's angry; and the heavens themselves\nDo strike at my injustice.\nHow now there!\n\nPAULINA:\nThis news is mortal to the queen: look down\nAnd see what death is doing.\n\nLEONTES:\nTake her hence:\nHer heart is but o'ercharged; she will recover:\nI have too much believed mine own suspicion:\nBeseech you, tenderly apply to her\nSome remedies for life.\nApollo, pardon\nMy great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle!\nI'll reconcile me to Polixenes,\nNew woo my queen, recall the good Camillo,\nWhom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy;\nFor, being transported by my jealousies\nTo bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose\nCamillo for the minister to poison\nMy friend Polixenes: which had been done,\nBut that the good mind of Camillo tardied\nMy swift command, though I with death and with\nReward did threaten and encourage him,\nNot doing 't and being done: he, most humane\nAnd fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest\nUnclasp'd my practise, quit his fortunes here,\nWhich you knew great, and to the hazard\nOf all encertainties himself commended,\nNo richer than his honour: how he glisters\nThorough my rust! and how his pity\nDoes my deeds make the blacker!\n\nPAULINA:\nWoe the while!\nO, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,\nBreak too.\n\nFirst Lord:\nWhat fit is this, good lady?\n\nPAULINA:\nWhat studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?\nWhat wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling?\nIn leads or oils? what old or newer torture\nMust I receive, whose every word deserves\nTo taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny\nTogether working with thy jealousies,\nFancies too weak for boys, too green and idle\nFor girls of nine, O, think what they have done\nAnd then run mad indeed, stark mad! for all\nThy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.\nThat thou betray'dst Polixenes,'twas nothing;\nThat did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant\nAnd damnable ingrateful: nor was't much,\nThou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour,\nTo have him kill a king: poor trespasses,\nMore monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon\nThe casting forth to crows thy baby-daughter\nTo be or none or little; though a devil\nWould have shed water out of fire ere done't:\nNor is't directly laid to thee, the death\nOf the young prince, whose honourable thoughts,\nThoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart\nThat could conceive a gross and foolish sire\nBlemish'd his gracious dam: this is not, no,\nLaid to thy answer: but the last,--O lords,\nWhen I have said, cry 'woe!' the queen, the queen,\nThe sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead,\nand vengeance for't\nNot dropp'd down yet.\n\nFirst Lord:\nThe higher powers forbid!\n\nPAULINA:\nI say she's dead; I'll swear't. If word nor oath\nPrevail not, go and see: if you can bring\nTincture or lustre in her lip, her eye,\nHeat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you\nAs I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant!\nDo not repent these things, for they are heavier\nThan all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee\nTo nothing but despair. A thousand knees\nTen thousand years together, naked, fasting,\nUpon a barren mountain and still winter\nIn storm perpetual, could not move the gods\nTo look that way thou wert.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo on, go on\nThou canst not speak too much; I have deserved\nAll tongues to talk their bitterest.\n\nFirst Lord:\nSay no more:\nHowe'er the business goes, you have made fault\nI' the boldness of your speech.\n\nPAULINA:\nI am sorry for't:\nAll faults I make, when I shall come to know them,\nI do repent. Alas! I have show'd too much\nThe rashness of a woman: he is touch'd\nTo the noble heart. What's gone and what's past help\nShould be past grief: do not receive affliction\nAt my petition; I beseech you, rather\nLet me be punish'd, that have minded you\nOf what you should forget. Now, good my liege\nSir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman:\nThe love I bore your queen--lo, fool again!--\nI'll speak of her no more, nor of your children;\nI'll not remember you of my own lord,\nWho is lost too: take your patience to you,\nAnd I'll say nothing.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou didst speak but well\nWhen most the truth; which I receive much better\nThan to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me\nTo the dead bodies of my queen and son:\nOne grave shall be for both: upon them shall\nThe causes of their death appear, unto\nOur shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit\nThe chapel where they lie, and tears shed there\nShall be my recreation: so long as nature\nWill bear up with this exercise, so long\nI daily vow to use it. Come and lead me\nUnto these sorrows.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nThou art perfect then, our ship hath touch'd upon\nThe deserts of Bohemia?\n\nMariner:\nAy, my lord: and fear\nWe have landed in ill time: the skies look grimly\nAnd threaten present blusters. In my conscience,\nThe heavens with that we have in hand are angry\nAnd frown upon 's.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nTheir sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard;\nLook to thy bark: I'll not be long before\nI call upon thee.\n\nMariner:\nMake your best haste, and go not\nToo far i' the land: 'tis like to be loud weather;\nBesides, this place is famous for the creatures\nOf prey that keep upon't.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nGo thou away:\nI'll follow instantly.\n\nMariner:\nI am glad at heart\nTo be so rid o' the business.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nCome, poor babe:\nI have heard, but not believed,\nthe spirits o' the dead\nMay walk again: if such thing be, thy mother\nAppear'd to me last night, for ne'er was dream\nSo like a waking. To me comes a creature,\nSometimes her head on one side, some another;\nI never saw a vessel of like sorrow,\nSo fill'd and so becoming: in pure white robes,\nLike very sanctity, she did approach\nMy cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me,\nAnd gasping to begin some speech, her eyes\nBecame two spouts: the fury spent, anon\nDid this break-from her: 'Good Antigonus,\nSince fate, against thy better disposition,\nHath made thy person for the thrower-out\nOf my poor babe, according to thine oath,\nPlaces remote enough are in Bohemia,\nThere weep and leave it crying; and, for the babe\nIs counted lost for ever, Perdita,\nI prithee, call't. For this ungentle business\nPut on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see\nThy wife Paulina more.' And so, with shrieks\nShe melted into air. Affrighted much,\nI did in time collect myself and thought\nThis was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys:\nYet for this once, yea, superstitiously,\nI will be squared by this. I do believe\nHermione hath suffer'd death, and that\nApollo would, this being indeed the issue\nOf King Polixenes, it should here be laid,\nEither for life or death, upon the earth\nOf its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!\nThere lie, and there thy character: there these;\nWhich may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,\nAnd still rest thine. The storm begins; poor wretch,\nThat for thy mother's fault art thus exposed\nTo loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,\nBut my heart bleeds; and most accursed am I\nTo be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell!\nThe day frowns more and more: thou'rt like to have\nA lullaby too rough: I never saw\nThe heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour!\nWell may I get aboard! This is the chase:\nI am gone for ever.\n\nShepherd:\nI would there were no age between sixteen and\nthree-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the\nrest; for there is nothing in the between but\ngetting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry,\nstealing, fighting--Hark you now! Would any but\nthese boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty\nhunt this weather? They have scared away two of my\nbest sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find\nthan the master: if any where I have them, 'tis by\nthe seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an't be thy\nwill what have we here! Mercy on 's, a barne a very\npretty barne! A boy or a child, I wonder? A\npretty one; a very pretty one: sure, some 'scape:\nthough I am not bookish, yet I can read\nwaiting-gentlewoman in the 'scape. This has been\nsome stair-work, some trunk-work, some\nbehind-door-work: they were warmer that got this\nthan the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for\npity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hallooed\nbut even now. Whoa, ho, hoa!\n\nClown:\nHilloa, loa!\n\nShepherd:\nWhat, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk\non when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What\nailest thou, man?\n\nClown:\nI have seen two such sights, by sea and by land!\nbut I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the\nsky: betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust\na bodkin's point.\n\nShepherd:\nWhy, boy, how is it?\n\nClown:\nI would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages,\nhow it takes up the shore! but that's not the\npoint. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls!\nsometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em; now the\nship boring the moon with her main-mast, and anon\nswallowed with yest and froth, as you'ld thrust a\ncork into a hogshead. And then for the\nland-service, to see how the bear tore out his\nshoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help and said\nhis name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an\nend of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragoned\nit: but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the\nsea mocked them; and how the poor gentleman roared\nand the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than\nthe sea or weather.\n\nShepherd:\nName of mercy, when was this, boy?\n\nClown:\nNow, now: I have not winked since I saw these\nsights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor\nthe bear half dined on the gentleman: he's at it\nnow.\n\nShepherd:\nWould I had been by, to have helped the old man!\n\nClown:\nI would you had been by the ship side, to have\nhelped her: there your charity would have lacked footing.\n\nShepherd:\nHeavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here,\nboy. Now bless thyself: thou mettest with things\ndying, I with things newborn. Here's a sight for\nthee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's\nchild! look thee here; take up, take up, boy;\nopen't. So, let's see: it was told me I should be\nrich by the fairies. This is some changeling:\nopen't. What's within, boy?\n\nClown:\nYou're a made old man: if the sins of your youth\nare forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!\n\nShepherd:\nThis is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up\nwith't, keep it close: home, home, the next way.\nWe are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires\nnothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go: come, good\nboy, the next way home.\n\nClown:\nGo you the next way with your findings. I'll go see\nif the bear be gone from the gentleman and how much\nhe hath eaten: they are never curst but when they\nare hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury\nit.\n\nShepherd:\nThat's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that\nwhich is left of him what he is, fetch me to the\nsight of him.\n\nClown:\nMarry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground.\n\nShepherd:\n'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on't.\n\nTime:\nI, that please some, try all, both joy and terror\nOf good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,\nNow take upon me, in the name of Time,\nTo use my wings. Impute it not a crime\nTo me or my swift passage, that I slide\nO'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried\nOf that wide gap, since it is in my power\nTo o'erthrow law and in one self-born hour\nTo plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass\nThe same I am, ere ancient'st order was\nOr what is now received: I witness to\nThe times that brought them in; so shall I do\nTo the freshest things now reigning and make stale\nThe glistering of this present, as my tale\nNow seems to it. Your patience this allowing,\nI turn my glass and give my scene such growing\nAs you had slept between: Leontes leaving,\nThe effects of his fond jealousies so grieving\nThat he shuts up himself, imagine me,\nGentle spectators, that I now may be\nIn fair Bohemia, and remember well,\nI mentioned a son o' the king's, which Florizel\nI now name to you; and with speed so pace\nTo speak of Perdita, now grown in grace\nEqual with wondering: what of her ensues\nI list not prophecy; but let Time's news\nBe known when 'tis brought forth.\nA shepherd's daughter,\nAnd what to her adheres, which follows after,\nIs the argument of Time. Of this allow,\nIf ever you have spent time worse ere now;\nIf never, yet that Time himself doth say\nHe wishes earnestly you never may.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate:\n'tis a sickness denying thee any thing; a death to\ngrant this.\n\nCAMILLO:\nIt is fifteen years since I saw my country: though\nI have for the most part been aired abroad, I\ndesire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent\nking, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling\nsorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to\nthink so, which is another spur to my departure.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nAs thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of\nthy services by leaving me now: the need I have of\nthee thine own goodness hath made; better not to\nhave had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having\nmade me businesses which none without thee can\nsufficiently manage, must either stay to execute\nthem thyself or take away with thee the very\nservices thou hast done; which if I have not enough\nconsidered, as too much I cannot, to be more\nthankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit\ntherein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal\ncountry, Sicilia, prithee speak no more; whose very\nnaming punishes me with the remembrance of that\npenitent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king,\nmy brother; whose loss of his most precious queen\nand children are even now to be afresh lamented.\nSay to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my\nson? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not\nbeing gracious, than they are in losing them when\nthey have approved their virtues.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What\nhis happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I\nhave missingly noted, he is of late much retired\nfrom court and is less frequent to his princely\nexercises than formerly he hath appeared.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI have considered so much, Camillo, and with some\ncare; so far that I have eyes under my service which\nlook upon his removedness; from whom I have this\nintelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a\nmost homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from\nvery nothing, and beyond the imagination of his\nneighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a\ndaughter of most rare note: the report of her is\nextended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThat's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I\nfear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou\nshalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not\nappearing what we are, have some question with the\nshepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not\nuneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither.\nPrithee, be my present partner in this business, and\nlay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI willingly obey your command.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMy best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhen daffodils begin to peer,\nWith heigh! the doxy over the dale,\nWhy, then comes in the sweet o' the year;\nFor the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.\nThe white sheet bleaching on the hedge,\nWith heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!\nDoth set my pugging tooth on edge;\nFor a quart of ale is a dish for a king.\nThe lark, that tirra-lyra chants,\nWith heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,\nAre summer songs for me and my aunts,\nWhile we lie tumbling in the hay.\nI have served Prince Florizel and in my time\nwore three-pile; but now I am out of service:\nBut shall I go mourn for that, my dear?\nThe pale moon shines by night:\nAnd when I wander here and there,\nI then do most go right.\nIf tinkers may have leave to live,\nAnd bear the sow-skin budget,\nThen my account I well may, give,\nAnd in the stocks avouch it.\nMy traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to\nlesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who\nbeing, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise\na snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and\ndrab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is\nthe silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful\non the highway: beating and hanging are terrors to\nme: for the life to come, I sleep out the thought\nof it. A prize! a prize!\n\nClown:\nLet me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod\nyields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred\nshorn. what comes the wool to?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nClown:\nI cannot do't without counters. Let me see; what am\nI to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound\nof sugar, five pound of currants, rice,--what will\nthis sister of mine do with rice? But my father\nhath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it\non. She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays for\nthe shearers, three-man-song-men all, and very good\nones; but they are most of them means and bases; but\none puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to\nhorn-pipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden\npies; mace; dates?--none, that's out of my note;\nnutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I\nmay beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of\nraisins o' the sun.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO that ever I was born!\n\nClown:\nI' the name of me--\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and\nthen, death, death!\n\nClown:\nAlack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay\non thee, rather than have these off.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more\nthan the stripes I have received, which are mighty\nones and millions.\n\nClown:\nAlas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a\ngreat matter.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel\nta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon\nme.\n\nClown:\nWhat, by a horseman, or a footman?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nA footman, sweet sir, a footman.\n\nClown:\nIndeed, he should be a footman by the garments he\nhas left with thee: if this be a horseman's coat,\nit hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand,\nI'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, good sir, tenderly, O!\n\nClown:\nAlas, poor soul!\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my\nshoulder-blade is out.\n\nClown:\nHow now! canst stand?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nClown:\nDost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNo, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have\na kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence,\nunto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or\nany thing I want: offer me no money, I pray you;\nthat kills my heart.\n\nClown:\nWhat manner of fellow was he that robbed you?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nA fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with\ntroll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the\nprince: I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his\nvirtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.\n\nClown:\nHis vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped\nout of the court: they cherish it to make it stay\nthere; and yet it will no more but abide.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nVices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he\nhath been since an ape-bearer; then a\nprocess-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a\nmotion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's\nwife within a mile where my land and living lies;\nand, having flown over many knavish professions, he\nsettled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.\n\nClown:\nOut upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts\nwakes, fairs and bear-baitings.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nVery true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that\nput me into this apparel.\n\nClown:\nNot a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if you had\nbut looked big and spit at him, he'ld have run.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am\nfalse of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant\nhim.\n\nClown:\nHow do you now?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nSweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and\nwalk: I will even take my leave of you, and pace\nsoftly towards my kinsman's.\n\nClown:\nShall I bring thee on the way?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNo, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.\n\nClown:\nThen fare thee well: I must go buy spices for our\nsheep-shearing.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nProsper you, sweet sir!\nYour purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice.\nI'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: if I\nmake not this cheat bring out another and the\nshearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my name\nput in the book of virtue!\nJog on, jog on, the foot-path way,\nAnd merrily hent the stile-a:\nA merry heart goes all the day,\nYour sad tires in a mile-a.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nThese your unusual weeds to each part of you\nDo give a life: no shepherdess, but Flora\nPeering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing\nIs as a meeting of the petty gods,\nAnd you the queen on't.\n\nPERDITA:\nSir, my gracious lord,\nTo chide at your extremes it not becomes me:\nO, pardon, that I name them! Your high self,\nThe gracious mark o' the land, you have obscured\nWith a swain's wearing, and me, poor lowly maid,\nMost goddess-like prank'd up: but that our feasts\nIn every mess have folly and the feeders\nDigest it with a custom, I should blush\nTo see you so attired, sworn, I think,\nTo show myself a glass.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI bless the time\nWhen my good falcon made her flight across\nThy father's ground.\n\nPERDITA:\nNow Jove afford you cause!\nTo me the difference forges dread; your greatness\nHath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble\nTo think your father, by some accident,\nShould pass this way as you did: O, the Fates!\nHow would he look, to see his work so noble\nVilely bound up? What would he say? Or how\nShould I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold\nThe sternness of his presence?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nApprehend\nNothing but jollity. The gods themselves,\nHumbling their deities to love, have taken\nThe shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter\nBecame a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune\nA ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,\nGolden Apollo, a poor humble swain,\nAs I seem now. Their transformations\nWere never for a piece of beauty rarer,\nNor in a way so chaste, since my desires\nRun not before mine honour, nor my lusts\nBurn hotter than my faith.\n\nPERDITA:\nO, but, sir,\nYour resolution cannot hold, when 'tis\nOpposed, as it must be, by the power of the king:\nOne of these two must be necessities,\nWhich then will speak, that you must\nchange this purpose,\nOr I my life.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nThou dearest Perdita,\nWith these forced thoughts, I prithee, darken not\nThe mirth o' the feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,\nOr not my father's. For I cannot be\nMine own, nor any thing to any, if\nI be not thine. To this I am most constant,\nThough destiny say no. Be merry, gentle;\nStrangle such thoughts as these with any thing\nThat you behold the while. Your guests are coming:\nLift up your countenance, as it were the day\nOf celebration of that nuptial which\nWe two have sworn shall come.\n\nPERDITA:\nO lady Fortune,\nStand you auspicious!\n\nFLORIZEL:\nSee, your guests approach:\nAddress yourself to entertain them sprightly,\nAnd let's be red with mirth.\n\nShepherd:\nFie, daughter! when my old wife lived, upon\nThis day she was both pantler, butler, cook,\nBoth dame and servant; welcomed all, served all;\nWould sing her song and dance her turn; now here,\nAt upper end o' the table, now i' the middle;\nOn his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire\nWith labour and the thing she took to quench it,\nShe would to each one sip. You are retired,\nAs if you were a feasted one and not\nThe hostess of the meeting: pray you, bid\nThese unknown friends to's welcome; for it is\nA way to make us better friends, more known.\nCome, quench your blushes and present yourself\nThat which you are, mistress o' the feast: come on,\nAnd bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,\nAs your good flock shall prosper.\n\nPERDITA:\n\nPOLIXENES:\nShepherdess,\nA fair one are you--well you fit our ages\nWith flowers of winter.\n\nPERDITA:\nSir, the year growing ancient,\nNot yet on summer's death, nor on the birth\nOf trembling winter, the fairest\nflowers o' the season\nAre our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,\nWhich some call nature's bastards: of that kind\nOur rustic garden's barren; and I care not\nTo get slips of them.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWherefore, gentle maiden,\nDo you neglect them?\n\nPERDITA:\nFor I have heard it said\nThere is an art which in their piedness shares\nWith great creating nature.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nSay there be;\nYet nature is made better by no mean\nBut nature makes that mean: so, over that art\nWhich you say adds to nature, is an art\nThat nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry\nA gentler scion to the wildest stock,\nAnd make conceive a bark of baser kind\nBy bud of nobler race: this is an art\nWhich does mend nature, change it rather, but\nThe art itself is nature.\n\nPERDITA:\nSo it is.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThen make your garden rich in gillyvors,\nAnd do not call them bastards.\n\nPERDITA:\nI'll not put\nThe dibble in earth to set one slip of them;\nNo more than were I painted I would wish\nThis youth should say 'twere well and only therefore\nDesire to breed by me. Here's flowers for you;\nHot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram;\nThe marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun\nAnd with him rises weeping: these are flowers\nOf middle summer, and I think they are given\nTo men of middle age. You're very welcome.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI should leave grazing, were I of your flock,\nAnd only live by gazing.\n\nPERDITA:\nOut, alas!\nYou'd be so lean, that blasts of January\nWould blow you through and through.\nNow, my fair'st friend,\nI would I had some flowers o' the spring that might\nBecome your time of day; and yours, and yours,\nThat wear upon your virgin branches yet\nYour maidenheads growing: O Proserpina,\nFor the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall\nFrom Dis's waggon! daffodils,\nThat come before the swallow dares, and take\nThe winds of March with beauty; violets dim,\nBut sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes\nOr Cytherea's breath; pale primroses\nThat die unmarried, ere they can behold\nBight Phoebus in his strength--a malady\nMost incident to maids; bold oxlips and\nThe crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,\nThe flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack,\nTo make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,\nTo strew him o'er and o'er!\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWhat, like a corse?\n\nPERDITA:\nNo, like a bank for love to lie and play on;\nNot like a corse; or if, not to be buried,\nBut quick and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers:\nMethinks I play as I have seen them do\nIn Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine\nDoes change my disposition.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWhat you do\nStill betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.\nI'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,\nI'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,\nPray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,\nTo sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you\nA wave o' the sea, that you might ever do\nNothing but that; move still, still so,\nAnd own no other function: each your doing,\nSo singular in each particular,\nCrowns what you are doing in the present deed,\nThat all your acts are queens.\n\nPERDITA:\nO Doricles,\nYour praises are too large: but that your youth,\nAnd the true blood which peepeth fairly through't,\nDo plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd,\nWith wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,\nYou woo'd me the false way.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI think you have\nAs little skill to fear as I have purpose\nTo put you to't. But come; our dance, I pray:\nYour hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair,\nThat never mean to part.\n\nPERDITA:\nI'll swear for 'em.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThis is the prettiest low-born lass that ever\nRan on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems\nBut smacks of something greater than herself,\nToo noble for this place.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe tells her something\nThat makes her blood look out: good sooth, she is\nThe queen of curds and cream.\n\nClown:\nCome on, strike up!\n\nDORCAS:\nMopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic,\nTo mend her kissing with!\n\nMOPSA:\nNow, in good time!\n\nClown:\nNot a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.\nCome, strike up!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nPray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this\nWhich dances with your daughter?\n\nShepherd:\nThey call him Doricles; and boasts himself\nTo have a worthy feeding: but I have it\nUpon his own report and I believe it;\nHe looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter:\nI think so too; for never gazed the moon\nUpon the water as he'll stand and read\nAs 'twere my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain.\nI think there is not half a kiss to choose\nWho loves another best.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nShe dances featly.\n\nShepherd:\nSo she does any thing; though I report it,\nThat should be silent: if young Doricles\nDo light upon her, she shall bring him that\nWhich he not dreams of.\n\nServant:\nO master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the\ndoor, you would never dance again after a tabour and\npipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings\nseveral tunes faster than you'll tell money; he\nutters them as he had eaten ballads and all men's\nears grew to his tunes.\n\nClown:\nHe could never come better; he shall come in. I\nlove a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful\nmatter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing\nindeed and sung lamentably.\n\nServant:\nHe hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes; no\nmilliner can so fit his customers with gloves: he\nhas the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without\nbawdry, which is strange; with such delicate\nburthens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump\nher;' and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would,\nas it were, mean mischief and break a foul gap into\nthe matter, he makes the maid to answer 'Whoop, do me\nno harm, good man;' puts him off, slights him, with\n'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThis is a brave fellow.\n\nClown:\nBelieve me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited\nfellow. Has he any unbraided wares?\n\nServant:\nHe hath ribbons of an the colours i' the rainbow;\npoints more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can\nlearnedly handle, though they come to him by the\ngross: inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns: why, he\nsings 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you\nwould think a smock were a she-angel, he so chants\nto the sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.\n\nClown:\nPrithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.\n\nPERDITA:\nForewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in 's tunes.\n\nClown:\nYou have of these pedlars, that have more in them\nthan you'ld think, sister.\n\nPERDITA:\nAy, good brother, or go about to think.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nLawn as white as driven snow;\nCyprus black as e'er was crow;\nGloves as sweet as damask roses;\nMasks for faces and for noses;\nBugle bracelet, necklace amber,\nPerfume for a lady's chamber;\nGolden quoifs and stomachers,\nFor my lads to give their dears:\nPins and poking-sticks of steel,\nWhat maids lack from head to heel:\nCome buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;\nBuy lads, or else your lasses cry: Come buy.\n\nClown:\nIf I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take\nno money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it\nwill also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.\n\nMOPSA:\nI was promised them against the feast; but they come\nnot too late now.\n\nDORCAS:\nHe hath promised you more than that, or there be liars.\n\nMOPSA:\nHe hath paid you all he promised you; may be, he has\npaid you more, which will shame you to give him again.\n\nClown:\nIs there no manners left among maids? will they\nwear their plackets where they should bear their\nfaces? Is there not milking-time, when you are\ngoing to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these\nsecrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all\nour guests? 'tis well they are whispering: clamour\nyour tongues, and not a word more.\n\nMOPSA:\nI have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace\nand a pair of sweet gloves.\n\nClown:\nHave I not told thee how I was cozened by the way\nand lost all my money?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAnd indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad;\ntherefore it behoves men to be wary.\n\nClown:\nFear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge.\n\nClown:\nWhat hast here? ballads?\n\nMOPSA:\nPray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print o'\nlife, for then we are sure they are true.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHere's one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer's\nwife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a\nburthen and how she longed to eat adders' heads and\ntoads carbonadoed.\n\nMOPSA:\nIs it true, think you?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nVery true, and but a month old.\n\nDORCAS:\nBless me from marrying a usurer!\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHere's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress\nTale-porter, and five or six honest wives that were\npresent. Why should I carry lies abroad?\n\nMOPSA:\nPray you now, buy it.\n\nClown:\nCome on, lay it by: and let's first see moe\nballads; we'll buy the other things anon.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHere's another ballad of a fish, that appeared upon\nthe coast on Wednesday the four-score of April,\nforty thousand fathom above water, and sung this\nballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was\nthought she was a woman and was turned into a cold\nfish for she would not exchange flesh with one that\nloved her: the ballad is very pitiful and as true.\n\nDORCAS:\nIs it true too, think you?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nFive justices' hands at it, and witnesses more than\nmy pack will hold.\n\nClown:\nLay it by too: another.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nThis is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.\n\nMOPSA:\nLet's have some merry ones.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhy, this is a passing merry one and goes to\nthe tune of 'Two maids wooing a man:' there's\nscarce a maid westward but she sings it; 'tis in\nrequest, I can tell you.\n\nMOPSA:\nWe can both sing it: if thou'lt bear a part, thou\nshalt hear; 'tis in three parts.\n\nDORCAS:\nWe had the tune on't a month ago.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI can bear my part; you must know 'tis my\noccupation; have at it with you.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nGet you hence, for I must go\nWhere it fits not you to know.\n\nDORCAS:\nWhither?\n\nMOPSA:\nO, whither?\n\nDORCAS:\nWhither?\n\nMOPSA:\nIt becomes thy oath full well,\nThou to me thy secrets tell.\n\nDORCAS:\nMe too, let me go thither.\n\nMOPSA:\nOr thou goest to the orange or mill.\n\nDORCAS:\nIf to either, thou dost ill.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNeither.\n\nDORCAS:\nWhat, neither?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNeither.\n\nDORCAS:\nThou hast sworn my love to be.\n\nMOPSA:\nThou hast sworn it more to me:\nThen whither goest? say, whither?\n\nClown:\nWe'll have this song out anon by ourselves: my\nfather and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll\nnot trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after\nme. Wenches, I'll buy for you both. Pedlar, let's\nhave the first choice. Follow me, girls.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAnd you shall pay well for 'em.\nWill you buy any tape,\nOr lace for your cape,\nMy dainty duck, my dear-a?\nAny silk, any thread,\nAny toys for your head,\nOf the new'st and finest, finest wear-a?\nCome to the pedlar;\nMoney's a medler.\nThat doth utter all men's ware-a.\n\nServant:\nMaster, there is three carters, three shepherds,\nthree neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made\nthemselves all men of hair, they call themselves\nSaltiers, and they have a dance which the wenches\nsay is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are\nnot in't; but they themselves are o' the mind, if it\nbe not too rough for some that know little but\nbowling, it will please plentifully.\n\nShepherd:\nAway! we'll none on 't: here has been too much\nhomely foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nYou weary those that refresh us: pray, let's see\nthese four threes of herdsmen.\n\nServant:\nOne three of them, by their own report, sir, hath\ndanced before the king; and not the worst of the\nthree but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squier.\n\nShepherd:\nLeave your prating: since these good men are\npleased, let them come in; but quickly now.\n\nServant:\nWhy, they stay at door, sir.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.\nIs it not too far gone? 'Tis time to part them.\nHe's simple and tells much.\nHow now, fair shepherd!\nYour heart is full of something that does take\nYour mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young\nAnd handed love as you do, I was wont\nTo load my she with knacks: I would have ransack'd\nThe pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it\nTo her acceptance; you have let him go\nAnd nothing marted with him. If your lass\nInterpretation should abuse and call this\nYour lack of love or bounty, you were straited\nFor a reply, at least if you make a care\nOf happy holding her.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nOld sir, I know\nShe prizes not such trifles as these are:\nThe gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd\nUp in my heart; which I have given already,\nBut not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life\nBefore this ancient sir, who, it should seem,\nHath sometime loved! I take thy hand, this hand,\nAs soft as dove's down and as white as it,\nOr Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd\nsnow that's bolted\nBy the northern blasts twice o'er.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWhat follows this?\nHow prettily the young swain seems to wash\nThe hand was fair before! I have put you out:\nBut to your protestation; let me hear\nWhat you profess.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nDo, and be witness to 't.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nAnd this my neighbour too?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nAnd he, and more\nThan he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and all:\nThat, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,\nThereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth\nThat ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge\nMore than was ever man's, I would not prize them\nWithout her love; for her employ them all;\nCommend them and condemn them to her service\nOr to their own perdition.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nFairly offer'd.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThis shows a sound affection.\n\nShepherd:\nBut, my daughter,\nSay you the like to him?\n\nPERDITA:\nI cannot speak\nSo well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better:\nBy the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out\nThe purity of his.\n\nShepherd:\nTake hands, a bargain!\nAnd, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to 't:\nI give my daughter to him, and will make\nHer portion equal his.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nO, that must be\nI' the virtue of your daughter: one being dead,\nI shall have more than you can dream of yet;\nEnough then for your wonder. But, come on,\nContract us 'fore these witnesses.\n\nShepherd:\nCome, your hand;\nAnd, daughter, yours.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nSoft, swain, awhile, beseech you;\nHave you a father?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI have: but what of him?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nKnows he of this?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHe neither does nor shall.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMethinks a father\nIs at the nuptial of his son a guest\nThat best becomes the table. Pray you once more,\nIs not your father grown incapable\nOf reasonable affairs? is he not stupid\nWith age and altering rheums? can he speak? hear?\nKnow man from man? dispute his own estate?\nLies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing\nBut what he did being childish?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNo, good sir;\nHe has his health and ampler strength indeed\nThan most have of his age.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nBy my white beard,\nYou offer him, if this be so, a wrong\nSomething unfilial: reason my son\nShould choose himself a wife, but as good reason\nThe father, all whose joy is nothing else\nBut fair posterity, should hold some counsel\nIn such a business.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI yield all this;\nBut for some other reasons, my grave sir,\nWhich 'tis not fit you know, I not acquaint\nMy father of this business.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nLet him know't.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHe shall not.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nPrithee, let him.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNo, he must not.\n\nShepherd:\nLet him, my son: he shall not need to grieve\nAt knowing of thy choice.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nCome, come, he must not.\nMark our contract.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMark your divorce, young sir,\nWhom son I dare not call; thou art too base\nTo be acknowledged: thou a sceptre's heir,\nThat thus affect'st a sheep-hook! Thou old traitor,\nI am sorry that by hanging thee I can\nBut shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece\nOf excellent witchcraft, who of force must know\nThe royal fool thou copest with,--\n\nShepherd:\nO, my heart!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers, and made\nMore homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,\nIf I may ever know thou dost but sigh\nThat thou no more shalt see this knack, as never\nI mean thou shalt, we'll bar thee from succession;\nNot hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,\nFar than Deucalion off: mark thou my words:\nFollow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time,\nThough full of our displeasure, yet we free thee\nFrom the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment.--\nWorthy enough a herdsman: yea, him too,\nThat makes himself, but for our honour therein,\nUnworthy thee,--if ever henceforth thou\nThese rural latches to his entrance open,\nOr hoop his body more with thy embraces,\nI will devise a death as cruel for thee\nAs thou art tender to't.\n\nPERDITA:\nEven here undone!\nI was not much afeard; for once or twice\nI was about to speak and tell him plainly,\nThe selfsame sun that shines upon his court\nHides not his visage from our cottage but\nLooks on alike. Will't please you, sir, be gone?\nI told you what would come of this: beseech you,\nOf your own state take care: this dream of mine,--\nBeing now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther,\nBut milk my ewes and weep.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWhy, how now, father!\nSpeak ere thou diest.\n\nShepherd:\nI cannot speak, nor think\nNor dare to know that which I know. O sir!\nYou have undone a man of fourscore three,\nThat thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,\nTo die upon the bed my father died,\nTo lie close by his honest bones: but now\nSome hangman must put on my shroud and lay me\nWhere no priest shovels in dust. O cursed wretch,\nThat knew'st this was the prince,\nand wouldst adventure\nTo mingle faith with him! Undone! undone!\nIf I might die within this hour, I have lived\nTo die when I desire.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWhy look you so upon me?\nI am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,\nBut nothing alter'd: what I was, I am;\nMore straining on for plucking back, not following\nMy leash unwillingly.\n\nCAMILLO:\nGracious my lord,\nYou know your father's temper: at this time\nHe will allow no speech, which I do guess\nYou do not purpose to him; and as hardly\nWill he endure your sight as yet, I fear:\nThen, till the fury of his highness settle,\nCome not before him.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI not purpose it.\nI think, Camillo?\n\nCAMILLO:\nEven he, my lord.\n\nPERDITA:\nHow often have I told you 'twould be thus!\nHow often said, my dignity would last\nBut till 'twere known!\n\nFLORIZEL:\nIt cannot fail but by\nThe violation of my faith; and then\nLet nature crush the sides o' the earth together\nAnd mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks:\nFrom my succession wipe me, father; I\nAm heir to my affection.\n\nCAMILLO:\nBe advised.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI am, and by my fancy: if my reason\nWill thereto be obedient, I have reason;\nIf not, my senses, better pleased with madness,\nDo bid it welcome.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThis is desperate, sir.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nSo call it: but it does fulfil my vow;\nI needs must think it honesty. Camillo,\nNot for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may\nBe thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or\nThe close earth wombs or the profound sea hides\nIn unknown fathoms, will I break my oath\nTo this my fair beloved: therefore, I pray you,\nAs you have ever been my father's honour'd friend,\nWhen he shall miss me,--as, in faith, I mean not\nTo see him any more,--cast your good counsels\nUpon his passion; let myself and fortune\nTug for the time to come. This you may know\nAnd so deliver, I am put to sea\nWith her whom here I cannot hold on shore;\nAnd most opportune to our need I have\nA vessel rides fast by, but not prepared\nFor this design. What course I mean to hold\nShall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor\nConcern me the reporting.\n\nCAMILLO:\nO my lord!\nI would your spirit were easier for advice,\nOr stronger for your need.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHark, Perdita\nI'll hear you by and by.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe's irremoveable,\nResolved for flight. Now were I happy, if\nHis going I could frame to serve my turn,\nSave him from danger, do him love and honour,\nPurchase the sight again of dear Sicilia\nAnd that unhappy king, my master, whom\nI so much thirst to see.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNow, good Camillo;\nI am so fraught with curious business that\nI leave out ceremony.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, I think\nYou have heard of my poor services, i' the love\nThat I have borne your father?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nVery nobly\nHave you deserved: it is my father's music\nTo speak your deeds, not little of his care\nTo have them recompensed as thought on.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWell, my lord,\nIf you may please to think I love the king\nAnd through him what is nearest to him, which is\nYour gracious self, embrace but my direction:\nIf your more ponderous and settled project\nMay suffer alteration, on mine honour,\nI'll point you where you shall have such receiving\nAs shall become your highness; where you may\nEnjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see,\nThere's no disjunction to be made, but by--\nAs heavens forefend!--your ruin; marry her,\nAnd, with my best endeavours in your absence,\nYour discontenting father strive to qualify\nAnd bring him up to liking.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHow, Camillo,\nMay this, almost a miracle, be done?\nThat I may call thee something more than man\nAnd after that trust to thee.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHave you thought on\nA place whereto you'll go?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNot any yet:\nBut as the unthought-on accident is guilty\nTo what we wildly do, so we profess\nOurselves to be the slaves of chance and flies\nOf every wind that blows.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThen list to me:\nThis follows, if you will not change your purpose\nBut undergo this flight, make for Sicilia,\nAnd there present yourself and your fair princess,\nFor so I see she must be, 'fore Leontes:\nShe shall be habited as it becomes\nThe partner of your bed. Methinks I see\nLeontes opening his free arms and weeping\nHis welcomes forth; asks thee the son forgiveness,\nAs 'twere i' the father's person; kisses the hands\nOf your fresh princess; o'er and o'er divides him\n'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness; the one\nHe chides to hell and bids the other grow\nFaster than thought or time.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWorthy Camillo,\nWhat colour for my visitation shall I\nHold up before him?\n\nCAMILLO:\nSent by the king your father\nTo greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,\nThe manner of your bearing towards him, with\nWhat you as from your father shall deliver,\nThings known betwixt us three, I'll write you down:\nThe which shall point you forth at every sitting\nWhat you must say; that he shall not perceive\nBut that you have your father's bosom there\nAnd speak his very heart.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI am bound to you:\nThere is some sap in this.\n\nCAMILLO:\nA cause more promising\nThan a wild dedication of yourselves\nTo unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain\nTo miseries enough; no hope to help you,\nBut as you shake off one to take another;\nNothing so certain as your anchors, who\nDo their best office, if they can but stay you\nWhere you'll be loath to be: besides you know\nProsperity's the very bond of love,\nWhose fresh complexion and whose heart together\nAffliction alters.\n\nPERDITA:\nOne of these is true:\nI think affliction may subdue the cheek,\nBut not take in the mind.\n\nCAMILLO:\nYea, say you so?\nThere shall not at your father's house these\nseven years\nBe born another such.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nMy good Camillo,\nShe is as forward of her breeding as\nShe is i' the rear our birth.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI cannot say 'tis pity\nShe lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress\nTo most that teach.\n\nPERDITA:\nYour pardon, sir; for this\nI'll blush you thanks.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nMy prettiest Perdita!\nBut O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo,\nPreserver of my father, now of me,\nThe medicine of our house, how shall we do?\nWe are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son,\nNor shall appear in Sicilia.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy lord,\nFear none of this: I think you know my fortunes\nDo all lie there: it shall be so my care\nTo have you royally appointed as if\nThe scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,\nThat you may know you shall not want, one word.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHa, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his\nsworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold\nall my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a\nribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad,\nknife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring,\nto keep my pack from fasting: they throng who\nshould buy first, as if my trinkets had been\nhallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer:\nby which means I saw whose purse was best in\npicture; and what I saw, to my good use I\nremembered. My clown, who wants but something to\nbe a reasonable man, grew so in love with the\nwenches' song, that he would not stir his pettitoes\ntill he had both tune and words; which so drew the\nrest of the herd to me that all their other senses\nstuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket, it\nwas senseless; 'twas nothing to geld a codpiece of a\npurse; I could have filed keys off that hung in\nchains: no hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song,\nand admiring the nothing of it. So that in this\ntime of lethargy I picked and cut most of their\nfestival purses; and had not the old man come in\nwith a whoo-bub against his daughter and the king's\nson and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not\nleft a purse alive in the whole army.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNay, but my letters, by this means being there\nSo soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nAnd those that you'll procure from King Leontes--\n\nCAMILLO:\nShall satisfy your father.\n\nPERDITA:\nHappy be you!\nAll that you speak shows fair.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWho have we here?\nWe'll make an instrument of this, omit\nNothing may give us aid.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIf they have overheard me now, why, hanging.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHow now, good fellow! why shakest thou so? Fear\nnot, man; here's no harm intended to thee.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI am a poor fellow, sir.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWhy, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from\nthee: yet for the outside of thy poverty we must\nmake an exchange; therefore discase thee instantly,\n--thou must think there's a necessity in't,--and\nchange garments with this gentleman: though the\npennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee,\nthere's some boot.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI am a poor fellow, sir.\nI know ye well enough.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNay, prithee, dispatch: the gentleman is half\nflayed already.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAre you in earnest, sir?\nI smell the trick on't.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nDispatch, I prithee.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIndeed, I have had earnest: but I cannot with\nconscience take it.\n\nCAMILLO:\nUnbuckle, unbuckle.\nFortunate mistress,--let my prophecy\nCome home to ye!--you must retire yourself\nInto some covert: take your sweetheart's hat\nAnd pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face,\nDismantle you, and, as you can, disliken\nThe truth of your own seeming; that you may--\nFor I do fear eyes over--to shipboard\nGet undescried.\n\nPERDITA:\nI see the play so lies\nThat I must bear a part.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNo remedy.\nHave you done there?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nShould I now meet my father,\nHe would not call me son.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNay, you shall have no hat.\nCome, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAdieu, sir.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nO Perdita, what have we twain forgot!\nPray you, a word.\n\nCAMILLO:\n\nFLORIZEL:\nFortune speed us!\nThus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThe swifter speed the better.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI understand the business, I hear it: to have an\nopen ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is\nnecessary for a cut-purse; a good nose is requisite\nalso, to smell out work for the other senses. I see\nthis is the time that the unjust man doth thrive.\nWhat an exchange had this been without boot! What\na boot is here with this exchange! Sure the gods do\nthis year connive at us, and we may do any thing\nextempore. The prince himself is about a piece of\niniquity, stealing away from his father with his\nclog at his heels: if I thought it were a piece of\nhonesty to acquaint the king withal, I would not\ndo't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it;\nand therein am I constant to my profession.\nAside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain:\nevery lane's end, every shop, church, session,\nhanging, yields a careful man work.\n\nClown:\nSee, see; what a man you are now!\nThere is no other way but to tell the king\nshe's a changeling and none of your flesh and blood.\n\nShepherd:\nNay, but hear me.\n\nClown:\nNay, but hear me.\n\nShepherd:\nGo to, then.\n\nClown:\nShe being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh\nand blood has not offended the king; and so your\nflesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show\nthose things you found about her, those secret\nthings, all but what she has with her: this being\ndone, let the law go whistle: I warrant you.\n\nShepherd:\nI will tell the king all, every word, yea, and his\nson's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man,\nneither to his father nor to me, to go about to make\nme the king's brother-in-law.\n\nClown:\nIndeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you\ncould have been to him and then your blood had been\nthe dearer by I know how much an ounce.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nShepherd:\nWell, let us to the king: there is that in this\nfardel will make him scratch his beard.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nClown:\nPray heartily he be at palace.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nShepherd:\nTo the palace, an it like your worship.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nYour affairs there, what, with whom, the condition\nof that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your\nnames, your ages, of what having, breeding, and any\nthing that is fitting to be known, discover.\n\nClown:\nWe are but plain fellows, sir.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nA lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no\nlying: it becomes none but tradesmen, and they\noften give us soldiers the lie: but we pay them for\nit with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore\nthey do not give us the lie.\n\nClown:\nYour worship had like to have given us one, if you\nhad not taken yourself with the manner.\n\nShepherd:\nAre you a courtier, an't like you, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest\nthou not the air of the court in these enfoldings?\nhath not my gait in it the measure of the court?\nreceives not thy nose court-odor from me? reflect I\nnot on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou,\nfor that I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy\nbusiness, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier\ncap-a-pe; and one that will either push on or pluck\nback thy business there: whereupon I command thee to\nopen thy affair.\n\nShepherd:\nMy business, sir, is to the king.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhat advocate hast thou to him?\n\nShepherd:\nI know not, an't like you.\n\nClown:\nAdvocate's the court-word for a pheasant: say you\nhave none.\n\nShepherd:\nNone, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHow blessed are we that are not simple men!\nYet nature might have made me as these are,\nTherefore I will not disdain.\n\nClown:\nThis cannot be but a great courtier.\n\nShepherd:\nHis garments are rich, but he wears\nthem not handsomely.\n\nClown:\nHe seems to be the more noble in being fantastical:\na great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking\non's teeth.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nThe fardel there? what's i' the fardel?\nWherefore that box?\n\nShepherd:\nSir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box,\nwhich none must know but the king; and which he\nshall know within this hour, if I may come to the\nspeech of him.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAge, thou hast lost thy labour.\n\nShepherd:\nWhy, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nThe king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a\nnew ship to purge melancholy and air himself: for,\nif thou beest capable of things serious, thou must\nknow the king is full of grief.\n\nShepard:\nSo 'tis said, sir; about his son, that should have\nmarried a shepherd's daughter.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIf that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly:\nthe curses he shall have, the tortures he shall\nfeel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster.\n\nClown:\nThink you so, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNot he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy\nand vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to\nhim, though removed fifty times, shall all come\nunder the hangman: which though it be great pity,\nyet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue a\nram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into\ngrace! Some say he shall be stoned; but that death\nis too soft for him, say I draw our throne into a\nsheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.\n\nClown:\nHas the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear. an't\nlike you, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHe has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then\n'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a\nwasp's nest; then stand till he be three quarters\nand a dram dead; then recovered again with\naqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as\nhe is, and in the hottest day prognostication\nproclaims, shall be be set against a brick-wall, the\nsun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he\nis to behold him with flies blown to death. But what\ntalk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries\nare to be smiled at, their offences being so\ncapital? Tell me, for you seem to be honest plain\nmen, what you have to the king: being something\ngently considered, I'll bring you where he is\naboard, tender your persons to his presence,\nwhisper him in your behalfs; and if it be in man\nbesides the king to effect your suits, here is man\nshall do it.\n\nClown:\nHe seems to be of great authority: close with him,\ngive him gold; and though authority be a stubborn\nbear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: show\nthe inside of your purse to the outside of his hand,\nand no more ado. Remember 'stoned,' and 'flayed alive.'\n\nShepherd:\nAn't please you, sir, to undertake the business for\nus, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much\nmore and leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAfter I have done what I promised?\n\nShepherd:\nAy, sir.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWell, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this business?\n\nClown:\nIn some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful\none, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, that's the case of the shepherd's son: hang him,\nhe'll be made an example.\n\nClown:\nComfort, good comfort! We must to the king and show\nour strange sights: he must know 'tis none of your\ndaughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I\nwill give you as much as this old man does when the\nbusiness is performed, and remain, as he says, your\npawn till it be brought you.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side;\ngo on the right hand: I will but look upon the\nhedge and follow you.\n\nClown:\nWe are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.\n\nShepherd:\nLet's before as he bids us: he was provided to do us good.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIf I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would\nnot suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am\ncourted now with a double occasion, gold and a means\nto do the prince my master good; which who knows how\nthat may turn back to my advancement? I will bring\nthese two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he\nthink it fit to shore them again and that the\ncomplaint they have to the king concerns him\nnothing, let him call me rogue for being so far\nofficious; for I am proof against that title and\nwhat shame else belongs to't. To him will I present\nthem: there may be matter in it.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nSir, you have done enough, and have perform'd\nA saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make,\nWhich you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down\nMore penitence than done trespass: at the last,\nDo as the heavens have done, forget your evil;\nWith them forgive yourself.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhilst I remember\nHer and her virtues, I cannot forget\nMy blemishes in them, and so still think of\nThe wrong I did myself; which was so much,\nThat heirless it hath made my kingdom and\nDestroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man\nBred his hopes out of.\n\nPAULINA:\nTrue, too true, my lord:\nIf, one by one, you wedded all the world,\nOr from the all that are took something good,\nTo make a perfect woman, she you kill'd\nWould be unparallel'd.\n\nLEONTES:\nI think so. Kill'd!\nShe I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me\nSorely, to say I did; it is as bitter\nUpon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good now,\nSay so but seldom.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nNot at all, good lady:\nYou might have spoken a thousand things that would\nHave done the time more benefit and graced\nYour kindness better.\n\nPAULINA:\nYou are one of those\nWould have him wed again.\n\nDION:\nIf you would not so,\nYou pity not the state, nor the remembrance\nOf his most sovereign name; consider little\nWhat dangers, by his highness' fail of issue,\nMay drop upon his kingdom and devour\nIncertain lookers on. What were more holy\nThan to rejoice the former queen is well?\nWhat holier than, for royalty's repair,\nFor present comfort and for future good,\nTo bless the bed of majesty again\nWith a sweet fellow to't?\n\nPAULINA:\nThere is none worthy,\nRespecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods\nWill have fulfill'd their secret purposes;\nFor has not the divine Apollo said,\nIs't not the tenor of his oracle,\nThat King Leontes shall not have an heir\nTill his lost child be found? which that it shall,\nIs all as monstrous to our human reason\nAs my Antigonus to break his grave\nAnd come again to me; who, on my life,\nDid perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel\nMy lord should to the heavens be contrary,\nOppose against their wills.\nCare not for issue;\nThe crown will find an heir: great Alexander\nLeft his to the worthiest; so his successor\nWas like to be the best.\n\nLEONTES:\nGood Paulina,\nWho hast the memory of Hermione,\nI know, in honour, O, that ever I\nHad squared me to thy counsel! then, even now,\nI might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes,\nHave taken treasure from her lips--\n\nPAULINA:\nAnd left them\nMore rich for what they yielded.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou speak'st truth.\nNo more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse,\nAnd better used, would make her sainted spirit\nAgain possess her corpse, and on this stage,\nWhere we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd,\nAnd begin, 'Why to me?'\n\nPAULINA:\nHad she such power,\nShe had just cause.\n\nLEONTES:\nShe had; and would incense me\nTo murder her I married.\n\nPAULINA:\nI should so.\nWere I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark\nHer eye, and tell me for what dull part in't\nYou chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears\nShould rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd\nShould be 'Remember mine.'\n\nLEONTES:\nStars, stars,\nAnd all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;\nI'll have no wife, Paulina.\n\nPAULINA:\nWill you swear\nNever to marry but by my free leave?\n\nLEONTES:\nNever, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!\n\nPAULINA:\nThen, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nYou tempt him over-much.\n\nPAULINA:\nUnless another,\nAs like Hermione as is her picture,\nAffront his eye.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nGood madam,--\n\nPAULINA:\nI have done.\nYet, if my lord will marry,--if you will, sir,\nNo remedy, but you will,--give me the office\nTo choose you a queen: she shall not be so young\nAs was your former; but she shall be such\nAs, walk'd your first queen's ghost,\nit should take joy\nTo see her in your arms.\n\nLEONTES:\nMy true Paulina,\nWe shall not marry till thou bid'st us.\n\nPAULINA:\nThat\nShall be when your first queen's again in breath;\nNever till then.\n\nGentleman:\nOne that gives out himself Prince Florizel,\nSon of Polixenes, with his princess, she\nThe fairest I have yet beheld, desires access\nTo your high presence.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat with him? he comes not\nLike to his father's greatness: his approach,\nSo out of circumstance and sudden, tells us\n'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced\nBy need and accident. What train?\n\nGentleman:\nBut few,\nAnd those but mean.\n\nLEONTES:\nHis princess, say you, with him?\n\nGentleman:\nAy, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,\nThat e'er the sun shone bright on.\n\nPAULINA:\nO Hermione,\nAs every present time doth boast itself\nAbove a better gone, so must thy grave\nGive way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself\nHave said and writ so, but your writing now\nIs colder than that theme, 'She had not been,\nNor was not to be equall'd;'--thus your verse\nFlow'd with her beauty once: 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,\nTo say you have seen a better.\n\nGentleman:\nPardon, madam:\nThe one I have almost forgot,--your pardon,--\nThe other, when she has obtain'd your eye,\nWill have your tongue too. This is a creature,\nWould she begin a sect, might quench the zeal\nOf all professors else, make proselytes\nOf who she but bid follow.\n\nPAULINA:\nHow! not women?\n\nGentleman:\nWomen will love her, that she is a woman\nMore worth than any man; men, that she is\nThe rarest of all women.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo, Cleomenes;\nYourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,\nBring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange\nHe thus should steal upon us.\n\nPAULINA:\nHad our prince,\nJewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd\nWell with this lord: there was not full a month\nBetween their births.\n\nLEONTES:\nPrithee, no more; cease; thou know'st\nHe dies to me again when talk'd of: sure,\nWhen I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches\nWill bring me to consider that which may\nUnfurnish me of reason. They are come.\nYour mother was most true to wedlock, prince;\nFor she did print your royal father off,\nConceiving you: were I but twenty-one,\nYour father's image is so hit in you,\nHis very air, that I should call you brother,\nAs I did him, and speak of something wildly\nBy us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!\nAnd your fair princess,--goddess!--O, alas!\nI lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth\nMight thus have stood begetting wonder as\nYou, gracious couple, do: and then I lost--\nAll mine own folly--the society,\nAmity too, of your brave father, whom,\nThough bearing misery, I desire my life\nOnce more to look on him.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nBy his command\nHave I here touch'd Sicilia and from him\nGive you all greetings that a king, at friend,\nCan send his brother: and, but infirmity\nWhich waits upon worn times hath something seized\nHis wish'd ability, he had himself\nThe lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his\nMeasured to look upon you; whom he loves--\nHe bade me say so--more than all the sceptres\nAnd those that bear them living.\n\nLEONTES:\nO my brother,\nGood gentleman! the wrongs I have done thee stir\nAfresh within me, and these thy offices,\nSo rarely kind, are as interpreters\nOf my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither,\nAs is the spring to the earth. And hath he too\nExposed this paragon to the fearful usage,\nAt least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,\nTo greet a man not worth her pains, much less\nThe adventure of her person?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nGood my lord,\nShe came from Libya.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhere the warlike Smalus,\nThat noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nMost royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter\nHis tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence,\nA prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,\nTo execute the charge my father gave me\nFor visiting your highness: my best train\nI have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;\nWho for Bohemia bend, to signify\nNot only my success in Libya, sir,\nBut my arrival and my wife's in safety\nHere where we are.\n\nLEONTES:\nThe blessed gods\nPurge all infection from our air whilst you\nDo climate here! You have a holy father,\nA graceful gentleman; against whose person,\nSo sacred as it is, I have done sin:\nFor which the heavens, taking angry note,\nHave left me issueless; and your father's blest,\nAs he from heaven merits it, with you\nWorthy his goodness. What might I have been,\nMight I a son and daughter now have look'd on,\nSuch goodly things as you!\n\nLord:\nMost noble sir,\nThat which I shall report will bear no credit,\nWere not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,\nBohemia greets you from himself by me;\nDesires you to attach his son, who has--\nHis dignity and duty both cast off--\nFled from his father, from his hopes, and with\nA shepherd's daughter.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhere's Bohemia? speak.\n\nLord:\nHere in your city; I now came from him:\nI speak amazedly; and it becomes\nMy marvel and my message. To your court\nWhiles he was hastening, in the chase, it seems,\nOf this fair couple, meets he on the way\nThe father of this seeming lady and\nHer brother, having both their country quitted\nWith this young prince.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nCamillo has betray'd me;\nWhose honour and whose honesty till now\nEndured all weathers.\n\nLord:\nLay't so to his charge:\nHe's with the king your father.\n\nLEONTES:\nWho? Camillo?\n\nLord:\nCamillo, sir; I spake with him; who now\nHas these poor men in question. Never saw I\nWretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth;\nForswear themselves as often as they speak:\nBohemia stops his ears, and threatens them\nWith divers deaths in death.\n\nPERDITA:\nO my poor father!\nThe heaven sets spies upon us, will not have\nOur contract celebrated.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou are married?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWe are not, sir, nor are we like to be;\nThe stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first:\nThe odds for high and low's alike.\n\nLEONTES:\nMy lord,\nIs this the daughter of a king?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nShe is,\nWhen once she is my wife.\n\nLEONTES:\nThat 'once' I see by your good father's speed\nWill come on very slowly. I am sorry,\nMost sorry, you have broken from his liking\nWhere you were tied in duty, and as sorry\nYour choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,\nThat you might well enjoy her.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nDear, look up:\nThough Fortune, visible an enemy,\nShould chase us with my father, power no jot\nHath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,\nRemember since you owed no more to time\nThan I do now: with thought of such affections,\nStep forth mine advocate; at your request\nMy father will grant precious things as trifles.\n\nLEONTES:\nWould he do so, I'ld beg your precious mistress,\nWhich he counts but a trifle.\n\nPAULINA:\nSir, my liege,\nYour eye hath too much youth in't: not a month\n'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes\nThan what you look on now.\n\nLEONTES:\nI thought of her,\nEven in these looks I made.\nBut your petition\nIs yet unanswer'd. I will to your father:\nYour honour not o'erthrown by your desires,\nI am friend to them and you: upon which errand\nI now go toward him; therefore follow me\nAnd mark what way I make: come, good my lord.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nBeseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old\nshepherd deliver the manner how he found it:\nwhereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all\ncommanded out of the chamber; only this methought I\nheard the shepherd say, he found the child.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI would most gladly know the issue of it.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI make a broken delivery of the business; but the\nchanges I perceived in the king and Camillo were\nvery notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with\nstaring on one another, to tear the cases of their\neyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language\nin their very gesture; they looked as they had heard\nof a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable\npassion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest\nbeholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not\nsay if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the\nextremity of the one, it must needs be.\nHere comes a gentleman that haply knows more.\nThe news, Rogero?\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nNothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the\nking's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is\nbroken out within this hour that ballad-makers\ncannot be able to express it.\nHere comes the Lady Paulina's steward: he can\ndeliver you more. How goes it now, sir? this news\nwhich is called true is so like an old tale, that\nthe verity of it is in strong suspicion: has the king\nfound his heir?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nMost true, if ever truth were pregnant by\ncircumstance: that which you hear you'll swear you\nsee, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle\nof Queen Hermione's, her jewel about the neck of it,\nthe letters of Antigonus found with it which they\nknow to be his character, the majesty of the\ncreature in resemblance of the mother, the affection\nof nobleness which nature shows above her breeding,\nand many other evidences proclaim her with all\ncertainty to be the king's daughter. Did you see\nthe meeting of the two kings?\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nNo.\n\nThird Gentleman:\nThen have you lost a sight, which was to be seen,\ncannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one\njoy crown another, so and in such manner that it\nseemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their\njoy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes,\nholding up of hands, with countenances of such\ndistraction that they were to be known by garment,\nnot by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of\nhimself for joy of his found daughter, as if that\njoy were now become a loss, cries 'O, thy mother,\nthy mother!' then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then\nembraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his\ndaughter with clipping her; now he thanks the old\nshepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten\nconduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of such\nanother encounter, which lames report to follow it\nand undoes description to do it.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nWhat, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried\nhence the child?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nLike an old tale still, which will have matter to\nrehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear\nopen. He was torn to pieces with a bear: this\navouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his\ninnocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a\nhandkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWhat became of his bark and his followers?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nWrecked the same instant of their master's death and\nin the view of the shepherd: so that all the\ninstruments which aided to expose the child were\neven then lost when it was found. But O, the noble\ncombat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in\nPaulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of\nher husband, another elevated that the oracle was\nfulfilled: she lifted the princess from the earth,\nand so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin\nher to her heart that she might no more be in danger\nof losing.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nThe dignity of this act was worth the audience of\nkings and princes; for by such was it acted.\n\nThird Gentleman:\nOne of the prettiest touches of all and that which\nangled for mine eyes, caught the water though not\nthe fish, was when, at the relation of the queen's\ndeath, with the manner how she came to't bravely\nconfessed and lamented by the king, how\nattentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one\nsign of dolour to another, she did, with an 'Alas,'\nI would fain say, bleed tears, for I am sure my\nheart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed\ncolour; some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world\ncould have seen 't, the woe had been universal.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nAre they returned to the court?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nNo: the princess hearing of her mother's statue,\nwhich is in the keeping of Paulina,--a piece many\nyears in doing and now newly performed by that rare\nItalian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself\neternity and could put breath into his work, would\nbeguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her\nape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that\nthey say one would speak to her and stand in hope of\nanswer: thither with all greediness of affection\nare they gone, and there they intend to sup.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nI thought she had some great matter there in hand;\nfor she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever\nsince the death of Hermione, visited that removed\nhouse. Shall we thither and with our company piece\nthe rejoicing?\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWho would be thence that has the benefit of access?\nevery wink of an eye some new grace will be born:\nour absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge.\nLet's along.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNow, had I not the dash of my former life in me,\nwould preferment drop on my head. I brought the old\nman and his son aboard the prince: told him I heard\nthem talk of a fardel and I know not what: but he\nat that time, overfond of the shepherd's daughter,\nso he then took her to be, who began to be much\nsea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of\nweather continuing, this mystery remained\nundiscovered. But 'tis all one to me; for had I\nbeen the finder out of this secret, it would not\nhave relished among my other discredits.\nHere come those I have done good to against my will,\nand already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.\n\nShepherd:\nCome, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and\ndaughters will be all gentlemen born.\n\nClown:\nYou are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me\nthis other day, because I was no gentleman born.\nSee you these clothes? say you see them not and\nthink me still no gentleman born: you were best say\nthese robes are not gentlemen born: give me the\nlie, do, and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.\n\nClown:\nAy, and have been so any time these four hours.\n\nShepherd:\nAnd so have I, boy.\n\nClown:\nSo you have: but I was a gentleman born before my\nfather; for the king's son took me by the hand, and\ncalled me brother; and then the two kings called my\nfather brother; and then the prince my brother and\nthe princess my sister called my father father; and\nso we wept, and there was the first gentleman-like\ntears that ever we shed.\n\nShepherd:\nWe may live, son, to shed many more.\n\nClown:\nAy; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so\npreposterous estate as we are.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the\nfaults I have committed to your worship and to give\nme your good report to the prince my master.\n\nShepherd:\nPrithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are\ngentlemen.\n\nClown:\nThou wilt amend thy life?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAy, an it like your good worship.\n\nClown:\nGive me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou\nart as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.\n\nShepherd:\nYou may say it, but not swear it.\n\nClown:\nNot swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and\nfranklins say it, I'll swear it.\n\nShepherd:\nHow if it be false, son?\n\nClown:\nIf it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear\nit in the behalf of his friend: and I'll swear to\nthe prince thou art a tall fellow of thy hands and\nthat thou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no\ntall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be\ndrunk: but I'll swear it, and I would thou wouldst\nbe a tall fellow of thy hands.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI will prove so, sir, to my power.\n\nClown:\nAy, by any means prove a tall fellow: if I do not\nwonder how thou darest venture to be drunk, not\nbeing a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark! the kings\nand the princes, our kindred, are going to see the\nqueen's picture. Come, follow us: we'll be thy\ngood masters.\n\nLEONTES:\nO grave and good Paulina, the great comfort\nThat I have had of thee!\n\nPAULINA:\nWhat, sovereign sir,\nI did not well I meant well. All my services\nYou have paid home: but that you have vouchsafed,\nWith your crown'd brother and these your contracted\nHeirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,\nIt is a surplus of your grace, which never\nMy life may last to answer.\n\nLEONTES:\nO Paulina,\nWe honour you with trouble: but we came\nTo see the statue of our queen: your gallery\nHave we pass'd through, not without much content\nIn many singularities; but we saw not\nThat which my daughter came to look upon,\nThe statue of her mother.\n\nPAULINA:\nAs she lived peerless,\nSo her dead likeness, I do well believe,\nExcels whatever yet you look'd upon\nOr hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it\nLonely, apart. But here it is: prepare\nTo see the life as lively mock'd as ever\nStill sleep mock'd death: behold, and say 'tis well.\nI like your silence, it the more shows off\nYour wonder: but yet speak; first, you, my liege,\nComes it not something near?\n\nLEONTES:\nHer natural posture!\nChide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed\nThou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she\nIn thy not chiding, for she was as tender\nAs infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,\nHermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing\nSo aged as this seems.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO, not by much.\n\nPAULINA:\nSo much the more our carver's excellence;\nWhich lets go by some sixteen years and makes her\nAs she lived now.\n\nLEONTES:\nAs now she might have done,\nSo much to my good comfort, as it is\nNow piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,\nEven with such life of majesty, warm life,\nAs now it coldly stands, when first I woo'd her!\nI am ashamed: does not the stone rebuke me\nFor being more stone than it? O royal piece,\nThere's magic in thy majesty, which has\nMy evils conjured to remembrance and\nFrom thy admiring daughter took the spirits,\nStanding like stone with thee.\n\nPERDITA:\nAnd give me leave,\nAnd do not say 'tis superstition, that\nI kneel and then implore her blessing. Lady,\nDear queen, that ended when I but began,\nGive me that hand of yours to kiss.\n\nPAULINA:\nO, patience!\nThe statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's Not dry.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,\nWhich sixteen winters cannot blow away,\nSo many summers dry; scarce any joy\nDid ever so long live; no sorrow\nBut kill'd itself much sooner.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nDear my brother,\nLet him that was the cause of this have power\nTo take off so much grief from you as he\nWill piece up in himself.\n\nPAULINA:\nIndeed, my lord,\nIf I had thought the sight of my poor image\nWould thus have wrought you,--for the stone is mine--\nI'ld not have show'd it.\n\nLEONTES:\nDo not draw the curtain.\n\nPAULINA:\nNo longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy\nMay think anon it moves.\n\nLEONTES:\nLet be, let be.\nWould I were dead, but that, methinks, already--\nWhat was he that did make it? See, my lord,\nWould you not deem it breathed? and that those veins\nDid verily bear blood?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMasterly done:\nThe very life seems warm upon her lip.\n\nLEONTES:\nThe fixture of her eye has motion in't,\nAs we are mock'd with art.\n\nPAULINA:\nI'll draw the curtain:\nMy lord's almost so far transported that\nHe'll think anon it lives.\n\nLEONTES:\nO sweet Paulina,\nMake me to think so twenty years together!\nNo settled senses of the world can match\nThe pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone.\n\nPAULINA:\nI am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you: but\nI could afflict you farther.\n\nLEONTES:\nDo, Paulina;\nFor this affliction has a taste as sweet\nAs any cordial comfort. Still, methinks,\nThere is an air comes from her: what fine chisel\nCould ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,\nFor I will kiss her.\n\nPAULINA:\nGood my lord, forbear:\nThe ruddiness upon her lip is wet;\nYou'll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own\nWith oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?\n\nLEONTES:\nNo, not these twenty years.\n\nPERDITA:\nSo long could I\nStand by, a looker on.\n\nPAULINA:\nEither forbear,\nQuit presently the chapel, or resolve you\nFor more amazement. If you can behold it,\nI'll make the statue move indeed, descend\nAnd take you by the hand; but then you'll think--\nWhich I protest against--I am assisted\nBy wicked powers.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat you can make her do,\nI am content to look on: what to speak,\nI am content to hear; for 'tis as easy\nTo make her speak as move.\n\nPAULINA:\nIt is required\nYou do awake your faith. Then all stand still;\nOn: those that think it is unlawful business\nI am about, let them depart.\n\nLEONTES:\nProceed:\nNo foot shall stir.\n\nPAULINA:\nMusic, awake her; strike!\n'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;\nStrike all that look upon with marvel. Come,\nI'll fill your grave up: stir, nay, come away,\nBequeath to death your numbness, for from him\nDear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs:\nStart not; her actions shall be holy as\nYou hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her\nUntil you see her die again; for then\nYou kill her double. Nay, present your hand:\nWhen she was young you woo'd her; now in age\nIs she become the suitor?\n\nLEONTES:\nO, she's warm!\nIf this be magic, let it be an art\nLawful as eating.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nShe embraces him.\n\nCAMILLO:\nShe hangs about his neck:\nIf she pertain to life let her speak too.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nAy, and make't manifest where she has lived,\nOr how stolen from the dead.\n\nPAULINA:\nThat she is living,\nWere it but told you, should be hooted at\nLike an old tale: but it appears she lives,\nThough yet she speak not. Mark a little while.\nPlease you to interpose, fair madam: kneel\nAnd pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady;\nOur Perdita is found.\n\nHERMIONE:\nYou gods, look down\nAnd from your sacred vials pour your graces\nUpon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own.\nWhere hast thou been preserved? where lived? how found\nThy father's court? for thou shalt hear that I,\nKnowing by Paulina that the oracle\nGave hope thou wast in being, have preserved\nMyself to see the issue.\n\nPAULINA:\nThere's time enough for that;\nLest they desire upon this push to trouble\nYour joys with like relation. Go together,\nYou precious winners all; your exultation\nPartake to every one. I, an old turtle,\nWill wing me to some wither'd bough and there\nMy mate, that's never to be found again,\nLament till I am lost.\n\nLEONTES:\nO, peace, Paulina!\nThou shouldst a husband take by my consent,\nAs I by thine a wife: this is a match,\nAnd made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine;\nBut how, is to be question'd; for I saw her,\nAs I thought, dead, and have in vain said many\nA prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far--\nFor him, I partly know his mind--to find thee\nAn honourable husband. Come, Camillo,\nAnd take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty\nIs richly noted and here justified\nBy us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place.\nWhat! look upon my brother: both your pardons,\nThat e'er I put between your holy looks\nMy ill suspicion. This is your son-in-law,\nAnd son unto the king, who, heavens directing,\nIs troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,\nLead us from hence, where we may leisurely\nEach one demand an answer to his part\nPerform'd in this wide gap of time since first\nWe were dissever'd: hastily lead away.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nEscalus.\n\nESCALUS:\nMy lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nOf government the properties to unfold,\nWould seem in me to affect speech and discourse;\nSince I am put to know that your own science\nExceeds, in that, the lists of all advice\nMy strength can give you: then no more remains,\nBut that to your sufficiency, as your Worth is able,\nAnd let them work. The nature of our people,\nOur city's institutions, and the terms\nFor common justice, you're as pregnant in\nAs art and practise hath enriched any\nThat we remember. There is our commission,\nFrom which we would not have you warp. Call hither,\nI say, bid come before us Angelo.\nWhat figure of us think you he will bear?\nFor you must know, we have with special soul\nElected him our absence to supply,\nLent him our terror, dress'd him with our love,\nAnd given his deputation all the organs\nOf our own power: what think you of it?\n\nESCALUS:\nIf any in Vienna be of worth\nTo undergo such ample grace and honour,\nIt is Lord Angelo.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLook where he comes.\n\nANGELO:\nAlways obedient to your grace's will,\nI come to know your pleasure.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAngelo,\nThere is a kind of character in thy life,\nThat to the observer doth thy history\nFully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings\nAre not thine own so proper as to waste\nThyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.\nHeaven doth with us as we with torches do,\nNot light them for themselves; for if our virtues\nDid not go forth of us, 'twere all alike\nAs if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd\nBut to fine issues, nor Nature never lends\nThe smallest scruple of her excellence\nBut, like a thrifty goddess, she determines\nHerself the glory of a creditor,\nBoth thanks and use. But I do bend my speech\nTo one that can my part in him advertise;\nHold therefore, Angelo:--\nIn our remove be thou at full ourself;\nMortality and mercy in Vienna\nLive in thy tongue and heart: old Escalus,\nThough first in question, is thy secondary.\nTake thy commission.\n\nANGELO:\nNow, good my lord,\nLet there be some more test made of my metal,\nBefore so noble and so great a figure\nBe stamp'd upon it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo more evasion:\nWe have with a leaven'd and prepared choice\nProceeded to you; therefore take your honours.\nOur haste from hence is of so quick condition\nThat it prefers itself and leaves unquestion'd\nMatters of needful value. We shall write to you,\nAs time and our concernings shall importune,\nHow it goes with us, and do look to know\nWhat doth befall you here. So, fare you well;\nTo the hopeful execution do I leave you\nOf your commissions.\n\nANGELO:\nYet give leave, my lord,\nThat we may bring you something on the way.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMy haste may not admit it;\nNor need you, on mine honour, have to do\nWith any scruple; your scope is as mine own\nSo to enforce or qualify the laws\nAs to your soul seems good. Give me your hand:\nI'll privily away. I love the people,\nBut do not like to stage me to their eyes:\nThrough it do well, I do not relish well\nTheir loud applause and Aves vehement;\nNor do I think the man of safe discretion\nThat does affect it. Once more, fare you well.\n\nANGELO:\nThe heavens give safety to your purposes!\n\nESCALUS:\nLead forth and bring you back in happiness!\n\nDUKE:\nI thank you. Fare you well.\n\nESCALUS:\nI shall desire you, sir, to give me leave\nTo have free speech with you; and it concerns me\nTo look into the bottom of my place:\nA power I have, but of what strength and nature\nI am not yet instructed.\n\nANGELO:\n'Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,\nAnd we may soon our satisfaction have\nTouching that point.\n\nESCALUS:\nI'll wait upon your honour.\n\nLUCIO:\nIf the duke with the other dukes come not to\ncomposition with the King of Hungary, why then all\nthe dukes fall upon the king.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nHeaven grant us its peace, but not the King of\nHungary's!\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nAmen.\n\nLUCIO:\nThou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that\nwent to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped\none out of the table.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\n'Thou shalt not steal'?\n\nLUCIO:\nAy, that he razed.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWhy, 'twas a commandment to command the captain and\nall the rest from their functions: they put forth\nto steal. There's not a soldier of us all, that, in\nthe thanksgiving before meat, do relish the petition\nwell that prays for peace.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nI never heard any soldier dislike it.\n\nLUCIO:\nI believe thee; for I think thou never wast where\ngrace was said.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nNo? a dozen times at least.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWhat, in metre?\n\nLUCIO:\nIn any proportion or in any language.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI think, or in any religion.\n\nLUCIO:\nAy, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all\ncontroversy: as, for example, thou thyself art a\nwicked villain, despite of all grace.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWell, there went but a pair of shears between us.\n\nLUCIO:\nI grant; as there may between the lists and the\nvelvet. Thou art the list.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nAnd thou the velvet: thou art good velvet; thou'rt\na three-piled piece, I warrant thee: I had as lief\nbe a list of an English kersey as be piled, as thou\nart piled, for a French velvet. Do I speak\nfeelingly now?\n\nLUCIO:\nI think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful\nfeeling of thy speech: I will, out of thine own\nconfession, learn to begin thy health; but, whilst I\nlive, forget to drink after thee.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI think I have done myself wrong, have I not?\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nYes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or free.\n\nLUCIO:\nBehold, behold. where Madam Mitigation comes! I\nhave purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to--\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nTo what, I pray?\n\nLUCIO:\nJudge.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nTo three thousand dolours a year.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nAy, and more.\n\nLUCIO:\nA French crown more.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nThou art always figuring diseases in me; but thou\nart full of error; I am sound.\n\nLUCIO:\nNay, not as one would say, healthy; but so sound as\nthings that are hollow: thy bones are hollow;\nimpiety has made a feast of thee.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nHow now! which of your hips has the most profound sciatica?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWell, well; there's one yonder arrested and carried\nto prison was worth five thousand of you all.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nWho's that, I pray thee?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nMarry, sir, that's Claudio, Signior Claudio.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nClaudio to prison? 'tis not so.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nNay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested, saw\nhim carried away; and, which is more, within these\nthree days his head to be chopped off.\n\nLUCIO:\nBut, after all this fooling, I would not have it so.\nArt thou sure of this?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nI am too sure of it: and it is for getting Madam\nJulietta with child.\n\nLUCIO:\nBelieve me, this may be: he promised to meet me two\nhours since, and he was ever precise in\npromise-keeping.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nBesides, you know, it draws something near to the\nspeech we had to such a purpose.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nBut, most of all, agreeing with the proclamation.\n\nLUCIO:\nAway! let's go learn the truth of it.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nThus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what\nwith the gallows and what with poverty, I am\ncustom-shrunk.\nHow now! what's the news with you?\n\nPOMPEY:\nYonder man is carried to prison.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWell; what has he done?\n\nPOMPEY:\nA woman.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nBut what's his offence?\n\nPOMPEY:\nGroping for trouts in a peculiar river.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhat, is there a maid with child by him?\n\nPOMPEY:\nNo, but there's a woman with maid by him. You have\nnot heard of the proclamation, have you?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhat proclamation, man?\n\nPOMPEY:\nAll houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nAnd what shall become of those in the city?\n\nPOMPEY:\nThey shall stand for seed: they had gone down too,\nbut that a wise burgher put in for them.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nBut shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be\npulled down?\n\nPOMPEY:\nTo the ground, mistress.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhy, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth!\nWhat shall become of me?\n\nPOMPEY:\nCome; fear you not: good counsellors lack no\nclients: though you change your place, you need not\nchange your trade; I'll be your tapster still.\nCourage! there will be pity taken on you: you that\nhave worn your eyes almost out in the service, you\nwill be considered.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhat's to do here, Thomas tapster? let's withdraw.\n\nPOMPEY:\nHere comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to\nprison; and there's Madam Juliet.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nFellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world?\nBear me to prison, where I am committed.\n\nProvost:\nI do it not in evil disposition,\nBut from Lord Angelo by special charge.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThus can the demigod Authority\nMake us pay down for our offence by weight\nThe words of heaven; on whom it will, it will;\nOn whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, how now, Claudio! whence comes this restraint?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nFrom too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty:\nAs surfeit is the father of much fast,\nSo every scope by the immoderate use\nTurns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,\nLike rats that ravin down their proper bane,\nA thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.\n\nLUCIO:\nIf could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would\nsend for certain of my creditors: and yet, to say\nthe truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom\nas the morality of imprisonment. What's thy\noffence, Claudio?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nWhat but to speak of would offend again.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhat, is't murder?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nNo.\n\nLUCIO:\nLechery?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nCall it so.\n\nProvost:\nAway, sir! you must go.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nOne word, good friend. Lucio, a word with you.\n\nLUCIO:\nA hundred, if they'll do you any good.\nIs lechery so look'd after?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThus stands it with me: upon a true contract\nI got possession of Julietta's bed:\nYou know the lady; she is fast my wife,\nSave that we do the denunciation lack\nOf outward order: this we came not to,\nOnly for propagation of a dower\nRemaining in the coffer of her friends,\nFrom whom we thought it meet to hide our love\nTill time had made them for us. But it chances\nThe stealth of our most mutual entertainment\nWith character too gross is writ on Juliet.\n\nLUCIO:\nWith child, perhaps?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nUnhappily, even so.\nAnd the new deputy now for the duke--\nWhether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,\nOr whether that the body public be\nA horse whereon the governor doth ride,\nWho, newly in the seat, that it may know\nHe can command, lets it straight feel the spur;\nWhether the tyranny be in his place,\nOr in his emmence that fills it up,\nI stagger in:--but this new governor\nAwakes me all the enrolled penalties\nWhich have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall\nSo long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round\nAnd none of them been worn; and, for a name,\nNow puts the drowsy and neglected act\nFreshly on me: 'tis surely for a name.\n\nLUCIO:\nI warrant it is: and thy head stands so tickle on\nthy shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love,\nmay sigh it off. Send after the duke and appeal to\nhim.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nI have done so, but he's not to be found.\nI prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:\nThis day my sister should the cloister enter\nAnd there receive her approbation:\nAcquaint her with the danger of my state:\nImplore her, in my voice, that she make friends\nTo the strict deputy; bid herself assay him:\nI have great hope in that; for in her youth\nThere is a prone and speechless dialect,\nSuch as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art\nWhen she will play with reason and discourse,\nAnd well she can persuade.\n\nLUCIO:\nI pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the\nlike, which else would stand under grievous\nimposition, as for the enjoying of thy life, who I\nwould be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a\ngame of tick-tack. I'll to her.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nI thank you, good friend Lucio.\n\nLUCIO:\nWithin two hours.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nCome, officer, away!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo, holy father; throw away that thought;\nBelieve not that the dribbling dart of love\nCan pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee\nTo give me secret harbour, hath a purpose\nMore grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends\nOf burning youth.\n\nFRIAR THOMAS:\nMay your grace speak of it?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMy holy sir, none better knows than you\nHow I have ever loved the life removed\nAnd held in idle price to haunt assemblies\nWhere youth, and cost, and witless bravery keeps.\nI have deliver'd to Lord Angelo,\nA man of stricture and firm abstinence,\nMy absolute power and place here in Vienna,\nAnd he supposes me travell'd to Poland;\nFor so I have strew'd it in the common ear,\nAnd so it is received. Now, pious sir,\nYou will demand of me why I do this?\n\nFRIAR THOMAS:\nGladly, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWe have strict statutes and most biting laws.\nThe needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,\nWhich for this nineteen years we have let slip;\nEven like an o'ergrown lion in a cave,\nThat goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,\nHaving bound up the threatening twigs of birch,\nOnly to stick it in their children's sight\nFor terror, not to use, in time the rod\nBecomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees,\nDead to infliction, to themselves are dead;\nAnd liberty plucks justice by the nose;\nThe baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart\nGoes all decorum.\n\nFRIAR THOMAS:\nIt rested in your grace\nTo unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased:\nAnd it in you more dreadful would have seem'd\nThan in Lord Angelo.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI do fear, too dreadful:\nSith 'twas my fault to give the people scope,\n'Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them\nFor what I bid them do: for we bid this be done,\nWhen evil deeds have their permissive pass\nAnd not the punishment. Therefore indeed, my father,\nI have on Angelo imposed the office;\nWho may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,\nAnd yet my nature never in the fight\nTo do in slander. And to behold his sway,\nI will, as 'twere a brother of your order,\nVisit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee,\nSupply me with the habit and instruct me\nHow I may formally in person bear me\nLike a true friar. More reasons for this action\nAt our more leisure shall I render you;\nOnly, this one: Lord Angelo is precise;\nStands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses\nThat his blood flows, or that his appetite\nIs more to bread than stone: hence shall we see,\nIf power change purpose, what our seemers be.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd have you nuns no farther privileges?\n\nFRANCISCA:\nAre not these large enough?\n\nISABELLA:\nYes, truly; I speak not as desiring more;\nBut rather wishing a more strict restraint\nUpon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nWho's that which calls?\n\nFRANCISCA:\nIt is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella,\nTurn you the key, and know his business of him;\nYou may, I may not; you are yet unsworn.\nWhen you have vow'd, you must not speak with men\nBut in the presence of the prioress:\nThen, if you speak, you must not show your face,\nOr, if you show your face, you must not speak.\nHe calls again; I pray you, answer him.\n\nISABELLA:\nPeace and prosperity! Who is't that calls\n\nLUCIO:\nHail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses\nProclaim you are no less! Can you so stead me\nAs bring me to the sight of Isabella,\nA novice of this place and the fair sister\nTo her unhappy brother Claudio?\n\nISABELLA:\nWhy 'her unhappy brother'? let me ask,\nThe rather for I now must make you know\nI am that Isabella and his sister.\n\nLUCIO:\nGentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:\nNot to be weary with you, he's in prison.\n\nISABELLA:\nWoe me! for what?\n\nLUCIO:\nFor that which, if myself might be his judge,\nHe should receive his punishment in thanks:\nHe hath got his friend with child.\n\nISABELLA:\nSir, make me not your story.\n\nLUCIO:\nIt is true.\nI would not--though 'tis my familiar sin\nWith maids to seem the lapwing and to jest,\nTongue far from heart--play with all virgins so:\nI hold you as a thing ensky'd and sainted.\nBy your renouncement an immortal spirit,\nAnd to be talk'd with in sincerity,\nAs with a saint.\n\nISABELLA:\nYou do blaspheme the good in mocking me.\n\nLUCIO:\nDo not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:\nYour brother and his lover have embraced:\nAs those that feed grow full, as blossoming time\nThat from the seedness the bare fallow brings\nTo teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb\nExpresseth his full tilth and husbandry.\n\nISABELLA:\nSome one with child by him? My cousin Juliet?\n\nLUCIO:\nIs she your cousin?\n\nISABELLA:\nAdoptedly; as school-maids change their names\nBy vain though apt affection.\n\nLUCIO:\nShe it is.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, let him marry her.\n\nLUCIO:\nThis is the point.\nThe duke is very strangely gone from hence;\nBore many gentlemen, myself being one,\nIn hand and hope of action: but we do learn\nBy those that know the very nerves of state,\nHis givings-out were of an infinite distance\nFrom his true-meant design. Upon his place,\nAnd with full line of his authority,\nGoverns Lord Angelo; a man whose blood\nIs very snow-broth; one who never feels\nThe wanton stings and motions of the sense,\nBut doth rebate and blunt his natural edge\nWith profits of the mind, study and fast.\nHe--to give fear to use and liberty,\nWhich have for long run by the hideous law,\nAs mice by lions--hath pick'd out an act,\nUnder whose heavy sense your brother's life\nFalls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;\nAnd follows close the rigour of the statute,\nTo make him an example. All hope is gone,\nUnless you have the grace by your fair prayer\nTo soften Angelo: and that's my pith of business\n'Twixt you and your poor brother.\n\nISABELLA:\nDoth he so seek his life?\n\nLUCIO:\nHas censured him\nAlready; and, as I hear, the provost hath\nA warrant for his execution.\n\nISABELLA:\nAlas! what poor ability's in me\nTo do him good?\n\nLUCIO:\nAssay the power you have.\n\nISABELLA:\nMy power? Alas, I doubt--\n\nLUCIO:\nOur doubts are traitors\nAnd make us lose the good we oft might win\nBy fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,\nAnd let him learn to know, when maidens sue,\nMen give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,\nAll their petitions are as freely theirs\nAs they themselves would owe them.\n\nISABELLA:\nI'll see what I can do.\n\nLUCIO:\nBut speedily.\n\nISABELLA:\nI will about it straight;\nNo longer staying but to give the mother\nNotice of my affair. I humbly thank you:\nCommend me to my brother: soon at night\nI'll send him certain word of my success.\n\nLUCIO:\nI take my leave of you.\n\nISABELLA:\nGood sir, adieu.\n\nANGELO:\nWe must not make a scarecrow of the law,\nSetting it up to fear the birds of prey,\nAnd let it keep one shape, till custom make it\nTheir perch and not their terror.\n\nESCALUS:\nAy, but yet\nLet us be keen, and rather cut a little,\nThan fall, and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman\nWhom I would save, had a most noble father!\nLet but your honour know,\nWhom I believe to be most strait in virtue,\nThat, in the working of your own affections,\nHad time cohered with place or place with wishing,\nOr that the resolute acting of your blood\nCould have attain'd the effect of your own purpose,\nWhether you had not sometime in your life\nErr'd in this point which now you censure him,\nAnd pull'd the law upon you.\n\nANGELO:\n'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,\nAnother thing to fall. I not deny,\nThe jury, passing on the prisoner's life,\nMay in the sworn twelve have a thief or two\nGuiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice,\nThat justice seizes: what know the laws\nThat thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,\nThe jewel that we find, we stoop and take't\nBecause we see it; but what we do not see\nWe tread upon, and never think of it.\nYou may not so extenuate his offence\nFor I have had such faults; but rather tell me,\nWhen I, that censure him, do so offend,\nLet mine own judgment pattern out my death,\nAnd nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.\n\nESCALUS:\nBe it as your wisdom will.\n\nANGELO:\nWhere is the provost?\n\nProvost:\nHere, if it like your honour.\n\nANGELO:\nSee that Claudio\nBe executed by nine to-morrow morning:\nBring him his confessor, let him be prepared;\nFor that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.\n\nESCALUS:\n\nELBOW:\nCome, bring them away: if these be good people in\na commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in\ncommon houses, I know no law: bring them away.\n\nANGELO:\nHow now, sir! What's your name? and what's the matter?\n\nELBOW:\nIf it Please your honour, I am the poor duke's\nconstable, and my name is Elbow: I do lean upon\njustice, sir, and do bring in here before your good\nhonour two notorious benefactors.\n\nANGELO:\nBenefactors? Well; what benefactors are they? are\nthey not malefactors?\n\nELBOW:\nIf it? please your honour, I know not well what they\nare: but precise villains they are, that I am sure\nof; and void of all profanation in the world that\ngood Christians ought to have.\n\nESCALUS:\nThis comes off well; here's a wise officer.\n\nANGELO:\nGo to: what quality are they of? Elbow is your\nname? why dost thou not speak, Elbow?\n\nPOMPEY:\nHe cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.\n\nANGELO:\nWhat are you, sir?\n\nELBOW:\nHe, sir! a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that\nserves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they\nsay, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she\nprofesses a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow know you that?\n\nELBOW:\nMy wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour,--\n\nESCALUS:\nHow? thy wife?\n\nELBOW:\nAy, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman,--\n\nESCALUS:\nDost thou detest her therefore?\n\nELBOW:\nI say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as\nshe, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house,\nit is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow dost thou know that, constable?\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman\ncardinally given, might have been accused in\nfornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.\n\nESCALUS:\nBy the woman's means?\n\nELBOW:\nAy, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means: but as she\nspit in his face, so she defied him.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, if it please your honour, this is not so.\n\nELBOW:\nProve it before these varlets here, thou honourable\nman; prove it.\n\nESCALUS:\nDo you hear how he misplaces?\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, she came in great with child; and longing,\nsaving your honour's reverence, for stewed prunes;\nsir, we had but two in the house, which at that very\ndistant time stood, as it were, in a fruit-dish, a\ndish of some three-pence; your honours have seen\nsuch dishes; they are not China dishes, but very\ngood dishes,--\n\nESCALUS:\nGo to, go to: no matter for the dish, sir.\n\nPOMPEY:\nNo, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in\nthe right: but to the point. As I say, this\nMistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and\nbeing great-bellied, and longing, as I said, for\nprunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said,\nMaster Froth here, this very man, having eaten the\nrest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very\nhonestly; for, as you know, Master Froth, I could\nnot give you three-pence again.\n\nFROTH:\nNo, indeed.\n\nPOMPEY:\nVery well: you being then, if you be remembered,\ncracking the stones of the foresaid prunes,--\n\nFROTH:\nAy, so I did indeed.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well; I telling you then, if you be\nremembered, that such a one and such a one were past\ncure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept very\ngood diet, as I told you,--\n\nFROTH:\nAll this is true.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well, then,--\n\nESCALUS:\nCome, you are a tedious fool: to the purpose. What\nwas done to Elbow's wife, that he hath cause to\ncomplain of? Come me to what was done to her.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, your honour cannot come to that yet.\n\nESCALUS:\nNo, sir, nor I mean it not.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, but you shall come to it, by your honour's\nleave. And, I beseech you, look into Master Froth\nhere, sir; a man of four-score pound a year; whose\nfather died at Hallowmas: was't not at Hallowmas,\nMaster Froth?\n\nFROTH:\nAll-hallond eve.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well; I hope here be truths. He, sir,\nsitting, as I say, in a lower chair, sir; 'twas in\nthe Bunch of Grapes, where indeed you have a delight\nto sit, have you not?\n\nFROTH:\nI have so; because it is an open room and good for winter.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well, then; I hope here be truths.\n\nANGELO:\nThis will last out a night in Russia,\nWhen nights are longest there: I'll take my leave.\nAnd leave you to the hearing of the cause;\nHoping you'll find good cause to whip them all.\n\nESCALUS:\nI think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.\nNow, sir, come on: what was done to Elbow's wife, once more?\n\nPOMPEY:\nOnce, sir? there was nothing done to her once.\n\nELBOW:\nI beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI beseech your honour, ask me.\n\nESCALUS:\nWell, sir; what did this gentleman to her?\n\nPOMPEY:\nI beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman's face.\nGood Master Froth, look upon his honour; 'tis for a\ngood purpose. Doth your honour mark his face?\n\nESCALUS:\nAy, sir, very well.\n\nPOMPEY:\nNay; I beseech you, mark it well.\n\nESCALUS:\nWell, I do so.\n\nPOMPEY:\nDoth your honour see any harm in his face?\n\nESCALUS:\nWhy, no.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI'll be supposed upon a book, his face is the worst\nthing about him. Good, then; if his face be the\nworst thing about him, how could Master Froth do the\nconstable's wife any harm? I would know that of\nyour honour.\n\nESCALUS:\nHe's in the right. Constable, what say you to it?\n\nELBOW:\nFirst, an it like you, the house is a respected\nhouse; next, this is a respected fellow; and his\nmistress is a respected woman.\n\nPOMPEY:\nBy this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected\nperson than any of us all.\n\nELBOW:\nVarlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicked varlet! the\ntime has yet to come that she was ever respected\nwith man, woman, or child.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, she was respected with him before he married with her.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhich is the wiser here? Justice or Iniquity? Is\nthis true?\n\nELBOW:\nO thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked\nHannibal! I respected with her before I was married\nto her! If ever I was respected with her, or she\nwith me, let not your worship think me the poor\nduke's officer. Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or\nI'll have mine action of battery on thee.\n\nESCALUS:\nIf he took you a box o' the ear, you might have your\naction of slander too.\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, I thank your good worship for it. What is't\nyour worship's pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff?\n\nESCALUS:\nTruly, officer, because he hath some offences in him\nthat thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him\ncontinue in his courses till thou knowest what they\nare.\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, I thank your worship for it. Thou seest, thou\nwicked varlet, now, what's come upon thee: thou art\nto continue now, thou varlet; thou art to continue.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhere were you born, friend?\n\nFROTH:\nHere in Vienna, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nAre you of fourscore pounds a year?\n\nFROTH:\nYes, an't please you, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nSo. What trade are you of, sir?\n\nPOMPHEY:\nTapster; a poor widow's tapster.\n\nESCALUS:\nYour mistress' name?\n\nPOMPHEY:\nMistress Overdone.\n\nESCALUS:\nHath she had any more than one husband?\n\nPOMPEY:\nNine, sir; Overdone by the last.\n\nESCALUS:\nNine! Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master\nFroth, I would not have you acquainted with\ntapsters: they will draw you, Master Froth, and you\nwill hang them. Get you gone, and let me hear no\nmore of you.\n\nFROTH:\nI thank your worship. For mine own part, I never\ncome into any room in a tap-house, but I am drawn\nin.\n\nESCALUS:\nWell, no more of it, Master Froth: farewell.\nCome you hither to me, Master tapster. What's your\nname, Master tapster?\n\nPOMPEY:\nPompey.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhat else?\n\nPOMPEY:\nBum, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nTroth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you;\nso that in the beastliest sense you are Pompey the\nGreat. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey,\nhowsoever you colour it in being a tapster, are you\nnot? come, tell me true: it shall be the better for you.\n\nPOMPEY:\nTruly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow would you live, Pompey? by being a bawd? What\ndo you think of the trade, Pompey? is it a lawful trade?\n\nPOMPEY:\nIf the law would allow it, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nBut the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall\nnot be allowed in Vienna.\n\nPOMPEY:\nDoes your worship mean to geld and splay all the\nyouth of the city?\n\nESCALUS:\nNo, Pompey.\n\nPOMPEY:\nTruly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then.\nIf your worship will take order for the drabs and\nthe knaves, you need not to fear the bawds.\n\nESCALUS:\nThere are pretty orders beginning, I can tell you:\nit is but heading and hanging.\n\nPOMPEY:\nIf you head and hang all that offend that way but\nfor ten year together, you'll be glad to give out a\ncommission for more heads: if this law hold in\nVienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest house in it\nafter three-pence a bay: if you live to see this\ncome to pass, say Pompey told you so.\n\nESCALUS:\nThank you, good Pompey; and, in requital of your\nprophecy, hark you: I advise you, let me not find\nyou before me again upon any complaint whatsoever;\nno, not for dwelling where you do: if I do, Pompey,\nI shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd\nCaesar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall\nhave you whipt: so, for this time, Pompey, fare you well.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI thank your worship for your good counsel:\nbut I shall follow it as the flesh and fortune shall\nbetter determine.\nWhip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade:\nThe valiant heart is not whipt out of his trade.\n\nESCALUS:\nCome hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, Master\nconstable. How long have you been in this place of constable?\n\nELBOW:\nSeven year and a half, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nI thought, by your readiness in the office, you had\ncontinued in it some time. You say, seven years together?\n\nELBOW:\nAnd a half, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nAlas, it hath been great pains to you. They do you\nwrong to put you so oft upon 't: are there not men\nin your ward sufficient to serve it?\n\nELBOW:\nFaith, sir, few of any wit in such matters: as they\nare chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I\ndo it for some piece of money, and go through with\nall.\n\nESCALUS:\nLook you bring me in the names of some six or seven,\nthe most sufficient of your parish.\n\nELBOW:\nTo your worship's house, sir?\n\nESCALUS:\nTo my house. Fare you well.\nWhat's o'clock, think you?\n\nJustice:\nEleven, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nI pray you home to dinner with me.\n\nJustice:\nI humbly thank you.\n\nESCALUS:\nIt grieves me for the death of Claudio;\nBut there's no remedy.\n\nJustice:\nLord Angelo is severe.\n\nESCALUS:\nIt is but needful:\nMercy is not itself, that oft looks so;\nPardon is still the nurse of second woe:\nBut yet,--poor Claudio! There is no remedy.\nCome, sir.\n\nServant:\nHe's hearing of a cause; he will come straight\nI'll tell him of you.\n\nProvost:\nPray you, do.\nI'll know\nHis pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas,\nHe hath but as offended in a dream!\nAll sects, all ages smack of this vice; and he\nTo die for't!\n\nANGELO:\nNow, what's the matter. Provost?\n\nProvost:\nIs it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow?\n\nANGELO:\nDid not I tell thee yea? hadst thou not order?\nWhy dost thou ask again?\n\nProvost:\nLest I might be too rash:\nUnder your good correction, I have seen,\nWhen, after execution, judgment hath\nRepented o'er his doom.\n\nANGELO:\nGo to; let that be mine:\nDo you your office, or give up your place,\nAnd you shall well be spared.\n\nProvost:\nI crave your honour's pardon.\nWhat shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?\nShe's very near her hour.\n\nANGELO:\nDispose of her\nTo some more fitter place, and that with speed.\n\nServant:\nHere is the sister of the man condemn'd\nDesires access to you.\n\nANGELO:\nHath he a sister?\n\nProvost:\nAy, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,\nAnd to be shortly of a sisterhood,\nIf not already.\n\nANGELO:\nWell, let her be admitted.\nSee you the fornicatress be removed:\nLet have needful, but not lavish, means;\nThere shall be order for't.\n\nProvost:\nGod save your honour!\n\nANGELO:\nStay a little while.\nYou're welcome: what's your will?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am a woeful suitor to your honour,\nPlease but your honour hear me.\n\nANGELO:\nWell; what's your suit?\n\nISABELLA:\nThere is a vice that most I do abhor,\nAnd most desire should meet the blow of justice;\nFor which I would not plead, but that I must;\nFor which I must not plead, but that I am\nAt war 'twixt will and will not.\n\nANGELO:\nWell; the matter?\n\nISABELLA:\nI have a brother is condemn'd to die:\nI do beseech you, let it be his fault,\nAnd not my brother.\n\nProvost:\n\nANGELO:\nCondemn the fault and not the actor of it?\nWhy, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done:\nMine were the very cipher of a function,\nTo fine the faults whose fine stands in record,\nAnd let go by the actor.\n\nISABELLA:\nO just but severe law!\nI had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour!\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nMust he needs die?\n\nANGELO:\nMaiden, no remedy.\n\nISABELLA:\nYes; I do think that you might pardon him,\nAnd neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.\n\nANGELO:\nI will not do't.\n\nISABELLA:\nBut can you, if you would?\n\nANGELO:\nLook, what I will not, that I cannot do.\n\nISABELLA:\nBut might you do't, and do the world no wrong,\nIf so your heart were touch'd with that remorse\nAs mine is to him?\n\nANGELO:\nHe's sentenced; 'tis too late.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nToo late? why, no; I, that do speak a word.\nMay call it back again. Well, believe this,\nNo ceremony that to great ones 'longs,\nNot the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,\nThe marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,\nBecome them with one half so good a grace\nAs mercy does.\nIf he had been as you and you as he,\nYou would have slipt like him; but he, like you,\nWould not have been so stern.\n\nANGELO:\nPray you, be gone.\n\nISABELLA:\nI would to heaven I had your potency,\nAnd you were Isabel! should it then be thus?\nNo; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,\nAnd what a prisoner.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nANGELO:\nYour brother is a forfeit of the law,\nAnd you but waste your words.\n\nISABELLA:\nAlas, alas!\nWhy, all the souls that were were forfeit once;\nAnd He that might the vantage best have took\nFound out the remedy. How would you be,\nIf He, which is the top of judgment, should\nBut judge you as you are? O, think on that;\nAnd mercy then will breathe within your lips,\nLike man new made.\n\nANGELO:\nBe you content, fair maid;\nIt is the law, not I condemn your brother:\nWere he my kinsman, brother, or my son,\nIt should be thus with him: he must die tomorrow.\n\nISABELLA:\nTo-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him!\nHe's not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens\nWe kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven\nWith less respect than we do minister\nTo our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you;\nWho is it that hath died for this offence?\nThere's many have committed it.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nANGELO:\nThe law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:\nThose many had not dared to do that evil,\nIf the first that did the edict infringe\nHad answer'd for his deed: now 'tis awake\nTakes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,\nLooks in a glass, that shows what future evils,\nEither new, or by remissness new-conceived,\nAnd so in progress to be hatch'd and born,\nAre now to have no successive degrees,\nBut, ere they live, to end.\n\nISABELLA:\nYet show some pity.\n\nANGELO:\nI show it most of all when I show justice;\nFor then I pity those I do not know,\nWhich a dismiss'd offence would after gall;\nAnd do him right that, answering one foul wrong,\nLives not to act another. Be satisfied;\nYour brother dies to-morrow; be content.\n\nISABELLA:\nSo you must be the first that gives this sentence,\nAnd he, that suffer's. O, it is excellent\nTo have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous\nTo use it like a giant.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nCould great men thunder\nAs Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,\nFor every pelting, petty officer\nWould use his heaven for thunder;\nNothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,\nThou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt\nSplit'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak\nThan the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,\nDrest in a little brief authority,\nMost ignorant of what he's most assured,\nHis glassy essence, like an angry ape,\nPlays such fantastic tricks before high heaven\nAs make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,\nWould all themselves laugh mortal.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nProvost:\n\nISABELLA:\nWe cannot weigh our brother with ourself:\nGreat men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them,\nBut in the less foul profanation.\n\nLUCIO:\nThou'rt i' the right, girl; more o, that.\n\nISABELLA:\nThat in the captain's but a choleric word,\nWhich in the soldier is flat blasphemy.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nANGELO:\nWhy do you put these sayings upon me?\n\nISABELLA:\nBecause authority, though it err like others,\nHath yet a kind of medicine in itself,\nThat skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom;\nKnock there, and ask your heart what it doth know\nThat's like my brother's fault: if it confess\nA natural guiltiness such as is his,\nLet it not sound a thought upon your tongue\nAgainst my brother's life.\n\nANGELO:\n\nISABELLA:\nGentle my lord, turn back.\n\nANGELO:\nI will bethink me: come again tomorrow.\n\nISABELLA:\nHark how I'll bribe you: good my lord, turn back.\n\nANGELO:\nHow! bribe me?\n\nISABELLA:\nAy, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nNot with fond shekels of the tested gold,\nOr stones whose rates are either rich or poor\nAs fancy values them; but with true prayers\nThat shall be up at heaven and enter there\nEre sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,\nFrom fasting maids whose minds are dedicate\nTo nothing temporal.\n\nANGELO:\nWell; come to me to-morrow.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nHeaven keep your honour safe!\n\nANGELO:\n\nISABELLA:\nAt what hour to-morrow\nShall I attend your lordship?\n\nANGELO:\nAt any time 'fore noon.\n\nISABELLA:\n'Save your honour!\n\nANGELO:\nFrom thee, even from thy virtue!\nWhat's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?\nThe tempter or the tempted, who sins most?\nHa!\nNot she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I\nThat, lying by the violet in the sun,\nDo as the carrion does, not as the flower,\nCorrupt with virtuous season. Can it be\nThat modesty may more betray our sense\nThan woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,\nShall we desire to raze the sanctuary\nAnd pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!\nWhat dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?\nDost thou desire her foully for those things\nThat make her good? O, let her brother live!\nThieves for their robbery have authority\nWhen judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,\nThat I desire to hear her speak again,\nAnd feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?\nO cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,\nWith saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous\nIs that temptation that doth goad us on\nTo sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,\nWith all her double vigour, art and nature,\nOnce stir my temper; but this virtuous maid\nSubdues me quite. Even till now,\nWhen men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHail to you, provost! so I think you are.\n\nProvost:\nI am the provost. What's your will, good friar?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBound by my charity and my blest order,\nI come to visit the afflicted spirits\nHere in the prison. Do me the common right\nTo let me see them and to make me know\nThe nature of their crimes, that I may minister\nTo them accordingly.\n\nProvost:\nI would do more than that, if more were needful.\nLook, here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,\nWho, falling in the flaws of her own youth,\nHath blister'd her report: she is with child;\nAnd he that got it, sentenced; a young man\nMore fit to do another such offence\nThan die for this.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhen must he die?\n\nProvost:\nAs I do think, to-morrow.\nI have provided for you: stay awhile,\nAnd you shall be conducted.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nRepent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?\n\nJULIET:\nI do; and bear the shame most patiently.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,\nAnd try your penitence, if it be sound,\nOr hollowly put on.\n\nJULIET:\nI'll gladly learn.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLove you the man that wrong'd you?\n\nJULIET:\nYes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSo then it seems your most offenceful act\nWas mutually committed?\n\nJULIET:\nMutually.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThen was your sin of heavier kind than his.\n\nJULIET:\nI do confess it, and repent it, father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,\nAs that the sin hath brought you to this shame,\nWhich sorrow is always towards ourselves, not heaven,\nShowing we would not spare heaven as we love it,\nBut as we stand in fear,--\n\nJULIET:\nI do repent me, as it is an evil,\nAnd take the shame with joy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThere rest.\nYour partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,\nAnd I am going with instruction to him.\nGrace go with you, Benedicite!\n\nJULIET:\nMust die to-morrow! O injurious love,\nThat respites me a life, whose very comfort\nIs still a dying horror!\n\nProvost:\n'Tis pity of him.\n\nANGELO:\nWhen I would pray and think, I think and pray\nTo several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;\nWhilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,\nAnchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,\nAs if I did but only chew his name;\nAnd in my heart the strong and swelling evil\nOf my conception. The state, whereon I studied\nIs like a good thing, being often read,\nGrown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,\nWherein--let no man hear me--I take pride,\nCould I with boot change for an idle plume,\nWhich the air beats for vain. O place, O form,\nHow often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,\nWrench awe from fools and tie the wiser souls\nTo thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:\nLet's write good angel on the devil's horn:\n'Tis not the devil's crest.\nHow now! who's there?\n\nServant:\nOne Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.\n\nANGELO:\nTeach her the way.\nO heavens!\nWhy does my blood thus muster to my heart,\nMaking both it unable for itself,\nAnd dispossessing all my other parts\nOf necessary fitness?\nSo play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;\nCome all to help him, and so stop the air\nBy which he should revive: and even so\nThe general, subject to a well-wish'd king,\nQuit their own part, and in obsequious fondness\nCrowd to his presence, where their untaught love\nMust needs appear offence.\nHow now, fair maid?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am come to know your pleasure.\n\nANGELO:\nThat you might know it, would much better please me\nThan to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.\n\nISABELLA:\nEven so. Heaven keep your honour!\n\nANGELO:\nYet may he live awhile; and, it may be,\nAs long as you or I yet he must die.\n\nISABELLA:\nUnder your sentence?\n\nANGELO:\nYea.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhen, I beseech you? that in his reprieve,\nLonger or shorter, he may be so fitted\nThat his soul sicken not.\n\nANGELO:\nHa! fie, these filthy vices! It were as good\nTo pardon him that hath from nature stolen\nA man already made, as to remit\nTheir saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image\nIn stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy\nFalsely to take away a life true made\nAs to put metal in restrained means\nTo make a false one.\n\nISABELLA:\n'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.\n\nANGELO:\nSay you so? then I shall pose you quickly.\nWhich had you rather, that the most just law\nNow took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,\nGive up your body to such sweet uncleanness\nAs she that he hath stain'd?\n\nISABELLA:\nSir, believe this,\nI had rather give my body than my soul.\n\nANGELO:\nI talk not of your soul: our compell'd sins\nStand more for number than for accompt.\n\nISABELLA:\nHow say you?\n\nANGELO:\nNay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak\nAgainst the thing I say. Answer to this:\nI, now the voice of the recorded law,\nPronounce a sentence on your brother's life:\nMight there not be a charity in sin\nTo save this brother's life?\n\nISABELLA:\nPlease you to do't,\nI'll take it as a peril to my soul,\nIt is no sin at all, but charity.\n\nANGELO:\nPleased you to do't at peril of your soul,\nWere equal poise of sin and charity.\n\nISABELLA:\nThat I do beg his life, if it be sin,\nHeaven let me bear it! you granting of my suit,\nIf that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer\nTo have it added to the faults of mine,\nAnd nothing of your answer.\n\nANGELO:\nNay, but hear me.\nYour sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,\nOr seem so craftily; and that's not good.\n\nISABELLA:\nLet me be ignorant, and in nothing good,\nBut graciously to know I am no better.\n\nANGELO:\nThus wisdom wishes to appear most bright\nWhen it doth tax itself; as these black masks\nProclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder\nThan beauty could, display'd. But mark me;\nTo be received plain, I'll speak more gross:\nYour brother is to die.\n\nISABELLA:\nSo.\n\nANGELO:\nAnd his offence is so, as it appears,\nAccountant to the law upon that pain.\n\nISABELLA:\nTrue.\n\nANGELO:\nAdmit no other way to save his life,--\nAs I subscribe not that, nor any other,\nBut in the loss of question,--that you, his sister,\nFinding yourself desired of such a person,\nWhose credit with the judge, or own great place,\nCould fetch your brother from the manacles\nOf the all-building law; and that there were\nNo earthly mean to save him, but that either\nYou must lay down the treasures of your body\nTo this supposed, or else to let him suffer;\nWhat would you do?\n\nISABELLA:\nAs much for my poor brother as myself:\nThat is, were I under the terms of death,\nThe impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,\nAnd strip myself to death, as to a bed\nThat longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield\nMy body up to shame.\n\nANGELO:\nThen must your brother die.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd 'twere the cheaper way:\nBetter it were a brother died at once,\nThan that a sister, by redeeming him,\nShould die for ever.\n\nANGELO:\nWere not you then as cruel as the sentence\nThat you have slander'd so?\n\nISABELLA:\nIgnomy in ransom and free pardon\nAre of two houses: lawful mercy\nIs nothing kin to foul redemption.\n\nANGELO:\nYou seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;\nAnd rather proved the sliding of your brother\nA merriment than a vice.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out,\nTo have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:\nI something do excuse the thing I hate,\nFor his advantage that I dearly love.\n\nANGELO:\nWe are all frail.\n\nISABELLA:\nElse let my brother die,\nIf not a feodary, but only he\nOwe and succeed thy weakness.\n\nANGELO:\nNay, women are frail too.\n\nISABELLA:\nAy, as the glasses where they view themselves;\nWhich are as easy broke as they make forms.\nWomen! Help Heaven! men their creation mar\nIn profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail;\nFor we are soft as our complexions are,\nAnd credulous to false prints.\n\nANGELO:\nI think it well:\nAnd from this testimony of your own sex,--\nSince I suppose we are made to be no stronger\nThan faults may shake our frames,--let me be bold;\nI do arrest your words. Be that you are,\nThat is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;\nIf you be one, as you are well express'd\nBy all external warrants, show it now,\nBy putting on the destined livery.\n\nISABELLA:\nI have no tongue but one: gentle my lord,\nLet me entreat you speak the former language.\n\nANGELO:\nPlainly conceive, I love you.\n\nISABELLA:\nMy brother did love Juliet,\nAnd you tell me that he shall die for it.\n\nANGELO:\nHe shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.\n\nISABELLA:\nI know your virtue hath a licence in't,\nWhich seems a little fouler than it is,\nTo pluck on others.\n\nANGELO:\nBelieve me, on mine honour,\nMy words express my purpose.\n\nISABELLA:\nHa! little honour to be much believed,\nAnd most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!\nI will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:\nSign me a present pardon for my brother,\nOr with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud\nWhat man thou art.\n\nANGELO:\nWho will believe thee, Isabel?\nMy unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life,\nMy vouch against you, and my place i' the state,\nWill so your accusation overweigh,\nThat you shall stifle in your own report\nAnd smell of calumny. I have begun,\nAnd now I give my sensual race the rein:\nFit thy consent to my sharp appetite;\nLay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,\nThat banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother\nBy yielding up thy body to my will;\nOr else he must not only die the death,\nBut thy unkindness shall his death draw out\nTo lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,\nOr, by the affection that now guides me most,\nI'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,\nSay what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.\n\nISABELLA:\nTo whom should I complain? Did I tell this,\nWho would believe me? O perilous mouths,\nThat bear in them one and the self-same tongue,\nEither of condemnation or approof;\nBidding the law make court'sy to their will:\nHooking both right and wrong to the appetite,\nTo follow as it draws! I'll to my brother:\nThough he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,\nYet hath he in him such a mind of honour.\nThat, had he twenty heads to tender down\nOn twenty bloody blocks, he'ld yield them up,\nBefore his sister should her body stoop\nTo such abhorr'd pollution.\nThen, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:\nMore than our brother is our chastity.\nI'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,\nAnd fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSo then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThe miserable have no other medicine\nBut only hope:\nI've hope to live, and am prepared to die.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBe absolute for death; either death or life\nShall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:\nIf I do lose thee, I do lose a thing\nThat none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,\nServile to all the skyey influences,\nThat dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,\nHourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;\nFor him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun\nAnd yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;\nFor all the accommodations that thou bear'st\nAre nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant;\nFor thou dost fear the soft and tender fork\nOf a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,\nAnd that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st\nThy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;\nFor thou exist'st on many a thousand grains\nThat issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;\nFor what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get,\nAnd what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;\nFor thy complexion shifts to strange effects,\nAfter the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;\nFor, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,\nThou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey,\nAnd death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;\nFor thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,\nThe mere effusion of thy proper loins,\nDo curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,\nFor ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,\nBut, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,\nDreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth\nBecomes as aged, and doth beg the alms\nOf palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,\nThou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,\nTo make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this\nThat bears the name of life? Yet in this life\nLie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,\nThat makes these odds all even.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nI humbly thank you.\nTo sue to live, I find I seek to die;\nAnd, seeking death, find life: let it come on.\n\nISABELLA:\n\nProvost:\nWho's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nDear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nMost holy sir, I thank you.\n\nISABELLA:\nMy business is a word or two with Claudio.\n\nProvost:\nAnd very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nProvost, a word with you.\n\nProvost:\nAs many as you please.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nNow, sister, what's the comfort?\n\nISABELLA:\nWhy,\nAs all comforts are; most good, most good indeed.\nLord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,\nIntends you for his swift ambassador,\nWhere you shall be an everlasting leiger:\nTherefore your best appointment make with speed;\nTo-morrow you set on.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nIs there no remedy?\n\nISABELLA:\nNone, but such remedy as, to save a head,\nTo cleave a heart in twain.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nBut is there any?\n\nISABELLA:\nYes, brother, you may live:\nThere is a devilish mercy in the judge,\nIf you'll implore it, that will free your life,\nBut fetter you till death.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nPerpetual durance?\n\nISABELLA:\nAy, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,\nThough all the world's vastidity you had,\nTo a determined scope.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nBut in what nature?\n\nISABELLA:\nIn such a one as, you consenting to't,\nWould bark your honour from that trunk you bear,\nAnd leave you naked.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nLet me know the point.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,\nLest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,\nAnd six or seven winters more respect\nThan a perpetual honour. Darest thou die?\nThe sense of death is most in apprehension;\nAnd the poor beetle, that we tread upon,\nIn corporal sufferance finds a pang as great\nAs when a giant dies.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nWhy give you me this shame?\nThink you I can a resolution fetch\nFrom flowery tenderness? If I must die,\nI will encounter darkness as a bride,\nAnd hug it in mine arms.\n\nISABELLA:\nThere spake my brother; there my father's grave\nDid utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:\nThou art too noble to conserve a life\nIn base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,\nWhose settled visage and deliberate word\nNips youth i' the head and follies doth emmew\nAs falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil\nHis filth within being cast, he would appear\nA pond as deep as hell.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThe prenzie Angelo!\n\nISABELLA:\nO, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,\nThe damned'st body to invest and cover\nIn prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?\nIf I would yield him my virginity,\nThou mightst be freed.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nO heavens! it cannot be.\n\nISABELLA:\nYes, he would give't thee, from this rank offence,\nSo to offend him still. This night's the time\nThat I should do what I abhor to name,\nOr else thou diest to-morrow.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThou shalt not do't.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, were it but my life,\nI'ld throw it down for your deliverance\nAs frankly as a pin.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThanks, dear Isabel.\n\nISABELLA:\nBe ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nYes. Has he affections in him,\nThat thus can make him bite the law by the nose,\nWhen he would force it? Sure, it is no sin,\nOr of the deadly seven, it is the least.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhich is the least?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nIf it were damnable, he being so wise,\nWhy would he for the momentary trick\nBe perdurably fined? O Isabel!\n\nISABELLA:\nWhat says my brother?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nDeath is a fearful thing.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd shamed life a hateful.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nAy, but to die, and go we know not where;\nTo lie in cold obstruction and to rot;\nThis sensible warm motion to become\nA kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit\nTo bathe in fiery floods, or to reside\nIn thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;\nTo be imprison'd in the viewless winds,\nAnd blown with restless violence round about\nThe pendent world; or to be worse than worst\nOf those that lawless and incertain thought\nImagine howling: 'tis too horrible!\nThe weariest and most loathed worldly life\nThat age, ache, penury and imprisonment\nCan lay on nature is a paradise\nTo what we fear of death.\n\nISABELLA:\nAlas, alas!\n\nCLAUDIO:\nSweet sister, let me live:\nWhat sin you do to save a brother's life,\nNature dispenses with the deed so far\nThat it becomes a virtue.\n\nISABELLA:\nO you beast!\nO faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!\nWilt thou be made a man out of my vice?\nIs't not a kind of incest, to take life\nFrom thine own sister's shame? What should I think?\nHeaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!\nFor such a warped slip of wilderness\nNe'er issued from his blood. Take my defiance!\nDie, perish! Might but my bending down\nReprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed:\nI'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,\nNo word to save thee.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nNay, hear me, Isabel.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, fie, fie, fie!\nThy sin's not accidental, but a trade.\nMercy to thee would prove itself a bawd:\n'Tis best thou diest quickly.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nO hear me, Isabella!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nVouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhat is your will?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMight you dispense with your leisure, I would by and\nby have some speech with you: the satisfaction I\nwould require is likewise your own benefit.\n\nISABELLA:\nI have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be\nstolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSon, I have overheard what hath passed between you\nand your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to\ncorrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her\nvirtue to practise his judgment with the disposition\nof natures: she, having the truth of honour in her,\nhath made him that gracious denial which he is most\nglad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I\nknow this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to\ndeath: do not satisfy your resolution with hopes\nthat are fallible: tomorrow you must die; go to\nyour knees and make ready.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nLet me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love\nwith life that I will sue to be rid of it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHold you there: farewell.\nProvost, a word with you!\n\nProvost:\nWhat's your will, father\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me\nawhile with the maid: my mind promises with my\nhabit no loss shall touch her by my company.\n\nProvost:\nIn good time.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe hand that hath made you fair hath made you good:\nthe goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty\nbrief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of\nyour complexion, shall keep the body of it ever\nfair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you,\nfortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but\nthat frailty hath examples for his falling, I should\nwonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this\nsubstitute, and to save your brother?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am now going to resolve him: I had rather my\nbrother die by the law than my son should be\nunlawfully born. But, O, how much is the good duke\ndeceived in Angelo! If ever he return and I can\nspeak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or\ndiscover his government.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat shall not be much amiss: Yet, as the matter\nnow stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made\ntrial of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my\nadvisings: to the love I have in doing good a\nremedy presents itself. I do make myself believe\nthat you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged\nlady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from\nthe angry law; do no stain to your own gracious\nperson; and much please the absent duke, if\nperadventure he shall ever return to have hearing of\nthis business.\n\nISABELLA:\nLet me hear you speak farther. I have spirit to do\nanything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nVirtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have\nyou not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of\nFrederick the great soldier who miscarried at sea?\n\nISABELLA:\nI have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nShe should this Angelo have married; was affianced\nto her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between\nwhich time of the contract and limit of the\nsolemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea,\nhaving in that perished vessel the dowry of his\nsister. But mark how heavily this befell to the\npoor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and\nrenowned brother, in his love toward her ever most\nkind and natural; with him, the portion and sinew of\nher fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her\ncombinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo.\n\nISABELLA:\nCan this be so? did Angelo so leave her?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLeft her in her tears, and dried not one of them\nwith his comfort; swallowed his vows whole,\npretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few,\nbestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet\nwears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears,\nis washed with them, but relents not.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhat a merit were it in death to take this poor maid\nfrom the world! What corruption in this life, that\nit will let this man live! But how out of this can she avail?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the\ncure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps\nyou from dishonour in doing it.\n\nISABELLA:\nShow me how, good father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance\nof her first affection: his unjust unkindness, that\nin all reason should have quenched her love, hath,\nlike an impediment in the current, made it more\nviolent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his\nrequiring with a plausible obedience; agree with\nhis demands to the point; only refer yourself to\nthis advantage, first, that your stay with him may\nnot be long; that the time may have all shadow and\nsilence in it; and the place answer to convenience.\nThis being granted in course,--and now follows\nall,--we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up\nyour appointment, go in your place; if the encounter\nacknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to\nher recompense: and here, by this, is your brother\nsaved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana\nadvantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid\nwill I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you\nthink well to carry this as you may, the doubleness\nof the benefit defends the deceit from reproof.\nWhat think you of it?\n\nISABELLA:\nThe image of it gives me content already; and I\ntrust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily\nto Angelo: if for this night he entreat you to his\nbed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will\npresently to Saint Luke's: there, at the moated\ngrange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that\nplace call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that\nit may be quickly.\n\nISABELLA:\nI thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.\n\nELBOW:\nNay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will\nneeds buy and sell men and women like beasts, we\nshall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO heavens! what stuff is here\n\nPOMPEY:\n'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the\nmerriest was put down, and the worser allowed by\norder of law a furred gown to keep him warm; and\nfurred with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify, that\ncraft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing.\n\nELBOW:\nCome your way, sir. 'Bless you, good father friar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAnd you, good brother father. What offence hath\nthis man made you, sir?\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, sir, he hath offended the law: and, sir, we\ntake him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found\nupon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we have\nsent to the deputy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFie, sirrah! a bawd, a wicked bawd!\nThe evil that thou causest to be done,\nThat is thy means to live. Do thou but think\nWhat 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back\nFrom such a filthy vice: say to thyself,\nFrom their abominable and beastly touches\nI drink, I eat, array myself, and live.\nCanst thou believe thy living is a life,\nSo stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.\n\nPOMPEY:\nIndeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet,\nsir, I would prove--\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,\nThou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer:\nCorrection and instruction must both work\nEre this rude beast will profit.\n\nELBOW:\nHe must before the deputy, sir; he has given him\nwarning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremaster: if\nhe be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were\nas good go a mile on his errand.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat we were all, as some would seem to be,\nFrom our faults, as faults from seeming, free!\n\nELBOW:\nHis neck will come to your waist,--a cord, sir.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman and a\nfriend of mine.\n\nLUCIO:\nHow now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of\nCaesar? art thou led in triumph? What, is there\nnone of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be\nhad now, for putting the hand in the pocket and\nextracting it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What\nsayest thou to this tune, matter and method? Is't\nnot drowned i' the last rain, ha? What sayest\nthou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is\nthe way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The\ntrick of it?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nStill thus, and thus; still worse!\n\nLUCIO:\nHow doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she\nstill, ha?\n\nPOMPEY:\nTroth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she\nis herself in the tub.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be\nso: ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd:\nan unshunned consequence; it must be so. Art going\nto prison, Pompey?\n\nPOMPEY:\nYes, faith, sir.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell: go, say I\nsent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? or how?\n\nELBOW:\nFor being a bawd, for being a bawd.\n\nLUCIO:\nWell, then, imprison him: if imprisonment be the\ndue of a bawd, why, 'tis his right: bawd is he\ndoubtless, and of antiquity too; bawd-born.\nFarewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison,\nPompey: you will turn good husband now, Pompey; you\nwill keep the house.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.\n\nLUCIO:\nNo, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear.\nI will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage: If\nyou take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the\nmore. Adieu, trusty Pompey. 'Bless you, friar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAnd you.\n\nLUCIO:\nDoes Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?\n\nELBOW:\nCome your ways, sir; come.\n\nPOMPEY:\nYou will not bail me, then, sir?\n\nLUCIO:\nThen, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar?\nwhat news?\n\nELBOW:\nCome your ways, sir; come.\n\nLUCIO:\nGo to kennel, Pompey; go.\nWhat news, friar, of the duke?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI know none. Can you tell me of any?\n\nLUCIO:\nSome say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other\nsome, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.\n\nLUCIO:\nIt was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from\nthe state, and usurp the beggary he was never born\nto. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he\nputs transgression to 't.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe does well in 't.\n\nLUCIO:\nA little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in\nhim: something too crabbed that way, friar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.\n\nLUCIO:\nYes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred;\nit is well allied: but it is impossible to extirp\nit quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put\ndown. They say this Angelo was not made by man and\nwoman after this downright way of creation: is it\ntrue, think you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHow should he be made, then?\n\nLUCIO:\nSome report a sea-maid spawned him; some, that he\nwas begot between two stock-fishes. But it is\ncertain that when he makes water his urine is\ncongealed ice; that I know to be true: and he is a\nmotion generative; that's infallible.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the\nrebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a\nman! Would the duke that is absent have done this?\nEre he would have hanged a man for the getting a\nhundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing\na thousand: he had some feeling of the sport: he\nknew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI never heard the absent duke much detected for\nwomen; he was not inclined that way.\n\nLUCIO:\nO, sir, you are deceived.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis not possible.\n\nLUCIO:\nWho, not the duke? yes, your beggar of fifty; and\nhis use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish: the\nduke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk too;\nthat let me inform you.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou do him wrong, surely.\n\nLUCIO:\nSir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the\nduke: and I believe I know the cause of his\nwithdrawing.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat, I prithee, might be the cause?\n\nLUCIO:\nNo, pardon; 'tis a secret must be locked within the\nteeth and the lips: but this I can let you\nunderstand, the greater file of the subject held the\nduke to be wise.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWise! why, no question but he was.\n\nLUCIO:\nA very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nEither this is the envy in you, folly, or mistaking:\nthe very stream of his life and the business he hath\nhelmed must upon a warranted need give him a better\nproclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own\nbringings-forth, and he shall appear to the\nenvious a scholar, a statesman and a soldier.\nTherefore you speak unskilfully: or if your\nknowledge be more it is much darkened in your malice.\n\nLUCIO:\nSir, I know him, and I love him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLove talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with\ndearer love.\n\nLUCIO:\nCome, sir, I know what I know.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI can hardly believe that, since you know not what\nyou speak. But, if ever the duke return, as our\nprayers are he may, let me desire you to make your\nanswer before him. If it be honest you have spoke,\nyou have courage to maintain it: I am bound to call\nupon you; and, I pray you, your name?\n\nLUCIO:\nSir, my name is Lucio; well known to the duke.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe shall know you better, sir, if I may live to\nreport you.\n\nLUCIO:\nI fear you not.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, you hope the duke will return no more; or you\nimagine me too unhurtful an opposite. But indeed I\ncan do you little harm; you'll forswear this again.\n\nLUCIO:\nI'll be hanged first: thou art deceived in me,\nfriar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if\nClaudio die to-morrow or no?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhy should he die, sir?\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy? For filling a bottle with a tundish. I would\nthe duke we talk of were returned again: the\nungenitured agent will unpeople the province with\ncontinency; sparrows must not build in his\nhouse-eaves, because they are lecherous. The duke\nyet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would\nnever bring them to light: would he were returned!\nMarry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing.\nFarewell, good friar: I prithee, pray for me. The\nduke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on\nFridays. He's not past it yet, and I say to thee,\nhe would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown\nbread and garlic: say that I said so. Farewell.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo might nor greatness in mortality\nCan censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny\nThe whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong\nCan tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?\nBut who comes here?\n\nESCALUS:\nGo; away with her to prison!\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nGood my lord, be good to me; your honour is accounted\na merciful man; good my lord.\n\nESCALUS:\nDouble and treble admonition, and still forfeit in\nthe same kind! This would make mercy swear and play\nthe tyrant.\n\nProvost:\nA bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please\nyour honour.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nMy lord, this is one Lucio's information against me.\nMistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the\nduke's time; he promised her marriage: his child\nis a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob:\nI have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me!\n\nESCALUS:\nThat fellow is a fellow of much licence: let him be\ncalled before us. Away with her to prison! Go to;\nno more words.\nProvost, my brother Angelo will not be altered;\nClaudio must die to-morrow: let him be furnished\nwith divines, and have all charitable preparation.\nif my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be\nso with him.\n\nProvost:\nSo please you, this friar hath been with him, and\nadvised him for the entertainment of death.\n\nESCALUS:\nGood even, good father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBliss and goodness on you!\n\nESCALUS:\nOf whence are you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot of this country, though my chance is now\nTo use it for my time: I am a brother\nOf gracious order, late come from the See\nIn special business from his holiness.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhat news abroad i' the world?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNone, but that there is so great a fever on\ngoodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it:\nnovelty is only in request; and it is as dangerous\nto be aged in any kind of course, as it is virtuous\nto be constant in any undertaking. There is scarce\ntruth enough alive to make societies secure; but\nsecurity enough to make fellowships accurst: much\nupon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. This\nnews is old enough, yet it is every day's news. I\npray you, sir, of what disposition was the duke?\n\nESCALUS:\nOne that, above all other strifes, contended\nespecially to know himself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat pleasure was he given to?\n\nESCALUS:\nRather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at\nany thing which professed to make him rejoice: a\ngentleman of all temperance. But leave we him to\nhis events, with a prayer they may prove prosperous;\nand let me desire to know how you find Claudio\nprepared. I am made to understand that you have\nlent him visitation.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe professes to have received no sinister measure\nfrom his judge, but most willingly humbles himself\nto the determination of justice: yet had he framed\nto himself, by the instruction of his frailty, many\ndeceiving promises of life; which I by my good\nleisure have discredited to him, and now is he\nresolved to die.\n\nESCALUS:\nYou have paid the heavens your function, and the\nprisoner the very debt of your calling. I have\nlaboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest\nshore of my modesty: but my brother justice have I\nfound so severe, that he hath forced me to tell him\nhe is indeed Justice.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIf his own life answer the straitness of his\nproceeding, it shall become him well; wherein if he\nchance to fail, he hath sentenced himself.\n\nESCALUS:\nI am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nPeace be with you!\nHe who the sword of heaven will bear\nShould be as holy as severe;\nPattern in himself to know,\nGrace to stand, and virtue go;\nMore nor less to others paying\nThan by self-offences weighing.\nShame to him whose cruel striking\nKills for faults of his own liking!\nTwice treble shame on Angelo,\nTo weed my vice and let his grow!\nO, what may man within him hide,\nThough angel on the outward side!\nHow may likeness made in crimes,\nMaking practise on the times,\nTo draw with idle spiders' strings\nMost ponderous and substantial things!\nCraft against vice I must apply:\nWith Angelo to-night shall lie\nHis old betrothed but despised;\nSo disguise shall, by the disguised,\nPay with falsehood false exacting,\nAnd perform an old contracting.\n\n\nMARIANA:\nBreak off thy song, and haste thee quick away:\nHere comes a man of comfort, whose advice\nHath often still'd my brawling discontent.\nI cry you mercy, sir; and well could wish\nYou had not found me here so musical:\nLet me excuse me, and believe me so,\nMy mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm\nTo make bad good, and good provoke to harm.\nI pray, you, tell me, hath any body inquired\nfor me here to-day? much upon this time have\nI promised here to meet.\n\nMARIANA:\nYou have not been inquired after:\nI have sat here all day.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI do constantly believe you. The time is come even\nnow. I shall crave your forbearance a little: may\nbe I will call upon you anon, for some advantage to yourself.\n\nMARIANA:\nI am always bound to you.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nVery well met, and well come.\nWhat is the news from this good deputy?\n\nISABELLA:\nHe hath a garden circummured with brick,\nWhose western side is with a vineyard back'd;\nAnd to that vineyard is a planched gate,\nThat makes his opening with this bigger key:\nThis other doth command a little door\nWhich from the vineyard to the garden leads;\nThere have I made my promise\nUpon the heavy middle of the night\nTo call upon him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBut shall you on your knowledge find this way?\n\nISABELLA:\nI have ta'en a due and wary note upon't:\nWith whispering and most guilty diligence,\nIn action all of precept, he did show me\nThe way twice o'er.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAre there no other tokens\nBetween you 'greed concerning her observance?\n\nISABELLA:\nNo, none, but only a repair i' the dark;\nAnd that I have possess'd him my most stay\nCan be but brief; for I have made him know\nI have a servant comes with me along,\nThat stays upon me, whose persuasion is\nI come about my brother.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis well borne up.\nI have not yet made known to Mariana\nA word of this. What, ho! within! come forth!\nI pray you, be acquainted with this maid;\nShe comes to do you good.\n\nISABELLA:\nI do desire the like.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nDo you persuade yourself that I respect you?\n\nMARIANA:\nGood friar, I know you do, and have found it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nTake, then, this your companion by the hand,\nWho hath a story ready for your ear.\nI shall attend your leisure: but make haste;\nThe vaporous night approaches.\n\nMARIANA:\nWill't please you walk aside?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO place and greatness! millions of false eyes\nAre stuck upon thee: volumes of report\nRun with these false and most contrarious quests\nUpon thy doings: thousand escapes of wit\nMake thee the father of their idle dreams\nAnd rack thee in their fancies.\nWelcome, how agreed?\n\nISABELLA:\nShe'll take the enterprise upon her, father,\nIf you advise it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is not my consent,\nBut my entreaty too.\n\nISABELLA:\nLittle have you to say\nWhen you depart from him, but, soft and low,\n'Remember now my brother.'\n\nMARIANA:\nFear me not.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.\nHe is your husband on a pre-contract:\nTo bring you thus together, 'tis no sin,\nSith that the justice of your title to him\nDoth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go:\nOur corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.\n\nProvost:\nCome hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?\n\nPOMPEY:\nIf the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a\nmarried man, he's his wife's head, and I can never\ncut off a woman's head.\n\nProvost:\nCome, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a\ndirect answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio\nand Barnardine. Here is in our prison a common\nexecutioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if\nyou will take it on you to assist him, it shall\nredeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have\nyour full time of imprisonment and your deliverance\nwith an unpitied whipping, for you have been a\nnotorious bawd.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind;\nbut yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I\nwould be glad to receive some instruction from my\nfellow partner.\n\nProvost:\nWhat, ho! Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there?\n\nABHORSON:\nDo you call, sir?\n\nProvost:\nSirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in\nyour execution. If you think it meet, compound with\nhim by the year, and let him abide here with you; if\nnot, use him for the present and dismiss him. He\ncannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.\n\nABHORSON:\nA bawd, sir? fie upon him! he will discredit our mystery.\n\nProvost:\nGo to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn\nthe scale.\n\nPOMPEY:\nPray, sir, by your good favour,--for surely, sir, a\ngood favour you have, but that you have a hanging\nlook,--do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?\n\nABHORSON:\nAy, sir; a mystery\n\nPOMPEY:\nPainting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and\nyour whores, sir, being members of my occupation,\nusing painting, do prove my occupation a mystery:\nbut what mystery there should be in hanging, if I\nshould be hanged, I cannot imagine.\n\nABHORSON:\nSir, it is a mystery.\n\nPOMPEY:\nProof?\n\nABHORSON:\nEvery true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be\ntoo little for your thief, your true man thinks it\nbig enough; if it be too big for your thief, your\nthief thinks it little enough: so every true man's\napparel fits your thief.\n\nProvost:\nAre you agreed?\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is\na more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth\noftener ask forgiveness.\n\nProvost:\nYou, sirrah, provide your block and your axe\nto-morrow four o'clock.\n\nABHORSON:\nCome on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI do desire to learn, sir: and I hope, if you have\noccasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find\nme yare; for truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you\na good turn.\n\nProvost:\nCall hither Barnardine and Claudio:\nThe one has my pity; not a jot the other,\nBeing a murderer, though he were my brother.\nLook, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:\n'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow\nThou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nAs fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour\nWhen it lies starkly in the traveller's bones:\nHe will not wake.\n\nProvost:\nWho can do good on him?\nWell, go, prepare yourself.\nBut, hark, what noise?\nHeaven give your spirits comfort!\nBy and by.\nI hope it is some pardon or reprieve\nFor the most gentle Claudio.\nWelcome father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe best and wholesomest spirts of the night\nEnvelope you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?\n\nProvost:\nNone, since the curfew rung.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot Isabel?\n\nProvost:\nNo.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThey will, then, ere't be long.\n\nProvost:\nWhat comfort is for Claudio?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThere's some in hope.\n\nProvost:\nIt is a bitter deputy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot so, not so; his life is parallel'd\nEven with the stroke and line of his great justice:\nHe doth with holy abstinence subdue\nThat in himself which he spurs on his power\nTo qualify in others: were he meal'd with that\nWhich he corrects, then were he tyrannous;\nBut this being so, he's just.\nNow are they come.\nThis is a gentle provost: seldom when\nThe steeled gaoler is the friend of men.\nHow now! what noise? That spirit's possessed with haste\nThat wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes.\n\nProvost:\nThere he must stay until the officer\nArise to let him in: he is call'd up.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHave you no countermand for Claudio yet,\nBut he must die to-morrow?\n\nProvost:\nNone, sir, none.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAs near the dawning, provost, as it is,\nYou shall hear more ere morning.\n\nProvost:\nHappily\nYou something know; yet I believe there comes\nNo countermand; no such example have we:\nBesides, upon the very siege of justice\nLord Angelo hath to the public ear\nProfess'd the contrary.\nThis is his lordship's man.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAnd here comes Claudio's pardon.\n\nMessenger:\n\nProvost:\nI shall obey him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nProvost:\nI told you. Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss\nin mine office, awakens me with this unwonted\nputting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nPray you, let's hear.\n\nProvost:\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the\nafternoon?\n\nProvost:\nA Bohemian born, but here nursed un and bred; one\nthat is a prisoner nine years old.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHow came it that the absent duke had not either\ndelivered him to his liberty or executed him? I\nhave heard it was ever his manner to do so.\n\nProvost:\nHis friends still wrought reprieves for him: and,\nindeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord\nAngelo, came not to an undoubtful proof.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is now apparent?\n\nProvost:\nMost manifest, and not denied by himself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHath he born himself penitently in prison? how\nseems he to be touched?\n\nProvost:\nA man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but\nas a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless\nof what's past, present, or to come; insensible of\nmortality, and desperately mortal.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe wants advice.\n\nProvost:\nHe will hear none: he hath evermore had the liberty\nof the prison; give him leave to escape hence, he\nwould not: drunk many times a day, if not many days\nentirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if\nto carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming\nwarrant for it: it hath not moved him at all.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMore of him anon. There is written in your brow,\nprovost, honesty and constancy: if I read it not\ntruly, my ancient skill beguiles me; but, in the\nboldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard.\nClaudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is\nno greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath\nsentenced him. To make you understand this in a\nmanifested effect, I crave but four days' respite;\nfor the which you are to do me both a present and a\ndangerous courtesy.\n\nProvost:\nPray, sir, in what?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIn the delaying death.\n\nProvost:\nA lack, how may I do it, having the hour limited,\nand an express command, under penalty, to deliver\nhis head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case\nas Claudio's, to cross this in the smallest.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBy the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my\ninstructions may be your guide. Let this Barnardine\nbe this morning executed, and his head born to Angelo.\n\nProvost:\nAngelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it.\nShave the head, and tie the beard; and say it was\nthe desire of the penitent to be so bared before his\ndeath: you know the course is common. If any thing\nfall to you upon this, more than thanks and good\nfortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead\nagainst it with my life.\n\nProvost:\nPardon me, good father; it is against my oath.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWere you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy?\n\nProvost:\nTo him, and to his substitutes.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou will think you have made no offence, if the duke\navouch the justice of your dealing?\n\nProvost:\nBut what likelihood is in that?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see\nyou fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor\npersuasion can with ease attempt you, I will go\nfurther than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you.\nLook you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the\nduke: you know the character, I doubt not; and the\nsignet is not strange to you.\n\nProvost:\nI know them both.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe contents of this is the return of the duke: you\nshall anon over-read it at your pleasure; where you\nshall find, within these two days he will be here.\nThis is a thing that Angelo knows not; for he this\nvery day receives letters of strange tenor;\nperchance of the duke's death; perchance entering\ninto some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what\nis writ. Look, the unfolding star calls up the\nshepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how these\nthings should be: all difficulties are but easy\nwhen they are known. Call your executioner, and off\nwith Barnardine's head: I will give him a present\nshrift and advise him for a better place. Yet you\nare amazed; but this shall absolutely resolve you.\nCome away; it is almost clear dawn.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI am as well acquainted here as I was in our house\nof profession: one would think it were Mistress\nOverdone's own house, for here be many of her old\ncustomers. First, here's young Master Rash; he's in\nfor a commodity of brown paper and old ginger,\nninescore and seventeen pounds; of which he made\nfive marks, ready money: marry, then ginger was not\nmuch in request, for the old women were all dead.\nThen is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of\nMaster Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of\npeach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a\nbeggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young\nMaster Deep-vow, and Master Copperspur, and Master\nStarve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young\nDrop-heir that killed lusty Pudding, and Master\nForthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shooty the\ngreat traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed\nPots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in\nour trade, and are now 'for the Lord's sake.'\n\nABHORSON:\nSirrah, bring Barnardine hither.\n\nPOMPEY:\nMaster Barnardine! you must rise and be hanged.\nMaster Barnardine!\n\nABHORSON:\nWhat, ho, Barnardine!\n\nBARNARDINE:\n\nPOMPEY:\nYour friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so\ngood, sir, to rise and be put to death.\n\nBARNARDINE:\n\nABHORSON:\nTell him he must awake, and that quickly too.\n\nPOMPEY:\nPray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are\nexecuted, and sleep afterwards.\n\nABHORSON:\nGo in to him, and fetch him out.\n\nPOMPEY:\nHe is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.\n\nABHORSON:\nIs the axe upon the block, sirrah?\n\nPOMPEY:\nVery ready, sir.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nHow now, Abhorson? what's the news with you?\n\nABHORSON:\nTruly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your\nprayers; for, look you, the warrant's come.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nYou rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not\nfitted for 't.\n\nPOMPEY:\nO, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night,\nand is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the\nsounder all the next day.\n\nABHORSON:\nLook you, sir; here comes your ghostly father: do\nwe jest now, think you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily\nyou are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort\nyou and pray with you.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nFriar, not I I have been drinking hard all night,\nand I will have more time to prepare me, or they\nshall beat out my brains with billets: I will not\nconsent to die this day, that's certain.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, sir, you must: and therefore I beseech you\nLook forward on the journey you shall go.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nI swear I will not die to-day for any man's\npersuasion.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBut hear you.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nNot a word: if you have any thing to say to me,\ncome to my ward; for thence will not I to-day.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nUnfit to live or die: O gravel heart!\nAfter him, fellows; bring him to the block.\n\nProvost:\nNow, sir, how do you find the prisoner?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nA creature unprepared, unmeet for death;\nAnd to transport him in the mind he is\nWere damnable.\n\nProvost:\nHere in the prison, father,\nThere died this morning of a cruel fever\nOne Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,\nA man of Claudio's years; his beard and head\nJust of his colour. What if we do omit\nThis reprobate till he were well inclined;\nAnd satisfy the deputy with the visage\nOf Ragozine, more like to Claudio?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!\nDispatch it presently; the hour draws on\nPrefix'd by Angelo: see this be done,\nAnd sent according to command; whiles I\nPersuade this rude wretch willingly to die.\n\nProvost:\nThis shall be done, good father, presently.\nBut Barnardine must die this afternoon:\nAnd how shall we continue Claudio,\nTo save me from the danger that might come\nIf he were known alive?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLet this be done.\nPut them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio:\nEre twice the sun hath made his journal greeting\nTo the under generation, you shall find\nYour safety manifested.\n\nProvost:\nI am your free dependant.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nQuick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.\nNow will I write letters to Angelo,--\nThe provost, he shall bear them, whose contents\nShall witness to him I am near at home,\nAnd that, by great injunctions, I am bound\nTo enter publicly: him I'll desire\nTo meet me at the consecrated fount\nA league below the city; and from thence,\nBy cold gradation and well-balanced form,\nWe shall proceed with Angelo.\n\nProvost:\nHere is the head; I'll carry it myself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nConvenient is it. Make a swift return;\nFor I would commune with you of such things\nThat want no ear but yours.\n\nProvost:\nI'll make all speed.\n\nISABELLA:\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe tongue of Isabel. She's come to know\nIf yet her brother's pardon be come hither:\nBut I will keep her ignorant of her good,\nTo make her heavenly comforts of despair,\nWhen it is least expected.\n\nISABELLA:\nHo, by your leave!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGood morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.\n\nISABELLA:\nThe better, given me by so holy a man.\nHath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe hath released him, Isabel, from the world:\nHis head is off and sent to Angelo.\n\nISABELLA:\nNay, but it is not so.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is no other: show your wisdom, daughter,\nIn your close patience.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou shall not be admitted to his sight.\n\nISABELLA:\nUnhappy Claudio! wretched Isabel!\nInjurious world! most damned Angelo!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis nor hurts him nor profits you a jot;\nForbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven.\nMark what I say, which you shall find\nBy every syllable a faithful verity:\nThe duke comes home to-morrow; nay, dry your eyes;\nOne of our convent, and his confessor,\nGives me this instance: already he hath carried\nNotice to Escalus and Angelo,\nWho do prepare to meet him at the gates,\nThere to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom\nIn that good path that I would wish it go,\nAnd you shall have your bosom on this wretch,\nGrace of the duke, revenges to your heart,\nAnd general honour.\n\nISABELLA:\nI am directed by you.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis letter, then, to Friar Peter give;\n'Tis that he sent me of the duke's return:\nSay, by this token, I desire his company\nAt Mariana's house to-night. Her cause and yours\nI'll perfect him withal, and he shall bring you\nBefore the duke, and to the head of Angelo\nAccuse him home and home. For my poor self,\nI am combined by a sacred vow\nAnd shall be absent. Wend you with this letter:\nCommand these fretting waters from your eyes\nWith a light heart; trust not my holy order,\nIf I pervert your course. Who's here?\n\nLUCIO:\nGood even. Friar, where's the provost?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot within, sir.\n\nLUCIO:\nO pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see\nthine eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am fain\nto dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for\nmy head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would set\nme to 't. But they say the duke will be here\nto-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother:\nif the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been\nat home, he had lived.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSir, the duke is marvellous little beholding to your\nreports; but the best is, he lives not in them.\n\nLUCIO:\nFriar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do:\nhe's a better woodman than thou takest him for.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWell, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well.\n\nLUCIO:\nNay, tarry; I'll go along with thee\nI can tell thee pretty tales of the duke.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou have told me too many of him already, sir, if\nthey be true; if not true, none were enough.\n\nLUCIO:\nI was once before him for getting a wench with child.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nDid you such a thing?\n\nLUCIO:\nYes, marry, did I but I was fain to forswear it;\nthey would else have married me to the rotten medlar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.\n\nLUCIO:\nBy my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end:\nif bawdy talk offend you, we'll have very little of\nit. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.\n\nESCALUS:\nEvery letter he hath writ hath disvouched other.\n\nANGELO:\nIn most uneven and distracted manner. His actions\nshow much like to madness: pray heaven his wisdom be\nnot tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and\nredeliver our authorities there\n\nESCALUS:\nI guess not.\n\nANGELO:\nAnd why should we proclaim it in an hour before his\nentering, that if any crave redress of injustice,\nthey should exhibit their petitions in the street?\n\nESCALUS:\nHe shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of\ncomplaints, and to deliver us from devices\nhereafter, which shall then have no power to stand\nagainst us.\n\nANGELO:\nWell, I beseech you, let it be proclaimed betimes\ni' the morn; I'll call you at your house: give\nnotice to such men of sort and suit as are to meet\nhim.\n\nESCALUS:\nI shall, sir. Fare you well.\n\nANGELO:\nGood night.\nThis deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant\nAnd dull to all proceedings. A deflower'd maid!\nAnd by an eminent body that enforced\nThe law against it! But that her tender shame\nWill not proclaim against her maiden loss,\nHow might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;\nFor my authority bears of a credent bulk,\nThat no particular scandal once can touch\nBut it confounds the breather. He should have lived,\nSave that riotous youth, with dangerous sense,\nMight in the times to come have ta'en revenge,\nBy so receiving a dishonour'd life\nWith ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived!\nA lack, when once our grace we have forgot,\nNothing goes right: we would, and we would not.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThese letters at fit time deliver me\nThe provost knows our purpose and our plot.\nThe matter being afoot, keep your instruction,\nAnd hold you ever to our special drift;\nThough sometimes you do blench from this to that,\nAs cause doth minister. Go call at Flavius' house,\nAnd tell him where I stay: give the like notice\nTo Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,\nAnd bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;\nBut send me Flavius first.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nIt shall be speeded well.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste:\nCome, we will walk. There's other of our friends\nWill greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius.\n\nISABELLA:\nTo speak so indirectly I am loath:\nI would say the truth; but to accuse him so,\nThat is your part: yet I am advised to do it;\nHe says, to veil full purpose.\n\nMARIANA:\nBe ruled by him.\n\nISABELLA:\nBesides, he tells me that, if peradventure\nHe speak against me on the adverse side,\nI should not think it strange; for 'tis a physic\nThat's bitter to sweet end.\n\nMARIANA:\nI would Friar Peter--\n\nISABELLA:\nO, peace! the friar is come.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nCome, I have found you out a stand most fit,\nWhere you may have such vantage on the duke,\nHe shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;\nThe generous and gravest citizens\nHave hent the gates, and very near upon\nThe duke is entering: therefore, hence, away!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMy very worthy cousin, fairly met!\nOur old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.\n\nANGELO:\nHappy return be to your royal grace!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMany and hearty thankings to you both.\nWe have made inquiry of you; and we hear\nSuch goodness of your justice, that our soul\nCannot but yield you forth to public thanks,\nForerunning more requital.\n\nANGELO:\nYou make my bonds still greater.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it,\nTo lock it in the wards of covert bosom,\nWhen it deserves, with characters of brass,\nA forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time\nAnd razure of oblivion. Give me your hand,\nAnd let the subject see, to make them know\nThat outward courtesies would fain proclaim\nFavours that keep within. Come, Escalus,\nYou must walk by us on our other hand;\nAnd good supporters are you.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nNow is your time: speak loud and kneel before him.\n\nISABELLA:\nJustice, O royal duke! Vail your regard\nUpon a wrong'd, I would fain have said, a maid!\nO worthy prince, dishonour not your eye\nBy throwing it on any other object\nTill you have heard me in my true complaint\nAnd given me justice, justice, justice, justice!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nRelate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief.\nHere is Lord Angelo shall give you justice:\nReveal yourself to him.\n\nISABELLA:\nO worthy duke,\nYou bid me seek redemption of the devil:\nHear me yourself; for that which I must speak\nMust either punish me, not being believed,\nOr wring redress from you. Hear me, O hear me, here!\n\nANGELO:\nMy lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm:\nShe hath been a suitor to me for her brother\nCut off by course of justice,--\n\nISABELLA:\nBy course of justice!\n\nANGELO:\nAnd she will speak most bitterly and strange.\n\nISABELLA:\nMost strange, but yet most truly, will I speak:\nThat Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange?\nThat Angelo's a murderer; is 't not strange?\nThat Angelo is an adulterous thief,\nAn hypocrite, a virgin-violator;\nIs it not strange and strange?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNay, it is ten times strange.\n\nISABELLA:\nIt is not truer he is Angelo\nThan this is all as true as it is strange:\nNay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth\nTo the end of reckoning.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAway with her! Poor soul,\nShe speaks this in the infirmity of sense.\n\nISABELLA:\nO prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest\nThere is another comfort than this world,\nThat thou neglect me not, with that opinion\nThat I am touch'd with madness! Make not impossible\nThat which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible\nBut one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,\nMay seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute\nAs Angelo; even so may Angelo,\nIn all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,\nBe an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince:\nIf he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,\nHad I more name for badness.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBy mine honesty,\nIf she be mad,--as I believe no other,--\nHer madness hath the oddest frame of sense,\nSuch a dependency of thing on thing,\nAs e'er I heard in madness.\n\nISABELLA:\nO gracious duke,\nHarp not on that, nor do not banish reason\nFor inequality; but let your reason serve\nTo make the truth appear where it seems hid,\nAnd hide the false seems true.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMany that are not mad\nHave, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am the sister of one Claudio,\nCondemn'd upon the act of fornication\nTo lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo:\nI, in probation of a sisterhood,\nWas sent to by my brother; one Lucio\nAs then the messenger,--\n\nLUCIO:\nThat's I, an't like your grace:\nI came to her from Claudio, and desired her\nTo try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo\nFor her poor brother's pardon.\n\nISABELLA:\nThat's he indeed.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou were not bid to speak.\n\nLUCIO:\nNo, my good lord;\nNor wish'd to hold my peace.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI wish you now, then;\nPray you, take note of it: and when you have\nA business for yourself, pray heaven you then\nBe perfect.\n\nLUCIO:\nI warrant your honour.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe warrants for yourself; take heed to't.\n\nISABELLA:\nThis gentleman told somewhat of my tale,--\n\nLUCIO:\nRight.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt may be right; but you are i' the wrong\nTo speak before your time. Proceed.\n\nISABELLA:\nI went\nTo this pernicious caitiff deputy,--\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat's somewhat madly spoken.\n\nISABELLA:\nPardon it;\nThe phrase is to the matter.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMended again. The matter; proceed.\n\nISABELLA:\nIn brief, to set the needless process by,\nHow I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,\nHow he refell'd me, and how I replied,--\nFor this was of much length,--the vile conclusion\nI now begin with grief and shame to utter:\nHe would not, but by gift of my chaste body\nTo his concupiscible intemperate lust,\nRelease my brother; and, after much debatement,\nMy sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,\nAnd I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes,\nHis purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant\nFor my poor brother's head.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis is most likely!\n\nISABELLA:\nO, that it were as like as it is true!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBy heaven, fond wretch, thou knowist not what thou speak'st,\nOr else thou art suborn'd against his honour\nIn hateful practise. First, his integrity\nStands without blemish. Next, it imports no reason\nThat with such vehemency he should pursue\nFaults proper to himself: if he had so offended,\nHe would have weigh'd thy brother by himself\nAnd not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on:\nConfess the truth, and say by whose advice\nThou camest here to complain.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd is this all?\nThen, O you blessed ministers above,\nKeep me in patience, and with ripen'd time\nUnfold the evil which is here wrapt up\nIn countenance! Heaven shield your grace from woe,\nAs I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI know you'ld fain be gone. An officer!\nTo prison with her! Shall we thus permit\nA blasting and a scandalous breath to fall\nOn him so near us? This needs must be a practise.\nWho knew of Your intent and coming hither?\n\nISABELLA:\nOne that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nA ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar;\nI do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord\nFor certain words he spake against your grace\nIn your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWords against me? this is a good friar, belike!\nAnd to set on this wretched woman here\nAgainst our substitute! Let this friar be found.\n\nLUCIO:\nBut yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,\nI saw them at the prison: a saucy friar,\nA very scurvy fellow.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nBlessed be your royal grace!\nI have stood by, my lord, and I have heard\nYour royal ear abused. First, hath this woman\nMost wrongfully accused your substitute,\nWho is as free from touch or soil with her\nAs she from one ungot.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWe did believe no less.\nKnow you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nI know him for a man divine and holy;\nNot scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,\nAs he's reported by this gentleman;\nAnd, on my trust, a man that never yet\nDid, as he vouches, misreport your grace.\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, most villanously; believe it.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nWell, he in time may come to clear himself;\nBut at this instant he is sick my lord,\nOf a strange fever. Upon his mere request,\nBeing come to knowledge that there was complaint\nIntended 'gainst Lord Angelo, came I hither,\nTo speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know\nIs true and false; and what he with his oath\nAnd all probation will make up full clear,\nWhensoever he's convented. First, for this woman.\nTo justify this worthy nobleman,\nSo vulgarly and personally accused,\nHer shall you hear disproved to her eyes,\nTill she herself confess it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGood friar, let's hear it.\nDo you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?\nO heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!\nGive us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;\nIn this I'll be impartial; be you judge\nOf your own cause. Is this the witness, friar?\nFirst, let her show her face, and after speak.\n\nMARIANA:\nPardon, my lord; I will not show my face\nUntil my husband bid me.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat, are you married?\n\nMARIANA:\nNo, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAre you a maid?\n\nMARIANA:\nNo, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nA widow, then?\n\nMARIANA:\nNeither, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhy, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife?\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are\nneither maid, widow, nor wife.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSilence that fellow: I would he had some cause\nTo prattle for himself.\n\nLUCIO:\nWell, my lord.\n\nMARIANA:\nMy lord; I do confess I ne'er was married;\nAnd I confess besides I am no maid:\nI have known my husband; yet my husband\nKnows not that ever he knew me.\n\nLUCIO:\nHe was drunk then, my lord: it can be no better.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFor the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!\n\nLUCIO:\nWell, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis is no witness for Lord Angelo.\n\nMARIANA:\nNow I come to't my lord\nShe that accuses him of fornication,\nIn self-same manner doth accuse my husband,\nAnd charges him my lord, with such a time\nWhen I'll depose I had him in mine arms\nWith all the effect of love.\n\nANGELO:\nCharges she more than me?\n\nMARIANA:\nNot that I know.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo? you say your husband.\n\nMARIANA:\nWhy, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,\nWho thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,\nBut knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.\n\nANGELO:\nThis is a strange abuse. Let's see thy face.\n\nMARIANA:\nMy husband bids me; now I will unmask.\nThis is that face, thou cruel Angelo,\nWhich once thou sworest was worth the looking on;\nThis is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,\nWas fast belock'd in thine; this is the body\nThat took away the match from Isabel,\nAnd did supply thee at thy garden-house\nIn her imagined person.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nKnow you this woman?\n\nLUCIO:\nCarnally, she says.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSirrah, no more!\n\nLUCIO:\nEnough, my lord.\n\nANGELO:\nMy lord, I must confess I know this woman:\nAnd five years since there was some speech of marriage\nBetwixt myself and her; which was broke off,\nPartly for that her promised proportions\nCame short of composition, but in chief\nFor that her reputation was disvalued\nIn levity: since which time of five years\nI never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,\nUpon my faith and honour.\n\nMARIANA:\nNoble prince,\nAs there comes light from heaven and words from breath,\nAs there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,\nI am affianced this man's wife as strongly\nAs words could make up vows: and, my good lord,\nBut Tuesday night last gone in's garden-house\nHe knew me as a wife. As this is true,\nLet me in safety raise me from my knees\nOr else for ever be confixed here,\nA marble monument!\n\nANGELO:\nI did but smile till now:\nNow, good my lord, give me the scope of justice\nMy patience here is touch'd. I do perceive\nThese poor informal women are no more\nBut instruments of some more mightier member\nThat sets them on: let me have way, my lord,\nTo find this practise out.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAy, with my heart\nAnd punish them to your height of pleasure.\nThou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,\nCompact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,\nThough they would swear down each particular saint,\nWere testimonies against his worth and credit\nThat's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,\nSit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains\nTo find out this abuse, whence 'tis derived.\nThere is another friar that set them on;\nLet him be sent for.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nWould he were here, my lord! for he indeed\nHath set the women on to this complaint:\nYour provost knows the place where he abides\nAnd he may fetch him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGo do it instantly.\nAnd you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,\nWhom it concerns to hear this matter forth,\nDo with your injuries as seems you best,\nIn any chastisement: I for a while will leave you;\nBut stir not you till you have well determined\nUpon these slanderers.\n\nESCALUS:\nMy lord, we'll do it throughly.\nSignior Lucio, did not you say you knew that\nFriar Lodowick to be a dishonest person?\n\nLUCIO:\n'Cucullus non facit monachum:' honest in nothing\nbut in his clothes; and one that hath spoke most\nvillanous speeches of the duke.\n\nESCALUS:\nWe shall entreat you to abide here till he come and\nenforce them against him: we shall find this friar a\nnotable fellow.\n\nLUCIO:\nAs any in Vienna, on my word.\n\nESCALUS:\nCall that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with her.\nPray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you\nshall see how I'll handle her.\n\nLUCIO:\nNot better than he, by her own report.\n\nESCALUS:\nSay you?\n\nLUCIO:\nMarry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately,\nshe would sooner confess: perchance, publicly,\nshe'll be ashamed.\n\nESCALUS:\nI will go darkly to work with her.\n\nLUCIO:\nThat's the way; for women are light at midnight.\n\nESCALUS:\nCome on, mistress: here's a gentlewoman denies all\nthat you have said.\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of; here with\nthe provost.\n\nESCALUS:\nIn very good time: speak not you to him till we\ncall upon you.\n\nLUCIO:\nMum.\n\nESCALUS:\nCome, sir: did you set these women on to slander\nLord Angelo? they have confessed you did.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis false.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow! know you where you are?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nRespect to your great place! and let the devil\nBe sometime honour'd for his burning throne!\nWhere is the duke? 'tis he should hear me speak.\n\nESCALUS:\nThe duke's in us; and we will hear you speak:\nLook you speak justly.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBoldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,\nCome you to seek the lamb here of the fox?\nGood night to your redress! Is the duke gone?\nThen is your cause gone too. The duke's unjust,\nThus to retort your manifest appeal,\nAnd put your trial in the villain's mouth\nWhich here you come to accuse.\n\nLUCIO:\nThis is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhy, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar,\nIs't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women\nTo accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth\nAnd in the witness of his proper ear,\nTo call him villain? and then to glance from him\nTo the duke himself, to tax him with injustice?\nTake him hence; to the rack with him! We'll touse you\nJoint by joint, but we will know his purpose.\nWhat 'unjust'!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBe not so hot; the duke\nDare no more stretch this finger of mine than he\nDare rack his own: his subject am I not,\nNor here provincial. My business in this state\nMade me a looker on here in Vienna,\nWhere I have seen corruption boil and bubble\nTill it o'er-run the stew; laws for all faults,\nBut faults so countenanced, that the strong statutes\nStand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,\nAs much in mock as mark.\n\nESCALUS:\nSlander to the state! Away with him to prison!\n\nANGELO:\nWhat can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?\nIs this the man that you did tell us of?\n\nLUCIO:\n'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman baldpate:\ndo you know me?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice: I\nmet you at the prison, in the absence of the duke.\n\nLUCIO:\nO, did you so? And do you remember what you said of the duke?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMost notedly, sir.\n\nLUCIO:\nDo you so, sir? And was the duke a fleshmonger, a\nfool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make\nthat my report: you, indeed, spoke so of him; and\nmuch more, much worse.\n\nLUCIO:\nO thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the\nnose for thy speeches?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI protest I love the duke as I love myself.\n\nANGELO:\nHark, how the villain would close now, after his\ntreasonable abuses!\n\nESCALUS:\nSuch a fellow is not to be talked withal. Away with\nhim to prison! Where is the provost? Away with him\nto prison! lay bolts enough upon him: let him\nspeak no more. Away with those giglots too, and\nwith the other confederate companion!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nANGELO:\nWhat, resists he? Help him, Lucio.\n\nLUCIO:\nCome, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you\nbald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must\nyou? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you!\nshow your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour!\nWill't not off?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThou art the first knave that e'er madest a duke.\nFirst, provost, let me bail these gentle three.\nSneak not away, sir; for the friar and you\nMust have a word anon. Lay hold on him.\n\nLUCIO:\nThis may prove worse than hanging.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nANGELO:\nO my dread lord,\nI should be guiltier than my guiltiness,\nTo think I can be undiscernible,\nWhen I perceive your grace, like power divine,\nHath look'd upon my passes. Then, good prince,\nNo longer session hold upon my shame,\nBut let my trial be mine own confession:\nImmediate sentence then and sequent death\nIs all the grace I beg.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nCome hither, Mariana.\nSay, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?\n\nANGELO:\nI was, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGo take her hence, and marry her instantly.\nDo you the office, friar; which consummate,\nReturn him here again. Go with him, provost.\n\nESCALUS:\nMy lord, I am more amazed at his dishonour\nThan at the strangeness of it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nCome hither, Isabel.\nYour friar is now your prince: as I was then\nAdvertising and holy to your business,\nNot changing heart with habit, I am still\nAttorney'd at your service.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, give me pardon,\nThat I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd\nYour unknown sovereignty!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou are pardon'd, Isabel:\nAnd now, dear maid, be you as free to us.\nYour brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;\nAnd you may marvel why I obscured myself,\nLabouring to save his life, and would not rather\nMake rash remonstrance of my hidden power\nThan let him so be lost. O most kind maid,\nIt was the swift celerity of his death,\nWhich I did think with slower foot came on,\nThat brain'd my purpose. But, peace be with him!\nThat life is better life, past fearing death,\nThan that which lives to fear: make it your comfort,\nSo happy is your brother.\n\nISABELLA:\nI do, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFor this new-married man approaching here,\nWhose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd\nYour well defended honour, you must pardon\nFor Mariana's sake: but as he adjudged your brother,--\nBeing criminal, in double violation\nOf sacred chastity and of promise-breach\nThereon dependent, for your brother's life,--\nThe very mercy of the law cries out\nMost audible, even from his proper tongue,\n'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'\nHaste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;\nLike doth quit like, and MEASURE still FOR MEASURE.\nThen, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested;\nWhich, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.\nWe do condemn thee to the very block\nWhere Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.\nAway with him!\n\nMARIANA:\nO my most gracious lord,\nI hope you will not mock me with a husband.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is your husband mock'd you with a husband.\nConsenting to the safeguard of your honour,\nI thought your marriage fit; else imputation,\nFor that he knew you, might reproach your life\nAnd choke your good to come; for his possessions,\nAlthough by confiscation they are ours,\nWe do instate and widow you withal,\nTo buy you a better husband.\n\nMARIANA:\nO my dear lord,\nI crave no other, nor no better man.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNever crave him; we are definitive.\n\nMARIANA:\nGentle my liege,--\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou do but lose your labour.\nAway with him to death!\nNow, sir, to you.\n\nMARIANA:\nO my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part;\nLend me your knees, and all my life to come\nI'll lend you all my life to do you service.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAgainst all sense you do importune her:\nShould she kneel down in mercy of this fact,\nHer brother's ghost his paved bed would break,\nAnd take her hence in horror.\n\nMARIANA:\nIsabel,\nSweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;\nHold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all.\nThey say, best men are moulded out of faults;\nAnd, for the most, become much more the better\nFor being a little bad: so may my husband.\nO Isabel, will you not lend a knee?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe dies for Claudio's death.\n\nISABELLA:\nMost bounteous sir,\nLook, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,\nAs if my brother lived: I partly think\nA due sincerity govern'd his deeds,\nTill he did look on me: since it is so,\nLet him not die. My brother had but justice,\nIn that he did the thing for which he died:\nFor Angelo,\nHis act did not o'ertake his bad intent,\nAnd must be buried but as an intent\nThat perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects;\nIntents but merely thoughts.\n\nMARIANA:\nMerely, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYour suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.\nI have bethought me of another fault.\nProvost, how came it Claudio was beheaded\nAt an unusual hour?\n\nProvost:\nIt was commanded so.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHad you a special warrant for the deed?\n\nProvost:\nNo, my good lord; it was by private message.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFor which I do discharge you of your office:\nGive up your keys.\n\nProvost:\nPardon me, noble lord:\nI thought it was a fault, but knew it not;\nYet did repent me, after more advice;\nFor testimony whereof, one in the prison,\nThat should by private order else have died,\nI have reserved alive.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat's he?\n\nProvost:\nHis name is Barnardine.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI would thou hadst done so by Claudio.\nGo fetch him hither; let me look upon him.\n\nESCALUS:\nI am sorry, one so learned and so wise\nAs you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,\nShould slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood.\nAnd lack of temper'd judgment afterward.\n\nANGELO:\nI am sorry that such sorrow I procure:\nAnd so deep sticks it in my penitent heart\nThat I crave death more willingly than mercy;\n'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhich is that Barnardine?\n\nProvost:\nThis, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThere was a friar told me of this man.\nSirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul.\nThat apprehends no further than this world,\nAnd squarest thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd:\nBut, for those earthly faults, I quit them all;\nAnd pray thee take this mercy to provide\nFor better times to come. Friar, advise him;\nI leave him to your hand. What muffled fellow's that?\n\nProvost:\nThis is another prisoner that I saved.\nWho should have died when Claudio lost his head;\nAs like almost to Claudio as himself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nLUCIO:\n'Faith, my lord. I spoke it but according to the\ntrick. If you will hang me for it, you may; but I\nhad rather it would please you I might be whipt.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhipt first, sir, and hanged after.\nProclaim it, provost, round about the city.\nIs any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow,\nAs I have heard him swear himself there's one\nWhom he begot with child, let her appear,\nAnd he shall marry her: the nuptial finish'd,\nLet him be whipt and hang'd.\n\nLUCIO:\nI beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore.\nYour highness said even now, I made you a duke:\ngood my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nUpon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.\nThy slanders I forgive; and therewithal\nRemit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison;\nAnd see our pleasure herein executed.\n\nLUCIO:\nMarrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,\nwhipping, and hanging.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSlandering a prince deserves it.\nShe, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.\nJoy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo:\nI have confess'd her and I know her virtue.\nThanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness:\nThere's more behind that is more gratulate.\nThanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy:\nWe shill employ thee in a worthier place.\nForgive him, Angelo, that brought you home\nThe head of Ragozine for Claudio's:\nThe offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,\nI have a motion much imports your good;\nWhereto if you'll a willing ear incline,\nWhat's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.\nSo, bring us to our palace; where we'll show\nWhat's yet behind, that's meet you all should know.\n\nSLY:\nI'll pheeze you, in faith.\n\nHostess:\nA pair of stocks, you rogue!\n\nSLY:\nYe are a baggage: the Slys are no rogues; look in\nthe chronicles; we came in with Richard Conqueror.\nTherefore paucas pallabris; let the world slide: sessa!\n\nHostess:\nYou will not pay for the glasses you have burst?\n\nSLY:\nNo, not a denier. Go by, Jeronimy: go to thy cold\nbed, and warm thee.\n\nHostess:\nI know my remedy; I must go fetch the\nthird--borough.\n\nSLY:\nThird, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him\nby law: I'll not budge an inch, boy: let him come,\nand kindly.\n\nLord:\nHuntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds:\nBrach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss'd;\nAnd couple Clowder with the deep--mouth'd brach.\nSaw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good\nAt the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?\nI would not lose the dog for twenty pound.\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nWhy, Belman is as good as he, my lord;\nHe cried upon it at the merest loss\nAnd twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent:\nTrust me, I take him for the better dog.\n\nLord:\nThou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,\nI would esteem him worth a dozen such.\nBut sup them well and look unto them all:\nTo-morrow I intend to hunt again.\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nI will, my lord.\n\nLord:\nWhat's here? one dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?\n\nSecond Huntsman:\nHe breathes, my lord. Were he not warm'd with ale,\nThis were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.\n\nLord:\nO monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies!\nGrim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!\nSirs, I will practise on this drunken man.\nWhat think you, if he were convey'd to bed,\nWrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,\nA most delicious banquet by his bed,\nAnd brave attendants near him when he wakes,\nWould not the beggar then forget himself?\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nBelieve me, lord, I think he cannot choose.\n\nSecond Huntsman:\nIt would seem strange unto him when he waked.\n\nLord:\nEven as a flattering dream or worthless fancy.\nThen take him up and manage well the jest:\nCarry him gently to my fairest chamber\nAnd hang it round with all my wanton pictures:\nBalm his foul head in warm distilled waters\nAnd burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet:\nProcure me music ready when he wakes,\nTo make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;\nAnd if he chance to speak, be ready straight\nAnd with a low submissive reverence\nSay 'What is it your honour will command?'\nLet one attend him with a silver basin\nFull of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers,\nAnother bear the ewer, the third a diaper,\nAnd say 'Will't please your lordship cool your hands?'\nSome one be ready with a costly suit\nAnd ask him what apparel he will wear;\nAnother tell him of his hounds and horse,\nAnd that his lady mourns at his disease:\nPersuade him that he hath been lunatic;\nAnd when he says he is, say that he dreams,\nFor he is nothing but a mighty lord.\nThis do and do it kindly, gentle sirs:\nIt will be pastime passing excellent,\nIf it be husbanded with modesty.\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nMy lord, I warrant you we will play our part,\nAs he shall think by our true diligence\nHe is no less than what we say he is.\n\nLord:\nTake him up gently and to bed with him;\nAnd each one to his office when he wakes.\nSirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds:\nBelike, some noble gentleman that means,\nTravelling some journey, to repose him here.\nHow now! who is it?\n\nServant:\nAn't please your honour, players\nThat offer service to your lordship.\n\nLord:\nBid them come near.\nNow, fellows, you are welcome.\n\nPlayers:\nWe thank your honour.\n\nLord:\nDo you intend to stay with me tonight?\n\nA Player:\nSo please your lordship to accept our duty.\n\nLord:\nWith all my heart. This fellow I remember,\nSince once he play'd a farmer's eldest son:\n'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman so well:\nI have forgot your name; but, sure, that part\nWas aptly fitted and naturally perform'd.\n\nA Player:\nI think 'twas Soto that your honour means.\n\nLord:\n'Tis very true: thou didst it excellent.\nWell, you are come to me in a happy time;\nThe rather for I have some sport in hand\nWherein your cunning can assist me much.\nThere is a lord will hear you play to-night:\nBut I am doubtful of your modesties;\nLest over-eyeing of his odd behavior,--\nFor yet his honour never heard a play--\nYou break into some merry passion\nAnd so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,\nIf you should smile he grows impatient.\n\nA Player:\nFear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves,\nWere he the veriest antic in the world.\n\nLord:\nGo, sirrah, take them to the buttery,\nAnd give them friendly welcome every one:\nLet them want nothing that my house affords.\nSirrah, go you to Barthol'mew my page,\nAnd see him dress'd in all suits like a lady:\nThat done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber;\nAnd call him 'madam,' do him obeisance.\nTell him from me, as he will win my love,\nHe bear himself with honourable action,\nSuch as he hath observed in noble ladies\nUnto their lords, by them accomplished:\nSuch duty to the drunkard let him do\nWith soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,\nAnd say 'What is't your honour will command,\nWherein your lady and your humble wife\nMay show her duty and make known her love?'\nAnd then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,\nAnd with declining head into his bosom,\nBid him shed tears, as being overjoy'd\nTo see her noble lord restored to health,\nWho for this seven years hath esteem'd him\nNo better than a poor and loathsome beggar:\nAnd if the boy have not a woman's gift\nTo rain a shower of commanded tears,\nAn onion will do well for such a shift,\nWhich in a napkin being close convey'd\nShall in despite enforce a watery eye.\nSee this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst:\nAnon I'll give thee more instructions.\nI know the boy will well usurp the grace,\nVoice, gait and action of a gentlewoman:\nI long to hear him call the drunkard husband,\nAnd how my men will stay themselves from laughter\nWhen they do homage to this simple peasant.\nI'll in to counsel them; haply my presence\nMay well abate the over-merry spleen\nWhich otherwise would grow into extremes.\n\nSLY:\nFor God's sake, a pot of small ale.\n\nFirst Servant:\nWill't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?\n\nSecond Servant:\nWill't please your honour taste of these conserves?\n\nThird Servant:\nWhat raiment will your honour wear to-day?\n\nSLY:\nI am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour' nor\n'lordship:' I ne'er drank sack in my life; and if\nyou give me any conserves, give me conserves of\nbeef: ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear; for I\nhave no more doublets than backs, no more stockings\nthan legs, nor no more shoes than feet; nay,\nsometimes more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my\ntoes look through the over-leather.\n\nLord:\nHeaven cease this idle humour in your honour!\nO, that a mighty man of such descent,\nOf such possessions and so high esteem,\nShould be infused with so foul a spirit!\n\nSLY:\nWhat, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher\nSly, old Sly's son of Burtonheath, by birth a\npedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a\nbear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker?\nAsk Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if\nshe know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence\non the score for sheer ale, score me up for the\nlyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not\nbestraught: here's--\n\nThird Servant:\nO, this it is that makes your lady mourn!\n\nSecond Servant:\nO, this is it that makes your servants droop!\n\nLord:\nHence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,\nAs beaten hence by your strange lunacy.\nO noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,\nCall home thy ancient thoughts from banishment\nAnd banish hence these abject lowly dreams.\nLook how thy servants do attend on thee,\nEach in his office ready at thy beck.\nWilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays,\nAnd twenty caged nightingales do sing:\nOr wilt thou sleep? we'll have thee to a couch\nSofter and sweeter than the lustful bed\nOn purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis.\nSay thou wilt walk; we will bestrew the ground:\nOr wilt thou ride? thy horses shall be trapp'd,\nTheir harness studded all with gold and pearl.\nDost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar\nAbove the morning lark or wilt thou hunt?\nThy hounds shall make the welkin answer them\nAnd fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.\n\nFirst Servant:\nSay thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift\nAs breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.\n\nSecond Servant:\nDost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight\nAdonis painted by a running brook,\nAnd Cytherea all in sedges hid,\nWhich seem to move and wanton with her breath,\nEven as the waving sedges play with wind.\n\nLord:\nWe'll show thee Io as she was a maid,\nAnd how she was beguiled and surprised,\nAs lively painted as the deed was done.\n\nThird Servant:\nOr Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,\nScratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,\nAnd at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,\nSo workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.\n\nLord:\nThou art a lord, and nothing but a lord:\nThou hast a lady far more beautiful\nThan any woman in this waning age.\n\nFirst Servant:\nAnd till the tears that she hath shed for thee\nLike envious floods o'er-run her lovely face,\nShe was the fairest creature in the world;\nAnd yet she is inferior to none.\n\nSLY:\nAm I a lord? and have I such a lady?\nOr do I dream? or have I dream'd till now?\nI do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;\nI smell sweet savours and I feel soft things:\nUpon my life, I am a lord indeed\nAnd not a tinker nor Christophero Sly.\nWell, bring our lady hither to our sight;\nAnd once again, a pot o' the smallest ale.\n\nSecond Servant:\nWill't please your mightiness to wash your hands?\nO, how we joy to see your wit restored!\nO, that once more you knew but what you are!\nThese fifteen years you have been in a dream;\nOr when you waked, so waked as if you slept.\n\nSLY:\nThese fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.\nBut did I never speak of all that time?\n\nFirst Servant:\nO, yes, my lord, but very idle words:\nFor though you lay here in this goodly chamber,\nYet would you say ye were beaten out of door;\nAnd rail upon the hostess of the house;\nAnd say you would present her at the leet,\nBecause she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts:\nSometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.\n\nSLY:\nAy, the woman's maid of the house.\n\nThird Servant:\nWhy, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,\nNor no such men as you have reckon'd up,\nAs Stephen Sly and did John Naps of Greece\nAnd Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell\nAnd twenty more such names and men as these\nWhich never were nor no man ever saw.\n\nSLY:\nNow Lord be thanked for my good amends!\n\nALL:\nAmen.\n\nSLY:\nI thank thee: thou shalt not lose by it.\n\nPage:\nHow fares my noble lord?\n\nSLY:\nMarry, I fare well for here is cheer enough.\nWhere is my wife?\n\nPage:\nHere, noble lord: what is thy will with her?\n\nSLY:\nAre you my wife and will not call me husband?\nMy men should call me 'lord:' I am your goodman.\n\nPage:\nMy husband and my lord, my lord and husband;\nI am your wife in all obedience.\n\nSLY:\nI know it well. What must I call her?\n\nLord:\nMadam.\n\nSLY:\nAl'ce madam, or Joan madam?\n\nLord:\n'Madam,' and nothing else: so lords\ncall ladies.\n\nSLY:\nMadam wife, they say that I have dream'd\nAnd slept above some fifteen year or more.\n\nPage:\nAy, and the time seems thirty unto me,\nBeing all this time abandon'd from your bed.\n\nSLY:\n'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.\nMadam, undress you and come now to bed.\n\nPage:\nThrice noble lord, let me entreat of you\nTo pardon me yet for a night or two,\nOr, if not so, until the sun be set:\nFor your physicians have expressly charged,\nIn peril to incur your former malady,\nThat I should yet absent me from your bed:\nI hope this reason stands for my excuse.\n\nSLY:\nAy, it stands so that I may hardly\ntarry so long. But I would be loath to fall into\nmy dreams again: I will therefore tarry in\ndespite of the flesh and the blood.\n\nMessenger:\nYour honour's players, heating your amendment,\nAre come to play a pleasant comedy;\nFor so your doctors hold it very meet,\nSeeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,\nAnd melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:\nTherefore they thought it good you hear a play\nAnd frame your mind to mirth and merriment,\nWhich bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.\n\nSLY:\nMarry, I will, let them play it. Is not a\ncomondy a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?\n\nPage:\nNo, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.\n\nSLY:\nWhat, household stuff?\n\nPage:\nIt is a kind of history.\n\nSLY:\nWell, well see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side\nand let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, since for the great desire I had\nTo see fair Padua, nursery of arts,\nI am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,\nThe pleasant garden of great Italy;\nAnd by my father's love and leave am arm'd\nWith his good will and thy good company,\nMy trusty servant, well approved in all,\nHere let us breathe and haply institute\nA course of learning and ingenious studies.\nPisa renown'd for grave citizens\nGave me my being and my father first,\nA merchant of great traffic through the world,\nVincetino come of Bentivolii.\nVincetino's son brought up in Florence\nIt shall become to serve all hopes conceived,\nTo deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:\nAnd therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,\nVirtue and that part of philosophy\nWill I apply that treats of happiness\nBy virtue specially to be achieved.\nTell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left\nAnd am to Padua come, as he that leaves\nA shallow plash to plunge him in the deep\nAnd with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.\n\nTRANIO:\nMi perdonato, gentle master mine,\nI am in all affected as yourself;\nGlad that you thus continue your resolve\nTo suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.\nOnly, good master, while we do admire\nThis virtue and this moral discipline,\nLet's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;\nOr so devote to Aristotle's cheques\nAs Ovid be an outcast quite abjured:\nBalk logic with acquaintance that you have\nAnd practise rhetoric in your common talk;\nMusic and poesy use to quicken you;\nThe mathematics and the metaphysics,\nFall to them as you find your stomach serves you;\nNo profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en:\nIn brief, sir, study what you most affect.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nGramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.\nIf, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,\nWe could at once put us in readiness,\nAnd take a lodging fit to entertain\nSuch friends as time in Padua shall beget.\nBut stay a while: what company is this?\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, some show to welcome us to town.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGentlemen, importune me no farther,\nFor how I firmly am resolved you know;\nThat is, not bestow my youngest daughter\nBefore I have a husband for the elder:\nIf either of you both love Katharina,\nBecause I know you well and love you well,\nLeave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.\n\nGREMIO:\n\nKATHARINA:\nI pray you, sir, is it your will\nTo make a stale of me amongst these mates?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMates, maid! how mean you that? no mates for you,\nUnless you were of gentler, milder mould.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI'faith, sir, you shall never need to fear:\nI wis it is not half way to her heart;\nBut if it were, doubt not her care should be\nTo comb your noddle with a three-legg'd stool\nAnd paint your face and use you like a fool.\n\nHORTENSIA:\nFrom all such devils, good Lord deliver us!\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd me too, good Lord!\n\nTRANIO:\nHush, master! here's some good pastime toward:\nThat wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBut in the other's silence do I see\nMaid's mild behavior and sobriety.\nPeace, Tranio!\n\nTRANIO:\nWell said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGentlemen, that I may soon make good\nWhat I have said, Bianca, get you in:\nAnd let it not displease thee, good Bianca,\nFor I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl.\n\nKATHARINA:\nA pretty peat! it is best\nPut finger in the eye, an she knew why.\n\nBIANCA:\nSister, content you in my discontent.\nSir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe:\nMy books and instruments shall be my company,\nOn them to took and practise by myself.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHark, Tranio! thou may'st hear Minerva speak.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSignior Baptista, will you be so strange?\nSorry am I that our good will effects\nBianca's grief.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhy will you mew her up,\nSignior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,\nAnd make her bear the penance of her tongue?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGentlemen, content ye; I am resolved:\nGo in, Bianca:\nAnd for I know she taketh most delight\nIn music, instruments and poetry,\nSchoolmasters will I keep within my house,\nFit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,\nOr Signior Gremio, you, know any such,\nPrefer them hither; for to cunning men\nI will be very kind, and liberal\nTo mine own children in good bringing up:\nAnd so farewell. Katharina, you may stay;\nFor I have more to commune with Bianca.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhy, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What,\nshall I be appointed hours; as though, belike, I\nknew not what to take and what to leave, ha?\n\nGREMIO:\nYou may go to the devil's dam: your gifts are so\ngood, here's none will hold you. Their love is not\nso great, Hortensio, but we may blow our nails\ntogether, and fast it fairly out: our cakes dough on\nboth sides. Farewell: yet for the love I bear my\nsweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit\nman to teach her that wherein she delights, I will\nwish him to her father.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSo will I, Signior Gremio: but a word, I pray.\nThough the nature of our quarrel yet never brooked\nparle, know now, upon advice, it toucheth us both,\nthat we may yet again have access to our fair\nmistress and be happy rivals in Bianco's love, to\nlabour and effect one thing specially.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhat's that, I pray?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMarry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.\n\nGREMIO:\nA husband! a devil.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI say, a husband.\n\nGREMIO:\nI say, a devil. Thinkest thou, Hortensio, though\nher father be very rich, any man is so very a fool\nto be married to hell?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTush, Gremio, though it pass your patience and mine\nto endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good\nfellows in the world, an a man could light on them,\nwould take her with all faults, and money enough.\n\nGREMIO:\nI cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with\nthis condition, to be whipped at the high cross\nevery morning.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nFaith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten\napples. But come; since this bar in law makes us\nfriends, it shall be so far forth friendly\nmaintained all by helping Baptista's eldest daughter\nto a husband we set his youngest free for a husband,\nand then have to't a fresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy man\nbe his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring.\nHow say you, Signior Gremio?\n\nGREMIO:\nI am agreed; and would I had given him the best\nhorse in Padua to begin his wooing that would\nthoroughly woo her, wed her and bed her and rid the\nhouse of her! Come on.\n\nTRANIO:\nI pray, sir, tell me, is it possible\nThat love should of a sudden take such hold?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nO Tranio, till I found it to be true,\nI never thought it possible or likely;\nBut see, while idly I stood looking on,\nI found the effect of love in idleness:\nAnd now in plainness do confess to thee,\nThat art to me as secret and as dear\nAs Anna to the queen of Carthage was,\nTranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,\nIf I achieve not this young modest girl.\nCounsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;\nAssist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, it is no time to chide you now;\nAffection is not rated from the heart:\nIf love have touch'd you, nought remains but so,\n'Redime te captum quam queas minimo.'\n\nLUCENTIO:\nGramercies, lad, go forward; this contents:\nThe rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, you look'd so longly on the maid,\nPerhaps you mark'd not what's the pith of all.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nO yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,\nSuch as the daughter of Agenor had,\nThat made great Jove to humble him to her hand.\nWhen with his knees he kiss'd the Cretan strand.\n\nTRANIO:\nSaw you no more? mark'd you not how her sister\nBegan to scold and raise up such a storm\nThat mortal ears might hardly endure the din?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, I saw her coral lips to move\nAnd with her breath she did perfume the air:\nSacred and sweet was all I saw in her.\n\nTRANIO:\nNay, then, 'tis time to stir him from his trance.\nI pray, awake, sir: if you love the maid,\nBend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:\nHer eldest sister is so curst and shrewd\nThat till the father rid his hands of her,\nMaster, your love must live a maid at home;\nAnd therefore has he closely mew'd her up,\nBecause she will not be annoy'd with suitors.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAh, Tranio, what a cruel father's he!\nBut art thou not advised, he took some care\nTo get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?\n\nTRANIO:\nAy, marry, am I, sir; and now 'tis plotted.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI have it, Tranio.\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, for my hand,\nBoth our inventions meet and jump in one.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTell me thine first.\n\nTRANIO:\nYou will be schoolmaster\nAnd undertake the teaching of the maid:\nThat's your device.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nIt is: may it be done?\n\nTRANIO:\nNot possible; for who shall bear your part,\nAnd be in Padua here Vincentio's son,\nKeep house and ply his book, welcome his friends,\nVisit his countrymen and banquet them?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBasta; content thee, for I have it full.\nWe have not yet been seen in any house,\nNor can we lie distinguish'd by our faces\nFor man or master; then it follows thus;\nThou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,\nKeep house and port and servants as I should:\nI will some other be, some Florentine,\nSome Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.\n'Tis hatch'd and shall be so: Tranio, at once\nUncase thee; take my colour'd hat and cloak:\nWhen Biondello comes, he waits on thee;\nBut I will charm him first to keep his tongue.\n\nTRANIO:\nSo had you need.\nIn brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,\nAnd I am tied to be obedient;\nFor so your father charged me at our parting,\n'Be serviceable to my son,' quoth he,\nAlthough I think 'twas in another sense;\nI am content to be Lucentio,\nBecause so well I love Lucentio.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, be so, because Lucentio loves:\nAnd let me be a slave, to achieve that maid\nWhose sudden sight hath thrall'd my wounded eye.\nHere comes the rogue.\nSirrah, where have you been?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhere have I been! Nay, how now! where are you?\nMaster, has my fellow Tranio stolen your clothes? Or\nyou stolen his? or both? pray, what's the news?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nSirrah, come hither: 'tis no time to jest,\nAnd therefore frame your manners to the time.\nYour fellow Tranio here, to save my life,\nPuts my apparel and my countenance on,\nAnd I for my escape have put on his;\nFor in a quarrel since I came ashore\nI kill'd a man and fear I was descried:\nWait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,\nWhile I make way from hence to save my life:\nYou understand me?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI, sir! ne'er a whit.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:\nTranio is changed into Lucentio.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nThe better for him: would I were so too!\n\nTRANIO:\nSo could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,\nThat Lucentio indeed had Baptista's youngest daughter.\nBut, sirrah, not for my sake, but your master's, I advise\nYou use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies:\nWhen I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;\nBut in all places else your master Lucentio.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, let's go: one thing more rests, that\nthyself execute, to make one among these wooers: if\nthou ask me why, sufficeth, my reasons are both good\nand weighty.\n\nFirst Servant:\nMy lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.\n\nSLY:\nYes, by Saint Anne, do I. A good matter, surely:\ncomes there any more of it?\n\nPage:\nMy lord, 'tis but begun.\n\nSLY:\n'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady:\nwould 'twere done!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVerona, for a while I take my leave,\nTo see my friends in Padua, but of all\nMy best beloved and approved friend,\nHortensio; and I trow this is his house.\nHere, sirrah Grumio; knock, I say.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKnock, sir! whom should I knock? is there man has\nrebused your worship?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVillain, I say, knock me here soundly.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKnock you here, sir! why, sir, what am I, sir, that\nI should knock you here, sir?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVillain, I say, knock me at this gate\nAnd rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.\n\nGRUMIO:\nMy master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock\nyou first,\nAnd then I know after who comes by the worst.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWill it not be?\nFaith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll ring it;\nI'll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nHelp, masters, help! my master is mad.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nHow now! what's the matter? My old friend Grumio!\nand my good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSignior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?\n'Con tutto il cuore, ben trovato,' may I say.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n'Alla nostra casa ben venuto, molto honorato signor\nmio Petruchio.' Rise, Grumio, rise: we will compound\nthis quarrel.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in Latin.\nif this be not a lawful case for me to leave his\nservice, look you, sir, he bid me knock him and rap\nhim soundly, sir: well, was it fit for a servant to\nuse his master so, being perhaps, for aught I see,\ntwo and thirty, a pip out? Whom would to God I had\nwell knock'd at first, Then had not Grumio come by the worst.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA senseless villain! Good Hortensio,\nI bade the rascal knock upon your gate\nAnd could not get him for my heart to do it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKnock at the gate! O heavens! Spake you not these\nwords plain, 'Sirrah, knock me here, rap me here,\nknock me well, and knock me soundly'? And come you\nnow with, 'knocking at the gate'?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, patience; I am Grumio's pledge:\nWhy, this's a heavy chance 'twixt him and you,\nYour ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.\nAnd tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale\nBlows you to Padua here from old Verona?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSuch wind as scatters young men through the world,\nTo seek their fortunes farther than at home\nWhere small experience grows. But in a few,\nSignior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:\nAntonio, my father, is deceased;\nAnd I have thrust myself into this maze,\nHaply to wive and thrive as best I may:\nCrowns in my purse I have and goods at home,\nAnd so am come abroad to see the world.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee\nAnd wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour'd wife?\nThou'ldst thank me but a little for my counsel:\nAnd yet I'll promise thee she shall be rich\nAnd very rich: but thou'rt too much my friend,\nAnd I'll not wish thee to her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSignior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we\nFew words suffice; and therefore, if thou know\nOne rich enough to be Petruchio's wife,\nAs wealth is burden of my wooing dance,\nBe she as foul as was Florentius' love,\nAs old as Sibyl and as curst and shrewd\nAs Socrates' Xanthippe, or a worse,\nShe moves me not, or not removes, at least,\nAffection's edge in me, were she as rough\nAs are the swelling Adriatic seas:\nI come to wive it wealthily in Padua;\nIf wealthily, then happily in Padua.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his\nmind is: Why give him gold enough and marry him to\na puppet or an aglet-baby; or an old trot with ne'er\na tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases\nas two and fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss,\nso money comes withal.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, since we are stepp'd thus far in,\nI will continue that I broach'd in jest.\nI can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife\nWith wealth enough and young and beauteous,\nBrought up as best becomes a gentlewoman:\nHer only fault, and that is faults enough,\nIs that she is intolerable curst\nAnd shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure\nThat, were my state far worser than it is,\nI would not wed her for a mine of gold.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHortensio, peace! thou know'st not gold's effect:\nTell me her father's name and 'tis enough;\nFor I will board her, though she chide as loud\nAs thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nHer father is Baptista Minola,\nAn affable and courteous gentleman:\nHer name is Katharina Minola,\nRenown'd in Padua for her scolding tongue.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI know her father, though I know not her;\nAnd he knew my deceased father well.\nI will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;\nAnd therefore let me be thus bold with you\nTo give you over at this first encounter,\nUnless you will accompany me thither.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts.\nO' my word, an she knew him as well as I do, she\nwould think scolding would do little good upon him:\nshe may perhaps call him half a score knaves or so:\nwhy, that's nothing; an he begin once, he'll rail in\nhis rope-tricks. I'll tell you what sir, an she\nstand him but a little, he will throw a figure in\nher face and so disfigure her with it that she\nshall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat.\nYou know him not, sir.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,\nFor in Baptista's keep my treasure is:\nHe hath the jewel of my life in hold,\nHis youngest daughter, beautiful Binaca,\nAnd her withholds from me and other more,\nSuitors to her and rivals in my love,\nSupposing it a thing impossible,\nFor those defects I have before rehearsed,\nThat ever Katharina will be woo'd;\nTherefore this order hath Baptista ta'en,\nThat none shall have access unto Bianca\nTill Katharina the curst have got a husband.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKatharina the curst!\nA title for a maid of all titles the worst.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nNow shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,\nAnd offer me disguised in sober robes\nTo old Baptista as a schoolmaster\nWell seen in music, to instruct Bianca;\nThat so I may, by this device, at least\nHave leave and leisure to make love to her\nAnd unsuspected court her by herself.\n\nGRUMIO:\nHere's no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks,\nhow the young folks lay their heads together!\nMaster, master, look about you: who goes there, ha?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPeace, Grumio! it is the rival of my love.\nPetruchio, stand by a while.\n\nGRUMIO:\nA proper stripling and an amorous!\n\nGREMIO:\nO, very well; I have perused the note.\nHark you, sir: I'll have them very fairly bound:\nAll books of love, see that at any hand;\nAnd see you read no other lectures to her:\nYou understand me: over and beside\nSignior Baptista's liberality,\nI'll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too,\nAnd let me have them very well perfumed\nFor she is sweeter than perfume itself\nTo whom they go to. What will you read to her?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWhate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you\nAs for my patron, stand you so assured,\nAs firmly as yourself were still in place:\nYea, and perhaps with more successful words\nThan you, unless you were a scholar, sir.\n\nGREMIO:\nO this learning, what a thing it is!\n\nGRUMIO:\nO this woodcock, what an ass it is!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPeace, sirrah!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nGrumio, mum! God save you, Signior Gremio.\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd you are well met, Signior Hortensio.\nTrow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.\nI promised to inquire carefully\nAbout a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca:\nAnd by good fortune I have lighted well\nOn this young man, for learning and behavior\nFit for her turn, well read in poetry\nAnd other books, good ones, I warrant ye.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n'Tis well; and I have met a gentleman\nHath promised me to help me to another,\nA fine musician to instruct our mistress;\nSo shall I no whit be behind in duty\nTo fair Bianca, so beloved of me.\n\nGREMIO:\nBeloved of me; and that my deeds shall prove.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAnd that his bags shall prove.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nGremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love:\nListen to me, and if you speak me fair,\nI'll tell you news indifferent good for either.\nHere is a gentleman whom by chance I met,\nUpon agreement from us to his liking,\nWill undertake to woo curst Katharina,\nYea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.\n\nGREMIO:\nSo said, so done, is well.\nHortensio, have you told him all her faults?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI know she is an irksome brawling scold:\nIf that be all, masters, I hear no harm.\n\nGREMIO:\nNo, say'st me so, friend? What countryman?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nBorn in Verona, old Antonio's son:\nMy father dead, my fortune lives for me;\nAnd I do hope good days and long to see.\n\nGREMIO:\nO sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange!\nBut if you have a stomach, to't i' God's name:\nYou shall have me assisting you in all.\nBut will you woo this wild-cat?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWill I live?\n\nGRUMIO:\nWill he woo her? ay, or I'll hang her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy came I hither but to that intent?\nThink you a little din can daunt mine ears?\nHave I not in my time heard lions roar?\nHave I not heard the sea puff'd up with winds\nRage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?\nHave I not heard great ordnance in the field,\nAnd heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?\nHave I not in a pitched battle heard\nLoud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?\nAnd do you tell me of a woman's tongue,\nThat gives not half so great a blow to hear\nAs will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?\nTush, tush! fear boys with bugs.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFor he fears none.\n\nGREMIO:\nHortensio, hark:\nThis gentleman is happily arrived,\nMy mind presumes, for his own good and ours.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI promised we would be contributors\nAnd bear his charging of wooing, whatsoe'er.\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd so we will, provided that he win her.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI would I were as sure of a good dinner.\n\nTRANIO:\nGentlemen, God save you. If I may be bold,\nTell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way\nTo the house of Signior Baptista Minola?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHe that has the two fair daughters: is't he you mean?\n\nTRANIO:\nEven he, Biondello.\n\nGREMIO:\nHark you, sir; you mean not her to--\n\nTRANIO:\nPerhaps, him and her, sir: what have you to do?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNot her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.\n\nTRANIO:\nI love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let's away.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWell begun, Tranio.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, a word ere you go;\nAre you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd if I be, sir, is it any offence?\n\nGREMIO:\nNo; if without more words you will get you hence.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhy, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free\nFor me as for you?\n\nGREMIO:\nBut so is not she.\n\nTRANIO:\nFor what reason, I beseech you?\n\nGREMIO:\nFor this reason, if you'll know,\nThat she's the choice love of Signior Gremio.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThat she's the chosen of Signior Hortensio.\n\nTRANIO:\nSoftly, my masters! if you be gentlemen,\nDo me this right; hear me with patience.\nBaptista is a noble gentleman,\nTo whom my father is not all unknown;\nAnd were his daughter fairer than she is,\nShe may more suitors have and me for one.\nFair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers;\nThen well one more may fair Bianca have:\nAnd so she shall; Lucentio shall make one,\nThough Paris came in hope to speed alone.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhat! this gentleman will out-talk us all.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nSir, give him head: I know he'll prove a jade.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHortensio, to what end are all these words?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, let me be so bold as ask you,\nDid you yet ever see Baptista's daughter?\n\nTRANIO:\nNo, sir; but hear I do that he hath two,\nThe one as famous for a scolding tongue\nAs is the other for beauteous modesty.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSir, sir, the first's for me; let her go by.\n\nGREMIO:\nYea, leave that labour to great Hercules;\nAnd let it be more than Alcides' twelve.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSir, understand you this of me in sooth:\nThe youngest daughter whom you hearken for\nHer father keeps from all access of suitors,\nAnd will not promise her to any man\nUntil the elder sister first be wed:\nThe younger then is free and not before.\n\nTRANIO:\nIf it be so, sir, that you are the man\nMust stead us all and me amongst the rest,\nAnd if you break the ice and do this feat,\nAchieve the elder, set the younger free\nFor our access, whose hap shall be to have her\nWill not so graceless be to be ingrate.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, you say well and well you do conceive;\nAnd since you do profess to be a suitor,\nYou must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,\nTo whom we all rest generally beholding.\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, I shall not be slack: in sign whereof,\nPlease ye we may contrive this afternoon,\nAnd quaff carouses to our mistress' health,\nAnd do as adversaries do in law,\nStrive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.\n\nGRUMIO:\nO excellent motion! Fellows, let's be gone.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThe motion's good indeed and be it so,\nPetruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.\n\nBIANCA:\nGood sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,\nTo make a bondmaid and a slave of me;\nThat I disdain: but for these other gawds,\nUnbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself,\nYea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;\nOr what you will command me will I do,\nSo well I know my duty to my elders.\n\nKATHARINA:\nOf all thy suitors, here I charge thee, tell\nWhom thou lovest best: see thou dissemble not.\n\nBIANCA:\nBelieve me, sister, of all the men alive\nI never yet beheld that special face\nWhich I could fancy more than any other.\n\nKATHARINA:\nMinion, thou liest. Is't not Hortensio?\n\nBIANCA:\nIf you affect him, sister, here I swear\nI'll plead for you myself, but you shall have\nhim.\n\nKATHARINA:\nO then, belike, you fancy riches more:\nYou will have Gremio to keep you fair.\n\nBIANCA:\nIs it for him you do envy me so?\nNay then you jest, and now I well perceive\nYou have but jested with me all this while:\nI prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIf that be jest, then all the rest was so.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, how now, dame! whence grows this insolence?\nBianca, stand aside. Poor girl! she weeps.\nGo ply thy needle; meddle not with her.\nFor shame, thou helding of a devilish spirit,\nWhy dost thou wrong her that did ne'er wrong thee?\nWhen did she cross thee with a bitter word?\n\nKATHARINA:\nHer silence flouts me, and I'll be revenged.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see\nShe is your treasure, she must have a husband;\nI must dance bare-foot on her wedding day\nAnd for your love to her lead apes in hell.\nTalk not to me: I will go sit and weep\nTill I can find occasion of revenge.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWas ever gentleman thus grieved as I?\nBut who comes here?\n\nGREMIO:\nGood morrow, neighbour Baptista.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGood morrow, neighbour Gremio.\nGod save you, gentlemen!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAnd you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter\nCall'd Katharina, fair and virtuous?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI have a daughter, sir, called Katharina.\n\nGREMIO:\nYou are too blunt: go to it orderly.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou wrong me, Signior Gremio: give me leave.\nI am a gentleman of Verona, sir,\nThat, hearing of her beauty and her wit,\nHer affability and bashful modesty,\nHer wondrous qualities and mild behavior,\nAm bold to show myself a forward guest\nWithin your house, to make mine eye the witness\nOf that report which I so oft have heard.\nAnd, for an entrance to my entertainment,\nI do present you with a man of mine,\nCunning in music and the mathematics,\nTo instruct her fully in those sciences,\nWhereof I know she is not ignorant:\nAccept of him, or else you do me wrong:\nHis name is Licio, born in Mantua.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nYou're welcome, sir; and he, for your good sake.\nBut for my daughter Katharina, this I know,\nShe is not for your turn, the more my grief.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI see you do not mean to part with her,\nOr else you like not of my company.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nMistake me not; I speak but as I find.\nWhence are you, sir? what may I call your name?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPetruchio is my name; Antonio's son,\nA man well known throughout all Italy.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI know him well: you are welcome for his sake.\n\nGREMIO:\nSaving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,\nLet us, that are poor petitioners, speak too:\nBaccare! you are marvellous forward.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO, pardon me, Signior Gremio; I would fain be doing.\n\nGREMIO:\nI doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your\nwooing. Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am\nsure of it. To express the like kindness, myself,\nthat have been more kindly beholding to you than\nany, freely give unto you this young scholar,\nthat hath been long studying at Rheims; as cunning\nin Greek, Latin, and other languages, as the other\nin music and mathematics: his name is Cambio; pray,\naccept his service.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nA thousand thanks, Signior Gremio.\nWelcome, good Cambio.\nBut, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger:\nmay I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?\n\nTRANIO:\nPardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own,\nThat, being a stranger in this city here,\nDo make myself a suitor to your daughter,\nUnto Bianca, fair and virtuous.\nNor is your firm resolve unknown to me,\nIn the preferment of the eldest sister.\nThis liberty is all that I request,\nThat, upon knowledge of my parentage,\nI may have welcome 'mongst the rest that woo\nAnd free access and favour as the rest:\nAnd, toward the education of your daughters,\nI here bestow a simple instrument,\nAnd this small packet of Greek and Latin books:\nIf you accept them, then their worth is great.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nLucentio is your name; of whence, I pray?\n\nTRANIO:\nOf Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nA mighty man of Pisa; by report\nI know him well: you are very welcome, sir,\nTake you the lute, and you the set of books;\nYou shall go see your pupils presently.\nHolla, within!\nSirrah, lead these gentlemen\nTo my daughters; and tell them both,\nThese are their tutors: bid them use them well.\nWe will go walk a little in the orchard,\nAnd then to dinner. You are passing welcome,\nAnd so I pray you all to think yourselves.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSignior Baptista, my business asketh haste,\nAnd every day I cannot come to woo.\nYou knew my father well, and in him me,\nLeft solely heir to all his lands and goods,\nWhich I have better'd rather than decreased:\nThen tell me, if I get your daughter's love,\nWhat dowry shall I have with her to wife?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAfter my death the one half of my lands,\nAnd in possession twenty thousand crowns.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAnd, for that dowry, I'll assure her of\nHer widowhood, be it that she survive me,\nIn all my lands and leases whatsoever:\nLet specialties be therefore drawn between us,\nThat covenants may be kept on either hand.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAy, when the special thing is well obtain'd,\nThat is, her love; for that is all in all.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, that is nothing: for I tell you, father,\nI am as peremptory as she proud-minded;\nAnd where two raging fires meet together\nThey do consume the thing that feeds their fury:\nThough little fire grows great with little wind,\nYet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all:\nSo I to her and so she yields to me;\nFor I am rough and woo not like a babe.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWell mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed!\nBut be thou arm'd for some unhappy words.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAy, to the proof; as mountains are for winds,\nThat shake not, though they blow perpetually.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nHow now, my friend! why dost thou look so pale?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nFor fear, I promise you, if I look pale.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat, will my daughter prove a good musician?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI think she'll sooner prove a soldier\nIron may hold with her, but never lutes.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, then thou canst not break her to the lute?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWhy, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.\nI did but tell her she mistook her frets,\nAnd bow'd her hand to teach her fingering;\nWhen, with a most impatient devilish spirit,\n'Frets, call you these?' quoth she; 'I'll fume\nwith them:'\nAnd, with that word, she struck me on the head,\nAnd through the instrument my pate made way;\nAnd there I stood amazed for a while,\nAs on a pillory, looking through the lute;\nWhile she did call me rascal fiddler\nAnd twangling Jack; with twenty such vile terms,\nAs had she studied to misuse me so.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, by the world, it is a lusty wench;\nI love her ten times more than e'er I did:\nO, how I long to have some chat with her!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWell, go with me and be not so discomfited:\nProceed in practise with my younger daughter;\nShe's apt to learn and thankful for good turns.\nSignior Petruchio, will you go with us,\nOr shall I send my daughter Kate to you?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI pray you do.\nI will attend her here,\nAnd woo her with some spirit when she comes.\nSay that she rail; why then I'll tell her plain\nShe sings as sweetly as a nightingale:\nSay that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear\nAs morning roses newly wash'd with dew:\nSay she be mute and will not speak a word;\nThen I'll commend her volubility,\nAnd say she uttereth piercing eloquence:\nIf she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks,\nAs though she bid me stay by her a week:\nIf she deny to wed, I'll crave the day\nWhen I shall ask the banns and when be married.\nBut here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak.\nGood morrow, Kate; for that's your name, I hear.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWell have you heard, but something hard of hearing:\nThey call me Katharina that do talk of me.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate,\nAnd bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;\nBut Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom\nKate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,\nFor dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,\nTake this of me, Kate of my consolation;\nHearing thy mildness praised in every town,\nThy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,\nYet not so deeply as to thee belongs,\nMyself am moved to woo thee for my wife.\n\nKATHARINA:\nMoved! in good time: let him that moved you hither\nRemove you hence: I knew you at the first\nYou were a moveable.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, what's a moveable?\n\nKATHARINA:\nA join'd-stool.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThou hast hit it: come, sit on me.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAsses are made to bear, and so are you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWomen are made to bear, and so are you.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo such jade as you, if me you mean.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAlas! good Kate, I will not burden thee;\nFor, knowing thee to be but young and light--\n\nKATHARINA:\nToo light for such a swain as you to catch;\nAnd yet as heavy as my weight should be.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nShould be! should--buzz!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWell ta'en, and like a buzzard.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO slow-wing'd turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?\n\nKATHARINA:\nAy, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIf I be waspish, best beware my sting.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMy remedy is then, to pluck it out.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAy, if the fool could find it where it lies,\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWho knows not where a wasp does\nwear his sting? In his tail.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIn his tongue.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhose tongue?\n\nKATHARINA:\nYours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again,\nGood Kate; I am a gentleman.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThat I'll try.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.\n\nKATHARINA:\nSo may you lose your arms:\nIf you strike me, you are no gentleman;\nAnd if no gentleman, why then no arms.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat is your crest? a coxcomb?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo cock of mine; you crow too like a craven.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIt is my fashion, when I see a crab.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, here's no crab; and therefore look not sour.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThere is, there is.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThen show it me.\n\nKATHARINA:\nHad I a glass, I would.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat, you mean my face?\n\nKATHARINA:\nWell aim'd of such a young one.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, by Saint George, I am too young for you.\n\nKATHARINA:\nYet you are wither'd.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n'Tis with cares.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI care not.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, hear you, Kate: in sooth you scape not so.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI chafe you, if I tarry: let me go.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNo, not a whit: I find you passing gentle.\n'Twas told me you were rough and coy and sullen,\nAnd now I find report a very liar;\nFor thou are pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,\nBut slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers:\nThou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,\nNor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,\nNor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk,\nBut thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers,\nWith gentle conference, soft and affable.\nWhy does the world report that Kate doth limp?\nO slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig\nIs straight and slender and as brown in hue\nAs hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels.\nO, let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt.\n\nKATHARINA:\nGo, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nDid ever Dian so become a grove\nAs Kate this chamber with her princely gait?\nO, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;\nAnd then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhere did you study all this goodly speech?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt is extempore, from my mother-wit.\n\nKATHARINA:\nA witty mother! witless else her son.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAm I not wise?\n\nKATHARINA:\nYes; keep you warm.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMarry, so I mean, sweet Katharina, in thy bed:\nAnd therefore, setting all this chat aside,\nThus in plain terms: your father hath consented\nThat you shall be my wife; your dowry 'greed on;\nAnd, Will you, nill you, I will marry you.\nNow, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;\nFor, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,\nThy beauty, that doth make me like thee well,\nThou must be married to no man but me;\nFor I am he am born to tame you Kate,\nAnd bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate\nConformable as other household Kates.\nHere comes your father: never make denial;\nI must and will have Katharina to my wife.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHow but well, sir? how but well?\nIt were impossible I should speed amiss.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, how now, daughter Katharina! in your dumps?\n\nKATHARINA:\nCall you me daughter? now, I promise you\nYou have show'd a tender fatherly regard,\nTo wish me wed to one half lunatic;\nA mad-cup ruffian and a swearing Jack,\nThat thinks with oaths to face the matter out.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nFather, 'tis thus: yourself and all the world,\nThat talk'd of her, have talk'd amiss of her:\nIf she be curst, it is for policy,\nFor she's not froward, but modest as the dove;\nShe is not hot, but temperate as the morn;\nFor patience she will prove a second Grissel,\nAnd Roman Lucrece for her chastity:\nAnd to conclude, we have 'greed so well together,\nThat upon Sunday is the wedding-day.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.\n\nGREMIO:\nHark, Petruchio; she says she'll see thee\nhang'd first.\n\nTRANIO:\nIs this your speeding? nay, then, good night our part!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nBe patient, gentlemen; I choose her for myself:\nIf she and I be pleased, what's that to you?\n'Tis bargain'd 'twixt us twain, being alone,\nThat she shall still be curst in company.\nI tell you, 'tis incredible to believe\nHow much she loves me: O, the kindest Kate!\nShe hung about my neck; and kiss on kiss\nShe vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,\nThat in a twink she won me to her love.\nO, you are novices! 'tis a world to see,\nHow tame, when men and women are alone,\nA meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.\nGive me thy hand, Kate: I will unto Venice,\nTo buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day.\nProvide the feast, father, and bid the guests;\nI will be sure my Katharina shall be fine.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI know not what to say: but give me your hands;\nGod send you joy, Petruchio! 'tis a match.\n\nGREMIO:\nAmen, say we: we will be witnesses.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nFather, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu;\nI will to Venice; Sunday comes apace:\nWe will have rings and things and fine array;\nAnd kiss me, Kate, we will be married o'Sunday.\n\nGREMIO:\nWas ever match clapp'd up so suddenly?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nFaith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant's part,\nAnd venture madly on a desperate mart.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you:\n'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nThe gain I seek is, quiet in the match.\n\nGREMIO:\nNo doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.\nBut now, Baptists, to your younger daughter:\nNow is the day we long have looked for:\nI am your neighbour, and was suitor first.\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd I am one that love Bianca more\nThan words can witness, or your thoughts can guess.\n\nGREMIO:\nYoungling, thou canst not love so dear as I.\n\nTRANIO:\nGraybeard, thy love doth freeze.\n\nGREMIO:\nBut thine doth fry.\nSkipper, stand back: 'tis age that nourisheth.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nContent you, gentlemen: I will compound this strife:\n'Tis deeds must win the prize; and he of both\nThat can assure my daughter greatest dower\nShall have my Bianca's love.\nSay, Signior Gremio, What can you assure her?\n\nGREMIO:\nFirst, as you know, my house within the city\nIs richly furnished with plate and gold;\nBasins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;\nMy hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;\nIn ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;\nIn cypress chests my arras counterpoints,\nCostly apparel, tents, and canopies,\nFine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,\nValance of Venice gold in needlework,\nPewter and brass and all things that belong\nTo house or housekeeping: then, at my farm\nI have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,\nSixscore fat oxen standing in my stalls,\nAnd all things answerable to this portion.\nMyself am struck in years, I must confess;\nAnd if I die to-morrow, this is hers,\nIf whilst I live she will be only mine.\n\nTRANIO:\nThat 'only' came well in. Sir, list to me:\nI am my father's heir and only son:\nIf I may have your daughter to my wife,\nI'll leave her houses three or four as good,\nWithin rich Pisa walls, as any one\nOld Signior Gremio has in Padua;\nBesides two thousand ducats by the year\nOf fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.\nWhat, have I pinch'd you, Signior Gremio?\n\nGREMIO:\nTwo thousand ducats by the year of land!\nMy land amounts not to so much in all:\nThat she shall have; besides an argosy\nThat now is lying in Marseilles' road.\nWhat, have I choked you with an argosy?\n\nTRANIO:\nGremio, 'tis known my father hath no less\nThan three great argosies; besides two galliases,\nAnd twelve tight galleys: these I will assure her,\nAnd twice as much, whate'er thou offer'st next.\n\nGREMIO:\nNay, I have offer'd all, I have no more;\nAnd she can have no more than all I have:\nIf you like me, she shall have me and mine.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhy, then the maid is mine from all the world,\nBy your firm promise: Gremio is out-vied.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI must confess your offer is the best;\nAnd, let your father make her the assurance,\nShe is your own; else, you must pardon me,\nif you should die before him, where's her dower?\n\nTRANIO:\nThat's but a cavil: he is old, I young.\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd may not young men die, as well as old?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWell, gentlemen,\nI am thus resolved: on Sunday next you know\nMy daughter Katharina is to be married:\nNow, on the Sunday following, shall Bianca\nBe bride to you, if you this assurance;\nIf not, Signior Gremio:\nAnd so, I take my leave, and thank you both.\n\nGREMIO:\nAdieu, good neighbour.\nNow I fear thee not:\nSirrah young gamester, your father were a fool\nTo give thee all, and in his waning age\nSet foot under thy table: tut, a toy!\nAn old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.\n\nTRANIO:\nA vengeance on your crafty wither'd hide!\nYet I have faced it with a card of ten.\n'Tis in my head to do my master good:\nI see no reason but supposed Lucentio\nMust get a father, call'd 'supposed Vincentio;'\nAnd that's a wonder: fathers commonly\nDo get their children; but in this case of wooing,\nA child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nFiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir:\nHave you so soon forgot the entertainment\nHer sister Katharina welcomed you withal?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nBut, wrangling pedant, this is\nThe patroness of heavenly harmony:\nThen give me leave to have prerogative;\nAnd when in music we have spent an hour,\nYour lecture shall have leisure for as much.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nPreposterous ass, that never read so far\nTo know the cause why music was ordain'd!\nWas it not to refresh the mind of man\nAfter his studies or his usual pain?\nThen give me leave to read philosophy,\nAnd while I pause, serve in your harmony.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.\n\nBIANCA:\nWhy, gentlemen, you do me double wrong,\nTo strive for that which resteth in my choice:\nI am no breeching scholar in the schools;\nI'll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times,\nBut learn my lessons as I please myself.\nAnd, to cut off all strife, here sit we down:\nTake you your instrument, play you the whiles;\nHis lecture will be done ere you have tuned.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nYou'll leave his lecture when I am in tune?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nThat will be never: tune your instrument.\n\nBIANCA:\nWhere left we last?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHere, madam:\n'Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus;\nHic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.'\n\nBIANCA:\nConstrue them.\n\nLUCENTIO:\n'Hic ibat,' as I told you before, 'Simois,' I am\nLucentio, 'hic est,' son unto Vincentio of Pisa,\n'Sigeia tellus,' disguised thus to get your love;\n'Hic steterat,' and that Lucentio that comes\na-wooing, 'Priami,' is my man Tranio, 'regia,'\nbearing my port, 'celsa senis,' that we might\nbeguile the old pantaloon.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMadam, my instrument's in tune.\n\nBIANCA:\nLet's hear. O fie! the treble jars.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nSpit in the hole, man, and tune again.\n\nBIANCA:\nNow let me see if I can construe it: 'Hic ibat\nSimois,' I know you not, 'hic est Sigeia tellus,' I\ntrust you not; 'Hic steterat Priami,' take heed\nhe hear us not, 'regia,' presume not, 'celsa senis,'\ndespair not.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMadam, 'tis now in tune.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAll but the base.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThe base is right; 'tis the base knave that jars.\nHow fiery and forward our pedant is!\nNow, for my life, the knave doth court my love:\nPedascule, I'll watch you better yet.\n\nBIANCA:\nIn time I may believe, yet I mistrust.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nMistrust it not: for, sure, AEacides\nWas Ajax, call'd so from his grandfather.\n\nBIANCA:\nI must believe my master; else, I promise you,\nI should be arguing still upon that doubt:\nBut let it rest. Now, Licio, to you:\nGood masters, take it not unkindly, pray,\nThat I have been thus pleasant with you both.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nYou may go walk, and give me leave a while:\nMy lessons make no music in three parts.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAre you so formal, sir? well, I must wait,\nAnd watch withal; for, but I be deceived,\nOur fine musician groweth amorous.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMadam, before you touch the instrument,\nTo learn the order of my fingering,\nI must begin with rudiments of art;\nTo teach you gamut in a briefer sort,\nMore pleasant, pithy and effectual,\nThan hath been taught by any of my trade:\nAnd there it is in writing, fairly drawn.\n\nBIANCA:\nWhy, I am past my gamut long ago.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nYet read the gamut of Hortensio.\n\nBIANCA:\n\nServant:\nMistress, your father prays you leave your books\nAnd help to dress your sister's chamber up:\nYou know to-morrow is the wedding-day.\n\nBIANCA:\nFarewell, sweet masters both; I must be gone.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nFaith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nBut I have cause to pry into this pedant:\nMethinks he looks as though he were in love:\nYet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble\nTo cast thy wandering eyes on every stale,\nSeize thee that list: if once I find thee ranging,\nHortensio will be quit with thee by changing.\n\nBAPTISTA:\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo shame but mine: I must, forsooth, be forced\nTo give my hand opposed against my heart\nUnto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen;\nWho woo'd in haste and means to wed at leisure.\nI told you, I, he was a frantic fool,\nHiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior:\nAnd, to be noted for a merry man,\nHe'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,\nMake feasts, invite friends, and proclaim the banns;\nYet never means to wed where he hath woo'd.\nNow must the world point at poor Katharina,\nAnd say, 'Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,\nIf it would please him come and marry her!'\n\nTRANIO:\nPatience, good Katharina, and Baptista too.\nUpon my life, Petruchio means but well,\nWhatever fortune stays him from his word:\nThough he be blunt, I know him passing wise;\nThough he be merry, yet withal he's honest.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWould Katharina had never seen him though!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGo, girl; I cannot blame thee now to weep;\nFor such an injury would vex a very saint,\nMuch more a shrew of thy impatient humour.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nMaster, master! news, old news, and such news as\nyou never heard of!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIs it new and old too? how may that be?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, is it not news, to hear of Petruchio's coming?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIs he come?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, no, sir.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat then?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHe is coming.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhen will he be here?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhen he stands where I am and sees you there.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut say, what to thine old news?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old\njerkin, a pair of old breeches thrice turned, a pair\nof boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled,\nanother laced, an old rusty sword ta'en out of the\ntown-armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless;\nwith two broken points: his horse hipped with an\nold mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred;\nbesides, possessed with the glanders and like to mose\nin the chine; troubled with the lampass, infected\nwith the fashions, full of wingdalls, sped with\nspavins, rayed with yellows, past cure of the fives,\nstark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the\nbots, swayed in the back and shoulder-shotten;\nnear-legged before and with, a half-chequed bit\nand a head-stall of sheeps leather which, being\nrestrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been\noften burst and now repaired with knots; one girth\nsix time pieced and a woman's crupper of velure,\nwhich hath two letters for her name fairly set down\nin studs, and here and there pieced with packthread.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWho comes with him?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nO, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparisoned\nlike the horse; with a linen stock on one leg and a\nkersey boot-hose on the other, gartered with a red\nand blue list; an old hat and 'the humour of forty\nfancies' pricked in't for a feather: a monster, a\nvery monster in apparel, and not like a Christian\nfootboy or a gentleman's lackey.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;\nYet oftentimes he goes but mean-apparell'd.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI am glad he's come, howsoe'er he comes.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, sir, he comes not.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nDidst thou not say he comes?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWho? that Petruchio came?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAy, that Petruchio came.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nNo, sir, I say his horse comes, with him on his back.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, that's all one.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nNay, by Saint Jamy,\nI hold you a penny,\nA horse and a man\nIs more than one,\nAnd yet not many.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, where be these gallants? who's at home?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nYou are welcome, sir.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAnd yet I come not well.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAnd yet you halt not.\n\nTRANIO:\nNot so well apparell'd\nAs I wish you were.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWere it better, I should rush in thus.\nBut where is Kate? where is my lovely bride?\nHow does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown:\nAnd wherefore gaze this goodly company,\nAs if they saw some wondrous monument,\nSome comet or unusual prodigy?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, sir, you know this is your wedding-day:\nFirst were we sad, fearing you would not come;\nNow sadder, that you come so unprovided.\nFie, doff this habit, shame to your estate,\nAn eye-sore to our solemn festival!\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd tells us, what occasion of import\nHath all so long detain'd you from your wife,\nAnd sent you hither so unlike yourself?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nTedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear:\nSufficeth I am come to keep my word,\nThough in some part enforced to digress;\nWhich, at more leisure, I will so excuse\nAs you shall well be satisfied withal.\nBut where is Kate? I stay too long from her:\nThe morning wears, 'tis time we were at church.\n\nTRANIO:\nSee not your bride in these unreverent robes:\nGo to my chamber; Put on clothes of mine.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNot I, believe me: thus I'll visit her.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nBut thus, I trust, you will not marry her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGood sooth, even thus; therefore ha' done with words:\nTo me she's married, not unto my clothes:\nCould I repair what she will wear in me,\nAs I can change these poor accoutrements,\n'Twere well for Kate and better for myself.\nBut what a fool am I to chat with you,\nWhen I should bid good morrow to my bride,\nAnd seal the title with a lovely kiss!\n\nTRANIO:\nHe hath some meaning in his mad attire:\nWe will persuade him, be it possible,\nTo put on better ere he go to church.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI'll after him, and see the event of this.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut to her love concerneth us to add\nHer father's liking: which to bring to pass,\nAs I before unparted to your worship,\nI am to get a man,--whate'er he be,\nIt skills not much. we'll fit him to our turn,--\nAnd he shall be Vincentio of Pisa;\nAnd make assurance here in Padua\nOf greater sums than I have promised.\nSo shall you quietly enjoy your hope,\nAnd marry sweet Bianca with consent.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWere it not that my fellow-school-master\nDoth watch Bianca's steps so narrowly,\n'Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;\nWhich once perform'd, let all the world say no,\nI'll keep mine own, despite of all the world.\n\nTRANIO:\nThat by degrees we mean to look into,\nAnd watch our vantage in this business:\nWe'll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,\nThe narrow-prying father, Minola,\nThe quaint musician, amorous Licio;\nAll for my master's sake, Lucentio.\nSignior Gremio, came you from the church?\n\nGREMIO:\nAs willingly as e'er I came from school.\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd is the bride and bridegroom coming home?\n\nGREMIO:\nA bridegroom say you? 'tis a groom indeed,\nA grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.\n\nTRANIO:\nCurster than she? why, 'tis impossible.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhy he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhy, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam.\n\nGREMIO:\nTut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him!\nI'll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest\nShould ask, if Katharina should be his wife,\n'Ay, by gogs-wouns,' quoth he; and swore so loud,\nThat, all-amazed, the priest let fall the book;\nAnd, as he stoop'd again to take it up,\nThe mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff\nThat down fell priest and book and book and priest:\n'Now take them up,' quoth he, 'if any list.'\n\nTRANIO:\nWhat said the wench when he rose again?\n\nGREMIO:\nTrembled and shook; for why, he stamp'd and swore,\nAs if the vicar meant to cozen him.\nBut after many ceremonies done,\nHe calls for wine: 'A health!' quoth he, as if\nHe had been aboard, carousing to his mates\nAfter a storm; quaff'd off the muscadel\nAnd threw the sops all in the sexton's face;\nHaving no other reason\nBut that his beard grew thin and hungerly\nAnd seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking.\nThis done, he took the bride about the neck\nAnd kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack\nThat at the parting all the church did echo:\nAnd I seeing this came thence for very shame;\nAnd after me, I know, the rout is coming.\nSuch a mad marriage never was before:\nHark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains:\nI know you think to dine with me to-day,\nAnd have prepared great store of wedding cheer;\nBut so it is, my haste doth call me hence,\nAnd therefore here I mean to take my leave.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIs't possible you will away to-night?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI must away to-day, before night come:\nMake it no wonder; if you knew my business,\nYou would entreat me rather go than stay.\nAnd, honest company, I thank you all,\nThat have beheld me give away myself\nTo this most patient, sweet and virtuous wife:\nDine with my father, drink a health to me;\nFor I must hence; and farewell to you all.\n\nTRANIO:\nLet us entreat you stay till after dinner.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt may not be.\n\nGREMIO:\nLet me entreat you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt cannot be.\n\nKATHARINA:\nLet me entreat you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI am content.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAre you content to stay?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI am content you shall entreat me stay;\nBut yet not stay, entreat me how you can.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNow, if you love me, stay.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGrumio, my horse.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAy, sir, they be ready: the oats have eaten the horses.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNay, then,\nDo what thou canst, I will not go to-day;\nNo, nor to-morrow, not till I please myself.\nThe door is open, sir; there lies your way;\nYou may be jogging whiles your boots are green;\nFor me, I'll not be gone till I please myself:\n'Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom,\nThat take it on you at the first so roundly.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO Kate, content thee; prithee, be not angry.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI will be angry: what hast thou to do?\nFather, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.\n\nGREMIO:\nAy, marry, sir, now it begins to work.\n\nKATARINA:\nGentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner:\nI see a woman may be made a fool,\nIf she had not a spirit to resist.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThey shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.\nObey the bride, you that attend on her;\nGo to the feast, revel and domineer,\nCarouse full measure to her maidenhead,\nBe mad and merry, or go hang yourselves:\nBut for my bonny Kate, she must with me.\nNay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;\nI will be master of what is mine own:\nShe is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,\nMy household stuff, my field, my barn,\nMy horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing;\nAnd here she stands, touch her whoever dare;\nI'll bring mine action on the proudest he\nThat stops my way in Padua. Grumio,\nDraw forth thy weapon, we are beset with thieves;\nRescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.\nFear not, sweet wench, they shall not touch\nthee, Kate:\nI'll buckler thee against a million.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.\n\nGREMIO:\nWent they not quickly, I should die with laughing.\n\nTRANIO:\nOf all mad matches never was the like.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nMistress, what's your opinion of your sister?\n\nBIANCA:\nThat, being mad herself, she's madly mated.\n\nGREMIO:\nI warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNeighbours and friends, though bride and\nbridegroom wants\nFor to supply the places at the table,\nYou know there wants no junkets at the feast.\nLucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom's place:\nAnd let Bianca take her sister's room.\n\nTRANIO:\nShall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nShe shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let's go.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and\nall foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? was ever\nman so rayed? was ever man so weary? I am sent\nbefore to make a fire, and they are coming after to\nwarm them. Now, were not I a little pot and soon\nhot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my\ntongue to the roof of my mouth, my heart in my\nbelly, ere I should come by a fire to thaw me: but\nI, with blowing the fire, shall warm myself; for,\nconsidering the weather, a taller man than I will\ntake cold. Holla, ho! Curtis.\n\nCURTIS:\nWho is that calls so coldly?\n\nGRUMIO:\nA piece of ice: if thou doubt it, thou mayst slide\nfrom my shoulder to my heel with no greater a run\nbut my head and my neck. A fire good Curtis.\n\nCURTIS:\nIs my master and his wife coming, Grumio?\n\nGRUMIO:\nO, ay, Curtis, ay: and therefore fire, fire; cast\non no water.\n\nCURTIS:\nIs she so hot a shrew as she's reported?\n\nGRUMIO:\nShe was, good Curtis, before this frost: but, thou\nknowest, winter tames man, woman and beast; for it\nhath tamed my old master and my new mistress and\nmyself, fellow Curtis.\n\nCURTIS:\nAway, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAm I but three inches? why, thy horn is a foot; and\nso long am I at the least. But wilt thou make a\nfire, or shall I complain on thee to our mistress,\nwhose hand, she being now at hand, thou shalt soon\nfeel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?\n\nCURTIS:\nI prithee, good Grumio, tell me, how goes the world?\n\nGRUMIO:\nA cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and\ntherefore fire: do thy duty, and have thy duty; for\nmy master and mistress are almost frozen to death.\n\nCURTIS:\nThere's fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the news.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, 'Jack, boy! ho! boy!' and as much news as\nwill thaw.\n\nCURTIS:\nCome, you are so full of cony-catching!\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, therefore fire; for I have caught extreme cold.\nWhere's the cook? is supper ready, the house\ntrimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept; the\nserving-men in their new fustian, their white\nstockings, and every officer his wedding-garment on?\nBe the jacks fair within, the jills fair without,\nthe carpets laid, and every thing in order?\n\nCURTIS:\nAll ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFirst, know, my horse is tired; my master and\nmistress fallen out.\n\nCURTIS:\nHow?\n\nGRUMIO:\nOut of their saddles into the dirt; and thereby\nhangs a tale.\n\nCURTIS:\nLet's ha't, good Grumio.\n\nGRUMIO:\nLend thine ear.\n\nCURTIS:\nHere.\n\nGRUMIO:\nThere.\n\nCURTIS:\nThis is to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAnd therefore 'tis called a sensible tale: and this\ncuff was but to knock at your ear, and beseech\nlistening. Now I begin: Imprimis, we came down a\nfoul hill, my master riding behind my mistress,--\n\nCURTIS:\nBoth of one horse?\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhat's that to thee?\n\nCURTIS:\nWhy, a horse.\n\nGRUMIO:\nTell thou the tale: but hadst thou not crossed me,\nthou shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she\nunder her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how\nmiry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left her\nwith the horse upon her, how he beat me because\nher horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt\nto pluck him off me, how he swore, how she prayed,\nthat never prayed before, how I cried, how the\nhorses ran away, how her bridle was burst, how I\nlost my crupper, with many things of worthy memory,\nwhich now shall die in oblivion and thou return\nunexperienced to thy grave.\n\nCURTIS:\nBy this reckoning he is more shrew than she.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAy; and that thou and the proudest of you all shall\nfind when he comes home. But what talk I of this?\nCall forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip,\nWalter, Sugarsop and the rest: let their heads be\nsleekly combed their blue coats brushed and their\ngarters of an indifferent knit: let them curtsy\nwith their left legs and not presume to touch a hair\nof my master's horse-tail till they kiss their\nhands. Are they all ready?\n\nCURTIS:\nThey are.\n\nGRUMIO:\nCall them forth.\n\nCURTIS:\nDo you hear, ho? you must meet my master to\ncountenance my mistress.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, she hath a face of her own.\n\nCURTIS:\nWho knows not that?\n\nGRUMIO:\nThou, it seems, that calls for company to\ncountenance her.\n\nCURTIS:\nI call them forth to credit her.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, she comes to borrow nothing of them.\n\nNATHANIEL:\nWelcome home, Grumio!\n\nPHILIP:\nHow now, Grumio!\n\nJOSEPH:\nWhat, Grumio!\n\nNICHOLAS:\nFellow Grumio!\n\nNATHANIEL:\nHow now, old lad?\n\nGRUMIO:\nWelcome, you;--how now, you;-- what, you;--fellow,\nyou;--and thus much for greeting. Now, my spruce\ncompanions, is all ready, and all things neat?\n\nNATHANIEL:\nAll things is ready. How near is our master?\n\nGRUMIO:\nE'en at hand, alighted by this; and therefore be\nnot--Cock's passion, silence! I hear my master.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhere be these knaves? What, no man at door\nTo hold my stirrup nor to take my horse!\nWhere is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?\n\nALL SERVING-MEN:\nHere, here, sir; here, sir.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHere, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir!\nYou logger-headed and unpolish'd grooms!\nWhat, no attendance? no regard? no duty?\nWhere is the foolish knave I sent before?\n\nGRUMIO:\nHere, sir; as foolish as I was before.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou peasant swain! you whoreson malt-horse drudge!\nDid I not bid thee meet me in the park,\nAnd bring along these rascal knaves with thee?\n\nGRUMIO:\nNathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made,\nAnd Gabriel's pumps were all unpink'd i' the heel;\nThere was no link to colour Peter's hat,\nAnd Walter's dagger was not come from sheathing:\nThere were none fine but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory;\nThe rest were ragged, old, and beggarly;\nYet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGo, rascals, go, and fetch my supper in.\nWhere is the life that late I led--\nWhere are those--Sit down, Kate, and welcome.--\nSound, sound, sound, sound!\nWhy, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.\nOff with my boots, you rogues! you villains, when?\nIt was the friar of orders grey,\nAs he forth walked on his way:--\nOut, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry:\nTake that, and mend the plucking off the other.\nBe merry, Kate. Some water, here; what, ho!\nWhere's my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence,\nAnd bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither:\nOne, Kate, that you must kiss, and be acquainted with.\nWhere are my slippers? Shall I have some water?\nCome, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.\nYou whoreson villain! will you let it fall?\n\nKATHARINA:\nPatience, I pray you; 'twas a fault unwilling.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA whoreson beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave!\nCome, Kate, sit down; I know you have a stomach.\nWill you give thanks, sweet Kate; or else shall I?\nWhat's this? mutton?\n\nFirst Servant:\nAy.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWho brought it?\n\nPETER:\nI.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n'Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.\nWhat dogs are these! Where is the rascal cook?\nHow durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser,\nAnd serve it thus to me that love it not?\nTheretake it to you, trenchers, cups, and all;\nYou heedless joltheads and unmanner'd slaves!\nWhat, do you grumble? I'll be with you straight.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI pray you, husband, be not so disquiet:\nThe meat was well, if you were so contented.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away;\nAnd I expressly am forbid to touch it,\nFor it engenders choler, planteth anger;\nAnd better 'twere that both of us did fast,\nSince, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,\nThan feed it with such over-roasted flesh.\nBe patient; to-morrow 't shall be mended,\nAnd, for this night, we'll fast for company:\nCome, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.\n\nNATHANIEL:\nPeter, didst ever see the like?\n\nPETER:\nHe kills her in her own humour.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhere is he?\n\nCURTIS:\nIn her chamber, making a sermon of continency to her;\nAnd rails, and swears, and rates, that she, poor soul,\nKnows not which way to stand, to look, to speak,\nAnd sits as one new-risen from a dream.\nAway, away! for he is coming hither.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThus have I politicly begun my reign,\nAnd 'tis my hope to end successfully.\nMy falcon now is sharp and passing empty;\nAnd till she stoop she must not be full-gorged,\nFor then she never looks upon her lure.\nAnother way I have to man my haggard,\nTo make her come and know her keeper's call,\nThat is, to watch her, as we watch these kites\nThat bate and beat and will not be obedient.\nShe eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;\nLast night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not;\nAs with the meat, some undeserved fault\nI'll find about the making of the bed;\nAnd here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,\nThis way the coverlet, another way the sheets:\nAy, and amid this hurly I intend\nThat all is done in reverend care of her;\nAnd in conclusion she shall watch all night:\nAnd if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl\nAnd with the clamour keep her still awake.\nThis is a way to kill a wife with kindness;\nAnd thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.\nHe that knows better how to tame a shrew,\nNow let him speak: 'tis charity to show.\n\nTRANIO:\nIs't possible, friend Licio, that Mistress Bianca\nDoth fancy any other but Lucentio?\nI tell you, sir, she bears me fair in hand.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, to satisfy you in what I have said,\nStand by and mark the manner of his teaching.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nNow, mistress, profit you in what you read?\n\nBIANCA:\nWhat, master, read you? first resolve me that.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI read that I profess, the Art to Love.\n\nBIANCA:\nAnd may you prove, sir, master of your art!\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWhile you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nQuick proceeders, marry! Now, tell me, I pray,\nYou that durst swear at your mistress Bianca\nLoved none in the world so well as Lucentio.\n\nTRANIO:\nO despiteful love! unconstant womankind!\nI tell thee, Licio, this is wonderful.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMistake no more: I am not Licio,\nNor a musician, as I seem to be;\nBut one that scorn to live in this disguise,\nFor such a one as leaves a gentleman,\nAnd makes a god of such a cullion:\nKnow, sir, that I am call'd Hortensio.\n\nTRANIO:\nSignior Hortensio, I have often heard\nOf your entire affection to Bianca;\nAnd since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,\nI will with you, if you be so contented,\nForswear Bianca and her love for ever.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSee, how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,\nHere is my hand, and here I firmly vow\nNever to woo her no more, but do forswear her,\nAs one unworthy all the former favours\nThat I have fondly flatter'd her withal.\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd here I take the unfeigned oath,\nNever to marry with her though she would entreat:\nFie on her! see, how beastly she doth court him!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWould all the world but he had quite forsworn!\nFor me, that I may surely keep mine oath,\nI will be married to a wealthy widow,\nEre three days pass, which hath as long loved me\nAs I have loved this proud disdainful haggard.\nAnd so farewell, Signior Lucentio.\nKindness in women, not their beauteous looks,\nShall win my love: and so I take my leave,\nIn resolution as I swore before.\n\nTRANIO:\nMistress Bianca, bless you with such grace\nAs 'longeth to a lover's blessed case!\nNay, I have ta'en you napping, gentle love,\nAnd have forsworn you with Hortensio.\n\nBIANCA:\nTranio, you jest: but have you both forsworn me?\n\nTRANIO:\nMistress, we have.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nThen we are rid of Licio.\n\nTRANIO:\nI' faith, he'll have a lusty widow now,\nThat shall be wood and wedded in a day.\n\nBIANCA:\nGod give him joy!\n\nTRANIO:\nAy, and he'll tame her.\n\nBIANCA:\nHe says so, Tranio.\n\nTRANIO:\nFaith, he is gone unto the taming-school.\n\nBIANCA:\nThe taming-school! what, is there such a place?\n\nTRANIO:\nAy, mistress, and Petruchio is the master;\nThat teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long,\nTo tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nO master, master, I have watch'd so long\nThat I am dog-weary: but at last I spied\nAn ancient angel coming down the hill,\nWill serve the turn.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhat is he, Biondello?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nMaster, a mercatante, or a pedant,\nI know not what; but format in apparel,\nIn gait and countenance surely like a father.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd what of him, Tranio?\n\nTRANIO:\nIf he be credulous and trust my tale,\nI'll make him glad to seem Vincentio,\nAnd give assurance to Baptista Minola,\nAs if he were the right Vincentio\nTake in your love, and then let me alone.\n\nPedant:\nGod save you, sir!\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd you, sir! you are welcome.\nTravel you far on, or are you at the farthest?\n\nPedant:\nSir, at the farthest for a week or two:\nBut then up farther, and as for as Rome;\nAnd so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhat countryman, I pray?\n\nPedant:\nOf Mantua.\n\nTRANIO:\nOf Mantua, sir? marry, God forbid!\nAnd come to Padua, careless of your life?\n\nPedant:\nMy life, sir! how, I pray? for that goes hard.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis death for any one in Mantua\nTo come to Padua. Know you not the cause?\nYour ships are stay'd at Venice, and the duke,\nFor private quarrel 'twixt your duke and him,\nHath publish'd and proclaim'd it openly:\n'Tis, marvel, but that you are but newly come,\nYou might have heard it else proclaim'd about.\n\nPedant:\nAlas! sir, it is worse for me than so;\nFor I have bills for money by exchange\nFrom Florence and must here deliver them.\n\nTRANIO:\nWell, sir, to do you courtesy,\nThis will I do, and this I will advise you:\nFirst, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?\n\nPedant:\nAy, sir, in Pisa have I often been,\nPisa renowned for grave citizens.\n\nTRANIO:\nAmong them know you one Vincentio?\n\nPedant:\nI know him not, but I have heard of him;\nA merchant of incomparable wealth.\n\nTRANIO:\nHe is my father, sir; and, sooth to say,\nIn countenance somewhat doth resemble you.\n\nBIONDELLO:\n\nTRANIO:\nTo save your life in this extremity,\nThis favour will I do you for his sake;\nAnd think it not the worst of an your fortunes\nThat you are like to Sir Vincentio.\nHis name and credit shall you undertake,\nAnd in my house you shall be friendly lodged:\nLook that you take upon you as you should;\nYou understand me, sir: so shall you stay\nTill you have done your business in the city:\nIf this be courtesy, sir, accept of it.\n\nPedant:\nO sir, I do; and will repute you ever\nThe patron of my life and liberty.\n\nTRANIO:\nThen go with me to make the matter good.\nThis, by the way, I let you understand;\nmy father is here look'd for every day,\nTo pass assurance of a dower in marriage\n'Twixt me and one Baptista's daughter here:\nIn all these circumstances I'll instruct you:\nGo with me to clothe you as becomes you.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNo, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThe more my wrong, the more his spite appears:\nWhat, did he marry me to famish me?\nBeggars, that come unto my father's door,\nUpon entreaty have a present aims;\nIf not, elsewhere they meet with charity:\nBut I, who never knew how to entreat,\nNor never needed that I should entreat,\nAm starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep,\nWith oath kept waking and with brawling fed:\nAnd that which spites me more than all these wants,\nHe does it under name of perfect love;\nAs who should say, if I should sleep or eat,\n'Twere deadly sickness or else present death.\nI prithee go and get me some repast;\nI care not what, so it be wholesome food.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhat say you to a neat's foot?\n\nKATHARINA:\n'Tis passing good: I prithee let me have it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI fear it is too choleric a meat.\nHow say you to a fat tripe finely broil'd?\n\nKATHARINA:\nI like it well: good Grumio, fetch it me.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric.\nWhat say you to a piece of beef and mustard?\n\nKATHARINA:\nA dish that I do love to feed upon.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAy, but the mustard is too hot a little.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhy then, the beef, and let the mustard rest.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNay then, I will not: you shall have the mustard,\nOr else you get no beef of Grumio.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThen both, or one, or any thing thou wilt.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy then, the mustard without the beef.\n\nKATHARINA:\nGo, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,\nThat feed'st me with the very name of meat:\nSorrow on thee and all the pack of you,\nThat triumph thus upon my misery!\nGo, get thee gone, I say.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHow fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMistress, what cheer?\n\nKATHARINA:\nFaith, as cold as can be.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPluck up thy spirits; look cheerfully upon me.\nHere love; thou see'st how diligent I am\nTo dress thy meat myself and bring it thee:\nI am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.\nWhat, not a word? Nay, then thou lovest it not;\nAnd all my pains is sorted to no proof.\nHere, take away this dish.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI pray you, let it stand.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThe poorest service is repaid with thanks;\nAnd so shall mine, before you touch the meat.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI thank you, sir.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSignior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame.\nCome, mistress Kate, I'll bear you company.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n\nHaberdasher:\nHere is the cap your worship did bespeak.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, this was moulded on a porringer;\nA velvet dish: fie, fie! 'tis lewd and filthy:\nWhy, 'tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,\nA knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap:\nAway with it! come, let me have a bigger.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI'll have no bigger: this doth fit the time,\nAnd gentlewomen wear such caps as these\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhen you are gentle, you shall have one too,\nAnd not till then.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhy, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;\nAnd speak I will; I am no child, no babe:\nYour betters have endured me say my mind,\nAnd if you cannot, best you stop your ears.\nMy tongue will tell the anger of my heart,\nOr else my heart concealing it will break,\nAnd rather than it shall, I will be free\nEven to the uttermost, as I please, in words.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap,\nA custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie:\nI love thee well, in that thou likest it not.\n\nKATHARINA:\nLove me or love me not, I like the cap;\nAnd it I will have, or I will have none.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThy gown? why, ay: come, tailor, let us see't.\nO mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?\nWhat's this? a sleeve? 'tis like a demi-cannon:\nWhat, up and down, carved like an apple-tart?\nHere's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,\nLike to a censer in a barber's shop:\nWhy, what, i' devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this?\n\nHORTENSIO:\n\nTailor:\nYou bid me make it orderly and well,\nAccording to the fashion and the time.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMarry, and did; but if you be remember'd,\nI did not bid you mar it to the time.\nGo, hop me over every kennel home,\nFor you shall hop without my custom, sir:\nI'll none of it: hence! make your best of it.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI never saw a better-fashion'd gown,\nMore quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable:\nBelike you mean to make a puppet of me.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.\n\nTailor:\nShe says your worship means to make\na puppet of her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread,\nthou thimble,\nThou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail!\nThou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!\nBraved in mine own house with a skein of thread?\nAway, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant;\nOr I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard\nAs thou shalt think on prating whilst thou livest!\nI tell thee, I, that thou hast marr'd her gown.\n\nTailor:\nYour worship is deceived; the gown is made\nJust as my master had direction:\nGrumio gave order how it should be done.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.\n\nTailor:\nBut how did you desire it should be made?\n\nGRUMIO:\nMarry, sir, with needle and thread.\n\nTailor:\nBut did you not request to have it cut?\n\nGRUMIO:\nThou hast faced many things.\n\nTailor:\nI have.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFace not me: thou hast braved many men; brave not\nme; I will neither be faced nor braved. I say unto\nthee, I bid thy master cut out the gown; but I did\nnot bid him cut it to pieces: ergo, thou liest.\n\nTailor:\nWhy, here is the note of the fashion to testify\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nRead it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nThe note lies in's throat, if he say I said so.\n\nTailor:\n\nGRUMIO:\nMaster, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in\nthe skirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom\nof brown thread: I said a gown.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nProceed.\n\nTailor:\n\nGRUMIO:\nI confess the cape.\n\nTailor:\n\nGRUMIO:\nI confess two sleeves.\n\nTailor:\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAy, there's the villany.\n\nGRUMIO:\nError i' the bill, sir; error i' the bill.\nI commanded the sleeves should be cut out and\nsewed up again; and that I'll prove upon thee,\nthough thy little finger be armed in a thimble.\n\nTailor:\nThis is true that I say: an I had thee\nin place where, thou shouldst know it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI am for thee straight: take thou the\nbill, give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nGod-a-mercy, Grumio! then he shall have no odds.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.\n\nGRUMIO:\nYou are i' the right, sir: 'tis for my mistress.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGo, take it up unto thy master's use.\n\nGRUMIO:\nVillain, not for thy life: take up my mistress'\ngown for thy master's use!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, sir, what's your conceit in that?\n\nGRUMIO:\nO, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for:\nTake up my mistress' gown to his master's use!\nO, fie, fie, fie!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTailor, I'll pay thee for thy gown tomorrow:\nTake no unkindness of his hasty words:\nAway! I say; commend me to thy master.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, come, my Kate; we will unto your father's\nEven in these honest mean habiliments:\nOur purses shall be proud, our garments poor;\nFor 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;\nAnd as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,\nSo honour peereth in the meanest habit.\nWhat is the jay more precious than the lark,\nBecause his fathers are more beautiful?\nOr is the adder better than the eel,\nBecause his painted skin contents the eye?\nO, no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse\nFor this poor furniture and mean array.\nif thou account'st it shame. lay it on me;\nAnd therefore frolic: we will hence forthwith,\nTo feast and sport us at thy father's house.\nGo, call my men, and let us straight to him;\nAnd bring our horses unto Long-lane end;\nThere will we mount, and thither walk on foot\nLet's see; I think 'tis now some seven o'clock,\nAnd well we may come there by dinner-time.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two;\nAnd 'twill be supper-time ere you come there.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt shall be seven ere I go to horse:\nLook, what I speak, or do, or think to do,\nYou are still crossing it. Sirs, let't alone:\nI will not go to-day; and ere I do,\nIt shall be what o'clock I say it is.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, this is the house: please it you that I call?\n\nPedant:\nAy, what else? and but I be deceived\nSignior Baptista may remember me,\nNear twenty years ago, in Genoa,\nWhere we were lodgers at the Pegasus.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,\nWith such austerity as 'longeth to a father.\n\nPedant:\nI warrant you.\nBut, sir, here comes your boy;\n'Twere good he were school'd.\n\nTRANIO:\nFear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,\nNow do your duty throughly, I advise you:\nImagine 'twere the right Vincentio.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nTut, fear not me.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI told him that your father was at Venice,\nAnd that you look'd for him this day in Padua.\n\nTRANIO:\nThou'rt a tall fellow: hold thee that to drink.\nHere comes Baptista: set your countenance, sir.\nSignior Baptista, you are happily met.\nSir, this is the gentleman I told you of:\nI pray you stand good father to me now,\nGive me Bianca for my patrimony.\n\nPedant:\nSoft son!\nSir, by your leave: having come to Padua\nTo gather in some debts, my son Lucentio\nMade me acquainted with a weighty cause\nOf love between your daughter and himself:\nAnd, for the good report I hear of you\nAnd for the love he beareth to your daughter\nAnd she to him, to stay him not too long,\nI am content, in a good father's care,\nTo have him match'd; and if you please to like\nNo worse than I, upon some agreement\nMe shall you find ready and willing\nWith one consent to have her so bestow'd;\nFor curious I cannot be with you,\nSignior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nSir, pardon me in what I have to say:\nYour plainness and your shortness please me well.\nRight true it is, your son Lucentio here\nDoth love my daughter and she loveth him,\nOr both dissemble deeply their affections:\nAnd therefore, if you say no more than this,\nThat like a father you will deal with him\nAnd pass my daughter a sufficient dower,\nThe match is made, and all is done:\nYour son shall have my daughter with consent.\n\nTRANIO:\nI thank you, sir. Where then do you know best\nWe be affied and such assurance ta'en\nAs shall with either part's agreement stand?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNot in my house, Lucentio; for, you know,\nPitchers have ears, and I have many servants:\nBesides, old Gremio is hearkening still;\nAnd happily we might be interrupted.\n\nTRANIO:\nThen at my lodging, an it like you:\nThere doth my father lie; and there, this night,\nWe'll pass the business privately and well.\nSend for your daughter by your servant here:\nMy boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.\nThe worst is this, that, at so slender warning,\nYou are like to have a thin and slender pittance.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIt likes me well. Biondello, hie you home,\nAnd bid Bianca make her ready straight;\nAnd, if you will, tell what hath happened,\nLucentio's father is arrived in Padua,\nAnd how she's like to be Lucentio's wife.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI pray the gods she may with all my heart!\n\nTRANIO:\nDally not with the gods, but get thee gone.\nSignior Baptista, shall I lead the way?\nWelcome! one mess is like to be your cheer:\nCome, sir; we will better it in Pisa.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI follow you.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nCambio!\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWhat sayest thou, Biondello?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nYou saw my master wink and laugh upon you?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBiondello, what of that?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nFaith, nothing; but has left me here behind, to\nexpound the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI pray thee, moralize them.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nThen thus. Baptista is safe, talking with the\ndeceiving father of a deceitful son.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd what of him?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHis daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd then?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nThe old priest of Saint Luke's church is at your\ncommand at all hours.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd what of all this?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI cannot tell; expect they are busied about a\ncounterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her,\n'cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:' to the\nchurch; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient\nhonest witnesses: If this be not that you look for,\nI have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell for\never and a day.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHearest thou, Biondello?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI cannot tarry: I knew a wench married in an\nafternoon as she went to the garden for parsley to\nstuff a rabbit; and so may you, sir: and so, adieu,\nsir. My master hath appointed me to go to Saint\nLuke's, to bid the priest be ready to come against\nyou come with your appendix.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI may, and will, if she be so contented:\nShe will be pleased; then wherefore should I doubt?\nHap what hap may, I'll roundly go about her:\nIt shall go hard if Cambio go without her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome on, i' God's name; once more toward our father's.\nGood Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!\n\nKATHARINA:\nThe moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI say it is the moon that shines so bright.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI know it is the sun that shines so bright.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, by my mother's son, and that's myself,\nIt shall be moon, or star, or what I list,\nOr ere I journey to your father's house.\nGo on, and fetch our horses back again.\nEvermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSay as he says, or we shall never go.\n\nKATHARINA:\nForward, I pray, since we have come so far,\nAnd be it moon, or sun, or what you please:\nAn if you please to call it a rush-candle,\nHenceforth I vow it shall be so for me.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI say it is the moon.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI know it is the moon.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThen, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun:\nBut sun it is not, when you say it is not;\nAnd the moon changes even as your mind.\nWhat you will have it named, even that it is;\nAnd so it shall be so for Katharina.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, go thy ways; the field is won.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,\nAnd not unluckily against the bias.\nBut, soft! company is coming here.\nGood morrow, gentle mistress: where away?\nTell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,\nHast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?\nSuch war of white and red within her cheeks!\nWhat stars do spangle heaven with such beauty,\nAs those two eyes become that heavenly face?\nFair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.\nSweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nA' will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.\n\nKATHARINA:\nYoung budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,\nWhither away, or where is thy abode?\nHappy the parents of so fair a child;\nHappier the man, whom favourable stars\nAllot thee for his lovely bed-fellow!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad:\nThis is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd,\nAnd not a maiden, as thou say'st he is.\n\nKATHARINA:\nPardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,\nThat have been so bedazzled with the sun\nThat everything I look on seemeth green:\nNow I perceive thou art a reverend father;\nPardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nDo, good old grandsire; and withal make known\nWhich way thou travellest: if along with us,\nWe shall be joyful of thy company.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nFair sir, and you my merry mistress,\nThat with your strange encounter much amazed me,\nMy name is call'd Vincentio; my dwelling Pisa;\nAnd bound I am to Padua; there to visit\nA son of mine, which long I have not seen.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat is his name?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nLucentio, gentle sir.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHappily we met; the happier for thy son.\nAnd now by law, as well as reverend age,\nI may entitle thee my loving father:\nThe sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,\nThy son by this hath married. Wonder not,\nNor be grieved: she is of good esteem,\nHer dowery wealthy, and of worthy birth;\nBeside, so qualified as may beseem\nThe spouse of any noble gentleman.\nLet me embrace with old Vincentio,\nAnd wander we to see thy honest son,\nWho will of thy arrival be full joyous.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nBut is it true? or else is it your pleasure,\nLike pleasant travellers, to break a jest\nUpon the company you overtake?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI do assure thee, father, so it is.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, go along, and see the truth hereof;\nFor our first merriment hath made thee jealous.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWell, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.\nHave to my widow! and if she be froward,\nThen hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nSoftly and swiftly, sir; for the priest is ready.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI fly, Biondello: but they may chance to need thee\nat home; therefore leave us.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nNay, faith, I'll see the church o' your back; and\nthen come back to my master's as soon as I can.\n\nGREMIO:\nI marvel Cambio comes not all this while.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSir, here's the door, this is Lucentio's house:\nMy father's bears more toward the market-place;\nThither must I, and here I leave you, sir.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nYou shall not choose but drink before you go:\nI think I shall command your welcome here,\nAnd, by all likelihood, some cheer is toward.\n\nGREMIO:\nThey're busy within; you were best knock louder.\n\nPedant:\nWhat's he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nIs Signior Lucentio within, sir?\n\nPedant:\nHe's within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhat if a man bring him a hundred pound or two, to\nmake merry withal?\n\nPedant:\nKeep your hundred pounds to yourself: he shall\nneed none, so long as I live.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua.\nDo you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances,\nI pray you, tell Signior Lucentio that his father is\ncome from Pisa, and is here at the door to speak with him.\n\nPedant:\nThou liest: his father is come from Padua and here\nlooking out at the window.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nArt thou his father?\n\nPedant:\nAy, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n\nPedant:\nLay hands on the villain: I believe a' means to\ncozen somebody in this city under my countenance.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI have seen them in the church together: God send\n'em good shipping! But who is here? mine old\nmaster Vincentio! now we are undone and brought to nothing.\n\nVINCENTIO:\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHope I may choose, sir.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nCome hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nForgot you! no, sir: I could not forget you, for I\nnever saw you before in all my life.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhat, you notorious villain, didst thou never see\nthy master's father, Vincentio?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhat, my old worshipful old master? yes, marry, sir:\nsee where he looks out of the window.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nIs't so, indeed.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHelp, help, help! here's a madman will murder me.\n\nPedant:\nHelp, son! help, Signior Baptista!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPrithee, Kate, let's stand aside and see the end of\nthis controversy.\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhat am I, sir! nay, what are you, sir? O immortal\ngods! O fine villain! A silken doublet! a velvet\nhose! a scarlet cloak! and a copatain hat! O, I\nam undone! I am undone! while I play the good\nhusband at home, my son and my servant spend all at\nthe university.\n\nTRANIO:\nHow now! what's the matter?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat, is the man lunatic?\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your\nhabit, but your words show you a madman. Why, sir,\nwhat 'cerns it you if I wear pearl and gold? I\nthank my good father, I am able to maintain it.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nThy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nYou mistake, sir, you mistake, sir. Pray, what do\nyou think is his name?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nHis name! as if I knew not his name: I have brought\nhim up ever since he was three years old, and his\nname is Tranio.\n\nPedant:\nAway, away, mad ass! his name is Lucentio and he is\nmine only son, and heir to the lands of me, Signior Vincentio.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nLucentio! O, he hath murdered his master! Lay hold\non him, I charge you, in the duke's name. O, my\nson, my son! Tell me, thou villain, where is my son Lucentio?\n\nTRANIO:\nCall forth an officer.\nCarry this mad knave to the gaol. Father Baptista,\nI charge you see that he be forthcoming.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nCarry me to the gaol!\n\nGREMIO:\nStay, officer: he shall not go to prison.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nTalk not, Signior Gremio: I say he shall go to prison.\n\nGREMIO:\nTake heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be\ncony-catched in this business: I dare swear this\nis the right Vincentio.\n\nPedant:\nSwear, if thou darest.\n\nGREMIO:\nNay, I dare not swear it.\n\nTRANIO:\nThen thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio.\n\nGREMIO:\nYes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAway with the dotard! to the gaol with him!\n\nVINCENTIO:\nThus strangers may be hailed and abused: O\nmonstrous villain!\n\nBIONDELLO:\nO! we are spoiled and--yonder he is: deny him,\nforswear him, or else we are all undone.\n\nLUCENTIO:\n\nVINCENTIO:\nLives my sweet son?\n\nBIANCA:\nPardon, dear father.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nHow hast thou offended?\nWhere is Lucentio?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHere's Lucentio,\nRight son to the right Vincentio;\nThat have by marriage made thy daughter mine,\nWhile counterfeit supposes bleared thine eyne.\n\nGREMIO:\nHere's packing, with a witness to deceive us all!\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhere is that damned villain Tranio,\nThat faced and braved me in this matter so?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, tell me, is not this my Cambio?\n\nBIANCA:\nCambio is changed into Lucentio.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nLove wrought these miracles. Bianca's love\nMade me exchange my state with Tranio,\nWhile he did bear my countenance in the town;\nAnd happily I have arrived at the last\nUnto the wished haven of my bliss.\nWhat Tranio did, myself enforced him to;\nThen pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nI'll slit the villain's nose, that would have sent\nme to the gaol.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nBut do you hear, sir? have you married my daughter\nwithout asking my good will?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nFear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to: but\nI will in, to be revenged for this villany.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAnd I, to sound the depth of this knavery.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nLook not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown.\n\nGREMIO:\nMy cake is dough; but I'll in among the rest,\nOut of hope of all, but my share of the feast.\n\nKATHARINA:\nHusband, let's follow, to see the end of this ado.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nFirst kiss me, Kate, and we will.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat, in the midst of the street?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat, art thou ashamed of me?\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo, sir, God forbid; but ashamed to kiss.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, then let's home again. Come, sirrah, let's away.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIs not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:\nBetter once than never, for never too late.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAt last, though long, our jarring notes agree:\nAnd time it is, when raging war is done,\nTo smile at scapes and perils overblown.\nMy fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,\nWhile I with self-same kindness welcome thine.\nBrother Petruchio, sister Katharina,\nAnd thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,\nFeast with the best, and welcome to my house:\nMy banquet is to close our stomachs up,\nAfter our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;\nFor now we sit to chat as well as eat.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nPadua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPadua affords nothing but what is kind.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nFor both our sakes, I would that word were true.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.\n\nWidow:\nThen never trust me, if I be afeard.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:\nI mean, Hortensio is afeard of you.\n\nWidow:\nHe that is giddy thinks the world turns round.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nRoundly replied.\n\nKATHARINA:\nMistress, how mean you that?\n\nWidow:\nThus I conceive by him.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nConceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMy widow says, thus she conceives her tale.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVery well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.\n\nKATHARINA:\n'He that is giddy thinks the world turns round:'\nI pray you, tell me what you meant by that.\n\nWidow:\nYour husband, being troubled with a shrew,\nMeasures my husband's sorrow by his woe:\nAnd now you know my meaning,\n\nKATHARINA:\nA very mean meaning.\n\nWidow:\nRight, I mean you.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAnd I am mean indeed, respecting you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nTo her, Kate!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTo her, widow!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThat's my office.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSpoke like an officer; ha' to thee, lad!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nHow likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?\n\nGREMIO:\nBelieve me, sir, they butt together well.\n\nBIANCA:\nHead, and butt! an hasty-witted body\nWould say your head and butt were head and horn.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nAy, mistress bride, hath that awaken'd you?\n\nBIANCA:\nAy, but not frighted me; therefore I'll sleep again.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, that you shall not: since you have begun,\nHave at you for a bitter jest or two!\n\nBIANCA:\nAm I your bird? I mean to shift my bush;\nAnd then pursue me as you draw your bow.\nYou are welcome all.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nShe hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio.\nThis bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not;\nTherefore a health to all that shot and miss'd.\n\nTRANIO:\nO, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound,\nWhich runs himself and catches for his master.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA good swift simile, but something currish.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:\n'Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nO ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nConfess, confess, hath he not hit you here?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA' has a little gall'd me, I confess;\nAnd, as the jest did glance away from me,\n'Tis ten to one it maim'd you two outright.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, in good sadness, son Petruchio,\nI think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, I say no: and therefore for assurance\nLet's each one send unto his wife;\nAnd he whose wife is most obedient\nTo come at first when he doth send for her,\nShall win the wager which we will propose.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nContent. What is the wager?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTwenty crowns.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nTwenty crowns!\nI'll venture so much of my hawk or hound,\nBut twenty times so much upon my wife.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nA hundred then.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nContent.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA match! 'tis done.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWho shall begin?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nThat will I.\nGo, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI go.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nSon, I'll be your half, Bianca comes.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI'll have no halves; I'll bear it all myself.\nHow now! what news?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nSir, my mistress sends you word\nThat she is busy and she cannot come.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHow! she is busy and she cannot come!\nIs that an answer?\n\nGREMIO:\nAy, and a kind one too:\nPray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI hope better.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife\nTo come to me forthwith.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO, ho! entreat her!\nNay, then she must needs come.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI am afraid, sir,\nDo what you can, yours will not be entreated.\nNow, where's my wife?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nShe says you have some goodly jest in hand:\nShe will not come: she bids you come to her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWorse and worse; she will not come! O vile,\nIntolerable, not to be endured!\nSirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;\nSay, I command her to come to me.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI know her answer.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nShe will not.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThe fouler fortune mine, and there an end.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, by my holidame, here comes Katharina!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat is your will, sir, that you send for me?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhere is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?\n\nKATHARINA:\nThey sit conferring by the parlor fire.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGo fetch them hither: if they deny to come.\nSwinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands:\nAway, I say, and bring them hither straight.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHere is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nAnd so it is: I wonder what it bodes.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMarry, peace it bodes, and love and quiet life,\nAnd awful rule and right supremacy;\nAnd, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, fair befal thee, good Petruchio!\nThe wager thou hast won; and I will add\nUnto their losses twenty thousand crowns;\nAnother dowry to another daughter,\nFor she is changed, as she had never been.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, I will win my wager better yet\nAnd show more sign of her obedience,\nHer new-built virtue and obedience.\nSee where she comes and brings your froward wives\nAs prisoners to her womanly persuasion.\nKatharina, that cap of yours becomes you not:\nOff with that bauble, throw it under-foot.\n\nWidow:\nLord, let me never have a cause to sigh,\nTill I be brought to such a silly pass!\n\nBIANCA:\nFie! what a foolish duty call you this?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI would your duty were as foolish too:\nThe wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,\nHath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.\n\nBIANCA:\nThe more fool you, for laying on my duty.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nKatharina, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women\nWhat duty they do owe their lords and husbands.\n\nWidow:\nCome, come, you're mocking: we will have no telling.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome on, I say; and first begin with her.\n\nWidow:\nShe shall not.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI say she shall: and first begin with her.\n\nKATHARINA:\nFie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,\nAnd dart not scornful glances from those eyes,\nTo wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:\nIt blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,\nConfounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,\nAnd in no sense is meet or amiable.\nA woman moved is like a fountain troubled,\nMuddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;\nAnd while it is so, none so dry or thirsty\nWill deign to sip or touch one drop of it.\nThy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,\nThy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,\nAnd for thy maintenance commits his body\nTo painful labour both by sea and land,\nTo watch the night in storms, the day in cold,\nWhilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;\nAnd craves no other tribute at thy hands\nBut love, fair looks and true obedience;\nToo little payment for so great a debt.\nSuch duty as the subject owes the prince\nEven such a woman oweth to her husband;\nAnd when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,\nAnd not obedient to his honest will,\nWhat is she but a foul contending rebel\nAnd graceless traitor to her loving lord?\nI am ashamed that women are so simple\nTo offer war where they should kneel for peace;\nOr seek for rule, supremacy and sway,\nWhen they are bound to serve, love and obey.\nWhy are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,\nUnapt to toil and trouble in the world,\nBut that our soft conditions and our hearts\nShould well agree with our external parts?\nCome, come, you froward and unable worms!\nMy mind hath been as big as one of yours,\nMy heart as great, my reason haply more,\nTo bandy word for word and frown for frown;\nBut now I see our lances are but straws,\nOur strength as weak, our weakness past compare,\nThat seeming to be most which we indeed least are.\nThen vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,\nAnd place your hands below your husband's foot:\nIn token of which duty, if he please,\nMy hand is ready; may it do him ease.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWell, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't.\n\nVINCENTIO:\n'Tis a good hearing when children are toward.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBut a harsh hearing when women are froward.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, Kate, we'll to bed.\nWe three are married, but you two are sped.\n'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;\nAnd, being a winner, God give you good night!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nNow, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew.\n\nLUCENTIO:\n'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.\n\nMaster:\nBoatswain!\n\nBoatswain:\nHere, master: what cheer?\n\nMaster:\nGood, speak to the mariners: fall to't, yarely,\nor we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.\n\nBoatswain:\nHeigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!\nyare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the\nmaster's whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind,\nif room enough!\n\nALONSO:\nGood boatswain, have care. Where's the master?\nPlay the men.\n\nBoatswain:\nI pray now, keep below.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhere is the master, boatswain?\n\nBoatswain:\nDo you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your\ncabins: you do assist the storm.\n\nGONZALO:\nNay, good, be patient.\n\nBoatswain:\nWhen the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers\nfor the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not.\n\nGONZALO:\nGood, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.\n\nBoatswain:\nNone that I more love than myself. You are a\ncounsellor; if you can command these elements to\nsilence, and work the peace of the present, we will\nnot hand a rope more; use your authority: if you\ncannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make\nyourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of\nthe hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts! Out\nof our way, I say.\n\nGONZALO:\nI have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he\nhath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is\nperfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his\nhanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable,\nfor our own doth little advantage. If he be not\nborn to be hanged, our case is miserable.\n\nBoatswain:\nDown with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring\nher to try with main-course.\nA plague upon this howling! they are louder than\nthe weather or our office.\nYet again! what do you here? Shall we give o'er\nand drown? Have you a mind to sink?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nA pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,\nincharitable dog!\n\nBoatswain:\nWork you then.\n\nANTONIO:\nHang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker!\nWe are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.\n\nGONZALO:\nI'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were\nno stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an\nunstanched wench.\n\nBoatswain:\nLay her a-hold, a-hold! set her two courses off to\nsea again; lay her off.\n\nMariners:\nAll lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!\n\nBoatswain:\nWhat, must our mouths be cold?\n\nGONZALO:\nThe king and prince at prayers! let's assist them,\nFor our case is as theirs.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nI'm out of patience.\n\nANTONIO:\nWe are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:\nThis wide-chapp'd rascal--would thou mightst lie drowning\nThe washing of ten tides!\n\nGONZALO:\nHe'll be hang'd yet,\nThough every drop of water swear against it\nAnd gape at widest to glut him.\n\nANTONIO:\nLet's all sink with the king.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nLet's take leave of him.\n\nGONZALO:\nNow would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an\nacre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, any\nthing. The wills above be done! but I would fain\ndie a dry death.\n\nMIRANDA:\nIf by your art, my dearest father, you have\nPut the wild waters in this roar, allay them.\nThe sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,\nBut that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,\nDashes the fire out. O, I have suffered\nWith those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,\nWho had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,\nDash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock\nAgainst my very heart. Poor souls, they perish'd.\nHad I been any god of power, I would\nHave sunk the sea within the earth or ere\nIt should the good ship so have swallow'd and\nThe fraughting souls within her.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBe collected:\nNo more amazement: tell your piteous heart\nThere's no harm done.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO, woe the day!\n\nPROSPERO:\nNo harm.\nI have done nothing but in care of thee,\nOf thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who\nArt ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing\nOf whence I am, nor that I am more better\nThan Prospero, master of a full poor cell,\nAnd thy no greater father.\n\nMIRANDA:\nMore to know\nDid never meddle with my thoughts.\n\nPROSPERO:\n'Tis time\nI should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,\nAnd pluck my magic garment from me. So:\nLie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.\nThe direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd\nThe very virtue of compassion in thee,\nI have with such provision in mine art\nSo safely ordered that there is no soul--\nNo, not so much perdition as an hair\nBetid to any creature in the vessel\nWhich thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down;\nFor thou must now know farther.\n\nMIRANDA:\nYou have often\nBegun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd\nAnd left me to a bootless inquisition,\nConcluding 'Stay: not yet.'\n\nPROSPERO:\nThe hour's now come;\nThe very minute bids thee ope thine ear;\nObey and be attentive. Canst thou remember\nA time before we came unto this cell?\nI do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not\nOut three years old.\n\nMIRANDA:\nCertainly, sir, I can.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBy what? by any other house or person?\nOf any thing the image tell me that\nHath kept with thy remembrance.\n\nMIRANDA:\n'Tis far off\nAnd rather like a dream than an assurance\nThat my remembrance warrants. Had I not\nFour or five women once that tended me?\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it\nThat this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else\nIn the dark backward and abysm of time?\nIf thou remember'st aught ere thou camest here,\nHow thou camest here thou mayst.\n\nMIRANDA:\nBut that I do not.\n\nPROSPERO:\nTwelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,\nThy father was the Duke of Milan and\nA prince of power.\n\nMIRANDA:\nSir, are not you my father?\n\nPROSPERO:\nThy mother was a piece of virtue, and\nShe said thou wast my daughter; and thy father\nWas Duke of Milan; and thou his only heir\nAnd princess no worse issued.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO the heavens!\nWhat foul play had we, that we came from thence?\nOr blessed was't we did?\n\nPROSPERO:\nBoth, both, my girl:\nBy foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence,\nBut blessedly holp hither.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO, my heart bleeds\nTo think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to,\nWhich is from my remembrance! Please you, farther.\n\nPROSPERO:\nMy brother and thy uncle, call'd Antonio--\nI pray thee, mark me--that a brother should\nBe so perfidious!--he whom next thyself\nOf all the world I loved and to him put\nThe manage of my state; as at that time\nThrough all the signories it was the first\nAnd Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed\nIn dignity, and for the liberal arts\nWithout a parallel; those being all my study,\nThe government I cast upon my brother\nAnd to my state grew stranger, being transported\nAnd rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle--\nDost thou attend me?\n\nMIRANDA:\nSir, most heedfully.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBeing once perfected how to grant suits,\nHow to deny them, who to advance and who\nTo trash for over-topping, new created\nThe creatures that were mine, I say, or changed 'em,\nOr else new form'd 'em; having both the key\nOf officer and office, set all hearts i' the state\nTo what tune pleased his ear; that now he was\nThe ivy which had hid my princely trunk,\nAnd suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO, good sir, I do.\n\nPROSPERO:\nI pray thee, mark me.\nI, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated\nTo closeness and the bettering of my mind\nWith that which, but by being so retired,\nO'er-prized all popular rate, in my false brother\nAwaked an evil nature; and my trust,\nLike a good parent, did beget of him\nA falsehood in its contrary as great\nAs my trust was; which had indeed no limit,\nA confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,\nNot only with what my revenue yielded,\nBut what my power might else exact, like one\nWho having into truth, by telling of it,\nMade such a sinner of his memory,\nTo credit his own lie, he did believe\nHe was indeed the duke; out o' the substitution\nAnd executing the outward face of royalty,\nWith all prerogative: hence his ambition growing--\nDost thou hear?\n\nMIRANDA:\nYour tale, sir, would cure deafness.\n\nPROSPERO:\nTo have no screen between this part he play'd\nAnd him he play'd it for, he needs will be\nAbsolute Milan. Me, poor man, my library\nWas dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties\nHe thinks me now incapable; confederates--\nSo dry he was for sway--wi' the King of Naples\nTo give him annual tribute, do him homage,\nSubject his coronet to his crown and bend\nThe dukedom yet unbow'd--alas, poor Milan!--\nTo most ignoble stooping.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO the heavens!\n\nPROSPERO:\nMark his condition and the event; then tell me\nIf this might be a brother.\n\nMIRANDA:\nI should sin\nTo think but nobly of my grandmother:\nGood wombs have borne bad sons.\n\nPROSPERO:\nNow the condition.\nThe King of Naples, being an enemy\nTo me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;\nWhich was, that he, in lieu o' the premises\nOf homage and I know not how much tribute,\nShould presently extirpate me and mine\nOut of the dukedom and confer fair Milan\nWith all the honours on my brother: whereon,\nA treacherous army levied, one midnight\nFated to the purpose did Antonio open\nThe gates of Milan, and, i' the dead of darkness,\nThe ministers for the purpose hurried thence\nMe and thy crying self.\n\nMIRANDA:\nAlack, for pity!\nI, not remembering how I cried out then,\nWill cry it o'er again: it is a hint\nThat wrings mine eyes to't.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHear a little further\nAnd then I'll bring thee to the present business\nWhich now's upon's; without the which this story\nWere most impertinent.\n\nMIRANDA:\nWherefore did they not\nThat hour destroy us?\n\nPROSPERO:\nWell demanded, wench:\nMy tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,\nSo dear the love my people bore me, nor set\nA mark so bloody on the business, but\nWith colours fairer painted their foul ends.\nIn few, they hurried us aboard a bark,\nBore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared\nA rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,\nNor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats\nInstinctively had quit it: there they hoist us,\nTo cry to the sea that roar'd to us, to sigh\nTo the winds whose pity, sighing back again,\nDid us but loving wrong.\n\nMIRANDA:\nAlack, what trouble\nWas I then to you!\n\nPROSPERO:\nO, a cherubim\nThou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile.\nInfused with a fortitude from heaven,\nWhen I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt,\nUnder my burthen groan'd; which raised in me\nAn undergoing stomach, to bear up\nAgainst what should ensue.\n\nMIRANDA:\nHow came we ashore?\n\nPROSPERO:\nBy Providence divine.\nSome food we had and some fresh water that\nA noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,\nOut of his charity, being then appointed\nMaster of this design, did give us, with\nRich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries,\nWhich since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness,\nKnowing I loved my books, he furnish'd me\nFrom mine own library with volumes that\nI prize above my dukedom.\n\nMIRANDA:\nWould I might\nBut ever see that man!\n\nPROSPERO:\nNow I arise:\nSit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.\nHere in this island we arrived; and here\nHave I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit\nThan other princesses can that have more time\nFor vainer hours and tutors not so careful.\n\nMIRANDA:\nHeavens thank you for't! And now, I pray you, sir,\nFor still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason\nFor raising this sea-storm?\n\nPROSPERO:\nKnow thus far forth.\nBy accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,\nNow my dear lady, hath mine enemies\nBrought to this shore; and by my prescience\nI find my zenith doth depend upon\nA most auspicious star, whose influence\nIf now I court not but omit, my fortunes\nWill ever after droop. Here cease more questions:\nThou art inclined to sleep; 'tis a good dulness,\nAnd give it way: I know thou canst not choose.\nCome away, servant, come. I am ready now.\nApproach, my Ariel, come.\n\nARIEL:\nAll hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come\nTo answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,\nTo swim, to dive into the fire, to ride\nOn the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task\nAriel and all his quality.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHast thou, spirit,\nPerform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?\n\nARIEL:\nTo every article.\nI boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,\nNow in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,\nI flamed amazement: sometime I'ld divide,\nAnd burn in many places; on the topmast,\nThe yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,\nThen meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors\nO' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary\nAnd sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks\nOf sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune\nSeem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,\nYea, his dread trident shake.\n\nPROSPERO:\nMy brave spirit!\nWho was so firm, so constant, that this coil\nWould not infect his reason?\n\nARIEL:\nNot a soul\nBut felt a fever of the mad and play'd\nSome tricks of desperation. All but mariners\nPlunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,\nThen all afire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,\nWith hair up-staring,--then like reeds, not hair,--\nWas the first man that leap'd; cried, 'Hell is empty\nAnd all the devils are here.'\n\nPROSPERO:\nWhy that's my spirit!\nBut was not this nigh shore?\n\nARIEL:\nClose by, my master.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBut are they, Ariel, safe?\n\nARIEL:\nNot a hair perish'd;\nOn their sustaining garments not a blemish,\nBut fresher than before: and, as thou badest me,\nIn troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle.\nThe king's son have I landed by himself;\nWhom I left cooling of the air with sighs\nIn an odd angle of the isle and sitting,\nHis arms in this sad knot.\n\nPROSPERO:\nOf the king's ship\nThe mariners say how thou hast disposed\nAnd all the rest o' the fleet.\n\nARIEL:\nSafely in harbour\nIs the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once\nThou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew\nFrom the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid:\nThe mariners all under hatches stow'd;\nWho, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour,\nI have left asleep; and for the rest o' the fleet\nWhich I dispersed, they all have met again\nAnd are upon the Mediterranean flote,\nBound sadly home for Naples,\nSupposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd\nAnd his great person perish.\n\nPROSPERO:\nAriel, thy charge\nExactly is perform'd: but there's more work.\nWhat is the time o' the day?\n\nARIEL:\nPast the mid season.\n\nPROSPERO:\nAt least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now\nMust by us both be spent most preciously.\n\nARIEL:\nIs there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,\nLet me remember thee what thou hast promised,\nWhich is not yet perform'd me.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHow now? moody?\nWhat is't thou canst demand?\n\nARIEL:\nMy liberty.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBefore the time be out? no more!\n\nARIEL:\nI prithee,\nRemember I have done thee worthy service;\nTold thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served\nWithout or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise\nTo bate me a full year.\n\nPROSPERO:\nDost thou forget\nFrom what a torment I did free thee?\n\nARIEL:\nNo.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou dost, and think'st it much to tread the ooze\nOf the salt deep,\nTo run upon the sharp wind of the north,\nTo do me business in the veins o' the earth\nWhen it is baked with frost.\n\nARIEL:\nI do not, sir.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot\nThe foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy\nWas grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her?\n\nARIEL:\nNo, sir.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou hast. Where was she born? speak; tell me.\n\nARIEL:\nSir, in Argier.\n\nPROSPERO:\nO, was she so? I must\nOnce in a month recount what thou hast been,\nWhich thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax,\nFor mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible\nTo enter human hearing, from Argier,\nThou know'st, was banish'd: for one thing she did\nThey would not take her life. Is not this true?\n\nARIEL:\nAy, sir.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThis blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child\nAnd here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave,\nAs thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;\nAnd, for thou wast a spirit too delicate\nTo act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,\nRefusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,\nBy help of her more potent ministers\nAnd in her most unmitigable rage,\nInto a cloven pine; within which rift\nImprison'd thou didst painfully remain\nA dozen years; within which space she died\nAnd left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans\nAs fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island--\nSave for the son that she did litter here,\nA freckled whelp hag-born--not honour'd with\nA human shape.\n\nARIEL:\nYes, Caliban her son.\n\nPROSPERO:\nDull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban\nWhom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st\nWhat torment I did find thee in; thy groans\nDid make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts\nOf ever angry bears: it was a torment\nTo lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax\nCould not again undo: it was mine art,\nWhen I arrived and heard thee, that made gape\nThe pine and let thee out.\n\nARIEL:\nI thank thee, master.\n\nPROSPERO:\nIf thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak\nAnd peg thee in his knotty entrails till\nThou hast howl'd away twelve winters.\n\nARIEL:\nPardon, master;\nI will be correspondent to command\nAnd do my spiriting gently.\n\nPROSPERO:\nDo so, and after two days\nI will discharge thee.\n\nARIEL:\nThat's my noble master!\nWhat shall I do? say what; what shall I do?\n\nPROSPERO:\nGo make thyself like a nymph o' the sea: be subject\nTo no sight but thine and mine, invisible\nTo every eyeball else. Go take this shape\nAnd hither come in't: go, hence with diligence!\nAwake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well; Awake!\n\nMIRANDA:\nThe strangeness of your story put\nHeaviness in me.\n\nPROSPERO:\nShake it off. Come on;\nWe'll visit Caliban my slave, who never\nYields us kind answer.\n\nMIRANDA:\n'Tis a villain, sir,\nI do not love to look on.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBut, as 'tis,\nWe cannot miss him: he does make our fire,\nFetch in our wood and serves in offices\nThat profit us. What, ho! slave! Caliban!\nThou earth, thou! speak.\n\nCALIBAN:\n\nPROSPERO:\nCome forth, I say! there's other business for thee:\nCome, thou tortoise! when?\nFine apparition! My quaint Ariel,\nHark in thine ear.\n\nARIEL:\nMy lord it shall be done.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself\nUpon thy wicked dam, come forth!\n\nCALIBAN:\nAs wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd\nWith raven's feather from unwholesome fen\nDrop on you both! a south-west blow on ye\nAnd blister you all o'er!\n\nPROSPERO:\nFor this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,\nSide-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins\nShall, for that vast of night that they may work,\nAll exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd\nAs thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging\nThan bees that made 'em.\n\nCALIBAN:\nI must eat my dinner.\nThis island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,\nWhich thou takest from me. When thou camest first,\nThou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst give me\nWater with berries in't, and teach me how\nTo name the bigger light, and how the less,\nThat burn by day and night: and then I loved thee\nAnd show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,\nThe fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile:\nCursed be I that did so! All the charms\nOf Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!\nFor I am all the subjects that you have,\nWhich first was mine own king: and here you sty me\nIn this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me\nThe rest o' the island.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou most lying slave,\nWhom stripes may move, not kindness! I have used thee,\nFilth as thou art, with human care, and lodged thee\nIn mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate\nThe honour of my child.\n\nCALIBAN:\nO ho, O ho! would't had been done!\nThou didst prevent me; I had peopled else\nThis isle with Calibans.\n\nPROSPERO:\nAbhorred slave,\nWhich any print of goodness wilt not take,\nBeing capable of all ill! I pitied thee,\nTook pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour\nOne thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,\nKnow thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like\nA thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes\nWith words that made them known. But thy vile race,\nThough thou didst learn, had that in't which\ngood natures\nCould not abide to be with; therefore wast thou\nDeservedly confined into this rock,\nWho hadst deserved more than a prison.\n\nCALIBAN:\nYou taught me language; and my profit on't\nIs, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you\nFor learning me your language!\n\nPROSPERO:\nHag-seed, hence!\nFetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou'rt best,\nTo answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice?\nIf thou neglect'st or dost unwillingly\nWhat I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps,\nFill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar\nThat beasts shall tremble at thy din.\n\nCALIBAN:\nNo, pray thee.\nI must obey: his art is of such power,\nIt would control my dam's god, Setebos,\nand make a vassal of him.\n\nPROSPERO:\nSo, slave; hence!\nCome unto these yellow sands,\nAnd then take hands:\nCourtsied when you have and kiss'd\nThe wild waves whist,\nFoot it featly here and there;\nAnd, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.\nHark, hark!\n\nFERDINAND:\nWhere should this music be? i' the air or the earth?\nIt sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon\nSome god o' the island. Sitting on a bank,\nWeeping again the king my father's wreck,\nThis music crept by me upon the waters,\nAllaying both their fury and my passion\nWith its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it,\nOr it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone.\nNo, it begins again.\nFull fathom five thy father lies;\nOf his bones are coral made;\nThose are pearls that were his eyes:\nNothing of him that doth fade\nBut doth suffer a sea-change\nInto something rich and strange.\nSea-nymphs hourly ring his knell\nHark! now I hear them,--Ding-dong, bell.\n\nFERDINAND:\nThe ditty does remember my drown'd father.\nThis is no mortal business, nor no sound\nThat the earth owes. I hear it now above me.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThe fringed curtains of thine eye advance\nAnd say what thou seest yond.\n\nMIRANDA:\nWhat is't? a spirit?\nLord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,\nIt carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit.\n\nPROSPERO:\nNo, wench; it eats and sleeps and hath such senses\nAs we have, such. This gallant which thou seest\nWas in the wreck; and, but he's something stain'd\nWith grief that's beauty's canker, thou mightst call him\nA goodly person: he hath lost his fellows\nAnd strays about to find 'em.\n\nMIRANDA:\nI might call him\nA thing divine, for nothing natural\nI ever saw so noble.\n\nPROSPERO:\n\nFERDINAND:\nMost sure, the goddess\nOn whom these airs attend! Vouchsafe my prayer\nMay know if you remain upon this island;\nAnd that you will some good instruction give\nHow I may bear me here: my prime request,\nWhich I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!\nIf you be maid or no?\n\nMIRANDA:\nNo wonder, sir;\nBut certainly a maid.\n\nFERDINAND:\nMy language! heavens!\nI am the best of them that speak this speech,\nWere I but where 'tis spoken.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHow? the best?\nWhat wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?\n\nFERDINAND:\nA single thing, as I am now, that wonders\nTo hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me;\nAnd that he does I weep: myself am Naples,\nWho with mine eyes, never since at ebb, beheld\nThe king my father wreck'd.\n\nMIRANDA:\nAlack, for mercy!\n\nFERDINAND:\nYes, faith, and all his lords; the Duke of Milan\nAnd his brave son being twain.\n\nPROSPERO:\n\nMIRANDA:\nWhy speaks my father so ungently? This\nIs the third man that e'er I saw, the first\nThat e'er I sigh'd for: pity move my father\nTo be inclined my way!\n\nFERDINAND:\nO, if a virgin,\nAnd your affection not gone forth, I'll make you\nThe queen of Naples.\n\nPROSPERO:\nSoft, sir! one word more.\nThey are both in either's powers; but this swift business\nI must uneasy make, lest too light winning\nMake the prize light.\nOne word more; I charge thee\nThat thou attend me: thou dost here usurp\nThe name thou owest not; and hast put thyself\nUpon this island as a spy, to win it\nFrom me, the lord on't.\n\nFERDINAND:\nNo, as I am a man.\n\nMIRANDA:\nThere's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:\nIf the ill spirit have so fair a house,\nGood things will strive to dwell with't.\n\nPROSPERO:\nFollow me.\nSpeak not you for him; he's a traitor. Come;\nI'll manacle thy neck and feet together:\nSea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be\nThe fresh-brook muscles, wither'd roots and husks\nWherein the acorn cradled. Follow.\n\nFERDINAND:\nNo;\nI will resist such entertainment till\nMine enemy has more power.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO dear father,\nMake not too rash a trial of him, for\nHe's gentle and not fearful.\n\nPROSPERO:\nWhat? I say,\nMy foot my tutor? Put thy sword up, traitor;\nWho makest a show but darest not strike, thy conscience\nIs so possess'd with guilt: come from thy ward,\nFor I can here disarm thee with this stick\nAnd make thy weapon drop.\n\nMIRANDA:\nBeseech you, father.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHence! hang not on my garments.\n\nMIRANDA:\nSir, have pity;\nI'll be his surety.\n\nPROSPERO:\nSilence! one word more\nShall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What!\nAn advocate for an imposter! hush!\nThou think'st there is no more such shapes as he,\nHaving seen but him and Caliban: foolish wench!\nTo the most of men this is a Caliban\nAnd they to him are angels.\n\nMIRANDA:\nMy affections\nAre then most humble; I have no ambition\nTo see a goodlier man.\n\nPROSPERO:\nCome on; obey:\nThy nerves are in their infancy again\nAnd have no vigour in them.\n\nFERDINAND:\nSo they are;\nMy spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.\nMy father's loss, the weakness which I feel,\nThe wreck of all my friends, nor this man's threats,\nTo whom I am subdued, are but light to me,\nMight I but through my prison once a day\nBehold this maid: all corners else o' the earth\nLet liberty make use of; space enough\nHave I in such a prison.\n\nPROSPERO:\n\nMIRANDA:\nBe of comfort;\nMy father's of a better nature, sir,\nThan he appears by speech: this is unwonted\nWhich now came from him.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou shalt be free\nAs mountain winds: but then exactly do\nAll points of my command.\n\nARIEL:\nTo the syllable.\n\nPROSPERO:\nCome, follow. Speak not for him.\n\nGONZALO:\nBeseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause,\nSo have we all, of joy; for our escape\nIs much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe\nIs common; every day some sailor's wife,\nThe masters of some merchant and the merchant\nHave just our theme of woe; but for the miracle,\nI mean our preservation, few in millions\nCan speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh\nOur sorrow with our comfort.\n\nALONSO:\nPrithee, peace.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHe receives comfort like cold porridge.\n\nANTONIO:\nThe visitor will not give him o'er so.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nLook he's winding up the watch of his wit;\nby and by it will strike.\n\nGONZALO:\nSir,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nOne: tell.\n\nGONZALO:\nWhen every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd,\nComes to the entertainer--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nA dollar.\n\nGONZALO:\nDolour comes to him, indeed: you\nhave spoken truer than you purposed.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYou have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.\n\nGONZALO:\nTherefore, my lord,--\n\nANTONIO:\nFie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!\n\nALONSO:\nI prithee, spare.\n\nGONZALO:\nWell, I have done: but yet,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHe will be talking.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhich, of he or Adrian, for a good\nwager, first begins to crow?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nThe old cock.\n\nANTONIO:\nThe cockerel.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nDone. The wager?\n\nANTONIO:\nA laughter.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nA match!\n\nADRIAN:\nThough this island seem to be desert,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHa, ha, ha! So, you're paid.\n\nADRIAN:\nUninhabitable and almost inaccessible,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYet,--\n\nADRIAN:\nYet,--\n\nANTONIO:\nHe could not miss't.\n\nADRIAN:\nIt must needs be of subtle, tender and delicate\ntemperance.\n\nANTONIO:\nTemperance was a delicate wench.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAy, and a subtle; as he most learnedly delivered.\n\nADRIAN:\nThe air breathes upon us here most sweetly.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAs if it had lungs and rotten ones.\n\nANTONIO:\nOr as 'twere perfumed by a fen.\n\nGONZALO:\nHere is everything advantageous to life.\n\nANTONIO:\nTrue; save means to live.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nOf that there's none, or little.\n\nGONZALO:\nHow lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!\n\nANTONIO:\nThe ground indeed is tawny.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWith an eye of green in't.\n\nANTONIO:\nHe misses not much.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nNo; he doth but mistake the truth totally.\n\nGONZALO:\nBut the rarity of it is,--which is indeed almost\nbeyond credit,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAs many vouched rarities are.\n\nGONZALO:\nThat our garments, being, as they were, drenched in\nthe sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and\nglosses, being rather new-dyed than stained with\nsalt water.\n\nANTONIO:\nIf but one of his pockets could speak, would it not\nsay he lies?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAy, or very falsely pocket up his report\n\nGONZALO:\nMethinks our garments are now as fresh as when we\nput them on first in Afric, at the marriage of\nthe king's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\n'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.\n\nADRIAN:\nTunis was never graced before with such a paragon to\ntheir queen.\n\nGONZALO:\nNot since widow Dido's time.\n\nANTONIO:\nWidow! a pox o' that! How came that widow in?\nwidow Dido!\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhat if he had said 'widower AEneas' too? Good Lord,\nhow you take it!\n\nADRIAN:\n'Widow Dido' said you? you make me study of that:\nshe was of Carthage, not of Tunis.\n\nGONZALO:\nThis Tunis, sir, was Carthage.\n\nADRIAN:\nCarthage?\n\nGONZALO:\nI assure you, Carthage.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHis word is more than the miraculous harp; he hath\nraised the wall and houses too.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhat impossible matter will he make easy next?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nI think he will carry this island home in his pocket\nand give it his son for an apple.\n\nANTONIO:\nAnd, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring\nforth more islands.\n\nGONZALO:\nAy.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhy, in good time.\n\nGONZALO:\nSir, we were talking that our garments seem now\nas fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage\nof your daughter, who is now queen.\n\nANTONIO:\nAnd the rarest that e'er came there.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nBate, I beseech you, widow Dido.\n\nANTONIO:\nO, widow Dido! ay, widow Dido.\n\nGONZALO:\nIs not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I\nwore it? I mean, in a sort.\n\nANTONIO:\nThat sort was well fished for.\n\nGONZALO:\nWhen I wore it at your daughter's marriage?\n\nALONSO:\nYou cram these words into mine ears against\nThe stomach of my sense. Would I had never\nMarried my daughter there! for, coming thence,\nMy son is lost and, in my rate, she too,\nWho is so far from Italy removed\nI ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir\nOf Naples and of Milan, what strange fish\nHath made his meal on thee?\n\nFRANCISCO:\nSir, he may live:\nI saw him beat the surges under him,\nAnd ride upon their backs; he trod the water,\nWhose enmity he flung aside, and breasted\nThe surge most swoln that met him; his bold head\n'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd\nHimself with his good arms in lusty stroke\nTo the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd,\nAs stooping to relieve him: I not doubt\nHe came alive to land.\n\nALONSO:\nNo, no, he's gone.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nSir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,\nThat would not bless our Europe with your daughter,\nBut rather lose her to an African;\nWhere she at least is banish'd from your eye,\nWho hath cause to wet the grief on't.\n\nALONSO:\nPrithee, peace.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYou were kneel'd to and importuned otherwise\nBy all of us, and the fair soul herself\nWeigh'd between loathness and obedience, at\nWhich end o' the beam should bow. We have lost your\nson,\nI fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have\nMore widows in them of this business' making\nThan we bring men to comfort them:\nThe fault's your own.\n\nALONSO:\nSo is the dear'st o' the loss.\n\nGONZALO:\nMy lord Sebastian,\nThe truth you speak doth lack some gentleness\nAnd time to speak it in: you rub the sore,\nWhen you should bring the plaster.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nVery well.\n\nANTONIO:\nAnd most chirurgeonly.\n\nGONZALO:\nIt is foul weather in us all, good sir,\nWhen you are cloudy.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nFoul weather?\n\nANTONIO:\nVery foul.\n\nGONZALO:\nHad I plantation of this isle, my lord,--\n\nANTONIO:\nHe'ld sow't with nettle-seed.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nOr docks, or mallows.\n\nGONZALO:\nAnd were the king on't, what would I do?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\n'Scape being drunk for want of wine.\n\nGONZALO:\nI' the commonwealth I would by contraries\nExecute all things; for no kind of traffic\nWould I admit; no name of magistrate;\nLetters should not be known; riches, poverty,\nAnd use of service, none; contract, succession,\nBourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;\nNo use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;\nNo occupation; all men idle, all;\nAnd women too, but innocent and pure;\nNo sovereignty;--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYet he would be king on't.\n\nANTONIO:\nThe latter end of his commonwealth forgets the\nbeginning.\n\nGONZALO:\nAll things in common nature should produce\nWithout sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,\nSword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,\nWould I not have; but nature should bring forth,\nOf its own kind, all foison, all abundance,\nTo feed my innocent people.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nNo marrying 'mong his subjects?\n\nANTONIO:\nNone, man; all idle: whores and knaves.\n\nGONZALO:\nI would with such perfection govern, sir,\nTo excel the golden age.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nGod save his majesty!\n\nANTONIO:\nLong live Gonzalo!\n\nGONZALO:\nAnd,--do you mark me, sir?\n\nALONSO:\nPrithee, no more: thou dost talk nothing to me.\n\nGONZALO:\nI do well believe your highness; and\ndid it to minister occasion to these gentlemen,\nwho are of such sensible and nimble lungs that\nthey always use to laugh at nothing.\n\nANTONIO:\n'Twas you we laughed at.\n\nGONZALO:\nWho in this kind of merry fooling am nothing\nto you: so you may continue and laugh at\nnothing still.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhat a blow was there given!\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAn it had not fallen flat-long.\n\nGONZALO:\nYou are gentlemen of brave metal; you would lift\nthe moon out of her sphere, if she would continue\nin it five weeks without changing.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWe would so, and then go a bat-fowling.\n\nANTONIO:\nNay, good my lord, be not angry.\n\nGONZALO:\nNo, I warrant you; I will not adventure\nmy discretion so weakly. Will you laugh\nme asleep, for I am very heavy?\n\nANTONIO:\nGo sleep, and hear us.\n\nALONSO:\nWhat, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes\nWould, with themselves, shut up my thoughts: I find\nThey are inclined to do so.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nPlease you, sir,\nDo not omit the heavy offer of it:\nIt seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,\nIt is a comforter.\n\nANTONIO:\nWe two, my lord,\nWill guard your person while you take your rest,\nAnd watch your safety.\n\nALONSO:\nThank you. Wondrous heavy.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhat a strange drowsiness possesses them!\n\nANTONIO:\nIt is the quality o' the climate.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhy\nDoth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not\nMyself disposed to sleep.\n\nANTONIO:\nNor I; my spirits are nimble.\nThey fell together all, as by consent;\nThey dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,\nWorthy Sebastian? O, what might?--No more:--\nAnd yet me thinks I see it in thy face,\nWhat thou shouldst be: the occasion speaks thee, and\nMy strong imagination sees a crown\nDropping upon thy head.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhat, art thou waking?\n\nANTONIO:\nDo you not hear me speak?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nI do; and surely\nIt is a sleepy language and thou speak'st\nOut of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?\nThis is a strange repose, to be asleep\nWith eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,\nAnd yet so fast asleep.\n\nANTONIO:\nNoble Sebastian,\nThou let'st thy fortune sleep--die, rather; wink'st\nWhiles thou art waking.\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "inspect_checkpoint.lua",
    "content": "-- simple script that loads a checkpoint and prints its opts\n\nrequire 'torch'\nrequire 'nn'\nrequire 'nngraph'\n\nrequire 'util.OneHot'\nrequire 'util.misc'\n\ncmd = torch.CmdLine()\ncmd:text()\ncmd:text('Load a checkpoint and print its options and validation losses.')\ncmd:text()\ncmd:text('Options')\ncmd:argument('-model','model to load')\ncmd:option('-gpuid',0,'gpu to use')\ncmd:option('-opencl',0,'use OpenCL (instead of CUDA)')\ncmd:text()\n\n-- parse input params\nopt = cmd:parse(arg)\n\nif opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 0 then\n    print('using CUDA on GPU ' .. opt.gpuid .. '...')\n    require 'cutorch'\n    require 'cunn'\n    cutorch.setDevice(opt.gpuid + 1)\nend\n\nif opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 1 then\n    print('using OpenCL on GPU ' .. opt.gpuid .. '...')\n    require 'cltorch'\n    require 'clnn'\n    cltorch.setDevice(opt.gpuid + 1)\nend\n\nlocal model = torch.load(opt.model)\n\nprint('opt:')\nprint(model.opt)\nprint('val losses:')\nprint(model.val_losses)\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "model/GRU.lua",
    "content": "\nlocal GRU = {}\n\n--[[\nCreates one timestep of one GRU\nPaper reference: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.3555v1.pdf\n]]--\nfunction GRU.gru(input_size, rnn_size, n, dropout)\n  dropout = dropout or 0 \n  -- there are n+1 inputs (hiddens on each layer and x)\n  local inputs = {}\n  table.insert(inputs, nn.Identity()()) -- x\n  for L = 1,n do\n    table.insert(inputs, nn.Identity()()) -- prev_h[L]\n  end\n\n  function new_input_sum(insize, xv, hv)\n    local i2h = nn.Linear(insize, rnn_size)(xv)\n    local h2h = nn.Linear(rnn_size, rnn_size)(hv)\n    return nn.CAddTable()({i2h, h2h})\n  end\n\n  local x, input_size_L\n  local outputs = {}\n  for L = 1,n do\n\n    local prev_h = inputs[L+1]\n    -- the input to this layer\n    if L == 1 then \n      x = OneHot(input_size)(inputs[1])\n      input_size_L = input_size\n    else \n      x = outputs[(L-1)] \n      if dropout > 0 then x = nn.Dropout(dropout)(x) end -- apply dropout, if any\n      input_size_L = rnn_size\n    end\n    -- GRU tick\n    -- forward the update and reset gates\n    local update_gate = nn.Sigmoid()(new_input_sum(input_size_L, x, prev_h))\n    local reset_gate = nn.Sigmoid()(new_input_sum(input_size_L, x, prev_h))\n    -- compute candidate hidden state\n    local gated_hidden = nn.CMulTable()({reset_gate, prev_h})\n    local p2 = nn.Linear(rnn_size, rnn_size)(gated_hidden)\n    local p1 = nn.Linear(input_size_L, rnn_size)(x)\n    local hidden_candidate = nn.Tanh()(nn.CAddTable()({p1,p2}))\n    -- compute new interpolated hidden state, based on the update gate\n    local zh = nn.CMulTable()({update_gate, hidden_candidate})\n    local zhm1 = nn.CMulTable()({nn.AddConstant(1,false)(nn.MulConstant(-1,false)(update_gate)), prev_h})\n    local next_h = nn.CAddTable()({zh, zhm1})\n\n    table.insert(outputs, next_h)\n  end\n-- set up the decoder\n  local top_h = outputs[#outputs]\n  if dropout > 0 then top_h = nn.Dropout(dropout)(top_h) end\n  local proj = nn.Linear(rnn_size, input_size)(top_h)\n  local logsoft = nn.LogSoftMax()(proj)\n  table.insert(outputs, logsoft)\n\n  return nn.gModule(inputs, outputs)\nend\n\nreturn GRU\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "model/LSTM.lua",
    "content": "\nlocal LSTM = {}\nfunction LSTM.lstm(input_size, rnn_size, n, dropout)\n  dropout = dropout or 0 \n\n  -- there will be 2*n+1 inputs\n  local inputs = {}\n  table.insert(inputs, nn.Identity()()) -- x\n  for L = 1,n do\n    table.insert(inputs, nn.Identity()()) -- prev_c[L]\n    table.insert(inputs, nn.Identity()()) -- prev_h[L]\n  end\n\n  local x, input_size_L\n  local outputs = {}\n  for L = 1,n do\n    -- c,h from previos timesteps\n    local prev_h = inputs[L*2+1]\n    local prev_c = inputs[L*2]\n    -- the input to this layer\n    if L == 1 then \n      x = OneHot(input_size)(inputs[1])\n      input_size_L = input_size\n    else \n      x = outputs[(L-1)*2] \n      if dropout > 0 then x = nn.Dropout(dropout)(x) end -- apply dropout, if any\n      input_size_L = rnn_size\n    end\n    -- evaluate the input sums at once for efficiency\n    local i2h = nn.Linear(input_size_L, 4 * rnn_size)(x):annotate{name='i2h_'..L}\n    local h2h = nn.Linear(rnn_size, 4 * rnn_size)(prev_h):annotate{name='h2h_'..L}\n    local all_input_sums = nn.CAddTable()({i2h, h2h})\n\n    local reshaped = nn.Reshape(4, rnn_size)(all_input_sums)\n    local n1, n2, n3, n4 = nn.SplitTable(2)(reshaped):split(4)\n    -- decode the gates\n    local in_gate = nn.Sigmoid()(n1)\n    local forget_gate = nn.Sigmoid()(n2)\n    local out_gate = nn.Sigmoid()(n3)\n    -- decode the write inputs\n    local in_transform = nn.Tanh()(n4)\n    -- perform the LSTM update\n    local next_c           = nn.CAddTable()({\n        nn.CMulTable()({forget_gate, prev_c}),\n        nn.CMulTable()({in_gate,     in_transform})\n      })\n    -- gated cells form the output\n    local next_h = nn.CMulTable()({out_gate, nn.Tanh()(next_c)})\n    \n    table.insert(outputs, next_c)\n    table.insert(outputs, next_h)\n  end\n\n  -- set up the decoder\n  local top_h = outputs[#outputs]\n  if dropout > 0 then top_h = nn.Dropout(dropout)(top_h) end\n  local proj = nn.Linear(rnn_size, input_size)(top_h):annotate{name='decoder'}\n  local logsoft = nn.LogSoftMax()(proj)\n  table.insert(outputs, logsoft)\n\n  return nn.gModule(inputs, outputs)\nend\n\nreturn LSTM\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "model/RNN.lua",
    "content": "local RNN = {}\n\nfunction RNN.rnn(input_size, rnn_size, n, dropout)\n  \n  -- there are n+1 inputs (hiddens on each layer and x)\n  local inputs = {}\n  table.insert(inputs, nn.Identity()()) -- x\n  for L = 1,n do\n    table.insert(inputs, nn.Identity()()) -- prev_h[L]\n\n  end\n\n  local x, input_size_L\n  local outputs = {}\n  for L = 1,n do\n    \n    local prev_h = inputs[L+1]\n    if L == 1 then \n      x = OneHot(input_size)(inputs[1])\n      input_size_L = input_size\n    else \n      x = outputs[(L-1)] \n      if dropout > 0 then x = nn.Dropout(dropout)(x) end -- apply dropout, if any\n      input_size_L = rnn_size\n    end\n\n    -- RNN tick\n    local i2h = nn.Linear(input_size_L, rnn_size)(x)\n    local h2h = nn.Linear(rnn_size, rnn_size)(prev_h)\n    local next_h = nn.Tanh()(nn.CAddTable(){i2h, h2h})\n\n    table.insert(outputs, next_h)\n  end\n-- set up the decoder\n  local top_h = outputs[#outputs]\n  if dropout > 0 then top_h = nn.Dropout(dropout)(top_h) end\n  local proj = nn.Linear(rnn_size, input_size)(top_h)\n  local logsoft = nn.LogSoftMax()(proj)\n  table.insert(outputs, logsoft)\n\n  return nn.gModule(inputs, outputs)\nend\n\nreturn RNN\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "sample.lua",
    "content": "\n--[[\n\nThis file samples characters from a trained model\n\nCode is based on implementation in \nhttps://github.com/oxford-cs-ml-2015/practical6\n\n]]--\n\nrequire 'torch'\nrequire 'nn'\nrequire 'nngraph'\nrequire 'optim'\nrequire 'lfs'\n\nrequire 'util.OneHot'\nrequire 'util.misc'\n\ncmd = torch.CmdLine()\ncmd:text()\ncmd:text('Sample from a character-level language model')\ncmd:text()\ncmd:text('Options')\n-- required:\ncmd:argument('-model','model checkpoint to use for sampling')\n-- optional parameters\ncmd:option('-seed',123,'random number generator\\'s seed')\ncmd:option('-sample',1,' 0 to use max at each timestep, 1 to sample at each timestep')\ncmd:option('-primetext',\"\",'used as a prompt to \"seed\" the state of the LSTM using a given sequence, before we sample.')\ncmd:option('-length',2000,'number of characters to sample')\ncmd:option('-temperature',1,'temperature of sampling')\ncmd:option('-gpuid',0,'which gpu to use. -1 = use CPU')\ncmd:option('-opencl',0,'use OpenCL (instead of CUDA)')\ncmd:option('-verbose',1,'set to 0 to ONLY print the sampled text, no diagnostics')\ncmd:text()\n\n-- parse input params\nopt = cmd:parse(arg)\n\n-- gated print: simple utility function wrapping a print\nfunction gprint(str)\n    if opt.verbose == 1 then print(str) end\nend\n\n-- check that cunn/cutorch are installed if user wants to use the GPU\nif opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 0 then\n    local ok, cunn = pcall(require, 'cunn')\n    local ok2, cutorch = pcall(require, 'cutorch')\n    if not ok then gprint('package cunn not found!') end\n    if not ok2 then gprint('package cutorch not found!') end\n    if ok and ok2 then\n        gprint('using CUDA on GPU ' .. opt.gpuid .. '...')\n        gprint('Make sure that your saved checkpoint was also trained with GPU. If it was trained with CPU use -gpuid -1 for sampling as well')\n        cutorch.setDevice(opt.gpuid + 1) -- note +1 to make it 0 indexed! sigh lua\n        cutorch.manualSeed(opt.seed)\n    else\n        gprint('Falling back on CPU mode')\n        opt.gpuid = -1 -- overwrite user setting\n    end\nend\n\n-- check that clnn/cltorch are installed if user wants to use OpenCL\nif opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 1 then\n    local ok, cunn = pcall(require, 'clnn')\n    local ok2, cutorch = pcall(require, 'cltorch')\n    if not ok then print('package clnn not found!') end\n    if not ok2 then print('package cltorch not found!') end\n    if ok and ok2 then\n        gprint('using OpenCL on GPU ' .. opt.gpuid .. '...')\n        gprint('Make sure that your saved checkpoint was also trained with GPU. If it was trained with CPU use -gpuid -1 for sampling as well')\n        cltorch.setDevice(opt.gpuid + 1) -- note +1 to make it 0 indexed! sigh lua\n        torch.manualSeed(opt.seed)\n    else\n        gprint('Falling back on CPU mode')\n        opt.gpuid = -1 -- overwrite user setting\n    end\nend\n\ntorch.manualSeed(opt.seed)\n\n-- load the model checkpoint\nif not lfs.attributes(opt.model, 'mode') then\n    gprint('Error: File ' .. opt.model .. ' does not exist. Are you sure you didn\\'t forget to prepend cv/ ?')\nend\ncheckpoint = torch.load(opt.model)\nprotos = checkpoint.protos\nprotos.rnn:evaluate() -- put in eval mode so that dropout works properly\n\n-- initialize the vocabulary (and its inverted version)\nlocal vocab = checkpoint.vocab\nlocal ivocab = {}\nfor c,i in pairs(vocab) do ivocab[i] = c end\n\n-- initialize the rnn state to all zeros\ngprint('creating an ' .. checkpoint.opt.model .. '...')\nlocal current_state\ncurrent_state = {}\nfor L = 1,checkpoint.opt.num_layers do\n    -- c and h for all layers\n    local h_init = torch.zeros(1, checkpoint.opt.rnn_size):double()\n    if opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 0 then h_init = h_init:cuda() end\n    if opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 1 then h_init = h_init:cl() end\n    table.insert(current_state, h_init:clone())\n    if checkpoint.opt.model == 'lstm' then\n        table.insert(current_state, h_init:clone())\n    end\nend\nstate_size = #current_state\n\n-- do a few seeded timesteps\nlocal seed_text = opt.primetext\nif string.len(seed_text) > 0 then\n    gprint('seeding with ' .. seed_text)\n    gprint('--------------------------')\n    for c in seed_text:gmatch'.' do\n        prev_char = torch.Tensor{vocab[c]}\n        io.write(ivocab[prev_char[1]])\n        if opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 0 then prev_char = prev_char:cuda() end\n        if opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 1 then prev_char = prev_char:cl() end\n        local lst = protos.rnn:forward{prev_char, unpack(current_state)}\n        -- lst is a list of [state1,state2,..stateN,output]. We want everything but last piece\n        current_state = {}\n        for i=1,state_size do table.insert(current_state, lst[i]) end\n        prediction = lst[#lst] -- last element holds the log probabilities\n    end\nelse\n    -- fill with uniform probabilities over characters (? hmm)\n    gprint('missing seed text, using uniform probability over first character')\n    gprint('--------------------------')\n    prediction = torch.Tensor(1, #ivocab):fill(1)/(#ivocab)\n    if opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 0 then prediction = prediction:cuda() end\n    if opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 1 then prediction = prediction:cl() end\nend\n\n-- start sampling/argmaxing\nfor i=1, opt.length do\n\n    -- log probabilities from the previous timestep\n    if opt.sample == 0 then\n        -- use argmax\n        local _, prev_char_ = prediction:max(2)\n        prev_char = prev_char_:resize(1)\n    else\n        -- use sampling\n        prediction:div(opt.temperature) -- scale by temperature\n        local probs = torch.exp(prediction):squeeze()\n        probs:div(torch.sum(probs)) -- renormalize so probs sum to one\n        prev_char = torch.multinomial(probs:float(), 1):resize(1):float()\n    end\n\n    -- forward the rnn for next character\n    local lst = protos.rnn:forward{prev_char, unpack(current_state)}\n    current_state = {}\n    for i=1,state_size do table.insert(current_state, lst[i]) end\n    prediction = lst[#lst] -- last element holds the log probabilities\n\n    io.write(ivocab[prev_char[1]])\nend\nio.write('\\n') io.flush()\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "train.lua",
    "content": "\n--[[\n\nThis file trains a character-level multi-layer RNN on text data\n\nCode is based on implementation in \nhttps://github.com/oxford-cs-ml-2015/practical6\nbut modified to have multi-layer support, GPU support, as well as\nmany other common model/optimization bells and whistles.\nThe practical6 code is in turn based on \nhttps://github.com/wojciechz/learning_to_execute\nwhich is turn based on other stuff in Torch, etc... (long lineage)\n\n]]--\n\nrequire 'torch'\nrequire 'nn'\nrequire 'nngraph'\nrequire 'optim'\nrequire 'lfs'\n\nrequire 'util.OneHot'\nrequire 'util.misc'\nlocal CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader = require 'util.CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader'\nlocal model_utils = require 'util.model_utils'\nlocal LSTM = require 'model.LSTM'\nlocal GRU = require 'model.GRU'\nlocal RNN = require 'model.RNN'\n\ncmd = torch.CmdLine()\ncmd:text()\ncmd:text('Train a character-level language model')\ncmd:text()\ncmd:text('Options')\n-- data\ncmd:option('-data_dir','data/tinyshakespeare','data directory. Should contain the file input.txt with input data')\n-- model params\ncmd:option('-rnn_size', 128, 'size of LSTM internal state')\ncmd:option('-num_layers', 2, 'number of layers in the LSTM')\ncmd:option('-model', 'lstm', 'lstm,gru or rnn')\n-- optimization\ncmd:option('-learning_rate',2e-3,'learning rate')\ncmd:option('-learning_rate_decay',0.97,'learning rate decay')\ncmd:option('-learning_rate_decay_after',10,'in number of epochs, when to start decaying the learning rate')\ncmd:option('-decay_rate',0.95,'decay rate for rmsprop')\ncmd:option('-dropout',0,'dropout for regularization, used after each RNN hidden layer. 0 = no dropout')\ncmd:option('-seq_length',50,'number of timesteps to unroll for')\ncmd:option('-batch_size',50,'number of sequences to train on in parallel')\ncmd:option('-max_epochs',50,'number of full passes through the training data')\ncmd:option('-grad_clip',5,'clip gradients at this value')\ncmd:option('-train_frac',0.95,'fraction of data that goes into train set')\ncmd:option('-val_frac',0.05,'fraction of data that goes into validation set')\n            -- test_frac will be computed as (1 - train_frac - val_frac)\ncmd:option('-init_from', '', 'initialize network parameters from checkpoint at this path')\n-- bookkeeping\ncmd:option('-seed',123,'torch manual random number generator seed')\ncmd:option('-print_every',1,'how many steps/minibatches between printing out the loss')\ncmd:option('-eval_val_every',1000,'every how many iterations should we evaluate on validation data?')\ncmd:option('-checkpoint_dir', 'cv', 'output directory where checkpoints get written')\ncmd:option('-savefile','lstm','filename to autosave the checkpont to. Will be inside checkpoint_dir/')\ncmd:option('-accurate_gpu_timing',0,'set this flag to 1 to get precise timings when using GPU. Might make code bit slower but reports accurate timings.')\n-- GPU/CPU\ncmd:option('-gpuid',0,'which gpu to use. -1 = use CPU')\ncmd:option('-opencl',0,'use OpenCL (instead of CUDA)')\ncmd:text()\n\n-- parse input params\nopt = cmd:parse(arg)\ntorch.manualSeed(opt.seed)\n-- train / val / test split for data, in fractions\nlocal test_frac = math.max(0, 1 - (opt.train_frac + opt.val_frac))\nlocal split_sizes = {opt.train_frac, opt.val_frac, test_frac} \n\n-- initialize cunn/cutorch for training on the GPU and fall back to CPU gracefully\nif opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 0 then\n    local ok, cunn = pcall(require, 'cunn')\n    local ok2, cutorch = pcall(require, 'cutorch')\n    if not ok then print('package cunn not found!') end\n    if not ok2 then print('package cutorch not found!') end\n    if ok and ok2 then\n        print('using CUDA on GPU ' .. opt.gpuid .. '...')\n        cutorch.setDevice(opt.gpuid + 1) -- note +1 to make it 0 indexed! sigh lua\n        cutorch.manualSeed(opt.seed)\n    else\n        print('If cutorch and cunn are installed, your CUDA toolkit may be improperly configured.')\n        print('Check your CUDA toolkit installation, rebuild cutorch and cunn, and try again.')\n        print('Falling back on CPU mode')\n        opt.gpuid = -1 -- overwrite user setting\n    end\nend\n\n-- initialize clnn/cltorch for training on the GPU and fall back to CPU gracefully\nif opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 1 then\n    local ok, cunn = pcall(require, 'clnn')\n    local ok2, cutorch = pcall(require, 'cltorch')\n    if not ok then print('package clnn not found!') end\n    if not ok2 then print('package cltorch not found!') end\n    if ok and ok2 then\n        print('using OpenCL on GPU ' .. opt.gpuid .. '...')\n        cltorch.setDevice(opt.gpuid + 1) -- note +1 to make it 0 indexed! sigh lua\n        torch.manualSeed(opt.seed)\n    else\n        print('If cltorch and clnn are installed, your OpenCL driver may be improperly configured.')\n        print('Check your OpenCL driver installation, check output of clinfo command, and try again.')\n        print('Falling back on CPU mode')\n        opt.gpuid = -1 -- overwrite user setting\n    end\nend\n\n-- create the data loader class\nlocal loader = CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader.create(opt.data_dir, opt.batch_size, opt.seq_length, split_sizes)\nlocal vocab_size = loader.vocab_size  -- the number of distinct characters\nlocal vocab = loader.vocab_mapping\nprint('vocab size: ' .. vocab_size)\n-- make sure output directory exists\nif not path.exists(opt.checkpoint_dir) then lfs.mkdir(opt.checkpoint_dir) end\n\n-- define the model: prototypes for one timestep, then clone them in time\nlocal do_random_init = true\nif string.len(opt.init_from) > 0 then\n    print('loading a model from checkpoint ' .. opt.init_from)\n    local checkpoint = torch.load(opt.init_from)\n    protos = checkpoint.protos\n    -- make sure the vocabs are the same\n    local vocab_compatible = true\n    local checkpoint_vocab_size = 0\n    for c,i in pairs(checkpoint.vocab) do\n        if not (vocab[c] == i) then\n            vocab_compatible = false\n        end\n        checkpoint_vocab_size = checkpoint_vocab_size + 1\n    end\n    if not (checkpoint_vocab_size == vocab_size) then\n        vocab_compatible = false\n        print('checkpoint_vocab_size: ' .. checkpoint_vocab_size)\n    end\n    assert(vocab_compatible, 'error, the character vocabulary for this dataset and the one in the saved checkpoint are not the same. This is trouble.')\n    -- overwrite model settings based on checkpoint to ensure compatibility\n    print('overwriting rnn_size=' .. checkpoint.opt.rnn_size .. ', num_layers=' .. checkpoint.opt.num_layers .. ', model=' .. checkpoint.opt.model .. ' based on the checkpoint.')\n    opt.rnn_size = checkpoint.opt.rnn_size\n    opt.num_layers = checkpoint.opt.num_layers\n    opt.model = checkpoint.opt.model\n    do_random_init = false\nelse\n    print('creating an ' .. opt.model .. ' with ' .. opt.num_layers .. ' layers')\n    protos = {}\n    if opt.model == 'lstm' then\n        protos.rnn = LSTM.lstm(vocab_size, opt.rnn_size, opt.num_layers, opt.dropout)\n    elseif opt.model == 'gru' then\n        protos.rnn = GRU.gru(vocab_size, opt.rnn_size, opt.num_layers, opt.dropout)\n    elseif opt.model == 'rnn' then\n        protos.rnn = RNN.rnn(vocab_size, opt.rnn_size, opt.num_layers, opt.dropout)\n    end\n    protos.criterion = nn.ClassNLLCriterion()\nend\n\n-- the initial state of the cell/hidden states\ninit_state = {}\nfor L=1,opt.num_layers do\n    local h_init = torch.zeros(opt.batch_size, opt.rnn_size)\n    if opt.gpuid >=0 and opt.opencl == 0 then h_init = h_init:cuda() end\n    if opt.gpuid >=0 and opt.opencl == 1 then h_init = h_init:cl() end\n    table.insert(init_state, h_init:clone())\n    if opt.model == 'lstm' then\n        table.insert(init_state, h_init:clone())\n    end\nend\n\n-- ship the model to the GPU if desired\nif opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 0 then\n    for k,v in pairs(protos) do v:cuda() end\nend\nif opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 1 then\n    for k,v in pairs(protos) do v:cl() end\nend\n\n-- put the above things into one flattened parameters tensor\nparams, grad_params = model_utils.combine_all_parameters(protos.rnn)\n\n-- initialization\nif do_random_init then\n    params:uniform(-0.08, 0.08) -- small uniform numbers\nend\n-- initialize the LSTM forget gates with slightly higher biases to encourage remembering in the beginning\nif opt.model == 'lstm' then\n    for layer_idx = 1, opt.num_layers do\n        for _,node in ipairs(protos.rnn.forwardnodes) do\n            if node.data.annotations.name == \"i2h_\" .. layer_idx then\n                print('setting forget gate biases to 1 in LSTM layer ' .. layer_idx)\n                -- the gates are, in order, i,f,o,g, so f is the 2nd block of weights\n                node.data.module.bias[{{opt.rnn_size+1, 2*opt.rnn_size}}]:fill(1.0)\n            end\n        end\n    end\nend\n\nprint('number of parameters in the model: ' .. params:nElement())\n-- make a bunch of clones after flattening, as that reallocates memory\nclones = {}\nfor name,proto in pairs(protos) do\n    print('cloning ' .. name)\n    clones[name] = model_utils.clone_many_times(proto, opt.seq_length, not proto.parameters)\nend\n\n-- preprocessing helper function\nfunction prepro(x,y)\n    x = x:transpose(1,2):contiguous() -- swap the axes for faster indexing\n    y = y:transpose(1,2):contiguous()\n    if opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 0 then -- ship the input arrays to GPU\n        -- have to convert to float because integers can't be cuda()'d\n        x = x:float():cuda()\n        y = y:float():cuda()\n    end\n    if opt.gpuid >= 0 and opt.opencl == 1 then -- ship the input arrays to GPU\n        x = x:cl()\n        y = y:cl()\n    end\n    return x,y\nend\n\n-- evaluate the loss over an entire split\nfunction eval_split(split_index, max_batches)\n    print('evaluating loss over split index ' .. split_index)\n    local n = loader.split_sizes[split_index]\n    if max_batches ~= nil then n = math.min(max_batches, n) end\n\n    loader:reset_batch_pointer(split_index) -- move batch iteration pointer for this split to front\n    local loss = 0\n    local rnn_state = {[0] = init_state}\n    \n    for i = 1,n do -- iterate over batches in the split\n        -- fetch a batch\n        local x, y = loader:next_batch(split_index)\n        x,y = prepro(x,y)\n        -- forward pass\n        for t=1,opt.seq_length do\n            clones.rnn[t]:evaluate() -- for dropout proper functioning\n            local lst = clones.rnn[t]:forward{x[t], unpack(rnn_state[t-1])}\n            rnn_state[t] = {}\n            for i=1,#init_state do table.insert(rnn_state[t], lst[i]) end\n            prediction = lst[#lst] \n            loss = loss + clones.criterion[t]:forward(prediction, y[t])\n        end\n        -- carry over lstm state\n        rnn_state[0] = rnn_state[#rnn_state]\n        print(i .. '/' .. n .. '...')\n    end\n\n    loss = loss / opt.seq_length / n\n    return loss\nend\n\n-- do fwd/bwd and return loss, grad_params\nlocal init_state_global = clone_list(init_state)\nfunction feval(x)\n    if x ~= params then\n        params:copy(x)\n    end\n    grad_params:zero()\n\n    ------------------ get minibatch -------------------\n    local x, y = loader:next_batch(1)\n    x,y = prepro(x,y)\n    ------------------- forward pass -------------------\n    local rnn_state = {[0] = init_state_global}\n    local predictions = {}           -- softmax outputs\n    local loss = 0\n    for t=1,opt.seq_length do\n        clones.rnn[t]:training() -- make sure we are in correct mode (this is cheap, sets flag)\n        local lst = clones.rnn[t]:forward{x[t], unpack(rnn_state[t-1])}\n        rnn_state[t] = {}\n        for i=1,#init_state do table.insert(rnn_state[t], lst[i]) end -- extract the state, without output\n        predictions[t] = lst[#lst] -- last element is the prediction\n        loss = loss + clones.criterion[t]:forward(predictions[t], y[t])\n    end\n    loss = loss / opt.seq_length\n    ------------------ backward pass -------------------\n    -- initialize gradient at time t to be zeros (there's no influence from future)\n    local drnn_state = {[opt.seq_length] = clone_list(init_state, true)} -- true also zeros the clones\n    for t=opt.seq_length,1,-1 do\n        -- backprop through loss, and softmax/linear\n        local doutput_t = clones.criterion[t]:backward(predictions[t], y[t])\n        table.insert(drnn_state[t], doutput_t)\n        local dlst = clones.rnn[t]:backward({x[t], unpack(rnn_state[t-1])}, drnn_state[t])\n        drnn_state[t-1] = {}\n        for k,v in pairs(dlst) do\n            if k > 1 then -- k == 1 is gradient on x, which we dont need\n                -- note we do k-1 because first item is dembeddings, and then follow the \n                -- derivatives of the state, starting at index 2. I know...\n                drnn_state[t-1][k-1] = v\n            end\n        end\n    end\n    ------------------------ misc ----------------------\n    -- transfer final state to initial state (BPTT)\n    init_state_global = rnn_state[#rnn_state] -- NOTE: I don't think this needs to be a clone, right?\n    -- grad_params:div(opt.seq_length) -- this line should be here but since we use rmsprop it would have no effect. Removing for efficiency\n    -- clip gradient element-wise\n    grad_params:clamp(-opt.grad_clip, opt.grad_clip)\n    return loss, grad_params\nend\n\n-- start optimization here\ntrain_losses = {}\nval_losses = {}\nlocal optim_state = {learningRate = opt.learning_rate, alpha = opt.decay_rate}\nlocal iterations = opt.max_epochs * loader.ntrain\nlocal iterations_per_epoch = loader.ntrain\nlocal loss0 = nil\nfor i = 1, iterations do\n    local epoch = i / loader.ntrain\n\n    local timer = torch.Timer()\n    local _, loss = optim.rmsprop(feval, params, optim_state)\n    if opt.accurate_gpu_timing == 1 and opt.gpuid >= 0 then\n        --[[\n        Note on timing: The reported time can be off because the GPU is invoked async. If one\n        wants to have exactly accurate timings one must call cutorch.synchronize() right here.\n        I will avoid doing so by default because this can incur computational overhead.\n        --]]\n        cutorch.synchronize()\n    end\n    local time = timer:time().real\n    \n    local train_loss = loss[1] -- the loss is inside a list, pop it\n    train_losses[i] = train_loss\n\n    -- exponential learning rate decay\n    if i % loader.ntrain == 0 and opt.learning_rate_decay < 1 then\n        if epoch >= opt.learning_rate_decay_after then\n            local decay_factor = opt.learning_rate_decay\n            optim_state.learningRate = optim_state.learningRate * decay_factor -- decay it\n            print('decayed learning rate by a factor ' .. decay_factor .. ' to ' .. optim_state.learningRate)\n        end\n    end\n\n    -- every now and then or on last iteration\n    if i % opt.eval_val_every == 0 or i == iterations then\n        -- evaluate loss on validation data\n        local val_loss = eval_split(2) -- 2 = validation\n        val_losses[i] = val_loss\n\n        local savefile = string.format('%s/lm_%s_epoch%.2f_%.4f.t7', opt.checkpoint_dir, opt.savefile, epoch, val_loss)\n        print('saving checkpoint to ' .. savefile)\n        local checkpoint = {}\n        checkpoint.protos = protos\n        checkpoint.opt = opt\n        checkpoint.train_losses = train_losses\n        checkpoint.val_loss = val_loss\n        checkpoint.val_losses = val_losses\n        checkpoint.i = i\n        checkpoint.epoch = epoch\n        checkpoint.vocab = loader.vocab_mapping\n        torch.save(savefile, checkpoint)\n    end\n\n    if i % opt.print_every == 0 then\n        print(string.format(\"%d/%d (epoch %.3f), train_loss = %6.8f, grad/param norm = %6.4e, time/batch = %.4fs\", i, iterations, epoch, train_loss, grad_params:norm() / params:norm(), time))\n    end\n   \n    if i % 10 == 0 then collectgarbage() end\n\n    -- handle early stopping if things are going really bad\n    if loss[1] ~= loss[1] then\n        print('loss is NaN.  This usually indicates a bug.  Please check the issues page for existing issues, or create a new issue, if none exist.  Ideally, please state: your operating system, 32-bit/64-bit, your blas version, cpu/cuda/cl?')\n        break -- halt\n    end\n    if loss0 == nil then loss0 = loss[1] end\n    if loss[1] > loss0 * 3 then\n        print('loss is exploding, aborting.')\n        break -- halt\n    end\nend\n\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "util/CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader.lua",
    "content": "\n-- Modified from https://github.com/oxford-cs-ml-2015/practical6\n-- the modification included support for train/val/test splits\n\nlocal CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader = {}\nCharSplitLMMinibatchLoader.__index = CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader\n\nfunction CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader.create(data_dir, batch_size, seq_length, split_fractions)\n    -- split_fractions is e.g. {0.9, 0.05, 0.05}\n\n    local self = {}\n    setmetatable(self, CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader)\n\n    local input_file = path.join(data_dir, 'input.txt')\n    local vocab_file = path.join(data_dir, 'vocab.t7')\n    local tensor_file = path.join(data_dir, 'data.t7')\n\n    -- fetch file attributes to determine if we need to rerun preprocessing\n    local run_prepro = false\n    if not (path.exists(vocab_file) or path.exists(tensor_file)) then\n        -- prepro files do not exist, generate them\n        print('vocab.t7 and data.t7 do not exist. Running preprocessing...')\n        run_prepro = true\n    else\n        -- check if the input file was modified since last time we \n        -- ran the prepro. if so, we have to rerun the preprocessing\n        local input_attr = lfs.attributes(input_file)\n        local vocab_attr = lfs.attributes(vocab_file)\n        local tensor_attr = lfs.attributes(tensor_file)\n        if input_attr.modification > vocab_attr.modification or input_attr.modification > tensor_attr.modification then\n            print('vocab.t7 or data.t7 detected as stale. Re-running preprocessing...')\n            run_prepro = true\n        end\n    end\n    if run_prepro then\n        -- construct a tensor with all the data, and vocab file\n        print('one-time setup: preprocessing input text file ' .. input_file .. '...')\n        CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader.text_to_tensor(input_file, vocab_file, tensor_file)\n    end\n\n    print('loading data files...')\n    local data = torch.load(tensor_file)\n    self.vocab_mapping = torch.load(vocab_file)\n\n    -- cut off the end so that it divides evenly\n    local len = data:size(1)\n    if len % (batch_size * seq_length) ~= 0 then\n        print('cutting off end of data so that the batches/sequences divide evenly')\n        data = data:sub(1, batch_size * seq_length \n                    * math.floor(len / (batch_size * seq_length)))\n    end\n\n    -- count vocab\n    self.vocab_size = 0\n    for _ in pairs(self.vocab_mapping) do \n        self.vocab_size = self.vocab_size + 1 \n    end\n\n    -- self.batches is a table of tensors\n    print('reshaping tensor...')\n    self.batch_size = batch_size\n    self.seq_length = seq_length\n\n    local ydata = data:clone()\n    ydata:sub(1,-2):copy(data:sub(2,-1))\n    ydata[-1] = data[1]\n    self.x_batches = data:view(batch_size, -1):split(seq_length, 2)  -- #rows = #batches\n    self.nbatches = #self.x_batches\n    self.y_batches = ydata:view(batch_size, -1):split(seq_length, 2)  -- #rows = #batches\n    assert(#self.x_batches == #self.y_batches)\n\n    -- lets try to be helpful here\n    if self.nbatches < 50 then\n        print('WARNING: less than 50 batches in the data in total? Looks like very small dataset. You probably want to use smaller batch_size and/or seq_length.')\n    end\n\n    -- perform safety checks on split_fractions\n    assert(split_fractions[1] >= 0 and split_fractions[1] <= 1, 'bad split fraction ' .. split_fractions[1] .. ' for train, not between 0 and 1')\n    assert(split_fractions[2] >= 0 and split_fractions[2] <= 1, 'bad split fraction ' .. split_fractions[2] .. ' for val, not between 0 and 1')\n    assert(split_fractions[3] >= 0 and split_fractions[3] <= 1, 'bad split fraction ' .. split_fractions[3] .. ' for test, not between 0 and 1')\n    if split_fractions[3] == 0 then \n        -- catch a common special case where the user might not want a test set\n        self.ntrain = math.floor(self.nbatches * split_fractions[1])\n        self.nval = self.nbatches - self.ntrain\n        self.ntest = 0\n    else\n        -- divide data to train/val and allocate rest to test\n        self.ntrain = math.floor(self.nbatches * split_fractions[1])\n        self.nval = math.floor(self.nbatches * split_fractions[2])\n        self.ntest = self.nbatches - self.nval - self.ntrain -- the rest goes to test (to ensure this adds up exactly)\n    end\n\n    self.split_sizes = {self.ntrain, self.nval, self.ntest}\n    self.batch_ix = {0,0,0}\n\n    print(string.format('data load done. Number of data batches in train: %d, val: %d, test: %d', self.ntrain, self.nval, self.ntest))\n    collectgarbage()\n    return self\nend\n\nfunction CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader:reset_batch_pointer(split_index, batch_index)\n    batch_index = batch_index or 0\n    self.batch_ix[split_index] = batch_index\nend\n\nfunction CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader:next_batch(split_index)\n    if self.split_sizes[split_index] == 0 then\n        -- perform a check here to make sure the user isn't screwing something up\n        local split_names = {'train', 'val', 'test'}\n        print('ERROR. Code requested a batch for split ' .. split_names[split_index] .. ', but this split has no data.')\n        os.exit() -- crash violently\n    end\n    -- split_index is integer: 1 = train, 2 = val, 3 = test\n    self.batch_ix[split_index] = self.batch_ix[split_index] + 1\n    if self.batch_ix[split_index] > self.split_sizes[split_index] then\n        self.batch_ix[split_index] = 1 -- cycle around to beginning\n    end\n    -- pull out the correct next batch\n    local ix = self.batch_ix[split_index]\n    if split_index == 2 then ix = ix + self.ntrain end -- offset by train set size\n    if split_index == 3 then ix = ix + self.ntrain + self.nval end -- offset by train + val\n    return self.x_batches[ix], self.y_batches[ix]\nend\n\n-- *** STATIC method ***\nfunction CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader.text_to_tensor(in_textfile, out_vocabfile, out_tensorfile)\n    local timer = torch.Timer()\n\n    print('loading text file...')\n    local cache_len = 10000\n    local rawdata\n    local tot_len = 0\n    local f = assert(io.open(in_textfile, \"r\"))\n\n    -- create vocabulary if it doesn't exist yet\n    print('creating vocabulary mapping...')\n    -- record all characters to a set\n    local unordered = {}\n    rawdata = f:read(cache_len)\n    repeat\n        for char in rawdata:gmatch'.' do\n            if not unordered[char] then unordered[char] = true end\n        end\n        tot_len = tot_len + #rawdata\n        rawdata = f:read(cache_len)\n    until not rawdata\n    f:close()\n    -- sort into a table (i.e. keys become 1..N)\n    local ordered = {}\n    for char in pairs(unordered) do ordered[#ordered + 1] = char end\n    table.sort(ordered)\n    -- invert `ordered` to create the char->int mapping\n    local vocab_mapping = {}\n    for i, char in ipairs(ordered) do\n        vocab_mapping[char] = i\n    end\n    -- construct a tensor with all the data\n    print('putting data into tensor...')\n    local data = torch.ByteTensor(tot_len) -- store it into 1D first, then rearrange\n    f = assert(io.open(in_textfile, \"r\"))\n    local currlen = 0\n    rawdata = f:read(cache_len)\n    repeat\n        for i=1, #rawdata do\n            data[currlen+i] = vocab_mapping[rawdata:sub(i, i)] -- lua has no string indexing using []\n        end\n        currlen = currlen + #rawdata\n        rawdata = f:read(cache_len)\n    until not rawdata\n    f:close()\n\n    -- save output preprocessed files\n    print('saving ' .. out_vocabfile)\n    torch.save(out_vocabfile, vocab_mapping)\n    print('saving ' .. out_tensorfile)\n    torch.save(out_tensorfile, data)\nend\n\nreturn CharSplitLMMinibatchLoader\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "util/OneHot.lua",
    "content": "\nlocal OneHot, parent = torch.class('OneHot', 'nn.Module')\n\nfunction OneHot:__init(outputSize)\n  parent.__init(self)\n  self.outputSize = outputSize\n  -- We'll construct one-hot encodings by using the index method to\n  -- reshuffle the rows of an identity matrix. To avoid recreating\n  -- it every iteration we'll cache it.\n  self._eye = torch.eye(outputSize)\nend\n\nfunction OneHot:updateOutput(input)\n  self.output:resize(input:size(1), self.outputSize):zero()\n  if self._eye == nil then self._eye = torch.eye(self.outputSize) end\n  self._eye = self._eye:float()\n  local longInput = input:long()\n  self.output:copy(self._eye:index(1, longInput))\n  return self.output\nend\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "util/misc.lua",
    "content": "\n-- misc utilities\n\nfunction clone_list(tensor_list, zero_too)\n    -- utility function. todo: move away to some utils file?\n    -- takes a list of tensors and returns a list of cloned tensors\n    local out = {}\n    for k,v in pairs(tensor_list) do\n        out[k] = v:clone()\n        if zero_too then out[k]:zero() end\n    end\n    return out\nend"
  },
  {
    "path": "util/model_utils.lua",
    "content": "\n-- adapted from https://github.com/wojciechz/learning_to_execute\n-- utilities for combining/flattening parameters in a model\n-- the code in this script is more general than it needs to be, which is \n-- why it is kind of a large\n\nrequire 'torch'\nlocal model_utils = {}\nfunction model_utils.combine_all_parameters(...)\n    --[[ like module:getParameters, but operates on many modules ]]--\n\n    -- get parameters\n    local networks = {...}\n    local parameters = {}\n    local gradParameters = {}\n    for i = 1, #networks do\n        local net_params, net_grads = networks[i]:parameters()\n\n        if net_params then\n            for _, p in pairs(net_params) do\n                parameters[#parameters + 1] = p\n            end\n            for _, g in pairs(net_grads) do\n                gradParameters[#gradParameters + 1] = g\n            end\n        end\n    end\n\n    local function storageInSet(set, storage)\n        local storageAndOffset = set[torch.pointer(storage)]\n        if storageAndOffset == nil then\n            return nil\n        end\n        local _, offset = unpack(storageAndOffset)\n        return offset\n    end\n\n    -- this function flattens arbitrary lists of parameters,\n    -- even complex shared ones\n    local function flatten(parameters)\n        if not parameters or #parameters == 0 then\n            return torch.Tensor()\n        end\n        local Tensor = parameters[1].new\n\n        local storages = {}\n        local nParameters = 0\n        for k = 1,#parameters do\n            local storage = parameters[k]:storage()\n            if not storageInSet(storages, storage) then\n                storages[torch.pointer(storage)] = {storage, nParameters}\n                nParameters = nParameters + storage:size()\n            end\n        end\n\n        local flatParameters = Tensor(nParameters):fill(1)\n        local flatStorage = flatParameters:storage()\n\n        for k = 1,#parameters do\n            local storageOffset = storageInSet(storages, parameters[k]:storage())\n            parameters[k]:set(flatStorage,\n                storageOffset + parameters[k]:storageOffset(),\n                parameters[k]:size(),\n                parameters[k]:stride())\n            parameters[k]:zero()\n        end\n\n        local maskParameters=  flatParameters:float():clone()\n        local cumSumOfHoles = flatParameters:float():cumsum(1)\n        local nUsedParameters = nParameters - cumSumOfHoles[#cumSumOfHoles]\n        local flatUsedParameters = Tensor(nUsedParameters)\n        local flatUsedStorage = flatUsedParameters:storage()\n\n        for k = 1,#parameters do\n            local offset = cumSumOfHoles[parameters[k]:storageOffset()]\n            parameters[k]:set(flatUsedStorage,\n                parameters[k]:storageOffset() - offset,\n                parameters[k]:size(),\n                parameters[k]:stride())\n        end\n\n        for _, storageAndOffset in pairs(storages) do\n            local k, v = unpack(storageAndOffset)\n            flatParameters[{{v+1,v+k:size()}}]:copy(Tensor():set(k))\n        end\n\n        if cumSumOfHoles:sum() == 0 then\n            flatUsedParameters:copy(flatParameters)\n        else\n            local counter = 0\n            for k = 1,flatParameters:nElement() do\n                if maskParameters[k] == 0 then\n                    counter = counter + 1\n                    flatUsedParameters[counter] = flatParameters[counter+cumSumOfHoles[k]]\n                end\n            end\n            assert (counter == nUsedParameters)\n        end\n        return flatUsedParameters\n    end\n\n    -- flatten parameters and gradients\n    local flatParameters = flatten(parameters)\n    local flatGradParameters = flatten(gradParameters)\n\n    -- return new flat vector that contains all discrete parameters\n    return flatParameters, flatGradParameters\nend\n\n\n\n\nfunction model_utils.clone_many_times(net, T)\n    local clones = {}\n\n    local params, gradParams\n    if net.parameters then\n        params, gradParams = net:parameters()\n        if params == nil then\n            params = {}\n        end\n    end\n\n    local paramsNoGrad\n    if net.parametersNoGrad then\n        paramsNoGrad = net:parametersNoGrad()\n    end\n\n    local mem = torch.MemoryFile(\"w\"):binary()\n    mem:writeObject(net)\n\n    for t = 1, T do\n        -- We need to use a new reader for each clone.\n        -- We don't want to use the pointers to already read objects.\n        local reader = torch.MemoryFile(mem:storage(), \"r\"):binary()\n        local clone = reader:readObject()\n        reader:close()\n\n        if net.parameters then\n            local cloneParams, cloneGradParams = clone:parameters()\n            local cloneParamsNoGrad\n            for i = 1, #params do\n                cloneParams[i]:set(params[i])\n                cloneGradParams[i]:set(gradParams[i])\n            end\n            if paramsNoGrad then\n                cloneParamsNoGrad = clone:parametersNoGrad()\n                for i =1,#paramsNoGrad do\n                    cloneParamsNoGrad[i]:set(paramsNoGrad[i])\n                end\n            end\n        end\n\n        clones[t] = clone\n        collectgarbage()\n    end\n\n    mem:close()\n    return clones\nend\n\nreturn model_utils\n"
  }
]